Feats & Fighters

[Tony Vargas]

The knight gets to make an OA, which is basically the same he would have done vs. a shift, except he doesn't deal half damage on a miss. For the Cavalier, he gets an OA, but if he hits, he dazes the guy he hit [assuming he hasn't already used up his holy smites].

Ah, so the same basic idea as a higher-level knight knocking an enemy prone (or whatever) with a Power Strike tacked onto an MBA.

The normal OA vs. shifting/attacking an ally is just auto damage, but the OA vs. moving away from the cavalier is a MBA, which he can boost with Holy Smite. So the Cavalier is stickier than the knight (just like the fighter is stickier than the paladin).

In the sense that it's easier to eat the auto-damage than the OA. I get it.

There is an interesting difference in what's worse. If a Fighter has manged to mark a couple of enemies, and they decide to beat on one of his allies, he can mark-punish at most one of them, and the mark punishment is just an MBA, which is not particularly fearsome. If one ignores the mark, the other might as well do so, also. Walking away is a bad option, since it's an MBA with a bonus that stops movement. With the Knight, the mark-punishment is a stance-enhanced MBA that damages on a miss, and both enemies must face it, so taking a stance-enhanced MBA, without the damage on a miss for running away from him, before attacking the ally is slightly less painful. If the two enemies go for the path of least resistance in both cases, the Knight makes two enhanced MBAs against them, and the Fighter makes one ordinary MBA - but both are at -2. Of course, if the fighter has only attacked one of the enemies in question, only one takes the -2 - and, if he's attacked a different enemy entirely, they're not marked.

But, none of that matters, because taking a Knight's enhanced MBA, that can be further buffed with power attack, is no incentive whatsoever. While taking a -2 from the fighter, and at most 1 ordinary MBA is terrifying.

Each defender is different, and the way DMs react to their marks (or auras) can certainly highlight different aspects of how they defend. It sounds like, in Aegeri's game, Knights are basically psuedo-strikers who are constantly handed lots of OAs, because no one wants to stand next to them, and defenders in general are nothing but punching bags that get shoved around and dazed every single round, and never do anything more than hand out a -2 to hit, because mark punishment never, ever happens. Not how I generally see the Defender role playing out, but different play styles emphasize different things.

 

[Aegeri]

But, none of that matters, because taking a Knight's enhanced MBA, that can be further buffed with power attack, is no incentive whatsoever. While taking a -2 from the fighter, and at most 1 ordinary MBA is terrifying.

A fighter who takes warpriest attacks twice (immediate interrupt and OA), stops the movement entirely (due to getting an OA) and has + wisdom to the OA attack basically guaranteeing the creature cannot shift. Oh and will be imposing a -3 penalty mark by paragon too that lasts until the end of the encounter.

Really, you should see a properly built high level fighter built for stickiness.

It sounds like, in Aegeri's game, Knights are basically psuedo-strikers who are constantly handed lots of OAs, because no one wants to stand next to them, and defenders in general are nothing but punching bags that get shoved around and dazed every single round, and never do anything more than hand out a -2 to hit, because mark punishment never, ever happens.

Actually you can read two of my games (and my IRL one once it starts) on the forum here. I actually provoke mark punishments quite often, but then again right now I have two battleminds and mind spike doesn't concern me very much. It is pretty easy to see what I am doing encounter wise simply by reading the thread. It's important to realize I don't provoke the knights because the knight actually sucks, not because I don't provoke them in general. It's very hard to do anything about a paladins divine challenge as a good example.

Thus far, none of the defenders in either game (Albeit only a battlemind in DS, but the Eberron game started with a Paladin) have really been ineffective. The number of times I've noted in my own text session after session that marks made some kind of difference (albeit in one case negatively!) is quite often.

As for the comment on Knights getting OAs: I hand them OAs because they are hilariously ineffective at stopping me from rampaging over something I want to. If the leader and controller is almost down, I have a creature adjacent to the Knight and a burst power on that monster - the Knight is not going to stop me wandering over to whack said controller/leader with the monsters burst power. I will happily eat an OA to do that. With a fighter I could shift and charge, but I cannot possibly risk a OA of any sort unless I want to waste the creatures move. I also won't be able to get the advantageous tactical position to hit the controller/leader, so I might as well just whack the crap out of the fighter.

If you're wondering about the battleminds incidentally, both have loadstone lure to get around that issue. Oh boy is loadstone lure a pain in the ass to DM against.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Precisely. I tried my usual "provoke an OA and who cares" thing on a cavalier once. Big mistake. Wasted the entire creatures turn after it got dazed on being hit from the OA. I quickly discovered that I couldn't get away with the same tricks I used on the Knight.

In fairness I was very unfair to the cavalier. I just assumed it would have the same issues as the Knight - which it kind of does - but the ability to throw holy smite onto an OA to tell a creature "stay here or suffer" really took me by surprise. Wasting an entire round trying to move a couple of squares reinforces that you have to be a lot more careful of this cavalier fellow.

Those situations are really fun for me as a DM, actually. I like beeing surprised by such cool maneuvers... and this was most surely a lot of fun for the cavallier...

To the knight: yes, moving away is better than shifting, but only if the knight is the only adjacent creature. And the knight should not be the only adjacent creature. At paragon, hammer rhythm also makes your attacks hurt on a miss.

But in the end, you have to accept, that the knight works best, if you are fighting in a close position.

 

[WalterKovacs]

I'll tell you what a knight really needs:

Flanking buddies.

If he has a flanking buddy, especially one that has an OA of his own (basically, anyone with an MBA), then suddenly, at least for the flanked guy, the idea of just walking away decreases. He either (a) attacks the guy that isn't the knight, and gets an MBA from the fighter and has -2 to hit, (b) Shifts away from the knight, getting rid of the -2, but still taking the MBA from the fighter, (c) walking away and sucking TWO MBAs from the two guys next to him ... or he just swings at the knight. In that case, it's a tougher decision.

Without that flanking support, his options are attack the fighter or go somewhere else to attack (since presumably he's not in melee with anyone else, otherwise he'd be in the above scenario). That's basically the same penalty of being next to say ... a warlord. The only difference is you can't just shift 1 back from the knight without sucking an MBA (and the fighter does have better than average MBAs at least). But, outside of his stance, a knight is as sticky as a non defender with an OA, as the only punishment for leaving is the OA.

And, tonight I just finished a game where in the three encounters we had, we had one guy drop, and several at 1hp thanks to lots of things lining up for them (thp at the right time, and the mul fighter being able to shrug off his ongoing damage via his racial ability, etc). With the fighter unable to get good marking on the first turn, the barbarian dropped to a single turn of concentrated fire. (Of course, when he got up, he then took out half of the opposition in a couple turns).

 

[Aegeri]

I'll tell you what a knight really needs

Forgive me for derailing your entirely valid point, but actually one of my biggest pet peeves in 4E is that many classes cannot natively make a decent MBA. It is absurd to me, after enough play, that a Battlemind is utterly ineffective at attacking a monster that wants to just move away. For that matter a rogue (non brutal scoundrel anyway) that watches a creature waltz away is equally as silly. It is pretty obvious why every battlemind in my games takes melee training and or uses loadstone lure as their main MBA. Otherwise they end up with a similar - actually much worse - situation to the knight where monsters just shrug and wander off (albeit, with a -2 mark of course ).

I personally wish, wish upon wish, that most melee classes got errata that let them sub their basic attack for something that is moderately effective without a feat. At minimum, there should be options or class features for non-strength based defenders. Preferably, most classes that are supposed to operate in melee would get them for free and everyone else has melee training (or to use a whacky stat, like a slayer investing entirely in dex only as an example).

This is my dream. Also my dream has wizards sending me a free puppy.

With air holes in the box this time.

Returning to the point, this is true but the knight actually puts the flanking ally in an odd position. Because the knights mark enforcement only goes where the Knight does, the flanking ally can run into massive trouble if the knight gets shoved away. When your rogue is suddenly adjacent to an owlbear by himself because the knight got a 1 square punt from his controller ally, you are all of a sudden in a gigantic world of hurt. Unlike with a regular defender who may not be able to enforce the mark (which isn't always the case, Shielding Swordmages, Paladins and Wardens can affect a creature at range if they have to), they can often at least get the penalty and that can make a huge difference to iterative attacks especially (Elites like the Owlbear are classic examples).

 

[WalterKovacs]

Returning to the point, this is true but the knight actually puts the flanking ally in an odd position. Because the knights mark enforcement only goes where the Knight does, the flanking ally can run into massive trouble if the knight gets shoved away. When your rogue is suddenly adjacent to an owlbear by himself because the knight got a 1 square punt from his controller ally, you are all of a sudden in a gigantic world of hurt. Unlike with a regular defender who may not be able to enforce the mark (which isn't always the case, Shielding Swordmages, Paladins and Wardens can affect a creature at range if they have to), they can often at least get the penalty and that can make a huge difference to iterative attacks especially (Elites like the Owlbear are classic examples).

There are always going to be bad encounters ... and one with a combination of forced movement along with an elite/solo to take advantage of someone free to be ravaged when the fighter is gone isn't going to happen all the time. The defender isn't going to be able to defend everyone all the time anyway, there are going to be some situations where he drops the ball. If that results in a TPK, the defender needs to invest in some anti forced movement gear ASAP.

But for the more common situation, having someone else that can throw in a second MBA at least discourages the "just walk away" part, which is arguably a bigger (and more likely to come up frequently) weakness of the knight.

And if a rogue can't survive a single turn in melee without the benefit of a mark on the person attacking him ... he's going to have bigger problems than the fighter being pushed or slid away. Most people that would be flanking with the fighter are hopefully melee guys ... who should be able to survive a little while (unless all the monster's intitiative are in a clump so no one in the party can act until the monsters are done picking over his corpse.

 

[hbnetto]

and what abaout gladiator theme/gladiator champion paragon path? 16th feature brings whirwind of destruction- enemies can shift adjacent your knight only

 

[UngeheuerLich]

shouldn´t we be happy, that we now have both possible defender abilities?

 

[Neonchameleon]

I definitely agree that the knight gets hosed by pushes. But on the subject of "just walk away", walking away gives the knight an extra melee basic attack backed by his stance or effectively an entire additional standard action for free. Do that once every four or five rounds and your knight is simply outdamaging the party slayer. And providing some measure of protection on top of this - plus carrying a great big shield. Walking away might allow the monsters to defeat the defender aura, but it causes them to lose in an entirely different manner. I'd therefore put the knight in the same category as a swordmage; probably can't defend the entire party himself but for a partial defender and partial something else (striker for knights, controller for swordmages) they are very effective.

And Ageri, how do your monsters know to walk rather than shift away from Knights. To me that's incredibly counter-intuitive in character.

 

[Aegeri]

And Ageri, how do your monsters know to walk rather than shift away from Knights. To me that's incredibly counter-intuitive in character.

Strictly speaking, if they aren't being stopped on movement they will simply move anyway. The point of moving away is so they can employ a much better use of their standard action. Shift + charge is another option, but doesn't have much point when you will take an attack either way. So just take the lesser of the two attacks. In reality it's not so much deliberate as there isn't a point to shifting when you'll get attacked anyway. So might as well make a full move and then use a significantly better attack than a charge MBA.

I mean basically what you're saying is you don't understand why the monster isn't bothering to take its full movement, instead of shifting 1 square, when it will be attacked either way. That's actually kind of bizarre to me but there you go, I can see where you're coming from though. A fighter actually presents a very annoying decision of having to waste a potentially better power by shifting + charge, or risking an OA that will stop your movement dead. This dilemma is what makes the fighter much more difficult to deal with than the knight is. A creature can't get in the pigeons of bloodied squishy PCs with its encounter burst or multiple attack standard action, because it has to waste the attack on a shift + charge. He's not a happy creature because the optimal time to use that power might disappear by his next turn.

On the other hand, a creature can realize it can take 1 attack, get right into the bloodied PCs - wipe the floor with them AND take only damage for its effort (Without defend the line especially - I mention this stance a LOT don't i?). It won't get its movement stopped. If the knight misses he does nothing anyway. It can then move where it is absolutely optimal to attack and then attack using whatever standard action it wants. That's amazingly powerful and bear in mind that it doesn't take any -2 penalty (or -3 by paragonish, I think it's called Daunting Challenge but I would need to check). A bit of damage is a small price to pay to inflict far more with a burst at the best possible time to use it.

Believe me a shift + charge is a lot worse than a move + do whatever the hell you want. Unless the creatures thing is charging of course. The point is that why bother not taking the move action in the first place when you'll be attacked either way? It's paradoxical I realize, but the creature will take an attack either way and so shifting is rather pointless. So I just choose to walk away most of the time. Ironically this is because of the lack of an effective mark as well. If the Knights mark could follow the creature, I wouldn't bother doing this. But when I can get a good deal out of a creature with a move action, especially towards the beginning of a fight I will normally do it (that is if the creature realizes it can do this in the first place).

It's worth noting as Walter explained above, that this is why the Cavalier is actually a pretty solid defender - despite a similar deficit. You have a terribly crappy choice of "Do I suffer automatic radiant damage" or "Do I risk being dazed and wasting my entire turn?". This makes the Cavalier MUCH more sticky, but still vulnerable to forced movement. But at least the cavalier can daze any enemy he hits with his attacks, so that if something is important he can give it quite a headache by dazing it (so usually it can't take full advantage of him being pushed away).

But on the subject of "just walk away", walking away gives the knight an extra melee basic attack backed by his stance or effectively an entire additional standard action for free. Do that once every four or five rounds and your knight is simply outdamaging the party slayer

The difference actually is the final intent. If the monster ends up in X position, where it can get 3 PCs instead of just say, making an MBA against the Knight the Knight isn't winning anything here. In reality, I don't mind provoking consistently, because monsters being prepared to take risks in combat makes it more interesting (and much less predictable). Not that zombies ever bother with such tactics, but anything intelligent like wraiths or humanoid enemies can make such decisions. I actually have an example of such an encounter so you can see precisely how I make decisions about what monsters attack. You can also see a good example of the wraiths from MV in action in the same encounter. Just to show that I do actually practice what I preach, you can observe the two different kinds of tactics employed by creatures in the encounter (compare the zombies with the wraiths).

Noting that Knights hate Wraiths with a burning passion of the sun because the sods turn invisible anyway. So if a Knight ever does anything to a wraith in the first place it's a miracle and it's time to call the vatican. The principle would be the same, the dumb zombies would do whatever while the smarter creatures would outright attempt to ignore the knight (if possible). It normally is the case the smarter creatures are the ones you have to watch for too :O

Of course now Knights can get answers to some of these problems, like trading a power strike for come and get it. There are situations where you can make it very very hard to ever leave the aura. For example by using come and get it on difficult terrain (which is just about the most classic CaGI scenario you can imagine). So I think the Knight has gained an absolute ton from these feats and the weaponmaster has gained, um. Nothing really.