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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 7160756" data-attributes="member: 2011">A 5th level Eldritch Knight cannot learn Expeditious Retreat. Your entire premise is faulty to begin with (or are you going to give the Eldritch Knight a scroll of Expeditious Retreat? <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />). Let's say that you do give him a scroll. I still find these "super perfect scenarios" amusing. Assuming that the DM starts the encounter at a reasonable 50 or 60 feet apart instead of 600 out in the dead open where the Knight can just fire arrows:If the Eldritch Knight misses his saving throw vs. the Githyanki Knight's Telekinesis, he is 30 feet in the air, then falls 30 feet as the Githyanki stops concentrating on the spell, the GK moves closer and the other two Githyanki Misty Step/Move over and get 4 advantaged attacks against prone. So far, the Eldritch Knight has typically taken 42 of his 50 hit points (assuming 2 advantaged hits +4 vs. AC 18, more with 3+ attacks hitting and/or one or more criticals) and is on the ground prone. He could use a Shield spell to prevent some of this damage, but now he has used up 1 out of his 3 spells. Getting up on his turn uses up half of his movement and he has had to make 1+ Concentration saves for his Expeditious Retreat so far.a) If he disengages (being variant human with two feats, he can only move 30), he gets 45 feet away (assuming that he did not lose Expeditious Retreat). The 2 GIthyanki Knights Misty Step/Move and reach him easy and still attack.b) If he dodges, he gets up to 45 feet away and both of them get a disadvantaged OA attacks (or even non-disadvantaged grapples, or shoves to knock him prone). If he does manage to get away, they can still move in and try to grapple him (neither dodge nor Shield affects grapple). The Githyanki Knight moves in as well and depending on range, can grapple or attack this round. All in all, the Eldritch Knight is probably screwed unless he gets real lucky.c) If he attacks a Githyanki with a melee weapon to get his mobility going, he is again 15 or 45 feet away and the Githyanki move in and again eventually kick his butt.d) If he casts Fog Cloud, he can possibly get away (assuming that his Expeditious Retreat is still up). Oh wait. A 5th level Eldritch Knight cannot learn Fog Cloud either. He has no spell except Shield that can really help him.Once they are in melee range, it would be rare for him to manage to do real damage against them with his Sharpshooter feat. Using a melee weapon, it would take him 25+ rounds to wipe them out. In the meantime, it takes them at most 4 rounds to wipe him out (3 rounds of Shield, 6 attacks no Shield on round 4). He could try to get 90 feet away by just fleeing, but with 3 OAs against him, the odds of him being successful are slim to none.If he makes the save versus the Telekinesis and gets away, the Githyanki move behind total cover and wait to ambush his butt. There are very few scenarios where the Githyanki are "out in the open, thousands of feet away from any cover, or buildings, or trees, or rocks". The player rarely can control that. Even if they were, push comes to shove, they Plane Shift away and come back to fight another day. There is no way in my game that this PC would ever win such a fight. The foes have too many good options, they have great ability scores, and I wouldn't run them like Goblins.And actually as DM, I would not start out the fight with Telekinesis. The Githyanki would just go in and attack and if the Eldritch Knight flees, I would have the Githyanki TK his butt back as close as possible to the NPCs, 10 feet into the air (so that he still falls and is still prone).Yes, on paper, these types of kiting PCs sound wonderful (and actually can work in MMORPGs where monsters can hang out in the middle of a field). In actual D&D games with good DMs, kiting PCs die solo versus powerful/intelligent foes, just like every other PC.And, of course, the game is typically played with a group of PCs, not solo. That's why PCs survive battles, not because defense trumps offense.Defense does not typically win over offense and your example here does not prove that it does. It proves that a given poster can conceive of a "shoot fish in a barrel" scenario, but that doesn't mean that it actually happens in games.</blockquote>

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