The Essential Knight

[Black Knight Irios]

the only thing the knight needs is a mechanics like:

opportunity action:
when an enemy tries to move away from you or attack an ally, you make a melee basic attack. If the attack hits, it stops movement.

Obviously he needs a punishment feature but you are aware that we don't know what several things do in the adavancement table in the article like:

Battle guardian
Weapon Talent
Shield Finesse
Combat Readiness
Weapon Mastery
Weapon Specialization
Shield block
Greater Combat Readiness
or what utility powers will look like. 1 1 Defender aura

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yes, as you can read in one of my previous post, i was totally aware. (edit: post 32, this page)
Batlle guardian will take care of this, i am sure.

I never said: "OMFG, they forgot to include such a feature. He is no defender at all bla bla"
I just speculated, what was needed to make this defender aura do its duties... (a direkt answer to exploder wizard)

 

[Kobold Boots]

Originally Posted by Knight Preview
Basic Attacks: As a fighter, you make most of your attacks using basic attacks. Some classes rely primarily on class-specific attack powers, whereas you typically make basic attacks enhanced by your fighter stances and other class features and powers.

Am I the only person who sees this read as:

As a fighter you make most of your attacks using basic attacks. Some classes rely on class-specific powers (at-will powers, encounters and dailies) while you typically make basic attacks modified by your fighter stances (e.g. at-will powers) and other class-specific features and powers (encounter powers and dailies)

Point I'm making is, what difference does it make? Seems to me like we're changing the system to better suit people's moods.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not gonna lie people. I wish Essentials would have been the classes released in the original 4E PHB.

I love em. Knight included.

I think it would have been MUCH MUCH BETTER if such a differently based class had been introduced 2 years ago instead of now. The question is if its going to just be a huge PITA at this later date.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And where is the problem here?

At the beginning of 4e everyone was upset, because a dex based fighter was impossible... and now you can build one and you are still upset?

Believe me or not, but the knight subclass is exactly what was suspected: a class that is easy to build (not so much choices, besides chosing stances and a weapon to specialize) and you can take feats to optimize it (MP2)

If it is broken (a.k. over- or underpowered) only time and charop will tell. But it is a great class design nontheless.

Nothing is wrong with it in concept. The issue is whether or not it is actually possible to make it work in 4e as it exists now and how many GOOD feats are going to have to be errataed to uselessnes, ones that we use now and want to keep, in order to make it work.

The example of Melee Training was just to illustrate how a feat ends up working in a radically different way for a class that built in a different way. It may well be benign in the case of MT and even clever. There are 1000's of other feats out there. I'm very skeptical that all of them will apply in merely benign or clever ways. Even if they just mostly don't work the Knight is going to need feats that DO work for it, its just a question of can you design feats that work fine with BOTH the Knight and regular fighters. Of course you CAN, but how many options that would have been cool are now closed to the designers because they have to balance against 2 totally different class designs? Extend this to the whole system. I think its the ugly downside and that downside is the MAIN reason the original classes were all mechanically similar.

 

[Zaran]

And where is the problem here?

At the beginning of 4e everyone was upset, because a dex based fighter was impossible... and now you can build one and you are still upset?

Believe me or not, but the knight subclass is exactly what was suspected: a class that is easy to build (not so much choices, besides chosing stances and a weapon to specialize) and you can take feats to optimize it (MP2)

If it is broken (a.k. over- or underpowered) only time and charop will tell. But it is a great class design nontheless.

Actually, I was one of those guys who was upset because I couldn't make a Dex based fighter. But I came to realize that Primary Attributes are just combat skills. Noone has to know that your fighter has a 20 Strength. You can describe him as limber and agile as you want.

Unless this Battle Guardian power is an Interrupt power that lets you strike at marked foes then they nerfed alot of the Defender out of this build. Monsters won't care that they are -2 to hit if the Rogue is doing 25 pts of damage to the fighter's 14.

I really think that this is a lousy change and making builds with totally different mechanics is just dumb, especially when the mechanics they had were just fine.

 

[FireLance]

I really think that this is a lousy change and making builds with totally different mechanics is just dumb, especially when the mechanics they had were just fine.

Not to beat a dead analogy, but isn't this like saying, "That restaurant's current menu is just fine. How dare they add to it! "

 

[MrBeens]

Nothing is wrong with it in concept. The issue is whether or not it is actually possible to make it work in 4e as it exists now and how many GOOD feats are going to have to be errataed to uselessnes, ones that we use now and want to keep, in order to make it work.

The example of Melee Training was just to illustrate how a feat ends up working in a radically different way for a class that built in a different way. It may well be benign in the case of MT and even clever. There are 1000's of other feats out there. I'm very skeptical that all of them will apply in merely benign or clever ways. Even if they just mostly don't work the Knight is going to need feats that DO work for it, its just a question of can you design feats that work fine with BOTH the Knight and regular fighters. Of course you CAN, but how many options that would have been cool are now closed to the designers because they have to balance against 2 totally different class designs? Extend this to the whole system. I think its the ugly downside and that downside is the MAIN reason the original classes were all mechanically similar.

Indeed, all of the stuff previously that is based around MBA (feats, items etc) were made with the fact that MBA are not the core of a class, they are mainly for bonus attacks that don't happen every round.

Another thing about the stances (as well as the dazed thing) is that both the stance and mark aura are minor actions to activate. In a lot of combats you will need 2 rounds to turn them both on if you want to do something meaningful in the first round.

I'm with Aegri earlier - this doesn't look any more simpler than the basic fighter, in fact it may even be slightly more complicated once all the other class powers come out.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Some may be simply updated by the addition of: prerequisite: combat challenge class feature or student of the sword feat, and voila, no knight can take it. Also there can be feat with prerequ knight. Or batlle guardian. Really, no point in freaking out.
Designers have generally shown, that they have a good sense of what works and what not, and they are even willing to update if something is inherently broken.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually, I was one of those guys who was upset because I couldn't make a Dex based fighter. But I came to realize that Primary Attributes are just combat skills. Noone has to know that your fighter has a 20 Strength. You can describe him as limber and agile as you want.

Unless this Battle Guardian power is an Interrupt power that lets you strike at marked foes then they nerfed alot of the Defender out of this build. Monsters won't care that they are -2 to hit if the Rogue is doing 25 pts of damage to the fighter's 14.

I really think that this is a lousy change and making builds with totally different mechanics is just dumb, especially when the mechanics they had were just fine.

See, I am concerned about which attribute is 20 and which not. I hate this reflavouring thing (like: I am a goliath, but i look like a gnome, I have strength 8 but i look like a brute)
If it works for you, great: Your character still has bad reflexes and is slow in combat. For me this doesn´t work.