Author Topic: Sword and Shield: The Knight Handbook  (Read 28392 times)

Offline Balmas

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Sword and Shield: The Knight Handbook
« on: February 24, 2012, 12:32:05 PM »
Sword and Shield:
The Knight Handbook


My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten
Because my heart is pure.

~Lord Alfred Tennyson

Ah, to dream of yonder days.  My squire friend, can you imagine what it was like?  Glory days, when men were knights, and fair maidens were in every abandoned tower.  (I’ve always wondered what they did in there.)

Alas, things are different now, and I’ve no energy to go a-questin’.  What say ye?  Will ye accept the training of an old, bent knight?



Alright.  I’ll be perfectly honest with you.  Knights aren’t the best defensive class.  It’s not that they’re bad; it’s simply that other classes (*coughCrusaderscough*) do the job so much better.  The job in question is to be a mobile wall, effectively locking down the monsters and keeping your companions safe.

As it is, Tome of Battle isn’t always allowed in a campaign.  If that’s the case, grab your sword and your animated shield, and get ready for some fun.

Contents:
Post 1: Introduction
Post 2: Class Features
Post 3: Abilities
Post 4: Races
Post 5: Feats
Post 6: Multiclassing and Prestige Classes
Post 7: Equipment
Post 8: Strategy and Builds

In this guide, I’ll follow standard BG format:
Red:  This doesn’t really matter.  You can dump it with no problem.
Orange: Meh.
Black:  Average
Green:  Useful, good for some builds.
Blue:   This is very nice.  Prioritize this.

You can find another, very good guide here.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2012, 03:19:23 PM by Balmas »
"Now hold on a second!  Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys! Chocolate rain!" ~Pinkie Pie

My Monster Manual lies to me:  it states that a pegasus is white or occasionally brown when everyone knows that pegasi ought to be blue with rainbow stripes.

Offline Balmas

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Re: Sword and Shield: The Knight Handbook
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2012, 12:42:57 PM »
Class Features


What are some of the reasons to play a knight?  It’s always attractive to be the big, strong guy, equally at home among the socal elite and on the battlefield.  Being the mobile wall is always entertaining, especially when your enemies have no choice but to suffer the consequences of your wrath.

So, what do knights have going for them?
•   D12 HD.  The best in the game.
•   Full BAB.  Melee.  It’s what you do.
•   Good Will Save.  It’s interesting, and useful against mind-affecting spells.  Save-or-suck spells are bad for PCs.  Made less useful by (very expensive) mind blank items, but still.
•   Flavor.  Until now, if you wanted to be a knight in shining armor, you had to play as either a paladin.  No more!

And, now the bad.
•   Knight’s Code.  Congratulations.  You are now Lawful Stupid personified.  Basically, because of your extreme honor, you refuse to attack anyone that isn’t absolutely ready for your attack.  So surprise rounds?  Gone.  Flanking bonus?  Gone, though your allies still get the bonus.  Poison use?  None.  (Though to tell the truth, I don’t find poison very useful in the first place.)  Helpless foes?  No coup de grace for you.  If you find yourself in a really tight spot, you can break your code.  It will cost you uses of your knight’s challenge, which are sparse enough as is.
•   MAD:  Knights are a bit like Paladins, in that they need strength, constitution, and charisma in order to be successful.  Dexterity is also critical in Attack of Opportunity based builds.
•   The great majority of your class features are mind-affecting abilities.  Did you know that most high level monsters are immune to mind-affecting abilities?

Class Features:
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies:  All simple and martial weapons and all shield pretty much guarantees that you’re set for life.

Fighting Challenge:  Basically, against a single foe that meets stringent requirements, you get a weak bonus to attack and damage that doesn’t grow very well.    Basically, it’s just like the Inspire Courage bardic music, except that it only affects yourself and you can’t use it as often.  Pass.

Mounted Combat:  I won’t say no to free feats.

Shield Block:  If you use a shield, you get a small bonus to AC against a single foe.  Useful, but not in large combats.  It would be more useful if it were just a constant bonus to AC.  As is, it scales poorly, so it’s of practical but limited use.

Bulwark of Defense: This is the reason you want to play a knight.  Any monster that starts its turn in your threatened area treats all the squares you threaten as difficult terrain.  What that means is no charging, and no five-foot steps.  Combine with Stand Still and a reach weapon for maximum effectiveness.  If you have some way to snag Unnatural Reach, go ahead and do so to become a living death trap.

This is the first break point, and the most natural.  (It's also probably the best class features, which says something.)

Armor Mastery:  At 4th level, you ignore movement penalties for medium armor.  This is despite the fact that you haven’t been wearing medium armor for a level or two.  It gets better at 9th level, when it applies to heavy armor as well.  It’s a very small upgrade, but an upgrade nonetheless.  Now, if only it applied when you were mounted…

Test of Mettle:  This is the defining Knight ability:  shout at the enemies, and if they fail a will save, they’re forced to attack you, or at least include you in area attacks.  As such, I kind of wish they’d made it better.  It affects pretty much any enemy close by (100 feet), but the condition ends if anyone but you attacks the enemy.  So you can either face the enemy by yourself, or at best delay him for the rest of the party.  Mind-affecting. 

You'll have to really minmax this to even have a chance of affecting your enemies, especially at high levels.  I find that it's really not worth it to sacrifice attack, damage, and HP in order to get more people to attack you.  If you're doing your job they'll do it anyway.

Bonus Feats:  The selection is kind of crappy, to be completely honest.  You might as well pick up some mounted combat feats, since the class tends that way.

Vigilant Defender: Okay, I love this.  One flaw of AoO based builds is the Tumble skill.  If someone tumbles past normally, you just don’t get an attack.  No more!

Shield Ally: Okay, basically if you’re standing next to an ally and your ally is hit, you can shift part of the damage to yourself.  If the enemy is close enough to your allies to hit them, you’re not doing your job in the first place.  It’s occasionally useful.

Call to Battle:  The ability to grant an ally a second saving throw against a fear affect is nice, but unless you find yourself fighting dragons a lot, 8th is pretty much a dead level.

Daunting Challenge:  This is good for sorting out mooks, and the shaken condition is nothing to sneeze at.  However, unless you spend a lot of time fighting armies of peasants, this won’t be very useful.
Improved Shield Ally:  As with the basic Shield Ally, if the enemies are able to hit your allies, you’re not doing your job.  Now you can repent suffer their pain by taking their HP loss.

Bond of Loyalty:  Expend use of knight’s challenge.  Make another save against a mind-affecting affect.  Simple, but effectively useless.  It comes too late in your career to be any good, especially you ought to have found a way to be immune to mind-affecting spells by 16th level.

Impetuous Endurance:  So, at 17th level, wizards get the ability to turn time on its head, clerics get to summon swarms of angels via interplanar gates, martial adepts are dealing hundreds of damage on an attack, and druids are calling on the forces of nature to summon entire storms.  You?  You get the ability to not auto-fail on a natural 1.  So, when you do roll that 1, you don’t automatically die.  You probably will, but not automatically.

Loyal Beyond Death:  This is a very good defense against stuff that doesn’t totally destroy you.  If you didn’t have to wade through 20 levels of Knight in order to get it, this would be even better.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2012, 12:51:52 AM by Balmas »
"Now hold on a second!  Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys! Chocolate rain!" ~Pinkie Pie

My Monster Manual lies to me:  it states that a pegasus is white or occasionally brown when everyone knows that pegasi ought to be blue with rainbow stripes.

Offline Balmas

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Re: Sword and Shield: The Knight Handbook
« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2012, 12:51:45 PM »
Ability Scores

Knights are among the melee classes that unfortunately need relatively high ability scores to function properly.  What’s more, depending on what you want to do, you’re going to need to prioritize differently.  Much like paladins, you’ll need to split your attention between melee ability and other stats almost important.

Strength:  Since you’ll be engaged in melee your entire career, this is obviously very important.  No matter what fancy things you can pull off with your knight’s challenge, you are first and foremost a melee fighter.  Max this.

Dexterity:  Although you’ll be wearing heavy armor and swinging around a shield, most of your battlefield control takes the form of Stand Still and Combat Reflexes.  As such, you’ll need a high dexterity.  You could probably leave it at 12 to start with, and buy some stat items later on.  If you’re going for a mounted combat build, you can leave it at 10 without a problem.

Constitution:  You are the front-line melee combatant, and one of your abilities forces enemies to attack you in single combat.  In effect, you are the damage sink for the rest of the party.  Make this your secondary stat, after either Strength or Charisma.

Intelligence:  You have no class abilities based off of Intelligence and only one semi-useless skill.  Dump it.

Wisdom:  Wisdom only really helps your Will save.  Get it to the point where you’re not dominated easily, and leave it at that.  You’ve got a big will bonus anyway.

Charisma:  This determines both your uses and the save DC of your Knight’s Challenge abilities.  At high levels, you’ll need 32 Charisma just to have a 50-50 chance of affecting the enemies, as per this chart.  Since many high-level foes are immune to mind-affecting abilities, it’s probably best to max strength and put Charisma as your third-highest score.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2012, 07:01:57 PM by Balmas »
"Now hold on a second!  Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys! Chocolate rain!" ~Pinkie Pie

My Monster Manual lies to me:  it states that a pegasus is white or occasionally brown when everyone knows that pegasi ought to be blue with rainbow stripes.

Offline Balmas

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Re: Sword and Shield: The Knight Handbook
« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2012, 01:45:29 PM »
Races

As in all things, your choice of race makes all the difference in who you are and how you play.  Your choice of race can either supply roleplaying drama by playing against type, or reinforce your image as a member of proud warriors.  In playing a straight knight, templates are your friend because many of them are better than your class features. 

Small races lend themselves well towards mounted knights, but have a much harder time with any kind of lockdown combo.  They have penalties to special attacks like Trip and Bull Rush, and most ways of getting reach involve going up in size.

Medium races have a much easier time locking down enemies and getting a greater reach.  On the flip side, the need for a large mount means that mounted knights are severely limited in normal dungeon combat.

Core Races:
(click to show/hide)

Non-Core Races 
(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: March 08, 2012, 01:23:10 AM by Balmas »
"Now hold on a second!  Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys! Chocolate rain!" ~Pinkie Pie

My Monster Manual lies to me:  it states that a pegasus is white or occasionally brown when everyone knows that pegasi ought to be blue with rainbow stripes.

Offline Balmas

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Re: Sword and Shield: The Knight Handbook
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2012, 03:06:42 PM »
Feats
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Your feat choice is mainly based off of your role in the party.  You are the mobile wall, the stone barrier through which all enemies must pass in order to reach your allies.  This in effect shoe-horns you into playing a melee character, usually with a reach weapon of some sort.  As such, don’t expect to be charging around the enemy, Leap-Attacking them into oblivion.  Unless you’re playing a mounted knight, it doesn’t really work well.

(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: June 17, 2012, 01:25:30 AM by Balmas »
"Now hold on a second!  Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys! Chocolate rain!" ~Pinkie Pie

My Monster Manual lies to me:  it states that a pegasus is white or occasionally brown when everyone knows that pegasi ought to be blue with rainbow stripes.

Offline Balmas

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Re: Sword and Shield: The Knight Handbook
« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2012, 03:07:02 PM »
Multiclassing and Prestige Classes

Now, the knight sits smack-dab in the middle of Tier-5 territory.  In order to make it viable for high level play, you’ll need plan your road well.  One thing’s for certain:  you can’t play a knight haphazardly.  Remember, if you multiclass, your DCs for Knight’s Challenge will be much weaker.

Base Classes
(click to show/hide)

Prestige Classes
(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: May 26, 2012, 01:42:49 AM by Balmas »
"Now hold on a second!  Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys! Chocolate rain!" ~Pinkie Pie

My Monster Manual lies to me:  it states that a pegasus is white or occasionally brown when everyone knows that pegasi ought to be blue with rainbow stripes.

Offline Balmas

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Re: Sword and Shield: The Knight Handbook
« Reply #6 on: February 24, 2012, 03:07:21 PM »
Reserved: Equipment
"Now hold on a second!  Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys! Chocolate rain!" ~Pinkie Pie

My Monster Manual lies to me:  it states that a pegasus is white or occasionally brown when everyone knows that pegasi ought to be blue with rainbow stripes.

Offline Balmas

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Re: Sword and Shield: The Knight Handbook
« Reply #7 on: February 24, 2012, 03:18:48 PM »
Reserved: Strategies and Builds
"Now hold on a second!  Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys! Chocolate rain!" ~Pinkie Pie

My Monster Manual lies to me:  it states that a pegasus is white or occasionally brown when everyone knows that pegasi ought to be blue with rainbow stripes.