Talk:Knightly Charger (3.5e Optimized Character Build)

Limitations/Questions

Took a quick glance at your knightly charger and I didn't see how you made a full attack on that charge. I think you were planning to use Full Mounted Attack in combination with your charge, but it does not work on a charge (as stated in the book). There are 3 ways I know of getting a full attack on a charge: (1) dip into cleric and get travel devotion (2) dip into variant barbarian and get pounce (3) psionic lion's charge or perhaps a magic spell equivalent to it (if it exists).

It also just deleted a huge post I wrote. Basically, the knight is extraordinarily vulnerable in situations that do not favor him. He can only operate in large outdoor stable terrain. This excludes a lot of terrain that campaigns often operate in. He is also very weak in any case that makes him dismount his horse (prisoner, mount dead, inside, something that spooks mount).

A good idea to put on the page is that a halfing riding a dog or small flying mount has the same powers, but its size and transferability allows it to operate in a wide variety of conditions.

A good build to look at that is built on the same principle (boost base damage with PA/ST, multiply that with charge bonuses, then again with multiple attacks on a chare) is the Red Raiding Hood build. The least book-intensive build allows you to (1) have 80ft base speed L20 (2) allow you to charge as long as you drop from 5 feet above the enemy meaning you don't necessarily need space (3) lets you run up walls so you can accomplish 2 easily (4) has great defense against magic from occult slayer (5) good cleric powers (6) does the same burst damage you were talking about (7) can move as a swift action, allowing for full attacks on a charge, or a move and charge, or attack, move, and then attack. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.84.203.160 (talk • contribs) at

Ah, for some reason I thought it got Pounce while charging. Well, easily enough fixed--we just nab a martial script of Pouncing Charge as well as a few Psionic Tatoos of Psionic Lion's Charge. At worst, we only get one attack that deals over 2k damage. (Yes, I'm familiar with the Lion Totem Barbarian, but prefer not to use pure cheese in my builds.)

Also, you could always get a permanent Reduce Person spell (or Greater Reduce Person if you have a mage in the party) and still use that riding dog. Or get a flying mount. Furthermore, this build has a lot more than charging going for it. You'll notice that we have Bulwark of Defense combined with Stand Still, which lets us do some very nice zone control, since even people who try to 5' step next to us are going to be unable to do so.

Every build is going to have its downfalls. You could easily say that the Dragoon is useless in small dungeons, where the ceiling is 7' high and there's no room to jump. Also, I don't think that the Cleric's Travel Devotion lets you combine movement with a charge. Rather, it lets you move as a swift action, after which you could take your full attack. I'm not really sure how that would interact with Battle Jump--perhaps it would allow a single attack as a charge, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't give the equivalent of pounce. --Ghostwheel 17:57, September 13, 2009 (UTC)

I am not familiar with psionics but I do suppose that will work. I spoke of the barbarian because the game I played a knight in did not have psionics available. The way I thought of Travel Devotion working is that your charge movement is a swift action, leaving you a full round action (full attack available). There is also a level dip in Barbarian with the build to pick up pounce as well so you can use the two in combo to move great distances charging or have an extra move action for whatever you wished. Battle Jump does not give pounce it just activates a close range charge as well as double damage so you can take advantage of the charge multipliers and PA/SH. The build does lack zone defense and keep monsters back, and the intent of the two builds are dissimilar, even if they are built on the same mechanical principles. The knight is meant to be a zone control, armored, punishing unit. If it wants to retain zone control, it cannot charge all over the places because that would leave the member it was protecting separate and vulnerable. The Hood is meant to be a fast-moving, highly maneuverable, burst damage unit that disrupts enemy formations. As for the 7' dungeon, that would cause trouble for the knight as well. While the knight could not fit his mount inside, he is denied the bonuses to charge from being mounted and using a lance. This reduces him to wading into combat with longsword/shield or simply charging with a lance. He gets his full attack and can power attack, but he has no advantage over a melee character doing so. Zone control is important in a small dungeon but can easily be done by putting the melee fighters in the front. The Hood is similarly restricted since he cannot get any bonuses from dropping, but he has more maneuverability. He can say, run along the walls above his comrade's head to get to the front. He can still leap attack since his jump score is so fantastically high that he can make 20-30 jumps without running, even in whatever armor you gave him. This x4 his PA which the knight is unable to do. Combined with a Valorous Lance and either pounce/travel devotion, he can be all over the place. And based on your DM's interpretation of Up the Walls, if the floor collapses, the Hood can just jump up and stick to the ceiling (since it's still a horizontal surface). And depending on what races your DM let you choose, you can fly at L12. And if you wished, you could give the Hood a horse to make a pseudo-knight. You would lose things like ride-by attack, spirited charge, and other cool area feats, but if you really felt like it, you could take 5 levels of knight instead of occult slayer. I put in occult slayer because spell turning and immunity to mind magics is nothing to laugh at.

Mind breaking it up a bit? Hard to read with the wall of text... :-3

That said, Bulwark of Defense + Stand Still + Reach weapon allows you to stop enemies from coming adjacent to you, neutering most Medium and some Large meleers, which is one advantage over other meleers. Furthermore, if you're mounted, you get an +3 to attack, which would give an extra bonus on a small mount in a fairly small area.

Finally, they're just different archetypes. The Dragoon is a lightly armored, mobile character, while the Knight is a heavily armored tank who can charge for tons of damage. (Also has Mettle, which can help against many Save-and-still-suck effects). They're both good--just different.

Also, having reread Travel Devotion, it says that you can use it to move--but it doesn't say that you can use it to charge (a very specific action). And let's look at the knight charging without a mount. Assuming he has the space, he can Leap Attack + Shock Trooper + Valorous Lance (we're at the level as the Dragoon now, more-or-less) x2 from Rhino's Rush, and the first attack is a touch attack from Find the Gap. And once he's in our threatened area, he can't move closer or farther away easily, due to Stand Still + Bulwark of Defense. Furthermore, our AC is higher (heavy armor + buckler) and we can activate paladin spells to boost us up even more if needed. So in no way is this less powerful than the dragoon--just different.

As an aside, Battle Jump isn't well-worded, and a DM might rule it one way when the build assumes a different. For example, do you get a free attack whenever you fall on someone? Do you need to land in their space or next to them? If you don't get a single free attack as a charge when you fall on them, if you obtain a full attack does only the first hit count? Do all of them? Or do you need to spend a standard action to "activate" the feat? In short, it's badly-worded, and a DM can easily neuter the build (whose crux is the feat) by simply interpreting the feat a different way. --Ghostwheel 07:37, September 14, 2009 (UTC)

I apologize for the wall of text, by the end I was rambling a bit. I apologize for bringing up the dragoon as well, I did not mean for it to be an alternative or substitute in any way for the knight. I had read about it when studying on knight builds and thought you would be interested in knowing something else was made using the same principles. It is not that a dragoon cannot use heavy armor and animated shield. Medium armor (mithral) would provide the greatest mobility but even in heavy armor, there armor check penalty is offset by the bonuses and feats with jump. That aside, battle jump is primarily for being able to activate a charge in cramped corridors where the third dimension comes in handy. But the dragoon aside, you might also mention horseshoes of the zephyr or horseshoes of speed. The former allows you to cross above the ground and thus any unstable or nonsolid surfaces (lava, water, breaking ice, difficult terrain). This would be very useless in not drowning, charging, etc. The latter grants your mount 30 ft bonus, meaning a 60 ft charging distance.

There are also two important details I must impart on the build. First one is that a 5x multiplier from unstoppable charge and 2x from rhino's rush become 6x, not 10x, unless it explicitly states so. This makes your damage 600, not 1000. Second off, Rhino's Rush only affects the first attack on a charge. Since you now have 4 attacks on a charge, you can do 600 with the first one, then 500 for each of the 3 consecutive ones. This leads to a damage total of circa 2400, not 5000. Boots of haste will allow you an extra attack as will a speed weapon. This will bring you up to ~2800. If you add the Valorous (+1) enchantment, this will put you over 3000 and any published monster HP. I must add though that you might want to indicate your AC is shot to hell, AKA AC - 22 meaning at Level 20, almost anything can do damage to you. And if you didn't kill the guy, or he's got friends, you might be in a world of hurt. You probably have about 200 HP, but if he's packing something that requires saves, or has high crit range, etc., you're almost toast.

Ah, right you are, I'll correct the build soonish. Still, I think it deals more damage than even most gods have HP, so it's not bad :-P --Ghostwheel 20:53, September 16, 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's what got me interested in the whole charge aspect in the first place. Spending feats and gold to get bonuses to damage become a lot less important because you can use multipliers and BAB to do already insane amounts that scale with levels and never become outclassed. Some of the players laughed when I started playing the Knight, but not when I did 200 damage on a single charge at Level 8. As another poster quoted another poster, 'Line up the deities!'

Damage

is the 5d6 energy damage being multiplied on the charge? shouldn't damage be 716.5 (not multiplying the 5d6) --NameViolation 09:06, April 25, 2010 (UTC)

It's not a crit. --Ghostwheel 09:15, April 25, 2010 (UTC)

from multiplying damage "Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon’s normal damage are never multiplied."

but i dont think you really care about pesky things like rules--NameViolation 21:07, July 25, 2010 (UTC)

Rhino's Rush

A level in cleric can get you the Wrath domain, which gives Rhino's Rush as a 1st level spell. That is a swift action to double your first charge damage. --Andrew Arnott (talk, email) 02:08, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

Ignore that. I just noticed you included it! --Andrew Arnott (talk, email) 02:10, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

Riding Boots

Check out MiC, page 121. It'll get you another +multiplier. RAW it might not though, but it's worth mentioning. --Aarnott (talk) 20:36, 7 November 2013 (UTC)