A poll about Knight's Challenge

[PallentisLunam]

So recently this came up in one of my games:

Knight character marks enemy as the subject of her Fighting Challenge, she is subsequently knocked to 0 HP by said enemy. With her standard action next turn she rolls a 20-20-15 on her attack and confirmation rolls. This turns the opponent into chunky salsa. By RAW she still loses two uses of her Knight's Challenge ability for that day, ostensibly from the "blow to [her] ego and confidence from this defeat."

Does that sound bogus to anybody else?

[Amphetryon]

So recently this came up in one of my games:

Knight character marks enemy as the subject of her Fighting Challenge, she is subsequently knocked to 0 HP by said enemy. With her standard action next turn she rolls a 20-20-15 on her attack and confirmation rolls. This turns the opponent into chunky salsa. By RAW she still loses two uses of her Knight's Challenge ability for that day, ostensibly from the "blow to [her] ego and confidence from this defeat."

Does that sound bogus to anybody else?
"That monster had me dead to rights. Had he not moved in just the right way as I swung in desperation, he would be standing over my corpse, rather than the reverse. How can a Knight so dependent on blind luck protect her charges adequately?"

IOW: working as intended, feature not bug.

[Troacctid]

Yeah, that's in line with the intent of the rule.

[ExLibrisMortis]

You can fluff it either way; the intent of the rule suggests that you fluff it as Amphetryon did.

If you want to houserule a change, you have my blessing. I really dislike the Knight's Challenge because of the clashing fluff and mechanics (how did this challenge work on drow again?).

[OldTrees1]

I don't think one needs to go as extreme as Amphetryon to prove it is working as intended:

"That monster had me dead to rights. Had my luck been just a tiny bit worse or his a tiny bit better (we are talking 1hp away here), he would be standing over my corpse, rather than the reverse. How can a Knight so dependent on blind luck protect her charges adequately?"

[PallentisLunam]

I take issue with portraying attacks as the result of luck. Yes we at the table know that it is random and that was a very lucky roll but in-universe people don't go into a fight hoping to get lucky. The characters are matching their skill against their opponent's even if the players are matching their luck against the DM's

[KillianHawkeye]

I take issue with portraying attacks as the result of luck. Yes we at the table know that it is random and that was a very lucky roll but in-universe people don't go into a fight hoping to get lucky. The characters are matching their skill against their opponent's even if the players are matching their luck against the DM's

That is true to the extent that nobody wants to enter into any conflict and have to rely on luck to succeed, but there's no way to remove luck from a life or death battle. No matter how skilled you or your opponent are, luck can and often will still play a role in deciding the outcome.

Think of it this way: Luck treats everyone equally. You can happen to have good luck or bad luck at a particular time, but it doesn't care about how skilled you are or how strong you are or how anything you are. It just happens. Even the most skilled swordsman can get unlucky. Even the most feeble fighter can land a lucky blow. That's life.

[Flickerdart]

Just because the knight was able to best the monster in the end doesn't change the fact that the knight was nearly killed.

[Telonius]

He defeated his enemy, but he was brought to the brink of death while doing it. Now he has to use some healing potions, or otherwise burden his teammates, just to see less than three Clerics. Yeah, there might be some amount of, "You should see the other guy," but he nearly got himself killed and he knows it. That's enough to take down the boastfulness a bit. Loss of an extra Challenge makes sense to me.

[OldTrees1]

I take issue with portraying attacks as the result of luck. Yes we at the table know that it is random and that was a very lucky roll but in-universe people don't go into a fight hoping to get lucky. The characters are matching their skill against their opponent's even if the players are matching their luck against the DM's

In combat one cannot completely eliminate luck. While the vast majority of the dice we roll might be fluffed as skill rather than luck, a small sliver of each die will be representing luck. When you are talking about 1hp away from defeat, the knight knows that despite all their skill(99% of a die roll for example) they were still close enough that merely luck (accumulated from that 1% per die roll) could have decided the fight instead of it being an inevitable victory based upon skill gap."

[The Viscount]

I'm not going to pretend it makes narrative sense, but that is the way the rules work.

Piggybacking off of that question, if a Knight is reduced to 0 after using Knight's Challenge and Test of Mettle, does the knight lose 2, lose 1 , or gain 1 use of knight's challenge?