Death knight

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

I'm finally going to start out DMing for my friends, all of whom would be first time players. The one that I anticipate being the biggest problem said he wants to be a death knight. I want to allow it but the first class that I thought of was an oathbreaker which I've heard is overpowered. Does anyone have any recommendations for what to advise him to play? He's basically wanting a death focused Gish.

[Consensus]

If by Gish you mean exclusively arcane magic, eldritch knight makes a perfectly serviceable one, otherwise hexblade does well. I don't think Oathbreaker is horrendously overpowered, definitely a very strong choice though.

[Envyus]

Oathbreaker Paladin is not overpowered. It's just strong.

My biggest thing is that are you sure you want evil party members.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

I'll be honest I'm fine with an evil campaign, the way they are talking about their backstory tells me it will probably be a redemption type of campaign. One of my other players wants to become the Lord of hell eventually.

Edit: I said that wrong, He wanted to start out as lord of hell but I nixed that, So he would like to become a lord of hell as he feels it would be the best way to reduce suffering as the world cannot abide a power void.

[CTurbo]

A really high level Oathbreaker is overpowered. A high level Oathbreaker can literally have a CR17 Death Knight or CR18 Demilich slave.

At low levels, they're not overpowered at all. Very strong, but not too bad. An Oathbreaker + Necromancer pair are overpowered though.

[KillingTime]

I would strongly caution against running an evil campaign with first time players as an inexperienced DM.
Evil characters sound fun, and look cool on paper, but are extremely challenging to play without causing unpleasant conflicts within the group dynamic.
Without wanting to sound alarmist, I predict your campaign will have a very short life expectation because even well role-played evil characters will have selfish goals that don't encourage team play.

I advise you all to cut your teeth on a more typical party build and get the hang of cooperative storytelling before embarking on an evil campaign.

[Greywander]

Eldritch Knight fighter, Hexblade warlock, and Oathbreaker paladin would all be great choices for this concept. A Death or Grave cleric might also work, as they allow for medium armor and shield while still giving full spellcasting. Death domain gives martial weapon proficiency, and later, Divine Strike. Take Green Flame Blade or Booming Blade (via Magic Initiate or multiclassing) and he can perform respectably in melee.

If multiclassing is on the table, almost every class (except fighter, apparently) has some sort of death-themed subclass he could dip into:
Zealot barbarian
Whispers bard
Death/Grave cleric
Spore druid (UA for now)
Long Death monk
Oathbreaker paladin
Gloom Stalker ranger
Assassin rogue
Shadow sorcerer
Undying warlock
Necromancer wizard

So he could, for example, start as an Eldritch Knight and dip a couple levels into Necromancer wizard, or start as an Oathbreaker and dip into Shadow sorcerer or Undying warlock.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

If by Gish you mean exclusively arcane magic, eldritch knight makes a perfectly serviceable one, otherwise hexblade does well. I don't think Oathbreaker is horrendously overpowered, definitely a very strong choice though.

By Gish I was more referring to just a Magic using Melee fighter, I wasn't aware that it actually had arcane connotations.


A really high level Oathbreaker is overpowered. A high level Oathbreaker can literally have a CR17 Death Knight or CR18 Demilich slave.

At low levels, they're not overpowered at all. Very strong, but not too bad. An Oathbreaker + Necromancer pair are overpowered though.

That's the piece that I was missing, do you think that adding in a CR limit of say 1/3 of current level rounded down would be a solid fix? I spoke to him tonight before we left and let him know we would probably have to change somethings to keep everyone similarly powered.


I would strongly caution against running an evil campaign with first time players as an inexperienced DM.
Evil characters sound fun, and look cool on paper, but are extremely challenging to play without causing unpleasant conflicts within the group dynamic.
Without wanting to sound alarmist, I predict your campaign will have a very short life expectation because even well role-played evil characters will have selfish goals that don't encourage team play.

I advise you all to cut your teeth on a more typical party build and get the hang of cooperative storytelling before embarking on an evil campaign.

I'm 100% with you on this, Thank you for the advice. So while tonight's impromptu semi session zero seemed to be headed that way since everyone was kind of fired up and drunk, I'm going to hold a true session zero and see what they would prefer to do, while reminding them that their actions will actually have consequences in the game world.


Eldritch Knight fighter, Hexblade warlock, and Oathbreaker paladin would all be great choices for this concept. A Death or Grave cleric might also work, as they allow for medium armor and shield while still giving full spellcasting. Death domain gives martial weapon proficiency, and later, Divine Strike. Take Green Flame Blade or Booming Blade (via Magic Initiate or multiclassing) and he can perform respectably in melee.

If multiclassing is on the table, almost every class (except fighter, apparently) has some sort of death-themed subclass he could dip into:

*Removed for thread readability

So he could, for example, start as an Eldritch Knight and dip a couple levels into Necromancer wizard, or start as an Oathbreaker and dip into Shadow sorcerer or Undying warlock.

So I talked to him a little more and it seems very much like he wants to be able to be a Melee fighter that can summon the dead. I think that Oathbreaker is the only thing that acts that way? Thought the EK/Necromancer sounds like it might be pretty good.

I will be allowing multiclassing and feats if they choose to take them.

[Millstone85]

A death knight is a CR 17 undead in the Monster Manual.

Hopefully, this is not what your player meant. But I thought it worth pointing out.

[Unoriginal]

Did you tell him what a Death Knight is in D&D?

[JackPhoenix]

A really high level Oathbreaker is overpowered. A high level Oathbreaker can literally have a CR17 Death Knight or CR18 Demilich slave.

At low levels, they're not overpowered at all. Very strong, but not too bad. An Oathbreaker + Necromancer pair are overpowered though.

It's less overpowered than it seems. First, he would need to find the undead he wants (and if the GM is worried about that, he'll simply never include one) while being of sufficient level. Then, he'll need to make the undead fail the save... Death Knight has +9 on wisdom saves, good luck with that. The need to renew the control every 24 hours is a minor obstacle.

And we're not talking about zombies: even if you do get command of such powerful undead, they are intelligent, and while they do have to obey your commands, they may interpret them as they see fit. Just because you have control over them doesn't mean they like you. They propably hate you even more than usualy, and do anything to subvert your orders.


A death knight is a CR 17 undead in the Monster Manual.

Hopefully, this is not what your player meant. But I thought it worth pointing out.

When players says something like "I want to play a death knight", I automatically take it that he played WoW, and wants to play WoW DK, not semi-obscure high level D&D monster.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

A death knight is a CR 17 undead in the Monster Manual.

Hopefully, this is not what your player meant. But I thought it worth pointing out.

Nope, He was referring to a World of Warcraft class apparently, Essentially he wants to be able to run around in heavy armor, Hit things with a great sword and create/raise unread.


Did you tell him what a Death Knight is in D&D?

Nope, I actually hadn't needed to see what a death knight in the game was up to this point. I asked him to clarify more of what he was looking to do.


It's less overpowered than it seems. First, he would need to find the undead he wants (and if the GM is worried about that, he'll simply never include one) while being of sufficient level. Then, he'll need to make the undead fail the save... Death Knight has +9 on wisdom saves, good luck with that. The need to renew the control every 24 hours is a minor obstacle.
And we're not talking about zombies: even if you do get command of such powerful undead, they are intelligent, and while they do have to obey your commands, they may interpret them as they see fit. Just because you have control over them doesn't mean they like you. They propably hate you even more than usualy, and do anything to subvert your orders.

When players says something like "I want to play a death knight", I automatically take it that he played WoW, and wants to play WoW DK, not semi-obscure high level D&D monster.

Yep I'll have to pay a little more attention to what is tagged as undead, Though I'll still throw some stuff at them I would love to shine the spotlight on that feature occasionally.

[Atalas]

actually in a WoW themed campaign, got a Death Knight using the revenant add-on sub-type for human, and is a Hexblade mechanically.