Echo Knight/Ancestral Guardian weapon selection, fighting style and feat

[RogueJK]

I'm heading into a new campaign, starting at Level 1, and I've settled on a STR-based Dhampir Echo Knight/Ancestral Guardian multiclass.

Rolled stats are going to either be:
STR 16+2
DEX 13+1
CON 16
INT 10
WIS 15
CHA 11

or

STR 16+2
DEX 13
CON 16
INT 10
WIS 15
CHA 11+1

Depending on which feat path I decide on. Feat progression will be either Sentinel or Slasher (+1 DEX) at Fighter 4, then GWM at Fighter 6, and Resilient WIS at Fighter 8.

I'll be taking Echo Knight Fighter to 5, then switching to Ancestral Guardian Barbarian 3, then back to Echo Knight X from there. I'm going for more of a support Fighter than an outright damage dealer. The party already includes a GWM Rune Knight Fighter, a Zealot Barbarian, a Forge Cleric, a Drakewarden Sharpshooter, and a Bladesinger Wizard, so we have a plethora of frontliners and melee damage dealers. (That's a total of 6 melee characters, including the Drake. Luckily, the Barbarian has Flight, the Drake can fly starting at Level 7, and my Echo isn't required to stay anchored to the floor, all of which should help with frontline gridlock since we can melee in 3D. Plus the Forge Cleric and Bladesinger don't have to frontline 100% of the time.)


So the areas where I need advice on my final decisions are this:

1) Fighting Style pick. GWF is the mechanically optimal choice for damage, but as noted, I'm leaning more towards supportive effects. Therefore, I'm considering Interception Fighting Style, to combo with a reach weapon as discussed in #2 and mitigate some damage to my party of frontliners. Or, if I decide against the reach weapon, I'm also considering Blind Fighting since it fits the Dhampir theme and could come in clutch at certain points.

2) Weapon pick. Again, Greatsword/Maul is the mechanically optimal choice. But with such many frontliners already, plus an Echo to frontline in my stead, I'm considering adopting a Reach weapon like a Halberd. Even though I wouldn't be investing in PAM due to Bonus Action and Reaction clog, this would allow me to stand just behind the other frontliners for Interception Fighting Style reactions, while also sending my Echo out to attack enemies too. Plus when I eventually take the GWM feat, this reach weapon would allow me to more easily make the Bonus Action attack on crit/down, which RAW can't be made from my Echo's position.

3) Feat pick. This dovetails with the earlier factors in question. It seems that Sentinel is widely regarded as the optimal initial feat for an Echo Knight, but in my play experience, OAs are fairly uncommon. Perhaps that just has to do how my DM runs combat. I suspect the bevvy of frontliners in this particular party will further impact the frequency of OAs. In addition, only 1/3 of the Sentinel feat works with my Echo. Plus Sentinel's focus on OAs doesn't leave much room to utilize my Reaction for Interception. Therefore, I'm considering grabbing Slasher instead. This would allow me to start with 13 DEX, wear Chain Mail for 16 AC in the early levels, and still bump my DEX to maximize Medium Armor to maintain a 16-17 AC before dipping Barbarian. (Heavy Armor cancels out Rage.) It would also leave my Reaction free to focus on Interception. And it would still allow me to hamper the enemy's movement if they trigger an OA from my Echo, and also aid my allies on a crit, feeding into the support theme. Although I recognize there's some overlap between Slasher's crit Disadvantage and Ancestral Protectors' Disadvantage, it'd still be very useful from Levels 4-6 before hitting Barbarian 3, as well as when fighting multiple enemies, plus unlike Ancestral it also applies to attacks against me. In addition, with only 3 Barbarian levels, I won't be able to Rage during every single combat anyway.


The TL:DR version is that it comes down to trying to decide between basically two paths:

A) Sentinel with a Greatsword/Maul and GWF/Blind Fighting style (the "optimal damage" route)
or
B) Slasher with a Halberd and Interception style (what appears to be a better "supportive" route, and allows me to further avoid clogging the front lines)


Thoughts?

[LudicSavant]

B) Slasher with a Halberd and Protection style (what appears to be a better "supportive" route, and allows me to further avoid clogging the front lines)


Thoughts?

Axe the Protection fighting style from the running; it's a mathematically inferior version of the Interception fighting style (seriously, Interception is designed as a straight-up buff to Protection).

[RogueJK]

I just edited my first post. I meant Interception from the start. (Protection requires wielding a shield anyway, which I won't have.)

[da newt]

Inception is a great FS, but it only works if they attack a creature w/in 5' of you, and you must be wielding a shield.

If your plan is to spam reckless attacks via your Echo while staying behind your front line, maul is my preferred weapon - because your Echo can move in any direction, reach usually isn't an issue. Go with the more damage weapon (unless you plan to PAM for the extra attacks).

In my experience Sentinel was never as effective in practice as it is on paper - it's great when it comes into play, but those opportunities are more rare than I'd expected. I'd go GWM before Sent.

I'd also think about F-6 to get the second ASI before Barb and/or maybe B-4 for the ASI before going back to fighter.

BTW I am a huge fan of the dhampir's spider climb - why use the floor ever when you can wall/roof crawl ...

[RogueJK]

Inception is a great FS, but it only works if they attack a creature w/in 5' of you, and you must be wielding a shield.


Interception doesn't require a shield. It can be used if wielding a shield or a weapon.

Protection requires a shield.


But yes, Interception requires an ally within 5' of you to be hit. Hence my plan to stand just behind one or more of the frontliners. So they're within 5' of my for Interception, and I'm within 10' of the enemy for Reach attacks that aren't originating from my Echo (such as with the BA GWM attack that can't be made from my Echo's position, or for Levels 1-2 before my Echo comes online, or for turns when I don't have an Echo manifested because I had to use my BA for something else like activating Rage)


As for F6 or B4 earlier, I'm not hurting for ASIs thanks to generous stat rolls, my focus isn't 100% optimal damage so GWM can wait a little bit (and I wouldn't be utilizing the -5/+10 much until after Barbarian 2 anyway, plus we already have a GWM-focused Fighter in the party), and the campaign is going to be the new Spelljammer adventure that runs through Level 8, with the possibility of continuing with homebrew past that. So I want to beeline to F5/B3 to get all my core abilities online no later than Level 8 so I can utilize them even if the campaign ends shortly afterwards.

My goal is to be creative with my tactics and help the other frontliners shine moreso than just being the one to post the biggest damage output numbers. Hence the focus on tanking, allied damage mitigation, enemy Disadvantage, 3D melee positioning, teleportation, etc. Between additional attacks, eventual GWM, Rage damage bonus, et al, I'll still be posting respectable damage numbers without making it the core focus of the character.



If I wanted to go for straight damage, it'd look more like Pike + GWF style + Piercer feat + Half Orc race + GWM + Reckless all the time. Reroll 1s and 2s on damage, reroll an entire damage dice each turn, and 4d10+16 on a crit.

[Nod_Hero]

Suggestion:
Move around a couple stats and consider using a Maul with the Crusher feat.
The positional control of an Echo Knight is already outstanding, especially if you fight 3D (hover it over an enemy for better attack range) and then add the no save movement... good stuff. Not to mention that when you're doing the Reckless thing, you're more likely to score a critical hit, which activates 3rd bullet of Crusher, a guarantee that your team will absolutely adore you.

[Teaguethebean]

I support interception as well. But it may clash with sentinel, maybe don't even grab sentinel if you already have a swarm of melee warriors I would assume another will have it and redundancy makes it weaker. If you are using your reaction to intercept a foe's attack you can't use it to hit them. This also opens up an ASI making it so you could grab GWM at 4 boosting your lethality massively while still providing good reaction usage through fighting style.

[solidork]

My goal is to be creative with my tactics and help the other frontliners shine moreso than just being the one to post the biggest damage output numbers. Hence the focus on tanking, allied damage mitigation, enemy Disadvantage, 3D melee positioning, teleportation, etc. Between additional attacks, eventual GWM, Rage damage bonus, et al, I'll still be posting respectable damage numbers without making it the core focus of the character.

I like the Slasher pick then - I'm thinking about taking it on my Harengon Paladin since he'd be able to kite a bit with it. You can do something similar with your echo and teleports.

It's a little bit of a shame though, because this approach would have a lot more need to flex those kinds of tactics in a party that wasn't stacked to the gills with frontliners. I've always wanted to play a Wolf Totem in a party as stacked with attackers as this one.