Knight Newbie Guide

[Nierth]

(Originally by Geryon, small updates by Rual, Maerryji)

 Greetings, dear squires, today we'll learn how to survive in a world of Krynn, full of wicked creatures and dark spawns.

1) Racial choice

Human. The most common choice. Very good.
Dwarf. About as strong as human, same wisdom and intelligence, extremely stout (much more HP, fortitude saves bonus, resisting some skills better). Have some additional resistances to bash and poison, but worse resistance to acid. Smaller size may matter in some cases. Aren't accepted to Solamnia now. Otherwise is about as good as humans.
(Nice choice for a newbie, high health will help you to survive.)
Half-elf. This one is weaker (damages made by blows are worse), but a bit wiser (damages by wrath are better) and more intelligent (skills and spells improving faster). Extremely long life, unless you die too often. Good, too.

Half-kender. Seems to have no advantages over humans or half-elves at all. However he's not much worse, so may be chosen for RP reasons.
Elf. Much weaker (serious penalty on blows, cannot use some weapons and carry too many heavy items), very faint (some skills work better against you, fortitude saves are penalized), extremely wise (damages by wrath are supposedly the best, will saves bonus), intelligent (very swift learning). Lack of HP is met by additional trains from high wisdom and Mind over body feat. Resistance to negative is seriously worse than one of humans, while better resistance to holy hardly matters. Very long life. Aren't accepted to Solamnia now. Very doubtful choice, but may be interesting.

2) Feats

Balance, Toughness (Mind over body for elves), Toughness. Approved by best stomatologists.

3) Weak points

Weak points of a knight are:

a) Unability to recall from battle;
b) Unability to hold a victim any other way than bashing or flanking;
c) Unability to blind a victim other than by wrath;
d) Lack of curative empowers;
e) Poor defense against bash, throw, etc.

4) Strong points

Strong points of a knight are:

a) Clerical empowers: protectorate and protection evil, cure critical, refresh;
b) Good resistances against physical, acidic and negative attacks, immunity to diseases;
c) Good saves granted by spells;
d) Standoff, which is a superb defensive skill, along with pugil it makes a decent combo;
e) Ability to use scrolls;
f) Powerful damaging spell against evil foes (wrath) that can blind or curse them sometimes;
g) Ability to create powerful swords, with manual of Divine Weapon;
h) Summon spell;
j) Charge set skill, that can be used mostly against mobiles that don't follow or are enclosed somewhere. The skill can be used in PK, i.e. against a stalking shadow assassin;
k) Sanctify object spell, allows to make some anti-good items good-only;
l) Templars sight spell, that reports if someone evil is invisible to you in the same room;
m) Aura of courage skill, that grants a bunch of ac, damroll, saves and renders you immune to blindness. Alas, you cannot flee when affected by it, so I'd call this skill a bit optional;
n) Righteous warfare skill, sometimes delivers unblockable blows upon non-good foes.

5) Weapons and stances

A knight can use many weapons, but generally you will be using either dual-wielded swords or a staff. And sometimes a spear, mostly against mobiles.
If you aren't an elf or a half-kender, your strength is enough to withstand most of the foes while wielding two swords. Thus you will deal much more damage than with a staff. You have righteous warfare and riposte, it's enough to devastate sometimes even a fighter in a close combat. Use relaxed battle stance with two swords - you still can cross-slice and still block blows well enough. Offense stances are only for those you surely outstand in close combat.

If you feel that your enemy is overpowering you in a close combat, switch to staff. Stand-off skill sometimes does miracles, and pugils or overheads might be very painful.

6) Foes

a) Fighter-like ones, evil. (Fighter, thief, assassin, outcast)

The all-in-one tactic against such kind of a foe is using stand off in defensive stance, or mounted with stand off, or mounted with a shield - and wrath 'em!

When fighting an assassin, be mounted to prevent strangle. If you find yourself latched, better flee unless you are completely sure what are you doing.

When fighting someone with cleave skill (fighter/outcast), try to start the fight yourself, do not wait until someone cleaves you.

When fighting an outcast, who has a bunch of maladictive spells, including sleep, ensure you have enough saves (30 vs. all will do). If you haven't got that much, strike first, don't allow your foe to cast sleep or accursed gaeas. These spells cannot be cast in a fight.

b) Fighter-like ones, neutral. (Fighter, thief, ranger)

Mount, wield a staff and pugil.

Against a ranger you should first kill his pets, then the ranger himself.

If your foe belongs to Heretic clan, he'll probably be nearly unbeatable for you. However, you can still use a summon-to-flying-or-passdoor-area tactic, where you can kill them, being well-prepared, of course.

c) Clerics w/o pets (Sirrion, Reorx, Takhisis, Morgion, Hiddukel)

Clerics, be they with or w/o enhanced damage skill, do not tend to do much of damage to you with their maces. Actually, they rather depend on their powerful damaging spells. Ensure you have decent saves.

The tactic would be - wielding two swords, going offensive or mounted, cleave shield, cross-slice, wrath against evil clerics. [To verify: Takhisis clerics do not have any additional resistance to holy, I think - Maerryji]

Reorx priests have blade barrier. If it damages you too harshly, you could try switching to staff-pugil tactic.

d) Clerics with pets (Sargonnas, Chemosh, Chislev)

Their pets aren't so healthy. Kill pets, then use c) tactic. Against battle forms of Sargonnas and Chislev priests staff-pugil tactic seems to be worthy enough. Before fighting against Sargonnas cleric try to find something to protect you from fire.

e) Invokers

Full offense, dual wield (preferable swords, for righteous warfare), wrath (if evil) or cross-slice. Don't use physical/fire/cold/shocking/energy weapons. Acidic/holy/negative/poisonous will do. Ensure you have lots of reflex saves.

f) Abjurers

If they aren't using form, use e) tactic. (Any damtype except physical will do here)
If they are, use staff/pugil.
Beware of their paralyze. Saves are your best friends.

g) Necromancers

Staff/pugil/wrath. You'll need saves. Beware of sleep and power word kill spells, attack first. Beware of being summoned, try summoning yourself. Necromancers' pets are too highranked and too healthy, you can't hope to kill them. Concentrate on the necromancer himself.

h) Druids

Same as with abjurers. You will need reflex saves to protect yourself from sunrays and other damaging spells.

7) Useless skills and spells

Here are some of the skills and spells you shouldn't ever waste time on practicing:

- kick
- spike
- impale
- cure light
- cure serious
- create water
- dispel evil
- calm


There is one thing you should always keep in mind. Main weakness of a knight is RP. His courage, honour, unablitity to harm light beings. That's being the main reason of their failure, death and even deny.

If you are not ready for the necessity of self-sacrifices, do not play knight, he looks pathetic when he's running in fear. But even a perfectly roleplayed knight may meet the situations when his actions lead him to the heavenly trial.

[xafelar]

What is the difference between pugil and overhead(besides level ofcourse)?
It says overhead can be combined with legsweep at some point. Are knights able to learn legsweep?
If not, what a point to learn/master pugil then, it simply same as overhead.
How usefull is backhand and maces for knight at all?
How to master flank if nps dont usually flee?
An question about feats. Since no second and third toughness, pick it on the first circle?(esp for elves)
Thanks.

[deda]

concerning flank: go with a friend on water, mount up, tell friend to remove water vessel, use newbie weapon, attack and he should spam flee and your flank skill will rise...

[Geryon]

Answering xafelar's questions.

1) Overhead and pugil are blows of different type and work differently on some foes. Like, if you are a kender, it will be very difficult for you to hit a huge minotaur towering above you over the head.

Knights aren't able to learn leg sweep, so no combo for them.

2) Not very useful in general, but if you find an extremely good mace...

3) deda already answered on flank

4) on the 1st circle balance seems more useful than toughness for me personally

[omledufromage]

Main weakness of a knight is RP. His courage, honour, unablitity to harm light beings. That's being the main reason of their failure, death and even deny.

If you are not ready for the necessity of self-sacrifices, do not play knight, he looks pathetic when he's running in fear. But even a perfectly roleplayed knight may meet the situations when his actions lead him to the heavenly trial.

Something nice I always remember myself of:
==============================================
This statue was by made by an elven maid, whose name was Paola.
She made this statue in the commemoration of the brave heart of
her beloved fiance. His name was Aresius. Their love was never
happy - the love between a human and an elf. Nobody ever approved
it. They suffered a lot but sticked together and died in one and
the same day. He wears a determined face, and is clearly dedicated
to goodness. His eyes demonstrate kindness but attention. He was
trained in fighting to protect his surroundings. He has black hair
and eyes, his hair is curly and cut at shoulder lengh. He is of
medium height, very well built. He was born as a common soldier,
but his dedication brought him to the privilege of a knights training.
His life consisted of conflicts and trials. Not all of which he won,
but none on which he gave up. This humble warrior wished not change
the world or eleminate many enemies. Neither achieve great fame and
wealth. His only objective was to protect the goodness and creatures
of light. He possessed a scar on his left cheek, not result of any
great battle, but an accident when playing a game as a child.
A statue of Aresius is in perfect condition.
==========================================

For those who don't know or don't remember, this was an actual Solace character, with amazing RP. It was not his player's first, nor last character, and all of them stood up in some way, and amazed everyone with fantastic RP. He really loved the knights, both light and dark. And always had a great sense of knigthhood, but knew how to vary it to fit the given characteristics and subtities of each character.

[bluesky]

Paola too. Mishakal cleric ?

[omledufromage]

Invoker, I think.

[Nierth]

Paola too. Mishakal cleric ?

yeah, as far as I know
Argonar, did you know Aresius?

[omledufromage]

Of course I knew him!