Dragon 405Nerathi Legends: Knights of Rethmil
By Richard Baker
On the shore of the Sea of Dragons lies the ancient kingdom of Rethmil, the last free land in western Altara. Threatened by the relentless growth of the Iron Circle over the last twenty years, Rethmil stands fast against the servants of Asmodeus, and it is defended by the valiant Hyarthan Knights.
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And it slows!
And you can use it while charging!
AND you get extra damage if you're mounted while charging!
AND it's melle 2!!!!!!!!
OMG!!!!!
To be more clear, I think that's pretty dang cool.
Lack of the weapon keyword is also kind of annoying.
You don't get extra damage if you're mounted. You get regular damage. If you aren't mounted teh power is worthless.
Lack of the weapon keyword is also kind of annoying.
Extra damage is there, don't play with words. You get 1d8 unmounted and 1d8 + int. mod while mounted. The lack of weapon keyword is no problem because swordmages use their weapons as implements. Swordmages are defenders so low damage is not such a big deal. Doing slow on a charge? While staying one square away? Very nice. This allows the assault swordmage to mark one target, move, then charge another target and slow it, keeping it out of the fight. If the first marked target hits an ally you teleport all the way back to pound on it.
To say this power is worthless because you'll do 5 less damage is ridiculous.
You don't get extra damage if you're mounted. You get regular damage. If you aren't mounted teh power is worthless.
Lack of the weapon keyword is also kind of annoying.
Extra damage is there, don't play with words. You get 1d8 unmounted and 1d8 + int. mod while mounted.
Right. You take a huge damage penalty while unmounted and it does normal damage while mounted. Precisely what I said.
The lack of weapon keyword is no problem because swordmages use their weapons as implements.
The lack of a weapon keyword is a problem because a lot of useful feats apply only to weapon attacks.
Swordmages are defenders so low damage is not such a big deal.
Swordmages already do low damage (absent certain Booming Blade or |Warlock builds). This power's damage is even worse than that. And defenders like doing damage just fine.
Doing slow on a charge? While staying one square away? Very nice.
Congratulations, you may forced the enemy to attack you. As a swordmage you already have tons of ways to do basically the same thing, all of which are superior.
This allows the assault swordmage to mark one target, move, then charge another target and slow it, keeping it out of the fight. If the first marked target hits an ally you teleport all the way back to pound on it.
This would be a more interesting strategy if assault swordmages didn't suck.
Sure, it's another item in the the general "mark, move, lock down" strategy every Swordmage is supposed to be doing. All the other tools have some kind of other hindrance. This one's is pretty huge though: you have to be mounted.
To say this power is worthless because you'll do 5 less damage is ridiculous.
At the levels where you're doing 5 less damage, that means you're doing half damage. You aren't actually helping take Team Monster off the field at this point.
To the Swordmage power: It's unfortunate that there is no feat or item which allows you to teleport with your mount. That makes mounted swordmages a little bit tricky, but I think I'll try it. Also I would have liked if the power would have been with the weapon instead of the implement keyword, so you could make more damage as with a longsword. It would be cool, if there was a feat, that mounted swordmages could use a lance (from the new Emporium). Okay, they would be lance- or spearmages then, but I would like that. But yeah, how about, picking a weapon class at the creation of your weaponmages, so we could have swordmages, axemages (dwarves?), spearmages and so on...
And I still hope that there is more than one article left in the series...
Finally found the time, to say how much I enjoyed the article. An arcane order of human swordmages which are mounted on liondrakes and their history dates back to the dragonborn empire of Arkhosia. Great Fluff.
To the Swordmage power: It's unfortunate that there is no feat or item which allows you to teleport with your mount. That makes mounted swordmages a little bit tricky, but I think I'll try it. Also I would have liked if the power would have been with the weapon instead of the implement keyword, so you could make more damage as with a longsword. It would be cool, if there was a feat, that mounted swordmages could use a lance (from the new Emporium). Okay, they would be lance- or spearmages then, but I would like that. But yeah, how about, picking a weapon class at the creation of your weaponmages, so we could have swordmages, axemages (dwarves?), spearmages and so on...
And I still hope that there is more than one article left in the series...
Sattle of the Nightmare?
Nice. But the swordmage still has to wait till level 16. I'm not a good writer and english isn't my mother tongue, but else I would be tempted to write a follow up article for the next Dragon submission window about mounted swordmages