Can an Echo Knight fighter's echo ever fail a saving throw?

Question

In an unsurprising turn of events, the wording of the Echo Knight's features continues to cause confusion.

The description of the Echo Knight fighter's Manifest Echo feature states, in part (EGtW, p. 183):

If [your echo] has to make a saving throw, it uses your saving throw bonus for the roll.

The overwhelming consensus is that the echo is not a creature, as it is simply "an image" (per the first paragraph of the Manifest Echo feature description).

Every spell or ability that requires a saving throw, as far as I know, targets creatures. Take for example, the spell fireball; its description states, in part:

[...] Each creature in a 20-foot radius sphere centered on that point must make a Dexterity saving throw. A target takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

The echo is not a creature; therefore, it can never take damage from fireball.

After reviewing the wording on several monster abilities and spells, I'm left scratching my head as to whether a character set on destroying an echo really has any options besides simply hitting it via the Attack action.

Are there any saving throws that the Echo can actually fail?

Answer 1

Overall, Rules as written and intended along with balance considerations suggests it should NOT be a creature.

It can, of course, fail saving throws because it has saving throw included in its stat block. However, it cannot be targeted by many saving throws such as Fireball since it is not a creature but a magical object.

1. Clarified by the designer, it does not suffer from fireball, as it is not a creature.

An unofficial ruling by Jeremy Crawford and repeated here answering a different question indicates that it is not a creature intentionally:

The fireball spell in D&D forces creatures to make a saving throw. The Echo Knight's echo is intentionally not a creature, so it doesn't make the save.

The shatter spell affects creatures and nonmagical objects. The echo is intentionally neither of those things. - Jeremy Crawford

2. Rules as written, it should not be assumed to be a creature.

It does not specifically say it is or is not a creature, which leaves room for debate.
For a more in-depth breakdown of what a "creature" actually is, refer to this Q&A: Is the Echo of a Echo Knight actually a creature?

However, even though a 'creature' is not clearly defined in 5e the absence of the wording "creature" is very uncommon. In order to argue RAW we must look at precedent for entities which do not explicitly state "creature" (which is actually very few) and we must look at similar magical objects such as Mirror Image.

Overall, I think there is substantial argument RAW for Echo being a magical object (whether it is immune to fire damage is likely up to your DM).

3. This creatureless status is important to the balance of the Echo.

This 'creatureless' status also brings downsides including it cannot flank or perform other interactions creatures can and it cannot be targeted for many buffing spells.

I would argue that many broken interactions would be possible if it were considered a 'creature'. The most important of them is probably casting Polymorph on your Echo. But endless other issues exist and it is much better balanced as an object as the designer intended.

Answer 2

Of course it can fail saving throws

If it couldn't fail a saving throw, it wouldn't have specified the text you quoted:

If [your echo] has to make a saving throw, it uses your saving throw bonus for the roll.

The fact that a situation is envisaged where a saving throw needs to be made, means it can make, and fail, saving throws.

"Ok... but that doesn't answer my question."

Your question's premise is that the echo is not a creature. This is a frame challenge to that premise in your question. As argued in my answer to the linked question, the echo is a creature:

To start with, creature is not a strictly defined term in the game. Since D&D 5e uses natural language as opposed to strictly defined language, we need to figure out whether or not it "walks like a duck" so to speak.

But we have some clues it should be counted as a creature:

1. It has an AC and Hit Point(s), so it can be hit and interacted with
2. It has explicit immunity to all conditions

The second point is important, as conditions are described as (emphasis mine):

Conditions alter a creature's capabilities in a variety of ways [...].

If it's not counted as a creature, then it doesn't need to have the immunity specified, but it does, so it must be capable of being targeted by conditions. Ergo it is a creature, and is affected by all things that creatures are.

Since, it's a creature for the purposes of the rules, it can make and fail all the same saving throws a creature can.

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But what if I don't agree that it's a creature?

Mechanically, for the purposes of fireball, it doesn't matter. The text of the spell also has this paragraph:

The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried.

If it's not a creature, it is most certainly an object (since it has hit points). It is not being worn or carried. So, is it flammable?

It doesn't say it isn't flammable, and most objects are flammable, so being non-flammable is an exceptional thing, and thus would need to be specified in the rules as an exception, which it isn't.

Therefore, the echo is flammable, and is automatically set on fire by fireball. Being on fire, causes fire damage, and the minimum amount of damage possible from being on fire is 1 hp of damage. Coincidentally, this is exactly the amount of HP an echo has, and therefore fireball destroys any echos that are in its area.

But it says it's an "image"?!

Just because something is an image, doesn't mean it's not flammable. Nitrite film holds images and is most certainly flammable. A picture in a picture frame is an image, and is most certainly also flammable.

Answer 3

It probably takes damage from fireball.

Here's a sentence that does not appear in the fireball spell:

Things that are not creatures take no damage.

An Echo clearly acts like a creature in some ways. For example, it can be attacked, take damage, and make saving throws. Fireball interacts with creatures in its area of effect by blowing them up, which forces them to attempt a saving throw and deals damage to them. The Echo can be interacted with in those ways.

Contrary to what seems to be a popular opinion on this site, the D&D rules do not break the world down into precisely defined and labeled categories and then specify strongly typed interactions between them. Whether something "is a creature" depends on why we're asking.

Fireball doesn't specify that it affects Echoes because (1) they didn't exist when it was written, and (2) 5e aims for straightforward, readable spell descriptions rather than trying to exhaustively cover edge cases. It doesn't actually say whether it affects them or not, but come on, they have hit points and Dex saves. Make a reasonable ruling.