jodyjohnson
Adventurer
The Noble – EN World En5ider Article “Chessmasters & Commanders”
Available on In5ider. No direct link.
This document has the formatting of an article but is principally 6 pages of pure rules crunch with 3 pieces of art.
The Noble class is an interesting design as it has very minimal abilities in the Core class progression and then adds on with the subclasses called Noble Path from level 1.
The base class grants the smallest Hit Dice (d6), no armor, weapon, or tool proficiencies and is proficient with Charisma and Wisdom saves. It has 2 skill proficiencies chosen from a list of Charisma and Wisdom skills.
The early abilities include bonus action ranged inspirational hit point recovery, attack or movement granting, and a reroll of a save or ability check on a short or long rest refresh. The ASI progression matches the low rate used by most classes.
At will attack granting comes on line at 5th level with Coordinated attack. This allows the Noble to have the equivalent of 2 attacks per round with one of them being the best weapon attack in the group or alternately the most tactically advantageous attack. Probably made by a Rogue.
At 9th, Direct Ally becomes practically Grant Action Surge and is on a short rest refresh.
The level 10 ability is thematic and Expertise at 15th is very flexible as it applies to skill or tool proficiencies. Usually only Thieves’ Tools can have Expertise.
Devoted Commander at 20th seems really strong with as it grants 5 allies a full out of turn attack or spell action (using their Reaction) as a bonus action when the other power ups to Direct Ally are factored in.
There are 3 Paths presented and the first is melee oriented. The Path of the Brave shifts the Noble towards being a less optimal Fighter. It lacks Heavy armor and Ranged martial weapons which leans it toward Dexterity melee builds since Dexterity is required to be decent. The combat style doesn’t come on line until 6th so the class remains a weaker Fighter with a couple short/long rest abilities until 5th. It effectively has just less than Extra Attack at 5th with Coordinated attack and with the extra attack at 11th is actually on par with the Fighter base class which I think would play close to a ‘Warlordy’ Battle Master at 6th.
The class’s charisma focus finally kicks in a 14th with a strong 3/short rest Stunning Attack that has a Charisma based DC. Beyond skill usage this is the first Charisma tie-in for the class and it seems like one would want to max charisma to take advantage of it. However with Expertise and Advantage from Noble Renown also kicking in for the late game it seems like overkill considering the 5th edition approach to skills where you roll when the outcome is in doubt. Probably table dependent on where the DM falls on the role of the dice in skill resolution.
The Path finishes with fear immunity but at that point we’re taking flavor.
The second path is the Path of the Heart or the full on “Princess” build. The path is pretty much a pure Dexterity/Charisma build with no effective attacks or armor but with an Armor Class set by Charisma and Dexterity. In return the Heart Noble gets at will attack granting out of the gate by using the Attack action and then not making attacks. As written this does not use up a Reaction so it can be combined with Direct Ally.
The Path of the Heart also picks up 2 more skills with an Intelligence bent.
At 2nd the Heart Noble gains 4 options it can use twice per short rest. The first and the 4th seem a little redundant as the first grants the effect of the 4th plus a motivation for an enemy to potentially draw some Opportunity attacks. The other two effectively add more hit point recovery or extra attack. The winner here though seems to be Cry for Attention as long as the group is paying attention.
At 6th the Heart Noble passes the Rogue for skills known and gets a small buff to Rallying Word plus a once per day Lesser Restoration or a chance to short-circuit the adventuring day by blowing all a targets Hit Dice.
At 11th the class adds Charisma to all the attacks it grants. This is almost always going to be +5 since Defense, Healing, and all the main skills key off Charisma. Sharpshooters and Great Weapon Masters rejoice. Although it doesn’t get the effectively 3 attacks of the Brave Noble, attacks at an extra +5 is a fair compensation.
If 11th rocks Bounded Accuracy of the rails, 14th completely shatters the idea of Downtime. I like the addition of downtime to the game and this would require modification for any DM using Downtime for important activities.
The 17th level Charm ability I’m not sure how to feel about. Pretty much an action denial ability that if the party is prone to maximizing I’d have rebooted the campaign long before the game gets this far. I think the at-will and Charisma save aspect would probably become a problem but the enchantment school is probably worse.
The last path is that of the Tactician. Like the Path of the Brave it picks up some Armor and Weapon proficiencies but lacks the Hit Point boost. Without shield proficiency and with d6 hit points this class feels like the old Rogue coming out the gate. The glaive and halberd proficiency would be hard to pull off since they rely on Strength and melee range which the Tactician Noble can’t afford to do.
At second the main Tactician ability comes on line, granting Superiority dice and Maneuvers. The Maneuvering Command ties the Tactician to favoring Intelligence for its main ability which makes the class pretty MAD – with Dexterity needed for Defense, decent Constitution to keep HP in viable range, Intelligence for Maneuvering Command and Imitative, and all the skills are Wisdom or Charisma. The limit on Superiority Dice is per long rest which I think torpedoes this subclass.
The other issue is that you grant dice that don’t get used immediately, which means the likelihood of wasting them is high. Stock Superiority dice are pretty reliable but these expire and as their use is usually conditional they will get left on the table more than players like.
Focused Fire makes up some of the slack the Tactician lacks with a group damage buff but Superiority dice recovery at 14th comes on too late to pull this subclass up to par.
Tactical Mastery is a nova ability that rewards everyone for going nova. Kind of a once per short rest +36 boost to all damage vs a creature for a round.
Overall, the class as a whole relies heavily on short rest and long rest abilities which makes the early game strongly dependent on encounter pacing. Path of the Brave feels the most even as you can make a dex fighter who passes out attacks and can heal a little but basically can hold his own if needed. The heart noble starts with at-will attack granting out of the gate and is more strongly tied to party composition and synergy. The +charisma to hit at the higher levels I think breaks this class. The tactician is lacking any consistent feature beyond ‘we go first, maybe’. With the MAD it has a hard time being effective in melee with the polearms and lacks the Archery style to really make it with ranged attacks. The superiority dice probably should refresh on short rests from the beginning but they might be better rewritten more like Bardic Inspiration dice or drop the timer. The core feature of the 5-man Action surge at 20th seem overpowered especially combined with the other nova features the subclasses get in the last half of the progression.
As a support class the Noble lacks enough support to fill the role. The single target healing is decent but there are no options for recovery from effects more powerful than Lesser Restoration and no multi-target healing out of the box. Increasing checks and saves is limited to 1/short rest so it won’t replace the Bard, Cleric, or Druid directly. In play, I think it would be the natural face but the Bard would do it better earlier, and the reliance on action granting doesn’t bring anything new to the party. It just lets them do it more often.
Personally, I like the “Warlord” style character as an option for a less magic-focused campaign (trying to avoid full-casting classes in the party) but in that case the higher level abilities seem balanced against their spell counterparts and would be too much (action denial, or the damage novas).
I think the Path of the Brave and Heart are playable with the Heart Noble being more prone to party optimization. The Path of the Tactician just seems weak (except for the baseline char opt from Coordinated attack).
With regards to the classic board bugaboos:
1. Ranged inspirational healing from unconscious – check. At first level 1/day, 1/short rest later.
2. Background as a class – check. You are a noble.
3. I’m in charge here – check. Noble picks the target on Coordinated Attack, generally commanding and inspiring.
4. Healing by spending Hit Dice – check. After Rallying Word the healing is spend Hit Dice.
5. Full action granting – check. At 9th. The equivalent of action granting at 2nd until 5th when Extra Attack is granted.
6. At-will attack granting – check. At 5th with Coordinated Attack using Reaction. Vicarious Attack at 1st for Heart Noble without using Reaction.
For some these are features and for others failures.
Available on In5ider. No direct link.
This document has the formatting of an article but is principally 6 pages of pure rules crunch with 3 pieces of art.
The Noble class is an interesting design as it has very minimal abilities in the Core class progression and then adds on with the subclasses called Noble Path from level 1.
The base class grants the smallest Hit Dice (d6), no armor, weapon, or tool proficiencies and is proficient with Charisma and Wisdom saves. It has 2 skill proficiencies chosen from a list of Charisma and Wisdom skills.
The early abilities include bonus action ranged inspirational hit point recovery, attack or movement granting, and a reroll of a save or ability check on a short or long rest refresh. The ASI progression matches the low rate used by most classes.
At will attack granting comes on line at 5th level with Coordinated attack. This allows the Noble to have the equivalent of 2 attacks per round with one of them being the best weapon attack in the group or alternately the most tactically advantageous attack. Probably made by a Rogue.
At 9th, Direct Ally becomes practically Grant Action Surge and is on a short rest refresh.
The level 10 ability is thematic and Expertise at 15th is very flexible as it applies to skill or tool proficiencies. Usually only Thieves’ Tools can have Expertise.
Devoted Commander at 20th seems really strong with as it grants 5 allies a full out of turn attack or spell action (using their Reaction) as a bonus action when the other power ups to Direct Ally are factored in.
There are 3 Paths presented and the first is melee oriented. The Path of the Brave shifts the Noble towards being a less optimal Fighter. It lacks Heavy armor and Ranged martial weapons which leans it toward Dexterity melee builds since Dexterity is required to be decent. The combat style doesn’t come on line until 6th so the class remains a weaker Fighter with a couple short/long rest abilities until 5th. It effectively has just less than Extra Attack at 5th with Coordinated attack and with the extra attack at 11th is actually on par with the Fighter base class which I think would play close to a ‘Warlordy’ Battle Master at 6th.
The class’s charisma focus finally kicks in a 14th with a strong 3/short rest Stunning Attack that has a Charisma based DC. Beyond skill usage this is the first Charisma tie-in for the class and it seems like one would want to max charisma to take advantage of it. However with Expertise and Advantage from Noble Renown also kicking in for the late game it seems like overkill considering the 5th edition approach to skills where you roll when the outcome is in doubt. Probably table dependent on where the DM falls on the role of the dice in skill resolution.
The Path finishes with fear immunity but at that point we’re taking flavor.
The second path is the Path of the Heart or the full on “Princess” build. The path is pretty much a pure Dexterity/Charisma build with no effective attacks or armor but with an Armor Class set by Charisma and Dexterity. In return the Heart Noble gets at will attack granting out of the gate by using the Attack action and then not making attacks. As written this does not use up a Reaction so it can be combined with Direct Ally.
The Path of the Heart also picks up 2 more skills with an Intelligence bent.
At 2nd the Heart Noble gains 4 options it can use twice per short rest. The first and the 4th seem a little redundant as the first grants the effect of the 4th plus a motivation for an enemy to potentially draw some Opportunity attacks. The other two effectively add more hit point recovery or extra attack. The winner here though seems to be Cry for Attention as long as the group is paying attention.
At 6th the Heart Noble passes the Rogue for skills known and gets a small buff to Rallying Word plus a once per day Lesser Restoration or a chance to short-circuit the adventuring day by blowing all a targets Hit Dice.
At 11th the class adds Charisma to all the attacks it grants. This is almost always going to be +5 since Defense, Healing, and all the main skills key off Charisma. Sharpshooters and Great Weapon Masters rejoice. Although it doesn’t get the effectively 3 attacks of the Brave Noble, attacks at an extra +5 is a fair compensation.
If 11th rocks Bounded Accuracy of the rails, 14th completely shatters the idea of Downtime. I like the addition of downtime to the game and this would require modification for any DM using Downtime for important activities.
The 17th level Charm ability I’m not sure how to feel about. Pretty much an action denial ability that if the party is prone to maximizing I’d have rebooted the campaign long before the game gets this far. I think the at-will and Charisma save aspect would probably become a problem but the enchantment school is probably worse.
The last path is that of the Tactician. Like the Path of the Brave it picks up some Armor and Weapon proficiencies but lacks the Hit Point boost. Without shield proficiency and with d6 hit points this class feels like the old Rogue coming out the gate. The glaive and halberd proficiency would be hard to pull off since they rely on Strength and melee range which the Tactician Noble can’t afford to do.
At second the main Tactician ability comes on line, granting Superiority dice and Maneuvers. The Maneuvering Command ties the Tactician to favoring Intelligence for its main ability which makes the class pretty MAD – with Dexterity needed for Defense, decent Constitution to keep HP in viable range, Intelligence for Maneuvering Command and Imitative, and all the skills are Wisdom or Charisma. The limit on Superiority Dice is per long rest which I think torpedoes this subclass.
The other issue is that you grant dice that don’t get used immediately, which means the likelihood of wasting them is high. Stock Superiority dice are pretty reliable but these expire and as their use is usually conditional they will get left on the table more than players like.
Focused Fire makes up some of the slack the Tactician lacks with a group damage buff but Superiority dice recovery at 14th comes on too late to pull this subclass up to par.
Tactical Mastery is a nova ability that rewards everyone for going nova. Kind of a once per short rest +36 boost to all damage vs a creature for a round.
Overall, the class as a whole relies heavily on short rest and long rest abilities which makes the early game strongly dependent on encounter pacing. Path of the Brave feels the most even as you can make a dex fighter who passes out attacks and can heal a little but basically can hold his own if needed. The heart noble starts with at-will attack granting out of the gate and is more strongly tied to party composition and synergy. The +charisma to hit at the higher levels I think breaks this class. The tactician is lacking any consistent feature beyond ‘we go first, maybe’. With the MAD it has a hard time being effective in melee with the polearms and lacks the Archery style to really make it with ranged attacks. The superiority dice probably should refresh on short rests from the beginning but they might be better rewritten more like Bardic Inspiration dice or drop the timer. The core feature of the 5-man Action surge at 20th seem overpowered especially combined with the other nova features the subclasses get in the last half of the progression.
As a support class the Noble lacks enough support to fill the role. The single target healing is decent but there are no options for recovery from effects more powerful than Lesser Restoration and no multi-target healing out of the box. Increasing checks and saves is limited to 1/short rest so it won’t replace the Bard, Cleric, or Druid directly. In play, I think it would be the natural face but the Bard would do it better earlier, and the reliance on action granting doesn’t bring anything new to the party. It just lets them do it more often.
Personally, I like the “Warlord” style character as an option for a less magic-focused campaign (trying to avoid full-casting classes in the party) but in that case the higher level abilities seem balanced against their spell counterparts and would be too much (action denial, or the damage novas).
I think the Path of the Brave and Heart are playable with the Heart Noble being more prone to party optimization. The Path of the Tactician just seems weak (except for the baseline char opt from Coordinated attack).
With regards to the classic board bugaboos:
1. Ranged inspirational healing from unconscious – check. At first level 1/day, 1/short rest later.
2. Background as a class – check. You are a noble.
3. I’m in charge here – check. Noble picks the target on Coordinated Attack, generally commanding and inspiring.
4. Healing by spending Hit Dice – check. After Rallying Word the healing is spend Hit Dice.
5. Full action granting – check. At 9th. The equivalent of action granting at 2nd until 5th when Extra Attack is granted.
6. At-will attack granting – check. At 5th with Coordinated Attack using Reaction. Vicarious Attack at 1st for Heart Noble without using Reaction.
For some these are features and for others failures.
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