Undrave
Legend
Yes, it's one more time for Undrave's pet project! The Warlord: Warlord V7 - The Homebrewery
This time I made some MAJOR changes to the main class! There was concern on the power level last time, @Stalker0 felt I was too wordy (I hope I managed to fix that a bit this time around) and I was still not happy with the fiddliness level. One of the big thing you'll notice is that I decided to ditch the system where you accrue a ressource as you battle to then spend to improve your allies. While I still love the concept, I felt like I wanted to move in a different direction this go around to reduce on the fiddliness. I might reuse the concept for something else at some point in the future, who knows? I instead decided to focus on the design space of reactions. I kept the Shouts and Presence, as I feel they feel very Warlordy, but made the bulk of what you do reactions. This, hopefully, would have the effect that a Warlord player would pay close attention to what is going on around them, the same way the Warlord in-universe would go about doing it.
I trimmed down the combat related ability of the Warlord at first level to just Shouts and then, since I couldn't think of anything better, I split my old 'Seasoned Instructor' feature into two stages so that it can be used at first level. It's basically a mundane version of the Guidance Cantrip that only works on specific things (hence why it's a d6 instead of a d4).
I added wording to Shouts and Battlefield Reflexes that prevent a pair of Warlord from just stacking effect on top of the same character at the same time. I think it'll help curtail shenanigans.
I've streamlined the things you can do with your Battlefield Reflexes down to 2 per level you get new ones. I hope this will help keep these elements below a certain threshold of complication. I had to sacrifice a lot of ideas I liked to get these. I really wanted to keep the ability to make it easier to knock flying targets down, but that felt like such a specific ability that I had no room for it in a more genric class. Again, maybe I'll make a Feats package that'll include it somehow? Who knows... I'm also hoping Improve Damage remains a decent pick throughout your progression, even if the scaling might be weird.
To keep with my theme of reaction I end up granting 2 additional reacton that can only be used for your class features. While a Fighter would have more attacks and 1 reaction, you get the basic 2 attacks of most weapon users and 3 reaction in total (with still only 1 OA possible).
The new capstone is just a shameless remake of the Rogue's own capstone that, frankly, doesn't fit super well thematically, but I anticipate the Walord to be a more fragile character than say a Fighter (or a Ranger even) so I think a little extra defense at the end of the progression can't hurt. I didn't want to just reuse my old capstone because it no longer felt like it fit with my new concept.
A lot of new capstones I threw in for the various subclass are somewhat lacklustre too, but it's not like people play at that high a level all the time right?
Now for some comment on subclasses:
Ardent Soul: I reworked the Ardent Soul and gave them the ability to basically grant allies a cushion of Temp HP as they are attacked, potentially reducing the ammount of healing a party would need. I reduced the temp HP it grants a lot and I don't know if its too weak now or still too strong in the right circumstances? I'Ve considered making the temp HP pretty high but that they would dissapear at the start of your next turn, but that felt like a pain to track you know?
Ballistarius: I just straight up gave them the Archery fighting style last time and I kept it in. I nerfed their Eagle Eye ability. I decided to just make Legendary Archer Accuracy a thing that always happens, because it's always the NEXT attack, not the next attack that lands an 18-19 on that enemy, so it's easy for it to not matter much. You also get to take a shot at using it yourself as if you were a Champion. It didn't felt like a big enough boost to be worth a daily limitation, you know? But maybe it's still too strong as an at-will thing... I'm considering limiting it to ranged attacks only, would that work?
Borderlands Marshall: I'm still in love with Frontier Gear Specialist as a feature. It's basically 'build your own fighting style' for subpar weapons. I came up with the 'Torchbearer' ability that I think opens up a cool dual wielding build and makes it so a torch isn't that bad of a thing to use. Skirmisher Tactics is now linked to Battlefield Reflexes and, since there's no Inisght Dice, Vicious Assault is now a flat 8d6 bonus. It's roughly the same kind of damage a Rogue can inflict with their Sneak Attack at that level, only the Borderlands Mashall only gets it a few times a day. It's not my favorite capstone but it's a simple enough one.
Chosen One: I've decided to simplify Divine Luck by just making it a spell, like I do later in that subclass with Blessed Touch, that you can cast once per day. Since once per day isn't much I gave it a few buffs to make it interesting. I kept the feature with the doubled up result because I think it's funny and unlikely to come up often.
Rabble Rouser: I decided to ditch the Double Warlord Presence thing because it didn't feel all that great as a feature, and I had came up with the absolutely hilarious Dashing Scoundrel one. I just thought it was too good to pass making it an early feature of the subclass. I created a new capstone for this one as well. I don't know how good or bad it is, but it sorta includes the effect of one of those defunct presences from V6 and prior.
Silverblade Captain: Editted the text a little, but overall I didn't do much to it.
Steel Scholar: Another major overhaul for this subclass! First the Steel Protector, then the Steel Vanguard and now I'm leaning harder into the Intellectual Warrior side of things. I didn't change much in terms of ability however, only tightening some language to make it less wordy (I could probably cut more text but I felt this subclass deserved to have it's identity better explained) and doing minor tuning.
White Raven Tactician: I feel like I might be losing the thread on this one a little? I'm not satisfied with White Raven Fighting Style but I'm not sure what other feature would fit...The upside is that it works well with the fact that the White Raven Tactician won't have heavy armor proficiency as a default so moving around is good. Analytical Warrior and White Raven Prowess are both brand new abilities and I'm not sure how well they work. I feel like I could do more with shouts?
Anyway, thank you in advance for taking the time to read it and commenting! I hope folks who enjoyed the previous verson will have something to say about it, their critics helped make this new version possible: @Tinker-TDC , @aco175 , @FrogReaver , @Quartz , and I know @Garthanos and @doctorbadwolf usually enjoys these posts of mine.
This time I made some MAJOR changes to the main class! There was concern on the power level last time, @Stalker0 felt I was too wordy (I hope I managed to fix that a bit this time around) and I was still not happy with the fiddliness level. One of the big thing you'll notice is that I decided to ditch the system where you accrue a ressource as you battle to then spend to improve your allies. While I still love the concept, I felt like I wanted to move in a different direction this go around to reduce on the fiddliness. I might reuse the concept for something else at some point in the future, who knows? I instead decided to focus on the design space of reactions. I kept the Shouts and Presence, as I feel they feel very Warlordy, but made the bulk of what you do reactions. This, hopefully, would have the effect that a Warlord player would pay close attention to what is going on around them, the same way the Warlord in-universe would go about doing it.
I trimmed down the combat related ability of the Warlord at first level to just Shouts and then, since I couldn't think of anything better, I split my old 'Seasoned Instructor' feature into two stages so that it can be used at first level. It's basically a mundane version of the Guidance Cantrip that only works on specific things (hence why it's a d6 instead of a d4).
I added wording to Shouts and Battlefield Reflexes that prevent a pair of Warlord from just stacking effect on top of the same character at the same time. I think it'll help curtail shenanigans.
I've streamlined the things you can do with your Battlefield Reflexes down to 2 per level you get new ones. I hope this will help keep these elements below a certain threshold of complication. I had to sacrifice a lot of ideas I liked to get these. I really wanted to keep the ability to make it easier to knock flying targets down, but that felt like such a specific ability that I had no room for it in a more genric class. Again, maybe I'll make a Feats package that'll include it somehow? Who knows... I'm also hoping Improve Damage remains a decent pick throughout your progression, even if the scaling might be weird.
To keep with my theme of reaction I end up granting 2 additional reacton that can only be used for your class features. While a Fighter would have more attacks and 1 reaction, you get the basic 2 attacks of most weapon users and 3 reaction in total (with still only 1 OA possible).
The new capstone is just a shameless remake of the Rogue's own capstone that, frankly, doesn't fit super well thematically, but I anticipate the Walord to be a more fragile character than say a Fighter (or a Ranger even) so I think a little extra defense at the end of the progression can't hurt. I didn't want to just reuse my old capstone because it no longer felt like it fit with my new concept.
A lot of new capstones I threw in for the various subclass are somewhat lacklustre too, but it's not like people play at that high a level all the time right?
Now for some comment on subclasses:
Ardent Soul: I reworked the Ardent Soul and gave them the ability to basically grant allies a cushion of Temp HP as they are attacked, potentially reducing the ammount of healing a party would need. I reduced the temp HP it grants a lot and I don't know if its too weak now or still too strong in the right circumstances? I'Ve considered making the temp HP pretty high but that they would dissapear at the start of your next turn, but that felt like a pain to track you know?
Ballistarius: I just straight up gave them the Archery fighting style last time and I kept it in. I nerfed their Eagle Eye ability. I decided to just make Legendary Archer Accuracy a thing that always happens, because it's always the NEXT attack, not the next attack that lands an 18-19 on that enemy, so it's easy for it to not matter much. You also get to take a shot at using it yourself as if you were a Champion. It didn't felt like a big enough boost to be worth a daily limitation, you know? But maybe it's still too strong as an at-will thing... I'm considering limiting it to ranged attacks only, would that work?
Borderlands Marshall: I'm still in love with Frontier Gear Specialist as a feature. It's basically 'build your own fighting style' for subpar weapons. I came up with the 'Torchbearer' ability that I think opens up a cool dual wielding build and makes it so a torch isn't that bad of a thing to use. Skirmisher Tactics is now linked to Battlefield Reflexes and, since there's no Inisght Dice, Vicious Assault is now a flat 8d6 bonus. It's roughly the same kind of damage a Rogue can inflict with their Sneak Attack at that level, only the Borderlands Mashall only gets it a few times a day. It's not my favorite capstone but it's a simple enough one.
Chosen One: I've decided to simplify Divine Luck by just making it a spell, like I do later in that subclass with Blessed Touch, that you can cast once per day. Since once per day isn't much I gave it a few buffs to make it interesting. I kept the feature with the doubled up result because I think it's funny and unlikely to come up often.
Rabble Rouser: I decided to ditch the Double Warlord Presence thing because it didn't feel all that great as a feature, and I had came up with the absolutely hilarious Dashing Scoundrel one. I just thought it was too good to pass making it an early feature of the subclass. I created a new capstone for this one as well. I don't know how good or bad it is, but it sorta includes the effect of one of those defunct presences from V6 and prior.
Silverblade Captain: Editted the text a little, but overall I didn't do much to it.
Steel Scholar: Another major overhaul for this subclass! First the Steel Protector, then the Steel Vanguard and now I'm leaning harder into the Intellectual Warrior side of things. I didn't change much in terms of ability however, only tightening some language to make it less wordy (I could probably cut more text but I felt this subclass deserved to have it's identity better explained) and doing minor tuning.
White Raven Tactician: I feel like I might be losing the thread on this one a little? I'm not satisfied with White Raven Fighting Style but I'm not sure what other feature would fit...The upside is that it works well with the fact that the White Raven Tactician won't have heavy armor proficiency as a default so moving around is good. Analytical Warrior and White Raven Prowess are both brand new abilities and I'm not sure how well they work. I feel like I could do more with shouts?
Anyway, thank you in advance for taking the time to read it and commenting! I hope folks who enjoyed the previous verson will have something to say about it, their critics helped make this new version possible: @Tinker-TDC , @aco175 , @FrogReaver , @Quartz , and I know @Garthanos and @doctorbadwolf usually enjoys these posts of mine.
