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Homebrewed Warlord take 2
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<blockquote data-quote="Undrave" data-source="post: 7938055" data-attributes="member: 7015698"><p>Continuing on with the design notes:</p><p></p><p><strong>Ardent Soul </strong>: Maybe the Ardent Soul would be the char op favorite ? I wanted to come up with a more CHA based subclass and this idea dawned on me. I like the idea of using Temp HP to fuel effects, another facet of the idea of generating your support ressource as the battle goes on. In this case, you would very much want the Inspiring Presence to throw some added Temp HP on your allies at initiative, then use your Radiating Confidence feature to grant some Temp HP to yourself.</p><p></p><p>In a way, this class is also inspired by the risk taking Bravura Warlord since taking away your protective layer of temp HP for extra damage is risky.</p><p></p><p>Do note that Burning Heart doesn't care where the Temp HP come from, simply that they exist. I could see this subclass pairing well with a Bladelock who got the Invocation for free False Life or a Battlemaster with Rally. Heck, I can see this class taking a level dip into Fighter to use the new maneuver granting Fighting Style to get Rally and then spending a feat on Martial Adept for an additional superiority dice.</p><p></p><p>Strong Personality is the feature I like the least of the Ardent. I still feel like it's a bit weaksauce. I do like the flavor of raising your maximum Charisma score though. So much so I stole it for the Chosen One subclass.</p><p></p><p>Improved Burning Heart felt like a no brainer, considering Fire is often resisted. I'm not sure if the Psychic damage is that good an idea and if it might be TOO good? I'm also toying with the idea of 'cold fury' and letting you pick Cold damage. I've also considered making the damage type a thing you choose after a rest instead of a dynamic versatile feature you can change on the fly. I might still do those changes if I get comments to that effect.</p><p></p><p>Ardent Mantle feel like something I could develop into more features instead but I feel like it would get repetitive after a while.</p><p></p><p>Note that the Ardent only affects allies when within 30 feet, which is what I consider 'close range'. They're basically always one move action away from being attacked by an enemy, but they don't get any extra armor, weapons or extra attacks like the Steel Protector, further hinting at the Bravura side of it. Their own Temp HP probably spent improving their damage output rather than protecting them. It's a fun balancing act to imagine.</p><p></p><p>It's also the one subclass that feels the most locked into its corresponding presence because you really want those Temp HP from Inspiring Presence. In a way it's very straight forward to build.</p><p></p><p><strong>Ballistarius :</strong> I really had a hard time coming up with a satisfying name for this one, and even if its not properly applied I thought it sounded cool so I went with Ballistarius.</p><p></p><p>I expect them to favour the Heavy Crossbow, since they wouldn't be losing out on extra attacks since they could use a shout in addition to doing one heavy crossbow attack.</p><p></p><p>Ballistarius shouts, especially LOAD!, were the inspiration for the whole subclass. I just built outward from there, adding a third bonus shout as I went on.</p><p></p><p>Eagle Eye is pretty straight forward. I don't know if its too powerful or something, but I liked the idea of impeding stealth on creatures near you.</p><p></p><p>Squadmaster was one of the first feature I came up with after the Ballistarius shouts. Get some NPC and use LOAD! to speed up the use of siege weapons! Pretty nifty. I considered limiting them to Ballistarius Shouts and not the basic ones, don't know if they would be too powerful since you can use STRIKE! to make 1 of your attack into three overall attacks. I guess it would depend on your party composition?</p><p></p><p>Legendary Archer originally made you ignore the penalty to long range but that felt too ordinary for a capstone. I'm not super excited by it but I hope it's appropriate.</p><p></p><p><strong>Borderlands Marshall</strong>: The name comes from a 4e Paragon Path in Martial Power that I thought sounded pretty evocative fluff-wise. It didn't, however, provide much in terms of mechanical inspiration since most of it relied on the 4e Ranger's Hunter's Quarry feature in a way redundant with my Insight Dice. I did, however, make it evoke a bit of that 4e Skirmisher Ranger feel. This subclass is thus the more 'Striker' of the lot, with little in terms of support feature and more raw damage overall.</p><p></p><p>Bonus proficiency were pretty straightforward. Added the swim and climb speed for some added flare and utility.</p><p></p><p>Frontier Gear specialist I'm not SUPER satisfied with it. I like the feel, I like the customizability, but I wish I'd have figured out a better SUPPORT feature. At least, the base class is full of support feature.</p><p></p><p>Relentless Tracker is a ribbon I'm pretty proud of. It's very evocative to me that once you analyzed a creature, represented by your insight dice, they can't ditch you that easily. It steps a bit on the 'Master Tracker' schtick from the regular ranger, but only in a very corner case. I threw in the upgrade to the climb and swim speed because I didn't know where else it would fit <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite7" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue :p" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":p" /></p><p></p><p>Militia Leader feels like it comes out of nowhere, but I really like the concept, but maybe you guys have better ideas on how to improve it? The wording is a little off but the idea is that you can't train more than ten people per day. Maybe I should make it so they need to keep within sight of you to keep benefiting from your training?</p><p></p><p>EDIT: The more I thought about it the less I liked Militia Leader. Allowing you to grant one of your feature to allies might sound cool if they're NPCs, but in practice it ends up just being a feature that lets you make other more powerful without actually letting you taking any sort of active decision beyond 'What to train them into?'. Plus it imposed you pick your Frontier Gear Specialist features whle thinking how it could be apply to a DIFFERENT character and that's just one too many level of optimization here. In the end I feel like Skirmisher Tactics ends up a more ACTIVE class feature that still offers support in a solid way. It's not super flashy but I think it works.</p><p></p><p>Vicious Insight just worked with the flavour of the original Borderlands Marshall, it was an obvious capstone upgrade to grant the Striker subclass.</p><p></p><p><strong>Chosen One: </strong>The Divine Subclass, the one that can be used to make a Princess or LazyLord build the most easily. I knew I wanted a subclass able to forego all of its attack to use Shouts, and still get to apply insight dice. I went with the 'Half, rounded down' system to not have to note every single time you get more at every level. It feels like a fair progression. Maybe I could have thrown in extra shouts? I'm not sure what they would have done.</p><p></p><p>Divine Luck could have been split into two features, but I just didn't have the design space I wanted because I didn't want to wait until level 13 for the second effect that's really up to chance more than anything. Also, I couldn't come up with a different name.</p><p></p><p>Magnetic Presence, like mentioned before, steals from the Ardent pretty brazingly. I also steal from the Remarkable Athlete but only for Charisma checks. Note that it stacks with Veteran's Poise so you can get a full proficiency bonus when interacting with military types.</p><p></p><p>Do the spells from Blessed Touch feel out of nowhere? I thought it would work with the miraculous powers suddenly gained by heroes of destiny. I'm considering adding Revivify to the list and granting extra spell slots later, but I don't know how powerful these would be with the rest of the build.</p><p></p><p>Pull of Destiny is a simple capstone and honestly the best I could come up with hahaha. Capstones are hard.</p><p></p><p><strong>Steel Protector :</strong> I designed this subclass to be as straight forward as possible. Basically you could just totally ignore Shouts and Signals and still be effective as a support class with it, thanks to the basic support of Insight Dice and the added healing. I, obviously, based the Healer Training feature off of the Healer Feat, which is a good feat for non-magical support. I could have simply worded it as 'You gain the Healer Feat' but I don't like this sort of outside reference design. Plus, I added a 'Song of Rest' type fonction where you can boost the effectiveness of an ally's Hit Dice expenditure. I made it cost a healer's kit charge now (unlike the previous version), just because they're too easy to come by and to make the ones you can make more valuable.</p><p></p><p>I granted it Heavy Armor because I envison a Steel Protector as favoring Versatle Weapons, since you need a free hand to use Healer's Training to patch up an ally, and thus would not be using a shield. The extra armor of Heavy Armor compensate for losing the shield. Plus, I figure a Steel Protector would rather be up close to help allies. I also granted it a third attack as a capstone to fit in with the simple mandate so you can just hack away at enemies if you want. It's essentially the 'Fighter-like' subclass.</p><p></p><p>Note that, aside from one part of Healer's Training, this subclass doesn't have any mental stat requirement so you can go with any of the three Precense you prefer without trouble, adding to the whole customizability idea. The subclass is simple but not without variety.</p><p></p><p>Panacea Maker is, I think, a bit off in its wording, but I didn't want the Steel Protector to just spend their time collecting a ton of ingredients and then making a ton of potions. I tried to balance it so you can't make more than 1 Potion a day until much later in level where they're not as good. The real bonus here is making additional Healer's Kit charges when you can't just buy them in a shop.</p><p></p><p>I decided on limiting Protector's Revenge to once per short rest, as it might be too powerful as it is and make a regular Fighter seem pretty lacklustre the way it was previously. It does not, mind you, protect from opportunity attack so if you're in melee with someone else they could punish you for your distraction.</p><p></p><p><strong>White Raven </strong>: Inspired by the Tactical Warlord of old I decided to have this subclass to be the one focused on Shouts and INT modifier. I'm thinking I could make the Bandit Leader more focused on silent signals, something useful to stealthy endeavors?</p><p></p><p>The point of this guy is to maneuver allies around and have them support each other better. Hence why I invented the additional Formation shouts that are focused on allies helping each other. I also thought it would be a cool power for a Warlord to be able to recharge allies' Reactions. It might not be useful all the time but if you got an ally with Sentinel they'll appreciate it a lot. Similarly I added the modification to STRIKE! that allows an ally to attack right away. It gives the feature more versatility (in the hands of the ally, mind you) and makes it useful in some corner cases where using a Reaction doesn't become a problem.</p><p></p><p>Analyze Enemy is basically stolen from the Battlemaster, with a different way to use it (including a rare use of the Alternate Skill Attribute variant, keying Insight off of Intelligence) and a few different element it can tell. I'm not super satisfied with it, I feel like I should have included something less battle centric into this build so the White Raven Tactician has more things to do than be good at combat, but I just couldn't think of something. I do hope the base class helps in that respect.</p><p></p><p>Improved Presence was a no brainer for me. Being able to grant allies further away your INT bonus to initiative and even let them move is pretty great. Note that this still doesn't clash with the idea of using a different Presence, even if it doesn't rely on INT. I made sure not to call out any of the Presence on purpose.</p><p></p><p>Potent Analysis is pretty straight forward, it just makes bonus damage you grant more reliable. If you max out your INT is basically makes all your bonus D8 do their average damage or more. This would probably make the White Raven subclass a Char. Op favorite? Maybe?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Undrave, post: 7938055, member: 7015698"] Continuing on with the design notes: [B]Ardent Soul [/B]: Maybe the Ardent Soul would be the char op favorite ? I wanted to come up with a more CHA based subclass and this idea dawned on me. I like the idea of using Temp HP to fuel effects, another facet of the idea of generating your support ressource as the battle goes on. In this case, you would very much want the Inspiring Presence to throw some added Temp HP on your allies at initiative, then use your Radiating Confidence feature to grant some Temp HP to yourself. In a way, this class is also inspired by the risk taking Bravura Warlord since taking away your protective layer of temp HP for extra damage is risky. Do note that Burning Heart doesn't care where the Temp HP come from, simply that they exist. I could see this subclass pairing well with a Bladelock who got the Invocation for free False Life or a Battlemaster with Rally. Heck, I can see this class taking a level dip into Fighter to use the new maneuver granting Fighting Style to get Rally and then spending a feat on Martial Adept for an additional superiority dice. Strong Personality is the feature I like the least of the Ardent. I still feel like it's a bit weaksauce. I do like the flavor of raising your maximum Charisma score though. So much so I stole it for the Chosen One subclass. Improved Burning Heart felt like a no brainer, considering Fire is often resisted. I'm not sure if the Psychic damage is that good an idea and if it might be TOO good? I'm also toying with the idea of 'cold fury' and letting you pick Cold damage. I've also considered making the damage type a thing you choose after a rest instead of a dynamic versatile feature you can change on the fly. I might still do those changes if I get comments to that effect. Ardent Mantle feel like something I could develop into more features instead but I feel like it would get repetitive after a while. Note that the Ardent only affects allies when within 30 feet, which is what I consider 'close range'. They're basically always one move action away from being attacked by an enemy, but they don't get any extra armor, weapons or extra attacks like the Steel Protector, further hinting at the Bravura side of it. Their own Temp HP probably spent improving their damage output rather than protecting them. It's a fun balancing act to imagine. It's also the one subclass that feels the most locked into its corresponding presence because you really want those Temp HP from Inspiring Presence. In a way it's very straight forward to build. [B]Ballistarius :[/B] I really had a hard time coming up with a satisfying name for this one, and even if its not properly applied I thought it sounded cool so I went with Ballistarius. I expect them to favour the Heavy Crossbow, since they wouldn't be losing out on extra attacks since they could use a shout in addition to doing one heavy crossbow attack. Ballistarius shouts, especially LOAD!, were the inspiration for the whole subclass. I just built outward from there, adding a third bonus shout as I went on. Eagle Eye is pretty straight forward. I don't know if its too powerful or something, but I liked the idea of impeding stealth on creatures near you. Squadmaster was one of the first feature I came up with after the Ballistarius shouts. Get some NPC and use LOAD! to speed up the use of siege weapons! Pretty nifty. I considered limiting them to Ballistarius Shouts and not the basic ones, don't know if they would be too powerful since you can use STRIKE! to make 1 of your attack into three overall attacks. I guess it would depend on your party composition? Legendary Archer originally made you ignore the penalty to long range but that felt too ordinary for a capstone. I'm not super excited by it but I hope it's appropriate. [B]Borderlands Marshall[/B]: The name comes from a 4e Paragon Path in Martial Power that I thought sounded pretty evocative fluff-wise. It didn't, however, provide much in terms of mechanical inspiration since most of it relied on the 4e Ranger's Hunter's Quarry feature in a way redundant with my Insight Dice. I did, however, make it evoke a bit of that 4e Skirmisher Ranger feel. This subclass is thus the more 'Striker' of the lot, with little in terms of support feature and more raw damage overall. Bonus proficiency were pretty straightforward. Added the swim and climb speed for some added flare and utility. Frontier Gear specialist I'm not SUPER satisfied with it. I like the feel, I like the customizability, but I wish I'd have figured out a better SUPPORT feature. At least, the base class is full of support feature. Relentless Tracker is a ribbon I'm pretty proud of. It's very evocative to me that once you analyzed a creature, represented by your insight dice, they can't ditch you that easily. It steps a bit on the 'Master Tracker' schtick from the regular ranger, but only in a very corner case. I threw in the upgrade to the climb and swim speed because I didn't know where else it would fit :p Militia Leader feels like it comes out of nowhere, but I really like the concept, but maybe you guys have better ideas on how to improve it? The wording is a little off but the idea is that you can't train more than ten people per day. Maybe I should make it so they need to keep within sight of you to keep benefiting from your training? EDIT: The more I thought about it the less I liked Militia Leader. Allowing you to grant one of your feature to allies might sound cool if they're NPCs, but in practice it ends up just being a feature that lets you make other more powerful without actually letting you taking any sort of active decision beyond 'What to train them into?'. Plus it imposed you pick your Frontier Gear Specialist features whle thinking how it could be apply to a DIFFERENT character and that's just one too many level of optimization here. In the end I feel like Skirmisher Tactics ends up a more ACTIVE class feature that still offers support in a solid way. It's not super flashy but I think it works. Vicious Insight just worked with the flavour of the original Borderlands Marshall, it was an obvious capstone upgrade to grant the Striker subclass. [B]Chosen One: [/B]The Divine Subclass, the one that can be used to make a Princess or LazyLord build the most easily. I knew I wanted a subclass able to forego all of its attack to use Shouts, and still get to apply insight dice. I went with the 'Half, rounded down' system to not have to note every single time you get more at every level. It feels like a fair progression. Maybe I could have thrown in extra shouts? I'm not sure what they would have done. Divine Luck could have been split into two features, but I just didn't have the design space I wanted because I didn't want to wait until level 13 for the second effect that's really up to chance more than anything. Also, I couldn't come up with a different name. Magnetic Presence, like mentioned before, steals from the Ardent pretty brazingly. I also steal from the Remarkable Athlete but only for Charisma checks. Note that it stacks with Veteran's Poise so you can get a full proficiency bonus when interacting with military types. Do the spells from Blessed Touch feel out of nowhere? I thought it would work with the miraculous powers suddenly gained by heroes of destiny. I'm considering adding Revivify to the list and granting extra spell slots later, but I don't know how powerful these would be with the rest of the build. Pull of Destiny is a simple capstone and honestly the best I could come up with hahaha. Capstones are hard. [B]Steel Protector :[/B] I designed this subclass to be as straight forward as possible. Basically you could just totally ignore Shouts and Signals and still be effective as a support class with it, thanks to the basic support of Insight Dice and the added healing. I, obviously, based the Healer Training feature off of the Healer Feat, which is a good feat for non-magical support. I could have simply worded it as 'You gain the Healer Feat' but I don't like this sort of outside reference design. Plus, I added a 'Song of Rest' type fonction where you can boost the effectiveness of an ally's Hit Dice expenditure. I made it cost a healer's kit charge now (unlike the previous version), just because they're too easy to come by and to make the ones you can make more valuable. I granted it Heavy Armor because I envison a Steel Protector as favoring Versatle Weapons, since you need a free hand to use Healer's Training to patch up an ally, and thus would not be using a shield. The extra armor of Heavy Armor compensate for losing the shield. Plus, I figure a Steel Protector would rather be up close to help allies. I also granted it a third attack as a capstone to fit in with the simple mandate so you can just hack away at enemies if you want. It's essentially the 'Fighter-like' subclass. Note that, aside from one part of Healer's Training, this subclass doesn't have any mental stat requirement so you can go with any of the three Precense you prefer without trouble, adding to the whole customizability idea. The subclass is simple but not without variety. Panacea Maker is, I think, a bit off in its wording, but I didn't want the Steel Protector to just spend their time collecting a ton of ingredients and then making a ton of potions. I tried to balance it so you can't make more than 1 Potion a day until much later in level where they're not as good. The real bonus here is making additional Healer's Kit charges when you can't just buy them in a shop. I decided on limiting Protector's Revenge to once per short rest, as it might be too powerful as it is and make a regular Fighter seem pretty lacklustre the way it was previously. It does not, mind you, protect from opportunity attack so if you're in melee with someone else they could punish you for your distraction. [B]White Raven [/B]: Inspired by the Tactical Warlord of old I decided to have this subclass to be the one focused on Shouts and INT modifier. I'm thinking I could make the Bandit Leader more focused on silent signals, something useful to stealthy endeavors? The point of this guy is to maneuver allies around and have them support each other better. Hence why I invented the additional Formation shouts that are focused on allies helping each other. I also thought it would be a cool power for a Warlord to be able to recharge allies' Reactions. It might not be useful all the time but if you got an ally with Sentinel they'll appreciate it a lot. Similarly I added the modification to STRIKE! that allows an ally to attack right away. It gives the feature more versatility (in the hands of the ally, mind you) and makes it useful in some corner cases where using a Reaction doesn't become a problem. Analyze Enemy is basically stolen from the Battlemaster, with a different way to use it (including a rare use of the Alternate Skill Attribute variant, keying Insight off of Intelligence) and a few different element it can tell. I'm not super satisfied with it, I feel like I should have included something less battle centric into this build so the White Raven Tactician has more things to do than be good at combat, but I just couldn't think of something. I do hope the base class helps in that respect. Improved Presence was a no brainer for me. Being able to grant allies further away your INT bonus to initiative and even let them move is pretty great. Note that this still doesn't clash with the idea of using a different Presence, even if it doesn't rely on INT. I made sure not to call out any of the Presence on purpose. Potent Analysis is pretty straight forward, it just makes bonus damage you grant more reliable. If you max out your INT is basically makes all your bonus D8 do their average damage or more. This would probably make the White Raven subclass a Char. Op favorite? Maybe? [/QUOTE]
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