Is there a Command skill

[Random Axe]

Is there a Skill of Command or Leadership (not the Feat) in any of the 3.5 expansions or rulesets? I couldn't find any in the standard SRD and nothing shows up on Google search for a skill description. My current character concept is of a Battle leader that in later levels will be able to command or lead troops on the field to better effect.

 

[Bleys Icefalcon]

Something in one of the various knight/paladin/fighter plethora of prestige classes is rumbling around in my mind... about being a commander or leader. And of course there's the ol' catch all: Charisma!

 

[Dandu]

There may be some expanded skill use in Heroes of Battle relevant to your needs.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Unfortunately, as a skill, it wouldn't give mechanical benefits. It's basically flavor text, so just take the Profession (military officer) skill instead.

For mechanical stuff, you get stuck with a small selection of divergent, mostly quasi-magical classes, which can give bonuses from good (Book of Nine Swords) to moderate to really weak. The majority are in the latter category.

 

[Kessalin Talira]

The Miniatures Handbook introduces the concept of Commander Auras, which are expanded upon in Heroes of Battle. There's also a Legendary Leader prestige class in Heroes of Battle. There's an Orc Warlord prestige class in one of the Forgotten Realms books that expands on the Leadership feat. You can also look at Power of Faerun for more ideas. It expands the Leadership feat in different directions such as running a trading company or other business, gaining influence in a ruler's court, moving up in a temple heirarchy, and being a military commander.

Those rules combined with the Leadership feat are going to be closest to your character concept.

 

[Random Axe]

And of course there's the ol' catch all: Charisma!

Sure there's Charisma, but that's a flat bonus that doesn't increase from level to level. That's why I was hoping for a comparable skill that I could put skill points into at each level. I was hoping there was a standard skill that gave DCs for having your followers accomplish things better or faster or with less pain involved....

 

[Celebrim]

I have a leadership skill in my game. It's not fully play tested at this point, but its been in use in my games for some time. The basic ideas I feel are sound but the difficulties and structure of the tasks could be tweaked. Along with the similar tactics skill, it forms the basis of playing a 'warlord' or 'marshall' type character in my campaign (assuming you invest in feats). A description can be found in a past thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?300015-Playing-like-Celebrim-The-Champion-Class

 

[Dandu]

Sure there's Charisma, but that's a flat bonus that doesn't increase from level to level. That's why I was hoping for a comparable skill that I could put skill points into at each level. I was hoping there was a standard skill that gave DCs for having your followers accomplish things better or faster or with less pain involved....

You can use the Bard class for this.

 

[Random Axe]

I have a leadership skill in my game. It's not fully play tested at this point, but its been in use in my games for some time. The basic ideas I feel are sound but the difficulties and structure of the tasks could be tweaked. Along with the similar tactics skill, it forms the basis of playing a 'warlord' or 'marshall' type character in my campaign (assuming you invest in feats). A description can be found in a past thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?300015-Playing-like-Celebrim-The-Champion-Class

Thanks, that is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I will run that skill description past my DM and make any other tweaks that we need for our game.

 

[Celebrim]

Thanks, that is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I will run that skill description past my DM and make any other tweaks that we need for our game.

Glad you like it and I hope your group finds it useful, though I'm always hesitant to help anyone with rules if they aren't the DM...

I've never written up rules for mass combat in D&D, but if I did it would probably be loosely combine concepts from games like DBM and Battlesystem. The Leadership skill would be intended to influence things like a commander's command radius, the amount of command points he contributed, and the chance of rallying a unit that has failed morale checks. Most mass combat systems will have some sort of corresponding ideas.