D&D 5E My homebrewed Warlord version 7! I'm back at it!

[Undrave]

Instructor: I think this is needlessly complicated, as you already mentioned guidance can do a lot of this already. I would do something simple like "When using the help action for a skill or tool you are proficient with, the person adds +1d4 to the check". And then at 6th level bump it to a 1d6. Nice and clean.

Alright, that sounds like a plan. I thought it would be more flavourful to pick some kind of specialty, the same way a Rogue can pick expertise skills. It says something about your character ya know? But I can totally get behind the benefit of simplifying it that way.

Shouts: I think the mechanics here look solid, we can just trim the wording a bit. Instead of repeating "choose 1 creature within 30 feet" for each shout, mention that before the choices. Something like "Once per turn, when you take the attack action, you can forego one of your attacks and choose a creature with 30 feet. The target gains one of the following benefits...."

I actually considered trimming the wording down, but then I wanted the option of adding shouts that don't work the same way down the line. For exemple, the White Raven Tactician's 'DEFENSIVE FORMATION!' shout targets 2 creatures instead of 1. I decided to repeat myself for the sake of customizability in the future.

Battlefield Reflexes: I like the tightening of this mechanic from the pool before. I do feel like the language here is still a bit clunky with the distances and positions and such, and I think the two options are trying to pointlessly differentiate themselves with the targeting. Instead of two options, I think they can be written as one mechanic, and we can clean up the language. Something like:

"When an ally within 30 feet makes an attack against a target you can see, you can use your reaction to grant the attack advantage, or a damage bonus equal to twice your proficiency modifier"

Again I wanted the option to add uses to this feature so I isolated the uses under their own sub-feature names. And since I'm granting extra reactions to Battlefield Reflexes, I don't need to specify that special reaction abilities can use those extra reactions or not, I can just fold them into Battlefield Reflexes you know? A lot of the wording was designed for future modularity, essentially. In this case though, I think I just end up with only 2 subclasses adding new powers to Battlefield Reflexes.

Do you think the bonus damage is a decent scaling?

Improved Reflexes: The new abilities feel tacked on to me (and feels like a bit of a paladin overlap), and I'm not sure why its needed. You have just DOUBLED the power of your core ability.... literally nothing else is needed here....its great and solid all on its own.

Master's Reflexes: Same as improved reflexes, this is already a solid boost, and I don't think the new abilities are really needed.

Thing is, one of the big issues with martial types is that they lack versatility, and that they don't gain any breadth of ability at later level. I wanted my Warlord to have SOME other things to do beside MOAR Damage, especially as they grew in levels, and I needed it to have some kind of synergy with casters (I can't create a support character that only works properly with like... 5 classes, right?). You can understand why I went with adding new abilities right?

Legendary Presence: Cool ability, and it doesn't need a person cap. Its a simple "All enemies that start within 60 feet of you have disadvantage on dexterity (initiative) checks. Its 18th level, so its perfectly fine that it works on a lot of creatures... its simple yet solid and powerful.

Alright, that's something I can edit in later! Thanks! My biggest issue is that it kinda step on the toes of Analytical Presence.

Warlord Prescence: I still think the temp hp is just flat out better than every other option here.

Yeah, I'm kinda keeping it so the Ardent Soul has a solid source of Temp HP to make use of its ability. And I'm not super in love with Perceptive Presence either. I still like the IDEA that you can commit to one of the three mental abilities before you get your subclass, as a sort of preview... I'm considering scrapping all three and just have the feature be basically Analytical Presence and just give out initiative bonuses, maybe just having you pick which of the three mental stat to base it on. I'd just have to rework the Ardent Soul a little more.

 

[Stalker0]

You can understand why I went with adding new abilities right?

Yes but I personally feel that this is where your subclasses can fill in, and why I haven't commented on the subclasses until you get the main class to its best place. It comes down to.... what should EVERY SINGLE warlord posses..... and then every other warlord exemplar can be done through subclass abilities.

I think it gives you space to spread out abilities more. At 7th level you introduce a very solid powerup, I don't think anyone would consider that not enough. Then maybe your subclass adds some more to this at 9th. We also should consider that any abilities introduced before 7th level get some more flexibility. I can use the same ability twice, I can use two different abilities in the same round (some of which may be provided by subclasses), which may create some interesting synergies and combos.

So if you want to more abilities fine, I just think you can spread them out across levels a bit more and consider subclass inclusion. Though I'll stand by my original feedback that the abilities present seem.... odd.

 

[Undrave]

Yes but I personally feel that this is where your subclasses can fill in, and why I haven't commented on the subclasses until you get the main class to its best place. It comes down to.... what should EVERY SINGLE warlord posses..... and then every other warlord exemplar can be done through subclass abilities.

I think it gives you space to spread out abilities more. At 7th level you introduce a very solid powerup, I don't think anyone would consider that not enough. Then maybe your subclass adds some more to this at 9th. We also should consider that any abilities introduced before 7th level get some more flexibility. I can use the same ability twice, I can use two different abilities in the same round (some of which may be provided by subclasses), which may create some interesting synergies and combos.

So if you want to more abilities fine, I just think you can spread them out across levels a bit more and consider subclass inclusion. Though I'll stand by my original feedback that the abilities present seem.... odd.

Ah I see what you mean. Yeah that's something I could do... I would need to rework some of my subclasses because some of them don't have any Battlefield Reflexes used at the moment but I don't think it would be that hard.

Do you think the abilities I have right now, spread out to subclasses would feel less odd, as you put it?

 

[Stalker0]

Do you think the abilities I have right now, spread out to subclasses would feel less odd, as you put it?

For example I think the concentration one is very strange as a base, but if you had some kind of magic or anti magic themed warlord, then it might make sense….so the flavor of the subclass will help to determine if the ability is appropriate.

 

[Undrave]

For example I think the concentration one is very strange as a base, but if you had some kind of magic or anti magic themed warlord, then it might make sense….so the flavor of the subclass will help to determine if the ability is appropriate.

I do have one that could work...

 

[Undrave]

For example I think the concentration one is very strange as a base, but if you had some kind of magic or anti magic themed warlord, then it might make sense….so the flavor of the subclass will help to determine if the ability is appropriate.

So I've looked at my subclasses and one issue I have is fitting those new abilities at a reasonable pace.

I'm using the Rogue framework so subclass features come in at 3rd, 9th, 13th and 17th level. The 3rd level one have to do a lot of heavy lifting since they carry the tradition from 3rd to 9th and if the theme I'm going for doesn't have room for a Battlefield Reflexes ability then there is no room until 13th level. 9th level is a non combat ability. As is 6th level if I wanted to sacrifice a main class feature.

So I feel like I should have at least 1 new thing you can do at 7th if your subclass doesn't include ay new uses of Reflexes, and for symetry's sake at 11th as well. I'm thinking of keeping the ones that let you improve someone's saving throw as the generic ones. What do you think?

 

[Garthanos]

I'm thinking of keeping the ones that let you improve someone's saving throw as the generic ones. What do you think?

I definitely think warlords should be boosting saving throws without being a specialist .. maybe a specialist does it better. For instance being able to induce a save where the ally moves out of an area of effect and has no effect at all on a success.

 

[Garthanos]

I went for the d10 because the Ranger also has d10s and I figured that the Warlord would be more likely to invest in their mental stat before their CON, so I wanted to counter that a little. Even with the same dice I don't expect a Warlord to have the same HP as a Fighter. And they don't get heavy armor as a default.

I agree, Con is more valuable for hit points as you advance in 5e AND you cannot rely in strength to help out with defenses like fortitude as you could in 4e (Str saves being relatively rarer). So having class abilities to draw character design away from enhancing con is indeed more significant too.

 

[ericstephen]

I think I'm going to homebrew your homebrew into the Tactician (I think it's cool if 'warlord' keeps it's standard meaning) in a campaign I'm starting soon. For my use in a new campaign, I only need to solidify the first few levels as of right now. I wouldn't share broadly of course as it is all from your ideas, but if I come up with something I'm going to use, would you like me to DM you a copy of my version?

 

[Garthanos]

Mike Mearls in his Warlord design included this ability which I do not quite think I have seen anyone doing a homebrew emulate. If it was used in combination with flanking rules this is pretty cool. It uses the Warlords movement.

Tactical Maneuvers​

At 15th level, you can provide leadership that allows your allies to move in perfect harmony. In place of moving, you can instead allow up to three allies who can see or hear you to move up to half their speed. The chosen allies must be capable of taking actions in order to move in this manner.