D&D 5E Reviews of Warlordish options - Starting with the Noble

[jodyjohnson]

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.

 

[jodyjohnson]

5MWD Presents: Maneuvers & Commander – David Gibson (Jester Canuck)
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/174898/5MWD-Presents-Maneuvers--Commander?term=maneuvers

This document runs 6 pages with 2 being cover and credits and the last an advertisement. The maneuvers occupy 1 ½ pages with standard book print and 1 page for the Commander archetype.

The 27 maneuvers are sometimes too specific which makes them less appealing picks early when there are limited slots. However, in the late game when 9 or even 11 maneuvers (with Martial Adept) might be known these are welcome additions to the stock Maneuvers in the PHB.

Typically the most appealing maneuvers are those which add attacks through reactions (Riposte) or bonus actions or help them hit (Precision Attack).

The standout action economy modifying maneuvers are Backswing Attack (extra attack with bonus action when you miss), Grabbing Attack (no action grab with a free hand), and Knight’s Gambit (grant advantage but get Reaction attack).

The rest of the Maneuvers are situational so they depend on what you want to accomplish on a regular basis. Many assist with checks or saves and fill in some support abilities.

The two maneuvers which seemed weird are Redirect Charge and Superior Initiative. Superior Initiative I’m not sure what it is supposed to do over any of the ‘add damage’ maneuvers. As written it is a situationally ‘add damage’ maneuver but there are many broader maneuvers with better riders.

Redirect Charge forces a creature moving towards you to go an extra 10 or 15 feet (not sure which). I get the idea but don’t buy the loss of control. Seems like you just run them out of movement and leave them with a lost action situationally. More likely players will interpret this as drawing a bunch of Opportunity attacks. I could skip this one.

All these maneuvers serve to set up the Commander archetype, a more ‘Warlordy’ Battle Master.

As a fighter archetype is set on all the normal Fighter stuff. The subclass adds an alternate usage for Action Surge while building very much on the Battle Master. Essentially I’m going to compare the Battle Master and Commander directly since the modification is obvious.

Combat Superiority is potentially identical although the Commander forces 2 of the starting Maneuvers and half the next 4 choices into the Command Maneuver list. The Command maneuver list has the 3 main ‘Warlord’ maneuvers (Commanding Strike, Maneuvering Attack, and Rally) plus adds the new ones with a support bent. This leaves 1 at the beginning and 3 more later for non-‘Warlordy’ maneuvers. My first inclination would be to take Knight’s Gambit, one of the support maneuvers, and then Backswing Attack to cover a Reaction attack, and a bonus action attack. Superior Assistance gives a nice out of combat use for the Superiority dice.

Also at 3rd, the Commander gets Share Surge which adds an alternate use for Action Surge. It is probably going to go to more attacks by the Fighter (because of Extra Attack) but in the right situation it is a nice option.

In a comparison between Battle Master and Commander at this point I’d give the nod to Commander since the Share Surge feature beats a tool proficiency.

Unless you are pretty town focused I think the level 7 feature for Commander is more combat friendly than Know Your Enemy. +1 to +3 for everyone’s initiative will add up.

At 10th instead of getting bigger dice, the Commander gets a flat bonus. This makes the Superiority dice more reliable as the minimum is a couple points higher. Decreasing the amount of wasted dice. The Battle Master gets a higher maximum but personally I’d go with raising the floor on the dice.

Evaluate Situation is think is also strictly better than Relentless as you can run yourself out and get that +1 right away rather than waiting for the next fight. It still can refresh in the next fight so it effectively gives you an extra die in the first fight after a short rest and any others before the next short rest.

Since 10th granted a bonus instead of a bigger die size, at 18th the floor is raised again. With the minimum die roll equal to the Int modifier. This one requires more sacrifice to use since the only other use the Commander has for Int is the Warning Cry damage mitigation ability. Odds are you’d have to take a hit somewhere else to use this unless you pull a Headband of Intellect in the magic item lottery.

Overall, the Commander looks like a better Battle Master and would probably replace the Battle Master in play unless a player really hated having maneuver choices restricted.

Since it riffs so heavily off Battle Master I think it would be fine since the Battle Master is fine even if it replaces it for many players.

With regards to the classic board bugaboos:
1. Ranged inspirational healing from unconscious – no. One option for damage mitigation at range.
2. Background as a class – no.
3. I’m in charge here – same as Battle Master. Generally commanding and inspiring with those commands.
4. Healing by spending Hit Dice – no. No hit point recovery, temp hit points only.
5. Full action granting – no. Share surge has limited Attack, cast cantrip, Dash, or Dodge.
6. At-will attack granting – no. Commanding Strike remains main attack granting maneuver.
For some these are features and for others failures.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Warlord - Martial Archetype by Boltnine Homebrew
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/170957/Warlord--Martial-Archetype

This is a simple slightly less than a page Fighter subclass. For comparison it feels like the same amount of content it takes to present the Champion fighter. 5 Abilities at 3rd, 7th, 10th, 15th, and 18th.

A melee focused fighter with a use for high Charisma.

Like the Champion, the bread and butter of this archetype is the 3rd level ability. While the Champion doubles the chance for a Critical, this Warlord almost doubles everyone else's ability to critical with easy melee advantage - Wolf-Pack Tactics. Or just "Pack Tactics" for allies adjacent to your adjacent foes.

Hard to evaluate this ability across the board because it is really dependent on who it is helping. But as the design usually balances toward the best-case scenario this is really powerful. No save, no cost, no limit on allies helped. Worst case is classic 4 man party with the Warlord tanking and no one getting advantage.

Level 7 is usually slated for a non-combat ability, here the Charisma aspect shows up with Expertise in two charisma skills, stealing the Purple Dragon Knight's thunder (they only get one). The trade off being you need to already have them because you don't get them free.

At level 10, you get an at-will defensive ability to give enemies disadvantage on an attack. Pretty straightforward but something that might be more at home with a lower hp, lower armor class character.

The 15th level ability is an at-will fear effect with a bonus action. If the level 3 ability grants easy advantage, frightened is disadvantage by attacks from an enemy. Considering that the Warlord is touted as a tactical class, this is the first ability that requires any tactics or coordination beyond "run up and hit it". Since the Frightened condition breaks on damage the group needs more planning on which targets to leave frightened and which to kill.

If you were wondering if this class can restore hit points at 18th your query is answered as the Warlord can grant hit dice recovery once per short rest. The ability is a mass heal, but only targets allies who are at zero hit points. With the high defense of the Warlord this is a 'save from tpk' ability. However, that's a long time to wait to do any hit point restoration.

For a class that is tactical like the Warlord, this archetype offers very few choices or weighted options. The most tactical decision doesn't show up until 15th, and amounts to "don't hit the frightened guy" - made by your allies. Both the Battle Master and Purple Dragon Knight are more Warlordy, the entire Warlord moniker hangs on "Wolf-Pack Tactics" which with its always on nature undercuts any tactical intentions.

With regards to the classic board bugaboos:
1. Ranged inspirational healing from unconscious – yes. But not until 18th. Once per short rest.
2. Background as a class – no.
3. I’m in charge here – not much to speak of.
4. Healing by spending Hit Dice – yes. Not until 18th.
5. Full action granting – no. No action granting at all - movement, attack, checks or save.
6. At-will attack granting – no. But does have at-will advantage granting.

For some these are features and for others failures.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Fighter Archetype - Warlord by Juan Marcano
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/171718/Fighter-Archetype--Warlord

This 3 page document has 1 page of title and 1 1/2 pages of Warlord with the majority being the battlecries.

This Fighter goes big with Charisma. Every ability is tied into Charisma. Which will lead into some MAD because the base Fighter has no use for Charisma.

Like most Fighter archetypes, the level 3 ability is the cornerstone. Your charisma bonus grants you uses of 10 abilities (you know them all) which recharge on a short rest. They are reminiscent of the battle master superiority dice but you need an 18 Charisma to match the starting uses a BM gets.

So you have a small number of uses per short rest of a full list of powers that apply at almost any time. The feel is very Warlordy but IMO it's too much. The player would have to constantly be making decisions on whether to use it or not. Trying to juggle 10 complicated options would get tiresome. Probably should have started with a subset that expanded slowly.

The battlecries themselves use contested checks heavily. 8 of 10 involve making contested checks or checks against a DC - many of them have another roll to make after that. Very fiddly as the check used changes with nearly every battlecry (actually there are 4 different checks all using Proficiency+Charisma: vs. Spell DC, vs. Attack Roll, vs. Wisdom check, vs. Constitution check). The abilities themselves are pretty complicated compared to the Battle Master.

BM Superiority dice are pretty reliable. The battlecries only have 2 that just happen, the rest are gated behind checks some of much should be 50/50 (Caster stat/prof vs. Charisma/prof). They should be rewritten in the Battle Master form if the ability is good enough to require a die roll.

The other 3rd level ability is a ribbon with advantage on charisma checks with soldiers.

"Healing" shows up at 7th in the Exploration/Interaction slot. It's Hit Dice temp healing. You have a limited use ability that uses your real healing resource to grant temporary hit points which expire in 5 minutes. I could see a lot of players saying, "no thanks, I'm good." to an offer of this style of hit point non-recovery.

This Warlord archetype waits until 10th to one-up the PDK's shtick. Double proficiency on Persuasion and Intimidate. Plus all those contested rolls in Battlecries you get to roll with advantage.

At 15th you grant more temporary hit points with the real recovery to temp recovery swap and can do it an additional time per day.

In case you weren't sure if you were supposed to be pumping Charisma, you get +4 Charisma at 18th and your cap is raised to 24. You also get a reliable damage boost equal to your Charisma bonus once per action.

Considering how much of the Fighter's power is in the base class any fighter archetype could have almost nothing and still come out OK. The Battlecries are similar enough to Maneuvers that they could be rewritten in a more user-friendly style. The second focus is Charisma skills. So at this point we're looking at a PDK/Battle Master combo. The Healing is very hard to use without wasting HD. The best option would be to use only for emergencies or use it pre-emptively for character that normally don't need all their Dice.

Ultimately this feels like a Battle Master redo with Shouts instead of Superiority Dice and a irrational need to make everything more complicated. Instead of the BM ribbons it yanks the PDK's social expertise. Basically narrows the Warlord down to a Charisma build fighter with unreliable maneuvers.

Aside: what's up with the Diplomancer builds? Did people miss the "DM calls for checks when the outcome is uncertain" memo? The default is to not base the game world reality on die rolls.

With regards to the classic board bugaboos:
1. Ranged inspirational healing from unconscious – no.
2. Background as a class – yes. Pretty strongly implies Soldier or Officer.
3. I’m in charge here – yes. Almost everything exudes "I'm in charge" and be inspired.
4. Healing by spending Hit Dice – yes. But even worse since it is Temporary Hit Points.
5. Full action granting – no.
6. At-will attack granting – no.

 

[jodyjohnson]

The Magnate – Front and Center by eftexar (Carl Haggerty)
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/171777/the-Magnate--Front-and-Center

This is a 12 page document with a page title and 10 ½ pages of Class abilities. 5 ½ pages to the main features and then 5 pages of Tactics.

A couple things to note, although there is a picture on the DMs Guild listing the document has no art. It is also dark text on a dark background. I copy/pasted the entire text to another doc just to read it.

On to the class itself. This is a full progression class that describes itself as a “a commander among commanders”. The key abilities noted are Intelligence and Charisma. So much so that the multiclassing requirement is listed as 16 Intelligence and Charisma. Plus it requires Martial weapon proficiency. So no dipping here.

The multiple attribute dependence is notable already, then we get to the Armor proficiencies – light and shields. They do receive all weapons and get a d8 Hit Die.
The saving throw selection is also against the grain, the Magnate gets proficiency in 2 secondary saves (Int and Charisma). For skills they get a selection of any 4. If I hadn’t read the intro text I’d think this was a Factotum for 5th edition.

At level 1, the Magnate gets proficiency with Unarmed Strikes. Pre-errata the Simple Weapon proficiency granted this, and post PHB errata everyone is proficient. This is a long document, and if I were feeling lazy I’d quit right here. No primary save, serious MAD, extra skills, and multi-classing prereqs that say, “no multiclassing”.

So back to Level 1: Class features – Inspire, Tactician, War Jargon, and Extra Reactions.

There is no description of Inspire. …

Tactician includes the mentioned Unarmed Strike proficiency and also includes the ability to use Tactics starting with 2 known. There are 31 total with the better ones having level and other tactics prereqs. 9 are available at 1st, 10 more at 6th, 10 more at 12th, and the last 2 at 18th. You have 8 total. Based on the chart you have 3/2/2/1 if you always max your Tactics.
So of the 9 starter Tactics, 2 – Trip and Disarm anyone can do, the others are more useful. The parry as a Reaction seems pretty useful. Especially since you get 2 Reactions at level 1 and up to 4 at 19th. Also notable is the ability to attack as a Dexterity save and cause a bleeding wound, and if it fails you still get to attack normally (against AC). One of the options grants Temporary Hit Points as an action at range with the limitation of once per rest, and they expire after combat. Another does +1d6 thunder damage with an unarmed strike at-will with damage on a miss. Basically these read like feat chains from 3rd edition and their power level is varied. Take a Tactic at 1st, and then chain it up to 12th. For example, the Bleed attack chains into a bigger bleed plus Poisoned attack. This chains into forcing Death saves at 12th. Or Cleave chains into Great and then Grandmaster’s Cleave.
The class doesn’t get extra attacks directly but you basically get them on the Reaction side. So at 1st you have 1 extra, with 3 extra at 19th. So any Opportunity Attack strategy or Reaction attack strategy would feed this. Polearm mastery comes to mind (although you are limited to one per creature per round). Within the tactics Great Cleave and Riposte use Reactions as well as the Trip chain.

There are a few attack strategies that come to mind as I work through these but they all seem to have some serious flaws. The parry and disarm chains only work against Weapon attacks not creature attacks. The cleave chain is very situational. The unarmed striking chains are limited by not allowing Dexterity to hit and damage – plus limited attacks. The bleeding poisonous death attack chain sounds pretty serious but is too slow to matter for a bunch of extra messing around (the target at 12th is taking 3/round bleed, is poisoned, and needs to make Death saves and dies at 3 failed).
Plus you speak War Jargon ("Whatcha talkin' 'bout Willis?")) – which lets you talk to your friends without your enemy knowing what you are saying if your allies make a check. Otherwise they don't know what you're talking about either.

So anyway, on to level 2.
Help, Use an Object, and Stabilize as a Bonus action. At 7th the Magnate is so fast she can stabilize everyone within 5 feet as an action. Help as a bonus action is pretty straightforward.
At 3rd you get your subclasses – the Akashic (the lore master, skill monkey, and mind reader), the Magister – Eldritch Knight (Abjuration and Illusion), and the War Lord/Warmain (d10 Hit Die and flexible feats).

ASI progression is pretty normal (4,8,12,16,20). Although the War Lord can get 3 more at 9,14,19 (which can be swapped out on a long rest).
At 5th The magnate starts getting bonus skill proficiencies up to 4.
At 6th the Magnate can grant an attack or movement on a per day recharge (increasing at higher levels up to 3).
Two more major abilities come above 10th, if someone takes an action you get to whack them, and proficiency in Wisdom saves.

The Magnate feels like a Factotum (skills and flexibility), combined with a single striking dexterity-based class (or alternately a bad monk), with a few Warlordy abilities sprinkled in. The bonus reactions look like a large benefit but I think in play they’d need to be used for Parry to make up for the lower Armor Class.

With regards to the classic board bugaboos:
1. Ranged inspirational healing from unconscious – not sure, it seems like a 6th level tactic combined with the Healer feat could kit heal at range. Otherwise one Tactic grants ranged Temporary Hit Points that expire.
2. Background as a class – no.
3. I’m in charge here – yes and no. The intro implies Commanding but there isn’t much Commanding going on. Mostly the Magnate can do lots of stuff herself.
4. Healing by spending Hit Dice – no. Temporary Hit Points as a Tactic.
5. Full action granting – no.
6. At-will attack granting – no. Up to 3 limit actions granted per day.

To review the healing, there is a “Healing chain”. At 1st it's a once per short rest THP granting using an action. But they expire at the end of combat (there’s a lot of imprecision in the text). Best case interpretation, everyone starts with the effect of Inspiring Leadership, worst case, you’d need to use all your actions in an encounter trying to get it out there.

 

[TwoSix]

While I hate to jump in the middle of your reviews (and if it's a problem I'll delete the post), but this is a great thread. I especially like the summary of "class bugaboos" at the bottom, and it helps point me towards classes I may be interested in.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Martial Adept by Kittenhugs (Rick Johnson - no relation)
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/170934/Martial-Adept-Class

This 11 page document has 1 title page and just over 9 pages of Martial Adept. The layout is excellent and with 3 illustrations it could have been lifted directly from a WotC character book. (it isn’t I checked the Tome of Battle).

This isn’t precisely a Warlord class but it does have some Warlordy abilities.
The full class with 3 subclasses is a port of the Tome of Battle classes – the crusader, the Swordsage, and the Warblade under a single class. The original classes become Martial Disciplines as the archetypes.

The 5th edition version seems to be patterned off the Paladin – it’s a daily resource combat class. The adept points per day match up with the Paladin spell table. 2 points for 1st, 3 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd, etc as laid out in the DMG under spell point casting.

The class itself has d8 Hit Dice, all weapons, and all armors. The saves are Wis and Str with 2 skills. Out of the gate it is down a Hit Die size from the Fighter and Paladin. Probably just playing it safe because it compares well to the Paladin.

It starts with one school of 9 which just gets you a Stance until you have Adept points at 2nd (when Paladin’s also get spells). Eventually the class gains up to 4 schools and their accompanying stances and the maneuvers that come with it. The schools that are Warlordy are Devoted Spirit (grant hit points) and White Raven (some of the Warlord power names came from here). You maintain the stances with concentration.

There are 5 to 8 maneuvers per school divided over effectively 5 spell levels with a few scaling. The 5th level maneuvers (7 point) reset your adept point maximum to 6 until you do a long rest so they effectively become daily maneuvers. So you can’t just spam your best power. The only action granting is from the War Master’s Charge – which is brutal (everyone can run up and attack once with their Reaction) available at 17th. Like a martial Meteor Storm.

At 3rd the Martial Adept gets the Martial Discipline. The Crusader runs off a delayed damage pool where which you can buy down with adept points and treat as a damage bonus to one attack per round. At 15th you can flip it and actually heal instead of taking damage at the end of your turn (once per short rest). The bonus is your level plus Wisdom bonus so the more you take, the more you can do.

The Swordsage gets Wizard cantrips and Mage Armor with Wisdom instead of Dex. A couple more spells at 7th, a teleport at 7th, and a Reaction cantrip attack at 15th. Definitely the utility subclass. The Warblade gets a Fighting style, the ability to save Adept points from one school (which can be changed), a weird “I defeated you, so you are my friend” ability and access to 2 schools at the same time. As I’ve suggested that there should be some alternate outcomes for defeating creatures at 0, I can actually buy this in the right circumstances.

The class uses the safe default ASI progression of 4/8/12/16/19. At 5th it gets Extra Attack like the other combat classes. At 10th it gains automatic success on Concentration checks which should be a welcome relief after 9 levels of dropping stance because of damage and failed Con saves. At 14th you start regaining adept points on a short rest and at 20th can have 2 stances running at the same time.

The Schools take up the last 5 or so pages and present a 5th edition version of the 9 schools. The maneuvers are pretty varied with a few substituting for the Paladin’s smites.

The class is well developed and covers a lot of melee fighter ground. In a campaign I could see this replacing the Battle Master’s niche as the tactical fighter and having the nova potential that is normally limited to the Paladin (also a melee fighter). The Battle Master does the Bravura Warlord better since the Martial Adept lacks many of the standard Warlord traits. As a potential Warlord, it doesn’t cut it but then it wasn’t trying. This would be a great answer for a player with Paladin-envy that really wanted to be a ‘less-magical’ fighter.

This probably shouldn’t be on the ‘Warlord’ list but since it competes with the Battle Master/Paladin it could if you feel the Purple Dragon Knight is a Warlord replacement. Power wise I think it is pretty close to the Paladin which may seem overpowered or fine depending on your encounter balance. I’d probably peg this as powered by Ki, but as written it is called Blade Magic.

With regards to the classic board bugaboos:
1. Ranged inspirational healing from unconscious – no. Ranged Sword magic healing from unconscious when hitting.
2. Background as a class – no. More of a Monk-like feel.
3. I’m in charge here – barely, and only for some schools.
4. Healing by spending Hit Dice – no. Only heals self or others on doing damage – one school.
5. Full action granting – not until 17th – one school.
6. At-will attack granting – no.

If I had players complaining about Fighter options I would add this and Jester Canuck's doc (maneuvers & Commander) to the accepted list. Normally my preference would be to knock Paladin down a peg because the Fighter isn't the only combat class that can have Paladin envy.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm noticing a paucity of classes that grant attacks at-will, which is one of the main features I really want in a warlord. Guess I'm in the minority in that desire, sadly. Or the balance issues are more than most people care to deal with.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm noticing a paucity of classes that grant attacks at-will, which is one of the main features I really want in a warlord. Guess I'm in the minority in that desire, sadly. Or the balance issues are more than most people care to deal with.

It was a notable signature of certain builds, as were other sorts of action grants and more limited/powerful attack grants. Balance shouldn't be an issue, either (it's not a high priority in 5e design to begin with), it just needs to be mapped to 5e's more dramatic and less consistent damage scaling.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Although I'm hesitant to review my own offering I think I can answer the bugaboo's without being overly biased.
Jolydee's Obvious Arcana - the Marshal by Jody Lee Johnson (myself)
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/176929/JoLydees-Obvious-Arcana

34 pages document - 3 pages Cover and Table of Contents, 4 pages of quiz, 7 pages of Marshal and the rest is alternate rules related to combat, hit points, and NPCs (20 pages).

1. Ranged inspirational healing from unconscious – no. Inspirational healing- yes, kit healing - yes, both from unconscious.
Specifically though this depends on a DM call whether the target can spend Hit Dice while "unconscious".
I think Rejuvenation has more leeway to 'inspirational' heal from unconscious since the Marshal is spending their own Hit Dice.

2. Background as a class – no. Although military training is implied, it is not required - the abilities can come naturally.

3. I’m in charge here – maybe. The Banneret implies more command rank, as can the Chevalier. The Chevalier and Beast Handler are completely in charge of their beasts.

4. Healing by spending Hit Dice – yes. I consider this one of the tactical options as Hit Dice need to be rationed and the choice to blow them early will have consequences later. It can also be used to speed up the process where if only 1 or 2 party members need hit point recovery, they can spend the HD they would have spent anyway (plus some bonus HP) but the group can move on without having to actually do the hour of downtime.

5. Full action granting – no with a provision. Both the Chevalier and Beast Handler have Beasts that get movement and the Marshal can trade them his action.

6. At-will attack granting – check. Both the Chevalier and Beast Handler get at-will attack granting at 7th for their beasts. One of the optional encouragements available to all grants a "basic" attack at-will from 2nd (Opportunistic Strike). No extra dice or abilities beyond Weapon dice and Ability bonus to damage.

I haven't been including the power source debate in the other reviews although I tried to mention it when there was one. I decided to use Ki or "living energy" as a compromise for a semi-magical power source and then implied that all the martial classes used it to explain their abilities that everyone can't just do. Which is really just fluff because if you don't think your fighter or rogue uses undefined Ki then the Marshal doesn't need to either.