D&D 5E Version 6 of my Homebrewed Warlord class!

[Undrave]

Yes, it's that time again! I've furthered tweaked my Warlord class. You can find version 6 here: The Warlord V6 - The Homebrewery

Note that the Homebrewery works best when displayed on Chrome and Firefox.

I tried to simplify the progression of Insight Dice a little more by just adding a column to the Warlord class table that tells you how many Insight Dice you add to your pool when using the Attack action at various levels. I don't know if its simpler or not that way but I'm hoping it at least makes it less wordy? It's slightly better than before too, but not by much.

So, this time around, I've finally relented and took out the MAD aspect of the class by removing CHA/INT/WIS from the Shout class feature. I kept them in the Warlord Presence and Subclass, but I also weakened the Presence by only keeping the on initiative effects. I think @Stalker0 and @Tinker-TDC (and @Asisreo even) might appreciate it.

Renamed 'Expose Weakness' into 'Insightful Aid' and made it, by default, let you Help at 30 feet. I did keep the Expose Weakness aspect at 15 feet, however, for both thematic reason and to promote the Warlord moving around more. I cut the one weakness that reduced damage because it felt really wonky compared to the others. I know Stalker wanted me to lower the cost for Expose Weakness but I kept it in for now. I've also made a few tweaks to the various weaknesses so they're simpler, even if it made them a little strong. I I like my model of effect the target can end by wasting an action. It's easy to get rid of for them but it still helps lower their efficiency in battle.

I'm frankly wondering if I should just cut the entire 'expose weakness' aspect, keep the simple Help at 30 feet aspect and then find some more Battlefield Insight uses for level 7 instead? Just to better promote the Warlord's relationship with reactions?

Speaking of reactions, I've made the extra reaction the big upgrade of level 11 (alongside a buff to the number of d6 your attack adds to your pool) and baked in a further extra one at level 15. If I were to refocus more of the design space on reactions that might come in earlier?

I moved Booming Voice to 14, but I included a buff to the reach of your Shouts as an extra feature of it so it's more than just a ribbon. Did cut the Intimidate expertise but it didn't seem to fit as much.

I replaced the 18th level feature with Legendary Presence. Originally, only the White Raven Tactician could expand the reach of their Presence but I decided to hand it out to the main class as an epic feature. It also includes a major debuff to enemy Initiative. I don't know if this one just comes on too late in the progression? I frankly had no idea what to slap on that level. Maybe it doesn't matter?

When it comes to the subclass I didn't change much from last time. A few tightening of wording, adding more words to other (mostly for the sake of column breaks, the column break function isn't great on Homebrewery), changing a few boring 'Bonus Proficiency' to more evocative names.

I did give the Ballistarius the Archery Fighting style, since it's meant to be a ranged combatant and simply gaining weapon prof. was boring. I also powered down Squadmaster from 2 additional target to just 1.

The Rabble Rouser lost the Shout buffs to their Ambusher Presences and I reworded them a little. I'm not sure if Surmounting Presence is that great however.

White Raven Tactician got a buff to their own fighting prowess at 13th level in exchange for stealing their Presence expansion buff. I gave them Analytical Warrior, which adds half their INT mod to attack rolls and damage rolls. Full INT mod to either felt too strong, but half mod to just one felt too weak, so I split the difference.

Thanks to @Quartz and @Disgruntled Hobbit for their comment last time. I'm also hoping @FrogReaver will take a look and have some comment of his own.

I'm still not 100% certain of this version. I feel like I still got a lot of fiddliness to cut down on, but at this point I'm not sure what elements to better focus on and which ones to jettison. I also don't know how broken or weak my subclasses are at this point (I'm also open to suggestions for more subclasses!). I know it's more complicated than a lot of warriors types, but it's kind of the point. Does this sound like a class that would be interesting to play both in and out of combat? Does it have sufficiently interesting things to do out of combat? Are its ability impactful enough considering their at-will aspects? Can it play nice well enough with Spellcasters or are its abilities just good with Martial types? Or is it simply busted, a Power Gamer's dream and a staple in all optimized parties?

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to comment and I hope I'm not annoying you all with this process of mine.

 

[Tinker-TDC]

I do love the change to level 11 but now it's looking like that change has made the capstone worse. In fact, "You no longer need to expend your Reaction to put your Battlefield Insight to use and you can do so once per turn." may need to be reworded just to make it clear that you can still use it more than once per turn now that you have multiple reactions. That's the only thing I've found so far, but I'll keep looking.

 

[Stalker0]

Yes, it's that time again! I've furthered tweaked my Warlord class. You can find version 6 here: The Warlord V6 - The Homebrewery

Generally, there is just a lot of "wordiness" that can be trimmed down. You start each section with flavor text which is fine, but you then continue to inject flavor text throughout, which breaks things up in an annoying way.

A little flavor is fine, but then just lay out the crunch. And please use paragraph breaks when you do so. Student of banners is a great example, the fluff paragraph should be seperate from the crunch one.

Insightful Aid: I think I know what your going for here, but the language needs work. Something as simple as:

Insightful Aid: When using the Help action on attacks, the creature can be up to 30 feet away.

Also I'm going back to that mix up of ranges again. Why allow help 30 feet away but your weaknesses only 15 feet away....seems too fiddly.


Warlord Presence: I think the temp HP one is the best by a good margin, level based scaling is really good....and it can last past the fight whereas the others are run and done.

Advanced Signals: Dirt in the Eye might actually be too good. Blinded something for a fight is pretty darn strong, and if you remove their action that is a huge action economy win.

Master's Insight: This seems weirdly worded. I feel like simply saying "battlefield insight does not take a reaction, but can only be used once per round. At 15th level you can use it twice a round".....is cleaner and as far as I can see....does the same thing.

Booming Voice: I think you have plenty here, you just keep piling on a bit more than you need. There is a good mix of fluff and crunch. I would go with a simple:

• Heard twice the normal distance
• All abilities go from 30 feet to 60
• Prof in Intimidate

That's totally solid.

 

[aco175]

Things appear pretty good, but I had a couple questions to see if I'm missing anything.

Battlefield Insight: This takes no action to use and you can grant an ally +d6 damage up to the max I have and I get another d6 each time I attack and it recharges each fight. It also appears to go up each time I attack and not just once per turn.
It feels rather powerful. It is a prime feature, so maybe it is fine.

Shouts: I like these. 1/turn I can give up one of my attacks to have an ally do something. It makes sense to have an ally use the Strike ability. I would see this being use a lot at level 5 to give the fighter with the large weapon 3 attacks. I do not see it needing the boost of +damage equal to my proficiency bonus.

Insightful Aid: I do not see how often the 3 things I can do to a monster being used. Maybe a boss monster I would want to not use reactions, but I think that things like legendary actions are not considered reactions.

Warlord Presence: It looks rather powerful to have the ability to give all your allies +INT bonus to initiative. May be most warlords have only +1 to INT but maybe not. Or I can give all my allies +temp HP equal to level +CHA bonus. The advantage on first attack is fine regardless of how many. All these things do not use any type of action. I may make it so only one ally can do these and then add more at higher levels.

I did not look at the rest of the types.

 

[Undrave]

I do love the change to level 11 but now it's looking like that change has made the capstone worse. In fact, "You no longer need to expend your Reaction to put your Battlefield Insight to use and you can do so once per turn." may need to be reworded just to make it clear that you can still use it more than once per turn now that you have multiple reactions. That's the only thing I've found so far, but I'll keep looking.

It's once per a creature's turn, but any number of times per round.

Generally, there is just a lot of "wordiness" that can be trimmed down. You start each section with flavor text which is fine, but you then continue to inject flavor text throughout, which breaks things up in an annoying way.

Yeah a lot of the excess wordyness is annoying me too. It's mostly because of the Homebrewery not having a 'stay with next' function that I can find. I keep having lone headers (sometimes without the 'Xth level Warlord Feature' bit) just floating at the end of a column and I'm trying to control my text better. Ideally I'd go and write it down in Word instead, so I have better control of the text flow. I'll work on it, don't worry.

Warlord Presence: I think the temp HP one is the best by a good margin, level based scaling is really good....and it can last past the fight whereas the others are run and done.

Hm... I could make them dissapear on a short rest? Would that help? I want to balance the scaling so the temp HP don't feel too forgetable as you grow in level.

The Shepherd Druid's Bear Totem grants 5+Druid Level temp HP, but it's once per short rest (but those temp HP stay until a long rest like normal temp HP). At level 2, the Druid grants 7 temp HP, and an Inspiring Warlord with +2 CHA only grants 4 temp HP, but if they have a second fight before a short rest it goes up to 8 temp HP. Maybe 10 if they invested enough to have +3 in CHA (probably a the cost of a lower attacking stat). I should probably, at least, specify 'Warlord Level' and not character level.

Also I'm going back to that mix up of ranges again. Why allow help 30 feet away but your weaknesses only 15 feet away....seems too fiddly.

Well, the weakness thing still keeps the Advantage granted by the Help action, so I felt like it was sort of a trade off thing? you either expose a weakness or help at a greater range. I originally had the Expose Weakness bit only being 5 feet away and threw in the 1 at the last second.

Advanced Signals: Dirt in the Eye might actually be too good. Blinded something for a fight is pretty darn strong, and if you remove their action that is a huge action economy win.

I could make it a bonus action?

Master's Insight: This seems weirdly worded. I feel like simply saying "battlefield insight does not take a reaction, but can only be used once per round. At 15th level you can use it twice a round".....is cleaner and as far as I can see....does the same thing.

Nah, because you can still use your normal reaction to use Battlefield Insight. It's so you can use it twice per round if you want (or once and an OA).

Booming Voice: I think you have plenty here, you just keep piling on a bit more than you need. There is a good mix of fluff and crunch. I would go with a simple:

• Heard twice the normal distance
• All abilities go from 30 feet to 60
• Prof in Intimidate

That's totally solid.

Do I keep the bit about being heard over loud situations? I'll cut the bonus to sway crowds, it does feel a bit extraneous.

Battlefield Insight: This takes no action to use and you can grant an ally +d6 damage up to the max I have and I get another d6 each time I attack and it recharges each fight. It also appears to go up each time I attack and not just once per turn.
It feels rather powerful. It is a prime feature, so maybe it is fine.

It takes a Reaction to grant the damage bonus or the Advantage. It goes up when you take the Attack Action, not per attacks. It does not so much 'recharges' so muchas it 'resets' when you roll for initiative. Doesn't care how much you had in the previous fight.

Shouts: I like these. 1/turn I can give up one of my attacks to have an ally do something. It makes sense to have an ally use the Strike ability. I would see this being use a lot at level 5 to give the fighter with the large weapon 3 attacks. I do not see it needing the boost of +damage equal to my proficiency bonus.

On the one hand I can see why cutting the damage would be a good idea, on the other hand it would mean that Strike! doesn't interact with casters at all... I could make it so they can choose which bonus to apply? The weapon users would get an extra attack and Casters would add to their damage roll?

Insightful Aid: I do not see how often the 3 things I can do to a monster being used. Maybe a boss monster I would want to not use reactions, but I think that things like legendary actions are not considered reactions.

Keep in mind it is still the Help Action, so you also grant advantage. I feel like the ability to prevent an enemy from disengaging could be useful if you're trying to keep one of those slippery tiny type (like a kobold or a goblin) from fleeing you and knocking someone prone can be useful... They just feel like fun bonuses to have in your back pocket you know? They're not meant to be used all the time. But I won't lie and say I'm not considering cutting them out completely. Could make for a fun Half-Feat maybe?

Warlord Presence: It looks rather powerful to have the ability to give all your allies +INT bonus to initiative. May be most warlords have only +1 to INT but maybe not. Or I can give all my allies +temp HP equal to level +CHA bonus. The advantage on first attack is fine regardless of how many. All these things do not use any type of action. I may make it so only one ally can do these and then add more at higher levels.

I had some TERRIBLE luck with initiative rolls in the past (I had a Whip of Alert that granted Advantage on it and I kept rolling below 7!!!) so maybe that's why I don't mind the +INT boost? At level 2 it's probably +1 or +2 so it's not terribly broken, I feel. Espcially if you got heavy armor types with a -1 in DEX in the party! They don't use action 'cause they're like an aura, but it only triggers when people roll for initiative.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm going to comment on each level. At level 1 this Warlord gets 3 abilities - which seems like alot. We will see how much mechanical umph they all have.

Battlefield Insight - Improve Damage
Improve Damage adds an almost guaranteed 1d6 damage at level 1 and can essentially be maintained the whole battle. This is really strong for a level 1 ability.

Battlefield Insight - Improve Precision
This has alot of potential for when you get a larger dice pool as granting advantage on certain characters could easily outperform Improve Damage later.

Shouts - Move
Allowing an ally some off turn movement is handy. Not an ability you will typically use but nice to have.

Shouts - Rise Up
This is a strong ability. Make a save or grapple escape attempt at an additional +proficiency for the price of a single attack.

Shouts - Strike
This is a super powerful early - and will taper off a bit as the game progress. Allows another creature to make an additional attack on their turn and add proficiency bonus to damage to any one of their attacks.

Student of Banners
Ribbon ability that gives advantage on certain war/battle themed ability checks.

Overall Reaction
A simple great sword using martial (barbarian, fighter, cleric, paladin) will do 6.35 DPR (assuming 60% to hit). This Warlord, with such an ally will do 11.145 DPR (and maybe slightly more).

His typical turn will look be using the attack action but forgoing the attack to Shout - Strike, replenishing insight dice due to taking the attack action, while buffing his ally to make that extra attack, and then when the ally hits he will apply his proficiency bonus damage to that attack due to Shout - Strike and he will use his reaction to use Battlefield Insight - Improve Damage to add another d6 to that attack.

On top of this he adds utility like more skills and tools than other martial PC's. He also gets the utility of Shouts - Move and Shouts - Rise Up. It all combines together for the strongest level 1 Character in the game by far. Even Clerics will be envious.

 

[FrogReaver]

Level 2

Insightful Aid
This adds some more versatility than your bread and butter. It competes to heavily with your level 1 abilities in the action and resource economies. The abilities aren't overpowered but they will be pretty niche compared to what your turn will normally be used for. Conceptually I feel these abilities compete with the shouts for what this Warlord is supposed to be about.

Levels 1-2 Thoughts
I think Insightful Aid set could be dropped entirely. Move Shouts or Battlefield Insight to be the level 2 ability (I would lean toward Battlefield Insight at level 2). I think that would make a more clear focus. Essentially this is the character that grants insights to your allies that they wouldn't have without him. I'm not sold on that as a character concept at all as it can tend to make other characters feel less than competent - but it does make a solid concept to build around.

 

[Undrave]

Overall Reaction
A simple great sword using martial (barbarian, fighter, cleric, paladin) will do 6.35 DPR (assuming 60% to hit). This Warlord, with such an ally will do 11.145 DPR (and maybe slightly more).

His typical turn will look be using the attack action but forgoing the attack to Shout - Strike, replenishing insight dice due to taking the attack action, while buffing his ally to make that extra attack, and then when the ally hits he will apply his proficiency bonus damage to that attack due to Shout - Strike and he will use his reaction to use Battlefield Insight - Improve Damage to add another d6 to that attack.

But they can't reach that DPR without that ally there. The balancing act I'm faced with here is that I don't want the Warlord player to just think "I might as well play the Fighter/Barbarian/Cleric/Paladin and just attack myself!" so I can't make the 'indirect DPS' of the Warlord basically the same thing as the 'direct DPS' of those Martial class ya know? Otherwise, what's the point of being a support if your presence doesn't make everybody else stronger than if you were just another Fighter?

I could drop the Insight to D4s, but, let's be honest, nobody likes rolling those

I would be fiddly but I could always add a clause that you can't use Battlefield Insight on someone you targetted with a Shout?

On top of this he adds utility like more skills and tools than other martial PC's. He also gets the utility of Shouts - Move and Shouts - Rise Up. It all combines together for the strongest level 1 Character in the game by far. Even Clerics will be envious.

Tools are kinda cheap, I treat them more like ribbons... Skills wise, I built this thing by taking the Rogue's class table and doing substitutions in ways I felt made sense (the Rogue is a Class STUFFED to the gill!). I cut one skill to replace it with medium armor proficiency, for exemple.

It's admitedly a more bulky character than a Rogue but I anticipated that a Warlord would treat CON as their third best stat (hence why I gave them D10 instead of D8 HD, I expect lower CON), and the Rogue is full of defensive ability, right from level 2 where they can disengage as a bonus action, and they use DEX for a lot of their stuff, so over 20 level I felt like it balanced itself out to more or less the same durability. A Rogue would just probably avoid damage entirely far more often than a Warlord, but the Warlord will have better bulk to take that damage, ya know?

Levels 1-2 Thoughts
I think Insightful Aid set could be dropped entirely. Move Shouts or Battlefield Insight to be the level 2 ability (I would lean toward Battlefield Insight at level 2). I think that would make a more clear focus. Essentially this is the character that grants insights to your allies that they wouldn't have without him. I'm not sold on that as a character concept at all as it can tend to make other characters feel less than competent - but it does make a solid concept to build around.

Hm... that seems about right now that you put that way.

I still feel like being able to Help at a distance is a solid ability to have for a support character. Do you have a suggestion for where I could slide in THAT ability? And what do I do with the upgrade to that feature at later level now? Hmm...

That said, if I give up the expose weakness aspect I might as well give up the whole 'recharge the battle ressource as you do battle' schtick then, right? Since there isn't as many ability that drain Insight Dice... replace Improved Accuracy with ability that goes something lik ... "grant a 1d6 bonus to attack as a reaction" instead of advantage.

Shouts - Strike
This is a super powerful early - and will taper off a bit as the game progress. Allows another creature to make an additional attack on their turn and add proficiency bonus to damage to any one of their attacks.

Hmm... You do see the problem I have with this shout though, right? If I keep it to simply giving the extra attack, it means the Warlord can't interact with spellcasters at all. It's why I didn't go for the obvious, and frankly simpler, "The target can spend their reaction to make an Attack".

What about my proposed suggestion that the ally gets to pick between the extra attack OR a damage bonus? Or do I just make it a plain damage bonus and cut out the extra attack entirely for simplicity's sake? I guess there are situations where the extra attack would be more useful (like, if you're surrounded by enemies you can already fell in one hit, it would be advantageous to get to attack an extra one? Or for a Champion or Paladin looking for another shot at a critical hit?).

Anyway, thank you for these comments! I knew starting this whole process that I wanted to start over powered and rein it in as I went on with my revision (like they do with UAs) because it's way easier to tone down something than to come up with a new ability because a level is too weak.

 

[FrogReaver]

But they can't reach that DPR without that ally there. The balancing act I'm faced with here is that I don't want the Warlord player to just think "I might as well play the Fighter/Barbarian/Cleric/Paladin and just attack myself!" so I can't make the 'indirect DPS' of the Warlord basically the same thing as the 'direct DPS' of those Martial class ya know? Otherwise, what's the point of being a support if your presence doesn't make everybody else stronger than if you were just another Fighter?

IMO the reason to play your Warlord is to be the guy that can give other characters combat insights. IMO If that ends up not being enough such that you must further incentivize people to play the class by having it be 'stronger' than barbarians/fighters at combat damage then the class is going to flop.

Your Warlord is already providing utility that none of the other martials can match at these levels via his Move and Rise Up Shouts. If he can do those things when needed and provide comparable damage to fighters/barbarians at these levels then he's already slightly ahead.

I could drop the Insight to D4s, but, let's be honest, nobody likes rolling those

I would be fiddly but I could always add a clause that you can't use Battlefield Insight on someone you targetted with a Shout?

d4 won't fix as it's essentially guaranteed damage (given how many allies you will have making attacks/dealing damage).

Pushing that Battlefield Insight ability to level 2 and placing more limitations on the Insight Pool resource early game could work. You could probably give 1 use of that ability per encounter early and then expand out the uses Pool Size and recharge of it later.

Tools are kinda cheap, I treat them more like ribbons... Skills wise, I built this thing by taking the Rogue's class table and doing substitutions in ways I felt made sense (the Rogue is a Class STUFFED to the gill!). I cut one skill to replace it with medium armor proficiency, for exemple.

At level 1 a Rogue gets 1 combat ability, 1 out of combat ability and 1 ribbon. 2 combat abilities is a bit much IMO.

At level 2 he gets an additional strong combat ability.

To put this back toward your warlord - advantage on persuasion/intimidation/deception for soldiers/militiamen/bandits might make a good out of combat ability.

It's admitedly a more bulky character than a Rogue but I anticipated that a Warlord would treat CON as their third best stat (hence why I gave them D10 instead of D8 HD, I expect lower CON), and the Rogue is full of defensive ability, right from level 2 where they can disengage as a bonus action, and they use DEX for a lot of their stuff, so over 20 level I felt like it balanced itself out to more or less the same durability. A Rogue would just probably avoid damage entirely far more often than a Warlord, but the Warlord will have better bulk to take that damage, ya know?

I don't have a problem with the hit die and armor.

Hm... that seems about right now that you put that way.

I still feel like being able to Help at a distance is a solid ability to have for a support character. Do you have a suggestion for where I could slide in THAT ability? And what do I do with the upgrade to that feature at later level now? Hmm...

That said, if I give up the expose weakness aspect I might as well give up the whole 'recharge the battle ressource as you do battle' schtick then, right? Since there isn't as many ability that drain Insight Dice... replace Improved Accuracy with ability that goes something lik ... "grant a 1d6 bonus to attack as a reaction" instead of advantage.

Well I've really been taking this a level at a time. But possibly based on my previous suggestions that may make a good level to increase your Insight Pool and it's recharge.

The Help action stuff I really think is the domain of the Rogue Mastermind now. I'm not sure using the direct help action makes sense when everything so far is driven off the attack action and when an ally does something as a reaction.

Hmm... You do see the problem I have with this shout though, right? If I keep it to simply giving the extra attack, it means the Warlord can't interact with spellcasters at all. It's why I didn't go for the obvious, and frankly simpler, "The target can spend their reaction to make an Attack".

I don't see that. Low level Warlords should be commanding martials not mages. As soon as you get Battlefield Insight you have an ability that can interact with mages and even their AOE attacks. I think for early game that should be fine.

What about my proposed suggestion that the ally gets to pick between the extra attack OR a damage bonus? Or do I just make it a plain damage bonus and cut out the extra attack entirely for simplicity's sake? I guess there are situations where the extra attack would be more useful (like, if you're surrounded by enemies you can already fell in one hit, it would be advantageous to get to attack an extra one? Or for a Champion or Paladin looking for another shot at a critical hit?).

I missed that suggestion. I don't have a problem with granting an extra attack the way you are doing so, but I would take off the proficiency bonus addition. Your Warlord is already providing utility that none of the other martials can match at these levels. You could add in another shout that adds damage. I think I would keep those 2 shouts separate though. Let the warlord decide.

Anyway, thank you for these comments! I knew starting this whole process that I wanted to start over powered and rein it in as I went on with my revision (like they do with UAs) because it's way easier to tone down something than to come up with a new ability because a level is too weak.

No problem.

 

[Sithlord]

Definitely not a class or something I want in my game. But I like the design and the elegance of it.