Level 1: Expertise Benefit: You gain a single expertise die, a d4. You can spend an expertise die to use a maneuver that you know. You must be able to take actions to spend an expertise die. How you regain expertise dice is determined by your knack for leadership. As you gain levels, the size of the die increases (from a d4 to a d6, for instance), and you gain additional dice, as noted on the Warlord table. At 1st level, you know the maneuver Directed Action. Level 1: Knack for Leadership Tactical Leader When you start combat you start with all your expertise dice spent. At the end of each of your turns, you gain an additional expertise dice equal to the round of combat or 3 (whichever is lower). In addition, you gain training in knowledge warfare, sense motive and two additional (skills of your choice: intimidate, persuade).
Level 2: Tactical Expertise When you use an action to use directed action maneuver, you can use the same action to spend unused warlord’s expertise dice to perform maneuver using an ally or allies in place of yourself.
Level 6: Tactical Master When you use the directed action, you can use directed action a second time as your reaction.
Inspiring Leader When you use an action to make an attack without using a maneuver, you regain all of your spent expertise dice. In addition, you gain training in knowledge warfare, perform and two additional (skills of your choice: intimidate, persuade).
Level 2: Inspired Expertise Choose one of the following options:
Inspiring Word (Option 1) - Choose a living creature within 30' feet of you. Roll all the expertise dice and add their results. It regains hit points equal to the result.
Inspiring Word (Option 2) Choose a living creature within 30' feet of you. Roll all the expertise dice and add their results. It's maximum and current hit points both increase by the result for 1 minute.
Alternative (Option 3) Add parry to your warlords maneuver list. Any ally that can understand you can spend any of your warlord’s unspent expertise dice to use the parry maneuver.
Level 2: Inspired Speech You warlord can spend 5 minutes giving a speech, performing a sing, or using other method to bolster your allies moral. When you finish your allies are immune to fear and cannot fall unconscious for 1 hour. This affect ends if you fall unconscious.
Level 6: Rally Allies Allies that can understand you can spend a 1 HD as a reaction. If an ally has no remanding hit dice they gain hit points equal to their constitution modifier or 1, whichever is lower.
Strategic Leader At the end of each of your turns, you regain all of your spent expertise dice. In addition, you gain training in knowledge warfare, knowledge history and two additional (skills of your choice: intimidate, persuade).
Level 2: Strategic Planning If you have a knowledge skill appropriate for a situation and at least 10 minutes to plan you can gain the benefit of one of the following options:
Anyone that can understand you can use the help action once on any ability checks related to the plan.
You double your number of expertise dice, but the additional dice can only be spent on actions related to the plan. The bonus dice do not refresh and you must spend these dice before you can benefit from this ability again.
Level 6: Contingency Plan You can use your Strategic Planning feature ignoring the 10 minute requirement. You can only use this ability once an encounter.
Maneuvers List
Cleave Composed Attack Danger Sense Directed Action Great Fortitude Iron Will Lightning Reflexes Opportunist
Precise Shot Protect Spring Attack Volley Whirlwind Attack Spring Attack Vault
Imagine a world where the first-time D&D player rolls stats, picks a race, picks a class, picks an alignment, and buys gear to create a character. Imagine if an experienced player, maybe the person helping our theoretical player learn the ropes, could also make a character by rolling ability scores and picking a race, class, feat, skills, class features, spells or powers, and so on. Those two players used different paths to build characters, but the system design allows them to play at the same table. -Mearl
F-111 Interdictor Long (200+ squares) distance ally teleporter. With some warlord stuff. Broken in a plot way, not a power way. Thought Switch Higher level build that grants upto 14 attacks on turn 1. If your allies play along, it's broken. Elven Critters Crit op with crit generation. 5 of these will end anything. Broken. King Fisher Does an excellent job at keeping an enemy disabled in a few ways. Strong. Boominator Fun catch-22 booming blade build with either strong or completely broken damage depending on your reading. Very Distracting Warlock Lot's of dazing and major penalties to hit. Overpowered. Pocket Protector Pixie Stealth Knight. Maximizing the defender's aura by being in an ally's/enemy's square. Yakuza NinjIntimiAdin: Perma-stealth Striker that offers a little protection for ally's, and can intimidate bloodied enemies. Very Strong. Chargeburgler with cheese Ranged attacks at the end of a charge along with perma-stealth. Solid, could be overpowered if tweaked. Void Defender Defends giving a penalty to hit anyone but him, then removing himself from play. Can get somewhat broken in epic. Scry and Die Attacking from around corners, while staying hidden. Moderate to broken, depending on the situation. Skimisher Fly in, attack, and fly away. Also prevents enemies from coming close. Moderate to Broken depending on the enemy, but shouldn't make the game un-fun, as the rest of your team is at risk, and you have enough weaknesses. Indestructible Simply won't die, even if you sleep though combat. Sir Robin (Bravely Charge Away) He automatically slows and pushes an enemy (5 squares), while charging away. Hard to rate it's power level, since it's terrain dependent. Death's Gatekeeper A fun twist on a healic, making your party "unkillable". Overpowered to Broken, but shouldn't actually make the game un-fun, just TPK proof. Death's Gatekeeper mk2, (Stealth Edition) Make your party "unkillable", and you hidden, while doing solid damage. Stronger then the above, but also easier for a DM to shut down. Broken, until your DM get's enough of it. Domination and Death Dominate everything then kill them quickly. Only works @ 30, but is broken multiple ways. Battlemind Mc Prone-Daze Protecting your allies by keeping enemies away. Quite powerful. The Retaliator Getting hit deals more damage to the enemy then you receive yourself, and you can take plenty of hits. Heavy item dependency, Broken. Dead Kobold Transit Teleports 98 squares a turn, and can bring someone along for the ride. Not fully built, so i can't judge the power Psilent Guardian Protect your allies, while being invisible. Overpowered, possibly broken Unnamed Avenger|Runepriest/Hammer of Vengance Do lot's of damage while boosting your teams. Strong to slightly overpowered. Charedent BarrageA charging ardent. Fine in a normal team, overpowered if there are 2 together, and easily broken in teams of 5. Super Knight A tough, sticky, high damage knight. Strong. Super Duper Knight Basically the same as super knight, only far more broken. Mora, the unkillable avenger Solid damage, while being neigh indestuctable. Overpowered, but not broken. Swordburst Maximus At-Will Close Burst 3 that slide and prones. Protects allies with off actions. Strong, possibly over powered with the right party.
Imagine a world where the first-time D&D player rolls stats, picks a race, picks a class, picks an alignment, and buys gear to create a character. Imagine if an experienced player, maybe the person helping our theoretical player learn the ropes, could also make a character by rolling ability scores and picking a race, class, feat, skills, class features, spells or powers, and so on. Those two players used different paths to build characters, but the system design allows them to play at the same table. -Mearl
Not bad. Strategic planning apply on knowledge checks?
That was my thinking. That way you can also do planning for situations that aren't neccesarily combat related.
That aspect of it is good.
But perhaps this could also be used for other things, like initiative bonuses?
Also I don't feel that this is a complete Warlord, unless there are a lot more and vastly different maneuvers than what we have seen so far I don't think it can support the kind of "big bang" actions on an Encounter and/or Daily basis which are an important element of the class.
I was thinking about the way I could see designing the warlord.
This is how I would expect to see a Warlord, at the moment, as well.
Knack for Leadership
You gain training in any two knowledge skills and one additional(skills of your choice: intimidate, knowledge, persuade or sense motive).
Maybe needs to be cleaned up? Could do the Rogue thing, and associate Skills with sets of "appropriate" maneuvers.
Strategic Planning If the warlord has at least 10 minutes to plan for a situation he has knowledge in, he can double the number of expertise dice. The additional dice can only be spent on actions related to that sphere of knowledge. Additionally, the bonus dice do not refresh until spending an additional 10 minutes to plan.
I get it, but I'm not sure I'm a huge fan. I dunno. It just seems open to super-nova abuse. EDIT: Of the "and then the Fighter does 1d8+9d10 damage on his first attack" variety.
Tactical Expertise During the warlord turn, he can spend expertise dice to grant an ally of his choice the use a maneuver the warlord has trained. The ally lose the maneuver at the end of the warlords next turn.
Yeah, this is what I would expect. Just needs some clarification - like are you granting ED along with the maneuver, for the ally to actually use it? Are you giving the character access to the maneuver, and then they activate it? Can a Fighter ally, for example (though it's kind of moot, if everyone has ED) take the maneuver you give him, but use his own dice? Are you making all choices with the maneuver? Some of that is pretty nit-picky, but if I had to guess, I'd venture that folks could take that same "mechanic" and run it in very different ways at the table, as it stands.
Contingency Plan You can make a contest check against either intelligent or charisma to use your Strategic Planning feature ignoring the 10 minute requirement. You can only use this ability once an encounter.
Eh, really not a fan. But I think it goes hand-in-hand with my concerns with Strategic Planning. Also, random ("random") access to your abilities is a pet peeve.
Unique Maneuvers List (Forth Coming)
Well the good news is you only need like 5, tops.
Seriously though, if you're having the Warlord just give out maneuvers, and the other characters actually use them, there's very little reason why they won't just significantly overlap the Fighter, Rogue, or Whatever. Heck, honestly, this could easily (easily) just be done as a Fighter class option (though I'd say the same for the Rogue and - to a lesser extent - the monk, at the moment).
Healing Would be a set of maneuvers that way you can have multiple healing options and they are easy to add/remove. Tactical Expertise would allow allies to take advantage of the healing maneuver.
Yeah, "healing as maneuvers" is the obvious way to go with it. You could easily do both "inspiring healing" abilities, and "first aid" abilities (that would be granted to allies to use, obviously).
Not bad. Strategic planning apply on knowledge checks?
That was my thinking. That way you can also do planning for situations that aren't neccesarily combat related.
That aspect of it is good.
But perhaps this could also be used for other things, like initiative bonuses?
Also I don't feel that this is a complete Warlord, unless there are a lot more and vastly different maneuvers than what we have seen so far I don't think it can support the kind of "big bang" actions on an Encounter and/or Daily basis which are an important element of the class.
I consider the ability to increase your dice significantly before and during combat to be fairly significant. It is limited in a way, but since a knowledge warefare exist its not often you can't at least have the opportunity. I was actually leaning more to it might be too much of a nova actually, but I wanted to start somewhere.
Imagine a world where the first-time D&D player rolls stats, picks a race, picks a class, picks an alignment, and buys gear to create a character. Imagine if an experienced player, maybe the person helping our theoretical player learn the ropes, could also make a character by rolling ability scores and picking a race, class, feat, skills, class features, spells or powers, and so on. Those two players used different paths to build characters, but the system design allows them to play at the same table. -Mearl
- Reword tactical expertise - Added the warlords manuevers Tactical Expertise You can spend expertise dice to grant an ally of your choice expertise dice equal to the number of dice you spend. This dice can be used only with maneuvers on the warlords maneuver list. The ally lose the maneuver at the end of the warlords next turn.
Directed Action Effect: You can spend up to two expertise dice to grant an ally an action against a creature of your choice you can see. On a hit using a weapon, roll all the expertise dice you grant, and add up their results. The damage gains a bonus equal to that total. This attack can't be granted by Tactical Expertise.
Inspiring Words (Option 1) Choose a living creature within 30' feet of you. Roll all the expertise dice and add their results. It regains hit points equal to the result.
Inspiring Words (Option 2) Choose a living creature within 30' feet of you. Roll all the expertise dice and add their results. It's maximum and current hit points both increase by the result for 1 minute.
Inspiring Words (Option3) Replace the inspiring word maneuver with the parry maneuver on the Warlord Maneuver List.
Imagine a world where the first-time D&D player rolls stats, picks a race, picks a class, picks an alignment, and buys gear to create a character. Imagine if an experienced player, maybe the person helping our theoretical player learn the ropes, could also make a character by rolling ability scores and picking a race, class, feat, skills, class features, spells or powers, and so on. Those two players used different paths to build characters, but the system design allows them to play at the same table. -Mearl
You gain training in any two knowledge skills and one additional(skills of your choice: intimidate, knowledge, persuade or sense motive).
Maybe needs to be cleaned up? Could do the Rogue thing, and associate Skills with sets of "appropriate" maneuvers.
I was using a format similiar to the format for Monks. I'll work on that.
Strategic Planning If the warlord has at least 10 minutes to plan for a situation he has knowledge in, he can double the number of expertise dice. The additional dice can only be spent on actions related to that sphere of knowledge. Additionally, the bonus dice do not refresh until spending an additional 10 minutes to plan.
I get it, but I'm not sure I'm a huge fan. I dunno. It just seems open to super-nova abuse. EDIT: Of the "and then the Fighter does 1d8+9d10 damage on his first attack" variety.
Tactical Expertise
During the warlord turn, he can spend expertise dice to grant an ally of his choice the use a maneuver the warlord has trained. The ally lose the maneuver at the end of the warlords next turn.
Yeah, this is what I would expect. Just needs some clarification - like are you granting ED along with the maneuver, for the ally to actually use it? Are you giving the character access to the maneuver, and then they activate it? Can a Fighter ally, for example (though it's kind of moot, if everyone has ED) take the maneuver you give him, but use his own dice? Are you making all choices with the maneuver? Some of that is pretty nit-picky, but if I had to guess, I'd venture that folks could take that same "mechanic" and run it in very different ways at the table, as it stands.
I reworded tactical expertise so hopefully that clarifies things better. The initial wording wasn't my intent.
Contingency Plan You can make a contest check against either intelligent or charisma to use your Strategic Planning feature ignoring the 10 minute requirement. You can only use this ability once an encounter.
Eh, really not a fan. But I think it goes hand-in-hand with my concerns with Strategic Planning. Also, random ("random") access to your abilities is a pet peeve.
Hopefully rewording of Tactical Expertise fix this somewhat. I also removed the check from it..
Imagine a world where the first-time D&D player rolls stats, picks a race, picks a class, picks an alignment, and buys gear to create a character. Imagine if an experienced player, maybe the person helping our theoretical player learn the ropes, could also make a character by rolling ability scores and picking a race, class, feat, skills, class features, spells or powers, and so on. Those two players used different paths to build characters, but the system design allows them to play at the same table. -Mearl
Not a bad start, but i'm not sure i like stratigic planning being just more dice.
How about something like this:
Strategic Planning If you have a knowledge skill appropriate for a situation and at least 10 minutes to plan you can gain the benefit of one of the following options:
Anyone that can understand you can use the help action once on any ability checks related to the plan.
You double your number of expertise dice, but the additional dice can only be spent on actions related to the plan. The bonus dice do not refresh and you must spend these dice before you can benefit from this ability again.
Imagine a world where the first-time D&D player rolls stats, picks a race, picks a class, picks an alignment, and buys gear to create a character. Imagine if an experienced player, maybe the person helping our theoretical player learn the ropes, could also make a character by rolling ability scores and picking a race, class, feat, skills, class features, spells or powers, and so on. Those two players used different paths to build characters, but the system design allows them to play at the same table. -Mearl
