Warlord v1.4

Creating a Warlord

When creating a Warlord you should always start with answering the question: what sort of Presence does this person bring to the battlefield? Are they a charismatic inspiration to their allies that drives them to fight on? Are they a wise veteran who acts as a force multiplier for their companions, offering pointers and grit? Or are they a scheming manipulator who sees one step ahead of any move their foes can make, always making sure their allies are in the right spot?

Any of these paths and many more are all possible through the Warlord, but what sort of Presence you select at level one will guide what attribute is most impactful for you in exerting your influence and driving your companions to greater heights.

Quick Build

You can make a warlord quickly by following these suggestions. For a Chieftain or Paragon select Strength as your highest attribute followed by Charisma. For a Commander select Strength as your highest attribute followed by Wisdom.

For a Noble select Charisma as your highest attribute followed by Constitution, and for a Tactician select Intelligence followed by Constitution.

Class Features

As a Warlord, you gain the following class features

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) a simple melee weapon, or (b) a martial weapon (if proficient).
• (a) a light crossbow and 20 bolts, or (b) a shield (if proficient).
• (a) leather armor, or (b) scale mail, or (c) chain mail (if proficient).
• (a) a scholar's pack or (b) an explorer's pack

Warlord Specialization

At 1st level, you pick the archetype of Warlord you embody, choosing from Chieftain, Commander, Noble, Paragon or Tactician, each of which are detailed at the end of the class description. Your choice grants you features at 1st level, and again at 3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th, and 18th level.

Battlefield Presence

Starting at 1st level, when you take the Attack action, in place of making an attack, you can use your Battlefield Presence to grant a friendly creature that can see or hear you an additional attack the next time they take the Attack action during their turn.

Any additional attacks granted that are unused at the start of your next turn are lost. A friendly creature can only gain one additional attack from this feature.

Leadership Dice

Starting at 2nd level, you have access to Leadership Dice. These represent your ability to focus your battlefield presence to powerful results. Your Warlord level determines the number and size of the dice, as shown on the Leadership Dice column of the Warlord table. You can spend these to fuel various features.

You start knowing three such features: Rallying Mark, Overwhelm, and Helpful Word. When you get this feature, you can spend one Leadership Die per turn. Starting at 6th level, you can spend two Leadership Dice per turn. The number you can expend increases at 11th level (to three dice), and again at 17th level (to four dice).

A Leadership Die is expended when you use it. You regain all of your expended Leadership Dice when you finish a short or long rest.

Warlord's Expertise

Starting at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in one of the following skills: Persuasion, Intimidation, Insight or Investigation. If you are already proficient in the skill you select, your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses that skill.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 10th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. You can use Battlefield Presence in place of either or both attacks.

Prepare for Battle

Starting at 6th level, you can spend a minute preparing up to five allies for combat. You can expend a number of Leadership Dice up to your per turn limit, rolling them and causing your allies to gain temporary hit points equal to the number rolled. Allies that have benefited from this ability can expend a number of hit dice equal to the number of Leadership Dice you expended, using them as they would during a short rest. Any temporary hit points gained from this last until you complete a short or long rest.

Press the Attack

Starting at 9th level, you can use your reaction to further exploit opportunities:

• When a creature gains hit points from Rallying Mark, you can expend a Leadership die to cause another creature within 30 feet to regain the same number of hit points.
• When a staggered creature is hit, you can expend a leadership die to force it to make a Constitution saving throw with a DC equal to half the damage taken or become stunned while staggered.
• When a creature benefits from your Help action, you can use your reaction to expend a Leadership Die and add it to their roll.

Warlord's Intuition

Starting at 13th level, before rolling an ability check you are proficient in, you can exercise this ability, choosing for the result of the roll to be equal to your Warlord level rather than rolling. Once you do this, you cannot do this until you complete a long rest.

Shift the Field

Starting at 14th level, you gain the ability to relocate friendly creatures. As an action, you can expend a Leadership Die to move up to 5 friendly creatures that can see or hear you up to half their movement without provoking attacks of opportunity.

Unbreakable Will

Starting at 17th level, the Warlord cannot be frightened or charmed, and gains immunity to these conditions.

Tireless Leader

Starting at 20th level, you can roll d4s and use them instead of expending Leadership Dice for Rallying Mark, Overwhelming Mark, Helpful Word, or Prepare for Battle.

Warcry

Starting at 3rd level, as an action or in place of an attack as part of the Attack action, you can expend a number of Leadership Dice (up to your per turn limit) to inspire your allies with a mighty Warcry. You and friendly creatures within 20 feet of you gain temporary hit points equal to the Leadership Dice roll + your Charisma modifier (minimum 1).

This can affect a number of creatures up to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1).

Savage Momentum

Additionally at 3rd level, whenever you spend a Leadership Die, you gain advantage on the next attack roll you make before the end of your turn.

Reckless Assault

Starting at 7th level, when a creature with temporary hit points from one of your abilities deals damage with a weapon attack, they can expend those temporary hit points to add damage equal to half the temporary hit points sacrificed to their damage roll.

Wolfpack Tactics

Starting at 11th level, you excel at taking down prey in coordination with your allies. The first creature you hit that has taken damage from one of your allies since the end of your last turn suffers an additional 1d12 damage.

If an attack you grant with Battlefield Presence is used to attack a creature you dealt damage to during your turn, that attack deals an additional 1d4 damage.

Booming Shout

Starting at 15th level, when you unleash your Warcry you can attempt to frighten enemies. Any number of creatures within range of your Warcry must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC of 8 + Charisma modifier + your proficiency bonus) or become frightened of you until the end of their turn. Once you have used Booming Shout, you cannot use it in this way again until you complete a short or long rest.

Additionally, the range of your Rallying Mark, Overwhelming Mark, Helpful Word, and Warcry is doubled.

Bloody Victory

Starting at 18th level, when you or an ally reduces a hostile creature that has dealt damage to you to 0 hit points, you can unleash a Warcry as a reaction. When you unleash your Warcry in this way, you do not expend any Leadership Dice and you use a d12 in place of your Leadership Die.

You can use this reaction a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier, regaining all uses on a long rest.

Commander's Presence

A Commander on the field can be many things - a trusted Sergeant, a weary Veteran, or merely a man with an uncommon degree of common sense and a particularly keen eye for how to win a fight.

While not as flashy as some of the other Presences on the Battlefield, that just means they are less likely to get themselves skewered. A keen word there and helping hand here, their influence is subtle but effective, inexorably shifting the tides of battle in their favor.

A Commander can come from any background, but is usually someone that has acquired their Wisdom the hard way, having seen a bit of what life and battlefields have to offer.

Keen Pointer

Starting at 3rd level, you can take the Helpful Word bonus action without expending a Leadership Die if you are within 5 feet of the creature you are taking the Help action against.

When you do so, you can expend Leadership Dice to apply Rallying Mark to the creature you are targeting with this Help action.

On Your Feet

Starting at 7th level, you can use a bonus action and expend one Leadership Die restore in an ally the will to fight. Choose a friendly creature within 5 feet of you. That creature regains hit points equal to your Leadership die.

When you use this feature to restore hit points to a creature at 0 hit points, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the amount of hit points restored. If the creature is prone, it can choose to stand immediately.

Martial Advantage

Starting at 11th level, you've learned to leverage fighting alongside an ally. Once per turn, you can deal an extra 2d6 damage to a creature you hit with a weapon attack if that creature is within 5 feet of an ally that isn't incapacitated.

Bulwark

Starting at 15th level, when you and any number of friendly creatures within 30 feet of you make a Saving Throw against the same effect, your allies gain Advantage on their Saving Throw if you succeed on the Saving Throw.

No One Left Behind

Starting at 18th level, you can move up to your speed to get within 5 feet of a creature while using your On Your Feet feature. During this movement you gain resistance to all damage and the target regains an additional 1d8 hit points for each attack of opportunity that hits you during this movement.

Noble's Presence

A Warlord with a Noble Presence is not inherently one that was born a Noble, though many are. A Noble Presence Warlord is one that serves to drive their retainers and companions onto greater heights through sheer charisma, a shining beacon of what they are fighting for standing beside them.

Since time immemorial men have fought twice as hard on a battlefield when their leader takes the field to stand among them, driven to heights that would seem impossible in order to protect their liege - while an adventurer of this path may or may not be their liege, their charisma invokes the same fervor in their companions and retainers.

An adventurer on this path is not inherently of noble background, though many often are. A noble reared on the laws of the land is usually lawful, but extraordinary circumstances may have brought about a rebellious streak in one that now seeks to overthrow unfit rulers (or rulers that aren't them, anyway).

Imperative Strike

Starting at 11th level, when you use your Battlefield Presence, the target creature can use their reaction to make the additional weapon attack granted immediately.

Redoubled Efforts

Additionally at 11th level, attacks made by friendly creatures within 20 feet of you or that you have granted an attack with battlefield presence since the start of your last turn deal an additional 1d4 damage.

Chosen Companions

Starting at 15th level, you can use Leadership Dice to cast bless or heroism without providing material components. The level of the spell is equal to the Leadership Dice spent.

Grand Decree

Starting at 18th level, you can use this ability to cast command without expending a spell slot or Leadership Dice. When you do so, the spell affects all creatures of your choice within range that could be affected by the spell.

Once you cast command using this ability, you cannot cast it using this ability again until you complete a long rest.

Packleader's Presence

While Warlords may specialize in the control of battles, an Packleader is a Warlord that aims to win a fight before it becomes a battle. Through scouting, preparing, and stacking the odds, they don't fight fair, they fight to win, and seek to only fight when they've already won.

Their control of the battlefield doesn't merely extend to those that fight on it, but to twisting the battlefield itself to suit their needs, stymying and stupefying their foes while concealing and sheltering their allies with the terrain itself.

While good and evil rarely play directly into a Packleader's perspective (they can be either or Neutral just as easily), they tend be Chaotic, viewing the so called "rules of engagement" and other traditions of civilization to be convenient weaknesses they can exploit rather than any sort of guideline they might actually follow.

Fleeting Strikers

Starting at 11th level, if you are not in the same spot you were at the end of your last turn, the first attack you make during your turn deals an additional 1d10 damage.

Additionally, a creature that you grant an Attack with Battlefield Presence can take the Dash action instead of making the attack you granted.

Ghosts of the Wild

Starting at 15th level, you can spend 2 Leadership Dice to cast pass without a trace without providing material components. While under the effect of pass without a trace, you can expend a Leadership Die to take the Hide action at the end of your turn without expending an action.

If you use Battlefield Presence to grant an attack to a creature, you can expend one Leadership Die to shroud by shadows or natural phenomena, granting them advantage on the first attack they make before the start of your next turn. If they are under the effect of pass without a trace, you can do this without expending a Leadership Die.

Warlord of the Wilds

Starting at 18th level, you can pick five additional spells from the Druid spell list of 4th level or lower. You can cast these spells using Leadership Dice equal to the level of the spell. You can change the list of spells you have selected when you complete a long rest.

The spell Save DC for these spells is 8 + your Proficiency modifier + your Wisdom Modifier.

Any time you use Leadership Dice to cast a spell, you can take the Attack action (one weapon attack only) as a bonus action.

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Heroic Strike

Additionally at 3rd level, when you take the Attack action, once per turn you can expend a Leadership Dice (up to your per turn limit) to apply Rallying Mark or Overwhelming Mark as part of a melee weapon attack.

Whenever you expend Leadership Dice as part of making an attack, you can add the expended Leadership Dice to the damage roll of the attack.

Stand Defiant

Starting at 7th level, when you are reduced to zero hit points, you instantly regain a number of hit points equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1). Additionally, you can roll a number of Leadership Dice equal to the number of friendly creatures within 60 feet of you, expanding them and regaining additional hit points equal to the value rolled this way. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest.

Inspired Warrior

Starting at 11th level, once per turn, when one of your allies within 30 feet takes or deals damage, you gain d4 dice, adding it to a pool of dice. You can have a maximum number of d4 dice in this pool equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1).

Until the end of your next turn, when you deal damage you can expend any number of dice from this pool dealing additional damage equal to the number of expended dice.

Dauntless Resolve

Starting at 15th level, when you fail a Saving Throw, you can choose to succeed instead. Once you do this, you cannot do this again until you complete a long rest.

Invincible Legion

Starting at 18th level, your allies will never fall so long as their symbol of hope remains. When a friendly creature within 60 feet of you is reduced to 0 hit points, but not killed outright, they can drop to 1 hit point instead so long as they can see or hear you.

Once a friendly creature benefits from this effect, they cannot benefit from it again until they complete a long rest.

Tactical Insight

Starting at 3rd level, you can tactically assess a creature's options. As a bonus action, make an Intelligence (Investigation) check contested by a Charisma (Deception) check against any creature you can see within 60 feet.

On a success, you can see through their tactics, granting one of the following effects:

• Determine Attack: You can cause them to have disadvantage on their next attack against a creature that can see or hear you.
• Predict Movement: You deduce where they are planning to move on their next turn. They can choose to change their plans, but if they move anywhere else, their movement speed is reduced by 10 feet as they scramble to adapt.
• Outwit Response: You can find their openings, negating their ability to use their reaction until the end of their next turn.
• Expose Weakness: You can use Helpful Word to grant advantage against that target as part of the bonus action without expending a Leadership Die.

Inscrutable Mind

Starting at 7th level, you gain proficiency in Intelligence Saving Throws.

Additionally, as a reaction when being forced to make a Wisdom, Intelligence, or Charisma Saving Throw, you can expend a Leadership Die and add the die result to the saving throw.

Tactical Strike

Starting at 11th level, when you succeed on a Tactical Insight check against a creature, the next attack you or an friendly creature makes against it before the start of your next turn deals an additional 2d6 damage.

Control the Field

Starting at 15th level, when you take the Shift the Field action, it gains the following properties:

• Deceptive Movement: You can attempt to move creatures that are not allies up to 5 feet (or half their movement speed, whichever is less). The creature must make an Intelligence Saving Throw with a DC of 8 + your Proficiency Modifier + your Intelligence modifier, or feel compelled to move to the new position immediately.
• Flanking Maneuvers: If two allies you move are on opposite sides of an creatures after the movement you grant, the first one to attack that enemy has advantage on their first attack if they attack before the creature moves.
• Coordinated Transitions: Allies can move through each other's spaces during the movement you grant without it being difficult terrain.

Unstoppable Schemes

Starting at 18th level, standing in your way becomes a pointless endeavor. When you move your allies with Shift the Field, they can move through spaces occupied by hostile creatures so long as they do not end their movement in an occupied space.

Multilayered Tactics

Additionally at 18th level, when you succeed on a Tactical Insight check against a creature, you can choose two of the listed effects.

Multiclassing

Should you want to multiclass into Warlord, the prerequisites and proficiencies are listed below:

• Prerequisite: 13 in two of Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma.
• Proficiencies gained: Light Armor, Medium Armor.

Art Credits

• Warlord - Art by adrytia45 - Copyright KibblesTasty
• Chart A Course - Magic the Gathering (Wizards of the Coast).
• Tajuru Warcaller - Magic the Gather(Wizards of the Coast)
• Ranger - Pathfinder(Paizo)
• Paragon - Art by shinji2602 - Copyright KibblesTasty.
• Rowan's Battleguard - MAgic the Gathering - Wizards of the Coast.
• Commander Image - (Wizards of the Coast)
• Kenrith, the Returned King - Magic the Gathering - Wizards of the Coast
• Noble Elf - Pathfinder (Paizo).
• Tactian Image - Art by Alifka96 - Copyright KibblesTasty

Supported By

Creation is made possible by generous patrons:

• Abeezy
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...and many more!

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Want to support KibblesTasty in keeping this updated and creating more homebrew like this? You can join them here on Patreon.

Thank you!

Changelog