Do remember that giving a rousing speech every battle will be not so rousing after a while.
"This is the most important battle of our lives, lads!"
"But I thought the goblin babies 10 minutes ago were!"
"Let me use my class feature, dammit!"
Do remember that giving a rousing speech every battle will be not so rousing after a while.
Exactely what I was thinking while washing my hair some hour ago - that the ability has to be limited enough to be meaningful instead of being equivalent of Bardic Performance using oratory.
Some basic ideas:
- the ability scales with the number of participants, so rousing the army is more efficient than rousing the party
- it would require preparation (e.g. lengthy speech), so no using it during every random encounter
- a creature can benefit from the rousing speach only once every 24 hours, at best
"This is the most important battle of our lives, lads!"
"But I thought the goblin babies 10 minutes ago were!"
"Let me use my class feature, dammit!"
Thankfuly, the speech would be icing on the top of the class instead of its primary ability.
BTW: The very first idea for the warlord class I had, was a fighter stripped of most of his regular abilities, given some bardic performance, based on Diplomacy/Intimidation/Performance [oratory] in their place. For that archetype, the speech would be the main feature.
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I'd say that a longer speech would be needed to get a longer duration. Maybe the amount of people you can Rouse should scale with levels; inspiring a whole army seems like advanced work.
Alternatively: you can inspire anyone who is within X feet of you at any point during the speech, but you're allowed to move; so you can ride past the army, sword a-flashing, to get them all. Of course, that does take time, which neatly covers spending more time to inspire more people.
Maybe you could let the captain pick from a couple of speech effect? Focusing more on offense, determination (temporary HP perhaps), or on remaining steadfast (reducing Fear effects) or not budging (bonus to CMD against bull rush etcetera), to name some ideas.
Actually, a Hold The Line idea is pretty good: make it easier for people to maintain formations in the face of enemy assault/Maneuvers.
You could also interact with things like massed charges, where people get a bonus provided they all charge on the same initiative.
Yet another idea: collective intimidation of the enemy. Have the entire army banging on their shields in rhythm, and shouting death to the enemy, to really strike fear into opponent formations. Maybe something like a Demoralize Opponent mass effect, but it gets more powerful based on how many people you can use (i.e. just three party members is meh, and casters who can't join in the chant don't help either. Maybe even a penalty if significant numbers of your troops can't/don't join in), because a thousand shouting people is pretty impressive.
Have I linked to this yet? :D This was my take on a similar concept, although since it was working within the confines of an archetype, it was less expansive.
One thing you should add, if you play up the speech aspect, is to give a reduction to the Perception DC to hear you speak. This has an example. Might not ever come up, but it shows you think of these things :)
Give him some abilities out of combat as well. The amazing Super Genius Games has their War Master, which can really play up the "contacts" aspect of the class if they desire.
Avoid the ability to make standard action Diplomacy checks unless you want it to be a main class feature.
I know you play GW2, and I've been thinking about some abilities like the Guardian's virtues. The base idea there may be transferable.
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I wouldn't want the class to be sacrificing its own attacks to direct others, most of the time. Definitely not action-trading, because that would turn you into a talking Haste spell.
The exception to this should be abilities to bring an ally back into the fight; breaking paralysis, fear, dazing effects. In fact, the ability to grant new saves against things like Dazing Spell (which is somewhat busted) and even Hold Person, would be pretty awesome. Breaking paralysis/dazing is something that should probably be touch range; shaking people to "snap out of it, soldier!", although maybe it could become ranged at higher levels, or its speed could increase to less than a standard action.
Rallying fearful troops would also be worth an action. Here the tricky part is range; fearful people may be running away, and you want to have enough range on the ability to reach them without having to run after them, out of the battle. Rallying troops should also work with large numbers of troops, at least against wide-angle fear effects.
Have I linked to this yet? :D This was my take on a similar concept, although since it was working within the confines of an archetype, it was less expansive.
It does to Cavalier what I wanted in the very initial version do for Fighter.
One thing you should add, if you play up the speech aspect, is to give a reduction to the Perception DC to hear you speak. This has an example. Might not ever come up, but it shows you think of these things :)
Dammit! Cheapy, stop reading my mind!
Give him some abilities out of combat as well. The amazing Super Genius Games has their War Master, which can really play up the "contacts" aspect of the class if they desire.
At the moment, out of combat, Captain is good at supporting others with his Improved Aid. There will be probably a few more non-combat abilities.
I know you play GW2, and I've been thinking about some abilities like the Guardian's virtues. The base idea there may be transferable.
Actually I don't, I wish I could play, but can't afford it. :(
About the pre-battle speech:
After some consideration I decided that it won't make a cut for now, probably (unless I decide to make it an advanced tactic). Instead I will save it for Field Marshal archetype. My reasons are following:
- while commanding armies do happen on session it is not very common.
- commander inspiring troops with impressive speech is heroic, attempting to inspire six men party of more or less equally capable individuals does not.
- inspiring troops with heated speech should be something that every Charismatic hero is capable of doing, to a degree and as such should be function of Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate/Perform [ortatory] skills. Bards and captains should be better at it than others but they shouldn't have monopoly on it.
Here is first attempt at Cries. Expect redesign and rewriting. At the moment I envision them as abilities selected as advanced tactics.
Cry Of The Fallen: When the captain or any of his allies within line of sight is dropped below 0 hit points by enemy attack or ability, the captain can issue a desperate cry as an immediate action, targeting one ally who can take a move as an immediate action to come closer to the trigger of this cry. A character can benefit from this cry once per day.
Cry Of The Last Stand: When the captain or any of his allies within the captain’s presence range is dropped below 0 hit points, the captain can issue a desperate cry as an immediate action. The character that triggered this ability gains ferocity special ability for a number of rounds equal to the captain’s Charisma bonus. A character can benefit from this cry once per day.
Cry Of The Vengeance: When the captain or any of his allies within line of sight is dropped below 0 hit points by enemy attack or ability, the captain can issue a desperate cry as an immediate action, targeting himself or single ally. The target can take an attack of opportunity or make a charge against the enemy that triggered this ability. A character can benefit from this cry once per day.
Cry Of The Victory: When the captain or any of his visible allies drops an opponent below 0 hit points, the captain can issue a victorious cry as an immediate action, bolstering his allies within the range of his presence and granting them temporary hit points equal to the fallen opponent CR. A character can benefit from this cry once per day.
Is there a complete draft anywhere?
Sorry for suddenly bringing all this work on you :)
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I review this thread for the final time to present you: The Commander.
And here is the relevant blog entry and here is the publisher's tumblr site..
The publisher (Amora Game) changed the name from Captain to Commander to better suit their incoming materials. They also made a few tweaks to Direct Order, Strong Voice and Advanced Tactics features.
I would like to express my gratitude to everyone involved in this thread, especially for encouragement and making me feel that it is worth to develop it further (it was).
Sweet!
Congratulations on being published, Drejk. Very cool!
It looks pretty good.
I'm curious why you went with a base class instead of a Cavalier archetype.
Also: Dotted.
Because there is little of Cavalier in it (full martial/heavy armor proficiency and dealing with Teamwork feat). If anything it would be more of a Paladin alternate class, at least during the early drafts when Tactical Strike was a daily power with the same number of uses as Smite Evil and ability to Aid Another from distance which was replacement for Lay On Hands. After some evolution I moved away from daily limits and reworked the abilities into the current form that was far away enough to be deemed it's own class.
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Wow! Congratulations Drejk! Glad the hard work paid off!
And the great thing about base classes is.... Moar archetypes!!!!
Well done Drejk!
And today I'd like to present alternate favored class bonuses for Captain, er, Commander class!
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Elf: Add +5 feet to the commanding presence range and 1/2 to allied Perception checks made to hear the commander's voice.
Gnome: Add +1/5 bonus that applies to AC, attack rolls and weapon damage rolls against creatures subject to the gnome’s defensive training and hatred racial traits to all allies affected by the commanding presence.
Half-elf: Add +1/6 to the commanding presence bonus.
Half-orc: Add +1/2 bonus to Intimidate checks.
Halfling: Add +1/2 bonus to Bluff checks.
Human: Add +1/6 of an advanced tactic.
I'll post it here instead on the product discussion. We are/were already working on a war based AP, and hammering out a Warlord class...when we saw this and ate it up.
We felt this was well balanced and a really great concept of focusing on the Aid Another ability. We consider this money well spent.
Drejk did a fantastic job and we have been really honored to work with him on this. We will be working with him again.
- AG
I review this thread for the final time to present you: The Commander.
Not will be appearing in published source. It appeared. Reachable through the link :)
It will also be included in a softcover coming late December/Mid Jan.
Another batch of alternate favored class bonuses, for more exotic races.
I have yet to think of decent favored class bonus for Hobgoblins, Kobolds and Nagaji (Strength and Charisma, how is it not born Commander race?! Oh, Intelligence penalty...). Also possibly something for Tengus (swordmanship teachers!) and each of elemental-blooded races. If you would like to see alternate favored bonus for some other races let me know.
Dhampir: Allies within the range of the commanding presence gain +1/5 bonus to AC, attack rolls and weapon damage rolls against undeads.
Drow: Allies within the range of the commanding presence gain +1/5 bonus to AC, attack rolls and weapon damage rolls against humanoids with elf subtype.
Fetchling: Add +1/3 to the number of willing allies that can accompany the character while he uses his racial plane shift and shadow walk spell-like abilities.
Goblin: Add +1/2 to Perform [sing] checks and fire damage of allied goblins within the commanding presence range.
Suli: Add 1/6 of a bonus energy damage die inflicted with the suli's tactical strike while the elemental assault (or energy strike) is active.
Tiefling: Allies within the range of the commanding presence gain +1/5 bonus to AC, attack rolls and weapon damage rolls against outsiders with good subtype.
Yesterday I started to play Lord Of The Rings Online again after almost a year pause due to reasons unrelated to the game itself, but much to where my life took me and internet connection quality there. Shortly after I stopped playing, there was a major overhaul of classes during the introduction of the latest expansion. While I am ambivalent about most of the changes, which involved replacement with old class trait system with World Of Warcraft-like talent trees and specializations, I love what they done with healing hands specialization for the captain (at least at 50th level where my captain currently is, I might not like level her so much - depending upon order you get your skills after revamp). I really like the idea of melee healer non-divine* class. Of course it is easier in LOTRO where the health bar is explicitly called morale.
I might be inspired design a new captain as base melee healer/buffer/(possibly pet) class or archetype for cavalier/paladin. This is just first reaction though - I make no promises in this regard.
*healing = divine power trope should burn in Nine Hells and then freeze in Outer Void forever.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - nice work. I like this! There's definitely room for more ability choices under advanced tactics and the tactical aspects are wonderful... Don't lose faith Drejk!!! Heck, you finish it and people will make archetypes!!!
It's hilarious to read this post again now, when I already wrote an archetype for Commander for Amora Game's Prepare For War: Basic Training Manual.