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oxinabox
2009-10-26, 08:57 PM
So I wanna fix up the Minitures handbook marshal class.
It's a really cool class, tons of my NPC's have it.
But it's really only decent for a two lvl dip:
You can ony have 2 aura's (one major and one minor) active at anyone time,
and by lvl 2 you have two of them.
and it's not worth sticking arround to get some small imprvement to you Major Aura every 6 or so lvls.

Grant a move action to the whole party is kinda cool, at lvl 20 you can do it 5 whole times per day. you know thats kinda like haste made bad.

So what i'm proposing is:
Full BaB - he's on cleric BaB, and his powers can't touch on the awesomeness of cleric spells, infact they hardly compete with fighter bonus feats.

As some stage he needs to get the ability to project multiple minor Auras,
and at high lvls multiple major Auras at the same time.
After all a Binder can at lvl 8 bind mulitple vestages, and a chameleon, can take multiple roles.

and spell caster have always been casting multiple buffs.

His saves are fine.

His Grant move action could be fiddled with a bit, mayube moved forward, and at high lvls grant a standard action to One ally...

Some new minor and major aura's need to be creatred.
One that are useful out of combat,
thus giving him a reason to want to know more than one, since out of combat he can switch to a 'utiltiy aura'
Maybe a bonus to spot and listen.
a bonus to saving throws agaist traps.
things like that


I'm also considering a 3rd type of Auru, wich you get maybe One at lvl 10, one at lvl 15, and one at lvl 20.
"Experienced marshals can inspire those under them to do things they never knew they could do."
This Aura would have the ability to grant the Party Evasion, Uncanny dodge, things along that line.
This one you could only have one active at a time



Then maybe tor round things out, a bonus feat or two from a list like:
Towershield Proficency, Exotic Weapon Proficency, Iron will, great fortitude,

And remove Skill focus diplomacy:
Not all marshals are diplomatic, hell some are old grizzelled bastards, who wouldn't hold there tongue even an the threat of the executioner ax.
But there known to be the best.
He may be an A********* but he wins battle, by god i'm never see the man lose

Mulletmanalive
2009-10-27, 06:57 AM
one of the issues with a Marshal is actually that anyone who takes one look at it's mechanics can tell that it's going to be BORING to play.

It has no options and all you can really do with it is to stand at the back or run to the front and be mediocre with your choice of ranged or melee weapon.

There are a few tactical abilities out there [i think there's at least 2-3 Tactical feats that could qualify by that description [Wall of Spears or whatever it's called, Wolfpack and i'm sure there's another one somewhere...], Master Tactician and the "X"ing Flanker feats.

I'm not normally one for declaring that 'everything should have martial manoeuvres' but the White Raven does a better job of leading than a Marshal ever could.

The auras are mechanically effective but as they lack any involvement on your part, they're uninteresting, hell, even bards care more about their inspiration effects...

I'm sure that you could refine the Auras down into some kind of 'tactical effect' and then grant the Marshal a "Per Encounter" pool of uses with them having mroe abilities known than they could use in any given encounter.

Just my feelings on the matter; if you play/read 3.5r Fax has managed a reasonable go at this with the feat The Leader's Obligation (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127879)

Flayerman
2009-10-27, 07:19 AM
Actually, I'd add White Raven maneuvers to the Marshal's list of abilities and give them tactical bonus feats to really make them impressive buffers. Maybe give them slower maneuvers learned/known progression so they don't overshadow bards, possibly starting at 4th level instead of first.

oxinabox
2009-10-27, 07:22 AM
Wow looks like Fax is doing some nice stuff.
Maybe i'll just play d20 rebirth.

Is till want to make something out of the marshal
Similarly i still want to make an optimiser buffer with more than two of the Minituyres hand book marshals levels in it, I might be able to justify 4 lvls.
Though then i'll be stright back to crusaider with devoted spirit and white raven.
Dipping out after a while into dunno, maybe IC dragonfire bard thing


Where does the intersing come from...

With Full BaB he has as much intersting as a fighter, (since auru's ~=~ Fighter feats)
Still not too great.

How ever i want to go for:

Sure, I Can do things myself, but then again, you could do them, and i'll stand back and make you awesome.

Maybe an encoutner pool of special powers. All imediate interupts

Like Grant weapon change, allows a party member to swap weapns as a free action. (sometimes you want to change weapon, attack them move, whioch noramlly you would need quickdraw for).

and maybe somehting that forces the enemry to roll to confirm there confirmation rolls on a critical... one per day.

Reroll any ones on damage rolls


Maybe a supervision aura, where you can be watching someone, and if they roll below a 5 on a skill check you can pointout that at this point here they looked like they skipped over somehting/ the flow of tjhere actions skipped a beat, and allow them a retry even if they arn't entilied

Latronis
2009-10-27, 07:38 AM
I was in a gestalt campaign with a slightly buffed leadership feat once, just after races of destiny was released i think where i took a few levels of marshal(im pretty sure it was something like 5 or 6 instead of the standard 2 but id have to go have another look at it to see where i'd likely break out) along with knight and Outcast champion. So apart from being a pretty half-elf face my role in combat was basically making my assassin style cohort and the other melee as effective as possible.

So a buffbot style class ain't completely unplayable. Though I'm not sure how you'd go about increasing it's effectiveness while keeping it basically the same as it is.

Umm maybe if, well in warhammer online my favourite class was the Knight of the blazing sun, I loved the way the Aura-twisting worked both mechanically and from a flavour pov. So perhaps something like that, having your Auras linger for a short time after changing(as a swift action maybe) could allow you stack them for a short time without giving crazy numbers of bonuses.

It would encourage more levels for people who want auras and give it a slightly more proactive feel.

Ofc it's still needs a bit more work.

Tatsel_Ganav
2009-10-27, 07:53 AM
There is a Marshal fix out there, dunno where, a sublime way variant. It is awesome.

Latronis
2009-10-27, 08:01 AM
Sublime way feels a little odd for a marshal.

I did a quick searchy and i see plenty of references to a sublime way marshal variant but they are all dead links, possible from the wizards forum change

EDIT:Is this the one you were referring too? (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19528454/#331921978)

Mulletmanalive
2009-10-27, 08:11 AM
The 'But a FIghters just as dull too' thing varies more between fighters. On average, you'll have at least one of Power Attack or Combat Expertise and that's a variable right there. Those lead to three feats each that give you more moves.

There are a surprising number of non-static fighter feats out there, it's just that they tend to get ignored because fighters tend to either be dipped or handed to people who can barely operate Weapon Focus.

THe Marshal can't really afford to have options if they want to be able to do anything thanks to their very limited spread of feats and because the class sucked from the get go, there's been almost no support for it.

Think about it, a fighter can at least expect a decent level of hitty success against a reasonable foe and can make hillarious messes of stuff around it if you're playing the 'gank with numbers' style of game. The Marshal makes the Fighter better at that and with it's aura roughly comes up to where the Fighter WAS, leaving anyone playing a Marshal wondering when they're actually going to get a chance to achieve anything.

They can't even lead mooks effectively because their Aura is so small, making their obvious use in massed battles untenable...

oxinabox
2009-10-27, 08:23 AM
The 'But a FIghters just as dull too' thing varies more between fighters. On average, you'll have at least one of Power Attack or Combat Expertise and that's a variable right there. Those lead to three feats each that give you more moves.

There are a surprising number of non-static fighter feats out there, it's just that they tend to get ignored because fighters tend to either be dipped or handed to people who can barely operate Weapon Focus.

Good point, very valid.
Tatical Feats can mke fighter much more intersting,
...still not as intersting as a spell caster, cos spellcasters have so many option!





THe Marshal can't really afford to have options if they want to be able to do anything thanks to their very limited spread of feats and because the class sucked from the get go, there's been almost no support for it.


But it's so novel.
Like a fair few things in minuture hand book.
Tactial solder PrC.
Sheildmate feat
War Cheif!

somethings took off - favoured soul, warmage



They can't even lead mooks effectively because their Aura is so small, making their obvious use in massed battles untenable...
Now that's easy to fix,
aura starts at, (30, 60ft, what's normal?)
And increase in radius 10 ft per class lvl.

Now yo ucan decently lead s company, or a ship

Latronis
2009-10-27, 08:27 AM
You could also have auras with a negative effect on enemies. An orderly disciplined charge could well be somewhat intimidating from the other side

Kroy
2009-10-27, 08:38 AM
There already is a pretty good Marshal fix over here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122811). You might want to take a look.

Mulletmanalive
2009-10-27, 09:26 AM
There already is a pretty good Marshal fix over here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122811). You might want to take a look.

On rereading it, it is a damn solid fix.

White Raven abilities aren't the sort of thing that will break the curve if used every other turn repeatedly [unlike certain Stone Dragon or Iron Heart manoeuvres] and the fact that if you recover your manoeuvres you lose your chance to use other class features that turn too...

oxinabox
2009-10-27, 10:12 AM
That's pretty decent.
Infact it's awesome,
they way it justifies giving some defencive abilitites: THe leader must not die, less there is noone ot lead the battle, at lvl X you become immune to death effects
I there is little i could do to now.

Though i still might make one that has not TOB, just for the interlectuall excercise.

And I really think it needs ability to have a couple of aura's active (since it has no stance)

Altair_the_Vexed
2009-10-27, 10:19 AM
I've been working on a fix for the Marshall and Bard... or should I say a replacement class for both of them, blending the "party buff" and "talky man" roles into a charismatic officer class.

Haven't posted it anywhere yet. Anyone interested?

Mulletmanalive
2009-10-27, 11:40 AM
Why not, though more out of curiousity than anything else.

Bard is still my favourite class simply because of its flavour.

I've also been working on a refit bard but more because i wanted an actual Orkney Bard than because i thought that the class was underpowered or anything [i found the suggestion that it should have manoeuvres a little insulting, frankly].

Roderick_BR
2009-10-27, 01:23 PM
I've been working on a fix for the Marshall and Bard... or should I say a replacement class for both of them, blending the "party buff" and "talky man" roles into a charismatic officer class.

Haven't posted it anywhere yet. Anyone interested?
I am. I thought about making a non-caster versin of the bard by replacing his spells with auras, so he's a fully "Inspiration" buffer, but I don't know if the auras alone (given the bard is a bit weaker than the marshal in direct combat. I think), I don't know if it would be enough. I want to see what you have.

Altair_the_Vexed
2009-10-27, 05:01 PM
Posted it over here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7202282&postcount=1)

Looking over it, it doesn't really address the concerns of the OP - it's still a back of the party buff-monkey, although the powers are a bit better (more of them) and there's the added function of being the "talky man" of the group.