Thought experiment, how to create Fire Emblem Lord without homebrew?

[Protato]

How would someone create a Lord from Fire Emblem without resorting to homebrew? In case you don't know much about Fire Emblem, Lords generally use swords and have no magic. However, swords are the only weapon most Lords use, and Rapiers in particular have an association with Lords. The Rapier is used to pierce armor and defeat cavalry usually. Furthermore, they often have the ability Aether, an attack that hits twice, with one attack ignoring defense and another restoring the HP of the user. Without homebrew, what might be the best way to create a Lord?

I was thinking Battlemaster, as Lords are known for rallying their forces and making friends with a great many fellow warriors, their skill in battle. Champion might be alright too as Lords often have a fairly decent critical hit rate. Since FE only has Humans, Mamkutes (people that can become dragons), and Laguz (or game-equivalent species, animal shifters with wings/animal ears), Human/Variant Human makes the most sense in creating a Lord. Feats might be Martial Adept or Inspiring Leader.

Please do note that while optimization is fun, the purpose of this thread is to discuss theme build meant to represent a Lord's abilties, as best as they can be, in DnD 5e. Basically, even if it's really good gameplay wise, it has to also work for theme/flavor to be part of such a build.

[Zilong]

Depends on the lord. Guys like Roy and Ike would be fairly easy as greatsword wielding battlemasters. Laguz could be doable as moon druids. Manaketes would either require high level spellcasting or some generous rule bending by DMs to allow wyrmlings as Druid forms. Lucina would probably be a rapier fighter like you mention. Then we got things like the player characters from Awakening, which would be either bladelocks, bladesinger, or a reflavored arcane paladin. Lyndis might be doable as a monk (hopefully with the upcoming kensai subclass) but you'd unfortunately lose out on the extra critical chances the swordmasters of FE were known for.

[sithlordnergal]

Like Zilong said, it depends on the Lord. Though honestly, I'd go with paladins if you're looking for a class that can rally and buff their team mates, heal them, and attack multiple times

For Eliwood: Medium Armor Dex-Paladin that wields a Rapier, Shield, and rides a Summoned Mount. Combat style: either Protection or Dueling.

Hector: Toss him, he's a trash Lord anyway. >.> I'm told he's great...I've never had a Hector that could do anything other then hit a wall. xp And I've played FE so many times I know every chapter by heart. The RNG forsook him every time. Go with a Fighter that focuses on axes and heavy armor. Make him a walking, talking tank with Two Weapon Fighting, and focus on using axes only.

Lyn: Best Lord of the trio in all of my runs. She's like a swordmaster with higher Str. I'd give her a mix of Rogue/Fighter. Start her off with Fighter to get her the weapons, go the Crit Fighter route, then go into Assassin Rogue.

Ryoma: Paladin that uses Medium Armor, focuses on strength, and has either Two Weapon Fighting or Dueling. Toss in Dragon Sorcerer to boot, and you have a decent Ryoma.

Xander: Paladin again, only this time a Heavy Armor Paladin that uses strength and Two Weapon Fighting. Once again, I'd add some levels of Draconic Sorcerer to give them that dragon feel.

But yeah, I'd say most of the Lords and Ladies in FE fit into some type of Paladin, with the exception of Alm and Celica. Celica is an obvious cleric, while Alm is a fighter.

[gloryblaze]

Like Zilong said, it depends on the Lord. Though honestly, I'd go with paladins if you're looking for a class that can rally and buff their team mates, heal them, and attack multiple times

For Eliwood: Medium Armor Dex-Paladin that wields a Rapier, Shield, and rides a Summoned Mount. Combat style: either Protection or Dueling.

Hector: Toss him, he's a trash Lord anyway. >.> I'm told he's great...I've never had a Hector that could do anything other then hit a wall. xp And I've played FE so many times I know every chapter by heart. The RNG forsook him every time. Go with a Fighter that focuses on axes and heavy armor. Make him a walking, talking tank with Two Weapon Fighting, and focus on using axes only.

Lyn: Best Lord of the trio in all of my runs. She's like a swordmaster with higher Str. I'd give her a mix of Rogue/Fighter. Start her off with Fighter to get her the weapons, go the Crit Fighter route, then go into Assassin Rogue.

Ryoma: Paladin that uses Medium Armor, focuses on strength, and has either Two Weapon Fighting or Dueling. Toss in Dragon Sorcerer to boot, and you have a decent Ryoma.

Xander: Paladin again, only this time a Heavy Armor Paladin that uses strength and Two Weapon Fighting. Once again, I'd add some levels of Draconic Sorcerer to give them that dragon feel.

But yeah, I'd say most of the Lords and Ladies in FE fit into some type of Paladin, with the exception of Alm and Celica. Celica is an obvious cleric, while Alm is a fighter.

With a few notable exceptions (Micaiah and Celica, + Robin and Corrin if you class change them), FE lords can't heal, so IDK if paladin would be best for them. Also not sure why you would suggest 2wf for Hector and Xander, I would give hector a great axe and Xander long sword + shield (his in game model in fates pretty clearly has a shield strapped to the forearm on his off hand)

In terms of how I'd stat them:

Marth would probably be a Dex fighter champion, because of his high crit rate and the fact that outside his personality and Falchion, he doesn't have many special abilities.

Alm would probably also be a champion fighter, for similar reasons, although I could also see an argument for Ranger because he uses bows late in the game.

Celica would probably be a sorcadin (more sorcerer than paladin) - devotion + divine soul.

I haven't played genealogy or thracia, so I'll skip them for now.

Roy would probably be mostly champion fighter with 1 level of dragon sorcerer for Green Flame Blade (and because Ninian is probably his mom)

Lyn would be a battle master+swashbuckler multiclass in my opinion, equally capable of sword fighting and using a bow.

Hector would likely be a champion + berserker multiclass with GWM - as everyone who's played Blazing Blade knows, the -5 to hit suits him even more than the +10 damage :P

Eliwood, Eirika, and Ephraim would probably all be Battlemasters with Mounted Combatant, and Ephraim would get Polearm Master.

Micaiah would be Divine Soul sorcerer or Celestial Warlock, depending on how one interprets her relationship with Yune.

Ike would be similar to Hector but with a greatsword instead of a greataxe. Chrom would likely be a similar build.

Lucina would emulate Marth, maybe with a couple levels of swashbuckler.

Robin would be a Blade pact fiend patron warlock/dragon sorcerer since she is Grima and all that. Make sure to grab Lightning Bolt for her to spam. Thoron!

Corrin would start as a dragon sorcerer but take at least 17 levels of either valor bard, bladesinger wizard, or blade pact warlock (hexblade [Yato], fiend [Ananankos], or celestial [also Ananankos but his good guy persona]) to ensure she gets either True Polymorph or Shapechange so she can turn into an adult silver dragon or an ancient white dragon.

Azura would be a bard/fighter multiclass with polearm master and Commander's Strike (so she can give allies additional attacks like a real FE dancer)

Ryoma would be a fighter (samurai) from UA/Xan (duh)

Xander would be a Mounted Combatant hexblade with Siegfried as his patron

Sakura and Elise would both be clerics - Sakura probably war cleric with high Dex to use a bow, Elise would be an arcana cleric to cast arcane magic like she does when she promotes.

Leo would be a shadow sorcerer or drsconic sorcerer - make sure to get Reverse Gravity, since Brynhildr is allegedly gravity magic in terms of lore despite its animation being a tree popping up out of nowhere.

Takumi is a ranger or maybe a multiclass ranger/fighter.

Hinoka is a Mounted Combatant fighter or maybe a Kensai monk with a spear.

Camilla is an eldritch knight with GWM and mounted Combatant.

[Geodude6]

Sigurd would definitely be a cavalier fighter - he's a prepromoted Knight Lord, a mounted class, and he was a paladin in Awakening.

Seliph could probably be any one of several classes: I would probably make him a samurai fighter - he was a swordmaster in Awakening, and in Heroes, his best build is a defensive one using Defiant Defense, so the samurai's physical resistance would definitely suit him. He'd probably take the Mounted Combatant feat at some point, since in Genealogy he promotes to a mounted unit. (edit: and historically, the samurai usually fought from horseback)

I have yet to play Thracia, but I would probably peg Leif as being a thief - he was a trickster in Awakening, and he seems to have a thief-like stat spread in Thracia. You would probably instead go for an eldritch knight with the mounted combatant feat if you're instead going off of his appearance in Genealogy, since in that game he and Lachesis promote to the friggen OP Master Knight.

[DracoKnight]

I’m pretty sure some combination of Battle Master and Paladin is the best way to play Chrom/most of the other lords.

If you want to play Robin, the best match I’ve found is a Fiend Warlock with a Pact of the Tome/Blade as appropriate to whether you want to play Robin built for Tomes or Swords.