The Ultimate Leader

[Vox Silentii]

How would you make the ultimate leader in the party.
I was thinking maybe purple dragon knight with inspiring leader feat.
What would you do?

[JackPhoenix]

Mastermind rogue 3/Battlemaster fighter x with Commander's Strike, Distracting Strike, Maneuvering Attack, Rally, perhaps with bard 1+. Inspiring Leader.

[ciarannihill]

It depends a lot on what you mean by "Ultimate Leader", but if you mean "Party Member that makes the other members more effective" then I would say most likely it would be based Oath of Ancient Paladin for Aura of Protection and Aura of Warding, with a dip into Wolf Totem Barbarian for Offensive buffing and Purple Dragon Knight for Rallying Cry and Action Surge.

Probably something like Paladin 12 / Barbarian 4 / Fighter 4
Fighting Styles: Dueling, Defense
Longsword and Shield, Medium Armor (to allow Raging)

Standard Array Half Elf:
15 (16) Str / 14 Dex / 13 (14) Con / 8 Int / 10 Wis / 12 (14) Cha

For your 5 ASIs probably something like: +2 Str, +2 Str, +2 Cha, Inspiring Leader, Sentinel


There's almost certainly a better version of this build, let alone the fact that there's almost certainly better build concepts as well, but this is what I've got off the top of my head.

[Vox Silentii]

My idea was the guy that stands at the front of an army shouting at them and encouraging them.

[ImproperJustice]

He kinda grew into the role, but a friend of Mine started with a Noble Battlemaster with an above average Charisma and inspiring leader. He role played as a young knight eager to prove himself, and he used his downtine and starting funds to create a group banner, and meet with local leaders to formalize ourselves as an adventuring company under the title: “The Swans of Argent”.

He then traded quest rewards to get us a small office and some renknown amongst local leaders.

We had an early encounter with a Ghost go poorly and he was aged 40 years, and we had no way to reverse it. Suddenly he became the “old man” of the group and people began to treat him as an elder.
The player decided this event should have an effect on him, so he decided to start leveling as Paladin.

Now we are in battle in the module of “against the Giants”. A cleric in our party finally hit high enough level to restore his youth.
Now he is back in full force, and coordinating our attacks from the Swans with other mercenary and military forces (via the Cleric’s message spells), to hit giant strongholds on multiple fronts.

He even brokered a deal with a captain that aided us on the Isle of Dread to provide occasional air support.

If we are successful in driving the giants back, he has made arrangements with the local leadership to allow us to reclaim a portion of the reclaimed territory and build a stronghold with the spoils of war.

As far as being a leader goes, there is no one else in our group who questions who is in charge :)
He has definitely earned his place there.

[Vox Silentii]

What about
Variant human
*Inspiring leader
Purple dragon knight
Multi class - College of glamour