Is the Legendary Tactician PrC from Dragonlance Campaign Settings OP?

[Melcar]

As in the tin...

So, I'm basically just looking for information concerning whether there are any of its class abilities that are abusable/broken/OP?

I really like the class, but my DM is unsure... So, to appease his mind, I wanted to ask the great collective, whether there might be things hidden in the class that might be too good - either by itself or in certain combinations with other...

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

[Nousos]

He is likely unsure about the leadership boost it gives. Leadership is already one of the strongest things you can ever do.

Everything else isn't broken in any way.

[Zanos]

Nothing it gains is overpowered, but Leadership is a prerequisite and can be overpowered depending on how it is used. It's effectively a feat that gives you an additional character.

Do you actually intend to bring an entire unit of soldiers to your fights? Because packing the battlefield with weak soldiers is a good way to ruin the pace of combat and get a lot of people killed.

[Fizban]

It's one of the two replacements I have listed for Marshal (the other being the Commander class from The War of the Burning Sky campaign, which is basically Marshal+ Bardic oratory that you pre-load rather than wasting your first turn every fight or singing forever).

Entry at 6th since it requires Leadership, and that's the biggest problem really. If Leadership is broken in your game, you'll have to replace it with something. My fix for Cohorts is making them also be NPC classed, hard to be overpowered then (and raise the level cap to equal the PC's level so they're a bit tougher). If you're actually trying to source your army from Leadership alone, it's going to be a loooong time before you even have a couple dozen 1st level Warriors, and you can't even enter the class until you have "5 soldiers loyal to you"- so you'd need a Leadership score of 10 at 6th, or to be able to count your party members as loyal soldiers, or be hiring mercenaries, or otherwise get NPCs to follow you in-character.

Abilities

Leadership bonus helps shore up your number of followers since you're probably not a Cha build, but Cohorts are always level capped anyway.
Inspire Courage: up to +4, a few levels before a Bard would hit +4, but lacking access to a lot of the char-op for the Bard version.
Direct Troops: a feel good ability that's pretty meh. +2 on attacks for allies for a few rounds, at-will sure, but you can't do anything else (it's a full round action) and being full BAB yourself you should be attacking.
Rally Troops: the description leaves it unclear as to whether this is a passive aura-like benefit, or an action you have to take. Either way, a reroll on saves vs fear is nice but in no way game-breaking.
Hard March: sounds nice, except the real tech for overland travel is continuous Hustle, which doesn't require any checks and takes less time. And since this doesn't even affect animals, yeah. You'd have to craft a scenario specifically to make this ability matter.
Rout Enemies: a tiny +1, only on AoOs vs fleeing enemies, that doesn't stack with Inspire Courage.
Battle Standard: finally, at ECL 13, you get a guarantee of the range needed to actually affect a small army in battle. It removes the reliance on limited daily uses of an ability that already had no real duration limit, making it crystal clear that you're supposed to have that bonus all the time, and adds the flavorful penalty if the standard goes down. The only bad thing here is that it only works with some of your abilities. Combine with the rules in Heroes of Battle that for magical battle standards to attach it to a weapon if you need to personally carry it.
Strategic Retreat: again, a weird bonus revolving around AoOs. An actual retreat using Withdraw actions should already negates AoOs, but whatever. This ability is badly written, since it sounds like it should have an actual framework of limitations around calling a retreat and people actually retreating. If we assume it applies to all AoOs for movement, it's still not crazy. Mostly weird.
The Forlorn Hope: all your allies have Diehard, except if they stop having something to fight they die. Compared to the thing you'll often find on other versions of military commander PrCs, a 1/day pile of temporary hit points, this is in many ways much worse.

So, what is the Legendary Tactician? A class with little in the way of actual tactics- even the Martial eventually gets Grant Move Action, which allows you to suddenly move troops around to gain tactical advantage. Half the class features aren't really worth thinking about. What this prestige class does is let you get Inspire Courage, the game's most effective (and pretty much only) army buff, without being a Bard, and even maintaining full BAB. So you can have a fighty character who makes their army better at fighting. Unlike most other versions of this idea, the Legendary Tactician's Inspire Courage bonus doesn't suck: instead of starting at +1 and going to +2 as if they had just multiclassed into bard, the LT starts at +2 and reaches a cap of +4, a bit earlier than the Bard, and matching them in all practical terms unless the game goes to 20th level. And as a bonus, because it's not a Bard, it's actually less cheesy. If "full BAB Bard without any skills or magic or even the other two buff songs" sounds OP, well I'd say you should probably ban Bards while you're at it.


If the problem is that the campaign actually is going to hinge on some proper 1 HD NPC armies fighting, and the class would make those battles easy. . . yeah, that's the whole point. Again, any Bard can do this. But I've never heard of someone actually pre-planning such a fight, tuning it to a degree that the troops the players are allowed to field can just barely win- usually they're being asked to do so by the players specifically so the players can army-buff, and any challenge is then built taking that buff into account, or even not at all and they simply throw something together and hopefully the players feel good about how many troops survive.

[Melcar]

It's one of the two replacements I have listed for Marshal (the other being the Commander class from The War of the Burning Sky campaign, which is basically Marshal+ Bardic oratory that you pre-load rather than wasting your first turn every fight or singing forever).

Entry at 6th since it requires Leadership, and that's the biggest problem really. If Leadership is broken in your game, you'll have to replace it with something. My fix for Cohorts is making them also be NPC classed, hard to be overpowered then (and raise the level cap to equal the PC's level so they're a bit tougher). If you're actually trying to source your army from Leadership alone, it's going to be a loooong time before you even have a couple dozen 1st level Warriors, and you can't even enter the class until you have "5 soldiers loyal to you"- so you'd need a Leadership score of 10 at 6th, or to be able to count your party members as loyal soldiers, or be hiring mercenaries, or otherwise get NPCs to follow you in-character.

Abilities

Leadership bonus helps shore up your number of followers since you're probably not a Cha build, but Cohorts are always level capped anyway.
Inspire Courage: up to +4, a few levels before a Bard would hit +4, but lacking access to a lot of the char-op for the Bard version.
Direct Troops: a feel good ability that's pretty meh. +2 on attacks for allies for a few rounds, at-will sure, but you can't do anything else (it's a full round action) and being full BAB yourself you should be attacking.
Rally Troops: the description leaves it unclear as to whether this is a passive aura-like benefit, or an action you have to take. Either way, a reroll on saves vs fear is nice but in no way game-breaking.
Hard March: sounds nice, except the real tech for overland travel is continuous Hustle, which doesn't require any checks and takes less time. And since this doesn't even affect animals, yeah. You'd have to craft a scenario specifically to make this ability matter.
Rout Enemies: a tiny +1, only on AoOs vs fleeing enemies, that doesn't stack with Inspire Courage.
Battle Standard: finally, at ECL 13, you get a guarantee of the range needed to actually affect a small army in battle. It removes the reliance on limited daily uses of an ability that already had no real duration limit, making it crystal clear that you're supposed to have that bonus all the time, and adds the flavorful penalty if the standard goes down. The only bad thing here is that it only works with some of your abilities. Combine with the rules in Heroes of Battle that for magical battle standards to attach it to a weapon if you need to personally carry it.
Strategic Retreat: again, a weird bonus revolving around AoOs. An actual retreat using Withdraw actions should already negates AoOs, but whatever. This ability is badly written, since it sounds like it should have an actual framework of limitations around calling a retreat and people actually retreating. If we assume it applies to all AoOs for movement, it's still not crazy. Mostly weird.
The Forlorn Hope: all your allies have Diehard, except if they stop having something to fight they die. Compared to the thing you'll often find on other versions of military commander PrCs, a 1/day pile of temporary hit points, this is in many ways much worse.

So, what is the Legendary Tactician? A class with little in the way of actual tactics- even the Martial eventually gets Grant Move Action, which allows you to suddenly move troops around to gain tactical advantage. Half the class features aren't really worth thinking about. What this prestige class does is let you get Inspire Courage, the game's most effective (and pretty much only) army buff, without being a Bard, and even maintaining full BAB. So you can have a fighty character who makes their army better at fighting. Unlike most other versions of this idea, the Legendary Tactician's Inspire Courage bonus doesn't suck: instead of starting at +1 and going to +2 as if they had just multiclassed into bard, the LT starts at +2 and reaches a cap of +4, a bit earlier than the Bard, and matching them in all practical terms unless the game goes to 20th level. And as a bonus, because it's not a Bard, it's actually less cheesy. If "full BAB Bard without any skills or magic or even the other two buff songs" sounds OP, well I'd say you should probably ban Bards while you're at it.


If the problem is that the campaign actually is going to hinge on some proper 1 HD NPC armies fighting, and the class would make those battles easy. . . yeah, that's the whole point. Again, any Bard can do this. But I've never heard of someone actually pre-planning such a fight, tuning it to a degree that the troops the players are allowed to field can just barely win- usually they're being asked to do so by the players specifically so the players can army-buff, and any challenge is then built taking that buff into account, or even not at all and they simply throw something together and hopefully the players feel good about how many troops survive.

That was a nice run down! You bring great points forward and although I had read the abilities carefully before, when you say it like that it becomes pretty clear.

I currently have leadership, and while effective, its not broken per say at our table. I don't bring my full retinue when we go out. Most of the time they are doing behind the scenes stuff and some guard duty on adventuring. But 90% of the time I only utilize my cohort. I currently have a leadership score of 18 as a level 9, with extra followers, so 70 level 1s. Im using them for a small militia and a spy network. I'm planning of getting dragon cohort at level 12 (which I have talked about here at lengths)

There are two reasons for me wanting the class: Leadership boost, and Inspire Courage. We used to have a bard in the group, but he switched to knight, so we lost some of our buffing, which this class would allow us to get back! Also my characters plan in forging his own principality. So men are required.

My DM don't want to play warhammer in FR, but I really don't want to play a normal adventurer. So, I'm trying to exploit different alternative classes and builds to try something new. So we are kind of in a twist here. I definitely do not want to sabotage his game, but I also don't want to play along 100% in terms of playing a classic adventurer, so I have been trying to build a young noble lord - albeit bereft of lordship - who someday can become ruler. Obviously using diplomacy to pretty much get what I want (using GitP diplomacy fix) and that annoys him too, because he feels he can't counter it. He has said that I should play what I find the most fun, but he feels that the character is a misfit for the campaign and party... I'm more concerned with playing something I haven't tried before and solving problems without just hitting them with a stick.

The class has some nice fluff, a few good abilities and is something new, so it seems like a perfect fit for my character... but I wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking some broken aspect. It would seem that its actually pretty tame, and a lot tamer than the incantatrix and dweomerkeeper we have in the party atm!

I wonder what tier of PrC this should be in???

[liquidformat]

So I hadn't noticed this class before so thanks for that. After reading through it, it seems to be a worse version of Warmaster from sword and fist, in fact your abilities are almost identical with the exception of Warmaster adding stronghold building into the mix. With that said Legendary Tactician's Inspire Courage is better than Warmaster's Battle Cry because of the duration also potentially because of Battle Cry may or may not scale.

The tier of this PRC is pretty low, my guess is low end of tier 5 or maybe even tier 6 if we ignore leadership in its rating, to be honest most of the power of this PRC is from the Leadership Feat not from anything the class does. Besides Inspire Courage you really aren't getting much, as Fizban mentioned the class features either don't do anything because the writer didn't have a very strong grasp of the rules they were dealing with or give ignorably small and sometimes only situational bonuses.

Over all I think you could do the same concept better by using the Harmonious Knight Paladin ACF, Crusader, and maybe a mix of Warchanter and/or Warrior Skald to get some interesting features.

In the past I did play an orc barbarian/orcwarlord/warmaster(would have to go through my stuff to get the exact build) in a campaign which was a lot of fun but that was a nation scale war game.

[Fizban]

Obviously using diplomacy to pretty much get what I want (using GitP diplomacy fix) and that annoys him too, because he feels he can't counter it.
As I recall, the Giant's diplomacy fix didn't really change the core problem, it just shifted it to circumstance modifiers. Looking it up again, I see it seems similar in principle to my own, but relies on the concept of "risk vs reward" rather than the "fair deal" that I use, and explicitly allows rerolls (where the normal skill does not). By supplying a list of defined modifiers and not giving the DM an explicit out, it simply raises the bar a bit. If you're dealing with people who are supposed to be friendly and not asking them to stick their necks out, the Giant's diplomacy will still let you basically order them around, while PC immunity to Diplomacy makes them effectively unstoppable. Allow me to supply my own version:


Social Skills

Social skills function around the NPC attitude table as found in the Diplomacy skill description. An NPC's starting attitude may already be determined, or may be influencable from its starting position by a Charisma check. Circumstance modifiers may apply on this check, such as shared or opposing interests or values, reputation, current events, etc. Attempting an initial attiude adjustment takes anywhere from a minute to an hour or more, depending on the person and the interaction.

Generally, this check only includes permanent bonuses: if a temporary or instant effect is allowed to give a bonus on the roll, the result lasts only as long as the effect does, after which the effective result and the NPC's attitude fall to whatever they would have been without the bonus.
While it can be difficult to give someone a good impression, it is all too easy to give a bad one. Remember that the wrong words or actions can cause attitudes to drop a step, or even go straight to Unfriendly or Hostile, even without rolling. Think before you speak. That said, speaking in character is not meant to be punished: stating your intent will always cover an honest mistake in wording (though not intentional buffoonery).
Befriending: A character (or NPC) may attempt to further improve someone's attitude towards them, but this takes further time and Charisma checks. Each attempt to befriend someone takes a least a couple of hours, cannot involve any transactions, and can only be retried as often as the person is receptive to it: this could be per week, month, or even year for long-lived races, and is never more than once per day. Note that even a hostile target can be improved to Unfriendly with a result of 20 or higher: barring poor charisma or cirumstance modifiers, a genuine offer of friendship made with enough persistance can almost always get through. That said, Unfriendly and Hostile targets will naturally avoid contact with people they don't like, so opportunities to spend time with them may not be available.
A dishonest offer of "friendship" is actually a Bluff to get them to do something. If successful, the target is not aware of the difference, but a failure causes their attitude to drop by one or more steps.

Regardless of charisma or skill rolls and rather than assigning impossibly high circumstance modifiers, the DM may choose to have certain NPCs simply be too firm in their beliefs to socially influence without some major event changing their minds, in the same way the PCs are only "influenced" by their players' direction. The DM owns their characters, though they are obliged to make sure a PC's social skills are appropriately useful even if some NPCs are "immune."


Bluff allows you to lie convincingly in social situations.

Simply telling a lie without seeming suspicious is Bluff check opposed by listeners' Sense Motive checks. Failure does not indicate the truth, but those with successful Sense Motive checks are sure that you're being dishonest in some way.
You can also Bluff to improve someone's initial attitude towards you, such as by claiming your deeds, ability, or connections are greater than they are. This Bluff check is opposed by the target's combined Sense Motive+Level check. A successful Bluff results in a synergy bonus of +2 on the Charisma check for initial attitude improvement . Suceeding by 10 or more results in an extra +1 per 10 by which you exceeded. A failed check results in a penalty of equal value instead.
Finally, you can try to bluff someone into doing something for you more immediately. This option would be used for say, pretending the guards are right around the corner, telling a guard the captain already cleared you to pass, or seducing someone. This is also a Bluff check opposed by a Sense Motive+Level check. Success means the target believes you enough to take action based on what you have told them, within the general guidelines for Friendly NPCs: the muggers retreat, the guard lets you talk to the prisoner, and the interested party follows you back to your room or does a little favor.

In any case, when the target realizes the truth, their attiude is reduced based on the severity of the Bluff and the actions they took because of it.

Being discovered in a lie has effects entirely based on the details of the situation: people who expected you to lie, would tell the same lie themselves, or simply find such a lie perfectly acceptable, will likely have no change in attitude at all. However, someone who believed you and took extensive action and planning based on your lie, might disregard all charisma and skill rolls from now on, having fully made up their mind after your betrayal.
If you fail a Bluff to make yourself look better by 4 or less, the target does not believe you, but you are able to laugh it off as a joke or otherwise save face. If you fail by 5 or more you fail to dissemble, the bonus you would have gained on that attitude roll becomes a penalty, and you may have additional consequences based on the lie itself and the person you made it to.
If you Bluff someone specifically into doing something, then the moment they discover the lie they become disenfranchised and their attitude drops at least one step, though the nature of the lie and their personality could have greater consequences.

Remember that in all cases, bluffing can be risky. People don't like being made fools of, and even foes who didn't have a particular grudge might gain one if they realize they've been had.


Diplomacy, or rather negotiation, allows you convince someone to make a deal. While this can be used to swindle a bit of extra money out of them, it is most useful for getting people to the bargaining table despite their reluctance.

A negotiation check uses your Diplomacy skill*. The target can oppose it by keeping their own interests firmly in mind and rolling Sense Motive+Level, or can counter-negotiate with their own Diplomacy skill. Success allows you to treat them as one step friendlier than they actually are on the attitude table, which in turn determines whether they are willing to make a deal. Success by 10 or more gives an extra effective step for each 10 by which you succeeded. Failure means their effective attitude is decreased by one, and if they're still willing to sell you may need to pay a higher price as they've gained the advantage in negotiations. These results stand until circumstances have sufficiently changed or enough time has passed for the target to feel like re-negotiating.
An honest merchant will always make a fair deal when they are Indifferent, but they may overcharge if Unfriendly, point you to a better value or offer more stock at Friendly, or may cut a one-time discount at Helpful. Merchants with more exclusive or shady clientele mightly only sell to people they are Friendly with in the first place, and people who don't usually sell things at all might need to be Helpful just to get them interested in a deal even at a fair price.
As long as you follow through on a fair deal, you take no penalties for having negotiated it with your skill. If you take advantage of your negotiation check, such as by getting a "Helpful" merchant to give you a discount or accept a trade they can't immediately sell, their attitude is decreased by one step in the future. This penalty can be removed by making up the difference in a future exchange, but you may need to "pay back" more than you gained.
Negotiation can apply to more situations than buying and selling items. In those cases the DM decides what attutide is required to get the other party to deal and what exchanges are considered fair. Kidnappers are likely to accept ransom from someone they're Indifferent to, but monsters taking slaves might require Helpful to consider selling them back for mere cash. Convincing someone who doesn't normally trade in favors or services might require an effective attitude of Friendly in order to get them to cast a spell for you, or to accept the duke's favor as compensation.
Note that for best results you want to already be on the best terms possible before opening negotiations, and many dungeon negotiations are stark enough that there is little need for rolling dice. However, there is no guarantee you'll be able to butter up someone before negotiating (see changing attitudes above). Attempting to call a cease-fire during combat is too subject to circumstances to be a simple check, but if both sides abide then you may begin negotiations regarding what to do next.

*Diplomacy skill, because changing the name in dozens of books is impossible, it's just what the skill is called now.


Intimidate functions as normal- the above changes to Bluff and Diplomacy were inspired by the simplicity of Intimidate and the seduction use of Bluff found in Sword and Fist.

Intimidate is opposed by the target's Level+Wis+any modifiers on saves against fear, and success makes them respond as if Friendly (though their true attitude remains the same). This lasts until 1d6x10 minutes after you leave, at which point their attitude becomes Unfriendly or Hostile, and if you fail by 5 or more they string you along with false information or other hindrances instead of cooperating.


The big difference here is that it leaves the power in the hands of the DM: no matter how good your Diplomacy skill is, in the end all you do is get the target to treat you more friendly for the purposes of the deal you're offering. My framework is meant to take the skills and funnel them down into the more digestible attitude ratings, from which you still deal with the NPC like you would without the skill. The DM still decides what their NPC would think is a fair deal, and the question is whether or not they're willing to deal with you (fairly, generously, or taking you for what they can), which is what Diplomacy helps with.

And the check should be harder: rather than a flat 15+level+Wis modified by predictable circumstance, I've set an opposed roll. This allows the NPC to get lucky (or unlucky). Since they're allowed to roll Sense Motive+Level, the DM can have NPCs that are exceptionally difficult to crack- and requiring an extra +10 for each degree of success means that the DM can make tough, unfriendly NPCs that can still be swayed a little by Diplomacy, letting the skill remain useful without running rampant. Or they might have no skills and be easy to influence even if they don't actually like you, or they might rely on their own Diplomacy rather than investing in extra Sense Motive and thus be more medium in defense.

The DM does still need to keep in mind the interests of their NPCs, their resources, the troubles of being in charge, etc. Something that the player can describe as totally fair and beneficial for everyone does not necessarily seem so to the NPC: diplomacy might get them to the table, but you still have to prove why something that looks like a bad idea to them is actually a good one. Simply remembering that NPCs have enemies too (political or martial), and anything they do for the PC could leave them vulnerable elsewhere, is a good place to start.




He has said that I should play what I find the most fun, but he feels that the character is a misfit for the campaign and party... I'm more concerned with playing something I haven't tried before and solving problems without just hitting them with a stick.

The class has some nice fluff, a few good abilities and is something new, so it seems like a perfect fit for my character... but I wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking some broken aspect. It would seem that its actually pretty tame, and a lot tamer than the incantatrix and dweomerkeeper we have in the party atm!

I wonder what tier of PrC this should be in???
Considering you already had a Bard, there is no significant mechanical difference to the party- entering late means your Inspire bonus won't even be ahead of a Bard. And if you have a Dweomerkeeper and Incatatrix, uh, yeah. They might not be being used to the greater cheese effect, but they are absolutely worse in potential scope.

This indicates to me that your DM is comfortable in dealing with personal char-op mechanical shenanigans, but not with running their own world. They may not actually have any significant characterization, plans, or resources set up for the "major" NPCs, or desire to run them. As such, any character making significant use of Leadership and Diplomacy is going to seem "broken," the same way a high level caster dropped into an adventure not built for high level spells will. I wonder what their response would be if you were running a Thrallherd: a psionic PrC that give up a caster level or two for a Leadership following that doesn't care if they're used as canon fodder, and would just brute Charm and Dominate instead of using Diplomacy. Would it seem more appropriate because it's powerful caster PrC that does powerful caster things? Or would it have been vetoed immediately because they would have recognized they don't want to deal with followers and NPCs being yanked around?

If the response is that Thrallherds are obviously hostile and would be attacked: well, why wouldn't this up and coming supposed lordling? "Bereft of lordship" implies they're not recognized by the actual ruler, they don't have lands, they have no legitimate claim. They're just some adventurer stomping around, carting off skilled people, telling the people who are actually in charge what to do, while expecting their personal power (and that of the rest of the party) to protect them. That's hostile. They should be raising their own armies to stomp out your band of rebels/ desserters/ seditionists/ traitors/ rabble-rousers/ outlaws/ bandits/etc, with their own high level NPC adventuring parties to counter yours, and only making deals with the right ones (at significant cost to yourself) and turning some against each other and so on can you carve out a piece for yourself. If they explicitly can't have things that threaten the party then the DM has made a mistake letting, well, giants into the playground as it were.


I do not recommend bringing up "tiers" as any sort of defense. If your DM already bought into them, they shouldn't have allowed your "low-tier" character in this party. And if they don't buy into it, you're just going to make things worse.

[Melcar]

So I hadn't noticed this class before so thanks for that. After reading through it, it seems to be a worse version of Warmaster from sword and fist, in fact your abilities are almost identical with the exception of Warmaster adding stronghold building into the mix. With that said Legendary Tactician's Inspire Courage is better than Warmaster's Battle Cry because of the duration also potentially because of Battle Cry may or may not scale.

The tier of this PRC is pretty low, my guess is low end of tier 5 or maybe even tier 6 if we ignore leadership in its rating, to be honest most of the power of this PRC is from the Leadership Feat not from anything the class does. Besides Inspire Courage you really aren't getting much, as Fizban mentioned the class features either don't do anything because the writer didn't have a very strong grasp of the rules they were dealing with or give ignorably small and sometimes only situational bonuses.

Over all I think you could do the same concept better by using the Harmonious Knight Paladin ACF, Crusader, and maybe a mix of Warchanter and/or Warrior Skald to get some interesting features.

In the past I did play an orc barbarian/orcwarlord/warmaster(would have to go through my stuff to get the exact build) in a campaign which was a lot of fun but that was a nation scale war game.

So, while I appreciate your suggestions, I have no free slots for prerequisites to enter the prestige classes. That being said, they are all quite cool.

In terms of tier, I don't think it very good either. I would probably put it in -1!


As I recall, the Giant's diplomacy fix didn't really change the core problem, it just shifted it to circumstance modifiers. Looking it up again, I see it seems similar in principle to my own, but relies on the concept of "risk vs reward" rather than the "fair deal" that I use, and explicitly allows rerolls (where the normal skill does not). By supplying a list of defined modifiers and not giving the DM an explicit out, it simply raises the bar a bit. If you're dealing with people who are supposed to be friendly and not asking them to stick their necks out, the Giant's diplomacy will still let you basically order them around, while PC immunity to Diplomacy makes them effectively unstoppable. Allow me to supply my own version:


Social Skills

Social skills function around the NPC attitude table as found in the Diplomacy skill description. An NPC's starting attitude may already be determined, or may be influencable from its starting position by a Charisma check. Circumstance modifiers may apply on this check, such as shared or opposing interests or values, reputation, current events, etc. Attempting an initial attiude adjustment takes anywhere from a minute to an hour or more, depending on the person and the interaction.

Generally, this check only includes permanent bonuses: if a temporary or instant effect is allowed to give a bonus on the roll, the result lasts only as long as the effect does, after which the effective result and the NPC's attitude fall to whatever they would have been without the bonus.
While it can be difficult to give someone a good impression, it is all too easy to give a bad one. Remember that the wrong words or actions can cause attitudes to drop a step, or even go straight to Unfriendly or Hostile, even without rolling. Think before you speak. That said, speaking in character is not meant to be punished: stating your intent will always cover an honest mistake in wording (though not intentional buffoonery).
Befriending: A character (or NPC) may attempt to further improve someone's attitude towards them, but this takes further time and Charisma checks. Each attempt to befriend someone takes a least a couple of hours, cannot involve any transactions, and can only be retried as often as the person is receptive to it: this could be per week, month, or even year for long-lived races, and is never more than once per day. Note that even a hostile target can be improved to Unfriendly with a result of 20 or higher: barring poor charisma or cirumstance modifiers, a genuine offer of friendship made with enough persistance can almost always get through. That said, Unfriendly and Hostile targets will naturally avoid contact with people they don't like, so opportunities to spend time with them may not be available.
A dishonest offer of "friendship" is actually a Bluff to get them to do something. If successful, the target is not aware of the difference, but a failure causes their attitude to drop by one or more steps.

Regardless of charisma or skill rolls and rather than assigning impossibly high circumstance modifiers, the DM may choose to have certain NPCs simply be too firm in their beliefs to socially influence without some major event changing their minds, in the same way the PCs are only "influenced" by their players' direction. The DM owns their characters, though they are obliged to make sure a PC's social skills are appropriately useful even if some NPCs are "immune."


Bluff allows you to lie convincingly in social situations.

Simply telling a lie without seeming suspicious is Bluff check opposed by listeners' Sense Motive checks. Failure does not indicate the truth, but those with successful Sense Motive checks are sure that you're being dishonest in some way.
You can also Bluff to improve someone's initial attitude towards you, such as by claiming your deeds, ability, or connections are greater than they are. This Bluff check is opposed by the target's combined Sense Motive+Level check. A successful Bluff results in a synergy bonus of +2 on the Charisma check for initial attitude improvement . Suceeding by 10 or more results in an extra +1 per 10 by which you exceeded. A failed check results in a penalty of equal value instead.
Finally, you can try to bluff someone into doing something for you more immediately. This option would be used for say, pretending the guards are right around the corner, telling a guard the captain already cleared you to pass, or seducing someone. This is also a Bluff check opposed by a Sense Motive+Level check. Success means the target believes you enough to take action based on what you have told them, within the general guidelines for Friendly NPCs: the muggers retreat, the guard lets you talk to the prisoner, and the interested party follows you back to your room or does a little favor.

In any case, when the target realizes the truth, their attiude is reduced based on the severity of the Bluff and the actions they took because of it.

Being discovered in a lie has effects entirely based on the details of the situation: people who expected you to lie, would tell the same lie themselves, or simply find such a lie perfectly acceptable, will likely have no change in attitude at all. However, someone who believed you and took extensive action and planning based on your lie, might disregard all charisma and skill rolls from now on, having fully made up their mind after your betrayal.
If you fail a Bluff to make yourself look better by 4 or less, the target does not believe you, but you are able to laugh it off as a joke or otherwise save face. If you fail by 5 or more you fail to dissemble, the bonus you would have gained on that attitude roll becomes a penalty, and you may have additional consequences based on the lie itself and the person you made it to.
If you Bluff someone specifically into doing something, then the moment they discover the lie they become disenfranchised and their attitude drops at least one step, though the nature of the lie and their personality could have greater consequences.

Remember that in all cases, bluffing can be risky. People don't like being made fools of, and even foes who didn't have a particular grudge might gain one if they realize they've been had.


Diplomacy, or rather negotiation, allows you convince someone to make a deal. While this can be used to swindle a bit of extra money out of them, it is most useful for getting people to the bargaining table despite their reluctance.

A negotiation check uses your Diplomacy skill*. The target can oppose it by keeping their own interests firmly in mind and rolling Sense Motive+Level, or can counter-negotiate with their own Diplomacy skill. Success allows you to treat them as one step friendlier than they actually are on the attitude table, which in turn determines whether they are willing to make a deal. Success by 10 or more gives an extra effective step for each 10 by which you succeeded. Failure means their effective attitude is decreased by one, and if they're still willing to sell you may need to pay a higher price as they've gained the advantage in negotiations. These results stand until circumstances have sufficiently changed or enough time has passed for the target to feel like re-negotiating.
An honest merchant will always make a fair deal when they are Indifferent, but they may overcharge if Unfriendly, point you to a better value or offer more stock at Friendly, or may cut a one-time discount at Helpful. Merchants with more exclusive or shady clientele mightly only sell to people they are Friendly with in the first place, and people who don't usually sell things at all might need to be Helpful just to get them interested in a deal even at a fair price.
As long as you follow through on a fair deal, you take no penalties for having negotiated it with your skill. If you take advantage of your negotiation check, such as by getting a "Helpful" merchant to give you a discount or accept a trade they can't immediately sell, their attitude is decreased by one step in the future. This penalty can be removed by making up the difference in a future exchange, but you may need to "pay back" more than you gained.
Negotiation can apply to more situations than buying and selling items. In those cases the DM decides what attutide is required to get the other party to deal and what exchanges are considered fair. Kidnappers are likely to accept ransom from someone they're Indifferent to, but monsters taking slaves might require Helpful to consider selling them back for mere cash. Convincing someone who doesn't normally trade in favors or services might require an effective attitude of Friendly in order to get them to cast a spell for you, or to accept the duke's favor as compensation.
Note that for best results you want to already be on the best terms possible before opening negotiations, and many dungeon negotiations are stark enough that there is little need for rolling dice. However, there is no guarantee you'll be able to butter up someone before negotiating (see changing attitudes above). Attempting to call a cease-fire during combat is too subject to circumstances to be a simple check, but if both sides abide then you may begin negotiations regarding what to do next.

*Diplomacy skill, because changing the name in dozens of books is impossible, it's just what the skill is called now.


Intimidate functions as normal- the above changes to Bluff and Diplomacy were inspired by the simplicity of Intimidate and the seduction use of Bluff found in Sword and Fist.

Intimidate is opposed by the target's Level+Wis+any modifiers on saves against fear, and success makes them respond as if Friendly (though their true attitude remains the same). This lasts until 1d6x10 minutes after you leave, at which point their attitude becomes Unfriendly or Hostile, and if you fail by 5 or more they string you along with false information or other hindrances instead of cooperating.


The big difference here is that it leaves the power in the hands of the DM: no matter how good your Diplomacy skill is, in the end all you do is get the target to treat you more friendly for the purposes of the deal you're offering. My framework is meant to take the skills and funnel them down into the more digestible attitude ratings, from which you still deal with the NPC like you would without the skill. The DM still decides what their NPC would think is a fair deal, and the question is whether or not they're willing to deal with you (fairly, generously, or taking you for what they can), which is what Diplomacy helps with.

And the check should be harder: rather than a flat 15+level+Wis modified by predictable circumstance, I've set an opposed roll. This allows the NPC to get lucky (or unlucky). Since they're allowed to roll Sense Motive+Level, the DM can have NPCs that are exceptionally difficult to crack- and requiring an extra +10 for each degree of success means that the DM can make tough, unfriendly NPCs that can still be swayed a little by Diplomacy, letting the skill remain useful without running rampant. Or they might have no skills and be easy to influence even if they don't actually like you, or they might rely on their own Diplomacy rather than investing in extra Sense Motive and thus be more medium in defense.

The DM does still need to keep in mind the interests of their NPCs, their resources, the troubles of being in charge, etc. Something that the player can describe as totally fair and beneficial for everyone does not necessarily seem so to the NPC: diplomacy might get them to the table, but you still have to prove why something that looks like a bad idea to them is actually a good one. Simply remembering that NPCs have enemies too (political or martial), and anything they do for the PC could leave them vulnerable elsewhere, is a good place to start.




Considering you already had a Bard, there is no significant mechanical difference to the party- entering late means your Inspire bonus won't even be ahead of a Bard. And if you have a Dweomerkeeper and Incatatrix, uh, yeah. They might not be being used to the greater cheese effect, but they are absolutely worse in potential scope.

This indicates to me that your DM is comfortable in dealing with personal char-op mechanical shenanigans, but not with running their own world. They may not actually have any significant characterization, plans, or resources set up for the "major" NPCs, or desire to run them. As such, any character making significant use of Leadership and Diplomacy is going to seem "broken," the same way a high level caster dropped into an adventure not built for high level spells will. I wonder what their response would be if you were running a Thrallherd: a psionic PrC that give up a caster level or two for a Leadership following that doesn't care if they're used as canon fodder, and would just brute Charm and Dominate instead of using Diplomacy. Would it seem more appropriate because it's powerful caster PrC that does powerful caster things? Or would it have been vetoed immediately because they would have recognized they don't want to deal with followers and NPCs being yanked around?

If the response is that Thrallherds are obviously hostile and would be attacked: well, why wouldn't this up and coming supposed lordling? "Bereft of lordship" implies they're not recognized by the actual ruler, they don't have lands, they have no legitimate claim. They're just some adventurer stomping around, carting off skilled people, telling the people who are actually in charge what to do, while expecting their personal power (and that of the rest of the party) to protect them. That's hostile. They should be raising their own armies to stomp out your band of rebels/ desserters/ seditionists/ traitors/ rabble-rousers/ outlaws/ bandits/etc, with their own high level NPC adventuring parties to counter yours, and only making deals with the right ones (at significant cost to yourself) and turning some against each other and so on can you carve out a piece for yourself. If they explicitly can't have things that threaten the party then the DM has made a mistake letting, well, giants into the playground as it were.


I do not recommend bringing up "tiers" as any sort of defense. If your DM already bought into them, they shouldn't have allowed your "low-tier" character in this party. And if they don't buy into it, you're just going to make things worse.

Thanks for that thorough run down. The fix we use have had DC increased by 5 across the board. But you are correct in as much as it still has the same flaws. But Yes I assume my DM would feel better if I flat out killed or dominated others to get my will, than use a skill. Something about it seems too strong for him, too easy. I have tried to argue, that I can either get my will through the skill or I'll find some other way of doing it, so in either case I'm getting what I want. I guess that's his problem when we really get down to it. Me not wanting to play an adventurer that just follows along on endless fetching quests... grinding level after level, doing more a more difficult fetching quests. That is simply not appealing to me anymore... For me its fun to build some underdog, and use a particular set of skills/abilities and try to solve quests that way. The two previous character I played were a healbot cleric and a stealth rogue. Both lacking any form of combat optimization - while also being reluctant to fight. Leadership and diplomacy is not exactly underdog stuff, but it was a new approach for me, hence the attraction.

I don't even think he knows about the tier system. If he does, he doesn't use it. So, that was never going to be a selling point. That was more for me, so I would be able to compare it across classes.

I will be looking into your diplomacy fix...

PS. your point about my DM not having any significant characterization, plans or resources set up for major npc's seems spot on... unfortunately!

[Fizban]

Clarification: I usde the phrase "get them to table," at one point but the check is still meant to be the response to the offer, or rather it can be considered in both directions or simultaneously. If you're dealing with a merchant or other simple sale, you already have a known fair price and so the negotiation is likely just fishing for a discount (which has a future effective attitude penalty/payback), or if they wouldn't normally sell to you then you're just getting them to the table.

For something more esoteric, the player would tell the DM the offer they're making (in and/or out of character), the DM considers how good the deal is (including the NPC's knowledge, whether they are more or less informed than the PC), determines what their effective attitude would need to be in order to accept the deal based on fairness and who they're willing to deal with, and then they make opposed rolls and find out if the PC has made it sound good enough for the deal to go through.

If there is extenuating information, this would be best conveyed before negotiating, but in the (likely) event that a player submits an offer that makes sense to them but not the NPC, and assuming the NPC cares to explain why the offer is rejected, and believes the PC when they explain, this could count as sufficiently changed circumstances for a re-roll. Or more likely, a common sense retcon that they actually explained all that before rolling the check.

[Melcar]

So, aften takling to my DM, He seems more keen now... Which is good.

That got me thinking... is there anyway to optimize the class’ inspire courage? I know you can optimize and improve inspire courage of a bard, but what about this one?

[Fizban]

The class feature is still Inspire Courage, so you need the boosters that say that, but not anything about bard or music. No Inspirational Boost spell, no Song of the Heart, no Words of Creation, no Dragonfire Inspiration. And though I thought it would be the one with a short enough description to slip through, nope, no Badge of Valor either. I think that's all the major ones, though you might find a couple more in a bard handbook.

[Melcar]

The class feature is still Inspire Courage, so you need the boosters that say that, but not anything about bard or music. No Inspirational Boost spell, no Song of the Heart, no Words of Creation, no Dragonfire Inspiration. And though I thought it would be the one with a short enough description to slip through, nope, no Badge of Valor either. I think that's all the major ones, though you might find a couple more in a bard handbook.

I honestly thought that inspirational boost would be good... but I see I must have read the Complete Adventure version!