Warlord

As a warlord, you gain access to two martial traditions of your choice.

Maneuvers

You begin play with knowledge of 6 martial maneuvers chosen from the martial disciplines offered by your chosen traditions. Once you know a maneuver, you must ready it before you can use it (see Maneuvers Readied below).

You learn additional maneuvers at higher levels, as indicated on Table: The Warlord. You must meet a maneuver’s prerequisites, if any, to learn it.

Upon reaching initiator level 4th, and at every even numbered initiator level thereafter (6th, 8th, 10th, and so on), you can choose to learn a new maneuver in place of one you already know. In effect, you lose the old maneuver in exchange for the new one. You can choose a new maneuver of any level you like, as long as you observe the restriction on the highest-level maneuvers you know; you need not replace the old maneuver with a maneuver of the same level. You can swap only a single maneuver at any given level.

Your initiator level is equal to your class level, and your initiation modifier for your warlord maneuvers is Charisma.

Maneuvers Readied

At 1st level, you can ready four of your six maneuvers known by practicing weapon drills for ten minutes. The maneuvers you choose remain readied until you decide to change them by repeating this process. You need not Rest to ready maneuvers; any time you can practice for ten minutes, you can change your readied maneuvers. You must always ready your maximum number of maneuvers readied.

You begin each encounter with all your readied maneuvers unexpended, regardless of how many times you might have already used them since you chose them. When you initiate a maneuver, you expend it for the current encounter, so each of your readied maneuvers can be used once per encounter, unless you recover it, as described below.

As you advance in level and learn more maneuvers, you are able to ready more but must still choose which maneuvers to ready.

Recovering Maneuvers

To recover your expended warlord maneuvers, you must perform one of the two following actions.

When you use your Warlord’s Gambit ability (see below), you recover a number of maneuvers equal to your initiation modifier (minimum 2).

Alternatively, you may spend a standard action to recover a single readied maneuver of your choosing.

Stances

You begin your career with knowledge of one stance from any discipline offered by your martial traditions. At 2nd, 5th, 9th, 11th, 15th, and 18th levels, you can select an additional stance to learn.

Unlike maneuvers, stances are not expended and you do not have to ready them. All the stances you know are available to you at all times, and you can change the stance you are  currently maintaining as a swift action. A stance is an extraordinary ability unless otherwise stated in the stance or discipline description.

Unlike with maneuvers, you cannot learn a new stance at higher levels in place of one you already know.

At his core, the warlord is a warrior who relies on both skill and daring; without this he is but any other combatant. By setting himself to danger, does his true skill shine, or so the motto of the warlord goes.

At 1st level, you learn two gambits from the list of warlord gambits. At 4th level and every four levels thereafter, you learn one additional gambit.

Every gambit has two aspects: a Risk and a Reward. The risk is an action you must take to attempt the gambit, and the reward is the benefit you gain if you successfully complete the risk.

Risk

Risking a gambit requires a swift action immediately followed by a type of action specified by the gambit you are attempting. This action may be an attack, skill check, save, or other action.

You gain a luck bonus equal to half your initiation modifier on any d20 rolls made as part of risking a gambit. (This bonus does not apply to any other rolls of the same type, unless they are part of the risk.)

Due to your reliance on the stresses of combat to bring out your best, gambits cannot be risked outside of combat.

Reward

If you succeed at the gambit’s risk, you immediately receive the reward as described in that gambit. Allies who would gain a benefit from the gambit’s reward must be able to see you perform the gambit’s risk and be within 30 feet (or within the range of your Command Aura, see below); otherwise, they gain no benefit.

In addition to the specific reward, successfully completing a gambit allows you to recover a number of expended maneuvers equal to your warlord initiation modifier (minimum 2). If you initiate a maneuver as part of a gambit, you cannot recover that maneuver when the gambit is completed, even if it’s your only expended maneuver.

Rake

If you fail a gambit’s risk, you do not gain the reward and instead suffer a Rake. You recover only a single expended maneuver and take a –2 penalty on all d20 rolls until the end of your next turn.

List of Warlord Gambits

At 1st level, 6th level, and every four levels after 6th, you gain a bonus Combat Feat or Style Feat of your choice. You must meet the prerequisites of the chosen feat.

At 2nd level, your innate charisma allows your very presence on the battlefield to aid and assist your allies and yourself in the form of a command aura. Manifesting a command aura is a move action.

Your command auras can affect all creatures within 30 feet, including yourself. Benefits only affect your allies (including yourself), while penalties instead affect only your enemies. You may define any creature within your aura as an ally, enemy, or neither (making them unaffected by your auras) as you choose.

The aura remains in effect until you dismiss it as a free action, manifest a different command aura, become unconscious, or are slain.

The your aura bonus is +1 at 2nd level and increases by 1 for every class five levels thereafter.

At 2nd level, you learn the Indomitable Command aura. You learn the Rallying Command aura at 5th level and the Victorious Command aura at 9th level. You gain an additional command aura of your choice at 13th level and again at 17th level. You may learn additional command auras using the Expanded Auras Known feat.

At 3rd level, your forceful personality and bold, headstrong nature assist you in resisting the influence of others. Your brazen bravado allows you to add your warlord initiation modifier to your Will save ( in addition to your Wisdom modifier). As a reminder, you cannot add the same ability modifier to a check more than once, so this ability does not stack with abilities such as the paladin’s divine grace.

You are exceptionally gifted at working with your allies to bring down opponents, and your skills assist any who ally with you. Beginning at 4th level, at the start of your turn, you may choose a single square adjacent to you. Until the start of your next turn, you and your allies can treat this square as if you occupied it for the purposes of flanking opponents.

At 5th level, you learn to better mix traditional fighting skills with your martial arts training. Choose a discipline for which you know at least one stance. When you are in a martial stance from the chosen discipline, you gain a +1 competence bonus on attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, CMB rolls, and to your CMD.

You select an additional discipline for this ability and increase the bonus by +1 at 12th level and again at 19th level.

Able to make the best of any situation through pluck and verve, you are capable of applying multiple martial principles simultaneously. At 6th level, once per day you may initiate two boost type maneuvers as part of the same swift action. You may use this twice per day at 11th level, and three times per day at 16th level.

At 8th level, your gift for helping allies in combat improves. You may use the aid another action for any single ally within range of your command aura as a move action, and when you successfully use the aid another action, it affects all allies within your command aura.

Beginning at 11th level, you are able to maintain two command auras at the same time. Each aura requires a separate action to manifest or change.

At 15th level, you are able to maintain up to three command auras at the same time. Each aura requires a separate action to manifest or change.

You master the ability to maintain martial stances, allowing you to gain the benefits of two known stances simultaneously. You must still initiate each stance individually, requiring you to expend one swift action for each stance.