Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Warden (Patreon)

Published:
2016-11-01 05:00:27
Edited:
2024-10-03 21:16:39
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

The warden was a mountain, his feet immovable and his shield unbreakable.

Wardens are vigilant guardians, and unbreakable defenders of the weak. They are nature’s shield, and the watchers of the realms of men. When the world cries out for a champion, wardens heed the call.

The Warden represents the first proper Defense / Control class ever in 5th edition. It excels in not only surviving oncoming hordes of foes, but also in locking down enemies to shelter the party from harm. Like the witch, this class is eventually destined for a wider release, but it comes to you, loyal patron, early.

Also this month, be sure to check out our other release, All Patrons Eve, a spooky book of warlock patrons. And, if you're running a campaign in the harsh desert, check back in on the Waste Update. We went back and added two whole new pages of spells just for you all!

You can find the most up-to-date version of this class here!  

Changelog

11/8/16: Proficiencies: All wardens now get proficiency with medium armor

Warden's Mark: Damage scaling removed

Sentinel's Stand: Armor Proficiency: Changed to heavy armor

Sentinel's Stand: Unarmored Defense: Replaced with Indomitable

Ancient Instincts: Replaced with Duel

Fighting Style: Crippling: Speed penalty increased to 10 feet

Sentinel's Step: Features completely changed. New features are Earthstrength,

Thundering Charge, and Wildblood

Sentinel's Soul: Eyes of the Earth: Renamed Eyes of the Mountain: No bonus proficiency

11/14/16: Sentinel's Step: Formitable removed, replaced with Stalwart Spirit

Duel: Triggered when you make a melee weapon attack, not as a bonus acrion

Font of Life: Moved to 4th level

Defiant: Added at 6th

Eyes of the Mountain: Tremorsense 15 feet

Comments

Richard Belmont Potts III

I have to say I am very impressed with the Warden. Will you be adding any other subclasses to it? Such as one of the sunlight or perhaps one who protects against the misuse of magic? I don't know much about old wardens from back when, but I am curious about their connection to the natural world.

Mage Hand Press

We will be adding subclasses once we're really sure this is balanced and playtested. Keeping it to two archetypes at release makes comprehensive playtesting much easier. I've got a few ideas for more archetypes right now, but I'm being careful to write them around the idea that a Warden is called to defend /something/. A sun bro could be fun (Praise the Sun and whatnot), but what could he defend? If you've got an idea, let me know.

Temirlan Kurmanguzhin

Looks great! Hopefully I'll have a chance to playtest it! On a sidenote, Champion's Call says it grants a 10 lvl feature, but nothing is presented in the subclasses. A typo?

Pioneer1111

For Sentinel's Step's Remarkable Athlete, I was wondering if Modifier is what you intended, as that adds a maximum of only +5 feet to a jump, equivalent to one square in most grid based campaigns. Which makes it not very useful in most scenarios until you have nearly maxed your strength.

Richard Belmont Potts III

Well, Perhaps instead of defending the sun they defend an outer positive plane? I'm sure you are thinking of one who also defends some magical secret as well in a similar way as Ryze might from league of legends.

Hans Watts

I'd love to see an earth/thunder/quake style Warden archtype, It was my jam back in the day for my Earth genasi.

Mage Hand Press

I have designs on a Storm Sentinel already, but an earth/quake dude could be really sweet as well.

Mage Hand Press

This feature was actually ripped directly from the Fighter (champion) feature of the same name. You're right, though, that seems really weird. I'll check if it was eratta'd Edit: Not in the eratta, so I'm going to leave it alone, even though I agree that it seems pretty weak.

Mage Hand Press

I'm not familiar with any of the characters from LoL, but a protector of magical secrets (Lorekeeper, is probably what I'd call it) would definitely have an arcane, 1/3 caster bent. The question on this is whether I want to do an wizard-y 1/3 caster, or a druid-y 1/3 caster.

David Ramey

I absolutely love the idea and the execution, but I feel there's just one ability to be desired (at least from my playtest of the class), some sort of Compelled Duel or otherwise taunt-based ability. Without it I feel like I need to dip into Battle Master to get the Goading Attack maneuver (which honestly is a great multiclass idea with this class anyway, but still). But even still, loving the class! I can't wait for the Storm Sentinel archetype, it would fit one of my current characters like a glove to multiclass into Warden for it (currently an exclusively shield-wielding Battle Master, whose only offensive ability is shield bashing and the maneuver that allows your allies to attack in place of you). Edit: Actually the Lorekeeper idea from that previous comment sounds perfect... a wizard-y 1/3rd caster-type.

Mage Hand Press

You know, in early drafts I actually had compelled duel as something you could cast at will. The class felt very different in that form -- it was more mystical, with a much more druidy vibe about it. Later edits made it more martial, and focused more on locking down groups of enemies, and the compelled duel effect was wrapped into Warden's Mark before it was cut entirely. Being able to use it at will had some easy exploits that I was worried about introducing. I think that particular spell might crop up again in some future subclasses. The first subclass feature is largely intended to augment the mark in some way, and adding a duel-like mechanic is definitely something I'll be adding in one of them.

David Ramey

After parsing the information a bit more, I keep getting the feeling that this class feels a bit underpowered... Like a half caster that had Spellcasting taken away. Maybe it's just me or I'm viewing this in the wrong light, but I'm seeing a lack of "commander-esque" abilities, meaning things like Battle Master has Commander's Strike, Goading Attack, etc. Allow me to propose a compromise to that and the Compelled Duel dilemma: Superiority Dice, or an analog of them for the Warden. Keep it martial, but add utility and group support to this highly defensive class option. I may even homebrew myself something for my group based on this. I'd turn Warden's Grasp into a maneuver of sorts (giving this class a larger dice pool than Battle Master, because fighter gets a lot of stuff on its own anyway...) and pop it in at 2nd level, in line with the progression of other half casters. Just my proposal/suggestion. I'm interested if you guys had considered that option, as I know you've got an extensive testing process. Edit: Even if it has to be limited to a once per turn ability (as spells and most of their analogs are), I feel that this would fit the class perfectly.

Mage Hand Press

A lot of the Warden's power comes from how unlimited his abilities tend to be. In my mind, that's what separates casters from martials - casters have to take a rest, and martials just keep going. The battlemaster is a perfect example of this. It's an adaptation of the 3.5 Warblade, which used maneuvers that were structured almost exactly like spells in order to provide an analogous and system for critically weak martials in that edition. Yet, that entire book is a real divisive thing for the 3.5 community. On one hand, it makes martials playable, but on the other, they don't feel like martials anymore. I really wanted this to feel badass when you play it, so I hope that comes through. No waiting for a rest to take a short nap and recover dice (at least not in the base class - we might do maneuver dice in a subclass later on.) Honestly, I don't think the Warden would feel the same if you couldn't Grasp every round. That ability is almost passive because of its bonus action requirement, and it really defines how the class plays. The warlord (which is under construction right now) probably fits what you're talking about a little more closely. The biggest thing I need to refine with more playtesting is to see if I should give the base class medium armor (with an option for heavy.) Right now, the class is very tanky, but most of its options (intentionally) sacrifice AC from armor.

Josh Smyth

After reviewing the class I feel it could really benefit from a battlemaster-ish subclass. Medium armor as a base option might be a good idea as well. One of our game worlds that I play in has a set of twins who are battle tacticians and I was looking at a combo of this class and battlemaster fighter. The warlord looked like it might be a good option but I don't see the twins as using cohorts the way that class does

Mage Hand Press

Okay, then this is definitely something to add to my to do list. I guess a battlemaster warden would choose to defend the 'realms of men' from outsiders, or something like that. This particular archetype is going to have to dump a lot of the mysticism that the other ones enjoy, in favor of more conventional ground.

Josh Smyth

That would be pretty awesome

Terrance Consaul (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-29 03:00 I love most of the class, but I think some of the abilities are a bit fiddly and lacking in flavor. The "Sentinel's X" features seem like you just couldn't find unique or interesting Warden abilities, and stuffed in a choice of other abilities instead; Ancient Senses is incredibly strange, such that I cannot parse what it does in the world. Why can I detect creatures prepared to ambush me, but not creatures who are hiding and prepared to leap out, THEN ambush me? I think the class could do with a more unique feature set, maybe do something with hit dice, like spending them in combat or adding a one time choice of mental stat. If you could do more quakey, battlefield manipulation stuff, you could simplify Sentinel's Step to just ignoring difficult terrain. Just spitballing here, otherwise I love this idea.
2016-11-06 22:15

Mage Hand Press

I think you actually hit on some of the big design principles that went into making this class, but let me respond to your questions in turn: Sentinel's: This trio of features isn't supposed to be hugely thematic on their own. Rather, they're more like a choose-your-own-adventure for levels of the class which needed to be relegated to conventionally passive abilities. Stand and Soul needed to be defensive, and Step needed to be exploration-based. This provides the player a pretty large measure of control over their build, which hopefully makes the entire package play better as a standalone class. If I replaced these with single features, they couldn't reasonably be more powerful than any of the options, so using established mechanics and offering a choice works by increasing the flexibility of the class. Ancient Instincts: This was by far the hardest thing in the class to write, in spite of the fact that it's just a ribbon. The idea here is that, if you follow the Ready action rules in 5e, a creature can't prepare to do more than an action or a move when they Ready. This means that if a creature has a readied action to pop out, they can't also attack during that event. Effectively, this should shore you up against the most common type of ambush event. Dice + Point Mechanics: A lot of people have mentioned using maneuver dice, hit dice, or a point pool to control this guy's performance in combat, which inadvertently is related the larger design goals with this class. I wanted the Warden to feel like it belongs in core, with simple, expressive, and powerful mechanics, that aren't limited or bogged down by other systems. A fighter or a barbarian doesn't need to rely on charges or expendable dice to do their job, and neither should the warden. I plan on adding measures of complexity, like a maneuver system with dice and a 1/3 spellcasing system, to different archetypes later on, but it was important to prove that the core class features like Grasp and Mark work when the whole thing is stripped down. Hope that answers some questions and gives some insight into the design that went into this.

Mage Hand Press

I think you might be parsing the mechanics on the Ancient Instincts a little differently than I intended. I wrote this under the assumption that an action to attack before combat has started _is_ a readied action to attack, even if not explicitly stated as such by the DM. An ambush is basically a readied action to attack, whether or not combat is actually occurring at the time the action is readied. Declaring that readied actions to attack only happen inside combat is like saying that you can only take the Hide action while in combat. Ancient Instincts clues you in that someone is about to pounce, but very little else. You have this ability to sense danger because it reflects an innate skill for defending others just on gut feeling that things aren't quite right. There isn't a reason that the warden can't have dice mechanics -- it was a design choice I made to be more in line with the fundamentals of 5th edition, and to be more true to the concept of a warden. The warden is supposed to be a defender; not a skilled tactician or a half caster. Taking an at-will or passive approach for the core abilities, like Grasp, make them feel more powerful, and help to define the playstyle in a more concrete way. If you can only lock down your enemies some of the time, you're not really doing your job as a warden.

David Ramey

One of the Barbarian Paths in the new Unearthed Arcana actually adds a one round Compelled Duel-type ability to their Rage ability. Just figured I'd point this out. It lacks the movement restrictions of the spell, but perhaps this could still be incorporated into the Warden as a bonus action ability you can only use on your marked target? The action economy of Warden actually then makes you choose if you want to Grasp or force disadvantage on attacks on your allies, and if the Mark is broken, the Duel is broken. Would that offer a more balanced mechanic towards what you were playtesting, or had this option already come up?

Mage Hand Press

Thanks, I'll look that up! I'm working on a revision right now and I _do_ plan to include a duel mechanic

Pioneer1111

I guess its so weak because the other half of that ability is so huge? Though only 5 feet is rather small in my opinion. (barring items that increase the modifier) Your guy's call though.

Mage Hand Press

I'll be trying to trade out this feature soon. People don't seem to like recycling features from other classes, so I'll work on a change

Mage Hand Press

Edits! I got some good feedback and have made some changes to what seemed to be problem areas. Let me know what you all think!

David Ramey

I like the improvements! One thing to note, though, is that Sentinel’s Step: Armor Proficiency still says Medium. However, I still feel like this class is lacking some oomph, I just can't place my finger on it. It's mainly for the higher levels, but I haven't played it at a higher level yet, so maybe it's just me.

Mage Hand Press

I can totally start looking through the higher levels again. I'm fairly certain it's mechanically balanced up to level 20, but I have an inkling that its not presented in a way that gets this across.

David Ramey

I guess what I'm getting it is that the Warden draws a visible amount of inspiration from the Paladin, as far as class structure and class feature power goes, but the paladin still has Spellcasting over it. Even as a half caster, and even though most Paladins use their spell slots for smiting anyway, I feel like this class wouldn't be overpowered with half caster capabilities of some sort, whether that comes in a more martial form, maneuvers, or a more druidic Wisdom-based spellcasting form, like you said the class started out as. Apologies for the late response, it's just taken me a while to mull over, and I had to play my Warden character again with the updated mechanics.

Mage Hand Press

I see what you're getting at. To some extent (especially with the subclass level distribution) this class does look like the paladin, and there will, eventually, be subclasses which offer some spellcasting and maneuvers. My goals for the base class, however, are a little different to that of the paladin. I'd like the warden to have a few strong choices on each of his turns to limit his enemies' options. I'd like these to be at will, but I think the warden should have to choose between which one he wants to employ (which I'm enforcing through bonus actions.) So far, Duel restricts who the enemy can sucessfully attack and Grasp restricts where the enemy can move. So here's my question for you: do you feel like the warden lacks /power/ or do you feel he lacks /options/?

David Ramey

I honestly believe the answer is options. It's greatly improved with the introduction of Duel, however I just keep imagining a Verdant warden buffing Bless on the party and running up to the boss monster to Duel it. I feel like the utility spells are what is missing for me, not necessarily the strength of the hit. More options for the Action, as opposed to the Bonus Action. I feel like I'm attacking too much as the tank, which sounds weird, but that's pretty much the gist of it.

Mage Hand Press

More changes! I'd like some feedback on the Defiant feature. I know it's powerful right now, but I'm wagering that using your action to do it is actually a pretty sizable trade.

David Ramey

I love all of these changes! As far as the change to Sentinel's Stand, I can't quite tell exactly what it's supposed to do because of a typo. I like the Defiant feature, but I'd also like to see it accompanied by some flavor text. I agree that it's probably balanced out by the fact that it's an Action, especially considering the revised Mystic gets temporary hit points much, much more easily.

Sasquatch

Defiant actually seems kinda weak, maybe have you gain twice your Warden level + Con mod whenever any ally is downed

Sasquatch

I also think it makes more sense for Eyes of the Mountain to give you Tremorsense to 30 feet

Mage Hand Press

I definitely want this to be an at-will option. The idea is an option to just to hunker down and /absorb/ some amount of damage. The trick here is figuring out how many temp hit points are permissible for an at-will action kind of thing.

Mage Hand Press

You're absolutely right. I don't even know if that was a holdover from earlier drafts or just a mistake on my part -- either way, tremorsense makes more sense.

Sasquatch

Maybe just have it as double your Warden level temp hp as an action usable a number of times equal to 1+con/2 rounded down per long rest

Mage Hand Press

My bad on Sentinel's Stand; this is supposed to read "You gain proficiency in two saving throws of your choice." It's not precisely my favorite feature for this slot, but it's at least distinct from the other two features. There's a good probability I'll change this out for something else later on.

Mage Hand Press

I was definitely considering that as one option we could go down. Still, since temp HP doesn't stack in this edition, this is largely a question of how burst-y we want the feature to act.

David Ramey

The only other class I can think of that gains temporary hp in a similar manner is the Mystic, specifically the Order of the Immortal. They gain temp hp at the start of their turn equal to their Int mod, which is considerably easier to get and as such is considerably less. However, I think you should be wary of increasing it too high, as there are already many ways to get damage mitigation. There's a reason temp hp doesn't stack in this edition. If you want to increase it a bit more, perhaps instead of giving it a set number of uses, just say that while you have temp hp from this feature, you're unable to use it to refresh the value. That's my suggestion, should you choose to go that route.

David Ramey

Two? That makes it the most powerful option, then... the other two give you benefits in similar fashion to feats. Heavily Armored and Tough. But Resilient only gives one save proficiency, by comparison. True, there's the stat bump I'm not mentioning from Heavily Armored and Resilient, but I daresay being able to dip one level of a class to attain all three "good" saves (Dex, Con, and Wis) is pretty ridiculous. EDIT: By comparison, Monk doesn't get Diamond Soul until 14th level, and Paladin doesn't get Aura of Protection until 6th.

Mage Hand Press

Alas, you're right -- I wasn't considering dips into the class. When you only consider this single class, a buff to AC or HP is more guaranteed to make a difference in combat, but two saving throws makes multiclassing considerably more tempting. To be perfectly honest, I've been struggling to get a 3rd good option at 1st level. I'll leave this feature as a placeholder for now, but I'm all ears if you or anyone else has an idea for a 1st level option for Stand.

Mage Hand Press

That might be a wise direction to take it if I increase the temp hp and limit the uses. However, until I get some playtesting of the revised warden, I'll probably leave it for now. I want this feature to feel different from Second Wind, and right now I think it at least does that.

David Ramey

Here's a list of things I've thrown together--not all good ideas, mind you, just listing all of them for inspiration's sake. My unrefined not-so-good idea could turn into someone else's brilliant idea. * Advantage on checks to shove or grapple and to resist opposing shoves or grapples Bonus to passive perception/perception Once per short rest, use one hit die without expending it Once per long rest, use an action to expend a hit die and recover hit points Proficiency in Dexterity saving throws Resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing +10 to movement speed EDIT: Whoops, hit enter early on that one... But I digress. I put an asterisk next to the advantage on grapple/shove checks because this class can actually function as a REALLY good grappler role on its own, what with Warden's Grasp and all. Action to grapple you, bonus action to lock you down in my range? Yes, please.

David Ramey

I'd perhaps also place a duration on the temp hp, because you cold essentially just buff it long before the battle as it stands currently. Especially if you add the clause where you can't refresh the total, as I'd hate to be walking around with 1 temp hp unable to refresh it for later.

David Ramey

Out of curiosity, which alternative Stand option are you leaning towards? If you've had a chance to test it.

Mage Hand Press

I'm leaning towards proficiency in Dexterity and a 5 foot bonus to movement speed, but I haven't had the chance to test anything in game.

David Ramey

I just tested the class again last night and I can confirm it feels much more like what I'd imagine it to! Great job, guys! And the Dex save and +5' movement works well as a Sentinel's Stand option as well. Here's hoping to an update reflecting that change when you guys get a moment to playtest it yourselves.

Andrew Bahls

Hey guys, I didn't realize that you had stopped posting updates to this patreon post when you posted it publicly on the website. It would be nice if you could keep the patreon posts updated as well, so I don't have to compare the PDFs of either location to find the latest version. It would also be nice if the PDFs had some sort of date in them somewhere so I can figure out what version I have easily.