Warden

A line of human soldiers stands waiting for the orc warband to charge against them. Amongst the warriors walks a man clad in leather armour, carrying a shield and a longsword both embellished with golden filigree. Reciting a tale of glory and honour from the annals of history, when his people stood and died in battle defending their lands from even greater foes than the ones they face today, he inspires his allies and discourages his foes.

Dashing through the ranks of the enemy an elf spears foe after foe, thrusting her weapon in one enemy’s thorax to then pull it out and throw it at another. As she strings together her attacks the fighting becomes a flowing dance of death.

A Warden combines the resilience and martial skill of any Fighter with fluidity and charismatic presence. They are usually lightly armoured, versatile warriors who use their voice as a weapon as much as a sword and a shield.

Gambit Builders

As a Warden you have the ability to make three different attacks:

A regular weapon attack: This attack works just like a normal attack and both attacks with melee or thrown weapons count towards it. However, ranged weapon attacks such as those with bows, crossbows or slings don't.

A shield bash: A shield bash allows you to attack with your shield, which deals 1d4 + your Dexterity or Strength modifier (your choice) bludgeoning damage. Some special shields might deal more damage by nature, or because they have had spikes added to them.

A shout: A shout is a special sort of attack, where you cry out using your voice rather than a traditional weapon. You can shout at a target you can see when it is within 60 ft. of you and it can hear you (though it need not understand you).

Make a ranged spell attack, on a hit, it deals 1d4 psychic damage, which increases to 1d6 at 8th level and 1d8 at 14th level. When used against an enemy with a lower challenge rating than your current Warden level, you can try to discourage your opponent and hamper his attack.

Following your shout, the target has to make a Wisdom saving throw, if it fails, it has disadvantage on its next attack against you. The DC for your shout is the same as your spell save DC.

Gambit Manoeuvres

As a Warden you are trained in stringing together series of attacks or other actions. Every type of attack you perform (regular attack, shield bash or shout) determines the movements you make, expressed in gambits: Spear, Shield and Fist. You don’t have to hit with these attacks for them to produce a gambit, as the movement is always there, whether you actually succeed or not. Starting at when you choose this archetype, you are able to store up to two gambits.

During your Attack Action, when not wearing heavy armour, you can consume all gambits to empower an attack and perform a Gambit Manoeuvre. Different combinations of gambits will result in different Gambit Manoeuvres and having more gambits lined up will result in more powerful Gambit Manoeuvres. As you become a more proficient Warden, you are able to string more movements together, unlocking more gambit slots. The Manoeuvres are placed in Tiers: Manoeuvres with two gambits are Tier 2, Manoeuvres with three gambits are Tier 3, etc. The levels at which you unlock more slots and therefore more powerful Manoeuvres coincide with the Extra Attack feature as a Fighter, so you unlock another Tier at 5th, 11th and 20th level.

Some higher tier Manoeuvres will function as spells. You don't require a focus to execute any of these Manoeuvres, as their effects are created by your movements alone. As you don't have spell slots, you always cast spells at the lowest possible level. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for all these spells as their success depends on persuading allies and dissuading foes. Hence, you use your Charisma whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a spell you cast.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier