War Falconer

Unfortunately for a typical marshal, it’s not possible to be in multiple locations at once on the battlefield. War Falconers alleviate this limitation by training swift, intelligent birds to bolster their allies and harry their enemies, making it just as easy to command and harrass from the front line or the back.

War Falcon

At 3rd, level, you learn the Beast Friend ranger knack with the following changes:

• This feature only applies to Small or Tiny creatures with the Beast creature type and a fly speed.
• Regardless of what the creature is, it uses the statistics of an eagle (if it is Small) or your choice of a bat or hawk (if Tiny).
• Your war falcon shares your initiative and takes its turn simultaneously with yours in combat. Whenever you roll initiative, and at the end of a short or long rest , your war falcon gains temporary hit points of a number equal to your marshal level multiplied by your proficiency bonus. In addition, its Armor Class is increased by an amount equal to your proficiency bonus. 
• As a bonus action on your turn, you can order your war falcon to take any action. If you order it to take the Attack action, it adds your proficiency bonus to attack and damage rolls .

For any features granted by this archetype in which you must make a choice, you may retrain your war falcon over a long rest to replace the choice you made with a new one. You may retrain only one feature per long rest.

Remote Command

Also at 3rd level, careful training allows you to extend your reach as a battlefield commander by teaching your companions to watch for the signals of your war falcon. Any allies who have received this training—usually taking 10 minutes of discussion and practice with your war falcon a week—do not need to share a language with you to benefit from this feature. Choose one of the following:

Avian Commander

Your war falcon gains an aura with a radius of 5 feet. Creatures within the radius of this aura are treated as if they were within the aura of your Commanding Presence aura, provided they are also within twice the range of your Commanding Presence’s aura.

In addition, if a creature is within range of both your war falcon’s aura and the actual aura of your Commanding Presence it adds an expertise die to its attack rolls for attacks made through Commanding Presence.

Directed Strike

When you command your war falcon to take the Attack action or use a combat maneuver and it succeeds, the target is treated as if it were the target of your Mark Foe class feature.

Tactical Tricks

At 7th level, your war falcon’s attacks with its natural weapons count as magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistances and immunities. In addition, you may choose one of the following tricks to teach your war falcon:

Bird’s Eye View

You’ve trained your war falcon to communicate simple messages with you through specific screeches. You may command your war falcon to fly high in the air, where it is able to communicate information about the land and creatures visible from the air within one mile. In this way you are able to learn the general layout of the terrain, as well as pitfalls or obstacles visible from the air, and the location and general number of creatures visible from the air in real time. You are not able to learn very specific information, such as the heritage or species of creatures, the specific layout of an enemy camp, or hidden traps.

This trick also allows you to use the Lay of the Land lesson of war without having to find a high point from which to view the land.

Disarming Pecks

As a bonus action, you may command your war falcon to make a single melee attack that initiates the Disarm combat maneuver if it hits. Unlike usual, your war falcon is able to disarm creatures up to three size categories larger than itself without any penalties. Defending creatures make a Constitution save against your combat maneuver DC. If the item your war falcon disarms is small enough for it to carry, it may grab the item instead of allowing it to fall to the ground.

Harrying Dive

As a bonus action, you may command your war falcon to prepare to follow and harass a specific creature to slow its movement. If the target creature moves, your war falcon may spend its reaction to follow the creature, staying within 5 feet and moving up to its fly speed. As long as your war falcon remains within 5 feet of the target creature, the creature treats all terrain as difficult terrain . If the terrain is already difficult, every foot of movement it takes costs 2 extra feet.

Trained Echolocation

Your work with your war falcon has taught it to give specific cries to alert you to a creature’s movement and general position. Your war falcon gains blindsight with a range of 10 feet if it did not already have blindsight. This blindsight is sound-based and does not work in an area with no sound, such as one under the influence of a silence spell, or if your war falcon is deafened . As long as you are able to hear your war falcon, you are treated as if you can see creatures within 10 feet of your war falcon as if you had its blindsight. This feature does not allow you to otherwise benefit from your war falcon’s blindsight.

Aerial Attack

At 11th level, your war falcon learns one of the following combat maneuvers: Eye Slash , Imposing Glare , Raking Strikes , or Wounding Strike . It can use its natural weapons to meet the weapon requirements for these maneuvers. It uses your maneuver DC in place of its own. Whenever you roll initiative, your war falcon gains the ability to use its learned maneuver once without spending exertion. If it doesn’t use the maneuver before the encounter ends, it loses the ability to use this maneuver until you next roll initiative.

Cooperative Advantage

At 15th level, your war falcon learns an additional trick from your Tactical Tricks feature. If your war falcon already knows Bird’s Eye View or Trained Echolocation, instead of learning a new trick you may allow creatures of your choice within the aura of your Commanding Presence to benefit from the trick the same way you do.

Flockmaster

At 18th level, you grow your flock from one war falcon to two. You may expend a bonus action to command one or both birds to perform an action, including Attack. They are not required to attack the same target or use the same Action. However, when you roll initiative, you must select one of your war falcons to benefit from your Remote Command feature.

In addition, your second war falcon does not benefit from your Aerial Attack or Cooperative Advantage features, and it does not need to learn the same Tactical Tricks option as the first. However, you can only retrain one war falcon per long rest.