Commanding Officer Powers

• Main
• All Subpages
• Create New

Commanding Officer Powers are any kind of non-magical Status Buffs given to characters or units by another character or unit that is acknowledged in some way as a leader, officer, strategist, or tactician. Sometimes this is quantified as explicitly giving orders to subordinate units, and sometimes these occur simply by proximity from being part of the same group or party.

This allows gameplay to quantify a character's non-personal impact on the battlefield while keeping everything under the player's control. Since these buffs are not magical effects, they can show up in a setting where magic does not exist, or where magic has significant story implications (such as being limited to certain people). Even when they appear in settings with magic, the non-magical nature of these abilities can mean they are not subject to the Status Buff Dispel of Anti-Magic or a Power Nullifier.

A frequent, but not universal, limitation of these abilities is that they can not be used on the user themselves due to the strangeness of giving oneself orders.

See Standard Status Effects for specific buffs that Commanding Officer Powers might apply. Compare Defend Command.

Examples of Commanding Officer Powers include:

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons has had various minor abilities of this type pop up over the years, but has had a few instances of a class focusing on it.
  • The Marshall class, introduced in Third Edition's Miniatures Handbook, gains the ability to give allies within a certain distance of it non-magical boosts to various checks of the Marshall's choice and let allies move a second time a small number of times per day. Since these abilities are "Extraordinary" ^[sic] and not magical, they function in Antimagic Fields and cannot be dispelled like spells can. Unfortunately that's all the Marshall does, having absolutely nothing beyond the minor bonuses they provide by simply standing there, making the class notoriously shallow and weak.
  • Near the end of its life, Third Edition introduced the White Raven Tactics discipline, used by the Crusader and Warblade classes, in Tome of Battle. Maneuvers from the discipline allow buffing allies and occasionally debuffing enemies when used in conjunction with the Warblade and Crusader's innate ability to hit things.
  • Fourth Edition introduced the Warlord, which focused on abilities of this type, in place of the traditional Bard class, which claimed magical buffing among its very wide portfolio and did not make the core rulebook this time. Aside from Fourth Edition's general design decision to make Hit Points a matter of morale as much as actual injury (allowing a Warlord to heal allies by shouting at them) and the plot implications of calling the class's role "Leader", Warlord's existence and abilities are actually one of the less controversial additions of a very controversial edition. Even after the Bard returned later on, Warlord's non-magical nature and secondary focus on hitting things allowed the two to remain distinct.
• The Noble class of Star Wars: Roleplaying Game: Saga Edition can gain this kind of ability from its Leadership and Inspiration talent tree. Due to the nature of Saga Edition, where characters can pick from any talent tree they want, it is not required to be a Noble to possess this kind of ability. The Officer Prestige Class also has this kind of ability and is essentially a less squishy combination of Noble and Soldier.
• The "Leadership" series of Edges in Savage Worlds improve the combat abilities of Extras ("unimportant" characters, including all nameless ones) within 10 yards of the character that holds them. An edge that lets these bonuses apply to everyone, including player characters, is present but requires the character have reached the Seasoned experience level (the first after the starting level of Novice), so it can't be obtained by a new character.

Video Games

• Advance Wars is the Trope Namer. As units under a character's command damage units or are damaged themselves, their CO Meter fills up. Once the CO Meter is filled enough (each character needs a different amount) they can unleash a CO Power that increases the attack and defense of all units under their control on the map till the start of their next turn in addition to other, character specific, benefits.
• Valkyria Chronicles allows the player to spend Command Points, normally used to let a character move and attack, to issue an Order. An Order gives a boost to one or all units currently deployed. A handful of plot important enemies can also issue Orders to the enemy on maps where they are present, though with a much more limited array of options. This ability returns in the sequels, but heavily Nerfed to prevent stacking a lot of orders on one unit that then rushes to the objective.
• Exists by implication with the Leadership Pool from City of Heroes, which includes powers that when activated increase the attack and defense abilities of the character and his team/league-mates. Even when possessed by characters of origins other than Natural, it can be argued that there is nothing paranormal about them. At the same time though, this trope is subverted, as they affect the team whether or not the character possessing them is the team leader; more, every member of a team can possess these powers and simultaneously buff themselves and each other with them.
• In Expeditions: Conquistador, as well as its prequels Viking and Rome, this kind of ability can be found both unobfuscated (such as the Lieutenant's "rally" ability to grant free movement) and (since the series is pure Historical Fiction) obfuscated in the form of various religion/superstition-themed abilities that are described as actually being a result of confidence and morale.
• In the XCOM: Enemy Unknown mod Long War, soldiers can subclass as Officers, who can grant another move to allies in sight range and offer bonuses to nearby allies.
• Command and Conquer Generals has General Powers, which are essentially bonus attacks and skills your chosen general can utilize via unlocking them after defeating a certain amount of the enemy. Most of these abilities are either passive bonuses or on recharge timers to avoid spamming, like with the ones that allow paradropping extra troops or summoning superweapons of varying degrees.