D&D: The Clone Wars (Part 3)

As I continued making characters for my Star Wars: The Clone Wars encounter group, I realized that I had not properly considered how this group would get any healing done.  I had already made Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker as non-leader types.  As I considered how to squeeze in a leader, it occurred to me that I had already found a way: the Archer Captain Warlord.  As for who to build in that style, it only made sense that General Obi-Wan Kenobi's lead clone, Commander Cody, was the appropriate character.

Commander Cody during the Clone Wars.

Aiding his allies is Cody's specialty.

Obviously, there are a few conceits in this character build.  A bow isn't really a blaster rifle, but it seemed a reasonable interpolation.  Further, I had originally thought to make all of the clones the same race so they would have similar racial abilities (thus creating some consistency across them) but I decided against that option due to class stat preferences.  The observant will recognize Cody as a Goliath (or, for Dark Sun fans, a Half-Giant).  The post-Essentials change to the Goliath stat bonuses made him suitable for a Warlord as it gained a potential Wisdom bonus (as an alternative to the Constitution bonus).

Here, Cody has a number of abilities that allow him to heal his allies and expose weaknesses in enemies for his allies to use to their advantage.  He also has the ability to direct a nearby ally to attack, whether it be a ranged basic attack or a melee basic attack.  One of the things that the Essentials did was make the Warlord abilities more useful; the basic attack of several of the Essentials character classes are more useful than they had been in original PHB classes (i.e. the slayer fighter).  Thus, Cody's ability to direct his allies attacks have more utility than they would have in an earlier version of the game.