I'm a little confused here, can't the player of any class take the noble backround, and BAM! Instant noble taht's useful in a fight?

I believe TheSword's problem with this approach is that a PC-equivalent character with the Noble background is TOO useful in a fight, while a sidekick-type character is not useful enough. Hey folks. I’m putting together a couple of different noble characters. They need to be useful in a fight but not necessarily big damage dealers themselves. What kinds of action, trait, and reaction abilities could noble NPCs have?

Ideas I’ve had so far…

A variation on commanders strike from the Battlemaster class to give a bodyguard an extra attack.

A variation on the bards inspiration ability

A variation on the bards cutting words

What other abilities could they have? Potentially there will be several noble NPCs I have to create. So the more ideas the better.

What are peoples thoughts?

Well, let's steal from the 4e Warlord, shall we?

Any Int- or Cha-based Warlord could give a hefty chunk of Initiative to allies as a passive bonus (equal to Int/Cha mod.) That's a solid, passive bonus, easy to calculate and one that all players should appreciate. Tactical Warlords (Int-based) helped make allies much stronger by giving attack bonuses after using an Action Point (making those extra actions more likely to land), while Bravura ones (Cha-based) were force-multipliers specialized in high-risk, high-reward play, which may be more entertaining/engaging if your players like to take risks.

One of the strongest Warlord At-Will attacks, Intuitive Strike, improves the bonus granted by Combat Advantage. Perhaps your NPC Noble can do something similar; if you want a weak effect, then negating Disadvantage is solid (especially if the party has a Rogue), while if you want something strong, letting players roll Elven Accuracy-style "super Advantage" (best 1 of 3d20) would make them every player's best friend.

You could consider some form of "inverse Mark" mechanic. That is, in 4e, defender classes (Fighter, Paladin, Swordmage, etc.) could Mark creatures, which meant they were harrying their movements and such; the Marked creature takes -2 to all attack rolls unless the person who marked them is one of their targets. Conceptually, the inverse of a Mark is some kind of rallying-cry to attack a specific target, e.g. "you get +2 to attack rolls so long as this guy is one of the guys you're hitting." Usually, Marking a target required that you remain engaged with it somehow, unless your class uses magic (e.g. Paladins and Swordmages use magic, so some of their Mark effects don't require constant engagement to sustain, but Fighters don't have magic, so their Mark usually does require such.)

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