Parry.Trigger: The noble is hit by a melee attack roll while holding a weapon. Response: The noble adds 2 to its AC against that attack, possibly causing it to miss.
Features
Parry — Passive: When a melee attack would hit the noble, it can mark a Stress to parry it instead. The parry adds 2 to its Difficulty, possibly causing it to miss.
Paranoid — Passive: All social actions made against the noble have disadvantage.
Guards, Seize Them! — Action: Once per scene, mark a Stress to summon 1d4+2 Elite Soldiers, who appear at Far range to enforce the noble’s will!
Exile — Action: Spend a Fear and target a PC! The noble proclaims that the target and their allies are exiled from the noble’s territory! While exiled, the target and their allies have disadvantage during social situations within the noble’s domain!
Designer's note
This adversary stands on the shoulders of its lesser petty version, and its guards make it a formidable combat opponent as well.
Why Social?
There are few creatures in the 5e SRD that feel like they are obviously social encounters the majority of the time. The Daggerheart SRD already has a petty noble, so it makes sense for this one to stay Social.
The petty noble
The plain noble is intended to be a step up from the petty version. As such, it takes from the petty noble’s abilities and adjusts them to be more appropriate for a tier 2 challenge.
Elite soldiers
These have a great reaction, Vassal’s Loyalty: When the soldier is within Very Close range of a knight or other noble who would take damage, you can mark a Stress to move into Melee range of them and take the damage instead!
This gives the noble a tremendous amount of staying power with the extra protection from its guards.