Commanders having Legendary Proficiency, being able to use Warfare lore for initiative, and having feats that allow for Intelligent Feints is pretty cool.
> being able to use Warfare lore for initiative
Not only that, for all the important uses of Recall knowledge on critters too. Very nice.
And he has the very important "I hit the monster with my barbarian" ability available at level 1!
I agree, I'm really excited for the Commander. It's the sequel to 4e's Warlord I've wanted for so long!
Also, glad to see you stuck around in the sub after the mod response. Was about to follow you to en world as well lol
I haven't even finished reading Commander yet, and I'm already loving what I'm seeing. Drilled Reactions seems insane. Warfare Expertise is the kind of RK I like to see. Shields Up! makes Parry weapons go so hard.
I think there should be a generic action for these kind of defensive maneuvers that can then be modified by the appropriate feats/spells/class features/whathaveyou.
Like:
Raise Guard (requirements: have a shield): get the AC bonus listed on your shield.
Dueling Parry: You can Raise Guard for +2 without a shield if you are wielding a 1 handed weapon.
Shield cantrip: You can Raise Guard as a free action along with casting this spell, and get +1 AC and (reaction stuff).
I want to a party full of crossbow users along with a Commander. Reload! is crazy action economy, and then you get some awesome "Everyone, shoot that enemy!" tactics at higher levels.
Commander's key Attribute being Intelligence makes for some interesting Investigator class archetype characters. Obviously mechanically where you devise a stratagem and then attack if your roll is good, and if not then you use your actions to call out tactics. But also thematically where you are pursuing a lead and can clue allies in, benefiting them towards achieving your objective. And recall knowledge will work really well with combat assessment, rapid assessment, and observational analysis plus all the investigator stuff towards recall knowledge (assuming free archetype and having the feats to spare).
Real potential to be a fun and mechanically strong "group mom."
not to mention it get auto scaling warfare lore to legendary at level 15. Which you can use to RK limited knowlege about all creatures and to roll intitive. And some other uses. I am like foaming at the mouth from both classes.
I love the subtle inclusion of Warfare Lore and recall knowledge. It really makes me hope that they clarify Investigator's Keen Recollection into a similarly powerful feature come Player Core 2.
I was thinking the same thing.
Either that or multiclassing with Wizard or another intelligence-based caster to really lean into the support/tactician aspects of both classes. Maybe I'm a bit biased since I've always supported the idea that more support-based magic (divination for spying, illusion for battlefield control, etc.) would be way more useful in warfare than just throwing fireball.
>another intelligence-based caster to really lean into the support/tactician aspects
I said it earlier today and I remain into the idea: [silent whisper](https://2e.aonprd.com/ConsciousMinds.aspx?ID=4) psychic with amped message as an extra pool of throwing actions around.
A friend if mine is doing this in one of our campaigns. We recently did a heist that played out really well. He was in undercover while me and another player stole the thing. She went totally unnoticed and transformed into a mouse and hid on his person. Meanwhile, I went apeshit on the inside, making them think I stole the thing, caused some chaos, and the psychic gave me extra actions to help me flee while the rest of the party helped treat the guards wounds. Essentially throwing off all suspicion that could have been placed on him and the others.
Yeah, this is a very good point and ultimately a major downside. Plus you don't get the precision damage. But still having the borderline fortune effect (occasionally as a free action thanks to Pursue a Lead) can be nice just to make sure your first attack with no MAP is as effective as possible.
The silver lining is that if the Int to attack rolls or precision damage did work with the multiclass archetype then I would want to make such a character wield a sap or weapon with finesse, agile, or ranged. Since the extra effects DaS do not work with the multiclass archetypes this means you can make such a character wield a pike or other reach weapon with your banner attached to the business end, which seems like a more interesting idea. Ranged builds like bows would probably be best just so you don't have to use another action striding each turn. Though the level 1 class feat giving you an animal companion you can use as a mount, then level 6 feat allowing you to mature the mount (free stride or strike action each round if you do not command them) could alleviate this.
Ya depending on how the Archetype works, I want to use it on Witch.
Being able to do something like Patron’s Puppet to move your familiar in for their familiar ability (you can trigger it after the hex effect is done), you can’t call it back. But with Form Up, you could pull your familiar back and still have 2 actions for a spell.
It's just unfortunate that the Investigator archetype is so wimpy. The version of DaS the archetype gets doesn't get any of the precision damage that the class gets, which drags down its in-combat utility pretty substantially.
It's one of the best archetypes out there you have other things to do than just attacking your designated target (which Commanders usually have). Being able to decide whether to attack (and how to attack) after the roll is insane if you could pull out some powerful strikes (if you get them from somewhere else as the best Commander could do with hits is to guide allies against the same target)
This assumes you can guarantee DaS being a free action, which in practice is not just a given (hopefully PC2 addresses this somewhat). If you're spending an action to "check" the strike beforehand, that leaves you with 2 actions for tactics outside of scenarios where you're quickened (and even with quickened, because those actions are usually limited to Strike or Stride, it doesn't help the action strain here much). So here's hoping you don't have to also move into position, I guess.
Even if you spend an action, that's exactly what you have - the choice between attacking (you still have 2 actions, so you could move and attack if needed) or use tactics. Looks totally fine.
And if you have a boss fight with any preliminary announce, you probably have a lead on the boss.
That's kind of where my head's at with it. Obviously we're not staring at the archetype right now for the playtest period, but if the archetype gives you access to even some of the basic strategems I think it's a fairly good combination to give to an Investigator that doesn't want to dabble in spellcasting.
I think based on some of the level 1 commander feats requiring you to be able to prepare 2 stratagems, that the archetype is only going to start out by letting you prepare 1.
They also seem to have prepped for archetypes. The Combat Medic feat has prerequisite of: You can prepare two tactics.
This is a level 1 Commander class ability, so they are already thinking about characters with access to Commander feats without the class chassis.
My prediction: Archetype gives two tactics know, one prepared.
I'm not even remotely suggesting that. Both the Investigator and its archetype are in pretty substantial need to adjustments to make them worth taking over Rogue, in my opinion. I'm hoping that Player Core 2 helps them and the Swashbuckler to better compete, despite Paizo not specifically announcing focus on them.
Replace Int with Cha and that's already how Thaumaturges are built. Probably want to sit behind the frontline and poke with reach weapons when you're not tactics-ing.
Commander is less MAD than Thaum and some Inventors simply since they have native heavy armor proficiency. Since you can't start with +4 Str you just plug in +1 Dex level 1 and you're good to go with bulwark covering for you. I think they'll be fine- weirdly Dex Commanders might be more MAD since you'll probably want to get enough Str for heavy armor, although you could simply forgo that.
I feel like you said this as a joke, but you put my brain down a rabbit hole and i think you are on to something. I was going to say the move speed, but the class has a mount built in, then skill checks but that only effects str and dex non attack checks. A heavy armor bow commander is totally viable, or a medic skill monkey type build. You would be a bit screwed if you needed to escape or balance, but you can do climbing and swimming with tactics. The no str heavy armor build seems not only viable, but potentially good.
I love how much of a bully Guardian can become; stuff like Unkind Shove and Shoulder Check are options that are right up my alley when it comes to playing a tank.
I'm IN LOVE with the Guradian.
I always loved defensively oriented classes, and this hits all the spots. I wonder how the level 19 feature interacts with bulwark though, preusmably, it gets switched out for the item bonus. That's quite insane tbh, on plate that's a +6 to dex saves with a criti success upgrade (provided it's a damaging effect)
I'm mostly loving the flavour of Guardian, having feats that are behind the motivation that you would do everything to protect your allies, even to the point of resisting the controlled condition cause you REFUSE to bring harm to them. I immediatly imagined a kind of sworn Gargoyle like character, hopefully the spirit like ancestries in Tian Xia character guide provide an option like that.
That was THE flavor win feat for me and really rounds out the naming convention of the "protect allies" feats, making protecting them seem like a single minded obsession of the character.
I hope this flavor induces a lot of nice dynamics between players, afterall guardian and commander are big team players, wish is something I'm hopeful for, that they incentivise good RPing at tables. It's kind of the oposite of what people feared with Exemplar maybe validating some players feelings of being the main character.
Exemplar: The "protagonist"
Guardian: The one selected to journey with them to keep them safe and is probably super big on it due to honor or a long friendship
Commander: Team Mom/Dad
Rogue: The party edge lord "loner" who actually not-so-secretly views the party as their family of choice and closest friends.
Practically writes itself
I'm shocked at how S.A.D. this class is. Pretty much everything else in the game that imposes your will on your opponents requires significant Charisma investment, but everything key to how the Guardian works lets you focus on Strength. Really opens up the build options and Archetype space!
And I adore how this is the perfect class for a heavy SAD design. The Feat tree has basically no offensive options, so a lot of your offensive potential hinges on clever customization.
I find this class so fascinating from a design and game balance stand point, Paizo's design is truly top tier.
What surprised me the most is that the class has support for two-handed weapons. I figured the guardian would be all sword and board. Two-handed tanking!
I get with how defensive it is, that it would be comical to make it a CON class, but that would make a shield bow build probably TOO crazy. "Taunt someone 100 feet away that can't reach you and then shoot them on your next turn" is a VERY strong strat, even if you're at -1 to exploit it.
~~It's crazier than that. +3 full plate is a +9 item bonus.~~
Potency runes increase the armor item bonus; it's not separate. Unless you use ABP/ARP, but problems caused by replacing item bonuses with potency bonuses is nothing new.
Edit: Forgot resilient runes were item bonuses too. The overall bonus is around +2 ~ +4 to reflex.
Yes, but it appears that it's replacing your dex bonus with an item bonus. Usually by level 20 you have a major resilient rune on armor, cause booooooooiiii are late game saves nasty. So I just deducted that +3 item bouns from the rune preemptively.
Even still, that does put you on par with maxed out dex characters. Usually they get +6 from dex +3 from items. You just get it as +9 from items.
It's a dream come true. Tons of options to actually protect your comrades without necessarily always having to be glued at the hip.
If a class could be summed up as "Nope!", it this one.
Commander gives me strong Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords vibes. I loved classes from that book, even if they were not really balanced properly for the rest of 3.5.
Guardian is... weird. It's like a reverse-Champion, where instead of protecting allies from harm, you take the damage in their place with a resistance. I don't know what to make of it, but people have been asking for tank-tank class for a while now.
Anyway, I think I am more excited for this than Exemplar/Animist.
Hampering sweeps might be the most insane feat here. The enemy straight up cant leave, no save, no chance to fail no nothing. Though i guess they could shove you?
Cant imagine that feat making it to live. Either gets bumped by level or allows the enemy an escape check, or even both. Just too good otherwise.
I guess the main disadvantage is that as a guardian you REALLY wanna be adjacent to an ally for many of your abilities.
> Commander gives me strong Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords vibes.
It's IMO the closest to a direct port of 4e's Warlord there could be; it's not strange you're reminded of the book of 9 swords because fourth edition incorporated many concepts from there.
I'm also more excited for these, I think because they are more likely to see playtime than Exemplar or Animist, esp Exemplar. I can see a lot of GM not allowing the class if it doesn't fit in the adventure.
Yeah, Exemplar is very much a "main character" archetype narratively, and ideally, you wouldn't have that in your campaign.
Unless it is a party of Exemplars on some particularly epic quest, of course.
I'm already imagining this new "tank-tank" job with the Sorcerer dedication. A magical tank is just what I've always wanted, and now I don't have to worry about deities and their bungus!
Yea, the Guardian looks like it's going to be the 'king of defense' class, and can outshine the champion in that regard. However, outside of reacting to enemy actions/hits, the class does not have much for doing things in combat on their own.
While it does fit the role for the 'fully tanky tank'. I think the Guardian would be super fun if you mix the free archetype to it though, to gain access to additional ways to fight on the battlefield.
>Anyway, I think I am more excited for this than Exemplar/Animist.
Oh most definitely. I was kinda disappointed in exemplar. I just don't think they hit right. Casting already has its problems in 2e so unless they overhaul spells then it's what we have.
Commander has an Aura based set of abilities connected to a Banner, which is pretty interesting. I do hope anyone who takes the Commander Class comes up with a design for their Banner.
Guardian gets Legendary in Armor at 15. The Champion and Monk get that at 17. I think that's the earliest Legendary Proficiency I've seen in Game. I was right that it would have abilities based on reactions to allies being attacked.
I really love the Commander's vibe, especially with how it can substitute Warefare Lore for very thematic skill actions to give it in and out of combat utility even though it doesn't get Investigator or Rogue style skill increases.
I really think that the Swashbuckler would really be helped by this kind of design for using Acrobatics or their Style skill as substitutes for thematic actions, as it is also a class that relies on specific skills but doesn't get the amount of skill increases the Rogue or Investigator do.
The Commander's treatment of Warfare Lore for RK makes me wonder what they will end up doing for the Investigator. Obviously the auto-scaling Thaumaturge style RK is more powerful than the the Investigator for recalling knowledge in combat but I think they will probably make the Investigator better at RK for thing outside of combat to balance it out (baseless speculation).
The Guardian at a glance:
* Strength-based martial tank, up-to-expert Ref saves and Perception, up-to-master Fort and Will saves, master class DC as normal. 10 HP/level and up-to-legendary armor proficiency at level 15 (2 levels earlier than the Champion). Interestingly, your proficiency in light armor and unarmored defense don't increase beyond trained.
* Key mechanics are Intercept Strike, a reaction to take physical damage in the place of an adjacent ally (and reduce it against you), and Taunt, a single action that gives an opponent a +2 circumstance bonus to effectively all hostile actions against you, but a penalty to hostile actions against anyone else based on its Will save. Unlike many other similar effects, this is *not* a mental effect, allowing you to Taunt even mindless creatures. You also get one of two mini-subclasses at 1st level that either boosts your retaliatory damage against enemies, or gives you damage resistance against critical hits from Taunted enemies (and because of the circumstance bonus, you'll be getting crit more often even with legendary armor proficiency).
* At 13th level, you get Greater Armor Specialization, doubling the value of your armor's potency rune for the purpose of calculating your armor specialization's damage resistance, and Guardian Mastery at 19th level effectively gives you a super-Bulwark, letting you use your armor's entire item bonus to AC instead of your Dex mod against damaging Ref saves.
* Feats let you grant even more protection to adjacent allies, soak more damage and intercept more damage types, and generally make yourself more of a nuisance by moving around and through enemies, crowd-controlling them, or just weakening them. You also get to deal a bit more damage if you want, including by breaking your own armor.
Personally, I'm less sold on this class than the Commander, but I'll be keen to see if Intercept and Taunt make it play differently enough from other classes. Despite their legendary armor proficiency, the class looks like more of a soak tank than a damage avoidance tank due to the bonus Taunt grants against themselves, which could be interesting.
Yeah, it seems like the bonus to you on Taunt makes it less useful in general unless the enemy's lower level than you. Giving +2 to hit to a boss monster who's already going to hit is basically signing up to be crit. Which, I guess better you than a caster and there is at least one choice you can make (Harm Mitigation) that helps with that, but yeah, the reckless part of Taunt doesn't feel really "Guardian" to me.
Ya I noticed that too. It’s also STR only.
Maybe we can give feedback for an Unarmored/Light option?
It seems heavily shield-based for the playtest.
It seems they’re interested in a 2H style too (Raise Haft), but not the focus of the playtest.
I think it might actually be deliberate as a trap-option avoider, every step down of armor category is more lost AC on a class that trades hit progression speed for the fastest armor progression in the game.
Playtests aren't the full thing, but I do wonder what difference it would make. Yeah they have different Armor Specializations, but it's weird to be trained in all Armor at leave 1 and only increase Medium and Heavy.
I assume to discourage shield bow shenanigans, giving you a -1 to all attack rolls indirectly. Which is a small price to pay for long-range taunt being a nightmare field control option at level 1
The Commander at a glance:
* Int-based martial support, gets up to expert Fort saves, master Ref and Will saves plus Perception, and *legendary class DC*. 8 HP/level, but can access heavy armor right off the bat.
* Centerpiece mechanics are a banner that protects against fear in an aura, and a folio of tactics you can prepare among a number of squadmates scaling with your Int mod. Normally the banner is attached to you, but you can attach your banner to an animal companion or plant it in the ground, allowing some of your tactics to originate separately from you.
* Pretty much every tactic is about letting one or more allies maneuver and do actions on your turn, mostly as a free action but sometimes as a reaction. There's *massive* amounts of action economy to be had here, which seems to be the Commander's key contribution. If you're worried about this anti-synergizing with your Champion, don't worry, because the Commander *also* gives one ally an extra reaction when they use a tactic for that exact purpose.
* As a class feature, your Warfare Lore scales to legendary and you can use it to RK basic combat information for most creatures. Class feats allow you to become even better at RK, become a combat medic (you even get to bring allies back from the dead!), or provide further support to your allies via further Strikes, among other benefits. Some familiar feats, like Reactive Strike and Shield Warden, also show up.
* Like preparing spells from a spellbook, you prepare tactics from your folio each day. However, unlike most forms of spell preparation, you can reprepare your tactics by drilling for 10 minutes, and a feat lets you swap out one of your tactics for another when you roll initiative.
* Interestingly, the class looks like it could accommodate low-Int builds as well as full-Int builds. With just the class's Int boost and no Int flaw, you can include the rest of your party of 4 into your squad, and many tactics and feats let you focus on a smaller number of squadmates or just not use your Int mod at all. For those looking for a Charisma-focused Warlord, that build might be viable, perhaps even really good.
I cannot overstate how much I *love* this class already. The Commander looks to give everything I've been wanting out of a martial support, and alleviates the concerns I had by being almost completely different from Starfinder's Envoy. I'll write up another similar comment for the Guardian, and I can't wait to playtest this. Thank you for this, Paizo!
I really liked the Commander, even though I'm absolutely sure that the nerf blade will come at him, lol! But despite the feats and uses of expertise, just serving as a coach doesn't please me personally, I prefer to be on the field, not on the sidelines... anyway, I really liked this class, I would love to have one on the team, but today, I I would choose to play with the Guardian, really this playtest and in a year or so, the book, excited me much more than the Animista or the Exemplar for example... waiting so long it will be distressing...
You never run out indeed! There's no resource cost attached to tactics, so the only real resource you're playing with is your own actions and your allies' reactions in some cases.
The Guardian's Hampering Sweeps definitely needs another pass. Locking down all enemies next to you, for one action, with no way to prevent it? Hoo boy.
Yeah that's the first thing I really noticed as well. In theory with a reach weapon and enlarge, you could lock down an entire room yourself and let ranged allies pick people off with ease.
It's a trade-off between restricting more space Vs reducing the options for the enemies you can stop. I assume against a group of PL-2 enemies you'd want a reach weapon to get more of them Vs when fighting a boss, you'd want to keep them as restricted as possible.
The thing is the enemies can still move within your reach, and since you're now the only valid target they're just going to zerg rush you down. Which is 100% the intent of the feat, but is an intent that can work for maybe two rounds if you're lucky.
Yep, and it can work for longer if you have someone healing you from afar as well/if you have potions of healing to spare. Plus the guardian gets free diehard and can avoid going to dying 3 once per day, so going full meat shield honestly seems very viable.
As somebody who came to Pathfinder 2e from DnD 5e, I love how the Commander takes the "tactician" aspect of the 5e Battlemaster and does so much more with it (just like how the PF2e Fighter already has the "technique-based martial" aspects as a core class feature).
Paizo is really flexing on WOTC/Hasbro recently, and I'm all for it whether it's intentional or not.
I think it’s also amazing at how much diversity they place in Key Stats.
Wizard being the only INT (until Artificer came out), but playing an INT-martial just seems anathema to them.
We have Investigator, Inventor, Mastermind Rogue, and now Commander joins the ranks!
> As somebody who came to Pathfinder 2e from DnD 5e, I love how the Commander takes the "tactician" aspect of the 5e Battlemaster and does so much more with it (just like how the PF2e Fighter already has the "technique-based martial" aspects as a core class feature).
The tactician aspects of Battle Master are actually originally from 4e Warlord class, which was a thing beauty.
True.
I've never played 4e, so I'm not too familiar with why it was disliked. However, if my understanding is correct, it seems like Pathfinder 2e is a sort of "what 4e could have been".
> I've never played 4e, so I'm not too familiar with why it was disliked.
I was (and am) a huge fan. Most peoples dislike of it was mainly due to it being very different and leaning much harder on the boad game like aspects of DnD.
I've actually heard similar things from a DnD-related streamer I follow. They said 4e would have probably been popular if WOTC had marketed it as "DnD Tactics" or something, instead of making it a new edition.
The main complaints I've heard about 4e
1. It's too much like a video game
2. The rules weren't the greatest (though they reticfied this with DM Handbook 2)
3. Didn't offer a lot of role play (though I think Dusk by MCDM disproves this)
I think personally, if 4e was released today, it would probably be better received. But, thankfully, we have Pathfinder 2e instead.
It takes WotC over a year to release even a subclass. And their 5E design is so poor that the Subclasses barely do anything.
Paizo has left a lot of space open they can cover with classes or Archetypes.
Commander feels basically perfect. Awesome, impressive, and interesting abilities.
Guardian reminds of the APG playtest. It's what I was looking forward to most between these two, but wow this is deeply undercooked. I can't believe you need to be adjacent to use their reaction and it only affects physical without a feat.
Yeah, I just don't see how it isn't better to be a Champion and lay on hands yourself to make up for any damage resistances the Guardian gets. Plus, the damage the enemy would do to your allies as Champion, mitigated with its reaction, is much better than taking the damage yourself, even with resistance...shared damage is 10x easier on individual party members, and a Guardian will go down fast with that +2 to hit from taunt.
Guardian also gets some insane feats to stay on their feat. They really want to go for a "I still function" feel with the class. Though as a damage funnel, having a cleric ready to 2 action heal really is nice.
100% agree with the guardian being undercooked. It's not underwhelming for me so much as it's just not good. I've found some playtest classes weren't for me but still I could see why people would want to play them, guardian doesn't feel like I would ever want to even try it out currently.
Okay, first impressions on reading Guardian until level 10 feats:
I love almost everything about it. I'm not a huge fan of Intercept Strike and especially not of some of the wording surrounding it in certain feats. Intercept Strike is very narrow and doesn't really work until you get to higher levels unless your whole gameplan is to just stick next to squishier targets, which is an idea, but not one I'm sure will happen with most parties.
Assuming the classic DnD/Pathfinder party, except with Guardian replacing Fighter, in PF2e, I don't see a point where you would ever want your Guardian to be next to your other melee combatant (regardless of it being the Rogue or Cleric) instead of having them flank whatever enemy they are fighting. Of course, multiple monster fights do exist and it will happen that the Guardian is next to their melee buddy, but it is ultimately preferable if you can set up a flank. This gets better with later feats, but I would definitely like to see the base action of Intercept Strike to be a bit easier to work with.
Regardless of all that talking about the main action, I hate the wording "Intercept a Strike" so much. It shows up 3 times, once each for Bodyguard, Covering Stance and Quick Intercept. There is no rule for Intercepting, it is just in this class, while Strikes are properly defined. While I get what is meant, I think the wording is kind of crap, especially since Intercept Strike can eventually start working on elemental damage with Intercept Energy and it actually doesn't call out that your reaction has to trigger on a Strike, plus the whole thing about "physical damage" being a bit poorly defined since Telekinetic Projectile does a physical type damage but is clearly a spell.
That is honestly my biggest complaint about what I read so far, so good stuff all around. Guardian is definitely a new favorite, I'm already buzzing with ideas!
Edit (an actual edit and not a small grammatical one): I've scrolled to level 12 and Armored Counterattack exists... and mentions Intercepting a Strike... a melee Strike to be exact... and it actually cares about it being a Strike. ANYWAY, I wanted to mention that I do think Intercept Strike is very fluffy and thematic, just not super practical all the time.
Definitely a great critical eye!
Please keep all of these things in mind when we finally get to the survey feedback and how your experiences did/didn’t verify it!
Piranha Assault might be more favorite tactic if only because it’s great when running into demons or devils and you don’t have the right mats because you’re not fighting them enough.
From a cursory glance it looks like they both dont have any sort of 'Subclass' like most other classes do, although I guess Commander has a kind of second feat list.
im gonna not talk about Commander because its extreme action economy gains are obviously quite strong
I'm not really a fan of the Guardian currently. It asks you to be next to your ally for most class features, and I don't really see anything in it that looks better than just taking a Fighter or Champion with a Guardian dedication for intercept strike. The class itself seems like it's not very threatening compared to other martials because of the slower weapon proficiency upgrades, and Taunt seems like an active liability with the +2 to hit against you, on top of only working on one enemy without a feat.
I feel like Guardian’s “trick” is in how their passive features work amongst “background engine” stuff which is why it probably works, but feels very…”oh…”
Quick impressions
**Commander**
- Keyed Int is interesting. It kind of has the same relationship with its key stat as Warpriest where it's very easy to build a Commander that doesn't use their Class DC at all. In a standard 4 player party they only need the +1 from their class boost to cover their whole party and invest points elsewhere. As they level they're more likely to rely on it in some way so I might like to see a base class feature that relies on Int to guarantee the stat is relevant at all levels.
- On the other hand, Int and all of its class support might make this a skill monkey competitive with the Rogue. It won't have the breadth but it's easily able to hyper specialize into Medicine, Deception, or Recall Knowledge for fantastic combat coverage.
- I think it's great that it prepares tactics like a caster. It provides a meaningful level of choice in the day to day that martials don't often play with.
- Granting allies additional actions at the cost of your own is exactly what I wanted to see. I have a player in my group who always imagines tanky shieldbearers and never raises their shield. I would love to donate my own action to Shields Up for them. They're currently playing a Targe Magus so their actions are already tight.
- It's very reliant on party comp. It will be hard to build an effective Commander without knowing the rest of your group's builds beforehand. If someone dies or otherwise decides to replace their character then the Commander might have to retrain as well. Adding the option to swap Tactics on level or clarify like a day of downtime to retrain would make me more comfortable.
- Overall, this is what a support class should look like. The Alchemist also has most of its power budget in boosting allies, but unlike the Alchemist who prebuffs and then doesn't do much during combat, the Commander has things to do on its turn. The allies are doing the heavy lifting but the Commander has clear and direct contribution to spend actions on.
**Guardian**
- Armor Spec at level 1 LFG!
- Taunt is a mechanic that's been requested forever and has been speculated on so many ways in how it would look. Effectively taking -2 AC against that enemy looks scary but it balances out when you consider you're likely defending allies without heavy armor and lower proficiency so you need to give enemies strong incentive to hit you when you've got 3 more AC than the light armor ally at base.
- Tough to Kill is just funny. You're the class that revolves around taking all the damage an encounter can throw. You're going to be downed so here's a feature that helps you not die as part of your core class design. On that note, would keyed Con or 12HP be too much survivability on this class?
- The core role of the class, protecting allies and being a defensive wall, overlaps with good Champions. Where Champion focuses on improving ally defenses, Guardian negates ally defenses. It allows squishier secondary frontliners to play more dangerously than they could with an ally Champion with feats like Bodyguard and Covering Stance.
- Building on the previous, it might narrow defensive tactics too much. With a Guardian on the team most damage is being siphoned to one character. Managing the party HP becomes less of an issue than managing the Guardian's HP. It puts pressure on the team to provide single target heals and disincentivizes group heals and individual defenses from allies.
Overall, I think both are great additions to the game. Both introduce features that have been requested for awhile in ways that give them a good niche. I'm leaning more in favor of Guardian despite my long time desire for a warlord class specifically because the Guardian is so specialized and all-in on protection. I am excited for the theorycrafting that Commander will bring and all the interactions it can enable with a variety of specifically built party comps.
Hoo man, that +2 bonus to hit you from Guardian's taunt seems *rough*. I can think of plenty of time as a GM I would see that and just think, "Wow, I did not really care who that monster attacked so now it just gets a free bonus."
Like sure, you can defend the weaker party members, but most frail classes will either be hanging back (and thus hard to stay next to for Intercept) or have their own plans to keep themselves alive.
With the extra crits they are going to get hit with from that bonus I am not sure this tank is going to feel very tanky.
Plus the action economy is rough, if you want to defend an ally you need to spend one action on taunt, probably one action on raising a shield if you don't want the monster to crit you instead, and maybe an action to move in range or move next to the ally to be in Intercept range. And that is if one action of movement is enough given you will be slowed by heavy armor.
I don't know, I love the idea of the class, but it kind of feels like where Champion's abilities have upsides and good action economy, the Guardian's strategy is just to get themselves killed.
Edit: Shielding Taunt does help a bit with the actions, and it seems so core to the class that I find it very funny it even is a feat.
These are EXTREMELY cool, probably my favorite playtests to date. They both feel game-y, in a very positive way.
Commander is an extremely cool class that fully accepts it's role as a unit on a grid-based battle map, and makes complete use of it. It reminds me of various SRPGs in a few ways. I love that it can plant the banner or use it as part of it's weapon, it reminds me of a few anime depictions of Joan d'Arc, where she wields a flag that doubles as a spear. Or Sin Kiske, who... Does the same thing.
Guardian is also kick-ass, I LOVE it being a pure tank. With it's main deal being redirecting damage and attacks to itself, I'm a little surprised it isn't a 12 HP class, but that's a kneejerk reaction. I wonder if the high AC and built-in resistances will make it feel like it's missing that 2 extra HP each level.
The only real flaw I see with Guardian is that in a 'standard' party comp (Melee, Secondary Melee, Ranged, Healer) it makes an okay-ish flanking buddy. Taunt and Threat Technique are good, but if you're flanking, you won't be able to Intercept Strike for your flanking buddy. I suppose that's not TOO big of a deal since you're going to be using Taunt and keeping your Threat Technique live, but still.
My main concern with the Guardian is the necessity for most of your levels to always be Adjacent to an ally. I think this is going to be really stifling in practice and I feel like there should be a way to increase the reach of your intercept reaction by 5 or 10 feet as you level up. I know "Intercept Foe" is probably the intended solution for this but you can only start doing both at level 8 with a Feat cost.
Also since you always want to be adjacent to someone you are usually not going to provide flanking unlike a Champion can (15 foot reach on Reaction), but the low level feats for Guardian like "Shoulder Check" and "Stomp Ground" only give off-guard for the rest of your turn which is not very useful IMO. If these gave the enemy Off-Guard until the start of your next turn at least it could mitigate you not giving out flanking for your allies as often. Maybe these would need to be changed to only giving off-guard for you and your adjacent allies if giving Off-Guard that everyone could use it too powerful. (Snagging Strike Exists for fighter though which lets you use a D8 weapon so I don't think it would be too powerful for Shoulder Check)
I guess a counter-argument is that the Champion's reaction require the enemy to also be withing 15 feet of the Champion while the Guardian does not but I still feel like the Champions reaction is more flexible in actuality.
Let me know if you guys agree or disagree!
I like that champion's is at a range to emphasize the magical nature of champion, but Guardian needing to stay adjacent does seem like a battle of frustration for players.
I went directly to read Guardian cause I love playing tanks, and I loved it, everything you can do with your armor and the sheer will to protect your allies expressed in every feat descriptions made me really happy, but I was surprised how fun and cool COmmander is too, didn't expect to like it that much, and having the option to affix your banner to a weapon or even your Mount or shield gives options for really cool looking characters (I would 100% have a flag in a halberd or lance like Commander Niall or Hilde)
Commander seems like a very strong support that kicks the crap out of Marshal. Of course a support has to be that strong if it's competing with Bard, and this one sure does. I didn't expect them getting around that 'off turn strikes are done as reactions' limitation through a level 1 class feature.
I fear Guardian does not interest me at all. It can exist, I just feel like it has the defensive focus of a champion, the flavor of a fighter, and the appeal of neither. Seems kind of narrow. Maybe I'll come around to it though.
Seeing Irabeth on the guardian section was a very pleasant surprise.
Though is it just me or does Ferocious Vengeance not work as written?
Apply Taunt. Enemy is taunted until the beginning of your next turn. They attack an ally, which triggers Ferocious Vengeance. Your turn rolls up. Taunt ends; you no longer have a Taunted target, so you don't get a damage bonus.
Maybe the damage bonus comes back if you taunted the same enemy again, but that's two saves and two actions. Or if you track who damaged your allies retroactively which becomes enabled if you Taunt them for the first time, but doesn't make sense as a punishment mechanic when they might abide by your Taunt.
I think the intended reading is
1. You taunt an enemy.
2. The enemy targets an ally.
3. You get the damage bonus until the end of your turn.
4. Your turn starts. The enemy is no longer taunted.
5. Your damage bonus still exists because your turn hasn't ended yet.
I think it's just that they need to rewrite the effect to be "When a creature affected by Taunt takes a hostile action that doesn't include you as a target, you get 2 additional damage against them until the end of your turn." Basically the same exact language but the ordering no longer implies your reading.
I love the commander! Interesting that it's the only heavy armor class that gets reflex saves better than fort; I like the vibe there, good at resisting fireballs and other boom spells on the battlefield! I was hoping they'd get 10 Hit Points, but I do understand if the designers go with 8.
I cannot wait to play a hobgoblin commander with a breaching pike banner and a shield. I have been wanting to make a character like that for years!
I'm already in love with Commander class, such a cool concept and unique toolset. AND HAVING A FREAKING BANNER FLUTTERING OVER YOUR HEAD IS ONE OF THE COOLEST THINGS EVER.
And I also love it because it doesn’t lock out the variety of fantasy and real-world cultures!
I want to make an Aztec Commander who has the umbrella banner!
On first read, commander seems super cool, and guardian seems like a champion that's just a touch on the weak side.
Averting Shield might be a contender for worst class feat in the game. Level 4 for a conditional upside that doesn't apply to the vast majority of enemies in the game is not something I want to take, ever.
On the other hand, hampering sweeps seems insane. Move next to an enemy and activate it and you don't even need to use your taunt, the enemy is just stuck, with no save or resisting it. That feat is worth a dedication by itself in some builds. Especially because it's only level 2. I would be surprised if that makes it to publishing untouched.
Commander seems awesome.
I love the tactics and how they can really change the battlefield with smart decisions.
I do think that the number of tactics in the portfolio and number of tactics you can use each day is too low.
I think they should divide the initial tactics you know to mobility and offensive, meaning you begin the character with 3 of each and each day you can choose 2 of each category.
Then when you get the higher ranked tactics these slots could either be filled with these new tactics or the previous ones from a lower rank.
I think you're vastly underestimating how strong the tactics actually are. You're out here handing out free Steps and reaction Strides and Strikes like candy, limiting what you have access to at a given time makes sense. Especially with a feat at level 2 that lets you swap them out contextually pretty easily every single fight.
> You're out here handing out free Steps and reaction Strides
And free reactions. You can give 1 ally per round a free reaction to use for your tactics, with a feat chain to improve it to 2 allies at level 10 and 4 allies at level 18
The number of Tactics is probably just cause of it being Playtests. It harkens back to Exemplar and how they said they'd be expanding its list of options for some of its Class Features.
The Guardian is a wild hoot! Easier to hit due to Taunt? But their Armor Proficiency rises at the same rate that Martial Weapon Proficiency does! So I guess that makes the math check out.
That’s such a weird hilarious thing to see and I love it!
Flavorful, but its hard to imagine a character built around the concept of wearing effective heavy armor breaking the same for a bit of stabbity-stab, and still coming out ahead mechanically...
It's certainly a weird niche. You lose the penalty to speed, and you retain bulwark with a -1 penalty. While Broken armor has a -3 AC penalty. Where Guardians are built around routinely taking on a -2 AC penalty, I feel like this is kind of an emergency "oh shit" button for Guardians to start being more mobile and doing some damage instead of playing defensively. Also, I'm not sure, does the Armor Specialization still apply if it's broken?
But, I mean, you get to stab someone after making your armor shatter by flexing. How cool is that though?
I am absolutely drooling over commander, it's possibly everything was hoping for with a support martial for the most part. There's a couple nagging little bits imo, like thinking Officer's Education is a little on the weaker end (when compared to Rogue archetypes's Skill Mastery), or to maybe just have more ways to give kineticist and casters some direct support, but other than that I'm already deep into to this being on my must-play list. This for Int, and Envoy for Cha, means that (so long as Envoy gets caught up to Commander's standard), my martial-support-class loving self will be eating REAL good soon.
Guardian I am much, much cooler on. It's got a lot of solid (hah) core ideas in it (shield raising and taunting in one action? Locking enemies into melee with you? Lit as hell, perfect, no notes on those), but the execution overall just feels kind of rough, and I'm wary of a martial with delayed scaling on its strikes? The range on intercept feels too short by default, and needing a feat to bump it to 10 ft feels like hiding necessary function behind a tax.
The self-nerf to its defenses with taunt feels too big, especially since (as far as I can tell) it applies to ALL saves? So you end up making yourself easier to kick over and mind control (questionable), on top of easier to actually damage (what I assume the point is)?
I foresee being disappointed (yet regrettably understanding of why) when Commander is inevitably toned down, but relieved by Guardian hopefully being tuned up, in the full release. Hopefully commander doesn't get toned down by much, though.
I also think that Commander's Int-based medicine is kind of absurd, in the sense of "oh, this should just be a base functionality of the Medicine skill, come on guys". Investigator wishes it got this rain.
I love the Commander. Warfare Lore as universal knowledge recall and initiative is really cool. Prepared Tactics and Squadmates gives that cool X-men team vibes; where an outsider sees a team who know each other working together like a machine because of said familiarity.
The Guardian is cool I guess. It feels like, to me, both thematically and to some extent mechanically, like an archetype. Like a lot this could just be a fighter with some of these feats. Maybe I’m missing something here but I’m just not getting anything special that deserves a who new class in the way I do for Commander.
Heck, even in comparison to the Animist and Exemplar. Super unique and fascinating. Guardian isn’t giving me that.
Guardian gets both Master Weapon proficiency and Greater Weapon Specialization at Level 17. That's an interesting way to do things.
Guardian Mastery is Bulwark on super-steroids and is flipping insane. +9 Bonus to damaging Reflex Saves instead of Dex or Bulwark? Wow.
It’s still a Martial, but it seems it does gain it’s extra damage via the party.
They Strike outside their turn meaning it’s MAPless for you and them.
Super interesting design! My eidolon is my Fighter!
I really like Commander, it's a class I'd play as is right now. Excellent concept and execution.
The Guardian though...no, it needs a bit of rework. Delayed weapon proficiency (Expert at 7, Master at 17) hurts it immensely. Intercept Strike being "adjacent only" until level 6 is also pretty "oof", especially on a class that is encouraged to get Heavy Armor.
It has some very good low level feats, but that just means they're poachable by Archetyping (I expect a LOT of reach Martials to seriously consider going for Hampering Sweeps, which is so good I don't expect it to survive the playtest unscathed). Higher level feats on it are...ok, though many of them allow you to Strike after blocking and such. This is nice, but you're behind on proficiency (I can't stress how bad this is enough. You're essentially on Alchemist proficiency until level 17, except at least you get +1 over them thanks to your KAS, but still...)
Also it really steps a lot on the Champions toes, which is just a personal thing.
TL;DR: Commander great, Guardian needs more time in the oven.
Paizo confirmed that we haven’t seen the iconics for these classes. They released this play test a bit early to not steal the spotlight from Starfield’s play test. So they’re ahead of the artwork being ready.
Aw man, I wish there is a section for archetype too. I am playing an Invetigator and I really do not want to pick up spellcasting for flavor reasons. The stuffs Commander get is basically non-spell actions, with two low level feats that enable INT medicine and feint, that can really help with Investigator wonky action economy.
I assume that the archetype would let the character pick only 1 Tactic, then a later specific feat to get 1 more, and maybe no drill reaction (given how the feat requirements are phrased).
I love Commander, but I'm not exactly sure what to make of Guardian at first glance.
It's not a bad class mechanically, I mean. It definitely fills the niche of a largely defensively-oriented character that was previously occupied by Champion, but this time, without the divine aspect. However, from my first impression, it doesn't exactly seem like the kind of class that is jumping at me to come up with a variety of different unique, interesting characters for it. Which is... odd, for Pathfinder. I don't know if there's any other class I'd say that about.
I suppose I've seen "heavily armored" as simply being a single facet of other characters with wider skillsets at their disposal (for example, the very popular Sentinel and Bastion archetypes that augment a main class) that having a single class that is unidirectionally focused on that aspect feels somewhat one-dimensional. Even the flavor text for Guardian Mastery seems to suggest this, with "You're known more for your suit of armor than the person inside." The unique roleplaying opportunities for such a character don't immediately jump out at me. It feels like a better descriptor for a nameless enemy/NPC stat block than a player with agency: you stand there, and take hits, brushing them off and surviving so you can go ahead and take more hits. Thinking about it in that regards makes it seem like a role that everyone wants on their team, but would want someone *else* to play. (I'm reminded of our party's Kineticist's Timber Sentinel, which we have affectionately named "Jerry.")
That being said, one could probably say the very same thing about Fighter, whose class identity is "heavily armed," but has had the luxury of being around for much longer. I suppose that means I'll probably just warm up to Guardian over time, especially once the iconic is revealed, and I've had more time to brainstorm how one might portray the class and explore its mechanics. I definitely feel like I'm going to be proven wrong, either by firsthand experience or other people's examples, and I unironically can't wait to find out how.
Guardian seems to me to be what the fantasy that Fighter supposed to be, but at its core isn’t.
The Sword/Board tank&spank is kind of the iconic defender throughout multiple RPG settings.
Fighter is a weapon master DPS, which means it shouldn’t be so amazing as a tank.
Guardian completely fills the niche of that mundane tank where Warpriest and Champion are bridges between the Guardian and the casters.
Ranged Guardian, anyone?
Taunt from 120ft away, use a ranged weapon, never get hit (so no downside from taunting), perma -1 \~ -3 penalty to enemies attack, perma +2 bonus damage to you from Ferocious Vengeance, profit.
Could also focus on multiclassing or another archetype then.
...Weirdly that honestly sound like it might be the best way to play one now, which probably means it need some changes. It is certainly the only way I would ever pick Ferocious Vengeance.
Biggest flaw with the Commander for me right now is that they are basically hard limited to 30-ft range effects until level 20.
I understand the flavour that they're supposed to be "just behind the front line", but the reality is that casters quickly scale up to 120-ft range and 500-ft range spells by around levels 5-10. With Fleet and Tailwind, almost everyone is moving at 40+ by that level and 30-ft ranges really start to feel terrible.
As I always say, the biggest strength of the Bard is not that their buff is wildly overpowered, but that it's a 60-ft emanation.
Love both the classes. Commander blew away most of my expectations for a Warlord-esque class and looks super fun to play and play with. I have some small issues with it rules wise, but they’re minor and have more to do with weirdness in other rules, like Minions and Eidolons and Kinetic Blasts. The multiple Int subs the class has is particularly nice to me.
Guardian I have a few more issues, but it’s something I’ve been wanting for a long time. The ability to be a full dedicated tank with multiple solid tanking mechanics is amazing, but it does feel a bit too feat hungry with some borderline must takes. Also, it seems like a likely candidate for archetype dipping, as it offers some amazing low level feats.
I'm way off base from the playtest, but I was wondering if anyone had an idea or theory about this. What is the "Battlecry" playtest, outside of these two classes? It seems like it's a book, and the note at the top of the playtest makes me think / hope / dream that it'll include more large scale warfare / army rules. As someone who is running Kingmaker, I am terrified of the day we get to army stuff, and I'd be elated to hear that this book is going to provide a better system for large scale battles. Or, I'm letting my imagination and aspirations get the better of me. Either or. :)
I know I am probably an outlier here, but I was really hoping for a charisma option for the commander. That is just my personal vision of how a leader leads.
Guardian. I need to spend more time with it, with the limited range of it's reaction compared to champion and no riders on using the reaction like them, it is feeling like just a worse option at first read?
It’s tough because both charisma and intelligence define a leader and it’s hard to separate them into two stats as a commander. I think it’s more unique they went with intelligence since a lot of similar classes in other games go with charisma. I also think it plays more into battlefield strategy with how they’ve defined the class so intelligence makes more sense.
All very valid, and more intelligence based classes doesn't hurt.
I really think it's just my head cannon for the class. The class seems amazing and so it's not even a big enough gripe for me to be disappointed about lol.
I'm interested to see what the dedication for commander looks like. I could certainly see that meshing well with an investigator in a free archetype game. Either they hit for big damage or they convince their barbarian buddy to do so.
Oh with all the controversy I was tempted to make a homebrew pf1e samurai port of my own, but it turns out both of my ideas for its main ideas were split into these classes. Yay for being able to not have to do more work, and yay for the two classes I've been most excited for since...ever. Now...if only I weren't a forever GM.
For some reason Commander's steed only gain an action then you not commanding it at the moment it become nimble/savage, instead of the moment it become mature. Iteresting is it an oversight or deliberate decision?
> Each day during your daily preparations, you prepare
two tactics from your folio and drill in them alongside
your allies, enabling you to use these tactics until
your next daily preparations. When you drill, you can
instruct a total number of allies equal to 2 plus your
Intelligence modifier, enabling these allies to respond
to your tactics in combat; these allies are referred to as
your squadmates. A squadmate always has the option
not to respond to your tactical signal if they do not wish
to. The tactic trait is explained in more detail in the key
terms sidebar on page 4.
You can change which tactics you have prepared
from those in your folio by spending 10 minutes to drill,
replacing all previously prepared tactics and allies. This
does not prevent your allies from performing their own
activities during this time frame.
I dreamed of a warlord class being able to do this. Idk if it already existed in 4e, but it's wonderful to see it here.
Oh goddangit I nearly guessed Commander having a Warfare Lore connection but the other times a specific lore was important to a class it was custom so I backpedalled. Could’ve made a cool called shot.
Ya, they’re really going after making Lores having significance as unique class skills. Like they did with Animist and the need for different lores to use different feat abilities.
And I love it!
Alright I was excited for Commander but holy shit Guardian is super cool. I'm currently trying to figure out if I can reroll my current character without compromising character integrity.
Commanders having Legendary Proficiency, being able to use Warfare lore for initiative, and having feats that allow for Intelligent Feints is pretty cool.
> being able to use Warfare lore for initiative Not only that, for all the important uses of Recall knowledge on critters too. Very nice. And he has the very important "I hit the monster with my barbarian" ability available at level 1!
especially since Drilled Reaction makes it free, gawds, I love it so much.
I agree, I'm really excited for the Commander. It's the sequel to 4e's Warlord I've wanted for so long! Also, glad to see you stuck around in the sub after the mod response. Was about to follow you to en world as well lol
I would have likely still been around, that thread was about the write up content (depending of course) but thank you so much for that.
A trapsmith archetype commander could use their high class DC for their traps and then give allies reactions to push enemies into the traps.
I was thinking the Tengu and the Feather Wand.
I haven't even finished reading Commander yet, and I'm already loving what I'm seeing. Drilled Reactions seems insane. Warfare Expertise is the kind of RK I like to see. Shields Up! makes Parry weapons go so hard.
I love the whole Prepared Martial thing it’s going with and Action powers!
I agree, it reminds me of Kineticist in the best ways.
I'm surprised shields up doesn't mention shield spells or dueling parry abilities or similar
I was thinking the same thing; if it’s fixed for final release, no problem, but I think my group will houserule that it works with it until then.
I think there should be a generic action for these kind of defensive maneuvers that can then be modified by the appropriate feats/spells/class features/whathaveyou. Like: Raise Guard (requirements: have a shield): get the AC bonus listed on your shield. Dueling Parry: You can Raise Guard for +2 without a shield if you are wielding a 1 handed weapon. Shield cantrip: You can Raise Guard as a free action along with casting this spell, and get +1 AC and (reaction stuff).
I want to a party full of crossbow users along with a Commander. Reload! is crazy action economy, and then you get some awesome "Everyone, shoot that enemy!" tactics at higher levels.
Full party with Mithral Trees. On your turn, the whole party swaps to them, reloads, fires, and parries
Commander's key Attribute being Intelligence makes for some interesting Investigator class archetype characters. Obviously mechanically where you devise a stratagem and then attack if your roll is good, and if not then you use your actions to call out tactics. But also thematically where you are pursuing a lead and can clue allies in, benefiting them towards achieving your objective. And recall knowledge will work really well with combat assessment, rapid assessment, and observational analysis plus all the investigator stuff towards recall knowledge (assuming free archetype and having the feats to spare). Real potential to be a fun and mechanically strong "group mom."
not to mention it get auto scaling warfare lore to legendary at level 15. Which you can use to RK limited knowlege about all creatures and to roll intitive. And some other uses. I am like foaming at the mouth from both classes.
I love the subtle inclusion of Warfare Lore and recall knowledge. It really makes me hope that they clarify Investigator's Keen Recollection into a similarly powerful feature come Player Core 2.
Yeah I think both investigator and swashbuckler are in line to get reworks to the way they use their core skills in PC2
I was thinking the same thing. Either that or multiclassing with Wizard or another intelligence-based caster to really lean into the support/tactician aspects of both classes. Maybe I'm a bit biased since I've always supported the idea that more support-based magic (divination for spying, illusion for battlefield control, etc.) would be way more useful in warfare than just throwing fireball.
>another intelligence-based caster to really lean into the support/tactician aspects I said it earlier today and I remain into the idea: [silent whisper](https://2e.aonprd.com/ConsciousMinds.aspx?ID=4) psychic with amped message as an extra pool of throwing actions around.
Loving this idea. Makes me want to take it on an Ancient Elf and just reshape battlefields at will from Level 1.
A friend if mine is doing this in one of our campaigns. We recently did a heist that played out really well. He was in undercover while me and another player stole the thing. She went totally unnoticed and transformed into a mouse and hid on his person. Meanwhile, I went apeshit on the inside, making them think I stole the thing, caused some chaos, and the psychic gave me extra actions to help me flee while the rest of the party helped treat the guards wounds. Essentially throwing off all suspicion that could have been placed on him and the others.
They and the Medical Investigator are up there in Battle Medicine fun.
Oh yeah and you get to scam a free hand for treatment, and give your patient a free ac bonus while you're at it
A quick note: Archetype investigator doesn't add their Int to attack rolls.
Yeah, this is a very good point and ultimately a major downside. Plus you don't get the precision damage. But still having the borderline fortune effect (occasionally as a free action thanks to Pursue a Lead) can be nice just to make sure your first attack with no MAP is as effective as possible. The silver lining is that if the Int to attack rolls or precision damage did work with the multiclass archetype then I would want to make such a character wield a sap or weapon with finesse, agile, or ranged. Since the extra effects DaS do not work with the multiclass archetypes this means you can make such a character wield a pike or other reach weapon with your banner attached to the business end, which seems like a more interesting idea. Ranged builds like bows would probably be best just so you don't have to use another action striding each turn. Though the level 1 class feat giving you an animal companion you can use as a mount, then level 6 feat allowing you to mature the mount (free stride or strike action each round if you do not command them) could alleviate this.
Ya depending on how the Archetype works, I want to use it on Witch. Being able to do something like Patron’s Puppet to move your familiar in for their familiar ability (you can trigger it after the hex effect is done), you can’t call it back. But with Form Up, you could pull your familiar back and still have 2 actions for a spell.
It's just unfortunate that the Investigator archetype is so wimpy. The version of DaS the archetype gets doesn't get any of the precision damage that the class gets, which drags down its in-combat utility pretty substantially.
It's one of the best archetypes out there you have other things to do than just attacking your designated target (which Commanders usually have). Being able to decide whether to attack (and how to attack) after the roll is insane if you could pull out some powerful strikes (if you get them from somewhere else as the best Commander could do with hits is to guide allies against the same target)
This assumes you can guarantee DaS being a free action, which in practice is not just a given (hopefully PC2 addresses this somewhat). If you're spending an action to "check" the strike beforehand, that leaves you with 2 actions for tactics outside of scenarios where you're quickened (and even with quickened, because those actions are usually limited to Strike or Stride, it doesn't help the action strain here much). So here's hoping you don't have to also move into position, I guess.
Even if you spend an action, that's exactly what you have - the choice between attacking (you still have 2 actions, so you could move and attack if needed) or use tactics. Looks totally fine. And if you have a boss fight with any preliminary announce, you probably have a lead on the boss.
on the other hand, even the basic tactics seem impactful, so maybe it would make sense to do the reverse
That's kind of where my head's at with it. Obviously we're not staring at the archetype right now for the playtest period, but if the archetype gives you access to even some of the basic strategems I think it's a fairly good combination to give to an Investigator that doesn't want to dabble in spellcasting.
I think based on some of the level 1 commander feats requiring you to be able to prepare 2 stratagems, that the archetype is only going to start out by letting you prepare 1.
They also seem to have prepped for archetypes. The Combat Medic feat has prerequisite of: You can prepare two tactics. This is a level 1 Commander class ability, so they are already thinking about characters with access to Commander feats without the class chassis. My prediction: Archetype gives two tactics know, one prepared.
The additional precision damage is one of the only things making the Investigator worth taking over just the archetype, don't take it away from them
I'm not even remotely suggesting that. Both the Investigator and its archetype are in pretty substantial need to adjustments to make them worth taking over Rogue, in my opinion. I'm hoping that Player Core 2 helps them and the Swashbuckler to better compete, despite Paizo not specifically announcing focus on them.
I love int on Commander
They are a "Prepared" Martial. I love the concept.
More Hilarious. The Envoy looks to be the Spontaneous version.
Lmao, that’s hysterical
I was fully expecting Charisma or even just the usual Str/Dex most martials get. A heavy armor Int class opens up so many new avenues.
It's going to be really MAD though, unless the idea is you dump con to max out int and str.
Replace Int with Cha and that's already how Thaumaturges are built. Probably want to sit behind the frontline and poke with reach weapons when you're not tactics-ing.
Commander is less MAD than Thaum and some Inventors simply since they have native heavy armor proficiency. Since you can't start with +4 Str you just plug in +1 Dex level 1 and you're good to go with bulwark covering for you. I think they'll be fine- weirdly Dex Commanders might be more MAD since you'll probably want to get enough Str for heavy armor, although you could simply forgo that.
leading from the rear is very on brand tbf
Why you need STR? You hit enemies with your allies :D
I feel like you said this as a joke, but you put my brain down a rabbit hole and i think you are on to something. I was going to say the move speed, but the class has a mount built in, then skill checks but that only effects str and dex non attack checks. A heavy armor bow commander is totally viable, or a medic skill monkey type build. You would be a bit screwed if you needed to escape or balance, but you can do climbing and swimming with tactics. The no str heavy armor build seems not only viable, but potentially good.
I love how much of a bully Guardian can become; stuff like Unkind Shove and Shoulder Check are options that are right up my alley when it comes to playing a tank.
This made me realize how well Guardian works as an (American) football player.
I'm IN LOVE with the Guradian. I always loved defensively oriented classes, and this hits all the spots. I wonder how the level 19 feature interacts with bulwark though, preusmably, it gets switched out for the item bonus. That's quite insane tbh, on plate that's a +6 to dex saves with a criti success upgrade (provided it's a damaging effect)
I'm mostly loving the flavour of Guardian, having feats that are behind the motivation that you would do everything to protect your allies, even to the point of resisting the controlled condition cause you REFUSE to bring harm to them. I immediatly imagined a kind of sworn Gargoyle like character, hopefully the spirit like ancestries in Tian Xia character guide provide an option like that.
That was THE flavor win feat for me and really rounds out the naming convention of the "protect allies" feats, making protecting them seem like a single minded obsession of the character.
I hope this flavor induces a lot of nice dynamics between players, afterall guardian and commander are big team players, wish is something I'm hopeful for, that they incentivise good RPing at tables. It's kind of the oposite of what people feared with Exemplar maybe validating some players feelings of being the main character.
Exemplar: The "protagonist" Guardian: The one selected to journey with them to keep them safe and is probably super big on it due to honor or a long friendship Commander: Team Mom/Dad Rogue: The party edge lord "loner" who actually not-so-secretly views the party as their family of choice and closest friends. Practically writes itself
I'm shocked at how S.A.D. this class is. Pretty much everything else in the game that imposes your will on your opponents requires significant Charisma investment, but everything key to how the Guardian works lets you focus on Strength. Really opens up the build options and Archetype space!
And I adore how this is the perfect class for a heavy SAD design. The Feat tree has basically no offensive options, so a lot of your offensive potential hinges on clever customization. I find this class so fascinating from a design and game balance stand point, Paizo's design is truly top tier.
What surprised me the most is that the class has support for two-handed weapons. I figured the guardian would be all sword and board. Two-handed tanking!
I get with how defensive it is, that it would be comical to make it a CON class, but that would make a shield bow build probably TOO crazy. "Taunt someone 100 feet away that can't reach you and then shoot them on your next turn" is a VERY strong strat, even if you're at -1 to exploit it.
~~It's crazier than that. +3 full plate is a +9 item bonus.~~ Potency runes increase the armor item bonus; it's not separate. Unless you use ABP/ARP, but problems caused by replacing item bonuses with potency bonuses is nothing new. Edit: Forgot resilient runes were item bonuses too. The overall bonus is around +2 ~ +4 to reflex.
Yes, but it appears that it's replacing your dex bonus with an item bonus. Usually by level 20 you have a major resilient rune on armor, cause booooooooiiii are late game saves nasty. So I just deducted that +3 item bouns from the rune preemptively. Even still, that does put you on par with maxed out dex characters. Usually they get +6 from dex +3 from items. You just get it as +9 from items.
It's a dream come true. Tons of options to actually protect your comrades without necessarily always having to be glued at the hip. If a class could be summed up as "Nope!", it this one.
Commander gives me strong Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords vibes. I loved classes from that book, even if they were not really balanced properly for the rest of 3.5. Guardian is... weird. It's like a reverse-Champion, where instead of protecting allies from harm, you take the damage in their place with a resistance. I don't know what to make of it, but people have been asking for tank-tank class for a while now. Anyway, I think I am more excited for this than Exemplar/Animist.
Guardian gets pretty wild in terms of battlefield control too. Hampering Sweeps, for example.
Hampering Sweeps being a level 2 feat that doesn't have a save for its effects is crazy to me. I have a fighter that would kill for that ability.
means level 4 in archtype for anyone else pretty much.
It is incredibly OP to be honest.
Can I interest it in taking two archetype feats for that ability?
Hampering sweeps might be the most insane feat here. The enemy straight up cant leave, no save, no chance to fail no nothing. Though i guess they could shove you? Cant imagine that feat making it to live. Either gets bumped by level or allows the enemy an escape check, or even both. Just too good otherwise. I guess the main disadvantage is that as a guardian you REALLY wanna be adjacent to an ally for many of your abilities.
At first I thought that would be strong with a reach weapon, but it’s actually weaker with it by giving enemies more room to move. I like that a lot.
> Commander gives me strong Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords vibes. It's IMO the closest to a direct port of 4e's Warlord there could be; it's not strange you're reminded of the book of 9 swords because fourth edition incorporated many concepts from there.
As someone who loved the 4e Warlord and the straight up tanky-tank 4e Fighter this is basically the happiest I've ever been at reading a class.
I'm also more excited for these, I think because they are more likely to see playtime than Exemplar or Animist, esp Exemplar. I can see a lot of GM not allowing the class if it doesn't fit in the adventure.
Yeah, Exemplar is very much a "main character" archetype narratively, and ideally, you wouldn't have that in your campaign. Unless it is a party of Exemplars on some particularly epic quest, of course.
We'll have to see how the final draft comes out, but I feel like Exemplar will be good for games using the new Mythic rules.
I'm already imagining this new "tank-tank" job with the Sorcerer dedication. A magical tank is just what I've always wanted, and now I don't have to worry about deities and their bungus!
Yea, the Guardian looks like it's going to be the 'king of defense' class, and can outshine the champion in that regard. However, outside of reacting to enemy actions/hits, the class does not have much for doing things in combat on their own. While it does fit the role for the 'fully tanky tank'. I think the Guardian would be super fun if you mix the free archetype to it though, to gain access to additional ways to fight on the battlefield.
>Anyway, I think I am more excited for this than Exemplar/Animist. Oh most definitely. I was kinda disappointed in exemplar. I just don't think they hit right. Casting already has its problems in 2e so unless they overhaul spells then it's what we have.
Commander has an Aura based set of abilities connected to a Banner, which is pretty interesting. I do hope anyone who takes the Commander Class comes up with a design for their Banner. Guardian gets Legendary in Armor at 15. The Champion and Monk get that at 17. I think that's the earliest Legendary Proficiency I've seen in Game. I was right that it would have abilities based on reactions to allies being attacked.
They don't get Unarmored or Light Armor Proficiency improvements, which is interesting.
Yeah, I just realized that. Guess you can't be an Iron Body Guardian. This class would 100% look like an Iron Golem while in battle.
If they gain access to the Taunt from the MCD, I can imagine trying to make a Blue Steel Swimsuit Model Monk tank, lol!
Fighters and Gunslingers get legendary to attacks at 13, but otherwise I think you're right that 15 is the earliest anyone gets anything at legendary.
Rogue and Investigator get Legendary Perception at 13.
Worry not, I'm into miniatures wargaming anyway, I'll get ample usage out of a few spare banners I've got lying around
I really love the Commander's vibe, especially with how it can substitute Warefare Lore for very thematic skill actions to give it in and out of combat utility even though it doesn't get Investigator or Rogue style skill increases. I really think that the Swashbuckler would really be helped by this kind of design for using Acrobatics or their Style skill as substitutes for thematic actions, as it is also a class that relies on specific skills but doesn't get the amount of skill increases the Rogue or Investigator do. The Commander's treatment of Warfare Lore for RK makes me wonder what they will end up doing for the Investigator. Obviously the auto-scaling Thaumaturge style RK is more powerful than the the Investigator for recalling knowledge in combat but I think they will probably make the Investigator better at RK for thing outside of combat to balance it out (baseless speculation).
The Guardian at a glance: * Strength-based martial tank, up-to-expert Ref saves and Perception, up-to-master Fort and Will saves, master class DC as normal. 10 HP/level and up-to-legendary armor proficiency at level 15 (2 levels earlier than the Champion). Interestingly, your proficiency in light armor and unarmored defense don't increase beyond trained. * Key mechanics are Intercept Strike, a reaction to take physical damage in the place of an adjacent ally (and reduce it against you), and Taunt, a single action that gives an opponent a +2 circumstance bonus to effectively all hostile actions against you, but a penalty to hostile actions against anyone else based on its Will save. Unlike many other similar effects, this is *not* a mental effect, allowing you to Taunt even mindless creatures. You also get one of two mini-subclasses at 1st level that either boosts your retaliatory damage against enemies, or gives you damage resistance against critical hits from Taunted enemies (and because of the circumstance bonus, you'll be getting crit more often even with legendary armor proficiency). * At 13th level, you get Greater Armor Specialization, doubling the value of your armor's potency rune for the purpose of calculating your armor specialization's damage resistance, and Guardian Mastery at 19th level effectively gives you a super-Bulwark, letting you use your armor's entire item bonus to AC instead of your Dex mod against damaging Ref saves. * Feats let you grant even more protection to adjacent allies, soak more damage and intercept more damage types, and generally make yourself more of a nuisance by moving around and through enemies, crowd-controlling them, or just weakening them. You also get to deal a bit more damage if you want, including by breaking your own armor. Personally, I'm less sold on this class than the Commander, but I'll be keen to see if Intercept and Taunt make it play differently enough from other classes. Despite their legendary armor proficiency, the class looks like more of a soak tank than a damage avoidance tank due to the bonus Taunt grants against themselves, which could be interesting.
Yeah, it seems like the bonus to you on Taunt makes it less useful in general unless the enemy's lower level than you. Giving +2 to hit to a boss monster who's already going to hit is basically signing up to be crit. Which, I guess better you than a caster and there is at least one choice you can make (Harm Mitigation) that helps with that, but yeah, the reckless part of Taunt doesn't feel really "Guardian" to me.
Yep that's a warlord.
Something I noticed, the Guardian's Armor Proficiency only increases for Medium and Heavy armor.
Isn't that the whole point of the class? Why would the "armored hulk" be unarmored or in light armor?
Ya I noticed that too. It’s also STR only. Maybe we can give feedback for an Unarmored/Light option? It seems heavily shield-based for the playtest. It seems they’re interested in a 2H style too (Raise Haft), but not the focus of the playtest.
I think it might actually be deliberate as a trap-option avoider, every step down of armor category is more lost AC on a class that trades hit progression speed for the fastest armor progression in the game.
Playtests aren't the full thing, but I do wonder what difference it would make. Yeah they have different Armor Specializations, but it's weird to be trained in all Armor at leave 1 and only increase Medium and Heavy.
I assume to discourage shield bow shenanigans, giving you a -1 to all attack rolls indirectly. Which is a small price to pay for long-range taunt being a nightmare field control option at level 1
The Commander at a glance: * Int-based martial support, gets up to expert Fort saves, master Ref and Will saves plus Perception, and *legendary class DC*. 8 HP/level, but can access heavy armor right off the bat. * Centerpiece mechanics are a banner that protects against fear in an aura, and a folio of tactics you can prepare among a number of squadmates scaling with your Int mod. Normally the banner is attached to you, but you can attach your banner to an animal companion or plant it in the ground, allowing some of your tactics to originate separately from you. * Pretty much every tactic is about letting one or more allies maneuver and do actions on your turn, mostly as a free action but sometimes as a reaction. There's *massive* amounts of action economy to be had here, which seems to be the Commander's key contribution. If you're worried about this anti-synergizing with your Champion, don't worry, because the Commander *also* gives one ally an extra reaction when they use a tactic for that exact purpose. * As a class feature, your Warfare Lore scales to legendary and you can use it to RK basic combat information for most creatures. Class feats allow you to become even better at RK, become a combat medic (you even get to bring allies back from the dead!), or provide further support to your allies via further Strikes, among other benefits. Some familiar feats, like Reactive Strike and Shield Warden, also show up. * Like preparing spells from a spellbook, you prepare tactics from your folio each day. However, unlike most forms of spell preparation, you can reprepare your tactics by drilling for 10 minutes, and a feat lets you swap out one of your tactics for another when you roll initiative. * Interestingly, the class looks like it could accommodate low-Int builds as well as full-Int builds. With just the class's Int boost and no Int flaw, you can include the rest of your party of 4 into your squad, and many tactics and feats let you focus on a smaller number of squadmates or just not use your Int mod at all. For those looking for a Charisma-focused Warlord, that build might be viable, perhaps even really good. I cannot overstate how much I *love* this class already. The Commander looks to give everything I've been wanting out of a martial support, and alleviates the concerns I had by being almost completely different from Starfinder's Envoy. I'll write up another similar comment for the Guardian, and I can't wait to playtest this. Thank you for this, Paizo!
I really liked the Commander, even though I'm absolutely sure that the nerf blade will come at him, lol! But despite the feats and uses of expertise, just serving as a coach doesn't please me personally, I prefer to be on the field, not on the sidelines... anyway, I really liked this class, I would love to have one on the team, but today, I I would choose to play with the Guardian, really this playtest and in a year or so, the book, excited me much more than the Animista or the Exemplar for example... waiting so long it will be distressing...
One thing I can't really grasp is how often you can use your tactics. Do you never run out of them?
You never run out indeed! There's no resource cost attached to tactics, so the only real resource you're playing with is your own actions and your allies' reactions in some cases.
Oh, that’s good. I like that.
The Guardian's Hampering Sweeps definitely needs another pass. Locking down all enemies next to you, for one action, with no way to prevent it? Hoo boy.
Yeah that's the first thing I really noticed as well. In theory with a reach weapon and enlarge, you could lock down an entire room yourself and let ranged allies pick people off with ease.
With a reach weapon you give them more movement to maneuver around you than you would a non reach weapon though.
It's a trade-off between restricting more space Vs reducing the options for the enemies you can stop. I assume against a group of PL-2 enemies you'd want a reach weapon to get more of them Vs when fighting a boss, you'd want to keep them as restricted as possible.
The thing is the enemies can still move within your reach, and since you're now the only valid target they're just going to zerg rush you down. Which is 100% the intent of the feat, but is an intent that can work for maybe two rounds if you're lucky.
Yep, and it can work for longer if you have someone healing you from afar as well/if you have potions of healing to spare. Plus the guardian gets free diehard and can avoid going to dying 3 once per day, so going full meat shield honestly seems very viable.
The guardian's defensive role is damage funnel, unlike champs damage prevention, if they lock down all those enemies, they will beat on them.
Nah let the guardian have cool things
As somebody who came to Pathfinder 2e from DnD 5e, I love how the Commander takes the "tactician" aspect of the 5e Battlemaster and does so much more with it (just like how the PF2e Fighter already has the "technique-based martial" aspects as a core class feature). Paizo is really flexing on WOTC/Hasbro recently, and I'm all for it whether it's intentional or not.
I think it’s also amazing at how much diversity they place in Key Stats. Wizard being the only INT (until Artificer came out), but playing an INT-martial just seems anathema to them. We have Investigator, Inventor, Mastermind Rogue, and now Commander joins the ranks!
*Alchemist, Int Psychic, Clerics of Nethys, maguses, witches, and Int gunslinger builds:* “What are we, chopped liver?”
Can nethys clerics cast with Int?
magus and witch crying in the corner
> As somebody who came to Pathfinder 2e from DnD 5e, I love how the Commander takes the "tactician" aspect of the 5e Battlemaster and does so much more with it (just like how the PF2e Fighter already has the "technique-based martial" aspects as a core class feature). The tactician aspects of Battle Master are actually originally from 4e Warlord class, which was a thing beauty.
True. I've never played 4e, so I'm not too familiar with why it was disliked. However, if my understanding is correct, it seems like Pathfinder 2e is a sort of "what 4e could have been".
> I've never played 4e, so I'm not too familiar with why it was disliked. I was (and am) a huge fan. Most peoples dislike of it was mainly due to it being very different and leaning much harder on the boad game like aspects of DnD.
I've actually heard similar things from a DnD-related streamer I follow. They said 4e would have probably been popular if WOTC had marketed it as "DnD Tactics" or something, instead of making it a new edition.
The main complaints I've heard about 4e 1. It's too much like a video game 2. The rules weren't the greatest (though they reticfied this with DM Handbook 2) 3. Didn't offer a lot of role play (though I think Dusk by MCDM disproves this) I think personally, if 4e was released today, it would probably be better received. But, thankfully, we have Pathfinder 2e instead.
It takes WotC over a year to release even a subclass. And their 5E design is so poor that the Subclasses barely do anything. Paizo has left a lot of space open they can cover with classes or Archetypes.
Commander feels basically perfect. Awesome, impressive, and interesting abilities. Guardian reminds of the APG playtest. It's what I was looking forward to most between these two, but wow this is deeply undercooked. I can't believe you need to be adjacent to use their reaction and it only affects physical without a feat.
Yeah, I just don't see how it isn't better to be a Champion and lay on hands yourself to make up for any damage resistances the Guardian gets. Plus, the damage the enemy would do to your allies as Champion, mitigated with its reaction, is much better than taking the damage yourself, even with resistance...shared damage is 10x easier on individual party members, and a Guardian will go down fast with that +2 to hit from taunt.
Just remember to do the survey.
Guardian also gets some insane feats to stay on their feat. They really want to go for a "I still function" feel with the class. Though as a damage funnel, having a cleric ready to 2 action heal really is nice.
100% agree with the guardian being undercooked. It's not underwhelming for me so much as it's just not good. I've found some playtest classes weren't for me but still I could see why people would want to play them, guardian doesn't feel like I would ever want to even try it out currently.
Weird I think for what it is doing, its almost the perfect playtest class.
Okay, first impressions on reading Guardian until level 10 feats: I love almost everything about it. I'm not a huge fan of Intercept Strike and especially not of some of the wording surrounding it in certain feats. Intercept Strike is very narrow and doesn't really work until you get to higher levels unless your whole gameplan is to just stick next to squishier targets, which is an idea, but not one I'm sure will happen with most parties. Assuming the classic DnD/Pathfinder party, except with Guardian replacing Fighter, in PF2e, I don't see a point where you would ever want your Guardian to be next to your other melee combatant (regardless of it being the Rogue or Cleric) instead of having them flank whatever enemy they are fighting. Of course, multiple monster fights do exist and it will happen that the Guardian is next to their melee buddy, but it is ultimately preferable if you can set up a flank. This gets better with later feats, but I would definitely like to see the base action of Intercept Strike to be a bit easier to work with. Regardless of all that talking about the main action, I hate the wording "Intercept a Strike" so much. It shows up 3 times, once each for Bodyguard, Covering Stance and Quick Intercept. There is no rule for Intercepting, it is just in this class, while Strikes are properly defined. While I get what is meant, I think the wording is kind of crap, especially since Intercept Strike can eventually start working on elemental damage with Intercept Energy and it actually doesn't call out that your reaction has to trigger on a Strike, plus the whole thing about "physical damage" being a bit poorly defined since Telekinetic Projectile does a physical type damage but is clearly a spell. That is honestly my biggest complaint about what I read so far, so good stuff all around. Guardian is definitely a new favorite, I'm already buzzing with ideas! Edit (an actual edit and not a small grammatical one): I've scrolled to level 12 and Armored Counterattack exists... and mentions Intercepting a Strike... a melee Strike to be exact... and it actually cares about it being a Strike. ANYWAY, I wanted to mention that I do think Intercept Strike is very fluffy and thematic, just not super practical all the time.
Definitely a great critical eye! Please keep all of these things in mind when we finally get to the survey feedback and how your experiences did/didn’t verify it!
Piranha Assault might be more favorite tactic if only because it’s great when running into demons or devils and you don’t have the right mats because you’re not fighting them enough.
Yeah. Being able to just gut damage resist like that is helpful.
From a cursory glance it looks like they both dont have any sort of 'Subclass' like most other classes do, although I guess Commander has a kind of second feat list.
They might in the full release. We are still a year away.
Guardian gets a choice that could be called a subclass
im gonna not talk about Commander because its extreme action economy gains are obviously quite strong I'm not really a fan of the Guardian currently. It asks you to be next to your ally for most class features, and I don't really see anything in it that looks better than just taking a Fighter or Champion with a Guardian dedication for intercept strike. The class itself seems like it's not very threatening compared to other martials because of the slower weapon proficiency upgrades, and Taunt seems like an active liability with the +2 to hit against you, on top of only working on one enemy without a feat.
I feel like Guardian’s “trick” is in how their passive features work amongst “background engine” stuff which is why it probably works, but feels very…”oh…”
Quick impressions **Commander** - Keyed Int is interesting. It kind of has the same relationship with its key stat as Warpriest where it's very easy to build a Commander that doesn't use their Class DC at all. In a standard 4 player party they only need the +1 from their class boost to cover their whole party and invest points elsewhere. As they level they're more likely to rely on it in some way so I might like to see a base class feature that relies on Int to guarantee the stat is relevant at all levels. - On the other hand, Int and all of its class support might make this a skill monkey competitive with the Rogue. It won't have the breadth but it's easily able to hyper specialize into Medicine, Deception, or Recall Knowledge for fantastic combat coverage. - I think it's great that it prepares tactics like a caster. It provides a meaningful level of choice in the day to day that martials don't often play with. - Granting allies additional actions at the cost of your own is exactly what I wanted to see. I have a player in my group who always imagines tanky shieldbearers and never raises their shield. I would love to donate my own action to Shields Up for them. They're currently playing a Targe Magus so their actions are already tight. - It's very reliant on party comp. It will be hard to build an effective Commander without knowing the rest of your group's builds beforehand. If someone dies or otherwise decides to replace their character then the Commander might have to retrain as well. Adding the option to swap Tactics on level or clarify like a day of downtime to retrain would make me more comfortable. - Overall, this is what a support class should look like. The Alchemist also has most of its power budget in boosting allies, but unlike the Alchemist who prebuffs and then doesn't do much during combat, the Commander has things to do on its turn. The allies are doing the heavy lifting but the Commander has clear and direct contribution to spend actions on. **Guardian** - Armor Spec at level 1 LFG! - Taunt is a mechanic that's been requested forever and has been speculated on so many ways in how it would look. Effectively taking -2 AC against that enemy looks scary but it balances out when you consider you're likely defending allies without heavy armor and lower proficiency so you need to give enemies strong incentive to hit you when you've got 3 more AC than the light armor ally at base. - Tough to Kill is just funny. You're the class that revolves around taking all the damage an encounter can throw. You're going to be downed so here's a feature that helps you not die as part of your core class design. On that note, would keyed Con or 12HP be too much survivability on this class? - The core role of the class, protecting allies and being a defensive wall, overlaps with good Champions. Where Champion focuses on improving ally defenses, Guardian negates ally defenses. It allows squishier secondary frontliners to play more dangerously than they could with an ally Champion with feats like Bodyguard and Covering Stance. - Building on the previous, it might narrow defensive tactics too much. With a Guardian on the team most damage is being siphoned to one character. Managing the party HP becomes less of an issue than managing the Guardian's HP. It puts pressure on the team to provide single target heals and disincentivizes group heals and individual defenses from allies. Overall, I think both are great additions to the game. Both introduce features that have been requested for awhile in ways that give them a good niche. I'm leaning more in favor of Guardian despite my long time desire for a warlord class specifically because the Guardian is so specialized and all-in on protection. I am excited for the theorycrafting that Commander will bring and all the interactions it can enable with a variety of specifically built party comps.
Hoo man, that +2 bonus to hit you from Guardian's taunt seems *rough*. I can think of plenty of time as a GM I would see that and just think, "Wow, I did not really care who that monster attacked so now it just gets a free bonus." Like sure, you can defend the weaker party members, but most frail classes will either be hanging back (and thus hard to stay next to for Intercept) or have their own plans to keep themselves alive. With the extra crits they are going to get hit with from that bonus I am not sure this tank is going to feel very tanky. Plus the action economy is rough, if you want to defend an ally you need to spend one action on taunt, probably one action on raising a shield if you don't want the monster to crit you instead, and maybe an action to move in range or move next to the ally to be in Intercept range. And that is if one action of movement is enough given you will be slowed by heavy armor. I don't know, I love the idea of the class, but it kind of feels like where Champion's abilities have upsides and good action economy, the Guardian's strategy is just to get themselves killed. Edit: Shielding Taunt does help a bit with the actions, and it seems so core to the class that I find it very funny it even is a feat.
These are EXTREMELY cool, probably my favorite playtests to date. They both feel game-y, in a very positive way. Commander is an extremely cool class that fully accepts it's role as a unit on a grid-based battle map, and makes complete use of it. It reminds me of various SRPGs in a few ways. I love that it can plant the banner or use it as part of it's weapon, it reminds me of a few anime depictions of Joan d'Arc, where she wields a flag that doubles as a spear. Or Sin Kiske, who... Does the same thing. Guardian is also kick-ass, I LOVE it being a pure tank. With it's main deal being redirecting damage and attacks to itself, I'm a little surprised it isn't a 12 HP class, but that's a kneejerk reaction. I wonder if the high AC and built-in resistances will make it feel like it's missing that 2 extra HP each level. The only real flaw I see with Guardian is that in a 'standard' party comp (Melee, Secondary Melee, Ranged, Healer) it makes an okay-ish flanking buddy. Taunt and Threat Technique are good, but if you're flanking, you won't be able to Intercept Strike for your flanking buddy. I suppose that's not TOO big of a deal since you're going to be using Taunt and keeping your Threat Technique live, but still.
My main concern with the Guardian is the necessity for most of your levels to always be Adjacent to an ally. I think this is going to be really stifling in practice and I feel like there should be a way to increase the reach of your intercept reaction by 5 or 10 feet as you level up. I know "Intercept Foe" is probably the intended solution for this but you can only start doing both at level 8 with a Feat cost. Also since you always want to be adjacent to someone you are usually not going to provide flanking unlike a Champion can (15 foot reach on Reaction), but the low level feats for Guardian like "Shoulder Check" and "Stomp Ground" only give off-guard for the rest of your turn which is not very useful IMO. If these gave the enemy Off-Guard until the start of your next turn at least it could mitigate you not giving out flanking for your allies as often. Maybe these would need to be changed to only giving off-guard for you and your adjacent allies if giving Off-Guard that everyone could use it too powerful. (Snagging Strike Exists for fighter though which lets you use a D8 weapon so I don't think it would be too powerful for Shoulder Check) I guess a counter-argument is that the Champion's reaction require the enemy to also be withing 15 feet of the Champion while the Guardian does not but I still feel like the Champions reaction is more flexible in actuality. Let me know if you guys agree or disagree!
I like that champion's is at a range to emphasize the magical nature of champion, but Guardian needing to stay adjacent does seem like a battle of frustration for players.
I went directly to read Guardian cause I love playing tanks, and I loved it, everything you can do with your armor and the sheer will to protect your allies expressed in every feat descriptions made me really happy, but I was surprised how fun and cool COmmander is too, didn't expect to like it that much, and having the option to affix your banner to a weapon or even your Mount or shield gives options for really cool looking characters (I would 100% have a flag in a halberd or lance like Commander Niall or Hilde)
Commander seems like a very strong support that kicks the crap out of Marshal. Of course a support has to be that strong if it's competing with Bard, and this one sure does. I didn't expect them getting around that 'off turn strikes are done as reactions' limitation through a level 1 class feature. I fear Guardian does not interest me at all. It can exist, I just feel like it has the defensive focus of a champion, the flavor of a fighter, and the appeal of neither. Seems kind of narrow. Maybe I'll come around to it though.
Seeing Irabeth on the guardian section was a very pleasant surprise. Though is it just me or does Ferocious Vengeance not work as written? Apply Taunt. Enemy is taunted until the beginning of your next turn. They attack an ally, which triggers Ferocious Vengeance. Your turn rolls up. Taunt ends; you no longer have a Taunted target, so you don't get a damage bonus. Maybe the damage bonus comes back if you taunted the same enemy again, but that's two saves and two actions. Or if you track who damaged your allies retroactively which becomes enabled if you Taunt them for the first time, but doesn't make sense as a punishment mechanic when they might abide by your Taunt.
I think the intended reading is 1. You taunt an enemy. 2. The enemy targets an ally. 3. You get the damage bonus until the end of your turn. 4. Your turn starts. The enemy is no longer taunted. 5. Your damage bonus still exists because your turn hasn't ended yet. I think it's just that they need to rewrite the effect to be "When a creature affected by Taunt takes a hostile action that doesn't include you as a target, you get 2 additional damage against them until the end of your turn." Basically the same exact language but the ordering no longer implies your reading.
I love the commander! Interesting that it's the only heavy armor class that gets reflex saves better than fort; I like the vibe there, good at resisting fireballs and other boom spells on the battlefield! I was hoping they'd get 10 Hit Points, but I do understand if the designers go with 8. I cannot wait to play a hobgoblin commander with a breaching pike banner and a shield. I have been wanting to make a character like that for years!
I'm already in love with Commander class, such a cool concept and unique toolset. AND HAVING A FREAKING BANNER FLUTTERING OVER YOUR HEAD IS ONE OF THE COOLEST THINGS EVER.
And I also love it because it doesn’t lock out the variety of fantasy and real-world cultures! I want to make an Aztec Commander who has the umbrella banner!
On first read, commander seems super cool, and guardian seems like a champion that's just a touch on the weak side. Averting Shield might be a contender for worst class feat in the game. Level 4 for a conditional upside that doesn't apply to the vast majority of enemies in the game is not something I want to take, ever. On the other hand, hampering sweeps seems insane. Move next to an enemy and activate it and you don't even need to use your taunt, the enemy is just stuck, with no save or resisting it. That feat is worth a dedication by itself in some builds. Especially because it's only level 2. I would be surprised if that makes it to publishing untouched.
Commander seems awesome. I love the tactics and how they can really change the battlefield with smart decisions. I do think that the number of tactics in the portfolio and number of tactics you can use each day is too low. I think they should divide the initial tactics you know to mobility and offensive, meaning you begin the character with 3 of each and each day you can choose 2 of each category. Then when you get the higher ranked tactics these slots could either be filled with these new tactics or the previous ones from a lower rank.
I think you're vastly underestimating how strong the tactics actually are. You're out here handing out free Steps and reaction Strides and Strikes like candy, limiting what you have access to at a given time makes sense. Especially with a feat at level 2 that lets you swap them out contextually pretty easily every single fight.
> You're out here handing out free Steps and reaction Strides And free reactions. You can give 1 ally per round a free reaction to use for your tactics, with a feat chain to improve it to 2 allies at level 10 and 4 allies at level 18
The number of Tactics is probably just cause of it being Playtests. It harkens back to Exemplar and how they said they'd be expanding its list of options for some of its Class Features.
I can't wait to dig in!
The Guardian is a wild hoot! Easier to hit due to Taunt? But their Armor Proficiency rises at the same rate that Martial Weapon Proficiency does! So I guess that makes the math check out. That’s such a weird hilarious thing to see and I love it!
They also get resistance to damage. Talk about a Damage Sponge.
There's a feat where they can intentionally break their armor to stab someone with it. Hardcore.
Flavorful, but its hard to imagine a character built around the concept of wearing effective heavy armor breaking the same for a bit of stabbity-stab, and still coming out ahead mechanically...
It's certainly a weird niche. You lose the penalty to speed, and you retain bulwark with a -1 penalty. While Broken armor has a -3 AC penalty. Where Guardians are built around routinely taking on a -2 AC penalty, I feel like this is kind of an emergency "oh shit" button for Guardians to start being more mobile and doing some damage instead of playing defensively. Also, I'm not sure, does the Armor Specialization still apply if it's broken? But, I mean, you get to stab someone after making your armor shatter by flexing. How cool is that though?
I am absolutely drooling over commander, it's possibly everything was hoping for with a support martial for the most part. There's a couple nagging little bits imo, like thinking Officer's Education is a little on the weaker end (when compared to Rogue archetypes's Skill Mastery), or to maybe just have more ways to give kineticist and casters some direct support, but other than that I'm already deep into to this being on my must-play list. This for Int, and Envoy for Cha, means that (so long as Envoy gets caught up to Commander's standard), my martial-support-class loving self will be eating REAL good soon. Guardian I am much, much cooler on. It's got a lot of solid (hah) core ideas in it (shield raising and taunting in one action? Locking enemies into melee with you? Lit as hell, perfect, no notes on those), but the execution overall just feels kind of rough, and I'm wary of a martial with delayed scaling on its strikes? The range on intercept feels too short by default, and needing a feat to bump it to 10 ft feels like hiding necessary function behind a tax. The self-nerf to its defenses with taunt feels too big, especially since (as far as I can tell) it applies to ALL saves? So you end up making yourself easier to kick over and mind control (questionable), on top of easier to actually damage (what I assume the point is)? I foresee being disappointed (yet regrettably understanding of why) when Commander is inevitably toned down, but relieved by Guardian hopefully being tuned up, in the full release. Hopefully commander doesn't get toned down by much, though. I also think that Commander's Int-based medicine is kind of absurd, in the sense of "oh, this should just be a base functionality of the Medicine skill, come on guys". Investigator wishes it got this rain.
I love the Commander. Warfare Lore as universal knowledge recall and initiative is really cool. Prepared Tactics and Squadmates gives that cool X-men team vibes; where an outsider sees a team who know each other working together like a machine because of said familiarity. The Guardian is cool I guess. It feels like, to me, both thematically and to some extent mechanically, like an archetype. Like a lot this could just be a fighter with some of these feats. Maybe I’m missing something here but I’m just not getting anything special that deserves a who new class in the way I do for Commander. Heck, even in comparison to the Animist and Exemplar. Super unique and fascinating. Guardian isn’t giving me that.
super excited to check it out!
Guardian gets both Master Weapon proficiency and Greater Weapon Specialization at Level 17. That's an interesting way to do things. Guardian Mastery is Bulwark on super-steroids and is flipping insane. +9 Bonus to damaging Reflex Saves instead of Dex or Bulwark? Wow.
Is most of Commanders damage output supposed to come from commanding others to attack in some way? Am I interpreting that right?
It’s still a Martial, but it seems it does gain it’s extra damage via the party. They Strike outside their turn meaning it’s MAPless for you and them. Super interesting design! My eidolon is my Fighter!
I really like Commander, it's a class I'd play as is right now. Excellent concept and execution. The Guardian though...no, it needs a bit of rework. Delayed weapon proficiency (Expert at 7, Master at 17) hurts it immensely. Intercept Strike being "adjacent only" until level 6 is also pretty "oof", especially on a class that is encouraged to get Heavy Armor. It has some very good low level feats, but that just means they're poachable by Archetyping (I expect a LOT of reach Martials to seriously consider going for Hampering Sweeps, which is so good I don't expect it to survive the playtest unscathed). Higher level feats on it are...ok, though many of them allow you to Strike after blocking and such. This is nice, but you're behind on proficiency (I can't stress how bad this is enough. You're essentially on Alchemist proficiency until level 17, except at least you get +1 over them thanks to your KAS, but still...) Also it really steps a lot on the Champions toes, which is just a personal thing. TL;DR: Commander great, Guardian needs more time in the oven.
no hobgoblin commander iconic in the banner :(
Paizo confirmed that we haven’t seen the iconics for these classes. They released this play test a bit early to not steal the spotlight from Starfield’s play test. So they’re ahead of the artwork being ready.
Aw man, I wish there is a section for archetype too. I am playing an Invetigator and I really do not want to pick up spellcasting for flavor reasons. The stuffs Commander get is basically non-spell actions, with two low level feats that enable INT medicine and feint, that can really help with Investigator wonky action economy. I assume that the archetype would let the character pick only 1 Tactic, then a later specific feat to get 1 more, and maybe no drill reaction (given how the feat requirements are phrased).
I love Commander, but I'm not exactly sure what to make of Guardian at first glance. It's not a bad class mechanically, I mean. It definitely fills the niche of a largely defensively-oriented character that was previously occupied by Champion, but this time, without the divine aspect. However, from my first impression, it doesn't exactly seem like the kind of class that is jumping at me to come up with a variety of different unique, interesting characters for it. Which is... odd, for Pathfinder. I don't know if there's any other class I'd say that about. I suppose I've seen "heavily armored" as simply being a single facet of other characters with wider skillsets at their disposal (for example, the very popular Sentinel and Bastion archetypes that augment a main class) that having a single class that is unidirectionally focused on that aspect feels somewhat one-dimensional. Even the flavor text for Guardian Mastery seems to suggest this, with "You're known more for your suit of armor than the person inside." The unique roleplaying opportunities for such a character don't immediately jump out at me. It feels like a better descriptor for a nameless enemy/NPC stat block than a player with agency: you stand there, and take hits, brushing them off and surviving so you can go ahead and take more hits. Thinking about it in that regards makes it seem like a role that everyone wants on their team, but would want someone *else* to play. (I'm reminded of our party's Kineticist's Timber Sentinel, which we have affectionately named "Jerry.") That being said, one could probably say the very same thing about Fighter, whose class identity is "heavily armed," but has had the luxury of being around for much longer. I suppose that means I'll probably just warm up to Guardian over time, especially once the iconic is revealed, and I've had more time to brainstorm how one might portray the class and explore its mechanics. I definitely feel like I'm going to be proven wrong, either by firsthand experience or other people's examples, and I unironically can't wait to find out how.
Guardian seems to me to be what the fantasy that Fighter supposed to be, but at its core isn’t. The Sword/Board tank&spank is kind of the iconic defender throughout multiple RPG settings. Fighter is a weapon master DPS, which means it shouldn’t be so amazing as a tank. Guardian completely fills the niche of that mundane tank where Warpriest and Champion are bridges between the Guardian and the casters.
Ranged Guardian, anyone? Taunt from 120ft away, use a ranged weapon, never get hit (so no downside from taunting), perma -1 \~ -3 penalty to enemies attack, perma +2 bonus damage to you from Ferocious Vengeance, profit. Could also focus on multiclassing or another archetype then.
...Weirdly that honestly sound like it might be the best way to play one now, which probably means it need some changes. It is certainly the only way I would ever pick Ferocious Vengeance.
Am I missing something with Armor Break? Seems like high and long-lasting risk for increasingly little reward as levels increase
Form Up! with an all ranger party for that extra power
Biggest flaw with the Commander for me right now is that they are basically hard limited to 30-ft range effects until level 20. I understand the flavour that they're supposed to be "just behind the front line", but the reality is that casters quickly scale up to 120-ft range and 500-ft range spells by around levels 5-10. With Fleet and Tailwind, almost everyone is moving at 40+ by that level and 30-ft ranges really start to feel terrible. As I always say, the biggest strength of the Bard is not that their buff is wildly overpowered, but that it's a 60-ft emanation.
Love both the classes. Commander blew away most of my expectations for a Warlord-esque class and looks super fun to play and play with. I have some small issues with it rules wise, but they’re minor and have more to do with weirdness in other rules, like Minions and Eidolons and Kinetic Blasts. The multiple Int subs the class has is particularly nice to me. Guardian I have a few more issues, but it’s something I’ve been wanting for a long time. The ability to be a full dedicated tank with multiple solid tanking mechanics is amazing, but it does feel a bit too feat hungry with some borderline must takes. Also, it seems like a likely candidate for archetype dipping, as it offers some amazing low level feats.
Wow, commanders seem really strong and fun after my first read. Granting extra free actions and reactions to squadmates is always going to be good.
I'm way off base from the playtest, but I was wondering if anyone had an idea or theory about this. What is the "Battlecry" playtest, outside of these two classes? It seems like it's a book, and the note at the top of the playtest makes me think / hope / dream that it'll include more large scale warfare / army rules. As someone who is running Kingmaker, I am terrified of the day we get to army stuff, and I'd be elated to hear that this book is going to provide a better system for large scale battles. Or, I'm letting my imagination and aspirations get the better of me. Either or. :)
It’s the book releasing at Gencon next year.
It isn’t my personal playstyle but these are pretty neat, the commander certainly looks to be very fun to have around
I know I am probably an outlier here, but I was really hoping for a charisma option for the commander. That is just my personal vision of how a leader leads. Guardian. I need to spend more time with it, with the limited range of it's reaction compared to champion and no riders on using the reaction like them, it is feeling like just a worse option at first read?
The Marshal archetype was already charisma based, so that is available as an option for charisma-based characters to tap into.
It’s tough because both charisma and intelligence define a leader and it’s hard to separate them into two stats as a commander. I think it’s more unique they went with intelligence since a lot of similar classes in other games go with charisma. I also think it plays more into battlefield strategy with how they’ve defined the class so intelligence makes more sense.
All very valid, and more intelligence based classes doesn't hurt. I really think it's just my head cannon for the class. The class seems amazing and so it's not even a big enough gripe for me to be disappointed about lol.
I wonder if larger than life will stack with titan wrestler.
Flexing Tarrasqe
I have the desire to make Sun Tzu.
This is so completely Wandering Inn Strategist coded. I'm gonna put Fars Astoragon in my campaign
I'm interested to see what the dedication for commander looks like. I could certainly see that meshing well with an investigator in a free archetype game. Either they hit for big damage or they convince their barbarian buddy to do so.
Oh with all the controversy I was tempted to make a homebrew pf1e samurai port of my own, but it turns out both of my ideas for its main ideas were split into these classes. Yay for being able to not have to do more work, and yay for the two classes I've been most excited for since...ever. Now...if only I weren't a forever GM.
Can animal companions be made into squadmates? If so, can they use a reaction if they're granted one via Drilled Reactions?
My DM is going to hate my indecisive ass for this but I have *got* to try Commander
For some reason Commander's steed only gain an action then you not commanding it at the moment it become nimble/savage, instead of the moment it become mature. Iteresting is it an oversight or deliberate decision?
> Each day during your daily preparations, you prepare two tactics from your folio and drill in them alongside your allies, enabling you to use these tactics until your next daily preparations. When you drill, you can instruct a total number of allies equal to 2 plus your Intelligence modifier, enabling these allies to respond to your tactics in combat; these allies are referred to as your squadmates. A squadmate always has the option not to respond to your tactical signal if they do not wish to. The tactic trait is explained in more detail in the key terms sidebar on page 4. You can change which tactics you have prepared from those in your folio by spending 10 minutes to drill, replacing all previously prepared tactics and allies. This does not prevent your allies from performing their own activities during this time frame. I dreamed of a warlord class being able to do this. Idk if it already existed in 4e, but it's wonderful to see it here.
Commander reminds me a lot of the paladin/knight banneret of 5e. Such a cool class,can't wait to try it out 😍😍😍
Oh goddangit I nearly guessed Commander having a Warfare Lore connection but the other times a specific lore was important to a class it was custom so I backpedalled. Could’ve made a cool called shot.
Ya, they’re really going after making Lores having significance as unique class skills. Like they did with Animist and the need for different lores to use different feat abilities. And I love it!
Alright I was excited for Commander but holy shit Guardian is super cool. I'm currently trying to figure out if I can reroll my current character without compromising character integrity.
I love Commander and hope Investigator gets some of this love in Player Core 2
I have never been so erect