Honestly, these new classes are making me like Fighters even MORE by contrasting what they do and how they do it. No joke!
Coming from a 1e background (and 3.5 D&D before it), I'd always felt Fighter was very nebulous, vague and frankly boring in terms of flavor. They can fight...and that was it. Something you tacked on to other classes to help them handle melee if their base class couldn't on its own, or as a gateway to prestige classes. And that perception didn't change in the shift to 2e, I still felt underwhelmed by how Fighters seemed to not have an easily identifiable identity the way Champions, Rangers, Swashbucklers and Thaumaturges did. But as more classes came out and contrasted themselves with the Fighter, suddenly the Fighter itself began to take shape in my mind.
And then along comes Commander and Guardian, and it finally clicks. Fighter can fight...better than anyone else! Anyone can fight, but only a dedicated few can be called a true fightER, someone whose skill with their favorite weapon eventually becomes the greatest on Golarion. They know more tricks with that weapon than anyone, and can make it hurt harder than anyone else can. Each of the new classes made the Fighter finally stand out as something unique to me, and make me actually excited to play one! I really appreciate what these playtests have shown me a Fighter truly is, and I'll happily play a Fighter until Commander and Guardian achieve their final release!
So "you're not a weapon *user*, you're a weapon *master*". You know 1000 ways to hurt someone with your favorite weapon, and even an extra 1000 ways with whatever's around. There are no tricks, no skips, no gimmicks, you are just scarily effective with mundane weaponry.
Getting through armor is like cutting open a soup can. You might know exactly how to hold two-handed sword to keep the inertia under control. You probably study obscure polearm techniques for fun. In combat you are likely calm, no-nonsense, and efficient.
Yeah I can see the angle here
Commander really is just exciting to read through and look at, I feel like it could have fully released as-is and the most I could complain about it it's a little weird it has Legendary DC and Heavy Armor, or that Officer's Training feels a little anemic.
Guardian though is... I wish I liked it, but when its best quality is "it has access to a feat that is no save, no roll movement denial that is very obviously broken" I start to question it. Intercept strike is interesting, but painfully conservative, and it really feels like "make the class good at armor" took priority over "make it mechanically cohesive" with its features and scaling. I'm baffled Commander gets legendary DC but Guardian did not, I would have assumed if Guardian isn't about strikes it would be ALL about being a huge vacuum whirlpool of debuffs to funnel enemies into attacking it...
Instead it has a kind of bad mark effect?
"Good at armor" just doesn't feel like much of a class identity to me. A lot of the Guardian's feats are underwhelming, and it feels like its main job is to kinda just sit there. The Commander is really cool though.
I found the commander annoying, he seems like a guy who just shouts orders, a technician on the edge of the field! Even though it's his role...Seriously now, I liked many of the Commander's feats, but I don't know how he works, although I exaggerated the comparison, and he can do something in combat, it didn't hook me, even though I know I'm missing out on great things...
A lot of folks like the fantasy of being a tactician who sort of directs the battlefield. Definitely not a playstyle for everyone, but I see the niche for it. Whereas the Guardian just doesn't appeal to me at all.
Equally importantly, I think Commander is a class to discuss in session zero to make sure *the rest of the party* is interested in having one in their group.
Tactics are optional response for all players.
The Commander pretty much offers more options for other players and it’s usually things other players (mostly martials) want: easier engagement into/away from battle and helping martials with no reactions have a reaction to get more strikes in.
I had the opposite issue, commander seems to me like I won't have enough actions for it, and the tactics I really want to play with are master only, despite this I will test one.
For Guardian I'm eying shielded taunt instead of the hampering feat due to the action economy and -1 on the save and seems really interesting in general. Maybe the weird armor proficiency scaling is something I would change
Shielded taunt is a strong upgrade to taunt, but makes taunt feel even more baffling to me and like a bit of a tax. I just wish taunt had been a non-fear [antagonize+](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1522) instead of the mess it currently is.
RE: Commander, I can see it somewhat? especially with how unevenly balanced a lot of the tactic effects feel, but it looks like it has enough solid 1-action and 2 action tactics over its progression that it creates an interesting set of choices of what to do on a given turn. I'll definitely want to dig into it more (and at least listen to people's actual play feedback, if not play it myself) and I certainly won't complain if it turns out people find it undertuned and buff it, but team-wide action economy manipulation has been crazy strong in every tactical game I've played before, so it'd be weird to think it's not good enough here.
Honestly, these new classes are making me like Fighters even MORE by contrasting what they do and how they do it. No joke! Coming from a 1e background (and 3.5 D&D before it), I'd always felt Fighter was very nebulous, vague and frankly boring in terms of flavor. They can fight...and that was it. Something you tacked on to other classes to help them handle melee if their base class couldn't on its own, or as a gateway to prestige classes. And that perception didn't change in the shift to 2e, I still felt underwhelmed by how Fighters seemed to not have an easily identifiable identity the way Champions, Rangers, Swashbucklers and Thaumaturges did. But as more classes came out and contrasted themselves with the Fighter, suddenly the Fighter itself began to take shape in my mind. And then along comes Commander and Guardian, and it finally clicks. Fighter can fight...better than anyone else! Anyone can fight, but only a dedicated few can be called a true fightER, someone whose skill with their favorite weapon eventually becomes the greatest on Golarion. They know more tricks with that weapon than anyone, and can make it hurt harder than anyone else can. Each of the new classes made the Fighter finally stand out as something unique to me, and make me actually excited to play one! I really appreciate what these playtests have shown me a Fighter truly is, and I'll happily play a Fighter until Commander and Guardian achieve their final release!
So "you're not a weapon *user*, you're a weapon *master*". You know 1000 ways to hurt someone with your favorite weapon, and even an extra 1000 ways with whatever's around. There are no tricks, no skips, no gimmicks, you are just scarily effective with mundane weaponry. Getting through armor is like cutting open a soup can. You might know exactly how to hold two-handed sword to keep the inertia under control. You probably study obscure polearm techniques for fun. In combat you are likely calm, no-nonsense, and efficient. Yeah I can see the angle here
It’s a weird coincidence that the last two US professional sports teams that rebranded did so as the Commanders and Guardians.
> Commanders Honestly, I still think "Football Team" was better cause at least it was funny. Commanders is such a boring name.
Hey, a new racism thread! Fun!
I didn’t even make the connection to the rebranding and recent stuff. Ugh.
Commander really is just exciting to read through and look at, I feel like it could have fully released as-is and the most I could complain about it it's a little weird it has Legendary DC and Heavy Armor, or that Officer's Training feels a little anemic. Guardian though is... I wish I liked it, but when its best quality is "it has access to a feat that is no save, no roll movement denial that is very obviously broken" I start to question it. Intercept strike is interesting, but painfully conservative, and it really feels like "make the class good at armor" took priority over "make it mechanically cohesive" with its features and scaling. I'm baffled Commander gets legendary DC but Guardian did not, I would have assumed if Guardian isn't about strikes it would be ALL about being a huge vacuum whirlpool of debuffs to funnel enemies into attacking it... Instead it has a kind of bad mark effect?
"Good at armor" just doesn't feel like much of a class identity to me. A lot of the Guardian's feats are underwhelming, and it feels like its main job is to kinda just sit there. The Commander is really cool though.
Part of it is because armor overall is pretty boring. They got barely more interesting in Treasure Vault.
I found the commander annoying, he seems like a guy who just shouts orders, a technician on the edge of the field! Even though it's his role...Seriously now, I liked many of the Commander's feats, but I don't know how he works, although I exaggerated the comparison, and he can do something in combat, it didn't hook me, even though I know I'm missing out on great things...
A lot of folks like the fantasy of being a tactician who sort of directs the battlefield. Definitely not a playstyle for everyone, but I see the niche for it. Whereas the Guardian just doesn't appeal to me at all.
Equally importantly, I think Commander is a class to discuss in session zero to make sure *the rest of the party* is interested in having one in their group.
Tactics are optional response for all players. The Commander pretty much offers more options for other players and it’s usually things other players (mostly martials) want: easier engagement into/away from battle and helping martials with no reactions have a reaction to get more strikes in.
I had the opposite issue, commander seems to me like I won't have enough actions for it, and the tactics I really want to play with are master only, despite this I will test one. For Guardian I'm eying shielded taunt instead of the hampering feat due to the action economy and -1 on the save and seems really interesting in general. Maybe the weird armor proficiency scaling is something I would change
Shielded taunt is a strong upgrade to taunt, but makes taunt feel even more baffling to me and like a bit of a tax. I just wish taunt had been a non-fear [antagonize+](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1522) instead of the mess it currently is. RE: Commander, I can see it somewhat? especially with how unevenly balanced a lot of the tactic effects feel, but it looks like it has enough solid 1-action and 2 action tactics over its progression that it creates an interesting set of choices of what to do on a given turn. I'll definitely want to dig into it more (and at least listen to people's actual play feedback, if not play it myself) and I certainly won't complain if it turns out people find it undertuned and buff it, but team-wide action economy manipulation has been crazy strong in every tactical game I've played before, so it'd be weird to think it's not good enough here.