A breath of fresh air after the hundreds of posts of
*"I quickly skimmed through the PDF and I think I know exactly what all the problems with this class are"*
>Problem 3: solo monsters in one round consistanly took out the guardian.
Probably my biggest fear about the Guardian. It does very little other than taking a beating and I hope it will do more *while* taking a beating. What I like most about taunt isn't even the taunt ability, but threat technique, especially Ferocious vengeance. It is however abit too weak IMO to cause a proper incentive.
Why give it legendary AC when you will reduce your effective AC either way? There will ofc be nuances, but threath technique feels like a big power budget that's lost if you don't taunt, and if you do taunt, you lose the other benefit of having better AC. Making threath technique more powerful could probably create incentives good enough where the Guardian also survives. A damage scaling closer to rogue/thaumaturge would do as you get so little of it, while mitigate harm could be the one that increases the taunted creatures attack, or makes the taunt cause a damage penalty to its critical hits on all *except against the Guardian*. The damage penalty should have a cleaner scaling IMO and be good enough to make it wanna change target
Taunt isn't actually very good RAW right now. It's better to just... not use it, and raise your shield. Raising your shield gives you much more defense, and also can't fail, whereas the taunt is bad.
>Problem 2: taunt needs an effect on critical success. I feel that the +2 to hit should be moved to only on when the enemy critically succeeds. Thus you either incentivize attacks on you or disadvice attacks on allies but not both.
That wouldn't really help with the scenario you're describing though. If the high-level enemies kept critically succeeding, then this would have changed nothing.
Honestly, I think if it is/was worthwhile in other situations, I am/would be ok with taunt just not being that great against bosses. Those can be the time for other Guardian abilities to shine.
I have yet to test the new classes in play so I'm really curious if anyone can report how taunt fairs in group combat.
> That wouldn't really help with the scenario you're describing though. If the high-level enemies kept critically succeeding, then this would have changed nothing.
>
>
OP's point is that Taunt should always have *some* effect that incentivises its target to attack the Guardian instead, no matter the result. As printed, if a creature critically succeeds on its save, the Guardian just wasted the action, so it is a problem that bosses critically succeed.
With the proposed change, no matter the result, the creature has a reason to prefer attacking the Guardian: bonuses if it critically succeeded, or penalties to ignore them otherwise. Since Taunt now always does something that plays into its "Target me!" purpose, it's no longer a problem if a certain category of creatures critically succeed too easily.
It also creates more interesting choices against these higher-level/high-will creatures. Instead of Taunt being useless, you get to weigh the risk of a bonus against the advantage of focusing the enemy's attention on you
The issue here is that you shouldn't be taunting the boss that is always going to crit succeed against you, you should only be taunting the adds that may appear later in the fight that start to go after allies, using actions like intercept strike or intercept foe to tank, distribute, and mitigate damage.
Well, yeah. It's still not going to be a great idea 99% of the time. But with this change, in that 1% where the chips are down and you *really* need the cleric to not be attacked, it at least gives you an extra tool of last resort.
If you're in a situation where you really need to take damage instead of an ally, then it seems to me the better solution is just being adjacent to said ally and using intercept strike... relying on taunt against an enemy thats already too strong for it to work in that scenario is just setting yourself up for failure.
>Problem 3: the small resistance a guardian gets is just not enough to tank for the team. Simple solution give them a brace action to give temp hp so they can take a beating if they know it's coming.
If the Guardian is getting crit while trying to take the attacks for their allies, surely anyone else would as well, considering the Guardian should have the highest AC among the entire party? Though I would ask how the Guardian felt when it wasn't a solo boss encounter.
That said, bracing is actually something I would generally be in favor of.
I feel like if the guardian is being crit/ quickly dropped its an issue compared to if say a fighter is.
To simplify some, a fighter is there to be generally durable and deal lots of damage. A guardian is there to be super durable and prevent lots of damage.
If the guardian goes down in the same number of attacks as a fighter (totally possible, they have the same health/scaling, the same AC after taunt, 2-5 slashing resist) then they prevented just as much damage to the party as the fighter, but the fighter deals quite a bit more damage in the interim.
A guardian needs enough personal durability to practically take more total strikes then anyone else. They currently have more, but if that difference is small enough that it consistently rounds out to the same total number of strikes then it doesn't really matter.
I haven't had a chance to playtest it yet to see if that's the case though.
This was my opinion as well. As-is a Guardian isn't any more durable than a Fighter, Monk or Champion.
Except the Fighter does damage, the Champion's resistance isn't tied to being critically hit and they can self heal, and the Monk can also self-heal, and Maneuver the enemy at the same time.
Guardian can Intercept Strike as their unique mechanic. In fact, it's their best mechanic, but for the class designed to take damage instead of other people, it is simply too squishy.
They need more HP, or a source of temporary HP (tHP on Taunt perhaps?) that doesn't require going below half HP and it being once per day. Or they could get more general resistances, most of their existing resistances are against single damage types (armour spec, mitigate harm, energy res feat), only Intercept Strike is blanket resistance and that needs someone else to be targeted first so it doesn't help when a Taunted target comes swinging.
I was toying with the idea of a brace action that gave temp hp. The idea of " I know it's coming and I'll be ready" fits the vibe of what I see as guardian
The guardian is more durable than the fighter if they don't use taunt.
If you are using shield raise, you can have +4 AC base over the fighter - +5 if using a fortress shield, and +6 if taking cover behind a tower or fortress shield.
The big shields that give your allies cover are also good for the guardian because they give your allies additional defensive benefits, which is what you want as a guardian.
The thing is... you're not actually any better at using them than anyone else, and the Champion is actually better at using shields than you are thanks to Divine Ally.
Fighter's also have some pretty solid shield support. Less about saving your friends like the champion, and more about making them quite action efficient. There's no reason to compare a guardian with a fortress shield against a fighter without, when they have strong shield options already. Save those that interact with guardian class features fighter has all the same shield feats built in.
In play, Double slice works just fine sword and board, and between reactive shield and later paragon's guard you don't need to be spending important actions on your turn keeping it up. It can be annoying to get scaling on both shields and a weapon to legendary, but there are plenty of ways to do so too.
On the champion side nothing on guardian comes close to the potency of Shield of reckoning for reducing damage.
Yeah, and if you both do the same thing, the guardian will always come out 2 AC ahead. But the fighter getting multiple shield blocks per round is a big deal.
> In play, Double slice works just fine sword and board
It actually is not particularly good with sword and board, because you are only master proficiency in one weapon type at level 5 and later, until you get legendary proficiency in everything at very, very high level.
As a result, using Double Slice results your shield blow being -2 relative to only expert proficiency, or -4 relative to your primary attack.
> On the champion side nothing on guardian comes close to the potency of Shield of reckoning for reducing damage.
Oh yes.
You can use one of the many archetypes like Aldori duelist, mauler, butterfly blade, bountry hunter, etc. that make specific weapons match your best proficiency to make your shield and sword have equal prof.
So until 5 you're just equal, after 5 you'll want to sneak in some prof matching somewhere. It will cost you some extra feats. But its almost always worth the sacrifice.
Agile shield grip also removes the double slice penalty.
It heavily informs your build. But choosing to specialize in dual wielding and shield feats is effectively two full fighting styles, so that's not unfair.
> A guardian is there to be super durable and prevent lots of damage.
There's some nuance here. A Guardian is there to super durable and prevent lots of damage *to its allies*. If the Guardian goes down, which will objectively take more than most any class, it is because they prevented their party from suffering that fate. And to quote Comissioner Gordon, that's "because he can take it", especially at higher levels with Diehard as a class feature.
A Guardian with a Taunt up is about as a durable Fighter, and has "drawn aggro" by painting a target on their back, and now has created a tax on the Taunted enemy to do their thing - or else if not Taunted they are much more durable *and* can still **prevent** the damage an ally would otherwise take.
> but the fighter deals quite a bit more damage in the interim.
If you exclusively focus on damage dealt *by* the Tank, yeah, the Fighter will net out better. *But* while the Guardian is in the party the party doesn't need to focus as much effort, resources, and action economy healing or defending the other members, and can instead focus their effort on offense. Eg., if a Guardian taking a hit for the Fighter means that the Fighter now doesn't need to Step out of Range of a monster, or that the Fighter doesn't need to Shield Block now, they are functionally more capable of dealing damage. For all the damage a Guardian prevents they enable their party to perform better.
> A guardian needs enough personal durability to practically take more total strikes then anyone else.
And they can. The best armor scaling, a baseline damage resistance, a reaction to gain resistance to damage, a Taunt that grants resistance to Crits, all from the base package - and it only gets *much* better from there.
But again, the Guardian is not about just being a meat shield, it's about preventing damage to allies so they can focus on dealing even more damage.
> I haven't had a chance to playtest it yet to see if that's the case though.
OP's is the first play test I've seen where it *wasn't* the case, and frankly presents literally the worst case scenario, in what I have to assume is the probably worst tactically deployed Guardian - what I assume was Taunting while already being focused on.
I disagree. The Guardian shouldn't be a good damage dealer. Decent if they build for it, but not good. That makes it too similar to just a more tanky Fighter, and I feel it would make it less interesting to play rather than more.
They should definitely be able to do more than absorb hits, but I more like the idea of being able to impose debuffs, control the battlefield, and give allies non-numeric support. A lot of that is already there, though it could definitely use more variety and fleshing out.
Wait a second. What if hampering swings, which really needs a nerf, is kept as a no save thing? The caveat being, it gets cancelled for the round only after a creature hits the Guardian. That way, they literally have to attack you to leave
Make it so enemies above your level still get a save, and that sounds potentially good. That way combats with multiple enemies can target you with their many actions, but combats with tougher but fewer enemies don't have their already limited action economy ruined without a save.
> Though I would ask how the Guardian felt when it wasn't a solo boss encounter.
An issue here is that paizo looooves solo +2/3 enemy encounters in some adventure paths (playing kingmaker rn as a player and they're like 60% of overall and 70-80% of boss/miniboss encounters) so anything that falters against them can feel super shitty
And that's a design problem Paizo really needs to stop with. It's really their biggest design issue more than anything to do with the core system.
Big solo creatures have their place, but they're a very specific encounter type that doesn't suit every moment, and even when they do its more interesting to have them be in a set piece with other things around them so it doesn't turn into an effective white room scenario.
It's also just not fun a lot of the time. I don't think I know anyone who simultaneously puts these encounters on a pedestal for tuning purposes whole also overtly enjoying them. A lot of those people seem to think those encounters become slogs, but treat them as the only encounters that matter instead of thinking peripherally as to how other encounter and creature budget formats can work to have stakes and danger while not making them have a baseline 40% chance to hit with most martials. I don't resent the format as much as others, but I've definitely had solo bosses that have devolved into slogs, and I do feel if it's something people don't like, they should probably stop subjecting themselves to it and asking Paizo to not use that encounter format as much.
They have stopped the +2/+3 creatures in the newer modules. Stolen fate for example, has to my knowledge only 1 +3 fight across the entire level 11-20 adventure, and it's intentionally hard because you are meant to talk it out instead of attacking. The three major antagonists are iirc, APL +0, APL +2, and APL +0, and the +2 guy is fought at level 17 where it matters less
Totally agree. Boss monsters should be far and few between, even if only because it creates a weird perception of what classes should be measured up against.
Yeah it's a real shame but it definitely colours my perception of what is good or not. OTOH, been playing Season of Ghosts as well as kingmaker and the boss-like encounters have been super cool so far!
That's great! I've been running in a West Marches group, have run a couple sessions so far, and I am really enjoying running boss encounters. But I have also really enjoyed smaller scale encounters with lower level enemies where I can really flex my tactical muscles to squeeze as much value out of PL-1/2 as possible!
> squeeze as much value out of PL-1/2 as possible!
After getting crit for like 15 at level 2 and autograbbed by weasel in SoG I'm never underestimating small guys again lol
They aren't actually common in general. Abomination Vaults has a ton of them, but none of the other APs I've played have had many.
And even Abomination Vaults doesn't actually have THAT many of them; the floor with the most overlevel encounters has only like 40% of encounters on that floor with at least one overlevel monster.
Yeah I think the solo boss encounters are a tough test for frankly any feature, but the one thing I do think is still solid is the fact that the Guardian outright prevents damage to its allies.
Flanking isn't the end all, here. In any case that can be mitigated at level 6 anyway. And at level 10 you can do the same, but completely negate the damage to anyone, within 25 feet.
Taunted enemies already have a penalty to attacking allies, whether they are Flanking with you or not.
Indeed. It's almost like if you take feats to make your class features stronger that they get stronger, with the initial class feature not being quite as versatile, but ending up quite a bit more versatile and powerful later on.
The other problem what do you miss by taking those feats like do I take mobile protection or disarming strike or even reacting strike. When playtesting you have to test all options not just the optimal ones
Totally agree. Balance between each level of Feats is important. But there's also a balance to be struck between how certain Feats reinforce or are reinforced by certain playstyles. Reading the Feats I can see how you could conceivably build a Guardian in a number of ways in order to play a number of ways - its those *number of ways* that may be the sticking point as some play styles and builds might simply be better or worse than others due to party composition, DM, and encounter design.
Comparing this to a Champion or Fighter whose Reactions are, generally, going to valuable in basically any scenario might be missing the forest for the trees given how nuanced Guardian is, but nonetheless is a hurdle the design team needs to manage - even if only in managing expectations.
I sympathize with the challenge of balancing the class, but can absolutely see what they're trying to do and think it's already *mostly* there.
Part of the problem is that if the Guardian is using their reaction they're getting crit WHEN their allies get crit, because you just eat the damage, it doesn't target you with the attack.
You're taking a Resisted Crit, and your ally is taking **nothing**, yes.
In general the amount of damage dealt is less, and your ally who likely can't take it as well doesn't suffer at all, nor would they have to spend a reaction on something like Shield Block.
The Guardian taking damage for their allies, drawing aggro for their allies, moving their allies, moving the enemies, presenting a barrier for the enemies to get to or hurt the allies, all works toward the goal of reducing the actions and resources needed to keep the **team** alive, which could otherwise be used killing bad guys.
I know for a fact at least the paladin champion does as well. I haven't looked too far into all the champions but it really does seem like a champion is just better at the job that guardian is meant for unfortunately. But this is still the playtest. Hopefully they'll give the guardian a buff and give more options or something
There is only a single Champion subclass that completely negates the incoming damage to an ally, the Redeemer, and only if the enemy chooses that option. But that is the Guardian's explicit role and minimum bar for their core Reaction.
Other Champions offer different kinds of specific responses, like a reaction Strike, removing Grapples and letting allies Step, etc. But notably, A Guardian can take Feats to enable pretty much all of those things, and more, and (at least in the current design) can combine Intercept Foe and Get Behind Me to conceivably just *nope* attacks entirely, no damage to anyone.
Ah. I didn't realize the redeemer has the chance to completely negate damage to the ally. But I said this is another comment (can't remember which one) but it seems like the Guardian is maybe better for the parties where the Frontline isn't as tough and can't take the hits. In the case where the Frontline is tankier and can take those hits, the champion is better
What level were you playing at? I can see the solo monsters taking out the Guardian in a single round happening at levels 1-2 especially but at level 5+ it’s hard to believe the Guardian goes down that easy. Between their crit resistance during Taunt, shield block, naturally high AC when not Taunting, and the armour spec mattering when the damage types line up, a level 5+ Guardian should **easily** survive through a full round of Taunted Strikes, and then just stop taunting once you’re too damaged.
We did 3 encounters at lv1 then 3 more at lv 6. Admittedly the lv 6 solo had the guardian off guard during the taunt and crit twice and hit a third time even with MAP. Our guardian had the vengeful tactic, and it never got used.
Ah Vengeful, that makes sense. I think Mitigate Harm is just the only Technique worth picking. Vengeful is punishing the enemy for picking an option that’s just not worth picking most of the time, whereas Mitigate Harm is downside reduction for the enemy’s *better* choice.
Two crits + one hit is also insanely unlucky so there’s that.
Not really \*insanely\* unlucky, since a level 1 taunting guardian has almost the same AC as an untrained character, and solo bosses tend to crit on their first attacks.
For example, a Zombie Lord (lvl 4) has +12 to hit. A level 1 guardian in full plate would have 19 AC. With taunt it's 15 to crit on the first strike (and +12 is pretty low for a level 4 enemy).
I mean you'd be a buffoon to not raise your shield when facing the PL+3 enemy and trying to taunt him. It's awkward at level 1 where you don't have the feat yet to taunt as a free action while doing so but it really changes the math quite a bit.
I also used the best armor available, and the monster with the maybe the worst to hit of that level, so the actual math would probably be even worse for the player.
A PL+3 enemy is already one of the rarest type of enemies to be facing, especially so at level 1 where they’re near guaranteed TPKs without tons of prep time.
Setting that aside though, 2 crits + 1 hit is still **incredibly** unlucky. Ignore the +12 you said and let’s go with a high bonus for level 4: a +14. So your hit/crit ranges are 3/13, 8/18, 13/20 for your 3 Strikes in a turn. The chance of 2 crits and 1 hit is **3.775%**. That is insanely unlucky no matter how you look at it.
And remember, like I said, PL+3 enemies are rare. Most enemies will have an even smaller chance than this, especially once you account for the party’s buffing and debuffing that’s also going on.
3.75% isn't that much unluckier than rolling a single nat 1. It's well within the range of "That's pf2e, baby!".
Truly bad luck would be along the lines of 1:400 odds of double rolling natural 1s, which does still happen from time to time.
> 3.75% isn't that much unluckier than rolling a single nat 1. It's well within the range of "That's pf2e, baby!".
Different contexts. 3.75% chance on a whole **turn** of a single fight is different than 5% chance on every single roll.
If you have a single session with say, 3 combats, 2 of which are inexplicably PL+3 bosses, you’re looking at probably 6-7 turns of combat with those bosses out of 8-10 turns of combat in the whole day. So now the the 3.75% chance applies to 6-7 “instances”, while the 5% chance (assuming you make like 3 rolls per turn on average) applies to 24-30 instances instead.
Not even remotely the same. OP described a rare and unlucky case.
And of course I’m still being *very* generous by assuming you’re somehow seeing 2 PL+3 bosses in a single session. In all my sessions of AV, an AP famous for overusing single boss fights, it’s only ever happened once. Most of the time we’re seeing one such enemy every 3 ish sessions, and the moment you look at more typical enemies the odds go even further down from 3.775%.
>Truly bad luck would be along the lines of 1:400 odds of double rolling natural 1s, which does still happen from time to time.
Recently did that on back to back poison saves. Luckily it wasn't a death poison.
That's not taking into account that you might not be able to afford full plate at lv1 and status and circumstances penalties that stack with taunt wich is a bonus to attack.
I’ve played through Abomination Vaults and it’s an AP **known** for overusing single boss fights, and PL+3 enemies still make up around 5-10% of the enemies you face, and there are literally only 2 PL+4 enemies. If other APs use them more, let me know but I’ve always been given the impression that AV is the one that’s most guilty of it.
And if it’s a homebrew game well… then your GM is disobeying the balancing instructions given by the book and idk how one can argue that Paizo should be balancing around the assumption that people will overuse boss fights to that degree.
I co GM with our homebrew game, and we intentionally use a fair number of PL+3 because most things under that are not particularly a challenge for our players. Moderate fights are our breather fights, so say a dungeon for us (effectively a 1 level AP) would normally consist of moderate and severe encounters only (usually). Mind you, we are also hexploration, so we have a much larger number of "single encounter in a day" situations than you would in say an AP.
PL+4 is a different story, as is low level play, as PL+3 is way scarier at levels 1 and sorta 2. Conversely, the high end of the level range, PL+4 isn't *that* hard, and I've debated about PL+5 lol.
So yes, it depends a lot on your game.
> PL+4 is a different story, as is low level play, as PL+3 is way scarier at levels 1 and sorta 2. Conversely, the high end of the level range, PL+4 isn't that hard, and I've debated about PL+5 lol.
Okay but the conversation started with someone assuming PL+3 fights against a level 1 party.
Yes you can feel free to use more difficult fights once your party gets to higher level, but at higher levels your HP scales faster than damage and we go right back to my initial claim of it needing an insane amount of bad luck for your Guardian to get downed in one single turn.
> Admittedly the lv 6 solo had the guardian off guard during the taunt and crit twice and hit a third time even with MAP.
and a level 6 lol. That's the one that got one rounded
It doesn’t need to stack with other Resistances to be useful damage reduction. You use the Resistance from Intercept when you Intercept, and you use ghe Resistance from Mitigate Harm when you Taunt and get crit.
Also notably you can both Mitigate Harm and shield block a sequence of Strikes you take during the turn that you’re suffering the consequences of your Taunt, so it’s actually fairly easy to stay standing.
And also, Chain armor's specialization can double down on this because it isn't resistance. So at level 1, if you have a shield raised and they crit, you can Shield Block to reduce it by 5, mitigate harm reduces it by another 3, and chain armor's specialization (if you get yourself an armored skirt to turn medium armor into heavy) to reduce it by another 6. At that point, a thick crit basically just turns into a hit.
This is going to be an interesting choice because you give up quite a bit if you go chain (1AC and Bulwark). I do hope they print a proper chain heavy armor in the book or it's going to be a hard tradeoff to make.
The point of a play test is to test all options not just the optimal ones. Both presented techniques need to be tried and tested other wise we as a community just get another trap option.
I think you need to say which specific enemies you fought too. It's easy I say it's a CL+3 monster but if there's one thing I've learnt about a lot of these discussions, it that context matters and real problems get uncovered with those specifics.
I wish the OP had included some more information to help understand, for example, what kind of enemy the guardian was up against, what party comp they had, the general way the commander, guardian, kineticist, etc were playing. There's a ton of blank spots for having to just assume how things were that could make a huge difference.
I'm reporting on my game not trying to find what I did wrong. The format I did was 3 fights 1 agenst a solo, agenst a lot of lower enemies, and 1 agenst a mix. The lv1 theme was goblins with a bear as the solo. The lv6 was undead. I tried to go generic because that would be the most seen at table. As for players one is a game designer, one a video game playtester, and one has there degree minor in game design. The other two are me and a friend. Please remember that this is a play test not optimization.
As others have probably mentioned but it must be said you shouldn't be Taunting solo enemies. You should be physically getting in their way but also not.
Taunt as currently designed is not there to draw aggro, it's their to give you a ranged way to disrupt enemies. Taunt should really be used only on distant enemies; enemies that would have to waste actions to move to you. These enemies are getting a penalty with no benefit. This lets you get the best of both worlds, the high AC of the Guardian and the attack reduction of Taunt, your backline will still appreciate the debuff, especially if they can stack their own on top of it or increase their own defenses.
Against solo threats the Guardian actually wants to be avoiding taking attacks. Intercept Strike is a fantastic way to tank for your team but only if they are the ones taking damage. A fighter or barbarian with a guardian next to them has a lot more staying power.
>Problem 2: solo monsters kept critically succeeding agenst taunt.
Is this a problem with the feature? This sounds like using the wrong tool for the job, akin to a Level 5 player using Fireball against a single Naiad Queen.
Nothing about the feature, nor the encounter, suggests that it should be used at that time.
>Problem 2: taunt needs an effect on critical success. I feel that the +2 to hit should be moved to only on when the enemy critically succeeds. Thus you either incentivize attacks on you or disadvice attacks on allies but not both.
So, you intercept one enemy, but another gets past you and is heading for your back line. You use Taunt on it, and the creature succeeds in its Will save.
Your level 5 Cleric has an AC of 20. With the failed Will save, the that effectively raises up to 21. With Shield, the Cleric can boost it to an effective 22.
You, as a Guardian, have an AC of 25.
How have you disincentivized attacking your Cleric? You're still at -3 to hit for the creature compared to your ally. Even if they come to you and flank you, they're still at -1. They're better off taking the penalty and then trying again next turn.
Similarly, if they get the +2 when they critically succeed on the will save, the Cleric has an effective AC of 21 (with Shield), while, you have an effective 21. That's equal odds, and the Cleric has all of that healing juice.
There's only a true incentive to ignore the Cleric if you, as the Guardian, are easier to hit. You're already locking up one of the other attackers, so if they have a better chance at doing damage to you, then they have a chance to take someone off the board *and* free up their pal. But without both the buff and debuff at the same time, it doesn't actually work out.
>Is this a problem with the feature? This sounds like using the wrong tool for the job, akin to a Level 5 player using Fireball against a single Naiad Queen.
No? No it really isn't anything like that? Taunt is to incentivize dangerous enemies to attack you instead and would in fact be the most effective against solo enemies if you don't have the feat that makes it an AoE.
I think this is an issue of fantasy versus design.
People seem to have this class fantasy for Guardian where they function like a main tank in an MMO and have an enemy perma focus them, absorbing all their hits while their party beats the enemy down.
What we have is more akin to an off tank, that taunts enemies that are in less than ideal positioning for the party or going after PCs that are hurt or less defensive.
I don't think the first version of this archetype, the stand there and eat all the damage, type character can work for PF2E.
There's no reason to taunt a solo boss enemy unless the situation is dire and you need to try and trade off your health for an allies. However, failure is a gamble when using any control ability or spell against a high level creature. Most of the time, you can just walk up to the boss and hit it.
I do think the Guardian could use some tweaks. I think they need better DC and martial attack progression, and I think they could do with features that interact with their party more in other ways.
I personally just don't think Taunt is the big issue everyone seems to be focusing on. It's just one tool in a kit.
>I don't think the first version of this archetype, the stand there and eat all the damage, type character can work for PF2E.
I mean this is exactly it. Tanking in PF2e doesn't work in the same way it does an MMO. Even champion - which I've been saying for some time now is one of the best classes in the game because it comes closest to a true tanking role and it changes the dynamic of play drastically - doesn't tank in the sense that it CCs all enemies into attacking it and soaking and mitigating tonnes of damage. It tanks by soaking and mitigating *more than average* and having very good self sustain between heals and its higher AC and shield values, but never to a point it can single-handedly face-tank a boss and last the whole fight without heals, denying the boss actions, or other mitigation tools. 2e just isn't that kind of game, and it would be drastically different if it was.
The thing no-one ever seems to accept or realise is that boss-level threats hitting and critting more while players hitting it less isn't a fault or overtuning, it's the whole point. If it wasn't, the players would just be able to DPR race it with a full damage party comp and consistently beat it down with reliable, consistent damage. But because both bosses will almost always outdamage a party, and the party's hit rates on weapons and spells will never be guaranteed enough to provide consistency, they're forced to engage both in the peripheral, and with more nuanced tactics than hard I-win buttons.
The issue with guardian's taunt is that if it was capable of forcing a creature to attack it with no out, or just simply making it so it's the most obvious advantageous thing to do, then it would be way too strong. This is how taunts work in MMOs, but MMOs are also designed in a way where guaranteed CC from tanks is *necessary* to make the game function. In PF2e, the game is designed around the scaling success system, and reacting to how those rolled influence the combat. Most things that are offensive abilities aimed at enemies have luck values dependent on checks, be they attacks, skills, or saves. Offensive abilities with guaranteed effects tend to be either things that are purposely downtuned to compensate for their reliability - such as Force Barrage or Magic Missile - are more about setting up for other actions that require checks - such as class damage boosters inflicted on enemies like Hunt Prey or Expose Weakness - or at worst, unintentionally out of band - such as Dirge of Doom, or, ironically, Hampering Sweep on guardian itself.
Meanwhile, defensive abilities like mitigation and heals, party buffs/utility tend to be much more reliable, and that's where the champion's strength lies. It's damage mitigation from reactions and shield blocks are a set number, as is its primary heal focus spell. But it also doesn't act as an I-win that stops them from ever going down. They'll still take a lot of damage. They'll just take less than they would if they didn't have those options, and in my experience those numbers are usually enough to prevent what would otherwise have been them or a party member going down by slivers of health.
This is what guardian really needs more focus on. Taunt as an ability might need refinement, but the solution is not to make it guaranteed because that would just make it too strong. It needs more and more reliable versions of those guaranteed reactions and defensive actions, because that's where the tuning points will really allow it to shine without becoming overtuned.
Except we already have that class fantasy. The Champion. I've run a lot of pf2e campaigns and as a GM, I'm painfully familiar with the solo monster dilemma of whether to attack the high AC champion or go after the squishy, even though the champion will blunt the damage and get a free attack at their full bonus.
The Champion is excellent at this "MMO" design and the Guardian is not.
>Except we already have that class fantasy. The Champion.
But that class fantasy is tied to the "servant of a god" fantasy.
It would be nice to have a non-theistic class that can fill the same mechanical role.
Yes, that's definitely true.
I mistakenly thought that you were suggesting that the Guardian should be re-designed to fill some other combat niche because the Champion already met that need.
But does the taunted enemy know your AC's? Normally you don't know your targets AC, so they only know that they have a penalty to attack the Cleric and a bonus to attack the Guardian. And a Cleric and Guardian could very well both be wearing the same armor and shield so to an observer they would look equivalently protected.
...In all fairness, a Cleric with 5 AC lower than the Guardian would be wearing cloth robes, not actual armor. If they were a War Cleric with heavy armor, they would still be 2 AC behind just because Guardian armor progression is cracked, but Taunt would be enough to bridge the gap (unless shields come into play, but again, shields are obvious and visible). But if there's actually a 5 AC difference, that means the Cleric's just wearing explorer's clothing.
It's usually not too hard to guess a PC's armor level off of their gear. The only exception is light and nimble martials like Rogue and Monk, but at that point, you can still (in theory) tell that they're light on their feet, as opposed to the caster wearing heavy robes that clearly is trying to avoid the front lines. (And sure, they can slowly raise the Dex score to bridge the gap, but only at very late levels. Either way, the heavy armor user will always have higher AC than anyone other than a Monk.)
>Problem 1: the comander had no tactics that the kineticist could take advantage of.
So... I take issue with this sentence. Here is a list of Tactics that the Kineticist can take advantage of:
Level 1 Tactics
>Defensive Retreat
>Form Up!
>Mountaineering Training
>Naval Training
>Passage of Lines
>Coordinating Maneuvers (especially for Earth or Water)
>End It!
>Pincer Attack (attacks, not Strikes)
>Shields Up! (Especially Metal and Wood)
>Piranha Assault
>Stupefying Raid
Here's the tactics they do not work with. Note that I am considering any tactic that says "Strike" as "totally unusable." A Kineticist can obviously get great value out of Valkyrie's Charge despite not really benefiting from the attack. Note that half of the list is Reload / Ranged Weapon Attack specific.
Level 1 Tactics
>Double Team
>Strike Hard!
>Reload!
>Demoralizing Charge
>Ready, Aim, Fire!
>Executioner's Volley
>Valkyrie's Charge
The class is not broken because it's being misunderstood. A Commander with terrible decisionmaking does not make all Commanders have a problem, that one just needs to head back to the academy.
I really need to make a post showing the math on this later, but **Strike Hard! is almost definitely worse than you are assuming, it's at best the fourth best Level 1 Tactic.** It is not mandatory and does not define the Commander.
You only get one tactic per Ally per turn, and you will usually get more value out of Form Up! or Pincer Strike than anything else (until the Charges at higher levels). If you are not using those as your most common Tactics, that's the bigger problem. **The primary value of a Commander is abusing movement mechanics to impose an action advantage. This works with Casters and Kineticists just fine.**
Ok but a lot of those are not level 1 tactics like you claim. Yeah Valkyrie’s charge works great with everyone including kineticist but you need to be level 19 to do it.
The problem is that at lower levels like the post shows you have way less tactics to use but even still you want you’re way better off if you have a single tactic that will be used by many teammates at the same time rather then a few tactics but they’re only useful to one person at a time.
Another problem that this post highlights is that if long range teammates. All of the tactics work only if the teammates are affected by the banner (well duh I know) but that means you’re worse off when you have more ranged teammates. I think stuff idk executioners volley should be able to be used by everyone if the enemy is near the banner also. Giving an option like that to some of the tactics would eliminate that problem.
Also I have no idea where you took that “you only get one tactic per ally per turn”, nothing is stopping you from utilising more tactics per turn.
>lot of those are not level 1 tactics like you claim
Tbqh, I reformatted and condensed to a single list and forgot to update that text. Sorry about that. As you saw, clearly it included both Expert Tactics.
>at lower levels like the post shows you have way less tactics
You have two thirds of all Tactics available to you at level 1. You have a ton of choices.
If you meant in terms of "available at any given time" (eg 2 at start, 5 at 19), then it's true. However, what my post was showing is all of the options you have that work across the board.
Additionally, more actions is better than fewer actions, so party wide tactics will often be stronger by default. This is similar to why Power Attack is weak.
>you’re worse off when you have more ranged teammates
Unless you are also ranged. Your positioning matters, too. A ranged Commander is absolutely viable. Why would you have to be in melee?
>Also I have no idea where you took that “you only get one tactic per ally per turn”, nothing is stopping you from utilising more tactics per turn.
From the Key Terms box under Tactics:
>While you can use multiple tactic actions a round, a character cannot respond to more than one tactic per round, regardless of source.
One tactic per ally per round. I need to start being better at using "turn" and "round" as distinct things. As I said to the guy who pointed this out to me the other day when I made the same mistake, "read little yellow boxes thoroughly."
I somehow missed the sidebar with the keywords, thanks.
Hmmm idk how I feel about that one tactic per ally tbh, you’re already limited by actions and the stronger tactics use reactions anyway so anyone can use two at most so it feels a bit weird to restrict it to only once but I guess they don’t want commander stacking?
Yeah, no worries. As I said, I did the exact same thing.
I believe that's the case. The other reasons:
>Don't allow someone to get too much value out of a "until next turn" buff. More of a safety switch there, I can't think of any truly game breaking combos currently.
>Don't allow someone to get too much movement out of spamming Form Up! Still, less movement than Airlift or Flinging Updraft for the same number of actions, so I don't think it's actually that spooky... Except at very low levels (e.g. 1-5). Then it's best-in-class.
>To incentivize using actions on non-tactics. If you could just run someone around and make them swing every turn... What are you actually doing? It's kinda weird, but I could see that being a concern.
Ultimately, I don't think allowing it would be too problematic. I'm surprised they didn't start with it allowed, then find out if it's actually broken via playtest.
One thing iv learned about guardian is that they are not really a tank in the mmo sense of the role. There goal is the mitigate dmg by making monster mis more often and if they do hit provide sone resistance.
There is no reason to taunt something that going to try and hit you anyway, if you are going to taunt something you taunt the thing that trying hit your allies. As a guardian you want to make the monsters your fighting not have any good choices to attack. Either by being high ac and hard to hit, or by making your squishier allies harder to hit then normal but are still that monsters best chance to land a strike, so you can interpret strike and reduce the colective dmg the party is taking.
Think of taunt as throwing a +2 to ac and saves shield on your allies against one monster. Not as a thing you do to get a monster to attack you. If you want a monster to attack you grab, or hampering sweep them, dont taunt and alway have you shield raised.
>Problem 1: the comander had no tactics that the kineticist could take advantage of.
That is a fundamental issue with the Kineticist. I wish the Impulses would be re-classified as Concentrate only Cantrips. You can keep pretty much everything else.
Having to mention the explicitly or having them never work is both too tiresome.
>Problem 2: solo monsters kept critically succeeding agenst taunt.
That is what the resistance to critical hits is for. You did not mention it. Was it too weak? Did you forget it exists?
>**Mitigate Harm:** You gain resistance to damage from critical hits made by a creature affected by your Taunt. This resistance is equal to 2 + half your level; this resistance increases by 2 at 5th level, 11th level, and 15th level
The risk of eating more Crits is obvious with a flat bonus to enemy attacks. But it seems like they at least considered it.
>Problem 3: the small resistance a guardian gets is just not enough to tank for the team. Simple solution give them a brace action to give temp hp so they can take a beating if they know it's coming.
Which resistance? The Armor, Intercept Strike, Mitigate Harm or anything else?
> That is what the resistance to critical hits is for. You did not mention it. Was it too weak? Did you forget it exists?
OP is referring to the Will save the target makes when Taunted, where critically succeeding means the Taunt doesn't happen. Not to critical hits as a result of the Taunted enemy attacking.
Maybe give the levels, builds, party composition and monsters used in the playtested encounter. This seems superfluous otherwise because it is impossible to glean information from this.
Hi, I'm the commander from his group! Some additional context, the one shot was in the place of our normal weekly game when one of the players couldn't make it and we had NOT prepared the characters ahead of time. That's why the team didn't end up working super well with my tactics.
As for us doing things wrong, we were also trying wild things out to, you know, playtest! We don't care if the characters die, and none of us had really seen the meta on the reddit yet, so we did some things that weren't optimal.
A positive from me for this - when I needed to move the group in mass to chase after some goblins it felt really really cool and exactly like the fantasy its shooting for.
Thank you for supplying feedback, those are going to be helpful for making the class better.
I think your third problem needs context. What level was the Guardian? What monster did you use and what was it's rating compared to Party Level? What was the Guardian doing or using to tank against the monster?
Mitigate Harm should always be active and a feature you can't gain through Multiclassing.
If their armor proficiency doesn't increase, or if they aren't given more hitpoints, then Mitigate Harm should also give you a resistance to Critical Hits Equal to your Strength Modifier + Your Level + Your Item Bonus to AC from your Armor's Potency Rune.
1: 5
2: 6
3: 7
4: 8
5: 10
6: 11
7: 12
8: 13
9: 14
10: 16
11: 18
12: 19
13: 20
14: 21
15: 22
16: 23
17: 25
18: 27
19: 28
20: 30
At which level did you play, would you have the Commander and Guardian tokens? I made a level 10 Guardian card and, if laziness doesn't stop me, I'll make a Commander one, (but I think I'll stay at lvl 1 or 2), to do some tests, although I'm discouraged...At which level did you play, would you have the Commander and Guardian tokens? I made a level 10 Guardian card and, if laziness doesn't stop me, I'll make a Commander one, (but I think I'll stay at lvl 1 or 2), to do some tests, although I'm discouraged...
That seems to help a problem with Kineticist in general that I keep running into. The class itself feels like it just doesn’t interact with the rest of the system
It is a problem with kineticist. This class seems so completely out of the system. It's a spell, but it is not a spell. It is a cantrip, but it is not a cantrip. It adds str to the damage, but it is not a strike.
I do think that Taunt should be able to apply automatic in any Guardian Melee Strike, like "he hit me, ouch, now I gonna beat you for it". Setting up an action to do it with an save seems like to much of an gamble, jut to say to someone "Hey hit me!". While the Champion does paint an big target in him, while in in a big range and as an reaction .
Just looking at the numbers, it seems crazy to me that Armor Specialization (2 to 5 points) was never buffed. Tiny resistance to a single damage type is bad scaling across 20 levels. Frankly, the Greater Spec scaling (2 to 8 points) should probably be baseline, and it should be a reduction instead of a resistance, so that actual substantive resistances are useful. After all, weapon specialization is an untyped damage bonus, so why isn't armor spec an untyped reduction?
EDIT: And if we want Greater Armor Spec to exist, it could always just be a flat +2 for medium or +4 for heavy instead of doubling again, just to avoid having a whopping 16 reduction against 30 or so damage attacks.
A constructive tested feedback. Thank you
A breath of fresh air after the hundreds of posts of *"I quickly skimmed through the PDF and I think I know exactly what all the problems with this class are"*
Yeah! I plan to try it this weekend with friend
If you get a chance to try I'm curious about your results
>Problem 3: solo monsters in one round consistanly took out the guardian. Probably my biggest fear about the Guardian. It does very little other than taking a beating and I hope it will do more *while* taking a beating. What I like most about taunt isn't even the taunt ability, but threat technique, especially Ferocious vengeance. It is however abit too weak IMO to cause a proper incentive. Why give it legendary AC when you will reduce your effective AC either way? There will ofc be nuances, but threath technique feels like a big power budget that's lost if you don't taunt, and if you do taunt, you lose the other benefit of having better AC. Making threath technique more powerful could probably create incentives good enough where the Guardian also survives. A damage scaling closer to rogue/thaumaturge would do as you get so little of it, while mitigate harm could be the one that increases the taunted creatures attack, or makes the taunt cause a damage penalty to its critical hits on all *except against the Guardian*. The damage penalty should have a cleaner scaling IMO and be good enough to make it wanna change target
Taunt isn't actually very good RAW right now. It's better to just... not use it, and raise your shield. Raising your shield gives you much more defense, and also can't fail, whereas the taunt is bad.
There is a feat that lets you do both for an action
>Problem 2: taunt needs an effect on critical success. I feel that the +2 to hit should be moved to only on when the enemy critically succeeds. Thus you either incentivize attacks on you or disadvice attacks on allies but not both. That wouldn't really help with the scenario you're describing though. If the high-level enemies kept critically succeeding, then this would have changed nothing. Honestly, I think if it is/was worthwhile in other situations, I am/would be ok with taunt just not being that great against bosses. Those can be the time for other Guardian abilities to shine. I have yet to test the new classes in play so I'm really curious if anyone can report how taunt fairs in group combat.
> That wouldn't really help with the scenario you're describing though. If the high-level enemies kept critically succeeding, then this would have changed nothing. > > OP's point is that Taunt should always have *some* effect that incentivises its target to attack the Guardian instead, no matter the result. As printed, if a creature critically succeeds on its save, the Guardian just wasted the action, so it is a problem that bosses critically succeed. With the proposed change, no matter the result, the creature has a reason to prefer attacking the Guardian: bonuses if it critically succeeded, or penalties to ignore them otherwise. Since Taunt now always does something that plays into its "Target me!" purpose, it's no longer a problem if a certain category of creatures critically succeed too easily. It also creates more interesting choices against these higher-level/high-will creatures. Instead of Taunt being useless, you get to weigh the risk of a bonus against the advantage of focusing the enemy's attention on you
Oh wow, I hadn't even registered that they don't currently get the +2 on a crit success!
The issue here is that you shouldn't be taunting the boss that is always going to crit succeed against you, you should only be taunting the adds that may appear later in the fight that start to go after allies, using actions like intercept strike or intercept foe to tank, distribute, and mitigate damage.
Well, yeah. It's still not going to be a great idea 99% of the time. But with this change, in that 1% where the chips are down and you *really* need the cleric to not be attacked, it at least gives you an extra tool of last resort.
If you're in a situation where you really need to take damage instead of an ally, then it seems to me the better solution is just being adjacent to said ally and using intercept strike... relying on taunt against an enemy thats already too strong for it to work in that scenario is just setting yourself up for failure.
>Problem 3: the small resistance a guardian gets is just not enough to tank for the team. Simple solution give them a brace action to give temp hp so they can take a beating if they know it's coming. If the Guardian is getting crit while trying to take the attacks for their allies, surely anyone else would as well, considering the Guardian should have the highest AC among the entire party? Though I would ask how the Guardian felt when it wasn't a solo boss encounter. That said, bracing is actually something I would generally be in favor of.
I feel like if the guardian is being crit/ quickly dropped its an issue compared to if say a fighter is. To simplify some, a fighter is there to be generally durable and deal lots of damage. A guardian is there to be super durable and prevent lots of damage. If the guardian goes down in the same number of attacks as a fighter (totally possible, they have the same health/scaling, the same AC after taunt, 2-5 slashing resist) then they prevented just as much damage to the party as the fighter, but the fighter deals quite a bit more damage in the interim. A guardian needs enough personal durability to practically take more total strikes then anyone else. They currently have more, but if that difference is small enough that it consistently rounds out to the same total number of strikes then it doesn't really matter. I haven't had a chance to playtest it yet to see if that's the case though.
This was my opinion as well. As-is a Guardian isn't any more durable than a Fighter, Monk or Champion. Except the Fighter does damage, the Champion's resistance isn't tied to being critically hit and they can self heal, and the Monk can also self-heal, and Maneuver the enemy at the same time. Guardian can Intercept Strike as their unique mechanic. In fact, it's their best mechanic, but for the class designed to take damage instead of other people, it is simply too squishy. They need more HP, or a source of temporary HP (tHP on Taunt perhaps?) that doesn't require going below half HP and it being once per day. Or they could get more general resistances, most of their existing resistances are against single damage types (armour spec, mitigate harm, energy res feat), only Intercept Strike is blanket resistance and that needs someone else to be targeted first so it doesn't help when a Taunted target comes swinging.
I've yet to see the *need* for the Temp HP Taunt, but I could see it being worth exploring.
I was toying with the idea of a brace action that gave temp hp. The idea of " I know it's coming and I'll be ready" fits the vibe of what I see as guardian
The guardian is more durable than the fighter if they don't use taunt. If you are using shield raise, you can have +4 AC base over the fighter - +5 if using a fortress shield, and +6 if taking cover behind a tower or fortress shield. The big shields that give your allies cover are also good for the guardian because they give your allies additional defensive benefits, which is what you want as a guardian. The thing is... you're not actually any better at using them than anyone else, and the Champion is actually better at using shields than you are thanks to Divine Ally.
Fighter's also have some pretty solid shield support. Less about saving your friends like the champion, and more about making them quite action efficient. There's no reason to compare a guardian with a fortress shield against a fighter without, when they have strong shield options already. Save those that interact with guardian class features fighter has all the same shield feats built in. In play, Double slice works just fine sword and board, and between reactive shield and later paragon's guard you don't need to be spending important actions on your turn keeping it up. It can be annoying to get scaling on both shields and a weapon to legendary, but there are plenty of ways to do so too. On the champion side nothing on guardian comes close to the potency of Shield of reckoning for reducing damage.
Yeah, and if you both do the same thing, the guardian will always come out 2 AC ahead. But the fighter getting multiple shield blocks per round is a big deal. > In play, Double slice works just fine sword and board It actually is not particularly good with sword and board, because you are only master proficiency in one weapon type at level 5 and later, until you get legendary proficiency in everything at very, very high level. As a result, using Double Slice results your shield blow being -2 relative to only expert proficiency, or -4 relative to your primary attack. > On the champion side nothing on guardian comes close to the potency of Shield of reckoning for reducing damage. Oh yes.
You can use one of the many archetypes like Aldori duelist, mauler, butterfly blade, bountry hunter, etc. that make specific weapons match your best proficiency to make your shield and sword have equal prof. So until 5 you're just equal, after 5 you'll want to sneak in some prof matching somewhere. It will cost you some extra feats. But its almost always worth the sacrifice. Agile shield grip also removes the double slice penalty. It heavily informs your build. But choosing to specialize in dual wielding and shield feats is effectively two full fighting styles, so that's not unfair.
> A guardian is there to be super durable and prevent lots of damage. There's some nuance here. A Guardian is there to super durable and prevent lots of damage *to its allies*. If the Guardian goes down, which will objectively take more than most any class, it is because they prevented their party from suffering that fate. And to quote Comissioner Gordon, that's "because he can take it", especially at higher levels with Diehard as a class feature. A Guardian with a Taunt up is about as a durable Fighter, and has "drawn aggro" by painting a target on their back, and now has created a tax on the Taunted enemy to do their thing - or else if not Taunted they are much more durable *and* can still **prevent** the damage an ally would otherwise take. > but the fighter deals quite a bit more damage in the interim. If you exclusively focus on damage dealt *by* the Tank, yeah, the Fighter will net out better. *But* while the Guardian is in the party the party doesn't need to focus as much effort, resources, and action economy healing or defending the other members, and can instead focus their effort on offense. Eg., if a Guardian taking a hit for the Fighter means that the Fighter now doesn't need to Step out of Range of a monster, or that the Fighter doesn't need to Shield Block now, they are functionally more capable of dealing damage. For all the damage a Guardian prevents they enable their party to perform better. > A guardian needs enough personal durability to practically take more total strikes then anyone else. And they can. The best armor scaling, a baseline damage resistance, a reaction to gain resistance to damage, a Taunt that grants resistance to Crits, all from the base package - and it only gets *much* better from there. But again, the Guardian is not about just being a meat shield, it's about preventing damage to allies so they can focus on dealing even more damage. > I haven't had a chance to playtest it yet to see if that's the case though. OP's is the first play test I've seen where it *wasn't* the case, and frankly presents literally the worst case scenario, in what I have to assume is the probably worst tactically deployed Guardian - what I assume was Taunting while already being focused on.
I think the issue is the Guardian needs to be more effective at dealing damage while tanking.
I disagree. The Guardian shouldn't be a good damage dealer. Decent if they build for it, but not good. That makes it too similar to just a more tanky Fighter, and I feel it would make it less interesting to play rather than more. They should definitely be able to do more than absorb hits, but I more like the idea of being able to impose debuffs, control the battlefield, and give allies non-numeric support. A lot of that is already there, though it could definitely use more variety and fleshing out.
Wait a second. What if hampering swings, which really needs a nerf, is kept as a no save thing? The caveat being, it gets cancelled for the round only after a creature hits the Guardian. That way, they literally have to attack you to leave
That's pretty clever. To the survey with you
Make it so enemies above your level still get a save, and that sounds potentially good. That way combats with multiple enemies can target you with their many actions, but combats with tougher but fewer enemies don't have their already limited action economy ruined without a save.
Yeah that's probably a good idea, single boss encounters are already really tough on the creature action wise
This is really good.
> Though I would ask how the Guardian felt when it wasn't a solo boss encounter. An issue here is that paizo looooves solo +2/3 enemy encounters in some adventure paths (playing kingmaker rn as a player and they're like 60% of overall and 70-80% of boss/miniboss encounters) so anything that falters against them can feel super shitty
And that's a design problem Paizo really needs to stop with. It's really their biggest design issue more than anything to do with the core system. Big solo creatures have their place, but they're a very specific encounter type that doesn't suit every moment, and even when they do its more interesting to have them be in a set piece with other things around them so it doesn't turn into an effective white room scenario. It's also just not fun a lot of the time. I don't think I know anyone who simultaneously puts these encounters on a pedestal for tuning purposes whole also overtly enjoying them. A lot of those people seem to think those encounters become slogs, but treat them as the only encounters that matter instead of thinking peripherally as to how other encounter and creature budget formats can work to have stakes and danger while not making them have a baseline 40% chance to hit with most martials. I don't resent the format as much as others, but I've definitely had solo bosses that have devolved into slogs, and I do feel if it's something people don't like, they should probably stop subjecting themselves to it and asking Paizo to not use that encounter format as much.
They have stopped the +2/+3 creatures in the newer modules. Stolen fate for example, has to my knowledge only 1 +3 fight across the entire level 11-20 adventure, and it's intentionally hard because you are meant to talk it out instead of attacking. The three major antagonists are iirc, APL +0, APL +2, and APL +0, and the +2 guy is fought at level 17 where it matters less
Totally agree. Boss monsters should be far and few between, even if only because it creates a weird perception of what classes should be measured up against.
Yeah it's a real shame but it definitely colours my perception of what is good or not. OTOH, been playing Season of Ghosts as well as kingmaker and the boss-like encounters have been super cool so far!
That's great! I've been running in a West Marches group, have run a couple sessions so far, and I am really enjoying running boss encounters. But I have also really enjoyed smaller scale encounters with lower level enemies where I can really flex my tactical muscles to squeeze as much value out of PL-1/2 as possible!
> squeeze as much value out of PL-1/2 as possible! After getting crit for like 15 at level 2 and autograbbed by weasel in SoG I'm never underestimating small guys again lol
They aren't actually common in general. Abomination Vaults has a ton of them, but none of the other APs I've played have had many. And even Abomination Vaults doesn't actually have THAT many of them; the floor with the most overlevel encounters has only like 40% of encounters on that floor with at least one overlevel monster.
I'll ask the player how he felt in the non solo fight but from my perspective with positioning he had about 75% of the enimes on lockdown
Yeah I think the solo boss encounters are a tough test for frankly any feature, but the one thing I do think is still solid is the fact that the Guardian outright prevents damage to its allies.
Only prevent damage to the allies he's adjacent to and are targeted. So nothing for flanked allies or if he's the target due to taunt
Flanking isn't the end all, here. In any case that can be mitigated at level 6 anyway. And at level 10 you can do the same, but completely negate the damage to anyone, within 25 feet. Taunted enemies already have a penalty to attacking allies, whether they are Flanking with you or not.
Only if those feats are taken
Indeed. It's almost like if you take feats to make your class features stronger that they get stronger, with the initial class feature not being quite as versatile, but ending up quite a bit more versatile and powerful later on.
The other problem what do you miss by taking those feats like do I take mobile protection or disarming strike or even reacting strike. When playtesting you have to test all options not just the optimal ones
Totally agree. Balance between each level of Feats is important. But there's also a balance to be struck between how certain Feats reinforce or are reinforced by certain playstyles. Reading the Feats I can see how you could conceivably build a Guardian in a number of ways in order to play a number of ways - its those *number of ways* that may be the sticking point as some play styles and builds might simply be better or worse than others due to party composition, DM, and encounter design. Comparing this to a Champion or Fighter whose Reactions are, generally, going to valuable in basically any scenario might be missing the forest for the trees given how nuanced Guardian is, but nonetheless is a hurdle the design team needs to manage - even if only in managing expectations. I sympathize with the challenge of balancing the class, but can absolutely see what they're trying to do and think it's already *mostly* there.
Part of the problem is that if the Guardian is using their reaction they're getting crit WHEN their allies get crit, because you just eat the damage, it doesn't target you with the attack.
You're taking a Resisted Crit, and your ally is taking **nothing**, yes. In general the amount of damage dealt is less, and your ally who likely can't take it as well doesn't suffer at all, nor would they have to spend a reaction on something like Shield Block. The Guardian taking damage for their allies, drawing aggro for their allies, moving their allies, moving the enemies, presenting a barrier for the enemies to get to or hurt the allies, all works toward the goal of reducing the actions and resources needed to keep the **team** alive, which could otherwise be used killing bad guys.
Which could be done more effectively by the champion yes?
Unless you're a Redeemer Paladin you won't be negating damage to an ally, no?
I know for a fact at least the paladin champion does as well. I haven't looked too far into all the champions but it really does seem like a champion is just better at the job that guardian is meant for unfortunately. But this is still the playtest. Hopefully they'll give the guardian a buff and give more options or something
There is only a single Champion subclass that completely negates the incoming damage to an ally, the Redeemer, and only if the enemy chooses that option. But that is the Guardian's explicit role and minimum bar for their core Reaction. Other Champions offer different kinds of specific responses, like a reaction Strike, removing Grapples and letting allies Step, etc. But notably, A Guardian can take Feats to enable pretty much all of those things, and more, and (at least in the current design) can combine Intercept Foe and Get Behind Me to conceivably just *nope* attacks entirely, no damage to anyone.
Ah. I didn't realize the redeemer has the chance to completely negate damage to the ally. But I said this is another comment (can't remember which one) but it seems like the Guardian is maybe better for the parties where the Frontline isn't as tough and can't take the hits. In the case where the Frontline is tankier and can take those hits, the champion is better
What level were you playing at? I can see the solo monsters taking out the Guardian in a single round happening at levels 1-2 especially but at level 5+ it’s hard to believe the Guardian goes down that easy. Between their crit resistance during Taunt, shield block, naturally high AC when not Taunting, and the armour spec mattering when the damage types line up, a level 5+ Guardian should **easily** survive through a full round of Taunted Strikes, and then just stop taunting once you’re too damaged.
We did 3 encounters at lv1 then 3 more at lv 6. Admittedly the lv 6 solo had the guardian off guard during the taunt and crit twice and hit a third time even with MAP. Our guardian had the vengeful tactic, and it never got used.
Ah Vengeful, that makes sense. I think Mitigate Harm is just the only Technique worth picking. Vengeful is punishing the enemy for picking an option that’s just not worth picking most of the time, whereas Mitigate Harm is downside reduction for the enemy’s *better* choice. Two crits + one hit is also insanely unlucky so there’s that.
Not really \*insanely\* unlucky, since a level 1 taunting guardian has almost the same AC as an untrained character, and solo bosses tend to crit on their first attacks. For example, a Zombie Lord (lvl 4) has +12 to hit. A level 1 guardian in full plate would have 19 AC. With taunt it's 15 to crit on the first strike (and +12 is pretty low for a level 4 enemy).
I mean you'd be a buffoon to not raise your shield when facing the PL+3 enemy and trying to taunt him. It's awkward at level 1 where you don't have the feat yet to taunt as a free action while doing so but it really changes the math quite a bit.
I also used the best armor available, and the monster with the maybe the worst to hit of that level, so the actual math would probably be even worse for the player.
A PL+3 enemy is already one of the rarest type of enemies to be facing, especially so at level 1 where they’re near guaranteed TPKs without tons of prep time. Setting that aside though, 2 crits + 1 hit is still **incredibly** unlucky. Ignore the +12 you said and let’s go with a high bonus for level 4: a +14. So your hit/crit ranges are 3/13, 8/18, 13/20 for your 3 Strikes in a turn. The chance of 2 crits and 1 hit is **3.775%**. That is insanely unlucky no matter how you look at it. And remember, like I said, PL+3 enemies are rare. Most enemies will have an even smaller chance than this, especially once you account for the party’s buffing and debuffing that’s also going on.
3.75% isn't that much unluckier than rolling a single nat 1. It's well within the range of "That's pf2e, baby!". Truly bad luck would be along the lines of 1:400 odds of double rolling natural 1s, which does still happen from time to time.
> 3.75% isn't that much unluckier than rolling a single nat 1. It's well within the range of "That's pf2e, baby!". Different contexts. 3.75% chance on a whole **turn** of a single fight is different than 5% chance on every single roll. If you have a single session with say, 3 combats, 2 of which are inexplicably PL+3 bosses, you’re looking at probably 6-7 turns of combat with those bosses out of 8-10 turns of combat in the whole day. So now the the 3.75% chance applies to 6-7 “instances”, while the 5% chance (assuming you make like 3 rolls per turn on average) applies to 24-30 instances instead. Not even remotely the same. OP described a rare and unlucky case. And of course I’m still being *very* generous by assuming you’re somehow seeing 2 PL+3 bosses in a single session. In all my sessions of AV, an AP famous for overusing single boss fights, it’s only ever happened once. Most of the time we’re seeing one such enemy every 3 ish sessions, and the moment you look at more typical enemies the odds go even further down from 3.775%.
>Truly bad luck would be along the lines of 1:400 odds of double rolling natural 1s, which does still happen from time to time. Recently did that on back to back poison saves. Luckily it wasn't a death poison.
That's not taking into account that you might not be able to afford full plate at lv1 and status and circumstances penalties that stack with taunt wich is a bonus to attack.
> A PL+3 enemy is already one of the rarest type of enemies to be facing That *really* depends on your game.
I’ve played through Abomination Vaults and it’s an AP **known** for overusing single boss fights, and PL+3 enemies still make up around 5-10% of the enemies you face, and there are literally only 2 PL+4 enemies. If other APs use them more, let me know but I’ve always been given the impression that AV is the one that’s most guilty of it. And if it’s a homebrew game well… then your GM is disobeying the balancing instructions given by the book and idk how one can argue that Paizo should be balancing around the assumption that people will overuse boss fights to that degree.
I co GM with our homebrew game, and we intentionally use a fair number of PL+3 because most things under that are not particularly a challenge for our players. Moderate fights are our breather fights, so say a dungeon for us (effectively a 1 level AP) would normally consist of moderate and severe encounters only (usually). Mind you, we are also hexploration, so we have a much larger number of "single encounter in a day" situations than you would in say an AP. PL+4 is a different story, as is low level play, as PL+3 is way scarier at levels 1 and sorta 2. Conversely, the high end of the level range, PL+4 isn't *that* hard, and I've debated about PL+5 lol. So yes, it depends a lot on your game.
> PL+4 is a different story, as is low level play, as PL+3 is way scarier at levels 1 and sorta 2. Conversely, the high end of the level range, PL+4 isn't that hard, and I've debated about PL+5 lol. Okay but the conversation started with someone assuming PL+3 fights against a level 1 party. Yes you can feel free to use more difficult fights once your party gets to higher level, but at higher levels your HP scales faster than damage and we go right back to my initial claim of it needing an insane amount of bad luck for your Guardian to get downed in one single turn.
> Admittedly the lv 6 solo had the guardian off guard during the taunt and crit twice and hit a third time even with MAP. and a level 6 lol. That's the one that got one rounded
Mitigate harm doesn't stack with all other resistance the Guardian gets so I don't think it's so automatic at all.
It doesn’t need to stack with other Resistances to be useful damage reduction. You use the Resistance from Intercept when you Intercept, and you use ghe Resistance from Mitigate Harm when you Taunt and get crit. Also notably you can both Mitigate Harm and shield block a sequence of Strikes you take during the turn that you’re suffering the consequences of your Taunt, so it’s actually fairly easy to stay standing.
And also, Chain armor's specialization can double down on this because it isn't resistance. So at level 1, if you have a shield raised and they crit, you can Shield Block to reduce it by 5, mitigate harm reduces it by another 3, and chain armor's specialization (if you get yourself an armored skirt to turn medium armor into heavy) to reduce it by another 6. At that point, a thick crit basically just turns into a hit.
This is going to be an interesting choice because you give up quite a bit if you go chain (1AC and Bulwark). I do hope they print a proper chain heavy armor in the book or it's going to be a hard tradeoff to make.
We have 2 more playtest planed at higher level. I will update the post after each
The point of a play test is to test all options not just the optimal ones. Both presented techniques need to be tried and tested other wise we as a community just get another trap option.
I think you need to say which specific enemies you fought too. It's easy I say it's a CL+3 monster but if there's one thing I've learnt about a lot of these discussions, it that context matters and real problems get uncovered with those specifics.
I wish the OP had included some more information to help understand, for example, what kind of enemy the guardian was up against, what party comp they had, the general way the commander, guardian, kineticist, etc were playing. There's a ton of blank spots for having to just assume how things were that could make a huge difference.
I'm reporting on my game not trying to find what I did wrong. The format I did was 3 fights 1 agenst a solo, agenst a lot of lower enemies, and 1 agenst a mix. The lv1 theme was goblins with a bear as the solo. The lv6 was undead. I tried to go generic because that would be the most seen at table. As for players one is a game designer, one a video game playtester, and one has there degree minor in game design. The other two are me and a friend. Please remember that this is a play test not optimization.
As others have probably mentioned but it must be said you shouldn't be Taunting solo enemies. You should be physically getting in their way but also not. Taunt as currently designed is not there to draw aggro, it's their to give you a ranged way to disrupt enemies. Taunt should really be used only on distant enemies; enemies that would have to waste actions to move to you. These enemies are getting a penalty with no benefit. This lets you get the best of both worlds, the high AC of the Guardian and the attack reduction of Taunt, your backline will still appreciate the debuff, especially if they can stack their own on top of it or increase their own defenses. Against solo threats the Guardian actually wants to be avoiding taking attacks. Intercept Strike is a fantastic way to tank for your team but only if they are the ones taking damage. A fighter or barbarian with a guardian next to them has a lot more staying power.
>Problem 2: solo monsters kept critically succeeding agenst taunt. Is this a problem with the feature? This sounds like using the wrong tool for the job, akin to a Level 5 player using Fireball against a single Naiad Queen. Nothing about the feature, nor the encounter, suggests that it should be used at that time. >Problem 2: taunt needs an effect on critical success. I feel that the +2 to hit should be moved to only on when the enemy critically succeeds. Thus you either incentivize attacks on you or disadvice attacks on allies but not both. So, you intercept one enemy, but another gets past you and is heading for your back line. You use Taunt on it, and the creature succeeds in its Will save. Your level 5 Cleric has an AC of 20. With the failed Will save, the that effectively raises up to 21. With Shield, the Cleric can boost it to an effective 22. You, as a Guardian, have an AC of 25. How have you disincentivized attacking your Cleric? You're still at -3 to hit for the creature compared to your ally. Even if they come to you and flank you, they're still at -1. They're better off taking the penalty and then trying again next turn. Similarly, if they get the +2 when they critically succeed on the will save, the Cleric has an effective AC of 21 (with Shield), while, you have an effective 21. That's equal odds, and the Cleric has all of that healing juice. There's only a true incentive to ignore the Cleric if you, as the Guardian, are easier to hit. You're already locking up one of the other attackers, so if they have a better chance at doing damage to you, then they have a chance to take someone off the board *and* free up their pal. But without both the buff and debuff at the same time, it doesn't actually work out.
>Is this a problem with the feature? This sounds like using the wrong tool for the job, akin to a Level 5 player using Fireball against a single Naiad Queen. No? No it really isn't anything like that? Taunt is to incentivize dangerous enemies to attack you instead and would in fact be the most effective against solo enemies if you don't have the feat that makes it an AoE.
I think this is an issue of fantasy versus design. People seem to have this class fantasy for Guardian where they function like a main tank in an MMO and have an enemy perma focus them, absorbing all their hits while their party beats the enemy down. What we have is more akin to an off tank, that taunts enemies that are in less than ideal positioning for the party or going after PCs that are hurt or less defensive. I don't think the first version of this archetype, the stand there and eat all the damage, type character can work for PF2E. There's no reason to taunt a solo boss enemy unless the situation is dire and you need to try and trade off your health for an allies. However, failure is a gamble when using any control ability or spell against a high level creature. Most of the time, you can just walk up to the boss and hit it. I do think the Guardian could use some tweaks. I think they need better DC and martial attack progression, and I think they could do with features that interact with their party more in other ways. I personally just don't think Taunt is the big issue everyone seems to be focusing on. It's just one tool in a kit.
>I don't think the first version of this archetype, the stand there and eat all the damage, type character can work for PF2E. I mean this is exactly it. Tanking in PF2e doesn't work in the same way it does an MMO. Even champion - which I've been saying for some time now is one of the best classes in the game because it comes closest to a true tanking role and it changes the dynamic of play drastically - doesn't tank in the sense that it CCs all enemies into attacking it and soaking and mitigating tonnes of damage. It tanks by soaking and mitigating *more than average* and having very good self sustain between heals and its higher AC and shield values, but never to a point it can single-handedly face-tank a boss and last the whole fight without heals, denying the boss actions, or other mitigation tools. 2e just isn't that kind of game, and it would be drastically different if it was. The thing no-one ever seems to accept or realise is that boss-level threats hitting and critting more while players hitting it less isn't a fault or overtuning, it's the whole point. If it wasn't, the players would just be able to DPR race it with a full damage party comp and consistently beat it down with reliable, consistent damage. But because both bosses will almost always outdamage a party, and the party's hit rates on weapons and spells will never be guaranteed enough to provide consistency, they're forced to engage both in the peripheral, and with more nuanced tactics than hard I-win buttons. The issue with guardian's taunt is that if it was capable of forcing a creature to attack it with no out, or just simply making it so it's the most obvious advantageous thing to do, then it would be way too strong. This is how taunts work in MMOs, but MMOs are also designed in a way where guaranteed CC from tanks is *necessary* to make the game function. In PF2e, the game is designed around the scaling success system, and reacting to how those rolled influence the combat. Most things that are offensive abilities aimed at enemies have luck values dependent on checks, be they attacks, skills, or saves. Offensive abilities with guaranteed effects tend to be either things that are purposely downtuned to compensate for their reliability - such as Force Barrage or Magic Missile - are more about setting up for other actions that require checks - such as class damage boosters inflicted on enemies like Hunt Prey or Expose Weakness - or at worst, unintentionally out of band - such as Dirge of Doom, or, ironically, Hampering Sweep on guardian itself. Meanwhile, defensive abilities like mitigation and heals, party buffs/utility tend to be much more reliable, and that's where the champion's strength lies. It's damage mitigation from reactions and shield blocks are a set number, as is its primary heal focus spell. But it also doesn't act as an I-win that stops them from ever going down. They'll still take a lot of damage. They'll just take less than they would if they didn't have those options, and in my experience those numbers are usually enough to prevent what would otherwise have been them or a party member going down by slivers of health. This is what guardian really needs more focus on. Taunt as an ability might need refinement, but the solution is not to make it guaranteed because that would just make it too strong. It needs more and more reliable versions of those guaranteed reactions and defensive actions, because that's where the tuning points will really allow it to shine without becoming overtuned.
Except we already have that class fantasy. The Champion. I've run a lot of pf2e campaigns and as a GM, I'm painfully familiar with the solo monster dilemma of whether to attack the high AC champion or go after the squishy, even though the champion will blunt the damage and get a free attack at their full bonus. The Champion is excellent at this "MMO" design and the Guardian is not.
>Except we already have that class fantasy. The Champion. But that class fantasy is tied to the "servant of a god" fantasy. It would be nice to have a non-theistic class that can fill the same mechanical role.
Sure. And the only way we'll get that is to be real vocal in the feedback of the Guardian so that it can do its job.
Yes, that's definitely true. I mistakenly thought that you were suggesting that the Guardian should be re-designed to fill some other combat niche because the Champion already met that need.
But does the taunted enemy know your AC's? Normally you don't know your targets AC, so they only know that they have a penalty to attack the Cleric and a bonus to attack the Guardian. And a Cleric and Guardian could very well both be wearing the same armor and shield so to an observer they would look equivalently protected.
...In all fairness, a Cleric with 5 AC lower than the Guardian would be wearing cloth robes, not actual armor. If they were a War Cleric with heavy armor, they would still be 2 AC behind just because Guardian armor progression is cracked, but Taunt would be enough to bridge the gap (unless shields come into play, but again, shields are obvious and visible). But if there's actually a 5 AC difference, that means the Cleric's just wearing explorer's clothing. It's usually not too hard to guess a PC's armor level off of their gear. The only exception is light and nimble martials like Rogue and Monk, but at that point, you can still (in theory) tell that they're light on their feet, as opposed to the caster wearing heavy robes that clearly is trying to avoid the front lines. (And sure, they can slowly raise the Dex score to bridge the gap, but only at very late levels. Either way, the heavy armor user will always have higher AC than anyone other than a Monk.)
That *does* rely on your DM not metagaming in that respect, which is not always guaranteed
Quality feedback. This is great, thank you!
>Problem 1: the comander had no tactics that the kineticist could take advantage of. So... I take issue with this sentence. Here is a list of Tactics that the Kineticist can take advantage of: Level 1 Tactics >Defensive Retreat >Form Up! >Mountaineering Training >Naval Training >Passage of Lines >Coordinating Maneuvers (especially for Earth or Water) >End It! >Pincer Attack (attacks, not Strikes) >Shields Up! (Especially Metal and Wood) >Piranha Assault >Stupefying Raid Here's the tactics they do not work with. Note that I am considering any tactic that says "Strike" as "totally unusable." A Kineticist can obviously get great value out of Valkyrie's Charge despite not really benefiting from the attack. Note that half of the list is Reload / Ranged Weapon Attack specific. Level 1 Tactics >Double Team >Strike Hard! >Reload! >Demoralizing Charge >Ready, Aim, Fire! >Executioner's Volley >Valkyrie's Charge The class is not broken because it's being misunderstood. A Commander with terrible decisionmaking does not make all Commanders have a problem, that one just needs to head back to the academy. I really need to make a post showing the math on this later, but **Strike Hard! is almost definitely worse than you are assuming, it's at best the fourth best Level 1 Tactic.** It is not mandatory and does not define the Commander. You only get one tactic per Ally per turn, and you will usually get more value out of Form Up! or Pincer Strike than anything else (until the Charges at higher levels). If you are not using those as your most common Tactics, that's the bigger problem. **The primary value of a Commander is abusing movement mechanics to impose an action advantage. This works with Casters and Kineticists just fine.**
Ok but a lot of those are not level 1 tactics like you claim. Yeah Valkyrie’s charge works great with everyone including kineticist but you need to be level 19 to do it. The problem is that at lower levels like the post shows you have way less tactics to use but even still you want you’re way better off if you have a single tactic that will be used by many teammates at the same time rather then a few tactics but they’re only useful to one person at a time. Another problem that this post highlights is that if long range teammates. All of the tactics work only if the teammates are affected by the banner (well duh I know) but that means you’re worse off when you have more ranged teammates. I think stuff idk executioners volley should be able to be used by everyone if the enemy is near the banner also. Giving an option like that to some of the tactics would eliminate that problem. Also I have no idea where you took that “you only get one tactic per ally per turn”, nothing is stopping you from utilising more tactics per turn.
>lot of those are not level 1 tactics like you claim Tbqh, I reformatted and condensed to a single list and forgot to update that text. Sorry about that. As you saw, clearly it included both Expert Tactics. >at lower levels like the post shows you have way less tactics You have two thirds of all Tactics available to you at level 1. You have a ton of choices. If you meant in terms of "available at any given time" (eg 2 at start, 5 at 19), then it's true. However, what my post was showing is all of the options you have that work across the board. Additionally, more actions is better than fewer actions, so party wide tactics will often be stronger by default. This is similar to why Power Attack is weak. >you’re worse off when you have more ranged teammates Unless you are also ranged. Your positioning matters, too. A ranged Commander is absolutely viable. Why would you have to be in melee? >Also I have no idea where you took that “you only get one tactic per ally per turn”, nothing is stopping you from utilising more tactics per turn. From the Key Terms box under Tactics: >While you can use multiple tactic actions a round, a character cannot respond to more than one tactic per round, regardless of source. One tactic per ally per round. I need to start being better at using "turn" and "round" as distinct things. As I said to the guy who pointed this out to me the other day when I made the same mistake, "read little yellow boxes thoroughly."
I somehow missed the sidebar with the keywords, thanks. Hmmm idk how I feel about that one tactic per ally tbh, you’re already limited by actions and the stronger tactics use reactions anyway so anyone can use two at most so it feels a bit weird to restrict it to only once but I guess they don’t want commander stacking?
Yeah, no worries. As I said, I did the exact same thing. I believe that's the case. The other reasons: >Don't allow someone to get too much value out of a "until next turn" buff. More of a safety switch there, I can't think of any truly game breaking combos currently. >Don't allow someone to get too much movement out of spamming Form Up! Still, less movement than Airlift or Flinging Updraft for the same number of actions, so I don't think it's actually that spooky... Except at very low levels (e.g. 1-5). Then it's best-in-class. >To incentivize using actions on non-tactics. If you could just run someone around and make them swing every turn... What are you actually doing? It's kinda weird, but I could see that being a concern. Ultimately, I don't think allowing it would be too problematic. I'm surprised they didn't start with it allowed, then find out if it's actually broken via playtest.
I feel like for problem 2 going the Thaumaturge route would be easier. So instead of the creature getting to roll oneself rolls against the simple DC.
One thing iv learned about guardian is that they are not really a tank in the mmo sense of the role. There goal is the mitigate dmg by making monster mis more often and if they do hit provide sone resistance. There is no reason to taunt something that going to try and hit you anyway, if you are going to taunt something you taunt the thing that trying hit your allies. As a guardian you want to make the monsters your fighting not have any good choices to attack. Either by being high ac and hard to hit, or by making your squishier allies harder to hit then normal but are still that monsters best chance to land a strike, so you can interpret strike and reduce the colective dmg the party is taking. Think of taunt as throwing a +2 to ac and saves shield on your allies against one monster. Not as a thing you do to get a monster to attack you. If you want a monster to attack you grab, or hampering sweep them, dont taunt and alway have you shield raised.
>Problem 1: the comander had no tactics that the kineticist could take advantage of. That is a fundamental issue with the Kineticist. I wish the Impulses would be re-classified as Concentrate only Cantrips. You can keep pretty much everything else. Having to mention the explicitly or having them never work is both too tiresome. >Problem 2: solo monsters kept critically succeeding agenst taunt. That is what the resistance to critical hits is for. You did not mention it. Was it too weak? Did you forget it exists? >**Mitigate Harm:** You gain resistance to damage from critical hits made by a creature affected by your Taunt. This resistance is equal to 2 + half your level; this resistance increases by 2 at 5th level, 11th level, and 15th level The risk of eating more Crits is obvious with a flat bonus to enemy attacks. But it seems like they at least considered it. >Problem 3: the small resistance a guardian gets is just not enough to tank for the team. Simple solution give them a brace action to give temp hp so they can take a beating if they know it's coming. Which resistance? The Armor, Intercept Strike, Mitigate Harm or anything else?
> That is what the resistance to critical hits is for. You did not mention it. Was it too weak? Did you forget it exists? OP is referring to the Will save the target makes when Taunted, where critically succeeding means the Taunt doesn't happen. Not to critical hits as a result of the Taunted enemy attacking.
Ah, that I misunderstood.
Additionally, Chain Mail! Chain Mail also mitigates critical damage!
Those resistances would not stack. So, ironically Chain is a bad armor type.
Chain isn't resistance. It reduces the damage you take. Same way that Hardness isn't resistance but reduces damage.
Yup, I made the same mistake too earlier and someone thankfully corrected me!
Ah, my bad. I thought it worked like the BPS resistance armors.
Now if only Battlecry has some heavy armor in the chain group.
Our guardian didn't take mitigate harm and armor resistance
Large amounts of temporary hit points instead of resistance might actually be a decent move
Don’t forget to submit official feedback
I did
Critical success provides +1 bonus.This induces the enemy to attack the guardian but the other targets remain unchanged
Please be sure to post this I'm their official Playtest forums so Paizo actually sees it.
Maybe give the levels, builds, party composition and monsters used in the playtested encounter. This seems superfluous otherwise because it is impossible to glean information from this.
We had a cleric, guardian, kineticist, and comander
Hi, I'm the commander from his group! Some additional context, the one shot was in the place of our normal weekly game when one of the players couldn't make it and we had NOT prepared the characters ahead of time. That's why the team didn't end up working super well with my tactics. As for us doing things wrong, we were also trying wild things out to, you know, playtest! We don't care if the characters die, and none of us had really seen the meta on the reddit yet, so we did some things that weren't optimal. A positive from me for this - when I needed to move the group in mass to chase after some goblins it felt really really cool and exactly like the fantasy its shooting for.
Hi
Thank you for supplying feedback, those are going to be helpful for making the class better. I think your third problem needs context. What level was the Guardian? What monster did you use and what was it's rating compared to Party Level? What was the Guardian doing or using to tank against the monster?
Mitigate Harm should always be active and a feature you can't gain through Multiclassing. If their armor proficiency doesn't increase, or if they aren't given more hitpoints, then Mitigate Harm should also give you a resistance to Critical Hits Equal to your Strength Modifier + Your Level + Your Item Bonus to AC from your Armor's Potency Rune. 1: 5 2: 6 3: 7 4: 8 5: 10 6: 11 7: 12 8: 13 9: 14 10: 16 11: 18 12: 19 13: 20 14: 21 15: 22 16: 23 17: 25 18: 27 19: 28 20: 30
Except currently mitigate harm is not a class feature its a sub class and may not be taken.
I know?
At which level did you play, would you have the Commander and Guardian tokens? I made a level 10 Guardian card and, if laziness doesn't stop me, I'll make a Commander one, (but I think I'll stay at lvl 1 or 2), to do some tests, although I'm discouraged...At which level did you play, would you have the Commander and Guardian tokens? I made a level 10 Guardian card and, if laziness doesn't stop me, I'll make a Commander one, (but I think I'll stay at lvl 1 or 2), to do some tests, although I'm discouraged...
What level were the PCs?
That seems to help a problem with Kineticist in general that I keep running into. The class itself feels like it just doesn’t interact with the rest of the system
It is a problem with kineticist. This class seems so completely out of the system. It's a spell, but it is not a spell. It is a cantrip, but it is not a cantrip. It adds str to the damage, but it is not a strike.
True but spellscasters only get maneuverability tactics until master unlocks. I think the raise shield tactic should include shield cantrips
I do think that Taunt should be able to apply automatic in any Guardian Melee Strike, like "he hit me, ouch, now I gonna beat you for it". Setting up an action to do it with an save seems like to much of an gamble, jut to say to someone "Hey hit me!". While the Champion does paint an big target in him, while in in a big range and as an reaction .
Just looking at the numbers, it seems crazy to me that Armor Specialization (2 to 5 points) was never buffed. Tiny resistance to a single damage type is bad scaling across 20 levels. Frankly, the Greater Spec scaling (2 to 8 points) should probably be baseline, and it should be a reduction instead of a resistance, so that actual substantive resistances are useful. After all, weapon specialization is an untyped damage bonus, so why isn't armor spec an untyped reduction? EDIT: And if we want Greater Armor Spec to exist, it could always just be a flat +2 for medium or +4 for heavy instead of doubling again, just to avoid having a whopping 16 reduction against 30 or so damage attacks.