Alexeltio's page

After reading it, i have some problems with the guardian

First, it get delayed weapon profficiency in exchange of the best armor proficiency, but it can¡t use it with its features. The taunt gives a bonus to enemy that effectively nullifies the better armor, and the intercept strikes occurs after an ally take damage, so your don't use your armor for that. Only the armor specialization is something that works deffensively, and that only works if your enemy does the damage type you resist.

The intercept Strike feels bad by being adjacent only. If your ally and you are not both melee or ranged you will have problems defending it. If you are both melee also being adjacent means not moving and not flanking, which is a downside when comparing it to other things. It only works against physical attacks, which means that unless you have the feat that let you to use it against some energy types this feature doesn't work against all attacks. Also since it occurs after the ally took the damage, it target your ally AC, meaning that is a lower AC than you and sometimes even lower than a normal martial if the ally was someone like a wizard or barbarian. The Defensive Swap of the commander class rewards more being the high AC class than the core feature of the guardian

Taunt seems terrible. First of all, the penalty is -1 on a success or -2 on a failure, but is against your class DC which you can't improve with item bonus and goes only to master. Comparing it to Trip, Disarm or Demoralize which give similar penalties (demoralize is only a -1, but is to all things so can be used offensively) at the cost of only the enemy being able to use an action to prevent it, and they are very similar. But these actions unlike taunt not gives +2 to attacks and DC, which not only make you so that your AC ends being like a normal heavy armor martial, but you become the worst class resisting any kind of save effect. Also, like other types of debuff, the enemies could still attack your allies with that, after all there is no further penalization for that unless your threat technique is furios taunt, which is only giving you a little damage bonus. It also seems really weird that one of the best use of taunt is using it at range where no enemy can hit you to penalize their attacks instead of using it at melee. The only good thing i have with the taunt is that it works against all creatures, so is not a feature that stop working when figthing certain type of enemies like mindless creatures

The Threat Technique are easy to ignore. Ferocious Vengeance gives only a little of extra damage under a condition that depends on what your enemy does, and the damage is very low. It also doesn't work as written because the taunt goes off at the start of your next turn before you make an attack. The mitigate harm is the worst of the two, since it doesn't stacks with either Intercept Strike or the armor specialization . This also need to you get crit, a thing you don't want because some creatures have extra effect on crit (deadly, fatal, impose a condition, etc.) and are supposed to be a class that should be harder to crit (although as i talked before, you are not more durable than a normal figther when you taunt).

Tough to kill could essentially be replaced and nothing would change, because to it to work, you must be dying, a thing you should avoid at all costs. Even with that, you must reach certain value to have a thing that only works once a day plus a general feat that any class could get

The feat are weak. Some that i want to point:

- Larger than life essencially protect you of swallows only because the other benefits are very specific and can not be important because a medium creature can still use the maneuvers against a large creature, so you are not inmune against anything except maneuvers from small creatures (and that assuming that your ancestry is not small). If you want to take it to use against enemies, you are better taking titan wrestler.

- Shoulder check is strange. Why would i want in a defensive class a feat that does a low damage attack but a bonus to other attacks i do? It would be better if the enemy remains off-guard against attacks from allies until your next turn, this way i would have reasons to use with the low damage

- Unkind Shove seems useful the first levels, but the damage doesnt scale so you end probably retraining it

- Armor break is one of the worst feat. The fantasy of the class should be a character that centers in defense, not one that loses it for an above average attacks. The only use is for maybe finishing an enemy, but that means that the battle is near end so it doesn't have a lot of weight in it.

- Hampering Sweeps is the only feat i say is strong, and i would say is even broken. This leads easily to situation where you can restrict the movement of the enemy enough to practically inmovilize it (or literally if you play a tiny ancestry with reach 0), with no save. It seems so well that the best guardian would probably be a champion who takes guardian archetype and that as the level 4 class feat.

- Intercept energy should be a thing of the base intercept Strike. Similarly, the stride of intercet foe should also be a base thing of intercept strike, and with similar feats

- Energy specialization is litterally having a Charm of Resistance, a thing you can buy with gold

- Migthy bulwarks feels like something that also should be part of the features instead a feat for this class.

- Shield for arrows is bad. It needs that an enemy do a ranged physical strike against and ally adjacent to you while you have shield raise and are not off-guard to that attack, which is a thing very specific, to grant the ally a bonus using your reaction. This means that it competes with Intercept Strike, the reaction you had since first level

- Shield salvation is bad because it only prevent the shield from being destroyed, not broken. It is very hard for a non-broken shield to get destroyed in 1 hit only, and you can't use a broken shield so most of the time you will not use this feat

- Blanket defense takes your entire turn if you are not quickened, making it very hard to use, and a boring thing since you are reduced to "+X to ac for adjacent allies"

I don't see how the class is supposed to bring something that the champion is not doing already, and i don't see any fantasy of a character that justify it enough so the guardian is a class and not an archetype

The guardian is supposed to be a class that gives a lot of offensive features in exchange for defensive features, like how they get the best armor scaling by gaining it 2 levels earlier than the champion and monk, but gain the expert and master weapon proficiency 2 levels later than other classes. This should mean that the guardian have 2 AC more than other classes with heavy armor that doesn't reach legendary, and should be harder to damage then, but lets take a look at the scenarios where you can be harmed:

- First, remember that this is only AC, so you are not more durable against effect that forces a save comparing to other classes. The only thing you get related to that is access to the mighty bulwark feat 2 level earlier than a character with bastion archetype, and your level 19 feature give you an insane reflex save against damage effects.

- In case you don't use any class feature, you are 2 above the average AC, but enemies will not have any incentive to attack you instead everyone who will deal more damage or could apply debuff. Maybe you could use action like grapple or trip to try to penalize a foe, but you are not better than another martial using it and at most level the champion have the exact same AC while doing this

- If you use your taunt ability, you give the enemies a penalty to attack allies, so now they are more likely to attack you. But wait, this give them a +2 to attacks, so the being 2 points of AC above the rest is negated by that. Also an enemy could still ignore you, since the penalty is already set and is not different from another martial using trip or disarm, or a caster using the fear spell to give a similar penalty. Also, the bonus to attack you apply also to the DC of effect, so you are effectively worse than anybody against effect that requires a save

- If you use intercept strike, you can protect a companion, but that reaction is use AFTER the ally take damage, which means that you use the result of the attack of the enemy VS the AC of your ally. Your AC doesn't matter in any moment, and you are even more likely to get crit if your ally had a lower AC than the normal (like for example, if it is a wizard or barbarian). Also, i must point that meanwhile the guardian have that problem, the commander has the level 2 feat of defensive swap that in exchange to not granting resistance make the attack target you and your AC, which sounds better for a guardian who will have shield raise and better AC

So, while you are getting earlier boost to your armor proficiency, both of your class feature nullify these boost in some way. So why the guardian still get to level later the expert and master weapon proficiency?