Angwa's page

As most of the general differences between PF1 and 2 have already been addressed I'll add some more specific advice, after repeating the following: try it out some at somewhat higher level. I suggest level 5 or level 7.

Anyway, you no doubt have a lot of PF1 system mastery internalized. It really does not translate all that well to PF2, and system mastery will still make a difference. This edition bakes a lot vertical progression directly into your class chassis, but that does not mean you don't have plenty of meaningful choices to make or interesting builds to explore.

First magic, while no longer LFQW, is still really, really powerful. You will have to relearn a bit what the good spells are, and especially under what circumstances. Generally you'll outgrow your cantrips pretty quickly and between your focus spells and your slots you will soon have enough staying power.

I think good all-round entry points could be Imperial or Elemental Sorceror, Storm Druid and Cleric to get a feel for how spontaneous and prepared are different and the impact focus spells can make.

Your second issue was the 3 actions feeling static and boring. This is definitely the place where PF2e system mastery and your build choices will make the difference. Depending on your class, skills and feats you pick you will create a wide range of possibilities. Action compression feats allow you to get more out of your 3 actions, you will need useful options for your third action and your reaction(s). There is lot to play around with.

And beyond optimizing and winning the action economy, simply having more good options (within reason) for your 3 actions is in itself a winner. Versatility is power in PF2e, especially as vertical progression and specialization is limited.

I believe it is also important to note that it is not an issue of damage, but also not quite one of having worthwhile 3th actions.

It is more a matter of helping/contributing/supporting group play. If you play melee you have a multitude of tools to support the other players. At its most basic even where you decide to stand can block the enemies and provide flanking and you can obviously get an ever-growing repertoire of options, and by consequence choices to make, starting from level 1.

Personally I really think it is weird that people are arguing that the low level issues are just the opinion of a tiny minority, anecdotal and whatnot.

Outside these forums it isn't exactly a contentious opinion.

I mean, after priming chatgtp to answer relative to D&D5e by asking 'is pathfinder 2nd edition harder than d&d 5th edition' I asked the following:

'is pathfinder 2nd edition deadly'

Now, this thing can't think, it just responds with what it scraped of the internet, I summarized it's answer a bit for brevity, but feel free to try these queries yourself:

Yes, Pathfinder 2nd Edition (PF2e) is generally considered more deadly than D&D 5e, especially at low levels and if players don’t engage with its tactical depth. Here's why:

⚔️ Why PF2e Can Be More Deadly
1. Tight Math...
2. Action Economy...
3. Critical Hit Rules...
4. Status Effects and Conditions...
5. Healing Is More Limited...

️ But It's Not Unfair
PF2e is deadly but fair — it rewards: Smart play, Party synergy, Preparation, Tactical combat

Players who engage with the rules and coordinate well are rewarded, and a well-built party can often prevent deaths through careful planning.

Low-Level Danger
Levels 1–3 are particularly dangerous. A couple of bad rolls or a lack of coordination can lead to a TPK.

After level 4, survivability improves as characters gain more options, HP, and better gear.

Summary
Yes, PF2e is more deadly than D&D 5e, but it's a controlled, tactical kind of deadliness. Poor decisions are punished, but smart play is richly rewarded.

So, again, chatgtp can't actually think for itself, and what it got from the collective internet is that, while PF2e is indeed regarded as having tactical depth which rewards good play and teamwork, encounters at the lower levels are particularly prone to be decided by bad luck and specifically called out as 'particularly dangerous'.

You are absolutely asking for the game to be easier and less lethal. I don't see the point in pretending you are not. It sends the wrong message to Paizo.

No. Absolutely not asking for that. Categorically not asking for that. What I am asking for is slightly less RNG domination. A bit more predictability, and mainly at the lower levels.

I mean, Season of Ghosts is the next AP I'm considering using and I will have to spend more time reworking it to have exciting encounters, especially in the first chapter, than previous AP's because it is way, way too tame for my group.

We like our combats big, dynamic, spectacular and deadly. Not clear one room, rest, rince and repeat. More an entire floor/series of encounters chaining into each other, preferably with some additional environmental effects and objectives beyond killing team monster.

PC's being slightly more durable at lower levels means there is more freedom in encounter building, especially on the more challenging end. I'd like to be able to use L+2's and the above set-piece fights sooner and without a few consecutive high rolls immediately threatening a TPK instead of a set-back.

You've yet to prove that PF2 even has the issue you're claiming, much less that it's a significant source of players bouncing off the game.

With all due respect, you can do your own googling. The issue of new gamers coming to PF2e and finding low-level play being unforgiving, harsh and the PC's feeling like weak scrubs isn't exactly new or unknown.

More importantly: even in the published adventures we can see the shift, either just outright skipping the rough levels altogether or taking care to avoid opponents outleveling the PC's.

It took a serious while for Paizo to calibrate the low-level experience in their AP's. Experienced GM's and players who stuck around went along on this learning curve and have internalized how to adjust building and approaching encounters at those levels and tailor it to their group's preference.

But do not take for granted a group just starting PF2e knows any of this.

I don't believe that upping PC HP and/or lowering monster damage at levels one and two is an improvement to the game. Nobody has put forth a convincing argument that this is a problem aside from the odd poorly balanced encounter, a GM that runs through Grand Central on a fixed schedule, or simple poor luck.

That something that has gone wrong could just be poor dice luck. That's assuming that a low-level PC dying or even a TPK is a failure in the first place. Aside from a few players in this thread who think every player death and party wipe should be telegraphed and only occur because the players messed up, I don't think the general TTRPG cares for a riskless game where they can't die unless they try to.

Any encounter including a L+2 vs a lvl 1-3 party has the potential to be an 'odd poorly balanced encounter', but how would players and gm's still learning the game, which is what we are talking about here, know that?

Nobody is arguing for a riskless game. Nobody is saying player death or party wipes should be telegraphed.

And, yes, of course some dice luck is involved in one-shotting low levels. Nobody denies that. The math was already shown and didn't convince you, so let's try a different approach:

L+2 monster striding twice and critting, followed the next round by managing to get two hits is not some weird out-of-bounds occurrence, right? Won't happen every time, but it's really not _that_ unlikely.

Nobody at our tables would raise an eyebrow if this happens. Pretty sure you have regularly seen even worse than that in the 2 opening rounds before the slows/trips/grabs/debuffs lock it down.

After all, it's just an opponent with a very high to-hit vs your AC rolling decently in that short window of time where it can still act relatively freely. Nothing special or weird.

There is no counterplay or way to avoid that, you just have to deal with it. The more tools you have when facing a higher level monster, the more you can deal with massive damage spikes and the shorter you can make the aforementioned window so there won't be any more damage spikes.

However, at the low levels, 1 crit or 2 hits from a L+2 is enough. So, it downed two PC's, or one PC twice. It's a deathspiral a low level party is ill-equipped to recover from. They don't have the tools.

Hence, L+2 vs low levels boils down to luck. It's rocket tag.

Obviously, not using a L+2 at all in that level range is the solution. But:

Pf2e is known and marketed as a balanced game, with interesting tactical gameplay and meaningful choices in combat for the players. For the GM's it is a game where you are supposed to be able to trust the encounter-building rules and which works at all levels. Yay.

Except, when you're new to it and neither the GM or the players have experience, if you actually trust the encounter-building system or went with an old AP, you may get OSR style luck-based deadliness.

Most of the time, if a crit can take out a PC, so can a MAP strike + a MAP -5 strike. (The exception is for things with deadly, fatal, etc.) That's still pretty unstable.

Yup!

To give a concrete lvl 1 example:

Dire Wolf. Has +12 to hit, D10+5 damage.

A PC on the AC cap has 18 AC, DW has a 25% crit-rate and that crit does on average 21 damage, enough to take down most PC's.

In case it's not a crit, there is still a 50% chance it was a regular hit and a second strike with 50% to land, to get to that average of 21 damage.

In short, every round it gets 2 strikes against AC 18 the Direwolf has about 50% chance to do an average of 21 damage. Obviously not a guaranteed takedown, no, but imho still firmly in the realm of rocket tag play.

Obviously AC could be lower or higher. Probably lower, to be honest. It could target a clothy with AC 16, the wolf could get frightened, or shields could be raised, but it can also easily trip or grab to make it's target off-guard, etc.

Yeah, that fighter is probably not faster than the corpse-light, so it'll catch up in 1 stride and the fighter will eat 2 attacks and he won't have a shield up yet.

So, +10/+5 vs AC 17, obviously not guaranteed they will get crit or hit twice, but those are not odds you want to bet on. Perhaps not quite a coin flip, but won't be far off.

If the fighter goes down, even if the Druid still has a heal or the Rogue can successfully Battle Medicine, it's not likely to end well and a single lvl 2 will have defeated the party.

(Also, Recall Knowledge for a corpse-light is religion DC21. That wizard must have taken Lore: Undead to have a realistic chance to succeed twice.)

Anyway, the specifics don't really matter. The damage the corpse-light does or it's to-hit modifier is nothing special.

In PF2e, at level 1, you actually are not more survivable than in previous editions, especially against opponents with a level advantage. Far from it. Seriously, your starting hitpoints being higher means nothing if the incoming damage is also higher.

Don't forget that on that first attack it can have 20%+ chance of critting, and even if that first hit wasn't enough, _every single monster_ can attack multiple times per round, and being higher level has good odds of landing a second hit.

This really, really, wasn't the case in earlier editions...

I'm with Trip H and the others on this:

Low level encounter balance in PF2e is not well-calibrated. Going from full health to dying 2 happened way too much in our play-throughs of AoA and AV.

There may be some who consider this a feature and not a flaw, but certainly not our group. Tactics don't matter, nothing matters. An L+2 or higher enemy crits, and odds are they _will_, somebody goes down. At lvl 1 even some L+1 enemies can do that.

And this issues persists for a few levels too many.

AoA was obviously our first experience with PF2e and those lower levels really made us doubt the system worked. Sure, eventually this problem goes away and good play and tactics start to outweigh good or bad luck. And then AV reminded us again in a most unpleasant fashion.

Anyway, it's not a coincidence that 2 of the more recent AP's just skipped those levels, and that it is now common knowledge to avoid L+2 enemies in the starting level range...

Ok, so I am level 5, with an 18 Chr. Dispel is a signature spell

From what the DM said, the Will-o-Wisp is DC7. He is running a PF2e module (Not sure which one it is, and he said he pulled it from there).

Not sure how even if Dispel Magic was not a signature spell, how or why you would even take it again, that seems like a waste, and really Nerfs things IMHO.

I assume your GM meant that Wisp was level 7. And probably not a Wisp, or at least not one published by Paizo, since as far as I know there is no Wisp that can dominate or possess, but that's ok.

Was already explained, but lets summarize again:

For counteracting you need the effect's rank. If it's a spell that is simply the rank it is cast at, otherwise use level divided by 2 rounded up.

For dispel magic your counteract roll is your spellcasting modifier:

Critical Success Counteract the target if its counteract rank is no more than 3 higher than your effect's counteract rank.
Success Counteract the target if its counteract rank is no more than 1 higher than your effect's counteract rank.
Failure Counteract the target if its counteract rank is lower than your effect's counteract rank.
Critical Failure You fail to counteract the target.

Seeing as dispel magic's rank determines what you can actually get rid off you probably want to pick it as a signature spell for a spontaneous caster or not at all. Just having it at rank 2 quickly becomes useless after all.

Our local tabletop community was never exclusively D&D, but it was always a system that was played, fading in an out of popularity.

PF1 however never really caught on as by that time everyone was burned out on 3.5 and PF was seen as not fixing the underlying issues.

4e did not catch on at release, but after the edition matured, and especially the MM3 monster math fixes, D&D was back on the menu with a vengeance.

After 4e 5e was tested but dropped very quickly, there were still some forays into D20 territory like 13th Age and Beyond the Wall, but nothing which spawned multiple long-term campaigns like 4e.

Until PF2e was introduced. Its selling points to the groups I play with:

1) fun character customization
2) balanced enough so the GM doesn't have to worry about the above
3) easy enough to GM
4) combat is fun
5) keeps working at all levels

So, yes, like many others, also playing PF2e because of 4e. But unlike many others, specifically because we liked 4e ;-)

Well, why would you leave hybrid form if you enter Qi Form.

If e.g. a minotaur enters Qi form they wouldn't lose their horn attack, dark vision or size.

Therefore why would a beastkin lose the features of their ancestry? You would also take away their jaws unarmed attack? Dire form just adds another feature, I don't see the issue honestly.

I would say they can stack.

Dire Form is not an action itself. It just gives your Hybrid Form the effect of Enlarge, but nothing more. You are not casting a spell. You don't get the duration, range, targeting, Manipulate or Concentrate traits of the spell, so why would you get the Polymorph trait? It would not make any sense.

Now, the Change Shape action comes with the polymorph trait, but that counts only during the action as it has no duration. Your hybrid form or humanoid form are both natural forms and only the act of switching between them has the polymorph trait, not being in a form.

This means the change shape action will counteract polymorph effects, both beneficial or negative, but nothing more. So, Qi Form will be contested by the Change Shape action, but assuming Qi Form will not contest being in either hybrid or humanoid form.

If they wanted to include the polymorph trait in Dire Form they could have worded the ability like the Barbarian's Giant's Stature feat and just replaced 'while raging' with 'while in Hybrid Form'. But they didn't.

Besides, saiyans can go super-saiyan while in monkey form so obviously beastkin can go Qi Form in Dire Form :-p Ruling any other way is just heresy ;-)

In our Golarion without a doubt that new state in the Stolen Lands that recently rose to power.

Had a bit of a rough start, but now a total powerhouse with benevolent rulership. It has it all, advanced mastery of magic and academics, airships, the place to be for all things artistic and festivals/parties every month.

Pfah, Absalom, old news.

To be fair, Spellstrike's flexibility in choosing different damage types is mostly an illusion. Gouging Claw overperforms the other cantrips enough to be able to ignore the average weakness/vulnerability.

As to needing to expend spellslots, well, between the font and being a full caster that isn't really an issue in my experience, and neither is the slightly worse accuracy. It certainly doesn't compare to not needing to recharge, not provoking a RS and the vastly better class feats.

Only if you spellstrike with focus spells can a Magus keep up with a proper channel smite warpriest.

Every other magus can easily out damage a similar version of itself that uses imaginary weapon instead of conflux spells (including force fang), and by using powerful single target spell attack roll spells instead of focus spells (like shocking grasp). With scroll striker, it is not difficult for a magus to spell strike powerfully 2 times an encounter for at least 4 encounters a day without using/wasting focus points for spell striking spells.

Eh, you can only attach 1 scroll, and not all hybrid studies have the hands free to use scrolls without scroll striker. Even if they have a hand free they'd still need a familiar with independent and manual dexterity to hand them the scrolls because they won't have the actions.

So, sure, some hybrid studies can completely replace focus attack spells with scrolls, but definitely not all of them. And using 2 on-level scrolls per encounter gets too expensive real quick, even if you can craft them yourself with enough time to reduce the cost.

I think you underestimate the cost in feats, skill-upgrades and gold to replace focus spells with scrolls, even if your hybrid study allows it in the first place.

The Reactive Strike is also pretty juicy, especially if you go for a reach weapon and/or your party is set up for triggering Reactive Strikes.

Coerce is plenty powerful, especially with the quick and group enhancements. Won't always be possible, but in my experience playing such a character there are enough opportunities to talk before rolling initiative and not everyone is a fanatical mortal enemy.

I advise also taking cutting flattery and diplomacy if you want to get the most out of it. With legendary negotiator you can actually shut down a fight and coerce whoever's left into surrendering. Preferably used after taking out the most powerful enemy.

My tsundere sorceress got a lot of mileage out of it all.

To be fair this is more a matter of basic system mastery than anything else. And something you quickly get a feel for when you play a magus.

Against some low level mook or badly damaged higher level enemy using gouging claw is good enough. If it is still alive you still have the option of finishing it off with force fang or you move on and leave the mopping up to someone else.

There is plenty of opportunity to use Sure Strike + Amped IW (or other focus spell) without it resulting in pointless overkill damage. That is really not an issue in actual play.

JiCi wrote:

Then why use a ranked spell with a save for Spellstrike? You'd probably be better off a higher-ranked spell with an attack roll.

In short, you're adding an attack roll to Spellstrike... without getting any real benefit from it, compared to simply casting the spell normally.

You're doing it because it's normally impossible to Stride up to an enemy, Strike them, and then Cast a two-action Spell, but you can Stride up to them and Spellstrike with a two-action spell using Expansive Spellstrike. That's a very nice action economy booster - it's only a 2nd level feat, after all.

Also archetyping Magus isn't mandatory, and spellstriking every turn isn't mandatory. Magus is a perfectly effective class with getting a spellstrike every second turn, and relying exclusively on Magus class feats. Those are needed to get the very highest possible efficiency Magus has available, but that standard simply isn't required for magus to be effective.

Or just never use a ranked spell with spellstrike. Whether it has a save or not is irrelevant. You don't have many slots and you have better uses for them.

There is a lot of illusion of choice in the magus class.

You have a bunch different damage types in your attack cantrips, but that is only in theory. If you look at the numbers you need an above average vulnerability for any of them to outperform Gouging Claw to a meaningful degree.

You can use ranked spells to spellstrike, but that is not sustainable and they don't actually outperform focus spells. You can indeed choose to not to archetype for those focus spells, but what is the upside/benefit to that choice? You just deny yourself a sustainable high damage option?

I mean, just be sensible? Both as a player and as a GM?

If the PC's let team monster know they are close by they will prepare, call for help, prebuff as well and basically do everything they can not to be wiped out.

If team hero is careful and stealthy they will find their enemies lazing around, weapons undrawn, perhaps laying down, whatever makes sense.

That's just it, make it sensible. There is this huge grey area between being an antagonistic gm and one who acts like the crappy AI of a video game.

shroudb wrote:

In my experience, Reactive with Reach triggers at least 1/2 rounds without any effort

I play a 15ft. reach large size Reactive Strike character in PFS and I'm not even at 50%.

As I said, players significantly overvalue the occurrence of reactions. Once every 2 rounds is much closer to Opportune Backstab chances to trigger.

Guess the party I am currently playing with is a hallucination. Time to go to the doctor ;-)

If you play a generalist Animist, then you have Darkened Forest Form. Embodiment of Battle is very much for a specialized Animist. Between the heavy Strength investment (going anywhere under 16 would be punishing) and the weapon investment (a fully runed weapon is not cheap), I don't think we can call an Embodiment of Battle Animist a "generalist".

The status bonus is meant to compensate the lack of proficiency and Strength. It should be roughly at martial level in terms of accuracy. As you lack any other feature, you'll end up hitting like a Champion. So not bad, but not great either (especially as you won't have the crazy defensive ability of a Champion).

As for the action economy, I tend to not speak about the Liturgist because it's clearly raising tons of issues so I expect Paizo to modify it in the near future. But overall, wasting an action every round is super costly. The bonus doesn't really make up for the wasted action before high levels (even at level 7, it's hardly a good use of your action and you should deal the same amount of damage without Embodiment of Battle thanks to the extra action and as such extra attack).

Depends on party make-up and the enemies you encounter, really.

Depending on this a Reactive Strike can be borderline guaranteed. Giving up an action, or even two to shift if EoB was not your primary apparition is definitely worth it. You are not 'wasting' an action but putting it to good use if it's worth doing.

Liturgist is indeed crazy strong. I preferred the lvl 2 feat they had in the playtest, even if it was a feat tax, but it is what it is. Since they deliberately made this choice I'm not sure they will change their minds any time soon.

Yes, I found it to be a very attractive option. The biggest draw is definitely the Reactive Strike. I personally favored strength and a reach weapon to get the most out of it.

It actually performs surprisingly well combined with a lot of the other vessel spells, though in the actual published version that will probably mostly be for liturgists of lvl 9+.

pauljathome wrote:

Whether it was me misreading or your being less than perfectly clear I had thought that you WERE more or less claiming that it WAS wrong (at least suboptimal) to play an animist that way.

You are not completely crazy. To be 100% honest, I think it is.

But I don't think I can prove it. I've laid out my arguments, if you're not convinced then I can't do much more, and I won't go in a loop conversation just to "win".
But more importantly, I reacted at first to the Animist conversations because some posters were claiming that using Strength as a 4th attribute was more or less natural/intended. What I'd call a One True Build mentality. So I won't retort with another One True Build mentality. That'd be ridiculous.

And also, would the difference be meaningful? If both builds are close enough then people should follow their preference instead of focusing on getting 1% extra power.

In my opinion, experience will speak. I expect player experience to slowly push them toward one build or another, depending on the number of occasions where they'll switch Apparitions during their daily preparations. So in my opinion, this point will settle at some point or, maybe, stay always there if both approach are more or less equally valid.

I really must agree that actually experiencing how the Animist plays is really important. Played the test version in a short lvl 3 to 9 campaign and imho it is one of those classes where you can't fully grok its strengths and weaknesses just by reading.

There are definitely different ways to build and play an Animist. Making a ranged Animist who can hang back is possible but I daresay most of them will eventually find themselves in melee because you either seek it out or will be hovering just behind the frontline.

Channeler's Stance I felt wasn't worth it until you get at least R3 spells. Circle of Spirits however is useful. Yes, spending 2 actions to get a new or second vessel spell in play is a lot but is worth doing, believe it or not.

What makes an animist good is the versatility and how you can lean more into a particular role on a day-to-day basis but I honestly think some people here seriously overestimate it's potential for specialization.

I really enjoyed playing one during the playtest, but seriously, it does not outperform the specialists. I do think it is an excellent gish, but so are Magus, Summoner or Warpriest.

Yes, it can do some blasting if needed, but the likes of Sorcerors or Spell Blending wizards who specialize will be far, far better at it.

Earth's Bile has 30ft range and is a 10-foot burst. That is much restrictive than you think. When it comes to your 2 highest spell ranks, the ones you need for blasting, it actually really is a 3 slot caster until lvl 19. And of those 6 slots, only 2 benefit from Channeler's Stance.

Same with healing. Animist can heal, sure, but every (sub)class with even a vague focus on healing will do that better.

There's definitely some nice stuff you can do, but as with other "combine X with movement" abilities, listing off the different ways to get free actions kind of ignores that as a dedicated spellcaster movement isn't always that important.

This came up a lot with the Gunslinger with people talking about reloads "always being free" except a lot of the times you don't care about the paired action.

Don't get me wrong it's super cool and liturgist is definitely up there, but I think that's more a problem of Seer and Shaman just being kind of lame. Seer maybe in the right kind of campaign, but Shaman is just bad.

Liturgist is definitely going to be the go-to for melee animists, but I'm not sure I hate that given how bad the melee animist's action economy is otherwise.

Eh, Maneuvring Spell gives you a 2 action spell, movement and a sustain. There are plenty of 1 action choices in that very-quickly-assembled list which give you a good action with movement and a second sustain.

You can be a very mobile caster, who gishes (melee or ranged) if they want, all while sustaining 2 vessel spells.

Nothing in the way Liturgist is written would make it not trigger off of subordinate actions.

Yeah, well, in that case Liturgist might just as well be the only Animist subclass, I guess. So many ways to never spend actions sustaining...

Elf Step gives you 2 steps/sustains for 1 action. Maneuvring Spell gives you a step/leap and sustain when you cast a 2-action spell

There's ways to get a sustain when striking.

Peafowl Stance and Skirmish Strike are easy 1 action strikes with a step/sustain. Skyseeker could also be fun at higher levels.

Wanna Trip? Tumbling Opportunist adds a trip to a tumble trough. Trip more? Wingbounce!

Raise shield can also sustain through Guarded Advance.

Somewhat more niche: Fleeing Diversion lets you create a diversion, become hidden, step and sustain.

For ranged you could definitely get something going with handcrossbows and gunslinger. Drifter's Juke is nice and obviously reloading sustains as well through Running Reload or Nightwave Springing Reload.

Going Fire Kineticist might also be worth exploring. There's Lava Leap and you can get the fire aura on the way to picking up Kindle Inner Flames. That's a free sustain every round, but with loads of extra damage tacked on.

Also special shout-out to Claw Dancer:

Dashing Pounce: 2 actions, leap, sustain and 2 attacks

Wheeling Grab: 1 action, shift into claw stance, tumble through and sustain, grapple

Storm of Claws: 3 actions, 3 strikes, on hit you can step and sustain

Springboard: 1 action, leap, sustain and strike

Yes, Tumble Through being a masked stride, but somehow better because you do not have to actually tumble through anything is... something. I don't think I would ever allow that, but whatever, my table isn't yours.

However, I wonder if anything else breaks with Liturgist:

"When you Leap, Step, or Tumble Through, you also Sustain an apparition spell or vessel spell."

Elf Step and Manoeuvring Spell from Sixth Pillar were mentioned, but on a closer look those just incorporate Steps as subordinate actions. Won't let you Sustain in other words.

Peafowl Stance however lets you Step as a free action before or after striking with a sword with the monk trait. Not a subordinate action, so that definitely counts. We can Strike, Step and Sustain.

Anything else to look out for?

siegfriedliner wrote:

If have some balance concerns with it but not the ones you have, once you can leap and sustain you effectively have movement sorted and stride is likely only a little longer.

My balance concerns is feats like elf style (you step twice and now sustain twice) and manoeuvring spell (from sixth pillar archetype it lets you lead as a free action before or after you casta two action spell which is a lot with a free sustain chucked in).

I wonder if the ability should have been siloed off in it's own action so it can't stack onto of other action enhancers.

No, I'm with you. I think this ability needs to be tweaked just slightly to not allow multiple uses in a turn. Otherwise, it's getting a lot more extra actions than the other practices and a full movement is very strong.

Oh, yes, the TT call by Mr Sayre was just... weird, but the main problem is that these action allow you to sustain instead of the other way around.

Elf Step and manoeuvring spell are good examples, but there are others. Peafowl Stance is one, get a step when you strike, so, yay, now striking also sustains.

What else are people considering?

This idea that the intent we're discussing (that Tumble Through is a better Stride) is somehow impossible is weird, because the same argument can apply to Leap, especially by 9th level. If someone has a Leap of their Speed (or greater), and they Leap everywhere instead of Striding in order to Sustain, is that "cheese" too?

No it isn't, because leaping as far as your speed requires a tad more investment from the player than what tumble through needs, which is basically nothing, you don't even need to be trained in acrobatics after all.

Yes, RAW you can just stride using TT, but I agree that this is not RAI. Not even close.

Squiggit wrote:

Any particular reason for that?

Well, we have the precedent from PF1, where Mythic broke an already broken game in many other ways. We have the speculation and posts from others on the forums here in regards to currently published Mythic options that either obsolete or hamper expected gameplay elements. And we also have personal stigmatisms for what the system is meant to accomplish being in direct contrast of what the stated design goals of the new edition was, which was to keep things in balance, not throw them out of whack. Put it all together, and you have a reasonable concern behind the system in question.

Eh, that seems a bit hyperbolic. Mythic hardly breaks the game.

Mythic stuff that needs a fix because it impacts too much of the game:

- Exemplar Dedication is indeed too crazy powerful. Martials benefit more, but there is OP goodies for all. Just disallow it for now or give it to all your players.

- Mythic Resilience I would for now give the same on/off treatment as Resistance, namely mythic characters automatically bypass it. Casters are screwed over more by Resilience, but honestly, this is just anti-fun for everyone at the table. Almost every character has abilities which require an opponent to make saves.

Mythic stuff with a smaller impact on the game but that could use a second look:

- Kineticists. Either some Mythic feats below lvl 12 specifically for them, or added text on enough existing feats allowing for their blasts and impulses to benefit. Perhaps even a Destiny specifically for them as their mechanics are so walled off from the rest of the system.

- Rewrite Fate vs Calling's mythic proficiency boosts. Your Calling should define your signature bad ass area of expertise. My current fix would be to only let those boosts cost a Mythic point if you get a success or higher.

Whether Expansive Spellstrike is worth it depends on who else is in the party, I think.

A Magus excels at doing massive damage against a single opponent, and can sustain this over the adventuring day using focus spellattacks/Conflux spells/cantrips.

If you find yourself in an encounter where massive single target damage is unnecessary a Magus can not play to its strengths, and sure, Expansive Spellstrike could be useful. Could be, not will be, though. Bursting down opponents one by one is still a valid tactic.

If your party is lacking in aoe capabilities your Magus won't be filling that gap, honestly. Such a party is better served by playing to their strengths, which is focusing their above average single target damage. Only if you have a spellcaster already laying out aoe damage I could see this being useful to help clean up the stragglers.

Still, the aoe cantrips are fine, but if you need to commit resources like slotted spells for this, or taking scroll striker and using scrolls, I really wonder if concentrating on what you do best is not simply better? You are facing a bunch of lower levels and there is no L+1 or L+2 in sight. You have really good odds of critting and even just spellstriking with a regular gouging claw might just one-shot something, especially as you won't be the big nukes and are free to use Force Fang to finish 'em off.

Same reasoning with landing debuffs like Slow and such. If you are facing a higher level opponent you are better off going for your big nuke, if it's some lower level mook you will blow it away with regular spellstrikes+FF. Perhaps in extreme situations as in a party without other spellcasters and without the capability of tripping, grabbing or any other ways to attack the opponent's action economy?

But this is the ice domain. None of the gods felt right to me. I especially did not greatly care for their edicts and anathema.

Be nice to be able to access domains without needing a deity.

I'd actually expand this to:

Be nice to be able to access good focus spells to spellstrike with within the magus class.

Why must you go to psychic, cleric or oracle to get such a direct upgrade to something that is core to your class?

Yeah, Fire Ray is definitely a worthy alternative.

Psychic also being keyed to int and coming with an extra focus point pushes it way in the lead, imho. Especially if you first go for amped ignition and retrain for IW at lvl 6.

I mean, if you want to. Amped Ignition is pretty solid too and the whole fire and ice thing of oscillating wave has a pretty attractive imagery.

Now, Force Fang is a nice pick. I would definitely take it to get 3 FP points by level 2 (if you also take Psychic). Having one of the good Conflux spells is a valuable option to have in your arsenal, and Force Fang is one of those.

The kind of encounter where you face a bunch of mooks who don't outlevel you isn't exactly a rarity, and this is where the action compression of conflux spells shines.

See, Gouging Claw + FF does about the same damage as an amped IW if you don't crit. It's a different story when IW crits, but against lower level enemies that would be ridiculous overkill. A GG crit will probably even be enough and FF can at least target your next victim.

However, when facing enemies who are higher level than you, the story changes. True strike + focus spellstrike, preferably when it is off-guard and got softened with frightened/clumsy/sickened, is definitely better as this is where a crit will make all the difference. If that L+2 or higher is still standing, and in reach, nothing is stopping you from following up next round with a FF and another amped IW, this time using a hero point.

It's those higher level enemies you go all in on, crit-fishing for the big numbers which win you the encounter then and there.

This really isn't hyperbole, by the way. If you have such a Magus around L+2 and higher enemies will regularly get utterly obliterated before being able to do much of anything.

As a brief aside, I need to ask how many tables allow an Amped Img Wpn spellstrike to hit 2 targets? Because that's *very* much against the rules, and a Magus being able to do that would certainly contribute to their damage output going over the top. No idea how much that "houserule" could be involved in the perception....

Even then, the gap between a d6 & d8 cantrip seems... a bit over-focused on.

Nobody takes IW to hit 2 targets which the rules indeed clearly do not allow, or just because it is a D8 cantrip instead of a D6.

Could it be you missed the real reason people value IW so much?

-> Amp Heightened (+1) The damage increases by 2d8 instead of 1d8.

It kind of feels like in order to "buff" magus you'd have to nerf spellstrike by making it incompatible with focus spells, as the simplest way or removing this design issue. But then how to make spell slots worthwhile for spellstrike instead of more versatile spells like the ones mentionned above ?

Or should power come from other places in the chassis like arcane cascade or new martial leaning actions (special strikes etc)

All depends on what you take issue with.

In essence it's not about the damage, its about sustainability over multiple encounters and flexibility in decision-making.

Focus spells and slotted spells do about the same damage, but the former you can use every encounter, the latter not so much. Opportunity cost for focus spells is not using conflux spells, but you can choose in the moment if that cost is worth paying. Opportunity cost for using spellslots is not being to use them for other purposes and is paid during your daily preparations.

Investment required for 'focus spellstriking' is a dedication feat and a feat for the focus spell (Psychic can even get away with just one if you don't feel like upgrading amped ignition's D12 to IW's 2d8).

Couple of question:
- Are you ok with this damage increase becoming sustainable on an encounter-to-encounter basis, thanks to being powered by FP's?

- Are you ok with having to go out-of-class for this and not be made available with Magus Class feats? Purely mechanically this may seem like a small issue, it's the same pool of feats in the end. It does impose limits on your choice of possible dedications.

- Regardless whether it may come from Magus or dedication feats, how close to a must-pick do you consider focus-spellstriking?

Depending on your answers Magus is generally fine, or it needs more fundamental fixes.

My opinion, reduced to a quippy one-liner: I don't want Magus to be a subclass of Psychic.

Some of the remarks here really do not match my experiences.

- Summoners being less of a gish: striking twice with full martial proficiency, a fully runed weapon and making extensive use of trips and grabs, while still casting a spell that round and having a reactive strike on call as a reaction is about as gish as gish can get.

Really, no other class can combine martial striking and spellcasting like a summoner.

Sure, they can't enhance their martial side directly with dedications like Mauler or two-weapon fighting, but indirectly works perfectly: Bard, Blessed One, Medic, Champion, soon Commander, etc. Or whatever else strikes their fancy, really, and fits their background. They don't _need_ anything beyond what their class gives them to do what is expected.

I also strongly question the assertion that those direct martial capability-boosting dedications like Mauler can actually do anything for Magus? When you take into account the opportunity cost of not using those feats for the spellcasting dedications and a good focus spell, how can they be anything but a very distant secondary consideration.

- Super spellstriking with spellslots: slotted spells which meaningfully outperform the focus spells do not exist. There will probably never be a spell that outperforms Imaginary Weapon to the extent that using a very limited daily resource will be a real choice.

These focus spells and how they compare to anything else you can spellstrike with really is the elephant in the room. All things Magus are warped around their existence.

Yes, you might prepare one slot to spellstrike if you don't have scrolls/items/anything else for those rare circumstances the enemy is immune/highly resistant to your focus spell, you couldn't refocus or 3 focus points aren't sufficient before the encounter is in the clean-up phase.

In my experience however, a reposition spell, potentially with added damage (e.g. jump, time jump, blazing descent) and buff spells, haste and improved invisibility in particular, are way more useful and attractive. As you level up you offload those repositions/buffs which don't scale with rank to items as much as you can, and keep the ones that benefit from upscaling in high rank slots.

maybe you could make Spellstrike into a Focus Spell?

Well, I have seen more than a few Magi in games, and all but one made sure to get a focus spellstrike outside the class. Some through cleric, but most take Psychic. It just makes that much of difference.

So, yes, I agree, Magus needs a spellstrike focus spell within their class to complement their basic spellstrike as long as using using focus spells is an option.

And again, I really do not believe publishing more touch spell attacks would solve anything.

There could be some variants of gouging claw obviously, For all the different elements, and perhaps also some which do less damage, but with different condition riders, also in a wide enough range of elements. So, uh, about a dozen perhaps? Of which you will prepare 3 if you keep to your class?

Spellslot spells then? You don't have the spellslots to create much diversity. Furthermore, If we want Magus to feel like real spellcaster wouldn't it be better to have them use their spellslots to, you know, actually mostly cast spells?

Seriously, Magus can be fun, but it really is one of the classes most dependent on supplementing its own class features with another dedication from a very limited list.

As fodder for the discussion, the homebrew I implemented for a Magus being played at my table:

*disclaimer: it had to serve this player's particular build (Inexorable Iron), being played in a particular party and campaign. It was not meant as a complete package Class overhaul, etc, etc..

* Spellstrike is basically Gouging Claw as I mentioned before. Didn't count as a cantrip, still provokes RS. Damagetype starts out as the same as your weapon, but if AC was active you could choose the damagetype it was attuned to as well.

* You could do an Empowered Spellstrike, spending a spellslot add spellrank D6. Upgrades to D8 at lvl 6, D10 at lvl 11, D12 at lvl 16. You had to be in AC to do an Empowered Spellstrike.

* You also got a Focused Spellstrike (at lvl 4). Works as above, but you get a list of minor effects depending on the damagetype you can access by downgrading the extra damage dice (e.g. electricity gave clumsy, slashing allowed you to inflict the bleeding effect to everyone in reach, etc.). You had pick at least one such effect.

* 2+ Action non-focus/cantrip spells also recharge spellstrike, or activate AC as a free action. Reaction & 1 action on-focus/cantrip spells can just activate AC as a free action.

* Activating AC gave you a choice of damagetypes to attune your AC to (started with a list of 2, but that grew to 5 at max lvl). When it was already active, reactivating it allowed to change damagetype and gave an extra stacking amount of temp hp's and doubled the extra damage (player was Inexorable Iron).

* Extra/modified feats: Expansive Spellstrike added its functionality to Focused Spellstrike (15ft Cone or line, 5 ft burst for one downgrade, could later be made bigger for an extra downgrade, or adding terrain modification such as difficult ground, fire giving smoke, etc). There were also feats for adding bigger effects(2 downgrades, e.g. electricity adds stunned 1, cold could add slowed). You get the picture.

Anyway, yes, it started out by what looks like taking away options, but by making Spellstrike its own thing also allowed to give back so much more without having to make the billion homebrew touch spell attack spells which could potentially exist. Another goal was to eliminate the pressure to get the classic out-of-class toys such as Psychic/IW.

The main focus was still spellstriking, and trying to do so every round was certainly still an attractive option, but a round casting spells was very much a valid,0 option as well, and left room for useful 3th actions (e.g. Spellstrike +1 action, next round Blazing Descent +1 action).

It was obviously still just homebrew, those feats were pulling way too much weight which should have been offloaded to more diverse basic spellstrike 'cantrips' and class/hybrid studies features to make it all useable for the class as a whole.

Also, the explicit wish of the player was to be able to modify his spellstrike on a very granular level and a round-to-round basis. By level 15 he had a rather extreme range of options when using Focused Spellstrike. As implemented, not for general consumption and if I would do the class as a whole I would definitely scale that back, and focus on what would be appropriate for the different studies.

graystone wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Magus has a very easy, effective playstyle just like PF1. If you want to archetype into psychic for Imaginary Weapon, go for it. If you don't, gouging claw or telekinetic projectile are great.

I like Needle Darts to trigger special material weaknesses.

That one is good too. When I was playing my magus, that spell wasn't out. Definitely a new good one further allowing the magus to trigger weaknesses with a strike.

Meh, honestly there probably won't be any real meaningful difference between gouging claw and needle darts triggering vulnerability.

On a normal hit gouging claw starts out doing a minimum of 1.5 damage more at rank 1 and the difference widens with 2 damage per rank. The difference isn't quite doubled on a critical, starts out with 2 points minimum and the gap widens by 3 per rank.

So, yeah, even at low ranks the difference exists, but is honestly marginal, especially if gouging claw's bleed manages to tick twice. Already at rank 2 if the enemy has vulnerability 5 and bleeds twice, gouging claw wins by 1.5, if not it is only 1.5 damage behind. That is functionally the same damage. Every rank we go up gouging claw pulls ahead, but so will the average vulnerability, so nothing really changes fundamentally.

Needle Darts pays for its range and needs an above average vulnerability to overcome the difference with Gouging Claw, which is built for actual close combat. It doesn't help as an alternative to Gouging Claw when encountering something with resistance either.

Now, the above applies to all the other Cantrips you can Spellstrike with too. Ignition and Telekinetic Projectile scale better than Needle Darts, but are still behind Gouging Claw and the rest are simply worse. They are superior to Needle Darts at least when you run into resistance to P and S, though not resist all, so, skeletons I guess? Oh, and everything that doesn't bleed. Yay.

Simply put, there need to be above average resistances or vulnerabilities in play to create something more than a marginal difference with Gouging Claw. Just because close combat cantrips with other damage types have not been printed. Even if they were ever printed, it would boil down to approximately Gouging Claw but with different damage types. This is silly.

This is why I'm in favor of a bespoke spellstrike cantrip. If Gouging Claw is our baseline high damage cantrip use that as a model, and if we want Magi to _really_ hit vulnerabilities, let them change the damage type (from a limited list) by e.g. using AC or something.

This leaves room for Spellstrike cantrips which do less damage, but with actual interesting effects...

The core mechanics of the Magus are solid, and as is certainly does not underperform compared to the other martials but some improvements could definitely be made to open up more variation and fun in build options and gameplay.

Using the standard cantrip/slotted/focus spell attacks for spellstrike is a big part of the problem in my opinion. Those spells were built to with their range component being a balance-point and are really not well-suited to be the base of a core class feature. Another good illustration are the high damage focus spells. They are the best choice to balance both damage and sustainability over several encounters but you can only get them out-of-class.

My ideal solution would be restricting Spellstrike to a limited number of bespoke spellstrike-only cantrips. And they most certainly should not be restricted to just doing damage. Spending a spellslot of an appropriate rank when you spellstrike lets you access additional effects/damage, depending on the cantrip, your hybrid study or feats you took. Think Psychic and amps, but spellslots would be the resource you pay instead of focus points.

The goal is to make it possible to have a baseline and sensible variation in damage and effects with an additional choice of boosting either when spending resources.

Secondly, I would allow slotted 2+ action spells to recharge spellstrike or making activating/entering AC a free action. One action slotted spells would just allow you to activate/enter AC as a free action. Cantrips/spellstrikes allow you to enter/activate AC for one action as before. Activating AC when you are already in it should give a minor extra effect besides changing the the damage type of your extra damage.

This should go a long way towards alleviating the pressure to spellstrike every round.

You really do need to acquire quite some system mastery to make spellcasters shine in PF2e. These recurring 'casters-are-weak' vs 'git-gud' discussions are proof of that, I guess.

First off, you need to learn which spells are good and which ones plain suck, and under what circumstances.

Your spells available should ideally be able to deal with higher level opponents who will save as well as regular encounters, have some minimum spread in targeted saves, ranges and areas and if you are blasting some variance in damage types.

You need to learn when it's ok to rely on your cantrips/weapon and focus spells and when to cut loose. You have managed to get focus spells worth casting, yes? A decent reaction and some potential 3th actions too?

It really is a lot to internalize and even if you have, at lower levels you won't have as much impact as decent martials. Around lvl 7-9 imho you start have a good enough spread of spells to feel on par. Lvl 11+ is when it starts getting wild and casters can easily have more impact than martials.

Which means what? That we can make statements and be accurate if they take the form of "this option will be optimal within situations such as this" like "slam down is optimal against enemies susceptible to trip and without significant resistance to the type of damage your weapon does or higher reflex DCs."...

Having played most of the 2e AP's and a couple of custom campaigns, sorry, no, tripping has always proven to be the overall top go-to tactic. Characters who had it in their bag of tricks, whatever the class, never regretted it. Fighters just synergize insanely well with trip.

Of course their will be fights where it will be useless, but I have not ever played a campaign where such fights were common.

Wouldn't mind though, imho tripping is too easy and powerful.

I'm curious what Deriven thinks is the "one good fighter build."

Because in my experience there are several. Though it depends on party composition.

1. Two weapon fighting. Extremely good with a flurry ranger that can share edge at high level. Or a haste caster.

2. The knockdown chain. Best with a giant weapon, preferably one with reach. Especially decent if you have a caster who is also capable of knocking things prone - for instance, a cleric with naga domain or just anyone capable of casting command. Or someone capable of casting enlarge.

3. The Eldritch Archer. Uses its very high attack bonus and imaginary weapon/telekinetic projectile to make enemies implode.

4. Sword and board. Got a fair bit better in the remaster with reinforcement runes. Focuses slightly less on damage and more on not dying and helping friends to not die.

I'd say #4 is probably the lowest damage, but having seen all four of the above in play they're all quite similarly "high performance" and I'd be hard pressed to declare one of them absolutely superior to the rest.

I'm not Deriven, but I'll give it a shot:

1. Two weapon fighting: Ranger has the better in-class support for this sort of build while also providing more freedom. 1 action twin takedown vs 2 action double slice really makes all the difference. While there is definitely room to argue, in the end I believe Rangers are best-in-class for this. However, see 4. I believe two-weapon fighting with shields is the way to go.

2. Deriven favors 2-handed trip focused fighters, and that is what this is. Exchanging a d12 weapon for a d10 or D8 reach weapon (preferably hammer or flail) and leaning into the fighter's reach feats is exchanging damage for more control which may be a good choice depending on your party. This sort of build makes the Fighter's accuracy and reactive strikes shine and no other class has better support for it. Two thumbs up. Very strong build, but turn-to-turn not much variety.

3. Starlit Span Magus exists. It's the same as with dual wielding: fighter/eldritch archer may get close, but if you want to pursue this fantasy another class does it better.

4. Same issue as 1. and 3. Bastion dedication hands out most of the fighter shield toybox. If protecting your allies with shields is what you're after and not doing damage classes such as Champions and Warpriests get more tools to do that.

Fighters however are better at mixing shields and two-weapon fighting feats however, but still, build 2. exists and is imho better at protecting allies and does more damage, but personally I really enjoy how this one plays. So much turn-to-turn variety and choices to make!

5. The hand-free builds also sacrifice damage for control. Build 2. just makes better use of the Fighter's features and imho gives both more control as well as damage. I do like this with weapons with the two-hand trait however. The pure two-handed builds, with or without reach, can be very one-note and this is a good way to inject some variety and versatility.

TLDR: Fighters are best at critting and reactive strikes and perform best when leaning into that, and that means tripping, reach, good crit effects and big weapon damage dice.

That said, all of these Fighter builds can be very viable. The most effective and optimized one, pure two-handers, might also be the most boring one gameplay-wise. Well, I believe generally going all-in on one thing on a fighter will have that result, be it two-handed weapons, dual wielding, shields, one-handed builds, whatever.

Shifter and Synthesist Summoner could be combined into a single Summoner Class Archetype, perhaps?

Lose Act Together, Share Senses and Manifest Eidolon. Give it martial progression and a 1 action focus cantrip 'Shift into Eidolon Form', gaining its armor, attacks, evolutions, etc. Gear would be absorbed into the form, but it wouldn't count as a battle form.

In return for losing Act Together and the Eidolon as a separate entity lets reduce the action cost of Evolution Surge to 1 while shifted and give it the additional option to grant an evolution feat of a level up to spellrank.

And because it might still need something to not be a downgrade from a regular summoner perhaps something like the fighter's Combat Flexibility class feature, but for evolution feats.

Tying intercept to a roll might be bothersome, but letting it target your own defenses is a good and necessary first step.

Anyway, there is one thing about the intercept feature which we noticed in our playtests which I have not seen mentioned a lot:

In a standard party with 4 PC's it's common to have only 2 melee characters, and the Guardian will be one of them. If you want to intercept you give up on flanking. Guardian already does little damage, no need to make it more difficult for the rest of the party to do damage.

So, how about adding making an opponent off-guard when intercepting? After all, you give up flanking and the Guardian bulldozes itself between their ally so that would make sense narratively.

Yeah, I would make the Guardian around stickiness as well.

In our playtests the only guardian build which seemed to work reasonably well were the ones doubling down on hampering strikes and ignoring taunt and intercepting strikes. This culminated in a completely ranged party with a Guardian who had Winter Sleet (now nerfed, alas)...

Unicore wrote:

Many, many GMs I have played with would disagree with you. Which doesn't mean you are wrong! Just that this is not something with clear, universal rules that everyone will follow the same way.

But there are clear, universal rules, I quoted them from the book.

The RAW clearly states that the trigger HAS to be something observable in the game world and not a game term.

Quote:

Notably, the trigger must be something that happens in the game world and is observable by the character, rather than a rules concept that doesn’t exist in-world.

What is observable is someone walking towards you (stride) and then swinging at you (strike).

You can most definately say "when he starts attacking me" but then the Strike has already began.
Or you can say "when he moves next to me" but then the Stride action may or may NOT be over.

Nah, it is very, very arguable that 'when an enemy stops moving close enough to hit me' is something that is impossible to be observed in the game world. Natural language describing the action, i.e. what happens in the narrative/observable in the game world, cuts both ways. At some point it needs to be translated to game terms and vice versa. That grey zone creates ambiguity by its very nature because otherwise the two aren't connected at all.

To return to the example, if an enemy needs to stop moving moving before it can swing its weapon at you in game mechanics, therefore in the narrative/the observable game world it must as well, no?

Ok, in the real world we don't move turn-by-turn like chess pieces, so would you accept a trigger like 'I move to keep away from bad guys hurting me'? Ok, sure, definitely observable in the game world, but when exactly would this trigger be 'flipped'? When would this reaction end?

Let's say the enemy's movement would continue, and the character's as well until the enemy spent it's movement. Now if the character still has movement left when the enemy next in the initiative order tries to engage could the character still move away? Trigger is still fulfilled after all, and if an action can't be disrupted, neither can't a reaction and it obviously isn't finished yet (after all the observable game world isn't turn-based).

TLDR: Observable game world and game mechanics can not be divorced entirely for setting triggers of 'ready action' or by definition they can not be clear and universal.

I would actually lean much more into the concept of hampering strike. Make being the sticky tank as the core feature/identity of Guardians.

For starters I would make it a level 1 class feature so it can't be poached easily and keep it as an action tax every round to make it the 'this is what a guardian does'-thing.

Everyone within reach would get -2 to attack everyone but the Guardian. If a enemy tries to leave the Guardian's reach the Guardian gets a free action attack which cancels the movement on top of doing damage. A free action and not a reaction is indeed very juicy, yes, but it's my opening bid anyway ;-)

With their lower weapon proficiency this is far from guaranteed (and actually a powerful enough feature to be worth that lower proficiency). Letting the player roll an attack is also much more feel-good than letting the gm roll a save and, besides, the Guardian could really use more damage-dealing capacity.

Taunt would be what you use to lure that enemy over there to come over to you, or shoot you if it is ranged, and can actually stay as it is.

This class seems to be at odds with its own basic class features and lacks something to set it apart.

You may be ahead with your armor proficiency a bit, but not at the first 4 levels where it matters the most.

Furthermore, if you use taunt you throw that advantage away. At level 1-4 you basically are as easy to hit as a raging barbarian. That's... the opposite of being a tank? If Taunt even works, that is. But you have a second starting class feature, Intercept Strike, which boils down to setting your AC to what the person you're protecting has.

Hmm, something is not tracking here. Better armor proficiencies should be the selling point here, but your two starting class features won't let you use them...

Anyway, at level 2 there is a class feat which is unique and powerful enough to function as the answer to the question 'why play a Guardian', Hampering Sweeps. Of course, being a lvl 2 class feat it is prime poaching material, so it's more the answer to 'why pick up the Guardian archetype'.

So:
- Make Taunt give the -2 penalty, no save and forget the bonus to-hit. The fact it costs an action and only lasts to the start of your next turn is restrictive enough. Don't let it work against the class' selling point of actually being tanky.

- Intercept Strike should have as trigger 'when an adjacent ally is targeted' and should make you the target. The ally needing to be adjacent is enough of a restriction to let them use their own defenses at least.

- Give the Guardian expert armor proficiency from level 1. Why not let them be ahead in AC from the start. They give up standard martial progression and the sort of damage mechanics other martials have.

- Make Hampering Strikes a class feature so it can't be poached. Add 'an enemy can only be affected by one instance of this feature' so 2 PC's with hampering strike can't completely lock down an enemy.