Broken Khree's page

Problem with the guardian is that it is not threatening. Even if you taunted, there is nothing you can do to make yourself a better option to attack than anything else.

Sure, you can intercept the damage. But that's a good way to eat a crit, without any of your crit mitigation triggering because you were not attacked, you are just absorbing damage.

Even if the enemy critically fails against your taunt, the that's the only reason to attack the guardian. That barbarian or inventor or whatever is still probably easier to hit, and is actually hurting you.

Above level enemies have no problems hitting anyways, and that's where the guardian would be really needed.

All the damage reduction they get is minimal, and doesn't stack. This creates an issue where every time you get hit you need to figure out what is working and what is not. How much or the classes budget went into giving them resist 8 to slashing damage at level 20? Like, is that some kind of a joke?

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Really interesting. The encounter design guidelines suggest the vast majority of enemies you should be facing should be lower level than you.

We usually only use lower level enemies as fodder along some higher level enemies. Lower level only fights we find boring as they are rarely a threat to our group. With limited time to play, we just prefer more engaging fights.

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If I remember, the Dragon flew down and attacked the Cleric with his juicy bite attack. The other three had not been much of a threat up til then. (They were Hypnotized for a few rounds) By then they had shaken it off, and went after the Dragon. The Dragon expected to buffet their attacks with its Reaction and fly off and attack using its Reach/Spell advantage. Once he realized he was pinned to the ground, he went crazy and tried to free himself by attacking the one pinning him. At least that’s how I imagined it went…

I see, so less calculating tactician and more of panicking because things didn't go as planned. Not sure I would have done that for a dragon, but that's a fair way to play it. Thanks.

I think difficult terrain for a level 2 feat would be fine. The problem is that without a reactive strike it would only exist for fighter to poach it.

... Once the Guardian had it with his Hampering Sweeps, the Dragon went “oh crap” and focused fired on the Guardian. Which was exactly what the Guardian wanted, (provoking Retributive Strikes from the Champion, and Reactive Strikes when it cast an spell) and the rest of the team ganged up on the Dragon and whittled down its health....

Honest question, why did the dragon attack the Guardian? Why not fighter or champion first? Was the threat from the guardian greater than the champion or the fighter?

As long as guardian has to cripple himself to do his job, he will be bad at his job.

On a mechanical level, taunt is just bad.
1. based on class DC. Guardian does not have best class DC, and its core feature relies on it.
2. Higher level enemies, when you would want to taunt the most, will most commonly succeed or crit succeed against you. So in either case you cripple yourself, and the enemy maybe has -1 to hit whoever they wanted to hit anyways.
3. If you are not supposed to use taunt all the time, why are the (poor) benefits from your subclasses tied to targeting taunted enemies?

Boss03 wrote:

Ok, as a gm, I know enemies are usually 1-3 lvls above the pc's for the most part.

Uhhh... what?

Since when?

That has been pretty standard in the games I play in.

Why taunt an enemy if they are already attacking you? To make sure they continue attacking you. The benefit that Champion has, their ally protection mechanic is a reaction. They just need to be near allies.

Guardian has to plan ahead who to protect, and their positioning is more restrictive than that of the Champion. And the Champ does not have to cripple themselves to protect allies.

I firmly believe that G needs same weapon proficiency as a champion, and a way to punish enemies that ignore the taunt. I think it would be ok for G to out damage the fighter if the enemy ignores them. And if the enemy focuses on G, then you have your high AC.

Lol it seemed the only other class that is front line support with about the same weapon proficiency. And I dont think anyone complains they dont hit enough to be effective. Or maybe they do since some want an even more weapon focused doctrine.

The problem is that what Warpriest lacks in proficiencies, they make up with the versatility of full spellcasing. Guardian cannot do that. At best they can reduce one type oh physical damage by 8 per hit. That's just not very exciting when enemies hit you for 40-50 damage. Its not nothing, but also nothing to write home about.

Why does Guardian needs a normal proficiency progression? Because missing is not fun. In combat they do only two things, protect allies and hit things. They don't have the spellcasting versatility of the Warpriest, or the alchemy of the Alchemist. All they have is "I take damage, I am tough, and I hit things" And they are mediocre at being tough and hitting things. That does not sound like fun to play.

I forgot they don't get reactive strike. Yeah, without it, difficult terrain is not great.

I like the idea of rolling against your class DC.

Stance would make sense. I don't think there is a reason the overcomplicate this feat.

Areas within your reach are difficult terrain for your enemies.

Give the guardian two reactions at level 1. First one, a strike against a taunted enemy if they attack someone other than you, with a significant bonus to strike. Make ignoring you hurt. Second, stride + Intercept Strike, if the enemy is out of reach. But the enemy is going against your AC, instead of ally's AC.

Then, take away the +2 to hit guardian from taunt. And make Guardian Armor apply to all physical damage, instead of one damage type.

I think the problem with Taunt is that you are only politely asking the enemy to hit you. Make Taunt only a -2 penalty, no saves. But if the enemy does not attack you, you get a reactive strike against it.

At the table there is a big difference between "please hit me" and "I dare you to hit the wizard". The enemy now has a dilemma, attack the guardian with very high AC or attack the low AC wizard and eat a reactive strike.

I really feel like the Guardian leans too far on the carrot, and doesn't have enough stick.

There is nothing the Guardian can do to punish the taunted enemy for ignoring the taunt. Just the fact that you have a core class ability that the enemies can just ignore is bad. And why does Guardian does not get legendary class DC? They are one of few classes that need their class DC to do anything.

Having played a fighter in DnD4e, this class looks like Wish.com 4e fighter. Let me compare

Fighter's mark (taunt) took no actions. You marked anyone you attacked, didn't matter if you hit or missed. You only had to roll d20 to hit them. And the mark only gave -2 penalty to hit anyone other than you. Not a huge penalty.

Big thing was that if the marked/taunted enemy attacked someone other than you, you could take a reactive strike against that enemy. If the enemy ignored your mark/taunt, you were the most damaging character in the party. But that was GMs choice to make. It felt good to look GM in the eye and say "I dare you, attack the wizard." Oh, and the fighter also got a bonus to hit with reactive strike.

Those are really cool. Thanks.

Are you working on any other class conversions from 4e?

Thank you everyone.

I have been playing around with Herolab Online demo, and I am curious what I would get for a paid version. I get that I could level up my characters, and get access to more books (for a price). What about campaign or encounter tools? Is there anything to let me build monsters?

Also, is there a way to use Herolab Online on multiple machines at the same time?