Adjacent ally has some issues for a defender


Vanguard


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How often are you going to get to use an ability to defend an adjacent ally?

Your other melee is at least 10 feet away on the other side of the boss to get a flank bonus

The ranged shouldn't be standing that close to you because they don't want to be in guarded step range


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I would recommend that Paizo goes through every "adjacent ally" ability and ask if it *really* needs to have that restriction. A lot of the Vanguard stuff is mystical, entropy energy stuff that doesn't necessarily require adjacency.


Why the assumption that the defended ally is a fellow melee attacker helping you flank an enemy, as opposed to a random party member who a melee-enemy charged, who you are coming to the defense of?


Metaphysician wrote:
Why the assumption that the defended ally is a fellow melee attacker helping you flank an enemy, as opposed to a random party member who a melee-enemy charged, who you are coming to the defense of?

because that setup shouldn't even last an entire round.

The vanguard should be in front of the party (i mean its in the class name...) if someone charges past him , then they should either spread out and or take up flanking to melee depending on whether they're ranged or melee


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Assuming a random party member, the Vanguard may still often chase into a flank position to punish the enemy, since this is the post-Armory world, and there's not much reason for anyone in the party to not threaten in melee.


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Plenty of combat situations involve close quarters inside a ship or dungeon, where practically anyone could be an adjacent ally.

Also not all combats involve ideal flanking positions. One of the jobs a defender Vanguard does admirably is serve as a big slab of cover for allies to shoot from behind.


Dracomicron wrote:

Plenty of combat situations involve close quarters inside a ship or dungeon, where practically anyone could be an adjacent ally.

Also not all combats involve ideal flanking positions. One of the jobs a defender Vanguard does admirably is serve as a big slab of cover for allies to shoot from behind.

The vanguard has combat maneuver options to open the bottle

If they're playing cork in the bottle there will be one party member behind them who has cover anyway.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Dracomicron wrote:

Plenty of combat situations involve close quarters inside a ship or dungeon, where practically anyone could be an adjacent ally.

Also not all combats involve ideal flanking positions. One of the jobs a defender Vanguard does admirably is serve as a big slab of cover for allies to shoot from behind.

The vanguard has combat maneuver options to open the bottle

If they're playing cork in the bottle there will be one party member behind them who has cover anyway.

Doesn't an ally directly behind the vanguard have to shoot through cover? Seems like they're better off behind and to the right or left of the vanguard for an open firing lane. In that position, they could definitely benefit from adjacent ally powers.


Dracomicron wrote:


Doesn't an ally directly behind the vanguard have to shoot through cover? Seems like they're better off behind and to the right or left of the vanguard for an open firing lane. In that position, they could definitely benefit from adjacent ally powers.

Won't work. Any corner you attack from will draw cover from the front corner on the vanguard. And you're within 5 foot step and whack range

□B□
□V□
X□□

If X attacks from his northwest corner B defends from his south East and if passes through the vanguard.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Dracomicron wrote:


Doesn't an ally directly behind the vanguard have to shoot through cover? Seems like they're better off behind and to the right or left of the vanguard for an open firing lane. In that position, they could definitely benefit from adjacent ally powers.

Won't work. Any corner you attack from will draw cover from the front corner on the vanguard. And you're within 5 foot step and whack range

□B□
□V□
X□□

If X attacks from his northwest corner B defends from his south East and if passes through the vanguard.

Er, no.

More like

□□B
□V□
X□□
□□Y

The Vanguard raises his shield to Y, protecting B from Y's ranged attacks while giving B a clear shot. Nobody cares about X's attack; the Vanguard will just tank it.


And the boss is standing in that one square because....?

Y isn't benefiting from being an adjacent ally and X still has cover for his shot . So I have no idea what you think you're saying no to.


I believe in that scenario B and V(anguard) are allies, and X and Y are enemies. Y ranged attacks B, V Shield Blocks it. X can't get close to B without a proper move because V is in the way, and B has a cover-less shot on Y.


BigNorseWolf wrote:

And the boss is standing in that one square because....?

Y isn't benefiting from being an adjacent ally and X still has cover for his shot . So I have no idea what you think you're saying no to.

Okay.

Not all fights are boss fights, or fights against one enemy.

B(iohacker?) is not shooting X, it is shooting Y. V raising a shield against Y will protect both V and B against Y's shot. It's a net gain. The Vanguard is protecting B from both X and Y simultaneously.

Over the weekend we played Dead Suns 2 with an adjacent-ally-protecting Vanguard and the GM pretty universally calculated to not even attack the allies he was protecting, which I think counts as a success for the build.


It is really confusing when you just go ahead and use the same letters and change who they represent.

What ability are you calling "raise the shield" to block shots through adjacent squares? Aligning a shield only protects you.

Quote:
The Vanguard raises his shield to Y, protecting B from Y's ranged attacks while giving B a clear shot. Nobody cares about X's attack; the Vanguard will just tank it.

And now the vanguard and the ranged are splitting their damage between two different targets. That is bad in a system where you hit as hard with 1 hitpoint as you do with 100.


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BigNorseWolf wrote:
It is really confusing when you just go ahead and use the same letters and change who they represent.

I don't think I did? I just added one for a second enemy.

Quote:
What ability are you calling "raise the shield" to block shots through adjacent squares? Aligning a shield only protects you.

Sorry, the one I was thinking about was Attracting Shield; I think it's the first Adjacent Enemy power in the list, and is the one we used in Temple of the Twelve.

Quote:
And now the vanguard and the ranged are splitting their damage between two different targets. That is bad in a system where you hit as hard with 1 hitpoint as you do with 100.

The "adjacent ally" power-using Vanguard's job isn't doing damage, though, it's protecting the back ranks while they whittle down the enemy, whether that's the Vanguard's dance partner or the squishy enemy artillery.

And... We keep saying this, but not every combat situation is textbook ideal. Yeah, sometimes you damage more than one enemy at a time. Sometimes you don't have perfect flanking opportunities. Options for dealing with non-ideal situations are perfectly valid. We're not all soulless computers calculating perfect Starfinder strategies like freaking Deep Blue.


Honestly with the plethora of sights and scopes, I really don't think you providing cover against an enemy will be tooo problematic..
for certain classes anyway..

My biohacker (and probably mechanic) wouldn't mind having the cover issue as they're rarely full attacking anyway.

The Vanguard providing defense for them would make me feel more alright with teh short range.

Actually vanguard biohacker could have some synnergy standing next to each other. between shielding and heals anyway.

Would be lovely for inside a complex anyway


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Dracomicron wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
It is really confusing when you just go ahead and use the same letters and change who they represent.
I don't think I did? I just added one for a second enemy.

Technically you did, BNW was using 'B' to represent a Boss enemy and 'X' for the Vanguard's ally.


Shinigami02 wrote:
Dracomicron wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
It is really confusing when you just go ahead and use the same letters and change who they represent.
I don't think I did? I just added one for a second enemy.
Technically you did, BNW was using 'B' to represent a Boss enemy and 'X' for the Vanguard's ally.

Oh I see. I misread the diagram.

We need a legend for this stuff.


as a random sidenote
GOogle Doc's spreadsheet is pretty wonderful for an open access anyone can see, legend able format for discussions like this.

It is a pain to link elsewhere but it is useful


I played a 4th level Vanguard tonight using my Morlamaw Admittance in SFS Scenario Yesteryear's Sorrow. In one combat we had I made ample use of adjacent allies abilities. I had both the feat Bodyguard, and the disciplines Attractive Shield and Intervene.

The set up was something like this

V= Morlamaw Vanguard
E= Envoy
M= Mystic
O= Operative
B= badguys
_ = Open Squares

___________
____BVV____
[][]_OVVB___
[][]__EM_____

the squares bottom left were boxes that we could not occupy. jut south of the Envoy and Mystic was the door we entered. There was much more of the room to the North, but we weren't able to move there because the enemies were on top of us so quickly.

In this case I was positioning my shield against the right most enemy and guarding the Mystic, while either bodyguarding/intervening as necessary either the Operative or the Mystic. The Mystic was attacking with his battle staff, while the Operative was taking point blank shots because he would provoke trying to move away with trick attack anyway. At one point the left bad guy rolled a crit against the Operative and I Intervened to take half that damage for him. It actually felt like a very rewarding battle style and between Attractive Shield and Intervene/bodyguard, all of which is "adjacent ally" powers, my tanking ability for my party was very effective. Honestly this made Bodyguard valuable to me, as looking at it as it currently stands the feat is very lackluster without Vanguard abilities to give it further utility. Keep in mind I'm someone who ran a VERY effective body guard fighter in Pathfinder. So I was disappointed to see Bodyguard be reduced to something that a.) could only be done once per turn, period, and B.) be stuck at only a +2 bonus with no ways to further improve it, and no "in harm's way" feat.

Bodyguard and Intervene together effectively gives you In Harm's Way, and Vanguard's Reactionary class ability at least helps to mitigate the "Only once per turn" problem just a little bit. (also learning after playing tonight that needing to bodyguard more than once isn't as much a thing since iterative attacks are gone and full attacks are risky)


It's not that it's never going to come up. It's that I think it's being valued mechanically as something thats always on to usual and I don't think it is.

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