Initiative

[pH unbalanced]

I'll want to see this in play, but my gut feel is that there are going to be some issues around initiative.

On the one hand, using Warfare Lore for initiative should lead to the Commander going near the top of the order. And several of the tactics (Form Up!) seem like they would work best at the beginning of combat before people get locked down.

But on the other hand, your teamates won't have reactions to use until their turn comes up in initiative, so I feel like it will be fairly common for the Commander to win initiative, and then delay until enough allies would have reactions, thus negating one of their advantages. (Less of a problem at higher levels when you can grant multiple reactions.)

So I feel like there should be a tactic to boost your squadmates' initiatives -- but that could easily be too powerful.

Maybe a tactic or lower level feat that gives squadmates reactions on the first turn of combat when the Commander's turn comes up?

[Dubious Scholar]

It should be noted that the rules on reactions before your first turn leaves a lot to GM discretion as well.

I'm used to GMs going by whether the fight was a surprise or not - if the party starts a fight by busting a door down, everyone's got a reaction before their first turn because they knew the fight was coming, they were ready for it. If the party just got ambushed, then you don't.

[SuperBidi]

Yes, I got the same feeling. But on the other hand, as you can grant reactions, it is not completely an issue. Also, being able to move any PC during the first initiative of the round is so strong it largely compensates this issue.