Design Manager
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Hey folks,
Please use this thread for mechanical or thematic feedback on the commander.
I'd ask that you avoid having discussions on feedback given by posters in this thread and save that for other threads or venues. This is a place to collect opinions for easy review, not to debate their merit.
Thank you for participating in the Battlecry! playtest!
So excited!
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My initial reaction is that the idea is great, but too conservatively balanced. The Commander is a baseline martial with key INT and a pretty bad save progression, so your tactics have some really heavy lifting to do.
Despite that, many tactics really eat into the reaction economy, when the exact people you want to reach with it most are the ones who already have great reactions and want to use them. Drilled Reactions helps, but only so much. And even then, many tactics honestly aren't that great before you are most of the way through your average adventure path. It is particularly strange that the Commander usually cannot take advantage of their own tactics, making the playstyle quite non-interactive.
Positively, the way tactics work as far as gaining and preparing them is quite good and flexible. Key INT is awesome. Many of the feats sound pretty cool as well.
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IMO, I think Shield's Up! should work with Dueling Parry, not just parry weapons.
This and the Shield Spell, to give a little extra buff to let Casters benefit from having a Commander in the party
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Commander seems like a fun reimplementation of some of the Battle Herald stuff from PF1. I'm very excited about that, as that was one of my favorite Prestige Classes from the edition.
At a glance, it looks like a lot of the Tactics don't allow the Commander to participate in the generated actions for a lead-from-the-front feel. For instance, Demoralizing Charge, Stupefying Raid, and Defensive Retreat all seem like having option to spend an extra action to let the commander join in wouldn't be too out-there.
An option for a feat or feature that could lend more of that playstyle would be nice, though I understand it sort of steps on the toes of the Marshall dedication from the CRB (not sure how it compares to the revision coming in Player Core 2)
A quick question about the reactions given by the various tactics - are these EXTRA reactions, or does a squadmate have to decide to use them vs. whatever reaction(s) they already have?
I'm guessing the latter, but would like confirmation.
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A quick question about the reactions given by the various tactics - are these EXTRA reactions, or does a squadmate have to decide to use them vs. whatever reaction(s) they already have?
I'm guessing the latter, but would like confirmation.
Your squadmates need to use their own reactions, yes. Though the 1/round Drilled Reactions class feature lets you give one of your affected squadmates a bonus reaction that can only be used for tactics.
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Although I saw it pointed out that while it has a clause to make it work with spellcasters, it doesn't have an equivalent for Kineticists. It seems like it should allow (single action?) Elemental Blasts.
Oh yes, PLEASE keep Kineticists in mind and future classes that might use similar mechanics. It feels really bad not to be included for many of these feats. Perhaps change the language on many of the Commander's abilities to say "single attack actions..."
Sure, it is more wordy, but it includes Kineticist blasts and future proofs for similar types of classes that may come later.
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We need a banner toss feat or tactic post-haste in the final version.
Flavorful and fun!
"...doing what the Paeligni do best, rallies his troops by seizing their cohort’s standard and flinging it into the mass of the Macedonians, so that his troops, to avoid the shame of losing their standard, would push forward (Livy 44.40.7-8)" also (Livy 25.14.4)
"Quake with fear, for a Paelignian officer has brought a flag!"
Credit Dr. Bret Devereaux, check out his blog
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Would be nice if that feature grew so that you could give more quad mates that per round.
Was just thinking the same thing.
Drilled Reactions really needs to scale, especially given the number of tactics rely on reactions.
I love Plant Banner. Basically turn on "Capture the Flag" XD. It seems a little harsh that enemies can essentially turn off your class that easily, so that is more an NPC ability to me, but it is fun nontheless.
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I'll second the fact that not getting the 1 uncommanded action on mature and not getting specialized for the commanders mount is kind of a non starter. At that point I'd rather go the cavalier archetype route for mount stuff. Though cavalier may not make the transition to PC2, so who knows. Beyond that the class seems really cool and only needs small brush ups. It feels like a summoner or thaumaturge situation, where the play test class is fairly nearly there. The temp hp scaling from plant banner could also be a little smoother, it goes from meh at lvl 1, to still kind of meh at lvl 5, to OMG at lvl 15. I like be the design and direction, though, all my complaints are quibbles (a good place to start a playtest from).
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First of all I have to say that I was really anticipating the release of this class in some form since PF2E first came out. I think the class idea/concept combines really well with the core mechanics of the game.
Secondly, it seems the Commander combines elements from the Cavalier and the Marshal archetypes. Given that, my question is - Would make it sense to give the Commander something similar to the Cavalier’s Pledges?
It seems that members of this class would be military officials or knights (vaguely speaking) and they would have to pledge themselves to some order or organization they represent. If they use a banner, the banner has to represent some organization or ideal (and in that way you can also add specific edicts and anathemas to your character).
Another suggestion in the form of a question is - Would it make sense to add the option to choose between a banner and a tabard? You can already combine your banner with your weapon in the playtest, why not combine your “banner” with your armor (which in practice is a tabard)? Maybe there can be advantages and disadvantages of using one over the other?
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As written feels like it has kind of the same problem the PF1 Skald did where party dynamics are too important.
It has limited options for helping casters. Its features are largely incompatible with the kineticist. Tactics get worse the better your allies' reactions are. Many of the early offensive options are keyed off Athletics, which presumes an ally is investing in that kind of thing.
Even the drill limit is one of those things that basically doesn't exist in a normal game (14 int means you start at 4 squadmates) but might cause an issue if there's an abnormal party dynamic, so why does it even exist?
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Quick Thoughts:
Love the idea and implementation of the class so far.
1) Ready, Aim, Fire! Seems highly over-powered for it's cost and level, especially when compared to Executioner's Volley 4 levels later. It generates up to ~10 free actions, and up to 6 reaction strikes. There's also a slight confusion on if it allows multiple people in your Squad to use a cantrip or just the one.
2) Plant Banner: Two issues
2a) The fact that an enemy can just turn it off with an interact action seems weird, even if that would proc Reactive strikes, since it's a fairly short-range aura which means unless your entire party is firing from range, odds are it won't be too difficult for an enemy to come in and just take it. I'd prefer to see some mitigation factor where either the aura boost is larger or the enemy needs to make some type of saving throw to remove it.
2b) The jump in the temp HP it provides is really jarring. At level 14 you're getting ~5 HP per round, at level 15 you go to ~20 HP per round. Maybe add an intermediate step at level 10 that boosts it to Int + 1/2 Level, make it a little smoother.
3) Quickening Banner: given the sheer action economy a lot of the Tactics provide, this feat ends up feeling really lackluster in comparison. I understand that because it doesn't have the usual Tactic-style restrictions it has a lot more flexibility, and it's essentially a tactic that doesn't take a prep slot... it still just feels underwhelming to me in comparison. I'd almost prefer it take two actions but not have the 10 minute cooldown. That might be too good though. It just feels really odd to have tactics that can, at level 1 every round, spend 1 or 2 actions to generate 6+ FREE actions not including reactions, and then here at level 14 you spend 1 action to generate 6 actions only once per combat effectively.
Overall, I really enjoy this class. I had significantly less negative feedback regarding it than I did the Animist or the Exemplar playtests, so massive kudos to the design team for really hitting the nail on the head here.
From a conceptual POV, spending every morning drilling with your party, but only having one ally (should be squadmate) benefit from an extra reaction/round feels... awkward.
IMO, Drilled Reactions should initially be the number of squadmates equal to half your INT modifier from the outset, and raised to full INT modifier somewhere between levels 10-15.
I mentioned in other post that I think tactics should probably just be tactics feats. Commanders start with two extra feats at 1st level they can use to take tactics feats, then they can use their regular feats to take more tactics feats if they want. I feel the whole "you prepare tactics" things is kinda unnecesary and adds an extra innecesary step to play the class.
I also would want the class to allow me to stay in the back doing nothing to use all my actions to command my allies. I kinda can do this with the current iteration of the class, but I would want it to not feel like I'm missing stuff for doing it. If someone wants to play a more "in the midst of battle" kind of commander, I think any martial with the marshal or commander archetypes (when it releases) would be a better fit. I think switching the martial progression of commander and guardians would do a lot to represent this.
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I think switching the martial progression of commander and guardians would do a lot to represent this.
That sounds really bad and doesn't really help anyone. Hard pass.
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One initial thought is that the Banner's 30 ft. range is fine for first level but as the monsters get bigger the Commander might run into the same problems Champions have with their reactions at high levels where Huge and Gargantuan creatures take up so much space that it's really hard to stay in formation against them and party members are often out of range. Yes I know there's a 20th level feet to expand it but that's 3 or 4 sessions of playtime at most and the problem pops up much earlier.
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I love both of these from my initial skim over, I'm wondering though if Drilled Reflexes and Practiced Reflexes should be built in to the class features and not be feats? Given the class shines by giving allies extra reactions to use their tactics, I'll admit these two feats feel more like feat taxes than actual choices.
Especially Practiced Reflexes; at level 18 you can either choose an action that might disable one enemy under specific circumstances, or take the feat that gives virtually all your party an extra reaction to use your Tactics.
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I really love the class so far, my main problem is I do feel like there needs to be more ways to support casters, ready aim fire is good but seems to largely be it. I do not wsnt my caster party members to feel left out of the fun game
I mentioned in other post that I think tactics should probably just be tactics feats. Commanders start with two extra feats at 1st level they can use to take tactics feats, then they can use their regular feats to take more tactics feats if they want. I feel the whole "you prepare tactics" things is kinda unnecesary and adds an extra innecesary step to play the class.That would kill a lot of my interest in the class. The idea of adapting to the situation, changing tactics between every fight is really cool. I don't see how feats would actually make anything better.
I mean, the difference between preparing two tactics and having two tactics feats that you can probably change with a feature (there's even precedence for it with Reflow Elements in the kineticist) is effectively the same, but I feel the latter is much more smooth because doesn't require a subsystem built for it. I also feel the limit on how many tactics you can prepare is kinda...arbritary? I wouldn't say most of them are stronger than other class feats of their respective level, in particualr when comparing to stuff a kineticist can do which are also at-will, so I feel the whole tactics subsystem isn't really needed IMO.
That too, though I didn't see how many features actually use it. I don't recall many though.
I'm not advocating for reducing, quite the opposite in fact. I only said that you start with two and can change them everyday, but if with your 1st or 2nd level feat take a feat that gives you a tactic then you'll have 3 and wouldn't have the need to prepare them. Much like kineticist, commanders could receive a free tactics feat every couple of levels, like at 3rd, 7th, and 15th or something like that.
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I was reading the Warfare Expertise ability and its basically allows to use Warfare Lore as like Esoteric Lore but a bit less defined:
...You can use Warfare Lore to Recall Knowledge about most creatures regardless of type, but typically only to determine whether they can be reasoned with, their most notable offensive abilities[/b[, and whether one of their [b]saving throws is particularly weak. The GM can decide to allow additional questions to be answered when Recalling Knowledge with Warfare Lore as appropriate to the situation...
The problem is while a Thaumaturge can you use the Esoteric Lore to recall about everything of every creature (supernatural or not) while Warfare Expertise is restricted to "offensive abilities" and "saving throws" and some other thing that depends from the GM fiat.
So please add more clear specific and less interpretative things related to battle and tactical abilities of the creatures too as immunities, weakness, resistances, defensive actions/activities and any other tactical related abilities too to ensure it effectiveness.
I know that the GM can allow additional questions but having these things explicitly declared will give the Warfare Expertise a better "legal security" between tables and different GMs to allow Commander's players to know what to expect.
I honestly really like it as is, given that there will be additional tactic options, main thing right now is that I'd like guidelines for what the banner should and shouldn't be vulnerable to.
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main thing right now is that I'd like guidelines for what the banner should and shouldn't be vulnerable to.
I thought it would be an attended item - either wielded or worn. Which is pretty well defined as far as what can be done to it by enemies at that point.
Unless Planted, of course. But at that point, it does have some more listed mechanics. It would be an unattended item of the scenery as far as AoE goes - so the GM decides whether the effect does anything to the planted Banner.
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I love both of these from my initial skim over, I'm wondering though if Drilled Reflexes and Practiced Reflexes should be built in to the class features and not be feats? Given the class shines by giving allies extra reactions to use their tactics, I'll admit these two feats feel more like feat taxes than actual choices.
Especially Practiced Reflexes; at level 18 you can either choose an action that might disable one enemy under specific circumstances, or take the feat that gives virtually all your party an extra reaction to use your Tactics.
Yea I can't imagine a commander build without those two feats. It's too much action economy to give up, so it definitely feels like it should be base progression.
As i first read, i am confused about the feats. Not that they are confusing in their wording, but the theme are all over the place.
I can't help but think this is a sort of fighter. You have no specialisation. Like the fighter has. The player has the liberty to create his commander. There is a lot of action feats like the fighter has.
There so many actions i see the same problem, i have with my Bard and Shield magus. The 3 action is just not enough to fully play the class. Haste would the spell to cast on this character and to have mature mount. So he would be able to 'stride', Strike and do my tactics and banner action.
Wait, is 1 action ability from a mount only appear at level 10 for a commander, is that an error? Shouldn't it be like every other animal is when it is mature?
I like this... I just want to try it on the table.
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I really like the extra reaction.
I think it's a slick way to scale multiple target abilities.
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I would like to see the ability to grant a cantrip at lower levels.
Recall Knowledge support is good for mage groups, but it could use a little more.
This class is going to be a lot of fun to playtest, there is so much awesome stuff to play with here that PF2 just doesn't have yet.
Am I missing something with the level 2 feat Set-Up Strike that makes it not just replace every basic melee Strike you make until the end of time? I feel like it should at least be a flourish.