How i would do Taunt.
Taunt:
Will Save
Critical Success: they are unaffected.
Success: They are Fascinated by you until the start of your next turn, even if they are targeted by hostile actions.
Failure: As Success, but they must also spend at least 1 action to either perform a hostile action against you or move towards you; assuming they can do so safely (not entering hazardous terrain or provoking a reaction). If they can't safely do either, they can use their action as they wish.
Critical Failure: as Failure but they must spend 2 actions.
The first thing that stands out to me is that there's tension between "you want to be adjacent to your allies to protect them" and "you are most likely the slowest person in the party since you are incentivized to wear heavy armor".
At 4th level you get intercept foe to stride as a reaction if that lets you catch up, but I'm not sure if that's enough and/or that feat feels mandatory.
It would also be nice to carve out an affirmative reason to use medium armor besides "you have +5 feet of movement speed".
There are other ways to get speed boost but I agree that's a class that probably need to move a lot. Armored Regiment Training should would ignore the Speed penalty in encounter too.
Another problem that I notice is that unless your ally has Gang Up you basically is penalized if you want to flank. Due the reach of the Intercept Strike being adjacent only this prevents the Guardian to take a flank position.
I think with Taunt and Interpose Attack Reaction, despite the Heavy Armor I think Guardian should be the second 12 hit point class, it has less offensive scaling then Barbarian and exchanges it for defensive but why not give it 12 hit points, taunt is a strange ability which implies you always want to be hit, which for a tank is not bad but unless they get some nature Damage Reduction or a feat to give them more Hit Points, it seems like they will more easily fall down.
I suggest instead of dealing more damage with that one abilities Fercious Venegence perhaps give them a +2 Circumstance on attack rolls if they used Interpose Attack Reaction for till the end of their current turn.
Thought: some support for DEX builds might be nice. I get that the default theme of the class is a big guy in metal armor, but I think there's something to be said about the fantasy of a character who's annoyingly fast, constantly swatting away enemy attacks, and just generally getting in the way of whatever enemies are doing. (Champion has the option for DEX builds, as well, so it'd be nice to have some parity on that front.)
If your wizard isn't always carrying a no-reload ranged weapon then failing at this save, which could be coming down every turn, is going to force them to walk toward the big, heavily armored guy unless they crit fail, or feel like expending their turn casting at the enemy guardian instead of doing most anything else.How i would do Taunt.
Taunt:
Will SaveCritical Success: they are unaffected.
Success: They are Fascinated by you until the start of your next turn, even if they are targeted by hostile actions.
Failure: As Success, but they must also spend at least 1 action to either perform a hostile action against you or move towards you; assuming they can do so safely (not entering hazardous terrain or provoking a reaction). If they can't safely do either, they can use their action as they wish.
Critical Failure: as Failure but they must spend 2 actions.
IMO, if Taunt doesn't get the wizard to cast spells at you, it's not much of a Taunt.
But it can be tweaked by adding "they are immune for 10 minutes" or whatever.
Well in reality the way taunt is suppose to work is, "How dare you do X to me, I am so mad at you I wanna hit you!" It is just that the penalties are suppose to encourage the DM to make enemies react to you, making them seem upset or flustered.
If the enemy attacks not you then taunt is still doing it's job. Giving a 1-3 penalty to DCs and Attacks is still a rather big deal. Maybe not as big deal as the Commander just out right giving you an extra attack or multiple extra attacks.
But with the sure defensive side of Guardian I am unsure if many people would actually want to play it. In a game as heavily focused on damage and blitzing enemies, tanking with reduced attack stat is/proficiency is liek playing a bomber alchemist currently, just not fun.
Interpose Attack is also just against Physical damage, give me a feat to upgrade it to all damage...Why does the champion have a better damage reduction ability? Guardian aren't holy warriors but suppose to be the TANK of PF-2E. Having your kit be Reaction but only against Physical feels weak just to give them the Taunt ability.
It feels like Commander is a much better class. If you want Guardian to be good give it a thorns ability where if you take damage the enemy ALSO takes some sort of penalty so they need to choose Tautn negative, or Thorn damage.
If the enemy attacks not you then taunt is still doing it's job.
I disagree.
It's doing something, sure. But it encourages the Guardian to stay away from the enemy they Taunted. Which is counter to the job it is supposed to do.
Interpose Attack is also just against Physical damage, give me a feat to upgrade it to all damage...Why does the champion have a better damage reduction ability? Guardian aren't holy warriors but suppose to be the TANK of PF-2E. Having your kit be Reaction but only against Physical feels weak just to give them the Taunt ability.
agreed.
It feels like Commander is a much better class..
Defensive Swap, Standard Bearer's Sacrifice, and Reactive Interference all seem like they should be on the Guardian.
It feels like Commander is a much better class.. Defensive Swap, Standard Bearer's Sacrifice, and Reactive Interference all seem like they should be on the Guardian.
Defensive Swap - This is such a Guardian's gimmick given to the 8 hit point class, switching out seems sensible for them instead of the Commander.
Standard Bearer's Sacrifice - Is it not a Guardian feat because it be too OP potentially on the Guardian with it's higher AC potential but then again Commander gets legendary DC...Definitely seels odd.
Reactive Interference - Seriously all three of these abilities just feel like Guardian feats. Which I think is odd that they gave them to Commander in hindsight.
It feels like Commander is a much better class.. Defensive Swap, Standard Bearer's Sacrifice, and Reactive Interference all seem like they should be on the Guardian.Defensive Swap - This is such a Guardian's gimmick given to the 8 hit point class, switching out seems sensible for them instead of the Commander.
Standard Bearer's Sacrifice - Is it not a Guardian feat because it be too OP potentially on the Guardian with it's higher AC potential but then again Commander gets legendary DC...Definitely seels odd.
Reactive Interference - Seriously all three of these abilities just feel like Guardian feats. Which I think is odd that they gave them to Commander in hindsight.
Reactive Interference definitely feels more guardian than commander, but I can see it being on both. Though, for the record, it's one of those slightly-generic melee-combat feats that really feels like it could fit on most martials.
Threat technique seems like it could have been expanded with prereq class feats to flush out styles.
Similar to the way barbarian instincts each have unique feats only available to that instinct.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Threat Technique feels more like a last minute addition and with the Alchemist sorta style proficiency or at the minimal slower progression it feels like the Damage one, Ferocious Vengeance is not the correct choice.
I do hope in the full release we see feats like Everstand Stance, Everstand Strike, Shield Wall, Shield Warden and Reflective Shield get added to Guardian, it be nice to be able to make a super invested shield martial.
Perhaps give them ways of giving Temporary Hit Poitns to their shield or make their hardness even greater?
I do hope in the full release we see feats like Everstand Stance, Everstand Strike, Shield Wall, Shield Warden and Reflective Shield get added to Guardian, it be nice to be able to make a super invested shield martial.
commander gets shield warden
But really, you already have block damage to adjacent ally as a reaction. Having a second wouldn't help.
I do hope in the full release we see feats like Everstand Stance, Everstand Strike, Shield Wall, Shield Warden and Reflective Shield get added to Guardian, it be nice to be able to make a super invested shield martial.commander gets shield warden
But really, you already have block damage to adjacent ally as a reaction. Having a second wouldn't help.
Sometimes you don't want to throw yourself into harms way and take damage yourself.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Please try to not make discussions in this topic. Remember:
Atten-shun, soldiers!
Please use this thread for mechanical or thematic feedback on the guardian.
Please 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 if you want to initiate a discussion about a suggestion, change or criticism. Please start another thread about it.
Just respond if you have a better alternative or want to extend the opinion.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I really love the class as it is. There are small issues (I also find that the penalty from Taunt is too harsh, a -1 would be far enough) but overall I really like it. I never thought Paizo would reduce Weapon Proficiency but it's a good idea to fit all the extra defensiveness the Guardian has over the Champion.
Overall, kudos for it.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Generally, I don't think the bonus to enemy needs to exist same with the more lowered attack progression.
If you remove the lower attack progression you just have a better Champion. The lower attack progression is why the Guardian can be tougher than a Champion, otherwise, it would be tougher than a Champion but as good at attacking, that'd be rather imbalanced.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Why is taunt a core feature of the class? Like what part of "you can be disrespectful to your enemies" is part of the fundamental thematics of "protector"?
Say I want to play a character who is in every way a Guardian, but because of their deep sense of honor doesn't see it as appropriate to disrespect their enemies. Should I just not use taunt?
Like could we reflavor it to be something like "challenge"? I don't really want to have to roleplay "annoying" when I don't want to.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
First impressions, it seems weak and the effects don't have many synergies.
First off "taunt" is a terrible name, it's an MMO term and will be divisive. Calling it "come and get me" would be better, describe it as lowering your guard to lure enemies in. I don't see a need for it to be an effect on an enemy, that makes it rough to use in the epic boss fights where it would be most thematic. Perhaps just make it an effect you put on yourself that effects any allies that are farther from the enemy in your direction, so you have a reason to be in front.
If you keep it an effect on the enemy then you need to change the wording from an effect that doesn't include you to an effect that excludes you. The debuff should still help allies around you even if your all getting the dragons fire breath, your still in the front taking the brunt of it for your allies.
Threat technique doesn't make any sense to me, either add a small amount of damage to your subpar martial abilities or take less crit damage. Neither of these are great and don't get expanded on, they are forgettable.
The core gameplay loop of the class feels lacking. You make yourself a good target and protect your allies but have rather poor defenses for keeping yourself up to protect others. Guardians are weak against focus fire, the thing they encourage. Even with a shield you don't protect as well as a champion. You can block all types of damage but your shield is weaker without a buff like shield ally. Right now might as well rename the class to Martyr as it seems to want to die for the group.
A few improvements would go a long way to making it feel like the tanky front man take damage guy that it seems to want to be. Either temp HP when you get hit, limiting the damage your shield can take or something to keep you alive in the front. It's fine to want to be hit, but you need to be able to take the hits. Even with shield block and legendary heavy armor enemies can still rather easily take you out nothing you or your team as everything damages you (if your always using your abilities), so this class needs to be better then everyone else at taking damage.
It needs something other then blocking and temp HP as well, those are great for low damage hits but this class needs to be able to better mitigate the effects of boss strikes and abilities.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The name "Come and Get Me" is already taken.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
You know there is a problem when a large number of people are suggestion the non-melee Guardian. It's as silly as a ranged Champion as it is just ineffective but Taunt is so powerful in this context that you really DON"T want to be hit for the 1-3 penalty it can deliver to a single enemy.
Quick Guardian Build -
Guardian - Long Bow, Long-Distant Taunt - Be the weird Guardian who uses Taunt to tick off the enemies and make it just a hassle to get to you, in fact be an Elf with 40 foot movement or invest into Monk for extra distance and just taunt, move like 50ft & shot your long bow or 100 ft for 2 movement actions.
As you can see you don't need heavy armor in this build as you'd be the backliner keeping allies safe by simply applying negatives to the enemies which is not what a Guardian should be prioritizing. When the Champion can out tank the Guardian who entire gimmick is Defense without magic the class needs some harsh revision.
Surviability and lack of mitigating non-physical damage or even ways of flanking when adjacent is all dragging the class down to being not very good.
To fix the ranged problem.
Two inserts.
- Enemies are immune to taunt for a short duration unless the guardian is within 5 ft of the enemy.
- subsequent uses of taunt have no AC penalty to the guardian against the same target.
So there will be one round of getting that attention but no more punishment after that. you can taunt at range and get that effect once but if your not within 5ft by either them coming to you or you going to them you cant keep taunting them.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I too want the Guardian to start being expert in armor, though the problem with that is how taunt works. If your AC is 2 ahead by virtue of being expert, then putting the target a +2 bonus when attacking you is effectively the same as targeting one of your allies with trained AC, since the attacker would be targeting the same DC, in a sense. This, effectively, doesn't really force the enemy to attack you, though thats were the -X penalty comes into play.
I agree with Angwa in that Taunt should impose a penalty without a save. Unlike an inventor, thaumaturge, or the like you have to use this feature every single turn, and if your feature has to be used every single turn and has a decent % of failing then you are creating an investigator / swashbuckler situation and I certainly don't want that. Make the effect a +1/-2 if you are adjacent to the target or adjancent to whoever the target wants to attack, or a +2/-1 if you aren't adjacent to either of them. This would encourage a more up close playstyle which is what the guardian fails at the moment and feel a little more reliable by avoiding the save against the effect.
I think its optimal if you "give up" your +2 to AC from being expert and effectively give it to your allies against the target of your taunt. This effectively makes your AC to be "normal" (though it would scale faster at higher levels) and turn your allies into "experts" on their respective armor.
Why is taunt a core feature of the class? Like what part of "you can be disrespectful to your enemies" is part of the fundamental thematics of "protector"?
Because they want a Guardian to have a Tank mechanic but they don't want to use that name
I too want the Guardian to start being expert in armor, though the problem with that is how taunt works. If your AC is 2 ahead by virtue of being expert, then putting the target a +2 bonus when attacking you is effectively the same as targeting one of your allies with trained AC, since the attacker would be targeting the same DC.
Given that you don't really have significantly improved other defences, you have to ask at this point what is the point of the class? Why does it exist?
From what I can see so far the only cost you are putting on the enemy is the action cost of moving to hit you. I mean that is something. But conceptually suddenly the Guardian becomes a mobile defender who hides from the enemy, and the imagery of the class is very strange.
I mean, I don't disagree with you, I said in other posts that I currently don't see a reason to have this class existing when the only unique things about the class could instead be feats in an archetype, but its not like the concept is innately flawed and class about this couldn't exist.
In its current state, sure, but it can be worked into something that works.
I like the idea of the guardian not putting all its eggs in one basket. They are defending the party in multiple ways.
-Heavy armor and a shield with training progression at 5,11,15
-They are both reducing damage to themselves(armor spec and greater version) and others(Intercept strike)
-They are reducing enemy accuracy with taunt (needs to be changed to make getting into 5ft of enemy and enemy getting into 5ft of guardian incentivized)
-level 7 gives an extra reaction for guardian reactions in chassis so more strikes intercepted.
-Really like intercept Foe giving allies +2 AC but would love to be able to eventually free action in intercept strike when intercepting foe.
The interaction of these chassis abilities and feats just with the Guardian alone can add up to the party taking less damage.
A taunted foe attacking an ally can also be hindered by intercept foe making a swing of 3 to 5 depending on the taunt success for that strike to miss.
The question I think is how much is enough from one character.
An early game turn might include a taunt a stride(positioning for a intercept strike) and a strike. Raise shield might be important to use instead of strike sometimes so is a turn where the Guardian doesn't strike worth doing? is this character stopping enough damage to the party that not striking in a turn is a good idea sometimes?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
To fix the ranged problem.
Two inserts.
- Enemies are immune to taunt for a short duration unless the guardian is within 5 ft of the enemy.
- subsequent uses of taunt have no AC penalty to the guardian against the same target.So there will be one round of getting that attention but no more punishment after that. you can taunt at range and get that effect once but if your not within 5ft by either them coming to you or you going to them you cant keep taunting them.
So your solution is to just kick em in the balls if they don't have 100% melee uptime? Surely we can do better than that. Personally I actually like the ranged build as an idea and World's Most Annoying Archer is more of a character I'd want to play than the default Guardian. I think we can do something to make melee more appealing without just saying "well you're not allowed to do that" to ranged builds.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
People please avoid to discuss our suggestions in this thread. Let's keep this thread clear to allow the designers analise them without need to constantly being distracted by internal discussions and comments.
Have to say, I love the idea of incentivising enemies to hit you, forcing them to choose between two unfavorable options, take a penalty or hit the tough one. Don't know that it's working as intended yet, but the basic concept I prefer a hundred times to a mind-control taunt that forces a monster to forget everything else going on in the fight and attack the toughest looking one. I also like that it keys off Will because it feels natural to me that more self-aware enemies are more likely to resist. The fact that it works on everything but a crit save and thus has some effect 90% of the time mitigates the odds of your taunt having no effect.
I'm not terribly fond of the name "Taunt" admittedly. This talk of reflavouring it to a Challenge does have some appeal to me, even if it seems like a "challenge" mechanic seems like it could be its own fleshed out concept, not inherently something thag screams Guardian to me (same problem as Taunt, really, but any Guadian does need some way to gain attention...). I have no real love lost for MMO mechanics, but I admit the way 4e employs similar concepts do entice me more than a little, so I wouldn't for a second mind borrowing things that worked well over there for this purpose.
Personally I actually like the ranged build as an idea and World's Most Annoying Archer is more of a character I'd want to play than the default Guardian.
Agreed. Actually I have no interest in the 'default' guardian but I wouldn't mind giving the archer version a try.
Armor break is kind of similar to fighting with armor spikes.
Could armor spikes be introduced to the game with this class?
Also the guardian could have the threat technique class choice become more flushed out building on a tauntish action in ways that make for different playstyles.
The ferocious vengeance would be the armor spike guardian. The path could get the extra damage to taunted targets and can choose to get a path specific feat that makes them good at combining armor spikes with their weapon strikes for any attack against a taunted target as if youve made the enemy more reckless and take advantage of it with armor spikes. Also this path might have a grab and spike feat. idea being this guardian takes advantage of taunted foes to put on the hurt but has the current level of defenses which is not much in terms of damage mitigation for the guardian. This might be the guardian that takes raise haft and reactive strike. Heavy flail and spiked armor sounds pretty cool but make all the armor spike stuff opt in from path specific feats so its not the only vengeful concept playable. they should probably have a more melee oriented taunt than the current version.
The mitigate harm path would be the protector that makes the party take less damage because they are there to stop it. Maybe they don't taunt and instead warn/bolster ally giving a circumstance bonus to ac against a designated foe. This would be a strait +2 no roll no negative to AC for the guardian. Further feats can build on this to increase the number of foes and then later the number of allies. So attacking the guardian might not be incentivized but they dont compromise their own defense and make attacking the warned ally less desirable. This path wants to stay close to allies and would rely more on intercept strikes to protect allies that the +2 isnt enough to protect and building on staying close = good could be part of this path in later feats.
lastly it seems like the idea of an "annoying" ranged harrier style guardian that makes wearing medium armor more appealing for the extra mobility and maybe emphasis thrown weapon and shield combat hit and run tactics? the paths concept though should each have a different version of threat technique and that choice gives them the style of incentivizing not attacking allies unique to the path. Current taunt fits here as several have pointed out. Im not convinced that full range bow users fit this class concept at all though but it could be an opportunity to make thrown weapon and shield together shine.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Dropping this here in this thread for convenience's sake, we haven't playtested yet but here's my first impression as someone who plays an awful lot of tanks in an awful lot of different games (and types of games), expect to see one more post from me in this thread for a post playtest follow up, this is partially based on some number crunching we've been doing, and it's modified as a result from what was said in a different thread the other day:
Boss-tier encounters (PL+3) with Moderate Will progression are going to Succeed vs. Taunt on 75% of rolls, which means they'll be hitting even the Guardian's high AC with 50/50 accuracy *on their second attack* - and they'll still be critting the Guardian's allies approximately 40% of the time (which is still a very unhappily high occurance of critical hits.) The accuracy on the second attack gets even better if they have an Agile secondary weapon.
(Thanks to WillDigForFood who posted this on my discord)
Not having a dedicated healer in the context of the above would very much scare me. I think that the tuning on the Guardian's 'hit me presence' and tankiness might be off, it's vital for a tank to have a catch-22 loop where the enemy neither wants to hit the tank because they're the least efficient thing to hit, but also needs to hit the tank because otherwise the tank is too annoying, right now the Guardian looks like it doesn't do either quite well enough-- its hits are ignorable on above level creatures, the penalty from taunt is small, and worse due to being a check, and hits and crits from those creatures will still rock it's world. The core design I think is excellent, but my thoughts is that numbers need to be moved--
Switch Key Stat to Constitution, but give them the same attack proficiency progression as the Barbarian and various other martials. This evens out their to-hit to make it more consistent but they're actually still the worst hitter of the martials since they'd have Inventor to-hit with no overdrive to make up for it, nerfing their strength slightly via the Key-stat change has a knock on benefit for the possibility of Dex Guardians, if someone really wants to do that. They'd still have a marginally better attack bonus than the Warpriest across the board this way. As another user on this forum suggested, just let them use Constitution to fulfill strength requirements on Armor.
The Above Change would offer +1 Extra HP per level from making Key Stat Constitution and will help their survivability which I can't stress enough, needs to be meaty if they're expected to perform their Intercept Strike against boss types at all and don't have a dedicated healer to bail them out.
Make Success, Failure, and Critical Failure on the Save for Taunt all -2 to hit your allies, and each save result different durations for the Taunt, I'm thinking of One round/Two Rounds/Three Rounds durations. that way you only sometimes need to renew it every turn, you're never stuck with a -1 penalty to hitting your allies (which is too little) though you can just fail entirely, which I think is fine.
Make Furious Vengeance baseline to taunt and dump Mitigate Harm entirely-- instead of having Mitigate Harm at all you should just get rid of the penalty to your own AC via taunt. Even if it technically helps encourage them to hit you, people hate it psychologically. Baseline Furious Vengeance helps the Guardian put their best foot forward in terms of exerting pressure, and between the extra hp and the lack of AC penalty on taunt, they should be defensively coherent. There is a knock on benefit that FV reduces the odds that the combat turns into a slog as a result of a Guardian by just a bit more.
I'll note here that I don't think Guardian needs subclasses. I think a Monk/Fighter model is appropriate, where it comes from your class feat selection-- enabling backline tanking through feats for instance. That said, we probably need showier feats, I'd look for 'specific technique' feats to strengthen the class's favor and give additional opportunities for the player to flex their pressure/tankiness, more moves that compress taunt into different things would be good as well, like a melee hit.
Note that these changes also simplify the class's math load a bit by making you juggle fewer numbers and modifiers overall.
Edit: Oh yeah, I'd like a feat that triggers fear in a target based off Intercept, and how well you take the hit.
Taunt, 1 action.
Until the end of your next turn, the target takes a -1 penalty to attack rolls and DCs against creatures other than you.
If the target took hostile action against you last round, including Intercept Strike, you can Sustain this, increasing the penalty by -1 (max -3).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Taunt, 1 action.
Until the end of your next turn, the target takes a -1 penalty to attack rolls and DCs against creatures other than you.
If the target took hostile action against you last round, including Intercept Strike, you can Sustain this, increasing the penalty by -1 (max -3).
Would make more sense to me if the penalty increased if they didn't come at you. Otherwise it creates a situation where the enemy never wants to initiate at you and just eat the -1 to everyone else that you have to reapply every round.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Would make more sense to me if the penalty increased if they didn't come at you. Otherwise it creates a situation where the enemy never wants to initiate at you and just eat the -1 to everyone else that you have to reapply every round.Taunt, 1 action.
Until the end of your next turn, the target takes a -1 penalty to attack rolls and DCs against creatures other than you.
If the target took hostile action against you last round, including Intercept Strike, you can Sustain this, increasing the penalty by -1 (max -3).
Then you could just Taunt and run.
Which (IMO) is the core issue with the current Taunt and many of the other suggestion.My suggestion makes you want to both Taunt and Intercept the enemy. Or at least that's the goal.