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I played as a Commander in a playtest that had a Guardian (level 7), and I GMed a playtest with a Guardian in it (level 12). My big issue with the Guardian is that their base toolkit, Intercept Strike and Taunt, seem to have a lot more tension with each other and the Guardian's overall gameplan than they should.
Context on the playtests themselves:
- The level 7 playtest was Moderate -> rest -> Moderate -> rest -> Severe -> Extreme -> TPK.
- The level 12 playtest was chain of 3x Low/Moderate encounters with no rests -> sleep for the night -> Trivial -> rest -> Extreme -> we called off the session early but it looked like it was heading towards a TPK.
To preface: I think Intercept Strike is very powerful. I think it actually might be noticeably stronger than Champion's Reaction in the right party composition (I think Champion does a better job protecting midliners while Guardian does a better job protecting glass cannon frontliners). The biggest reason it is so powerful is that it can, as a Reaction, unfocus your enemies' fire with no form of Save whatsoever, which isn't really something any other class can achieve. It's also incredible at protecting allies from abilities like Grab, Knockdown, and Push.
My problem is that it feels like the most optimal combat loop for a Guardian in a boss fight is to then NOT Taunt any enemy, and then when the enemy Attacks you friend, you should let them make their first Strike against that friend, then Intercept the second Strike to split that damage. This feels like jumping through too many hoops to get the full power of your feature, and it also leads to some very distinctly not-dynamic gameplay because the Guardian feels pressured into standing next to a friend at all times (especially if that friend is a Bodyguard charge). I would like to see Intercept Strike's power budget redistributed a bit: a longer range on it coupled with the actual effect being a little less potent would be nice.
Another point on this issue is that Taunt and Intercept Strike feel at odds with how they fit into the party. Taunt feels like it is all about focusing the fire onto yourself, while Intercept Strike is best used to split the damage your party takes. This can cause a weird clash with the party healer's goals, because dedicated healers often prefer to focus on healing one character with very powerful healing options, while parties that don't have dedicated healers (but have one or two "off healers") prefer that damage be split so people spend less time in critical condition and thus the off healers get more uptime on non-healing stuff. The tension between these makes it feel like you have two mandatory class features: one fights with your party and one synergizes with it.
Some more thoughts that do not need quite as much detail as the first bit:
- Hampering Sweeps feels like it disobeys the game's overall design principles and needs a change. I can't really think of any ability that just locks an enemy in place and gives them very little recourse (even the infamously powerful Wall of Stone is something that an enemy can break through faster than a Guardian's own AC and HP pool). It seems especially powerful on Fighters and Champions dipping into the Guardian Archetype.
- Shields feel mandatory on Guardians. I would like more support for two-handed Guardians, since Shield Block feels mandatory.
- Taunt needs different templating than "hostile action that does not include you as a target". In our level 7 playtest we fought against a gug and the GM ruled its Furious Claws ability as including the Guardian as a target so it had no -1/2/3 for its Strikes against the rest of us but still benefited from the +2 for its Strike against the Guardian. That feels odd.
- Ferocious Vengeance feels underpowered compared to Mitigate Harm, especially with the Guardian's weaker weapon progression and extremely busy Action economy. I would prefer if it either passively damaged enemies similar to Needle of Vengeance (the lesson of vengeance focus spell) or gave them a Reaction Strike similar to the Paladin's Retributive Strike.
- There are a bunch of Feats that feel very below the power curve for the Guardian. Shoulder Check, Unkind Shove, Armor Break, Raise Haft, etc are a few examples.
- The class needs more variety in ways to protect the backline. Intercept Foe is decent, and Mobile Protection needs a buff, but more tools would be nice too. Hampering Sweeps is likely the solution here: perhaps having it cover more of an area but allowing enemies Reflex Saves to escape would be appropriate, bringing it in line with Winter Sleet and Tangled Forest Stance in performance.
- The class needs the Quick Shield Block Feat in addition to the Quick Intercept Feat in my opinion. The class generally just needs more reactivity because its own turn's action economy seems very busy.
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- Taunt needs different templating than "hostile action that does not include you as a target". In our level 7 playtest we fought against a gug and the GM ruled its Furious Claws ability as including the Guardian as a target so it had no -1/2/3 for its Strikes against the rest of us but still benefited from the +2 for its Strike against the Guardian. That feels odd.
Odd because it's very clearly incorrect. Furious Claws gives you four strikes. The strikes that don't target the guardian are by definition not targeting the guardian.
Odd because it's very clearly incorrect. Furious Claws gives you four strikes. The strikes that don't target the guardian are by definition not targeting the guardian.- Taunt needs different templating than "hostile action that does not include you as a target". In our level 7 playtest we fought against a gug and the GM ruled its Furious Claws ability as including the Guardian as a target so it had no -1/2/3 for its Strikes against the rest of us but still benefited from the +2 for its Strike against the Guardian. That feels odd.
I agree ultimately, but "clearly" may be too strong if one thinks of the larger umbrella action as including the Guardian. The reason I do agree is because the larger action doesn't target until broken down into the smaller actions. This action gave the Gug these actions which now you target. But if say, it was phrased as "Strike all in this region" (maybe even "...and up to 4 enemies"), then I'd disagree with you.
That doesn't redeem Taunt though! AoEs are commonplace.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Odd because it's very clearly incorrect. Furious Claws gives you four strikes. The strikes that don't target the guardian are by definition not targeting the guardian.- Taunt needs different templating than "hostile action that does not include you as a target". In our level 7 playtest we fought against a gug and the GM ruled its Furious Claws ability as including the Guardian as a target so it had no -1/2/3 for its Strikes against the rest of us but still benefited from the +2 for its Strike against the Guardian. That feels odd.
I don't find it clear. The Taunt feature says "takes a -1 circumstance penalty to attack rolls and DCs when taking a hostile action that doesn't include you as a target."
Furious Claws says "The gug makes up to four Strikes, each against a different target". You can validly argue that each Strike individually counts as a hostile action that doesn't include the Guardian, but it's just as valid to say Furious Claws as a whole counts as a hostile action (or well, activity) that does include the Guardian as a target.
If the Guardian gets published this way I would likely always GM the former way, but in the playtest our table agreed that the second way made just as much sense. If that is not the intention, then I still believe the wording should be changed to clarify this more explicitly.
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I have to agree. The Subordinate Actions in this case the up to 4 different Strikes in different enemies are still an effect of a single Activity (Furious Claws) and "using an activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions" (Subordinate Actions -Source Player Core pg. 415) so I'm not sure that we can consider each Strike as an different action for Taunt penalty instead of all they being part of the effect of the main Activity (Furious Claws).
So once that this activity includes the Guardian it can be read that is unqualified as "a hostile action that doesn’t include you as a target".
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I mean for one thing you don't even target anyone with Furious Claws. It's an activity that gives you strikes.
To Strike the guardian and then claim all your future strikes get to ignore the penalty is not at all in line in the rules and feels somewhat malicious.
Hostile action doesn't mean hostile activity, it means hostile action.
I know I'm pushing it a bit here but you don't target anyone with a fireball too the people that are in the AoE for some strange reason when it explodes! :P
Jokes a part I still think that it's unclear enough so both could be valid enough. Maybe this Taunt mechanic could be clarified better in final version. But honestly I just hope that it would be removed from class at all in place of a more interesting and useful mechanic.
Hostile action doesn't mean hostile activity, it means hostile action.
We have a general problem with the term action when we talk about activities. For example most spells are activities so they are invalid for the penalty once they aren't actions? So in this case almost all dmg spells will get the bonus vs guardian but will be unaffected by the penalty.
Usually when we see a reference to an Action this also is valid for Activities.
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Hostile action doesn't mean hostile activity, it means hostile action.
Hostile action does not exclude activities from it. In fact even the rules for hostile actions uses Fireball, an example of the Cast a Spell activity as its example.
By your logic, wouldn't a Breath Weapon also not count towards the Guardian's Taunt targeting restrictions, whether it included your party members or not.
Hostile action doesn't mean hostile activity, it means hostile action.
Hostile action does not exclude activities from it. In fact even the rules for hostile actions uses Fireball, an example of the Cast a Spell activity as its example.
By your logic, wouldn't a Breath Weapon also not count towards the Guardian's Taunt targeting restrictions, whether it included your party members or not.
I think you are right in saying fireball is hostile and that using it with the guardian in the area of effect is a hostile action affecting the guardian but It never can become a hostile action targeting the guardian technically.
Ferocious vengeance asks for a hostile action including the guardian as its target. Its a different standard than just using a hostile action that affects the guardian.
So I would say aoe spells will still trigger Furious vengeance unless they are the kind that choose targets and the guardian is one of them.
Its a technicality and probably not RAI. but that looks RAW
Odd because it's very clearly incorrect. Furious Claws gives you four strikes. The strikes that don't target the guardian are by definition not targeting the guardian.- Taunt needs different templating than "hostile action that does not include you as a target". In our level 7 playtest we fought against a gug and the GM ruled its Furious Claws ability as including the Guardian as a target so it had no -1/2/3 for its Strikes against the rest of us but still benefited from the +2 for its Strike against the Guardian. That feels odd.
I agree ultimately, but "clearly" may be too strong if one thinks of the larger umbrella action as including the Guardian. The reason I do agree is because the larger action doesn't target until broken down into the smaller actions. This action gave the Gug these actions which now you target. But if say, it was phrased as "Strike all in this region" (maybe even "...and up to 4 enemies"), then I'd disagree with you.
That doesn't redeem Taunt though! AoEs are commonplace.
I'm now swinging the other direction: the Gug made a hostile choice, and that choice involved attacking the Guardian.
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I'm now swinging the other direction: the Gug made a hostile choice, and that choice involved attacking the Guardian.Odd because it's very clearly incorrect. Furious Claws gives you four strikes. The strikes that don't target the guardian are by definition not targeting the guardian.- Taunt needs different templating than "hostile action that does not include you as a target". In our level 7 playtest we fought against a gug and the GM ruled its Furious Claws ability as including the Guardian as a target so it had no -1/2/3 for its Strikes against the rest of us but still benefited from the +2 for its Strike against the Guardian. That feels odd.
I agree ultimately, but "clearly" may be too strong if one thinks of the larger umbrella action as including the Guardian. The reason I do agree is because the larger action doesn't target until broken down into the smaller actions. This action gave the Gug these actions which now you target. But if say, it was phrased as "Strike all in this region" (maybe even "...and up to 4 enemies"), then I'd disagree with you.
That doesn't redeem Taunt though! AoEs are commonplace.
And then the gug made three more choices that don't.
To make it easier to spot the difference. Swipe would not activate it. Flurry would.
Swipe is hitting both targets with one attack but they are both targets.
Flurry is providing two strikes. First one targets guardian no activation yet. Second one targets something not guardian activation..
If flurry is done the other way. First targets ally, furious vengeance activates. This happens before the end of the activity. Infact intercept strike could trigger before then end of the activity.l when the monk is targeting different pcs with each strike.
If the guardian had paladins retributive strike that would get the furious vengeance benefit in the strike they take because the enemy made a strike that triggered retributive strike and that strike didnt include the guardian.
And then the gug made three more choices that don't.I'm now swinging the other direction: the Gug made a hostile choice, and that choice involved attacking the Guardian.Odd because it's very clearly incorrect. Furious Claws gives you four strikes. The strikes that don't target the guardian are by definition not targeting the guardian.- Taunt needs different templating than "hostile action that does not include you as a target". In our level 7 playtest we fought against a gug and the GM ruled its Furious Claws ability as including the Guardian as a target so it had no -1/2/3 for its Strikes against the rest of us but still benefited from the +2 for its Strike against the Guardian. That feels odd.
I agree ultimately, but "clearly" may be too strong if one thinks of the larger umbrella action as including the Guardian. The reason I do agree is because the larger action doesn't target until broken down into the smaller actions. This action gave the Gug these actions which now you target. But if say, it was phrased as "Strike all in this region" (maybe even "...and up to 4 enemies"), then I'd disagree with you.
That doesn't redeem Taunt though! AoEs are commonplace.
But the only other choice that Furious Claws gives to Gug is not attack. What in last analysis means to not use the activity at all once that use it against a single target doesn't make sense.
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Hostile action doesn't mean hostile activity, it means hostile action.
Hostile action does not exclude activities from it. In fact even the rules for hostile actions uses Fireball, an example of the Cast a Spell activity as its example.
By your logic, wouldn't a Breath Weapon also not count towards the Guardian's Taunt targeting restrictions, whether it included your party members or not.
I think you are right in saying fireball is hostile and that using it with the guardian in the area of effect is a hostile action affecting the guardian but It never can become a hostile action targeting the guardian technically.
Ferocious vengeance asks for a hostile action including the guardian as its target. Its a different standard than just using a hostile action that affects the guardian.
So I would say aoe spells will still trigger Furious vengeance unless they are the kind that choose targets and the guardian is one of them.
Its a technicality and probably not RAI. but that looks RAW
I certainly missed this RAW problem in my playtest. Many area of effect spells and othrr area effects don't technically target. This should be clarified.
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It's also incredible at protecting allies from abilities like Grab, Knockdown, and Push.
I don't think it does, though? Intercept Strike redirects the damage. Contrary to the name, it does not actually intercept the strike or change any other effect. Even if you prevent all the damage, the condition required for grab is "a successful strike", not "dealing damage to the target."
RAW right now, the Guardian takes the damage but the original target is still the one getting Grabbed/etc. I don't think that outcome makes much sense, but there it is.
Changing Intercept Strike so it does what the name implies it does and says "you become the target of the strike" would make the outcome a lot more logically coherent. As an added bonus it also makes it more distinct from Champion.
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I would rewrite Guardian Armor to be: When you are in Medium Armor you gain 1+level Resistance to all Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage. When wearing Heavy Armor, this becomes 2+level. In addition, you can rest normally in medium or heavy armor.2+level is an absolutely massive amount of DR to have always on and will drastically swing encounters. Cosmos Oracles get half that and my GM still finds it annoying just how much damage I can stop.
Yes, it is a decent amount of DR. I'm proposing it for a damage-impaired martial class whose role is to take hits for other characters. The real question should be, I would think, why does a caster class, who should be in the back line, need 1+level physical resistance? I don't think Cosmos Oracle is intended to take hits for others. I'm not suggesting taking it away from Cosmos Oracle, but it does fit Guardian's role to have DR that matters. At the moment it does not.
Yes, it is a decent amount of DR. I'm proposing it for a damage-impaired martial class whose role is to take hits for other characters. The real question should be, I would think, why does a caster class, who should be in the back line, need 1+level physical resistance? I don't think Cosmos Oracle is intended to take hits for others. I'm not suggesting taking it away from Cosmos Oracle, but it does fit Guardian's role to have DR that matters. At the moment it does not.I would rewrite Guardian Armor to be: When you are in Medium Armor you gain 1+level Resistance to all Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage. When wearing Heavy Armor, this becomes 2+level. In addition, you can rest normally in medium or heavy armor.2+level is an absolutely massive amount of DR to have always on and will drastically swing encounters. Cosmos Oracles get half that and my GM still finds it annoying just how much damage I can stop.
IMO, I would rather have THP instead of damage resistance. It works better against the big bad a bunch of small attacks.
Though maybe you can pick the one you want as a subclass.
Behemoth Guard: you gain THP each turn.
Armor Guard: you gain some THP and some resistance.
Swarm Guard: you gain resistance.
Personally I find "temporary hit points" clunky, and would rather see them disappear as a function of the game completely rather than see *more* uses of them.
As Lia points out, as "dice" aren't used for HP generation, why not use a d14? The same was said in the Rules Lawyer's playtest video, and *not* by either one of the Guardian players.
In my own playtest, I essentially just stand adjacent to my allies and soak damage. And given the ubiquity of crits in PF2 from the many actions of the foes, there is a definite limit to that.
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I think the reason we won't have a 14HP/Level on this class is that Paizo probably ran the numbers on a Barbarian with the most HP possible at higher levels during design stages (Probably a dwarf packed to the gills with HP enhancements) and evaluated the impact on the fun aspect of the game. The same with monster HP.
While it may seem an obvious choice, giving a class a ton of HP and Resistances on top of that runs the problem of bloating the game too much at higher levels to the point of turning the game into a warped version of the HP-bloated DnD5e.
I do, however, agree the class needs more survivability. Being able to shore up critical hits is a good option. Maybe forcing minimum damage on certain circumstances?
Another thing this class lacks is ways to avoid extra effects from critical hits, not just the damage. This would make the class incredibly unique and also really good against monsters with rider effects on their criticals.
Honestly, I don't think focusing solely on making this class "tankier" is the way to go. It needs to have more proactive things to do on its turn. Even if it's just having set up actions that enhance their reactions. For example, there's a Shae ability that could open up an interesting niche for the Guardian:
Bide [two-actions] The shae prepares to take action against their foes, watching their opponent and waiting for the right opportunity to respond. The shae gains a second reaction until the start of their next turn, though they still can't use more than one reaction on the same triggering action.
Abilities that can serve as set up. As long as the Guardian is doing something in their own turns instead of just getting close and waiting to use their reactions and hoping they trigger. The Champion works because it's a dynamic class that happens to have an Amazing reaction, not a purely reactive class that only has their turn to respond to the enemies. Quite the opposite, actually, as a Champion player I actually feel like I don't have enough actions to do what I want, while with the Guardian, my player found the "Routine" quite fast. Maybe was the level we were playing, maybe it wasn't, but I really don't see this class doing much more than Stride into position, taunt, raise shield, wait to get whacked in the face.
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Survivability would be perfectly fine if they could actually use their AC instead of dropping it in the garbage for Intercept Strike and Taunt.
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Survivability would be perfectly fine if they could actually use their AC instead of dropping it in the garbage for Intercept Strike and Taunt.
This. Let me use my good AC for Intercept Strike instead of eating a crit from someone with lousy AC and the problem gets a lot better real fast.
"You have the best AC progression in the game but your signature class abilities either bypass that or weaken it" is a very strange design direction and just doesn't feel good as a player.
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Survivability would be perfectly fine if they could actually use their AC instead of dropping it in the garbage for Intercept Strike and Taunt.This. Let me use my good AC for Intercept Strike instead of eating a crit from someone with lousy AC and the problem gets a lot better real fast.
"You have the best AC progression in the game but your signature class abilities either bypass that or weaken it" is a very strange design direction and just doesn't feel good as a player.
That's why Guardians having Defensive Swap is a great choice.
If they have Defensive Swap and a class-based resistance that is better than armor proficiency (as a big advocator of having such a feature before it became a thing, I've been nothing but disappointed with the implementation), then we get an improved Intercept Strike that enables the Guardian to use their high AC to avoid being hit and if they are, they have the resistances to withstand the hit. Win win.If such resistance progresses at a rate close to shield block, it's possible that you can even enable Shield-less Guardians, which is something that they are incredibly forced into right now due to a lack of Subclasses and distinct playstyle within their options.
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Right now the guardian themeing (abilities dont all actually accomplish themeing yet) seems to be along all of these lines.
Italicized themeing. You are a big suit of armor that acts as extra hp for your allies.
During encounters the example of what a guardian does is stay close to vulnerable allies and take hits for them while taunting. Thats it.
During social encounters you....ok not much but you can be buddy buddy with other solders?
While exploring you remain vigilant? How do they do this with low perception?
In downtime you are stuck repairing your broken gear. Better have picked up crafting or youll be paying others to do it.
Extra themeing you might and others probably
Suppose to be able to stand up to insurmountable odds? well youll do better when it happens to use attacks that fall under your armor spec? sort of but not when you use your intercept.
Constantly reminding allies you dropped to zero last battle so they could get the kill.
has trust issues
people appreciate your armor more than they appreciate you?
everyone thinks somethings wrong with you wondering why you run around taking an ac and dc penalty
But others feel safer knowing you will die first
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Right now the guardian themeing (abilities dont all actually accomplish themeing yet) seems to be along all of these lines.
Italicized themeing. You are a big suit of armor that acts as extra hp for your allies.
During encounters the example of what a guardian does is stay close to vulnerable allies and take hits for them while taunting. Thats it.
During social encounters you....ok not much but you can be buddy buddy with other solders?
While exploring you remain vigilant? How do they do this with low perception?
In downtime you are stuck repairing your broken gear. Better have picked up crafting or youll be paying others to do it.
Extra themeing you might and others probably
Suppose to be able to stand up to insurmountable odds? well youll do better when it happens to use attacks that fall under your armor spec? sort of but not when you use your intercept.
Constantly reminding allies you dropped to zero last battle so they could get the kill.
has trust issues
people appreciate your armor more than they appreciate you?
everyone thinks somethings wrong with you wondering why you run around taking an ac and dc penalty
But others feel safer knowing you will die first
In short, Guardians have a big "Running from a Bear more slowly than your friends" energy.
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Should the guardian get to apply damage to anything that damages it with an unarmed strike or melee weapon (within 5 ft) equal to its armor spec resistance value?
It could be a threat technique call it spiked armor retaliation or something.
It would work with intercept strike or attacks directed at the guardian directly.
This would make Armor spec matter more for a guardian and would be the kind of thing other classes wouldnt be able to poach.
I was actually thinking a similar thing too! Porcupining (Thorns/Retribution/etc..) makes sense especially if we think about CRPGs.
However, as I was messing with the idea, I ran into a design issue due to this being a TTRPG: Porcupining is meant to be a deterrent from attacking someone and that's opposite of what the Guardian's role.
Experiences:
Witch's Needle of Vengeance - Punishing others for attacking someone is meant to deter them from doing so. Taking damage is a pretty big incentive to not continue.
Nature Domain's Vibrant Thorns - Similar case, damaging those who attack you should deter them from attacking you. Personally, I find it more of a Cloistered Cleric's defensive ability (1A cast, lasts the entire fight, and you can use your Heal Font to amplify it). A Warpriest could get some use out of it too for punishing folks going after the healer. Champion, it does have tension, but the Champion's reaction + Lay on Hands just makes it frustrating for enemies to not target the Champion.
With the current kit of Playtest Guardian, it's already too good at deterring attacks against it (best AC, use of Shield/Shield Block, innate resistances). Even Taunt isn't a strong enough incentive to attack the Guardian. Having the porcupine damage makes the Guardian less valuable of a target.
Conclusion: HOWEVER, attaching it to Intercept Strike DOES seem like a good idea. If we can make enemies NOT want to attack our allies because Intercept Strike is just too dangerous would be nice! (I also think Bodyguard should be a baseline feature for ALL Intercept type abilities).
Between attacking a heavily armored person with their shield-raised, or trying to attack the "fragile" Wizard...while knowing that the heavily armored person is just going to slam into place, hurt me, and also make it a nuisance to hurt that Wizard, I'd rather just contend with the Guardian instead.
I'm starting to become less concerned with the guardian taunt actually getting enemies to change their minds. I would just like to see the guardian make things worse for enemies no matter what they choose.
Take intercept strike, right now it is strait up intervention. enemy can choose whatever they want but if the guardian wants one strike is going to the guardian. I think adding in also take some damage from armor spikes no matter what they choose would be cool and allows the guardian to contribute to ending the fight in their own way doing the things they already would be doing to help the party.Those caster classes with thorns like abilities are certainly doing what you mentioned. I think the goal for armor spikes on the guardian is a bit different. Its not deterent, its how the class can do damage. Guardian unlike those casters doesnt have a full range of spellcasting to throw out to help end the fight so limiting it to only intercept strike also limits how much damage output a guardian is able to contribute.
One thing though is theming on armor spikes would make it only one type of guardian that gets to have thorns and honestly if there are other paths for threat techniques they would really have to step up to compare to thorns coming from armor specs resistance value.
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The thorns idea is interesting and I like it. My question would be how would you implement it so that it could not be poached by Champions, Fighters, or others via Guardian Dedication?
The thorns idea is interesting and I like it. My question would be how would you implement it so that it could not be poached by Champions, Fighters, or others via Guardian Dedication?
without Defensive Swap or similar, thorns won't do as much.
But I still see it as a subclass thing. Not everyone will want to play a porcupine.
As a threat technique it would be like a hunters edge for ranger.
But yet you can poach Champion Reaction.
But yet you can poach Champion Reaction.
Taunt and Intercept strike would probably be poachable, but threat techniques might not be.
Also, poaching a Reaction, which is fighting for use with your other Reactions on a martial that might want it is one thing, as you tend to only have one to use each round, so getting more gives flexibility without a power increase.
But, the thorns-like ability described above read, to me at least, like a passive, and so making it poachable would be problematic if it was added as a way to differentiate Guardian from Champion or Fighter. Threat Technique, as others have said, could be the way to go.
Also, poaching a Reaction, which is fighting for use with your other Reactions on a martial that might want it is one thing, as you tend to only have one to use each round, so getting more gives flexibility without a power increase.
But, the thorns-like ability described above read, to me at least, like a passive, and so making it poachable would be problematic if it was added as a way to differentiate Guardian from Champion or Fighter. Threat Technique, as others have said, could be the way to go.
In theory, sure. But there is a surprisingly large number of classes that lack a good built-in Reaction.
Not just the spellcasters either, even some of the oddball martials like Investigator and Alchemist are absurdly denied in the Reaction department.
For a huge range of PCs, poaching a "many times per fight" Reaction from somewhere is *the* de-facto way to gain a power spike, as those Reactions would otherwise be completely unspent.
Also, poaching a Reaction, which is fighting for use with your other Reactions on a martial that might want it is one thing, as you tend to only have one to use each round, so getting more gives flexibility without a power increase.
But, the thorns-like ability described above read, to me at least, like a passive, and so making it poachable would be problematic if it was added as a way to differentiate Guardian from Champion or Fighter. Threat Technique, as others have said, could be the way to go.
In theory, sure. But there is a surprisingly large number of classes that lack a good built-in Reaction.
Not just the spellcasters either, even some of the oddball martials like Investigator and Alchemist are absurdly denied in the Reaction department.
For a huge range of PCs, poaching a "many times per fight" Reaction from somewhere is *the* de-facto way to gain a power spike, as those Reactions would otherwise be completely unspent.
Gating the reaction to level 6 and having str and con of +2 for the dedication would be sufficient balance for the intercept strike.
Reactive strike is level 4 and fighter needs +2 str and dex.But this reaction is closer in power to a paladins reaction so level 6 is appropriate for poaching.
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I almost wonder if Taunt should be a reaction. If the enemy makes a hostile action that doesn't include you, you spend your reaction to penalize their accuracy/DCs for the rest of their turn.
Of course this then is competing with Intercept Strike, but it would give you a reaction to use to protect allies further away from you.
Possibly taunt as a thing that empowers reactions? Like, if an enemy makes an attack and it's taunted, then the protective reactions you take in response get some sort of buff.
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Possibly taunt as a thing that empowers reactions? Like, if an enemy makes an attack and it's taunted, then the protective reactions you take in response get some sort of buff.I almost wonder if Taunt should be a reaction. If the enemy makes a hostile action that doesn't include you, you spend your reaction to penalize their accuracy/DCs for the rest of their turn.
Of course this then is competing with Intercept Strike, but it would give you a reaction to use to protect allies further away from you.
Yes. Having synergy with the class mechanics like this would go a long way to making it shine
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Bodyguard is slightly odd in that your ally can walk away and still be protected.
In fact, you can punch the ally, Intercept the strike, push the ally off a cliff and he will resist the fall damage, then run the other way.
Then the ally can stand up, and run past some Jagged Berms, trigger an reactive stike, get attacked by some other creatures.
All while still being protected by you.
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Finally after testing the class for 16 levels especially against severe encounters (basically just boss fights) I will post my Guardian feedback here.
Firstly, I will apologize to everyone who reads it because English is not my native language and I have additional difficulties writing in it. That's why I'm writing this text using Google Translate, which may contain incorrect terms that I'll try to review, but I hope people here will understand the general context.
As it was the longest playtest I've ever done, with the largest number of different players (although the party was fixed for practicality, the people who played with the characters or were GMs alternated), I won't go into details of each battle.
The party chosen was:
The choice to make an acient elf was primarily to release an MC with the champion. It was a simple way to make comparisons without having to create a complete new sheet, in addition, the ancestry allowed us to get useful speed bonuses for a class that would use armor and shields that applied movement penalties.
About the guardian chassis:
Unlike many here, I didn't see a problem with the guardian changing his progression from proficient in attacks to defense. The focus of the class is clearly defense, and for most of the game this didn't affect the class's feeling of efficiency.
It's like, at no point, neither I nor any of my friends who helped with this playtest cared about this, as we had no expectations that the class would operate as a damage dealer in any way.
The only complaints I saw about this were here on the forum and I honestly thought they were quite overrated.
Having removed this elephant from the room, there were 2 things that were really problematic about the chassis. Lack of HP and/or defense or DR especially at early levels and Taunt and Interpose Strike.
I talk about these 3 together because together they were a bomb in the class, especially at the beginning of the game, which is where players will play any class the most and is where you are most penalized for choosing a guardian. This proved to be a practical truth after 1 death (really death, not just dying) of the guardin and 3 TPKs, all at the lowest levels.
OK, I went hard on the choice of encounters when replaying boss encounters from The Fall of Plaguestone and AoA, which are still considered the books with the most difficult sets of encounters in PF2. But the truth is that I've been through these encounters before with other classes and even other playtests and the same friends who helped me, and things were never as dramatic as they were in this playtest with the guardian. And I can safely say that the additional difficulty was precisely the guardian.
OK, as I stated above, these encounters were all boss fights from the books, but they were also done with rested characters with all the resources of that level available. And there is a reason to choose only such difficult encounters, as it is in this type of encounter that the guardian should really shine, as in practice, normally no one needs a "tanker" to deal with low and moderate encounters, in these easier encounters it is much more likely to value DPR than survival.
And it was practically a disaster! Initially, my friends and I, who alternated between playing guardian and GMed, probably played in the most intuitive and worst way possible. We used Taunt and Interpose Strike whenever possible. And doing this at a point in the game where the difference between damage dealt and low HP is very small was suicide!
Almost all players follow a standard somewhat "imposed" by PF2 which is "if your class has a chassis ability that doesn't waste resources, use it to the fullest", this occurs with almost all martial classes. If you are a barbarian you will try to make as many attacks as possible to make the most of your additional damage, the same for fighters to take advantage of their high hit, and so on, rogues try to be off guard whenever possible, magus always try to use Spellstrike when they can. But doing this with Taunt is simply punishing yourself for nothing!
At level 1, when you don't even have access to heavy armor, Taunt is basically a masochistic action. Your frontline allies have practically as much HP and defensive power as you, especially if they also use shields, but when using Taunt the +2 bonus on the enemy simply cancels out your AC bonus on the shield. And then hope the GM doesn't like Taunt and tries to ignore it because if it focuses on you, it won't be your Shield Block that will be able to protect it enough. Additionally, even if the GM focuses on attacking an ally, if you keep using Interpose Strike you will most likely just suffer even more. You are simply not a tank at level 1, attracting attention to yourself and increasing the chance of them hitting you and throwing yourself in front of your allies will simply make you suffer more by giving more than you should and the damage that would previously be distributed between different members of the party is now all over you, easily knocking you unconscious and putting pressure on the casters to heal you, which makes everything more difficult instead of helping.
The other big problem is that Taunt is extremely punishing if opponents have AoE or hostile multi-target abilities. And one thing you easily notice is that PF2 has MANY creatures and NPCs with the ability to attack more than one PC at the same time. From alchemical bombs whose splash practically ignores Taunt since you are most likely also next to an ally you want to protect, or Blood Ooze that deal damage in an area with Siphon Vitality (which you now have to resist against a CD with + 2, without protecting anyone in the process), there is even the Terrifying Croak of simple Boggards that force you to make the Will test with +2 DC. It is simply very common for there to be creatures with these types of abilities and it only increases as the levels go by, where you will simply be doubly punished for having spent an action to use Taunt, one for using an action that didn't help at all, another because If I hadn't used it I would have had a better chance of resisting that hostile action. It's just terrible.
In the end, after killing the guardian 1x, and the entire party but another 3x, we came to the conclusion that these skills simply should not be used unnecessarily, if you have a badly injured ally OK, if not it would be better to simply do nothing! And this in turn made Guardian's gameplay excessively boring. In many moments there was nothing to do, just strike and wait for someone to get hurt enough to make it worth protecting, and we practically abandoned Taunt because we knew that if there was an AoE it would simply punish the guardian.
Another problem with the class and Taunt is the Threat Techniques.
Agent built the Ferocious Vengeance, but in practice the situation for it to occur was so unusual that we simply forgot it existed. And when we switched to Mitigate Harm, we were already at a point in experience with the class that we barely used Taunt due to it punishing more than helping.
The other curious thing that happened was me and another GM friend of mine, using Interpose Strike as an exploit against the guardian. Especially after level 5 when the guardian's AC was very high, we chose to attack an ally of the guardian with a lower AC to try to force the guardian to use Interpose Strike, this made us deal damage to the guardian with more probability of hitting and crit and interestingly even with less damage reduction, since the hardness of the shield used to be greater than the DR of the Interpose Strike. This was one of the factors that made the PCs who were controlling the guardian to give up using Interpose Strike without the ally being too injured.
With that we turn to the 4 main defensive feats in place. Covering Stance, Hampering Sweeps, Area Cover and Intercept Foe.
And here comes the curious part that we initially did for comparison and for fun. But in practice it proved to be extremely efficient and useful for the guardian who was the MC as champion.
When we reached the level where we could get Champion's Reaction from the champion archetype, everything changed from water to wine, including the guardian's own abilities, which had become more situational, became very useful in this build. Because now the guardian was defensively stronger than even a pure champion, since his AC progression was better. The Paladin's Retributive Strike reaction became the main reaction while the Interpose Strike was used in situations where the ally was too injured to receive even the reduced damage, and it was better for the guardian to take the damage instead. As Retributive Strike already punished enemies for attacking the guardian's allies, there was no longer a need for Taunt except in one situation, if an enemy that does not use ranged AoE was threatening the group, in which case Long-distance Taunt proved itself useful since Retributive Strike could not protect from a distance, the same for Interpose Strike which also did not have a range restriction on the enemy and could be used to protect an ally against a ranged enemy who insisted on ignoring Taunt .
In the end, this MC simply made the guardian work exactly as he should, protecting his allies without punishing himself (excessively) in the process, at the same time that he had several different tools needed for each different situation in which he needed to defend the party.
In general, the class's problems are around Taunt and Interpose Strike and the mechanics that revolve around them. They need to be replaced with other skills or completely re-written.
I'm personally not a fan of the very idea of Taunt, for me it is both conceptually and mechanically alien to a TTRPG like PF2. So for me I would trade it for something else. However, if the class designer insists on maintaining this, let him do it in a way that makes more sense mechanically and conceptually without punishing the guardian for using it. I recommend that he consider feats like the swashbuckler's Antagonize or the commander's Standard-Bearer's Sacrifice that do this job much better both mechanically and conceptually as a basis for redesigning Taunt.
Interpose Strike, on the other hand, would be much better if it were simply replaced by the commander's Defensive Swap, which makes much more sense mechanically and conceptually as it prevents the exploit from attacking guardian indirectly and at the same time takes advantage of the guardian's best characteristic, which is its extremely high AC, especially if this opens up space for him to also use Shield Block in conjunction.
About the class feats
I won't talk about them all, but I will highlight some that caught my attention during the playtest.
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Excellent analysis Yuri.
I'm still having problems with Taunt/Threat Technique/Intercept Strike. Taken individually, and in specific circumstances, I believe they are interesting ideas, but unfortunately:
* Taunt seems to work counteractively both in terms of the glaring AoE and reduction in the guardian's own defense
* Threat techniques are incredibly situational AND anemic/vestigial later on
* Intercept Strike is punishing because it is't supported by the overall chassis and as you say, open to a GM exploiting it.
My other gripe is that the class has a weird Athletics "maneuvers" schtick - I read in the blog of a late level grapple of a foe (a dragon) or something, but personally I don't really go for grapples when I have a shield and sword/warhammer/axe, or, even more frustratingly, when I'm not wielding two handed weapon because haft-defense is totally not supported.
I get that the design is there, but although I really like the idea of a Guardian class that defends and is defensive, I also don't want to be whip-tripping and grappling while cussing people out to enrage them.
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Whip-tripping, cussing, and raising one's shield really is the epitome of Guardian play, isn't it? At least if playing to its chassis & strengths. *sigh*
* Threat techniques are incredibly situational AND anemic/vestigial later on
Threat techniques in practice were forgettable!
It's so difficult to happen if it gets to a point that you forget it's there.Ferocious Vengeance was never used in practice, because we were interpreting that all monsters/npcs automatically changed targets to the guardian when Taunt, so it ended up that the condition for it to occur never occurred (we even emulated it occurring, but it was just for testing, mostly of battles if the guardian provoked him he would become the target for practically the rest of the encounter until it fell, even if it stopped Taunt because when that happened it was already injured enough for the creature to no longer want to change targets).
That's why we switched to Mitigate Harm and it made very little difference. Firstly because the guardian had enough AC to only receive critical hits with nat 20. And secondly because as the party already had the commander providing resistance via Defiant Banner and as we progressed in level we equipped the guardian with Charms of Resistance, the ability in practice had almost no effect, especially on the massive amount of damage from a crit.
And we had kind of given up on using Taunt openly, in the end it was as if Threat Techniques didn't exist.
* Intercept Strike is punishing because it is't supported by the overall chassis and as you say, open to a GM exploiting it.
Not only. The main problem with Intercept Strike that I noticed, especially when I MC with the champion, is the obligation to receive damage from the ally.
When I added the champion reaction and started using it as the primary reaction to protect allies, while leaving Intercept Strike to protect allies against enemies at a distance or to protect heavily injured allies or as an additional reaction due to Quick Intercept, it passed to be much more useful and actually help the party's survival.
The problem is that when you concentrate all the damage on a single character, even though he has a very high AC, for the party as a whole this is worse than having the damage distributed among its members, the guardian ends up having to receive a lot more healing, which distracts other characters from using their actions to attack enemies.
But when your ability to reduce allies' damage doesn't necessarily cause you additional damage and more than that when you can transfer the damage to yourself only when you think it's necessary, things work much better! You go from being a burden to the party to actually being the protector who protects allies who eventually end up very injured until they are healed or even until the battle ends (sometimes it's better to just kill the enemy right away).
And that was one of the main problems with Intercept Strike, it shouldn't necessarily transfer damage, this makes its use much less risky and punishing. The other problem is the aforementioned fact that when receiving damage from an ally without considering your AC, you underuse the class's capabilities.
The ideal would be for the guardian to have Defensive Swap to protect heavily injured allies and a damage reduction reaction similar to that of champions for when you just want to reduce an ally's damage without putting yourself at too much risk.
Whip-tripping, cussing, and raising one's shield really is the epitome of Guardian play, isn't it? At least if playing to its chassis & strengths. *sigh*
I originally thought about using the whip too. But as I already had the commander using Pincer Attack to off-guard enemies much more easily and no one in the party had AoO/RS, I ended up giving up on him and using Gnome Flickmace instead. Another problem, which I didn't mention well in my analysis, is that being adjacent to an ally makes it difficult to attack enemies, which makes the need for a weapon with reach almost mandatory so as not to have to stop protecting an ally or even stop attack.
I ran taunt differently. If the party had a easy unarmored target like a wizard that wizard was getting attacked.
In that situation the guardian had to stay adjacent to the wizard because breaking up the enemies intent to focus down the wizard was the only thing that kept them alive. It also meant the wizard couldnt try too keep distance from those foes either. If they went their full speed they would outrun the guardian but not all the foes.
I think for intercept strike and for taunt both abilities could benefit from some in chassis upgrades as they level. These are core to the class so they should improve in basic effectiveness in class and leave feats to expand scope outward in different directions.
Intercept strike gaining stride distance at a certain level would make the guardian more mobile hopefully by level 5.
Taunt getting more targets can be in chassis upgrade. They are already looking at working on the numbers so ill leave that part alone.
I would still love to see threat techniques do a lot more to define playstyles. These are more suggestions to define the concept rather than define everything they would actually contribute.
Make three instead of two.
Offensive - armor thorns based on armor spec value
Defensive - place body guard here instead of as feat selections
Sticky - place hampering sweeps here but make it affect intercepted foes instead of an action.
Two areas exist that can recieve benefits from threat techniques.
What it does when a target is taunted
What it adds to intercept strike
I would like to see threat techniques develop into benefits that happen while a taunt is active on a target and have a whenever you intercept rider.
