Taunt is Bad

[YuriP]

I was checking and in practice the Taunt is like an active "nerfed" part of Glimpse of Redemption.
You use an action, buff your enemy against you (+2 circumstance in attack vs you) and debuff it vs your allies (-1 to -3 depending from the will check result in attack rolls and DC of hostile actions vs your allies) and can used at range (30ft or 120ft if expanded via Long-Distance Taunt feat).
While Glimpse of Redemption is very short ranged only (15 ft) but put into the reaction used to protect your allies and gives enfeebled 2 (-2 status to all str based checks and DCs) (and stupefied 2 if expanded using Weight of Guilt) to the enemy who attacked your ally.

This allows us to compare the abilities more directly and see more clear the main disadvantage and even some advantages of Taunt over Glimpse of Redemption:

Disadvantages (over Glimpse of Redemption):

Uses an action (action tax?) to work.

Until you not get Group Taunt (lvl 8) is single target only where you have to "choose" the enemy that you will get the attention to protect your allies. So if other enemy choose to attack your allies you are unable to protect them (except for use your reaction to adjacent ones) what basically means that you don't create any stimulus to non-taunted target focus into you.

Makes you easier to hit and crit including vs spells and debuffs.
Advantages (over Glimpse of Redemption):

It's not reactive what means that the enemies doesn't need to attack your allies first to notice that if they do they will be punished.

It may protect allies vs AoE once that DC penalty using hostile actions will make harder to your allies to fail in their saves.

It's long ranged allowing you to affect a target far way like a spell caster away from the frontline.

All that said IMO are 2 things that really needs to be addressed in the Taunt action. The first is its action tax. Basically use an action to stimulate the enemy to attack you while you buff it. It's very displeasing and cut of many options like the usage of 3-action activities. IMO it needs one of these 4 fixes (not all them):
1. Turn it a free-action that you use when your turn starts and when you roll the initiative. This solve the action economy problem easily or;
2. Compress it with Strike or Stride. This will help your action economy but will restrict you from use 3-actions activity when you taunts (it's an option if the designer think that gives it as free-action or part of a reaction is too much but honestly I don't think it) or;
3. Turns it part of the Intercept Strike reaction very similar to how champion reactions work what will solve the action economy problem and it's target-less (once that you don't need to choose what enemy you will taunt instead you will affect only who attacked your ally but will be restricted to adjacent allies) and once that it's a reaction add the option to change the target to you if possible, preventing the debuff or;
4. Turn it into an 1-minute debuff.

The other thing that I think that needs to be changed is the removal of enemy +2 attack buff. As already pointed this creates a very bad stimuli because you want to protect your allies but you don't want to increase the hit and critical rate vs you. I can easily see many people trying to make a guardian but using other actions to call the enemy attention like Trip or Hampering Sweeps or just inverting the "role" at all choosing to use archetypes to improve its dmg output a bit while uses its high defense to just prevent to be attacked by enemies while you don't care about allies protection at all.

[Jerdane]

Teridax wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

Wait, why not? Taunt is the whole class. Taunt is what you're getting instead of rage. I don't know why you're playing a Guardian if you don't expect to have Taunt up most of the time.

The point of Taunt is to get the enemy to focus you instead of an ally. If an enemy's already focusing you and you feel they're going to keep doing that, then you won't be needing to Taunt. Taunting all the time, even when you're already being focused, means you'll just be wasting actions and making yourself easier to hit. If you sense that an enemy is going to deploy AoE, you're really not going to want to Taunt, because you'd be making yourself much more vulnerable to that AoE without actually redirecting anything.

Going back to this, I suspect that's the way the designers assumed it would be used. If an enemy is threatening a squishy team-mate and the Guardian uses Taunt to draw an attack, the threatened ally isn't intended to just hang around within reach of the enemy. If they did, the enemy can just go back to attacking them, so the Guardian needs to use Taunt again and again, greatly reducing their own defences. Instead, the squishy team-mate is probably intended to use the opportunity given by Taunt to get to a safer spot or activate some defensive ability like Invisibility. In that case, the Guardian can probably forego Taunt on the following rounds and keep their defences high.

If that's the case, maybe Taunt could be changed so that it is more powerful* but also makes each affected enemy immune afterwards, maybe for couple of rounds? This would let the Guardian momentarily draw attention from foes more reliably, but also discourage allies from using the Guardian as just a permanent meat-shield.

* For a buff, maybe increase the foe's penalty against the ally by 1 and/or prevent them from using reactions against the ally on a failed save?

[PossibleCabbage]

Does the "Tank" class really require a way to impel an opponent to attack them and not someone else? I know that's what happens in video games, but positioning and movement is so important in PF2 couldn't we do a "tank" class solely by controlling an enemy's position and ability to move?

Like if we decided to make a class tank with:
- Enemies you are engaged with cannot easily disengage.
- Enemies you are engaged with suffer negative repercussions if they attack anybody except you.
- Prevent enemies you are engaged with are prevented from making reactions that target your allies, so that your allies can move away from danger.

That feels tanky enough to me, avoids the "why do I want to lower my AC on a class that is supposed to be defensive" problem, and feels like a more fertile design space. Like the "tank from the back line" idea is funny, but wouldn't it be more fun to be the safest person in a dangerous place?

[TheWayofPie]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Does the "Tank" class really require a way to impel an opponent to attack them and not someone else? I know that's what happens in video games, but positioning and movement is so important in PF2 couldn't we do a "tank" class solely by controlling an enemy's position and ability to move?

Like if we decided to make a class tank with:
- Enemies you are engaged with cannot easily disengage.
- Enemies you are engaged with suffer negative repercussions if they attack anybody except you.
- Prevent enemies you are engaged with from making reactions that target your allies, so that your allies can move away from danger.

That feels tanky enough to me, avoids the "why do I want to lower my AC on a class that is supposed to be defensive" problem, and feels like a more fertile design space. Like the "tank from the back line" idea is funny, but wouldn't it be more fun to be the safest person in a dangerous place?

That’s pretty much how the 4e Fighter worked and it was incredible.

For those not in the know:

4e Fighter marked anyone with an attack whether they hit or miss. They put the penalty to enemy attacks against anyone they hit. This prevented the awkward Taunt this playtest had. And this made it that the Fighter’s attacks were so hampering that it prevented enemies from escaping and thus that enemies could not afford to not focus on her.

They would attack enemies that damaged their allies AND enemies that shifted (4e version of Step). This made it worth risking an enemy opportunity attack because then the Fighter could react to it with their own attack!

And they also had the most accurate opportunity attack/reactive strike if they invested in Wisdom.

This made 4e Fighter super sticky. The Guardian is not quite there.

We’ll see. I wanna playtest it and see what I can do with it.

[Gobhaggo]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Does the "Tank" class really require a way to impel an opponent to attack them and not someone else? I know that's what happens in video games, but positioning and movement is so important in PF2 couldn't we do a "tank" class solely by controlling an enemy's position and ability to move?

Like if we decided to make a class tank with:
- Enemies you are engaged with cannot easily disengage.
- Enemies you are engaged with suffer negative repercussions if they attack anybody except you.
- Prevent enemies you are engaged with from making reactions that target your allies, so that your allies can move away from danger.

That feels tanky enough to me, avoids the "why do I want to lower my AC on a class that is supposed to be defensive" problem, and feels like a more fertile design space. Like the "tank from the back line" idea is funny, but wouldn't it be more fun to be the safest person in a dangerous place?

We already do have that with athletic actions--and Guardian already is Athletic focused anyways--so I'd hoped that Guardian actually is an MMO tank. We already have positioning tank with Monks and other maneuver builds

[OceanshieldwolPF 2.5]

Gobhaggo wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Does the "Tank" class really require a way to impel an opponent to attack them and not someone else? I know that's what happens in video games, but positioning and movement is so important in PF2 couldn't we do a "tank" class solely by controlling an enemy's position and ability to move?

Like if we decided to make a class tank with:
- Enemies you are engaged with cannot easily disengage.
- Enemies you are engaged with suffer negative repercussions if they attack anybody except you.
- Prevent enemies you are engaged with from making reactions that target your allies, so that your allies can move away from danger.

That feels tanky enough to me, avoids the "why do I want to lower my AC on a class that is supposed to be defensive" problem, and feels like a more fertile design space. Like the "tank from the back line" idea is funny, but wouldn't it be more fun to be the safest person in a dangerous place?

We already do have that with athletic actions--and Guardian already is Athletic focused anyways--so I'd hoped that Guardian actually is an MMO tank. We already have positioning tank with Monks and other maneuver builds

The problem I see with focusing on Athletics is that the seminal feature of the Guardian, being heavily armored, is not in any way ameliorated by the “Guardian Armor” class feature gained at level 1. To my mind, a reduction or elimination of check penalties in Heavy Armor would be a baseline.

[EDIT: Also, the weirdness of not having Expert Armor Training at levels 1-4 and attendant strangeness with Taunt leaving you..squishier than you should be…]

Not to mention the idea one poster had of substituting Con for Str-interactions to do with armor and making the class more Con KAS.

To be honest, armor specialisations are completely boring and try to be verisimilitudinous but end up being anemic and so not exactly interesting. The Guardian Armor feature allows you to… sleep well in your armor. While not guarding anyone. Except..in your dreams.

[Bluemagetim]

I think the sleep in armor bit is so the class doesnt lose all of its abilities just because the party is surprised in the middle of the night.

[Bluemagetim]

What is kinda cool about the design so far is that it has defensive abilities that allow for some flexible positioning.

The Guardian can taunt further away enemies that would attack whoever in your group positions to flank while staying next to other members intercepting strikes meant for them.
if a taunted foe uses some of its turn to move to the guardian next turn taunt a different foe. Give penalties to those other foes that would have to waste an action or two if they wanted that +2 to hit you. Taunt is a lose lose ability for the enemy that has to wast actions on moving to you. All the while the guardian can use its movement to stay near anyone in the party that cant take a hit.

I think guardian was designed to encourage a mobile combat tactic not a stationary one. This seems to be the case because intercept strike is only once per turn early. Allies cant just stay and take a full round of hits and expect the the guardian can stop it all. Taunt is best used on the enemy that has to move to get to the guardian.

The weakness I see is the guardian positioning may mean less strikes being thrown out. and some rounds no strikes so that they can taunt keep positioning that is advantageous and put up a shield.

[Gortle]

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

My problem with Taunt is that it is a narrative straitjacket that constrains the GM’s agency.

No it doesn't the GM can always choose to delay his response and wear the penalty which is the point.

Besides player and GM agency always are in contest.

[OceanshieldwolPF 2.5]

Gortle wrote:

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

My problem with Taunt is that it is a narrative straitjacket that constrains the GM’s agency.

No it doesn't the GM can always choose to delay his response and wear the penalty which is the point.

Besides player and GM agency always are in contest.

Sure, GM and player agency are always at odds. What I find problematic is that the agency of the foes becomes beholden to a non-magical “aura” that doesn’t make a lot of narrative sense. A Will save to try to ignore acting normal out of any thought or caution but of compelled…frustration? Anger? The ridiculousness of the Very Annoying Archer concept (ranged Taunting Guardian) pretty much sums it up.

[ObsessiveCompulsiveWolf]

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

Gobhaggo wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Does the "Tank" class really require a way to impel an opponent to attack them and not someone else? I know that's what happens in video games, but positioning and movement is so important in PF2 couldn't we do a "tank" class solely by controlling an enemy's position and ability to move?

Like if we decided to make a class tank with:
- Enemies you are engaged with cannot easily disengage.
- Enemies you are engaged with suffer negative repercussions if they attack anybody except you.
- Prevent enemies you are engaged with from making reactions that target your allies, so that your allies can move away from danger.

That feels tanky enough to me, avoids the "why do I want to lower my AC on a class that is supposed to be defensive" problem, and feels like a more fertile design space. Like the "tank from the back line" idea is funny, but wouldn't it be more fun to be the safest person in a dangerous place?

We already do have that with athletic actions--and Guardian already is Athletic focused anyways--so I'd hoped that Guardian actually is an MMO tank. We already have positioning tank with Monks and other maneuver builds

The problem I see with focusing on Athletics is that the seminal feature of the Guardian, being heavily armored, is not in any way ameliorated by the “Guardian Armor” class feature gained at level 1. To my mind, a reduction or elimination of check penalties in Heavy Armor would be a baseline.

[EDIT: Also, the weirdness of not having Expert Armor Training at levels 1-4 and attendant strangeness with Taunt leaving you..squishier than you should be…]

Not to mention the idea one poster had of substituting Con for Str-interactions to do with armor and making the class more Con KAS.

To be honest, armor specialisations are completely boring and try to be verisimilitudinous but end up being anemic and so not exactly interesting. The Guardian Armor feature allows you to… sleep well in your armor. While not guarding...

But you forgot that Strength, being the KAS, likely means you won't have an armor check penalty. You'll still be a bit slower, but only 5' slower than other Heavy Armor wearers.

[OceanshieldwolPF 2.5]

I still think Guardians should be able to move swiftly even in Heavy Armor. Remove the penalty entirely. They need to stay adjacent to some allies, but will often be lagging behind them initially.

Or give them an ability to move at non-penalised speed if they are heading directly to an ally's position. I mentioned that idea in the Guardian speculation thread before the playtest dropped.

[Teridax]

How's this for a Taunt that keeps both the circumstance bonus and penalty:

Taunt (Single-Action)
concentrate, guardian

With an attention-getting gesture, a cutting remark, or a threatening shout, you get an enemy to focus their ire on you. Even mindless creatures are drawn to your taunts. Choose a creature within 30 feet, who must attempt a Will save against your class DC. Regardless of the result, it is immune to your Taunt until the beginning of your next turn. If you gesture, this action gains the visual trait. If you speak or otherwise make noise, this action gains the auditory trait. Your Taunt must have one of those two traits.

Critical Success Your enemy is emboldened by your feeble attempt. Until the beginning of your next turn, the creature gains a +2 circumstance bonus to attack rolls and DCs when taking a hostile action that includes you as a target, though the bonus applies only against you.
Success The creature is unaffected, though you can voluntarily incur the effects of a critical success.
Failure Until the beginning of your next turn, the creature takes a –2 circumstance penalty to attack rolls and DCs when taking a hostile action that doesn’t include you as a target.
Critical Failure As failure, but the circumstance penalty is -4.

---

The basic ideas behind the above would be the following:

An enemy failing against your Taunt wouldn't screw you over. You still wouldn't want to be Taunting if the enemy's going to be attacking you anyway, but would otherwise not be dumping your defenses to the level of a Wizard at level 1 as a frontliner just by doing your job.

The ability would be more reliable in that the Guardian could always make themselves a more desirable target no matter what. The choice would simply be whether to make their allies harder to hit, or themselves easier to hit, instead of both.

This would eliminate the problem of Taunt interacting poorly with AoE: you could still find yourself in a position where you'd be much more vulnerable, but there wouldn't be a situation where successfully doing the thing you wanted to do just gets you literally roasted by a fireball that ends up hurting your allies anyway.

You'd have an interesting choice to make if your target succeeds on their save, which will be often: you could choose to either abort your attempt at Taunting the enemy and keep yourself safe, or fully commit to it by making yourself much more vulnerable. That choice between sacrificing yourself or potentially leaving an ally in danger I think could add a bit more agency to the Guardian, as well as an added layer of aggro management.

[Ruzza]

Out of curiosity, Teridax, have you playtested the Guardian as it is now? It sounds like a lot of speculation based around the idea of "wanting to be attacked," rather than "wanting to be hit."

[YuriP]

The penalty still too low. Let us consider the following situation, we have a lvl 5 guardian and a lvl 5 rogue.

The Guardian AC is: 10 + 5 (level) + 4 (expert proficiency) + 6 (heavy armor) + 2 (shield) = 27
The Rogue AC is: 10 + 5 (level) + 2 (trained proficiency) + 5 (light armor + dex) = 22
Now lets apply the Taunt as inverted penalty/bonus to AC to make the things easier:
The Guardian AC is: 27 - 2 = 25
The Rogue AC is: 22 + 2 = 24

So still worth to your enemy keep attacking your ally instead of you. The Taunt is just working as an indirect AC bonus not as a Taunt and if we consider how Intercept Strike works, the best way to hit the Guardian is attacking its ally. So everything still goes against the whole concept of taunt.

To work the taunt's circumstance penalty need to be way higher with -4 at minimum or will not work.

Everything in Taunt is terrible:

The +2 vs Guardian makes the guardian less tanky than champions because the champions doesn't need to sacrifice their own AC to protect the other and prevent the enemies to focus on your allies instead of you.

When the Guardian gets a higher AC proficiency or if the enemy is targeting an unarmored ally the Taunt becomes useless unless drop you own defenses what goes against the entire concept of the class.

Even if the Taunt works its action tax usually not worth unless its compressed with Rise a Shield what goes back again to the above problem.

The entire Taunt needs to be reworked by the designer or it will need to make insanely high penalties (-4 to -8) and become a free-action to worth its almost like if was forcing a MAP vs your ally (what's not a bad idea at all).

[Teridax]

Ruzza wrote:

Out of curiosity, Teridax, have you playtested the Guardian as it is now? It sounds like a lot of speculation based around the idea of "wanting to be attacked," rather than "wanting to be hit."

I have, yes. I'll want to playtest the class a lot more, but so far here were my observations around Taunt specifically:

Can confirm that Taunt is not something you should be using all the time. Initially, my Guardian spammed Taunt and died very quickly, after which they started using it more conservatively against enemies that were already getting all up in their squishy allies' face. I reckon there's room to use Taunt even more conservatively by reserving it for when an ally's about to go down against an enemy.

Taunt really hurts, especially at low levels. At level 1 in particular, whenever my Guardian Taunted a creature, chances are they were going to eat crit before their next turn. At all levels, but especially at higher levels, they also just felt really vulnerable to spells and other save effects whenever they Taunted.

AoE really is the ultimate feelsbad situation for the Guardian, because oftentimes, their allies will still be getting harmed and they'll just have spent an action to debuff themselves.

Contrary to what some people have been saying here, it's actually perfectly possible for the GM to just power through Taunt's effects, especially on a successful save where the penalty is only -1 (and successful saves ended up happening quite often). This, however, feels really bad for the Guardian, who ended up feeling ignored and their core ability invalidated whenever that happened.

The Guardian's "subclasses" felt almost completely unimpactful at level 1, but also not that great at higher levels either. I tried Ferocious Vengeance first, and found that dealing 2 additional damage to a Taunted creature wasn't worth taking a crit a lot of the time. Mitigate Harm, by contrast, did literally nothing in the instances where the enemy's damage type was the one already mitigated by my armor specialization. At higher levels, Ferocious Vengeance did not make up for the Guardian's mediocre Strikes, particularly at levels where the class's attack proficiency was behind every other martial's. Mitigate Harm came in handy, but also generally just came across as boring, and made the Guardian's other damage reduction sources feel at least partially redundant.

Long-Distance Taunt and the cheesy tactic of Taunting from far out of attack range was infuriating to GM against, particularly in low-level encounters with no ranged enemies. As a class, the Guardian already felt low-key annoying to run encounters against because of how many attacks they could passively avoid or mitigate, but having a Guardian drop all of that, along with their entire theme, just to spam Taunts from out of range just made me want to throw that particular character directly into the sun.

With that said, I didn't actually find Taunt particularly annoying to deal with as a GM. On paper, I guess it triggers people's GM reflex of "I'm the GM, you don't get to tell me what to do!", but in practice it felt like I had more options than if an ability had just applied a blanket debuff like frightened 2 or the like, which exists in various forms already. Ultimately, Taunt isn't mind control, it's an incentive, and as a GM I felt like I could ignore that incentive relatively easily on a monster that succeeded on their save. This is also why Long-Distance Taunt felt so irritating to deal with, because at that point it was no longer an incentive so much as just a really cheap-feeling debuff. I don't think the Guardian doing that was being as effective overall as their teammates, but it still felt disproportionately annoying, likely because it was also cheesy and didn't feel at all like how the Guardian was meant to be played.

[Lyra Amary]

I don't think Taunt necessarily needs to make an ally tankier than the Guardian's in order to be worthwhile. It's not like AC is the only lever you can pull here. Like if Furious Vengeance was implemented well it could force a taunted enemy into two unfavorable situations:

1. Attack the Guardian, the guy with the highest AC.
2. Attack their ally at a penalty and grant the Guardian a damage buff.

Of course, the Guardian's unnecessarily poor offense makes the punishment for ignoring them far too low, but I think the idea there is solid. You just need to tweak the numbers until it works.

[Ruzza]

Teridax wrote:

Long-Distance Taunt and the cheesy tactic of Taunting from far out of attack range was infuriating to GM against, particularly in low-level encounters with no ranged enemies. As a class, the Guardian already felt low-key annoying to run encounters against because of how many attacks they could passively avoid or mitigate, but having a Guardian drop all of that, along with their entire theme, just to spam Taunts from out of range just made me want to throw that particular character directly into the sun.

This is the thing that worries me when the Taunt range jumps from 30 to a whopping 120. It feels very uninteresting, but effective enough that we can see people jumping to this already as a "go to." I'd love to see a full write up if you find the time (no pressure). I know there's be a lot of white room from people, but I unfortunately am knee-deep in stuff and can't playtest.

[Dubious Scholar]

I think Champion is definitely the right comparison point for how they function as a tanky class.

Champion reactions all functionally present a choice of bad outcomes to an enemy. Attacking your allies means you get to mitigate damage and penalize the attacker. Attacking the champion means getting through significant AC and possibly shield blocks, but eating Retributive Strikes or an automatic Enfeebled (with the bad choice of "do no damage at all" to avoid it)...

Intercept Strike gets some of that - they can choose to aim at you and deal with high defenses... or aim at your more threatening ally and you just take the damage anyways but less of it. But it does feel a bit lacking in oomph compared to what Champion presents as a choice. But taunt is definitely working at cross purposes to this choice, since it significantly drops your own defenses and raises (to a varying degree) your ally's. This means that it's easier for the enemy to hit you for a lot, and harder for them to hit you for a less. It weakens the forced choice and I'm not convinced it improves your survivability. And since your ally was protected either way... I'm not sure it improves theirs either. It only really makes sense to Taunt at all if you're not in position for Intercept Strike. And you really want to be in position for Intercept (which... also is harder to be in position for than champion reactions, so...?)

[Teridax]

Ruzza wrote:

This is the thing that worries me when the Taunt range jumps from 30 to a whopping 120. It feels very uninteresting, but effective enough that we can see people jumping to this already as a "go to." I'd love to see a full write up if you find the time (no pressure). I know there's be a lot of white room from people, but I unfortunately am knee-deep in stuff and can't playtest.

Why thank you, and that's the plan! I've specifically avoided posting anything yet to the main feedback threads, because I'd rather wait until I've had some more concrete experience from playtests before posting a review there in the space the devs reserved for their most relevant feedback. Given the amount of back-and-forth arguing that's already been happening there, though, which the developers expressly said they wanted us to avoid, I'm not entirely sure how visible that feedback or any other write-up is going to end up being at this point.

[WatersLethe]

The more I'm reading the class over, the more I like my spitball idea of removing Taunt and giving the Guardian absolutely JUICED defensive reactions.

Currently Taunt is mathy, action-taxy, save-based, unreliable, and often insufficient. It looks like it sometimes *could* fulfill its purpose, but at significant game-feel cost. Fixing its current implementation seems like it can only amplify one of its underlying issues (GM annoyance, mathiness, Guardian squishiness, etc.)

However, if the Guardian was *the* reaction-focused class that could use their actions on their turn to setup more reactions (imagine beefed up, action compressed, specific readies) they could feel a lot more like an Iron Wall instead of an Annoying Masochist.

There are quite a few feats that move in that direction, but I say bake more of it into the base chassis so that Taunt isn't necessary.

Instead of protecting your allies by "gently encouraging" behavior on enemies, protect your allies by physically interposing yourself between strikes, utilizing your full armor benefits, and not giving the GM the choice of ignoring you.

[Teridax]

Building off the above, if Taunt either imposed a circumstance penalty against allies, or a circumstance bonus against the Guardian, but not both at the same time, I feel that would also potentially allow the action to last until the target took a hostile action against you, rather than just one round. This would make Taunt much stickier and add even more of an incentive to attack the Guardian without having to jack up its effect too high.

WatersLethe wrote:

The more I'm reading the class over, the more I like my spitball idea of removing Taunt and giving the Guardian absolutely JUICED defensive reactions.

Currently Taunt is mathy, action-taxy, save-based, unreliable, and often insufficient. It looks like it sometimes *could* fulfill its purpose, but at significant game-feel cost. Fixing its current implementation seems like it can only amplify one of its underlying issues (GM annoyance, mathiness, Guardian squishiness, etc.)

However, if the Guardian was *the* reaction-focused class that could use their actions on their turn to setup more reactions (imagine beefed up, action compressed, specific readies) they could feel a lot more like an Iron Wall instead of an Annoying Masochist.

There are quite a few feats that move in that direction, but I say bake more of it into the base chassis so that Taunt isn't necessary.

Instead of protecting your allies by "gently encouraging" behavior on enemies, protect your allies by physically interposing yourself between strikes, utilizing your full armor benefits, and not giving the GM the choice of ignoring you.

I'd quite like more reactions as well. Right now, the Guardian's in a weird space where, besides Taunting and raising their shield, it often doesn't feel like they can really do much else that's terribly impactful, not even their feat-based Strikes. They can certainly use Athletics maneuvers, but then so can a whole slew of other classes just as well or better, who also get to have really impactful actions on the side that move combat forward. Being really good at reacting by cannonballing themselves into allies and enemies, disrupting enemy actions against their allies, and just making themselves a general nuisance in a more active way I think would both make them feel much more active and push them further into a unique design space.

All of the above I think could also potentially give the Guardian more reason to include bonus reactions as part of their core class progression: right now, the Guardian gets a once-per-encounter bonus reaction at 7th level, and that I don't think would be enough to stop their Shield Block from clashing with Intercept Strike if the latter feat weren't so situational and restrictive (I didn't find myself using Intercept Strike all that often unless I was pairing up with another frontliner). Also, as a side note for future reference, Reaction Time's bonus reaction is currently poorly-worded, in that RAW, the bonus reaction carries over In an ideal world, I'd like the Guardian to be able to Shield Block while also reacting in lots of other Guardian-specific ways to enemy actions outside of their own turn, which would also make them an even better mirror to the Commander, a class who gets to let their allies act outside their respective turns.

[YuriP]

WatersLethe wrote:

The more I'm reading the class over, the more I like my spitball idea of removing Taunt and giving the Guardian absolutely JUICED defensive reactions.

Currently Taunt is mathy, action-taxy, save-based, unreliable, and often insufficient. It looks like it sometimes *could* fulfill its purpose, but at significant game-feel cost. Fixing its current implementation seems like it can only amplify one of its underlying issues (GM annoyance, mathiness, Guardian squishiness, etc.)

However, if the Guardian was *the* reaction-focused class that could use their actions on their turn to setup more reactions (imagine beefed up, action compressed, specific readies) they could feel a lot more like an Iron Wall instead of an Annoying Masochist.

There are quite a few feats that move in that direction, but I say bake more of it into the base chassis so that Taunt isn't necessary.

Instead of protecting your allies by "gently encouraging" behavior on enemies, protect your allies by physically interposing yourself between strikes, utilizing your full armor benefits, and not giving the GM the choice of ignoring you.

I have the exactly same felling and opinion. More I read, analise and test the class less it works like it should have to work.

I really like the idea of the class simple use its reaction to take the target to itself (becoming in front of the target o switching places and then applying it own abilities to defend itself and maybe countering in some way depending from the subclass.

[Trip.H]

Teridax wrote:

As someone who's had some playtime w/ the Guardian, what do you think about making Taunt's vulnerability debuff apply to the Guardian?

If you split the to hit bonus/penalty between actors, you can alter Taunt so that each actor can interact with their own penalty separately. That would give the designer a way for both sides to interact with the ability independent of the other, such as removing the penalty by landing a hit on the opposing side of the Taunt. That would mean that foes cannot just wait out a Taunt's minus for a turn, it'll last until they hit the Guardian.

On the other side, the Guardian still exposes themself significantly, but they have the rest of their turn to potentially land a hit and cleanse the debuff before the matching foe gets their turn. However, their own exposure will not time out either, enticing the Guardian to *fight* and risk missing their attack, not just bunkering down via Raise, Parry, ect.

Do you think that giving the chance for Taunt to last a few rounds would help the Guardian feel more impactful if they had those actions to do other things? Did you encounter a point in combat where foes would bypass your AC, counting on you to Intercept Strike so they could hit you more easily?

There's also the possibility to have Taunt be a small AoE at baseline. Unlike Thaums/Rangers/ect who mark one target at a time for typically single-target attacks, Guardians really seem like they will vary dramatically in their efficacy between single target encounters (fewer attacks to React to, fewer targets to Taunt) and multi-foe fights.

Here's my current idea for a Taunt ver 2:

Quote:

With a self-sabotaging and confident remark or gesture, you lower your guard to draw the violent attention of foes. You choose if the Taunt has either the visual or the auditory trait. When you perform this action, you gain a -2 circumstance penalty to all defenses and saves against your target(s). This persists until you perform a successful skill check or attack roll against that foe, until they fail a save against your hostility, or until encounter mode ends.

You may direct your taunt to goad a single foe within 60 feet, or attempt to aggravate a group, invoking a Will save against all foes in a 5 ft burst within 30ft.

Repeated Taunts against the same target within the same turn have no effect. The outcome of the single target version is always the fail effect.
This effects lingers upon each foe until they perform a successful skill check or attack roll against you, until you fail a hostile save from them, or until encounter mode ends.

Critical Success: The creature is unaffected.
Success: For any hostile action or attack roll, the creature is considered to have a -1 circumstance penalty to the result against any of your allies.
Failure: As success, but the penalty is -2.
Critical Failure: As success, but the penalty is -3

[Teridax]

Trip.H wrote:

As someone who's had some playtime w/ the Guardian, what do you think about altering the duration of Taunt, more specifically using that variable as a point of interactivity?

If you split the to hit bonus/penalty, you can alter Taunt so that each penalty lasts until that side of the taunt lands a hit. This means that foes cannot just tough out a Taunt's minus for a turn, it'll last until they hit the Guardian.

On the other side, the Guardian still exposes themself, but they have the rest of their turn to potentially land a hit and cleanse the debuff before the matching foe gets their turn. However, their own exposure will not time out either, enticing the Guardian to *fight* and not just turtle up.

Do you think that giving the chance for Taunt to last a few rounds would help the Guardian feel more impact if they had those actions to do other things?

From my experience, I'm leaning increasingly in favor of making Taunt a bit stickier by having its bonus or penalty last until the target takes a hostile action against you, pretty much for the reasons you mentioned. I think it'd carry a few advantages:

Taunting would be stickier in that even on a weak result, an enemy would still be incurring constant penalties for ignoring you, which I think would mitigate the feelsbad factor of a target succeeding on a save, which happens often.

In the case of the bonus against you, having it only trigger on one hostile action would avoid making you such a vulnerable target to the creature you're Taunting.

The effect would cohere much better with other similar debuffs, like the Swashbuckler's Antagonize feat, and be less about maintaining Taunt "uptime" and more about imposing a persistent incentive for an enemy to attack you at least once.

With all this, there's the one risk that ranged enemies would be less affected if they can clear the debuff with one ranged Strike, but even so, attacking you first just so that they can attack their original target with MAP is still a sizeable penalty you're imposing that turn.

Trip.H wrote:

There's also the possibility to have Taunt be a small AoE at baseline. Unlike Thaums/Rangers/ect who mark one target at a time for typically single-target attacks, Guardians really seem like they will vary dramatically in their efficacy between single target encounters (fewer attacks to React to, fewer targets to Taunt) and multi-foe fights.

Although I do think there's room for a multi-target Taunt, I'm reluctant to have it apply very early on. When Taunt works, it can be very effective at diverting an enemy's attention, and potentially Taunting an entire squad of enemies into coming down on you at once risks being both very disruptive for the GM at that level and fatal for the Guardian, as lower levels are where PCs are at their squishiest. For this reason, I wouldn't want to include the burst element of your proposed Taunt from the get-go, though I'd very much support the altered duration.

[YuriP]

Trip.H wrote:

Here's my current idea for a Taunt ver 2:

Quote:

With a self-sabotaging and confident remark or gesture, you lower your guard to draw the violent attention of foes. You choose if the Taunt has either the visual or the auditory trait. When you perform this action, you gain a -2 circumstance penalty to all defenses and saves against your target(s). This persists until you perform a successful skill check or attack roll against that foe, until they fail a save against your hostility, or until encounter mode ends.

You may direct your taunt to goad a single foe within 60 feet, or attempt to aggravate a group, invoking a Will save against all foes in a 5 ft burst within 30ft.
Repeated Taunts against the same target within the same turn have no effect. The outcome of the single target version is always the fail effect.
This effects lingers upon each foe until they perform a successful skill check or attack roll against you, until you fail a hostile save from them, or until encounter mode ends.
Critical Success: The creature is unaffected.
Success: For any hostile action or attack roll, the creature is considered to have a -1 circumstance penalty to the result against any of your allies.
Failure: As success, but the penalty is -2.
Critical Failure: As success, but the penalty is -3

Still don't solve the main problems of Taunt. The enemies will simply ignore the Guardian because the Guardian AC still higher than its allies AC (and with your suggestion is even more higher because you are able to disable the penalty that you put into yourself also this doesn't stack with off-guard what makes enemies that are making you off-guard don't get any benefit from Taunt). Also the action economy still untouched.

Again:

YuriP wrote:

The penalty still too low. Let us consider the following situation, we have a lvl 5 guardian and a lvl 5 rogue.

The Guardian AC is: 10 + 5 (level) + 4 (expert proficiency) + 6 (heavy armor) + 2 (shield) = 27
The Rogue AC is: 10 + 5 (level) + 2 (trained proficiency) + 5 (light armor + dex) = 22
Now lets apply the Taunt as inverted penalty/bonus to AC to make the things easier:
The Guardian AC is: 27 - 2 = 25
The Rogue AC is: 22 + 2 = 24

So still worth to your enemy keep attacking your ally instead of you. The Taunt is just working as an indirect AC bonus not as a Taunt and if we consider how Intercept Strike works, the best way to hit the Guardian is attacking its ally. So everything still goes against the whole concept of taunt.

To work the taunt's circumstance penalty need to be way higher with -4 at minimum or will not work.

Everything in Taunt is terrible:

The +2 vs Guardian makes the guardian less tanky than champions because the champions doesn't need to sacrifice their own AC to protect the other and prevent the enemies to focus on your allies instead of you.

When the Guardian gets a higher AC proficiency or if the enemy is targeting an unarmored ally the Taunt becomes useless unless drop you own defenses what goes against the entire concept of the class.

Even if the Taunt works its action tax usually not worth unless its compressed with Rise a Shield what goes back again to the above problem.

The entire Taunt needs to be reworked by the designer or it will need to make insanely high penalties (-4 to -8) and become a free-action to worth its almost like if was forcing a MAP vs your ally (what's not a bad idea at all).

[Trip.H]

YuriP wrote:

Still don't solve the main problems of Taunt. The enemies will simply ignore the Guardian because the Guardian AC still higher than (and with your suggestion is even more higher because you are able to disable the penalty that you put into yourself also this doesn't stack with off-guard what makes enemies that are making you off-guard don't get any benefit from Taunt) its allies AC. Also the action economy still untouched.

In my opinion, that is about all that can be done Taunt-side, if that makes sense. Making it last until struck is a huge buff compared to a 1-turn effect that needs constant repetition. The duration (and AoE) of that ver 2 Taunt does help w/ Action economy, but is still trying to work w/in Paizo's conception of Taunt being its own singular Action.

With ver 2 Taunt juiced up that much, it would be up to other G abilities to key off the Taunt mechanic. Such as a Feat that adds a small dmg resistance to allies even when you can't Intercept Strike. Every little upgrade adds more incentive for the foe to hit the G to remove the effects.

Other possibilities would be to upgrade Int Strike to improve it when that Taunt is being ignored. Dealing bonus damage to the matching foe either/or/both when the foe ignores the Taunt, the G is suffering from Taunt exposure, ect.

I honestly expected some form or "Protective Strike" remix of Reactive Strike, and putting a Feat to let you swing on foes for ignoring your Taunt would be a great addition (another chance to cleanse the self-vulnerability)

Even a Feat that enables you to forgo cleansing the Taunt vulnerability when you hit a foe, and enabling you to instead upgrade the ally penalty -1 more on a successful hit.

-----------------------

Teridax wrote:

Although I do think there's room for a multi-target Taunt, I'm reluctant to have it apply very early on. When Taunt works, it can be very effective at diverting an enemy's attention, and potentially Taunting an entire squad of enemies into coming down on you at once risks being both very disruptive for the GM at that level and fatal for the Guardian, as lower levels are where PCs are at their squishiest. For this reason, I wouldn't want to include the burst element of your proposed Taunt from the get-go, though I'd very much support the altered duration.

I totally get that reluctance. I'm always annoyed at how the rocket-tag gameplay at L1 does NOT at all represent how the majority of pf2e feels to play.

That said, I don't think I could justify denying such an important bit of flexibility due to the L1 problem. It's still a choice for the G to use it, and the 2x2 of a 5ft burst is intended to be sized so it can hit 2 foes with 0 setup often-enough, with more chances for 2 or 3 targets when Shove/ect is used.

In my opinion, *anything* that can incentivize players to interact w/ the battlefield map, use separate actions to set up another, are desperately needed for enjoyment in a system like pf2e. As is, Taunt is the equivalent of perhaps thinking a bit on which foe to select, but then mindlessly clicking on your target and leaving it at that.

A G needing to think, "OK do I *want* to hit the big guy and both little ones in this, or should I move the AoE to only hit the two little guys?" is the lifeblood of fun.

I guess that's a long-winded way of saying "I think I understand the risk you speak of, but I think the reward would be worth it."

[Powers128]

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

Gortle wrote:

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

My problem with Taunt is that it is a narrative straitjacket that constrains the GM’s agency.

No it doesn't the GM can always choose to delay his response and wear the penalty which is the point.

Besides player and GM agency always are in contest.

Sure, GM and player agency are always at odds. What I find problematic is that the agency of the foes becomes beholden to a non-magical “aura” that doesn’t make a lot of narrative sense. A Will save to try to ignore acting normal out of any thought or caution but of compelled…frustration? Anger? The ridiculousness of the Very Annoying Archer concept (ranged Taunting Guardian) pretty much sums it up.

There's always been mundane ways to mentally effect enemies. Think of taunt as as similar to demoralize in the narrative sense.

[Perpdepog]

Trip.H wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

What if the to-hit bonus/penalty were split, and only ended when each party landed a hit / inflicted a failed save upon the opposite party?

So the G could Taunt as a first action, and have 2 chances to hit the Taunted foe to end the their self-inflicted vulnerability? (which also adds nuance as to when they may decide to just suffer the penalty a round or two)

Meanwhile, the foe really wants to hit the Guardian, as they can no longer wait a turn for the ally hit penalty to end itself.

Goad (Taunt try 2) wrote:

With a self-sabotaging and confident remark or gesture, you lower your guard to draw the violent attention of foes. You choose if the Taunt has either the visual or the auditory trait. When you perform this action, you gain a -2 circumstance penalty to all defenses and saves against each of your target(s). This persists until you perform a successful attack roll against that foe, they fail a save against your hostility, or until encounter mode ends.

You may direct your taunt to goad a single foe within 60 feet, or attempt to aggravate a group, invoking a Will save against all foes in a 5 ft burst within 30ft.

Repeated Taunts against the same target within the same turn have no effect. The single target version always results in the fail effect.
This effects lingers upon each foe until they perform as successful attack roll against you, you fail a hostile save from them, or until encounter mode ends.

Critical Success: The creature is unaffected.
Success: For any hostile action or attack roll, the creature is considered to have a -1 circumstance penalty to the result against any of your allies.
Failure: As success, but the penalty is -2.
Critical Failure: As success, but the penalty is -3.

As a note, you misattributed this post to me when it was someone else.

[Bluemagetim]

The interesting thing about Guardian abilities is that they work in the circumstance bonus/penalty space rather than the status bonus/penalty space. So taunt and intercept foe will stack with sicked or fear and bardic inspiration or protective wards.

But wont stack with any bonuses you might be given by a gm for terrain advantage or some other circumstance bonus.

[YuriP]

Trip.H wrote:

YuriP wrote:

Still don't solve the main problems of Taunt. The enemies will simply ignore the Guardian because the Guardian AC still higher than (and with your suggestion is even more higher because you are able to disable the penalty that you put into yourself also this doesn't stack with off-guard what makes enemies that are making you off-guard don't get any benefit from Taunt) its allies AC. Also the action economy still untouched.

In my opinion, that is about all that can be done Taunt-side, if that makes sense. Making it last until struck is a huge buff compared to a 1-turn effect that needs constant repetition. The duration (and AoE) of that ver 2 Taunt does help w/ Action economy, but is still trying to work w/in Paizo's conception of Taunt being its own singular Action.

That's why I said that Taunt (and Intercept Strike) in practice what need is a complete rework! Simply change the numbers and minor changes won't make it to work like a... Taunt!

Currently it's basically an nerfed version of Braggart's Swashbuckler Demoralize that uses your Class DC instead of Demoralize and not an effective Taunt.

IMO they need to reanalyze what worked for our current tankers (champions) and make something really competitive.

[Mellored]

Teridax wrote:

How's this for a Taunt that keeps both the circumstance bonus and penalty:

Taunt (Single-Action)
concentrate, guardian

That still makes the guardian Taunt and run away.

Maybe something like...

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 Guadian Intercept, you can sustain this, increasing the penalty by -1.

[ottdmk]

What I appreciate about Taunt is that if it doesn't work, you don't "take the penalties." Or in other words, if they Crit Succeed on the Will Save, they don't get the +2. So you always have at least some reward if you're put at risk.

It makes for an interesting third action possibility. Suppose you can't get to an ally to protect them with Intercept Strike. You could still Taunt (30' is a decent range) as you move into position. Shielding Taunt is really quite good... I'd almost like it as a Class Feature instead of a Feat, if it didn't push things perhaps too much towards "You must use a Shield."

Hmnn. I can see a definite case to broaden Shielding Taunt to allow putting a Parry weapon into place.

[Mellored]

YuriP wrote:

That's why I said that Taunt (and Intercept Strike) in practice what need is a complete rework!

Intercept Stike makes the enemy want (forced) to hit you.

And it rewards the Guardian for taking the damage.

Might need some tweaking (i.e. movement), but it is a proper Tank feature .

[Bluemagetim]

Mellored wrote:

Teridax wrote:

How's this for a Taunt that keeps both the circumstance bonus and penalty:

Taunt (Single-Action)
concentrate, guardian

That still makes the guardian Taunt and run away.

Maybe something like...

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 Guadian Intercept, you can sustain this, increasing the penalty by -1.

Nice idea having intercept and taunt work together there.

[Ravingdork]

Frankly, I think Taunt just needs to be simplified.

Fighters strike, barbarians rage, rogues flank; most everybody's basic schtick doesn't require positioning, saves, multiple number tracking, AND actions.

Just seems like a lot more hoops than others need to deal with. It also slows down gameplay.

[Ravingdork]

How's this for a simplified Taunt that really gets the enemy's attention?

Taunt (Single-Action)
concentrate, flourish, guardian

With an attention-getting gesture, a cutting remark, a threatening shout, or an oath of violence, you get an enemy to focus their ire on you. Even mindless creatures are drawn to your taunts. Choose a creature within 30 feet. Any time the target creature successfully strikes one of your allies, its attack roll must also equal or exceed your AC, or the result of their attack is treated as one step worse (Critical Hit to Hit, Hit to Miss). If you gesture as part of your taunt, this action gains the visual trait. If you speak or otherwise make noise, this action gains the auditory trait. Your Taunt must have one of those two traits.

This would also allow the Guardian to have excellent synergy with other defensive tank classes, such as the champion.

If that's too much, give it a Will save and the incapacitation trait.

[Mellored]

Ravingdork wrote:

How's this for a simplified Taunt that really gets the enemy's attention?

Taunt (Single-Action)
concentrate, flourish, guardian

With an attention-getting gesture, a cutting remark, a threatening shout, or an oath of violence, you get an enemy to focus their ire on you. Even mindless creatures are drawn to your taunts. Choose a creature within 30 feet. Any time the target creature successfully strikes one of your allies, its attack roll must also equal or exceed your AC, or the result of their attack is treated as one step worse (Critical Hit to Hit, Hit to Miss). If you gesture as part of your taunt, this action gains the visual trait. If you speak or otherwise make noise, this action gains the auditory trait. Your Taunt must have one of those two traits.

This would also allow the Guardian to have excellent synergy with other defensive tank classes, such as the champion.

If that's too much, give it a Will save and the incapacitation trait.

Still makes you want to taunt and run.

[Powers128]

With a class with the highest AC, being able to pass it around sounds like a lot of fun. I like that. Better than having to give it up.

[Ravingdork]

Mellored wrote:

Still makes you want to taunt and run.

That seems like a player problem, not a game rule problem.

I can't help but think the party would quickly tire of a member who ran away all the time and never pulled their weight in the fight.

[Teridax]

Mellored wrote:

That still makes the guardian Taunt and run away.

Fair point, in which case the effect could break if you move more than 30 feet away from your opponent (but not if they move away from you).

Mellored wrote:

Maybe something like...

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 Guadian Intercept, you can sustain this, increasing the penalty by -1.

A few things:

This effect is piddly, and under most circumstances a creature would still likely be better off attacking someone else.

The effect looks really binary, in that either the creature attacks someone else and takes a tiny penalty, or attacks you and runs the risk of rapidly becoming worse at attacking anyone else. For this reason, it looks like the creature has even more reason to just ignore you.

Infinitely stacking penalties are a big red flag, especially when there's no indicated limit of how many times you can increase the penalty by Sustaining the effect each turn.

[Bluemagetim]

We have a lot of threads here. I posted this idea in a different one but ill copy it here. Someone responded they didnt like the idea because it hinders a ranged guardian concept but I thought we want the guardian to be incentivized to stay close to enemies.

To fix the ranged problem.
Two inserts.
- taunted 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 and having a penalty 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.

[PossibleCabbage]

What if, instead of lowering your AC against whomever you have taunted, you instead gave the person you taunted bonus damage if they attack you (because they swing harder, because they're angrier.)

[Sanityfaerie]

Ravingdork wrote:

Mellored wrote:

Still makes you want to taunt and run.

That seems like a player problem, not a game rule problem.

I can't help but think the party would quickly tire of a member who ran away all the time and never pulled their weight in the fight.

taunt-and-run *is* pulling your weight in a fight, at least potentially. It's a significant debuff to the foe.

Now, as to how to prevent it...?

I think that the answer is that we just give up entirely on the idea of a ranged-primary guardian. The guardian gets an area of control - somewhere in the 5-15 foot radius range. Their various tanky powers... basically don't work outside of it. If you taunt and run away, then your taunt leaves when you do.

The great thing is... this lets you simplify the taunt mechanics significantly. You know what taunt does under this new system? It forces the foe to move towards you, and possibly makes it harder for them to move away later. It lets you fill your zone without moving your zone. You can balance it just fine against all the other kinds of forced movement out there.

Then you set up the Guardian as someone who walks in and Owns The Space. Inside their zone of control, enemies find it harder to leave, and find it harder to hit their friends. They have a variety of protective reactions they can apply, as well, as long as the enemy they're applying them to (and possibly the ally they're applying them on behalf of) is in the zone of control. Their whole schtick becomes a matter of dragging foes into that zone and then keeping them there, and eroding their effectiveness. The enemy doesn't like it? Well, if they can take the Guardian out, that problem goes away, doesn't it? Good luck with that.

[Mellored]

Teridax wrote:

Mellored wrote:

That still makes the guardian Taunt and run away.

Fair point, in which case the effect could break if you move more than 30 feet away from your opponent (but not if they move away from you).

True. You could have it not work if the enemy can't attack you, you run away or something else.

Still makes you want to taunt the enemy next to the fighter and still not get attacked. But it does help.

Quote:

Mellored wrote:

Maybe something like...

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 Guadian Intercept, you can sustain this, increasing the penalty by -1.

A few things:

This effect is piddly, and under most circumstances a creature would still likely be better off attacking someone else.

The effect looks really binary, in that either the creature attacks someone else and takes a tiny penalty, or attacks you and runs the risk of rapidly becoming worse at attacking anyone else. For this reason, it looks like the creature has even more reason to just ignore you.

Infinitely stacking penalties are a big red flag, especially when there's no indicated limit of how many times you can increase the penalty by Sustaining the effect each turn.

*Dunno. Bards give +1 to hit as an action and that seems pretty good. So giving -1 as an action seems like it would be on par.

*I'm not sure what kind of Taunt wouldn't have a binary choice of attacking you or an ally. But you can Intercept Stike to boost the penalty, which requires you to engage the Taunted enemy.
*fair. Add (max -3).

[Ravingdork]

Teridax wrote:

Fair point, in which case the effect could break if you move more than 30 feet away from your opponent (but not if they move away from you).

That's a good idea. I'd limit it to 15 feet (for my version of Taunt).

[OceanshieldwolPF 2.5]

ottdmk wrote:

What I appreciate about Taunt is that if it doesn't work, you don't "take the penalties." Or in other words, if they Crit Succeed on the Will Save, they don't get the +2. So you always have at least some reward if you're put at risk.

It makes for an interesting third action possibility. Suppose you can't get to an ally to protect them with Intercept Strike. You could still Taunt (30' is a decent range) as you move into position. Shielding Taunt is really quite good... I'd almost like it as a Class Feature instead of a Feat, if it didn't push things perhaps too much towards "You must use a Shield."

Hmnn. I can see a definite case to broaden Shielding Taunt to allow putting a Parry weapon into place.

Totally agree something like Shielding Taunt should be a Class Feature, not a feat.

Totally agree that shield-centric Guardian’s should not be the only way to defend.

I’ve posted elsewhere about the Reach-defender concept, and Parrying as a shield-conversant defending technique is an awesome visual concept. Anyone who has seen the chain-wielding defenders
protecting their Quick in Salute of the Jugger can attest to that.

[OceanshieldwolPF 2.5]

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Stuff about Zones

Having had some experience tinkering with a class using zones in PF1 I can totally agree with the concept. And I hoped to see something similar here. And why I harp on about Reach-weapon zone control and the Starfinder 2 Playtest suppressed condition. And/or Difficult terrain. Essentially an area of debuffs centered on the Guardian. And the zone increases in size as they level up.

You can still have “taunts” but they could be very different, AND interact with the zonal play.

[Perpdepog]

I'm bang alongside zones of control. That's what I thought the guardian was going to be doing as soon as I heard they were going to be heavily armored. They'd kind of need to, given they're going to be definitionally slower than most other classes, especially those classes who could most use an intercept or two.

That, or I figured the guardian would have some baked in mobility. Not a ton, just enough to make them a more mobile tank than the champion and get them into position to guard people really easily.

[Ravingdork]

Ravingdork wrote:

How's this for a simplified Taunt that really gets the enemy's attention?

Taunt (Single-Action)
concentrate, flourish, guardian

With an attention-getting gesture, a cutting remark, a threatening shout, or an oath of violence, you get an enemy to focus their ire on you. Even mindless creatures are drawn to your taunts. Choose a creature within 30 feet. Any time the target creature successfully strikes one of your allies, its attack roll must also equal or exceed your AC, or the result of their attack is treated as one step worse (Critical Hit to Hit, Hit to Miss). If you gesture as part of your taunt, this action gains the visual trait. If you speak or otherwise make noise, this action gains the auditory trait. Your Taunt must have one of those two traits.

This would also allow the Guardian to have excellent synergy with other defensive tank classes, such as the champion.

If that's too much, give it a Will save and the incapacitation trait.

I just realized that there is no duration. Should probably add "This effect lasts until the start of your next turn, or until you are more than 30 feet from the target enemy." somewhere in there.