Could you could build a guardian who never attacks?
Pure 100% tanking and taking hits, and still be viable.
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Could you could build a guardian who never attacks?
Pure 100% tanking and taking hits, and still be viable.
I doubt it. The class just doesn't have enough health and damage mitigation to actually focus entirely on taking hits, so if you build entirely around things like Taunt, Shielded Attrition, Area Cover, and Intercept Strike/Intercept Foe/Quick Intercept, you'll go down extremely fast and end up contributing very little to the combat.
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You can take Marshal Archetype and play never making a Strike. But as well pointed by Roadie this hardly will be efficient.
I guess the second question...
Should a pacifist guardian be efficient?
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There's a significant amount of time when your athletics will be more accurate than your strikes so you could focus that and be pretty alright assuming the rest of the party can take care of damage
Actually, it will always be more accurate. Definitely something to keep in mind for most builds
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I guess the second question...
Should a pacifist guardian be efficient?
The short answer is no.
Let us thing. A full-martial with a caster archetype is an efficient caster? The answer is no. You alway will be behind the full casters you archetype maybe give you some extra options to improve your char specially horizontally but it will never be so good with magic like a full caster is.
The class that currently is trying to get the reign of "pacifism" is the Commander that is being developed to reach this niche. Its class that can ben end being efficient as pacifist but even it has its own hostile actions to use (and needs more actions that uses its class DC).
You can build a char around make a Strike as secondary and focus in support but many times even with this char you will reach a situation where "OK here just better to me to make a Strike".
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Could you could build a guardian who never attacks?
Pure 100% tanking and taking hits, and still be viable.
There is reasonable value in positioning and in absorbing damage, but just by itself I don't think it is enough.
Every character needs to have a reasonable attack option. The way the system works with MAP I think it is always going to be worth doing a basic strike at least.Compare to the cleric. If the cleric is just healing are they doing enough? No sometimes even healing is not needed or just not that valuable, but you almost always need to do more damage.
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Using "pacifist" for a commander who doesn't directly attack is 100x as weird as Paizo's adoption of "atheist" for a character who chooses not to worship the obviously real gods.
No one thinks Curtis LeMay was a pacifist when he typed out an order to fire bomb a city.
I mean, does the Guardian who relies on athletics maneuvers count? Since it seems like a viable way to play the class- lock down your enemies with trips, grapples, hampering sweeps, etc.
Could you could build a guardian who never attacks?
Pure 100% tanking and taking hits, and still be viable.
There is reasonable value in positioning and in absorbing damage, but just by itself I don't think it is enough.
Every character needs to have a reasonable attack option. The way the system works with MAP I think it is always going to be worth doing a basic strike at least.
Compare to the cleric. If the cleric is just healing are they doing enough? No sometimes even healing is not needed or just not that valuable, but you almost always need to do more damage.
(bolding mine)
I have had players who prefer this were false, likely an attitude gained because most other RPGs encourage overkill so they didn't need to contribute offense. But with PF2's balanced caps on offense, it's impossible for other PCs (in modest sized groups) to cover for another PC's total lack of contribution. They don't have to contribute much offense to contribute more than another player could add above the expected power curve. Most any first Strike is worthwhile (or Cantrip for casters). It'd take a savvy mix of Aid, flanking, Compositions, Reactions, & so forth to make a successful passive character in generic situations, but there are too many non-generic situations IMO where the party needs every bit of offense to tilt the battle just so, and/or doesn't need the passive PC's typical contributions at all (or yet).
Making a pacifist PC stripped of offensive actions works well as a thought experiment, a challenge to veteran players. But in a challenging campaign, I would advise against it, perhaps outright ban it since it's typically not that PC that's suffering the repercussions for the pacifist's poor choices.
Note that I enjoy the idea of pacifist PCs who do have offensive options, but hold back until necessary, ex. Kung Fu's Caine. And it's cool when PF2 offers other avenues to victory than combat, but it is a combat-centered RPG.