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I'm moving this discussion that comes from Commander Feedback topic in order to prevent internal discussion into the feedback topic that was made by designers to focus into class feedback.
To put it in context I will put the quotes bellow:
As someone who hates when other players tell everyone else how to play their characters, it seems like being in a party with a Commander would be annoying. I know PF2 relies on teamwork, but I also like to able to do whatever I want on my turn, and it seems like their will be a conflict between each player making their own decisions, and making sure the player of Commander gets mileage out of their abilities.
For anyone who has playtested, how does it feel to be in a party with a Commander? Do you feel you have freedom, or do you feel constrained to do whatever the Commander decides?
Response:
This is not the thread to discuss this but a short answer. I didn't have this felling.
Commander is giving you an additional option to use your reaction (including it's giving an additional reaction to someone). You use it if you want or keep playing as you like.
I GMed a party with a Marshal PC that used To Battle!. Every time before use it he asked "someone wants to use a reaction to Strike or Strike now!?" and many players said no while other says yes depending from what they are planing to do. Usually players that uses AoO or champion's reaction choses to save its reaction to their own while the players that have no reaction or expect not to use a reaction in that turn accept and everyone loved it.
I only can see a problem if a toxic player start to complain that an ally isn't doing what they want. But I didn't play any table with such kind of player. And if this happened to my I would stop to play with such player. It's not a problem of the game.
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Remember, this thread is dedicated to put suggestion to designers and not to make questions or respond the other members posts (like I did here, sorry for hypocrisy) if you have a doubt please open a new thread, if want to responde anything here please click in reply, copy the content, open a new thread and respond there.
Response:
I won't follow the advice you yourself don't follow.
Commander is giving you an additional option to use your reaction (including it's giving an additional reaction to someone). You use it if you want or keep playing as you like.So, let's say the Rogue is flanking an enemy and the Commander player uses Strike Hard! on them. The Commander gives an action with a specific goal in mind: The Rogue should attack the flanked creature. It's the sound action to do so why would the Rogue player object, refuse a free attack or use it to do something else?
So it's an order, a disguised one but a clear order. And the Rogue should comply as not doing so will be seen as disruptive, and not only by the Commander as the other players are also aware that the sound thing to do is to attack the flanked creature and as such obey the Commander. It's peer pressure, that happens around every table, but this time it goes slightly further as there's a reward if you are a good boy, as the Commander will continue using Strike Hard! on you, or a punishment if you don't comply, as the Commander may decide to stop using Strike Hard! on you.
Your solution of asking "Who wants a free attack?" is not a perfect one unless you randomly choose who gets the attack. Otherwise, we are back to the previous case where the Commander (or the group if it's a communal decision) gives an action to a character for a specific purpose and as such it's again an order the player should comply with.So I'd really not disregard Grumpus opinion with a simple "It is a player problem". Mechanics can be toxic even when used by a non-toxic player.
I'm also worried about the potential toxicity of Strike Hard! I'll play my Commander this evening so I'll be able to see how the other players are feeling about it. But I won't disregard their opinion if one of them feels that my character is commanding theirs somehow.
Response:
So, let's say the Rogue is flanking an enemy and the Commander player uses Strike Hard! on them. The Commander gives an action with a specific goal in mind: The Rogue should attack the flanked creature. It's the sound action to do so why would the Rogue player object, refuse a free attack or use it to do something else?
So it's an order, a disguised one but a clear order. And the Rogue should comply as not doing so will be seen as disruptive, and not only by the Commander as the other players are also aware that the sound thing to do is to attack the flanked creature and as such obey the Commander. It's peer pressure, that happens around every table, but this time it goes slightly further as there's a reward if you are a good boy, as the Commander will continue using Strike Hard! on you, or a punishment if you don't comply, as the Commander may decide to stop using Strike Hard! on you.
Your solution of asking "Who wants a free attack?" is not a perfect one unless you randomly choose who gets the attack. Otherwise, we are back to the previous case where the Commander (or the group if it's a communal decision) gives an action to a character for a specific purpose and as such it's again an order the player should comply with.While I take your meaning, I feel like this pressure is perhaps overstated.
Would this not be the same anytime another player lays something up for you? Its not coercion to take the path someone else has arranged for you if its something that aligns with what you want to happen overall.
For a bit of an inverted example, it wouldn't seem like toxic peer pressure to expect the parties healer to use their actions and resources to heal an injured party member. The dynamic is largely the same as you lead out, and I think we would all agree that a healer refusing to do so for no real reason wouldn't be "Pro Social" play.
The affirmative example, as we get the Commander is pretty much the same. A party member did something Pro-social for you, without good cause, it would be werid to turn it down simply because they arranged for you to receive a benefit, just because they wanted you to do it.
As I said in my first response my experience with To Battle! that specially works like Strike Hard! when used with 2-action was far from a pressure experience.
I GMing in a 6 players party composed by:
In general in most encounters when the bard's players begins he used To Battle! every time that he want to save some spell slots (he was the main healer of the party and many times choose to save some spell slots to emergency Soothes) so his main strategy when are not using spells was to use Inspire Courage and To Battle!. But as I said before use it he always analised the battlefield and ask to his allies who wants to use their reaction to Strike or Stride. And usually the things worked like this:
None of these players complained or even show any signal that they was pressured by the To Battle! to play like the Bard wants. It was the opposite they love the Bard giving bonus and an extra Strike to them. Including they missed when the bard's player change character because he wanted to try to play as barbarian instead.
Curiously whats happen was the opposed from the afraid that SuperBidi talked. The bard's player said that one reason that he stoped to play as Marshal was that as long the level was progressing less players wanted his extra Strike via reaction because many of them already reserved the reaction to some use and he was thinking that the To Battle! was becoming less and less interesting overtime.
So wasn't the players who had pressured by the Marshal but the Marshal that was being slowly pressured by other players to not use his ability anymore. I don't expect that this problem happens with the commander once the he give an extra reaction and have way more reaction tactics than a Marshal but I expect that overtime he was giving up from some tactics that wasn't being well accepted by the players (that's why the class needs a high repertoire of tactics).
There are multiple things I will answer to.
First, my reaction was to allow Grumpus to express their feeling. It's not mine, it's theirs. The reason I reacted is because I clearly see how Strike Hard! can be toxic. I don't say that it has to be, that it will always be, just that I see how it can be. And I can understand why a player who would really dislike that could have a negative reaction to a Commander.
For a bit of an inverted example, it wouldn't seem like toxic peer pressure to expect the parties healer to use their actions and resources to heal an injured party member.
I happen to have crossed this situation: A player was playing a Cleric but not a healer (for them). Still, the people around was seeing them as a healer and the peer pressure was forcing him to heal when he wanted to fight. He complained about the thing, asking for someone else to take healing duty but others were uninterested considering there was already a Cleric in the party.
What I want to illustrate with this example is that peer pressure becomes a problem when there's a difference between what you think/want to do and what others think/want you to do. If there's no difference then you don't feel peer pressure (even if it is there).
Finally, I don't have any answer to this whole discussion. But I think it should stay there for people to express their feelings about peer pressure around the Commander tactics. Also, I'll play this evening and I'll be open to any negative reactions from my team (PFS adventure so a random group of people which I think is good as it may generate harsher feelings when someone you don't know "bosses you around").
This last example from Old_Man_Robot is more plausible IMO. Due how tactics works is way more likely that the players put pressure into the commander than the opposite. Just like I could see a player complaining a healer to not give it a heal when it wanted I can easily see a player complaining about the commander not use the tactic that it wants.
That said I have not hope that Strike Hard! would be the source of toxicity in a party but the own tactical selection could lead to it. I expect way more complainings about "why did you use tactical X instead of tactical Y" from players that was creating expectations from commanders way more than commander complaining that a players didn't followed what commander expected. Yet as I said is something that the party usually in a common agreement like was happened in my Marshal experience with the players entering in a common agreement of what is the best tactic to be used in that situation and who needs in that situation to get the tactic focused more. This usually is enought to prevent false expectations.
This last example from Old_Man_Robot is more plausible IMO. Due how tactics works is way more likely that the players put pressure into the commander than the opposite. Just like I could see a player complaining a healer to not give it a heal when it wanted I can easily see a player complaining about the commander not use the tactic that it wants.
That said I have not hope that Strike Hard! would be the source of toxicity in a party but the own tactical selection could lead to it. I expect way more complainings about "why did you use tactical X instead of tactical Y" from players that was creating expectations from commanders way more than commander complaining that a players didn't followed what commander expected. Yet as I said is something that the party usually in a common agreement like was happened in my Marshal experience with the players entering in a common agreement of what is the best tactic to be used in that situation and who needs in that situation to get the tactic focused more. This usually is enought to prevent false expectations.
I agree on that, too. But that would not be as much of an issue because if the Commander player is not having fun because of the way other players interact with their Commander they can just stop playing it. It's not nice but it's something easy to solve.
On the other hand, if a player has issues with the Commander of another player, they can't really force them to stop playing their Commander and the only solution they are left with is to leave the table, which is much more problematic.
Anyway, we'll talk more about it this week end or on Monday. I want to test it first so I can have a bit of experience on top of theory.
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This is a game played by people, and people can agree and disagree on stuff and make up for it in the moment. I don't think a commander is "demanding" anything really, nor I think someone would get offended by receiving a benefit (it's like thinking someone would get offended by the bard giving them a +1 to attack) but even if you somehow have the most disfunctional play group that gets offended because they don't want to make an attack for you it is as easy as ask your GM "Can I target someone else in the party then?" to which I don't think the GM would deny because otherwise you'll losing two actions for nothing.
I honestly feel this whole argument is made by people that don't want to have a lazylord in the system for whatever reason (as if it would remove them the warlord or anything) which literally ignores the fact that if you have a group of people that doesn't want to engage in teamwork then it doesn't matter which class you play because it isn't going to work either way.
Paizo shouldn't make a class taking into account the edgelords that "don't want to be bossed around" because the system isn't made to take their playstyle serious to begin with. The commander isn't forcing you to do anything, they are literally allowing you to make an extra attack.
If you cast haste on someone, you are giving him either a free Stride, or a free Strike.
If you Strike Hard on someone, and give him the free reaction, your are giving him a free Strike.
Haste is a bit more open ended (2 possible actions instead of 1 and he can choose the target of the strike) but ultimately not that different.
The most important difference is that Strike Hard won't increase MAP.
I have a different thread about this, and it is probably too late in the process anyway to change any thing, but I think the name commander” does lend itself to the idea that this character is the leader, and everyone has to follow their commands. I don’t think this will default to being an issue at most tables, but it is something I hope the developers consider.
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I honestly feel this whole argument is made by people that don't want to have a lazylord in the system for whatever reason
I think the flat earthers don't want a lazylord in the system.
Sorry for the sarcasm but not everything has to do with the lazylord.
"Nobody? okay I'll pick something else."
Considering that the Commander has the grand total of 2 tactics at level 1 you should also consider the case where refusing prevents the Commander for playing a tactic this turn.
I have a different thread about this, and it is probably too late in the process anyway to change any thing, but I think the name commander” does lend itself to the idea that this character is the leader, and everyone has to follow their commands. I don’t think this will default to being an issue at most tables, but it is something I hope the developers consider.
I also don't like the name and think Tactician would have been a better name.
And unfortunately my game has been cancelled and I'll go on vacations later this month, so I won't be able to contribute with experience to the debate around the Commander. I'm a bit sad about that as I really think it would have been enlightening (to me, obviously).
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The complaint in the OP feels a bit odd to me, like-
"I also like to able to do whatever I want on my turn"
Nothing about the commander particularly prevents that? The commander doesn't really do much of anything during another player's turn. The idea that they're hijacking your own actions is fiction.
What the class does is give you extra actions on its own turn... which like, idk "would you like to make a free move/strike" seems like a weird thing to be upset about to me.
Now, there will be turns where players aren't positioned in an optimal way to take advantage of the commander's tactics, but that's not forcing anyone to do anything, that's just how the game is sometimes.
At its absolute worse, if players are totally at odds with each other you might run into a scenario similar to a fighter charging into a group of enemies the wizard wants to fireball where characters abilities conflict with each other, but that's not unique to this playtest and more a communication issue than anything else.
The same goes for SuperBidi's example. The scenario of players pressuring and harassing each other into taking certain actions and 'punishing' them if they don't is an example of a toxic, awful gaming table, not support classes being the devil.
I can't really wrap my head around the idea of being upset at someone casting Heroism or Haste on me because they're trying to bully me into taking certain actions, or calling it a 'punishment' if it turns out I can't use the buff well so they cast it on someone else next time. That sounds like genuinely such a horrible environment to play in.
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This reminds me of some experiences that people have had with the Alchemist where, especially in a PFS environment, teammates just outright refuse the support benefits that the Alch was able to provide because the other players just simply didn't want to fuss with changing their "rotation" (for lack of a better term) or eat the Action costs to take advantage of the benefits their support could offer.
I experienced this myself one time in a rare instance where I played PFS as I had mutagens and other things I made for the martial to buff themselves and while they accepted the items they actually never got used because the players just ... didn't want to spend their own Actions to enable the buffs.
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I have seen players get mad that other players don’t use the resources/buffs provided to them the way the player expected.
In PFS, I’ve had people come up and cast magic weapon on my champion’s undrawn sword, a weapon I often don’t use in combats, because my champion of Nethys is a shield using wizard archetype who casts a lot of spells from scrolls, which I had been planning on doing, but now felt obligated to holster the scroll in my hand, draw the weapon and move instead of cast a spell and raise my shield. In longer running campaigns it is a lot easier to talk to you party about tactics and be more cooperative.
I could see a commander in PFS using Form Up! And then deciding the turn order for the movement and explaining the plan for having used the tactic to potentially cause friction if multiple people want to be in the same place, or don’t like the plan. Do I think it will be a common situation? Probably not. I think PFS might want to have some general guidance about resolving movement in initiative order or something like that to bypass the issue from the start, but I don’t think it means the class has an inherent problem. I am clad the class ability are called tactics and not commands, but I do think there is still a fair bit of potential for groups with younger players and players that haven’t talked through some session 0 topics to have conflicting ideas about “the leadership role” of a character called the commander. Minimally, it might be a good side bar in the book to remind people about respecting other players agency.
This reminds me of some experiences that people have had with the Alchemist where, especially in a PFS environment, teammates just outright refuse the support benefits that the Alch was able to provide because the other players just simply didn't want to fuss with changing their "rotation" (for lack of a better term) or eat the Action costs to take advantage of the benefits their support could offer.
I experienced this myself one time in a rare instance where I played PFS as I had mutagens and other things I made for the martial to buff themselves and while they accepted the items they actually never got used because the players just ... didn't want to spend their own Actions to enable the buffs.
Alchemist mutagens aren't quite an equivalent argument; not everyone wants to deal with the negatives associated with them before you get into the action cost which could be 4 actions for a sword and board fighter [sheath weapon, draw mutagen, drink mutagen, draw weapon]. It's a bit easier with the new core as you can swap a weapon with a mutagen as a single action but it's still a whole round to use it.
I know myself, I generally only use mutagens on an alchemist with Revivifying Mutagen or a Drakeheart Mutagen as it has its own escape clause.
I'm always impressed by the number of histories of toxic players that people comment on here.
But the more you comment on this, the more I'm sure the problem isn't with the classes or the game itself.
I personally got issues with poison: It doesn't cost the recipient anything but it was just not their fantasy so they refused (and my character was leaning strongly into it).
I feel that PFS increases the problems with different expectations. Which is quite expected as you don't have a fixed party.
I don’t think the person who cast magic weapon on my champion had any bad intentions, they just didn’t ask me if I wanted the spell, and assumed my character would be making at least one weapon attack a round. It doesn’t take bad intentions to cause frustration with crossed expectations.
I do think a side bar could address most of these concerns.
It feels like the Commander in general is a straight up poor choice if you're not going to get together in a session 0 wherein you discuss party composition.
Generally those sorts of things filter out expectations that are going to be damaging to teamwork (the sort of "I don't want to use poison" stuff), and it's fine to have a class that is good at some tables and not ideal for others. Like I personally love "joker" classes like the 13th Age Chaos Mage, and that's an entire genre of things you'd never want to play in an organized play setting.
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In PFS, I’ve had people come up and cast magic weapon on my champion’s undrawn sword, a weapon I often don’t use in combats, because my champion of Nethys is a shield using wizard archetype who casts a lot of spells from scrolls,
This can be easily solved by saying "Don't cast that spell on me, I don't use my sword". It is to be assumed your party members know how you combat, and even if it was the first combat of the campaign or something, you are telling me your character sees someone casting a spell on you and not saying "Don't do it, cast it on him!" or something like that?
Limited personal experience so far: a little bit. In a three-hour one shot, I made two requests based on tactics. One, that One For All wouldn't be as useful as it competed with reactions. Two, suggesting holding action until after the Commander to potentially get an extra attack after some movement as a reaction.
That seems on the same level as how a caster will occasionally request waiting until after a perfect fireball or some other spell.
Perhaps they should rename the class to the Suggester.
After a first playtest run, we didn’t encounter the “forced to take actions” effect at all, but it was 2 encounters and almost all pincer attacks used right before the rest of party went, so the effect ended up being: get a free step and off guard against any enemy you want without having to get tangled up in flanking chains that will see enemies attack you 3 times with off guard if you fail to drop your target.
The party was small, 4 PCs with no companions. My commander’s 3 INT was overkill for the number of squad mates, but is used for medicine checks and recalling information with combat assessment, so it didn’t feel like a waste. A 3 STR is plenty effective for how much else she can do and I think anything less than 2 Int would leave you very hungry for skills.
In PFS, I’ve had people come up and cast magic weapon on my champion’s undrawn sword, a weapon I often don’t use in combats, because my champion of Nethys is a shield using wizard archetype who casts a lot of spells from scrolls,This can be easily solved by saying "Don't cast that spell on me, I don't use my sword". It is to be assumed your party members know how you combat, and even if it was the first combat of the campaign or something, you are telling me your character sees someone casting a spell on you and not saying "Don't do it, cast it on him!" or something like that?
Play-by-post also exists. And at that point, yes it is very likely that someone will post their actions for their turn without asking your permission about it. You will only be able to read about it several hours later after the forums have set the post in concrete.
I have also seen things happen similar to what Unicore describes.
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I played a game over the weekend where one of the players ran a Commander. I ran a Giant Instinct Barbarian. I did not feel pressured at all by Strike Hard! Rather, I got to make a bunch of extra attacks that I wouldn’t normally. It probably helped that we were 5th level, so I didn’t have Reactive Strike yet. The only negative was that at a couple of points, I thought about moving away from the enemy, but then changed my mind so that I would be adjacent to get the attack off turn.
I don’t know if having Reactive Strike would have really changed anything for me. Unless you’re specifically going for the battlefield control aspect and the threat of a strike if the enemy moves, to me you’re hoping or engineering ways to get that extra strike every round. Strike Hard! is a near guarantee if the Commander is willing to spend their action, and I’ll take that over the maybe getting a Reactive Strike off most of the time.
Yeah, I am expecting this to be a rare problem. And one that is mostly caused by players not communicating with each other more than anything in the game mechanics.
For example, I have played a character in a PFS game that cast Magic Weapon on an ally's weapon. Granted - One time, I did it on the weapon that they already had out and were using, and another I posted it as 'I cast Magic Weapon on {other character's} weapon of choice.'