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"Dad, what's a Squadmate?
- It's simple my son: if you have at least as much Intelligence bonus as party members then it's just another name for ally. And if you have less Intelligence bonus than party members, then a few teammates won't be full-on party members as they'll never benefit from your abilities.
- Dad, is the concept of Squadmate evil?
- Yes, my son. It's unnecessary complexity and a good reason to be sad when you're excluded from the squad."
squadmates => allies
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That said and I agree that the term and the fact that the number of squadmates is 2+int (what usually means 3 or more) is a bad choice. But in a default 4 PC party where's you are not your own squadmate this won't make any real difference.
It's just a useless mechanic in most cases that just wastes book space.
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"Dad, what would happen in the hypothetical situation where Commander could issue commands to all allies?
- It's complicated my son: there were peasant railgun threads galore as Commanders deployed hundreds of peasant hirelings to the field to use Passage of Lines to rearrange the battlefield completely every time it was their turn. With commands applying to summons as well, the class became a micromanager to have the party move up to attack on their turns, then get shuffled behind a wall of disposable minions off-turn. Combat devolved into a mess of delayed actions to try and act in between the Commander and the rest of the party.
- Could this have been prevented by a reasonable cap that would accommodate, say, a seven-person party?
- Yes, my son. It'd be a necessary complexity, and there would be no reason to be sad if the only reason to be excluded would be the player deliberately dumping their key stat."
(But seriously, things like "teleporting the party" start breaking once you push past a party of five, and Commander supports a party of seven at first level.)
But I still think that this doesn't needs to be linked to intelligence. Instead just hard limit the number of squadmate like clerics does with divine font.
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Ready, Aim, Fire! and Passage of Lines like most tactics only affect allies under your banner, so you won't give a hundred of crossbow men 300 actions or create peasant railguns.
Also, instead of having a limit that can be too short you can just add a rule stating that none of your tactics can affect more than 20 persons and you avoid the absolutely awful scenario where someone tries to find a way to completely wreck the system by putting thousands of fey crossbowmen in a 30-foot burst.
The game is supposed to work for what it is designed for: Skirmishes. If the rules make large battles unplayable no one cares as no one will roll thousands of initiatives to play a large battle.
(But seriously, things like "teleporting the party" start breaking once you push past a party of five, and Commander supports a party of seven at first level.)
That's not true. It supports a party of 3 at least (you can start with 10 Intelligence). Also, if you add a few minions (Summoner and their Eidolon, a mount for you) the limit goes quickly down. My PFS Commander will support only a party of 6 (he's mounted) so if there's a Summoner I'll have to exclude one party member. And I'm maxed out in Intelligence. The number of Squadmates looks like a cheap way to force high Intelligence on the Commander.
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I think another thing the division does though is prevent summons, and new randos that seem like they are fighting on your side, at least for now, from benefiting from abilities that are supposed to take time and coordination to prepare.
I also think the value of a commander in the party is not supposed to increase potentially exponentially just by jamming more members Allie’s into it without the commander investing more in helping many party members.
It it completely possible to pick tactics tha only activate for 1 squadmate at a time, and I’d bet that we’ll get more of them in the final release if this limit stands. So you can pick your tactics based upon the number of squadmates you can likely affect, although we do need more single squad mate 1 action ones to make the 1 INT mod commander viable.
For PFS specifically, where 6 player parties are very common, I can see how this is a pain point, but I almost wonder if PFS shouldn’t have a rule to cover gaining 1 more squad mate for each player past 4, to deal with companions and all the variability of party composition.
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It it completely possible to pick tactics tha only activate for 1 squadmate at a time, and I’d bet that we’ll get more of them in the final release if this limit stands. So you can pick your tactics based upon the number of squadmates you can likely affect, although we do need more single squad mate 1 action ones to make the 1 INT mod commander viable.
It doesn't change the fact that if a party member is not a squadmate they will never benefit from your tactics. Sure, the Commander stays playable, but the teammate has very good reasons to feel partially excluded from the party. And I really don't get it when the concept of allies already works fine (and there are tons of abilities that affect "all allies" or "all enemies" so it's not as if the argument of affecting tons of people could not be made for these abilities, too).
Reasonably using the game maths you can 113 5ft squaeea/ crossbow men in a 30ft aura
Remember that a single Chain Lightning kills an entire army in a 500-foot radius as long as they can't roll a critical success on a nat 20 (so you can just target the footmen and avoid the officers and it should be fine). PF2 is not a battlefield simulation and clearly doesn't work if you try to use it like that.
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Ready, Aim, Fire! and Passage of Lines like most tactics only affect allies under your banner, so you won't give a hundred of crossbow men 300 actions or create peasant railguns.
Also, instead of having a limit that can be too short you can just add a rule stating that none of your tactics can affect more than 20 persons and you avoid the absolutely awful scenario where someone tries to find a way to completely wreck the system by putting thousands of fey crossbowmen in a 30-foot burst.
The game is supposed to work for what it is designed for: Skirmishes. If the rules make large battles unplayable no one cares as no one will roll thousands of initiatives to play a large battle.
Sure, but even twenty crossbowmen is still a problem, or one action to move somebody back a forty-foot chain?
(But seriously, things like "teleporting the party" start breaking once you push past a party of five, and Commander supports a party of seven at first level.)That's not true. It supports a party of 3 at least (you can start with 10 Intelligence). Also, if you add a few minions (Summoner and their Eidolon, a mount for you) the limit goes quickly down. My PFS Commander will support only a party of 6 (he's mounted) so if there's a Summoner I'll have to exclude one party member. And I'm maxed out in Intelligence. The number of Squadmates looks like a cheap way to force high Intelligence on the Commander.
Sure, but I'm not going to take Int penalty Commander seriously given alt stat boosts mean you never have to deal with it. That's deliberate. Failing to support somebody's minion isn't going to hurt someone's feelings, and you can only give one minion per round a reaction. If a summoner shows up to a six-person game, you can just ask, "Do you prefer getting directions on your eidolon or summoner?" and the answer will usually be the eidolon.
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It it completely possible to pick tactics tha only activate for 1 squadmate at a time, and I’d bet that we’ll get more of them in the final release if this limit stands. So you can pick your tactics based upon the number of squadmates you can likely affect, although we do need more single squad mate 1 action ones to make the 1 INT mod commander viable.It doesn't change the fact that if a party member is not a squadmate they will never benefit from your tactics. Sure, the Commander stays playable, but the teammate has very good reasons to feel partially excluded from the party. And I really don't get it when the concept of allies already works fine (and there are tons of abilities that affect "all allies" or "all enemies" so it's not as if the argument of affecting tons of people could not be made for these abilities, too).
The issue is that many of these tactics are better than those buffs and are infinitely repeatable without the cost of even a focus point or spell slot. Like Pincer Attack working on every potential ally is too much. A level 1 summon making an enemy off guard to all your allies until the end of your turn, even if they get killed or the enemy moves away is too much.
As far as some party members being excluded because you built your character to only have a limited number of people who can benefit from your tactics, that feels more like "working as intended" rather than a problem. If I want to build a commander that has a mount and only ever effects that mount, then I can do that. Should rank 7 haste just affect all allies? Some times it is good to let abilities be more powerful because they can only affect a certain number of allies.
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Should rank 7 haste just affect all allies?
Haste 7 affects all allies unless you are in a 7+-man party (which is rather uncommon). Eidolon and Summoners count for 1 and there's no massive reason to target minions as it'd be their third action and they rarely need more than 2.
But the Commander Squad can be smaller than the party.
Having said that, I don't see any reason Paizo couldn't simplify it to "max 8" or some non-attribute progression.
That's the main part of my grievance: Why should it be possible for one PC to be excluded from the squad? It sounds just bad.
Ready, Aim, Fire! and Passage of Lines like most tactics only affect allies under your banner, so you won't give a hundred of crossbow men 300 actions or create peasant railguns
300 pixies with crossbows.
Possibly more since they can stack vertically.That's not true. It supports a party of 3 at least (you can start with 10 Intelligence). Also, if you add a few minions (Summoner and their Eidolon, a mount for you) the limit goes quickly down. My PFS Commander will support only a party of 6 (he's mounted) so if there's a Summoner I'll have to exclude one party member. And I'm maxed out in Intelligence. The number of Squadmates looks like a cheap way to force high Intelligence on the Commander.
Tracking many different people and retaining the knowledge of all their abilities so you can call them out sounds like Int to me.
And the higher the Int, the more people you can keep in mind at once.
I won't complain about 3+Int.
Or even 2*Int.
But I think Int works perfectly well for story and balance reasons.
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If a summoner shows up to a six-person game, you can just ask, "Do you prefer getting directions on your eidolon or summoner?" and the answer will usually be the eidolon.
Or we could just tell Paizo to get rid of a bad mechanic that doesn't help anything.
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All allies on abilities like Form Up!, Pincer Attack, and the later Master/legendary tactics is way too easily exploitable.
Deciding whether to start with a 3 or 4 in your KAS is a good balance point with the commander, because you have a lot of other attributes you are trying to boost as well. A 2 INT is doable with the class, but can be dangling close to the "suboptimal" range, which feels about right to me for a class like this. Completely tanking your KAS should always feel like you are working hard to build against the design of a class, and probably going to suffer for it. I personally feel like tying number of squadmates to your INT really nicely wraps that dilemma up.
Summons and temporary allies should almost never be able to be included in the squadmates total, or else the power ceilings have to come way down, which would suck for every other party that isn't trying to exploit the system.
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You pick your squadmates during daily preparations and summon spells last a minute.
You pick your squadmates during daily preparations and summon spells last a minute.
The premise of this thread is getting rid of squadmates and just using the term allies.
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Part of it is also narrative, which I like.
You can't just flash hand signals and wave your flag and expect the carvan you just came across to understand what you mean.
Nor can you shout out normal words or the enemy will know it's coming.
So you need to prepare them to understand. And then you probably want a word to distinguish between allies who are prepared and those that aren't.
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The premise of this thread is getting rid of squadmates and just using the term allies.
I was not speaking of replacing the need to drill with your party to prepare your tactics and switch them. If you keep that then you can't affect summons or caravans.
So you need to prepare them to understand. And then you probably want a word to distinguish between allies who are prepared and those that aren't.
I disagree. You can just say that you need to drill with your allies to prepare a tactic and be able to affect said allies. I'm not speaking of changing the class dynamic besides this weird limitation on the number of creatures you can affect (weird because it can be lower than the number of party members).
Completely tanking your KAS should always feel like you are working hard to build against the design of a class
I fully agree. But I prefer the class to give incentives in increasing the KAS than to punish you if you don't.
Also, if you are in a 4-man party without companions you only need +1 Int to cover the whole party. And the fact that the main incentive to increase Int is the number of squadmates means that you have very few reasons to go above +1 as long as you avoid the few tactics and feats using your Class DC (which is not hard as they are not many).The class should give much more reasons to increase its KAS.
I'm also not the biggest fan of "squadmates" since 99,9% of the time it literally just means "allies". However, as many have said in this thread, squadmates is the only mechanic that interacts with your KAS in the class, well, besides Warfare Lore at least.
The only thing I can think of that could use your KAS is to have similar caveats to Naval Training and Mountaneeiring Training but for all tactics that if they somehow include you then you can use your Intelligence modifier or Warfare Lore modifier for whatever. For example, if the target ends up adjacent to you with Double Team you can replace your Strength modifier with your Intelligence modifier for the attack, or if they need to make a tumble through check with Valkyrie's Charge you can use your Warfare Lore modifier instead. Just a thought though.
(poor investigator, just another niche of them that goes to other class).
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You can just say that you need to drill with your allies to prepare a tactic and be able to affect said allies.
That's exactly what squadmate's are.
When you drill, you can instruct ... allies ... enabling these allies to respond to your tactics in combat;
these allies are referred to as your squadmates.
Squadmate = ally you drilled with.
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Squadmates should just be anyone who is present when you make your "daily preparations," or who can be caught up to speed later.
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Clearly. And if you drill with someone one day, you can affect them 3 days later as they remember your tactics.
If the main complaint is the cap of Squadmate count that may not be large enough to cover the entire party, then stick to arguing that.
Spending time and energy quibbling about other things like balance considerations of Rank 7 haste, how many crossbow wielding allies can be fit into an emanation area, or whether a squadmate one day should still be able to remember tactics the next - probably isn't helping.
Stride, step, multiple steps, these are actions that take up “things a party can do.” I think it would be a big mistake not to have a relatively low cap (like 5 at 1st level) for how many people you can affect. Abilities have to be considered by their ceilings and the commander’s balance point can’t be structured around the largest possible party with the most possible companions.
I think tying it to KAS makes a lot of sense, but there are other ways that could work too. The commander is not giving out bonuses to things that cost actions, they are mostly giving out actions. It is necessary to have a cap on what that can mean. Including 4 animal companions along side 3 allies right out of the gate at level 1 is too much.
Then give them a pool of points they can dole out to affect allies. Let that be the limit.
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I honestly would prefer to have each tactic have a set number of allies that it can affect and have each of those tactis balanced around that fact rather than have an arbritrary number of "squadmates" that 99% of the time wouldn't matter who is and who isn't a squadmate but in that 1% can literally make you useless.
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Clearly. And if you drill with someone one day, you can affect them 3 days later as they remember your tactics.
No, cause it includes coordination among everyone together at the training session. The flavor text for tactics has real "today we're using *this* set of hand signal vibes" so that if you weren't there at the meeting, you're misreading the agreed upon signs.
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Clearly. And if you drill with someone one day, you can affect them 3 days later as they remember your tactics.No, cause it includes coordination among everyone together at the training session. The flavor text for tactics has real "today we're using *this* set of hand signal vibes" so that if you weren't there at the meeting, you're misreading the agreed upon signs.
agreed.
Because if you keep using the same signs. The enemy will eventually notice.
Well, not like bears or wolves. But the litch would be able to spot repeats.
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Abilities have to be considered by their ceilings and the commander’s balance point can’t be structured around the largest possible party with the most possible companions.
The thing is, for most parties the ceiling will never come into play. It's not about balance points at all. It's about certain nonstandard party dynamics having a penalty imposed upon them that doesn't otherwise exist.
It's a somewhat pointless restriction because for the vast majority of default assumptions about the game, it will never be relevant. Which means you can't really call it a balance point in the first place.
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I honestly would prefer to have each tactic have a set number of allies that it can affect and have each of those tactis balanced around that fact rather than have an arbritrary number of "squadmates" that 99% of the time wouldn't matter who is and who isn't a squadmate but in that 1% can literally make you useless.
I like this better.
For narrative reasons, you still need to prepare squadmate's at the beginning of the day, but it's any number of them.
Then the limit comes from the abilities themselves.
Form Up, Reload and Shields Up can target 2+Int squadmate's.
Pincer Attack and Ready, Aim, Fire can affect Int squadmate's.
Double Team and Demoralizing Charge work on 2.
Piranha Assault still affects all, since it's more of a debuff.
It adds a little more flexibility on who you target, but no ally feels excluded, and it still limits the max action advantage.
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I mean what else would you want INT to do? Squadmates is a single way to use INT but if you drop the Squadmate limitation then you need to outright remove KAS INT. There is the Combat Medic feat that use INT to a huge advantage but that Warfare Lore is pretty good, if you do not keep it and Commander becomes a STR or DEX KAS, what would you do with your other...Honestly I think subclasses would do the Commander justice, like one for each Mental state. However i don't want to see Combat Medic locked to a sub-class ability.
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I honestly would prefer to have each tactic have a set number of allies that it can affect and have each of those tactis balanced around that fact rather than have an arbritrary number of "squadmates" that 99% of the time wouldn't matter who is and who isn't a squadmate but in that 1% can literally make you useless.
Making a follow up to this comment, I'd say that tactics could even scale at higher levels. For example, let's say Form Up! initially only can target 2 allies, but then at 7th level it goes up to 3, then at 15th it goes up to 4 or whatever. I think this is better and more "seamless" than squadmates.
The only real problem that I see with this is that the class doens't use its KAS for anything besides Warfare Lore. If the thaumaturge is proof of soemthing, it's very likely Warfare Lore is going to be even better on release, likely having the subclass built around new ways to use Warfare Lore.
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I honestly would prefer to have each tactic have a set number of allies that it can affect and have each of those tactis balanced around that fact rather than have an arbritrary number of "squadmates" that 99% of the time wouldn't matter who is and who isn't a squadmate but in that 1% can literally make you useless.
I also far prefer this idea. And put the limit quite low (especially for the conditional Tactics like Shields Up!) so you don't have a completely different effectiveness between an average party and a party where everyone uses the same equipment.
I mean what else would you want INT to do?
Something.
Also, in a 4-man party, you just need +1 Int, which is the minimum considering you get a +1 from your class. So the question of what Int does already exists.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The developers tend to have a couple of ideas in the bag for the aspects of class they anticipate friction around.
I am sure both the INT KAS and the number of squadmates/maybe the whole squadmate mechanic are 2 of those things.
The thing for me is that anything other than INT for a KAS for this class feels like it would ruin it for me. "Tactics" being the primary mechanic of the class, (With the warfare lore exploits becoming a pretty big deal for the class starting either with feats at level 1 or Warfare Lore expertise at level 3, being cool but not as core to making the class unique and different), just doesn't translate to charisma or wisdom for me. I even think a charisma-based commander who issues commands instead of shares tactics with the party has a much higher chance of being a problem class, of feeling like it tells others how to play instead of enabling them to do more on their own. So it is important to me to keep INT relevant and number of squadmates (although maybe flexible by tactic) is one pretty good way to do that.
THe static number of them may be easier for players to remember and reduce book keeping, but they are clearly playtesting some tactics that can do more powerful stuff because they only affect one or two allies, so maybe they are trying to get a feel of whether players chose those or not, and how it plays. I don't think something like Strike Hard! can be balanced around allowing even INT/2, so I don't know if it would potentially cause problems for some tactics to be static by number and some INT-based, I have yet to use coordinating maneuvers with my commander. Pincer attack would take a serious hit if it could only affect 2 or less allies (if it was set to INT that would make INT pretty critical and still allow a 3 INT to be functional in most cases).
Please don't make the Commander a STR or DEX Kas class though. The Commander does heavily step on the narrative toes of the Mastermind Rogue (even if mechanically they are pretty different), and kind of the Outwit Ranger as well, but it is so much better mechanically than either of those and providing something so cool with the smart martial as far as the mix of narrative and mechanics that I would rather see the fantasy of both fulfilled from within the Commander class than another class.
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THe static number of them may be easier for players to remember and reduce book keeping
Really?
For most parties, the number of squadmates is always going to be "everyone" because the cap is very high and scales.
For the rare party that doesn't, I can't imagine how needing to keep track of which person the Commander leaves out of the friend group each day reduces bookkeeping over just letting everyone participate.
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I can easily see why they set the limit. and If there is a party member who's not a squadmate, maybe it indicates they have their own rules they play by, and independent streak, etc.
Also, a good reason why your number of squadmates would be more than party members, is y'all are thinking of party members too narrowly. How about you drill with both the Ranger AND his animal companion. The Wizard AND their familiar. with the Summoner AND her Eidolon.
I actually like the high limit as it does give a reasonable cap while still showing that it is your ability to instruct that governs how many squadmates you can have.
Another thing that needs to be a part of the larger picture, since it won’t be a part of the playtest is how the multiclass will work.
Squadmates seems a reasonable way to limit it, either within the tactics or as a class based limit. Since tactics are infinitely repeatable, even having just 1 that can easily affect the whole party could wipe the value of having a commander. Even limiting the banner size to a 10 ft burst would be wild on a class like psychic or wizard, as no spell shape action is going to compete with pincer attack affecting all your allies.
I wonder if default a MC commander is going to have 1 squad mate, and then a feat would expand it to INT? Or maybe just limit it to INT/2?
I wonder if default a MC commander is going to have 1 squad mate, and then a feat would expand it to INT? Or maybe just limit it to INT/2?
I kinda of feel like it would give warfare lore and a banner.
Then you need a second feat to get a single Tactic.