Threat technique

[Powers128]

These are almost like subclasses but how can we make them more interesting and impactful? Currently they feel like a footnote. The key to making taunt better may be in how these abilities turn out.

My suggestion would be to have the damage bonus from vengeance apply immediately until the guardian is targeted. Not sure how mitigate harm should work though.

[Teridax]

My personal opinion is that the Guardian's current "subclasses" aren't terribly fleshed-out or interesting enough to be true subclasses, which is fine given that this is playtest material. Instead, I'd like to see subclasses that would allow different players to get different things out of the Guardian -- some players want a stoic, silent Guardian, and that should probably be a subclass that builds on Intercept Strike, whereas other players want a Guardian who Taunts, and so Taunt should probably be its own subclass. Some players also want an area control Guardian who uses an effect somewhat like Hampering Sweeps (but not so broken) to approach enemies and limit their ability to move, so that too could be another subclass.

With this in mind, I think there should be room for the current threat techniques to exist as class feats, though to be honest I think this is more about Ferocious Vengeance, given how boring Mitigate Harm is (it's also not terribly effective at preventing the Guardian from getting chunked by crits at level 1). With Ferocious Vengeance, I'm of a similar opinion to the OP, in that I think Taunt itself should be stickier, and should last until the enemy targets the Guardian, with prevention against Taunting and running away (so the effect could end if the target begins their turn more than 30 feet away from you). With a stickier Taunt, it would be much easier to consistently apply Ferocious Vengeance, and if the damage bonus applied so long as the Taunt was active, it would also make it much easier for an aggressive Guardian to Taunt a creature and then immediately start going to town on them.

[Protophos]

So I'm looking harder at the guardian and reading about the threat techniques, ferocious vengeance and mitigated harm. It makes taunt more integral to the guardian, but ferocious vengeance is just objectively better than the other. Extra damage to EVERY strike against a taunted enemy that hit one of your comrades, but the mitigate harm technique only gives you damage resistance against CRITICAL hits against you by taunted enemies!? I know that taunt makes it easier to hit/crit you, but that means it still only works a tiny fraction of the time when You're going to be getting hit the hardest. I don't like this. At least make the effects even!! If one guardian gets a constant extra damage vs every strike, then the other should get constant resistance against every strike. I also think doing it this way opens up the idea of these being more important decisions for the guardian, and if you made them subclasses that worked like rogue rackets, you could make furious vengeance keep strength as it's key, but maybe give mitigate harm constitution as it's key. Letting players pick between being heavy hitters that are hard to hit, or tanky damage sponges.

[Bluemagetim]

Threat technique changes.
This ability needs two things. As I am getting more familiar with the Guardian class I see they need contingencies for different situations rather than level 1 choices they are stuck with.

Furious Vengeance
Damage Mitigation

These are good IF they are both given with threat technique. Guardian needs to be prepared for both the situation where they are ignored and the situation where they get a foes attention. Also they need to have a scope expansion at a later level.

Furious vengeance at level 13 needs to help close the accuracy and damage gap for Guardians against other martials but only do so in the Guardians Niche, punishing those that attack their allies. The accuracy boost would put attacks made against a taunted target ignoring the guardian at the same accuracy as other martial of their level, existing damage from the threat technique is sufficient if the guardian accuracy has parity when striking in their niche.

Damage mitigation is the other contingency and is just as important that it is there to keep the guardian from suffering an unlucky strike when they are getting all the attention. When the guardian is under direct attacks from those they taunt they are most vulnerable. Maybe most will have a shield to help lower the damage but lets not make that the hard and fast requirement of the class. Damage mitigation might start as crit damage reduction not resistance (that takes place after shields and stacks with armor spec, dont negate this already conditional class benefit). The scope expansion should come at level 5. This is when most martials are getting better at hitting and already have striking runes. This ability should make armor spec resistance work against all physical damage types instead of just one type (if wearing armor like chain this ability gives a base amount of physical resistance that is less then what armor spec normally gives).

With this change the hp of the class might not even need to be bumped to d12.

[C_bastion]

What if mitigate harm had much higher resistance to critical hits, enough that scoring a critical hit against them was actually a bad idea. High enough that you could end up doing less damage than normal if you didn't roll well on the damage. Than it would be like you really taking the big hits for the team, almost no selling crits sometimes.

[C_bastion]

The more I think about this the more I like it. If the enemy goes for you, they risk getting a critical hit, but if they go for an ally with lower AC, then you have an even higher chance to waste a critical hit on the Guardian. That would really feel satisfying as a defender, baiting a huge attack and then turning it into less than a regular hit.
You'd still need good AC too, because you don't want to take too many regular hits.

[YuriP]

Being honest one thing that I noticed up to now is that both Threat Techniques are bad jokes.

Ferocious Vengeance only works if you have Taunted (before) an enemy and this enemy had choose to use hostile actions that not includes the guardian and its extra dmg is minor. If the GM interpretes that Taunt will force the enemy to focus the hostile actions to you it is basically effective-less. If it choose to not attack your dmg output still poor due how lower this damage is.

Mitigate Harm it still a bit better IMO because at last works if the target hits you so try to compensate a litte but wasn't enough to same the guardian most of times once its alone is unlikely to save the guardian to fall once that you usually isn't already full health due other damages that you got from other attacks before the resistance is rarely high enough to deal with a critical.

Up to now in my playtests the guardian was killed twice with both features basically being useless.