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Ran a couple of combats, two combats at level 5, and two at level 10. The rest of the party were normal (already released) classes.
Here are a few things we noticed:
The Good:
1) The guardian did their job. Never went down (got close, but the cleric healed me). High AC, high fort save, took damage for the wizard.
2) Damage resistance was almost always on. That, plus tough cookie (at level 10) meant I ended up with an effective 215 HP at one point. (Got down to half damage, tough cookie, got healed to near full.)
3) Hampering sweeps is stupid good.
4) Taunt seemed to work as intended . . . if the intent was the enemy ignored the taunt and continued to attack the wizard or whatever, but with a penalty.
The bad:
1) Subclass was useless. In all four fights, it never got used. The offense was so bad that I couldn't hit someone to do the extra damage, and my AC was so high that I didn't get crit. The only time I ever took critical damage was when I was taking it for someone else who was crit, which is not ME being crit, so mitigate harm didn't trigger.
2)So little offense. The poor offense past level 4 is not good. I only hit when attacking orcs that were 3 levels below me. And when I did hit, I did just piddly damage, which means there was not really a reason for the monsters to attack me, even with taunt.
3)Hampering sweeps is super good. At one point I just jammed up 4 enemies who couldn't run away. The GM had to reposition me and wasted a lot of actions before he finally succeeded, in order to get near my allies.
4)The Guardian has only 2 good feats per level. Things like Hampering Sweeps, and shielded taunt, Intercept Energy and shielded attrition. Mobile protection. Group taunt and quick intercept, those are so good that there isn't even a question. Not really a reason to consider anything else. They are so good that they may as well be class features.
5) Action Economy starved. I often found myself not attacking. Hampering Sweeps+Raise Shield+taunt. And no, I didn't take Shielding taunt because . . . . Hampering sweeps.
Things to consider:
Mitigate harm is super useless, because you have chain armor specialization at level 1. Chain armor+an armored kilt reduces all critical damage. I guess the two stacks as armor specialization isn't resistance so it stacks with other resistance?
Intercept strike is worded unclearly. As written, if you intercept a strike with, say, a hell hound, you intercept the physical damage, but not the energy damage?
Actually, intercept energy and the trigger for intercept strike still hamstring you on stuff. We fought a shadow and my guardian was useless as it did void damage, so . . . that's not fun.
So yeah, problematic. There's definitely something there, but I'd say there's a lot of work to be done. It is certainly better than I thought it would be.
Thank you for writing this summary, very helpful!
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Mitigate harm is super useless, because you have chain armor specialization at level 1. Chain armor+an armored kilt reduces all critical damage. I guess the two stacks as armor specialization isn't resistance so it stacks with other resistance?
Chain armor specialization is damage reduction. Most people agree that that is not the same as damage resistance such as from Intercept Strike. So they do work together. A Shield Block is also damage reduction. So I think that still works with either, but the damage rules aren't super clear.
Intercept strike is worded unclearly. As written, if you intercept a strike with, say, a hell hound, you intercept the physical damage, but not the energy damage?
Yes. Using the word Strike in a name, but not in the rules text is really asking for problems.