| LostDeep |
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I had nothing to do last weekend so I booted up the beginner box in foundry and tried running some of the PCs I'll never get to play through it, mostly to get some practice in the system as I intend to run the Beginner Box for some friends soon.
All the same, I noticed certain things about the Commander which I think are worth noting.
The Party:
Level 1 Elf Commander. +3 Str and +3 Int (as it's a small party), with the banner attached to a shield most of the time.
Level 1 Aiurvian Ranger (Flurry). This ranger took the most damage, and the dice roller give her consistently bad results. I swear that she rolled more crit fails than she did hits. It was surreal.
Level 1 Human Wizard (Battle Magic, Staff Focus). This Wizard taught me important things about recalling knowledge and Focus Spells, but that's not what this is about.
Level 1 Dromaar Cleric (Cloistered, Erastil). He spent 90% of his healing on the Ranger, but Longbow Cleric is no joke; more than once he had a spare action that got turned into free damage with a good roll. Divine Lance also pulled some weight. He also punched out a Xulgath.
Now, running the whole thing by myself has one notable limitation; I cannot keep track of everything all the PCs can do on top of the monsters. Most notably, I constantly forgot that the Commander has shield block, and therefore my impression of the Commander's durability is probably skewed. That said, I don't really have strong feelings about the Commander's durability, so... I guess it doesn't matter.
What the commander wound up doing:
Oftentimes the commander wound up using Strike Hard on the Ranger, which allowed the Ranger to get a good attack in with her longsword (Ranger was dual-wielding a longsword and a handaxe). Barring that, the Commander made trip attempts with her flail, and used Form Up to position the casters. She also had Piranha Assault but that got used exactly once before being swapped for Form Up. Apart from that, I had a chuckle when I realized I could swap in Mountaineering Training to chump the climbing challenges... if I wanted to spend 20 minutes.
When the party got to level 2, Archetype feat slots appeared on the sheets because I forgot I had been testing Free Archetype. Why not? I gave the commander the Marshall archetype aaaand realized that Marshall's Aura is just a smaller version of the banner aura. That does not stack. That's a little disappointing.
Commander pros:
While meta commander will probably be ranged, good armor and martial weaponry means that it's a perfectly serviceable secondary Melee fighter.
The Commander's tactics are powerful and felt, more than once I saw a Commander Tactics play that made me feel very clever.
The Commander's ability to recall knowledge is notable and respectable, and useful in certain situations.
Mountaineering Training is great. Yeah, even if I didn't use it, having RP and exploration tactics is good and I hope more come in the full release.
Commander cons:
Choosing two of your four tactics to have active at a time feels bad. At first level, only having 2/4 feels very nomral for level 1 limitations, but when the casters got more spells at 2 and the commander got nothing it was a little sad. In addition, the fact that there's feats to have more tactics known without feats to allow you to prepare more doesn't feel great. This encourages the trend everyone has noted of Commander choosing their two/three favorite tactics and forgetting about the rest.
Plant Banner is garbage. At first level it gives you half your Int in temporary HP, which for a Int 3 Commander is ONE. I did briefly consider whether a +3/+# commander was a mistake-wait. Would a -1 to hit for +1 temporary HP per round only when I'm using this otherwise niche feat be worth it? No. No it would not. When the party did a rest I swapped the feat out for Combat Assessment. which never worked for me because of bad rolls but is solid on paper.
The commander's banner passive buff means so little. It's a +1 against fear. This came up once. Yes, at higher levels it's going to be more common, but all the same the main thing the banner did is provide a conduit for her tactics. You could take the banner out completely and have the tactics have a 30-foot range (/other suitable 30-foot limitation) and nothing would change.
(The one time a fear effect came up it targeted the Ranger, that +1 did not make a difference)
Commander really wants some of the Fighter feats. I assume they will come in the full release and were just out of scope of the playtest, but it really does.
Overall, I think that Commander is solid. Certain tactics and feats need some adjustment, but overall the core of the class is good with two notes:
1) The preparation limitation on Tactics feels bad. I appreciate the tricky balance there and the intended limitations with the ability to swap tactics in a refocus break, but the idea of having two tactics until I get to level 7 does not make me want to play Commander, especially when 90% of the time they will be the same two tactics.
2) The banner is pointless. It does not impact your hands, its buff is meh, there's never a situation to have it stowed, and while this didn't happen in my playtest if it would have been destroyed or stolen the fear effect from that would have been the insult to injury of the Commander's class features ceasing to work entirely.
Altogether, for all its foibles I had fun with this solo test, and I'm sorely tempted to throw together another party and run a Guardian through the Beginner Box, too.