All By Myself Beginner Box Playtest: Guardian

[LostDeep]

I already did this with the Commander, and this time it's Guardian time.

The Party:
Level 1 Dwarf Guardian. Sword and Board, Furious Vengeance threat technique (it never came up, by the end of the adventure I forgot about it)
Level 1 Human Nephilim Rogue
Level 1 Aiurvian Cleric (Warpriest, Gorum)
Level 1 Human Witch (Starless Shadow)

This is a VERY favorable party for the Guardian. The Rogue, the Cleric, and the Witch's familiar all very much want to be close but not to get hit. Intercept Strike came up quite a bit. Albeit, there was one situation where an enemy the Guardian was adjacent to damaged an ally the Guardian wasn't adjacent to, where Intercept Strike would have been very nice. In fact, given Guardian's job it might have been more productive for Intercept Strike to depend on the enemy's location in general.

The Witch's familiar having that defensive option meant that it did not hesitate to use the hex-familiar double threat... save that the Witch often just destroyed everything with telekinetic projectile. Hard to find the actions to move the familiar with at level 1.

I tried very hard to remember all of the Guardian's functions... to limited success, as I eventually forgot about Furious Vengeance. Intercept Strike is, as mentioned, good. Raise Shield was helpful. Taunt is a problem.

The Guardian plays, I suspect, a lot like what a fighter plays like without the upsides. You move in, you make attacks, you raise shield. The hard part is finding a time to taunt in there. As many other tests have shown, the best time for taunting is an enemy that can't get to you in the first place.

When the party got to level 2, I gave the Guardian a Bastion archetype for free reactive shield. In retrospect, this was a mistake. Either the Guardian wants that reaction for Intercept Strike or it wants to use Shielded Taunt. That said, Shielded Taunt is not good for the shield side of it; it is in effect removing the AC downside of taunt and making the DC +1 harder. It is, fundamentally, a good feat. It's just that it's patching Guardian's holes, not building on something that's already good.

Okay, I need to go over this: what is Shoulder Check for? Seriously, what is it for? You make an unarmed attack, and... the target is off-guard for the rest of your turn. Not anyone else's turn, just yours. For you to make an attack at effectively -3. Or another shoulder check at -2? This would be good on a Rogue (except for the armor requirement) or a Monk (except for the armor requirement) or maybe certain fighters? On Guardian it's a squeaky toy. It does nothing to defend allies or increase your own durability.

Now, I did use Shoulder Check on the regular... as an agile attack. The most useful thing it did for me is letting me make a gauntlet strike with full hands. EXCEPT that if someone asked me, as a GM, if they could kick someone, I'd say 'go ahead, make a fist strike for it.' Shoulder Check has taught me to respect the D4, it put in some solid damage and even killed a kobold or two, but realistically the thing that the actual feat is about doesn't do anything.

(Actually, come to think of it, probably a lot of Guardian feats would go great on fighter...)

I think that this character would have gotten more defending done as a Champion. It would have done more damage as a fighter. Intercept Strike is, in fact, baseline good, it just has limitations that keep it from being a solid core to the class the way that the Champion Reactions are.

Taunt is a paradox, it doesn't fit into the standard martial action flow, and oh yes when the enemy succeeds against the taunt it bites. Crit Successes are whatever, the monster has won and is free, fair enough. On a normal success you still take the -2 to AC and saves for what? The monster to have a -1? It feels a bit like a robbery.

I'm not sure how I'd fix Guardian. I'm not sure what the original plan for its action economy was. If the idea was making Taunt a core part of Guardian's gameplay... this kit doesn't work with it. Taunt will need to be dialed up, and the Threat Technique will need to be completely overhauled into something more impactful.

Actually, let's talk about that, too! What's the design space of Threat Technique? It's so basic, such minor advantages. Is it supposed to be like Ranger's Edge? Because it isn't, it isn't near that impactful. If you added a Threat technique that allowed you to get a bonus level 1 Guardian Class Feat, it would be taken 100% of the time. If you added a Guardian Class Feat that gave you access to the other Threat Technique, it would not be taken.

ONE MORE THING: what is Guardian's hands supposed to do? Sword and Board? Then you have no hands for using the Athletics checks. Sword and hand? And have no shield? As the shield class? Board and hand? I GUESS?!

Real talk, the most optimal build for this is probably Flail/Shield or maybe Warhammer/shield plus Unkind Shove. Swords, Axes, and other options that don't do Athletics rolls are antisynergistic with Guardian. How about a feat to add Shove to Shields? Or let other weapons do other Athletics tricks in general? I guess Shield augmentations are, really, the secret ingredient here, but Guardian is already very equipment-dependent with heavy armor, shield, and martial weapons. Shield Augmentations aren't even in a mainline PF2 book; they're in Grand Bazaar.

Except for the fact that the ACTUAL optimal build for this is almost assuredly Longbow plus Ranged Taunt Maximum Lame Build. I did not make that one on purpose because the idea of playing that caused me emotional damage.

Why does the 'punch me in the face' class have 10 hp and subpar saves? If it was more focused on disruption stuff, like the notorious Hampering Sweeps, 10 hp and meh saves would by all means make sense. As is, guardian's actual core features, which want you to take more damage and make more saves than anyone else, are on a class chassis that doesn't excel at taking damage and actively dislikes making saves.

[YuriP]

LostDeep wrote:

ONE MORE THING: what is Guardian's hands supposed to do? Sword and Board? Then you have no hands for using the Athletics checks. Sword and hand? And have no shield? As the shield class? Board and hand? I GUESS?!

Real talk, the most optimal build for this is probably Flail/Shield or maybe Warhammer/shield plus Unkind Shove. Swords, Axes, and other options that don't do Athletics rolls are antisynergistic with Guardian. How about a feat to add Shove to Shields? Or let other weapons do other Athletics tricks in general? I guess Shield augmentations are, really, the secret ingredient here, but Guardian is already very equipment-dependent with heavy armor, shield, and martial weapons. Shield Augmentations aren't even in a mainline PF2 book; they're in Grand Bazaar.

I was in this situation too. When choosing a weapon I found myself having to choose between two choices, either choosing a Gauntlet or a Handwrap to be able to use Shoulder Check and Athletics maneuvers, but the damage would be very low (1d4) or I would end up being forced to MC with monk in addition to keeping the range short, or I would take the Gnome Flickmace to help compensate for the fact that I had to constantly stay adjacent to an ally and therefore ended up with a reduced number of possible targets if I didn't use a reach weapon.

In the end I opted for Gnome Flickmace since being restricted to low damage, low range and Athletics maneuvers would end up leaving the Guardian offensively very useless

[Tridus]

I just went with shield spikes and a free hand. That enables athletics/potions/etc. Shield spikes aren't great damage, but d6 is okay and its not like Guardian is going to be a strong damage class anyway.

I wanted to use a tower shield or fortress shield, but the speed penalty on the fortress shield sucks and the tower shield is 4 bulk, so combined with full plate you're already at 8 before you even carry anything else and that's not great if you also need tools for anything (like Battle Medicine, which being able to do to yourself could certainly be useful).

[OceanshieldwolPF 2.5]

Gah. Where a class is telling people to use a shield with shieldspikes and no weapon, or (somehow even worse)…a gnomish…flickmace…there is a problem.

You can pretty much hold me at bay just by saying…gnomish flickmace. Is like garlic for a vampire, or kryptonite for S-peeps.

But the interesting thing for me is that these “builds” evoke “bodyguard” vibes that some folks are having a hard time accepting. But clearly, the “guarding-not-damage-dealing” bodyguard *is* clearly being informed.

[Trip.H]

The 2nd playtest for my group, our Guardian landed on Shield + whip to start. Being able to Trip with Reach was able to save him a move action or two, which he could spend on the Raise + Taunt compressed action.

He was quick to drop or swap that whip as needed, it didn't even have a Striking rune at L8. I think his shield boss had a Striking rune, but Trip was his priority due to Master Athletics leaving it higher than his Strike accuracy. First time I've seen someone actually use a Bola effectively for a ranged trip.

I think it is kinda great to have a class that naturally wants to use a shield + open hand, butI think that is a distraction from the core of the Guardian being so low impact / bad.

I'm glad you were able to leverage the Guardian to make the Familiar of SN more usable. Unfortunately, I think as the levels go up, foes will use AoE attacks more often.
I don't think the familiar will be able to survive super well, even with the Guardian's protection. Maybe if you keep the familiar 5ft above the foe, so the Guardian is diagonal adjacent, you can force any cones to pick between party-facing or familiar(upward) facing and keep Intercept Strike valid.
Main issue with that, is that you can't Take Cover under the Guardian for +4AC / Stealth.

[LostDeep]

In retrospect, I should have chosen the Independent familiar ability. That would have made Familiar shenanigans much more viable, and if I use that Witch again in the future that's what I'll do with it. That said, the mere fact that Guardian can help Familiars in that way is an interesting synergy, and I can see that being a fun detail in a party's dynamic.

[YuriP]

Trip.H wrote:

He was quick to drop or swap that whip as needed, it didn't even have a Striking rune at L8. I think his shield boss had a Striking rune, but Trip was his priority due to Master Athletics leaving it higher than his Strike accuracy. First time I've seen someone actually use a Bola effectively for a ranged trip.

You give a good idea. I didn't thought about this. To use Bola and a Shield as weapon. But unfortunately the returning rune doesn't work with Ranged Trip once that Trip is not a Strike.

[Trip.H]

YuriP wrote:

You give a good idea. I didn't thought about this. To use Bola and a Shield as weapon. But unfortunately the returning rune doesn't work with Ranged Trip once that Trip is not a Strike.

The first thing that comes to mind is Thrower's Bandolier as it has the 2A recall function, but without Quick Draw compatibility, the action economy would be even more horrid.

Retrieval Prisms would be a great way to get an extra use of the Bola with no additional action cost.

Thoughtful Gift can place a fresh Bola into someone else's hand for 1A, and I'm sure there's other magics that could similarly help.