Commander Playtest, Level 12, Kingmaker spoilers

[Gazzor]

Commander Playtest – Level 12 Kingmaker dungeon delve

TLDR: Solid B tier class, possibly A tier for parties that build around him. With a few tweaks it will be a solid class to release.

To the devs, just want to say that this is the best system that I’ve played in nearly 40 years of gaming. I particularly like the commitment to continual balance improvements, such as buffing barbarian in the new core 2, and the annual play tests that have helped keep new classes roughly in line with the power of prior classes.

So, here’s my little bit to help: commentary on a 3 session level 12 Kingmaker dungeon delve using the commander as a gmpc.
(I’ve also filled out the playtest surveys as well).

Was originally going to be Octavia, wizard 12, accompanying the party, but changed it to an old warrior they’d rescued from a dictator’s dungeon.

He beseeched the party to let him join them and help to rescue his daughter from a fierce barbarian tribe.
(And as I told them it was the commander playtest they said ‘yes’).

I assumed that he’d know all tactics, being a grizzled old veteran.

Feats were: Plant Banner, Adaptive Stratagem, Wave the Flag, Efficient Preparation, Defiant Banner, Rallying Banner, Fortunate Blow.

Armed with composite longbow as I felt he was too squishy and action starved to melee.

Party composition:
Meat head fighter paladin rogue, dorn dergar, aims to pump out massive damage and debuff via crit knock down and greater crushing rune.
Tactical fighter. Reach sword, open handed, knock down blow, medic and Overwatch dedications.
Gunslinger - sniper, dpr, thief stuff and fake out in combat buffing.
Phoenix Sorcerer kineticist – primal caster. Timber sentinel when not using slots.
Bard kineticist – fortissimo spam plus timber sentinel when not using slots.

Main party of 5 has very solid dpr, being able to pump out disgusting amounts of damage and finishing fights quickly.

During the campaign, 11 other companions have rotated in and out of party slot 6, and now it was the commander’s turn.

Fight 1: Rescue 5 hostages from barbarian tribe. 24 level 8 creatures. 160Xp fight.
Commander gave gunslinger extra stride to fly down a cliff he’d suggested the party attack from, tell the 5 hostages they were being rescued and have them enter a bag of holding. Gunslinger then flew back up with the hostages. Sorcerer placed wall of stone to slow barbarians down.
Barbarians then tried to climb the 50’ cliff to get to the party, and party tore them apart. Sorcerer used 4 chain lightnings that did a lot of damage. 17 died, 7 ran into a cave in the cliff side, hacking through the wall of stone blocking it off.
Commander also good giving gunslinger extra attacks each round with Strike Hard! Tactic.

The party had thought that was the only fight of the day, which was why the sorcerer blew all his rank 6 slots in that fight. However, the commander’s daughter told them of a grim plot to retrieve a magic sword that would allow the barbarian chief to attain immense power. The party had to stop him!

Fight 2: Party had scouted the cave with prying eye and found 3 ninja type women inside. 80Xp fight, plus 7 survivors from last fight making it 127xp difficulty fight.

They were actually 3 level 12 clerics, and party had a hard time with a repulsion spell limiting fighter engagement. The 7 barbarians from the previous fight added some extra pressure. Commander mainly gave gunslinger extra attacks in order to finish the repulsion caster at range quickly, leaving fighters free to wade in and murder the 2 other casters with disrupting stance plus double reaction strikes.

Fight 3: Party found a secret passage and triggered a trap that summoned 3 Derghodaemons. 80Xp fight.
Party was trapped by 2 blade barriers whist the daemons attacked at range. Sorcerer dispelled one barrier, letting the fighters go ham.
Near the end, gunslinger and a fighter were both confused. Wave the Flag granted them 2 new saves, that they passed, negating the confusion. Nice.
Commander also making heavy use of Strike Hard! And Fortunate Blow tactics combo with the gunslinger.

Fight 4: Party came across a gibbed up corpse in front of 2 massive iron statues. Even the meat head fighter figured out they’d likely animate. Commander had prepared Pirahnha Assault. This was handy as the 2 Iron Golems animated. 80Xp fight.
The party made short work of them, with the commander negating 12 of the 15 resistance of each golem in turn.

Fight 5: 16 skeletal barbarians, 107xp fight. Commander had nothing to do as the party entered the bag of holding and the gunslinger snuck everybody past the skeletons.

Fight 6: A cleric 13 of Gorum and his 8 skeletal servants. 73*Xp fight.
*The cleric spell dc was 7 higher than the party casters, and he was hitting the fighters on 2+ in melee. This guy was not a level 13 creature…

Due to a language issue, party missed out on two free gear upgrades and instead it kicked off. Cleric opened up with striding away and repulsion. His dc was so ludicrous, the casters couldn’t counteract it. He then pelted the party with spells whilst the 8 skeletons blasted the party with long bow fire.

Piranha Assault was very useful here due to cleric and skeletons resisting 10 most damage types. However, once party blasted with a divine wrath, with 3 party members crit failing to save, leaving them sickened 2 and slowed indefinitely, the commander used Form Up! To help the party beat a hasty retreat. Luckily the cleric declined to pursue.

(If he had, the repulsion would be negated and the fighters would have exploded him).

Fight 7: After 20 minutes of puking and healing, the party came back. The cleric no longer had repulsion, and the sorcerer used wall of stone to trap the cleric with the fighters and block the skeletons. Due to piranha Assault, the cleric damage resistance was negated. Cleric was nearly down after two rounds, despite 250+ hp and fast healing 10. Cleric was going to dimension door away when commander had his turn and used Strike Hard on the meat head fighter to crit the cleric and finish him off.
The skeletons fell easily after that.

Fight 8: The party came across a possessed barbarian chief, level 15, who’d butchered his own men in a fit of rage. He also had 8 skeletal barbarians helping him out. 133Xp fight.
The chief charged in and the party held him at the choke with the corridor. After two rounds the chief had taken over 300 damage, was dying 3. But he didn’t die, and didn’t fall unconscious. His cursed sword wouldn’t let him!

Noting that the chief was confused, blindly attacking himself when nobody else nearby, the commander used Form Up! To help the party retreat until the chief dropped dead of his wounds after ten rounds of super raging.
The skeletons were easy to dispatch after that.

So, overall a successful expedition, managed with one day’s worth of resources. General consensus was that the commander was a solid addition to the party. However, would the wizard have been better?

THE GOOD:

Has some very powerful abilities. Piranha Assault, Form up!, Guiding Shot, Wave the Flag coming to mind.
Fortunate Blow combo with Strike Hard for the gunslinger was very nice. I think Fortunate Blow might be an S tier feat. Strike combined with a limited true target spell for one action that can be used all day looks very good.
Also has Mountaineering and Naval Training to aid greatly with exploration. Very nice utility.

THE BAD:

Some tactics just didn’t see use. Stupefying Raid might have been good in some of the fights, but the commander didn’t prepare it as other more bread and butter tactics available. End It! Looks very powerful, but it helps a winning party win harder. It can’t turn around a losing fight, or at least unlikely to.

Ended up spamming the same few bread and butter tactics as can only change one per fight, and that costs a level 6 feat…

Apart from climbing and swimming tactics, very little utility. Wizard could have prepped a translate and possibly avoided the cleric fight altogether. But, that’s the nature of martials. Maybe he’ll get more utility feats in the final version? To be fair, he’s already more useful than a lot of martials utility wise.

THE UGLY: Utterly bizarre power scaling on feats.

The mount doesn’t get independent until level 10. Why? It’s almost useless for the first nine levels of the commander’s career. He’s either going to pay the feat tax of going beast master or cavalier, or just not bother with it at all.

Plant Banner goes from terrible to meh to bonkers at level 15. Why not a more uniform progression?

Defiant Banner is meh until level 14, then it’s bonkers good. At level 20 a commander can spend one action to give entire party physical resist 17 in his banner aura. Why bother with champion or guardian with limited 22 damage negation at that point?

Class Dedications: As these 2 feats scale with overall class, I can see a wizard grabbing both of these and getting amazing value from one or both of them whilst still having the advantage of being a full caster. I assume that commander dedication will greatly limit number of squad mates affected by commander dedication feats and tactics?

FINAL THOUGHTS: Solid class. Nearly there. Just needs some tweaking IMO. Looking forward to it, and guardian in the new book next year.

Great job devs.

[Gortle]

Gazzor wrote:

The mount doesn’t get independent until level 10. Why? It’s almost useless for the first nine levels of the commander’s career. He’s either going to pay the feat tax of going beast master or cavalier, or just not bother with it at all.

Yes I think it is bizare too.

Just note that your mount is an ally and probably therefore a squadmate. So you can be givin it and therefore yourself free moves. But I expect I'll be going Beastmaster at level 2 for a mount anyway.

[Lightning Raven]

Thanks for the write up.

From what I've gathered, it shows how good this class gets with more squadmates you have.

I pointed it out on some of my feedbacks, among other things, about this being a potential "hidden" issue with the class (something that happened with the Advanced Player's Guide classes that had issues only "revealed" with long-term play).

The tactics kinda get exponentially powerful the more targets you can have, while at the same time being super niche themselves (most of them). Which creates a paradigm of the commander being build around the party, rather than adapting their tactics to the team they have at hand.

My suggestion was more broadly applicable Tactics but more limited in the number of affected targets (making the power level consistent for small parties and big ones).

[Castilliano]

Unsure one can avoid the Commander being best when built around the party/team being as the class is centered on teamwork. And it's more profound than just one's Tactics, going into one's armaments & feats too. Maybe that's since Commander isn't filling a niche so much as multiplying the roles of (some types of) others.

It also strikes me as awkward how they operate best in squads, but yeah, not too big or they get too powerful. Meanwhile the imagery of the name "Commander" speaks of armies, especially in fantasy. Which I suppose again supports the "Tactician" option.

[Lightning Raven]

Castilliano wrote:

Unsure one can avoid the Commander being best when built around the party/team being as the class is centered on teamwork. And it's more profound than just one's Tactics, going into one's armaments & feats too. Maybe that's since Commander isn't filling a niche so much as multiplying the roles of (some types of) others.

It also strikes me as awkward how they operate best in squads, but yeah, not too big or they get too powerful. Meanwhile the imagery of the name "Commander" speaks of armies, especially in fantasy. Which I suppose again supports the "Tactician" option.

The issue in this case is mainly because the Commander is giving a lot of action economy advantage, which can get out of hand with larger parties, which includes Animal Companions.

However, I do think the Commander should have, even if at higher levels, abilities that work on the realm of "predicting the weather" or "choosing the best terrain" that great commanders are supposed to have. Whether it's through magical means or by having meta-narrative feats like "Prescient Planner" and "Prescient Consumable".

They could even Tactics that mimic some spell effects later on, that have limited use. Not to mention the fact that they simply could have some tactics that require set up (not every adventure has the party exploring dungeons and facing unknown enemies/situations).

[Castilliano]

Lightning Raven wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

Unsure one can avoid the Commander being best when built around the party/team being as the class is centered on teamwork. And it's more profound than just one's Tactics, going into one's armaments & feats too. Maybe that's since Commander isn't filling a niche so much as multiplying the roles of (some types of) others.

It also strikes me as awkward how they operate best in squads, but yeah, not too big or they get too powerful. Meanwhile the imagery of the name "Commander" speaks of armies, especially in fantasy. Which I suppose again supports the "Tactician" option.

The issue in this case is mainly because the Commander is giving a lot of action economy advantage, which can get out of hand with larger parties, which includes Animal Companions.

However, I do think the Commander should have, even if at higher levels, abilities that work on the realm of "predicting the weather" or "choosing the best terrain" that great commanders are supposed to have. Whether it's through magical means or by having meta-narrative feats like "Prescient Planner" and "Prescient Consumable".

They could even Tactics that mimic some spell effects later on, that have limited use. Not to mention the fact that they simply could have some tactics that require set up (not every adventure has the party exploring dungeons and facing unknown enemies/situations).

Yes, I'm pretty sure most playtesters are aware that a Commander's power increases dramatically with group size (as might a Bard's or other group buffer's power). Just bringing up how unlike with other buffers, a Commander depends more on meshing with the party's playstyle. Part of this is due to the limited portfolio & limited roles for Commanders.

I would love meta-tactics like you're suggesting!
Prescient ones as well as "prep time" ones, perhaps with scopes large enough to address armies, i.e. banner's bonuses work in this valley.
I can already imagine several effects that would suit, with power depending on scope of course, but all valuable since they'd come preloaded, costing no (or fewer?) actions during combat.

[Lightning Raven]

My concern with the Commander compared to other buffers is simply the benefit they grant, which is out of turn action economy advantage. A +1 AOE buff or the temp HP of the banner, I'm fine with being really good at larger parties, but the tactics can get out of hand power-wise, if you start to consider the number of actions the party gains. It's hard to gauge its power, but it's damn good.

[Gortle]

Lightning Raven wrote:

My concern with the Commander compared to other buffers is simply the benefit they grant, which is out of turn action economy advantage. A +1 AOE buff or the temp HP of the banner, I'm fine with being really good at larger parties, but the tactics can get out of hand power-wise, if you start to consider the number of actions the party gains. It's hard to gauge its power, but it's damn good.

Is it really any stronger than a multitarget spell?

[Lightning Raven]

Gortle wrote:

Lightning Raven wrote:

My concern with the Commander compared to other buffers is simply the benefit they grant, which is out of turn action economy advantage. A +1 AOE buff or the temp HP of the banner, I'm fine with being really good at larger parties, but the tactics can get out of hand power-wise, if you start to consider the number of actions the party gains. It's hard to gauge its power, but it's damn good.

Is it really any stronger than a multitarget spell?

Depends on the spell. Also, it's more of a reliability. Spells, the most impactful ones at least, cost resources.

My main concern with the potential to scale out of control with larger parties is to curb that in favor for more power on normal-sized parties that can be fairly predicted.

Broader tactics that can affect more types actions will be stronger than the fairly niche ones that were released, but the tradeoff would be a more limited number of affected targets.

Spell-like Tactics for higher level ones could be pretty cool. For example, something mimicking Solid Fog (obscuring mist+difficult terrain), hidden pits and similar spells, working under the framework of Prescient Planner could be really interesting and unique.

[Gazzor]

Glad people found this useful. Point of the playtest I guess.

As I mentioned, commander seems to be B tier. I think that my party would have done better with Octavia the wizard tbh.

4 more chain lightnings, 4 more walls of stone (Which is an uber S tier spell imo), 4 more invisibility 4, etc.

Or Linzi the bard would have been casting harmonise fortissimo defence and dirge of doom. That's another +1 to hit most enemies, plus effective +2 to +4 to party defences, which is insane. Only 3 rounds per fight (Unless had quickened attacks with warrior muse to possibly prolong fortissimo up to 6 rounds each fight).
But, with the 2 fighters and gunslinger, most fights are over in that time.

As Gortle mentioned, spells can be more powerful, and I think that by mid levels, casters have enough slots to have resources for several fights in a row (Assuming you don't splash them all as you think there'll only be one fight that day...)

I think that as party gets bigger, commander falls off slightly tbh. Fortissimo bard getting +3 song is about 50% extra dpr that round. And that scales up with members.

Strike Hard! is one attack per round, so gets proportionally worse as party size increases.

The shield raise tactic looks very good, especially if all party members grab a shield. That's great action economy. But dirge of doom is arguably better, assuming enemies not mindless.

I'm hoping that commander gets buffed before release. I'd like to see another powerful martial class, besides fighter, gunslinger (with bard support), rogue and kineticist.