I've seen quite a few threads about the guardian (who looks much better now than during playtest) but none about the commander.
What do you all think about what's been revealed ? Are you looking forward to playing one ? Do you like some specific tactics ?
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I like the Alley Oop! expert tactic. One action by the Commander, then as a free action any squadmate in your aura (which can be the Commander) can draw and throw a consumable to another squadmate in the aura, who as a reaction catches and activates it. (Drinking if it's an elixir or potion.) If it's ammunition, they load and activate it as part of that reaction.
It sounds like the alchemist can get this via multiclass at level 8, which is wild since the commander only gets access at 7. Fantastic on high level chirugeons throwing maxxed out elixirs of life, great on other alchemists sending elixirs or (prepoisoned?) alchemical ammo.
I've seen quite a few threads about the guardian (who looks much better now than during playtest) but none about the commander.
What do you all think about what's been revealed ? Are you looking forward to playing one ? Do you like some specific tactics ?
Hearing that it gets an extra known and prepared tactic is a huge relief following the playtest, and seeing that there's a tricky-but-possible tactic for off-turn casting is great. I'll have to work with GMs for Kineticist interactions, but that's fine.
I'm not super enthused by a lot of the tactics but alley oop has potential and piranha assault to negate resistance is going to be great in the mid and late game. The big thing this class seems to do is totally remove any real need to setup reaction attacks as this class hands them out like candy. Combined with the bonus reactions it also hands out, you've got a lot of extra attacks.
I also don't hate mirror wall in a party of people with shields (or more likely the shield cantrip) to try for a blind off of their legendary class dc and the -4 circumstance penalty. Targeting fort is too often a bad time for this to be reliable though.
Defenses are adequate. E/M/M/M, master armor, heavy armor. Weapons also cap at master, save as mentioned is on the legendary caster track.
The feats are ok. Pretty average stuff. A few mandatory ones like drilled reflexes at 10, reactive interference at 12, but nothing really jumps out at me on a first pass.
Oh it is adjacent. Yeah never mind that's pretty awful. And I definitely missed fortunate blow. That one's definitely too good not to take.
I don't have the book but I seen a few snippets here and there about the class and I really like it.
However, I have a few minor (and honestly inconsequential) problems with it. I thought the distinction between mobility and offensive tactics was going to play an important mechanical role on release but...it doesn't really? AFAIK there aren't class features or feats that specifically require one or the other to be used (like effects that only work with mobility tactics for example), and I certainly seen a few feats that include both in their text (like Adaptive Stratagem) that kinda makes me wonder why make that distinction in the fist place when all it does is increase the word count for no particular reason. Also, that distinction seems to disappear with expert or higher tactics, so why instead of "mobility" and "offensive" they just went for "basic" tactics instead?
it also doesn't seem like the class has much Aid support baked in, which IMO is a miss since if there is a class that I imagine having a feat like the swashbuckler's One for All was the commander. I also think Officer's Medical Training needs a buff because its kinda meh for a subclass-like feat, even if the latter feats are really good. For example, Deceptive Tactics is a thematically similar feat of the same level and its way better.
But that's really it. It's pretty much the playtest version (which was good already) but more polished.
I have a hard time figuring whether the commander really makes a difference in a team, instead of, say, a bard (I know they have little in common rules-wise but they're both considered enablers for the other players).
Do their tactics really make a difference ? Since it's so close from the playtest version, what was the opinon back then ?
Warfare Lore with earliest possible legendary progression and full intelligence applying gives you the best possible initiative and recall knowledge for monster weakness spotting. Take necessary feats/items to boost that as high as you can, win initiative most of the time, start off with Gather to Me! to reorganize the entire party a full stride, or Tactical Takedown to send two allies half striding towards someone they flank and it has to save or fall prone, etc.
Alley Oop! advanced tactic is insanely strong with proper party composition (alchemist, hands free). One action from commander, then anyone can free action draw and toss a consumable, and someone else can reaction (which you can give them a bonus one) catch AND ACTIVATE (AND LOAD IF AMMO). This means they can use that reaction to drink a potion/elixir, cast an off turn one action scroll spell (like POWER WORD KILL/STUN/BLIND or Sure Strike), activate and load alchemical/magical ammo, OR THROW A BOMB.
An alchemist with commander MC can do this at 8th level. He won't be able to grant the free extra reaction, but he can eventually Double Brew two quick alchemy bombs, Quick Bomb one at full BAB, Alley Oop! away the second, and have an ally reaction throw it at no MAP (for many levels even just having a caster buddy with max dex, hand free, and no good reaction to use means you're getting two effective alchemist no MAP tosses, or get a Laughing Shadow magus to team up). Or the commander can MC alchemist, take advanced alchemy, and have four bombs per day waiting to give to someone else for a free MAPless toss with a free reaction.
There's also plenty of good strike support feats. Strike and RK as one action, strike in melee and make off guard to next ally, ranged strike and grant +1 (+2 if you crit) circ bonus to next ally strike, and both the latter two are potential prereqs that stack with the level 12 feat that grants advantage to the next ally who attacks that enemy.
This video has screenshots and commentary on all the commander tactics.
He never showed all the higher level tactics...
I have a hard time figuring whether the commander really makes a difference in a team, instead of, say, a bard (I know they have little in common rules-wise but they're both considered enablers for the other players).
Do their tactics really make a difference ? Since it's so close from the playtest version, what was the opinon back then ?
Well, people have been asking for the non-magic support class for awhile now and that's kinda what this is. If you've got a team of martials able to take advantage of all the extra reactions to bring up damage, it can look pretty good and with true/sure strike nerfed, this is a reliable source of advantage for the local magus. As noted, it also makes alchemist feel way less bad when you negate the action cost of using their stuff.
Now, is it as good as a bard? I doubt it. That's a high bar to clear.
He never showed all the higher level tactics...
He did. There's only six expert, master, and legendary tactics. They're shown on the scroll/progress bar at the bottom of the video if you hover/drag on it.
He has two videos on the commander, the one I linked shows all the tactics. His partial overview, a different video that came out first and maybe you previously saw and assumed this one to be, only showed some of the higher level tactics.
I saw the other video, and got them confused, my bad!
Someone noted on the discord that because they Psychic-proofed Slip and Sizzle (spells that "use slots or Focus points" make you slowed next round), they arguably left open use of scrolls/staves/wands to reaction cast your damaging spell - those don't "use" slots or Focus points.
I wouldn't expect this to actually fly, though.
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I can not believe they actually did that to Slip and Sizzle, like really Paizo? It would not hurt ot let Psychics use Focus Points however..,Yeah.
I can guarantee no psychic is going to be upset with 'slip and sizzle' letting them drop an unleash boosted AOE cantrip in exchange for a reaction.
Hell, if they lean in to their Psyche/mindshift feats the 'slowed 1' is less off an issue as 'psi catastrophe' leaving you with a single action on round two of unleash meant that you often had to blow a slot on a single action 'force barrage' or use 'psi-burst' or feel you had wasted your power window.
Battlecry! Seems to be about acknowledging the power of encounter Tempo, with the Commander being very good about accelerating it for the party, and the Guardian slowing it down for the GM.
In the Psychic's case a Commander using 'slip and Sizzle' on a psychic can result in them dropping the equivalent of 3.5 maxxed rank Fireballs worth of damage in 2 rounds which is pretty much going to end encounters. (E.g. opening round 2 with a 'violent unleash'+amped 'shatter mind', reaction amped 'shattered mind' via 'slip and sizzle' and round 3 'psi catastrophe'. Yes that *will* hit at least one of your frontliners with approx 1.5 fireball's worth of damage but it's usually a wash with saving them from taking an extra round or twos worth of damage from enemies)
Any option that let's Psychics squeeze more damage out of their unleashed power windows is a very good thing.
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Yeah unless I'm missing something, I don't see the problem posed for psychics here. An amp cantrip is "using a focus point", no?
Edit:
Wait hold on I'm dense I missed the slowed part.
Even so, depending on the situation, that's a trade I'd take. I still don't see why that's a psychic problem and not a problem for every caster.
Now, the real cheese is with innate spells. There's gotta be some nonsense available there.
The issue is that by making sure psychic amps were treated the same as focus spells they left open items to use without action penalty. Psychics themselves are treated like normal casters.
Yeah, I'm not sure the designer behind Alley Oop realized that this would work with bombs for MAP 0 attacks from allies. Many classes do not get easy access to reactive strike style abilities, and would love this. And if they are proper martials, they will have a better accuracy progression than the Alchemist anyways.
It's honestly getting more and more frustrating that Alchemist gains such an absurd powerspike from archetypes compared to its pitiful base feat options.
Because the options for Alchemist Reactions are so scare, you might as well toss things to yourself to reduce the action cost from 2A into 1A 1R as a fallback use-case.
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Another detail is that the special line for activated ammo says: "the ammunition remains activated until the end of their next turn"
If it happens to already be your turn when that text is invoked, you now have a way to extend the activation across turns, which was previously impossible. You can now use a MAP action, then Alley Oop yourself to set up to open your next turn with the MAP 0 special shot.
Considering that burning through Bola Shot is frustratingly meta for my now L20 Chir, this actually matters a whole lot.
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It's also important that Alley Oop places no restrictions upon the activation of the catcher. For example, there is no limit to where the catcher may *only* self-drink an elixir. You can toss an elixir to the caster that doesn't have a good reaction, so that they then feed the sword and board marital that's adjacent.
So what does a Commander Archetype get?
So what does a Commander Archetype get?
Based on the clues in this thread, my guess is that the archetype goes Dedication --> Basic Tactic --> Expert Tactic at L8, which is when Alley Oop would be obtainable.
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There's a chance that the Dedication itself includes the basic tactic, but that seems generous for Paizo's norms on class archetypes. Then again, Exemplar Dedication is still there.
After Exemplar, it might be a coinflip as to if the base dedication bundles in some gimme benefits with the banner/aura stuff, or if that side is diminished more to allow a starting tactic to be obtainable with the dedication.
It has also been said that the class feature of Commander where the first tactical reaction each turn is free, is not a part of the archetype.
So what does a Commander Archetype get?
Ded gives you a 2 learned, 1 prepared folio and the banner without the buffs. Level 4(that can be relearned at 8th) to increase it by 2 learned and 1 prepared. Only up to expert tactics
Will upgrade
Can increase commander DC and Warfare lore at 12 and 18.
Can you skip the middle "more tactics" feat and go straight from Dedication --> Expert Tactic?
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Can you skip the middle "more tactics" feat and go straight from Dedication --> Expert Tactic?So what does a Commander Archetype get?
Ded gives you a 2 learned, 1 prepared folio and the banner without the buffs. Level 4(that can be relearned at 8th) to increase it by 2 learned and 1 prepared. Only up to expert tactics
Will upgrade
Can increase commander DC and Warfare lore at 12 and 18.
No. The feat specifies that if taken, you can take it a second time at level 8+.
Just adding BadLuckGamer class analyses here.
I like claim the area but like, it seems like it would protect you from possibly AOE
The weirdest class to combo well with a Commander? Animist!
Cast and sustain both Store Time (extra reaction for animist/apparition reactions) and Embodiment of Battle (gain reactive strike plus status bonuses to weapon attacks plus martial weapon proficiency). You can do this is as a full round 1 three action turn with Circle of Spirits, leaving you one normal reaction to use either to follow a Commander tactic (if he doesn't give you his free one) or for reactive strike (if he does). Depending on enemy/ally positioning and tactics available at that level the granted tactic could be a full stride, a half stride plus strike, a full strike, a combat manuever (for the rare Instinctive Manuevers animist), a double stride towards enemies that does damage or fear debuff, etc.
On your second turn you've got one action for your own MAPless strike and two reactions available, one of which is locked to reactive strike, one of which can be used for that or to follow a tactic if the commander doesn't grant you his free one. But if he does, an animist is potentially getting off up to four MAPless strikes per round (one action, two RS reactions, one free commander reaction to follow a tactic that includes a strike).
One nice thing about the Animist is that with Medium's Awareness the animist competes with/beats the Commander for exceptional iniative, allowing them to both win iniative often and delay as necessary to set each other up for cooperative tactics before too many enemies mess things up. Especially good for an opening Slip and Sizzle, which requires would often allow the animist to get off two 2a spells before (m)any enemies act.
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After I saw a Nonat's analyses of the class that I noticed that classe have no support for impulses.
I ignore this a bit when Paizo releases the Mythic rules, mostly because these rules are a mess and impulses are only one of many problems, but now when I was reading the commander I saw that there isn't anything it can do to interact with kineticist.
I begin to afraid that after RoE Paizo is just ignoring their non Strike or Cast mechanics that they added to kineticist and probably will add to runesmith too, and I remember that many of us have warned the designers about this during commander playtest.
I know that we can workaround this in homebrew games, asking the GM to consider that Tactics that allows a squad mate to Strike also allows a kineticist squad mate to allow use 1-action Elemental Blast too and/orTactics that allows to cast cantrips to allow to use non-overflow impulses too.
But if the GM doesn't allow or if it's a PFS game, any party with a commander and a kineticist, will have the kineticist unable to get benefit from any non-movement or non-skill actions.
OK, you still can workaround it a bit using Kinetic Activation with a Staff with some damage cantrip (Staff of Air/Atmospheric Staff for air, Staff of Fire for fire, Staff of Earth for earth, Staff of Water for water, but there aren't staves for wood and metal currently) but a kineticist shouldn't need to have to take an specific feat and a specific item just to allow it to be able to get some benefit from a commander's Tactic.