I am trying to understand how the Commander class functions without the Under Command bond.
I think that without this bond you can’t have a skirmish troop benefit from your tactics. PCs who are instructed allies can use them, but not troops. The reason is that there are too many creatures in a troop for a character to include all of them in your instructed allies.
It is clear that without this bond, a troop could not benefit from any strikes that a Commander might provide since a troop doesn’t have a strike.
Since a troop acts on a PCs initiative, the Commander using Warfare Lore and feats that improve initiative would also benefit the troop.
It looks to me as if any ability with the Banner would still be effective since it only specifies an ally, not an instructed ally. Unfortunately when using troops, the 30’ emanation is rather limiting. Technically not all of a troop would fit into this space with many formations.
It sort of feels like the Commander without that specific bond doesn’t provide much to troops under their command. I would love for people to point out things I might have missed
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I'm pretty sure that's the point: without that bond, a Commander isn't particularly better at skirmish combat than anyone else. Commanding a small squad like the PCs is different than commanding a large formation, and they probably don't want the class to just be automatically way better at it than everyone else.
So they get a bond they can take to get that bonus, while other folks take some other bond to get something as well.
It feels like its a "this is a game and we don't want Commanders to just outshine everyone else in squad combat" decision.
It feels like its a "this is a game and we don't want Commanders to just outshine everyone else in squad combat" decision.
Instead they have achieved “Commanders are just worse than everyone else in squad combat without a bond.”
Look at how much of the class revolves around the Tactics feature. Look at how many of the tactics and feats would not work in skirmish combat. You will only be able to affect the leaders of ally troops, not any of the troops themselves.
Look at the limited range of the banner and then consider that with squads every unit is four large creatures in size. A 30’ emanation feels a lot smaller in skirmish combat. In many cases it will only be your own squad and one other.
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It feels like its a "this is a game and we don't want Commanders to just outshine everyone else in squad combat" decision.Instead they have achieved “Commanders are just worse than everyone else in squad combat without a bond.”
Look at how much of the class revolves around the Tactics feature. Look at how many of the tactics and feats would not work in skirmish combat. You will only be able to affect the leaders of ally troops, not any of the troops themselves.
Look at the limited range of the banner and then consider that with squads every unit is four large creatures in size. A 30’ emanation feels a lot smaller in skirmish combat. In many cases it will only be your own squad and one other.
I don't think you have made an argument that Commander is worse than other classes in squad combat.
To do that, you would need to show that all, or at least most, other classes have some beneficial interactions with squad mechanics that they don't have to pay for. That would show that Commander having to pay for their beneficial interaction mechanics is worse.
So what does a Thaumaturge have that interacts well with squad combat? How about a Magus? Fighter? Sorcerer? Swashbuckler? Gunslinger?
I don't think you have made an argument that Commander is worse than other classes in squad combat.
To do that, you would need to show that all, or at least most, other classes have some beneficial interactions with squad mechanics that they don't have to pay for. That would show that Commander having to pay for their beneficial interaction mechanics is worse.
So what does a Thaumaturge have that interacts well with squad combat? How about a Magus? Fighter? Sorcerer? Swashbuckler? Gunslinger?
The Commander loses much of his ability to use the tactics class feature if someone is not a squad mate. Without the bond, a troop can’t be a squad mate.
The Thaumaturge can still use their implements. The magus can still use their spellstrike and weapons. The fighter can still use Sudden Charge giving them a better ability to move their troop than a Commander has.
The class that does have problems is the rogue as sneak attack now becomes more difficult. This is something that happens a lot to the rogue.
The bard also has a harder time getting people within the 60’ emanation (note that is twice the size of the banner aura) of their compositions.
It is also possible that a sorcerer, oracle or other spontaneous caster has no spells that work well against a troop. Prepared casters would presumably have time to prepare appropriate spells, a spontaneous caster is less able to adapt if they chose their spells poorly.
Note that spellcasters can also have a huge advantage if they have a lot of area spells that do damage since almost all troops are weak to area damage.
Alright, the sidebar on pg 164 Commanders and Troops does take care of it.
I had thought that the only way that a Commander could take a troop as a Squadmate was using the Under Command bond.
With that, the Commander is back on par with other classes.
The Commander loses much of his ability to use the tactics class feature if someone is not a squad mate. Without the bond, a troop can’t be a squad mate.
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As noted earlier, that is not entirely true. You can have a troop be a squad mate as a single ally using the normal squad mate assignment process. Under Command gives additional benefits that make the class feature work better.
You also seem to be cherry picking your examples. Not only is Bard going to have trouble getting their ally's troops inside the class feature emanation area, Champion is going to struggle to get their own troop entirely inside of theirs - which will make one of their main class features rather useless.
And you still seem to be stuck in this rut of listing out detriments of squad combat rules and thinking that doing so proves your thesis.
“Commanders are just worse than everyone else in squad combat without a bond.”
Saying that Sorcerers, Oracles, or other spontaneous casters might have no spells that work when fighting against a troop is not supporting that conclusion. At best that is just showing that many classes struggle to be more than generic characters when using troop combat rules ... meaning that Commander is not an outlier in this.
As an example of parallel logic consider the following argument:
I'm struggling to understand how the Witch class functions without the Troop Mascot bond.
Without this bond, your familiar doesn't have as much survivability and without your familiar your entire character's effectiveness is rather limited.
That just makes Witch worse than everyone else in squad combat without that bond.
As noted earlier, that is not entirely true. You can have a troop be a squad mate as a single ally using the normal squad mate assignment process. Under Command gives additional benefits that make the class feature work better.The Commander loses much of his ability to use the tactics class feature if someone is not a squad mate. Without the bond, a troop can’t be a squad mate.
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As I said, I had completely missed that sidebar. It changes things quite a bit.
You also seem to be cherry picking your examples. Not only is Bard going to have trouble getting their ally's troops inside the class feature emanation area, Champion is going to struggle to get their own troop entirely inside of theirs - which will make one of their main class features rather useless.
And you still seem to be stuck in this rut of listing out detriments of squad combat rules and thinking that doing so proves your thesis.
What disproved it was the sidebar I missed.
In the future rather than assume someone is arguing in bad faith (accusing me of cherry-picking examples) why not just point out the things I may not have considered.
Note that I didn’t try to list every possibiiity because it would have become much too long.
Saying that Sorcerers, Oracles, or other spontaneous casters might have no spells that work when fighting against a troop is not supporting that conclusion. At best that is just showing that many classes struggle to be more than generic characters when using troop combat rules ... meaning that Commander is not an outlier in this.
Sorcerers and other spontaneous casters choose what spells are in their repertoire. If they are completely lacking any area of effect spells that was because of a choice that player made. It isn’t something required by the class chassis.
As an example of parallel logic consider the following argument:
I'm struggling to understand how the Witch class functions without the Troop Mascot bond.
Without this bond, your familiar doesn't have as much survivability and without your familiar your entire character's effectiveness is rather limited.
Might I suggest a Familiar Satchel at the lowest levels, or Familiar Tattoo at higher levels? There is also the Master Ability Absorb Familiar that any Witch can take provided all of their familiar abilities are not required for the base creature abilities. Note that these are also useful in other cases where AoE damage is a problem.
Worst case, they leave the familiar a mile back in a safe place and communicate when it is safe to come out.
At that point the Witch is just giving up the Familiar Ability and most of the Hexes. They are still a full prepared spellcaster who given head warning can customize their spells to the situation. They can adjust much more easily than any spontaneous caster.
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In any case, the whole complaint was because I missed a rule in a sidebar. Given that rule, Commanders can be effective in Skirmish combat. They still need to be careful as not all of their abilities will work, but as you pointed out that is true to some extent for all classes.
Not gonna lie, Under Command still feels like the obvious choice for a commander as its effectively +1 to their squadlimit and that whenever they give a troop squadmate a strike they instead get to use 2 action aoe's instead. And that this is a bonus that every troop in the commanders squad gets to enjoy.
But then again so does Inescapable Troop for a fighter or Ambush Troops for a rogue.
Overall I think the bonds do give good choices for each class. That is why the original post was all about when there is no bond.
Given the rule I had missed allowing a Commander to take a troop as a squad mate, even the commander might choose to take one of the other bonds depending on their build. Under Command is going to be the obvious choice for the class, but not always the optimal choice.