It’s been a little over 24 hours since the Battlecry playtest dropped, and while opinions on Commander are overwhelmingly positive (seriously, I think people might be disappointed when it goes to print; the class is borderline OP, and this level of excitement’s going to invite a closer look by the designers), peoples thoughts on Guardian are…
Well, let’s just call them extremely polarized. Like, many people are reacting to the class like it shot their spouse or something, and I’m more than a little bit surprised.
Personally, I see a lot to like in the Guardian. Even some things to love. Like the Commander, it’s a class built for managing and controlling a battle field. The Commander is all about empowering the PCs to do more in a round, while the Guardian is focused on restraining enemy options. They’re both classes designed for facing larger groups of creatures, and leveraging pre-firearms infantry tactics and maneuvers.
Without actually playing it yet, I suspect the Guardian could use a little bit of a survivability buff, while also being concerned that Taunt doesn’t provide enough of an incentive shift to pull a mob off of a squishy ally. But it seems very well suited for forming and maintaining a proper front line (as opposed to a martial morass).
It makes me wonder what else is coming with Battlecry. Coming off of the War of the Immortals, are we getting proper troop combat or something?
I haven’t hosted any games for any Guardians but gosh do I love the idea of using Taunt to get creatures away from vulnerable allies! My players could really use something like that!
It’d be really nice to see some more archetypes that synergize with martial combat. Right now they are pretty sparse and a lot of them are centred around fighting with a specific weapon which I find annoying since it limits the build diversity enabled by that archetype.
I’m reading through the guardian right now. I’m pretty excited for it, but a bit trepidous. Classes characterized by their strong defenses typically don’t have as much agency as classes characterized by being able to influence the world around them in some proactive way. But hey, Paizo made healing good in 2e, maybe this’ll be good too.
I’m astonished it doesn’t get Expert Armor right out of the gate. Armor Specialization right away is welcome, however.
Intercept Strike and Taunt… I’m not entirely sold on both. Intercept has negative synergy with Taunt & Armor Spec, and feels about on par with a champion reaction, but they’ve got like 6 of those things. Taunt kind of hurts the fiction a little, but I’ll acknowledge the necessity of making it apply to things like rats, fork swarms, and skeletons. I don’t like that Taunting makes you more vulnerable to attacks than a champion with an identical armor setup. I do appreciate that they’re both usable in different situations, though - intercept for close range defense, taunt for long-range.
Tough to kill is just a better Diehard, which I think is fine as a bonus feature. Personally, I subscribe to the “Save 1 hero point each session” strategy to avoid deaths on characters I want to keep, this’d probably let me let go of that idea.
At first glance, I thought Reaction Time was nuts, but on re-read it just seems super meager. Guaranteeing a reaction when you botch your initiative roll isn’t all that impressive.
Guardian mastery seems silly. Why use your item bonus instead of your Bulwark bonus?
I’m curious about the archetype. Will it just be a worse sentinel dedication, but with better feats?
I’ll admit to being neck deep in the discourse around the class right now, and I have feelings about that discourse. They might leak out a bit here. Apologies if they do.
Intercept has negative synergy with Taunt & Armor Spec
I don’t think it does. I think they’re just orthogonal to each other. Meant to do different things at different times. The Guardian comes off to me as a bit of a kitchen sink defender. It’s reactive by its very nature, and so has contingencies for a range of things.
Taunt kind of hurts the fiction a little
In terms of naming, totally. Mechanically, I think it fits. The Shielding Taunt feat speaks to what it’s really trying to be – a type of aggressive, threatening distraction. The feature needs a better name.
I don’t like that Taunting makes you more vulnerable to attacks than a champion with an identical armor setup
I think this is actually really important to make Taunt viable at all. Lowering your effective AC is the only reason enemies you haven’t engaged directly have to change course and come hit you. What I do think is that the class needs even stronger damage resistance. The cost-benefit analysis that the enemy/GM needs to have in front of them is “doing some damage to the Guardian vs doing none to the other target”.
At first glance, I thought Reaction Time was nuts, but on re-read it just seems super meager. Guaranteeing a reaction when you botch your initiative roll isn’t all that impressive.
Guardian mastery seems silly. Why use your item bonus instead of your Bulwark bonus?
100% agree. Reaction Time’s a red herring, and a dead fish – I know a lot of tables don’t restrict reactions at the start of combat anyway. And the Mighty Bulwark feat is there to bolster Bulwark. Guardian Mastery is a lame duck class feature.
On the whole, the mechanics of the class paint a picture of someone who is darting around the battle field, getting in between enemies and their targets, and trying to make them angry enough to hit them right in the reinforced breastplate. More mobile and dynamic than a Champion, with less of an ability to hit back. Redirecting and absorbing damage (like a shield) and blocking enemy progression (like a wall), rather than preventing damage outright or reversing it.
It doesn’t feel perfectly polished by any means, but the bones all seem to be there for me. I just need to see how long it stays on its feet.
re: the ac penalty thing
I know it makes sense, I just don’t like it. The fantasy I have of a guardian would be the Armor Knights from fire emblem who just take 0 damage from spears penetrating their chest, not the WoW Warriors who go out of their way to eat hits on purpose.
That does seem to be the majority opinion on the class, and on Taunt in general. I really, really think it’s misnamed, and I kind of think it should be a feat, rather than a class feature. Swap it with Hampering Sweeps, name it something more aggressive, and maybe give failure and critical failure a rider off-guard circumstance penalty and I think people will warm up to it.
