Post-Playtest FEEDBACK, Part 2: Diagnosing Pathfinder's new GUARDIAN 

I AM EXTREMELY ANNOYED that the music gets in the way in the last five minutes! At 1:26:47, right before I give "my last-last thought," switch to this for the Canon Ending: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-kQ3QtQFzFnU.html ADDITIONS/ERRATA: -2:38 Please appreciate my cat Megan freaking out a bit -42:55 I was corrected by a player, both Guardians DID get knocked out during the 2nd fight, and they were the only PCs knocked out. Taunt played a roll in getting initial attention. The fact that they ended up at lower health made them a more appealing target afterward. In one sense they were "doing their job," but maybe they should have been able to withstand the attention more from a Level+1 foe, or made the enemy pay for that attention? To be fair, the Grappling Spirit was strong for its level, having Improved Grab which is very strong post-Remaster.

an hour and a half... I can't think of a better way to start my morning 🍵

I like the guardian as a concept, but a few feats might need to be automatic class features, specifically those helping with surviving those hits.

I would say a few adjustments I would like: 1) Taunt giving enemies more reason to focus the guardian. The Surki's Sickening debuff move is a great example? And I think having something (like Enfeebled, Clumsy, etc) so they really want to hit the guardian (Maybe even letting the effect become suspended if the Guardian is hit) 2) intercept is cool, but I suggest a simple shift. When he goes to take damage for an ally, the enemy rolls against the Guardian's AC. Maybe make the Guardian Off guard for the strike if needed, but this helps the Guardian's reaction go from "hit me" to "ill try to protect thee". 3) I'd like more skills that force the enemies into a "pick your poison" situation. Like a big hit that activates next turn, but AC is increased during the wind up. If hut, the big hit does less to that enemy. The enemy CAN ignore them....but they are doing it at a risk. But hitting the guardian is harder and may waste actions. I don't disagree with the design concept, but think it needs tweaks to reach that goal effectively

Guardian's antisynergy reminds me of bard's compositions. You only can benifit from one at a time and have to chose one situationally. The biggest difference is bard's composition spells are very powerful, useful in almost every situation, and are something your party actively uses. In comparision, guardian's taunt and reactions are kinda weak, situational, and rely on the enemies making the choices you want.

So my take from that video that Paizo tried to make Darkest Dungeon Man-at-Arms class, but forgot to add parts that make MaA functional (Guard, Retribution, Shield Bash, party-wide buffs/debuffs)

Played with a Guardian and none of his class features made him effective. It was Hampering Sweeps and the fact that he would trip people is what made him effective. His class features hardly mattered.

About what you commented on 1:06:24 about Offensive-Defensive abilities, I believe that we have a bunch of classes that already do that (you put examples yourself), but we have none being Defensive-Offensive, upgrading you offence when you defend your allies. I believe that it would be a really unique class thats its "bad" at hitting enemies but it improve to enemied that (maybe ignore your taunt) and damages your allies. In general, I don't see the Guardian as a class that focuses on just one enemy or one ally, but a class that tries to protect nearby allies from nearby enemies (as its a big heavy boy)

Clunky mechanics aside, it doesn’t seem to me like the Guardian distinguishes itself enough in its own space to justify making it a whole class instead of a couple feats/archetype. As it stands now I feel it’s a great example that it would sometimes be more beneficial to fluff out some existing classes with new options than to dilute the mechanics into yet more classes. 4e is talked about a lot in context because it did a great job of making tanking (the goal of the guardian) not only viable, but also fun and engaging on multiple classes. Tanks were actually disrupting and punishing. I think it is a much more enjoyable approach. Control, stick, punish. 4e is the only system in which I've ever actually enjoyed playing a fighter. Taunt is also passive. As I often say, throwing dice is fun. Player action -> player roll. More so when it's your main mechanic. The pause you had when you realize you had to roll Will happens constantly to all GMs in all games due to the passive nature of saving throws.

I still don't know why only the barbarian is allowed to have 12 HP per level. If any class was going to match the raw toughness of a barb, it would be the bodyguard class.

Spitballing ideas for taunt (some of these are changes to the base ability, some would be feats/upgrades) 1)Make it a little like the Ranger's Hunters Mark. You spend an action to apply a debuff on a specific target, and it sticks on that target. Or, they can choose to spend an action to make a will save to end the effect. Or 2)make taunt last until the end of your next turn and when you attack an taunted enemy you get a free action to continue the taunt. 3) something like "Distracting Taunt" that makes it so if you are adjacent to an enemy you are taunting they are off guard to your allies (alowing you to "flank" while still standing near allies). 4)Aplying some form of the Facinated effect to the target you are taunting. They arent just bad at attacking your party, they are so upset they dont fully notice them (or something else to make it easier for other party members to hide and ambush). 5) you make it so the person you taunt can not make reactions that target you allies. 6)"Fight or Flight" if the target ends their turn without attacking you, you can make a free demoralize check against them. Also, one final point: does Taunt RAW work on mindless creatures? Should it (flavorfully and balance wise)?

Oooo, I like the Defensive Swap idea. That is definitely more on brand with the Guardian.

I'm running a short campaing from lvl 0 to 20 (we only play even levels that last 2 sessions each and odd levels are for downtime) with a guardian. What we observe is that none of the guardian's abilities combine with each other: not only taunt and intercept strikes, but the fact that resistances doesn't stack on each other (such as the resistance you get from the subclass, giving you just 2 resistance more than usual JUST on a critical hit; the ones from your armor proficiency and the resistance gained when you intercept strike), giving you a bunch of useless small pieces of resistances. Moreover, as you "just" gain 10hp/level (understand just 10hp in the context of a class who is suposed to absorb all the damage from the party), making the barbarian better at taking damage; and barely have more AC than a champion (less if you taunt), making it worse than the champion at avoiding getting hit (even worse if you consider everything else a champion can do). Without having made any specific changes, we agreed on some upgrades the guardian should recieve: - Giving an incentive of using TAUNT at close range (we believe is the class spirit to be played that way, and not taunting and running away) - Taunt should be an area of effect (emanation): it doesn't make sense for us to shout to Taunt an enemy but not the one adjacent to it + an ally that is flanked by two creatures, you need to spend 2 actions, with the chance of failing, to really protecting him - Making CON its core score + armor strength requirement calculated with CON instead of STR - Resistances should stack one with another, and not be redundant with each other - Reduce class feats that give better options to do instead of core abilities, and instead upgrade those (such as Intercept Foe, a better option from our perspective than Intercept Strike that uses your reaction, making you unable to use Intercept Strike once you finally are at melee from an ally) - This class has a ton of reactions, so it would be fine to give it early acces to multiple reactions, or maybe giving feats to allow changing a action for a reaction in any way, maybe combined with the first point I list here. I believe I'm not missing anything and feel free to argue about our points, we love talking about PF2e

Suggestion for a "taunted" condition: "Taunt" would... On a critical success grant taunted 0 and the +2 advantage while taunted by the same guardian, not lowering existing taunt but allowing it to decrease normally. On a success grant taunted 1 or keeps taunted at the same level for another turn. On a failure grant taunted two or increase the taunted condition by 1 if it already exists On a critical fail grant taunted 3 or increase the condition by 2 if it already exists. Taunted would give disadvantages equal to its number to all hostile actions as it does currently, and additionally lower the DCs for all saving throws caused by your actions for anyone but the guardian who taunted you. This would mitigate the AOE problem as only the guardian would take full AOE damage (maybe explain it by focused anger or something). The condition would last until you damage or inflict a condition on the taunter intentionally (as in no damage moving), but decreases by 1 for every turn you're not re-taunted, ending if it hits 0 or decreases from 0 (from critically succeeding the first try, so they can capitalise on the advantage)

The way Paizo implemented Taunt for the playtest felt odd to me, given the Fascinated condition fits what they were going for, and a rider or passive ability that gives allies an AC bump or resistance against Fascinated creatures would pretty cleanly encapsulate what Taunt was meant to do.

I played a Guardian in a PFS scenario and it didn't feel very effective. Hampering sweeps would have helped, but a Champion or Fighter could get that at level 4 and be even better so that doesn't really mean much. The core class features are just ineffective (Threat Technique & Armor Mastery), or at odds with each other (Intercept Strike uses your HP as a resource to protect allies, but Taunt puts you at risk of your HP disappearing unless you're doing it at long range where you can't really do anything else effectively). So in the sense that it needs a lot of work and the playtest is revealing that, it's working correctly... but I'm surprised at the state it's in vs Commander or the War of Immortals playtest classes (which seem to have been in generally better shape).

Really thoughtful comments. I do appreciate this type of review/feedback for a playtest.

Intercept Strike shold work if you are 5f closer to the ally that is taking the damage OR if you are 5f to the creature causing the damage That way you cold flank, put presure on ranged targets, and still Block incoming damage from distance if you stay close to your alies

I think a two good ways to re-work taunt would be as follows: - decrease the advantage on failure, so success +2 advantage, -1 disadvantage, failure +1 advantage, -2 disadvantage, critical failure -3 disadvantage, no advantage. - change its duration to only grant the advantage during its turn, but keep the disadvantages until it deals damage to you or you fail a saving throw against a spell or spell-like ability cast by them or you go unconscious (maybe with a 1 minute time limit). This would make the taunt more of an enemy magnet even if you stay out of AOE distance from your allies as the enemy could not simply avoid the disadvantage by not attacking you or using abilities that would not be affected by the disadvantage for a turn. A 3rd idea with these changes would be to give a disadvantage to saving against a second taunt while it is already active or the turn after they resist a taunt and taking the worse effect, thus making it easier to upgrade the taunt. Maybe a critical failure could increase the disadvantage by one if you're already taunted, turning a long-range taunter on the sidelines into one of these flickering lights you can tolerate for a while but compulsively need to replace after a few minutes, and would work similar to a condition you would increase on subsequent crit fails...

an interesting upgrade for Guardian besides the other changes could be keeping their weapon progression delayed, but they get something similar to fighter's early expert, but with armor instead (so they'd be armor experts at level 1, then master at 5, etc.)

I think the athletic menuvers would a cool space to focus on. Reactive trip, more reposition, and shoves while doing other stuff. Maybe they have a sudden charge but its a stride, raise shield, and trip/shove. Features allowing them get the trip trait on their weapon and the shove trait on the their shield. Hampering strike is a great way to get attention but contently tripping and shoving and repositioning can be really annoying and draw attention.

Some extremely insightful notes. I really do think that there are some amazing concepts for characters in this class.

Great video Dungeon Daddy! 😆 This definitely seems like one where the features don't synergize and it suffers, I definitely think it's gonna be a fun one once we get the final version.

I had a stalwart defender in first edition that used antagonize as his bread and butter ability. +23 to intimidate is a hell of a drug.

So there are many definitions for what a tank is, i personally lean towards the following definition. A tank is a character whoese purpose is to manage threats and control the pace of an engagement. This is typically achieved via a combination of durability and crowd control although this is not strictly required. In traditional pve games this is done largely by taunts and other thingsnthat force an enemy to attack you. In games like league it done largely through a combination of high durability, peel (crowd control that prevents an enemy from effectively attacking an ally/a get off of them tool) and the ability to body block lanes of attack with your character model In a game like pf2e an effective tank needs to be able to absorb some degree of punishmen, reactively mitigate damage and proactively be a nuisance. Champions are a good example of this between attack of opportunity punishing enemies from walking away, champions reaction punishing them from attacking someone else and shieldblock punshing them for attacking you, you have most eventualities covered for, on your turn you can do things like grapple and trip to be annoying and mtigate your opponents ability to be useful on their turn.

One of the things I wanted to try with the guardian was a Str and Charisma build, where I take feats such as lengthy diversion, using my taint, and create a diversion so that it really incentivuses hitting me, but them the enemy is of guard to me and has a flat check to hit me. I was looking for ways to put enemies in a position where, they have no good options. Then maybe using things like fascinating performance to really anoy enemies when possible,

It might just be me, but I honestly think the Starfinder 2e playtest Soldier got the better deal by getting access to a unique type of Condition called Suppression. I think framing "Taunted" as a Status Condition would actually work out better.

I definitely was hoping for something more like the 4e Fighter's Mark, or the Marking mechanic of another 4e Defender. Or the Defender Aura of the 4e Knight, or the 4e Berserker when in Defender mode, which would fit that whole area marking kind of thing only the penalty only applies while in the aura rather than continuing no matter where the target goes like a Mark.

As someone who used to heavily dislike compulsory taunt mechanics in the video games I played, I find the "mechanical incentive" approach to taunt mechanics like what the guardian is doing to just not be enough. It may feel bad, and takes away the magical "player agency" but compulsory effects have a place in RPGs. It isnt always possible to make the best, well thought out, logical decisions in the heat of high stress moments such as combat. People are often irrational and do things they would reflect on as mistakes, or problems. I believe that as long as you have a mechanic to resist or avoid compulsion, that compulsion is a good mechanic to have. +2 to hit, on a character that is ineffective offensively just isnt very incentivizing, when it may be just as, or even more likely to hit the bigger threats.

Abilities I was considering with the Guardian - Providing effects by taking certain thresholds of damage (enemies strike you for x damage become frightened, sickened, etc) - better bonuses when crit - Linking damage you take to damage the enemy takes - Being able to more easily remove wounded condition - Have a self healing ability related to your allies taking damage after a specific threshold or condition (if you unconscious and an ally within 20 feat takes damage you gain 3 hp and kip up or something)

Yes! The guardian needs to be a good enough defender that it justifies taking up a spot on your roster over other capable classes. They need to defend well enough that you can also have the least defensive glassiest glass cannon on your team. If they can't be that good defensively, then their offensive power shouldn't be lower than other classes. I love the idea of the guardian punishing the target of their taunt if they attack someone other than the guardian via a reactive strike or reactive maneuver. I also think the guardian needs more staying power - maybe via temp HP.

Guardian remains a class I'm not sure I like in-concept, let alone in-practice. Not to mention the Champion feels like a platinum standard you're trying to improve upon. You'd better have a damn good idea of how to iterate on the concept of a defender to justify the Guardian's existence. To me, it's not a case of needing more time in the overn, it's more questioning if this recipe even works at all. It feels deep in the Tank Fallacy trap.

I like the idea of guardian having some variations on the taunt depending on there combat style 1h weapon + shield - the tankiest set up. You taunt on attacking or raising your shield. 2h weapon with reach - the controlly set up. You taunt on attacking or opportunity attacking. 2h weapon w/out reach - the sweepy set up, most aggro but least defence. You taunt every adjacent foe when you attack. Intercept strike should also work when adjacent to the attacker OR the target.

I think the core issue that the Guardian faces is the fact that Armor is defense in Pathfinder (and other d20 systems) not damage mitigation, so it's hard balancing those two things when trying to play a Tank character.

There are two ways I see the Guardian: as a Point of Defense and as an evasive defender. The point of defense style is to tilt the enemy's attacks towards the Guardian. The tactical advantage is that if you know where attacks are going, then you have an easier time mitigating it, whether by things like Mistform Elixirs and Numbing Tonics or by natural/generated difficult/hazardous terrain. It gives you the ability to pre-plan your defenses and if your enemy doesn't comply, then you have Intercept Strike, Taunt, Intercept Foe, and things like that to add layers of disincentives. The Guardian also owns a surprisingly high suite of mobility. Intercept Foe is a lot of movement for a reaction and Flying Tackle is a pretty nicely action compressed run, jump, and trip. Being able to move around the battlefield efficiently was something I struggled with a lot as a Champion and I felt the movement options of the Guardian actually got me to where I wanted to be. But more importantly, it got me away from where I didn't want to be. Being able to Taunt someone 30 feet away and being able to Flying Tackle someone up to 50 feet away meant that I just gave an enemy a debuff to all practical targets and tripped the one that I'm close to. Overall, I don't like the "Victim", "Better me than you" kind of role that I think has been prominently focused on. I think, at best, the mindset should be "You are going to try to hit me, but you aren't going to like it" or "You aren't going to hit me, good luck with that". One thing I will say is that Quick Intercept unlocks so much stuff, that I think it should be a class feature at 5 or 7. Being able to Intercept Strike + Shield Block or Intercept Foe + Intercept Strike + Disarming Intercept is super cool, but having it start at 8 is kinda rough. Disarming Intercept might also be better if Bodyguard had Mobile Protection inherent within it from level 1. In general, though, that idea where the Guardian is stringing together a bunch of free actions/reactions while defending doesn't really start in earnest until 6+, when I feel like it could be a cool core feature of this class from the beginning. EDIT: The other thing I find odd is just how hard Rules Lawyer harps on +1s and +2s mattering and how damaging the +2 from Taunt is while saying that the dragon made a tactical mistake in coming down and attacking when Taunted, rather than attacking the flying fighter at a -2. Is this +2/-2 important or not? I don't quite understand why it is a big deal one way and practically irrelevant the other way

I love that so many people pewpewd on 4E once upon a time. Now so many are returning to it in some fashion.

Would thumb you up a thousand times if I could, most of this analysis is very close to what I've been telling to other players. Its not about being negatives when the math and mechanics of a class do not seem to work correctly. I also am not convinced by a class that comes flawed and feats serves to 'repair' its base kit. Normally feats should be used to specialized in certain aspect and become more fun to play in your player fantasy. Rework Taunt, the 2 branch needs a buff (ferocious taunt and mitigate harm), hampering sweeps needs a saving throw, there's a reason why auto-grab were removed. Love your idea about swapping some of the commander feats guardian feats, but this would require fixing the baseline Guardian. Also, don't put abilities related to to-hit on a class that essentially has an horrible hit scaling, or fix its hit rating.

Maybe, instead of reactive strike, reactive grapple may be interesting?

In regards to free action taunting when does X. the kineticist gets something like this and as someone who's been playing one from 6 to now 8. It's been very impactful, but much less "feel bad" than many other "class action taxs" I personally feel a taunt on a raise or strike doesn't seem too bad. Maybe feats to add other actions to that list?

What if your offense as a guardian came from your defense? Ala Thorns in ARPGs, where you would somehow deal damage back when you where dealt damage in combat?

Glimpse of redemption allows a champion to help flank enemies up to large size too The guardians reaction is worded such that they cannot help flanking

Would generally be fine with Guardian being full defense (we have things like the fighter for more offensive versions) and you could always take an archetype to help with that aspect of things. Also could specialize in maneuvers (cough grappling cough) so you can flat foot enemies while being beside your allies (so don't have the awkward flanking issue). Your skills don't care about your weapon proficiencies. Similar case with grabbing spellcasting from somewhere. Would be nice if Intercept came with a free attack/maneuver if the attacker is taunted. Kinda appropriate to force someone to look at you when they're ignoring you. Very satisfying to grab a flying creature so it can't go anywhere, even as early as the beginner box one.

To the question of how you could allow the Guardian to assist allies without having them scatter, there's a feat that allows a character to share another character's perception bonus when rolling initiative. Maybe the Guardian could have something like that where when an attack would target 2 or more enemies in addition to the Guardian the Guardian's allies get to share the Guardian's save bonus.

1. Taunt could give some temporary hp or additional resistance to damage from the enemy that taunted you. 2. taunt should be either free action or with an action should be able to raise a shield or defensive parry if you go two handed weapon or hand and free hand for potential athletic checks. 3. Intercept should work with a step or at least work in a 15 feet range 4. I agree with all the commander’s feats that are really fitting the role and the idea - especially swapping the positions!

52:20 I'm not familiar with Monks, but I think we're referring to the level 4* Monk feat Stand Still, which disrupts the triggering move action on a critical success. But you can get disrupts on a critical reactive strike (against the target of your Exploit Vulnerability) as a level 1(!) Thaumaturge with the weapon implement. Neither of these particular choices require very movement-focused builds, so I feel a Guardian trying to engage with movement as a theme being rewarded with the disrupting effect on a normal success sounds reasonable. At worst, perhaps a class feature for a reactive strike with critical disrupting could be enhanced by a low-level class feat to disrupt on a normal success (and prevent moving away from the guardian with any additional actions?).

I do think that homebrewing rules you don't like during a playtest is useful, because most playtests aren't just a yes/no questionare. They normally ask what specifically do you like about x or how could we improve. By trying to fiddle with the rules that you don't like you can then provide more specific feadback about "Hey I tried to make taunt a free action on shield - and that won't work because it's too much for the action economy" Or " Hey I tried to make the success chain different on taunt, and I found that by swapping success and crit success it was a huge help" By playing around with the rules on the playtest you can figure out more specifically where the sweet spot is... This being said, the attitude behind 'just homebrew it' for a playtest is still wrong, you should be trying to find what the specific rule should be.

An alternative idea I had for the Ferocious Vengeance threat Technique, instead of extra damage you become quickened until the end of your next turn, if that's too overpowered you could limit the extra action to only be a move action or a strike against the triggering creature. Didn't really put a lot of thought into this it's just a cool sounding Idea I had while watching the section on threat techniques.

My desire for design symmetry wants to see the Guardian get normal martial attack progression with Fighter attack progression for their armor; Expert at 1, advance with specific armor types early, etc. then have the feats focus on stickiness, redirecting attacks, etc.

Excellent video. My perception is that Paizo needs to expand its horizons and get more creative into what people think is cool about playing a Defender. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding between what the playtest Guardian wants to be (“hit me!”) vs what most people actually think is cool about playing a Defender (“I protect my allies from harm by being a badass in my own way”.) 4e really sets the standard here. The Fighter, Paladin, Warden, Battlemind. They have 4 different classes with 4 different flavors and they each fulfill the same role of Defender but in wildly, uniquely, cool ways. When I play one of these classes I don’t think “hit me”. I think “I am such a bad ass that enemies can’t help but to pay attention to me”. And that is realized by them having super cool abilities of their own. Paizo definitely needs to go back to the drawing board with this and reinvent this class’ fantasy.

I honestly feel like making STR the primary attribute was one of the failings of the class. It gives the false impression that it is meant to ever hit things. CON or CHA (for taunting) would make more thematic sense and help differentiate it and make its role clearer. It should be noted that at mid-levels (11), in the absence of a Champion for direct competition, our playtest Guardian had an AC 5 points higher than any other party member without ever using a shield, and actually made good use of Taunt regularly (mostly against enemy ranged attackers who were not in range of Hampering Sweep). But Hampering Sweep (with a reach weapon) was the bread and butter of the class in our playtest. Invested in movement boosts and items that helped with energy-defenses (e.g. Fire Resistance), then would just rush the enemies and lock them down en-masse in a 20-ft. radius "you cannot use any move action to move away from me" and let the rest of the party bombard them from orbit... He only ever used the Strike action maybe once per encounter, in those rare instances where the Taunt/Stride/Hamper was somehow not tactically optimal. Also the "Shielding Taunt" feat neatly solves the "Taunt + Raise a Shield" action economy issue at level 2, in addition to buffing the save DC (via a -1 penalty on the target's save)...though it would be a rough decision taking that over Sweeps.

Ronald sniping first by commenting from the past

I like the idea of giving the guardian that taunt had something like "if your opponent didn't hit you, (missing is not hitting) you get a +N on the next round to hit or something.... So you could build like a guardian with a Warhammer, and still be that taunting guy, but if you succeed on being hard to hit or is ignored you give the enemy a good black eye....i am thinking guardians form flesh and blood and not just "i have a shield " the class, a shield should be in the power fantasy but idk I like the idea of a reward even if just a 1+ on 1 attack

To be honest i think if "intercept strike" had the same trigger but you shove either the enemy or the target first then check if the attack is still in range and if the attack is out of range (because they no longer have the melee reach) then the attack just fizzels. Likewise with a ranged attack if after the shove they are inna different rangeband you apply the penalty and see if the attack still hits

I have the following suggestion for Taunt: Instead of the enemy rolling Will against your Class DC, you roll your Class DC(-10) against the enemy's Will DC. This way, it's the player who is making the roll and I think it suits me better because it's the Guardian who is actively doing something. Duration is always until the end of the enemy's next turn. CF: Enemy has +2 on attacks rolls against you. F: Enemy has -1 on attacks rolls against allies. S: Enemy has -2 on attacks rolls against allies. CS: Enemy has -3 on attacks rolls against allies and is Facinated on you. Thus, when using the Class modifier it removes the obligation to improve a specific Skill to make the class useful, as this way the player is not limited to insulting the enemy but many other things, such as being annoying by imitating the enemy, which I believe fits more in Performance or being convinced that the enemy should attack him instead of the other ally, which would fit with Diplomacy. In this way, allowing the Guardian to invest in other Skills he wanted, such as athletics without having a fee on the skills to make his main skill usable. And restricting Taunt's effectiveness to attack rolls makes it clear that the Guardian's purpose is to be the tank against physical combatants but not exactly the best against magicians. Another thing to worry about is constant repetition against a single target. It does not seem very likely that the enemy will continue to be affected in the same way after being provoked the first time. Therefore, I suggest that after using Taunt against an opponent, unless there is a CS on your part against them, the target will have a cumulative +1 to future Taunt attempts for 1 minute. This I believe would encourage the Guardian to always try to coordinate the Taunt with other allies, to reduce the opponent's Will DC and not become super fixated on an enemy, which the enemies should be the ones that should be on it.

4e already solved these problems and makes martials feel extremely badass to play. The only real problem with the 4e Defenders is the "gamist" nature of their mechanics - forcing enemy attacks, Marking, etc - but it's still very possible to tweak those mechanics to be more about automatic penalties and powerful Opportunity Attacks (and lots of them! In 4e they weren't limited to your reaction!). While being reaction-based would overlap even more with Champion, having uniquely good Opportunity Attacks/multiple special reactions (not just one!) would be a great niche for the Guardian. Also uniquely good synergy with shields or something; it kind of sucks that they're so heavily encouraged to use Reach weapons. I'd prefer if they were more about hindering the enemy (prone, forcing Off Guard, forced movement, etc) to make them an active participant in altering the game state rather than simply hoping the enemy will attack them, and by actively working toward setting up disadvantageous "lose/lose" tactical situations for the enemy. It's both more interesting and more fun to play. With bonuses to Opportunity Attacks (like the 4e Defenders), the enemy is especially encouraged to attack them to avoid a potential spike in their DPS - which means that even when the player is being ignored, they're having fun! Finally, being able to split damage between yourself and your ally (in a limited capacity) could solve the "too hurt to use your features" issue. If the Guardian is able to almost attach themselves to an ally and become a toughness booster to them both, they'd always be useful. Might be awkward though. Edit: The Guardian should be *the* toughest class in the game. Perhaps they should get (uniquely) multiple of the Bravery type features (reduce condition by 1, count successes as critical successes), even.

Man, you guys had some good ideas… The guardians reactive strike could have a bonus to hit to make it terrifying for them to leave, but they can leave if they want to. Or just give bonus damage of 2 damage dice or something for it. Giving +2 damage is not scary at all 😂

A guardian centaur with a cleric on his back! Take the feat that lets you stride as part of an intercept Low hp ally takes damage-> you take it instead while delivering the doc to his patient-> doc heals you both up-> other low hp ally takes damage-> etc.

I think it would be cool if taunt at base made the creature treat moving away from you as difficult terrain, and then there was a feat that improved it which said "characters you uave taunted cannot move away from you" which allows for lockdown like hampering sweeps but slightly less powerful

Going with the idea of tanking by wasting enemy actions, I think I would work well if taunt lasted longer, perhaps a minute, but the affected enemy could take an action to end the effect. This would be similar to how Bon Mot works.

Some suggestions: 1. Choose between offensives subclass and defensive subclass. 2. While alive the offensive guardian and his party deal extra dmg, the defensive guardian reduces dmg to his party 3. The taunt should last until he uses it again. 4. The taunt should escalate every time he ignores the guardian.

I wonder if a first level class feature called punishment: where you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to hit and a + 2 per weapon dice damage bonus vs challenged enemies that attack your allies might make the world of difference.

Full disclosure, i haven't finished the video before making this comment. Apologies if you arrive at the same conclusion. (Gotta get up early for work, so i cant watch this all night) I fail to see the need for the Guardian. The Fighter, Champion, and to lesser extent, the Barbarian fill this role. This feels like trying to reinvent the wheel. The very fact that you canot justify why a monster, or indeed a PC, would attack the Guardian over someone else without breaking immersion says it all. So, then, we have a class that tries to duplicate another class's role, cannot work outside a video game, and does the job worse than another class already. One would think this should be some kind of Champion variant or soyrce for feats for the Champion or Fighter. All the best. Appreciate your work.

I am a bit confused about the reactive vs proactive point near the end; people seem to love monk and it basically has nothing beyond passive stat buffs

Oh my god, that thumbnail is perfect.

I keep asking for a samurai class and it seems like Paizo listened - BUT! - they split up the cool samurai abilities of Samurai's Challenge and it's Banner and tried to make two separate classes. Once they get the flaws ironed out I'll probably make a free archetype multi-class character out of both of these. Just gotta figure out how to play it with a familiar that I can ride... hmmmm any thoughts?

Man the way to buff taunt. You are immune to critical effects and percussion damage until the start of your next turn.

I think temporary hit points would be an effective way to make the guardian feel good. Maybe temp hp after tasting enemy. So they have incentive to attack you and it's easier to hot but the blow doesn't have the same effectiveness. Kinda like smiling after taking a punch.

Even intelligent person can make mistakes, especially if angry. For example, if guardian managed to hit sore point while taunting, like insulted dragon's flying skills and dragon had humiliated themself by flying badly earlier (made mistake and made themself look buffoon, lost race to other dragon who they hates, etc.), it would target guardian. Plus, arrogant person tends to have self-esteem issues and/or low tolerance for disappointment, so very little may be need to upset them.

I like the idea behind Taunt, but its too punishing. I think the + to hit you should only apply to normal hits, not to crits. I would also like to see the Guardian transition from being a super specific Strength Tank class into a more general protector class. My idea would even be that the Guardian had different subclasses that revolve around protecting their allies through the use of different key abilities. I also would like to see the Guardian be able to choose from different protection abilities instead of being forced into using Taunt and intercept. I actually did a homebrew re-imagining of the Guardian class and shared it on reddit and got some overal quite positive feedback. I don't think that you can share links on youtube, but its a 3-part series called "Reworking the Guardian" and it is on the pf2e subreddit, if anyone is interested.

I am newer to 2E so I may be way off base, but when filling out my play test info I pretty much said Guardian needs the following: Needs to be more playable while not side by side or grouped with allies as the task my GM had us do; we had to spread out. That made my Guardian pretty much useless for defence. The Guardian also needs more offence. My big guy was pretty much a teddy bear. He did little in the game, but grapple our big bad. Lastly I suggested I would love to see the Guardian be a condition giver. To self, allies and enemies. Throwing out buffs to self and mostly allies while giving out debuffs to enemies I feel would give the game play a bit of flavor. I don't know, maybe that wouldn't work the way I think.

I didn't love that one of your two Guardians was running a meme ranged build, which gave a very bad impression of the class by making a deliberately poor build. Guardian also *eventually* gets to martial-level offensive proficiencies, so this idea that they hit like a wet noodle is true for a relatively small range of levels. Re: the dragon should have stayed targeting the fighter, sure, maybe, and the foe would have had a -2 penalty to all its attacks and DCs. Even if they flew up and breath weaponed the group, they would have had a 10% higher chance of making a save threshold. That's awesome value for one action! I actually think Taunt would be insanely powerful to on-demand produce its effects with no save; the circumstance penalties are tough to apply from other features, especially at range. Maybe this can be the guardian's special thing but would be wildly strong. I like the idea of the "retributive strike" but I do think they don't want to step on the champion's features. The range is a big thing that's tough for Intercept Strike for sure, I think that could be adjusted for ease of play. There are feats to allow you to move and Intercept strike, but there is too damn much loaded into the feats! They could make the Bodyguard feat chain baseline for example. Resist energy and letting it work on void baseline is absolutely necessary as well. Honestly the effects of defensive swap and intercept foe together (use your AC; if you are still hit, gain damage resistance) would feel a lot better and I don't think would be beyond the pale. Possibly a Stand Still effect rather than regular old Reactive Strike would be better for the Guardian's 6th level reaction feat to help out with that stickiness (looks like you suggest the same!) The Threat Techniques are definitely undercooked. The damage boost is actually pretty good, but it's action intensive given that you have to Taunt (which you probably don't want to do if it's adjacent to you) and then have it attack someone else (which means you probably have to stride over to make the most of it). Mitigate Harm is probably better but also very situational; if the resistance worked on Hits as well as Crits it would be a lot better, but maybe too strong at that. Maybe tune the damage numbers down a little bit. It's a shame that you weren't able to keep Shielded Taunt or Shielding Attrition, they are some of the standout feats in the playtest; Raise a Shield action economy is very good and quite rare. The divergence in the class around the 1 hour mark I consider to be more about different tools for different situations. There are several lines of battle and you can encourage creatures away from you to move toward you, while continuing to defend your allies in your domain of conflict. They have low perception because their saves are absolutely cracked, so something had to give (same reason Monk has lackluster perception). The whole "secret service agent" thing is fun but might be beyond the scope of the class with it's current focus. To be honest I thought it was a weirdly specific desire to shoehorn on to the class. In all, I think you really need to push a lot of the class feats into the chassis of the Guardian and it'll be in a pretty good spot. They are insanely strong at high levels in terms of just being able to take no damage against 90% of saves, but it's no fun to be backloaded like a Swashbuckler, which gets a bad rap because they only get really effective in the back half! Hope to see some tweaks because I really enjoyed my playtest with the Guardian!

Quick comment because I've been thinking about the positive and negative feedback, it's true that the point of the playtest is to give feedback... I think people just get annoyed when the tone is so negative. Speaking personally, I am deeply tired of how especially in gaming communities, people seem to get some kind of pleasure out of hating everything. You can give feedback that something is not good or doesn't work without dumping on the idea completely. Guardian's got a lot of positive reception because the idea is there and the mechanics are genuinely interesting and have potential.

What I think it needs? Maybe this one would be for the retribute sub class. Taunt itself shouldn't have the save. A taunted foe that attacks a target other than the guardian makes a basic will save vs guardian class DC. They take cantrip like damage (maybe a d4 or d6, probably mental damage), that scales about like a cantrip or maybe like a Kineticist blast. On a failure, they take this damage in full with a -2 to the triggering attack and on a critical failure, they take double damage and are unable to make the attack. Half damage and no other effect on a success. They may only take damage from this effect once per round, but still needs to make the save to attack the target to not get a -2 or wasted action. Another feature, should be a level 2 or level 4 feat, that they get a free reaction, that may only be used for a shield block, when they use their intercept strike. There's plenty of feats that grant free reactions, so this is on par with those, and would provide that much needed synergy. Maybe even at level 8 or even higher, a feat tree with that, that continues to not require using an intercept strike for the free reaction, or maybe a free reaction for an intercept strike. The champion has very similar feats and it makes the theme much more on point. Even more fun, feat 10, pre-req, you have raised your shield this round and use an intercept strike, make a free athletics menuver against the enemy who's strike was intercepted.

I also want to point out the teamplay between the gaurdian and the champion, if the enemies attack the champion to avoid the chamions reaction the gaurdian can intercept it and because the champions reaction only says damages an ally not attacks an ally the chpion can react anyway

Maybe taunt should have the addition of reducing successes by one tier to mitigate the crit window while still putting them in a position to fairly easily get hit, as those bonuses can be pretty huge for an enemy attacking

Just encountered this. The best guardian i want to play is going to be modeled after Maple of Bofuri fame. This feels like it falls so far below that i get Konosuba's Darkness vibes instead.

I feel like Guardian is going to be one of those classes that excells best at being a class archetype or dual class when it comes to martial characters.

The intercept should really include the ability to shove or trip either the attacker or your ally as part of that reaction, it's a classic bodyguard move where they just throw themselves at their ally to push them out of the way, or to tackle the threat.

I was thinking they could do something like if you have a target taunted and they decide to not hit you, that you can attack them with "fighters proficiency", or it allow you to move towards the "taunted one"? For Aoe cover..... what about making it position based, example if it is a line effect it stops the effect at your distance if it is cone it gives bonus to those behind you and for radii idk, you could add resistance if to damage you are covering your allies from (to them not to you ofc as you are standing to be hit)

I like the idea of a "bodyguard" archetype that is very quick to act my knowledge of pathfinder is very limited but maybe the guardian(bodyguard) can have a charge he can use on an ally to help them (heal, increase AC or whatever) ? maybe an ability to pull away an ally without triggering opportunity attacks ? a coordination attack where he can trigger an opportunity attack from one of his allies the guardian could have access to some protection and control spells and have ways to increase their efficiency by gaining additional effects as the guardian levels up ? I dunno how the spell list works in 2E

Also I think Paizo could benefit from dabbling in the game Lancer, as this class really looks to aim itself to do the thing that the Gorgon frame already technically does, though in the different context/limitations of Lancer vs PF's.

ooh~ the buff when bloodied would feel so thematic! Maybe as a class feat of subclass though. feels like it should be an option but not something that every guardian has to have? 47:23

I was super excited for the Guardian class but found it underwhelming outside of the ranged Guardian (sad to see it didn't work in the campaign you ran though). I hope Paizo could take into consideration some "tanks" from some tactics games, like Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. There's an action command that the knights have access to called Phalanx, which effectively prevents enemies from spending a move action beyond the 4 cardinal directions. They can move into the tile without losing their movement action, but they can't move passed it without taking a move action out of the knight's range and moving around them. In that game, its a very powerful action but mobile or ranged enemies can work around it. There is also an additional ability that the knights can get called "Rampart Shadow" which creates a shadow that effectively has Phalanx. Obviously this would be broken in Pathfinder if a knight spends an action to gain the Phalanx ability and then spends an action to create a Rampart Shadow 10 feet away from them, effectively creating a wall that enemies cannot pass that spans 30ft of length, but there could be ways Paizo could limit its strength.

Late to this video, but why can’t the primary stat be constitution for guardians?

What about a reaction where, instead of trying to hit an enemy that walks by you (like Reactive Strike), you try a shove or reposition action with your shield, maybe even trip? That would not even stop the enemy's movement towards the backline allies, but either place the enemy 5ft/10ft away from you or around you (or PRONE for a trip) . This way you don't have to count on your lower attack bonus, but you can use your athletics skill check against the enemy's save DCs.

As someone who’s GM’d a lot of Society and campaigns; I would have to say that every +1 matters more for players than enemies (well… maybe it could help for crits, but enemies rarely fell to hit pc’s unless I roll terrible.

I mentioned it on Paizo's Forums and I mentioned it on my survey: The Guardian really needs to be put back in the oven. It needs another round of playtesting. There are some major issues that this class has that are not easy to solve. First, it's too passive and that goes against everything that makes PF2e's action economy good and interesting. Second, it actually doesn't offer multiple playstyles or enables varied character concepts that is supported by the mechanics like what every other class in the game can do (Except current Alchemist). In fact, I would argue that the Guardian isn't even justifying its existence yet, let alone enabling multiple type of characters. It really needs a complete overhaul. It needs subclasses to enable different styles of defenders (meat shields, bodyguards, martyrs and so on). And it needs a better basic gameplay loop. It also needs a lot more "oomph", right now, it looks more like a martial class shackled by a facsimile of reality like they used to be, rather than the high fantasy stuff other martial classes in PF2e can do.

I'll preface by saying that I didn't really read Guardian more than a skim cause I didn't hear great things, so I very well could be off. While CON fits as a key stat, I honestly think CHA is better for a Tank class. Imo a tank needs to be able to get attention and I feel like you can do that thematically through CHA really easily. Give them a class feature that allows CON to work for an armor's STR requirements and then tune the class to focus on things like Intimidation, Bon Mot, etc. that debuff enemies for others. Their starting array should lean +4 CHA +3 CON and whatever else. They should be grabbing attention and attempting to debuff enemies to soften the blows. I also hate CON as the main stat since it doesn't lead to qualifying for certain archetypes that are locked behind stat requirements. Imo, you could easily add feats or features that help the Guardian debuff enemies through CHA. Sure, you would likely be atrocious at offense, but by debuffing enemies, they can't afford to ignore you and you still feel extremely impactful as a PC (much like the Wrestler.) I also like the thematics of a Guardian being the charismatic leader of the group who sacrifices his own abilities to help support others. Really, imo, the Guardian and Commander could either merge into one class to focus on buffs/debuffs or be two different sides of a coin with one being excellent at buffs and remaining at the rear and the other being excellent at debuffs and staying on the frontlines. Idk, I'm sure there's a way to fix things, but at the end of the day I just hate CON as the key stat. Health is great and all, but CON doesn't really help with skills or other such things that really flesh out the character. It just feels like such a boring character which is also how I felt about the soldier funny enough in SF2e.

For AoE effects, party-level defensive abilities should scale with the number of party-members participating in them, or they just aren't worth it or they are OP.

I think Guardian might be a cool archetype to pick with free archetype as a fighter or champion.

Hey this is unrelated to the video, but I've always wanted to learn Pathfinder, but I don't learn well just by reading a rule book since I learn in a more tactile way. My friend group only plays 5E, but does anyone here have an idea of how I could start playing/learning it as I go along? I don't want to bog down an existing Pathfinder group with my constant questions and long time to take turns.

maybe guardian should have different subclasses that have different ways of mitigating the action cost of taunt, like gunslinger with reload?

The Guardian should be redesigned around putting their enemy in catch-22s. Making the DM have to make lose-lose choices is the point of a defender.

This video made me appreciate the Champion even more

A reaction attack when they ignore taunt would be bad in 2 ways. First guardian's offence is bad so attacking wouldn't be a deterrent. Second if you reaction attack then you can't reaction intercept. maybe a buff to your intercept's resistance when you use it against a taunted enemy?

I don't understand why they didn't just make the key ability CON rather than STR? Keep normal martial progression but make the key ability CON, it will penalize offense enough to warrant the rest of the abilities, and might even create a nice design space for CON apex items, which right now are not really in demand since they don't boost your key ability (except for kineticists, who have their apex item in-built with their attack item, so they're not exactly getting a belt of regeneration)

IMHO the class would be at its best if instead of trying to manipulate enemy behavior it just redirected damage, period. Stand adjacent to the character you want to protect, roll some dice to generate THP for yourself, done. Until you next act, attacks against that character are redirected to you as you shield that character. It's mechanically simpler than trying any kind of fiddly / gamey taunting mechanic, lets the player actively roll dice and have fun as a defender and prevents it from being a 'do nothing' ability in certain encounters (like with enemies that have a lot of AoE attacks).

A tank should hit as hard as a damage dealer, but is easier to hit with a lot of health. The design goal should be that a tank goes down fast under focus fire from the entire enemy party, if they don't focus fire the tank messes them up. The trade-off should be in their mobility imo.

Do they really need more classes?

Very funny and interesting.😂👍