ADDITIONS/ERRATA: --It isn't spelled out how a foe can steal your banner. I believe the Disarm rules would come into effect, instead of Steal (which only works on negligible Bulk items... your banner is attached to something bigger) -4:10 and 13:30 After talking on the Paizo forums, it appears that the language "affected by your commander's banner" is necessary because they intend the squadmate to able to SEE your banner, since its aura has the visual trait. Meanwhile, IN ADDITION, they need to see OR hear you signaling your Tactic coming from you. Meanwhile, there is a contradiction in the text: the tactic trait says may visually signal your command and that it "typically" is by waving your banner. (Implying that it doesn't have to be.) However, the Plant Your Banner feat specifically spells out that you may longer visually signal Tactics, as if it is a hard requirement to have your banner on your person. -29:16 I admit not many foes will know about the quirk of Fortunate Blow at most tables. But think about how intelligent some foes are, and how players recognize a monster using Reactive Strike or a champion's reaction. Finally, I don't see any reason for the text to be agnostic as to who the next attack comes from: the first (flavor) sentence after all says you set up a "devastating follow-through from your ALLIES."
I am personally not a fan of the design with only two tiers of Tactics. It means when you unlock your first tactics you pick the two best ones, and every subsequent unlock you're picking worse options. Getting Legendary Tactician should get you really cool options, not the 4th best ones you didn't already pick.
100% this, same problem I had with the playtest artificer from 5e who had the different potions and such. Basically a "Well I gotta pick something so let's take this one I passed up 5 other times since it's the least shitty of my remaining options I didn't want."
Good point. At the same time another concern I had is that it seems "bottom heavy" when you reach the highest levels. Most of your tactics are 1st-level tactics when you reach the highest level. I understand the design challenge though: you want impactful things at Level 1 and not simply give watered-down ones that scale up later.
@@fatboy158 Perhaps I was misunderstanding what specifically OP was referencing but it was mentioned previously that it might be good instead of having 4 tiers of tactics to instead have only 2. I was simply commenting about wanting the tactics to be more spread out to avoid the "4th best option" problem
The banner is awesome thematically but I don't think it should be default. Maybe they should have a Commanding Presence by default which is smaller and originates from the commander themselves, and give them the option of having a banner if they want a larger, independent aura and some other small benefits
For people having a hard time seeing how the class would work, the real-life example is generally a sports coach. They prep and drill tactics to beat certain opponents. Figure out where weak points are. Inspire and push people to persevere or excell, and they make strategy adjustments in between rounds/quarters/periods.
@Atrianpaul dont forget that they are given an extra reaction specifically for the tactic so they should still be able to use the shield block reaction
absolutely, especially since there is that one tactic that allows for ranged attacks and includes cantrips for casters, I can see it not being able to do it at level one maaybe and let it do it when you hit x level if they think its too strong but either way it would be a nice thing to add to it because not too many people in your party may even use shields, usually its the tanks, might be only 1 person running an actual shield. Giving it to casters to make it more generally useful would be nice and I don't think it would be overpowered
I'm glad people are being vocal about their issues with the design. This class is conceptually awesome. I love the flavor of waking up to drill your squadmates and I'm always happy to see more intelligence based classes. I don't care if it's good- I'm making a wizard with commander archetype dedication. However, the problems with the design should be ironed out during the playtest and I'm happy this community shows no quarter in that regard lol
The way I see using the class is: Turn A: Form Up! followed by some non-MAP action, then a Strike. Turn B: Hit Hard! on the Barbarian or Fighter, then Strike. Those are your 2 choices of turn I see. Either move everyone, do something else, then strike. Or make 2 "no MAP attacks". That being said. I WANT to play that play style so bad. The biggest flaw this class has is TEAM COMP! You REEEEEAAAAALLLLLLY want a raging barbarian to be your version of Power Attack.
@@KingFate20 except it is not better. Commander doesn’t have any damage boosters, 2 barb attacks will always be better. Form up is not needed every turn
On my first read, I thought that "Form up!" was meant to bring distant squad members back to you, like they could start outside the aura's radius but had to move into it. The idea being that it's to set up a buff or something. As it is, I feel like there's a lot of overlap between it and Defensive Retreat.
I find a lot of good theme here, and some really good abilities. However it also has a lot of abilities that I just.. won't be bringing into my games in it's current iteration. I see a lot of potential though, and will wait for the final version before I decide. I do like the 'the squad practices fighting maneuvers' idea though. This explains why certain tactics can be used instead of 'they just yell some moves into you' like it felt like in 4e.
They need to redesign a few tactics and add more stuff for Spellcasting classes. Also, it might sound weird, but I think having more Tactics that are 1/Day to be a good thing precisely because you can swap them. That way, it will definitely feel like a "prepared martial", basically burning "Slots". On a different note, I'm really not liking the low AOE of the Banner. I think this should be higher from the stat and should be MASSIVE at higher levels. We all know that Champions suffer immensely at higher levels when combats start to involve lots of flying and immense creatures, which pretty much screws their reaction ranges and limited aura size. The Commander will have pretty much 90% of their power channeled through the Banner's AOE. At higher levels, it's likely that in many combats, the commander will have to be micromanaging their position in the middle of a battlefield. It may sound like this is something "tactical", but I don't think this will be anything bug annoying for the players. Bards do not have to worry about such things because their stuff mostly have 60ft AOE (can be shaped) ad can't be stolen mid-combat.
I made a nearly one-to-one conversion of the 4e Warlord (and the other 4e Player's Handbook classes) to 5e. It's in my book, Player's Guide to Powers, on the DM's Guild.
Another thing besides what you mention in your additions/errata regarding "affected by your commander's banner", Commander's Steed specifically says the banners effect is from your mount's space when attached even if you're not riding it (thus not an aura around the commander) and also doesn't mention anything about auditory only commands when not mounted, unlike Plant Banner.
Many of the tactics feel very niche. The feats that let you swap out prepared tactics are almost feat taxes if you want to be flexible. People who don't have this will likely choose generally applicable tactics and rarely change. Having more tactics trained earlier would help me feel the support of this character. I'd love to see the early tactics scale as you get better. For example, the climbing one could be a bonus to climb checks at trained, climb farther at expert, a climb speed at master, and faster at legendary. Kineticists get no love from commanders. I understand why they didn't want these blasts to stack with other effects that alter strikes, but they should get some support.
It would be nice if they are given the ability to get a swap out tactics for free, even if its like "you can swap one tactic instantly for free once per day" at higher levels, some way to inately do it and improve it if you take feats for it would be nice. also yeah, it would be weird having to specifically say "this also works with the kineticist" so a smart way to word things to add in some love for them would be appreciated
@@InconspicuousNessMan They need some sort of keyword that can apply to elemental blasts. This way if they ever make something else that isn't a cantrip and isn't a strike in the future, they'll be set up for it.
I'd honestly love it if that feat was just a base feature. Maybe limit it to "You can swap half your tactics (rounded down or rounded up, both work imo) at initiative. Would really promote flexibility and a more tactical playstyle instead of just having two or three of the most general tactics. I'd also love one or two more tactics in the folio, honestly. But I think either or could work. I'd also love a feat at like 8th level or something that lets you switch out a tactic as a free action a few times a day. Maybe two times? Though, this would probably be a bit busted with Valkyrie's Charge
This class as it currently is will pretty much have the same issues that prepared casting has in Dnd3/3.5/PF1e/PF2e, since most people will pick a routine and will rarely stray.
@@StarryxNight5 Very true. I know that I'm not likely to prepare VC on a regular basis because it takes up a slot for something that can be used all the time. I'd likely only slot it in when we know this is the boss fight.
When you really think about it, what would an adventuring party need, a commander shouting advice from the back, or an additional warrior or magic user? Large military units need a commander who primarily commands, 4 member parties do not.
Just noticed that the Commander's Banner section says that the banner must be held or affixed to a weapon or shield you're wielding in order to use banner trait stuff, but the Banner Trait section under Key Terms doesn't mention the shield. So I wonder which is intended?
Auto-scaling Warfare Lore that lets you one RK on any creature feels like power creep or a significant change how much cost designers assosiate with it. It made sense for Thaumaturges as their main gimmick, but now Commander might get it too. Feels wrong when comparable Ranger feat is level 10 (and Ranger has to invest in Nature through their skill increases and even then Wisdom is not their KAS)
@@davidbowles7281the thaumaturge's whole thing is being the "plethora of supernatural knowledge from dubious sources" and carrying random occult trinkets for every situation. Knowledge of the supernatural. That's their aesthetic. A thaumaturge encountering a werewolf would recall tales of silver and wolvesbane and weaponize that. In mechanical terms, using the monster's weakness to silver. A commander encountering a werewolf would recall werewolves described in combat treatises as durable and skilled combatants that suffered weakened mental states due to their condition. In mechanical terms, identifying will as their weakest defense. The fact that weaknesses is not given to the commander through warfare lore is a very important detail separating the aesthetics of it and thaumaturge. I'll give you that a cha lore skill is kinda weird to make sense of. My thaum is a story-teller type who draws wisdom from the old tales and his slight hoarding problem.
Thaumaturge is a bit of a weird thematic/mechanical divide because what they're doing kind of involves Wis, Int, and Cha, but that would make it insanely MAD
The penalty to loosing your banner seems like the worst clunker feature on an otherwise promising playtest class (especially given cloth only has 4hp!) Probably best to eliminate that from the class but perhaps keep it for a commander monster stat block. It would be great fun for a player to demoralize the enemy by snatching away their commander’s banner.
I played as a Lvl 5 Commander yesterday in a one shot. I personally felt that without limits, Tactics are quite broken. Especially Pincer attack. My team was able to mow through enemies considering almost everyone got off guard. Form Up tactic basically doubled everyone's movement. And our Thaumaturge kept his reactions with Drilled Reactions. Personally, treating Tactics like Focus Spells would be cool.
I must say I'm kind of sad that the siege weapons use the keyword load and not reload but totally understandable and hope I can convince a friend to play it so I can see what I can do with a Backpack Catapult [yes I just found the weapon with the highest reload time for the meme]
You forget one thing about shields up, it lets your squadmates to use their parry trait as free action and system finally lets twohanded weapons get parry trait with raise haft
This reminds me of the 3.5 book: Tome of Battle. Specifically, the crusader class focusing on the White Raven school. There's room for improvement but as a long time martial character lover, it helped bridge the martial/ caster divide, and didn't use a bunch of cool downs.
Oh my fucking god I just realised animal companions are allies Mongol horde party is even more OP. Or actually viable. You take the commander tactics for movement and shooting Everyone takes cavalier You all run around and shoot the enemy. If they get close the martials switch to melee weapons and pummel them to death. edit: It has been brought to my attention that cavalier grants animal companions, which are minions, and cannot act outside their masters' turns. Sadge
Not all tactics cost a reaction, and some of them support this idea. Of course, every animal companion is a slot that takes up a squadmate slot, and you only have so many of those.
@@Kokszo True, but only YOUR Animal Companion could benefit. Minions "can't act when its not your turn". So another Player's Companion can't use any reactions or free actions when you use Tactics because it wouldn't be their master's turn.
Commenting this pre-watching (I updated this comment after watching). I wrote a (unfortunately somewhat unpopular) reddit post about this, but I think the main issue with the Commander (Aside from some VERY powerful, almost OP, Feats) is that his class feature is unbound and not really balanceable. What I mean is that many of his abilities affect all allies and give them all action, which directly scales with how many allies you have. Meaning that while in a small party certain tactics are almost useless, in a big party they straight up break the action economy. Most of the now party wide abilities should be capped to 2 or 3 allies, depending on its strength, and then be balanced around that. DEFENSIVE RETREAT and READY, AIM, FIRE! are some of the wirst offenders of this. In general I think that the Commander has a big issue where his abilities power-floor often is REALLY low but his power ceiling is REALLY high. READY, AIM, FIRE will probably instantly delete any boss if your team consists of you and 7 Gunslingers. If you have a normal team of a caster, a champion, yourself and a melee fighter this tactic is literally useless and might as well not exist. This why my suggestion for that tactic would be to limit it to affecting 2 allies for example, but making it so that affected allies are allowed to switch their dex for your int for the purpose of that particular attack. Also, like with the Guardian, some features and feats are just generally completely broken and overpowered. END IT!s condition for example is very easy to fulfill and applies one of the most powerful debuffs (More so than slow arguably) on just a failed safe and in an aoe. That Feat probably needs to be tied to an amount of XP left in the fight or rather should probably not exist at all or be completely reworked to only cause frightened or something like that. I know I was very negative in this comment, but overall I really like the ideas presented. I just think that many aspects, while cool in concept, have been poorly thought out and need a lot of work still. Edit after watching: I don't really think that STRIKE HARD is that powerful actually. If you think about it, you basically spend 2 actions and potentially one reaction for one attack of an ally who liley is as accurate as you are. Basically, you spend an extra action to get rid of the MAP on your Strike, which is very in-line with other similar abilities imo. Sure, that ally is probably gonna do a little more damage and be slightly more accurate, but if that tactic is your bread and butter, why not just play this other class in the first place? I see this Feat as a way for the Commander to do catch up in DPR with other martials in rounds where he might not have a good tactic and wants to just only attack. Then he can spend 3 actions for 2 attacks at full accuracy, which certainly isn't bad, but does not seem that out-of-line imo. Other tactics actually are straight up gamebreaking.
I broadly agree with the assessment that the unbounded nature of the commander abilities make them hard to Balance around scale, but I think most groups don't have a GM and 8 players, as in the gunslinger example. Getting 8 people drilled would require a Int mod of +6, as well, but if that is a concern one could simply limit the number of trainable squadmates per morning to the commander's flat Int mod. At the risk of making them too mad, a commander's Charisma is important- limiting it to a value + their Cha mod might work as well. A possible approach that tamps down the effectiveness would perhaps be putting some kind of bottleneck on how many tactics a party can benefit from in quick succession- tying it to the recipient's con or wis mod, for example. It makes sense that a fighter would be able to keep up with the extra physical strain of darting about the field and changing plans on a moment, or that a fellow commander would be able to have enough battlefield awareness to manage the shifts in the landscape, but a wizard would get gassed or have other things on their mind. Each player tracks their own limits per [timeframe] (a refocus-like activity to change tactics and let everyone rest would be in flavor), or using the spell text of a target being immune to X effect for Y minutes. Tying it to the commander's wis or int mod+some value might work as well, to represent how many opportunities they can find in the moment of battle to execute their tactics. I think this class has a lot of knobs you could turn to whip it into shape.
@@al8188 Regarding your first point: You are of course right that the scenarios where it is busted are relevant for few parties, but firstly, I class that simple breaks for anything but the average party size is not well designed imo and secondly, it is still indicative of a bigger problem. The floor/ceiling problem still remains even for normal party sizes, its just not as immediately obvious (For example compare a party with a ranger, gunslinger and rouge vs the party example from above). I also think that its better to allow the Commander to have their whole party under their banner and only limit the number of allies certain abilities can affect, because who to target with a certain tactic is an interesting moment to moment choice in itself. Regarding the second paragraph, its an interesting idea, but I am not sure if it would work well. After all, the Commander would also need to keep track of who is affected. I generally also want the Commander to be able to benefit all of their players equally (And at the moment he already arguably has a problem with disproportionately benefiting martials over casters). Also this would make him even more reliant on having the right teammates around him. We need to keep in mind that its still HIS class feature and it should be good but remain balanced mostly independently from other players casters. So I would rather explore other options of balancing the Commander. This is a personal opinion, but I would actually find it more interesting if they made the individual tactics a little less strong, but allow him to take a lot more and just generally give him more options. I feel like this would fit his "Tactician" fantasy far more and make him more distinct from casters. I would find it interesting if he had like 6 minor tactics and one very impact once-per-encounter tactic or smt like that.
Loved the overview. Did wanna mention though, you had a moment where you said most lvl 1 characters don't have access to Battle Medicine, but isn't Field Medic basically the most popular Background?
They use Warfare as a universal knowledge skill and for their initiative. They can use Int for Medicine, Feinting, and Creating a Diversion with the right feats. They also only get 2 skills + Warfare + Int, so they want that Int for skills. Int is also what they use for Crti Spec DCs, which they get for all weapons (not fists). They are like Monk/Fighter in that your feats are your subclass. They have quite a few feat chains.
I would just keep the intelligence at 12 to be able to target 3 allies with tactics. The main drawback is having a lower initiative with warfare lore. The upside is that you can spend those points into for example wisdom for better saving throws.
I would absolutely allow tactics to work with cantrips for casters at my table. It should make it into print. Very easy, and instant, house rule if not though.
I'm surprised nobody is really talking about these two classes resemblance to Cavalier in PF1. Tactics and Banners were both features of that class and many of its other features were tank abilities. It seems to me they're concerned less with 4E and more with attempting to bring back a class that they got yelled at for turning into an archetype in PF2. Rather than using the remaster to just make it a full class again they're splitting it's features that weren't in the archetype into two classes based on what it used to be capable of.
The Cavelier Archetype even has a feat at level 4 that functions practically identically to the Commander's Banner. Even inflicts Frightened on allies if it's destroyed
I think a reasonable way to balance the ones that have a cooldown is make it so that you can't swap it out while the cooldown is in effect, the only thing with that is it might make the once per day ones a bit of a liability I suppose. Instead maybe make it so you can only change your tactics once every x amount of time like every hour or couple of hours maybe? This in my opinion makes the choices you make more important while still allowing strong cool down effect ones to be in play. I think that making the big cool down effects into feats might feel a little bad because then you can't take other regular class feats unless theyre given to you for free which also feels a little weird. Maybe when you hit x level get a "cooldown" feat in addition to your class feat and can choose between a couple of different options a bit like how the inventor gets innovation feats. I suppose theres a few ways to do it. so far this is playtest is looking good. some clarification/tidying up etc would be nice and I am sure there are plenty of little changes they can make but I do love the concept of this class and I look forward to seeing what it can do. It's a shame that this is a class that really doesnt seem to like having multiple in a party which doesnt seem to be the case as much as basically any other class but I think thematically it makes sense for that to be the case, having multiple people trying to be the leader would suck in most cases (though could be interesting roleplay wise) I don't have a lot of chances to play pathfinder but I really do hope I get the chance to play one of these in a game at some point
Regarding the idea that players didn't like the idea of someone of the same level being the leader or giving orders-- these people don't understand what it means to be a leader. A person isn't a leader because they're better than you, so chill. A leader is a necessary component on a well-functioning team. Oftentimes, they have more responsibilities and accountability for their decisions, which explains why they might get paid more, but they aren't better than you. They don't even have to be more experienced. They're just the ones stepping up to do the job and accept the responsibility (and hopefully they're competent enough).
Would an Elemental Blast count for Ready, Aim, Fire? I’d probably allow a one action blast since cantrips are allowed and they’re similar enough, but it doesn’t seem to say.
iirc Paizo has already said that they're currently working on clarifications for elemental blasts that let them more easily interact with tactics and other abilities that mention strikes
Awesome video. Thanks for putting out. I would say though that the commander class is not being added to Pathfinder second edition, it is being added to the new addition of the game that is coming out and has already started to come out.
"The next creature to attack" ... also means that if there is a fight between three parties (Ex party, bad guys, and rampaging beast) allow the 3rd party the bonus too. How many times do we see something like that in the movies?
When he implied that the enemy would attack itself, he shows that he approaches pf2e as a boardgame and doesn't really care for the fantasy of the game.
It feels a bit backwards to me that the key ability score for the thaumaturge, a class built around esoteric knowledge, it's charisma whereas the key ability score for the commander, a class built around leadership and communication, is intelligence. I get that tactics are a big part of this class fantasy, and intelligence plays into that, but it would still make more sense to me if they switched
I think we need a keyword for elemental blasts that we could use for things like this. That way future classes with attacks that aren't quite strikes or spells can use the same language.
This feels like an archetype. I would rather add martial support through more archetypes like martial than entire classes. This just feels kind of lackluster as a class imo.
I played a 4e campaign from 1-30. We had a warlord join our group from level 12 on. I LOVE the idea of the class, but their implementation just WRECKED the action economy!! His turns would take 45 minutes because he kept finding ways to give everyone else a free attack on his turn, sometimes multiple times, and if he spent an action point, we could get up to 3-4 attacks on his turn, some of which could be our big Encounter and Daily powers. Also, between his and the cleric's bonuses we'd hit on a 2 or 3, and the enemy would need a 15+ to hit us. They utterly broke the math of 4e!! I think the Commander's tactics requiring a reaction, and P2e's limited sources of bonuses can help mitigate this. However. some of those feats around handing out reactions seem like they may reintroduce some of the same issues.
Not sure why you’d complain about the movement ability tactics as spell casters can do it among a hundred other reality breaking things, and have been negating those skill and feat investments since their inception.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG is there a 9th level tactic that can change reality for the entire world? How about a tactic for traveling to different planes. The ability to fly? Spider climb does the trick, and there’s a swimming spell out there too. Casters both negate those skills and have abilities that make them meaningless. Once again, seems strange to complain about those tactics in their limited portfolio. Casters may not do it at will, but they can do it often enough to get it done when it’s actually going to matter, along with a ton of other things that outclass anything a martial can do outside hitting something with a stick.
@@shoulung6203I think I know what you mean. Though you seem to have mixed up some numbers. The difference between a 9th level tactic and a 9th level (rank) spell is VERY significant. 17th character level is the earliest, I know of, you could access a 9th rank spell. My assumption, do correct me if I'm mistaken, is that you're referring to wish/alter reality and similar spells. Those are actually 10th rank. For reference, wizards learn to prepare one 10th rank spell at lvl 19. So to make a fair comparison you'd have to compare wish to tactics available at a similar character level. Like the two legendary tactics available at lvl 19. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. TLDR: Character options available at lvl 9 are not a fair comparison to character options available at lvl 17/19. Hope you have a good day.
@@jon9828 eh, I’m more familiar with spell levels in 5e. Feel free to pick anything the martial class can do at level 20and compare it to a wish spell, it’ll still come up short.
It is a very specific fantasy and is unnecessarily exploitable by enemies. Making it the default means will discourage players that may like the idea of a martial tactician or inspiration type of class but aren't interested in advertising their location and combat function to everybody they encounter. Reflavoring generally won't remove the undesirable parts and may result in an unwarranted buff. For example, if you change it to not an item, then the built in flaw is eliminated without MORE reflavoring. I'd be fine with banners as an option, even a major and well-supported option. I'm just not interested in that particular limitation.
I simply do not like this class. The vancian training doesn't make any sense. You do not forget training and you can't overwrite it. That's not how it should work. Even the retraining of feats is hard to believe for me, but this is simply absurd. Cooldowns and limited uses do not work well with simple trained actions. You either can repeat them at will or you get fatigued and can't do anything more at all, not just that particular action. Being unable to repeat a physical action without any real physical impairment simply doesn't make sense. The medical skills in a commanding officer also do not make any sense. They didn't make sense in the warlord either, if not as a feature given to its combat role as a cold game mechanic. This whole class also has one very major flaw: all it gets only works with specific allies present within a rather short distance. Without allies to boss around, and which allow it to boss them around, this class can only rely on basic melee or ranged attacks. And guess what happens if its banner is destroyed or stolen in the middle of nowhere, where it can't get a suitable replacement? There is a reason why in ancient warfare the standard bearer was NEVER the guy issuing orders. That thing makes you a primary target. Any GM playing intelligent enemies should just blast the guy with the banner first, to be realistic. It has been the deadliest role in battle for centuries. Also, this guy really messes up action economy. I know that implementing something akin to teamwork feats is kinda impossible in PF2, but that would have been far better than this. I find ironic that a game born to keep the distance from D&D 4e now tries to become more like 4e.
Lots of pf2e makes no sense. I'm told constantly to deal with it because the system works. This Vancian leader is an example of going full gamist with no realism at all.
@@davidbowles7281 that's because the very basic structure of PF2 is really close to that of 4e. Basically, they just removed the word "powers" and put in "class feats" in its place. At least they had actual spells added in and the focus powers are kinda OK, even though copying the 5e magic system was not that smart in my opinion. It's a bad system which fuses together the vancian magic with the 3.5 psionics system, but only taking the worst of both, while discarding the best.
Okay, in play, you can frame the commander as a "military nerd" but how often will players choose that archetype? The fact that commanders are laying down banners and such paints them as a more central figure. I still have a lot of misgivings about this class, certainly at my table it will be one of the few classes that get banned.
ADDITIONS/ERRATA:
--It isn't spelled out how a foe can steal your banner. I believe the Disarm rules would come into effect, instead of Steal (which only works on negligible Bulk items... your banner is attached to something bigger)
-4:10 and 13:30 After talking on the Paizo forums, it appears that the language "affected by your commander's banner" is necessary because they intend the squadmate to able to SEE your banner, since its aura has the visual trait. Meanwhile, IN ADDITION, they need to see OR hear you signaling your Tactic coming from you. Meanwhile, there is a contradiction in the text: the tactic trait says may visually signal your command and that it "typically" is by waving your banner. (Implying that it doesn't have to be.) However, the Plant Your Banner feat specifically spells out that you may longer visually signal Tactics, as if it is a hard requirement to have your banner on your person.
-29:16 I admit not many foes will know about the quirk of Fortunate Blow at most tables. But think about how intelligent some foes are, and how players recognize a monster using Reactive Strike or a champion's reaction. Finally, I don't see any reason for the text to be agnostic as to who the next attack comes from: the first (flavor) sentence after all says you set up a "devastating follow-through from your ALLIES."
I am personally not a fan of the design with only two tiers of Tactics. It means when you unlock your first tactics you pick the two best ones, and every subsequent unlock you're picking worse options. Getting Legendary Tactician should get you really cool options, not the 4th best ones you didn't already pick.
100% this, same problem I had with the playtest artificer from 5e who had the different potions and such. Basically a "Well I gotta pick something so let's take this one I passed up 5 other times since it's the least shitty of my remaining options I didn't want."
Legendary Tactician gives you the legendary tactics though
Good point. At the same time another concern I had is that it seems "bottom heavy" when you reach the highest levels. Most of your tactics are 1st-level tactics when you reach the highest level. I understand the design challenge though: you want impactful things at Level 1 and not simply give watered-down ones that scale up later.
@@fatboy158 Perhaps I was misunderstanding what specifically OP was referencing but it was mentioned previously that it might be good instead of having 4 tiers of tactics to instead have only 2. I was simply commenting about wanting the tactics to be more spread out to avoid the "4th best option" problem
Maybe have lower level tactics scale a little with the class DC TEML?
The banner is awesome thematically but I don't think it should be default. Maybe they should have a Commanding Presence by default which is smaller and originates from the commander themselves, and give them the option of having a banner if they want a larger, independent aura and some other small benefits
For people having a hard time seeing how the class would work, the real-life example is generally a sports coach.
They prep and drill tactics to beat certain opponents.
Figure out where weak points are.
Inspire and push people to persevere or excell, and they make strategy adjustments in between rounds/quarters/periods.
38:09 Very much this! Even just the "Shields Up" tactic allowing casters to cast a prepared/repertoire Shield cantrip as a reaction would be great 💚
yes, but I think that the meat of shield spell is more for the shield block reaction... so take that in account
@Atrianpaul dont forget that they are given an extra reaction specifically for the tactic so they should still be able to use the shield block reaction
absolutely, especially since there is that one tactic that allows for ranged attacks and includes cantrips for casters, I can see it not being able to do it at level one maaybe and let it do it when you hit x level if they think its too strong but either way it would be a nice thing to add to it because not too many people in your party may even use shields, usually its the tanks, might be only 1 person running an actual shield. Giving it to casters to make it more generally useful would be nice and I don't think it would be overpowered
I'm glad people are being vocal about their issues with the design. This class is conceptually awesome. I love the flavor of waking up to drill your squadmates and I'm always happy to see more intelligence based classes. I don't care if it's good- I'm making a wizard with commander archetype dedication.
However, the problems with the design should be ironed out during the playtest and I'm happy this community shows no quarter in that regard lol
The way I see using the class is:
Turn A: Form Up! followed by some non-MAP action, then a Strike.
Turn B: Hit Hard! on the Barbarian or Fighter, then Strike.
Those are your 2 choices of turn I see. Either move everyone, do something else, then strike. Or make 2 "no MAP attacks".
That being said. I WANT to play that play style so bad. The biggest flaw this class has is TEAM COMP! You REEEEEAAAAALLLLLLY want a raging barbarian to be your version of Power Attack.
Form Up!, Strike Hard! and Pincer Attack seem the most flexible and generally useful tactics at level 1.
You don’t need a commander if you just want to strike hard every turn. Just pick another barbarian and you will have a much more value of your actions
@@deadpoolegor You missed turn A. Also a Commanders 1st attack is better than a Barbarian's second attack.
@@KingFate20 except it is not better. Commander doesn’t have any damage boosters, 2 barb attacks will always be better.
Form up is not needed every turn
@@deadpoolegor Alright buddy. This ain't Reddit, not crackin' out the Exel spreadsheets to explain accuracy and how it affects damage to you.
On my first read, I thought that "Form up!" was meant to bring distant squad members back to you, like they could start outside the aura's radius but had to move into it. The idea being that it's to set up a buff or something. As it is, I feel like there's a lot of overlap between it and Defensive Retreat.
I find a lot of good theme here, and some really good abilities. However it also has a lot of abilities that I just.. won't be bringing into my games in it's current iteration. I see a lot of potential though, and will wait for the final version before I decide. I do like the 'the squad practices fighting maneuvers' idea though. This explains why certain tactics can be used instead of 'they just yell some moves into you' like it felt like in 4e.
They need to redesign a few tactics and add more stuff for Spellcasting classes.
Also, it might sound weird, but I think having more Tactics that are 1/Day to be a good thing precisely because you can swap them. That way, it will definitely feel like a "prepared martial", basically burning "Slots".
On a different note, I'm really not liking the low AOE of the Banner. I think this should be higher from the stat and should be MASSIVE at higher levels. We all know that Champions suffer immensely at higher levels when combats start to involve lots of flying and immense creatures, which pretty much screws their reaction ranges and limited aura size. The Commander will have pretty much 90% of their power channeled through the Banner's AOE. At higher levels, it's likely that in many combats, the commander will have to be micromanaging their position in the middle of a battlefield. It may sound like this is something "tactical", but I don't think this will be anything bug annoying for the players. Bards do not have to worry about such things because their stuff mostly have 60ft AOE (can be shaped) ad can't be stolen mid-combat.
Exactly. A party in a dungeon will love a commander. but if it's mostly a wilderness game, they'll have some problems.
This sounds like an awesome playstyle once a kink or three have been ironed out. Got me excited
I made a nearly one-to-one conversion of the 4e Warlord (and the other 4e Player's Handbook classes) to 5e. It's in my book, Player's Guide to Powers, on the DM's Guild.
Another thing besides what you mention in your additions/errata regarding "affected by your commander's banner", Commander's Steed specifically says the banners effect is from your mount's space when attached even if you're not riding it (thus not an aura around the commander) and also doesn't mention anything about auditory only commands when not mounted, unlike Plant Banner.
I got the feeling, reading it, that this is the non-magical Bard.
Many of the tactics feel very niche. The feats that let you swap out prepared tactics are almost feat taxes if you want to be flexible. People who don't have this will likely choose generally applicable tactics and rarely change. Having more tactics trained earlier would help me feel the support of this character.
I'd love to see the early tactics scale as you get better. For example, the climbing one could be a bonus to climb checks at trained, climb farther at expert, a climb speed at master, and faster at legendary.
Kineticists get no love from commanders. I understand why they didn't want these blasts to stack with other effects that alter strikes, but they should get some support.
It would be nice if they are given the ability to get a swap out tactics for free, even if its like "you can swap one tactic instantly for free once per day" at higher levels, some way to inately do it and improve it if you take feats for it would be nice.
also yeah, it would be weird having to specifically say "this also works with the kineticist" so a smart way to word things to add in some love for them would be appreciated
@@InconspicuousNessMan They need some sort of keyword that can apply to elemental blasts. This way if they ever make something else that isn't a cantrip and isn't a strike in the future, they'll be set up for it.
I'd honestly love it if that feat was just a base feature. Maybe limit it to "You can swap half your tactics (rounded down or rounded up, both work imo) at initiative. Would really promote flexibility and a more tactical playstyle instead of just having two or three of the most general tactics. I'd also love one or two more tactics in the folio, honestly. But I think either or could work.
I'd also love a feat at like 8th level or something that lets you switch out a tactic as a free action a few times a day. Maybe two times? Though, this would probably be a bit busted with Valkyrie's Charge
This class as it currently is will pretty much have the same issues that prepared casting has in Dnd3/3.5/PF1e/PF2e, since most people will pick a routine and will rarely stray.
@@StarryxNight5 Very true. I know that I'm not likely to prepare VC on a regular basis because it takes up a slot for something that can be used all the time. I'd likely only slot it in when we know this is the boss fight.
When you really think about it, what would an adventuring party need, a commander shouting advice from the back, or an additional warrior or magic user? Large military units need a commander who primarily commands, 4 member parties do not.
the commander is also a thing im planning on grabbing abilities from for boss enemies as a gm
Just noticed that the Commander's Banner section says that the banner must be held or affixed to a weapon or shield you're wielding in order to use banner trait stuff, but the Banner Trait section under Key Terms doesn't mention the shield. So I wonder which is intended?
I REAAALLY enjoyed this video
Auto-scaling Warfare Lore that lets you one RK on any creature feels like power creep or a significant change how much cost designers assosiate with it. It made sense for Thaumaturges as their main gimmick, but now Commander might get it too. Feels wrong when comparable Ranger feat is level 10 (and Ranger has to invest in Nature through their skill increases and even then Wisdom is not their KAS)
Class hands out extra attacks like christmas. Game hasn't been out for 5 years and the class design looks alien to me
I disagree. It makes sense here. It never made sense for the cha class to do it in the way they did.
It never made sense for thaumaturge.
@@davidbowles7281the thaumaturge's whole thing is being the "plethora of supernatural knowledge from dubious sources" and carrying random occult trinkets for every situation. Knowledge of the supernatural.
That's their aesthetic.
A thaumaturge encountering a werewolf would recall tales of silver and wolvesbane and weaponize that. In mechanical terms, using the monster's weakness to silver.
A commander encountering a werewolf would recall werewolves described in combat treatises as durable and skilled combatants that suffered weakened mental states due to their condition. In mechanical terms, identifying will as their weakest defense.
The fact that weaknesses is not given to the commander through warfare lore is a very important detail separating the aesthetics of it and thaumaturge.
I'll give you that a cha lore skill is kinda weird to make sense of. My thaum is a story-teller type who draws wisdom from the old tales and his slight hoarding problem.
Thaumaturge is a bit of a weird thematic/mechanical divide because what they're doing kind of involves Wis, Int, and Cha, but that would make it insanely MAD
Looking forward to a playtest. Love the commander, just wish we could prepare more tactics ( maybe 1 more would be fine)
The penalty to loosing your banner seems like the worst clunker feature on an otherwise promising playtest class (especially given cloth only has 4hp!) Probably best to eliminate that from the class but perhaps keep it for a commander monster stat block. It would be great fun for a player to demoralize the enemy by snatching away their commander’s banner.
Cloth with 4hp? That must be a silly human thing. We Dwarves make our banners from chainmail!
I played as a Lvl 5 Commander yesterday in a one shot. I personally felt that without limits, Tactics are quite broken. Especially Pincer attack. My team was able to mow through enemies considering almost everyone got off guard. Form Up tactic basically doubled everyone's movement. And our Thaumaturge kept his reactions with Drilled Reactions. Personally, treating Tactics like Focus Spells would be cool.
I must say I'm kind of sad that the siege weapons use the keyword load and not reload but totally understandable and hope I can convince a friend to play it so I can see what I can do with a Backpack Catapult [yes I just found the weapon with the highest reload time for the meme]
When we get the concept art for the Iconics, here's hoping the Commander is styled after a naval officer. Please.
You forget one thing about shields up, it lets your squadmates to use their parry trait as free action and system finally lets twohanded weapons get parry trait with raise haft
This reminds me of the 3.5 book: Tome of Battle. Specifically, the crusader class focusing on the White Raven school. There's room for improvement but as a long time martial character lover, it helped bridge the martial/ caster divide, and didn't use a bunch of cool downs.
Oh my fucking god I just realised animal companions are allies
Mongol horde party is even more OP. Or actually viable.
You take the commander tactics for movement and shooting
Everyone takes cavalier
You all run around and shoot the enemy. If they get close the martials switch to melee weapons and pummel them to death.
edit: It has been brought to my attention that cavalier grants animal companions, which are minions, and cannot act outside their masters' turns. Sadge
Animal companions don't have reactions
@@gregorycardoso8925 they can have reactions granted to them however
Not all tactics cost a reaction, and some of them support this idea. Of course, every animal companion is a slot that takes up a squadmate slot, and you only have so many of those.
@@mattsullivan2458 Sure, but you get 6 at level 1 and 7 at level 10.
@@Kokszo True, but only YOUR Animal Companion could benefit. Minions "can't act when its not your turn". So another Player's Companion can't use any reactions or free actions when you use Tactics because it wouldn't be their master's turn.
Hilde style banner spear and short sword lady knight would be a fun Commander character to role-play.
Commenting this pre-watching (I updated this comment after watching).
I wrote a (unfortunately somewhat unpopular) reddit post about this, but I think the main issue with the Commander (Aside from some VERY powerful, almost OP, Feats) is that his class feature is unbound and not really balanceable. What I mean is that many of his abilities affect all allies and give them all action, which directly scales with how many allies you have. Meaning that while in a small party certain tactics are almost useless, in a big party they straight up break the action economy. Most of the now party wide abilities should be capped to 2 or 3 allies, depending on its strength, and then be balanced around that. DEFENSIVE RETREAT and READY, AIM, FIRE! are some of the wirst offenders of this.
In general I think that the Commander has a big issue where his abilities power-floor often is REALLY low but his power ceiling is REALLY high. READY, AIM, FIRE will probably instantly delete any boss if your team consists of you and 7 Gunslingers. If you have a normal team of a caster, a champion, yourself and a melee fighter this tactic is literally useless and might as well not exist. This why my suggestion for that tactic would be to limit it to affecting 2 allies for example, but making it so that affected allies are allowed to switch their dex for your int for the purpose of that particular attack.
Also, like with the Guardian, some features and feats are just generally completely broken and overpowered. END IT!s condition for example is very easy to fulfill and applies one of the most powerful debuffs (More so than slow arguably) on just a failed safe and in an aoe. That Feat probably needs to be tied to an amount of XP left in the fight or rather should probably not exist at all or be completely reworked to only cause frightened or something like that.
I know I was very negative in this comment, but overall I really like the ideas presented. I just think that many aspects, while cool in concept, have been poorly thought out and need a lot of work still.
Edit after watching: I don't really think that STRIKE HARD is that powerful actually. If you think about it, you basically spend 2 actions and potentially one reaction for one attack of an ally who liley is as accurate as you are. Basically, you spend an extra action to get rid of the MAP on your Strike, which is very in-line with other similar abilities imo. Sure, that ally is probably gonna do a little more damage and be slightly more accurate, but if that tactic is your bread and butter, why not just play this other class in the first place? I see this Feat as a way for the Commander to do catch up in DPR with other martials in rounds where he might not have a good tactic and wants to just only attack. Then he can spend 3 actions for 2 attacks at full accuracy, which certainly isn't bad, but does not seem that out-of-line imo. Other tactics actually are straight up gamebreaking.
I broadly agree with the assessment that the unbounded nature of the commander abilities make them hard to Balance around scale, but I think most groups don't have a GM and 8 players, as in the gunslinger example. Getting 8 people drilled would require a Int mod of +6, as well, but if that is a concern one could simply limit the number of trainable squadmates per morning to the commander's flat Int mod. At the risk of making them too mad, a commander's Charisma is important- limiting it to a value + their Cha mod might work as well.
A possible approach that tamps down the effectiveness would perhaps be putting some kind of bottleneck on how many tactics a party can benefit from in quick succession- tying it to the recipient's con or wis mod, for example. It makes sense that a fighter would be able to keep up with the extra physical strain of darting about the field and changing plans on a moment, or that a fellow commander would be able to have enough battlefield awareness to manage the shifts in the landscape, but a wizard would get gassed or have other things on their mind. Each player tracks their own limits per [timeframe] (a refocus-like activity to change tactics and let everyone rest would be in flavor), or using the spell text of a target being immune to X effect for Y minutes. Tying it to the commander's wis or int mod+some value might work as well, to represent how many opportunities they can find in the moment of battle to execute their tactics.
I think this class has a lot of knobs you could turn to whip it into shape.
@@al8188 Regarding your first point: You are of course right that the scenarios where it is busted are relevant for few parties, but firstly, I class that simple breaks for anything but the average party size is not well designed imo and secondly, it is still indicative of a bigger problem. The floor/ceiling problem still remains even for normal party sizes, its just not as immediately obvious (For example compare a party with a ranger, gunslinger and rouge vs the party example from above). I also think that its better to allow the Commander to have their whole party under their banner and only limit the number of allies certain abilities can affect, because who to target with a certain tactic is an interesting moment to moment choice in itself.
Regarding the second paragraph, its an interesting idea, but I am not sure if it would work well. After all, the Commander would also need to keep track of who is affected. I generally also want the Commander to be able to benefit all of their players equally (And at the moment he already arguably has a problem with disproportionately benefiting martials over casters). Also this would make him even more reliant on having the right teammates around him. We need to keep in mind that its still HIS class feature and it should be good but remain balanced mostly independently from other players casters. So I would rather explore other options of balancing the Commander.
This is a personal opinion, but I would actually find it more interesting if they made the individual tactics a little less strong, but allow him to take a lot more and just generally give him more options. I feel like this would fit his "Tactician" fantasy far more and make him more distinct from casters. I would find it interesting if he had like 6 minor tactics and one very impact once-per-encounter tactic or smt like that.
Loved the overview.
Did wanna mention though, you had a moment where you said most lvl 1 characters don't have access to Battle Medicine, but isn't Field Medic basically the most popular Background?
Thanks for this article.
Class Stat int : only like 2 abilities of the class use it 😢. Except this it seems fun to play if they atleast 2 subclasses
They use Warfare as a universal knowledge skill and for their initiative. They can use Int for Medicine, Feinting, and Creating a Diversion with the right feats. They also only get 2 skills + Warfare + Int, so they want that Int for skills. Int is also what they use for Crti Spec DCs, which they get for all weapons (not fists).
They are like Monk/Fighter in that your feats are your subclass. They have quite a few feat chains.
Yeah, like the comment above says: this makes them better at Int skills than any other martial if they want to be.
I would just keep the intelligence at 12 to be able to target 3 allies with tactics. The main drawback is having a lower initiative with warfare lore. The upside is that you can spend those points into for example wisdom for better saving throws.
I have horrible luck so this class looks really promising by boosting up the team without having to roll a lot myself.
The dice gods smell your fear
I would absolutely allow tactics to work with cantrips for casters at my table. It should make it into print. Very easy, and instant, house rule if not though.
I'm surprised nobody is really talking about these two classes resemblance to Cavalier in PF1. Tactics and Banners were both features of that class and many of its other features were tank abilities. It seems to me they're concerned less with 4E and more with attempting to bring back a class that they got yelled at for turning into an archetype in PF2. Rather than using the remaster to just make it a full class again they're splitting it's features that weren't in the archetype into two classes based on what it used to be capable of.
The Cavelier Archetype even has a feat at level 4 that functions practically identically to the Commander's Banner. Even inflicts Frightened on allies if it's destroyed
I think casters using bows would be good enough cooperation, especially since they kinda fill the same niche (buffs and also some heals)
Lazy Lord is back!!
I think a reasonable way to balance the ones that have a cooldown is make it so that you can't swap it out while the cooldown is in effect, the only thing with that is it might make the once per day ones a bit of a liability I suppose. Instead maybe make it so you can only change your tactics once every x amount of time like every hour or couple of hours maybe? This in my opinion makes the choices you make more important while still allowing strong cool down effect ones to be in play. I think that making the big cool down effects into feats might feel a little bad because then you can't take other regular class feats unless theyre given to you for free which also feels a little weird. Maybe when you hit x level get a "cooldown" feat in addition to your class feat and can choose between a couple of different options a bit like how the inventor gets innovation feats. I suppose theres a few ways to do it.
so far this is playtest is looking good. some clarification/tidying up etc would be nice and I am sure there are plenty of little changes they can make but I do love the concept of this class and I look forward to seeing what it can do. It's a shame that this is a class that really doesnt seem to like having multiple in a party which doesnt seem to be the case as much as basically any other class but I think thematically it makes sense for that to be the case, having multiple people trying to be the leader would suck in most cases (though could be interesting roleplay wise)
I don't have a lot of chances to play pathfinder but I really do hope I get the chance to play one of these in a game at some point
Regarding the idea that players didn't like the idea of someone of the same level being the leader or giving orders-- these people don't understand what it means to be a leader. A person isn't a leader because they're better than you, so chill. A leader is a necessary component on a well-functioning team. Oftentimes, they have more responsibilities and accountability for their decisions, which explains why they might get paid more, but they aren't better than you. They don't even have to be more experienced. They're just the ones stepping up to do the job and accept the responsibility (and hopefully they're competent enough).
Would an Elemental Blast count for Ready, Aim, Fire? I’d probably allow a one action blast since cantrips are allowed and they’re similar enough, but it doesn’t seem to say.
iirc Paizo has already said that they're currently working on clarifications for elemental blasts that let them more easily interact with tactics and other abilities that mention strikes
Awesome video. Thanks for putting out. I would say though that the commander class is not being added to Pathfinder second edition, it is being added to the new addition of the game that is coming out and has already started to come out.
8:28 swingripper looks like a psycho when you stop this.
Cool idea, but it feels like it should be a Fighter subclass
Don’t fighters already get to swap some of their feats during daily preparation? This is fairly similar.
"The next creature to attack" ... also means that if there is a fight between three parties (Ex party, bad guys, and rampaging beast) allow the 3rd party the bonus too. How many times do we see something like that in the movies?
When he implied that the enemy would attack itself, he shows that he approaches pf2e as a boardgame and doesn't really care for the fantasy of the game.
It feels a bit backwards to me that the key ability score for the thaumaturge, a class built around esoteric knowledge, it's charisma whereas the key ability score for the commander, a class built around leadership and communication, is intelligence. I get that tactics are a big part of this class fantasy, and intelligence plays into that, but it would still make more sense to me if they switched
I was hoping someone would do that
I wish Ready Aim Fire! Had language to help out the kineticist. I wonder if there will be any change at all to allow Kineticists to participate.
I think we need a keyword for elemental blasts that we could use for things like this. That way future classes with attacks that aren't quite strikes or spells can use the same language.
This feels like an archetype. I would rather add martial support through more archetypes like martial than entire classes. This just feels kind of lackluster as a class imo.
I played a 4e campaign from 1-30. We had a warlord join our group from level 12 on. I LOVE the idea of the class, but their implementation just WRECKED the action economy!! His turns would take 45 minutes because he kept finding ways to give everyone else a free attack on his turn, sometimes multiple times, and if he spent an action point, we could get up to 3-4 attacks on his turn, some of which could be our big Encounter and Daily powers. Also, between his and the cleric's bonuses we'd hit on a 2 or 3, and the enemy would need a 15+ to hit us. They utterly broke the math of 4e!!
I think the Commander's tactics requiring a reaction, and P2e's limited sources of bonuses can help mitigate this. However. some of those feats around handing out reactions seem like they may reintroduce some of the same issues.
👍
Every good thing about pathfinder comes from 4e.
Not sure why you’d complain about the movement ability tactics as spell casters can do it among a hundred other reality breaking things, and have been negating those skill and feat investments since their inception.
Is there a 1st-rank spell that grants at-will climb and swim speeds for a day?
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG is there a 9th level tactic that can change reality for the entire world? How about a tactic for traveling to different planes. The ability to fly? Spider climb does the trick, and there’s a swimming spell out there too. Casters both negate those skills and have abilities that make them meaningless. Once again, seems strange to complain about those tactics in their limited portfolio. Casters may not do it at will, but they can do it often enough to get it done when it’s actually going to matter, along with a ton of other things that outclass anything a martial can do outside hitting something with a stick.
@@shoulung6203I think I know what you mean. Though you seem to have mixed up some numbers.
The difference between a 9th level tactic and a 9th level (rank) spell is VERY significant.
17th character level is the earliest, I know of, you could access a 9th rank spell.
My assumption, do correct me if I'm mistaken, is that you're referring to wish/alter reality and similar spells. Those are actually 10th rank. For reference, wizards learn to prepare one 10th rank spell at lvl 19.
So to make a fair comparison you'd have to compare wish to tactics available at a similar character level. Like the two legendary tactics available at lvl 19.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
TLDR: Character options available at lvl 9 are not a fair comparison to character options available at lvl 17/19.
Hope you have a good day.
@@jon9828 eh, I’m more familiar with spell levels in 5e. Feel free to pick anything the martial class can do at level 20and compare it to a wish spell, it’ll still come up short.
So is Guardian like taking the Bastion archetype and making it a full class?
Awesome outfit.
I love LOVE the Commander… I’m underwhelmed about the Guardian. Flavor and mechanics are lack luster.
I loathe the idea that carrying around a banner is default.
You mean like the 1e Cavalier and Samurai classes?
I think it could very easily be reflavored to something else
i love the idea that carriying around a banner is default
@@vatusia Yes.
It is a very specific fantasy and is unnecessarily exploitable by enemies. Making it the default means will discourage players that may like the idea of a martial tactician or inspiration type of class but aren't interested in advertising their location and combat function to everybody they encounter.
Reflavoring generally won't remove the undesirable parts and may result in an unwarranted buff. For example, if you change it to not an item, then the built in flaw is eliminated without MORE reflavoring. I'd be fine with banners as an option, even a major and well-supported option. I'm just not interested in that particular limitation.
Comment for the comment gods
Well, this comment is to ward off the Comment Demons.
I simply do not like this class.
The vancian training doesn't make any sense. You do not forget training and you can't overwrite it. That's not how it should work. Even the retraining of feats is hard to believe for me, but this is simply absurd.
Cooldowns and limited uses do not work well with simple trained actions. You either can repeat them at will or you get fatigued and can't do anything more at all, not just that particular action. Being unable to repeat a physical action without any real physical impairment simply doesn't make sense.
The medical skills in a commanding officer also do not make any sense. They didn't make sense in the warlord either, if not as a feature given to its combat role as a cold game mechanic.
This whole class also has one very major flaw: all it gets only works with specific allies present within a rather short distance. Without allies to boss around, and which allow it to boss them around, this class can only rely on basic melee or ranged attacks.
And guess what happens if its banner is destroyed or stolen in the middle of nowhere, where it can't get a suitable replacement?
There is a reason why in ancient warfare the standard bearer was NEVER the guy issuing orders. That thing makes you a primary target. Any GM playing intelligent enemies should just blast the guy with the banner first, to be realistic. It has been the deadliest role in battle for centuries.
Also, this guy really messes up action economy. I know that implementing something akin to teamwork feats is kinda impossible in PF2, but that would have been far better than this.
I find ironic that a game born to keep the distance from D&D 4e now tries to become more like 4e.
Lots of pf2e makes no sense. I'm told constantly to deal with it because the system works. This Vancian leader is an example of going full gamist with no realism at all.
@@davidbowles7281 that's because the very basic structure of PF2 is really close to that of 4e. Basically, they just removed the word "powers" and put in "class feats" in its place.
At least they had actual spells added in and the focus powers are kinda OK, even though copying the 5e magic system was not that smart in my opinion. It's a bad system which fuses together the vancian magic with the 3.5 psionics system, but only taking the worst of both, while discarding the best.
First
more like
fist 1d6
or even
1d8 (i am in a dragon stance and you are about to experience the dragon of dojima kick)
I think Mid Martial is a good term to describe this class because it seems super mid. The "Banner" limitation is especially dumb.
Okay, in play, you can frame the commander as a "military nerd" but how often will players choose that archetype? The fact that commanders are laying down banners and such paints them as a more central figure. I still have a lot of misgivings about this class, certainly at my table it will be one of the few classes that get banned.
It's an optional way to think about it for those who object to precisely their being the central figure
Banned? boring.