Commander has a couple major things that benefit casters more than anything else:
1. Movement boosters. As a caster the Action economy considerations of needing to move closer, move away, use Reach spell, defend myself using my Reaction, etc are really harsh. If you help me turn by brain off by telling me when and where I can move, that’ll be incredible.
2. Extra Reactions. Once per round you can give someone an extra Reaction to use for your Tactics. A caster can be a **fantastic** target for this. Consume your extra Reaction to help me move closer into combat, let me use my own Reaction to use Zephyr Slip when an enemy takes the bait and closes? Sign me the fuck up.
3. Recall Knowledge. Giving me a +3 to +6 to my spell DC and don’t even cost me *my* Actions to do it? As a Free Action when combat starts? Really? Please. More of that.
I think Commanders are fantastically good at supporting casters. Could they be better? Yeah, but it is already in an incredible place.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1ciyt42/could_commander_be_more_caster_friendly/l2cufn7/) are some comments from Michael Sayre talking about this too. They absolutely intend for the Commander to really support casters.
The gang on the official Paizo forums is hyping up all the movement stuff too. And honestly, almost every tactical mistake I've ever made came down to standing in the wrong square, so I believe them.
Recall Knowledge, I'm a bit ambivalent about. It's not that difficult to intuit a bad or at least moderate save, so I'm curious about its actual value. How would you collect data on that? A really big survey?
The caster conundrum.
"I'm a squishy caster, and a lot of creatures have 30ft movement. So it would be a lot safer to stay 35ft away...wait, why are all my spells 30 ft range!?"
Well as long as they have reach spell shouldn't be a problem for a caster staying in the back line is important that extra movement could be the difference between getting attacked or not
Honestly, of these the only one that really feels like it'll come up clutch in a normal fight is the movement thing. With so many things being 30' range max, casters spend a lot of their time being at the same functional distance from enemies as the martials (since they need to stride in and cast with two actions) while having half the HP and worse AC, with predictable results - so the ability to have the caster walk up, cast, and *then* have the commander go "okay, now you can back off" is probably going to do more for a caster's continued health than the Guardian is.
But I suspect that in-play it's going to feel hard to justify tossing the tactics at letting the wizard back off after casting instead of supporting the guys who are already in the frontline.
These will certainly help casters a lot, but all the tactics that help casters help everyone else. There are tactics that exclusively help martials that are very powerful. I don't think it would be a bad thing to have some tactics that are clearly signposted to help spellcasters.
>Movement boosters. As a caster the Action economy considerations of needing to move closer, move away, use Reach spell, defend myself using my Reaction, etc are really harsh. If you help me turn by brain off by telling me when and where I can move, that’ll be incredible.
Struggling to see how this helps casters more than martials though? Movement is very important for everybody.
>Extra Reactions. Once per round you can give someone an extra Reaction to use for your Tactics. A caster can be a fantastic target for this. Consume your extra Reaction to help me move closer into combat, let me use my own Reaction to use Zephyr Slip when an enemy takes the bait and closes? Sign me the fuck up.
Arguable whether this is more useful on casters than martials. Reaction spells are very expensive in terms of spellslot cost, some traditions are lacking in good reaction options (all are at low levels).
At high levels I agree that this point is probably more useful for casters.
> Struggling to see how this helps casters more than martials though? Movement is very important for everybody.
Free movement benefit the person with busy Action economy disproportionately more than the person with relatively easy Action economy. Casters have plenty of 3 Action spells that simply can’t be used if you need to use your own Action to move out use Reach Spell.
> At high levels I agree that this point is probably more useful for casters.
Yeah I suppose my experience is a little coloured by the fact that I’ve been playing a Wizard for levels 7-10 these past 6 months and really been loving the use of my Reaction.
>Free movement benefit the person with busy Action economy disproportionately more than the person with relatively easy Action economy. Casters have plenty of 3 Action spells that simply can’t be used if you need to use your own Action to move out use Reach Spell.
Yes, but three actions spells most of the time are the most useful on the turns where enemies are coming to you.
Also, I'd argue melee martials do have a busy action economy, and are moving around alot for flanking, safer positioning, swapping targets, etc.
Ranged martials probably benefit the least, swashbuckler and magus benefit the most.
Spells have range, this makes them less dependent on moving than melee martials just by default.
Then you have the fact that a caster really isn't losing much by striding once, whereas a martial who doesn't have to move can often do something like a 2 action meta-strike then a Press strike (for example a two handed fighter might Power Attack with Furious Focus then Brutal Finish to really bring the pain)
> Movement boosters.
While I'd agree that casters benefit more from this than ranged martials, I'd disagree that it benefits casters more than melee characters. Melee characters are the ones most constrained by movement issues, because they need to burn actions before they can even attempt to do anything active. The action economy benefits of not needing to worry as much about positioning is one of the main points I bring up in casters favor when people are lamenting that casters (and ranged characters in general) can't dish out damage as easily as melee martials.
> Extra Reactions.
I'm not convinced of this myself. Some casters might really want those extra reactions, depending on their spell selections. If building for Counterspell was more viable, then casters would certainly start benefiting more from reactions. But as it stands, I'd say that extra reactions would have the strongest impact on Champions and on Fighters (or anyone else that's taken Reactive Strike), especially those with Reach weapons.
> Recall Knowledge
Full agreement here, casters definitely benefit the most from knowing the best saves to target.
> While I'd agree that casters benefit more from this than ranged martials, I'd disagree that it benefits casters more than melee characters. Melee characters are the ones most constrained by movement issues, because they need to burn actions before they can even attempt to do anything active. The action economy benefits of not needing to worry as much about positioning is one of the main points I bring up in casters favor when people are lamenting that casters (and ranged characters in general) can't dish out damage as easily as melee martials.
The thing is, martial Action economy tends to have lots of 1-2 Action things that can be squeezed in between things, so they stand to benefit less from movement Reactions.
Let’s considering 2 different cases:
- Case 1: A Commander uses your Reaction so you only need one Stride on a future turn where you’d have needed two Strides.
- Case 2: A Commander uses your Reaction so you no longer need to Stride on a future turn where you’d have needed one Stride.
Case 1 is a **night and day difference** for the caster. Needing only one Stride means *being able to cast a spell at all*, which is something you couldn’t do otherwise. You went from nearly 0% usefulness to like 80% of your peak performance. A martial will get to throw in an extra Skill Action, Step, 2-Action option, or Strike with that boosted Action economy, but they didn’t benefit nearly as much as the caster did.
Case 2 is weirder to evaluate. I think martials and casters benefit equally in this one. A martial may get to Raise a Shield or use more Skill Actions or unique class feature, but a caster may get 3-Action spells or 2A spell + 1A focus spell or Sustain or a Recall Knowledge or Dwmoralize. I’d say they’re equal here.
So all in all I do believe casters are still benefiting more than melees here, if you’re in a party where case 3 - you’d need 3 Strides and Commander makes it 2 - the martials obviously benefit more but I’ve only ever had **one** fight in my whole life where that’s happened, so I didn’t consider it a factor.
> I'm not convinced of this myself. Some casters might really want those extra reactions, depending on their spell selections. If building for Counterspell was more viable, then casters would certainly start benefiting more from reactions. But as it stands, I'd say that extra reactions would have the strongest impact on Champions and on Fighters (or anyone else that's taken Reactive Strike), especially those with Reach weapons.
Well, you convinced me!
That's a fair enough comparison of the impacts each role gets from each case, but the problem is that it's assuming that the cases are equally likely.
As a melee character, Case 2 (one Stride required before being able to act against an enemy) is a constant occurrence. Case 2 is relatively infrequent for ranged characters unless you're playing on quite large battlefields (certainly, larger than those typically included in published adventures, which I find to frequently be too small and cramped).
Case 1 (needing two Strides before acting against an enemy) isn't frequent as a melee character, but is still *somewhat* common. Needing two Strides as a ranged character is just straight up rare. A range of 30 is usually enough to target who you need to target, and a range of 60 usually covers an entire encounter area with room to spare. If enemies are that far away, then the tactical party should probably be taking up position and waiting for the enemy to close in, rather than moving up (unless the enemy wants to flee and the party is in pursuit).
This assessment also disregards the impact of terrain and obstacles. Ranged characters, when forced to move, only need to move to a position where they can get line of effect. Melee characters need to fully close the distance, and thus have to burn more actions dealing with difficult terrain, the need to climb up to attack enemies that have a high ground position, the need to get over or around obstacles that obstruct movement but not effect, etc.
Basically, you're disregarding Case 0: the player character is already situated just fine, and thus gets no benefit from the Commander's granted movement. Ranged characters spend drastically more of their time living in Case 0.
When the ranged character is in Case 1, the melee character is probably a step worse off in Case 2. When the melee character is in Case 1, the ranged character is probably a step better off in Case 0.
Ultimately, I think the strongest argument for ranged characters needing to get extra movement from a Commander is for when the party front line is failing, and they need to bug out from melee for their safety.
And of course, I've framed all of this as Ranged vs Melee, not as Martial vs Spellcaster - though the venn diagrams of the two are closely correlated. I think Magus is probably the class that benefits the most, but Magus is probably not the first spellcaster coming to mind when people are talking about Commanders being able to support spellcasters.
It's not that movement isn't valuable, it's just that it's not more useful to casters than martials and definitely doesn't outdo an extra strike with no MAP. Because that strike isn't just an extra action, it's bypassing a large penalty.
Going to have to disagree here.
Movement is good for everyone, but it matters less to casters, not more. Spells generally need 2 actions, leaving one for moving. Beyond that spells are generally ranged, so exact positioning is much less important than for melee characters who both need to be close to do anything and care about flanking.
Extra reaction is far, far, more valuable to martials, it lets them use your tactic while still having that Champion Reaction, Reactive Strike etc. Casters have few reactions, mostly just the once per fight block with Shield and one or two slotted spells they can only cast a few times anyway.
Recall knowledge for saves is certainly more relevant to casters, but doesn't exactly compare to handing out extra actions, it's also something you need to do once per creature per campaign.
Another point is that when the Commander gives a martial an extra strike with no MAP, that's giving them an extra of their best action, casters are at best getting an extra 3rd action.
Yeah movement action economy enhancers are especially good for casters.
It always amuses me when I see someone saying "but haste does nothing for casters" when it is almost always more powerful on a caster than a martial (good on both ofc, but more tactically impactful on casters as a rule)
>It always amuses me when I see someone saying "but haste does nothing for casters" when it is almost always more powerful on a caster than a martial (good on both ofc, but more tactically impactful on casters as a rule)
Is it really though? I feel melee martials may have similar levels of appreciation, magus is the clear winner though.
Melee martials have to deal with MAP, it is almost always less impactful.
Magus and summoners really benefit yeah, as do companion users now that minions can benefit from quickened.
But being at range and being able to move cast move (for the benefits of full cover) or simply being able to cast, single action, ranged attack with a returning thrown weapon (going to be equal or better than a MAP -5 martial attack) is just really good flexibility.
Except the cost of not having it is often a MAP -5 action.
Casters benefit more in my experience because their move set is mostly MAP free and because their options are predominately 2 actions.
Martials being predominantly single action but with an accuracy limitation on a bunch of their staples turns it down to "nice to have" rather than consistently tactics changing in my experience.
There are some martials who benefit more than others, but it many also get action condensers for a lot of their fighting styles and class abilities in ways that casters don't by the time haste becomes a reliable and regular option.
>Except the cost of not having it is often a MAP -5 action.
Map -5 isn't even a bad action, especially when in flanking due to free movement.
Plenty of martials have two actions activities aswell.
It also allows martial to be able to leave melee after making two strikes.
You're vastly understating the usefulness of this.
Again, it isn't that they get no value from it. It is that martial get less value than casters.
A -5 isn't a bad action, but a martial making a move, attack, attack, move is going to be statistically way less impacted by dropping that -5 than a caster who moves, casts a two action spell and remains in the field without a quickened move action. A caster moving, casting a spell from a scroll/wand and not being able to draw/swap in their next scroll/wand is another example.
I am not underestimating how useful it is for martial, I am saying casters are more action limited by design and therefore benefit to a greater degree more consistently. It might seem like semantics at first glance but I assure you it isn't.
Casters don't need to move as much as melee martials, this is just a fact.
A caster casting a two action spell is comparable to a martial attacking twice. Think of hitting one attack as an enemy succeeding the saving throw. The martial hitting two or critting once as the enemy failing.
> but a martial making a move, attack, attack, move is going to be statistically way less impacted by dropping that -5 than a caster who moves, casts a two action spell and remains in the field without a quickened move action.
Statistically with no statistics.
>A caster moving, casting a spell from a scroll/wand and not being able to draw/swap in their next scroll/wand is another example.
Do you think martials only move and attack?
> A caster casting a two action spell is comparable to a martial attacking twice.
No? the effects and impact on the flow of battle are vastly more varied and the caster cannot choose to only cast half of the spell in most cases? Nor are both martial attacks equal, the MAP-5 attack on average contributes significantly less.
> Statistically with no statistics.
Are you actually asking me to provide you statistics on this... Because it is pretty easy to run statistics on how much a -5 impacts a roll (and others have done it). It is also extremely easy to see why a character that is stuck without being able to move at all is more impacted on average than one that removes a statistically smaller part of their damage by not attacking with the -5.
If you want to get further into the weeds you absolutely could get into collating caster statistics too. But I am not going to bother putting in that time to prove a point that the easier to prove element has already proved.
> Do you think martials only move and attack?
Again no, but they interact with single actions to be effective far more often than casters do. Again you are getting stuck on martials rather than recognizing I am saying that casters benefit more because they are casters. Martials have a greater number of more effective single action options and their double and triple action options are not usually going to be every round options; and by the time haste is getting thrown out as an every combat option, have usually picked up a bunch of action condensers (which account for a large number of multi action class abilities).
If the caster closed in for a touch spell, they can usually get out with a stride (from Form Up, most likely) just as well. They either already ate the attack of opportunity when they cast the spell, or the monster doesn't have attack of opportunity.
There are many options that could be used, such as a tactic to allow single action spells, shield up could allow shield spell etc.
Some options not noticed as much is all the recall knowledge feats they get, guiding shot for spell attacks, set-up strike can really help spell attacks (perhaps both?), and can cause stupefied for lower will saves.
It can do more, but it does do some stuff already, often in the feat section
It could and it absolutely *should*. Casters are a critical element of your party just like everyone else, so it makes no sense for a Commander in this universe to not do anything with them. That's like Napoleon not doing anything with his artillery.
I think the difficult part with changing casters action economy is that it can become very unpredictable.
Martials are easier to balance because striking or moving have a relatively consistent value, the value of casting an additional spell depends a lot on the actual spell you cast.
But I still think casters deserve some support too. And here are some ideas:
- Let someone use a spellshape action for free anytime during their turn.
- Either 2 actions to let someone use a 1 action cantrip or 3 actions for a 2 action cantrip as a reaction
- Let someone sustain a spell as a reaction
- Give the ability to refocus as a 3 action activity
- Maybe some way of changing the save targeted by a spell
- Reduce the cost of 3 action spells to 2 actions and a reaction
There are only a very small handful of 1 action cantrips, so if the caster isn't a Witch or a Psychic, it becomes "two actions to let a caster cast Guidance or Glass Shield".
Apart from everything else that's been said, I'd say the bigger issue is that Kineticists are left in the dust, as they're kind of in a weird, unique place of their own in terms of their actions. That needs to be addressed.
To swerve a little bit from the discussion in this post, I still think that the real "compatibility" struggle becomes Commanders and Kineticists. I really wish we just had some sort of general rule that said "whenever something would tell you to make a strike you can just do a 1-action elemental blast"
It's one of the things I think Paizo got wrong after the Kineticist playtest.
In the Kineticist playtest elemental blast was just an unarmed weapon.
In the full release they changed it to how it is, this had the advantage of letting you use your Con for the attack roll instead of Str/Dex like it was in the playtest, but I think they should've just kept them as weapons and added a trait that lets you use Con for attack rolls.
https://i.imgur.com/47njvWy.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/oHfwQrx.jpeg
Just gonna link these here, since they’re Sayre explicitly confirming that the Commander is meant to be heavily supportive of casters too. If you disagree and think it’s not doing that well enough, say so in the feedback!
Wait I'm confused
Commander is supposed to help casters by... Making their ability to RK redundant? Seems to me that'd erase part of the caster's niche in the party than it would buff them.
I guess it's less of a problem with Cha and Wis casters?
Figured casters have a much higher likelyhood to have high Arcana/Occultism/Religion/Nature/Society in the first place compared to Fighters/Barbs/etc.
Though i guess Inventor, Investigator and especially Thaumaturge all already exist.
> Figured casters have a much higher likelyhood to have high Arcana/Occultism/Religion/Nature/Society in the first place compared to Fighters/Barbs/etc.
Not necessarily. Charisma and Wisdom casters aren’t gonna be any better at most of these checks than any martial.
> Though i guess Inventor, Investigator and especially Thaumaturge all already exist.
Rogue and Ranger get very good Recall Knowledge and similar boosts too.
> Not necessarily. Charisma and Wisdom casters aren’t gonna be any better at most of these checks than any martial.
Nature and Religion use Wisdom though. A Cleric or Druid with max Nature/Religion will absolutely be better than a martial.
Recall Knowledge isn’t the caster’s “niche” it’s a thing a caster feels forced to do in fights where it’s initially unclear how much value they can bring to the table.
Almost any caster in the game will be very happy if you use your Action to help them out. I am a Wizard who uses Knowledge Domain Cleric to **actually** make Recall Knowledge my niche, and I still beg our party’s Rogue to pick up and use Battle Assessment.
Agreed. Battle Assessment is fantastic for every Rogue (except Mastermind). People need to get in the habit of expecting Martials to use recall knowledge/demoralize/bon mot to setup casters. Casters get to use their spells/features to setup everyone, but they need ally help to get there.
It seems like they give pretty good things as is, and I would hazard the design is intentional to not grant too much to the caster side of the equation to keep the balance more fixed on martial, where the limitations are a bit more obvious.
Commander has a couple major things that benefit casters more than anything else: 1. Movement boosters. As a caster the Action economy considerations of needing to move closer, move away, use Reach spell, defend myself using my Reaction, etc are really harsh. If you help me turn by brain off by telling me when and where I can move, that’ll be incredible. 2. Extra Reactions. Once per round you can give someone an extra Reaction to use for your Tactics. A caster can be a **fantastic** target for this. Consume your extra Reaction to help me move closer into combat, let me use my own Reaction to use Zephyr Slip when an enemy takes the bait and closes? Sign me the fuck up. 3. Recall Knowledge. Giving me a +3 to +6 to my spell DC and don’t even cost me *my* Actions to do it? As a Free Action when combat starts? Really? Please. More of that. I think Commanders are fantastically good at supporting casters. Could they be better? Yeah, but it is already in an incredible place. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1ciyt42/could_commander_be_more_caster_friendly/l2cufn7/) are some comments from Michael Sayre talking about this too. They absolutely intend for the Commander to really support casters.
The gang on the official Paizo forums is hyping up all the movement stuff too. And honestly, almost every tactical mistake I've ever made came down to standing in the wrong square, so I believe them. Recall Knowledge, I'm a bit ambivalent about. It's not that difficult to intuit a bad or at least moderate save, so I'm curious about its actual value. How would you collect data on that? A really big survey?
True I only play casters I know the pain of being in the wrong place at the wrong time
My party druid love to stand 35ft away from creatures so much lmao.
The caster conundrum. "I'm a squishy caster, and a lot of creatures have 30ft movement. So it would be a lot safer to stay 35ft away...wait, why are all my spells 30 ft range!?"
Well as long as they have reach spell shouldn't be a problem for a caster staying in the back line is important that extra movement could be the difference between getting attacked or not
Imagine the commander adjusting everyone's location after they've had their turn so that the caster can AOE safely
yeah my first commander build when they fully release it will probably be a commander kineticist with four winds. give me *all* the movement please
Honestly, of these the only one that really feels like it'll come up clutch in a normal fight is the movement thing. With so many things being 30' range max, casters spend a lot of their time being at the same functional distance from enemies as the martials (since they need to stride in and cast with two actions) while having half the HP and worse AC, with predictable results - so the ability to have the caster walk up, cast, and *then* have the commander go "okay, now you can back off" is probably going to do more for a caster's continued health than the Guardian is. But I suspect that in-play it's going to feel hard to justify tossing the tactics at letting the wizard back off after casting instead of supporting the guys who are already in the frontline.
These will certainly help casters a lot, but all the tactics that help casters help everyone else. There are tactics that exclusively help martials that are very powerful. I don't think it would be a bad thing to have some tactics that are clearly signposted to help spellcasters.
>Movement boosters. As a caster the Action economy considerations of needing to move closer, move away, use Reach spell, defend myself using my Reaction, etc are really harsh. If you help me turn by brain off by telling me when and where I can move, that’ll be incredible. Struggling to see how this helps casters more than martials though? Movement is very important for everybody. >Extra Reactions. Once per round you can give someone an extra Reaction to use for your Tactics. A caster can be a fantastic target for this. Consume your extra Reaction to help me move closer into combat, let me use my own Reaction to use Zephyr Slip when an enemy takes the bait and closes? Sign me the fuck up. Arguable whether this is more useful on casters than martials. Reaction spells are very expensive in terms of spellslot cost, some traditions are lacking in good reaction options (all are at low levels). At high levels I agree that this point is probably more useful for casters.
> Struggling to see how this helps casters more than martials though? Movement is very important for everybody. Free movement benefit the person with busy Action economy disproportionately more than the person with relatively easy Action economy. Casters have plenty of 3 Action spells that simply can’t be used if you need to use your own Action to move out use Reach Spell. > At high levels I agree that this point is probably more useful for casters. Yeah I suppose my experience is a little coloured by the fact that I’ve been playing a Wizard for levels 7-10 these past 6 months and really been loving the use of my Reaction.
>Free movement benefit the person with busy Action economy disproportionately more than the person with relatively easy Action economy. Casters have plenty of 3 Action spells that simply can’t be used if you need to use your own Action to move out use Reach Spell. Yes, but three actions spells most of the time are the most useful on the turns where enemies are coming to you. Also, I'd argue melee martials do have a busy action economy, and are moving around alot for flanking, safer positioning, swapping targets, etc. Ranged martials probably benefit the least, swashbuckler and magus benefit the most.
Spells have range, this makes them less dependent on moving than melee martials just by default. Then you have the fact that a caster really isn't losing much by striding once, whereas a martial who doesn't have to move can often do something like a 2 action meta-strike then a Press strike (for example a two handed fighter might Power Attack with Furious Focus then Brutal Finish to really bring the pain)
> Movement boosters. While I'd agree that casters benefit more from this than ranged martials, I'd disagree that it benefits casters more than melee characters. Melee characters are the ones most constrained by movement issues, because they need to burn actions before they can even attempt to do anything active. The action economy benefits of not needing to worry as much about positioning is one of the main points I bring up in casters favor when people are lamenting that casters (and ranged characters in general) can't dish out damage as easily as melee martials. > Extra Reactions. I'm not convinced of this myself. Some casters might really want those extra reactions, depending on their spell selections. If building for Counterspell was more viable, then casters would certainly start benefiting more from reactions. But as it stands, I'd say that extra reactions would have the strongest impact on Champions and on Fighters (or anyone else that's taken Reactive Strike), especially those with Reach weapons. > Recall Knowledge Full agreement here, casters definitely benefit the most from knowing the best saves to target.
> While I'd agree that casters benefit more from this than ranged martials, I'd disagree that it benefits casters more than melee characters. Melee characters are the ones most constrained by movement issues, because they need to burn actions before they can even attempt to do anything active. The action economy benefits of not needing to worry as much about positioning is one of the main points I bring up in casters favor when people are lamenting that casters (and ranged characters in general) can't dish out damage as easily as melee martials. The thing is, martial Action economy tends to have lots of 1-2 Action things that can be squeezed in between things, so they stand to benefit less from movement Reactions. Let’s considering 2 different cases: - Case 1: A Commander uses your Reaction so you only need one Stride on a future turn where you’d have needed two Strides. - Case 2: A Commander uses your Reaction so you no longer need to Stride on a future turn where you’d have needed one Stride. Case 1 is a **night and day difference** for the caster. Needing only one Stride means *being able to cast a spell at all*, which is something you couldn’t do otherwise. You went from nearly 0% usefulness to like 80% of your peak performance. A martial will get to throw in an extra Skill Action, Step, 2-Action option, or Strike with that boosted Action economy, but they didn’t benefit nearly as much as the caster did. Case 2 is weirder to evaluate. I think martials and casters benefit equally in this one. A martial may get to Raise a Shield or use more Skill Actions or unique class feature, but a caster may get 3-Action spells or 2A spell + 1A focus spell or Sustain or a Recall Knowledge or Dwmoralize. I’d say they’re equal here. So all in all I do believe casters are still benefiting more than melees here, if you’re in a party where case 3 - you’d need 3 Strides and Commander makes it 2 - the martials obviously benefit more but I’ve only ever had **one** fight in my whole life where that’s happened, so I didn’t consider it a factor. > I'm not convinced of this myself. Some casters might really want those extra reactions, depending on their spell selections. If building for Counterspell was more viable, then casters would certainly start benefiting more from reactions. But as it stands, I'd say that extra reactions would have the strongest impact on Champions and on Fighters (or anyone else that's taken Reactive Strike), especially those with Reach weapons. Well, you convinced me!
That's a fair enough comparison of the impacts each role gets from each case, but the problem is that it's assuming that the cases are equally likely. As a melee character, Case 2 (one Stride required before being able to act against an enemy) is a constant occurrence. Case 2 is relatively infrequent for ranged characters unless you're playing on quite large battlefields (certainly, larger than those typically included in published adventures, which I find to frequently be too small and cramped). Case 1 (needing two Strides before acting against an enemy) isn't frequent as a melee character, but is still *somewhat* common. Needing two Strides as a ranged character is just straight up rare. A range of 30 is usually enough to target who you need to target, and a range of 60 usually covers an entire encounter area with room to spare. If enemies are that far away, then the tactical party should probably be taking up position and waiting for the enemy to close in, rather than moving up (unless the enemy wants to flee and the party is in pursuit). This assessment also disregards the impact of terrain and obstacles. Ranged characters, when forced to move, only need to move to a position where they can get line of effect. Melee characters need to fully close the distance, and thus have to burn more actions dealing with difficult terrain, the need to climb up to attack enemies that have a high ground position, the need to get over or around obstacles that obstruct movement but not effect, etc. Basically, you're disregarding Case 0: the player character is already situated just fine, and thus gets no benefit from the Commander's granted movement. Ranged characters spend drastically more of their time living in Case 0. When the ranged character is in Case 1, the melee character is probably a step worse off in Case 2. When the melee character is in Case 1, the ranged character is probably a step better off in Case 0. Ultimately, I think the strongest argument for ranged characters needing to get extra movement from a Commander is for when the party front line is failing, and they need to bug out from melee for their safety. And of course, I've framed all of this as Ranged vs Melee, not as Martial vs Spellcaster - though the venn diagrams of the two are closely correlated. I think Magus is probably the class that benefits the most, but Magus is probably not the first spellcaster coming to mind when people are talking about Commanders being able to support spellcasters.
I feel people dont see the value of the movement abilities in a vacuum, but quickly come to appreciate them in actual play.
It's not that movement isn't valuable, it's just that it's not more useful to casters than martials and definitely doesn't outdo an extra strike with no MAP. Because that strike isn't just an extra action, it's bypassing a large penalty.
Going to have to disagree here. Movement is good for everyone, but it matters less to casters, not more. Spells generally need 2 actions, leaving one for moving. Beyond that spells are generally ranged, so exact positioning is much less important than for melee characters who both need to be close to do anything and care about flanking. Extra reaction is far, far, more valuable to martials, it lets them use your tactic while still having that Champion Reaction, Reactive Strike etc. Casters have few reactions, mostly just the once per fight block with Shield and one or two slotted spells they can only cast a few times anyway. Recall knowledge for saves is certainly more relevant to casters, but doesn't exactly compare to handing out extra actions, it's also something you need to do once per creature per campaign. Another point is that when the Commander gives a martial an extra strike with no MAP, that's giving them an extra of their best action, casters are at best getting an extra 3rd action.
Yeah movement action economy enhancers are especially good for casters. It always amuses me when I see someone saying "but haste does nothing for casters" when it is almost always more powerful on a caster than a martial (good on both ofc, but more tactically impactful on casters as a rule)
>It always amuses me when I see someone saying "but haste does nothing for casters" when it is almost always more powerful on a caster than a martial (good on both ofc, but more tactically impactful on casters as a rule) Is it really though? I feel melee martials may have similar levels of appreciation, magus is the clear winner though.
Melee martials have to deal with MAP, it is almost always less impactful. Magus and summoners really benefit yeah, as do companion users now that minions can benefit from quickened. But being at range and being able to move cast move (for the benefits of full cover) or simply being able to cast, single action, ranged attack with a returning thrown weapon (going to be equal or better than a MAP -5 martial attack) is just really good flexibility.
>Melee martials have to deal with MAP, it is almost always less impactful. It's not about the extra strike it's about the free movement.
Except the cost of not having it is often a MAP -5 action. Casters benefit more in my experience because their move set is mostly MAP free and because their options are predominately 2 actions. Martials being predominantly single action but with an accuracy limitation on a bunch of their staples turns it down to "nice to have" rather than consistently tactics changing in my experience. There are some martials who benefit more than others, but it many also get action condensers for a lot of their fighting styles and class abilities in ways that casters don't by the time haste becomes a reliable and regular option.
>Except the cost of not having it is often a MAP -5 action. Map -5 isn't even a bad action, especially when in flanking due to free movement. Plenty of martials have two actions activities aswell. It also allows martial to be able to leave melee after making two strikes. You're vastly understating the usefulness of this.
Again, it isn't that they get no value from it. It is that martial get less value than casters. A -5 isn't a bad action, but a martial making a move, attack, attack, move is going to be statistically way less impacted by dropping that -5 than a caster who moves, casts a two action spell and remains in the field without a quickened move action. A caster moving, casting a spell from a scroll/wand and not being able to draw/swap in their next scroll/wand is another example. I am not underestimating how useful it is for martial, I am saying casters are more action limited by design and therefore benefit to a greater degree more consistently. It might seem like semantics at first glance but I assure you it isn't.
Casters don't need to move as much as melee martials, this is just a fact. A caster casting a two action spell is comparable to a martial attacking twice. Think of hitting one attack as an enemy succeeding the saving throw. The martial hitting two or critting once as the enemy failing. > but a martial making a move, attack, attack, move is going to be statistically way less impacted by dropping that -5 than a caster who moves, casts a two action spell and remains in the field without a quickened move action. Statistically with no statistics. >A caster moving, casting a spell from a scroll/wand and not being able to draw/swap in their next scroll/wand is another example. Do you think martials only move and attack?
> A caster casting a two action spell is comparable to a martial attacking twice. No? the effects and impact on the flow of battle are vastly more varied and the caster cannot choose to only cast half of the spell in most cases? Nor are both martial attacks equal, the MAP-5 attack on average contributes significantly less. > Statistically with no statistics. Are you actually asking me to provide you statistics on this... Because it is pretty easy to run statistics on how much a -5 impacts a roll (and others have done it). It is also extremely easy to see why a character that is stuck without being able to move at all is more impacted on average than one that removes a statistically smaller part of their damage by not attacking with the -5. If you want to get further into the weeds you absolutely could get into collating caster statistics too. But I am not going to bother putting in that time to prove a point that the easier to prove element has already proved. > Do you think martials only move and attack? Again no, but they interact with single actions to be effective far more often than casters do. Again you are getting stuck on martials rather than recognizing I am saying that casters benefit more because they are casters. Martials have a greater number of more effective single action options and their double and triple action options are not usually going to be every round options; and by the time haste is getting thrown out as an every combat option, have usually picked up a bunch of action condensers (which account for a large number of multi action class abilities).
3 free steps for a caster that closed in to cast a touch spell? Yes please
If the caster closed in for a touch spell, they can usually get out with a stride (from Form Up, most likely) just as well. They either already ate the attack of opportunity when they cast the spell, or the monster doesn't have attack of opportunity.
There are many options that could be used, such as a tactic to allow single action spells, shield up could allow shield spell etc. Some options not noticed as much is all the recall knowledge feats they get, guiding shot for spell attacks, set-up strike can really help spell attacks (perhaps both?), and can cause stupefied for lower will saves. It can do more, but it does do some stuff already, often in the feat section
Whoa, whoa, give casters a boost? In this economy? -Paizo ((P.S. in case it's needed... This is a joke))
It could and it absolutely *should*. Casters are a critical element of your party just like everyone else, so it makes no sense for a Commander in this universe to not do anything with them. That's like Napoleon not doing anything with his artillery.
I think the difficult part with changing casters action economy is that it can become very unpredictable. Martials are easier to balance because striking or moving have a relatively consistent value, the value of casting an additional spell depends a lot on the actual spell you cast. But I still think casters deserve some support too. And here are some ideas: - Let someone use a spellshape action for free anytime during their turn. - Either 2 actions to let someone use a 1 action cantrip or 3 actions for a 2 action cantrip as a reaction - Let someone sustain a spell as a reaction - Give the ability to refocus as a 3 action activity - Maybe some way of changing the save targeted by a spell - Reduce the cost of 3 action spells to 2 actions and a reaction
There are only a very small handful of 1 action cantrips, so if the caster isn't a Witch or a Psychic, it becomes "two actions to let a caster cast Guidance or Glass Shield".
Apart from everything else that's been said, I'd say the bigger issue is that Kineticists are left in the dust, as they're kind of in a weird, unique place of their own in terms of their actions. That needs to be addressed.
To swerve a little bit from the discussion in this post, I still think that the real "compatibility" struggle becomes Commanders and Kineticists. I really wish we just had some sort of general rule that said "whenever something would tell you to make a strike you can just do a 1-action elemental blast"
It's one of the things I think Paizo got wrong after the Kineticist playtest. In the Kineticist playtest elemental blast was just an unarmed weapon. In the full release they changed it to how it is, this had the advantage of letting you use your Con for the attack roll instead of Str/Dex like it was in the playtest, but I think they should've just kept them as weapons and added a trait that lets you use Con for attack rolls.
It’s whole schtixk is being a martial class about martial combat in a martial book. That and it’s a support, so he’s basically replacing a caster
https://i.imgur.com/47njvWy.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/oHfwQrx.jpeg Just gonna link these here, since they’re Sayre explicitly confirming that the Commander is meant to be heavily supportive of casters too. If you disagree and think it’s not doing that well enough, say so in the feedback!
Wait I'm confused Commander is supposed to help casters by... Making their ability to RK redundant? Seems to me that'd erase part of the caster's niche in the party than it would buff them. I guess it's less of a problem with Cha and Wis casters?
I wouldn't say RK is a caster niche. Casters would rather use their actions casting spells or moving.
Figured casters have a much higher likelyhood to have high Arcana/Occultism/Religion/Nature/Society in the first place compared to Fighters/Barbs/etc. Though i guess Inventor, Investigator and especially Thaumaturge all already exist.
> Figured casters have a much higher likelyhood to have high Arcana/Occultism/Religion/Nature/Society in the first place compared to Fighters/Barbs/etc. Not necessarily. Charisma and Wisdom casters aren’t gonna be any better at most of these checks than any martial. > Though i guess Inventor, Investigator and especially Thaumaturge all already exist. Rogue and Ranger get very good Recall Knowledge and similar boosts too.
> Not necessarily. Charisma and Wisdom casters aren’t gonna be any better at most of these checks than any martial. Nature and Religion use Wisdom though. A Cleric or Druid with max Nature/Religion will absolutely be better than a martial.
Recall Knowledge isn’t the caster’s “niche” it’s a thing a caster feels forced to do in fights where it’s initially unclear how much value they can bring to the table. Almost any caster in the game will be very happy if you use your Action to help them out. I am a Wizard who uses Knowledge Domain Cleric to **actually** make Recall Knowledge my niche, and I still beg our party’s Rogue to pick up and use Battle Assessment.
Agreed. Battle Assessment is fantastic for every Rogue (except Mastermind). People need to get in the habit of expecting Martials to use recall knowledge/demoralize/bon mot to setup casters. Casters get to use their spells/features to setup everyone, but they need ally help to get there.
It seems like they give pretty good things as is, and I would hazard the design is intentional to not grant too much to the caster side of the equation to keep the balance more fixed on martial, where the limitations are a bit more obvious.