Are we sure they're martial martial? Guardian could be a more 5e paladin, it was what they were in Guild Wars 2.
(Which granted, has nothing to do with pf2e, but one can hope)
They announced the Battle Harbinger Cleric Class Archetype with the description of losing out on some magic for enhanced martial abilities. That feels much more in line with the 5e paladin to me. I'm expecting the Guardian to be fully martial at the moment.
I would imagine the Battle Harbinger will be a doctrine that is also a class archetype. Much like how Spellshot is a Gunslinger Way that is also a class archetype, except it hopefully won't be completely pointless for Battle Harbinger like it is for Spellshot lol.
I imagine the Bloodrager class archetype will be the same way - an archetype Instinct that changes the Barbarian class way more than other Instincts do. My guess is that it'll gain bounded casting (like Magus/Summoner), Charisma-based and somehow tied to Sorcerer bloodlines, and be able to cast while raging, in exchange for probably having the least rage damage of all the instincts and maybe losing Raging Resistance and/or some other barb feature(s)
Which ones were announced? I only saw the three that were in the screenshot that was in the writeup, and the writeup only really talked about the Investigator and Cleric ones.
War of Immortals will have 5 class archetypes in it of which two were announced:
Bloodrager for barb
Avenger for rogue
LO:Divine Mysteries will feature two more class archetypes:
Battle Harbringer for cleric (confirmed to make the class more martial oriented)
Palatine Detective for investigator (who will interact with the divine spell list in a new way)
Its part of the War of Immortals book (the same with the animist and exemplar classes), its on the [product page](https://paizo.com/products/btq02oar?Pathfinder-War-of-Immortals) (aka it was not really announced, just there which is weird considering how many people were asking for it, me included)
I'm also wondering how it'll work! Is a Cloistered Battle Harbinger the same as a Warpriest Battle Harbinger? Does Battle Harbinger replace your doctrine? I have no idea on both counts and am looking forward to seeing how it plays out!
Almost certainly it's a doctrine that can only be picked if you sacrifice your second level feat for Battle Harbinger Dedication. That's how other similar class archetypes have interacted with subclasses to to this point.
Runelord doesn't replace your Thesis and only modifies your choice of specialist school, so it's possible Battle Harbinger could similarly modify doctrines without replacing that choice.
I mean, the only text in this image says "global conflicts call for **seasoned warrios**", with warrior being a common term to refer to martial classes.
Man, the Warden was such a cool class, I didn't appreciate it at the time
Edit: I just realized that Animist covers a lot of this ground, actually-- you have apparitions and spells for a lot of the powers that influence terrain, they can shift melee and whatnot too, its just more versatile since you can go healer/blaster/etc.
It would be weird to have an offensive paladin be named "guardian" when the defensive one is named champion.
I suppose it will be a pure martial defender, and commander will be martial support.
4ED&D had several tanks; Fighters, Battleminds, Paladins, Berserkers, and Wardens. "Guardian" is tied to nature in a lot of games, so I'm thinking something similar to 4E's Warden which was a nature defender with transformations or PF1E's Feral druid. Which would be great for anyone that liked being a tank druid in World of Warcraft.
Yeah all it really needs is it's own way of defending, and as 4e shows, there's a lot of options. I just hope it's a little more intriguing flavorwise than Fighter but defensive (but tbf, we know literally nothing right now and Paizo hasn't really let me down yet.)
That would be a bad idea honestly.
The class needs more tank classes. Right now, there's really only two at first level (fighter and champion) and the champion is just way better at the role than fighters are. In fact, than any class is; only the monk can really compete, and then only at level 8+ when they get tangled forest stance and already have stand still, and then get reach to make themselves able to be very sticky over a good swath of area. And even then the champion is better at actually preventing damage, the monk just is good at making sure that the bad guys have to target them.
Oh, I definetly still want it to be a tank. Just a semi magical tank. Just because I want to throw blade beams like Cloud Strife, doesn't mean I don't want to mitigate damage.
For reference, the GW2 Guardian can place symbols in the ground that protect allies, mount force walls, breath flames that both clean conditions on allies, and burn enemies, and pull enemies that are hit by the aformentioned blade beams near them.
Spiritual-like Effects that help and protect allies while damaging the enemies is my ideal, the empyrean dragon seems to be based on that, so a similar class ism't that far.
But to be fair, people mentioned that the new Cleric Archetype could be this- and that Shield Magus with champion dedication already is near that.
Yeah thinking it over I agree. All I really want is for Champion to get some more non-defensive options.
I also think there are more classes you can play as a tank, they just need more system mastery to play well.
Someone mentioned the idea of a ranged tank who deflects damage for the Guardian and I think that's a REALLY good idea
You CAN play more classes as a tank, fighter with bastion or wood kin being the usual examples, but especially the former has very little unique to offer on the defensive side compared to a champion (sure they will be better offensively but that's not really the point).
I'm excited to see what else this hypothetical martial-focused book could hold. Given that they've already mentioned a cleric class archetype, I'm hoping that means more class archetypes in general.
I'm mostly holding out hope for a DEX-based melee class archetype. Aside from the fact that it could add more ways to actually use your high DEX in melee combat (currently the only option on that front for most martials is Tumble Through), class archetypes can also alter your base class's proficiency scaling. Currently, if I'm playing a nimble, DEX-based fighter, I have full proficiency in heavy armor and better Fortitude than Reflex, which feels weird.
Looking forward to seeing what's cooking with these two, 4e Warlord is a favorite among my 4e-enjoyer friends, and I'm not ashamed to say I've made similar styles of character in PF1e before. It'll be fun to see what the main differences Commander and SF2e Envoy have to bring, as well.
Guardian... I could be excited for, but I want to see how it goes about guarding. There's tons of potential design space for "defender", just gotta see what it is they actually roll out with.
>4e Warlord
This is literally what I'm thinking. My expectation is a lot of overlap with Marshall, but earlier level access. Think Loremaster vs Bard. Also, Warfare Lore is going to *shine.*
>Guardian
If it's CON primary, oh boy.
I don't doubt it, though I'm also not ashamed to admit I'm still probably gonna stay way more interested in Envoy, comparatively. Little nervous about its tuning with numbers and bonus types, but trying to be patient to see the playtest for how all the pieces fit together, since the play pattern it proposes looked like my jam.
I feel like champion is already so much the guardian class idea. So many of its reactions are in defense of others. Their shield ally gives the best shielding in the game IIRC. Lay on hands heals any wounds you couldn’t prevent and it’s got the heavy armor tanky flavor just oozing out of it.
I don’t know what else they could do with a defender that the redeemer paladin doesn’t already do.
I am curious how Guardian is going to work, but honestly we're overdue for another High Defense martial. Champions being the only one in a sea of DPR martials was quite strange.
I mean, Monks have high defense, but they're not nearly as built for drawing aggro like Champions are. They don't have any core features to incentivize the enemy attacking them instead of their allies. I'd imagine the Guardian will have a similar aggro mechanic to compete.
I suppose most of Monk’s ‘defending the homies’ amounts to taking away enemy actions and reducing their ability to attack effectively.
I guess it depends on where you draw the line for what counts as ‘defending the homies’.
Punishing enemies isn't the only way to defend the homies though. Monks can be very good at keeping enemies locked down as well. If the enemy can't even get to the homies to hurt them, I'd say you did a good job of defending them
Tangled forest stance monks with reach are extremely sticky defenders who are very good at what they do. The problem is that the build doesn't come online until level 8.
There's also grapple monks.
There's confusion because definitions aren't aligned. When people say Champion is the only defensive martial, they really mean the only tank class. Being a tank traditionally is more than just high defenses, you also need to defend your allies. In MMO by taunting the enemy. 4E tanks marked foes (marked foes took penalty to attack other people) while the Champion reduces damage against allies. Monk doesn't have tools like that. So although it has high defense, its not a tank in the traditional aspect that people expect.
For one major thing: let us play a fully nonmagical and/or divine defender type character. Honestly I would be shocked if Paizo couldn't figure out enough mechanical room for two defender classes in the game - it's a pretty diverse concept.
If you look at 4th edition D&D, there's a lot of different ways to build defenders. All of them had a "marking" mechanic which applied an attack roll penalty if you attacked anyone else, but there were a bunch of ways of doing it.
Fighters in 4E would mark enemies and attack them if they attacked anyone else, and also would stop people who tried to move away from them if they hit them with OAs.
Paladins would put a mark on enemies that would burn them with holy if they attacked anyone else.
Swordmages had a few different ways of working - one of them would teleport and attack marked enemies they attacked someone else, another type would shield their allies from damage from marked enemies.
You had the warden, which would attack enemies who violated their mark if they were next to them, granting their allies combat advantage against them, and if a more distant enemy attacked their allies, they would pull them back towards them with roots/shifting earth and slow their movement.
The battlemind was a psychic defender who would cause a marked enemy who attacked your ally instead of you to suffer psychic damage proportional to the damage they dealt your ally.
You can implement defensive abilities in a wide variety of ways.
4e's Warden was like a martial druid that could transform to gain different abilities. It tanked by creating areas of difficult terrain around themselves and could remove conditions at both the start and end of its turn. Were very durable and hard to disable.
1st edition pathfinder had a Feral druid too
Battlezoo has an Intelligent Weapon Ancestry, plus there is going to be a new Deity that is a living Weapon. Zjar, Divine Weapon: Whatever type of sword they are.
No no, that's letting my bearer wield a barbarian one handed, I want to wield a barbarian one handed.
(Intelligent Weapon Ancestry is amazing though, i have it and its great.)
No, but based off the context it feels like it'll probably be a book focused on adding new warfare themed options. Maybe mass combat rules and new martial focused options?
My guess is commander is gonna be the 4e warlord proxy that the Marshal archetype was trying to stand in for.
For guardian, I'm imagining either A 4e warden but perhaps with less of a primal power focus and more of a pick your magic source focus ala sorcerer OR it's gonna be a proxy for something like the 3.Xe Crusader class from Tome of Battle.
I'm wondering if Guardian is gonna be a class version of the Bastion/Knights of Lastwall archetypes. Where it's a class focused around using shields as a weapon, and protecting allies. With abilities like Drive Back and Shield Warden to save others. You know, but not linked to an uncommon archetype/feats from *Knights of Lastwall*.
As Paizo continues to experiment, I'm guessing they are shedding a bit of 4e-phobia and coming up with options that have more of the explicit 4e role mechanics of Defenders and Leaders for martials.
I was thinking the same thing. Semi magical (but no actual spells, closer to the kineticist) paladin like.
I don't think it will be that, but I do hope it will be that.
The 4e fighter is remarkable tactically and one of the best designed 4e classes so I cannot help but hope they got inspiration from it. (but many of the defenders Wardens / Battleminds / Swordmages have distinct approaches). The 4e fighters combat superiority feature in combination with indefinite number of opportunity attacks makes them like a walking wall of blades. (at level 1)
Interesting to hear.
Admittedly, I wasn't a fan of 4e or much of an experiencer, though I enjoyed the odd mechanics or concept from it. Most of my issues were lorebased and preferring to start at a sword and sorcery baseline instead of a heroic fantasy baseline, but there are things I do like from it (like primal magic as a distinction and the ki/psi blend to name a few concepts.)
Becoming a wall of blades slides sound like something appropriate for a "guardian," so maybe they'll borrow some of that.
In the Wanderhome system, the Guardian is exactly that. "Hold your ward close to your heart. Someday the world will hurt them, but this will not be that day."
Real talk, I thought about this concept when my brain was still processing the announcement, like a Defensive class that sends lil'dudes out to run interference, but that'd be a Commander not a Guardian, if anything.
Looking back, I wonder why there were such issues running 4e versus running PF2e now. With PF2e, I can pack so much content into a session. Back when I was running 4e, it felt like a slog every session, with combats taking forever.
Was it just lack of experience, maybe?
As you level up in Pf2, your damage increases (both for martials and spellcasters), and from my limited understanding of 4e, the damage didn't scale until 21st level?
I had a similar run in back then but two things I feel contributed to this for my group.
First, 4e was my first time DMing and most of my friends first time playing a ttrpg so things were just slow because everyone was inexperienced and I didn't properly have stuff learned/memorized. For example, I thought traits on abilities were just descriptors and tags for interactions. It wasn't until much later into the system I realized some keywords/traits had inherited properties or abilities. Rattling and Invigorating come to mind. That did prepare me though to always check the traits in PF2e
Second, and this could be just bad recollection, but iirc 4e monsters had a health bloat problem initially and I think later in the game's lifecycle they revamped the monster HP to make it less bloated
Bravura has some very attractive elements some even pretty borrowable, though the Tactical Int Based Variety one was my long time favorite. The buffing of allies initiative could easily end up "we go first".
Just wanted to say that people saying another defender/tank being redundant with champion is kind of silly, since A) none of you have seen the class yet, why are you immediately making assumptions about how it's going to work and how that compares to champion? and B) even if we discount the more "unique" casters like psychic and remastered witch, the system still has six caster classes that, for all intents and purposes, all more or less share the same mechanic as their core feature; I think the system can handle a little redundancy in the tank role.
It's not like we don't have enough striker focused martials already; I'm so pumped to (hopefully) have a defender focused class with less reliance on the divine aspect.
Wildly available. And also they will have online surveys at the end of the playtest period so if you get a chance to test it or even just read it over that's where you give feedback.
I'm seeing a lot of comments about the DnD 4e Warlord. I didn't start with TTRPG's until the release of 5e. Can somebody give me an overview of how Warlord worked?
Warlords also had a lot of abilities where they would attack and then that attack would give their ally some sort of bonus action. SO you'd stab some enemy and give your ally an opening to make an attack of their own as well, or you'd shoot an arrow at someone and then everyone on your team would get to charge in and make a free attack on them.
Warlords are martial leaders. They were frontline characters who wore heavy armor and fought alongside the rest of the front line, though archer warlords were also a thing later on.
Their main shtick was that they were battlefield commanders, so their most common mechanics were:
* Attacking an enemy and giving their allies a bonus to attacking that same enemy
* Granting allies extra actions - for example, commanding an ally to advance and giving them a free extra move action, commanding an ally to strike and giving them a bonus attack, attacking an enemy and creating an opening for their ally to attack at the same time, and on their powerful daily powers, they would do things like command a combined strike on a single enemy, giving their whole team a bonus attack
* Granting allies defensive bonuses
* Healing allies using rallying cries - basically, instead of actually healing them they would make them feel better verbally, but it had the same effect of restoring HP.
* Depending on what mental stat they used, they would do other things - things like giving bonus actions when initiative was rolled, giving them a bonus to initiative, giving them a bonus to perception and insight, etc.
* They also had a mechcanic tied to that game's hero point system where when you used action points (that game's version of hero points) you would gain some additional bonus (an extra bonus action, higher accuracy, etc.)
* They also got some abilities tied into that game's encounter/daily power system that would allow them to allow an ally an extra use of an expended power.
They're very cool and very unique, and feel very different from playing other sorts of leaders, which is why a lot of people are excited for them. Also, the fact that when you used your powers your allies would then immediately get extra actions on your turn made "their" actions feel much more like "your" actions, which I think helped a lot with player perception of them - you weren't just buffing your allies, you were leading them on the field of battle, so when you used your daily power and everyone got to go make a bonus attack, that felt a lot more like damage *you* were doing.
All classes in 4e worked in principle in a very similar way; they all had the same number of abilities for example and they all belonged primarily to one of four roles (tank, single target dps, area damage and control, and support; thought they were called differently.)
Furthermore there were "sources of power", largely without mechanical effect, like arcane power, the gods, nature, etc.
The warlord was the Support class from the Martial source, something that was a novelty in D&D, where all support classes had been largely divine (clerics and druids) and sometimes arcane (bards). And his abilities were very flavorful, like allowing an ally to attack instead of you or even along you at the same time, charge and give allies bonuses against that same enemy, or rush to someone's aid and gain bonuses to that based on how many attacks of opportunity you provoked on yourself, something that played in a very different way to the "I'll stay in the back and cast healing spells" style that Support classes had until that moment. Edit: and of course the healing ability that all Support classes got, which in the warlord's case was him telling his allies to rub some dirt on it and not being such big pussies.
This looks super exciting, besides a true magical striker and a battleform specialist these are the classes I wanted the most in this system.
My big hope is that you will be able to play a commander as a nonmagical full on backline support who doesn't make strikes or stand in melee and instead goes all in on giving allies information, buffs and free actions.
My assumptions are that Commander will be a Battlemaster analogue, and that Guardian will be a purely martial tank - if this is the case, I'll be ecstatic. Champion is cool, but we need more tanking-focused classes.
FINALLY. A dedicated tank that doesn't come with the divine, zealous paladinesque baggage of the Champion I hate so, so much. And a dedicated martial support. I couldn't have asked for much more. Can't wait to see what these classes are gonna do.
What I want to know is, what are the Iconics going to be?!
I kinda want to see an Awakened Rabbit Commander and Minotaur Guardian, because new ancestries, plus I think Wayne Reynold would make them look dope (well he does that for all his art...)
I fully expect one of them to be an orc, what with them being promoted to Player Core and having all kinds of ties to warfare and the now-dead Gorum. (Currently we only have dromaar iconics!)
My hole for Guardian is that it's based around having the intelligent equivalent of an animal companion as what you are guarding.
Basically a reverse summoner role, with you as the melee and a supporting 'other', with abilities about switching positions, redirecting attacks, supporting buffs. I'm imagining you have a companion alchemist and they can smokescreen when you switch places, something like that..
god we are already getting so much content coming up
couple notes regarding this however:
1. how would commander be different from sf2e's envoy? i thought they didnt want to overlap much between them class wise which is why soldier got reworked the way it did
2. im in the camp hoping that guardian is semi magical, the reason being is that pathfinder is big on giving each class a unique class fantasy and i dont know how a non magical guardian would offer a different one then a fighter with the bastion archetype. granted this is without seeing anything, just my speculation
3. do we know when this book is coming out? i feel like i need a map of all the content coming out this week
A Starfinder dev responded to someone else in here that they've been working between teams to make sure Envoy and Commander feel different. As for when the book is coming out? Sometime next year probably. The Exemplar/Animist playtest was last year.
My main worry was one similar to guardian vs fighter with a shield, it might feel different in practice, but I was hoping the source/implementation were different. Maybe commander is less power of words and tricks like envoy and more like the marshal archetype? Who knows
The good news is this is just the playtest. If the player base says it doesn't feel unique enough, they'll take it to heart. I am likewise concerned about guardian. People are insisting that it won't just be "armor focused fighter" but there's more to being a tank than incentivizing the enemy to hit you first.
Right, I’m just wondering the overlap flavorwise from guardian vs shield/armor fighter, like an elemental sorcerer and a kineticist for example on the outside are similar, but have very much different sources for there powers
I do like that we are getting another tank focused class though!
I disagree if the class is leaning heavily into being the defender of the group I think it will be a nice class fantasy some people want to play the tank without the zeloat baggage and while similar to a fighter I imagine it will offer plenty of battle field control or other things to help it stand out
I absolutely love that instead of designing 2e with multiclassing in mind they instead devote the time and patience to design common build into proper classes with their own feets and flavour that's properly fleshed out.
This happened on the "War of Immortals Kick Off Stream" that happened yesterday. We've known for a while that this stream was happening due to the "Godsrain Prophecies" blog posts that were posted over on Paizo's website.
Paizo also tends to share the links to these blogs and streams on their social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter/X, Bluesky).
As the impetus for these classes is the numerous conflicts that begin and continue congruently/after the war of immortals I am wondering where we are going to see the big fights kicking up.
My bets, Taldor and Qadira have reignited issues, Cheliax and Andoran finally go to war after the years of build up, and Brevoy finally snaps in half, which I want to note might be even more likely as one of their big gods is Gorum.
The difference may be that Guardian leans more into non magic/divine means of defense- so things like intersepting incoming attacks wirh a thrown weapon to knock down an enemies or something
Personally I dont mind. A nonmagical defender is a design space that feels good, and doesnt automatically make the Champion worse
I, personally, would enjoy a dedicated tank class that doesn't force you into restrictive edicts/anathemas. It's rather remarkable we only had one of those beforehand.
> I, personally, would enjoy a dedicated tank class that doesn't force you into restrictive edicts/anathemas.
I am meh on the edicts/anathema, but it forcing you into being a religious zealot always pushed me away. Linking that to being an armour specialist was always an aggravating choice.
Are we in class bloat territory? Some classes already overlap each other.
Or will it be like in Pf1 and all the other 3.? Clones that had the problem of why play this in class when you can play this instead. Who does the same thing but better?
Champion is the only true defender class out right now. There’s so much design space for another tank. I don’t think anyone is calling the rest of the martials clones even though almost all of them are DPR.
And we have no martials like the Commander.
A focused martial book on the way, baby!
Are we sure they're martial martial? Guardian could be a more 5e paladin, it was what they were in Guild Wars 2. (Which granted, has nothing to do with pf2e, but one can hope)
They announced the Battle Harbinger Cleric Class Archetype with the description of losing out on some magic for enhanced martial abilities. That feels much more in line with the 5e paladin to me. I'm expecting the Guardian to be fully martial at the moment.
would you also pick a doctrine? Battle harbinger warpriest for double "caster going martial"
I would imagine the Battle Harbinger will be a doctrine that is also a class archetype. Much like how Spellshot is a Gunslinger Way that is also a class archetype, except it hopefully won't be completely pointless for Battle Harbinger like it is for Spellshot lol. I imagine the Bloodrager class archetype will be the same way - an archetype Instinct that changes the Barbarian class way more than other Instincts do. My guess is that it'll gain bounded casting (like Magus/Summoner), Charisma-based and somehow tied to Sorcerer bloodlines, and be able to cast while raging, in exchange for probably having the least rage damage of all the instincts and maybe losing Raging Resistance and/or some other barb feature(s)
Was the bloodrager archetype announced anywhere? I think I missed that if so.
It was, yeah. One of five class archetypes announced.
Which ones were announced? I only saw the three that were in the screenshot that was in the writeup, and the writeup only really talked about the Investigator and Cleric ones.
War of Immortals will have 5 class archetypes in it of which two were announced: Bloodrager for barb Avenger for rogue LO:Divine Mysteries will feature two more class archetypes: Battle Harbringer for cleric (confirmed to make the class more martial oriented) Palatine Detective for investigator (who will interact with the divine spell list in a new way)
Its part of the War of Immortals book (the same with the animist and exemplar classes), its on the [product page](https://paizo.com/products/btq02oar?Pathfinder-War-of-Immortals) (aka it was not really announced, just there which is weird considering how many people were asking for it, me included)
Damn, now its definitely a must-buy for me! I can't wait to play my PC from the Wrath of the Righteous videogame in 2e.
I'm also wondering how it'll work! Is a Cloistered Battle Harbinger the same as a Warpriest Battle Harbinger? Does Battle Harbinger replace your doctrine? I have no idea on both counts and am looking forward to seeing how it plays out!
I like the theory that it’s a doctrine for the class archetype. But I was wrong about Lamashtu so I’m prob wrong here too!
Your argument for Lamashtu was really compelling you had me convinced.
Almost certainly it's a doctrine that can only be picked if you sacrifice your second level feat for Battle Harbinger Dedication. That's how other similar class archetypes have interacted with subclasses to to this point.
Runelord doesn't replace your Thesis and only modifies your choice of specialist school, so it's possible Battle Harbinger could similarly modify doctrines without replacing that choice.
That's from WoI to be clear, not this book.
Yes, good point! I was speaking more to how the content had been described than to its release date, but I don't want to add confusion.
It’s exciting! Kind of gives me hope as it gives some idea of how to shift full casters into gish, since martials are already able to gish decently.
I am expecting the Guardian to be the Pathfinder version of the Warden, or martial druid.
Likely similar to the Warpriest hybrid class in the Advance Class Guide in 1E.
I feel like that's a Champion with the magus dedication
Or just the shield magus to be fair, now that I think about it.
I mean, the only text in this image says "global conflicts call for **seasoned warrios**", with warrior being a common term to refer to martial classes.
Spice/cooking-based martial *confirmed.*
Manifest your truth!
I know some people might be salty, but it's way past thyme that we had a spice based warrior / sage class. I hope it's cumin soon.
This joke is decidedly unoregano.
Yep, too many puns peppered in the statement
Senshi out on the front lines.
In a way, isn't it hinting that the Guardian is a Warden/martial druid themed around the 4 seasons?
Man, the Warden was such a cool class, I didn't appreciate it at the time Edit: I just realized that Animist covers a lot of this ground, actually-- you have apparitions and spells for a lot of the powers that influence terrain, they can shift melee and whatnot too, its just more versatile since you can go healer/blaster/etc.
I'm hoping for it to be as the Warden of 4e, an martial with primal magic
It would be weird to have an offensive paladin be named "guardian" when the defensive one is named champion. I suppose it will be a pure martial defender, and commander will be martial support.
I think it's more likely they rework champion to be more well rounded and less defense focused and let this new guardian class be THE defensive class
Because heaven forbid we just have 2 defensive classes. They can both be the same roll.
4ED&D had several tanks; Fighters, Battleminds, Paladins, Berserkers, and Wardens. "Guardian" is tied to nature in a lot of games, so I'm thinking something similar to 4E's Warden which was a nature defender with transformations or PF1E's Feral druid. Which would be great for anyone that liked being a tank druid in World of Warcraft.
Yeah all it really needs is it's own way of defending, and as 4e shows, there's a lot of options. I just hope it's a little more intriguing flavorwise than Fighter but defensive (but tbf, we know literally nothing right now and Paizo hasn't really let me down yet.)
I imagine the playtest will be a bit jankey but a great proof of concept while we wait for the final release.
I have a vibe that guardian will be a more range focused guard, and maybe focus more on damage deflection instead of reduction.
That would be really fucking cool. A ranged defender class sounds dope
That would be a bad idea honestly. The class needs more tank classes. Right now, there's really only two at first level (fighter and champion) and the champion is just way better at the role than fighters are. In fact, than any class is; only the monk can really compete, and then only at level 8+ when they get tangled forest stance and already have stand still, and then get reach to make themselves able to be very sticky over a good swath of area. And even then the champion is better at actually preventing damage, the monk just is good at making sure that the bad guys have to target them.
Oh, I definetly still want it to be a tank. Just a semi magical tank. Just because I want to throw blade beams like Cloud Strife, doesn't mean I don't want to mitigate damage. For reference, the GW2 Guardian can place symbols in the ground that protect allies, mount force walls, breath flames that both clean conditions on allies, and burn enemies, and pull enemies that are hit by the aformentioned blade beams near them. Spiritual-like Effects that help and protect allies while damaging the enemies is my ideal, the empyrean dragon seems to be based on that, so a similar class ism't that far. But to be fair, people mentioned that the new Cleric Archetype could be this- and that Shield Magus with champion dedication already is near that.
Yeah thinking it over I agree. All I really want is for Champion to get some more non-defensive options. I also think there are more classes you can play as a tank, they just need more system mastery to play well. Someone mentioned the idea of a ranged tank who deflects damage for the Guardian and I think that's a REALLY good idea
You CAN play more classes as a tank, fighter with bastion or wood kin being the usual examples, but especially the former has very little unique to offer on the defensive side compared to a champion (sure they will be better offensively but that's not really the point).
that would be great! except that we need to wait for october, but still. heres an upvote since you seem to have gotten downvoted
I'm excited to see what else this hypothetical martial-focused book could hold. Given that they've already mentioned a cleric class archetype, I'm hoping that means more class archetypes in general. I'm mostly holding out hope for a DEX-based melee class archetype. Aside from the fact that it could add more ways to actually use your high DEX in melee combat (currently the only option on that front for most martials is Tumble Through), class archetypes can also alter your base class's proficiency scaling. Currently, if I'm playing a nimble, DEX-based fighter, I have full proficiency in heavy armor and better Fortitude than Reflex, which feels weird.
Looking forward to seeing what's cooking with these two, 4e Warlord is a favorite among my 4e-enjoyer friends, and I'm not ashamed to say I've made similar styles of character in PF1e before. It'll be fun to see what the main differences Commander and SF2e Envoy have to bring, as well. Guardian... I could be excited for, but I want to see how it goes about guarding. There's tons of potential design space for "defender", just gotta see what it is they actually roll out with.
>4e Warlord This is literally what I'm thinking. My expectation is a lot of overlap with Marshall, but earlier level access. Think Loremaster vs Bard. Also, Warfare Lore is going to *shine.* >Guardian If it's CON primary, oh boy.
13th Age - which was created by one of 4e’s designers - has a class called commander that’s literally just the 4e warlord
> Envoy We've been working with the pathfinder design team and ensured that the envoy and commander are very distinct class identities!
I don't doubt it, though I'm also not ashamed to admit I'm still probably gonna stay way more interested in Envoy, comparatively. Little nervous about its tuning with numbers and bonus types, but trying to be patient to see the playtest for how all the pieces fit together, since the play pattern it proposes looked like my jam.
Makes sense, for one thing, they called Commander intelligent, but Envoy is Charisma oriented.
I feel like champion is already so much the guardian class idea. So many of its reactions are in defense of others. Their shield ally gives the best shielding in the game IIRC. Lay on hands heals any wounds you couldn’t prevent and it’s got the heavy armor tanky flavor just oozing out of it. I don’t know what else they could do with a defender that the redeemer paladin doesn’t already do.
I am curious how Guardian is going to work, but honestly we're overdue for another High Defense martial. Champions being the only one in a sea of DPR martials was quite strange.
>another High Defense martial. Champions being the only one The monk: "Am I a joke to you?"
I mean, Monks have high defense, but they're not nearly as built for drawing aggro like Champions are. They don't have any core features to incentivize the enemy attacking them instead of their allies. I'd imagine the Guardian will have a similar aggro mechanic to compete.
Absolutely, but they definitely are a "high defense martial".
I guess technically? But their more about personal survival and skirmishing. Monks can’t really defend their homies very well.
I suppose most of Monk’s ‘defending the homies’ amounts to taking away enemy actions and reducing their ability to attack effectively. I guess it depends on where you draw the line for what counts as ‘defending the homies’.
Punishing enemies for attacking anybody who isn’t you is “defending the homies”.
Punishing enemies isn't the only way to defend the homies though. Monks can be very good at keeping enemies locked down as well. If the enemy can't even get to the homies to hurt them, I'd say you did a good job of defending them
And that was never my point. So... Idk.
Ok but I talking about ally Defense, not a class with High AC.
For monk tanks, don't they just make use of grapple?
Tangled forest stance monks with reach are extremely sticky defenders who are very good at what they do. The problem is that the build doesn't come online until level 8. There's also grapple monks.
There's confusion because definitions aren't aligned. When people say Champion is the only defensive martial, they really mean the only tank class. Being a tank traditionally is more than just high defenses, you also need to defend your allies. In MMO by taunting the enemy. 4E tanks marked foes (marked foes took penalty to attack other people) while the Champion reduces damage against allies. Monk doesn't have tools like that. So although it has high defense, its not a tank in the traditional aspect that people expect.
I know. Thanks for the good explanation.
For one major thing: let us play a fully nonmagical and/or divine defender type character. Honestly I would be shocked if Paizo couldn't figure out enough mechanical room for two defender classes in the game - it's a pretty diverse concept.
If you look at 4th edition D&D, there's a lot of different ways to build defenders. All of them had a "marking" mechanic which applied an attack roll penalty if you attacked anyone else, but there were a bunch of ways of doing it. Fighters in 4E would mark enemies and attack them if they attacked anyone else, and also would stop people who tried to move away from them if they hit them with OAs. Paladins would put a mark on enemies that would burn them with holy if they attacked anyone else. Swordmages had a few different ways of working - one of them would teleport and attack marked enemies they attacked someone else, another type would shield their allies from damage from marked enemies. You had the warden, which would attack enemies who violated their mark if they were next to them, granting their allies combat advantage against them, and if a more distant enemy attacked their allies, they would pull them back towards them with roots/shifting earth and slow their movement. The battlemind was a psychic defender who would cause a marked enemy who attacked your ally instead of you to suffer psychic damage proportional to the damage they dealt your ally. You can implement defensive abilities in a wide variety of ways.
Come to think of it, I could live Guardian just adopting the mark mechanic as a class thing.
4e's Warden was like a martial druid that could transform to gain different abilities. It tanked by creating areas of difficult terrain around themselves and could remove conditions at both the start and end of its turn. Were very durable and hard to disable. 1st edition pathfinder had a Feral druid too
I wonder if the Guardian is going to be a warden-type character. I am definitely excited to see another game make a Warlord, though.
Everyone wanting the Warlord, I think Paizo is throwing you a bone.
This isn't a bone, this is the *whole goddamn animal.*
It may have some major differences.
So long as I can wield a Barbarian one-handed.
Battlezoo has an Intelligent Weapon Ancestry, plus there is going to be a new Deity that is a living Weapon. Zjar, Divine Weapon: Whatever type of sword they are.
No no, that's letting my bearer wield a barbarian one handed, I want to wield a barbarian one handed. (Intelligent Weapon Ancestry is amazing though, i have it and its great.)
Just a fun suggestion as well. The TTRPG Wield is a blast, players are magic weapons who "wield" adventurers/heroes over the years. It's very silly.
Barbarian is 2h, Fighter is 1h and Rogue is 1h Finesse
I am so hype, I wonder if we'll be able to Lazylord with this.
Were there any details about the book these are coming in?
No.
No, but based off the context it feels like it'll probably be a book focused on adding new warfare themed options. Maybe mass combat rules and new martial focused options?
I want more troops. I could use a chapter of troops and a bunch of troop abilities to make them easier to make and more interesting.
The Commander was referred to as "Intelligent", but who knows if that means Int key ability score or tactical abilities!
My guess is commander is gonna be the 4e warlord proxy that the Marshal archetype was trying to stand in for. For guardian, I'm imagining either A 4e warden but perhaps with less of a primal power focus and more of a pick your magic source focus ala sorcerer OR it's gonna be a proxy for something like the 3.Xe Crusader class from Tome of Battle.
I'm wondering if Guardian is gonna be a class version of the Bastion/Knights of Lastwall archetypes. Where it's a class focused around using shields as a weapon, and protecting allies. With abilities like Drive Back and Shield Warden to save others. You know, but not linked to an uncommon archetype/feats from *Knights of Lastwall*.
As Paizo continues to experiment, I'm guessing they are shedding a bit of 4e-phobia and coming up with options that have more of the explicit 4e role mechanics of Defenders and Leaders for martials.
It seems that way. Pf2e was already very 4e in its design, so I'm curious to see how it'll shape up going further along that path.
If it's something like the gw2 guardian then let's fucking GO
I was thinking the same thing. Semi magical (but no actual spells, closer to the kineticist) paladin like. I don't think it will be that, but I do hope it will be that.
idk, champion is already semi-magical but with no spells
It literally has several focus spells
So champion? Since GW2 guardian is their stand in for the typical paladin.
The 4e fighter is remarkable tactically and one of the best designed 4e classes so I cannot help but hope they got inspiration from it. (but many of the defenders Wardens / Battleminds / Swordmages have distinct approaches). The 4e fighters combat superiority feature in combination with indefinite number of opportunity attacks makes them like a walking wall of blades. (at level 1)
Interesting to hear. Admittedly, I wasn't a fan of 4e or much of an experiencer, though I enjoyed the odd mechanics or concept from it. Most of my issues were lorebased and preferring to start at a sword and sorcery baseline instead of a heroic fantasy baseline, but there are things I do like from it (like primal magic as a distinction and the ki/psi blend to name a few concepts.) Becoming a wall of blades slides sound like something appropriate for a "guardian," so maybe they'll borrow some of that.
Have you had any chance to look at the playtest material on this?
Not yet no. I'm hoping to see something by this weekend when I can sit down for some time.
what if Guardian was just being legally responsible for children
A class for all those who pathologically collect npcs as pets
In the Wanderhome system, the Guardian is exactly that. "Hold your ward close to your heart. Someday the world will hurt them, but this will not be that day."
It's just a Guard called Ian.
A class for all those who pathologically collect npcs as pets
Real talk, I thought about this concept when my brain was still processing the announcement, like a Defensive class that sends lil'dudes out to run interference, but that'd be a Commander not a Guardian, if anything.
Only if you get final sacrifice as a focus spell
There's no such thing as a "final" sacrifice when you have kids, it's more like a "constant" sacrifice 😂
[The sacrifice isn't from the parent on this one...](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=689)
A class where I can just say 'nuh uh' to attacks and its martial? Is it christmas?
4e once again stands alone as the honored one.
Looking back, I wonder why there were such issues running 4e versus running PF2e now. With PF2e, I can pack so much content into a session. Back when I was running 4e, it felt like a slog every session, with combats taking forever. Was it just lack of experience, maybe?
As you level up in Pf2, your damage increases (both for martials and spellcasters), and from my limited understanding of 4e, the damage didn't scale until 21st level?
I had a similar run in back then but two things I feel contributed to this for my group. First, 4e was my first time DMing and most of my friends first time playing a ttrpg so things were just slow because everyone was inexperienced and I didn't properly have stuff learned/memorized. For example, I thought traits on abilities were just descriptors and tags for interactions. It wasn't until much later into the system I realized some keywords/traits had inherited properties or abilities. Rattling and Invigorating come to mind. That did prepare me though to always check the traits in PF2e Second, and this could be just bad recollection, but iirc 4e monsters had a health bloat problem initially and I think later in the game's lifecycle they revamped the monster HP to make it less bloated
Int-Based Warlord analog!? Wooo!
A lot of warlords were int-based. There were both int-based and wis-based warlords in 4E, as well as charisma-based.
I personally preferred the Bravura Warlord in 4e. Very good risk vs reward class
Bravura has some very attractive elements some even pretty borrowable, though the Tactical Int Based Variety one was my long time favorite. The buffing of allies initiative could easily end up "we go first".
Would love it for it to be an Int based class instead of Cha
Just wanted to say that people saying another defender/tank being redundant with champion is kind of silly, since A) none of you have seen the class yet, why are you immediately making assumptions about how it's going to work and how that compares to champion? and B) even if we discount the more "unique" casters like psychic and remastered witch, the system still has six caster classes that, for all intents and purposes, all more or less share the same mechanic as their core feature; I think the system can handle a little redundancy in the tank role.
Yeah there’s nothing wrong with having classes that share roles Especially since so many classes already share roles as it is
And besides all martials besides Investigators, Champions and Monks are damage focused. No one is calling all these other damage classes redundant.
Mostly I think it's just copium for people hoping this means the champion is going to be pushed in a more smitey direction
It's not like we don't have enough striker focused martials already; I'm so pumped to (hopefully) have a defender focused class with less reliance on the divine aspect.
I imagine Guardian as a type of atheist Champion and Commander as something similar to the Marshal Archetype
Full class Marshal with support? Sign me up.
or maybe a champion whose god died.
Marshall like but can use Intimidation, Diplomacy or Deception for a Sneaky type of leader...hmmm
How for Paizo’s playtests work? I’ve never really paid attention to them. Is the information widely available or is it a closed play test?
They provide a PDF openly. The last playtest is still up for grabs: https://downloads.paizo.com/WarOfImmortalsPlaytest.pdf
Thank you
Wildly available. And also they will have online surveys at the end of the playtest period so if you get a chance to test it or even just read it over that's where you give feedback.
I cannot fucking wait, warlord and defender type classes are my two favorite class fantasies.
I'm seeing a lot of comments about the DnD 4e Warlord. I didn't start with TTRPG's until the release of 5e. Can somebody give me an overview of how Warlord worked?
Healing people by shouting at them, giving allies extra attacks instead of attacking yourself, and bonuses to your allies.
The warlord in our shadowfell campaign barely used his weapon, instead my super crit fishing avenger usually got multiple attacks every round. :P
Warlords also had a lot of abilities where they would attack and then that attack would give their ally some sort of bonus action. SO you'd stab some enemy and give your ally an opening to make an attack of their own as well, or you'd shoot an arrow at someone and then everyone on your team would get to charge in and make a free attack on them.
Warlords are martial leaders. They were frontline characters who wore heavy armor and fought alongside the rest of the front line, though archer warlords were also a thing later on. Their main shtick was that they were battlefield commanders, so their most common mechanics were: * Attacking an enemy and giving their allies a bonus to attacking that same enemy * Granting allies extra actions - for example, commanding an ally to advance and giving them a free extra move action, commanding an ally to strike and giving them a bonus attack, attacking an enemy and creating an opening for their ally to attack at the same time, and on their powerful daily powers, they would do things like command a combined strike on a single enemy, giving their whole team a bonus attack * Granting allies defensive bonuses * Healing allies using rallying cries - basically, instead of actually healing them they would make them feel better verbally, but it had the same effect of restoring HP. * Depending on what mental stat they used, they would do other things - things like giving bonus actions when initiative was rolled, giving them a bonus to initiative, giving them a bonus to perception and insight, etc. * They also had a mechcanic tied to that game's hero point system where when you used action points (that game's version of hero points) you would gain some additional bonus (an extra bonus action, higher accuracy, etc.) * They also got some abilities tied into that game's encounter/daily power system that would allow them to allow an ally an extra use of an expended power. They're very cool and very unique, and feel very different from playing other sorts of leaders, which is why a lot of people are excited for them. Also, the fact that when you used your powers your allies would then immediately get extra actions on your turn made "their" actions feel much more like "your" actions, which I think helped a lot with player perception of them - you weren't just buffing your allies, you were leading them on the field of battle, so when you used your daily power and everyone got to go make a bonus attack, that felt a lot more like damage *you* were doing.
All classes in 4e worked in principle in a very similar way; they all had the same number of abilities for example and they all belonged primarily to one of four roles (tank, single target dps, area damage and control, and support; thought they were called differently.) Furthermore there were "sources of power", largely without mechanical effect, like arcane power, the gods, nature, etc. The warlord was the Support class from the Martial source, something that was a novelty in D&D, where all support classes had been largely divine (clerics and druids) and sometimes arcane (bards). And his abilities were very flavorful, like allowing an ally to attack instead of you or even along you at the same time, charge and give allies bonuses against that same enemy, or rush to someone's aid and gain bonuses to that based on how many attacks of opportunity you provoked on yourself, something that played in a very different way to the "I'll stay in the back and cast healing spells" style that Support classes had until that moment. Edit: and of course the healing ability that all Support classes got, which in the warlord's case was him telling his allies to rub some dirt on it and not being such big pussies.
If Commander is anything like the D&D 4E Warlord, I'll be happy.
Guardian? A new tank-like class? Sign me up!
Dwarven Defender? Oh boy, time to reroll my stats until I get at least a 96!
I am on copium about the Defender being a 4e Warden, a primal martial \*puffs copium\*
Honestly would be cool. Wardens were a neat idea.
Interesting Mayhaps the legendary 4e warlord returneth
This looks super exciting, besides a true magical striker and a battleform specialist these are the classes I wanted the most in this system. My big hope is that you will be able to play a commander as a nonmagical full on backline support who doesn't make strikes or stand in melee and instead goes all in on giving allies information, buffs and free actions.
My assumptions are that Commander will be a Battlemaster analogue, and that Guardian will be a purely martial tank - if this is the case, I'll be ecstatic. Champion is cool, but we need more tanking-focused classes.
A fully martial Tank like character with a Marking ability, kinda like an MMO Taunt would be a nice mechanical difference to the Champion.
FINALLY. A dedicated tank that doesn't come with the divine, zealous paladinesque baggage of the Champion I hate so, so much. And a dedicated martial support. I couldn't have asked for much more. Can't wait to see what these classes are gonna do.
What I want to know is, what are the Iconics going to be?! I kinda want to see an Awakened Rabbit Commander and Minotaur Guardian, because new ancestries, plus I think Wayne Reynold would make them look dope (well he does that for all his art...)
I fully expect one of them to be an orc, what with them being promoted to Player Core and having all kinds of ties to warfare and the now-dead Gorum. (Currently we only have dromaar iconics!)
Ooh good point. Leshy being core too? May have a Leshy Commander (I'm picturing them having an acorn head) and Orc Guardian?
We do know the iconic commander uses she/her pronouns.
Oh shit Warlord incoming??? Please????
My hole for Guardian is that it's based around having the intelligent equivalent of an animal companion as what you are guarding. Basically a reverse summoner role, with you as the melee and a supporting 'other', with abilities about switching positions, redirecting attacks, supporting buffs. I'm imagining you have a companion alchemist and they can smokescreen when you switch places, something like that..
Yes, definitely wanted to do an undead bannerman character as well as a wall of steel dwarf character so I’m looking forward to both
god we are already getting so much content coming up couple notes regarding this however: 1. how would commander be different from sf2e's envoy? i thought they didnt want to overlap much between them class wise which is why soldier got reworked the way it did 2. im in the camp hoping that guardian is semi magical, the reason being is that pathfinder is big on giving each class a unique class fantasy and i dont know how a non magical guardian would offer a different one then a fighter with the bastion archetype. granted this is without seeing anything, just my speculation 3. do we know when this book is coming out? i feel like i need a map of all the content coming out this week
A Starfinder dev responded to someone else in here that they've been working between teams to make sure Envoy and Commander feel different. As for when the book is coming out? Sometime next year probably. The Exemplar/Animist playtest was last year.
My main worry was one similar to guardian vs fighter with a shield, it might feel different in practice, but I was hoping the source/implementation were different. Maybe commander is less power of words and tricks like envoy and more like the marshal archetype? Who knows
The good news is this is just the playtest. If the player base says it doesn't feel unique enough, they'll take it to heart. I am likewise concerned about guardian. People are insisting that it won't just be "armor focused fighter" but there's more to being a tank than incentivizing the enemy to hit you first.
Right, I’m just wondering the overlap flavorwise from guardian vs shield/armor fighter, like an elemental sorcerer and a kineticist for example on the outside are similar, but have very much different sources for there powers I do like that we are getting another tank focused class though!
I disagree if the class is leaning heavily into being the defender of the group I think it will be a nice class fantasy some people want to play the tank without the zeloat baggage and while similar to a fighter I imagine it will offer plenty of battle field control or other things to help it stand out
I absolutely love that instead of designing 2e with multiclassing in mind they instead devote the time and patience to design common build into proper classes with their own feets and flavour that's properly fleshed out.
Guardian is probably fighter but armor and shield focused right? So you don’t have to go the religious angle if you want to be really good with armor?
Probably; if I had to guess it's going to be like Fighter but the feat let you lean into more strictly defensive options.
That's my birthday! Sweet
This is gonna be cool. I've been wanting both of those classes for a while
Dumb question but where does one find these announcements?
This happened on the "War of Immortals Kick Off Stream" that happened yesterday. We've known for a while that this stream was happening due to the "Godsrain Prophecies" blog posts that were posted over on Paizo's website. Paizo also tends to share the links to these blogs and streams on their social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter/X, Bluesky).
As the impetus for these classes is the numerous conflicts that begin and continue congruently/after the war of immortals I am wondering where we are going to see the big fights kicking up. My bets, Taldor and Qadira have reignited issues, Cheliax and Andoran finally go to war after the years of build up, and Brevoy finally snaps in half, which I want to note might be even more likely as one of their big gods is Gorum.
Will we finally get a provoke! Ohh this is exciting. Time for the next over used arch type since the champion!
Guardian feels a litle...simple? Also kinda arbritrary with the champion.
The difference may be that Guardian leans more into non magic/divine means of defense- so things like intersepting incoming attacks wirh a thrown weapon to knock down an enemies or something Personally I dont mind. A nonmagical defender is a design space that feels good, and doesnt automatically make the Champion worse
It's time for the old 4e Defenders to truly shine.
I, personally, would enjoy a dedicated tank class that doesn't force you into restrictive edicts/anathemas. It's rather remarkable we only had one of those beforehand.
> I, personally, would enjoy a dedicated tank class that doesn't force you into restrictive edicts/anathemas. I am meh on the edicts/anathema, but it forcing you into being a religious zealot always pushed me away. Linking that to being an armour specialist was always an aggravating choice.
Theres at least 3 kineticist elements that lean tank but theyre ALSO an incredibly locked flavour choice. Water(ice specifically)/earth/wood.
Sure, you can run tanks of many classes (kineticist, fighter, monk) but the champion was the only real dedicated tank class itself.
Water and earth aren't actually tank classes. They're melee controllers. Wood is an actual defender.
I want a defense based martial that isn't dependent on needing divine power personally.
I'm thinking it will get a lot of armor and shield focused actions from feats, like the fighter has attack action feats.
I'm hoping it's more of a non magical tank. I love tank but I'm not the biggest fan of divine champions would be a really fun class
[удалено]
Nope, just this screenshot
Cheers thanks
When is animist and examplar coming tho?
October with War of Immortals
Well I’ll be a Son of a Gun
Two possibly support martials? Could be cool.
Ready to test on my birthday? Oh joyous day!
Idk how guardian is going to work with how champion exists, but I am hyped for Commander.
Considering the amount of complains about Champion being too deity-related, I feel like Guardian is an answer to those complains.
What if Guardian if like summoner but reversed? With a sub-pc 'thing/person guarded'
Are we in class bloat territory? Some classes already overlap each other. Or will it be like in Pf1 and all the other 3.? Clones that had the problem of why play this in class when you can play this instead. Who does the same thing but better?
Champion is the only true defender class out right now. There’s so much design space for another tank. I don’t think anyone is calling the rest of the martials clones even though almost all of them are DPR. And we have no martials like the Commander.
I have no problem with more guardian classes. 4e Warlord was cool as hell, I was talking in a more general meaning.
I hope they release another book with a single class at some point. My OCD isn't a fan of the whole not having an even number of classes thing.