u/KingDevere

I have been playing as a commander for five months now - though only lvl 3 - and though I really enjoyed it to start I feel like I have hit a bit of a tactical dead end.

and I have tried out a bunch of different tactics (I have had the opportunity to retrain more than lvl lol) and it just seems like you don't actually want to switch out tactics often. You simply have the one or two tactics that gel with your party comp and then you use them over and over again.

I get that usually you are going to build a character and spam the same few combinations over and over again. But the Commander seems particularly guilty of this. There is almost no reason to variate once you've established the tactics that work with your party.

We have been told that if we want a drastic rebuild (class or something akin to that) now is the time.

Anyways, I wanted to ask the community(specifically players who have played high level commanders) because I have a few confounding factors that may be impacting my opinion:

• Slow leveling
• Niche party (Mainly ranged throwers)
• I use Plant Banner (I'm on the fence but my party loves the temp hp and the dm has never even attempted to pluck it)

Typical Pattern:

1. Gather to Me! -> Guided Shot -> Plant Banner
2. Recall Knowledge -> Pincer Attack/Gather To Me! - Guided Shot
3. Repeat turn 2 with the option to pluck my Plant Banner to take advantage of Defensive Retreat if needed.

tldr; Is the Commander very repetitive once you figure out "the" tactic for your group? Do you find it boring as you increase in level?

What do you think?

Heyo

I am playing an Orc Commander in a campaign planned to go to level 20. Currently, we are lvl 3 (about to be lvl 4) and I got a pretty large shake-up with my animal companion (a young Roc just using the basic Bird template) getting lost on a more permanent level during a dragon attack. I am not upset about this, I chose to risk them knowing it may force me to rebuild, and I love weighty consequences with my play. To be honest, I am excited to have to reimagine my character a bit after a big loss. However, it has produced a slight problem as I was relying on the animal companion to help make some of my tactics work.

In game, dragons have taken over a large portion of the world and we will be fighting to undermine and reclaim that land from them and their minions. I was a crown-prince and the young Roc was the sign of my lineage but my nation was one of those claimed by the dragons in their initial assault and my companion was lost trying to save my father, the acting king.

A year has passed since then and I have been told I can retrain and change some things around in light of the loss and for story purposes I don't want to just get a new animal companion. Currently, though not initially intended I am getting Dimitri>! from Three Houses vibes post time-skip!<.

My party is comprised of only one melee character at this point, a Minotaur Guardian (we originally had another Minotaur Fighter in the front line when I built my character). There are two thrown-weapon builds (thaumaturge and Exemplar), a cleric, and I am an archer.

The problem I am running into is that none of the tactics seem to favor Thrown-Weapons that much (the primary damage-dealers) or specifically require squadmates to enter melee range (which only the Guardian wants to do).

It kind of has me questioning everything a bit.

Other details, we are playing with Free Archetype and Ancestral Paragon.

BUILD:

Stats:

• STR +1
• DEX +3
• CON +1
• INT +4
• WIS +0
• CHA +0

Commander Feats:

1. Plant Banner (Aware of Brandish limitation)
2. *REPLACE* Commander's Companion

Tactics:

• Gather To Me!
• Mountaineering Training
• Naval Training
• *REPLACE* - Tactical Takedown
• *REPLACE* - Pincer Attack

Free Archetype:

1. Investigator Dedication (Have thought about Air Kineticist for some cool themes, but was holding out for errata...which may never come lol)

Ancestry: Hold-Scarred Orc

1. Orc Lore
2. Orc Warmask - Primal
3. Orc Ferocity

Skill Feats:

1. Assurance (Warfare Lore)

General Feats

1. Incredible Inititative

tldr; Good tactics and feats to build for primarily ranged (but not guns) party.

I am not particularly attached to any specific mechanic (looking at you Plant Banner), but my party has gotten used to the temp hp from Plant Banner and the movement from Gather to Me!

Looking for not just immediate build advice but potential long-term build.

THANKS!