Introduction

PF2’s Guardian is an incredible tank: durable, great at protecting their friends, and built to endure a ton of punishment. They get extra Reactions, the ability to intercept attacks targeting nearby allies, and a signature Taunt ability which punishes enemies for targeting your friends.

The concept of the class’s mechanics is simple: Taunt enemies, protect allies, use Intercept Attack to take damage in place of your allies. You paid for the whole hit point bar, you’re going to use the whole hit point bar. Even with the Guardian’s built-in resistance to physical damage and 12+ hp per level, you may find that you burn through hit points very quickly by intercepting attacks. Be sure to look for options that heal you in combat or which provide temporary hit points so that you can continue taking damage in place of your allies.

Despite Taunt and Intercept Attack, you may still run into issues with the Tank Fallacy. If you’re a wall of AC and hit points, enemies will choose to target your allies. You can still use Intercept Attack, but that has limitations on range and bypasses your AC. Many of the Guardian’s feats only work if enemies attack you, so those feats may be minimally useful. Building around two-handed weapons for reach and better damage might help here, but then you lock yourself out of many of the Guardian’s Class Feats which focus on shields.

Table of Contents

Understanding RPGBOT’s Rating System

RPGBOT uses a 4-tier rating scheme which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Guardian Class Features

Key Attribute: Strength.

Hit Points: 12+ hit points. Amazing, especially with Guardian’s Armor providing permanent Resistance to physical damage.

Proficiencies:

  • Perception: Start at Trained, reach Expert at mid levels, and no direct dependence on Wisdom.
  • Saving Throws: Expert in Fortitude and Will saves. Your Dexterity saves will be poor, so look for armor with the Bulwark property.
  • Skills: The standard 4 + Int skills. You’re locked into Athletics, but it’s a good choice for a Strength-based martial character.
  • Attacks: Standard weapon proficiency progression in Simple and Martial weapons for martial characters, but you do not gain Critical Specialization with weapons. If you want it, you can get it from Archetypes or from Ancestry Feats.
  • Defenses: Armor proficiency maxes out at Legendary, but you never get Armor Specialization since you get Guardian’s Armor.

    The Guardian’s proficiency in Light Armor and Unarmored Defense both increase slower than their proficiency in Medium and Heavy Armor. This is odd, but it doesn’t matter because you need to be in medium or heavy armor for some of your class features to work.

  • Class DC: Fairly average progression, maxing out at Master.

1: Guardian’s Armor: Small but scaling damage resistance to the most common types of damage in the game.

This is enough to make you immune to the splash damage from weapons with the Scatter property, so a Guardian is a great choice in a party with Gunslingers who might enjoy using Splash weapons.

1: Shield Block: A fantastic way to increase your durability. Remember that Shield Block prevents damage rather than giving you Resistance, so the damage reduction stacks with Guardian’s Armor. The only problem is the competition for your Reaction with Intercept Attack.

1: Taunt: One Action to impose a -1 Circumstance penalty on your target. No checks, no saves, it just works. This does create a persistant tax on your action economy, but making the biggest enemy in a fight 10% less effective is still very powerful.

1: Guardian’s Techniques: I’m not sure why they needed a feature to group two other features. Nothing interacts

  • Ever Ready: The rules for whether or not a character gets Reactions before their first tyurn in combat are somewhat vague, so beign guaranteed a Reaction is either wonderful insurance or totally useless depending on how your GM interprets those rules.
  • Intercept Attack: The Guardian’s signature feature. This is great motivation to keep allies within 10 feet so that you can consistently protect them. Expect to use this frequently and build your character around that strategy. A deep pool of hit points, numerous damage resistances, and sources of Temporary Hit Points will all do a lot to make you effective as a Guardian.

3: Tough to Kill: Since you’re routinely taking damage in place of your allies, you’re inevitably going to drop to 0, making Diehard a must-have feat. This removes that tax, plus you get an extra layer of insurance which makes it even harder to actually die.

7: Reaction Time: Amazing. Two Reactions is fantastic since the Guardian’s signature feature is a Reaction. Keep in mind that you can still only use one Reaction in response to a single trigger, so you can’t Shield Block the same attack twice.

19: Guardian Mastery: In addition to increasing your Class DC proficiency to Master, The Guardian gets the unique ability to add their Armor’s Item Bonus to Reflex saves in place of their Dexterity modifier. You have likley been using armor with Bulwark trait up to this point. Guardian Mastery turns that into an additional +1 on top of your Armor’s Item Bonus to Reflex saves, but you might trade that for armor with more interesting traits.

Guardian Attributes

The Guardian’s Key Attribute is Strength, but you need a lot of Constitution to manage all of the damage that you’ll be taking with Intercept Attack.

Str: Your Key Ability Score.

Dex: Dump it an get armor with Bulwark.

Con: The Guardian expects to suffer a lot of damage.

Int: Useful for skills, not that you need many to succeed as a Guardin.

Wis: Saves and Perception.

Cha: Dump.

Guardian Ancestries and Heritages

Options which make you more durable like high hit points and damage resistances, will be especially useful for the Guardian. The Dwarf for Mountain’s Stoutness and the Orc/Dromaar for Orc Ferocity are easy go-to choices, or you can get damage resistances from many Heritages. Resistance to poison and fire will both be very useful.

Guardian Backgrounds

Strength and Constitution increases are crucial.

If you’re having trouble deciding, here are some suggestions:

  • Field Medic: Increase Constitution, Battle Medicine, and put the Free Boost into Strength.
  • Laborer: Hefy Hauler will help manage Bulk. If you plan to use tower shields, this is a great idea.
  • Returned (Rare): Increase Constitution, Strength, and gain Diehard. we’ll get to retrain Diehard at level 3 when we get it for free from our class, we you can take that opportunity to get Toughness.

Guardian Skills and Skill Feats

You get Skill Increases at 3rd and 5th level to raise skills to Expert, increases at 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th level to raise skills to Master, and increases at 15th, 17th, and 19th level to raise skills to Legendary. That means that you can maximize at most three skills, and the rest of your skills might not advance beyond Trained.

You get Skill Feats at even-numbered levels, giving you a total of 10 Skill Feats (and maybe another from your Background) by 20th level. Generally, you want to invest these feats in the same skills which you are choosing to maximize, though in some cases you may want to grab feats from skills which don’t require that you be more than Trained.

  • Acrobatics (Dex):
  • Arcana (Int): Useful for Recall Knowledge in somes cases.
  • Athletics (Str): Trained for free, and this is an easy choice to increase further since the Guardian is Strength-based. Use it for special attacks in combat like Disarm and Grapple.
    • Hefty Hauler (PC1): For a class that depends on heavy armor and often on shields, Bulk can become an issue. Hefty Hauler increases your Encumbered Bulk and Maximum Bulk both by 2. If that’s not enough, get a Lifting Belt.
  • Crafting (Int): Being trained to repair your shield is a good idea unless someone else in the party (ideally with better Intelligence) is willing to do it for you.
  • Deception (Cha): Charisma is a dump stat for the Guardian.
  • Diplomacy (Cha): Charisma is a dump stat for the Guardian.
  • Intimidation (Cha): Charisma is a dump stat for the Guardian.
  • Lore (Int): Too numerous and too vaguely-defined.
  • Medicine (Wis): You don’t have a lot of great skill options, and every party needs someone who is good at Medicine.
    • Battle Medicine (PC1): If you’re going to be taking hits for your party, having the ability to heal yourself quickly in combat is a good idea.
  • Nature (Wis): Useful for Recall Knowledge in somes cases. You can also use Natural Medicine to get more value our of a small number of skills.
  • Occultism (Int): Useful for Recall Knowledge in somes cases.
  • Performance (Cha): Charisma is a dump stat for the Guardian, and Performance is borderline useless.
  • Religion (Wis): Useful for Recall Knowledge in somes cases.
  • Society (Int): Useful for Recall Knowledge in somes cases.
  • Stealth (Dex): Heavy armor does not make stealth easy.
  • Survival (Wis): Too situational.
  • Thievery (Dex): Dex is a dump stat for the Guardian.

    • Guardian Feats

    For more help selecting Class Feats, see our Guardian Class Feats Guide.

    General Feats

    • Diehard (CRB): You will get this for free at level 3. Increasing your maximum Dying value makes it much safer to takes hits for your allies.
    • Toughness (CRB): Additional hit points are always welcome on melee characters, but this is especially useful on the Guardian since you’re sharing your hp with the party by absorbing hits for them.

    Guardian Weapons

    The Guardian’s weapon options are mostly the same as any other Strength-based martial character, though they have some fun interactions with gauntlets and shields depending on what Class Feats you select. You should also give special consideration to reach weapons, which may or may not be appealing depending on Stance feats which you might take.

    • Gauntlet / Spiked Gauntlet (PC1): The Guardian has a few feats like Shoulder Check and Ring Their Bell which benefit a great deal from you using gauntlets enhanced to be used as weapons, but they’re not good enough to make gauntlets an easy choice.
    • Shield / Shield Boss / Shield Spikes (PC1): The Guardian has a huge number of feats related to using shields both defensively and offensively, making shields a powerful choice. The damage won’tbe amazing, but it’s enough.

    Guardian Armor

    Since you won’t get the damage reduction from Armor Specialization, your choice of armor comes down to which medium or heavy armor suits your build best. It’s perfectly fine to build around the heaviest armor that you can wear. The Bulwark trait is especially useful, and the Guardian even gets some feats that improve it.

    Archetypes

    This is not a comprehensive list of archetypes which might be useful for this class. For more on archetypes, see our archetype handbooks.

    • Bastion: A perfect complement to a shield-focused build. Bastion shares several feats with the Guardian, so it’s an easy multiclass choice and also an amazing choice for Free Archetype. However, avoid options which add new Reactions because you won’t be able to use them with the Guardian’s additional Reaction from Reaction Time.
    • Champion: Champion’s Reaction is really good, but the options which protect your allies will compete for space with Intercept Attack. Instead, choose a Cause which gives you a Reaction that protects you intead of your allies. also, get Lay on Hands. It’s really good.
    • Fighter: A great way to complement the Guardian’s defensive capabilities with some more offensive capabilities.
    • Kineticist: Some of the Kineticists feats complement the Guardian’s capabilities very nicely. Hardwood Armor and Metal Carapace can get you armor and a disposable shield, which is very useful if you’re relying heavily on Shield Block. They’ll also work with the Guardian’s Armor Break, giving you disposable armor to repeatedly detonate.
    • Mauler: The Guardian does not natively have critical specialization, and the Mauler Archetype dedication grants that once you have Expert in weapons at fifth level. Additionally, synergy exists between Punishing Shove and multiple Mauler feats, such as Shoving Sweep.

    Guardian Multiclass Archetype

    The Guardian Archetype offers durability and defensive options. Martial classes that only get light or medium armor proficiency may benefit from access to heavy armor. You also get access to Taunt, which is excellent. If you’re already using shields, there is a ton of value here from options like Aggressive Block and Shielding Taunt.

    If you’re leaning hard into shields, there’s some great value here, but Bastion is a better choice if that’s what you’re after. If you’re looking at Guardian, you need to lean into Taunt.

    1. Guardian Dedication: Excellent for classes that already get proficiency in armor of any kind, but less useful for classes that expect to fight unarmored because your Unarmored Defense because your proficiency won’t advance beyond Expert. You also get the Guardian’s Taunt action, which is a great debuff that works regardless of your stats.
    2. Basic Defender: The Guardian has some great low-level feats. Several of them heavily emphasize shields, but there are also great options like Hampering Stance and Taunting Strike.
    3. Guardian Resiliency: These feats typically only give you 2 Hit Points per Archetype Feat, so getting 3 is nice.
    4. Advanced Defender: A few great options.
    5. Guardian’s Intercept: This is why you’re here. Unfortunately, it’s only once per 10 minutes.
    6. Armored Resistance: The resistance is great, but you only get to use Guardian’s Intercept once per 10 minutes, so this is a very expensive way negate single-digit amounts of damage per encounter.
    7. Ironclad Fortitude: Excellent if your class’s proficiency in Fortitude stops at Expert.