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mostly it comes down to thematics and balance. most of the 'evil' archetypes in Horror Adventures are banned because they don't lend well to a 'cooperative' community of the Society.
Other times, there are several feats and builds that have horrible balance issues. like the Synthesist Summoner being broke as hell, the Vivesectionist Alchemist being arguable better than the Rogue.
In the case of Bladed Brush, it bring up so many ruling conflicts. When you have feats like Dervish Dance/Slashing Grace and Fencer's Grace giving Dex-to-Dmg, Bladed Brush just added to the confusion of what could be done with the aforementioned feats could do if ran together.
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Mostly so they don't have to argue every point, the reason why certain things are banned isn't released officially. But if you follow the patern the following will get an item booted from additional resources
1) Being too evil/gross to have in a public venue (pretty obvious, pfs is meant to be played and bring attention to the game for a wide audience and if some things exclude a wide swath of people its not going to be there)
2) Being an overpowered game ender. The feinting cape for example, you walk up to someone and poof, they're dazed. No save no opposed roll and you can do it all day long. "i win" cards make the game not fun for the dm or anyone other than the person playing the i win cards. Banhammered.
3) And this is the source of a lot of head scratchers, being better at something than the original. The X as a faux Y should not be a better Y than Y is.
The virtuous bravo certainly doesn't compare to the god wizard or pouncey ponce the pummeling puma. But what it IS is better at being a swashbuckler than a swashbuckler: The swashbuckler doesn't have a whole lot in the meat department besides opportune parry and riposte. The virtuous bravo has that, two good saves (the better two saves at that), and charisma to saves, and a heap of other goodies.
4) The third rail. Messing with wealth by level. If something changes this even a hair the banhammer hunts it relentlessly.
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It is important to note that there are far more reasons something might not be allowed than simply "it's too powerful." Sometimes it's multiple reasons. In no particular order and in a non-exhaustive list those include:
-Does not fit in with PFS campaign setting (such as only being found in one particular part of Golarion or requiring evil play)
-Does not work with PFS specific rules (such as crafting)
-Reserved to appear on an adventure chronicle
-Text is confusing/conflicts with established rules (may appear later in Campaign Clarifications document)
-Conflicts with upcoming publication (that we know nothing about - the hardest one to analyze)
-Too powerful/mispriced
The last reason is by far the most debatable and most contentious. In a large part "too powerful" is in the eye of the beholder. Unless the new material gives added advantages but otherwise is exactly identical to something previously published it is not possible to make strict comparisons. Even then there is a sizable contingent of messageboard posters who do not consider any Paizo-published material "too powerful."
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Is it just a simple balance issue? As at the table I played at people were shocked (like really surprised) about my low initiative score. (A +0! Go heavy armor wearer! Even though I was in medium...) Since Dexterity seems to be more prized in Society Play anything that allows further Dex to attack isn't wanted?
This is more of a "player/local" issue, though it does intersect with what material is allowed. There are a sizable number of players who get enjoyment out of making a very optimized character. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but Campaign Leadership doesn't want to create a situation where you MUST be optimized to succeed. A character with "balanced" stats (no dumps and nothing at the maximum either) should be able to participate in a scenario as well.
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This is the 4th time in a month that someone has posted a thread about the Virtuous Bravo/Bladed Brush. That's a pretty strong indication to me that's it's probably best left for a homegame, otherwise it seems like the field would be flooded with them.
For reference, HERE is John Compton's response during one of the first threads that this question was asked. It generally explains the broad reasons anything doesn't make it into the Additional Resources document.
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mostly it comes down to thematics and balance. most of the 'evil' archetypes in Horror Adventures are banned because they don't lend well to a 'cooperative' community of the Society.
Other times, there are several feats and builds that have horrible balance issues. like the Synthesist Summoner being broke as hell, the Vivesectionist Alchemist being arguable better than the Rogue.
In the case of Bladed Brush, it bring up so many ruling conflicts. When you have feats like Dervish Dance/Slashing Grace and Fencer's Grace giving Dex-to-Dmg, Bladed Brush just added to the confusion of what could be done with the aforementioned feats could do if ran together.Odd, bladed brush by the rules doesn't make a glaive viable as a selection as bladed brush lets you treat a glaive as a one handed weapon, it doesn't treat the other hand as unoccupied, only non-attacking.
To my knowledge the only way to get bladed brush dex to damage is with a three level dip in rogue.
There is quite a bit of uncertainty about how this feat actually works, which is probably a large part of the Banning motivation. A key thing to remember about PFS is that you could have a different GM every session, so fundamental questions like 'does this combination actually work' can't be left up to individual GMs, or your character may be virtually unplayable at certain tables.
PFS is left with the choice of:
- Making a society wide declaration of how the feat is supposed to work, or
- Banning it entirely.
- needing an additional source document from Society management,
- dealing with the inevitable issues the declaration doesn't cover or actually creates,
- the stirring of even more debate over the decision, and
- the inevitable clash with later errata or developer feedback.