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As I said before, I don't see a problem with the Punishing Shove doing extra damage with Stunt.

The AVG damage is similar to or lower than a rogue doing Strike with Sneak Attack damage but way more expensive and harder to do and without critical damage nor effect, without taking advantage of off-guard:
- You need to get a Guardian Dedication feat
- You need to get a Basic Defender feat to take Punishing Shove with it.
- You have to flank your target with a valid prop to Shove it.

This doesn't even compare with rogues that can basically do all their damage against off-guard target using one of many ways to make the target off-guard against them, including flanking.

That's why I can't see the current Punishing Shove combo as an issue by itself but as a signal that the current Stunt Damage with Shove is fundamentally wrong. It's just a bad way to do less damage than a Strike unless you make a MC using 2 feats and work in a very specific condition that is a shove against a valid prop. Moreover, it can cost even more feats if you want to make it work a bit more. Like have to play as a small creature to use medium creatures as props or also having to take a Companion archetype to control a mobile prop. All this costs feats only to do a close damage to what other class do without such effort.

Ah, okay, for use with Press, right?

But for these cases where Risky feats exist, almost none of them require a freehand.

Basically, it is up to the GM to decide.

But as a general response, if it is stable and hard enough, you probably can use it as a prop; only creatures need to have this size difference.

About the usage of the ground as a wall. RAW it's valid, but I think that most GMs during this playtest weren't authorizing this because this can easily trivialize the prop (but honestly, there are so many ways to trivialize the prop that it makes me question if it wouldn't be better to just remove the prop rule at all and just give the benefit all the time).

Yeah this is a general problem in the system that I usually homebrew in my games (and I saw many other GMs doing the same, sometimes even due to lack of knowledge), allowing a creature to use any ability that uses movement speed to use it with any movement speed that the character have, not only on land.
The only restrictions that I use are that for fly speed, you need to have used at least one action with movement to not fall and have to use Fly action as subordinate instead of Strike. I also only allow you to Step when you are on land (for fun and balance reasons (if you want to avoid a reaction, do this on land)).

There is no fun in saying, “Oh, you can fly, but you cannot use any of your movement abilities due to this.”

Including such things was what made Air Walk way better than Fly in the legacy.

I see:

1x agile shove weapon
1x agile grapple weapon
5x agile trip weapons
11x agile disarm weapons

All of these weapons one-handed.

There are way more weapons with such athletic traits than this and 1/3 of them are two-handed.

Yes, I had put the wrong dice. A two-handed Trip weapon is at maximum d10 and not d12.

And considering it's a worse version of Hunt Prey is a terrible feat. Because Hunt Prey is probably the most criticized mechanic of the ranger.

Yes, many daredevil options looks like a brawler/wrestler class yet the class have some cool daredevil movements, especially with feats that require adrenaline.

I put 3 examples in this post.

Caroming Charge is normally not combined with a damaging attack, outside "random floor junk" or Rushing Strike. Why would you pair it with a two-handed weapon?

Because it's a no MAP damage with a hit and run tactic. Just use Rushing Strike with your d12 weapon to do good damage and get Adrenaline. Then use Caroming Charge to move through that enemy and any other enemies that you can move through, doing automatic Stunt Damage. Try to end in a relatively safe position to do all this again in your next round.

Surely it isn't a bad tactic, and you take the advantage that you can end your turn away from enemies reach, forcing them to have to use at least an action to get closer too.

While you still don't have access to Rushing Strike, you can use Daring Stunt to do the same with a maneuver like Trip with a d12 trip weapon or a free-hand. You will do less damage because only Caroming Charge will apply but you probably will put your first target Prone while you get Adrenaline.

And with a d12 weapon you have the alternative tactic of just Strike strong with your big weapon and then using some Press Risky feat against enemies that can trigger a movement reaction.

Daring Reversal has a similar problem even if you don't have a weapon: you need a non-press source of adrenaline, and that's mostly Daring Stunts. That requires you to have an empty flank spot to move into instead of capitalizing on being flanked.

Daring Reversal is in a more circunstancial and risky situation to make it work but still too fun.

You can move to be between 2 enemies with Daring Stunt, get Adrenaline, then try to Trip or Grapple one of them with this action, then use Daring Reversal to try to Strike one of them (if you used Grapple must be the non-grabbed enemy) with just MAP-3/-4 (depending on if your weapon is agile or not). Shove this enemy to get out of flanking, and then Strike or make a maneuver to the other now off-guard enemy!

It's a perfect representation of what it is to be a Daredevil taking risks (it's basically a cinematic/anime like maneuver).

If you are already flanked, you can just move out and in to your flanked position to make the Daring Stunt/Rushing Strike. Nothing prevents you from using the same Stride to get back to your original position.

Headsmash is an incapacitation press adrenaline ability that requires grabbed and being next to the same prop as your target. You only take that if that's your exact build anyway.

If you're grabbing a two-hander, then the class is there to let you do a variety of maneuvers without hands at a reduced MAP which weapon traits don't normally give on two-handers.

Yes Headsmash is a bit more difficult to make work but can work pretty well with some teamwork and you are playing as a small creature or if you have a Large companion.

Use a Daring Stunt to get Adrenaline and move too close to an enemy adjacent to a larger ally/enemy or your companion (if you have a companion, you can command it to the position before using the Daring Stunt with a free-hand or a weapon like a Gill Hook) or a wall/large object that can be used as a prop and try to Grapple it. If you succeeded, then you can use Headsmash with just MAP-4 to try to do some Stunt Damage and Stun the target and still have a 3rd action to use as you will.

The big advantage of the usage of Daring Stunt instead of another Press Risky maneuver is that you can use Headsmash with a smaller MAP instead of your maximum MAP.

There are several feats that require Adrenaline that can't be used or get maximum MAP when you get Adrenaline via press action, like Caroming Charge, which costs 2 actions, Daring Reversal, and Headsmash, which suffers from MAP.

“Hey GM! Can I pause the main quest to go out to hunt a creature with my level or higher with a lot of damage types to make some trophies for me?”

If we check the value of the additional damage from Punishing Shove, it's not so brutal; It's basically the equivalent of a giant barbarian rage additional damage. Very high damage, but nothing that is likely to break the game.

1st: Shove adds Str damage

Expert, 3rd: Str +2
Master, 7th: Str+6
Legendary, 15th: Str+12

So, considering that you use STR as key:

LvL 4: 6
LvL 7: 10
LvL 10: 11
LvL 15: 17
LvL 17: 18
LvL 20: 19

Stunt Damage

1st Str+1d6
5th Str+2d6
9th Str+3d6
13th Str+4d6
17th Str+5d6

LvL 4: 1d6 [+4(str) +6(Punishing Shove)]=+10 - avg: 13.5

So now let us compare with the giant barbie using just a bastard sword:
LvL 4: 2d8/d12 +4(str) +6(rage) - avg: 19/23
LvL 7: 2d8/d12 +4(str) +2(weapon specialization) +10(rage) - avg: 25/29
LvL 8: 2d8/d12 +4(str) +2(weapon specialization) +10(rage) + 1d6(1 property rune) - avg: 28.5/32.5
LvL 10: 2d8/d12 +5(str) +2(weapon specialization) +10(rage) + 2d6(2 property runes) - avg: 33/37
LvL 12: 3d8/d12 +5(str) +2(weapon specialization) +10(rage) + 2d6(2 property runes) - avg: 37.5/43.5
LvL 13: 3d8/d12 +5(str) +3(weapon specialization) +10(rage) + 2d6(2 property runes) - avg: 38.5/44.5
LvL 15: 3d8/d12 +5(str) +6(greater weapon specialization) +18(rage) + 2d6(2 property runes) - avg: 49.5/55.5
LvL 16: 3d8/d12 +5(str) +6(greater weapon specialization) +18(rage) + 3d6(3 property runes) - avg: 53/59
LvL 17: 3d8/d12 +6(str) +6(greater weapon specialization) +18(rage) + 3d6(3 property runes) - avg: 54/60
LvL 18: 3d8/d12 +6(str) +6(greater weapon specialization) +18(rage) + 4d6(4 property runes) - avg: 57.5/63.5
LvL 19: 4d8/d12 +6(str) +6(greater weapon specialization) +18(rage) + 4d6(4 property runes) - avg: 62/70
LvL 20: 4d8/d12 +7(str) +6(greater weapon specialization) +18(rage) + 4d6(4 property runes) - avg: 63/71

Maybe a barbie is not fair because Shove has an agile trait, so let us make a comparison with a ruffian rogue instead:
LvL 4: 2d6 +4(str) +1d6(sneak attack) - avg: 14.5
LvL 5: 2d6 +4(str) +2d6(sneak attack) - avg: 18
LvL 7: 2d6 +4(str) +2(weapon specialization) +2d6(sneak attack) - avg: 20
LvL 8: 2d6 +4(str) +2(weapon specialization) +2d6(sneak attack) + 1d6(1 property rune) - avg: 23.5
LvL 10: 2d6 +5(str) +2(weapon specialization) +2d6(sneak attack) + 2d6(2 property runes) - avg: 28
LvL 11: 2d6 +5(str) +2(weapon specialization) +3d6(sneak attack) + 2d6(2 property runes) - avg: 31.5
LvL 12: 3d6 +5(str) +2(weapon specialization) +3d6(sneak attack) + 2d6(2 property runes) - avg: 35
LvL 13: 3d6 +5(str) +3(weapon specialization) +3d6(sneak attack) + 2d6(2 property runes) - avg: 36
LvL 15: 3d6 +5(str) +6(greater weapon specialization) +3d6(sneak attack) + 2d6(2 property runes) - avg: 39
LvL 16: 3d6 +5(str) +6(greater weapon specialization) +3d6(sneak attack) + 3d6(3 property runes) - avg: 42.5
LvL 17: 3d6 +6(str) +6(greater weapon specialization) +4d6(sneak attack) + 3d6(3 property runes) - avg: 47
LvL 18: 3d6 +6(str) +6(greater weapon specialization) +4d6(sneak attack) + 4d6(4 property runes) - avg: 50.5
LvL 19: 4d6 +6(str) +6(greater weapon specialization) +4d6(sneak attack) + 4d6(4 property runes) - avg: 54
LvL 20: 4d6 +7(str) +6(greater weapon specialization) +4d6(sneak attack) + 4d6(4 property runes) - avg: 55
Obs: It's missing the Debilitation Strike damage because it depends on having hit at least one strike to an off-guard creature to enable it, but if you want to include it, just add +5 due to the weakness.

So the combined damage of Punishing Shove + Stunt Damage is always lower than the damage of a barbie, and only competes with rogue until level 10 and then progressively falls behind in average due to the extra property runes damage that Shove doesn't get. Also, this Shove damage doesn't crit, which makes it fall behind in terms of DPR.

The main problem, IMO, is that to make the Shove damage competitive with a default extra damage martial, you need to MC with guardian and take another level 1 feat (that's why I only start the comparisons at level 4). It's a bit harder to execute once you need that your target is flanked between you and a prop larger than you. Something undesirable because this can create a meta, and as we saw with the old magus + psychic (and still in a lower grade with magus + MC domain spell), such metas are not desirable.

IMO this could be easily solved if the final version of the DD by the designer gave a way to add the Stunt Damage to the Strikes and other maneuvers. This easily turns this combo with Punishing Strike weaker than your Strikes.

I think that the right impression is that Paizo doesn't show signs that it will make something like this.

But I agree with Teridax, even without signs, if the public doesn't show interest, they won't do it.

But I understand the pessimism of some people. Since the game's release, I see people asking for a martial shape-shifter class, but it was never made. However, at the same time, the same happened for kineticist and necromancer, and now we have both (we will for the case of necromancer, but you already understood the point).

However, these new playtests renew my optimism with other sets of classes. The Samurai (or other kind of almost low mystical-oriented easter martial class) and Ninja are both classes that many people asked for but usually get a response from part of the community that we won't get such classes because they look like thematic variations of existing ones. But now that they are releasing 2 more classes that hurts this argument. I think that such arguments lose strength, and maybe we can get some hope that we may get the eastern classes that many ask for.

Yes, we choose to make this playtest with Rogue, Swashbuckler, & Ranger exactly to make comparisons between the classes. To see where each one shines, where each one differs, and where they look similar and compare more directly.

The idea is to put a ruffian rogue to work as the main DPR and compare it with Slayer in terms of damage efficiency and mobility. Initially we don't believe that rogue will compare well with DD because our DD is way more focused on maneuvers than on damage (in general, most of DD options are way more maneuver-oriented than damage-oriented).

The ranger will be a two-weapon one and more oriented to compare with DD press actions. We don't believe initially that DD can be comparable in terms of DPR to the ranger, but we want to see the difference in utility of damage-focused press actions vs. maneuver-focused press actions. For example, we have a serious doubt if we use a press action to maneuver with DD and geting a success roll if it's better just Strike twice with MAP-3 and MAP-6 the same target or if it's better to just move to another target and try another maneuver with MAP-3 and how in practice doing a similar thing with the ranger will work (including the fact that we need to pick a one handed grab or trip trait weapon to benefit from fighting with 2 weapons) if we make a maneuver like a trip or grab with ranger than Twin Takedown with MAP-2 and MAP-4 and another Strike with MAP-4 wont be way more effective and how the Hunt Prey will delay the ranger compared to DD that doesn't have such delay and can run over the battle field using its manuvers in different targets and see how each helps the party.
The other thing we want to see with ranger is the tracking and battle effectiveness. Once both ranger and slayer can have a prey/quarry, how well will each one work against the same target, and how much will the slayer's inability to obtain a new quarry weigh in the fight?

For swashbuckler, the idea is similar to the ranger comparing a gymnast to making a maneuver to get panache and then a finisher with a DD, making a Daring Stunt. Then Strike twice with MAP-3 and MAP-6 or Caroming Charge. If the swash fails, how effective to the party will its finisher's attempts be with MAP vs a DD just trying again with a failed maneuver with MAP-3 or MAP-6 or just ignoring it and making a Caroming Charge?

Such comparisons may help us to improve a playtest report and notice things that are fun but need some improvements, and things that are currently good as they are. Things that are currently unfun with one class but a similar thing is fun with another and why, and so on.

And the cleric is to try to keep everyone alive in an unbalanced party full of light and medium martials. :P

Another reason behind my making a 6 PC playtest this time is that currently all my PF2e games that I'm playing are running with 5-6 PCs. We learn that PF2e is more fun with large parties than with small ones due to how fast most encounters are compared to other systems like D&D and how well the team play of the game works.

Going two-handed with DD is an option. The big problem is that it limits you to using Daring Stunt, which is currently the first way to get adrenaline without Press but requires a free hand or a weapon with Trip, Grab or Push traits to allow the character to get adrenaline at the first action to be able to use actions that require adrenaline, especially those that are 2-actions.

Only when you reach level 6 is it possible to get Rushing Strike and get adrenaline without needing a free hand or some special weapon trait.

Yes, the class currently has a MADness problem. That's why I and others in these forums defend that it needs a medium armor proficiency.

In this thread I will begin to put my impressions about my Slayer playtest with a friend.

Our playtest will be composed of one player controlling the party side and the other GMing with us alternating these roles in every fight.

The playtest will be a replay of encounters of the adventure The Fall of Plaguestone up to level 3 and the AP Age of Ashes from levels 4-20 (that I doubt that we have enough time to test every encounter up to the end of the playtest). We always use them for our playtests because they are well known for having hard encounters and have a pretty good diversity of enemy types.

To make some comparisons, this time we will make a 6-member party composed of a Daredevil, a Slayer, a Rogue, a Ranger, a Swashbucker and a Cleric. Due to this higher size of this party, the encounters will be rebalanced using the Encounter XP Budget, increasing the enemies numbers or changing some of them to become elite.

This specific post will start with my impressions of building the Slayer.

--

Building my Slayer

Like daredevil, slayer has the option to select its key attribute between STR or DEX. But different from the daredevil, slayer have some synergy with each one, really allowing the player to choose if they prefer to fight at range, a safer position but with less damage. Or go melee, taking more risk but doing more damage. None of the subclass options locks the weapon type that you use, and we got feats that give to the player since from a full shield “proficiency” + reflex bonus against the quarry. You can use a trophy to give some non-physical damage to your shield block, similar to Cleric's Emblazon Armament, but more flexible because you can switch it during exploration, up to a feat that gives a relentless trait to crossbows.

Anyway, I selected STR.

The class has 4 subclasses to choose from, but only 2 really have some shine, Bloodseeking Blade and Warded Mail:

— Bloodseeking Blade that gives some extra damage from your trophies and gives the pretty strong activity Honed Strike that basically gives the character one attack with the same attack bonus that a fighter has and an extra 1d6 damage that looks like the ranger precision damage but a bit weaker (d6 instead of d8) but more versatile (you can switch the damage by changing your trophy during exploration). This can also be expanded by feats becoming even stronger and getting a fearsome, returning or shifting rune effect at level 7 (it's the effect and not the rune itself that means that this doesn't count toward your property runes limit).
About its feats:
— PAIRED BLOODSEEKER is a powerful feat that really makes fighting with 2 weapons. Even with the extra damage being reduced to d4, it is still worth a lot.
— PECULIAR WEAPONRY is also pretty good because it allows you to use any advanced weapon with your martial proficiency. Not only some ancestry-specific weapons like you get with weapons familiarity feats. So if you always want to play with advanced weapons but it doesn't have some ancestry trait, this is the feat for you.
— SHIFTING HUNT is interesting with this subclass because it allows you to set different damage types or additional runes for each weapon configuration.
— SHARE INSIGHT for this subclass is too situational to be worth it.
— UNERRING EDGE is probably the best subclass-specific feat of the class. Your Honed Strike now fully ignores both hidden and concealed conditions, basically allowing you to normally hit even invisible targets just knowing where they are, and the better part is you now get +3 circumstance bonus!
— Chymist’s Vials is a strange “Alchemical Sciences” that doesn't really give you Quick or Advanced Alchemy but the ability to create 2 alchemical items, one once per hour and the other once per minute. This doesn't even give you craft skill, which is strange, but due to how it works, it's not a problem:
— Chymist’s Eye is basically a See the Unseen + Darkvision against your quarry only. It's not bad but far too circumstantial. Its reinforced effect improved to become a bit less circumstantial if you take a trophy from a creature with darkvision and you don't have darkvision or lifesense. But in the end, darkvision is pretty easy to get by many ancestries, and See the Unseen also could be gotten with all-day durations using the Eye of the Unseen item. It becomes once per round at level 7, but this is useless in practice for an effect with a 10-minute duration.
— Ignition Vial is basically a 15-foot cone d4 damage “cantrip” limited to once per minute. But you can cast with one action if you are quickened by On the Hunt. You can change its fire damage to other damage by your trophy, and it becomes once per round starting from level 7. It's another pretty meh effect. In general, it's worse than a cantrip that you can already get with SLAYER’S TRICKS because up to level 7 it's only once per encounter. Its rentless trait probably doesn't make too much difference because, due to its cone effect, you most likely will use your quickened action to move to a position that allows you to affect more targets. Or avoid friendly fire anyway. The ability to change its damage is too dependent on the kind of quarry you defeated before, depending on them having some energy damage that is not fire. Pray that one of them could do more than 1 energy damage type to allow you to have some real-time choice. Otherwise, you will only be able to change the damage once per day. Its only real advantage is that it uses your key attribute instead of charisma or wisdom that the ancestry and class innate cantrip gives to you.
Chymist’s Vials also have 3 feats that depend on them:
— DRINK ADAPTATION SERUMS it's meh! It diminishes the environment's cold and heat effect by one. If you have a trophy of the same damage type as the environmental damage, you can get resistance equal to your level to hazardous terrain or environmental spells of the same damage type. It's very circumstantial and easily solved using items that usually are available in adventures with such kind of environment.
— CURE-ALL looks good because it cures paralyzed, petrified, sickened, or unconscious. But in fact it's just terrible for a level 4 class feat that depends on a subclass. It's a one-minute exploration effect (so you can't use it in battle), and Paralyzed is a rare effect that typically has the incapacitation trait along with it. Petrified is an even rarer effect that typically has incapacitation and requires that the target have successive failures. Heals Sickened is a joke because the affected ally can already use its actions retching and try to recover from it, and unconscious is the easiest effect to recover from in the game. Its reinforced effect could be useful only to try again to counteract one effect from a creature that was your quarry when the encounter ends. But the most fatal thing about this feat is that it only works in your allies, and as many of us well know, you are not your own ally.
— CATALYZING FLASK is another meh feat. It allows you to have an elixir that you can drink twice in a day, and its reinforce effect allows you to get a 1-minute status bonus to fortitude, reflex, or will, depending on the trophy. But it's a level 8 feat where its only advantage over things like the Cauldron feat or Horn Of Plenty ikon is that you can use the same elixir twice, and I'm not counting the alchemist/herbalist dedication. The save bonus also is a status bonus that frequently competes with other status bonuses to saves that many elixirs gives too.
— SHARE INSIGHT for this subclass gives an improvement to your allies seeing in the dark, but at this level probably everyone should have some way to get darkvision and share your ability to always have precise sense against your quarry, which is pretty situational.
— INFERNO VIAL is just an AOE increase to Ignition Vial cone to 30 ft. And that's it! A level 16 feat that only does this!
— Consecrated Panoply is entirely meh! Its initial benefit +1 saving thrown against your quarry. Its reinforced is better due a trick, because it gives this bonus against all creatures with the same traits as your trophy. So if you take a trophy from a humanoid (something relatively easy to take), you get a +1 status bonus against their save effects.
— Hunting Spike is terrible. It's an infinity dagger thrown with a holy or unholy trait that only gets a +1 Striking and a silver/cold iron material only at level 7! Then jump to +2 Greater Striking at level 13! And then jumps to +3 Major Striking at level 19! Seriously? What was in the mind of the class designer when they wrote this? Why do they think that a free dagger that improves its potency is way lazier with no property runes except an effect that works like a holy rune without the spirit damage is a good option? Why don't they simply think that if we take a Bloodseeking Blade thrown weapon with its extra level 7 returning rune it is not way better? Sometimes I simply don't understand what happens with the balance in some designers minds.
I won't even write about the feats based in this subclass because they aren't worth the time.
— Warded Mail is the second class option that has some real worth after Bloodseeking Blade. It basically improves the armor proficiency to heavy. Fortified Plate basically gives an armor specialization effect against the quarry, and its reinforce gives half of your level +1 as resistance against one damage type that probably most people will choose to be one physical damage type. Armored Shelter is basically a Rise a Shield circumstance bonus that also gives +2 to Reflexes; it's OK once it allows you to get such a bonus using a two-handed weapon, while Specialized Arsenal is basically an Armor Specialization effect with steroids when used against a quarry.
About its feats:
- SPIKED SURCOAT It's an interesting feat that gives a bit of damage to non-reach enemies that melee attack you. If they hit many attacks, this may be annoying to them. The problem is that the number of enemies that get reach, ranged attacks, and use spells increases as the game levels up, and this damage value doesn't accompany the HP increases well, becoming outdated as the level increases.
— PERSONALIZED GEAR gives the comfort trait, which isn't bad if you aren't a dwarf and don't want to be taken unarmored when sleeping. Yet it's situational.
— WALL OF WILL is fun because it gives an extra protection against quarry that doesn't have reach or ranged attack. But in practice it loses effectiveness over time because as long as the level improves, the number of enemies with range or reach improves a lot. If you try to use it in a Starfinder game, it becomes way less effective.
— SHARE INSIGHT IMO only worth it with this subclass. Giving 5 resistance to all damage from the quarry to all allies in 30 ft is pretty good.
— IMPENETRABLE SHELTER is good but comes too late.

So due to how much better Bloodseeking Blade over other subclass options, I have no doubt I will take it, and when I reach level 11, I will take Warded Mail too.

About ancestry, I choose human because I found most of the level 1 feats good. A problem that I like to have. So with human, I can take 1 more class feat.

My chosen attribute becomes 4, 1, 0, 1, 3, 0 because I take the Field Medic background and choose to have a better WIS instead of CON because this makes the slayer have an already expert perception (and goes up to legendary) and because its feats give innate spell uses wisdom (so I may take some offensive spells, but probably I will take some supportive ones instead). It's risky but may be worth it. I will see when playing with it. I also put a point in Int to try to make Monster Lore work over time.

Now finally I came to the level 1 class feat options.
— BLOODSCENT Honestly, this is useless in my games. In all my online games, Foundry already shows the enemies HP bars or descriptions divided into 4 parts representing the enemies current HP. Its condition is already shown because many things in the game need the players to know if the enemy is under some condition. Even in presential games I don't have any GM that refuses to clearly describe the general state of enemies HP. This basically just exists to force GMs that refuse to give any info about the current state of enemies to do with RK.
— CROSSBOW SLAYER is an interesting feat to make arbalests viable to be used by slayers instead of bows. But honestly, I think this isn't enough due to the eventuality that On the Hunt has. IMO if you want to fight at range, it is better to just take an Advance Bow with PECULIAR WEAPONRY.
— DRINK ADAPTATION SERUMS I write about them above in the analysis of the Chymist’s Vials subclass. Due to my choice to select Bloodseeking Blade, I cannot even take this feat.
— REPELLING SHIELD It's a Rise a Shield with +2 circumstance to Reflexes checks too + Shield Block feat + some additional damage type to block beyond physical, depending on the trophy you used on it. It's a good level 1 class feat, IMO.
— SPIKED SURCOAT I write about them above in the analysis of the Warded Mail subclass. Due to my choice to select Bloodseeking Blade, I cannot even take this feat before level 11.
— SUDDEN POUNCE is a cool feat. It allows the slayer to move, off-guard an enemy and Strike in a very cool way. This becomes even better as long as the athletic feats improve the Long Jump distance.
— PAIRED BLOODSEEKER I already analyzed above.
— PECULIAR WEAPONRY I already analyzed above.

So my feat choices were REPELLING SHIELD and PAIRED BLOODSEEKER because I like that my martials can use a shield well because Shield is probably one of the best third actions that a martial can get, especially when it has a Shield Block reaction. I also select the Shield Boss as my bloodseeking blade and a hatchet as my paired bloodseeker, allowing me to benefit from both having a shield and striking with additional damage twice.

For skills I already got Survival and Monster Lore from the class and Medicine and Warfare Lore from the background. Due to putting +1 into INT I got 5 more feats that was Acrobatics, Athletics, Nature, Thievery and Religion.

For equipment, I take a steel shield with a shield boss, a hatchet, and lattice armor.

--

In the next posts of this thread, I will put how my (and my friend's) playtest experience was in each level, GMing and playing as a slayer!

In this thread I will begin to put my impressions about my Daredevil playtest with a friend.

Our playtest will be composed by one player controlling the party side and the other GMing with us alternating these roles in every fight.

The playtest will be a replay of encounters of the adventure The Fall of Plaguestone up to level 3 and the AP Age of Ashes from levels 4-20 (that I doubt that we have enough time to test every encounter up to the end of the playtest). We always use them for our playtests because they are well known for having hard encounters and have a pretty good diversity of enemy types.

To make some comparisons, this time we will make a 6-member party composed of a Daredevil, a Slayer, a Rogue, a Ranger, a Swashbucker and a Cleric. Due to this higher size of this party, the encounters will be rebalanced using the Encounter XP Budget, increasing the enemies numbers or changing some of them to become elite.

This specific post will start with my impressions of building the Daredevil.

--

Building my Daredevil

The first point that calls my attention to building a daredevil is the key attribute choice, and here, IMO, I found the first problem of the class. Why should I play using DEX?

The point is simple. Many of daredevil abilities rely on STR, and those who rely on DEX are not worth:

— DARING STUNT uses athletics check.
— Stunt Damage adds STR to the damage.
— BREAKAWAY ATTACK with DEX is finesse, but DEX doesn't increase your damage; the ranged option is basically a one-handed shortbow stats (d6 deadly d10), but with 1/3 of the range (20 ft), and almost every daredevil ability are melees, including the 2 level 1 feats that use acrobatics, FORCEFUL KICKOFF STUNT, REBOUNDING FALL STUNT and WHEELING PULL STUNT.
— FORCEFUL KICKOFF STUNT is basically a glorified workaround of Shove using acrobatics that have a risky trait and make you leap away from the target (no matter whether you want to or not take such distance) and have the press trait limiting you to using it only after doing a previous attack and with a MAP and limited to creatures one size larger than you without being able to get benefit from Titan Wrestler.
— REBOUNDING FALL STUNT is basically a glorified workaround of Trip using acrobatics with risky traits and is way more dangerous to you. Except if you get a critical success, you you can do a Stunt Damage. But if you fail, you are also prone. If you choose to Crawl, you may trigger an enemy movement reaction. If you critically fail, you not only get 1d6 damage, but you cannot Stand anymore until your next turn! I know that the idea of actions with risky traits are to be gambles, but this thing is just terrible. Your real benefit here is just being able to Trip using your DEX, but it's also a press action. Your chances of failure probably are higher than your chances of success, and most likely your only chance to get a critical hit is if you roll a nat 20! This clearly is not worth the risk, nor does it justify the DEX investment as a key attribute.
— WHEELING PULL STUNT is the only good feat for DEX based daredevil IMO. It's a merge of Grapple + Reposition that allows you to drag the enemy with you, and if you fail, you still can Step, which is also good. Only the critical failure can have a side effect if your enemy has a move-triggered reaction.
— The 2-action activities that need adrenaline, like PRESSING PUMMEL and CAROMING CHARGE, depend on you having made an action with a risky trait. But having DEX as a key, your only option for this without using DARING STUNT, which is STR-based, is to use BREAKAWAY ATTACK, which, as I pointed out before, in general isn't worth using with DEX.

IMO, currently making a daredevil using DEX is just a trap option; the only real benefit is to allow you to have better reflex and DEX skills, which doesn't justify the option.

If the idea is that the class have the option to use DEX, it seriously requires more options around it that don't look like expensive and dangerous workarounds. Maybe turning the STR or DEX choice into a subclass option with one having DARING STUNT and Stunt Damage and the other having options more suitable to DEX-based daredevils.

So due to this not-hard choice, I decided to make the character using STR. But now I have another situation. The prop rule relies on the environment or on creatures larger than you. This seriously pushes the character creation to use small ancestries (which is not good in terms of lore balance because you press most players playing with the class to play like small, angry dogs), but for the other side, too many class options have “The target can’t be more than one size larger than you” restriction, which makes the choice of a small ancestry restrict them to being limited to medium-sized creatures. Consequently, I decided to make a tanuki daredevil because this gives me the option to take Everyday Form to be able to Change Shape to a medium-sized humanoid with just one-action. This allows me to both benefit from the prop when facing medium-sized creatures and still be able to use size-limited actions/activities against Large creatures too.

Honestly, I don't like this limitation of many abilities of the class being limited to my ancestry choices. I hope this changes in the final version.

Anyway, due to the light armor limitation, I had to put +3 in DEX (via background + ancestry + free), but I take Amnesic to get +2 in CON (without it I will be limited to +1). Honestly, I don't really like to have to take Amnesic as a workaround because it's a rare background, and the choice of the 3rd attribute is from GM, so it's limited to the GM agency.

Now finally I came to the class feat choices. And man, most of them vary from meh to terrible:

— BOLD BLUFFS depends on your charisma and having the deception feat. But you are already pressed by the class MADness of having to also invest in CHA to worth. This makes this feat a poor choice unless you want to get an additional risk of having even lower HP, sacrificing your CON with a class that only has 8 HP/level.
— BREAKAWAY ATTACK is a confusing feat. It relies on the environment having loose things to use and at your reach. You may carry and drop some random things with you to use, but it's an ugly solution that probably will cost some extra action to Interact and drop a bag of such things on the ground. This will limit your movement.
— DON’T MESS WITH ME is an interesting feat but falls into the same MADness problem of BOLD BLUFFS. It most likely will be a good option for other CHA-based classes like Thaumaturge if they take daredevil as an archetype.
— FLYING HURDLE STUNT is a pretty interesting feat. It gives a way to use Athletics to switch position with an enemy, and its failure effect is to allow you to Step, which is also a good consolation prize. But the press trait makes it way less useful than it should be once you probably want to switch positions before making other actions to take advantage of a prop or just a flank. Its critical failure is dangerous but, IMO, justifies the benefits and fits well the ideal of a risky gamble that the class wants to show.
— FORCEFUL KICKOFF STUNT I have already talked about it above, but if you will take it with a STR-based character, it will be even worse.
— PRESSING PUMMEL is just a poor cousin of the Power Attack Vicious Swing. It gives the same benefit but is locked in d10, which could be a good thing for a one-handed based character, but the flourish + press + needs adrenaline weakens and limits it a lot.
— REBOUNDING FALL STUNT It's a terrible feat that I explained above and is even worse if you are STR-based.
— SCRAMBLING RETREAT is a very good feat. It not only gives you the default +2 circumstance bonus to your AC vs an attack as a reaction but also allows you to Stride up to a better position that may allow you to benefit from a prop when it would be your turn again. The fact that the enemy can accompany you is also not bad for this, and it is still a choice. Your enemy can stay but no longer attack you in melee or follow you but risk ending in a bad position.
— WHEELING PULL STUNT is a good feat, as I pointed out above, but for a STR based character, it's harder to use.

So after the analysis, I choose to take SCRAMBLING RETREAT and FLYING HURDLE STUNT as additional feats.

For skills, I already have Athletics and Acrobatics. I decide to take Stealth and Thievery due to my second-highest attribute being DEX due to the light armor limit. Due to deciding to invest in CHA as a 4th attribute, I also take Deception and Intimidation.

For equipment, I've got a Studded Leather Armor, a Buckler and a Hatchet. I select a hatchet because its traits feel like good options for a STR daredevil.

--

In the next posts of this thread, I will put how my (and my friend's) playtest experience was in each level, GMing and playing as a daredevil!

Looking at Ancestries that can change sizes, kitsune is initially a bad pick - a tiny fox form that can't make Strikes and has weakness 5 physical is a really fragile option, even if it does mean more things count as props. Larger Than Life and Rampaging Form do have potential for higher levels though.

A conrasu's Ceremony of Growth letting them go from Medium to Large or back as a single action has potential, and Conrasu also get an agile sweep weapon from their Weapon Familiarity (shame it's twin though). Now, what turns an aeon in a plant body into an adrenaline junkie?

Tanuki's also can freely change from small to medium with just one action with Everyday Form. This doesn't solve the problem of creatures larger than this but at least allows us to easily use other medium creatures as props without being locked into using the feats specific maneuvers on only medium targets.

YuriP wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Larger than Life from Guardian is worded slightly different than Titan Wrestler, mentioning "or similar abilities" so it should work with them size restricted abilities of Daredevil, since their maneuvers are "similar" to normal maneuvers.

No. The guardian's Larger than Life refers to similar abilities in context of enemy abilities against the character:

Source Battlecry! pg. 41 - Larger than Life wrote:

When you're clad in the heaviest of armors, you have an outsized presence.

Though you don't get any larger, you're treated as one size larger for the purposes of affecting other creatures with actions like Disarm, Grapple, Reposition, Shove, and Trip while wearing heavy armor.

Similarly, you're treated as one size larger for the purposes of creatures affecting you with those same actions, as well as with Swallow Whole and similar actions, while wearing heavy armor.

I turned the points into paragraphs to make it clearer to understand.

Curiously, the homonymous ability of Kitsune ancestry can allow to Change Shape to become the size you need to affect a larger creature with the feats or props.

bolded the relevant part for you as well:

"you are treated as 1 size larger for the purpose of affecting other creatures with abilities like x, y, z."

and the Feats from Daredevil are most definately "abilities like shove, trip, grapple"

Makes sense. So the real problem is that we not only need to take a dedication and a feat but also increase the armor proficiency to medium with a general feat making this workaround expensive.

The good part is that such a build can drop dex.

Assurance cancels MAP. But it's pretty rare to find some creature that has some low DC to a point of assurance to work with athletic maneuvers.

OK, só instead add “nor creatures summoned or controlled by you or your allies”.

Theres more to compare punishing shove to stunt damage, too. Stunt damage only works if you have adrenaline, meaning you're performing at map. Stunt damage also only applies if you're shove comes up short by hitting into a wall, where punishing shove gets the actual benefits of a shove AND does damage.

You can do Stunt damage Shoving/Repositioning without MAP using Daring Stunt.

Larger than Life from Guardian is worded slightly different than Titan Wrestler, mentioning "or similar abilities" so it should work with them size restricted abilities of Daredevil, since their maneuvers are "similar" to normal maneuvers.

No. The guardian's Larger than Life refers to similar abilities in context of enemy abilities against the character:

When you're clad in the heaviest of armors, you have an outsized presence.

Though you don't get any larger, you're treated as one size larger for the purposes of affecting other creatures with actions like Disarm, Grapple, Reposition, Shove, and Trip while wearing heavy armor.

Similarly, you're treated as one size larger for the purposes of creatures affecting you with those same actions, as well as with Swallow Whole and similar actions, while wearing heavy armor.

I turned the points into paragraphs to make it clearer to understand.

Curiously, the homonymous ability of Kitsune ancestry can allow to Change Shape to become the size you need to affect a larger creature with the feats or props.

YuriP wrote:

That's why I think that trophies should be limited to creatures that don't wear, use, or carry items.

This would restrict things like daemons, demons, devils, and outsiders in general, which I feel are something some slayers would want to hunt (Demon Slayer is a really popular anime after all).

Yeah, you have a good point. But IMO the ideal was to prevent taking some strange treasure that will give you extra physical damage because you killed a stronger human fighter that doesn't have anything really magical or supernatural.

Honestly, I think the designers simply should remove the size requirements from the feats.

Even putting in an ability that allows the size requirements to increase over the level. In this, it will simply end in a situation where you are just forbidden to fight well because the current adventure, for some lore reason, put in more big enemies than normal, and you should wait until you become strong enough to deal with them.

Maybe someone can state that creatures with resistances are already in this situation too, so it's fair for a daredevil to have creatures that limit their abilities, but this isn't true because the system balance already considers that when a creature has some resistance, it needs to be balanced by having a smaller AC or HP or getting a weakness. Big creatures don't have that kind of balance. At maximum, they have their AC reduced by 1 as compensation; this isn't enough to justify disabling a lot of a specific class's abilities.

I agree that all Stunt damage should work with all 4 athletic maneuvers, not only with Shove and Reposition.

The main problem with this is that prop doesn't make too much sense with Grapple and Trip, but honestly, I am not convinced that prop should be that required. A Grapple could simply do extra damage as strangulation while Trip would use the Ground as prop.

The Flurry like differential isn't enough to justify the lack of extra damage in a class that doesn't have feats for extra attacks like the Flurry Ranger has, só having a conditional extra damage that only works with forced movement simply looks too little.

Unicore wrote:

I know some folks have brought up issues with the AC of the Daredevil, but that seems pretty average to me, with it kind of interesting that the class is being pushed hard away from shields.

But a Martial class that ends with Master Fortitude, Master Reflex and Expert will seems pretty much caster bad, but without any of the big special abilities that martial classes like the Commander (or the play test Runesmith) have. Combined with the 8 HP and the abilities that all seem like they are designed to get you targeted a lot, it feels like this class is very, very glass cannon-ish, but without really having much of a cannon in the first place.

Like, I think it is a really cool class concept, and I really like most of the abilities in it, but I am failing to see what having bottom of the barrel martial defenses have bought this class.

I talked with one of my players about odd grab bag of little defensive abilites the Daredevil class has: Die Hard and extra healing from Treat Wounds at 1st level, Deny Advantage and Galvanized Mobility at 3rd level, and Evasive Reflexes at 7th level. She pointed out that they were designed so that the daredevil could rush (or charge with Caroming Charge) into the middle of a band of enemies and not pay a heavy price. That is the focus of the daredevil's defenses. Spellcasters throwing ranged spells don't care about the daredevil's location, so I guess the Paizo designers paid no special attention to the saves.

As for their saving throws, the daredevil appears to be in the same martial family as rogue and swashbuckler, more a clever skirmisher than a stalwart tank. 20th-level rogue has master proficiency in light armor, success-means-crit expert in Fortitude, success-means-crit legendary in Reflex, and success-means-crit master in Will. 20th-level swashbuckler has master proficiency in light armor, expert in Fortitude, no-crit-failure legendary in Reflex, and success-means-crit master in Will. And the 20th-level playtest daredevil has master...

I also notice this, but IMO the main problem with current daredevil abilities are enemies with Reactive Strike and similar movement-triggering reactions.

Even with Galvanized Mobility the risk is too high. IMO the class needs more HP to deal with the extra risk of needing to become so mobile and needing access to medium armor to not be forced to sacrifice HP, damage, or athletics because you needed to put your initial dex stat in a minimal 2.

This might be a silly idea, but if we want to improve the Daredevil's defenses, which I very much think is needed, what if we did it by dramatically improving their AC and saves, while keeping their HP the same or lower? Say, for instance, expert proficiency in all of those statistics, with many or even most of them scaling to legendary? Given that this is meant to be the high-risk class, making their survival depend on rolling each time, with potential for lucky breaks and dire consequences each time, might fit the bill better than more HP, even if the latter would be the far more straightforward way to help the class right now.

And on that note, I agree that the current Daredevil's defenses are awful. I'm fine with the class being in constant danger and triggering lots of Reactive Strikes, but the class right now has some of the worst defenses a martial class can get, which makes them difficult to function in melee for long, and the rewards for taking those risks really aren't there at the moment. If need be, I'd gladly trade off their pseudo-Combat Flexibility features for those extra defensive proficiency bumps.

Expert to legendary defenses would make it basically a tank. Even with 8 HP. IMO this goes against the idea of taking risks. Instead, probably many players will just build it around to survive instead of taking risks using some archetype to make it even more tanky instead of investing in press feats.

moosher12 wrote:

I wouldn't mind Str, Dex, and Con, but as far as I remember, there are no classes that do more than 2 options. So I didn't wanna step over the unsaid 2 choice limit. But I don't think it'd necessarily be broken. I'd be open to that.

Rogues can technically choose all attributes except Wis (at least if you ignore eldritch trickster, if you include it then its all attributes).

Edit: All except Constitution.

Rogues are Paizo designers's “secret” love! :P

I don't use too much as reference for new classes because, eh, you know…

If I would use such things I wouldn't need to kill it. :P

That's why I think that trophies should be limited to creatures that don't wear, use, or carry items.

IMO, Mark Quarry should 1-action and work against every enemy, regardless of what its level is. But you could only take a trophy from targets that are your level or higher and a creature that doesn't use items to fight.

I would rather not see situations like:
— Party or NPC: What's this you that's attached to your weapon? A pickled human eye?
— Slayer: Yeah!
— Party or NPC: Why are you carrying such a creepy thing attached to your weapon?
— Slayer: Because it was from a barbarian that did fire damage. Then when I killed him, I took this barbarian eyeball to get such fire damage to my weapon.
— Party or NPC: Whoa! But why is this an eyeball? Why don't you just take… I don't know… a piece of his clothes or his weapon?
— Slayer: Why should I take a part of his gear if I want his fire damage? A gear is just a gear. I also took it, used it, and then sold it later. But his fire damage comes from him, not from his gear, so I need to take a piece of his body like I do with monsters, and the part I thought should be prettier was his eye. Look how it shines!

Yet the class has support for combination weapons, and the majority of combination weapons are firearms.

I'm against the constitution as key.

We already have our quota of martial classes that don't use STR or DEX as key stats.

To have an alternative key stat the class needs to be made around it, like the kineticist does. Even so, it's well known as a bad class for skills due to this.

To use CON the class should have to be remade from scratch, and I doubt that the designer will do this.

If HP is a problem, just give it 12 HP per level like barbarians.

The short answer is NO!

The long answer is that's why playtest exists. For us to complain about things like this. :P

So I was reading through slayer and my favourite class (Necromancer) and realized that the thrall mechanics gives a Slayer pretty much infinite On the Hunt Triggers. Thralls are codified as creatures with 1 hp which are brought to 0hp by pretty much anything. This means that a slayer can use their reaction to go On the Hunt almost whenever one is destroyed.

Now there are some limitations, as far as I can tell Necromancer abilities that destroy thralls shortcut hp so don't meet the requirements of being "reduced to 0hp" that On the Hunt Stipulates. But any form of damage from strikes, aoes, breathing too hard, looking at them for too long ect...is going to proc an On the Hunt Reaction.

It feels...like a really broken interaction and hey! maybe in the final version of Necromancer they codified thralls to work differently but at least in these two playtest versions this synergy in strong.

It's a bit off-topic but do you think of how thralls would be very useful for small daredevils as props!?

Props! Everywhere!

TheTownsend wrote:

YuriP wrote:

Honestly it should just allow to use Quarry vs any creature. Restrict for non-humanoids just makes the class almost useless in most games due most of them are full of humanoids enemies.

Quarry is a against any creature, this is just about the Monster Lore auto-skill.

I think YuriP just means to allow Monster Lore to always apply to your quarry, regardless of creature type but everything else would be restricted.

No, I was the one who got confused.

It's with this whole quarry + monster lore + trophies thing that I ended up actually mixing things up.

The idea of ​​getting trophies from enemies, which take parts of their abilities, along with the idea that monster lore only works against monsters, somehow ended up in my head as if the quarry was also only against monsters.

Oh, sorry my mistake.

Anyway I still think that Mark Querry should be a 1-action anyway.

1. You must be facing at least one enemy whose level is equal to or higher than yours.

2. You must find signs of the enemy in advance.
3. You must be in a situation where you can take 10 minutes to use Mark Quarry.

4. Doesn't have humanoid trait.

--

IMO the Mark Querry should be a 1-action and work against any creature.

This proposed Slayer so high specialty to fight only monsters that he have already got some info taking 10 minutes of preparation restrict it way too much. Even wild focused adventures, you don't got such information nor such frequency of monsters to justify to play the class. Even most boss in most adventures that I played are 90% humanoids!

Also, I don't see a very good thematic reason to restrict the Slayer to hunt only monsters.

Instead, the only thing that should be restricted are the trophies, that should be limited to get from only enemies that don't carry nor use items and have a level equal or higher (you won't need to know the level when you use Mark Querry, just when you take the trophy) and the 10 minutes activity should be only the process to take these trophies.

This made me realize slayers summoning level 1 creatures for them to die is going to kinda be meta if they don't patch it.

Just add “that doesn't have minion or summoned trait” solves.

Movement speed needs to be limited until permanent flight is available, and it's probably giving too good of a burrow speed for PCs. I guess you can have a list of how much movement you get for each speed, and levels they work?

About speed, they can limit their effectiveness utility using the character level.

During the lowest levels it's limited to most chicken flight that are the most ancestry feats with flight speeds gives (you must end in a solid ground). So when reach level 7-9 you get a temporary flight (1/10 minutes) and at level 14-15 get fully flight.

Same for other movements like burrow. You need to end your movement at surface, then improves to be able to stay borrowed but unable to breath and them to become borrowed undefinitely.

IMO it should be “weapon with reload 1 or greater”. I don't see reason to exclude firearms. Having a Slayer with a hunting gun makes sense IMO then change the feat name to other thing.

So I like the concept of the Slayer. I think it has nice flavor, obviously the tools could use some reworking to bring them all roughly in line with each other, mark quarry probably shouldn't be 10 minutes, etc. etc.

Possibly an unpopular opinion I'm about to share, but... I think Paizo should just get wild with this.

Trophies should be more like the chymists eye. Where you get to steal a specific ability or trait from a monster depending on which tool you picked. Maybe that could justify the 10 minute timer on it. Maybe make it a feat tree where you can unlock more types of trophies as you go on.

I think the trophy system is inspiring and I think it needs some cooking. Let me use the head of a Medusa to turn people to stone, let me take the eye of a cyclops to get their Flash of Insight, stuff like that.

C'mon Paizo. Make this weird.

Although I agree with the proposal, I still think the 10-minute Quarry restriction needs to be removed, and it needs to work with any humanoid creature. However, creature parts could be restricted to creatures that don't use or carry items, making only this type of creature valid for trophies, but the combat abilities universally functional.

I must remember that Swashbuckler has the Bleeding Finisher feat that basically does an extra 5d6 precision + 5d6 bleeding at that lvl and can be repeated every round allowing to try until hit or when the target recovers from the persistent damage.

So does 12d6 persistant damage at cost of one extra action (the Arm Bloodburst Phial isn't an attack by itself it loads a bloodburst phial into your weapon to use in your next Strike or interact to thrown it, also possible trigering reactions in both cases) and you have chance to miss and only do the splash damage and cannot try again during the next 10 minutes. It's fine for me, it's strong but still inside with other classes have in this level.

Honestly it should just allow to use Quarry vs any creature. Restrict for non-humanoids just makes the class almost useless in most games due most of them are full of humanoids enemies.

IMO the problem is despite this class being Monster Hunter like oriented class where you know and have info about the creature that you hunt and directly dispatch to take it. This won't work in most games where you usually don't fully know what you will face and many times it's a humanoid.

The class currently it is over specific to just one type of game style and basically unless to the rest. Even the investigator that is more mystery oriented still can use their abilities to help in many other aspects like for example find a clue of what creature it will hunt in a Monster Hunter like games and use this on its favor even with the adventure not mystery focused.

Probably they just forgot to add. But I belive that is Quickened to use Risky actions.

YuriP wrote:

The Status bonus is already included in the math.

When why does your 0-Strength caster example list 41 damage at level 20? That particular instance would be 44 damage: 6 x 6.5 (so 39), plus 2 from weapon specialization, plus 3 from the battle form.

Because I made all this by hand, and sometimes I make mistakes. In this case, I forgot to add the status bonus when I made the math of homebrew's Nature Incarnate. The rest of the columns is right.

YuriP wrote:

Your homebrew doesn't mention AC anywhere. I made a search for AC and Armor Class, and it doesn't find anything.

Alternate Battle Forms wrote:

Your physical abilities are enhanced in your form, granting you a +1 status bonus to AC, attack and damage rolls you make with your form’s listed attacks, and Athletics checks. You can add your level to checks you make with this status bonus even if you’re untrained. This status bonus increases to +2 if the spell is 5th-rank or higher, and +3 if the spell is 8th-rank or higher. Use half the effect’s level rounded up if it’s not a spell.

It's in the same section that lists the battle form's status bonus to every other statistic.

Yes, it does. Page 2, Battle Form section, status subsection:

Sorry, only now I notice that my browser search function for some reason wasn't searching when I just put 2 characters.

In fact adding Status bonus, that's a rare bonus to take with spells, progressively increases the AC to a point that it can even compete with legendary armor proficiency like monks, guardians and champions. Yet this also reinforce my other point if a martial takes the Untamed Form focus spell it will be an overpowered 2-actions buff with a 1 minute duration.

YuriP wrote:

Anyway it's a bit strange implementation that I really didn't notice before. But you completely removed the hands in your homebrew.

The original battle form doesn't do this, in order to allow the usage of athletics as attack it just prevents to use manipulate actions that require hands (it doesn't remove your hands in terms of gameplay) but not the athletics' attack actions like Shove, Trip, Relocate and Grab. Probably because even the forms without hands still can do such maneuvers with their jaws and claws.

I don't really think it's all that strange, personally. If you transform into a fish or the like, you're not going to have hands to use, and what maneuvers you can make will likely be tied to your attacks. Mechanically, restricting the use of hands, speech, and concentration also creates severe limits that prevent the bonuses my battle forms provide from exceeding the benefits of existing spells. It also means that when a form does give hands, as with animal form's ape form, it can come at a significant tradeoff, in this case the ape having a weaker attack and lower Speeds than other forms. This also means that if you choose to use battle forms as a martial class, you're not just powering up as you would with heroism, you're largely restricting yourself to what the form can do.

I understood your point. I still think that this restricts in some more than the ideal. I still can see a Cat/Cannine form being able to trip and grab using its Jaws. But like the solution that you give for bears adding grapple to its claw attacks also because such traits are basically useless when put in unarmed attack but when you “don't have hands" they become more interesting. Maybe if you just are more generous in such traits the thing may more interesting.

The other point is that you reduced the avg damage to most animal by 1 dice size smaller in general in comparison to the original battle form for a battle form that's already restricted to not use hands. Probably because we already have the Status bonus, but maybe the ideal isn't the opposite? Once that you are more restricted to use athletics, should the damage size be higher?

Also, there are some strange balance like, Dryads getting a d12 dice and free hands. OK, you don't get a status bonus to your Athletics once it's moved to Acrobatics, but in general this makes me feel that I need to take other forms in order to get stronger and that is the most hated thing in the original battle forms. The fact that you are forced to abandon your old form spell because it doesn't heighten anymore an one of the main reasons that make me like the Aspect Forms.
Your homebrew doesn't hard force like the official battle forms does simply not heighten anymore but still gives a pressure if you want to become stronger you need to take another form (what make sense due the higher rank of the form yet still looks like a soft force to change). Maybe should be a best option to standardize the forms to become more a lower rank option like Aspect Forms did (most of them are rank 1) and only put in higher rank the forms that have more horizontal abilities instead of increase their vertical power (feys could cast some spell or have a limited special ability not just passives and a higher damage)?

This also made notice that due a mandella effect I used fey form in the comparison when I wanted to restrict it only to battle forms available to Untamed Form. My bad.

2) Its going to be difficult to balance and I really don't think Paizo is very interested in the concept.

I don't know if it's so difficult to balance because IMM the general idea of a shifter is already partially covered by eidolons and animal barbarians but without flexibility.

Basically would be a default martial chassis that in place, or we have an extra damage source or hit/critical rate, the shapes would transit between different benefits similar to what we get with rangers, eidolons subclasses but with the flexibility that we have with exemplar, thaumaturges to switch its benefit on the fly. With the main differential of the class being the fact that you can “change” your subclass on the fly when you shape-shift with the trade of that this will cost you some actions during an encounter.

While feats could be more like a mix of eidolons feats that gives some biological/magical features and fighters/monks technics.

While the class would be kept inside the main numbers expected by a martial we can have a good place to make it uniq.

My problem with current playtest adrenaline it's because most Risky actions are also Press. This turns the first action basically a Strike without adrenaline or just make some athletics maneuver and then use some press action doesn't carry about Risky trait of this action.

cetology wrote:

That would be kind of a shame, though. I like how the prop system encourages creatively using the environment. I can see how that becomes problematic for a GM or mapmaker who needs to balance having enough props for a daredevil with having an open enough environment for large PCs or mounts and large or bigger creatures.

Or even just a GM who doesn't generally think about adding prop level items because it hasn't been important on a map before.

I think this issue is going to be the downfall of this class.

Honestly I just expect that most GM not even remember that Daredevil exists in most case and just say "well there aren't anything large enough in this room" or "just Shove it to that table I don't care if it's isn't large enought" or even "why don't you just make a small character or take a companion to work as Prop?" or simply invent some random prop in time that he thinks that makes sense to the place.

Your math is wrong, as you visibly did not include the status bonus to damage rolls given by my homebrew battle forms.

The Status bonus is already included in the math.

Lol no, it doesn't, you gain a status bonus to AC. Your math is wrong here too.

Your homebrew doesn't mention AC anywhere. I made a search for AC and Armor Class, and it doesn't find anything.

Your math here is also wrong; a Strength caster with an appropriate item bonus to Athletics would have a modifier of +39 at level 20 with the status bonus. I'm not sure what exactly you got wrong here, nor why you didn't list the modifier for a zero-Strength, zero-Athletics character, but that's three for three at this stage.

Because 0 Str and untrained will just be a level value. There's no need to list it. I could make a no Str trained -> Legendary but it would be too low anyway.

And in fact I forgot to add the status bonus to athletics of the Str caster:
The correct would be the same values with +1 to levels 3-8, +2 to levels 9-14 and +3 to levels 15-20.

Gladly, starting with the fact that you've completely missed how my implementation of battle form spells doesn't give you hands by default

Well you can always be an Ape! :P

Anyway it's a bit strange implementation that I really didn't notice before. But you completely removed the hands in your homebrew.

The original battle form doesn't do this, in order to allow the usage of athletics as attack it just prevents to use manipulate actions that require hands (it doesn't remove your hands in terms of gameplay) but not the athletics' attack actions like Shove, Trip, Relocate and Grab. Probably because even the forms without hands still can do such maneuvers with their jaws and claws.