moosher12's page

The Kitsune are indigenous to the floodlands of Songbai in Tian Xia. They're currently a minority, but in the sense that Varisians are a minority in the frontiers of Varisia.

Though a kami possessing a feral fox could potentially work.

Yeah, unfortunate it doesn't say much, and while there are obvious things like reaffirming player identity through character expression and helping to fulfill certain fantasies, I guess problematically, what constitutes reasonable accomodations can vary from person to person. So a lack of clarity on that is frustrationg

For example, treating an automaton as a cyborg or a golem could be considered reasonable. Once let a player be a kobold with the automaton mixed heritage to be a clockwork cyborg, for example.

Though I once had to draw the line after I had another player say they wanted to play an 8-foot-tall Changeling that was gaunt with no face and had Barney the Dinosaur tell them to do things. I at first laughed it off as them jesting, but found myself surprised when I asked them if they were serious to find they were 100% serious, and after a week of weighing just letting them have it and vetoing it, I eventually decided to veto it. (Guess that's the result of people who learn of ttrpgs through things like Critical Roll and Avantris).

And it's that murkiness that worries me. In these two cases, there is a clear black and white. One is clearly reasonable, and one is clearly unreasonable (to me at least), but there will be cases that will straddle closer to that line. And the closer the straddling, the more variation on when a GM will say yes or no. I wouldn't be surprised if there are GMs that would consider my allowance of a cyborg unreasonable. While there is probably some GMs that would consider the changeling a fun idea and want to run with it.

But now that I recall that story, it makes me realize, that if I got that same request today, I would have pointed that player to consider playing a Yaoguai instead of a Changeling because a Yaoguai allows that sort of weirdness. Having official content to support the fantasy more directly will lead GMs to be more receptive to these sorts of things.

You can find individual GMs who are ridiculous about such things because that's just how things go with people, sometimes.

Out of curiosity, I read and hear about these folks from time to time, but have had the fortune to not have to deal with one myself. Is there any recourse when dealing with one through the system? Or is it something you just have to deal with or find another GM.

moosher12 wrote:

ScooterScoots wrote:

Won’t help you if you’re in PFS and can’t reflavor but for any home game it’s fine.

Which sort of reinforces the point.

You can do whatever you want when you're reflavoring. Just ask the 5E players. You can technically reflavor a dwarf into a golem. Don't even need an Automaton for that. But that's why I said, "In a Lost Omens game." And when PFS society is a thing, I'm pretty sure PFS players would want their option, too.

Does PFS really restrict reflavoring like that? I don't remember this. Who and what cares how you describe your mechanically automaton character? Crazy players or GMs? "No, I looked into your character list, your PC is an automaton, you got the lore all wrong, change it right now or else!!!" Like this?

Because you have to be completely obsessed to try to meddle with someone else's character like this.

You get the cards you're dealt. Can't rely on every GM you encounter in an organized fashion to be permissive. Just because the two of us would be permissive with our players, does not mean other GMs are. But if you're gonna play a game in an official capacity, the default assumption is that lore and flavor applies as is canon, and anything else is just a bonus, not an entitlement. You can ask for a reflavoring, but if a GM says no, it's no. Not so bad when you're running something tertiary like a weapon, but when the thing you're reflavoring is your entire ancestry, that's where you can run into a problem where the character was fine one game, then you get to the next game, and have your character denied outright. You can call that GM a bad GM if you want, but sometimes that's the GM you got.

But the rules protect the player. You don't have to argue with a GM whether your reflavoring is within bounds if you can just do the thing without testing those bounds in the first place.

I've had PFS GMs be sticklers and not allow reflavoring anything. Most of us don't care what you call things. But if it is a war razor, then mechanically that is what it is.

Won’t help you if you’re in PFS and can’t reflavor but for any home game it’s fine.

Which sort of reinforces the point.

You can do whatever you want when you're reflavoring. Just ask the 5E players. You can technically reflavor a dwarf into a golem. Don't even need an Automaton for that. But that's why I said, "In a Lost Omens game." And when PFS society is a thing, I'm pretty sure PFS players would want their option, too.

And considering Paizo makes their decisions based on player metrics, PFS player grievances would have a more direct path to being heard by developers. It's not like the average home games are gonna be likely to report back their thoughts.

Regarding awakened constructs: Between the automaton (Guns and Gears, now remastered) and android (legacy and SF2e), with some possible reskinning and versatile heritage additions, is there really a need for another take on the same concept space?

Honestly, I would not have considered Awakened Constructs being a thing either until the reveal of the Impossible Magic cover.

But when I saw the iconic Runesmith, I recognized they looked just like a Clockwork Soldier in Monster Core 2. The thing about automatons is they have a unique aesthetic that's lore-locked. The mechanism for creating new automatons is secret at best, but largely lost with what few modern attempts at it being highly experimental and incomplete, so it's rarer than rare in a vanilla game to be an automaton that is not Jistkan in origin in a Lost Omens game. They only exist from a specific time period from a specific culture, which is a strain I've seen many of my players have to grapple with. I had also recently been reading through Pathfinder 1E's Bestiary 3 at the time, which had the Clockwork Servant that revealed that awakened clockworks were a thing. 1E's Pathfinder Chronicles: Classic Horros Revisited, also talked about awakened constructs. And the Runesmith themself looks more like a clockwork than Jistkan, which means they are unlikely to be an Automaton, because Automatons simply are not allowed to look like that, unless a new one is made. They could still be an automaton, but the lore does not support it without some very special circumstances.

Plus, despite automatons, androids, and SRO's and Living Holograms being a thing, awakened constructs capture a fantasy that only the SRO and Living Hologram has any overlap with. (And SRO's and Living Holograms are gonna be very unlikely to be allowable in any Pathfinder game, outside of one taking place in Numeria or somehow visiting Aballon). As I said above, Automatons are not awakened constructs, they are 6000+ year-old human souls in a soul cage piloting a robotic chassis who almost all universally suffer from mental damage due to the strain of being 6000+ years old without proper conditioning. Androids are not robots or constructs either. They are nanomachine-supported biomechanical organisms whose bodies cycle between new souls every several years. They can be created, yes, but they suffer all of the trappings of life, as they are essentially just an artificial variant biology.

But then there are Sentient Robotic Organisms (SROs) and Living Holograms. These are what support an Awakened Construct. For one, we don't technically need SROs and Living Holograms either, as we would not need Awakened Constructs, because Automatons live until they are destroyed, and androids are just around, much more commonly so. And Automatons, therefore, can survive well into Starfinder. Yet we have them anyway. And why do we have them? Because their origins are in the new. An SRO and a Living Hologram was likely born recently. It's earliest memories are likely to be of people in recent memory. Their creator can be a friend who can meet the players. That is the same for Awakened Constructs. There are so many stories you can tell with an Awakened Construct, but every story with an Automaton has a limitation, the story must ALWAYS tie to the Jistka Imperium. What is an Automaton doing in northern Avistan? A player has to think of 6000 years of world travel that ultimately led to this destination. But an Awakened Construct? They can just have been born there by a local construct crafter. Then, between the three, Awakened Construct, SRO, and Living Hologram, we have three mediums. Two are largely technological with only supporting amounts of magic to cover some more supernatural elements. (For example, Galactic Magic states that a lot of hover technology is actually circuity being used to trigger a gravitational magic rune to cause hovering, but it's ultimately largely technology to magitech). We have a physical robot, and a holographic robot. With an Awakened Construct, we'd complete the package with the traditionally-built magically powered construct. (Even clockworks use magic to support some of the construction, much like SROs and Living Holograms do). And between the three, most all constructs are covered, with the only need from there being heritages and bonus feats in future books to better-complete the range of fantasies.

As we saw with the message I replied to, despite Automatons and Androids being a thing, there is still demand for the Golem or Awakened Construct ancestry, because automatons and androids simply do not satisfy the fantasies of what brings people to the Awakened Construct, the SRO, and the Living Hologram, and I'm sure Pathfinder players will appreciate having their fantasy alternative to the more scifi SRO and Living Hologram. Equal-Attention cake, in a sense.

What you want is an Awakened Construct then. Because a Golem only refers to a clay religious construct now. So any golem ancestry can ONLY be that specific type of construct. (Which might be either a variant clay golem or a panthereon golem, but cannot be any other non-clay golem)

But an Awakened Construct can be what was is now considered a golem, plus all the constructs that are no longer golems (i.e. Adamant Sentinel from Adamantine Golem, Charnel Creation from Flesh Golem, Clay Effigy from Clay Golem, Iron Warden from Iron Golem, Noxious Needler from Alchemical Golem, Paleohemoth from Fossil Golem, Stone Bulwark from Stone Golem.

Can't have them all right away I suppose, but I love the osharus and hope they get implemented soon. Similar to what HolyFlamingo! said, I hold out hope those might be one of the unsaid Galactic Ancestries ones.

Wrikreeches, and Shimreens I also feel have a good chance, though Morlamaws I'm not sure where they'd be placed.

Though I feel Embri would be part of an adventure.

Probably a long shot, but with feybound getting sprites, and Lost Omens Cheliax getting Strix, that means that a lot of ancestries from the Ancestry Guide are being moved forward. I was thinking, Impossible Magic would not be a bad place to put the Geniekin if it had ancestries.

Another potential ancestry is some sort of awakened construct or awakened clockwork if the iconic Runesmith turns out not to be an automaton.

Looks like Anayctes are a no go for now, though I wonder if there is room for them to be an SRO heritage?

Key question for the Shifter martial IMO is What do you do when you're NOT Shifted?

An Untamed Druid falls back on their casting.

A martial MC Untamed Druid falls back on their feats and class features.

I feel the Shifter would be in a situation similar to the not-Raging Barbarian.

1E shifter had the capability to do partial morphs, like say, suddenly shifting just their hand into a claw instead of needing to grab a weapon. So like a monk, they are always armed with natural weapons. In 1E it was a swift action with no duration. So the 2E equivalent would be 1 action to manifest, unlimited duration, and 1 action to dismiss, so basically, natural weapons you'd have to equip and unequip like any normal weapon.

Now that we're getting gremlins, I do hope that Starfinder will eventually add the Starfinder gremlin heritages.

According to the latest stream, ancestries from the Szandite Collective will be coming out in the upcoming Secrets of the Swarm adventure path.

This leaves the following likely ancestries

Atraxids: Elaz system, planet Zulphan, spider-like
Ords: Elaz system, planet Lazel: subterraneous sightless monstrous humanoids
Binnaquids: Elaz system, planet Czelle: semi-aquatic humanoids
Fonqugons: Jonid system, planet Rodnarth: multi-brained and ooze-like
Hardors: Jonid system, planet Dorjo: dwarf-like humanoids
Mecenaics: Oukrux Major system, planet Xofirth: mollusk-like psychic aberrations who live for exactly 101 years (the one we saw a preview of)
Pharsoqs: Oukrux Minor system, planet Kuxor: boisterous two-headed humanoids who alternate between wakefulness and hibernation

Yeap, that makes for 7. The Mecenaics are confirmed for the adventure path, and one of these ancestries will be in Galactic Ancestries. I wonder if the Galactic Ancestries one is the Fonqugon, being the ooze ancestry that was advertised, and also shows up in the Valentines 2026 set.

During their last Stream, Paizo announced there will be a stream today, and on the 27th, each to announce new things.

Finoan wrote:

exequiel759 wrote:

I hope we get a fey ancestry / heritage!

Like Sprite and Fey-touched Gnome.

I was talking something along the lines of "generic fey ancestry or heritage that's vague enough but has cool supporting mechanics that when I want to play a generic fey character I can use it without thinking much, much like aasimar or tiefling when I want to play an angel or demon-like character".

Yeah, for example, there is the Old Beldame in Kingmaker, a green-skinned witch who people assumed was a green hag, but in reality, she was just feytouched, possibly fadrim depending on what fadrim ends up being. There was also the Bhopanese who were animal-headed people. Not quite anthromorphs, as they seem by the photo to have furless bodies, but fey-touched nonetheless.

But essentially, ancestries that are not necessarily fey, but another ancestry with fey influence transforming them. There is of course the Fey-Influence feat line, but frankly, a single feat line always felt lackluster compared to the scope of being a nephilim or a geniekin.

I'm hoping that Fadrim is just Sylvan (I know it was switched to fey, but I prefer saying sylvan) for fey-touched.

Ye, ended up deleting the post because I found the source, but so great to know. I'm hype for it. What time was tonight's stream again?

Oooo! I've been complaining about the lack of fey versatile heritage for years. Hype for the Fadrim!

Yeah, I don't think Kineticist is getting any mods besides basic errata, if any. But no, I don't think we are on the second printing of Rage of Elements yet, most likely Rage of Elements second printing will be switched to Remastered, but probably won't get as much fanfare.

Either way, it still needs an ORC pass, because Kineticist is not usable in 3rd party content, and will not be usable until it becomes ORC.

I've ran for 7. What I'd say is, best not. Singular rounds become exceedingly large, even when players have a degree of experience, and you need to shore up large enemy groups to avoid the party out-actioning them, also forcing extra time expenditure in issuing their actions. Solo boss fights are also just gonna be trivialized, as they will get annihilated rather quickly without buffing their HP to damage sponge levels. It's to the point you'd probably be better off forgoing HP for enemies in general and just killing them when roughly a satisfying amount of hits goes there way. Even with a 7-man team I've had situations where a boss, given an elite adjustment to compensate for the large party size, still ends up being killed before some players can act, who end up feeling sore because they felt useless because they didn't contribute much to the boss fight.

If you have 9 players, that's 10 people. You're better off asking one of the players to explore being a GM, so you both can each manage a 4-person team each.

So, I have a player looking at the Munitions Master Inventor class archetype, and the question came up whether Weapon Specialization damage bonuses apply to a siege weapon with which you are proficient, if you have the sufficient proficiency.

The Siege Weapon vs. Normal Weapons sidebar on Battlecry pg. 99 and Guns and Gears pg. 74 leaves the answer as unlikely, but ultimately GM fiat. Which leads me to exploring the limits of this.

I'm currently leaning towards no, that it doesn't apply. But I'm curious if folks here have any good points on it.

Or what if Daredevil just got Titan Wrestler as a bonus feat, and then applied its uses to its regular maneuvers?

Swapping an single army for a single troop is an option, but for the sake of kingdom economy, I'd recommend making the cost of a troop at most 1/4th the cost of an army if you do. An army is much grander scale than a troop.

Which is why in my original suggestion I wanted to place 4-6 troops per army, dependent on how many characters you have to make a troop, to better represent the cost of the army using Resource Points rather than money.

Yeah, the biggest problem I have with the ranger is I also have a love for the urban ranger, which unfortunately, doesn't exist so much. A ranger can be a warden of nature. Yes, that tracks through the woods or natural settings and hunts down local fauna, but I feel the ranger whose domain is the city and whose quarry is bounties is oft forgotten.

Though one unfortunate thing about name choice is the names don't work in the case of Pathfinder 1E legacy. Old slayer was the assassin that worked against most everyone, while Hunter was also a variant nature warden. Though I otherwise get what you mean. Hunter can still work, but I feel that would just cause confusion to effectively switch their roles amongst 1E players.

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.

Like a monk, I think that makes sense.

Waterslethe kind of put into words what I was starting to feel, but couldn't put my finger on. Daredevil does feel more like it belongs in Starfinder than Pathfinder.

I was musing similar, but I've only probed the basics, and not actually made rules yet. Though I had plans to do it on a second go-around of Kingmaker, and would love to see advice. That said, with my running Kingmaker, here are the things I noticed.

The big road blocks to keep in mind are that you'd need to custom tailor completely new encounters from Kingmaker's army system.

Troops don't have as hard a leveling system, as they are built a bit more like creatures, so one would need to create a custom table for keeping track of troop stats. But on a level, troops seem to be modeled as a permutation of the GM Core's creature creation rules, so practicing that would be a start, from there you'd have to standardize what abilities you want. For Kingmaker, you'd probably want to bring this system to at least level 17 for this, but depending on how much your party does random battles and explores, you can extend up to level 20.

Battlecry!'s troop rules don't accomodate Kingmaker's integration of equipping your army with special things like limited-use potions, magic weapons, or magic armor. So you'd need to figure an upgrade system within the Kingdom building rules. Recruitment should work fine, I think, but figuring what bonuses can be granted a troop will take some playtesting.

Then there's figuring out siege engine integration... Whether an army of siege engines is needed to get that many siege engines available, or whether you should instead mod one of your troops to being a siege engine instead. If the latter, you'd probably have to modify the cost of siege engine troops to be cheaper kingdom building side.

As for army allocations, I'd probably recommend letting one army equal troop unit per PC, though, as an army is thematically feeling bigger than a troop in its scope. Enemy armies would likely gain similar growth. Though playtesting would need to be done to figure what the right amount of armies is, especially for variable-size armies.

The most unfortunate thing is that all army combats would have to be swapped for troop combats in this event, and I lack experience with troop combat, you probably would too. You could let the findings of your early level troop combats help you scale for the late level ones. Encouraging some testing random battle troop activities might be a way to get information to better gauge what you can get away with, if your players are down with that.

I'd recommend running some simulation gamaes to see how troop combat works. One aspect I considered is using Valerie as a tool if your players recruit her. She fancies herself a knight, and would not be unlikely to take interest in things like Strategy games. Asking her to request your general to play a tabletop war game with her to hone their skills, or if she is your general, to help fine tune her plans, would be a way you can simulate troop combat without risking player resources. The best part is you can set parameters under- or overestimating rival factions to represent their assumptions of their abilities. (Amusingly enough, according to Grand Bazaar, there even is a strategy game called "Kingmaker"

Good point, so at least we have one class for precedent.

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.

Con couldn't on its own, as it'd only feed into the durability aspect.

I think it can, however, be used to fit more into the maneuvers if you let maneuvers work off of your key attribute modifier instead of just the default. Which is why I referenced the Soldier class, which has a class feature to do just that.

For example. what if we took a page from the Soldier: Let's take the maneuvers: Disarm, Grapple, Reposition, Shove, Trip, and Tumble Through. What if Daredevil got a class feature that said it could use its key ability modifier for Acrobatics or Athletics checks to use any of these actions. Dex Daredevil is so agile and in control they can easily just pressure point their way into the maneuver. Essentially, imagine if Aikido worked as advertised. Whereas Con just does as the Soldier does and lets you overpower your enemy, not by being strong, but by being resilient against their resistance against you. The "I keep punching him but he won't let go!?" situation.

Alternatively there's the option of just making Daredevil a dex class, but then letting it turn athletics into a dex skill.

I just feel that letting them have the option of them being able to pic Con would play well into the fact they are described as durable and prone to taking pain in stride.

_shredder_ wrote:

It's not a huge deal, but to me the name daredevil just feels kinda off in a high fantasy setting like golarion. Daredevil comes from "one who dares the devil", which is a big deal if you are in the real world and religious. But in a world where countless dangerous, magical beings from other planes of reality walk around, there really isn't anything that makes daring a devil so incredibly special and impressive.

I can certainly see where you're coming from, but in world, very few people would be referred to by class names, especially martial characters, its just a term for the benefit of those at the table

This one is dubious. Because I always see conflicting information on it, so I don't rely on that point. I've read in Pathfinder books where people do refer to people's class. Or make assumptions of it. Winter Witch has its leading girl being referred to as a barbarian when she is closer to a rogue. But she's assumed to be a barbarian due to her ethnicity. Whereas its leading guy is referred to as a wizard. And I recall in a passage for Sandpoint, a daughter of a baker would openly advertise herself as a "rogue looking for adventure." It varies by writer, as some writers actually do have characters refer to the existence of classes. But because Paizo uses different writers, it's not rule that can really be kept a hard rule, as it's a rule that's constantly broken by the writers.

It's not a huge deal, but to me the name daredevil just feels kinda off in a high fantasy setting like golarion. Daredevil comes from "one who dares the devil", which is a big deal if you are in the real world and religious. But in a world where countless dangerous, magical beings from other planes of reality walk around, there really isn't anything that makes daring a devil so incredibly special and impressive.

One who dares the devil does sound apt when there is a whole faction where a recruit must kill a devil as a right of passage, and countless other factions who see devils as enemies, and a whole country that takes pride in learning to outsmart devils. Especially when many of the freedom-fighting risk-takers, ahem, the Firebrands, take especial umbrage with said devil factions.

Though that leads to the other possibility. Why not just call Daredevils Firebrands. Firebrand as an archetype is still stuck in Legacy, so the name is up for grabs. Heck, the Firebrand archetype was all about showmanship and high-risk, high reward maneuvers. Just like the daredevil.

Other note, Golarion is high fantasy, but it is also victorian steampunk in places. Stunt Drivers have been an archetype for almost 5 years now. And the art of Alkenstar places it as a well-established magic-less steampunk haven. A term like daredevil, even in a stunt-man sense can easily have come out of a place like that, or more cosmopolitan areas like Absalom. Someone did some fishing and said that Daredevil was coined in the 1600s, and while it is beyond the Rennaisance area some of the lower tech areas of Golarion observe, i.e. the boonies, The actual tech level of Golarion, especially in tech havens like The Mana Wastes and Absalom, is much closer to the 1840s.

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.

While I'd love for it to apply to firearms on the special, I think a case can be made that specialized bullets need to be made for a spike to work from a gun. Definitely would not mind gun compatibility, of course. But I'd understand if they kept it to crossbows. And it still remains compatible with Starfinder because Crossbolter would be a thing.

The base ability definitely does look like it'd apply to any reloading weapon, though, which is good. I just wanna see the scope of the stakes expanded to other crossbows.

moosher12 wrote:

One thing I feel gives Daredevil more credence to the name is that it did get at least one feet to establish it as a capable stunt driver. Which is frankly, stuntwork is not really something I'd associate with a brawler.

Plus, Brawler existed in 1E, and was very much not what this class is trying to be. As the brawler was more of a hybrid fighter/monk, with very little closeness to the swashbuckler that the daredevil gets compared to.

Brawler was a pugilist with lethal unarmed strikes. And daredevil doesn't even get lethal unarmed strikes.

And the Slayer from 1e is the Avenger in 2e, whereas the Slayer we have now has little to do with either. While I agree that we could do with a separate Brawler that aims more for the original 1e fantasy, I do think right now it's important to make sure the Daredevil steers clear of the Swash's thematic space (Pugilist would also be a fine name for a class archetype IMO).

My problem with the Brawler name is that to me, Brawlers don't really do stunts. You'd have to rename a lot of abilities in the Daredevil to rename it to brawler. When I think of a brawler, I think of a martial artist, not a stuntsman. A brawler would have to lose the term "stunt" because that's just not brawler. They brawl. They apply fists and knees to the face, and sometimes stab people, but a brawler hardly invokes the idea of being a "risktaker." who performs stunts. Nor does a brawler do flashy, inefficient things

Basically, if you switched Daredevil as it is to Brawler, I think the case would be fair to make that the class just doesn't look like a brawler, either. And the base of it would need to be retuned to be a brawler theme.

I'd rather a brawler be what it was in 1E, a hybrid between fighter and monk, and potentially operative.

Daredevil is certainly having a hard time beating the allegations of being very Swashbuckler like. Normally, I don't think this is a problem, as I like hybrid classes. I like the Slayer, for example, because it feels like it takes aspects from Investigator, Ranger, and Thaumaturge, and puts them together in a way that would be desirable, but quite cumbersome through the class plus archetype system.

I'm seeing the daredevil, and I'm seeing two things. A scrapper, and a stuntsman. And I'm trying to think, perhaps what Daredevil needs is to flex its identity toward another class, a bit farther away from the show-off duelist that is the swashbuckler.

So far, I see two ways we can flex it. The first is as a scrappy punk. We see this with its use of improvised weapons. An inspiration point here, then, could be the rogue. What if a Daredevil could also use its less threatening maneuvers to setup for a variant sneak attack? Where the point of the sneak attack is that you disorient them with your stunt, and then use the disorientation to get extra damage, instead of solely adding damage to maneuvers. This then makes maneuvers part of the tool box, but not the sole method, and would put the daredevil in a hybrid space between the swashbuckler and the rogue, rather than showing so much similarity to the swashbuckler.

Another point of potential shift, is potentially making it a vehicle class. Stunt Driver is an iconic media archetype. And Daredevil exemplifies such easily. More expansion on the stunt driver theme would allow it to better have a seperate identity that's not quite covered by anything but the Trick Driver archetype, perhaps taking some of the Trick Drivers abilities, and baking it into the class. It was jokingly said in the stream that the daredevil had skates, but what if the daredevil actually had a path to get a weaponized personal vehicle like roller skates, a skateboard, a bicycle, or a scooter, that it could simultaneously do stunts with and use as a weapon? Small vehicles that can be used in dungeon-scale, and then the same bonuses can be applied when the campaign allows them to use a more proper vehicle.

Brawler is often also described for the Daredevil, but the 1E brawler had lethal melee on top of combat feats, being a hybrid between the monk and fighter, so perhaps a daredevil might have an easy path to lethal unarmed strikes without having to archetype into the monk dedication.

What are other ways we can extend Daredevil into its own unique identity? While keeping the theme of daredevil, where it can still share aspects with the Swashbuckler, but is hybridized into a unique and satisfactory niche?

An alternative is that for the daredevil, I feel it should be worth exploring whether they should have boosts to reflex and fortitude, and I think instead of their key attributes being Strength or Dexterity, what if it was instead Dexterity or Constitution, letting them favor more health and resilence or more dodge-potential. We don't get a lot of Constitution classes, and the "You might enjoy showing off your collection of scars and mended broken bones" class might be one of the better fits.

I know Athletics is already a thing, but you can always just give them a special rule that they alone can apply dexterity or constitution to Athletics rolls to perform the common daredevil maneuvers.

We have precedent. Look at the Soldier Starfinder side.

Fearsome Bulwark [Level 3]: Your sheer bulk terrifies foes, clearing a path for you on the battlefield. You can use your Constitution modifier instead of your Charisma modifier on Intimidation checks to Coerce or Demoralize and instead of your Strength modifier on Athletics checks to Reposition or Shove.

I may be reading it wrong but about the only part of the crossbow that is used is its range so minimal reasons to ever use the heavier ones. The damage is going to be kinda meh regardless and it mostly is a weakness trigger projectile.

Even if a crossbow and a heavy crossbow have the same range, if a heavy crossbow happens to be your main weapon, it's problematic. If you made a heavy crossbow your main weapon, you'd have to seperately carry a normal crossbow to use the spikes. And it'd be simpler across the board to just invest 2 actions loading the heavy crossbow, than spending those same two actions having to swap to a normal crossbow and load it with the spike. while the action economy is the same, now I have to carry 3 bulk instead of 2, and bulk sneaks up on you as it is. Also, it just removes the fun flavor of firing off your spike from your favored weapon, if you choose for it to be the heavy crossbow. Plus you'd have the option of using the light bulk hand crossbow for a still respectable 60-foot range increment over the dagger's 20-foot increment, which has its own benefits.

I'd rather get class feats and subclasses than class archetypes.

Though I'm quite happy with the Daredevil and Slayer. There are characters I've been mulling over that are perfect fits for them, that only felt like dubious fits with other classes.

I know well how I'd home rule it, but players deserve their protections against a GM that decides to say, "Just crossbow."

One thing I feel gives Daredevil more credence to the name is that it did get at least one feet to establish it as a capable stunt driver. Which is frankly, stuntwork is not really something I'd associate with a brawler.

Plus, Brawler existed in 1E, and was very much not what this class is trying to be. As the brawler was more of a hybrid fighter/monk, with very little closeness to the swashbuckler that the daredevil gets compared to.

Brawler was a pugilist with lethal unarmed strikes. And daredevil doesn't even get lethal unarmed strikes.

Can't say I have any wisdom running it, but I'll admit, the boost property has been a worry for me. But I'm waiting to run Guilt of the Grave World to see if any of my players notice it.

It's certainly not reassuring to see my worries are seemingly well-founded.

I'd reason if a change could be made, there are many approaches.

Firstly, you could use breath rules. Perhaps you can only boost once every 1d4 rounds?

Another thing to note is Boost does theoretical damage comparable, and occasionally slightly less than two successive hits with a weapon. Considering MAP goes into play, another balance point could be that using Boost imposes a -5 item penalty to the attack roll. And makes the strike count as two attacks for the purpose of MAP.

If a numerical decrease is needed. Other approaches could be instead of adding damage dice, it simply increased the damage dice by one or two steps. If a 1d6 becomes a 1d8, that's +1 average per die, instead of +3. And even if a 1d6 becomes a 1d10, that'd be a +2 average, instead of +3.

Another approach is letting it grant you an effective Strength Score that might override your current Strength Score for a melee weapon, or grant a ranged weapon an "effective" strength score giving it the extra punch to be more along the lines of a damage from a thrown weapon. Say what if Commercial gave you a +4 to damage, then a Superior Weapon would increase it to +5, and a Paragon would increase it to +6. (Alternatively, Commercial could be +2, while Advanced was +4.) There is also the option for melee weapons to let the bonus be addative with a strength score, or instead of giving an effective strength score to melee weapons, it might just pull a 1E, and let you apply 1.5x your Strength Score to the attack.

Now that I think of it, if a Daredevil's thing is they are hearty and, well, a daredevil. You'd think they could have legendary Reflex and Fortitude. Especially Reflex.

Protactile sounds like it can fit the description of Vlakan touch-based sign language. "Vlakan sign language has two variants, visual and tactile, with the touch-based variant dominating within close circles and other intimate settings." Especially since it's described in the book as "intimate"

I was musing. What if you had various prodding nodes installed in armor. Small solenoids with rubber prods built in an array around your back and shoulders. It prods you as your communication partner would prod you when conversing naturally. And the best part is, since it's direct, it requires no need to dedicate a hand to a touch screen which might be hard to read through an air-tight glove, and alike prods you directly, instead of outside touches being blunted by your armor.

You forgot to read the Special segment, the special with Consecrated Panoply only lets you load the spike into a crossbow. Not a hand crossbow, not a heavy crossbow, not an arbalest, not a crossbolter. Only a crossbow. The special effect, if Sagiam's interpretation was right, it'd have to say ranged weapon here, not crossbow.

If you have a consecrated panoply signature tool, you can load a hunting spike into a crossbow when you reload it. The next time you use Hunting Spike, its thrown trait uses the crossbow’s range increment.

My thought sum at as follows:

I had the most gripes with the daredevil. As was said by OP, making many of the feats Press feats while trying to fish for crits will mean those rewards are even rarer, and I'm not quite sure if in practice the critical hits are high-enough reward for an effective -20% chance of success. Alike, for maneuvers to provoke Stunt Damage, I feel it should be considered doubling the damage in the rare event you do get a critical success on a maneuver to move an enemy into a prop.

Though on the upside, I do highly appreciate that the Daredevil had some base Vehicle support, and I hope it gets a bit more of that, even if it's just one or two more feats. Like incorporating some more abilities with the run over action, or perhaps being able to treat a vehicle as one size larger than normal for the purpose of what it affects when running someone over. I know this is a Starfinder example, but say pulling a stunt to treat a hover board as a large vehicle so you could run over a medium creature. I suppose the Automated cycle is another example, treating large as huge. Or perhaps having the option to trade collision damage with stunt damage.

As for the Slayer, I mostly liked it. I appreciate that it threaded the gamut between Belmont and Witcher and Monster Hunter and Bounty Hunter so well.

On the Hunt feels like it's a bit too restricting to get much use of, and the feats that grant reactions and free actions to use On the Hunt don't necessarily seem to get rid of the trigger.

My one complaint with it is I felt its crossbow slayer ability should apply to the crossbow weapon group in general, rather than the base crossbow.

I'm a GM and none of my players have shown much interest in the classes, so it's not likely I'd be able to personally test the classes, though. All these impressions are just based on a brief readthrough.

But as a whole, there's a skateboarder I can realize on Daredevil, especially if they get some extra vehicle stuff. And I am surprised how well I can make a Jaethal bounty hunter with Slayer.

I feel a clause should be put into the class to incorporate Titan Wrestler into many of the feats that have size-limitations.

I feel that Crossbow Slayer should be able to apply to weapons in the crossbow weapon group, rather than just crossbows. Gives ability to switch to a heavy crossbow or a hand crossbow, and would provide compatibility with Starfinder's crossbolter.

Please put such requests in the errata thread, otherwise there is a chance that your post will be unnoticed by devs.

The level problem with the slayer could be partially avoided with the option of using quarry against groups of enemies, with their combined level calculated like you do in encounter building.

But let's see what's in the playtest before coming up with solutions to imaginary problems.

Fortunately it gets just such an ability! And it only requires you to pick 3 weaker enemies of similar kind.

And if folks want to see an example of feat and class option bloat, I encourage y'all to try to read Starfinder 1E. That game will be an extreme of every potential new class just becoming options for an existing class.

Not necessarily. Specific overrides general. A dedicated shapeshifting class can simply override and do better than normal battle forms if it wanted to. Or not even use battle forms in favor of a more bespoke effect.

A class, especially a martial class, is not necessarily obligated to follow the logic of magical battle forms if the devs don't want it to.

Here's examples of what I mean.
-Instead of scaling attacks by level, a shifter might just get natural attacks that get boosted by Handwraps of Mighty Blows.
-Since it's a martial, it might not have physical overrides since it will probably be assumed to have good physical stats anyway. Athletics and Stealth bonuses might instead be a circumstance or status bonus rather than a replacement,
-Instead of overridden AC, it might instead get an effective armor bonus dependent on form.

and other stuff like that.

Another thing to note is that wild shape isn't even a starting feature for a shifter. Their main thing is more morph effects rather than polymorph effects. The Wild shape doesn't even kick in until level 4.