My group had a chance to test out some of the classes and provide feedback. Admittedly, we didn't get very far with some of the classes but hopefully some of this information proves useful. Apologies for any duplication of what already may have been discussed as I have not read through everything that has been posted to date.
1. Arcanist: We didn't playtest this. No one was interested in the class. It looks like it is getting an overhaul anyway, but my group seemed more interested in some of the other hybrids.
2. Bloodrager: High initial level of interest. In the test combats we ran, it performed well at all levels and did exactly what it was supposed to do--kill things. As others have already said, the spells were rarely used during combat and even given the chance to buff, my players mostly avoided it. This could be mainly due to their mostly offensive spell selection. The player commented that it was fun to rip off a lightning bolt and then follow up with melee but said it did not stack up with the loss of rage powers. Put more chocolate in the peanut butter for this one. This is an excellent concept, but my players would rather see a medium BAB with full spontaneous magus casting. Drop the DR and fast movement and put some rage powers back in. The bloodlines were cool (more please!) and my players thought bloodline unique DR through the bloodline powers would be much more thematic. Some of the bloodlines should also get the limited use per day unlimited at least eventually--looking at the elemental ones specifically as you can do this with rage powers. As a bit of balance, we thought that your bloodline should count as totem rage powers.
3. Brawler: Again, high level of initial interest. In play we could not see a real difference from a fighter/monk multiclass. The opposite of the bloodrager, there is too much chocolate in the peanut butter. Players rolled their eyes at having 'magic fists' with this class and would rather just have penetrating strike and greater penetrating strike or a version thereof as bonus feats. They also did not like the monk weapons and thought the concept is better realized with simple weapons, catch off guard, throw anything, and eventually improvised weapon mastery. We thought it would be cool to have the ability to use unarmed damage die for improvised weapons or get rid of unarmed damage progression and do a flat damage bonus to simple, natural, and improvised weapons like the master chymist prestige class. Oh...and please make an archetype that subs flurry for DR =)
4. Hunter: We got past it, but consider a different name. To us, the slayer is a hunter and the brawler as written reminds us more of Buffy. The hunter..well.. we just called it the WOW class. Anyway, considering that our group does not like pet classes, this one was a surprise hit. We really liked the teamwork aspect (we did not get too bogged down on whether an animal can perform the feats). The animal focus didn't get used too much though, and we would suggest something else that gets a little more ranger in the class like combat style feats to get more of a ‘hunter’ feel. As it stands, that seems to be really missing if you want to call it a 'hunter' (this is coming from a hunter if that holds any water at all). Maybe a favored enemy mechanic that you share with your companion and applies to spellcasting?
5. Investigator: This is the one I wanted to play the most. Our experience is the class works as intended but there was quite a bit of ‘paralysis by analysis’ with this class—not as bad as the warpriest but significant. One player asked ‘Can’t I just swap out bard casting with alchemical extracts on my archaeologist?’ and I tend to agree. Inspiration is neat, but overkill when it came to skill checks for us. The investigator was making them pretty easy without it. Our suggestion would be to drop it and give him the mindchemist’s perfect recall ability at 3rd level instead of keen recollection and just make skill focus an investigator talent. We liked the sneak attack and poison use is ok, but without access to some of the splatbook discoveries (celestial poisons) it became useless against the undead and demon encounters that turn up a lot at high levels. We’d love to have this class gain a grenadier like ability and be able to apply alchemical items to weapon attacks.
6. Shaman: We didn’t playtest this one due to time, but we did like it. The only suggestion was that we would like to see more of the existing hexes and revelations mixed in with the spirits. We thought that you could flavor some of the existing hexes like slumber to fit under Heavens since it had the stardust thing going for it.
7. Skald: We really liked this one but found that unlike the standard bard, the skald doesn’t have a go to performance. In other words, raging song isn’t for everybody all the time like inspire courage is. Casters don’t want it , and only pure melee characters wanted it all the time. The inquisitor in the group for our encounters got frustrated when he had to drop out to cast a spell. We would suggest that well versed go way and the skald get a delayed inspire courage or something similar. He needs something to do when raging song isn’t applicable to an encounter. It would also be nice to get some ‘skald like’ spells swapped out. Not a big deal but, we remember the 3.5 days when summon nature’s ally was subbed in for summon monster.
8. Slayer: This is the spell-less ranger one of my players has wanted for a long time. It delivers exactly as intended in our group. The only complaint is the limited number of talents. There isn’t much for a melee slayer. I am sure this will get addressed, but we would encourage talents like bleeding attack, pressure points, and crippling strike. It would also be cool to get some of the rogue archetype abilities like bravado’s blade and brutal beating.
9. Swashbuckler: Another hit. Loved it. A gun using archetype is in the works so no need to discuss that. We ruled that swashbuckler’s finesse is weapon finesse for the intended weapons and we don’t play society so not sure if it really is that big a deal with wording. Going one level to get weapon finesse was not a big deal because our group does not tend to completely dump stats. The only thing we would like to see is it opened up to all finesse-able weapons. Limiting it to just piercing seems unnecessary. Other cool archetypes might open up the abilities up to weapons not normally finesse-able.
10. Warpriest: We didn’t test this one. Not that we didn’t want too, but it was too much to get a handle on in the timeframe we had. I have a player that really wants to look at it more, but would suggest simplifying it some. This is just based on reading it over though. We have a wide range of system mastery in our group and this one isn’t for the casual players from what we have seen.
For the record we tested at 4th and 8th. We did some social encounters and some exploration along with combats against multiple opponents. The skill checks for the social encounters and exploration (traps) were easily made by the standard classes and the hybrids. The combats were managed with about the same ease. Our group is very tactical even when caught by surprise. We did not use any gear that did anything other than provide a flat bonus and all gear was the same for hybrids and non-hybrids (+1 armor, +1 weapons, +1 cloaks, etc.) . No real streak of good or bad rolling was noticed.
Hope this helps.
7. Skald: We really liked this one but found that unlike the standard bard, the skald doesn’t have a go to performance. In other words, raging song isn’t for everybody all the time like inspire courage is. Casters don’t want it , and only pure melee characters wanted it all the time. The inquisitor in the group for our encounters got frustrated when he had to drop out to cast a spell. We would suggest that well versed go way and the skald get a delayed inspire courage or something similar. He needs something to do when raging song isn’t applicable to an encounter. It would also be nice to get some ‘skald like’ spells swapped out. Not a big deal but, we remember the 3.5 days when summon nature’s ally was subbed in for summon monster.
May I suggest the skald player takes "moment of clarity" rage power. That allows the inquisitor to cast when he feels like it, and still stay in rage.
Momenty of Clarity seems a bit of a waste, if you're taking it for one guy in your group.
But interesting feedback, Wyvurn!
Did your Hunter player explain why he didn't use Animal Focus much?
Actually moment of clarity will allow all the casters in your group to enjoy the rage. It's actually almost a must-have rage power for a skald
I guess I was coming from the perspective of mostly non-casting martials in the group, since I think you can only give one rage power out? Or did that change.
I think you can give as many as you have. Which are quite few. Almost to the point that it makes going viking for more rage powers make sense.
Great stuff OP.
Damn, Wyvurn! I've barely even read the document and you've already played half of it -- in the words of Dudley Smith, "That's grand -- well done, lad!"
Just checked. Only one rage power per rage song. It's definitely not a bad idea...
After a quick browse I agree with the notion that hunter should be renamed to something else and slayer could be possibly renamed to hunter.
We just did some quick encounters nothing real extensive. I doubt we will be able to do much more before the playtest is over.
For the Skald: Moment of clarity is an option and if we play these characters anymore, then yeah we'd definitely consider it. We just didn't think that far ahead during character creation.
For the Hunter: As far as the animal focus, it came down to the concept the hunter player was after. He went ranged with a big cat animal companion and just wanted to fling arrows (dwarf with a musket and bear was too feat intensive =) ). The Tiger focus would be useful but during the encounters the player didn't use it because he cast cat's grace instead. The animal focus is a nice to have, I guess, but we just were looking for some of the ranger combat style in the class.