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The Cunning epithet is one that should certainly exist- cunning heroes are plenty famous. In terms of epithets, it's the only one I want to actually play characters described that way.
The problem is that, mechanically, it can hardly ever be used in a cunning way. You get a free feint when you move to your body ikon. Well, feint is melee only, so no cunning ranged combatant, and you probably never trigger this usefully during initiative. You need to feint before an attack, so what you'd want is weapon ikon, but you're not getting that. Additionally, transcending out of weapon ikon generally involves making one or more attacks, meaning you're already on MAP. If you're using a dagger, the classic weapon of the cunning, you're at -8 with one action remaining. So, the only way to use this cunningly is to be in/move into melee with no available flanking and activate the transcend an active worn ikon, and go for body rather than weapon for an attack.
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I agree that on paper at least, it isn't great. The only way it would really work would be if you can count on getting a critical success so the flat-footed condition lasts until the end of your next turn. That way, you can finish the round with the body Ikon in effect to debut the enemy's attacks, then switch to your weapon Ikon at the start of your turn and make two Strikes while they're still flat-footed. Counting on a critical success to make the ability work reasonably well with the rest of the class abilities seems underwhelming. I'm going to play a cunning exemplar tonight, though, and will give it a try.
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The Cunning epithet is one that should certainly exist- cunning heroes are plenty famous. In terms of epithets, it's the only one I want to actually play characters described that way.
The problem is that, mechanically, it can hardly ever be used in a cunning way. You get a free feint when you move to your body ikon. Well, feint is melee only, so no cunning ranged combatant, and you probably never trigger this usefully during initiative. You need to feint before an attack, so what you'd want is weapon ikon, but you're not getting that. Additionally, transcending out of weapon ikon generally involves making one or more attacks, meaning you're already on MAP. If you're using a dagger, the classic weapon of the cunning, you're at -8 with one action remaining. So, the only way to use this cunningly is to be in/move into melee with no available flanking and activate the transcend an active worn ikon, and go for body rather than weapon for an attack.
I think there's a bit of a misconception happening here:
After you Spark Transcendence of your body ikon, you can Feint as a free action.
Since this occurs after you Spark Transcendence on Body Ikon, that means it occurs while leaving the Body Ikon, so the feint can immediately flow into a Weapon Ikon boosted strike. (All the Root Epithets work similarly btw) Sadly, due to the Spark Transcendence action being limited per round, this does prevent you from using a Transcendence Attack in the same turn to capitalize off of the feint, but it still works okay as a bit of a boost for the next boosted strike; especially if you Crit as in that case you actually can use your Weapon Transcendence on them during the next turn while still benefiting from the FF/Off-guard.
I'd still argue it's the weakest of the Epithets but it is decently functional in theory.
Ahhh, okay! That works much better than how I was reading it. Wouldn't object to something more flexible, but it doesn't feel weirdly out of line.
There's a weird action crunch here because you can't use two transcendances in one round, and you basically never want to end a round with your divine spark in your weapon ikon because weapon ikons mostly function on your turn and body/worn ikons function defensively.
So your turn might go something like:
Transcend Crash Into Me, transfer your spark to your weapon ikon
free action feint
Attack
Shift Immanence because you don't want to finish your turn with your spark in your weapon when you could have it in your pallisade bangles or victor's wreath.
This doesn't seem like a very productive turn, particularly since feinting seems lower value than moving, healing, or dazzling.
There's a weird action crunch here because you can't use two transcendances in one round, and you basically never want to end a round with your divine spark in your weapon ikon because weapon ikons mostly function on your turn and body/worn ikons function defensively.
So your turn might go something like:
Transcend Crash Into Me, transfer your spark to your weapon ikon
free action feint
Attack
Shift Immanence because you don't want to finish your turn with your spark in your weapon when you could have it in your pallisade bangles or victor's wreath.This doesn't seem like a very productive turn, particularly since feinting seems lower value than moving, healing, or dazzling.
Huh? No way, that's a terrible use of actions. Shift Immanence is there for when you don't want to use your available transcend action but still need to shift. Spending an action purely for +1 AC or a bit of resistance is a bad trade over just... raising a shield.
Ending a round in weapon mode is gonna happen for something like... half your rounds.
Transcend body after having had a defensive round, switch to weapon, free feint, attack, attack with MAP, chill with normal Rogue levels of AC but more HP for one round, transcend weapon next round.
Moving, healing, or dazzling definitely all seem better, I'm agreed there, but I think they'll also have a similar defense/offense alternating cycle, both free to mix in support as needed.
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Huh? No way, that's a terrible use of actions. Shift Immanence is there for when you don't want to use your available transcend action but still need to shift. Spending an action purely for +1 AC or a bit of resistance is a bad trade over just... raising a shield.
Or for situations where you were hoping to use your weapon transcendence and just... miss. (See Noble Branch and Barrow's Edge requiring a successful hit to activate their transcendence.) Not all fighters have the free hand for a shield as well, but yeah.
I'm currently playtesting an Exemplar with Mournful Scar of the Survivor as we speak, and after a Jungle Drake just dragged me away from the party for an effective 1v1, I took two turns in a row to transcend Body Ikon for the healing and Dazzle on the drake, make an attack with charged Weapon Ikon, and then shift back to Body for the setup into the following turn's Transcend. After the second turn, the Drake dropped me because it was apparent it was starting to lose the trade, lol. Turns out 20% miss chance on call is pretty strong (25% in my case thanks to Changeling's Mist Child).
That said, there is some benefit to staying in Weapon Ikon between turns as well, as there are a few 3act Transcendence activities that would require you to already be in Weapon Ikon to activate. Whether those activates are worth it is another story entirely, however.
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I feel like the issue with cunning could largely be solved by allowing it to also work with create a diversion, since it actually would allow for more trickster-y stuff (like sneaking away to recover/slip out of danger), as well as allow ranger characters to get a way to shoot someone who's off-guard
Also the class has reactive strike
This is a good point, ending with your spark in your weapon doesn't feel like a bad thing to me when you have reactive strike but obviously your mileage will vary depending on what you're trying to do.