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If I were a youtuber, this is where I'd insert a clickbait title. Instead, I'm just going to give you a massive wall of text. Apologies in advance, and I don't honestly expect any replies, but I hope my input is of some small benefit to the designers. I'm going to go over the class chassis, then the ikons, then feats. Starting FROM THE TOP
Initial Profs + Level 1
Perception, Saving Throws, Attacks, Class DC are all solid.
Skills is odd because the only other classes to date that had Int+2 Skills were Champion, Druid, Cleric and Wizard. I'm assuming the real comparison point here is Champion, since Druid/Cleric/Wizard lose out on some skills in exchange for their incredibly versatile spellcasting. In the Champion's case, they do often end up feeling slightly lackluster during RP due to the skill limit but they have the flavor of the "Paladin" behavior to lean on. Actually no, re-reading champion, Champion also has the bonus skill from their deity. As does Cleric, and Druid gets one from their order, so this skill limit is really only present on Wizard, an Intelligence focused class. For lack of a better term, the fact that Exemplars are already fairly MAD (They want Strength, Dex, Con, and Cha at the least), most Exemplars will have at most 10 Int. This has the side-effect of making Exemplars the "Dumbest" class.
Defenses is also rough because of the light armor limit. I get the sense from this class that the desire is to go glass cannon, but given the proclivity of heroes and their ability to shrug off incredible blows, this feels somewhat counter-productive. Medium armor prof would be my preference, and I foresee a lot of Exemplar-Sentinels in our future. Not a fan of this honestly, I'd prefer to see at least Medium armor included.
Humble Strikes is a nice feature. While I don't think it'll really change anything, it's a nice nod to the source material. Unfortunately, Martial Weapons can still get higher damage dice than any simple weapon can even with this buff, and come with a suite of useful traits that most simple weapons lack. Neat, but I think will mostly go un-used in most cases that aren't a player choosing a specific weapon type for flavor, but very helpful for those players.
Shift Immanence/Spark Transcendence. I love the transcendence mechanic, it's a lot of fun. My main pain point is that Immanence only being active while an Ikon is means that a lot of Ikons either won't see use, (mostly Worn ikons), or an Exemplar will constantly have to feel like they're "nerfing" themselves to get a niche benefit. Comparing this to Kineticist, who just has the big "on/off" switch of elememental aura, this is juggling a lot more balls in the air, and for little to no additional benefit compared to kineticist.
Levels 2-5
Quick note: the fact that Exemplars don't get a level 1 feat is somewhat baffling. They would be the first martial ever to not get a 1st level feat. I'm assuming this is because they already get so much at level 1 with the ikons, but Kineticists get a ton at level 1 as well and still get their level 1 feat.
Root Epithets: I'm assuming because these give us an additional skill training is why we only get 2+int at 1. On to specific reviews.
- Brave: A solid if not particularly inspiring ability. Requiring it to be towards an enemy is a nice nod to the "Brave" moniker, since you can't use the defensively oriented body ikon abilities and then run away.
- Cunning: An odd scenario. It requires you to spark your body, and you get a free feint, but it essentially precludes you from ever using the feint for your "big hit" abilities, since you can't then spark your weapon. A neat ability as well, but seems like an odd counter-intuitive moment to me.
- Mournful: Understated but strong. Dazzle with no save until the start of YOUR next turn is potent.
- Radiant: "free" healing is nice. Given the 10 minute immunity similarity, quick comparison to Kineticist's "Ocean's Balm", it's at range compared to Balm, and it's healing actually scales much better. At level 3 it's healing 8 hp guaranteed, as opposed to Balm's 4.5 average with a max of 8. By the time Balm scales at 5, Radiant is healing 12 guaranteed, compared to an average of 9 from Balm. Radiant is generally above rate, it's not as strong as a high-roll from Balm, but it's more consistently good. Very solid ability, and it also means the Radiant Exemplar can skip getting Medicine.
EDIT: Leaving my original (wrong) analysis there for honesty. I had forgotten that Kineticist doesn't scale like spell levels, but off character levels. As such, at level 3, Radiant heals 8, Ocean's Balm heals an average of 9, max of 16. At 5 it'd be Radiant healing 12, Balm healing an average of 13.5 with a max of 24. Final point of comparison for this is at level 9, Radiant healing will heal 20, and Balm will do an average of 22.5 with a max of 40. This means Radiant reliably hits the average of the effects of Balm, without the upside of the bigger heal or the risk of a much lower one. Though the fact that it can be done at range is still very beneficial.
Spirit Striking: Fun take on weapon specialization, especially when coupled with Dominion epithets later.
Levels 6-10
Dominion Epithet: My personal take is that I think the Worn Ikons should've been the ones to get the boost at this level, since I think the Weapon ikons will almost always be the most... well... iconic. Plus Worn Ikons get little to no support currently in the playtest until the big epithets at 15. This might change with release, but if Worn Ikons will continue to get minimal feat support, it might be a good idea to move the worn ikon buffs down to this spot. Anyway.
- Born of the Bones of the Earth: Passive is solid. Immanence is incredible and very flavorful. Transcend provides a fun repeatable aoe. Key thing to keep in mind is that because the terrain change is permanent, that Exemplar better have a way to ignore/avoid the difficult terrain or they will rapidly make the battlefield an absolute mess of difficult terrain if they spam this.
- Restless as the Tide: Passive is solid. Immanence is rough because as written you would hit yourself and all your allies, leads to a scenario where you start hoping you DON'T crit which is an odd place to be. Also only very situationally useful, against single targets you're looking at a max +4 damage. Transcendence is actually incredible. I love this one so much. Just casually shift the entire battlefield, oh and pull a target to you and smack them while you're at it. Great stuff.
- Peerless Under Heaven: Passive is solid. Immanence isn't particularly fancy but also solid. Reap the Field is actively a trap. Mathematically it's almost always worse than just striking a second time, even at a -5. This ability needs a massive overhaul, it also doesn't address what happens if you crit either of your targets. As written you technically couldn't use it if you crit the first target, though I think only the most die-hard GMs wouldn't allow that.
- Whose Cry is Thunder: Passive is fairly meh? The saving throw bonus is essentially a non-factor since most bonuses to saving throws are generic, and there are only 2 abilities in the entire playtest that are "exemplar abilities that grant resistance", and neither of them are particularly interesting. This has a weird anti-synergy with the Skin as Hard as Horn ikon, since you'd technically only get electricity resistance while the skin ikon was active, despite this ability being granted by the weapon. Very odd. Immanence is absolutely incredible. Transcend is less incredible but still very solid, good Thor vibes.
Resolve is good. Feels odd that a class that doesn't want Wisdom for any of it's abilities is best at Will saves, but thematically appropriate.
Levels 11-15
Greater Resolve: Wow, Legendary at 13. I guess this is why we don't really care if they dump Wisdom (at least at this point) since they now can no longer crit fail will saves at all.
Light Armor Expertise: YIKES, this comes super late. This reinforces my belief that our lovely designers really want this class to be a glass cannon, which seems at odds with the legendary hero trope. This would make a little more sense if some of the body ikons were stronger and granted them alternate routes to being tanky, but the body Ikons I've seen don't particularly achieve that goal well.
Greater Spirit Striking: Still cool.
Juggernaut: This is honestly what I'd expected before Resolve, but still nice.
Sovereignty Epithet: Honestly, I feel like all the worn Auras should be 30 feet at base, and these should increase it to 60. I also think that it's odd that both the Body and Weapon Epithets grant some other passive benefit when the ikon isn't utilized (Skills for Body, usually changes to spirit damage for weapons) but Worn Epithets ONLY do stuff while they're active. Yet another blow to Worn ikons.
- Teacher of Heroes: Immanence. This is solid. Very flavorful and fun. Transcend: Has anti-synergy with itself. Once you transcend, the thing you just did is only active if you then immediately shift the spark back to the worn ikon. So in order for this to actually work on the turn you use it, it's actually a 3 action ability. After that you're forced to either just not use your other ikons, or play a very hampered version of the spark-shifting game where you need to have it back in your worn at the end of every turn. Not a great feeling. Aside from that, synergizes well with the fact that you're going to get hit a lot with low AC. It's also worth noting that recall knowledge is an odd effect for a class with very few skills, and low Intelligence, another sort of odd anti-synergy in this.
- The Last Ruler: Immanence is meh. On brand, and free action demoralizes are great. Anti-synergy with the fact that you have low AC. Transcend is very nice, great for sweeping up mobs, next to useless against solo enemies, but fun none-the-less.
- Thief of Moonlight: Immanence is actively bad. At first blush it might seem solid, but the fact that it requires the target to miss (unlikely to happen in the first place with your low AC), but the fact that even if they do miss that it lasts only until the end of your next turn means that often AT MOST you're imposing dazzled on them for 1 attack. They miss their first attack, get dazzled, MIGHT miss their second attack if they even take one, then it's back to you and the ability ends. Transcend: Flavorful but risky. I'm not a fan of the incapacitation trait being added here though. This is also a notorious "Save or suck" style effect. Another "Great for sweeping up mooks, useless against bosses". The prevalence of these effects in the mythic hero class is understandable but odd at the same time. Heroes are often regarded for the great beasts they slay, not for the armies of commoners they kill.
Levels 16-20
Not much going on here. Light Armor Mastery at 19 is oof.
Body Ikons
Eye-Catching Spot: Immanence is an effective +1 AC, very nice. On brand for the "defensively" oriented body ikons. Transcend is solid as well, though your class DC isn't going to be very high most of the time.
Gaze Sharp as Steel: Immanence is fun. Transcend is horrible. It feels super weird to spend an action to grant yourself a reaction you MIGHT use, plus this is one that would often likely be wanted by a ranged exemplar who wouldn't be able to make good use of the Reactive Strike anyway.
Scar of the Survivor: Overall great, and I think as written this would become the "Default" body ikon. Immanence is solid, Transcend is fantastic but not overpowering. This is honestly the gold standard of what I think the Body Ikons should achieve.
Skin Hard as Horn: I did a bigger math breakdown in this thread about how bad this ikon is. The immanence resistance is minimal and also gets deactivated during a crit, which while very Achilles makes it even more situational than it already is, and the transcendence is just... bad.
Weapon Ikons
Weapon ikons are by far the most solid of the three types. Only downside is that there are a few weapon types that aren't really supported here. Unarmed/natural, more types of Bludgeoning, and "precision ranged".
Barrow's Edge: Very solid. Making their soul bleed is awesome, and the transcend is great. Very good one.
Fated Shot: Excellent. Immanence is respectable, and spammable aoe, even a small burst, is great for a ranged martial.
Gleaming Blade: It's bonus damage and double strike, what's not to love. Solid.
Noble Branch: The Transcend needs to be clarified, but if it works how I think (ex: If I hit you for 2d10+6, the transcend does 2d10), then this is really nice and I like it a lot.
Titan's Breaker: I can crush castles with a club, just give me enough time. Honestly an incredible option.
Worn Ikons
Palisade Bangles: Immanence is solid, I'm glad that the designers realized the anti-synergy with shields and attempted to call it out, but in this circumstance it might be better to say something like "This bonus can stack with any circumstance bonus provided by shields"? Transcend is... meh. At base level it can shift an enemy 2 squares towards you if they fail a low Fort save. At 15 that goes up to 4 squares, but still not great.
Skybearer's Belt: A funny one. Could be fun for a grappler since this is "almost" Titan Wrestler while active, with some bonus carrying capacity. Transcend is a fun "Get the squishy out of harm's way" ability, but considering how often the mantra is to kill the enemy before they kill you, this is a lot of actions to do a slight reposition.
Thousand-League Sandals: Immanence is great on it's face, but an aura that grants move-speed is odd to implement in a turn-based game, especially one with such a small radius. It leads to a scenario where the exemplar almost wants to go last, so that everyone can move first, and then the Exemplar can go catch up to them before their next turn starts. Transcend is fantastic.
Victor's Wreath: Lesser Inspire Courage at all times is solid, again, wish there was a better range, but solid. Transcend is fantastic. Honestly the best one of them all in my opinion. Doing s@#% like letting people return from being petrified, giving them chances to shrug off curses, fantastic. It also doesn't "guarantee" that they can just cure any plague in a narrative, as if the town is afflicted by a plague and the Wreath gives them a new save, it may just end up hastening someone's death. Very strong in certain scenarios but not overwhelmingly so from a purely narrative standpoint
Feats 1-5
Sanctified Soul: Oh look, you become sanctified.
Twin Stars: This is an example of why I think Exemplars NEED a feat at level 1. If someone wants to be a dual-wielding exemplar, this feat is pretty crucial for them.
Vow of Mortal Defiance: Deicide, the 1st level feat. Love it.
Claim Initiate Domain: Fun. Focus spells are nice.
Leap the Falls: Animist wishes it had this. Unironically good, though I wish it wasn't inherently tied to if your body was active, but I can see the reasoning.
Thorns of Mortality: Fantastic feat. Barrow's Edge would pair well with this. Screw your regenerating monsters.
Hurl At The Horizon: Neat idea, but technically it means you often just hurl your weapon at someone... and then can't get it back without running after it. You technically can't etch returning on a weapon that isn't thrown at base. Someone elsewhere suggested also giving it a transcend that does something and returns the weapon to your hand. Or it requires you to spend your 6th level feat to also get...
Only the Worthy: Fun. Another solid Thor reference. As written you can use this like old school immovable rods, since you could command it to remain in place while in mid-air, which I'm super okay with. Love this feat.
Through the Needle's Eye: Here's that support for precision ranged I mentioned before, but this is a save against a low dc for one round of blinded. Not sure I'd ever recommend this.
Feats 6-10
Motionless Cutter: Love it. Three actions for up to possibly 4 attacks. Very gamble-heavy as there's always a chance you miss the first attack and blow your whole turn.
Reactive Strike: It's Reactive Strike. The existence of this also makes Gaze Sharp As Steel even worse.
Binding Serpents Celestial Arrow: A cool ability, but as written what exactly happens with the thrown version? Do you lose access to the weapon until they escape?
Additional Ikon: Solid, but this makes the spark juggling game harder. Also: it's not really addressed how this handles the feats/epithets that buff your ikons. If I take Additional Ikon: Worn, do both of my Worn ikons get the benefits of my Sovereignty Epithet? Do I need to pick one?
Claim Advanced Domain: More domain magic. Fun.
Dominion Signifier: Solid damage options.
Fish from the Falls' Edge: Once Per Day Breath of Life, but it also turns off your key class features for a round... Not sure about this one. I think at this point I'd rather just go the route of picking up Trick Magic Item and using a Staff of Healing. Very flavorful though.
Journey of the Sky Chariot: The first piece of worn ikon support, and it's a good one. Unfortunately, because it deactivates if you shift your spark, it essentially precludes you from using anything but your worn ikon while you're flying or you fall.
Mated Birds in Paired Flight: Very fun dual-wielding feat.
Feats 11-15
Compliant Gold: STAFF GET LONGER. Love this. Very solid.
Extract Vow of Nonviolence: This is a fun one. I think that two actions might be a lot, I'd prefer it to be a single action like Demoralize.
Warped by Rage: Another fun one. At first I was going to gripe about the enlarge getting turned off when you transcend, but the transcend fixes that. This means that with careful sparking/shifting you can maintain the enlarge indefinitely. Love it.
Destined Victory: The only other worn ikon support feat. It provides a defensive bent to a worn ikon, which is odd on it's face, but I appreciate the ability to spread the love around and make it not quite as crippling defensively to have your worn ikon active between turns. Very solid immanence and transcend, very good feat.
Infinite Blades Celestial Arrow: looks solid. If the Immanence functions like the Noble Branch transcend, it's really solid. Transcend is absolutely bonkers and I love it.
Feats 16-20
Seven-Colored Cosmic Bridge: Immanence is incredible. Transcend is incredible. Great feat.
Strike Rivers, Seize Winds: This one is... interesting. Very flavorful, but it essentially gives you a small pool of 1/day spells. Honestly pretty solid overall.
Eternity-Incinerating Blaze: Jesus christ. Now this is an 18th level feat. Inducing doomed on crits is already fantastic, bonus damage strike that also has the ability of just ERASING SOMEONE FROM TIME. It should be clarified if the target is able to be resurrected, because my knee-jerk reaction is that it'd take a Wish to restore them to the timeline.
Sunwrecker: Man. After following the last feat "I get free darkness spells on crits" is a big step down. The Transcend is equally a step down, it's a big burst of darkness that you're guaranteed to see through, and is super hard to dispel. Flavorful, but not in the same league as the previous feat.
Cutting Without Blade: this is...... fine? I guess the biggest benefit of this is just the ability to move your spark, as a free action. Lots of flavor, and then the main mechanical benefit is that shift spark is now a free action. Kind of underwhelming though.
A Place Beyond Mortality: This is oddly written? It's a once per day activated, requires you have one point in your focus pool, but you stop aging? Do you resume aging if you use that last focus point? Idk I am probably being semantic. This is a good feat. Never a huge fan of "You must die for this to see benefit" though. I guess it does let the Exemplar go a bit hog wild during the end of a campaign since they can just ignore death once each day.
Re-reading this post I realize that I might be coming across as negative. I'd like to be clear that I'm EXTREMELY enthused for this class and am already awaiting the end of 2024 so I can get my hands on the full release. If I wasn't, I wouldn't have spent this much time doing such a thorough review and analysis. I do think there are some hiccups to be worked out, but this is why we do the playtest. Few key takeaways:
1) I think Exemplars need at least medium armor, or at least need their armor proficiency to scale faster. We want them to wear light armor? Maybe consider letting them hit legendary in light armor at some point.
2) I think Worn Ikons need some love. The auras feel too small and by and large most of them feel pretty underwhelming in general. The Sovereignty Epithets should also provide some passive benefit outside of the immanence/transcend, in my opinion.
3) I think there are a few anti-synergy pieces here and there that desperately need to be addressed. The number of "if you miss" abilities is very high for a class that will have a relatively low AC. Teacher of Heroes turning off it's own ability immediately after transcending, things like that.
4) I think a main comparison point with this class should be the Kineticist. It fills a similar niche of "I have a small pool of abilities I can repeatedly spam while being primarily a martial". Kineticist ends up with better AC, better attack rolls, is less MAD, has a wider variety of abilities, and is less complex to play from round-to-round. All in all I struggle to find what about the Exemplar makes them not just a strictly worse version of Kineticist in most avenues of comparison. Again, I'm very enthused for this class, I'm just sincerely hoping this gets the Kineticist treatment of seeing a significant improvement from playtest to release.
One quick error there in your analysis - Kineticist impulse scaling is by character level. At level 3, Oceans Balm heals 2d8 HP. (a +2 on impulses is basically the same as +1 on spells, but impulses also do things like +3 and such in places)
Ope. You're right. I'll go fix that.
There, fixed. Thanks for catching that.
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Light Armor Expertise: YIKES, this comes super late.
Light Armor Mastery at 19 is oof.
I think you're overestimating how bad these are. 13/19 is fairly standard. Rogue, Barbarian, Swashbuckler, Gunslinger, Investigator, Kineticist all follow that progression. Inventor, Magus, Thaumaturge, and Ranger get expertise 2 levels earlier but still get Master at 19.
Fighter is the only master-tier armor class that gets both early.
Light Armor Expertise: YIKES, this comes super late.Light Armor Mastery at 19 is oof.I think you're overestimating how bad these are. 13/19 is fairly standard. Rogue, Barbarian, Swashbuckler, Gunslinger, Investigator, Kineticist all follow that progression. Inventor, Magus, Thaumaturge, and Ranger get expertise 2 levels earlier but still get Master at 19.
Fighter is the only master-tier armor class that gets both early.
Possibly, but my thinking is more along the lines of the armor type limitation.
Light: Rogue, Swashbuckler, Investigator, Kineticist (Which can often still use medium or heavy armor through infusions).
Medium: Barbarian, Gunslinger, Inventor, Magus, Thaumaturge, Ranger.
I probably should've phrased my initial commentary better, but my thoughts are more focused on "If we're going to limit this class to light armor, and not give them an avenue outside of archetypes for anything heavier, then we may wish to bump up when they get the increases". Personally, I'm ultimately fine with sticking to light armor only if we set their proficiency increases to be in line with fighter.
The class is only mad if your want to use your class DC on certain abilities as it keys off charisma
Otherwise it isn't mad unless you don't like having to make choices at character creation
The class is only mad if your want to use your class DC on certain abilities as it keys off charisma
Otherwise it isn't mad unless you don't like having to make choices at character creation
Doing a quick check of how many of the playtest abilities key off your class DC.
Root Epithets: 0
Dominion Epithet: 3/4
Sovereignty Epithet: 2/3
Body Ikons: 1/4
Weapon Ikons: 1/5
Worn Ikons: 1/4
Feats: 7/29
So on average, if you wanted to be less MAD and dump charisma, you'd essentially trashcan 1/4 of available exemplar abilities. Can you do so and still easily have a great exemplar? Sure. But saying "You only are MAD if you want to use 1/4 of the class" is not a great feeling.
(Again leaving this up for clarity and posterity rather than doing a dirty delete)
So after a quick re-review, I'm fairly certain the class DC will scale of strength/dexterity, charisma is only necessary for your domain spells. So you really only need 4 stats if you're going the domain route, and even then you can opt to focus on domains that buff and thus don't really need high DCs. So in fact you really only need Str/Dex/Con, and can mostly dump the others.
The class is only mad if your want to use your class DC on certain abilities as it keys off charisma
Otherwise it isn't mad unless you don't like having to make choices at character creation
Doing a quick check of how many of the playtest abilities key off your class DC.
Root Epithets: 0
Dominion Epithet: 3/4
Sovereignty Epithet: 2/3Body Ikons: 1/4
Weapon Ikons: 1/5
Worn Ikons: 1/4Feats: 7/29
So on average, if you wanted to be less MAD and dump charisma, you'd essentially trashcan 1/4 of available exemplar abilities. Can you do so and still easily have a great exemplar? Sure. But saying "You only are MAD if you want to use 1/4 of the class" is not a great feeling.
(Again leaving this up for clarity and posterity rather than doing a dirty delete)
So after a quick re-review, I'm fairly certain the class DC will scale of strength/dexterity, charisma is only necessary for your domain spells. So you really only need 4 stats if you're going the domain route, and even then you can opt to focus on domains that buff and thus don't really need high DCs. So in fact you really only need Str/Dex/Con, and can mostly dump the others.
You can ignore or invest less in strength,... So this seems somewhat incorrect.
But this is what I mean by you making choices
You want high strength, capped AC and good charisma (14-16) you accept an investment of feats into armor
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If I were a youtuber, this is where I'd insert a clickbait title. Instead, I'm just going to give you a massive wall of text. Apologies in advance, and I don't honestly expect any replies, but I hope my input is of some small benefit to the designers. I'm going to go over the class chassis, then the ikons, then feats. Starting FROM THE TOP
Initial Profs + Level 1
Perception, Saving Throws, Attacks, Class DC are all solid.
Skills is odd because the only other classes to date that had Int+2 Skills were Champion, Druid, Cleric and Wizard. I'm assuming the real comparison point here is Champion, since Druid/Cleric/Wizard lose out on some skills in exchange for their incredibly versatile spellcasting. In the Champion's case, they do often end up feeling slightly lackluster during RP due to the skill limit but they have the flavor of the "Paladin" behavior to lean on. Actually no, re-reading champion, Champion also has the bonus skill from their deity. As does Cleric, and Druid gets one from their order, so this skill limit is really only present on Wizard, an Intelligence focused class. For lack of a better term, the fact that Exemplars are already fairly MAD (They want Strength, Dex, Con, and Cha at the least), most Exemplars will have at most 10 Int. This has the side-effect of making Exemplars the "Dumbest" class.
Defenses is also rough because of the light armor limit. I get the sense from this class that the desire is to go glass cannon, but given the proclivity of heroes and their ability to shrug off incredible blows, this feels somewhat counter-productive. Medium armor prof would be my preference, and I foresee a lot of Exemplar-Sentinels in our future. Not a fan of this honestly, I'd prefer to see at least Medium armor included.
Humble Strikes is a nice feature. While I don't think it'll really change anything, it's a nice nod to the source material. Unfortunately, Martial Weapons can still get higher damage dice than any simple weapon can even with this buff, and come with a...
This feels like a Guide to the playtest Exemplar. Extremely useful : concise but clear on the why.
Thanks a lot.
This feels like a Guide to the playtest Exemplar. Extremely useful : concise but clear on the why.
Thanks a lot.
You're welcome! Glad you found it helpful.
I wonder how Only the Worthy interacts with Twin Stars. It says "while so Released, you can’t use the ikon" Can I not swing the second weapon if I use one to hold an enemy down?
I can see how that might be confusing. I would say that you can still use the second weapon, as it explicitly calls out the Twin Star as a "Copy".
The class is only mad if your want to use your class DC on certain abilities as it keys off charisma
Otherwise it isn't mad unless you don't like having to make choices at character creation
Why would Class DC use Charisma? The Key Ability/Attribute is Str or Dex. Cha is used for Domain stuff if you grab them with feats, but that is not the same thing as Class DC.
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Adding some personal observations on a few of the options I haven't seen mentioned, notably on a few of the effects I disagree with/believe some of the power was not acknowledged on.
Motionless Cutter: Cool ability conceptually, but suffers from a myriad of issues. Each attack has to be vs a different target, so you cannot focus fire a single enemy; it is also a 3a, meaning you have to be in reach of multiple targets at turn start as you do not have time to Stride. All of this is on top of requiring each attack to hit in order to continue striking, and as the class does not have accelerated accuracy scaling like the Fighter, more often than not hero points will be required in order to successfully hit all of the attacks. All in all, it feels a bit like a trap option, especially if you miss your initial strike and have to pass turn.
Thief of Moonlight Transcendence: After having seen a player run this in a Night of the Gray Death Chapter 2 run, I can state that the Incapacitation effect is not a problem with this ability. Failure results in a target being functionally blinded for the whole combat, which is an insane initial fail result when fighting mobs, but against bosses, the Transcendence is still at minimum a 2a Stride+ Invisibility for 1 round, and noteably that is Invisibility, not the Invisibility Spell, so it does not break on a hostile action. Considering Last Ruler does not have a rider effect for when the enemy passes their save, I would argue that this is the stronger ability due to its consolation effect.
Eye-catching spot is actively bad as a 2-action, as it restricts your application of your Body epithets by making them harder to trigger, and is slower than the comparable Martial class option through the Battledancer Swashbuckler's Fascinating Performance/Focused Fascination. Considering how bread-and-butter the Root Epithets are to the individual playstyles, I don't think any Body transcendence should take longer to activate than the others.
Thousand League Sandals immanence is a bit strange, but is made valuable by boosting allies on the Transcendence, making it a very good option for either kiting opponents or running them down.
If I remember anything else, I'll drop it here as well; thanks for the thorough writeup in any case. +)
Adding some personal observations on a few of the options I haven't seen mentioned, notably on a few of the effects I disagree with/believe some of the power was not acknowledged on.
I generally agree with your points. I hadn't thought about Motionless Cutter like that, but I agree it's a bit more trap-y then I would like.
Thief of Moonlight is also a good shout.
Thousand League Sandals I still feel is kinda clunky. Maybe I'm personally biased, but I'd prefer something like "At the start of your turn, allies within your aura gain +10ft speed until the end of their next turn." Solves a little bit of the aura weirdness, lets them benefit from it for more than a single move action.
You're welcome :)