I know some folks have brought up issues with the AC of the Daredevil, but that seems pretty average to me, with it kind of interesting that the class is being pushed hard away from shields.
But a Martial class that ends with Master Fortitude, Master Reflex and Expert will seems pretty much caster bad, but without any of the big special abilities that martial classes like the Commander (or the play test Runesmith) have. Combined with the 8 HP and the abilities that all seem like they are designed to get you targeted a lot, it feels like this class is very, very glass cannon-ish, but without really having much of a cannon in the first place.
Like, I think it is a really cool class concept, and I really like most of the abilities in it, but I am failing to see what having bottom of the barrel martial defenses have bought this class.
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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.
The one thing I was wondering is if the fact that, generally, legendary saves come with critical failure mitigation made the developers shy away from it on the high risk, High reward class. But I think it would be better if the class did get legendary in both fort and reflex, and just didn't get the crit failure mitigation ability, if that was what was holding it back.
This is the class that conceptually should be rushing into the room that might be trapped afterall, and the fact that their saves are terrible and they have no HP is going to make that kind of brashness a terrible idea.
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I don't disagree. It seems the Daredevil is very dependent on positioning and mobility to position itself away from AoEs and possibly range itself away from whoever can do AoEs.
I think something we need to provide feedback to the devs is specifically about ENVIRONMENT.
A large open space with sparse columns/trees lends to being able to spread out and push the enemy away, but limits the amount of Props available to the Daredevil.
But an enclosed space which offers the Daredevil lots of walls to slam enemies into, means the Daredevil is very open to attacks due to mobility being hampered.
I'm not fully sure 8HP is the right direction. I'm sure we have an idea on what would happen in situations, I think we'll need to do due diligence to reinforce those facts to the developers in our feedback.
I am hypothesizing the Daredevill will fare poorly in enclosed spaces at higher levels due to being fragile amongst AoE.
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Perhaps simply making the class 12 HP per level would be a solution to all these problems without significantly altering the class itself?
It would still be a Daredevil class, requiring a lot of dexterity due to the use of light armor, with saves that don't stand out in any way, all reflecting the risks it takes, but with enough HP to indicate that it can survive the worst of it all and come back alive.
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What if poor AC is the point? Like they are supposed to get hit. I mean it's there in the description of adrenaline and risky actions. If so they need a bonus from taking damage. Like going into adrenaline from being hit. or maybe some ability to strike someone who just damaged them.
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Even if getting hit is kind of the point, the class should have more HP anyways, more so if its supposedly getting hit constantly. That's the same rationale of why barbarians have 12 + Con HP, because they are reckless (even though the other recklesness aspect, the -1 to AC when raging, was luckily removed).
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It's not that uncommon for a martial to get 2 master saves and one expert. You mentioned commander, but alchemist, fighter, gunslinger, inventor, and the two wave casters don't get legendary proficiency in any save either.
It's not that uncommon for a martial to get 2 master saves and one expert. You mentioned commander, but alchemist, fighter, gunslinger, inventor, and the two wave casters don't get legendary proficiency in any save either.
Alchemist is arguably closer to a caster in chassis, and fighter and gunslinger have legendary weapon proficiencies.
The inventor...yeah, I wouldn't expect much.
I am not personally worried about AC, mobility can compensate AC. I am worried about reflex and fortitude saves in particular.
Fighter gets legendary attacks and a pretty good will save booster, even if their will saves are not great otherwise.
Commander gets legendary DC and these tactics that are nearly spell like in their versatility. They also are not a class that should be deliberately doing risky things that could easily set off traps.
Alchemist gets all kinds of ways to mitigate saving throws and defenses.
The gun slinger is a ranged class that can stay out of most air situations.
Wave casters get spells that can all help off set this stuff.
I have largely ignored the inventor as a class and will probably continue to do so.
But the daredevil does not have any cool unique niche that replaces a legendary defense of some kind, in my opinion. They aren’t better at damage than a rogue or monk really. They don’t get extra skills, they are only a 8 HO class. They are going to get shredded by auras, emanations, and area effects. Casters are going to eat them alive.
One alternative that could be interesting is if they got a reaction where they could use acrobatics instead of their reflex for one save or athletics instead of fortitude.
Regarding saves: Perhaps it would make sense to have Galvanized Mobility apply to Ref saves as well as AC vs. reactions. IMO, that would fit in with class concept without including the Legendary risk mitigation for critical failures.
Regarding hit points: I think it could make sense for Adrenaline to add temporary hit points equal to class level (1/2 class level for the multiclass archetype) until the start of the next turn. Considering that hit points are an abstraction that includes "stamina" and adrenaline boosts stamina IRL.
Regarding props/terrain: An earth/wood kineticist would probably be one of the "best buddies" to have in the party with a daredevil, creating terrain that could be used as props.
I also thought about a Constitution KAS daredevil that used its Con modifier for Athletics and (maybe) Acrobatics checks.
I could also think it would be fun if, rather than borrow from the old 1e brawler in the unarmed combatant aspects, borrow its unarmored aspects and allow it to add its Constitution modifier instead of Dexterity for the purposes of AC. Wrestler (both the PF2e archetype and overall concept) is clearly one of the inspiration for the class and those are people known to be shirtless lol. It could be represented as their bodies being hardened from the constant risks they take.
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Enduring Adrenaline should be a level 1 class feature. That would help survivability without just being "give more base HP" because it's encouraging you to get adrenaline, which is what the class wants you to do.
As it stands now it comes far too late to matter.
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I've been thinking (and fiddling around in tests) and I think instead, the Daredevil needs to look at the Kineticist, not the Swashbuckler on how to do this "combo system" of being "ON" and unleashing its power before being turned OFF" at its beginning turn. It's essentially an Overflow Martial Maneuver Kineticist.
i feel like there's a more coherent version that looks to the Kineticist by making it a CON class that applies Class DC to Stunts or CON KAS to Athletics/Acrobatics and also auto scales either Athletics or Acrobatics.
Because then, you use Audacious Combat to only apply to Strikes and make it match the results of a +1 STR lvl. 1 Daredevil (instead of +7/+3/-1 for all parts, it's only +7 to your maneuver, then +3/-1 if striking. The Daredevil right now WANTS to make maneuvers and will do it at its highest of +7. Then Audacious Combat makes your Press Strikes match a standard martial. To solve the lack of STR to damage, you use Stunt Damage to add to your Strikes (or pushing any enemy into a Prop/Wall).
This ties a lot of their abilities together and also just drops the whole issue of STR/Light Armor, because it's never worked before and it will never work now.
This also solves the Daredevil's 8HP issue, making it more like a 12HP class. Can even make Risky more like a Burn mechanic that got dropped from 2e Kineticist.
So ya, I guess that's my philosophical armchair idea.
If we want a Constitution KAS then we need to be vocal about it on the survey. So far I don't think no class changed KAS between playtest and release.
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I'm against the constitution as key.
We already have our quota of martial classes that don't use STR or DEX as key stats.
To have an alternative key stat the class needs to be made around it, like the kineticist does. Even so, it's well known as a bad class for skills due to this.
To use CON the class should have to be remade from scratch, and I doubt that the designer will do this.
If HP is a problem, just give it 12 HP per level like barbarians.
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I am also not in favor of CON as Key. The class is all about athletics or acrobatics as a focus. You want the one you will be using once or twice a turn to be you Key attribute. With Con as KAS, one of the two of these skills will be almost unusable for you, at least for difficult tasks.
I am even less of a fan of letting CON work for one or both of these skills. You don’t tough your way up a mountain (maybe down) or across a balance beam.
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I've got no issue with CON as KAS, but it doesn't really fit how the class works right now. If you're also adding something like adrenaline stacking and how much of that you can do is CON based? Sure, given the intensity of that on your body.
But this is a maneuver focused class right now and that's much more of a STR thing. I don't see how CON fits the playtest class.
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What about choosing between Str, Dex, and Con? If you could replace the attribute modifier of checks you make as part of daredevil abilities with your KAS there wouldn't be a problem, and it would allow for different flavors of daredevils to be represented (and mix Str and Dex features together as well). A Str daredevil is likely going to the conventional strongman, a Dex daredevil a more agile combatant that puts itself in danger but knows how dodge blows effectively, while a Con daredevil would represent the totally reckless daredevil that takes hits left and right but its left unfaced.
Probably a bit too convoluted, but certainly original.
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I wouldn't mind Str, Dex, and Con, but as far as I remember, there are no classes that do more than 2 options. So I didn't wanna step over the unsaid 2 choice limit. But I don't think it'd necessarily be broken. I'd be open to that.
Rogues can technically choose all attributes except Wis (at least if you ignore eldritch trickster, if you include it then its all attributes).
Edit: All except Constitution.
I know some folks have brought up issues with the AC of the Daredevil, but that seems pretty average to me, with it kind of interesting that the class is being pushed hard away from shields.
But a Martial class that ends with Master Fortitude, Master Reflex and Expert will seems pretty much caster bad, but without any of the big special abilities that martial classes like the Commander (or the play test Runesmith) have. Combined with the 8 HP and the abilities that all seem like they are designed to get you targeted a lot, it feels like this class is very, very glass cannon-ish, but without really having much of a cannon in the first place.
Like, I think it is a really cool class concept, and I really like most of the abilities in it, but I am failing to see what having bottom of the barrel martial defenses have bought this class.
I talked with one of my players about odd grab bag of little defensive abilites the Daredevil class has: Die Hard and extra healing from Treat Wounds at 1st level, Deny Advantage and Galvanized Mobility at 3rd level, and Evasive Reflexes at 7th level. She pointed out that they were designed so that the daredevil could rush (or charge with Caroming Charge) into the middle of a band of enemies and not pay a heavy price. That is the focus of the daredevil's defenses. Spellcasters throwing ranged spells don't care about the daredevil's location, so I guess the Paizo designers paid no special attention to the saves.
As for their saving throws, the daredevil appears to be in the same martial family as rogue and swashbuckler, more a clever skirmisher than a stalwart tank. 20th-level rogue has master proficiency in light armor, success-means-crit expert in Fortitude, success-means-crit legendary in Reflex, and success-means-crit master in Will. 20th-level swashbuckler has master proficiency in light armor, expert in Fortitude, no-crit-failure legendary in Reflex, and success-means-crit master in Will. And the 20th-level playtest daredevil has master proficiency in light armor, success-means-crit master in Fortitude, success-means-crit master in Reflexes, and expert in Will. That is +6/+4/+8/+6 for rogue, +6/+4/+8/+6 for swashbuckler, and +6/+6/+6/+4 for daredevil. The daredevil is a little short, but improving the saves to no-crit-failure master in Will saves would be more fitting for their daring attitude than legendary in Reflex saves.
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I think something we need to provide feedback to the devs is specifically about ENVIRONMENT.
A large open space with sparse columns/trees lends to being able to spread out and push the enemy away, but limits the amount of Props available to the Daredevil.
But an enclosed space which offers the Daredevil lots of walls to slam enemies into, means the Daredevil is very open to attacks due to mobility being hampered.
I am adding the playtest daredevil to my ongoing Strength of Thousands campaign, so I can see the future battlemaps. The next encounter is along a coastal road. The module did not provide a map, so I copied the map of Big Creek Beach in Oregon from Google Maps. Alas, I have not yet had any practice in identifying which real-world terrain features count as Props. Is a sandy creek bank a Prop? I would treat a sturdy tree trunk as a Prop, but how do I spot them from above?
The module provides the next map, an underground lair with a lot of 15 foot by 25 foot rooms. That should be good for Forceful Kickoff Stunt, because a wall is always within 15 feet, but what kind of objects would be workable with Breakaway Attack? For example, if a room shows only a bed and a nightstand, can either be used? Maybe a nightstand has a chamber pot or wash basin for a single use in Breakaway Attack. This calls for a lot of GM improvisation. My wife is excellent at making suggestions about possibilities: she suggested the chamber pot. And also suggested the blanket on the bed as an entangling attack. Does Breakaway Attack require such imagination?
I am hypothesizing the Daredevill will fare poorly in enclosed spaces at higher levels due to being fragile amongst AoE.
Maybe being able to easily deal stunt damage in a small room compensates for not being able to protect the daredevil with mobility. Also, Scrambling Roll, daredevil feat 8, can give a +2 circumstance bonus to a Reflex save.
I wouldn't mind Str, Dex, and Con, but as far as I remember, there are no classes that do more than 2 options. So I didn't wanna step over the unsaid 2 choice limit. But I don't think it'd necessarily be broken. I'd be open to that.Rogues can technically choose all attributes except Wis (at least if you ignore eldritch trickster, if you include it then its all attributes).
Edit: All except Constitution.
Rogues are Paizo designers's “secret” love! :P
I don't use too much as reference for new classes because, eh, you know…
I talked with one of my players about odd grab bag of little defensive abilites the Daredevil class has: Die Hard and extra healing from Treat Wounds at 1st level, Deny Advantage and Galvanized Mobility at 3rd level, and Evasive Reflexes at 7th level. She pointed out that they were designed so that the daredevil could rush (or charge with Caroming Charge) into the middle of a band of enemies and not pay a heavy price. That is the focus of the daredevil's defenses. Spellcasters throwing ranged spells don't care about the daredevil's location, so I guess the Paizo designers paid no special attention to the saves.I know some folks have brought up issues with the AC of the Daredevil, but that seems pretty average to me, with it kind of interesting that the class is being pushed hard away from shields.
But a Martial class that ends with Master Fortitude, Master Reflex and Expert will seems pretty much caster bad, but without any of the big special abilities that martial classes like the Commander (or the play test Runesmith) have. Combined with the 8 HP and the abilities that all seem like they are designed to get you targeted a lot, it feels like this class is very, very glass cannon-ish, but without really having much of a cannon in the first place.
Like, I think it is a really cool class concept, and I really like most of the abilities in it, but I am failing to see what having bottom of the barrel martial defenses have bought this class.
Die hard an extra healing from treat wounds are both general feats, and Robust Health is a pretty good one, so it's likely a lot of characters will wind up with that anyway. And they don't stack.
So this is only an advantage for the Daredevil early on before other folks start taking Robust Health. It's not bad per-se, but it's something a Fighter can also pretty easily have once you get into the mid level range.
It feels worse on Daredevil because even if the defenses are in that 8 HP martial range, Daredevil has a lot more stuff that wants them to be moving around and thus can provoke reactions more often by using any of that.
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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.
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I know some folks have brought up issues with the AC of the Daredevil, but that seems pretty average to me, with it kind of interesting that the class is being pushed hard away from shields.
But a Martial class that ends with Master Fortitude, Master Reflex and Expert will seems pretty much caster bad, but without any of the big special abilities that martial classes like the Commander (or the play test Runesmith) have. Combined with the 8 HP and the abilities that all seem like they are designed to get you targeted a lot, it feels like this class is very, very glass cannon-ish, but without really having much of a cannon in the first place.
Like, I think it is a really cool class concept, and I really like most of the abilities in it, but I am failing to see what having bottom of the barrel martial defenses have bought this class.
I talked with one of my players about odd grab bag of little defensive abilites the Daredevil class has: Die Hard and extra healing from Treat Wounds at 1st level, Deny Advantage and Galvanized Mobility at 3rd level, and Evasive Reflexes at 7th level. She pointed out that they were designed so that the daredevil could rush (or charge with Caroming Charge) into the middle of a band of enemies and not pay a heavy price. That is the focus of the daredevil's defenses. Spellcasters throwing ranged spells don't care about the daredevil's location, so I guess the Paizo designers paid no special attention to the saves.
As for their saving throws, the daredevil appears to be in the same martial family as rogue and swashbuckler, more a clever skirmisher than a stalwart tank. 20th-level rogue has master proficiency in light armor, success-means-crit expert in Fortitude, success-means-crit legendary in Reflex, and success-means-crit master in Will. 20th-level swashbuckler has master proficiency in light armor, expert in Fortitude, no-crit-failure legendary in Reflex, and success-means-crit master in Will. And the 20th-level playtest daredevil has master...
I also notice this, but IMO the main problem with current daredevil abilities are enemies with Reactive Strike and similar movement-triggering reactions.
Even with Galvanized Mobility the risk is too high. IMO the class needs more HP to deal with the extra risk of needing to become so mobile and needing access to medium armor to not be forced to sacrifice HP, damage, or athletics because you needed to put your initial dex stat in a minimal 2.
This might be a silly idea, but if we want to improve the Daredevil's defenses, which I very much think is needed, what if we did it by dramatically improving their AC and saves, while keeping their HP the same or lower? Say, for instance, expert proficiency in all of those statistics, with many or even most of them scaling to legendary? Given that this is meant to be the high-risk class, making their survival depend on rolling each time, with potential for lucky breaks and dire consequences each time, might fit the bill better than more HP, even if the latter would be the far more straightforward way to help the class right now.
And on that note, I agree that the current Daredevil's defenses are awful. I'm fine with the class being in constant danger and triggering lots of Reactive Strikes, but the class right now has some of the worst defenses a martial class can get, which makes them difficult to function in melee for long, and the rewards for taking those risks really aren't there at the moment. If need be, I'd gladly trade off their pseudo-Combat Flexibility features for those extra defensive proficiency bumps.
Expert to legendary defenses would make it basically a tank. Even with 8 HP. IMO this goes against the idea of taking risks. Instead, probably many players will just build it around to survive instead of taking risks using some archetype to make it even more tanky instead of investing in press feats.
I talked with one of my players about odd grab bag of little defensive abilites the Daredevil class has: Die Hard and extra healing from Treat Wounds at 1st level, Deny Advantage and Galvanized Mobility at 3rd level, and Evasive Reflexes at 7th level. She pointed out that they were designed so that the daredevil could rush (or charge with Caroming Charge) into the middle of a band of enemies and not pay a heavy price. That is the focus of the daredevil's defenses. Spellcasters throwing ranged spells don't care about the daredevil's location, so I guess the Paizo designers paid no special attention to the saves.I know some folks have brought up issues with the AC of the Daredevil, but that seems pretty average to me, with it kind of interesting that the class is being pushed hard away from shields.
But a Martial class that ends with Master Fortitude, Master Reflex and Expert will seems pretty much caster bad, but without any of the big special abilities that martial classes like the Commander (or the play test Runesmith) have. Combined with the 8 HP and the abilities that all seem like they are designed to get you targeted a lot, it feels like this class is very, very glass cannon-ish, but without really having much of a cannon in the first place.
Like, I think it is a really cool class concept, and I really like most of the abilities in it, but I am failing to see what having bottom of the barrel martial defenses have bought this class.
Die hard an extra healing from treat wounds are both general feats, and Robust Health is a pretty good one, so it's likely a lot of characters will wind up with that anyway. And they don't stack.
So this is only an advantage for the Daredevil early on before other folks start taking Robust Health. It's not bad per-se, but it's something a Fighter can also pretty easily have once you get into the mid level range.
I am a bit annoyed with daredevil’s half robust health, since it doesn’t give you the important part of robust health (the battle medicine cooldown reduction) you still have to take robust health or godless healing anyways.
Like come on just have it give the lower cooldown.
Expert to legendary defenses would make it basically a tank. Even with 8 HP. IMO this goes against the idea of taking risks. Instead, probably many players will just build it around to survive instead of taking risks using some archetype to make it even more tanky instead of investing in press feats.
A class with legendary AC and exactly 1 maximum HP would rather obviously not be a tank, so clearly AC is only one component of tankiness, and significantly lower HP would prevent this class from being a tank on the same level as a Champion or Guardian. I also question what risk-averse, ultra-survivable builds exist that would actually work on a legendary AC Daredevil, given that neither Champions nor Guardians appear to spend all that much effort archetyping for even more AC than they can get by default.
The one risk I see, with both the above and the vanilla Daredevil, is that the class runs the same risk as the Monk where they could easily synergize quite a bit with a shield, despite it not really fitting the class's identity. The solution to that, in my opinion, could be to take the class's Galvanized Mobility feature and simply give the Daredevil a catch-all +2 circumstance bonus to AC while they have adrenaline, in which case they'd have the equivalent of expert-to-legendary AC without needing that proficiency track.
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I talked with one of my players about odd grab bag of little defensive abilites the Daredevil class has: Die Hard and extra healing from Treat Wounds at 1st level, Deny Advantage and Galvanized Mobility at 3rd level, and Evasive Reflexes at 7th level. She pointed out that they were designed so that the daredevil could rush (or charge with Caroming Charge) into the middle of a band of enemies and not pay a heavy price. That is the focus of the daredevil's defenses. Spellcasters throwing ranged spells don't care about the daredevil's location, so I guess the Paizo designers paid no special attention to the saves.
As for their saving throws, the daredevil appears to be in the same martial family as rogue and swashbuckler, more a clever skirmisher than a stalwart tank. 20th-level rogue has master proficiency in light armor, success-means-crit expert in Fortitude, success-means-crit legendary in Reflex, and success-means-crit master in Will. 20th-level swashbuckler has master proficiency in light armor, expert in Fortitude, no-crit-failure legendary in Reflex, and success-means-crit master in Will. And the 20th-level playtest daredevil has master...
I also notice this, but IMO the main problem with current daredevil abilities are enemies with Reactive Strike and similar movement-triggering reactions.
Even with Galvanized Mobility the risk is too high. IMO the class needs more HP to deal with the extra risk of needing to become so mobile and needing access to medium armor to not be forced to sacrifice HP, damage, or athletics because you needed to put your initial dex stat in a minimal 2.
Back in 2014 my elder daughter moved to Seattle and left her character sheet of her PF1 gnome barbarian Muffin with her mother, who had a sorcerer character in the same Serpent's Skull campaign. My wife persuaded me to join the campaign and I decided run Muffin. Muffin was an interesting build, designed for wilderness survival with high Constitution rather than for massive damage with high Strength. She had Mobility and would deliberately provoke an Attack of Opportunity by running behind Large opponents so that the party rogue could safely close in for a flank. Sometimes the Attack of Opportunity hit, but Muffin had the hit points to take the damage, as opposed to the lower hit points of the rogue.
I guess that was a daredevil tactic. The people here who point out that the daredevil needs more HP have a good point.
I built an NPC playtest daredevil, Kittyhawk, for my current Strength of Thousands campaign, but she has not joined the party yet. And she will face opponents with some reactions that will provide good playtest data. The Abendego Brute has No Escape to follow characters who move away. The Abendego Jailer has Reactive Strike. The Abendego Priest has Sodden Defense, which triggers when an attacker misses or critically misses the Abendego priest with a melee Strike, Once Kittyhawk learns the trigger of the priest, she can use Athletics attacks instead of Strikes.
Hm, how will Caroming Charge interact with No Escape (Effect The brute Strides up to their Speed, following the foe and keeping it in reach throughout this movement.)? Kittyhawk could rush through a crowd of Abendego Brutes and they follow behind her like magnetic attraction. Technically the Abendego Brutes will all be crowded onto the same square as Kittyhawk moves, but when she stops they will have to spread out. The brutes are dumb enough that they would willingly cluster up and be easy targets for an area-of-effect spell, at least once.
I am a bit annoyed with daredevil’s half robust health, since it doesn’t give you the important part of robust health (the battle medicine cooldown reduction) you still have to take robust health or godless healing anyways.
Like come on just have it give the lower cooldown.
I am annoyed that the daredevil's defenses are scattered across at least four separate class features. One flaw of Pathfinder 2nd Edition is that some classes are granted class abilities that are useful in only a few combats. By the time the character can use the ability, the player has forgotten about it. The game sessions will be full of little double takes such as:
"Oh yeah, this was Battle Medicine rather than Heal. I get an extra 10 hit points.""Ouch, double critical hits. Sorry guys, I am dead. Wait, I have Die Hard!"
"How did that enemy just deal sneak attack damage to me? Surprise attack, you say. Read the fine print on Deny Advantage."
"I have a +1 bonus to AC against that Reactive Strike. Wait, make that +2 because I have adrenaline."
I would love if the defenses were consolidated into fewer, simpler abilities. More hit points (along with Robust Health to top off those hit points after battle) is the simplest defense. Nevertheless, my gut feeling is that the daredevil needs a more dynamic defense than the passive defense of hit points, such as:
Galvanized Resistance Feature 3 (replaces Deny Advantage and Galvanized Mobility)
Your foes have difficulty solidly hitting you as you slip and tumble past them. You have resistance equal to your level from reactions you trigger and from precision damage.
The damage resistance on my homebrew Galvanized Resistance is too good against a 11th- and higher-level rogue's Sneak Attack. It should be half your level, rounded up, instead.
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I've been mulling over the idea of Daredevil getting some kind of self-heal to simulate the "He's alright folks!" trope.
You know, you take a grevious injury, and then stand up again like nothing happened. I don't know how you'd integrate this into the existing chassis, but I thought it was a fun idea.
(Also temp hp from adrenaline should come online well before level 19, but i think we all know that)
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・D8
・Daredevil’s Endurance（Diehard general feat, and when you receive healing from Treat Wounds or Battle Medicine, you gain a circumstance bonus to the healing equal to your level.As a personal modification, I'd like to change the hit dice from d8 to d10 or higher, and change the Diehard general feat to the Toughness general feat.
Barbarians have the leeway to recover before their massive HP is depleted, allowing them to hold the front lines. ...
Back in comment #37 I lamented that the daredevil had a lot of little defenses, such as Diehard, rather than one big coherent defense, such as 10 hit points per level (PF2 does not use hit dice, so it is 10 rather than d10). While waiting for my campaign to actually put my playtest daredevil Kittyhawk into combat (we play only once a week on Tuesdays), I have been using my thread to crunch numbers on some ideas, such as alternative defenses.
The daredevil looks a lot less daring if they have massive hit points like a barbarian. Thus, temporary hit points or damage resistance would be more thematic. I calculated the damage resistance necessary so that the daredevil can absorb hits like a barbarian will still keeping 8 hp per level: Link.
Laugh at Pain (1st level class feature) The daredevil has Resistance 2 to all damage. At 3rd level and every odd level thereafter, the resistance increases by 1.
This happens to match the minimum resistance recommended in Table 2–8: Resistances and Weaknesses in the Building Creatures section of the GM Core, which also says, "You'll typically use the lower end of the value on the Resistances and Weaknesses table for a broad resistance that applies to a wide range of effects, like 'physical 5 (except silver).'”
The Diehard feat feels like an emergency measure to keep the daredevil alive despite its poor defenses combined with risky tactics. I don't think that the daredevil is supposed to drop to Dying in the middle of combat fairly often. Instead, the daredevil will drop to Dying sometime at 1st and or level due to all characters being squishier at those levels, and the designers want the daredevil to survive that rough spot to reach 3rd level.
I am actually not that concerned with the direct damage from strikes aspects of the Daredevil with one caveat. It is a class that shouldn't be ending combat rounds standing next to an enemy that will strike them 3 times. The problem is that with such a focus on 2 action Press activities and reduced MAP, players are pulled into these stunts that leave them open to massive retalitory rounds, and that is where I think the "More HP and AC" vibes are coming from. "Try to finish off a foe, or move really far to safety" is probably the risk reward that the developers are imagining the class is built around, but I think very many players just don't try to kite in the first place, much less with a class that has fairly limited options for doing so and such strong incentives to make that last action an attack action. It is currently an easy class to gamble wrong with.
My concern remains the absolutely terrible saves, which are the defenses that often get targeted when a character is kiting effectively.
Getting a closer look at the feats, you have feats like scrambling roll, which offer some of the lost bonuses to the bad class chassis progression, but the issue is not just that they are class feat locked, they are class feat locked behind feats that have a fair bit of prerequisites. This ends up meaning you have to really plan out your defenses in advance when you design your character or you will end up with bottom of the barrel saves and be locked out of picking the later feats that can help you with that.
I kind of think the solution needs to be 2 class paths that build in some of the feats that characters probably need, but players are loath to pick. One an athletics path that auto boosts athletics and gives fortitude boosting options and feats automatically, and one for acrobatics and reflex. Those things can remain feats so the other path can build to be good at both defenses if they want, but they should get one set of them for free to help make it clearer to the player how they should approach their character's defenses.