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That's right, the new playtest classes have been announced for next Tuesday. I'm sure we'll have a nice blog once they're actually out and available, but I'm willing to get the thread started early.
To help, here are some notes from the stream. Please remember that this is
Slayer, more in the sense of "monster slayer" than in PF1's PF2-Ranger-style class. No more will your Belmonts, your Buffys, and your Van Helsings be best approximated via Thaumaturge. This class spends ten minutes prepping to designate a creature of at least its level as its quarry, getting bonuses to track it and on Monster Lore checks about it. They have a signature item, with one option being the Bloodseeking Blade. Defeating their quarry lets them take a trophy to power up their gear in specific ways. They appear to have plenty of feats and features that work on other enemies too, unlike Ranger who is focused on just one target and needs to switch it regularly.
Daredevil is a class for moving around the battlefield, interacting with map features, and getting more out of maneuvers. They have risky actions that provide added benefits but additional crit fail penalties and fuel adrenaline. Adrenaline lasts for a turn and reduces the MAP of Press actions. The free risky action that all Daredevils get is "Daring Stunt", which allows striding, leaping, or alternate movement-ing at least ten feet (must end next to an enemy) and then grappling, tripping, shoving, or repositioning. They also get bonus damage when they move someone and an obstacle ("prop") blocks part of the movement.
We'll get to see the full picture on Tuesday.
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I missed the stream, but that description of Slayer just makes me want to make a character from the Monster Hunter video games. Maybe (where on Golarion has weird megafauna?) a hunter of the Mana Wastes or Numeria, focused on managing the populations of true-breeding mutants, both as reagent sources and to prevent ecological disruption (both places have had their Weird Mutagenic Nonsense for long enough that heritable mutations are probably just a normal part of the ecosystem on some level). The taking trophies from a quarry to improve gear reminds me a bit of the basic gameplay loop of Monster Hunter.
Not sure about a Daredevil character, though maybe a bare-knuckle brawler character?
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After the daredevil was jokingly described as having skates, it makes me want to make a punk skateboarder Starfinder side.
Assuming your GM hasn’t banned it, take exemplar archetype and Thousand League Sandal and you can have skates on your Pathfinder character too.
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Started stream. Heard "new classes" instead of "much needed support for existing classes." Closed stream.
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Started stream. Heard "new classes" instead of "much needed support for existing classes." Closed stream.
It's especially frustrating because these aren't even new thematic/mechanical niches. iPhone behavior.
Like, if they're better than Swash and Ranger, then that's two obsolete classes. But if they're not better, then what's the point? Very lose-lose for Paizo.
Not to bring up that other elfgame or anything, but they might've had the right idea with their pretty robust and modular subclass system.
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Started stream. Heard "new classes" instead of "much needed support for existing classes." Closed stream.It's especially frustrating because these aren't even new thematic/mechanical niches. iPhone behavior.
Like, if they're better than Swash and Ranger, then that's two obsolete classes. But if they're not better, then what's the point? Very lose-lose for Paizo.
Not to bring up that other elfgame or anything, but they might've had the right idea with their pretty robust and modular subclass system.
Pathfinder players will never escape the "Why play X class and not fighter?" discourse.
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Pathfinder players will never escape the "Why play X class and not fighter?" discourse.
Unironically, I prefer big tent classes with lots of modularity and customization to 92084 instances of Nichey McNicheface. Even down for no classes at all. But you can't sell four books a year on that model, and Paizo needs to keep the content treadmill going to survive. Sucks to be a developer in that environment, I'll bet.
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I dunno man, as somebody who actually watched the stream they just put on, the devlopers seemed to have a lot of fun playing these wacky specific characters and talking about all the cool stuff they designed them to do. They haven't been shy about rolling concepts into existing classes where they fit, even when they're much-demanded by players. Maybe if they've bothered to work out a whole playtest for these guys they might just have a good idea of how they could fill their own niche? And we have an incomplete picture from a couple three-sentence descriptions and an hour and a half of actual play?
Anyway, without knowing anything else, monster prize-hunter sounds like fun for Slayer, maybe an upstart from the Lands of the Linnorm Kings looking to earn his kingdom. Daredevil seems to lean so much into playing with the environment, I like the idea of a back-alley brawler that a Monk is a little too structured and spiritual to replicate.
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My general stance is that while they do feel similar to other things thats not a reason to dismiss them outright but it is something to keep in mind during the playtest. Do these classes feel balanced/adjusted enough to warrant such close themes to previous concepts.
As for the point of the thread concepts for the actual classes. We have a few ideas.
A Daredevil with the Champion dedication as a worshipper of Kurgess sounds fun. My wife has a Delight dragonblooded monk that she is considering repurposing into a Daredevil.
Slayer... well funny enough of all things. We are considering trying out how well it willl let us Emulate Kirby of all things.
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Ooh! A Skeleton Slayer who combines their trophy-taking with their undead compulsion to collect new bones.
Or a Pearl Daragonette Daredevil who literally bounces around the battlefield like a rubber ball!
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Im honestly prepared to end up really liking the Daredevil. My reaction to the Guardian was similar when it came out. "This is just the champion again, why is it needed". And lo and behold, it ended up becoming a great class.
I see a lot of potential in the Daredevil to be a class that really increases the value of combat maneuvers. A class that wants to deal a lot of attacks in a turn, instead of the usually "1 big hit" style of many current martial classes.
There's potential there to make something rather underutilized. And if the playtest doesn't provide that, then I see no reason not to leave feedback that pushes in that direction.
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I mean, the problem with Daredevil being the high-mobility, many-light-hits Maneuvers Georg is that now we're just eating the Monk's lunch instead of the Swashie's.
On the bright side, I have a friend who is the exact kind of person the Daredevil is made for. She's been defaulting to monks because she likes to go fast and punch things, but something objectively sillier that encouraged more dumb stunts and "eff it, we ball" would perfectly suit her tastes.
So yeah, re: thread topic, the character concept I have for the Daredevil is recreating this friend's 5e Tomb of Annihilation character with a moveset that better represents his true self: a high-octane doofus with no sense of self-preservation (said with love).
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I’m excited to see the Slayer.
I’ve long maintained that any fantasy world where monsters are an actual and persistent threat, and a hinderance to both travel and commerce, should have a professional class of monster hunters in it.
The role of Witchers makes a ton of sense to me, just as a job.
There are a lot of ways this can be approximated, but it’s good to see something which might home in on the concept itself. That said, I still love the Thaumaturge, it’s just its own cool thing as well.
All that aside…
Monster Lore
Another new class with another omni-RK feature.
Paizo, just give one to Wizards already. They’re the dumbest smart class in the game.
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If it has ANY support for reload ranged weapons, Slayer is the perfect thematic base for a Beast Gunner. A mystic huntsman constantly grafting new monster parts onto his freaky biomechanical rifle.
Also I CANNOT WAIT for the Wayne Reynolds Iconic art. A class whose whole schtick is "signature equipment begreebled with the trophies of past hunts" plays so cleanly into his artistic strengths its comical.
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Daredevil seems like the strength swashbuckler, almost an anti-swash with the way they crash about the place. I'm curious about how they'll compare to a gymnast given their damage isn't precision and will probably have a full strength bonus. Also... I have to assume they can swing around big weapons. Also could make for some amazing unarmed attack builds for someone wanting to fight like a ravenous beast without going barbarian.
Slayer sounds fiddly, but the sort of thing that allows players to basically adjust their build mid-adventure, which could be a nice feature for folks tired of having a build/enemy mismatch.
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Archetypes for the Ranger and Swashbuckler, respectively...
Seriously, who asked for those as classes?
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So there's this dwarf called Harsk, right, and he's, like, super good at slaying monsters. He slays monsters because monsters slayed his brother, so he tracks them down, shoots them with his signature crossbow, or hacks them with his dead brother's axe, which he took as a trophy from slaying his first bunch of monsters! Harsk really hates monsters, especially giants.
But also, how about this: her name's Jirelle, she's an aiuvarin, and she's a real daredevil. Dashes round the battlefield, pulls daring stunts, really gets the adrenaline pumping when she pulls off maneuvers with panache. So good is she at chaining her moves smoothly that she can pull off these really cool attacks, and they work well even when she's made lots of them already!
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But all humor aside, the fact that the existing Ranger and Swashbuckler iconics fit the broad-lines descriptions of the Slayer and Daredevil respectively almost to a T worries me a bit. I could certainly be wrong, as I was when I felt the Guardian was lacking a niche during the playtest, but I can't shake the feeling that these two new classes could have just been archetypes of existing options that really could use some new content.
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Started stream. Heard "new classes" instead of "much needed support for existing classes." Closed stream.It's especially frustrating because these aren't even new thematic/mechanical niches. iPhone behavior.
Like, if they're better than Swash and Ranger, then that's two obsolete classes. But if they're not better, then what's the point? Very lose-lose for Paizo.
Not to bring up that other elfgame or anything, but they might've had the right idea with their pretty robust and modular subclass system.
Oh God no, I can never go back to waiting 5 years for an additional class, and then it falling flat. This is a million times better, foibles and all (though, honestly, I don't have issues with these two classes and think the larger community has been primed for histrionics ever since the psychic remaster, barring the damage instance clarification)
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Daredevil makes me finally wanna roll a Vanara, probably Son Wukong coded, whose just a hyped-up chaos-gremlin-brawler. Slayer with alchemist archetype sounds like a better approximation for witcher.
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Skateboarding skeleton named Calcium?
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If it has ANY support for reload ranged weapons, Slayer is the perfect thematic base for a Beast Gunner. A mystic huntsman constantly grafting new monster parts onto his freaky biomechanical rifle.
That would be absolutely badass and I'm here for it.
Also I CANNOT WAIT for the Wayne Reynolds Iconic art. A class whose whole schtick is "signature equipment begreebled with the trophies of past hunts" plays so cleanly into his artistic strengths its comical.
Same! Wayne Reynolds never disappoints and these are rife with ideas.
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For some original ideas, mostly from browsing the uncommon and rare ancestries...
Daredevil Great Kholo. Grab as much armor as the class will allow, and make a bully build shoving people around for bonus damage, tripping, and biting them with the Chomp feat to leave hands free. Having a circumstance bonus to most of your maneuvers is great when the stakes are even higher than for normal checks.
Daredevil Even-Tempered (or Steadfast) Tanuki. Lean into the swinginess, and make the crit fails an equal part of the character. Grab Iron Belly to be able to crash into people, and possibly pick up Priest Form to go from posing as a holy priest to rocketing across the battlefield to tussle with somebody up close.
Daredevil Kobold or Ratfolk. Used to fighting up close in tunnels, dashing up to enemies and picking fights bigger than them. (Red Dragon Inn has a Kobold courier named Jett who has a very parkour-focused fighting style that involves a lot of running into people and bouncing off them.)
Daredevil Tengu or Strix, possibly grabbing Winged Warrior. Recreate the wall-runner archetype from PF1, making a character that is working their way up from "the closest they can get to flight" to full-fledged flying combatant. Being able to eventually get flight and have a fly-and-combat-maneuver action is some amazing action economy. Or, stick with the flightless character if it fits better.
Daredevil Awakened Animal. Seems like a decent option for a weaponless character, using maneuvers and having press actions that add large damage dice regardless of a weak base. Should allow sticking closer to the animal.
Daredevil Catfolk. Take Clawdancer in a free archetype game, and mix multiple stances with maneuvers and action compressed movement for a very fluid combat style.
Slayer Fetchling or Wayang. Collect enemies' shadows as trophies. Wayang can even use them as shadow puppets to recount their victories.
Slayer Kholo. Use the trophy system to give some mechanical weight to eating a part of a fallen enemy to take some of their strength or cunning.
Slayer Kobold or Ratfolk. Getting power from trophies means that it's good for making a character that's clawed their way out of the gutter.
Slayer Tanuki. This one is intentionally borrowing a bit of Thaumaturge's flavor, and leaning into the darker stories that tanuki have about them. A character with no particular knowledge of magic who regularly mistakes bits of mundane jewelry or clothing as being magical, and being willing to kill the owner to get it. (Conveniently, this is something that happens to the party's enemies.) When they get their hands on it, their belief and own internal magic is strong enough to manifest the effects- at least as long as its one of their latest acquisitions and still of interest to them. Eventually, it will be replaced with something newer and shinier, only to be discarded or pawned as the mundane trinket it always was, its magic "used up".
Slayer Hobgoblin. Hobgoblins are very militaristic as a society, and Slayer seems like a good option for a lone Hobgoblin to find work hunting down particular bounties.
Slayer Tengu. Tengu have a particular connection with swords, and the Slayer's Bloodthirsting Sword option feels like it works better at representing care for a particular special sword better than Thaumaturge's Weapon Implement and its "Fighter Lite" vibe.
Slayer Poppet. A storybook character brought to life, ready to vanquish the wicked dragon, or other similarly storybook villain.
Slayer Yaoguai. A generational hunting trophy room or collection that has taken on a life of its own, and seeks to add more trophies to itself.
Slayer Yaksha. Just a particularly natural fit, given Yaksha has built-in oaths, and Slayer targets particular enemies well in advance.
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Daredevil makes me finally wanna roll a Vanara, probably Son Wukong coded, whose just a hyped-up chaos-gremlin-brawler. Slayer with alchemist archetype sounds like a better approximation for witcher.
Forgot to mention Sun Wukong-coded Vanara in my concepts, but yeah, that crossed my mind. Definitely less mythical and sturdy than the Exemplar approach, but probably better at being a menace.
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Really hoping the trophy collecting thing on slayer is a major part of the class. I wasn't expecting to need to create a fourth iteration of my psychodermist character but sounds like it's gonna be necessary so I'm hoping to be buried in useful monster body parts...
Otherwise, yeah, I agree, these classes better be significantly different enough from ranger and swashbuckler to justify their existence. (I really want shifter still)
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Does anyone here even like this game at this point? I swear every time I come here after a big announcement its "Doom! The end times are upon us! Paizo has fallen and millions will die!"
Anyway for what this thread is actually about, I wanna do a goblin Luchadore with the vigilante dedication for the Daredevil and while i don't have anything solid for slayer yet, I do like the look of the class as like a martial blue mage.
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Does anyone here even like this game at this point? I swear every time I come here after a big announcement it’s "Doom! The end times are upon us! Paizo has fallen and millions will die!"
Is anyone here actually arguing this is a sign of the end times? I think a lot of us here do like this game, some of us just have criticisms to make of it, which is nothing new. Catastrophizing even the mildest criticism doesn’t sound very healthy to me, though.
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Does anyone here even like this game at this point? I swear every time I come here after a big announcement its "Doom! The end times are upon us! Paizo has fallen and millions will die!"
Anyway for what this thread is actually about, I wanna do a goblin Luchadore with the vigilante dedication for the Daredevil and while i don't have anything solid for slayer yet, I do like the look of the class as like a martial blue mage.
This is less enthusiasm than usual for new classes, yeah. I suspect that'll turn around once we get the playtest document and people understand better how they're intended to work, vs people kind of filling in the blanks and coming to the "we already have these classes" conclusion.
There's only one class in PF2 I really dislike, which out of how many of them is a really good track record. So I'm pretty confident they found a way to make these work without simply replacing two other classes.
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I'm kinda on the "why aren't these class archetypes" side of the fandom right now, but its also a bit too soon to make judgment of classes we haven't really seen yet, and even then, guardian was a class I thought it was really bad on playtest but ended up being in my opinion probably one of the better designed martials in the system so I'm giving both classes the benefit of the doubt until the playtest and later on the full classes release next year.
I don't really like the names though.
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Anyway for what this thread is actually about, I wanna do a goblin Luchadore with the vigilante dedication for the Daredevil and while i don't have anything solid for slayer yet, I do like the look of the class as like a martial blue mage.
Slayer with Wild Mimic seems like it has potential to be very thematic for blue mage type concept!
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My first instinct is that Daredevil should either be in Starfinder or a Swash archetype, and Slayer should be a ranger archetype, or a monster parts subsystem.
My second instinct is that I should probably let them cook before I come down too hard either way. I'll probably still wish we got Shifter instead because the fantasy being sold in both is way more achievable with current options than a good Shifter is.
Neither of these thoughts means I don't love playing PF2, and to suggest otherwise is wild.
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After the daredevil was jokingly described as having skates, it makes me want to make a punk skateboarder Starfinder side.Sounds like a new candidate for BMX Bandit, too.
Can't believe you sold me the class I was skeptical on first hearing about it without even trying.
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I think everyone should keep in mind, Swashbuckler itself was originally pitched as "Rogue meets Gunslinger," in a whole book of "X crossed with Y" hybrid classes. Now, admittedly, fully half of those did not have a distinct enough identity -- which I think is bound to happen when you publish ten brand new classes at once -- but several became fan favorites and two of them (three if you count Warpriest) became Core classes in 2e.
"This fills out the narrative space between Swashbuckler and Monk" or "…between Ranger and Thaumaturge" is not in and of itself a bad thing. Hell, lean into it!
"My character was left at a monastery as an orphanned baby, but while on a pilgrimage in their youth their ship was accosted by pirates. Wowed by the buccaneers' daring and freedom, the young accolyte demanded to join their crew, and over the years has merged their disparate martial influences to devastating effect neither could replicate."
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Had a thought: What if we're the reason we're not seeing more class archetypes? Like, the vast majority released so far were met with pretty firm negativity for not being strong or cool enough, or being pale imitations of their PF1 versions. Maybe the devs just gave up and decided to go back to building hybrids with full class power budgets because we told them that class archetypes weren't enough?
And by "we," I mostly mean some loudmouths on Reddit. Paizo has got to stop going on Reddit. (I am on Reddit lmao.)
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Had a thought: What if we're the reason we're not seeing more class archetypes? Like, the vast majority released so far were met with pretty firm negativity for not being strong or cool enough, or being pale imitations of their PF1 versions. Maybe the devs just gave up and decided to go back to building hybrids with full class power budgets because we told them that class archetypes weren't enough?
And by "we," I mostly mean some loudmouths on Reddit. Paizo has got to stop going on Reddit. (I am on Reddit lmao.)
Buddy, if persistent complaining about Paizo’s choices impacted Paizo’s choices, I would have stopped complaining a long time ago.
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Had a thought: What if we're the reason we're not seeing more class archetypes? Like, the vast majority released so far were met with pretty firm negativity for not being strong or cool enough, or being pale imitations of their PF1 versions. Maybe the devs just gave up and decided to go back to building hybrids with full class power budgets because we told them that class archetypes weren't enough?
And by "we," I mostly mean some loudmouths on Reddit. Paizo has got to stop going on Reddit. (I am on Reddit lmao.)
I think all the second wave class archetypes for the system have been pretty great! You're not wrong though, a lot of people online were puzzlingly grumpy over content that seemed perfectly serviceable. I think class archetypes would fare better if they didn't have an opportunity cost of feat investment at 2 as well as being locked in until you get 3 feats. Just a hunch though. Then, I think they'd be judged less on whether or not they're an "upgrade"
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I am really interested in seeing what the new, unique mechanic is like for each of these classes, even if neither one has grabbed my attention yet. I am excited to see maneuvers be more well integrated into a class’s core. I am also curious what kind of book these two classes would be together in.