Stunt damage vs regular strike

[Gaulin]

I haven't playtested the class, and I likely won't as I don't get to play with my group especially often. But I do feel like something few people are talking about is not only the efficacy of shoving an enemy into a wall vs striking them, but what the point of a shove is. Regularly, shoving an enemy is to get them to move 5ft into some sort of better position. Stunt damage only triggers is the movement is stopped by a prop, which kind of defeats the purpose of the shove, since your enemy doesn't even move. Unless you push an enemy with the expectation you will move them more than 5ft, which only happens on a Crit, but that's very unreliable and you'd be better off getting an actual Crit with a strike (it's not that hard to get a way to get Crit spec with a club or the like to move your enemy 5ft on a Crit anyway).

Am I not seeing something here?

[Justnobodyfqwl]

This is something I've felt too. It seems .. shockingly hard to actually deal prop damage at low levels, at least on paper. There's a lot of repositions and prone, but the shoves feel limited. And while I think props work really well as something you position yourself around, they feel a lot harder to get you AND an enemy lined up perfectly with a prop.

I think either prop damage could be more consistent (maybe it's a smaller amount but is dealt whenever you do a manuever?), or... They lean into it being risky and difficult, and pump up the damage it does and make it a lot more risk-reward.

[Perpdepog]

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

I think either prop damage could be more consistent (maybe it's a smaller amount but is dealt whenever you do a manuever?), or... They lean into it being risky and difficult, and pump up the damage it does and make it a lot more risk-reward.

I like both of these ideas, but I like the first a bit more. The second does feed into the risk/reward aspects of the class, but the first helps the daredevil actually deal consistent damage, which I think would help put a clock on fights and make the daredevil feel even better for doing all their maneuvers.

It also, at least if we kept the rest the same, wouldn't really apply to trips and grapples, which tend to be the best maneuvers to use because they make enemies Off-Guard, keep them in reach, and force them to use up actions to Stand or Escape. Getting to Shove or Reposition, moving the baddy around into more advantageous positions and dealing them some damage feels like a reasonable way to balance those maneuvers against Trip and Grapple.

[shroudb]

The problem with the current implementation is that because Shove in general is weak, there exist already in the system options that buff it by a big degree, bigger than anything comparable to "normal" stuff.

And when you combine that with Stunt, it breaks the math.

Like, making every shove 10ft and dealing 2d6+24 at level 8 with every shove is achievable... Which is more than Barbarian levels of damage.

[Dubious Scholar]

shroudb wrote:

The problem with the current implementation is that because Shove in general is weak, there exist already in the system options that buff it by a big degree, bigger than anything comparable to "normal" stuff.

And when you combine that with Stunt, it breaks the math.

Like, making every shove 10ft and dealing 2d6+24 at level 8 with every shove is achievable... Which is more than Barbarian levels of damage.

Centaur's Practiced Brawn feat in particular is a standout there (+1 circumstance to Shove and successes become crits). I know people were using that with Guardian's Punishing Shove already for automatic double strength damage on Shove.

[exequiel759]

I made a post with exactly this same topic too.

The TLDR is that Stunt Damage starts at 1d6+4 (7.5 avg) at 1st level, 2d6+4 (11 avg) at 5th level, 3d6+4 (14.5 avg) at 9th level, 4d6+5 (19 avg) at 13th level, 5d6+6 (23.5 avg) at 17th level, and 5d6+7 (24.5 avg) at 18th level, while Punishing Shove (a 1st-level guardian feat) starts at 4 (8 if you have Practiced Brawn) at 1st level, 6 (10 if you have Practiced Brawn) at 3rd level, 10 (14 if you have Practiced Brawn) at 7th level, 11 (16 if you have Practiced Brawn) at 10th level, 17 (22 if you have Practiced Brawn) at 15th level, 18 (24 if you have Practiced Brawn) at 16th level, and 19 (26 if you have Practiced Brawn) at 20th level.

Also, there's the fighter's Bruttish Shove and Powerful Shove feats, allowing you to make a Strike and add your Strength modifier (again) as part of Bruttish Shove.

[Gaulin]

Theres more to compare punishing shove to stunt damage, too. Stunt damage only works if you have adrenaline, meaning you're performing at map. Stunt damage also only applies if you're shove comes up short by hitting into a wall, where punishing shove gets the actual benefits of a shove AND does damage.

I think for me, shoving someone into a wall defeats the purpose of shove. If you knock them into a wall, you're really doing nothing but damage, they aren't moving anywhere. It's kind of redundant.

[Tridus]

Get a caster in the party casting Instant Minefield. Do the mines count as props? Because that could be pretty wild lol. (I assume they don't, but its a fun thought.)

If you can get positioning where you can shove them into a mine and a prop for stunt damage, Shove is suddenly an extremely powerful attack.

[YuriP]

Gaulin wrote:

Theres more to compare punishing shove to stunt damage, too. Stunt damage only works if you have adrenaline, meaning you're performing at map. Stunt damage also only applies if you're shove comes up short by hitting into a wall, where punishing shove gets the actual benefits of a shove AND does damage.

You can do Stunt damage Shoving/Repositioning without MAP using Daring Stunt.

[Teridax]

I think it would help a lot if Trip dealt stunt damage on a critical success, rather than its lone d6 of damage. I do think the damage could also stand to be higher, and the general impression I have of the Daredevil is that for all the risk they're putting themselves in, they could stand to do more. A lot of their feats could use improvements too, and their base features could also be stronger.

[Gaulin]

Tridus wrote:

Get a caster in the party casting Instant Minefield. Do the mines count as props? Because that could be pretty wild lol. (I assume they don't, but its a fun thought.)

If you can get positioning where you can shove them into a mine and a prop for stunt damage, Shove is suddenly an extremely powerful attack.

You only get stunt damage if your movement is stopped. If you move them onto a mine, they aren't getting stopped by it. The mine would go off, but it's no different than a normal shove.

[Gaulin]

YuriP wrote:

Gaulin wrote:

Theres more to compare punishing shove to stunt damage, too. Stunt damage only works if you have adrenaline, meaning you're performing at map. Stunt damage also only applies if you're shove comes up short by hitting into a wall, where punishing shove gets the actual benefits of a shove AND does damage.

You can do Stunt damage Shoving/Repositioning without MAP using Daring Stunt.

Ah that's true. My bad, you get adrenaline before performing the action, I forgot that part.

[Dubious Scholar]

Gaulin wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Get a caster in the party casting Instant Minefield. Do the mines count as props? Because that could be pretty wild lol. (I assume they don't, but its a fun thought.)

If you can get positioning where you can shove them into a mine and a prop for stunt damage, Shove is suddenly an extremely powerful attack.

You only get stunt damage if your movement is stopped. If you move them onto a mine, they aren't getting stopped by it. The mine would go off, but it's no different than a normal shove.

Not that Instant Minefield needs any help, that spell has a ridiculous ceiling already.

[25speedforseaweedleshy]

it is a terrible feature that doesn't work well with the rest of the class

other class have feat that shove 5 feat on failure

daredevil doesn't seem to have that

[Chris Kenney]

I'm gonna save my full write up for my second session, but yeah, I just had an extended combat and stunt damage came up exactly once - and my playtest character is based on my swashbuckler who uses D4 weapons, so she should be the ideal test case for stunt damage's relevance and it's just. . . not.

(I'm saving the write up because, despite having my notes, I had a couple of amazing feels-bad moments and I want to see how common that is before I get out my thoughts.)

[Osranger]

Gaulin wrote:

Theres more to compare punishing shove to stunt damage, too. Stunt damage only works if you have adrenaline, meaning you're performing at map. Stunt damage also only applies if you're shove comes up short by hitting into a wall, where punishing shove gets the actual benefits of a shove AND does damage.

I think for me, shoving someone into a wall defeats the purpose of shove. If you knock them into a wall, you're really doing nothing but damage, they aren't moving anywhere. It's kind of redundant.

Adrenaline turns on at the beginning of a risky action, so daring stunt can trigger stunt damage. You can pretty reliably land it on someone who is already next to a wall or prop.

But yeah, you’ve pretty much got the issue. To get that stunt damage you basically give up the shove. it doesn’t do anything but damage, and it’s not very good damage, because as far as I can tell it cannot critically hit and so it can’t double even if the shove is a critical success.

On top of that, the shove is not likely making them off-guard to you, especially since you are deliberately shoving them nowhere, so your follow ups become less accurate, and is not going to reduce enemies’ effective actions like a trip or grapple might.

Unfortunately the implementation of stunt damage currently makes it rather pointless as something to pursue.