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In this thread I will begin to put my impressions about my Daredevil playtest with a friend.
Our playtest will be composed by one player controlling the party side and the other GMing with us alternating these roles in every fight.
The playtest will be a replay of encounters of the adventure The Fall of Plaguestone up to level 3 and the AP Age of Ashes from levels 4-20 (that I doubt that we have enough time to test every encounter up to the end of the playtest). We always use them for our playtests because they are well known for having hard encounters and have a pretty good diversity of enemy types.
To make some comparisons, this time we will make a 6-member party composed of a Daredevil, a Slayer, a Rogue, a Ranger, a Swashbucker and a Cleric. Due to this higher size of this party, the encounters will be rebalanced using the Encounter XP Budget, increasing the enemies numbers or changing some of them to become elite.
This specific post will start with my impressions of building the Daredevil.
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The first point that calls my attention to building a daredevil is the key attribute choice, and here, IMO, I found the first problem of the class. Why should I play using DEX?
The point is simple. Many of daredevil abilities rely on STR, and those who rely on DEX are not worth:
— DARING STUNT uses athletics check.
— Stunt Damage adds STR to the damage.
— BREAKAWAY ATTACK with DEX is finesse, but DEX doesn't increase your damage; the ranged option is basically a one-handed shortbow stats (d6 deadly d10), but with 1/3 of the range (20 ft), and almost every daredevil ability are melees, including the 2 level 1 feats that use acrobatics, FORCEFUL KICKOFF STUNT, REBOUNDING FALL STUNT and WHEELING PULL STUNT.
— FORCEFUL KICKOFF STUNT is basically a glorified workaround of Shove using acrobatics that have a risky trait and make you leap away from the target (no matter whether you want to or not take such distance) and have the press trait limiting you to using it only after doing a previous attack and with a MAP and limited to creatures one size larger than you without being able to get benefit from Titan Wrestler.
— REBOUNDING FALL STUNT is basically a glorified workaround of Trip using acrobatics with risky traits and is way more dangerous to you. Except if you get a critical success, you you can do a Stunt Damage. But if you fail, you are also prone. If you choose to Crawl, you may trigger an enemy movement reaction. If you critically fail, you not only get 1d6 damage, but you cannot Stand anymore until your next turn! I know that the idea of actions with risky traits are to be gambles, but this thing is just terrible. Your real benefit here is just being able to Trip using your DEX, but it's also a press action. Your chances of failure probably are higher than your chances of success, and most likely your only chance to get a critical hit is if you roll a nat 20! This clearly is not worth the risk, nor does it justify the DEX investment as a key attribute.
— WHEELING PULL STUNT is the only good feat for DEX based daredevil IMO. It's a merge of Grapple + Reposition that allows you to drag the enemy with you, and if you fail, you still can Step, which is also good. Only the critical failure can have a side effect if your enemy has a move-triggered reaction.
— The 2-action activities that need adrenaline, like PRESSING PUMMEL and CAROMING CHARGE, depend on you having made an action with a risky trait. But having DEX as a key, your only option for this without using DARING STUNT, which is STR-based, is to use BREAKAWAY ATTACK, which, as I pointed out before, in general isn't worth using with DEX.
IMO, currently making a daredevil using DEX is just a trap option; the only real benefit is to allow you to have better reflex and DEX skills, which doesn't justify the option.
If the idea is that the class have the option to use DEX, it seriously requires more options around it that don't look like expensive and dangerous workarounds. Maybe turning the STR or DEX choice into a subclass option with one having DARING STUNT and Stunt Damage and the other having options more suitable to DEX-based daredevils.
So due to this not-hard choice, I decided to make the character using STR. But now I have another situation. The prop rule relies on the environment or on creatures larger than you. This seriously pushes the character creation to use small ancestries (which is not good in terms of lore balance because you press most players playing with the class to play like small, angry dogs), but for the other side, too many class options have “The target can’t be more than one size larger than you” restriction, which makes the choice of a small ancestry restrict them to being limited to medium-sized creatures. Consequently, I decided to make a tanuki daredevil because this gives me the option to take Everyday Form to be able to Change Shape to a medium-sized humanoid with just one-action. This allows me to both benefit from the prop when facing medium-sized creatures and still be able to use size-limited actions/activities against Large creatures too.
Honestly, I don't like this limitation of many abilities of the class being limited to my ancestry choices. I hope this changes in the final version.
Anyway, due to the light armor limitation, I had to put +3 in DEX (via background + ancestry + free), but I take Amnesic to get +2 in CON (without it I will be limited to +1). Honestly, I don't really like to have to take Amnesic as a workaround because it's a rare background, and the choice of the 3rd attribute is from GM, so it's limited to the GM agency.
Now finally I came to the class feat choices. And man, most of them vary from meh to terrible:
— BOLD BLUFFS depends on your charisma and having the deception feat. But you are already pressed by the class MADness of having to also invest in CHA to worth. This makes this feat a poor choice unless you want to get an additional risk of having even lower HP, sacrificing your CON with a class that only has 8 HP/level.
— BREAKAWAY ATTACK is a confusing feat. It relies on the environment having loose things to use and at your reach. You may carry and drop some random things with you to use, but it's an ugly solution that probably will cost some extra action to Interact and drop a bag of such things on the ground. This will limit your movement.
— DON’T MESS WITH ME is an interesting feat but falls into the same MADness problem of BOLD BLUFFS. It most likely will be a good option for other CHA-based classes like Thaumaturge if they take daredevil as an archetype.
— FLYING HURDLE STUNT is a pretty interesting feat. It gives a way to use Athletics to switch position with an enemy, and its failure effect is to allow you to Step, which is also a good consolation prize. But the press trait makes it way less useful than it should be once you probably want to switch positions before making other actions to take advantage of a prop or just a flank. Its critical failure is dangerous but, IMO, justifies the benefits and fits well the ideal of a risky gamble that the class wants to show.
— FORCEFUL KICKOFF STUNT I have already talked about it above, but if you will take it with a STR-based character, it will be even worse.
— PRESSING PUMMEL is just a poor cousin of the Power Attack Vicious Swing. It gives the same benefit but is locked in d10, which could be a good thing for a one-handed based character, but the flourish + press + needs adrenaline weakens and limits it a lot.
— REBOUNDING FALL STUNT It's a terrible feat that I explained above and is even worse if you are STR-based.
— SCRAMBLING RETREAT is a very good feat. It not only gives you the default +2 circumstance bonus to your AC vs an attack as a reaction but also allows you to Stride up to a better position that may allow you to benefit from a prop when it would be your turn again. The fact that the enemy can accompany you is also not bad for this, and it is still a choice. Your enemy can stay but no longer attack you in melee or follow you but risk ending in a bad position.
— WHEELING PULL STUNT is a good feat, as I pointed out above, but for a STR based character, it's harder to use.
So after the analysis, I choose to take SCRAMBLING RETREAT and FLYING HURDLE STUNT as additional feats.
For skills, I already have Athletics and Acrobatics. I decide to take Stealth and Thievery due to my second-highest attribute being DEX due to the light armor limit. Due to deciding to invest in CHA as a 4th attribute, I also take Deception and Intimidation.
For equipment, I've got a Studded Leather Armor, a Buckler and a Hatchet. I select a hatchet because its traits feel like good options for a STR daredevil.
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In the next posts of this thread, I will put how my (and my friend's) playtest experience was in each level, GMing and playing as a daredevil!
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IMO, currently making a daredevil using DEX is just a trap option; the only real benefit is to allow you to have better reflex and DEX skills, which doesn't justify the option.
My playtest daredevil Kittyhawk is a Dexterity build. This is mostly for roleplaying purposes but also to test how much of a trap is the Dexterity build.
As Yurip said, a daredevil needs Daring Stunt, so Kittyhawk invested in Strength has her 2nd best attribute, caught in the trap of Double Attribute Dependency. And she had to invest skill increases into Athletics to keep her skill check competitive. The daredevil needs Strength even when it is not their key attribute.
Kittyhawk learned Kip Up since she has master proficiency in Acrobatics. I then skipped the Rebounding Fall Stunt, because its success and critical success make Kip Up redundant, and its critical failure prevents using Kip Up that turn.
By the way, Wheeling Pull Stunt makes an Athletics check, so Dexterity is useless for it. The 3rd Acrobatics Stunt is Weapon Twist Stunt, daredevil feat 6.
Anyway, due to the light armor limitation, I had to put +3 in DEX (via background + ancestry + free), ...
Oh oh, looks like Strength daredevil is Double Attribute Dependent, too.
Yes, the class currently has a MADness problem. That's why I and others in these forums defend that it needs a medium armor proficiency.
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I feel it makes thematic sense for a Daredevil to invest in both Strength and Dex, as the class is meant to be both strong and nimble, but when you also add in the pressure to build Constitution and Wisdom for the class's defenses, that limits their ability to use Charisma, which is required to make the most of certain feats. I'd personally be fine with the class being dependent on Strength, Dex, Con, and Wis, and pushing the class to remain lightly armored or unarmored, but that ought to entail much better baseline defenses in my opinion among other benefits.
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As mentioned before, here is the practical playtest part of DD. Replaying the level 1 encounters of Fall of Plaguestone.
I don't intend to go into fight-by-fight detail, as it would be too long and tedious, and I will go directly to my analysis of how my gameplay went playing and running DD.
The first notable point, which was even surprising, is that, especially with a small character, it's easy to be adjacent to a prop, whether it's an ally, an enemy, a wall, or something relevant in the environment:
— In the first fight against the wolves, there were 2 carts that served very well as props, in addition to the forest around the road.
— Even in open fights, such as in the tree plantation or the fight against the boar, there were objects to use as props.
— In the tavern fight, there were simply props everywhere, as we considered tables, counters, and all of that to be valid props.
On top of all that, the small character treated almost all creatures as props, except for the bloodseekers. This meant there was always some prop available, regardless of where the DD was.
Another highlight of the DD, also associated with the prop, was its high mobility, which, along with the action economy of the Daring Stunt, is simply great at the beginning of fights. You're probably side-by-side with an ally who will serve as your prop, being small, already giving you at least 35 feet of speed, which almost always allows you, in the same action, to approach an enemy with adrenaline and perform an athletic maneuver. It's ridiculously simple, efficient, and fun.
That said, here's my first criticism of the class. Using your size as a base for props with small ancestries gives a very significant advantage over medium ones. You only need to position yourself near any ally and end up near any wall, object, or medium creature to keep the prop constantly. If we were playing with a medium-sized creature, in the FoP battle maps we would still have plenty of props, but we would be forced to choose our initial and final positioning more carefully. With the small one, you'll most likely be near a prop without even noticing.
Despite picking an ancestry that can change size, in practice it was a bit of an over-precaution, given that we didn't face more than large creatures, as it's very difficult to find creatures larger than that in the 1st level of the adventures, so the size difference wasn't a problem for using maneuvers.
The only class-exclusive Press maneuver at this level was the Flying Hurdle Stunt, and I honestly only used it twice in this level, which was in the last fight. The final boss of the first level positioned himself in a corner where the only way to get him out was using that maneuver, and even then, it was quite problematic.
And here comes the main issue with the class: triggering enemy reactions. In FoP at level 1, there's only one creature with an opportunity attack, which is the boss of this level. And to be honest, the experience wasn't great.
First, because triggering a reaction from a boss 2 levels above yours is very painful, this quickly meant I could no longer use Daring Stunt, which ended up depleting my adrenaline gain per round. Without adrenaline, the character is reduced to an average martial character with nothing special, hindering gameplay that was previously agile and fun with moves like Step, Daring Stunt, Strike (to try to escape the boss's reach). But since much of the terrain was difficult, for several rounds I couldn't use Step and ended up restricted to using Flying Hurdle Stunt, which was useful at the time to get the boss out of position. However, it's a Press attack that has a critical failure effect that triggers reactions activated by Manipulate. And guess what happened? I failed critically, and it wasn't because of NAT 1.
The problem is that when you face a strong enemy with an ability that can only be used with MAP, the chance of a critical failure is often higher than the chance of a critical success, sometimes even equal to the chance of success. This meant that, after one failed attempt and one critical failure, I gave up on the maneuver and just resorted to a few Strikes and only moved if an ally used the enemy's reaction.
This kind of applies to any type of DD attack that isn't a Strike, including athletic maneuvers. Even with the MAP reduced to -3 and -6, the chances of a critical failure are very high, and falling prone in front of an enemy with reactions, without access to kip up, ends up being easy.
Even against enemies with no reaction, it didn't take long for us to learn that, in most cases, the best use for MAP attacks is simply to use Strike, because it benefits from the adrenaline rush without the risk of critical failures, which further enhanced the use of Daring Stunt as the primary first action to be used almost always.
Regarding the reduced MAP for Strikes, the DD behaved similarly to the Flurry Ranger, with one major advantage and one major disadvantage compared to it.
The main advantage was that the high mobility and compression of actions made the DD more agile; it was easy to use all its actions efficiently in the first turn, with Daring Stunt as the first, followed by 2 Strikes. Furthermore, it didn't waste time spending actions on Stride if it needed to change targets. The Ranger, on the other hand, always needs to spend 1 action on Hunt Prey, which made it start slower and had a delay in switching targets. This allowed the DD to handle groups of enemies well, but when facing a single strong enemy, the situation quickly reversed, especially when that strong enemy also had AoO.
Another interesting detail in the comparison with the Ranger was the fact that the DD's "Flurry" isn't as significant. While the Ranger has MAP-2 and MAP-4 with agile weapons and athletic maneuvers, the DD had to rely on MAP-3 and MAP-6 in the same situation. In addition, the Ranger also has a 2-Strike compression attack, making them much more efficient against a single powerful enemy.
Furthermore, another point where this difference becomes evident is in dealing damage. The DD clearly wasn't designed for that; the class is built for you to use a maneuver in a given action, while the other martial classes, the moment you think the maneuver is no longer necessary, can simply start hitting and dealing more damage. This made the Ranger, despite being "heavier" in actions, more flexible. In the end, each had its benefits, but in a way, I felt the DD ended up being too light when the group really needed to deal damage and take down the enemy quickly.
Another class that also made a good comparison with the DD was the Swashbuckler Gymnast (it was even my first game with the swash since the remaster, and wow! How fun the class became to play!). The Swash has a very interesting feature which is Stylish Combatant, which gives +1 status on the maneuver. Since panache is something you gain in a very similar way to Adrenaline, that is, you will have it whether you succeed on the maneuver or not (however, critical failures don't grant panache), its gameplay feels very similar to the DD, but with a significant difference: it simply deals more damage! Being able to simply perform a Confident Finisher that will probably deal at least 2d6 damage makes the swash's DPR consistency very good, something I couldn't feel with the DD, even completing with 2 Strikes after the Daring Stunt. In the end, the DD gives an overall feeling that it needs to deal more damage somehow and not be so dependent on maneuvers.
Speaking of damage, consider how useless Stunt Damage is at level 1! At this level, the only way to cause Stunt Damage is with forced movement, but forced movement maneuvers, like Shove and Relocate, have critical failure effects. Therefore, it's easy to end up Prone because your Shove went wrong, while it's frustrating to know that the same Shove won't have any critical success effect. So, the only advantage of Stunt Damage is being able to use Daring Stunt to deal damage on the first action if the enemy is against a prop or trying to take advantage of an enemy with lower Fortitude than AC. But even then, it will only be worthwhile if the enemy is already Prone and Grabbed, because the lack of a critical success effect combined with the existence of a critical failure will almost always make the maneuver unviable, besides being more difficult to execute, since it's one thing to be benefiting from a prop, and another for an enemy to be against a prop.
Perhaps now at level 2, when I get Caroming Charge, Stunt Damage will prove more interesting, but at level 1 it's just a third-rate alternative for dealing damage, where it's probably better to simply use Strike.
In short, the DareDevil is a class that proved more fun to play at level 1 than I imagined, but it gives the overall feeling that it needs to be more efficient at dealing damage, especially when you fight alongside other classes like the rogue, swashbuckler, ranger, and even the slayer, which deal much more consistent damage and can also use athletic maneuvers efficiently.
Oh, another thing I forgot to mention was how curiously useless the DD became when dealing with a swarm. Basically, the class loses the ability to use its maneuvers, and the GM (in this case, me in this fight) didn't consider that, due to similarity, it wasn't allowed to use other Press maneuvers or deal damage to the swarm with Stunt Damage.
I know that some GMs more focused on RAW might allow something, but even so, the class becomes severely vulnerable against swarms.
Finally, we completed level 2 of The Fall of Plaguestone, which ended in a TPK! lol
Interestingly, a TPK isn't unusual in this part because the “boss” of this level is the most difficult in the entire adventure. So, unless the group is fully prepared against him or the GM goes easy on the fight, TPKs are normal here. But, in any case, even this is useful as a playtest experience, pushing the characters to their limits.
In level 2, being apparently the most interesting and powerful option, we obviously chose Caroming Charge as a feat. However, we also tested some combats changing the level 1 feat to others besides Flying Hurdle Stunt. But honestly, they weren't worth it.
Caroming Charge proved to be a pretty fun feat, the overall feeling is that we were doing a riskier Flying Flame (because it can trigger reactions), but with higher range and damage and no risk of failure. Interestingly, the feat isn't as OP as it seems, at least not in terms of damage, what makes it really strong is the ability to finish in almost any corner of the battlefield, and then start all over again using Daring Stunt. Which is contradictory to the class's risk-benefit proposition. It's an ability that clearly needs a check against each target, probably a Tumble Through against each target you're going to pass through, stopping at the first one you fail to check. Which would be worth it as a risk, since you would risk stopping in a very undesirable place if you fail, in addition to not being able to deal damage to the next targets.
Another interesting point is that Caroming Charge wasn't worth it against solo enemies. In these cases, simply attempting 2 Strikes with reduced MAP thanks to Audacious Combatant was more worthwhile.
However, the coolest thing for me about Caroming Charge is that it gave the DD the ability to deal damage to multiple targets early in the game, something normally only achieved by spellcasters/kineticists, so it was quite refreshing to have this in a martial class.
Other level 2 feats are also cool, such as Opening Gambit, Trip Up (which we tested and is quite brutal when used in conjunction with athletic maneuvers, where almost all of them leave targets off-guard), but they all end up overshadowed by the fact that Caroming Charge is too good.
One thing we noticed as we played is that the class isn't as weak in terms of damage as it seemed. What happens is that using maneuvers with reduced MAP isn't worthwhile because of the risk, but the moment you replace them with Strike, it almost always means that at least one, if not both, of your attacks will land. What demonstrates the real problem with the class here is that Risky's maneuvers with Press generally simply don't pay off; ignoring them and striking is much better.
Furthermore, thanks to Daring Stunt, the class almost always uses its 3 actions very efficiently throughout the combat. Unlike other melee martials that need to "sacrifice" one of their actions to move at various points in the fight, the DD is always doing something useful against enemies with all of its actions, which makes the class's gameplay very satisfying. This was especially noticeable when playing alongside the Ranger, which is the opposite of that, and needs to burn actions to both move and change targets, which helped to compensate well for the fact that the DD's reduced MAP is not as reduced as the Ranger's.
Interestingly, in this level we find another type of enemy that "disables" a good part of the DD's ability, in addition to swarms and enemies with movement-activated reactions. Oozes, due to their already very low AC, high hit rate, and additional abilities, end up making maneuvers unfeasible, which ultimately reduces the Daredevil to simply having to focus on using Strikes. However, this isn't unique to them; fighters and martial classes that rely on precision damage, like rogues and swashbucklers, face the same situation against Oozes, essentially becoming martial classes that lose their advantages against these enemies.
Another thing we confirmed, which was already expected, is that the class needs more HP. Daredevil's Endurance gives bonuses to Battle Medicine, and Diehard is clearly not enough, nor as good as simply having more HP, even with a group where more than half the characters have Battle Medicine. What happens is that, after the character falls unconscious, these advantages become smaller when you need to get up again and pick up everything that fell from your hands. I would easily trade that for 12 HP per level.
Guys, please ignore most of my comments about Strikes with reduced MAP.
I, due to distraction, ignored the fact that the Audacious Combatant only works with actions that have the Press trait. This will clearly cause the class to behave worse than I was experiencing. However, we won't redo the level 1 and 2 playtest because of this; I'll start compensating for it from level 3 onwards.
Aside from that, my other comments remain valid.
Sorry for the delay; this time I took a while to post due to lack of personal time.
This post will refer to the last level (3) of playing The Fall of Plaguestone. In the next level, the test will refer to the last part of the first AoA book, where players are expected to be at level 4.
In this level, we swapped the rogue ruffian for a fighter because we thought that comparing the DD's MAP-3 with the fighter's “MAP-3” (actually -2 because of the agile weapons). This, by default, means that in practice its MAP-5 behaves like the MAP-3 of other martials. This would be more interesting than comparing it with damage that we've already noticed the DD doesn't have.
In this level, the DD doesn't gain anything unique or significant, except for Galvanized Mobility. Which honestly wasn't that efficient.
At this level, there were many fights against groups of enemies, where once again the Caroming Charge proved formidable, being basically the main way to deal damage to multiple enemies in the entire group, and where the DD truly shone.
That said, against the final boss, her alchemical “bodyguard” possessed AoO, which quickly made the use of Caroming Charge too dangerous because, besides being able to cause AoO himself, the only maneuver available to gain Adrenaline was Daring Stunt. Even with the +2 benefit of Galvanized Mobility, taking AoO from a creature with a +14 hit chance that dealt 2d6+7 damage was not an acceptable risk for a DD with 20 AC (22 with Galvanized Mobility) and 43 HP! Taking an attack with a 60% chance to hit that dealt an average of 1/3 of the HP, with a 15% chance of taking a critical hit and taking double damage, was not an acceptable risk. Fortunately, the boss stayed away to protect herself from her bodyguard's AoO attacks. The GM considered that moving her would be worse because, in addition to losing the area attack, it would give the other PCs space to focus on the boss. This allowed the DD and the boss to duel for a while.
Another thing this level confirmed again is the DD's uselessness against swarms. We faced 2 swarms of bats, where the DD was basically reduced to giving Strikes since swarms are immune to maneuvers, and we agreed that, by similarity and logic, these immunities would extend to Press maneuvers.
Which, incidentally, once again gave me the opportunity to test the Flying Hurdle Stunt in a situation where it should be worthwhile, but, wow, it was so bad.
The situation was as follows. After the boss's bodyguard was destroyed, the other PCs began to move against her. The GM, seeing that she was going to be surrounded, moved her to a corner, thus preventing the PCs from benefiting from surrounding her—a perfect situation for the Flying Hurdle Stunt to shine! Except it didn't! In practice, on the very first attempt, we suffered a critical failure because her reflexes were +13 against an Athletics of +12 with MAP-3. This begins resulting in a critical failure, leaving the DD clumsy for 1, and failing again on the second attempt. In the following round, we failed again, this time with a failure using MAP-3 and a critical failure using MAP-6. Only in the third round of this process did we achieve a critical success due to a NAT of 20, and even then only after suffering another critical failure with MAP-3!
It was terrible; the chance of failure and critical failure in these maneuvers is very high, especially when you need it most, against strong opponents with terrain advantage. At the end of the combat, talking with my GM friend, we considered that, if it weren't for playtesting, we would probably opt to leave a free space. The martials adjacent to the boss simply try to relocate the boss.
Another point tested this time, after understanding that I couldn't benefit from the Audacious Combatant with normal Strikes, was to start using the Pressing Pummel instead. And the overall experience didn't change much, it only increased the feeling that the DD deals little damage, since it's very common to miss the Strike with -3. When the Pressing Pummel hits, the extra d10 damage doesn't feel like a big hit proportional to so many misses. It's OK at the end of the day because it's important to have an activity that allows Strikes to benefit from the Audacious Combatant. However, it gives the feeling that the Pressing Pummel becomes a must-have feat to make the class minimally functional.
In the end, what kept the DD interesting throughout this adventure was, by far, the Daring Stunt. It simply gives you a great sense of efficiency in your action economy by allowing you to always use all your actions offensively. The +10 speed when near a Prop meant the DD never had to spend actions just to get closer to an opponent. Plus, the other PCs benefited greatly from the fact that I almost always had at least one enemy Prone or Grabbed.
At the next level, we decided to remove the fighter and ranger from the party and add two more DDs, but multiclass, both being ancient elves with fighter and guardian archetypes. This allows us to test how much these MCs “fix/improve” the DD in practice while also seeing the real difference in playing with small and medium DDs.
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Plus many DD options inconvenience enemies, which is a poor action tradeoff vs. peons and (perhaps too) difficult to execute vs. bosses. One of the most attractive feats requires three rolls to succeed (one of them beforehand setting up a grapple). Feels like a trap to me, but maybe there's a mid-level opponent or ones with specific bad saves where one can shine.
Swashbuckler had a similar problem, except at stage one, getting Panache; the Finishers were fine attacks. Updated Panache is nearly automatic, more of an action investment toward a payoff. DD does get Adrenaline automatically, and hopefully that action itself is worthwhile, but is that at the cost of having poor pseudo-Finishers? Most have a MAP penalty, even a crit failure drawback, so I guess we're seeing the risk part, but I don't see much reward (at least relative to the other classes with similar routines). It's going to take Paizo some finesse to balance the gap, essentially being the "special maneuvers guy whose tricks are difficult to poach because of MAP/Press". I'd much rather them fill the "maneuvers are more worthwhile to them because of Stunt Damage" niche; ex. when Fighters trip an enemy, they're likely to get a Reactive Strike in return; so when DDs trip, they should end up w/ comparable damage (albeit maybe less if it's automatically tagged onto a trip).
So, in summary, the Daredevil is able to use all its actions on offensive abilities, but aside from Caroming Charge, most such activities are significantly lower impact than their same action equivalent in other classes? So you roll the dice more often but it ends up being less impactful, like some sort of reverse-caster issue (where they have very impactful 2-action limited resources abilities)?
I wouldn't wanted to say that they are less impactful (this was in terms of DPR only), but that they don't worth they cost-benefit.
For example, a DD can try to do a Daring Stunt to Disarm + Rebounding Fall Stunt to try to Trip with MAP-3 + Wheeling Pull Stunt to Grab with MAP-6. But you have a high risk of taking the critical failure effect and not only failing to make all the maneuvers but also suffering from several backfires.
If you critically fail with Rebounding Fall Stunt you can't Stand in this round, if you critically fail with the Wheeling Pull Stunt you can trigger an AoO. The risk of critical failure is high due to the MAP, and critical success only triggers basically with a NAT-20. While the only real benefit is basically to be able to do these things with a small MAP. In this situation we are seriously tempted to just choose to use Pressing Pummel because it will get the MAP benefit without the maneuver risks.
These maneuvers to worth should have a better success effect to make the concept of high risk but with a high reward to work.
Rebounding Fall Stunt gets close to this because it can deal stunt damage too, but only in your critical success that, as I said, will only trigger when you roll a NAT-20, which is not enough IMO. It should do this in a success and double damage in a critical success.
Wheeling Pull Stunt is similar but more complicated. If you critically succeed, you can try to move the target to a Prop and do the stunt damage but you still need to have a Prop closer to do this.
And the cherry on top is that you can kind of do what Daredevil sets out to do with these Press feats, better with both the fighter and the ranger, with the only drawback being that they don't have a movement action as well-compressed as Daring Stunt.
The fighter can easily perform an athletic maneuver like Trip on their first action and follow up with a Double Slice or Exacting Strike or even the Vicious Swing itself (which honestly isn't worth it in this situation). They might not be able to make this work in the first round or in rounds with target changes because they might need to use Stride.
The Flurry Ranger can perform the maneuvers with an even lower MAP than the DD itself, since its MAP for agile attacks is -2 and -4. The problem is that against multiple enemies, Hunt Prey makes this kind of thing not work so well. Plus, they also need to use Stride occasionally.
But most importantly, they don't run as many risks as DD does.
Oh, another thing I forgot to mention was how curiously useless the DD became when dealing with a swarm. Basically, the class loses the ability to use its maneuvers, and the GM (in this case, me in this fight) didn't consider that, due to similarity, it wasn't allowed to use other Press maneuvers or deal damage to the swarm with Stunt Damage.
I know that some GMs more focused on RAW might allow something, but even so, the class becomes severely vulnerable against swarms.
You mentioned in the Level 3 analysis running into a bat swarm. The swarm trait says, "Swarms are immune to the grappled, prone, and restrained conditions." The Vampire Bat Swarm in Monster Core lists its immunities, resistances, and weaknesses as, "Immunities grabbed, precision, prone, restrained, swarm mind; Resistances bludgeoning 6, piercing 6, slashing 3; Weaknesses area damage 3, splash damage 3."
Do you allow the swarms to be Shoved or Repositioned? Those are not mentioned in the immunities. Stunt damage from Shove could deal 1d6+STR bludgeoning damage. The resistance bludgeoning 6 could reduce that damage to almost nothing, so that might not help much. Nevertheless, I am brainstorming new ideas about the daredevil and want to know which solutions to battling swarms would work and which solutions would be barking up the wrong tree.
Honestly, we stop caring about the Shove Stunt Damage since level 1 because it's no better than a normal Strike. The only reason we have now to use Shove to do damage is to target enemy fortitude instead of AC. But we already know that a Vampire Bat Swarm has a higher fort DC than its AC so not even this makes sense to use.
What we could do was change the DD focus to the Giant Bad to try to Trip it and Caroming Charge the swarms, but the GM didn't send all the bats at once; instead, it sent the first swarm first, and as we were killing it, the bats' death scream was calling for the rest of the bats.
All that said while RAW is valid my GM friend doesn't accept that swarm can be forced moved by Shove or Relocate for him this doesn't make any sense for a swarm. He treats it as something Paizo forgot to include.
Even if he didn't rule like this because of the swarm characteristics, to be able to share space with other creatures, difficulties to use them as Props. The GM is who decides what's a valid prop or not, so unless they are flanked by a large wall, even allowing them to be Shoved, their forced movement hardly would be “interrupted by a prop”.
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At this level, as previously mentioned, the playtest shifted to the last chapter of the first AoA book to test at level 4.
Now that we've reached a level where we can take archetype feats, it's time to replace the fighter PC with a daredevil archetype fighter and the ranger PC with a daredevil archetype guardian. The goal here was to test the theoretical combinations of the daredevil with fighter press feats and the daredevil with the combined damage of stunt damage and punishing shove.
The chosen ancestry for both was ancient elf. However, in the very first fight, against a group of hunting spiders in a large cave chamber, this choice became problematic for the daredevil guardian. Since it's a medium creature, it can't use other medium creatures as props, which for most of the fight prevented it from dealing damage with Shove. Attempts to push the target towards the wall were unsuccessful, as the GM (myself) moved the spiders away from the walls because I interpreted that they felt cornered (and rightly so) and preferred to move away from the prop. There was only one Shove against the wall that I allowed, but that resulted in a failure, so in this combat the Daredevil Guardian didn't even manage to test its main advantage.
Seeing that it would be very difficult for the Daredevil Guardian, we opted to change its ancestry to Leshy Aiuvarin and used Elf Atavism to take the Ancient Elf heritage. This was thematically valid, since Leshys are thematically immortal and therefore valid to meet the soft requirement of Elf Atavism to take Ancient Elf (“…you couldn't take the Ancient Elf heritage unless your non-elf ancestry also has a lifespan measured in multiple centuries”).
With the change in ancestry, the Daredevil Guardian became much more functional, since a small ancestry allows the use of medium-sized creatures with props. This already allowed the Daredevil to use Shove to deal stunt damage with much more consistency in the following fight against a Greater Barghest, although the damage was poor in this fight due to the monster's physical resistance (10).
Regarding this, I can already say that during this level, the use of Shove with stunt damage + punishing shove was only OK. The damage of 1d6+str(4)+str(4)+2 is obviously not negligible, but positioning oneself to deal it is a bit more complex. Since the Daredevil Guardian always had to be positioned to flank the target against a prop (usually an ally larger than the Daredevil). In most cases, it's doable, but it requires you to coordinate with allies or be attentive to their movements, sometimes delaying your turn and risking triggering reactions to deal damage that, at this level, is lower than most other martials, since those at this level typically already have access to striking runes, in addition to potential extra damage, and the Daredevil Guardian also doesn't achieve the same damage in case of critical hits (Punishing Shove at least doubles, but Stunt Damage doesn't) and also comes with a very annoying critical failure effect (it makes you prone) and has a considerably high chance of occurring if you have MAP. In other words, at least at this level, it wasn't worth it.
On the other hand, the Daredevil Fighter shone! Simply using Exacting Strike instead of Pressing Pummel was fantastic. It works much better than the Pressing Pummel; you don't depend on having two actions to attack, and if you miss the first Exacting Strike, you simply make another Exacting Strike with map-3 (which is curious because using Exacting Strike twice in a turn doesn't make sense with the Fighter if it doesn't have Accelerated, but it's essential for the Daredevil because it unlocks the use of Audacious Combatant). Its hits and DPR were noticeably more consistent than the pure Daredevil's. This, in practice, points to the inefficiencies of the Pressing Pummel. But not to say that the Pressing Pummel had no highlights; in the fight against the Greater Barghest, it was useful because it was also under the effect of Blink, which gave it 5 resistance against damage, even from magic weapons. But in other fights, it was simply inferior.
Speaking of this creature, it was the only one at this level that possessed AoO, which was quite brutal, being very punishing for the daredevils. However, when you have 3 characters constantly triggering reactions, it was possible to at least mitigate it somewhat by alternating initiative using Delay, so the AoO was at least distributed among the daredevils. But certainly, if it were a lone daredevil, it would probably have fallen in the first 2 turns due to its low HP, insignificant AC against a much higher-level monster, even with Galvanized Mobility and one of the daredevils wearing heavy armor. We put the general Armor Proficiency feat on the Daredevil Guardian, since the archetype already provided medium armor.). The hit from a solo mini-boss was still too high to make a truly significant difference.
At this level, we included Opening Gambit, which worked very well in all encounters. Using athletics/acrobatics against the standard DC of the highest-level enemy isn't too difficult to win when you're an expert in the skill that uses your key attribute and also have an item bonus to it. And if the enemies are a large group but with a low maximum level, it's easy to pass the check. The curious thing, however, is that 19 + the initiative skill (usually Perception) often doesn't put the daredevil at the top of the initiative order, because usually there isn't much investment in Wisdom with him (after all, his MAD is terrible, and you need to invest heavily in all 3 physical attributes). But it was still a worthwhile feat.
And once again, the star of the daredevils continued to be Daring Stunt. For the pure Daredevil and Daredevil Fighter builds, it was very useful in compressing movement (especially the initial movement) with a maneuver plus adrenaline. For the Daredevil Guardian, it was essential for positioning the Daredevil to flank targets against props. Okay, Caroming Charge also shone in fights with many monsters, especially now that there are 3 Daredevils in the group, but it's still more circumstantial and feels more broken than Daring Stunt because it (still) doesn't have checks.
The other notable point that remains at this level is that, outside the Daredevil Guardian build, props in general have had little use beyond the extra speed (which, make no mistake, is very useful on its own). This has become more noticeable now that we use a medium Daredevil in the group. And most of the blame for this isn't even the prop mechanics themselves (which need improvement to work as well with larger creatures as with smaller ones), but rather the fact that stunt damage is less efficient than strike damage. Fights that use props are also excessively risky and don't benefit much from them.
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The next analysis will be of level 6, since level 5 of AoA mostly has few relevant deathmatches. The only extreme one is easily resolved through conversation.
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I did a level 8 playtest that I will hopefully write about later in regards to stunt damage and props in particular (probably in the stunt damage thread), but I too think Opening Gambit is kind of an interesting sleeper feat for the Daredevil. Because it is risky, it is the only way to start an encounter with adrenaline and enable reactions that require it in the first round, so even if you do go last, you are not caught without your reaction abilities. Obviously if you pass on those, you don't care, so it doesn't feel essential to the class, but it is a good option if you go that route.
It is interesting to me too that a feat that did nothing at all but give you a strike with with the press trait becomes better than pressing pummel in most situations for this class. Exacting strike does more than that for a 2nd strike but is still worth using as a third action even though it does nothing else (this was my white room analysis on fighter feats as well).
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This level “accumulates” the benefit of level 5 and 6, however, due to limitations of the adventure for level 5, coupled with the fact that the only thing it really provides to the character is the standard improvement in proficiency with martial weapons that every martial class receives, this part can be largely “ignored” in terms of playtesting with one exception. The fact that, at level 5 and 6, weapon proficiency is practically the same as skills, taking away the natural “advantage” of maneuvers over Strikes.
As we are now testing 3 variations of Daredevil, each one took a different feat at this level:
- Pure Daredevil: Headsmash
- Daredevil fighter: Reactive Striker (via fighter archetype)
- Daredevil guardian: Larger Than Life (via guardian archetype)
Speaking of this feats. Headsmash, like other pressure feats, proved to be excessively punishing and inefficient. It is interesting because, thematically, it follows well the premise of taking risks to have greater benefits, with benefits in success and critical success, and harms in failure and critical failure. The problem is that, like other press feats in the class, the benefits do not outweigh the risks.
What I found interesting about Headsmash is that the effects of glitches are actually reasonable. On failure, you deal half Stunt Damage and release the target, and on critical failure, your target can grab you or leave you prone. But in success you basically have the effect of Stunning Blows, only much more limited. Let's do a quick comparison below:
Stunning Blows:
- Expands Flurry of Blows
- It only requires that 1 of the 2 Flurry of Blows Strikes hit to make the target test fortitude against your DC to be stunned or not. Being stunned 1 on a normal fortitude failure and 3 on a critical failure. This gets the incapacitation trait for this.
Headsmash:
- The target must already be grabbed or restrained by you and both must be adjacent to the same prop (i.e., no using a prop behind the target).
- By the press trait, you are forced to only be able to use this action while suffering MAP.
- You test your atletics against the target's fortitude, if you hit you cause Stunt Damage and it tests fortitude against your CD and if it fails, similar to Stunning Blows, the target is stunned 1. But if it is a critical failure and it is stunned 2 (and not 3 as in Stunning Blows) and even then, it receives the incapacitation trait as well.
- If you fail the Athletics check against the target's Fortitude, you release the target but deal half the Stunt Damage.
- If it critically fails, it has basically the same effect as Grapple's critical failure.
Can you see the problem? Failure and critical failure are even fair for a risk-taking class. But for a press action with fail and botch effects, it had to have much better success and critical success than a nerfed version of Stunning Blows. And that's my biggest fear for these risky press skills. Even though it provides adrenaline, it doesn't have much use in the third action either, which ends up being a minor or insignificant benefit in practice.
Meanwhile, the multiclass fighter version I got Reactive Striker. Which even raised another question about Daredevil in my head, why didn't they give him Reactive Strike? Whether as a class feature or as a feat? For a deredevil-style class, with a bold concept, being able to do Reactive Strike makes perfect sense. But no, the 2 reaction feats that were given are very circumstantial and not very effective. One gives control over forced movement, which is cool, but requires you to be adjacent to a prop and adrenaline, and another that also requires adrenaline to give +2 circumstance to AC against the attack and allows you to Stride at half speed. They're not bad, but they're also far from notable reactions.
In fact, Daredevil Fighter has been notably more enjoyable to play of the 3. Precisely because it provides good press feats and a good reaction.
Daredevil guardian has proven to be OK, receiving +6 damage from Shove to add to Stunt Damage is not bad, especially when done with Daring Stunt, but it is far from being incredible as many people thought. Additionally, as it only works with Shove, it is very dependent on flanking the target with a prop. Which also reinforces the importance of being small to use allies and enemies as props. Furthermore, now with Larger Than Life, it is possible to do this even with Huge creatures. In the end, it's not bad, but it's also not that spectacular for a feat that requires all the positions of things to be fulfilled.
Otherwise, things were no different from previous levels, whenever possible the daredevils used Caroming Charge against multiple enemies, or risk-free press feats to Strike enemies and Daring Stunt whenever there was no enemy with reactions against movements.
Speaking of reactions against movements, this level in this part of the adventure was notable because in almost every encounter there was at least one enemy with reactions against movements, and the most annoying ones possible, which were several enemies with Twisting Tail, which disrupts movement actions, which left the Daredevils much more limited, and as none of these enemies were weak, Galvanized Mobility could not be significant enough to justify the attempts to use Daring Stunt and nullify it (including nullifying the adrenaline gain) and taking damage. Which for me reinforces the need for this class to better deal with reactions, either by preventing them from being triggered or by giving a more significant bonus to AC.
I picked the Hasty Celebration with the Daredevil Tanuki because I thought it was super thematic with the class, too bad I haven't had the chance to use it yet.
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As both Daredevil and Slayer don't get anything exclusive at level 7, I'm thinking about talking to my friend so we can jump straight to level 8. Slayer even gets a feature to start combats with reactions like Guardian, but I still don't think it's worth doing a playtest at this level just for that reason.
I too was intrigued by head smash until I realized that the DD class DC is very bad, and combined with incap, it was never going to be more useful than rushing stride and generating adrenaline off of a no map strike.