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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.
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.