| Unicore |
I think having the only press strike action available at level 1 being a 2 action activity, pressing pummel, be two actions is a pretty brutal oversight for this class. It doesn't feel great to flying hurdle stunt...and then not have anyway to make an attack roll that benefits from audacious combat. But in looking at that I realized, audacious combat is actually really hard to get any benefit from with strikes, and especially strikes with weapons!
The first one action press strike is not available until level 4, and that one requires that you are flanked, which can be hard to arrange.
Level 6 headsmash is one action, but you have to have someone grappled and both you and the target have to be next to a prop, and you can't use a weapon with this one at all.
Level 8 accompanying strike requires that you missed with a strike on your last action, so no Flying Hurdle Stunt synergy at all.
You literally don't get a press strike action you can use with a weapon in most situations (but only once a turn) until level 10 Hit or Miss and that is pretty much the only one the Daredevil gets.
If audacious combat is really only supposed to apply to maneuvers, then I think the class should be a lot more transparent about that. Really unfortunately, a damage dealing Daredevil almost has to MC into Fighter to get any decent one action press abilities, and then suddenly, they get really good ones. There are also some strange archer builds possible that use audacious combat well. It feels like a good 1 action press strike ability would be very, very popular.
| YuriP |
So, up to the time of this post, I've only tested up to level 2. But one thing I can already say is that none of the level 1 and 2 Press feats are really worth it.
And no, this isn't a problem caused by Audacious Combat, but by the feats themselves.
The first clear problem is that the feats aren't worth the risk-benefit of using them with MAP, even with the reduced MAP from Audacious Combat. In the end, what you have are maneuvers very similar to what you already do with athletics, with very similar risks, but which force you to roll with MAP and are more situational. So, it's almost always simply more efficient to just use Daring Stunt to trip/grab someone and follow up with 2 Strikes with an agile weapon and MAP-3 and MAP-6.
Even the Pressing Pummel, which doesn't function as a maneuver but rather as a Power Attack Vicious Swing, isn't worthwhile unless the target has some resistance to its damage, because simply attacking twice with the reduced MAP from Audacious Combat is simply more efficient.
So Audacious Combat works quite well; it's fun and efficient to use Daring Stunt to trip/grab someone and then perform two strikes with reduced MAP. What doesn't work is performing a normally circumstantial maneuver that requires Press, with a high chance of critical failure due to the penalty, which will usually only punish you more than benefit you.
| Unicore |
It feels like the point of the class is to make these low MAP attacks, but it is hard to get access to them.
The fighter has so many good ones though that MCing to get them isn’t difficult, it is just a bit of a magus and focus spell spell attack spells situation.
| YuriP |
Now I will use Pressing Pummel to test how it will work in practice. Maybe it will increase my impression that the class lacks a good DPR but probably it won't be so bad once the class already has very good mobility due to the +10 feet speed when closer to a prop (and my small DD almost always has some prop) and due to how effective Daring Stunt to the action economy. So I expect that I will use Pressing Pummel almost every turn.