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Having read through Daredevil several times by now to try and absorb the info, yet frustratingly unable to actually playtest it beyond simulation (damn Midwestern rurality), the only real constructive criticism I can give beyond speculative maths are concepts I feel are missing from Daredevil, and currently, I think that's an avenue for Thievery and Dirty Trick.
Dirty Trick is probably one of the best options added in the Remaster for skills (at least imo) because it gives another skill a fairly useful in-combat capability - and notably, it's one that ANY martial can theoretically spec into to help both their fellow martials AND caster friends, since Clumsy is a very nice condition to apply!
Unfortunately, as it stands, there aren't very many things in the game at the moment that interact with Dirty Trick, as it's a "new" addition. The only ones that come up on a cursory search are Dastardly Dash from Swashbuckler, and Opportune Trickster from the brand-new Hellbreaker archetype.
And in my eye, Daredevil is the perfect place to add more kinds of support for it and turn it into a "proper maneuver"! What better trio of classes to take a risky, "pocket-sand"-like action than Rogue, Swash, and Daredevil, the class of risk-taking! It's already an attack action, so it fits cleanly into the idea of focusing on Press actions already, and it gives Dex-focused builds options beyond dipping into Acrobat archetype for Dex-scaling Trips.
I love this idea because Dirty Trick is the only skill feat that adds a new attack. Since daredevil has so many Press feats, it opens up a new dimension for setting up a daredevil Press attack.
At first glance, I worried because Daredevil is starved for skill increases. The class needs to maintain maximum skill in Athletics for Daring Stunt. Any other vital skill competes with that. A Dirty Trick daredevil would increase Thievery to expert at 3rd level, Athletics to expert at 5th level, Thievery to master at 7th level, and Athletics to master at 9th level. I had this problem with my Acrobatics-based playtest daredevil. And a Dirty Trick daredevil would have Dexterity as key attribute score, so would love to advance Acrobatics, too.
But then I realized that a Dirty Trick daredevil could bypass much of that with a well-designed class feat:
Daring Trick feat 2
Daredevil
Prerequisites trained in Thievery, Dirty Trick
Your daring stunts employ clever sleight of hand. Dirty Trick gains the Risky trait. You may use Dirty Trick instead of Grapple, Reposition, Shove, or Trip during Daring Stunt. You may use Thievery instead of Athletics when you use Grapple, Reposition, Shove, or Trip during Daring Stunt.
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I think that a lot of Daredevil's skill progression issues get solved if it just changes the extra level 1 feat it gets into a "subclass" which gives you a training (or preferably an auto-scaling) in the feat's relevant skill.
There really isn't a reason why a class that explicitly wants you to be bolting around and using skill-based attack rolls often shouldn't be scaling them automatically, especially when it probably doesn't have room for many Int increases.
I think that a lot of Daredevil's skill progression issues get solved if it just changes the extra level 1 feat it gets into a "subclass" which gives you a training (or preferably an auto-scaling) in the feat's relevant skill.
There really isn't a reason why a class that explicitly wants you to be bolting around and using skill-based attack rolls often shouldn't be scaling them automatically, especially when it probably doesn't have room for many Int increases.
This made me think about how weird is for this class, out of any class in the system, to get 2 1st-level class feats. I mean, yeah there's a lot of 1st level options in the daredevil and they aren't bad, but they aren't fantastic either and I think you are totally fine with just 1 feat like everybody else.
Or well, at least I struggled a bit when picking the second feat. I hope I can playtest the class soon.
I think on the surface it's a bit weird, but considering just how front-loaded the class kit is, it was probably because they wanted to compensate giving you light-martial class HP with mobility and options.
Notably, it was pointed out to me that Daredevil has Fighter-esque feat progression, where you get extra feats baked into your chassis. Only difference is Daredevil's is at levels 1, 9, and 15 (the latter two flexible), whereas Fighter gets it at 9 and 19 (both flexible).
I think it'd be fine to trade that "extra" 1st-level feat for a subclass that gives you a signposted Risky feat action/activity and autoscaling for that Risky feat's chosen skill.
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The way the class works right now, you absolutely have to have a press feat or else you can’t benefit from audacious combat at all. Daring stunt might be good enough to cover a lot of characters risky needs, but if you are not moving first, it is pretty easy to end up not having a thing you want to do to get adrenaline.
The class might need more/better options, but I think 2 1st level feats is pretty necessary to avoid locking your character into essentially a locked action routine.
This made me think about how weird is for this class, out of any class in the system, to get 2 1st-level class feats. I mean, yeah there's a lot of 1st level options in the daredevil and they aren't bad, but they aren't fantastic either and I think you are totally fine with just 1 feat like everybody else.
Kineticist starts with three 1st-level feats, but two of them have to be impulses in the kineticist's elements. At 1st level a kineticist's class features mostly define what a Kinetic Gate could do rather than doing it. Their active abilities are just Elemental Blast and Base Kinesis, which have less versatility that a Strike. Active versatility comes from impulses, which are feats.
The playtest Daredevil is in the same boat. Their 1st-level class features largely define adrenaline. Daredevil's Endurance passively protects the daredevil. The daredevil gets Daring Stunt and Stunt Damage for actions, but they need feats for alternative sources of adrenaline and followup actions after gaining adrenaline.
I posted a lengthier analysis in my own Kittyhawk playtest thread at comment #27.
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I feel the Daredevil could just be naturally good at using Dirty Trick if audacious combatant worked on more than just press actions. Better yet, if the class wasn't shoehorned into using a risky action at the start of their turns, Dirty Trick could be a fantastic opener for them too. This I think is one of the subtler limitations of the class, where there are a lot of actions that could naturally synergize with them, but don't, because right now the only way an attack action will properly work on the Daredevil is if it's expressly hard-coded into a risky or press feat.
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This made me think about how weird is for this class, out of any class in the system, to get 2 1st-level class feats. I mean, yeah there's a lot of 1st level options in the daredevil and they aren't bad, but they aren't fantastic either and I think you are totally fine with just 1 feat like everybody else.Kineticist starts with three 1st-level feats, but two of them have to be impulses in the kineticist's elements. At 1st level a kineticist's class features mostly define what a Kinetic Gate could do rather than doing it. Their active abilities are just Elemental Blast and Base Kinesis, which have less versatility that a Strike. Active versatility comes from impulses, which are feats.
The playtest Daredevil is in the same boat. Their 1st-level class features largely define adrenaline. Daredevil's Endurance passively protects the daredevil. The daredevil gets Daring Stunt and Stunt Damage for actions, but they need feats for alternative sources of adrenaline and followup actions after gaining adrenaline.
I posted a lengthier analysis in my own Kittyhawk playtest thread at comment #27.
I think the kineticist is a much needed exception since their impulses are akin to a caster's spells, so a kineticist starting with 3 feats at 1st level is in reference to how most casters start with 3 spell slots at 1st level as well. I don't really see why the daredevil needs the extra feat (from a design perspective at least), because everything that justifies the daredevil having it could also be used to give any martial class an extra 1st-level feat too if we are honest. Barbarian comes to mind, having three feats (Moment of Clarity, Raging Intimidation, and Raging Thrower) that IMO should be baseline options and not optional feats you need to take.
Specially Raging Intimidation. I don't see a world where a barbarian isn't naturally intimidating by virtue of being a raging hulk.
Though If I'm totally honest, my problem really isn't with the extra 1st-level feat itself, but with the options themselves and how the feature itself is worded. The class indeed needs a press action at 1st level to work, and Daredevil's Stunt is the perfect way to acquire one, except the feature explicitly calls "1st-level daredevil feat that must have the risky trait" rather than "that must have the press trait". The feats themselves have problems too. The available options are Breakaway Attack, Flying Hurdle Stunt, Forceful Kickoff Stunt, Rebounding Fall Stunt, and Wheeling Pull Stunt. Based on if you are a Dex-based or Str-based daredevil the list of 5 options is reduced to 3 since there's two feats for each, leaving either of those two or Breakaway Attack, which if chosen would leave you without a press action unless you take it with your other 1st-level feat. This has been said before as well, but the TLDR is that people seem to agree the daredevil feats are either weak and/or not risky enough, so making a player pick between two choices that aren't really that appealing in the first place feels kinda bad. That's the same problem skill feats have.
I feel the Daredevil could just be naturally good at using Dirty Trick if audacious combatant worked on more than just press actions. Better yet, if the class wasn't shoehorned into using a risky action at the start of their turns, Dirty Trick could be a fantastic opener for them too. This I think is one of the subtler limitations of the class, where there are a lot of actions that could naturally synergize with them, but don't, because right now the only way an attack action will properly work on the Daredevil is if it's expressly hard-coded into a risky or press feat.
Dirty Trick feels like the perfect option to include in Bold Bluffs. That feat is already weak enough, but if like Raging Intimidation (even if I hate this feat as I mentioned earlier) it granted you both Dirty Trick and the ability to add the risky trait to Dirty Trick and Feints it would be fine IMO.