I get the idea of this class feature, and it makes sense to want to have something like it built into the class, but the bonuses are pretty low and are of a type that the class can already get to boost its defenses in Scrambling retreat.
I think the bonuses could either double, or be untyped so as to not feel like this class has features colliding against themselves, instead of building towards a unified idea of a class play style.
I think it is good to generally discourage shield use in this class as that doesn't feel especially daredevilish...although, there is a kind of cool build that you can do with the Bastion archetype, but that does require picking up shield block first.
Feats like agile shield grip, shielded stride, Drive back, reflexive shield, and a few others work really well with the daredevil.
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Galvanized Mobility IMO feels like class feature bloat. Yeah, the class needs something like this, but the effect is so inconsequential that if it wasn't there people wouldn't notice at all (or would instead ask Paizo to add something similar, but certainly stronger than what we have).
Daredevil's Endurance has a similar problem. "Let's give Diehard for free" yay, one of the 4 general feats I was going to be taking anyways.
Honestly the more I look at the class the more I notice how uninspired it is. Everything seems to be borrowed from somewhere else, but somehow made worse. Though, at the same time, it makes me curious on how the class is going to be at release. I certainly like daredevil more than slayer even with all its problems.
While the daredevil is quite a mobile class already, when I first heard about the class on the Twitch stream I thought it was going lean more on that and less on...pushing people into objects. Ideally I would love for the class to be a bit more mobile on release, with Propelling Strides scaling like the swashbuckler's Vivacious Speed, and an effect like "If you are adjacent to a prop, movement does not trigger reactions" or something like that.
Mobility is a 2nd-level rogue feat after all. This class should have something better.
The problem of Galvanized Mobility is that in practice it doesn't solve the main problem.
What Galvanized Mobility tries to do is to galvanize the player to try to take risks, giving a bit more safety when doing an action that triggers an enemy reaction, but in practice, when weighing the costs and benefits, the player rapidly notices that it is just better to avoid this enemy and focus in the others or just Strike normally because even it is being weaker you don't risk to take a heavily damage just to try to do the things that your class do riskly but that aren't that so better to worth.
This could work if the designer made something really significant, like “the enemy reactions made against you get a step result worse. Success attack rolls become a failure, and critical success attack rolls become a success, or if the reaction requires you to roll a save and you roll a failure, this becomes a success. If you roll a critical failure, this will become a failure”. The other option is just to make a rogue's Mobility-like feature, but IMO this goes against the concept of the benefit being worth the risks that the class tries to take.
It is a little hard to imagine the situation where the bonus from this is ever going to be only a +1, as daring stunt is one action, risky and a full stride + a maneuver, but I guess maybe if you end up prone, with the existing abilities, you are in quite a bit of trouble… actually, rebounding fall stunt doesn’t require that your character start off standing. Is this the ultimate risk/reward kip up feat? I don’t think it’s supposed to work that way and that is a tangent.
I really think the +2 circumstance bonus would be enough if it could stack with another circumstance bonus you could have before provoking (like from scrambling retreat) it would be enough, but it essentially being the exact same as your only real intentional defensive/tanky 1st level feat is working hard against it.
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The problem of Galvanized Mobility is that in practice it doesn't solve the main problem.
What Galvanized Mobility tries to do is to galvanize the player to try to take risks, giving a bit more safety when doing an action that triggers an enemy reaction, but in practice, when weighing the costs and benefits, the player rapidly notices that it is just better to avoid this enemy and focus in the others or just Strike normally because even it is being weaker you don't risk to take a heavily damage just to try to do the things that your class do riskly but that aren't that so better to worth.
This could work if the designer made something really significant, like “the enemy reactions made against you get a step result worse. Success attack rolls become a failure, and critical success attack rolls become a success, or if the reaction requires you to roll a save and you roll a failure, this becomes a success. If you roll a critical failure, this will become a failure”. The other option is just to make a rogue's Mobility-like feature, but IMO this goes against the concept of the benefit being worth the risks that the class tries to take.
^ This.
I was thinking about this because we just had a fight in the Spore War campaign I'm in two days ago with a nasty enemy that had a LOT of reactions, which got triggered when another enemy ran towards it before we could stop it (chain fights are annoying but it was totally valid for a smart NPC to do that). Triggering those reactions hurt a lot. A +1 or maybe +2 was still probably going to hurt a lot.
It was bad enough that I had to get Roaring Applause on it ASAP to shut the reactions down. A Daredevil running around provoking from this thing and taking piles of damage in order to do something would have just eaten into HP that we really couldn't spare with how badly beaten up we were. Smarter to just do something that doesn't provoke until someone else can remove the reactions.
Because frankly, what you're getting by provoking the reactions isn't really worth the heavy hit from the reaction vs just doing something that won't provoke it in the first place. And of course, once the Oracle (me) neutralized the reaction threat, this feature is now doing nothing.
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Yeah, Galvanized Mobility might work if it were more comparable to the heavy armor + shield PC who leads the wedge by triggering Reactions so the rest of the party can follow. Note that that PC typically has Shield Block and 10 h.p./level too, and for several classes all of these are also basic abilities. Playing a PC that continually has to "lead the wedge" round after round (and often for nobody) just to activate many of their own abilities is a dead end or death wish.
Galvanize me with some hit points too, or maybe a miss chance since I'm so wiggly & bouncy (and then won't mirror a Monk or Mobility). That might be an more interesting "risk & reward" route, where instead of circumstance bonuses to AC, Daredevils get a Flat DC 5 miss chance when doing (actually) Risky actions or tumbling away on their Reaction, etc.
Yeah, Galvanized Mobility might work if it were more comparable to the heavy armor + shield PC who leads the wedge by triggering Reactions so the rest of the party can follow. Note that that PC typically has Shield Block and 10 h.p./level too, and for several classes all of these are also basic abilities. Playing a PC that continually has to "lead the wedge" round after round (and often for nobody) just to activate many of their own abilities is a dead end or death wish.
Galvanize me with some hit points too, or maybe a miss chance since I'm so wiggly & bouncy (and then won't mirror a Monk or Mobility). That might be an more interesting "risk & reward" route, where instead of circumstance bonuses to AC, Daredevils get a Flat DC 5 miss chance when doing (actually) Risky actions or tumbling away on their Reaction, etc.
I think if the temp HP class feature was always on and came at level 1 it would help. Need to take a reaction? Well you're getting a buffer by being a Daredevil. It's not a huge buffer, but it makes a real difference. As it stands now that feature comes way too late to matter.
Galvanized Mobility just being bigger would also help. If the class wants me to do this as a core thing, I should be better at it than a Warpriest with a shield.