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As with the Slayer, I've posted my playtest notes for the Daredevil. You can see the detailed feedback on that thread, but in my opinion the class has several key problems that really need to be addressed:
As I tend to do when a class's issues are this serious, I've mulled over what could change within the Daredevil to help them become the best they could be (or, rather, what I imagine to be the best they could be, which is a bit different). This is something I've also done for the Slayer, a similarly flawed class in the Risks and Rewards playtest for which I posted a proof of concept a few days before.
After giving it some thought, here is a draft for a proof of concept for an alternate Daredevil class. Surprisingly, I initially expected the class to have more going for it than the Slayer, but whereas my take on the latter revolved more around some (fairly serious) tweaks, my take on the Daredevil ended up being a near-total overhaul. The broad lines of the changes outlined in that document are as follows:
The general idea of what I want the Daredevil to be out of all this is a chaotic class that chains tons of small actions on the same turn, moving around and maneuvering enemies dynamically according to whatever's available to them from round to round. I want them to be the class that makes the best overall use of maneuvers, and hurt enemies mainly with the chip damage of their agile Strikes by exploiting their positioning relative to terrain and other creatures. Ideally, the end result ought to be a really dynamic class whose constraints come from their positioning and the enemy's rather than artificial limitations, and with a truly high-risk, high-reward playstyle that should give players exciting highs and nail-biting moments when things don't go quite according to plan.
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I like this a lot, but ultimately it brings me back to questioning a) whether the class truly needs to exist rather than just being b) options/feats for any character to use/take to make combat, and *the environment* more narratively exciting.
So instead of “Jackie Chan, the Class” we could have Everyone is Jackie Chan, the Movie.
Once you have removed Adrenaline and the punishing action cost associated with generating it, what do you have? A bunch of options and environmental cues, that while they interact with each other within a class framework don’t necessarily need to.
Much as you redefined and refined Ranged combat, I think this could be a refinement of…melee combat.
To some extent yes, a lot of these feats could be packaged for the Wrestler archetype or just given out to different classes, though I think the key difference here is that unless you're a Flurry Ranger, most of these feats would prevent you from making further attacks or maneuvers due to how quickly they'd rack up your MAP. By contrast, as a Daredevil your maximum MAP would be a point stronger than MAP on another regular character's second attack, so you could reasonably keep chaining those moves at the risk of incurring critical failure, and also make those extra fist Strikes along the way. I do agree though that there's probably something to be said for making repositioning and terrain features a bigger part of melee combat in general, independently of the Daredevil.
I myself am planning on rewriting the Daredevil class for my April 7th game session, so Teridax's Alternative Daredevil is a good preview for me. I have different goals, since my playtest daredevil is an Acrobatics build and the Alternative Daredevil's Risky Tricks improves only Athletics.
The Alternative Daredevil is extremely stripped down, losing adrenaline, Risky, and the Press feats designed for high chance of critical failure. Okay, adrenaline is a flawed mechanic that has to go. On the other hand, since the obvious theme of a Daredevil class is taking ridiculous risks, this Alternative Daredevil seems less daring. Attribute Boosts says. "The perils you put you body through grant you more attribute boosts than others." Um, what perils? The Alternative Daredevil seems to have the same perils as all the other martial classes, except for being on the low side in hit points.
One complaint was Burdensome Fragility, that the daredevil needs frequent attention in combat from the party healer. I see that Alternative Daredevil has abilities to prevent death and return to their feet, but I don't see an ability that reduces their need for healing in combat. I am interested that both my Diehard Risky idea and Teridax's Not Today! give the daredevil the Wounded condition. I think that Wounded can represent the never-give-up theme of the daredevil.
The Alternative Daredevil is extremely stripped down, losing adrenaline, Risky, and the Press feats designed for high chance of critical failure. Okay, adrenaline is a flawed mechanic that has to go. On the other hand, since the obvious theme of a Daredevil class is taking ridiculous risks, this Alternative Daredevil seems less daring. Attribute Boosts says. "The perils you put you body through grant you more attribute boosts than others." Um, what perils? The Alternative Daredevil seems to have the same perils as all the other martial classes, except for being on the low side in hit points.
I don't really agree with this; all of the Daredevil's listed feats and features have them hurling their body at enemies and the scenery, while continually exerting themselves as much as possible in extremely close quarters. Mechanically, their feats are also rather perilous, as they tend to have the Daredevil chain lots of attacks that incur negative effects on a critical failure. They definitely put themselves through a lot of punishment.
I'll also say that aside from the flavor justification, the key reason I gave the Daredevil special attribute boosts is because the class right now really has to boost both Strength and Dexterity: Strength is obviously important for their Athletics maneuvers, but Dexterity is also important for their AC as a light armor class, their Reflex saves, and Tumbling Through. Currently, the class has one of three choices: they can commit to a rather boring Strength-Dex-Con-Wis setup that gives them nothing too useful in social encounters, they can rush towards heavy armor proficiency as quickly as possible, which I think is really thematically inappropriate, or they can stretch themselves too thin and tank their baseline effectiveness even further by trying to opt into Charisma. The above 5-boost setup means they can get the boosts they need while still opting into a social skill.
One complaint was Burdensome Fragility, that the daredevil needs frequent attention in combat from the party healer. I see that Alternative Daredevil has abilities to prevent death and return to their feet, but I don't see an ability that reduces their need for healing in combat. I am interested that both my Diehard Risky idea and Teridax's Not Today! give the daredevil the Wounded condition. I think that Wounded can represent the never-give-up theme of the daredevil.
Their ability to prevent dropping to 0 is what in my opinion would reduce the need for the party to drop everything and dump as much healing into the Daredevil as possible as often happens now. Unless you were to make the class properly tanky by giving them high AC and saves and temporary Hit Points on top, I don't think there's ever going to be a situation where you can make a class squishy yet not a beneficiary of healing at the same time: that much is fine, what is not fine is when the Daredevil constantly gets knocked to dying because of their antics and needs urgent healing just to not fully die. The above Daredevil would certainly survive better with a healer in the party, but can at least stay on the razor's edge when not healed immediately.
Personally I don’t see the need for the chassis to be…squishy. Perhaps the name “Daredevil” is giving folks some dissonance with regard to making more options available or broadening the scope - and given that the risk/reward schtick seems undercooked I’m not see the “dare”. I’m picturing a highly mobile but still solid bruiser who can bend foes around a handrail or column and bounce off big or small foes to continuously pound and destroy…and not necessarily only with fists. A weapon using, armored warrior that just happens to also know that using the environment is key to victory. You don’t always *need* your weapon to get the foe in a bind…
So…no need to be squishy in terms of HP OR AC…
This is fair; you could probably just give the class 10 HP per level and call it a day. Personally I think it's worth trying to lean into the squishiness of the playtest class in spite of its current problems, because if there's gameplay where the Daredevil gets to feel constantly on the edge of death while still surviving at their thing, that's gameplay worth engineering I think.
Personally I don’t see the need for the chassis to be…squishy. Perhaps the name “Daredevil” is giving folks some dissonance with regard to making more options available or broadening the scope - and given that the risk/reward schtick seems undercooked I’m not see the “dare”. I’m picturing a highly mobile but still solid bruiser who can bend foes around a handrail or column and bounce off big or small foes to continuously pound and destroy…and not necessarily only with fists. A weapon using, armored warrior that just happens to also know that using the environment is key to victory. You don’t always *need* your weapon to get the foe in a bind…
So…no need to be squishy in terms of HP OR AC…
The squishiness is more Jackie Chan than daredevil. I watched some Jackie Chan clips to get a better idea of a Prop-based combat style and found a nice summary at the YouTube video Jackie Chan - How to Do Action Comedy. I summarize it at Kittyhawk, Playtest Daredevil, comment #9. One of the key features of a Jackie Chan action hero is that he gets beaten up and painfully hurt but gets back up and never gives up. Both Texidax and I accept that feature for the daredevil, so both our homebrew modifications to the Daredevil class lean into the Wounded condition.
Adding more hit points would remove the "painfully hurt" aspect of never giving up. Raising the AC would reduce the "beaten up" aspect of never giving up.
Pathfinder already has several martial classes that can be a solid bruiser. Both Barbarian and Monk have Speed increases for mobility, so they fulfill the niche of highly mobile but still solid bruiser. Working with the environment via Props is new, but one new feature is not enough for a new class. Keeping to the gutsy cinematic side of daredevil ought to make the class more interesting to players, and let Paizo sell more copies of Risks & Rewards.
…because if there's gameplay where the Daredevil gets to feel constantly on the edge of death while still surviving at their thing, that's gameplay worth engineering I think.
Hmm. I guess I can’t see it as enjoyable, mostly because I can’t actually see how the risk plays out, or where the payoff comes in. And I don’t mean in terms of the mechanical/in game game-mechanic reward but as a tacit plan to excite the player somehow.
I guess for me having low hit points tends to make me want to be cautious, so in order to make me *want* to throw that caution to the wind I’d want something pretty special as the…not so much reward…but effectiveness before the reward? I’m not sure what I’m getting at.
(Interestingly enough I have been thinking about the Blackguard class from the rogue-like CRPG Angband that as it gets weaker/takes more damage is designed to become more dangerous/deadly. Or at least that is the way I remember it…)
To clarify, the Daredevil for me, needs to be able to “leverage” their “current” fragility (current level/state of HP) to score big hits even when almost tapped out; not be “risky while delicate”. So almost a sliding scale of buffs that increase as the HP depletes or somehow actually leverages throwing caution to the wind (if you are flanked you do more damage or hit better; if your foe/s are higher level; if you have condition x; if your HP is 50%/25%/10%; if the foes have resistances or immunities; if you are x distance from allies; if x number of your allies are down; if your AC is lower than every creature ever born etc etc etc almost like a reverse thaumaturge) instead of merely being told “your chassis has low HP AND poor AC *to begin with* - be crazy!!!!” And then not really getting any guidance in terms of mechanical “rewards” as the…reward.
I dunno, I think I’m just dumping crazy ideas and reaching for a thesis when I don’t really have one. I know the feeling of what I want from a risk/reward chassis and the playtest Daredevil doesn’t deliver.
Becoming more powerful the more you're damaged is a mechanic I find interesting as well, though that's something I'd personally like to see more on a tank class that can actually take enough punishment to show off their buffs. With the Daredevil, part of the above is that you can't really play it safe to begin with: your actions are all melee, so you can't use your class to fight from a distance; you have to put yourself in the danger zone. Part of it as well though is that in the above, there is a major payoff to playing your class, namely that you get to pull off an incredible number of actions in one turn, and several of your actions become more powerful the higher your MAP.
Just as an example: you notice an enemy is next to an ally and close to another. With your first action, you can Rushing Stride to Tumble Through, flank the enemy, and Strike it. With your second action, you can do a Wheeling Pull to Grapple the creature at -3 MAP... which lets you do a Maneuvered Strike at -6 MAP, because the enemy is next to an obstacle. If your Grapple succeeds, you can then Step, then Reposition that enemy into the other ally... which lets you do another Maneuvered Strike! And finally, with your third action, you can Destabilize the enemy to make a Strike: the action's clumsy condition becomes more intense if you've made more attacks on your turn, so on a success you'd get to inflict the maximum of clumsy 2 to that enemy. That's a total of eight actions you could pull off in the same turn, including four Strikes!
And that to me is a sample of how the Daredevil in my opinion should feel: at their best, they ought to be able to do a ton of actions in one turn and translate the risk of higher MAP, and thus crit failures on certain attacks, into rewards. At any point things could go horribly wrong -- the Daredevil above made themselves off-guard and would've been stopped dead in their tracks if they'd gotten crit from a Reactive Strike, and they could've failed or even crit failed their Grapple or Reposition and opened themselves up to retaliation from their target, which is a likelihood when you quickly end up maxing out your MAP, but in my opinion being able to do all that would make it worth it.