Pathfinder 2E Launches Playtest for Daredevil and Slayer Classes

Paizo has launched a new playtest for two new classes for Pathfinder 2E - the Daredevil and Slayer classes. After revealing the playtest last week on Paizo Live, the RPG company officially launched the playtest for the two new classes on its website today. Both classes have their roots in Pathfinder 1E - the Slayer was a class in the original Pathfinder edition while the Daredevil was a Bard archetype.

The Daredevil uses Adrenaline (a resource generated by taking actions with the Risky trait) to power various abilities. However, adrenaline only lasts for one round, so a player needs to continuously take Risky actions to keep their Adrenaline flowing.

Meanwhile, the Slayer takes trophies from fallen foes and uses them to reinforce weapons. Slayers choose Quarries and can spend a reaction to take an addition action while close to their Quarry, as long as the action has the Relentless trait.

Both classes will be featured in Pathfinder's summer 2027 book. This summer's Pathfinder rulebook will feature the Necromancer and Runesmith as new classes.

The Risks and Reward Playtests runs from now through April 10th.

 

[Eric V]

Oh, I would love to have two casters.
Prepared caster, can choose from Occult, Primal, Divine, or Arcane.
Spontaneous caster, uses a mana or spell point system. Can choose from Occult, Primal, Divine, or Arcane.

That's literally all the magic classes you need in Pathfinder.

So, with respect, but...clearly not, right? The casters do more than that; just look at how sorcerers, druids and witches all do different things besides spellcasting.

I suppose we can add all their abilities to some huge list one has to consult after choosing spontaneous/prepared, but...at that point nothing has been made simpler or more elegant for the player making the toon, and the whole thing now has to be checked for balance against every possible option since there are only 2 caster classes.

Silo-ing into discrete classes seems like a much better, less reactionary path to take, even if I will never play them.

 

[Retreater]

So, with respect, but...clearly not, right? The casters do more than that; just look at how sorcerers, druids and witches all do different things besides spellcasting.

It's stuff you don't really need, IMO.
I think that the flavor and special abilities can be handled with the schools of magic. For example, the Occult list would have more witchy-flavoring. The Divine list would have more cleric-flavoring.
You would have feats that would have as a Prerequisite "Access to the X Spell List." That's how you'd get your ability to place hexes, etc.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Oh, I would love to have two casters.
Prepared caster, can choose from Occult, Primal, Divine, or Arcane.
Spontaneous caster, uses a mana or spell point system. Can choose from Occult, Primal, Divine, or Arcane.

That's literally all the magic classes you need in Pathfinder.

I feel like you'd have a bunch of people saying "These casters are so generic, they all just feel like one another" especially if you are talking about flavoring the magics around the previous classes instead of just giving the lists more flavor.

As it stands, I don't really care for these classes. I think most of the newer classes have had rather obvious niches, but I think Daredevil is pushing it a bit for me. Feels like it'd be better as an archetype. Slayer, too, with an archetype based around specifically going at higher CR enemies. I do agree that I would rather just have more feats for the classes we have, though generally each book comes with a bunch of archetypes anyways, so...

 

[cbwjm]

I sort of wonder if these would have been better as a multiclass archetype.

 

[Gambit42]

This is why I bounced off PF2. They moved away from multiclassing and archetypes of PF1 to a more gid stay in your lane system like 4E. Which of course means get ready for a whole lot more classes.

It's almost uncanny how similar PF2 feels to 4E, which I find very ironic given the reason Pathfinder exists in the first place. Although they managed to make 4E in a way that didn't also slaughter most of the D&D sacred cows, but I just find it boring. They went the path of extreme balance but to me the end result made both casters and martials boring to play. For myself, I either want to go back to old school style D&D or to go full gonzo Book of Nine Swords style. The OSR scene provides lots of great options for the former, but theres not a single RPG I can think of that leans in to going full gonzo with 3E style casters coupled with Bo9S martials designed as the base game design, would be interesting to see that.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

but theres not a single RPG I can think of that leans in to going full gonzo with 3E style casters coupled with Bo9S martials designed as the base game design, would be interesting to see that.

level up a5e is the closest to that i can think of in that every martial gets bo9s style maneuvers, but it's scaled down to around 5e balance levels, so it's probably not quite as gonzo as you're hoping for.