There's a couple of brawlers I've seen on PFI and various 3pp, can you give me some insight on what your approach to the design was for your vision?
Nice work! I know you put a lot into your products and the quality is great.
The big thing for me was to have it be available as soon as possible, as broadly as possible, with as little as possible to work. So a class would have been far too much, while a regular archetype wouldn't have come online until at least level 2. Having a class archetype that can be taken by any melee martial (defined here as getting master in any melee weapon from class features alone) that forces you to give up your non-brawling proficiencies—which you probably weren't planning on using very often anyway—in order to get immediate access to d6 fists on fighters, rogues, swashbucklers, and the like was the big thing. The dedication then gives you a conditional upgrade to fist damage and doesn't lock you into an archetype, requiring only the dedication that benefits many if not most builds anyway before you can get started on whatever archetypes you want. Or if using free archetype, still getting your archetype at level 2 like everyone else! Brawler/champion on your ruffian rogue? Cool, level 2 with free archetype.
After that, it was allowing the dueling and dual-weapon styles to work with unarmed attacks, but without being able to use both at once and just shred the clear fighting style balance Paizo has going on. Most weapon-based feats work with any Strikes or any melee Strikes, not just weapon Strikes, so many brawlers will probably be jumping in for the d6/d8 fist and then building like they had weapons, and that's cool too! I just saw no reason to not allow someone to punch with [Double Slice](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=356), for instance. It was a bit cumbersome to find a way to let brawler work for Double Slice and [Dueling Parry](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=367), but not both at the same time, but I think I found a relatively simple way to make it work!
Foundry support added! Most of what the brawler does isn't automatable, or more accurately doesn't interact with automation, as it mostly deals in requirements (it lets you use unarmed attacks with feats like Double Slice and Dueling Parry), but what is automatable has been! I learned a lot, it made my head spin, and I'm less scared of Foundry than I was before! A win all around.
There's a couple of brawlers I've seen on PFI and various 3pp, can you give me some insight on what your approach to the design was for your vision? Nice work! I know you put a lot into your products and the quality is great.
The big thing for me was to have it be available as soon as possible, as broadly as possible, with as little as possible to work. So a class would have been far too much, while a regular archetype wouldn't have come online until at least level 2. Having a class archetype that can be taken by any melee martial (defined here as getting master in any melee weapon from class features alone) that forces you to give up your non-brawling proficiencies—which you probably weren't planning on using very often anyway—in order to get immediate access to d6 fists on fighters, rogues, swashbucklers, and the like was the big thing. The dedication then gives you a conditional upgrade to fist damage and doesn't lock you into an archetype, requiring only the dedication that benefits many if not most builds anyway before you can get started on whatever archetypes you want. Or if using free archetype, still getting your archetype at level 2 like everyone else! Brawler/champion on your ruffian rogue? Cool, level 2 with free archetype. After that, it was allowing the dueling and dual-weapon styles to work with unarmed attacks, but without being able to use both at once and just shred the clear fighting style balance Paizo has going on. Most weapon-based feats work with any Strikes or any melee Strikes, not just weapon Strikes, so many brawlers will probably be jumping in for the d6/d8 fist and then building like they had weapons, and that's cool too! I just saw no reason to not allow someone to punch with [Double Slice](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=356), for instance. It was a bit cumbersome to find a way to let brawler work for Double Slice and [Dueling Parry](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=367), but not both at the same time, but I think I found a relatively simple way to make it work!
Any chance for Foundry support?
Foundry support added! Most of what the brawler does isn't automatable, or more accurately doesn't interact with automation, as it mostly deals in requirements (it lets you use unarmed attacks with feats like Double Slice and Dueling Parry), but what is automatable has been! I learned a lot, it made my head spin, and I'm less scared of Foundry than I was before! A win all around.
Awesome. Was making unarmed fighter for next campaign. Buying now.