Problems with the vigilante


Ultimate Intrigue Playtest General Discussion


So, I sat down with a group to try and playtest this, but the group quickly dissolved into discussion of the class. First off, the dual identity; As a concept, I can see why it came into being; in practice, it's broken, in too many ways. The biggest problem we had with it is the dual alignment of the two identities. The way I always though of it was that an alignment was a person's core beliefs, and while it could change, it was difficult to do so. With this though. Well...let's give an example. A character, who is socially LG, and has a LN vigilante identity could, according to the rules, commit a LE act, and have no moral repercussions for their act. Now, granted that is an extreme case, but the fact that it can be done to begin with is nuts.
Next up is the renown ability, where you gain advantages while being in a community, and changing it takes a week of work. Tell me; how many adventures actually stay put in a single town? there is an adventure coming up, but as for 90% of the published adventure paths, this would put the vigilante at a huge disadvantage.
Now, we each did build separate vigilante's for our test, and while the builds came up ok, but when you compare our party to their base class equivalents, they just don't stack up. The biggest point we came up with though is this; When you think about what a base class should be, the starting point for all other classes, the base line, the vigilante just doesn't fit with the rest. As a prestige class, or maybe even an archetype of other classes, I could see it work; but this hot mess that we've been given? No. We all came to an agreement that if this class is published, we will not use it, at least as is. This class would be better used if it were removed completely, and some of the rules used as new feats, or rules for making a local city as a home, or even reworked into a prestige class. As it is right now though, myself, and at least four other dms will be outright outlawing this class within our games.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Oranil wrote:
A character, who is socially LG, and has a LN vigilante identity could, according to the rules, commit a LE act, and have no moral repercussions for their act. Now, granted that is an extreme case, but the fact that it can be done to begin with is nuts.

Just addressing one point…

That's pretty much exactly how antiheroes work, yeah. They go out and fight crime without worrying if they have to occasionally get their hands dirty. They might still lead a squeaky-clean daily life working at the kitten orphanage. Besides, alignment is not a straightjacket. A character who is LG might do something LE under the right circumstances. It's also not without moral repercussions- LE acts move you towards LE. That LN starts shifting towards LE if it's a regular habit, just like it would for LG regularly committing LE acts.


What happens if you end up with a vigilante that shifts to LE, while the SI is still LG?

The text say they have to be within one step of each others. It is quite a mess, or at least it leads to wierd interactions.

Silver Crusade

Any shift in one alignment would also be applied to the other. Get more lawful then both go a step. the weird situation is when you can't take a step with both.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
JakBlitz wrote:
Any shift in one alignment would also be applied to the other. Get more lawful then both go a step. the weird situation is when you can't take a step with both.

That will only occur when one alignment steps into the other (NG,CG -> CG,CG). Instead of any shift in alignment, I think the alternate alignment should only shift if it would otherwise be more than two steps away from the first.

Scarab Sages

If you have a TN social persona, and NG Vigilante persona, and your social persona shifts to LN, then you would have the choice of shifting your vigilante persona to LG or TN.

Community / Forums / Archive / Pathfinder / Playtests & Prerelease Discussions / Ultimate Intrigue Playtest / General Discussion / Problems with the vigilante All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in General Discussion