What is a Vigilante?


Ultimate Intrigue Playtest General Discussion


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So I've seen tons of feedback and suggestions about the mechanics of the Vigilante class + specializations but no one has really talked about the theme of the class. So ignoring the glitzy bits for a minute lets step back and ask ourselves: what's a Vigilante? Who are they? What do they do? What are their motivations?


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Ha! A miserable little pile of secrets.


Trekkie90909 wrote:
So I've seen tons of feedback and suggestions about the mechanics of the Vigilante class + specializations but no one has really talked about the theme of the class. So ignoring the glitzy bits for a minute lets step back and ask ourselves: what's a Vigilante? Who are they? What do they do? What are their motivations?

You beat me to it. Well done sir.


There's glitz?*

*Foe Collisiony stuff *sounds* cool tho'.


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Rynjin wrote:
Ha! A miserable little pile of secrets.

Note (for the sake of being on topic) this is half joke, half truth.

The whole class' point is keeping the secret of the actual class' identity. Which is a miserable little niche to have.


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Rynjin wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
Ha! A miserable little pile of secrets.

Note (for the sake of being on topic) this is half joke, half truth.

The whole class' point is keeping the secret of the actual class' identity. Which is a miserable little niche to have.

Yeah...I am fairly certain it doesn't even do that well in a lot of cases. The reason being that hiding your identity by switching between two identities is actually a really bad way of concealing your identity. If you want to do it well, you don't walk around as a part-time caterer by day and the Muffin Man by night. You pick whatever inane occupation suits your purposes best to disguise yourself as, and you run with it until you need to vanquish crime or whatever, and then the baddies get a surprise when that random porter pulls out a pair of muffin-chucks. If you actually do want to have a specific "day" persona, you walk around as the persona doing your normal business, and then switch to something completely different while you do your social stealth business so the baddies don't start to associate the presence of a certain part-time caterer with the emergence of a muffin themed madman. You do not walk around as a caterer and then hide in an alley twenty meters from the bad guys' hide out while you turn into the Muffin Man. It's just asking to have your identity discovered.

The class only sits comfortably in it's niche when you want to have an identity that is well known, and another identity that is well known but actually has useful class features, and there is a clear degree of separation between the two, and you don't need to disguise yourself as other people and you don't need to be better at social skills than a rogue. If this isn't the case, you are a 6+int skillpoint class who is going to have very few skill boosting abilities due to the complete lack of useful non-talent class features and the enormous tax on talents for the specializations to actually be not completely terrible. Classes which are decently skilled (e.g. alchemist, inquisitor) will keep up with you while performing far better in other areas, while classes that are actually good at the skills which fall under the social stealth umbrella will blow you out of the water (Bard, Investigator) while still performing far better in other areas.


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Is that hidden identity really the core of a Vigilante? It's certainly the only aspect addressed by the class's mechanics. But shouldn't it be focused on smoking out corruption, protecting the innocent, and bringing villains to justice?

Because for some reason I never found Bruce Wayne's ability to hide a skin-tight suit to be his or Batman's true purpose.

Sovereign Court

Snowblind wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
Ha! A miserable little pile of secrets.

Note (for the sake of being on topic) this is half joke, half truth.

The whole class' point is keeping the secret of the actual class' identity. Which is a miserable little niche to have.

Yeah...I am fairly certain it doesn't even do that well in a lot of cases. The reason being that hiding your identity by switching between two identities is actually a really bad way of concealing your identity. If you want to do it well, you don't walk around as a part-time caterer by day and the Muffin Man by night. You pick whatever inane occupation suits your purposes best to disguise yourself as, and you run with it until you need to vanquish crime or whatever, and then the baddies get a surprise when that random porter pulls out a pair of muffin-chucks. If you actually do want to have a specific "day" persona, you walk around as the persona doing your normal business, and then switch to something completely different while you do your social stealth business so the baddies don't start to associate the presence of a certain part-time caterer with the emergence of a muffin themed madman. You do not walk around as a caterer and then hide in an alley twenty meters from the bad guys' hide out while you turn into the Muffin Man. It's just asking to have your identity discovered.

The class only sits comfortably in it's niche when you want to have an identity that is well known, and another identity that is well known but actually has useful class features, and there is a clear degree of separation between the two, and you don't need to disguise yourself as other people and you don't need to be better at social skills than a rogue. If this isn't the case, you are a 6+int skillpoint class who is going to have very few skill boosting abilities due to the complete lack of useful non-talent class features and the enormous tax on talents for the specializations to actually be not completely terrible....

I concur with all of this: this is exactly what I experienced in Friday's playtest where we played an 8th level Avenger and 8th level Warlock.

(Avenger died in round 3 at -20 hp; Warlock escape in round 3 with 3 hp left; Avenger had no time to even land one point of damage and the Warlock was lobbing fireballs from the back with his wand/tattoo chamber but with pitiful 5d6 damage with Ref saves DC 14... in short the Avenger could not reach the enemy despite her high climb skill due to super slow climb speed = landspeed/4 and the rogues and alchemist being on top of 30 foot roof, therefore unable to inflict his other kickass 1d3+18 damage unarmed strikes, while the Warlock was mobile due to fly spell but unable to really hurt the rogues who all had Evasion and were laughing at his silly run of the mill wal-mart grade fireballs...)


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The thing is, that isn't a class niche. That's a character concept, one that any class can fulfill.

The Vigilante attempts to take that a step further, and separate the champion of justice from Joe the Butcher, but that is its only realistic purpose.


Trekkie90909 wrote:

Is that hidden identity really the core of a Vigilante? It's certainly the only aspect addressed by the class's mechanics. But shouldn't it be focused on smoking out corruption, protecting the innocent, and bringing villains to justice?

Because for some reason I never found Bruce Wayne's ability to hide a skin-tight suit to be his or Batman's true purpose.

It's a pretty common theme amongst superheroes. Everything else I can think of is ridiculously varied. The only things I can think of that comes close is the general objective for most superheroes being kind of justice-y and the tendency for superheroes to dish out a beat down with their fists (although usually mixed up with other stuff too).

You can see this in the Vigilante class itself. The only major thing that makes the vigilante the vigilante is the dual identity. Most of the rest of it is four different paths that badly mimic four other classes and with essentially no relation between them.

The class really does suffer the issue where it wants to be the superhero class, but superheroes are so incredibly varied that it only has a couple of common tropes for class direction. Hence why it feels so unfocused.

Sovereign Court

Annoying thought on that: what if the purpose of the class is just for DMs to piss off paladins?

paladin player: I smite the red dragon, yeah!!! sweet, it's a crit! 178 damage!
DM: huh, not really, take off all the smite part of that crit
paladin player: wtf?
DM: yeah, that CR 23 red dragon has *one* level of vigilante, and right now, the dragon is in its "social identity", alignment True Neutral... and he has +4 to perception too [DM turns to rogue player] Sorry Steve...
rogue player: wtf? my stealth did not beat it's perception after all??
DM: ....no, the dragon was counting his money when you showed up, wearing his tiny little accountant spectacles [facepalms] that... should have given y'all a clue?? [facepalms]

Sovereign Court

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paladin player, sad, after defeating the dragon by blowing a lot of one shot items and healing resources: you mentioned it had a level of vigilante... do we get more XP?
DM: let me check...... no.


@PDK Heh.

@Snowblind; the mechanics are definitely varied -- maybe even enough to warrant 4 specializations.

Their core missions are pretty similar though. To remove the cancerous elements of society. To protect the innocent and their ideals. These tend to be the major unifying theme tying their social and night lives together.

None of that is addressed in the current class. No unique abilities to affect social change, no ability to protect others. Can't get between the bullet and your wounded team-mate or cast some awesome protective magic to slow the descent of the meteor aimed at the city.


Trekkie90909 wrote:

@PDK Heh.

@Snowblind; the mechanics are definitely varied -- maybe even enough to warrant 4 specializations.

Their core missions are pretty similar though. To remove the cancerous elements of society. To protect the innocent and their ideals. These tend to be the major unifying theme tying their social and night lives together.

None of that is addressed in the current class. No unique abilities to affect social change, no ability to protect others. Can't get between the bullet and your wounded team-mate or cast some awesome protective magic to slow the descent of the meteor aimed at the city.

All of that is very..."Good". I think they didn't want to restrict it to mostly just Good aligned characters (or at least characters who work towards ostensibly "Good" goals). They would have wanted it to be an option for villain NPCs as well. Unfortunately, this means that the class shouldn't really be filled with a bunch of "help your allies" abilities, since that won't fit the theme they will be hoping for a lot of the time. One or two would be ok, but not the basis for the class.

As for the mechanical variety...the class has no focus. It is either a slayer like...thing, a rogue like...thing, a kind of wizardy like...thing, and an inquisitor like...thing. And pretty much just worse than the respective classes. The class doesn't do its own thing. It can choose to be a pale shadow of a few different classes, and it has some narrow restrictive identity stuff thrown in to make up for it's inferiority. The vigilante won't be that worthwhile unless they make the specializations interesting, and add enough common abilities so that the class doesn't feel like it is actually four classes that are crappy versions of another class by night and NPCs by day.


Vigilante - "a member of a self-appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority, typically because the legal agencies are thought to be inadequate."

Granted it's more a law thing than a good/evil one. That said it could be like the cleric where being good/lawful gives you access to protecting talents, being evil/lawful gives you access to destructive or domineering talents, and being neutral lets you pick and choose.


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The thing is, someone murdering Varisians at night to save our pure Chelish blood would also be a fine Vigilante given what we have. So would a follower of Norgorber, or similar "cultist" sort. They aren't a class with particular ability at fighting for law and order, nor good or evil, they are a class that lets you be a subtlety different, often weaker version of another class + Secret Identity. That makes Secret Identity what differentiates them as a class.

The problem is that mostly it just gives you the identity, not stuff to do with it. Bruce Wayne isn't useful to Batman just because, Batman is often written as a weirdo that could go Punisher really easily. Bruce Wayne is useful because he comes with awesome abilities like "Billionaire," "Wayne Enterprises Resources," "Well Connected," and "Family Name" that Batman can't really have (given his actions are illegal, and would get them taken away). Don Diego, Sir Percy, Norman Osborne... a lot of "secret identity" characters have the same reasoning.

So, I'd argue the Vigilante needs to be someone with two forms, both of which have useful abilities and a strong reason to keep them separate. I honestly don't know how to accomplish this, but I also don't know how the class will fully gel (mechanically or thematically, in play or in theory) without it. A fundamental rewrite of the concept into a protector/destroyer thing could make an interesting class, certainly an easier one to write and integrate into a game, but is pretty far from what we are working with and likely beyond the scope of possible changes at this point.

Verdant Wheel

A Vigilante, to me, is at-best-mechanically an Archetype that can be applied to any class.

Dual-Identity and access to Vigilante Feats is granted in exchange for a modification to Alignment, in that the Vigilante must choose a Cause To Fight For and a Weakness.

I am definitely anticipating the subsystems this new Intrigue book will introduce...


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The Vigilante, as it stands, is trying to be a Superhero.

It's trying to be Batman, in no uncertain terms. It's also trying to be The Shadow, The Spider, etc.

In it's current form, it's a poor anti-Archetype; instead of an Archetype that's applied to existing classes, this applies minor aspects of established classes to an Expert NPC class with an obvious superhero pastiche to it.

---

What it SHOULD be is a class that's all about concealment and social stealth, and switching between social and martial skills.

It SHOULD be a class focused on being a faceman, on being a super-spy, on being an assassin that can bleed into crowds without effort.

It SHOULD be Simon Templar, Michael Westen, Ezio Auditore, "Faceman" Peck, and Jaqen H'Ghar. As a result, it can also be Batman, The Shadow, a Power Ranger, a Sailor Scout, etc.

It SHOULD have two modes and allow the player to choose how they play it naturally:

Stay in Vigilante Persona primarily and use Social Persona as a means of infiltration.

Stay in Social Persona primarily and use Vigilante Persona as a means to take out targets and then run.

Use both equally, with Social focusing on gathering information, and Vigilante focusing on combat.


When you describe it like this, social identity sounds more like... a feat, say. Maybe a two-step feat tree.


Rynjin wrote:
Ha! A miserable little pile of secrets.

. . . You're a Vigilante aren't you? Your secret identity, is clearly that of a Count, who spends his time sitting in a throne in a dark castle in Transylvania filled with monsters waiting for chain-whip wielding fools to come challenge him!

I'll spread the word far and wide! I hope you didn't like having a secret identity! Because it won't be secret anymore!

On topic: It's the Disguise Skill, a spell or two, and maybe a Feat pretending to be an entire class.


Purple Dragon Knight wrote:
Snowblind wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
Ha! A miserable little pile of secrets.

Note (for the sake of being on topic) this is half joke, half truth.

The whole class' point is keeping the secret of the actual class' identity. Which is a miserable little niche to have.

Yeah...I am fairly certain it doesn't even do that well in a lot of cases. The reason being that hiding your identity by switching between two identities is actually a really bad way of concealing your identity. If you want to do it well, you don't walk around as a part-time caterer by day and the Muffin Man by night. You pick whatever inane occupation suits your purposes best to disguise yourself as, and you run with it until you need to vanquish crime or whatever, and then the baddies get a surprise when that random porter pulls out a pair of muffin-chucks. If you actually do want to have a specific "day" persona, you walk around as the persona doing your normal business, and then switch to something completely different while you do your social stealth business so the baddies don't start to associate the presence of a certain part-time caterer with the emergence of a muffin themed madman. You do not walk around as a caterer and then hide in an alley twenty meters from the bad guys' hide out while you turn into the Muffin Man. It's just asking to have your identity discovered.

The class only sits comfortably in it's niche when you want to have an identity that is well known, and another identity that is well known but actually has useful class features, and there is a clear degree of separation between the two, and you don't need to disguise yourself as other people and you don't need to be better at social skills than a rogue. If this isn't the case, you are a 6+int skillpoint class who is going to have very few skill boosting abilities due to the complete lack of useful non-talent class features and the enormous tax on talents for the specializations to actually be

I concur with all of this: this is exactly what I experienced in Friday's playtest where we played an 8th level Avenger and 8th level Warlock.

(Avenger died in round 3 at -20 hp; Warlock escape in round 3 with 3 hp left; Avenger had no time to even land one point of damage and the Warlock was lobbing fireballs from the back with his wand/tattoo chamber but with pitiful 5d6 damage with Ref saves DC 14... in short the Avenger could not reach the enemy despite her high climb skill due to super slow climb speed = landspeed/4 and the rogues and alchemist being on top of 30 foot roof, therefore unable to inflict his other kickass 1d3+18 damage unarmed strikes, while the Warlock was mobile due to fly spell but unable to really hurt the rogues who all had Evasion and were laughing at his silly run of the mill wal-mart grade fireballs...)

I was the Warlock player and I agree with everything that Snowblind said. To me the dual identity is almost a drawback rather than a class ability. It kind of forces you into playing a certain way rather than using the mechanics of a class to build a concept you want to play. That being said the "spy" portion of the mission was fun and we handled that part mostly intelligently and maybe I should use more cloak & dagger stuff when I get the chance...not that I need this class to do so.

Now I'm curious on a few things? I suppose I can disguise myself in either of my identities? We should have just went into the jaws of death as our superhero ids and then after doing the talky talk just attacked. If we could dress up as mundanes at low levels that would fix a lot of the problems. At least have access to all of your abilities all the time. Quick change for free twice per day per level or something. Which is the real identity? Does it matter? Ha! ;)

As for the power level of the class? First I will say that the Warlock seems more powerful than the Avenger but that is generally the case with spell casters vs martials. Second this was not a good play test to judge the power of the class based on the following: The encounter was designed for 4 pcs not 2 our dm who is good did not adjust that for some reason...or possibly he did a bit after he saw how things were going but not enough, we used very poor tactics ie: through the front door when we technically could have got to the same position inside as with our social personas but did not cause we be supaheroes, we did not buff enough or plan before attacking(just about everything in this AP has been really easy with our regular pcs so that was part of it), the encounter was especially strong against our attacks and our defenses ie: Avengers low touch AC all of them had touch attacks and evasion against warlocks fireballs(except alchemist), dm had hot dice and critted us multiple times doing 50+ damage in a single shot on my warlock.

I actually like the mechanics of the warlock they have some cool abilities, plus I really liked the concept of my character. I'm sure a magus is more powerful combat wise but otherwise more boring of a class so I'm not entirely sure what to do with the Warlock and the Vigilante in general.

Warlock, I'd say fix up the spell casting all the talents to cast etc. gets confusing.

As for the class in general dual identity needs a lot of work. I'd say give a quick change per day as a standard action twice per day per level. Be able to disguise yourself as whatever right out of the box so you have more than 2 identities which any moron can figure out pretty quickly. I mean in our encounter two people show up a M'Wangi woman and a Chelaxian man. Then 10 min later the Silver Maiden and The Dark Apostate show up and fight. The Silver Maiden lay smoking against a wall of their base. Hmm a charred M'Wangi woman...I wonder who that other guy was? No idea no sir!

Or just get rid of it dual identity?


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The Dragon wrote:
When you describe it like this, social identity sounds more like... a feat, say. Maybe a two-step feat tree.

More like a trait.


I don't really see how this class works as PC but from GM point of view this class is GREAT. I can now have vigilante villain interact with PCs in his public identity and be the real bad guy in his secret identity. It's great for that.

From a player point of view the class works but you will just be you secret identity 99% of the time for you average adventure path. I as GM could, should say would, run a home brew game playing up the vigilante identities in a city. I think it would be great. But we play a lot of APs so unless one is coming out soon to use it this class probably won't get a lot of use. That AP Cheliax though looks like it was made for the Vigilante though.


voska66 wrote:
I don't really see how this class works as PC but from GM point of view this class is GREAT.

LOL I see this a lot. "It works GREAT as an NPC class!"...

I just want an Archetype , lets call it Vigilante Unmasked, that trades ALL the abilities other than abilities and specializations to buff the actual fun part. Like auto-casting without paying talents.


graystone wrote:
voska66 wrote:
I don't really see how this class works as PC but from GM point of view this class is GREAT.

LOL I see this a lot. "It works GREAT as an NPC class!"...

I just want an Archetype , lets call it Vigilante Unmasked, that trades ALL the abilities other than abilities and specializations to buff the actual fun part. Like auto-casting without paying talents.

It's a really back handed compliment, isn't it. The class works when put into the hands of an omniscient being that can warp the world around the class in just the right way to make it not fail. I guess it really is the superhero class.

"Wow, this class is great when I make it three levels higher than I would with similar classes just so it doesn't get stomped on in combat and the druid with a sense motive trait can't literally just ask the damn social identity if they are the BBEG (since the class isn't actually that skilled at bluffing, and is likely to fold to a wis based class with a good sense motive mod)."


Snowblind wrote:
graystone wrote:
voska66 wrote:
I don't really see how this class works as PC but from GM point of view this class is GREAT.

LOL I see this a lot. "It works GREAT as an NPC class!"...

It's a really back handed compliment, isn't it. The class works when put into the hands of an omniscient being that can warp the world around the class in just the right way to make it not fail. I guess it really is the superhero class.

"Wow, this class is great when I make it three levels higher than I would with similar classes just so it doesn't get stomped on in combat and the druid with a sense motive trait can't literally just ask the damn social identity if they are the BBEG (since the class isn't actually that skilled at bluffing, and is likely to fold to a wis based class with a good sense motive mod)."

The main problem is the social identity has very little use for a player... how many people want to sit around doing just social scenario's every other session with an identity often as bad or worse than their normal one, then do a combat scenario with the same people using other identities, all the while everyone else does both as the same characters(non-vigilantes) that for some reason(keeping the party together) need to be tied to both characters... which weakens the point of the vigilante in the first place...

NPC's don't have those ties and players actually will try to find them.
Imagine the fun of doing a campaign as Evil characters like Anti-paladins against Vigilantes, or NPC "helper" Vigilantes, or being contracted to find one... unless the PC can make the social identity useful like Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent, and also keep them relevant to the story... they become a pointless distraction.


NPCs aren't as badly off as players, but they still aren't that great.

If the NPCs EVER interact with the PCs in social persona, there is the risk that the PCs will figure out that they are vigilantes. All social identity really does is remove the need to make disguise checks. It doesn't actually help the vigilante when a cleric with maxed sense motive asks the vigilante some awkward questions. If the PCs actually do figure it out, your NPC vigilates will be going into combat as glorified Experts. Heck, if the PCs work it out without the NPCs knowing, they can even wait until the vigilante is in social mode before jumping them. If the BBEG is a vigilante, it creates a glaring point of failure where if the PCs suspect the BBEG is not friendly, they could end up fighting a joke of a character instead of a credible bad guy, because the bad guy isn't in the right state of mind to actually use their class features.


Snowblind wrote:

NPCs aren't as badly off as players, but they still aren't that great.

If the NPCs EVER interact with the PCs in social persona, there is the risk that the PCs will figure out that they are vigilantes. All social identity really does is remove the need to make disguise checks. It doesn't actually help the vigilante when a cleric with maxed sense motive asks the vigilante some awkward questions. If the PCs actually do figure it out, your NPC vigilates will be going into combat as glorified Experts. Heck, if the PCs work it out without the NPCs knowing, they can even wait until the vigilante is in social mode before jumping them. If the BBEG is a vigilante, it creates a glaring point of failure where if the PCs suspect the BBEG is not friendly, they could end up fighting a joke of a character instead of a credible bad guy, because the bad guy isn't in the right state of mind to actually use their class features.

That's why it's more for ridiculous things like a single level dip for already monstrous creatures, like the CN Tarrasque where adding a level doesn't affect CR but gives you very annoying work around to dodging alignment specific effects.


Tuyena wrote:
Snowblind wrote:

NPCs aren't as badly off as players, but they still aren't that great.

If the NPCs EVER interact with the PCs in social persona, there is the risk that the PCs will figure out that they are vigilantes. All social identity really does is remove the need to make disguise checks. It doesn't actually help the vigilante when a cleric with maxed sense motive asks the vigilante some awkward questions. If the PCs actually do figure it out, your NPC vigilates will be going into combat as glorified Experts. Heck, if the PCs work it out without the NPCs knowing, they can even wait until the vigilante is in social mode before jumping them. If the BBEG is a vigilante, it creates a glaring point of failure where if the PCs suspect the BBEG is not friendly, they could end up fighting a joke of a character instead of a credible bad guy, because the bad guy isn't in the right state of mind to actually use their class features.

That's why it's more for ridiculous things like a single level dip for already monstrous creatures, like the CN Tarrasque where adding a level doesn't affect CR but gives you very annoying work around to dodging alignment specific effects.

So the vigilante's real use is....a broken dip class for NPCs.

*facepalm*


I currently view the Vigilante as A). A work in Progress, and B). A way to annoy those people who complain about Pathfinder being too superhero-like already. Incidentally, it's a nice way to make a Magical Girl, once the identity change gets altered.


Snowblind wrote:

NPCs aren't as badly off as players, but they still aren't that great.

If the NPCs EVER interact with the PCs in social persona, there is the risk that the PCs will figure out that they are vigilantes. All social identity really does is remove the need to make disguise checks. It doesn't actually help the vigilante when a cleric with maxed sense motive asks the vigilante some awkward questions. If the PCs actually do figure it out, your NPC vigilates will be going into combat as glorified Experts. Heck, if the PCs work it out without the NPCs knowing, they can even wait until the vigilante is in social mode before jumping them. If the BBEG is a vigilante, it creates a glaring point of failure where if the PCs suspect the BBEG is not friendly, they could end up fighting a joke of a character instead of a credible bad guy, because the bad guy isn't in the right state of mind to actually use their class features.

that's why you keep their social interactions limited(to non-combat events like a party) and give them magic items to save themselves as part of their social persona in case of discovery... besides... why would you jump a possibly over-leveled teammate?


The dual-identity aspect is something that could really open a whole lot of campaign story options. However, since it is specific to one class means you can't properly use it that way for an actual party of adventurers unless they all choose the Vigilante class.

For example, if you have a campaign with specific alternating social and combat scenarios - such as working undercover to overthrow a despotic ruler, or working to liberate slaves, or infiltrating a cult or evil secret organization, or going deep cover in an enemy nation - then the dual identity would be a great tool to run it.


That's an excellent point Jeven, and addresses perfectly one of the core concepts of the Vigilante; Enacting social change (typically by recruiting sidekicks).

It would be nice if Vigilante's could train party members to give them either temporary or limited duration bonuses to their general hiding ability. This would open the class up to a much wider selection of scenarios and potentially fill a currently missing party niche.

The Exchange

Having a secret identity may not help much in many games but even Carrion crown ,Jade Regent and WoTR seem to have many instances where it could be awesome.

The Vigilante really needs abilities based around why he is what he is. I am not sure the best way to do it, but I would suggest abilities for the social persona based on a desire for vengeance, protection, truth, justice, freedom, secrets (like Sealing away an evil/keeping dangerous objects locked up/stopping cultists)...

The social and vigilante personas would gain a number of abilities usable in both forms. Less sleep, faster natural healing, and theme focused abilities. The abilities may overlap with your specialty which may be strong but also harder to keep your identity secret.

Sovereign Court

At the beginning of Council of Thieves, a party of Vigilantes would work great. However, once they have joined the resistance and get more powerful and no longer opposed by Hellknight mooks, I'd have them retrain these Vigilante levels to something else really... (so first level, Vigilante, second level something else... keep leveling in something else... then retrain that first level around 5th or 6th...)

Sovereign Court

i.e. basically, as you get more powerful in general, there's less need to hide your identity as you can protect yourself and those you care about

disclaimer: this doesn't work if you don't have a powerful wizard and cleric in your team... in an "all martial" party, use the reverse strategy and hide as heck the more powerful you become (i.e. 15th level fighter, if that even exists, would do well to retrain one level in Vigilante to basically "hide in the crowd during the day"; otherwise such dude would never have any rest and be a sleep-deprived wreck with constant PTSD / paranoia bouts...)

Sovereign Court

i.e. this is why King Arthur had Merlin... so he can sleep at night.

Drizzt and his martial friends usually were in hiding deep within a mountain during their "rest time" (with tons of rock above their heads and no doubt personal chambers lined with lead and stuff)

Elminster didn't give a crap cause he was an archmage; if he wants a secret id, he just casts a spell, but that was mostly for fun, 'cause he could swing his big stick around with the big boyz when he meant business.

Artemis Entreri would have died a horrible death a long time ago doing that solo act, if he didn't have "Protection from Author" on at all times... ;)

Azoun and Vangerdahast, etc.


Needing to conceal your identity for safety's sake runs out really early on in many cases. The main reason most superheros retain a secret identity is because they're afraid someone will hurt their loved ones (Peter Parker being the most-obvious).

Others want to live a normal life where they're NOT superheroes (Clark Kent)

Others don't even have secret identities because their loved ones don't need protection and they don't care about hiding their identity for personal reasons (James "Logan" Howlett)

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But needing to conceal your identity for other reasons can still last up to lv20:

The most obvious reason being that characters who're spies constantly need to adopt alternate personas in order to infiltrate areas and gather information.

Assassins also need a means to pull off a hit and then move without drawing attention to themselves.

Social Persona fits these needs pretty perfectly (at least in theme - in execution it's less useful than a Hat of Disguise), and is actively useful from level 1 to 20.

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