Warlock Vigilante Playtest report - PFS The Wounded Wisp


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Sovereign Court

First i want to make an apology - this is a very long post. I also feel like a rambled on a bit in places. I hope someone can find some useful information in this somewhere! :)

TL:DR version first - my concept was different and fun to play but could be done using another class at the level i played. I really like the theme of the Vigilante class but didn't feel there was any reason to use the 'social' persona, which is the whole point of the class. I'm hoping for some revisions that will make the class shine at which point i'd try the class again.

At first glance i wasn't sure i liked the Vigilante class, but I told myself i was going to find a cool/interesting concept to make playing it more interesting. The warlock Vigilante can hide their casting, store items inside a magical tattoo, fire arcane bolts around and other such fun stuff. All that made me return to an unused character idea. I'd make a Human 'Priest' of Razmir - an arcane caster pretending to be some kind of divine spell caster. Hey, they even wear masks all the time too!

And so 'Lothar, Priest of Razmir' was created. His 'vigilante' persona is a masked priest of Razmir, while his 'social' persona is an unassuming archivist working in the Pathfinder Society's digging out knowledge to send back to Razmiran. For the playtest i didn't switch out of 'vigilante' persona for the entire scenario. Due to my concept and the nature of PFS play it simply was not needed.

I ended up playing the character after 2XP of GM credit, so he was a rather rich level 1 Vigilante.

I won't stat out the build fully but just go over the main points.

I had 2 feats to pick. He took False Focus to use his tattoo holy Symbol of Razmir and hide that his spells are arcane. He also took Magical Aptitude to boost his spellcraft and UMD skills - Razmir knows a lot about spells and so should his followers! It also set up later levels where his UMD skills would be high enough to use a lot of divine wands and scrolls. For traits i took Dangerously Curious for another bump to UMD, and Fast-Talker to up his bluff skills for those 'i'm certainly a divine caster guys!' moments.

For skills i took a lot of social and spell related stuff and a bit of slight of hand and disguise to keep his secrets as safe as can be.

Equipment was where the character was fleshed out a bit. The tattoo holy symbol was a great touch. I gave him a light crossbow to take advantage of higher dex while not using spells. He picked up a wand of Infernal Healing (he claimed Razmir preferred him healing this way) and a wand of Mage Armour which he always used secretly - both wands were bought with prestige. As a great suggestion from a friend he also bought some Mock Armour - so he looked like he was wearing full plate!

We played 'The Wounded Wisp' - a scenario is repeatable but i had not played yet. The group was myself, a greatsword wielding avenger Vigilante, an Unchained Rogue and an Alchemist.

We had some minor social interactions with some NPCs - the character had enough skills to contribute quite well i think. Whenever anyone questioned how the character was moving so fast in full plate, or was so adept at spell knowledge he would bluff and claim that they were the many blessings of the great Ramir - which was pretty fun to do!

There were some points where magic related skills came in useful. Identifying magical loot and spells - again he did quite well there too.

Combat encounters - we had 2. The first was over before it started thanks to another character (Alchemist + swarm). The second took a little longer and my character got to call on the "Holy Light of Razmir" to blind the non-believers (i well bluffed Colour Spray). The spell didn't end the combat completely but it knocked out 2 of the enemies and made it much easier to capture all 4, question them, and turn them over to the proper authorities.

All together i enjoyed playing the character. I think i made him interesting to play while using the class in a way most people weren't expecting. The character was effective at what he was built for while not being overpowered.

My main gripe with the character was that i could have done exactly the same thing and more by using other already existing classes. This feeling would be lessened if i could have played at higher than level 1 when talents are available to make the class feel more unique. The 'social' persona didn't get a chance to be use at all and would have been awkward and/or hard to explain if i had used it.

I would like to add that I do like the theme of the class and I really would love this class to be awesome. I also think that a themed campaign where a Vigilante group get to run around "cleaning up the city" would be loads of fun. But... i'm not sure the class works as a party member in a traditional adventuring party, at least not in it's current form.

I really hope to see a second iteration of the rules available for playtest. If the changes are good i'll be giving the class another shot.

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