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Is it just me or is the oft-repeated phrase "...against foes who are unaware of his presence" the only thing that is really keeping the vigilante from being on par with other classes?
Half of the vigilante's abilities are basically relegated to once per combat (assuming ideal conditions in the first place!) because of those abominable words, essentially allowing the class to stay competitive with other classes' DPR for all of one round before becoming patently worse than some NPC builds I've seen.
I have yet to show the class to a single friend who was impressed with it. What don't you like about the class and why? What redeeming qualities do you think it possesses?
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I playtested an Avenger vigilante through 5 levels, alongside two other specializations of vigilante. The fey zealot had some neat tricks, including vanishing, although without much follow up that incorporated it. The stalker had a lot more trouble, especially considering he couldn't make all of our PFS games and was slightly under-leveled.
I played my avenger essentially as a fighter that traded out some fighting prowess to get some scaling feats and some social skills. The dual identity was also a great characterization tool so that I wasn't just a trip build. But yeah, if I had anything that actually relied on going unseen, it would have been way harder.
The stalker, I think, just isn't for every campaign. it's best if the setting is somewhere that the vigilante can control and remains relatively the same. Urban campaigns chiefly in one city work well, obviously, but presumably any place they can call home and defend could work. Alternatively, like the rogue, the stalker works best when the rest of your team is dedicated to teamwork. It's hard to set up all the skullduggery you need to without some help, or if the rest of your party is decidedly not stealthy. Perhaps the vigilante stalker could work well in a non-traditional small party or solo adventure.
Is unaware defined well?
I see page 188 of book.
So they wrote specifically, "In those cases, the sneaking creature can’t use abilities such as startling presence."
So they purposely limited it.
Apparently, even invisiblity doesn't restore unawareness (unless you ran away while invisible waited a few minutes and came back then the danger to their sense would seem gone and you could reuse startling presence).
I do like that their finally at least answered that Hide in Plain sight removes need for bluff/distracting to hide even if directly being observed (or needing cover).
There was this thread where some people argued it didn't remove all the issues.
Back to this: Yeah, it means you have to follow Fallout 4 rules to be a good Vigilante (you have to be green Hidden, and being invisible/unseen doesn't help if you made them previously aware). You'll have to wait till heat/danger feeling dies down and then you are unawares again.
Unaware is not defined well. For starting initiative it is used in the CRB to see if a surprise round takes place so I am assuming it is only checked when combat is about to start.
From my reading of some of these posts the class should have had a way to make the opponent effectively unaware later on. Maybe a feat or talent will be created later to address this.
There's even a feat that lets you do it multiple times, but still only once per combat...
...It's pretty clear what the developers intended. Why they decided to make the stealthy stalker vigilante worse at ambushes than virtually any other class in the game is beyond my understanding though.