The Most Intriguing Classes

Wednesday, March 10, 2016

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Intrigue is only a few weeks away, and it's time for the first rules preview blog—this time focusing on classes!

The new class in Ultimate Intrigue is the vigilante. An upstanding member of society by day and adventurer by night, the vigilante has two different identities which can even have different alignments. Unless someone discovers that the two identities are the same, divinations like scrying only work when the vigilante is in the form the diviner is trying to scry. Each vigilante chooses to be either a stalker, focusing on sneaking up on foes and punishing them before the foe notices the stalker is there, or the avenger, focusing on giving foes a more straightforward beatdown and gaining a full base attack bonus. The vigilante class is extremely modular, with a talent option at every level, switching off between social talents that give him an edge in social situations and other intrigue hijinks out of combat, and vigilante talents, which generally provide powerful combat options that he can use in either identity, though it might give him away if people see him using them in his social identity.

Illustrations by Tomasz Chistowski

If you've been with us since the playtest, the biggest change is that zealot and warlock are now archetypes, and while avenger and stalker each have some talents that only that specialization can choose, many of the talents that seemed like they fit the vigilante in general are now available to all vigilantes, as you requested in the playtest. Also, you asked for social talents based on being a craftsman or professional, and those are now available as well!

So I mentioned that warlock and zealot (which were arcane and divine vigilantes for those of you not part of the playtest) are now archetypes. All told, the vigilante has 10 pages of archetypes, the most that any class has ever received in a book. After all, he has plenty of catch-up in order to match his older cousins that have been around for more books. The brute has a hulking out-of control vigilante identity, and he can't always stop the transformation when he's in danger. Cabalists make blood pacts with dark patrons, gaining witch spells, blood powers, and a familiar. Gunmasters bring justice with firearms, and they gain a bunch of deeds as potential vigilante talents. The magical child archetype covers the "magical girl" trope, with a transformation sequence ability (faster switch between identities, but with flashy lights and music), summoner spells, and an otherworldly buddy. Mounted furies are mounted vigilantes like Zorro whose steeds also have a secret identity. Psychometrists are gadgetmasters and tinkerers who create personal occult gadgets to do things like fly (basically creating gadgets that each perform a single occultist focus power). Warlocks, are arcane casters from the magus list, with elemental options and mystic bolts of energy. Wildsouls are vigilantes who gain animalistic features in their vigilante identity. Finally, zealots are secret champions of their faiths, often because their religion is outlawed or persecuted, who cast from the inquisitor list and smite foes of one opposing alignment.

But vigilantes aren't the only ones with archetypes. Exciting archetypes for other classes include the tyrant (a lawful evil antipaladin archetype!), cardinal (a politics-heavy cleric with 6 skill points per level), gray paladin (can be one step from lawful good and smite any foe, but the lack of absolute conviction makes many abilities less absolute), fey caller (unchained summoner that summons a fey, with an all-new fey eidolon), zeitgeist binder (spiritualist that calls in a local zeitgeist based on a settlement statistic like corruption or society), battle scion (Celt/King Arthur blend skald that can call others to a quest and go into a deathlike sleep to return some day), dandy (a courtly ranger with the ability to manipulate rumors instead of wild empathy), vizier (a mesmerist that has a "power behind the throne" ability to make it look like his allies are the real threat while insidiously influencing them for his own agenda), feyspeaker (a fey-themed druid with 6 skill points per level that casts using Charisma!), and plenty more. In addition, the classes chapter two new inquisitions (Crime and Secrets), three new ranger combat styles (deceptive, menacing, and underhanded), four new rogue talents (follow along, shades of gray, hidden mind, and stalker talent), an oracle mystery (Intrigue), and even five intrigue-themed kineticist utility wild talents (earthmeld, flame trap, spying touchsight, greater voice of the wind, and greater watersense).

Tune in next week to hear more about some of the cool feats, spells, and magic items of intrigue!

Mark Seifter
Designer

Meet the Iconics—Aric

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Introducing Ultimate Intrigue's newest iconic character, Aric the vigilante. Be sure you also meet the Red Raven, his masked guise and alter ego.

Tumultuous Galt has captured the popular imagination—and noble nightmares—as blood-drenched anarchy dominated by unscrupulous demagogues, anonymous executioners known as the Gray Gardeners, frothing mobs that seek the destruction of a shattered aristocracy, and imposing guillotines known as final blades that drink the souls of the deceased. The madness has persisted for decades and consumed more than a dozen failed governments, claiming countless lives and shattering as many families—all in the name of liberty and the common good.

Aric was too young to understand why the Gray Gardeners came, dragging his parents into the night on charges of treason. He was too scared to watch as the final blade known as Madame Margaery descended twice, and he was too lonely to stop crying on the ride from the capital to his new home in the countryside. At Sister Sarinda's Home for Revolutionary Orphans, he learned that he could not show too much anger, even when forced to work too many hours sewing garments sold by his pitiless caretaker, his wages garnished to supplement funds the revolutionary governments promised but rarely delivered. While food was scarce, he was fed a torrent of “true” Galtan values that changed with every coup.

Like his fellow orphans, Aric eagerly absorbed these hateful lessons. However, where they believed themselves young revolutionaries who might sniff out traitors, he could not forget the cruel regime that had killed his parents and changed his life. He instead likened himself to the folk heroes of legend who served the common people at the expense of foul nobles. And so he ran away to live out his reckless fantasy.

He didn't find freedom so much as bandits found him. Fortunately they also found young Aric's dream amusing, and the aging leader Thanarus accepted the boy as his protégé. As Aric quickly learned, the bandits were not unprincipled thieves; the Revolution had wronged every one of them, much as it had wronged him. As a former knight who had seen the anarchy consume everything he held dear decades before, Thanarus had suffered longest of all. Nonetheless, he had upheld the old oaths of conduct sworn so long ago, and instructed Aric in the ways of mercy and morality, hoping to banish the hatred that burned within his pupil's heart. Thanarus also taught him the arts of the battlefield, acknowledging that no amount of integrity could keep a man safe in their tumultuous land.

These relatively happy times could not last. The merciless eyes of the Gray Gardeners inevitably turned upon Thanarus and his daring exploits, capturing him and his followers just before Aric returned from an errand in Woodsedge. By the time Aric pushed his way into Isarn, Thanarus was already dead—one more spirit consumed by Madame Margaery, body unceremoniously thrown from the city's crumbling walls, and victim of the current Revolutionary Council, known as the Council of Skulls. Aric waited until nightfall, chased away the scavengers, and buried his mentor by moonlight, keeping only the shredded cloak and ivory cameo of a bygone age that Thanarus had worn so proudly.

What followed was a blur of nights, weeks, and months spent seeking revenge against the council and Galt's corruption. Aric—now garbed in scarlet and Thanarus's cloak to hide his identity—tracked down and destroyed the Council of Skulls' inner circle. Hardly a morning passed without some citizen discovering a dead senator being scavenged by gruesome ravens that cawed with pride. In time, the people of Galt gave this crimson killer a name: the Red Raven.

The Council of Skulls buckled under the Red Raven's attacks and the demagoguery of their political rivals. The bloodthirsty mobs overthrew the regime and elected a new council headed by Citizen Korran Goss, who invited the red-garbed vigilante to help rebuild Galt and stop those who would perpetuate anarchy. At first the tasks were simple: deliver a message here and spy on a conspirator there. Then the requests grew in their violence: the breaking of an arm to send a warning or the apprehension of a traitor. Donning his mask gave Aric the courage to act and suppressed the mercy Thanarus had taught behind a faceless mien of unforgiving justice. As Citizen Goss's requests grew increasingly bloody, Aric began questioning his own role and whether the Red Raven was truly serving Galt or merely perpetuating a new generation of hatred. By night, the Red Raven could bury these doubts. By day, Aric couldn't help but voice his concerns, hoping to unearth some method behind the madness—or at least find true allies among the angry mobs. Driven by his passion and Thanarus's training, Aric's words began to find purchase in sympathetic ears. Unfortunately, they also reached the Revolutionary Council, and Citizen Goss quietly signed Aric's death warrant, contacting the only man he trusted to apprehend the miscreant: the Red Raven.

With the signed orders in hand, the Red Raven set off across the city while grappling with the irony of his task: the capture of his secret identity by his masked guise. Questions coursed through his mind. How could he, the Red Raven, survive the night without sacrificing the seductive fame in which he reveled? How could he convince Citizen Goss to reconsider? At last, he paused atop a roof and tore the mask from his face. “How?” he asked. “How can I delude myself? The Red Raven was supposed to end tyranny, yet here I am the worst tyrant of them all.”

Citizen Goss awoke to delightful news. The knave Aric of Halvon had been captured and left on the front steps of the council building, and the Red Raven had left a personal note praying that Aric's death would bring Galt one step closer to freedom. Goss cackled his approval when Aric's sham trial delivered a guilty verdict, and congratulated himself when the Gray Gardeners threw Aric into prison to await execution. His mirth only faded when the Red Raven stopped answering his summons. There was no sign of the masked hero. Even the ashes of the vigilante's incinerated costume had been swept from the street the day before. And in the prison Aric found peace.

However, not all were content to let another innocent fall to Madame Magaery, especially one so outspoken as Aric. In the dead of night, his cell door swung open, and an aging legal clerk by the name of Quinn extended a hand to help Aric to his feet. Together they fled south to Taldor, evading bounty hunters and exchanging tales of noble souls who had fallen prey to Galt's bloodlust. Where guilt wracked Aric with memories of the lives he had taken, Quinn was resolute, dedicated to aiding the falsely accused no matter the price. Aric could not help but find strength in his savior's words and actions. They parted ways soon thereafter, Quinn vowing to one day lay low the red-cloaked vigilante who had captured Aric. Aric in turn silently promised to uphold the ideals that Thanarus had taught him so long ago, and that Quinn had reinforced.

Aric has wandered ever since, wielding his courtly charms as an outspoken defender of liberty and peace. Thanarus's cameo once more serves as a reminder of the virtues Aric hopes to uphold—and the cost of losing himself in a cycle of violence. Yet charisma cannot vanquish all evils. When nothing can stop an injustice but cold steel, Aric dons his recreated disguise, and the Red Raven flies once more.

John Compton
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer

Meet the Iconics—The Red Raven

Friday, February 26, 2016

Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Ho there, stranger! If you're lookin' for shelter on a cold night like tonight, you could do a lot better than that cursed Ledinthorp estate you were prowling 'round. Come 'long. My daughters married and moved out ages ago—means we got a spare bed for a traveler who doesn't know how to stay out of trouble when there're Gray Gardeners keeping the peace.

You even know whose ruined home you were in? That once belonged to the old Ledinthorp clan. They played at being dukes and earls until the Revolution swept through in '67 and lopped off their heads! I hear the nursemaid smuggled out the duke's heirs before the mobs set fire to the place and made dresses out of the swanky curtains. Nobody's had a mind to fix it up, and the only reason anyone goes there now is to look for the inheritance the duke supposedly hid in the walls. Course, if there's any justice in the world, the Red Raven's found it long since and given it out to help feed starving mouths in these tryin' times.

What's that, stranger? Never heard of the Red Raven? That's a right shame, and something of a surprise for folk 'round here. He's famous—a hometown hero! Now I admit a lot of cities get to make that claim, but 'round here it's true. He was born a common man to a couple down on Razor Street. Some even say that he's the lost son of Darl Jubbanich, which would make the Red Raven the child of Liberty itself, raised by the common folk! But those were hard times; we were struggling with starvation inflicted by Galt's hungry neighbors, and the dark legacy of those traitorous aristocrats still strangled our lands. Even so, he fed on the freedom of a liberated nation—that part's exaggeration, mind, but it's how the story goes—and grew up strong, proud, and gallant. And handsome! You'd believe me if you saw him. My, if I was forty years younger…

Oh, don't give that look! At my age you're allowed to speak your mind. Now, where was I?

Just about everyone 'round here's seen the Red Raven from down the street or across the square as he pursues brigands and traitors. I'm lucky to have seen him eight times, myself. Why, he flies 'cross the shingles as if his cape were feathers, soaring on wings of grandeur stained by the blood of them rotten nobles. The glow of old Galt's torches'n'pitchforks can't compare to that righteous hellfire smoldering in his eyes, hotter'n Asmodeus's summer sweat! Course, what would you expect from someone whose passion for justice ignited from the sparks that flew from the first final blade? You know how our final blades all have ladies' names? That's 'cause they're the only wives the Red Raven takes, and hardly a night goes by that he doesn't bring home some bloody present for the missus. Har har!

Aww, loosen up, stranger. Jokin' aside, my youngest, Anjerille, she was at a festival when the Red Raven dropped into the crowd and picked out a villain—said he could sniff out nobles by night just by following the stench of their perfumes. Oh, you laugh. I did too, but only a month later we learned that he has eyes so sharp that he can tell the difference between a cobbler and a count from three streets away with only a crescent moon for light. Now, my eldest, Redarra, is known to tell some tall tales, but given what else I've seen, I half take it as truth when she says he can taste a man's bloodline back ten generations from just a single drop.

Who is he really? Anyone you ask will give a different answer. Some think he's a common bandit turned good. Others say he's a reformed noble seeking redemption. Me? I say he's everyone in Edme, for we're all willing to watch for aristocrats who think that after half a century it's finally safe to return to Galt. Aristocrats who would sneak around a burned-down estate and walk away with a bag of jewels, like the one I fancy you're carryin' now. Blue-bloods with a face like yours—the same as old Duke Ledinthorp's, whose head I watched tumble from Razor Jenni's blade so long ago. The son of a dead dynasty like yours, scavengin' what rightly belongs to the people of Galt. Who's the Red Raven? He's everyone we've passed tonight. He's every set of eyes that's seen us walking together. He's the footsteps you hear patterin' across the rooftops, fast as the heart of man who's got only an hour left to live.

Best get runnin' Your Excellency. The Red Raven knows you're here.

Check back next week when we take a closer look at one of Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Intrigue's deepest secrets!

John Compton
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer

Publisher Preview Update! Pathfinder Battles fans, the long break of miniatures updates is nearly over! Erik will return with news about the upcoming set next week!