Ezra Collins's page

So as I've played the game more, I've developed a fondness for the knowledge skills since I don't have to concentrate as much on not meta gaming when we fight say zombies for the umpteenth time, and unless you want to play a super-nerd character who knows everything you can generally pick one or two to max out which fit the character's theme. That said, super nerds tend to feel very underwhelming unless they have a bunch of spellcaster levels to back it up.

So basically I'm wondering if knowledge skills will be streamlined/updated/made more interesting in the new edition, and if so will super nerds have more diverse (and still viable) play options?

So I'm always looking to see which parts of the game I can improve upon for people, and while I know there are a lot of opinions on a lot of different aspects of the game, I'm most interested in the answer to this question:

If you were a player, in someone else's home-game, and you were allowed to make any one, single house-rule what would it be?

A why would be nice as well.

For example I'd like to have a feat at every level, I always feel super feat-starved no matter what I'm playing, so even-numbered levels tend to feel 'dead' to me.

Anywho, fire away!

So 2019 is just around the bend now, and it occurs to me I should start planning a commemorative blade-runner campaign. Thinking about what sort of base houserules and such would need to be implemented. There's some basis for psychic magic if we look at Do androids dream of electric sheep? (the empathy box for example), although for the most part that's a separate entity from reality. Then of course there's the extended universe; pre-world war terminus, wwt, and the push towards colonization before we get to the nitty gritty setting where the nature of reality is questionable to say the least and we see a great divide between the dystopia of earth society compared with the utopian ideal which the colonies are presented as.

So I suppose the first step would be to set the party up in a post apocalyptic/cyber-punk style landscape, and then gradually expose them to plots which make them question themselves, each other, and everything around them.

How would you guys approach it (or how have you guys approached it, for those who thought to do a commemorative version of androids back in 1992)?

There are a lot of parts which go into designing a good game; it needs plot to tell its story, it needs engaging set pieces which move the story, it needs description and visuals to immerse the players into the gameworld—ultimately all to tell the story of the party, of the individual characters and players in their quest to expand and progress the gameworld. What I love about encounter design is that it encompasses all these many and disparate elements, distilling them into one brief but evocative scene which highlights the story of this perpetual struggle.

An encounter must be its own self contained story, it’s a lot like writing a flash article in that way; you need a full cast of characters, a developed setting, and you have to bring that through one or more escalating conflict(s) and a climax to a reasonable yet emotional conclusion. That’s just the baseline. A good encounter is even harder to write than that; a good encounter is non-linear;it takes the impulse and interests of its cast and allows them to play the encounter through to a conclusion which feels tailor-made for them.

It’s the party’s time to shine, for the players to show off their strategems, for their characters to outshine the common man and create tales worthy of legend; to be passed around the campfire and the gaming table for years to come.

So what should a superstar encounter consist of? Well certainly we need a wide enough setting to showcase different characters and abilities; the woodsman’s tracking and survival skills, the barbarian’s raw strength of arm, the spell caster’s cultivated power, and the rogue’s cunning. We need a plot which incites the players to play, and which captivates the characters uniquely driving them to find resolution. A conflict simple enough it can be cold-read and solved with a half hour to an hour of play, yet complex in that it allows the players leeway enough to solve the plot in their own way, showcasing their unique abilities.

Some Tools at your Disposal:

Island Design Theory – This is a prep-style advocated by freelancer John Arcadian, summarized in his article Getting Off the Railroad and onto the Island (Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for GameMasters, 21-24). It focuses on breaking your plot into a number of finite elements; if you were to place your campaign in a bar for example, your elements (“islands”) might be the bartender complete with his motivations and actions, the group of skuzzy rascals in the corner (the same), and a some general notes about the setting itself. After doing this, you provide the party with a general reason to be at the bar, and a number of hooks to bring them into the scene (for example the party might see the barkeep watering down their drinks, the barmaid might be handled inappropriately by a fellow customer, or the skuzzy fellows in the corner might say something interesting just a little too loud). Essentially you block out the different elements to your scene, and then leave the story development to the players and GM.

I personally find this a useful tool since it saves a lot of prep time, aids organizational understanding, and keeps the party at the center of the plot. As a GM running someone else’s game I don’t have to worry about figuring out which page the barkeep’s information is on for example, it’s all organized under a list of characters in a centralized fashion and I can find anything I need about him very quickly if it comes up; I just look at the map to figure out where people are at, and tell the players what they see. Dangling hooks for the players, inventing the setting improvisationally, like this within your previously established framework makes the setting feel more open to the players and adds a lot of replayability; with different parties of characters and groups of players. The Description, Encounter submission format required by Paizo plays nicely to the strengths of island design.

Previous Years' Successful Encounters – While it is probably a good idea to sketch out your encounter before looking at any in detail, looking for popular trends in successful submissions is always helpful.

I have not looked all of these submissions over in detail, but I have skimmed the entries from the contest winners. Here are the themes I pick out: They all give well-detailed general descriptions of the encounter area with a little backstory that gives the party a premise to be at the location—this draws in the players and gives the GM necessary information about the scene. The map is usually a not entirely linear dungeon with a few important points of interest. I imagine one of the biggest challenges this year will be creating a unique way to do this on Paizo's provided flip-mats. Hopefully managing the map constraint will not eat up much of the time saved from not designing another map. Back to the written portion, the description section sets up a narrative context for the GM; helping the GM to run the party along their chosen track(s) without railroading them. The setting description provides some pre-built hooks to suggest the pacing and structure of the encounter. As such these submissions are very well organized with strict correlations between the individual components of their adventures (NPCs, PCs, traps, moving elements), and their overall fixture (markers on maps, tactics, and hooks for bringing the PCs or the NPCs into the encounter). Usually they contain a ‘conclusion’ section where they wrap up the effects, or intended effects of interacting with points on the map and what lasting effects these might have on a larger story.

Writing and Workshopping Groups I’m sure everyone who has made it this far already has them, but on the outside chance you don’t now might be a good time to browse the forums and find some of the many people who have offered their free time to help you perfect your work (and might perhaps post in this thread, again availing you of their use).

Blogs, Online Advice, and Professionally made Encounters While quality varies considerably there’s a lot of material out there on encounter design and ideas. If you’re feeling stuck browsing a site like Gnome Stew, or re-read an old AP (preferably a few reviews for those encounters too). Get some fresh ideas, or a new perspective on your writing and organizational style.

All that said; here are the things I plan to look for in Encounter submissions:

Is the general premise interesting and believable?
Does the setting description bring me into the gameworld, so that I see the encounter through my character’s eyes (or the NPC’s eyes if I’m the GM)?

Do I have adequate descriptions of all the different setting pieces to run the game without a hitch (objects, setting, NPCs, enemies, traps)?

Does the encounter draw the party into a conflict on their own terms, give them agency up to the climax, and allow a conflict resolution ideally setting up or concluding a larger plot-arc?

• Are the conflicts leading to the climax varied in nature?

• Are they thematic?

• Are they difficult enough to entice players without overshadowing the climax?

• Is the climax appropriate?

• Does it encompass (and/or respond to) different avenues pursued by the players?

• Is it challenging?

• Does it set the tone for a memorable resolution?

• Is the resolution thematic and appropriate to the challenge (both difficulty and nature)?

• Does it encompass (and/or respond to) different avenues taken by the players?

• Is it fulfilling (to the plot, to the characters, to the players, to the NPCs and setting)?
  

Are the NPCs, Monsters, Traps, Enemies and Allies introduced in a way which supports the overall encounter and leaves me interested regardless of being player or GM?

Are the maps well labeled (clarity/concision)?

Does the description support/is it appropriate to the map?

Is everything organized well, so that I can find anything I need in a moment and figure out its placement in game?

Does the encounter teach me something new about Golarion, and the encounter’s specific setting?

Can I play through and enjoy it without extensive background knowledge; if not is this knowledge included for me?

Does the encounter inspire me to do better in my own games and if so is it easily adaptable to them (as Player, GM, and Designer)?

Did the encounter surprise me (good or bad)?

I’m sure there’s more the community can add; please do.

I've received wonderful advice for improving my item from various competitors, past and present. This is a thread for those who, like me, have spent some time revising their original submission and are ready for a second round of feedback:

Sphere of Raging Waters
Aura moderate conjuration; CL 7th
Slot none; Price 9,000 gp; Weight 4 lbs
Description

The depths of this dark blue sphere seem to sink into a bottomless watery oblivion as its surface roils in endless turbulence. The bearer of the sphere can release these waters on command—emptying the waters of the sphere in a raging flood as flowing water (Core Rulebook, 432) in a direction of their choosing, completely flooding up to twelve 5-foot squares with water.

By manipulating the sphere, rotating it in one direction or another as a square fills, the user determines the current’s direction in that square, and can adjust the square’s flow rate from 10 to 90 feet per round. At the beginning of their next turn however the waters surge back into the sphere, dragging any trapped creatures with them on a successful drag check (using the bearer’s CMB) until the waters are again released. Dragging a creature through the water does not provoke any attacks of opportunity.

Trapped creatures can swim free of the sphere with a successful DC 20 swim check; landing in a square of their choosing adjacent to or near the sphere holder. If the sphere is emptied while a creature is trapped within, this creature is released at the forefront of the flood, moving through the turbid waters to the farthest available flood square.

Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Control Water; Cost 4,500 gp

Rather than cluttering the Critique My Item thread with a long list of responses which are easy to miss, I thought I'd instead post my critiques in a more centralized fashion.

I apologize if I offend anyone; I have a cynical voice, it shows in my reviews. There is also probably a more constructive way of reviewing items than by applying my voting rubric; my hope is that by seeing their items from a voter's point of view designers will be better able to decide what areas to address.

My main interest when looking at items (in general) is to see what new avenues they open to characters. "Mojo" as some call it will be the basis of these reviews.

What's the most random encounter you've ever come across in a game?

It could be weird a monster, a screwy social encounter, or just something you've never really gotten the point of.

Mine's the fork in the road.

We were just walking along, and bam there it was.

Basic Details:

The biggest complaint I received from my players in previous playtests (Last Week’s level 5 test (round 1), and the previous week’s Levels 1-2 (Round 1)) was that the sessions lacked a dedicated Social Encounter; the players felt they hadn’t had enough chances to explore the bonuses from being in their Social Aspect.

Enter Scenario 1: Covert Rescue; the King’s Brother has been kidnapped and is believed to be held prisoner in the neighboring Country of Tien.

The Scenario starts in a lavish ball thrown in the Vigilante’s honor. At the end of which they are tasked with retrieving the brother; they’re told it will be a 3 month journey to the Tiennese Capitol of Chiaotzu and that the brother is likely being held somewhere there.

Once in Chiaotzu they’re to meet with a local agent by sitting at a certain table in The Wandering Abbot Inn and ordering a “Crazy Ivan,” the signature drink of that establishment on the second Thursday of the month they arrive. It turns out “Crazy Ivan” is a Tiennese Dwarf, who is in the know about many of the goings-on in Chiaotzu. He points them in the direction of a local bar, The Rusty Bucket, which the guards and their overseers are known to frequent.

The guards are there, with the day-part overseer Schnell Longbottom. The party engages with them covertly for several hours, gradually extracting some useful information, before heading off to the Prison itself. They initially try to infiltrate the prison at dawn during a shift change using their many guises ability, and managed to bluff their way inside but there are only 10 guards per shift, and when the day guards arrived combat ensued!

The party quickly won, and explored the prison, eventually finding and releasing the king’s brother. They then returned home to much praise and adulation.

Scenario 2: A traitor in our Midst; The Viscount du Mal, a minor noble introduced during the ball in Scenario 1 turns out to be a traitor to the crown and is the reason the Crown-brother was kidnapped. Of course our beloved Vigilante’s felt the need to bring him to justice!

As a result of the many balls thrown in their honor from succeeding at the Covert Rescue the party has gained much renown throughout the Nobility (and the Nobility’s staffs) in the area. As a result they still get to benefit from many of their Social Abilities when infiltrating the Viscount’s home.

As a result of talking with the Viscount in Scenario 1 the party knows that he has a man cave hidden under a giant defensive clockwork staircase in the middle of his ostentatious mock-Chateau. They slip into the mansion quietly, and proceed to its center unseen and unheard by any of the serving staff.

They then proceeded to make their way past the Viscount’s many defenses to arrest him (they accidentally killed him instead).

Character Creation Guidelines:

Level 10

62,000 gp spending limit (standard wbl)
2 Traits
Paizo Material OK; no third party/homebrew
Core or featured races only (no alternate bloodlines for things like Aasimar)
Option of Max hp at first level and 5 at subsequent levels or rolling.

I run Crit Failure houserules; these came up heavily in one fight (scenario two in the first golem fight) to Alemnar's disadvantage (he broke his axe before the fight). In the fights themselves everyone managed to not confirm the crit failure (meaning it was treated as a miss, same as in a CORE rules setting).

I lost one player (an avenger) due to a scheduling conflict (unfortunately the one who really wanted to try out the Social Aspect), and another joined late (another Avenger), missing the first scenario entirely. Many thanks to forum-goers Lyzin Locrian, and Zwordsman; the real Vigilantes of this board who came to my rescue with their timely character submissions!

Our Heroes:

Avenger 1: Kiku (22/15/14/10/10/10) [Armor Skin][Close the Gap][Heavy Training][Unexpected Strike][Fist of the Avenger], Social {Renown}{Social Grace (Bluff, Diplomay, Sense Motive)}{Feign Innocence}{Many Guises}{Subjective Truth} HP 81, AC 21

Avenger 2: Charlemagne 4 [Combat Skill][Close the Gap], Social {Social Grace}{Renown}{?}{?}{?} HP 61, AC 22

Stalker 1: Alemnir (18/16/12/18/10/14) [Case the Joint][Rogue Talent: Weapon Focus Greataxe][Hide in Plain Sight][Perfect Fall][Perfect Vulnerability], Social {Renown}{?}{Many Guises}{?}{Great Renown} HP: 80, AC 19

Stalker 2: Janna [Leave an Opening][Up Close and Personal][Evasive][Hide in Plain Sight][Mighty Ambush] Social {Social Grace (Diplomacy, Knowledge: Local, Perform: Dance}{Renown}{Many Guises}{Quick Change}{Great Renown} HP 83, AC 27

Warlock: Zellos [Tattoo Chamber][Arcane Training 2][Mystic Bolt (Ice)][Arcane Training 3][Caster’s Defense], Social {Renown}{Social Graces (Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Bluff)}{Many Guises}{Quick Change}{Safe House} HP 73, AC 25

Scenarios, Encounters, and Fight Scenes:

I ran two scenarios; scenario 1 was a pretty simple social mission with a couple fights tacked on the end aimed primarily at

Scenario 1: Covert Rescue (~4 hours):

The mission begins with everyone at an exquisite ball thrown by the Marquis Ashford, thanking the party for their defeat of the evil dragon worshiping cult bent on destroying the kingdom. Many minor nobles were in attendance, and the King even dropped by for a little while as a courtesy. The party was allowed to mingle, and learn a little bit about the country, catching up on the gossip talking to the Viscount du Mal about the problems he’s having with the gnomish workers building his man-cave (and exhorting him to kill them), and learning of some potential upcoming missions (The Dwarven Ambassador for example kept talking about driving a dragon out of some very rich mines).

At the end of the night the Marquis brings them all into his private chambers, where they find one of the King’s advisors waiting for them. He tells them that the King’s Brother has disappeared, and while the rumors say he’s defected to the neighboring country of Tien, the King believes he’s instead been kidnapped and is being held prisoner there. The aide answers any questions the party asks of him, and agrees to provide them with some basic travel supplies; a potion of CSW, 2 CMW, and 3 CLW travel rations and documents, and anything they need to build a believable cover to infiltrate Tien. The party decides they will pose as merchants, and ask for horses and a basic caravan to help sell their cover during the 3 month journey to the Tiennese Capitol of Chiaotzu (where the brother is believed to be). Alemnir gained renown by killing people in the streets of a certain district, leading to rumors of a ripper on the spree.

After the Aide leaves Janna remembers that as a level 10 Fetchling she has the ability to Shadow-walk once per day; transporting herself and up to 9 other individuals to the border with the plane of shadow. This will allow the party to make the 3 month journey in a mere (rolls 1 on a d4) hour! So instead of taking the caravan etc the party leaves with their documents and arrives 100 feet southwest of Chiaotzu’s western gate. Everyone except Janna decides to use “many guises” to look like a local peasant, and manage to get into the city without problem; the guards don’t even look at them. Janna decides to try getting into the city in her social persona and has significant troubles talking her way through because the guards don’t believe a single person constitutes a caravan (what the paperwork says) nor that a single person could possibly survive the 3 month trip along bandit infested roads. After some arguing she decides to just roll a bluff check (rolls high) and flirts her way through saying she was part of the ‘cargo’ and she’d wandered off by herself due to an inattentive caravan driver.

They’re about a week early to meet their contact, and decide to spend the week exploring the city and spreading their renown. Chiotzu is a large city of 500,000 inhabitants, so they all have to pick a specific district. Janna focuses on skeezy bars, dancing around in the day and picking off trouble-makers at night. Kiku focuses on a small Tengu population which ends up having no mechanical benefit, but I think she enjoyed exploring her people’s culture in the city. I think Zellos focused on a middle-class merchant area, particularly proprietors of magic shops.

At the end of a week they followed the Aide’s instructions to sit at a certain table in The Wandering Abbot Inn and order a “Crazy Ivan,” the signature drink of that establishment. It turns out “Crazy Ivan” is a Tiennese Dwarf, who is in the know about many of the goings-on in Chiaotzu. He meets with them, and they all go up to Zellos’s room, which he has made into his Safehouse. Ivan tells them he’s identified which prison the brother is in, and points the party in the direction of a local bar, The Rusty Bucket, which the guards and their overseers are known to frequent while off duty.

Some guards are there along with the day-part overseer Schnell Longbottom. The party engages with them covertly for several hours while Zellos sits in a corner using detect thoughts to try and snag useful information. He writes this information down in a journal, and eventually figures out the overseer’s password, although he’s not sure to what.

After many shenanigans, they head off to the Prison itself. Initially they infiltrate it by posing as guards during the morning shift change using their many guises ability and some uniforms that Alemnir ‘found’ on the dead bodies of some city watchmen. They managed to bluff their way inside past the departing night shift, but the day shift discovered the deception when they rounded a corner to find Janna picking a lock, trying to enter the prison proper!

One short combat later (10 x level 1 humans, 1x level 3 barbarian overseer), and the party had killed all but one regular guard, who had the good sense to surrender and one of the gate guards, who ran away right at the start of combat to find reinforcements. They all did considerable damage; Zellos was the only one who had to hit the guards more than once to kill them. Janna got off a nice Up Close and Personal tumble on the Overseer (barbarian), downing him in a single shot before he could do anything. Of the rest of the guards only one even got in a hit (against Janna’s Flat Footed AC) dealing 3 non-lethal damage with its Sap.

CR 0; level 3 human barbarian, 10 human guards.

The party quickly explored the prison, finding a hidden compartment under a false wall of the prison. After many attempts they managed to collaboratively move the wall, revealing a trapdoor inset into the floor and magically locked. The Warlock repeated the Overseer’s password “Pineapple,” while thinking about pears and the door opened! The narrow doorway revealed a 10 foot deep pit, with the king’s brother at the bottom covered in his own filth. They rescued him with some rope, and left the building only to discover that the captain of the city guard had arrived. Syn Thunderfoot, an unarmed and unarmored opponent, at first seemed unthreatening and she led off by trying to convince the party that she knew nothing of the brother and was in fact searching for him asking them to transfer the brother into her care. The party thought this was odd considering all the dead bodies around and so rolled a Sense Motive check, which informed almost all of them that she was lying. On to Combat!

Syn rolled low, allowing the rest of the party to get off some initial attacks, none of which hit her. She then unleashed a Flurry of Blows at Zellos, correctly identifying the spellcaster as her largest threat. The party saw 5 attacks and for some reason assumed she was a 20th level unarmed fighter with haste (I thought between the eastern theme of the city and a lengthy description of her monk robes and holy symbol it would be obvious she was not; oh well). So instead of fighting they decided to run away using Janna (the Fetchling’s) Shadow Walk ability.

CR 12; Syn Thunderfoot.

They arrived back at the capitol city, having successfully bypassed the Thunderfoot, as well as the planned pursuit of the city’s Black Ops squadron Earl and Pearl. I was hoping to test out Loyal Aid and mobile Safe Houses to see how effective they were at deterring pursuit, but no one took Loyal Aid and magical travel trivialized the necessity of the mobile Safehouse. I’m generally worry about magic trivializing all of the social aspects at higher levels as many spells can circumvent issues which would take a Vigilante a lot of effort (and class feature investiture) to overcome.

CR 12; :P.

In all I was happy with the scenario; Many guises is definitely useful but not overpowered. Quick-change helped speed along the disguises, but wasn’t necessary for anything. Renown didn’t come up much but ensured the party had a Safehouse free of scrying to converse with the Dwarf (there would have been consequences otherwise). Safehouse would potentially have been useful a second time to smuggle the brother out of the city, but magic trivialized this. Social Graces helped Janna bluff her way into the city, and Alemnar (who was fighting in his Social Aspect in the Prison) to make his Sense Motive check. Intimidate didn’t come up, so no direct benefit from Renown – greater renown let Janna have the Rusty-Bucket in her list of renown locations which aided the party in extracting information from the guards/overseer. Janna tried using Innocence to gain additional bluff against the guards once they discovered her picking the lock, but unfortunately she had no renown with them so didn’t get to use it. Subjective Truth never came up.

Scenario 2: A Traitor in our Midst (~5 hours):

The Viscount du Mal, a minor noble introduced during the ball in Scenario 1 turns out to be a traitor to the crown and is the reason the Crown-brother was kidnapped. Of course our beloved Vigilante’s felt the need to bring him to justice!

As a result of the many balls thrown in their honor from succeeding at their Covert Rescue of the Crown-brother the party has gained much renown throughout the Nobility (and with their staffs) in the area. As a result they still get to benefit from many of their Social Abilities when infiltrating the Viscount’s home.

From talking with the Viscount in Scenario 1 the party knows that he has a man cave hidden under a giant defensive clockwork staircase in the middle of his ostentatious mock-Chateau in the middle of town. They slip into the mansion quietly, and proceed to its center unseen and unheard by any of the serving staff. Alemnir Cases the Joint; rolling a 30 on his knowledge Engineering check, allowing him 2 free re-rolls on skill checks made to get around any defenses the place may have. The rest of the party tried to find the gnomes who worked on the Viscount’s defenses, but unfortunately the Viscount heeded Kiku’s advice from the previous scenario to kill off all the gnomes.

The first defense is a marvelous steam-punk inspired moving Staircase which appeared to be a large column set in the middle of a room full of pipes, whirring gears, levers, buttons, and switches with control panels everywhere. Alemnir rolled a Knowledge Engineering check to figure out how it worked, and rolled very low; he burnt his first re-roll from case the joint and as a result of the time he spent tracing the different pipes in the room figured out that most of the contraption was a water fueled cooling mechanism for a power source high up off the floor and buried deep within the central column. He did not roll high enough to figure out what any of the switches, levers, or buttons did although he did manage to figure out that many of them were tied into this cooling system.

He decided the best way to disable the system was to sunder some pipes; attempted to do so with his greataxe and rolled a 1 then confirmed a critical failure on my table causing him to sunder both the pipe (destroyed) and his Axe (broken). Which unfortunately was not enough to disable the cooling system (did affect it slightly), but did trigger the first encounter! A deep mechanical voice intoned “Intruders Detected; Security Response Armed.” And a large pile of whirring gears and pumping pistons detached itself from the piston before moving over and attacking the party!

It rolled middling initiative, so several people got in solid hits before it went dropping it to about half HP despite its DR 10/Bludgeoning and Adamantine. As an aside: Janna and I both forgot about her “Leave an Opening” AoO, so she did a lot less damage to it than she should have overall (she had flanking much of the time), but still did over half the Automaton’s HP by herself. Automaton landed a couple hits on Janna, identifying her as the highest threat target and dropped her to half HP. The rest of the party wailed on it, but most missed, and the rest failed to get through its DR. Zellos attempted to hit it with a Glitterdust, but it seemed unaffected (Actually due to Magic Immunity; he thought it was just immune to blindness).

Round two came and Janna again got in a few good attacks, but didn’t roll so well for hidden strike damage (which basically just offset the DR). Everyone Else Piled on and did some damage as well, eventually dropping it. Zellos Decided to try a lightning bolt from his staff (using 5/10 charges), which hit the construct fully, but fizzled on impact (again magic immunity; this time he thought it was immune to electricity).

CR 10 Clay Golem; I decided to ignore the cursed wounds part of its attacks as the party already lacked healing options and there were several more fights ahead.

The party did some more fiddling, discovering how to open the blast-doors protecting the inner reactor core of the structure. Janna looked around the cubby the machine came out of and discovered a key hole. She tried picking it and the mechanical voice again spoke: “Unauthorized Use Detected; Annihilate!”

This time two whirring masses of gears (Clay golems) Sprung to life from opposite sides of the room. Most of the party (Janna, Charlemagne, and Kiku) focused on the western golem, while the eastern golem moved over to attack Alemnir. Zellos hung back and cast web at the eastern golem only to see the webbing disintegrate upon contact with the automaton.

The golems’ high CMD led Janna to fail all her acrobatics checks to move through its space using UC&P, but the reduced hidden strike damage combined with flanking on her standard attack dealt considerable damage over the 2 rounds the western golem lived. Kiku smashed on it with her bastard sword, dealing little damage with it but more with the weapon’s flaming enchantment. Charlemagne’s rapier was bouncing off the Golem’s tough skin more often than not. The West Golem lived long enough to do its haste ability, getting off a few attacks on Janna before falling.

In the meantime the Eastern golem practically killed both Zellos and Alemnir, who barely managed to flee back to the rest of the party alive (Alemnir did a little damage with his glaive and Zellos did ~12 damage with his Mystic Bolts). The rest of the party moved over and at this point Janna remembered she had Leave an Opening (but missed on her UC&P attack and didn’t have flanking on her standard attack). A couple more rounds went by; The Golem first smashed Kiku down causing her to run away, then Janna who likewise retreated. Charlemagne tried to tank it, and was lucky for a couple rounds but died permanently at the end of his third round of combat with the monstrosity. Zellos then finished it off with a couple more mystic bolts.

In all the fight was nearly a TPK; Charles would not have died if Zellos had used his mystoc bolts a round earlier instead of stabilizing Janna so I ret-conned the scenario as occurring that that way. They burned all their potions and ~1.2 wands of CLW healing up after the fight.

CR 12; 2 Clay Golems, again I ignored the cursed wounds part of its description.
Back at full the party finished picking the lock and the staircase opened up with a dramatic transformation sequence revealing a spiral staircase heading down into the thick stone floor. At the bottom of the stairs was a bare stone room with a scummy pool of water at the end. A round of perception checks later and everyone realized there were two oozes in the room (one on the ceiling not far from them, and one in the water).

The oozes (init of -5) both went last. Charles got off a surprise round and went first shooting the one on the ceiling 3 times with his bow, causing it to split into 4 smaller pieces. Janna delayed her action until after the ooze on the ceiling went. Kiku shot one of the pieces with her crossbow causing it to split in half, alemnir threw a dagger at another causing it to split and Zellos full round attacked it with his mystic bolts dealing damage to the monster for the first time (he lowered two of the 13 HP blobs to below 10). The now split ooze’s turn came, and it schlorped across the ceiling towards them, then released its suction falling on everyone’s heads and dealing its acid damage. On average people made the reflex saves against their armor taking damage from this. Kiku’s full plate took some damage, and Alemnir’s armor took some damage. Janna now came off delay and did a UC&P against one of the blobs Zellos damaged with his bolt, killing it; she then used her standard action to kill the other one he had damaged. Now the undamaged ooze left the water and charged towards them, failing to slam against Alemnir.

Top of the round and Charlemagne split a couple small blobs with his rapier (making his saves). Kiku then destroyed these with her sword. Alemnir hit a small blob with his battleaxe, failed his save and had it destroyed. Zellos repositioned himself and shot off a lightning bolt from his staff (reducing his charges to 0/10), which killed the big blob and a smaller blob both of which failed their reflex save (in the big blob’s case only because of the negative dex mod) and were instantly vaporized. A couple more rounds of the same (Alemnir almost broke his glaive next) and the party finished off the encounter. In all they took almost no damage, but their equipment was a little the worse for wear. Zellos lamented aloud not preparing the Make Whole or Mending Spells at this point (both of which he knew).

CR 9: 2x Black Pudding Ooze

Finally the party was left with a dreaded realization. The only way forward was underwater. Half the party was willing to quit at this, but the rest (barely) managed to convince them to try it anyways. This debate took about an hour and a half, at the end of which Charlemagne ran into town utilizing his boots of striding and springing to quickly buy 10 potions of air bubble CL 1 (2 potions per person). I suggested using Loyal Aid on the mansion staff, but no one had it (it wouldn’t have had a high enough spending limit for everyone anyways). Zellos buffed them with communal Darkvision, and they all downed their potions of Airbubble before proceeding.

The waterway led down into a long unlit hallway full of columns (the hallway was 300 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 100 feet deep). A number of the columns were originally going to be Caryatid Columns (CR 3) but because the party was having so much trouble I changed things a bit; the columns used the Caryatid attack and damage rolls but instead of being active sentries they simply passively made one AoO whenever the first person swum by them; striking out with a column of decorative fish that wound its way all along their lengths. The fish continued sticking out after the attack, meaning that movement through the columns created a maze which later swimmers had to navigate to reach the other side.

The Swim DC to move at half speed was 10 through most of the hallway, but very few people managed to beat this consistently. Poor swim modifiers mean that this encounter ran 23 rounds for the weaker swimmers; enough that these weaker swimmers almost drowned after their first air bubble ran out (they could have downed the second potion, so that’s really not so important). It would have helped immensely if more than one person had a swim modifier higher than 2 (I let them activate their celestial Armor’s flight property for a +4 bonus, which still left them struggling). A couple of them might have drowned except that Zellos used his high (9 with the flight buff) swim modifier and all the rope in his robe of infinite twine to lay down a safety line from one end of the corridor to the other.

When they reached the other end of the sunken hallway a swift current threatened to suck them down into the depths (there was a hole in the floor which would have lead to an underwater cell trap, designed to drown any intruders) unless they grabbed onto a conveniently placed ladder. The swim DC for this portion of the tunnel was 20 to resist the current. The current dragged anyone who didn’t make the DC 30 feet toward the ladder, and then down into the depths if they failed their reflex save to grab the stair. For those climbing the rope the current allowed them to make an accelerated climb towards the stair at no penalty to the check and they automatically succeeded on the reflex save. Everyone made their saves, although at one point Janna lost her grip on the ladder (nat 1) and barely made the save DC (20) to re-grab it, failure of which would likely have ended with her death given her poor (+2) swim modifier.

CR ? (originally 12): 16x Caryatid Columns (re-structured to block movement instead of fight)

Finally they climbed the ladder, emerging into a spacious well lit corridor with oak paneling which led to a strange checkered floor. Before the floor, on their side of the board was a control panel, and on the far side of the floor behind a similar floor panel stood the Viscount du Mal; sipping daintily from a glass of wine.

On the Board stood a large automaton that looked much like the ones they had fought earlier (Same stats, but 80 hp - no special abilities DR or magic immunity), a human gunslinger (30 hp), and a human alchemist (40 hp) all of whom were standing oddly motionless. While the rest of the party engaged in witty banter with the villain Zellos cast detect magic discovering the checkered board to be full of different magics (abjuration strongest amongst them). He rolled a spellcraft check, and found that the strongest magics it was enchanted with were a dimensional anchor, force wall, and dominate monster mass. Finally the witty banter subsided and the villain challenged the party to a game of his own devising; exhorting all but one of the party to walk onto the game-floor in front of them. Alemnir stood in front of the control panel, which consisted of two halves; on the left half were three buttons labeled A/B/C, and an up, down, right, left joystick – on the right side was a diagonal joystick which went ur, ul, lr, ll and contained three buttons labeled 1/2/3. The rest of the party stepped onto the floor and were immediately dominated by the game board. Alemnir asked the Viscount what the rules were, and the villain replied that he’d have to figure them out as they played (but condescendingly offered Alemnir to go first). Alemnir then rolled a Knowledge Engineering check to get a hint about what it did and failed, so he blew both of his re-rolls (from Case the Joint) eventually getting a 35. I started to tell him what he could figure out by examining the panel but he told me to ‘shush,’ he wanted to figure it out himself. He figured out how to select an ally (using the A/B/C buttons) and moved Zellos two squares to the right (using the u/d/l/r joystick); at this point the board froze up on him. He complained, and the Viscount laughed at him, and said “and now I’ll show you how it’s really done.”

The Viscount selected the large automaton, moved it forward one square, then hit a button causing it to attack Janna (buffed to ~100 hp by bear’s endurace). The attack automatically hit for close to max damage and the turn again went to Alemnir. He continued fiddling with the controls, moving Kiku up to attack the big thing with her sword (moderate damage). Play continued back and forth for a few rounds using standard attacks until the Viscount started losing at which point he started using his special attacks (alchemist threw a bomb) and severely damaged a couple members of the party. Alemnir responded in kind – causing Zellos to hit the big guy with magic missiles (eventually destroying it). Play continued in like manner with pieces on both sides dropping like flies until it was just the gunslinger and Charlemagne left. The 'slinger (19 HP - Zellos hit her with a Mystic Bolt before going down) got off several shots at Charles as he made his way slowly across the board towards her leaving him at 1 hp just as he closed to range. He rolled well, dealing 17 damage. At his point I decided to throw in a GM fiat to help the party and ruled that they won. It would not have been necessary if Alemnir had simply listened to my explanation regarding the control panel, as he wasted nearly half his in game actions trying out illegal moves (resulting in a lot of character near-deaths). The Viscount did kill one of the game piece party members (Zellos?), but the party earned enough money for a resurrection (and still profited).

CR ?: Puzzle Fight (probably not a good choice for a play-test) Enemy Pieces: ‘Clay Golem’ (80 HP, no DR/magic immunity), ‘Gunslinger’ (30 HP), ‘Alchemist’ (40 HP) so overall the enemy had 150 hp to the party’s ~370 (Alemnir had some Bear’s Endurance potions he passed around).

They then healed up and chased the viscount through a door into his room. He fell to his knees and begged them not to kill him promising riches and fame if they’d just defect to Tien. They party was having none of this however (he made them SWIM, The Bastard!), and moved around to hit him. He cowered down, screaming “Not the Face!” Alemnir hit him for non-lethal damage with his glaive, critting and killing him anyways. :P yay low healthbars.

CR 0: The Viscount du Mal.

The Fetchling used its shadow walk ability to bring them all outside; negating a retun trip through the hallway of doom.

Player Feedback:

After Scenario 1:

They were disappointed with the ease of the session – particularly the lack of combat. They would also have liked a sub-dungeon to explore under the main prison which to that end. I told them that there were several more encounters planned outside the city on the journey there (true), that I had considered a sub-dungeon and decided against it because I wanted to playtest the social aspects in the city (also true), and that by shadow walking directly back to the starting city they had evaded the difficult half of the trip (spot on true). This seemed to mollify them. I apologized for the boring session (which I was beginning to think it was), but they corrected me! Apparently they really enjoyed running around the city talking to people and playing up the social aspect of their Vigilantes; they just would have liked to get more of a combat benefit out of it.

After Scenario 2:

They seemed relieved more than anything. High fives all around; a few of them said they were keeping their sheets for commemorative purposes, so I think you’ve sold Ultimate Intrigue to at least a couple players.

Personal Thoughts:

Thoughts on the Social Aspects:

Round 2 definitely started moving the Social Aspect in the right direction. Many guises and Quick change make the class feel intriguing and open up player agency, allowing them access to all manner of things that would otherwise require magics. As it is magics are still a better option, and can easily circumvent issues which require a lot of effort for the Vigilante to overcome. Something needs to be done to address that gap. The renown line was somewhat useful, but only because it allowed access to abilities like Safe House otherwise it was a resounding dud.

Overall Social Grace was probably the most used/best portion of the social Aspect. I think if more utility options like that or certain Specialization abilities like Case the Joint were moved to the Social Talent list the class would have a lot more options and playability.

Another point is that currently the Social and Specialization options are completely disparate (other than the intimidate bonus on the Renown line). To make the class feel less disjointed it would really help if the two halves of the class complemented each other instead of each trying to do their own thing.

Thoughts based on the fights:

Janna (Stalker) got to use her Mighty Ambush ability on the Gunslinger, who failed by a mile; the DC on this is maybe a touch high to use against PCs/NPCs, but given the immunities from everything else is still balanced. Hidden Strike is supremely powerful, even though she didn’t get to use the d8s ever she was outperforming the rest of the party in combat.

Zellos’ (Warlock) mystic bolts were hitting individually for around 6 damage, so on a full round attack he did ~12 damage. This was actually very strong against the Clay Golem because it bypassed the DR and it was immune to his other magics. Against everything else it was pathetic, failing to kill even parts of the oozes which had less than 10 hp. Nothing they fought even had resistances and it was barely contributing. His magic missiles were much more useful, hitting for ~20 damage with each cast, and his Staff’s lightning bolt did around 30 damage to each of two targets (60’ line) when he used it against the ooze. He lacked the spells prepared to adapt to the challenges presented to him and lacked the high level spell slots to use his own third level spells against the ooze (could have used fireball), making his items the star of the show.

Charlemagne (Avenger) was surprisingly having the worst time in the party. In previous sessions (levels 1&2, especially 5) he was the star of the show; this time around he could barely damage the golems, and the ooze split more than anything else when he attacked (he did eventually kill a few of the smaller pieces). He couldn’t swim at all well, was in fact the last person out of the sunken hallway and nearly drowned despite his air-bubble. He sunk all his class abilities into feats, which basically made him a bad fighter. The Avenger desperately needs some scaling damage for dex builds – something like the Swashbuckler’s precise strike would have really helped. Unexpected Strike is great, don’t get me wrong, and I think Charles would have been better off with it, but an extra d6 doesn’t go a long way against resistance.

Alemnir got a lot of benefit this time around from his utility abilities. Unfortunately his player didn’t follow up well on the hints I provided. In combat Perfect Vulnerability gave him one good if unimpressive strike against everything he attacked. His follow up was poor though, which was further accentuated by Janna’s stellar combat performance.

Kiku was second in combat to Janna. She played a lot like a fighter in heavy armor; lack of gold investment in defense made her a bit of a sitting target but she did benefit from her armor skin this session in the first scenario. She never used Fist of the Avenger, but at least she had a fall back in case the Ooze (or something else) had damaged her weapons. She also never used unexpected strike (I suspect she just forgot it), which may have significantly improved her damage output.

Closing Thoughts

I really enjoyed this play-test. I'm glad I spent round 1 more focused on the specializations, because the social aspect was terrible in it. In round 2 things opened up a little more, allowing for a fun level 10. Most games don't make it even to 10, so in my opinion there's still a lot of work to be done there.

The Warlock is underpowered. The star of the Magical Show was the Fetchling. While the Fetchling inarguably has the most powerful innate SLAs of any playable race, SLAs should never outclass an equal level casting class.

My only regret is that I didn't get to playtest this at higher levels; I'd have liked to do a level 15 playtest as well, but won't have time before Monday.

Hi Guys, I had to move the date for my level 10 playtest and one of my testers can't make the new time (Friday, 8 PM Eastern Standard Time).

For anyone interested in trying out a level 10 vigilante the game will be over Roll20. I'm looking for 1-2 people.

Character Creation Guidelines are as follows:

Level 10 (remember stats go up at 4 and 8)

No third party material.

Core and Featured Races only (no alternate bloodlines for things like Aasimar)

20 point buy for stats.
Max hp at first level, 5 hp/level (+relevant modifiers) after that.
Alternatively you may roll for HP here by using the paizo board dice roller.
2 Traits
62,000 gp.

Please make your character sheet on mythweavers (a free online sheet hosting site).

The session will be either one or two scenarios; please expect the entire game to run 6-8 hours.

To Apply: Please ensure that I can send you a private message with the join link (go to "My Account" and select "Members of Paizo.com may send me Private Messages") and post a link to the sheet here; the first two legal sheet submissions will be accepted, and I'll post again saying when recruitment has ended.

This will be a one-time, non-recurring game.

Thank you.

EDIT: Standard disclaimer: while the session is not intended to contain 'mature content,' it sometimes comes up. Please be advised the game is suitable for those ages 18+.

Oh, and feel free to play any Specialization you want, but at the moment it's bring your own heals.

It would be neat if a character's backstory and social abilities tied more directly into the class.

Say you could select a specialization for your social aspect which would translate the time spent garnering special knowledge of organizational layouts, inventing new means of magical storage, doing parkour stunts for local businesses, or rubbing shoulders with the local nobility into usable class features in the form of special abilities.

Generically I'd organize these by "street rat," "merchant," or "noble."

Break favored class skills into vigilante and social aspects, possibly with some overlap between the two and give a minor benefit for each. Street rats for example might be a bit hardier than others, merchants might start with a side effect from interacting with the rare and mysterious, and nobles might have a little extra wealth and prestige.

Renown is something all adventurers gain by completing various tasks; heroic deeds, quests for important individuals, or helping the needy. It doesn't work as a class ability; at least not in its current form.

My thought is that we need to change the focus from Renown itself to ways the Vigilante can capitalize on his Renown. Currently this is only a geographic centric intimidate bonus (while nice is bland).

Mechanically this would be accomplishable by taking the other social abilities (loyal aid, quick change, etc) and condensing them into a pool system. The Vigilante gets a 'renown pool' (alt: favor/influence pool) for accomplishing suitable deeds, and can expend points to gain special bonuses. The baseline pool would be capped at half his level +cha and the number of points he has in it would fluctuate based on his natural charisma, his activities building renown, and the number of favors he calls in.

Bonuses would be applicable even outside areas the Vigilante is known (he can pontificate in great bardic fashion about his past deeds). He starts every day with a number of points available equal to his charisma modifier, and regaining more would require being in an area he already has built up a lot of renown or by accomplishing new and more daring deeds.

Most of the current social abilities are lackadaisical, so they could mostly be available right at level one and limited only by your pool.

Thoughts?

Before I get too far into this I’d just like to say that the alphabetical organization structure is terrible for a level based unlock system. I have to read through 10 abilities which I’d actually want to take, but NOPE require higher level before I get to renown; Renown is a great ability, but by the time I get to it Renown looks wimpy, like a limp piece of lettuce. I have already constructed my vision of a Vigilante as a daring masked investigator by reading through the preceding abilities, and now that I’m here I no longer want to play the class at low levels.

The talents either need to be reorganized or renamed so the alphabetical structure syncs up better with the tiered leveling structure. Also there are very few options at low level brackets.

On to the actual talents:

Any Guise (17+)

This could be interesting in a high enough level campaign. Be the king’s body double, or stage a coup d’état without anyone knowing. Not a fan of extreme high level (15+) restrictions since few games ever get there. Worth noting I can get almost all of this as a level 1 Kitsune with a feat. References some weird ability called ‘everyman;’ haven’t read that yet, wonder what it does.

Everyman (11+)

Well it’s nice to see the Vigilante doesn’t step on the Kitsune’s tails too much. That said I can get this ability (at half the circumstance bonus to disguise) at level 1 elsewhere – not worth a level 11 talent. Maybe 5. People need to actually be able to use their social persona for something. Being sleuthy would really help. Also references a later trait. Nice when I get to read trait lines in the order I can actually take them.

Feign Innocence (5+)

I’ve been playing Pathfinder or 3.5 at least once a week for over 7 years. In that time I’ve been subject to a Zone of Truth spell once. Not saying this doesn’t have its place; certainly helps against that annoying paladin player when you’re making an NPC. Also it mimics a first level spell – hardly powerful; make it available at level 1. That way if I want to make super-spy I don’t have 5 dead levels to this and 6 dead levels to everyman.

Great Renown (7+)

Should be an auto scaling on Renown still. If talents are to be better than a feat then that needs to apply to social talents as well as vigilante. Renown starts better than skill focus or Persuasive. Past 10 it’s worse, and when you factor in the week set up time and the limited base of operations the entire line is terrible compared to the feats. Also organizationally it’s annoying to have an improved version of a skill come before the base version of that skill. Can we at least get an organizational tree? By itself this is less than half a feat.

Immediate Change (13+)

Again we get the upgrade before the base ability. This is a nice talent – it is better than the disguise skill unlock at 20 ranks, which is a feat and skill point investment. Worth taking; really more a must have. What’s this quick change pre-req; weird that they didn’t list that before this higher tier ability.

Incredible Renown (11+)

Again should scale automatically off renown. At level 11 this is worth less than 1/3 of a feat. On a side note we still don’t know what Renown is, so organizationally still annoying.

Instant Recognition (13+)

I see the ability going this way: I saved the entire kingdom from a rampaging dragon 3 levels ago and I had to wait until now for people to know who I am. Roll this into the Renown line for free; the renown line is incredibly sub-par. Oh, and we still don’t know what Renown does.

Loyal Aid (3+)

Not terribly useful, but better than similar abilities like the Ninja’s “No Trace.” I’ve never needed an ability like this as a player and as such probably won’t take it. Oh look something else which requires this ‘renown ability’ I still haven’t seen.

Many Guises (5+)

I can pick this up by level 2 with a hat of human guise. Not worth a 5th level slot, other than it’s a pre-req for a few high level abilities and should be organized before them in the final product.

Quick Change (7+)

Still a worse change time than playing a Kitsune. Hey, something without random pre-req’s I haven’t been introduced to!!! That only took 9 abilities.

Renown (1+)

Well 5 abilities require this as a pre-requisite so far (and 6 do in all), guess that makes it a no-brainer ‘option.’ This is about equivalent to a feat at level 1, by 5 it’s worth half a feat. By level 2 there’s a good chance I’ve moved on to a different local once or twice which will make this really annoying to set back up further reducing it’s efficacy. Overall worth around ¼ a feat. I’m shoehorned into taking this whether I want to or not because there are no high level options, or even many low level ones without Renown.

Safehouse (3+)

I get my very own phonebooth/muffincart!! I’ve been looking for/wanting something like this. It even has a nice level scaling mechanic. Definitely worthwhile right from the start, and provides a scaling utility that makes it a must have for any Vigilante. Plus it’s thematic. Why in the name of all that is holy does it require Renown as a pre-requisite?

Social Grace (1+)

Worth a feat initially and at level 5. Better than a feat afterwards; overall very good. Wish I wasn’t shoehorned into taking Renown at 1.

Subjective Truth (9+)

In my mind these are scrying spells and I’m already immune to them because I’m a different person than my social/vigilante when in the other form due to dual identity. I will house rule it this way if subjective truth remains in the book after the playtest. This is deadspace.

Wrapping up:

Total number of Social Talents: 14 (13 if subjective truth doesn’t do anything); I have 10 slots; doesn’t look like I’ll get to customize my Vigilante much.

Guise line is worse than magical/racial options: 3 sub-par.
Renown Line is both a prerequisite for half the remaining talents and sub-par: 3+ bad talents
Quick Change line is a tax, but at least better than a feat: 2 ok talents

Social Grace, Safehouse (which has an icky pre-req), and Feign Innocence are thus left as the only good thematic options. 3/14 or 3/13 better than what I can get elsewhere talents. Two of which are even thematically appropriate. Overall this system needs work.

Basic Details:

Sadly I did not see that Round 2 rule-set was released yesterday until after my play-testing session was already over. Probably for the best anyways; I don’t think this particular game would not have changed much.

Character Creation Guidelines were as follows:
Level 5

10,500 gp spending limit (standard wbl)
2 traits
Paizo Material Ok; no third party/homebrew.
They received max hp at first level, and had the option of rolling or taking 5 at subsequent levels. Most chose 5; Alemnar rolled, and rolled well above average (~6/lvl).

I run crit-fail houserules, but they only came up on some Kobolds who subsequently fell to their deaths.

This was a continuance from last week’s level 1-2 playtest. The Stalker from last week couldn’t make it due to real world issues, and the warlock player decided he didn’t like that specialization (he cited arcane spell failure coupled with poor spells/day as the reason) so the warlock changed into a stalker. The remaining three players made some minor tweaks but remained happy playing Avengers!

It is worth mentioning that in a game where casters are considered hugely overpowered 4/4 players (5/5 if you include the original stalker) did not like either of the magical specializations.

The traitor (warlock) from the first session decided to *mostly* play nice on his new stalker and was *mostly* actively helping the party this week, so I did not get to playtest how effectively the class could be used to subvert the party from within.

Our Heroes:

Avenger 1: Alla/Rhialla Aasimar (Dex build, archer - longbow) [Environment Weapon (urban)][Combat Skill]
Avenger 2: Charlemagne/Charles Human (Dex build, rapier) [Combat Skill][Close the Gap]
Avenger 3: Kiku/Kalishi Tengu (Str build, bastard sword) [Armor Silence][Armor Skin] (she was wearing light mithril armor so she was getting literally no bonus from this, but liked the idea thematically)
Stalker: Alemnar (str build, greataxe/glaive) Aasimar [rogue talent: weapon focus greataxe][Case the Joint]

Scenarios, Encounters, and Fight Scenes:

I ran 2 simple scenarios with difficult fights. The first a rescue mission to find the mayor’s missing daughter; the second a mission to defend a small town of ~2-5k inhabitants from a very young red dragon.

Scenario 1: Trouble in Paradise (~3.5 hours)

A group of hunters discovered a rare albino 3 tailed wolf north of the village of Pawtucket. A week of festivities commenced, with many travelers and bards coming from the surrounding area to party and bask in the joy of a most auspicious omen! Alas at the end of the week, after everyone has had a chance to dry out it is discovered that the Mayor’s daughter Chrissa has disappeared! A great alarm goes through town and a group of local vigilantes muster to figure out what has happened.

At first they suspect foul play – a mysterious stranger in the midst of the festivities, but after talking to some people and learning that the girl has an undue fascination with the wild they decide she has run off to try and capture the omen-wolf. Rhialla decided to do some follow up investigating which took an extra 2 hours, while the rest of the party set off in the direction she was last seen headed (with a full contingent of her father’s guards). After a mere 8 hours travel into the woods these three come across the destroyed remnants of a wagon flipped on its side in the path.

Strewn haphazardly around the area are chunks of horse and bits of human, almost indistinguishable from another. Small fragments of armor emblazoned with the Mayoral Coat of Arms engraved inside the Crest of the Town Guard are the only indication that this may be Chrissa’s Convoy. After initial shock, and some scrounging around Charlemagne noticed tracks leading off into the woods and Kiku followed these; leading the party to a small break in the woods surrounding a low hill. There they saw a large goblinoid creature digging at a small opening in the hill; the shrill shriek of a girl, and the haggard cry of her final defender issue forth, egging the party onward.

The party got a surprise round on the Troll which was quite occupied digging into the hill, and peppered it full of arrows from afar. The battle was on! The Troll rolled a 1 on initiative, so it went last and the party loosed a second volley of arrows, dropping it just shy of half hp. With a roar (and some regeneration) it turned around and charged the party, just barely coming within reach of Charlemagne whom it gnawed on with its bite attack. At this point a second troll woke up nearby (it was hidden in a bush, and the party failed their perception checks to notice it upon entering the area), and joined the initiative tracker (nat 20, went first at the top of the round). It walked over and also bit at Charlemagne, missing. The party focused on the first troll, and dropped it in 2 more rounds; Kiku by chance had a flaming bastard sword, which sped the process along greatly. In this time Alemnar was full attacked by the second Troll which hit with everything and dealt 38/41 damage to him in one round (average party hp was around 33). The party then turned to focus the other Troll; it dropped Kiku and Alemnar into the negatives, but Charlemagne managed to finish it off thanks largely to the two alchemist’s fires Alemnar hit the Troll with before going down.

The troll encounter was CR 5 for 1 round ignoring the surprise round, CR 7 for 2 rounds while they were both up, and CR 5 again for 4 rounds after the first Troll went down (experience and gold set for a CR 7 encounter).

Rhialla joined up with them after they rescued the girl; Stuart, her chief steward and final defender gave a short speech exhorting the party to take her back into town safely before collapsing and dying of a mortal gut-wound. Rhialla had invested considerably more into curative potions than the rest of the party, and handed out potions like candy allowing everyone to approach a semblance of full health. The party discussed travelling back to the city, and 3 of them decided to make camp for the evening. Alemnar however decided to try pushing on, taking the girl with him (on his watch) and made it an extra 4 hours through forced march before his exhaustion eventually overcame him and he fell asleep. Bandits; alerted to the girl’s disappearance, and last known direction of travel came across him as he slept. They stripped him of all his valuables, and bound him tightly with rope. After he awoke they questioned him, learned the girl was the one they were after and sent her into town with a guardian to collect the Mayor’s reward.

The rest of the party discovered Alemnar’s treachery the next morning, hurriedly setting off in pursuit. They came across the location where he and the girl were bound and dragged off into the woods and Kiku again lead the way towards the Bandit’s camp. They encountered 3 bandits up in tree stands when two arrows soared narrowly past their face. The party traded blows with these three for ~4 rounds, but easily defeated them.

CR ~4 encounter; 3 human fighter 1/rogue 1 – heroic gear/stats. The goons had the high ground, but I didn’t give them a mechanical advantage due to this; also ignored the partial cover they should have received.

The party had ranged options so they were not at a particular disadvantage in this fight, but with one exception were not specialized for it. That said they all hit consistently and did good damage.

They then continued on into the bandit camp; Kiku disguised herself as rich prisoner, Charlemagne disguised himself as a bandit, and Rhialla disguised herself as a captured guard. They bound themselves loosely with ropes, and rolled sleight of hand to make it appear that they were tightly bound and tied up. Rhialla rolled low, and the Bandit Captain made a decent perception check low enough he did not notice the deceit until he was surrounded by the party but high enough the party did not get a surprise round. The encounter consisted of the Captain (level 6, 8k gp, melee heroic array) and 3 more goons (same as from the previous encounter) resulting in a CR 7 encounter.

The fight was fairly straightforward and lasted 5-10 rounds. Charlemagne first tried fighting the big guy, but was chunked down quickly and decided to instead kill the goons then free Alemnar. The Bandit got off one full round attack right at the start, hitting Charlemagne on his first attack and rolling max damage (16 ~1/2 charles’s hp) but missed on the iterative and shield slam. He spent most of the rest of the fight charging at people, and rolled a lot of 8s, which skewed combat against the party. I forgot he had Vital Punishment, which would have come up once when someone provoked, and possibly 2 times when he moved then did a standard action attack instead of charging. He rolled max damage on his longsword more than 50% of the time however, so in all this probably balances out and if he’d been using it consistently he’d have been one-shotting people the way the dice were going. Rhialla split her time between helping Charlemagne kill of the minions and force-feeding Kiku healing potions. She was moderately successful killing the minions, but Kiku kept dropping due to low AC/high rolls from the bandit captain (~17 AC, which was average for the party; bandit captain never rolled lower than a 10). Kiku missed the Bandit Captain by a narrow margin a few times at the start of combat, and after that spent 3-4 rounds getting dropped, and then healed and standing back up before the party ran out of potions.

The end result was a TPK; Alemnar ran away (naked, and clutching a stolen longbow) after Charlemagne cut him free. The party killed all the goons, but the Captain was left with a little over 15 hp. I think if Charlemagne had stood and fought the Bandit Captain the party would have won, as he did the most damage and had the highest to hit bonus. Even if he hadn’t hit providing flanking would have helped tremendously. As it was Rhialla couldn’t provide flanking for Kiku, which would have about a 30 point difference in damage and ended the fight in at most 5 rounds. Alternatively if Alemnar hadn’t snuck off with the girl in the middle of the night only to be captured by bandits the party would have been much better off.

CR ~7; Boss had a little extra gp thrown his way, goons were a little short changed – boss was separated to start giving him an initial disadvantage.

Obviously these are above average difficulty combats, but well within reason for boss battles. The stalker performed poorly in both combats he participated, due largely to the player – testing the specialization as a GM in a few scenarios I’m convinced this is not the Stalker’s fault. In the CR 4 fight the three Avengers comported themselves extremely well; if they had invested in medium or heavy armor they likely would have taken no damage here – as it was they were only hit a couple times, and utterly decimated the goons. The three Avengers could maybe have won the final encounter; it would have helped to have either a dedicated healer or at least an off healer. Maybe one of them will try out the Zealot now that it’s been touched up *fingers crossed.*

Scenario 2: Dragon Issues (~4 hours)

I let them recharge their consumables at this point.

A couple days ago a travelling Bard staggered into town, smoking and dusty; out of breath from running. The distraught Halfling trotted up to the Mayor’s house and hoarsely coughed out a single word: “Dragons,” Before collapsing in a rumpled heap. Over the past few days rumors have spread far and wide throughout town; reaching all the City’s Vigilantes. They shone their batsignal, and met up at their favorite tavern in social guise to discuss the mysterious Dragon issue approaching town. They talked for a while before deciding to get more information from around town.

Alla(Rhialla) approached the Mayor in social guise and utilizing some knowledge local & nobility checks made her way past his guards to talk to the Mayor and the now recovering Halfling Bard. The Bard was suffering PTSD but Alla calmed him down successfully with a diplomacy check and some reassuring words and he explained that a clutch of red dragon eggs had hatched a couple months ride south of town. One of the hatchlings was slowly making its way towards town, and should arrive within the next 5-6 days. With wild eyes he shouted they had better prepare to weather the coming fire-storm (points to his blackened and shriveled left arm) or leave, abandoning the town.

The Mayor was more helpful, referring Alla to an old map of the city from when it belonged to the Dwarves. The Dwarves ran a siege engine workshop hidden out in the nearby (2 days travel) woods centuries ago. The Mayor explained that the area had been overrun with Troglodytes as a result of the political turmoils of the time and no one had bothered to dislodge them since. The workshop might however retain finely crafted gears and special blueprints detailing the construction of an auto-loading system. He exhorted them to hurry, as he had little faith in the city’s chief engineer (a gnome bent on constructing a giant wooden steam powered flamethrower).

Alemnar spent this time Casing the Joint on the richer portions of town (failures), and then the Inn where they met (success), and an upscale Inn catering to the minor nobility of the region (success). This never resulted in anything. The rest of the party focused their time on spreading their renown. They met back up in the evening and Alla told what she had learned. The party decided to ask the Mayor for horses in the morning (he loaned them).

They proceeded towards the supposed location of the workshop, arriving at the edge of a very densely overgrown forest after 8 hours of travel. Learning from their previous failure in the last scenario decided to set up camp for the night instead of pressing on in a forced march. Nothing found them in the night, but the set up and kept a watch schedule.

The next day they started exploring the woods looking for the workshop; after a few hours doing so they were ambushed by a small Troglodyte hunting party (2 trogs and 8 slave kobolds). The party quickly decimated them, but the trogs got in a couple hits dealing 3-4 damage to each of Rhialla and Alemnar.

CR 4; 8 Kobolds, 2 Troglodytes.

They proceeded to then find the abandoned workshop which was now quite overgrown with trees, moss, and vines covering its once majestic stone walls. They entered and since the session was going long anyways I condensed some exploration encounters into one big boss fight where the boss was scheduled to appear 2 rounds after the start of combat (it was initially sleeping in a shadowy back corner, and is generally lazy). The party of course rolled insanely high on their perception checks right off the bat and the ranged avenger sees it curled up around an old decrepit stone ballista. >.< No surprise round for either side; boss ended up coming in after the first round, the ranged avenger having of course shot it as soon as they could. The party dropped 3 kobolds its first round, a trog and a couple more kobolds the second and then they had to focus more on the boss. The boss (a large Troglodyte Paragon) was hitting pretty hard (swinging around a bone scythe) and downed Kiku with its first attack (she’d taken some damage mixed lethal/nonlethal from the Kobolds in the room), dropping her to below non-lethal but above 0. It then alternated its attacks between Charlemagne (main agro in the room), and Alemnar (who was more convenient to hit much of the time) missing several attacks (it rarely rolled above a 5 to hit). The party eventually downed the trogs in the room; the paragon knocked out everyone except Rhialla, who managed to just barely finish it off with a well placed arrow. This caused the remaining 6 Kobolds to flee in terror. The party then had no trouble locating some gears etc, and even a set of blueprints (yay high perception rolls!) from the workshop before leaving to return to town.

CR 7-8; 1 Troglodyte Paragon (CR 5), 4 Troglodytes (CR 1), and 12 Kobolds (CR ¼)

The final encounter of the evening was the red dragon wyrmling (CR 6). The party had a few days of rest, and the Mayor replenished some of their curative potions. Due to their success at the abandoned warehouse the Ballista was completed a day ahead of schedule at the top of a 15’ high dais in the center of town (the gnomish wooden flamethrower had caught fire and exploded while they were away – go figure). Ballista stats: 80 hp, auto reload (holds 8 bolts), 3d8 dmg; requires 1 full round action of cranking to reset the tension in the string. Can be operated singly (full round reload, standard to fire), doubly (one reload, one fire), or triply (crank operator, fire control, commander [negates exotic weapon penalty]). Party went with a 2 person team on the ballista, Charlemagne set up a sniping post on the tallest building in town (Mayor’s residence), and Kiku ran around with burning chunks of lizard meat stuck to her flaming sword trying to attract her scaly new flying pet. The ballista hit with 2 of its 8 attacks, Charlemagne managed about the same with his longbow, but the second ballista hit was a crit (double 20s, whoo!) which dropped the dragon to near death, and was followed up by an accurate arrow which dropped the beast. It survived for several rounds; got off 3 strafing runs on the ballista, nearly killing Alemnir and heavily damaging both the ballista and Rhialla (it failed to carry him off with a fly-by grapple however :P).

Kiku decided she wanted it as a pet, so she fed it a health potion (she was right under it when it fell). It woke up and she fed it her burnt lizard meat (forgot to mention she got 210 lbs of meat off the paragon trog/associated henchlings). The Dragon stuffed itself and went to sleep. When it awoke Alemnar aced a diplomacy check and convinced it to go off towards the abandoned dwarven workshop, where it would find more food like that. All in all a job well done, and I get to save a Dragon for a reappearance later! Again the stars of the show were the Avengers; Alemnir spent all his time furiously cranking to reset the Ballista.

CR 6; Small Red Dragon Wyrmling

The party was rewarded with food and xp, and a huge town-wide celebration involving the consumption of many rare and exotic alcohols by all. And there was much rejoicing.

Player Feedback:

After First Scenario: They were understandably down after wiping; I hurried things along so they wouldn’t get too far into moping. Generally they were mad at Alemnar more than anything else, they felt they could have beaten the scenario as a team.
After Second Scenario: Lots of High-Fives all around; people really enjoyed the session.

Personal Thoughts:

Warlock and Zealot need love; many of these scenarios were trivial with an arcane caster along, and a divine caster would have filled the ‘baggage’ slot Alemnar was in much of the time with the added benefit of heals.

First Session:
The party got more out of the social personas this time; they didn’t get to benefit much from startling appearance (I forgot about it, should have applied to the first troll in the first scenario). The Stalker never got off a hidden strike (lack of flanking cooperation, poor stealth, and too far long range attacks). My impression is that full bab is very strong, but that the Avengers are weak on both the hp and AC departments. This could be shored up with either free heavy armor proficiency, or free finesse training to encourage dex builds. Next session (level 10) Kiku is going the heavy armor route; she could have done so at this juncture – I feel she would have had less fun with the class as she did a lot of sleuthing and acrobatics in her mithril chainshirt but mechanically she’d have been stronger combat oriented talents.

Second Session: Again The Stalker didn’t get any benefit out of his kit. The Avengers carried things pretty well however.

I’ll be running a 10th level session with them next week; was planning to run a 15th level session on the following Thursday but unfortunately the playtest ends that Monday :P.

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?

The Setting:

I decided to run 2 very basic low level

Level 1 Scenario (Previous avg time to completion – ~1.15 hours :: Actual run time – ~2.5 hours): Kobold Cavern

I ran my Dungeon Delving campaign’s basic level 1 scenario to get a baseline for the group/class. I’ve run this a couple times in the past for parties of 4, and it has taken 45 min and 1.5 hours respectively for parties consisting of existing classes. I selected the scenario because it takes effort to fail, and despite being very easy is both non-linear and can be solved diplomatically or through force of arms.

The scenario involves tracking a group of Kobolds from the site of a caravan ambush where they’ve stolen a merchant’s supplies and taken them back to their hideout. The hideout is a small cave complex dug out of the side of a hill which is normally well hidden, but when the party comes to it still has drag marks pointing clearly to a large entrance hidden by brush.

For this scenario the supplies were medicine needed in a nearby town to stop a blossoming plague epidemic. After explaining the scenario, and upon noticing that none of them put ranks in survival I completely bypassed the tracking stage of the mission and skipped to dungeon delving.

Level 2 Scenario: Merchant Issues Continue (run time ~3 hours):

The merchant from 1 is very happy with the party’s performance, and gives them a letter introducing them to his daughter who is poised to take over the family business. When the party arrives she is in a state of distress, and tells them that she has been receiving threats from an unknown source since her position as heir to the family business was announced.

The scenario branches at this point. If the party wants to follow up on the source of the complaints she tells them that her older brother, a notorious drunk, has been heard swearing he’ll get his inheritance one way or the other at his favorite watering hole; The Drunken Seagull. They then have the opportunity to track him down and solve things diplomatically or ‘diplomatically.’

If they don’t follow up on the source of the threats the scenario skips to a couple hours before the attack, and the party’s given some time to come up with a strategy and make any last minute preparations they feel they need.

I meant to run this earlier in the week for one of my other groups, but they arrived early in the day, convinced the brother they were a threat before he was drunk, and received a payoff not to interfere (~1 hour of game time) so I don’t have a good point of reference for how difficult this scenario is or how long it should take. The other time I’ve run it was under a different premise and the group just decided it wasn’t worth the gold after they had run around town for ~2.5 hours talking to people.

Sample Fight: From Merchant Issues Continue (~15 min)

For reasons which will be detailed later I left the 3 CR2 boss npcs (reach build Elven Stalker, Human TWF Stalker, Human Estoc Wielding Stealth Guy Stalker) out of the second scenario. I ran dumbed down versions of the TWF and estoc guy as level 1 rangers, but left the reach build out. After the second scenario I ran the reach boss as a stand-alone encounter against the party at full hp just to see how she/they would fare and she almost downed half of them (Low level AoOs are strong o.O).

Characters (they’ve probably updated these for next week’s session – Kiku joined late and didn’t use a publicly available sheet):

Our Heroes:

Avenger 1: Naomi.
Avenger 2: Charlemagne.
Avenger 3: Kiku/Kalishi Tengu (18/15/10/10/10/10) [Armor Silence] Feats: weapon Focus Bastard Sword
Warlock: Alemnir.
Stalker: Kelrah.
Since none of them had healing I gave each 2 potions of CLW gratis for the first session.
For the second session they rolled some knowledge checks while investigating the warehouse and discovered a stack of pallets which went floor to ceiling and contained 250 CLW potions/pallet.
Encounters and Fight Scenes:

Scenario 1: Kobold Caverns

The Party entered the mouth of the cave with the Naomi and Alemnir in front. They quickly came across a large stone Column stretching floor to ceiling; rolled perception and discovered a set of glyphs carved into the rock. No one spoke Draconic, and despite my best efforts at spelling out that this was a Kobold cave none of them figured out that it was a message (says the name of the tribe, and advises the reader to turn back; it further reads: Plague!). The Warlock thought it was some magic inscription but bungled his spellcraft check and seemed disappointed when I told him they didn’t seem magical. They continued bungling around making a lot of noise, so the archer hidden in the pillar opened his arrow slits (expertly carved into the glyphs), and shot at them! In the process of running away from the archer they discovered a hidden door around the back of the pillar leading into to his little shooting gallery. They forced it open, but the tight crawlspace and cover prevented them from killing him for about 5 rounds, giving the boss plenty of time to use a wand of invisibility and send out a rogue underling to scout the commotion.

It yarked and yapped at a couple other Kobolds, and lined up some archers in the passageway leading to the boss’s chamber, then set itself up to flank anyone trying to reach the archers. This resulted in a merry little fight; the rogue critically failed its sneak attack from invisibility, throwing its dagger down the corridor ineffectually before running away. The archers held out, trying to keep the adventurers away from their sick young. About halfway through the fight a few spear Kobolds came around to flank the party from the direction of the entrance (there were a lot of side passages the party ignored), and the fight lasted a few more rounds. The party ended up killing about half the Kobolds in the entire dungeon complex (~5), they then split apart and explored the caverns by 1’s and 2’s. They came across a few more groups of kobolds which were less well armed, and through some intimidation managed to subjugate most without further violence. One of these was particularly smart and could half-speak common. It conveyed that the Kobolds stole the supplies for their own sick.

The party talked that over for a bit, and asked the kobold where the supplies were. It told them about the ones they had already found; they again intimidated it, and it revealed that there was a secret chamber where the ‘good’ stuff was kept behind the boss’s room.

They then reformed for battle in the entryway and pushed forward in a defensive formation towards the boss’s room. Most of them had agreed not to attack, and to try to work out a compromise with the leader. The Warlock had other ideas, and chucked an alchemist’s fire into the room in front of everyone. The Battle commenced. The party basically hung back while the Kobolds destroyed the Warlock (he lasted 2 rounds), then set the talking Kobold in front of them to act as a liason, and held their hands up in supplication. They ended up having a fairly long social encounter (still in vigilante mode) with the Kobolds and the Warlock bled out on the ground while everyone ignored him (they still had all their CLW potions).

All in all I was impressed with the party; they accomplished their objective with minimal bloodshed. They performed much less well in combat compared to conventional parties I have run the scenario for. They focused much more heavily on roleplay, and while the vigilante class added nothing to this mechanically (maybe a few skill points) their mindset (other than the warlock) was focused more towards helping people, and that really added a special feel to things.

Scenario 2: Merchant Issues Continued

This began with a social scenario between the group (mixed between social and vigilante aspects) and the merchant’s daughter. The female Tengu Avenger, in her gentlemanly social aspect ended up wooing the daughter while trying to negotiate higher wages; I looked at her sheet later and she had forgotten to add the social grace bonus to one of her skills so sadly I can’t attribute the diplomacy roll successes that led to some truly beautiful roleplay to the class. The presence of a second identity was critical however as she was quite convincingly male even to the merchant’s daughter’s most rigorous inspections.

The daughter’s tale of an angry older brother lead to an investigation into his activities. They found him without difficulty at his favorite bar; The Drunken Seagull. He was quite drunk, loud, and rude so it took them a while to figure out how to approach him. Eventually they decided the easiest way to do so would be to order him another of his favorite bottle of wine (some obscure vintage costing 100 gp a bottle).

They did not have this much gold, and were at a bit of a loss until Charlemagne (in his social guise of Charles) noticed that the label on the brother’s bottle was peeling a bit and a much cheaper label was beneath. After some haggling with the innkeeper they bought an expensive looking label for 20 gold, and a bottle of “Grandma’s piss ale,” (so named for its neon yellow color) his cheapest wine (1 cp a bottle). Charlemagne combined these two items and proffered the finished product to the brother, who accepted it with exuberance figuring he had found a social equal.

He spouted on drunkenly about how nice it was to have a best friend, and Charles eventually weaseled out that the brother was in fact behind the attack and that he’d hired the thieves’ guild to hit the warehouse later that evening. They tried removing him from the ‘gull when the brother shortly after passed out drunk, but the barmaids shooed them away and tugged him into a backroom.

They relayed the information to the daughter, who rewarded them handsomely and began to seduce Kiku’s male persona. With some drama they convinced her to wait until after the thieves were dealt with.

The party changed back to vigilante mode, and split apart to guard the entire warehouse, hid stealthily in the shadows between crates, and waited for the thieves to show. It took a couple hours past sundown, but the thieves quickly arrived; announcing their presence with a pitter-patter on the roof (couple high perception rolls) before crashing in through the windows with flair and panache. The baddies consisted of 6 level 1 human rangers; their favored enemies were undead so as not to screw our low level party. The rangers had basic ranged NPC stats with their con and str scores swapped and their human bonus in dex. They had masterwork longbows, leather armor, and a dagger each. Their feats were PBS and Precise Shot.

Combat began in the southwest corner, Kelrah got off a chakrum throw at his archer, rolled really well for his base damage, but poorly on his hidden strike leaving his target at 0 hp. It then turned around and loosed an arrow at him, crit (successfully but for little damage) and they both dropped to -1 hp. He failed to stabilize for several rounds; eventually Charlemagne made his way over and fed him a health pot when he reached -6.

Combat proceeded to Charlemagne’s corner (SE), and his ranger started moving towards the center of the room (evidently searching for something, but it missed him hiding in the shadows). He followed along behind it stealthfully. The next round he got off a surprise attack with his dagger (miss), but drawing the baddie’s attention. He ran around a bend and hid between two piles of crates. The baddie tried to jump on top of the crate piles around him, but rolled poorly and landed on his face on the ground in front of Charlemagne (who wasted no time finishing off the wounded and dazed opponent with a nice crit from his rapier).

Kiku (NE corner) accelerated climbed her way on top of some crates towards one of the rangers, but took several arrows in the process. She managed to get right in front of one of them before going down (but stabilized). The two rangers in her corner ignored her as soon as she dropped in favor of looting the warehouse.

Naomi and Alemnir 2 started in the NW corner and ended up moving quite a lot around the map. Alemnir betrayed Naomi; his vigilante mode was secretly the villain in charge of the plot (this was revealed to me mid fight, and I rolled with it)! Naomi put up a good fight against his 2 rangers; downing one, and getting the other low despite Alemnir’s many attempts to put him to sleep (all failures). This is especially impressive since I reflavored the two rangers to level 1 versions of their ‘boss’ selves (see “Sample Fight” below for explanation). He very quickly dispatche the TWF, the stealth guy kept throwing out smoke sticks, and Naomi would just run away to a different part of the map, so that lasted quite a while until Naomi provoked an AoO from the estoc guy and was dropped to negatives from a max damage hit.

After realizing he wasn’t accomplishing anything casting sleep on Naomi Alemnir started chucking Alchemist fires around trying to set the warehouse on fire (and failing). The two undamaged rangers in the NE corner decided they had enough plunder and didn’t want to deal with the fire so ran away. Charlemagne came down around this time from the SW corner and dispatched the last ranger. He then faced off against Alemnir, who ran away quickly, managing to climb a wall and out the window to safety.

Ironically since the fires didn't catch and led to the rangers leaving earlier than planned Alemnir ended up being MVP. The party still got most of the reward gold since the warehouse was mostly intact.

Sample Fight

So originally the scenario was supposed to revolve around 3 demi-bosses who would enter after the rangers, and set up little kill-zones around the warehouse to cover the rangers as they stole things (basically the rangers would cover their entrance with fighter, and then drop from initiative after they arrived). Given how scattered the party was I decided to wait until after the rangers were dealt with instead; I did not think they would survive contact with the bosses. Then Alemnir made his big villain debut and I just dropped them. I reflavored the TWF and the smoke screen guy to be in line with level 1 characters and Naomi ended up facing both; he downed the TWF without much trouble, but misjudged one of his travel lines and provoked from the estoc wielder and went down to a max damage AoO. The reach build I just left out of the previous encounter, so I ran it here as a stand alone encounter.

The fight was pretty straightforward; the reach stalker started in the middle of the group (healed to full), and they were told to defeat her. She rolled absolutely dead last on initiative (RPed this up as her being condescending) and combat started. She got off all her AoOs from the first round as people closed on her, and nearly killed two even without hidden strike damage or crits. Second round not much happened; she got off one more AoO and downed Kiku pretty far into the negatives, but the rest of the party converged and killed her then saved their avian friend.

Player Feedback:

After First Scenario: That was great! We rock, this class is a lot of fun.

After Second Scenario: Darn you Alemnir!

After Sample Fight: Fun session!

Personal Thoughts

Combats in the Caverns were pretty typical, everyone would crowd around one tiny hole down which a Kobold was hiding and try to mash on him, usually to little success (squeezing/cover). This also led to them getting flanked a few times. Once that happened they spread out a little more and payed more attention to their surroundings. I think the generally cramped tunnels prevented them from playing their mobile/stealth characters as effectively as they would have liked so dungeon environments are bad for the vigilante.

Social Encounters: We had one in vigilante guise, and one in social guise. Kiku wooed the merchant’s daughter in her social disguise (a gentlemanly fellow in a top-hat) with her lustrous feathers, charming banter, and a VERY high diplomacy roll. Looking over her sheet it doesn’t look like she remembered to put the bonus from social grace into anything, so overall I don’t think the class did much there. What the class did do is provide her with an escape; when the merchant to be’s affection grew to be too much the rest of the party distracted her for a while and Kiku changed into combat mode, allowing her a moment’s peace. Similarly the party did not benefit much from the vigilante class abilities when talking to her brother (unless you count the extra skill points).

Combats were hugely mobile in the warehouse; the same combatants rarely spent more than 2 rounds in the same quarter of the place (25x25 squares total map size). Even the more heavily armored members of the party were sneaking around (with varying degrees of success) and getting the drop on people. They also spent a lot of time climbing over crates (again to varying degrees of success), and jumping between crate piles following the rangers. It was pretty interesting and not something I’d really experienced before.

The Betrayal: This was really the only use I saw for the vigilante’s abilities which could not be done by other classes. Alemnir’s alternate identity as the villain really threw the party for a loop and almost resulted in a TPK. They still don’t know it was him, and I will need to factor that into further playtests (we have one scheduled for level 5 at the end of next week).

Are the five minutes to run home and get it? Do I carry around a pencil so I can draw on a mustache when I need to assume my secret identity? I've been handwaving where muffinman's muffin outfit + spell component pouch go while he's walking around town as an ordinary layman, but inquiring minds need to know.

Not sure how helpful this info is, as the GM was... New...

The Party (all level 1):

A skinchanger were-shark paladin
A gnomish Sorcerer
A gnomish Ranger
A Human Warlock: Jean/Renaud aka The Muffinman (Spells Prepared: 0 acid splash, detect magic, read magic, prestidigitation; 1 grease, reduce person) Feats: PBS, Precise Shot

The Setting:

Well it was a pick up game with a new GM, and in the interests of civility we'll just say it wasn't described.

Social Encounters:

The Module seemed open enough for a little around the town exploring and talking, but overall was linear talk to NPC -> journey -> talk to NPC -> Journey -> Fight -> arrive at destination -> Cycle. On the way out of town, after having spoken to the apothecary I switched into my muffinman persona and convinced the shark I wasn't a suspicious character while the gnomes both found a bird to talk to by the side of the road. The NPCs did not seem particularly surprised when a shark, 2 gnomes, and a giant muffin walked into their logging camp. Not sure what that says about the area. GM gave us some cut and paste text and off to adventure!

The fights:

The sorcerer had a bit of a drinking problem, and passed out before each of them.

Dinner:

Our first encounter was with a fox caught in a trap; the shark went over to put it out of its misery and was shot in the head with an arrow. A couple of rounds later searching through the underbrush (the ranger could see the archer up in the tree, but apparently we couldn't follow his directions) I discovered the archer up in the tree. His pet crows divebombed me, but thankfully missed. I threw glowing green muffins (acid splash) at them, but unfortunately failed to roll above a 14 and so missed. The ranger eventually took them both out. I then shot the archer with an acid splash, and he tried to run away only to have the shark eat him. He was unveiled to us at this point as a goblin, which apparently would have been important to the ranger.

The Kobold-Headed naga tree thing:

Attacked us as we searched for some elderwood moss. Died before my initiative came about.

The Witch's hut:

We were looking about for a jar of pickled rat's tail when suddenly the cauldron animated and attacked. The party and it spent a few rounds staring at each other angrily before my acid splashes started hitting it and it bit the shark. Thankfully it did not have much hp for a cauldron and my acid corroded it to death before it could swallow him.

Aaand stay tuned for part 2, to be posted when we finish the module by exploring the abandoned dwarven mines north of the forest.

Divine Training I - VI

It's nice that the casting stat synergizes with the social aspect's primary skill. Otherwise you cast as an inquisitor with fewer spells per day. Added to that the casting stat no longer helps your will saves (there's a feat which makes this less an issue, but adds a tax). Otherwise it's a 5 talent casting tax to still be sub-par.

Channel Energy

CE is pretty useful at early levels, and stops being as useful around the level Zealots can pick it up. Given the poor casting options I'd at least make this a real channel energy instead of a diminished one.

Discern Lies

Always found this to be useless on an inquisitor. What interrogation lasts a number of seconds equal to 6 times your level? More realistically needs to be minutes or hours per level.

Divine Bastion

This is nice. Why would the Zealot ever not be in the stance again?

Domain

I like domains; not very useful at mid-high levels though, and certainly not at the expense of a tax. For a tax I should at least get 2. And bonus Spells per day.

Empower Symbol

This is pretty neat.

Life Bond

Ok. I'll go play my Oradin, thanks. It has better armor proficiencies, the ability to heal itself without becoming useless, better class abilities, better healing, better saves, same weapon proficiencies, worse skills, better hp.

Penance Gaze

This is nifty. Unfortunately I have to hit enemies with it before I can use my frightening contenance stuff that requires enemies to be unaware of me. So that part could use some tweaking.

Revivifying Touch

Given level restrictions this should really be once/creature/day.

Stalwart

Nice, pretty high level restriction though. I might have to take divine training to fill all my early level slots. So it's nice to know I have a high level slot to look forward to filling at some point.

Stern Gaze

This is not worth a talent.

Track

What part of this says Zealot again?

I... expect at least... new-ish work from Paizo. This. Is. So. Lazy. 12 'unique' abilities, 4 of which were actually developed for Ultimate Intrigue. Seriously. Fire this guy.

Arcane Training I:

Technically not a talent since it's mandatory. I would love to have this replace both minor and major magic rogue talents on my rogue. It doesn't work on the Warlock. Given the amount of space devoted to this it's impressively easy to miss the spells per day section.

Arcane Trainings II-VI:

5 Talent Tax for what should have been the point of the specialization but instead does little or nothing to augment it.

Arcane Striker

Can't really benefit from it with my limited spells per day. Can't use it with my mystic bolt. Can't use it with my bombs. Can't use most of these thematic abilities in the same round that I'd attack with a weapon. Waste of Space.

Bombs

If you reference the APG to cut down space here you can cut down space in the AT I description by referencing the ACG's Arcanist and summarizing differences. I like internal formatting consistency within at least a specialization. The point of these are supposed to be splash damage to compliment the Mystic Bolt's single target. Instead the Warlock does not add int to damage, so the splash damage is a static 1. Not very threatening. Also the only option is fire damage which means if I pick Mystic Bolt (Fire) I'm doubly screwed against anything fire resistant. This needs a lot of development.

Bond of Blood

This is nice; wish it worked with mystic bolt or bombs. Or spells I guess if you want to pay your taxes.

Caster's Defense

This is potentially nifty, but very limited given the small spells/day pool. I'd make it last a number of rounds equal to the spell level cast.

Concealed Casting

Needs a reprint so that it works. Already addressed by others. Potentially neat. Would be better if the Warlock had some incentive for sneakily casting at people.

Educated Defense

Very Strong. Makes up for a few downfalls.

Elemental Battle Armor

I like this except for the little issue that you can't turn it off while in your vigilante persona. Oh look the guy that's on fire! SHOOT HIM!!!

Familiar

Pretty standard. Might expand it to familiar or arcane bond and add the limiting text that you can't have multiple familiars/bonds as a result of the ability.

Living Shadow

Sounds thematic, and given Warlocks are generally shadowy I was expecting Mystic Bolts etc to have more of this sort of theme. One small issue: PRD isn't returning a result for shadow body (is this the correct spell name?); a PFSRD search returns a third party spell. More information required for playtest.

Mystic Bolt

Standard level one ability with a small buff. A one-trick pony but fun-ish. Would be nice if it could be used with itself for TWF, and if the energy type were more variable.

Nonlethal Spellcasting

I'd rather see this as a core rule mechanic for spell casting. I can see it being useful but it's close to being a tax.

Shadow Jump

Very nice. I'd take this in a heartbeat.

Signature Spell

Could use some changes to reflect warlock not being a casting class.

Social Simulacrum

This is pretty nifty, I like it.

Tattoo Chamber

The Warlock's best ability hands down. I love this. That said it could be given more utility (availability to Social Aspect/swift action item activation) without being terribly overpowered.

15 Unique class abilities; a nice if scattered theme that ends up feeling sub-par overall.

My advice to the designer is ask yourself first "what is a warlock?" Write down everything that comes to mind. Then ask yourself "what does this ADD to Pathfinder?" Jot that down, and cross reference. Finally revise things to give the class a more intrinsically useful/thematic feel.

Another Day

Diehard + Free Stealth to not be CdG’d. I’ve definitely wished for this before. Not sure if I’d take it, but I like having the option.

Case the Joint

I love this thematically; most GMs/published scenarios railroad the party too hard for this to work consistently. Scaling free rerolls by level a week based on similar knowledge might work better.

Expose Weakness

Negating DR is nice; unfortunately you’d still need to carry bags of silver etc with you to use it. This could be better worked into a core gameplay mechanic using alchemical items. Such as by reducing the cost and restrictions on weapon balms.

Foe Collision

This is pretty cool; I’m a fan.

Hide in Plain Sight

Always a good/strong option.

Leave an Opening

Ooh, this + Whirlwind (or cleave) + Foe Collision. Just saying. In either event definitely dipping Unchained Rogue for that dex to damage.

Mighty Ambush

Standard.

Mockingbird

This has some interesting options; I’ll need to playtest it.

Perfect Fall

Reasonable; find a lot of people pick up boots of the cat, so not sure it would come up often. Buff over slowfall reasonable given that the social aspect can’t benefit from it

Perfect Vulnerability

Hm… Largely better than Mighty Ambush. It’s nice, I’m worried it’s too strong but need to playtest.

Pull into the Shadows

Scary Powerful NPC ambush tool. That said very useful to the PCs as well. I would add a level prereq

Rogue Talent

Standard.

Rooftop Infiltrator
Very Nice. Love movespeeds.

Shadow’s Sight

Very good. I can see myself getting this everytime, although strike the unseen marginalizes it significantly.

Silent Dispatch

Squeal of joy. Seriously though, this is usually a levels 10-14 thing.

Sniper

Range boost is excellent – which will offset the d4s until the rogue gets sniper goggles.

Strike the Unseen

I will always get this period.

Surprise Strike

Nice; potentially very powerful. Will need to playtest.

Throat Jab

This… should be a prerequisite to Silent Dispatch. As much as it pains me to say it.

Twisting Fear
This really seems quite abusable. Then again a lot of things are immune to fear.

Up Close and Personal

o.O Very nice.

Total Talent Options: 21 – All thematic, impressive; someone has been busy.

Armor Silence

Not taking ACP to stealth checks for light and medium armor is pretty nice at levels 1-7; basically useless after that. I would be far more likely to take this if it a) let me move full speed in medium armor, or b) eliminated the penalty for fast movement while using stealth in either armor type.

Armor Skin

This is ok. I think it'll be outclassed by having a party member with spells or the ability to UMD scrolls.

Close the Gap

Movement without provoking is very nice, particularly vs foes with reach; usually requires a 3 feat investment. Not taking the AC penalty from one opponent while charging is ~o~k. Definitely worth taking overall.

Combat Skill

Pretty Standard, not sure why the Avenger can't treat his level as equivalent to fighter for prereqs though. Nice, but not thematic.

Environmental Weapon

Meh. More thematic certainly, but of limited use. That said I've had a few players who would enjoy this option greatly.

Favored maneuver

Very nice; thematic, reasonable bonus although unfavorable at mid-high levels compared to options like weapon training.

Fist of the Avenger

Neat and useful; about the same progression as weapon training, probably not worth a talent given the limited application. Unless you're multiclassing or there's an unarmed archetype (I'm sure there will be). Personally would roll this into a revised version of Signature Weapon.

Heavy Training

Sure, pretty standard.

Living Shield

I rather like this, and feel the need to playtest it.

Mad Rush

Pounce is always nice. Reasonable level requirement.

Nothing Can Stop Me

I really like this; have had DMs in the past be real sticklers about charge lines, so being able to clear them is great. Also very nice teamwork ability. Biggest issue with it is the attack failing vs mimics and other hidden enemies disguised as objects. Why not treat the attack you made vs them as your attack for the round instead of ending movement and *potentially* costing the Avenger their attack(s) that round (such as when a charge is interrupted).

Shield of Fury

Very nice. Always good to remove a feat burden.

Signature Weapon

This seems a bit redundant given the Combat Skill Feat. Also a bit too efficient feat-wise. It might be nice to make something Avenger unique. Maybe a taunt or something up the dazzling display line for free.

Suckerpunch

I love the name; the ability works better vs FF or flanked opponents. Currently far too situational to grab.

Unexpected Strike

Well now, guess I'll be going 1 Avenger/19 Unchained Rogue for all the rest of time. Oh.. actually I'd need Avenger 8.. :( Wait, how is this an Avenger thing and not a Stalker thing again?

Unkillable

Nice tank ability, probably better if you're multiclassing with something like barbarian.

Vital Punishment

Ooh. I will be taking this, thank you. Very nice synergy with Close the Gap too.

My biggest issue overall is that this feels like 'oh look I can be a fighter too!' There are ~4 really nice unique abilities. The rest will be bonus feats of some sort. Much too bland overall.

The Premise

I tried out the Warlock Vigilante as an evil baddie who had escaped from a local prison and gone into hiding. The party split up to search for him, and one portion happened upon him by blind luck. They met back up and decided to follow the baddie out into the woods. I decided not to make the terrain particularly favorable for either party to get a good baseline (basically both sides ignored the trees and bushes after an initial ambush).

The Baddie

The NPC was a level 4 human warlock. He used the heroic caster stat array, put his level 4 point into int, and his racial bonus into dex for a final stat array of 8/16/12/16/10/13. Talents were Tattoo Chamber and Mystic Bolt (Fire). Feats were Toppling Spell (Trait to keep MM at SL 1), Lingering Spell (Trait to keep color spray at SL 1), and PBS (probably should have picked something else, but I figured he'd want Precise Shot eventually). Felt his damage was low so I also gave him Havoc of the Society as a bonus trait. LVL 1 spells prepared were Magic Missile, Mage armor, Color Spray, and Infernal Healing. He had 3 spells/day, and noticed the party following him so he prebuffed with Mage Armor (I should have also prebuffed with IH in retrospect -- honestly would have been better off with Shield or Grease).

Stats:

HP: 31 AC 18, Touch: 14, FF: 15, CMD: 15, FFCMD: 12

Fight Synopsis:

He got off a surprise round color spray, and did not have to use lingering spell since the party was very nicely lined up right next to his bush. The Cleric (who started raging at his dice) and Swashbuckler went down, but the Fighter got a lucky roll and stayed up. Warlock lost initiative badly, so the fighter went before he could follow up on the initial surprise. Warlock had decently high AC and the Fighter missed. Warlock stepped back and threw down a smoke stick from his tattoo, gaining total concealment and stealthing. Fighter charged, made his perception vs stealth and landed a grapple despite concealment and provoking (Mystic Bolt missed due to the str penalty). Warlock decided to trade blows rather than escape and barely hit with Mystic Bolt (str/grapple penalty really hurt, in retrospect would not give the Warlock a caster array). Fighter pinned him, Warlock tries to escape (bad fail). Fighter Tied him up with rope. Thankfully Mystic Bolts (Fire) > Rope, so he escaped bondage, quickly running away and provoking (miss). Party called BS on this, but meh Mystic Bolts don't have a somatic component and he didn't roll a 1 on his attack. He hid in the bushes. Cleric/Swashbuckler finally recovered from CS at this point, and PCs all charged about wildly -- cleric got lucky and ended right next to the Warlock, discovering him. I had not expected this, so the Warlock only had the one smokestick and was now caught out. He Kited for a few rounds, poking people with his Bolts, generally missing in melee and hitting at range before the party was nicely lined up for another CS. All made their saves (17+ on the die for everyone). At this point he was pretty much screwed, but spent a couple more rounds chucking out alchemist's fires and mystic bolts before going down. All in all a fun little fight lasting approximately 10 rounds, and he did well despite the numerical disadvantage. Mystic Bolt would have been a lot more effective if it were finessable in melee (unsure if it is or not). Did not end up using MM/toppling spell so I probably could have picked a better feat. Had intended to have him heal periodically but he never got the chance so the Warlock definitely needs some love in the escape options department (or I need to remember grease and invest more in smoke sticks). End result: Fighter was at about 1/2 HP, Cleric took 1 splash damage from alchemist's Fire, and the Swashbuckler was unscathed. Warlock was a CR 3 opponent, could have played him smarter, will probably try Ifrit next time with a heavier smoke stick emphasis. Party enjoyed the fight, but ended up killing him (Cleric is negative energy aligned, prepares no healing spells, and no one could make their heal check to stabilize the warlock in the 5 rounds it took him to bleed out). So they lost the bounty but won the fight.

Our Heroes:

The party consisted of 3 lvl 3 PCs; a Two Handed Fighter, a Swashbuckler, and a Cleric with an 18/16/14/13/12/8 stat array. Fighter has Full Plate he killed off a bandit and had reworked in town; other two PCs have about 300 gp in equipment wealth (and a lot more tied up in businesses/land). None are optimized; it's overall an RP themed campaign and their tactics trend towards flavor over crunch so I gave them slightly better stats than normal to help compensate. They've recently decided to start a life of bounty hunting, and are much better against targets they can just kill. Fighter would not have taken nearly so much damage without his grappling attempts. Arguably Elemental Armor could have been a better selection for the warlock, but I'm pretty sure the party would have just hit him instead of attempting to grapple at that point and the fight would have lasted maybe 3 rounds.

Hi guys; probably none of us will get to try the Vigilante in a full campaign during this initial playtest, but what are your initial thoughts for playing one in a campaign?

I've always been a fan of superheroes with strange magical abilities of unclear origin, so I'm attracted to the Warlock myself. I figure rather than a spell caster the class will work better as a switch hitter with magical overtones.

So Initial thoughts (based very loosely on The Wasp from the Avengers):

Core Mechanical Wishlist:

1) The ability to fly unaided --ideally early access-- (requires 2 talents min or expensive items, sad face; besides the idea here was to mostly ignore casting so there’s a lot of baggage)
2) decent unarmed or gauntlet fighting options (check)
3) cool goggles (check)
4) pew-pew lasers from both fists (sad face)
5) ‘life energy’ manipulation (hrmm… Infernal healing/bond of blood + flavor text for defensive abilities -- check~ish).

Chassis: Vigilante-Warlock:

Class Abilities (Talent Order Arbitrary):

1 Dual Identity (CG/NG), Social Grace, Warlock Specialization (Arcane Training I)
2 Talent (Tattoo Chamber) Social Grace (+4 UMD)
3 Renown (+4 intimidate)
4 Talent (Mystic Bolt: Fire)
5 Startling Appearance (enemies FF if caught unaware -- can't fully capitalize on this as the warlock lacks burst w/o multiclass)
6 Talent (Educated Defense) Social Grace (+4 Sense Motive)
7 Loyal Aid (+1/2 lvl to gather info, limited escape bonus, buy random minor items without shopping)
8 Talent (Familiar – No Wasp Options.. Sad Face, but can reflavor something else)
9 Many Guises (similar to alter self), Greater Renown (+2 to intimidate)
10 Talent (Bond of Blood) Social Grace (+4 Perception)
11Frightening Appearance (free intimidate)
12 Talent (Arcane Striker)
13 Quick Change
14 Talent (Bombs) Social Grace (+4 Diplomacy)
15 True Renown (+2 intimidate)
16 Talent (Arcane Training II)
17 Stunning Appearance (nice little CC, poor synergy with warlock int casting stat – actually poor synergy with any specialization)
18 Talent (AT III) Social Grace (+4 Know: Arcana)
19 Everyman (specific mundane disguise)
20 Vengeance Strike (basically useless/non-thematic/misnomer), Talent (Mystic Bolt: Acid)

Weapons:

Cestus/Mystic Bolt, pre 4 some sort of bow/crossbow. Post 4 possibly some form of crossbow for front end damage, then drop in favor of bolt.

Feats:
1 Weapon Finesse
Human: PBS
3 Precise Shot
5 WF: Mystic Bolt
7 TWF
9 Skill Focus: Spellcraft
11 Extend (so that fly lasts longer when we get it, pick up magical lineage as a trait)
13 Blind Fight
15 Ranged or TWF or Blind-Fight stuff
17 Ranged or TWF stuff
19 Ranged or TWF stuff

Mechanical Questions @ Paizo Staff:

Are Mystic Bolts Finessable in Melee?

General Tactics:

Run around destroying large groups with bombs; maybe pick up parting shot or spring attack to help with this. Utilize Consumables (wands/scrolls/alchemical items), and at higher level staves/rods to supplement very poor casting ability. Focus on team pre-buff/crowd management. Since healing in combat is very limited (infernal healing) pump up the ranged damage, possibly by dipping rogue for EWP Hand Crossbows. If I had gone Ifrit instead of Human then smoke sticks or multi-class Unchained Ninja would be very powerful. The fact that you can use items within the spell chamber of your tattoo without drawing them (and drawing them is a swift action) is really nifty; I wish I could use this to TWF with mystic bolt/wand, but unfortunately the wand is still a standard action activation.

I believe there's a feat that lets you treat intimidated opponents as flat footed? If so pick that up at 11, and the 'Appearance' line of abilities becomes more viable.

Thoughts on how Paizo could better support this specific build:

The biggest mechanical limitation is that the Warlock has very limited spell access, and if you want a single particular spell options (in this case fly) you have to blow multiple talents to get it.

Signature Spell could be used as a very nice work around if it allowed the Warlock the ability to cast one spell per day from the Wizard/Sorcerer Spell list as if it had the prerequisite arcane training for that spell; perhaps this spell could be changed once per week/month/upon level, and treat it in all other ways like it’s a domain spell. Currently the Talent does nothing if you want to use primarily non spell options in combat

Mystic Bolts should be an SU ability.

Tattoo Chamber has amazing potential for making use of consumables/crafting feats to have fall back options while in your social form, unfortunately it is currently inaccessible while in said form.

Further development of Mystic Bolts to be balanced in a TWF build would be amazing.

Thoughts on how Paizo could better develop this specific Specialization:

Mystic Bolts need more interaction with the rest of the Warlock’s toolkit. Bond of Blood should trigger off of it for example; it might be interesting to tie the bolt into Elemental Battle Armor in some way; perhaps suppressing one or the ability to augment the other. Certain aspects of this specialization would work very well thematically with the vigilante’s social persona. Tatoo Chamber for example is a very non-descript way of carrying around some magical/non magical tools for the social persona to go sleuthing with. The Social persona usually has access to places the vigilante does not, and players need something to make the social persona feel more mechanically important/integrated anyways. Plus there’s a nice synergy between Social Grace (UMD) and having wands/scrolls you can store in your arm and attempt to use as normal (since you lack the spell casting abilities while in your social persona).

Mystic Bolts should be an SU ability. It would be nice if energy type was a little more flexible, and if TWF was an option.

It would be nice if the Warlock could benefit from wearing armor in combat without hamstringing all his other abilities.

Vigilante casting should be based off of CHA to compliment its heavy emphasis on diplomacy and subterfuge.

The class would be much more fun if it got at least 1 spell/day for free of every spell level.

What I find fun about the concept:

I get to run around shooting people in the face, and have a few nice if minor options for mitigating their return damage/if they close to melee. Best thing is at later levels I get to use their spells against them, which makes up for me not being able to cast spells myself (if wearing armor, etc). I play a lot of rogues, and the potential options that Tattoo Chamber opens up for hiding objects/utilizing unkown objects in combat is near endless. I love thinking about it, and really want to try it out in game.

Optimization Level of this Specific Build:

Poor. Mechanically better off going Elven Unchained Rogue 3/Warlock 17 and do a reach build with the Elven Branched Spear, swapping to mystic bolts for ranged. Or to better fit the flavor of my build Half Elf/Human EWP Saw-Tooth Saber UR 4/warlock 16 with a TWF build. UR grants access to hand crossbows could make the TWF slightly better if more feat intensive. Feat Choices not specialized as they should be, build order scattered. In the case of Mystic Bolts being finesseable then drop saw-tooth saber for ?(rapier?) + mystic bolt and give the bolt the dex damage from finesse training.

Relative Power compared to Similar Concepts:

Abysmal caster, weak for melee compared to similarly themed arcanist/magus builds (very weak compared to magus). Warlock has more consistent ranged and general weapon options than either, although Arcanist/Magus have better singular weapon selection via archetypes. Arcanist has better ranged options overall considering its spell casting ability. Has proficiency with light/medium armors but unlike Magus suffers spell failure in them; adds a feat burden to the Vigilante if they're into that sort of thing. My limited spell selection build pretty much ignores this however. Maybe with Smoke Sticks and Ifrit would be very powerful kiter at low levels. This option is seriously hamstrung at higher levels due to lack of casting options.

Maybe it's just that I haven't played the warlock/zealot yet, but not gaining additional spell levels on a specialization that is designed as a spell caster seems counter intuitive. If this were a 'build your own class' situation I'd understand, but given the specializations I'm confused. Can someone shed light on this?

Hi guys; working on a little homebrew and was wondering how many feats/feat-lines you typically use at specific levels and on specific builds in a given round.

For example I usually play low level martials, and power attack + line, and weapon focus + line tend to be my go-to feats of choice.

For ranged characters it might help to split things into sub branches off of point blank shot.

I've been finding that Feats constrain player options more than they enable actions so I've been debating running a game either entirely without feats or possibly one where feats exist solely to buff numbers to make certain actions more successful. I'd probably use something along the lines of the revised action economy system and add some 'defend other'/'aid another'/'take aim'/'dodge' type simple actions.

Anyone already implement a good feat revision/removal system?