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The book does what it says on the tin, but nearly all of the new rules elements are unusable in all but the most heavily water focused games. An example of this is the Drowned Channeler Spiritualist, who has to be within 25 feet of a major body of water to gain /any/ benefit from Shared Consciousness. Not any water, not even a lake or major river - it has to be something on the scale of an ocean or sea.

If this was an exception and not the rule, I could give this three stars - but this book is sadly not so. Nearly every rules element has no effect outside of water, some actively penalize you for being on land; unless you regularly play entirely-aquatic games, skip this book and save yourself $16+

As someone who does not subscribe to the PC line, as I do not play in person and thus have no use for physical softcover books in my cramped living space, I find this to be another disappointment in a long string of them.

The product page discussion hyped this book, and I bought it under those pretenses. I thought that the Vermin Rider would be useable, oe that the Darklantern wouldn't be absolute garbage which can leave you a drooling vegetable with Self-Inflicted Wis damage as a class feature.

I don't know why I thought that. Vigilante is such a horribly supported class - pretty much all of its archetyped are absolutely awful and its class featured are horribly situational. The Darklantern only compounds that.

The Vermin Rider is just plain awful unless you are a small creature and have the luxury of weighing ~22lbs. None, and I mean none of the allowed Vermin are strong enough to be used as a medium creature mount unless you are basically basically just boned but somehow have strength in the late teens to early 20s. Not even after their 4th level adjustment are they rideable.

It does nothing to adress this, or the fact that Vermin companions are absolutely awful since they have garbage stats on top of the fact that they get no skills, and no feats. You're basically forced to play Human (for Eye for Talent in order to make them useable). Don't pick this arçhetype. Play a Hunter instead where you basically have the same BAB when flanking and 6th level spellcasting.

I am not even going to go into how awful the Kineticist is (you are forced to take the WORST Elemental Defense, for starters) as it is basically a known fact that the Kineticist's first party support is plain awful. This does nothing to impress.

The Beastkin Berserker sounds good on paper, but don't be fooled. If you actually look at the Beastiary your options are basically Dinosaurs. You have only as much time in beast form as rage rounds, and the non-dinosaur options suggested by the fluff are awful. You're basically forced to pick the "best" form 2-3 levels before you can actually use it. What? You care about flavor, or you wanted a full BAB class to have meaningful utility? Too bad, because the archetype "doesn't trade much" for what it gets.

Save your money. Don't buy this disappointing Player's Companion, and maybe next year we will get some content that is better designed.

I wish I could speak a word of praise about this book. There is none to be said. It is filled cover to cover with terrible, niche rules text that amounts of even more specialized versions of Favored Enemy.

If you thought there would be anything groundbreaking, instead of "+1/2/3/4 to X at levels A/B/C/D", "Knowledge Check Untrained, +1/2 level", or "Lose generally useful abilitiy, gain ability that functions only vs X/Y/Z thing or kind of thing", then you will walk away disappointed.

The much praised Cavlier Archetype is perhaps the worst offender, as it takes away your mount and forces you to engage in the same gameplay pattern (Übercharger), except without any of the benefits that make mounted charging good to begin with.

I am glad I got the PDF copy, because the softcover would have only been useable as very expensive toilet paper.

First off, Red Love is an amazing NPC and I look forward to using her in a campaign hopefully in the near future. She performs her role as Iconic flawlessly, tying the book together by leading you on through her descent into madness and violence and wrapping up the book with her terrifying stat block.

The art is succinct, stylish, and truly conveys the horror that she embodies. Her stat block is not so optimized that an unprepared party will be slaughtered, but she has some very defined combat niches and she uses them adeptly - beware her blinded condition!

Next, we have the Symbiotic Slayer - notable because of how versatile it is! I believe it is worth mentioning as other guides have misunderstood, you control your familiar - and thus you control your character when your Symbiote takes dominance. It is instead, a second character to explore. Of course, there are feats that make it so you can reduce the ego if you do not wish to have it be a bother. But the talents are so diverse!

You can make very respectable versions of many symbiotes such as Carnage or Venom. Something I want to bring up and remind people, is that Weapon Master’s Handbook brought with it weapon creation rules - so if you wanted ‘attached’ weapons more potent than the (spiked) gauntlet, it is only a single Design Point away.

The Protean Prowler has a special place in my heart, because they fulfill a niche I have long been waiting to utilize - an Eidolon style PC without the trappings of the flawed Summoner class. Mister N. Jolly has outdone himself here, as you can truly feel like a Protean with these effects underway - changing form and function as it suits you day by day with a generous number of ‘recustomizations’ per day.

Of course, those who adore Polymorphing can just as readily explore a true wealth of transmutation options or even use them to create a conjoined whole of Eidolon evolutions accenting a base template. Unless your DM is unusually strict, you should be able to describe your new form as you please - I hope to see some more reviews talking about what people have come up with!

Then we have the Shadow Savant, a unique subclass that can be strongly likened to Zed from League of Legends. However, with the greater freedom in designing abilities the kit is taken to its logical extreme and the result is amazing.

You have quite a few options to work with here, from being a faux shadow-evoker to using your shadows to distract, or even fighting alongside increasingly real shadow clones who gain improving action economy.

I won’t lie to anyone, I am a huge fan of N. Jolly’s work... But this book goes above and beyond anything I have expected! I feel this book has more than earned its five star rating, and invite anyone who is on the fence about it to pay the cost of admission - I will frankly guarantee that any fan of the Vigilante will find more than a few things to utilize here.