emillang1000's page

I don't think this is the "beginning of the end" of Pathfinder's 1st edition. People have been doom-saying that since the Advanced Player's Guide came out, and it hasn't proven true yet in the slightest.

I love the idea of the book, just not the design of the Vigilante Class. Combat and Magic got their own book, while Skills and non-combat, non-dungeon-diving encounters haven't received an in-depth book themselves yet. Even if the Vigilante continues to be bad, I'll pick up the book (though if the Vigilante IS bad, I won't make it a top-priority).

But, I have felt all along that the class is trying to imitate the "success" of the Medium, even though the Medium hasn't been anything near a smashing success.

Like what a lot of people have said, I feel that the Dual Identity isn't something that should be placed on a single class. I feel that it should be a Universal Archetype added to other classes. Or better yet, maybe an entire sub-system option, the same way that Mythic Paths are handled.

How about something like this: instead of taking your Traits & Drawbacks, you trade out those for a Dual Identity, which gives you an initial effect (like Renown, or something like that), you gain Social Talents every even level just like in the playtest.

That would leave the Vigilante free to be something like a 20-level version of the Master Spy, or some other form of thing, and you could STILL add the Dual Identity onto it!

Pretty much every reason why I dislike the Vigilante Class is covered in detail by this post from another thread, albeit probably not as vehemently stated as that post.

Still, I agree with that poster that the sum and total of what the Vigilante Playtest is trying to be can be accomplished, and more effectively, by having:

1. a Master Spy base class which utilizes spontaneous alchemy as the default design of the "Vigilante" class,

2. with various archetypes which transplant the Shadow Dancer, Mystic Theurge, Arcane Trickster, and Stalwart Defender aspects and abilities onto that Master-Spy-Vigilante chassis, and

3. having an optional Dual-Identities rule system which is separate entirely from the Vigilante, which can then be added onto not only it, but every other class in the game should players and GMs choose.

I hardly think this book is beyond salvageable. In fact, I have quite high expectations for the book given that the Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Equipment, Ultimate Magic, and Ultimate Campaign books are each excellent books. But I also firmly believe that there's no saving the Vigilante as its presented in the playtest.

There are parts of the as-printed Vigilante that are great, don't get me wrong. I'd love to see several of the Stalker talents be taken and added to the Rogue Talents list so that the Slayer and Ninja can play with them, for example. I even like the idea of Dual Identities. But I don't think Dual Identities works as part of a Class... it should be a modular quality which can be added to each and every class separately.

The Medium is fine, and it's "one class to play them all" idea is novel... so long as it's the only class that does that. I don't think any other class should be a doppelganger class, or else it cheapens the novelty of the Medium and every class that the doppelganger class mimics.

Please just make the Vigilante what everyone wants it to be: a spy-like class who's great at hiding and sneaking in plain sight, wherever that may be, who's a master of all disguises and not just of one disguise, who can sneak attack, and who can be made into Ezio or Lupin (either Sr. or The Third) or James Bond or even Batman or anyone in-between.

I hope the developers will take to heart what everyone's written here and present an entirely new form of the Vigilante, given the massive amount of negative feedback so far. I really want to be overjoyed with everything about Ultimate Intrigue, especially a new class to play with.

Thanks!

Alright, to start off, I allow about 30 classes in my games; basically, my rule of thumb is any class listed in the PHBII, either as a new class or with specific variants to older classes, plus the Psionic Classes, Martial Adept classes (from the Book of Nine Swords), or from the Dragon Compendium. That brings the grand total to about 30 distinctly different classes, all with their own feel and flavor. My basic idea is that classes are archetypes (duh) - there is no Shugenja, but there is a Cleric in an oriental setting called a Shugenja because that's the term the natives would use. From what I've seen, those classes all fit the bill as "functionally different" from one another; obviously, you still have plenty of dualities to have fun with (Wizard vs. Sorc, Cleric vs. Favored Soul, Paladin vs. Hexblade, Monk vs. Battle Dancer, Knight vs. Barbarian, etc.), but part of the fun is getting to play with classes that seem to be meant to be opposites.

There is one class that, to me, needs (or needed) a major overhaul - the Favored Soul. You can't take the Favored Soul as-is and just pop him into Pathfinder with the Orisons ability and expect him to live. He has far, far too few abilities to equal up to anything else.

For that, my friends and I came up with an upgrade to the Favored Soul, called the Herald - Favored Soul was a better name, but we wanted to keep off the non-OGL stuff and create a class which could pass as disputably different yet similar enough to be recognizable as to what it's meant to be.

This is the class, for anyone interested:
http://rapidshare.com/files/244111846/Herald_Base_Class.pdf.html

Personally, I think this worked out really well. In our games, the Herald works just as well as any other class, but isn't a monstrousity.
It's a decent combatant and a decent caster - a better combatant than the Cleric, but worse than a Paladin, while a better caster than the Paladin, yet worse than the Cleric. What we wanted to emphasize was the "Left Hand of Your God" feel from the original Favored Soul. The idea was that the Paladin should still be the all-around better combatant, able to use more gear and weapons, but that the Herald was a force of righteous fury with his deity's favored weapon, and ONLY his deity's favored weapon. Thus, the total effectiveness of the Herald as an outright combatant falls somewhere between the Cleric and Paladin, where it should.

While it seems like the Favored Soul gets a lot, keep a few things in mind - one, the Favored Soul gets no Channel Energy abilities, which means it can't Turn/Rebuke like it's brothers; it also has to spend its own spells to heal, where as the Cleric as spontaneous spells, and the Paladin has Lay On Hands. There are other flaws which bring it down from being overpowered (one of the main ones is the lack of any weapons BESIDES the favored weapon), but testing is the best way to demonstrate that.

So, I thought I'd create this thread to do just that - test it. While my group found it to be just about right, I wanna see what other people think. Is it too powerful? Too weak? Just right?

And not just this class, but other peoples' upgrades of their own favorite classes. Show us by typing them up, even on a Word doc or Excel spreadsheet; we can check 'em out, give ideas, and maybe we'll come to a consensus on what is or isn't the "truest" upgrade of those classes.

Paizo may never be able to publish these because of copyrights owned by Wizards, or maybe they will because we've done enough of a job at making them distinct enough from the originals that they can publish 'em. To that end, if anyone from Paizo likes the idea of the Herald, go right ahead and use it; it'd be neat to see something we've come up with become canon. I'd hope everyone else might feel the same way.

It'd be nice to know which upgrades best match the originals in terms of flavor, use, and all-around feel, so we can share them and use them in our games.