Let's use another example.
Remember the ACG playtest? I do.
I remember looking at the Blood Rager and I thought, like many others, hey this class is good. Then there was much high fiving and cheering, some small suggestions were made and Paizo listened, my God what a time to be alive.
IIn the Investigator thread however, it was a much darker time. There were those of us who identified that the class was possibly not even better than base rogue, whilst others argued that the class should be allowed to stay bad because it had X that didn't justify the class being bad but that they liked.
Today, the Investigator is a great class, and it wasn't from the contributions of the latter group.
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I agree that the vigilante needs some work. In my opinion, a ton of work. I do think taking a slightly more positive approach to things might help get more people interested in the playtest forum, though. That might promote more active playtesting.
Paizo (et al.) have already said that they don't put as much stock in theorycrafting as they do in active playtest reports, so while I am mostly in agreement on the merits as you've described, I'm not sure rehashing the same merits is going to have much of an effect on the end product without more feedback from "the front" as it were.
Oh ya, and I almost forgot: you mentioned that the bombs don't scale, which is not correct.
The damage of an alchemist's bomb increases by 1d6 points at every odd-numbered alchemist level (this bonus damage is not multiplied on a critical hit or by using feats such as Vital Strike).
Bombs (Su): The warlock vigilante gains the alchemist’s bomb class feature (Advanced Player’s Guide 28).
If a rogue stole a Barbarians weapon he would just literally beat the Rogue to death with his bare hands. I've seen that exact scenario play out, it was a very sad affair.
Let's also be clear here too, I think versatility is a great thing to have, it's one of the reasons why the Judgement class feature is so strong. It can be offensive, or defensive, and somewhere in between.
Being versatile is a valid excuse as to why you shouldn't be as strong somewhere as someone else who is less versatile.
The issue arrives when the discrepancy is so great, as it was with the original ACG Investigator Vs Alchemist.
Or Warpriest v1 in the ACG Vs fighter/cleric which then they fixed in v2, then inexplicably reverted in the final version. That one is still a head scratcher.
And the Warlock Vs Magus.
Edit:The bombs don't scale statically with int and that's the damage of the bombs that matter as that's what gets spread around to secondary targets.
If a rogue stole a Barbarians weapon he would just literally beat the Rogue to death with his bare hands. I've seen that exact scenario play out, it was a very sad affair.
And if the rogue was using stealth, how would he find him to beat him? it's not like most barbarians are exactly social dynamos.
Let's also be clear here too, I think versatility is a great thing to have, it's one of the reasons why the Judgement class feature is so strong. It can be offensive, or defensive, and somewhere in between.Being versatile is a valid excuse as to why you shouldn't be as strong somewhere as someone else who is less versatile.
The issue arrives when the discrepancy is so great, as it was with the original ACG Investigator Vs Alchemist.
Or Warpriest v1 in the ACG Vs fighter/cleric which then they fixed in v2, then inexplicably reverted in the final version. That one is still a head scratcher.
To be fair, I spent most of my time in the swashbuckler and shaman threads, so I can't comment about this.
And the Warlock Vs Magus.
Honestly, I don't think that magus is a good comparison to the warlock. I think that bard would be closer, but maybe investigator might be a better comparison.
Edit:The bombs don't scale statically with int and that's the damage of the bombs that matter as that's what gets spread around to secondary targets.
that and the minimum dice bit, but if you take concentrated splash, it's less of an issue. Truth of it is, I'm surprised I'm having to argue that bombs are powerful here.
Concentrated Splash does not work with Alchemist's bombs, and Warlock calls out Alchemist's bombs in its description so the feat doesn't apply to the Warlock's either.
Fair enough. I had missed the part about it not working on bombs.
Without Int to Damage the only point of the bombs is they damage swarms. Without int to damage that might be 1 damage dealt to the swarm. Well they can also be used with conductive weapons and scale better(ish) than Mystic Bolt. Other than that they do nothing for the class mechanically.
I'm not sure how throwing a scaling d6 per 2 levels is only limited to damaging swarms. or any of the other options that modify bombs (dispelling bombs are my personal favorite, but you could take any of the cloud chain of bombs and make them interesting). I'll grant that at the first couple of levels they're not great, but then again the first couple of levels alchemists aren't that much better.
I'm basically trying to say that the class has options, and that bombs are a viable one.
And everyone else doesn't believe that because we've all seen the damage a single sneak attack can do.
My level 20 rogue moves up and hits the BBEG for 11d6=>4,3,1,1,6,2,4,2,6,3,1=33 damage. Which also for some reason hits everything around it for minimum damage, but they take nothing because they all have dr10.
And everyone else doesn't believe that because we've all seen the damage a single sneak attack can do.
My level 20 rogue moves up and hits the BBEG for 11d6=>4,3,1,1,6,2,4,2,6,3,1=33 damage. Which also for some reason hits everything around it for minimum damage, but they take nothing because they all have dr10.
Except that bombs are not sneak attack, regardless of how the rogue talent views them. or to put it another way:
My 20th level vigilante moves up and hits the BBEG for Force damage and has the chance to knock him prone, which also hits everything around it for 10 force damage, which they might ignore if they somehow have hardness.
Or, My 20th level vigilante moves up and hits the BBEG with cloudkill, which forces a fort save for him and everything around him for halving con damage dealt and they all have their vision blocked making it much harder to retaliate.
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Of course, a 20th level alchemist can doing exactly the same thing, except they get +10 or so extra damage/hit from their Int, while having a better range increment and having more other options for their bombs.
Oh yeah, and the ability to throw eight per round if so inclined and built right.
24 damage and knock prone as a standard action is weepingly pathetic anyway by that level. Cloudkill is a bit better, but by that level most serious threats are going to be flying casters. The most you will do is knock off a little con (50 damage worth on something with 25HD IF they fail AND they aren't immune AND you roll max con damage). Besides, if you take bombs at 2, you have 1 talent at 6 to modify your bombs, and that's it till level 12. Force is level 8, so that's a no-go. Of course you could just delay spellcasting for a level 8 bomb discovery, but that puts you in a position where you have equal spellcasting to 4th level casters for several levels, and you delay 12th level bombs till ****ing level 18 unless you want to stay behind in spellcasting until level 18 instead.
Or again, you don't care about spellcasting all that much. In a build with bombs (or actually any build I could see using with the Warlock) I wouldn't actually go spellcasting beyond 3rd level spells, and most of those would be buff spells. I would probably have dispelling bombs, the aforementioned cloud line of bombs, and then grab a goz mask. or at least the as far as cloudkill. plus educated defense to deal with said caster (at least for the first few rounds, assuming his initial spell didn't kill or disable him).
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Or again, you don't care about spellcasting all that much. In a build with bombs (or actually any build I could see using with the Warlock) I wouldn't actually go spellcasting beyond 3rd level spells, and most of those would be buff spells. I would probably have dispelling bombs, the aforementioned cloud line of bombs, and then grab a goz mask. or at least the as far as cloudkill. plus educated defense to deal with said caster (at least for the first few rounds, assuming his initial spell didn't kill or disable him).
And since you don't have throw anything or fast bombs, your damage will be terrible. You will be doing 5d6 damage at level 10 each round. That's terrible. It's under 20 damage a round at level 10 Congradulations, you are dealing slightly more damage than a level 1 barbarian. And you can drop a third of that damage to make it force and force a reflex save or fall prone. Wow. If it wasn't for the piddly damage, you would be about equal to a wizard casting grease, who can do the same in a 10ft wide square with no attack roll and some other gravy effects(although it only works on things that walk). Except that the wizard can switch to other things when grease doesn't pan out, while you are dependent on either this or maybe 2 other effects to contribute to encounters.
Not that you could support fast bombs anyway. You have int+1/2 level bombs. At level 10 on a warlock who doesn't have ANY backup melee style, you might have 11 bombs for the entire day. And you will be either a 2 trick pony with the 2 talents you have available for bombs(since you don't want 4th level casting apparently), or you will be even further behind on casting. Since you can't take cloudkill till 12, you will have smoke and dispelling....OH WAIT, YOU CAN'T, BECAUSE DISPELLING DOESN'T HAVE AN ASTERICK. So...pick up Force at level 10 then? So, you can drop smoke clouds like a 3rd level wizard, with a piddly amount of damage, or you can hit people with a Save or maybe waste a move action...and deal a piddly amount of damage. If you had a whole bunch of talents lying around and not much to do with them I could see picking up bombs and a single discovery for the utility, but ATM it costs you all your talents till 10 IF you wreck your spellcasting as well. Not good at all.
God forbid you want to be able to cast in armor and use Educated Defense on top of that. I hope you like being a 1st level wizard with the bomb damage of a 5th level alchemist (+7 damage from Int=2d6=4 alchemist levels).
If I were going to be a bomb-specced Warlock, I'd take a 2 level dip in Alchemist to grab Throw anything, a few extracts, and a bomb-related discovery. Since Alchemist and Warlock levels stack for bombs, you lose almost nothing.
At this point, the smart move would be a 2 level dip into warlock and save the 'warlock' casting for out of combat when you can take off your armor. If you're ignoring the warlocks casting, you might as well get some extract action going. It'd be a better 'bomb warlock' than a straight warlock or one with a dip in alchemist.
Vigilante, the best dip class ever conceived...
If I were going to be a bomb-specced Warlock, I'd take a 2 level dip in Alchemist to grab Throw anything, a few extracts, and a bomb-related discovery. Since Alchemist and Warlock levels stack for bombs, you lose almost nothing.You gain a considerable amount of spell casting even.
AND you can take the Extra Discovery feat and actually pick up the useful bomb discoveries. Too bad offering a feat to pick a bomb talent limited to * from the vigilante class is somehow too strong... :P
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If I were going to be a bomb-specced Warlock, I'd take a 2 level dip in Alchemist to grab Throw anything, a few extracts, and a bomb-related discovery. Since Alchemist and Warlock levels stack for bombs, you lose almost nothing.At this point, the smart move would be a 2 level dip into warlock and save the 'warlock' casting for out of combat when you can take off your armor. If you're ignoring the warlocks casting, you might as well get some extract action going. It'd be a better 'bomb warlock' than a straight warlock or one with a dip in alchemist.
Vigilante, the best dip class ever conceived...
It really depends on how important the Social Identity is to you. If you have a good solid reason for it, and the Social Talents are useful in your campaign, then it's worth going back to Vigilante.
If you're going to be in Vigilante Identity 95% of the time, then you're right.
If I were going to be a bomb-specced Warlock, I'd take a 2 level dip in Alchemist to grab Throw anything, a few extracts, and a bomb-related discovery. Since Alchemist and Warlock levels stack for bombs, you lose almost nothing.At this point, the smart move would be a 2 level dip into warlock and save the 'warlock' casting for out of combat when you can take off your armor. If you're ignoring the warlocks casting, you might as well get some extract action going. It'd be a better 'bomb warlock' than a straight warlock or one with a dip in alchemist.
Vigilante, the best dip class ever conceived...
It really depends on how important the Social Identity is to you. If you have a good solid reason for it, and the Social Talents are useful in your campaign, then it's worth going back to Vigilante.
If you're going to be in Vigilante Identity 95% of the time, then you're right.
This was based on "If I were going to be a bomb-specced Warlock". Given that info, it's best to leave the sinking ship that is Vigilante. Even if you have a need for the social ID, you still have it just not the social talents. For me, that's not a big lose. The only one I actually like is Safe House and it's tied to renown and I really don't like renown. personally I'd be thrilled to have an archetype that trades out all those social talents for something useful on the Vigilante Identity. For me the only time i could see the social part useful is is you made a game tailor made just for a Vigilante, and I don't expect to be in one of those unless they break out some truly awesome intrique rules in the book.