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So, I recently saw vigilante round 2, and had some thouhts on it. Only going over warlock, as that is the most interesting one to me.
Social Talents: Well, its an interesting set, but I don't like that you pretty much have to take renown. I'd like to see talents that open up skill unlocks for thematic skills (bluff, diplomacy, disguise, stealth, etc). I like that changing costumes is quicker sooner, and that it isn't mandatory. Also I like that no abilities are put on lockdown, because of how little sense that made thematically.
Appearance powers: Hey look, invisibility is an even more powerful spell now. I hope that startling appearance becomes a rogue and a slayer talent.
Arcane Training: It didn't change. As is I doubt I'll ever go past 3 or 4, because I don't play high levels a lot and most of the spells I really like are 2nd or 3rd. I think there should be options to have other types of casting (like an alchemical route in the specialization giving alchemist extracts, expanded discovery talents, and better bombs; or a spontaneous casting path with some sorcerer abilities and better mystic bolts). I also still don't see why they can't build in armored casting. I still don't like that there is a talent tax to do what the class is supposedly good at thematically, but it seems like we might have to live with this. As a side note, I do like modular casting, but I think spells/day need to scale, and that there need to be package bundles of 2&3 4&5 and 6 or something.
Caster's Defense: This seems a bit needless to me. Warlock should already be able to cast in light armor IMO, but as it stands, I'll take an extended mage armor+wand of shield over this any day. Or heck, even an armored coat.
Mystic Bolt: Wow thats a lot of text. I think its definitely a cool ability, but I don't think its as good as a lot of posters seem to. I mean, its only 1 talent, it does low damage, and it seems to want you to take all sorts of feats to make it work. I'll still probably take it at 6th level on my warlock, and would like to see it as a base ability option that comes with additional effects or damage types though.
Bombs: This, to me, seems like the talent to take when you don't want to focus on spells and you don't want to focus on bolts. Take discoveries to give utility (cloud ones, dispelling, a few debuff ones like concussive bombs) and enjoy being a fake alchemist. It certainly won't be more powerful than the alchemist, but it might be interesting still.
Arcane Striker: Personally, I don't like this ability. It is on-par with a feat for 11 levels (most of the game for a lot of folks), and then is only barely better for another 4. I'd rather take arcane strike as a feat and take cooler talents with my small pool of them. I like the theme, but mechanically its nothing special.
Tattoo Chamber: This is hands-down my favorite part of the playtest. This one ability. Its a unique ability that is difficult to mimic with feats, spells, or other abilities (which is rare with some archetypes these days), and it gives an interesting yet balanced way to work around restrictions in a variety of games. Maybe I'm overestimating this, but for me having hammerspace that can keep spellbooks safe, hide lots of objects (more with shrink item) unfailingly, store magical blaster items like the quarterstaff of the entwined serpents or a wand of (insert spell), and much more is a very promising ability. I'd like to see more things like this in terms of design.
Shadow Jump: an interesting alternative to 4th level spells for me, as dimension door is the only spell I'd really really want for the builds I have in mind.
Familiar: I like that they explained how familiars work with dual identity, and I know that the extra actions are a big deal on the boards, but personally it might be easier for me to take EH(arcane) and have it be a familiar than spend a talent if there isn't an extra X feat option coming out. Of course, this wouldn't be for a feat-intensive build like the twf rapid shot arcane striker build thats been floating around.
Signature Spell: Eh, its still a powerful yet boring ability. Probably worth it for enchanters or blasters, not so much for conjurers or caster-lite builds.
Concealed Casting: Another cool, thematic, and useful ability, but I don't see why Zealots cannot get this too. Not sure if I'll ever pick it up but its definitely an interesting option to have out there.
I'm probably forgetting a few things, but these were the most memorable things I saw. Any thoughts on the above ideas/review?
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What do you mean on the familiar? It's a normal familiar you can expand with normally. Except it has it's own "secret identity" so unlike other familar, you can't be identified via scrying for it etc.
True, scrying is an issue, but considering that there is no penalty for having your familiar quite a ways away, whistles are cheap iirc, and the unavailability of talents, I think a case could be made for a vigilante who lets his familiar hunt while in social mode and calls it back as part of the costume change. Or vice-versa. After all, feats can be obtained by some simple level-dips.
As an aside, I think a good number of the problems with talents could be solved if there were an extra talent feat, or even if there was simply a feat to increase casting a bit instead of only talents for this. Maybe something you could take at 7th level (to be on-level with the other casting classes), and again at 13 or something. Its still not great, but it could free up some more talents.
They already said no extra talents so I'm not bothering to consider possibilities with that
Well they didn't say 100% no. The 'official' word is "there will probably not be an Extra Vigilante Talent feat." I still hold out hope that they make one. Without it they fall farther behind every other caster of this type.
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There are very clearly some talents that are better than feats. The Avenger has some of the clearest comparisons, like the talent that gives you weapon focus AND weapon specialization. The Zealot has smite, the spellcasters both have spellcasting (although I think most of us agree this is a bad idea, it does make the talents super powerful); the Stalker actually has a rougher go at comparing its talents, but some of the more direct points of comparison look very powerful. Darkvision, for example, or the investigator talent Mark was previewing.
I think the solution is not to argue for an extra talent feat, but rather to focus on helping as many talents as possible be as useful as they're supposed to be.
And maybe get the spellcasters away from the talent tax so they actually have talents to spend.
There are very clearly some talents that are better than feats.
No they aren't. Look at extra revelation, a feat. 1 single extra revelation nets you three other feats or martial weapons/heavy armor.
For darkvision, look at two things you can have, each for a single feat:
"Pierce the Veil (Su): Your bond with the alien denizens of the Dark Tapestry allows you to see in even the deepest darkness. You gain darkvision 60 feet. At 11th level, you can see perfectly in darkness of any kind, even in absolute darkness or the darkness created by a deeper darkness spell.
"Eye of the Moon (Su): Your connection to the moon makes you supernaturally perceptive. You gain darkvision to a range of 60 feet. At 11th level, as a standard action, you can focus on a specific object or area (the size of which can be no greater than a 10-foot-by-10-foot square) and see it as though with true seeing as long as the moon is shining on it. Moonless nights, cloudy skies, and shadows interfere with this ability."
I'm NOT seeing vigilante talents as stronger than other classes 'talents' like revelations. THAT is where strengths need to be weighed because the other classes allow you to spent feats on them. It's disingenuous to point to how much more 'powerful' the talents are to feats without looking at the precedent that the other 'extra' have made in terms of power. Pandora's box has already been opened and saying the 'extra' feats are too powerful is a bit too late.
There are very clearly some talents that are better than feats.No they aren't. Look at extra revelation, a feat. 1 single extra revelation nets you three other feats or martial weapons/heavy armor.
For darkvision, look at two things you can have, each for a single feat:
"Pierce the Veil (Su): Your bond with the alien denizens of the Dark Tapestry allows you to see in even the deepest darkness. You gain darkvision 60 feet. At 11th level, you can see perfectly in darkness of any kind, even in absolute darkness or the darkness created by a deeper darkness spell."Eye of the Moon (Su): Your connection to the moon makes you supernaturally perceptive. You gain darkvision to a range of 60 feet. At 11th level, as a standard action, you can focus on a specific object or area (the size of which can be no greater than a 10-foot-by-10-foot square) and see it as though with true seeing as long as the moon is shining on it. Moonless nights, cloudy skies, and shadows interfere with this ability."
I'm NOT seeing vigilante talents as stronger than other classes 'talents' like revelations. THAT is where strengths need to be weighed because the other classes allow you to spent feats on them. It's disingenuous to point to how much more 'powerful' the talents are to feats without looking at the precedent that the other 'extra' have made in terms of power. Pandora's box has already been opened and saying the 'extra' feats are too powerful is a bit too late.
Yeah, but judging by the feedback in other threads the devs think Extra Revelation and the like are too good, and never should've been made in the first place.
Yeah, but judging by the feedback in other threads the devs think Extra Revelation and the like are too good, and never should've been made in the first place.There are very clearly some talents that are better than feats.No they aren't. Look at extra revelation, a feat. 1 single extra revelation nets you three other feats or martial weapons/heavy armor.
For darkvision, look at two things you can have, each for a single feat:
"Pierce the Veil (Su): Your bond with the alien denizens of the Dark Tapestry allows you to see in even the deepest darkness. You gain darkvision 60 feet. At 11th level, you can see perfectly in darkness of any kind, even in absolute darkness or the darkness created by a deeper darkness spell."Eye of the Moon (Su): Your connection to the moon makes you supernaturally perceptive. You gain darkvision to a range of 60 feet. At 11th level, as a standard action, you can focus on a specific object or area (the size of which can be no greater than a 10-foot-by-10-foot square) and see it as though with true seeing as long as the moon is shining on it. Moonless nights, cloudy skies, and shadows interfere with this ability."
I'm NOT seeing vigilante talents as stronger than other classes 'talents' like revelations. THAT is where strengths need to be weighed because the other classes allow you to spent feats on them. It's disingenuous to point to how much more 'powerful' the talents are to feats without looking at the precedent that the other 'extra' have made in terms of power. Pandora's box has already been opened and saying the 'extra' feats are too powerful is a bit too late.
Yep, I've seen Logan say that but I still find it disingenuous unless they plan to remove those 'mistakes'. Without that, saying "There are very clearly some talents that are better than feats" isn't true. The sad fact is, if the extra vignette feat doesn't become a thing, it's better to dip into another class and take THEIR extra feats. [or dip into vigilante instead :P] For instance:
Want bombs? Take alchemist and get int to damage, and FULL access to bomb talents with feats. Sadly, a weaker talent is unavailable in class but a stronger version IS for another class. Fast and precise bombs FTW.
Play a zealot? A level of oracle an all the extra revelations you wish are yours. How about adding your casting stat to your AC and CMD for a feat?
Heck, play one of the other specializations and take a level of oracle. Now you can take [Skill at Arms (Ex): You gain proficiency in all martial weapons and heavy armor.] for a single feat. [Wood Bond (Ex): Your mystical bond with wood is such that your weapons become an extension of your body.
EDIT: May not be as exciting as martial is already covered. These are pretty good though. [You gain a +1 competence bonus on attack rolls when wielding a weapon made of or mostly consisting of wood] and [Woodland Stride (Ex): You can move through any sort of undergrowth (such as natural thorns, briars, overgrown areas, and similar terrain) at your normal speed]
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There are very clearly some talents that are better than feats.No they aren't. Look at extra revelation, a feat. 1 single extra revelation nets you three other feats or martial weapons/heavy armor.
What I'm getting out of this is that you are a huge fan of where Oracle lies on the power scale. I don't think the oracle is the best comparison; it's a very, very strong class, and matching that is clearly not the goal the designers have. The Vigilante class certainly has a number of problems and I think it's reasonable to help bring the class up to Tier 3, maybe even borderline Tier 2, but I don't think it's going to be a borderline Tier 1 class like Oracle.
I don't think it should be.
Additionally, as a game designer you want to create a game with many viable options; players enjoy having interesting choices to make. As a consequence, players tend to have the most fun when the expected utility of the available choices are as close as possible. When you create new options, it's better if you match the mean or median utility from existing choices rather than the maximum utility. Designers are humans and there will always be outliers; attempting to match those outliers will reduce the utility of preexisting choices, which leaves players with fewer viable options and makes the overall game less fun.
This is different from how something like Magic works, where cards cycle in and out. Pathfinder does not cycle classes in and out so it behooves them to maintain some level of parity with their existing material; Wizards wants to sell more cards and so a natural consequence of that is a small amount of power creep so as to ensure their players continually pick up cards from the new sets.
What I'm getting out of this is that you are a huge fan of where Oracle lies on the power scale.There are very clearly some talents that are better than feats.No they aren't. Look at extra revelation, a feat. 1 single extra revelation nets you three other feats or martial weapons/heavy armor.
Not quite right. The fact is, I don't CARE where the oracle is in the power scale. Replace oracle with the other classes that get 'extra' feats and the result is the same. Your statement of "There are very clearly some talents that are better than feats" is "very clearly" wrong.
So in reply to "There are very clearly some talents that are better than feats" I could have said:
Look at extra revelation.
Extra Arcana.
Extra Arcanist Exploit.
Extra Discovery.
Extra Hex.
Extra Investigator Talent.
Extra Rage Power.
Extra Slayer Talent.
Every single one of those prove you wrong. The extra feats are clearly already baked into the power structure of the game. Excluding the vigilante just insures it's a second rate class as it makes it below the witch, investigator, arcanist, magus, alchemist, barbarian and slayer in versatility. It's a disingenuous lie to say or imply that the vigilante's talents are more powerful than ALL these classes abilities [and the feats that grant them] and therefor makes them ineligible to have an extra feat made for the class.
No extra feats just guaranties more cookie-cutter builds as you're locked into the progression of the class and not allowed the modularity every other class like this gets. SO I couldn't give a rat's behind it's 'tier' per se, just it's ability to compete in a meaningful way.
Or to put it this way, to make a bomb specialist warlock the best way is to make them partially an alchemist and take the extra discovery feats for bombs. See, I'd rather have a class that stands on it's own instead of being a dip class...
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Not quite right. The fact is, I don't CARE where the oracle is in the power scale. Replace oracle with the other classes that get 'extra' feats and the result is the same. Your statement of "There are very clearly some talents that are better than feats" is "very clearly" wrong.
Graystone, you are being exceptionally argumentative. You're also misrepresenting my argument.
Anyway, what I said was that there are some talents that are better than feats. I did not say they were better than ALL feats. For example, the easy to compare ones from the Avenger are:
Fist of the Avenger (Ex): The avenger vigilante gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. In addition, whenever he attacks with his fist or a gauntlet, he adds 1/4 his vigilante level to damage, to a maximum of +5.
Heavy Training (Ex): The avenger vigilante gains Heavy Armor Proficiency as a bonus feat. The armor skin avenger vigilante talent also applies to heavy armor. At 16th level, if the vigilante has the armor skin avenger vigilante talent, he can move at full speed in heavy armor.
Signature Weapon (Ex): The avenger vigilante must select one type of weapon (such as longsword or crossbow) when he gains this talent. He gains Weapon Focus as a bonus feat for his selected weapon. At 8th level, he also gains Weapon Specialization as a bonus feat for his selected weapon. He doesn’t have to meet any of the prerequisites for these feats.
In each of these cases, there is a clear correspondence to an existing feat, where the talent gets you the corresponding feat plus something else. In each of these cases, the talent is better.
That's what I was talking about.
I'm not sure why you're so angry since I'm mostly agreeing with you on the merits of the class. Calm down!
The designers have already said they aren't budging on the "Extra Vigilante Talent" feat. It is probably pointless to argue the point; it's just wasted energy. I think the thing to do is to argue that the existing talents need to be better to make up the gap.
Terminalmancer: I'm not angry, I just can't disagree more with the statement: "There are very clearly some talents that are better than feats." I find it wrong on every possible level, no matter who says/repeats it. I've very clearly shown 7 'extra' feats that clearly shown what feats can and DO in the game. Those MUST be taken into account, or it's not a fair, balance and genuine appraisal of feats.
To be clear, 'feats' include ALL feats, so I can't see how I misrepresented you. It's like saying weapons don't target touch AC and I point out firearms: No misrepresentation, you just didn't take the entire spectrum into account.
To your point, some feats give more than others. I'd say so? Look at [Weapon Mastery (Ex): Select one weapon with which you are proficient. You gain Weapon Focus with that weapon. At 8th level, you gain Improved Critical with that weapon. At 12th level, you gain Greater Weapon Focus with that weapon. You do not need to meet the prerequisites to receive these feats.] then look at [Signature Weapon (Ex)]. Which one is stronger than the other one I can take with a current existing feat? There are good and bad feats and you can't get pick one and say if it's better than THAT feat, it's better than feats. Lots of abilities and feats are better than combat expertise but not other feats.
This is a topic where I will never agree that these talents are too good for a feat. I just can't and when someone says they do, I'll disagree. That's just the way it is.
As to "The designers have already said they aren't budging on the "Extra Vigilante Talent" feat": I haven't heard it worded that way. The 'official' stance in the new playtest is "there will probably not be an Extra Vigilante Talent feat." That's not a 100% no, and my hope is they WILL change their mind. I really think it's absence will be a great hindrance to the class and make it more a 'dip' class or a cookie-cutter.
And with them seriously thinking 'extra's are a mistake, I wonder how many we'll see in the occult book...
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The problem is that Extra Revelation (and every extra class feature feat) is both more powerful than a feat should be and is breaking the initial design space of what a feat should be. Class Features and feats should be separate. Class Features are cool, thematic things that should be more powerful than feats and can only be done by someone who is a member of that class. Feats are tricks that anyone can do, and while they can be powerful, they should not be able to match class features. I agree that the extra x feats were a mistake.
That said, I don't know if there is a way to fix it now without errataing out all the existing ones. If they exist for Barbarians and Oracles, then they should exist for the vigilante.
They should probably at least ban that whole class of feats for PFS purposes if they are taking that design direction. Outside PFS, GM's can do what they'd like.
And if you thought people were still bitter about PFS because of Crane Wing, then oh boy you ain't seen nothin' yet.
The problem is that Extra Revelation (and every extra class feature feat) is both more powerful than a feat should be and is breaking the initial design space of what a feat should be. Class Features and feats should be separate. Class Features are cool, thematic things that should be more powerful than feats and can only be done by someone who is a member of that class. Feats are tricks that anyone can do, and while they can be powerful, they should not be able to match class features. I agree that the extra x feats were a mistake.
That said, I don't know if there is a way to fix it now without errataing out all the existing ones. If they exist for Barbarians and Oracles, then they should exist for the vigilante.
You've pretty much nailed what I was trying to say. I don't think anyone is arguing the extra aren't stronger then a 'normal' feat. They are top of the line in power. They exist though, and they have to be taken into account in a debate about feats. That's what got me with Logan and Terminalmancer saying "There are very clearly some talents that are better than feats".
Now if we're asking 'are they more powerful than feats SHOULD be', that's a different issue. Most likely they are. Where they a mistake? Hmmm... Hard to say. I think the versatility they grant was much needed and they allow builds to be viable and come on line much earlier than otherwise possible. This especially nice when games don't hit higher levels as you get to do play the build longer.
"If they exist for Barbarians and Oracles, then they should exist for the vigilante.": So much this. It's WAY too late to put the cat back in the bag as the extra feats are pretty strongly baked into the game. At this point, not making one for the vigilante seems punitive and unnecessarily kicking the class while it down and need to be buffed to get it up to snuff.
Banning extra feats: That'd be a guaranteed revolt like a scene out of the French revolution or a Frankenstein movie.
I'm fine with not having an 'extra' line here. But without it I very strongly want to have utlity features baked into the social talent line, strong combat options from the vigilante talent line, and NO taxes.
Oh, there are other ways to strengthen the class for sure. Not having talents coming on line at the same time would help as would axing the casting tax. They'd have to make some really sweet upgrades and then toss in some extras to make up for the lack of an extra feat.