There's a closed recruitment post from a few days ago that's left me inspired, and I've been kicking around a lot of ideas ever since about running something superheroic within Pathfinder. So, super curious and bursting with ideas, I'm coming to see if there are enough interested parties for me to start bringing the ideas all in line and trying to run it, since I love supers but have found most systems in that vein sorely lacking in different places.
The game would be centered probably in Absalom just because of its size and ease of doing pretty much anything, and would revolve around a group of costumed vigilantes who began their crimefighting careers independent of one another, but who come together because of reasons to team up and fight crime, both in the standard street level sense, and in more high scale, high stakes sorts as the game progresses.
I'd want a fair bit of focus on roleplaying both in costume and out, with civilian lives given a fair amount of importance, and some minor sandbox elements to explore their lives without their masks. Which means that for character creation, it would be fairly involved and require some explanations of the character as a person, their "origin story", and their masked persona. People would be free to take inspiration from existing superheroes, but not quite to the level of a broody ninja who fights in the shadows whose real name is Bruce Payne. Got to have some of yourself in that.
For allowable content, I haven't decided yet on allowing third party material, but the Vigilante playtest material would definitely be on the table. I don't want to make it a requirement though, because I want this to be a long-term game and I'd rather not center an entire campaign around content we'll only see finished and fleshed out a year from now, so people can take it if they want, but it's not needed. Past that, the only character creation info I'm settled on is that you would start above level one, to represent experiences as either a crimefighter or as something else.
So yeah, let me know if there's interest in this, and I'll consider getting serious with the idea.
I'd definitely be interested.
Would you allow unusual races/traits to simulate other powers? Obviously there would be tradeoffs to something else.
Adding either mythic or gestalt would help make us super-powered.
I'm interested.
I'd suggest that in a fantasy setting you need to make the heroes a bit more exceptional than the already exceptional world around them. Afterall a crimfighter being a level 2 bard is just a low level adventurer embarrassed about his chosen career.
Mythic is a good way to go about this. Gestalt works too. Another way is to grant people race points on top of their own. Though don't get too far since at some point it'll be impossible to properly make encounters.
I've seen Mythic in action and it's probably a bit more than I'd like to handle. Gestalt is a possibility, but I know it could get pretty divisive in terms of interest and who's in and who's out on principle, even if thinking on it, a gestalt game where one half is Vigilante might not be a bad idea, to give people all the secret identity goodies involved in that. Although if I do go with gestalt, you would be facing comparable threats who are themselves gestalt, so the specialness there wouldn't equate to being overpowered.
I'm curious as to how race points would be given to players, though.
Race points just let people spend those points on more racial abilities. So they would be "beyond" their own race in an x-man sort of way.
Oh, okay I thought there may have been some kind of system I didn't know about in a new book or something for that. That sounds like it might work, but it also seems a little hard to balance and opens up some cheese. It's certainly doable though, so it's ahead of Mythic in that regard because Mythic is definitely a no-go. Vanilla, gestalt, or extra RP are all viable options for this right now and I guess that's one of the upsides to doing an interest check before starting.
I do like the vigilante gestalt option. I was worried at first since those kind of games skew class choices heavily in one direction but the vigilante seems like it has no set ability scores it favors.
Yeah, Vigilante is super flexible and offers the flavour in its core abilities, but would still open up the option to go anywhere with a build to really iron out a solid concept. If I do go gestalt, that's probably the way I'd do it.
Really it depends on what kind of superheroes you want. If you want them with one or two Powers (Flight, Teleport, Superspeed) the best way to go is with race points, otherwise Gestalt works fine.
Of course, you could do both.
I have some gestalt builds already ready
(This is marrow)
I don't want to quite go as far as "you get a narrow selection of conventional powers", and more that you are exceptional people who preferrably have some kind of gimmick to them. A wizard with a lightning motif isn't necessarily not just a very good spellcaster who specialized in the Air elemental school, for instance. The superpowering should definitely be somewhere within what Pathfinder already offers to players rather than trying to make the system support something beyond that, I think. Someone who got their powers through a science experiment in sort of a Captain America vein is a fine idea, but I feel like the flavour should match the setting rather than adapting it to support the conventional tropes of the genre, if you get me.
That's fine. I'm always ready for a gestalt game. Now I just have to think up a character.
A gestalt game where one half is Vigilante might not be a bad idea, to give people all the secret identity goodies involved in that.
That's a fantastic idea.
This has been tossed around a bunch of times, but the games always seem to die immediately. Still, that was back in the days before Vigilante Playtest or Shield Champion.
I'd also recommend tossing around some very limited version of the Race Builder system if you want a high-powered team like the Justice League, but not if you want a lower-powered team like the Avengers.
A good point is to give examples of what you expect. I've seen one thread that was specifically looking at Marvel analog characters. It allowed you to trade money for racial points. It also allowed you to buy magic items and assume that they were inherent abilities.
Another game pretty much involved normal 1st level characters. That limited the feel of the superheroics a lot.
What level of abilities are you looking for? JLA? X-Men? GLA? Warriors?
Are you looking at bright silver age setting or grim and gritty iron age?
I definitely want the feel to be a bit more Avengers-ey. Gods among men isn't quite where I want to go, and I guess the best way to put it would be that if you were to strip away all of the superheroic elements, you would still have something that "made sense" as a fantasy RPG game about great heroes doing what's right. Very exceptional people using their exceptional gifts for good.
The race builder does sound neat, but the more I think on it, the more I like a Vigilante gestalt as the gimmick, since the options race builder opens up again kind of feel like they might be more "Golarion with superheroes" more than "superheroes in Golarion" if that makes sense at all.
It definitely wouldn't be starting at first level, but not particularly high either. 3-5 maybe. The goal would definitely be to get up to very high-end enemies over time, but I want to run the gamut of threats and start off with some more street level foes. Thankfully, there's no worry about "power level" with Pathfinder beyond character level (relative build strength notwithstanding), so there's no need to really narrow people down to a specific flavour of superhero power level, I think. A level 3 wizard and ranger can deal with level three threats and that can feel appropriate as a thing they should be doing, so it's not quite Doctor Strange and Hawkeye in a party together and expecting them to both be equally capable.
eh... I think a party with all vigilantes on one side would be a bit limited, even if it is the most flexible class. It limits the game to skill-based supers only. And at low levels even they won't feel very superheroic to me. It's more like pathfinder adventurers in tights.
It doesn't sound like what I'm looking for.
Wow yeah "Pathfinder adventurers in tights" actually describes it a lot better than the weird linguistic circles I keep walking in. That's pretty much where I'm going here.
I think the flavor you are looking for is "pulp".
Talking about heroes who are little more than masked vigilantes separated out from common cops and criminals by their choice of methods, gimmicks, and occasionally (such as in the case of The Shadow) having subtle but mysterious powers.
I don't have access to the vigilante class, so sadly I will have to bow out.
I'd also recommend tossing around some very limited version of the Race Builder system if you want a high-powered team like the Justice League, but not if you want a lower-powered team like the Avengers.
So, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold and Batman are all considered high-powered while Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and Captain America are considered Low-powered?
I don't have access to the vigilante class, so sadly I will have to bow out.
Isn't the playtest available to everyone?
So, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold and Batman are all considered high-powered while Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and Captain America are considered Low-powered?
Nobody cares about Blue Beetle, and Batman's just the JLA's eye candy. But the most powerful members of the Avengers are still just humans with a neat trick or two, while half of the Justice League routinely violates every law of physics they can get their hands on. Compare Superman to the Hulk, Booster Gold to Iron Man, the Martian Manhunter to Thor, Wonder Woman to Black Widow, or the Flash to Quicksilver (and even Aquaman's got a few bonus powers over Captain America); the Justice League has a larger number of "powers," and fewer of them can be explained by "highly skilled training" or "small amounts of magic."
The Flash alone pretty much outclasses the entire Avenger's roster adn arguably the entire JLA one as well.
Pulp also works, thanks Tark. I'm usually not quite this bad at words. Yeah, definitely some pulpy elements in there, but mostly at the beginning. I do want to get up into the higher end stuff as time goes on just like any proper Pathfinder game does, and pulp usually doesn't have dragons threatening cities.
On the issue of Avengers versus Justice League, it also helps to note that the "core" Avengers team all translate fairly easily into Pathfinder without massive adjustments to them the way a lot of iconic Leaguers would need. Not perfect 1:1 translations, but it's easier to run a guy who was alchemically experimented on and throws a shield around, than to run an alien who can fly and punch things really hard, to be brief and snarky about it.
EDIT: Default aliases are a bother so I'll continue conducting this in my WotW GM alias for simplicity's sake.
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Um iron man would kick booster gold's ass
Black widow would loose to Wonder Woman, 1 on 1, but she'd make her work for it
Superman vs hulk is one that you could argue in circles for hours, so let's call that a draw
Aquaman vs cap would be in aquaman's favor, but again he'd make him work for it.
Flash and quicksilver, the flash at his normal level of super speed is significantly slower than quicksilver (seriously one of his reoccurring villains throws f!+~ing boomerangs) but the flash can push himself harder to go faster, but this is dangerous and he's sworn not to do so again after nearly dieing against brainiac/Luther on the other hand he can transfer his speed force to someone else so if he transfers his speed force to superman they just instantly win
Thor vs Martian Manhunter would be a nice matchup, but after thor's encounter with scarlet witch (and to a lesser extent even before) Thor is resistant to mental attacks, and he's physically stronger, and if mijonir can hit ghosts it can probably work on him plus he can manipulate lightning and wind while MM is week to fire personally I'd more send Thor against hawk woman and vision against MM just to keep with the similar powers
Then there's me the unmentioned core members batman vs hawkeye goes to batman
Vision vs green lantern.... Hmm it's depends on whether he could phase through his constructs
Hawk woman vs antman/Yellowjacket hawk woman gets her ass kicked
Let's see totals
A mostly untouched iron man
A still slugging it out hulk and superman
A lightly beaten aquaman
No one can see the speedsters so no one knows in regard to that
A bruised and somewhat confused thor
Batman
Wonder Woman eventually
And a pretty much untouched Yellowjacket
Seems pretty even to me
Flash and quicksilver, the flash at his normal level of super speed is significantly slower than quicksilver (seriously one of his reoccurring villains throws f+$@ing boomerangs) but the flash can push himself harder to go faster, but this is dangerous and he's sworn not to do so again after nearly dieing against brainiac/Luther
We're not talking about the DCAU son.
Comic flash is so ridiculous he has to be powered down for the Justice League.
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Well in that case let's compare using comic avengers, like the hulk that could wage war on the entire world and win, or the iron man that ruled the world with an army of thousands of robots and a suit specifically designed to take on damn near any threat, including gods or himself (and has a couple clones, and extra superpowers on top of that)
And the matchup looks more like iron man vs the justice league other than superman and the flash and those two vs the rest of the avengers
DOOM wins.
On the issue of Avengers versus Justice League, it also helps to note that the "core" Avengers team all translate fairly easily into Pathfinder without massive adjustments to them the way a lot of iconic Leaguers would need. Not perfect 1:1 translations, but it's easier to run a guy who was alchemically experimented on and throws a shield around, than to run an alien who can fly and punch things really hard, to be brief and snarky about it.
This is what I meant—the two are very different in the tone and scope of powers involved. The Avengers were conceived of as a team; the Justice League generally needs to power down superheroes to actually put them on a team, because DC heroes usually work better alone.
Also, the Justice League has a far greater number of powers, with far more of them ignoring physics. The Avengers are a grittier, more consistently "explainable" team, and thus probably a better model for an ordinary campaign.
-Booster Gold has a super-suit similar to Iron Man's. But since he's from the future, we should assume the tech he put into it is better, since Iron Man uses conventional weapons; Booster doesn't need guns or rockets, because in his time forcefields (which he carries) can stop them trivially. He also has the troubling power of "time travels." If Iron Man beats him, which he might, it's due to being smarter, not higher-powered.
-Hulk has super-strength and invulnerability. Superman has super-strength, super-speed (at least Mach 2 in every incarnation in order to outrun bullets), invulnerability, flying, ice breath, laser eyes, photographic memory, x-ray vision, super-hearing, super-smell, echolocation, and super-ventriloquism. If it weren't for Quicksilver, a smart Superman would just run around the avengers really fast while shooting heat beams until they died of whiplash or heat-stroke.
-Captain America has above-average strength, martial arts training and durability. Aquaman has similar strength, training and durability, plus healing factor, the ability to swim 10x the speed of sound, control of fish, and general telepathy.
-Black Widow has martial arts training. Wonder Woman has martial arts training, super-strength, super-durability, and a half dozen indestructible magic weapons powered by the gods.
-The Flash is canonically far faster than Quicksilver in every incarnation except possibly the X-Men films, including every cross-over between Marvel and DC. Quicksilver's top speed is generally given at somewhere between Mach 2 and 10, depending on the writer (making his top speed somewhere between Superman and Aquaman, depending on the writer). The Flash can run fast enough to go back in time, putting his top speed at greater than the speed of light with the Speed Force (or slower without it, but he's still mentioned frequently as encountering relativistic time dilation, which makes him dozens of times faster in addition to having the "time travel" can-of-worms power). Flash also heals faster. The only reason he fights people like Captain Boomerang and the Weather Wizard is that the Flash team has been historically the worst at coming up with actual villains, and that the Flash is not very smart.
-Thor has super-strength, durability, flight, and lightning. The Martian Manhunter has super-strength, durability, flight, and telekinesis, which is roughly a push with lightning. He also has healing factor, invisibility, phasing, telepathy, shapeshifting, super-hearing, X-ray vision, and super-intelligence. He also has super-speed fast enough to achieve time dilation, putting him as faster than Superman, and possibly Quicksilver (though this varies by author). In an actual fight, he just keeps healing lightning burns and smashing Thor into things until the God of Thunder dies of blood loss or exhaustion.
-I forgot about Vision, huh. Green Lantern can make literally anything, so when he loses it's due to failure of imagination, and Vision is definitely smarter. Vision is also basically Superman with fewer dumb extraneous powers, though.
-Hawkeye and Batman don't matter, because they're rejects without any real powers who stand in the corner and pretend they're helping.
-I forgot about Ant-Man, because he's terrible (and his powers are always vaguely defined). But Hawkgirl/Hawkman are literally unkillable thanks to reincarnation, while also having super-strength, durability, healing factor, and flight, like almost everyone else in the Justice League.
OK, that's enough. Time to stop hijacking this thread with unimportant and irrelevant arguments. If you want to pursue the question of who is more kick-a$$, I suggest you start a thread dedicated to it and leave this one to the OP. (But I fear that it is one of those arguments that no one ever wins).
Can anyone direct me to where I can find the vigilante class? If I can find it, I might be able to join in after all.
Of course, people would be scaling down heroic archetypes one way or another. In the "Justice League of Golarion" game I was in, the GM started with a list of banned superheroes/powers; we wound up with Batgirl, Catwoman and Black Orchid as our DC characters, and Daredevil, Longshot and Storm as our Marvel ones.
This sounds like a lot of fun.
I have an idea for a Kitsune version of Nightcrawler and another idea for a sort of Batman/Joker amalgam who'd be all about dark humor.
Can't wait to see the character generation guidelines.
Of course, people would be scaling down heroic archetypes one way or another. In the "Justice League of Golarion" game I was in, the GM started with a list of banned superheroes/powers; we wound up with Batgirl, Catwoman and Black Orchid as our DC characters, and Daredevil, Longshot and Storm as our Marvel ones.
And we were awesome!
Yeah, please don't continue arguing who'd win against whom, it usually just goes in circles forever.
Thankfully, I think building heroes from the ground up instead will open up a bit more flexibility in letting people take the archetypes and let them grow into characters within the established world and setting, rather than having to strip back elements, on top of letting concepts grow a little. Letting the myths evolve and grow into something unique and reflecting on their deeds instead of just following the expected lines to match the source material.
i am interested in this would love to play a captain America type or if possible a spawn type of hero
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Vigilante is technically already a build your own class, kind of deal. The additional race points might be alright.
I mean Daredevil is just a guy with blindsense and martial training technically. Spiderman can have all the tools from the alchemist class, spider climb, tangle foot bags especially at higher levels with swift alchemy etc...
Variant Multiclassing from Pathfinder unchained might just be an alternate option instead of Gestalt.
For the Justice League of Golarion we were Gestalt and used race points.
Because we were trying to mimic superpowers Daredevil did get some nice equipment in addition to the blind sense and so on.
I don't think race points is where I want to go with this. It works for trying to recreate heroes or getting a feel for more conventional Superman types, but I still feel like the best explanation of the idea, even if it wasn't positively charged, was "Pathfinder in tights". Race points kind of take away from that.
And I think variant multiclassing where you had to take Vigilante would be really restrictive and samey as hell.
For the Justice League of Golarion we were Gestalt and used race points.
Because we were trying to mimic superpowers Daredevil did get some nice equipment in addition to the blind sense and so on.
Yep... and I spent most of my gold on magical disguises.
The idea of that campaign was to reimagine the character in a fantasy/medieval setting, a la Marvel 1602 but with more spellcasters. It worked out pretty seamlessly.
Also, the GM of that game ran enemies as alternately goons/villains, where goons were generic, regular enemies but villains were also gestalt characters, with unique powers based on their comics abilities (The Shocker, for instance, was flat-out immune to grapples).
The Vigilante Playtest also has the neat quirk of fitting the four main combat roles pretty well, making it excellent for not worrying too much about party balance. You'll probably see a lot of people reusing character ideas from previous superhero games that went nowhere, but also some new ideas.
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Yeah, basically. Vigilante as your gestalt gives a certain cohesiveness to it and will probably keep things a bit steadier because you won't have a massive imbalance in gestalt possibilities, you're just taking the chassis of Vigilante and putting on top of it another class to flesh the idea out. No "I like this fun little combination that's quirky and on-theme but not too strong" in the party with something very optimized and absurd. The Vigilante options all provide synergy in their own ways for people to lean toward.
Going for magneto kind of character, so Sorcerer with the Elemental Air bloodline.
What what what what what? There is a Metal School, a Metal Domain, a Metal Mystery, a Metal Spirit, and the Impossible Bloodline involves animating objects—why would Magneto be Air bloodline?
Granted, there's nothing *wrong* with that bloodline as an idea for a character, just...
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Going for magneto kind of character, so Sorcerer with the Elemental Air bloodline.What what what what what? There is a Metal School, a Metal Domain, a Metal Mystery, a Metal Spirit, and the Impossible Bloodline involves animating objects—why would Magneto be Air bloodline?
Granted, there's nothing *wrong* with that bloodline as an idea for a character, just...
Mostly because I'm getting the constant flight from the elemental air bloodline and taking inspiration from the Marvel vs Capcom version, where many of his attacks while I know uses electromagnetism mostly look like electricity.
Metal stuffs are of course pretty good but most of them don't give a constant flight but must admit, didn't think about the animated objects for the impossible bloodline. I actually really enjoy this idea and will look into the metal spirit.
Mostly because I'm getting the constant flight from the elemental air bloodline and taking inspiration from the Marvel vs Capcom version, where many of his attacks while I know uses electromagnetism mostly look like electricity.
You don't get flight until level 15.
By the way, if your Charisma is high enough, you can get the Eldritch Heritage Feat line to simulate this, rather than picking up a whole Class. Yes it does cost you 3 Feats, but it's an option.