So, in the interim of my GM coming up with more things for his own campaign, we're going through the Emerald Spire starting at level one. The good thing about this is that you guys at Paizo know exactly what I'm going up against, so the numbers game is more concrete. The bad thing is, this class probably wasn't built purely for combat, but hey. Them's the breaks, right? I mean, when you're given the chance to be Batman, you take it. Some caveats, however. We are playing with the consolidated skill list from Unchained, rolling max HP for first level, creating a custom race from the ARG with a 13 point build, and including two background traits each. For reference, here is my character sheet in spreadsheet form. You may notice my Social Talent for level one is unchosen. My DM wants to get back to me for reasons I'll explain as I go on.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/193gruhm301b4h0/Lobo%20Vigilante%20Round%202.xls? dl=0
As you can see, I'm basically playing Batman, with an emphasis on the whole 'making people think you're more than just a man' with tricks sort of thing. But instead of a bat, I'm using the wolf as a symbol, thus the name 'Lobo.'
Starting off, it was difficult to decide on how my character would interact with the group, which consists of myself, a fighter, a wizard, and a cleric. Or it did. Eventually I decided that I would be cloaked, my costume unseen until we got to the spire. In Fort Inevitable, I had to join the party, as they wouldn't trust someone who hadn't pitched in to purchase the adventuring license. Meeting them along the road to the spire wouldn't work.
Once we got to the spire, all of our party had darkvision save for one person, and most battles consisted of me throwing a shuriken for the hidden strike bonus, and the fighter and myself flanking while the wizard and cleric provided support. Against the goblins, I had to roll around 14 to 16 to hit on average, and It usually took two hits to drop one. At the split in a corner, there was a trap that I didn't look for that caused a cave in, and I beat the cleric and the wizard in combined strength to get the fighter out. Before this, I rolled intimidate and managed to scare two goblins into a room with goblin archers. That was fun. Anyway, the cave in split us up, and I and the fighter entered the archer room through a sort of flap.
Now this is where things changed up due to us ending the session halfway through the map. First off, until now, I'd been using the first playtest rules, as the second hadn't come out yet. I told my GM when I got to his place on Thursday that I had to change the class a tiny bit because of the Round 2 rules, however this hardly has any effect at level one, aside from Social Grace not being built in. In addition, up to this point, the GM had been playing the wizard, as there were only us four, but I invited a new player who rolled up a barbarian. Who was a bearperson. A barBEARian, if you will. He replaced the fighter behind me, and so the two casters were cut off from us. We of course had to go in first and they pussyfooted around for a while before helping us out. Probably one out of every four or five attacks hit me, and it generally took out four or five hp, so I had to get healed quite a bit. However, thanks to the barbarian, who I'm happy to say got a critical on his first ever attack roll (he'd never played Pathfinder before) and killed the goblin in one hit, something he did on a regular basis. This came in handy with the fight against the goblin machine man. I was reduced to 0 hp at one point against the mechanic during that fight, as I'd tried to grapple him and he succeeded in landing an attack of opportunity on me. I was going to interrogat him, you see. A few more shuriken ambushes and flank fights later, and we came upon the final boss of the room, the bugbear. The barbarian got in the final blow, and we all rolled high on our damage rolls. He took about four hits, including a maxed out magic missile. The goblin mechanic is still out there somewhere, though. He got away. Finally, we swept the place for more enemies, and headed back to town after getting rid of two zombie goblins, barely reaching level two under the Fast xp rules. All in all, fun times.
As for my social identity, I plan on being a minstrel who gets to be well-liked around town. I plan on revealing my identity to the party at about level three, perhaps. We'll have to see how that plays out.
Now as for the Social Talent. I was aiming for Renown so I could interact with Fort Inevitable more often, and possibly have a Safe House later on. Problem is, Renown states that it can only be in a community of about 200 people, and the book says Fort Inevitable has a bit over 900 people. This is odd, considering it's a small town. That seems like the perfect spot for a vigilante to start out, unless you mean to say that he or she gets known in a neighborhood, and that the whole town doesn't have to fit within the numbers requirement. Also, if you start in a village of 200, how would such a small place not recognize you in vigilante form, especially if you're from there? And as another friend pointed out, at level 20, you should be known around the world, but apparently there's a cap to renown at 25,000, which isn't even a metropolis. Just a thought, guys. The other option I was looking at was Social Grace, but as it uses the social identity, I didn't see how it would help us in the campaign. He's having me wait a week to decide if perhaps a section of Fort Inevitable that has around 200 could count as its own community.
This is a great class and one I've been looking forward to. I've been looking everywhere for a class that would essentially let me play Batman, and I think this is it. If it has one flaw, it's that many of its aspects are ill-suited for a battle and dungeon-crawl centric campaign such as Emerald Spire. But hey, I'm still looking forward to being a legend. Thanks for letting me contribute to the playtest, guys.
