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Credit where credit is due, this archetype was inspired by this post.
Sometimes, people turn away from their former lives. Maybe age catches up to them, or they have something to lose now (be that a family or new social station), or they simply tire of their former life as an adventurer. For whatever reason, they've set aside their old ways, and found contentment in a simpler, less dangerous life.
Mostly, anyways. But if duty calls once again, enemies might find that the Retired is not quite as harmless or as out of training as they might prefer.
Local Character: Unlike most vigilantes, a RED vigilante does not have a separate identity they can escape into. Many, perhaps most, of the people they encounter in their daily lives are aware of what a RED vigilante has done and perhaps could do again, should she choose. However, they don't believe the RED vigilante will make that choice.
Instead of a social identity and a vigilante identity, with separate alignments and some protection from divination, a RED vigilante has a vigilante and social reputation. That is, people know that "Warden of the Wood" used to be murder on the local foresters and woodsmen, but few that know her really believe Oreena Hollyoak has it in her to commit such crimes, even those fully aware that they are one and the same person. A RED vigilante gains +10 competence bonus to bluff checks to appear as non-threatening. This bonus does not apply while in combat, but does stack with the Feign Innocence social talent.
This lack of a true dual identity affects several social talents. Renown and the various talents that use Renown no longer require a separate identity, but you only gain the diplomacy and other social identity benefits of that renown from those that have not seen you use an offensive ability or make an attack. The number of people that would treat your social identity favorably and your vigilante identity with caution remains unchanged.
The Immediate Change, Quick Change, and Subjective Truth social talents now require the Many Guises social talent, and refers to assuming and maintaining a mundane identity rather than a social identity.
This replaces the Dual Identity ability, and alters the Social Talent ability.
Out of the Game: A RED vigilante has left their former life behind them, and have accepted in many ways a much simpler lifestyle. The reason they did so varies from RED to RED, but for all of them there are consequences to their time spent inactive. A RED Vigilante gains the penalties and bonuses of an Oracle curse, chosen at 1st level. A RED vigilante's levels in the vigilante class count as effective Oracle levels for the purposes of determining the effects of their curse. Once chosen, the curse cannot be changed, nor can it be removed or dispelled without aid of a deity. Also, if the RED vigilante does not have a Vigilante archetype that grants spellcasting abilities, curses that grant spells known do not grant that ability.
If a RED vigilante gains levels in another class that has an Oracle's curse, that curse (or one of the curses, such as in the case of a Dual-curses Oracle) must be the same for the RED vigilante class and the other Oracle curse granting class.
This ability replaces Seamless Guise.
A RED vigilante may select from the following social talents in addition to their normal pool:
Not Dead Yet: A RED vigilante often does not see herself or really feel over the hill, but is willing to take advantage of other people seeing her that way. This talent lessens the penalties to physical ability scores due to age by 1 per age category, to 0/-1/-2. The penalties still stack as normal, and bonuses are unaffected. An old RED vigilante with this talent also receives a +2 competence bonus to Bluff and Diplomacy, which increases to +4 when they reach venerable. This bonus does not stack with the bonus from Local Character or Feign Innocence, but can be used more generally.
Our Bastard: A RED vigilante with this talent becomes so convincing at appearing harmless that even those that have directly seen her commit violent acts don't believe that she would target them. A RED vigilante can attempt a diplomacy check against someone that would be part of a her social Renown but has seen her use an offensive ability or make an attack, as long as at least one week has past since the target has seen the offending action. If she succeeds well enough at that check to bring the target to at least Friendly, they become part of the RED vigilante's social renown once again.
Essentially, a RED vigilante is rebuilding renown with that one particular person, although without needing to spend time with that person during that week. As such, having either Instant Recognition or Triumphant Return social talents reduce the time needed between action and diplomacy check to 4 hours and 3 days, respectively.
A RED vigilante must have the Renown social talent to select this talent.
I also wanted to make sure that this could be built using any and all of the current crop of archetypes, which all modify the vigilante half of the class abilties. But I also didn't want to stray too far from the core class identity of someone who does not wear their combat abilities on their sleeves, as it were.
While I wrote it with the obvious retired adventurer in mind, other character tropes work with this archetype. An amnesiac regaining their memories, or an android/samsaran remembering their past life could be represented, as well as a former criminal geased to no longer commit crime, or a drug/alcohol addict that needs that one hit before entering combat, or even a fallen paladin/antipaladin.
In fact, my biggest disappointment is that I can't think of an appropriate curse to fit the "broken oath" character properly. If anyone knows of one that could be adapted, I am all ears!
Also, I kind of hate the name, even if it adequately expresses what I was going for. If anyone else thinks of a better one, please let me know.
No, I haven't been refreshing this page every half hour since posting it. What gave you that impression?
I absolutely intend to create a unique curse or two. Like I said in the spoiler, a "Broken Vow" curse is needed, but I was also thinking of something along the lines of "Debilitated" where combat actions give you non-lethal damage akin to a Kinetics's burn ability, to mirror characters like Izumi Curtis of Fullmetal Alchemist.
I personally would rather not give SLAs, as that might make some curses more powerful than they were originally intended, but it might make sense for some.
And I can't believe I didn't think of it myself, but Old Soldier would be a perfect name for this archetype. So thanks for triggering that reference.
RED is kinda a movie series, a bit on the nose. I rather like Old Soldier. I think this archetype is a bit rough around the edges, but I rather fancy the direction it has.