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I am playing a Vigilante, 1st level, in a new game, and am struggling with how the roleplay will work.
Does Sir Tabbir Snow of Lancaster (an exiled bastard of a noble House, scholar and diplomat with a MWK Cane Sword sticking out from his Noble's Clothes), walk around town with the PCs making contacts and gathering info through roleplay in order to complete the goals the group has in the campaign? Or does his Vigilante alter-ego, The Ace of Spades?
I assume Sir Tabbir is the face that is walking throuh town with the PCs, but what do I do when the group -- and the game -- needs The Ace of Spades, with his Whip, to attempt Disarms and Repositions and Steals and especially, Dirty Tricks?
How does this actually work IN PLAY?
The PCs are going through town and all of a sudden a combat breaks out -- one PC says "Oh I'm going to run away" and 10 ROUNDS later the alter ego shows up ready to fight? WTF. How does this *actually* work?
....Do NPCs really never think to themselves, 'Well it's odd, the Heroes of Holler sometimes travel with Sir Tabbir Snow of Lancaster, and sometimes they travel with The Ace of Spades. Hmm. You know, one never sees the Ace of Spades and Sir Tabbir at the same time. But one of them is almost ALWAYS with the Heroes of Holler.
Seriously, how does a Vigilante *actually* play in-game, IN the group?
Thanks
While this works best if the campaign doesn't travel around a lot, probably the easiest way to manage as a Vigilante (without actually throwing away the "two identity" thing from the get go) is to be two distinct people and the party knows both of them, but they know one of them as one of those helpful NPCs the party runs with. Eventually, you come clean but being two people in public is still sometimes useful.
In the Hell's Rebels game I played a Vigilante in, Aurora Aulorian and Alan Argent were both Silver Ravens- Aurora was the noble sympathetic to the rebellion whose privilege and access was leveraged by the Rebels; Alan was the roguishly charming ne'er-do-well who was equally ready with a quip and a fist- they were also the same person. Eventually, Aurora had to throw down in a scene where the PCs were the only survivors and then we had a chat. A vigilante is most appropriate in a game where the PCs have strong reasons to trust each other, because the party will find out eventually (and the other players knew all along, they were just playing along.)
It can be slightly challenging to keep track of "wait, who am I in this scene" but honestly that's the fun part of the class.
I am also playing a game in Hell's Rebels. The halfling "Sern Springworth", personal Valet to a well known noble (who also happens to be a Vigilante), also part time cleric of Shelyn. His twin brother is also a cleric of Shelyn. However, when the night falls, Sern transforms into his true identity, the Zealot Vigilante of Milani "Spectre", scourge of the Dotari and church of Asmodeus. He leaves a rose on every enemy body, dipped in the blood of the fallen.
The entire group is playing vigilantes. Zealot (me), Magical Girl, Warlock, and Teisatsu. We tend to avoid fights in public but make sure there are no witnesses if a fight breaks out while in our social identities. No enemy survivors to tell tails of our social identities. It is really flavorful to avoid fights when our identities are at risk.
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I would say consult your DM, who has three options.
1) Allow your character to switch identities by obtaining cover or concealment and rolling a Stealth check (a move action at best), then using a new homebrew specialized function of the Disguise skill which let's you "switch" between two explicitly prepared costumes (full-round action? standard action?).
2) Structure their game so that it has clear Downtime in which the PCs are free to move about the game world on their own and accomplish mundane tasks. Note: This doesn't preclude the party going together to do this, nor does it 100% guarantee you won't stumble into a fight you didn't expect, but those will be the exception not the rule.
3) Both.
A Vigilante with a non-vigilante group does present some issues.
Personally, I'd turn it around from the way you are thinking. Rather than the social identity be the guy that is well known and travels with the PCs, I'd have that be the hero. That identity will fit in and blend better with a group of adventurers than most social identities would. Of course, typically they wouldn't have a 'weird' hero identity name in that case, 'Ace of Spades' would be a weird name to throw around when you are in the hiring hall looking for promising adventures. I'd just go with the 'Hero' identity being Sir Snow or something similar.
Then for the social identity, you want something that the party can't do as a group. If they are well known good heroes, then getting leads from the underground would be one example. Since your 'heroic' identity is well known, it would probably be better is the social identity was more nondescript. A mild mannered reporter who could blend in to find out leads and information that wouldn't be available to a well known hero for example. Your best social identity in the case would be someone who had a reason to be just about everywhere, but wouldn't particularly cause a lot of notice just by being in a particular place.
Really, unless you are always in a single location you can't reliably have the heroic identity and the social one be well known, or as you pointed out, why are these two famous people always in the same places at nearly, but not exactly at the same time.
Obviously this doesn't really fit well with the background and concept you have now, but I think that is a better concept for a lone hero (or a hero with a vigilante only group) then it is for a member of a typical adventuring party.
I played a vigilante in Hell's Rebels as well (seems to be a theme) and the masked persona was the one who went out with the party when they were doing adventuring stuff. The social persona was set up as a background character who was a sort of information broker figure assisting the PCs' cause at times (he was a noble, so he had decent connection).
The PCs eventually figured it out during book 3 (because we wanted that to happen), but his identity was never revealed to the wider world.
Do you want the party to know the two are the same person? Or not? You could do it both ways, depending on which you prefer.
....Do NPCs really never think to themselves, 'Well it's odd, the Heroes of Holler sometimes travel with Sir Tabbir Snow of Lancaster, and sometimes they travel with The Ace of Spades. Hmm. You know, one never sees the Ace of Spades and Sir Tabbir at the same time. But one of them is almost ALWAYS with the Heroes of Holler.
Maybe the Ace of Spaces and Sir Tabbir really don't get along? :-)
It works just like in the comic books the Vigilante is inspired by.
Which is to say... don't think about it too much. Unless this is the one issue where the bad guy thought about it too much, but they're going to be locked up and conveniently forget everything at the end of this issue.
Vigilante is a class driven primarily by genre convention, not logic.
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Like a lot of things in this game, the Vigilante just works better if the other players in the game are on board with your choice of character. I mean, paladins and rogues are no problem in a party provided the Paladin doesn't proselytize constantly, nobody is trying to make the Paladin fall for fun, the rogue isn't trying to rob the party, and nobody is unduly suspicious of the rogue. It's both a player thing and a character thing, since "I'm just doing what my character would do" is not a valid justification. I mean, if one of the other party members is this incredibly skeptical empiricist investigator, having them be deeply suspicious about everything *except* Snow and Ace being the same person ("Obviously they are not, as we have not seen them in the same place at the same time as we know all beings occupy the same place and time as themselves!") can be a reliable comedy beat rather than a source of friction.
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Much of it depends on how much the other PCs are willing to play along (presumably you have told them your secret). If you get attacked in town:
"Sir Tabbir! Can't you help us fight off these brigands attacking us in the middle of town?"
"Well, I'll try. I'm not much of a swordsman, but perhaps I may trip one or two of them with this buggy whip... Oh! Look at that! I succeeded!"
Basically be "surprisingly lucky" when in the social identity if combat breaks out unexpectedly. When planning an adventure, send in the vigilante identity.
For your other question, it again depends on the other players. Perhaps they let it be known that Sir Tabbir is paying the Heroes of Holler for protection. Or that the Heroes of Holler have invited Sir Tabbir to inspect artifacts they might recover, as he is a renowned expert in the field (though of course he is much too refined and valuable to be risked in combat). The Ace of Spades, meanwhile, remains an unremarkable (though rumored to be quite deadly) associate of the Heroes of Holler.
Once you establish the fiction with the rest of your group you don't have to bring it up constantly (indeed, it would be annoying if you did). You have the campaign backstory in place, now run with it!
How a vigilante works is going to be different depending on the vigilante. In my experience, vigilante identity is typically the one that walks around with the party while the social identity does other things during downtime, not typically with the others.
The routes my favourite vigilantes have gone:
Timbers stayed with the party in vigilante identity. Her social identities were a series of ever-changing bystanders. She went out of her way to always make her bystander identities different people so that nobody could see a pattern of "every time this one person disappears, this other one shows up".
Boundbeard did any sort of piratical work that required interacting with other people in his vigilante identity, and slipped back into his social one only when we needed to access something or some place where obvious pirates weren't welcome.
Lord Raven was a nobleman who the party escorted around in town. His vigilante identity Blackblade was a mercenary friend of one of the other PCs and supposedly entirely unaffiliated with Lord Raven. When the party's noble patron put them to work, they'd "hire" this other guy as backup.
The Occultist (a vigilante, in spite of the title) kept her social identity separate from the party at first. It helped that she eventually married another PC. The fact that our Spiritualist was affectionate with her wife and antagonistic with the Occultist made it less obvious that the wife and vigilante were the same person.
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A Vigilante with a non-vigilante group does present some issues.
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Boy, that kinda sucks. It feels like poor design. A Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue can adventure with anyone. Paladins can play with everyone in a good campaign. Druids and some Rangers & Barbarians can be tricky but you can still make it work. But Vigilantes are really only 100% functional in a group of all Vigilantes?! Quite an issue I would say.
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We had our first session where Sir Tabbir Snow of Lancaster spent most of the face-time in roleplay. When I needed The Ace of Spades I just went off screen and came back a few minutes later. But it was an easy session to do that in.
This Sunday Sir Tabbir Snow of Lancaster will be awol and The Ace of Spades will be with the group. We'll see how it turns out.
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But seriously, I don't know that I'm any closer to figuring out how this can actually play in-game.
Advice still welcome.
Boy, that kinda sucks. It feels like poor design. A Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue can adventure with anyone. Paladins can play with everyone in a good campaign. Druids and some Rangers & Barbarians can be tricky but you can still make it work. But Vigilantes are really only 100% functional in a group of all Vigilantes?! Quite an issue I would say.
Oh, Vigilantes function very well in a regular party - you just won't be able to use Dual Identity (and many social talents) most of the time.
Yeah, there are basically two situations where Dual Identity really works: 1) When the Vigilante is alone (solo campaign or split party) and 2) everyone is a Vigilante.
It's important to remember/realize that Vigilante was created as pandering to idiotic Batman fanboys/-girls*. That's why Dual Identity talks about "move about social circles and nobility", even though most Superheroes are ordinary people. Batman is actually the exception, not the norm.** The civilian identity is basically used to have a normal life with friends and family - in other words, something that does not get played out in the vast majority of Pathfinder games.
When a group of "secret identity heroes" are together, it's almost always for fighting, while the social stuff is very rarely spend with the whole group.
*) The smart fanboys/-girls don't need a class to be Batman, disguise rules are in the CRB.
**) Most social identities aren't world known billionaires, but that's basically what it takes to make the seperate identity useful. And even then, while you're playing Bruce Wayne at the fundraiser, the rest of the players sit around bored because the GM has to focus on the Vigilante, while the rest of the party isn't even present (unless they're also billionaire Vigilantes).
In all honesty, I believe the key to successfully playing a Vigilante is to use the Dual identity class feature as what it is, a mere disguise feature. Expect to be in one identity 99% of the time, and the class works just fine. And when you need to infiltrate something, you've got a class feature for that.
What would actually happen if Sir Tabbir Snow of Lancaster takes out the whip when the party is attacked? A noble who knows how to fight is pretty normal, they're the ones with the time and money to learn how, after all.
Mechanically the whole "hidden identity" thing doesn't work well in the party setting of Pathfinder IMO, unless everyone has the dual identity mechanic (and there are archetypes that offer that sort of ability to several classes).
When the vigilante is with the party there really starts to be a breakdown of believe-ability when the party just starts trusting one identity and the other while finding no connection between the two and ignoring the whole issue of "one guy disappear and the other just shows up". In character that should be very suspicious.
Eh...ultimately the whole thing is very specific to the campaign your playing.
Perhaps you just play "Iron Man/Tony Stark" and don't care that everyone knows who your other identity is.
This is why when I play Vigilante I don't go for the Superhero method. I pick up Transformation Sequence and go the Magical Girl (or maybe Split Personality, a la Moka in Rosario+Vampire) instead. Still takes a while to transform at the beginning but does away with all the awkwardness of trying to maintain the two personalities while still letting Dual Identities have at least a flavorful impact.
I feel like "you are batman" is a lot harder to pull off with a vigilante than "you have an identity that you do not want to be associated with the adventuring lifestyle" whether you're evading justice, or have run away from your past life, or simply don't want to expose your former associates to reprisals from your adventuring, are a noble working at cross purposes to your house, etc.
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I mentioned this above, but maybe didn’t state my point explicitly. A vigilante works fine in Pathfinder as long as the rest of the party is in on it. If you try to go the “secretive loner” (Batman) route it doesn’t work. You need to go the “trusted circle of friends” route.
Because then you aren’t roleplaying against your party members or demanding significant extra time. The barbarian may be roleplaying as a friendly drunk. The alchemist as a snooty know-it-all. The party members play off each others’ personalities. The vigilante can roleplay exactly the same amount, it’s just that depending on the circumstances he’s roleplaying in one of two different ways.
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Oh I see what you're saying -- you were clear the first time I just wasn't paying attention; it's on me.
Yeah, there are no secrets in our groups, all the PCs, of course, know I'm a Vigilante.
My concern was -- is -- when a situation pops up in game where I need to be one identity, but am currently in the guise of the other -- which HAS to happen from time to time -- how is it best handled?
Duck off for a second to change? I definitely recommend the quick change talent for this. (Though you can't take it until 7th level.)
Example: My vigilante in a [redacted for spoilers] campaign was attending a fancy party, which suddenly came under attack. He hid under a table and swapped outfits (using quick change). Took the first round of combat, but after that he was good to go.
Alternatively, there's nothing strictly PREVENTING you from doing vigilante stuff in your social form; it just runs the risk of ruining your cover. So, if it's a combat where you don't expect there will be survivors...well, no one can blow Sir Tabbir's cover if the ne'er-do-wells don't live to tell the tale. :-)
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Vigilantes are tough to play. I am playing with a guy who is a vigilante in (surprise!) the Hell's Rebels campaign. The GM has to be pretty good and be OK with doing extra work for you to pull off the character. Written campaigns just don't seem to be set up for a character who doesn't fit the traditional mold and the GM has to modify a lot of things for the vigilante to do vigilante stuff. If it is a homebrew game then there shouldn't be any problems.
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Duck off for a second to change? I definitely recommend the quick change talent for this. (Though you can't take it until 7th level.)
Example: My vigilante in a [redacted for spoilers] campaign was attending a fancy party, which suddenly came under attack. He hid under a table and swapped outfits (using quick change). Took the first round of combat, but after that he was good to go.
I don't think Quick Change works on vigilantes. They have the Dual Identity class feature, not change shape.
I believe the reference was to the Vigilante social talent "Quick Change", which lets you swap identities as a full round action.
With the two new genuinely strong Social talents in the last player's companion (one of which is basically "Social Grace, for Knowledge Checks") it's now not especially difficult to choose all social talents that benefit you in your vigilante identity.
Ancestral Enlightenment, Bellflower Inuendo, Companion to the Lonely, Discreet Inquiries, Gossip Collector, Hidden Magic, "Intrigue Feats", Many Guises, Mockingbird, Safe House, Skill Familiarity, and Team Player all work fine in one's vigilante identity.
Some of those require renown, but you can substitute Obscurity, and "being able to automatically pass disguise checks to appear as 'nobody interesting'" is pretty useful.
I believe the reference was to the Vigilante social talent "Quick Change", which lets you swap identities as a full round action.Sheesh. I'm not sure how I bungled that one so bad.
Yup, that's the one I was talking about.
With the two new genuinely strong Social talents in the last player's companion (one of which is basically "Social Grace, for Knowledge Checks") it's now not especially difficult to choose all social talents that benefit you in your vigilante identity.
I did something different for an Enforcer/Hurtful based Vigilante to get the Social Grace bonus on intimidate: I switched the social and vigilante identity, i.e. fight in social identity (SI) and socialize in vigilante identity (VI).
The class description doesn't actually say what you have to use identities for, only that "a vigilante who uses vigilante talents in his social identity risks exposing his secret." Which shouldn't be a danger if you don't use Vigilante Talents in VI. Obscurity (which is from a later book, mind) talks about being "confronted with indisputable proof that the vigilante could be more than he appears to be, such as when he uses a vigilante talent while in his social identity" - but what if being an adventurer is my real identity? If my social identity is "Bob the sellsword", using Shield of Blades shouldn't be anything noticable - everyone already knows that I'm combat trained. Then, when it's time to infiltrate a hgh society event, the VI with the fake name gets used. The irony? This way, you can have a high society identity without needing a Mary Sue character, so it's actually better.Doesn't work for some archetypes like Agathiel or Masked Maiden, of course.