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Has anyone wrestled with this yet? Any Design canon? Any hypotheticals?
My PC hit 11th Level and took that Level in Vigilante, got a cool alter-ego, and is moving forward as a 10th Level 'such-and-such', and 11th, 12th, etc., with a taste of Vigilante. And for my 11th Level Feat I took Leadership since we all got baronies and such from the King.
The other PCs know, of course -- that's how we play -- and my Cohort knows, of course. He's with my PC and the group all the time, regardless of my identity.
But what about all those hundreds of Followers?!?
At 11th Level each of the PCs earned from King Belvor IV a small tract of land in the Greyhawk Kingdom of Furyondy. My Followers will stay in my newly erected castle and the town around it. I, my Cohort, and the other PCs spend our downtime in our lands and then go out adventuring for King Belvor IV and Furyondy (or our respective Deities) from time to time moving forward in the campaign.
In this case it's even harder!
My PC's Vigilante alter ego pretends to be an Evil villain, secretly exposing corruption and bad guys in my duchy in Furyondy. My PC has 'Wanted' posters out for my alter ego and pretends to be hunting him down. (Of course, the alter ego won't ever get captured -- but his evil contacts and corrupt bad guys sure will, heeheehee.)
Now, of course the other PCs know my alter ego. And so does my Cohort.
But my Followers?!?
Has anyone actually dealt with a Vigilante with the Leadership Feat?
How have you handled it?
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Maybe it's both? Perhaps some of your followers work for the Baron, some work for the villain, and never the twain shall meet. There's no reason any of them HAS to know your secret ID right.
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That's got me thinking!
(Hopefully I can work with the DM and get it playable with RAW and Fun.) ('member that Leadership makes the Followers my Alignment, and Vigilante makes my two identities effectively the same Alignment.)
Some of the Followers will be supporters of the "Evil" (secretly Good) alter ego character. They will be Good characters who help the Evil alter ego cuz they know that he is secretly Good. ...And they would just assume that the Lord, my main PC (identity), also knows the truth about the alter ego secretly being Good like they do, and they keep the facade of his Alignment -- though they Don't know the PC and alter ego are one and the same.
So, like, some Followers -- townspeople, villagers, castle employees -- are Followers of the alter ego -- who they know is actually Good even though he pretends to be Evil in order to root out corruption. And they keep the secret of the alter ego's Alignment. ...And would have to assume that the Lord of the castle also knows the secret Alignment of the alter ego, even though they don't technically know that.
Meanwhile, others of my PC's Followers from the Leadership Feat are not aware that the 'Wanted' criminal that their feudal Lord is 'hunting' is actually a Good guy only pretending to be Evil, in order to root out corruption and individuals in the criminal underground. They support my PC in his 'attempt' to track down the criminal alter ego character.
Meanwhile, none of the Followers, regardless of who they support, realize that the Lord and the 'Good-pretending-Evil' personality is one and the same person.
Thanks for your help Mark!
I was really struggling with this but I think, with your advice, I've got a better handle on how this could work!
I think the way to handle this is to take the stance that your followers do NOT know. They know who you are as either identity, but they never know that both identities are the same individual. Some willingly work with one identity but not the other, while others might willingly work with both identities. As a result, at any given moment you might not have access to the full resources of all of your followers, but instead may have limited access to a sub-group of your followers that provide a more specialized resource for only one of your identities.
Your cohort makes perfect sense to know everything, not only because they are with you enough that keeping it a secret may be difficult, but also because a cohort is a prime candidate for a sidekick.
Think of Batman
He has his Robins (Cohort)
but he also has a large network of snitches, contacts, spies, and other assorted folk who help him either as Bruce Wayne or as Batman but they don't know the truth.
This is hilarious. I love it.
Vigilante is such a mess, for this very reason, and I love just how absurdly silly it is to even try such a concept in a team-based game.
I just don't see the point... people are like, "of course the other PCs know my alter ego. And so does my Cohort"... wow, so like people that don't matter are the only ones you're tricking? All those NPC's, though, they don't have a clue. Who cares?
What's the point tricking a populous that literally doesn't know what you look like without armor on [regardless of which class you play]... they don't care what color your eyes are... they are just hungry and tired, and you're just the guy here to kill the dragon or whatever, take their money, and leave.
A whole class? It's not an archetype of Rogue... but a whole freaking class based around an unusable concept. If your party knows, then I think it's a lost cause from the start. Your alter ego should literally be the BBEG. Lol.
No, the party and the Cohort and the followers should not know your secret identity. Otherwise it's not a freaking secret. It's why I stay away from the class, regardless of what mechanics it may offer that would otherwise be beneficial to whatever I am trying to accomplish. No character I will ever play will use such a concept, it doesn't appeal to me, it seems like too much work... the idea of having multiple identities is exhausting to even think about. It's why I don't lie... too much to keep track of. Put that in Pathfinder and it's just paperwork... people get paid to keep track of that much BS, and I don't get paid to play Pathfinder. Lol.
If I'm trying to play as Batman, I promise you I have literally zero interest in playing Bruce Wayne. Lol. I hate it when the GM takes away the party's gear. I hate it in video games when they force me to play as a different character for some random BS mission. And if everyone already knows your secret identity, anyways, you might as well just have two characters... or three, in the case of adding Leadership.
Wow... sorry for the rant... apparently I feel more strongly about the Vigilante than I first thought. I really do not think it should be casually okay for anyone to know your secret identity. I literally thought that hide and seek $#!+ was the entire point of the class. If the people you would actually have to work to hide from already know, then it could all be fluffed with literally any class.
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LOL. Well thanks, Voodist Monk, that was very helpful ;)
No I get it; there are parts of the game that just bug me, too.
I think one of the differences about me, regarding Vigilante, is that unlike pretty much Every Other gamer out there, I never got into comic books. I mean, I know Batman from the Michael Keaton & Jack Nicholson movie from when I was young, and the Adam West. I know that Peter Parker is Spider Man. Of course I know who Clark Kent really is. And I assume Wolverine has another name -- I actually think I know it, too, but it's not coming to me right now. But really, I just don't know (or care to know) comic books (or all the Marvel movies, though I've been dragged to three of them by gaming buddies over the years).
As a result -- the Vigilante for me has nothing to do with the alter egos in the comics.
It's only about the roleplaying game.
My PC is jacked with Bluff and his primary gambit is to, upon meeting a bad guy in the game, to Bluff that I'm also a bad guy, get some information -- and a Surprise Round. I love playing the Bluff PC. It's more like the Player who loves to play a Kitsune Bard/ master-of-disguise than any kind of comic-book-inspired idea.
And I hadn't planned on this PC taking Vigilante Levels. (Or Leadership.) But all the sudden each of us have our own tract of land, a castle & village or town, and in-between going on adventures together as a group, we have to make sure our little fiefdoms are cool. I figured I could go in disguise as a villain to root out bad guys. Vigilante was perfect. And Leadership just seemed an obvious Feat choice for 11th.
But of course, since for four weekends out of the year, plus another two week block per year, I go adventuring with my old group of heroes -- and have decided to take my Cohort with me -- let's go to the Boards and figure this out.
I actually like that, quite a bit.
And, I can see why everyone else in the party, as well as your Cohort, should probably know your secret identity [so they don't attack you as one of the bad guys].
I like the Gossip Collector Vigilante Talent for something like this. There are a bunch of Rogue Talents that would work, too, like Rumormonger, Obfuscate Story, Steal Story, and Convincing Lie.
Feats like Confabulist and/or Rhetorical Flourish.
I have a Tengu Charlatan-Guild Agent Rogue 4/Brazen Deceiver Bard 11 with Lovable Scoundrel and the Amiable Blunder trait built specifically to be able to change the narrative through their lies. He is a legacy NPC that I try include in all my games.