How well would it play: NPC + VMC

[Xuldarinar]

To the point, how well would it play having characters take levels in NPC classes, and diversity being bestowed upon them by means of VMC? For instance, if someone wanted to play a paladin, they could pick any NPC class (though Warrior makes the most sense) and pick paladin as their secondary class.


Additionally, what would you play and how would one go about optimizing such a thing?

[MyrPsychologist]

It would play like an exceptionally boring and watered down version of the variant class. Since NPC classes give no abilities and your only abilities are coming from giving up a majority of your feats.

[Extra Anchovies]

It would be worse than having the characters alternate NPC and PC levels. Which says a lot.

Seriously, the VMC benefits are (generally) awful. Fighters are really the only class that can usually afford to VMC. The only two other situations that I know of where you actually get something useful from it are Paladin [Oracle] for Life Link (only works on THF paladins since they need only two feats to be effective, three if you want Fey Foundling) and Ninja//Monk for the double ki pool.

[Mehangel]

I actually have most of my NPC's use this.

[Xuldarinar]

I think it would be suitable for horror campaigns, where you want the risk of death to be notably higher, or really in any campaign you want your players to be (relatively) lower in power and having less options to work with in terms of abilities. I know it wouldn't hold water well in a standard campaign as.. you really don't get much to work with from the NPC classes compared to the PC classes. That is why they are NPC classes after all.

And.. I know it can be a loss of flavor but, at least in my opinion, most of the flavor and personality of characters should come through the roleplaying aspect, not just the flavor text provided. I can see that though being another point against the use of such a thing.


I actually have most of my NPC's use this.

Do you really?

[grarrrg]

Most VMC's are pretty slow with regards to the bonuses they grant.
It would only be slightly better than straight-NPC classes.

[Extra Anchovies]

Most VMC's are pretty slow with regards to the bonuses they grant.
It would only be slightly better than straight-NPC classes.

It would probably actually be worse, because most of the VMC's give too little, too late to be worth five feats.

[Milo v3]

With how low powered VCM is, it would be just as powerful as a normal NPC.

[Psyren]

For actual NPCs I could see doing this as a fun way to differentiate them, e.g. you could use Adepts as acolytes in the church and actually give them domains to separate out the faiths.

For players it sounds execrable.

[Mehangel]

Do you really?

I dont use it for any major npc's but for average npc's and followers, yes I utilize the VMC feature.

[Spore]

It would play like an exceptionally boring and watered down version of the variant class.

I love the image of a bored and lazy adventurer in brown scaled colors while the rest of the world around him is thriving and colorful. He just says yawning: "Adventuring used to be sooo much fun. But now that I'm a Warrior class guarding the city, it has never been the same." He turns around scratching the arrow that pierced his knee and looks blandly into the distance.

[Vhaidara]

And.. I know it can be a loss of flavor but, at least in my opinion, most of the flavor and personality of characters should come through the roleplaying aspect, not just the flavor text provided. I can see that though being another point against the use of such a thing.

I don't think the issue here is flavor textz its the ability to live up to your fluff. If you want to be a holy warrior (paladin), then you don't want to wait until level 11 to achieve the basic ability of that archetype (smite evil). Basically, its the use reason Fighter is bad at representing most martial archetypes: they can't actually do anything appreciable that someone else couldn't do.