Ultimate Intrigue: Vigilante (Take 2)

[Molosse]

So there's been an update in the Vigilant play test, how do people find the thing now?

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lhp4?Ultimate-Intrigue-Vigilante-Playtest-Round-2#discuss

Could be fun building a Rogue 3 / Vigilante (Warlock) 17. Make use of the Dex to damage and Finessable Arcane Bolts for a TWF Bolt' build.

[Extra Anchovies]

Hm. Social talents fix a lot of the issues with the social identity. Still isn't enough to convince me to use that class feature.

Pseudo-pounce is gone, which is odd.

Stalker still sucks.

They didn't fix the offset spells known/prepared progression for Warlock and Zealot, which is pretty annoying.

Warlock spells/day is 4/3/3/3/2/1, and Zealot spells/day is 4/4/4/4/4/1. Still crap.

Forcing warlock to spend a talent on casting in light armor is bulls**t.

Mystic Bolt still requiring 4th level is bulls**t. Also the damage got nerfed really hard, which is completely unwarranted.

Abyssal Divine Power is almost useless (maximum of 13 rounds per day? What's the point?), Celestial Divine Power is even more useless (maximum 1d4+10? At level 20?), Fey Divine Power is pretty nice actually (the invisibility is actually useful, and the Druid/Ranger list is better than the Inquisitor list), and Infernal Divine Power is niche but not useless.

Zealot Smite is actually pretty good. It's nice to get a sixths-caster with smiting, enough so that I'd use that specialization if I had to play an Inquisitor.

TL;DR Social persona is halfway useful some of the time, Avenger and Stalker are the same as before, Warlock sucks, Zealot is okay.

[5ColouredWalker]

Stalker has a nasty trick now. Twisting fear, avaliable by level 4 [Rogue Talent>Combat Talent>Weapon Focus at level 2, Dazelling Display Level 3, Twisting Fear level 4].
You now do 2d4 nonlethal to every enemy within 30ft by waving around your weapon.
By level 6, you can do it as a swift Action [Hero Display+Performance Combatant]. Oh, and damage scales by 1d4/2 levels, so it's 3d4 by this stage.
Your level 1 feat, make it feats by being human, and make them Mask of Virtue or Fiendskin and Soulless Gaze. You now fear stack.

Depending on how you choose to read Twisting Fear's text, anyone you make flee cannot speak, or anyone affected by Twisting Fear cannot speak. You now neutralize casters by waving your weapon in the air... With a completely silent display, that scares them so much they can't speak.

...
Damn, you're scarier than batman by level 4. Sure, damage isn't great, but you're actually doing damage. Batman showing up hasn't turned crooks into wheezing wrecks or made them faint that I know of.

[Molosse]

Hm. Social talents fix a lot of the issues with the social identity. Still isn't enough to convince me to use that class feature.

Pseudo-pounce is gone, which is odd.

Stalker still sucks.

They didn't fix the offset spells known/prepared progression for Warlock and Zealot, which is pretty annoying.

Warlock spells/day is 4/3/3/3/2/1, and Zealot spells/day is 4/4/4/4/4/1. Still crap.

Forcing warlock to spend a talent on casting in light armor is bulls**t.

Mystic Bolt still requiring 4th level is bulls**t. Also the damage got nerfed really hard, which is completely unwarranted.

Abyssal Divine Power is almost useless (maximum of 13 rounds per day? What's the point?), Celestial Divine Power is even more useless (maximum 1d4+10? At level 20?), Fey Divine Power is pretty nice actually (the invisibility is actually useful, and the Druid/Ranger list is better than the Inquisitor list), and Infernal Divine Power is niche but not useless.

Zealot Smite is actually pretty good. It's nice to get a sixths-caster with smiting, enough so that I'd use that specialization if I had to play an Inquisitor.

TL;DR Social persona is halfway useful some of the time, Avenger and Stalker are the same as before, Warlock sucks, Zealot is okay.

Eh, Mystic Bolt got tapped for damage but not by a lot, and especially at the early levels you can wrack up the damage if only because it's now been allowed for most of the interactions you normally get with weapons. So TWF, Finesse, W.Focus, PBS, Rapidshot, Arcane Strike etc.

So before, at level 12, it was:
1D6+12

Now at level 12 it is:
1D6+3(Scaling)+2(A.Strike)+D6(Frost/Fire/Thundering/Shock) or 1D6+8.5(Avg).

Throw in stuff like PBS, Deliquescent Gloves and/or TWF and your damage starts to pick up pretty fast.

[Milo v3]

Throw in stuff like PBS, Deliquescent Gloves and/or TWF and your damage starts to pick up pretty fast.

As a person playing a high level warlock with mystic bolt, even using arcane strike (I was already using TWF, PBS, and a conductive weapon) my damage has dropped by a giant portion. It dropped from 1d6+16 to 1d6+8. 1d6+8 isn't exactly the best when most creatures past mid-level have tonnes of energy resistance.

[Sayt]

Pseudo-pounce is still there, it just hasn't got a linebreak between it and Living Shield.

[Molosse]

As a person playing a high level warlock with mystic bolt, even using arcane strike (I was already using TWF, PBS, and a conductive weapon) my damage has dropped by a giant portion. It dropped from 1d6+16 to 1d6+8. 1d6+8 isn't exactly the best when most creatures past mid-level have tonnes of energy resistance.

Be fair mate, you're arguing that when you used feats and abilities, though not a magic item, with an ability that was called out as being unable to be used with said feats and abilities it got worse when you nerfed the damage, even though you weren't legally able to use the ability with said feats and abilities.

Also when you hit level 16, which is where I'm guessing the +16 is coming from, you get access to the aligned weapon types which adds another D6 of damage and ignores both corresponding DR and Energy Resistance.

To summarize, the ability got better if you weren't applying house-rules on what can and can't work with the ability.

[Milo v3]

Be fair mate, you're arguing that when you used feats and abilities, though not a magic item, with an ability that was called out as being unable to be used with said feats and abilities it got worse when you nerfed the damage, even though you weren't legally able to use the ability with said feats and abilities.

Also when you hit level 16, which is where I'm guessing the +16 is coming from, you get access to the aligned weapon types which adds another D6 of damage and ignores both corresponding DR and Energy Resistance.

To summarize, the ability got better if you weren't applying house-rules on what can and can't work with the ability.

What? I wasn't using houserules. I was using the magic item with both methods. It was statted that PBS worked with the original mystic bolt, and the TWF I used was with the conductive weapon which was allowed by the rules, you just couldn't TWF with Only mystic bolt. You could still use mystic bolt + other weapon. The +16 came from being 15th level + 1 from PBS. As for the aligned weapon types, I have no chance of that, since my talent starved warlock doesn't have Arcane Striker.

Please don't suggest my playtest character was only made via houserules.

[Molosse]

What? I wasn't using houserules. I was using the magic item with both methods. It was statted that PBS worked with the original mystic bolt, and the TWF I used was with the conductive weapon which was allowed by the rules, you just couldn't TWF with Only mystic bolt. You could still use mystic bolt + other weapon. The +16 came from being 15th level + 1 from PBS. As for the aligned weapon types, I have no chance of that, since my talent starved warlock doesn't have Arcane Striker.

Please don't suggest my playtest character was only made via houserules.

Was about to edit in a disclaimer concerning the conductive weapon but you sadly beat me to the punch mate, sorry about that. Also did not know PBS worked with Mystic Bolt prior to the redo.

Also need to apologize, shouldn't have assumed you went for the same build as me in the first set, I tried to work the Warlock as a psuedo-gish, concentrating on Mystic Bolts and somewhat gave up on keeping up with dropping more talents on spell-casting so talent allotment was never that relevant to myself.

Beyond that I do think the combination of Finessable Bolts, the ability to TWF the bolts themselves, as well feats like Rapid Shot have left the thing better off. Though in fairness that is theory-crafting as I haven't had chance to try the UnRogue 4 / Viglante (Warlock) 8 build yet and further in fairness it wouldn't be fair to judge the power of a portion of class solely on it's ability to multi-class well.

[Milo v3]

Also need to apologize, shouldn't have assumed you went for the same build as me in the first set, I tried to work the Warlock as a psuedo-gish, concentrating on Mystic Bolts and somewhat gave up on keeping up with dropping more talents on spell-casting so talent allotment was never that relevant to myself.
My guy is a magic thief who needs the spells to actually be decent at stealth and deception at high levels. Also, having tonnes of gold elementals bound to my characters service is quite fun, so spells were needed for that. Living shadow really helps with that, allows for concealment whenever I want (1/day), even against darkvision.

[Molosse]

My guy is a magic thief who needs the spells to actually be decent at stealth and deception at high levels. Also, having tonnes of gold elementals bound to my characters service is quite fun, so spells were needed for that. Living shadow really helps with that, allows for concealment whenever I want (1/day), even against darkvision.

No doubt :P.

I went for a slightly different idea and tried to run the class without putting ANYTHING into the spell-casting, just utilizing the basic talent you're given from the get-go, while concentrating on the stuff I saw with Arcane Striker and Blood Bond (?). Going to try and expand upon that in this iteration with, as I said, 3/4 levels of UnRogue as well as the new Casters Defence Talent while throwing in Mystic Bolt and Arcane Striker for ****s and giggles.

Doesn't look like the worst thing and being able to hit on Touch AC let's me throw a bit more into the TWF side of things without overstressing about being a 3/4 BaB class.

Also, now with the ability to actually use Vigilante abilities in the Vigilante's Social Aspect, at the expense of being identified as the Vigilante, as well as the customizable Social Talents I can now happily ignore the two-character aspect of the class and instead just examine it from the basis of the Warlock, Stalker, Avenger and Zealot modules.

[Mehangel]

Here are my thoughts on the Vigilante (Take 2)

Okay first of all, I want to point out an error in the document:

Under Vigilante Specialization: emphasis mine
"The base ability and bonus class skills apply when the vigilante is in either of his identities without restriction, but if the vigilante uses any other abilities while in his social identity, he must succeed at a Disguise check against the Perception checks of all onlookers, without the +20 bonus from social grace, or the onlookers will realize that he is something more than his social identity, and perhaps discover that the social and vigilante identities are one and the same."

the words "social grace" need to be replaced with "seemless guise"

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Second, while possibly not an error, I thought that I might point it out.

Both Seemless Guise and the Everyman social talent grant a +20 circumstance bonus to disguise checks. This means that they do not stack. I dont know if that is intentional, but if Everyman requires 11 levels to even pick it, I feel that an untyped +10 (The same bonus of a disguise self spell) would be far more worthwhile. Otherwise, I feel like this social trait has little use.

EDIT: Just found out that Circumstances from different souces do stack... Surprised I did not know that...

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Third, Now that I got that out of the way some things that irked me slightly.

o Most of the social talents I see shouldn't require a vigilante level to acquire. As it is right now, you are practically limited to nearly the same build as the Vigilante given in Round 1. What I recommend is removing the level prerequisites on half the social talents.

o Both the Zealot and the Warlock are still taxed out of most of their talents. I feel that both Zealot and Warlock should just be given 6th level spellcasting capability. I dont think they should be taxed into spending their talents to do so. If you are deadset in having them taxed, I would recommend that:
- Warlock: Base Ability = Mystic Bolt + Cantrips. Change Arcane Training I into a Warlock Talent. While this will still make spellcasting a tax, it will give a level 1 character at-will abilities which is far more useful then say 3 spells per day.
- Zealot: Base Ability = Channel Energy + Domain (Powers Only) + Orisons. Change Divine Training I into a Zealot talent, which will grants spells from the chosen domain.

o Give Avenger specialization access to the Stalwart and Improved Stalwart abilities. In addition regardless if you are including feats that allow minor mixing of the specializations, I feel that the avenger should have a talent like the following:
- Adaptive Talent: The avenger may choose a single talent from another specialization. The avenger may count his avenger level as his stalker level when meeting stalker talent prerequisites. The avenger may count 1/2 his avenger level as warlock or zealot levels when meeting their talent prerequisites. The Avenger still must meet all other perquisites when choosing the talent. This talent may be chosen multiple times.

o Give Stalker specialization the following talent:
- Adaptive Talent: The stalker may choose a single talent from another specialization. The stalker may count his stalker level as his avenger level when meeting stalker talent prerequisites. The stalker may count 1/2 his stalker level as warlock or zealot levels when meeting their talent prerequisites. The stalker still must meet all other perquisites when choosing the talent. This talent may be chosen multiple times.

o Give Warlock specialization the following talent:
- Adaptive Talent: The warlock may choose a single talent from another specialization. The warlock may count his warlock level as his zealot level when meeting zealot talent prerequisites. The warlock may count 1/2 his warlock level as avenger or stalker levels when meeting their talent prerequisites. The warlock still must meet all other perquisites when choosing the talent. This talent may be chosen multiple times.

o Give Zealot specialization the following talent:
- Adaptive Talent: The zealot may choose a single talent from another specialization. The zealot may count his zealot level as his warlock level when meeting warlock talent prerequisites. The zealot may count 1/2 his zealot level as avenger or stalker levels when meeting their talent prerequisites. The zealot still must meet all other perquisites when choosing the talent. This talent may be chosen multiple times.