Magical Child is a weird archetype

[Segev]

On the surface, it actually looks like a brilliant fit: the vigilante class provides a good chi assis for the dual life, the social talents work quite nicely with a number of possible social identities, the archetype’s trade of loss of subtlety for speed in transformation is good. Adding a familiar that grows in power fits genre well.

But then we get into actual execution. The vigilante talents available are still largely “dark” and “foreboding,” and don’t complement being a spellcaster or having a familiar. They get spells as an unchained summoner (but off the base summoner list, for some reason), and expressly can’t use spells that require an eidolon. (An eidolon would make more sense than the familiar in terms of mechanical coherency, or making those spells work in the familiar, or using evolution points in the familiar...)

It seems cool to have the familiar auto upgrade to an improved familiar of the appropriate level. But then you examine the list of options, and figuring out a natural-feeling progression through levels is difficult at best. Worse, trying to do so while maintaining alignment requirements!

It is definitely possible to get a familiar to be combat capable, which is good since the vigilante combat capability doesn’t synergies well with the summoner spell list. But it won’t stand up next to an eidolon or animal companion, and it seems like it needs to fill that roll.

It would have made more sense and been more coherent for the witch, rather than the summoner, to be the magic basis, what with familiar-dependency for spells and a better caster spell list that can stand alone since the combat abilities of a vigilante without stalker or avenger are lackluster. But that might have been too strong; I don’t know. (I’d be tempted to suggest allowing hexes to be chosen as an option for vigilante talents, too; maybe just from a short list.)

Anyway, enough of my exasperated rant. Has anybody built and played a magical child? How did you feel about them? How right or wrong is my assessment; in trying to build one because I love the concept, but figuring out how to come up with a “magical boy identity” that has a cogent theme and motive and can build through the levels is frustrating me.

What am I missing? What cool things can you do and what themes have you seen with this archetype? How has it been used to play a PC in your games, and how did it look advancing through the levels?

[Unavenger]

I have built but not properly played one, and... yeah, building it is just a mess of taking abilities which have nothing to do with casting on what is essentially a casting sort of character. It's a little unwieldy having a part-caster who is practically wholly reliant on their casting because nothing else does anything much (unlike the bard and inquisitor who can at least sing or judge for buffs and such) and who doesn't have any special things to make their casting neat (unlike the magus who can hit people with sticks and spells at the same time).

The magical child has spellcasting, but with no vigilante specialisation (instead you get a familiar which you have to lean into massively to make relevant) and half of your vigilante talents gone - and the other half not really being enough to prop you up as a useful character because all the good ones require one or other specialisation, which you don't have - you end up left adrift by your own weird class, and the talents you're left with don't justify not having just been a real summoner (or indeed a full spellcaster). The fact that synthesist does the "Watch me transform into my super-awesome magical form" dealio far more convincingly is just one more kick in the teeth for magical child.



I also don't think that the vigilante class does its own shtick particularly well before you even get into the archetypes, mind you. Pretending to be a normie by day and having a secret identity at night should just be a skill use with maybe one feat to give you the appropriately huge bonus required to get away with it consistently, rather than requiring a class. Not actually starting with a vigilante talent strikes me as a mistake. This is compounded by the fact that many of the social talents are really mediocre - a crappy spell-like, once per day? Really? - and few of them actually lean into the idea that your social personality is actually good at anything, and they didn't seem to realise that maybe only getting to use half of your class features at a time is a drawback.

You end up trawling both talent lists lamenting the fact that most of both of them are a bit bad. The fact, for example, that it's entirely possible to build a vigilante identity that's just a severely undertuned rogue - sneak attack changes to something similar but usually worse, rogue talents never become advanced, and you miss out on all your other features - or one that's a severely undertuned fighter - you need to waste feats on heavy armour, you get fewer of them, and you get all of the level-gated ones later as well as missing out on all your other features - should have made it clear that a vigilante was going to suffer somewhat in combat, and the noncombat abilities - many of which do literally nothing apart from decrease the action cost of switching between forms or the time cost of being able to gain renown, which is required for still others of the abilities in order to make them function (yes this makes them annoying to use, and yes, Grod's Law applies) - fail to pick up the slack.

You can pick up, for example, morphic mask, quick change, immediate change, renown, triumphant return, instant recognition, great renown, and incredible renown, which is eight of your ten social talents, and seven of them do little or nothing more than making your other talents less obnoxious to try to do anything with. The entire renown mechanic is so annoying that I created a character who didn't interact with it at all - which meant she ended up with a list of forgettable social talents, because the most useful ones (Celebrity Discount, Celebrity Perks and In Vogue are all non-trivial WBL-changers and Loyal Aid gives you allies who can do one useful thing per day) all require you to take a deep-dive into the Renown well. Never mind that Renown is completely useless in some campaigns, as you won't have time to become renowned in a new settlement each time you find yourself in one!

tl;dr the "Play two mutually-exclusive characters badly" model doesn't work for magical child, but about 75% of that is just because it doesn't work in general.

[Segev]

Hm. I hadn't really looked at the Vigilante in detail on its own merits, because playing Batman (which it clearly wants to be) never really interested me. (Okay, it also might be "playing El Zoro.") I like the notional effort put into it, and I had actually thought renown looked like fun if you're in an urban-based game, but I can see where you're coming from with most of it being annoying and expensive. Even Magical Child needs two social talents to get to a "stop the world while I transform as battle breaks out" stage, and not until level 13. Having already made it super-obvious when the Magical Child transforms, protecting the secret identity is actually harder.

It's interesting how many of the archetypes are "make your vigilante identity a different sort of class."

I wonder how well it works if you just splash it for a level or two, mainly to get the dual identity thing, and then build a regular character of another class that uses the dual identities as a cover.

I have noticed that, as I come up with concepts, I find myself wishing to make the vigilante identity some other class entirely, and just want to retain the social identity's social talents for flavor reasons.

Does the class not work to augment and complement itself even without archetype? I had thought the main issue was MAgical Child stapling on a familiar and a magic spell set that didn't mesh with each other or the class, outside of conceptual thematics and flavor.

[Sinner's Garden]

Does the class not work to augment and complement itself even without archetype? I had thought the main issue was MAgical Child stapling on a familiar and a magic spell set that didn't mesh with each other or the class, outside of conceptual thematics and flavor.

The mechanics don't even mesh well with the concept and theme. I dare you to find me a magical girl show that relies on a familiar instead of doing all the heavy lifting by hand. They even traced Homura for the character art, and she outright murders her series' mascot characters over and over.

[Gnaeus]

Theming aside.

I think y’all are being a little harsh on this archetype.

Consider for a moment the following familiar at 9th level.

Bat: diminutive. Fly 40 good. Blindsense 20.
Fey Touched Viper: climb 20, swim 20. SR14. Change shape into either the least memorable medium humanoid in the area or Tabaxi. Woodland Stride. Poison. DR 5/cold iron
Small Earth Elemental: tremorsense 60. Earth glide. Dark vision. Immune to bleed, paralysis poison sleep stun, doesn’t breathe, eat or sleep.
Ratling (lots of great options at 7) Climb 20, swim 30. Immune disease, poison. Scroll Use. Sneak attack. Bleed. Constant—detect magic, read magic, speak with animals (rodents only), spider climb, tongues 3/day—cause fear (DC 12), dimension door, invisibility (self only)1/day—summon swarm (rat swarm only)1/week—commune (only when serving as a familiar; 6 questions, CL 12th)
Whole Chassis: DR9/magic, improved evasion, NA +5 empathic link. Share spells. 9*(4+master int) skills. 2 good saves. +6 BAB Bad HP.

Is it the combat beast that an eidolon 9 is? No. But it’s an incredible utility character in its own right. All movement modes, amazing stealth. Amazing senses. Strong divinations. Can retrieve the key from the bottom of the poison lake. And it has a pet which casts 3rd level spells. I don’t think I could beat that with an inquisitor 9, rogue 9 or alchemist 9. Put it in a campaign with an emphasis on politics or mystery or exploration and it looks pretty dominant to me (because you are a vigilante. It’s not meant to go toe to toe with an eidolon any more than a mesmerist is meant to swordfight a magus).

Magical child stats should prioritize int/con, then Cha, then other. Take things like crafting feats (it can use every slot a human can) or shapeless/changeling familiar to give it more forms. Or share feature.

My biggest concern is that it’s really a 9 level class, and after 9 you kind of want to multiclass or PRC into something that gives more HP or skills or a different set of familiar abilities like Shaman (using Boon Companion if needed).

[The Insanity]

Chosen One Paladin makes a better magical child.

[Gnaeus]

Chosen One Paladin makes a better magical child.

Thematically perhaps.
Mechanically I’d rather play the vigilante.

[Segev]

Theming aside.

I think y’all are being a little harsh on this archetype.

Consider for a moment the following familiar at 9th level.

Bat: diminutive. Fly 40 good. Blindsense 20.
Fey Touched Viper: climb 20, swim 20. SR14. Change shape into either the least memorable medium humanoid in the area or Tabaxi. Woodland Stride. Poison. DR 5/cold iron
Small Earth Elemental: tremorsense 60. Earth glide. Dark vision. Immune to bleed, paralysis poison sleep stun, doesn’t breathe, eat or sleep.
Ratling (lots of great options at 7) Climb 20, swim 30. Immune disease, poison. Scroll Use. Sneak attack. Bleed. Constant—detect magic, read magic, speak with animals (rodents only), spider climb, tongues 3/day—cause fear (DC 12), dimension door, invisibility (self only)1/day—summon swarm (rat swarm only)1/week—commune (only when serving as a familiar; 6 questions, CL 12th)
Whole Chassis: DR9/magic, improved evasion, NA +5 empathic link. Share spells. 9*(4+master int) skills. 2 good saves. +6 BAB Bad HP.

Is it the combat beast that an eidolon 9 is? No. But it’s an incredible utility character in its own right. All movement modes, amazing stealth. Amazing senses. Strong divinations. Can retrieve the key from the bottom of the poison lake. And it has a pet which casts 3rd level spells. I don’t think I could beat that with an inquisitor 9, rogue 9 or alchemist 9. Put it in a campaign with an emphasis on politics or mystery or exploration and it looks pretty dominant to me (because you are a vigilante. It’s not meant to go toe to toe with an eidolon any more than a mesmerist is meant to swordfight a magus).

Magical child stats should prioritize int/con, then Cha, then other. Take things like crafting feats (it can use every slot a human can) or shapeless/changeling familiar to give it more forms. Or share feature.

My biggest concern is that it’s really a 9 level class, and after 9 you kind of want to multiclass or PRC into something that gives more HP or skills or a different set of familiar abilities like Shaman (using Boon Companion if needed).

I’m having trouble parsing the stat block. Is that just the familiar, or is the magical child in there, too? What lets the character turn into a nonmemorable humanoid or tabaxi?

Is that the only viable set of familiar choices?

“Theming aside” is fair...ish... but mishmash was that don’t hold coherently are annoying. Especially in RP heavy games like the one you recommend for this build.

What does the dual identity do for this build, and how would you play both sides?

Serious questions, not trying to poke holes. I’m hoping for some inspiration here to rekindle the initial excitement the archetype sparked when I only gave it a surface examination.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Segev
...but mishmash was that don’t hold coherently are annoying.

Can you clarify this point? Your syntax here is somewhere between Yoda and "autocorrect ate my sentence." :smallsmile:

[Segev]

Can you clarify this point? Your syntax here is somewhere between Yoda and "autocorrect ate my sentence." :smallsmile:

A mishmash of athematic elements that doesn't hold together coherently is annoying when placed into anything that expects role-playing and an interesting character.

So, unless it's a game and little else - say, a pure beer-and-pretzels dungeon-crawl - so the character matters little and it's just about what mechanics you can bring to bear, a selection of mechanical options that aren't accompanied by a coherent theme - particularly on a class that's clearly TRYING to be very thematic (even if it fails when you try to use it) - is disappointing to irritating, and won't play well at the table.


That said, I am glad the block I was asking for clarification on brought to my attention the fey-touched familiar. Its Change Shape ability is interesting and odd, and also, if I'm not mistaken, renders Changeling Famliar (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/animal-companion-feats/changeling-familiar-animal-companion-feat/) feat redundant.

[Gnaeus]

I’m having trouble parsing the stat block. Is that just the familiar, or is the magical child in there, too? What lets the character turn into a nonmemorable humanoid or tabaxi?

Is that the only viable set of familiar choices?

“Theming aside” is fair...ish... but mishmash was that don’t hold coherently are annoying. Especially in RP heavy games like the one you recommend for this build.

What does the dual identity do for this build, and how would you play both sides?

Serious questions, not trying to poke holes. I’m hoping for some inspiration here to rekindle the initial excitement the archetype sparked when I only gave it a surface examination.

That’s just the familiar.

Fey touched is a level 3 familiar option that gives an alternate medium humanoid form. Logically that will either be the dominant culture for the region (probably human, but can vary by campaign) or Tabaxi, the mechanically best medium humanoid with its 40 move, good senses and natural attacks.

For 1st level there are lots of good options but bat has both flight and blindsense. Some of the generally good familiar choices become redundant when you get forms that fight/speak/have hands. You could also pick anything that gives a bonus you like.

I think Fey Touched is the overwhelmingly best 3rd level choice. You could take any animal with it that doesn’t duplicate what you got at 1. It’s miles ahead of competition. It’s like leadership at 3rd level. Only reason I would consider anything else would be if I were starting play at 5+ and planning on a 7th level familiar that could be a humanoid, like tripasura.

There are several decent level 5 choices, but small earth Elemental seems best to me for 2 real reasons. It’s a decent combat form that also gives 2 really useful powers that are hard to easily get otherwise. Earth Glide and Tremorsense. But there are some other good ones. I’d say they are about 50/50 good/trash. Brain Mole is another standout.

There are a TON of great level 7 options. I used ratling because I had one in my last game. The D Door and scroll use are amazing. But its really all about what you want it to do and how you want it to interact and preferred alignment. I can’t list all the 7th level improved familiars I like. But for example I wouldn’t take Ratling with Brownie at 5 because both give DDoor.

Personally I would play the familiar as an outgoing daring adventurer and the PC as a bookish support type or borderline coward. Maybe a Pokémon riff. “Rockguy, use Slam Attack!” Or an evil mastermind telling his demon to go find his enemies weaknesses. Functionally it’s probably either a backup caster or absent altogether, giving you a Familiar PC who can be raised in 32 hours with no mechanical or RP problems since you are just sticking the same spirit into a new body. I could also see it played as like a weird dual caster type, spamming buffs or crowd control out of wands from both the Girl and the Familiar (campaign permitting). When I say Theming Aside I really mean that I haven’t seen many magical girl shows that are all about the pet. A 6 progression caster with summoner list is good, but not all that flashy by itself.

In a party that really likes splitting up you can also play in both groups while empathicly knowing if something got scary. Like if the group has a scouting team that really likes going way ahead.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

It's a bad Sailor Moon archetype, but if you ignore the errata nerf it's a great Pokemon Trainer or Digidestined with its evolving super-Familiar

[Psyren]

I also don't think that the vigilante class does its own shtick particularly well before you even get into the archetypes, mind you. Pretending to be a normie by day and having a secret identity at night should just be a skill use with maybe one feat to give you the appropriately huge bonus required to get away with it consistently, rather than requiring a class.

This is my biggest problem with Vigilante by far. A whole class based around a concept that should be class-agnostic never made sense to me.

Magical Child might be viable, but I wouldn't know because I find the base class so off-putting that I never bothered much with it.

[Segev]

That’s just the familiar.

Fey touched is a level 3 familiar option that gives an alternate medium humanoid form. Logically that will either be the dominant culture for the region (probably human, but can vary by campaign) or Tabaxi, the mechanically best medium humanoid with its 40 move, good senses and natural attacks. Yeah, it's much more impressive than I first thought. Like I said, that humanoid form ability seems to really wipe out the usefulness of the changeling familiar feat, or any of the others in its tree (like the one that lets your familiar swap between two forms). Considering Changeling Familiar requires a 9th level caster as a master....


For 1st level there are lots of good options but bat has both flight and blindsense. Some of the generally good familiar choices become redundant when you get forms that fight/speak/have hands. You could also pick anything that gives a bonus you like.

I think Fey Touched is the overwhelmingly best 3rd level choice. You could take any animal with it that doesn’t duplicate what you got at 1. It’s miles ahead of competition. It’s like leadership at 3rd level. Only reason I would consider anything else would be if I were starting play at 5+ and planning on a 7th level familiar that could be a humanoid, like tripasura.Even if you take one that duplicates the level 1, it's decent. All that really means is that you're revealing it's not just a (say) bat, but that it's a fey-touched bat. Now, mechanically, yes, there's an incentive not to stack it like that. At least if you're aiming at higher-level build efficacy. Because when your familiar gains the ability to shift to any form it had "growing up," you effectively lose one form if you make your fey-touched animal the same as the normal animal it started as.

Going with the Tabaxi, though, can't they also turn into cats? So if you take a cat as your base form, then a different fey-touched animal that turns into a Tabaxi, they can still turn into a cat...or maybe not, since I don't think change shape transfers with change shape. Drat.

It's not quite Leadership, though: your humanoid-shaped fey-touched familiar is still mostly the animal, stat-wise, and has no class levels. It's good, but it's not THAT good.

Looking up the tripasura, it's interesting, and begs questions about the nature of Magical Child familiars: is the level 7 for them "true" form? If they have forms of different alignments as they level up (they can, for instance, have a Lawful Neutral familiar and a later Neutral Evil familiar as long as both required only "any lawful" or "any evil" as a prerequisite), was one a lie? Or is the creature something even stranger, and even the level 7 form is something other than what it really is?

Also, there's valid reason to take both "fey-touched" and "tripasura:" That's two distinct humanoid forms at its disposal. So I suppose that makes "Changeling Familiar" valid, too, if you want a third. Though diminishing returns set in fast (hence why you're hesitant to even go for both a tripasura and a fey-touched familiar, for instance).


There are several decent level 5 choices, but small earth Elemental seems best to me for 2 real reasons. It’s a decent combat form that also gives 2 really useful powers that are hard to easily get otherwise. Earth Glide and Tremorsense. But there are some other good ones. I’d say they are about 50/50 good/trash. Brain Mole is another standout.

There are a TON of great level 7 options. I used ratling because I had one in my last game. The D Door and scroll use are amazing. But its really all about what you want it to do and how you want it to interact and preferred alignment. I can’t list all the 7th level improved familiars I like. But for example I wouldn’t take Ratling with Brownie at 5 because both give DDoor. I know you said "theme aside," but since that's about not having solid anime inspiration for it, I have to point out that it feels awkward that it's actively advantageous to make the differing forms as different from each other as possible.

The impression I get is that if there were a story on which this was based, going from (say) cat to fey-touched cat to something else feline or faerie (maybe a brownie?) to a silvanshee agathion (cat-like outsider/fey thing) would be the appropriate sort of progression...if you want "cat" as the core concept. But not only are there relatively few animals that can be familiars that have a good "stop" at every level (even "cat" seems to have a gap at 5th level), but it's actively better, as you point out, once you hit 9th level, if your familiar was as different as possible at each stage, so it has as many different available capabilities as possible.

My gripe is less about no good options (though the alignment restrictions get troublesome), and more about no way to keep it feeling like the same creature, just upgraded, as you progress.


Personally I would play the familiar as an outgoing daring adventurer and the PC as a bookish support type or borderline coward. Maybe a Pokémon riff. “Rockguy, use Slam Attack!” Or an evil mastermind telling his demon to go find his enemies weaknesses. Functionally it’s probably either a backup caster or absent altogether, giving you a Familiar PC who can be raised in 32 hours with no mechanical or RP problems since you are just sticking the same spirit into a new body. I could also see it played as like a weird dual caster type, spamming buffs or crowd control out of wands from both the Girl and the Familiar (campaign permitting). When I say Theming Aside I really mean that I haven’t seen many magical girl shows that are all about the pet. A 6 progression caster with summoner list is good, but not all that flashy by itself.

In a party that really likes splitting up you can also play in both groups while empathicly knowing if something got scary. Like if the group has a scouting team that really likes going way ahead.As to anime... you're not wrong. There's Nanoha, where Yuuno is actually a human boy Nanoha's age but who turns into a ferret for magical healing/recovery purposes, but he could be written out of the story after episode 1 and not really change much, because he kind-of falls by the wayside even in the first series pretty quickly. In Card Captor Sakura, eventually Keroberos winds up with an upgraded form, but I don't think he ever fights much in it. I do think that's probably the actual inspiration, though.

As to playing the familiar as a daring adventurer type with a retiring and shy magical child backup... I suppose that works, but is that even using the vigilante class much at all? Is there a reason to transform if you're just sending your familiar out to do stuff?

And magical girls are usually all about the evocation attacks, but the summoner spell list is pointedly devoid of them, leaving them as...what?

I think "phantom thief" would work, but the super-powered familiar / magical animal friend isn't really a phantom thief trope. When a phantom thief is a magical boy (and usually if there's a magical BOY he's a phantom thief), he's generally a solo act.


It's a bad Sailor Moon archetype, but if you ignore the errata nerf it's a great Pokemon Trainer or Digidestined with its evolving super-FamiliarWhat's the nerf to ignore? I only know the version of the archetype that's on d20pfsrd.com.



Coming up with a magical child who has a useful social identity and a solid reason to pair up with a magical creature and have a secret double life is hard. "Phantom thief" is probably the best one I can come up with, as the magical creature guides them to steal significant items for mystically significant reasons (good or ill). (Thematically stacks reasonably well with Psychometrist: steal the items that are your implements due to their "psychic significance" or something, and it also does basically give up every vigilante talent, so if those don't float your boat, mental focus powers might. The normal, D&D-friendly vigilante types like El Zoro or Batman are definitely not Magical Child archetypes, and are motivated by adventure and the like. Magical girls, traditionally, are Called, and the way Magical Child is set up, it's probably the animal guide who did the Calling (either directly or as a messenger for a higher power).

If a rich gilded-cage kid wants a hidden life of adventure, a normal vigilante class is one he could choose. Or he could just use Disguise without the class feature and go out and use any other class he might have to achieve the double life. The Vigilante's big benefits are the eventual ability to hide even from magical scrying, and the fact that alignment can actively change (allowing one of the personalities to be a false cover for reasons, e.g. a Deadly Decadant Noble who feigns Evil alignment in his social identity when he's really a Neutral person who's disgusted by the villainous depths of his society and acts to save the innocent in his vigilante identity; or a social identity that's a paragon of lawful neutrality, but who sees the corruption at the heart of government and needs to stoop to true LE as a vigilante to scourge it out). The magical child compounds this benefit with a literally magical change. But if you were a bard who has disguise as a skill and simply exploited that, using bardic features to galavant around heroically, you could do much the same, and not be that much easier to be found out.

There are the social talents, some of which are quite spiffy, but as noted, a lot of them are expensive trees if you want to get much out of them.

I have a notion for a magical child who's a well-known performer in upscale opera in the social identity, but who runs off to have fun "in the world" in the vigilante identity. Unfortunately, I keep thinking, "this would work better as a Psion(Nomad) or as a bard." Because while the identity split is thematic, the vigilante identity doesn't add much and those two classes would do more for that side of it. I can't really think of what the familiar is there to draw the magical child to do, nor how to make the vigilante identity useful. Which is annoying with a magical child in particular, since transforming is supposed to give a magical girl most of her powers. But, as discussed, even the spells are not particularly great, because the summoner spell list - while not awful - doesn't really do much for somebody who isn't a summoner (with an eidolon). Moreover, vigilante talents - and summoner spells - can be used in either form. Sure, it "risks exposing the secret," but the transformation therefore does next to nothing. It certainly isn't the power-up that it's supposed to be.

Though...is the familiar's transformation tied to the character's, or can it transform separately? That would be one thing to make transforming necessary, if they're linked. If not, then no.

Also worth noting that the familiar might retain its mundane (first level) form when not transformed; I'm not clear on that.

[Gnaeus]

It's not quite Leadership, though: your humanoid-shaped fey-touched familiar is still mostly the animal, stat-wise, and has no class levels. It's good, but it's not THAT good.

Also, there's valid reason to take both "fey-touched" and "tripasura:" That's two distinct humanoid forms at its disposal. So I suppose that makes "Changeling Familiar" valid, too, if you want a third. Though diminishing returns set in fast (hence why you're hesitant to even go for both a tripasura and a fey-touched familiar, for instance).

I know you said "theme aside," but since that's about not having solid anime inspiration for it, I have to point out that it feels awkward that it's actively advantageous to make the differing forms as different from each other as possible.

The impression I get is that if there were a story on which this was based, going from (say) cat to fey-touched cat to something else feline or faerie (maybe a brownie?) to a silvanshee agathion (cat-like outsider/fey thing) would be the appropriate sort of progression...if you want "cat" as the core concept. But not only are there relatively few animals that can be familiars that have a good "stop" at every level (even "cat" seems to have a gap at 5th level), but it's actively better, as you point out, once you hit 9th level, if your familiar was as different as possible at each stage, so it has as many different available capabilities as possible.

My gripe is less about no good options (though the alignment restrictions get troublesome), and more about no way to keep it feeling like the same creature, just upgraded, as you progress..

Ok. How would you rate a character with 10 hp. 5 skills at 3rd rank. SR 8, DR3 magic. +3 base reflex and will. Improved evasion. Woodland stride. Speed 40. Claw claw bite attack routine. Dark vision. Low light vision. Scent. Who could turn into a flying superstealth beast with blindsense. I’ve seen PCs worse than that. Stats (from bat) wash out to: Str 9, Dex 11, Con 6, Int 7, Wis 14, Cha 5. BAB +2. And you could pick a level 3 form for better stats if you wanted. When you consider the low level utility of at will flight and blindsense and a stealth in the 20s, I wouldn’t be mad to have that guy in my party. It’s not a great 3rd level PC. But its hardly useless. And if you could somehow get leadership at 3 your cohort would be first level, and I’d love to have that guy in my first level group. He can open doors and feed people potions.

Yeah, my daughter had the same gripe with her fox girl. I let her refluff some stuff from cat to fox but that only goes so far, and you absolutely want 4 Familiar’s as different as possible, with a melee form, stealth form, social form, casting form, and every movement rate. It’s like reading the guide for Shugenja that points out how if the rules allow you to take an order outside your element you should absolutely always take one from the opposing element because anything else comparatively sucks.

OTOH how is this different from anything else in 3.PF. It isn’t like you are comparatively worse off in a group with tight theming where all your forms are cat based than a sorcerer with all fire or necromancy spells. Magical Girl has weak theming anyway, it’s not like you couldn’t write some back story about how you are unlocking 4 tribal ancestor spirits in the order that your ancestor encountered them at the dawn of time. (When I grew up I was protected only by the spirit of my family. But then I realized that my spirit as an adult was as that of the otter who walks. As I learned my role I discovered that my birth connected me with the power of the earth, which governs winter. Finally, as I communed with the power of the gods directly I channeled their servant, the (insert insane outsider familiar here).

My plan was just to make Sailor Scout Steve who looks like Brian Blessed and when he transforms looks like Brian Blessed in a skirt and tiara and spend 20 levels laughing about how stupid everyone was not to know that Sailor Scout Steve was obviously Steve. But you do you.

[Sinner's Garden]

Magical girls, traditionally, are Called, and the way Magical Child is set up, it's probably the animal guide who did the Calling (either directly or as a messenger for a higher power).

But if you were a bard who has disguise as a skill and simply exploited that, using bardic features to galavant around heroically, you could do much the same, and not be that much easier to be found out.

I have a notion for a magical child who's a well-known performer in upscale opera in the social identity, but who runs off to have fun "in the world" in the vigilante identity. Unfortunately, I keep thinking, "this would work better as a Psion(Nomad) or as a bard."

Which is annoying with a magical child in particular, since transforming is supposed to give a magical girl most of her powers. But, as discussed, even the spells are not particularly great, because the summoner spell list - while not awful - doesn't really do much for somebody who isn't a summoner (with an eidolon). Moreover, vigilante talents - and summoner spells - can be used in either form. Sure, it "risks exposing the secret," but the transformation therefore does next to nothing. It certainly isn't the power-up that it's supposed to be.


You're going to run into some amount of conflict no matter what you do, because Dungeons and Dragons is a swords and sorcery dungeon crawler. Magical girls are a completely different genre. My suggestion would be to use a completely different game for the mechanics, one that actually supports the concept. If you're really in love with the D&D brand, I heard 4e is weirdly good if you play it as a mecha/MG game, which are two genres that are much closer together.

My second suggestion is to run it as a cleric or a sorcerer. That's way more magical girl than Magical Child Vigilante is.

And yes, "technically" Vigilante is a Pathfinder class, but since Pathfinder was sold and designed as a continuation of D&D3, that's not a distinction of any measurable value, and the same basic concepts apply.

[Seginus]

The mechanics don't even mesh well with the concept and theme. I dare you to find me a magical girl show that relies on a familiar instead of doing all the heavy lifting by hand. They even traced Homura for the character art, and she outright murders her series' mascot characters over and over.




When I say Theming Aside I really mean that I haven’t seen many magical girl shows that are all about the pet. A 6 progression caster with summoner list is good, but not all that flashy by itself.

As to anime... you're not wrong. There's Nanoha, where Yuuno is actually a human boy Nanoha's age but who turns into a ferret for magical healing/recovery purposes, but he could be written out of the story after episode 1 and not really change much, because he kind-of falls by the wayside even in the first series pretty quickly. In Card Captor Sakura, eventually Keroberos winds up with an upgraded form, but I don't think he ever fights much in it. I do think that's probably the actual inspiration, though.


The class is almost certainly based on Cardcaptor Sakura. The Clow Cards are all essentially summons (hence the summoner spell list) and Keroberos covers the transforming familiar.

[Segev]

As a somewhat humorous aside, a Psychometrist Magical Child could take the Evocation implement school and gain an energy blast attack. Not at-will, but it wouldn’t eat spell slots, either, using a separate resource.

As to “play a different game,” I think that is missing the point. I do t have “a magical girl concept” that I’m trying to make. I’m trying to decide what motivates a magical child to need the dual identities and what the familiar’s place is. It seems most natural to have the familiar be the source for the call to the magical child’s adventure, but it could be something else.

What spurs a character to be a vigilante of the magical child archetype rather than a different sort of vigilante, or a summoner proper, or a witch or wizard with improved familiar?

If we start with the social identity as someone who could instead be a bard with the celebrity archetype, what makes a magical child a better narrative choice for their adventuring career?

I’m fishing for ideas, here, not complaining or asking rhetorically with an expectation that there is no good answer. (And I appreciate all the discussion so far. Thank you all.)

[EldritchWeaver]

Maybe using Spheres of Power would be an option? I think it has options which are closer to your magical vision than the vigilante allows. For simple identity switch Shifting Disguise (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/alteration#toc77) is usable. For a familiar with more combat capability the Conjuration (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/conjuration) sphere is a good match. You can upgrade your familiar organically. It also can be summoned for an entire day (and dismissable/recallable for no costs), if you spend the additional talents. There are also some (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/masked-adept) vigilante (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/possessed) archetypes (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/hidden-master), which might be of interest if not outright switching the class is preferred. There are a lot of classes and archetypes which allow using SoP, so possibly something represents the magical girl better.

[StSword]

If looking to do the magical girl thing with vigilante and spheres of power, one doesn't even need an archetype, there's the Enigma specialization (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/vigilante-talents#toc8) that covers X-men style mutations as supernatural powers that can be augmented with sphere effects that are bought as mutation talents.

For example an Enigma Vigilante could buy the light daggers talent, which allows them to throw daggers made out of light, and can be augmented with blast type or light talents from spheres of power.

Or at least that would cover magical girl types whose magic is within a theme. I wouldn't claim to be an expert on the genre but the magic powers being theme based seems fairly common in my experience.

[AvatarVecna]

It's interesting how many of the archetypes are "make your vigilante identity a different sort of class."

I mean...at the end of the day, if what you want from D&D is "superhero game"...even if you're not just inherently disappointed by how thin the line can be between "street level" and "cosmic defender", "any superhero: the class" is kinda just generally bad class design, because a superhero can be basically anything. Either you'll end up with a class that can't accurately replicate being a superhero, or you'll end up with a class that can, and it's effectively "build your own class", because that's what it would have to be to succeed at its design goal. That kind of build flexibility has to be carefully managed and the more potential builds there are, the harder it is to assume things will end up balanced enough. Realistically, you'd need a mechanical archetype for every classic kind of superhero, and honestly you'd still be missing out on tons and tons of weirdos if you did that - which Vigilante very much misses out on. This is a similar complaint you'll see for something like Evolutionist (which is "any monster: the homebrew class") - that it's too flexible, and that regardless of how balanced any particular build might be compared to its core contemporary, the fact that it can be built in such a way as to compete with any class is probably bad design in and of itself.

Incidentally, however, this issue of Vigilante, where it's fluff is so generic that its super-flexible mechanics still can't really live up to the hype, has a similar advantage to Evolutionist: it's absurdly valuable in gestalt, primarily because that supreme flexibility makes it far less likely that you're going to end up with overlapping features you can't get rid of.