Pathfinder Is Still Bad

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 9:19 am

I could imagine the Vigilante concept working if you were willing to go full camp and do the Green Hornet thing where you explicitly didn't call your companions different names when you were in costume and not.

Like, your other team members could be really obviously the same people when you changed outfits, and people in the world wouldn't be able to figure it out. But even then I'm not sure how much any of that matters when you're fighting a demon worm in the ruins of an ancient temple.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 9:32 am

What specific pop-culture characters are supposed to be represented by the Vigilante? The word makes me think of Batman and the Punisher. Which are basically low-level guys with a bunch of gear (in the former case, a Sneak Attacker with shuriken/boomerangs, and a utility belt that lets them do a bunch of low-level effects like climbing and shark-repelling. In the latter case, a guy who wanders around with a pair of SMGs and just shoots everyone).

Is there something I'm obviously missing that can in fact bring more than "fancy gear" to the party, that actually has their own shtick that could work as a character?

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 10:09 am

The Crow, maybe?

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 10:41 am

The Crow's a Revenant, he doesn't have a two-way transformation sequence.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 12:51 pm

The Vigilante is like four classes in one, where you take a specialization that gives you a talent tree that blah blah blah. The point is that there's a Wizard-lite, a Cleric-lite, a Fighter-lite, and a Rogue-lite variant. And they do various shit and no one fucking cares. I believe it to be intended that people make parties entirely out of Ultimate Intrigue classes despite the fact that this is stupid because the book is bad.

As to which comic or folkloric characters you can make a shitty Pathfinder version out of with the Vigilante class, I dunno. It depends on what kind of talents they end up putting in the final version. I wouldn't bet money against being able to be a craptastic Hulk though.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 1:03 pm

Which is weird, because if someone asked me "How can I be (a shitty version of) The Hulk in Pathfinder?", I would point them towards the Alchemist, a class that already fucking exists in Pathfinder. They'd do the Jekyll & Hide thing, which is rather an influence on The Hulk.

Slade · Post by **Slade** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 3:27 pm

I can name multiple:
The Shadow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow
Shadowhawk loosely:
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/s/shadhawk.htm
Fallout 4 has the The Silver Shroud
The Phantom
The Whistler radio/films.
The Spider

Most had radio shows in the past. The Shadow was the inspiration for Batman.
You can also include for spellcasting side: Mandrake the Magician. Most of his magic comes from his magical cloak, hat, and wand though.

Lurky Lurkpants · Post by **Lurky Lurkpants** » Sat Apr 09, 2016 3:50 pm

The final version of the Vigilante changed a bit. It is now two standard class options (Avenger=Fighter, Stalker=Rogue) with Archetypes for Barbarian, Magus, Gunslinger, Summoner, Cavalier, Occultist, other Magus, Wildshaping Druid, and Inquisitor. Even when obviously based on certain heroes these are mostly horrendously weak, for example Spider Man getting webslinging at level 18. The Vigilante Talents are actually pretty good (for Fighter/Slayer/Rogue type stuff), but anything with casting trades most of them away to make sure you aren't actually good at anything.

As for what you can play: the social abilities are pretty tiny and built on chains. In terms of money you can get a small discount on inexpensive items, cheap gifts, or a bit more money from mundane crafting. The real money is in the Vigilante Talent "Returning Weapon," which at level 14 allows you to have infinite magical batarangs if you bought a set of 50. There is no mention of not giving them away or selling them so this is technically infinite money, but I can't imagine anyone, anywhere, ever allowing you to pull that.

FrankTrollman wrote:I wouldn't bet money against being able to be a craptastic Hulk though.

Ding ding ding! The very first archetype is "Brute," which trades out your Specialization (and good Ref/Will for good Fort) for the awe inspiring power of... large size. That doesn't resize your gear and can damage or destroy it. With all the penalties from a Barbarian Rage. Also you need to make a Will save to not Hulk Out when threatened or to not attack your allies after a fight. Passing forcibly transforms you back and takes an entire minute.

But don't worry! You can use your Talents for stuff like climbing, Monk damage, and resizing your weapon and armor like normal when you grow (with penalties, of course).

GâtFromKI · Post by **GâtFromKI** » Sun Apr 10, 2016 10:46 am

Koumei wrote:What specific pop-culture characters are supposed to be represented by the Vigilante? The word makes me think of Batman and the Punisher. Which are basically low-level guys with a bunch of gear (in the former case, a Sneak Attacker with shuriken/boomerangs, and a utility belt that lets them do a bunch of low-level effects like climbing and shark-repelling. In the latter case, a guy who wanders around with a pair of SMGs and just shoots everyone).

Is there something I'm obviously missing that can in fact bring more than "fancy gear" to the party, that actually has their own shtick that could work as a character?

You're missing Paizo's new class design process:
1/ Choose any fictional archetype.
2/ Find a bunch of special abilities associated with the archetype.
3/ Spread those abilities over 20 levels.
4/ ??? (*)
5/ Profit.

The initial archetype may be low-level, it isn't relevant: he will gain "has a batarang" or "doesn't provoke when throwing a batarang" as his level 20 ability, while some other class may gain "is able to create a new world".

(*) I guess this step involves cool arts.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Apr 10, 2016 10:58 am

You're right, I need to remember the whole "a level 11 Wizard can gain three new ways to summon demons while a Fighter gets -1 ACP, +1 Max Dex with armour, and the ability to SICKEN a target on a critical hit" thing.

But still, I was kind of hoping there was some kind of folklore or something that the Vigilante could really work with, where you could actually see it putting a series of relevant abilities on the sheet alongside the weird thing where nobody knows who you are when you put the mask on.

Slade · Post by **Slade** » Sun Apr 10, 2016 2:52 pm

Lurky Lurkpants wrote:
Ding ding ding! The very first archetype is "Brute," which trades out your Specialization (and good Ref/Will for good Fort) for the awe inspiring power of... large size. That doesn't resize your gear and can damage or destroy it. With all the penalties from a Barbarian Rage. Also you need to make a Will save to not Hulk Out when threatened or to not attack your allies after a fight. Passing forcibly transforms you back and takes an entire minute.

But don't worry! You can use your Talents for stuff like climbing, Monk damage, and resizing your weapon and armor like normal when you grow (with penalties, of course).

Yeah, the Brute specific talents are pretty bad.
But the sizing thing stacks with enlarge person (because the Brute's change isn't magical only magical size changes don't stack).

So carrying large weapons/armor in backpack, change size, put on.
When about to be in battle, drink potion:
Boom, huge size, huge gear, no penalties, other than normal size ones.

Only issue is if forced to change size when asleep, then you can accidently grow.

Thinking about it: Titan Mauler works well if carrying non-large stuff because it lowers penalty for wrong size stuff. But it would be smarter to just buy a large weapon and carry it till change.

The only benefit for the Brute size talent is random found gear which won't be large when found. Even then isn't there a sizing enhancement?

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sun Apr 10, 2016 3:53 pm

Slade wrote:But the sizing thing stacks with enlarge person (because the Brute's change isn't magical only magical size changes don't stack).

So carrying large weapons/armor in backpack, change size, put on.
When about to be in battle, drink potion:
Boom, huge size, huge gear, no penalties, other than normal size ones.

Nope.

crb FAQ wrote:As per the rules on size changes, size changes do not stack, so if you have multiple size changing effects (for instance an effect that increases your size by one step and another that increases your size by two steps), only the largest applies. The same is true of effective size increases (which includes “deal damage as if they were one size category larger than they actually are,” “your damage die type increases by one step,” and similar language). They don’t stack with each other, just take the biggest one. However, you can have one of each and they do work together (for example, enlarge person increasing your actual size to Large and a bashing shield increasing your shield’s effective size by two steps, for a total of 2d6 damage).

FAQratta changed it into all size changes not stacking.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sun Apr 10, 2016 5:43 pm

malak wrote:Did anyone here read or play the Hell's Vengeance AP? It says it's 'Paizo's first Adventure Path designed for evil characters' on the tin...

Someone in my group wants to run that. I'm predicting disaster because he's a paranoid delusional (no seriously, he's on permanent disability for it) who seems unable to understand written text (for example, thinking the clause in Pathfinder where you can tuble at full speed with a -10 penalty means he can do a full attack after moving more than 5 feet), also this group in general tends to be juvenile in their portrayal of, well anything. Like the time we played Way of the Wicked and I created a world view of why my character is Asmodean in ways that didn't use game terms (a bit of LeVayan satanism, a touch of Ayn Rand, and a dash of /pol/ for flavor). Everyone else played baby-eating lunatics with no coherent ideology.

Lurky Lurkpants · Post by **Lurky Lurkpants** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 5:02 pm

malak wrote:Did anyone here read or play the Hell's Vengeance AP? It says it's 'Paizo's first Adventure Path designed for evil characters' on the tin...

A bit late, but having paged through the two released volumes it it doesn't seem overly remarkable. I'll admit to liking the APs (at minimum as starting points and guidelines to a campaign), and this one is as good as any. I didn't notice any particular evil yet, you could palette swap the good guys for bad guys and devils for angels and have a "good" AP, but it doesn't appear uniquely great or terrible.

The one issue I'd point out is that it is very much a "Lawful Evil" campaign but starts with disjointed "Chaotic Evil" actions. I know, alignment is gibberish, but what I mean by this is that you are supposed to be very keen on serving House Thrune and Cheliax but start off committing random crimes your fixer swears are totally legit. So characters need to be made to deal with that.

The "Evil Iconics" Paizo has been putting out and padding the books with are only half acceptable, though. The Tiefling and Inquisitor of Zon-Kuthon seem to just gosh darn love murder and would be fine for anything. However the Cleric of Asmodeus and Hellknight would probably have issues with the first adventure, and Urgraz the Antipaladin is every reason you can't allow some people to play CE wrapped up in a neat little package and would be horrifically disruptive.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 5:32 pm

Oh shit, Urgraz is supposed to be an example PC? I thought he was an antagonist. Yeah, that's fucking stupid, then.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 6:29 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Like the time we played Way of the Wicked and I created a world view of why my character is Asmodean in ways that didn't use game terms (a bit of LeVayan satanism, a touch of Ayn Rand, and a dash of /pol/ for flavor). Everyone else played baby-eating lunatics with no coherent ideology.

I'm starting to think that White Wolf's terrified opinion that any player who wants the morality Path in Vampire actually just wants to eat babies and fuck animals may have something going for it...

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Tue May 10, 2016 1:08 am

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/variant-m ... shic-magic

This...this isn't what I think it is, is it?

There were people who liked incarnum that much?

Axebird · Post by **Axebird** » Tue May 10, 2016 2:37 am

It's exactly what you think it is, and it has basically all of the same problems.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Tue May 10, 2016 3:13 am

Dreamscarred Press's whole gimmick/market niche is reproducing late 3.5 shovel ware material that the Char Op crowd liked and slapping a Pathfinder logo on it.

They did PP Psionics, they did Weeaboo Fightan Magic, they did Tome of Blue. The only reason they didn't make a Binder ripoff is they were beat to the punch by another 3PP.

Axebird · Post by **Axebird** » Tue May 10, 2016 5:50 am

They usually do a pretty solid job of it, and put out material that's reasonably playable and fun. They do a lot of public playtests and unlike Paizo actually pay attention to the feedback they get.

But the actual company is only like two people. Their recent expansion and increase in projects is a result of hiring a bunch of freelancers, some of whom are... better than others. Michael Sayre, who did Akashic Magic and is working on Arcforge (basically just sci-fi mechs slapped into the middle of D&D) runs playtests as advertisement and ignores arguments against his personal taste. He also seems incapable of having a single interesting design idea, since Akashic Magic doesn't adjust the mechanics of Incarnum in any way to make it more playable (you still have to fuck with a ton of individual slots and binding your pseudo-gear and junk in addition to shuffling points around) and all his mech stuff literally runs off of slightly adjusted pre-existing mechanics for things like animal companions.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Tue May 10, 2016 6:30 am

Ah, Dreamscarred Press. Thought it was Paizo for a minute there.

Back to stacking all the +2 bonuses to evil spells on a guy with 2 diabolist levels and adding dazing spell to juggle everyone to death.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Tue May 10, 2016 10:59 am

CapnTthePirateG wrote:There were people who liked incarnum that much?

On the old wizards boards, "Magic of Incarnum is so good it needs its own forum" was a thing people unironically put in their sigs.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue May 10, 2016 4:52 pm

Magic of Incarnum is the only implementation of a good resource management mechanic that is under used even in most computer RPGs, much less in Table Top.

So even though it is a terrible implementation, and the actual abilities are total shit, and the fluff is garbage flavored garbage, people who are not capable of distinguishing these things have good feelings about all of Magic of Incarnum because of that.

Pixels · Post by **Pixels** » Wed May 11, 2016 4:45 pm

The reason Char Op people liked it was that it was very dippable. You could pick up a soulmeld with a feat; they were such a grab bag of abilities that you could usually find something useful.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Wed May 11, 2016 7:05 pm

Pixels wrote:The reason Char Op people liked it was that it was very dippable. You could pick up a soulmeld with a feat; they were such a grab bag of abilities that you could usually find something useful.

This is what I usually see. People seem to like the 1-level dip in Totemist for 4 natural attacks, or 1 feat for Planar Ward (I think) to become immune to some mind control, or 1 feat for Blink Shirt so you get short-range puzzle circumvention.

I also think the structure of MoI helps scratch the optimizer's itch. I remember my first time reading MoI and thinking "There are options! With sub-options! And numbers I can move around!" Those complications are terrible for most people, but I think they're fun for some.