I Am Vengeance, I Am The Night
or, Concealing Your Identity for Fun and Profit
Introduced in Ultimate Intrigue, the vigilante is a mechanical implementation of the masked hero. Far more than that, though, it represents arguably one of the most versatile classes ever implemented. Able to fill any role, be played with just about any race, and be used for almost any kind of build, all while being distinct from almost every class that does the same thing. Almost. But of course, you can do that with a lot of classes and a lot of archetypes, so what makes the vigilante so special? Well for one, it’s balls to the wall powerful. Almost all of the vigilante talents that make this class so modular have some niche that they can fill. Almost. In a lot of cases they’re also more powerful than the features of a similar class, or are a feat on steroids, or several feats packaged together. Aside from that, there’s some pretty interesting flavor in having a secret identity packaged into your class. It is, however, completely optional; none, and I mean none of your class features except for the ability to avoid being scryed are dependent on keeping your identities separate from one another. So without further ado, let’s take a closer look.
Fun with Colors
Purple: Holy shitsnacks this is amazing. Like for seriously for reals if you have this as an option and you don’t take it you’re an idiot.
Blue: This is a pretty great thing. If it’s a talent then you probably want it, if it’s a class feature then try not to trade it out. The difference between purple and blue is, purple is a great choice for anyone, while blue is a great choice for certain general builds.
Green: Decent choice. If you have a free talent lying around then this is good to pick up.
Yellow: Yellows can have their uses, and with the right build could potentially work, but other options are better.
Red: No, nope, never, not gonna happen. These are either visibly worthless, or complete traps. Do not take under any circumstances.
What Makes You S.P.E.C.I.A.L.
Strength: The vigilante excels in melee combat over ranged, so Strength can be an excellent choice as your to-hit and damage stat. Of course, weapon finesse is always an option, but before you go dumping it into the dirt in favor of Dexterity, take a gander at the talents, particularly the one for weapon finesse. Keeping your Strength at least moderately decent is going to usually be the wiser course.
Dexterity: Given that you get medium armor and have a good Reflex save, you can leave your Dex at a fairly moderate level and not have to worry much. That being said, your initiative and stealth modifiers both still scale off of it, so don’t disregard Dex completely. If going for Weapon Finesse or a ranged build, of course, you want it as high as you can possibly get it.
Constitution: You have a d8 hit die and a bad Fort save. If you die and your Con score was below a 14 then don’t blame me because I warned you. If ranged, you can probably get away with a 12.
Intelligence: As skillsy as you already are you really don’t need Int. A 10-12 should be all you really need, and an 8 isn’t entirely out of the question unless you need those skills. However, there are a couple of specializations/archetypes that scale off of Int. For those you want a base 14-16.
Wisdom: Save stat, do not dump under any circumstances. You get Perception and Sense Motive as class skills, so putting an errant 12 here can be a wise (hah) choice. If you’re playing a Zealot, bump that up to a 14-16, because that becomes your casting stat.
Charisma: As a general rule, unless you’re a casting specialization or a Psychometrist this is going to be your mental stat of choice. You get all face skills as class skills and your social identity pretty much has to be built around being well liked. You don’t really need it to be higher than a 14, but if you’re a Magical Child then it’ll eventually have to go to 16, as your casting stat. All that being said, you can actually reasonably get away with dumping Charisma into the ground in favor of Wisdom or Intelligence, because while those features exist you don’t have to make use of them to be a strong vig.
Final Verdict: Wow that’s some varied colors, and with good reason too. As I said in the foreword, vigilantes are extremely versatile, and can hit just about any kind of combination of skills and ability scores for just about any role. The usual “This over this over this” ranking doesn’t quite work here as a result, so instead we can express it as:
Physical: Attacking stat>Constitution>non-attacking stat
Mental: Focus/Casting>the other two
Anyone Can Be a Hero
*Note: I will only be looking at a race’s base class features. Examining all ARTs would probably drive me insane.
**Another note: At times, I’m going to harshly criticize a race. I want to make a disclaimer that it’s merely in comparison to the other races. As a general rule, the vigilante is a strong enough class that you can use just about any race and expect to do reasonably well.
Core Races
Dwarf: With ability bumps in what are most of the time going to be your secondary stats and a penalty to your most likely preferred mental score, the dwarves are unfortunately not well suited to most vigilante-ing. They make good Zealots though, and medium armor proficiency makes Slow and Steady worthwhile, so don’t dismiss them completely out of hand. Their favored class bonus is a boost to Craft skills, and while the vigilante is surprisingly well equipped for those you’re probably better off with another skill point or HP.
Elf: Con penalties are painful for us, but we can manage. Elves excel as Psychometrists, Warlocks and Cabalists with their Int and Dex buffs and bonuses for magic, and can do well in the other specializations too if they put their minds to it. Favored class is a +1/3 to Acrobatics, Climb and Stealth in forested areas, which is great if you plan to be in such areas a lot, but the vig is pretty well and truly designed for urban campaigns and environments.
Gnome: The bonus to Charisma is great, and to Constitution is welcome. The size bonuses are also very handy, making up a little for your BAB problems. Racial traits are a little meh other than darkvision, but workable. What really pops for gnomes is probably the only genuinely good alternate favored class bonuses, a +1/2 bonus to Bluff when telling a lie that would be true from the point of view of your current identity. This means that, for instance, if a gnomish Catwoman stole a diamond, it would be easier for Selina Kyle to claim she has no idea what happened to it.
Half-elf: Floating ability score bonus, a free Skill Focus, Keen Senses, and elven immunities are all solid reasons to take half-elf. Their alternate favored class bonus isn’t terrible either, with a ½ bonus to seamless guise’s Disguise bonus. It starts out at a +20, which is already insane, but if going for the Many Guises route (and you should be) then every little bit should help.
Half-orc: Once again, a floating ability score bonus. You get a great bonus to intimidate, Orc Ferocity as a just in case, and darkvision. The only thing that falls flat is the favored class bonus, which increases your DC to be Intimidated. I can genuinely count on one hand how many times I’ve been intimidated at as a PC my years of playing.
Halfling: I’m sorry, I can’t take this seriously. Halflings do make great vigilantes, of course, having bonuses to two very good ability scores, the all important size bonuses, better saves, good racial skill bonuses, and a pretty decent favored class bonus (more social talents, always good), but I can’t get the concept of “The Hobbit of Justice” out of my head and it makes me giggle too hard whenever I think of it.
Human: What’s this? Humans are blue? I can scarcely believe it. Bonus feat, more skills, floating ability score bump. As usual, this leads to human being a good choice for just about any build. Their favored class bonus is the same as half-elf, which is mostly annoying because it limits the half-elf’s options.
Featured Races
Aasimar: Thanks to variant heritages I’m pretty sure there’s nothing an aasimar isn’t good at. Particularly good choices are Angel-blooded for alter self and Azata-blooded for glitterdust, two very good spell-like abilities, along with both having good ability score modifiers for just about any build. Peri-blooded can also be a flavorful choice, using pyrotechnics for some flare as you heroically leave the scene.
Catfolk: Dex and Charisma boosts, and you have the setup to deal with a Wisdom penalty. The lack of Darkvision is painful, but Natural Hunter makes up for it somewhat.
Dhampir: Another variant heritages race. Spell-like abilities are all generally mediocre, but you have a good spread of potential ability score bumps. A dhampir vigilante could also be really, really cool flavor. All that being said, I can’t in good conscience give them the blue, because most parties aren’t going to be well equipped to heal with negative energy. If you can handle that, we get bumped to blue for good ability scores and good flavor.
Drow: Everything we liked about elves but with the best darkvision in the game, spell resistance and spell-like abilities thrown in. On the downside, light blindness, so try and time your vigilante activities for night time. Of course, most GMs won’t allow drow, but some might be cool with it, so if they do feel free to go full edgelord.
Fetchling: I’m beginning to suspect Paizo has a fetish for swashbucklers with all of these +Dex/+Cha races. As a vigilante you like fighting in the shadows, so a fetchling is kind of perfect for you thematically. Shadow Blending is a solid situational buff, and bonuses to stealth are always welcome.
Goblin: Okay so try and convince me that a goblin doesn’t make the most hilarious vigilante ever. A +4 bonus to Dexterity, but with penalties to Charisma and Strength. The Charisma penalty admittedly hurts, but you’re also going to be the stealthiest jerk in the room, with a +4 size bonus, +4 racial bonus and an insane Dexterity score to your name. If you’re absolutely set on a goblin vig, go for Stalker, and reap those guaranteed Hidden Strikes.
Hobgoblin: Do you want to be a Medium sized goblin with no Cha penalty, but a more moderate Dexterity bonus? Mechanically and flavorfully I think playing a goblin is just more fun than a hobgoblin for vigilante.
Ifrit: There’s that Dexterity/Charisma boost again, with Wisdom as a livable penalty. They like Charisma too for their spell-like ability. Good choice for a fire-themed vigilante, but otherwise I feel like there are better ones out there.
Kobold: The kobold anything is adorable, but the insane penalty to Strength, plus a penalty to Constitution, in exchange for all of a +2 Dex… yeah that hurts. And they don’t get anything really good as a racial feature to compensate.
Orc: As a vig, you like your mental scores, and penalties across the board to all of them is almost as bad as the kobold’s penalties. There’s legitimately no reason to pick this over a half-orc, just put your +2 in Strength and the lack of Int/Wis/Cha penalties will balance out your point buy. Plus in terms of flavor, can you actually imagine an orc being subtle enough to be a vigilante?
Oread: Charisma penalties are unpleasant, but Strength and Wisdom make for a good Zealot. I hate that Oreads are slow instead of slow and steady, but hey, only so much you can do.
Ratfolk: I’ll admit it, I have a soft spot for ratfolk. That being said, +Dex/+Int makes for a good Psychometrist/Warlock/Cabalist.
Sylph: Same ability scores as elves, but we have Darkvision now, and 1/day feather fall isn’t too shabby for getting the drop on someone.
Tengu: Dex and Wis at the expense of Constitution. Good for a Zealot, and decent for just about anything else. You also get stealth and perception bonuses, some really nice exotic weapon choices, and a bite attack. No darkvision though, which sucks, and a Con penalty will never not be painful.
Tiefling: Another day, another variants race. The spread of ability modifiers and spell-like abilities is actually really good, and just about any tiefling variant can be useful. On top of that is a racial bonus to Bluff and Stealth, two of your favorite skills, and darkvision.
Undine: What a surprise, a green rated geniekin. Dex and Wis at the expense of Strength is excellent, and hydraulic push is a decent spell-like ability.
Uncommon Races
Changeling: I want to rate changelings higher, but I can’t. As a +Wis/+Cha race, they have no bonuses to hit, which is important because at the end of the day in combat they’re a martial class. Even if you take a casting specialization, they’re all 6th level casters. You simply don’t get enough spells per day or high enough DCs to get away with being nothing but casting. The only way you can really get away with it is as an Avenger, using your full BAB to your advantage. I will also make one exception to my alternate racial trait rule for Witchborn, only because the only thing it does is change your Wisdom bonus to an Intelligence bonus allowing you to be a Warlock, and take advantage of targeting touch starting at level 5. You can also possibly get away with a Dazzling Display based Stalker. But at the end of the day, there are so many more better choices.
Duergar: On the one hand, enlarge person and invisibility on self once per day and superior darkvision. On the other, -4 Charisma and light sensitivity. You also have the dwarf’s problem of mainly secondary stats getting a bonus. Take them with a grain of salt.
Gillman: The water restriction makes gillmen always red forever. Even in an underwater campaign, you suffer from a similar problem to changelings (although without the con penalty) in lacking any racial boosts to hit people.
Grippli: Yay frogmen. +Dex/+Wis/-Str is a good ability spread. Unfortunately all of their racial bonuses are only good for swamps and forests, leaving them in the dust behind most other races, but if you want to be small and use a net, this is the race for you!
Kitsune: The Swashbuckler Special for ability score bonuses. Kitsune have one particularly excellent bonus that makes them seem fun to play: Change Shape. Aside from the obvious roleplay benefits of having two forms built into your race as well as class, you can grab Fox Shape, Realistic Likeness and the Many Guises line to become the ultimate master of disguise. As an added bonus, PFS legal! Update: As of Blood of the Beast, Kitsune now has a vigilante FCB, to add ½ bonus to Seamless Guise. We already established, not bad but not really worth it.
Merfolk: A bonus to an attack stat, Constitution and Charisma? Bonus natural armor and immune to tripping? This sounds ama-bahaha I can’t even finish that. You have 5 feet of movement speed. You’re going absolutely nowhere. Even if you dip into the alternate racial traits (yes I’m breaking the rule again so sue me) you can only get up to 15, and that’s frigging painful.
(per reddit user /u/BetaSprite’s suggestion, merfolk can make an excellent Mounted Fury, as the mount can make up for the lack of movement speed. You can also see if you can get your GM to let you get a Permanencied Fins to Feet at some point, although that requires fiat. Either of these suggestions brings the merfolk up to green.)
Nagaji: Strength and Charisma, which I like, at the cost of Intelligence, which I only really care about for certain specializations? You had me at hello. You also get bonuses against poison to help make up for that Fort save. Even without darkvision, nagaji make for a good choice.
Samsaran: Remember all the problems we had with changelings? That hasn’t suddenly stopped being a problem, and now we don’t even get a Wisdom bonus. Of course, Mystic Past Life can change things here.
Strix: We’re only getting a Dexterity bump here, and it’s at the cost of Charisma which hurts, but on the other hand, Darkvision, bonuses to stealth in the darkness, the most useful racial hatred in the game, and oh, did I mention the god damned 60 foot fly speed? The only downside here is that no GM will allow you to play a strix, mostly because of the god damned 60 foot fly speed.
Suli: Same ability scores as a nagaji. Instead of Darkvision and bonuses against poison, we resist every energy type, racial bonus to some face based skills, and for a round/level, you can add +1d6 of any energy type to any melee attack you do. So… yeah pretty much just as good if not better.
Svirfneblin: Your Charisma gets completely dumpstered, in addition to a Strength penalty and Dex and Wis bonuses. In exchange, you get insane bonuses to AC, saving throws and stealth; 120’ Darkvision; constant nondetection and blindness/deafness, blur and disguise self 1/day; and really, really good spell resistance, considering how bad PC spell resistance options are. You will almost never be allowed to play a svirfneblin, that goes without saying, but if you can, they’re an amazing race in general, and the spell-like abilities compliment vigilantes in general.
Vanara: A Charisma penalty in favor of Dex and Wis, and the only thing they really have going for them is their prehensile tail which, RAW, is only good for swift action item retrieval. Pass.
Vishkanya: Dexterity and Charisma in exchange for Wisdom, which is good as usual. You also get bonuses to perception and stealth, two of your favorites, an insane bonus on saving throws against poison as a compensation for your generally bad fortitude save, and the ability to poison your own weapon without spending literally all your gold on a DC 14 save, as a swift action at that.
Wayang: Dexterity and Intelligence bonus, Wisdom penalty. A good spread for the intelligence specializations. Small is always nice for a vigilante, especially when you get even more stealth bonuses from race. Ghost sound, pass without trace and ventriloquism are excellent spell like abilities for you, and Light and Dark is a silly and amusing ability for those occasions you may be fighting undead.
Under the Hood
¾ BAB: No one particularly likes this, but Paizo has long since learned their lesson from core rogue and given you the tools to compensate.
D8 Hit Die: We’re a mostly martial class and our best combat talents excel in melee, so this hurts. But we can make the most of it.
Good saves: Reflex and Will: Look, you will never hear me complain about a good save, but Reflex is so inferior to Will and Fortitude. If your GM is trap happy or you can get Evasion, Reflex does go up to blue as well.
Bad save: Fortitude: Ouch. So not only do we have the lowest hit die you can get without being a full caster, but our Fortitude is crap too. Better start pumping up that Con score.
6+Int modifier skills/level: This is one of those crazy things that make you unique. No matter which specialization and build you go for, you’re always going to have an insane amount of skills (unless of course you’re a Magical Child or Zealot, which lose you skills and don’t care about Int). Considering you have the potential to become a full BAB that makes the fighter weep for how inferior he is, that alone makes it pretty legit.
Class Skills: Acrobatics (Dex), Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Dex), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (dungeoneering, engineering, local, nobility) (Int), Perception (Wis), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Stealth (Dex), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), and Use Magic Device (Cha)
I left most of these unrated because your ability scores can be radically different from one build to the next, but you have Perception as a class skill and it’s the most important in the game. Several of your class features are dependent on Stealth, so be sure to pick that up as well. You get insane bonuses to Disguise for the purposes you need it for, but dropping a point in it for the class skill bonus as well isn’t a terrible idea. Vigilantes make good faces in their social identity and can get good bonuses to intimidate as well, Use Magic Device is handy if you come across a wand or scroll your party can’t use, and Appraise is, of course, useless.
Weapon and Armor proficiency: You get all simple and martial weapons, medium armor, and shields. Good versatility, and if you really need that hand crossbow you can drop a feat for it.
Cape and Cowl: The Vigilante Class Features
Dual Identity
The flavor base for the vigilante and what makes it thematically different from every other class. You’re not just one person, but two people: your social identity, or your vigilante identity. Changing between them takes a minute, you know, just to entice your GM into holding Bruce Wayne hostage. So you’re not going to be changing identities on the fly (at least until you get the right social talents), but fortunately anything your vigilante identity can do, your social identity can do as well.
There are two main perks to Dual Identity. First, each identity has a different alignment, within one step of each other. This can be a pretty nifty boon, letting you go under the view of an inquisitor or dealing with things that specifically target one alignment or another, but is otherwise mediocre. Second, while in one identity, your other identity can’t be scryed. For your vigilante identity this is pretty good, preventing the bad guys from realizing that woah, you were really Clark Kent all along. On the other hand, if you’re flying around as Superman, and someone for whatever reason goes magically looking for Clark, it’s gonna be suspicious when the unassuming reporter can’t be found at all.
This is a flavorfully good class feature, but mechanically it falls sort of flat, and that becomes a problem if you’re less of a Daredevil and more of a Jessica Jones. If you’ve forgone the secret identity altogether, this class feature does almost nothing for you.
Seamless Guise
“Hey guys, what did I miss?” “Oh man Barry, you shoulda seen it. The Flash was just here, he saved a bunch of people from that burning building… actually now that I think about it, you’re never around when the Flash shows up.” “I know, weird coincidence right?”
Seamless Guise is the reason that exchange works. You get a +20 to your disguise check to appear as your current identity and definitely not your other one. Rating is almost the same as Dual Identity because frankly these shouldn’t be two separate class features.
Social Talent
Okay, here we go. Step one in our quest to be the most modular class in the game. You get a social talent at every odd level. Most of these are flavor or downtime boons, but there are a few particular gems that stand out mechanically, so let’s get to the rating.
Level 1
Renown: This is one of the things I find most grating about the vigilante, and I hope there’s more support for a vigilante who isn’t well known in his social identity in the future because that’s an avenue worth exploring. I mean, who the hell knows Barry Allen in The Flash? No one, that’s who. But I digress, we’re reviewing what is, not what could be.
Within a small community-200 people, the size of a village or a single neighborhood in a city- and the immediate area around it your social identity is well known and well liked. This doesn’t necessarily mean the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, or even someone necessarily famous. My go-to example is Nelson and Murdock; they’re not big shot attorneys that everyone clamors for, but in Hell’s Kitchen people know who they are and respect them for the good work they do.
Mechanically speaking, while in your community in your social identity, people from the area start one attitude step higher with you. That means that if they would’ve hated your guts, they would just not particularly care for you. If they’d have been inclined to be cordial and relaxed with you, they’ll instead be your best friend forever. Meanwhile, you can spread rumors about your vigilante identity, giving it a +4 bonus to Intimidate. That’s not an insignificant bonus. However, if you expect to do all of your adventuring in a community of 200, you’re kidding yourself.
Short version, this is a mediocre talent that gets better around level 7, but until then is just a tax to get to some of the really good stuff.
So I’ve recently realized I overlooked a very important part of this talent, which is that Renown actually has a radius around the initial community of miles/level. For most cities, at least on Golarion, this means you’re going to be covering that entire area relatively early. Combined with Obscurity making your social identity’s reputation irrelevant, and I’m willing to bump this to a green.
Obscurity (Blood of the Beast): Free at last, free at last, free at last! Obscurity is a match to Renown, taking the exact opposite direction of making your social identity blend in incredibly well in the area of “renown.” You gain the normal Intimidate bonus in your vigilante form, but instead of improving attitudes of NPCs, you don’t have to make Disguise checks to just pass through casually without people seeing through you. Either way, it’s an option to get a bunch of good social talents without having to be a public image. Same rating as Renown.
Ancestral Enlightenment (Disciple's Doctrine): You can make knowledge skills untrained, and any you have trained gives you a +4 bonus. Let's get that clear, this is Social Grace, but for every knowledge you have trained, and it gives you the ability to roll any given knowledge check, meaning your party will always have someone who can at least try. This is a fantastic pickup, because you have ranks to spare for some knowledges, and especially because it effectively lets you one point wonder any knowledge you have a class skill in to get +8+Int.
Beginner's Luck (Antihero's Handbook): This lets you add Seamless Guise to your disguise check when people spot you using a vigilante talent in your social identity. It's a limited number and not too often, so it's not that great, but can be useful if you're in a very flavor focused game.
Bellflower Innuendo (Inner Sea Intrigue): Reduces the time needed to pass a secret message with Bluff to just normal communication time and makes it so no one can see through your secret message with divination magic without a caster level check . I’ll be completely honest, this application of the Bluff skill sees so little use in my experience I didn’t even know it had an extended time. If you use it for this purpose a lot it can be an acceptable talent choice, but I’d never call it a good one.
Case the Joint: A prime example of flavor over mechanical use, right here. If you visit somewhere in your social identity, you gain a reroll on a failed skill check involving the location’s layout in your vigilante identity later. There’s some catches here though. First, you need to actually get into the place in your social identity. Good luck with that. Second, you need to make a DC 20 Knowledge (engineering) check. It’s possible you’re intelligence based, but engineering is a very niche knowledge and you’re not going to be using the talent often enough to justify it, except in a very specific kind of campaign (which the name pretty much spells out for you).
If you are planning on taking this, at least do yourself a favor and do it in a campaign with background skills. You can rank up Know (engineering) for free that way. (thanks to my friend Shinigami02 for this suggestion)
Companion to the Lonely (Inner Sea Intrigue): I’ll be honest, I’ve never been a fan of mechanical options associated with sex, mainly because whether it’s appropriate or not depends on the table, and besides which it should be a roleplaying thing, not a mechanical one. That being said, when they do go that far it’s always funny to me. If you spend at least an hour enjoying intimate physical pleasure with someone else, you gain a pool of points equal to either your or their Charisma modifier, whichever is higher. For 24 hours, you can use that pool to reroll will saves or Charisma skill checks. If you’re in a sedentary campaign and your character has a partner, or you have a partner on the road with you, this is actually a really cool talent to have; a relatively strong effect, but one that a good GM can impose limitations on occasionally for a little extra challenge.
Conflicted Identity (Antihero's Handbook): Putting those dual alignments to use. When targeted with an ability that would affect your current identity and not your other one, you have a 50% chance of being affected like the other identity. The book gives examples. This is solid if you expect a lot of things like chaos hammer or unholy blight, or other alignment specific things.
Discreet Inquiries (Inner Sea Intrigue): By doubling the time you spend gathering information, you can do so without anyone knowing you were asking around to begin with. Unlike the other information gathering talents, this one actually has some pretty solid use cases. If you’re trying to keep a low profile, period (which vigilantes are good at), then this is something to keep in mind. If not, worthless.
Double Time: Instead of an upper class social identity, you’re working class, an artisan or professional. You cut your time on Craft or Profession checks down from 8 hours to 6 when using them for mundane purposes. Nice if you have a ranged weapon and want to make your own ammunition, or want to pick up some extra gold. If you have the Social Grace talent (see below, it’s pretty nice) you cut it down even further to 4 hours. Leave it if you don’t care about crafting or a profession.
Entrepeneur (Spymaster’s Handbook): Use a Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma skill instead of Profession or Perform to make money. Good if you use it in your campaigns, because it frees up a skill, not good if you don’t.
Gossip Collector: For starters, instead of 1d4 hours to gather information it only takes 1d2. I’ve frankly never had a GM who made information gathering time matter that much, but you never know. The more interesting thing comes in when you have Renown. See, if you’re in your area of Renown, it only takes 1d4*10 minutes, better known as 1/6th the basic time, but even better, if you beat the DC by 20 or more (which is potentially doable, you are a master of skills after all), you don’t need to spend any time at all. You literally overheard someone talking about it like five minutes ago. Flavorful and fun, but your mileage may vary on usefulness.
Guise of Life (Spymaster’s Handbook): An undead vigilante can use this to assume a second social identity to pretend to be alive. Ask me again after Horror Adventures releases, until then, ruling is NPC as fuck. (Horror Adventures released. Still NPC as fuck.)
Sidebar: Built a vampire vigilante (zealot) with this. Upgrading from NPC as fuck to niche as fuck.
Guise of Unlife (Spymaster’s Handbook): Same thing but in reverse. This is a bit better, but still only useful in certain campaigns. If you find yourself heading for Geb or Nidal, definitely useful.
Hidden Magic (Antihero's Handbook): You can hide the auras of your magic items. Can be useful for avoiding detection, but it's a niche case.
Kalistocrat’s Acumen (Inner Sea Intrigue): Oh boy, this one’s got information. So for those of you who don’t have the Inner Sea World Guide, as part of taking this talent you’re committing your social identity to the Prophecies of Kalistrade, an atheistic pseudo-religion dedicated to gathering wealth through self-denial. That is, become rich by not spending money. While in your social identity, you have to: conserve your resources; wear almost exclusively white clothes; never give to charity; avoid material comforts, avoid physical contact (do not take in conjunction with Companion to the Lonely people); be Lawful Neutral; hire a really good Asmodean lawyer (okay technically it’s take advantage of every legal loophole you can find but really you want an Asmodean for that); and outwit your superiors for profit. In exchange, you can treat settlements as larger than they are for the purpose of purchasing items. Now here’s the thing; if your GM doesn’t pay much attention to the settlement size rules (some don’t), then this is kind of a mechanically worthless talent. But if they do, then it can be kind of cool to take. It gives you access to much more magical equipment if you’re stuck in a smaller settlement as your base of operations, and it gives you some interesting and flavorful limitations. I’m rating it yellow mainly because it is such a niche thing; you have to be explicitly limited by the size of wherever you mainly hang around, which is rarely a problem in campaigns; either you’re in a big city, or you’re gonna be on the move.
Notorious Fool (Antihero's Handbook): While in your social identity, if you fail a Sleight of Hand or Stealth check, you can make a Bluff check to try and come off as being an idiot instead of suspicious. Depending on the social identity you're trying to cultivate, this can be really useful for a heavy intrigue game, allowing you to get by without seeming suspicious.
Safe House: You can establish a safe house in your area of renown, or in a single location you can access if you don’t have an area of renown. You get 10 cubic feet per level, arranged any way you like and potentially part of a larger building (yes, you can have a Batcave). Objects within the safe house can’t be located by anything less powerful than discern location. Overall this is kind of lame unless you really need to stash things on a regular basis, but it gets better at level 7 when the location protection extends to people. If you really need a secret base to stay secret, this isn’t a terrible choice of talent.
Seamless Shapechanger (Blood of the Beast): If you’re a shapechanger, Seamless Guise applies to disguising yourself with a polymorph. Rather meh, but not terrible, there’s just better things you can do with it.
Social Grace: Pick an Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma based skill check. You get a +4 on checks with that skill while in your social identity. Boom, simple. You can’t take Perception or UMD, sadly, but Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive and various background knowledges all make good choices. You also only need to take this once, because every 4 levels you get another skill.
Transformation Sequence (Blood of the Beast): If you have magic of any kind, you can take this to reduce your by half. This was originally a Magical Child class feature, but is now available to any vigilante who can cast (including racial Spell-like Abilities) and given to the Magical Child as a bonus. As when it was just a class feature, this gets no rating, because the reduced time is countered by a complete and utter lack of subtlety. Of course, if you skipped the Dual Identity, you don’t actually care about subtlety, in which case, a solid blue.
Well-Known Expert (Spymaster’s Handbook): So this one’s a mouthful. To start, you can take 10 aiding others on most intelligence based skill checks. Following on that, you get half your class level to appear as if you know things. And finally, if you’re in your area of renown and aid someone on a knowledge check, they can try a second time if they fail the first time. Overall, pretty fun, and makes for a neat and flavorful character trait: you just know everything. For bonus points, gestalt or multiclass with bard, and get Dance of the Peacock, so eventually your lies become reality.
Level 3
Celebrity Discount: Okay, now we’re starting to reap some rewards from Renown. When you buy something costing 500 gp or less, you get a 10% discount. This might not seem like much, but ask yourself: how many potions do you go through in the course of a campaign? How many scrolls? What about your ammunition, or that of a party member. Alchemist fire for those pesky swarms, antitoxins and antivenoms, the most minor and basic of magic items? Over the course of a campaign this talent can reasonably add up to a couple hundred, even thousand gold saved. Once you start leveling up your renown, you also get to amplify the gp limit, making it even more worthwhile over time.
Loyal Aid: Where would Oliver Queen be without his team behind him? This talent grabs you a couple of friends who know your secret and can help cover for you. While inside your area of renown (there it is again) you get a bonus to Diplomacy for gathering information, and you can task your friends with increasing the DC of checks to find out about or follow you. You can also get them to perform minor tasks on your behalf, which is useful since you really can’t be in two places at once.
Triumphant Return: So, since we all know you’re not going to be just hanging around that one neighborhood for the entire campaign, because that would be boring and way too easy, eventually you might find yourself spending a week in wherever it is you went to spread your renown there. And now you’re back home, and people have started forgetting your prominence. You need to let these criminals know you’re back as soon as possible, and this is how you do it. It takes only 3 days to restore your renown in a place you had it before. Frankly, if it’s that big of a concern then you shouldn’t be moving your renown anyway. It takes too long to begin with and doesn’t come with enough perks to be noteworthy, plus any GM worth his salt is going to point out that wherever your social identity travels, the vigilante identity goes with, and the point of renown is that both are public. Enough bonuses to Perception will render your Seamless Guise moot. However, if you want to pick up Instant Recognition later, you’ll need this as a prereq.
Level 5
Celebrity Perks: When debating if you want this talent, ask yourself: is my GM the kind that pays attention to food and lodging? If the answer is yes, then you want Celebrity Perks. If not, then you probably don’t. You get free common meals and lodging, can avoid taxes and bribes of 1 gp or less, and can get any nonmagical item worth 1 gp or less from a fan (which, when you consider just how much 1 gp really is to the nonadventuring types, is actually a really big deal). Upgrading your renown brings all of these up, but not by any significant amount.
Feign Innocence: If you need to lie and pretend you weren’t doin’ nothin’ wit’ nobody, then boy do I have a talent for you. This puts you under a permanent nonmagical innocence spell, which is legit since it’s a bard exclusive spell. You get a situational +10 to Bluff to convince someone you’re innocent of all wrongdoing. If you’re actually the kind of person who needs to get out of the consequences of your actions, this is a good talent. Made even better depending on how good you are at swinging your lies to be about exactly this.
In Vogue: You’re the top of the fashion food chain. Anything you craft with Social Grace is worth 1/3 more gp than normal, and any time you use a Profession skill to make money you get double. Good source of gold revenue in a campaign that has downtime. Alas, In Vogue and Double Time are both banned in PFS, so no go for you.
Many Guises: Oh me oh my, it’s our very first purple, and boy does this talent deserve the honors. You’re no longer two people. You’re now a ton of people. You gain what’s called the mundane identity, a basically faceless member of your race who can go completely unnoticed in a crowd. What’s great about it is that you get a +20 bonus on your disguise check, same as Seamless Guise, and any magical detection to find your other identities fails as if you were in the other identity.
The original intent of this talent was probably just as an option to go under the radar, where your social and vigilante identities are actually conspicuous, but there’s so many possibilities for this. Need to gather intelligence from an enemy army? Become an enemy soldier. Being chased? If you have Quick or Immediate change, turn into a random peasant. Assassinating the queen? Grab a helmet, you’re now a nameless, faceless guard drone. Purple for life, and somehow even more purple when we upgrade it later.
Mockingbird: You functionally get ghost sound, ventriloquism and self-vocal alteration as an at-will exceptional ability. To start with, this is an even bigger bonus to your Many Guises disguise check, so automatic props. Second, this is an extraordinary ability, and not an illusion. Therefore, it’s entirely possible if not likely that Mockingbird requires no will save. This needs FAQ clarification, because it’s not certain, but talk to your GM and see if they’d agree that a Will save shouldn’t convince you that an entirely real sound just doesn’t happen to be coming from where/what it seems like. On the flip side, GMs, if you agree with that interpretation perhaps give a Perception check of similar DC instead.
Level 7
Great Renown: For an urban campaign, Renown just got, like, so much better. You can now have a community of up to 5,000 (a large town) or two communities of up to 2,000 (small towns) as your area of renown. This increases the range of usefulness by a lot, although if you’re playing an urban campaign you’re still probably not going to cover the entire city, just a handful of neighborhoods. You also increase the vigilante identity’s intimidate bonus. If you’re not in an urban campaign, ignore this. Renown is already only tangentially useful to you.
So as with our adjustment of Renown’s rating, we have to adjust Great Renown too. Since you can cover the area of a city much more easily now, we’re going to actually reverse what circumstances our ratings go in. If you’re playing a campaign that almost exclusively remains in the city, this is not a talent for you, nor is one that regularly has you traveling far away. But, if you’re spending a lot of time in the surrounding villages and towns of a city, within the significantly expanded radius (since you’re increasing the base area you cover), then it can be an alright pickup, so long as you’re still primarily based in the area of your renown.
Quick Change: Instead of taking a full minute, you now only need one full round action to switch identities. However, if you don’t take a second round, everyone who sees you automatically gets a perception to see through your disguise. Depending on your GM, you might also lose your Seamless Guise buff. Regardless, this is a nice pickup, making it so that slipping away and changing identities is actually potentially feasible if combat breaks out. It’s also a prerequisite for Immediate Change, which makes doing so viable.
Level 9
Skill Familiarity (Disciple's Doctrine): Choose 4 skills. You can always take 10 on them, and if you take 10 while doing something that should be distracting or dangerous, you get an extra quarter level bonus (minimum +2). You can use this for any number of combat skills, like Acrobatics, Bluff or Intimidate. You could pair it with Ancestral Enlightenment and pretend to be a Bard, or, if you're a caster, immediately nail those Spellcraft checks, guaranteed. There's a world of possibility with this talent.
Subjective Truth: I have a history with inquisitors seeing through my lies, so I’ll admit I’m biased on this one. Magically speaking, if you say something that’s true from the point of view of your current identity, magical effects like discern lies will ping as truth. If you’re liable to encounter inquisitors a lot, this is a golden talent, and pairs nicely with Feign Innocence (which is a prereq anyway) and the gnome favored class bonus. Otherwise, it’s still not a bad choice of talents, just in case.
Level 11
Everyman: “But FedoraFerret,” you cry, “you said Many Guises was amazing. Why is this yellow when it’s a straight buff?” Well I’ll tell you, random internet person. Many Guises is awesome because its limitation is explicitly only that you have to be an ordinary member of a society or large group. This makes it amazing for infiltration missions. Everyman, however, is very limited. You can only assume the role of a specific farmer, laborer or peasant. When have you ever needed to pretend to be a specific farmer, laborer or peasant? If the answer is more than once, then congratulations, you have more use for this than I do. Nevertheless, you’re going to take it anyway, because you need it for Any Guise, where we go back to amazeballs purple.
Incredible Renown: As before. Your area of renown is now a large city, or two small cities. Same deal as Great Renown, if it’s an urban campaign this is great, if not then leave it by the wayside. Rated higher than Great because you now have full coverage of everything with a +8 Intimidate, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.
Level 13
Immediate Change: You can shift identities with a move action, making it totally possible to change mid-combat, provided you can find a place to hide. Also pairs nicely with Many Guises if you need to disappear really quickly.
Instant Recognition: It only takes 4 hours to change your area of renown. If you’re not playing in an urban campaign, this can actually be a solid choice over Great and Incredible, letting you get your renown benefits wherever it is you go.
Level 17
Any Guise: What’s beautiful about this talent is that it’s first of all of them alphabetically, so if you’re reading the book this is the first talent you see. And it’s glorious. Everyman’s limiter is removed, letting you be any specific individual you want. If you stash the original individual in your safe house or, you know, kill him, so that he can’t be found with magic, then that magic will see you instead. This is a silly cool talent with even more applications than Many Guises, and the possibilities here actually are endless, so take it and go wild.
Vigilante Specialization
We’ll discuss this in more detail later, but in short, when you start the game you pick a specialization, which gives you a unique ability and access to a pool of unique talents. Frankly, between the two base specializations and the massive list of archetypes that are straight up just specializations themselves, I don’t think this deserves being dropped in the middle of the class features section, but rather a section of its own, where I can go into proper detail.
Vigilante Talents
Okay, your genius billionaire playboy philanthropist just got a bunch of toys, now let’s throw some at the guy in the suit. Same deal as social talents, only at even levels instead of odd. You will note, flipping through your copy of Ultimate Intrigue, that there is no “Extra Talent” feat, like most modular class features get. This is because vigilante talents are straight up better than feats. Hell, some of them are literally just a feat with added perks. In short, there would be no reason to ever take a normal combat feat again, when there’s probably a talent that’s the same thing but better.
*Note: If you’re reading along with your copy of Ultimate Intrigue, you’ll note some entries are missing. These are the vigilante and stalker exclusive talents, and will be included in the Specializations section.
Another Day: When you fall unconscious, you automatically stabilize, and appear to be dead, allowing you to escape the post-combat coup de grace. This… is a bad start. For one thing, you don’t want to be unconscious in the first place, and because of the wording this will trick your allies as well, requiring them to waste time on a heal check in the middle of combat to be sure you’re dead and they can’t heal you back into the fight. On top of that, it’s a talent that relies on you getting knocked out. You want talents that prevent you from getting knocked out in the first place. Even if it works exactly how you intended… then what? Either your party wins the fight and are convinced you’re dead, or loses the fight and you’re left the only survivor. Pass.
Armor Skin: Ignore armor check penalty for light and medium armor on Acrobatics, Escape Artist and Stealth, and starting at 8 you get full speed in medium armor. For your purposes, this is a superior Armor Training, and an Avenger can take it even further. Definitely gets a nod of appreciation.
Brutal Maneuver (Blood of the Beast): When you substitute a combat maneuver for an attack with a weapon (meaning disarm, trip and sunder), you can take a -5 penalty to all your attacks that turn to deal damage to your target in addition. This is actually really nice if you’re willing to take the penalty, so I’d suggest not using it unless you’re an Avenger, because full BAB and easy Weapon Focus access.
Chase Master: You get a bonus on all checks during a chase. If your GM is running chases often enough that this is a relevant talent, do me a favor and slap them for me.
Close the Gap: At the start of your turn, pick an enemy within 20’ you’re not adjacent to. Now you don’t provoke from that guy when you move as long as you end your move next to him, and you don’t take a penalty to AC against him if you charge him. This talent has mostly very niche uses, but it’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination, letting you set up flanks at the beginning of a fight pretty easily or get past a creature with insane reach. It also pairs nicely with an Avenger talent. I’m sensing a pattern here.
Combat Expertise (Antihero's Handbook): Exactly what it says on the tin. You get Combat Expertise as a bonus feat, and pretend you have Int 13 for all feat prereqs. If you need Combat Expertise as a prereq for something, this will let you grab it and skip Int, so, like... depending on whether you care about Int or not?
Concealed Strike (Spymaster’s Handbook): When you get an attack off with a weapon the opponent wasn’t aware of, you can feint as a move action (or as a free if you have improved feint). If you’re fond of daggers or other easily concealable weapons this is pretty freaking good. Pick up Improved and then Greater Feint, hide a crapton of knives on your person, and get to stabbing. Otherwise, meh.
Cunning Feint: You can feint as a move action or in place of your first attack during a full attack, and starting at level 8, your opponent is denied their dexterity bonus against all attacks until your next turn. For those keeping score at home, this is Improved and Greater Feint, but without the feat tax. You can bluff well, and if caught in your social identity this is a talent you can utilize well without drawing undue suspicion to yourself too. Worth a look at if nothing else.
Deceitful Trick (Blood of the Beast): Requires Improved and Greater Dirty Trick. This lets you substitute a dirty trick into your full attack (combos well with Brutal Maneuver), and take a -4 penalty (suddenly combos less well) to apply two penalties. Vigilantes are good at Dirty Trick, and so this is good for a Dirty Trick vig. Simple enough.
Environment Weapon: Pick a ranger favored terrain. While in that terrain, you can get an improvised weapon as a swift action. You also don’t take a penalty for using improvised weapons, making this a poor man’s Catch Off-Guard. Overall mediocre-improvised weapons are generally pretty bad-but hey, if you want to be Jackie Chan be my guest.
Expose Weakness: Holy balls. This adds a new option to the already amusing dirty trick repertoire: reduce a creature’s damage reduction or hardness by 10. That’s significant. Like, really, really significant, especially if you specialize in dirty tricks. Depending on what you’re up against, by the mid-late game it can be a huge contribution to damage, especially if you have someone who favors two-weapon fighting or natural weapons. Sadly, doesn’t effect creatures with DR/-.
Favored Maneuver: You get an Improved combat maneuver, and a bonus +2 if the target isn’t aware of you. That’s going to be a familiar phrase and one that I hope you, like me, will come to despise. Anyway it’s an open bonus feat, so if you’re not going Avenger and want to do maneuvers this is a nice choice.
Fantastic Stride: You get Spring Attack as a bonus feat ignoring prerequisites (fuck yes), and can also not provoke from more and more enemies as you move. You had me at Spring Attack with no prerequisites.
Magical Familiarity (Disciple's Doctrine): This lets you pick up a cantrip from the sorcerer/wizard list and cast it three times per day. Eventually you get a second cantrip and a 1st level spell. This is... nice, but it scales way too slowly. If you’re going to spend the talents, spend them into Minor and Major Magic instead.
Minor/Major Magic (Spymaster’s Handbook): So this is actually two talents. The first is minor magic, which lets you pick a 0 level spell from the bard, cleric, druid, psychic, shaman, sorcerer/wizard, or witch spell lists, and cast it twice per day. The second is major magic, which lets you take another spell from the same list and cast it once per four levels. Minor Magic is strictly inferior to the rogue equivalent, but major, you have more casts per day starting from level 12, and you have a much more varied spell list. Definitely worth the pickup.
Mockery (Spymaster’s Handbook): You get Antagonize as a bonus feat, and can use the Intimidate feature twice on the same target per day. Starting at level 12, the effect also lasts your Charisma modifier in rounds. This would be cool, except… you’re a d8 hit die class without heavy armor proficiency. You are not a tank. Don’t do something stupid.
Inspired Vigilante: You get the investigator’s inspiration pool, but you don’t add your intelligence to it and can never use it without expending a use. Inspiration is a great class feature, but the fact that you never get to add it without expending uses is painful. You do, however, end up with more inspiration dice total than an investigator does by around level 8 or so, which is a nice compensation.
Instant Plan (Inner Sea Intrigue): Once per day, you can give your allies a morale bonus against fear and to a skill check or combat maneuver check for a minute, plus immunity to demoralization. Nifty trick, but the short duration (round/level) and comparative use to other talents makes it mediocre.
Lethal Grace: You’ll recall that way back in the ability scores section, I told you not to dump Strength when going Dexterity. This would be why. You get Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat, and if using your Strength for damage, you get to add half your level to damage. It’s particularly nice, and if you have an okay Strength modifier makes it so that you can keep up with Dex to Damage builds pretty effectively, especially given that only Rogues and Agile weapons are allowed to have both Dex to Damage and Two-weapon fighting.
Living Shield: As an immediate action when you’re grappling a creature and are targeted by an attack, you can attempt a combat maneuver check against the target of your grapple (sadly losing your bonuses to grapple). If you succeed, you make your grappled friend the target instead. It’s funny, and provided you’ve got a good CMB it’s also an effective way to both avoid and deal damage.
Perfect Fall: If you’re next to a wall, you take no damage from falling. If not, you take half damage and land on your feet. Or, and just hear me out on this: you could get Boots of the Cat if you’re that worried, and save your valuable talent slots for things that are much better.
Perfect Vulnerability: Do you really, really need to make sure this one attack hits? Okay then, here’s the talent for you. You can make a single standard action attack (a unique standard action, so no Vital Strike for you) against the target’s flatfooted touch AC. Just pray you don’t natural 1.
Poisoner (Antihero's Handbook): You get poison use, which is meh because poison isn't great for PCs. Starting at 6 you also get the ability to synthesize new poisons for free using existing poisons as a base, which... is still meh because poison still isn't great for PCs. The cost of 5 doses of a poison decent enough to use is disgustingly prohibitive, don't bother with this unless you're a GM.
Pull Into Shadows: As a full round action, you can move up to your speed towards an opponent who is unaware of your presence, make a single attack against him, and if you hit, make a drag combat maneuver against him with a +4 bonus. This is a pretty nifty ambush tactic, but like most things that require your target to be unaware of you, it’s pretty niche. Were there a color between yellow and green, it would probably be that.
Racial Paragon (Blood of the Beast): To save time and energy, I’m going to summarize: this is Martial Flexibility, but instead of Combat feats, you get a Racial feat from it. You can also pick it up multiple times with no penalty, which progresses it as if you were a higher level Brawler. There are, in fact, a decent number of good racial feats, but this is one where without going deep into a discussion on them I can only say, your mileage may vary. Some races and builds will find it awesome, some won’t. The main thing is that unlike Martial Flexibility, Racial Paragon is far more limited in its use and scope.
Returning Weapon: Pick a thrown weapon. Whenever you use that weapon, it’s treated as if it had the returning property. At level 14, if it’s an ammunition throwing weapon like darts or shuriken, then you have an infinite supply of whatever enchanted box of 50 you buy, and if it’s not ammunition, then you can apply the magical properties of the first weapon you throw in a round to any non-magical versions of it you throw that round. So here’s the problem: this assumes that you’re full attacking. However, for a proper full attack thrown weapon build, you’re not stopping at two. You only have two hands. Returning requires you to have a hand free. So explain why you took this talent instead of the Ricochet Toss feat or buying a Blinkback belt. Now, the ammunition one isn’t bad, but it doesn’t come online until level 14. Overall, this talent isn’t worth it, which is a shame because it’s basically the only support for a ranged build.
Rooftop Infiltrator: You get a climb speed. Simple as that. Personally, I’m a fan of all things that grant new movement types, but this is niche enough to warrant green instead of blue.
Shackle Smash (Inner Sea Intrigue): You can sunder objects very quietly, and ignore half an object’s hardness when attempting to sunder it or attack it (if nonmagical). The first part is meh, but the second part can be decent if you’ve chosen to go for a sunder build. Just remember, you’re killing your own loot there.
Shadow’s Sight: Remember all those races that I complained about not having darkvision? Well here we go, we have darkvision now.
Shadow’s Speed: Increase your speed by 10’, and then 10’ again at level 10. This is most certainly not niche, and more movement speed is never a bad thing.
Shield of Blades: So we get Power Attack as a bonus feat, good. And if we use our Power Attack and take the penalty on all of our attack rolls, we also get a shield bonus to AC equal to that penalty. Free Power Attack and it also buffs our AC? Sold. Purple for Avengers and Brutes, who get full BAB and thus scale with this better, blue for anyone else who uses a two-handed weapon, and green for non-shield based two-weapon fighting builds. I ran out of space but yellow for sword and board.
Shield of Fury: You get Improved Shield Bash, and Two-Weapon Fighting so long as you’re using a shield. A pretty bog standard two-for-one feat combo. If you’re strength based, this lets you skip Dexterity requirements for TWF feats, so if you want to go sword and board then this is the talent for you.
Signature Arrows (Antihero's Handbook): The first time after you take this talent that you get a set of magical ammunition, you can replenish that ammunition for crafting rather than full cost. Which would be cool if that weren't still at least 10 gold per arrow, 80 for anything more than a +1. Reminder: magical ammunition is bad and should only be purchased for niche cases.
Silent Dispatch: Ordinarily, when you initiate combat it’s a flat DC of -10 for others to hear it, which is pitifully, painfully easy unless you’re far away from someone else. This lets you make a stealth check instead, at a -5 penalty. If you get a surprise round off and beat them on iniative, this is an entire extra turn after you attack someone where no one else knows you’re there, giving you two uses of your “when the target is unaware of you” bonus in a single combat if you get the drop. Essential for assassination builds, just handy otherwise. It’s possible, however, that your table handles this differently, because as written unless you have two levels in vigilante or ten in rogue you can’t take someone out quietly without others noticing. If it’s been house ruled so that you always get a stealth roll and a significant penalty, this becomes red, a very situational stealth buff. You can do better.
Steely Resolve (Disciple's Doctrine): Three times per day, when you fail a Will save you can delay the effect by half your level rounds. Will is a good save for you, but you're non-wisdom based martial with hella potential for damage so this is worth considering if you've got your core talents and don't want to get dominated, deceived, or mind crushed.
Strike the Unseen: Oh my. Not one, not two, but three bonus feats? The blind-fight tree is a little annoyingly intensive for what it gives, but grabbing this can ease that burden. It also lets you deal precision damage to things with concealment, which is nice if you’re a stalker or taking a dip here or there.
Sure-Footed: Full speed while using Stealth or Acrobatics, and at level 8 you get full speed across difficult terrain. Another choice that isn’t spectacular or flashy, but is still pretty good.
Surprise Strike: When you attack someone who’s denied their Dexterity to AC, you get a bonus on your attack roll. A very, very small bonus. +3 at level 16 is basically nothing on its own, and you’re already hitting a reduced AC.
Team Player (Spymaster’s Handbook): You get Swift Aid as a bonus feat, and if you take a standard to aid another you can give it to your entire party instead. If you’re an Order of the Dragon cavalier or got the move action Aid Investigator talent, this is kind of worth a dip. Otherwise, you probably only want it as a Bellflower Harvester.
Take ‘em Alive (Spymaster’s Handbook): You take no penalty attacking for nonlethal, and get a scaling bonus to hit with it in fact. If you plan on being a nonlethal takedown guy, this is a pretty solid talent (especially if your GM will let you run the Sap Master line as a stalker), but keep in mind that when you do nonlethal and the rest of your party is lethal, you run the risk of enemies getting double benefit from healing.
Turnabout (Inner Sea Intrigue): When a foe provokes an attack of opportunity by attacking or casting a spell, you can use dirty trick instead of the AoO to redirect their attack or spell to someone else. An amusing choice, if not for the rarity of such AoOs. It’s a cool trick if you’ve got access to invisibility, since you can sneak up on an archer or caster and foil their first move for the combat, but mostly meh. Becomes much better if you also take Step Up.
Unexpected Strike: Quick Draw as a bonus feat, and draw hidden weapons as a swift action. I still have yet to see Quick Draw used in an effective manner by anyone other than a two-weapon fighting throwing weapon user with a blinkback belt. For Avengers this becomes green, as you have the feats to reasonably switch hit.
Vigilante's Reflexes (Antihero's Handbook): You gain Combat Reflexes, which is a handy feat to take a talent for, and then at levels 8 and 16 you get even more AoOs. Great for your reach and AoO heavy builds, and frankly good for any build that isn’t talent starved because more AoOs is good.
Vital Punishment: Vital Strike as a bonus feat, and you can Vital Strike on your first AoO of the round. Personally I’m always a fan of early access Vital Strike for low BAB classes, and giving it more applications is even better, but remember how well you do with two weapons over a single one.
Whip of Vengeance (Inner Sea Intrigue): You get Whip Mastery as a bonus feat, Improved Whip Mastery at 6, and treat your vigilante level as your base attack bonus for the purpose of other Whip Mastery based feats. Did you want to use a whip? Cool, grab Weapon Focus at level one and this at level 2. Do you not care about whips? Then ignore. Good choice for cabalists to deal their bleed damage from afar.
Unshakable
Add your class level to your Intimidate DC. I refer you to my criticism of the half-orc favored class bonus.
Startling Appearance
I absolutely despise the phrase “a foe that is completely unaware of the vigilante’s presence,” because it means that these are usable exactly once in combat. That being said, Startling Appearance is actually decent for your opening gambit in combat. Get the wizard to put Invisibility on you, then no matter where you fall in initiative order you’re getting a full attack against flatfooted. They also take a -4 on attacks against you, which is nice.
Frightening Appearance
When you get your startling appearance attack off, you also get a free action Dazzling Display, albeit much shorter range. It also forces your target to make a will save or be frightened. Once again, this makes for a good opening move in combat. Still only usable once per combat though.
Stunning Appearance
Pretty much just adds a second will save to the target of your attack, only if they fail this one they’re stunned. Annoyingly if he fails the Stun save then the Frighten save doesn’t matter, but it still increases the odds of him being incapacitated for a round.
Vengeance Strike
Ah, your capstone. That wonderful class feature that can be as OP as the designers want it to be because no one plays at level 20. You can spend up to 5 standard actions studying a target who must be unaware of you. When you’re finished, you make an attack, adding one bonus for every round you spent studying, your choice of a +4 to the attack roll, 3d6 precision damage on hit, or treating the natural attack roll as if it were… two… higher… well god damn. Hitting against flatfooted with level 20 attack bonus, and we can’t natural 1, so we’re always going to hit. In particular, I recommend pairing this with a Vorpal weapon, and laughing as you decapitate them on a 10 or above*.
*Disclaimer: whether your GM agrees that Vorpal counts as “for the purposes of a critical hit” is up to them. Please do not whine at me if they disagree.
The vigilante falls into a category I like to call “full party classes.” Much like rogues and bards, through archetype selection and the class’s basic features you can get away with a party of nothing but vigilantes. However, unlike the rogue and bard, who merely emulate what another class might bring to bear (your healer in an all rogue party, for instance, is just really good at wands), you actually mimic them. As a note, aside from the Avenger and Stalker, every specialization is an archetype. However, there are some archetypes that are not specializations, and they’ll be included in the next section. Each specialization will include their base power, unique talents, what they replace if they’re an archetype, and my personal thoughts.
Unique Talents
Combat Skill: Oh look, you can officially have more feats than a fighter. I rate green because this gives you access to more combat feats, easing up a feat intensive build, but the sad truth is that you don’t want to be a Fighter archetype with better versions of some feats. There’s a number of good talents that make you more versatile and grant more options. Plus all the other talents that give you a feat and a perk to go with it. On the other hand, between this and the various “take two feats for the price of one” talents, there is now officially a build that can get more feats than a human fighter with one level in monk.
Fist of the Avenger: Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat, and if you hit someone with your fist or a gauntlet add half your level to the damage (maximum 5). A fun talent, but without monk levels Improved Unarmed Strike is kinda meh. However, if you take the two-weapon fighting line, combine this with Lethal Grace and a semi-decent strength score, and grab Signature Weapon (see below), you can get some pretty insane static damage on those knuckles of yours.
Heavy Training: Heavy armor, check. Armor skin works with Heavy Armor, double check. Full speed in heavy armor (albeit not until 16), triple check. All signs go for blue.
Mad Rush: Oh baby, here we go. Starting from level 12, you can pounce. As a full BAB who can use TWF well, the idea of pouncing is an astoundingly good one. You take a -4 penalty to AC instead of -2, but frankly it’s worth it, and if you picked up Close the Gap then you can still negate that penalty.
Nothing Can Stop Me: You’re the juggernaut… bitch. Once per round as part of moving, you can make an attack against an object in your path. If you do enough damage to break it, then you can move through it as if nothing happened. Or, uh… you could just walk around. Really the benefit is being able to move and “open” a door at the same time, assuming you can reliably break through, or when you want to Mad Rush somebody but there’s a table in your way. Overall mediocre, but with some niche uses.
Signature Weapon: Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization as bonus feats. I should not have to explain why this is blue, you took the martial ass-whooping specialization.
Sweeping Strike (Antihero's Handbook): You get Cleave, then Great Cleave. Starting at level 12, you get to make additional attacks with Great Cleave whether you hit or not. This is a solid 2 for 1 feat talent, plus bonuses. For added bonus, there are a few methods to combine Cleave and Charge.
Sucker Punch: When you attack someone unaware of you, or who considers you an ally, and do nonlethal damage, deal an extra 1d6, scaling every 6th level. I really want to know who woke up one morning and thought “you know what the Avenger spec needs? Really low situational bonus nonlethal damage.”
Unkillable: Diehard as a bonus feat. Oh my god this is amazing off the bat. Diehard is a great feat kept out of the hands of the common folk by the world’s worst feat tax, leaving it only really available for rangers, ragebred skinwalkers, and core barbarians who swallow their pride and take Endurance so as not to die the second they go negative. But wait, there’s more! Act now and you can do things while disabled without losing hp, delay death for a round so you can heal yourself, and even be able to act normally at negative hp like it’s no big deal. Considering you’re a d8 and have exactly one talent that lends itself to ranged attacks (and it’s Returning Weapon, which is a bad talent), this is a solid purple.
Weapon Familiarity (Disciple's Doctrine): You get two simple or martial weapons, or one exotic weapon, and at 8th level you get Weapon Focus. This would be nifty as a general talent, but as an avenger, who already has all martial proficiencies, you're better of using a feat or racial weapon familiarity to get proficiency and spending this on Weapon Specialization instead.
Final Thoughts: Full BAB great. Martial talents, great. Access to pretty much everything a fighter has other than the Greater Weapon feats and Weapon Training? Pretty damn great. This is the route to take if you want your vigilante identity to be a no holds barred beatdown kinda guy.
Unique Talents
Blind Spot: Awwwwwwww. This is such a great idea for a talent that falls so flat. Essentially if someone has an auto-detecting sense like scent, tremorsense or blindsight, you aren’t automatically detected. But, they also get a +20 to Perception, and because they don’t rely on sight, invisibility ain’t gonna do jack for you. If you’ve hard pumped stealth, then this can be usable, but the second you come across something with a good Perception score you’re screwed. Talk with your GM about what constitutes bypassing the sense.
Note: Since publication, I have run a campaign with a Goblin rogue who nabbed this as his level 10 advanced talent. He now routinely walks by Perception invested characters with blindsense and tremorsense. Make of that what you will.
Evasive: Evasion. You have a good Reflex save. Evasion is good. You want Evasive.
Foe Collision: When you hit someone with a Hidden Strike, you deal your reduced hidden strike damage to someone next to them. This is a nice one to pick up if only because it’s the only hidden strike talent that works when your opponent is actually aware of you, but you still don’t get it against flanking. The green is a relative green here.
Hide in Plain Sight: Now we’re talking. If you’re within 10 feet of dim light, you can hide without anything to actually hide behind. I call this “Skyrim Stealth” because you crouch down below eye level and no one can see you.
Leave an Opening: If you get a full hidden strike off, at the beginning of the target’s next turn he provokes an AoO from you. This would be better if he provoked an AoO from everyone, but alas, there’s much better talents to apply to your hidden strike.
Mighty Ambush: Like this, for instance. As stalker talents go, this is your big kahuna. Knocking a target unconscious with a single blow as the opening move in a combat is an amazing ability, especially against smaller encounters. Against a solo encounter it can allow you to just straight up skip it, knocking them unconscious and then coup de gracing on your next turn. Otherwise you can potentially take out a stronger enemy for a few rounds so you can mop up the weaker ones before dealing with him.
Rogue Talent: Exactly what it says on the tin. I would recommend Fast Stealth, Emboldening Strike, Trap Spotter or Underhanded Trick. If you have a method of getting a Ki Pool somehow, then Rogue Talent->Ninja Trick->Vanishing Trick can be nice to remove dependency on the party spellcaster. This also qualifies you for the Extra Rogue Talent feat (warning: your mileage may vary since it doesn’t actually give you the Rogue Talent class feature), so even more goodies.
Sniper: You can do Hidden Strikes from any distance. Frankly, you should only ever ranged hidden strike once, and that’s as the opening move.
Stalker Sense: Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge. Not quite as good as evasion but still really good.
Throat Jab: When you land your hidden strike, the target can’t speak until the end of your next turn, leaving them with no ability to call for help or cast the vast majority of spells. This is a solid talent choice that can be used to quickly and quietly take enemy spellcasters or solo enemies out of commission without them being able to call for backup or retreat, and is a good backup after you’ve gone through Mighty Ambush on everyone.
Twisting Fear: Who would’ve thought Dazzling Display would ever become a damaging option. When you cause an opponent to gain the shaken, frightened or panicked condition, they take your reduced hidden strike as nonlethal damage. Combine this with Dazzling Display and Skill Unlock (Intimidate) and pump it into the sky, you just got the world’s best inexhaustible AoE attack.
Up Close and Personal: You get a swift action attack against someone when you move through their space. More importantly, if it hits you get to deal full hidden strike damage, with the full benefits of any talent you apply to it. The downside is you can’t full attack with this, but you can use it to apply any of your many useful talents as needed. In particular, combining this with Throat Jab makes any spellcaster your personal bitch, since they’ll likely have a terrible CMD and will be easy to move through.
Final Thoughts: With any of the purple talents, the Stalker is surprisingly solid despite seeming dependent on going unnoticed at first glance. As with many of the vigilante’s “only if they haven’t noticed me yet” class features, your most powerful moment is your surprise round or first turn, so try to make the most of it.
Note: When I originally wrote this guide about a month after Ultimate Intrigue dropped, Stalker rated a green. Between Spymaster’s Handbook and Horror Adventures, though, that rating has dropped to yellow. This is not a criticism of Stalker as a whole, but a criticism of the base Stalker. The Teisatsu, Serial Killer, and to a lesser extent even the Hangman archetypes all outclass Stalker by a country mile in one way or another, because they can do what it does but better.
Chaotic Vigilante: Your vigilante identity must be chaotic. I don’t generally rate alignment restrictions because they can be worked around, and this one at least makes more sense than barbarians not being allowed to be lawful.
Brutish Fortitude: Your Fortitude becomes a good save, but Reflex and Will become bad. On any other specialization this would’ve been yellow, but dear god is a hit to your will save bad as a Brute.
Weapon and Armor proficiency: You lose medium armor and martial weapons, and get Improved Unarmed Strike instead. Yeah, this sucks donkey balls, but you’ll at least have talents to make unarmed strike decent.
Brute Form: As much more detailed explanation of the unique ability; when you’re in mortal peril and in your social identity, you have to succeed at a frankly ridiculous will save (DC 20+1/2 your vigilante level) or enter your vigilante identity. You become one size larger, take a -2 penalty to AC and all ability checks relying on Charisma, Dexterity or Intelligence. You can’t use any skills relying on those ability scores except Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate and Ride, or any ability requiring patience or concentration. The process takes you out of combat for a round and makes you flatfooted, you can’t maintain your secret identity as a result, and most damningly, while you can point yourself at enemies over allies during combat, once there are no more enemies, you have to succeed at that Will save again or start beating up your party.
Oh, and let’s pile on even more badness. You do get full BAB in your vigilante identity, but that doesn’t actually qualify you for feats in a timely manner. You get an extremely pitiful bonus to attack and damage rolls. Your clothes don’t increase in size with you unless they’re magical (better invest in some sleeves of many garments), and your weapons and armor don’t increase in size with you at all. So, let’s get this straight. You don’t get an armor bonus to AC unless you walk around in Large armor, and you take a -2 penalty to AC from the vigilante identity, on top of a -1 to AC from being Large sized. So assuming a dexterity score of about 16, you’re looking at… 10 AC. Joy.
But you know what? I could forgive that if it weren’t for that damned Will save. The base DC is 20, and it scales with half your level. Meanwhile, your Will save starts at 0, and scales with 1/3 your level. Your allies can Aid Another you, but the average party is around 4. At level 10 with a 14 in Wisdom (I’m being very, very generous with this point buy), in an average party you’re looking are at +8, with Aid Anothers giving you 6 more. That’s +14. Your save DC is 25. With all of this investment into getting you back to normal, it’s still a greater than 50% chance that you’re going to go gangbusters on your allies, and this is going to happen every time you’re in danger. And unfortunately, you also want to change in combat. Otherwise, you’re wasting literally all of your class features.
Tear Them Apart: You gain a rend for 1d10+1½ Strength, or 3d10+1½ Strength if you land four attacks. Replaces Vengeance Strike. Frankly, as capstones go, trading a potential guaranteed crit or massive quantities of precision damage for this honestly pathetic amount of damage for level 20 is pathetic. At least make it double Strength. On the other hand, you can use it more than once per combat, which is nice.
Unique Talents
Awesome Blow: Okay, I’m extremely critical of the Brute, but I have to admit it’s made up for very slightly by how freaking awesome some of the talents are. Awesome Blow is like if Unarmed Strike, Trip and Bull Rush had a baby and that baby kicked ass. The fact that you can get access without needing 25 Strength is also important. Definitely snag.
Heavy Punches: Your unarmed strikes in your vigilante identity have monk scaling. I’m pretty sure this is exclusively the reason why you don’t get a strength bonus for going up in size, considering you barely get any other kind of damage bonus for being large.
Scale Surroundings: You know how the Hulk just casually climbs up buildings? Here you go, 30’ climb speed. Only rated green because you can get a 15’ climb speed without having to be a Brute.
Sizing Equipment: The fact that this requires a talent is criminal. You get to use your now improperly sized weapons and armor as if they’d grown with you, but at a -1 penalty until level 6. Seriously this should not require a talent but it does and you need it.
Total Destruction: You get Throw Anything as a bonus feat. You can also pick up any unattended object up to two size categories smaller than you and throw it at 1½ your Strength modifier. At 8 level, it can be another creature, although you have to succeed at a combat maneuver check to do it. And then at level 16, you can take an object on size category larger than you, and throw it as a 10’ radius splash weapon for 1d6 damage per level, which is insane and awesome and I love these talents why does everything else about the Brute have to be so bad?
Final Thoughts: I wish I could make the Brute work. I really, really do. But the fact is that you’re inevitably going to fail that will save and you’re going to fail it a lot. The more people in the party who can reliably make an Aid Another to improve your Will, the better off you’ll be, but you can’t avoid the natural one forever. If you must go this route, I recommend a Will boosting trait, Iron Will and Improved Iron Will as soon as you can possibly get them, and make sure your party knows how to Diplomacy.
Class Skills: You get Knowledge (arcana) and Spellcraft instead of Disable Device, Knowledge (engineering), Perception and Survival. Perception and Disable Device are serious losses, but two identification skills can make up for it, especially since you’re Intelligence based now. You also only get 4+Int mod skills per level, but again, you’re Int based so it balances out.
Weapon and Armor proficiency: You lose medium armor, but you get to cast in light armor so feel grateful.
Spellcasting: You trade half your talents for the witch spell list and magus spell progression. This isn’t half bad, for what you want to do as a cabalist, but the talent loss hurts.
Spill Blood: A target who is unaware of your presence, considers you an ally or who is denied dexterity to AC takes bleed damage equal to your level when you hit them with a piercing or slashing weapon. The fun part about this is that you only need to hit a target once, and can then proceed to step back and start dealing debuffs. Either they’ve got a heal, which means they need to waste an action or resources on stopping your bleed, or they’re going to slowly take damage over time.
Bloodbound Spell: When you cast a spell against a foe that’s taking bleed damage, they take either a -1 to their saving throw or to their AC, depending on if it’s a touch attack or a save or suck. If it’s a necromancy spell, it becomes a -2 instead. It replaces Startling Appearance, and is infinitely more useful considering you have plenty of ability to make someone bleed.
Bloody Horror: Basically Frightening Appearance, but instead of being based on attacking someone who doesn’t know you’re present, it’s based on casting a spell where one of the targets is taking bleed damage. You can’t get frightened off of it, sadly, but it’s still a free action intimidate, and it can potentially be used multiple times per combat depending on the areas of your casting.
Shadowy Appearance: Instead of Stunning Appearance, you get a constant blur effect, and can spend an immediate action to get Greater Invisibility for 1d6 rounds. Again, the fact that it’s useful on more than one round per combat is great.
Unique Talents
Bond of Blood: When you deal bleed damage or 5 or more points of damage with a piercing or slashing weapon, you get 1d6 temporary hp +1d6 for every 4 levels you have. You also get to use Blood Armor once a day as a swift action SLA. The temporary HP is good and worth the take, and the Blood Armor isn’t bad per se, given it’s only a swift action. Just remember that something that scales so slowly and scales by taking damage is never not going to suck.
Familiar: You get a familiar. Your familiar also gets a social and a vigilante identity, making it the world’s most adorable sidekick.
Living Shadow: Once per day, you can use Shadow Body. It’s round/level, but at level 14 (a whopping 2 levels after you can take the talent, making me wonder why they bothered) it’s minute/level. Shadow Body is a pretty legit spell, giving you incorporeality, the ability to traverse walls, and total concealment in dim light and darkness. Just keep an eye on your spells, because you can’t use material components while a living shadow.
Necromantic Focus: You get Spell Focus (necromancy) as a bonus feat, and get some bonus spells in your spellbook that really don’t mean much because you’re a spellbook caster and these are literally all on your spell list. Still it saves you a little gold and the important part is the spell focus as a bonus feat. You like necromancy spells, so this is a decent choice.
Shadow Jump: You get to shadow jump as a shadowdancer of your level -6. Because of the way shadow jump scales, this penalty isn’t too painful; it’s honestly as if you’d just taken four levels in shadowdancer. Shadow Jump is a pretty nifty thing, plus you might be able to get your GM to let you take the Dimensional Dervish line with it, which is double nifty.
Tattoo Chamber: Oh man. Oh. Man. So you can put up to one item per three levels in a little pocket dimension in a tattoo in your wrist. Let’s go through why this is awesome. First of all, it’s like the spring loaded wrist sheath and the handy haversack had a baby, which on its own is great. In addition to that, any spell trigger item (wands and staves) that you have in there, you act as if you’re wielding. That’s right: you can now wield two wands simultaneously, plus one more per three levels. Blue for the Cabalist because their spell list is less wand friendly than the Warlock, but god damn dude this is legit.
Final Thoughts: Literally everything is at least green, and most things are blue. Cabalist is a great alternative to the witch if you want to be a debuffing vigilante, and flavorwise all you GMs out there now have a pretty good class du jour for all those mysterious cultists out there.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: You get firearms, but lose martial weapons and medium armor. This is kind of shit, even the gunslinger, the class explicitly dedicated to firearms, gets martial weapons.
Gunmaster: You get the gunslinger’s gunsmith ability, which is pretty nice. You sadly never get gun training, but you do get a small bonus to attack and damage rolls that scales decently.
Nimble: +1 dodge bonus to AC while wearing light or no armor, which isn’t terrible. The problem here comes in comparison to the Gunslinger, and this is going to be a recurring theme: in most instances of a specialization being similar to a class, it is not objectively, numerically worse. Here, you get Nimble two levels later, and it scales every 6 levels instead of every 4. Now, with that being said, this is one I’m not going to judge next to Gunslinger, because honestly we have a lot of tools to work with that they don’t. Now let’s get into what we actually can judge next to the gunslinger.
Unique Talents
Deadeye: Once per day, you can use the gunslinger’s Deadeye deed. You get more uses every four levels, meaning it does eventually scale up to the same usability as if you were a Gunslinger… or you could just take a one level dip in Gunslinger and get the full uses.
Death’s Shot: Three times per day you can use the gunslinger’s Death’s Shot deed. Are you noticing a pattern? Anyway you can’t take this until level 20, and frankly, at level 20 if you get a crit on something with a firearm and it doesn’t immediately die, you’ve screwed up somewhere.
Gunmaster Initiative: You get a +2 on initiative checks. For a talent. You also get to draw a firearm as part of your initiative check if you have Quick Draw, in which case a) why do you have Quick Draw you have no bonus feats and are a gun user and b) you could just draw your firearm on your turn, which is the earliest you can even use it. The only thing of value is the +2 to initiative, and you’re dexterity based. Take reactionary and move on.
Lightning Reload: A number of times per day equal to half your vigilante level, you can reload as a swift or free action once per round. So… let me get this straight, the gunslinger equivalent of this talent is literally free use as long as you have grit, and this you’re limited in both daily use and per-round use? This is so objectively worse than a gunslinger I can’t even express it.
Quick Clear: Okay now you’re just being mean. You get the gunslinger’s Quick Clear deed once. Per. Day. Quick Clear is legitimately the only thing that makes guns usable for the slinger. Just take a level in gunslinger, or hell, if you’re that opposed to multiclassing take Amateur Gunslinger and make this your deed. Just don’t take this talent.
Final Thoughts: You’re picking this up for… what, exactly? The ability to use guns? Be an Avenger and take Combat Talent, boom, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (firearms). These crummy talents over the many good talents that other specs have? Take a dip in gunslinger or grab Amateur Gunslinger and play something better, please.
Class Skills: As the Cabalist, but you get Knowledge (planes) too. Now if only you were Int based this would matter.
Weapon and Armor proficiency: As the Cabalist.
Spellcasting: As the cabalist, but instead of the witch list you’re using… ugh, the unchained summoner list, and you use unchained summoner spell progression. Unlike the cabalist this isn’t quite worth trading half your talents for. You also don’t have a spellbook. Instead you cast spontaneously, refreshing them by communing with your familiar like a witch. Unlike a witch, your familiar can’t eat scrolls to expand it. The end result is that your spellcasting is not that good. Now, in fairness, you are still getting 6 levels of spellcasting, and from an optimization standpoint even I have to admit that that’s good. Given time to buff, you can set yourself and your familiar up with some good magic. But given that the unsummoner spell list is designed for a back line or mid-row supportive caster, and you’re designed to be on the front lines kicking it up with your battle buddy, it’s not the best of fits.
Transformation Sequence: You can swap identities in only 5 rounds (standard action with quick change and swift with immediate change). On the other hand, it’s a full on sequence in the vein of Sailor Moon or Power Rangers, with loud sounds and music, bright colors, fancy movements… okay no I’m not actually seeing a downside here that’s hilarious and fancy. You really only lose the ability to use Many Guises on the fly to hide in a crowd. No rating because it’s a lateral move.
Animal Guide: This is the reason you’re here, the entire reason to take Magical Child (well, that and the cool transformation sequence anyway). You get a familiar with a vigilante and social identity of its own. It gains DR/magic equal to your level, which is pretty legit to help keep it alive, and if it dies you can put its soul into another familiar body. But the best part about the Animal Guide: it gets multiple forms. At 3, 5 and 7, you get to pick an improved familiar you could conceivably take at that level, and your familiar can assume that form any time it switches identities. The kicker is that because you’re not taking the Improved Familiar feat, you don’t have to give up Speak With Animals of its Kind, so you can make it take an archetype. There’s any number of great combinations here, but the gist of this is, you can get some insane versatility here. As far as I’m concerned, this is what you’re trading half of your talents for. Probably the best battle buddy you could ever get without needing Leadership.
Or maybe I’m just biased because I look for any possible way to get a Mauler Shadow Drake that I can ride and be Hiccup. Either way, this is a pretty legit class feature. Now if only your spell list didn’t suck.
Update: It turns out, I am biased, because Ultimate Wilderness has now forbidden Magical Children from taking mauler familiars, and I’m super salty about it. Either way, it limits your options by basically taking away the Battle Buddy Familiar option (well, not fully taken away in fairness, but pretty reduced in my opinion) and leaving you with more of a support familiar. So, knocked down to green. Not bad, but not nearly as good as it once was.
Staunch Ally: Your familiar can use the Appearance line and Vengeance Strike. This basically doubles your uses, although you’re still limited by the 1/day/target limitation.
Unique Talents: … crap we don’t have any.
Final Thoughts: Much more than the bad spellcasting, not having any unique talents, when you compare the amazing talents that other specializations have, is the death knell that keeps it from being green. I still say Magical Child is a good, fun choice, but you have to play it very differently from other specializations.
Class Skills: Instead of Swim and Use Magic Device, you get Handle Animal. This is a reasonable trade all things considered.
Thorough Change: Quick Change and Immediate Change do literally nothing for you.
Mount: Someone took the cavalier’s mount and the hunter’s animal companion and made them kiss. You get a cav mount, but it also shares your teamwork feats. Sadly, while mounted you don’t count as separate creatures, but this can be resolved by occasionally getting off. If you go this route I recommend a Small race with a Medium mount. It also benefits from your startling appearance, but good luck sneaking up on someone with a horse.
Furious Charge: It’s Cavalier’s Charge. It suffers from all the same problems that Cavalier’s Charge does, including needing a charge lane, but it’s not a bad thing, although you do give up a talent for it.
Mighty Charge: Again, it’s the cavalier feature of the same name. See above re: problems with charging and giving up a talent.
Vengeance Strike: And then see above re: sneaking up on someone on a horse.
Unique Talents: Mounted Fury has none. Instead they get to use the Avenger talent list, plus you can give up a talent to take a teamwork feat (which becomes two teamwork feats, retroactively, at level 10). I rate this blue for two reasons: one, the Avenger talent tree is good. In particular, you get access to pounce as a mock cavalier through Mad Rush. Two, Mounted Fury has officially raised the bar on the most feats it’s possible to get. Human with the alternate racial trait granting three skill focus feats, one level in monk for Imp. Unarmed Strike, TWF, Stunning Fist and a bonus feat, one level in Inspired Blade swashbuckler for weapon finesse and weapon focus, and 18 levels in Mounted Fury for 7 talents, one of which is spent on Strike the Unseen and the rest on teamwork feats, ends you up with 34 feats. It would be a bad build to be sure, but it’s possible.
Final Thoughts: You’re an Avenger with a horse instead of full BAB. This is not a bad thing. Unless you’re Small, mounts can be a pain in the ass, but unlike a cavalier you’ve got a lot of class features and bonuses that have nothing to do with your mount, so you’re at least in a better place than them there.
Class Skills: Same as Cabalist.
Armor Proficiencies: Also same as Cabalist.
Spellcasting: Still also the same as Cabalist. A little better since you’re using the sorcerer/wizard list, which is far more all encompassing.
Mystic Bolts: Okay now we get to something unique. You get the ability to either sling energy bolts at people, or slap them with energy, your call. You get to deal 1d6 points of damage+1 for every 4 levels, and can choose between cold, fire, acid or electricity. Later on, you can expand to other energy types, so if you choose poorly early on you’ll be able to make up for it later. The cool thing is that despite seeming like a better cantrip, you can two-weapon fight with these energy bolts, and apply abilities that affect weapon attacks like Arcane Strike. You don’t get much scaling, admittedly, but you do gain some rapid fire, and can ignore damage reduction very handily. Once you hit level 7, you can also start expanding your repertoire, making it less likely that enemies will have energy resistance against you. This admittedly doesn’t have the best of scaling, but I still rate it blue because, at the end of the day, you still have the ability to use weapons, you still have your spells, this isn’t the only thing you’re relying on. Compared to, say, a wizard, when you run out of spells, you’re going to be much better off.
Piercing Bolts: At level 3, one of your mystic bolts per round can become a touch attack. Then at 5, they all can. The delay is something of a compensation for the fact that back in the playtest, Mystic Bolts was a level 4 talent, while now it’s just baked into the specialization. Either way, it’s good stuff, you get to hit touch right where the bulk of most campaigns gets started. There’s also a key word in there: can. You can also choose not to make them touch attacks, making them legal to combine with Power Attack/Deadly Aim/Piranha Strike, giving you some damage scaling. The ability to turn them into touch attacks as needed (if, say, up against a particularly high AC enemy, or on your lowest BAB attacks) is just a very nice bonus, and replaces Unshakable, a class feature that we do not care about.
Unique Talents
Arcane Striker: You get Arcane Strike as a bonus feat. Starting at 12 you can use arcane strike to add flaming, frost, shock or thundering to your weapon, and at 16 you can go with anarchic, axiomatic, flaming burst, holy, icy burst, shocking burst and unholy too. I’m pretty sure it’s only gated at such high levels because you can apply this to your Mystic Bolts, but when you do get to that point, hot damn.
Elemental Armor: You gain resistance to an energy type, and deal that energy type as damage to anyone who hits you in melee or tries to grapple you. Not bad, but the damage is only once per round and you should really want to be not hit in the first place.
Familiar: Did familiars suddenly get not good when I wasn’t looking? No? Okay.
Social Simulacrum: You can create a double to take your place for 4 hours. This is kind of a waste of a talent for the purposes they intended it for, which was clearly to have it appear in public while you’re off doing vigilante things. Unfortunately, with only a four hour time limit there’s too much possibility of something going horribly wrong and someone seeing “you” dissolve into ice and snow. However, if you’ve gone the crafting route, you can pull some pretty awesome shenanigans with this and Master Craftsman. See, Double Time and Social Grace mean that it takes about as long to get a day’s progress crafting something as your Social Simulacrum has hours. So, while you’re off adventuring (or hell, while you’re sleeping for that matter if nothing happened that day), you can set up a simulacrum in your workshop and bang out a day’s worth of crafting on a magic item for the party. Boom, just look at how much time gets saved because of this. Uh… three hours, since it takes an hour to make one, but still. You’ll need Master Craftsman for this to work though, your simulacrum can’t actually craft magic items without it.
Tattoo Chamber: This is somehow better here than it is on the Cabalist, since you have so much more wand support than it does. Want to never prepare Mage Armor again? Wand in your arm. How about Shield and Magic Missile? Stick a Staff of Minor Arcana in there. Emergency Glitterdust? Emergency Glitterdust. Seriously such a great talent.
Final Thoughts: Make absolutely zero mistake: if you play a Warlock, you are not playing a caster. You’re playing a gish. You don’t have the spells per day to be a caster focus, but your Mystic Bolts are better than any cantrip you could ever prepare and give you a definite “mystical martial” bent in an entirely different way from the magus. Short version, pretty cool.
Alignment: You’re a divine caster, so divine caster alignment rules apply. However, only to your vigilante identity. Your social identity isn’t bound by it, although if you’re not within one step of your deity you can’t cast while in social form.
Class Skills: As Cabalist, but religion instead of arcana, and you lose Perform and Sleight of Hand instead of Perception and Survival. This is a good thing, because it would mean you’re yet another Wisdom caster who doesn’t get Perception as a class skill and that would irk me.
Weapon Proficiencies: You keep all your same proficiencies, but if your deity has an exotic as their favored weapon, you get that too.
Spellcasting: A much smoother spellcasting progression, since you’re literally just copying everything from the inquisitor (much like Magical Child, but with a not crappy spell list).
Aura: You’re a divine caster who worships a deity what did you expect.
Inquisition: You get to pick an inquisition tied to your deity. There’s some good inquisitions out there, but you should usually pick a deity first, then an inquisition, not the other way around, so we won’t go into them in detail. If you want to see what the best inquisitions are, I recommend an Inquisitor guide.
Unique Talents
Channel Energy: You get to channel as a cleric of your level -4. Channeling is already frankly pretty weak without quick channel, and taking it at a -4 penalty is extra weak.
Discern Lies: Who brought the inquisitor in here? No but seriously this is the same as the inquisitor ability, and it’s pretty solid. Not a priority pickup though, unless you’re in an intrigue game.
Empower Symbol: You basically get at-will consecrate or desecrate, depending on alignment stuff. At level 10, it lets your consecrate/desecrate have the permanent fixture boost. A mediocre talent, as a good Zealot you’ll usually only get a little mileage out of it and as an evil Zealot you’re not well suited to necromancy. If you’re in an undead heavy campaign, though, goes up to blue.
Harsh Judgment (Inner Sea Intrigue): You gain access to one of the inquisitor’s judgments, either destruction, piercing, purity or smiting. Take that, haters.
Stalwart: Evasion, but for Fortitude and Will. Fortitude and Will partials can still be pretty nasty, although far more Fort or Will save are negates rather than partial, so it balances the scales.
Stern Gaze: So Gunmaster, take a look down here. This is how you have talents that mimic class features. Bonus to Intimidate and Sense Motive equal to half your vigilante level. Boom, done, easy. You make a good face, especially with certain inquisitions, so this is a solid choice.
Zealot Smite: Pick an alignment opposed to your deity. You can smite that shit like a paladin. Smite Evil/Good (depending on your campaign) will never not be good, while Smite Law/Chaos can be flavorful or amusing, and good if you’re multiclassing with paladin/antipaladin and aligned against certain outsiders. Notably, however, unlike a paladin this does not let you get past DR/- or epic. That doesn’t make it any less purple though. Just remember if you’re going to go this route, you need to decide to when you roll up, because without a good Charisma bonus it’s worthless to you.
Final Thoughts: So I know there’s a lot of criticism of the Zealot as a weaker inquisitor. However, I am explicitly not judging this by the merits of the thing it emulates. Yes, I know I did that for Gunmaster, but in fairness Gunmaster is objectively worthless whether you compare it to gunslinger or not. Taken on its own merit, the Zealot gives you versatile smite access, an inquisition (some of which are pretty damn good), you can now with Inner Sea Intrigue take a judgment if you so choose, and you have your spells, and you have the rest of the vigilante talents to choose from. The key here is what you take from being a Zealot. If you grab Harsh Judgment, Stalwart, Discern Lies, Stern Gaze, etc… then yes, you should probably just be an Inquisitor. Take just one or two of those, though, and then a sampling of base talents, and you’ve got yourself something unique.
Unique Ability: Scaling bonus to Aid Another
Rebellious Identity: Your vigilante identity must be within one step of chaotic good, and your social identity must appear to be a slave, servant, or menial laborer. Again, alignment and flavor locks don’t warrant a rating, this is definitely a flavor based archetype.
Bellflower Crop: You can designate 3+your Charisma modifier allies to receive additional bonuses to Aid Another, starting at a +3 total and increasing at level 5, 11 and 17 to +6 total. Notably, this says it doesn’t stack with feats or class features that improve Aid Another (probably to prevent a dip/gestalt with Order of the Dragon cavalier), but not with traits, meaning Helpful (and the far more relevant Halfling Helpful) should stack. I mean, I wouldn’t pull it at PFS, but I’m sure a home GM would allow it. Now there is something of a problem in that it only applies so long as your designated targets are within 30’, and if they leave you have to redesignate them. There’s also no action give to it, but I would personally assume it’s a free action. Combine this with Team Player, and you’ll either be able to give that big bonus as a swift action, or even better, apply it to all of your allies simultaneously as a standard, making it 3-5 times more efficient than it was before. Obviously, only useful if you’re willing to do an Aid Another build, but that’s what the archetype is all about; you can be a Bellflower Network guy without it. Grab yourself a Helpful Weapon and go to town.
Obsequious: You trade your first social talent to gain the ability to use Bluff to deflect suspicion about your two identities rather than disguise, and a +2 bonus. This would be a lovely alternative… if not for the fact that Seamless Guise doesn’t apply. I don’t know about you, but I can’t come by a +20 to bluff that easily.
Tend the Garden: You gain Stealth Synergy as a bonus feat, and Tactician, but the duration is only one round per 5 vigilante levels you have. If you don’t mind spending your standard every few rounds refreshing your shared teamwork feat, this isn’t bad, but… yeah no I got nothing, the only real effective use this has is spamming Stealth Synergy, which works great until you need to refresh, which requires talking.
Unique Talents: None. Always a bad sign about a specialization.
Final Thoughts: I’ll be totally honest, if Team Player weren’t a thing I would tell you to play an Order of the Dragon Cavalier instead, because they’re actually pretty good. As is, you aren’t really trading out too much, and Team Player is actually a pretty good talent. So yeah, you can absolutely be a decent support vigilante with this archetype, and absolutely nothing else.
Experimenter, or, how to be Jekyl and Hyde
Unique Ability: Mutagen
Class Skills: You gain all knowledges. 100% gain and no loss, can’t complain.
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: Paizo, we really need to have a talk about this whole continually removing weapon and armor proficiency from a class that really, objectively, are melee and martial characters. You lose martial weapons, medium armor, and shields.
Forbidden Science: So to start off, you get a mutagen, which is an awesome class feature. You also get +½ Craft (alchemy) to make things and to Knowledge (engineering). But you’ll notice there’s a yellow in there, and that’s because of the catch.
When you get confused, dazed, frightened, panicked or stunned, you have to make a high DC Will save each round at the start of your turn. If you fail, your ability scores alter as if you’d consumed a random mutagen for 3+your level in rounds, and you seem to ignore the original effect (it’s unclear) and are instead confused for the duration. Oh, and you can’t roll act normally, because fuck you. At the end, you’re fatigued as well. This is a mixed bag of a downside. On the one hand, getting hit with those effects, depending on your campaign, can be pretty rare, maybe two or three times at most for each in a campaign. On the other, when you do, that’s you out of the fight unless an enemy is stupid enough to hit you. This isn’t as bad as the Brute, but definitely gives me pause.
Mutagenic Change: Instead of your 1st level social talent, you can shift from social to vigilante identities as a full round action by consuming your mutagen. This means your vigilante identity is restricted to 10 minutes per level (or when you go cuckoo for cocoa puffs) but does make it faster to switch, so I’d call that a positive change, especially since it doesn’t require you to do so.
Brew Potion: I feel like this should be called Clone Potion instead, because that’s what it is. You gain Brew Potion as a bonus feat, can make potions like an alchemist, and since you have no spells you instead use a sample of a potion you already have to create it with a DC of +5. Still, pretty handy, you just have to pay for an original copy of anything you want a lot of. Also, it replaces Unshakeable. Have I mentioned at this point how much that helps any rating?
Lore Master: Okay, aside from the mutagen here’s the reason you take this. Lore Master is an insanely good ability for an Intelligence based character, and you have all knowledges. Take 10 on knows forever, take 20 every so often, reap rewards.
Craft Construct: You gain Craft Construct as a bonus with Knowledge (engineering) in place of Spellcraft. You know what this means of course? Robot army. Duh. Anyway constructs can be really expensive, but are generally worth the investment if you use them right.
Mutable Mutagen: Your mutagen’s duration just jumped from 170 minutes (just under three hours) to 17 hours, allowing you to superhero all the live long day. For most campaigns, not really a big deal, but you don’t have the other Appearance features anymore so who cares.
Unique Talents: Technically, you get none, but you do have the option of taking alchemist discoveries that alter your mutagen. On the list, Cognatogen and Feral Mutagen are really the only ones worth looking at, but it’s better than nothing (and in fact you kind of need Feral Mutagen to make up for your trash proficiencies).
Final Thoughts: I want to like the Experimenter, I think a Mutagen vigilante is a great idea, but I just can’t get past that terrible confusion thing. If you think it won’t be a problem (my GMs would damn sure take advantage of it) then by all means, this is a great archetype. Just… don’t bring it into Carrion Crown or Strange Aeons. That ends badly for you.
Mutated Defender, or, how to attend Charles Xavier's School for the Gifted (People of the Wastes)
Unique Ability: Full BAB and mutations
Mutant Specialization: You get full BAB like avenger, which is nice. Unfortunately, it comes with some catches. First of all, you can't use your unique talents (mutant talents) while in your social identity. This isn't so bad, but what is bad is that you also have to take a mutant deformity as if you had the mutant template. That's right, you're less Cyclops and more Beast. Luckily your deformity goes away when you're in your social identity (although so do your mutant powers), there are a few deformities that aren't nearly as bad, and the talents (or rather, talent) are so, so worth it.
Mutant Talents
Mutant Blast: You gain the elemental ray bloodline power of a sorcerer. Do you want to be a worse Warlock? Because this is how you waste a talent on being a worse Warlock.
Mutant Evolution: Here we god damned go. You get a one point evolution from the unchained eidolon list, and can take this as many times as you want. It irritatingly bans you from climb or swim, but this talent can nab you natural attacks, gills, higher natural attack damage, increased reach with any weapon, energy resistance or scent. Unfortunately, all natural attack evolutions take up your hands, which is kinda bull (especially for bite. Like, it's a fucking bite, that uses your mouth) but it's still a wide range of possibilities, and if you're going for a natural attacks build the wide variety of natural attack improvement evolutions is not to be ignored. Also, I speak from experience from my own eidolon, 15-20' reach on a glaive is tech (Am I using that right? That's what all the kids are saying now right?). Anyway, this is what you're here for.
Mutated Lobe: You get detect thoughts as an SLA. Detect thoughts is a neat spell, but I wouldn't call this worth a talent, particularly not when you have so many other great options.
Final Verdict: There's a lot of cool options in your mutant evolution list. The deformity hurts, as do the restrictions (what harm does it do to let me have a climb and swim speed damnit), but damned if it isn't a cool gimmick, and I like it. Mutated Defender is on my "to play" list.
Avenging Beast, or, how to be... shit I already used Beast Boy. Uh... Vixen? Maybe? (Ultimate Wilderness)
Unique Ability: Patron Spells and Wild Shape
Class Skills: Gain Knowledge (nature) and Spellcraft, lose Disable Device, Knowledge (engineering), Perform and Sleight of Hand. You weren't planning on being a roguish type with this archetype, so no big loss.
Skills per Level: Dropped to 4, as per spellcasting spec standard.
Animal Mask: Your dual identity is hinged around a mask designed to look like one specific animal. No real mechanical change, except you have to take care of your mask and keep it with you at all times. I recommend a Pathfinder Pouch.
Spellcasting: You get spellcasting as a hunter, with the hunter list. This means you get early access to spells on the Ranger spell list, and things like Lead Blades and Hunter's Howl. It's a solid spell list, although I'm forever salty over losing half your talents.
Patron Spells: This is functionally your vigilante specialization. You gain spells added to your spell list from a chosen witch patron. There are a lot of good choices that add to your abilities, but I'm inclined towards buff options like Boundaries, Devotion, and Wisdom. A solid addition to your spellcasting feature that helps customize it up.
Wild Shape: Starting at 5th, you can wild shape. As beast shape 1. And only beast shape 1. Limited to one animal form only. ... why does Paizo hate wild shape so much again? Like, I realize that you also get spellcasting and vigilante talents, I really do, but why is this so limited exactly? Agathiel at least lets you take more options from each level of beast shape as you level up, and gives you a more versatile Aspect of the Beast. Sigh.
Final Verdict: As your "nature caster" archetype, I will say I actually like the Avenging Beast. I wish its wild shape was... less awful, but it's not the core mechanic so I'll let it slide. A solid choice of specialization for a more nature oriented vigilante.
Compatible Specializations: Avenger, Stalker
Class Skills: Swap out Knowledge (dungeoneering) and (engineering) for (arcana) and (history). A fairly lateral move.
Occult Awareness: You trade away your first social talent for Psychic Sensitivity, granting you access to occult skill unlocks. I don’t like this trade for two reasons: one, social talents are actually really good. And two, Psychic Sensitivity really does not fit a lot of the flavor of the class. Sure, your implements can be magical in nature, but part of the draw is that they can be custom built gadgets too. That being said, from an purely mechanical point of view you are a skill monkey, so you can make good use of the occult skill unlocks.
Implements and Focus Powers: You trade half of your talents for occultist implements. You don’t get any kind of spellcasting or resonant powers, but you do get the focus powers that work with them. Your implements also have to work specifically with whatever focus power you took. When choosing implements and powers for yourself, think of yourself like a melee combat occultist: abjuration and transmutation powers will be your best friends, giving you bonus offensive and defensive options. You can also take some divination powers if you want to have nifty spy gadgets. Unlike most things that take away talents, I consider this a fairly lateral move; a lot of the occultist powers are on par with a lot of vigilante talents, so it’s an even trade.
Mental Focus: Unrated. You get mental focus to power your gadgets. It’s basically folded into the above.
Object Reading: You gain the ability to examine an object and learn all kinds of nifty goodies; what kind of magic it might have, historical facts, information about the person who last used it. In exchange, you lose Unshakable, which I’m fairly convinced exists solely to prevent archetypes from stacking.
Psychometric Strike: You gain twice the usual benefits of Vengeance Strike against an opponent who has an object that used to belong to you. This is vaguely defined, but you could honestly leave a gold piece where your target will find it and that would probably count. Niche, but damned if it wouldn’t be fun to roll a natural 1 and have it be a natural 20. I rate blue mostly because you don’t lose anything in the process of getting this.
Final Thoughts: This is a nifty archetype for anyone who’s ever wanted to play the fun gadget style of superhero. You trade out a lot of talents, making it better for the Avenger than the Stalker (who needs those talents for every advantage he can get getting his Hidden Strike off), but both can make use of it.
Compatible Specializations: Avenger and Stalker.
Wildsoul is, functionally, four different archetypes in one, so let’s go down the list shall we? Each ability replaces, in order, your 2nd, 6th, 12th and 18th level talents.
Parker! Bring me pictures of the Arachnid!
Heightened Senses: You gain Stalker Sense as your level 2 talent, giving you Uncanny Dodge and letting you always act in the surprise round. (spoilers: this is the Spidey Sense). The fact that it gives you this despite not being a Stalker makes it blue, even though it’s a forced choice.
Shoot Webs: You get to fire tanglefoot bags with hella reflex DCs 3+con modifier per day. This is a good reason to invest in constitution, but not a great one. As vigilante talents go, this could be called mediocre… except you’re Spider-Man.
Web Specialist: You gain a climb speed, and can use you daily uses of Shoot Webs to fire web grappling hooks as a move action. You can get a slower climb speed without being an Arachnid, though, and the single use websling is… honestly pretty bad. Pretty much the only reason you’ll ever need to use it is out of combat, and frankly, you could buy a crank crossbow to do the same damn thing.
Web Master: Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch we have the ability to properly web swing and I have to rate it yellow, because it’s an extremely situational fly speed with mechanical restrictions that you don’t get until most characters who are getting a fly speed have had one for six to eight levels. Looks like we’re still limited to Spider-Man 2 for the Gamecube for quality web swinging action.
Update: This didn’t get better but we at least have Spider-Man for the PS4 now.
Final Thoughts: Do you just desperately want to be Spiderman? Here, you’re Spiderman. Otherwise, this is a waste of perfectly good talents.
I don’t know enough about Hawkman to make a pun. Falconine.
Soft Landing: Perfect Fall is your second level talent, no options. Perfect Fall was a mediocre talent when we had a choice and it’s a sucky talent now.
Eagle Eye: You gain a competence bonus equal to half your vigilante level on Perception checks. Perception is the best skill in the game, so this gets points.
Take to the Air: While in your vigilante identity, you have wings that give you a 40’ fly speed with good maneuverability. Remember what I was talking about earlier with the web swinging? This is what I’m talking about. This is the only way to get a fly speed as part of the vigilante class, and it’s a pretty good fly speed too.
Deadly Dive: While flying at least 30’ above the ground, you can take a full round action to effectively charge someone, provoking an attack of opportunity. If you hit them, your attack deals an extra 2d6 damage for every 10’ you dove. Let’s be frank here, the maximum of 100’ is insanely easy to pull off when you have a fly speed, so even at level 18 throwing 20d6 onto your first attack of the combat is pretty cool. Even if you miss, you still do the bonus damage, with a reflex save to halve.
Final Thoughts: Death from above is a pretty fun way to play, and getting a natural fly speed is always good. Build for high damage and rain down from the skies on your enemies.
Time to get feral. Ursine.
Deadly Claws: You get two claw attacks for crappy damage. Still, that is talent worthy, and they are primary attacks.
Bear Jaws: You get a bite attack for… crappy damage. Okay honestly, the issue I have here is that these attacks are straight up not good. You get d4s that don’t scale up at all. Compare to the barbarian’s, which with three rage powers are all d6s, or the Alchemist’s feral mutagen, which gives better claws and a much better bite starting at level 2. And you’re trading talents, which are genuinely considered so good that unlike literally every other modular class feature, there is no “Extra Talent” feat. I am distinctly unimpressed.
Thick Hide: We get a +1 natural armor bonus… at level 12. Compare to Falconine or even Arachnid, which get nifty transportation stuff, to say nothing of the talents we could be taking here, and we get all of a +1 to AC. Ridiculous.
Bear Form: I genuinely thought Ursine had scraped the bottom of the barrel with the natural armor bonus. You get at will Beast Shape II… at level 18. An honest to god 4th level spell, which a druid has been able to do since level god damned 6 with many more useful options (considering literally the only thing you’re getting from it that you don’t already have is the bonus to strength).
Final Thoughts: If you want to be a natural attacker there are so many better ways to do it. Take yourself a 2 level dip in Alchemist and Feral Mutagen, and go nuts. Hell, I’d take 2 levels in Barbarian and two rounds of Extra Rage Power for the three rage powers required to get a better set of natural attacks over this.
If the Feline fits, it sits. (Blood of the Beast)
Feline Attributes: You get scent, low-light (and increased range on both), and can take Aspect of the Beast as a feat. Scent is a great class feature, and Aspect of the Beast is a good feat, so hey, we’re doing pretty solid here.
Feline Grace: You get Uncanny Dodge. Uncanny Dodge is a good thing. You also get Improved Uncanny Dodge. Improved Uncanny Dodge is a good thing.
Feline Pounce: We’ve already established Mad Rush as a fantastic talent, and you get it here as a Stalker as well as an Avenger. Good shit.
Nine Lives: You gain the Defensive Roll rogue talent, which lets you make a Reflex save if you would be knocked below 0 hp to halve the damage (sadly Evasion does not apply). Even better, Defensive Roll is usually a 1 use ability, and this talent gives you 8 uses. It’s not as good as the other choices, since you generally want to not be in the position to need it in the first place, and at the level you get it your Reflex save won’t generally be high enough to prevent a serious blow, but there are worse talents to get.
Final Thoughts: So unlike the other Wildsouls, you’re mostly trading talents for things you would get as talents anyway, with some cross-specialization trading. Feline Wildsoul best Wildsoul.
Compatible Specializations: … uh… Avenger and Stalker at the least. I will get back to you on the others.
Tongue Sacrifice: Okay so this is why I say ew. Your social identity is locked into a Pharasmin priest pretending to have taken a vow of silence. As part of switching to your vigilante identity, you get the pleasure of cutting out your own tongue. It deals some damage to you and makes you bleed, so I recommend not doing this without a healer present. Once per day, you can regenerate as a spell-like ability. This is also why I say maybe to being compatible with all specializations. Technically, it doesn’t say it alters dual identity. However, it does alter how you change, meaning it may not be compatible with the Magical Child. Take with a grain of salt. No rating because while it is gross and does hurt you, it’s very minor damage (1d4 and 1 bleed, carry a usable healing wand and you’re fine) and doesn’t replace anything else.
Monastic Communication: You can pass a secret message with Bluff in half the normal time, and get a +½ bonus equal to your vigilante level to the check. Now, as a note, the Anaphexia Thought-Killer is fairly awkward, in a way that is going to affect my rating. It says it replaces our 2nd level social talent. We do not have a 2nd level social talent. So they either mean the 1st level social talent, or the 2nd level vigilante talent. The former is acceptable, the latter really is not. My guess is it’s the latter, since the ability description specifies at 2nd level.
Silent to Magic: In your social identity you gain nondetection against mind-reading effects, and at level 10 it applies to your vigilante identity. A nice extra layer of protection over your social identity for a level 6 social talent… wait a minute there’s no such thing god damnit Paizo. Not a terrible trade, but not really a good one either unless you expect to be bombarded by mindreaders.
Thought-Scent: At 7th level, you gain the ability to… smell… thoughts. Yeah I really want to know what comic book or folklore this is based on. As a standard action for one minute per level (spent in one minute intervals), you can pick a fact, idea or secret that you know, and gain a 30’ scent ability against anyone who knows it. I wish this was a swift action activation, because it would be a really nifty trick against invisible enemies (“I use thought scent to find people who know that the sky is blue”), but standard action isn’t too terrible. Outside of combat, it can help you find out if someone’s figured out a secret, or find a contact. We’ve got a similar typo to Monastic Communication here, so the question really is, are we trading a social talent for a pretty cool “identify people” thing, or a vigilante talent? Because just because this is a neat ability doesn’t suddenly change one being better than the other.
False Reading: You’re now immune to all mind reading. Oh and also, if someone tries to read your mind, you can Bluff them into believing you were thinking about something else. I’d call it better than Silent to Magic, but still niche. Still can’t rate it either.
Final Thoughts: I… cannot rate this yet. We don’t know anything about what the class features replace, and that has a definite impact on ratings, not to mention compatibility. I’ve asked on the messageboards, will update when I get an answer.
DISCLAIMER: The rules of this archetype are subject to interpretation. The prevailing opinion is that you can only Wild Shape into the creature you chose at level 1. My opinion is that that’s just giving a martial a significantly watered down and less versatile version of something a magic class already has, and that’s both bad and lazy writing and I choose to believe better of whoever created the archetype. So I take the interpretation that you can Wild Shape as normal, and are only limited to one form for the base of bestial identity. If you disagree, consider my rating adjusted to a yellow in that case.
Compatible specializations: Avenger and Stalker
Immortal Commitment: You’re now alignment locked, both of your identities must be within one step of NG. A little weird but hey, I’m not one to knock alignment locks.
Bestial Identity: So this one is hilarious. From levels 1 to 3, you pretend to be an animal in vigilante form, even though you’re not. The best part is, between the penalty to appear as a normal animal, and Seamless Guise, you still get a net +10 to your disguise check. Already I want to make a half-orc who disguises himself as a harmless fluffy bunny.
Anyway, starting at level 4, you get a variant wildshape. It’s at will and lasts indefinitely, as part of your disguise, but with a 1 minute cast time and 1 minute dismissal time (unless, of course, you take the talents to speed up your change, which you definitely should just so you can truly be Beast Boy) On the flip side, you don’t get any ability adjustments, only get one animal ability at a time, and can only use it for Beast Shape, not any of the other crazy stuff that comes with Wild Shape. Instead, every time you gain a new level of Beast Shape, you can take more stuff with the lower levels. This is a pretty nifty power, but I can’t rate it too high because it costs you your level 4, 8, 12 and 16 talents.
Agathion Blessing: While in your vigilante identity, you gain Aspect of the Beast. If you use it for Claws of the Beast, you get your choice of a bite at 1d8, a gore at 1d8, or two slams at 1d4 each, instead of just the claws. Aspect of the Beast is a pretty solid feat on its own, and it also saves you from having to spend your one special ability from your highest level Beast Shape on natural attacks. This is at the cost of one talent, but it functions like a talent anyway, so it’s an even trade, and for Agathion specifically, that ranks it a blue.
Final Thoughts: You’re trading half your talents for a watered down Wild Shape, but it’s a pretty nifty variant, especially once you pick up Immediate Change and can spend two moves to swap between animals (or one move, if your GM is nice and considers different animals to be different forms.) Overall I give it a solid “above average.” I do, however, want to call attention to two things: one, it is impossible to use weapons in most animal forms, and yet you retain all weapon proficiencies. Brute and Gunmaster still lose theirs. What the hell. And two, if you did nothing but bear forms you would be a better Ursine than Ursine. That is all.
Compatible Specializations: Stalker
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: You lose martial weapons, and get your selection of eastern weapons, but lose shields.
Infiltrator: You have to be a Stalker. This is not a bad thing, and you’ll see why in a moment.
Ki Pool: Instead of your 2nd level talent you get a Ki Pool. It’s even better for you than a ninja because you have more than just the ki pool that scales with Charisma.
Talents: You can’t select rogue talent, but you can take a ninja trick or an unchained monk ki power instead. You can’t take the rogue talent ninja trick, but you can take vanishing trick, sudden disguise, style master, shadow clone, smoke bomb, etc. Meanwhile if you want to take abundant step, furious defense, a qingong monk power, or the like, it’s pretty legit. It’s pretty much a balance for the fact that as a normal Stalker, you can still take a ninja talent, but it synergizes with your ki pool well.
Final Thoughts: You’re a stalker, but you get a free ninja ki pool, which gives you access to Vanishing Trick. This rates a purple because frankly, the only reason you should ever take a normal Stalker over Teisatsu is because you desperately need that greatsword or that level 2 talent freed up.
The Faceless Enforcer is the Law
Compatible Specializations: Avenger, Stalker
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: Gain heavy armor, lose shields. I call that a net positive trade.
Dual Identity: Your vigilante identity is intrinsically tied to your armor and helmet or mask, and changing identities can never take less time than it takes to remove the armor. What this means is that if you want to make use of that heavy armor proficiency, switching into your vigilante identity will take, at a minimum, 4 minutes and switching out will take at 2-5, if you have help. If you wear any kind of armor in your social identity, that’s even more weight. This becomes a non-issue if you’re playing without actively using separate identities, but then you’re giving up one of your later class features. Either way, it’s an objectively negative change.
Armored Juggernaut: Okay, that dual identity change is a little easier to swallow. Starting at 2, you can don heavy armor without help in 8 minutes, which is painful. But then at 4 it only takes 4 minutes, and at 10 it goes down to 2. You can also don hastily to cut that time down by half, and it doubles as Armor Skin and Heavy Training once you reach certain levels, so I would call it worth the 2nd talent.
Faceless Infiltrator: Or as I like to call it, deep cover. In exchange for a handful of social talents, you gain the ability to create a third identity, one that is a “recruit, ally, or prospective employee” of a group he wishes to infiltrate. Creating the identity comes with all sorts of documents and papers indicating that you are who you say you are, allowing you to better fit in. You don’t get full seamless guise bonus, but you do get a +10 to your disguise, and it becomes +20 at 11. This is pretty much your equivalent to the Many Guises line, and while it’s not as good, it’s still really solid for getting information on the bad guys you’re hunting. Or the good guys for that matter. I should really keep a close eye on new recruits in my Council of Thieves game...
Enforcer’s Wrath: You gain a +4 bonus to intimidate an enemy if no other enemy is within 30’, and the duration lasts for one round longer. This would be better if it weren’t for the fact that solo enemies are trash in Pathfinder. Still, it gives marginal reason to take this as a Stalker and grab Twisting Fear.
Final Thoughts: While I like the Judge Dredd meets The Departed theme, it’s just that: thematic. There’s nothing particularly strong about this archetype other than getting Armor Skin and Heavy Training wrapped up into one. Perhaps it synergizes better with another specialization, and I’ll be going through in more detail to figure out what other ones it’s compatible with later, but for right now, taking this is a purely flavor and thematic choice. So… I’ll give it a green, because I can still see a lot of avengers getting decent use out of it.
Special thanks go to Jeremy Kugler for telling me about this archetype. Much appreciation.
Lemme Borrow that Lasso, Wonder Woman. Hangman Lost His Noose.
Compatible Specializations: Stalker
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: You gain nets and whips, but lose shields. Given what the class centers around, you really kinda need those nets and whips.
Hangman’s Noose: You trade your second level talent for the ability to wield a rope noose like either a net or a whip, and being able to use it to grapple. Downside is you can’t get weapon focus or enchantments on it. Upside is, you can turn a magical or masterwork net or whip into a noose, and then you do get those benefits, begging the question, why can’t you just get the benefits of weapon focus with the noose. Other upside is, you can grapple with them, and get improved grapple when doing so. I recommend a spiked gauntlet alongside this, so you can actually do damage before you get Whip of Vengeance (because of course you are).
Bound to Truth: At 3rd level, add ½ your level to sense motive checks against lies told by anyone bound by your noose. You can also, for your level in rounds per day, put them in a single target zone of truth. I’ll be totally honest, I fully expected the Lasso of Truth to make an appearance on a vigilante archetype, I just didn’t expect it to be the executioner themed one. Anyway trades unshakable, and you know that’s always gonna be a worthwhile trade.
Chokehold: Instead of Startling Appearance (which you won’t be relying on anyway), you gain Chokehold as a bonus feat. For those not in the loop, Chokehold lets you take a -5 on your check to maintain (which is leveled out by the +5 you automatically get to maintain since they didn’t break free) to put them in a pin and force them to hold their breath or begin suffocating. I’ll be totally honest, this would be great if the rules for suffocation (and more accurately, the rules for strangulation) didn’t suck so badly, but if you can convince your GM to let you do a kidney shot as a Dirty Trick to make them lose rounds of breath holding, or argue that if they aren’t aware of you beforehand (Rapid Grappler on a surprise round) then they don’t get to hold their breath because it’s too late, then this can be real nice. Especially as you’re getting it earlier than you’d normally qualify.
Tighten the Noose: While grappling with your noose, as a swift action you can deal your full hidden strike damage. As always, the Stalker applies its hidden strike best in the way that was entirely not intended. Trades frightening appearance, and I don’t consider it a loss unless for some silly reason you’re doing Twisting Fear alongside this grapple specialist.
Suffocation: The first time you succeed at maintaining a grapple on the round after you establish it (sorry Greater and Rapid Grappler fans) you can cause the target to fall unconscious (Fortitude save DC 15+Str) and, when you maintain the grapple (which is automatic, it’s against an unconscious target) then they need to make another save or first fall to -1 and bleeding, and then dies. You lose stunning appearance, but this is an excellent way to just waste people quickly and efficiently (although you can still only do it once per round, so minimum three rounds).
Final Thoughts: I’m actually of the opinion that if you want to be a grappler specialist, you should still go Avenger for the full BAB and the heightened CMB that comes with it. That being said, for a grapple Stalker, this is a good choice of archetype.
Every Batman needs his Joker, and the Serial Killer is here to deliver
Compatible Specializations: Stalker
Alignment: Your vigilante identity has to be evil. Which, you know, totally logical, but still, makes it much harder to play.
Vigilante Specialization: Oh you thought we covered this already? Well let me tell you, it doesn’t just make you a Stalker, it changes Stalker with a change that really frankly should’ve been in there in the first place: your hidden strike is treated as sneak attack for prerequisites and abilities depending on sneak attack. I fully, fully expect this to be added to Stalker itself in the first UI errata because it should’ve been in there in the first place, but what this means is that as a serial killer, you can use things like Sap Master, Sniper Goggles, and Accomplished Sneak Attacker if you want to multiclass. Seriously, such a nice quality of life improvement.
Thwart Pursuit: Instead of Unshakable (good start good start) we get a +½ bonus on all checks in a chase (meh) and to DCs of Diplomacy checks to gather information about us, to track us, and to notice our tracks in the first place (meh). Overall, a meh ability traded out for a meh ability.
Studied Target: In exchange for your 4th and 14th level vig talents and your 9th and 19th level social talents, you get Studied Target as a slayer of 3 levels lower, and don’t provoke AoOs for attempting a coup de grace on a studied target. Even without the last part (which is kinda take it or leave it in my opinion) this is still a relatively solid trade, as studied target is a really, really good class feature. Especially giving up 4, which leaves you your 2nd level talent for whatever you need to get started, and 14, when you should already have your core build.
Charming: You get the witch’s charm hex instead of startling appearance. As a translation, you can make a target make a Will save (DC 10+ ½ your level + Charisma) or the target has its attitude improved one or two steps (depending on level) for a few rounds (Intelligence modifier, which this irritatingly doesn’t change.) Still a good trade in my book.
Death Attack: If you spend three standard actions studying a target, then get a hidden strike off on them, all before they either realize you’re there or realize you’re an enemy, then you can either paralyze them for 1d6+your level rounds, or flat out kill them. They get a fortitude save, but it’s still a hell of a way to open combat if you can avoid notice. Even if they succeed, you still do hidden strike damage, so it’s no different than any other surprise round you run. This does cost you your 6th level talent, so be advised about that.
Calling Card: When you kill someone with a coup de grace or death attack, you can leave a calling card of some kind identifying it as your work. After the first time you use it in your area of renown, you can leave it on a victim in a new area to immediately move your area of renown there, which is pretty handy. Also, your Renown’s intimidate bonus is upped by 2. This doesn’t affect your social identity’s place of renown, so you still have to spread that normally. This costs a social talent, but those are more expendable for the most part and this is a good way to make greater use of Renown.
Grisly Murder: You get Dreadful Carnage as a bonus feat, allowing you to intimidate everyone within 30’ if you bring someone below 0 HP (Twisting Fear, ho!). In addition, when you leave a calling card on someone you murdered, a number of people who examine the body equal to your Charisma score are affected by the spell Nightmare that night. This instead of Frightening Appearance is automatically a boon, on the grounds that you can use it multiple times per combat. Plus, y’know, the whole nightmare thing.
Quiet Death: We crib more stuff from the assassin prestige class. Now when you kill a target with your death attack, you can make a Stealth check vs. Perception checks from everyone around. If you succeed, congratulations, no one noticed you slit that dude’s throat, and you can now disengage from combat and go hide before people notice the dead guy and start initiative. Once more, though, we’re putting talents into potentially unreliable first round kills.
Swift Death: Okay, here we go. Now in place of Stunning Appearance, once per day we can use our death attack without having to study a target first. Best use, assassinate someone normally with quiet death, then assassinate someone else with this. Warrants a blue.
Final Thoughts: I’ve got to hand it to Paizo here. They finally made an archetype that is both much, much better as an NPC villain, but is still useful in PC hands given the right party. Overall I’d call the Serial Killer a flat improvement over the base Stalker, because it actually does what the Stalker is supposed to do (massive surprise round attack) but so much better. I rate green for players in a morally flexible or evil party, yellow for players in a good party or any party with a paladin regardless of the other characters, and purple for BBEG NPC.
For The King! Dragonscale Loyalist.
Compatible Specializations: Avenger/Stalker
Ruby Courtier: You become proficient with a dueling sword (which is just a finessable longsword) and are locked into a noble social identity, locking you out of double time and many guises. So, uh… don’t take this archetype if you don’t want to be a noble, I guess. Dueling swords are okay, but you’re locking yourself into some mediocrity just for a slightly better damage die and lower crit range from a scimitar. On the other hand if you want to use the dueling sword feats then this gets a bit better.
Reflexive Reactions: You lose unshakeable, which is great, and then gain the ability to take a full round of actions in any surprise round, which is okay, but you’re staggered on the first round of combat, rendering the ability pretty pointless.
False Allegiance: You learn to infiltrate one of Brevoy’s noble houses (or homebrew world equivalent), giving you some bonuses. Rated independently below.
Overall, these are very mediocre abilities, and while some are acceptable that’s really only because they’re replacing Startling Appearance (which, by the by, is why Stalker is rated as hot trash for your specialization, considering there’s no real compensation for it for them).
Dragonscale Vigilance: You gain a constant Percieve Betrayal effect, which lets you know any time you’re around someone plotting to betray your lord, and concentrate to find out how hard (although it won’t tell you who they are). Not bad for an intrigue campaign, useless otherwise.
Conqueror’s Wrath: Now we’re in business, and it only took us until level 17 to get there. You can move up to your speed and make a full attack along the way, but attacks of opportunity against you get a big bonus to hit and damage. Still, at level 17 you should be able to take a hit, and this will let you move through a battlefield with purpose.
Final Thoughts: Honestly, for an Avenger, you’re not giving up that much. Not unless you really want to be a stealthy Avenger anyway. I still wouldn’t recommend this for anyone trying to optimize, if only because you’re giving up your first level social talent for a flavor weapon, but if you’re going for the flavor of a Brevoy spy, this is a workable archetype.
My vigilante identity has a tiger companion and dual scimitars. Darklantern (Heroes of the Darklands).
Elven Ancestry: You must have the elf subtype to take this archetype. This limits you to elf, half-elf, or, if you’re feeling particularly bold, drow. Please note that because it requires subtype, not being a member of that race, you can’t get by with Racial Heritage, although you could convince a GM to let you do an outsiderkin race (tiefling, aasimar, sylph, etc.) with elven heritage and Mostly “Human.” Build restrictions don’t usually get a rating, but in this case, elf is only really good for a few specific archetypes, only one of which you qualify for (psychometrist), which means you’re basically stuck as a half-elf.
Dark Identity: This is the archetype’s main gimmick, and I’m not gonna lie, it’s pretty cool. Changing from your social into your vigilante identity is a full round action, and changing back is a move action, saving you some social talents down the road. While transformed, you get a typeless bonus to Dexterity and Charisma, Darkvision 60’, and light blindness. You’re treated as a drow for all things drow, and while your vigilante identity must be Chaotic Evil your social identity can be any alignment. The catch is that turning back requires a Will save, and failing makes you take damage, but that’s a good save for you, and the DC is fairly low if you’re only in your vigilante identity for a short time. This adds an interesting mechanic, managing time between identities: your drow form might be better for combat and sneaking, but would be awful in bright light and in any kind of direct social situation, so balancing between the two and only staying in drow form enough to get what you need done without any fuss makes for an interesting dynamic to the dual identity class feature.
Drow Magic: In place of your first social talent you gain darkness, dancing lights and faerie fire as 1/day SLAs. Darkness is something you can use to leverage your new darkvision, dancing lights is basically useless to you (especially only once per day), but faerie fire will let you light up targets in the dark for your allies. Overall I do give it a yellow, because it’s losing a social talent where your first one may very well be important.
Drow Paragon: Your darkvision goes up to 120’, and you gain spell resistance. It’s crappy SR (an equivalent level caster only needs a 6 on the die without spell pen), which means that your enemies will always succeed and your allies will always fail trying to buff and heal you. You’re losing a vigilante talent for it too, which is a cardinal sin.
Final Thoughts: Dark Identity is a really cool class feature and I want to like this archetype, but you’re trading away useful talents for mediocre abilities. For good measure, it’s also not really compatible with any good archetypes, even though you get to keep your specialization. If you’re going to take this, make sure you leverage that increased Dex and Charisma.
Long Live The Queen! Masked Maiden (Adventurer’s Guide).
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: You gain proficiency with Gray Maiden Plate, which is Full Plate but with a fancy name. You aren’t proficient with any other heavy armor. If you’re going heavy armor you’re gonna be wearing full plate regardless, so this is an unqualified positive.
Imperfect Control: This is a complicated thing. So to start with, your social and vigilante identities are basically disassociated identities. You begin your day in your social identity, and have to make a Will save to turn into your vigilante identity intentionally. Much like the brute, if you enter a stressful situation like combat you have to make a Will save or be forced to change. Unlike the brute, however, you’re stuck transforming at your normal speed, and as written you’ll have to find a phone booth to change in first. This is incredibly awful from a mechanical position, at least until you can pick up Quick and Immediate Change (and Magical Transformation). Roleplay-wise I consider it actually amazing (if frustratingly implemented) but it is in every way a disqualifier, given that it’ll take you out of combat for the first 30 seconds minimum until level 7. To make matters worse, you can’t benefit from bardic performances or any kind of morale bonus, but get no compensation whatsoever. On the other hand when you do pick it up, you can put on your Gray Maiden Plate in like six seconds which is just fantastic.
Scars of the Past: You’re locked into Avenger, but gain a set of Gray Maiden Plate at level 1 (with the gunslinger’s clause). Avenger’s solid and you don’t really want to be a stalker in heavy armor anyway, and free level 1 full plate is pretty awesome. Just ask the Battle Host Occultist.
Armor Training: Exactly what it says on the tin. You get armor training at level 3, and it progresses like a fighter’s. You also get armor mastery at level 19. You’re trading social talents for this, including your level 7 (which suuuuuucks because that’s when you qualify for Quick Change) but ultimately it’s worth it to improve your AC and eventually move at full speed.
Final Thoughts: As often happens with vigilante archetypes, I want to like this (especially since I have a soft spot for Gray Maidens, Curse of the Crimson Throne being my first ever Pathfinder campaign), but Imperfect Control can totally screw you up. Even after getting Quick and Immediate Change, and with Magical Transformation, you still have to do it out of sight. Terrible archetype, 0/10 would not play. Do the Cavalier archetype instead.
Take Dual Identity to the next level with Splintersoul (Antihero's Handbook)
Splintered Identity: Finally, a reason to really distinguish social and vigilante identities. Splintered Identity removes multiclassing and ability restrictions for you, allowing you to, say, be LN in your social identity, LG in your vigilante identity, and still multiclass into paladin, although you can only be a paladin in the LG identity. This is purely good for flavor, since trying to use it for real multiclass shenanigans will cripple you levelwise trying to balance the two identities, but it will let you be, say, a paladin in your vigilante identity and a LN jerk in your social one.
Sudden Change: We're locked into the quick and immediate change talents at 3rd and 7th level, which is annoying , and we lose unshakeable, which isn't a total loss but between it and the next one our archetype stacking is basically gone forever.
Surprising Change: When you use immediate change, you can stack up your appearance features. Niche appeal for an ability that's still only one shot per combat and will come up even less often than it normally does, with the added drawback that we now can't replace those with a different better archetype.
Final Verdict: This archetype really has one use and one use only, and it's so irritatingly niche that it makes my skin crawl. A cool idea executed poorly. However, that does not make it an aggressively bad choice. If you’re not interested in any other archetypes for whatever reason, this opens up some interesting multiclass options for you, so it’s spared from the dreaded red rating.
Darling it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from the Hidden Current (Blood of the Sea).
Race Restriction: Gillman. A meh race choice, but made better by the fact that this archetype really only benefits fish people anyway.
Guise of the Land Walker: You gain many guises at level 1, freaking rad, but you can only shift them between land and sea. Either way, this will allow you to walk around on land as a gillman without people noticing you're a gillman. Not terrible, not great.
Sea's Return: You can dimension door from land to water as a move action, which is... super niche? In a coastal region this can be a great escape tool, but you can't bring friends so it's really only useful for scouting.
Stealthy Swimmer: When moving from land into sea, you get a bonus to Stealth checks. Have I mentioned this archetype is super friggin niche? You also lose a vigilante talent for this. A niche +5 to stealth is not worth a vigilante talent, not remotely.
Final Verdict: Even if you're going to play a gillman vigilante, skip this archetype. It's basically like choosing to be Aquaman without the telepathic control over fish, you’re giving up too much for not nearly enough.
Even More Customization!
Feats, Spells and Magic Items
My goal with this guide is to analyze all the many options you have as a vigilante. Unfortunately, when we come to this section, there’s literally thousands of options to choose from, and we need to go back to one of the first points we had about the vig: it can do just about anything. If I’m judging a feat or a spell or a magic item, there’s very few I could judge on the merits of the class alone; rather, they’d all be judged on the merits of “is this an objectively good or bad feat.” Otherwise, most anything could fit a vig depending on the build. So, to that end, I can only suggest that you refer to other guides, focused on classes that are close to your archetype, specialization, or niche.
Dark Horses (Under Construction)
Third Party Options for Vigilantes (get it? Cuz Dark Horse comics? Screw you, that’s funny)
I’ll admit, I’m not always the biggest fan of third party. More often than not it’s unbalanced and can significantly outclass everything similar. However, since I now write the stuff I can’t really be too biased, so here’s some third party vigilante options I’ve been exposed to. I’ve organized them by publisher, and will consider each section completely self-contained. Assume that nothing from one publisher impacts any other. If you have a 3pp book you’d like included in this section, feel free to contact me with a copy.
Legendary Games
Notation
LV: Legendary Vigilantes
LVV: Legendary Villains: Vigilantes
Legendary Social Talents
Absurd AccusationLV: If someone points out that you and Captain Atom are never in the same room, you can make a Bluff check vs. his Diplomacy check, and if you win, no one will believe him, and he gets penalties on his social checks for a while. Fun if you’re trying to maintain a secret identity, worthless if you’re not.
Accomplished DuelistLVV: Your social identity becomes known for skilled fighting, allowing you to use vigilante talents without revealing your identity. This is handy for many characters who want to keep their identities secret, and worthless to those who don’t, or to specializations like the brute or the warlock whose abilities are far too distinct to be just any random person.
Always PreparedLVV: This is a long way of saying you get a +2 bonus on skill checks that require special tools. To my knowledge, that just means Disable Device and Heal checks, which is super niche and not worth a social talent.
AssumptionLVV: You can steal the identity of a helpless creature with a touch, using their aura to mask your own to the point where even divination effects and spells like discern lies will tell people that you are that person. Not gonna lie, this is just flat out cool.
Friend of a Friend LV: When you improve someone’s attitude with Diplomacy, you can extend that attitude increase to your allies as well, which is frankly something I’ve never seen be an issue ever, which is why every party only needs one face. If it’s an issue for you, then by all means, take this talent.
Gauge TalentLVV: You can evaluate someone’s Bluff, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Perception, or Profession (gambler) skill ranks. For the most part knowing how good an NPC is at Diplomacy is worthless, since it can’t be used on you, but knowing how good they are at the other things can dramatically change how you interact with them or what you try to get past them. Worth consideration.
Gist of It LV: You can attempt to communicate with people you don’t share a language with, taking a penalty on your check. If you fail too hard, then there’s a complete miscommunication. If you expect to be meeting a lot of people with languages you don’t speak, this is both useful and flavorful, with a downside that’s potentially fun can push the plot forward in unexpected ways.
Hidden MindLVV: You become effectively immune to divinations and gain massive bonuses to Will saves against mind-affecting, which are pretty much the only other Will saves you’re ever going to make. As a social talent, this is really, really strong.
Identity Thief LVV: After you’ve killed someone, you can take their face… off. You can then make a mask of it, which can be used to disguise yourself as them. This is… kinda gross and doesn’t make a lot of sense (you don’t generally need a mask to fool people who don’t know what the person looks like, and the people who do know aren’t going to be fooled by just a mask), but if you’re willing to wave that away this pairs nicely with Assumption.
Keep ‘em Talking LV: You can fascinate a target by beating them in an opposed Diplomacy check, and if you beat them by enough, they’ll let slip something they don’t want you to know without realizing it. Really good for intrigue focused campaigns, but no combat application whatsoever, and the fascinate effect really isn’t that great except as a minor distraction.
Magical Inventor LV: You get Master Craftsman as a bonus feat. If your social identity is a crafter of some kind, then this is exactly the sort of flavorful and fun thing you want to take, plus being able to take craft feats can be good if you have some free.
Show Off LVV: You gain a Performance Fe-zzzzzzzz. Oh, I’m sorry, I must’ve drifted off there. Performance combat is terrible and unless it’s heavily incorporated into your campaign this is pointless to you.
Skill Master LV: You get a free skill unlock. Some skill unlocks are good, most are meh or niche. Take at your own risk.
Skill Specialty LV: I don’t know anything about the Legendary Rogue, so I honestly can’t comment.
Social Assassinations LVV: I’ll be honest I also know nothing about the Legendary Assassin PrC so I can’t tell you one damn thing about this.
Stage Duelist LVV: What did I just say about Performance combat? Get the hell out of here.
Superficial Knowledge LV: You can make untrained knowledge checks relating to whatever cover you’re under right now, which is really, really handy with the Many Guises line or if your social identity would know things about things that you don’t because you’re really Batman and Bruce Wayne is the real mask. Don’t bother if you’re playing the straightforward type.
Unbound Ethics LVV: Your vigilante and social identities are completely untethered from each other. Select at level 1 for maximum roleplaying experience. Best used on an evil character to pass himself off as good in his social identity.
Legendary Vigilante Talents
Adamantine Fist LV: Your unarmed strikes ignore half your level in hardness. If you happen to be an unarmed vigilante (either using Fist of the Avenger or one of the 3pp unarmed archetypes) then this is a pretty solid talent choice.
Advanced GripLVV: You get two-handed Strength bonus for holding a weapon in one hand, and you get full Power Attack bonus on an off-hand weapon. If you’re building a Strength based two-weapon fighter or sword and board type Vig, this is a mandatory feat, and even if you’re not it makes Shield of Swings potentially worth it on a two-weapon fighter.
Beast Brethren LVV: You get Animal Ally (also Nature Soul, which is a small buff to Handle Animal that will be helpful) for free, giving you a ranger animal companion. Animal companions are cool, but the ranger’s limited list sucks, which is why you also want to take…
Beastmaster LVV: You get Boon Companion, bringing your companion up to your level, which you can just take normally tbh and should if you’re fine with the ranger list, but Beastmaster also lets you pick any animal companion your little heart desires, and animal companions with no limits rock even harder than animal companions with limits.
Bloody Wrath LVV: You get a bonus to damage when you’re bleeding, which scales with your level. You can also make yourself start bleeding to get the bonus, which is okay I guess but really enemy bleed effects aren’t that great and unless you’re dishing out a lot of attacks every round I wouldn’t call the expense of healing resources worth the extra damage you deal.
Brutal Bulwark LVV: You can make the area around you difficult terrain for enemies, with no action listed so I assume it’s a standard because if it’s a free (the only other reasonable interpretation) this would be absolutely nuts. Take this on a Maneuver/Combat Reflexes build, make it so that anyone you stand next to goes absolutely nowhere because you’re gonna trip them if they try, and become the ubertank.
Chain Lasher LVV: You can use a spiked chain as a weapon with natural reach. Do you want to use a two-handed but shorter version of a whip? Then here you go.
Crazy Bull LV: When you make a single attack at the end of a charge, you can Vital Strike it. As you increase in level, you get greater reach, and do even more damage with it. I like Vital Strike, and consider it terribly underused. Pick up if you’re using a greatsword or other big, multi-dice weapon.
Critical Violence LVV: Pick a light weapon. It increases its natural critical range by 1, but its multiplier is locked in at x2, and at level 12 it goes up by 1 more. So… you realize you’re picking up dual kukris, stacking as high of a static bonus as you can get, and laughing at your 50% threat chance, and there’s nothing the GM can do about it, right? That’s a thing that should always happen.
Critical Virtuoso LVV: You get Improved Critical, Critical Focus, and easy access to critical feats. This is excellent, and pairs really nicely with Critical Violence up there.
Crushing StrikeLV: You gain Devestating Assault, which lets you pour all of your attack rolls into a single hit, inflicting a condition based on how many attack rolls hit. You can also Vital Strike it. Avenger only. Another good way to effectively use Vital Strike, although the optimizer in me says even with the added condition it’s not as good as a full attack.
Death Dealer LVV: You gain the assassin PrC’s death attack and can make it at range. Pick up sniper, and it can be at any range. Stalker exclusive. I find investing a talent in a single-use-per-combat save or die bleh.
Death Incarnate LVV: You get quiet death and swift death, allowing you to use Death Dealer more effectively. See my evaluation of Death Dealer.
Defy PainLV: As a move action, you can convert all the lethal damage you take into nonlethal for your Charisma mod rounds. If you have a healer, this is hilarious because it gives you double restoration. Otherwise, there’s really not much difference between nonlethal and lethal, other than not bleeding out and dying at the end, and 0 hp is something to avoid in either case.
Diamond Determination LV: You get Toughness and Great Fortitude as bonus feats… which… damn man, just take them as regular feats, you can get much better feats with much better incentives as a talent.
Dirty Fighter LVV: You get Greater Dirty Trick as a bonus feat, and then Quick Dirty Trick. Dirty trick is easily the most fun you can have with combat maneuvers, and as a vigilante you have access to Expose Weakness (a ludicrously good additional dirty trick) and Deceitful Dirty Trick, making it an already compelling choice of builds.
Dirty Genius LVV: You get Dirty Trick Master, and whenever you hit someone with your Quick Dirty Trick they have to make a Fortitude save or take an additional penalty on top of what you did to them. This takes the dirty trick user from good to silly good, but it’s still only good for one specific build niche so green.
Dynamic Entry LV: You gain Cleave and Great Cleave, and when you charge you can also cleave the targets. Like Crazy Bull, this gives you more ways and reasons to use generally underutilized feats, and I approve.
Followthrough Strike LV: When you attack with Two-Weapon Fighting, you can make one of your weapons deal damage as if it were Vital Striking on the first attack, and you get Two-Weapon Rend as a bonus later on. Vigilantes are good at TWF, so pick this up and see if you can’t get, like, an impact bastard sword or something that gets multiple damage dice.
Furious Flurry LV: About that whole good at Two-Weapon Fighting thing, this gives you the basic TWF tree all in one, grabbing the feats when you would normally qualify for them. RIP feat taxes, no one will miss you. For bonus points, you also don’t need Dex with this.
Gear Master LV: You get equipment trick feats as a bonus. There are some good equipment tricks out there, but for you the best ones are probably boots, cloak, scabbard, or thieves’ tools.
Grit Pool LV: You get a grit pool like a gunslinger, in a blatant attempt at saving the gunmaster from being terrible. It doesn’t do a great job, but I’d say this brings the gunmaster up from red to yellow.
Grit Talent LV: Look, it’s a valiant effort, but vigilantes weren’t meant to use guns. They’re designed for melee, and the Legendary line really hasn’t added anything to fix that.
Ground and Pound LVV: You get a bonus on enemies who are prone. You can technically utilize this, it’s a decent bonus, but there are better, less niche static bonuses you can get (not everything will be trippable or easy to trip, plus that’s an attack you just wasted by tripping them instead.
Heavy Arms Hero LV: You can treat weapons that are too big for you as if they were sized for you, and two-handed weapons as one-handed weapons and one-handed weapons as if they were light weapons. For the record, because there’s no limitations here and the abilities aren’t said to not stack this means that RAW you can dual-wield large greatswords and that’s bitchin’.
Hurricane Strike LV: You get Whirlwind Attack with no prerequisites. Avenger exclusive. For those keeping score at home, Whirlwind Attack is Great Cleave on crack, but not to a sufficient degree that it needs to be gated behind the worst feat taxes in the world including a feat that is diametrically opposed to its purpose. Good talent for when you’re surrounded, especially if you have some means of getting natural reach.
Improved Familiar LVV: You get Improved Familiar as a bonus feat, with the caveat that it retains speak with animals of its kind, allowing it to take a familiar archetype. Even more ways to get my rideable shadow drake, yay. In all seriousness there are some cool familiar archetypes that pair in neat ways with improved familiars, so take your pick and go nuts. Obviously only usable if you have a familiar, obviously, but there’s a talent for that already.
Intimidating Taunt LVV: You can Intimidate as a swift action, and if you succeed you impose your Charisma modifier as a penalty on attack rolls against other people, in the traditional Pathfinder aggro style of “I’m easier to hit than all my friends!” I maintain my earlier stance, you’re a d8 class and Con is a secondary stat, you have no business tanking for anyone.
Leaping Dragon LV: When you charge an enemy, you can make an Acrobatics check (DC 20, so fairly easy to make) and, if successful, you can make a Vital Strike attack with an extra 1d10 points of damage. Green for the same reason as Crazy Bull, but I would argue that Crazy Bull is better.
Lethal Locks LVV: You get the witch’s prehensile hair hex at will, which is just fucking hysterical. Like no, seriously, you could build an entire superhero character around this talent just for the sheer hilarity and it would be awesome. In terms of mechanics, it’s actually pretty good. Your hair is a primary natural attack, it gets good scaling damage dice, and you use your Charisma to determine its Strength rating for picking things up. Go my children. Build Bayonetta for me (except don’t because Gunmaster is shit).
Lone Survivor LVV: You can designate a number of allies, and if they go to negatives you get bonuses. Remember our complaints about Another Day? Yeah, we don’t want to rely on our allies going down either, so unless you have a party of orcs I suggest you skip this one.
Magic Killer LVV: You can disregard all forms of magically induced miss chance, including illusions and mirror image. If you expect to fight a lot of magic users, this has its uses, but for the most part this talent is just staving off an annoyance, not really contributing something big and important. Later on you can use a single attack to also dispel AC granting magic, but honestly if you’re taking this to target casters those AC buffs aren’t really important.
Update: I ran a game for a vigilante with this talent and I take everything back, it cut through everything I relied on to keep my NPC casters safe.
Magical Limit Break LVV: You get a 7th level spell slot, and it can be taken again for another 7th level spell slot and an 8th level. Its primary function is metamagic, and if you want to actually cast a 7th or 8th level spell you’d better be a prepared caster because it doesn’t give you a spell known without a thing from Intrigue Archetypes I know nothing about. In all honesty, I’ll probably be lynched for this opinion, but I’m intensely critical of building a vigilante with a caster focus and you literally already gave up half your talents for spells, are you really going to give up more? Pass on this unless you’re absolutely dedicated to the spellcaster vigilante thing.
Martial Versatility LVV: You get Barroom Brawler with scaling uses, essentially giving you a limited use version of the brawler’s martial versatility class feature. This basically becomes a bonus feat of whatever you want, which is super useful.
One Punch Assault LVV: Gee I wonder what inspired this talent. You can make a single punch with a small penalty, and do double damage, basically making it a better Vital Strike. Avenger locked. Get Lethal Grace and Fist of the Avenger, then grab this at 6 and be able to punch the living shit out of people. Surprisingly, frigging useless on the dynamic striker, which is generally rewarded for full attacking.
One Punch Master LVV: What N. Jolly has failed to realize is that to be One Punch Man you can’t just simply do a ton of damage with a single punch, the talent would need to say “you do exactly as much damage is needed to win the fight, no more, no less.” Your One Punch goes to triple damage with no penalty, and you roll twice and take the better. You’re basically pooling your full attack into a single blow at your highest BAB, and I see no reason not to do this all the time forever.
Panache Pool LVV: Is… is this a talent tax? Why would you do this to me, why? You get a panache pool as a Swashbuckler, but without deeds the panache pool does absolutely nothing so until you take the next deed this is a big fat middle finger. Rated yellow out of spite.
Panache Talent LVV: Okay, now you get a swashbuckler deed that lets you actually use that panache pool. Now, I know what you’re thinking: take parry and riposte, right? You can absolutely take parry and riposte. Or, and just hear me out on this, you can take Precise Strike, Martial Versatility to turn your unarmed strikes into piercing damage, Lethal Grace, Fist of the Avenger, and One Punch Assault/Master. With the Vigilante Savant feat, this turns on at level 10, you’re dealing double your level to damage, and then you One Punch Assault to triple your damage. Assuming a +2 Strength modifier and Power Attack, you’re hitting for 3d3+84 damage. … or you could just take Parry and Riposte and be boring. Up to you.
Perfect Grip LV: When you have a reach weapon, you still threaten adjacent squares. Pretty straightforward and pretty damn good, considering most methods of getting that ability require you to switch between them as a move action. If you use a reach weapon, this is a must take.
Pinpoint Deflection LV: You get Cut From the Air and Smash From the Air. These are cool feats, and make you able to tank against ranged attacks which is pretty nifty.
Ranged Adept LVV: You gain Point Blank, Precise and Improved Precise as bonus feats, giving you a ranged talent option as a vigilante finally. It’s still heavily skewed towards melee, but ranged is no longer a pipe dream.
Rip and Tear LVV: You gain proficiency with the ripsaw glaive, can start it up as a swift action and reset it as a move action, and also it becomes a trip weapon. Ripsaw glaives are badass, and this makes them much more accessible than they normally are, but obviously if you’re not gonna build around it then it’s not for you.
Smoke Bomb LVV: You gain the ninja’s smoke bombs, that can eventually become the alchemist’s poison bombs. I’m actually pretty critical of smoke effects to be honest, they tend to screw with allies as much as enemies, but they can also make for a pretty awesome exit so I can’t stay mad at them.
Superb Blade LVV: You get the Weapon of the Chosen line of feats, which gives you benefits for sticking with a single weapon, namely that you can reroll miss chance once, count that weapon as magical for the purpose of DR and hitting incorporeals (it should be magical anyway frankly), you can give it an alignment component, and if you make a single attack in your turn you can roll twice on your attack roll and take the better. Good for Vital Strikers, trap for anyone else.
Spell Master LV: You pick a class, and can pretend to be that class for the purpose of wands and staves, increasing their DCs by your Charisma modifier as well, and eventually your vigilante level in place of its caster level. This is otherwise known as bonkers, because you can get a wand made at the minimum caster level, and then start using it as though you were just casting the spell yourself with as many spell slots as you have charges. There’s all manner of spells you can use this with effectively, from blasts to controls to healing, so go nuts.
Supernatural Shutdown LVV: When you hit an enemy with your hidden strike, you suppress a supernatural ability of theirs (your choice or random if you don’t know any they have). Very niche ability with a short duration since it only applies if they aren’t aware of you when you attack, awful ability, don’t even look at it.
Steel Body LV: You gain DR/- equal to ¼ your level. Or, you could just get adamantine armor if you really want DR that badly.
Stylish Combatant LVV: You gain Performing Combatant, which lets you use a Performance Combat feat in regular combat. Which would be nice, except that compared to the talents you have to offer Performance feats are still terrible.
Sweeping Shot LVV: You get Ranged Trip and Ace Trip as bonus feats, and if you get Rapid Shot you can do two ranged trips per round. Fun mechanical toys for the ranged vigilante, now that it’s possible to use.
Swift Defense LV: You get the brawler’s dodge bonus to AC, but it’s actually a really small bonus that doesn’t really make up for you being confined to light or no armor. If you’re going light armor anyway, it’s okay, but not really talent worthy.
Swooping Dragon LV: When you use the Leaping Dragon talent, you can attack two more enemies who are adjacent to your target. The way it’s worded, it seems you get to Vital Strike them as well, but you don’t get the bonus 1d10. The ability to Vital Strike multiple enemies in a single turn suddenly makes the Leaping Dragon talent worth it next to Crazy Bull, so a nice big blue for this.
Tornado Onslaught LV: When you use your Whirlwind Attack, you can attack every enemy in reach twice, and later get to extend your reach by 5’ more. Build this with Perfect Grip and you’re suddenly hitting every enemy in a 15’ radius twice. That is… just beautiful, and puts full attacking clean into the gutter.
Unconventional Arsenal LVV: You get Catch Off Guard, and when you use an improvised weapon you can pretend you have the Vital Strike tree with a couple levels of early access. There’s just one problem here: improvised weapons suck. You can’t enchant them, you can’t take Weapon Focus or any other weapon focused feats with them, and Catch Off Guard’s main draw (hitting flatfooted) falls apart against anything with Improved Unarmed Strike or a natural attack. If you want to try it, be my guest, but I don’t recommend it.
Vigilante Assassin Talent LVV: So if it weren’t already obvious these two are the only Legendary books I own, so I can’t actually comment on whether these talent choices are good or not. Hey peeps from Legendary, send me books so I can rate things!
Violent Stride LV: You can combine your Spring Attack (gained from Fantastic Stride) with a full attack. Say that again with me folks. You can move. Full attack. And then move again. Disgusting. Glorious. Terrifying. God damnit. That’s obscenely good.
Vital Stride LV: You can Vital Strike when you Spring Attack. Which, I’m sorry, but we just covered the ability to freaking full attack when Spring Attacking, and they don’t stack. The only way they compare is if you have full BAB, because Violent Stride works off of your level rather than your BAB and assumes ¾ BAB.
Vital Brutality LV: You get to add ½ your level as damage when you Vital Strike, adding a good amount of extra static damage to give it a bit more incentive.
Vital Followup LV: When you make a Vital Strike, you can use your swift action to make a regular attack at significant (but diminishing as you level up) penalty. More goodness for the Vital Strike that makes it competitive with a normal full attack.
Vital Training LV: You get Improved and Greater Vital Strike, and can apply them to your various talents and such. Just a straight upgrade to Vital Strikes, which as you can see we’re doing our best to buff as much as possible. On their own, not the best buffs though.
Wall Crasher LVV: When you make an attack at the end of a charge, you can bull rush the target. If they hit a solid object, they take a solid amount of damage. While it is good damage, it’s also a very specific use case (must be charging, there must be a wall relatively close to the target’s other side) that keeps this from being particularly recommendable. Oh, you also get a bonus to breaking down doors I guess? Or you could just buy a crowbar.
Warsight LVV: You get a bunch of bonuses to initiative stuff and can always act in the surprise round. If initiative is that important to you there’s ways to boost it that don’t involve one of your precious talents, plus this can also be grabbed with a one level dip in Oracle as an alternative, which would also give you spells and wand usage.
Whirlwind Stride LV: You can combined your Spring Attack with Whirlwind Attack. I want the record to show that using this talent, Tornado Onslaught, a whip, Shadow Speed and Spring-Heeled Sprint, I was able to reach a theoretical maximum of 844 kills and 1,688 attacks in a single turn, just walking casually through an army of level 1 NPCs. I’m pretty sure the intention was “walk to place, Whirlwind Attack, then leave,” but fuck it, until N. Jolly and LG errata it I’m gonna milk this joke for all it’s worth.
Wicked Locks LVV: Your Lethal Locks gain the combat maneuver abilities of the white haired witch, and you add 1 ½ times your Charisma to damage on hair attacks. As I said before, building around the hair is a pretty hilarious and totally viable idea, so feel free to go for this.
Legendary Specializations
Arsenal SummonerLV, or, how to be Thor
Unique Ability: Black Blade
Armor Proficiency: You gain heavy armor proficiency. Heavy armor proficiency is cool.
Anima Union: You gain and become proficient in a weapon that functions for all intents and purposes like a Black Blade Magus’s weapon. Regardless of what type of weapon it is, it always has the same scaling weapon dice, making the difference between a light, one handed or two handed weapon “do I want to TWF, sword and board or two-hand” instead of a question of dice. It can also look like an ordinary, non-weapon object when you’re in social identity, and jump to your hand from up to a mile away once per day. Pretty slick for a specialization.
Bonded Armor: You take a suit of armor you’re proficient with and bond to it, giving it a free enhancement bonus and allowing you to instantly summon and don it from anywhere. A cool ability that plays in well with your dual identity (“yeah, I know I’m never in the same place as the Armored Crusader, but he always shows up in full plate. Do you ever see me lugging around full plate?”), but you’re trading three talents for it, which hurts for what you get, so I can’t rate it well.
Anima Pool: This is basically the magus arcane pool ability. It’s a solid pickup, but more importantly, it interacts with a talent you can and should pick up as soon as possible to let you stack your weapon to crazy levels of power.
Astral Armory: You get a pocket dimension in which to put your weapon and armor. This is important, because it allows you to travel more than a mile away from your house/batcave/whatever and still be able to access them.
Arsenal Deity: You gain either Armor Mastery (DR 5/- when wearing armor) or Weapon Mastery (crit threats are automatically confirmed on your favorite weapon, and your crit modifier is increased by +1). Considering this is a capstone, Weapon Mastery is a better choice than Armor Mastery (which doesn’t stack with, say, adamantine and Armored Juggernaut). An unworthy replacement for Vengeance Strike.
Unique Talents
Additional Armory: You can add more bond to more suits of armor. You really don’t need more than one though, since you’ll presumably be wearing the best armor in class for you.
Advanced Armor Training: You gain an advanced armor training as a fighter. This is kind of meh, advanced armor trainings aren’t bad but they’re not quite talent tier.
Advanced Weapon Training: You know what’s talent tier? Advanced Weapon Trainings. Of particular note are Dazzling Intimidation, Effortless Dual-Wielding, Fighter’s Finesse, and in particular, Warrior’s Spirit, which, with Gloves of Dueling, will give you the ability to add up to a +3 enhancement to your sword, and siphon off some of that for a weapon quality. Combine that with Anima Pool, and your weapon training, and your to-hit and damage will go through the roof.
Anima Armor: You fuse your armor and weapon’s powers together, making your gauntlet, spiked gauntlet or armor spikes into your anima weapon and making your armor into ever better materials. One of a few specific upgrades to your anima weapon, and not a bad one, thanks to automatic damage scaling.
Anyblade: When you summon your weapon, you can make it into whatever you want. The problem here: the only differences between weapons for you are critical focused and damage type based. You’re honestly better off just taking the feat that lets you change damage types and calling it a day.
Armor Training: You gain armor training 1. If you use medium armor, this is good, because it gives you full speed. If you use heavy armor, that 1 extra point of Dex to AC and 1 less ACP isn’t worth a talent.
Assimilated Anima: Your anima is now your fists. You gain unarmed strike, your unarmed strikes do the same kind of damage and scaling as if they were your anima weapon, and as an added bonus once per day you can reroll a failed Will save. I dig it.
Bonded Shield: You can pair a shield with your bonded armor, splitting the free enhancement bonus between them. Must-have if you want to make use of your teleporting gear and also want to sword-and-board.
Dual Arsenal: You can double down on your anima, creating a duplicate when it’s summoned for a limited duration. This is pretty nifty, and if you take a light weapon can easily be turned into a good TWF build.
Mutable Anima: Adds some options for abilities from your anima pool. Early on this is kind of mediocre unless you expect to be fighting a bunch of ghosts, but starting at 12 you can use this to grab the alignment abilities which is super handy, and at 18 you get to add Bane.
Social Armory: Your armor becomes glammered when you’re in social identity, and you can summon your weapon and armor while in your social identity. Pretty nifty, and makes walking around in social form less dangerous.
Weapon Training: You get weapon training 1, which with gloves of dueling becomes weapon training 3, and you unlock advanced weapon training. This is a must take.
Final Thoughts: This may surpass the Avenger for the best raw guaranteed damage output of any specialization, it’s flavorful, I dig it.
Beast BornLV, or, How To Be Beast Boy (but not as accurately as the other Beast Boy archetype)
Unique Ability: Animal Companion and Wild Shape
Animal Companion: Exactly what it says on the tin, you get an animal companion. I love animal companions. As an added bonus, you can make the animal companion be small and cute when you don’t need it to be large and ferocious. Worth your specialization.
Beast Bred: You trade half your talents, which sucks, but in exchange you get the ability to Wild Shape as a druid, although it’s animals only. I don’t care, Wild Shape is cool.
Beast Within: For your capstone, when you Wild Shape, you also automatically get hit by animal growth. This might seem amazing, but the main benefit of animal growth is that sweet +8 size bonus to Strength, which doesn’t stack with Wild Shape’s bonus, so really you’re only getting the Constitution. On the other hand, Gargantuan damage dice. Become a hippo, get Strong Jaw cast on you, laugh.
Final Thoughts: This is more powerful than the Agathiel archetype, but I think I still prefer Agathiel. You don’t get as much from your animal transformations, but with Immediate Change you can pull off a really satisfying Beast Boy impersonation. Still, Beast Born is a solid specialization to take.
BrawlerLV, or, How To Be Luke Cage
Unique Ability: Avenger+
(Before diving in I’d like to give a special thanks to N. Jolly for creating archetypes with two different specializations, making this logistically more difficult for me to do. Good show buddy.)
(I’d also like to thank him for giving his archetype the same name as an existing class, one of my greatest pet peeves in Pathfinder)
Weapon Proficiencies: You lose martial weapons, gain unarmed strikes. Unlike literally every Paizo archetype that costs you proficiencies, this is totally acceptable, because you’re taking this to focus on unarmed strikes. However, by my own rules a net loss goes to yellow.
Dynamic Specialization: Brawler is a specialization of the dynamic striker archetype. You get the BAB and talents of an Avenger, plus your own list. By definition this is good, because the Avenger list is good, and you’re getting a much better focus for unarmed strikes.
Vicious Striker: Your unarmed strikes deal monk scaling damage. This is a pretty solid buff, especially since unarmed vigilantes already have the tools to get insane static bonuses to unarmed attacks. You’re also only losing unshakeable and frightening appearance, so… yeah.
Dynamic Flurry: Starting at 5th level you can flurry of blows like an unchained monk does. This is gonna let you hit them a lot and hit them hard. This takes out the other two in the appearance line.
Perfect Strike: As your capstone, you ignore all DR and Hardness with unarmed strikes. Which is just beautiful. At that level, literally everything has DR of some sort, which means you’re adding roughly 5 to 15 damage on every hit. It is, of course, a capstone, and therefore not really worth thinking too much about, but it’s a worthy one.
Martial Arts Talents
Dynamic Roll: When you full attack, you can declare a dynamic roll. Every time you hit the target, you gain a cumulative bonus on attack and damage rolls against them, but every time you miss that bonus decreases. As you gain in levels, hitting multiple times can stagger or even knock your opponent completely unconscious. The downside is you’re flatfooted afterward. This is a really fun talent that definitely has some drawbacks, and considering how many punches you’re gonna be throwing, that bonus is gonna get big. Definitely an incentive to boost Wisdom (since the bonus is capped at your Wisdom modifier).
Finesse Fist: Add Dexterity instead of Strength to attack and damage rolls. On paper, this seems great, and if you want to go more SAD or aren’t going very high level this is the way to go, but in practice, I’d argue that Lethal Grace and boosting both Dex and Str is better, especially since you can rock medium armor (or hell, grab Heavy Training and rock heavy armor).
Ki Pool: You get a ki pool, as a monk (more reason for Wisdom). This will give you more attacks, and get you through more DR, plus it’s a prerequisite for a really nice talent down the line, so it’s a decent pickup.
Ki Power: You get a ki power to use that ki pool with. Personally, for the Brawler I think there’s much better choices of talent, but if you want some Qigong powers or something, I can respect that.
Martial Training: You can use your vigilante level as your monk level for qualifying for feats, which is kinda nifty if you want to get a style that monks get early access to, and get a bonus combat feat. If you’re gonna take an extra combat feat, grab this before Combat Skill, just so you have it.
Stunning Versatility: You get the monk’s stunning fist ability. I don’t particularly care for the stunning fist, I’ve never seen it used to particularly amazing effect, but if you find it useful then more power to you.
Style Strike: You get a monk style strike that you can use when you full attack. Style strikes are cool. There’s a lot of really good choices overall, but of particular note for you (as opposed to just generally good) is Elbow Smash, which will give you another attack for your Dynamic Roll.
Trained Fist: You gain weapon training 1 with unarmed strikes and punching based weapons. You only get +1/+1 and access to weapon mastery feats for this, so not worth prioritizing, but worth looking at, especially if you actually want a weapon mastery feat.
Vacuum Fist: You punch the air so god damned hard that the air hits someone. This turns your unarmed strikes into ranged attacks, allowing you to flurry people without ever moving. Hella good.
Final Thoughts: If you want to build a vigilante around punching people really hard in the face, this is how you do it. For added bonuses, pick up Fist of the Avenger somewhere along the way, because you qualify for it and it gives you insane static bonuses.
CrusaderLV, or, How To Be Titan
Unique Ability: Smite
Noble Vigilante: You must be Good in your vigilante identity. Something something don’t rate alignment restrictions.
Heroic Specialization: Crusader is a specialization of the Noble Soul archetype. You gain the ability to smite evil as a paladin. I’m heavily biased towards paladins, personally, but the talents that we have to augment this are pretty great too.
Noble Aura: You get an aura of good, like a paladin.
Righteous Vision: You can detect evil, like a paladin. Useful for evaluating potential enemies.
Spellcasting: You trade half your talents for paladin spellcasting. Ordinarily I would be kind of furious about losing half my talents for 4 level casting with reduced CL, but the paladin spell list has some really good unique options that I think make it an okay trade.
True Justice: You automatically confirm criticals against the target of your smite. As capstones go… I’ve seen much better, including what we’re losing in vengeance strike.
Heroic Talents
Avenging Smite: Against the target of your smite, you’re treated as full BAB. Pick of Shield of Swings and take advantage of that big AC boost.
Divine Mount: You get the paladin’s divine bond, but it can only be a mount. Mounts are… generally not good. If you’re small or playing a campaign with a wide open world, this gets better.
Focused Smite: Your smite now doubles double damage on the first hit against all enemies That’s a pretty sweet bonus, although since it’s only on the first attack it’s not that big a priority.
Limited Divine Grace: You get divine grace, but it’s capped at your character level. Um… okay? That literally stops being an issue at level 4, maybe level 5 or 6 at the most. And divine grace is good.
Heroic Courage: You get the paladin’s heroic courage class feature, which is a decent class feature but is definitely jostling for room with other talents.
Protective Grace: If you’re unarmored or in light armor, you get a bonus equal to your Charisma modifier (capped at level) on your AC, allowing you to rock light armor while still being well protected. Considering this stacks with your smite bonus, you can achieve insane levels of AC by pumping your Charisma.
Unbound Smite: The greatest weakness of a paladin is that against non-evil enemies they’re basically fighters with a self heal. With Unbound Smite though? You can smite the hell out of neutral creatures too, expanding your options dramatically.
Final Thoughts: One thing I like about an archetype is its ability to replicate an aspect of a class without being strictly superior or inferior. The crusader is a better smiter than a regular paladin, full stop, but doesn’t replace the paladin because of all the other goodies paladins get.
Dread ChampionLVV, or, How To Be Thanos
Unique Ability: Smite Good
Note: This assumes that you’re playing this archetype as either an NPC or in an evil campaign. If not, please convert all ratings to harsh, vicious red.
Alignment: Eeeeeevillllllll.
Aura of Evil: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIIIIIIILLLLLLLL. In all seriousness though an aura of evil will get you in more trouble than it’s worth most of the time regardless of your campaign.
Smite Good: Smite evil is to evil campaigns as smite good is to non-evil campaigns. Less so though because as an evil creature you’ll be murdering neutrals just as often as goods.
Malice Sight: You can detect good. Which isn’t really as useful as detect evil, because good doesn’t try to hide nearly as often.
Spellcasting: I didn’t complain about the Noble Soul specs because they got a good spell list, even if it is only 4 level. The antipaladin list is not a good list. It’s incredibly NPC, and doesn’t have great unique spells like the paladin gets. Not remotely worth half of your talents.
Cruel Smite: You gain an antipaladin cruelty, which can be applied to the target of your smite when you attack them. This scales up nicely as you get new cruelties, and is a nice little bonus to the package.
Masked Evil: Making me wonder why you get the Aura of Evil in the first place, you’re now constantly under Undetectable Alignment and, eventually, Aura Alteration, letting you pass for not a villain. Handy for sneaking into the paladin base and just generally getting by without looking shady.
Aura of Despair: Enemies who come near you take a penalty on saving throws. Which, you actually do incite saving throws a fair amount, so that’s an extra 10% chance that all those things you do will work.
Dominant Cruelty: The target of your smite has to roll twice and take the worse against your cruelty. At level 20, that’s basically a guaranteed paralysis right there. Not the best capstone, but definitely not the worst.
Dread Talents
Aura of Cowardice: Enemies take a penalty against fear, and lose immunities to fear on top of that. If you invest heavily in Intimidate, there’s very few things as satisfying as demoralizing a paladin in an evil campaign.
Dedicated Smite: You get your double smite damage against any target, which is just as groovy as it was on the Crusader.
Fiendish Companion: You get the antipaladin’s demon friend. Unlike Celestial Mount, you can actually work with this pretty easily, and it scales up beautifully, giving you a menagerie of powerful demons to choose from. And more action economy is always good.
Limited Unholy Resilience: Did Charisma to saves get bad when I wasn’t looking? No? Cool.
Protective Resilience: Same deal as Protective Grace.
Reckless Smite: Same deal as Unbound Smite.
Villainous Smite: Same deal as Avenging Smite.
Final Thoughts: This is basically the Evil Crusader, but the addition of Cruelty Smite is a lovely touch that reflects the more offensive nature of the antipaladin. Good show.
Fortune ThiefLVV, or, How To Be Jinx (the one from Teen Titans, not the one from League of Legends)
Unique Ability: Hexes and Luck Bonuses
Luck Thief: You get a witch hex. This is pretty nifty on its own. But, on top of that, any time someone fails a save against your hex, you get a luck point, up to a max of your Charisma bonus. You can spend a luck point to reroll a skill check, or, far more importantly, to gain a scaling luck bonus on attack and damage rolls. Hello Fate’s Favored, am I right? You can only get one point per target, but with some Evil Eye and Split Hex you can probably easily get a luck point off of every enemy, especially since you can easily hit any still living opponent you haven’t gotten after combat is over. Luck bonuses are amazing and hard to come by, and Fate’s Favored augments their bonus even more, so this is insanely good.
Ultimate Luck: You get a Grand Hex, and if your target fails its save you get 2 luck points, providing absolutely no reason not to pair this with your Lucky Save talent. Pick Eternal Slumber for guaranteed usefulness, or Forced Reincarnation for the lulz. Also, you can dump all of your luck points as an immediate action when you’re about to be dropped below 0 to negate all damage against you for a round, which is irritating because you want to hoard those points, but you can start building them back up right after. Regardless, these are two very handy effects that work as capstones very nicely.
Fortune Talents: In addition to these talents, you can take hexes in place of a talent, and can also take extra hex.
Always Lucky: If you don’t have any luck points when you rest, you get luck points! Luck points are good and we like them, but you shouldn’t really be running into a problem of running out of them that often.
Hex Strike: You get the Hex Strike feat, which lets you apply a hex to a target you just hit as a swift action. Normally it’s unarmed only, but you can choose to either apply the effects to a weapon, or get IUS as a bonus feat. This lets you both attack in combat and cast hexes on people, so it should be your level 2 talent.
Hoarded Luck: If you have 3 or more luck points, you get a luck bonus on all attack and damage rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and AC, scaling with how many more you have. This is your level 4 talent, and you’re going to pump your Charisma into the sky because this buffs literally everything other stats would give you and oh my god how broken is this archetype. Keep in mind that luck bonuses are not stackable, so the bonus from this talent isn’t going to stack when you spend it on things (spend it on things anyway, it’s easy enough to refill and you get a bigger bonus from spending it).
Hot Streak: When you spend a luck point to increase your attack rolls or AC, the duration is, for all intents and purposes, doubled (it starts out being rounds equal to your Charisma, and this adds rounds equal to your Charisma, which may have been an oversight but I evaluate as written).
Impossibly Lucky: When you spend a luck point to reroll something, you get a bonus equal to your Charisma modifier, which is much more than what your Hoarded Luck will ever give so it’s definitely worth.
Improved Luck: Increases your luck point cap, which means it increases your hoarded luck bonus by half as much. Look at Hoarded Luck and then tell me why it shouldn’t be blue.
Lucky Dodge: You get a luck bonus to AC equal to your Charisma modifier (+1 because Fate’s Favored) for one round. You also get the ability to avoid critical hits and sneak attacks more easily. This isn’t a poor choice in general, but comparatively speaking, the bonus you’ll get to AC isn’t much more than the Hoarded Luck bonus and it only lasts for one round, so you have better options.
Lucky Hit: You can spend a luck point to reroll an attack or damage roll, essentially making you immune to natural 1s. Eventually, it adds the ability to spend three points for an extra attack (I honestly think the lost static damage and to-hit makes it not worth it), and when you reroll your attack you can roll twice and take the better (nice). Not a priority, because it makes you spend luck, but not bad.
Lucky Save: You can spend 2 points to reroll a saving throw, and later you can make other people reroll saving throws. This is good more for making people fail their saves more often, giving you a better chance of letting your hexes stick (which will also refund you one of the points you spent on it).
Major Hex: I’ll be honest, there aren’t many major hexes that would interest you. Maybe Agony, Delicious Fear, or Ice Tomb, but for the most part your hexes exist to fuel your luck pool or are already OP below the Major level (Slumber, Evil Eye, Cackle) so maybe take a different talent.
Savage Hex: Your hexes do damage. If you’ve got nothing better to take it’s fine, but you do plenty of damage without it.
Split Hex: Hey, wanna get two luck points at once? Yeah, I thought you might.
Improved Split Hex: We’ve already mentioned you don’t really care about major hex. Pass.
Final Thoughts: This is never, ever allowed at my table. With just a modicum of effort I got a +6 luck bonus to everything at level 8. That’s stupidly good. Like, really, disgustingly, unnervingly good.
Healer, or, How To Be Panacea, but, like, before she snaps
Unique Ability: Lay on Hands
Noble Vigilante: You must be Good in your vigilante identity. Something something don’t rate alignment restrictions.
Heroic Specialization: Healer is a specialization of the Noble Soul archetype. You gain the ability to lay on hands as a paladin. This is gonna come with all the goodies that make this into a worthwhile party healer, so look forward to it.
Noble Aura: You get an aura of good, like a paladin.
Righteous Vision: You can detect evil, like a paladin. Useful for evaluating potential enemies.
Spellcasting: You trade half your talents for paladin spellcasting. This is actually even better for the Healer than for the Crusader because you get access to Paladin Sacrifice and Hero’s Defiance, two important spells for keeping you and your party members alive.
True Compassion: Your Lay on Hands now removes all of the status effects that Heal does and can bring back the dead as Breath of Life. Free rez and status removal on top of big heals? Sign me up.
Heroic Talents
Divine Mount: As with the Crusader.
Limited Divine Grace: As with the Crusader.
Life Link: You want to be a single classed Oradin? Well here you go. Really if you take this and then a bunch of combat talents, you’re about as effective in combat as an Oradin normally is.
Mercy: You gain a mercy, which is okay but to get to the higher level ones you need to burn more talents than you can afford. It could be worth picking up just to qualify for Greater Mercy, but for the most part, skip it.
Protective Grace: As with the Crusader.
Final Thoughts: Basically you’re a single classed Oradin with access to vigilante talents. I genuinely don’t see what’s not to love.
Masked GrapplerLV, or, How To Be El Toro Fuerte
Unique Ability: Grappling
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: You lose martial weapons and medium armor. That’s lame because there are good martial weapons for grappling (including some that give you bonuses) and Strength is usually necessary to make good use of grappling.
Grappling Genius: You get Improved Unarmed Strike and Improved Grapple, at level 6 you get Greater Grapple for free, you treat your vigilante level as your BAB for your grapple CMB, and when you do damage with a grapple you add ½ your level. So basically the grappling starter pack. Be advised though, that grappling isn’t really that great. The bigger your enemies get the harder it will be to successfully grapple them, freedom of movement will screw you, and CMB just doesn’t scale nearly as competitively as CMD does.
Signature Move: There are two new types of talents, submissions and techniques. Signature move lets you choose one that you have and add 1d6 damage to it, also increasing the DC. This is… not the greatest thing in the world, but it’s not bad. It does make you feel obligated to use the signature move more, which cuts down on your versatility.
Chain Grappler: When you use a submission or technique, you make two grapple checks with the second at a -5 penalty. If you succeed at both, you do double damage. There is absolutely no downside to this, and the damage can get pretty heavy, especially with all of your bonuses.
Finishing Move: In addition to your signature move, you now have a finishing move, a technique or submission that adds +3d6 and even more DC. I’m… still not that impressed.
Master Technician: As your capstone, all of your techniques and submissions become signature moves, and you get a second finishing move. For a capstone, you’re only adding +1d6, at most three times per round, which is an average of +10 damage. Lame.
Grappling Talents
Normal
Frog Splash: If you’re on an elevated surface, you can jump into a lower opponent’s square, hit them for double unarmed strike damage, pin them as a swift action, and deal bonus damage equal to the amount of damage you should be taking from your fall, but you actually take none if you hit them. Hilarious, although hampered by its reliance on the environment.
Lightweight Grappler: You use Dexterity in place of Strength for grapple checks, and in place of Con for technique and submission damage. Both good things, they allow you to pump your Dex up without worrying as much about Strength and it gives a decent little boost to damage.
Kip Up: When prone, you can stand up as a swift that doesn’t provoke, or as a move that damages an enemy near you. Personally, I’d just always go for the swift, then use that move for Greater Grapple. Standing without provoking is always decent, and you’re gonna be on the ground a lot more than you probably expect.
Pinning Submission: Submissions against pinned opponents do extra damage equal to your Con modifier. Grappling has never been about the damage and you have plenty already without worrying about the extra +2 or +3. Better if you have Lightweight Grappler.
Running Dropkick: When you make an unarmed charge attack, you can fall prone to deal double or triple (depending on your level) damage. You probably shouldn’t be charging that much anyway, since you’re, y’know, entirely focused on grappling, but with kip up there’s really no downside to this at all.
Stiff Clothesline: When you make a charge attack with an unarmed strike, you can swift action trip. You can combo this with the Running Dropkick to knock an enemy down and deal lots of damage, but it’ll cost you your free and easy way to get back up… might be worth it though to be honest. Again, though, you’re a grappling specialist.
Team Up: When others assist your grapple, you can add their Strength modifiers to your damage. Or, or, and just hear me out on this, I know, this is gonna blow your mind, they could just full attack the dude you’re holding in place for them.
Technical Specialist: Your opponents need to make multiple checks to escape a pin, and at high levels you can suppress freedom of movement effects. This is mandatory by the time you hit 16, because as someone who has GMed for a grapple specialist before and seen one in full swing, I can promise your GM is going to make ample use of freedom of movement just to keep you from completely obliterating their children.
Tenacious Grappler: After you use a technique, you can spend a swift action to try and regrapple the target. If you want to use techniques, this is mandatory, but as we’re about to see I don’t think that much of techniques.
Techniques: Techniques are used when you maintain your grapple against a target, and end the grapple for some pretty baller effects in addition to regular unarmed strike damage. Using a technique ends your turn.
Bodyslam: You take an enemy up to one size bigger than you and slam him on the ground, knocking you both prone and adding your Constitution to damage. Starting at 10, you deal even more damage and don’t fall prone yourself when using it. Or, you could just pin them.
Hard Whip: You throw your enemy 30’ in a direction, and if they hit a solid object they bounce back and take the rest of the movement the other way, provoking an attack of opportunity from you (which can be used for the stiff clothesline, which isn’t bad.) Or, you could just pin them.
Hurricanrana: Your enemy must make a Reflex save or be flatfooted. Or, you could just pin them, which makes them flatfooted without any kind of save and keeps them grappled.
Piledriver: You send your target prone, do damage equal to your Constitution modifier, and they have to make a Fort save or take Con damage. Finally, something where I wouldn’t rather just pin them… except really if I pin them they’re much more debilitated than this anyway and whatever they lose from the Con damage will probably not match the extra damage that comes from being beaten up while pinned.
Pinning Suplex: You do some extra damage on maintaining the grapple, and you can pin the target as a swift action on top of that. The extra damage isn’t that much, and mathematically you’re probably better off just pinning the target with your initial roll.
Stunner: STONE COLD! STONE COLD! STONE COLD! Your enemy falls prone and makes a Fortitude save or is stunned for a round. Actually not a bad choice compared to pinning (finally), since this will also cause them to drop their weapons and lose their next turn, then when your turn comes around again you can grapple them anew.
Submissions: Submissions are used when you maintain your grapple against the target, and last as long as you keep making your grapple checks. Better than techniques in that you can pin a target, and then use them.
Anklelock: The target must make a Fortitude save or have their land speed and Reflex saves reduce for a minute. Not bad if you want to capture enemies, mediocre if you expect to fight to the death, since you already have them captured.
Armbar: The target must make a Fortitude save or take a penalty to their attack rolls for a minute. It's a relatively small amount, though, and their attention for at least a round or two is gonna be focused on getting out, not attacking.
Bearhug: Fort save or fatigued. Now we’re talking, fatigue will make it much harder for your enemy to escape you, screw with some classes (barbarian comes to mind), and even if they do escape it’s a good number of penalties.
Chokehold: Your very own martial save or die. If they fail their Fort save, they begin to “drown” in Pathfinder’s technical terms. Two rounds of this will leave the target unconscious, so you can move on, three rounds will flat out kill them. Hell, even one round will drop them to 0 hp, which is crazy good.
Full Nelson: Your target needs to make a Reflex save or become flatfooted, provide you cover, and take extra damage. This is actually a nice alternative to pinning (or an addition), so worth considering.
Joint Lock: They make a save or they take Dexterity damage. Dexterity damage is very bad. It’s arguably the worst kind of damage you could deal here, because it screws with their AC, makes it easier for you to maintain against them, and depending on the target can screw with their attacks and damage rolls too. Full points.
Nerve Pinch: The target needs to save or take a penalty on saving throws for a minute. Not horrendous, but not great, and very dependent on people casting spells on someone that you realistically should have taken care of.
Sleeper Hold: Just knock a fool out for 1d3 rounds. In reality, this isn’t as good as chokehold, which will knock them out for much longer than that at the cost of only one extra round of grappling. If you want to go for nonlethal knockouts though, be my guest.
Final Thoughts: So there’s some cool stuff here, there’s some not so great stuff comparatively speaking. I appreciate this archetype as a sometimes wrestling fan, because there’s a lot of good references to wrestling, and honestly a lot of these talents are fun even if they’re not particularly good, but I can’t in good conscience call this a very good archetype mainly because grappling, on its own without these talents, can already really effectively take an enemy completely out of a fight, and most of these are just unnecessary additions.
Outrageous LyricistLV, or, How To Be Johnny Guitar And Dr. Sax
Unique Ability: Bardic Performance
Armor Proficiency: You get bard armor proficiency, which is a net loss by default.
Spellcasting: Trade half your talents, get bard spells. Bard spells are good, and you like Charisma anyway.
Vibrant Transformation: You basically get the magical transformation social talent for free (this was released before that book). Still a lateral move, still awesome conceptually.
Powerful Performance: You get the four starter bardic performances, although lets be real what you actually got was inspire courage and some niche tricks. Bardic performance is the best class based buff in the game, so hell yeah.
Powerful Transformation: You get Quick Change as a bonus talent, four levels early, and anyone who sees you transform has to make a Will save or be fascinated. Considering you’re replacing Unshakeable, the most worthless vigilante class feature, this is a really good upgrade. It does risk your identity if you want to remain anonymous though.
Musical Infusion: For your capstone, you make anyone benefitting from your performance immune to fatigue, exhaustion, negative levels, and fear. Not bad. Not capstone worthy in my opinion, but not bad.
Lyrical Talents
Black Metal Medley: Lemme just start off by saying I love these talent names. You get dirge of doom, and the shaken penalty from it gets steadily worse as time goes on. Pretty solid, and there’s a build that combines Greater Dirge of Doom with Blistering Invective that can work really nicely here.
Emo Scream: You get frightening tune, and you can ignore immunity to fear. Just send your enemies running off in terror without having to rely on shenanigans from the Black Metal Medley, but this is a higher level ability.
Headliner: When you use your bardic performance, you can spend an extra round to give yourself, and later your allies, temp hp. It gets costly (jokes, just use Lingering Performance), but for the price, it’s a pretty decent in-combat heal, keeping your allies up and running.
Lyrical Duel: You can demoralize an enemy as a swift action, which gives them a chance to respond on their turn. If they beat your roll, you become demoralized instead, but if they don’t, it extends the duration of the demoralization, and you get to keep it going to extend it further. Against enemies with low Charisma, this is pretty good, and against a GM with a sense of humor and good freestyle rap battle skills, this can probably get insanely fun.
Masterpiece: You get to pick a masterpiece you qualify for. Most masterpieces are mediocre, and the best one, Pageant of the Peacock, would still require you to invest in Intelligence skills since, as you aren’t actually a bard, you don’t get bardic knowledge.
Moonwalk: Pffffffffft. When you’re performing, your 5’ steps become 10’ and then 15’ steps. I’d personally take it just as a tribute to MJ, but overall it’s really nice for repositioning.
Mosh Pit: When you flank an enemy, you get some bonus damage against them. Not really your style, friend.
Power Ballad: You gain Inspire Greatness and Inspire Heroics. These aren’t bad, but Inspire Courage is better. Pick this up if you plan to use things like Shadow Bard to double down on performances.
Power Slide: When you make a charge attack, you can reduce the action for bardic performance to a swift and then to a free action. I… I just love these names and the imagery they provoke so much. Anyway, this is a good choice for low level campaigns, since they’ll let you attack and perform in the same round as a melee. When you get to high enough level that it’s already a swift, consider retraining.
Sonic Assault: When you inspire courage or greatness, you convert all of your (and later, all of your allies’) damage into sonic damage. That sound you just heard was my jaw hitting the floor. Sonic damage is the single best damage type in the game, with virtually nothing resisting it. This is a must have because it’ll get your weapon guys (including yourself) around literally any damage reduction there is.
Synchronized Routine: When you inspire, you get the benefits of any teamwork feats your allies have. Do you have an inquisitor, cavalier or hunter in the party? If so, this is cool. If not, you don’t care.
Up to Eleven: Increases your effective level by roughly 25%. I wouldn’t consider this worth your limited talent slots.
Vicious Feedback: When you inspire, enemies around you also take penalties, with no save against it. This basically doubles down on the effectiveness of your performance, definitely something you want.
Final Thoughts: So by abusing Lingering Performance and maybe Extra Performance, you can take the best class feature buff in the game, and add ignoring all damage reduction, constantly refreshing temp hp, and penalties to your enemies’ attack and damage rolls? Um… where do I sign?
Protean ProwlerLVV, or, How To Be Ms. Marvel
Unique Ability: Shapeshifting
Chaotic Vigilante: Your vigilante identity is alignment locked to Chaotic.
Mutation: You gain evolution points at every odd level, which lets you take unchained eidolon mutations. This can, among other things, get you any natural attack, more powerful natural attacks, natural armor, flight, more limbs, blindsight, natural reach, a burrow speed, frightful presence, or it could just make you Huge. This is some crazy awesome abilities, and you can swap them out every level.
Transmogrify: You can reassign your evolution point a limited number of times per day, and starting at level 4 you can spend some of those uses per day to instead polymorph yourself, with an assortment of spells. I like polymorphing stuff, and this gives you a wide assortment, plus you can use some of your evolution points on your form, plus the base power letting you change around your evolutions as needed. It doesn’t get a blue though, because it’s costing you half your talents and vengeance strike and while it’s nifty it also doesn’t scale in duration or uses per day, which makes it kind of start to slide compared to, say, actual spells.
Protean Talents: None. No unique talents for the Protean Prowler.
Final Thoughts: Ugh, I feel like I would’ve rather seen some of the stuff from Transmogrify be turned into talents than just losing half of them for limited usage abilities like this. I’ll still rank it as a green, because it’s good and fun, but it just… leaves me feeling bleh.
Sentai SoldierLV, or, How To Be The Avatar
Unique Ability: Kinetic Blasts
Elemental Spark: You gain kinetic blasts, plus some limited ability to accept burn. This is kinda good, but unless you’re going into a focus on kinetic blade, you’re a vigilante. You don’t know what ranged is.
Morphing Transformation: This archetype is basically Power Rangers with elemental abilities. Anyway you get Magical Transformation even though you have no magic.
Powerful Transformation: Same deal as the Outrageous Lyricist.
Elemental Bond: In addition to the following talents, you also get wild talents from the kineticist list, which is really nice.
Burning Power: You basically get elemental overflow, except instead of being surrounded by elemental power you glow pretty colors. This is makes up for your low bab to an extent, but it also costs you three talents.
Internal Charge: A better version of gather power, internal charge slowly increases the reduction of burn cost as you get into the highest levels, which compensates for not gaining infusion specialist.
Dual Justice: You get metakinesis (twice). Comparatively speaking this isn’t rally capstone tier, as evidenced by the fact that the actual kineticist gets it at level 17.
Sentai Talents
Battle Charge: With a swift action, you can reduce the cost of kinetic blade or kinetic fist down to 0. Pretty much mandatory because, again, you’re a vigilante, what is ranged combat?
Improved Battle Charge: Battle charge can be applied to kinetic whip, and you also apply a further reduction to the final cost of the blast. Less mandatory but still good overall, allowing you to stack a strong substance infusion without breaking the bank.
Composite Blaster: You gain the composite blast for double tapping your element, e.g. blue fire for fire, metal for earth. Useful for the earth element, otherwise you’re spending a talent on something that frankly costs too much to use consistently unless you really need the mixed damage types, and in that case just pick up Expanded Element.
Elemental Defense: Flesh of Stone and Force Ward both merit a blue, Searing Flesh and Emptiness get red, and the rest are all green. For specifics about the pros and cons of these defense talents, please see N. Jolly’s kineticist guide
Empowered Blaster: You gain the Empower and Quicken metakinesis. Both are expensive, but will amplify your damage output by a lot, so tradeoffs.
Expanded Element: You get another element, pretty simple pretty solid for you, allowing you to diversify your damage.
Extreme Charge: Lets you spend a swift action when you use internal charge to reduce your burn cost even further. Burn bad, no burn good.
Infusion Specialist: You gain infusion specialist. Burn bad, no burn good.
Final Thoughts: ... okay so a lot of this stuff is internally good, but… I’m not seeing a distinction between this and the base kineticist. The only reason to take it would be access to vigilante talents, and vigilante just straight up does not know how to ranged combat. I’ll rate it green, because there’s nothing wrong with it, I just don’t particularly see a mechanical point (I do see the flavor point though).
Shadow SavantLVV, or, How To Be Naruto
Unique Ability: Shadow Clones
Shadow Clones: You thought I was joking about being Naruto, didn’t you? A limited number of times per day, you can create an illusory copy of yourself, which you can control with a swift action and can function as a mirror image for you. This kind of suffers from the great headache that is illusion magic. You can do just about anything with it, as long as you’re not interacting with things, but damned if it isn’t irritating, as both a GM and a player, to keep track of. It’s also kind of useless against things you can’t fool, like mindless creatures and ones with really good perception and Will. It only gets worse as you increase in level and become able to summon multiple clones at once.
Semi-real Doppleganger: Okay now we’re getting interesting, although we need to do math. When you summon shadow clones, you can pile them all into a single one to make it partially real. It becomes a shadow illusion, with exactly the same stat block as you, but with 1/5th hp, and ½ damage, and the downside that if it dies you take its max hp in nonlethal damage. So basically, we create an extra fighter, but its effects are reduced and it can’t really tank for us, but it does provide more damage and flanking, and is still a shadow clone for the purpose of all of your other abilities. Better.
Real Doppleganger: You can either create two of the semi-real clones above, or one super real clone, which is literally the same thing but with more HP and no reduction on damage. I dig.
Multi Doppleganger: You can now create either three semi-real clones or one semi-real and one real.
Shadow Legion: You can now create four semi-real clones, two semi-real and one real, or two real. So, the gist of these abilities is that you can either get a lot of distractions, or a couple of extra hitters, and I can see situations where you would go for just about any combination, so it gets a nice solid green from me altogether.
Shadow Tricks: These can be taken in place of social talents, which is a nutso idea.
Blind Control: You don’t need line of sight to command your shadow clones. Of course, if you don’t have line of sight, how do you know what to command them to do? It’s a very limited list of general commands.
Dark Shadows: Your shadows clones now have an aura of dim light around them… broadcasting loud and clear to anyone in combat which ones aren’t real and killing their main combat use, reducing them to a mirror image with a darkness spell layered on. That being said, it also makes them walking teleport pads for you later, so don’t write this off completely yet.
Enduring Shadows: Your shadow clones last for hours instead of minutes, basically ensuring you’ll never run out. Worth picking up if you can keep your shadows out of actual danger.
Shadow Mimicry: Your shadow clones can look like anyone about the same size. Now you can have some fun with trickery and deception, and we’re starting to make these pretty cool.
Shadow Spy: You can see (and all other senses) through the eyes (and all other sensory receptors) of your shadow clones, making them into the perfect recon unit (especially combined with Shadow Mimicry).
Shadow Swap: As a move action, you can switch places with a shadow clone, and make a stealth check to keep people from noticing. In combat, this becomes a mobility and trickery tactic, essentially allowing you to keep your opponents from guessing as to who is you and who is a clone. Out of combat, after we get our Shadow Mimic into the enemy base and to somewhere out of sight, we can jump in, do things that an illusion can’t, and jump right back out.
Swift Swap: You can shadow swap as a swift action, giving it even more usability in combat.
Unfettered Shadow: The shadow’s range limit is kind of short. This helps with that, doubling the range, and is a prerequisite for the more important one…
Untethered Shadow: No more range limit. Your shadow clones can go anywhere and do anything.
Shadow Talents
Draining Darkness: Whenever a semi-real or real clone hits an enemy, they take Strength drain. I… I’m sorry what. Strength drain. On a PC class. Any time one of their legion of shadow clones hits someone. That’s insane, and it’s awesome.
Powerful Shadows: So you’re gonna be picking up SLAs later on. This increases the realness of your shadow illusion SLAs, up to a full 100%, which is crazy stupid good.
Shadow Retribution: When someone pops one of your shadows, whether real, semi-real or incredibly not real they take negative energy damage and get staggered. Except we don’t want our shadows getting popped in the first place, and it’s not that much damage, plus there’s a save for half.
Shade Jumper: You can move through areas of dim light as if by dimension door, and, if you can even possibly believe this, there is no limit on uses per day. Now granted, it only has a range of 30’, but still, this is screaming for you to grab Dark Shadows and Dimensional Savant and just go fucking nuts forever.
Shadow Adept/Crafter/Magician/Sage: You gain a bunch of illusion spell-like abilities, which you can spend daily uses of your shadow clones to cast. This very importantly includes Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Evocation, Shadow Transmutation, Shadow Enchantment, plus their greater versions, giving you access to the vast majority of spells in the game, and with powerful shadows they steadily become so real that saving against them might as well have no effect at all. Disgusting. Consider leaving off until around the mid-game, when you’ve already tricked out your shadow clones and Powerful Shadows will have some more oomph behind it.
Speedy Summons: Your shadow clones take only a move, and later a swift, to summon. On paper great, in practice you should have them out already with Enduring Summons. Only take this if you’re having trouble keeping your clones alive.
True Darkvision: Your darkvision becomes see in darkness, which is nifty but not generally useful enough to merit a talent.
Final Thoughts: The rating for Shadow Clones up in the title bar expresses my sentiments perfectly: I started out thinking it was pretty meh, but as I saw how this archetype ramped up I got on board. I still wouldn’t play it or allow it at my table, because holy crap I’m not keeping track of all the things this requires keeping track of, but for theorycrafting at least it’s solid.
Symbiotic SlayerLVV, or, How To Be Venom
Unique Ability: Symbiote
Symbiosis/Symbiote Archetype: Your vigilante identity is actually a sentient ooze familiar that has formed a symbiotic relationship with you, and comes out to cover your body when you go vig form. It can also forcibly take control of your body when you’re in danger. So… yeah, Venom. While in your vigilante identity, you essentially have half-again as many hit points as your symbiote familiar takes your damage for you, and you can sacrifice hp to keep it up and alive. The longer it’s out and running, the more likely it is to overwhelm your mind. It also gives you a bunch more hodgepodge abilities, but it boils down to: HOLY SHIT YOU’RE VENOM! THAT’S SO COOL! And it is just a generally good ability.
Perfect Symbiosis: You can’t lose control to your symbiote anymore (or rather, you can, but you can take control back if you want), you gain DR/- equal to the number of symbiote talents you took (which is probably somewhere between 5 and 10), and you get to roll twice and take the better on critical confirmation rolls. Pretty good capstone.
Symbiote Talents
Acquatic Symbiote: You gain a swim speed. Swim speeds are one of those things where if they’re gonna be useful, you know they are, otherwise they’re really not.
Armored Symbiote: Your symbiote can give you an armor bonus that’s better than any unenchanted light armor in the game and frankly better than most medium armor (because no max Dex), and scales up further as time goes on. Good because it’s a good AC boost and also because Venom doesn’t wear armor so why should you?
Bestial Symbiote: You gain a bite and two claws. If you want to go for a natural attacking build then it’s good, otherwise it’s obviously not because it doesn’t give you anything but natural attacks.
Buffering Symbiote: Your symbiote gains temp hp when you manifest it, keeping it alive longer. It’s a good amount of temp hp too especially if you have a good Constitution modifier.
Cloaking Symbiote: You can become invisible as a move action. What the actual hell. It’s only half the stealth bonuses, but still. It also makes you immune to blindsense and blindsight, which is even more what the hell. The fact that it’s a move action and at-will means you can very easily hit someone, use it again as a move, 5’ step away, and just play hit and run for days. Absurd.
Corrosive Symbiote: You deal acid damage to anyone that touches you, and any weapons created by symbiotic talents deal acid damage. Acid is one of the better damage types, and this is good both defensively and offensively.
Constricting Symbiote: You gain Improved Grapple, then you gain the strangle ability, which prevents spellcasting, and then the smother ability, which will speed up the process of suffocating a bitch to death. Unfortunately, even with that ability suffocating enemies is an incredibly bad tactic because of how long it takes, and you’ve got better things to do with your time than grapple people. Like be Venom!
Dual-Minded: Any time you roll a Will save, roll twice and take the better. I like roll twice take the better abilities, but this doesn’t help you be Venom better, and Will is a good save for you anyway.
Elongated Symbiote: Your natural reach increases by 10’, letting you smack people from farther away. Reach is always good, since it helps you both hit people better and makes it more difficult for them to get to you or your friends.
Entangling Symbiote: You can tear off a chunk of symbiote and throw it at your enemies as a tanglefoot bag that does damage. Which, I mean, it’s fun, and it’s kind of good, but you have better options.
Healing Symbiote: Put at least a 16 in your Constitution because this will keep you alive forever. As a swift action, you can give yourself fast healing equal to your Constitution modifier for a minute. With a +3 that’s 30 healing, and you can do it 3 times per day for 90 hp. As I said, alive forever.
Living Disguise: Your symbiote can turn itself into any kind of clothes for you, which is made obsolete by a set of sleeves of many garments, but more interesting is that you can use this talent later on as a non-illusory disguise self, allowing you to change your appearance, including to replicate people you’ve killed. That can potentially be very handy.
Muted Weakness: One thing I didn’t mention before is that your symbiote has a weakness to one element. This steadily reduces the extra damage done because of that weakness, eventually getting rid of it altogether. That being said, your weakness isn’t usually going to be that big of a deal, and realistically it would be easier to just get someone to either cast or use a scroll of resist energy on you every now and again, since they’re actually pretty cheap for the duration. Also, Venom never gets over his weakness to fire, so why should you?
Noxious Symbiote: You give your symbiote the stench ability, which unfortunately does not discriminate between allies and enemies and therefore is bad for you.
Reactive Symbiote: Being around you suddenly becomes dangerous. Enemies who get close to you automatically take damage, with a Reflex save for half. Realistically, it’s only gonna be about 7 to 9 damage in the mid game, which is not much at all, but the fact that it’s automatic and applies every time they enter a square within 5 or 10 feet of you (depending on your level) saves it from the dumpster heap.
Rending Symbiote: You gain a rend whenever you hit with multiple natural attacks from Bestial Symbiote. If you took Bestial, take this. If not, then don’t. Pretty simple.
Released Symbiote: You can willingly give over control to your symbiote to effectively increase your level by 1. For the benefits gained, losing control of your character for an hour is really shit. Don’t take this, it’s a trap, only good for NPCs.
Resistant Symbiote: You gain ½ your level as an energy resistance against an energy type other than your weakness. If you’re consistently up against a specific energy type then this is a good talent, otherwise it’s pretty meh.
Sensory Symbiote: You gain blindsense, and every few levels your blindsense expands range and you get blindsight out to the original range. Blindsense and blindsight can be really good, so while this isn’t a mandatory talent it’s still worth strong consideration.
Subterranean Symbiote: You get a burrow speed. Burrow speeds are meh, although it does become earth glide, which is… actually also pretty meh.
Surging Symbiote: As a swift action you can gain an alchemical bonus to Strength or Dexterity for a minute, then become fatigued for 10 minutes. Honestly, I would make the case that for the duration, this isn’t worth the penalty. Like, not at all.
Sustaining Union: You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe anymore. The breathing bit is cool, but all of these can be covered by relatively common magic item purchases (clear spindle ioun stone and necklace of adaptation). Pass.
Symbiotic Empowerment: You gain a scaling alchemical bonus on Strength and Dexterity checks, which I think was meant to includes skill checks based on those ability scores (they are, in fact, considered different things). You can also replace missing limbs with your symbiote when it’s manifested. If you have missing limbs, this is fun and flavorful. Otherwise, kind of meh.
Unconscious Awakening: If you get knocked out, your symbiote will automatically take over, and if you were knocked out for falling below 0 you get Diehard and Deathless Initiate for free until it’s over. Of course, if you’re knocked unconscious while not suited up, you’ve done something terribly wrong already. In any case, once again, we really don’t want to be willingly giving up control of our character, that’s not fun.
Weaponized Symbiote: As a swift action you can manifest weapons for yourself that you’re proficient with. If you’re going to take this, take it early, so that you don’t have to waste gold on weapons to keep competitive. If you’re not going Bestial Symbiote, I recommend this.
Whip Symbiote: A natural progression of Weaponized Symbiote, you can manifest whips and get really good with them, to the point of being able to incapacitate people with a whip from a distance. Kind of like a certain symbiote based supervillain I can think of. Hell yeah, more Venom.
Winged Symbiote: You can fly. In case you hadn’t noticed, flying is really strong in Pathfinder.
Final Thoughts: I admit it. I’m biased. Venom is cool. But I still think this is a strong specialization, and one of the more interesting “you can lose control” ones in that you can lose control in entirely preventable ways that make for an actually interesting story, rather than just a frustrating game experience.
TechnicianLV, or, How To Be Sherlock Holmes In That One Fight Scene In The RDJ Movie
Unique Ability: Studied Combat
Weapon Proficiencies: Same deal as Brawler, since they’re part of the same archetype.
Dynamic Specialization: Technician is a specialization of the dynamic striker archetype. You gain studied combat as an investigator does, using Wisdom instead of Intelligence. This gives you decent static bonuses (stacking this with Lethal Grace will provide you with full level to damage against enemies) but it is precision damage, which is irritating.
Cross Guard: You gain the swashbuckler’s parry ability, gaining a pool based on Wisdom that’s recovered like panache. You need a talent to be able to riposte, but access to the swash’s most jealously guarded deed is pretty sweet.
Knockout Blow: A fancy way of saying studied strike, it’s fairly weaker than the investigator’s version but can be augmented by talents. Don’t use this until your studied combat is nearly over or you know you can get the KO with it.
Perfect Knockout: As your capstone, you can expend a use of cross guard to maximize your knockout blow. At level 20, this means you’re going from average 22.5 damage from your dice to the maximized 39, which is a rough increase of 17 points of damage on a single attack. Not great for a capstone, especially since you have to expend two other resources (a use of cross guard and the ability to study that target) to use it.
Martial Arts Talents
Cross Counter: When you successfully use cross guard you can make an attack of opportunity against whoever attacked you. This is actually much better than the swashbuckler’s riposte, because as an AoO and not an immediate action, you can actually use it multiple times, assuming you have Combat Reflexes.
Crush Counter: A high level talent that turns any cross counter attack roll that beats the target’s AC by 10 or more is automatically treated as a critical hit. Getting that is child’s play to a high level martial with studied combat up, must-take ability.
Dynamic Roll: As described for the Brawler. Unlike the Brawler, though, this is actually a mediocre ability for you, mainly because you’re not getting nearly as many attacks off as the Brawler is, so you’re only rarely going to proc the staggered effect and almost never on the unconscious one. There’s better choices for you.
Effortless Counter: If your cross guard roll beats your opponent’s attack roll by 10 or more, your cross counter doesn’t cost another use of cross guard. Extending your best class feature out even further is good, but it’s not that easy to pull off and will mostly come down to dice rolls.
Finesse Fist: This is actually better for Technicians than for Brawlers, because while you still want to maximize that static bonus, you actually want a really high Dexterity modifier for Combat Reflexes, as opposed to equally high Dexterity and Strength.
Ki Pool: We like this for all the same reasons we liked it as a Brawler.
Ki Power: And we don’t really care here for all the same reasons too.
Limited Flurry of Blows: You gain the unchained monk’s flurry of blows feature, but afterwards you’re fatigued and can’t cross guard for a round. Lame, and you’ll probably get more attacks out of cross counter anyay.
Martial Training: Same as with Brawler, but you like this more because unlike the Brawler you aren’t full bab and therefore crave that early access to certain feats.
Shadow Boxing: If you’re out of uses of cross guard, you can spend five minutes to get a use back. Meanwhile your party’s buffs are burning down. If that’s not a problem, then by all means, grab this, because more cross guard is good. Otherwise, suck it up, wait for the next time you knock a fool out, and make a note to manage resources better.
Quick Study: You get the ability to study as a swift and can study a single target as many times as you like. This is a must grab for you, because it means you can use your knockout blow basically every round (after the first round, hit the target, knockout blow, then swift action study mid-full attack).
Stunning Versatility: I’ll argue this has more value than before, because you’re not making as many attacks as the Brawler and so you want them to count for more, but I still don’t care for it.
Style Counter: You gain a style strike, and can use it when you use cross counter. If you take something like leg sweep (knocking the target prone) or headbutt (staggering them to negate their full attack) you can really up your survivability by a lot.
Style Knockout: Same deal, but you can use it on a knockout blow. Here’s where you want to pick up the added damage options, like hammer blow and elbow smash.
Vacuum Fist: This is just as cool as it was before.
Final Thoughts: It isn’t studied combat that makes this archetype, but cross counter and cross guard, to the point where I would’ve switched when you got them. This is great for the tactical, more control and precise damage oriented unarmed striker, and I appreciate that it has a place next to the Brawler.
Legendary Archetypes
It’s a weird science party with the Alchemical ScoundrelLVV
Compatible Specializations: Avenger and Stalker
Class Skills: You gain Knowledge (arcana) and Spellcraft, but lose Escape Artist, Knowledge (engineering), Ride, and Use Magic Device. Lateral move.
Skill Ranks per Level: You go down to 4+Int. In reality, you go down to 3+Int, because one of your skills must be dedicated to Craft (alchemy).
Alchemy: You give up half of your talents (at weird intervals) to gain alchemy, as a normal alchemist. Alchemy is a good spell list to gain. Go for it.
Alchemy Talents: Unique talents without being a specialization? How novel. On top of the following list, you can take Alchemist discoveries.
Alchemical Advancement: You can give alchemical weapons some scaling damage, which is pretty solid. There’s some confusion in the wording here, it doesn’t say whether it’s when you use it or when you create it. You can also draw alchemical items as ammunition, which makes for some wild if incredibly expensive full attacks.
Alchemical Breakthrough: You can change the save DC of alchemical items to scale with your level and Intelligence. Not bad if you want to make real use of things like thunderstones and tanglefoot bags in higher levels when their DC becomes trash, but still kind of meh.
Bomb Adept: You get the alchemist’s Throw Anything, and bombs with half the damage scaling of an alchemist. Bombs are good. Take if you want to do a Bomber alchemist type build, ignore if you want to go melee.
Bomb Tinkerer: If you’re going bomber build, you want to take this. Your bombs can all be altered to suit whatever energy type you need (or bludgeoning, for those things that are resistant to all energy or have hardness), functioning as six different alchemist discoveries in one. Really frigging powerful.
Brutal Mutagen: You get Feral Mutagen, giving you some natural attacks. At level 10, it doubles as a free enlarge person extract. Must take for a melee build when you hit that point, and earlier if you want to do a natural attack build.
Cognatogen Adept: Your mutagen can become a Cognatogen. More importantly, cognatogens have no penalties. Really, really good choice for the bomber/skill monkey build, since you can take Inspiring Cognatogen and get inspiration dice and a buff to your bomb damage.
Cognatogen Master: Your cognatogen upgrades into a greater cognatogen at 12 and a grand cognatogen at 16. Logical upgrade for Cognatogen Adept.
Evolving Mutagen: Your mutagen gives you evolution points. It’s based on the unchained eidolon, which is the worst eidolon, and bipedal form, the worst form. There’s a few good options available, so worth considering, especially since it’s variable and can change every time you imbibe your mutagen.
Explosive Bomber: Your bombs become explosive, and you can stack it on top of other discoveries. You also get strafe bombs. This is awesome.
False Tooth: You can spend an hour making yourself a false tooth and putting an extract in it, allowing you to use an immediate action to consume it. You’re not just quickening your extract, you’re able to use it as a reaction to bad things happening. Nice.
Identity Crisis: Put shortly, your vigilante form becomes linked to your mutagen,, and you gain the ability to gain the benefits of your mutagen twice per day without actually consuming a mutagen. Considering this normally requires a prestige class, it’s a nice option for a Jekyll and Hyde build.
Inspiring Cognatogen Master: You get greater and grand inspiring cognatogen. Nothing fancy, moving on here.
Mutagen Adept: You get to use that mutagen we keep talking about. You also get access to the Brute talent list, which is an amazing talent list normally gated by a terrible archetype. This unlocks an entirely new direction for the Jekyll and Hyde build.
Mutagen Master: Yada yada upgraded mutagen.
NTD Supernova: Increase the damage dice of your bombs by two steps (for the purpose of d6s, this functionally doubles your damage dice) and increase the DC by +2. As capstone abilities go, literally doubling your damage is a pretty good one.
Nyehilist: I’m not sure if this is a reference to Bill Nye the Science Guy, but anyway, you get the True Mutagen grand discovery, which as capstones go isn’t nearly as good as NTD Supernova. Still not a bad choice.
Quick Mutation: Imbibing your mutagen takes a move action, which becomes a swift action, and the time to create a mutagen gets cut down significantly. Ludicrously good for either a J&H or a bomber, since this would apply to cognatogens too.
Persistent Mutagen: Your mutagen is now hours/level instead of 10 minutes/level. Personally, I find 10 minutes/level is enough, especially since you have to be 12th level before you take it which means you’re already rocking your mutagen for two hours as is.
Splash Technician: I can’t actually rate half of this talent because I have no idea what Splash Sniper is and google won’t tell me, but the other half lets you sacrifice hidden strike dice as a Stalker to increase the splash DC of your bombs and alchemical items, which is kinda neat I guess? Not really worth taking though.
Smoking Bomber: You get the smoke bomb line of discoveries, and can stack Inferno Bomb with any of your elemental damage types on Bomb Tinkerer. The problem is… cloud abilities kinda suck, since they don’t discriminate friend or foe. Pass.
Sniping Bomber: You get explosive missile, and the ability to use explosive missile twice in a round as a full round action, or (if you have fast bombs) explosive bomb as the first shot of a full attack. This opens up a build for an archer Avenger, which is something you don’t see every day.
Final Thoughts: If you take Extra Discovery feats to pick up some of the slack your loss of talents leaves you with, you now outclass a traditional J&H Alchemist in every way, shape and form. Bomber has more versatility than the alchemist equivalent but less overall damage, so that’s more lateral. Most of the options marked green are actually blue for their specific build, so go nuts.
The life has ConsumedLVV me.
Compatible Specializations: Any that don’t give up social talents
No Identity: You give up dual identity and seamless guise. In exchange, you gain the Nameless One feat, making your old identity impossible to discern, and gain an extra hp every level. Nameless One is weird, and it doesn’t actually mention if you need to spend the 200 gp required to actually use the feat in the book (which would make a level 1 Consumed’s life hard), but this is kinda cool, and a thematic replacement for dual identity.
Social Talents: No social talents for you. Ever. Sad. All of the following abilities replace talents you would normally get.
Focused Body: You slowly cease to need food, water or sleep. Do not combine with an arcane casting archetype because it will render the sleep bit worthless, and the food and water bit can be handles with a 1,000 gp ioun stone. Meh.
Word of Mouth: You gain the benefits of Renown, don’t have to actually spread the word yourself, and the time it takes for Renown to spread decreases dramatically as you level up. Not bad, but still, meh.
Concentrated Mind: You gain a scaling bonus against mind-affecting effects, which gradually expands to also include physical impairments and death effects. This is better than what we’ve gotten before, and is actually worth losing a few social talents.
Truly Nameless: You can’t be scryed on, and Knowledge checks about you become much harder. Even more meh.
Final Thoughts: You’re giving up on Social Talents, which can be pretty good, for some mediocre abilities. It’s not a great loss, but I wouldn’t say worth it for the mechanics. Now, for the flavor? You bet your ass it’s worth it.
What is this, the MCU? Exposed VigilanteLV
Compatible Specializations: All except for Faceless Enforcer, or any others that might require a secret identity.
Lone Identity: So we’ve established that you can ignore the existence of dual identity if you really want, it’s a purely flavor based option. Same with seamless guise. Well, Lone Identity lets you give it up, being constantly in your social identity and publicly acknowledged as a superhero. What do you get for giving up this purely flavor option? A bonus skill point (pretty good) and a bonus social skill (hella good).
Social Talents: You’re always treated as being in your social guise for social talents, and you can’t gain the use of talents that require multiple identities. This is what you’re really losing for the archetype, the ability to take the Many Guises tree.
Final Thoughts: While the features added aren’t really more than solid, compared to what you lose it’s basically getting things for free, making the archetype more than the sum of its parts. Unless you really want the dual identity for flavor purposes or you really want Many Guises, consider this a good default to take.
I know these streets like the back of my hand. Focused HunterLV.
Compatible Specializations: Any that don’t already replace the Startling Appearance line.
Familiar Terrain: You’re giving up Startling Appearance for Favored Terrain. It’s not the best most awesome thing in the world but hey, you’re only giving up Startling Appearance, and you get to add half your level to all Survival checks to boot.
Hide In Plain Sight: You gain the hide in plain sight talent, and if you’re in your favored terrain you can stealth anywhere, not just in dim light or darker. This is a pretty awesome ability, and again, you’re trading basically nothing for it.
Terrain Master: While in your favored terrain, you can gain total concealment as a swift action, broken by attacks. This is… busted as hell, especially since you’re giving up another option in the Appearance line. The only limiter is that an intelligent GM will go out of their way to get you out of your favored terrain.
Final Thoughts: Again, hella good. Not quite an Always Take, since if you’re not gonna consistently be in the same terrain it falls off, but still an easy blue. If you’re totally gonna be in the same terrain constantly, this goes to purple.
The Plague ScionLVV brings only death.
Compatible Specializations: Stalker
Plague Bringer: You trade your 1st level social talent for the antipaladin’s plague bringer ability, making you immune to the effects of disease but letting you contract and spread them. In all honesty immunity to disease on its own is worth a social talent, but this sets up some cool archetype features.
Signature Disease: You pick a disease from a list. You always have that disease, and its Fortitude save scales with your level and Cha mod. As time goes on your can add more diseases to your roster, including ones not from the list that you’ve encountered. Walk freely into plague zones friends, and collect as many as you like. This makes you a bit dangerous to allies, but it’s okay because...
Plague Strike: You’re also a danger to your enemies! When you deal full hidden strike damage, you can infect the target with one of your signature diseases, and… that’s it. Wait, what? No reducing the onset time or frequency? Worthless to a PC, utterly worthless. And you’re giving up a talent. Even more worthless!
Mystifying Plague: Your signature diseases have their frequency reduced to hourly, which is still worthless to PCs, and you can choose between poison and disease for the purpose of what spells get rid of it, which is also worthless to PCs.
Plague Sight: You gain blindsight against diseased individuals, giving some use to your plague spreading, which, once again, is worth a social talent.
Infectious Plague: Your primary signature disease is now transmitted in every way possible, and everyone and anyone who comes within 30’ of you needs to make a save against it. You can choose some allies to be immune to this effect, but not to your general infectiousness. Still bad for PCs.
Ravaging Plague: A limited number of times per day when you infect someone with a signature disease, you can make it ravaging, which can convert ability damage into drain. Say it with me folks: Worthless to PCs.
Tenacious Plague: Frequency is 1/minute and two saves are needed to resist the disease instead of one, still no change in onset time. Worthless. To. PCs.
Pandemic Plague: Anyone infected with your signature disease gets the effects of Infectious Plague on that disease. Diseases will spread fast and hard with this, thanks to Tenacious Plague and the followup, but, uh…
Virulent Plague: Frequency for diseases is 1/round, and no magical curing. Wow, I really do pity the PC that this gets thrown at. I don’t pity the enemy it gets thrown at, because they’ll be dead before they have to suffer the consequences.
Final Thoughts: I don’t know if it’s a typo or what, but the fact that the onset time for the diseases doesn’t get changed makes this utterly pointless for PCs. For NPCs, though, especially for villains, this is a ridiculously cool archetype, just… really bad for PCs.
Legendary Feats
I can actually work with these because they were specifically designed for vigilantes, so that’s nifty.
Charismatic Caster LVV: Cabalist, Warlock and Zealot become spontaneous casters that cast using Charisma, which is, like, okay for Warlock and Cabalist since your spells and class features scale off the same stat, and excellent for Zealots who want to smite (although if you want to do that why aren’t you playing a Crusader)
Cross SpecializationLV: You can take Avenger or Stalker talents, using your level-4 to qualify. And by this, I mean you can take Avenger talents, because it has an amazing list for any martial. The only reason you shouldn’t be taking this is either you have no room for Avenger talents in your very specific build, or you’re already an Avenger.
Ego Limiter LVV: For the Symbiotic Slayer only, your symbiote takes longer to take control of your mind. Can be taken in place of your first level social talent, which I recommend if you want this. Lets you use your main class feature for longer every day without becoming an NPC, and we can all get behind that.
Explosive Bolts LVV: For Warlocks only. You can cause your mystic bolts to do minimum damage splash. Not bad, but it’s decent AoE damage, but you can only select out one square and it’s gonna be a low amount of damage with reflex for half. There’s better feats to take.
Extra Social Talent LV: You get a bonus social talent, and if you’re not a vigilante you can still pick one up. Social talents are cool, and because of the prereqs you can take this even if you don’t have any social talents (like a Consumed or an archetype that gives up your first talent.)
Forbidden Vigilante Knowledge LVV: If you have Magical Limit Break, you can add 7th level spells to your spell list, and can take this again for 8th level spells if you want it. I was already critical of spending a talent on this, and now you want to spend a talent and a feat? Pass.
Genius Vigilante LVV: Your vigilante class features all scale with Int in place of Cha, including and spellcasting you gain. Basically, if you want to be a smart vigilante instead of a charismatic one, this is your feat. For bonus points, it can be taken as your first level social talent. While your class skills support Charisma over Intelligence, Int is also probably a better ability score overall than Cha, so I won’t knock it. Becomes blue if you’re a Warlock, Cabalist, Psychometrist or Alchemical Scoundrel and therefore already scale with Int on a bunch of stuff. Double plus good for a Warlock because it boosts the all important Mystic Accuracy feat.
Hidden Sneak LVV: You gain a bonus on attack rolls against enemies you proc your hidden strike on, but more importantly, your hidden sneak is treated as sneak attack for the purpose of prerequisites and qualifications. This lets you take Accomplished Sneak Attacker if you multiclass, or the Sap Master line if you so choose. Solid choice if you’re interested in those things.
Injected Infusions LVV: You can inject people with your infused extracts instead of pouring it in their mouth. The main purpose of this is to do standard action infusions on helpless targets, which I didn’t even know wasn’t a thing before. Give it a pass.
Magical Transformation LVV: Gives the Magical Child powerful transformation. Powerful transformation’s a neat ability, and totally worth giving up unshakeable, but I wouldn’t call it worth a feat really. If you really want it then by all means, grab it.
Martial Bond (Combat) LV: You can pick a weapon, and transfer all of its enchantments to your unarmed strikes. This is cool because you can just use, like, a dagger or something else super cheap, and now for the price of a feat you’ve both gotten half price on your unarmed enchant and freed up your neck slot from Amulet of the Mighty Fists.
Masked Identity, Improved LV: You get a +5 bonus to your Seamless Guise. This is really more useful for non-vigilantes who take the Masked Identity feat, but it’s a prerequisite for a much better feat.
Masked Identity, Greater LV: You get a bonus vigilante talent, using half your level to qualify. Remember how Paizo refused to make an extra talent feat because talents are so damn good? Well, if you’re willing to give up an extra feat, here you go!
Mystic Accuracy LVV: You can use Power Attack, Deadly Aim and Pirhana Strike with your touch based mystic bolts, Clustered Shots will get you through energy resistance, and you add half your Int to damage as well. If you take Genius, Charismatic or Wise Vigilante, you get to add your full casting stat instead. This is a mandatory feat for all Warlocks, as it takes the biggest complaints about their mystic bolts and just fixes all of them.
Shared Identity (Teamwork) LV: You and an ally can swap identities. Teamwork feats are mostly useless, but for shits and grins it’s entirely legal to take this on a Mounted Fury, allowing you and your horse to pretend to be each other.
Shifting Weakness LVV: For the Symbiotic Slayer, once per week you can change your symbiote’s weakness. If you know you’re going to be going up against a lot of energy types over the course of the campaign and they’re all going to be concentrated such that you’ll see them coming from at least a week away, then this is an excellent feat. You’ll notice how that’s almost never gonna happen. If it’s that big of a concern for you take Dampen Weakness instead.
Signature Talent LV: Pick a talent, and you can take that talent two levels earlier than you normally could, you’re treated as two levels higher for its effects, and you get a bunch of +1s. Good for some talents, especially ones that have a very small number of uses per day since it gives you more, but mediocre otherwise.
Sniper Bolts LVV: For Warlocks, your mystic bolts gain a scaling bonus to range. Range is cool, so you’re welcome to pick this up if you have feats to spare, but it’s not a priority.
Splash Sniper LVV: You can hidden strike with a splash weapon, which is… super niche and I don’t really see a point in doing so?
Vigilante Savant/Casting Savant LV: You gain an extra talent. If you take Casting Savant, you use your full level to determine if you qualify, as a way of making up for losing half your talents to spellcasting. If you take the regular version, you need to be higher level and treat your level as half for qualifying. Unlike Greater Masked Identity, this has no feat tax to it, and there are plenty of talents regardless of situation that are either multiple bonus feats or bonus feat+, so take this in place of whatever feat you wanted to get.
Violent Child LVV: As a magical child, you get to add a magus spell to your spell list, although you still have to learn it normally. I recommend Bladed Dash or its greater equivalent, or something else that isn’t pretty much reliant on your nonexistent spellstrike and spell combat class features to work for a gish.
Wise Vigilante LVV: Genius Vigilante, but for Wisdom. Zealot likes this because they get a Wisdom based smite now. Other people probably don’t care so much, making it a flavor/”oh god we have no one with Wisdom” pick.
My Final Request
I am not perfect. I know, I know, this is shocking to you all, but I freely admit that I have my faults. Most of this guide was my own perspective, and I’m fairly certain that there was a degree of bias in a lot of my judgments. This guide is going up on the Paizo boards and on Reddit, so if you have any complaints, criticisms, or suggestions, I ask that you head over there, find the thread, and let me know. Any feedback I get and incorporate will be properly credited. If you don’t want to make it public, or have any questions you’d like to ask me directly, you can also email me at Nathan.reinecke12@gmail.com, and I’ll be happy to answer or respond through there too.
I also would like to thank you for reading this guide. I’m extremely fond of the vigilante and have been since playtesting, so being able to write this guide for the community has been a pleasure and a treat. If you found it helpful, or at least enjoyed my extremely unprofessional writing style, then I’m happy to have been of service.
Until next time,
FedoraFerret