Social Duels & Dual Identities: Playtest Pathfinder's ULTIMATE INTRIGUE

The official playtest for Ultimate Intrigue, 2016's upcoming 256-page Pathfinder RPG hardcover, is now open. This book includes the new vigilante base class, which focuses on the twin roles of social encounters and adventuring and is able to adopt two identities at once. The book includes social duels, heists, an influence system, along with the expected archetypes, spells, feats, and gear.

You can download the playtest from Paizo's website. The playtest closes Thursday, July 20, 2015 - so you have a month.

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[thom_likes_gaming]

At first glance, looks like we're getting more (flexible) hybrid classes.
I would most certainly hope, that a book like that will contain some interesting out-of-combat interaction mechanics.
We'll see.

 

[Jester David]

I'm totally not sold on the idea of a vigilante class. It's something that feels more like an archetype (or 5e style background).
And having seen the playtest, I'm still not sold. So much seems to overlap with existing classes, mostly adding the very low power social options or the ability to surprise once a combat.

I'd much rather this turned into a 10 level prestige class like the evangelist from Inner Sea Gods, where you retain most of your class features. Especially since being a vigilante seems like something you need to work into.

 

[ZeshinX]

Reminds me of the Ninja from 1st Edition AD&D Oriental Adventures.

I'm honestly not at all impressed with the Vigilante. Granted, I've only read it and not played it...but meh. It just strikes me as pointlessly convoluted and over-designed. It should be a prestige class with varying entry requirements and benefits based on those requirements.

Too bad they can't stretch out the Warlock specialization into a full-out class (I guess they didn't want to steal the Kineticist's spotlight lol).

 

[jasin]

It makes me think the point of the design was more the mechanical exercise of creating a one size fits all adventurer class, than the thematic concern of catering to the masked vigilante character type.

Apparently, Jason Bulmahn, who designed the vigilante, also designed the factotum in 3E's Dungeonscape, but I think the factotum is a better thematic wrapping for the basic mechanical concept: if you really want to design a class that breaks out of the usual strictures of a class-based game, "it's a versatile adventurer" seems a better and more direct explanation than "it's a masked vigilante". Also, I prefer that a factotum character will be a jack of all trades, which is arguably a niche of its own, while a vigilante character is just as locked into his specialization as a fighter or a wizard.

It seems strange to subvert the class system by designing a class whose main thing is "with this class, you can be any class!" and then subvert that subversion with "... but once you choose, you're actually that one class, as usual".