Vigilante and Liberator Feedback Thread

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Kenji
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Vigilante and Liberator Feedback Thread

Post by Kenji » Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:01 am

Any thoughts on the new PrCs Vigilante and Liberator? Post it here.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by msterswrdsmn » Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:19 am

My thoughts offhand from just looking at the online documents are pretty much "powercreep" or "overtuned".

I mean...whats the downside to taking this class?

It has:
Full BAB
d10 HD growth
2 strong saving throws
Sneak attacks (im assuming thats what "brutal attacks" are)
Free Epic Spell Focus Feats
Free passive AB/Damage buffs
Free onhit AoE crowd control
Good skillpoint growth, and it looks like almost every skill is a class skill for this class.
Assorted rogue or paladin skills
Monk WIS AC on one of the paths

....

Seriously, whats the downside to this? Is there a weakness to this class i'm not seeing? This seems a bit much offhand. Not even the most crazy class combinations that i've seen or have come up with come close to this in terms of boons vs tradeoffs.

People were screaming about bards being overpowered, but this blows them out of the water without even trying. Bards are still dispel bait, feat starved, subpar damage output without feat assistance (sneaks or divine might), 3/4 BAB growth and squishy with d6 HD if you can get past their AC. I see absolutely no downside or real counterplay to this.

Also with bards, you'd need to tie up at least 33 skillpoints to max out perform, which is a cruicial element to the bards ability with bardsong. I'm no seeing any skills that are as cruicially tied to the vigilante abilities, except maybe intimidate to the AoE fear on kill? But even then its not as bad, as vigilantes seem to get a few passive bonuses to intimidate regardless with their signature weapon. Which, unlike Bardsong, doesn't seem to have a cooldown or time limit beyond "once per kill".

Unless i'm blatantly missing something (very possible) there's absolutely no downside to taking this class, unless you wanted to play a spellcaster. Which, no worries! You still get an epic spell focus depending on which path you take. Since this is also a non-evil only class, i'd heavily skew things against evil players, who already have a hard time on Arelith when interacting with others.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by MRFTW » Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:49 am

Is there an undocumented BAB prereq? Otherwise 4 ftr / 19 vigi / 7 WM looks scary.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by AstralUniverse » Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:58 am

I think harper paragon breaks the class a little. then you can be div without needing to invest your Cause into it and you end up with *pretty good* stats.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by msterswrdsmn » Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:04 am

To counter, Harper paragon requires 2 useless feats to get (alertness and Iron Will), as well as power attack if you want to get the divine might/shield feats, which aren't free anymore either. So basically, you need to burn 5 feats to get the most out of Harper Paragon, and possible spread your stats around as you'll need STR and CHA on top of whatever else your build needs. It only goes up to 5 class levels as well, whereas Vigilante goes up to 20 with scaling benefits

Edit:
Wait, nevermind. You were talking about adding Harper paragon to Vigilante, weren't you?

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by AstralUniverse » Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:14 am

msterswrdsmn wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:04 am
You were talking about adding Harper paragon to Vigilante, weren't you?
Yes. So you become a div build but you can go for that path with the crippling strike and improved sneaks. As for the feats cost/gain - check and see for yourself it fits *perfectly*.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Waldo52 » Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:22 am

msterswrdsmn wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:19 am
My thoughts offhand from just looking at the online documents are pretty much "powercreep" or "overtuned".

I mean...whats the downside to taking this class?

It has:
Full BAB
d10 HD growth
2 strong saving throws
Sneak attacks (im assuming thats what "brutal attacks" are)
Free Epic Spell Focus Feats
Free passive AB/Damage buffs
Free onhit AoE crowd control
Good skillpoint growth, and it looks like almost every skill is a class skill for this class.
Assorted rogue or paladin skills
Monk WIS AC on one of the paths

....

Seriously, whats the downside to this? Is there a weakness to this class i'm not seeing? This seems a bit much offhand. Not even the most crazy class combinations that i've seen or have come up with come close to this in terms of boons vs tradeoffs.

People were screaming about bards being overpowered, but this blows them out of the water without even trying. Bards are still dispel bait, feat starved, subpar damage output without feat assistance (sneaks or divine might), 3/4 BAB growth and squishy with d6 HD if you can get past their AC. I see absolutely no downside or real counterplay to this.

Also with bards, you'd need to tie up at least 33 skillpoints to max out perform, which is a cruicial element to the bards ability with bardsong. I'm no seeing any skills that are as cruicially tied to the vigilante abilities, except maybe intimidate to the AoE fear on kill? But even then its not as bad, as vigilantes seem to get a few passive bonuses to intimidate regardless with their signature weapon. Which, unlike Bardsong, doesn't seem to have a cooldown or time limit beyond "once per kill".

Unless i'm blatantly missing something (very possible) there's absolutely no downside to taking this class, unless you wanted to play a spellcaster. Which, no worries! You still get an epic spell focus depending on which path you take. Since this is also a non-evil only class, i'd heavily skew things against evil players, who already have a hard time on Arelith when interacting with others.
This is a very dreary assessment. We're all talking from a place of ignorance because this is so new, but from what we can tell this class looks nuts.

I will say that I greatly admire the creative niche this class presents us, and I'm totally down for it. But if the vigilante does play out in a really overpowered way, please do dial it back.

Whoever's designing this and putting in the coding hours, I salute you. But do whatever it takes to get honest feedback from us and the devs.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Kenji » Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:03 am

msterswrdsmn wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:19 am
... unless you wanted to play a spellcaster. Which, no worries! You still get an epic spell focus depending on which path you take. Since this is also a non-evil only class, i'd heavily skew things against evil players, who already have a hard time on Arelith when interacting with others.
Let me know how that 11 caster 19 vig build works out for you on PGCC.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by VibeKings » Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:01 am

Kenji wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:03 am
Let me know how that 11 caster 19 vig build works out for you on PGCC.
Everything he said, and this singular disagreeable point is all you want to respond to, and with one sentence of a clever remark? Come on, man. There's four other paragraphs and a list, not a great deal of which is very incorrect. It's so unbelievably frustrating to give honest feedback and receive nothing but snark in return, and now I see it's almost as frustrating when I'm reading it addressed to somebody else.

Maybe nobody likes being critiqued, even if that's pretty much the point of the thread, and certainly the community has made more than it's fair share of "ugly" feedback. But that guy's post was written with language so pillow-fisted you'd almost have to try to take any offence from it.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Dreams » Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:11 am

The real question that was asked was: What is the downside to taking the class?

It has full BAB, d10 hp, decent saves, brutal attack damage, extra AB/damage, on-hit stuff, free feats, free class specific abilities, a bunch of seemingly crazy match-ups to other classes. Even as a 3-level-dip you're getting +1 AB at the cost of taking Dirty Fighting, which is still fantastic because this is a full BAB class as well.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Waldo52 » Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:38 am

Dreams wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:11 am
The real question that was asked was: What is the downside to taking the class?

DEX-Divine builds getting a free ride here as well with both Power Attack + Turn Undead being given at level 3, on top of Divine Grace.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but let's not forget how people freaked out over the dex divine nerf many months ago. The devs had to deal with a lot of tantrums over that, and now something completely different happened where suddenly you can argue that things look too good for dex divines.

I disagree with some of the dev's decisions, in fact I detest some of them (The PG rating, the right for monks and bards to exist and how traps only hurt hostiles for instance). But this isn't even really a decision. The class is so new that it's PGCC only, and has nothing but flavor text for a lot of the ability descriptions.

Imagine if I pulled out my guitar and asked for your opinion on a chord progression and you started complaining about the production values and asked where the drums/vocals/bass were? Maybe we've been showed some ore and are eager to call it the ugliest gold watch we've ever seen.

Let's give it a couple weeks before we start hating on this.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Dreams » Wed Jun 01, 2022 7:12 am

The developer that made it asked for feedback. My feedback is that it has too much going for it and no drawbacks. There's no tantrum or hate being flung here, Waldo.

What is the point of a feedback thread where players come in and pick at you for giving feedback? You go and test the class out, then come back with your opinion on it.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by MathAenya » Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:02 am

Same approach from the dev as usual: release over-tuned class so enough people play it to give you feedback, and lower the power level over time.

The class looks interesting in its RP, I like the different methods and I have several character ideas.
The actual numbers and mechanics are.... way over-the-top.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by msterswrdsmn » Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:12 am

Kenji wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:03 am
Let me know how that 11 caster 19 vig build works out for you on PGCC.
Challenge Accepted! Does spellsword count?

I threw together a half-hearted build, having absolutely no knowledge on how spellswords are supposed to work. I went DEX based, with starting stats of something like 12 STR/18 Dex/12 con/8 wis/18 int/8 cha after gifts.

The end result of a 11 spellsword /19 vigilante ended naked as:
30 AC
39-40 AB while holding a signature weapon (scimitar)
Skills all in the 40's and high 30's.

Again, I threw this together at random. I threw on a circlet of logic, grand magi robes, slippers of soft movement and a displacer beast cloak. I have on idea what i'm doing and i noticed i screwed up my spell selection and am missing a lot of cruicial buffs. Oh well. I gave up halfway through gearing up and went in without any amulets, rings, gloves or runed gear.

End result was about 45 AB buffed, 40-45 AC buffed, but again, i'm missing a LOT of buffs, like shield, because I was hitting the recommend button for spells to blow through that portion (I'm used to building innate casters sadly). I think the only buffs that are actually raising my AC at this point are mage armor and cats grace.

And I still did reasonably well. Damage was in the high 50's with sneak attacks and a 1d8 imbued masterly damask scimitar. No essences, no other buffs, no dirty fighting, so the damage can easily be cranked higher as well. Crit sneaks were around 70 with this halfhearted gear setup. The midish AB can easily be fixed with things like darkness flatfooting, attacking from stealth, or general debuffing. Or actually building properly.
....
Given how badly I screwed this up, building with a class I know nothing about and missing half my gear and using unruned gear on everything else, I should -not- be doing anywhere near this well. Period.

Actually building this with something that -does- synergize with this class well and is properly geared, like swashbuckler, rogue, ranger, or harper paragon as mentioned before would likely be far, far worse.

To Waldo52:
Sorry if it seems like i'm coming off as a negative person. My job has heavily influenced my analytical writing style in a very bad way. That said, feedback was asked, and I'm just trying to throw out some immediate red flags that I noticed upon first glance, and referenced it to the bard freakout not to long ago, which was nowhere near as powerful as this is.

Nothing person, no hate intended. I can tell a lot of effort was put into this, and I like the -idea- of a vigilante character, but this is like batman on venom after crossbreeding with superman here.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Shadowy Reality » Wed Jun 01, 2022 11:27 am

MathAenya wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:02 am
Same approach from the dev as usual: release over-tuned class so enough people play it to give you feedback, and lower the power level over time.

The class looks interesting in its RP, I like the different methods and I have several character ideas.
The actual numbers and mechanics are.... way over-the-top.
But it wasnt released, it's just on PGCC. Lately all new classes have had their mechanics released, then the class deployed to PGCC before hitting the live server, precisely so nothing too broken is released.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Paint » Wed Jun 01, 2022 11:36 am

I feel like I'm missing something here. Does Vigilante progress caster level? Because if not, any conjecture about how well a caster/vigilante deep dip would turn out is severely undermined by the fact that you'd have all of your wards stripped if someone so much as sneezed at you.

Anyways, the only feedback I have right now is that the scaling bluff bonus and how it works seems to encourage the kind of use of disguise that I've been heavily discouraged from in the past. When your bluff gets so high that your disguise just can't be broken due to a combination of godsaves and nobody having the skills to break it, you can stay in disguise all the time, to the point where more people would know you by your disguise than your real face. If your godsave ever procs, you can just simply shuffle offscene for awhile and wait for another godsave. Eventually, it gets to the point that where if you want to remain anonymous, you can just use your real face and act plainly for a little bit. Nobody can break your disguise if you're not wearing one. And the point of disguises is that they can be broken. But if the face everyone knows you by is a disguise rather than your real face, when they actually -see- your real face, they can't break it to find out that you're your disguise. It's a very... roundabout sort of immunity. I suppose it makes thematic sense w/ vigilante, but it does seem like something that's going to cause tension in the future.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by msterswrdsmn » Wed Jun 01, 2022 11:54 am

Paint wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 11:36 am
I feel like I'm missing something here. Does Vigilante progress caster level? Because if not, any conjecture about how well a caster/vigilante deep dip would turn out is severely undermined by the fact that you'd have all of your wards stripped if someone so much as sneezed at you.
Im' 99% sure it was mean to be a joke with the 11 caster/19 vigilante build Kenji threw out. I was just bored and figured "why not?!" The build I made was terrible, but still had a high AB/Damage output considering how badly I built it.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Scraps » Wed Jun 01, 2022 12:07 pm

So Vigilance Vigilante looks like it can promote a Wisdom Ranged playstyle, however. Even taking Vigilante at level 4 (as soon as possible) You won't get Zen Archery through the path until Vigilante level 8, or Character level 11.

That's a long time to be without Wisdom to AB.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Babylon System is the Vampire » Wed Jun 01, 2022 12:14 pm

Waldo52 wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 6:38 am


I disagree with some of the dev's decisions, in fact I detest some of them (The PG rating, the right for monks and bards to exist and how traps only hurt hostiles for instance).
These are all definitely Kenji decisions.


In all seriousness though, and I can't say they plan it this way because I am not in their heads, releasing this stuff on the pgcc over tuned and then rolling it back is smart. Some will get excited to test it because it's over tuned and they will get visions of pvp victories dancing about with sugar plums. Some will test it to prove its busted. But the most important thing? People will test it.


And Waldo whom I quoted above was saying something similar, I just found that one line funny and had to single it out. Read his whole post though, it's a good one.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by AstralUniverse » Wed Jun 01, 2022 12:40 pm

We've also had some instances where classes were very underwhelming on release. Hexblade, Loremaster.... Invisible Blade I think also? I wouldnt say it's a "strategy". I think the Dev who releases a class aims to represent it as thematically as possible, and sometimes it'll need buffs right a way, sometimes nerfs. In the Vig's case, yeah nerfs.

I cant really comment on the e-dodge and nature paths because I just dont even know what to do with them but if I compare, for example, a standard brycer to 10 fighter 3 bard 17 vig (divine path) or something around that and what we get is basically a much stronger "brycer on steroids" with Methods and g.smites. That's just one example. There's also the paragon I mentioned above combined with vindicator path which also results in a "brycer" but also with 10d6 sneaks and crippling strike and Methods.

My initial logical response is to think this class should not have any soft bonuses to ab. it's full bab and that's good enough. I also think it might be a good idea to drop it to d8 hit dice, because otherwise we would need to start removing feats from some paths and it would hurt the theme and flavor, so I'd suggest firstly to just lower the ab/hp a bit and then take a look at these builds again.
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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Security_Blanket » Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:30 pm

A class with more built in RP reason to actively seek out Evil and smite it, not bound by any settlement, gets Great Smite 3 for free and can only be Good. If you're trying not to encourage zealotry, you got a funny way of going about it. The class has some fun RP potential, but mechanically, I think it's overtuned and looks like it even encourages forming an Evil PC stomping killsquad.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Drowboy » Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:15 pm

Hard to judge it when half of it isn't like, implemented, but... From what is there. It reminds me of blackguard, kind of-

1/1 AB, same sneaks and fear immunity as a 20 BG, reflex and will high. Pretty good on its own. Instead of turn undead/summons/corrupt weapon, gets the paths.

The paths seem cool. I'm guessing you used the Pathfinder Vigilante as inspiration?

On to the paths:
Vigilance feels like it should get zen archery earlier, and while I understand giving them scry, I kind of personally hate scry's existence, so seeing it show up in more places is iffy. I'm otherwise kind of ambivalent on this one.

Freedom: This one feels weird? It seems like it wants to be a kind of Batman/Nightwing situation (fear-based, acrobatic). Gets edodge, I assume, if you trip into something with tumble. Cool defensive guy, I'd love to see full details on how gruesome technique works before making judgement though.

Vindication: Okay so here's the outlier, right? 4d6 sneak attacks (10d6 total with the baseline class, so... full bab 20 rogue), poison use, and a for-now passive 2 ab/5 hide/5 ms. This one seems really strong. Really strong. I guess its 'final' strength depends on what happens with its method/dirty fighting reliance? I'd maybe halve the sneaks it gets though.

I don't have any opinions on the divine ones yet. Vigilante or Vindicator should probably lose some sneak attacks, and skirmish maneuvers+signature weapon probably need a good solid looking at. I'd also maybe recommend making Vigilante mutually exclusive with Harper.
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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by magistrasa » Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:22 pm

This has little to do with balance, so here's the TL;DR: The mechanics make it feel thematically inconsistent and I feel like it lacks narrative cohesion with the rest of the server's class design.

I feel like the "divine/non-divine" divide within the class shouldn't be a thing. For the sake of thematic consistency, both within the class and beyond it, I think all of them should be non-divine. It reserves divinity only for the "CG Paladin-lite" and the ecoterrotist, when there's no good reason any of the other oaths Causes wouldn't similarly earn divine power. I just think that the class's conceptual foundation should be consistent throughout its design, and creating a dichotomy between "these heroic motivations are mundane, while these heroic motivations are Holy," just doesn't have very sensible implications for the rest of the universe the class exists within. I'm sure you can make it make better sense via flavor text with a little effort, but I guess I just disagree with the idea of a class being "sometimes this way, sometimes that way" and I generally don't like when the server's design decisions don't appear to take the whole picture into account.

More broadly, it really does seem like this class is taking on too many ideas at once. The Vigilante isn't one class, it's five different classes under the same name. I just worry that it's ultimately a missed opportunity - for instance, I could see the possibility that the features for the rogue-flavored Vigilante might never get explored as its own class (like, I dunno, maybe this concept could have been the foundation for a future Arcane Trickster) simply because it now already exists in the Vigilante. There's a lot of wild extrapolations in there though so I guess I should probably just shut up and see how it goes.

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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Skibbles » Wed Jun 01, 2022 4:04 pm

I have nothing to add other than the disguise check getting better with time is brilliant. Very creative.
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Re: Vigilante Feedback Thread

Post by Archnon » Wed Jun 01, 2022 4:43 pm

Love any new class that you can play as a svirf and this one is crazy good. But remember, a base svirf can start with 20 dex, 16 wis, 14, int, and 14 con. That can lead to a few fun builds that fit the flavor (even the svirf player) but are going to be wicked powerful. For example:

Ranger 10 - Vigilance 20 - Full BAB, High AC, add in 4 rogue or bard or swashbuckler for 1 less feat but tumble dump and potentially umd
Ranger 3, SD 10, Vigilance 17 - Full Bab, High AC, Epic Dodge
Monk 4, Knight 7, Freedom 19 - Crazy fear based support, still full BAB, monk AC,


or just fighter 3, WM 7, Aanything 20 - Feat starved but will hit hard.
Super fun class!
Pros:
* Tons of utility,
* Lack of tumble (creating a decent limit!)

Cons:
* It needs a BAB requirement.

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