Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Intrigue

So, Ultimate Intrigue took a long time for me to come to a complete opinion on.The Vigilante class introduced in this book is, in my opinion, easily the best non-spellcasting class Paizo has ever created. It breaks up its social options and combat options in such a way that you have a great character able to participate in all areas of the game without having to choose whether you want to be competent in combat or in the myriad other facets of the game like exploration, social encounters, etc. It has deep and well-designed talents that allow you to pick any of a variety of different ways to participate in combat, with or without weapons, and numerous tools for allowing players to influence the story with safe houses, contacts, and more.At PAX Prime 2016 I had the opportunity to visit Paizo's Pathfinder demo area and play their pregenerated vigilante character. I honestly didn't expect it to go terribly well; after all, the vigilante is a class built around balancing two identities and moving between different social strata, so you'd think that this would require a more controlled environment where you know the other players in advance and have time to plan out how your character fits into the game world with your GM ahead of time, right? Turns out, I was wrong. The vigilante class is well-crafted enough that even while playing a 1st level pregen I was able to easily deal with situations in and out of combat, and it took me about 60 seconds of conversation to establish with the group that I had a secret identity they were privy to and might need them to cover for my character from time to time if he needed to swap identities. It didn't hurt matters that the only downside to anyone learning a vigilante's secret identity is that, well, they know his or her secret identity. You can go all Tony Stark if you want, announce that you are Iron Man, and carry on as normal. Very few of the vigilante's abilities actually require you to maintain truly secret identities, and the only real hit you take is that you're a bit easier to find by magical means (though even this can be addressed with clever use of the Safe House Social Talent).The book also elaborates on the intent behind numerous spells that often prove problematic for GMs in games where they want to have a focus on gritty investigation of mystery, such as the various detect spells, speak with dead, etc.I think my biggest disappointments with the book, and the reason I can't give it 5 stars, lie in the feats and archetypes. I'll start with the feats, and a bit about why I see most of them as representative of missed opportunities.To start with, Pathfinder's skill system is heavily dated. When Paizo brought it over from 3.5, they combined a few extraneous skills, but otherwise did little to update things, meaning the core area of the rules covering everything in the game that isn't casting spells or hitting things is now well over a decade old and out of date. Several skills don't even actually work as written, have interactions you're just supposed to kind of assume or make up (Ride and Handle Animal are a mess, Stealth requires one to check out FAQs and blog posts online to use as intended, Bluff and Diplomacy have more than a few vague areas and inconsistencies, etc.), so what better book to address, update, and expand these core components of the game than a book about playing skill and intrigue heavy campaigns? Unfortunately, Paizo chose not to go that route, instead relying on feats to stretch skills over their gaps and issues, leading to many of the feats in the this book providing skill uses that I've seen GMs at hundreds of tables houserule as basic functions of those skills to begin with. Instead of formalizing intuitive uses of existing skills into their basic function, they added a feat tax to allow characters to do things many people already thought they could do. While there is a section in the book going over several of the vague areas in a few key skills, these are primarily common sense clarifications instead of the full address the skills could have used.The archetypes, like many Paizo hardcovers, are all over the place. Some of them are interesting and dynamic, like the Masked Performer bard archetype, some show an attempt at embodying a cool and modern concept but fail to achieve that concept in the actual execution, like the Magical Child vigilante archetype, and some are just plain bad, so obviously terribly designed that you almost wonder if the person who wrote them has ever actually played Pathfinder, like the Brute vigilante archetype.Now, don't let the above wall of negativity mislead you; there is a lot of great stuff in this book, including perhaps the most inspired and well-crafted class Paizo has ever produced, a class that introduces really interesting design concepts, plays with components of the class chassis we haven't seen classes treat as quite so malleable before, and is a genuinely fun and interesting class to play in and of itself. Despite many of the feats ranging from useless to frustrating, there are still quite a few that are interesting and viable, and while the archetypes are very hit or miss, that's generally true of Paizo books in general and probably shouldn't be held against this one in particular.My final verdict on Ultimate Intrigue is 4 stars, and a strong recommendation to pick it up, if for no other reason than to add the Vigilante class to your game (though there definitely are other reasons to add this book to your collection).

If you're doing a typical Lord of the Rings-ish adventure, or really just anything where the players don't stay very long in one place, you won't get much milage from this, aside from some new archetypes and spells.If however, your heroes intend to plant some roots and get social with NPCs and organizations, this is super helpful. It outlines new rules for things like reputation and fame, as well as designs for social encounters, and even deeper rules for research in libraries.Cool stuff:Vigilantes - a new class that's literally Batman. Or depending on archetype, literally The Hulk, or literally Sailor Moon. You could seriously fill out a functional party with just this class and archetypes.Social Encounters - No more repeatedly rolling diplomacy with one PC. This has rules for learning what NPCs like and demonstrating those skillsOrganization and reputation stats - now you can accurately track both player standing with a guild or government, and see what advantages (or consequences) they earn. Building an organization up could be a big part of a campaign, and this provides concrete systems for it.Rules clarification - a whole section on how to properly use skills like bluff, disguise, and diplomacy that addresses common issues and misunderstandings with them. As well as some tweaks, like speeding up stealth checks against large groups.Leadership variants - if your campaign has characters heading organizations, there are rules for giving them all Leadership for free, or allowing early variants of the feat (mostly, hiring a peasant to carry your crap)Less cool stuff:- Verbal duels sound cool, but are basically a second game that you have to learn, compared to the relative ease of understanding something like Mass Combat. I can't see one working unless both players have this book out in front of them.- Again, most new class options only work in a social adventure.Overall: recommended - possibly necessary - for adventures with some significant social element, but not needed for very much else.

PROS- New city building ideas- Great for story quests- Amazing rogue book- Neat new spells for spy gamesCONS- Introduces some mechanics only to be used in this book- Mixes the rules into the narrative story making it hard to quickly find how things function

I haven't read the book from cover-to-cover but the content seems pretty useful and fun. As other reviewers have mentioned, the book delves fairly deeply into diplomatic, bluffing, and other social interactions that might be better served with role-play rather than dice rolling. There are an overwhelming trove of new classes and archetypes that no DM will ever be able to fully implement (sort of like a Bestiary of covert types). They do however give a DM some good ideas about the type of characters or organizations players might encounter. Don't forget about the feats! There always seems to be more feats. The book seems more useful for campaigns that center around a single location (like a city) rather than games that wander the wilderness or climb into the depths of the Darklands. All that said, it is a good addition to my core rulebooks.

Great book. Helps me while learning more about playing pathfinder

The Vigilante class (and all of its game changing archetypes) is a base class that allows players to hybridize between social characters and combat characters without feeling as if they had to give up too much to do so. The many other expansions to rules, systems and character options is a welcome addition to this system.

Fast delivery, perfect condition, great product from Pathfinder! Lots of great new archetypes.

Gift for my son. He loved it

lots of idea for urban fantasy settings

Quizás es culpa mía por que cuando me compré el manual venía con unas espectativas diferentes a las que me he encontrado. Esperaba un manual con clases tipo nobles, manipuladores, intrigantes, etc... pero esa parte la pasan un poco por encima.Presentan una clase nueva que es el Vigilante, una especie de batman de fantasía. Un montón de arquetipos y opciones nuevas de las cuales no puedo usar ahora mismo la mitad por que son clases que aparecen en la Advanced Class Guide y Occult adventures. Manuales que no tengo.Una lista interminable de dotes las cuales no vas a aprovechar ni la mitad.En cuanto a las mecánicas nuevas, si me parece aprovechable la parte de las intrigas y los "golpes", el resto ni fu ni fa.De los conjuros y objetos mágicos algunos están muy graciosos.

Great book, good condition

Awesome book, many new and great features to add to my game.

Not as good as ultimate magic or combat... Was hoping for more rogue related abilities.