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Blue_C.
2016-04-04, 05:27 PM
Cross-posted on Paizo's forum here (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2tkqq?RED).
(this version is slightly edited to reflect both the new name for the archetype and to correct some of the style).

Old Soldiers
Retired, Extremely Dangerous
Sometimes, heroes and villains turn away from their former lives. Maybe age catches up to them, or they have something to lose now (be that a family or new social station), or they simply tire of their past as an adventurer. For whatever reason, they've set aside their old ways, and found contentment in a simpler, less dangerous life.
Mostly, anyways. But if duty calls once again, enemies might find that an old soldier is not quite as harmless or as out of training as they might prefer. As the saying goes, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."

Local Character: Unlike most vigilantes, an old soldier does not have a separate identity they can escape into. Many, perhaps most, of the people they encounter in their daily lives are aware of what an old soldier has done and perhaps could do again, should she choose. However, they don't believe the old soldier will make that choice.
Instead of a social identity and a vigilante identity, with separate alignments and some protection from divination, an old soldier has a vigilante and social reputation. That is, people know that "Warden of the Wood" used to be murder on the local foresters and woodsmen, but few that know her really believe Oreena Hollyoak has it in her to commit such crimes, even if they are fully aware that she is one and the same person. An old soldier gains +10 competence bonus to bluff checks to appear as non-threatening. This bonus does not apply while in combat, but does stack with the Feign Innocence social talent.
This lack of a true dual identity affects several social talents. Case the Joint, Social Grace, Renown and the various talents that use Renown no longer require a separate identity, but only grant the diplomacy and other social identity benefits of those talents from those that have not seen the old soldier use an offensive ability or make an attack. The number of people that would treat the old soldier's social identity favorably and her vigilante identity with caution remains unchanged.
The Immediate Change, Quick Change, and Subjective Truth social talents now require the Many Guises social talent, and refers to assuming and maintaining a mundane identity rather than a social identity.
This replaces the Dual Identity ability, and alters the Social Talent ability and several social talents.

Out of the Game: An old soldier has left their former life behind them, and have accepted in many ways a much simpler lifestyle. The reason they did so varies from old soldier to old soldier, but for all of them there are consequences to their time spent inactive. An old soldier gains the penalties and bonuses of an oracle curse, chosen at 1st level. An old soldier's levels in the vigilante class count as effective oracle levels for the purposes of determining the effects of their curse. Once chosen, the curse cannot be changed, nor can it be removed or dispelled without aid of a deity. Also, if the old soldier does not have a vigilante archetype that grants spellcasting abilities, curses that grant spells known do not grant that ability.
If an old soldier gains levels in another class that has an oracle's curse, that curse (or one of the curses, such as in the case of a Dual-Cursed Oracle) must be the same for the old soldier class and the other oracle curse granting class.
This ability replaces Seamless Guise.

An old soldier may select from the following social talents in addition to their normal pool:
Not Dead Yet: An old soldier often does not see herself or really feel over the hill, but is willing to take advantage of other people seeing her that way. This talent lessens the penalties to physical ability scores due to age by 1 per age category, to 0/-1/-2. The penalties still stack as normal, and bonuses are unaffected. An old RED vigilante with this talent also receives a +2 competence bonus to Bluff and Diplomacy, which increases to +4 when they reach venerable. This bonus does not stack with the bonus from Local Character or Feign Innocence, but can be used more generally.
Our Bastard: An old soldier with this talent becomes so convincing at appearing harmless that even those that have directly seen her commit violent acts don't believe that she would target them. An old soldier can attempt a diplomacy check against someone that would be part of a her social renown but has seen her use an offensive ability or make an attack, as long as at least one week has past since the target has seen the offending action. If she succeeds well enough at that check to bring the target to at least Friendly, they become part of the old soldier's social renown once again.
Essentially, an old soldier is rebuilding renown with that one particular person, although without needing to spend time with that person during that week. As such, having either Instant Recognition or Triumphant Return social talents reduce the time needed between action and diplomacy check to 4 hours and 3 days, respectively.
An old soldier must have the Renown social talent to select this talent.


--
As I posted on the Paizo forum, the intent of this archetype was twofold. One, I wanted to reimagine the vigilante as someone that used to be a hero, but has left the adventuring life behind for some reason, aping the very many characters in books and movies that we've all seen. Like a vigilante, the old soldier has a reputation that doesn't necessarily jive with their rather better known reputation of their past, and many that encounter them on a day-to-day basis think they don't have it in them any more. Perhaps they even feel so themselves. They're wrong.
But not completely wrong. I originally was going to come up with some kind of fatigue mechanic, but decided that an oracle curse presented the downside of being so long out of the saddle in an interesting way, and also gave a scaling benefit to working with that disability, as appropriate to an adventurer.
Two, I wanted to present an alternative for an adventuring Vigilante, that doesn't feel the need to try and hide their identity from their own party, not even for a moment, but one that would still work with most of the current Vigilante archetypes out there. Only two don't work as written: Brute and Mounted Fury.
While it doesn't make perfect sense for an old, retired hero to be starting off at level 1, the way I imagine it is that, whatever abilties and accomplishments they had in their past, a level 1 old soldier has simply fallen so far out of training that level 1 statistics are appropriate to them.
Things I want to do: Come up with an oracle curse to represent a broken vow. I want to represent the fallen paladin, the monk that had to abandon their vows, and so far I haven't found one I quite like yet.
I might also like to come up with a Dying curse, to represent characters like Izumi Curtis of Fullmetal Alchemist, but haven't come up with appropriate benefits yet.