Retrograde Revision 4: Bandit
(art by dusint on DeviantArt)
Highwaymen, hijackers, muggers, brigands, bandits. If there’s any iconic antagonistic role for humanoids in fantasy games and fiction, it’s hard to go wrong with some bandits if you want a travel encounter that uses more advanced tactics than animal instinct.
Of course, being a bandit is hardly fun and games. Choosing that life or having it thrust on you by circumstance means forgoing many of the benefits of civilization while ultimately still relying on it by way of raiding for supplies and sellable plunder.
However, not every fictional bandit is a villain. After all, Robin Hood was by all accounts a highwayman, even though he was typically more heroic, using his talents and those of his followers to undermine the power of a corrupt ruler (at least once the figure became associated with that story. Turns out Robin Hood is much, much older).
Also, remember that not everyone who is a bandit professionally is going to have this archetype, or even be a rogue. I’m sure by this point most Pathfinder fans recognize the difference between class and profession, even when they share a name.
In any case, we’ll soon see that this particular flavor of rogue is a master of coercion and ambush, very important skills when you strike at foes from the wild, where the comforts of civilization have been stripped away and failing to comply with an armed stranger could mean being stranded even if one is not slain.
These bandits are the masters of surprise attacks, and are able to perform several actions at once within those first few critical moments to gain the upper hand.
Fear is a useful tool, and all the better utilized when they manage to get in an especially grievous blow against a foe they already have gotten past the guard of.
This archetype recommends talents that utilize the terrain, help coordinate with allies, improve combat prowess, striking suddenly and without warning, and even combining their efforts with traps they set up as well.
This archetype is fairly simple, but effective, and can easily be combined with other archetypes for greater effect. As a general rule, the ability to get a full suite of actions in the surprise round can be quite useful in a proper ambush, and their ability to inflict fear on critical sneak attacks is a bit niche, but lends itself well to a critical focus build. Whatever your build is, it probably will include feats that let you work well with others, including teamwork feats, as well as ways to keep up in protracted fights, such as improved feint to make sure you keep having ways to sneak attack once the battle is joined.
Like I said, there’s plenty of precedent for these sorts of characters to not be evil, whether they are noble rebels, anarchist misanthropes with their own code, or maybe even former traditional bandits that abandoned that life but retain the skills. Either way, they likely still understand that strength and cunning have the power to rule just as easily as rules and law. How exactly they feel about that, however, is up to them.
Skvad Irontusk, a powerful orc bandit, has recently acquired the dubious title of King of the Gnolls after defeating their chieftain in mortal combat. He is an unpopular leader, however, and unless he can lead them to further and further glory, he will soon find himself with a spear in his back, or worse, shackled in the slave pens.
Trade routes between Kyonen and Kanei have recently come under attack, merchant trains slaughtered, their goods plundered. At first, local samurai believed it was the work of greedy bandits or rebels. However, they soon discovered that the plunder has been given away to peasants who could never fully utilize the magic items and jewelry they contained, leading others to believe that whoever is doing this is not interested in any agenda, not even altruism.
When a convoy devoted to the fire god goes missing, the party is contracted to recover the artifact it was transporting. Their only clue? A rash of incidents involving burning caravans on nearby trade routes. However, when the fires are traced back to a fire drake from the mountains, the heroes will have to look deeper to recover the missing artifact.