The basic guideline I’ve noticed with Archetypes is that they generally replace something for everything they add, and, in some cases, the stuff added is more specialized and not necessarily as generally useful.
This product intends to offer more tactically specialized archetypes for six classes. Some archetypes do this by making the modified class better at functioning in a group and sharing bonuses, others, like the celestial commander and pack hunter, by making the class better at coordinating his own minions, and possibly sharing bonuses between them.
Reading the premise, I’d expect to see use of bardic inspiration mechanics, Teamwork Feats and enhanced use of the Aid Other action, and I am not disappointed, as all three of these options make an appearance.
First up is the celestial commander, a summoner archetype that does away with the eidolon (and all of the class features dependent upon the eidolon), the summoner’s defining class feature, in favor of increased uses of summon monster, the ability to have more than one casting worth of summoned monsters out at a time, better armor, a cleric domain, free Augment Summons, free Superior Summons, the ability to grant all summoned creatures one or more teamwork feats, etc.
It’s quite a lot of nice stuff, with some vastly needed utility (free language of celestial, and the ability for all summoned creatures to understand celestial) and a novel class ability that enhances the power of a single summoned ally, to encourage a summoner to focus on one strong creature, instead of ‘spamming the board.’
I kind of love the idea, particularly the celestial language bit, and the ability to make a single summons more potent, to discourage multiple summons, but I think the celestial commander places far too great a weight on the value of the eidolon, and is quite a bit ‘too good.’
The inspiring commander, a cavalier archetype, comes next, and fits the theme nicely. For the cost of some bonus feats, the mount, charge-related class abilities and banner/greater banner, it adds bardic inspiration and the ability to share teamwork feats a bit faster at lower levels and a bit slower at higher levels (front-loading tactician, greater tactician and master tactician, a bit). I like the addition of bardic inspiration, and there’s an ability that makes Aid Other useful at a short range that also fits the theme very well. Replacing Banner/Greater Banner was an interesting choice, as, apart from the ability to share Tactical Feats via tactician, I consider it the most ‘tactical-friendly’ class ability.
The only quibble I’d have with the inspiring commander is a class ability called ‘Put Your Heart into It,’ which grants temporary hit points to allies, similar to a bard’s inspire heroics. It’s far, far better than what it replaces (expert trainer) and grants a lot of temporary hit points, to all allies in 30 ft.
The mechanist is a gunslinger archetype, and I’m not familiar enough with how gunslingers work to know how it compares, balance-wise. There seems to be a ‘guns vs. mages’ theme at play, with abilities like ‘Can’t Outcast a Bullet’ and Deeds like ‘Dispelling Shot’ and ‘Explosive Counterspell,’ which is interesting. In Golarion, where gunslingers are more likely to be based around Alkenstar, where magic is unreliable at best, this could be either very thematic (gunmen don’t trust magic, which destroyed their lands) or very un-thematic (why be good at fighting mages, when they don’t come anywhere near this place anyway?) depending on your interpretation of the setting.
I like the archetype’s flavor, and the mechanics ‘feel’ balanced, although it doesn’t feel terribly ‘tactical’ to me. There’s no Aid Other stuff, no gun-centric (or ranged fire-centric) Teamwork feat uses, no sharing of bonuses or ‘covering fire’ to render foes vulnerable to allies attacks, etc.
The pack hunter is a ranger archetype that is short and sweet. I’m finding the shorter ones to benefit from the tighter focus. It’s the ever-popular ‘pet guy with multiple pets’ archetype, focused on a pair of wolves. Wolves (and riding dogs) are great for these archetypes, because they are really not the best animal companions in the world, making it less likely to be unbalanced if somebody has a pair of them (unlike, say, velociraptors or tigers).
It’s, again, better than your basic ranger, with his one wolf, as the archetype abilities of Pack Bond and Pack-Wide Quarry are strictly better than the class abilities of Nature’s Bond and Quarry, that they replace. Still, if that’s a problem, it’s easy enough to balance them back a notch by getting rid of the bonus feat at 1st level, or slowing advancement of Favored Terrain.
Much like the inspiring commander cavalier archetype, with the replacement of Banner and Greater Banner, I’m surprised at the loss of Favored Enemy and the Hunter’s Bond option to share FE bonuses with allies, as that, again, feels like something that fits the theme of this product, sharing bonuses and coordinating attacks among allies. Still, the pack hunter does inspire all sorts of new ideas, such as a Two-Wolf Rend feat option (if both wolves hit, they get a rend effect equal to their standard bite damage) or an Opportunistic Trip option (if the wolf with the feat threatens someone who is tripped, they get a free attack of opportunity on the victim, sort of like Greater Trip, but available to an animal with the Trip ability and only applying to that animal).
I know bupkiss about the samurai, so the shogun archetype is a mystery to me. It replaces the mount with the ability to share the benefits of resolve with allies, which seems completely on theme for this product. Ignore the Pain, Ordered Strike and Battlefield Strategist all seem like very useful abilities. Having been in many situations where the map isn’t conducive to getting everyone into place (cramped rooms, narrow tunnels, etc.), Ordered Strike, which allows the shogun to give up his action for the round to grant an ally within 30 ft. a single additional (and immediate) melee attack, sounds very useful.
The final archetype is the war warder for the magus, another class I haven’t played yet, but the abilities seem appropriate to the theme. Better armor, added abjuration school access, a few defensive options for arcana, and the ability to reposition or entangle foes on the battlefield add up to a halfway decent ‘controller,’ potentially. As the base magus seems limited to being more of a ‘striker,’ that pretty much doubles the range of the base class, which is pretty impressive for an archetype! The war warder, however, isn’t nearly as front-loaded as the celestial commander or pack hunter, so it may play quite similar to a standard magus, for the first levels.
There’s a lot to chew over in seven pages of archetypes, and it’s interesting how some grabbed the theme by the throat (inspiring commander, shogun) and others carved their own niche, and focused more on tactical options that enhanced their own companions, more than their party (celestial commander, pack hunter), making them, as mentioned in the PDF, ideal for solo play.
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