Worst Archetype?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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We all know what we think is the best archetype. (Drunken master and I will fight you for it.) We all have our opinions on this and they have been discussed at great length, which i love. However, what do you think, in your personal opinion, is the absolute worst archetype in the game? Your opinion on why that is completely up to you. Let's put the crud into a pedestal.

Personally, what i think is the worst archetype is the Pack Mule. Not only do you lose a feat, you lose all your armor training to become a glorified Luggage carrier. It takes the one thing fighter is good at...you know, FIGHTING, and makes him the undisputed king of...carrying things. Well, until magic solves the problem with weight entirely.

SO! What do you think is the worst archetype?


Probably the totem warrior barbarian. It does literally nothing.

Failing that, the Cardinal Cleric is probably the worst archetype i can think of.

lose medium armor, shields, a domain, 1/4 of your BAB, and spontaneous casting for bluff, intimidate, knowledge(geography), Knowledge(local) as class skills, and 4 more skill points.


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I’d say the Brute Vigilante is up there. You’re supposed to be a tough frontlines, but you retain d8 hit points, you constantly break your armor since it doesn’t grow with you? You don’t any stronger when you grow large for some reason, and you’re also compelled to attack your party members if you fail a Will save that scales pretty quickly.


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Monk of the Healing Hand used to be the worst. Its capstone ability erases the monk from all existence and memory. Wholeness of Body, the monk class's ridiculously weak healing ability, is reversed so that it works on others but not on the monk. It undeniably made one of the weakest classes weaker.

But weaker is not as bad as uncontrollable, so Brute Vigilante takes the cake these days.

Scarab Sages

fearcypher wrote:

Probably the totem warrior barbarian. It does literally nothing.

Failing that, the Cardinal Cleric is probably the worst archetype i can think of.

lose medium armor, shields, a domain, 1/4 of your BAB, and spontaneous casting for bluff, intimidate, knowledge(geography), Knowledge(local) as class skills, and 4 more skill points.

Shame about the Cardinal. It appeals to me, somehow. It would be fine if only they didn't take SO MUCH away. Let them keep their Domains and BAB and it should otherwise be a fair trade.

One that I don't like is the Elemental Annihilator. It's like a self-parody of almost everything that makes people leery of the class. I bet they all talk like MMO trash, too: "KEKEKEKE PWND J00, NUUUUUUUB!!!"

Liberty's Edge

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fearcypher wrote:
Probably the totem warrior barbarian. It does literally nothing.

Doing literally nothing is a significant step up over many of the actual worst archetypes.

I really don't know what the worst one is, but Brute is pretty bad, as are almost all the Paladin Archetypes that lose Divine Grace (an exception can be made for Tortured Crusader, Grey Paladin, and Vindictive Bastard), and especially Sleuth for Investigator and most other archetypes that lose casting (especially on 6 level casters or better).


The Sigilus Magus is pretty bad.


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Absent the context of a GM who has some idea how it works or is willing to make it work, currently I might put the Oozemorph up for consideration.


The wizard's Spellslinger is pretty rotten, which is a shame, because it has awesome style to it.

Scarab Sages

I'll throw the Ragechemist Alchemist archetype out there. It basically does almost nothing that a basic mutagen doesn't already do, but gives you a timer that can knock you into a coma pretty darn quickly. Plus, the penalties don't even wear off after the mutagen ends, basically making you utterly useless for 1 hour.

To be fair, the benefits are optional, so technically all the archetype would do is remove poison use/resistance, which isn't as much of a loss. It loses points for me because it tricks the player into thinking he's a "Hulk" type character, except if the Hulk gets hit roughly 5 or so times, he falls into a coma, regardless of exactly how much damage he takes.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I would think the Majordomo is a contender.


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Gonna second the Brute Vigilante


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the rageshaper archetype for the new shifter class is very similar to the brute vigilante. I wonder which is worse.


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It takes a special kind of bad for an archetype to actually leave you worse off after you take the level than before you do, but that's what the Brute Vigilante does. I know it was mentioned upthread, but they left out one little bit:

Brute Vigilante wrote:
When a brute is in mortal peril, such as when combat starts, if he is in his social identity, he must succeed at a Will save (DC = 20 + 1/2 his vigilante level) or enter his vigilante identity. Entering his vigilante identity in this way is a horrifying and painful process that takes 1 full round, during which he is flat-footed, and it typically allows his enemies to see his transformation and learn his identity.

In other words, every time combat starts, you have to make a will save or transform, making it actively harmful for a 1-level dip. If you can't make that DC 20 will save (did I mention the archetype trades away your good Will save?), your armor gets damage, you lose out on a full turn of combat, and you essentially enter into a worse version of a barbarian Rage. Then, at the end of the combat, you need to succeed on another Will save to stop fighting.

Regardless of your build, if given the chance to get a free level of Brute Vigilante or to simply not gain a level, avoid Brute every time. Melee characters lose out on BAB and are more likely to present a greater danger to the party than whatever the combat they entered does. Ranged characters certainly won't like having to attack their party either, skill characters can't use their skills, and magical characters can't cast.

Regarding the Shifter, the Oozemorph is similarly harmful, barring certain exploits (teaching Druidic/Change Shape) that remove class features.

And the Rageshifter doesn't force you to transform. Brute does.


It has D10 hit die
Full BAB
Takes a full round action to enter the rage state (which provokes)
He can only stay that way for rounds per level
He needs to make a will save to leave
If he fails to leave and runs out of rounds, he gets a worse confusion effect and kills his allies
They get slam attacks
Eventually get bigger size increases
Gains a very small Natural Armor and DR bonus
Ignores movement penalties whilst raging
He can do a big jump.

Is that better or worse than the brute?


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Worse. You still have the option of pretending the Rage state doesn't exist, making you a glorified warrior, but at least you aren't forced into your horrible resource. Unlike with Brute, you don't risk Hulking out and killing your party because some bandit decided to jump you.


Zhayne wrote:
The wizard's Spellslinger is pretty rotten, which is a shame, because it has awesome style to it.

To be a bit more specific: advancing in spellslinger is pretty rotten. Dipping a level in spellslinger as a high-level blaster for the x3 crit modifier on ranged spells and the ability to add your gun's enhancement bonus to spell attack rolls and DCs is, in a word, awesome.

Dark Archive

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Zhayne wrote:
The wizard's Spellslinger is pretty rotten, which is a shame, because it has awesome style to it.

Oh, I definitely disagree. Do you lose more schools? Sure. But, you can enchant your gun(s) super easy and cast spells through your gun using your gun's critical multiplier. As for the idea of dipping or not, I definitely agree it's amazing for a dip as none of it's abilities specifically say 'wizard' or even 'arcane' spells, but I think if you are going full wizard, it's still workable. Take the right opposition schools and okay so you won't be buffing, but you're the blaster. Let someone else do the buffing.

I'd say the worst is Geisha (not to be confused with the lotus geisha, that is actually useful.) I mean seriously, that Tea Ceremony? What, in the middle of the dungeon before the boss fight, we're going to take ten minutes to have tea? After having fought our way through his dungeon, you think the Lich is going to let us? The only way that works is if the GM is completely going full comic book villain where the enemy is so confident they will let you have your stupid little tea ceremony because they know it won't help you one bit.

Not to mention they lose all weapon and armor proficiency except a single monk weapon, and they lose bardic knowledge for a bit of social skills?

Seriously, they take worthless to a whole new level.


Dαedαlus wrote:
Worse. You still have the option of pretending the Rage state doesn't exist, making you a glorified warrior, but at least you aren't forced into your horrible resource. Unlike with Brute, you don't risk Hulking out and killing your party because some bandit decided to jump you.

I think you're right, being forced to change for the brute makes it worse.


Why exactly did design decide not to give brutes a Strength and/or Con bonus when they hulk out? The bonuses left seem clumsy in execution compared to the obvious.


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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

...the Shifter.

...wait, that's not an archetype?


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Zhayne wrote:
The wizard's Spellslinger is pretty rotten, which is a shame, because it has awesome style to it.

While the Spellslinger is certainly a bad archetype, it's not even close to being a candidate for the worst. The Spellslinger is still at least functional in its niche, and offers benefits that are difficult or impossible to duplicate by other means. That's something that can't be said of a lot of archetypes. It's not the worst firearm archetype in Ultimate Combat, nor is it even the worst Wizard archetype in that book (that dubious honor goes to the Siege Mage; the same downsides as Spellslinger, but none of the redeeming qualities).

The firearm archetypes in general do deserve a collective honorable mention here. Paizo has gotten better in recent years, but in Ultimate Combat and the years immediately following it the non-gunslinger firearm archetypes were just terrible. The fact that Spellslinger was the best of them by a significant margin says it all.

While we're on the topic of firearms-users, however, here's a Gunslinger archetype that shoots itself in the foot: the Firebrand Gunslinger
This archetype looks pretty decent at first glance. The problem is that it misfires based on rolling 1's on its damage dice... and it has an ability that increases the number of damage dice it rolls. This means its misfire chance actually increases as it levels up. It starts with a mere 2.8% chance to misfire at 1st level, but by 20th you're looking at 35% chance to misfire on your first attack every round. This is an archetype that actively penalizes you for taking additional levels. However, I do think it's only worth an honorable mention as it is still functional as a 1-level dip.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

While I think Brute is the worst I have to give a special mention to the Cardinal Cleric and... every single drake companion archetype for being disappointing.

Mostly because they were ideas that really appealed to me thematically and it's kind of a shame how much they end up falling short.

Cardinal is interesting because it seems to imply that Paizo values cleric domains and a BAB step together about as much as 4 skill points.

blahpers wrote:
Why exactly did design decide not to give brutes a Strength and/or Con bonus when they hulk out? The bonuses left seem clumsy in execution compared to the obvious.

Same reason I guess they thought d8 HD, -2 to AC and no armor at level 1 on a melee combatant was a good idea.

Or why they decided to nuke the will save on an archetype that required you to make scaling will saves to even be playable.
Or why stuff that's basically required to make the archetype work at all like the ability to use equipment or have decent damage dice are all locked behind talents.... and for some reason even the talent that lets you wear armor comes with a penalty when you first pick it up.

I think that's why the Brute really wins this contest here. Most bad archetypes have some underwhelming thing that stands out but are otherwise harmless, but for the Brute every time you think you've hit bottom you find something else exciting further down.

You sorta have to wonder what the designers were so scared of throwing in so many downsides and restrictions when if you strip all that stuff away you've basically got a monk with free enlarge person.


If you think Brute vigilante kills his own party fast on a failed will save, you haven't see a Wild Rager barbarian going nuts lately. (To its credit, the Wild Rager is at least an apex murder machine in melee combat.)

- - -

Circuit Judge cavalier is quite awful: it trades away both Tactician and Challenge for access to a short list of inquisitor Judgments and the privilege of being AC-2 while judging someone. (It keeps the Order ability, although nearly all of them are of little use since they augment the forfeited Challenge feature.)

The result is a pale shadow of an inquisitor with a free horse and full BAB but no hooks to exploit either aside from proficiencies. Very few cavalier items work for the character because they usually bolster Challenge or Tactician, and as a result his judgment bonuses are merely obviating the fact that there isn't any decent equipment in the game available for him, leaving him quasi-equivalent to a fighter without bonus combat feats. Having to wait all the way until 12th for the equivalent of Second Judgment is excruciating.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Slim Jim wrote:
If you think Brute vigilante kills his own party fast on a failed will save

Well the saving grace here is that with the Brute's weak defenses it's more likely to be the one that ends up dead (assuming the brute doesn't just die in the fight).

Seriously a level 1 Brute needs 16 Dex just to hit 10 AC. Ew.

Quote:
It keeps the Order ability, although nearly all of them are of little use since they augment the forfeited Challenge feature.

Worth noting that Sentence does mention that it counts as a challenge for the purpose of order abilities, so it does actually sidestep that issue.

Quote:
The result is a pale shadow of an inquisitor with a free horse

Maybe less favorably also worth noting that Inquisitors can pick up a mount for their inquisition.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I think every archetype with the word “Squire” in its name is also a contender. (Though perhaps that’s unfair since they’re clearly meant for NPCs.)

I agree that the Brute is probably *the* worst archetype, though.


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I don't think anything can challenge the brute for awfulness at the moment. I do think the drake archetypes are a solid second place, especially the drakerider cavalier. That trades most cavalier class abilities other than challenge and order for a drake which remains too small to ride until at least 9th level, which is almost impossible to replace and which isn't very good in a fight. One poster suggested that the drakerider cavalier in their party was a net negative, soaking up more party healing than they did in damage to the enemy.

Silver Crusade

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I personally think there is no single "worst archetype" or "worst class" from a player standpoint. Mechanics shouldn't be the king of all, the very idea makes my skin crawl.

For me there are a few things to tell if a class or archetype is good.

1) Are you having /FUN/ playing it.
2) Does it fit in with the group? (It doesn't overshine everyone, but it also isn't dragging everyone down unduly)
3) you can manage it quickly and efficiently in combat
4) It doesn't make the GM rip out their hair

Because of this, there is no one "worst anything" since anything can be worked into a potentially interesting character concept even if it isn't mechanically superior.

Sovereign Court

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Squiggit wrote:

While I think Brute is the worst I have to give a special mention to the Cardinal Cleric and... every single drake companion archetype for being disappointing.

Mostly because they were ideas that really appealed to me thematically and it's kind of a shame how much they end up falling short.

Cardinal is interesting because it seems to imply that Paizo values cleric domains and a BAB step together about as much as 4 skill points.

I found exactly one use for the cardinal, and that's for a mystic theurge (traditional) build. Since you don't advance your domains as a mystic theurge anyway, and you get 1/2 BAB in that class, and if you're a wizard or sorcerer theurge you probably aren't wearing armor, your losses wind up being things that an MT likely doesn't have anyway. Losing spontaneous healing still sucks, but at least you can still use wands.


At first level its oozemorph now I do believe. for later levels I'm still going to have to go with brute vigilante.


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Mystic_Snowfang wrote:

I personally think there is no single "worst archetype" or "worst class" from a player standpoint. Mechanics shouldn't be the king of all, the very idea makes my skin crawl.

For me there are a few things to tell if a class or archetype is good.

1) Are you having /FUN/ playing it.
2) Does it fit in with the group? (It doesn't overshine everyone, but it also isn't dragging everyone down unduly)
3) you can manage it quickly and efficiently in combat
4) It doesn't make the GM rip out their hair

Because of this, there is no one "worst anything" since anything can be worked into a potentially interesting character concept even if it isn't mechanically superior.

Eh.... even under these qualifications, I still have trouble seeing Brute Vigilante as anything other than terrible.

-Being forced to attack your teammates, losing player agency, hardly seems 'fun,' and it can hardly claim to fit in with a group that it's constantly attacking.
-While you can do some stuff in combat, you're forced into a Rage that provides no stat benefit and damages your gear a lot. Also, you attack your teammates at the end.
-YOU ATTACK YOUR TEAMMATES. Your best bet of ending the transformation is at level 1, when the DC is 'only' 20, and you have a +0 class bonus to will. From there, it only scales, until you hit level 20 and your DC is 30, your bonus is 11 (assuming a cloak)+ WIS bonus. Note how it changed from needing a nat 20 with a +0 WIS to needing a 19 after stat-boosting items. Plus, anytime you enter "A stressful environment" you transform. It uses combat as an example, but forget tense negotiations, psychological horror, or even Finals week at Fighter College- you're transforming!

It *might* work in a wilderness campaign, with no cities, negotiations, or delicate situations, with no innocent civilians, just facing off against enemies- but not too many, because you'll have the lowest AC of the bunch- your armor only helps if you shell out the cash for it to size with you and you take a -3 from the transformation. Y0u're getting hit a lot, which means you soak up a lot more healing than any competent melee class.

All in all? The Brute ruins social encounters, hates his teammates, takes way more damage than he should, and removes player agency. Plus, as the cherry on top, it's also rotten mechanically.

Liberty's Edge

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We actually more or less know what value Paizo puts on skills:

1 skill point per level = 1 Feat
2-3 Class Skills = 1 Feat

Both those are codified. So is +1 Attack Bonus as a Feat (the extra attack is harder to codify). So is having a Domain (at more than one Feat, since Believer's Boon is kinda s@#!ty...call it a conservative two or three Feats).

By that metric, Cardinal gains 6 Feats...and loses two for armor and shields, and then 5 for BAB and 3 for Domain, for a total loss of 10, not counting Spontaneous Casting (which is probably about one Feat's worth). For a net 5 Feat loss. Ouch. Yeah, that's pretty bad.

A lot of Archetypes can be analyzed this way and I often find it useful to do so. It's not super precise, but eyeballing it with this method can be both useful and revealing.

For example, Eldritch Scoundrel pretty thoroughly reveals that Paizo considers 6 level prepared arcane casting with spell failure from the Wizard list to be worth about 15 Feats (1 Proficiency + 4 Skill Points per level + 5 Sneak Attack + 5 Rogue Talents) since that's what the Eldritch Scoundrel trades for it. That's probably pretty close to fair, and is certainly interesting.


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avr wrote:
One poster suggested that the drakerider cavalier in their party was a net negative, soaking up more party healing than they did in damage to the enemy.

Hey, that's a human rogue's job.

<ducks and runs>


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Dαedαlus wrote:
Mystic_Snowfang wrote:

I personally think there is no single "worst archetype" or "worst class" from a player standpoint. Mechanics shouldn't be the king of all, the very idea makes my skin crawl.

For me there are a few things to tell if a class or archetype is good.

1) Are you having /FUN/ playing it.
2) Does it fit in with the group? (It doesn't overshine everyone, but it also isn't dragging everyone down unduly)
3) you can manage it quickly and efficiently in combat
4) It doesn't make the GM rip out their hair

Because of this, there is no one "worst anything" since anything can be worked into a potentially interesting character concept even if it isn't mechanically superior.

Eh.... even under these qualifications, I still have trouble seeing Brute Vigilante as anything other than terrible.

-Being forced to attack your teammates, losing player agency, hardly seems 'fun,' and it can hardly claim to fit in with a group that it's constantly attacking.
-While you can do some stuff in combat, you're forced into a Rage that provides no stat benefit and damages your gear a lot. Also, you attack your teammates at the end.
-YOU ATTACK YOUR TEAMMATES. Your best bet of ending the transformation is at level 1, when the DC is 'only' 20, and you have a +0 class bonus to will. From there, it only scales, until you hit level 20 and your DC is 30, your bonus is 11 (assuming a cloak)+ WIS bonus. Note how it changed from needing a nat 20 with a +0 WIS to needing a 19 after stat-boosting items. Plus, anytime you enter "A stressful environment" you transform. It uses combat as an example, but forget tense negotiations, psychological horror, or even Finals week at Fighter College- you're transforming!

It *might* work in a wilderness campaign, with no cities, negotiations, or delicate situations, with no innocent civilians, just facing off against enemies- but not too many, because you'll have the lowest AC of the bunch- your armor only helps if you shell out the cash for it to size with...

FSM, you're making me want to play one so badly!

(The rules do say "mortal peril", not "stressful environment", by the way.)


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Mortal peril is one of those table-variance phrases. It means "running the risk of death," which for most adventurers is 90% of their day.


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Surprised nobody mentioned Cloistered Cleric -- seems to me that this gives Cardinal some tough competition for being worst. Although you don't lose a Domain, you get Diminished Spellcasting (which you better get something good for, especially on a 9/9 caster), and not as many skill ranks per level.

You do get some largely front-loaded benefits at levels 1 - 4, which might make it useful for a Mystic Theurge build. Ihe Diminished Spellcasting may not hurt so much on a Mystic Theurge (assuming you didn't also diminish your arcane spellcasting other than from delaying the progression), and the front-loaded benefits are actually useful for a Mystic Theurge (better than Cardinal), while the one scaling benefit that the archetype gives early (Breadth of Knowledge) is partly compensated for having its progression cut off by your higher than average (for a Cleric) Intelligence (assuming that your arcane spellcasting class is Intelligence-based). Note that the 4th level front-loaded benefit is Scribe Scroll, so if your arcane class is Wizard, you DON'T want this unless you have some weird Wizard archetype that traded this out.

For anything other than a Mystic Theurge build, I would say that Cloistered Cleric is pretty terrible. Why couldn't they have just ported the D&D 3.5 Cloistered Cleric?

Unfortunately, Cloistered Cleric is incompatible with Ecclisitheurge (they both modify Weapon and Armor Proficiency) -- otherwise, the combination would at least have good spellcasting versatility, although still hurting from being short on spells per day.


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Geisha Bard archetype. While their Tea Ceremony lasts for ten minutes ut aldo takes as long to prepare. It's a great ability if the enemy is a distance away. Otherwise for on the spot fights its necg to useless imo. If I had a choice i would take the regular Bard each and evety time.b

Shadow Lodge

The Skirmisher fighter archetype from Ultimate Wilderness is not proficient with any weapons at all.


Tea Ceremony isn't terrible. Situations where you know you're about to enter a dangerous dungeon or similar and have some time to prepare are pretty common in my experience.

Liberty's Edge

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Dragonborn3 wrote:
The Skirmisher fighter archetype from Ultimate Wilderness is not proficient with any weapons at all.

This is a common typo in first printings of books for various Archetypes (I honestly think it's cropped up once a book or so for the last several). Only a GM who's an idiot or an a@@+@%@ is gonna enforce it.


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The Thing From Another World wrote:
Geisha Bard archetype.

I don't know why this one gets so much hate. The Tea Ceremony class feature may be overpriced and situational, but you only traded weapon and armor proficiency to get it. The Geisha is, at worst, only below average.


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The Brute is the absolute worst. No offense to the designer I think something got lost between the submitted design and all the various departments and the finished product.

As said above, it's weak, you lose control and you break your own stuff.

I think what's almost worse is that it has a super long cool down so you can't even hulk out every encounter.

Rageshaper is better in that respect.

Personally if I did a similar class I would have it so you could stay morphed all day...you'd just be dumber, less charismatic or easier to hit or some other negative.

And f-yall I like the Spellslinger! :P

(The f stands for friend all of you. No really. ;) )

Cardinal Cleric is doable for a back line caster that also has some smarts. :)

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Dasrak wrote:
Zhayne wrote:
The wizard's Spellslinger is pretty rotten, which is a shame, because it has awesome style to it.

While the Spellslinger is certainly a bad archetype, it's not even close to being a candidate for the worst. The Spellslinger is still at least functional in its niche, and offers benefits that are difficult or impossible to duplicate by other means. That's something that can't be said of a lot of archetypes. It's not the worst firearm archetype in Ultimate Combat, nor is it even the worst Wizard archetype in that book (that dubious honor goes to the Siege Mage; the same downsides as Spellslinger, but none of the redeeming qualities).

The firearm archetypes in general do deserve a collective honorable mention here. Paizo has gotten better in recent years, but in Ultimate Combat and the years immediately following it the non-gunslinger firearm archetypes were just terrible. The fact that Spellslinger was the best of them by a significant margin says it all.

While we're on the topic of firearms-users, however, here's a Gunslinger archetype that shoots itself in the foot: the Firebrand Gunslinger
This archetype looks pretty decent at first glance. The problem is that it misfires based on rolling 1's on its damage dice... and it has an ability that increases the number of damage dice it rolls. This means its misfire chance actually increases as it levels up. It starts with a mere 2.8% chance to misfire at 1st level, but by 20th you're looking at 35% chance to misfire on your first attack every round. This is an archetype that actively penalizes you for taking additional levels. However, I do think it's only worth an honorable mention as it is still functional as a 1-level dip.

nah the shifter is not that bad, there certainly not top tier and many of there abilities is a bit boring but the natural weapons and full bab cab be pretty useful.


I actually agree that the fire brand gunslinger is pretty bad.

Unlike many other archetypes listed it's one of the few that tricks you into thinking it's not terrible by offering a way to make something else that's broken (fire pistols) work.

And then it gets worse. And worse. And worse.

It's rare you get an archtype that basically sets itself up for a dip not for what it offers You, but how you'll be punished if you don't.


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fearcypher wrote:

Probably the totem warrior barbarian. It does literally nothing.

Failing that, the Cardinal Cleric is probably the worst archetype i can think of.

lose medium armor, shields, a domain, 1/4 of your BAB, and spontaneous casting for bluff, intimidate, knowledge(geography), Knowledge(local) as class skills, and 4 more skill points.

Wow, Paizo must think skills are HWAAAAAAY better than they really are.

I would just take away the amor and the BAB, and call it about even.


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Matthew Downie wrote:
Tea Ceremony isn't terrible. Situations where you know you're about to enter a dangerous dungeon or similar and have some time to prepare are pretty common in my experience.

Except that it takes 4 uses of bardic per person.

Liberty's Edge

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DrDeth wrote:
fearcypher wrote:

Probably the totem warrior barbarian. It does literally nothing.

Failing that, the Cardinal Cleric is probably the worst archetype i can think of.

lose medium armor, shields, a domain, 1/4 of your BAB, and spontaneous casting for bluff, intimidate, knowledge(geography), Knowledge(local) as class skills, and 4 more skill points.

Wow, Paizo must think skills are HWAAAAAAY better than they really are.

I would just take away the amor and the BAB, and call it about even.

Which would line up just about right by my analysis above (7 Feats lost, 6 Gained...but a couple of those lost only apply at very high levels since they're BAB).

So no, I don't think Paizo as a whole think that, just whoever wrote the specific Archetype in question.


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DrDeth wrote:
Matthew Downie wrote:
Tea Ceremony isn't terrible. Situations where you know you're about to enter a dangerous dungeon or similar and have some time to prepare are pretty common in my experience.
Except that it takes 4 uses of bardic per person.

And lasts 10 min. That's 60 rounds. For 4 rounds of performance.

That's not an "except it costs 4". That's an "it's only 4!"

And it's worth pointing out that NOTHING stops you from just doing a round to round performance. You're losing armour casting and proficiency, not regular bardic performance.

Geisha is actually a decent archtype. I'd play one, for sure.


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Tea ceremony also doesn't specify a maximum range at which it works, so it's handy for buffing your allies who are on different continents, planes of reality, etc.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
Tea ceremony also doesn't specify a maximum range at which it works, so it's handy for buffing your allies who are on different continents, planes of reality, etc.

Come on. Seriously.

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