Thoughts on free archetype?

What are your thoughts on free archetype? Do you prefer games with or without it? Do you recommend it?

I don’t know that I would play without it.

I can take or leave it, though I am glad it exists. I'm in a game without it right now, and I like how it forces me to really think about my feat choices, but there are character concepts that are significantly easier to build with FA in place. The themed variant is probably my favorite because I like the idea of everyone being part of a singular team, though there are also loads of neat multiclass combos that FA makes very easy. It also takes some pressure off selecting certain kinds of feats, like freeing you up to pick more feats that use your reaction simply because you have more slots.

My main question when deciding if a game should be free archetype or not is how familiar with PF2E and tabletops in general the group is. I've spoken to some folks who say they find the prospects of FA kind of overwhelming, which is an issue I can easily imagine being magnified for newer players. Non-FA just has to think of their class, maybe an archetype, FA characters basically have to grapple with archetyping as well. This issue can extend to play as well, where someone can more easily forget what all their feats do. I mean I do that now, and I'm not in an FA game yet.

Free Archetype and Automatic Bonus Progression are both fantastic variant rules. Meaning that the game is great both with the rules and without, and that there are good reasons for running the game under any of those modes.

Personally I prefer building characters with Free Archetype.

It's good.

More feats = More choices = More better.

More feats = More choices = More better.

The "Paradox of Choice" refutes that. :-P

To me it matters more what narratives get opened up and how changes affect the difficulty curves. So I could see embracing it in a themed game or a homebrew that could adapt to the power difference, but in published adventures I'd prefer to keep the standard builds (well, unless I had to put in the extra labor anyway due to other dynamic differences).

A short illustration.

I could see embracing it in a themed game or a homebrew that could adapt to the power difference, but in published adventures I'd prefer to keep the standard builds

That is one of the benefits of Free Archetype. The archetype feats don't actually add all that much raw power. It adds a bunch of flexibility - which in the PF2 rule set is actually quite important. But characters are still limited to 3 actions and 1 reaction each round, and the abilities that they get from the archetype are generally weaker than their main class feats.

The difference in team power is much more noticeable in smaller party sizes. Because the party as a whole doesn't always have enough people to specialize in everything that the adventure may require. I don't think I am saying this quite right - so hopefully someone else can re-word it to make more sense.

The point is that you don't necessarily have to adjust a published adventure in order to handle Free Archetype characters. They won't break the math. And for a smaller party size, it can be quite beneficial to add that rather than trying to tweak the math and bonuses of either the characters or the skill encounters. The combat encounters should still be adjusted for the actual number of players - Free Archetype or no.

Honestly it just makes the game more fun, opens up build options, and enables more character concepts without being a significant problem to deal with from a balance perspective.

It just makes character building more pleasant from my experience.

Castilliano wrote:

I could see embracing it in a themed game or a homebrew that could adapt to the power difference, but in published adventures I'd prefer to keep the standard builds

That is one of the benefits of Free Archetype. The archetype feats don't actually add all that much raw power. It adds a bunch of flexibility - which in the PF2 rule set is actually quite important. But characters are still limited to 3 actions and 1 reaction each round, and the abilities that they get from the archetype are generally weaker than their main class feats.

The difference in team power is much more noticeable in smaller party sizes. Because the party as a whole doesn't always have enough people to specialize in everything that the adventure may require. I don't think I am saying this quite right - so hopefully someone else can re-word it to make more sense.

The point is that you don't necessarily have to adjust a published adventure in order to handle Free Archetype characters. They won't break the math. And for a smaller party size, it can be quite beneficial to add that rather than trying to tweak the math and bonuses of either the characters or the skill encounters. The combat encounters should still be adjusted for the actual number of players - Free Archetype or no.

I disagree w/ that premise.

As for smaller groups, yes, FA would be one way to help breadth, since they'd be short as a party, and FA wouldn't make up for a missing PC, but I'd lean toward handing out the Elite array to PCs, if only to make my bookkeeping simpler.

And I'm not saying that FA HAS to add power, depending on which archetypes one allows/chooses. Also not that it "breaks the math" because yeah, PF2 has lots of cushion for that (thankfully!), and one only gains power that's already in reach. But none of that's an argument for adding FA nor against simply running as is for simplicity.

More than that, I know from personal build concepts how much FA would increase the power of specific builds (and those would be builds I'd gravitate toward w/ FA). Getting one's normal level of power and a chunky boost on the side makes for a notable increase. Even w/ generic builds, one could take those Sorcerer's Focus Point feats and an MCD to plump up one's spell slots rather than choose one or the other. Or maybe get a sizable bump in h.p. w/ a martial MCD, also perhaps improving one's save and adding some mobility feats on top. At zero cost, so an obvious power bump that seems unnecessary.

Haven't you drafted a PC and thought "Option A and option B both look like strong options" and then realized that Free Archetype opens both up? Perhaps with a synergy that would be difficult to achieve normally.

So yeah, FA might not break the game, and might not make it "easy mode" (though w/ my players it would!), but it does make it "easier mode" on a game that's already not that tough. FA doesn't appeal to me (and wouldn't to my players either unless I bumped the difficulty).

---
Separately, I've heard that Strength of Thousands uses FA, which makes me wonder how much the designers factored that into the difficulty (et al), if at all.

Haven't you drafted a PC and thought "Option A and option B both look like strong options"

Oh, absolutely.

and then realized that Free Archetype opens both up? Perhaps with a synergy that would be difficult to achieve normally.

But just options A and B are usually able to be gotten with just archetypes paid for from the regular class feats. It takes options A, B, C, and D that are required for the build in order for Free Archetype to increase the power.

Eoran is built without Free Archetype and still has Alchemist Dedication (and only the dedication) by level 7, because of wanting Basic Lesson and Greater Lesson. There are certainly more tradeoffs to be made when not playing with Free Archetype. But at level 8 and getting Expert Alchemy, the only thing that is really missing is the Quick Alchemy.

All that Free Archetype would be adding to that build is the Quick Alchemy, getting Expert Alchemy a few levels earlier, and second-choice feats like Cackle, Revivifying Mutagen, or Smoke Bomb.

So yes it is a power increase - mostly due to the rather large impact that flexibility has in this game system. But it really isn't a huge power increase.

For me, it brings the game back to end-of-PF1 levels of customization, and solves a lot of issues. I wanted to play a melee Investigator- a pretty sub-optimal move. Free archetype meant I could pick up some occult casting. Now, when melee isn't an option, I can toss in Black Tentacles or a Telekinetic Project. I went from what would have been... I dunno, 30% of my turns making me unhappy with what I can do in the situation to maybe 5%. That means my number of unfun turns dropped by more than 80%.

Now, I could have just taken those feats instead of Investigator feats. But that means the 2nd level feat I want gets bumped to 6th, which feels really bad when I'm waiting a few months, and finally getting it instead of a 6th level option.

Is it stronger? It's definitely stronger than melee Investigator, but it's probably not much stronger than a ranged Investigator. It supports making the character I want to, and removes a lot of feel-bad moments in combat and in leveling.

Yes, sub-optimal builds can become viable, and that's where FA shines w/o tweaking the power curves. And I'll add there are plenty of sub-optimal Dedications too. Yet, FA also makes it that viable can then match optimal, and optimal gets an unnecessary bump. Examples from the bottom cluster don't address the unneeded bump to the top tiers.
For example, saying that the melee Investigator is "probably not much stronger than a ranged Investigator" is overlooking that the ranged Investigator can take that FA too and become even stronger.

And I don't empathize with saying one would be sad taking a 2nd level feat at 6th because one took some other 2nd level feat instead. Why wouldn't the latter feat make you happy enough to warrant picking it?

I can't say I've seen evidence of FA solving lots of issues, unless one means it makes choosing easier when you don't have to choose. If one's argument works equally for Dual Classing or adding the Elite array to a PC's stats, then it fails IMO.

Yet let's back up a step. I'd said FA would be workable in many campaigns, and that I'd prefer normal builds for published adventures. Add that I think published adventures are easy (given my posse of players at least), and that these not huge power increases would only make them easier. Nothing said has disabused me of that notion, nor has made FA look appealing.

---
Or consider if there were an artifact, one which scaled with level and granted all the bonuses a Free Archetype did. Wouldn't that seem broken? It's like adding 1/3 of a new class, all in one item. PCs would fight to have it; NPCs would hunt down such strong magic. Amplify this if every PC began with one.
It seems a no-brainer that GMs would have to adjust the power curve if introducing such a strong item, at least if one wanted to keep the challenge the same (which I do, though I understand some find APs on the harder side in which case FA's a good solution).

I think the thing about FA is that it works best with a group that plans their characters pretty well in advance, so you can discuss with them which archetype(s) they're interested in. As long as it's not a complete power grab build (e.g. you've figured out a way to get the basic, expert, and master spellcasting archetype feats for two different classes) and everybody is sort of in the same range of what they're getting and their choices are flavorful then you're going to be fine.

I think the biggest problem spot is that one person wants to be a linguist, and another person a celebrity, one person is an herbalist, and the other person is grabbing as many spell slots as one can fit on a character. These are just players who have different expectations from the game and that's a thing you have to manage.

As someone who plays with and GMs for FA in pretty much every game, it's not nearly as hard to manage as Castilliano is painting it to be. Nor can I say that such issues have been reflected in other games (including ones with brand new players and GMs). The biggest problem is if not everyone is on the same page about the power level of the game it can be a little wonky, but that's not a problem unique to FA.

In practice, what FA has done for the tables I've been at is let people take dumb archetypes with interesting but often superficial benefits without feeling like they have to abandon huge chunks of their actual class feats and class identity in the process.

For all the doom and gloom about world shaking balance implications. In practice it's been fairly inconsequential.

Yeah, my experience in games both with and without FA is that there hasn't been enough of a power difference to impact encounter building, unless the PCs are taking particularly high-power options. Everyone at the table knows that Free Archetype is there to provide us with flavourful combos, and it's not been an issue. If there were any class + archetype combinations that provide huge amounts of power, they were already accessible without FA - even if one were always powergaming, FA will only let you get the 2nd best set of feats. For my players coming across from PF1, they found FA to increase character customisation to a level they enjoy; for my players starting with PF2/coming from D&D 5e, I've not used FA.

I'm not sure I like the idea of a completely unrestricted FA, I see so many people on various forums and discords constantly ask "what free archetype can I take the squeeze the most out of this class" and I definetely don't feel like people need Blessed One/Medic/Beastmaster for free.

On the flipside there are a lot of archetypes that I definitely would not mind if someone just got as it is very unlikely to be picked with class feats. So I would always do a curated list if I were to do it.

I'm currently experimenting with using the variant to award feats and archetypes in game. In my FotRP game there is a lot of rewards that awards access to archetypes through martial artist masters and now I'm instead allowing a player to pick it up as a free archetype instead. Time will tell to see how that turns out.

I started off thinking Free Archetype would create too high powered a game. I wanted to test it first. I'm finding free archetype isn't a large increase in power. More an increase in ability diversity that allows characters to spend more feat on making their character more interesting.

I now use it for all campaigns. Just makes character creation more open-ended and fun. Using it to power up gets old fast, so my players tend to make more interesting concepts at this point. It's not much power anyway given the tight math and action system. You can only do so much a round and maximum of master in caster saves while trying to maximize two stats isn't easy.

I've found Free Archetype enhances the ability of players to make interesting characters without providing a substantial increase in power.

What are your thoughts on free archetype? Do you prefer games with or without it? Do you recommend it?

There are multiple rules for free archetyping.

Also, I'd discourage using the rule with beginners as it really complicates character building (unless you limit the choice of archetypes).

At first I wasn't really convinced about FA, simply because of the power increase that could have resoult into trivial fights ( even +3 fights ).

I play in ( or master for ) a party of 5 players, so either me or the other DM have to make adjustments to the adventure anyway.

I end up try FA this EC third book, and realized they annihilated every single encounter regardless the difficulty ( even +3/+4 were encounters without the possibility of TPK ). And this even giving them more enmies than supposed ( I don't really appreciate the "Adjusting Encounters" rules, because in my experience they don't really help that much, so I have to properly adjust the challenge myself ).

Anyway, what I didn't consider was being able to get sa similar power ( If I were to give a percentage, I'd say nearly 90% of the FA power ) was affordable even without the FA, if the player wanted to chase powercreep.

And this possibility increased the more the books and new archetypes came out.

While examinating the previous encounters, I found the stuff the characters used could have been achieved even without free archetype ( not saying it goes with everything. Just sharing my own experience ).

So, basically, nothing changed for the DM.
With a party of 4, it may require some extra adjustment, if the players want to feel their characters risking their lives.

But again, I have no experience with 4 players ( though I know for sure that there are setups which would easily stomp hard or very hard encounters, while other will probably suffer. So it's up to the players and the dm find out what they want ).

As for the players, they got the possibility to customize their character even more, and this led to more interesting builds or even just more flavored characters.

This is a good thing imo.

I'd absolutely recommend to try it, but first go with the CRB and see if the normal progression gives you enough satisfaction ( it's pretty slow, and what may change with your class within your level is gettin 1 action enhanced and a passive perk. nothing which would change your character in any way ).

Free archetype (unrestricted) starts giving a real power boost to people who know what they are doing around level 10+.

Letting players hit multiple build goals at the same time and even simply multiply spell slots for casters.

More skills at legendary thanks to rogue archetypes. Every martial with attack of opportunity with no opportunity cost and so on :)

It really depends on the group and what sort of game people want to run. Low level games of 1-7 though, minor powerboost.

I prefer to give people free dedication feats as rewards via training and RP in campaign. It seems to have been recieved well by my players vs when I used free archetype where a couple went straight back to "mechanical optimisation" (not judging, I would have done the same)

It really depends on the group and what sort of game people want to run. Low level games of 1-7 though, minor powerboost.

Perhaps a variant of the variant rule then. Only the levels 2, 4, 6, and 8 get the Free Archetype feat slots.

As well as the restricted list of archetypes that can be chosen.

Free archetype (unrestricted) starts giving a real power boost to people who know what they are doing around level 10+.

Got any specific use cases you could share,

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Free archetype (unrestricted) starts giving a real power boost to people who know what they are doing around level 10+.

Got any specific use cases you could share,

Flurry of blows (at the same level as combat reflexes).

Flurry of blows (at the same level as combat reflexes).

Instead of two levels later without Free Archetype.

Also, you can't use Flurry of Blows as the attack for Attack of Opportunity. Subordinate Actions.

I almost wish free archetype was the standard. If only because it is probably the only way some archetypes would ever be used. IIRC most archetypes are considered to be weaker then normal class feats, but at the same time I want to play around with something like a Talisman Dabbler, but it can be hard to justify taking them when a class feat makes much more sense. And sometimes 2e fights can get brutal.

siegfriedliner wrote:

Flurry of blows (at the same level as combat reflexes).

Instead of two levels later without Free Archetype.

There are a LOT of very useful feats that come online at level 10. Allowing a character to take something like twice as many (some are accessible to archetypes, some aren't, so its not always precisely double) is a definite power boost.

At level 10 I get both combat reflexes and flurry of blows for something like 5 or even 6 attacks a round (without haste). At level 12 I add in both mighty bulwark and Perfections path. etc etc etc.

Whether that is TOO powerful is going to depend on the group. But to claim that isn't quite powerful is just flat out wrong.

I almost wish free archetype was the standard.

It might have made for a better game if it was but it would be a different game. Monsters would have to be balanced differently, some archetypes would have to be adjusted, etc.

I think one of the problems of making this the default is that it would have significantly raised the complexity of the game and significantly increased the effect on power level granted by system mastery and a willingness to power game.

I'm running the Pf1 Adventure Path War for the Crown and was tempted to use some variant of Free Archetype (I have to adjust things a lot anyway) but chose not to precisely because of the above. The group are all new to PF2 and some of the players are already finding it difficult to create characters without Free Archetype. And a couple of the players are much more into power gaming than the others and the variation in character ability across players would definitely have grown.

I almost wish free archetype was the standard. If only because it is probably the only way some archetypes would ever be used. IIRC most archetypes are considered to be weaker then normal class feats, but at the same time I want to play around with something like a Talisman Dabbler, but it can be hard to justify taking them when a class feat makes much more sense. And sometimes 2e fights can get brutal.

I'm not convinced it would lead to different archetypes being used. If it was built in as the standard assumption, it would be hard to justify not taking the most effective ones.

But to claim that isn't quite powerful is just flat out wrong.

That's the thing. I am not claiming that Free Archetype is not a power boost.

What I am pointing out is that comparing Free Archetype to Zero Archetype feats is also flat out wrong.

Without Free Archetype you aren't giving up the 5 or 6 attacks per round combo that you can get from Fighter MCD Monk. It gets delayed by two levels and you have to give up something like Combat Grab in order to take the Monk dedication as well as the level 12 Fighter feat. Yes there are more tradeoffs decisions that have to be made, but the power boosting combo is still available. You just don't get as many of them.

In short I love free archetype but I am also someone who loves archetypes in general.

I know some people think of free archetype as allowing players to choose archetype feats while also getting their class feats, but a lot of time I just love grabbing more archetype feats.

For example grabbing Beastmaster+Archer on a Sorcerer probably isn't super good but with free archetype it allows it to be quite fun.

The truth though is there are a lot of variants of free archetype, off the top of my head. For example...

How restricted is the archetype choice.
-Some GMs do only a handful of options for theme.
-Some GMs give 100% no restrictions.
-Some don't allow "power options" like multiclass and weapon dedications.

Normal archetype restrictions.
-Some GMs ignore the first restriction so players are allowed to choose another archetype earlier.
-Follow restrictions strictly so players can't "double dip" on most archetypes before level 6.
-Some GMs ignore all restrictions. This one is too scary for me to ever implement.

My favorite by far is no restriction of archetype choice and ignoring the first restriction.

Yes characters power level can be quite a bit stronger, but in my experience monsters are already so strong players could use a little boost :). Also for new players that aren't experienced in TTRPGs I would probably never suggest free archetype except for thematic ones.

This is a discussion that I could go on forever talking about all the fun choices and options it gives and how I prefer it.

In general I would always prefer free archetype of any variant over base rules but I still prefer PF2 base rules to any other system I played.

On the other hand there are a lot of fun variants that can also be used in tandem or instead of free archetype. One that comes to mind is ancestral paragon.

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

It really depends on the group and what sort of game people want to run. Low level games of 1-7 though, minor powerboost.

Perhaps a variant of the variant rule then. Only the levels 2, 4, 6, and 8 get the Free Archetype feat slots.

I quite like this one. High level feats should be payed for. But low level ones and Dedication feats are not overwhelmingly strong.

As a player, I don't like FA. I dislike not getting to make as many hard choices while putting together a character build, it makes build choices feel cheap and largely unsatisfying to me. Also as someone who just builds characters for no reason, FA frequently requires me to either staple a second identity onto a complete character or just grab some power boosts. Ultimately, FA ruins the elegance of making an effective and clean character by adding unnecessary bells and whistles.

As a GM, I have never used FA. I offered it to the group I usually GM for and they decided against it. Most other games I have run were for below level 4, at which point FA isn't worth granting.

Yes, as I mentioned before, there are good reasons for running a game with and without Free Archetype. And good reasons for a particular character to run with or without Free Archetype.

One of the balance points that I use to determine which to run with is the party size. For smaller party sizes (2 or 3 characters) Free Archetype allows the characters to handle more varied situations. With larger party sizes (5 or 6+ characters) it runs the risk of having too many characters competing for the same screen time - so running with more limited ability characters would be better.

------

Another interesting point is how to handle a mixed character group - where some of the players want to run with Free Archetype and others want a single-class non-archetype character. Free Archetype is in fact a power boost, so the characters will end up imbalanced if run with no adjustments.

The best solution I can come up with if you still want to run with the Free Archetype is to give the single-class characters the multiclass archetype for their own class. So a pure Monk would have Monk MCD. They would double up on the low level Monk feats rather than getting low level feats and abilities from a different class. They would still only get the high level feats from their actual class feats.

For spellcasters this means that they could get additional spell slots of their own tradition and key ability. I was going to point out how there are a lot of classes that can do that anyway - such as Occult Sorcerer <-> Bard or Wizard <-> Arcane Witch. But then I remembered that Cathartic Mage exists and just adds to existing spellcasting for all spellcasting classes.

It is still a bit messy and running a game with all-FA or no-FA characters would be better.

I wouldn't be particularly interested in ever playing in another game that didn't use free archetype. It's a major reason why I haven't bothered getting into PFS.

As a GM, I haven't noticed a much higher power level than when we weren't using the variant.

The best solution I can come up with if you still want to run with the Free Archetype is to give the single-class characters the multiclass archetype for their own class. So a pure Monk would have Monk MCD. They would double up on the low level Monk feats rather than getting low level feats and abilities from a different class. They would still only get the high level feats from their actual class feats.

I think the alternative to this is just have them pick an archetype that is similar to, but not the same as their class. For instance for the exemplary Monk MC Monk, you could instead give them Monk Martial Artist, or Monk Wrestler. This avoids the issue of being locked out of higher level feats for your class.

Wizard MC Witch or Sorcerer. Cleric Medic or Blessed One. Witch Familiar master.

This will also encourage the player to be more open to the idea in the future by showing what the extra feats can do.

FA only increases power in a significant way if the player is min-maxing like a madman. Due to how feats work in this system it is very difficult to stack effects. So far I've only seen 2 cases where free archetype is slighly problematic (Rogue with Scout dedication that can get Sneak Savant, Camouflage and Scout's Pounce while still being able to fit Gang Up, Opportune Backstab, Precise debilitations and Preparation and a Caster going nuts with Spell slots from dedications of the same tradition like an occult Sorcerer + Bard + Captivator)

I also believe that the amount of power FA gives follows some sort of bell curve. It is at its worse roughly between level 8 and 14 because the amount of extra feats is high but the power from the dedication feats has not started to devaluate too hard compared to class feats (I want to believe that saying that dedication feats are "weaker" than class feats of the same level on average and that it gets worse the higher the level is not a controversial take).

In general I like the rule if I know the players will not actively try to break the game with it. Character building is more fun and as a GM you can interact with way more things the PCs can do.

Honestly, I would only preemptively ban archetypes from APs, giving the players the option to show me the build they want to play that includes them beforehand and give it a go if it doesn't look concerning.

So far the only build I have made that felt much more powerful due to free archetypes was the unarmed fighter, you want both the martial artist and monk archetypes, stumbling stance feat, follow up strike, grievous blow, deadly grace, snagging strike, combat grab, dazing blow.

So basically too many feats without free archetypes. Now as to whether the build itself is better than the duel wield pick build that I love for big numbers probably not.

We always use it, it only seems to make people stronger if they wouldn't have optimized normally, since having or not having a bonus is fairly binary.

Rogue with Scout dedication that can get Sneak Savant, Camouflage and Scout's Pounce while still being able to fit Gang Up, Opportune Backstab, Precise debilitations

Ah. Now that is something that I am tempted to believe might be an actual and noticeable power boost over a non-FA character. Some combination of 5 - 7 different low to mid level feats or proficiency boosts all working together, that can still be fit into one character at a fairly early total character level.

At first I wasn't really convinced about FA, simply because of the power increase that could have resoult into trivial fights ( even +3 fights ).

I play in ( or master for ) a party of 5 players, so either me or the other DM have to make adjustments to the adventure anyway.

I end up try FA this EC third book, and realized they annihilated every single encounter regardless the difficulty ( even +3/+4 were encounters without the possibility of TPK ). And this even giving them more enmies than supposed ( I don't really appreciate the "Adjusting Encounters" rules, because in my experience they don't really help that much, so I have to properly adjust the challenge myself ).

Anyway, what I didn't consider was being able to get sa similar power ( If I were to give a percentage, I'd say nearly 90% of the FA power ) was affordable even without the FA, if the player wanted to chase powercreep.

And this possibility increased the more the books and new archetypes came out.

While examinating the previous encounters, I found the stuff the characters used could have been achieved even without free archetype ( not saying it goes with everything. Just sharing my own experience ).

So, basically, nothing changed for the DM.
With a party of 4, it may require some extra adjustment, if the players want to feel their characters risking their lives.

But again, I have no experience with 4 players ( though I know for sure that there are setups which would easily stomp hard or very hard encounters, while other will probably suffer. So it's up to the players and the dm find out what they want ).

As for the players, they got the possibility to customize their character even more, and this led to more interesting builds or even just more flavored characters.

This is a good thing imo.

I'd absolutely recommend to try it, but first go with the CRB and see if the normal progression gives you enough satisfaction ( it's pretty slow, and what may change with your class within your level is gettin 1 action...

This is my experience. I'm playing a fighter in a campaign without free archetype, I was still able to pick up Champion Dedication and Cleric Dedication adding Champion's Reaction and Spell buffs without Free Archetype. It made the fighter slightly more powerful than he would be without those. Free Archetype makes this easier, but I can't really pick up feats that make me particularly stronger as those are so few and you can get them while using regular class feats if you want to min-max. But there aren't always archetype feats that boost power. Many just flesh out overall concepts.

roquepo wrote:

Rogue with Scout dedication that can get Sneak Savant, Camouflage and Scout's Pounce while still being able to fit Gang Up, Opportune Backstab, Precise debilitations

Ah. Now that is something that I am tempted to believe might be an actual and noticeable power boost over a non-FA character. Some combination of 5 - 7 different low to mid level feats or proficiency boosts all working together, that can still be fit into one character at a fairly early total character level.

You can fit everything but Precise Debilitations by level 12. You can also retrain Gang Up for Twist the Knife + Murderous Knot once you get legendary sneak at level 15 as you won't ever have any problem with the flat-footed condition between Precise Debilitations and Steath stuff.

I don't think it is strong enough to disrupt a FA game, though. Just noticeably better than a non-FA rogue going for either gameplan.

I think the thing about FA enabling to "fit your combination of cool stuff together" by a certain level is than this is kind of a feature, rather than a bug.

If the stuff you need is in an archetype, you're going to take that archetype and that stuff. I remember in the playtest the characters I saw that took minimal feats from their class with most of their feats spent on an MC Archetype. Your Barbarian who takes the instinct-specific feats and then spends all the rest of their feats on a spellcaster MC, is just a more fun character if you can also get some of the Barbarian stuff you'd otherwise be passing up on top of what you're getting from the archetype.

Like if you really want Flurry of blows bolted onto your class, you're going to just spend the 2+ feats on the monk dedication and you're down the corresponding class feats. Since the stuff from the archetype is compelling enough that you were going to take it anyway, getting the class stuff as well doesn't seem so unbalancing to me.

Hate the Free Archetype rule (as in the one where you can choose any archetype feats from it, not the one where you get a specific archetype dependent on the campaign) with a burning passion. Other people like it. To each their own.

breithauptclan wrote:

roquepo wrote:

Rogue with Scout dedication that can get Sneak Savant, Camouflage and Scout's Pounce while still being able to fit Gang Up, Opportune Backstab, Precise debilitations

Ah. Now that is something that I am tempted to believe might be an actual and noticeable power boost over a non-FA character. Some combination of 5 - 7 different low to mid level feats or proficiency boosts all working together, that can still be fit into one character at a fairly early total character level.

You can fit everything but Precise Debilitations by level 12.

And with Free Archetype you can get all of it by ... Hmm... Looks like level 12 still. Because that is when Camouflage comes available to the Scout Archetype.

Without Free Archetype You have to choose between Sneak Savant and Scout's Pounce at level 10 and choose between the other one and Camouflage at level 12. So you can't get all three until level 14. Unless I am missing something in one of those feat lists.

Still, I think it is a decent illustration of the powergaming combinations that pauljathome is pointing out. Where multiple different feats come together at an earlier level than is possible without Free Archetype slots, and where the sum of lower level feats is more powerful than they are individually. It just takes a lot of extra bookwork for a rather modest power gain.

roquepo wrote:

breithauptclan wrote:

roquepo wrote:

Rogue with Scout dedication that can get Sneak Savant, Camouflage and Scout's Pounce while still being able to fit Gang Up, Opportune Backstab, Precise debilitations

Ah. Now that is something that I am tempted to believe might be an actual and noticeable power boost over a non-FA character. Some combination of 5 - 7 different low to mid level feats or proficiency boosts all working together, that can still be fit into one character at a fairly early total character level.

You can fit everything but Precise Debilitations by level 12.

And with Free Archetype you can get all of it by ... Hmm... Looks like level 12 still. Because that is when Camouflage comes available to the Scout Archetype.

Without Free Archetype You have to choose between Sneak Savant and Scout's Pounce at level 10 and choose between the other one and Camouflage at level 12. So you can't get all three until level 14. Unless I am missing something in one of those feat lists.

Still, I think it is a decent illustration of the powergaming combinations that pauljathome is pointing out. Where multiple different feats come together at an earlier level than is possible without Free Archetype slots, and where the sum of lower level feats is more powerful than they are individually. It just takes a lot of extra bookwork for a rather modest power gain.

I was trying to say that the FA build comes mostly online by level 12. It is impossible to do something similar to this in a non FA game, you have to either go for the Opportune Backstab + Preparation gameplan or the Stealth gameplan (unless you are willing to burn level 16 and 18 feats for that). In a FA game it would go like:

Lvl 6: Gang Up + Whatever
Lvl 8: Opportune Backstab + Whatever
Lvl 10: Sneak Savant + Scout's Pounce
Lvl 12: Preparation + Camouflage
Lvl 14: Precise debilitations + Whatever

There is space to fit Shadowdancer and Spring from Shadows at 8 and 14 too.

Since the end of the playtest, I was beating the drum that there should have been double the number of class feats available, because there was clearly a class feat bottleneck that artificially prevented character concepts from coming online at a reasonable rate.

Free Archetype largely solves this problem, however I take issue with people trying to limit it to thematic archetypes rather than going fully "Free". I think it is a good compromise between default and my preferred double class feat solution, and am happy to take it as is.

I think it makes the game all around more fun, both by allowing more nuanced character choices at a more levels and by giving players more daily options.

It is clearly an absolute increase in player power, but it's not worth worrying about because it's trivial to adjust for as a GM. And even if it is an absolute increase, not adjusting for it is perfectly fine if that suits your table's tastes.

The whole "If you can't play without it, you don't deserve it" thing is just snobbery, and smacks of the principal skinner meme.

The whole "If you can't play without it, you don't deserve it" thing is just snobbery

This Tbh

The idea doesn't even make sense. Why should someone have to deserve an optional ruleset? Do I have to deserve chaining several +2 cards in UNO?

because there was clearly a class feat bottleneck that artificially prevented character concepts from coming online at a reasonable rate.

I want to underline this for emphasis. The major design problem for PF2 from where I sit is that class feats are *the* currency for basically everything important about your character, and the number of them that the game gives you by default is perilously close to too low.

Were the issue of "character defining choices" spread more uniformly across the different feat buckets, this might be different, but from where I stand something must be done to address the class feat bottleneck. Whether that's "double (or 1.5x) class feats" or "free archetype" or "bonus feats given as rewards for the campaign" I'm somewhat ambivalent. But it's important to me to do something about this.