DeltaPangaea's page

maybe adding a trait to some of them, like the kineticist's Overflow, where at the end of a turn you have roll a flat check (say the 17 of Unstable) and if you fail, the modify ends. Not all of them need this trait, but things like that huge damage buff would get it.

This would be agony.

It says your drone uses the stored item, sounds like you can only use those limited items stored in your rig that the feat gives you.

Okay then what about the other two subclasses?

4: Storing to use in a specific way, yes. View it more as ammo or charges for the two abilities the feat gives you.

There's no necessity for the item in question to be stored in your rig though. You can just be holding something, you use Modify, and suddenly your drone has it and is administering it regardless of where they are.

Okay so like the moment I looked at this feat it felt weird and janky and unpleasant to me.

First off, Concentrated Dose 'disassembles' the item. Pardon? So are the mod's effects in addition to the item's original effects or not?

Secondly, why is the effect of the Healbot mod hardlocked to drones? Why can say, a Turret Mechanic not also just straightforward boost the effect of a healing item?

Secondthirdly, how does Healbot even *work*? Do they have to take the item from you? Does it just teleport to the drone? What's the deal here?

Lastly... storing 3 healing items in your rig? Really? Is healing item storage space that much of a deal?

It's kind of pointless having a key ability modifier if it's not... key to your class, I'd say. Like that's the point.

I think the issue with focusing on technological buffs is that they'll still be constrained by the overall design that buffing classes like the Bard and Envoy (and I guess Commander and Marshal archetype) fit in. You're not going to be allowed to break the math, so you'll just be making yourself baseline competent as martial with extra steps or adding a +1 to the party. But doing so via tech is going to mean item bonuses, which is very redundant and unhelpful in most cases.

How do you avoid being techno barbarian or techno bard in a way that is worth doing?

Could always go the utility and abilities route. Support doesn't always have to be purely mathematical. Like the hovering ability they can grab now, or the ranged hack they had in 1e (Although I think I'm being told that's being folded into normal hacking kits?), or an extra action solely for interacting with computers they're hooked to/hacking like 1e. We DO already have plenty of examples of "Quickened, but only for this specific thing."

I suspect some of the engineer stuff from SF1 where they enhanced their own bodies could very well still be something they get on release but most of that stuff they have enough examples of for it to not require much play testing.

Honestly if this is true then that's a flatout mad stance to take, because you need the full context for a class to see if it's actually any good. You can't just say "Oh yeah we didn't include part of it because we think it's fine" and expect people to playtest missing all of that.

I will also raise the curiosity that mines themselves are deployed to spaces, but their aoe is a burst. Bursts are from grid intersections, no?

So which corner do they explode from? All or do you get to pick? What about the aoe range that triggers the reaction to detonate? Is that all of them or do you pick when you put it down or what?

Fiddly.

Teridax wrote:

That's also fair; if the intent is to have a class that focuses entirely on self-modification, then might as well save that for the Evolutionist. I do think it's a shame to hold back on one thing that'd work really well on one class just because it's also meant to exist on another, but then I suppose that's always going to be bit of an issue on the Mechanic when they sit so close to the Inventor already.

I'm in agreement. I have a weird opinion on this, but I think it's fine for two classes to have overlap. Not like an 80% overlap of course, but 30-40% should be acceptable. There's always going to be some overlap, but the full package should fill out a distinct feel from another package, despite both being able to share a role in one aspect.

The thing about class overlap, right, and something I really enjoy to this day about 1e Pathfinder is that there's multiple ways of doing things. Like, if I wanted to play a pet class (which I never will but that's me) there's multiple different avenues to do that, and they all have their own differences and accompanying features. Do I wanna druid, do I wanna ranger, do I wanna cavalier, or go all in on summoner...

Things can share ideas, their differences are what separate them. And additional options for the same thing means people are more likely to find one they want. Like if we accede the domain of self-enhancement and modification entirely to Evolutionist and then... I hate it. It just doesn't vibe with me, does things in a way I dislike... I'm just outta luck.

But if there's multiple that are allowed to share that space, then there's multiple I can pick from for an idea.

Planting mines in the air just makes me think of sea-mines, to be honest. And I think that's a perfectly legit stance to take.

Regardless of current interpretation, clarification is probably for the best.

It sure would be nice if they had an ability that improved their ability to attack things, perhaps after locking onto them with some kind of targeting system.

Y'know, like 1e Mechanic had! With its (Real) Exocortex! It let you target lock things to improve your BAB from medium to full.

With its attack prof already solid here, making a lock-on let you attack with Int instead of str or dex would be a solid solution. It'd also make it feel less like they tossed half of the old Mechanic in the garbage. Not that I'm bitter.

I'd agree with this, yeah.

As a person who's often interested when an option for mines comes up, it *can't* be your sole method of operation in a game where you are usually the one aggressing into a space, or you're just throwing them at people's faces and then defeating the point of them being mines.

A game like Lancer can have a mine-specialist because the game notably encourages things like defense objectives and the like, but in a game like this it's just gonna be throwing mines at people's faces. Or two mines from level 6 onward.

Mine options for 1e alchemist? Sure whatever. Mine gadgets in 2e? I'd never use them without Gadget Specialist (and the DCs blow) but sure. The point though is they're not the MAIN THING and they're not broadly useful *as actual mines*.

Ultimately?

Mines is a weirdly specific niche, and most of what they do is just blowing people up. An Explosives subtype though can be utilized much more practically, and has a lot more room for utility and satisfying a more broad range of class fantasies.

'I can set mines' is an additional ability, not your major class choice.

um... I have a good reason for it not to have the 1e exocortex... because it was a misnomer. Exo means external. If it is an internal upgrade to the brain, that's not external, and thus not an Exocortex.

It's external to the rest of your brain.

I for one love the Inventor, sure it still needs more power but it is a concept that works well enough. Which is why I don't want Mechanic to end up being "that but again but space" and neither does the design team as they've said before. Mechanic should get more sauce but it shouldn't be by becoming more like Inventor.

Well they've already gone and made it a pet class which is one of the 3 inventor options. Although I would agree if we're talking specifically about Inventor's tendency to self-sabotage and screw itself over with rng.

It feels like ranged mods come online a little bit late. You can modify mines at range from the start at least (otherwise would be useless), and for turrets i guess the range doesnt matter that much but for drones melee range mods kinda hurt. Take the healbot mod you can get through a feat at level one for example. Your drone can now give someone a healing consumable. awesome. But to do that you need to be right next to the drone until level 9

The drone being able to deliver meds doesn't feel like it should be a thing YOU have to do. Like it should just be a permanent ability you can get for it.

I understand not being happy the things you enjoyed weren't translated over, but I've seen the "this 2e version of the 1e class barely resembles the 1e version, bring back the old stuff or name it something else"....like, 3+ times now. The argument never changes the name and usually the design intent of the playtest caries through to the final product (barring outliers like 2e magus). They could inject some zaniness back in sure, but super faithful translating is rarely their design goal over reimagining, so temper your expectations

If people keep saying a thing, maybe there's a reason they do.

And I don't think it's unreasonable that if you call something the same thing, for people to assume it to be roughly the same thing.

DeltaPangaea wrote:

"I am the mine guy" seems weirdly specific to me. Like why is it not a general explosives/grenades person, who then has the option to grab mines if they want?

I'd say there's a difference between them. Grenades are more active -- you throw them at an enemy to either destroy or at least move them from where they are. Mines are there to tell the enemy 'don't go here' or 'you moved here, now die'.

Still, an earlier question does need visiting: how visible are they? I'm going to assume 'very' since part of the point is to deny the area to an enemy.

Also now slightly worried about some smart-alec trying to use the mines as shields since they can't be damaged, but a good GM would put paid to that -- I assume the whole invulnerability thing is only to battlefield effects. They can already be disarmed anyway..

Yes, but mines is a much more niche field than bombs, and I'm betting you dollars to donuts that a lot of the time people will just throw them then detonate them immediately because you can't always assume setup, and doing damage NOW is better than "discourage an enemy from moving here" especially in a system more leaning towards ranged combat so they might not even NEED to move.

I imagine the issue is that "Use tech to enhance by combat abilities" may look too close to the inventor doing that with it's overdrive.

That didn't stop them giving it functionally two robot buddy options when Inventor also does that.

"I am the mine guy" seems weirdly specific to me. Like why is it not a general explosives/grenades person, who then has the option to grab mines if they want?

I don't think "guy who throws land mines" is as interesting or as meaningful as a core class identity as "I can bang a toolbox with a wrench and then all of a sudden I have whatever I need".

Not even general demolition/explosives/grenades. SPECIFICALLY landmines. Which a lot of the time are gonna be thrown and detonated immediately anyway. Such a bizarre decision.

Zoken44 wrote:

I love this ability. it is exactly what I wanted, kludging together alterations to all kinds of gear.

kind of surprised there isn't an option here to temporarily increase damage die size. but all the ways they can make changes are wonderful!

Same! But I would have just love having a +1 circonstance to damage. I really liked overcharge in Starfinder.

There was also Miracle Worker. It was Enhancement, but the concept is still there. Jack up the effectiveness of a weapon temporarily.

I'm not one to bemoan a lack of Inventor's OH SO WACKY habit of shooting themselves in the foot every other turn, but even rolling with the options that this Mechanic has...

It just kinda lacks sauce.

Stuff like Overload and Overcharge, Energy Shield... they've got things there, y'know? even Visual Data/Nightvision Processor to just upgrade your eyes has more pizzaz than essentially anything 2e Mechanic has in its class feats.

A lot of these class feats just don't enthrall.

For those unaware, 1e Starfinder Mechanic had two options. It went with a Drone, or an Exocortex. The exocortex personally improved *you*, made you more martially capable, let you target lock people, and allowed you to install a number of upgrades in yourself as you progressed, as well as do some extra nifty hacking with free actions solely for that. A number of Mechanic Tricks affected your drone or just you depending on if you took drone or exocortex.

Why is this completely, entirely absent here? Instead we have two Deployable Friends, one that walks and one that has a bigger gun, and... mines. SPECIFICALLY mines. Not overall demolition with one option being mines, just mines. Mines that 90% of the time are going to be flung directly at people and immediately detonated, especially since Double Deployment apparently just lets you ignore the extra action needed to throw them.

Inventor already has a mechanical companion option, *which also has the option to turn into a turret*. Why they gotta be separate?

Look I'm not here to talk down to anyone who enjoys the current options, and *mechanically* yes I'm sure turret and drone are very distinct, but you've taken a class that previously let you delve into the tech-savvy self-improving cyborg hackerman fighty engineer fantasy and made it 100% about deployables, two of which are conceptually nearly the same and one that's going to be Bombs With An Extra Step most of the time. And Modify I suppose which just feels empty to me. One round does not satisfy the desire to modify and improve equipment, nor does waiting until level 13 to make ONE permanent.

So if we're not getting that tech-savvy self-improving hackerman fighty engineer with mechanic... why? What did it do to offend you?

Anyone else notice the deep irony that the caster meant to have access to all its spells at all times, the Sorcerer...

Now has a class feature that they need to swap per day, which changes what spells they can cast?

DeltaPangaea wrote:

I'd be cool with this, although I feel like Sorcerer should have a BIT more than just an extra 4-5 points.

And letting wizards cast any spell they have in their book feels like a bit much. Maybe leave their preparation thing in place, but harshly limit the amount they can have prepared at once? Like X points worth of spell level. I dunno. Mostly just yeah, an extra 4-5 points isn't enough, that's not even one cast of higher level spells.

So, those 4-5 extra points over the wizard in actual play really feel like a huge difference. I mean, think about level 1, wizard has at most, 5 spell points, which means 5 1st level casts, while the sorcerer is chucking out 9. That would really make you feel the difference between the two styles of caster. At higher levels, say 5 for example, your wizard has 9 spell points now, but the sorcerer has 13, which doesn't sound as big of a gap, but that's at least 1 extra 3rd level spell the sorcerer could cast over the wizard and way more 2nd and 1st level spells if they don't need their highest level one.

Having the wizard being able to cast any spell in their book, but perhaps taking an extra action to consult their book to cast the spell, seems totally fine. They have to have a free hand and take an extra action, but the upside is they should just about always have the perfect spell for the job this way, making them the real "swiss army knife" of a caster, just like they should be.

I'd also suggest that we keep the current idea that some feats also increase your spell point pool and apply it to this magic system. For example, if you are a conjuration wizard and focus heavily on your school feats, you should get rewarded with more spell points as well as the new school powers.

That's really heckin' imbalanced dude. A wizard having access to all their spells, even at a slower pace, is way stronger than sorcerer not even getting one extra cast of his higher level spells.

Friendlyfish wrote:

Wizards don't quite have the versatility that one might be led to expect from last edition. Look at how much it costs to learn additional spells outside of leveling. You might learn an additional 2 spells of each level by draining all your wealth by level currency.

Please remember than learning a spell in 2nd edition has a lot more value. You do not have to learn summon monster 1 to 9, learning a single spell gives you that.

I think that the increased value to learn spell is a direct consequence of the new spell structure, where individual spell have a lot more value than in 1st ed.

Unless you're a sorcerer of course. Then you need to learn each individual level.

I mean honestly, I feel like wizards shouldn't even be able to just buy new spells. From a balance point, not an in-world point. In world it makes perfect sense but...

Mechanically, they're just buying new class abilities. And can have as many of those class features as they want with enough money.

Hell, Clerics are even worse, just getting everything right off the bat. Or at least they were in PF1, I'm not entirely in the mood to crack open the pdf to check if that's still the case in PF2.

But yeah, can Fighters just shell out cash for more feats? Nah m8.

Just to voice an opinion for paizo to see, I would love for 2e to break free from vancian magic. I mean, we've got spell points and "powers" already now, take it a step further and make all spells use a spell point system.

You gain a pool if spell points equal to your level plus casting score. First level spells cost 1pt, 2nd level spells cost 2, ect. At level 3 you could have 7 spell points just by having 18 INT, this leads to the ability to cast 2 2nd level spells and 3 1st level ones, just like the current system.

Wizards can cast any spells in their spellbooks while sorcerers have limited known spells but receive 2x their CHA modifier as bonus spell points from their increased ability to draw the magic out of their bloodline with raw force of will. This makes wizards far more flexible than a sorcerer, but the sorcerer can cast what few spells it knows far more often, hopefully useful to the encounter.

I'd be cool with this, although I feel like Sorcerer should have a BIT more than just an extra 4-5 points.

And letting wizards cast any spell they have in their book feels like a bit much. Maybe leave their preparation thing in place, but harshly limit the amount they can have prepared at once? Like X points worth of spell level. I dunno. Mostly just yeah, an extra 4-5 points isn't enough, that's not even one cast of higher level spells.

As we got older, our tolerance for "fiddliness" and "radical systems" changed.

Honestly I've gone the reverse. While it doesn't sound like I've played as long as you, I played spontaneous casters, could never STAND prepared ones, and now I'm well and truly spoiled by Spheres of Power.

I can't go back now. It's too late for me.

They are flexible in pinch situations. The problem is that with the super-short spell durations there is little incentive for parties not to retire to a safe distance and let the Wizard use Quick Preparation to change out his spells as he needs. Most AP encounters as written allow the party to do that. In PF1E longer running buffs meant that a party had an incentive to do as many encounters in a row as possible and hence the Sorcerer's flexibility was more noticeable.

That's a problem which only has appeared with this new edition, so talk about unintended consequences. At this rate, maybe it would really be a good idea to give Sorcerers Spontaneous Heightening for all their spells. Overall, I feel much less incentive to play a Sorcerer over a Wizard so far, and Sorcerer was BY FAR my favorite class through all 3.X iterations.

Also sorcerers flexibility in a pinch is always going to be limited by their spells known. You can't pick up all those niche utility spells for the one or two times you'd use them, while a wizard can. Sorcerers want the most broadly applicable spells possible.

I'm always a bit surprised to see people railing against "Vancian magic" by saying that's not how magic works in fiction. Really we rarely see the same spell or effect repeated in multiple instances in most works. How do we know that Vancian magic is not at work? We don't. It's just an assumption that smart players make because they don't like the term for whatever reason. How many spells does Gandolph cast? How many are cast in infinite progression? Doctor Strange? Harry Dresden?

First off, since none of these characters ever say 'darn if only I had prepared X spell today', claiming that it IS vancian is more outrageous than saying it isn't. If you wanna say they're vancian, you'll have to present some proof of that. Also, Dresden I know specifically is explained as NOT being vancian.

"I didn't prepare this today" doesn't come up anywhere in most examples of fiction, and the ones it does are Vance, derivatives, or D&D.

"Well it COULD be vancian!" is reaching so hard you might as well be stretch armstrong.

I'd like to chime in here too that Vancian casting, especially PREPARED vancian casting like wizards, is such a barrier for entry. The number of times I've had people ask if they really had to prepare a spell more than once to cast it more than once.

It's archaic, clunky, and doesn't resemble magic from anything these days except itself. It's called Vancian, but it's really just D&D magic at this point. Except even D&D itself has loosened it up in 5e.

I hardly expect this to CHANGE, but vancian casting is the biggest blessed bovine in the game at this point.

Also, Undercasting for spontaneous classes was turned down apparently due to decision paralysis, but prepared casting, where you need to prepare each and every spell you want to use each and every day in the right amounts gets to stay? But I guess wizards have that quick preparing feat now, so that's nice. Pity about people who can't get it.

oh hey level 14, isnt that like, a level after most pathfinder adventures end?

It's almost like being able to summon a strong, expendable mook no matter where you are with no downsides is a powerful ability.

Snip

I mean to be fair, should a cleric be able to turn on a super mode that turns him from a caster into being better at fighting than a guy whose class is ABOUT fighting? I wouldn't think so.

Save or Dies are also honestly poor design in the first place.

>Still

I mean you could sneak and then attack in PF1. You only lost stealth at the end of your turn or after you attacked.

Or do you mean 'still' in reference to a previous version of the playtest?

Yeah I agree with Mark, we won't see lot of high Charisma Wizards.

We won't, but Resonance difference from stats is only really going to matter as much in the earlier game. 4-5 points more is big at level 2, but less so at say, level 16. It's still significant, but by no means worldshattering.

You got a copy of the playtest already? Cuz the wizard blog specifically mentioned that feat in the context of "the highest level of power." Which is not level 4.

I mean, some people have them by now, so maybe you are one.

Not personally, but c'mon man, it's 2018. We're getting screencaps already.

DeltaPangaea wrote:

Especially since wizards can just ditch a prepared spell to replace it with another with one feat now, so they don't even need to leave slots open to be able to respond to things on the fly anymore.

That's probably a highish level feat, and we don't know that Wizards can leave slots empty anymore.

It's a level 4 feat. And takes 10 minutes to use, and can do it as many times a day as you want.

Uh yeah, I'm gonna weigh in and say that decision paralysis is a non-answer.

Undercasting worked fine for psychic magic in 1e, and now it's good in Starfinder too. Why is it suddenly bad civilization now we're in 2e?

Seriously, a sorcerer having to learn his favorite spell at every level he wants to cast it at sounds like a tremendous pain in the rear. They already have limited spell selection compared to a wizard, so this feels even more restrictive.

Especially since wizards can just ditch a prepared spell to replace it with another with one feat now, so they don't even need to leave slots open to be able to respond to things on the fly anymore.

Spontaneous Heightening feels like a bandaid, and undercasting not being a base part of the magic system will make future spontaneous casters more of a pain to play, since they won't have it. Or if they WILL have it, then why is it a class feature?

I feel like it could be clarified a bit on things like the cloak which things are from investing and which from activating. Like the 'pull hood up for bonus' thing is listed the same as the invisibility, but only the invisibility costs a point, the other doesn't.

I feel like it should be made more clear.

Like you've got a heading for each that specifies what each gets you.

Say...

Invest: Something something stealth bonus and ghost sound

Active: Something something invis

Clearly delineate what you get for investing in the item, and what requires a point to be spent.

Also as a secondary point, I feel like... staves might have a BIT much going on with them? Not with their benefits, but with their limitations.

Like you need to invest in it, and then STILL spend more RP to use the spells in it... but doing so also costs the staff charges? Why do staves still have charges anyway? It sounds like wands don't anymore, and you can just use them until you're out of RP.

Charges look like just a daily limit, except it's a daily limit that fluctuates depending on how much you used it. And you did talk about how you've removed a lot of daily limits due to RP removing the need for them. If charges are there to act as a limiter on more powerful spells that you don't want to be as equal in cost as other spells on a staff, you could just make them cost more RP instead of more charges.

TL;DR is that I don't feel like charges are necessary anymore on staves, given that RP exists. It's just another daily limit, and one you need to keep track of since it keeps changing.

Exactly JiCi, that's the point. They don't want huge numbers of iterative attacks. They didn't like how it impacted Pathfinder, especially at higher levels. So they made the max you can get very limited, and made it harder to get more attacks.

The 4-arms racial bonus has a benefit, and it's in line with the benefits other races get. Letting you get a ton of extra attacks just for being a race not only drastically unbalances the race, but also breaks the whole point of limiting attacks per round.

One of the issues with it though is that using those hands is impractical.

There's material for a combat style, and said combat style is not only not good, but actually BAD because it takes so long to draw all your weapons.

Y'know what makes Fusillade even worse?

The four pistols need to be identical.

So it's not just drawing and using all the different pistols you normally keep for different damage types.

Heck, not even different grades of the same base weapon type. You trade in one of your level 1 laser pistols for the next grade up, Fusillade doesn't work anymore.

Aha! That's a good eye! You can ONLY have Enhanced Resistance vs. one type of damage! There's no special addendum saying that you can take it multiple times for different types. Somehow I skimmed right over that.

Also, this means that you can only have Weapon Focus in one type of weapon. Your skills are, as they say, 'focused', and your enhanced resistance is indeed, "training your body to resist a PARTICULAR type of damage" [emphasis mine].

Also worth noting that lasers penetrate force fields, so Enhanced Resistance could be a good way to protect from them, while letting a force field help out against other attacks.

You can only take Weapon Focus once yeah, but once you have Weapon Focus, you qualify for Versatile Focus, so it doesn't really matter.

Basically, if you're going to spend more than one feat on weapon focus, you just get it for everything. Ditto with off-class weapon specialization with Versatile Specialization.

away from books to look up drawing weapons so I will just answer the obvious one.

It would be best to drop the empty guns.

Move Action to draw a weapon. Swift action if you have Quick Draw.

It would be fine if you could draw all your things in the one action, but you apparently can't use more than one arm at a time.

So yeah.

I've just run into how long it still takes to draw your weapons. Like for instance you were a Kasatha (Or person with extra cyber arms) wanting to try and use the Fusillade feat, or otherwise use four pistols at once because it's cool, it takes over an entire round to draw them all, even with Quick Draw. And two rounds to put them all away.

Am I missing something or is this straight-up as good as it gets? Even for a two-armed person, drawing two weapons eats up an unpleasant amount of time, I can't imagine actually trying to USE Fusillade.

Draw three guns round one.
Draw a fourth round two.
Wait until round three because you used your swift on round 2 and Full Attacks need that too. Fusillade.
Now your guns are empty and need reloading. All your hands are also full. Stow weapon as a move action...

The thing is that an Immediate action is your Swift action from your next turn. So once you've used it, you don't have any more, because you're already used that swift action.

This is the weakness of the Swash, too many abilities that all compete for their Swift actions.

Thing is, that I don't think that there's anything in Advanced Weapon Training that would in any way make Archetypes like Brawler overpowered. Even overpowered by martial standards.

Hell, Upon looking closer, Dragoons have a BETTER damage bonus than Brawlers do, since despite Brawlers' starting at 3, a Dragoon's increases by 2 at every iteration, so you can't even point at Trained Grace and say we don't want them having that.

Correct.

The thing to understand is that Two Weapon Fighting is a separate thing you can do WHILE wielding two weapons.

You can dual wield anything you like, you only take penalties if you want the extra attack/s

This is not a new issue. There have been complaints about this since gloves of dueling came out and the ruling was made. AWT just makes the issue more frustrating.

Has anyone actually weighed in on this at all, or are they just ignoring it and hoping people forget about it?

I feel most archetypes are all right. Brawler is a lockdown monster, and a lot of archetypes still have their niche, like Mobile Fighter for ranged/archery builds or Two Weapons. Fighter for consistent use of two, more accurate blades. Not to mention there is the Armor Master's Handbook which might serve as an equalizer for those with Armor Training.

Remember, these books, more than anything when it comes to a Fighter, want to make the Core Fighter just as good an option, if not better in certain circumstances, than archetypes, which in my opinion, is how it should be. The Fighter and its archetypes will finally be in the same position as most classes and their archetypes: different, varying is strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately not (hugely) superior to the core class.

The thought that Archetypes should leave a class largely similar in power to where it began is a valid one, but in no way actually existent in the game. Brawlers already being alright isn't really relevant, since they aren't cut out by design, just clumsy wording.

And what about the Archer archetype, which is the butt of every joke from here to Taldor, and even more so now it can't even take AWT?

With the release of the Weapon Master's Handbook, a Fighter having Weapon Training or not is far more important and relevant than it was prior.

And so we have the problem of this FAQ.

http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9qto

This mostly impacts Fighter archetypes such as the Brawler. Their Close Combatant ability is in almost all ways identical to weapon training, but due to this FAQ, they miss out, while Dragoons (Who also have a higher damage than attack bonus) are happy campers. Even Archers, whose Expert Archer ability is mechanically identical to Weapon Training lose out.

Considering that these archetypes were released before Weapon Master's was even a twinkle in someone's eye, it's not reasonable to expect them to be designed with it in mind, but minor difference in wording arbitrarily cutting some archetypes off from Advanced Weapon Training just won't do.

Considering the FAQ itself even, it seems to have been written by someone interpreting the words of the abilities themselves, without considering the intent behind them.