The title screams loudly that I am mostly a raving Luddite, but I believe it is a fair question and any advice Paizo and the community could pass on will be certainly appreciated. I was curious as to what the correct syntax is when displaying stat blocks that use core class archetypes (such as Barbiarian Totem Warrior or Rogue Acrobat) from the APG?
Obviously, the key abilities of a core class archetype replace the associated abilities of the original and would be listed in due course, but what I am driving at is: What sort of indication is there to show that the following/preceding stat block of a NPC has abilities a little different from the norm?
Perhaps something like this?
XP 1,600
Male halfling rogue (burglar) 6
I am assuming an awful lot, however I am keenly interested in getting it right.
In Paizo stat blocks for specialist Wizards, they aren't called Wizard (Evocation), they're called Evokers. Certainly I intend to follow that precedent, so in your example yoo would have a Male halfling burglar 6
I wouldn't be surprised if that changed, though. Evoker, Illusionist, ect. are names that most of us are familiar with after playing through multiple versions of Our Game. Labeling a character as an Admixturist or a Breaker will likely cause confusion. Also, some single classed characters can have multiple archetypes, so there needs to be a reasonable way to describe a Paladin with both Hospitaler and Warrior of the Holy Light 'types. Paladin (Hospitaler, Warrior of the Holy Light) seems to me like the most reasonable way to do that.
Labeling a character as an Admixturist or a Breaker will likely cause confusion.
This outcome concerns me as well. Space for text in an adventure module is a premium and I feel that adding a capsule explaining such variances is perhaps a little indulgent. A GM should be able to just look at the stat block and say: 'Ah, that is something from the APG.' And be able to deal with it accordingly (that is, to change it to a vanilla core class or run with it as it as written).
Hmm thinking more about it now, perhaps it might read similar to a monster entry?
XP 1,600
Male halfling burglar 6 (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide 132)
I know by association that a 'burglar' may be a type of 'rogue', but I cannot chance that the reader will, even if I spend time listing in detail the the abilities 'Careful Disarm (Ex)' and 'Distraction (Ex)' within the stat block. Even this may still need a capsule explaining what to do in case the GM doesn't have access to the APG or wishes to run the normal core class instead. Argh.
EDIT:
Grabbing the old school Unearthed Arcana, it uses a hyphen (-) to delineate Thief from Thief-Acrobat. So maybe this?
XP 1,600
Male halfling rogue-burglar 6 (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide 132)
Or even my original entry, modified for the addition of the referencing rules:
XP 1,600
Male halfling rogue (burglar) 6 (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide 132)
Eesh. I am not sure if either looks right. Any more thoughts or suggestions are welcome.
Well I did it like this:
Male Elven Urban Skirmisher Ranger 8 [APG]
That gave me the idea to do this:
[gender] [race] [class1] [level] ([first_archetype], [subsequent_archetypes])/[class2] [level] ([first_archetype], [subsequent_archetypes]) ([book] [first_relevant_page_OR_range], [subsequent_relevant_page_OR_range])
In action:
XP 12,800
Male elf ranger 4 (infiltrator)/rogue 8 (scout, sniper) (Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide 125-126, 134-135)
CN Medium humanoid
This one is long because is using three archetypes across two classes. Gripper Longshanks' stat block would be like this:
Male halfling rogue 6 (burglar) (Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide 132)
I guess the good thing is that the level is no longer isolated between closed and open parentheses, respectively.
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Well I did it like this:
Male Elven Urban Skirmisher Ranger 8 [APG]
That gave me the idea to do this:
[gender] [race] [class1] [level] ([first_archetype], [subsequent_archetypes])/[class2] [level] ([first_archetype], [subsequent_archetypes]) ([book] [first_relevant_page_OR_range], [subsequent_relevant_page_OR_range])
In action:
XP 12,800
Male elf ranger 4 (infiltrator)/rogue 8 (scout, sniper) (Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide 125-126, 134-135)
CN Medium humanoidThis one is long because is using three archetypes across two classes. Gripper Longshanks' stat block would be like this:
Male halfling rogue 6 (burglar) (Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide 132)
I guess the good thing is that the level is no longer isolated between closed and open parentheses, respectively.
Not sure how Paizo will do it of course, but personally I LIKE this. It looks good, conveys the necessary info and directs you to the info source. Sure it may be long at times, but when you get into complex characters, everything will tend to be long anyway.
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Well I did it like this:
Male Elven Urban Skirmisher Ranger 8 [APG]
That gave me the idea to do this:
[gender] [race] [class1] [level] ([first_archetype], [subsequent_archetypes])/[class2] [level] ([first_archetype], [subsequent_archetypes]) ([book] [first_relevant_page_OR_range], [subsequent_relevant_page_OR_range])
In action:
XP 12,800
Male elf ranger 4 (infiltrator)/rogue 8 (scout, sniper) (Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide 125-126, 134-135)
CN Medium humanoidThis one is long because is using three archetypes across two classes. Gripper Longshanks' stat block would be like this:
Male halfling rogue 6 (burglar) (Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide 132)
I guess the good thing is that the level is no longer isolated between closed and open parentheses, respectively.
+1
I had already been using this style for things like sorcerer bloodlines and oracle mysteries/curses.Oracle 8 (Deaf, Flames)
Sorcerer 4 (Dragon [Red])
This is a shameless *bump*, on account the thread was started during Paizocon.
Is there a more decent/preferred/official way to express stat blocks that use (one or more) Core Class Archetypes from the Advanced Player's Guide? By looking at several books published by Paizo and riffing from fellow posters, I came up with this method, but I wanted to see if the folks at Paizo had anything that was more correct. Getting this right is important to me.