I am not sure if I like the class archetypes introduced in the advanced players guide, or if I want to use them for the campaign I am contemplating. I am interested in thoughts that other people have regarding these.
In the old days, if I wanted make a "court bard" as a PC, I'd make a Bard, and say "My character learned his trade as a court bard to <insert name of person with a court>". Now I have to look over the Bard Archetypes, notice the Court Bard archetype, and decide if the pros and cons of this archetype are satisfactory to me.
This would not be bad if the only PC I was ever going to make for Pathfinder was a Court Bard, I didn't have a job, or I had plenty of time to examine every source of data for putting together a PC. But for players who just want to get on with the game, having to wade through all the archetypes can be overwhelming.
My current thinking is that, since I've found a way to use the tarot deck to organize my write-up for the various classes, only allow a subset of the archetypes, the ones that I feel are necessary or add to the setting. Since the information for players is then all in one place, they can decide which archetype they want without having to agonize over whether it is worth it to give up inspire competence for mockery.
(And the Court Bard will probably not make the cut, since in this setting, "Bards" don't really have an official existence anyway. Nobody in this setting would say "I want to hire a Bard." (Whirling Dervish, maybe, but not a Bard.)
Speaking of Whirling Dervishes, another complication archetypes brings up is whether it is worth it to define a Whirling Dervish archetype, or to just have players wanting to play such a character make a Bard with the appropriate abilities.
One possibility I am considering is breaking out the specializations that archetypes provide, and offering them "ala cart", so if a player wants a satirist, for example, he can substitute satire for inspire courage, without prejudicing options for taking glorious epic vs dirge of doom later on in his career.
Yea. The more options the better. The fact that it is an option does not mean it has to be used of course, but having it available should not be an issue.
How is "getting on with the game" an issue, unless you all sit down make your characters and start playing right then. I normally have at least a week's notice before a new game so even if I dont have the time to make a character in one sitting I can split it up over several days.
I have also noticed that indecisive players are going to be indecisive anyway.
I think you should ask the players. It may not be the burden on them that you think it will be.
Yea.
I like the options to create the same class but with a total different flair.
Yea! I love the idea. It was great in d20 Star Wars, and it's still great. :)
Even if I don't dig all the archtypes (so, wait, let me get this straight... I'm a dex focused fighter but lose out on armor training? o.O), I'm glad we have the options. Like 'em much better than prestige classes for core character concepts.
They are also much easier to create and balance for a group. You need to do all sorts of thinking about the rest of the game to make sure a Prestige Class isn't too crazy (or worthless). Archetypes are balanced against individual class abilities... much easier to adjust.
Nay.
I still see very little with the archetypes that cannot be created with appropriate Feat/Skill/Spell/etc. choices using the existing character classes.
Big fan of the archtypes so its a Yea for me. Much better than PrCs and helps players build their character towards their concepts. Also helps players makes their characters distinctive from others of the same class.
And you don't have the power imbalance that PrCs were causing because you can scale the ability with what its replacing. And then there was the whole class hopping for abilities thats a bit harder to do with archtypes.
|
I gotta say I opened up the APG base classes and archetypes to my group for our kingmaker campaign. It arrived just a few days before the first session. Everyone had a general idea for the most part of the roles they were going for and opted to stay with the core classes this time round, but I did have a few players decide to check out the archetypes (including one of my 3 first time gamers).
So far things have gone well. They have really liked the focus it gives the character. My newbie said she likes it because it narrowed the what felt like an overwhelming amount of feats to choose from to a more manageable selection (although she by no means feels pigeon holed into a or b type choices) and she likes the fact she gets abilities that complement what she sees as her "Field of Expertise".
One of my veteran players also decided to go with an archetype because he saw something there that he would not have seen in just the core class. So I have a guy who has played one of two classes the whole time I have gamed with him (several years) trying a new class! I cant say I know every archetype by heart, but with all things new and shiny my standard let me look it over before I ok it(A long standing rule going back to 2nd edition complete books)I have had no issues so far. Paizo seems to do a pretty good job of keeping balance in check so far in my experience.
Who knows maybe I have just gotten lucky and my players haven't stumbled onto any game breakers. All in all though I would say leave it to the players if they find an archetype they like yea or nay it on its own merit.
Does it mean Bob can't play a vanilla core book bard and not say he is a court bard and customize it heck no. Could it inspire him to play an elemental kin barbarian when he has never given the class a second look before who knows. Archetypes aren't going to be every-bodies cup of tea but I urge you to let those who might enjoy it go for it.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
|
Some of us like agonizing over choices. :D Your players might be the same way.
I find the ones who don't like agonizing over choices generally don't, no matter how many choices they have. They'll either just grab an archetype that sounds good (which works just fine), or not use archetypes at all. Either way, for those people the core classes work as is. They don't need to be a "Court Bard" to be a Court Bard.
So basically, your problem isn't your problem. If your players don't want to deal with archetypes, they won't use 'em. :D
As for offering archetype abilities ala cart, it's doable, but you'll need to be careful about it. Archetypes are balanced against you taking the whole package. That means sometimes you trade out a strong ability for a weak one, so that you can trade out a weak ability for a strong one later on. If you break it up into ala cart, players can keep their strong abilities and trade out their weak ones and end up less balanced than if they'd taken the whole archetype.
|
|
The "ala cart" idea seems to me it could increase time taken by a much bigger margin to me. Since you are every time you level going through each option to see which best suits your character. It also seems likely to lead to people taking what they see as optimal decisions mechanically with less concern of concept. I would beware of balance issues if pursed. YMMV.
WOW ninjaed at 4:00AM where I'm at, not expected! and well played Benchak
|
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
|
The "ala cart" idea seems to me it could increase time taken by a much bigger margin to me. Since you are every time you level going through each option to see which best suits your character. It also seems likely to lead to people taking what they see as optimal decisions mechanically with less concern of concept. I would beware of balance issues if pursed. YMMV.
WOW ninjaed at 4:00AM where I'm at, not expected! and well played Benchak
Only 3:00 am where I'm at :D
i love dem archetypes. honestly the APG blew my mind. you mean i can make a crossbowman who has actual differences than a guy using a bow (other than not using a bow)? YES PLEASE.
Nay. I like the concept, just not the execution.
yea. I <3 options.
Not really. A dex based fighter is someone that's going to be using lighter armor than the str fighter, because he can't afford to be weighed down as much.I like the archetypes but would much prefer a less total over haul. I would rather have a list of "Alternate class featrues" to choose from than hard-coded template that I have to follow. Some of the Archetypes even seem a bit odd, like loosing Armor training on a dex-based fighter archetype.
I had a DEX-based Fighter who wore Heavy Armor. Armor Training is beyond cool. Going first on Initiative, without having to necessarily burn a Feat on Improved Initiative is cool too. I should admit that the PC was a STR-based Figter too. I rolled hella nice on 4d6 DTL. :)
As for the question, Nay - I like the idea of using different combos of attributes, feats and skills to mold the core classes into whatever you like.
Someone mentioned just having a list of Alternate Abilities and I kinda like that approach.
All of the archetypes and existing base class abilities should have been made into talents/talent trees from the beginning, like they did in Star Wars Saga. That was an extremely popular modular system (very much like d20 Modern), without having it get out of hand.
You could pick and choose your abilities, but since they were in "trees" and because only certain classes could get certain talents, themes felt very natural.
|
|
You could pick and choose your abilities, but since they were in "trees" and because only certain classes could get certain talents, themes felt very natural.
I plan on doing something like that with Kirthfinder's talents system. Instead of having them in each class document, merge them all into one Talent document with each tagged for which class they are allowed to.
100% yea. Archetypes are a cool idea that was implemented pretty nicely!
They were implemented clumsily. Only talents are elegant.
Archetypes are quite awesome. I'm glad they did them the way they did and I can't wait for more.
|
|
100% yea. Archetypes are a cool idea that was implemented pretty nicely!They were implemented clumsily. Only talents are elegant.
Only talents??? What about balerinas, or compact luxury sedans, or monarch butterflies!?
I say yea to archetypes. You don't have to use 'em: you can play core and base classes with most any flavor you want, but the archs let you add some more coolness.
But maybe it's just because I like things complicated.
100% yea. Archetypes are a cool idea that was implemented pretty nicely!They were implemented clumsily. Only talents are elegant.
I disagree, the talent trees in saga edition are a mess and in many cases all over the place. The choices felt natural? Really? Tons of abilities in different trees interacted well with eachother, and many within the same tree didnt interact with eachother at all. Most of the characters in my saga games had no more then one or two talents per tree and instead spread it around. That means the tress themselves provide almost no guidance to building a character. I dispise any pure talent system. The choices become overwhelming. It is far easier to choose between 6 or even 60 archetypes(which is ofcourse far more then there ever would be for a given class) for a given class then it is 200 or 500 essentially individual talents.
The archetypes follow both a thematic and mechancal theme and build on that as you go. It is a single choice made once that adds variety and flavor to a character and is similarly powerful to the original class. Talents Trees over a near infinite combination of choices, and place the best mechancial benefits OUTSIDE a combined flavorful theme by allowing the greatest mechanical benefit to occur from combining various talents trees as opposed to choosing one.
Archetypes are self contained, if i want to be an arcane duelist, I only ever have to look at the core rules for the bard, and the APG. Talent Tress Expand with each book. Even if individual trees are contained with only a single tree, other trees released in further products would expand on similar mechanical concept. You now need 3, 4 or 10 (which was the case with saga edition) books open when you build your character.
Talent trees make it much harder for a dm to create npcs. Each talent is an individual choice, more choices means more time to create a character. Archetypes are 1 choice, and require only required a relatively small additional amount of time to create a character.
Archetypes are specific to a class, talent trees (in the case of saga edition) are not. If I am playing a pathfinder bard, I only need look at the bard archetypes. Even if I look at every book that has arcetypes (lets say APG, Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat) the scope of where I need to look is small. Talent trees tend to apply to more then one class(they certainly did in saga edition when it came to prestige classes) so there is no simple division of where to look. So not only do I have to make more choices spread over more places, taking longer to do so, I cant even use the simple division of the class divisions to limit my search.
I dont mind the minor flexibility some pathfinder classes have in the way of talents (like with the rogue, or barbarian rage powers), but a full on saga edition like talent system would quickly turn myself and at least part of my group away from pathfinder.
If it wasnt clear already, my vote is yay to archetypes.
I think the archetypes were well done for the most part. They are great for a player that likes to play "bards" or whatever. Over time he can still play his favorite class but he can mix it up a bit and have each character have a unique feel more then just a change in feats or skills could allow.
I don't understand why a group would want to limit the players to only a few options in classes. While there are a lot of choices, the players hunt for a class that appeals to them RP wise then reads about the nuts and bolts of the choice they like. After the players pick the DM then reads up on those four or five specific classes and archetypes. No single player or DM is forced to read every class and archetype before picking... and those that do are doing it for fun because they LIKE doing that.
TRUTH
Better than I could put it.
In the old days, if I wanted make a "court bard" as a PC, I'd make a Bard, and say "My character learned his trade as a court bard to <insert name of person with a court>". Now I have to look over the Bard Archetypes, notice the Court Bard archetype, and decide if the pros and cons of this archetype are satisfactory to me.
You can STILL do that... Archtypes aren't required or anything... you can still just play a standard bard, and fluff up his backstory how you want.
As a rule, when given the choice, I will ALWAYS Side with whatever gives you MORE options.
honestly, I love the IDEA of archtypes.. but the ones in the APG don't really scream out to me... Except the Invulnerable rager/barbarian one... I'd REALLy like to make him.. And the Bard Detective.. I'm making one of those for the next game.
Though to be fair... the Detective is 'Almost' Awesome... Still focuses too much on 'performances' and I'd have twisted a few things around given the choice... but still, I love the IDEA of Archtypes.
I want to make a full fledged 'blood and sand' Gladiator later too... if the Combat book gives us the archtype for it, Fine... I'll look at it... but Fighters are so flexible, i hardly feel the NEED for a fighter archtype... i can already build him however I want.
If the archtype is cool... go for it, if not... go standard base class.
yea.
Some of the abilities given can really suit the character you are trying to make like a two-weapon fighter archetype will be better than a normal fighter with the various feats due to the abilities they gain.
Not just this, but it gives other classes different tastes and you can avoid the problem of if two people have the same class that they're identicle in their abilities. This gives a lot more wiggle room for that in my opinion and new creative ways for making a backstory.
My biggest problem is when archtypes present too many choices, and the best example in my opinion is the cleric and subdomains. But the same can be said of too many feats or traits. It would have been nice if they restricted the amount of archtypes to 3 or less.
Yea.
What I've noticed in my decades of play, is that players WANT choices and themes.
Why can't my wizard use a sword like Gandalf? How come my rogue has to wait six levels just to sneak well? And on and on...
I like archetypes AND prestige classes. What I don't like is game-breaking munchkinism. Paizo may not do everything just how I would, but it's very close. Player (and GM) options are always welcome, and from what I've seen, Paizo is careful to keep things balanced, unlike some of the things I saw in 3.X.
Archetypes are all kinds of awesome. Adding more balanced and flavorful archetypes = even better RPGing experience.
Reading the first 33 responses, it seems like my winning plan would be the following:
1. Continue organizing the information according to the Major Arcana. All Bard information can be organized under the XVII Star heading, all Philosopher information organized under the XIV Temperance header, etc.
2. Break the archetypes up into customization options. This allows for more flexibility with less complexity (at least to my mind) because each option can be considered on its own without having to forecast down the road.
3. Possibly restrict some options that I deem to be game breaking or unbalanced, especially in the context of my own campaign. I'm not saying that I'll need to do this, but I will have to reserve the right to do so.
Meh. Difference in play styles.
Archetypes seem overly restrictive to me (perhaps "clumsily" wasn't the right word). With talents, you can piece together your concept regardless of what it might be. It allows for far more creativity than the cardboard cutouts that are archetypes.
Sure it can be daunting, but some players LOVE that. It means there are LOTS of options available. The modular design also means that, as more talents are released, we can add them to our EXISTING CHARACTERS as they develop. With many archetypes, you have to make an entirely new character before you can start to use them.
That is why I prefer talents over archetypes (which aren't bad in their own right, they just aren't as efficient or fun for me).
I love the concept. The presentation needs work.
It is a great thing to be able to make the character you want at first level, and not to have to resort to meeting pre-reqs in order to get some specific powers. Of this, I whole-heartedly approve.
However, the process of untangling what each archetype actually looks like is like solving an algebra problem. I hope one day in the future a new edition of Pathfinder will have all the archetypes as columns on a single class table. For the moment, it is what it is. Options are better than no options.
Several posts above me try to convince others that this is better or that is better, no this is better than that...fact is, one system is not inherently better than the other, just different.
Bottom line is it's all preference. Personally I prefer a talent system over endless class and archtype choices. I liked the Star Wars system, albeit I desired a more comprehensive system of talents but it's the mechanic of it that I prefer. My opinion here, not trying to convince anyone otherwise.
Im a fan of the archetypes, if you have two rogues in a party with can have the sneaky-stabby rogue and then the archetype sniper rogue for some distance damage. I feel that more options is never a bad thing. I like how they instead of just making the class better they swapped abilities and powers for the new ones makes it so you would still be a basic fighter and not the weapon master.
Not really. A dex based fighter is someone that's going to be using lighter armor than the str fighter, because he can't afford to be weighed down as much.
It also means that when I make an archery-focused fighter, I'd never pick the archer archetype. Regular fighter pulls it off much better IMHO.
All of the archetypes and existing base class abilities should have been made into talents/talent trees from the beginning, like they did in Star Wars Saga. That was an extremely popular modular system (very much like d20 Modern), without having it get out of hand.
You could pick and choose your abilities, but since they were in "trees" and because only certain classes could get certain talents, themes felt very natural.
It is way to easy to powergame that way though and it would end up going the way of 3.5 prestige classes except instead of cherry picking PrC's you get to pick the abilities which is even worse. Saga did not have have to be backwards compatible with 3.5 so many of the 3.5 feats could be left out or substituted as talents just like in D20 Modern.
Both.
Archtypes that actually are really good at what they'd do is great because you're x archtype at level 1, not at the level you'd get your feats or whatever.
Archtypes that aren't very good at what they'd do, or at least aren't as good as the base class, are a player trap, which is Bad.
This is actually how I WOULD BUILD CLASSES.
No PrC, barring the multiclass combinations (hence, plenty of room for them anyway!).
Then, divide class levels in a modular manner, deciding each level if the PC gets an iconic class feature, an utility, an attack power or a defense.
Rogue example:
SAY, utility (trapfinding, poison use, HiPS) at level 1 and every 5, iconc ability every odd (sneak attack), defense (evasion, movement current talents, immediate parries and vanishes) at (say) 3 and every 3, and attack option (bleeding attacks, crippling strike) every odd.
Each option should be level based (scaling generally with CHARACTER level, so multiclass happy people would be... happy). The game has already examples and examples of this kind of scaling, this should be just stated as general rule.
i could keep level requirements for high powered stuff. nothing wrong with that.
More mundane classes hould get more defenses (mettle, evasion) than full casters. The same with utilities, expecially the skill based (half level bonuses, shortened use time, special effects like the rogue trapfinding). Say a fighter would get 3 defense, an inquisitor 1, a cleric 0 - mostly as it is currently).
casters would get access to utilities through spells anyway. Some class could be more utility or attack or defense based (say, monks, and only monks, could get both mettle and evasion, rogues get evasion and HiPS, fighters mettle and a condition removal standard action ;))
I would consider to split some spell in ritual, like the incantations in Unearthed arcana, but more usable than the 4th edition ones.
Said this, I'm quite happy with archetypes, but I think that even if they are cool, are not the "ideal best evaarr". A modular system could be more interesting, that is (IMHO).
Archetypes? HELL YEA!!!
Yea.
Archetypes are possibly my favorite thing about Pathfinder.
Forum ate my edit.
To clarify: I like archetypes as ideas and most of them as they are (not everyone) but maybe they can be limiting.
I decided this when I discovered that a rogue should be good either in trapfinding or in poison use (hence my example above).
Nevertheless, I prefer them to multiclassing, PrCs and similar previous stuff.
I like Archetypes. Gives me lots of options.
Hell I would generally never play a ranger (dont like em) but for a CoT PBP I made an Urban Ranger, designed to be a tracker. Fits perfectly, and is not your standard issue ranger!
|
The games I generally play in are hard, but I've seen characters of all walks of life come away having fun. Adding Archetypes just gives us MORE fun stuff we can do. Even the archetypes generally considered weak (Free-Hand Fighter) contribute, and they all seem so cool. I especially like the Golarion centric archetypes, and hope to see WAY more of those in the future!
Yea. The more options the better. The fact that it is an option does not mean it has to be used of course, but having it available should not be an issue.
How is "getting on with the game" an issue, unless you all sit down make your characters and start playing right then. I normally have at least a week's notice before a new game so even if I dont have the time to make a character in one sitting I can split it up over several days.
I have also noticed that indecisive players are going to be indecisive anyway.
I think you should ask the players. It may not be the burden on them that you think it will be.
+1