I have been revisiting my Fighter-Acrobat base class and decided that since it is already rooted in fighter, I could whirl out a fighter archetype that is much shorter and accomplishes possibly the same niche.
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AGILE FIGHTER
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: An agile fighter is not proficient with medium and heavy armor or with tower shields.
Skills: Acrobatics (Dex) and Escape Artist (Dex) are class skills for an agile fighter.
Deft Movement (Ex): An agile fighter gains Dodge and Mobility as bonus feats, even if he does not meet the prerequisites. He does not gain the benefits of these feats when his speed is reduced due to armor or encumbrance.
This replaces his bonus feat at 1st level.
Burst of Speed (Ex): Beginning at 2nd level, an agile fighter can move his speed as a swift action. He can use this ability once per day. At 6th level and every four levels thereafter, the an agile fighter can use this ability one additional time per day.
This replaces Bravery
Nimble (Ex): An agile fighter's quick reactions make him a difficult target. At 3rd level and every four levels thereafter, he gains a +1 dodge bonus to AC when his speed is not reduced due to armor or encumbrance.
This replaces armor training 1, 2, 3 and 4, and armor mastery
Nah. I'm left it boring stylz yo.
It's rare for an archetype to give an ability beyond 10th.
I like this archetype. Doesn't give anything new after 3rd, which feels odd, but it still works very well. Especially since the abilities grow over time. The only thing that concerns me is two feats for one, but the one is a "choose amost anything" for two relatively weaker feats that lead in to powerful options. I'm torn on this.
All in all, though, I approve. I'd allow it in my game.
My rationale was that the Unbreakable fighter archetype hands out Endurance and Diehard in place of the 1st level bonus feat. (On a somewhat related note, Unbreakable goes all the way up to level 20)
Granted, Dodge and Mobility have the edge of unarguable numeric bonuses (some say weak bonuses), but feats like Endurance and Diehard are different. They can almost never come up, or they can be the difference between life and death. Very situational.
My rationale was that the Unbreakable fighter archetype hands out Endurance and Diehard in place of the 1st level bonus feat. (On a somewhat related note, Unbreakable goes all the way up to level 20)
This is a very common trend for Fighters; if a Fighter archetype alters the bonus feat class feature by forcing you to take a specific bonus feat, it usually requires you to take two bonus feats and those feats usually can't be swapped like other bonus feats can.
The big three examples of this that come to mind are the Unbreakable Fighter, which trades the 1st-level bonus feat for Endurance and Diehard, the Unarmed Fighter, which trades the 1st-level bonus feat for Improved Unarmed Strike and one style feat of the fighter's choice (sans most prerequisites), and the Dragoon, which trades the 1st-level bonus feat for Mounted Combat and Skill Focus (Ride).
Given that Dodge and Mobility are pretty on-level with other three choices, I'd say that you did fine.
Also, although it is certainly not true that archetypes never modify class features above 10th level, several designers (most notably Creative Director James Jacobs) have commented that they personally PREFERS when they don't. This is quite different from an actual design limitation existing. But when an archetype modifies one ability in a set, it is often expected that they will modify all abilities in said set. Good example of this include the Monk of the Four Winds, which replaces the monk's capstone, and the eldritch scion magus, which bumps many of the magus's class features to later levels.
I think it looks really good.Simple,balanced and effective.
One note: burst of speed is essentially the same as slayer's movement, which is a high-level slayer class feature. Trading bravery for an ability that tells the action economy to shit up and sit down is WAY too strong.
Is it too strong for once a day at 2nd level? As for the slayer ability, it seems pretty weak for a 13th and 17th level ability.
Burst of speed is certainly better than bravery (because it is less situational) but I wouldn't consider it too strong. Also, the necessity to move and full attack arises only at later levels (unless you are using TWF).
I like this archetype.