I've was reading through some Spooky flavored archetypes and found one that is awesome from a flavor POV, but vastly underwhelming and a large nerf from its parent. That is the Gravedigger archetype for Investigator. I kinda want to run a campaign designed for weak but fun archetypes. So what are some others that could be included? What's the weakest archetype available?
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Almost all fighter ATs as most lose armor and weapon training
Smuggler rogue is at the top of my list here. Its abilities are almost entirely useless unless you use them specifically to smuggle & hide objects (the writer of the archetype wrote everything way too specifically for those situations).
The flavor is there for sure... though I can't imagine this archetype being used in anything except for a specifically designed campaign. Even NPCs don't need this, since the PCs are rarely customs officials and DMs don't need an excuse to have the wagon's hidden compartment have a Perception DC of 25.
Cleaner and deliverer Slayer, Greensting Magus, Forgemaster Cleric.
The Havocker Witch archetype is a clear step down power-wise, but has great flavor, and looks like it'd be fun to play (as long as there isn't another Witch around to make you look bad).
Oh, eldritch scion magus. If you can figure it out, it looks fun.
Death Druid trades away Wild Shape and Nature Bond for some creepy cleric and wizard spells and a spiritualist phantom, so it's probably weaker than a regular Druid. It's flavor though, with the bit about helping its bonded phantom move on to the afterlife and then starting the process over with a new phantom makes it my favorite horror archetype.
Mutation Mind Psychic.
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Empyreal knight paladin. Trades out most important pally stuff, but your horse gets wings.
Fun if your mount is a horse. But hilariously awesome, if you are small and your mount is a boar. "When pigs fly".
Siege Wizard!!!
ok, it's still a wizard, so probably not quite the weakest. But quite possibly the clunkiest.
Cleaner and deliverer Slayer, Greensting Magus, Forgemaster Cleric.
Deliverer is at worst, "meh", if you are lawful good. It's actually pretty good for wrath of the righteous, where you can go into big negatives before dying.
But if you play neutral deliverer, it is pretty bad.
Almost all fighter ATs as most lose armor and weapon training
Armor and weapon training for base fighters is very general and all purpose. The archetypes actually improve the fighter at the expense of making them specialize in something (mounted combat, two weapon, two-handed, etc). You should almost always take a fighter archetype instead of being a regular fighter.
Eldritch Guardian, a Fighter with a Familiar? What the heck?
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Every Kineticist Archetype.
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Eldritch Guardian, a Fighter with a Familiar? What the heck?
It's a straight upgrade, actually. Especially now that they can qualify for Improved Familiars.
Eldritch Guardian, a Fighter with a Familiar? What the heck?It's a straight upgrade, actually. Especially now that they can qualify for Improved Familiars.
Yeah, it's brutal at dirty tricks and is one of the closest things a fighter gets to pounce.
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Yeah, it's brutal at dirty tricks and is one of the closest things a fighter gets to pounce.Eldritch Guardian, a Fighter with a Familiar? What the heck?It's a straight upgrade, actually. Especially now that they can qualify for Improved Familiars.
Not to mention the Bravery replacement is just flat out better than Bravery.
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Almost all fighter ATs as most lose armor and weapon trainingArmor and weapon training for base fighters is very general and all purpose. The archetypes actually improve the fighter at the expense of making them specialize in something (mounted combat, two weapon, two-handed, etc). You should almost always take a fighter archetype instead of being a regular fighter.
This was true until Weapon Master's Handbook and Armor Master's Handbook were published. Now archetypes that trade away those features are much less powerful relative to the base class.
Not to mention the Bravery replacement is just flat out better than Bravery.Yeah, it's brutal at dirty tricks and is one of the closest things a fighter gets to pounce.Eldritch Guardian, a Fighter with a Familiar? What the heck?It's a straight upgrade, actually. Especially now that they can qualify for Improved Familiars.
Well EVERYTHING is better than bravery.
White-Haired Witch. If only you got full BAB, or at least kept a few hexes...
Well EVERYTHING is better than bravery.Not to mention the Bravery replacement is just flat out better than Bravery.Yeah, it's brutal at dirty tricks and is one of the closest things a fighter gets to pounce.Eldritch Guardian, a Fighter with a Familiar? What the heck?It's a straight upgrade, actually. Especially now that they can qualify for Improved Familiars.
Actually, Bravery isn't that bad, when you have advanced weapon training, for armed bravery. But the EG version is good and doesn't cost you a feat or advanced weapon training option, while coming online much earlier.
The Slueth Investigator. Trades out alchemy for luck and a few rough-and-tumble deeds. Super cool to be an investigator getting by on wits alone, but mechanically trading out magic is never the optimal choice.
But I still almost always do it.
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Spellslinger Wizard has to be my favorite of these.
Cast spells through my gun, increase my save DC's by 5, play a wizard in a trenchcoat, shoot all the things? Heck yes! What do I have to give up for that!?
...oh.
It's a great one level dip.
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Every Kineticist Archetype.
While the monk style archtype is admitedly not as good as it could be, that's more a problem with Elemental Fist being underwhelming. That, and the archtype trading away the ability to use elemental defenses for a monk's wisdom to AC. While that trade off isn't so bad with some elemental defenses like Fire, it hurts if you are a hydrokinetic or aeitherkinetic.
Overwhelming Soul is a decent archtype though. You don't have as high a damage bonus as a strait kineticist who invested heavily into con, but it's a consistent damage bonus that doesn't require you to eat large amounts of unhealable non-lethal damage to gain. The healer archtype looks effective too, even though it trades much of it's utility away.
Overwhelming Soul is a decent archtype though. You don't have as high a damage bonus as a strait kineticist who invested heavily into con, but it's a consistent damage bonus that doesn't require you to eat large amounts of unhealable non-lethal damage to gain. The healer archtype looks effective too, even though it trades much of it's utility away.
Overwhelming Soul also doesn't get the size bonuses to ability scores that Elemental Overflow grants (hurting damage, accuracy {from Dex bonus}, and saves, and the +Con would normally help make up for the HP loss due to burn), anything forcing it to take burn inflicts a penalty worse than burn (admittedly, this will rarely, if ever, happen), it has to use up its extremely limited burn reduction ability (which it trades out Internal Buffer for, so it's not like you have both) in order to activate or power up very useful all-day abilities that would normally be used to activate Elemental Overflow, and it doesn't have the option of accepting more burn in an emergency. It also can't use the Fire's Fury talent to increase its damage because it doesn't have EO to base it off of, making Fire an even weaker element choice.
Kinetic Chirurgeon could be nice, but the cost of losing ALL infusions and metakinesis just doesn't appear worthwhile as a PC (not just from a damage standpoint; think of all the ways to add area shapes or controlling effects).
Expanding your element into Fire for Fire's Fury (in order to slightly compensate for the tragic loss in battlefield usefulness) also doesn't seem like a worthwhile option since the unique infusions Fire gets are its strength and it wouldn't be able to bypass the common Fire Resistance issue when using Steam Blast or Aetheric Boost.
Remember as well that Kinetic Healer says "With a touch" at the start, so you can't heal at range.
As it is, it would make a very interesting NPC to have interacting with and providing services to the party, and would be a decent way to make things a little simpler for a newer player that wanted to be able to heal without juggling spells.
Underwhelming Soul also has a similar problem that the Monk Style kineticist. It can never increase it's Elemental Defense through Burn.
To be fair, a halfling Kinetic Chirurgeon might not be all that horrible. FCB means that they get up to 12 points in their buffer. Although I'll admit I'm not sure how the growth would work. Would they get 1 point per 3 levels, or 2 points per 6 levels...?
Favored Community is strictly worse than vanilla Favored Terrain, but I like the idea of re-training it by spending one week and 1000 gold at the Pub.
To be fair, a halfling Kinetic Chirurgeon might not be all that horrible. FCB means that they get up to 12 points in their buffer. Although I'll admit I'm not sure how the growth would work. Would they get 1 point per 3 levels, or 2 points per 6 levels...?
Either way you have to wait to get the Internal Buffer class feature before you can even take that favored class bonus.
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Favored Community is strictly worse than vanilla Favored Terrain, but I like the idea of re-training it by spending one week and 1000 gold at the Pub.
Urban Ranger gets Trapfinding. Add in that Favored Terrain is...mediocre, and it's not by any means a straight downgrade.
Favored Community is definitely worse than Favored Terrain don't get me wrong, Favored Terrain just isn't super impressive to start with and Urban Ranger's other replacements are all at least as good as what they replace, and in some cases better. Invisibility Trick is vastly better than Hide In Plain Sight, just for example.
Almost all fighter ATs as most lose armor and weapon training
The armor training isn't as killer as the weapon training. The weapon training seemed designed to address a large portion of the complaints about fighters (skills, saves, etc.). With options such as mutagenic warrior giving large attack bonuses and flight... it is worth considering.
Not to mention the Bravery replacement is just flat out better than Bravery.Yeah, it's brutal at dirty tricks and is one of the closest things a fighter gets to pounce.Eldritch Guardian, a Fighter with a Familiar? What the heck?It's a straight upgrade, actually. Especially now that they can qualify for Improved Familiars.
Not necessarily with advanced weapon training, which competes fairly well by making bravery into a straight will save thing.
The pseudopounce is fantastic, but there are ways to compare (mostly reach stuff: reach is one of the stronger melee styles after all, and can work well with full attacks at a 'distance').
So it is a question of whether you have particular plans with your feats. Eldritch guardians with dirty tricks are powerful, but obviously that requires dedication to a dirty trick build.
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Been finding my overwhelming soul aerokinetic to be pretty solid so far. Yeah, I can't really boost my elemental defense. But the air elemental defense kind of takes a lot of burn before it becomes useful to begin with. And the utility talents that I want for the build don't have a burn cost anyway. Or it's one that can be worked around.
Urban Ranger gets slightly altered abilitys to suit urban environments, The Archetype seem to be worth the trade when a regular Ranger can get stealth bonus' with Favored Terrain: Urban into a kings bedchamber, but an Urban Ranger couldn't, despite apparently being an urban environment expert.
Favored Community would be worthwhile if it aided bonus' to additional skills such as Knowledge: Geography, Diplomacy, and Bluff when in a Favored Community.
Invisibility Trick might be nice but how many games actually make it to 17th level?
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The Brute Vigilante Archetype is in almost every other way inferior to basically any other Vigilante option (want to punch people? Be an avenger), but you get to be the Hulk.
The "chance to attack allies or party members" built into the class, while flavorful, means I wouldn't be inclined to even allow it.
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The Brute also has some delightful talents.
The antipaladin version is better, if you get a chance to play one.
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Eldritch Guardian, a Fighter with a Familiar? What the heck?
I just looked up Eldritch Guardian and found a hilarious build for it. Be a Tengu with any bird familiar (Hawk or Rhamphorhynchus if you want the strongest). Take the Feral Combat training feat, and the Tengu feat that makes your bite attack 1d6. Your familiar will then get the 1d6 bite, and you can add improved unarmed strike feats to your bites. Other good feats are available for this. Such as Eldritch Claws, treat natural weapons as magic and silver. Rat Catcher, lets you damage swarms with your natural attack.
I thematically like the sleuth archetype for investigators, but it doesn't give enough benefits for the extracts it loses, while also giving you a dependence on another stat. The luck options either need to be a lot stronger, especially at later levels. And/or the pool needs to be based on intelligence as well, so it isn't so MAD.
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Favored Community is strictly worse than vanilla Favored Terrain, but I like the idea of re-training it by spending one week and 1000 gold at the Pub.
Urban Ranger gets Trapfinding. Add in that Favored Terrain is...mediocre, and it's not by any means a straight downgrade.
Favored Community is definitely worse than Favored Terrain don't get me wrong, Favored Terrain just isn't super impressive to start with and Urban Ranger's other replacements are all at least as good as what they replace, and in some cases better. Invisibility Trick is vastly better than Hide In Plain Sight, just for example.
Hell's Rebels is the perfect AP for the archtype...
Eldritch Guardian, a Fighter with a Familiar? What the heck?I just looked up Eldritch Guardian and found a hilarious build for it. Be a Tengu with any bird familiar (Hawk or Rhamphorhynchus if you want the strongest). Take the Feral Combat training feat, and the Tengu feat that makes your bite attack 1d6. Your familiar will then get the 1d6 bite, and you can add improved unarmed strike feats to your bites. Other good feats are available for this. Such as Eldritch Claws, treat natural weapons as magic and silver. Rat Catcher, lets you damage swarms with your natural attack.
Or better yet, you can be a Kobold with Tail Terror and charge into battle with both you and your pet goat equipped with tail attachments.
Not actually archetypes, but every spirit for Mediums other than Champion.
Not actually archetypes, but every spirit for Mediums other than Champion.
I figure the others are almost exclusively for downtime, but the Trickster can be usable if your basic combat suite can be used with simple weapons.
All the "alternate spirits" seem like downgrades you take for flavor reasons, though.