So, my question is pretty straight forward and simple, but a little confusing to me. I came over from 3.5, and I remember a significant downside to prestige classes being that you only gained "spell casting levels, as though you had leveled up in that class" on the upgrades to your prestige classes that provided such a benefit.
This appears to hold true of pathfinder as well, but one thing confuses me... Archetypes weren't a part of 3.5 and are an extremely welcome addition to the game, but I'm wondering how it works with the prestige classes, and with level-based things.
Example... Sorcerers. Obviously, if I take as my 7th, 8th, and 9th levels, several levels of a prestige classes rather than sorc levels, I realize that I don't get my 9th level sorc perk at 9, but do I qualify as a 7th level sorcerer for the 1st level perks? Like, if I took draconic or abyssal heritage, do I get the die step increase at 7, as though I were a 7th level sorc? Or does this ONLY apply to my spellcasting?
Similarly, if I have a perk from an archetype like, say, eldritch scrapper, I get that I probably don't get things that I'd normally get on level up, since, I think, all of the archetype perks replace a preexisting class perk, but would something like the Martial Flexibility perk still get their level ups at 9th and 15th levels?
I know, the answer SEEMS like it's going to be 'no' to both parts, but I've seen some weird things where it's not, and I'm not finding direct rules stating that my guess is right or wrong.
