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The Core Fighter is also a bad archetype.With Advanced Weapon Training and Advanced Armor Training options, it really isn't anymore. It was a massive stealth buff to pretty much every fighter class feature.
Between Versatile Training and Armed Bravery, the Fighter's biggest shortcomings (skills and saves, respectively) get patched up, and the rest is just gravy.
My Fighter can now fly and do Dimension door, due to those books. Not to mention knocking ranged weapons out of the air.
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Just one? Oh boy... I'll list mine:
1- Two-Weapon Warrior (Fighter) (Advanced Player's Guide)
The abilities literally repeat themselves and there is no clear way to TWF with 2 one-handed weapons without any penalty
2- Brute (Vigilante) (Ultimate Intrigue)
Getting in Brute form doesn't get you stat increases and turns you into a Fenzied Berserker*. You also don't have talents to fix that either... outside of houseruling and/or 3rd-party support that is
*For those who might not know, the Fenzied Berserker was a Barbarian PrC from D&D 3.5's Complete Warrior. It was infamously known for being a party killer, as the berserker could essentially wipe your own party due to not being able to tell apart friends from foes... exactly like the Brute.
3- Student of Stone (Monk) (Advanced Race Guide)
The traded abilities don't scale with levels... at all. An oread monk loses too much with this archetype.
4- Blade Adept (Arcanist) (Advanced Class Guide)
Ok, here's a fundamental rule here: you do NOT give a spellcaster some martial abitilies WITHOUT changing the BAB. It doesn't receive an exploit that allow him/her to treat her spellcaster level as her actual BAB for a short period.
5- Magical Child (Vigilante) (Ultimate Intrigue)
The familiar and the summoner's spell list don't match or even work together. Either give it an eidolon with evolution points or the sorcerer/wizard/witch/magus spell list so that you can use spells that enhance an actual familiar.
6- Sovereign Blade (Samurai) (Legacy of Dragons)
There's once again an ability that goes from scaling to not-scaling.
7- Drakerider (Cavalier) (Legacy of Dragons)
8- Silver Champion (Paladin) (Legacy of Dragons)
Both have the same problems: the drake companion isn't suitable to ride until 13th level (!!). Yes, there's a feat to mount and ride same-sized creatures, but burning a feat for it is just pointless.
No. You also lose Greater Bane and possibility to change Bane as a swift action.The ability to switch Bane is a real loss (and one I noted), but you can add +2d6 elemental damage easily (on top of Bane) by the time you could have Greater Bane.
Still a better caster though, which isn't a small thing.
Being Int based on a class that already had 6+ Skill per level isn't that good.
I'd rather the will save.
Being prepared is better but it doesn't make up for losing most of what makes an inquisitor a good combatant.
Being int based is meh at best
Going from prepared to spont on a 6th level caster doesn't make up from being downgraded from amazing at combat to bad at it.
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Re: the Sovereign Blade: surely the Sword Saint is the worst Samurai archetype, no?
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Synthesis Summoner. For a minor gain in martial prowess, you give up what's basically a free quicken on every single spell you cast!
Meanwhile Monk of the healing hand exists which turns your capstone into 50' radius mass resurrection in exchange for complete destruction of your character so thoroughly that gods cant bring them back and they're wiped from history.
On the other hand, no one forces you to use the capstone, and unlike a regular monk, you can still benefit from Enlarge Person at max level. I call that a gain!
Also, free raise dead/resurrection ever 25 hours starting at 11th level is wicked.Living Grimoire isn't bottom tier, but it's pretty bad in some unfortunate ways.
(...)
Really the coolest thing about the archetype was all the theorycrafting about having an enchantable weapon that could benefit from improvised feats for like a week before they FAQ'd that away.
No, the coolest thing is that you can walk around telling your enemies "the words of <insert god> will punish you!", and then you whack them with your holy book! I want to play one just to grab a Bible and enact that in my living room!
White Haired Witch (...) 15' of hair (...) Ass in magic spell for support (...)
I DON'T EVEN WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAIR THE WITCH USED!!!
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4- Blade Adept (Arcanist) (Advanced Class Guide)
Ok, here's a fundamental rule here: you do NOT give a spellcaster some martial abitilies WITHOUT changing the BAB. It doesn't receive an exploit that allow him/her to treat her spellcaster level as her actual BAB for a short period.
The Blade adept is definitely niche, but it's one of the best entrants for Eldritch Knight (since your black blade can scale with CL instead of arcanist level).
This.
Inspired blade swashbuckler 1/blade adept arcanist 6/eldritch knight can (after taking Spellstrike at swashbuckler 1/arcanist 5) give a character with much of the benefit of a magus (no Spell Combat), but with full 9/9 spell progression and Dex to damage at 1st level (with the Fencing Grace feat).
Or you could concentrate on reach Spellstrike: fighter 1/blade arcanist 6/eldritch knight with the Whip Mastery feats and a whip as the character's "black blade." A whip meets the "one-handed piercing or slashing melee weapon" requirement of the Sword Bond archetype feature (regardless of the name).
A similar argument can be made for the sword binder wizard, although they may benefit from taking a few more levels in wizard (8 or even 10), instead of trying to get as many eldritch knight levels as fast as possible, to pick up the ability to deliver a touch spell at range on top of a normal attack with Sword of the Mage and possibly the Telekinetic Sword ability.
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On the bright side, it's not PFS-legal, so the noob can't be tricked into playing it by his so-called "friends".2- Brute (Vigilante) (Ultimate Intrigue)
Getting in Brute form doesn't get you stat increases and turns you into a Fenzied Berserker*. You also don't have talents to fix that either... outside of houseruling and/or 3rd-party support that is
*For those who might not know, the Fenzied Berserker was a Barbarian PrC from D&D 3.5's Complete Warrior. It was infamously known for being a party killer, as the berserker could essentially wipe your own party due to not being able to tell apart friends from foes... exactly like the Brute.The FB was at least hideously powerful. (Their true heir-apparent is the Wild Rager archetype.)
6- Sovereign Blade (Samurai) (Legacy of Dragons)
There's once again an ability that goes from scaling to not-scaling.
It's not bad for TWFs who'll be using winged boots for movement rather than mounts. If you're neutral-good alignment, cashiering the mount for an untyped +2 save versus all lawful/chaotic/evil spells is a gimme. You may not encounter them often, but look at all the feats and money you'll be saving by not even having to think about taking care of a sidekick.
Golden Armor is a worthless trap to burn Resolve (so you wouldn't use it), but it replaces something almost as useless (unless you're an archer), so you'll barely notice.
Losing a sporadic feat every six levels for Sovereign Breath is probably a weak deal, but I dunno. If you can, even once over the entire lifespan of your character, completely and utterly demolish a hoity-toity BBEG's precious collection of antique porcelain vases with a single standard action, it might be worth it.
4- Blade Adept (Arcanist) (Advanced Class Guide)
Ok, here's a fundamental rule here: you do NOT give a spellcaster some martial abitilies WITHOUT changing the BAB. It doesn't receive an exploit that allow him/her to treat her spellcaster level as her actual BAB for a short period.The Blade adept is definitely niche, but it's one of the best entrants for Eldritch Knight (since your black blade can scale with CL instead of arcanist level).This.
Inspired blade swashbuckler 1/blade adept arcanist 6/eldritch knight can (after taking Spellstrike at swashbuckler 1/arcanist 5) give a character with much of the benefit of a magus (no Spell Combat), but with full 9/9 spell progression and Dex to damage at 1st level (with the Fencing Grace feat).
Or you could concentrate on reach Spellstrike: fighter 1/blade arcanist 6/eldritch knight with the Whip Mastery feats and a whip as the character's "black blade." A whip meets the "one-handed piercing or slashing melee weapon" requirement of the Sword Bond archetype feature (regardless of the name).
A similar argument can be made for the sword binder wizard, although they may benefit from taking a few more levels in wizard (8 or even 10), instead of trying to get as many eldritch knight levels as fast as possible, to pick up the ability to deliver a touch spell at range on top of a normal attack with Sword of the Mage and possibly the Telekinetic Sword ability.
Guys, you're not supposed to resort to multiclassing or even PrCs in order to make an archetype viable.
If you do, that just shows that the archetype is worthless on its own, when it shouldn't be the case for any archetype.
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Also, free raise dead/resurrection ever 25 hours starting at 11th level is wicked.
Paladins get that for 2 feats.
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I'm going to have to disagree. Archetypes should fill specific concepts without obsolescing the base class, and "multiclass/PrC entrant" is a reasonable concept to be supported. It has a use, just not a standard one. Considering there are archetypes with no practical use, multiclass or otherwise, I'd hardly put something like Blade Adept int the Worst category.Guys, you're not supposed to resort to multiclassing or even PrCs in order to make an archetype viable.
If you do, that just shows that the archetype is worthless on its own, when it shouldn't be the case for any archetype.
A good argument for this is the fighter aldori archetype into the prc.
However, the concept that they should fill a specific concept without obsoleting base class i'm not sure I agree with. Rogue andMonk all fit on a scale where the base class is weak enough compared to other core classes that any archetype with decently good options is going to outshine a core version mechanically. On a field where the classes have more parity its a great ideal, but designing like that as the game stands right now is just going to create more unused archetypes, which translates into a greater risk of unpurchased books.
Edit: Removed fighter because AWT and AAT are things.
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Guys, you're not supposed to resort to multiclassing or even PrCs in order to make an archetype viable.
I mean, if we could include archetypes useful as dips, the siege mage is essentially "give up a BAB to get the Siege Engineer feat" which, if you wanted that feat (because "proficiency with a siege weapon" itself is normally an EWP), but had no interest in being a wizard, isn't terrible.
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Here is an idea for making the Blade Adept Arcanist good with just VMC Magus and a 1 level dip in Bloodrager, and no Eldritch Knight levels at all (also added some more ideas in a few following posts). Also, some introduction to how this works, a few posts up.
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the paladin one, empereal knight iitc, drops divine grace to auto learn celestial.
divine grace is far more useful taht the a bility to speak celestial for free
Overall it's a weak archetype, but looking at one of the feature swaps in isolation is a mistake. If the only feature you looked at was the empyreal knight's divine bond you'd think it a straight upgrade:
(Su): At 5th level, an empyreal knight forms a bond with a mount, as the standard paladin ability. Her mount gains the celestial template at 8th level. At 12th level, her mount sprouts wings if it cannot already fly, and gains a fly speed of twice its land speed and good maneuverability. If the mount could already fly, its fly speed and maneuverability improve to at least this level. This ability otherwise functions as the paladin ability of the same name.
Also, free raise dead/resurrection ever 25 hours starting at 11th level is wicked.Paladins get that for 2 feats.
At best a Paladin can use that feat one level earlier. Seriously, compared to a vanilla Monk, Healing Hand's Ki Sacrifice ability skyrockets the monk's usefulness, thus making the archetype an upgrade - no matter how much better other archetypes are.
But then you have a paladin, rather than a core monk.
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Do we gauge archetypes by the overall power level of the character? In that case the entire list will consist of nothing but monk and fighter archetypes. Do we evaluate archetypes by how they compare to the class's other archetypes? In that case the entire list will consist of nothing but Sorc and Wizard archetypes because because Pact Wizard and Razmiran Priest make everything look crap in comparison.
Or do we evaluate archetypes by comparing them to the base class? In that case Monk of the Healing Hand is not a bad archetype because it's, crappy as it is in practice, still an upgrade.
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I think the most interesting question is to look at every class in isolation, measuring its own archetypes against each other. Otherwise, Razmiran Priest is pretty much the only possible answer. Even Pact Wizard is only a distant second, in my view.
Developer
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Magical Child is pretty terrible, but having any kind of spellcasting automatically makes you not terrible. And it can get the highest diplomacy legal for PFS at level 1! I've seen White-Haired Witch listed here too and will humbly disagree. Being able to constrict is really good. It's a niche, boring and, at times, aggrevating class to have at a table. But it is far from under-powered.
Gray Paladin is just terrible.
Empyreal Knight wins some kind of award for losing Divine Grace in order to gain the ability to speak and read Celestial...
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Empyreal Knight wins some kind of award for losing Divine Grace in order to gain the ability to speak and read Celestial...
Empyreal Knight was almost a good archetype, but his Summon Monster ability comes with a reduced progression and doesn't get the extended duration that other comparable archetypes do. This is inexplicable in light of his restricted list and other archetypes with much more favorable trades for this ability. If he got the same treatment as Monster Tactician Inquisitor or Occultist Arcanist he'd have been perfectly fine in spite of the loss of Divine Grace.
With that said, I did once happen upon an extremely niche situation where the Empyreal Knight works quite well: 20th level with no 6/9 level casters allowed. It's probably a situation that you'll only see in one in a thousand games, but in that rare circumstance the Empyreal Knight really does have an appealing niche.
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At first level its oozemorph now I do believe. for later levels I'm still going to have to go with brute vigilante.
The oozemorph is not very useful at low levels but it is not actively attacking your own party. For the oozemorph worst case scenario is your party carries you in a bucket until you use your limited transformation abilities for a fight or two per day. Not super heroic but for a fight or two early on not actively detrimental to your party.
Having a chance to team party kill any time somethings jumps out at you seems a lot worse.
I disagree with the idea of separating them from the classes as a whle. Siege mage and Gun mage both hammer the wizard class, but at the end of the day, those classes still have 9 level casting off the most powerful list in the game.
[...]
That's the way to compile a list of "Worst [Class + Archetype]"
Anyway, I agree that can be multiple ways to look at what Worst Archetype can be seen and evaluated.
I look for example at archetypes as clothing: even the nicest/prettiest woman wearing a shitty/very extravagant/out-of-contest dress, cannot save that piece of clothing by being bad. The lady would still be wonderful. Dress would be bad and not recommended to wear.
As a personal note, the monk of healing hand capstone is wonderful for story purposes, while Siege Mage is not by far that memorable.
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I feel like "Worst Archetype" should have several criteria-
- A clear downgrade from the class it is based on.
- Does not mechanically fulfill the fantasy the archetype posits.
- Not functional, useful, or fun absent the previous considerations.
So the Brute is the clear winner here, I would say.
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Empyreal Knight - It trades Divine Grace for literally 1 point in Linguistics.
You can't just look at one "trade" since the archetype is the entire package.
Like just pretend Celestial Heart says it replaces mercies AND divine grace and then the celestial is just a free perk. done, now there's no more "divine grace for 1 rank" complaints.
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How does Wild Rager compare to Brute?
Best multiclass ever?
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The antipaladin’s fearmonger archetype is embarrassingly written. It’s supposed to give the antipaladin a unique cruelty whenever they use touch of corruption... but the previous ability, feed on fear, replace touch of corruption, preventing you from using cruelties in the first place. What makes it worse is that feed on fear would have had amazing synergy with the new cruelties had it actually worked!
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I would still complain about it as losing divine grace is not a good trade off for anything
As with everything, there's a good exception in the Tortured Crusader. When you're wisdom-based and have fast will save progression, you don't really care so much about divine grace.
...especially if you're a Dwarf, which this archetype was made for.
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Yeah, there really ought to be more dwarf-friendly Paladin archetypes, since the whole "Indomitable martial leader" type that the Paladin represents is so very Dwarfy.
Shame that the Tortured Crusader is such a selfish archetype, since otherwise it'd be perfect. Like give me the Wis-based paladin that can lay hands on others and share auras, please.
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Oozemorph Shifter and Brute Vigilante definitely steal the top spots, probably tied for absolute worst. Oozemorph is literally unplayable as your base form is entirely undefined, whereas Brute is technically playable, but is actively a detriment to the party.
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Geisha is iffy. There are a lot of unanswered rules questions (so expect table variance) concerning the archetype, but how about this as a thought experiment: How would you rate the Geisha assuming optimal rulings? Optimal rulings would include:
1. Tea Ceremony can affect targets at any range.
2. Tea Ceremony allows access to inspire courage, inspire competence, inspire greatness, or inspire heroics at level 1 and can bypass the limited number of creatures imposed by in inspire greatness/heroics.
3. Geishas can use other performances in combination with Tea Ceremony (i.e. grant the party Inspire Heroics via Tea Ceremony and then, while traveling with the party, use the core performance option for Inspire Courage).
To be honest, even with all that, I'd still say Geisha is middle of the road, though good in certain niche circumstances. It would still be very limited per day to the round expenditure costs. The optional double stacking of performances would be cool, I am not convinced of how practical it would be. That said, I'd like to have a Geisha as a NPC buddy that I had a telepathic connection to though.
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A geisha would have to be quite a level to effectively use tea ceremony AND normal bardic performances on a few people.
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A geisha would have to be quite a level to effectively use tea ceremony AND normal bardic performances on a few people.
It's like the entire feat build would be Extra Performance.
Yeah.
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Even if we ignore Tea Ceremony completely and pretend it does nothing, the Geisha is still a passable archetype. You lose weapon proficiency, you trade Bardic Knowledge for a similar ability that offers a better list of skills, and you get Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat. That's not a terrible trade.
There are a lot of problems and ambiguity with Tea Ceremony, but even if you never use it this archetype is still nowhere near the bottom even of the bard archetypes.
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Geisha is iffy. There are a lot of unanswered rules questions (so expect table variance) concerning the archetype, but how about this as a thought experiment: How would you rate the Geisha assuming optimal rulings? Optimal rulings would include:
1. Tea Ceremony can affect targets at any range.
2. Tea Ceremony allows access to inspire courage, inspire competence, inspire greatness, or inspire heroics at level 1 and can bypass the limited number of creatures imposed by in inspire greatness/heroics.
3. Geishas can use other performances in combination with Tea Ceremony (i.e. grant the party Inspire Heroics via Tea Ceremony and then, while traveling with the party, use the core performance option for Inspire Courage).To be honest, even with all that, I'd still say Geisha is middle of the road, though good in certain niche circumstances. It would still be very limited per day to the round expenditure costs. The optional double stacking of performances would be cool, I am not convinced of how practical it would be. That said, I'd like to have a Geisha as a NPC buddy that I had a telepathic connection to though.
To expand upon the link I posted way above(*), you could use it in combination with Life Oracle and Hedge Witch and a means of getting Fast Healing to be able to support your party without ever having to be in combat. Now, as originally specified, this was Hedge Witch Doctor stacked with pre-Errata Scarred Witch Doctor, and pre-Errata Verminous Hunter. Both of these options have been nerfed to death (although more conventional Half-Orc Scarred Witch Doctors have been made insanely powerful, for this build you end up being too MAD unless you have high point buy), so some alternatives are needed.
(*)Thread Necromancy welcome. Also see this spinoff thread.
Now, a warning on the Geisha archetype: On reading it again, I am beginning to suspect that the Tea Ceremony is only supposed to enable you to grant extended higher-level Bardic Performances when you get to be high enough level to have these Bardic Performances. So the entire thread I linked, and some of the favorable thoughts on this archetype here, may be predicated upon an excessively favorable reading of sloppy writing of the archetype.
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^Replacing Smite Evil with a single Smiting Shot per Grit point is pretty harsh, and losing Medium and Heavy Armor Proficiency hurts, and it takes forever to get really going on the Grit front, but at least it doesn't trade out or impair Divine Grace/Divine Health, Lay On Hands/Mercies/Channel Energy, or the various protective Auras, so I'd say that overall it comes out ahead of Gray Paladin.
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I am going to throw dragon blood chymist (alchemist) out there.
Not because its trade offs break it, or its mechanics are don't work... no, those... I could at least say that the person that wrote those kinds of archetypes had an idea, and just didn't think about how it would play out in normal use (see: drake arhcetypes). You usually felt like they tried something, and just didn't do their homework.
But dragonblood chymist makes you feel like they only showed up to the class for the first time for the midterm. Because the key problem with it is that everything it offers can already be done by a normal alchemist... but the regular stuff does it better.
-it downgrades the mutagen in order to give you claws/bite. It auto progresses to the higher level mutagens. It eats up exactly the same amount of mutagens as feral mutagen and the two mutagen upgrade discoveries. It has smaller damage dice than feral mutagen.
-it trades throw anything for a breath weapon version of bombs. There is already a bomb discovery that does that (sure, that is level 6, and the archetype does level 1... but the archetype FORCES every single bomb to be a breath weapon).
-draconic resistances- trades poison stuff for bonuses, and then immunity, to sleep/paralysis. The thing is- you only get immunity at level 10. That is the level where you can take mummification which does the same thing. This isn't quite as insulting- you get early bonuses, and it is only the poison stuff (which is often archetype fodder).
So overall, you just trade away a ton of power to do things you could do already... and you only get to have the flavor of 'ooohhh dragon thing'
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As written, your bite/claw/claw also are secondary attacks if you somehow get another natural attack because once again a writer thought it was a good idea to repeat what's said in the natural attack rules, but then completely screws up.
While we're on the topic of completely screwing up, on literally the same page starts the most mind-boggling fighter archetype, Dragonheir Scion.
It's probably the worst written archetype in the game. Not only does it grant Arcane Strike without a caster level to progress it, it grants class feature in exchange for "the bonus feat gained at 3rd level"/"the bonus feat gained at 5th level". Like, what the hell, Paizo? Can't you hire writers who've actually played the game?
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The Wildsoul vigilante archetype. I was so incredibly excited to see an archetype that would let me play a Spider-man character. Then I read the archetype... true Web swinging at Level 18, wow sign me up!!! I mean, its only a terribly limited crap version of flight, which casters get at 5-6th level.