| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
From what Jason says in the interview you can find through linkception, it seems archetypes themselves have found a new space within the design of the game to function outside of the paradigm of creating packages that otherwise replaced 3.5's Alternate Class features, or Substitution levels. Over the course of PF1, when comparing archetypes to the editions before it it was often found that archetypes did for PF1 what Prestige Classes did for us in 3.5, and Prestige Classes found their way into a different niche.
From this design we got Hybrid Classes and PF1 Class Archetypes to ultimately replace one niche of the Prestige Classes that were meant to be amalgamations of two concepts (e.g. Eldritch Knight became the Magus, Duelist became the Swashbuckler) and Prestige Classes gained status as being something unique that took you in a different direction with different packages that were no longer meant to coalesce two classes into a singular idea that took multiple levels of multiclassing to achieve, sometimes making a character unplayable for a few levels until they reached 'maturity'. From this we got things like the Hellknight, and the Evangelist.
Now in PF2, it seems that archetypes are now a composite of these concepts, as packages you can take to expand your repertoire of feat selection and possibly more to attain some concept attributed to the archetype that otherwise isn't worthy of a full class write-up, or that could feasibly be applied to multiple classes, as you can find with the many PF1 archetypes that seek to merge two classes in ways beyond simply letting you have access to those features.
Given this information, we may see multiclassing go by the wayside and as many of the other mechanics of the game seem to be much more refined versions of the alternate rules in Pathfinder Unchained, multiclassing itself may be a single archetype that simply opens the door for one to access multiple chains of class feats to really hybridize the character you want, while keeping the design space open enough to also incorporate archetype packages that may add different abilities from a concept beyond combining class niches.
As to multiclassing itself, the devs have told us they want you to only have to learn how to make a character once, which means every character will more than likely advance off one table. We also know from the All About Spells blog that Mark has spoiled a particular mechanic in how the new "Spell Points" function with multiclassing in that they use the same base number and advance it in the same way that PF1 classes would stack levels for certain class features (the specific example being a ninja sharing its ki pool with the monk, but the player selects which attribute applies). We also know that the new 10th level spells must be accessed via a class feat, and that inspires me to speculate that in a similar fashion to how we saw the vigilante playtest play with the idea of using your scaling class options to attain newer levels of spells, we may see a similar mechanic in PF2 with full spellcasting, but not limited to the entirety of your classes functionality.
With this information, we may see classes like the Swashbuckler/Duelist, the Eldritch Knight/Magus, and many other newer classes come to existence in the new core book by virtue of having the potential to make them yourself. I imagine the depth and complexity of this system will inspire many of the free user guides to create their own skeletons on how to achieve such concepts and limit the need for new classes to those who function in completely different, and exciting ways that are not covered by this.
I don't agree, I wonder if PF2 will downgrade character customization.
Recently for fun, I build a flair-build Wizard, Evangelist, Collegiate Arcanist. You're average Gandalf. Powerful but no powergaming minmax buil, very flavorful.
At level 20 that would be about 14 classfeatures to turn a normal mage into a collegiate arcanist. Pure Evangelist would be maybe another 7 classfeatures. No Archetype so far, no pure Wizard stuff. So another 4 classfeatures. About 25 classfeatures? So besides that the CoreRulebook can't cover enough options and thats fine, thats not the point.
But will a character get that many features to spent/choose from? So far I'm aware of only 10 class feats, 10 proficiencies and 10 ancestry feats.
So how many feats
It's more about the size of the pool, rather than the number of feats.
Granted that pool needs to have quality options for its size to matter.
I feel like a broken record when I say it, but it needs to be said: the Magus is not and never was a replacement for the Eldritch Knight. It filled a niche that the EK was never any good at to begin with, and the types of builds that were effective with the EK prestige class simply couldn't be converted into a Magus because it didn't support the spells and weapons they did use. The EK was basically all about getting good BAB on a traditional 9-level arcane casting progression, but from everything we know so far the PF2 casters can do that just fine straight out of the box. In that sense, the EK will simply be subsumed into the Wizard and Sorcerer. The new three-action-per-turn standard is also extremely favorable to that style of play. So from where I'm standing, it looks like PF2 Wizard and Sorcerer with the right attribute and feat choices can do the Eldritch Knight better than the PF1 EK ever could. There's also hope that better multiclassing rules will mean that things like Mystic Theurge or Arcane Trickster will be able to function just as straight multiclass options without requiring the PRC to act as glue.
Which leads us to the problem in this discussion: we really don't know how multiclassing works in PF2 yet. We have some vague hints, and there's a lot of reason to suspect it works quite differently than in PF1, but as of yet it's hard to say what specifically that means. And without answering how multiclassing works, we can't even begin to talk about prestige classes. I am very curious and do hope to see a blog that gives us a complete look at the multiclassing system in the near future, but until then I just feel like we don't have enough to really discuss the matter without entering into wild conjecture.
So at this point, I'll just say what I want from multiclassing rules and archetypes: the ability to mix-and-match character options to create new and interesting combinations. Give me as many options as possible.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I really hope this isn't the path Paizo goes down when it comes to multiclassing, would mean you can't have characters which change their path mid-campaign anymore.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
it seems archetypes themselves have found a new space within the design of the game to function outside of the paradigm of creating packages that otherwise replaced 3.5's Alternate Class features, or Substitution levels.
That's really, really sad. I love the way archetypes neatly packaged 3.5e's alternate class features and I thought it was a great innovation that really allowed them to open up a wide array of options for all classes.
Over the course of PF1, when comparing archetypes to the editions before it it was often found that archetypes did for PF1 what Prestige Classes did for us in 3.5, and Prestige Classes found their way into a different niche.
A critical difference between an archetype and a prestige class is that an archetype could be taken at 1st level.
Given this information, we may see multiclassing go by the wayside and as many of the other mechanics of the game seem to be much more refined versions of the alternate rules in Pathfinder Unchained, multiclassing itself may be a single archetype that simply opens the door for one to access for one to access multiple chains of class feats to really hybridize the character you want, while keeping the design space open enough to also incorporate archetype packages that may add different abilities from a concept beyond combining class niches.
With the heavy emphasis on "lots of class feats for fighters", "simplicity" and "1 table to rule them all" I've been quite concerned that we were going to lose 3.5e multiclassing and get something akin to Variant Multiclassing where you essentially just take a different class's "class feat" and that's how you multiclass. This is a very D&D 4th edition approach to multiclassing (I'm sorry, but it actually is) and it always felt very shallow. One of the striking differences when I came to Pathfinder was how multiclassing made your character so different to a single classed character. I do get that frontloading classes with lots of proficiencies means that multiclassinfg can often be overpowered, and I'd be happy to find ways to get around that. But removing multiclassing altogether and relegating it to just "take a class feat from another class" is most definitely not what I or my group want in a Pathfinder game.
With this information, we may see classes like the Swashbuckler/Duelist, the Eldritch Knight/Magus, and many other newer classes come to existence in the new core book by virtue of having the potential to make them yourself. I imagine the depth and complexity of this system will inspire many of the free user guides to create their own skeletons on how to achieve such concepts and limit the need for new classes to those who function in completely different, and exciting ways that are not covered by this.
I'm all for giving classes enough flexibility that you can fold in more "archetypes"* into the core classes. That's a great goal and I definitely reckon they'll have done it. But it doesn't need to come with the cost of traditional multiclassing.
I don't agree, I wonder if PF2 will downgrade character customization.
Based on wanting to set the complexity dial down to 1 and the "depth" dial up to 100 I expect Paizo are banking on having "lots and lots of class feats" and "mutually exclusive powers that you have to choose between on a round to round basis" is going to provide the "depth". Problem is, when such options are balanced they actually feel very shallow and boring. The depth is only an illusion and once you really plunge into the ruleset you find the game is not just simple, but also bland and boring.
However I'm really hoping Paizo are planning to keep the 3.5e style multiclassing and I'm just reading into things that aren't there. Which is why I've been very careful to not speculate on multiclassing. Because I really hope I'm wrong.
* In the plain english sense and not the Pathfinder rules sense.
I do not like Starfinder archetypes, they are boring and don't allow much changes to classes since they have to work for everything. They would work much better as a Prestige Class. Replacing class feats with "Pirate" theme feats or what have you. Archetypes should be specific changes to a class.
Nature Fang druid plays fundamentally differently than a normal Druid. In a way that "replace Feat X with Feat Y" Starfinder Archetype simply cant.