Dedication Feats + Class Feats question of interaction

[Zwordsman]

Howdy.

So dedication feats. like the fighter and such. Do they grant your character the Trait of the dedicated class?
I.e. if i have fighter or rogue dedication, do I qualify as that class as well now?

Page 279, Archetypes. First 3 paragraphs of the section.
"Once you have the dedication feat, you can select any feat from that archetype in place of a class feat as long as you meet its prerequisites."
and
"MULTICLASS ARCHETYPES
Archetypes with the multiclass trait represent diversifying
your training into another class’s specialties. You can’t
select a multiclass archetype’s dedication feat if you are
a member of the class of the same name (for instance,instance, a
fighter can’t select the Fighter Dedication feat)."

Does this mean, once you have the first dedication feat, you gain the class trait? Which means I could spend Class Feats on base class, or for Dedicated Class?

I.e. I now count as an Alchemist, and a fighter. and in late game, I would count as an Alchemist, Fighter, Rogue. and could take feats from any of those classes I have the prereq for?
(i.e. I coudl take a feat from fighter that did not have a prereq of a fighter class ability. But I could take something with no prereq like Reactive shield)

Or. more likely. Does the term "archetype" ONLY refer to the Dedication Feat line and not the actual class itself. If so, it might be more efficient to clarify, as I'm not the one who came up with this, so there are a few people who haven't read it as restricted.

TLDR> Basically I'm trying to grasp if the term Archetype refers only to the dedication feats. Or. if they apply the class itself.

[Bardarok]

No you don't count as the other class. If you are an Alchemist you are always an Alchemist. You can take fighter dedication and then take other fighter multiclass feats. Those feats let you gain fighter class feats but you can never gain fighter feats directly it is always theough the archetype. So if you want reactive shield you take the fighter archetype feat basic maneuver.

If you have taken three total fighter archetype feats you can then take the rogue dedication and at that point you can take either alechemisg feats, fighter archetype feats, or rogue archetype feats.

[Shady Stranger]

^What he said^

[Zwordsman]

That is more or less what I thought. Except
now I need to ask.

what is the purpose of the multiclass tag?
Prestige class tag makes sense. as there can only be one.
Dedication tag limits the ability to take another dedication feat until you have 2 from the archetype line.
Archetype trait shows that they're from the dedication line.

So. what purpose does the multiclass tag mean?
Purely to say you can't be of the same class?
Wouldn't it have taken far less to not include

"MULTICLASS ARCHETYPES
Archetypes with the multiclass trait represent diversifying
your training into another class’s specialties. You can’t
select a multiclass archetype’s dedication feat if you are
a member of the class of the same name (for instance, a
fighter can’t select the Fighter Dedication feat)."

this whole block and instead have a short line saying
"You can not take the dedication feat, of the same type as your class."
Instead they put a whole paragraph section and several instances of multiclass.

The only other instance is an item, ring of wizardry, which could easily have just said "wizard dedication" instead of "wizard multiclass"

For what purpose?

I think that it would be of benefet for them to drop the multiclass tag, and just use Dedication tag instead of both. Multiclass tag heavily implies the idea that you, yourself, are multiple classes.

[Bardarok]

It's just organizational. General Archetypes are around a theme not represented by a core class. Multiclass archetpyes are for gaining the abilities of another core class. And prestigue archetpyes are related to an in fiction organization. Mechanically they all work the same with different prerequisites.

[Zwordsman]

That makes enough sense I suppose.

Thanks~