Gray Maidens are extremely powerful, right?

[perception check]

So, my group has been excitedly prepping for Return of the Runelords, and my wife expressed an interest in playing a Gray Maiden, as she likes the idea of and the lore behind them — an idea shot down immediately by our GM, who cited this blog post as proof-positive that the archetype is overpowered. More specifically, he quoted Mr. Mark Seifter’s comment that Gray Maidens have “the potential to be slightly too powerful”.

Full comment here:

Mark Seifter wrote:

I have my eye on it; when I designed the Gray Maiden prestige archetype, I was worried it had potential to be slightly too powerful while being subtly so, since much of its power is in things like proficiencies and endurance numbers rather than in more wahoo or obvious things. But I did want a chance to test a pretty high edge (without being obviously problematic) version of what a prestige archetype could do and see what happens. If it gets to be a must-take for characters across the spectrum of classes that want things like master Fortitude and legendary armor proficiency, we'll take note accordingly, whereas if it wasn't enticing, we might not get good data on how to improve it.

My question to you all is, in what way(s) are Gray Maidens overpowered, or even potentially so? The issues Mark mentioned specifically are, in the end, not terribly powerful: master fortitude is something most of the martials get anyway (paladin at L7 as an innate class feature, barbarian at L7 as an innate class feature, fighter at L10 after feating into it, monk at L7 if chosen over master reflex and master will); the legendary armor proficiency Gray Maidens can feat into at L18 is tied to Gray Maiden Plate, which is a remarkably bad choice over half-plate. Paladins, meanwhile, get [untethered] legendary armor proficiency a level earlier as, again, an innate class feature — not to mention, legendary proficiency is, in its quantified form, only a +1 over master proficiency anyway.

Of the seven archetype feats following the initial Gray Maiden dedication feat, three comprise the Gray Maiden Plate chain and can, again, be safely ignored. “Scars”, which gives slash resistance equal to con mod, and “Unbreakable”, which gives de facto toughness and diehard (and stacks with those feats), are worth pursuing, provided the Gray Maiden’s base class doesn’t offer something better in the class feat slots they would occupy. “Erinyes Blood” is both fun and interesting (Rage-lite with a potentially higher price), if not in the slightest bit overpowering. Similarly, “Scarlet Rose Devotion” is nice, but not at all overpowering.

As far as I can tell, the archetype offers, at best, increased survivability — but not even close to a game-breaking level thereof.

What is/are the angle(s) I’m missing?

[Secret Wizard]

Baseline for archetypes was very, very, very low.

They needed to bump it up to where Gray Maiden is.

[PossibleCabbage]

I think the only potentially borderline thing is "~5 slashing resistance for one feat" but I mostly agree. If you're a martial character who wants heavy armor, legendary proficiency is only an extra +1 and you almost assuredly have a dex of 12 or 14 anyway. If you're not a martial, how many feats are you willing to spend on armor proficiency anyway?