Prowler at World's End Bloodrager Archetype Questions

[Milkshaketeer]

1.) Does one have to be catfolk to take the archetype or is this an archetype made with catfolk in mind that any race can take?

2.) Do you gain the Spirit Bonus ability from the Medium?
The Prowler at World's End Bloodrager Archetype grants the Medium's Spirit and Spirit Surge abilities. The archetype does not mention the Spirit Bonus ability at all, just the Spirit Surge. Spirit Surge does not come into effect without the Spirit Bonus ability failing, so there is no point to receive Spirit Surge without Spirit Bonus.

3.) Do you gain the Shared Seance ability?
The Medium mentions shared seance in the Spirit class feature, though Shared Seance is a separate class feature that the Prowler archetype mentions nothing about. If a Prowler does not gain Shared Seance, then the text about sharing seances in the Spirit ability is for no effect and the fantastic Marshal Spirit Boon has no effect.

4.) Do you gain the Taboo ability?
The Prowler archetype provides a taboo but does not explicitly grant the Taboo ability (which is separate from the Spirit/Spirit Surge abilities). This appears to mean that the Prowler has no mechanical reason to care about the taboo when they do not get any harms or benefits from it.

5.) Is the Prowler at World's End archetype compatible with the Primalist archetype? For example, could a Prowler/Primalist at 4th level gain two first level rage powers instead of Destined Strike?

6.) Do Bloodrager levels count as Medium levels for the spirit powers? (I'm looking at the Trickster for this one.)

Thank you all in advance.

[InvisiblePink]

1. While the SRD doesn't list "being Catfolk" as a prerequisite to the archetype, I can't say for certain without the book in front of me. It's possible that a hard restriction exists but wasn't included in the body of the rules text.

2. RAW, no, and therefore the Spirit Surge ability is probably useless. You might be able to make an argument that the text of Spirit Bonus is partially redundant because spirits are individually defined as giving you a spirit bonus of unspecified amount anyway, and therefore you have a +0 spirit bonus to the relevant rolls even without that feature, letting you activate Spirit Surge on those rolls. This is probably RAI.

3. No, you do not gain Shared Seance. This one's pretty unambiguous.

4. Strict RAW here is muddy. RAI appears to be that the "Taboo" class feature allows you to choose a taboo, with the rest of the text dedicated to defining what a taboo does once you have it. Prowler forces a specific taboo on you, and since "taboo" is not defined anywhere else, we turn to the Medium class feature for a definition.

5. Yes, they are compatible, because Prowler does not say that it replaces or modifies the Bloodline class feature.

6. No. The archetype doesn't say your Bloodrager levels count as Medium levels, so they don't.

That said, Prowler isn't legal for PFS anyway, so I strongly suggest talking about this with your home table and reaching a consensus with them about how hard you want to lean on RAW. There are a lot of ambiguities and RAI/RAW collisions with this archetype.

[willuwontu]

5. They are not compatible.

FAQ wrote:

Archetype Stacking and Altering: What exactly counts as altering a class feature for the purpose of stacking archetypes?

In general, if a class feature grants multiple subfeatures, it’s OK to take two archetypes that only change two separate subfeatures. This includes two bard archetypes that alter or replace different bardic performances (even though bardic performance is technically a single class feature) or two fighter archetypes that replace the weapon training gained at different levels (sometimes referred to as “weapon training I, II, III, or IV”) even though those all fall under the class feature weapon training. However, if something alters the way the parent class feature works, such as a mime archetype that makes all bardic performances completely silent, with only visual components instead of auditory, you can’t take that archetype with an archetype that alters or replaces any of the sub-features. This even applies for something as small as adding 1 extra round of bardic performance each day, adding an additional bonus feat to the list of bonus feats you can select, or adding an additional class skill to the class. As always, individual GMs should feel free to houserule to allow small overlaps on a case by case basis, but the underlying rule exists due to the unpredictability of combining these changes.

Primalist alters bloodline, bloodline powers are a sub feature of bloodline, they don't combine.

Even if they are compatible (they aren't per the faq), primalist allows you to replace bloodline powers, and prowler has already altered those bloodline powers.

[InvisiblePink]

Oh! Thanks. I wasn't aware of that FAQ.

[Milkshaketeer]

6.) Bloodrager levels would count as Medium levels.

Thanks goes to avr for showing this link to me.

[avr]

Thanks are more due to ErichAD for working it out, I think.