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I think it may be a bit of an overreaction to pathfinder where you absolutely HAD to take an archetype for mechanical advantage rather than for the flavor.
I think they're aware they overdid it a little, especially for non soldiers.
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Just give your players the choice between the archetype feature or the class feature for each of them. That way, archetyped characters won't be far better than non-archetyped ones.
In addition to seems like a bit much, and again, leads to mandatory archetypes.
Superbidi's suggestion seems like a good one. It would still be mandatory but you wouldn't be all in. Although I'm a little worried that some archetype are/will be balanced by trading out spectacular things for craptacular things now for doing the reverse later.
Giving everyone archetypes for free verges on the power of Gestalt games. That means it's well within manageable territory, you just need to know the tricks GMs use for those games and be prepared to put them in your game.
I agree that archetypes are really restrictive in this system, and it's bizarrely divergent in usefulness between classes. You can make them work, but it's unsatisfying.
I would investigate chopping archetypes up into feat chains, personally. At least then you could pay a resource to get some of their stuff piecemeal. Sort of like PF2e
In addition to seems like a bit much, and again, leads to mandatory archetypes.I mean, yes, they'd literally be mandatory in that system; selecting an archetype would become a part of the character creation process as an element of further customization. But in that scenario that's not any more of a problem than, say, feats being mandatory.
Except it is more of a problem simply because an Archetype (especially as designed in Starfinder) means so much more than a feat does. An individual feat rarely means that much in terms of build or story, and having the several that we do means you can piece them together to make whatever character you're after. In contrast, an Archetype has a fair bit more meat to it. There's a lot of mechanical impact, (the weakness, perceived or real being subjective, of which of course is part of the issue a lot of people have with them right now,) which needs to be considered, and then there's also usually a fairly large chunk of flavor impact too. And for some (possibly even most) characters, well, there's just not an archetype out there that actually matches the flavor of the character. And shy of releasing a book with several frankly extremely bland archetype options for no other purpose than to specifically be applicable to basically anything (and possibly not even then,) there's really not much chance there could be a guarantee that every character will have an archetype that fits it.
And on top of that, there's just the matter that archetypes require much more design space to write than a feat. Feats don't take up a whole lot of space in a book, you can generally get multiple on a page even, while archetypes are generally going to take up at least one, probably multiple pages. And because feats are such small-scale items they usually don't require too much cross-comparison (outside of balance considerations we of course hope are happening, whereas because of the inherent lore to archetypes they require a lot more consideration, both just in creating the lore and then double-checking it doesn't intersect too much with another existing archetype. But at the same time, with archetypes divorced from class you have to keep that consideration in mind so that archetypes don't clash too much with class (or get rendered completely useless by a class, either is bad) so you have to design around that too... basically it's all just a very involved process.
I'd argue that most archetypes aren't weaker, just more specialized. That lack of versatility makes them seem weaker, because if they aren't in their element, a lot of their effectiveness drops off as a result.
The base classes, sans archetypes, seem much better not because of higher numbers necessarily, but because their abilities often remain useful in more varied situations.
I have three SFS characters with Archetypes.
Nuar Technomancer Steward Officer 6 (703): Uses the extra Class Skills to considerable effect; Diplomacy and Culture are heavily represented in SFS scenarios. The bonus feats of Improved Unarmed Strike and Improved Combat Maneuver (Disarm) lean into his Natural Weapons and Junksword configuration, respectively. He loses a spell known of his highest level and his 2nd level Magic Hack; the spell known wasn't bad because he specializes in the Junksword and uses his 2nd level slots mostly for Empower Weapon. Losing the Magic Hack hurt because it delayed the Empower Weapon strategy until 5th level. Overall, I like the combo because it is an unusual melee technomancer build and it helps me focus in the areas that I want to be good at, rather than trying to be a typical ranged blaster.
Half-Orc Solarian Star Knight (Hellknight Order of the Pike) 1 (706): Obviously I don't have the archetype yet, but I'll pick it up after the next adventure. Losing the first three Stellar Revelations will hurt, to be sure, but in exchange I'll get Heavy Armor proficiency (which I could of course take a feat for, but I wanted to take Weapon Focus at 1st level instead), the ability to use an improved Demoralize as part of a move/attack full action at 4th level, and, the key trait, Reach on my Stellar Weapon at 6th level, something that is hard to get outside of a large race with innate Reach. I really had to think about this combo, because not having Stellar Rush hurts a Solarian's mobility quite a lot, but I decided that it was worth it to have big Demoralize numbers and 2d6+1d4+16 Solarian weapon damage with Reach. Overall, time will tell on this one, but I think it will be fine; as fun as the Revelations are, other than Stellar Rush I feel like they are largely just gimmicks that don't have an out-sized effect on combat. To my knowledge, being a Solarian is about smashing things until you can explode, and this guy will do that just fine.
SRO Augmented Shock & Awe Soldier 2 (707): Another Intimidate machine (this time literally), this is also the easiest to integrate an Archetype into. Augmented will get me an extra Throat slot and cheap upgrades in that slot (for Vampire Voice and Dragon Gland (my free SRO augmentation is also Throat-based; the Voice Amplifier, whose Intimidate bonus stacks with Vampire Voice), extra charges for my heavy weapons when I spend resolve, lowered Resolve costs for stabilizing later in my career, and some cool bonuses based on my Personal Augmentations. Aside from a late game delay in getting my 2nd style specialization, all I lose from Soldier is Combat Feats. The main thing is being able to use throat augments both for the 5th level Shock & Awe bonus Demoralize action and still have Dragon Gland for flavor (he's a dragon robot).
Overall, while I have tried to focus my characters such that the archetypes won't hurt too much, the main reason I took them is for flavor. I know that some GMs ( @Hmm I'm looking at you) look very favorably on having Archetypes when it comes to dealing with the attached organizations; my technomancer has been able to get bonuses to checks with other Steward Officers, for example, because I went through the trouble of leveling with the Steward Officer archetype. I also saw Starfinder Forerunner be used to great effect last Skalcon when the scenario happened to lean into the specialization (hey Alastair!).
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I don't like the archetypes at all. They seem blaise to me. I don't think I can take an archetype and enjoy taking it.
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My initial thoughts on them were mostly just something that was there, but didn't entice me enough to come up with a character for them. I just didn't like their themes well enough, but beyond that, I didn't care much for them.
But, after going back to pathfinder for a long while now and spreading my net of options with Archetypes. I've been slowly going through types so of characters you can do and so far I used: Core Classes, Hybrid classes, alternate classes and now I'm creating characters with Archetypes and after digging for fun stuff (Hello warrior poet samurai!) and interesting ideas, I came to the realization that Starfinder's archetypes (even the new ones) aren't exciting at all, they don't offer fun new things to do that are actually exciting to use, just some minor and very conditional bonuses. To me, and that's just my opinion, is that they offer a vision but when you're looking at the execution of this vision for your character it just comes off as lacking.
I certainly hope that this new trend of all-class archetypes either stops or is significantly reduced, so that the focus on class archetypes can come back. I certainly want to see what variations of Solarian, Mystics, Envoys and Operatives look like. There will definitely be concepts that require much more than just a class-path and I'm certainly hopeful that we get to see some new and exciting stuff for the classes.
I don't want straight up better versions of the base class, I want things like Archaeologist Bard, Warrior Poet, Urban Barbarian (played and liked it), Mutation Warrior, Zen Archer, Divine Hunter Paladin, Dervish Dancer. All of them great in their own way and not an straight upgrade like "Invulnerable Rager".
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I don't want straight up better versions of the base class, I want things like Archaeologist Bard, Warrior Poet, Urban Barbarian (played and liked it), Mutation Warrior, Zen Archer, Divine Hunter Paladin, Dervish Dancer. All of them great in their own way and not an straight upgrade like "Invulnerable Rager".
Archaeologist Bard -> Xenoarchaeologist or Xenoseeker theme envoy with the Pathfinder Forerunner archetype?
Warrior Poet -> envoy with a soldier dip or the Star Knight archetype?
Urban Barbarian -> considering that Starfinder lacks a rage mechanic, you probably won't have a close match; solarian (or vanguard) fills a similar design space.
Mutation Warrior -> Cyberborn theme soldier with the Augmented archetype (permanent implants instead of temporary mutations); SRO or verthani are probably the most optimal races for packing in as many augmentations as possible.
Zen Archer -> soldier (Arcane Assailant, Hit-and-Run, Sharpshoot, or Shock and Awe fighting style depending on the character's focus); the Tempered Pilgrim theme might be a good match for the "Zen" mindset, but the Dream Prophet, Priest, or Solar Disciple themes may also be appropriate; possibly with the Arcanamirium Sage or Phrenic Adept (for a "psychic" feel) archetype.
Dervish Dancer -> soldier with Hit-and-Run fighting style is probably closest to the concept.
Note that several concepts in Starfinder don't require an archetype. Some concepts are captured in themes or class options, rather than archetypes.
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Definitely agree that the all class archetype thing is hurting things. If you make the archetype to be balanced for the class where it's the best trade it's going to be sub optimal to terribad on a class where it's a bad trade. What makes it worse is a lot of starfinder classes have a meh ability that's a requirement for a really good one (like get em to improved get em) , so you're not just waiting 2 levels for an ability to kick in you're waiting most of your career.
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I don't want straight up better versions of the base class, I want things like Archaeologist Bard, Warrior Poet, Urban Barbarian (played and liked it), Mutation Warrior, Zen Archer, Divine Hunter Paladin, Dervish Dancer. All of them great in their own way and not an straight upgrade like "Invulnerable Rager".Archaeologist Bard -> Xenoarchaeologist or Xenoseeker theme envoy with the Pathfinder Forerunner archetype?
Warrior Poet -> envoy with a soldier dip or the Star Knight archetype?
Urban Barbarian -> considering that Starfinder lacks a rage mechanic, you probably won't have a close match; solarian (or vanguard) fills a similar design space.
Mutation Warrior -> Cyberborn theme soldier with the Augmented archetype (permanent implants instead of temporary mutations); SRO or verthani are probably the most optimal races for packing in as many augmentations as possible.
Zen Archer -> soldier (Arcane Assailant, Hit-and-Run, Sharpshoot, or Shock and Awe fighting style depending on the character's focus); the Tempered Pilgrim theme might be a good match for the "Zen" mindset, but the Dream Prophet, Priest, or Solar Disciple themes may also be appropriate; possibly with the Arcanamirium Sage or Phrenic Adept (for a "psychic" feel) archetype.
Dervish Dancer -> soldier with Hit-and-Run fighting style is probably closest to the concept.
Note that several concepts in Starfinder don't require an archetype. Some concepts are captured in themes or class options, rather than archetypes.
Literally, and I mean literally, none of the archetypes released so far even came close to make me excited to play them and create a build for them. Let alone create a character.
Also, you completely missed my point. I don't want to replicate these characters in Starfinder. I want archetypes that offer interesting changes and flavor, some of those I mentioned are strong, others aren't as much. But all of these caught my interest because they change the main class in a interesting way, it's a trade-off not a trade-up (like Invulnerable Rager and other similar archetypes).
Current archetypes are simply not for me and as long as they remain like that, I will probably never try them out at all. And I wish future material goes back to releasing class specific archetypes.
I've made over 40 Starfinder characters since the game's release.
Four of them have archetypes.
I love theorycrafting character concepts, and I've helped build 9 characters that saw play as well as dozens of concepts for fun. I've not selected an archetype for any of them, except for NPCs.
I like the archetype system of Starfinder. It isn't as good as the system for Pathfinder 2, but it is still really good.
But it isn't the same as the archetype system for Pathfinder 1. I think it fills a different role.
What I see the archetype system as is a way of creating hybrid classes. Like the Warpriest, Skald, or Hunter classes in the Advanced Class Guide. Only now we can do it with any of the core or additional classes available.
For example, the Divine Champion archetype lets you make a part Paladin hybrid out of any of the core classes. Soldier would make a combat focused Paladin, while Mystic would make more of a spellcasting Paladin.
But yes, the Mystic/Divine Champion is going to be less of a Mystic than just a straight Mystic would be. Just like a Skald is going to be less of a Barbarian than a Barbarian would be (Skald only gets 3/4 BAB for starters).
Except it is more of a problem simply because an Archetype (especially as designed in Starfinder) means so much more than a feat does.In addition to seems like a bit much, and again, leads to mandatory archetypes.I mean, yes, they'd literally be mandatory in that system; selecting an archetype would become a part of the character creation process as an element of further customization. But in that scenario that's not any more of a problem than, say, feats being mandatory.While that's a true statement, it's not particularly relevant as the comparison I'm making there is to "feats", not "a feat" - which is to say, I'm comparing archetypes to the set of all feats a character takes in ordinary progression.
And in any case, the point of that statement is "being mandatory in this situation isn't a problem, but a designed and intentional outcome" - what I'm saying is that if you made it "optional" to take feats, whether or not to take feats wouldn't be a real choice either. In the system I'm proposing there, it moves from "you may choose an archetype" to "everyone chooses an archetype". I'm increasingly considering just writing such a system out next week (entirely too busy writing some important stuff this week), and I'm partially looking for what to watch out for in doing so.
The thing is, it being mandatory still creates a problem that feats being mandatory doesn't, especially because feats are several small decisions while archetype is one big decision, which is that it severely limits what character concepts are usable based entirely on which ones can fit with an existing archetype. Even if you completely extract it from class mechanics, most archetypes have a sizable chunk of flavor built into them that is much harder to ignore.
And if I'm reading it correctly, there's no way to start out as having an archetype, but then abandon that path later - you cannot, for example, stop training as a Star Knight after 4th level.
Only by multiclassing, since the archetype is stuck to a class, not your overall character level.
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I find them incredibly underwhelming and had to really force myself to make a character concept that could make use of any of them.
And even then, so many of the classes feel like you're missing out on so much of what makes that class 'that class' with magic hacks, operative tricks, improvs, etc going away, that you feel so much like a gutting your character in order to get some rather lame-by-comparison abilities that often times aren't very interesting.
Solider is one of the few classes that can feel fine applying an archetype to, since they don't lose hardly any of their flavor (which is just being good at shooting/hitting things), since they can do that just dandy without the tons of extra feats they give up when applying an archetype.
If archetypes had some more 'oomph' to them, gave me more of a reason to pick them, I can definitely see them. But even if they were notably more powerful than they are now, they certainly seem like a harsh penalty when applying them to most classes. And I just don't like it.
Archetypes in Starfinder are generally for flavor, rather than mechanical advantage.
They're a lot more like Prestige classes from Pathfinder, than archetypes in that regard.
I think eventually starfinder likely will wind up with more class specific type archetype options. I think early on they wanted to make sure that their archetypes could be used by any class simply so they could get as much content out for people as possible to use if they wanted.
Pact worlds archetypes have some better options that started adjusting the level you gain powers a bit more to make them at least a bit more appealing.
One issue though is even with this a lot of the archetype powers especially early on are just not as good as your class specific ability you are giving up for it. A lot of times you are losing a lot of mechanical power for minimal RP flavor gain.
Archetypes in Starfinder are generally for flavor, rather than mechanical advantage.
They're a lot more like Prestige classes from Pathfinder, than archetypes in that regard.
But what it overlooks is that the player can just add the flavor. If you want to be a steward, poof be a steward. Just have a character that could reasonably do it (bluff, intimidate, not a murderhobo etc) since they don't have any class features like calling in a favor or some kind of legal authority the class is only as good at being a steward as it's mechanics allows.
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Indeed, I wasn't commenting on the usefulness of an archetype that primarily just adds flavor with some mechanics that help reinforce that flavor.
Personally, I avoid the Starfinder achetypes like the plague and add in my own flavor and RP to make things be what I want.
I completely agree they're largely not worth it, except maybe on soldiers, and even then still not a great trade.
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Archetypes in Starfinder are generally for flavor, rather than mechanical advantage.
They're a lot more like Prestige classes from Pathfinder, than archetypes in that regard.
But what it overlooks is that the player can just add the flavor. If you want to be a steward, poof be a steward. Just have a character that could reasonably do it (bluff, intimidate, not a murderhobo etc) since they don't have any class features like calling in a favor or some kind of legal authority the class is only as good at being a steward as it's mechanics allows.
That was exactly what I did with my Human Envoy. A part of his story was being an former Steward, because he got inspired by the way they handled things with violence only as a last resort. Of course, this only translated as mechanical benefit a couple of times (once when they arrived and I used the justified knowledge my character would have about their procedure and how to deal with the situation at hand and managed to save the party a lot of trouble with the authorities), which is pretty much the same amount of instances in a "normal" campaign that you would get the same benefit for having the actual Steward archetypes and therefore officially belonging to the faction.
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While I understand the negative sentiment toward archetypes, in the end it is pretty meh to me. My last 2 SFS characters have archetypes (Arcanamarium Sage Technomancer and Steward Infiltrator Operative). I have definitely missed some of the basic class options for what I got, but meh. The characters perform just fine. If anything, I have more buy in because they have such strong flavor.
Yes they are less powerful, but I have yet to find that as a big deal in Starfinder. So I think they are good as is.
What I'd like to see archetype-wise is to have each class have a version of an archetype. So a mystic can be a soldier archetype mystic or something like that.
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Archetypes have one big flaw which can't be removed:
- Soldier asks for a few feats to get an archetype in. Feats are part of the Soldier, but not much of it. And you can get feats in the normal way.
- Envoy loses Improvisations. Improvisations are all the class gives you, and there is no way to get them out of the Envoy class features.
So, currently, for one class you don't lose much for another one you lose everything.
It would have been balanced if Soldiers were losing their fighting styles instead of feats. Or if Envoys could give up normal progression feats for Archetype features (actually, thinking about it, that would be awesome, trading feats instead of replaced features).
Yeah, I would prefer archetypes if they said 'you lose a class feature or a feat, and gain this feature at the appropriate level.' Archetype ability gained early for a class feature, gained late for the feat.
Archetypes have one big flaw which can't be removed:
- Soldier asks for a few feats to get an archetype in. Feats are part of the Soldier, but not much of it. And you can get feats in the normal way.
- Envoy loses Improvisations. Improvisations are all the class gives you, and there is no way to get them out of the Envoy class features.So, currently, for one class you don't lose much for another one you lose everything.
And then there's Mystics. The Mystic trade-outs are a bit of a mess, and IMO a bit larger of a loss than pretty much any other class has, making them horrible for taking archetypes.
And then there's Mystics. The Mystic trade-outs are a bit of a mess, and IMO a bit larger of a loss than pretty much any other class has, making them horrible for taking archetypes.
I tend to disagree. Losing your 2nd, 4th and 6th level Improvisations for an Envoy is basically killing it completely before high levels. Roughly, you start playing at level 8, and become efficient at level 12.
For the Mystic, the 4th and 9th level replacement are free (Connections Spells are bad for most of them and Healing Touch is even worse). The Connection Powers really depend on your Connection. You are trading your Connection for your Archetype, which seems to be a fair trade to me.The 2nd level one is hard. You'll need to play around it.
The Connection Skills malus is also very bad.
So, only 2 of them are really annoying, and it's not that hard to find an Archetype not modifying both of them (at least).
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It seems English is not your primary language, and I'm having some trouble interpreting what you're trying to say. I don't say this to discourage you from posting, only to say that if people do not respond it may be due to difficulty in understanding.
Is anyone able to better parse what this poster is saying?
It doesn't seem like it's about the topic of archetypes but I'm not sure.
It seems English is not your primary language, and I'm having some trouble interpreting what you're trying to say. I don't say this to discourage you from posting, only to say that if people do not respond it may be due to difficulty in understanding.
Is anyone able to better parse what this poster is saying?
It doesn't seem like it's about the topic of archetypes but I'm not sure.
It appears to be a spambot, flag it and move on.
And then there's Mystics. The Mystic trade-outs are a bit of a mess, and IMO a bit larger of a loss than pretty much any other class has, making them horrible for taking archetypes.Archetypes have one big flaw which can't be removed:
- Soldier asks for a few feats to get an archetype in. Feats are part of the Soldier, but not much of it. And you can get feats in the normal way.
- Envoy loses Improvisations. Improvisations are all the class gives you, and there is no way to get them out of the Envoy class features.So, currently, for one class you don't lose much for another one you lose everything.
So many connections have bad high level connection powers that the 18th level swap out is usually not very painful and the 6th level delay can be tolerable. 9th level is easy to dump connection healing, the 4th level connection spell is pretty easy to lose on a few connections, and so only the 2nd level spell known loss is all bad, and that one can be mitigated if you go Arcanium Sage, the best archetype.l