Possibly they will let you spend general feats on better versions of things that you can already spend general feats on- like armor proficiency.
They did state in Archetypes that you could potentially swap Skill Feats, at least it's baked into the text with that, but General Feats were not mentioned.
If they did indeed allow the spending of General Feats inside of Archetypes, I would happily quit ranting, as that's effectively a solution that marries the cost issue I have with Class Feats while still allowing heavy balancing (which is their main concern from opening Pandora's box in the "general" Generals if you will).
Time will tell I suppose.
It's basically what Mark said on Arcane Mark tonight: the ways to get non-standard proficiencies in weapons/armor should involve a lot more interesting character expression than "taking a general feat."
General feats are the least interesting way to give anyone anything. Sohei is a much more interesting thing to attach to my "armor monk" than "I kept taking that armor feat."
good that's more or less what i've been saying, the most boring thing to do is just give proficiencies. they should be riders on other more interesting options.
I don't think heavy armor is worth 3 general feats nor is it worth a single 1, but if you can attach it to archetypes and feats that do other things, that's ultimately better overall.
in my opinion of course.
The counter to this from those arguing in favour of the general feat bump is that fighter and champion dedications only give proficiencies and that is arguably “boring” as well
I guess the difference on those is supposed to be that they also unlock access to other feats from the other class which a “boring” general feat would not ...
Still could be called boring though
I agree of course, I think most dedications should have had some proficiency on them, as well an ability that is free on the original class from level 1.
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As someone mentioned it will be some time until we reach 13th level (unless the campaign start at 17 right away :x).
Either buff general talents so they can reach expert through scaling and maybe allow with a set of class feats reach Master with it?
But one thing for sure general talents are pretty lacking and there is a meta for then(right choices). If you want more surviability with a class that don't have access to heavy armor you better choose toughness instead of heavy armor. Even if through logic a suit of heavy armor should protect you better.
IMO Weapon related stuff and Armor related stuff should be streamlined, whoever wants to invest feats to get good at it should be allowed to. Then add exclusive feats for fighter and champion that allow more gameplay options with their weapons and armor.But this would require rewritting a lot of stuff and I can't imagine paizo doing a recall on books to fix a big oof like this.
I am convinced this is working as intended.
We just don't know what form their solution for "I want to play an armored wizard" is going to take, we can just be confident that it's not supposed to be "keep taking that one general feat or multiclass champion."
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If there are archetypes that require training in certain proficiencies as an entry cost and contain ways to boost them with later feats, then I think the state of General weapons and armor proficiencies will be fine.
But general feats as a whole are a little underwhelming and not really occupying a necessary design space in the core rulebook. More class feats and skills feats, with archetypes that fit in to those spaces feels more thematically appropriate.
Oh yeah, I can definitely see a level 6 or higher archetype that requires a certain proficiency from elsewhere.
Sure wish that world guide book had not been pushed back, so we'd know what a non-multiclass archetype looks like.
I think I've balanced the options to the point where I feel like I'm going to put down my house rule. I searched diligently to try to find anything in the CRB that suggests the DEX cap on armor is adjusted upwards in some cases. I couldn't find it (e.g., mithril doesn't do that anymore). With that caveat, I believe the following is perfectly balanced:
BASIC TRAINING general feat (and part of Dedication 2 for martial classes other than monk) to become proficient with light armor and all simple weapons. This feat impacts precisely one class: Wizard, who can spend 1 feat instead of 2 to get light armor training and simple weapon proficiency training. It doesn't impact a monk or sorcerer because under CRB, they could have taken light armor proficiency as a general feat, and are already trained with simple weapons.
MILITARY DRILL [PREREQUISITE: Proficiency with light armor and simple weapons] general feat (and part of Dedication 2 for all martial classes with medium armor proficiency, but not Druids even though they are proficient with medium armor). Training with medium armor, plus auto-scaling for light armor, medium armor, and simple weapons.
Q: Why is it OK for a wizard to get auto-scaling for free at 11th (for simple weapons) and 13th (for light and medium armor)? A: The wizard needs to invest 2 general feats (Basic Training or Military Drill) or spend a class feat to get proficiency with weapons equivalent to what they can already use and proficiency with armor that is equivalent to unarmored at higher levels. A feat for a bit more versatility but equivalent power levels seems like more than enough.
Q: Why is it OK for a sorcerer to get auto-scaling for free at 13th level? Same reason it is OK for wizard but more so because they already get simple weapon auto-scaling as part of the sorcerer class.
Q: Why is it OK for a monk to get auto-scaling in armor? A: This one is trickier. If the armor doesn't auto-scale (or even if it auto-scales no better than, say, a fighter), the monk is better off unarmored, making light armor training and medium armor training strictly worse for a monk. Also, a DEX monk is going to find some use in light armor until 10th level, when DEX increases to 20, at which point the expended feat is valuable only as a springboard to other feats. Only a STR monk is going to find auto-scaling armor useful at all levels and even a STR monk will have good reasons to add +2 DEX every 5 levels, making a STR monk likely to not even want medium armor by 10th level (or ever considering there are other disadvantages to medium armor). Leather armor or a chain shirt on a monk as a reward for training as a fighter seems fine to me.
Q: Why is it OK for a bard or rogue to get auto-scaling with medium armor for one feat? A: Because medium armor is equivalent to light armor in effectiveness and they already get light armor auto-scaling.
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Martial weapons are NOT equivalent to simple weapons, but are equivalent to one another and it is easy to gain martial weapon proficiency. For example, the CRB lets you gain proficiency with all martial weapons with a single feat (two if you are a wizard) and a handful of weapons through ancestral weapon familiarity. CRB also lets you auto-scale martial weapons via the ancestral weapon expertise family of feats. If you can do that, it seems that auto-scaling equivalent weapons should be fine from a balance perspective. That is, if it takes 2 feats to get a handful of auto-scaling martial weapons, it should be fine to spend 3 feats to get a more auto-scaling martial weapons. I'm still thinking about those.
I've been chewing over this issue for a few days. At first my reaction was "Of course a 13th level alchemist's armor proficiency improvement should only apply to the armor types inherent in the class" (or weapons for various classes where that applies).
But thinking more about how the proficiency bonus actually works (and doesn't work) has got me going the other direction. I don't really think that a 13th level alchemist should get better at heavy armor, per se. Rather, I think folding the level factor into specific armor and weapon proficiencies is problematic for a couple of reasons:
1) As a character levels up, the gap between using a trained weapon/suit of armor vs untrained widens. Higher level characters don't get broadly better at combat, they get better at just their class's specific gear. Anything outside of that is, ultimately, self-defeating and in an increasingly big way as the character levels up.
2) If a character broadens their skills by taking an outside weapon or armor proficiency, that skill falls behind as the class-based ones increase. And that devalues the choice (though not completely since you're still adding your level, which is not an insignificant benefit).
I think a better option may be to have offensive and defensive proficiency. The increases from a class would be to the overall offensive or defensive proficiency from trained to expert to master, etc. Then the weapon and armor proficiencies would just determine when you get to add the full value of those proficiencies or suffer a -4 untrained penalty.
So the 13th level alchemist wouldn't get Light Armor Expertise, he'd get Defense Expertise. Any armor proficiencies the alchemist has retain the full relative value they've always had.
Ultimately, this debate has also gotten me thinking that differing levels of armor proficiency other than untrained/trained for each class of armor is kind of silly and overly complicated. It may represent too much of an attempt to force a proficiency system that the designers thought was cool for skills onto places where it doesn't fit.
It's also complicating my evaluation of PF2. There are plenty of places I see improvement and then there are places like this where I would rather scrap it.
I think a better option may be to have offensive and defensive proficiency. The increases from a class would be to the overall offensive or defensive proficiency from trained to expert to master, etc. Then the weapon and armor proficiencies would just determine when you get to add the full value of those proficiencies or suffer a -4 untrained penalty.
That's essentially what I was doing, at least for simple weapons and light and medium armor. I may just scrap what I was doing in favor of your more elegant solution.
With martial weapons I think I might want to require 2 feats to get all of the martial weapons if you don't have at least some martial weapons as part of your class (e.g., if you are a cleric, sorcerer, or wizard, a first feat gets you ancestral weapons or class weapons (as part of a dedication) and a second feat gets you all martial weapons). However, they would scale up with the "offensive proficiency" you propose.
Heavy armor deserves a two-feat investment like martial weapons because it is strictly better (in at least the AC department) than light and medium armor just as martial weapons are strictly better than simple (with some exceptions for thrown ranged weapons that will probably disappear with an equipment splat-book). I think that two-feat investment should come BETWEEN the medium armor and heavy armor proficiency because medium armor is only better than light armor in the early game. Unfortunately, that seems difficult to do in an elegant manner, so the medium armor proficiency should probably remain and the player can just decide whether to age out the medium armor (by investing in some DEX at 5th/10th level) or buy into heavy armor with a feat (and cash).
I predict the number of characters in medium armor around 10th level will be vanishingly small. Most players are going to be increasing STR and DEX or dumping either STR or DEX every 5 levels, but few are going to dump both STR and DEX. When DEX goes up, light armor is strictly better than medium armor. When STR goes up, heaver armor is strictly better than medium armor. That means, the heavy armor feat is, in a way, a two-feat investment from light armor. :)
I think I've balanced the options to the point where I feel like I'm going to put down my house rule. I searched diligently to try to find anything in the CRB that suggests the DEX cap on armor is adjusted upwards in some cases. I couldn't find it (e.g., mithril doesn't do that anymore). With that caveat, I believe the following is perfectly balanced:
BASIC TRAINING general feat (and part of Dedication 2 for martial classes other than monk) to become proficient with light armor and all simple weapons. This feat impacts precisely one class: Wizard, who can spend 1 feat instead of 2 to get light armor training and simple weapon proficiency training. It doesn't impact a monk or sorcerer because under CRB, they could have taken light armor proficiency as a general feat, and are already trained with simple weapons.
MILITARY DRILL [PREREQUISITE: Proficiency with light armor and simple weapons] general feat (and part of Dedication 2 for all martial classes with medium armor proficiency, but not Druids even though they are proficient with medium armor). Training with medium armor, plus auto-scaling for light armor, medium armor, and simple weapons.
Q: Why is it OK for a wizard to get auto-scaling for free at 11th (for simple weapons) and 13th (for light and medium armor)? A: The wizard needs to invest 2 general feats (Basic Training or Military Drill) or spend a class feat to get proficiency with weapons equivalent to what they can already use and proficiency with armor that is equivalent to unarmored at higher levels. A feat for a bit more versatility but equivalent power levels seems like more than enough.
Q: Why is it OK for a sorcerer to get auto-scaling for free at 13th level? Same reason it is OK for wizard but more so because they already get simple weapon auto-scaling as part of the sorcerer class.
Q: Why is it OK for a monk to get auto-scaling in armor? A: This one is trickier. If the armor doesn't auto-scale (or even if it auto-scales no better than, say, a fighter), the monk is better...
I like the general structure of the feats, but I feel like they should be class feats.
also we still need an unarmed feat.
although I've put what in general I think they should look like here.