How does a mystic swap out their 9th level ability for an archetype?

[BigNorseWolf]

How does a mystic swap out their second level ability for an archetype?

9th Level You either don’t gain the healing touch class feature or don’t gain a feat you would otherwise gain from reaching an odd-numbered character level; this feat could be the one normally gained at 9th level.

You gain healing touch at 2nd level though. So do you lose healing touch right away , lose it at 9th, lose it at 2nd and then get it back at 9th, or can you keep it at 2nd and chose to pinkie swear to lose your 9th level feat?

With coms medic archetype i think this will be pretty relevant

[Xenocrat]

It’s in the FAQ queue, any decade now.

[CanisDirus]

Owen Stevens answered this in another thread: Link

(I dug around for this when making a Skyfire Centurion Mystic for organized play and decided on losing healing touch from the get go rather than losing a feat later)

The answer is actually hidden away in the CRB itself. Hope that helps!

[Berggen]

Owen Stevens addressed this topic, but didn't really answer the question.

The case where you've gained the archetype is quite clear, but gaining the archetype remains a problem, specifically with regards to healing touch and any archetype with a 9th level ability.

p 126 SFCRB wrote:

You can gain an archetype when you achieve a new class level in an eligible class matching the earliest level for which the archetype offers an alternate class feature. The archetype is then considered part of the class you gain a level in when you level up. For example, if you are playing an envoy interested in being a Starfinder forerunner, you must select that archetype when you gain your 2nd level of envoy (the first level at which the Starfinder forerunner has an alternate class feature). From that point forward, whenever you gain an envoy class level, you should check whether you gain an alternate class feature from the Starfinder forerunner archetype, as well as whether any envoy class features are altered or replaced. When you first gain an archetype, read through all the altered or replaced class features that will affect your character, and note these down; for some classes (especially mystics and technomancers) these changes affect features from levels before or after the levels at which you gain archetype features.

By this reading, you cannot take an archetype until level 2 (minimum).

To make matters worse, 9th level Mystic says we give up Healing Touch (which is actually a 1st level mystic feature), or an odd level feat.

There are two conclusions I can reach here, one is that you actually take take an archetype at the earliest level for which the archetype [adds, removes, or changes a class feature], and the text on page 126 of the CRB is simply an editing error. The other is that you can choose to lose Healing Touch at the level you gain the archetype.

Right now, I'm going off of the belief that you may gain an archetype at level 1, but that's certainly not what's in the rulebook, and I would love for someone to clarify / FAQ this.

[CanisDirus]

p 126 SFCRB wrote:

You can gain an archetype when you achieve a new class level in an eligible class matching the earliest level for which the archetype offers an alternate class feature. The archetype is then considered part of the class you gain a level in when you level up. For example, if you are playing an envoy interested in being a Starfinder forerunner, you must select that archetype when you gain your 2nd level of envoy (the first level at which the Starfinder forerunner has an alternate class feature). From that point forward, whenever you gain an envoy class level, you should check whether you gain an alternate class feature from the Starfinder forerunner archetype, as well as whether any envoy class features are altered or replaced. When you first gain an archetype, read through all the altered or replaced class features that will affect your character, and note these down; for some classes (especially mystics and technomancers) these changes affect features from levels before or after the levels at which you gain archetype features.

Emphasis mine.

And then from what Owen said in that particular conversation:

Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:

the 12th level altered or replaced mystic class feature actually kicks in at 11th level, as noted on page 127.

It's not the best language in the CRB, agreed, but to me that still reads as that an archetype swaps in or out class features when it says it does, even if you lose things one or more levels before you gain something else. It's possible that the intent of "alternative class feature" was not just gaining a different ability, but also losing/replacing a standard one, and that's where the primary linguistic-kerfuffle resides.

Berggen wrote:

By this reading, you cannot take an archetype until level 2 (minimum).

For an Envoy ~> Forerunner, it would have to be level 2. That's the first level the archetype gives a different feature, and none of the things that archetype "swaps" affects an Envoy at an earlier level than 2. That doesn't necessarily make it so for all archetypes, though.

Quote:

There are two conclusions I can reach here, one is that you actually take take an archetype at the earliest level for which the archetype [adds, removes, or changes a class feature], and the text on page 126 of the CRB is simply an editing error.

This is what I always got from the text after finding the conversation I linked from Owen, but I'm not seeing any editing errors, myself. I absolutely think they should have given an example using one of the more complex archetype-class combinations (mystic in particular) and not just an easy one like Envoy ~> Forerunner, though.

[CanisDirus]

After talking this over with my roommate (who is much newer to SF), he agreed that it is poorly worded, but also came up with a better way of describing it than I did initially:

Mystic wrote:

9th Level

You either don’t gain the healing touch class feature or don’t gain a feat you would otherwise gain from reaching an odd-numbered character level (see page 26); this feat could be the one normally gained at 9th level.

Gaining an Archetype wrote:

You can gain an archetype when you achieve a new class level in an eligible class matching the earliest level for which the archetype offers an alternate class feature.

...

When you first gain an archetype, read through all the altered or replaced class features that will affect your character, and note these down; for some classes (especially mystics and technomancers) these changes affect features from levels before or after the levels at which you gain archetype features.

This means that you get to decide when you gain an archetype, the latest being whenever it gives you your first "new" power. If you are a Mystic, you can choose to select an archetype (as long as it has a 9th level alternative class feature) at level 1, opting to "not gain" your healing touch class feature. Alternatively, you can opt to not get your level 1, 3, 5, 7, or 9 feat instead. If you did not decide to take an archetype until you were level 3, you could not go back and lose healing touch, however.

Interestingly, in SFS you could do this at level 2 thanks to using Fame for early-access to the mnemonic editor regardless of character level - in a normal campaign your GM would have to hand-wave the level restriction to make that work.

I still agree that the language could have been much clearer, but I hope that helps a bit more than what I wrote earlier!