Adopted Trait

[Derek Dalton]

So the trait simply offers you the ability to pick a race trait not your own. Here's my question. Would you as a GM were presented a good backstory allow a character to pick up more. In this case an archtype and feat. Goblins for my group's current campaign are off the table. Which sucks since the Winged Maruader is a goblin only archtype. The first time I read it I've been wanting to do a medival version of The Red Baron, stacking Gun Chemist I can. Taking Goblin Gunslinger would make him more dangerous. Picture it dropping bombs from the air one moment then flying by two guns blazing the next. All the while his gear resembles the outfits World War One pilots wore.
The concept I have is in case another character dies in the current campaign. Except for the race restrictions on the archtype everything is legal and doable.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

That's a question for your DM, not strangers on the internet.

[SheepishEidolon]

I wouldn't, because there is a feat for that (Racial Heritage) and rewarding backstories with mechanical benefits opens a can of worms: Other players will want the same treatment. Ambitious players will make more use of it, increasing the intra-party power gap, and I will have to deal with PCs that are another bit above the expected power level than before. Or I play judge like "your backstory is convincing enough, yours isn't" which easily impacts motivation of some players.

[Derek Dalton]

Just read the feat it only applies to humans. The background generator in Ultimate Campaign will work for me. The racial feat would be nice but no loss if I couldn't get it. It's the archtype I'm after. Anarchy I do plan to ask my GM. I simply wanted others opinions on the matter. If most people said no I wouldn't push for it if she said no. If the general consensus was yes I'd push for it more.
Sheepish I actually encourage players to come up with something for the characters. I have had so many players just do a build and say he's this or that and have the personality of wet paint. I have had a couple of occasions where this has led to different levels of power between players. In those few instances I was able to fix the issue easily enough without anyone's feelings hurt. If I really felt they were simply trying to get one over on the other players I'd say no and move on.

[SheepishEidolon]

My point was that access to other races' options is the power level of a feat. Hence it should be considered carefully whether a player gets that for free. If one of my players wanted that, I'd ask them to pay the entrance fee: Racial Heritage. In case they don't play a (demi)human, I might unlock this feat for them.

And given that winged marauder is clearly a power upgrade, the fee feels even more justified.

[Derek Dalton]

Here's my thing most of the racial archtypes are of the same power level as regular archtypes. The Winged Marauder is clearly only playable by small races due to the strength limit of the animal companions. Secondly you lose Mutagen for the companion. The nice thing is unlike other Alchemist archtypes you can buy it back. Another issue with the companion is limited to two creatures. The companion is a flying one which is extremely nice it is more vunerable then the rider.
Case in point my cavalier recently lost his mount due to the mount failing a Will Fear save. We got separated then it got slaughtered by the bad guys. Now my cavalier is okay without his mount but he's now weaker then say a character who doesn't have a companion.
If my GM asked me to pay a feat to play this racial archtype would I?Maybe but I'm now down a feat. In almost every case I have seen the loss of a single feat makes a difference.

[Dragonborn3]

What other Alchemist archetypes give flight and a second combatant at 1st level? That is a power up no matter how you look at it.

[Sandslice]

So let's consider this.

1. Adopted is one of the stronger traits in the game - literally allowing you to use your basic social trait (not the strongest category) as a second race trait (which allows some high-powered things, like getting +2 init without spending your basic combat trait, or getting the essential Perception into your class skills if you didn't have it.)

2. Racial Heritage, a human-locked feat, causes you to "neutrally" count as your base race(s) as well as an additional race. This counts for all purposes regarding race:
- You can freely choose and use things locked to the Heritage race, including traits, feats, items, spells, and archetypes. However,
- You can be targeted by racial effects based on all of your races (and the Neither Elf Nor Human feat doesn't cover the extra race you picked up with Racial Heritage.)

So you want to buff an already powerful trait to ALSO incorporate a better version of a certain feat. Absotively and posilutely not!

But if so, would other traits be buffed to incorporate related feats as well? Can a +1 init feat also get Improved Init, giving init +5 for a trait slot? Best to not go there at all, rather than open many questions.

[Derek Dalton]

A Druid and Hunter can get the same. Even better because they do not have limitations. The alchemist archtype is very limited and again it only works for small size characters. It replaces a power of the alchemist that is Mutagen. Sure you can spend a Discovery to get it back but that is a discovery more then likely used for Bomb discoveries.
Something to consider most the racial archtypes are no better then other archtypes. They are designed for flavor of the race. Truthfully then the question becomes why couldn't other races have something similar. For example why couldn't Orcs and Half Orcs have a variation of Fell Riders, a Hobgoblin racial archtype? Why couldn't elves and Gnomes more in tune with nature have Bramble Brewers, a Half elf racial archtype.
The archtype is not worth a feat honestly. It's nice giving you an animal companion something the class doesn't normally give you. But it doesn't give it for free. It's the same with most archtypes there is a price to have it.

[Sandslice]

What the archetype does is beside the point.

The point is that what you're asking for is the powerful Adopted trait to be buffed to also include a more powerful version of the Racial Heritage feat while still doing what Adopted normally does. And that is a 55-gallon drum full of no.

As for the archetype itself:

Again, what it does is beside the point. Yes, archetypes are about refining a class to fit a more specific concept, and chasing that in lieu of some of the base class's versatility. However, archetypes are also a tool for world-building and creating those unique distinctions and flavors; they have been since the AD&D 2E Player's Handbook allowed for the creation of cleric archetypes called "priests of specific mythoi" (by shuffling around domain access and Granted Powers; ie, exactly what archetypes do to their parent classes in Pathfinder.)

So it's absolutely fine for an archetype to be race-locked, and require a feat (such as Racial Heritage) to buy into it. It's fine for an archetype to be culture-locked - or even for the GM to place a culture-lock on one (for example, to say that Holy Tactician paladins must worship a god of strategic warfare.)

If it doesn't suit you, then find another way to make your idea work. There are many paths in Pathfinder. (: