If you've played or GM'd a game that used the free archetype variant, what was your experience? Were the player characters significantly, game imbalancingly more powerful? Or were they fairly manageable.
Note: If you haven't played or GM'd such a game I don't care about/am not interested in your opinion. I'm not posting this because I want to hear your theory crafting, I just want real anecdotal experiences.
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Did it for extinction curse and was surprised by how little effect it ultimately had on how well the characters handled fights compared to vanilla characters, although this group wasn't heavily optimization minded and were more interested in using archetypes to pick up out of class weapons and skill options than anything else.
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I GM'd a game from level 8 to 10 for a group with double class feats. That's pretty comparable to Free Archetype, so I'll give you my summary:
1. Significant increase in versatility.
Example 1: Ranger took Druid multiclass and had more spellcasting than would otherwise be available to them. They only used their spells for flavor during the game, doing minor healing to an NPC, and saving the other spells.
Example 2: Monk also took Druid multiclass, and used wildshape out of combat to do things like pull the party's wagon. They didn't have a lot of time to refocus, so they ended up only using it in combat once.
2. Significant increase in staying power throughout the day.
Example 1: The wizard multiclassed into Sorcerer and Bard, giving them several low level spells that they dipped into when they started running low. They never got close to expending their whole reservoir of spells, probably because they were conservative with casting.
Example 2: Both the Ranger and Monk's extra healing from the druid spell slots gave them a bit more confidence to push forward.
3. Minor, but noticeable increase in raw power.
Example 1: The monk/druid had more focus points than they ordinarily would have.
Example 2: Certain choices synergized unexpectedly well, like the druid monk wildshaping. This should drop off at higher levels.
4. Better represents 1E characters.
Example: The ranger/druid was brought over from a ranger in PF1, and the spellcasting and overall capabilities matched very well with their prior incarnation.
5. Default enemy power is close to acceptable.
Example: I ran the fights as suggested for a normal group from the gamemastering section of the CRB. The fights were adequately challenging, much more so than the default rules from PF1.
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Minimal increase in straight power.
Ability to enact character concepts much earlier.
Potentially decent increase in versatility.
It's the default way I play.