So, what breaks if you remove the three Feats in a Dedication before you pick another special rule?
Balance.
Dedication feats are among the best low-level feats, i.e. compare Cantrip Expansion to most casters MCDs which give you the same thing and more. Or how Champion MCD goes straight to Heavy Armor Proficiency (plus two skills).
And it's hard to call it "Dedication" if they casually pick up several. :)
That said, PF2's sturdy enough to weather the imbalance, though I'm not sure why a GM would bother to overrule the rule.
Does it have a purpose? Yes.
Will it break the game to change it? No.
Is breaking the game the best metric for determining whether to alter a rule or not? Not IMO.
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Some archetypes have a poor or overly specialized selection of low level feats. This makes getting the archetype early a bit of a mess if you want another one ASAP. This is especially true if you play with the free archetype rules. If you pick up Sentinel at level 2, you literally can't take another archetype class feat before level 8!
So breaking or at least going easy on the restriction can be anywhere from unnecessary to highly recommended. I don't think it's needed under normal rules but for the Free Archetype Variant, I would probably allow 2 Dedications at a time with a third one only available once you got a total of 3 feats from one of your previous Dedications.
I still wouldn't get rid of the limitation entirely since that leads to cherry picking instead of actually dedicating yourself to something new.
There are a few circumstances that allow you to take multiple dedications without taking 3 feats from their line.
Both the Hellknight and Knights of Lastwall dedication lines allow you to take a dedication feat without taking the requisite feats for instance, though those are purpose built to work together and act more as specializations than anything else.
The Human Multitalented feat is another good example, though is limited to a 2nd level Multiclass dedication feat, meaning one of the class dedications rather than an Archetype. And being that it comes online at 9th level, it probably isn't earth shatteringly powerful by that point.
So sure, doing so within limits can be okay. I could for instance see allowing players to take an additional dedication in a campaign where you required a specific dedication for story reasons, like the Pirate archetype or some other specific archetype. Some players may want to stray from that required archetype, and that's fine. Though that is firmly in GM fiat territory, and caution should be used to make sure that there isn't some horribly unbalancing shenaniganry at work.
breaking or at least going easy on the restriction can be anywhere from unnecessary to highly recommended. I don't think it's needed under normal rules but for the Free Archetype Variant, I would probably allow 2 Dedications at a time with a third one only available once you got a total of 3 feats from one of your previous Dedications.
I think that is similar to how I run that too. The way I describe it is that you have two tracks that you could have archetypes in. Your primary class feats and your free archetype feats. Each track would have its own 3 feat count for the dedication restriction.
Example, if you have a Swashbuckler primary class with Witch dedication for the free archetype at level 2. You can pick up a second dedication in place of a Swashbuckler feat at level 4 and get a Witch archetype feat at level 4 also. You couldn't pick up the second dedication in place of the Witch archetype feat though since you haven't paid off the Witch dedication for that track yet.
So breaking or at least going easy on the restriction can be anywhere from unnecessary to highly recommended. I don't think it's needed under normal rules but for the Free Archetype Variant, I would probably allow 2 Dedications at a time with a third one only available once you got a total of 3 feats from one of your previous Dedications.
Funny. That's pretty much what one of my GMs did for Free Archetypes. He made the "two other feat" restriction start to apply only once you get your second Dedication. By 4th level, the lifted restriction allows us to get two separate Dedications with no other investments. So come 6th level, both Dedications become restricted as normal but we consequently have a better pool of feats to choose from for both.
It only really matters in early levels where, like you said, archetype feat selection is highly limited. To get a third Dedication, the other two still need to be paid for (with two other feats each) so it's like feat insurance more than anything.
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If you pick up Sentinel at level 2, you literally can't take another archetype class feat before level 8!
I think Sentinel is actually uniquely free in this regard, at level 6 you can pick up Armor Specialist with a skill feat and choose another dedication with your class feat.
If you pick up Sentinel at level 2, you literally can't take another archetype class feat before level 8!I think Sentinel is actually uniquely free in this regard, at level 6 you can pick up Armor Specialist with a skill feat and choose another dedication with your class feat.
That's true and I have multiple characters that use this (well, at least I have them planned). But it still doesn't help you to pick another archetype class feat at level 4 if Sentinel was your 2nd level Dedication and you get a free archetype class feat from.the free archetype variant rule.
That's why I'm personally in favor od going easyb on the dedication restriction, especially when playing with the variant rule.