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Once again more anecdotal than rules wise (I generally agree with the consensus that FA is a power boost, but a fun one!)
We are starting a new game, and since I haven't been a player in over a year I am very much looking forward to just playing and not having to GM.
The GM running the game ( A mummy's mask conversion) usually allows FA but this time decided not to allow it for now.
This kind of threw a wrench in most of our PC's character themes. I play a dragon obsessed Kobold wizard, I wanted to go into dragon disciple and take all the feats just for fun even if they were redundant to illustrate that dedication.
My girlfriend wanted to play Mike Onid, a poisonous mushroom style monk (see appropriate thread), and archetype a bit into druid and a bit into poisoner for that.
One of the players plays a rogue ex-cultist who is now dedicated to nocticula, she wanted to archetype into witch and have that kind of edgy dark magic feel on top of roguish abilities.
The last one plays a kitsune cleric of Soralyon, kind of a screwy tinkery joyful character who loves ruins, he wanted to get archeologist and perhaps talisman dabbler to represent that.
Without FA, those choices are going to be much lessened, I'll only take the dragon disciple feats I need (dedication, maybe dragon's breath) when I can afford them. Leshy monk is just straight up not going to take any poisoner or druid feats, dropping the part of her build that was poisonous, rogue is maybe going to take basic spellcasting and that's it? Archeologist might appear in the cleric's build, but only cause early cleric feats aren't the best.
For our group, not having FA is a straight up reduction of our enjoyment and hype for the game and for our character concepts that we wanted to build, and forces us to make optimal choices with our reduced feat pool, and overall I'm of the opinion that that's a bit sad.
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Once again more anecdotal than rules wise (I generally agree with the consensus that FA is a power boost, but a fun one!)
We are starting a new game, and since I haven't been a player in over a year I am very much looking forward to just playing and not having to GM.
The GM running the game ( A mummy's mask conversion) usually allows FA but this time decided not to allow it for now.
This kind of threw a wrench in most of our PC's character themes...
It's too bad that you can't realize a PC build that you've grown attached to. But to be honest, I think your disappointment with your GM's decision is on you. You generally should wait until Session 0 to start planning PC builds so you're not blindsided like this.
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I think that at this point my take on Free Archetypes is this:
Do I have a group that will use free archetypes to do something interesting for the characters? LET'S GOOOOOOO!
Do I have a group that will only use the free archetypes to optimize? That's boring and I'll pass.
I think that at this point my take on Free Archetypez is this:
Do I have a group that will use free archetypes to do something interesting for the characters? LET'S GOOOOOOO!
Do I have a group that will only use the free archetypes to optimize? That's boring and I'll pass.
Yeah pretty much my take too.
And for necrog1ant I agree, I guess i'm just used to free archetype since i allow it in all my games.
Free archetype feats are meants to be only used for archetype feats, but there's nothing that stops you to also use Class feats to take archetype feats.This creates a situation where any character can take dedications ( or base feats along with dedications ) at a faster pace than normal.
Yes the rules are a bit open. Some people where thinking they had to stick with one archetype. Some people are Excluding all Multilass Archetype.
In the group I'm starting next I'm merely going to require that they start with a non multiclass archetype feast at level 2.
I mean, ascertained that FA doesn't provide powercreep in an absurd way ( in terms of DPR ), it's also true that more possibilities, as well as being able to unlock specific builds earlier, provides a huge amount of options you won't have normally.And this just for what concerns the combat part ( for trivial stuff or skill checks FA stomps on base rules backpedaling ).
Gortle mentioned random percentages to make a comparisons, and I really think that's where lies the problem.
Since it's difficult to show the difference between using FA or not, every person is going to be a different perception of the whole thing.
Some would find that have either lay on hand and AoA would be fine or providing a small adjunct in terms of possibilities, other would object that not having to choose between the two skills would result into a huge impact in terms of gameplay.
I find that I can almost always get everything I want in a single class build and the stuff that I'm missing is minor, or another tactic. So I don't think FA is a huge effect.
When I gave numbers I was merely talking ball park figures.
I'd be quite happy to play in a game where everyone else had Free archetype and I didn't. It would be a challenge, but it would just make it more satisfying for me when I contributed well anyway.
When you are building bridges a few percent here of there doesn't matter you have big fat margins and as long as it takes the traffic it is good. When you are building racing cars a few percent is an incredible advantage. A few percent is enough to make something dominat or obsolete. PF2 is supposed to be a cooperatinve game rather than a competitive one. A few percent is OK.