Venture-Agent, Colorado—Denver
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Free-Archetype rules for anyone that was wondering.
I heard of Free-Archetype but didn't know exactly what it was. It's a good idea for home games and APs, however, the part about
"Free-archetype characters are a bit more versatile and powerful than normal..."
Probably won't fly in PFS.
It'd be cool if the Powers that Be did allow it, though.
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It'd be cool if the Powers that Be did allow it, though.
I'd like to politely but vehemently disagree. I think it would be a very, very bad move. If for no other reason this makes characters built from just the Core rulebooks and all existing pregens significantly less powerful than their free archetype companions. And expecting a new player to have read these optional rules found in a GM facing book is just completely unrealistic.
Even worse would be to allow this with ACP, some boon from some scenario, etc. Its a straight power up.
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It'd be cool if the Powers that Be did allow it, though.I'd like to politely but vehemently disagree. I think it would be a very, very bad move. If for no other reason this makes characters built from just the Core rulebooks and all existing pregens significantly less powerful than their free archetype companions. And expecting a new player to have read these optional rules found in a GM facing book is just completely unrealistic.
Even worse would be to allow this with ACP, some boon from some scenario, etc. Its a straight power up.
Agreed.
It is cool, but does not belong in society play.
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Alex, thank you for giving the community a quick, straight answer. In the past, everything seemed to sit in "committee" for months, even years, and when an answer was given, it is accompanied with a long often convoluted and dissatisfying explanation for why something was/not approved. It is a breath of fresh air to get a rapid response and to get it straight without a spoonful of honey. Thank you.
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Any chance of getting insight into the reasoning on that?Any consideration about making Free Archetype the default for PFS2?Nope.
I am not affiliated with Paizo or Org Play in any way, but I'll note Free Archetype would make characters significantly more powerful and throw off the entire balance of every scenario so far. That's probably reason enough to dismiss the idea, not sure if there are others
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They'd have to, at a minimum, revisit all the sanctioning decisions. Everything was evaluated from the baseline w/out free archetypes. Which means that things that couldn't interact until level 8 or so, could start interacting at level 2, which is a drastic shift in what has the potential to cause problems at the current most common play levels.
Contributor
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I think the Free Archetype rule is awesome, and I love using it in Adventure Paths or other places where the GM can rebalance as needed. But in Organized Play I think that having to make choices between class and archetype feats makes those archetype choices more meaningful rather than just a power option, and it's simpler for new players.
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I'm not so sure it'll be that big an issue, especially given the discussions I've seen on the brutality of scenarios in season 1 and 2.
Now, personally I think it'd be interesting if we could only do free archetype with the Pathfinder Society archetypes. Maybe even get some Organized Play specific Feats for it. Could be fun and avoid some of the issues with open season on free archetypes.
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I'm not so sure it'll be that big an issue, especially given the discussions I've seen on the brutality of scenarios in season 1 and 2.
I think there's not a lot of conclusion that can be drawn from that. (a) There's a disproportionate amount of complaining in general (so 10 posts of "everything is effed and I quit forever" is probably equivalent to 1 post of "meh it's fine" on the Internet), and (b) the majority of complaints revolve around just a handful of individual scenarios. On top of that, (c) players in some of the early scenarios struggled with tactics, and made scenarios harder than they needed to be.
I'd argue scenarios are probably like 30% too easy, 60% about right, 10% too hard; and scenarios should be a little bit tougher or characters should be minorly nerfed.
From what I've seen, Adventures and APs trend the other way: probably 10% too easy, 60% about right, 30% too hard. I definitely nerfed Slithering and Fists of the Ruby Phoenix (but for my kids who both have poorer tactics than adults and also are likely to take character death harder), and I did not offer Free Archetype for a PFS run of Malevolence, but through the first few encounters wonder if I have been scaling poorly or if I should have offered Free Archetype.
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I'm not so sure it'll be that big an issue, especially given the discussions I've seen on the brutality of scenarios in season 1 and 2.I'd argue scenarios are probably like 30% too easy, 60% about right, 10% too hard; and scenarios should be a little bit tougher or characters should be minorly nerfed.
Group composition plays a huge factor in this. I would say that a *lot* of the too hard instances (not all of them, but a lot) come down to scaling that creates mismatched challenges for the party.
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Any chance of getting insight into the reasoning on that?
To reiterate a point I made earlier, this would suddenly mean that characters built just using the Players Handbook would be uncompetitve.
Which, in turn, means that EITHER
1) Characters created by new players would be substantially weaker than those created by experienced players OR
2) New players would have to use more than just the Players Handbook.
While I don't speak for Paizo, I personally think that either of those would be absolutely awful things for Organized Play
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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We likely could have started with something like this, but now PFS2 org play already has a fair number of layers and systems (Pathfinder training, factions, boons etc.) so adding a system like this would make things even more complex.
It's fine for APs but it's worth remembering that APs are usually written for 4 players, a bit more flexibility in a fixed size group has different effects than adding this type of system to mixed groups of mixed sizes.
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Group composition plays a huge factor in this. I would say that a *lot* of the too hard instances (not all of them, but a lot) come down to scaling that creates mismatched challenges for the party.I'm not so sure it'll be that big an issue, especially given the discussions I've seen on the brutality of scenarios in season 1 and 2.I'd argue scenarios are probably like 30% too easy, 60% about right, 10% too hard; and scenarios should be a little bit tougher or characters should be minorly nerfed.
A player should not feel 'forced' to play 'the optimal pregen' to ensure party success, if one is even available.
In addition, the math is so tight in PF2 that apparently everyone needs to be front-liners until something like L3 or L4 (based on personal play experience) due to that tighter math.
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Seeing a lot of posts around the concept that free archetype makes stronger characters, and frankly, I've just not seen that. It seems like one of those things where the obvious outcome (more stuff = more power) just doesn't turn out to be true. Feats are all level gated so there's no way to get stuff before you're "supposed" so have it, and so many feats that do provide real power also come at action cost which makes them discrete choices. Choices are nice, but calling them powerful seems a stretch, and I'd argue that whatever power "imbalance" that creates is a fine trade for the significant increase in fun that it brings to the table.
The issue I would identify is that the core rulebook multiclass archetypes probably need to be punched up a bit to make them more viable but this idea that new players would "have to" use more than the core book didn't seem to mean much when 1e had reached 47 thousand books with tons of classes to the point that they later came out with a core only version.
Just kinda feels like people are identifying a (potential) negative and completely failing to weigh it against the positive and instead discarding it.
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They'd have to, at a minimum, revisit all the sanctioning decisions. Everything was evaluated from the baseline w/out free archetypes. Which means that things that couldn't interact until level 8 or so, could start interacting at level 2, which is a drastic shift in what has the potential to cause problems at the current most common play levels.
What could you do at level 2 that you couldn't until level 8 before?
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They'd have to, at a minimum, revisit all the sanctioning decisions. Everything was evaluated from the baseline w/out free archetypes. Which means that things that couldn't interact until level 8 or so, could start interacting at level 2, which is a drastic shift in what has the potential to cause problems at the current most common play levels.What could you do at level 2 that you couldn't until level 8 before?
A wizard with toughness, heavy armor proficiency, and trained martial weapon proficiency.
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It isn't that all characters will become more powerful by adding an archtype.
But rather that the more combinations, the greater the ability to find a combination that is excessively more powerful.
This means that rather than making all characters more powerful, the *range* between the strongest characters and the weakest characters will get *wider*.
Which in many ways is far, far worse.
To add to that, most (if not all?) archetypes come from books that are only legal for play if you own the source books.
Meaning there will two distinct tiers of power, and you only get to enter the higher tier if you pay money.
And that is the sort of situation OPF has always tried to avoid. (not always successfully, but still they try.)
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To add to that, most (if not all?) archetypes come from books that are only legal for play if you own the source books.
Most. There are 10 in the LO:WG. However, the really good ones are in the APG.
What can you do at 8th that you can't do at 2nd? What about all the things you can't do without it?
You get a fighter with full access to fighter feats plus the Barbarian MC archetype on top of that. You get an investigator with full access to the investigator feats plus spellcasting from witch or wizard MC archetype. You can add Lay on Hands to any character while they still get to choose from their class feats.
While I think the free archetype is a great house rule for allowing characters that normally you would avoid (e.g., a fighter with the archeologist archetype or even a rogue with the acrobat archetype), it would throw a big wrench in PFS.
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The difference between home games and Organized Play. (With archetypes in mind but really about anything that changes the Core expectations):
Home Game
-Player: "Hey, can we use the Free Archetype rules? I've got this really cool character idea, let me tell you about it."
-GM: "That does sound cool, and it's not going to substantially change the campaign I'm planning. Sure, you can have a free archetype."
Organized Play:
-Player: "Hey, can we use the Free Archetype rules? I've got this really cool character idea, let me tell you about it."
-OP Leadership: "That does sound cool, let me think about it."
-Player 2 (silently thinking): "Hehe, I hope they allow it. I've got this combo that you ordinarily have to be 10th level to pull off but with a free archetype I can manage it at 5."
The biggest difference is that if Player 2 does attempt that combo in a home game, the GM can immediately assess the impact and either allow, disallow, or modify based on that impact. In OP Leadership would have to retroactively react to such things, and can't modify prepublished scenarios. Home games are by their nature intimate and collaborative experiences.
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A wizard with toughness, heavy armor proficiency, and trained martial weapon proficiency.They'd have to, at a minimum, revisit all the sanctioning decisions. Everything was evaluated from the baseline w/out free archetypes. Which means that things that couldn't interact until level 8 or so, could start interacting at level 2, which is a drastic shift in what has the potential to cause problems at the current most common play levels.What could you do at level 2 that you couldn't until level 8 before?
Sounds like a big whoopity doo to me.
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The difference between home games and Organized Play. (With archetypes in mind but really about anything that changes the Core expectations):
Home Game
-Player: "Hey, can we use the Free Archetype rules? I've got this really cool character idea, let me tell you about it."
-GM: "That does sound cool, and it's not going to substantially change the campaign I'm planning. Sure, you can have a free archetype."Organized Play:
-Player: "Hey, can we use the Free Archetype rules? I've got this really cool character idea, let me tell you about it."
-OP Leadership: "That does sound cool, let me think about it."
-Player 2 (silently thinking): "Hehe, I hope they allow it. I've got this combo that you ordinarily have to be 10th level to pull off but with a free archetype I can manage it at 5."The biggest difference is that if Player 2 does attempt that combo in a home game, the GM can immediately assess the impact and either allow, disallow, or modify based on that impact. In OP Leadership would have to retroactively react to such things, and can't modify prepublished scenarios. Home games are by their nature intimate and collaborative experiences.
What combo is that?
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To add to that, most (if not all?) archetypes come from books that are only legal for play if you own the source books.Most. There are 10 in the LO:WG. However, the really good ones are in the APG.
What can you do at 8th that you can't do at 2nd? What about all the things you can't do without it?
You get a fighter with full access to fighter feats plus the Barbarian MC archetype on top of that. You get an investigator with full access to the investigator feats plus spellcasting from witch or wizard MC archetype. You can add Lay on Hands to any character while they still get to choose from their class feats.
While I think the free archetype is a great house rule for allowing characters that normally you would avoid (e.g., a fighter with the archeologist archetype or even a rogue with the acrobat archetype), it would throw a big wrench in PFS.
Thought this was a post about how it's a great idea right up until you said it wasn't. Why do we want less cool stuff in pfs?
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It isn't that all characters will become more powerful by adding an archtype.
But rather that the more combinations, the greater the ability to find a combination that is excessively more powerful.
This means that rather than making all characters more powerful, the *range* between the strongest characters and the weakest characters will get *wider*.
Which in many ways is far, far worse.
To add to that, most (if not all?) archetypes come from books that are only legal for play if you own the source books.
Meaning there will two distinct tiers of power, and you only get to enter the higher tier if you pay money.
And that is the sort of situation OPF has always tried to avoid. (not always successfully, but still they try.)
Always tried to avoid? That does not match any experience I've encountered.
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What combo is that?The difference between home games and Organized Play. (With archetypes in mind but really about anything that changes the Core expectations):
Home Game
-Player: "Hey, can we use the Free Archetype rules? I've got this really cool character idea, let me tell you about it."
-GM: "That does sound cool, and it's not going to substantially change the campaign I'm planning. Sure, you can have a free archetype."Organized Play:
-Player: "Hey, can we use the Free Archetype rules? I've got this really cool character idea, let me tell you about it."
-OP Leadership: "That does sound cool, let me think about it."
-Player 2 (silently thinking): "Hehe, I hope they allow it. I've got this combo that you ordinarily have to be 10th level to pull off but with a free archetype I can manage it at 5."The biggest difference is that if Player 2 does attempt that combo in a home game, the GM can immediately assess the impact and either allow, disallow, or modify based on that impact. In OP Leadership would have to retroactively react to such things, and can't modify prepublished scenarios. Home games are by their nature intimate and collaborative experiences.
I don't know, and that's the point.
In my home game if I allow Player 1 to do something (use free archetypes) for a purpose that is fun and thematic but doesn't really affect the power level and Player 2 comes up with a use of the same thing (that does affect the power level) then I will be reacting in real time to Player 2. Maybe I tell him "that's out of scale with our campaign, what other archetypes do you like?" Maybe I let him use it but start throwing in deliberate counters or additional opponents to balance it out. Maybe it is powerful but isn't going to impact the campaign much so I let him use it with no modifications. Maybe I use his choice as a basis for a difficult role-playing encounter.
Organized Play doesn't have that flexibility. There's no way that they can predict every possible use/abuse case ahead of time. Particularly an option like Free Archetype that would apply to material that hasn't even been published yet.
Thought this was a post about how it's a great idea right up until you said it wasn't. Why do we want less cool stuff in pfs?
It's not that we want "less cool stuff" in PFS. It's that we want everyone to have a fun experience when they play a game. That means trying to balance the allowed material. Scenarios are balanced assuming there are NOT free archetypes. Several people have pointed out possible large power increases with a free archetype.
I get it, you want an "anything goes" type game. Where you CAN do outrageously powerful things. Or outrageously unusual things. I have two suggestions for you: 1)Home Game. 2)Starfinder.
Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku
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Seeing a lot of posts around the concept that free archetype makes stronger characters, and frankly, I've just not seen that. It seems like one of those things where the obvious outcome (more stuff = more power) just doesn't turn out to be true.
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Just kinda feels like people are identifying a (potential) negative and completely failing to weigh it against the positive and instead discarding it.
Lol. More stuff = More power, plain and simple. That will -always- be true, especially in the case of free archetypes. It quite literally does not matter which archetype you pick as your free archetype, that character will -always- be more powerful than a character without free archetype.
Granted, sometimes that advantage will be laughably small (like in the case of Gladiator archetype - you get just 1 additional lore, and a small benefit if you're fighting in front of an audience) but sometimes it can be huge, for example in the case of my monk/Wizard:
I've spent all of my class feats from level 2+ to wizard dedication, picking basic spellcasting at 4, school spell at 6, and arcane breadth at 8. I have just one, a single monk feat from level 1: my style feat, and after spending level 3 general feat for adopted ancestry: Human and level 7 general feat on ancestral paragon to pick extra human ancestry feat for natural ambition to pick a 1st level monk feat to gain ki strike.
With free archetype, I could have also picked up stunning fist, Wholeness of body, stand still, and flurry of maneuvers, giving a substantial and direct boost to my combat performance. Or I could have used the free archetype to pick up rogue for more skills and damage increase from sneak attack.
All of my characters would greatly benefit from a free archetype, and a no-brainer option if you can't figure out a good combo would be to just pick the Blessed One archetype for every single one of your characters: Lay on Hands provides infinite off-combat healing, and can be used during combat if necessary. That frees up 2-5 skill feats from every character that would have otherwise taken the medicine feats.
Does the Free Archetype rule have cool applications? Absolutely. Does it effectively double the amount of class feats everyone has at their disposal? Yes. Does it need GM oversight? Yes. I would love free archetypes, and I'll definitely will be using that optional rule in my upcoming campaigns. Still, I don't think it belongs into the org play campaign.
That being said, I would much more enjoy seeing the ancestry paragon variant becoming part of the org play. Ancestry feats are just generally speaking awfully weak (though there are a few really strong ones too), and since they are often part of a feat 'chain', it feels limiting that you can become either a flying kobold or a fire-breathing kobold but you can't do both well. It would also make versatile heritages more appealing - currently, you're giving up your heritage AND your 1st level ancestry feat if you want to pick a feat from a versatile heritage (plus you get slightly better eyesight. Unless your base ancestry already had a darkvision in which case, tough luck) - and the tradeoff means that you basically get just your ability boosts and flaws and maybe, MAYBE one small quirk (like a beak or keen sight) from your ancestry, and the rest is gone because you wanted to be a tiefling with horns.
Not going to happen either, unfortunately.
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What combo is that?The difference between home games and Organized Play. (With archetypes in mind but really about anything that changes the Core expectations):
Home Game
-Player: "Hey, can we use the Free Archetype rules? I've got this really cool character idea, let me tell you about it."
-GM: "That does sound cool, and it's not going to substantially change the campaign I'm planning. Sure, you can have a free archetype."Organized Play:
-Player: "Hey, can we use the Free Archetype rules? I've got this really cool character idea, let me tell you about it."
-OP Leadership: "That does sound cool, let me think about it."
-Player 2 (silently thinking): "Hehe, I hope they allow it. I've got this combo that you ordinarily have to be 10th level to pull off but with a free archetype I can manage it at 5."The biggest difference is that if Player 2 does attempt that combo in a home game, the GM can immediately assess the impact and either allow, disallow, or modify based on that impact. In OP Leadership would have to retroactively react to such things, and can't modify prepublished scenarios. Home games are by their nature intimate and collaborative experiences.
I don't know, and that's the point.
In my home game if I allow Player 1 to do something (use free archetypes) for a purpose that is fun and thematic but doesn't really affect the power level and Player 2 comes up with a use of the same thing (that does affect the power level) then I will be reacting in real time to Player 2. Maybe I tell him "that's out of scale with our campaign, what other archetypes do you like?" Maybe I let him use it but start throwing in deliberate counters or additional opponents to balance it out. Maybe it is powerful but isn't going to impact the campaign much so I let him use it with no modifications. Maybe I use his choice as a basis for a difficult role-playing encounter.
Organized Play doesn't have that flexibility. There's no way that...
But when new books and classes come out, we won't forbid those in the name of balance will we? Much less preemptively because they MIGHT cause an issue. If someone uncovered a powerful combo without free archetype would it get banned? The ubiquitous power gaming that goes on without free archetype shows me that it wouldn't. I don't see the difference. And so if the best counter is a hypothetical maybe one day it causes a problem downsides, that just doesn't justify to me right now opposing something with obvious and identifiable upsides.
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Seeing a lot of posts around the concept that free archetype makes stronger characters, and frankly, I've just not seen that. It seems like one of those things where the obvious outcome (more stuff = more power) just doesn't turn out to be true.
...
Just kinda feels like people are identifying a (potential) negative and completely failing to weigh it against the positive and instead discarding it.
Lol. More stuff = More power, plain and simple. That will -always- be true, especially in the case of free archetypes. It quite literally does not matter which archetype you pick as your free archetype, that character will -always- be more powerful than a character without free archetype.
Granted, sometimes that advantage will be laughably small (like in the case of Gladiator archetype - you get just 1 additional lore, and a small benefit if you're fighting in front of an audience) but sometimes it can be huge, for example in the case of my monk/Wizard:
I've spent all of my class feats from level 2+ to wizard dedication, picking basic spellcasting at 4, school spell at 6, and arcane breadth at 8. I have just one, a single monk feat from level 1: my style feat, and after spending level 3 general feat for adopted ancestry: Human and level 7 general feat on ancestral paragon to pick extra human ancestry feat for natural ambition to pick a 1st level monk feat to gain ki strike.
With free archetype, I could have also picked up stunning fist, Wholeness of body, stand still, and flurry of maneuvers, giving a substantial and direct boost to my combat performance. Or I could have used the free archetype to pick up rogue for more skills and damage increase from sneak attack.All of my characters would greatly benefit from a free archetype, and a no-brainer option if you can't figure out a good combo would be to just pick the Blessed One archetype for every single one of your characters: Lay on Hands provides infinite off-combat healing, and can be used during combat if necessary....
More books will be more stuff. Do you oppose allowing new material in PFS?
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Up to 10 more class feats = more power.
That's pretty simple.
But when new books and classes come out, we won't forbid those in the name of balance will we? Much less preemptively because they MIGHT cause an issue.
They actually do. All the time. It's the sanctioning process. All those Limited and Restricted designations are things that are forbidden in the name of balance.
That at the very least everyone could add Lay on Hands to every single one of their characters without a trade-off (6 hp/2 levels healing and a 1 round +2 to the target's AC with no real limit) does not immediately make you realize that Free Archetype would fundamentally change the power dynamics within the PFS campaign, then I can't imagine an argument that would change your mind.
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The biggest issue, as pointed out earlier, is less of the cap of power being raised due to free archetype, it is the inevitable widening of the possible power gap between players at the same table. That was a big issue back in PF1 that could not be contained because of the mechanics. Now, with PF2, it is a lot easier to manage. One of the ways they do such, is by not using the free archetype system.
If you are so opposed to how OP runs things, you are always welcome to just play home games with your preferred rule sets. In fact, you can even play PFS scenarios with a home group without it counting for PFS credit. That way, you can follow along on the great story being produced while playing your way. The limitations placed on PFS don't work for everyone, and there is nothing wrong with that.
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Up to 10 more class feats = more power.
That's pretty simple.
But when new books and classes come out, we won't forbid those in the name of balance will we? Much less preemptively because they MIGHT cause an issue.They actually do. All the time. It's the sanctioning process. All those Limited and Restricted designations are things that are forbidden in the name of balance.
Technical quibble.
Some are balance. Others are thematically inappropriate. Others are just confusing. A very small number are just so cool they want to save them for boons.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku
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More books will be more stuff. Do you oppose allowing new material in PFS?
False equivalency: New books bring New stuff. Just because paizo published gunslingers, it doesn't mean all my characters suddenly became proficient with guns and gained them for free. If I want to get guns, my characters need to trade away something else, be it class feats, their own class, home region to another, gold that would have been used for something else, and so on. The new books didn't suddenly grant all my characters double the amount of anything, they merely granted new options, while free archetype would directly grant all of my characters double the amount of class feats (half of which must be spent on the archetype(s)).
It is true that new stuff brings new combos and power creep is always a thing, but 2e math is very tightly balanced - way more strictly controlled than in 1e, so new options are much closer in power to the old ones than they used to be in 1e - the comparisons and discussion on the gunslinger and whether or not guns are worth it, is a good example.
Also, Rarely do new books bring out something that's so fundamental in function/power that it's a "must" for PCs and completely overrides all previous options, but sometimes we do get stuff like that - for example, in Secrets of magic we got the Retrieval Prism. In 1e, having spring-loaded wrist-sheaths was nearly mandatory because the boost to action economy when you really needed it, was just massive. In 2e, now that we have the retrieval prism, I'm probably going to buy one or two on each and every character I have. However, at 12gp per use it's not exactly free, you can only use one at a time and it's tied to a specific item, and it takes up your armor's talisman slot. In the last adventure I played, each use would have cost me roughly 10% of the gold we gained as reward - not that cheap for a quick one-use boost to action economy.
EDIT: I mean, if we had the option of trading away our general feats and ancestry feats and gain the free archetype variant for our character? I'm not saying that's completely balanced, but that would be a closer analogy to more books bringing more stuff - you trade away something to enjoy the new option. Likewise, if I could sacrifice, say, all of my general feats and every other skill feat to gain the ancestry paragon alternative rule, I would be all for it. It's about the difference between getting a sudden free boost to power, versus trading one thing for another.
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Up to 10 more class feats = more power.
That's pretty simple.
But when new books and classes come out, we won't forbid those in the name of balance will we? Much less preemptively because they MIGHT cause an issue.They actually do. All the time. It's the sanctioning process. All those Limited and Restricted designations are things that are forbidden in the name of balance.
That at the very least everyone could add Lay on Hands to every single one of their characters without a trade-off (6 hp/2 levels healing and a 1 round +2 to the target's AC with no real limit) does not immediately make you realize that Free Archetype would fundamentally change the power dynamics within the PFS campaign, then I can't imagine an argument that would change your mind.
So you're saying they could do it and just put it through the sanctioning process to avoid these types of issues you bring up. Then everyone wins.
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The biggest issue, as pointed out earlier, is less of the cap of power being raised due to free archetype, it is the inevitable widening of the possible power gap between players at the same table. That was a big issue back in PF1 that could not be contained because of the mechanics. Now, with PF2, it is a lot easier to manage. One of the ways they do such, is by not using the free archetype system.
If you are so opposed to how OP runs things, you are always welcome to just play home games with your preferred rule sets. In fact, you can even play PFS scenarios with a home group without it counting for PFS credit. That way, you can follow along on the great story being produced while playing your way. The limitations placed on PFS don't work for everyone, and there is nothing wrong with that.
You're welcome to disagree with me but don't sit here and just tell me to shut my opinion up and stick to home games. Not cool. If you don't want to have this conversation, don't. How about that?
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More books will be more stuff. Do you oppose allowing new material in PFS?False equivalency: New books bring New stuff. Just because paizo published gunslingers, it doesn't mean all my characters suddenly became proficient with guns and gained them for free. If I want to get guns, my characters need to trade away something else, be it class feats, their own class, home region to another, gold that would have been used for something else, and so on. The new books didn't suddenly grant all my characters double the amount of anything, they merely granted new options, while free archetype would directly grant all of my characters double the amount of class feats (half of which must be spent on the archetype(s)).
It is true that new stuff brings new combos and power creep is always a thing, but 2e math is very tightly balanced - way more strictly controlled than in 1e, so new options are much closer in power to the old ones than they used to be in 1e - the comparisons and discussion on the gunslinger and whether or not guns are worth it, is a good example.
Also, Rarely do new books bring out something that's so fundamental in function/power that it's a "must" for PCs and completely overrides all previous options, but sometimes we do get stuff like that - for example, in Secrets of magic we got the Retrieval Prism. In 1e, having spring-loaded wrist-sheaths was nearly mandatory because the boost to action economy when you really needed it, was just massive. In 2e, now that we have the retrieval prism, I'm probably going to buy one or two on each and every character I have. However, at 12gp per use it's not exactly free, you can only use one at a time and it's tied to a specific item, and it takes up your armor's talisman slot. In the last adventure I played, each use would have cost me roughly 10% of the gold we gained as reward - not that cheap for a quick one-use boost to action economy.
EDIT: I mean, if we had the option of trading away our general...
Not a false equivalence. And your declaration of such makes me hesitant to consider the rest of your post.
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So you're saying they could do it and just put it through the sanctioning process to avoid these types of issues you bring up. Then everyone wins.Up to 10 more class feats = more power.
That's pretty simple.
But when new books and classes come out, we won't forbid those in the name of balance will we? Much less preemptively because they MIGHT cause an issue.They actually do. All the time. It's the sanctioning process. All those Limited and Restricted designations are things that are forbidden in the name of balance.
That at the very least everyone could add Lay on Hands to every single one of their characters without a trade-off (6 hp/2 levels healing and a 1 round +2 to the target's AC with no real limit) does not immediately make you realize that Free Archetype would fundamentally change the power dynamics within the PFS campaign, then I can't imagine an argument that would change your mind.
Of course they could do it. They said that they’re not going to fairly early in this thread.
However, let us hypothetically say that they change their stance on this and do repeat the sanctioning on every currently published archetype with free archetype interactions in mind. That will at a minimum postpone sanctioning of all future products because there are only so many hours in a day. Possibly increasing to time to sanction new books with archetypes as they need to run those combinations back through all the existing archetypes.
And we run the risk of losing access to sanctioned archetypes when they find an interaction they don’t like.
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You're welcome to disagree with me but don't sit here and just tell me to shut my opinion up and stick to home games. Not cool. If you don't want to have this conversation, don't. How about that?
I think my point is better expressed as thus
I understand your point. I disagree that such a change would be for the better. I highly suspect your desired change will not happen. I would suggest not getting your hopes up. I present 'home' game an option so that you can enjoy the game, playing it your desired way.
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You're welcome to disagree with me but don't sit here and just tell me to shut my opinion up and stick to home games. Not cool. If you don't want to have this conversation, don't. How about that?I think my point is better expressed as thus
I understand your point. I disagree that such a change would be for the better. I highly suspect your desired change will not happen. I would suggest not getting your hopes up. I present 'home' game an option so that you can enjoy the game, playing it your desired way.
Considering I entered this conversation at the head of OP saying it ain't gonna happen, I have no hopes whatsoever. I am however well aware of alternatives like home games, as I'm sure everyone is.
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So you're saying they could do it and just put it through the sanctioning process to avoid these types of issues you bring up. Then everyone wins.Up to 10 more class feats = more power.
That's pretty simple.
But when new books and classes come out, we won't forbid those in the name of balance will we? Much less preemptively because they MIGHT cause an issue.They actually do. All the time. It's the sanctioning process. All those Limited and Restricted designations are things that are forbidden in the name of balance.
That at the very least everyone could add Lay on Hands to every single one of their characters without a trade-off (6 hp/2 levels healing and a 1 round +2 to the target's AC with no real limit) does not immediately make you realize that Free Archetype would fundamentally change the power dynamics within the PFS campaign, then I can't imagine an argument that would change your mind.
Of course they could do it. They said that they’re not going to fairly early in this thread.
However, let us hypothetically say that they change their stance on this and do repeat the sanctioning on every currently published archetype with free archetype interactions in mind. That will at a minimum postpone sanctioning of all future products because there are only so many hours in a day. Possibly increasing to time to sanction new books with archetypes as they need to run those combinations back through all the existing archetypes.
And we run the risk of losing access to sanctioned archetypes when they find an interaction they don’t like.
So you think it's a good idea to not do this thing because it could lead to broken combos but also because you don't want it to expose broken combos YOU like. Strange.
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So you think it's a good idea to not do this thing because it could lead to broken combos but also because you don't want it to expose broken combos YOU like. Strange.
That is an accurate supporting point from me as well. I would enjoy having free archetypes be a thing in PFS. But, due to the aforementioned reason of character power gap, the significance of my preference is lessened.
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Allow me to clarify my point: If OP were to repeat the sanctioning process on the X existing archetypes that are legal under the Core rule with Free Archetype now in mind, we might come out with X-Y archetypes being legal. All those people who were enjoying the archetypes included in subset Y lose access to those archetypes.