Divine and Occult classes in school?

[O'Mouza]

Hi everyone!

I'm starting SoT with my players and we will use the free archetypes rule.

My question is: is it possible to play as a sorcerer or a cleric (or a witch) as main class without taking the wizard or druid archetypes?

Actually it seems really a strong limitation to me to be allowed to play only with those two archetypes while using the free archetypes variant rule.

Do you have any suggestions?

How do you will handle the academy to accept as students other classes like oracles or summoners and so on?

Thank you for your answers!

[Perpdepog]

Those bonus archetypes are mostly there so that everyone in the group has access to some level of magic, given they're at a magical school, and also some degree of proficiency with Arcana or Nature. Past that I don't think there's anything super necessary about limiting to just those two archetypes.

One thing I've seen more than a few GMs do, myself included, is open up the free archetype slot to any multiclass that grants arcane or primal spellcasting. I believe others have opened up their free archetype options entirely but I haven't seen any posts about it lately.

I'd also recommend having a look at the Life at the Academy rules because those grant rewards which I believe synergize better with arcane or primal spellcasters. You may want to consider altering the rewards depending on how much your group wants to invest into that subsystem.

[keftiu]

Druid and Wizard are there to reflect the Magaambya’s specialties, make sense as magic that can be taught (nobody’s becoming a Sorcerer via studying, y’know?), and give everyone both Arcana/Nature and Arcane/Primal spellcasting. I think so long as there’s those skills represented on everyone, you’re mostly good to go.

Older lore does have the Magaambya training people who melded primal and psychic occult magic, called Magaambyan Telepaths, and the founders of the Magaambya were famously Magi, so I would be tempted to at least add Magus and Psychic to the Free Archetype options, but that might be foolish.

[Luke Styer]

My thought to open up options a bit was to require that every character be a Wizard or a Druid, be that through the archetype or their primary class. Thus a Wizard could use the Free Archetype freely, but a Fighter would have to take either Wizard or Druid as their Free Archetype. That was a moot point because no one played a Wizard or Druid.

As we progressed, though, I opened the Free Archetype up once the characters hit 8th level, and so had three feats from Wizard or Druid. With all the Magaambya specific stuff they get from the Academia subsystem, I think flavor is easily maintained.

[Joseph Collins]

I am playing as an Anadi fighter/sorcerer (arcane) at the school to research Druidic Shapeshifting. I have not felt ostracized from the adventure for being neither a Wizard nor a Druid, as I do still have Arcane and Nature trained. Some other posts suggest that the Magaambyan Attendant and/or the AP may lock out certain abilities for characters without access to those skills at high levels, but you will at least get some access through that Dedication.
So far, I feel that if the character has a reason to be at the school, you might be able to get away with playing a non-spellcaster, with just the splash from a free cantrip and free Dedication, at least in the first few books.