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What's the doubt?
Apart from reading people demanding it to be a lvl 2 dedication ( which I bet it won't, given its power ), it seems pretty straightforward to me.
I'm pretty sure that the doubt is that the level requirements of feat is weird, not just for the dedication. You get another feat on the same level of the dedication, something that almost never happen, except for feat poached from classes, and skill feats (which imply that indeed, the dedicaton was supposed to be at level 2).
You get the "captivating intensity" feat at level 6, a feat that does literally nothing at that level, even if you somehow managed to grab both it, the dedication and basic captivator spellcasting, as it only start to grant you more slot at level 8 (because the basic spellcasting only let you cast level 3 spells from level 8 onward).
It is true that the captivator being weirdly worded make it quite strong at high level if you build it right, but I don't see why "being strong at high level" should translate to "having feat that literally do nothing for multiple level at low level, and being 2 level late for all your spellcasting purpose compared to other spellcasting archetype". Archetype and classes should strive to be balanced the whole way, not just "overpowered at high level, underpowered at low level".
To me, between the weirdness of the level requirement, and the weird wording allowing the silliness that songinrain underlined in the second thread, it's quite clear that captivator was an archetype that wasn't properly eddited and that's pending an errata.
Only the crystal keeper is like the captivator, whith a feat on the same level as the dedication that is neither a class nor a skill feat. Class feat can be the same level as the cultivation as they stay the same level wether they're in the archetype or simply in their base class. Skill feat can be the same level because you may take them with a skill feat slot and not a class feat slot, so you can unlock them the very next level as you gain your next skill feat (or the same level if you're a rogue or investigator), no variant rule needed for it to work.
Furthermore, what you say don't work with the free archetype rule simply because you also need to take an archetype level 2, at which point you can't take any other dedication until you've taken two other feat of that archetype. So if you take a dedication and a feat of that archetype level 2, you're still one short, and have to take another (and then the dedication) level 4. if you don't have FA rule, then having the basic spellcasting on level 4 don't matter because you can only take it at level 6 as the soonest. If you do, then you are already locked in an archetype from the dedication rule, and can't take it on level 4 either. If you want to take both feat on level 4, you either need to be playing a dual class character that invest both class feat into that archetype on level 4 (in which case the captivator dedication is far from unbalanced given the power of dual class), or to somehow find an archetype that have a level 2 dedication, and two other level 2 (or three) feat, one of which need to also be a skill feat, so that you can take it on level 3. I don't think any such archetype exist currently.
And I'm really not sure, are you seriously saying that a feat that does literally nothing for 2 whole level, that may takes entire month of campaign to run, is actually good because "in the end, it free a level 8 feat slot"? It seems normal to you that this archetype who already have some weirdness going on with it also contain the only exemple I can find in all of pathfinder 2e of a feat which do nothing at all if you take it when it first become available, because you haven't unlocked the feature that allow it to work yet?
It's not about it being an "advantage" or not. Those feats that give a second level 10 slot, it would be an advantage if you could get them at level 2 right? Even if you had to wait all the way until level 19 for it to work (because you need to have the slot for the feat to work), it'll still open up another level 20 feat choice, for the low cost of a level 2 one.
But it would be bad because it would be a "do nothing" feat for most of the game. It would be bad because it wouldn't be thematic at all, you unlocking a "power" that require you to know things you actually don't know. There's a reason why this type of feat is level 8 only for every other archetype. There's a reason why feat that do nothing but improve other feat can't be taken unless you take said other feat. The fact that this captivator feat is the only one in the whole game that break this rule show that there's a problem with it.
This isn't the only problem with captivator mind you. One formating problem that isn't often brought up is that at no point the archetype do precise "how many time per day can you cast these spells exactly?". Everyone who read it understand "once per day, unless you have the captivating intensity", but reread the archetype, at no point does it say so. The basic spellcasting feat just say that you get to add some spells as innate spells, not how many time you may cast them. The captivating intensity feat say that you can cast them "once more per day", not that it goes from one to two. You might argue that them being innate spells mean that it's once per day, except that the innate spells rule say :
"The ability that gives you an innate spell tells you how often you can cast it —usually once per day— and its magical tradition."
But the captivator archetype doesn't say that. You just have to infer that it's once per day, since every other spellcasting archetype work that way, and since innate spells are "usually once per day". The archetype doesn't even say if you can cast your cantrip an unlimited amount of time per day either, or if it's as limited as the other spells.
Now, you're gonna say that it's an easy deduction, since every other archetype work that way, but what you're missing is that the fact that you need to deduce it at all show poor formating. Once again, no other archetype work like that, you don't have to guess how the rule work, it's explicitely told (even if it's sometime a bit obscure). I'd go as far as saying that to use the captivator archetype at all, you need to homebrew it a bit to decide "how many time you get to cast these spells to begin with?"
All of these, the weirdness of level requirement, the fact that you can get a feat before it have any effect at all, the fact that the rule are so vague you have to guess what it actually do, all of it point to one direction : the archetype was overlooked during the edditing process, and need an errata for it to actually make sense.
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Pretty sure Mark Siefter; the creator of the archetype, said the dedication should be level 2 in a thread similar to this one when it came out.
That said, I'm not one to endorse the "but some paizo staff member said this in some post a year and a half ago, so that means it's official"; the best I can suggest is using it as guidance for houserules.
That said, Captivator really isn't that OP. Certainly advantaged over other spellcasting archetype in term of spell level progression, but it's also pretty limited in scope; so I wouldn't really put it's power level above other casting archetypes. Imo Captivator actually does it right in terms of getting more power at the expense of breadth.
Pretty sure Mark Siefter; the creator of the archetype, said the dedication should be level 2 in a thread similar to this one when it came out.
That said, I'm not one to endorse the "but some paizo staff member said this in some post a year and a half ago, so that means it's official"; the best I can suggest is using it as guidance for houserules.
That said, Captivator really isn't that OP. Certainly advantaged over other spellcasting archetype in term of spell level progression, but it's also pretty limited in scope; so I wouldn't really put it's power level above other casting archetypes. Imo Captivator actually does it right in terms of getting more power at the expense of breadth.
I agree with you, which make all that weirdness around it even more frustrating. I really think there should be more spellcasting option that give you more power in exchange for narrowing what you can do, and captivator get it right on the money for me (once all is fixed).
Not only is the spell choice very limited (only two school of magic in only one magical tradition), but it's doubly limited because you only get to know one spell of each level, which you can never change, and you can't ever add another one (while prepared spellcasting archetype can add other without problem, and spontaneous spellcasting add a second spell per level when they get their second slot). It's a perfect showcase of what an archetype can be and how it can enable fantasies that weren't really supported otherwise... Except for the fact that the level requirement of two feat don't make sense, and that the actual spellcasting feat doesn't explain everything and leave the player guessing what was intended.
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That said, Captivator really isn't that OP. Certainly advantaged over other spellcasting archetype in term of spell level progression, but it's also pretty limited in scope; so I wouldn't really put it's power level above other casting archetypes. Imo Captivator actually does it right in terms of getting more power at the expense of breadth.
Especially the dedication feat.
Why should Captivator Dedication be level 4?
It gives one skill, or bumps a skill to expert. It gives two cantrips.
Two limited choice cantrips. And you don't need a component pouch, but you do explicitly need a hand free in order to replace material components with somatic components - like the infamous feat Eschew Materials.
Compare that to Sorcerer Dedication:
It gives two skills. It gives two cantrips without restrictions.
And as for bumping skills to expert, other level 2 dedication feats do that. Such as Acrobat and Marshal and Wrestler. Which are all level 2 dedication feats.
So what am I missing? Why would Captivator Dedication need to be a level 4 feat?
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So what am I missing? Why would Captivator Dedication need to be a level 4 feat?
It's clearly the awesome power of the free Eschew Materials effect... That and having to pick your cantrips from Bullhorn, Daze, Ghost Sound, Infectious Enthusiasm, Invoke True Name, Message or Tame! [and none actually benefit from the free Eschew Materials effect as none have material components...].
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It's something I've seen quite often in this forum and other places, an option being bad is seen as "fine" because X level down the line, it open up great options.
I really disagree with this design philosophy, and I'm pretty sure that so does paizo, as most of PF2 design philosophy seems that they aim at "leveling" the playing field so that it's fun for all classes for all level. Things should be balanced for the whole level range, not "too strong" at one end and "too weak" at the other. A level 4 dedication feat should be compared to other dedication feat, not to other archetype as a whole. And nothing in the captivator dedication power level justify it being level 4 rather than level 2.
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It's something I've seen quite often in this forum and other places, an option being bad is seen as "fine" because X level down the line, it open up great options.
There are some cases where I do find that to be valid. The one I can think of immediately is a dedication feat that is a bit lacking because it opens up archetype feats that are a bit more powerful than normal.
But that is regarding balance of the archetype as a whole.
The price level of a particular feat - including the dedication feat - should be accurate to that feat's specific power.
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The dedication being level 4 must be a mistake, which happens rather frequently with supplement books and APs.
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Yeah it's a rather wonky archetype.
* The dedication and basic spellcasting being the same level feat doesn't make sense. It's a pretty consistent design pattern that feats aren't of a lower level than when you could reasonably take them, but if the dedication is level 4, then there's no normal way to also take the basic spellcasting at 4.
* Captivating intensity doesn't do anything at the level where you can take it.
* Heightened Captivation needs you to have captivator spells but doesn't require basic spellcasting as a prerequisite.
* Expert Captivator Spellcasting at level 10 is two levels earlier than most other expert spellcasting archetype feats.
* Reactive Charm doesn't require basic spellcasting, but requires level 1 captivator spells which you can't gain in any other way.
* Effortless Captivation allows you to sustain spells gained from outside the archetype, while all the other feats specifically work on spells from inside the archetype.
* Master Captivator Spellcasting is two levels earlier for a master spellcasting feat.