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G'evening, fellow adventures.
I was trying to understand why the Scroll Trickster have a "blank feat" space at level four. Look, one of my players use this Archetype (under the rules of Free Archetype) and it seems a little odd that they don't have any level four feat to choose.
How can I resolve this, since he cannot choose another Archetype Feat?
Thanks in advance.
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Just allow them to take another archetype at that level (ritualist has a nice synergy). I think everyone will disagree with this one, but I think the two feat restriction to take archetypes is kinda dumb and arbritary. My table has ignored it since forever and characters don't become insanely OP because of that.
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| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
G'evening, fellow adventures.
I was trying to understand why the Scroll Trickster have a "blank feat" space at level four. Look, one of my players use this Archetype (under the rules of Free Archetype) and it seems a little odd that they don't have any level four feat to choose.
How can I resolve this, since he cannot choose another Archetype Feat?
Thanks in advance.
Archetypes, on the whole, aren't designed with Free Archetypes in mind. Its less of a problem these days, since the explosion in the popularity of FA, but earlier archetypes simply don't / couldn't consider it.
Archetypes are meant to be taken in place of class feats, and have their placement and balance influenced by that.
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Scroll Trickster isn't the only one that does that.
Scrounger doesn't have a level 4 archetype class feat. It has a level 4 archetype skill feat.
Also, there are several archetypes that start with their dedication at level 4, so would be missing anything to put into their level 2 Free Archetype slot.
There are several houserules that have been proposed for dealing with this. One is to relax the restriction on taking additional dedication feats in some manner or other. Another is to allow filling Free Archetype slots with the character's base class's class feats with the 1/2 level restriction - as though they were getting it from an archetype.
Just allow them to take another archetype at that level (ritualist has a nice synergy). I think everyone will disagree with this one, but I think the two feat restriction to take archetypes is kinda dumb and arbritary. My table has ignored it since forever and characters don't become insanely OP because of that.
To make a follow up of this comment, I think ignoring the two feat restriction can be done without much trouble and, in fact, I seriously believe it doesn't impact the balance of the game at all. I think most people agree that dedications usually fall under the feat tax category since they usually don't provide much (with a few exceptions ofc), so most of the time a character that decides to take multiple dedications is likely harming themselves rather than the opposite, since otherwise they could have sticked to a single archetype and build from there. Also, like Finoan said, there's archetypes that simply don't work with Free Archetype. Either because they lack feats at certain levels or because they don't start until later (like the ritualist archetype I mentioned earlier).
There is certain combinations that can be a bit strong if you remove this restriction? Yes, but they don't come even close to breaking the balance of the game when I think there's archetypes that don't need to ignore this rule and are much more stronger (psychic dedication, for example).
Not to mention that if you aren't playing with FA then taking multiple dedications is even worse because you are not only delaying the feats from one of those archetypes but also losing feats from your class, which are usually stronger than archetype feats.
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Just allow them to take another archetype at that level (ritualist has a nice synergy). I think everyone will disagree with this one, but I think the two feat restriction to take archetypes is kinda dumb and arbritary. My table has ignored it since forever and characters don't become insanely OP because of that.To make a follow up of this comment, I think ignoring the two feat restriction can be done without much trouble and, in fact, I seriously believe it doesn't impact the balance of the game at all. I think most people agree that dedications usually fall under the feat tax category since they usually don't provide much (with a few exceptions ofc), so most of the time a character that decides to take multiple dedications is likely harming themselves rather than the opposite, since otherwise they could have sticked to a single archetype and build from there.
I think many of the dedications are straightforwardly more powerful than equivalent-level feats. Cantrip Expansion is a 2nd level feat that gives you 2 additional cantrips; most caster dedications are 2nd level feats that give you 2 addition cantrips, one additional skill, and then the ability to freely select from wizard archetype feats later. Healing Touch is a Champion archetype feat that requires being 4th level and gives you Lay on Hands, and the Blessed One Dedication is a 2nd level feat that gives you Lay on Hands. For the most part, dedications seem stronger choices than same-level feats, but the relative rarity of higher-level dedication feats does mean that you'll likely be choosing between a 2nd level dedication feat and a higher level archetype/class feat after a while.
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Really nice views and ideas here. I'll ask the player what he prefer the most.
Now I'll try to help the Poisoner of my table. He is in a very bad spot right now. With every monster being able to resist his poison. I was searching for ways to avoid the player to fall back because poisons are not "strong" enough.
I mean, there's way more examples of 2nd level that are way above dedication feats than those that are weaker or around the same. If that wasn't the case there wouldn't be a common conception of people seeing dedication feats as "feat taxes" as there currently is.
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I mean, there's way more examples of 2nd level that are way above dedication feats than those that are weaker or around the same. If that wasn't the case there wouldn't be a common conception of people seeing dedication feats as "feat taxes" as there currently is.
I don't think there is a common conception in the way you're outlining it - I've honestly not heard this comment from almost anyone beyond a couple of posters here on the forums, at least outside of specific options. I've heard it more often for the Fighter dedication, for example, but that doesn't extend to all Dedications being feat taxes any more than saying that Magic Warrior being mediocre means Archetypes are bad, or Advanced Weapon Training being mediocre means all Fighter feats are bad.
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If they run into a gap like this, let them take another dedication, and then make them meet the requirements to take more dedications later. That's going to avoid the dead level this causes with Free Archetype but not just throw the limitations out the window entirely. The same thing can happen if you use Ancient Elf, which gets a dedication at level 1 and thus the level 2 FA feat has nothing valid to spend it on.
I wouldn't throw the limitation out the window entirely, because then there's really no reason why everyone shouldn't pick up Psychic Dedication for an amp cantrip. The requirement to take 2 more feats before taking another dedication limits shenanagians like that (and the PF1 silliness of dipping 4 classes) but doesn't tend to really impact anyone with FA that is actually investing in the archetype.