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That's it. That's the suggestion.
As for the reason why: Resiliency feats on multiclass archetypes are generally considered not very good, and in my opinion for good reason. At 20th level, you need 7 feats in the same multiclass archetype, including their resiliency feat, just to start breaking even with Toughness, a 1st-level general feat. Even if you were to commit 10 class feats towards that same archetype, I would argue that the 10 extra HP you'd get over Toughness would still not beat the latter's DC reduction to recovery checks. In other words: these 4th-level class feats require enormous amounts of commitment just to ultimately turn out worse than a 1st-level general feat on its own.
Thus, in my opinion, a simple change to make these feats a little better would be to just make them give twice your level as additional HP, which if you were 2 HP/level behind the class you were multiclassing into would bring you to their HP. In exchange for removing the requirement to commit large amounts of archetype feats, resiliency feats should instead not stack with each other. I ultimately don't believe this would make resiliency feats great, necessarily, but it would certainly make them not quite as weak as I believe they are now.
This is a valid point. I think the issue of stacking martial archetypes can be addressed simply by making resiliency feats not stack, but otherwise I agree it could be nice to try keeping the element of rewarding commitment, without either making the feat super-weak or having it grant so much HP that it would exceed the original class. I'm not sure how to thread the needle on that one, but even with the above proposal, I feel there's still room for something more on a 4th-level archetype feat.
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What if the resiliency feat added half the difference between your base class and the archetype's class hit dice in HP per level? And with 2 feats it brought you up to the archetypes HP per level?
It's a nice HP bonus, but honestly I don't think it's too crazy.
Heck, if you think my suggestion is too much then what about allowing resiliency to add +1 hp/level, and every archetype feat added an additional +1/level up to meeting the archetype class' hp per level?
That might be the better suggestion.
Playing as a wizard fighter? If you spend 4 feats (including resiliency) you now have as much HP as a fighter.
What if the resiliency feat added half the difference between your base class and the archetype's class hit dice in HP per level? And with 2 feats it brought you up to the archetypes HP per level?
It's a nice HP bonus, but honestly I don't think it's too crazy.
Heck, if you think my suggestion is too much then what about allowing resiliency to add +1 hp/level, and every archetype feat added an additional +1/level up to meeting the archetype class' hp per level?
That might be the better suggestion.
I like the idea of making up the difference by getting more feats, though I have mixed feelings about it being the difference between the base class and the one being archetyped into: in most cases, i.e. a 8 HP/level class taking an archetype of a 10 HP/level class, it'd just be 1 HP/level and you'd then pick 2 more feats to no longer have benefits that are flat-out worse than Toughness, so that in my opinion would still make the feat really weak in those cases. However, if you're something like a Sorcerer archetyping into a Guardian, that's 3 HP/level right off the bat, and then with a few more feats you'd go from being one of the squishiest classes in the game to having more HP than most classes. Even with the more gradual increase, I'm not sure that's a difference that ought to be made up in every case, as squishy classes IMO should probably remain on the squishier side, even if they can move around a bit in their ballpark of HP. I'd thus rather keep the HP benefits at a constant 2/level, which wouldn't necessarily be fantastic for a 4th-level feat but would at least be consistent and interesting to some builds.
One other alternative I'm thinking of could be to layer on benefits similar to Canny Acumen: currently a lot of MC archetypes grant master proficiency in a save or Perception if the original class is legendary, which I think is not that amazing for a 12th-level feat but could be more interesting if packaged into another. You could thus have the resiliency feat make you an expert in one of the class's two starting expert saves (or maybe also Perception if the class starts out an expert), and then make you a master if you're, say, 12th level and have a total of 3 of that archetype's feats. Thus, you'd be getting the benefits of two 1st-level general feats instead of one.
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I actually kind of like the mechanic of getting tougher the more feats of a tough class you take. It is true, however, that it's really hard to get value out of, and I very rarely take it.
I would note that Toughness and Resiliency aren't competing with each other, and if you really want to get more HP you're going to get both, and General Feats are, for some reason, the designated boring but effective math increase pool.
When you look at the math, it seems like they hit on 3 HP per feat because it leaves you just under the base HP of the next higher HP die after 10 feats of investment. 4 HP per feat makes you match. The problem is that 10 feats of investment is ENORMOUS. Already, I strongly believe you could bump it to 4, and it would easily be fair for that level of dedication.
Twice level HP, as Teridax suggests, would be a one feat investment to go up a die size in HP. That might be on the too strong side, and I would see going out of your way for it on any class below d12 hit die. Though, it does have the benefit of being simple.
I could see a flat +1 hp per level, plus 2 for every dedication feat. You get a little weaker toughness off the bat, but it stacks with toughness and other options, so lots of HP optimizers would still love it. Then the 2 hp per feat leaves you off at a total +40 if you go 10 feats deep, which means you'd be equal to a die size increase.
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These are fair points, and they also touch upon another aspect of resiliency feats that makes me a little uncomfortable still: at the end of the day, these feats accomplish the same purpose as Toughness, and anyone trying to stack more HP with a resiliency feat is almost certainly going to also have Toughness in their build (in fact, pretty much anyone will get Toughness at some point because it's one of the few good general feats). A similar thing could be said about Canny Acumen and save/Perception proficiency feats.
So, to take that, glass's, and Claxon's suggestion on board, how about this for a change to resiliency feats:
So effectively, the feat would give you two 1st-level general feats whose benefits would improve if you commit enough feats to satisfy the archetype's dedication requirements. You wouldn't exceed the HP of the original class if they also took Toughness, but would get that gradation of increased HP based on commitment.
Currently Resiliency feats are (IMO) good when you actually plan to take a lot of the feats the archetype offers and need the HP. Which basically means you are building a front line martial on the chassis of something that has less HP. And IMO that is when they SHOULD be good. If it is just as good as taking a high HP class outside that circumstance... then it starts cutting into the niche of high HP classes.
I really do think +3 per level is just to much HP - it means a warpriest with a champion dedication gets more HP per level than a champion (unless that champ seperately buys toughness)!
*Drop the free toughness.
*Make Resilience +1 per level when you take the feat, with another +1/2 level if you qualify to exit the dedication.
Yeah, that's not super strong, but on a build that needs the HP (like my thaum tank with champion dedication, or on a warpriest with fighter dedication) it very much IS worth taking (along with toughness as a general feat).
That would "solve" the "problem" of resilience not keeping adding HP unless you keep buying archetype feats. That means Resilience is now actually usable outside of FA games, and in FA games you can get it's full benefit without being "locked into" an archetype as you level up.
I also think it the very least we need to keep the limit that it only works if the dedication class has higher HP than your base class - this isn't mentioned above but maybe is implied? And obviously you should only ever be able to get the bonus once (as you have already addressed, as it won't stack).
That too is a fair point; expecting the main class to have Toughness in order to not get surpassed in Hit Points is risky even if Toughness is a common pick. I do want to keep the free Toughness, because it avoids having to pick two separate feats to achieve the exact same purpose, but I may then drop the scaling HP increase based on other feats and instead increase the Hit Points granted by the feat to twice your level.
And yes, I'm not changing the HP/level limit on resiliency prerequisites. The aim here is to get Hit Points closer to the class getting archetyped into, rather than exceed them.
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Obviously, if they were giving X/level, they cannot stack. But their not stacking would also be a potential problem if we are making investment in relevant archetypes count again. Because a Wizard with 5 Champion feats and 5 Fighter feats is just as invested in being a front-liner as someone with someone with 10 of either, but under some of the revised proposals would have a lot fewer hp (obviously, that matters a lot less if we cap the number of feats that can contribute fairly low, but that seems unsatisfying to me).
I think that for better and for worse, Pathfinder 2e is a game that aims to prevent a Wizard from becoming as much of a frontliner as a Fighter, even if the Wizard opts into lots of Fighter feats. I'd thus be okay with capping the benefits of resiliency feats and preventing them from stacking, such that a Wizard could get partway there but not all the way.
Nor should they be, but that is orthogonal to the comment you quoted. A wizard with lots fighter feats is served fine by many of the proposals, whereas a wizard with that many feats taken from two or martial Archetypes has the same amount of "martial investment" but significantly fewer HP. That was what the counter-proposal at the end of my post sort to address.
That is fair, though I think simply granting Toughness and doubling its max HP increase, regardless of which archetype you take the resiliency feat from, and preventing stacking, means it wouldn't matter whether you get your resiliency feat from a Barbarian, Champion, or Fighter: if you get any resiliency feat, you get the same benefits.