Fixing the Martial Archtype

I play two martial characters and have never felt underpowered or limited. The casting classes certainly gain more flexibility with their spell options (compared to the number of martial techniques most martial characters have), but combined with weapon tricks, I think it is reasonable.

I’ve never personally felt there was a need to ‘fix’ the martial archetype.

My secondary is a Martial, and the only thing ‘holding him back’ in mods I’ve found is that the few times I’ve played him he is half a tier below the table. Even then, he acquits himself well.

I do agree that ASC and DSC are the most powerful talents in the game by a landslide.

Against that, 2 things.

One: generally magic only does tactical things in A:RPG. That puts it on closer parity with swinging a sword.

Two: it’s really really hard to have anything looking like “efficient clock management” by just spell casting. Most people IME don’t want to play a “pure” caster. In practice you also need to be able to “swing a sword” (or otherwise DO something with a weapon).

Net result? I don’t see an over abundance of “wizards” even though the talent is super awesome.

Right now, I’m actively playing 3 characters.

Ss’kethis is Ssressen Expert/Templar
G’hyu’thyh is Kio Martial/Templar
Eryk is val’Holryn Martial/Undisciplined Psion
unnamed (new char in home game) is Arcane (Eldritch)/Veteran of Altherian War

Other characters I made for myself and 2 other people in the home game are:
Undir Expert/Shaman Initiate
val’Ossan Martial/Undisciplined Psion
Ssressen Martial/Templar
Elorii Expert/Soldier of Retribution – heading to Tal Kannath
Elorii Arcane/Soldier of Retribution – alt version of previous
val’Emman Expert/Undisciplined Psion
val’Emman Arcane/Templar – alt version of the previous
Ghost Scale Expert/Shaman Initiate

So, out of my active characters and ones I just created for people, that’s:
Archetype: 5 Expert, 4 Martial, and 3 Arcane
Background: 4 Templar, 3 Undisciplined Psion, 2 Shaman Initiate, 3 other military

Clearly, I heavily favor hybrid caster/physical combat in characters I create.

I think the biggest thing that hurts Arcane and, especially, Divine Archetypes is how easy it is to get Divine Spell Casting or Arcane Spell Casting (except Eldritch and Elder) by taking a simple Background (although Undisciplined Psion has some additional restrictions that slow it down some).

From my perspective Arcane does not need a fix. Though perhaps as Eric pointed out the ability to use adaptable to go around the disadvantage of expert is where this is comming from.

HOWEVER, given the variation of opinions I am leaning to the idea that nothing needs to be fixed. My reasoning for the change in position is that -IF- we all like something different then statistically speaking they all must be pretty close to even.

I agree that Expert is the most popular archetype, because it is so flexible. I don’t think it is overpowered because it is never better than the other archetypes in their area of expertise though. I think martial is the next most popular, and is generally good because the truth is, it is the damage dealer of the archetypes. Spells are great for AoE, but nothing beats a martial for dishing out the damage on the big, bad, guy. I am truly worried when I am not traveling with at least one martial character in the party.

Divine is the next most popular, though I don’t think it is that much more powerful than arcane, I think there are just so many interesting different things (priest, 12 diff types of holy champions, etc) to try with divine casters, and I think divine combines the best with melee (smite, bless weapon, etc) that most of the caster/melee combinations are divine, and some of these take the divine archetype because of it.

I think the arcane is given the short-end of the preference, though I don’t know if that means they are necessarily under powered, or if it just because their design isn’t as rich as the divine is. The one thing about the arcane that I find odd is that if you want to be a truly arcane super caster – i.e. psionics and another arcane, you have to go expert, because when you take your primary advancement group (casting, deceit, stealth) you specifically only get one casting skill advanced. Therefore as a expert you can advance both casting skills three times over three ranks, but as an arcane specialist, you can only advance one 3 times, and the other twice. That seems wrong considering that both are arcane. I think that should be fixed, because I don’t think there should be any time that being an arcane caster should be easier/better as an expert than as a arcane archetype. I think the best fix would be to just say that one gets a rank in any arcane casting they have when they take that rank choice, but I’m open to other alternatives.

(and possibly have the two lore skills you get at archtype creation be two lore or arcanum skills to allow for ranks that early)