Fixing Archtypes (long term)

From the other thread, but relevant here:

3) Skill Advancements for Arcane/Divine need changed. I contend Expert is chosen more often because of it’s Advancements than because of what it starts with. If Arcane/Divine had their skill advancement changed to “Advance 1 Rank in a number of Trained Skills equal to 3 + Passive Logic to be chosen from Deceit, Stealth, Arcanum, and any Lore Skill” (Religion, Deity Skill, Arcanum and any Social Skill” I think you’d see more of them. That offers flexibility within the archetype constraints but doesn’t force a bad decision or end up with wasted skills.

Expert is REALLY good
Taking adaptable as one of the archetype skill talents is pretty ridiculously good.
AND they get an any weapon talent
AND they get more initial skill points than other archtypes

Keep this in mind: Adaptable is not an Expert only talent.
– Almost all Races (except Tir Betoqi, Encali, Nol Dappans, Ardakene, Kelekene, and and Marokene) can take this and anyone can take it at Step 9. At that point, you might not be able to ‘stack’ it with other skills, but you can expand your options. That said, I think it would be appropriate for Racial Talents to have the option of being chosen at Step 2 or at Step 9 (But you’d need to meet the requirements at either Step).

Martial is Decent
the man reason to take this is to take the combat specific advancements, and some of them make up for it in the long term
I think a weapon Mastery talent AND one less combat skill and one skill point useable in any non arcanum skill would bring things up to the expert level

I’d like to add, Martial is the only way to get Sweeping Strike without a 6 Might, this is HUGE for those Quickness based fighters that still want Sweeping Strike.

Also, getting all the Weapons, Armor, and Shields for your starting nation is about 10-12 Proficiency Talents, compared to the 4 Experts get and the few Arcane/Divine get.

I would *not* recommend offering Weapon Master (As it’s already ridiculously easy to get for anyone by the end of Character Generation and you’d have Martial Types with WM II they couldn’t use for a Tier).

I would recommend offering “Choose any 4 Combat or Physical Skills” instead of “Choose any 3 Combat Skills” I do not recommend opening it up for “Any non-arcanum skill” as that crosses into the flexibility of the Expert.

Arcane is acceptable
they almost always will be behind in character advancements compared to the experts, I think that would be easily off set in the first tier by offering a Spell affinity talent, and then later combine the “Gain 1 Rank to a single Arcanum skill,Deceit, and Stealth” and Gain 1 Rank to a number of Trained Lore Skills equal to 3+ your Logic Passive Value” advancement options in some fashion.

I would recommend “Choose any 3 Lore Skills” so that all archetypes start with 6 skills.

I agree with combining their 2 Skill advancements into “Gain 1 Rank to a number of Trained skills equal to 3 + your Passive Logic, which may be chosen from a single Arcanum skill, Deceit, Stealth, and Lore Skills.” This would also be where Background skills are added in Continued Training were errated to remove the extra skill ranks.

Divine makes me sad
right now I refuse to build a divine archtype character, because of advancements, and getting screwed for having an average logic.
I think the same thing should be done to combine the Arcanum advancement and the Social advancement
I would add an additional skill point for Social skills, some regional weapon and armor talents, AND Learn Spell from the Deity Tradition (unless your a SP and then you get Learn Spell from the Blood tradition)

I would recommend “Choose any 1 Combat and 2 Social Skills” so that all archetypes start with 6 skills.

I would recommend adding “You gain Armor Proficiency and Weapon Training in your Deity’s Chosen Armor and Weapon, and Weapon Training in 1 weapon common to your starting nation.”

I agree with combining their 2 Skill advancements into “Gain 1 Rank to a number of Trained skills equal to 3 + your Passive Logic, which may be chosen from a single Arcanum skill, Knowledge (religion), Deity Skill, and Social Skills.” This would also be where Background skills are added in Continued Training were errated to remove the extra skill ranks.

John

Here is the thing about fixing the Archetypes. We’ve come to far. This is far behind the scope of an errata and getting into 1.X territory. I felt the same way when Pedro said he was changing the order of character creation. Most of our classifications and errata’s have been to deal something too powerful. Do we want to do the opposite and make something more powerful?

But to be honest I would love to see Arcane and Divine become more appealing.

The biggest reason to take Martial is for Advanced Armor Training. Advanced Armor Training is the Adaptable of the Martial Archetype. It makes not wearing armor pointless when you can negate all bulk. I don’t think a change is needed for this archetype, except to make light and no armor characters more appealing to it. As of right now, the archetype is the Heavy Armor Archetype.

Arcane: I don’t think more talents is what Arcane needs. I think they are good enough to start out with. Maybe offer as as starting skill a Knowledge (Arcanum, the Planes, Infernals, Spirits?)?

Divine: Here is my biggest beef with the divine archetype, there aren’t enough Devout talents, an not enough appealing ones. That why Vaerdos is an expert, I couldn’t figure out 5 devout talents worth taking. I found 1.

Arcane and Divine: How about this? Remove the two skill options that are there now and replace with these.

Arcanum (any), Deceit, Stealth, and your passive Logic in Lore Skills
Arcanum (any), Deity’s Favorite Skill, Knowledge (Religion), and your passive Logic in Social skills

I would *not* recommend offering Weapon Master (As it’s already ridiculously easy to get for anyone by the end of Character Generation and you’d have Martial Types with WM II they couldn’t use for a Tier).

I think the Martial’s deserve something here , but that it should not be a huge thing, i cant see a single martial character that doesn’t pursue the weapon mastery chain to the end, but we could say they can pick from that list of diehard/leadership/ LMT twice or even pick up any ANY weapon training talent.

(I’m also open to arguments on why it doesnt need anything)

I’m not sure if we believe the same thing, the advantage of adaptable for experts is you get it before you get any skill points

racial talents are held until step 9 , archtype talents are the only ones that “break the rules”

True which is why I added that I think it’s appropriate for Racial Talents to be taken at Step 2 (as a change of course). Even at Step 9, it can give 1 rank in some skills you wouldn’t have taken (which can then be improved during advancements more easily since they are trained). You might not start with them like an Expert but with up to 2 other advancements you can keep them higher.

John

I think the Martial’s deserve something here , but that it should not be a huge thing, i cant see a single martial character that doesn’t pursue the weapon mastery chain to the end, but we could say they can pick from that list of diehard/leadership/ LMT twice or even pick up any ANY weapon training talent.

(I’m also open to arguments on why it doesnt need anything)Advanced Armor Training is what they get here.

I don’t see people steering away from Martial. Advanced Armor Training, but their advancements aren’t half bad, especially with the gain LMT twice advancement.

I think the Martial’s deserve something here , but that it should not be a huge thing, i cant see a single martial character that doesn’t pursue the weapon mastery chain to the end, but we could say they can pick from that list of diehard/leadership/ LMT twice or even pick up any ANY weapon training talent.

(I’m also open to arguments on why it doesnt need anything)Advanced Armor Training is what they get here.

I don’t see people steering away from Martial. Advanced Armor Training, but their advancements aren’t half bad, especially with the gain LMT twice advancement.

The only change I’d like to see to Martial is their skill choices be “Combat or Physical” and maybe 1 more skill point at Archetype stage to give all archetypes 6 skills.