Pathfinder 2E Multiclassing unveiled... through archetypes.

[MoonSong]

Just saw this in the Paizo forums. Multiclasing has been unveiled.
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkz1?Multiclassing-and-Archetypes

 

[Ancalagon]

Just saw this in the Paizo forums. Multiclasing has been unveiled.
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkz1?Multiclassing-and-Archetypes

Intriguing....

 

[Charlaquin]

I could not be happier about this.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Neat! If I understand this correctly, it just requires investing a series of feats in order to become increasingly multi-classed (similar to my absolutely favorite thing about 4E).

The only issue I can see is if feats can otherwise be spent to become more powerful, such that these are in competition against those. That was what absolutely killed about 90% of the feats in PF1, was that ten minor flavor effects couldn't compete with +10 AC.

 

[Charlaquin]

Neat! If I understand this correctly, it just requires investing a series of feats in order to become increasingly multi-classed (similar to my absolutely favorite thing about 4E).

The only issue I can see is if feats can otherwise be spent to become more powerful, such that these are in competition against those. That was what absolutely killed about 90% of the feats in PF1, was that ten minor flavor effects couldn't compete with +10 AC.

I don’t think this is going to be a huge concern, as Dedication Feats seem to be offering a lot more than normal Class Feats. One of the devs mentioned in the comments on the blog post that the Fighter Dedication Feat would take 5 other Feats to reproduce. So I don’t think we’ll be giving up too much vertical advancement for the horizontal advancement Multiclass Archetypes will offer.

 

[Jer]

How many feats do characters get in PF2? Has there been a preview discussing that yet?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

How many feats do characters get in PF2? Has there been a preview discussing that yet?

I think it's one per level, so around 30 in total.

 

[Shasarak]

Ok so this is an interesting way to do multiclassing. I want to look at a complete class chassis before making any firm comment one way or the other.

I do note that they are doubling down on the jargon terminology as well as having odd feats like Basic Arcana that dont actually do anything except giving you a different feat. I suspect that you should not have feat bloat like this in your very first product.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I always quite liked the 3.x approach to Multiclassing, while it had issues (favored class, caster level, saving throws, etc), it was an elegant idea, at bottom. Simply treat the next level in each class as an equally-weighted, 'modular' choice when you level up.

4e feat-based MCing was kinda meh - 4e feats, in general were mostly a lot of chaff and fiddly customization options, crowded out by a growing list of feat taxes and broken post-Essentials feats - and Hybrids were, well, not as bad as Gestalts, I guess, but basically trying to do old-school MCing.

5e /tried/ to improve on 3e MCing, to mitigate issues with dipping, for instance, and it does handle MC'd casters better, for instance, and proficiency helps things work smoothly, but, it introduces similar problems in places where they didn't exist before, like extra attack and ASIs. It /seems/ like it should be a simple intuitive system, to just take levels in a class, then start taking levels in a different one - but the class designs never seem to be up to the challenge.

Archetypes don't strike me as quite as elegant or intuitive as 3e 'modular' multiclassing, but, with 3.5, PF & 5e all having tried to improve on the 3.0 system, and none really quite succeeding, I suppose the Archetype approach may ultimately prove more workable. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

 

[Charlaquin]

How many feats do characters get in PF2? Has there been a preview discussing that yet?

Remember, there are multiple categories of Feats now. So, since you get some kind of Feat once every level and two different kinds of feats on even levels, you total 30 Feats overall at 20th level (40 for rogues). But that's not exactly useful information, because you can only take certain types of Feats at certain levels.

What's more useful to know is that you get 10 Class Feats, 10 Skill Feats (20 for rogues), 5 General Feats (which can be used to take additional Skill Feats if you want) and 5 Ancestry Feats. Class Feats are the ones you swap for Archetypes, including Prestige Archetypes and Multiclass Archetypes.