Pathfinder 2E Archetypes and Prestige Classes (they’re feats now)

[Charlaquin]

Archetypes and Prestige Classes (they’re feats now)

Archetypes are back in PF2, and they look awesome! As a lot of folks had predicted, instead of archetype features replacing class features, you take archetype feats in place of class feats. Each archetype has one “dedication feat” you have to take first, and once you’ve taken a dedication feat, you have to take a certain number of feats from that archetype before you can take the dedication feat for another archetype. It looks like any class can theoretically take any archetype, though prerequisites might make certain dedications easier for some classes to grab than others. Speaking of which, this mechanic also seems to be replacing prestige classes, which I think is a very smart move.

 

[MichaelSomething]

It seems characters are a combination of Lego like feats now. I'm cool with it.

 

[Sunseeker]

I always liked mixing archetypes, but there was some SERIOUS power-building room there. I wonder if this will even out, or make that worse.

 

[mellored]

It seems characters are a combination of Lego like feats now. I'm cool with it.

Agreed.

Might as well make "fighter" and "wizard" a feat tree while their at it.

 

[mellored]

It's also nice to see story prerequisites as well.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I was a little dissapointed when 5e declined to go with PrCs, even optionally, in spite of using 3e style multi-classing. Especially when race-specific & region-specific sub-classes that'd've made more sense as PrCs started showing up.
Oh well.

Archetypes look a bit like 4e Themes, actually, and the 'Class Feat' thing seems familiar from 13A. Hm...

 

[Charlaquin]

Agreed.

Might as well make "fighter" and "wizard" a feat tree while their at it.

I mean, it seems like a good chunk of what was previously a class’s features are Feats now. The class itself just seems to be the basic structure and proficiency progression, with maybe one big defining mechanic.