you leveled up in Pathfinder your character's abilities are mostly defined by your class so when you're leveling up your character you might start looking at your class advancement table on the archives of nethys that's this table right here which tells you what your class gets at every given level like if you become an expert at will saves at level three but what if you're looking at this table and you feel bored and creatively unfulfilled that's where you can use archetypes archetypes are mini classes you can latch onto your regular class replacing some of your abilities with the ability ities of the archetype like the assassin archetype gives you a few unique assassin abilities but archetypes are completely optional even within the same party one character might use an archetype while another one doesn't and they'll still be perfectly matched in power so how do they work your class advancement table is really made up of a bunch of little tables the ranger gets better weapon proficiencies at level five their saving throw proficiencies improve at level three and seven they get new class feed at level one and all even levels and they get a new skill feat at all even levels if we do this for every single feature a ranger gets we can see all the little tables that the ranger is made up of and if we compare it to another class like the thge we can see a lot of these tables are the same and even if you compare it to a really different class like a wizard there are more differences but a lot of it is still the same some increases never change between classes like these while Marshall characters usually get an extra class feed at level one and certain classes like Rogues get extra skill feeds every single class gets a class feed and a skill feed on even levels and that's how archetypes work mechanically an archetype is just a bunch of class Feats or sometimes skill Feats these are us usually a combination of unique Feats tailored to that archetype or a few additional Feats from other sources so if you take an archetype it unlocks access to those archetype Feats which you can take instead of your usual class Feats most archetype Feats are class Feats but some of them have the skill trait meaning they're skill Feats you can take an archetype by taking the archetypes dedication feet an archetype class feet like any other which you would take like any other archetype class feet except that you must take the dedication feet first to unlock access to all the other archetype Feats and once you take a dedication feed you usually can't take another dedication feed until you've taken at least two more archetype Feats from that first archetype so you need to commit a little bit most archetype dedication Feats are level two feat so you can take an archetype as early as level two and there might be other prerequisites in the dedication feat such as needing to be trained in stealth and deception in order to be an assassin but beyond that there's not many restrictions if you're level six you can still take an archetype dedication feed instead of one of your level six class feeds if you really wanted or you could take your archetype dedication feed at level two but then only take your regular class Feats after that once you take that archetype dedication feat you can inter leave the archetype feat with your regular class Feats as you want to make the exact character you want and while an archetype is a way to mechanically change your character it can represent many different things the Beast Master archetype gives you a young animal companion which follows you around like any other class that has an animal companion and if you already have an animal companion you get a second one although only one will follow you around at a time that means you could be a wizard with a badger or a fighter with a hog the Vigilante archetype gives you a secondary secret social identity which takes one minute to change between your two adventuring and social identities but unlike disguising other other characters don't automatically get a perception check to see if they recognize you and any information a character learns about one of your identities gives them no information about the other identity but an archetype could also represent your character's special fighting style The Sentinel dedication feat trains you in light and medium armor and if you're already trained in armor it gives you training in heavy armor so you could be a wizard in medium armor or a ranger in heavy armor the weapon improviser dedication feed gets rid of the minus two penalty to using improvised weapons and makes all improvised weapons have a 1d6 minimum damage die so you can be a fighter that specializes in throwing chairs at people likewise you could take the martial artist dedication feat in order to be able to use your fists as 1d6 lethal weapons but an archetype could represent a profession related to your adventuring like the archaeologist dedication feat which makes you an expert in society and thievery and gives you a plus one bonus to recall knowledge about ancient societies future feeds give you bonuses to avoiding and detecting traps or knowing things about history the pirate dedication feed gives you the additional lore feed for sailing and gives you the ability to swing on a rope and attack as a two action activity which does more damage if you're disembarking from boat but an archetype could be something that happened to you if you're killed by a vampire drinking your blood and come back to life you just gained the prerequisite to take the vampire archetype dedication feat you could take the vampire archetype to represent your cool new vampire powers which gives you a bite attack and you can drink the blood of a grabbed victim to make them drained one and give you temporary HP it also makes you slowed when you're in sunlight and if you become slowed three you turn to dust and you can't go within 10 ft of garlic archetypes are also how multiclassing works every class and Pathfinder also has an Associated archetype or for example there's both a thge class and a thge archetype the thge archetype just converts some of the class abilities of the thge into archetype class Feats so that usually means the archetype versions will be weaker or require a higher level so it's like a mini version of the class but then you can take it like any other archetype if you have a ranger character at level two you could take the thge archetype dedication feed which gives you an Implement in a weaker version of the thit's exploit vulnerability some multiclass archetype Feats scale off the number of archetype Feats you have like if you're a wizard who takes the fighter dedication Fe you could take the fighter resiliency feat which gives you extra hit points depending on how many fighter archetype Feats you've taken something like the wizard archetype could also give you Basic Spell casting benefits which gives you a spell progression but much slower than a regular wizard some archetypes might give you Advanced or quick Alchemy benefits these work just like an alchemist except the versatile vials don't regenerate throughout the day and if you get alchemical items from multiple sources they don't stack most archetypes really only change your class Feats but there's one more type of archetype that can change your class even more class archetypes have the exact same require ments as an archetype except in this case you decide to take a class archetype at level one and you have to take the dedication feed at level two no matter what you can only ever have one class archetype but that's because a class archetype locks you into a special version of your class and might even change your core class abilities for example the Elementalist class archetype is available for any Primal or Arcane spellcaster normally spellcasters choose spells from one of the four magic tradition spell lists but the Elementalist class archetype gives you a boutique spell list called the elemental spell list which might have spells from any magic tradition but but they're themed around the elements and it provides a boutique list of focus spells which you might be able to take instead of your class's usual Focus spells but that's not the dedication feed which instead lets you attune to one element to gain damage resistance to that element equal to half your level rounded down to take an archetype you need to sacrifice at least some of your class Feats which can be a major bummer which is why some player groups use a variant rule called free archetype all the variant rule does is gives you a second column of class Feats you can freely use for one archetype so you can take these archetype Feats without sacrificing any of your class Feats your GM might also decide to have a special themed campaign and make everyone take the same archetype wrestler acrobat weapon improviser Archer assassin hallowed Necromancer herbalist pirate poisoner Scout sniping Duo swarm keeper wear creature Shadow Dancer this video was brought to you by player Core 2 thank you piso for my complimentary copy