As demonstrated in the other thread that I started, there is far from agreement or consensus on the balance of the archetypes or in particular the Martial which was the archetype I raised. Rather than rehash that entire thread, I'll summarize a few key points.
1. Archetypes should shine in their element.
2. If they don't shine in their element, they should be solid contributors in more than one key area.
3. Martial archetypes are effective, but balanced against the other archetypes in combat. They don't "shine" there compared to say casters.
4. Martials lack any other area in which to significantly contribute.
I disagree with one of Eric's points quite strongly.
Quote:
One: generally magic only does tactical things in A:RPG. That puts it on closer parity with swinging a sword.
There are a wide variety of buff spells that have significant non-combat use, movement spells, concealment etc. that allow casters to mitigate or bypass various obstacles.
As a broader "fix" for casting in general, I would be more inclined to decrease the number of spells given to non-appropriate archetypes by say 2 each to represent a lack of focus. That effectively bolsters "true" casters while limiting the attractiveness of dipping from other archetypes.
Ironically perhaps, of the various characters I've built and played, none of them have been Experts. I've taken concepts and written them up in multiple archetypes for comparisons, but the core ideas lent themselves far more cleanly to a different archetype.
With a sweep of his hat,
Paul