I can't speak definitively beyond groups I've run/played with. In that small sample, I don't see it at all. If anything, Arcane is under-represented.

Group 1:
Divine
Arcane
Expert
Martial
undecided (guessing Martial but might be Expert)

Group 2:
Divine
2x Expert
3x Martial

From all the characters I've created (mostly unplayed), it's something close to 6 Expert, 5 Martial, 1 Divine, and 3 Arcane.

I don't really see a problem.

This is an interesting thread. I am always interested in how people think different archetypes or talents stack up against each other. It has been my experience that there are more martial and expert archetype characters in the campaign than divine or arcane archetype characters in the game. I know I personally have built a Martial archetype to use as my primary in the Crusade arc (Eisener) who has given way to an Expert Archetype (Tukufu) for the Blessed Lands arc. Tukufu is a "gish" fighter/caster It was important to me that Tukufu be as good with a Flintlock as a spell caster so Warrior Mage wasn't an option and he basically *had* to be an Expert. Eisener is also a caster (divine) but is really more of a "paladin" who doesn't cast spells in combat.

Of the 2, Eisener is significantly more dangerous in combat: Smite Heretic, None Shall Stand Who Oppose the Gods & Murderous Precision + Mighty Swing and Sweeping Strike and working on the two weapon fighting talent tree. Its been my experience that those talents are less flexible than ASC, but pack more "boom" in melee. In Tier 2 Eisener will be picking up Grandmaster and stealing "Edge of the Shield" as his signature move which will stun people and push their clocks 5 ... that's hard c
SO even though I agree with you that ASC and DSC are the most powerful talents in the game (running away with the title with few if any also rans)...I don't think the martial archetype overall is getting short thrift.

I that's because what makes a character "good" mechanically comes down to three things: The right skills, The right Talents, efficient clock economy.

SKILLS: Martial and Expert archetypes are winners here. The Expert obviously because they get to advance whatever skills they want...and have this think called skill mastery. This is the Experts selling point. But martial doesn't suck here either. Want more than 1 way to attack (maybe melee and ranged? OR 2 melee and ranged??? Martial has you covered. And unlike the advancement options of Arcane and Divine, you get 3+your passive logic in martial and physical skills in one step improving all your core functions. Compared to that Arcane and Divine archetypes need some help and planning to keep even one attack skill at combat grade (which becomes a problem under action economy). Also if you want to become more of a knowledge or social monkey as Divine or Arcane you have to spend another advancement option to raise those skills too.

TALENTS: IMO Experts rock on skills but suck at Talents. Here is where the other Archetypes look a lot better. The "Pick 2 skill talents" usually don't improve the core function of a character like "Pick 2 Arcane, Devout or Combat talents." But wait the Martial Archetype also gets another option in addition to pick 2 combat talents to all pick 2 Martial Techniques. The advancement option saved under skills probably gets spent here. IMO the martial archetype has the easiest time getting the talents it needs to make its build work.

CLOCK ECONOMY: The is no spell casting equivalent to a basic attack. So casting simply does not lend itself to clock economy. The most common "fixes" to this reality I see are: just eating damage, Adaptation: Delay Strain, using fate to wash strain, and trying to "gish" (fight too). They all have problems. There is no martial technique equivalent where you have to automatically take damage to unload another Mighty Sweeping Strike. Delay Strain is incomplete at best since it works once ... then you need something else for awhile. Relying on washing Strain with Fate means you aren't using Fate to help with social or knowledge encounters and finally trying to Gish well from the Arcane or Divine Archetypes isn't easy ... and Experts will find themselves starved of talents.

In short despite the undeniable power and utility of the talents ASC and DSC I am not sold on the idea that the martial soldier is somehow behind the power curve against casters.

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

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

Arcane is kinda 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.

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)

What is Skill Mastery you mentioned?

John

I'll be sifting through this debate when I have more time to actually read the long posts (at present I'm at work so I only have about 2-5 minutes between experiments), but. . .

Honestly, I think of the archetypes as such:

Martial Characters are like Fighters of D&D, where they are good at hitting things, but not goods at social things. You CAN get decently good, but they are the soldiers and really shouldn't be the primary in anything else.

Arcane Characters are good for casting and are the ideal for sneaky-type characters. The Battle Tradition makes playing something like (in D&D terms) a Battle Cleric or a Spellblade or a Psychic Warrior viable though not as good in melee as a Martial Character (and shouldn't be).

Divine Characters are good for casting and for being the talky-types because they can train up social skills. Depending which God you choose, you can specialize in other things.

Expert Characters, in my opinion, should not be as good at any one thing as the above, period. Instead, they are the option for those who would multiclass. Want a sneaky priest? Expert! Want a soldier who can talk to? Expert! The Expert Archetype is the middle ground which allows for unique character concepts.

I will agree that Divine is in many ways sub-par to the rest of the Archetypes, and I personally LOVE Martial (my val'Vasik will be Martial when the rules are released) and as a GM I personally have more issues fighting against Martial Characters than Experts, Divine, and Arcane. I can't counterspell a Martial Technique, I usually have problems hitting their Avoidance and Fortitude with spells, and their AR is usually high enough that even when I do hit them they stay up way too long. The only real flaw with them that I've seen is their Disciplines tend to be a bit low (let's face it, Charisma becomes the 'dump stat' if you aren't going for casting), so there is that.

I know from my (very limited) experience, I already look for at least one serious martial character and one area of effect capable caster (preferably arcane archetype because they’ll have more adaptations and be more useful) at every table I sit down at, for table survivability. Because generally, you need an area effect caster to deal with all the minions (or they kick your ass!) and you need a martial character to deal with the main villains. I have never seen anything as impressive as two martial’s going to town on a villain with techniques that kept knocking him down and pushing his clock so everyone had combat advantage and he went half his normal speed or slower. It was amazing.

Having a strong healer is a strong second to looking for an area caster and martial. Having a good knowledge/skill monkey (though the arcane may be able to do the knowledge monkey thing if the build is right) is helpful for solving the adventure and making it more fun, but rarely for surviving it. So right off the bat, a martial character is one of the "must haves." Other archetypes usually just wind up being too squishy and lacking in the combat techniques, etc., that seem to make martial’s so deadly.

I also know that my casting expert, to me, feels like a jack of all trades and master of none. While I have a good (not great, but good) skill in my casting and in one melee skill; I have no fighting techniques, no adaptation talents, no maneuvers, and no stances. My stats are such that my defenses are low. I am constantly worried that I am not contributing enough to carry my weight at a table, and I know if there were six of me around a table, we would die a fast and painful death. (though the vault was a great time as my larceny was useful)

Arcane archetypes get lore skills and casting. Divine archetypes get casting plus social. Martial gets combat plus physical. That seems pretty balanced to me. It means that in addition to being the greatest combat monsters, they can be good on ships, stealthy, acrobatic, etc. Experts can be good at any of these things, but probably won’t be as good as a caster or martial at their specific forte’. The two factors that might make martial’s less rounded than other types are: 1) Physical skills tend to blend into combat skills, and they aren’t interactive and thus don’t contribute much to role-playing usually, and 2) Their common stat distribution is such that the number of skill points they get might be minimized to other archetypes.

I disagree that Experts won't typically end up with an 8 Logic given all the skills they get. Obviously builds may vary, but I think it's fair in the majority of cases.



The Arcane and Divine "Fixed" Talents equates to 11 Spells. 5 of those completely chosen by the caster that scales. If you want to compare that against non-casting Experts and Martials that's at least worth 5+ more talents.

Arcane Lore skills represent 9 categorioes of choices given that that Knowledge is one of them. Pick any 2.

Experts cannot pick Arcanum or Combat but have 21 other choices of which 3 have significant sub-skills (Knowledge, Artisan, Perform).

Marokene, Tir Betoqi, Nol Dappans, Humans, Vals and Kio all start or can start with a Combat Racial Skill making it quite feasible to get to 3 ranks to start. At most 1 rank behind a highly focused Martial starting with 4.

A lot of the Skill talents available at Tier 1 have high requirements that the Expert can pick and ignore 2 of. Further, because of their starting talents coming at that stage and before Background, they can take Adaptable and gain combat or arcanum skills that can then be further enhanced by background and final skill selection. Again, making it easy if desired to start with 3 ranks.

Martial characters start with 3 combat skills rather than the 2 you note above but arguably at least 2 of them are likely to be spent for the equivalent of the other Archetypes 1 Arcanum skill (1 Melee, 1 Ranged).

Martial characters have more choices starting for armor than other characters, yes. Depending on the god, they get as heavy an armor as the Martial types. There also spells such as Benediction of the Gods, Ebon Armor and Body of the Warrior that provides roughly equivalent AR for casting time. Sometimes that can be done in advance and it's Scene in duration. There are also spells such as Inertial Shield that by Tier 2 are as good as a Tower Shield without taking up a hand, without taking a penalty to hit and without requiring training.

The range of weapons again is a bit misleading. They span 7 skills between melee and ranged. A martial without having a 12 logic can't keep up with all of them and would do nothing else if they did. Realistically it's only 2 or 3 skills tops as otherwise it eats into their other options. This effectively drops the number of weapons that are usable. Except for Divine, the others got to pick. Heck, the Expert can pick 1 that's not even on their nation list.

Casting Archetypes get their primary skill Arcanum which as the primary means of most of what they do is worth multiple Martial starting skills. Experts can add 2 additional skills at Tier 1 at +2 if necessary and can still fairly easily start with 3 ranks in a combat skill or Arcanum if desired.



In my experience, physical skills come up rarely and are as easy for an Expert to take as a Martial. The skill uses also have not been as critical as knowledge skills, other lore skills and social skills to resolve the issue.

I went back in and showed the other Archetype's choices vs. Martial in terms of Talent selection. So far that's limited to Ranged.

You're right, they can take 4 Combat Talents / level and an additional 2 Martial Techniques on top of that. They provide additional flexibility, but not as much as the Casting Skill, nor as much diversity as the extra skills per Tier.

For a Martial Character I look at the must have advancements as:
Path
+1 to all skills
+1 to 3 + Passive Logic Skills
+1 to 3 + Passive Logic Physical and Combat skills
Defenses +2
2 Combat Talents
2 Martial Techniques
+1 to 2 Stats
Most likely the stats again which eats up all the Advancements in Tier 1. Given the number of Talents they need I tend to take +1 Talent at higher Tiers rather than 4 Stamina. Others may take a +1 to Defense. Alternatively taking gain 1 rank/tier in a single new skill may be necessary to provide access to a Path or try and round out the characters.



Which is identical to every other archetype and will always be behind the Experts and depending on the skills the other 2 Archetypes as well who get 3 ranks. This is certainly not a place where Martials significantly contribute or shine unless they happen to have just the right skill. Martials also still need to spend likely 2 of those skills on their chosen couple of weapons and for them to shine with physical skills those already eat up the extra skill slots.



They have greater versatility in their initial choices, but practically limits that impact moving forward as I described above. Physical perseverance is an option if they want that they can excel at at a cost of further advancements. I disagree that they are more survivable than the Expert who can open locks, bypass traps, avoid dangerous social circumstances, know just the right thing to move stuff along etc.

In combat they can and do have an edge over Experts. I'm not trying to deny it. That difference though does not begin to make up for their lack of flexibility or usefulness outside of combat. It's just not as significant.

The casters can self heal and do all sorts of other things to make combat fly by etc. They have the easiest time targeting different defenses and really being game changers in combat. Casters scale way more effectively than non-casters. Experts can match the base skill and raw power of the casting Archetypes if they choose. Martials don't have that option.


There's a lot of options for increased skill versatility that doesn't begin to touch what the Experts can do. I'm not advocating trying to make them into pseudo experts. That versatility is just one of the suggestions I threw out as a starting point for further discussion. I'm open to other ideas.



It's certainly possible to spend a couple of talents and have the full armor options. I described that above. I'm not sure I follow the logic of what prevents an Expert from replicating the Sweeping Strike/Mighty Swing option for example. It's a 1 talent investment in a Martial Technique and enough skill ranks to make use of the weapon trick. Skill ranks aren't a problem for Experts.

Wolf Pack Tactics - +1 to hit/damage if in melee combat and fighting with an ally. Advanced Tactics requires above and adds +2 damage. Two talents. If an Expert wants to do any of the above, there's nothing stopping them from doing so. The bar's not high on getting the talents. The Expert Template itself doesn't limit the ability to make a very effective combat character with or without spell casting. It can do so while still maintaining the core strengths of the Expert in skill versatility and Skill Talents. An Expert if they want can be a Full Caster with all the ranks for 6 Talents over 5 tiers and maxing out 1 skill. They can be an extremely talented combatant with more combat skills and weapon tricks if desired than the Martial character. Especially if they take backgrounds that are more militant and give extra weapon trainings. They have a lot they can do and still be useful in their core.

Martials are better than Experts in the only thing they excel in - Combat. But not so significantly to completely discount the Expert and certainly not the casters who will outstrip a non-caster. The difference is that outside of combat Martials are extremely limited in what they can do. Things like requiring successive tiers of Martial Techniques doesn't put the best techniques out of the reach of a non-Martial, but it does require the others to make more of an investment or let the Martials shine a bit more in their core element.

Build a Tier 3 Martial template non-caster that you feel is incredibly effective in Combat and useful outside of it, and I'll do my best to build a similar character using the Expert Archetype and we can compare.

Any given build especially when done for RP reasons may be noticeably inferior in or out of combat. It doesn't have to be that way though and it's not an inherent limitation with the Archetype itself, regardless of what that Archetype is.

I appreciate the other point of view. I'm happy to continue the discussion. I'm trying to make sure my comments are based on the mechanics and not anything personal. If I'm failing in that in comment or tone, please let me know and I'll clean things up and work harder to keep it civil.

Respectfully and with a sweep of his hat,

Paul

Your discussion is perfectly reasonable and I hope mine is as well. I'd love for you to build an Expert without casting and I'll build a Martial without casting and we can compare. I honestly don't know how long it will take me as I haven't built many Martials. Maybe Josh or someone could step up as well?

So basically a Tier 3.0 character or Tier 2.10?

John

i don't build characters w/o casting, its not in my nature

Mostly Agreed. Armor and core talents usually not so hot. IMO on par with martial.


Mostly Agree. Heavy armor in reduced bulk is sexy. Core talents is also sexy since you get a third "pick 2 talents" option. IMO as good as expert.


Kinda surprises me because there is a lot of kick butt devout talents and I generally find social skills to be more useful than knowledge skills. Arcane is actually my least favorite Archetype. Still broad agreement that Arcane is not as cool as Expert or Martial.


Kind of surprises me since I think Divine has a lot of things going for it that are better than arcane. Cool Devout talents, a combat skill rank at creation. Social skills rock in Arcanis ... on the other hand its a lot easier to poach Divine's goodness through Initiate of the Gods or Templar than it is to poach Arcane. Still, broad agreement that divine is not as cool as Expert or Martial.