It really does largely depend on what you want to be able to do with the character. I myself just had a change of heart with a templar type character, and decided to go with the martial archetype after initially building him as an Expert.
One thing that I found helpful was to go through the book after getting a good idea of how I wanted the character to play, and writing down a list of talents that I needed to achieve that play style. If you want more Skill talents than Combat talents, you should take a close look at Expert. If there are more Combat talents there, then you should look closely at Martial.
At the end of the day, you could get there with any of the three builds, but each of them have their own perks:
Divine: Especially if you aren't too concerned about having a large selection of skills, with the Warrior Priest talent (p. 90, Codex of Heroes) you can make a divine caster who is capable of keeping up with the martial types in combat. On my divine character I decided that the larger spell selection was the superior option, but if you already have a healer in your regular group you may decide otherwise. The Initiate of the Gods background is the only one that offers a rank in a melee skill as well as arcanum (cants).
EDIT: I just noticed that I wrote 'skills' above when talking about the Warrior Priest (ta), I meant to say 'spells'. The talent limits the number of spells you gain each tier, in exchange for an additional point in a melee skill every time you take Divine Spell Casting (ta)
Expert: There has been lots of discussion on the forums about this archetype and using it for spellcasting, but my opinion is that it is a blank slate. This is a very versatile archetype which you can do many different things with. If you want a large number of skills, you should take a close look. Especially if you take one of the backgrounds that open up divine talents (Templar, Initiate of the Gods), it is fairly easy to get spell casting, if that is something you want to do with the character.
Martial: Similarly to the Expert archetype, you can get divine spell casting relatively easily, depending on your background. If you decide you want a different background, there are a number of paths that open up spell casting. Martial characters are the undisputed masters of hitting stuff. There is also absolutely no reason why you couldn't focus a martial character on ranged combat, or cloak-and-dagger combat. Martial does not mean you need to have the Huge talent and wear plate armour.
At the end of the day, it really depends on what you want to be doing with the character. If you envision your character as a primary spell caster who falls back on weapons occasionally, divine is probably your best bet. If you want to be a primary archer or backstabber, I would look at Martial or Expert.
Hope this helps.
_________________ Akira Currier aka Raseri 'Crash' val'Emman - Master of the Incandescent Flame (Martial 3.7) aka Leif - Skohir Warped One (Martial 2.6) aka Rurik - Nol Dappan War Priest (Divine 2.3) aka Karthik - Tultipetan Stonemason (Expert 1.4)
Last edited by acurrier on Tue Apr 07, 2015 9:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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