List of Archetypes in Pathfinder Second Edition

Archetypes in Pathfinder 2e are optional feat paths that a character can take in place of class feats. Some are absolutely essential to a playstyle, while others are mostly fluff and roleplay. Regardless, all of them add at least some build variety, and there are a lot of them. There are so many, in fact, that we feel it would be best to put it all on one page, rather than making one for each individual archetype.

Multiclass Dedications

In Pathfinder 1e, multiclassing into another class simply meant substituting levels in your base class with levels of another. In Second Edition, however, multiclassing is done by substituting your class feat at level 2 with a dedication feat. This will allow you to slowly gain the abilities of the class you chose, as well as allowing you to choose class feats up to 10th level. For example, here is the dedication feat for the Rogue Archetype:

Rogue Dedication, Level 2

• Archetype: Rogue
• Prerequisite: Dexterity 14
  • You gain a skill feat and the rogue’s surprise attack class feature. You become trained in light armor. In addition, you become trained in Stealth or Thievery plus one skill of your choice; if you are already trained in both Stealth and Thievery, you become trained in an additional skill of your choice. You become trained in rogue class DC.
  • Special: You cannot gain another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the rogue archetype.

From here on, you can select feats every other level from this archetype when you choose a class feat.

All multiclass dedications work similarly, granting you basic proficiencies and some first level class features. All other archetypes work like this too, but have much more specific intentions with their designs.

Advanced Players Guide

Collapse

The Advanced Players Guide (APG) added many archetypes centered around different combat styles. These tend to be a lot more niche than class dedications, but a good many of them are very useful and flavorful.

Acrobat

The Acrobat Dedication is for those who want to dance around the battlefield without actually spending skill points in Acrobatics. It automatically levels your Acrobatics skill to Expert when you take it, levels it to Master at 7th level, and levels it to Legendary at 15th level. In addition, you get several feats to make you do crazy stuff with your Acrobatics skill, from a reaction letting you step away from an attack when it misses, to allowing you to Tumble Through and Strike in one action.

Archaeologist

An archetype that any class can take. A good one to take if your doing a lot of dungeon delving. In addition to being good with traps and learn magic to help with exploration, you are also gain bonus when rolling about the culture (Like knowing where they keep their treasures, or how to say "I'm your god" in the native tongue).

Archer

The Archer Dedication is one any character can grab so long as they intend to keep using bows and crossbows. After all, why should the fighter be the only master of arrows? This statement rings particularly true since, aside from its own few tricks (such as drawing and shooting in the same action or aiming for a bonus to hit), the archetype also gives access to a few of the fighter's archery feats (and one ranger feat) at a later level than intended.

In truth, this archetype's not really meant for fighters or rangers, who would do just as well just multiclassing to each other. Who this is meant for is everyone else who just wants to be better at shooting. If you want the fighter's feats, you're not really getting much out of multiclassing since you likely won't be needing all the proficiencies you just got and there's no crossbow support. The ranger multiclass, on the other hand, saddles you with an action you won't ever be able to use for combat, and not as many feats for helping with combat.

Assassin

The Assassin Dedication is all about poisons, backstabs, and other underhanded tactics to kill opponents. The base dedication comes with the 3-action ability Mark for Death, granting you bonuses to track your target down, bonuses to your feints against your target, and giving your agile/finesse weapons extra traits to make them deadlier against the target.

Other feats in this dedication deal with poison and sneak attacks, capping off the archetype with a feat that deals lots of damage and can instantly kill the enemy on a critically failed save.

Bounty Hunter

An archetype that any class can take to track a target. Grants the ability to track any query like a ranger, and gain bonuses and proficiency to non-lethally catch your prey. Feats are: Additional bonuses when using Hunt Prey action( or more of it if you already had it), party gains bonuses for helping you look, gain proficiency with bola, sap, and whip (no-penalty to non-lethal), Quarry can't shake you off if they move in combat, and can counter grapple if Quarry critically fails its melee stike attack against you.

Bastion

The Bastion Dedication is centered all around shields and being the tank. The Bastion Dedication requires you to have Shield Block feat. The base dedication grants you the Reactive Shield feat, allowing you to raise a shield as a reaction.

Other feats in this archetype allow your shield to do such things as disarming opponents on a block, making your shield to take a lot more damage while you take even less, and saving that shield from shattering completely. Overall, a pretty good investment for any prospective shield user.

Beastmaster

For anyone who doesn't want to be a ranger/druid, the Beastmaster Dedication allows you to tame an animal companion for combat, provided that you are trained in the Nature skill.

The feats provided via the archetype allow you to strengthen your companion, as well as recruit up to 3 more. You can only have one in combat at a time, so be wary. Other feats grant you extra abilities to use with your companions.

Blessed One

The Blessed One Dedication is an archetype made for PCs who don't want to be champions, but still have Lay on Hands. Taking this archetype grants you the Lay on Hands Focus Spell, along with the focus point required.

Everything else in this dedication is there to bolster Lay on Hands, from treating negative conditions to preventing them in the first place. It even caps out with granting temp HP to someone every round for 10 rounds.

Cavalier

Cavalier was cut from the class list of Pathfinder Second Edition, being reduced to an archetype (archetypes here being essentially a chain of feats to take in place of class feats) during the 2018 playtest. And even then, it didn't appear in the CRB. It would only appear in the Advanced Player's Guide, alongside a bunch of other non-class archetypes.

This version of the cavalier gives you a riding mount off the bat, which not many classes can do (Druid and Ranger, while Champion has to wait a few levels) but requires proficiency in either Society or Nature. This feat tree includes the mandatory pet-progression feats that come with owning a pet, but it also has several ways of taking the sting off of owning a mount, like using your AC to protect the steed, mounting on and moving in a single action and being able to move twice while also attacking. It even provides that token banner feature the class had, adding that token +1 to Will.

Celebrity

An archetype that any class can take. You hog the spotlight, Doing the best to out stage others, Distract others, and Not tier in front of a crowd.

Dandy

The Dandy is one of the many generic archetypes introduced in the Advanced Player's Guide, available to anyone with Diplomacy. You lean the ins of smooth-talking to get by the social encounter. You start by numbing up your Deception and Society skills and spend downtime to manipulate the locale rumors. Other feats include Covering for That Guy when they do something stupid (it has a 10 min cooldown so...); You can recall Knowledge on any topic (hairstylists are well versed in demon politics?); Can use deception as a job, and get your party into parties.

Dandies Are a good thing to have if your doing a campaign with many social encounters, especially if every other PC is dirty murder hobos or the recurring villain is a snob.

Dragon Disciple

• Uncommon Archetype

If you are a dragonscaled or spellscaled kobold, dragon instinct barbarian, or a draconic bloodline sorcerer, this archetype lets you go even further into playing like a dragon, giving you more of their powers. You gain their claws, Smell, Scales, Breath, Wings, and finally, as the capstone, is transforming into an adult dragon for 1 minute every hour for no resources.

Duelist

A general archetype that revolves around dueling. Speccing into the dedication gets you the Quick Draw feat immediately so that you can immediately get into a fight anywhere.

Some additional feats add new abilities like: proclaiming a challenge and getting a circumstance damage bonus to that enemy, give your allies a +1 to AC when you parry, and the ability to swap out your Duelist Archetype feats during Daily preparations.

Dual-Weapon Warrior

The Dual-Weapon Warrior Dedication makes fighting with two-hand weapons a lot better. The dedication comes with a vital feat, Double Slice, which lets you make two attacks with two actions, without adding to your Multiple Attack Penalty. You still take a -2 penalty on the second attack normally, but you can negate that penalty if the weapon is agile.

Beyond that, some additional feats (many lifted from the fighter class) add new abilities like: making ranged attacks instead of just melee as part of your dual attack, reload with full hands, entering a defensive stance, or double slash so hard they become susceptible to follow up attacks.

Eldritch Archer

The Eldritch Archer Archetypes gives you the ability to use a lesser version of the Magus' Spellstrike, usable only with a bow. Still, it does a lot of damage if it hits. It's recommended that you take this only if you can both cast spells and use a bow already.

Familiar Master

An archetype that any class that gives them a Familiar companion and/or improve them further. Other feats included let a friend share a master ability, let you cast a spell from Familiar's position, need less Familiar feats for it to take a special form, Change Familiar feats for a job.

Gladiator

An archetype that any class can take to extenuate a charismatic pit fighter. You gain bonuses when spectators are around as you wow them with your killing and showmanship. Also, get some exotic weapons and learn how to non-lethal better.

Herbalist

The Herbalist Archetype is for players who want to make healing elixirs without playing alchemist, which is understandable. It requires you to be trained in Nature and take the Natural Medicine skill feat, of course, but two of the twelve base classes already have Nature skill baked in, and Natural Medicine is easy to get at the same level.

Speccing into the Herbalist at level 2 grants you basic alchemy for the purposes of creating healing elixirs, antidotes and antiplagues. You get batches of infused reagents equal to your level, or half if you didn't make them in the wilderness (Sorry city herbalists). You also become an expert in Nature. Your advanced alchemy level starts at 1 and can't increase on its own.

Some additional feats include:

• Fresh Ingredients, Level 2 Feat (even though you spent a level two feat to get the archetype already.)
  • When using Natural Medicine to Treat Wounds, you can spend a batch of herbs to gain the +2 circumstance bonus from having fresh ingredients, even if not in wilderness. If you spend a batch of herbs in wilderness, you gain a +4 circumstance bonus instead.

• Expert Herbalism, Level 6 Feat
  • Your advanced alchemy level for herbalism increases to your level – 3. You gain the formulas for elixirs of life as soon as your advanced alchemy level is high enough to create them: lesser at 8th level, moderate at 12th level, greater at 16th level, and major at 18th level.

Horizon Walker

An archetype that any class can take. You become well adapted to a single environment your GM decided to set the campaign in. Gains bonuses and ignore hazards while traveling through that Forest, Desert, Ocean, or other places.

Linguist

The Linguist is a niche archetype that any character can pick up so long as they know three languages. Just by entering this archetype, you gain training in the Society skill (or just rank it up one level) as well knowledge of four more languages by giving you two instances of the Multilinguist feat.

Languages tend to be a wrench that a gm will throw at a party when they want something they can't just kill their way through it, but now you can turn that into its own set of tools beyond just writing. Though none of it is offensive in nature, it does give you the ability to replicate whatever you read, impersonate a person's mannerisms after reading every detail about them and even find ways to interpret unspoken communication.

Loremaster

An Archetype any class can take. You become a know it all that knows all the lore, Even things you shouldn't if the DM was foolish enough to let you roll.

Other feats including some cantrip, Read anything, and speed read.

Martial Artist

An archetype that any class that any class can take to learn how to punch. You don't need to invest in both Str and Dex, unlike the monk Archetype, letting you pick up how to punch better and learn monk stances without forcing your Fullplate Brawler, kung fu Warpriest, or Muscle Wizard invest in a stat they don't use.

You can take some monk stance feats: Crane, Dragon, Gorilla, Mountain, Stumbling, Tiger, Wolf, and an adventure path stance, exclusive to Martial Artist, the Powder Punch Stance, covering your fist wrappings or knuckle duster in black powder for an explosive 1 damage and a 5ft shove on a crit. additional feats let you make a thunderclap or flash-bang a guy.

Exclusive feats, not stance or monk related is making one punch that deals additional damage dice and decreases physical resistance, or use all three actions to stride, not trigger reactions, and punches three times without multi-attack penalties (unless you some how make a fourth attack)

Mauler

The Mauler Dedication gives you proficiency with two-handed weapons, and the rest of it focuses around these sorts of weapons (including co-opting some feats from Fighter).

In particular, this gives you plenty of ways to use combat maneuvers using big weapons, shoving enemies around and knocking them down.

Marshal

The Marshal is one of a great many generic multiclass archetypes available in PF2's Advanced Player's Guide, open to anyone trained in martial weapons and in either Diplomacy or Intimidation, and inclined for those of a leader/support bent. The initial feat gives you proficiency in either the one skill you didn't use to qualify for this feat or boost the proficiency rank of the one you are skilled with, as well as an aura giving a token buff vs Fear.

Most of this archetype's feats focus buffing this aura with other combat bonuses, such as providing temp HP and free movement actions, but others give allies special actions to use in place of reactions. This makes the Marshal a lot like the Warlord class from 4E.

Medic

The Medic Dedication automatically levels your Medicine skill to Expert, as well as increasing the healing potential when you Treat Wounds, and allowing you to use Battle Medicine (feat that lets you Treat Wounds during battle) more frequently.

Its feat line, understandably, deals a lot with making these abilities better, such as striding and healing in one action, reducing harmful conditions, and resuscitating dead bodies.

Pirate

An archetype where you master the ins and outs of fighting on ships. It was originally a rather limited archetype that appeared on the 2018 playtest before vanishing. It would show up again in the Advanced Player's Guide, looking just as small when compared to other archetypes. This is likely because it's already relying on two other skills with feats that would otherwise overlap with it: Athletics (which helps with rope climbing) and Intimidation.

The prerequisites for entry pretty much boil down to "look scary" (read: trained in Intimidation) and in exchange, you can walk on boats without issue, learn lore about sailing and gain a special action that pretty much lets you go Errol Flynn and swing your sword while swinging on a rope.

Poisoner

An archetype that any class can take. You learn how to better craft, resist, and use poisons.

• 
  Low INT combined with very deadly weapons never end well.

Ritualist

An archetype that any class thats an expert in one of the 4 magic related skills can take. With the GM's permission, you can circumvent doing side quests to learn rituals and be really good at casting them. You start with a +2 circumstance bonuse to pull off rituals and learn two uncommon ritual spell + 2 more at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level. You then can gain feats to reduce ritual requirement: less secondary casters can cast even if one skill level lower then required, and turn a casting time of days to hours.

Ritualist starts being useful in games that go to higher levels(6lv+) and when gold is plentiful. This is a class you would only take if your solving problems with rituals, whether it is a summoner amassing servents for party jobs, That investigator which solves mysteries by interrogating the local squirrels and Grass, the party planeswalker, or making an inter-dimension guild hall manned by animated furniture.

Scroll Trickster

An archetype that makes You very good at using scrolls you shouldn't be able to cast. A useful add-on for a martial or skill monkey if your party is collecting or crafting a lot of scrolls

When you start the dedication, you get the Trick Magic Item feat, which lets you cast spells from magic items even if they are from a magic tradition you don't have or are not even a spellcaster. In addition, you get a +2 for using this feat with scrolls. Keep in mind you still need to have an investment in the skill associated with the spell's tradition to cast.

Additional feats you can take are wiping out a scroll from your pocket and tricking it as a single action or creating one temporary spell scroll for each spell level during your daily prep.

Scrounger

The Scrounger is a general archetype in Pathfinder Second Edition. You can scrounge together a ton of junk and create random improvised shit that somehow works. However, these items are still made of junk, and they tend to fall apart quickly.

The Dedication feat is quite a doozy:

• Scrounger Dedication
  • Prerequisites trained in Crafting
  • You can Craft items even without appropriate tools or a workshop, though you take a –2 item penalty to your Crafting check. Additionally, you don't need a physical formula book to remember all of your formulas; you pay the same cost as normal to learn them, but you memorize them all.
  • You can Craft temporary items out of anything, anywhere, with whatever materials happen to be on hand, spending only 10 minutes to perform the initial Crafting check. The temporary item must be common, non-magical, 1st level or lower, and must be a weapon, armor, or a nonconsumable piece of adventuring gear. Instead of a single item, you can create 10 pieces of a single type of ammunition. This is a shoddy item, but you don't take the normal penalty when using shoddy items you made using this feat. Your temporary item lasts for 1d4 hours before falling apart into its raw components; the GM rolls the number of hours secretly. You can create only the physical item, not any information or magic, so for example, while you could create a blank journal or one of random pages, you couldn't use it as a scholarly journal or a religious text.
  • You can incorporate any materials or items that you have on hand, even if they're not the type of materials that would ordinarily be used to Craft a given item, though you must have enough volume of material to make the item you want. Unless all the materials you used were an appropriate type to make the item, you take a –5 penalty to the Crafting check (or a –10 penalty if the materials you used were particularly unsuitable, as determined by the GM).

Pretty cool, honestly. The rest of the feats revolve around scrounging together higher level items, reverse engineering items, or using Crafting instead of Thievery for picking locks and disabling devices (like traps).

Scout

A mix of Ranger and Rouge. An archetype that any class can take. Helpful when moving on the map and prevent ambushes, while you can jump out of the bushes to distract the enemy then vanish back into them.

Sentinel

Same name but completely different. An archetype that any class can take to become the master of fighting in armour. Imagine Wizard in fullplate. You can sleep in armour, and could destroy it to stop lethal damage.

Shadowdancer

An Archetype that any class can take as long as your a master of stealth and expert in performance. Combo Some Rogue feats with abilities involving shadows, starting with better at ambushing from darkness and then learn Shadow magic synergy more with sneaking through dimly lit areas.

Snarecrafter

You took this archetype because you are Fred. The prerequisite is having the Snare Crafting Feat to become the master of Snares. The starting Decdication lets you have a number of premade traps for free that can be deployed in 3 actions instead of one minute. This is just the rangers Snare Specialist class feat but they stack if your a ranger. Other feats improve their effectiveness: improved DCs, making a snare down to 1 action, placing a snare under an enemy's feet, activating a snare remotely, or creating a 10-by-10 snare.

Snares can dish out a lot of damage or deal important debuffs but require setup and board positioning. More useful if your campaign lets you choose where the fight takes place and gives you time to prepare. Defending narrow halls, make an ambush on a road. If you have a few rounds to breathe, you can make a trap before the enemy comes. Depending on how good your party is at shoving, setting up snares mid-battle can be viable.

If you are a Ranger Multiclassing into Snarecrafter your going to have so many free snares You can set up in no time at all, The Dm has to crawl through your dungion.

Talisman Dabbler

An Archetype any class can take. Lets you make Free Tailmans every day. Talismans in Pathfinder are consumable doodads you glue to your gear to give you bonuses during particular occasions.

As a Dabbler, your really good at gluing Eyeballs to people's swords.

Vikings

An archetype that any class can take if you want to be a melee guy that knows some things about sailing and moving through water. You learn how to best use a shield, not be slow by wet terrain, in addition, to throw things while Running. Works well as an early investment in a sailing campaign where your often fighting in the ocean surf or in a swamp, while also dipping into additional weapon proficencys and shields usage in the same tree.

Vigilante

Because the Vigilante and its archetypes were merely features with other classes stapled onto it, it was converted into a Multiclass Archetype that any class can take. The entry feat merely gave you the double identity gimmick, fairly untouched compared to the original form.

The rest of the arhetype's feats swung between the Social identity (which let you disguise your pets and magical items as well as things like a safehouse) and the Startling Appearance power (which let you hit an enemy that didn't notice you to inflict various penalties) with a few other tricks like Quick Draw (co-opted from the Rogue and Ranger) and a faster transformation.

In terms of a min-maxer, this archetype is more billed as a gimmick. Sure, you might be able to make something out of the surprise attacks, but you could do it way quicker with a Rogue multiclass.

Weapon Improviser

An Archetype any class can take. If you are good with all martial weapons you can use anything as a weapon. If you can grab it you are very good at beating people to death with it.

• 
  What's your Favorite weapon?

Lost Omens Character Guide

Expand

These archetypes are linked to various factions within Golarion, ranging from groups dedicated to liberation and freedom, to holiness and crusading, to knowledge and learning.

Firebrand Braggart

• Uncommon Archetype

An archetype dedicated to the swagger and boisterous nature of the Firebrands organization. Not only does this bravado help reinforce their own skill, but it can be so powerful that it can help them cheat death, intimidate foes and disarm foes.

Lastwall Sentry

• Uncommon Archetype

Though the country of Lastwall had collapsed against the influence of the Whispering Tyrant, the survivors still swear to be the bulwark against his terror. This results in a lot of feats dedicated to combating the undead, some of them centered around shields.

This archetype happens to hook into some other archetypes without requiring the minimum feats quota like...

Knight Reclaimant

The Knights Reclaimant remain in the deadlands that once were Lastwall, striking back against the Whispering Tyrant's agents and rescuing those still stranded there. This archetype is thus far more aggressive in hunting down the undead, including channeling the magic of their oath to strike down their foes. It also has plenty of feats focusing on stealth and surviving the blasted hellscape that is the deadlands.

Knight Vigilant

Takes inspiration from the Shining Crusade that saved Sarkoris. This gives you more of a Paladin-like flavor, going even further with tricks such as Lay on Hands and the ability to summon armor out of the ether.

Magaambyan Attendant

• Uncommon Archetype

The Attendants of Magaambya are full members of the magical university, seeking to dive into the secrets of the institution as well as its particular take on magic.

The initial dedication feat offers a free spell to cast, but it also includes different feats tied to the particular affiliations in the university, making it much larger than it seems. Some include skill tricks, but others offer special effects on certain spells.

Halcyon Speaker

Magaambyan members of a certain rank begin adhering to a theory espoused by Old-Mage Jatembe: Magic is Magic. Regardless of its origins, magic can still be controlled.

This archetype largely focuses upon blending the arcane and primal spell traditions, allowing you to cast spells given by these archetypes as either one. This is more in line of a traditional casting archetype, as you have feats that grant you extra spell slots with which to cast these hybrid spells. You also have a second chain of feats that give you various boons upon casting a spell before being able to cast two different spells at once.

Lost Omens World Guide

Expand

These archetypes are tied into major organizations tied to the setting of Golarion, usually stuck with Uncommon or higher rarity due to these memberships being constrained to certain countries. Not only did this make Archetypes somewhat like Prestige Classes, but also introduced interlocked archetypes, some of which are can break the minimum feat requirements to overlap others that are directly related to them.

Aldori Duelist

• Uncommon Archetype

Hailing from the Broken Lands region, you specialize in the Aldori Dueling Sword and capes. Good at capitalizing on your opponent's criticality missing you and then following up with a disarm.

Hellknight Armiger

• Uncommon Archetype

The initiates of the infamous orders of Hellknights from Cheliax. As this technically leads you to either the Hellknight or Hellknight Signifier archetypes, you don't need to follow the minimum feat requirement before switching for either of those and as such, your feats tend to focus on either building up your defenses or improving your effectiveness with your provided weapons (that being whatever your order's preferred weapon is and heavy armor). Of course, whichever way you go, you'll eventually have to kill a demon by yourself if you plan to go upward...

Hellknight

The martial arm of the Hellknight Orders. Their focus is more upon their gear, as taking the Dedication feat gives armor specialization in Hellknight plat and future feats improve the effectiveness of their weapons.

Hellknight Signifier

The mystical arm of the Hellknight Orders, more focused on casting than combat. Some of these feats also focus on the faceless Signifier Mask that's given with this archetype, that can help protect you from certain effects.

Lion Blade

• Uncommon Archetype

The Lion Knights are Taldor's premier spy agency, skilled with espionage and manipulation. This includes plenty of feats that allow you to exploit crowds to your advantage as well as fooling spellcasters into thinking that their spells worked.

Living Monolith

• Uncommon Archetype

The Living Monoliths dedicate themselves to channeling the magic of ancient Osirioni sphinxes to imbue themselves with the properties of stone by crafting magical Ka stones. Most of the feats for this archetype either focus on making them either tankier or the ability to use the ka stone to cast certain spells.

Magic Warrior

• Uncommon Archetype

The Magic Warriors follow the path of the ten magic warriors who followed Old-Mage Jatembe of the Mwangi Expanse, melding magic with combat. This archetype centers around obscuring your identity with a special mask that channels the aspect of a certain animal. Further feats give you special spells that transform you slightly to resemble the animal your mask represents and a capstone that makes it impossible to identify who is behind your mask.

Pathfinder Agent

• Uncommon Archetype

The Pathfinder Society is an organization that doesn't need more organization, considering how central they are to the setting. This provides some extra skills as well as some feats to boost teamwork or exploration, especially when the Lost Omens Pathfinder Society Guide offered additional feats. Though there's not much here, this does leave you open to take other archetypes. The Lost Omens Character Guide would satisfy this by letting you take one of the following archetypes without needing to fulfill the mandatory feat quota...

Scrollmaster

The Scrolls are a faction of the Pathfinder Society that delve into lore and unusual esoteric arts. As such, the feats for this archetype focus a lot on knowledge as well as the ability to pick up any manner of hints and secrets.

Spellmaster

The greatest mages, the Spells are dedicated to using their magic to benefit the Pathfinder Society. This archetype provides a good bit of survivability as well as a few extra tricks to make the most out of your spells.

Swordmaster

• Uncommon Archetype

The Swords are the martial arm of the Pathfinder Society, trained to overcome any number of circumstances. This means that the archetype doesn't get special attacks, but instead get various tricks to make the best out of everything they have.

Red Mantis Assassin

• Uncommon Archetype

Learn the assassination techniques of the devoted to the god Achaekek, learning to use their signature Sawtooth Sabers. Most feats focus on the mystical powers of these evil Kamen Rider cosplayers, grating spell casting, A fast healing mist, inflicting persistent Bleed damage, or turning into a mantis.

Runescarred

• Uncommon Archetype

You've been altered by the ancient rune magic of old Thassilon, whether by blood or by direct exposure, and now have a spell grafted onto your skin as runes. Later feats give you the ability to engrave further spells as runes, including the ability to even graft an armor rune so you can ensure one magical property is always on regardless of what happens to your armor.

Student of Perfection

• Uncommon Archetype

A general archetype from studying in a House of Perfection in Jalmeray, the most elite martial arts school. It's more of a sidegrade for a monk character, as it lets you learn a ki spell to reroll a missed punch and one to either mark an enemy you hit; project a cone of water to push enemies; make an Air Dash; or gain a temporary hit point. In either case, it's requiring that you've already invested enough into unarmed combat that you can use powers like Ki Strike and expect a decent amount of damage.

Secrets of Magic

Expand

These archetypes are for the most part dedicated to magic in one way or another. This book introduced the first cases of archetypes that rewrote the way certain characters cast spells. These archetypes are effectively chosen as the character is created and thus require the dedication feat to be taken at level 2.

Cathartic Mage

• Uncommon Archetype

The Cathartic Mage is an emotionally-powered mage, channeling your emotions into your spells while in the heat of combat. You gain a focus on one emotion, gaining an emotional high based on certain events that happen in the fight and gaining certain benefits as well as a special spell you can cast while in this emotional state. However, these highs can only last for so long before triggering a sort of fatigue that can only be cooled down outside of battle.

This provides a limited amount of casting, including focus feats that vary based on the emotional focus. however, it can stack onto any other casting you may already have.

Elementalist

The Elementalist is a very odd breed of caster, using a unique spell list. Available as a level 1 feat, this sacrifices access to the Arcane or Primal spell list for access into a new spell list of elemental-themed spells. The most direct follow-up to this is the fact that you gain access to new focus spells, which easily slot in for the Druid and Elemental Sorcerer, but the Wizard requires replacing their schools with focus on one of the four elements. The problem with this is that 1) as an archetype, there's absolutely no guarantee that this spell list will be updated with any new spells and 2) this spell has some serious gaps in its utility, more so than any mainline spell list.

Alongside a few elemental-themed tricks for feats, there are also feats for familiars, including one that gives the familiar a special elemental perk.

Flexible Spellcaster

The Flexible Spellcaster archetype is for prepared spellcasters like wizards, clerics, and druids. Available at level 1, it allows those who prefer the 5e version of prepared spellcasting, where you always have a collection of spells that can be heightened at any time, rather than the usual 3.X/Pathfinder method of hard assigning a specific spell to each spellslot during daily prep.

The main downside is you get way fewer spell slots and cantrips, and you are disallowed from taking several feats that involve swapping prepared spells with different ones.

Geomancer

A lighter variant of the Elementalist. Instead of flat-out replacing your spell list, you're instead using various rider effects that trigger when you use a spell with the same type as the environment you're in. You have several feats that influence how your rider effects are applied, including being able to summon the effects based on the spell rather than the environment. An interesting feat chain among these is the Rough Terrain Stance, a stance that triggers when you activate your riders and turns the area adjacent to you into rough terrain with a follow-up feat that makes this space potentially hamper the actions of those inside it.

Runelord

• Rare Archetype

Has nothing to do with Runes or dwarfs. You follow in the path of the Pathfinder Runelords, nigh-immortal demigods specializing in a school of Sin magic.

You must commit to this archetype at level 1, by being a Wizard that specialized in a school of magic (except divination) represented as your sin: envy (abjuration), gluttony (necromancy), greed (transmutation), lust (enchantment), pride (illusion), sloth (conjuration), and wrath (evocation). As a detriment, you suffer the restrictions of the 1st edition wizard of being unable to learn or cast spells from two of your sins rivals: Abjuration (evocation, necromancy), Conjuration (evocation, illusion), Enchantment (necromancy, transmutation), Evocation (abjuration, conjuration), Illusion (conjuration, transmutation), Necromancy (abjuration, enchantment), Transmutation (enchantment, illusion).

The Saving Grace that saves it from trash is that you gain the two domain focus spells associated with that sin, but also the ability at 12th/18th level to restore 2 to 3 focus points if you engage in your associated sin as your Refocus action instead of 1. (this is just the benefits you gain if you declare your taking the dedication at level 1). You may be losing out on the full wizard versatility but the wizard toolbox is still big, with the dedication also letting you add one more spell to your book at each level (only matters if the DM doesn’t give you the time, money, or resources to copy spells) and other spellcaster classes can specialize in the areas you neglected.

Outside the dedication feat, there is not much else that is a must-have from the archetype. You gain the Polearms, the signature Runelord weapon, as one of the few backup weapons a wizard is passable with, but your class is not one for CQC.

If you take more archetype feats (so you can dedicate to another archetype) You have: to learn common tattoo formulas of lv2 or lower ( a current head-scratcher as Archives of Nythis list none), an extra free spell for your sin school, improved counterspell-ing against your chosen sin school, and a two-parter of feats that let you imbed aeon stones into your skin instead of float above your head for the payoff of using their resonance power and benefiting from the effects of four of them at the same time.

If going down the strange road of trying to build a polar gish, The Fused Polearm feat will merge your polearm and staff into one object. You still need to look at other archetypes and magic items to fix the base wizard's squishiness and typical low strength modifier, You may have an easier time theory-crafting a way to improve your special maneuvers roll using a 10-foot reach agile weapon than creating a magus with full spellcasting.

Shadowcaster

An archetype specializing in Shadow Magic, drawing power from the Plane of Shadow. You lose the ability to cast or learn spells with the light trait upon taking the dedication but make up for that by granting you access to a ton of spells and focus spells relating to the shadows that may not be a part of your initial spell tradition; also can pick up a familiar.

The Shadow Spell feat makes a target affected by a shadow spell better at stealth or worse at perception. A more important pick is at 10th level when you can get the Shadow Reserves Feat, giving Extra spell slots at the cost of the target always able to use Will saves to disbelieve the spell effect in place of other saving throws or AC.

A good fit for Illusionist mages, for those wanting more magical resources to create darkness and illusions. You like to trick people, being a stealthy mage by creating impromptu fake boxes and shadow clones.

Soulforger

• Uncommon Archetype

You gain the ability to summon a piece of magical equipment from nowhere, complete with a temporary special power on top of the ability to accept property runes. While this sounds awesome, you're now bound by oaths that you must adhere to or else suffer a curse that will weaken your link to your magical gear and inflicts other penalties.

Incidentally, as it requires 14 Wisdom or Divine spellcasting, an obvious candidate for this archetype is the Champion, as they rely on their weapons more than anyone else and using the Soulforged Weapon on a Divine Bond weapon or shield gives you some very strong buffs.

Wellspring Mage

• Rare Archetype

The Wellspring Mage is an archetype for Spontaneous Caster classes that you pick up at level 1. Not only does it require you to sacrifice spellslots each day, but each time you cast in any sort of pressure, you need to pass a flat DC 6, with successes letting you generate free spell slots to cast the spell from and failures instead triggering diastrous bouts of wild magic.

A lot of your feats are either cribbing from other spontaneous casters in influencing your power in casting or allow you to control your wild magic, including letting it trigger from slain opponents or using them when you counter someone's spell.

Guns and Gears

Expand

The Guns & Gears archetypes are centered around firearms and machinery, in various different specializations. Some are for heavy weapons, while others are about explosions. Still others are centered around more clever and efficient ways to kill.

Artillerist

You master the arts of being better with Siege weapons. To take the dedication requires you to be trained in martial weapons. You specialized in maxing out the performance of your Siege weapon, making it more reliable, though even with the shorthanded feat, you should also hire some nameless mooks to man the thing (party could do other things and not all of them are trained in martial weapons).

Fun feat at level 8 where you can launch a creature out of a catapult.

Overall a situational archetype and a waste of feats in most situations as your rarely going to have a Siege weapon during most overland travels and dungeon delving. Works best in one-shots or short campaigns focused on siege warfare and ship battles. If you are high enough level, you probably can come up with strange combos to pull a Battle Cannon out of your pocket.

Beast Gunner

• Uncommon Archetype

Someone played [/v/|Monster Hunter]. You wield a magic gun crafted from hunting a relatively challenging prey, as part of the Archetype's prerequisite. In addition to the unique properties of turning a Owlbear or a Basilisk into a blunderbuss, you also gain some limited spellcasting, with the ability to load a spell into the barrel (improves spell range and cuts down on multi-attack penalty).

• Incidentally, you can jump into this archetype while also taking the Spellshot archetype/subclass - and some of the tricks that archetype gives you do offer something to consider.

Bullet Dancer

• Uncommon

You learn the art of Gun Katta. Intended for the monk but doesn't want to be excluded, so other classes have to wait for level 7 to take it, despite the dedication feat letting you apply Unarmed attack monk feats like furry of blows to firearms, bayonets, or reinforced stock stikes. Add more style by applying fancy debuffs to your furry tiny bullet shaped fists (Your probably shooting faster than you can reload, so probably invest in multiple Air repeater guns).

Additional feats, many taken from the gunslinger and some from monk, include: Twirl your pistol in a hypnotic manner, Shoot gun to double jump, melee so they can't opportunity attack you when you shoot gun in face, opportunity attack but with gun, Shoot object good, Shoot gun out of another's hand, Ricochet around a cornnors, or furry of blows at 16th level for those that don’t multiclass into a monk or are a monk using a different stance.

Demolitionist

• Uncommon Archetype

A situation archetype if your thing is timed, proximity bombs, and a vendetta against dungeon walls. It takes some of those alchemist bomb feats and expands on them (notably the timebomb parts).

No, they don't supply you with free bombs; you have to find that elsewhere or pay up the money.

Dedication grants set up 1 to 2 bombs on a timer. Has That one alchemist Demolition Charge feat people don't like that lets you deploy up to 4 bombs like a remotely activated snare trap. Includes the alchemist feats that improve and control splash damage with the Controlled Blast feat required to apply them to your set bombs.

The more unique feats are using a bomb and engineering lore to fore open a door instead of athletics (a barbarian could probably do it with fewer resources and still leave it intact) or causing a wall to fall on someone.

The Dedication feat works best in one-shots where you have a bag of holding filled with bombs, using them to dig straight through walls, b-ling through a dungeon, and straight into the DM's Book of Grudges. Other than that, You could just play a pure alchemist for the bombs or be a Snarecrafter for the traps instead.

Fireworks Technician

You know the Tien Xia and Vudrani art of fireworks. Gain the Alchemical Crafting feat to make batches of fireworks. Until your level 10 feat, this is not an Archetype that gives you a rocket launcher of any sort. Instead of DPS, you mostly use your explosives to dazzle and surprise others. This is more of a support Archetype. You use fireworks for signaling and dazzling, but also use overstimulation to end conditions on your allies.

Overwatch

• Uncommon Archetype

You use binoculars and be the party's point man, Making the GM's job harder to ambush the party. Feats include Seeing around corners, Bonus to ally Disarm, Shove, or Trip attempt, stopping someone falling with a gun, or someone using your perception DC as AC.

Pistol Phenom

• Uncommon Archetype

Your focus with the pistol leads to an incredible amount of deception, to the point where you need some proficiency in Performance and Deception in order to qualify for this archetype alongside the requisite pistol training. As a result of this, you also get quite a few feats cribbed from the Gunslinger mixed with all of your original feats. All of these feats are more focused on debuffing enemies, whether it's stunning them or shooting the ground around their feet so they can't react to anything or even pulling a "reach for the Sky" speech to scare them.

Sniping Duo

You use teamwork with another non-minion creature to make both of you more accurate on attacks. Dedication requires Trained in bow or Firearm weapon group and Stealth, and it grants no enemy may use either of you as cover, and if either of you successfully strikes a target the other gets a +1 circumstance bonus per damage dice to strike. Additional feats Grant yourself circumstance bonuses to hit so your ally will get thiers, allow the Duo takes to make additional stikes as reactions when one of the member hits or misses, and use a partner in your math formula to reduce long-range penalties.

Spellshot

• Uncommon Archetype

An odd duck of an archetype as it's also a subclass for the Gunslinger class. As such, this becomes a mandatory dedication feat, and you're stuck with the mandatory feat quota...unless you take the Beastgunner archetype.

Interestingly, despite the name the Spellshot archetype doesn't even have spells. Instead, it utilizes spell-like actions such as summoning magical bullets, elemental damage and teleporting through bullets.

Sterling Dynamo

• Uncommon Archetype

You are the new owner of a fancy new prosthetic limb, whether it replaces a limb you've lost or adds a new hand that can't be used for much beyond punching. Whichever you take, you have your choice between a more brutish Power Driver arm or a nimble Percussive Striker arm that has Agile. While these normally activate at will, you can also make them manually powered, limiting their use to whenever you hit a switch or lever (usually the case for arm-mounted dynamos) but making them more dangerous in exchange.

Your feats add all sorts of fun tricks to your arm, from variable weapon types to an electrically powered super-smash and making the arm magic. Of note is that several of your feats have actions that eat into your arm's operational time - normally not the worst issue as these things are made to last a day before requiring regular maintenance but add this to people attempting to hack it and anti-tech spells might see you want to be a bit more conservative with it.

Trapsmith

• Uncommon Archetype

The Snare Specialist Ranger feat gives you free and quickly deployable snares, and the Snarecrafter Dedication feat gives you Snare Specialist again but with even more snares, the Trapsmith Archetype requires you to take at least one of them, and it will upgrade your snares into clockwork snares.

As part of taking the Dedication feat, an enemy that triggers a trap is effectively blinded for one minute. Additional feats make your snares harder to disarm, Reusable, granting them a pattern recognition AI, or glue a propeller on your snare to make it float like in a video game platformer.

Trick Driver

• uncommon

Whereas Cavaliers are about fighting on top of their animal companion, Trick Drivers push any vehicle to its limit. Don't matter if it's a horse-drawn carriage, sailing ship, Hang glider, Leman Russ Battle Tank, or Lunar-class Cruiser, all you need is Driving Lore proficiency to pilot any vehicle. You can even use Dexterity in place of Intelligence when piloting for maneuvers and tight moves.

In addition to being able to drive anything, Trick Driver makes vehicles move faster and have greater maneuverability. With the right feats, the Trick Driver can even highjack vehicles in one action.

Especially made for that one player, the designated driver in any vehicle-focused campaign. Or for the one guy that stole a car just to run over goblins and zombies.

Unexpected Sharpshooter

• Uncommon Archetype

Holds a striking similarity to the Gunslinger's Mysterious Stranger archetype, a gunslinger focused on dumb luck that might or might not be conflated as skill. As such, the dedication feat for this archetype provides a once-per-day action that lets you re-roll your attack with no penalties to the roll. Alongside quite a few feats cribbed from the Gunslinger that provide extra actions, you also get feats that provide more frequent use for your dedication feat's action as well as another feat that forces enemies to re-roll to hit and pick the worse roll.

Vehicle Mechanic

• uncommon

The Trick Driver's best friend. The Vehicle Mechanic makes the party's main form of transportation hold up better in combat, and repairs the damage it will inevitably accumulate. A passive Archetype that makes life easier for the whole party and the designated driver, rather than having something for yourself. By 18th level, have fun with your flying Ford Anglia.

Grand Bazaar

Expand

While largely a setting book, the 'Grand Bazaar splat did provide a few archetypes too.

Captivator

• Uncommon Archetype

Everyone sees you as such a charming fellow, but that might be because of all the spells you cast. The Captivator Archetype requires 14 Charisma to pick up, and adds an increased avenue to make friends, foul crowds, or kill someone with mental damage. You gain Occult Spellcasting to cast Illusion and Enchantment spells. At higher levels, you gain feats like countercharm or Cast charm person as a reaction.

Spell Trickster

Instead of having to prepare 4 standard, plain spells, your dabbling allows you to change your spells to have some unique effects. Some examples (for cantrips) include:

• Letting you Take Cover behind the Shield cantrip;
• Pushing your foes with Mage Hand; and
• Dazzling enemies after dismissing Light

Low levels are good for a player that only took a dip into a few cantrips (you know rogue was on the mind given how much is dedicated to your Mage Hand).

Higher-level arcane, primal casters also reap the benefits from this archetype, especially making fireball even better at solving every problem.

Wrestler

Surprising that it only came here, but welcome nonetheless. Wrestler focuses very hard on grappling, and thus requires training in Athletics. The Dedication Feat alone provides a few perks, the Titan Wrestler skill feat and the ability to effectively fight barehanded. Further feats either give you new attacks after grappling a foe or advantages for when you do try to grab them.

Book of the Dead

Expand

The Book of the Dead supplement added many new archetypes involving the undead. The book's archetypes are split in-between those who hunt undead, those who embrace the undead, and even becoming undead. Many of these will require the GM's permission and are meant for specific campaigns, so be sure you and your GM are on good terms.

Exorcist

The Exorcist Dedication is dedicated to fighting ghosts and expelling them from their haunts. You gain an item known as a spirit dwelling, a lure for spirits to enter and be contained. You also gain a reaction to make the spirit in the dwelling take damage for you whenever you take positive/negative damage, or are attacked by ghosts and spirits.

Your feats are mostly dedicated to giving your spirit dwelling more powers, Sensing the presence of unseen enemies, and casting out ghosts.

Ghost

• Rare Archetype

You died. Now you're a ghost, though you can sort of carry your gear with you in spiritual form and can float around a little, obsessed with fulfilling any unfinished business they have. While your Strength is largely irrelevant, you do retain it for any opposed actions against other incorporeal beings. Your feats focus on the various abilities of ghosts such as a resistance against most damage, the ability to fly higher than a few inches above the ground and even the ability to reform yourself after being killed again.

Ghoul

• Rare Archetype

You have succumbed to something called the Ghoul Fever, returning from the dead as a flesh-eating monstrosity. Of course, such a deed can only satisfy your hunger unless you take a feat to make it also count as healing you as well. More than any other archetype, this one has plenty of notes about the effects it has on a person's psyche, as the fever twists their personalities in wicked ways that serve only to satisfy their cravings with increasingly little regard to the beings they once were.

Your other feats make you more monstrous as well, adding special effects to your natural weapons as well as boosting your mobility.

Hallowed Necromancer

• Uncommon Archetype

A bit of a misnomer, Hallowed Necromancers aren't the sort to raise the dead, but instead use the knowledge they acquire to permanently put them to rest. As such, this is only available to good-aligned spellcasters with at least one necromancy spell and expert training in the Religion skill. The dedication feat alone provides a special focus spell that deals good and positive damage in a zone to specifically shut down the undead.

Other feats give you plenty of extra spells, whether extra focus spells or additional spells to add to your list. Your capstone feat is particularly frightening, as you gain a magical aura of positive energy that spooks out any nearby undead.

Lich

• Rare Archetype

With DM's permission, you can multiclass into a lich, requiring you to perform a Ritual that needs, at a bare minimum, the ability of the caster to possess a spell slot of 6th or higher, be a Master in that Magic tradition skill, plus an expert in Crafting and 100 Gold/Level to make your soul cage. Also, the archetype version doesn't clearly specify in the Archetype mechanics if the process will turn you evil or if there are consequences for not eating souls (only losing the soul cage), unlike the template...

These requirements mean you can only take this at archetype level 12 or 16 if your spellcasting is from another archetype. For your efforts, you now have a phylactery as immortality insurance and can pick up a few more feats to protect your soulcage or gain lich related powers. Outside the immortality, not too much for a spellcaster except the Spell Gem or Frightful Aura feat, unless you are a spellcasting fists user using Hand of the Lich feat as part of some strange undying magic hand of death build.

Mummy

• Rare Archetype

Whether by ritual or by natural means, you have died and been mummified. Now that you have been raised again, your natural weapons are now more dangerous and you gain a bond to the land you were buried in, but you are now quite vulnerable to fire.

That terrain bond comes in handy as quite a few of your feats apply special effects that in terrain similar to the place you were buried in. You also have quite a few feats that provide powers tied to your ability to desiccate the living, such as sucking the moisture with a mighty breath or stealing an appearance with a touch. Similar to this is the ability to deal ongoing negative damage with your attacks, which can be particularly devastating for certain campaigns.

Reanimator

An Archetype for those that wish for inspiring necromancers to build an army of undead rather than the healer or the guy that cast the other ethically questionable spells that are not from the enchantment school. You only need to be able to cast the animate dead spell to take the dedication, letting you always have it and heighten-able at any time (prepared spellcaster still needs 10 minutes), and the minion +1 to AC, attack, Saving throws, and skill rolls.

Additional feats give you classic necromancer powers like sustaining two zombies simultaneously as one action, focus spells like seeing through minion eyes, dominating other undead, or healing minions. With GM permission, you also can get the Macabre Viruoso feat to learn the create undead rituals while gaining a +2 bonus.

Other feats require you to be a cleric with a negative font, oracle of bones, or necromancer wizard, an aura to resist positive damage, the aura of undead-no-attack-you, or sacrifice a minion to cast a spell for free.

Soul Warden

You have taken your devotion to Pharasma or the psychopomp ushers to a new level and have honorarily taken on the role of one as a guide for souls to pass from one world to the next. The symbol of this bond is a special spiral you can emblazon upon your gear, which not only acts as a divine symbol (helpful for champions and clerics) but can also light up when it senses the undead or possession.

The archetype's majority of the feats provide plenty of additional spells including some domain spells. It also has a familiar feat chain that you can upgrade into being a psychopomp of a sort, providing some special traits that make it capable of sensing and interacting with the undead.

Undead Master

• Uncommon Archetype

Rather than raising vast armies of the undead like the typical necromancer, you prefer to raise a few corpses to act as your personal companions. As such, you're going to be using the pet rules from Rangers/Druids.

As with the Beastmaster archetype, you can spend feats to earn multiple companions with only one (or two with the capstone feat) acting as the forefront at one time. While all the mandatory pet feats are present, you also have a few special feats, like one that diverts incoming damage to your undead pets or the ability to raise them immediately.

Undead Slayer

You have dedicated yourself to the extermination of the undead. Your Dedication feat, in particular, gives you special training on Lore for two specific types as undead as well as a free action to identify certain ones more easily.

Your feats not only that but also give you special ways to fuck over the undead, including an action to deal extra damage and one feat that gives you two other feats dedicated to letting you pull shit out of your ass - with special priority to items made to exploit their vulnerabilities.

Vampire

• Rare Archetype

You have died as a result of a vampire draining all the blood from your body, but you have risen again as another vampire. Not only do you gain snazzy new teeth and the ability to drink blood for temp HP, but you also gain the vampire's multitude of weaknesses. While there are no central themes to the archetype, you do have feats that cover the massive breadth of abilities attributed to the bloodsuckers.

Zombie

• Rare Archetype

You were slain and raised as a peculiar sort of zombie who can retain their intelligence. However, you retain all the other trademark features of a zombie: a gnawing hunger for flesh, a slow shuffling walk and some dangerous natural weapons with a few feats giving you more ways to disassemble yourself. Uniquely, you also require frequent daily maintenance or else you start falling apart, hindering your ability to do anything. Several of your feats also give you expanded benefits, but taking them requires a flat DC 6 check or else your body begins falling apart as a result of overextending yourself.

You have access to a number of feats that improve your combat prowess, particularly your grabbing abilities. You also have quite a few feats that provide benefits upon eating; while nothing gives you true healing, eating brains does allow you to steal some intelligence.

Dark Archive

Expand

Dark Archive presents a number of archetypes more focused on the supernatural and the occult.

Alter Ego

• Uncommon Archetype

You gain the same ability as Agent 49 from the Hitman games to pass yourself off as a generic NPC type. From the dedication feat, you can study a person from a specific occupation for 1 hour. If you do, for 3 days, you can Impersonate and assume their genetic role, gaining +1 to deception and gaining a bonus to lore skill associated with that role (at most levels, you could watch a sailor or a baker work and then instantly do their job better then they can even if you never saw a boat or Bread in your life). Additional feats help you with infiltration, going into the occult magic side with even the ability to teleport-swap with someone or further milk the copy-muscle-memories part to be a skill monkey.

Chronoskimmer

• Rare Archetype

You are partially unmoored from the flow of time, granting a couple special feats that let you manipulate it with some impressive effects. The dedication feat alone lets you either pick a flat initiative as if you took 10 or make a saving throw that lets you roll an natural 19 on a pass or a natural 1 on a fail. A lot of these are helpful for buffing you, whether by providing re-rolls or by messing with time for enemies.

Curse Maelstrom

• Rare Archetype

You have been cursed before, but its remnants haunt you still. If you choose to re-roll a successful check or get cursed by something else, you can enter a Maelstrom state, which emanates an aura that gives -1 to saves and skill checks. While in this state, you can then force an enemy to suffer your curse instead of you. Further feats in the archetype give you extra ways to meddle with curses, whether on yourself or on allies, and even give ways to buff your aura of misfortune.

Living Vessel

• Rare Archetype

You are now the host of some undefined being, whether it be a fey, a fiend, or something worse, that will bestow you powers so long as you placate it. The dedication feat gives you an ability to cheat death once daily by letting the entity possess you when you're about to die, and further feats allow you to exert its influence in other ways that won't put your life in mortal peril.

Mind Smith

You have learned the ability to create a weapon with naught but your mind. This weapon can be reshaped to be whatever you want, with additional feats adding special options that not only give extra combat modes and property runes, but also non-combat uses as well.

Pactbinder

• Uncommon Archetype

As it turns out, pacts do have some special magic behind them, and you're someone who understands what that magic can do. While your dedication feat merely binds yourself to an oath to accomplish some deeds, gaining a minor +1 bonus to convince others to help you fulfill the oath. Other feats allow you to make pacts with extraplanar entities for special abilities, but all of these pacts have specific conditions that you cannot break, with the fiend pact in particular being impossible to break without literally going to hell to rip up the contract.

Psychic Duelist

• Rare Archetype

Psychic Duels are an unusual system that allows competitors to delve into each other's minds in order to fight, but it's not easy to experience and the archetype's prerequisite requires you to have been witness to one. The dedication feat gives some hefty benefits with a bonus to damage for any spells you cast while in a duel and the ability to use your normal modifiers when attacking instead of relying on your best mental stat. There aren't many feats for this archetype, which is fair considering the nicheness of this system, but what you do get makes you quite good at it and your capstone feat lets you drag others into a duel while fighting IRL.

Sleepwalker

You are capable of infiltrating dreams by entering a semi-lucid trance, allowing you to reshape the consciousness of other beings. Entering this trance state improving your Will save but costing you on Perception. Later feats give you plenty of innate spells and ways to connect your power to your allies so they can be protected from any threats like the Nightmare spell.

Time Mage

• Uncommon Archetype

An archetype exclusive to spellcasters, this starts out with merely gaining the basic domain spell for the Time domain and the Time Sense cantrip, but with future feats not only providing extra spells for your spells list, but also various other fun timehax and metamagic feats to slap onto any of your spells, time-altering or not.

Other Sources

This article contains spoilers! You have been warned.

Expand

These archetypes were made for certain Adventure Paths, Pathfinder Society games and Modules. As such, they are all uncommon or rare, and each are specifically made for scenarios in their campaigns. Use at your own discretion.

Alkenstar Agent

• Pathfinder #178: Punks in a Powderkeg
• Uncommon Archetype

You're an undercover cop working for Trietta Ricia, the Grand Duchess of Alkenstar. You get your typical loose cannon cop trope feats taken from the rogue and ranger classes: chasing down perps in close-range gun fights (you shot first), arresting the un-arrest-able by planting false evidence on them, etc.

Exclusive feats include surprise gunshot (but worsen the effects of missing), flashing your badge to AOE Demoralize, and the ability to quickly make forgeries documents 1 hour per page or 10 minutes per page if you're legendary in Society.

Animal Trainer

• Pathfinder #152: Legacy of the Lost God
• Uncommon Archetype

You become an animal whisperer and use that skill to teach your animal companion how to dance. You get an animal companion but they're trained in performance, teaching them how to perform a distracting dance and learning for yourself how to speak with animals and gain a bonus to make requests.

Bellflower Tiller

• Pathfinder #147: Tomorrow Must Burn
• Uncommon Archetype

The Bellflower Network is a secretive organization dedicated to liberating slaves, and you are part of the ground-floor operations for the network, guiding a group towards freedom. While you can only give benefits to those in your group, your feats all give you a multitude of ways to help them out and most significantly gives you one of the few speed boosts available outside of classes.

Crystal Keeper

• Pathfinder #148: Fires of the Haunted City
• Rare Archetype

You Learn the ancient and nearly forgotten elven secret magic devoted to the goddess Yuelral. Crystal Keepers at low levels use Crystals to examine objects. To start, you need only be trained in Elven Lore or Society. The dedication feat lets you use Occultism, Religion, or Society to Decipher Writing, never getting a crit fail and turning success into crit success. The other two feats are a focus spell to electrify doors or having the read aura and sigil cantrip at will. The two more interesting ones are available at 10th level, letting you temporarily transform one rune on an Armor or Weapon you own into a different rune during daily prep.

Drow Shootist

• Pathfinder #165: Eyes of Empty Death
• Uncommon Archetype

You become a master of drow hand crossbow techniques. The dedication grants your crossbow skills always scales with the highest proficiency you receive from a class and learn to quick-draw and stow. Another feat Grants that same proficiency scaling to repeating hand crossbows while spawning one and an accompanying shootist bandolier for faster reload right out of the aether. Other feats are your usual run and gun or applying poison to your bolts, especially the well-known drow lethargy poison.

Folklorist

• Pathfinder #170: Spoken on the Song Wind
• Uncommon Archetype

You are so good at telling stories that you become a reality-warping hypeman in the middle of battle. You pick a hero and they get +1 Status bonuses to attack and saving throw against one chosen villain. Also, mix in some "you may know all the lore" lore skill.

Ghost Hunter

• Pathfinder #163: Ruins of Gauntlight
• Uncommon Archetype

You learn spirit or haunt lore and learn some minor occult spell casting. Feats include using your lore to be friendly with the spirits or recall better, progress your lesser spellcasting, or let your weapon hit ghosts once per day but only for 10 minutes. Compared to the Exorcist archetype, you have a better time fighting and communicating with spirits rather than detecting and casting them out; You only learn the secrets to permanently exorcise at a later level instead of as part of the dedication.

Oozemorph

• The Slithering
• Uncommon Archetype

You've gotten in contact with some strange ooze or ooze-adjacent creature, forever altering your anatomy and unlike last edition, you're not shackled by the original class's moral shackles due to being part-Druid. Though you can never be quite the same in the eyes of normal people, your feats do give you more of the various traits of oozes, from resistance to precision damage to a climbing speed.

Sixth Pillar

• Pathfinder #167: Ready? Fight!
• Uncommon Archetype

An Archetype that tries to marry spellcasting and punching people. As expected, your base class is probably a spellcaster or monk, as the dedication requires 14 Dex and an expert in Acrobatics. The dedication and capstone feat makes sure your unarmed attacks or spellcasting DC are relative. Other Feats make you better at delivering your spells while at closer ranges.

Staff Acrobat

• Pathfinder #151: The Show Must Go On
• Uncommon Archetype

You become very good at jumping with anything that can be defined as a big rod, but more importantly, you are good at shoving and tripping people with it.

Turpin Rowe Lumberjack

• Pathfinder #153: Life's Long Shadows
• Uncommon Archetype

You're affiliated with a particular group of lumberjacks and as such you get training in the relevant lumberjack-ing lores for taking the dedication feat. That's fortunately the extent for the lore, as your other feats have more practical feats, some giving more preference for wielding axes and being able to navigate some of the hazards in the forest.

Addendum

If you are interested in learning more about any specific archetypes and don't want to pay money for it, we recommend checking out the Archives of Nethys to see full details on feats and such.

ExpandThe Classes of Pathfinder 2nd Edition
Core Classes:	Alchemist - Barbarian - Bard - Champion - Cleric - Druid Fighter - Monk - Ranger - Rogue - Sorcerer - Wizard
Advanced Player's Guide:	Investigator - Oracle - Swashbuckler - Witch
Secrets of Magic:	Magus - Summoner
Guns and Gears:	Gunslinger - Inventor
Dark Archive:	Psychic - Thaumaturge
Other:	Archetypes