Mild Variant of Archer Fighter Archetype for Pathfinder

[artimus261]

So a player of mine is wanting to use the Archer Archetype for Fighter. Duh. He was wondering if he could get something in place of having heavy armor, shields, and possibly medium armor as well.

I came up with something and just figured I'd pass it along to see what everyone thought and see if it was balanced.

Sacrifice Proficiency with Heavy Armor, Medium Armor, and all shields except Buckler

Gains +2 Skill Points per level, add Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, and Perception class skills.

Given the visual acuity of an archer and the quickness of their hands Sleight of Hand and Perception just felt like necessary give aways. Acrobatics I felt was a decent third skill to grant given that he'll be light on his feet. That paired with giving them a step up in skill points I felt was a decent trade without stepping on a rangers toes.

[Psyren]

Yeah that's fine. This is basically what Lore Warden (a far superior archetype) does.

Personally I would recommend you don't use Archer at all, and instead let him use a Lore Warden with Advanced Weapon Training options. You can get all the stuff Archer gives you far earlier using feats, and get even more goodies. (Archer was very early in PF's life, so they were still being cautious with their design. Around the X Tactics Toolbox books is when they finally began throwing all that out the window.)

Also, consider letting your fighter player use the Combat Stamina options from Unchained.

[artimus261]

I looked over Lore Warden and think it's a little off track for his character in particular with the way he plays him. If Archer is truly an underpowered archetype are there any fixes that could be made to remedy that for him?

Perhaps moving Expert Archer up to 1st and then every 5th? Would make an impact at 1st level, ensure that by 5th it would already be double the original bonus (+2 instead of +1) and would increase the total bonus to +5 at 20th instead of +4 at 17th.

[Hogsy]

I looked over Lore Warden and think it's a little off track for his character in particular with the way he plays him. If Archer is truly an underpowered archetype are there any fixes that could be made to remedy that for him?

Perhaps moving Expert Archer up to 1st and then every 5th? Would make an impact at 1st level, ensure that by 5th it would already be double the original bonus (+2 instead of +1) and would increase the total bonus to +5 at 20th instead of +4 at 17th.

Search for Witchdusk Archer. It is a home brew setting with fixes on many 3.5 and PF classes and it has the Archer. It is pretty good imo considering it is a Fighter Archetype.

[artimus261]

I personally found that class a little too tailor made for the setting it was made for in terms of ability. I'm hoping to leave the smallest home brewing 'footprint' as possible on this particular archetype. Thank you though! Still gave me some ideas for some other things.