Worst Pathfinder Archetypes?

[pabelfly]

What are the worst Pathfinder archetypes? I have two picks to start with.

First is Warden Ranger, which trades all combat style feats for the chance to take 10 or 20 on survival checks on their favoured terrain, and trades off favored enemies to roll some of their skill check twice.

Rogue Sapper trades off Trapfinding and two Rogue Talents to be able to damage walls and objects and get a pittance in money from selling scraps, which you somehow have the carry weight to drag back to town.

Interested in other opinions on the worst archetypes Pathfinder has to offer.

[Kurald Galain]

Magus: Greensting Slayer trades the ability to get +3 to hit and damage for the entire combat for dealing +3d6 damage on a single attack (and this ability is wasted if you miss)! Also, you can re-target darkness spells, because that's going to come up often.

Wizard: Scrollmaster is a frontliner who hits people with scrolls! This works about as well as you'd expect, plus it damages (and rather quickly, destroys) the scroll. Besides, you totally want a low-BAB low-HP caster to stand in the frontline.

[Condé]

Agathiel Vigilante.

I love the idea. The execution is horrible.

- Alignment restricted... And can take a PERMANENT negative level if your alignment shift.
- You can take the form of an animal and pretend to be one for the first 3 levels with a -10 to disguise... That's it. You are disguised as an animal. So most people are just going to think you are a furry.
- At 4 you can Beast Shape at will for as long as you want... Except you gains no ability adjustments. At least you can keep your equipment since it doesn't meld but still... Why no ability adjustment? Was like +2 to str so broken at level 4?

And the archetype scales very poorly. At level 8 you can select one ability from Beast shape 2 ou two abilities from Beast Shape 1...

And all that replaces the vigilante talents gained at level 4, 8 etc...

So you are trading most of your Vigilante Talents for a poor version of wildshape which doesn't even give you any ability enhancement whatsoever AND you are locked to only ONE animal form.

Once the vigilante’s animal form is selected, it cannot be changed.

So yeah, no versatility for you, you have to chose your animal form and keep it forever. You better chose wisely.

This archetype might not be the worst in the world, I mean, it doesn't HURT you that much (But it is a downgrade from a standard Vigilante for sure) but the concept is so cool it saddens me so much how bad it is.

[AvatarVecna]

Rogue Sapper trades off Trapfinding and two Rogue Talents to be able to damage walls and objects and get a pittance in money from selling scraps, which you somehow have the carry weight to drag back to town.

Gonna go into detail:

Spoiler: Sapper

Show

A sapper is able to quickly breach obstacles. Using a combination of engineering, explosives, alchemical reagents, and sheer bloody-mindedness, she can deal up to 10 points of damage per sapper level upon an object once per day, ignoring the object’s hardness. She might crack open a stone wall with an explosive charge, or collapse a ceiling by tunneling through its supports. This ability requires 1d4+1 hours of preparation, so it can be used only on immobile and unresisting objects.

This ability replaces trapfinding.

Garbage. There is exactly one upside to this, and that's the fact it doesn't technically require anything. Butt naked in an antimagic jail cell? You can pull an explosion out of your ass...in 2-5 hours. But still! Anyway, on to why this sucks:

This is a sledge hammer. It works as an earth breaker if used to make attacks (albeit improvised). I'm going to assume that you automatically hit a stationary wall incapable of dodging, so we just have to worry about the damage. I'm also gonna say that our Commoner who is wielding the sledgehammer has Str 13 (he works in construction, after all). Walls are items, so you can't crit them, so we're just looking at 2d6+1 per round. We come to a section of mountain. It is unworked stone, so it has hardness 8 and 15 HP/inch. Our slightly strong commoner with his improvised weapon will start attacking the mountain, while a little ways down, four sapper rogues each get to work on their own section of wall.

Two hours go by, during which the commoner makes 1200 attacks, and the sapper rogues stare at the mountain. By this point, the commoner has made it 71 inches into the stone. The first sapper finally does something, and with the snap of his fingers, matches the commoner's 71 inch progress. This requires the rogue to be level 107. The sapper cannot make another explosion today, he is too exhausted to **** out another bomb I guess.

Another hour goes by, with another 600 attacks. The commoner has now made 106 inches of progress in total. The second sapper snaps his fingers, and matches the commoner's progress. This requires the rogue to be level 160. Once again, no more explosions today.

Another hour goes by, with another 600 attacks. The commoner has now made 142 inches of progress in total. The third sapper snaps his fingers, and matches the commoner's progress. This requires the rogue to be level 214. Once again, no more explosions today.

Another hour goes by, with another 600 attacks. The commoner has now made 177 inches of progress in total. The final sapper snaps his fingers, and matches the commoner's progress. This requires the rogue to be level 267.

This is the worst a sapper can perform, taking 5 hours for their 1/day explosion. They would have to be level 267, to match the progress made by a first level commoner with Str mod +1 and a 1 gp digging tool.

Destroying walls isn't hard.

At 2nd level, a sapper gains a +4 bonus on Perception or Disable Device checks to find or disable traps. She also grants a +4 bonus when using the aid another action to assist with Strength checks to lift gates, bend bars, or force open doors. However, the sapper is focused, so it takes her a full-round action to complete any aid another action.

This ability replaces her 2nd-level rogue talent.

You already gave up trapfinding. This is a better bonus for trapfinding stuff than trapfinding would give at lvl 2, but worse than it would give at lvl 8. If you are playing a sapper rogue past lvl 9, this is 100% worse than trapfinding. Additionally, because the Disable Device skill notes that trapfinding is what lets you disarm magic traps, you can't deal with the really nasty stuff.

I guess you also get an extra +2 when you aid another on certain strength checks? That's not technically nothing, but it's basically nothing.

At 4th level, a sapper loots a dungeon or other adventuring complex of its mundane goods and sells them to her various contacts. These mundane goods include things like brass fittings, stewpots, scrap metal, and so on. The sapper automatically loots this junk while in the dungeon, and must spend 24 uninterrupted hours selling the objects in town. She shares a portion of the proceeds with the adventurers; the amount typically equals 1d10 gp per sapper level per dungeon.

This ability replaces her 4th-level rogue talent.

Loot a dungeon of stuff, haul it back to town, spend 24 hours selling stuff in town, and you get...pocket change. You can do this once per dungeon. Assuming that a dungeon lasts exactly long enough to make the party level, you will get 19 dungeons on the way to lvl 20. These will give 2d10 (since when you get to town, you're a Sapper 2 now), then 3d10, then 4d10, etc. By 20th lvl, that 209d10 gp, average 1149.5 gp. Your expected wealth is 880000 gp, but instead you have 881149.5 gp, haHA! I mean...it's not nothing. Technically. It's a bit more than a tenth of a percent. But you gave up a rogue talent for this. 1149.5 gp, and you spent 19 days getting it. You could've taken Black Market Connections for better magic item options while shopping. You could've specialized in a Craft skill and gotten more than this.

Alchemist (Ragechemist) can make a Str mutagen that gives another +2 Str and another -2 Int (I think, it's not worded great). The main issue though: while under the effects of the mutagen, if you start your turn and you've taken damage since the end of your last turn, Will save vs gaining a -2 penalty to Will saves and Int (self-stacking). This isn't Int damage or Int drain, so it can't be healed by anything except time: the penalty disappears 1 hour after the mutagen ends (which itself lasts 10 minutes per alchemist level). If this would put you to Int 0 (and remember, the mutagen itself is already giving you Int -4), you go comatose. The sole upside that I can see: the will save you're making has a flat DC (15, or 20 if the damage you took was from a crit). Get your will save high enough, and you can probably squeak by without much penalty at all...other than the -4 it gives you by default, but still. This looks really painful to try and play. EDIT: At lvl 6, it becomes -4 per failed save. At lvl 10, it also gives -1 Dex.

Barbarian (True Primitive) is awful, but then it's supposed to be more about fluff than mechanics. You give up access to real armor in exchange for bone material stuff - fragile quality and all. Thankfully it seems you're not required to use bone weapons (although it does give you a feature to make bone weapons less fragile). You give up fast movement for a single favored terrain. Good thing you're so smart that you've got enough skill points to make those favored terrain skills really good. Oh wait. Trophy Fetish gives you a way to make your armor and weapons less fragile, and it gives a free +1 to damage or saves at 3rd level (your choice), and another +1 damage or saves (your choice) every 5 levels thereafter. Theoretically +4 to saves, for 0 gp? And it's replacing trap sense, which is kinda bad anyway. But still, being limited to fragile weapons and armor really hurts.

Barbarian (Wild Rager) alters your rage. If you are raging, and you knock an enemy below 0 HP, Will save vs confused! If you fail, you can reattempt the save each turn, but you've lost control of your character until then. You can't use rage powers (so the limted-use ones can't be stolen from you?), and rounds spent confused don't count against your daily limit, but losing control of your character blows.

Paladin (Holy Gun) gives you Wis-based grit until lvl 11, where it increases the grit limit by your Cha mod. Normally, smite in PF is a swift action self-buff on attacks against a specific target (Attack +Cha mod, damage +paladin level, some other benefits). Holy Gun changes this to Smiting Shot, a deed you have to spend grit on, which is like if your smite affected only a single attack. We're going backwards to 3.5 aaaaaaa!

Have you ever wanted to play a half-BAB d6 HD melee specialist? When you get into a fight, is your goal to get your hair tugged as hard and as often as possible? If so, the White-Haired Witch has your back! All you gotta do is give up your witch hexes! I mean in fairness, I don't think this is as bad or as funny as the wizard archetype previously mentioned that sees a scroll of fireball, and thinks "finally, a weapon!" but instead of scribing it into their spellbook they just roll it up like a newspaper and whack people with it. But still, WHW is pretty trash.

[AvatarVecna]

Do monk vows count as archetypes? I don't think so, but if they do, Vow Of Poverty is a thing.

[Arkain]

Paladin (Holy Gun) gives you Wis-based grit until lvl 11, where it increases the grit limit by your Cha mod. Normally, smite in PF is a swift action self-buff on attacks against a specific target (Attack +Cha mod, damage +paladin level, some other benefits). Holy Gun changes this to Smiting Shot, a deed you have to spend grit on, which is like if your smite affected only a single attack. We're going backwards to 3.5 aaaaaaa!

Have you ever wanted to play a half-BAB d6 HD melee specialist? When you get into a fight, is your goal to get your hair tugged as hard and as often as possible? If so, the White-Haired Witch has your back! All you gotta do is give up your witch hexes! I mean in fairness, I don't think this is as bad or as funny as the wizard archetype previously mentioned that sees a scroll of fireball, and thinks "finally, a weapon!" but instead of scribing it into their spellbook they just roll it up like a newspaper and whack people with it. But still, WHW is pretty trash.

Thinking that can't be right I looked up Holy Gun and... it's even worse. Originally I thought "Ah, but grit goes up and down all day, isn't that infinite smites?". And yes, technically that's correct, but you need to spend a standard action on it, so you literally get to spend 1 grit per round for a single smite. You know, with guns, which are mostly known for being extremely accurate even with iteratives. Because screw iteratives. Just be a regular Paladin and either multiclass for a level or just get the proficiency and maybe Amateur Gunslinger if you really want it that much, it's so much better it isn't even funny.

You can actually make WHW work, but it requires a lot of effort just to be the character who grapples with hair. So yeah, it's quite bad. Out of curiosity, I've looked over a couple other archetypes, but most only lose some hexes for very situational abilities, instead of all hexes, so there's a definite plus. And then there is Hagbound. You trade basically all your hexes (save at 6th and 16th level if I haven't missed anything) for very minor things, like size bonuses to strength. At level 20 you turn into a true hag and all that, but you also can't just multiclass out of it. Since it's meant to be a roleplaying archetype you either rid yourself of your hag curse and become a normal witch or you become a monster (though not an NPC). Still, I'd say it's overall very bad?

[RandomLunatic]

Gunslinger's Gunner Squire is god-awful. Most archetypes at least have an idea that sounds cool, even when the execution falls flat. The Gunner Squire fulfills the critical and thrilling tactical role of standing at someone's side in combat and reloading their guns for them. Try as I might, I can't find a way to dress up "Do the grunt work so somebody else can save the day" in a way that would entice anybody to want to play it.

But it gets better! The Side Arm deed, which you get by trading out Gunslinger's Initiative, requires a full round action and a grit point to perform. But since you then dutifully hand the loaded weapons off to your master, you're not going to be able to replenish your grit pool because you're not attacking anyone, so you can only do your job a couple of times per day!

Even on a NPC cohort or follower it's still trash. The actions needed to pass guns back and forth gives you about one standard action shot (so no dead shot or targeting deeds) per turn for two full rounds worth of actions. You have to admit it's pretty impressive for an archetype to be so terrible that it ruins two characters.

I dare you to fail harder.

[Wildstag]

Do monk vows count as archetypes? I don't think so, but if they do, Vow Of Poverty is a thing.

Those vows are genuinely confusing; whoever created them must have thought ki-points were far more useful than they actually are.

[pabelfly]

Do monk vows count as archetypes? I don't think so, but if they do, Vow Of Poverty is a thing.

I didn't think that something worse than 3.5 Vow of Poverty could exist but they actually managed it with Pathfinder Vow of Poverty.

[Kurald Galain]

Those vows are genuinely confusing; whoever created them must have thought ki-points were far more useful than they actually are.

You can use them to get extra attacks, that's not so bad.

Vow of poverty definitely sucks; but the rest of the vows sound pretty decent. Never drink potions to gain a couple of swift action attacks per day? That's doable as a tradeoff.

[Drelua]

Those vows are genuinely confusing; whoever created them must have thought ki-points were far more useful than they actually are.

Ki Points are very useful for Qinggong monks, I played a monk from I think level 12 to 16 with scorching ray, barkskin, bloodcrow strike for a full attack at medium range, though doing half fire and half negative energy damage is probably more likely to be a downgrade with fire resistance. Still, even a half damage full attack from 200-300 feet away might be worthwhile. Oh, and my favourite, spit venom. It does CON damage if they fail a fort save, which usually didn't happen, but all it takes is a ranged touch attack to blind them for a round. It was very satisfying spitting in a sphinx's eyes from 60 feet away then moving up to them without provoking, and making them easier for the magus to hit.

Of course, I was a hungry ghost monk, so I didn't bother with any vows. Though I did play a monk with a vow of celibacy in PFS once, it was funny when we all had a room to sleep in, but I'm not allowed to sleep in the same room as anyone else, so I slept in the closet.

[spectralphoenix]

Falcata Swashbuckler bugs me. It's actually not bad as a one-level dip - you trade derring-do for EWP(falcata) which is probably a good deal. Then, after getting your fancy sword with super crits, you spend the rest of the archetype getting abilities that let you sunder objects (which are immune to crits) or to hit things with your buckler instead of your fancy sword. It's just so weirdly anti-synergistic.

[pabelfly]

I'm just imagining a person who designed one of these archetypes playing through a 1-20 campaign with that specific archetype, nodding throughout and saying "yeah, this is exactly what I wanted". Like trying to melee as the scrollmaster Wizard, or being a Gunslinger Squire and loading the weapons of another character for their combat round. "Yeah, this is exactly what I wanted."

[Arkain]

I'm just imagining a person who designed one of these archetypes playing through a 1-20 campaign with that specific archetype, nodding throughout and saying "yeah, this is exactly what I wanted". Like trying to melee as the scrollmaster Wizard, or being a Gunslinger Squire and loading the weapons of another character for their combat round. "Yeah, this is exactly what I wanted."

You know how often times very bad options are handwaved as primarily being "for NPCs"? Mabye somebody took this very literally there and thought up an archetype for the followers of their Musketeer Cavalier

[Rynjin]

You know how often times very bad options are handwaved as primarily being "for NPCs"? Mabye somebody took this very literally there and thought up an archetype for the followers of their Musketeer Cavalier

All of the Squire archetypes are quite literally for NPCs, it's not just a meme here. There's one for Fighter as well. Along with Cavalier and a second one for Paladin.

Specifically they're meant to be used with the follower gained from the Squire Feat, which is Leadership-lite.

It's the same with the caster archetypes like Blasing Torchbearer, available to followers gained from the Torchbearer Feat.

No, these are intentionally bad NPC archetypes and serve their purpose well. They make a Follower good at specific support tasks the actual character might want, and in that context they serve their purpose well. They don't belong on a "worst archetypes" list any more than (IMO) NPC classes like Commoner should appear in the tier list.

Instead, I'm absolutely shocked that we're several posts in and ZERO people have mentioned the actual worst archetype in the game: Oozemorph.

Oh yes, you're reading that correctly. This is an archetype with the explicit power of being permanently an ooze, who has the miraculous shapeshifting prowess to return to humanoid form for 1 hour per day.

You are also, yes, not hallucinating. This class cannot, as written, EVEN MOVE, and a FAQ had to be put out clarifying that it was not intended to be an immobile blob, and will need to be errata'd so that it may function as a player character for more than 1 hour per day.

It has not, currently, been errata'd and probably never will be considering that Pathfinder 1e is depreciated and even if ti wasn't Ultimate Wilderness was unlikely to sell enough copies in a human lifetime to warrant a second printing.

For this privilege you replace almost every single Shifter class feature.

Even with the hypothetical errata making it so you can move...then what? You're a 3/4 BaB natural attack with a maximum of 3 natural attacks, and no reasonable ability to gain more via race, polymorphing, or class features.

You cannot use magic items or wear armor of any kind, leaving you mostly defenseless.

You cannot even SPEAK, leaving you completely irrelevant to any out of combat social events, unless you use your limited daily ability to assume human form to do so.

This is an archetype that reduces the base functionality of your main class to BELOW a Human Commoner, and allows it the miraculous ability to regain that faculty a limited number of times for a limited duration each day.

There is simply no other contender for "worst archetype" in the game.

[Zanos]

Wizard: Scrollmaster is a frontliner who hits people with scrolls! This works about as well as you'd expect, plus it damages (and rather quickly, destroys) the scroll. Besides, you totally want a low-BAB low-HP caster to stand in the frontline.

Scrollmaster has terrible starting abilities, but it's level 10 feature to use your own caster level and intelligence for scrolls is very interesting. Low level scrolls are very cheap, especially if you craft them, and crafting in PF doesn't cost XP. So you could be paying as low as 12.5gp per shot of first level spells, some of which scale nicely when you're able to use your full caster level. It really expands the options of spells you want to keep around in scrolls just in case, since it goes from "spells that are good at minimum caster level and ability score" to "anything you would want to cast."

[pabelfly]

You know how often times very bad options are handwaved as primarily being "for NPCs"? Mabye somebody took this very literally there and thought up an archetype for the followers of their Musketeer Cavalier

Maybe they're just playing an NPC-style character. "I'd love to spend twenty levels learning to reload the guns of another character and pretending to be their assistant."

[Arkain]

All of the Squire archetypes are quite literally for NPCs, it's not just a meme here. There's one for Fighter as well. Along with Cavalier and a second one for Paladin.

Specifically they're meant to be used with the follower gained from the Squire Feat, which is Leadership-lite.

It's the same with the caster archetypes like Blasing Torchbearer, available to followers gained from the Torchbearer Feat.

No, these are intentionally bad NPC archetypes and serve their purpose well. They make a Follower good at specific support tasks the actual character might want, and in that context they serve their purpose well. They don't belong on a "worst archetypes" list any more than (IMO) NPC classes like Commoner should appear in the tier list.

Instead, I'm absolutely shocked that we're several posts in and ZERO people have mentioned the actual worst archetype in the game: Oozemorph.

...

Ah, I didn't know that was a thing. Makes much more sense then, yes.

Also agreed that Oozemorph is by far one of the worst, even for Shifter standards. There is also the really odd part where you if you are an ex-Shifter with that archetype you retain some abilities like compression or growing fleshy weapons, but you suddenly return to being humanoid instead of The Blob in your default form. You know, because you broke the solemn vows of nature and oozedom or something, so you must be punished.

[pabelfly]

Instead, I'm absolutely shocked that we're several posts in and ZERO people have mentioned the actual worst archetype in the game: Oozemorph.

Oh yes, you're reading that correctly. This is an archetype with the explicit power of being permanently an ooze, who has the miraculous shapeshifting prowess to return to humanoid form for 1 hour per day.

You are also, yes, not hallucinating. This class cannot, as written, EVEN MOVE, and a FAQ had to be put out clarifying that it was not intended to be an immobile blob, and will need to be errata'd so that it may function as a player character for more than 1 hour per day.

It has not, currently, been errata'd and probably never will be considering that Pathfinder 1e is depreciated and even if ti wasn't Ultimate Wilderness was unlikely to sell enough copies in a human lifetime to warrant a second printing.

For this privilege you replace almost every single Shifter class feature.

Even with the hypothetical errata making it so you can move...then what? You're a 3/4 BaB natural attack with a maximum of 3 natural attacks, and no reasonable ability to gain more via race, polymorphing, or class features.

You cannot use magic items or wear armor of any kind, leaving you mostly defenseless.

You cannot even SPEAK, leaving you completely irrelevant to any out of combat social events, unless you use your limited daily ability to assume human form to do so.

This is an archetype that reduces the base functionality of your main class to BELOW a Human Commoner, and allows it the miraculous ability to regain that faculty a limited number of times for a limited duration each day.

There is simply no other contender for "worst archetype" in the game.

I've always wanted to play an Oozemorph Shapeshifter, not sure how I'd minmax it into relevance though. Wish I'd get to play a Pathfinder 1e game to figure it out.

[icefractal]

It's 3PP, but SoP can do ooze-based characters pretty well.

[pabelfly]

It's 3PP, but SoP can do ooze-based characters pretty well.

Nah, I want the optimization challenge. It's why my favourite class in 3.5 is Truenamer.

[Aldrakan]

Scrollmaster has terrible starting abilities, but it's level 10 feature to use your own caster level and intelligence for scrolls is very interesting. Low level scrolls are very cheap, especially if you craft them, and crafting in PF doesn't cost XP. So you could be paying as low as 12.5gp per shot of first level spells, some of which scale nicely when you're able to use your full caster level. It really expands the options of spells you want to keep around in scrolls just in case, since it goes from "spells that are good at minimum caster level and ability score" to "anything you would want to cast."

Yeah scrollmaster is a decent archetype if you completely ignore what it gives you before 10th level and what is ostensibly the primary gimmick of the archetype. In my imagination I see a scrollmaster in a low level adventuring group, and he's actually being sort of effective doing his scroll sword and shield thing, then they encounter a massively over-CRed threat and he unrolls one to reveal it's Time Stop and he's 19th level and just does this for fun.

I'm going to nominate the rageshaper shifter archetype, all the fun of being a terrible barbarian who takes a full-round action to enter rage and has no rage powers with the added bonus that you might attack your teammates...although they're probably not worried.

Given the shifter is not a strong class in the first place the number of archetypes it has that make it much worse is aggravating. I mean look at this:
Invulnerable Defenses (Ex): At 2nd level, a rageshaper becomes difficult to harm in his devastating form. Whenever the rageshaper takes on his devastating form and is unencumbered and either wearing no armor or wearing light or medium nonmetal armor, he gains a +2 natural armor bonus to his AC and DR 2/—.
This replaces defensive instinct, chimeric aspect, and greater chimeric aspect.

This doesn't scale. Ever.

Also the fearmonger antipaladin gets special points for not just being much weaker than a normal one but also worse at spreading fear, because they lose touch of corruption so they can't actually use their fear-based cruelties.

[Rynjin]

Invulnerable Defenses (Ex): At 2nd level, a rageshaper becomes difficult to harm in his devastating form. Whenever the rageshaper takes on his devastating form and is unencumbered and either wearing no armor or wearing light or medium nonmetal armor, he gains a +2 natural armor bonus to his AC and DR 2/—.
This replaces defensive instinct, chimeric aspect, and greater chimeric aspect.

This doesn't scale. Ever.

Don't forget that not only does it not scale, it is an ability that grants a flat +2 AC bonus in exchange for losing an ability that grants Wis mod +1/4 levels AC (and CMD).

And that ability functions (at half effectiveness) if you wear armor, to boot.

[Zanos]

Yeah scrollmaster is a decent archetype if you completely ignore what it gives you before 10th level and what is ostensibly the primary gimmick of the archetype. In my imagination I see a scrollmaster in a low level adventuring group, and he's actually being sort of effective doing his scroll sword and shield thing, then they encounter a massively over-CRed threat and he unrolls one to reveal it's Time Stop and he's 19th level and just does this for fun.

It's not as though scrollmaster is an archetype that replaces an entire suite of class features. You lose arcane bond and a bonus feat and gain a terrible ability, a mediocre ability(scroll shield is okayish, actually), and an excellent ability. And you get the excellent ability at 10th, which isn't exactly so high that nobody could ever be imagined to be playing at that level.

[Kurald Galain]

Fiend Flayer Magus is a weird one. On the one hand, you don't really lose anything for taking it. On the other hand, using its only ability deals constitution damage to you, that cannot be healed except over time. Now that's harsh and long-lasting enough that this is really something you should only do in a dire emergency... but if and when you are in a dire emergency, do you really want to take a standard action to reduce your own constitution?

Site-Bound Oracle is a curse rather than an archetype, but bears mentioning here. Curses are supposed to be substantial drawbacks (such as being blind, or lame, or haunted) but this one takes the cake. You pick one spot, as in one 10' square, and whenever you are more than 1500 feet (300 meters) away from there you take constitution damage and must save vs nausea every minute. Even in a city campaign this is ridiculously crippling.

Yeah scrollmaster is a decent archetype if you completely ignore what it gives you before 10th level and what is ostensibly the primary gimmick of the archetype.

Fair point about its L10 ability, but an archetype with a primary gimmick of destroying your own scrolls by swatting people in the face with them still belongs in this thread

[Seto]

Fiend Flayer Magus is a weird one. On the one hand, you don't really lose anything for taking it. On the other hand, using its only ability deals constitution damage to you, that cannot be healed except over time. Now that's harsh and long-lasting enough that this is really something you should only do in a dire emergency... but if and when you are in a dire emergency, do you really want to take a standard action to reduce your own constitution?

Meh. As you say, you don't give up anything, so it doesn't actively detract from your build. Therefore, I wouldn't rank it among the "worst archetypes". It probably belongs in the "most pointless", though. FWIW, I played a Fiend Flayer once (because it didn't cost anything, so I might as well add it on). Across the whole Legacy of Fire AP, I used the blood sacrifice exactly once, mostly for the sake of roleplay. I guess it's flavorful.

[Rynjin]

I think a strong contender for another one is the Overwhelming Soul Kineticist. It was Mark Seifter's...appeasement(?) archetype for those that did not like the Burn mechanic, but comes off almost as a joke.

It's pretty much a straight downgrade over the base Kineticist, which is already a fairly low powered class. In exchange for not having the Burn mechanic, you get the incredible ability to...not use any Kineticist abilities that cost Burn, unless you could reduce the Burn cost to 0.

They don't really get any ability to reduce Burn better than a base Kineticist (save a 1/day ability that comes on at level 6) so...gee, thanks Mark. What an Overwhelming Disappointment.

Oh also if you're ever forced to take Burn against your will (such as failing a Concentration check), instead of taking nonlethal damage you eat a whole ass Negative Level. Thanks again.