u/DesignerBackground65

When I became archmage, I was locked out of mages guild quests. Is this a thing with all guilds or just certain ones?

This is all very technical and rules lawyery, but I think it's funny although I'm not entirely sure I understand it correctly.

The dedication trait text reads:

"You can’t retrain a dedication feat as long as you have any other feats from that archetype." (https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=572)

While the free archetype optional rule states:

"The only difference between a normal character and a free archetype character is that the character receives an extra class feat at 2nd level and every even level thereafter that they can use only for archetype feats." (https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2751) It then goes on to talk about potentially restricting the available archetypes and if you do so, disregarding the restrictions that come with having an archetype. This is not relevant for the case of a fully free archetype where any archetype may be selected (except for rarity and access ofc).

If you are a fourth level character with a free archetype A and want to retrain to archetype B, how can you do that? Because by these rules, you cannot retrain your free archetype dedication because you have a fourth level feat for that archetype. You also can't retrain your fourth level archetype feat out of archetype A because you can't take the dedication for B.

You could of course retrain two class feats into dedication A feats and then retrain your fourth level archetype feat to any dedication that isn't A or B and then retrain your class feats, retrain your level two class feat into dedication B, which deactivates your fourth level dedication and then retrain your fourth level dedication into an archetype feat for B.

That is the simplest way I could find to switch free archetypes. It takes 7 weeks and deactivates one of your feats. Am I misunderstanding something or is this incredibly clunky?