house rules for Skill Training

I've come up with a few house rules I'll be using, to fix one of the more common complaints I've read around here, about skills training and improvement. I'd like to hear your thoughts on these ideas of mine, please.

Please note that "Skill Training (II)" is identical to the Rules-as-Written (RAW), and that "Skill Training (I)" is just "Skill Training (II)" but with both options being taken.

Thanks,
Franklin

KINGDOM ABILITY "SKILL TRAINING"

This kingdom ability has three versions. Whenever the kingdom receives two of these abilities at the same time (i.e. for the same level), the kingdom resolves these abilities in numerical order (e.g.: a kingdom receives Skill Training (II) and Skill Training (III) at 13th level; the kingdom resolves Skill Training (II) first, and then resolves Skill Training (III) second).

Skill Training (I): At 3rd level, and every four levels thereafter, the kingdom improves the proficiency level of one skill by one rank (e.g.: from trained, up to expert), up to the maximum allowed at that level.

Then, the kingdom chooses a new skill, and receives that skill at the trained proficiency rank.

Skill Training (II): At 5th level, and every four levels thereafter, the kingdom chooses one of these two options:

* The kingdom chooses an existing skill, and improves the proficiency rank for that skill by one rank, up to the maximum allowed at that level.

* The kingdom chooses a new skill, and receives that skill at the trained proficiency rank.

Skill Training (III): At 7th level, and every six levels thereafter, the kingdom improves the proficiency rank, by one rank, for both of the skills given to it by its chosen government type, as follows.

* At 7th level, the government skills are improved from trained to expert.

* At 13th level, the government skills are improved from expert to master.

* At 19th level, the government skills are improved from master to legendary.

If either of the government skills have already been improved to the intended proficiency rank (or above), then in place of that skill's upgrade, the kingdom chooses a new skill, which it then receives at the trained proficiency rank.

In our testing we've found granting a few more trained skills to start and granting a skill increase every level (like a Rogue) should work well enough.

Sorry, but I'd find that a bit too much. The game designers wanted us to have a bit of a challenge, and granting the kingdom a skill increase EVERY level would kill the challenge all together.

If the players really, really want to give their kingdom a new skill during an even-numbered level (as opposed to an odd-numbered level), let them use their feat for it ("Skill Training").

My suggestion gives the players about a 25% increase in skills advancement, for skills of their choice, while also boosting those skills intrinsic to their chosen government type.

(Given that Government is the kingdom's equivalent to a character's Class, having those intrinsic skills automatically improve at certain levels makes sense. I was surprised to not see this already incorporated into the kingdom building rules, in the first place.)

Sorry, but I'd find that a bit too much. The game designers wanted us to have a bit of a challenge, and granting the kingdom a skill increase EVERY level would kill the challenge all together.

Have you actually run simulations or used the rules? We've found it really won't kill the challenge.

The Skill Training feat only gets you to trained, not higher.

As written a Kingdom can only raise 3 Skills all the way (though there's little incentive to go to Legendary in skills overall).

This is the same as a normal Pathfinder character.
The problem is there's only 1 Kingdom instead of a whole party.

The math is fine for skills you do invest in, but in regular Pathfinder one character doesn't have to cover every skill.
A Kingdom does. There are some you can get by without but picking only 3 Skills to raise leaves the Kingdom poor in the other 13 skills.

Also keep in mind that even with the easy status bonuses built into the kingdom rules, the Size Penalties to Control DC and lower bonuses to abilities result in Kingdom DCs regularly being several points higher than normal Pathfinder 2e DCs of the same level. And that's assuming you can manage Item bonuses. Item bonuses to kingdom rolls don't even exist for every kingdom action.

(Math Comparison for Skills left at trained only, assuming a 12 ability to start)

5th Level Regular Pathfinder: DC20
Skill Bonus +9 (+7 Proficiency (+5 Level, +2 Trained), +1 Ability, +1 Item)
Roll needed: 11

5th Level Kingdom Skill: DC 21 (Assuming 1 Size penalty at this point)
Skill Bonus +10 (+7 Proficiency (+5 Level, +2 Trained), +1 Ability, +1 Item, +1 Status)
Roll needed: 11

Same so far.

10th level Regular Pathfinder: DC 27
Skill Bonus +16 (+12 Proficiency (+10 Level, +2 Trained), +3 Ability, +1 Item)
Roll needed: 11

10th Level Kingdom Skill: DC 30 (Yes you'll likely have 50 hexes by now for a +3 Size Penalty)
Skill Bonus +17 (+12 Proficiency (+10 Level, +2 Trained), +2 Ability, +1 Item, +2 Status)
Roll needed: 13

Starting to diverge.

15th Level Regular Pathfinder: DC 34
Skill Bonus +23 (+17 Proficiency (+15 Level, +2 Trained), +4 Ability, +2 Item)
Roll needed: 11

15th Level Kingdom Skill: DC 38 (34 +4 Size Penalty)
Skill Bonus +24 (+17 Proficiency (+15 Level, +2 Trained), +3 Ability, +2 Item, +2 Status)
Roll needed: 14

At this point a kingdom skill that's only trained is 15% behind a similar trained only skill on a regular Pathfinder 2e character.

AND a regular Pathfinder 2e character won't likely be rolling a trained only skill as much as a Kingdom will have to.

On another note so many Structures require expert in a skill that under RAW a party could only ever built a few of them. I'd be fine with this in a system that a party would use more than once but chances are a group will only do Kingdom Building once.It seems better to allow the party to use more of the Kingdom Building content if they're only going to do it once.

Allowing a skill increase every level still doesn't allow the building of every structure, a party still has to choose, they just get to choose a bit more.

It also makes gaining a kingdom level more fun. Some event levels all you get are a Kingdom feat and they're pretty lackluster overall.

TLDR: RAW, a Kingdom will need to roll a lot of checks that it's only Trained in. Even with the status bonus a Kingdom receives, the lower ability scores and higher DC from size makes a Kingdom significantly worse at Trained only skills compared to a normal Pathfinder 2e character AND the Kingdom will have to roll Trained only skills more often than a regular Pathfinder 2e character.

Skill increases every level alleviate a lot of this, allow the party access to more (but not all) structures, and make gaining kingdom levels more rewarding.

First of all, thank you for showing some number-crunching.

The problem is there's only one Kingdom, instead of a whole party.

You make an excellent point. I didn't even think of this aspect.

I'm still not sold on the idea of a skill INCREASE every level. But a skill ACQUISITION (i.e. a new skill at trained) on the even-numbered levels, I could probably go for. However, if the kingdom feats are all really as lackluster as you say, then feats could still be easily used (at least at lower levels, when there are still skills to be newly acquired) on skill training.

But I'd still like to see the government skills get special attention directly. As I mentioned earlier, I view those skills as being "core" to the kingdom's individual concept, just as certain character skills are "core" to the concept of that character's class.

In case it matters, I've also combined a couple of skills. My roster of kingdom skills has a total of 14 (not 16). Also, I've been toying with giving a "default" proficiency for untrained skills (kingdom and character skills alike) of level divided by two (dropping any fraction).

Thanks, again, for sharing your thoughts! ;-)

Upon further reflection...
If we use the feats for skill training, and keep the Skill Increase ability used just for improvement of existing skills, that means our kingdom would have nine (9) skill boosts total.

That works out to nine skills at expert, or else four skills at master plus one other skill at expert, as the two extremes (if we forgo boosting anything to legendary rank).

How many skills would you expect a 20th level kingdom to have at master (or above)? How many at expert? How many at trained? And how many left untrained? If we can agree on a range of expected final results, we can better agree on what needs adjusting and when.

Thanks,
Franklin

I don't have a set number that I expect a 20th level kingdom to have.

For adjustments to the Kingdom rules I just want to keep it as simple as possible.

The Kingdom is built like a characters but is skill focused.

Simplest solution to me was just adjust rules so the Kingdom is like a Rogue.

Every Kingdom is a skill user (ie Rogue). Government is more akin to a Rogue's racket than the actual class.

If you want to auto scale the skills granted by your government instead of just free Skill Increases that should work well too.

In our list of adjustments we grant Trained Skills from Charter and Homeland too. You could auto-scale those as well.

In our list of adjustments we grant Trained Skills from Charter and Homeland too. You could auto-scale those as well.

Actually, I had started to work up a list of skills associated with Heartlands, but that got aborted after a discussion here.

Originally, I had planned on giving Boating to Lakes, Rivers, and Swamps. Unfortunately, once I learned that it was "Forest/Swamp" (instead of "Forest" vs. "Swamp"), that plan got sunk. While it is entirely proper for Swampers to all know Boating, there is less logic in having all Foresters know Boating.

But just out of curiosity (and courtesy, since you're the only one responding to me on this thread), what were your choices for the respective Heartlands and Charters, please? And just as importantly, how did you resolve any lap-overs of Skills (i.e. getting the same skill from more than one source)?

Franklin

I plan to make a Google Doc with extensive discussion of our findings and fixes once we decide our current sim won't teach us any more.

For now if you're highly interested in our findings check your PMs :-)

Government is more akin to a Rogue's racket than the actual class.

Via an effort of extreme willpower, I will valiantly attempt to refrain from using that obvious segue into modern-day, real-world politics.

On a slightly more serious, more on-topic note, I noticed that Kleptocracy was not listed as a form of government. Once might argue that Oligarchy would best reflect a Kleptocracy, from its selected Attributes and Initial Feat.