Learning Takes a Lifetime

I understand the knee-jerk reaction to restricting master/legendary proficiency to signature skills, since I had it too. But I'm heartened by the word "typically" and the reassurance that there are other ways to get more besides class.

I think it'll be fine as long as there's some method by which a character can make any given skill a signature skill. I would guess there might be a general feat or skill feat to let you pick up some extra signature skills as you go. For me, they've earned enough benefit of the doubt to not freak out until I see the full story with this one.

I think that signature skills are a great target for different archetypes.

As best I can tell, a single-classed rogue who desperately desired skill, spent every option and took every advantage, could manage to gain at least 54 skill rank increases, but 35 of those would all be only for untrained to trained, so...lots of Lores!

19 skill rank at above trained level. That seem 4 legendary and 1 master. 5 signature skills. Not much,but you can do a lot of custumization if some of those can be chosen one way or another.

Diego Rossi wrote:

Graystone, climbing fish exist, goats can climb locations that are hard for human climbers and sea lions can climb.

A person that don't know how to swim don't learn a backstroke by osmosis, but normally he is capable to dog paddle without any teaching if he don't panic. He would have the grace of a ferry boat, but he will be able to swim. On the other hand I know people that have been taught how to swim but will risk drowning if distracted of disturbed as they fear the water and at a minimal provocation they will start to panic. The guy with 20 levels maybe don't know what is doing, but he will be way more calm that a fist level guy that has followed a basic course about climbing.

So in other words corner cases are the norm in PF2?

When you can think of 3 examples in 30 seconds they aren't corner cases, they are simply slightly uncommon.

You want other examples? There are crabs that climb palms to cut down the coconuts.

Meraki wrote:

Overall, I'm liking the skill consolidation, although I think I'd prefer Sense Motive not to be in with Perception. I'd like to be able to have a character that's great about noticing things, but doesn't really understand people...that being said, it's possible that skill feats will take care of that concern.

I would prefer it as part of the Social skill. The great outdorsman that can spot a mice at 150 yards isn't necessarily able to notice a lie.

If you don't want to roll to Sense Motive, you don't have to, but I imagine the outdoorsman would notice the slight freeze of prey in the open, or the twitch of a snake about to bite.

Captain Morgan wrote:

That means he isn't allowed to tell us. He doesn't spoil stuff planned for later blogs. I bet we will find out on Friday.

Signature skills are the ones you can increase to master and legend, and are typically defined by your class. Though there are a few other ways to get more.

Bolded for emphasis on the part people seem to be ignoring. I'm fine with this being how Signature Skills work as long as there's an accessible way to get more of them (a General Feat that grants two additional Signature Skills, for example).

19 skill rank at above trained level. That seem 4 legendary and 1 master. 5 signature skills. Not much,but you can do a lot of custumization if some of those can be chosen one way or another.

That's 19 above Trained, so you only need 3 of those 19 to raise something from Trained to Legend. This thus maxes at 6 Legendary Skills (plus one at Expert and however many at Trained you care to have).

Pan wrote:

Diego Rossi wrote:

Graystone, climbing fish exist, goats can climb locations that are hard for human climbers and sea lions can climb.

A person that don't know how to swim don't learn a backstroke by osmosis, but normally he is capable to dog paddle without any teaching if he don't panic. He would have the grace of a ferry boat, but he will be able to swim. On the other hand I know people that have been taught how to swim but will risk drowning if distracted of disturbed as they fear the water and at a minimal provocation they will start to panic. The guy with 20 levels maybe don't know what is doing, but he will be way more calm that a fist level guy that has followed a basic course about climbing.

So in other words corner cases are the norm in PF2?

When you can think of 3 examples in 30 seconds they aren't corner cases, they are simply slightly uncommon.

You want other examples? There are crabs that climb palms to cut down the coconuts.

So every fish is a crab? Every level 20 swimmer is calm and every level 1 is panic stricken? Just because you can find examples doesn't mean it stretches to entire species and beyond to individuals.

Diego Rossi wrote:

Pan wrote:

Diego Rossi wrote:

Graystone, climbing fish exist, goats can climb locations that are hard for human climbers and sea lions can climb.

A person that don't know how to swim don't learn a backstroke by osmosis, but normally he is capable to dog paddle without any teaching if he don't panic. He would have the grace of a ferry boat, but he will be able to swim. On the other hand I know people that have been taught how to swim but will risk drowning if distracted of disturbed as they fear the water and at a minimal provocation they will start to panic. The guy with 20 levels maybe don't know what is doing, but he will be way more calm that a fist level guy that has followed a basic course about climbing.

So in other words corner cases are the norm in PF2?

When you can think of 3 examples in 30 seconds they aren't corner cases, they are simply slightly uncommon.

You want other examples? There are crabs that climb palms to cut down the coconuts.

So every fish is a crab? Every level 20 swimmer is calm and every level 1 is panic stricken? Just because you can find examples doesn't mean it stretches to entire species and beyond to individuals.

Every level 20 swimmer is calm. Every level 20 character is almost always calm. They are really badass dudes.

TheFinish wrote:

Tholomyes wrote:

Logan Bonner wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

That means he isn't allowed to tell us. He doesn't spoil stuff planned for later blogs. I bet we will find out on Friday.

Signature skills are the ones you can increase to master and legend, and are typically defined by your class. Though there are a few other ways to get more.

This is... Disappointing. I like the idea that maybe you can get to higher ranks faster in signature skills, but being locked off from master or legend by class just feels wrong. There being other ways to get more doesn't make it feel any less wrong, unless there's some sort of thing like with Ancestries or Backgrounds, where you get certain signature skills based on your class, but one free. As much as I'm not sure I liked the extreme divergence in skills in PF1e, it at least let you be almost as good in non-class skills, by only granting a +3 boost in class skills, which is a decent boost, but isn't the same as gating off higher ranked skill feats and skill uses based on class.

Yeah, I think lowering the level requirements for Master/Legendary might be better. Or attaining automatic Master/Legendary in X Signature skills. But gating the two highest levels of proficiency by class? That's kind of a bummer. It makes classes even more pigeonholed than in PF1.

He did say that there are a few other ways to get more, though. I don't see how that is significantly different from classes having different class skills in PF1.

I mentioned that in my post about it. +3 is a decent boost for class skill over non class skill, but it doesn't really gate you off from anything, and by a high enough level that +3 doesn't really matter much. In 2e, there are skill uses and feats that will require higher level proficiencies. Being gated off from those based on class (and having to spend limited resources to go outside of that class restriction) means you aren't going to see nearly as much stepping outside the box, unless there are other ways to gain signature skills that don't effectively cost extra.

If you want to be a skill focused character, I could see logic of spending limited resources on more signature skills, but for someone who just wants to be good at a skill that's not ordained by the designers as relevant to the class, that's something that you can do in PF1e (and was actually a deliberate design decision to improve over 3.x's Cross-class skills cost double) but not in 2e.

I'm really unclear what the animal examples have to do with anything. I mean, if you want to assume ridiculousness, all Rhinos are good pickpockets due to untrained Thievery checks.

It's much more likely that the creature rules say something like this:

"If the creature in question lacks the proper appendages to perform a particular use of a skill, it cannot perform that use."

That's about a line of text and solves the problem with animals entirely. And is fairly likely under the circumstances. And even if it doesn't exist, the problem is then it not existing, not anything to do with the skill rules themselves.
.
.
.
Now, if you can show me a humanoid fantasy protagonist in a piece of fiction who fits in with the milieu of Pathfinder who has one part of a PF2 Skill and not the others, that's another matter. Of course, you'd need to show that such characters were more than vanishingly rare in order to really justify needing to split skills up.

I'm honestly more than a bit skeptical that this can be demonstrated.

If you want to be a skill focused character, I could see logic of spending limited resources on more signature skills, but for someone who just wants to be good at a skill that's not ordained by the designers as relevant to the class, that's something that you can do in PF1e (and was actually a deliberate design decision to improve over 3.x's Cross-class skills cost double) but not in 2e.

For me it depends on how much investment doing this requires. If it's cheap and easy to do (to the tune of a Skill Feat or so for a couple of skills), I'm on board. If not? Then I'm much less so.

Excaliburproxy wrote:

TheFinish wrote:

Tholomyes wrote:

Logan Bonner wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

That means he isn't allowed to tell us. He doesn't spoil stuff planned for later blogs. I bet we will find out on Friday.

Signature skills are the ones you can increase to master and legend, and are typically defined by your class. Though there are a few other ways to get more.

This is... Disappointing. I like the idea that maybe you can get to higher ranks faster in signature skills, but being locked off from master or legend by class just feels wrong. There being other ways to get more doesn't make it feel any less wrong, unless there's some sort of thing like with Ancestries or Backgrounds, where you get certain signature skills based on your class, but one free. As much as I'm not sure I liked the extreme divergence in skills in PF1e, it at least let you be almost as good in non-class skills, by only granting a +3 boost in class skills, which is a decent boost, but isn't the same as gating off higher ranked skill feats and skill uses based on class.

Yeah, I think lowering the level requirements for Master/Legendary might be better. Or attaining automatic Master/Legendary in X Signature skills. But gating the two highest levels of proficiency by class? That's kind of a bummer. It makes classes even more pigeonholed than in PF1.

He did say that there are a few other ways to get more, though. I don't see how that is significantly different from classes having different class skills in PF1.

I mentioned that in my post about it. +3 is a decent boost for class skill over non class skill, but it doesn't really gate you off from anything, and by a high enough level that +3 doesn't really matter much. In 2e, there are skill uses and feats that will require higher level proficiencies. Being gated off from those based on class (and having to spend limited resources to go outside of that class restriction) means you aren't going to see nearly as...

If PF1 skills had been well balanced then that +3 should have mattered quite a lot. And you CAN be really quite good at a skill w/o investing heavily in it. You just can't be master/legendary unless it is in your classes archetype or you specialized in it otherwise. I am fine with a situation where my bard can't clean and jerk a Buick without dropping some feats but my fighter can get that pretty easily.

We do already know at least one way to get additional signature skills for some classes for sure: deity choice. It's a specific skill per deity, but since there are 20 core deities and the cleric and paladin already have signature skills of their own, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a way to add any of the other skills as signature skills for deities. Unless paladins eventually expand their alignment choices they might have a more difficult time than the cleric. But there are currently more deities than skills.

I would guess rogues and bards will have class feats (or features) which can add more signature skills.

And I would be extremely surprised if there was not a skill or general feat to gain more as well. Those two categories have different values, so it might be something like skill feat = 1 new signature skill. General feat = 2 new signature skills.

There may also be ancestry feats for signature skills as well, since many ancestries are stereotypically good at certain things. (And humans, in particular, are stereotypically good at anything they want to focus on.)

There might be more that I couldn't think of off the top of my head. But, honestly, if those were all ways to get more (and even if they were the only ways) I would think that it's good enough.

I mentioned that in my post about it. +3 is a decent boost for class skill over non class skill, but it doesn't really gate you off from anything, and by a high enough level that +3 doesn't really matter much. In 2e, there are skill uses and feats that will require higher level proficiencies. Being gated off from those based on class (and having to spend limited resources to go outside of that class restriction) means you aren't going to see nearly as much stepping outside the box, unless there are other ways to gain signature skills that don't effectively cost extra.

If you want to be a skill focused character, I could see logic of spending limited resources on more signature skills, but for someone who just wants to be good at a skill that's not ordained by the designers as relevant to the class, that's something that you can do in PF1e (and was actually a deliberate design decision to improve over 3.x's Cross-class skills cost double) but not in 2e.

I could see Backgrounds being part of the answer of those who want to be good at a skill not specified by the designers. Seelah, for instance, has the Pickpocket skill feat from her background. It obviously gives her Thievery, so perhaps that could be one of her Signature skills that she could upgrade to Legendary?...

Though there are a few other ways to get more.

My opinion of restricting proficiency in an already somewhat slim pool of more broadly defined skills is... not great. Skills are pretty important for character definition, and I rarely agree with others on who people should be.

I don't mind that the pool of skills capable of reaching legendary is small, but I do want to have some choice on what those are.

I can understand if a rogue always has stealth and thievery as signature skills. but that there are 2 i can choose myself. (social skills for face character, athletics and acrobatics for assassin/swashbuckler character)

I don't mind that the pool of skills capable of reaching legendary is small, but I do want to have some choice on what those are.

I can understand if a rogue always has stealth and thievery as signature skills. but that there are 2 i can choose myself. (social skills for face character, athletics and acrobatics for assassin/swashbuckler character)

As was stated earlier, there are ways to get additional skills towards Legendary. I wouldn't be surprised if the more skill-focused characters like Rogues get it by default, while other characters can spend a Skill or General feat on it.

I could see Backgrounds being part of the answer of those who want to be good at a skill not specified by the designers. Seelah, for instance, has the Pickpocket skill feat from her background. It obviously gives her Thievery, so perhaps that could be one of her Signature skills that she could upgrade to Legendary?...

Not at least from what was shown on the PaizoCon banquet, unless pickpocket itself gives Thievery as a signature skill. All the Street Urchin background gives is 2 ability score boosts (one being dex or int), Pickpocket and training in the Underworld lore skill. And none of the others give anything that indicate extra signature skills.

Iron_Matt17 wrote:

I could see Backgrounds being part of the answer of those who want to be good at a skill not specified by the designers. Seelah, for instance, has the Pickpocket skill feat from her background. It obviously gives her Thievery, so perhaps that could be one of her Signature skills that she could upgrade to Legendary?...

Not at least from what was shown on the PaizoCon banquet, unless pickpocket itself gives Thievery as a signature skill. All the Street Urchin background gives is 2 ability score boosts (one being dex or int), Pickpocket and training in the Underworld lore skill. And none of the others give anything that indicate extra signature skills.

This is speculation of course, but I do know that Seelah had Thievery on her skill list at Paizocon... Not sure if she was trained at it though...

The more I read the comments here the unhappier I am with skills in PF2 than I already was after reading this blog and the other, earlier one that talked about skills.

Much like John Lynch 106, Maliloki and a few others (who have mostly just been shouted down by the rest of you) the whole level to all skills, even untrained, just really rubs me the wrong way.
For me, if you've spent 2 years with a rogue watching him sneak, or with a healer watching him tend the wounded, you know what represents that casual knowledge sinking in? Picking up the skill at trained. If you're untrained it means that you haven't taken any of it in - you had more important things to worry about.
I don't care that you're 20th level. You're a DEX 10 fighter wearing plate. You will suck hard at stealth without help, get over it.

Personally, if I ever run a PF2 game, I think i'll change untrained's bonus to 1/2 level instead of level-2 as a sorta compromise. It means a lot of things you can still roll, and the bonus widens as you level so it affects low level play less - in fact untill level 3 you'd be better at untrained skills than the current setup previewed (unless it bottoms out at 0).

Also, if they're going to lock what can become Master and Legend, I really hope flexibility is built into the classes or you get a free choice through background.
Considering how few General Feats and Skill Feats we get, having to spend one to unlock nothing but the ability to have a higher cap on some skills would be pretty awful waste of one.

It is a shame. I'm generally liking PF2. The action economy is growing on me, especially after the quick 1 hour demo I did at UK Games Expo, I *love* the changes to alchemy, but skills.....i'm a long way from sold.

Tholomyes wrote:

Iron_Matt17 wrote:

I could see Backgrounds being part of the answer of those who want to be good at a skill not specified by the designers. Seelah, for instance, has the Pickpocket skill feat from her background. It obviously gives her Thievery, so perhaps that could be one of her Signature skills that she could upgrade to Legendary?...

Not at least from what was shown on the PaizoCon banquet, unless pickpocket itself gives Thievery as a signature skill. All the Street Urchin background gives is 2 ability score boosts (one being dex or int), Pickpocket and training in the Underworld lore skill. And none of the others give anything that indicate extra signature skills.

This is speculation of course, but I do know that Seelah had Thievery on her skill list at Paizocon... Not sure if she was trained at it though...

In that case, maybe skill feats (or certain skill feats), grant signature skills in addition to other benefits. That would make it reasonably palatable, as you're not giving up something for the simple access to the ability to invest in a skill, but you're trading a skill feat for an ability that might not be as powerful, but also grants you that access. So long as the skill feat is still something useful, I could see that as a way around it.

If you were to simply remove the universal level progression to skills, would you have to do anything but adjust higher level DCs?

I'm really unclear what the animal examples have to do with anything.

They show examples of one part of athletics making sense while another part doesn't [much like your paladin and diplomacy/intimidate]. Nothing more or less. An aquatic elf that has NEVER climbed a single thing in his life gets better at it if he wants to swim better which makes as much sense as a paladin getting better at intimidation by raising his diplomacy.

As much sense as a desert mountian climber being a great/expert swimmer even though they've never seen a swimmable body of water.

Now, if you can show me a humanoid fantasy protagonist in a piece of fiction who fits in with the milieu of Pathfinder who has one part of a PF2 Skill and not the others, that's another matter.

It's somehow hard to imagine a dwarf that's good at climbing but not at swimming? Or a locksmith that doesn't pick pockets? Or a street performer/circus magician that has sleight of hand but no lockpicking?

I'm a bit skeptical that you can't imagine such "humanoid fantasy protagonist". Think the Artful Dodger and Fagin, pickpockets that weren't master locksmiths. As to the reverse, take any modern heist film and you have a dedecated safecracker with no 'pickpocketing'.

For swim, Altair (Assassins Creed) climb/no swim. Abe (oddworld) climb/no swim. Hobbits (The Stoors), the second most numerous, were shorter and stockier and had an affinity for water, boats and swimming. [no mention of also being good at climbing] Peeta Mellark [hunger games] is known for brute strength and over all athletics but sucks at swimming.

If you were to simply remove the universal level progression to skills, would you have to do anything but adjust higher level DCs?

Yes, you'd have to explain why skills break away from functioning the same as all the other proficiency abilities in the game.

Logan Bonner wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

That means he isn't allowed to tell us. He doesn't spoil stuff planned for later blogs. I bet we will find out on Friday.

Signature skills are the ones you can increase to master and legend, and are typically defined by your class. Though there are a few other ways to get more.

Wait, so you can ONLY increase skills to master and legendary if they're class signature skills?

I think it depends on what those "few other ways" are. It feels like it shouldn't be a huge investment to make a Wizard who is great athlete or a really sneaky Paladin or a Barbarian who is well-versed in society, but it's something I might spend some kind of feat on if it's in keeping with my concept.

Pan wrote:

If you were to simply remove the universal level progression to skills, would you have to do anything but adjust higher level DCs?

Yes, you'd have to explain why skills break away from functioning the same as all the other proficiency abilities in the game.

Easy. I prefer skills improving by the choices you make during leveling via proficiency, not just because you leveled. Bumping stats every 5 levels is enough, for me, to show leveling growth outside of choice. The universal progression is just a little too much for my tastes.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

I'm really unclear what the animal examples have to do with anything.

They show examples of one part of athletics making sense while another part doesn't [much like your paladin and diplomacy/intimidate]. Nothing more or less. An aquatic elf that has NEVER climbed a single thing in his life gets better at it if he wants to swim better which makes as much sense as a paladin getting better at intimidation by raising his diplomacy.

As much sense as a desert mountian climber being a great/expert swimmer even though they've never seen a swimmable body of water.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Now, if you can show me a humanoid fantasy protagonist in a piece of fiction who fits in with the milieu of Pathfinder who has one part of a PF2 Skill and not the others, that's another matter.

It's somehow hard to imagine a dwarf that's good at climbing but not at swimming? Or a locksmith that doesn't pick pockets? Or a street performer/circus magician that has sleight of hand but no lockpicking?

I'm a bit skeptical that you can't imagine such "humanoid fantasy protagonist". Think the Artful Dodger and Fagin, pickpockets that weren't master locksmiths. As to the reverse, take any modern heist film and you have a dedecated safecracker with no 'pickpocketing'.

For swim, Altair (Assassins Creed) climb/no swim. Abe (oddworld) climb/no swim. Hobbits (The Stoors), the second most numerous, were shorter and stockier and had an affinity for water, boats and swimming. [no mention of also being good at climbing] Peeta Mellark [hunger games] is known for brute strength and over all athletics but sucks at swimming.

Yes, it's almost as if you have to apply common sense and at the same time realize that you're playing a fantasy roleplaying game, where if you say that your desert-raised character isn't able to swim, then that's perfectly ok for your character.

GentleGiant wrote:

Pan wrote:

If you were to simply remove the universal level progression to skills, would you have to do anything but adjust higher level DCs?

Yes, you'd have to explain why skills break away from functioning the same as all the other proficiency abilities in the game.

Easy. I prefer skills improving by the choices you make during leveling via proficiency, not just because you leveled. Bumping stats every 5 levels is enough, for me, to show leveling growth outside of choice. The universal progression is just a little too much for my tastes.

Congratulations! You have your own first house rule!

"The Most Important Rule
The rules in this book are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore. While they are designed to make your game easy and exciting, you might find that some of them do not suit the style of play that your gaming group enjoys. Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Masters have a number of "house rules" that they use in their games. The Game Master and players should always discuss any rules changes to make sure that everyone understands how the game will be played. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter fo the rules, the Pathfinger RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contributre their thoughts when the rules are in doubt"
- Pathfinder Core Rulebook, page 9.

Pan wrote:

GentleGiant wrote:

Pan wrote:

If you were to simply remove the universal level progression to skills, would you have to do anything but adjust higher level DCs?

Yes, you'd have to explain why skills break away from functioning the same as all the other proficiency abilities in the game.

Easy. I prefer skills improving by the choices you make during leveling via proficiency, not just because you leveled. Bumping stats every 5 levels is enough, for me, to show leveling growth outside of choice. The universal progression is just a little too much for my tastes.

Congratulations! You have your own first house rule!

That doesn't mean that the rest of the rulebook should follow your specific house rule, since the math done already works out.

"The Most Important Rule
The rules in this book are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore. While they are designed to make your game easy and exciting, you might find that some of them do not suit the style of play that your gaming group enjoys. Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Masters have a number of "house rules" that they use in their games. The Game Master and players should always discuss any rules changes to make sure that everyone understands how the game will be played. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter fo the rules, the Pathfinger RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contributre their thoughts when the rules are in doubt"
- Pathfinder Core Rulebook, page 9.

Slow clap, yes I was asking how such a change would effect the game math as a point of discussion. Though im not sure if I should thank you for telling me I can house rule, or consider this an attempt to chill discussion about the PF2 skill system?

Yes, it's almost as if you have to apply common sense and at the same time realize that you're playing a fantasy roleplaying game, where if you say that your desert-raised character isn't able to swim, then that's perfectly ok for your character.

I think you missed WHY I was asking the questions. It's been said that the social skills where 1 skill to start but where broken up again because of these exact same questions: that it made sense that a character might be good with one and not the others. I'm asking why does it work for one skill and not anothers? What you brought up COULD of been done for the influence skill if you thought your paladin shouldn't be good at intimidation but the DEV's instead broke up the skill because they didn't want to do what you suggest.

John Lynch 106 wrote:

The issue with that is the +level to everything requires everyone to be at least at the batman level. If you want to play a different character (such as someone who has more weaknesses) you're out of luck/stuck at low level/forced to not roll dice for certain checks/have to create houserules in PF2e. That's a problem for people who don't want to always play Batman or better.

I actually agree with you, but I also understand why Paizo is doing this.

The way I see you have two conflicting interests. One is allowing you to make the character you exactly want and the other is making the game fun and playable. There is no right and wrong here. Paizo decided to go the batman-basic-competence-at-everything route for playability and adventure design reasons and personally I understand their decision.

Also now can easily play the typical sword and sorcery hero, who is good at everything, which in former editions wasn't that easy and for some classes impossible.

For me ultimately, only playing the game multiple times, will allow me to decide if Paizos decision was a smart one.

Adding +level to everything does not make the game fun and playable. Gating swathes of skills behind proficiency levels and feats does not make the game easy and simple.

Now the above won't be true for everyone. But it's true for at least some people. It's why we had the automatic +half level to everything was removed from 5th edition.

Sometimes I do want to play the "good at everything" character (but only great at a smaller group of things). Paizo could still allow character builds that capture that without forcing it on everyone.

While you might need to playtest this system yourself, I already have in another game. There is little to no material difference in how Paizo has structured this rule compared with the other game so I see no reason for the reaction for my group to be different. But we will playtest just to be sure.

Logan Bonner wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

That means he isn't allowed to tell us. He doesn't spoil stuff planned for later blogs. I bet we will find out on Friday.

Signature skills are the ones you can increase to master and legend, and are typically defined by your class. Though there are a few other ways to get more.

Wait, so you can ONLY increase skills to master and legendary if they're class signature skills?

So much for creating different types of characters in the same class. It also sounds like another case for 1-level dipping multiclassing (assuming that's how multi-classing even works.)

I'm quite confident at this point that won't be how multickassing works at this point. I expect access to class feats to be the primary say multicasting works

Slow clap, yes I was asking how such a change would effect the game math as a point of discussion. Though im not sure if I should thank you for telling me I can house rule, or consider this an attempt to chill discussion about the PF2 skill system?

And I replied because it would be a major break from the way that 2e is trying to streamline a lot of rules. Skills functioning the way they are is part of the "learn how it works once and apply it to all the other cases" goal. If you break from that one of the design goals isn't met. You also run into issues with combat maneuvers, which would have to be completely redesigned and/or detached from the skill system. And all the other ways that you can use a skill in lieu of an attack or similar case, since they're currently all working the same way.

I haven't thumbed through the entire post yet, though this is skill related... Do we know what Assurance in a skill does, yet? I've seen it mentioned, and I believe Mark mentioned it in a post about the Medicine skill.

GentleGiant wrote:

Pan wrote:

If you were to simply remove the universal level progression to skills, would you have to do anything but adjust higher level DCs?

Yes, you'd have to explain why skills break away from functioning the same as all the other proficiency abilities in the game.

Easy. I prefer skills improving by the choices you make during leveling via proficiency, not just because you leveled. Bumping stats every 5 levels is enough, for me, to show leveling growth outside of choice. The universal progression is just a little too much for my tastes.

The problem would then become that unless you constantly use these bumps in Athletics/Acrobatics, you'll have trouble succeeding when doing combat maneuvers.

Not shutting down your idea, BTW, just pointing the possible other tuning you should think of with the info we currently have.

I haven't thumbed through the entire post yet, though this is skill related... Do we know what Assurance in a skill does, yet? I've seen it mentioned, and I believe Mark mentioned it in a post about the Medicine skill.

Yep, and the effect change based on your proficiency rank.

PLEASE note that we don't know the exact numbers (or I don't remember them) beside the trained base one, it's just as an exemple.

GentleGiant wrote:

Yes, it's almost as if you have to apply common sense and at the same time realize that you're playing a fantasy roleplaying game, where if you say that your desert-raised character isn't able to swim, then that's perfectly ok for your character.

I think you missed WHY I was asking the questions. It's been said that the social skills where 1 skill to start but where broken up again because of these exact same questions: that it made sense that a character might be good with one and not the others. I'm asking why does it work for one skill and not anothers? What you brought up COULD of been done for the influence skill if you thought your paladin shouldn't be good at intimidation but the DEV's instead broke up the skill because they didn't want to do what you suggest.

And a couple of people have already explained why some physical skills share more similarities due to e.g. general fitness level. You may never have climbed as a waterborn humanoid, but if you needed to, you'd actually be pretty good at it, just from raw athleticism and body control.

Pan wrote:

GentleGiant wrote:

Pan wrote:

If you were to simply remove the universal level progression to skills, would you have to do anything but adjust higher level DCs?

Yes, you'd have to explain why skills break away from functioning the same as all the other proficiency abilities in the game.

Easy. I prefer skills improving by the choices you make during leveling via proficiency, not just because you leveled. Bumping stats every 5 levels is enough, for me, to show leveling growth outside of choice. The universal progression is just a little too much for my tastes.

The problem would then become that unless you constantly use these bumps in Athletics/Acrobatics, you'll have trouble succeeding when doing combat maneuvers.

Also, the fact they made skills work the same as all other proficiencies is to make it possible to swap these for skills, probably with feats. It'll also make most initiatives rolls bad UNLESS it's the default perception roll, or that skill is maxed and the lvl at or not too far above 1, 5, 10, 15 or 20 (if the bumps are at each 5 lvls).

Not shutting down your idea, BTW, just pointing the possible other tuning you should think of with the info we currently have.

No, see this is helpful, thank you. The more I think about it, stripping the universal level progression out entirely sounds like an easier way to go about this. I dont really see what it adds besides number treadmill. Why not rely entirely on proficiency that players get to choose for everything?

And a couple of people have already explained why some physical skills share more similarities due to e.g. general fitness level. You may never have climbed as a waterborn humanoid, but if you needed to, you'd actually be pretty good at it, just from raw athleticism and body control.

Others have, I just don't agree. I think improving your 'presence', wordplay and overall force of will improves your social skills as much as "raw athleticism and body control" helps your physical skills. ANY defense of physical skills IMO works equally as well for social one.

It'd be quite easy to roleplay, actually.

: I agree

"Hey guys, I just have to warn you, I know that I did manage to steal the guards' emblems bluff easily, but I haven't actually done any/much lock picking intimidating before."
"But I'll give it a try, just be ready to either run or bring out the big hammer."
*click*
"Huh, that was actually easier than I thought, just a small wiggle with the index finger while turning this piece with my ring finger and little finger independently suggest that I knew he was on the take and he folded."

PS: Just to be clear, I'm fine with consolidated skills: I just want social skills consolidated too if we're doing that.

Logan Bonner wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

That means he isn't allowed to tell us. He doesn't spoil stuff planned for later blogs. I bet we will find out on Friday.

Signature skills are the ones you can increase to master and legend, and are typically defined by your class. Though there are a few other ways to get more.

Bolded for emphasis on the part people seem to be ignoring. I'm fine with this being how Signature Skills work as long as there's an accessible way to get more of them (a General Feat that grants two additional Signature Skills, for example).

If there's a cost to get more signature skills, that's still a pretty bad option just to allow you to make a character who doesn't play towards stereotypes. Simply having a signature skill doesn't actually give you benefits, it would only unlock the ability to spend more feats on getting benefits with them. First you'd have to spend a feat (or something) to get a new signature skill, THEN you'd need to spend a skill feat to get master or legendary proficiency with it, and ALSO need to spend on skill unlocks to make them have additional abilities. That first expenditure to get the additional signature skill seems like a needless tax.

The more I think about it, stripping the universal level progression out entirely sounds like an easier way to go about this. I dont really see what it adds besides number treadmill. Why not rely entirely on proficiency that players get to choose for everything?

Advancing numbers BAB, HP, Skill Bonuses, etc. provide a sense of scale and numerical evidence that the PCs are stronger than they used to be. If everything in the world scales with the PCs then it means basically nothing.

If the world stays the same however the PCs become more powerful within it. Things that once were intimidating become easy foes. Once impossible tasks become commonplace. So it can be useful in telling a story with a lot of character power growth over time.

In DnD 3 and Pathfinder it was assumed that characters become vastly more powerful over time and can defeat increasingly greater foes. A troll is a dangerous opponent to a lvl 1 character but a lvl 20 can fight a group of them without breaking a sweat. So a steep power curve has been a default assumption of the system. In contrast DnD 5e has a less steep power curve. A troll is a dangerous opponent to a lvl 1 character and a lvl 20 character can still fight a group of them but it's not as sure a thing as it is in Pathfinder. Just different game assumptions baked into the math.

The power curve also changed some of the assumptions of the world. If the world is populated primarily by low level NPCs then certain threats in Pathfinder are terrifying in that there is literally nothing the NPCs can do to stop it. If the world has a flatter power curve that is less true.

GentleGiant wrote:

And a couple of people have already explained why some physical skills share more similarities due to e.g. general fitness level. You may never have climbed as a waterborn humanoid, but if you needed to, you'd actually be pretty good at it, just from raw athleticism and body control.

Others have, I just don't agree. I think improving your 'presence', wordplay and overall force of will improves your social skills as much as "raw athleticism and body control" helps your physical skills. ANY defense of physical skills IMO works equally as well for social one.

GentleGiant wrote:

It'd be quite easy to roleplay, actually.

: I agree

"Hey guys, I just have to warn you, I know that I did manage to steal the guards' emblems bluff easily, but I haven't actually done any/much lock picking intimidating before."
"But I'll give it a try, just be ready to either run or bring out the big hammer."
*click*
"Huh, that was actually easier than I thought, just a small wiggle with the index finger while turning this piece with my ring finger and little finger independently suggest that I knew he was on the take and he folded."

PS: Just to be clear, I'm fine with consolidated skills: I just want social skills consolidated too if we're doing that.

I threw out this idea on another thread as well but maybe we could have certain lore skills be able to substitute for subsets of other skills.

e.g. You can use your Locksmith Lore proficiency in place of your thievery proficiency for picking locks but not for sleight of hand. Maybe allow you to take certain skill feats based on this as well.

You could have Animal Husbandry Lore for Handle Animal without the rest of Nature. Mountaineer Lore for climb without swim. Something like that.

I think most characters would want to take the full consolidated skill but if you didn't want to you would have another option.

Elfteiroh wrote:

Pan wrote:

GentleGiant wrote:

Pan wrote:

If you were to simply remove the universal level progression to skills, would you have to do anything but adjust higher level DCs?

Yes, you'd have to explain why skills break away from functioning the same as all the other proficiency abilities in the game.

Easy. I prefer skills improving by the choices you make during leveling via proficiency, not just because you leveled. Bumping stats every 5 levels is enough, for me, to show leveling growth outside of choice. The universal progression is just a little too much for my tastes.

The problem would then become that unless you constantly use these bumps in Athletics/Acrobatics, you'll have trouble succeeding when doing combat maneuvers.

Also, the fact they made skills work the same as all other proficiencies is to make it possible to swap these for skills, probably with feats. It'll also make most initiatives rolls bad UNLESS it's the default perception roll, or that skill is maxed and the lvl at or not too far above 1, 5, 10, 15 or 20 (if the bumps are at each 5 lvls).

Not shutting down your idea, BTW, just pointing the possible other tuning you should think of with the info we currently have.

No, see this is helpful, thank you. The more I think about it, stripping the universal level progression out entirely sounds like an easier way to go about this. I dont really see what it adds besides number treadmill. Why not rely entirely on proficiency that players get to choose for everything?

That would make it fairly easy to change, but then a 1rst lvl character can actually hit a 20th lvl fairly commonly... Ok, the latter will have more than enough HP to win anyway, but put him against 20 lvl 1? ... That's much less likely. That MAY be something you like in your games, so that's not that bad.

Basically, how I see it, adding the lvl at everything just simulate a bonus/malus equal to the lvl difference between the threat and the character to every rolls.

kaineblade83 wrote:

I haven't thumbed through the entire post yet, though this is skill related... Do we know what Assurance in a skill does, yet? I've seen it mentioned, and I believe Mark mentioned it in a post about the Medicine skill.

Yep, and the effect change based on your proficiency rank.

Trained use give you the option to use a free "10" as your result when rolling the associated skill.
Expert, Master and legendary proficiency bump that free result to an appropriate level, that make DCs you should easily win at you level of proficiency auto succeed.
Expert could be auto "15", master "20" and legendary "30".

PLEASE note that we don't know the exact numbers (or I don't remember them) beside the trained base one, it's just as an exemple.

A key point is that these are allegedly your final result and are not reduced for any penalties, such as ACP or situational modifiers.

GentleGiant wrote:

Yes, it's almost as if you have to apply common sense and at the same time realize that you're playing a fantasy roleplaying game, where if you say that your desert-raised character isn't able to swim, then that's perfectly ok for your character.

I think you missed WHY I was asking the questions. It's been said that the social skills where 1 skill to start but where broken up again because of these exact same questions: that it made sense that a character might be good with one and not the others. I'm asking why does it work for one skill and not anothers? What you brought up COULD of been done for the influence skill if you thought your paladin shouldn't be good at intimidation but the DEV's instead broke up the skill because they didn't want to do what you suggest.

Probably because the developers feel that some skill will be neglected because "they are weak and the spellcasters will resolve that with magic" and they are working at breaking that mold.

I usually spend some skill point taking at least 1 point in climbing, swimming and survival with my characters. Not enough to really do anything in middle level and up adventures, but at least enough to not feel that my character is totally incompetent.
With PF1 rules my character is incompetent in things where he has only 1 rank. This guy that had adventures for half a continent actually don't know how to pick a tent and what he need to do to protect himself from cold or hot environments.
PF2 say that this guy that has gaining 15 levels while fighting in a forest, a swamp, underwater, a ruined town full of undead and while climbing a mountain has learned something about climbing, swimming and survival in the meantime.
Being together with two very charismatic characters and listening when they where convincing people to be friendly and to change their mind has taught him something about diplomacy.
Riding several hundreds of Km has taught him something about riding.
And so on and on.

He will still not be the best at any of those things, but at least he has learned something.

PF1 say no to that, but at the same time it say "at level 7 you have learned the spell Fly, so you can spend all your available skill point in the skill and will be at least on par with the flying abilities of most birds" or "Yesterday you didn't even know the name of the king before the current one, now you know the genealogies of king that governed states on another continent that where destroyed 10,000 years ago".

I fail to see how that is better.

A key point is that these are allegedly your final result and are not reduced for any penalties, such as ACP or situational modifiers.

Indeed. I distinctly remember Kyra's feat saying that you got a result of 10, regardless of bonuses or penalties. Really made me uncertain about all the rope climbing and swimming in that darn cairn. ^_^

No, see this is helpful, thank you. The more I think about it, stripping the universal level progression out entirely sounds like an easier way to go about this. I dont really see what it adds besides number treadmill. Why not rely entirely on proficiency that players get to choose for everything?

It could have dramatic effects on the critical success and failure assumptions Paizo is setting up.

GentleGiant wrote:

And a couple of people have already explained why some physical skills share more similarities due to e.g. general fitness level. You may never have climbed as a waterborn humanoid, but if you needed to, you'd actually be pretty good at it, just from raw athleticism and body control.

Others have, I just don't agree. I think improving your 'presence', wordplay and overall force of will improves your social skills as much as "raw athleticism and body control" helps your physical skills. ANY defense of physical skills IMO works equally as well for social one.

GentleGiant wrote:

It'd be quite easy to roleplay, actually.

: I agree

"Hey guys, I just have to warn you, I know that I did manage to steal the guards' emblems bluff easily, but I haven't actually done any/much lock picking intimidating before."
"But I'll give it a try, just be ready to either run or bring out the big hammer."
*click*
"Huh, that was actually easier than I thought, just a small wiggle with the index finger while turning this piece with my ring finger and little finger independently suggest that I knew he was on the take and he folded."

PS: Just to be clear, I'm fine with consolidated skills: I just want social skills consolidated too if we're doing that.

A possible explanation for keeping Intimidation separated: there is a legendary Intimidation skill feat that can cause a heart attack to the target. Making that a legendary level diplomacy feat seem off.

Sure, nothing stop the Developers from making feats that only affect one aspect of the skill. Well, beside players screaming about "but them it is useful only for part of the skill".

I get your argument. but we will see how it playout. Keep it up during playtesting and maybe it will change.

graystone wrote:

GentleGiant wrote:

And a couple of people have already explained why some physical skills share more similarities due to e.g. general fitness level. You may never have climbed as a waterborn humanoid, but if you needed to, you'd actually be pretty good at it, just from raw athleticism and body control.

Others have, I just don't agree. I think improving your 'presence', wordplay and overall force of will improves your social skills as much as "raw athleticism and body control" helps your physical skills. ANY defense of physical skills IMO works equally as well for social one.

GentleGiant wrote:

It'd be quite easy to roleplay, actually.

: I agree

"Hey guys, I just have to warn you, I know that I did manage to steal the guards' emblems bluff easily, but I haven't actually done any/much lock picking intimidating before."
"But I'll give it a try, just be ready to either run or bring out the big hammer."
*click*
"Huh, that was actually easier than I thought, just a small wiggle with the index finger while turning this piece with my ring finger and little finger independently suggest that I knew he was on the take and he folded."

PS: Just to be clear, I'm fine with consolidated skills: I just want social skills consolidated too if we're doing that.

I threw out this idea on another thread as well but maybe we could have certain lore skills be able to substitute for subsets of other skills.

e.g. You can use your Locksmith Lore proficiency in place of your thievery proficiency for picking locks but not for sleight of hand. Maybe allow you to take certain skill feats based on this as well.

You could have Animal Husbandry Lore for Handle Animal without the rest of Nature. Mountaineer Lore for climb without swim. Something like that.

I think most characters would want to take the full consolidated skill but if you didn't want to you would have another option.

I'm a bit skeptical at this, because it seems wierd that someone would take a Locksmith lore proficiency when Thievery does that and more, but the more I think about it, I'm beginning to think it makes sense, since the lore skills we have already show that while not all, many of the lore skills fall under the subset of other extant skills, (animal under nature, individual gods under religion, ect), so now I'm just wondering how they'll make Lore either more attractive than the overarching skills they'd fall under or what avenues they'll have to gain extra lore skills that aren't competing with the bigger skills. If there aren't any, I'll be disappointed, but I think lore has a good opportunity to add some granularity, while keeping a tight skill list. (also, side note, but I hope they make it so lore doesn't automatically key off Int, as indicated above. For some stuff it makes sense, but if we've got stuff like Labor lore and Entertainer lore, I think it aught to default to some more reasonable abilities for those)

we wrapped up a bunch of Strength-based skills into a general Athletics skill.

Two. Two skills. Also, why isn't Acrobatics in Athletics?

Am I the only one that feels like charisma based skills are way more character defining than the strength based skills? I think I've rolled more diplomacy checks than swim and climb checks combined. Probably more intimidate checks and deception checks too.

I think that's a pretty decent thing to consider when consolidating skills. A lot of the ones that are gone are skills we just didn't use that much. By contrast, we have had an entire new skill added for how we interact with magical writing, because we are going to be interacting with magical writing a lot.

I don't really feel like I need every specific thing broken into its own skill, I just want to know which skill I roll to do a thing and not have to squint to figure it out.

We do already know at least one way to get additional signature skills for some classes for sure: deity choice. It's a specific skill per deity, but since there are 20 core deities and the cleric and paladin already have signature skills of their own, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a way to add any of the other skills as signature skills for deities. Unless paladins eventually expand their alignment choices they might have a more difficult time than the cleric. But there are currently more deities than skills.

I would guess rogues and bards will have class feats (or features) which can add more signature skills.

And I would be extremely surprised if there was not a skill or general feat to gain more as well. Those two categories have different values, so it might be something like skill feat = 1 new signature skill. General feat = 2 new signature skills.

There may also be ancestry feats for signature skills as well, since many ancestries are stereotypically good at certain things. (And humans, in particular, are stereotypically good at anything they want to focus on.)

There might be more that I couldn't think of off the top of my head. But, honestly, if those were all ways to get more (and even if they were the only ways) I would think that it's good enough.

I could even see Humans getting "pick an addition signature skill" as a base racial ability to emulate PF1 Skilled racial trait