Learning Takes a Lifetime

Monday, June 04, 2018

While the kind of armor you wear, weapon you wield, and spells you know can be important measures of your character's power, your choice in skills is indicative of your character's depth. Is your character good at feats of acrobatics? Can they recall knowledge with scholastic effortlessness? Are they the sneakiest sneaker in the sneakerverse? Your skills may aid you in the thick of a fight, but they also enhance your effect on the world when the ringing of steel and the whizzing of spells subside.

The Pathfinder Playtest deals with skills a bit differently than the first edition did. First and foremost, we have cut down the skill list to 17 base skills (down from 35 base skills in Pathfinder First Edition). Now, I say "base skills" because the Lore skill can be split into numerous different lores, but for many purposes, like for this blog post, we can describe it as being a single skill.

Much of the reduction came from consolidation; for instance, we put the general functions of Use Magic Device into each of the various knowledge skills that focus on magical traditions, and we wrapped up a bunch of Strength-based skills into a general Athletics skill. In most cases, we coupled the consolidation with being a tad more generous in the number of skills you can be trained in (for instance, the fighter has 3 + Intelligence modifier trained skills in the playtest rather than 2 + Int in Pathfinder First Edition), making it easier to have a well-rounded character.

So what exactly are these 17 skills? They (and their key ability scores) are: Acrobatics (Dex), Arcana (Int), Athletics (Str), Crafting (Int), Deception (Cha), Diplomacy (Cha), Intimidation (Cha), Lore (Int), Medicine (Wis), Nature (Wis), Occultism (Int), Performance (Cha), Religion (Wis), Society (Int), Stealth (Dex), Survival (Wis), and Thievery (Dex).

Skill Proficiency

Like many things in the Pathfinder Playtest, skills interact with the proficiency system. While a detailed description of the system can be found here, here's the nitty-gritty. Your character can be untrained, trained, an expert, a master, or legendary in a skill. Being untrained grants you a modifier of your level - 2, while being trained grants you a bonus equal to your level, expert a bonus equal to your level + 1, master a bonus equal to your level + 2, and legendary a bonus equal to your level + 3. Then, of course, you add your ability modifier in the key ability for that skill, and apply any other bonuses or penalties. But the new skill system is more than just the bonus you gain. Each level of proficiency unlocks skill uses that are either intrinsic to the skill itself or that are uses you select as your character advances.

Skill Uses

To give you an idea of what this means, let's take a quick look at the Medicine skill. Whether you are trained in Medicine or not, you can Administer First Aid.

[[A]] Administer First Aid

Manipulate

Requirements You must have healer's tools.

You perform first aid on an adjacent creature that is at 0 Hit Points in an attempt to stabilize or revive it. You can also perform first aid on an adjacent creature taking persistent bleed damage. The DC for either is 15. If a creature is both dying and bleeding, choose which one you're trying to end before you roll. You can Administer First Aid again to attempt to remedy the other.

Success The creature at 0 Hit Points gains 1 Hit Point, or you end the persistent bleed damage.

Critical Failure A creature with 0 Hit Points has its dying condition increased by 1. A creature with persistent bleed damage takes damage equal to the amount of its persistent bleed damage.

Basically, this skill use allows anyone who has a healing kit to treat another creature who is dying or suffering from bleed damage, which is super useful. Of course, being untrained reduces your chances to save your friend and increases your chances to hurt them accidentally, but it's worth trying in a pinch. If you are trained in the skill, not only do your chances to help a friend by Administering First Aid increase, but you also gain the ability to use the skill to Treat Disease and Treat Poison, something that someone untrained in the skill cannot do.

Skill Feats

These default uses are just the beginning. As you increase in level, you periodically gain skill feats, usually at even-numbered levels (unless you're a rogue—they gain skill feats every level instead). Skill feats are a subsection of general feats, which means that any character can take them as long as they meet the prerequisites. Moving forward with the example of the Medicine skill, as long as you are at least trained in Medicine, you can take the Battle Medic skill feat. This feat allows you to apply straight-up healing to an ally through nonmagical means, which is nice when your cleric is knocked to the ground or has run out of uses of channel energy.

For a higher-level example, Robust Recovery is a Medicine skill feat you can take after becoming an expert in that skill, and increases the bonus to saving throws against poison and diseases when you treat creatures with those trained skill uses. When you become legendary in Medicine, you can gain this skill feat:

Legendary Medic Feat 15

General, Skill

Prerequisites legendary in Medicine

You've invented new medical procedures or discovered ancient techniques that can achieve nearly miraculous results. Once per day for each target, you can spend 1 hour treating the target and attempt a Medicine check to remove a disease or the blinded, deafened, drained, or enervated condition. Use the DC of the disease or of the spell or effect that created the condition. If the effect's source is an artifact, a creature above 20th level, or other similarly powerful source, increase the DC by 5.

The more powerful or useful the skill feat, the higher the proficiency required to take it. Legendary Medic grants you the ability to perform amazing feats of healing through skill and experience rather than magic, but you must gain that skill and experience first. Of course, the Medicine skill is just the tip of the iceberg. This structure is replicated with every skill, including nearly every rogue's favorite—Stealth.

Stealth is a bit of an outlier in that all of its initial uses can be attempted untrained, but training and later proficiency in the skill yields some very subversive results. The Quiet Allies skill feat allows you to use your expertise in Stealth to reduce those pesky armor check penalties on allies' skill checks, while Swift Sneak allows a master in Stealth to move at their full speed when they Sneak. Upon becoming legendary, you further enhance your skill by no longer needing to specifically declare the sneaking exploration tactic when you are in exploration mode, allowing you to sneak everywhere. You're just that good.

But this is all just the start. Mark will take up more aspects of what you can do with skill feats this Friday!

Constant Progress

Like many aspects of the Pathfinder Playtest, the goal of skills is not only to gain the greatest bonus, but also for you to expand outward and create a unique character who uses skills the way you want them to be used. Much like how ancestry feats allow you to choose the type of human, dwarf, elf, or whatever you want to play, the proficiency and skill feat system will enable you to determine what kind of knowledgeable, athletic, or sneaky character you want to play. Over time, this system gives us the opportunity to add more skill uses by way of skill feats, which will allow the game to become more dynamic as we add options. This also allows you to continue to grow your skills in new and surprising ways without us having to pull out the wires of the underlying skill, which is something we are always loath to do. In this way, as the game progresses, we can expand skill options in an open-ended way, without invalidating the gateway mechanics.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland
Senior Designer

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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Mark Seifter wrote:
Bardarok wrote:

I don't like the concept of being unable to make an attempt at something even if the odds are terrible. Would it be unbalanced to apply a penalty for lacking sufficient training?

Maybe -10 per level of training you are behind so an untrained character can attempt a trained only task but takes a -10 penalty or an expert only task at -20 etc. the odds of critical failure would probably be enough to prevent most people from trying it but it means you can still make an attempt.

I don't think it would break anything to allow this houserule, but it would lead to some of the situations that many on this thread find particularly troublesome, where the 20th level barbarian with 10 Int can use +18 - 10 = +8 Arcana to outperform the 1st-level 18 Int trained in Arcana wizard (1 + 4 = +5 Arcana) on some kind of trained-only test of obscure arcane theorems. That's something we've included safeguards to avoid, but it won't break anything if you do as you suggested, since it's not like the plot of a 20th level adventure is going to be likely to hinge on a standardized test duel between your 20th level barbarian and a 1st level wizard.

Seems also worth pointing out that there are lots of skills you couldn't attempt without being trained in from PF1-- Knowledge checks over 10, Disable Device, Handle Animal, Linguistics, Professions, Sleight of Hand, Spellcraft, and Use Magic Device. That's actually a bigger list than I remember, even lumping the knowledge skills together.

Personally, I don't like locking combat styles behind a class like this. If only Rogues can do the lightly-armored martial build then it forces anyone who wants to play that style of character to play a rogue. It also means that every class that a designer wants to open that style to needs to have an in-class way of matching the rogue's class feat.

I think dex-to-damage either needs to be a general feat or not exist at all.

I think what you mean is "low strength martial build," not "lightly armored." Dex to hit sounds like a default option. And the new ability score system means keeping both Dex and Strength competitive should be fairly trivial. And the damage modifier will be less relevant because of magic weapons adding more dice and the crit potential making accuracy more important.

Rogues currently sound like they will be the best at dex combat, but that actually doesn't have much to do with not needing to invest strength to a 14-16 at level 1. It is because they have sneak attack to make up for their poor base weapon dice. Alchemists may wind up being fine without dex to damage because their weapons are poisoned, for example. A caster or paladin may infuse elemental power into their weapon for extra damage.

Honestly, if I have to spend a feat on Dex to Damage, I don't know that it will be my first pick as a rogue. I might just take 14 strength and pick something more interesting as a feat. The extra bulk will help me haul loot for the getaway anyhow. ^_^


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Tholomyes wrote:
If I had to guess, I'd think that bits and pieces will be in different skills. Most of it, in the ancient runes or other esoteric languages probably will be in a particular Lore skill, while I could see forgery and encoding/decoding possibly being part of deception. And I could see Society being used (probably with some sort of skill feat) for either gaining new languages or being able to interpret unknown common languages.

My impression/hope is that Lores will to a large degree be cheap-but-specialized uses of other skills, possibly crossing over several in a narrow area.

As an example, let's say you come by an ancient shrine by the roadside in some distant part of the world. You might be able to roll a Religion check to recognize the archaic iconography, identifying it as a shrine to Desna. If you had Lore (Desna) that could also be used. But Lore (Desna) wouldn't help when disturbing the shrine releases some form of incorporeal spirit that attacks you - you'd need Religion or maybe Lore (Undead) to identify that as a wraith.

I could also see some Lores crossing over different skills. For example, knowing about a thieves' guild in Magnimar would use the Society skill, and interacting with its members would likely use some combination of Deception, Diplomacy, and Intimidate... or, you could cover all four skills with Lore (Underworld). Lore (Underworld) wouldn't help you with the local nobles though.


thflame wrote:

Mark

I have had some time to think about you example of the Bard and the Paladin trying to sneak into the party, and I'm afraid I don't agree with you. (I know that's bold to say, but hear me out.)

Part of your explanation was that the Bard would have a magic item and a disguise, while the Paladin would not.

I find that, in my games at least, characters don't tend to buy items for specific scenarios unless the come up and magic items of the nature you explained (fragment of the first lie ever told), aren't just handed out, nor would they be sought out unless the story called for it. Is this not going to be expected for typical games? Are we now going to be required to maintain (magic) items for the skills we wish to use if we want them to be effective?

If the party in question knew about the party ahead of time, they would all buy disguises. If they didn't know, they would likely not have disguises at all (unless there was a previous event where disguises where needed, in which case, they all still have them). This means that the entire party is either stuck with a -2 for having nothing, or an appropriately leveled tool for the job.

So we are back to a Bard and a Paladin at the same level, with the same CHA having a 5 point difference in their checks.

This is WAY too close for my taste seeing as the bard sunk a few Skill Points into Deception and isn't getting much of a bonus to his check for doing so.

Also, what sort of critical success could the Bard potentially get that would benefit him in this situation? Getting in to the party is getting in to the party. How do you "critically" get into the party?

The only real modifiers I see for this situation is that the Bard might be able to claim he is someone important, but that would require that the Bard take the extra risk of claiming that as part of his Deception. In other words, the Paladin might just try to look like a person who belongs there, and that DC might be 25, but the Bard trying to claim he is someone important...

easy fix. You can't lie to appropriately CR'd people unless your an expert liar at 17th level.


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Captain Morgan wrote:
JoelF847 wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
kwiqsilver wrote:

I don't think I like the idea that a 10th level fighter who has never touched a piano before is going to be a better pianist than a low level bard with training.

It also seems like the difference between untrained and legendary (5 points) is low enough that it'll be stuck in the shadow of the large die roll variation at lower levels or of the large level bonus at higher level.

The 10th level untrained fighter would potentially be able to do something impressive involving that piano for a quick little trick (I can imagine maybe playing Mary Had a Little Lamb with one hand while bench pressing the piano with the other hand), but is completely incapable of Staging a Performance of Sonnorae's Sonata #53 (the Betrayal Sonata).

I still am not a fan of a 10th level fighter automatically being able to play anything. Using me as an example, I actually took 2 years of recorder, and 2 years of piano lessons as a kid (under duress). Today, there's no way I could play ANYTHING at all on a musical instrument. I'm pretty much limited to saying "Alexa, play Mary Had a Little Lamb". While I'm certainly not a 10th level fighter, I'm pretty confident that I'm somewhere around a 7th-9th level analyst.

I think there's a place for having skills which if you're untrained you simply can't do anything.

I think they've said real world Olympic records tend to get hit at like level 5 in this game, so to qualify as a 7-9th level anything you'd need to basically be the best of that thing in the world. Also, you don't live in a world where magic has infused every living thing to the point that worldly people resonate more with chemical reagents than people who just stay at home.

A 10th level fighter has more raw presence he can lend to a performance, even if it isn't very good. I kind of agree playing piano seems like it would be trained only, but I bet the crowd loves him at karaoke. (The line between adding to the level to...

Oh good. All of our characters are inherently magical. That will go down well. My group definitely didn't start playing Pathfinder the last time their favorite TTRPG went down that road.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
John Lynch 106 wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
JoelF847 wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
kwiqsilver wrote:

I don't think I like the idea that a 10th level fighter who has never touched a piano before is going to be a better pianist than a low level bard with training.

It also seems like the difference between untrained and legendary (5 points) is low enough that it'll be stuck in the shadow of the large die roll variation at lower levels or of the large level bonus at higher level.

The 10th level untrained fighter would potentially be able to do something impressive involving that piano for a quick little trick (I can imagine maybe playing Mary Had a Little Lamb with one hand while bench pressing the piano with the other hand), but is completely incapable of Staging a Performance of Sonnorae's Sonata #53 (the Betrayal Sonata).

I still am not a fan of a 10th level fighter automatically being able to play anything. Using me as an example, I actually took 2 years of recorder, and 2 years of piano lessons as a kid (under duress). Today, there's no way I could play ANYTHING at all on a musical instrument. I'm pretty much limited to saying "Alexa, play Mary Had a Little Lamb". While I'm certainly not a 10th level fighter, I'm pretty confident that I'm somewhere around a 7th-9th level analyst.

I think there's a place for having skills which if you're untrained you simply can't do anything.

I think they've said real world Olympic records tend to get hit at like level 5 in this game, so to qualify as a 7-9th level anything you'd need to basically be the best of that thing in the world. Also, you don't live in a world where magic has infused every living thing to the point that worldly people resonate more with chemical reagents than people who just stay at home.

A 10th level fighter has more raw presence he can lend to a performance, even if it isn't very good. I kind of agree playing piano seems like it would be trained only, but I bet the crowd loves him at karaoke. (The line

...

Well, may want to try a new game then? Or don't use the same head canon I'm using or whatever. I'm just connecting dots, and I'm not a dev. But Resonance is going to be in the playtest and it seems to literally be the measure of how much magic your body can contain. Pathfinder has always been awfully heavy on the magic for me to think "yuck everything is magical" was ever a sustainable attitude, at least without enacting some pretty specific house rules.


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If PF2 does continue down the road it is currently headed, I will have to play a different game. Although I worry without Paizo's excellent adventure paths my group won't be sustainable in the long run (and yes, we have worked our way through most of Paizo's APs). I'll stick around for the playtest in the hopes enough of us feel the same way that aPaizo removes the most egregious issues (removing +level to untrained skills would be a great start).

As for being inherently magical in PF1e, that was a choice. You got to choose between magical classes and non-magoval classes. In the name of balance it seems you are right in that the only way to justify characters capabilities is to say everyone is inherently magical. Hopefully we're both wrong on that front.


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Mark Seifter wrote:
Bardarok wrote:

I don't like the concept of being unable to make an attempt at something even if the odds are terrible. Would it be unbalanced to apply a penalty for lacking sufficient training?

Maybe -10 per level of training you are behind so an untrained character can attempt a trained only task but takes a -10 penalty or an expert only task at -20 etc. the odds of critical failure would probably be enough to prevent most people from trying it but it means you can still make an attempt.

I don't think it would break anything to allow this houserule, but it would lead to some of the situations that many on this thread find particularly troublesome, where the 20th level barbarian with 10 Int can use +18 - 10 = +8 Arcana to outperform the 1st-level 18 Int trained in Arcana wizard (1 + 4 = +5 Arcana) on some kind of trained-only test of obscure arcane theorems. That's something we've included safeguards to avoid, but it won't break anything if you do as you suggested, since it's not like the plot of a 20th level adventure is going to be likely to hinge on a standardized test duel between your 20th level barbarian and a 1st level wizard.

I know you don't want to have the Barbarian out "nerd" the wizard but by the time they reach that high level, shouldn't it make sense that they would have some Arcana prowess that they have experienced? They could have learned somethings through osmosis through proximity of partner members or the challenges they have faced in the past. If I had a Bard teammate that played his annoying flute every spare minute, I might have picked up at least some musical inclination from it. Or another party member speaks in another language often enough that I might pick it up.

Which leads me to another point, what happend to Linguistics? I use to love leveling that skill.
"You come upon a sign with strange writing on it. It's strange scripture leave you befuddled."
"WAIT, is it one of these languages?" *Start listing the 15+ languages you know*
"Sigh...its X language"

This might have been asked before but how is the balance between spells that just beat out skills?
i.e. I know 10+ languages vs Comprehend Language, I can climb good vs Spider Climb, I have a good intuition on lieing vs zone of truth? ETC


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Mark Seifter wrote:
That said, the paladin skill wish list seems PF2-related. Given Perception is not a skill (and covers Sense Motive), we're looking at grabbing Ride and then becoming trained, then expert, then master, then legendary in Diplomacy, Medicine, and Religion. Easily achievable for a paladin.

So, definitive confirmation that Sense Motive is covered by Perception. Ride sounds like a skill feat (possibly in relation to Acrobatics?).


I could see mundane ride being in the base skill and some cavalry skill power that allows fighting while mounted without a check.


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42nfl19 wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Bardarok wrote:

I don't like the concept of being unable to make an attempt at something even if the odds are terrible. Would it be unbalanced to apply a penalty for lacking sufficient training?

Maybe -10 per level of training you are behind so an untrained character can attempt a trained only task but takes a -10 penalty or an expert only task at -20 etc. the odds of critical failure would probably be enough to prevent most people from trying it but it means you can still make an attempt.

I don't think it would break anything to allow this houserule, but it would lead to some of the situations that many on this thread find particularly troublesome, where the 20th level barbarian with 10 Int can use +18 - 10 = +8 Arcana to outperform the 1st-level 18 Int trained in Arcana wizard (1 + 4 = +5 Arcana) on some kind of trained-only test of obscure arcane theorems. That's something we've included safeguards to avoid, but it won't break anything if you do as you suggested, since it's not like the plot of a 20th level adventure is going to be likely to hinge on a standardized test duel between your 20th level barbarian and a 1st level wizard.

I know you don't want to have the Barbarian out "nerd" the wizard but by the time they reach that high level, shouldn't it make sense that they would have some Arcana prowess that they have experienced? They could have learned somethings through osmosis through proximity of partner members or the challenges they have faced in the past. If I had a Bard teammate that played his annoying flute every spare minute, I might have picked up at least some musical inclination from it. Or another party member speaks in another language often enough that I might pick it up.

That's, partly or mostly, what the +level to the skill check represents - the Barbarian above might out-nerd the wizard on some of the most basic Arcana checks (anything that can be tried/remembered untrained), but when it comes to higher levels of obscurity and specialization, the barbarian is functionally clueless.

You might pick-up a handful of foreign phrases from a comrade or learn to carry a tune that the bard plays, but without any actual training or dedication for the underlying fundamentals, you can't really extrapolate or display any further in those skills.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
John Lynch 106 wrote:
If PF2 does continue down the road it is currently headed, I will have to play a different game. Although I worry without Paizo's excellent adventure paths my group won't be sustainable in the long run (and yes, we have worked our way through most of Paizo's APs). I'll stick around for the playtest in the hopes enough of us feel the same way that aPaizo removes the most egregious issues (removing +level to untrained skills would be a great start)..

You've been playing this particular tune for a while, though. Is it worth continuing with it before the playtest drops? Is it making you happy to vent?

Quote:
As for being inherently magical in PF1e, that was a choice. You got to choose between magical classes and non-magoval classes.

Nah, you wound up being pretty freaking magical in PF1e even starting as mundane, what with the Christmas tree and the Big 6. Or else being way weaker than intended. PF2 seems to just be going the route of "the magic was in YOU the whole time." Which doesn't mean fighters will be shooting fireballs from their hands, but I think it does meld nicely with the idea that high level heroes can have mythological feats and a broader general competency than should be humanly possible without specific training.


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Thievery = Finesse
Perception = Alertness


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
dysartes wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
We have a known discussion point where the fighter should very likely get Intimidate as a signature skill and also another starting trained skill, but alas, that omission was pointed out after the book hit the printer (after which we noticed it in several times from several places). I am guessing there won't really be two sides among you guys in the playtest as to whether we should carry through on that.
That's a couple of times we've seen you mention signature skill now, Mark - is it just a case of "these are skills we think are typical for the class", or is there some mechanical benefit for a character taking training in their signature skill?

I'm making my prediction now - signature skills are the replacement for Class Skills, and when you put a rank into them they start at Expert instead of Trained.

Now I just have to read through the rest of the thread to see if anyone else had the same idea.


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LuniasM wrote:
dysartes wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
We have a known discussion point where the fighter should very likely get Intimidate as a signature skill and also another starting trained skill, but alas, that omission was pointed out after the book hit the printer (after which we noticed it in several times from several places). I am guessing there won't really be two sides among you guys in the playtest as to whether we should carry through on that.
That's a couple of times we've seen you mention signature skill now, Mark - is it just a case of "these are skills we think are typical for the class", or is there some mechanical benefit for a character taking training in their signature skill?

I'm making my prediction now - signature skills are the replacement for Class Skills, and when you put a rank into them they start at Expert instead of Trained.

Now I just have to read through the rest of the thread to see if anyone else had the same idea.

I don't envy your work... :-P


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Captain Morgan wrote:
You've been playing this particular tune for a while, though. Is it worth continuing with it before the playtest drops? Is it making you happy to vent?

It doesn't make me happy. I'd much rather have nothing but positive posts to contribute. Paizo puts up these threads to give us a taste of what's to come and for us to discuss it. I am discussing it. I'll also point out I'm not some blithely negative nancy on everything that get's posted. My initial post was mostly positive (largely because I misread the blog post). Even now I am still finding things to be positive about (I like the skill feats).

Captain Morgan wrote:
Nah, you wound up being pretty freaking magical in PF1e even starting as mundane, what with the Christmas tree and the Big 6. Or else being way weaker than intended.

There is nothing inherent about using magic items. The magic clearly comes from the item.

Captain Morgan wrote:
PF2 seems to just be going the route of "the magic was in YOU the whole time."

That's a route I'd rather not go down.

Captain Morgan wrote:
I think it does meld nicely with the idea that high level heroes can have mythological feats and a broader general competency than should be humanly possible without specific training.

See: I'm actually happy about the feats. Firstly because they're opt in and secondly they aren't on the scale of "I flap my arms really fast and gain an at-will fly speed".

And that's the thing. I am looking for ways to enjoy what's being previewed. I want to have fun with this game. I find the good in the changes as much as I can. I am willing to compromise. I can accomodate +level to all trained skills (it's not the granularity I'd prefer, but it's a compromise I can happily live with). I have no issue with limiting the number of magic items that can be worn. It's when the inherent nature of the ruleset requires a change in narrative that I have an issue. I've enjoyed playing in the Golarion that has been established as a result of 8 years of play. I don't want to have to change the inherent nature of that world or perform mental gymnastics to explain why things are working the way they are. I'd rather the rules simply accomodate it. And they can.

We can both have our cake and eat it too. We just need some basic changes to enable both playstyles.


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LuniasM wrote:
dysartes wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
We have a known discussion point where the fighter should very likely get Intimidate as a signature skill and also another starting trained skill, but alas, that omission was pointed out after the book hit the printer (after which we noticed it in several times from several places). I am guessing there won't really be two sides among you guys in the playtest as to whether we should carry through on that.
That's a couple of times we've seen you mention signature skill now, Mark - is it just a case of "these are skills we think are typical for the class", or is there some mechanical benefit for a character taking training in their signature skill?

I'm making my prediction now - signature skills are the replacement for Class Skills, and when you put a rank into them they start at Expert instead of Trained.

Now I just have to read through the rest of the thread to see if anyone else had the same idea.

You are correct, you can see the 4 class/signature skills on the Druid page at the Paizocon banquet...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f_uhV_EQz8

57:12 mark, bottom right corner...


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
John Lynch 106 wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
You've been playing this particular tune for a while, though. Is it worth continuing with it before the playtest drops? Is it making you happy to vent?

It doesn't make me happy. I'd much rather have nothing but positive posts to contribute. Paizo puts up these threads to give us a taste of what's to come and for us to discuss it. I am discussing it. I'll also point out I'm not some blithely negative nancy on everything that get's posted. My initial post was mostly positive (largely because I misread the blog post). Even now I am still finding things to be positive about (I like the skill feats).

I also didn't play the "we won't play the new edition" card. You did by saying maybe I shouldn't play the new game. I really, really want to play PF2e. I'd love a new edition of Pathfinder.

Captain Morgan wrote:
Nah, you wound up being pretty freaking magical in PF1e even starting as mundane, what with the Christmas tree and the Big 6. Or else being way weaker than intended.

There is nothing inherent about using magic items. The magic clearly comes from the item.

Captain Morgan wrote:
PF2 seems to just be going the route of "the magic was in YOU the whole time."

That's a route I'd rather not go down.

Captain Morgan wrote:
I think it does meld nicely with the idea that high level heroes can have mythological feats and a broader general competency than should be humanly possible without specific training.

See: I'm actually happy about the feats. Firstly because they're opt in and secondly they aren't on the scale of "I flap my arms really fast and gain an at-will fly speed".

And that's the thing. I am looking for ways to enjoy what's being previewed. I want to have fun with this game. I find the good in the changes as much as I can. I am willing to compromise. I can accomodate +level to all trained skills (it's not the granularity I'd prefer, but it's a compromise I can happily live with). I have no issue with limiting the number of magic items...

So is it Resonance specifically you object too? That seems to be the thing that got us down this rabbit hole. Or is it connecting the dots I connected there? Because those don't have to be connected. Magic items are still magical in ways martials aren't, they just resonate with users to activate.

I'm not sure if there are other specific complaints here that I've lost track of other than +level scaling, which I don't feel there is much to say on and you don't feel that strongly about.


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Captain Morgan wrote:
So is it Resonance specifically you object too?

I'll be honest. I haven't really invested too much energy into resonance. As it currently stands it appears to be disliked by a majority of posters here. While we aren't a representative sample, I see no reason that won't carry over amongst the larger playerbase. I completely expect that resonance will either be significantly changed or scrapped entirely (and it's modular enough that it could be easily removed).

Captain Morgan wrote:
I'm not sure if there are other specific complaints here that I've lost track of other than +level scaling, which I don't feel there is much to say on and you don't feel that strongly about.

+level to everything is something I feel quite strongly on. But it's also something I can compromise on. I'd rather not turn this thread into a "Big Book of Reasons John doesn't like PF2e" so I'm restricting myself to discussing the skills in this thread (and hey, I like the skill feats! Also the consolidated skill list. Although I think it might be consolidated just a bit too far). Feel free to PM me if you really want to discuss things further.


HWalsh wrote:


Actually Mark,

I would like to have a serious dialogue about this.

I saw it in Starfinder where, if you aren't a certain class you can just forget about using certain skills. Ever. For example, in SFS you will not be the pilot on the ship unless you are a high dex operative.

I have always struggled in Pathfinder with melee classes, who...
As a Paladin, for example, I generally assume that I should be good at the following things:

1. Diplomacy
2. Knowledge: Religion
3. Ride (if I plan to take a mount, but even if just because horses are a thing.)
4. Perception (because everyone needs perception to be maxed out)
5. Sense Motive (because you need to be able to know who is lying to to you.)
6. Heal

I have never been able to do this.

The explanation is, "Balance"

But, to be honest, I feel that the Rogue is far better at skills than I am, while I am not equally better than the Rogue in combat. In fact often times the Rogue is *better* in combat because Dexterity (at least in PF1) is so much better than any other stat, and the penalties for heavy armor are downright crippling in many situations.

With the combat gap between fighter-type classes and rogue-type classes narrowing. How are more fighter-type characters going to be compensated?

I did, but I was a Bard/Pal Gestalt.

https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=533761

It was fun, but DM dropped game eventually before it was over.
Yes, I was riding my ape as a mount.


Mark Seifter wrote:
If my PF2 rogue also takes, say, Society, Athletics, and Stealth, that's on par with a PF1 character that gains at least 15 skill points per level.

Are you suggesting that if you simply redesigned PF1 as 1.5 that giving rogues 15 skill points / level would be in the ballpark of an appropriate change?

Designer

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BryonD wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
If my PF2 rogue also takes, say, Society, Athletics, and Stealth, that's on par with a PF1 character that gains at least 15 skill points per level.
Are you suggesting that if you simply redesigned PF1 as 1.5 that giving rogues 15 skill points / level would be in the ballpark of an appropriate change?

Do you mean 15 skill points per level after Int modifier? Not completely, no, since some of those skills that were consolidated weren't as attractive apart, whereas someone given free rein over 15 skill points can still avoid them. It's more akin to maybe saying "Use the Unchained background skill system to add 2 extra flavorful but weaker skills and then change the way ability score increases work to not punish rogues for raising Int as they level up" though also not the same as that either.

Silver Crusade Contributor

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As someone who routinely prefers to be very bad at Sense Motive for character reasons - it was the skill that prompted me to ask for a "Completely Unskilled" drawback a few blogs ago - I really hope it's not being lumped in with Perception. (And if it is, I'll be lobbying for changes for the final product.)

I generally support "level to everything" design... but it's nice to have the option of saying "my character just isn't any good at This One Thing".

I'm not sure there's a way to do it without it being min-max heaven, but I'm not a highly skilled game designer. Maybe the Design Team can come up with something. ^_^

Liberty's Edge

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Knight Magenta wrote:
Man this forum moves fast :p

Sometimes!

Knight Magenta wrote:

Personally, I don't like locking combat styles behind a class like this. If only Rogues can do the lightly-armored martial build then it forces anyone who wants to play that style of character to play a rogue. It also means that every class that a designer wants to open that style to needs to have an in-class way of matching the rogue's class feat.

I think dex-to-damage either needs to be a general feat or not exist at all.

Well, there are a few of things about this:

#1: We already know that both Fighters and Rangers can grab the Double Slice Feat, so some Class Feats are available to multiple Classes.

#2: Given that you only ever get 5 General Feats (6 if Human) they can be pretty powerful. I wouldn't be surprised at all if there was one that let you grab a Class Feat from another Class.

#3: Class agnostic Archetypes are a thing. A 'Swashbuckler' Archetype with that Class Feat among others would also allow this style of character as any Class you'd care to name.

In short, it being a Class Feat doesn't have to mean what you think it means.


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Linguistics - My guess is that the deciphering part has been subsumed into several of the other skills, most likely Arcana, Occultism and Society.
There could even be a couple of skill feats that lets you "specialize" in certain areas within this field.
The "learning a new language" part could be handled as a continuation of your starting languages, giving you an extra language if you raise your intelligence score. That does limit the number of languages one can "naturally" learn, but there might be skill or regular feats that lets you add additional languages. Conversely, gaining certain proficiency ranks in some of the other skills might automatically give you access to choosing an additional language (maybe from a set list that ties into said skill, so nature/fey/elemental-related languages would only be obtainable by raising your Nature skill proficiency, humanoid languages would require Society skill level raises etc.).

/end speculation


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
My house rule is going to be that "thievery" is the name of the skill, but one can only ever refer to it by polite euphemisms.

Just FYI, "Dancing" has already been co-opted for proprieters of halls of ill-repute. :p

Designer

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Kalindlara wrote:

As someone who routinely prefers to be very bad at Sense Motive for character reasons - it was the skill that prompted me to ask for a "Completely Unskilled" drawback a few blogs ago - I really hope it's not being lumped in with Perception. (And if it is, I'll be lobbying for changes for the final product.)

I generally support "level to everything" design... but it's nice to have the option of saying "my character just isn't any good at This One Thing".

I'm not sure there's a way to do it without it being min-max heaven, but I'm not a highly skilled game designer. Maybe the Design Team can come up with something. ^_^

I imagine the best way to work it is to give the player something they wouldn't need anyway if they didn't choose to take the flaw, so it can't possibly be a min/max decision.

For instance, imagine the following:

If you would like your character to have a blind spot, you can choose a type of check (or subcategory of checks, for instance maybe just Athletics checks to Swim because you are afraid of the water). You are always untrained in those checks and do not add your level to those checks, unless you later decide that you've overcome your blind spot.

Starting at 10th level, you can perform unexpectedly well in your blind spot when backed into a corner. Once per day, increase your degree of success in your blind spot by one degree; this can't be used if you rolled a natural 1 on the check. At 15th level, and again at 20th level, you gain an additional use of this ability. If you overcome your blind spot, you also lose this ability.


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Mark Seifter wrote:
BryonD wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
If my PF2 rogue also takes, say, Society, Athletics, and Stealth, that's on par with a PF1 character that gains at least 15 skill points per level.
Are you suggesting that if you simply redesigned PF1 as 1.5 that giving rogues 15 skill points / level would be in the ballpark of an appropriate change?
Do you mean 15 skill points per level after Int modifier? Not completely, no, since some of those skills that were consolidated weren't as attractive apart, whereas someone given free rein over 15 skill points can still avoid them. It's more akin to maybe saying "Use the Unchained background skill system to add 2 extra flavorful but weaker skills and then change the way ability score increases work to not punish rogues for raising Int as they level up" though also not the same as that either.

I think a simple house rule to not punish the rogues would be a much more elegant fix. But clearly we are drifting on the topic there.

I think that the system sounds like it is giving into the trap of "but my character should be even more awesome" until everybody is "totally awesome" and to paraphrase the incredibles, nobody is awesome, and everybody is too close together.

Weakness, significant weaknesses, that players (players, not characters) work around is a hugely important part of the game (IMO). Rogues flooding the skill system is one example where the changes really seem to be tending into the "more must obviously be better" thing. I've seen it go that way before, and I've seen a lot of people thrilled on day 1 and then not quite sure they got bored and moved on a few months later, they know they just did.

And, to be clear, the line I quoted jumped out at me and all the *things* that have been needling me seemed to be summed up there. I'm not suggesting the skill system is going to be the make or break. And I really like the four tiers.

I respect that I'm just this one voice in the wind. But I hope you hear that my intent is constructive. There are really good games out there. The bar is REALLY high. And things that support years of play over quick gratification of more/bigger are going to be important to sustainable success. Too much is easy to do.

Designer

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BryonD wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
BryonD wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
If my PF2 rogue also takes, say, Society, Athletics, and Stealth, that's on par with a PF1 character that gains at least 15 skill points per level.
Are you suggesting that if you simply redesigned PF1 as 1.5 that giving rogues 15 skill points / level would be in the ballpark of an appropriate change?
Do you mean 15 skill points per level after Int modifier? Not completely, no, since some of those skills that were consolidated weren't as attractive apart, whereas someone given free rein over 15 skill points can still avoid them. It's more akin to maybe saying "Use the Unchained background skill system to add 2 extra flavorful but weaker skills and then change the way ability score increases work to not punish rogues for raising Int as they level up" though also not the same as that either.

I think a simple house rule to not punish the rogues would be a much more elegant fix. But clearly we are drifting on the topic there.

I think that the system sounds like it is giving into the trap of "but my character should be even more awesome" until everybody is "totally awesome" and to paraphrase the incredibles, nobody is awesome, and everybody is too close together.

Weakness, significant weaknesses, that players (players, not characters) work around is a hugely important part of the game (IMO). Rogues flooding the skill system is one example where the changes really seem to be tending into the "more must obviously be better" thing. I've seen it go that way before, and I've seen a lot of people thrilled on day 1 and then not quite sure they got bored and moved on a few months later, they know they just did.

And, to be clear, the line I quoted jumped out at me and all the *things* that have been needling me seemed to be summed up there. I'm not suggesting the skill system is going to be the make or break. And I really like the four tiers.

I respect that I'm just this one voice in the wind. But I hope you hear that my intent is constructive. There are really good games out there. The bar is REALLY high. And things that support years of play over quick gratification of more/bigger are going to be important to sustainable success. Too much is easy to do.

I hear you. You might be in an interesting situation in that if that is the source of your concerns, you will probably be put at unease by previews focusing on cool awesome and set at ease reading the actual document and seeing the many workhorse quality of life changes (some of which involve reining things in), whereas I think most people (or at least I'm like this) can get hyped up by previews to imagine something in my head that's more perfectly suited to exactly what I'd prefer than the final product winds up being.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Bardarok wrote:
thaX wrote:

So, is ranks limited to just four per skill ever? Do they provide a numerical bonus as well as the Proficiency upgrade? What happens when a skill has more than four ranks?

Perhaps I am a little confused, as Ranks seem to be a tic on the proficient meter rather than a way to improve the skill itself. Once the skill is topped out, is there any reason to put more ranks into it?

The rank is the proficiency upgrade.

Example which probably gets some details wrong but should illustrate the general point:

A fighter with Int 10 starts of trained in 3 skills of their choice. The other 14 skills are all untrained.

At level 3 they can choose to increase their proficiency in two skills either moving two skills from untrained to trained or moving two from trained to expert or one of each.

Every odd level they can choose to increase their proficiency level for two skills.

They cannot improve any skill to Master until level 5, they cannot improve any skill to legendary until level 15.

At any given level the bonus that they have for a skill is dependent upon their ability modifier and their proficiency level:

Untrained = Lvl -2 +Ability Mod
Trained = Lvl + Ability Mod
Expert = Lvl +1 +Ability Mod
Master = Lvl +2 +Ability Mod
Legendary = Lvl +3 +Ability Mod

In addition to the modest bonus that each level of proficiency provides it will unlock additional uses for the skill that you could not even attempt before. So while your bonus is only marginally larger the things you can use the skill for has expanded.

In addition to improving proficiency ranks all characters will get skill feats which they can take to expand the power of their skills it has been strongly implied that skill feats will either be gated by having a high proficiency level as a prerequisites or they will improve with proficiency level.

Importantly Skill Feats are a separate pool from general feats and class feats so you are not forced to choose between your combat role and a skill focused...

So a skill can never get past 23 + stat? How is that a good thing?

Ranks don't add their own number to the skill? Signature skills, are they like Class Skills in PF1, or something else? Is there a way to get a skill past 30? (Other than having a stat with a +8 mod)

Liberty's Edge

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thaX wrote:
So a skill can never get past 23 + stat?

Items can also add a bonus (up to +5 for magic items).

thaX wrote:
How is that a good thing?

It's a good thing because it means that the numbers are close enough that PCs of the same level are still vaguely playing the same game in terms of skills.

thaX wrote:
Ranks don't add their own number to the skill? Signature skills, are they like Class Skills in PF1, or something else? Is there a way to get a skill past 30? (Other than having a stat with a +8 mod)

We don't know exactly how Signature Skills work. As for how to get a high bonus, Ability Modifier seems to max out at +7, but with a +5 Item, you can hit +35.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
thaX wrote:
...

Oh, hold on. Let me fix the reply quote.

thaX wrote:

So a skill can never get past 23 + stat? How is that a good thing?

Ranks don't add their own number to the skill? Signature skills, are they like Class Skills in PF1, or something else? Is there a way to get a skill past 30? (Other than having a stat with a +8 mod)

There, that is better.

I think signature skills are the skills a class starts out with an Expert rank in at level 1, but I have nothing to back that up with.


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To address some of the things in this thread:

If I can offer a suggestion as to why the Barbarian can out Nerd the Wizard...

I'm a pretty smart guy in real life... I graduated High School at the age of 14. I'm not terribly good in social situations, and I am inhibited by my pain medications and such these days, but I'm still absolutely decently high in int.

I have been studying Japanese for about a year and a half, with weekly tutoring sessions.

That having been said... I can't hang with a native Japanese speaker who is not as quick as I am when it comes to Japanese language. I can't hang with a buddy of mine who is living there and has been for six months because he has been immersed in it.

I know the theory, the sentence structure, and I can read it... Especially in romanji, but if that stuff is in Hiragana, Katakana, etc... I am lost... If people speak too fast? I have to ask them to repeat it.

My friend who lives there right now? In 6 months he has shot well past me. Why? Because he deals with it for many hours each day. He has experience.

He hasn't studied it like I have, and even he admits that I'm probably smarter than he is, but there is no substitute for experience.

That is where the 3rd level Wizard vs the 10th level Barbarian comes into play.

That 10th level Barbarian has seen stuff. He may not understand the inherent magical theory behind the Fireball, he may not understand the interactions of the somatic components, but he knows that spell, what it does, what it looks like when someone is about to cast it, and the effect it is going to have... He's been singed by it enough that he's figured it out.

So you can have a lower intelligence, untrained person, be better than a higher intelligent trained person if the higher intelligence person is going off of theory, while the lower intelligence person is going off of life experience.


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One thing I like about the new way skills are gained is ultimately a tiny side effect. Characters can no longer master a skill overnight when they level up. It creates a more gradual levelling experience at all levels.


Stone Dog wrote:
thaX wrote:
...

Oh, hold on. Let me fix the reply quote.

thaX wrote:

So a skill can never get past 23 + stat? How is that a good thing?

Ranks don't add their own number to the skill? Signature skills, are they like Class Skills in PF1, or something else? Is there a way to get a skill past 30? (Other than having a stat with a +8 mod)

There, that is better.

I think signature skills are the skills a class starts out with an Expert rank in at level 1, but I have nothing to back that up with.

Signature skills are class skills. You can see that on the Druid preview at Paizocon banquet. And judging from the skills used at Paizocon Playtest delves, they start at trained not expert.


Albatoonoe wrote:
One thing I like about the new way skills are gained is ultimately a tiny side effect. Characters can no longer master a skill overnight when they level up. It creates a more gradual levelling experience at all levels.

That isn't necessarily true.

It depends on how things like retroactive skill ranks apply when gaining a level.

If skill ranks are based on intelligence, as I suspect they are, then if you have gained a skill ranks 4 times, then gain a +1 bonus from Intelligence... You could completely go from untrained to legendary.


Iron_Matt17 wrote:
And judging from the skills used at Paizocon Playtest delves, they start at trained not expert.

Though it looks like you don't automatically get Trained in them based on Mark's previous comments in this thread:

Mark Seifter wrote:
This is not quite how it works. You pick what skills you're trained in. Classes do have signature skills, but you are not forced to be trained in those if you don't want.


HWalsh wrote:
Albatoonoe wrote:
One thing I like about the new way skills are gained is ultimately a tiny side effect. Characters can no longer master a skill overnight when they level up. It creates a more gradual levelling experience at all levels.

That isn't necessarily true.

It depends on how things like retroactive skill ranks apply when gaining a level.

If skill ranks are based on intelligence, as I suspect they are, then if you have gained a skill ranks 4 times, then gain a +1 bonus from Intelligence... You could completely go from untrained to legendary.

A common theory is that you get 1 skill rank every other level. Considering the limited spread of proficiency ranks, this seems reasonable. I don't see characters gaining +INT every time they rank up. A decently smart character could gain legendary in all of their skills pretty easily.


Milo v3 wrote:
Iron_Matt17 wrote:
And judging from the skills used at Paizocon Playtest delves, they start at trained not expert.

Though it looks like you don't automatically get Trained in them based on Mark's previous comments in this thread:

Mark Seifter wrote:
This is not quite how it works. You pick what skills you're trained in. Classes do have signature skills, but you are not forced to be trained in those if you don't want.

I took that to mean "you can choose those 4 signature skills at level 1, but you don't HAVE to. If you want to choose another 4, by all means... It's up to you."

Kinda like the signature skills are what you typically would think of when you think of a class. Rogues have Stealth, Paladins have Diplomacy, Druids have Nature, etc... But you can create a non-stealthy rogue, or an unpersuasive Paladin if you want. (Don't know about that ignorant of nature Druid though...)


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John Lynch 106 wrote:

If PF2 does continue down the road it is currently headed, I will have to play a different game. Although I worry without Paizo's excellent adventure paths my group won't be sustainable in the long run (and yes, we have worked our way through most of Paizo's APs). I'll stick around for the playtest in the hopes enough of us feel the same way that aPaizo removes the most egregious issues (removing +level to untrained skills would be a great start).

As for being inherently magical in PF1e, that was a choice. You got to choose between magical classes and non-magoval classes. In the name of balance it seems you are right in that the only way to justify characters capabilities is to say everyone is inherently magical. Hopefully we're both wrong on that front.

and because of that 'magical vs non magical' divide we enxed up with martial classes being totally over shadowed

Liberty's Edge

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Rob Godfrey wrote:
John Lynch 106 wrote:

If PF2 does continue down the road it is currently headed, I will have to play a different game. Although I worry without Paizo's excellent adventure paths my group won't be sustainable in the long run (and yes, we have worked our way through most of Paizo's APs). I'll stick around for the playtest in the hopes enough of us feel the same way that aPaizo removes the most egregious issues (removing +level to untrained skills would be a great start).

As for being inherently magical in PF1e, that was a choice. You got to choose between magical classes and non-magoval classes. In the name of balance it seems you are right in that the only way to justify characters capabilities is to say everyone is inherently magical. Hopefully we're both wrong on that front.

and because of that 'magical vs non magical' divide we enxed up with martial classes being totally over shadowed

The abilities of high level martials in PF2 are only magical inasmuch as Batman or Iron Man have super powers.

Both Batman and Iron Man do things fairly regularly that are not actually possible in the real world, but that doesn't mean that they have super powers in-universe, it means that the universes they operate in operate by somewhat different rules wherein the abilities they demonstrate are possible for exceptional people even without the need for super powers. Likewise, just because an action movie hero survives something nobody in the real world could, doesn't mean he's using magic in-universe, just that the world rules are different.

Peak non-magical human capabilities are simply at a much higher level in Golarion than they are in the real world.


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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.

Liberty's Edge

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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.

This depends heavily on how limited the options are for untrained skill checks. If those are strict enough, I definitely think you can play someone with some real weaknesses (or, by getting everything to at least Trained, something Rogues seem good at, be Batman).

But I was primarily talking about the high end of 'non-magical' capability rather than the low end.


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I am really liking how skills work for the most part. I was concerned that there might not be enough granularity in ranks nor enough differences between the ranks. This blog has lessened those concerns. The way higher ranks give you more ways to use a skill even without skill feats makes having a higher rank meaningful even if the numerical differences are slight.

With Signature Skill my guess would be either they give you expert for the cost of 1 rank increase or they allow you to take a rank at a lower level than normal say Master at 5th and legendary at 13th.

Scarab Sages

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So Medicine can flat-out heal HP. Is that bounded by uses per day, by an expensive healer’s kit, or by a long duration for the procedure? Otherwise, how is this not the new CLW wand «problem»?

Designer

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Deadmanwalking wrote:
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.

This depends heavily on how limited the options are for untrained skill checks. If those are strict enough, I definitely think you can play someone with some real weaknesses (or, by getting everything to at least Trained, something Rogues seem good at, be Batman).

But I was primarily talking about the high end of 'non-magical' capability rather than the low end.

And it looks like Batman's high enough level that he can get a decent result from Perform even if he's untrained in Performance.

(At the end, Batman points out that he heard the song over and over on stake-out after Penguin kidnapped a singer)

Liberty's Edge

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Catharsis wrote:
So Medicine can flat-out heal HP. Is that bounded by uses per day, by an expensive healer’s kit, or by a long duration for the procedure? Otherwise, how is this not the new CLW wand «problem»?

The problem with Wands of CLW was always that it meant everyone was at full health without anybody investing meaningful resources (the monetary cost of a Wand of CLW is rapidly meaningless). Well, and that it was thematically off.

Investing two skill ranks minimum and a Skill Feat into Medicine is not meaningless at all. It's a significant expenditure of character resources. And having a medic patch people up after a battle is thematically solid.

So, while I have no idea whether it's free or unlimited, even if it basically was, it's not the same issue as Wands of CLW at all.

Mark Seifter wrote:

And it looks like Batman's high enough level that he can get a decent result from Perform even if he's untrained in Performance.

(At the end, Batman points out that he heard the song over and over on stake-out after Penguin kidnapped a singer)

I always liked that bit. :)

And yeah, Performance may be the one skill I wouldn't actually give Batman Trained in (well, he wouldn't have every possible Lore either, but y'know what I mean).


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Deadmanwalking wrote:


And yeah, Performance may be the one skill I wouldn't actually give Batman Trained in (well, he wouldn't have every possible Lore either, but y'know what I mean).

Although I could see a medium - high level feat that represents his ability to research being something like

Intensive Study: At the beginning of each day you may choose two (improves to 3 at 15th and 4 at 17th) Lore skills. For the remainder of the day you count as Expert in those Lore skills.


Reading about the skills, I remembered thecWell-Known Expert vigilante talent. And I though, if this was a skill feat/chain it could probably make for a great Sherlock Holmes.

Malk, I can see a feat which does this:

X times per day, you may treat the proficiency of a skill as 1 higher up to the max allowed for your level. This does not qualify you for feats needing the new proficiency.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:


And yeah, Performance may be the one skill I wouldn't actually give Batman Trained in (well, he wouldn't have every possible Lore either, but y'know what I mean).

What? With his love for dramatic entrances and vanishing acts Batman sure is trained in Perform(Drama)! :)


Resonance, like attunement, does not represent internal magical energy, it is merely how much magic you can take/attune with/resonate with, due to Charisma, as far as I can see.

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