The patron in PF1 was pretty bland and uninteresting.
The patron in PF2 is non-existent. It's a two paragraph blurb in the class mechanics section that doesn't have any associated mechanics. If every instance of the word "patron" were removed and the class copy/edited, it'd play exactly the same.
From the Patron section: "You weren’t born with the power to cast spells, nor have you spent years in devotion to tomes or specific entities unlocking mystical secrets. Your power instead comes through an unknown being that has chosen you as its vessel to carry forth some equally unstated plan in the world. "
It's a cool write-up, genuinely. It's just a shame that it doesn't translate into anything mechanically.
I think it'd be fine if there were a standard list of patrons that lay out lesson plans, with a "You can work with your GM to determine a different patron with their own lessons" or something if there's a patron you'd like that isn't represented.
Heck, even if the listed patrons just have suggested lessons and familiar types and whatnot it'd be better than it is now.
Regarding the Biohacker, were any changes made to the scientific method? In the playtest, the int build was significantly more powerful than the wis build.
It would be a very interesting stream if a paizo employee taught PF2 to a group of non-RPG players. PF2 is lauded for its ease of learning and playing. It would be fascinating to see it in action.
Name: Mara
Race: Halfling
Classes/levels: Unchained Rogue 13
Adventure: Rasputin Must Die!
Location: Ancient Monastery
Catalyst: Multiple rifle crits
Gory details: Upon learning the existence of the blueprints for the World Anchors, the PCs tracked down the location of Rasputin's personal chambers. Some mediocre fly checks followed by similarly mediocre stealth checks found the PCs spotted by the Pale Snipers, who got a surprise round, shooting the nimble halfling once and successfully sniping to remain stealthed. One the first round of combat, the unlucky rogue was on the receiving end of a confirmed 4x crit from one sniper and a Stranger's Shot from another. Unable to enter the tower through the tiny slits the snipers were shooting through, she and the other melee party members flew around to the Monastery entrance to make their way up the tower. Being the first one into the tower, the rogue was the first target the snipers turned on inside the tower. A second 4x crit brought the unlucky rogue to -61 hp with a con score of 16. A breath of life only brought the thrice unlucky rogue to -17 hp. Dead as a doornail. Being that the party has no true divine caster, it fell to the wizard to Limited Wish the rogue back to life, with a single negative level remaining after a second Limited Wish removed one.
Mara returns to Russia with a vengeance and a nasty bullet-hole of a scar below her left eye.
Can a stunning fist also be a perfect strike, while also being a punishing kick?
Not normally, because perfect strike only works with kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, or siangham, while style strikes and Stunning Fist require an unarmed strike. You'd need Ascetic Form with one of those four weapons to use them all at the same time.
Good catch, I kinda skimmed over that.
So taking perfect strike out, how about the rest?
Stunning Fist + Punishing Kick + any given style strike?
Since neither feat specifies a body part (punishing kick doesn't even specify you have to make an unarmed strike), could you combine those three, assuming you used the correct body part for the style strike?
I don't get the channel smite feat. Why would you ever use it? You spend 2 actions to smite and deal extra damage equal to your hear/harm, at the cost of using a usage of channel.
I fail to see how it's any better than just casting heal/harm then striking. Because harm doesn't have the attack trait (possibly an oversight?), it doesn't incur multiple attack penalty. So casting harm then striking deals basically the same as channel smite for the same amount of resources, without costing a feat.
You might not want to cast a spell for some reason - either the opponent has an attack of opportunity or readied action to strike against spell.
It doesn't seem to be terribly useful, though... If it gained some sort of bonus when channeled through weapon over casting and attacking separately it might be better.
The point about attacks of opportunity are valid. Though, with only @20% of playtestiary monsters having AoOs, I still don't know if this is worth a feat.
I don't get the channel smite feat. Why would you ever use it? You spend 2 actions to smite and deal extra damage equal to your hear/harm, at the cost of using a usage of channel.
I fail to see how it's any better than just casting heal/harm then striking. Because harm doesn't have the attack trait (possibly an oversight?), it doesn't incur multiple attack penalty. So casting harm then striking deals basically the same as channel smite for the same amount of resources, without costing a feat.
Just to point it out: This thread was primarily about eliminating the distinction of "small" and "medium", since there are very few mechanical differences. Larger than medium and smaller than small both still have significant differences that warrant their existence.
William Werminster wrote:
Bad jokes aside. It also matters for gaining tactical cover with large creatures and bulk (page 190 pdf version).
This matters a tiny bit? Since it also depends on the size of the target being targeted, the chances that it'll be significant go down significantly.
Large+ tiny- creatures DO calculate bulk differently, but small and medium do not.
Scarlette wrote:
Lemartes wrote:
What about lifting and bulk?
A goblin with 18 str and a giant with 18 str can carry 9 bulk before being encumbered.
While this is true, a giant is a large creature, so 1 bulk for it =10 bulk for a goblin. So while they can each carry a similar amount of "bulk", how much mass that bulk has is quite different.
For almost anything. Insofar as I can tell, the only difference between small and medium character is how big an enemy has to be to move through their space.
Small creatures can move through a huge creature's space. Medium creatures can move through a gargantuan creature's space.
If that's the only difference, why bother? Slaughter that sacred cow.
I heard (somewhere) that if you build an enemy with PC class levels the same way you build a PC, it'll come out close to doing it the monster way. So that's nice.
I like building my bad guys with PC class rolls the same way as PCs.
As far as I can tell, powers are unique with the exception that paladins can get domains like clerics.
But I'd also like for powers to be listed separately from spells. Same chapter, sure, but I'd like lists of powers by class way more than just higgledy piggledy throughout spells.
Sure, but it allows the GM to be more flexible in encounter design. Every once in a while it's fun to throw an encounter at the PCs that they are too strong for, just to show off how strong they've become.
Plus, as numbers rise, the fluctuations the d20 can cause go down.
The formatting has some really egregious errors. For instance, try reading the "Shield Other" spell. After the line regarding casting actions, it goes into an unrelated set of actions you can take after casting the "Shield" cantrip for a few paragraphs, before going back to the rest of the "Shield Other" spell.
I have no doubt that this will be fixed for release. As it is, we just kinda have to put up with stuff like awful formatting.
2) Other effects (namely, Raise Dead and Ressurection) apply the condition for one week with the qualifier statement "this condition can’t be removed or reduced by any means until the week has passed."
3) Restoration states that it can remove/reduce enervation (the condition) including permanent enervation, however no applications of enervation (the condition) are actually applicable.
4) The penalty to proficiency and the penalty to level interact oddly:
• The proficiency penalty is "max your current level"
• Your level reduction is "max your current level -1"
• Proficiency is already a value based on your level (does this mean a 5th level character that is Trained in a skill and has Enervation 1 roll skills with '1d20+4' or '1d20+3'? Their level is reduced by 1—to 4—and takes a penalty on rolls equal to 1, Trained is '1d20 + your_level + modifiers')[/list]
There are a handful of monsters in the playtest bestiary that can enervate PCs, separate from the spell.
I don't think the penalty proficiency and penalty to level DO interact.
The penalty to proficiency applies to basically every d20 roll.
The penalty to level applies only to what suite of abilities you can use.
ie: if a 5th level wizard got hit with an enervated 1 he couldn't cast fireball until the enervation went away.
However, some of your examples would be covered by the lore skill.
Personally, craft would apply for armor, weapons, leather, and bows. Maybe throw leather in there.
The rest would be
blow glass: lore-glass
bind book: lore-books
bridges: lore-arcitecture
horseshoes: lore-blacksmithing
leather: lore-leatherworking
There are a lot of words dedicated to spell rolls, but only 5 spells and powers use this mechanic in any way.
Ancestral surge, Black tentacles, Charming words, Illusory creature, and Telekinetic maneuver.
Ancestral surge can give a bonus to OTHER spell rolls, to let's throw that one out. Charming words gives your foe a bonus to spell rolls if they crit succeed the save, so let's throw that one out, too.
That leaves 3: black tentacles, illusory creature, and telekinetic maneuver. These spells make admittedly good use of the mechanic, functioning as a sort of spell attack, but using your spellcasting stat.
However, all of these spells are on the arcane and occult lists, only. So clerics, druids, and ~1/2 of sorcerers gain proficiency in spell rolls, with literally no way to use this proficiency.
Upon first read-though I had thought spell rolls were synonymous with spell attacks, but now I believe this to not be the case, as melee spell attacks are specified to have the finesse property.
As is, the spell roll mechanic seems like a big waste of book space. Maybe the final release will have more spells that use this mechanic. Or maybe I misunderstood these rolls entirely. I'd actually love it if that were the case.
edit: Spell rolls are also used when trying to decide if you can cast a spell while stupified.
3 poisons, 2 bombs, stunning fist, 5 spells, and 2 monster abilities can make a PC stupified, though one of those requires forming a bond with a succubus first.
It's irksome that Amazon messed up orders via Paizo, but not orders via Amazon. Different departments, different issues. Sure sure. Still feels wrong. But that's okay, feelings are allowed to be wrong.
$15 store credit is bitterly amusing in one aspect: it's the cost of a soft-cover before shipping. So you actually have to spend ~4$ to use it. Which is great if you were planning on getting something through Paizo anyway. I honestly probably wasn't going to buy another Paizo product until PF2.
Not that Paizo doesn't do great work, but it feels like any RPG-line, player companion, or campaign setting book will be chock full of options that will be irrelevant when PF2 releases. Plus I'm already waist deep in an AP, so I don't need to make any purchases there for some time.
If nothing else, the playtest shipping fiasco will be a nice discount on the PF2 core rule book in a year.
I'm honestly grateful for the way Paizo is handling the situation.
I'm just mad and venting.
Thanks for being a generally great company, Paizo.
Are half-elves and half-orcs still going to get full culture write-ups like they did in PF1? Part of my concern with this design choice is that the half races could wind up getting less love than ever.
Half-elves, for instance, had some obviously inherited traits (I'm looking at you Elven Immunities). CRB half-elves were boring, but expanded options gave them some things unique to them. They were the only races that could get proficiency in any exotic weapon at level 1 regardless of class, for instance.
Half-orcs have always been more unique among core races, because their other half wasn't also core.
However, in making half-elves and half-orcs mechanical off-shoots from humans, I'm worried that their unique identity will be lost. Part of this might be rectified in later levels by picking up either combinations of human and elf/orc feats or the options unique to half-orcs or half-elves.
It doesn't change the fact that before level 5 half-elves and half-orcs are going to look remarkably similar to one another.
Where humans and elves both have a bunch of feats to differentiate themselves from other humans and elves, half-elves have 2/4 options to choose from, and don't get another until 5 (I think)
It might be fine, but those are some of my concerns with the half-races.
I always have players that WANT to stealth together, but it has never panned out, because the fighters and barbarians just can't.
That is far and away one of my favorite things about the way skills work in the new edition. Instead of group stealth being functionally impossible, even the non-stealth characters get some basic practice at sneaking (as represented by the proficiency+level+modifier model), so there's usually still some point in them trying to be stealthy and it's not just dooming them to failure or forcing the group to split the party every time they want to move without announcing their presence. It's still going to be harder to sneak with the fullplate-wearing fighter in tow, but there's not going to be a 40 point difference between his Stealth score and the rogue's.
That and if you go past the orc camp of 20 orcs all with +1 Perception and nobody is actively Seeking in the area you are Sneaking, your group just needs everybody to make DC 11, not opposed rolls for every orc and then one of them rolls a nat 20 and you get noticed every time. When the worst guy has +2, you still have an OK chance of making 11, but you'd have to shoot the moon for him to beat every orc in an opposed roll.
Do skills auto-succeed on a nat 20, or was that just to say that they rolled really high?
2/3-3/4 pass rate is indeed quite lovely for such effects; in fact, the fact that Trivial DCs provide those kinds of odds for a more middle ground character is another of their advantages and reasons to be included on the chart. Once it's 75% success for worst-character, though, that means nobody else is really engaging with it, which is possibly useful in some situations but sounds more to me like using a lower level challenge to spotlight the fact that worst-character might fail even though everyone else make it 95% of the time and can't critically fail. Hmm, it may be the case that a different column head than Trivial would help explain this concept better, particularly in absentia of the rules and just the chart excerpt.
Doesn't feel like it handles "all five rolls must succeed" situations well, like when all five in a party must climb the same rope for the entire party to make it up the wall, or a climb is long enough that you need to roll five times. Then a 75% success rate rapidly feels quite challenging...
As for one character being behind not meaning others are not engaged - my experience is that team members do engage in this, increasing their DC to lower the DC of the character in question through various more or less clever solutions. Especially if you don't want to leave someone behind when climbing that rope...
A climb is a little bit different of a check than it seems. You've actually found the final one of the main powerful uses of a trivial DC. Climbing just to get to the other side is a "Succeed before you critically fail" check, not a success/fail. That means the schlub character with a 50/50 success chance actually has a greater than 90% chance to succeed before critically failing (it's 10/11, succeed on an 11 or higher, crit fail on a 1, ignore 2 through 10 and roll again). If the DC goes up even a little beyond that, the chances of the schlub character to succeed before a critical fail drastically decrease.
Would this be similar to a group of PCs trying to sneak up near an enemy campsite at night? Succeed before critically fail?
Going into the enemy I would adjudicate as succeed before fail, but just getting close is maybe different.
I always have players that WANT to stealth together, but it has never panned out, because the fighters and barbarians just can't.
I'm highly disappointed that from a playtest/marketing point of view, PF2 seems to be focusing on running pre-generated content for GMs. It's nice to tip the hat and say "this will appear in the final version", but if it's not being playtested or even made visible during the playtest, why should I assume that that content is good?
One of the great things about PF1 was the ability to import it into any world/use it in any campaign (fantasy obviously). PF2 seems to be ignoring this at best, or have it as a non-goal at worst.
I suspect that the reason they're not having a lot of custom campaign stuff in the playtest's rulebook is the same reason they really don't want people using things like houserules and homebrew in the playtest: They want solid, consistent data. Their pre-printed content is designed to test specific mechanics at specific times so they can get regulated, consistent data on how it does or does not work.
Pretty much. Playtest needs trustful data. This is not the kind of thing that goes on there.
Maveric28 wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
I like GM-set DCs. Players beware
Having bought the collector edition of the playtest book, I am highly disappointed that it will be missing a significant part of the rules
Which is exactly why I DIDN'T purchase the "collectors edition." As a playtest, the book will be completely obsolete within a year. After all, how many of you are still using the Pathfinder Beta that came out back in 2008? So I just didn't/don't see any point to a "collector's edition" other than money-grubbing to finance other future projects.
I personally think all playtest print products are basically "collector's stuff". Just for bragging rights.
I save my money for the big release ^^
I find it hard to read really long PDFs. Having the paper copy makes it a lot easier for me. But, there's also a reason I only got the paperback copy ^^
What happens if you fail the flat check at 0 resonance while using the potion? Did you drink the potion without effect and the potion is wasted? Or did you simply not drink the potion?
What about permanent items that require RP to activate? If the item is limited uses per day, does it count as a "use" if you try and fail?
Does it still count as overspending RP if you try and fail, raising the flat DC of further attempts?
My party didn't have enough fly to go around, so they teleported into Spurhorn, having been warned by Bescaylie and Efrixis that it was going to fail. But, the NPC pair decided that whatever happened, it was likely better if they were with the PCs.
However, I find the teleport trap to be REALLY lame. If any legionnaire is with the PCs, they know the answer. If that's the case, I really feel like this teleport trap situation would've been figured out by now. So, I'm making it harder. The lore question will remain more or less unchanged, except the specific names will be different. But on top of that, I bought a blank slide puzzle and wrote the names on the tiles, one letter per tile, and jumbled them up.
So the NPCs will still provide the names, but the players will have to solve the puzzle.
And if they get stuck or frustrated, I threw a Displacing Stone inside the golem. So if they kill it, it can move the 20000 lb stone away for a minute.
I've trying to figure this out for a while, so I hope it's not something obvious I've missed, but...
If Jadrenka violates the term of her Warden-ship, and Caigreal is already dead, what then?
Does the title go to one of the remaining hags?
If they're dead, does the title just sit with Jadrenka until Baba Yaga can come and pick a new one?
Does Jadrenka lose the title and leave Artrosa un-wardened?
Also given how often the AP mentions Jadrenka taking potshots at the PCs if she doesn't like him, I can't figure out why she wouldn't use the Ring to combine regeneration, teleportation and scrying to just whittle Vsevolod down over a couple of days.
That sounds like a total GM fiat type answer. Does the Mantle of Warden transfer automatically or does Baba Yaga have to transfer it?
If it's the latter, that's simple. If you decide it's the former, I'd go with what you said: Cagriel > One of the other hags > Stay with Jadrenka.
As for not taking Vsevolod out solo, that depends. How long has the Svathurim been there? That guy's got a pretty monstrous CMD, so casting teleport in its threatened range is risky business. And considering it can cross 100ft on a charge, even over the Pit, it might just be too risky to go in 1v2.
Okay. General consensus is that the permanent symbol will remain active for as long as someone is within their area (assuming that that's the triggering condition). It's unlikely the PCs will leave and reenter the area. That question was just for my own knowledge.
Thanks forum users!
So a permanent symbol that is triggered by creatures being in a room will just stay activated while the room is occupied? Okay.
What about if the room is left vacant for 24 hours and reentered?
Does a symbol spell reset, does it continue to be active forever (or until dispelled), or what?
I'm running an adventure wherein the PCs chose to get themselves stuck in a teleport trap.
I expect them to be stuck in there for some time.
I was thinking of putting a permanent symbol in there with them, probably pain, weakness, or sleep.
Since they're permanent, as long as they remain in the area they'll have to repeat their fort saves every 10 minutes per caster level, right?
In reading through Symbol and Permanency spell descriptions, I didn't see any "Once a creature saves they're immune for 24 hours" or any similar language.
Are staves worth using? The healing staff seems questionable at best to me.
One RP for a low impact passive benefit. Admittedly, having a bonus could be good, considering they scale with level now. Or do staff cantrips scale?
But is 1 RP for a spell from a staff even a good use? I guess maybe when using the staff's charges.
The other option seems kinda steep, though. 1 RP and a spell slot to use a spell from the staff seems high, especially since, from the preview, casters have fewer spell slots than PF1.
Finally, who can use a staff? The post mentions spellcasters, but nothing in the actual description seemed to require spellcasting.
I think y'all are missing the potential of a flat-footed condition vs a flanking bonus. For one, assuming the condition is applied universally (and not just to specific actions), that means a rogue can sneak attack with a ranged weapon when their allies are flanking. The big bad is distracted by two beefy swordsdudes, and the rogue can unleash holy retribution on those heretics. The sorcerer now has a higher chance to crit their ray of disintigration by virtue of their allies flanking it. This is just speculation, but could open some really awesome strategic options! (Summon monster anyone?)
I read that differently from you. To me: "usually you're flat-footed to a creature that's flanking you " means that only the flanking creatures treat the one in the middle as flat-footed.
I'm not a big fan of flanking applying the flat-footed condition instead of giving the attacker a bonus. I understand that mechanically it's equivalent. To me, however, there's a different feel to it.
Just in general, I like to give a benefit to the PCs, instead of a negative to the NPCs. It's better to give the players something good than the enemies something bad, even if it works out the same. You're rewarding THEM.
It also seems like it'll be very slightly harder to adjudicate regularly. Most of my players are pretty casual, and I can just about guarantee that as GM I'll have to remind them that they're flat-footed because they're being flanked every single instance that it happens. Which is gonna suck.
It's awesome being able to sometimes turn a PC's miss into a hit when I remind them that they're flanking in PF1.
It's gonna feel worse turning a miss into a hit when I remind them to apply that minus 2 to their AC and turn a monster's miss into a hit in PF2.
I like having the relevant save in the stat block portion of the spell like in PF1, but in these new spells you have to hunt thru the text to find if its F, R or W or none at all.
It all seems pretty cool though.
I'm gonna second that thought. Being able to see what the initial save type is at a glance will be nice.
If such a chain exists, I agree with you it will only take the massive brain trust of the player base weeks to find it. So why not let them find it during the playtest? If so, then of course we will amend or drop the feat, not publish it unchanged and hope people don't figure it out. That would defeat the purpose of playtesting it.
First, thank you for responding. I appreciate your not only acknowledging my concern, but taking time to respond.
If I thought it was "possible" that some class ability was liable to be problematic, I would hope that I would rather it not be possible. I guess I don't understand why allow such a thing if it's even possible?
I envision that playtesting is about tweaks and fine tuning as opposed to a search for game-breaking exploits or proof of concept.. Or rather, I would nope that lack of these exploits being discovered would not be viewed as assurance that they don't exist.
Another reason not to let it be play tested is that it might be immensely popular and then you're going to have to deal with expectation if you realize that it is problematic. Worse, there may be a tendency to downplay the significance of the problem on account of its popularity.
Yet another problem with expecting play testing to provide any proof is that the players won't have all the moving pieces. As new spells come out and new abilities and feats and multi-class options come out, you increase the likelihood of something that might be possible becomes reality.
Finally, I'm not convinced playtesters are necessarily looking to break the game. There's going to be a learning curve and most players are simply going to see if they like the classes as opposed to can the find something that is unbeatable. I'd be very curious to hear what the threshold would be for it to be acknowledged as a problem.
So I still don't understand why you would let something ride that could possibly be a problem instead of saying we don't want anything in the game that could...
That's the whole purpose of testing: to find if something IS possible. There's a difference between something being possible and it being possible that something is possible. In the first case, the outcome can be attained. In the second, there's a chance that the outcome can be attained. We're living in the second. So testing is needed to see if the outcome (breaking the feat) is attainable. If it is, next it has to be determined if it's a problem. If the feat is able to be broken frequently to great effect, that's a problem. If it is only able to be broken under certain circumstances that don't arise often and don't crowd out the usefulness of the rest of the PCs, it may not be a problem.
The design team is more limited in its ability to look at things than the player base. They DON'T think the things they're releasing are broken, else they wouldn't be releasing it. They're also fallible humans, so they can be wrong. And that's the whole point of the playtest. We get to put eyes on the prize and see if we catch anything they miss.
If it ends up as broken, problematic, and popular then it probably will have to be changed. However, this early in development there's a chance that they can tweek it in a way that keeps it strong without being overpowered. Hell, maybe the problem lies more with the spell combinations than the feat.
IMO, this is a better approach than deciding after the fact that something is overpowered. Just look what happened to the poor Jingasa.
This is always my biggest fear, but I feel like historically Paizo have erred on this side of caution when releasing new material. Few of the options presented in newer books feels like it's really power creep.
Besides, why hamstring something because it MIGHT be a problem in the future? Haven't you seen Minority Report?
I think you're underestimating the power gamers. I know several people, myself included, are going to try and make the most ridiculous OP characters possible with the new rules, just to see what the new system will allow.
Plenty of people are going to do as you described as well. Takes all kinds.
Because it's a playtest. It can be better to try something that fails than to not try it at all.
I could be wrong about all of this, because I'm (obviously) not on the design team. But we clearly have a different perspective on things.
Am I the only one bothered that Pathfinder Society Lore is a skill?
Depends, what bothers you about it?
Assuming it works like background skills in Unchained, the actual skill is "Lore" which you can select more than once. Your focus within the skill is "Pathfinder Society." Equally valid choice
Think of it like a very specialized knowledge skill. It's not something everyone is going to have, or even have the option to select.
I'm not the biggest fan of marrying the mechanics and the lore of Golarion, but whatever.
Pathfinder Society Lore just seems really narrow in scope compared to Underworld lore. Maybe on par with Smithing lore, but at least smithing is easy for a GM to implement. You know stuff about turning hunks of metal into shapes of metal.
Pathfinder Society lore requires their to be a Pathfinder Society in a given game (which may or may not be easy to the GM to throw together an analogous organization for a homebrew setting). Second, it requires the GM to know things about the organization for the player's choice to be meaningful.
Plus, with smithinhg you can frequently attempt to learn things about your foes and stuff. Even if the Pathfinder Society exists in a given game, if the adventure at hand doesn't involve the Society then the skill is worthless.
Plus, most of the times as a PFS player I had to interact with an NPC, the NPC assumed we were murdering graverobbers that were little if at at all better than the Aspis.
Who aspires to join an organization with THAT reputation?
TL;DR- Pathfinder Society Lore seems too narrow compared to the other lore skills and I don't particularly like it's inclusion in the beginning.
It’s an adventure-specific background. Presumably, the skill is relevant to the adventure. If you are playing a different adventure, you’ll likely stick to the Core Rulebook backgrounds.
Oh, I missed that! That's wonderful! Feelings adequately assuaged.
Am I the only one bothered that Pathfinder Society Lore is a skill?
Depends, what bothers you about it?
Assuming it works like background skills in Unchained, the actual skill is "Lore" which you can select more than once. Your focus within the skill is "Pathfinder Society." Equally valid choice
Think of it like a very specialized knowledge skill. It's not something everyone is going to have, or even have the option to select.
I'm not the biggest fan of marrying the mechanics and the lore of Golarion, but whatever.
Pathfinder Society Lore just seems really narrow in scope compared to Underworld lore. Maybe on par with Smithing lore, but at least smithing is easy for a GM to implement. You know stuff about turning hunks of metal into shapes of metal.
Pathfinder Society lore requires their to be a Pathfinder Society in a given game (which may or may not be easy to the GM to throw together an analogous organization for a homebrew setting). Second, it requires the GM to know things about the organization for the player's choice to be meaningful.
Plus, with smithinhg you can frequently attempt to learn things about your foes and stuff. Even if the Pathfinder Society exists in a given game, if the adventure at hand doesn't involve the Society then the skill is worthless.
Plus, most of the times as a PFS player I had to interact with an NPC, the NPC assumed we were murdering graverobbers that were little if at at all better than the Aspis.
Who aspires to join an organization with THAT reputation?
TL;DR- Pathfinder Society Lore seems too narrow compared to the other lore skills and I don't particularly like it's inclusion in the beginning.
