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So, I've been thinking about how Pathfinder 2 is handling feats and progression, being somewhat dissatisfied with it. This led to the line of thought: How would I do this if I were designing this game?

Okay, rather than calling them feats, let's just call them "choices" for now. As you create and progress your character, you make various choices for your character. This is fine.

Something important to do is to separate combat and non-combat choices. Combat is a big part of Pathfinder, and it creates problems if a character is too strong or too weak compared to the other characters in combat. If combat and non-combat choices aren't separate, then those who use choice that could be used for combat for non-combat things can end up too weak to meaningfully participate in combat encounters, and for the reverse, they could end up so strong they may invalidate the contributions of the rest of the party during combat. Since these scenarios are bad, combat and non-combat choices needs to be separate.

So we have combat choices and non-combat choices being separate things. Next thing we need to worry about is the different requirements for combat choices and non-combat choices. Specifically, for combat choices, we generally want to build tall. For non-combat choices, we generally want to build wide.

Starting with the combat choices, "building tall" means that the choices needs to increase in power over time; they need to be scalable. Numbers go up over the course of a character's adventuring life, so the combat choices needs to account for that. So, I thought of the idea of "Paths" for combat choices. You can choose one or more Paths at level one and can either go into new Paths or invest more into an existing Path over future levels.

One possible Path could be Sneak Attack for the Rogue. Sneak Attack adds a bit of damage at level 1, but needs to increase in damage in order to keep up with the increasing amounts of HP enemies get. So in this Path, the Sneak Attack automatically advances in how much damage it deals as you increase in level. Additionally, you can invest in it with future combat choices in order to, for example, add effects to the Sneak Attack or make it easier to do. Alternately, you may want to go into a different Path altogether for enhanced versatility.

Okay, so combat choices can be done with this Path thing, what about non-combat choices? Skill feats seems good for that, but that by itself feels a bit lacking. Well, more than lacking, it doesn't have that personal touch, it feels a bit too generic and, well, everybody could get them. They're not you.

So, I think it's possible to do them more class-like. Make them class feats, special non-combat things that showcase the class themselves, rather than just a skill. Many of these can have skill proficiency requirements, but they could feel like they belong to the class. I feel that could do a good job.

Between these combat choices and non-combat choices, probably best to give the player choices in these in alternate levels. Ah, right, there's Ancestry feats as well, isn't there? Well, we can make half of the non-combat choices dedicated to these. Then we could…

…Wait…

At this point, I realized I basically just reinvented what Paizo did for Pathfinder 2. The combat choices are class feats, non-combat are general and skill feats. And there's also ancestry feats. The class feats also generally fit what I've described as "Paths" as well, although not quite laid out in such a way. The non-combat is more class-agnostic than what I would like though, but the general concept stuff is similar enough.

Where to go from here?

To be honest, I think the current system came from pretty logical steps, but although my line of thoughts ended up in similar place as Paizo, they're not the same(to be fair, probably because I read the playtest before this thought exercise). So, why the differences? Well, it has to do with what I feel is lacking in the current playtest.

First thing I feel is lacking is that it feels like the current class feats, well, you can invest your class feats into a certain direction, and it feels like you'll fall behind if you're not consistently investing in a specific direction. Admittedly, my current Paths idea has a similar issue, but I feel its auto-progression can give space where you can't simply continuously invest in one playstyle and give room to diversify. So, to put it in another way, and in bold because it's important, I think you shouldn't be able to invest all of your class feats in a specific direction to force the player to invest in something that's not simply the single style, and this will give more incentive to move away from simple cookie-cutter builds. Having more auto-advancement in class feats can help with this, creating blank levels where continuing to invest in that single style is impossible.

The other thing I feel is lacking is, well, the classic problem: The Fighter. The Fighter is good at, well, fighting. More specifically, it's good at martial combat, so pretty much all Fighter feats goes towards advancing that. The Fighter isn't really the only one that suffers from this, just the most. Nearly all of the Barbarian's feats only affects its rage.

So the big problem this gives the Fighter is that it doesn't give the Fighter much to do outside of combat, especially not anything unique. I feel giving the Fighter more skill ranks is only a bandaid for the problem, when it comes to skill, it's not like it's going to beat the Rogue. Now, signature skills do go some way of helping with this problem, but I don't really like that entire mechanic, but that'll be for another post.

How do we fix this? Well, I gave a solution above. We should make more general/skill feats class-specific, so that each class has more unique things they can do outside of combat. I don't mean make the current general/skill feats class-specific, but make new ones that show off what each class is about.

That's about all I have to say currently on the matter. I have more details, but they're details and are less important. Thank you for reading.

tl;dr: Bold stuff.

So, characters of any class starts with N + Intelligence modifier skills trained, where N varies depending on the class. Since it's the modifier and not bonus, this means that it's possible to start with no skills trained, correct? How does negative skills trained work?

Is this just starting skills? In other words, if the character's Intelligence increases later, do they get more skills? If it decreases later(let's say through retraining), do they lose skills?

Telekinetic Projectile is a cantrip that starts with doing 1d10 damage. Its damage "increases" to 1d8 + spellcasting modifier when heightened to 3rd. It then increases to 2d10 + modifier at 5th, 3d10 + modifier at 7th, and 4d10 + modifier at 9th.

The amount of damage at 3rd appears to be mistaken given the pattern, and should probably be 1d10 + spellcasting modifier.

Let's be quick and simple here: If we want to split up traits that comes from a character's… for the lack of a better word, let's say genetics, and traits that comes from a character's culture and how they grew up, wouldn't splitting the two between ancestry and backgrounds make more sense than trying to put it all into ancestry?

I imagine this can help with characters who were born a dwarf but was raised by elves, for instance, exhibit both dwavern racial traits along side elven cultural ones.

A lot of games works on a system of attacks and defences, and Pathfinder isn't really any different.

On a magic side, the defences are the three saves: Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. Most magical attacks goes up against one of these saves. Having three defences like this is useful because it means a character can be really good in one or even two saves and still have a weakness the attacker can attack.

Physical is a bit… different. In Pathfinder 1, there's three defences on the physical side, kinda: AC, flatfooted AC, and touch AC. Or to put it another way, you have your base AC, movement-derived AC, and armour AC. Flatfooted is your base + armour, touch is base + movement, and your normal AC has all three.

Generally, if a character has high AC, it's either on the armour side or the movement side. Being able to negate one of these creates a weakness for the character.

…Except that's generally not very easy. Not to mention, there's another issue in the attacks.

The difference in physical attacks isn't based on flatfooted AC or touch AC for the most part, but more focused on fewer stronger attacks vs more weaker attacks. In theory, the fewer stronger attacks would work better against higher AC targets and the many weaker attackers better against lower AC targets.

All of this overall creates a rather overly-complex yet ineffective attacks vs defences system for physical attackers.

But enough about PF1.

In PF2, flatfooted appears to just be -2 AC, although touch remains. Regardless, the critical hit and proficiency system seems like it'll mean that higher AC is more clearly good against pretty much any sort of physical attack. If the foe is using fewer, stronger attacks that have a high chance of hitting, then a higher AC means that there's less criticals, which helps drastically reduce the amount of receiving damage. Against the more, weaker attacks with individually smaller chance of hitting, higher AC will simply reduce the number of hits, which also helps drastically reduce the amount of receiving damage.

This means the two attacking styles are pretty similar in effect, they're not noticeably better or worse against different targets. I feel this could be a problem with differentiating between the attacking styles. While I don't think one should be outright better than the other, it can help make the two feel different if one is stronger in certain situations but weaker than others.

So one sort of defense that does help with this is Damage Reduction. DR is more effective against the weaker, more hits style, and less effective against the other type, since it applies to each hit. If this is used to create situations one sort of style is more effective than the other, then it'll mean that, by default, the many attacks style should deal more damage than the stronger attacks style. The stronger attacks style should gain the advantage when DR is involved, but less overall damage otherwise. This is one way the two can be balanced against each other.

But I'm not sure if this is really the best way of differentiating between physical attacks and defences. I do think this is a problem to be thought about, however.

So, thinking about the proficiency system for a bit, I thought of something: What if the schools of magic each had their own proficiency?

How it could work is something like this: When you gain your first level in Wizard, for example, you gain ranks of proficiency in some schools of magic. Rolls involving spells of that school uses that proficiency.

Each spell would also have its own proficiency requirements, so if you're untrained, you can't learn spells of that school, but you can learn basic spells when trained, and more advanced spells the higher rank of proficiency you have.

You'll gain ranks as you level up, but by default, you can only really specialize in a single school(or alternatively become a weak but versatile generalist). However, you can use feats in order to gain extra ranks.

Although I say this, it's probably unlikely to be actually implemented, as the system doesn't really make that much sense with the spell level system we already know PF2 will be using.

That said, I do still feel it can be an interesting possibility. Thoughts?

Since archetypes are now going to be a part of the base game, this means everything can be made with it in mind. So, with that in mind, I think it could be better archetypes simply added to the base class, rather than replacing some features.

This can allow for "universal" archetypes that aren't connected to classes, as long as it's balanced properly. Which I think could be really neat. Something like Animal Companion can be something that can be added to any class.

So, there's a couple of things I think could be rather neat with this idea. First is having two archetypes in addition to your class. The base classes can be pretty basic but with two archetypes, you'll be able to mix and match and create all sorts of interesting things. This also helps against level dipping. You don't need to level dip into Barbarian to get Rage if you can just take the Raging archetype for any class. It'll be a weaker version than what the Barbarian normally gets, but it'll at least level up with your character.

Another thing that would be neat is if certain combinations of class and archetypes have special synergies. A Wizard's animal companion for example, could also serve as their familiar. This could go deeper, let's say letting a Barbarian get a Wild Shape-like for an archetype, this will allow the Barbarian to literally transform into beast when raging. We could also have the same Barbarian have a Draconic Bloodline archetype, which gives them access to some spells and lets them wild shape into a dragon when raging.

I don't really think that's going to happen, more likely it will be a bonus(instead of replacing existing features) with some universal archetypes, but only one instead of two and limited if any bonuses for having specific combinations. Will probably err on the side of more class-specific archetypes than universal ones as well.

Either way, what are your own thoughts and idea on how the archetype system could work?

<Massive delete to get to main point quicker>

Which leads me to the main purpose of this: attack checks and armor class. All of these are supposed to be working off the same system, so that should also include attack checks and armor class. This means an attack check is d20 + proficiency rank + level + attribute, and AC is 10 + proficiency + level + attribute.

At a glance, this feels fine, but we're missing a pretty crucial element of the game: the armor itself. If we use similar values for armor as Pathfinder 1, then we're not looking at very many hits unless weapons get similar bonuses. Having any bonuses from armor at all significantly decreases the number of hits done. Additionally, this unified system is supposed to allow for using different checks against different DCs, but this makes attacks and AC out of alignment from everything else.

Based on this, I have a couple of possibilities on how this could work:

• Armor by itself doesn't give AC bonuses. Instead AC is done through proficiency. Fighters will have Expert heavy armor proficiency to start, so they start with +2 AC while wearing heavy armor. I don't really think they're going to do this on the sole basis that I think it'll feel really bad.
• Attacks and AC are out of alignment from everything else. Weapons gives bonuses to attack checks depending on the weapon and armor gives bonuses to AC depending on the armor. However, these aren't used for most other checks vs AC, since they'll be against Touch AC instead which does use the same format as the other checks. And weapon attacks simply aren't used against non-AC values. This feels more likely to me.

Any thoughts on this?

...six times. You somehow beat the odds and managed to roll eighteen(assuming 3d6, twenty-four if 4d6) ones during character creation. That means, before racial modifiers, you've got a three in each ability score.

You decide to take this up as a challenge and try building a character that's as effective as you can build it.

How would you do it? What will you make?

This is just something that came to my mind. I was thinking the worst-case scenario could be rather interesting. Sometimes you're dealt a bad hand, but there are those who can make wonderful things with it.

Hello. I've been reading a bunch of threads here and have come across the subject of the Fighter's power. I've read some things suggesting that the Fighter is lacking in power, or to be more precise, in versatility. Considering my experience with the game, I'm probably one of the last people who should try to fix something like this, or know if it even should be fixed, but I want to try anyways as sometimes my mind fills up with ideas and I kinda want to try doing something with them.

The idea so far comes in the form of an archetype. This archetype is stronger than the base fighter but I don't think it's out of the line of the stronger classes. It comes with the goal of making the Fighter more flexible and easier to use, but not necessarily giving it more raw power, as that's something that the Fighter does not seem to necessarily need.

That said, I don't know much about balance and stuff, so if it's possible, having help in those fields would be nice. Additionally, if you have any other ideas, criticisms, or whatever, that'll be nice to hear as well. So anyways, here's the idea:

Trained Fighter

Skill Training (Ex): The Trained Fighter gains 2 bonus skill points per level. These bonus skill points are applied before the Intelligence modifier.

Bonus Feats: The Trained Fighter gains Iron Will as a bonus feat at the 1st level. This replaces the bonus feat gained at the 1st level. For the purpose of archetypes, this does not count as changing or replacing the 1st level bonus feat, and may be replaced or changed by another archetype.

Combat Training (Ex): At the 2nd level and every even level afterwards, the Trained Fighter gains a Combat Training Stage. Lower-numbered stages are considered to be prerequisites for the higher-numbered stages in the same type. This replaces the bonus feats the Fighter gains at each even level.

Retraining (Ex): Starting from the 2nd level, the Trained Fighter may retrain a Combat Training Stage by training for an hour a day for a week. By doing this, the Trained Fighter may lose a Combat Training Stage that's not a prerequisite for anything else to gain another Combat Training Stage they meet the prerequisites for.

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Combat Training

Two-Weapon Training
Stage I - The Fighter gains Two-Weapon Fighting and Two-Weapon Defense as bonus feats.
Stage II(Prerequisites: Level 6 Fighter) - The Fighter gains Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Double Slice as bonus feats. Additionally, the Fighter may now move up to half their move speed in between attacks while using Two-Weapon Fighting. This movement may be done in 5-feet increments and cannot be used in the same turn as a 5-foot step. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.
Stage III(Prerequisites: Level 11 Fighter) - The Fighter gains Greater Two-Weapon Fighting and Two-Weapon Rend as bonus feats. Additionally, the Fighter may now attack twice, once with each weapon, as a Standard action, taking normal Two-Weapon Fighting penalties.

Endurance Training
Stage I - The Fighter gains Endurance and Diehard as bonus feats.
Stage II(Prerequisites: Level 6 Fighter) - The Fighter gains Toughness and Heroic Recovery as a bonus feats.
Stage III(Prerequisites: Level 10 Fighter) - The Fighter gains Heroic Defiance as a bonus feat. Additionally, as a Standard Action, the Fighter may attempt a DC20 Will save. If the Fighter succeeds, the Fighter gains the benefit of the Freedom of Movement spell for 1 minute. This is considered an Extraordinary Ability.
Stage IV(Prerequisites: Level 14 Fighter) - The Fighter gains fire resistance 10 and cold resistance 10. Additionally, the Fighter gains the effect of a continuous Endure Elements spell. This is considered an Extraordinary Ability.

Two-Handed Weapon Training
Stage I - The Fighter gains Power Attack and Cleave as bonus feats.
Stage II - The Fighter gains Furious Focus, Great Cleave, and one of Improved Bull Rush, Improved Drag, Improved Overrun, or Improved Sunder as bonus feats.
Stage III - The Fighter gains Cleaving Finish, Improved Cleaving Finish, and the Greater version of the feat picked for Stage II as bonus feats. Additionally, when you deal damage with a weapon that you are wielding two-handed, you deal twice your strength bonus instead of 1-1/2 times.

Archery Training
Stage I - The Fighter gains Precise Shot and Rapid Shot as bonus feats.
(Sniper Subtype)Stage II(Prerequisites: Level 6 Fighter) - The Fighter gains Far Shot, Manyshot, and Clustered Shots as bonus feats.
(Point-Blank Shooter Subtype)Stage II - The Fighter gains Point-Blank Shot and Snap Shot as bonus feats.

Tactics Training
Stage I - The Fighter gains a teamwork feat as a bonus feat. The Fighter must meet the prerequisites for the feat. As a standard action, the Fighter can grant the feat to all allies that are within the number of feet equal to the Fighter's Charisma modifier times 5 who can hear and see the Fighter. The allies do not need to meet the prerequisites for the feat. This lasts for 5 rounds. Additionally, once per target per day, the Fighter may substitute an applicable knowledge check for an attack roll.

Okay, my brain seems to have stopped working, so I'll stop for now. Ideally, each of these training types would have 3-4 stages and there'll be a bunch of types for different types of training for common Fighter types, including stuff like the trip-happy versions which I've thought up of but seems to have taken a leave from my brain at the moment. Although some of this stuff is kinda lazy, I want to go beyond simple feats for these abilities.

In any case, I want to know what you guys think about this idea. Possible expansions would work too, as well as balancing and stuff.

...I'm probably an idiot for posting all this stuff.

If you have a damage penalty, let's say for having less than 10 Strength, is the penalty multiplied on a Critical Hit?

Looking at the combat section in the PRD gives two different answers:

A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on an attack roll is 20, and the multiplier is ×2.

Multiplying Damage: Sometimes you multiply damage by some factor, such as on a critical hit. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results.

This says modifiers, which takes in account both bonuses and penalties.

It seems that the critical hit section is more specific than the multiplying damage section, so would it overrule it? I recall hearing that more specific rules overrule more general rules, although I can't find a quote on that at the moment.

I have a few character concepts in mind and would like to know what would be a good way of building it. I don't have a particular game I'm building it for; I'm more trying to get a hold on as to how to build characters in general.

Character Concept
This is basically the first D&D character I've made but I haven't used it in Pathfinder or anything. This character is mostly defined by her singular strength: her awareness of her surroundings. She's incredibly perceptive, with heightened senses compared to most people. She often sees things that other people can't or don't perceive. Over time, the difference she finds between her perception of the world and others' leads to a loss of self-confidence and ends up being withdrawn socially. She tends to be rather practical over various matters and isn't the most fond of relying on others, although she will if she has to.

The initial concept had her using a crossbow and gauntlet as weapons, but that can be flexible. Um... not quite sure what else I can say about this character. I can give out a family tree, but I don't think that'll quite help for character building, and I'd rather be more flexible for something like this. One idea is that she's not particularly strong, so I want to lean her in more of a skill user.

In any case, this is a build I was thinking of:
Half-Elf Rogue[Scout] or Ninja[Scout] 1
STR 11 DEX 14 CON 7 INT 7 WIS 20 CHA 7 (Assuming 15-point buy)
STR 10 DEX 14 CON 7 INT 11 WIS 20 CHA 7 (Assuming 20-point buy)
STR 12 DEX 14 CON 8 INT 12 WIS 20 CHA 7 (Assuming 25-point buy)

Uses Light Crossbow and Gauntlet, not sure about armour.

Feats: Skill Focus(Perception) & Alertness

Skills:
Perception - 1(Rank) +3(Class Skill) +5(Wisdom) +5(Feat) +2(Racial) = +16
Sense Motive - 1(Rank) +3(Class Skill) +5(Wisdom) +2(Feat) = +11
Disable Device - 1(Rank) +3(Class Skill) +2(Dexterity) = +6
Stealth - 1(Rank) +3(Class Skill) +2(Dexterity) = +6
Survival - 1(Rank) +5(Wisdom) = +6
Heal - 1(Rank) +5(Wisdom) = +6
(20-point buy)Acrobatics - 1(Rank) +3(Class Skill) +2(Dexterity) = +6
(20-point buy)Profession(Cartographer) - 1(Rank) +3(Class Skill) +5(Wisdom) = +9
(25-point buy)Knowledge(Geography) - 1(Rank) +1(Intelligence) = +2

This is probably a pretty horrible build, but it's what I've thought up of thus far. I was thinking about using a Ranger for this, but the favoured enemy/favoured terrain seems a bit limiting. What are some thoughts? How would you build such a character?

I've been looking at the rules to see what happens in the case of a tie in opposed skill checks and I haven't really found too much. That said, I'll say what I have found and see what happens.

First thing I found was there doesn't seem to be any real general rules about what happens in the case of the tie in opposed checks, particularly in the case where something needs to happen(for example, Perception vs Stealth: if the stealthed character does not get spotted, they win, otherwise they lose, there can't really be a tie).

Bluff vs Sense Motive

Bluff is an opposed skill check against your opponent's Sense Motive skill. If you use Bluff to fool someone, with a successful check you convince your opponent that what you are saying is true.

A successful check lets you avoid being bluffed (see the Bluff skill).

Something I was thinking of when trying to figure this out was that a "successful check" includes the tie. Unfortunately, this doesn't give insight as to what happens for this particular opposition. They can't both be successful, nor can they both fail, so I don't know for anything with this yet.

Disguise vs Perception

Your Disguise check result determines how good the disguise is, and it is opposed by others' Perception check results. If you don't draw any attention to yourself, others do not get to make Perception checks. If you come to the attention of people who are suspicious (such as a guard who is watching commoners walking through a city gate), it can be assumed that such observers are taking 10 on their Perception checks.

Perception's description doesn't seem to have any mention of Disguise. In any case, there's no mention of a successful check for Disguise, so it seems like a successful check for Perception would see through the disguise, although there doesn't seem to be explicit rules for that. By "successful check", I'm referring to at least a tie, since a successful skill check is at least equal to the target DC.

Linguistics vs Linguistics

Your Linguistics check is opposed by the Linguistics check of the person who examines the document to verify its authenticity.

There's no real indication of who wins on a tie here.

Sleight of Hand vs Perception

When you use this skill under close observation, your skill check is opposed by the observer's Perception check. The observer's success doesn't prevent you from performing the action, just from doing it unnoticed.

If you try to take something from a creature, you must make a DC 20 Sleight of Hand check. The opponent makes a Perception check to detect the attempt, opposed by the Sleight of Hand check result you achieved when you tried to grab the item. An opponent who succeeds on this check notices the attempt, regardless of whether you got the item.

It seems that the Perception's success is what determines the winner here. As success defined as meet or beat, it seems that Perception would win ties.

Overall, assuming "successful" means successsful on a tie, Perception is the only skill with any wins on a tie. I could extend this by saying that the observer(Perception, Sense Motive, Linguistics examiner) has the advantage in these situations, although no rules seem to cover it.

Going into this, I thought there would be more evidence for who'll win opposed checks, but it seems there's less than I thought. Was there anything I missed?