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I plan to change the proficiency bonus of Untrained Kingdom skills from a flat 0 (at all levels) to Level -2 instead.
In the early game, this will have almost no impact, but at higher levels this will prevent scaling Control DCs from making a substantial percentage of checks effectively impossible.
some of the factors that make this a helpful approach:
Kingdom rules are kind of like an alternate PF2e universe where:
- There were only 4 attributes
- Each one tied to 4 skills, for a total of 16 skills
- Every check uses one of the skills
- Almost every important check was tied to a DC based on the PC's level (almost, but not exactly the table in PF2e's default level-based DCs)
- There was only a single PC in the party, so no way to get someone else to cover the skills
- The single PC got 6 trained skills, but could give up feat slots or skill increases (gets 9 of each) to become trained in more
And as a result:
- Untrained skills gradually become catastrophically bad, and at higher levels gradually become guaranteed fail/crit-fails. The PC is forced to become trained in those skills, giving up feats or other proficiency increases, or accept terrible results on 10 of 16 skills.
Kingdom rules are kind of like an alternate PF2e universe where:
- There were only 4 attributes
- Each one tied to 4 skills, for a total of 16 skills
- Every check uses one of the skills
- Almost every important check was tied to a DC based on the PC's level (almost, but not exactly the table in PF2e's default level-based DCs)
- There was only a single PC in the party, so no way to get someone else to cover the skills
- The single PC got 6 trained skills, but could give up feat slots or skill increases (gets 9 of each) to become trained in more
And as a result:
- Untrained skills gradually become catastrophically bad, and at higher levels gradually become guaranteed fail/crit-fails. The PC is forced to become trained in those skills, giving up feats or other proficiency increases, or accept terrible results on 10 of 16 skills.
I did some quick math, assuming the use of control DC, that size bonuses to those DCs increase (at levels 5, 10, 14, and 18), with the maximum attribute bonus (+4 to +6 at 20), with full status bonuses from leaders, with maximum item bonus for level (often not even possible, since they tend to be for specific uses of a skill), with no circumstance bonus, and with no penalties of any kind.
- The required roll to succeed on an untrained check goes from 8 to 32 (at levels 1 and 20, and again, this is mostly best case scenario). At level 10 you only succeed (with a crit) on a nat 20 (and you crit fail on a 10), from levels 11 to 17 a nat 20 only gets a success (crit fail from 12 to 18), and from 18 to 20 a nat 20 is the only way to not crit fail.
- The impact of this is that things that were pretty possible untrained (like Establish Farmland or Go Fishing) gradually become impossible (and you usually trigger the crit fails for a Crop Failure or lost fishers to tragic accidents).
I would strongly recommend GMs tackle this in one of a few ways:
- The simplest to implement (and what I plan to do) is to change Untrained to scale with level, e.g., "level -2." DCs scale faster than level, so untrained skills will still gradually get harder to succeed with but generally still be possible under good conditions. They'll still lag behind trained (effectively at a -4), and will still be unable to do anything that requires trained. It's also very slightly worse at level 1 versus the base rules (proficiency gives -1 total instead of 0), but that's very minor.
- A harder approach would be to manually determine which specific kingdom skill use cases should use non-scaling DCs (there are a few in the story, but really the only thing in the kingdom rules that doesn't is construction of specific buildings). This would also have an impact that higher-level kingdoms basically autosucceed at stuff that was possible for low-level kingdoms.
- Somewhere in the middle is granting extra trained skills (maybe one for each leader role filled simultaneously), which still has catastrophic outcomes for some skills later, but just those specific skills (I'm not really a fan of this).
- Add an alternate use for fame/infamy points, maybe for a guaranteed success
- Add ways for the party to deal with the problems outside of the kingdom turns (which is called out for on a bunch of events as areas where the GM could add a quest)
- The simplest to implement (and what I plan to do) is to change Untrained to scale with level, e.g., "level -2." DCs scale faster than level, so untrained skills will still gradually get harder to succeed with but generally still be possible under good conditions. They'll still lag behind trained (effectively at a -4), and will still be unable to do anything that requires trained. It's also very slightly worse at level 1 versus the base rules (proficiency gives -1 total instead of 0), but that's very minor.
- A harder approach would be to manually determine which specific kingdom skill use cases should use non-scaling DCs (there are a few in the story, but really the only thing in the kingdom rules that doesn't is construction of specific buildings). This would also have an impact that higher-level kingdoms basically autosucceed at stuff that was possible for low-level kingdoms.
- Somewhere in the middle is granting extra trained skills (maybe one for each leader role filled simultaneously), which still has catastrophic outcomes for some skills later, but just those specific skills (I'm not really a fan of this).
- Add an alternate use for fame/infamy points, maybe for a guaranteed success
- Add ways for the party to deal with the problems outside of the kingdom turns (which is called out for on a bunch of events as areas where the GM could add a quest)
Some side effects of level -2 to untrained skills:
- The players are less likely to spend kingdom feats/skill increases on new trained skills. This seems fine, generally. It's still going to be tempting as the jump from untrained to trained is still +4.
- The players might want more feats to pick from - they get 1 free, can pick 9, and there are only 17 in the book, so I might homebrew up a few more.
- The kingdom is more likely to have a couple of skills it's just great at, as the players can spend them boosting skills up to legendary if they want. This mostly just keeps them at the same spot on the treadmill they were at level 1 if they were trained in the skill, anyway, due to the increased scaling for DCs.
- The players are less likely to spend kingdom feats/skill increases on new trained skills. This seems fine, generally. It's still going to be tempting as the jump from untrained to trained is still +4.
- The players might want more feats to pick from - they get 1 free, can pick 9, and there are only 17 in the book, so I might homebrew up a few more.
- The kingdom is more likely to have a couple of skills it's just great at, as the players can spend them boosting skills up to legendary if they want. This mostly just keeps them at the same spot on the treadmill they were at level 1 if they were trained in the skill, anyway, due to the increased scaling for DCs.
There are also a few mitigations possible for the party to tackle through optimization:
– They could spend a bunch of kingdom feats/skill increases on getting skills trained, but it feels almost forced. Probably mostly burning feats is the smarter call (even if it takes nearly all of them); since DCs scale, the only way to keep your top skills as easy at endgame as they were at the beginning is by boosting them up toward Legendary. There's also a bunch of buildings that require trained/expert/master to build at all.
- They can do a lot of "Focused Attention" to get +2 circumstance bonuses. This is basically "aid" without penalty for failing the initial aid roll. The DC stays at 20 so it can become very reliable for trained skills. The Cooperative Leadership feat makes the benfit a +3, and when the kingdom reaches level 11 you can't crit fail at the aided check.
- They could get a few other feats that make dealing with bad skills easier, like Practical Magic (making it cheaper to hire adventurers to solve problems + letting you roll magic for engineering) or Pull Together (flat check to turn critical failure into failure, not quite as effective when you're critically failing checks often).
- They could embrace Magic and Supernatural Solution as the cure to all issues, prepping those in advance for skills that you know you'll roll, and trading Resource Points for competence elsewhere. This is still really good with non-catastrophic Untrained proficiency, but not as necessary.
– They could spend a bunch of kingdom feats/skill increases on getting skills trained, but it feels almost forced. Probably mostly burning feats is the smarter call (even if it takes nearly all of them); since DCs scale, the only way to keep your top skills as easy at endgame as they were at the beginning is by boosting them up toward Legendary. There's also a bunch of buildings that require trained/expert/master to build at all.
- They can do a lot of "Focused Attention" to get +2 circumstance bonuses. This is basically "aid" without penalty for failing the initial aid roll. The DC stays at 20 so it can become very reliable for trained skills. The Cooperative Leadership feat makes the benfit a +3, and when the kingdom reaches level 11 you can't crit fail at the aided check.
- They could get a few other feats that make dealing with bad skills easier, like Practical Magic (making it cheaper to hire adventurers to solve problems + letting you roll magic for engineering) or Pull Together (flat check to turn critical failure into failure, not quite as effective when you're critically failing checks often).
- They could embrace Magic and Supernatural Solution as the cure to all issues, prepping those in advance for skills that you know you'll roll, and trading Resource Points for competence elsewhere. This is still really good with non-catastrophic Untrained proficiency, but not as necessary.
Some related challenges with skills:
- Feats tend to give status bonuses of +1, despite it being trivial to start even your first Kingdom turn with +1 status bonuses to all skills (from 4 invested leaders across one role for each attribute). So for a lot of feats the math increase is useless out of the gate; it's probably worth changing those to circumstance bonuses
- Kingdom size DC increases mostly negate the automatic increases in status bonuses from invested leaders
- Assurance mostly won't succeed against control DCs due to DCs outscaling trained proficiency and size DC increases affecting the DC, not the roll
- Kingdom events almost exclusively require a single skill to resolve (there are basically two story ones that have alternatives)
- For random events, they're basically not going to benefit from item bonuses (from structures) because they won't be the specific skill use
- Random events are also harder to plan for, since you didn't know they were going to come up so you probably didn't use Focused Attention or Supernatural Solution for the skill earlier in the kingdom turn.
- Event DC modifiers range from -1 to +2 for random events, but are almost all +0 or +1
- Story events change the Event DC modifier range to -2 to +4 (!!!) but are more likely to have alternate resolutions (like "go do a thing")
- Even a single point of unrest gives you a -1 penalty to every kingdom skill check; if you're at war, for instance, you get these every turn
- Bad things that happen tend to give unrest/ruin, making further bad things more likely, so presumably kingdom roll penalty death spirals are a real possibility
- Random events can give circumstance bonuses if a specific leader is a PC - for a party of 4, it can be a little better/worse than 50/50 depending on which 4 roles are filled by PCs
- A bunch of buildings require trained/expert/master to build (none require legendary), so spending skill increases on just "trained" can cut off some options
- Skills aren't created equal, but some of this is hidden from players (for example, 4 of the 16 skills are not used by random or story events)
- Feats tend to give status bonuses of +1, despite it being trivial to start even your first Kingdom turn with +1 status bonuses to all skills (from 4 invested leaders across one role for each attribute). So for a lot of feats the math increase is useless out of the gate; it's probably worth changing those to circumstance bonuses
- Kingdom size DC increases mostly negate the automatic increases in status bonuses from invested leaders
- Assurance mostly won't succeed against control DCs due to DCs outscaling trained proficiency and size DC increases affecting the DC, not the roll
- Kingdom events almost exclusively require a single skill to resolve (there are basically two story ones that have alternatives)
- For random events, they're basically not going to benefit from item bonuses (from structures) because they won't be the specific skill use
- Random events are also harder to plan for, since you didn't know they were going to come up so you probably didn't use Focused Attention or Supernatural Solution for the skill earlier in the kingdom turn.
- Event DC modifiers range from -1 to +2 for random events, but are almost all +0 or +1
- Story events change the Event DC modifier range to -2 to +4 (!!!) but are more likely to have alternate resolutions (like "go do a thing")
- Even a single point of unrest gives you a -1 penalty to every kingdom skill check; if you're at war, for instance, you get these every turn
- Bad things that happen tend to give unrest/ruin, making further bad things more likely, so presumably kingdom roll penalty death spirals are a real possibility
- Random events can give circumstance bonuses if a specific leader is a PC - for a party of 4, it can be a little better/worse than 50/50 depending on which 4 roles are filled by PCs
- A bunch of buildings require trained/expert/master to build (none require legendary), so spending skill increases on just "trained" can cut off some options
- Skills aren't created equal, but some of this is hidden from players (for example, 4 of the 16 skills are not used by random or story events)