I think in terms of strictly attack rolls proficiency as is works really well, just to clarify.

So to me the win win in this case is finding a way to keep weapons/attack rolls intact while providing a more satisfactory approach to skills.

To me, skills feats do not accomplish that and even with the addition of trained only actions for skills (which conceptually right now are lackluster since some things are extremely exclusive when they shouldn't be or are so inclusive they're a non issue).

Even outside the above, it does not make sense for those with little to no training due to level alone to be so significantly better than lower level.

It's boring for all members of the party to be capable of rolling outstandingly supernaturally well simply because of their level even if they're untrained. It makes my Rogues ability to roll considerably high in stealth trivial if the wizard can roll nearly as high 75% of the time.

They discussed signature skills as being a way to grant "role protection" but in reality the biggest thing I see jeopardizing role protection currently is the fact that level makes everyone good at everything with relatively minor bonus differences. signature skills need to go but proficiency in a skill needs to feel like opening a gate, not a doggy door. Maybe skill feats alone can solve that but I think the rolls calculations could be tuned. Sometimes it's difficult to quantify how well a skill feat is going to perform, it's very dependent on how often your GM presents an opportunity to use that feat in a lot of cases.

I think there's a better answer here somewhere, but where it kinda depends on how you view the game.

The answer probably lies in not having level bonus at all.

High-level characters will already be better at most skills simply by virtue of having better equipment, higher stats from leveling, and more skill advances by which to have trained or higher skills.

Whilst skill feats are cool and allow you to do some wonderful stuff, MOST of the time you're still testing against trivial(ordinary) skill checks..

Having given it more thought over the last couple of days I have to say im not a fan of treat wounds being able to cure ALL hp damage in a relatively short period of time, and certainly not 1/2 or ALL HP damage on a single skill check as mentioned above. That approach would do much to make magical healing irrelevant.

I think I prefer this version
TREAT WOUNDS
Requirements: You must use healer’s tools (see page 186).

You spend 10 minutes treating A living creatures ( you may targeting yourself, if you so choose), then attempt a Medicine check individually for each creature. The DC is usually the medium DC for your level, though the GM might adjust this DC due to circumstances, such as trying to rest during volatile weather or when treating magically cursed wounds.

Each successive use of treat wounds on a single creature increases the DC by 1

Success You treat the patients’ wounds. Each patient recovers Hit Points equal to its Constitution modifer × your level or equal to just your level, whichever is higher.

Critical Success As success, but increase the healing by your level ×3.

Critical Failure The patients are bolstered against your Treat Wounds.

You may NOT heal a creature to more than 1/2 its total hitpoints in this way.

I noticed the omission of the LG requirement in the multiclass archetype. I thought it an oversight

The healing is NOT unlimited. If you crit fail, you can't use it for 24 hours.

I have a healer-less playtest group and I'm eager to test this out.

Im running a 3 person party in module 2 with no healing which will be an interesting test too.. might see how they go with adding +1 to the DC each time they make a treat wounds test.

given the number of days it takes me (the real person) to heal up when I injure or accidentally cut myself - even with first aid, I reckon my players can take a bit longer to get from near death to full health without the aid of magical healing

I've only used the index a couple of times (mostly because im doing an online search for the rules)

Couldn't find :
large weapon sizes (one of the players had decided to be a giant totem barbarian) I now know it to be on p91

how to calculate an items level

perhaps a section at the start of the book explaining some of these definitions for level and other universal terms could be useful

I kinda like the new treat wounds mechanic.. but it did occur to me at first reading that without some sort of actual limit (not the wait 10 minutes then do it again) that it might be at risk of replacing the CLW wand that PF2 was trying to combat.

My group was discussing this last night.. one of the tenants of this game going back to its foundations in the 70's in basic D&D (and I know this is a 'different system') is that an 18 in a stat was the PINNACLE of human capability.

WIth the plus two's across the board at character creation and then 4 x2 bonuses at levels 5,10,15 and 20 means that ANY character can end up with a stat line that is 18/18/18/18/18/18, oh and one spare boost to make one of those a 19.

It seems both implausible, but a highly likely scenario as players build out characters to higher levels.

For as long as there have been RPGs, there has never been a question of wether we should try to make charcter advancement feel meaningful. Advancing in your class and becoming more powerful is one of the pillars upon which RPGs are built. However, how do we achieve this has varied a lot and ranges on two gradients, that I will refer to as Flavour and Power.

Flavour: is the measure of how "cool" something you can do feels. How glad you are you can do it and how good you feel when your character gets to do it. An example of Flavourful character advancement in 2e is the skill feat "LEGENDARY THIEF". Being able to steal a sleeping guard's armor while he's wearing it feels incredibly cool and is a great capstone for the most legendary among thieves!

Power: is the measure of how impactful something you can do feels. How much will it change the status quo if you do it, and how high is the chance of it being successful. An example of Powerful character advancement in 2e is the level 20 figther class feat "WEAPON SUPREMACY". Being able to make an extra action every turn without any magical help is very powerful and can provide enourmous amounts of combat power (Assuming of course, there is not an easier way to Quicken the Figther).

With those terms defined, I would like to say that, while no advancement is ever completely lacking in A or B, there are some great examples of things very lacking on either of them. For a flavourful Advancement that is not powerful, we can take a look at the level 14 monk class feat "TONGUE OF SUN AND MOON". This ability, while incredibly flavourful to the idea of the mystic monk that transcends the barriers of mortality through asceticism, is not very powerful. In this slot, it contends with other, much more powerful monk feats such as "MOUNTAIN ROOT QUAKE" and "WILD WINDS GUST" and is less likely to be picked, which hurts how much the player "feels like a cool monk" in favour of combat power.

And for an example of pure power without flavour, Let us talk about my...

great idea.. i really like it.

would be even better if those additional proficiency ranks gave like a +2 per level, which would be more meaningful too.

Bob, I don't know if you saw it or not, but I responded to your earlier thread here.

I appreciate your desire for monster types to have a longer shelf life, but you are free to design an entire 20 level AP around orcs if you want, you just need to start giving them reasons to be more powerful instead of making the PCs fight the same enemy stat blocks for 10+ levels.

I promise you the developers have considered not adding level to proficiency. They are probably still considering it, but they want a game where level is a very significant part of what makes your character powerful. They have talked about wanting high level game play to feel completely different than low level. That includes facing different monsters.

I concur.. if your character level gets added to everything from proficiency, to BAB, to AC, to skill DC's it actually makes it a zero-sum game. Why have it at all?

The real problem here honestly is that we didn't see enough of the Proficiency Gating in action in the rules. As a numbers game yeah it's a huge difference by level with Prof. not really meaning anything it's gated actions like traps and locks that will make a lower level expert shine over a high level novice.

IMO to be fair, 20 hobgoblins SHOULD be a threat to a level 20 fighter.. he'll definitely take mosts of them down, will have better equipment, doing more damage and be able to take more hits, but it still should be a challenge

I am curious to know why the weapon damage dice section was hidden away in the sidebar of the fighter class.. I mean I get that fighters (and perhaps barbarians) are more likely to use oversized weapons than other classes. Having it on p91 seems to me to more an opportunistic use of available sidebar space than putting it in the 'playing the game' chapter with the actual combat rules and where readers should normally expect it to be. If i hadn't googled where to find it I'd have no idea particularly as it's not in the book index.