Skill Feats: What Should Be Baked In?


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

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Liberty's Edge

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N N 959 wrote:
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Well, yes. :)

N N 959 wrote:
A more "elegant" system is that you automatically get better at skills associated with your class. But that would hamper customization (which is apparently king). So the compromise is we'll pretend that the general skill involves some arbitrary more specific skills which are being improved automatically, and players are getting Skill "Feats" which allow for more specific customization.

See, to reinforce the 'eye of the beholder thing' above, I don't think that's more elegant at all. Pigeonholing everyone's Skill Feat type stuff based on Class strikes me as extremely restrictive in a very un-fun way.

Now, I'd be perfectly happy if all martial Classes got some stuff like this on top of their freely chosen Skill Feats (casters get spells, they don't need extra Skill stuff beyond the default), but as the only avenue for Skill Feats? Not much fun for a lot of people, myself included.

Midnightoker wrote:
I definitely love the scalar principle, and certainly if most Skill Feats are available at the Trained level, that would assuage my concerns.

Personally, something like this is what I'd expect. How many higher level Skill Feats there are might vary, but I'm definitely expecting most 'Trained' ones to scale.

Midnightoker wrote:
I know everyone has pointed to Cat Fall as the gold standard of Skill Feats, but Cat Fall is also considerably less powerful and niche than potentially a feat combining "Swift Sneak" and other Skill Feats in Stealth.

Catfall is the 'gold standard' only inasmuch as it's an example of meaningful scaling. Power level wise, most people who use it as an example, myself included, think it's not super powerful and should maybe be improved in that regard.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
See, to reinforce the 'eye of the beholder thing' above, I don't think that's more elegant at all. Pigeonholing everyone's Skill Feat type stuff based on Class strikes me as extremely restrictive in a very un-fun way.

This is a whole thread in and of itself, which I am sure I could find in the Playtest section.

Suffice to say that I think getting rid of Signature Skills was throwing the baby out with the bathwater. PF1 had about 35 skills (not including the infinitely variable Craft and Profession types). Those skills weren't limiting (for me) because we got Skill points and in PFS, you can choose a trait to give you proficiency in essentially any skill you want.

Since PF2 removed skill points, Class Skill transformed into Signature Skill felt inordinately more restrictive. So I completely get why there was a mass revolt against Signature Skills. But for me, assigned Class Skills in PF1 helped defined the class and give it a distinct concept and that aspect feels like it's missing.

For me, there is still something off if anyone can choose any Skill and then everyone gets the same proficiency increases and none of it is tied to your class. Skill Feats don't really solve that problem for me, but then I don't think they are intended to solve that problem.

Now, maybe PF2 will automatically give proficiency increases in skills based on class. If so, that will fix some of the disconnect for me.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I'm not sure why anyone would optionally choose forced character restrictions unless it was for balance. I mean if your vision of class involves x skills then you can grab x skills. I don't see why any other character concepts should be limited due to that.


Malk_Content wrote:
I'm not sure why anyone would optionally choose forced character restrictions unless it was for balance. I mean if your vision of class involves x skills then you can grab x skills. I don't see why any other character concepts should be limited due to that.

Why should there even be classes? Why not just let people choose whatever they want to do? Why have spell lists? Why not let all casters choose from any spell?


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
N N 959 wrote:
Why should there even be classes? Why not just let people choose whatever they want to do? Why have spell lists? Why not let all casters choose from any spell?

Because another company has previously gone down that Dark Road and already publishes that game.


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Malk_Content wrote:
I'm not sure why anyone would optionally choose forced character restrictions unless it was for balance. I mean if your vision of class involves x skills then you can grab x skills. I don't see why any other character concepts should be limited due to that.

Some classes have nearly-mandatory skills that enable them to use their class features. Alchemists must know Crafting, Bards must know Performance, Rangers must know Survival, and Rogues must know Stealth and Thievery. Storywise, Clerics ought to know Religion, Druids ought to know Nature, and Wizards ought to know Arcana, but I don't think any of their key abilities make those mandatory.

Therefore, while other classes are free to use their skill increases for anything, the classes with mandatory skills must use one or more skill increases to keep class abilities relevant. After a Rules Update (probably Update 1.1) dropped Signature Skills, those classes became automatically trained in their mandatory skills, and were trained in fewer additional skills to make up for the benefit. A paladin trained in Religion, one skills determined by his choice of deity, and 3 other skills has less choice than a fighter trained in Acrobatics or Athletics and 4 other skills. Shouldn't a skill that is an essential part of the class be treated like a class ability rather than replace a voluntary choice?

Signature Skills were poorly implemented. They did not give the class any training in the skill and they locked most other classes out of the master and legendary proficiencies for that skill. That did not correct the problem. Nevertheless, the concept that some classes are naturally good at a skill they use every day fits our notions of how classes ought to be. The class skill concept in D&D 3rd Edition and Pathfinder 1st Edition gave an advantage to those skills so that the character could be good at what the class was expected to be good at. Pathfinder 1st Edition's version of class skills did not steal anything from the non-class skills.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Thats a good reason for some classes to get free increases in relevant areas. Not a good reason to mandate that a Wizard can never get past Expert in athletics.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

As for why not classless. I'm a big fan of classless systems but for a combat focused game like Pathfinder I admit that the class restrictions promote healthy balance (a point I already made.)

I don't think limiting skills provides nearly as much balancing power over limiting who has access to spells versus incredibly martial prowess etc.


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Malk_Content wrote:
Thats a good reason for some classes to get free increases in relevant areas. Not a good reason to mandate that a Wizard can never get past Expert in athletics.

Now there's an idea.

A really easy way to introduce this would be to couple it with a Class Feat that grants both a benefit/ability and a specific elevation of a Skill (i.e. Sudden Leap moves your Acrobatics to Expert).

Though it would probably have to work similarly to the Iron Will/Great Fortitude Feats, where it elevates it to a certain level (Expert if you do not already have Expert).

I would certainly like more ways to get increases spread out because as of now here's how it would typically shake out:

- 17 total Skills start Untrained
- Standard proficiencies at level 1 - 4-8 skills trained depending
- Skill Increases at 3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19 (total of 9)

That means you have at maximum, trained or higher in 8 skills, and 3 of them are your chosen "legendary" skills.

If you are a Rogue, you get 6 Legendary skills (which is certainly decent, not sure Rogues need anymore Legendary skills tbh).

Now, I'm not saying 3 Legendary skills isn't enough, I'm saying the disparity between that is awkwardly vast.

As a 20th level character they have gone through hell and back (maybe quite literally) and they are only "Trained" in a few skills, "Legendary" in 3 skills, and the rest are totally untrained.

AKA at the end of their arc that array looks like this:

10 Untrained
4 Trained
0 Expert
0 Master
3 Legendary

I find the above array to be pretty, well, unrealistic and boring. It's also kind of an antithesis to the "we can all participate!" if 10 of your skills remain Untrained by level 20 (where you don't get any bonus from level).

It would make a lot more sense (to me) if the Skill diversity resembled half a bell curve by level 20:

4 Untrained
4 Trained
3 Expert
3 Master
3 Legendary

But maybe I'm alone in that. Certainly, Feats that push a Skill to a certain level would help distribute that better.

I am looking at this from an optimize point of view, I see very few players not progressing their skills to Legendary if they have an increase available (the bonus increase and Skill Feat access is just too good to pass up over say Master or Expert in a neglected Skill).

Has anyone else had thought this seemed a little out of sorts?


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Malk_Content wrote:
Thats a good reason for some classes to get free increases in relevant areas. Not a good reason to mandate that a Wizard can never get past Expert in athletics.

I never understood the plan behind the original Signature Skills design. It did not help the characters be better at their Signature Skills before 7th level. And the method of making them better at 7th level was to lock out the other classes from the higher proficiencies, rather than giving the classes any aid at learning higher proficienies in Signature Skills.

The new proficiency system is a keystone of Pathfinder 2nd Edition. Why would Paizo create 4 proficiency ranks and then immediately block off 2 of them? It left a sour taste on a mechanic Paizo should have wanted to sweeten.

The Rules Update system of assigned training in the relevant skills for the class is simple, so I don't mind it. I merely miss the flavorful message of the +3 class skill bonus that characters are good due to frequent practice at the skills their class needs. The message in PF2 is that they aren't terrible at those skills.

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Mathmuse wrote:
I never understood the plan behind the original Signature Skills design. It did not help the characters be better at their Signature Skills before 7th level. And the method of making them better at 7th level was to lock out the other classes from the higher proficiencies, rather than giving the classes any aid at learning higher proficienies in Signature Skills.

I think the idea was not to present it as a restriction (i.e., "Wizards can't be masters at Stealth") but more along the lines of a class being so good at something that they get access to master/legendary proficiency as a bonus (i.e., "Rogues are so good at Stealth that they can become Legendary").

You can kind of see things playing out in a similar vein across other proficiencies. Most classes can't get past Expert in weapons, but fighters can become Legendary. Most folks need a feat to become Expert in Perception, but rangers and rogues can surpass that.

Quote:
The new proficiency system is a keystone of Pathfinder 2nd Edition. Why would Paizo create 4 proficiency ranks and then immediately block off 2 of them? It left a sour taste on a mechanic Paizo should have wanted to sweeten.

I think it might be more useful to view the original proficiency system as really being just untrained/trained/expert by default, with master/legendary being something that classes alone opened up. I don't know if that's what the team was going for, but that's the impression I got. I am much happier with the revision introduced during playtest updates, though.

Quote:
The Rules Update system of assigned training in the relevant skills for the class is simple, so I don't mind it. I merely miss the flavorful message of the +3 class skill bonus that characters are good due to frequent practice at the skills their class needs. The message in PF2 is that they aren't terrible at those skills.

I can see the value in terms of niche protection, but I also like that the wizard can have mad lockpicking skills or that the fighter might be a wiz at battlefield medicine. You could do that stuff in 1st edition, too, but I think the execution is a bit cleaner this time around.


Mathmuse wrote:
I never understood the plan behind the original Signature Skills design.

As I was not privy to any pre-Playtest explanations on it, I can't say I understood it that well either. If I had to hazard a guess, I would lump it in with the goal to simplify the game while retaining the flavor of class appropriate skills.

I will admit that tracking skill point assignments and making the assignments and tracking all the applicable modifiers creates overhead. It's far simpler to assign skills to each class and then have those skill increase with level. Since initially, all skills got +level, then there was no need for skill points. The PF2 analogue would be the skill increases which could be applied to any skill, Signature or not..

Malik wrote:
Not a good reason to mandate that a Wizard can never get past Expert in athletics

First, I don't recall Expert level was restricted at all, only master and legendary, so I assume that's the point you're making. Second, I would view this in two ways:

1) It stands to reason the if a class has class-associated skills, then a character of that class should be mastering those skills first. It's nonsensical for a Wizard to be a master in Athletics, but only Expert in the things that are more logically related to being a Wizard;

2) The Playtest was not a complete system. It's possible that the official release might have allowed Master proficiency at 15th level for non-Signature.

But I agree with Mathmuse and others in that the Signature Skill system felt wonky in the absence of a clear explanation of why it was used (which may have been provided but I did not catch).

I think the main problem is that Paizo identified here:

Mathmuse wrote:
Shouldn't a skill that is an essential part of the class be treated like a class ability rather than replace a voluntary choice?

The PF1 skill system did a good job of making skills necessary for the class a part of the class but providing a lot of customization. Not all Rogues are going to be good at Stealth, Sleight of Hand, and Disable Device. But the majority might be able to do 2 out of 3.

As of the 1.2 update (?) You might have Barbarians, Monks, and Fighters, with no difference in skills. While that may be preferable to the players on an individual level, I think that's problematic for the content on a general level.


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Malk_Content wrote:
As for why not classless. I'm a big fan of classless systems but for a combat focused game like Pathfinder I admit that the class restrictions promote healthy balance (a point I already made.)

Class systems aren't really about "balance." They are about purpose. From the player perspective, classes skew the perception of "balance" far more than classless systems do, at least ime. The purpose of classes is to divide up all the axis of agency for the game and assign them to different packages. This makes it very, very, very, easy for the content creator to give each players character choice (based on a class) purpose.

I choose a Rogue. The Rogue has Disable Device. Later, the party can't move forward because there is a lock. I pick the lock, yay...I feel useful (If you played a playtest Ranger, you may not be familiar with this aspect of the game.)

When I've signed up for a classless system int the PbP forums, a funny thing happens. The GM always tells us what functional roles we're going to need to cover. In other words, the GM is telling us, a priori, what classes s/he expects to be in the game even though there aren't formal classes defined.

If you let players choose any skills they want and boost them to the highest levels at the same rate as anyone else, then when the content adds a lock. There's no telling what class is going to overcome that challenge. The more fuzzy the boundaries are for a class, the harder it is for me as a content creator to make sure I provide challenges for all the class choices. At the extremes, you have one class able to solve all the Skill problem or maybe a majority of them....while also being best at combat.

Class restrictions make it possible so that when the players making different choices as to their class, then it's a lot easier to provide content that gives them purpose.

Quote:
I don't think limiting skills provides nearly as much balancing power over limiting who has access to spells versus incredibly martial prowess etc.

Skills are simply another axis of agency (ways in which a character can influence the game). Depending on how they are implemented, they can be very useful in helping to define the class and helping a player understand what that class' functional role or contribution will/should be. A Cleric being trained or proficient in Religion and Healing helps complete the concept if that's what your concept of the Cleric is on a class level. By the same token, you give another class divine casting, but a completely different set of skills and that lends itself to something like the Inquisitor.

Skills can can also be a fertile ground for customization, but IMO, that is best achieved within a defined space.


N N 959 wrote:
Malk_Content wrote:
As for why not classless. I'm a big fan of classless systems but for a combat focused game like Pathfinder I admit that the class restrictions promote healthy balance (a point I already made.)

Class systems aren't really about "balance." They are about purpose. From the player perspective, classes skew the perception of "balance" far more than classless systems do, at least ime. The purpose of classes is to divide up all the axis of agency for the game and assign them to different packages. This makes it very, very, very, easy for the content creator to give each players character choice (based on a class) purpose.

I choose a Rogue. The Rogue has Disable Device. Later, the party can't move forward because there is a lock. I pick the lock, yay...I feel useful (If you played a playtest Ranger, you may not be familiar with this aspect of the game.)

When I've signed up for a classless system int the PbP forums, a funny thing happens. The GM always tells us what functional roles we're going to need to cover. In other words, the GM is telling us, a priori, what classes s/he expects to be in the game even though there aren't formal classes defined.

If you let players choose any skills they want and boost them to the highest levels at the same rate as anyone else, then when the content adds a lock. There's no telling what class is going to overcome that challenge. The more fuzzy the boundaries are for a class, the harder it is for me as a content creator to make sure I provide challenges for all the class choices. At the extremes, you have one class able to solve all the Skill problem or maybe a majority of them....while also being best at combat.

Class restrictions make it possible so that when the players making different choices as to their class, then it's a lot easier to provide content that gives them purpose.

Quote:
I don't think limiting skills provides nearly as much balancing power over limiting who has access to spells versus
...

I don't like some of your ideas about Pathfinder, but this is spot on. Classes exist for a reason and part of their package includes stuff from the "Skills" design space of the game. Of course, this clashes with the "Customization" aspect of the game, so there must be some balance to keep Pathfinder being as good as it is.

I think it can be done by giving the classes unique and better ways to use some of the skills without locking others out of them. The old system did this by giving them a free +3 and specific tricks in some cases (Bards with perform, Rogues with perception to find traps, etc). That worked right? People were happy. Then they should strive to continue that way.

Maybe we do have signature skills, which can be advanced to the next rank EARLIER than others can, maybe the class has access to unique feats that leverage those skills, maybe it's just a free +1. You can still keep their "skill identity" without locking others out, it's not worth sacrificing that aspect from class choice.


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Signature skills were axed about halfway through the playtest, so my best guess is that they won't be in the actual game for 2nd edition.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
N N 959 wrote:


Malik wrote:
Not a good reason to mandate that a Wizard can never get past Expert in athletics

First, I don't recall Expert level was restricted at all, only master and legendary, so I assume that's the point you're making.

Yes that is the point I was making. Hence that is why I wrote "past expert" and not "past trained."

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