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In the PHB you can use Sleight of Hand and Tumbling like perform skill, so I was wondering can you use sleight of hand to earn gold at the end of scenario.
Note to use Sleight of Hand like a perform skill you could do card tricks and/or juggling. Tumbling would be just like tumbling as a performance act...
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In the PHB you can use Sleight of Hand and Tumbling like perform skill, so I was wondering can you use sleight of hand to earn gold at the end of scenario.
Note to use Sleight of Hand like a perform skill you could do card tricks and/or juggling. Tumbling would be just like tumbling as a performance act...
Bump
At current there are no plans to expand the "day job" section of the guide book.
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At current there are no plans to expand the "day job" section of the guide book.
Boo. Since the xp system and the scenario design favor larger parties, there's plenty of incentive to play a bard. The proposed change would be a 200% improvement, because it would make day jobs viable for monks and rogues, too. As it is, however, I don't think the other classes have any reason to take more than one rank in one skill at level one. If that's the intent, why not scrap the concept, and just say everyone makes 5 gp per scenario, except bards, who make more, according to some chart?
As an alternative, since exactly what you can craft or profess has always been vague, I'd suggest you 'gin up a (not too long) list of specific occupations and underlying skills, the underlying skill for which would be understood to be guaranteed to be useful for something other than day jobs, sometime in the season. It would make an interesting exercise for the authors, and it might provide a reason to take a few extra ranks and flesh out the characters.
The current system is not good, because under both 3.5 and PFRPG, there will be too many useful skills to justify taking more than exactly 1 rank in craft or profession. Jusst having played 1-4 and seen the blurbs for 5-8, my strategy for character development would be to use most of the full range of my class skill list, regardless of what class I'd play. Which means that to non-bards, the day jobs rules are useful at first level (maybe even only for the first scenario) and nevermore thereafter, because of the gp value of surviving each scenario. Rules that almost everyone will quickly outgrow are pointless.
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heres a reason roleplaying.
i have a lv 2 Ulfen fighter with ranks in perform sing its all for rp.
If you wanted a singing fighter, you could take 0 ranks, and have the skills leftover to go somewhere more useful to you and your fellow party members. I can imagine a scene around level 8 or so, when the day job is useless, when everyone at the table wishes you had a few more ranks in swim, so you could spend less actions drowning and more fighting. Or similar situations with other fighter-type skills.
The same kind of table-wide buyer's regret does not apply to Sleight of Hand or Tumble. Tumble lets the classes that get it get their sneak on, get flanking, or get past the front line to go for the more dangerous spellcasters. I have every confidence that SoH will come in handy for all sorts of faction missions, and maybe even some Pathfinder taskings like planting or removing evidence. Three card monte is a perfectly respectable day job for a rogue, or at least it should be. It also makes sense within the SRD rules.
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heres a reason roleplaying.
i have a lv 2 Ulfen fighter with ranks in perform sing its all for rp.
If you wanted a singing fighter, you could take 0 ranks, and have the skills leftover to go somewhere more useful to you and your fellow party members. I can imagine a scene around level 8 or so, when the day job is useless, when everyone at the table wishes you had a few more ranks in swim, so you could spend less actions drowning and more fighting. Or similar situations with other fighter-type skills.
I have a ranger who has craft: woodcarving. His Cronicles are carved into the walking sticks that he creates during the adventure. Therefore he has many people walking around with walking sticks that they believe just look really cool, but are in fact stories of my character's adventures. (He's also the only range speced ranger who has gone 1 and 1/2 adventures without hitting with his ranged weapon, but has killed 4 people up close with a battleaxe, so his adventure logs would be fun to write up)
We're not interested in min-maxing Pathfinder Society. If players wish to to take RP-based skills, such as Profession, in order to earn extra gold then that's their prerogative.
We have no plans to change the day job system.
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I think the day job skills are appropriate at the moment. One for Int (Craft), one for Wis (Profession), and one for Cha (Perform).
Adding Sleight of Hand of Tumble would easily make second level characters able to pull 75 gp per session with a maximized Tumble +16 (5 ranks + 4 dex + 3 skill focus + 2 synergy from Jump + 2 acrobatic feat). Mind you, a tumble bonus of +16 is very useful in combat as well.
Sure, a Taldan bard can achieve a perform bonus of +19 (5 ranks + 4 cha + 3 skill focus + 5 performance artist faction feat + 2 masterwork item), but it doesn't have a huge use in combat situations.
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I think the day job skills are appropriate at the moment. One for Int (Craft), one for Wis (Profession), and one for Cha (Perform).
Adding Sleight of Hand of Tumble would easily make second level characters able to pull 75 gp per session with a maximized Tumble +16 (5 ranks + 4 dex + 3 skill focus + 2 synergy from Jump + 2 acrobatic feat). Mind you, a tumble bonus of +16 is very useful in combat as well.
Sure, a Taldan bard can achieve a perform bonus of +19 (5 ranks + 4 cha + 3 skill focus + 5 performance artist faction feat + 2 masterwork item), but it doesn't have a huge use in combat situations.
MW items, whether instruments or MW artisan's tools, though they help regular skill uses, do not improve one's day job roll, so your Taldan is at +17. Also, for the same reason, the jump or bluff synergy bonus to Tumble/SoH wouldn't apply to a day job roll for a hypothetical tumble or SoH performance, so +14 to the tumbler, which actually matters, since the payoff bin for a 24 result isn't the same as for a 27. Taking averages, the bard does pull an extra 50 gp vs. an extra 20 for the tumbler, but that's pretty minor, since you don't get paid until after the end of the scenario, after XP is awarded but before spoils of war are divided. Let's look at the top end: to consistently hit day job of 40+, the performer needs +30 in Cha bonus, ranks, and feats. So +3 for Skill focus, +5 for Performance Artist, and there is no Hook Up Action feat for perform, means we're at +22. From level 8, you could have a Cha of 20, so we need +17. By level 8,if you're sufficiently pro-Taldor, you could have faction prestige of 24-30 (30 exactly assuming you get all 24 faction missions, pus the 6 bonus faction points which are the expected value of the 25% of scenarios with a bonus opportunity), but not PA40, so let's call it a cloak of Charisma +2 rather than +4, so +16 still needed. But at level 8, you've only got 11 ranks, so you're still 5 short of consistently earning 150 bonus gp per scenario. Around level 12, if you can break 40PA you'd have a better cloak plus the ranks to get to 40+ taking ten, but I'm pretty sure reaching 13 puts you at the mandatory retirement level anyway, so it's a nice note to go out on. Also, an average tier 4-5 scenario earns about 1200 gp if all goes well.
The tumbler you propose is burning two feats on this skill, and also has gone all-in on Dex. To get that 18 Dex, this human's going to be pretty blah elsewhere. If you go with a Dex-bonus race, you're committing to two feats that are keyed to one skill (and that build loses one of the feat bonuses until level 3, six scenarios (and around 2700 gp) away from the starting gate ). You'll also still have pretty blah other abilities, thanks to the hit to Con or Str. Blah other stats is only so-so for a rogue and kind of dull/dangerous for a monk, and those classes really benefit from a combat feat like Dodge, Imporved Grapple, Improved Natural Attack or Point Blank Shot at level 1. Getting into flanking postions at low levels is very useful, but I don't think I'd be quite that dedicated to avoiding AOOs. Also, Dodge + eventually Mobility + Tumble ranks but no feats might be better for overall balance and utility. The cash boost looks tempting, because it's large relative to the starting gold, but the payoff for a tier 1 scenario is about 450 gp. Rereading the day job rules, it's also not going to help you survive that first scenario at all, since it's awarded after XP, and is therefore contingent on survival. Over the first few adventures, I guess it helps a little, but by level 2, no one's day job will be that great, relative to the rewards of adventure, regardless of whether you're playing a stonemason or rock star who happens to adventure, or playing an adventuring mercenary who once was a scribe or a tailor. (In case it's not clear, I actully think that is not a bug, but a feature of the day job rules.)
Consider some heist movies, like Ocean's 11. They are why, I think, that Tumble and SoH have a performance use in the RAW. The kinds of day jobs you see in these movies? Profession: Gambler, SoH 3 card monte types, various gambling cheats who use SoH either on the cards or the chips in the pot, maybe some shoplifters or pickpockets, gymnastic type stuff for the second-story types, and maybe appraise/Profession: Storekeeper for the fence. I guess you also have disguise/Perform: Acting, and Forgery/prof. scribe or craft calligraphy. For another example, I like the story of actor Harry Anderson, who was arrested for running a three-card monte stand, and on his release, took to busking a demonstration of how the cheat works. More generally, are there no PFS rogues who spend their non-adventuring time being rogueish? Strictly legitimate businessfolks one and all, each with a secret identity? No urban urchins that keep their ears to the ground and survive by petty theft? An artful dodger who attempts to pick the wrong pocket, or overhears something from the one of the factions who ends up on the mission sounds like a viable archetype to me.
Mechanically, the day job rules might be as they are to keep people from playing multiple below-average mental stat characters, and if so, fine. I simply resent the implication that there is no RP reason (and thus only munchkinism) to want or think the day job rules could or should apply to SoH and Tumble.
Wait, masterwork items and synergy bonuses don't count? How come? Where does it say so?
If your character has any Craft, Perform, or Profession skills, they may choose one of those skills and make one roll at the end of every Scenario. This roll represents days or weeks of work done between Scenarios. Your roll may only consist of the following modifiers: Skill Ranks + Ability Score + any applicable feat bonuses.
Yup. We want to balance the day job roll as much as possible across the board.
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Yup. We want to balance the day job roll as much as possible across the board.
I would characterize it more as a desire to equalize and sanitize the day job roll as much as possible, as there is some debate about just how unbalanced having a very high day job is, and apparently folks of certain undesirable occupations just don't make the Pathfinder Society cut.
It might also be helpful, if in the next revision, you highlight that payday comes at the end of the scenario to survivors only. The benefit (in terms of margnal utility) of a high day job is greatest on the transition from 0 xp to 1 xp, and declines very rapidly after that. I know that the big bold Step 2: Day Job between the Step 1 XP and Step 3 Spoils steps there in Chapter 8 should be a big honking giveaway, but maybe people are playing that you make the roll at the start, when DMs ask for people to make their gearing up purchases. That sort of missplay would tend to make a high day job more valuable, as a good roll at 0xp could be like a 50% boost to starting gp, as opposed to being more like an 11% boost to finishing gp (and for many rolls, it's a lower bonus).
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Considering there's no player crafting (including even mundane alchemy and stuff) I really think racial bonuses like the gnome's (and I think Dwarves get one too) should apply. Otherwise they're useless racial features.
They're not useless. They are key cultural signifiers that will doubtless be essential for allowing you to get into your character's head. At the same time they help explain why he hooked up with some human explorers of dubious repute.
Okay, sorry for the joke. They're not useless racial features because you don't get them for day job. What makes them useless racial features is the fact that they were designed precisely to be racial features, and not for anything other than establishing how each race fits into the generic world the system assumes. There's no reason why a huge schnozzola and epic curiosity are helpful for psuedochemestry, but not say, cooking. The dwarven bonus for stone is there because dwarves lived in Moria, and built Moria to last because they are good with stone. Their dour and methodical natures could just as easily and logically translate into, I don't know, Profession: Lawyer or Teacher, but it applies to stone so that your character has a cultural reason to explore lost Moria, rather than stay home and tutor some NPC brats.
Again, no matter whether you take max ranks in some form of gainful employment, or you just splash a little, or take none, the day job will be an insignificant mechanic over the character's adventuring career. It might be pretty meaningful to his self-identity, or maybe a useful cover for his secret identity as a finder of lost wonders, but no character who's willing to risk death in the PFS for high reward will ever depend on the money from day job. It's a nice treat for the folks who want their character to have some logical thing to do when not working as a freelancer of fortune. People not interested in even that minimal level of RP will simply take no ranks in any day job skill. It's not like there is a line on the scenario sheet representing living expenses, so folks are free to ignore the rule and spend every last coin they pick up adventuring. The very insignificance of the money (the only mechanical advantage to day job) is why I argue for a more liberal set of day job rules. The sort of folks who want to play the ranger who rides the dire alpaca animal companion and happens to be a master weaver are going to take Craft: Weaving regardless of whether or not the PC earns a few extra coins.
I agree that fundamental harmlessness of day job is an excellent reason for why every last bonus that might apply to a hypothetical day job should apply, but it's apparently going to totally destabilize the economy of Golarian's largest city, as well as tilt the perfect, razor's edged engineering of the world's most game-balanced role playing game (version 3.5).
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I am personally confused by this position, simply because it makes two racial features of two PC races completely moot. From a game balance point of view it might not be a huge deal, since gnomes and especially dwarves are already rather front-loaded with regards to their racial abilities, but I'm simply not seeing how a +2 would throw the campaign's economy off balance. Though at lower levels it may mean a slight increase in funds gained through a day job its importance is reduced at higher levels when the rewards for day jobs become microscopic compared to the rewards received for completing scenarios.
I think it would only be fair for dwarves and gnomes to receive their +2 bonus on appropriate Craft checks for their day jobs, if only because those skills never come up during scenarios (at least as far as my current experience shows, I may be corrected by future scenarios).
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"OMG I got like 5 gp more! GAME BREAKING!"
This was my characterization of what I thought when this was now revealed to me. It makes: a) no sense, b) me baffled
This is stupid. I repeat the first line of this post. Also a bard with some other perform than singing does no longer have that one single benefit over singing. And don't confuse this with your fluff-babble. Mechanics first, fluff second. Period.
"OMG I got like 5 gp more! GAME BREAKING!"
This was my characterization of what I thought when this was now revealed to me. It makes: a) no sense, b) me baffled
This is stupid. I repeat the first line of this post. Also a bard with some other perform than singing does no longer have that one single benefit over singing. And don't confuse this with your fluff-babble. Mechanics first, fluff second. Period.
Setting first...mechanics some distant eighth, else you might as well be playing german board games.
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Setting first...mechanics some distant eighth, else you might as well be playing german board games."OMG I got like 5 gp more! GAME BREAKING!"
This was my characterization of what I thought when this was now revealed to me. It makes: a) no sense, b) me baffled
This is stupid. I repeat the first line of this post. Also a bard with some other perform than singing does no longer have that one single benefit over singing. And don't confuse this with your fluff-babble. Mechanics first, fluff second. Period.
Despite that, I can't really imagine how giving racial bonuses and masterwork item bonuses to day job rolls is imbalanced. Just *LOOK* at Performance Artist faction feat! If getting a +2 bonus is too much, then take away the other bonuses received as well.
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I must say that I do find it a bit unfair that some characters that are optimized for gameplay will earn more gold than others just because their optimization entailed taking ranks in day-job allowed skills (Perform for a Bard being the most obvious example).
How is this rewarding Role-playing or trying to be true to the setting ?