Proficiency: not all rolls are equal

[Kurald Galain]

I've just read the new article on proficiency, and it sounds really good that there are different levels of proficiency and that you can learn special tricks (or feats or whatnot) at higher level, such as evasion or immunity to poison and so forth.

But.

Then there is the associated dice mechanic, and the issue here is that proficiency uses the same modifiers for everything, even when that wouldn't be appropriate.

Consider: in P1, Weapon Focus and Spell Focus give you a +1, and are pretty good feats that are commonly used. Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will give a bigger bonus, +2, and despite that are fairly average feats; they're just not as good as Weapon Focus. And then, Skill Focus gives you a +3 (or +6 at high levels) and this is a mediocre feat that's rarely seen in play. Basically, a +1 on attack rolls is a good deal since you roll several of these per round. A +2 on saving throws is ok but not great for a feat, since saving throws are pretty common but less common than attack rolls. A +3 on skills for a feat is just not a good deal.

Under the proposed proficiency system, these bonuses are all the same, and I don't see this as a good thing. In combat, it works fine that a sword master gets +1 to hit over a regular trained person, comparable to weapon focus. But out of combat, an expert performer with only +1 over a trained singer, well, that's way too small a difference. You roll a perform check once or twice per session if you're lucky, and at that point the amateur has about a 45% chance of beating the expert at his expertise. Because usually, the learned wizard should beat a same-level barbarian on knowledge checks, and right now he doesn't.

Yes, I get that they're the prerequisite of all kinds of cool stuff, and I like that. But the expert/master/legend modifiers for skills at least, and arguably for saving throws, should make a bigger difference than this, like +2 or +3 per 'rank'. Because in P1 that modifier is at least +3, and THAT is so weak that almost nobody wants to spend a feat on it.

[Anguish]

Kurald Galain wrote:

Under the proposed proficiency system, these bonuses are all the same, and I don't see this as a good thing.

We are lacking context. The rest of the math is not available to us.

[PossibleCabbage]

From that blog post the sense I get is that Skill checks for people who are really good at a thing are going to be more relevant in combat than in the previous iteration of game. Like if you can drop an enemy into a catatonic state with a single action successful legendary intimidate check, then that's a thing you're going to want to do a lot. Like no amount of bluff or diplomacy in combat allows you to get an antagonist to switch sides during combat in PF1, but in PF2 if this is possible then every +1 will matter quite a bit.

If things like athletics or acrobatics checks as part of move actions allow players to make attacks they normally would not be able to do (say versus flying creatures) then those bonuses are going to be every bit as important as to-hit bonuses.

But for my money making skill bonuses every bit as valuable as save bonuses or attack bonuses is a worthy goal.

[Mark Seifter]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

But for my money making skill bonuses every bit as valuable as save bonuses or attack bonuses is a worthy goal.

Good thought (and scarily close to one of the legendary Intimidate skill feats). Furthermore, I think the initial observation in the OP is apt for PF1 but mainly because the combined feat pool in PF1 forced you to put your skill bonuses up against attack bonus in the first place, and combat prowess usually wins when those two are up against each other. Skill Focus is quite a game changer on the right skills if you actually take it in PF1, but even if it granted +10 (or even +20), many people still wouldn't take it because it's up against a combat/casting/etc feat. At best if we keep raising the number until more people took it, they would likely take it bregrudgingly but feel it was a tax necessary to be good at their skill because they'd still be feeling the opportunity cost of the combat-y feat they didn't get to take. In PF2, you never have to sacrifice a combat or class-centric feat to gain a skill feat, which means they're in a whole different situation.

[Planpanther]

Yeap thats my problem in a nutshell. Good in combat requires tight numbers which makes no sense for out of combat application.

[TolkienBard]

This is one area where I REALLY want to see some of the math laid out before I get too excited one way or the other. IMHO, Outside of combat and inside of combat are just too disparately different beasts to be rolled into one system - but with the right math, maybe it DOES work.

The idea that a mundane, untrained, or even moderately trained person is might still have a fairly robust chance of doing something an expert could bothers me. At the same time, if my wizard invests heavily in sneaking, I like the idea that he could become an expert sneak, on par with a rogue.

I applaud Paizo for wanting to make skills and proficiencies more relevant and engaging in PF2. That's a big ask though, so I am only cautiously optimistic that they are able to do so without bringing in a whole new set of problems on the back end.