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Okay, watching the panel on PF2 at PaizoCon, it looks like Sense Motive has probably been folded into Diplomacy. I'm cool with that.
Also, Mark Seifter said that he thought we on the forums had found all the skills, so the above list is probably complete (or very close to complete, anyway).
Actually I've been playing at the Delves here at Paizocon, and Sense Motive has been folded into Perception oddly enough.
Huh, part of Perception? The thing literally everyone seems to automatically be trained in? Well, there goes a charming but very slick low level con artist ever successfully lying to a high level adventurer ever again.
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Actually I've been playing at the Delves here at Paizocon, and Sense Motive has been folded into Perception oddly enough.
I'm also totally cool with this.
Huh, part of Perception? The thing literally everyone seems to automatically be trained in? Well, there goes a charming but very slick low level con artist ever successfully lying to a high level adventurer ever again.
We knew this would be true to a fair degree already. I mean, a 15th level character has a minimum of +13 even on untrained skills. Trained (which is what I'd assume everyone gets in Perception at a minimum) makes that a +15.
A 1st level character can get a +7 or so (with an Expert Item), which isn't gonna usually work vs. that most of the time, but isn't a 0% chance by any means (if DC is 10 + Perception, you make it on an 18+).
Actually I've been playing at the Delves here at Paizocon, and Sense Motive has been folded into Perception oddly enough.I'm also totally cool with this.
Huh, part of Perception? The thing literally everyone seems to automatically be trained in? Well, there goes a charming but very slick low level con artist ever successfully lying to a high level adventurer ever again.We knew this would be true to a fair degree already. I mean, a 15th level character has a minimum of +13 even on untrained skills. Trained (which is what I'd assume everyone gets in Perception at a minimum) makes that a +15.
A 1st level character can get a +7 or so (with an Expert Item), which isn't gonna usually work vs. that most of the time, but isn't a 0% chance by any means (if DC is 10 + Perception, you make it on an 18+).
Also, this assumes you build the NPC con artist with PC build rules. Based on what we know about NPCs and monsters, it seems like you can tweak the values to get pretty much whatever you want for their role in the story.
I bet Sense Motive (or this particular subset of perception) doesn't use opposed roles anymore, but instead skill score +10 when you are actively trying to bluff or sense motive. I reckon this is probably good. Opposed roles can be a major cue to players to be on guard for both perception and sense motive.
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Also, this assumes you build the NPC con artist with PC build rules. Based on what we know about NPCs and monsters, it seems like you can tweak the values to get pretty much whatever you want for their role in the story.
Evidence suggests that NPCs of Level X can't generally exceed Level X PC amounts of a skill by all that much (they seem like they might be able to have bonuses on par with a PC + Item sans Item, but that's all).
So this is only kinda true.
I bet Sense Motive (or this particular subset of perception) doesn't use opposed roles anymore, but instead skill score +10 when you are actively trying to bluff or sense motive. I reckon this is probably good. Opposed roles can be a major cue to players to be on guard for both perception and sense motive.
Opposed rolls have been stated to be completely gone in general. It's always just Bonus +10 as a DC.
Also, this assumes you build the NPC con artist with PC build rules. Based on what we know about NPCs and monsters, it seems like you can tweak the values to get pretty much whatever you want for their role in the story.Evidence suggests that NPCs of Level X can't generally exceed Level X PC amounts of a skill by all that much (they seem like they might be able to have bonuses on par with a PC + Item sans Item, but that's all).
So this is only kinda true.
I bet Sense Motive (or this particular subset of perception) doesn't use opposed roles anymore, but instead skill score +10 when you are actively trying to bluff or sense motive. I reckon this is probably good. Opposed roles can be a major cue to players to be on guard for both perception and sense motive.Opposed rolls have been stated to be completely gone in general. It's always just Bonus +10 as a DC.
Hmmm, interesting. We don't think there will be skill feats for perception, right? So theoretically a character could take skill tests for bluff in Fuzzy's scenario.
I like the bonus +10 system. It also means you can reverse a lot of it easily to let the players roll more. For example, when an ogre goes for a grapple, your PCs could roll a reflex save and try to beat the ogres "athletics DC."
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Liking the skills less with each consolidation.
@deadmanwalking Thank you for curating!
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So, with a high-res video of the Banquet at PaizoCon available, we now know the official skill list for sure (it's the same as previous) and a few of the Ability Mods (it's not all of the mods because blurry Int and blurry Wis appear identical in that font...or I guess all remaining skills could be Int? I'm betting they just look similar in that font when blurry enough):
Acrobatics (Dex)
Arcana
Athletics (Str)
Crafting
Deception (Cha)
Diplomacy (Cha)
Intimidation (Cha)
Lore
Lore (there are two entries for Lore)
Medicine
Nature
Occultism
Performance (Cha)
Religion
Society
Stealth (Dex)
Survival
Thievery (Dex)
So yeah, that's the final official list and the Abilities for about half of them. The remaining half are either Int or Wis but I'm just guessing which would be which.
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Liking the skills less with each consolidation.There's no extra consolidation beyond what's noted in the list I posted last page. PF1 to PF2 is only consolidating once.
Or do you mean you dislike PF1's skill list more than 3.5's?
I mean I disIke decreased skill granularity, jamming everything together into overly broad categories.
No room for being good at reading people but not manipulating them. No room for being an expert climber but not good at swimming. Etcetera.
So I guess an earlier reference to Con based skills was erroneous then?
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I mean I disIke decreased skill granularity, jamming everything together into overly broad categories.
No room for being good at reading people but not manipulating them. No room for being an expert climber but not good at swimming. Etcetera.
Uh...reading people is Perception while manipulating them is very much not. So you're good there.
And while swimming and climbing do both seem to be under Athletics, I suspect Skill Feats can easily make you vastly better at one than the other. You'd still be pretty good at the other, but not nearly as much so. That seems workable to me personally.
So I guess an earlier reference to Con based skills was erroneous then?
They already mentioned it's for the odd corner cases where you use a skill with a different Ability than normal. The rules may be more clear on when that is in PF2. Or not.
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Everybody being pretty good at everything is not a good thing.
And so that now means you can’t be an eagle eye that can spot a scurrying rabbit at a distance without also being good at reading people’s motivations. Not really better.
Liking the skills less with each consolidation.There's no extra consolidation beyond what's noted in the list I posted last page. PF1 to PF2 is only consolidating once.
Or do you mean you dislike PF1's skill list more than 3.5's?
I mean I disIke decreased skill granularity, jamming everything together into overly broad categories.
No room for being good at reading people but not manipulating them. No room for being an expert climber but not good at swimming. Etcetera.
I wouldn't be surprised if skill feats don't help with this. It seems to me that what they're going for is streamlining skills, and allowing a characters' choice of skill feats and their training level with that skill (in conjunction with those skill feats) to make them granular.
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Everybody being pretty good at everything is not a good thing.
It is if you want things like the whole party trying to be sneaky or wearing disguises to actually work. Which they do.
There's some potential realism issues, but then there already were with high Ability scores (someone with Str 30 in PF1 was already really good at swimming, even if they were a desert nomad who'd never done it).
And so that now means you can’t be an eagle eye that can spot a scurrying rabbit at a distance without also being good at reading people’s motivations. Not really better.
I think that's a lot better, actually. Being perceptive often really does translate between spheres like this, and certainly did on the Wisdom 30 guy in PF1.
But to be a leg.endary climber you ALSO have to have legendary skill at swimming. Even if you live your whole life in a desert with nothing more than puddles available.
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But to be a leg.endary climber you ALSO have to have legendary skill at swimming. Even if you live your whole life in a desert with nothing more than puddles available.
Again, Str 30 in PF1 already resulted in almost exactly this. It's not a new problem, and is inevitable in any system with the relatively broad skills every edition of D&D/Pathfinder since 3.0 has had.
The labels have changed slightly, but the core facts really haven't.
A strength thirty and no skill ranks gives you nothing like a legendary skill ranking in swimming.
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A strength thirty and no skill ranks gives you nothing like a legendary skill ranking in swimming.
Because the Legendary Swimmer took the Legendary Swimmer Skill feats. As the skills are now you will be slightly competent in that you can attempt skill checks with most skills, you will not automatically be a master of them nor will you get cool tricks without investing.
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A strength thirty and no skill ranks gives you nothing like a legendary skill ranking in swimming.
It gives you +10 to swimming. Which makes you an excellent swimmer in PF1. Hell, the DCs don't even go above 20. It lets you swim risk free in all weather less severe than storms, swim indefinitely without getting tired, and do well even in stormy seas. And with a Str of 40 (doable in a few ways) you have +15 to swim and are fine in even the worst weather.
Will being a Legendary Athlete with no Skill Feats in swimming make you better than that? We have absolutely no idea. Maybe it won't, that's actually pretty plausible since that's pretty good.
But even if it does, that just makes the problem slightly more severe, it doesn't mean it never existed in PF1 and is being created in PF2. It's a slight difference in degree, not a difference in kind.
A strength thirty and no skill ranks gives you nothing like a legendary skill ranking in swimming.It gives you +10 to swimming. Which makes you an excellent swimmer in PF1. Hell, the DCs don't even go above 20. It lets you swim risk free in all weather less severe than storms, swim indefinitely without getting tired, and do well even in stormy seas. And with a Str of 40 (doable in a few ways) you have +15 to swim and are fine in even the worst weather.
Will being a Legendary Athlete with no Skill Feats in swimming make you better than that? We have absolutely no idea. Maybe it won't, that's actually pretty plausible since that's pretty good.
But even if it does, that just makes the problem slightly more severe, it doesn't mean it never existed in PF1 and is being created in PF2. It's a slight difference in degree, not a difference in kind.
It’s a problem that shouldn’t be added. I don’t see why everyone being good at everything with some peo0e just being excellent is a good thing.
I think its about how you define what level stands for in your head. A 10th level character automatically being better at most things then a 1st isn't too much of a stretch for how I think of levels.
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It’s a problem that shouldn’t be added.
It's not being added, since it already existed (at least in regard to swimming). It might be getting worse, but we aren't even sure of that yet, though I admit it's likely.
I don’t see why everyone being good at everything with some peo0e just being excellent is a good thing.
It depends on what sort of world you envision and what sort of protagonists.
Protagonists who are at least marginally competent in most areas are actually fairly common in fiction. Conan in the original stories, or most other pulp fantasy protagonists, for example. As are many protagonists of myths or sagas.
Emulating that sort of fiction is a perfectly reasonable thing for a game to do. So is emulating something more realistic, but D&D and then Pathfinder have never been good at gritty realism.
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I'll also note that the Athletics skill is pretty easy to interpret as being exactly what it says: how athletic you are. While there is obviously a skill component to swimming which may get represented as a swimming specific skill feat, having a good athletics score mostly means you are in really good shape. If you build up stamina and strength running and climbing, you'll also be able to swim harder for longer.
Well, unless you don't know how to swim at all, but PF1 didn't really have a way to account for this either. At this point you can just self impose a penalty-- have your character panic and fail any swim checks automatically or whatever.
I'm sure we could come up with examples of skill consolidation and universal proficiency scaling not making sense, but people always go to Athletics which is easy to explain in a system where hit points go up every level.
I'd think Nature having both handle animal and technical knowledge of ecology is more disperate that athletics. But for the record I think the ease of use of skill consolidation makes it worth it even if it is less simulationist. I like the skill list above, I think it strikes a nice balance between the two goals.
I'd think Nature having both handle animal and technical knowledge of ecology is more disperate that athletics. But for the record I think the ease of use of skill consolidation makes it worth it even if it is less simulationist. I like the skill list above, I think it strikes a nice balance between the two goals.
Yeah, that's a good example. I also agree with your conclusion. Provided there's a skill that makes sense to apply in any given situation, I think we will be OK. And it seems like they might be making Lore into a catch all for weird corner cases.
Okay, watching the panel on PF2 at PaizoCon, it looks like Sense Motive has probably been folded into Diplomacy.
:^(
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What about History or Linguistics, use magic device??
History seems to be part of the Society skill (though you could also take a Lore), and if they follow Starfinder's lead Linguistics may be as well (though I'm sure Skill Feats are also involved in being a true linguist). Use Magic Device seems to have been split among the various 'magic affiliated' skills depending on the type of device.
Okay, watching the panel on PF2 at PaizoCon, it looks like Sense Motive has probably been folded into Diplomacy.:^(
It appears that was an erroneous conclusion based on a bad example. It's actually part of Perception.
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It's actually part of Perception.
:^\
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What about History or Linguistics, use magic device??History seems to be part of the Society skill (though you could also take a Lore), and if they follow Starfinder's lead Linguistics may be as well (though I'm sure Skill Feats are also involved in being a true linguist). Use Magic Device seems to have been split among the various 'magic affiliated' skills depending on the type of device.
It appears that was an erroneous conclusion based on a bad example. It's actually part of Perception.Okay, watching the panel on PF2 at PaizoCon, it looks like Sense Motive has probably been folded into Diplomacy.:^(
Hopefully there will be many lore skills then. I am personally not i big fan of removing so many skills, some off them makes sense, going the same way as 5th D&D like athletics. But one of the things i dislike with 5th is the lack of more skills.
So come on Jason and team, give us more skills.
What about History or Linguistics, use magic device??History seems to be part of the Society skill (though you could also take a Lore), and if they follow Starfinder's lead Linguistics may be as well (though I'm sure Skill Feats are also involved in being a true linguist). Use Magic Device seems to have been split among the various 'magic affiliated' skills depending on the type of device.
It appears that was an erroneous conclusion based on a bad example. It's actually part of Perception.Okay, watching the panel on PF2 at PaizoCon, it looks like Sense Motive has probably been folded into Diplomacy.:^(Hopefully there will be many lore skills then. I am personally not i big fan of removing so many skills, some off them makes sense, going the same way as 5th D&D like athletics. But one of the things i dislike with 5th is the lack of more skills.
So come on Jason and team, give us more skills.
They said on one of the twitch streams that there are infinite lore skills in the same way that there were infinite profession skills in PF1e. Each background comes with an associated lore skill and if you make a custom background with your GM you would get a custom lore skill to go with it. Ex: Dangerous Orphan Loner Lore.
What about History or Linguistics, use magic device??History seems to be part of the Society skill (though you could also take a Lore), and if they follow Starfinder's lead Linguistics may be as well (though I'm sure Skill Feats are also involved in being a true linguist). Use Magic Device seems to have been split among the various 'magic affiliated' skills depending on the type of device.
It appears that was an erroneous conclusion based on a bad example. It's actually part of Perception.Okay, watching the panel on PF2 at PaizoCon, it looks like Sense Motive has probably been folded into Diplomacy.:^(Hopefully there will be many lore skills then. I am personally not i big fan of removing so many skills, some off them makes sense, going the same way as 5th D&D like athletics. But one of the things i dislike with 5th is the lack of more skills.
So come on Jason and team, give us more skills.
Out of curiosity, which skills are you actually missing? Or do you just want there to be more?
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^I’m not the one you’re asking the question of, but I want finer granularity of skill types, and more skill ranks/proficiencies per level to match, for better customizability of characters without enforcing excessive specialization.
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^I’m not the one you’re asking the question of, but I want finer granularity of skill types, and more skill ranks/proficiencies per level to match, for better customizability of characters without enforcing excessive specialization.
What specific skills do you want back though? The common example I see people complain about are strength and climb being lumped together, which is weird to me because A) these two WOULD actually scale directly as your sheer Athleticism and physical endurance rises, and B) in PF1 most people only bothered to put a rank or two in each anyway because they didn't come up often, especially as magic kicks in more. (Which meant more often than not most of the PF1 scaling was from strength increasing from belts, not training to be better at swimming or climbing.)
Personally, I'm a little sad to see linguistics go myself for how it could be use to piece together coded or half-destroyed writing. But I don't know if/how this will be folded into other skills yet, and I'll admit Linguistics ranks giving you new languages on a one to one basis was borked.
I don't think I'll miss Appraise-- I recall exactly one time I thought an Appraise check was neat in examining the quality of a tool left at a crime scene. And Craft will work just as well there. Otherwise, I skip Appraise checks on loot 3/4 times anyway.
In terms of skills I can see missing the granularity... I could see wanting a guy who is knowledgeable about the Planes without being an expert in Religion, even though most of the planes have religious affiliations. Although the one time I built a plane expert it was inherently tied to the guiding religious philosophy of the homebrew.
And that seems to be it for me. I've never built a character who was good at riding that I actually wanted to be bad at handling animals. (I suppose being good at Handling Animals doesn't HAVE to go hand in hand with knowing a lot about nature, but I have found that it often does.)
I've never built a character who I wanted to be good at disguise but bad at Bluff. I've never built a character who I wanted to be good at Picking Locks and bad at Picking Pockets, though I've often wound up with them because Disable Device is more relevant than Sleight of Hand. I suppose you could you COULD want this sort of distinction in a character, maybe? Less crazy than Bluff and Disguise being separate skills.
I've never wanted a character who was good really good at practical magic applications but really bad at Using Magic Devices, but I have wound up that way if I can't afford the Pragmatic Activator trait. I can sort of see wanting someone who can intuit using magical devices but doesn't actually understand magic that well, although I'll note we know have 4 separate skills for different kinds of UMD so we gained some granularity there.
I've built characters that should be well versed in nobility, but it is hard to justify keeping that pumped compared to knowledge local. Both falling under Society works for me. And in general, knowledge skills seem like they have the Lore umbrella which can have infinite variations for all your granular needs.
I suppose the "observant character who misses out on emotions and facial cues" is a trope by now, but while Sense Motive and Perception will use the same base score we already know there are some things which enhance one but not the other.
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I suppose the "observant character who misses out on emotions and facial cues" is a trope by now
Finally, I've found it... I have... My very own trope... I... am the trope!
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I suppose the "observant character who misses out on emotions and facial cues" is a trope by nowFinally, I've found it... I have... My very own trope... I... am the trope!
Well, I mean, there are obviously folks who have trouble reading people, but there's also this trope of detective savants that are somewhere on the spectrum. I didn't want to generalize that to real life in case it was an offensive stereotype, but I think I may have managed to step in it anyway. :P
I dunno how PF2 will let you emulate that sort of character yet, but I'm not sure if it needs to be a distinct skill if we are adding +level to everything. We know there are spells which specifically enhance the ability to tell lies, and there are rogue feats that make you better at spotting traps. It isn't crazy to think we may regain some of that granularity through other features.
Also, you can always role-play being bad at something if that's your jam. I will intentionally say something off putting with high charisma characters on occasion because it suits my fancy, and I've seen plenty of people unintentionally say something off putting with high charisma character to the point where it is hard to justify the charisma making up for it.
Sense Motive and Perception were always super weird skills though, and I'm glad they are at least being revamped. Having them ditch opposed rolls should stay even if they break them away from each other.
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Out of curiosity, which skills are you actually missing? Or do you just want there to be more?What about History or Linguistics, use magic device??History seems to be part of the Society skill (though you could also take a Lore), and if they follow Starfinder's lead Linguistics may be as well (though I'm sure Skill Feats are also involved in being a true linguist). Use Magic Device seems to have been split among the various 'magic affiliated' skills depending on the type of device.
It appears that was an erroneous conclusion based on a bad example. It's actually part of Perception.Okay, watching the panel on PF2 at PaizoCon, it looks like Sense Motive has probably been folded into Diplomacy.:^(Hopefully there will be many lore skills then. I am personally not i big fan of removing so many skills, some off them makes sense, going the same way as 5th D&D like athletics. But one of the things i dislike with 5th is the lack of more skills.
So come on Jason and team, give us more skills.
I would honestly rather combine Swim with Fly into one skill, since they seem more closely related, rather than combining Swim with Climb and Fly with Balance/Tumble.
I'd like Handle Animal + Ride to be a skill of its own, separate from the Knowledge (Nature / Dungeoneering / Geography) + Spellcraft (Nature) + UMD (Nature) that the Nature skill seems to represent.
I'd like Disable Device + Craft (Traps) + all other things mechanical to be its own skill, separate from Sleight of Hand + Escape Artist, rather than Disable + Sleight + etc being jammed together in a mishmash "Thievery" skill.
I actually would rather that Sense Motive still be a skill. If it has to be combined with Perception then I'd rather that Perception was still a skill, even if they make everyone in the game automatically proficient in it, so that it could interact with the skill system and skill feats.
Otherwise I'm fine with the other consolidations.
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Out of curiosity, which skills are you actually missing? Or do you just want there to be more?What about History or Linguistics, use magic device??History seems to be part of the Society skill (though you could also take a Lore), and if they follow Starfinder's lead Linguistics may be as well (though I'm sure Skill Feats are also involved in being a true linguist). Use Magic Device seems to have been split among the various 'magic affiliated' skills depending on the type of device.
It appears that was an erroneous conclusion based on a bad example. It's actually part of Perception.Okay, watching the panel on PF2 at PaizoCon, it looks like Sense Motive has probably been folded into Diplomacy.:^(Hopefully there will be many lore skills then. I am personally not i big fan of removing so many skills, some off them makes sense, going the same way as 5th D&D like athletics. But one of the things i dislike with 5th is the lack of more skills.
So come on Jason and team, give us more skills.I would honestly rather combine Swim with Fly into one skill, since they seem more closely related, rather than combining Swim with Climb and Fly with Balance/Tumble.
I'd like Handle Animal + Ride to be a skill of its own, separate from the Knowledge (Nature / Dungeoneering / Geography) + Spellcraft (Nature) + UMD (Nature) that the Nature skill seems to represent.
I'd like Disable Device + Craft (Traps) + all other things mechanical to be its own skill, separate from Sleight of Hand + Escape Artist, rather than Disable + Sleight + etc being jammed together in a mishmash "Thievery" skill.
I actually would rather that Sense Motive still be a skill. If it has to be combined with Perception then I'd rather that Perception was still a skill, even if they make everyone in the game automatically proficient in...
That's a pretty good list, thanks for the specificity. I don't think I agree with all of them-- Flying seems closer to acrobatics than swimming in my head-- but I appreciate someone laying out what they'd actually like back. People just saying "skill consolidation is bad" creates this impression that they think there is no fat to be trimmed in the PF1 skill list, which raises and eyebrow for me.
I think if nature does wind up representing everything you mentioned, that does feel a little extreme. I'm not sure it will yet though-- Ride still feels more like Acrobatics and the Animal Speaker gnome text makes me question how Handle Animal and Wild Empathy will work now.
I'm also curious what Thievery will represent-- feels like Sleight of Hand and Disable Device are a given, but Escape Artist always felt a little tacked on and I don't think I'd miss it if they just got rid of it all together. Squeezing into spaces could be acrobatics and getting out of bonds could be athletics-- I think I usually used CMB checks for the latter anyway, since it scaled automatically.
All that is to say, Disable Device and Sleight of Hand feels better as a package deal than Disable Device and Crafting. I feel like lock picking is a pretty distinct and learning how to disable things is pretty distinct from actually making stuff. I do like your idea for a distinct mechanical skill, but I think Crafting will probably fit that bill.
I think these are reasonable changes though, and they probably wouldn't be hard to implement after the playtest if the new list doesn't feel right in play.
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I would honestly rather combine Swim with Fly into one skill, since they seem more closely related, rather than combining Swim with Climb and Fly with Balance/Tumble.
I'd like Handle Animal + Ride to be a skill of its own, separate from the Knowledge (Nature / Dungeoneering / Geography) + Spellcraft (Nature) + UMD (Nature) that the Nature skill seems to represent.
I'd like Disable Device + Craft (Traps) + all other things mechanical to be its own skill, separate from Sleight of Hand + Escape Artist, rather than Disable + Sleight + etc being jammed together in a mishmash "Thievery" skill.
I actually would rather that Sense Motive still be a skill. If it has to be combined with Perception then I'd rather that Perception was still a skill, even if they make everyone in the game automatically proficient in it, so that it could interact with the skill system and skill feats.
Otherwise I'm fine with the other consolidations.
That's a pretty good list, thanks for the specificity. I don't think I agree with all of them-- Flying seems closer to acrobatics than swimming in my head-- but I appreciate someone laying out what they'd actually like back. People just saying "skill consolidation is bad" creates this impression that they think there is no fat to be trimmed in the PF1 skill list, which raises and eyebrow for me.
I think if nature does wind up representing everything you mentioned, that does feel a little extreme. I'm not sure it will yet though-- Ride still feels more like Acrobatics and the Animal Speaker gnome text makes me question how Handle Animal and Wild Empathy will work now.
I'm also curious what Thievery will represent-- feels like Sleight of Hand and Disable Device are a given, but Escape Artist always felt a little tacked on and I don't think I'd miss it if they just got rid of it all together. Squeezing into spaces could be acrobatics and getting out of bonds could be athletics-- I think I usually used CMB checks for the latter anyway, since it scaled automatically.
All that is to say, Disable Device and Sleight of Hand feels better as a package deal than Disable Device and Crafting. I feel like lock picking is a pretty distinct and learning how to disable things is pretty distinct from actually making stuff. I do like your idea for a distinct mechanical skill, but I think Crafting will probably fit that bill.
I think these are reasonable changes though, and they probably wouldn't be hard to implement after the playtest if the new list doesn't feel right in play.
Some of my feelings also stem from the sense that certain skills are looking to be grossly more powerful than others. Their direction has created a clear distinction between tier 1 mandatory uberskills vs everything else.
Athletics is not only Climb + Swim + Jump... it's also most of the combat maneuvers, and also seems to be the defense against those maneuvers.
Acrobatics is not only Balance + Tumble + Fly... you're right, it actually does seem have Escape Artist in it rather than in Thievery, and it is also used for some combat maneuvers.
Nature as mentioned seems to be not only be Knowledge (Nature / Dungeoneering / Geography) + Spellcraft (Nature) + UMD (Nature) but also Handle Animal and Ride. Even if Ride ended up in Athletics or Acrobatics, well that just makes those even more powerful and still leaves Nature pretty potent.
Thievery being Disable Device + Open Locks + Sleight of Hand is bad on a couple levels. There's the obvious, where Sleight has nothing in common with the other two in how it's used, and also again that it's just more powerful as a multicombo than some other skills. But it also means you really only need two skills (this and Stealth) to "be a thief," with the overpowered Athletics and Acrobatics just being gravy. And it's not like the rogue or bard are going to be lacking skill slots to begin with, which gives them more opportunity to be overly ubercompetent at everything, especially the other megaskills.
I'm actually fine with some degree of consolidation. I just don't like overconsolidation, especially when it results in some skills being rather absurdly more powerful than most of the rest.
I think that just looking at consolidation of skill bonuses doesn't give the whole picture. All skills advance with level so maxing a bunch of different skills vs a few consolidated skills is not a huge mechanical difference.
I'm thinking skill feats will be as important if not more important than the bonuses and we don't know how affected by consolidation they are.
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Some of my feelings also stem from the sense that certain skills are looking to be grossly more powerful than others. Their direction has created a clear distinction between tier 1 mandatory uberskills vs everything else.
This is definitely a potential issue. It isn't one I think we have evidence of actually being in the game yet, though.
Athletics is not only Climb + Swim + Jump... it's also most of the combat maneuvers, and also seems to be the defense against those maneuvers.
It is not the default defense vs. maneuvers. All maneuvers we've seen so far target Reflex DC (ie: Reflex Save +10). Some (like Grapple) you might also be able to defend against with Athletics, but it isn't a necessary defensive skill.
Acrobatics is not only Balance + Tumble + Fly... you're right, it actually does seem have Escape Artist in it rather than in Thievery, and it is also used for some combat maneuvers.
Escape Artist almost never comes up. I think I've seen it ever rolled all of once. It's not a huge balance concern, and Balance + Tumble + Fly is pretty reasonable too. The maneuvers are a nice side bonus, but we don't even know what the Acrobatics maneuvers are (maybe Dirty Trick? Disarm is Athletics).
Nature as mentioned seems to be not only be Knowledge (Nature / Dungeoneering / Geography) + Spellcraft (Nature) + UMD (Nature) but also Handle Animal and Ride. Even if Ride ended up in Athletics or Acrobatics, well that just makes those even more powerful and still leaves Nature pretty potent.
I'd expect Abberation identification to wind up under Occultism, so all it's maybe getting from Dungeoneering is Oozes. And I think Geography is winding up under Survival (as much as it goes anywhere). And I'm fairly convinced that Ride winds up elsewhere.
It's still a good skill, but I don't think we've seen enough of the others to say whether it's better.
Thievery being Disable Device + Open Locks + Sleight of Hand is bad on a couple levels. There's the obvious, where Sleight has nothing in common with the other two in how it's used, and also again that it's just more powerful as a multicombo than some other skills. But it also means you really only need two skills (this and Stealth) to "be a thief," with the overpowered Athletics and Acrobatics just being gravy. And it's not like the rogue or bard are going to be lacking skill slots to begin with, which gives them more opportunity to be overly ubercompetent at everything, especially the other megaskills.
Given how few skills you get to max out (it may well be as few as three skills for a non-Rogue, and is no more than 6 even for a Rogue), having a small number of skills required to 'be a thief' is a definite feature rather than a bug.
I'm actually fine with some degree of consolidation. I just don't like overconsolidation, especially when it results in some skills being rather absurdly more powerful than most of the rest.
I don't think any of the skills as presented thus far are more powerful than others. Nature (with Nature + Spell Stuff + Handle Animal) comes closest just by virtue of having Handle Animal on top of what the other knowledge-type skills have, but we don't know enough to know if that's really overpowered per se.
...I would honestly rather combine Swim with Fly into one skill, since they seem more closely related, rather than combining Swim with Climb and Fly with Balance/Tumble.
I'd like Handle Animal + Ride to be a skill of its own, separate from the Knowledge (Nature / Dungeoneering / Geography) + Spellcraft (Nature) + UMD (Nature) that the Nature skill seems to represent.
I'd like Disable Device + Craft (Traps) + all other things mechanical to be its own skill, separate from Sleight of Hand + Escape Artist, rather than Disable + Sleight + etc being jammed together in a mishmash "Thievery" skill.
I actually would rather that Sense Motive still be a skill. If it has to be combined with Perception then I'd rather that Perception was still a skill, even if they make everyone in the game automatically proficient in it, so that it could interact with the skill system and skill feats.
Otherwise I'm fine with the other consolidations.
That's a pretty good list, thanks for the specificity. I don't think I agree with all of them-- Flying seems closer to acrobatics than swimming in my head-- but I appreciate someone laying out what they'd actually like back. People just saying "skill consolidation is bad" creates this impression that they think there is no fat to be trimmed in the PF1 skill list, which raises and eyebrow for me.
I think if nature does wind up representing everything you mentioned, that does feel a little extreme. I'm not sure it will yet though-- Ride still feels more like Acrobatics and the Animal Speaker gnome text makes me question how Handle Animal and Wild Empathy will work now.
I'm also curious what Thievery will represent-- feels like Sleight of Hand and Disable Device are a given, but Escape Artist always felt a little tacked on and I don't think I'd miss it if they just got rid of it all together. Squeezing into spaces could be acrobatics and getting out of bonds could be athletics-- I think I usually used CMB checks for the
I am not sure if we know enough to say there are clear uberskills yet. Proficiency gates and skill feats are still big unknowns. And lots of skills being wrapped up into one doesn't necessarily mean it is better than all the others, especially when we get level to everything.
To pick some examples not on your uber skill list:
Diplomacy is probably going to be as crucial as ever. Even if it doesn't get any new functions, a good diplomacy score can get you pretty far and I'd hate to be in a party without one. (To a much lesser extent, this is true of Deception, though it is mandatory for a certain style of character.)
Intimidate let's you scare people to death. 'Nuff said.
Medicine with just the skill feats we can see may unshackle you from the need for a cleric or CLW stick as a mandatory party member. That is huge.
Religion/Occult/Arcana seem to be getting a similar treatment as Nature, but we don't know how they are balanced with each other. I think Nature including Handle Animal, Knowledge Nature, and UMD/Spellcraft for Primal spells seems like a given, but wouldn't count on the others on the list. For comparison, we KNOW that Religion gets at least Knowledge Religion and Planes/UMD/SPellcraft for Divine spells. That's the same number of skills, with a lot of other unknowns.
Craft and Perform look like they will be weaker right now, but I think that largely comes down to how you consolidating the old Craft/Perform skills into those two works. Even then, Craft looks like the clear winner over performance, but wasn't that kind of true already? Perform was basically a flavor skill or a bard hack in PF1.
The one I can't make an honest case for right now is Survival, even if it gets the skills Deadmanwalking suggests. But survival was already in a pretty weird bracket before. Really important for some adventures but useless in others, and it tends to mostly be low level challenges. I think this one will need some buffs from feats and Proficiency to make it appealing.
I think I may have managed to step in it anyway.
While I can't smell what you're stepping in, I can at least tell you that you didn't offend me and hope it brings you comfort.
I've already accepted that my experiences are pretty far off the baseline. Just a part of living. Emulating outliers is a cumbersome.Really, I just wanted to make a Dark Souls reference.
I think I may have managed to step in it anyway.While I can't smell what you're stepping in, I can at least tell that you didn't offend me and hope it brings you comfort.
I've already accepted that my experiences are pretty far off the baseline. Just a part of living. Emulating outliers is a cumbersome.Really, I just wanted to make a Dark Souls reference.
Ah, thanks for the reassurance. :)
Athletics is not only Climb + Swim + Jump... it's also most of the combat maneuvers, and also seems to be the defense against those maneuvers.It is not the default defense vs. maneuvers. All maneuvers we've seen so far target Reflex DC (ie: Reflex Save +10). Some (like Grapple) you might also be able to defend against with Athletics, but it isn't a necessary defensive skill.
If it's not the defense then that is at least a plus. But it still leaves you with the primary movement skill also being the skill that is used to execute most of the tricks that give you advantage in combat.
I guarantee that Bull Rush, Trip and all the rest will come up a LOT more frequently in PF2 than in PF1 now that you don't need a ton of feat taxes, don't provoke for using them and so on. Especially if the defense actually is 10 + Reflex, rather than the stupid thing Starfinder did in making them AC +8. And that's good, that's great actually, they really needed to be cleaned up. But it also means combining them into Athletics rather than making them their own skill or proficiency makes Athletics way too good.
Acrobatics is not only Balance + Tumble + Fly... you're right, it actually does seem have Escape Artist in it rather than in Thievery, and it is also used for some combat maneuvers.Escape Artist almost never comes up. I think I've seen it ever rolled all of once. It's not a huge balance concern, and Balance + Tumble + Fly is pretty reasonable too. The maneuvers are a nice side bonus, but we don't even know what the Acrobatics maneuvers are (maybe Dirty Trick? Disarm is Athletics).
I only play every two weeks, and I still see Escape Artist come up every single month. It came up frequently before I started GMing, as well. There are a ton of monsters with grab, there are a lot of entangling effects, and at least in my games there tend to be a lot of opportunities to do stuff like squeeze through a gap to get around an obstacle - especially now that we're doing Starfinder and ventilation ducts are a thing.
To me, it feels a lot more natural combined with Sleight of Hand. Both skills are body control, but in a different way than the raw "agility in motion" represented by Acrobatics. Both tend to be practiced together in the real world. It gives Sleight the boost to stand on its own separate from the mechanical / saboteur aptitude of Disable. And, as a positive to me, it weakens Acrobatics into still a very good skill, especially if Acrobatics can still be used to avoid "triggered reaction attacks" like it avoided "opportunity attacks" in previous editions, especially especially if Acrobatics also gets Ride for some reason.
Nature as mentioned seems to be not only be Knowledge (Nature / Dungeoneering / Geography) + Spellcraft (Nature) + UMD (Nature) but also Handle Animal and Ride. Even if Ride ended up in Athletics or Acrobatics, well that just makes those even more powerful and still leaves Nature pretty potent.I'd expect Abberation identification to wind up under Occultism, so all it's maybe getting from Dungeoneering is Oozes. And I think Geography is winding up under Survival (as much as it goes anywhere). And I'm fairly convinced that Ride winds up elsewhere.
It's still a good skill, but I don't think we've seen enough of the others to say whether it's better.
That's fair. Even if aberrations (/and oozes? never understood why they weren't just aberrations themselves) move to Occultism though, Nature still ends up far better than Arcana, Religion and Occultism, since it's much more broadly applicable - especially with respect to identifying more of the game's creatures. And that's even without dragging Handle Animal into it.
I still feel Handle + Ride thematically make a quite nice skill on their own, and don't need to be folded up with other skills. Not everyone will take it, but not everyone should feel the need to take every skill. Those who take it, will benefit greatly by it.
Thievery being Disable Device + Open Locks + Sleight of Hand is bad on a couple levels. There's the obvious, where Sleight has nothing in common with the other two in how it's used, and also again that it's just more powerful as a multicombo than some other skills. But it also means you really only need two skills (this and Stealth) to "be a thief," with the overpowered Athletics and Acrobatics just being gravy. And it's not like the rogue or bard are going to be lacking skill slots to begin with, which gives them more opportunity to be overly ubercompetent at everything, especially the other megaskills.Given how few skills you get to max out (it may well be as few as three skills for a non-Rogue, and is no more than 6 even for a Rogue), having a small number of skills required to 'be a thief' is a definite feature rather than a bug.
I feel that such an immensely broad "profession" as "thievery" being boiled down to only two skills, three with Athletics, is a bug rather than a feature. It cheapens things past a point that I'm comfortable with. It also curtails character definition opportunities like someone being good with devices without somehow also being good at picking pockets, or being good at the skulduggery of court intrigue without also somehow being good at taking apart machines.