As a bit of an outlier, grim reapers have save DC 44-45.
I don't know how much this helps, but this seems reasonable compared to what we know. 10(base)+21(level)+10(Highest ability score, aka Dex, according to what we know on Key ability scores)+3(Legendary, which is reasonable for a Level 21 foe) = 44 DC. If there's anything else that boosts Save DC, then that gets, at least, to 45.
Given that we don't know much of what goes into saves, This does seem high, as even the maximum of +20(level) +7(ability score) +3(Proficiency) +5(Armor) gives only a 55% chance to save, but I feel like if PF2e is supposed to solve problems like this, then I'd be surprised if this passed their radar.
That is a situation they are explicitly trying to avoid... it may come up, but it is not common or expected.
Note that I specified "a given action", an example would be a DC 10 Lock. Such an easy task is almost impossible to fail beyond a certain level. Many adventures just don't use easy locks at that level... but I argue that denies the adventurer the benefits of being "Legendary". Easily completing a task that was once impossible can be a very satisfying experience.
If the narrative of my story has to be bounded around everything I do having a roughly 50% chance of failure (plus or minus just enough room for you and I to appear to have meaningful differences): We are not a master, nor legendary... That makes me feel like a mook with a progressively shinier stick fighting other progressively shinier mooks.
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Hey, Sailor Moon was clumsy, frail, and even weak willed at times, but she still righted wrongs and triumphed over evil, and that means you: In the name of the moon, she punishes you.Sailor Moon is a bad example. She would get shanked by a goblin and die in the first encounter. Nobody is just going to wait around while she spends the first three to five rounds transforming into her super-powered identity. The combat will already be half-over (with her the first casualty).
She is an example much better suited to a system that can actually handle genre-emulation, or is built for her genre (comedy urban high-fantasy).Elric (of Stormbringer, I forget his nation of origin) would be a good example of a Heroic Fantasy Adventurer with a famously low degree of Constitution, and given his reliance on a life-drinking Artifact for basic survival, he might even be considered Untrained in Fortitude (and given that he's also a wizard) and have a low HP total as well.
I get to play my favorite game here "um actually"
“When we think of light, we usually think it heats up things or lights up things. But in reality, light has the power to hold up things as well.”
“When the sun is beating down on us in the summer, the human body is being pressed downwards by the sun beams with a force of 2/100,000g.”
“But this is only about a one-hundred of the weight of a mosquito, so no matter how hot it is, we don’t feel that sunlight is heavy.”
“So that means the light holding them up must be extremely strong. If we assume that the two Pretty Cures each weigh about 45kg and do some calculations…”
“It means the light during the transformation must have the energy of 2,100,000,000kW per 1m2.”
“While the entirety of power that Japan is capable of generating is only 100,000,000kW.”
“So they’re using 21 TIMES the amount of energy the whole of Japan can generate.”
“So what would happen if a bad guy jumped in to try to sabotage their transformation?”
“He would EVAPORATE INSTANTLY.”
“DEATH AWAITS ANYONE WHO DARES TO DISRUPT A PRETTY CURE TRANSFORMATION.”
You've made this claim that modifiers magically double in relevance due to "critical failures and successes, plus tighter math".
I don't see it.
If the DC is 20, and I'm rolling 1d20+6 in Pathfinder, I succeed 7/20 times. In PF2, if I'm rolling 1d20+0, I succeed 1/20 times.
If I roll 1d20+12 in Pathfinder, I succeed 13/20 times. In PF2, and I'm rolling 1d20+3, I succeed 4/20 times.
I'm not seeing some kind of doubling in relevance. If anything, all that's become more relevant is the number I roll on the d20.
As others note, you're ignoring critical failures and successes.
Your math is also weird and skews your results. The highest Save DC you're probably ever gonna run into at 1st level is 18 or so, and you'll have at least a +1 bonus from Level. Assuming you keep up with your Armor, highest difference you'll ever see at 20th level is a +25 vs. DC 40 or so. A difference of 20 between bonus and DC almost never happens and skews results.
So I'm gonna do a little math and demonstrate how this actually works in practice. We'll look at, say, level 20 for both.
I understand your point now. You're saying that because the modifier applies twice (once to determine whether to succeed or fail, and again to determine whether to critically succeed or fail), the modifier gets doubled.
Unfortunately, that isn't how math works.
By your logic, getting +4 to dexterity (+2 modifier) would result in a +8 difference because it applies to AC, CMD, ranged attacks and reflex saves.
At the end of the day, a +2 modifier cannot do more than increase your probability of a given class of success by more than 10%. Critical successes, critical failures, flattened modifiers or anything else doesn't change this.
The thing is that those things, RE: Dex, are not on the same roll. By attacking vs AC, that means whatever attacking you is not rolling against your CMD, or targeting your reflex. On the same roll, the fact that +2 to Dex matters on (let's say) a roll of 8 and 9, and on 18 and 19, that's 4/20 rolls where the +2 matters, as opposed to in 1e, where it's 2/20. True, the success-failure state is only modified on 2/20 rolls, but that's kind of the whole point of the 4-tier system: you don't just care about success vs failure anymore.
And also, I'd like to point out that Dex was regarded as a god-stat, because it applies to so many things
Hey, Sailor Moon was clumsy, frail, and even weak willed at times, but she still righted wrongs and triumphed over evil, and that means you: In the name of the moon, she punishes you.Sailor Moon is a bad example. She would get shanked by a goblin and die in the first encounter. Nobody is just going to wait around while she spends the first three to five rounds transforming into her super-powered identity. The combat will already be half-over (with her the first casualty).
Speaking as someone who has actually used the Vigilante's Transformation Sequence (the same "first five rounds" you mention) in combat I came out just fine. Not even harmed. The combat was over about halfway through the sequence admittedly, but not a thing could get close to me while I was transforming because the other party members kinda killed every enemy on the field long before they got the chance. Now if I was alone yeah I'd probably be in a bad spot, but any low-level solo adventurer in Pathfinder that's not well-Gestalted is probably gonna die young. Otherwise, the transformation is generally something that only needs to happen once per outing, so as long as you can manage to do it once you're probably good.
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They absolutely impact the net effect of the stat or proficiency. As an example, let's take reflex saves against cone of cold. The difference between trained and expert reflex saves means a 5% boost towards avoiding failures and critical failures, and getting successes and critical successes.
In PF1, you only had the option of taking full damage or half damage barring evasion, so every +1 only counted once. Now, that +1 can mean the difference between no damage or double damage as well. That means mathematically the +1 does more than it would have in PF2 for reducing damage. If you increase your to hit bonus by 1 in PF2, it is the equivalent of weapon focus, keen on a x2 nat 20 weapon in PF1, plus no confirmation roll.
And this doesn't touch that once you get master in the save you basically get evasion and can count your success as a critical success. It is quite possible that legendary will essentially net you improved evasion.
Cantriped: while you are correct that at a certain point you will autosucceed at easy tasks regardless of proficiency rank, this is a feature and not a bug. A level 20 character shouldn't be falling off a rope regardless of not specifically investing in climb. Trivially challenges are gonna be trivial. And we know climbing a tree or a rope will have the same DC at high levels as it did at low levels.
That said, the tighter math means it is easier to control for creating "level appropriate" DCs as well. So like if you need to scale an icy mountain face, for example, you can set the DC at 30 or 35. And it means that while the legendary athletics barbarian is about certain to succeed at high levels (at 20th level that is probably a +30 before items) the untrained cleric can still make the attempt to climb it. (Probably looking at a +18 before items, assuming only 10 strength.)
Assurance can also make your proficiency bonus auto succeed at certain tasks, which is nice.
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I get to play my favorite game here "um actually"
** spoiler omitted **...
Nevermind that science has very little applicability to a literally supernatural phenomenon:
Being lifted into the air and surrounded in light was simply a budget consious animation/drawing technique (saves drawing the same background over and over).The fact that the magical girls (and voltron) are never attacked mid-transformation is just a trope... there is no more reason to it than there is reason for everybody to stop mod-fight to listen to [character X, Y, or Z] monologue for 30 seconds (even if we are burning through Chi/Ki/Mana/Whatever at an alarming rate to do so, or the world is literally about to be destroyed). Such a trope has little place in D&D (there are systems that already do it better).
Having played a system that actually allows you to build the sailor senshi; and having played a character in that system that transformed using a similarly metaphysical justification... I was not Immune to harm, and it would have been unreasonable to expect me to be.
The prison guards saw me begin to transform (while hiding under a table), and they shot me dead with their assault rifles before the first round was over (my transformation took two rounds). It was the shortest superheroic career ever.
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They absolutely impact the net effect of the stat or proficiency. As an example, let's take reflex saves against cone of cold. The difference between trained and expert reflex saves means a 5% boost towards avoiding failures and critical failures, and getting successes and critical successes.
In PF1, you only had the option of taking full damage or half damage barring evasion, so every +1 only counted once. Now, that +1 can mean the difference between no damage or double damage as well. That means mathematically the +1 does more than it would have in PF2 for reducing damage. If you increase your to hit bonus by 1 in PF2, it is the equivalent of weapon focus, keen on a x2 nat 20 weapon in PF1, plus no confirmation roll.
And this doesn't touch that once you get master in the save you basically get evasion and can count your success as a critical success. It is quite possible that legendary will essentially net you improved evasion.
Cantriped: while you are correct that at a certain point you will autosucceed at easy tasks regardless of proficiency rank, this is a feature and not a bug. A level 20 character shouldn't be falling off a rope regardless of not specifically investing in climb. Trivially challenges are gonna be trivial. And we know climbing a tree or a rope will have the same DC at high levels as it did at low levels.
That said, the tighter math means it is easier to control for creating "level appropriate" DCs as well. So like if you need to scale an icy mountain face, for example, you can set the DC at 30 or 35. And it means that while the legendary athletics barbarian is about certain to succeed at high levels (at 20th level that is probably a +30 before items) the untrained cleric can still make the attempt to climb it. (Probably looking at a +18 before items, assuming only 10 strength.)
Assurance can also make your proficiency bonus auto succeed at certain tasks, which is nice.
This is a good analysis. Let's touch the evasion and improved evasion abilities just for fun though.
Suppose you're fighting an easy foe a medium foe, and a ridiculously overpowered boss that each shoot a 15d6 cone of cold at the party, against Traino, who's trained at Reflex, Expy who's an expert, Max who's a master with evasion, and Legy who's legendary with improved evasion. In an extremely surprising twist, all four of these characters have the exact same Dexterity score except Traino is 1 lower (I believe there is no class with less than expert Reflex than has Dex as a key ability score, so Traino can't keep up, but let's say Traino is something like a wizard who keeps Dex only 1 lower than the other folks). All of these characters have 18 or more Dexterity, so many characters who are merely trained with lower Dex will be worse than Traino.
So the easy enemy, even Traino can make the Reflex save on a 6, Expy on a 4, Max on a 3, Legy on a 2.
The medium enemy, Traino makes the Reflex save on a 10, Expy on an 8, Max on a 7, Legy on a 6.
The ridiculous boss, Traino makes the save on a 16, Expy on a 14, Max on a 13, Legy on a 12.
Now it's probably unrealistic that the wimpy foe and the OP boss are all throwing that 15d6 cone of cold (it's about right for a big move from the medium enemy), but we'll do that for simplicity. Also cone of cold at that level averages to 52.5, but we'll say it's 50 for easier math.
So on the easy enemy, Traino expects double damage on a 1, full on a 2-5, half on 6-15, none on 16-20. That's 11/20*50=27.5 damage expected value. Expy takes 22.5 damage. Max takes an astoundingly less 7.5 damage and Legy takes 2.5.
On medium, Traino takes 37.5 damage, Expy takes 32.5 damage, Max takes 17.5, Legy takes 12.5.
On the OP boss, Traino takes 57.5 damage (yup, it's more than the actual 50 damage from all those crit fails), Expy takes 50 damage, Max takes 37.5, and Legy takes 27.5.
And that's just if we're talking damage. Sometimes critically failing is worse than taking double damage and success is not as bad as taking half damage, and these averages don't really show you how that works for everyone (particularly, it significantly underestimates the advantage Expy has on Traino in those situations, but also Legy's ability to never critically fail).