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Signature Skills need to go.
They add nothing to the game.
Signature Skills need to go.
They add nothing to the game.
They keep spellcasters from investing their feats into traditionally martial/rogue areas and prevent martials (or the wrong kind of spellcaster) from achieving the master proficiency necessary to be a primary caster of many rituals.
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Not that bad... the problem is there no way outside of class that you can have a signature skill.
Even the background doesn't give you a trained skill or a signature one outside of lore.
You are given a skill feat and you need to use a skill point to use it.
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They keep spellcasters from investing their feats into traditionally martial/rogue areas and prevent martials (or the wrong kind of spellcaster) from achieving the master proficiency necessary to be a primary caster of many rituals.Signature Skills need to go.
They add nothing to the game.
Eh, seems pretty weak, particularly considering Rangers can dip into Nature and Monks/Paladins into Religion, and that "martial areas" are easily accessible through other means.
thievery, religion, arcana, athletics, acrobatics I believe have gotten external class ones, I get its really not the end of the world if it isn't there, just feels a little limiting. It's really the one thing I've seen so far that has came up as a limit so far
Thievery can be followed up at 8th level with making any of Rogue's signature skills a signature skill, increasing it to master-level, and getting a skill feat for it.
Arithorne... Where did you find the Arcana?
Signature skill prevents people from getting the highest levels of training in skills that the game designers have decided that class shouldn’t have.
The only way I have found to add Signature skills is by using the archetypes found starting on pg. 279 of the Playtest rule book.
There are no more ‘class skills’ that give you an edge in a skill at the low levels. It isn’t until 7th level that the signature skills determine who is best at a skill. That is when the classes allow you to advance to Master in a skill.
Background A background represents a profession or other significant aspect of your life before becoming an adventurer. Backgrounds give you ability boosts, signature skills, and feats. Learn more on page 38.
Although technically correct, this should read Lore skills instead of signature skills.
If it is any comfort, it looks like signature skills may have been part of backgrounds but got edited out?
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On one hand, I imagine that this will be less of a problem once more feats become available.
On the other hand. I am not happy with how signature skills work at all. They seem to exist to hold the place of class skills, but the difference between access to the most interesting uses of a skill including the associated ways to customize use of that skill, and a +3 bonus seem very different.
I actually quite like the concept of signature skills - they remind me of the old Might & Magic games a bit. I'm cool with everyone not being able to be the best at all things all the time.
That said, I do feel like people should get to add a little bit more customization to their signature skill choices.
My thought was maybe adding a signature skill or two to the backgrounds in addition to the lore skill, which would serve a second purpose of making the backgrounds feel more significant and essential to the character. Perhaps do it like the stat boosts, with 1 free and 1 choice of 2?
For example, the Criminal background could offer a free sig skill, plus a choice between Thievery and Intimidate.
(Given the glossary, this seems like it might have been considered and then dropped for some reason? But it's worth giving a second look, IMO)
Background A background represents a profession or other significant aspect of your life before becoming an adventurer. Backgrounds give you ability boosts, signature skills, and feats. Learn more on page 38.Although technically correct, this should read Lore skills instead of signature skills.
If it is any comfort, it looks like signature skills may have been part of backgrounds but got edited out?
Technically all Lore skills are Signature skills.
Second, all of your Lore skills are signature skills (see page 144). This means that you can advance them to expert or legendary proficiency if you so choose.
Still, I agree with you. The description in the Backgrounds is much better.
I don't really mind signature skills, but it would be cool to get more ways to get them. For example, a feat that gives you a signature skill or makes your background skill a signature skill with some added bonus would be nice.
Before you invest skill feats, the difference between expert and legendary is a +2. That is not that huge imo.
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Signature skills are basically the pf2e version of class skills, yet unlike the latter, signature skills are much harder to get due to lack of traits. I think backgrounds should've gave non-lore skills as well as signature skills just like how Starfinder's backgrounds gave your skills as class skills, that a fighter or ranger can take a medical background for the heal skill, or a paladin who was once a street urchin can utilize his past experience in pick pocketing and sneaking around to investigate and infiltrate a necromancer's secret lair inside a city
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Signature skills feel kind of limiting to me on a couple of levels. The first issue is, as mentioned, the inability to pick something unique to your character as a signature skill. It's all dictated by your class, which is a bit frustrating. I feel like backgrounds adding signature skills for whatever relevant feat they add would make sense, as traits once added class skills.
The second issue for me is the amount of trainings you can get tends to line up pretty closely with how many signature skills you have. My ranger is allowed to train 6+Int skills, and coincidentally I have six signature skills and didn't invest intelligence. I know I could choose to disregard my signature skills and train something else if I wanted, but then it feels a little like I'm being punished for doing so, since I can never go past expert without the skill being signature.
Overall I think my opinion is signature skills require a little more flexibility, and I think including them with backgrounds as a way to gain signature skills would be a clean route to do it. I'm sure everyone else has other ideas for how to improve them as well!
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I would like more flexibility in choosing signature skills as well. It isn’t like you are going to be able to advance every skill to Legendary anyways. You have a limited number of skill imrpovements.
Every class should probably have craft as a signature skill, just so there isn’t an imbalance in what can be done in the way of downtime. If someone wants their barbarian to be a legendary haberdasher, let them!