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So this thread apparently disappeared?
Basically, the proficiency system is a lot more confusing than it should be.
A big part of that is that this is a play test, so the presentation of information in the book is scattered and difficult to find. There needs to be some central location that tells me what the base proficiencies my character has, modified by the ABC stuff. Clearly the Unarmored proficiency is one of these confusions, but general stuff about unarmed attacks, touch attacks and other such things should not be buried in the spells or equipment sections.
That said, the biggest unnecessary difficult with proficiencies is that they go off of a -2,0, +1, +2, +3 scale instead of a 0, 2,3,4,5 scale. Please!!! make all the numbers positive and scale up all the DCs and other non-proficiency determined D20 rolls by +2. I was skeptical of this when it first appeared in the blog, but now that we have the rule book, there really is no reason for training to = +0, and have everyone having to subtract numbers from the things that they have not actively trained.
Skills should be very easy to fill in, instead, we have to subtract two from all the ones we are not trained in, for no really credible reason.
I feel like the point of this scale was to highlight that the math is tight and so they wanted to center 0 in their bell curve of D20 rolls for game design, but in play, we never see that and it makes a lot of things more complicated than they need to be.
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I would not be opposed to shifting all the numbers. Makes no difference to me and might help others.
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I agree that a lot of the information on proficiencies is scattered all over. This probably took me the most to figure out for the first character that I made.
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I have been thinking about it more (some of which can be found here)
And I think that 5 ranks of proficiencies is too limiting, especially when stacked with +1 per level.
I think there should be 6-8 ranks in proficiencies and skill increases should come every level for every character (with the rogue getting 1 extra every other level), and the default should be that you can only increase any one skill every three levels, unless boosted by a class feature.
Like the old skill feats, there should be general feats that give two skills as signature skills.
I think this would also allow for more creativity with feats that increase non-skill proficiencies, as right now, feats can only give training or expertise as static effects, which is pretty limiting.
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I think trained is the default for most things, so 0 for that level makes the most sense.
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I have been thinking about it more (some of which can be found [ulr=http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2v9zu?The-Unicorns-Reflection#2]here[/ulr])
And I think that 5 ranks of proficiencies is too limiting, especially when stacked with +1 per level.
I think there should be 6-8 ranks in proficiencies and skill increases should come every level for every character (with the rogue getting 1 extra every other level), and the default should be that you can only increase any one skill every three levels, unless boosted by a class feature.
Like the old skill feats, there should be general feats that give two skills as signature skills.
I think this would also allow for more creativity with feats that increase non-skill proficiencies, as right now, feats can only give training or expertise as static effects, which is pretty limiting.
Yeah, and quite frankly, having the difference between a completely untrained character and a LEGENDARY character be +5 (as well as all the values in between) is really underwhelming. Wow, my 15th-level rogue gets a +2 in stealth relative to a fighter of the same level's perception. A true legend of his craft.
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Yeah, and quite frankly, having the difference between a completely untrained character and a LEGENDARY character be +5 (as well as all the values in between) is really underwhelming. Wow, my 15th-level rogue gets a +2 in stealth relative to a fighter of the same level's perception. A true legend of his craft.I have been thinking about it more (some of which can be found [ulr=http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2v9zu?The-Unicorns-Reflection#2]here[/ulr])
And I think that 5 ranks of proficiencies is too limiting, especially when stacked with +1 per level.
I think there should be 6-8 ranks in proficiencies and skill increases should come every level for every character (with the rogue getting 1 extra every other level), and the default should be that you can only increase any one skill every three levels, unless boosted by a class feature.
Like the old skill feats, there should be general feats that give two skills as signature skills.
I think this would also allow for more creativity with feats that increase non-skill proficiencies, as right now, feats can only give training or expertise as static effects, which is pretty limiting.
To be fair, they're aiming for it to be a more qualitative difference than a numerical difference -- aiming to express skill mastery through proficiency-gated actions and activities over pure numerical outscale. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of those gated actions in the playtest right now, so it makes the distinction between legendary and trained characters look a lot smaller than it likely will be in the final product.
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I think trained is the default for most things, so 0 for that level makes the most sense.
Except the rule book explicitly states that Untrained is the default for everything unless stated otherwise.
And Untrained is certainly the default case for skills. I would much rather not be subtracting 2 from every skill I am not trained in (which will be most of them).
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To be fair, they're aiming for it to be a more qualitative difference than a numerical difference -- aiming to express skill mastery through proficiency-gated actions and activities over pure numerical outscale. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of those gated actions in the playtest right now, so it makes the distinction between legendary and trained characters look a lot smaller than it likely will be in the final product.Yeah, and quite frankly, having the difference between a completely untrained character and a LEGENDARY character be +5 (as well as all the values in between) is really underwhelming. Wow, my 15th-level rogue gets a +2 in stealth relative to a fighter of the same level's perception. A true legend of his craft.I have been thinking about it more (some of which can be found [ulr=http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2v9zu?The-Unicorns-Reflection#2]here[/ulr])
And I think that 5 ranks of proficiencies is too limiting, especially when stacked with +1 per level.
I think there should be 6-8 ranks in proficiencies and skill increases should come every level for every character (with the rogue getting 1 extra every other level), and the default should be that you can only increase any one skill every three levels, unless boosted by a class feature.
Like the old skill feats, there should be general feats that give two skills as signature skills.
I think this would also allow for more creativity with feats that increase non-skill proficiencies, as right now, feats can only give training or expertise as static effects, which is pretty limiting.
The math is tight for sure.
If they went to 6 and started at 0 instead of -2, and went 0,1,2,3,4,5. Their total proficiency spread would be exactly the same as it is now with a 2 point shift up. That shouldn't fumble with the numbers at all, but it would allow for more total investments, which would allow for more character design choice.
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I actually thought that non-trained meant -2 to that skill. Forever. That makes sense to me.
Now I am realizing that it is Level-2.
And that my high level fighter is going to have a pretty good stealth score.
And I am really disappointed.
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I actually thought that non-trained meant -2 to that skill. Forever. That makes sense to me.
Now I am realizing that it is Level-2.
And that my high level fighter is going to have a pretty good stealth score.
And I am really disappointed.
It is even more disappointing when there are zero listed trained things you can do with stealth. If prof is supposed to gate skills its gotta be better defined...
I'd still want the +1/level for combat related abilities (such as hitting others with a weapon, etc)...
And I think the skills thing could actually work well...however, the problems as I see it are partly pointed out in another thread I started...
#1. Escalating DCs. The perception (despite the few paragraphs they wrote) indicates that simple tasks get harder. The DC for swimming across the pond for example may be trivial, but that trivial task rises from...lets say a 7, to a 17. The perception is that this trivial task stays the same and gets harder...Why???
It makes the level added to your skills basically feel meaningless.
They need more explanation and more pages devoted to explaining that the actual challenges are actually level based, and they need to DEFINE challenges thus by level. Hence a 3rd level skill challenge will have a certain DC for a task while a 9th level skill challenge may have that same type of rating, but because it is a 9th level skill challenge there are more obstacles and other things involved, and thus it will have a higher DC. The skills cannot just be defined by how hard they are, since they escalate, they also need to be defined by what level they are.
#2. I can see the difficulties one may have with the -2 for an untrained character, but personally, I don't have a problem with it. It's pretty simple and easy.
I think something that DOES bother people is how close the numbers are between an untrained and a legendary skill is, especially with adding the level to the skill bonus.
This indicates to me that they need even more gates that a skill cannot do or can do.
For example, someone who is untrained in stealth, they cannot sneak around in anything except for the barest of clothes. It's not that they are clumsy, they just never took the time to figure out how to sneak around wearing armor or anything else of any bulk. If no armor, and no bulk...sure they can try to sneak around, but otherwise...they just don't know enough about how to make absolutely no sounds while moving to be able to sneak around.
I don't see it as a problem with the number variation, but more so with what is still allowed for an untrained individual to do.
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So this thread apparently disappeared?
Basically, the proficiency system is a lot more confusing than it should be.
A big part of that is that this is a play test, so the presentation of information in the book is scattered and difficult to find. There needs to be some central location that tells me what the base proficiencies my character has, modified by the ABC stuff. Clearly the Unarmored proficiency is one of these confusions, but general stuff about unarmed attacks, touch attacks and other such things should not be buried in the spells or equipment sections.
That said, the biggest unnecessary difficult with proficiencies is that they go off of a -2,0, +1, +2, +3 scale instead of a 0, 2,3,4,5 scale. Please!!! make all the numbers positive and scale up all the DCs and other non-proficiency determined D20 rolls by +2. I was skeptical of this when it first appeared in the blog, but now that we have the rule book, there really is no reason for training to = +0, and have everyone having to subtract numbers from the things that they have not actively trained.
Skills should be very easy to fill in, instead, we have to subtract two from all the ones we are not trained in, for no really credible reason.
I feel like the point of this scale was to highlight that the math is tight and so they wanted to center 0 in their bell curve of D20 rolls for game design, but in play, we never see that and it makes a lot of things more complicated than they need to be.
I would agree with this. The proficiency stuff is both a bit to convoluted and the necessary info seems spread out in dribs and drabs in too many places. This really needs to get cleaned up for the final product. Then there is the issue of proficiencies/skills/skill feats/skill increases and its pretty opaque when you first start looking at it on what you get to raise and when you get to raise it.
I agree that things need to be relocated in quite a few cases (the barbarian giant totem large weapon seems to be an unlisted reference to the weapon damage die increases sidebar buried in the fighter class), but I'm not as convinced on the skills.
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I agree that things need to be relocated in quite a few cases (the barbarian giant totem large weapon seems to be an unlisted reference to the weapon damage die increases sidebar buried in the fighter class), but I'm not as convinced on the skills.
My point about pushing the numbers positive is that centering 0 at training was a developer tool that probably helped when running balancing simulations around the assumption that people will try to do things they are trained in and not do things that they are untrained in. I get that. But, in play, from a player's perspective who doesn't need to see all of that, I have 16+ skills and only 6ish of them are going to be trained for most of my career. That means more of my skills will be calculated at (attribute-2+level) than by any other set of numbers. Nothing is lost by shifting the whole scale so that the default assumption for all checks (since default proficiency is untrained) is (Attribute+level) instead.
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To be fair, they're aiming for it to be a more qualitative difference than a numerical difference -- aiming to express skill mastery through proficiency-gated actions and activities over pure numerical outscale. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of those gated actions in the playtest right now, so it makes the distinction between legendary and trained characters look a lot smaller than it likely will be in the final product.Yeah, and quite frankly, having the difference between a completely untrained character and a LEGENDARY character be +5 (as well as all the values in between) is really underwhelming. Wow, my 15th-level rogue gets a +2 in stealth relative to a fighter of the same level's perception. A true legend of his craft.I have been thinking about it more (some of which can be found [ulr=http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2v9zu?The-Unicorns-Reflection#2]here[/ulr])
And I think that 5 ranks of proficiencies is too limiting, especially when stacked with +1 per level.
I think there should be 6-8 ranks in proficiencies and skill increases should come every level for every character (with the rogue getting 1 extra every other level), and the default should be that you can only increase any one skill every three levels, unless boosted by a class feature.
Like the old skill feats, there should be general feats that give two skills as signature skills.
I think this would also allow for more creativity with feats that increase non-skill proficiencies, as right now, feats can only give training or expertise as static effects, which is pretty limiting.
Perhaps, but at the most basic level, if you want to be unseen, it's a straight Stealth vs Perception roll. The legend of his craft will only have a 15% advantage over the guy with basic training. The same problem exists for all contested checks in the system. It makes having the skill investment feel pointless.
If they increased the bonuses from each proficiency rank, say -2, 0, +2, +4, and +6, it would feel significantly better - not great, but at least in the trained vs legend comparison the legend would have a 30% bonus rather than a 15%.
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Something I'm noticing right off the bat is that while a character's bonus with a trained (class) skill is about 3 points lower in this system than it was in PF1, some of the skill DCs seem to be the same as they were before or higher. So either shifting the proficiency bonus up slightly or shifting some of these DCs down might be called for.
For example, Medicine/Heal is DC 15 for First Aid, DC 20 for Treat Deadly Wounds/Battle Medic. Someone pointed out to me that this means that a 2nd level character with Battle Medic has almost as much of a chance of crit-failing and further injuring the person they're trying to heal as they do of succeeding and healing them.
Jumping on the other hand, increased the DC of a Long Jump by 5 (perhaps not unreasonably, a DC 10 check to jump 5 feet is understandable), and the DC of a High Jump by 10. You need a DC 30 check to high jump 5 feet instead of a DC 20 in PF1, which makes it literally impossible for the first few levels and pretty unlikely for a while after that.
I like the proficiency system and getting to add level to everything, but I feel like the math on some of these things isn't working out the way they probably intended it to.
That's interesting about the DCs being harder on average than PF1. Maybe they should be completely reworked then.
I don't know if it's all skill DCs, but those were the ones I happened to notice as being same or higher than in PF1. Acrobatics/Jump in particular because I was looking at the skill entry and not really making any sense of how jumping worked until I realized that the rest of the rules were listed with the Jump action in a different chapter.
Dude, if you remove level or only provide a fraction thereof, the math will fall apart. Skills and Saves and Attacks and AC need to progress at the same rate or we won't be able to do anything that rolls one against another. Remember how Intimidate checks in PF1 weren't against Will like you'd expect but instead against some goofy DC = 10 + HD + WIS? That was necessary because Skills and Saves progressed at completely different rates, so a Will Save had no chance against a Skill check.
Never mind the fixed skill DCs that you'd have no chance at if you're only adding 1/3 or 1/2 your level.
Under your proposal, the spellcasters would be boned at low levels because their Spellcasting DCs would be growing slower than everyone else's saves, then everybody else would be boned at high levels when everyone else's saves couldn't keep up with their Legendary Spell DC Progession. We're talking a 10 point difference between Master and Legendary. That's basically an guaranteed crit.
Your Wall Street trader has a lower STR score than the MMA fighter and a penalty from their lack of proficiency. The only way he could be better at wrestling is if he had a much higher level because he had been going on EPIC ADVENTURES. When you go on EPIC ADVENTURES you become a cool badass who's better at everything, that's just how RPGs work.
Not to mention that under your proposal, Rogues and Bards would be out-wrestling everyone with their legendary skills, just like in 5E.
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I could see cutting Untrained to +1/2 level. I've considered that myself. But trained skills need to stay at +level. Otherwise you've got the same "you can't roll Intimidate vs. Will because they scale differently" problem all over again.
And even then, we have the problem that they don't want untrained skills to be so far behind everyone else that it's hopeless and drags down the whole group. (e.g. "No one in the party can use Stealth because the cleric and fighter clanking would give them away.")
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I'm generally happy, but would like to see a few more skill uses (rather than feats, or the rare hazard bypass) that are expert+ only. Likewise I'd love to see some feats that require/build off expert+ save/armor proficiencies. I know that can come in later books, but I would have liked to seem a sampling of them now.
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If you give an higher numerical bonus to proficiency, you go back to a system where to make a challenge for a Legendary character you have to set a DC that is impossibile for any other.
But I agree that, as things are now, high proficiencies feel a bit weak. What about a rule saying that you always get to roll twice (and take the better result) against lower-tier challenges/opponents?
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If you give an higher numerical bonus to proficiency, you go back to a system where to make a challenge for a Legendary character you have to set a DC that is impossibile for any other.
But I agree that, as things are now, high proficiencies feel a bit weak. What about a rule saying that you always get to roll twice (and take the better result) against lower-tier challenges/opponents?
You could still make challenges, where only one of the party has to succeed or where the legendary character can help (aid) the others to make give them the chance.
You could still make challenges, where only one of the party has to succeed or where the legendary character can help (aid) the others to make give them the chance.If you give an higher numerical bonus to proficiency, you go back to a system where to make a challenge for a Legendary character you have to set a DC that is impossibile for any other.
But I agree that, as things are now, high proficiencies feel a bit weak. What about a rule saying that you always get to roll twice (and take the better result) against lower-tier challenges/opponents?
... Wait... They got rid of the ability to aid another in skill checks?
#1 Thing I despise most about PF2, the skill mechanics.
This just needs a 100% redo
From Page 142:
Aiding Skill Checks
Sometimes the GM might allow you to use a skill to help
another character perform a task more effectively. In some
situations, you can simply perform one or more of a skill’s
uses to grant a circumstance bonus to another character’s
check for the task they’re attempting. Other times,
aiding an ally’s skill check requires more exact timing,
necessitating the Aid reaction (see page 307 in Chapter 9).
Also, one of the Human Ancestry Feats gives a bonus to Aid and Assist actions.
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I actually think skill ranks need to come back but be combined with proficiencies. I was always bothered by the cap at level of skill ranks since it didn't make a lot of sense logically. Someone who focuses on a single task can be better at one.
Basically, I'd like to see you get your proficiencies from your class, background, ancestry and such.
e.g. At level 1, I have:
*this is an exaggerated example*
Stealth: Trained
Alchemy: Untrained
Crafting: Master
Knowledge: Legendary
Now, instead of the current or playtest variations, I can put a number of skill ranks into each skill based upon my proficiency.
So, at level 1, I could put 3 ranks into stealth, or 1 rank in alchemy, or 5 into crafting, or 7 into knowledge.
What this allows is a player to focus on a single skill if they want, or they can still try to be jacks of all trades. A static bonus could be applied if desired and mathed out properly. Feats can be used to pick up additional proficiencies.
It could also be switched easily to Class Skills (up to +5 ranks), General skills (up to +3 ranks) and Secret Skills (+1 ranks, and these would be skills that historically require a rank to use).
I'm generally happy, but would like to see a few more skill uses (rather than feats, or the rare hazard bypass) that are expert+ only. Likewise I'd love to see some feats that require/build off expert+ save/armor proficiencies. I know that can come in later books, but I would have liked to seem a sampling of them now.
The proficiency system is catching a lot of flak from armchair theory-crafters because ever since 3.0 numbers (the bonus to a check) is the primary thing that defines skills. There were skills which were gated behind one level of proficiency (trained or not), but there were not many of them.
As it looks now, this proficiency system is an attempt to ease away from the importance of numbers, which I think is a good thing, but it is very different and that is making it difficult to evaluate a skills usefulness, and the importance of training it up, if you are coming from a PF1/3.x perspective.
This is a very important thing for play testers to provide feed back on in practice.
After building 3 characters, I still feel like shifting the numbers up 2 would only help make character generation easier (less total math since most skills are untrained) and not change any game dynamics.
I still think tagging something else on to proficiency, that you get without investing a feat in it, would go a long way to making it feel you were getting something from investing in skills.
Perhaps Megistone's idea about getting a reroll if the challenge is a lower proficiency, or even maybe getting assurance as a free skill feat, or even just coming up with "advanced" versions of the activities that anyone can do with a skill untrained and not requiring feats to use them.
But I personally want to actually get into some games and see what it feels like my character can and can't do before I would say any one of those ideas is necessary.
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I actually think skill ranks need to come back but be combined with proficiencies. I was always bothered by the cap at level of skill ranks since it didn't make a lot of sense logically. Someone who focuses on a single task can be better at one.
Basically, I'd like to see you get your proficiencies from your class, background, ancestry and such.
e.g. At level 1, I have:
*this is an exaggerated example*Stealth: Trained
Alchemy: Untrained
Crafting: Master
Knowledge: LegendaryNow, instead of the current or playtest variations, I can put a number of skill ranks into each skill based upon my proficiency.
So, at level 1, I could put 3 ranks into stealth, or 1 rank in alchemy, or 5 into crafting, or 7 into knowledge.
What this allows is a player to focus on a single skill if they want, or they can still try to be jacks of all trades. A static bonus could be applied if desired and mathed out properly. Feats can be used to pick up additional proficiencies.
It could also be switched easily to Class Skills (up to +5 ranks), General skills (up to +3 ranks) and Secret Skills (+1 ranks, and these would be skills that historically require a rank to use).
I had somewhat the same idea. But instead of caping the max skill rank to your proficiency, you could unlock skill feats based on your proficiency, like now (kind of like Skill Unlocks too). And maybe keep the little bonus being proefficient gives you (but not the malus of being untrained).
So if you're Master at Stealth and put 5 ranks in it, you would get +7+Dex at Stealth checks and be able to unlock Trained and Master proficiency Skill Feats. While an Untrained Fighter would only get +Dex to its Stealth Check, and a Trained Rogue with 0 ranks would get +Dex but can access Trained proficiency Skill Feats.
Caping depending on your proficiency seems to make it a bit complicated, but I could agree with it.
I would go with
untrained: +0
Trained: +2
Expert: +4
Master: +5, min lvl 7
Legendary: +6, min lvl 13
Oh, and btw remove please +1 per level treadmill on everything or at least
flatten it out to +1 per 5 levels. So it goes nice with ability boosts.
That way untrained lvl 20 character with 6 in key ability will have +2
and Legend with 22 in key ability(max without magic) will have +16
But if you have only training and and reasonable dump stat at 20th level of 12, that would be +7
And savant at 1st level training and 18 in key ability would have +6
so,
village idiot 1st level: 6 in an ability and untrained; -2
village idiot 20th lvl: still 6 and untrained: +2
Average at 1st level: 10 in ability and trained: +2
Average at 20th lvl: 12 in ability and expert: +9
Expert at 1st lvl: 14 in ability and trained: +4
Expert at 20th lvl: 18 in ability and master: +13
Genius at 1st lvl: 18 in ability and trained: +6
Genius at 20th lvl: 22 in ability and legendary: +16
far better than huge number inflation.
I think trained is the default for most things, so 0 for that level makes the most sense.Except the rule book explicitly states that Untrained is the default for everything unless stated otherwise.
And Untrained is certainly the default case for skills. I would much rather not be subtracting 2 from every skill I am not trained in (which will be most of them).
Sorry for the delay, but I meant default for combat. Saves are trained, attacks are trained, skills most likely to be used in combat are trained. It would be awkward and require extra mental math to have to automatically add in a number other than zero when building a basic monster. It's like how I always got confused by AC/attack numbers being off by one for PF1 monsters until I realized it was a size issue.
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Sorry for the delay, but I meant default for combat. Saves are trained, attacks are trained, skills most likely to be used in combat are trained. It would be awkward and require extra mental math to have to automatically add in a number other than zero when building a basic monster. It's like how I always got confused by AC/attack numbers being off by one for PF1 monsters until I realized it was a size issue.I think trained is the default for most things, so 0 for that level makes the most sense.Except the rule book explicitly states that Untrained is the default for everything unless stated otherwise.
And Untrained is certainly the default case for skills. I would much rather not be subtracting 2 from every skill I am not trained in (which will be most of them).
I'll be a bit of a nitpick here, but you aren't trained with all weapons (thus attacks), and some classes don't get some essential combat skills (like a wizard doesn't get Acrobatics while it could be used to escape a grapple). The only skills I'm sure everyone has are Crafting and Lore.
I'll be a bit of a nitpick here, but you aren't trained with all weapons (thus attacks), and some classes don't get some essential combat skills (like a wizard doesn't get Acrobatics while it could be used to escape a grapple). The only skills I'm sure everyone has are Crafting and Lore.Sorry for the delay, but I meant default for combat. Saves are trained, attacks are trained, skills most likely to be used in combat are trained. It would be awkward and require extra mental math to have to automatically add in a number other than zero when building a basic monster. It's like how I always got confused by AC/attack numbers being off by one for PF1 monsters until I realized it was a size issue.I think trained is the default for most things, so 0 for that level makes the most sense.Except the rule book explicitly states that Untrained is the default for everything unless stated otherwise.
And Untrained is certainly the default case for skills. I would much rather not be subtracting 2 from every skill I am not trained in (which will be most of them).
You (and certainly monsters) are trained in the attacks you're likely to use. Almost no one is making up stat blocks with the modifiers for weapons they carry around and plan to use without proficiency. If they are, it's up to them to apply a -2, rather than everyone else (and every monster built) having to remember to add a baseline number.
I'm arguing that building a 1st level character and a basic monster would be harder if Trained gave you something other than +0 as a modifier, as most things you bother to use and track are trained, or increase to expert quickly because of a special ability you are aware of.
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But aren't most monsters past level 5 or 7 going to be expert in their primary attacks anyway (which means that you will be adding a positive modifier to things for more than half of the game anyway.
I do understand your point, but in pregenerated blocks, like when using monsters from the bestiary, the math is already going to be done. Don't you thing that players are going to be making characters and fumbling the math on their skill lists a lot more often than GMs are going to be making up their own monsters?
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Though I agree about the centralization of information in terms of layout, I like that untrained proficiencies are a negative modifier at low levels. My issue is that untrained scales up at the same rate as trained and higher, so that the difference between being untrained and legendary is ALWAYS a -5 difference.
I think the untrained modifier should be something like half your level -2. So a level 10 untrained character would only have a +3 proficiency mod in that skill, compared to the legendary character who has a +13 proficiency mod. If you don't take time to train in the skill, you're at a serious hindrance.
In general, it seems like there's not much benefit in training a skill up to Legendary unless you specifically want a feat that requires it as a prerequisite. It doesn't make you that much better than you would be at a "mere" Expert level, and you could use those skill increases on other skills (such as eliminating the negative modifier in useful untrained skills).
Also, your proficiency includes your level so there is always positive math (addition) being done, even from level 1.
But aren't most monsters past level 5 or 7 going to be expert in their primary attacks anyway (which means that you will be adding a positive modifier to things for more than half of the game anyway.
I do understand your point, but in pregenerated blocks, like when using monsters from the bestiary, the math is already going to be done. Don't you thing that players are going to be making characters and fumbling the math on their skill lists a lot more often than GMs are going to be making up their own monsters?
Should medium size have been the default size that gets +0 to attack and AC in PF1? Why or why not?
I really appreciate how many people have contributed thoughts to this thread and understanding the proficiency system.
I think we all agree that it is a very different system, especially for skills, and that has been jarring for many of us.
However, it is really important to contextualize the proficiency system with the 4 tiers of success rule as well.
a +5 difference between untrained and legendary is already half the way to saying that the legendary character is 1 full tier of success ahead of the untrained character. Any proposed change that spreads that further, might as well just play with counting results as one higher or lower. Because any check where two characters of the same level might have more than a +10 difference on the roll start to really stretch the math and make rolling about getting a 20 or bust as far as being able to succeed.
I am not a big fan of the +1 level to everything because I like grittier fantasy where 5-10 opponents always look like big trouble, but that has nothing to do with PF2.
A +5 spread with a +/-10 system is fine for me mathematically, but the issue is that getting through to the next gate doesn't come with any of the bells or whistles to make getting just another +1 interesting (especially when I am getting a +1 every level anyway).
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The difference between untrained and legendary is 6. If I was level 10 and was untrained and had no other bonuses or penalties my total would be 8. If I was legendary it would 13 (this is just an example to illustrate some math). With other mods I could have 9, or ,10, or 11, or 12. That is 6 possible different numbers.
The other thing that is vital to skills is the 4 degrees of success that is used. Being 6 better than someone else makes it supremely better to achieve critical successes or vice versa with critical failures.
These two things combined need to be considered to fully understand how proficiency's work.
Then add in that the dev's are using a universal mechanic instead of making a new subsystem to support proficency's. Then add in the goal of making things balanced at all levels and making the system work for characters great at something and characters that suck at something and you get to what PF2 is proposing.
I mention all of this so that contributors to this thread can consider there proposals from all angles.
Edit: feats are the last component I forgot to mention.
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I like the -2 as untrained but because of the adding level it seems after level 2 being untrained is a bit moot. That being said I saw a few things that I liked abd would support:
*a static +1 which increases ever so many level which is similar to the 5e proficiency system. So at level 1 you have a base +1 which gets added to all skill trained or untrained. So if I am untrained the math is -2+1 and at 5th level it's -2+2.
*changing the value amount so for me it would look like UT (-2), T (+0), E (+2), M (+6), L (+8). I feel the number jump should be dramatic to represent the character advancement as well as how a +6 you are now already more then halfway to a critical success.
*Also I liked the level restriction to move from E to M can only be done at 7th and M to L at 13th. This level cap also helps with that number jump you see in my choices.
I again think that Pazio has some great ideas that need a bit fleshing out and that is way we are here playtesting. Well thats my 2 cents and as always be amazing to eachother
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The proficiencies giving heavy qualitative bonus is kinda of a lie now that we have the rulebook. The vast majority of skill uses are available as long as you're "Trained". The only benefit besides the +1s from going higher than that is maybe meeting the pre-requisites of some Skill Feats. Most skills already have all their usages unlocked from level 1.