Thing is, that warrior survived to level 20.
He's probably fought dragons, battled through armies of skeletal mages, broken major artefacts, and sought advice from the highest sages of all the lands for his quests.
Level 1 wizard? Guy just stumbled out of the county fair magic sideshow. With 20 int the guy has great potential, but he has none of the field experience of the warrior. The warrior can out-guess him on the unknown magic things on pure honed intuition at this point. I *like* that the math works out like this.
I could stand to see the expert/master/legendary bonuses doubled to +2/+4/+6 though.
Guess it depends how you see a level 20 warrior.
I see a level 20 warrior as the personal guard to some god.
A veteran of a few wars? 6th level at most. Sporting a +4 to his check if he's not stupid (10 int), and he would have seen a lot of magic used in those wars, he's probably got used to how it works if he actually surived the wars. Seems reasonable he's similar to our fresh-out-of-county-fair smart alec Wizard.
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Okay, let's drop the arcane. Athletic and legendary in it 1 lvl warrior this 20 str vs 20 lvl invalid of any class this 5 str. Same situations for every skill. Performance, acrobatic, crafting... You can not find excuse for everything, there is a logical problem in the system.
The level 20 STR 5 person with disabilities (because calling people "invalid" is so 1970) is a legendary adventurer who can do amazing things despite their frail frame. He or she is basically Splinter, Master Roshi, Yoda, Cohen the Barbarian or any other "Old/Weak/Frail Master" trope representative.
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But he has problems with his body, with his muscles. How can his knowledge help raise a heavy stone better than a super strong but little experienced person? I have same question for every skill.Okay, let's drop the arcane. Athletic and legendary in it 1 lvl warrior this 20 str vs 20 lvl invalid of any class this 5 str. Same situations for every skill. Performance, acrobatic, crafting... You can not find excuse for everything, there is a logical problem in the system.The level 20 STR 5 person with disabilities (because calling people "invalid" is so 1970) is a legendary adventurer who can do amazing things despite their frail frame. He or she is basically Splinter, Master Roshi, Yoda, Cohen the Barbarian or any other "Old/Weak/Frail Master" trope representative.
It's not knowledge. It's concentrated power of awesome and cosmic might, which you have plenty of at level 20 but close to none at level 1. Back in the days, higher levels meant that you are beyond human, which is something PF 2 seems to go back to.
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4th Ed days?It's not knowledge. It's concentrated power of awesome and cosmic might, which you have plenty of at level 20 but close to none at level 1. Back in the days, higher levels meant that you are beyond human, which is something PF 2 seems to go back to.But he has problems with his body, with his muscles. How can his knowledge help raise a heavy stone better than a super strong but little experienced person? I have same question for every skill.Okay, let's drop the arcane. Athletic and legendary in it 1 lvl warrior this 20 str vs 20 lvl invalid of any class this 5 str. Same situations for every skill. Performance, acrobatic, crafting... You can not find excuse for everything, there is a logical problem in the system.The level 20 STR 5 person with disabilities (because calling people "invalid" is so 1970) is a legendary adventurer who can do amazing things despite their frail frame. He or she is basically Splinter, Master Roshi, Yoda, Cohen the Barbarian or any other "Old/Weak/Frail Master" trope representative.
Basic, Expert, Companion, Master and Immortal, 1983.
Thing is, that warrior survived to level 20.
He's probably fought dragons, battled through armies of skeletal mages, broken major artefacts, and sought advice from the highest sages of all the lands for his quests.
Level 1 wizard? Guy just stumbled out of the county fair magic sideshow. With 20 int the guy has great potential, but he has none of the field experience of the warrior. The warrior can out-guess him on the unknown magic things on pure honed intuition at this point. I *like* that the math works out like this.
I could stand to see the expert/master/legendary bonuses doubled to +2/+4/+6 though.
No, no, no.
by your example, I have met war veterans with 5years in wartime service and some of them do not know that chemical formula for water if H2O.
Thing that you learn in elementary school before you are 13y old.
Being more expirienced does not give you knowledge about everything.
If they flatten the treadmill to +1 per 5 levels, then 20th level dumbass warrior would have +4, minus somethning for intelligence and not be 4 times better than a genius level scholar.
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Okay, let's drop the arcane. Athletic and legendary in it 1 lvl warrior this 20 str vs 20 lvl invalid of any class this 5 str. Same situations for every skill. Performance, acrobatic, crafting... You can not find excuse for everything, there is a logical problem in the system.The level 20 STR 5 person with disabilities (because calling people "invalid" is so 1970) is a legendary adventurer who can do amazing things despite their frail frame. He or she is basically Splinter, Master Roshi, Yoda, Cohen the Barbarian or any other "Old/Weak/Frail Master" trope representative.
Those are bad examples. Splinter is a ninja/monk, Roshi is a monk, yoda is a monk, and Cohen was a barbarian. These are characters who have specifically trained their bodies (in yoda's case his mystical connection with the force), and have received dividends from it. Roshi is actually incredibly strong and able to manipulate his form to better suit his needs.
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You seem to be confusing skill bonus with proficiency. A 20th level fighter untrained in Arcana might be able to identify basic spells, but that hardly gives him an understanding of them, the ability to cast spells, and (I haven't gotten to Magic Item Rules yet) the ability to use scrolls, staves, etc. Forget doing things like crafting them. The Legendary Arcana Wizard should be able to tell you specific spell effects, be able to cast these spells as rituals, and when he doesn't know a spell, be able to research its effects more easily because he has access to the resources and an understanding of it.
As far as the heavy stone thing, I'm pretty sure that's a straight Strength check, not an Athletics roll, but I could be wrong. Though to be fair, I think I saw a feat or something specifically for doing things like catching boulders, so YMMV.
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I don't think any genius level scholar is level 1. I think a wizard that is recognized as a 'genius scholar of the arcane' is a minimum of 6th-9th level.
In cases "my character's a veteran of wars in this magical land, but magic was rare in those wars", I think the player/GM could agree that they have an extra penalty to arcana, but that sounds very edge case to me.
Being more experienced doesn't strictly give you more knowledge in every aspect of everything, but considering real-world experience caps out somewhere near 6th level historically, maybe a bit higher in 2E, the superhero-like people who reach 15th+ could easily have such a wide range of experience that, yeah, they outclass highschool kids in just about everything... they're superheroes!
To me it sounds like your ideal vision of a 1st level Fighter and 20th level Fighter is basically identical, except one is better at Fightering and otherwise does similar jobs in a similar context. That feels wrong and absurd and doesn't at all match the changing levels of fantasy I see in most campaigns progression.
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This is one of those things though that sometimes you have to separate game mechanics and flavor though.
I mean, as 1e setting book said, 15-20 are assumed to be legendary foes. however, whenever gm wants high level party to face human mooks, suddenly they are all 15 level at minimum.(notable case of 15+ mooks especially around Taldor's palace :p) So either all of those mooks are legendary heroes who just has day job being palace guards or we have to suspend disbelief if we want to have high level encounters that don't involve monsters
The "+1 per level" to everything seems like the system that causes more mproblems than good.
The “problems” sound like they are conceptual rather than necessarily in gameplay
And we should have conceptual problems thinking of characters above level 15 or so as I don’t think they really come up that often in genre fiction . Note there was that lord of the rings article about the highest character being maybe level 5...
For what it is worth I recently had a nurse on a mental health ward tell me of an 80+ year old woman who tore off a heavy en-suite door that was normally safely carried by 2-3 people due to weight and shape
Without hurting herself.
So who knows from a concept point. Perhaps higher level characters unlock this supposedly unused potential we have in our brains
(Note: I am not deliberately trying to provide weird counter examples. But I was told this story a week ago and it seems a relevant if weird example - albeit probably not what designers were thinking !)