I like the new critical system, which makes the game play more dynamic and interesting by adding effects to your fails and successes, and I believe this system should be integrated with the proficiency system.
Heres what I mean, as it stands a player who is untrained gets a lvl-2 mod to their roll, while someone who is legendary gets lvl+3.
Just a reminder: Legendary is "Familiarity is so high you'll go down in history" while untrained is: "little or no knowledge in the statistic".
If we assume both these characters are level 3 and attempt a dc 12 skill check here is the chance of success
Untrained: 50% (succeeds on an 11-20)
Legendary: 75% (succeeds on a 6-20)
Now I have to say, any action which gives an untrained person a coin flips chance to succeed, should prolly be an auto success for that person who is legendary.
So, now that I've outlayed the problem how do you fix it? Well its rather simple: (see next post)
First: Assign each skill check a Proficiency level. (This is something which is already partially implemented, but I would also include Expert, Master, and Legendary proficiency levels) but allow anyone of any proficiency to be able to attempt a skill check above their proficiency.
Second: Take away the modifiers from profiency (step one makes them unimportant)
Third: For each proficiency level lower they are then the level required (Untrained would be 1 level below Trained) Move the success outcome markers down by 1. Critical Success becomes Success, Success becomes failure, Failure becomes critical failure.
Similarly for each proficiency level they are above the check (Expert is 1 level above trained) move the success markers up by 1.
So lets go back to our example from before, and assume the proficiency level for that skill is "untrained"
The untrained now has a 60% chance of success, but the legendary character's "critical failure" has now become an automatic "critical success" as the markers get moved up 4 stages.
Similarly lets say that the same check required a Legendary skill check. Same characters, same level, same DC.
Now the Legendary character has a 60% chance of success, while the untrained character's "critical success" has been automatically moved to "critical failure"