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I generally like the 2e ruleset, but I have to ask...
Does +3 feel very legendary to anyone?
This is as compared to 0 for Trained.
I know that character level will factor in as well, but the scale seems too slight to me especially given the costs involved, and I wonder if anyone else thinks the same...
I was thinking using -2/0/+2/+4/+6 would be a better scale to use.
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No.
But you are missing the point of Legendary, I think, and most people is doing too. Which is, actually, a fair criticism for the legendary feats, if nobody is noticing them.
The point of having Legendary Disguise Skill over , say, trained, is not that you have +18 instead of +15. It's that you are able to use a feat that allows you to instantly transform in a different person every 6 seconds, basically making you Simon Templar, The Saint.
However, the fact many (really many) people can't see beyond the numeric bonus of Legendary, should be an attention call for Paizo. They intend to make legendary worth it because of the extra stuff you can do because of being legendary, but if nobody is noticing it, maybe it's not legendary enough.
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I think legendary and the other tiers are well defined for skills by the skill feat system and for saves by essentially following the evasion format. I think armor and weapons need something to make the different tiers feel more different. I don't think anything differentiates them beside the number.
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The difference for weapons/armor is how much magic you can hold. I'm sure finding a master quality longsword isn't going to seem that much better than an expert quality longsword until you run into the potency limit on the expert longsword, and need a master quality one to keep improving it. Not saying that's a great distinction but people are definitely going to notice it.
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The thing the skill rules fail at right now is emphasizing that (and explaining how) different tiers of proficiency are supposed to gate off whether you can even attempt something. Some things are too hard to accomplish if you aren't master or legendary. But they only explicitly gave you the list of things too hard to do if you aren't trained.
Of course this applies more to skills, combat proficiencies really do just give you a +1.
A Legendary weapon (against an opponent within normal ranges who can be crit) does +50% damage on average.
So mechanically pretty cool given that there's no magic in the item at all, it's just a really sharp/strong weapon. (Though likely crafted using a magic item!)
And in PF2 because of the <10> system, it's a good rule of thumb to think of numbers as being worth twice their PF1 value.
I think where Legendary weapons fall flat is that by the time somebody gets one, they very likely have a +3 or +4 to attack from the magic on their weapon. The upgrade would just be to open up the option of going up to +5, which seems not even to be expected until 20th (maybe 19th?). Essentially, with normal play progression, there's little to it.
Is it supposed to fill a niche in low magic worlds? I don't know, but yeah, I found it disappointing when I noted the overlap.
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My apologies. I should have specified weapon and armor proficiencies don't feel very interesting outside of numbers. While those numbers are worth a fair bit, they aren't really interesting enough to warrant being called 'legendary'.
My apologies. I should have specified weapon and armor proficiencies don't feel very interesting outside of numbers. While those numbers are worth a fair bit, they aren't really interesting enough to warrant being called 'legendary'.
You mentioned Trained, so my bad.
But the +3 Attack gives +50% average damage still holds.And Legendary would have unlocked the crit abilities to, so their hammer blows keep sending foes flying.
My apologies. I should have specified weapon and armor proficiencies don't feel very interesting outside of numbers. While those numbers are worth a fair bit, they aren't really interesting enough to warrant being called 'legendary'.You mentioned Trained, so my bad.
But the +3 Attack gives +50% average damage still holds.
And Legendary would have unlocked the crit abilities to, so their hammer blows keep sending foes flying.
Oh my goodness, you're right. Ignore what I've said then. I forgot all about critical specializations.
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Oh my goodness, you're right. Ignore what I've said then. I forgot all about critical specializations.My apologies. I should have specified weapon and armor proficiencies don't feel very interesting outside of numbers. While those numbers are worth a fair bit, they aren't really interesting enough to warrant being called 'legendary'.You mentioned Trained, so my bad.
But the +3 Attack gives +50% average damage still holds.
And Legendary would have unlocked the crit abilities to, so their hammer blows keep sending foes flying.
I don't want to dismiss the value of proficiency related skill effects and the critical specializations.
I do want to point out that the skill based feats are very circumstantial, and the weapons mastery and legend strata are unavailable until much higher levels (13th and 17th levels, I think).
The numerical coefficient on the otherhand applies any time you use the skill or weapon and hence of greater general value.
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I much prefer legendary being expressed through skill use as opposed to skill numbers. For one, it keeps DCs from being impossible for some and auto-success for others (something SF struggles with) when you have the margin of difference being so smaller. Being able to say I have +30 in acrobatics is kind of cool, but being able to say my character can fall 1000ft and walk away (Cat Fall feat)? That's more legendary.
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And Legendary would have unlocked the crit abilities to, so their hammer blows keep sending foes flying.
Wait, where does it say that legendary proficiency in weapons unlocks their critical specializations? I know that there are ancestry and class features which do so (far before legendary status) but missed anything that tied critical specializations to proficiency (which I'd actually prefer over ancestry/class being the main way to get them).
Overall, I like how Legendary proficiency is for skills since it actually unlocks options you can't do without it and the GM can say certain uses of a skill need a certain level of proficiency. But I don't see anything similar tied to armor proficiency, spell proficiency, or weapon proficiency beyond the +3, which makes them not feel legendary at all (especially spells, considering it takes so long to get merely expert and every caster seems to get spell proficiency at the exact same rate - so a "legendary" spell proficiency is the exact same thing as saying "a 19th level caster").
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The "not very pretty" reality of proficiencies in the play test is that Weapon, armor, perception, and save proficiencies above Expert almost exclusively come from class and usually the rider feat is just baked into the class feature instead of appearing as a separate feat. In theory, this allows these benefits (treating successes as critical successes, reduced speed penalties, critical unlocks) to not be feat taxes, but it does disguise their usefulness a little when people are looking at class before actually play testing them. It is also difficult to tell how consistent those riders are for feeling more heroic.
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Also controlling the number scale thing is the most important aspect of making high level play accessible and not overly complicated. At high level, with attributes, proficiency, spells, and magic items, the abilities of specialized vs unspecialized similar level characters can hit a 9 point spread I believe. WIth the +/- 10 scale, that is basically one whole margin of success.
It is really hard to see that though when you are just comparing proficiencies against each other. If proficiency is going to get a larger share of that spread, it is going to have to come out of one of the other categories.
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The proficiency bonuses would feel better if we just got rid of adding level to everything. Adding level to everything is just pointless. You might as well make the game a bit easier and add it to nothing.
In PF1, level determines your rate of growth in certain aspects of your character through tables that converted the straight 1-20 scale to the desired increments. It allows for diversification between classes. That's gone in PF2. No different growth rates, just a meaningless straight scale. If you eliminate level from the equation, nothing changes, you'll just be comparing smaller numbers to each other when you add up your rolls.
As it stands, level creates just an illusion of being better. Remember basic algebra:
X + 10 = 20
How do we solve this? Remove 10 from both sides of the equation!
X = 10, Yay, we solved it!
This fits how PF2 works like a glove.
X + lvl + d20 vs. a target of 10 + lvl
becomes
X + d20 vs. a target of 10.
Level is just an illusion of power and it makes the proficiency bonuses look bad.
"But what if I want to put my players up against higher level NPCs, it won't work, they'll be missing out on a bonus equal to (NPC level) minus (Player level)!"
So? You're the GM. Add or subtract a constant to everything you want your NPC to be better/worse at and you're golden. And bestiary monsters already don't follow character rules, they can be made to fit the level-free paradigm by just arbitrarily assigning number just like they are arbitrarily assigned now, just differently. The GM can easily make it work. Don't bother the players with making them think level matters. It doesn't.
Without level in any equation, you'll still be looking at the exact same success ranges on the d20 scale but a +2 master proficiency bonus will seem great because it's a significant number compared to the other modifiers you add. It won't be overshadowed by a meaningless smoke and mirrors number of a greater magnitude.
This won't of course be happening, but John Lennon said it best:
Imagine there's no level
It's easy if you try
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No different growth rates, just a meaningless straight scale.
If I'm +X better than my allies at a skill from level 1, then I can feel like I'm good at that skill, so long as X is sufficiently high. I don't have to see the gap widen constantly as I level up.
And bestiary monsters already don't follow character rules, they can be made to fit the level-free paradigm by just arbitrarily assigning number just like they are arbitrarily assigned now, just differently. The GM can easily make it work.
Sure. You can rewrite the stats for a goblin and an ancient dragon for a version of PF2 without the +level.
The only significant difference is in the type of world you want to portray. If the dragon meets two hundred goblin archers, does he have to flee for his life?
D&D 5e, with its bounded accuracy, is the sort of game where the dragon does have to flee. PF2 probably needs to find a different niche; that niche is taken. A game where high-level martials are strong enough to repel entire armies is one way of doing that.
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skill proficiency ranks need to unlock uses without requiring additional feats
As of now, no matter if you're legendary, you can't pickpocket people without a feat. wtf.
No different growth rates, just a meaningless straight scale.If I'm +X better than my allies at a skill from level 1, then I can feel like I'm good at that skill, so long as X is sufficiently high. I don't have to see the gap widen constantly as I level up.
What does that have to do with anything I wrote?
And bestiary monsters already don't follow character rules, they can be made to fit the level-free paradigm by just arbitrarily assigning number just like they are arbitrarily assigned now, just differently. The GM can easily make it work.Sure. You can rewrite the stats for a goblin and an ancient dragon for a version of PF2 without the +level.
The only significant difference is in the type of world you want to portray. If the dragon meets two hundred goblin archers, does he have to flee for his life?
D&D 5e, with its bounded accuracy, is the sort of game where the dragon does have to flee. PF2 probably needs to find a different niche; that niche is taken. A game where high-level martials are strong enough to repel entire armies is one way of doing that.
Again, you don't address anything I wrote.
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skill proficiency ranks need to unlock uses without requiring additional feats
As of now, no matter if you're legendary, you can't pickpocket people without a feat. wtf.
That's... actually... a good idea.
Maybe give you 1 free feat when you achieve legendary status? Maybe adding a sentence in lesser feats you already know, that do something else if you are legendary (sort of what Mythic does with some feats)? Maybe a list of things you can do if you are legendary, described in the proficiency itself?
I don't know how that would mess with word count, or other design criteria. But it sounds interesting, none the less. It sounds like "I'm legendary" means something beyond "I add +1 over the guys who are masters", by itself
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Yes, the numbers are strange for me, the meat comes from your level, and number porn does not make things epic, for me.
As it stands now, a 20th-level Fighter (+20) with Legendary Proficiency (+3), a 22 Str (+6), and + 5 weapon has +34 to hit. A Pit Fiend has an AC of 44, so you need to roll a 10 to hit, and 20 for a critical success.
If you delete the +Level treadmill, the Fighter has a +14 to hit, and the Pit Fiend has an AC of 24, so, once agin, you need to roll a 10 to hit, and 20 for a critical success; how is the former more exciting?
Because the same level 20 fighter who attack the Pit Fiend's Horned devils minions, will attack them with +34 to hit vs 39 armor, hitting with 5+ and crit with 15+. But removing the +level, that fighter would roll +14 to hit, and the Horned devil would have AC 23, which means the fighter hits on 11+, and crits on 20s.
The system wants to make a Pit Fiend a much stronger enemy than his minions. And the thing that tells you that, is their level.
A solution could be lowering the AC of the Horned Devil as a whole. But then, you have other problems. For example, lowering a Horned Devil AC, would make it easier to hit for lvl 16 characters as well. It also means that you have a Horned Devil (or, say, an ancient white dragon) who has less AC than a random guy with a full plate, a shield, and some other minor crap.
Igther a freebie when you get the prof up or just a innate ability that you gain from getting a higher prof. My idea was to have every skill feat have an automatic improvement depending on how prof you are with that skill.
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I understand that, but the answer to your question is still the same. Removing the +lvl to everything does not affect the math within your own level, but it DOES affect the math against anything out of your level.
Then, removing +lvl is not something that has no effect at all except number inflation, as it seems to stem from your post. It DOES have an effect in how the game plays. Which might not be the way you want it to play, but it's not "an useless treadmill without any effect in the game other than number porn". The game assumes that if you can fight a Pit Fiend, then you should be hitting often against Horned devils, and crit almost always vs Bone Devils. The math is build under that assumption.
In PF1, a high level fighter fighting a lower level threat, will do like 5 attacks, with increasing penalties. About 2 of those attacks don't really have any chance to hit vs a high level threat, but they do have a chance to hit against lower level threats. So a high level fighter mows through lower devils because he does 5 attacks that can hit, and thus he does more damage to them than he'll do against the pit fiend. In PF2, the fighter does not gain extra attacks. The way he gets extra damage against hordes of lower level minions, is because he CRITS them. And to do that, they added the +lvl to AC, instead of arbitrarily raising the AC with ad-hoc natural armor bonuses which were, in fact, a disguised bonus to AC based on level.
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The only significant difference is in the type of world you want to portray. If the dragon meets two hundred goblin archers, does he have to flee for his life?
D&D 5e, with its bounded accuracy, is the sort of game where the dragon does have to flee. PF2 probably needs to find a different niche; that niche is taken. A game where high-level martials are strong enough to repel entire armies is one way of doing that.
This is a popular fallacy about 5e that Pathfinder 1 players seem to love bringing up. Except it's entirely false.
The sheer number of options including massive breath weapons that would auto-kill most of those goblins in a single attack regardless of save, legendary actions that would mass destroy them, and huge status inflicting AoE abilities make the scenario unwinnable for the goblins.
Additionally, AC-wise the goblins assuming the dragon stays in first range increment, have a 15% hit chance, requiring 18+ on their roll (and I did not pick an optimized dragon for this, I just used the first alpgabetically the Ancient Black). And if they were in that increment, they're all within those AoEs I was mentioning.
So even if the Goblins could pre-empt it and all got an attack in a surprise round, they statistically unless every one of them crit cannot do enough damage with the dragon's 367 hit points. They then would all need natural 20s on a Wisdom save to not be useless for 1 minute, which becomes 10 rounds of goblin lunch.
That out of the way, honestly I think Pathfinder 2 would benefit much better with less raw numbers. Consider rather than level cut out entirely, replace it with Level/4 rounded up. This would mean from level 1-4 you have +1, 5-8 +2, 9-12 +3, 13-16 +4, 17-20 +5. Mathematically that would place max level bonus on par with the total bonus between untrained and legendary, so a legendary individual is twice as good raw as untrained. And additionally you can supplement each stage with new abilities, making the true feeling of power coming from being able to actually do more and not high number pissing contests.
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That out of the way, honestly I think Pathfinder 2 would benefit much better with less raw numbers. Consider rather than level cut out entirely, replace it with Level/4 rounded up. This would mean from level 1-4 you have +1, 5-8 +2, 9-12 +3, 13-16 +4, 17-20 +5. Mathematically that would place max level bonus on par with the total bonus between untrained and legendary, so a legendary individual is twice as good raw as untrained. And additionally you can supplement each stage with new abilities, making the true feeling of power coming from being able to actually do more and not high number pissing contests.
The thing is, if you completely remove level, you're already looking at what you're suggesting here, just on a smaller scale, in the form of proficiencies.
Proficiency increases are gated by level, differently for different classes.
Compare PF1 with PF2 after we strip the level from PF2 and give the characters (in both cases) optimal weapons. In PF1, a 20th level fighter has 10 more attack bonus than a 20th level wizard. In PF2, a 20th level fighter has 3 more attack bonus than a 20th level wizard. And like in PF1, there are classes that fall between the fighter and the wizard.
They just toned down the granularity of the inherent numerical differences between the classes. But imagine they'd tone it down a bit less. If the differences between the proficiency levels were a bit higher, you could safely eliminate level from all calculations, because the numerical differences between the already level-gated proficiency bonuses would be enough to cover the entire level 1-20 encounter span.
Does +3 feel very legendary to anyone?
No.
I was thinking there would be a bigger difference between trained and legendary, but there isn't.
Many skill uses are used untrained, so the difference between a legendary skill user and a trained skill user is minimal.
I was thinking using -2/0/+2/+4/+6 would be a better scale to use.
Yes.
I like the idea of skill uses being behind proficiency levels more than behind feats.
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That out of the way, honestly I think Pathfinder 2 would benefit much better with less raw numbers. Consider rather than level cut out entirely, replace it with Level/4 rounded up. This would mean from level 1-4 you have +1, 5-8 +2, 9-12 +3, 13-16 +4, 17-20 +5. Mathematically that would place max level bonus on par with the total bonus between untrained and legendary, so a legendary individual is twice as good raw as untrained. And additionally you can supplement each stage with new abilities, making the true feeling of power coming from being able to actually do more and not high number pissing contests.The thing is, if you completely remove level, you're already looking at what you're suggesting here, just on a smaller scale, in the form of proficiencies.
Proficiency increases are gated by level, differently for different classes.
Compare PF1 with PF2 after we strip the level from PF2 and give the characters (in both cases) optimal weapons. In PF1, a 20th level fighter has 10 more attack bonus than a 20th level wizard. In PF2, a 20th level fighter has 3 more attack bonus than a 20th level wizard. And like in PF1, there are classes that fall between the fighter and the wizard.
They just toned down the granularity of the inherent numerical differences between the classes. But imagine they'd tone it down a bit less. If the differences between the proficiency levels were a bit higher, you could safely eliminate level from all calculations, because the numerical differences between the already level-gated proficiency bonuses would be enough to cover the entire level 1-20 encounter span.
You are right. In technicality we're simply presenting two different solutions to the same problem that achieve the same goals. In yours, remove level and put more into proficiency, in mine, scale level back but not eliminate it to keep the feeling of raw progression between say, a 5th level wizard and a 15th in areas where they do not focus.
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I'm still unsure about the +level to skills, but someone the other day made a good point.
A barbarian who has been fighting dragons for 15 levels, should know a thing or two about them, even if he does not focus on Arcane Lore or whatever is the thing that cover dragon knowledge now. Just because of experience, not focus, learning, or study. He should not be as accurate, or know some obscure parts as someone who studies them, but he should know more than random lvl 1 peasants who have never seen a dragon before, if only because he has an armor made with the skin of one he killed a few levels ago.
You could use this for other fields of expertise, including physical ones. When we are talking about adventurers, "adventuring" is an area where they focus, even if they don't spend points on it.
As part of the proficiency isn't anything that exceeds the DC by 10+ now considered a critical success? So that legendary +3 could potentially make a significant difference.
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I will answer the question emotionally, which may have been your point. +3 does not FEEL legendary. Just like incredible initiative (+1 to initiative) does not feel incredible.
I realize the bonus may be significant, but it doesn’t FEEL significant.
In answer to the question: No, +3 does not feel Legendary.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this over the last week or so, and trying to puzzle out the difference in feel vs mechanics moving from PF1 to PF2. I think what it comes down to is how much these bonuses add relative to the base of the system, the d20.
Given that the d20 is the core of most attacks and checks, it's important to always keep in mind what that means in terms of numerical relevancy - ie, that every digit on a d20 roll is a difference of 5%. So when looking at something like the +3 from Legendary, grokking it as merely a 15% increase in [whatever] seems... tepid. It doesn't help of course that most of us are moving into this from a base of PF1 where +1s were candy and a +2 was the standard circumstance bonus to any roll - a 10% circumstantial advantage seems pretty reasonable and fair, but in comparison here Legendary feels hardly better than circumstance (I know, I know, comparing PF1 to PF2 is apples and oranges - but this is about *feel*).
I think the reason the new Proficiency system really suffers in terms of impact is the relative value vs the +lvl bonus (as many of you have been pointing out); a +3 compared to the +10 at 10th level is pretty lame, and a +3 compared to a high level characters +16-20 just seems like a joke. Since in PF1, most classes were getting a +5 by the end of the game to their primary attack/effect from just class features, and it WASN'T being weighted against a +lvl bonus, that +25% really seemed to have some impact on the result of the d20 roll. Now, +lvl seems to at once trivializes both the inherent proficiency bonuses (that are indicative of a character's heroic skill) AND most, if not all, the impact of the d20 roll itself (at high levels, at least).
Just to be clear, I understand the purpose and intent of the +lvl bonus, and I agree that there should be a way to differentiate the challenge of an on-level foe vs a lvl+/-5 foe, and also how the system has changed with the introduction of the +/- 10 tiers of success (FWIW, I really like the idea of the 4 tiers). But the weight of the +lvl bonus is resulting in a really skewed perception of the relative value of proficiency (and stat/ability) bonuses in the system as a whole. I want that Legendary proficiency to not only matter, but FEEL like it matters; just as much as I would like that +5 STR (or whathaveyou) to feel like it is really making me strong. When the comparisons between high level characters in their abilities is bounded to a max of +10, it feels weird since that +10 is intrinsically linked to the effective d20 correlate of 50%. I want my fighter to be more than 50% better than a wizard at hitting stuff! [Especially when in PF1, BAB differences across classes gave you that 50% difference from the get-go *without* any of the stats/modifiers being factored in].
I hope this makes at least some sense. I am not a statistician by any means!
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Again, you don't address anything I wrote.
OK, I'll disprove what you wrote mathematically:
X + lvl + d20 vs. a target of 10 + lvl
becomes
X + d20 vs. a target of 10.
This is flawed logic because 'lvl' represents two different numbers.
The first lvl represents the level of my level 10 Fighter.The second lvl represents the level of the ogres he's fighting.
Since the two lvl values are different, you can't cancel the terms.
This invalidates the hypothesis.
I will answer the question emotionally, which may have been your point. +3 does not FEEL legendary. Just like incredible initiative (+1 to initiative) does not feel incredible.
I realize the bonus may be significant, but it doesn’t FEEL significant.
Did you try playing a character who had incredible initiative and it didn't feel significant? Or does the sight of it make you have no interest in even trying it?
That out of the way, honestly I think Pathfinder 2 would benefit much better with less raw numbers. Consider rather than level cut out entirely, replace it with Level/4 rounded up. This would mean from level 1-4 you have +1, 5-8 +2, 9-12 +3, 13-16 +4, 17-20 +5. Mathematically that would place max level bonus on par with the total bonus between untrained and legendary, so a legendary individual is twice as good raw as untrained. And additionally you can supplement each stage with new abilities, making the true feeling of power coming from being able to actually do more and not high number pissing contests.The thing is, if you completely remove level, you're already looking at what you're suggesting here, just on a smaller scale, in the form of proficiencies.
Proficiency increases are gated by level, differently for different classes.
Compare PF1 with PF2 after we strip the level from PF2 and give the characters (in both cases) optimal weapons. In PF1, a 20th level fighter has 10 more attack bonus than a 20th level wizard. In PF2, a 20th level fighter has 3 more attack bonus than a 20th level wizard. And like in PF1, there are classes that fall between the fighter and the wizard.
They just toned down the granularity of the inherent numerical differences between the classes. But imagine they'd tone it down a bit less. If the differences between the proficiency levels were a bit higher, you could safely eliminate level from all calculations, because the numerical differences between the already level-gated proficiency bonuses would be enough to cover the entire level 1-20 encounter span.
Is a part of this that we still haven't figured out what bonuses are worth and we are judging off of assumptions?
For example, what does a fighter get from having a +10 vs a wizard (all other things being equal) in PF1?
yes there is the increased probably of hitting with one attack, but it is also 2 more attacks and, more than likely, the opportunity to trade 2-3 points of that bonus out for +4-6 damage. Critical hit ranges were static, so as long as your lowest critical hit roll was still a hit, the value of a bonus in PF1 was largely dependent upon your ability to flexibly adjust/trade down bonuses to the point where you could get the biggest bang for your buck.
That was pretty cool, but it is also pretty complicated. For a lot of characters, it was very easy to get to a point where your bonuses were essentially too high to be of much value. Once you hit on a 2 or better they are completely useless, for example.
PF1 had a lot of swingy numbers as far as D20 rolls went and sometimes that became really problematic. Lets say you made a Barbarian and really focused on dealing damage and having a high dexterity. It would be really easy to fall 10+ points behind a cleric on will saves. That difference is a big problem at higher levels because you don't want to play a game where your 18-19-20th level character might have greater than 50% chance of dying instantly or becoming a permanent mind slave to the enemy.
PF2 does some neat stuff with balancing your characters numbers against themselves, so you can do stuff like make skill checks in place of combat maneuver attacks, and easily set skills against saves or initiative or other things. That stuff can't happen with greater than +/-10 shifts between skills and target numbers (DCs/Saves/AC).
I am not sure if they got it right yet. I haven't started my playtest yet, just character building, we are waiting until the first Errata comes out (hopefully tomorrow), to clear up some base levels of confusion, but I keep hearing people who have actually played say that a lot of this target number stuff is pretty fun and well balanced in play. Monsters might not be from the Bestiary , and some more so than others, but a lot of that is about dialing numbers in, not throwing the whole system over on its head.
I haven't heard anyone reporting back from play testing levels 15+ so I don't think I have seen any play tested criticism about how legendary legendary feels in actual play.
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Did you try playing a character who had incredible initiative and it didn't feel significant? Or does the sight of it make you have no interest in even trying it?I will answer the question emotionally, which may have been your point. +3 does not FEEL legendary. Just like incredible initiative (+1 to initiative) does not feel incredible.
I realize the bonus may be significant, but it doesn’t FEEL significant.
As I stated, it was about feel, emotions or first impression, not from playing. You read a feat title of incredible initiative and it's just a plus one. It probably doesn't help that I feel incredible is > improved, ( name wise) yet improved initiative is plus four. I know, different games, but I am talking about emotions and feel as the OP asked.
Again, you don't address anything I wrote.OK, I'll disprove what you wrote mathematically:
X + lvl + d20 vs. a target of 10 + lvl
becomes
X + d20 vs. a target of 10.
This is flawed logic because 'lvl' represents two different numbers.
The first lvl represents the level of my level 10 Fighter.
The second lvl represents the level of the ogres he's fighting.
Since the two lvl values are different, you can't cancel the terms.
This invalidates the hypothesis.
Well, if you're going to ignore all the other stuff I wrote in the post you quoted from that addresses that problem, I'm not going to address this, because you might just ignore it again.
Here is something I am going to have to concede.
Legendary could be +30 bonus. I mean, this is all just math. All the "numbers" could be tweaked in such way that instead of linear growth, you got this convex growth where the tippy top top of progression curve is BIG NUMBERS. To math, 03 or 30 are both equally just numbers. They don't mean anything. Just difference points in the real number line.
But our monkey brains see the difference. One is big, one is small because we count them in number of apples or something. The drug of big number progression is the absolute thrill of just feeling powerful because you got double digits and triple digits is absolutely insane!
1/2 and 23455/46910 are the exact same numbers, but perception wise, they are not.
1/2 and 23455/46910 are the exact same numbers, but perception wise, they are not.
... and I think that's the reason we have this thread ;) Perception matters!
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Well I think more of the feats should scale with proficiency myself.
the feat Cat fall I feel is pretty ideal.
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I generally like the 2e ruleset, but I have to ask...
Does +3 feel very legendary to anyone?
This is as compared to 0 for Trained.
I know that character level will factor in as well, but the scale seems too slight to me especially given the costs involved, and I wonder if anyone else thinks the same...
I was thinking using -2/0/+2/+4/+6 would be a better scale to use.
In a Vacuum yes. In the context of PF2 Ruleset, no.
Well I think more of the feats should scale with proficiency myself.
the feat Cat fall I feel is pretty ideal.
i could definitely scaling feats would be a fairly elegant solution with proficiency, and it also largely solves the issue of feat taxes--no need to take X Y and Z to do grapples well, just take improved grapple and you naturally get better as you increase in proficiency.
EDIT: I just saw that this was about weapon proficiencies. I still think my numbers in regards to the skills can be applied the same. I don't know how we would add anything else to it though. Adding in feats doesn't exactly seem the best way cause it would clash with the class feats that they get. Hmmmm.
I can honestly say that people are just waaaay to hung up on numbers. So much so that they aren't taking every thing into consideration. For instance I'm making characters that are lvl 10 to see how they compare to each other. So far I've only made a Fighter. He's not min maxed or anything just something made up on the fly.
He's master in Athletics, a +16, and he has Powerful Leap, which let's you high jump up to 5 feet, so that means if he's at least 5 foot tall he can grab onto a 10 foot high ledge. He can also jump 5 more feet horizontally, which means if he has anywhere from 15 to 29 ft speed he can jump 10 feet no problem. With 30ft plus it's 15ft no problem. None of those those things require checks of any kind.
He has Quick Climb that let's him move half his speed on a success, which is currently 15 (cause he's an Elf with Nimble and -5 speed from armor) and his full speed on a crit success, which is 30ft. So he can scale walls like a beast.
Lastly he has Wall Jump, combined with powerful leap he jump up to 10 feet straight up, no check, off wall to wall. At legendary he can do it as many times as he wants. He's like the Prince of Persia.
He also has Experienced Professional (Warfare). So he can't crit fail on his downtime activity that could make him some money.
So all of that stuff is really cool. At 11th lvl I would plan on getting Acrobatics to Master and then get Kip Up at lvl 12. Free action to stand up from prone at the beginning of my turn. Sounds pretty good. The amount of checks and potential hazards involved in some of those activities could be very substantial without those feats. Now if you compare those skills to, let's say, a Druid who does not have those signature skills, he cannot negate any falling damage unless he prepared Feather Fall and even then can only do it as many times as he has it prepared. The Fighter can just do it. He cannot climb as fast as the Fighter unless he has Spider Climb. Which again can only be cast so much and going by the Quick Climber feat I go faster then he does if I crit succeed. He can also again just do this. Not to mention he can get Legendary climber eventually which just gives him a climb speed. Wall Jump is as helpful until legendary, but even at lvl 10 its still pretty cool that he can do it without needing any magical help.
Not to mention a Druid probably won't have a very high strength, maybe a 14 or a 12. Unless he focused in it but I don't see why he would. So if he is untrained in Athletics his bonus would be +10 or +9 depending on his Strength. If he's trained in it that goes up to +12 or +11. Expert is +13 or +12. Is untrained bonus is much lower a 6 or 7 difference. His trained is not so bad, only a 4 or 5 difference. His expert is starting to get closer with a 3 or 4 difference. Which it makes sense since he would have to use 3 of his only 4 skill increases to get it to expert or 2 of his 4 skill increases if he started with it trained at 1st lvl.
Saying all that I do think the Skill Feats need MORE cool stuff and they should make more of them, if not all of them, scale with proficiency. That way you don't get the feeling of this feat being good at lvl 3 but being useless by 15. Like quick climb being overshadowed by legendary climber or quick disguise being over shadowed by legendary impersonator even though quick disguise already has a legendary option. Cause to me you could do something like this
Quick Climber lvl 3 (Expert in Athletics)
Your training and natural ability in climbing has made you more able then most, turning you into a hardened climber. You move at half speed on successes and full speed on crit successes. If you are a Master in Athletics you still move 5 feet even should you fail the check and don't move on crit failures. If you are Legendary in Athletics you gain a climb speed equal to your speed. You must still be able to climb said object, so a perfectly flat surface with no handholds could still not be climbed.
Looking at that it scales nicely with proficiency and allows for really cool feats along the lines of something like this.
Climb the Unclimbable lvl 15 (legendary in Athletics, quick climb)
Spend 1 Resonance when using Athletics to climb
By infusing your hands and feet with your inner magical power you can seemingly climb the unclimbable. Until the end of your next turn you can climb any surface that has physical mass. A Wall of Force, a gargantuan dragon or a even a waterfall. If you climb onto a monster in this way they must be at least 1 size category larger than you and it is considered Flat-footed against all attacks while you are atop of it. The monster may attempt to shake you off with an Athletics check vs your Fortitude Save DC on its turn. If you fail you begin falling.
It's stuff like that I would like to see. It's really cool, makes use of Resonance so it's not super spamable but allows you to do some pretty cool stuff for two turns.