The counter argument that numbers don't matter because you will only be facing enemies at your own level is false,No one is saying that, is just flattens things, opens up the threat range, but that is not what PF2 is going for, they want your 15th-level character to not be that threatened by 50 ghouls or what-have-you. So, once again this is where the Legendary action can really shine, allow them to take out multiple creatures on a single hit/roll, perform Herculean feats, and so forth.
I typed that post from my phone and I am impressed you were able to read any of it at all. I wasn't trying to say that anyone was saying you would never fight monsters outside your level, but that, with the +level to proficiency, level differences in encounters are especially relevant for spell casting, because some spells have better critical effects than others and some have better miss effects than others. Yes HP growth matters as well, but a level 7 wizard using a regular fireball against level 5 monsters is going to get a lot more bang for her buck with +level to proficiency than without.
Without +level to proficiency, the level difference becomes much less relevant than just overall level, since the damage dice of fireball do not scale. Spells in particular do not get many opportunities to gain bonuses from items or proficiency until much higher levels of play. This will make some of those levels very very powerful for casters, but leave many dead levels for them, especially as their old spells are now only useful against monsters many levels lower than them, instead of just 1-4 levels lower.
Even if you take +level to proficiency away to extend the possible threat range of monsters, the way spells are built in PF2, your spells are going to have much more static damage ranges than martials using weapons (and especially magical weapons). Fighting higher level monsters is still going to be incredibly dangerous for PCs because their party size tends to remain the same (4ish), and the way lower CR creatures pose a threat to Higher CR creatures without a scaling level bonus is by sheer number of attacks and HP attrition.
In the inverse, casters really need the ability to crit lower level monsters, especially in mass, because that is a huge part of how their damage output works.
More crits against low level enemies are not relevant, because they are next to no threat to high level characters.
Creatures of the same or higher level than the party are the "real encounters" with challenging combats.
That seems to be the current state of PF2e.This would be much less extreme if there is no level-bonus.
10 monsters that are 2 levels lower than you are a big threat in PF2. That 10% crit increase is a big deal for area attacks.
Also it means that the design space for monsters is very small, making it really hard to differentiate. And last it makes your character really static.
As a side note +1 to everything also means you can actually do Epic Levels that are actually playable. And I am looking forward to that.
Not at all, there is way more to differentiate monsters than number inflation to basic stats, I mean, that's cool, and easy to grasp, but an extra +10 to hit and to AC does not make a monster that much different, or really open up the design space. There is a lot more to monsters, like, hit points, and the stuff they can actually do (actions, etc).
Also, having bigger numbers does not let you inherently do amazing things, they actually need to make Legendary play worthy of the name, I want them to bring some crazy epic features and feats, to differentiate from a lower lever fighter or what-have-you, not just "ooh, I have +10 more to my AC, Saves, Skills, and Attacks.
So my point was that you are dealing with differentiating stats for monsters in basically a 15 point range, either +1 to +15 or 11 to 25 (bonus vs DC).That will actually make it hard to balance monster stats although that might be hard for some to believe. But I think the biggest reason is for the 4 levels of success to work. It will be very hard to beat a check by 10 when the windows are always that small.
10 Monsters at level -2 are 40 XP above the extreme encounter budget and therefore should be the end of most groups.
But what i mean by "low level monsters" against "high level characters":
10 Monsters at level -5 will hit characters at 14-16+ and can not crit.
10 Monsters at level -10 will hit characters only on a natural 20.
You see the problem here?
No I don't that is how it works now. 10 CR 1 kobolds have a +1 to hit. 10th level fighter has an AC of 22 (using the sample 10th level fighter in the NPC codex, that actually seems low). Kobolds only hit on a 20. The 5th level fighter has an AC of 20 so the kobolds hit on a 19 or 20. Technically in the old rules they could roll 2 20s and crit, but that is the only difference.
Right on, here's an example of with, and without +Level.
With:
-Fighter, AC 45, +34 to hit
-Pit Fiend, AC 44, +35 to hit
-Ghoul, AC 15, +7 to hitWithout:
-Fighter, AC 25, +14 to hit
-Pit Fiend, AC 24, +15 to hit
-Ghoul, AC 14, +6 to hitAs you can see, the Ghoul still need to roll at least a 19 to hit the Fighter, and the Fighter only misses on a 1, with +Level every hit will be an auto-crit.
So, yeah, the bigger numbers make it more likely to get critical successes vs. lower level enemies; I have never much been a fan of critical hits/failures (I do not like confirmation rolls, at all, too anticlimactic) in RPGs, some have been amusing (Arduin Grimoire), but they seem to be really leveraging it (4-tiers of success action), which is interesting.
To me these static evaluations completely miss the point.
What happens in each case if the fighter takes off his armor?
What happens if the fighter is two levels lower, but with the same gear?
What happens if the fighter is a wizard?
How do the things in the world interact with each other?
When you start looking at the dynamic evolutions of the numbers as the characters grow and change the self consistency of the world doesn't provide value that I get from PF1.
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When you start looking at the dynamic evolutions of the numbers as the characters grow and change the self consistency of the world doesn't provide value that I get from PF1.
I can understand skepticism towards the dynamic evolution of numbers in PF2, but I never got a sense of self consistency from the numbers in pathfinder 1. My 17th level wizard was often dead if he got targeted by any spell that targeted her fortitude save. Even after I took greater fortitude because I was tired of DCs massively outshining my bonus. A plus 12 looked solid until I was trying to make DC26 vs save or die effects.
Sunder a level 17 fighter's Armor? They are probably dead within a round.
That pathfinder 1 wizard is probably invisible and flying so safe from the ghouls and hoping to be a diviner and scoop initiative from the Pit fiend so she can teleport away to some place a Pit fiend couldn't follow.
The point being, that the massive spread of numbers in high level Pathfinder 1 made 90% of high level encounters a question of who one initiative and who could target their enemies weakest defense with their best attacks. PF2 looks like it is avoiding that pit fall and +level bonus to proficiency, as well as controlled extra bonuses is how they are doing that so your high level characters still have great bonuses, as well as great abilities, and they can expect to have a chance of surviving for more than 6 seconds if they lose initiative.
There are issues (like the fact that Monsters have much higher bonuses to initiative than PCs right now ) but most of those issues are about dialing numbers into place, not completely reordering the way those numbers are generated.
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I'm not trying to convince you to be a fan of PF1E.
I will say that your examples completely fail to describe my experience with PF1E. And I don't see how your examples produce a lack of self consistency anyway.
The question to you is: What can you say that makes 2E acceptable to people who are expressing the problems being expressed? Changing the topic to what you didn't like in a game that was a proven success doesn't do anything to help 2E.
I wish magic (pluses) amour and weapons were not needed to keep up, I wish it was just a Trained/Level proficiency deal, something like:Level:
2-4: +1/2 x weapon damage dice
5-8: +2/3 x weapon damage dice
9-12: +3/4 x weapon damage dice
13-16: +4/5 x weapon damage dice
17-20: +5/6 x weapon damage dice
Tying extra dice to Tier of training is an interesting concept.
It doesn't solve my issues regarding the abstract "+level" being the biggest factor. But it is an interesting idea.
I wish magic (pluses) amour and weapons were not needed to keep up, I wish it was just a Trained/Level proficiency deal, something like:Level:
2-4: +1/2 x weapon damage dice
5-8: +2/3 x weapon damage dice
9-12: +3/4 x weapon damage dice
13-16: +4/5 x weapon damage dice
17-20: +5/6 x weapon damage diceTying extra dice to Tier of training is an interesting concept.
It doesn't solve my issues regarding the abstract "+level" being the biggest factor. But it is an interesting idea.
Just omit +Level.
So, at 20th-level, your fighter would have +5 to hit with trained weapons (and 6 x weapon damage dice), +6 for 22 Str, and +3 for Legendary proficiency, for a total of +14 to hit.
I looked at that and it is simply too baked into the foundation mechanics.
The way crits, for example (both combat and saves), change becomes a big deal.I suppose I could do it with enough effort. But it quickly became obvious that just playing PF1E was the better option.
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I'm at my wit's end. I can't find any compelling or logical reason why I want a trained and experienced surgeon to operate on me when I need an operation. Wise patients please help me. Is there a way to get these types of medical operations without paying someone with years of education and training.
Actually, in PF2e someone who is completely untrained in Medicine, but is a seasoned member of any other profession, would likely be better at performing surgery (or at the very least, life-saving emergency surgery) on you than a solidly trained, but inexperienced doctor.
If real life worked liked PF2e, if you had the choice of being treated in the ER by...
a.) a doctor fresh out of med school or
b.) your buddy who never set foot in med school but is a highly experienced, skilled and respected excavator operator...
... you should definitely go with b.)
I wish magic (pluses) amour and weapons were not needed to keep up, I wish it was just a Trained/Level proficiency deal, something like:Level:
2-4: +1/2 x weapon damage dice
5-8: +2/3 x weapon damage dice
9-12: +3/4 x weapon damage dice
13-16: +4/5 x weapon damage dice
17-20: +5/6 x weapon damage diceTying extra dice to Tier of training is an interesting concept.
It doesn't solve my issues regarding the abstract "+level" being the biggest factor. But it is an interesting idea.
Just omit +Level.
So, at 20th-level, your fighter would have +5 to hit with trained weapons (and 6 x weapon damage dice), +6 for 22 Str, and +3 for Legendary proficiency, for a total of +14 to hit.
I looked at that and it is simply too baked into the foundation mechanics.
The way crits, for example (both combat and saves), change becomes a big deal.I suppose I could do it with enough effort. But it quickly became obvious that just playing PF1E was the better option.
That's fair, I am glad you like 1e and want to continue playing it. For me I am looking forward to 2e having underlying math that works for me at all levels (and possibly beyond 20).
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I'm not trying to convince you to be a fan of PF1E.
I will say that your examples completely fail to describe my experience with PF1E. And I don't see how your examples produce a lack of self consistency anyway.
The question to you is: What can you say that makes 2E acceptable to people who are expressing the problems being expressed? Changing the topic to what you didn't like in a game that was a proven success doesn't do anything to help 2E.
I have been a fan of PF1, but after completing some high level campaigns that took hours to run through 6 seconds to 16 seconds of game play, I can see why low level adventures are the ones that people are playing the most and why the design philosophy of PF2, and why they would try to simplify and unify the mechanics of high level play with something like + level to proficiency is so necessary.
What I am trying to say is that the numbers are very different, but that the numbers also interact with each other very differently from PF1. Try playing the new game at low levels and high levels and see if it feels like your characters have not improved significantly from low level to high level without making specialization the difference between destroying encounters or being destroyed by them.
I am not sure yet if they succeeded either. I haven't gotten anywhere near high level play yet (which is also the only place that Legendary proficiency is even going to be a relevant mechanic). But I do understand why they are trying this method out, which is the whole point of the OP.
Why do we need + level to proficiency? I don't know if we do or not, but I know that we are play testing it this way to see if it can manage to simplify high level play without over-simplifying high level play and balance the rest of the changes that have been made to the game.
What is even more important to understand though is that this change is not happening arbitrarily. The development team includes people who really know numbers and game theory. 3.0 (the chassis for Pathfinder) was not nearly as rigorous in the analysis of its math as PF2 already is. If our big complaint is that we have become accustom to bad mathematical models and want those reflected back at us because they are familiar, rather than because they are fun, then we are asking for bad game design.
@Vic Farrari - I also get the desire to see if the system could work for a less over the top high fantasy, I just think there may be a couple more things tied to the numbers as far as level goes, than just the proficiency bonus. I think you are on the right track about needing to monitor item bonuses, I just think spells might be a tricky one, because they really have removed everything except that proficiency modifier from the way spells operate. There is going to be almost no difference between a first level spell cast by a level 1 caster and a 4th level one, for example.
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I'm at my wit's end. I can't find any compelling or logical reason why I want a trained and experienced surgeon to operate on me when I need an operation. Wise patients please help me. Is there a way to get these types of medical operations without paying someone with years of education and training.Actually, in PF2e someone who is completely untrained in Medicine, but is a seasoned member of any other profession, would likely be better at performing surgery (or at the very least, life-saving emergency surgery) on you than a solidly trained, but inexperienced doctor.
If real life worked liked PF2e, if you had the choice of being treated in the ER by...
a.) a doctor fresh out of med school or
b.) your buddy who never set foot in med school but is a highly experienced, skilled and respected excavator operator...... you should definitely go with b.)
Except b in PF 2e wouldn't even be able to make the check as surgery would be rightfully locked behind the trained or Expert proficiency.
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I'm at my wit's end. I can't find any compelling or logical reason why I want a trained and experienced surgeon to operate on me when I need an operation. Wise patients please help me. Is there a way to get these types of medical operations without paying someone with years of education and training.Actually, in PF2e someone who is completely untrained in Medicine, but is a seasoned member of any other profession, would likely be better at performing surgery (or at the very least, life-saving emergency surgery) on you than a solidly trained, but inexperienced doctor.
If real life worked liked PF2e, if you had the choice of being treated in the ER by...
a.) a doctor fresh out of med school or
b.) your buddy who never set foot in med school but is a highly experienced, skilled and respected excavator operator...... you should definitely go with b.)
Except surgery is very clearly a feat gated activity that my buddy isn't going to have the first clue what to do. And that unexperienced doctor is going to have a bonus to the check that might scare me, but is actually going to be able to make it.
Surgery is a complicated analogy for PF2 because healing is handled Magically 90% of the time and injury is an abstract concept that very rarely has ongoing consequences.
Ninja'd
I am totally finding that the monsters are more powerful then they should be currently. If there were monster creation rules, I would completely be critiquing that!I mean even discounting the absolutely headscratching attack bonuses on enemies in the PF2 bestiary (seriously, look them up. All of them are super optimised fighters, it seems), adding level to everything means you're always on a very fine...I feel obligated to mention that, they are indeed dangerous, deadly monsters that eat people or each other. It doesn't exactly break my SOB that they are optimized fitghers.A level 0 Goblin with +0 Strength has the same To-Hit with it's weapons as a level 1 Str 18 Character that's an Expert in his chosen weapon. Heck, they have a higher To-hit bonus with their Dogslicers (which aren't Finesse) than a 1st level Goblin Fighter could ever get (they're capped at +5 due to 16 Str).
There's suspension of disbelief, and then there's that. And the pattern repeats for basically everyone. Monsters are either as good as optimised, magically armed fighters of their level, or they're straight up better. In this world, we had people that were able to hunt tigers. In PF2, a Tiger would TPK a party of 1st level anything without breaking a sweat.
There are the Elite and weak templates.
Weak lowers all stats like ac/hit/dam by 2 (or 4 is it vague a bit)| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The comparison to real world "classes" breaks down for multiple reasons, but not least because in the real world we don't have levels, and if we did it'd cap around level 5.
So, getting help from a fresh out of school surgeon or a world famous excavator operator should instead be a newbie surgeon versus literally Superman.
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Except surgery is very clearly a feat gated activity that my buddy isn't going to have the first clue what to do.
Could you point me to the page of the playtest rules where it says so?
I chose the example for a reason: Emergency medical treatment to save your life in case of a grievous injury. The rules are explicit: Any character can do that, even if untrained.
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I know a lot of players that have a problem with this aspect of PF1.
You either hyper specialize or become as usefull as a rock.
It's more often on social skill or knowledge."Well, we have the guy with Charisma so I guess the others can dump it to the ground ?"
"The Bard has like +16285465 in all knowledge, why bother putting even 1 point in it ?"
"Climbing ? We will fly."
"The sneaky ninja over there can go in the queen room, have sex with her while the king is reading a book in the same bed, and either never be caught because too skilled at sneaking or he will bluff his way out with no problem. I guess we can let him assasinate the whole Vampire towns all by himself while we are eating in the tavern."
I (obviously) exagerated things but the fact that someone in the groupe vastly overshadow the others could somewhat make people a bit salty.
The reciproque problem is that if you put anything that have even a remote chance to beat the specialize character, the others are as good as dead weight.
This system doesn’t fix the sneaky ninja problem. It just means the wizard with a decent Dex can do the same thing three levels later.
Plus... isn't being good at your role THE POINT. You have a role.
What this system is doing is making the same mistakes as Star Wars Saga edition and 4th Edition D&D — two systems that predate Pathfinder 1 — and increasing all the numbers just to increase the numbers. Everyone gets better at sneaking or training animals, but the DCs always increase as well so you have an “appropriate challenge” so you don’t actually get better,
Except surgery is very clearly a feat gated activity that my buddy isn't going to have the first clue what to do.Could you point me to the page of the playtest rules where it says so?
I chose the example for a reason: Emergency medical treatment to save your life in case of a grievous injury. The rules are explicit: Any character can do that, even if untrained.
It only allows you to do first aid not surgery. The action says it can be used to stop bleeding or stop someone from dying, basically perform CPR. Basically things I could do in real life.
The comparison to real world "classes" breaks down for multiple reasons, but not least because in the real world we don't have levels, and if we did it'd cap around level 5.
So, getting help from a fresh out of school surgeon or a world famous excavator operator should instead be a newbie surgeon versus literally Superman.
The surgery example isn't all that helpful because we lack a proper, detailed mapping between the ingame check and the equivalent real life result. One skill for which we do have such a mapping is the athletics skill, and the long jump activity in particular.
So, according to the long jump rules a level 20 human legendary athlete with 22 str and the fleet and powerful leap feats can clear a maximum of 35'. This is less than 20% beyond the current record of about 30', which is itself 20% higher than the 25' record at the beginning of the 20th century. High jumps are much the same. Certainly not Superman-tier stuff, and certainly not what we were led to believe about the capabilities of legendarily skilled characters in the run up to the playtest when the idea of +lvl to everything and the concept of legendary skills were introduced.
In essence, the question is this: how does it make sense for a mere-human fighter to plant himself in front of a titan more than ten times his height (and more than 1000 times his mass) and proceed to pound him into submission in a blow-for-blow contest of pure martial prowess, only to be pulled back down to earth again when it comes to how far he can jump or how fast he can run? Am I supposed to be picturing a tiny figure repeatedly stabbing the colossus in the toe until he dies from annoyance because the logical alternative supposedly feels "too anime" to some people, or what? It seems like PF still doesn't know what it wants to be.
I Agree that nerfing Jump checks was very weird. These super heroic fantasy characters should be able to jump all over the place when they get some leveld under their belt, but in relaity they just go from pathetic jumps to pretty decent by IRL standards.
I think Jump was fine at 1ft per result on the dice and 1/3 of that on height (I'd buff it to 1/2). Characters could really get around!
Except surgery is very clearly a feat gated activity that my buddy isn't going to have the first clue what to do.Could you point me to the page of the playtest rules where it says so?
I chose the example for a reason: Emergency medical treatment to save your life in case of a grievous injury. The rules are explicit: Any character can do that, even if untrained.
Page 168, where they talk about what the legendary medic skill feat does: spend 1 hour treating a permanent condition is pretty much exactly where surgery would fall in PF2. Surgery is not a one round action. It is also not something that would be common practice on Golarion because a first level cleric would be able to heal any basic violent injury with magical ease and without the risk of infection, and even the permanent conditions would most often treated by magic as well.
The Athletics skill is a much better skill to dissect. As pointed out by ChibNyan, it really doesn't stretch the imagination, although with a combination of the different jumping feats, and walls to jump off of, I'd argue that it hits Wuxia levels, but not Mythic levels. I think more legendary jumping feats would fix that problem though, more so than changing the formula for jumping without the feats, since that is the best way to let the proficiency gates be meaningful.
I'm going to playtest a 3rd level party (F, R, C, W) vs 4 Ogres with and without the level bonus, and then I'm going to test a 7th level party (the 3rd advanced to 7th) vs 4 Ogres with and without the level bonus. I think this will give me some decent insight as to style of play in both cases.
This is an interesting case study and a useful way to test the mechanics of +level to proficiency. I hope you report your findings back. I am especially curious about the role that the casters play in this scenario since spells feel pretty dependent upon +level advancement to DCs to advance in power.
The other thing I am curious about how much of the total limited resources does the party use (resonance, highest level spells, etc.) between each same level example. Does the non-scaling 7th level party have to use more and higher level resources against the weaker foe than the scaling 7th level party?
It also makes it easier to accomplish simpler tasks the higher level you get. so instead of needing to roll a 15 to succeed at a low level challenge at high level you can do it with a 10 or 5 etc rolled. Its to show that your character has progressed in power.
I have a solution for that:
Adding minimum roll value to d20 for skills
Untrained: +0 bonus
Trained: +2 bonus and d20 rolls on this skill under 5 are treated as 5, that means with this skill your minimum check is 7 plus ability modifier plus any +level treadmill that is
Expert: +4 bonus, minimum roll value is 8
Master: +5 bonus. minimum roll value is 10
Legendary: +6 bonus, minimum roll value is 12
This way Legendary character with 22 in key ability will have +12 bonus and minimum d20 roll of 12 and that comes to minimum skill check value of 24 add some basic tools and it is 25 without thinking.
That is without any +level treadmills.
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It only allows you to do first aid not surgery. The action says it can be used to stop bleeding or stop someone from dying, basically perform CPR. Basically things I could do in real life.
And using these rules, Superman (the level 20 character) will be vastly better at first aid, and any other ungated activity than a newly trained EMT, because he has so much more experience at doing completely unrelated things.
If we absolutely have to have to abandon skill points in favour of levelling all skills, could we at least look at connecting the training tiers to the amount of automatic increase from levels? So that for most characters the increase would be similar to BAB or save progressions from 1E?
So instead of a flat modifier between -2 and +3, the training level just changes how much your skill increases per level.
Untrained = 0 level progression.
Trained = +1/3 level progression. (same as a weak save)
Expert = +2/3 level progression. (similar to a good save)
Master = +level progression.
Legendary = +3/2 level progression.
(Those could be 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and 1/1 if the first set of numbers are too high)
Now ability scores are the most important aspect of what you're good at low levels, and which skills you've chosen to train up are the most important aspect at high levels - meaning that the choices you've made in advancing your character make a big difference in what they're good at instead of just having a 5 point swing between untrained and "legendary" which is massively overshadowed by the level bonus.
(I'm not entirely sold on the idea of "gating" uses of skills either - it feels like its going to lead to a lot of problems with "paizo hasn't defined what level of training this skill use requires so you can't do it" going forward. What's wrong with a mechanic of "hard tasks have a higher DC" If gating is really necessary, the Knowledge skill mechanic of 1E where you can't get higher than 10 if you're not trained is a perfectly good one. Why not just hard cap the results you can get by training level - say, 15 if untrained, 25 if trained, 35 if expert, 45 if a master, and uncapped if legendary as a starting point.)
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And using these rules, Superman (the level 20 character) will be vastly better at first aid, and any other ungated activity than a newly trained EMT, because he has so much more experience at doing completely unrelated things.If we absolutely have to have to abandon skill points in favour of levelling all skills, could we at least look at connecting the training tiers to the amount of automatic increase from levels? So that for most characters the increase would be similar to BAB or save progressions from 1E?
So instead of a flat modifier between -2 and +3, the training level just changes how much your skill increases per level.
Untrained = 0 level progression.
Trained = +1/3 level progression. (same as a weak save)
Expert = +2/3 level progression. (similar to a good save)
Master = +level progression.
Legendary = +3/2 level progression.(Those could be 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and 1/1 if the first set of numbers are too high)
Now ability scores are the most important aspect of what you're good at low levels, and which skills you've chosen to train up are the most important aspect at high levels - meaning that the choices you've made in advancing your character make a big difference in what they're good at instead of just having a 5 point swing between untrained and "legendary" which is massively overshadowed by the level bonus.
(I'm not entirely sold on the idea of "gating" uses of skills either - it feels like its going to lead to a lot of problems with "paizo hasn't defined what level of training this skill use requires so you can't do it" going forward. What's wrong with a mechanic of "hard tasks have a higher DC" If gating is really necessary, the Knowledge skill mechanic of 1E where you can't get higher than 10 if you're not trained is a perfectly good one. Why not...
If the idea that superman is not capable of figuring out how to save someone's life in an emergency breaks the game down for you, then there is a good chance that heroic high fantasy is not the gaming system you are looking for. Your suggestions for an alternate system may be workable outside of a game that balances skills against important game mechanics, but is probably not a viable option for PF2. However, it is difficult to get a sense of how the system in place for PF2 works if you are only going to judge it in comparison to PF1 and you believe that PF1 worked well at all levels of play.
But if that is the case, then you are probably good because PF1 is a very well developed game with years of adventures and product support for you to craft your own campaigns with.
And using these rules, Superman (the level 20 character) will be vastly better at first aid, and any other ungated activity than a newly trained EMT, because he has so much more experience at doing completely unrelated things.
An ungated first aid check would be stop bleeding and maybe give CPR, right? CPR is a massive endurance test, that Superman would easily win. Superman has also seen far more people bleeding out than the newbie EMT, can move with supernatural swiftness and precision, and has X-ray vision to boot.
Now if the proficiency levels are properly gated, there would be unlocked abilities like "Give blood transfusion" or "Use defibrillator", that can make the difference between who you would want to treat you as early as level 1.
I'm pretty sure the intent here wasn't "we need to abandon skill points" with the difference in final modifiers just being an unforeseen consequence, but that the intent was to level the difference in final scores so that one character wouldn't have a 20+ advantage over another of the same level.
It only allows you to do first aid not surgery. The action says it can be used to stop bleeding or stop someone from dying, basically perform CPR. Basically things I could do in real life.And using these rules, Superman (the level 20 character) will be vastly better at first aid, and any other ungated activity than a newly trained EMT, because he has so much more experience at doing completely unrelated things.
If we absolutely have to have to abandon skill points in favour of levelling all skills, could we at least look at connecting the training tiers to the amount of automatic increase from levels? So that for most characters the increase would be similar to BAB or save progressions from 1E?
So instead of a flat modifier between -2 and +3, the training level just changes how much your skill increases per level.
Untrained = 0 level progression.
Trained = +1/3 level progression. (same as a weak save)
Expert = +2/3 level progression. (similar to a good save)
Master = +level progression.
Legendary = +3/2 level progression.(Those could be 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and 1/1 if the first set of numbers are too high)
Now ability scores are the most important aspect of what you're good at low levels, and which skills you've chosen to train up are the most important aspect at high levels - meaning that the choices you've made in advancing your character make a big difference in what they're good at instead of just having a 5 point swing between untrained and "legendary" which is massively overshadowed by the level bonus.
And now the bonuses for trained/untrained/etc characters are bigger than a d20 and the high level math is broken again. The elegance of what we have in the new rules is that the biggest difference in a bonus you are going to have between 2 characters of the same level is about 15 points. That sits within a d20. Also we have skill feats that turn critical failures in to regular failures, which means the one who is more trained in a skill won't be crit failing where the untrained will stil have a good chance to.
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the main reason is for Gm's and writing adventures.
by keeping the level system, you keep certain basic things skills, attack, ac for all characters within a certain range.
So if you have a group like one of mines which includes, the power gamer, an optimizer, and two people who make the most inefficient characters possible the game doesn't fall apart.
it also makes high level play work. All in all it's a good thing and one of the better features in the game.
the game should be level 1-20 and not just really level 1-12, and the power gamer and the flight of fantasy gamer should be able to co-exist without shorting the life of their GM or causing premature baldness.
I'm sorry, but that's not how the math works on that at all. You're thinking in percentages when you should be thinking in separations in absolute value terms.
Let's take an example. Say a monster has 40 ac at 20th level. Your non optimized character has +25 to hit, and your optimized character has +35. In this case the non optimized character needs a 15 to hit, while the optimized character needs a 5.
Now we'll add level scaling. The monster has 60 ac. The non optimized character has +45 to hit, and the optimized character has +55 to hit. That's a much bigger percentage! Unfortunately it doesn't matter. The non optimized character still needs a 15, and the optimized character still needs a 5. What matters is not the percentage difference, but the absolute difference.
There's no decrease in skill gap, because everyone gets the same bonus.
the main reason is for Gm's and writing adventures.
by keeping the level system, you keep certain basic things skills, attack, ac for all characters within a certain range.
So if you have a group like one of mines which includes, the power gamer, an optimizer, and two people who make the most inefficient characters possible the game doesn't fall apart.
it also makes high level play work. All in all it's a good thing and one of the better features in the game.
the game should be level 1-20 and not just really level 1-12, and the power gamer and the flight of fantasy gamer should be able to co-exist without shorting the life of their GM or causing premature baldness.
I'm sorry, but that's not how the math works on that at all. You're thinking in percentages when you should be thinking in separations in absolute value terms.
Let's take an example. Say a monster has 40 ac at 20th level. Your non optimized character has +25 to hit, and your optimized character has +35. In this case the non optimized character needs a 15 to hit, while the optimized character needs a 5.
Now we'll add level scaling. The monster has 60 ac. The non optimized character has +45 to hit, and the optimized character has +55 to hit. That's a much bigger percentage! Unfortunately it doesn't matter. The non optimized character still needs a 15, and the optimized character still needs a 5. What matters is not the percentage difference, but the absolute difference.
There's no decrease in skill gap, because everyone gets the same bonus.
I think that's what they were saying. The level system keeps things that way. Not compared to just subtracting 20 across the board, but compared to PF1, where some things got +level, some +2/3 level, some +1/2 level and some no level increase at all.
That's where the skill gap goes wild.Using the level bonus at all doesn't affect the balance between characters of the same level, but it does affect the difference between those of...
And with the current math you need the level bonus to keep the crit effects relevant. So for those of you planning to just drop the level bonus remember that makes a lot of spells and crit effecting feats less relevant.
There is no decrease in skill gap during the levelling up of characters against equally level-increased challenges.
There is potentially a decrease in skill gap when levelling up against non-level-increased challenges. For example, if it's DC 15 to climb the wall, at low level the ninja can do it much easier than the wizard, and at high levels both the wizard and the ninja can both climb the wall easily.
There is a decreased skill gap compared to PF1 at high levels.
The problem is that they want to have universal progression,
That sounds like they're breaking the skill system because of a design goal that isn't necessary. Why do skills, attacks, Saves, and AC all have to advance at the same rate? Hell, why does AC have to auto-advance at all?
the intent was to level the difference in final scores so that one character wouldn't have a 20+ advantage over another of the same level.
But why? That's how you know that the high level rogue is a legendary thief - his stealth and disable device (and probably a few more) skills are 20+ higher than the high level fighters (which aren't any different from a peasants since he's never invested in getting better at those skills.)
Why would anyone want to reduce the difference between classes to that degree? What motivation do I have to play a skill monkey character if the martial and the arcane characters are going to be 90% as good at the same skills without any investment?
There is a decreased skill gap compared to PF1 at high levels.
And I can't see why that's being presented as a good thing. High skill bonuses are the point of making a skill monkey character. If the difference between a character who spent his entire career focusing on acrobatics, or picking locks, or pockets, and one who spent his career focused on learning all the history and dark secrets of magic is going to be less than the variance on a d20, then I see no motivation to bothering to invest in skills at all. The BSF with a lucky roll is going to out-perform the world-renowned bard who happens to roll a 2.