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Ostog the Untenured says it's fine.
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I do not have an issue with having a uniform bonus progression of +X/level (as I describe way upthread), but I have yet to be convinced that it is better than +0.5/level.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the only reason I see why the design team would not want to shift to +0.5 level is because they've decided to assumption from D&D 3.x that the power level of a creature is to double with every increase of 2 levels, and they've worked out the math so that +1/level is a base assumption in this exponential increase.
Personally, I would rather see this increase in power come from more interesting and powerful abilities than from an increase in sheer numbers. I think of the XCOM series of computer games, where your soldiers level up mainly through getting new perks (a.k.a. feats) that unlock entirely new abilities consistent with your theme, such as the Sharpshooter being able to fire their pistol against everyone in sight, or the Ranger being able to retreat after killing something with their sword. Perhaps part of the reason why the feats in PF2 come off as a little "meh" is because of this +1/level increase?
Just some food for thought...
I have discussed this at The Mind-Boggling Math of Exponential Leveling. I calculated the effect of the +1 per level to attack rolls and AC. It gives about a 36% improvement in combat if strikes require a 10 or better to hit before the +1 increase. The exponential increase of doubling every two levels means each level-up gives a 41.4% improvement.
36% is an enormous portion of the 41.4%. That means that class features and feats can provide only a 5.4% improvement or the growth will be overpowered. This forces weak feats.
A problem with +0.5 per level rather than +1 per level is that rounding converts that +0.5 per level into +0 at odd levels and +1 at even levels, making even and odd level-ups act very differently from each other. We need a mechanism where half the +1s occur at the even levels and the other half of the +1s occur at the odd levels.
That means that class features and feats can provide only a 5.4% improvement or the growth will be overpowered. This forces weak feats.
Well, it discourages feats that give boosts to AC, attack rolls or damage per hit. But feats could instead be about giving greater flexibility to handle more kinds of situation; Spring Attack, Blind-Fighting, that kind of thing.
That means that class features and feats can provide only a 5.4% improvement or the growth will be overpowered. This forces weak feats.Well, it discourages feats that give boosts to AC, attack rolls or damage per hit. But feats could instead be about giving greater flexibility to handle more kinds of situation; Spring Attack, Blind-Fighting, that kind of thing.
Yes, and that was the general idea of my post: adding more flexibility and options. Which of course is MUCH harder to balance and fit into the presumption of double power every 2 levels.
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For perform, an untrained character shouldn't be allowed to play any musical instrument, especially not a complex one that requires years of training to make music and not noise (like the bagpipes/ as opposed to drumming a very simple beat because you understand the concept of rhythm from years of forced marches). The PF2 system attempts to teach the GM that to tell her player that tries that they might have heard some melody once on one of their adventures and have it stuck in their head. They might be able to hum it or sing it pretty well, well enough for it to be recognizable to a listener, but they can't compose a full composition from it or play some instrument they don't know how to play.
The problem is that you are describing a fictional version of the playtest rules, and not the version we actually have.
And to dig a bit deeper, taking up a your solution, namely to gate most skilled activities behind proficiencies, would mean that the numerical skill value would be meaningless except in select cases where the comical consequences already outlined apply again.
The problem is that you are describing a fictional version of the playtest rules, and not the version we actually have.And to dig a bit deeper, taking up a your solution, namely to gate most skilled activities behind proficiencies, would mean that the numerical skill value would be meaningless except in select cases where the comical consequences already outlined apply again.
I understand that the perform rules currently would allow an untrained performance on a musical instrument, I think that should change, and even if they don't it is very easy to house rule, so that doesn't bother me.
The numerical value of a untrained skill should be meaningless in situations where a check cannot be made. I see that as a feature. Most situations where these "comical consequences" show up are when the rest of the rules are not followed, or they are hypothetical situations that don't happen outside of theory crafting, or they are real issues that need to be addressed by appropriate proficiency and feat gating, not tossing the whole system out.
Without a +level bonus to proficiency, the level 20 Bard is not going to be able to hit numbers that awe level 1 commoners in a performance very well either, at least not reliably without the assurance feat, (which is its own discussion head/ache, but can't exist as is without the +level bonus either). The D20 swings really widely, you pretty much have to either have a very wide spread of possible bonuses to compensate, or have gates on specific levels of challenges. With the +/-10 critical system, those wide swings of bonuses become incredibly problematic and have been reigned in in PF to only existing between level discrepancy.
I would much rather level be the determining factor of competency than attributes or items. I get the desire to see proficiency as training, but level is also a part of training in RPGs because so much of what characters actually do in their daily lives is not played out by the players on the gaming table. It is really tough to represent that in a fashion where the player gets to full control over what skills get bonuses and not end up facing the monster of massive discrepancies between equal level characters on vital attributes.
I understand that the perform rules currently would allow an untrained performance on a musical instrument, I think that should change, and even if they don't it is very easy to house rule, so that doesn't bother me.The numerical value of a untrained skill should be meaningless in situations where a check cannot be made. I see that as a feature. Most situations where these "comical consequences" show up are when the rest of the rules are not followed, or they are hypothetical situations that don't happen outside of theory crafting, or they are real issues that need to be addressed by appropriate proficiency and feat gating, not tossing the whole system out.
Without a +level bonus to proficiency, the level 20 Bard is not going to be able to hit numbers that awe level 1 commoners in a performance very well either, at least not reliably without the assurance feat, (which is its own discussion head/ache, but can't exist as is without the +level bonus either). The D20 swings really widely, you pretty much have to either have a very wide spread of possible bonuses to compensate, or have gates on specific levels of challenges. With the +/-10 critical system, those wide swings of bonuses become incredibly problematic and have been reigned in in PF to only existing between level discrepancy.
I would much rather level be the determining factor of competency than attributes or items. I get the desire to see proficiency as training, but level is also a part of training in RPGs because so much of what characters actually do in their daily lives is not played out by the players on the gaming table. It is really tough to represent that in a fashion where the player gets to full control over what skills get bonuses and not end up facing the monster of massive discrepancies between equal level characters on vital attributes.
1. Level in PF1 already determined your maximum rank in a skill and the number of skill points you had... so its not like this is the only way to incorporate level. Level has always been a factor.
2. Level requirements could be the gating mechanism that makes level stay relevant to Proficiency, even if the numerical bonuses were eschewed.
3. If the massive discrepancy in bonuses due to choice means that there are vital statistics that must be tied to level, then why not tie ONLY those statistics to permanently scale with level? Maybe every class gets Perception, but only trained characters get Perform or Lore?
I still don't understand why everything needs to scale in lockstep regardless of character choice, and I certainly don't get how this makes the game better. It might be simpler on the character sheet, but it raises the complexity of actually arbitrating the system in practice.
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both sides of the issue
There are at least three sides here:
"+1/level is fine."versus
"+1/level is fine for certain things, but high-level characters shouldn't be good at everything automatically."
versus
"+1/level is meaningless number inflation. We should have bounded numbers."
So I started to form this idea in a different thread, but in thinking about it more clearly and in relationship to the issues raised by adding level to proficiency, I think that I have a solution that really gets to the heart of two issues.
A lot of skill challenges in PF2 are quite challenging. Having High DCs in comparison to average numbers does work to make non-optimized characters struggle to succeed, but with the math so tight, it also is making optimized characters succeed less than people want. I hear a lot of folks complaining about the +level to proficiency because it means that high level Heroes just have too great a chance of succeeding at things. Here is the solution:
Master proficiency in a skill automatically lets you roll 2 dice for the check and choose the highest. Legendary proficiency does the same but with 3 dice.
Assurance is too boring of a feat, with too low of numbers to be fun critical failure mitigation. This approach would make master proficiency in a skill the real cut off point of being better than those who dabble, because it would drastically reduce the odds of critical failures.
DCs can stay high because dedicated characters will have increased chances of success without needing bonuses that stretch the math further for everyone else.
For saves, I think their existing system of giving success range shifts is good enough to not need this for saves.
Something else would be better for attacks as well because critical failures on attacks only matter when someone has a special ability and this would be too penalizing to them. Honestly, I think class feats that do much better things on a miss than Furious focus will probably be enough to mitigate the "sameness" of attack rolls.
This doesn't "solve" the issue for people who only dislike the +level to proficiency for number inflation, but honestly the numbers don't seem any more inflated than they were in PF1 and as long as being master/legendary proficiency can make "same-ish" bonuses work very differently, I think that all this silliness about high level untrained characters being able to do things they shouldn't would die down because Master and Legendary characters will experience critical success far more often and critical failure much, much less without changing the numbers or the general math of the system at all.
I understand that the perform rules currently would allow an untrained performance on a musical instrument, I think that should change, and even if they don't it is very easy to house rule, so that doesn't bother me.
It is really not very productive when for every single example, you say "oh, you could change that". Because there are such examples for nearly all skills.
To take the kind of activity you would allow for the Perform skill ungated:They might be able to hum it or sing it pretty well, well enough for it to be recognizable to a listener, but they can't compose a full composition from it or play some instrument they don't know how to play.
What exactly would be the difference between someone who performs this activity with a -1 bonus and someone with a +14 bonus (due to level) and why is it necessary to make this distinction?
Without a +level bonus to proficiency, the level 20 Bard is not going to be able to hit numbers that awe level 1 commoners in a performance very well either, at least not reliably without the assurance feat,
That is an entirely different problem of the rules, amplified by the lack of a proper "take 10" rule or a similar rule which sensibly(!) improves upon the "take 10" concept.
I think that Pathfinder 2.0 is trying to achieve the following design goals, when compared to 1.0:
1) They want higher level characters to be tangibly more powerful than lower level characters, and in a way other than scaling hit points and damage.
2) They want character to be capable of attempting skill checks even if they haven't invested the maximum number of skill points/training into that skill.
3) They want to reward characters for investing in certain skills or proficiencies.
Unfortunately, the current Add Level to Everything system causes a lot of problems along the way:
1) Monsters more than 5 levels above or below the PCs can't really be used in a fight. They either never hit the characters, or are going to hit them almost every time. The range of enemies you can reasonably fight is very small because of this, and essentially forces the GM to scale up monsters' levels if they want to keep telling adventures involving those enemies.
2) and 3) meanwhile are working at odds with each other. Assume that an average challenge is a 50% chance of success for your standard adventurer. A character with a +3 over their friend only has a 65% chance of success, barely any better. It's hard to find a point where challenges are both possible for the average party member and the specialist. Indeed, a lot of the math in Pathfinder 2.0 is geared so that the Specialist is the only one with a good shot at succeeding, which I can only assume is an oversight by the devs.
A solution I like would be similar to the following: characters don't add their level to ability checks. Attributes and Skills still rise. Instead of -2/0/1/2/3, Skills add -2/0/2/4/6 based on training. When characters face a challenge 3 or more lower than their Level, they roll twice and take the higher result. When they face something 3 or more higher than their level, they roll twice and take the lower result. You can justify this by saying that their expertise against lesser challenges gives them a consistent edge against their foes. Likewise, while facing a more dire threat the party is 'out of their depth' and more prone to mistakes.
Rolling twice and taking the higher/lower is about equivalent to a +/-4 modifier, but without changing the absolute maximum and minimum results you can get. This means that lower-tier monsters can still be a threat, and higher grade ones are terrifying, but neither side is ever put into a situation where they MUST roll a natural 20 or fail spectacularly.
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I'm still trying to catch up with all the comments in this thread, but I haven't seen the problem with the classic BAB system this way:
The +1/level, +varying/level, +0/level are all linear functions. The only way not to have a huge differentiation between 20th level characters is if the slope is the same for all the functions.
+1/level, +0.5/level, +0/level all have the same slope. If you vary the slopes of the linear functions based on who you are, you're going to end up with huge separations by the end as soon as level (L) is large.
If you were to use varying slopes in one area you would have to have to add additional functions that worked in the inverse to balance it out.
E.g. if the wizard was +0.5/level and the fighter was +1/level, then the wizard would need access to ~+0.5/level in additional bonuses that were unavailable to the fighter. While this kind of balance could be worked out initially it would be incredibly difficult to maintain.
1e never solved this problem which is why it can only tolerate the ~10 difference (5 from level, 5 from other factors) that basically gave the fighter ~75% chance to hit and the wizard about a 25% chance to hit.
But as L increases, the math dictates that the difference between the two resulting numbers will eventually increase past the size of the die.
So, two solutions while keeping varying functions. Limit L to something like 10 (where that is the max level). Or add exclusive bonuses for smaller slopes (e.g. 0.5, but not 1). Otherwise the problem isn't solvable literally because math.
It seems like people are upset that monsters level up at the same rate PCs do. Is there a desire that combats just get easier and easier as you gain levels? That at level 20, combats are just a cakewalk? Otherwise I can't understand why its a problem that monsters get better at the same rate.
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Yeah I have to echo the peole saying that CR +/- 5 has never been a feature of Pathfinder. CR 1s are a cakewalk for APL 6 parties and CR 11s are a crazy challenge.
Pathfinder gets away from this 'narrow range' by having a tonne of monsters in bestiaries for a lot of CRs.
Unfortunately, the current Add Level to Everything system causes a lot of problems along the way:
1) Monsters more than 5 levels above or below the PCs can't really be used in a fight. They either never hit the characters, or are going to hit them almost every time. The range of enemies you can reasonably fight is very small because of this, and essentially forces the GM to scale up monsters' levels if they want to keep telling adventures involving those enemies.
In Pathfinder 1st Edition, a monster 4 levels above (CR = APL + 4, where CR = level if the hostile NPCs have PC wealth in gear) is equal in power to the party, so they have only a 50-50 chance of victory. Thus, we seldom see a monster 5 levels above unless the PCs have significant outside help.
For 5 levels below, six of the monsters working together should be a challenge at the same level as the party. Double that to 12 monsters and they ought to be a hard challenge. For monsters 6 levels below, use 16 instead. However, the mechanisms used to balance the power levels break down over several levels, so in PF1 this is inaccurate and in PF2 this is wildly inaccurate.
Nevertheless, sometimes I do want to throw 16 enemies at the party and have it a fair fight. I also want to be able to use a boss who provides half the challenge in a battle with 8 low-level minions who provide the other half.
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It seems like people are upset that monsters level up at the same rate PCs do. Is there a desire that combats just get easier and easier as you gain levels? That at level 20, combats are just a cakewalk? Otherwise I can't understand why its a problem that monsters get better at the same rate.Not the case, any monster +/- more than the PCs level by 5 or so is not really viable, as monster threat ranges are very tight in this iteration (I detest that "oh, well, can't use X anymore...").Hasn't that always been the case?
APL+5 is way beyond an Epic encounter by the guidelines. Theoretically you could use large numbers of APL-5 critters, but in practice it rarely works well. Because whatever the theory the big numbers did tend to scale with level or better in PF1. Not everyone's BAB, but the characters who are swinging at you. AC may scale with gold more than with level, but since gold scales with level it's close to the same thing.
For my taste, this is very much a case where two of the common complaints about 1E not only cancel out, they work together to create a great experience,
The complaint that the gap between character is too large does not exist in the same space as the complaint that monsters must stick to a tight range.
In my current L13 game there is a big range of character ACs and skills. This is very cool and creates great games with a lot of teamwork and everyone has times when they can shine.
It IS true that the tanks/warriors are not at all afraid of orcs/gnolls/ogres, even in relatively large numbers. But the sorcerer knows that they can still squish him, so he tends to burn spells even though they are, in theory, "negligible". The bard also is worried about being overwhelmed. By the same token, big monsters that can put up a fight against the party warriors are truly scary to the non-warriors. The sorcerer has plenty of spells to manage the situation. But has to be cautious all the same. The bard is buffing and being tactfully safe.
I've yet to have a session in which every player didn't feel like they really were in the world with both their strengths and their weaknesses, and they had times to shine brightly and also time to celebrate that they overcame really scary problems.
The 2E approach would rob everyone at the table of these more complex encounters, the opportunities to shine much brighter than others, and the glory of overcoming really scary stuff.
I'm still trying to catch up with all the comments in this thread, but I haven't seen the problem with the classic BAB system this way:
The +1/level, +varying/level, +0/level are all linear functions. The only way not to have a huge differentiation between 20th level characters is if the slope is the same for all the functions.
+1/level, +0.5/level, +0/level all have the same slope. If you vary the slopes of the linear functions based on who you are, you're going to end up with huge separations by the end as soon as level (L) is large.
If you were to use varying slopes in one area you would have to have to add additional functions that worked in the inverse to balance it out.
E.g. if the wizard was +0.5/level and the fighter was +1/level, then the wizard would need access to ~+0.5/level in additional bonuses that were unavailable to the fighter. While this kind of balance could be worked out initially it would be incredibly difficult to maintain.
1e never solved this problem which is why it can only tolerate the ~10 difference (5 from level, 5 from other factors) that basically gave the fighter ~75% chance to hit and the wizard about a 25% chance to hit.
I reached the same conclusion with my own mathematical analysis. For example, Pathfinder 1st Edition has the differing slope problem in saving throws. A weak will save can be temporarily compensated for via a high Wisdom score and the Iron Will feat, but in the long run, the +0.33 slope on weak saves drops too low compared to the +0.5 slope on the good saves and the DC for the saving throws. For example, at 12th level, (0.33)(12) = 4 and (0.5)(12) = 6, so the initial difference of 2 between weak and good saves expands to a difference of 4. At 18th level, that difference is 5.
Fortunately, I noticed that Pathfinder 2nd Edition provides a mechanism that I can adapt to correct it: proficiency ranks.
But as L increases, the math dictates that the difference between the two resulting numbers will eventually increase past the size of the die.
So, two solutions while keeping varying functions. Limit L to something like 10 (where that is the max level). Or add exclusive bonuses for smaller slopes (e.g. 0.5, but not 1). Otherwise the problem isn't solvable literally because math.
L is already limited to 20. Hence, for the difference between value to increase past the size of 1d20, the difference between slopes must be 1 or greater. In Pathfinder 1st Edition, a maxed-out skill increases at slope 1, and miscellaneous bonuses such as ability scores, class skill bonus, Skill Focus feat, and item bonuses push the difference far beyond what is created by slope.
My thought is that skill increases can replace class skill bonuses and Skill Focus feats in Pathfinder 2nd Edition. If we give untrained skills +0.33/level minus 1, trained skills +0.4/level, expert skills +0.6/level, master skills +0.8/level, and legendary skills +1/level, then the maximum difference between slopes would be 0.67. At level 20, untrained would give a +5 proficiency and legendary would give +20 proficiency, a difference of only 15. That could still exceed the size of a d20 if ability score bonus was +0 for the untrained character and +5 for the legendary character, but that is rare enough that we could allow it as an extreme case.
It seems like people are upset that monsters level up at the same rate PCs do. Is there a desire that combats just get easier and easier as you gain levels? That at level 20, combats are just a cakewalk? Otherwise I can't understand why its a problem that monsters get better at the same rate.
Monsters are supposed to level up at the same rate as player characters. That lets us GMs select level-appropriate challenges.
Sadly, the rate of increase in power with levels is not constant. Ever notice how fragile 1st-level characters feel against level-appropriate challenges, but players can relax more when their characters reach 2nd level? That is because the power increase between 1st and 2nd level is bigger than it ought to be. That makes 1st level feel unusually weak.
Pathfinder 2nd Edition is still a little buggy and the power increase between levels is not constant, so sometimes the party will get stronger than they should, for example, with the first +1 weapons, and sometimes the monsters will get stronger than they should.
I've yet to have a session in which every player didn't feel like they really were in the world with both their strengths and their weaknesses, and they had times to shine brightly and also time to celebrate that they overcame really scary problems.
The 2E approach would rob everyone at the table of these more complex encounters, the opportunities to shine much brighter than others, and the glory of overcoming really scary stuff.
Unfortunately it seems that PF2E is being written with PFS play in mind, and the type of disparity you enjoy in your game can be difficult to cram into a 4 hour session between players who are all total strangers.
I'm not saying it's right, or fun, but it's just how things appear to be headed.
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I've yet to have a session in which every player didn't feel like they really were in the world with both their strengths and their weaknesses, and they had times to shine brightly and also time to celebrate that they overcame really scary problems.
The 2E approach would rob everyone at the table of these more complex encounters, the opportunities to shine much brighter than others, and the glory of overcoming really scary stuff.
Unfortunately it seems that PF2E is being written with PFS play in mind, and the type of disparity you enjoy in your game can be difficult to cram into a 4 hour session between players who are all total strangers.
I'm not saying it's right, or fun, but it's just how things appear to be headed.
Maybe that is it.
My theory is that 1E is a victim of its own success. Nobody claims that it is without flaws. But I think the things that made it so a huge hit didn't get praised nearly as often as the sticking points got griped about. So now that 1E has lived a full life and is long in the tooth (and it is), the gripes are over recognized. The design is overcompensating.Look at 4E. There are a LOT of differences between 4E and PF2E. I'm not claiming they are the same. But on this specific issue the difference between +0.5 / level and +1 / level is meaningless. Both were effectively the exact same math fudge factor response after years of hearing complaints about a few issues in an otherwise home run of a system. It is really history repeating itself.
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My thought is that skill increases can replace class skill bonuses and Skill Focus feats in Pathfinder 2nd Edition. If we give untrained skills +0.33/level minus 1, trained skills +0.4/level, expert skills +0.6/level, master skills +0.8/level, and legendary skills +1/level, then the maximum difference between slopes would be 0.67. At level 20, untrained would give a +5 proficiency and legendary would give +20 proficiency, a difference of only 15.
My friend and I have been discussing this exact approach. We created two different characters no investment (NI) and full investment (FI).
The issue is that between items, feats, ability bonuses you already have up to a +/-10 difference. Adding an additional +15 on top of that breaks the ability to have DC bands.
Looking at table 10-2, they've broken down DCs by difficulty class for each given level, with tasks ranging between Trivial (-2) and Extreme (+2) with High (0) in the middle. The High DC seems to be the baseline for the purposes of most checks (e.g. Lingering Performance, Downtime checks).
So taking into account the various bands, a design goal could be stated that the NI character should have a 50% chance to completely the Trivial task and a 0% chance to complete the Extreme task. Likewise the FI character should have a 100% chance to complete the Trivial task and a 50% chance to complete the Extreme task. The exact percentages can be tweaked, but I'm using them as an example.
If that's the case than we know that the total range of bonuses between two characters cannot exceed 20 (or what is available on the probability die). That's not just proficiency, but all reasonable stackable bonuses.
Now the system could argue that NI isn't a valid strategy and that some investment is required always. In that case you have a Minimum Viable Investment (MVI) which takes the place of NI for calculations. Though if that's the case you limit the viable choices for characters.
Looking at table 10-2, it seems like the approach they've taken is mapping NI/FI. Looking at level 20, the Trivial task is DC 29, while the extreme task is DC 47. The Trivial task maps exactly at 1*L which implies that no investment is presumed. And the level 20 NI character would have about a 50% chance of success, and additionally no chance of making the Extreme DC. In fact, it turns out they would be capped at Low-High.
The FI character on the other hand should have between a +30 (+7 ability, +23 proficiency) and a +37 (+7 ability, +23 proficiency, +7 in various bonuses). That gives them a 50% chance to succeed at an Extreme task and a 0% chance to fail the Trivial-Low tasks.
This gives the GM the ability to set DCs that cover the various storytelling needs and allows them to create challenges that only the FI character can succeed or create challenges that everyone can succeed while giving the FI character a guarantee, allowing the story to move forward smoothly.
Currently the difference between the NI and FI characters caps out at about 17-18, which is what the die can tolerate and still give us a range of options. If the total difference was, say, 27, then the GM would have a lot fewer options as Trivial would be the only task possible for the NI character and FI characters wouldn't even be challenged by a Severe DC.
One possibility is dropping the rate of proficiency increase, though that introduces its own problems. That said, it's a trade-off. Ultimately any adjustment to proficiency bonuses is going to have to take into account that the total distance between the NI character and the FI character cannot exceed the die itself (even if it already does in table 10-2 at high levels).