So on Monday a group of us (4+GM) got together to play Arclord's Envy.
Demographics & Background:
All of the players have been frequent (weekly+) PFS players/GMs for 4+ years (some much more/longer than others).
We created our characters from scratch, which included a Barbarian, Rogue, Bard, and Cleric.
GM was fairly new, but she did a great job running the scenario, adjudicating/clarifying rules, and just being a cool human being. :)
Pretty sure everyone's done the survey at this point, but the below issue wasn't really covered there.
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Our biggest complaint and dealbreaker for us moving to PF2 was that Proficiency was borderline meaningless, especially wrt skills/saves.
"Oh, you're Legendary at that? I'm 3 levels above you and I'm Trained, so we're basically the same!"
"I'm Expert in Reflex saves, so I have a 5% higher chance of not getting affected by this spell."
Basically, it becomes a game where the die roll is almost the only thing that matters.
Even the scenario we played with the level for all characters being the same (so DCs should be tuned perfectly to that level), we were frequently failing at simple tasks for skills which we were Expert *and* had the max ability mod for our level. While we weren't rolling crazy high, we also weren't rolling crazy low either (failing with a 6-8 on the die). On the saves side, your ability mod + level was really important, and the level of Proficiency was a minor footnote (I took Lightning Reflexes, and it wouldn't have changed anything of significance).
I totally get the reasoning behind driving down some of the crazy modifiers from PF1. Example case: "If you don't have a +25 perception modifier at level ___, you might as well not even bother having any bonus at all". It totally made sense to compact down the numbers so that folks who wanted to put a modest investment into a skill could still be effective sometimes, while someone who significantly invests in a skill should be great a vast majority of the time. I think the drastic reduction in conditional bonuses from mundane/masterwork/magic gear should have covered most of the problem here, so you might have over-corrected.
There were several instances in our playthrough where the characters with untrained and decent (not great) ability modifiers had to bail us out on our middling rolls (they still had to get in the mid/upper teens on the die). I can't imagine being 13th level, finally be "Legendary" at something, and have someone who's only done basic training outshine me 35% of the time. I took a bunch of math/science classes in high school and college, but I don't expect to ever get the better of someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson.
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Couple Suggestions:
Make the modifiers for Proficiency more pronounced: You could just double them (-2, 0, +2, +4, +6), another suggestion one of the other players had was a more Fibonacci-style bonus structure, or really anything that made investing the points and having skills as Signature Skills actually mean more (maybe -3, 0, +2, +5, +8). I think the key comment we had was that being Legendary at something should *feel* Legendary (or change the names of Expert/Master/Legendary to something else).
And/Or
Re-add Take-10: The ability to Take-10 (with all the usual caveats) solved the problem of "you should always be able to do this, given you're not rushed or in danger". That said, we like rolling dice too, so don't think we're just trying to avoid crit failures (we had a couple fun ones).
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Quick aside, since it's likely to come up in the follow-up discussions:
My opinion/analysis of the Assurance Feat:
The Assurance feat really isn't all that great. I was at a +10 for the Expert skill I had Assurance in at 5th level, so getting a result of 15 was pretty sad, especially when the GM mentioned (after the fact) that a bunch of the DCs were 16+. Right at 7th level, when I could have made the skill Master, there'd be a decent safety/advantage of being able to have a result of 20 vs a bonus of 13 (basically a Take-7). However, that advantage reduces as I further level up, especially if my level 10 Ability Boost gets the additional +1 to the ability mod it affects. At that point, I'd have a +17, so the result of a 20 is pretty low. The same effect happens for Legendary (starts out pretty nice, but as you level up the benefit reduces).
I could see an argument for picking up Assurance on a skill where you're never going to have a good ability modifier (ideally something where you have a -1 ability modifier). At 7th level with Master proficiency, you'd have a +8 modifier and would be able to guarantee a result of 20 (take 12). So maybe my use of Assurance above was the wrong way to think about it, but it also is weird since it is a pre-req for Automatic Knowledge. Given that most Knowledge Signature Skills typically use your class's primary ability modifier, that just seems weird.
(Apologies if I'm off by 1 or 2 on the math above - it likely shouldn't invalidate my point)
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All that said, we *did* have a fun time, there were plenty of other rules we liked, disliked, were confused by, didn't have enough exposure to have an opinion, etc. It's just at this point, we're likely not going to go out of our way to sign up for Playtest material, as we'd rather play the PFS1 scenarios we haven't yet played using PF1 rules. I'll probably try to find some time to get more detailed on the rest of our/my feedback in the appropriate sub-forums (already done for the Arclord's Envy scenario feedback). Most of us agreed that we'd be waiting for some major change in this space before really committing to PF2, though maybe a couple of us might try out the 10th level scenario just to see what higher level play was like.
Thanks, I was about to post the very same thing. Proficiency right now feels like a minor factor when it comes to your overall stats.
Of course there are some things you can only do with a certain training rank, but there are just not enough of them.
Assurance is one such thing, but it is mostly useful for someone who would otherwise be rather bad in that skill. As you said: With a decent / good attribute bonus, assurance is lackluster at best. And at least for the Level 1 and 4 adventures from the Doomsday Dawn, there are VERY few DC which you can beat by using assurance with trained or expert skills. At least let assurance be something like take 10 / 15 / whatever + Attribute Modifier. That way it is equally useful for everyone, regardless of attributes.
Another issue with the system to me is the bard and his bardic lore. Since Recall Knowledge is an untrained use of a skill, and bardic lore only allows you to do exactely that, the wizard will usually be about 1 point better at recalling knowledge he should have no idea about then the bard, since Lore uses Intelligence, and bards usually don't have too much of that.
I completely support raising the modifiers for skill levels to a meaningfull value. -3, 0, +2, +5, +8 would be the one I prefer, but just doubling to -4, 0, +2, +4, +6 would also work I guess.
For a less item-reliant campaign, I have merged the item/magic bonuses into Trained Proficiency for armour and weapon to hit and additional damage dice, by level.
This is interesting and valuable feedback. Thank you. Assurance really seems to lack the utility that taking 10 and if it could be beefed up a little and integrated into the proficiency system for skills, I think it would go a long way to making those proficiency distinctions between skills more valuable.
Changing the numbers on proficiencies by that much (stretching the range to 8 or 11) really skews the math as far attack rolls and defenses, and becomes very difficult with all D20 rolls queuing off of the same proficiency mechanic. Especially when viewed from the likelihood that combat monsters will probably be at peak attack levels, making it so that PCs have to prioritize keeping all combat related proficiencies as high as possible or face an onslaught of critical hits from enemies and critical failures with saves and their own attacks).
Breaking skills off of the proficiency system might be possible, but integrating the two so that skills like acrobatics and athletics could operate against defenses was a specific design goal, so it would probably require something like the return of a CMB/CMD to work.
Breaking skills off of the proficiency system might be possible, but integrating the two so that skills like acrobatics and athletics could operate against defenses was a specific design goal, so it would probably require something like the return of a CMB/CMD to work.
They could just use attack rolls vs AC or save DCs, you wouldn't need something like CMB/CMD.
I would remove assurance and take 10, and put in different mechanic.
untrained: +0 bonus
trained: +2 bonus and minimum roll on d20 is 5. This prevents failure on easy tasks and prevents critical failure on moderate tasks.
Expert: +4 bonus and minimum roll on d20 is 8.
Master: +5 bonus and minimum roll on d20 is 10.
Legendary: +6 bonus and minimum roll on d20 is 12.
now 1st level who is trained and has 18 in key ability will have a bonus of +7. and minimum result he can get is 12(5 on d20 + 7) before bonuses or penalties ofc.
Lvl20 Legendary with 22 in skill key ability with +3 legendary equipment will have a bonus of +35 with a minimum score on this skill check of 47.
Now, this would all look alot nicer without the +1/lvl treadmill, but that is another topic.
