Monks and Druids Not Expert in Perception?

[Tectorman]

At first level, classes are either trained in Perception or they have expert proficiency. At lot of the choices seem reasonable; Rogues, Rangers, Barbarians, and Fighters would be expert, while Alchemists, Clerics, Wizards, and Sorcerers wouldn't be.

But there are a few choices that I don't quite get. Druids are those blessed by nature, all about the outdoors, and thematically just as likely to spend their time out of a city as would a Barbarian or a Ranger; heck, I would posit that any reason one can apply for a Barbarian or Ranger being experts would have to apply to the Druid, too.

Meanwhile, the Monk's own fluff tells us he's especially perceptive during social encounters and in exploration mode, is "suited to looking for danger". We're talking about the class for the character concept of the guy who, cinematically speaking, can catch arrows blindfolded because he's trained his entire body for physical perfection, including all of his senses. And he's only trained.

Meanwhile, the Bard gets expert. Which isn't a knock against the Bard; he's the jack-of-all-trades and has a plausible claim to being an expert. But however much of a claim he may have, surely the Druid and Monk have more of a claim, yes? What was the rationale here?

[Tholomyes]

I think the rationale is that they err on the side of Wis classes not getting expert. While the Ranger has some incentives for Wisdom, over other stats, mostly in skills and Crossbow Expert, they're also supposed to be super perceptive. I think the issue is more in the Monk, where Wisdom is no longer really required if you don't care about Ki (and honestly, even then, you could get a reasonable Goblin monk by MCing Sorcerer to get your Cha to be your Ki stat). It's the same rationale they had by initially having the wizard be 2+Int skills, before that changed. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable, given how powerful perception is but, it is someplace where I could foresee changes based on the aesthetic factor, similar to the bump in skills for the wizard.

[Andy Brown]

The thing is, not going to Expert because a class is based around Wisdom is only a reasonable approach if the only effect of being Expert instead of Trained is an increased bonus.
One of the major selling points of the PF2 proficiency system is that being Expert lets you do things that somebody who's only Trained can't even attempt. In this case we then end up with the Monk being described as a really perceptive class but not even being able to attempt certain tasks (not that I've seen anything being locked behind Expert proficiency). It's sort of how the PF1 Monk was described as a mobile fighter but being more effective if they stood still.

[Faenor]

I also think Druids should be expert in Perception, required to survive in the wild. I don't understand why Bards are Expert though, I don't really see any rationale.

[Dragonborn3]

Lem needs to find the way out quickly after another failed performance.

[Draco18s]

Andy Brown wrote:

The thing is, not going to Expert because a class is based around Wisdom is only a reasonable approach if the only effect of being Expert instead of Trained is an increased bonus.

There's a lot of things like this, like intelligence classes getting fewer skills.

[pauljathome]

Faenor wrote:

I also think Druids should be expert in Perception, required to survive in the wild. I don't understand why Bards are Expert though, I don't really see any rationale.

Perception is also Sense Motive. And bards have lots of rationale for being able to be good at reading people

[Themetricsystem]

1) Druid was probably an oversight
2) Monk it was intentional, they can't have nice things.