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So I really love a lot of things in the Playtest and I find certain elements to be a big improvement on the TTRPG genre as a whole. However there are some things which need finessing and a decent number of problems that can be improved upon.
Some of the biggest complaints about the game involve designing your character and how much more narrow your options are for designing a character. Wanna be a duel-weilding or sharp-shooter Barbarian? You can, but you'll always suck compared to a Fighter or Ranger in the same vein.
In top of this, increasing your proficiency in skills feels...well to put it bluntly, dull. Going from Master to Legendary at level 15 in any skill chagnges your bonus from 17 to 18...not very exciting. You have to wait another level to get a Legendary Skill Feat before you start feeling actually Legendary.
A lot of this has to do with the Pathfinder Playtest design mentality which puts so much weight on balance and "class niche" that it doesn't allow much design flexibility or variance outside of the scope of what the classic version of that class can do.
Here is my proposed solution that allows people to have a lot more design flexibility, while maintaining the Playtest's design goal of being more structured, and also fixing the problem with skill proficiency on the way there.
1) Every class needs different paths to take. Plenty already do, like the Sorcerer's Bloodlines or the Barbarian's Totems. But every class needs something like this so that my Paladin feels more substantially different from yours. Paladin is actually a good example because it's a very easy one. Have the different Paladin paths be tied to the different Alignments, each one adjusting how the Paladin's base powers work and only allowing some class feats to be taken by certain alignments. Other classes might be trickier, like the Fighter, but I think it would be doable.
2) Get rid of Skill Feats. Instead, fold in the abilities of skill feats with the proficiency increases. Maybe not all. Some are specialized enough that you could instead make them General feats but as a whole If I am legendary in Athletics, then I should be able to either swim or climb effortlessly. If I can't do that, then what exactly makes me legendary?
3) And this is the big one. Completely redesign the Archetype system. Now that you don't have Skill feats anymore, replace skill feats with Archetype feats (less of them of course, maybe 4-5 or so total, not counting the initial Archetype dedication, which would be at level 2). Everybody gets an Archetype, and they have their own separate feats so you don't have to spend a class feat to get an archetype feat. You still can, if you want to have multiple archetypes, but you don't need to.
With this, you could do a lot of things. First, it adds a lot more creative flexibility in creating your character. Want a Barbarian that duel weilds throwing axes? The Barbarian itself has nothing for that, but he could take either the Ranger archetype or a new archetype that specializes in duel weilding. You can do this now of course, but you are disincentivized to do so because you end up a s@~#tier half-Barbarian to do so. Not very fun.
You could also Archetype into the same class as you already have if you want to be super-specialized. Play a Wizard who archetypes into Wizard and you have a Wizard who can take more than one school, has one more spell slot per level, and a few more low level wizard feats to make them ultra-wizardy. But if they want to Archetype into anything else, they don't feel like they are giving up their wizard stuff.
Want a Paladin or Ranger who is a spellcaster like in PF1? Archetype into Cleric or Druid. Want an Eldrich Knight? C-Fighter/A-Wizard or vise versa. Yes, you can do all of this now, but this way, since they are their own thing, and don't use class feats, it becomes a flavor and twist on top of your class RATHER than something that takes away from your class.
Right now, a Paladin who tries to get spellcasting by taking the Cleric dedication Archetype has to give up his Cleric feats to do so, including some of his high level feats, in order to get relatively worse Cleric feats. In this system, the only thing the Paladin is giving up is the option to take the Fighter Archetype instead and thus become a better swordsman, but he is still every bit as much of a good Paladin.
There could be a lot of other new Archetypes too for specialization in different things.
Duel weilding? Dervisher Archetype.
Ranged attack? Sharpshooter Archetype (good for casters too because it has feats for improving ranged touch attacks as well as ranged melee attacks).
Shield specialized? Protector Archetype (maybe a better name than that...)
I realize a lot of things would have to be reworked in order to make this work. Maybe some of the base class stuff would have to not progress as far. Maybe the Fighter only gets to Master in Weapons naturally, but the Fighter Archetype increases your Weapon proficiency by one stage so only a Fighter who also takes the Fighter Archetype gets Legendary (although you could probably tack on a Proficiency increase in only that weapon type to the Archetypes that specialize in a specific weapon type, like agile weapons for Dervisher, so the Fighter would still become Legendary, but only in a smaller group of weapons).
All of this, I feel, would be a much better system for players who want to have creative flexibility to design a character as they want and not feel punished for it, But also allow the devs to be able to keep to their design goals of not letting one class step on the niche of other classes and preventing extremely unbalanced combos that power-gamers take advantage of.
Thoughts?
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I agree fully with making skill prof increases somehow more meaningful. At least make the effect of (a revised and usefull) assurance default. +1 just feels like nothing.
I also like the concept of giving everyone seperate archetype slots. That way you can give your character a distinct feel and make hybrids without losing out on base class feats.
This would feel a bit like starfinders archetypes.
Then classes would then maybe need some feats to synergise with different archetypes. Like a paladin feat to let you retributive strike ranged. This feat would be interessting if you took a ranged archetype.
Edit: With your suggestion, some feats like the second domain for clerics could be removed. To get the second domain, you would take the cleric archetype as a cleric.
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I agree fully with making skill prof increases somehow more meaningful. At least make the effect of (a revised and usefull) assurance default. +1 just feels like nothing.That's partly to due with the +Level deal, sort of drowns things out.
Yeah. Success chance isn't a matter of proficiency. It's a matter of level difference between you and the obstacle/task/enemy.
3 levels difference completely negate all training from trained to legendary. :/Thing is, I partly like the +1/level system. It makes boss monsters really tough and simplyfies progression a lot. But in other places like skills it really feels off.
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With some minor tweaks back up for spellcasters (all spells autoheightened? better durations? more/faster ways to increase save DCs? I don't actually have the answer for this) and the promised overhaul to the resonance system, it would help with the misgivings I have for this system.
You could just house rule to give every player more feats generally, mission accomplished.
If the system needs to be houseruled to be fun, I'll stick to other systems.
With some minor tweaks back up for spellcasters (all spells autoheightened? better durations? more/faster ways to increase save DCs? I don't actually have the answer for this) and the promised overhaul to the resonance system, it would help with the misgivings I have for this system.
You could just house rule to give every player more feats generally, mission accomplished.If the system needs to be houseruled to be fun, I'll stick to other systems.
If the other ones have want you want as well anyways...
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If the other ones have want you want as well anyways...
Sure, but I'd like to see PF2 become a system I want to play as well, so here I am on the general discussion board...
Yeah. Success chance isn't a matter of proficiency. It's a matter of level difference between you and the obstacle/task/enemy.
3 levels difference completely negate all training from trained to legendary. :/
Thing is, I partly like the +1/level system. It makes boss monsters really tough and simplyfies progression a lot. But in other places like skills it really feels off.
When I first heard 'legendary isn't about the numerical bonuses, it's what you can do with the skill, pickpocketing the clothes off someone's back at level 20...' I was very happy, some codified thing you can do with a skill at a certain bonus. It wasn't the 'well I have +40, what does the GM let me get away with?' it was instead 'well, I'm legendary, now here's the things I can do'.
That sounded great. Nope, you need a skill feat for everything that you want to do at that proficiency level.
Wrapping some of the skill feats straight into proficiency seems like a win to me. Some of the more powerful ones should maybe be general feats.
That said, then you have dead levels. Which I like that they were trying to avoid.
I don't see it helping boss monsters (which don't really exist in the Playtest or PF1), just narrows the threat range of monsters, the whole can only hit monsters above a certain level on a natural 20 and all that. Boss monster would be cool, they could have more actions on a turn (and reactions), and increased hit points.
So far the playtest seems to be following the old rule of boss=CR of APL+3. Boss rules are neat, but I think I prefer the sliding scale of difficulty. A troll is a boss early in an adventurer's careeer, but an army of trolls is a warm up later on.
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I think this is a good idea, and certainly solves my biggest problem of lack of out-of-class options. It also lets them keep their "archetypes solve all problems" philosophy.
If everyone gets an archetype for "free", I think it should be selected via Background.
This thread is very good, I like the ideas and I think the game would be vastly improved by their implementation.
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This thread is very good, I like the ideas and I think the game would be vastly improved by their implementation.
I'm glad so many people enjoy my idea here. I put a lot of thought into it before posting.
If this sort of system was in place, what kind of Archetypes would people like to see?
One thing that I would like to see, which I think would help massively with making skill increases feel more meaningful, is "every time you increase a skill to expert or higher, you gain a bonus skill feat selected from any feat that applies to that skill".
I might even combine that with replacing all existing skill feats from character advancement with skill increases, instead.
This thread is very good, I like the ideas and I think the game would be vastly improved by their implementation.I'm glad so many people enjoy my idea here. I put a lot of thought into it before posting.
If this sort of system was in place, what kind of Archetypes would people like to see?
For melee combatants:
-Bruiser (hits hard and can get a lot of punishment)
-Duelist (strikes more accurately and crits more often, defense based on mobility)
-Protector (can effectively punish enemies for ignoring him, can reactively protect allies)
-Dervish (best combination of movement and number of strikes)
-Maneuver Master (easily inflicts debuffing effects when attacking)
-Tactical Soldier (heavy focus on tactical positioning, reactive Aoo based playstyle)
-Trickster (combination of Duelist, Maneuver Master and Tactical Soldier, themed after fighting dirty)
-Weapon Master (standard "I wanna deal damage reliably" archetype for entry level players)
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I mostly agree, though I think skill feats are still good for the game, and would not like to lose them (but, maybe have them and skill increases be earned at the same time, for some of the reasons you mention). But I had a similar notion of removing Ancestry feats past 1st level, and replacing them with archetype feats, which I personally feel is a better way of doing things (and ancestry archetypes could exist that let you get what are now higher level ancestry feats, and possibly things that even push the power level even further, not being bound to the power of an ancestry feat).
If this sort of system was in place, what kind of Archetypes would people like to see?
Likely not for a bit, until an Inner Sea Gods book comes out, but I think it'd be neat to have a fighting style archetype for each deity, that focuses not only on their signature weapon, but on the way the deity's specific style impacts their use of the weapon.
I feel like a decent bit of wind was lost from the sails when the primary general archetype added was pirate for the playtest (mostly cause it has you replacing way to many class feats with what are basically super niche skill feats, no matter how bad I want to make a mug rougue in the vain of final fantasy.)
I've had a couple ideas on how to solve this issue, that hopefully they'll work out by launch: First, make archetype feats not bound to class feats, that way the things like rope runner or sea legs can require that you've picked up the pirate dedication, but be taken with skill feats (though probably they'd still need buffing, since they're still super niche). The second option would be that these niche skill bonuses get combined with a less niche (likely combat) ability, so you get the benefit of feeling like a skilled Pirate (or whichever archetype) when it comes up, but when it doesn't it's still worth a feat, for the most part.
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Ancestry Archetypes sound a whole lot more like what I had imagined when they talked about progressing Ancestries. Could be interesting if you balance cool race options against class feat equivalents.
Ancestry Archetypes sound a whole lot more like what I had imagined when they talked about progressing Ancestries. Could be interesting if you balance cool race options against class feat equivalents.
It also sounds a lot like 'elf' being a class. I don't really see that as a problem, just thought I'd point it out.
I like the option of replacing ancestry feats with archetypes. Or at least bein able to select archetypes with ancestry slots.
Ancestry archetypes too sound good. Let Adopted give access to those from another ancestry too as long as you meet any physical prereqs (darkvision).
..Or loose the feats effect if you don't meet the prereqs. Like a human adopted by dwarfes takes the Dwarfen Mine Explorer archetype but can only use its feats as long as they have their darkvision-goggles on. 8)
Very interesting. What would you do to solve the niche of the Rogue, though? Would it be better to off it as a class, decapitating one another sacred cow?
Very interesting. What would you do to solve the niche of the Rogue, though? Would it be better to off it as a class, decapitating one another sacred cow?
As a random stab at it:
Rogue talents, each letting you treat a specific use of a skill as if you were one step further on the trained/expert/master/legendary scale.
Or just straight bonuses to a skill without increasing training level.
some cool ideas to consider here, but i expect an incoming thread closure for theorycrafting/homebrew, rather than discussing the playtest itself.
some cool ideas to consider here, but i expect an incoming thread closure for theorycrafting/homebrew, rather than discussing the playtest itself.
I mean, this is essentially a discussion about the Playtest and a problem that many players have with it while also presenting a possible fix for the problem. That seems within the boundaries to me.
However, if you feel there is a better place for this discussion, I can move it there.
some cool ideas to consider here, but i expect an incoming thread closure for theorycrafting/homebrew, rather than discussing the playtest itself.I mean, this is essentially a discussion about the Playtest and a problem that many players have with it while also presenting a possible fix for the problem. That seems within the boundaries to me.
However, if you feel there is a better place for this discussion, I can move it there.
i mean, the quo vadis thread was a discussion on the magic system and ways people felt it could be improved/was overtuned downward, and that got closed. but you're right there, i'm not sure there's a more applicable place to talk about this on the current forums.
i mean, the quo vadis thread was a discussion on the magic system and ways people felt it could be improved/was overtuned downward, and that got closed. but you're right there, i'm not sure there's a more applicable place to talk about this on the current forums.
That thread had honestly become the same five people repeating the same complaints ad nauseam. There wasn't really any discussion going on, just endless repeats of the same complaints by the same people, every time there was a new update.
i mean, the quo vadis thread was a discussion on the magic system and ways people felt it could be improved/was overtuned downward, and that got closed. but you're right there, i'm not sure there's a more applicable place to talk about this on the current forums.That thread had honestly become the same five people repeating the same complaints ad nauseam. There wasn't really any discussion going on, just endless repeats of the same complaints by the same people, every time there was a new update.
That's understandable.
The way I see it, thinking at solutions and positive ideas is more productive.
I've been putting some thought into the idea of switching ancestry feats for Archetype feats.
I think it would also work, but from an economic standpoint, switching skill feats out and rolling the abilities of skill feats into either proficiency progression or general feats fixes multiple problems with one change, which is why it appeals to me more.
Besides which, I actually think Ancestry feats have a place in the game. Especially after the most recent update, the capacity to improve in the natural abilities of your ancestry feels like a cool extra way to progress your character.
As for Rogues, I think that there are a few ways that could be handled. Rogues just gained different class paths, and you could expand on those to give them more powers. Just giving them more proficiency upgrades as they level up also gives them more access to those skill feats that would be folded into proficiency.
I was also thinking of other Archetypes besides the excellent Martial archetypes that D@rk Sephiroth suggested.
Loremaster I think would make for an excellent Archetype. Increases proficiency in all lores, gives more info on monsters and enemies on a successful knowledge check.
Beastmaster feats involving animal handling and animal companions. Allows non druid and rangers to have a simple animal companions. Maybe a high level feat allows animal companions one extra action (with limited options).
From what I recall, one of the original points Skill Feats were meant to resolve was to create more balanced characters at high level (skill-wise, at least), because they were never taken in PF1 due to "class feats" being generally better.
I'm not sure how well this addresses that issue, unless archetype specifications also give alternate skill usage options as well. Thought that's definitely a possibility (martial archetypes giving Acrobatics/Athletics abilities, etc) I'm not sure how good of an idea it is.
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So I really love a lot of things in the Playtest and I find certain elements to be a big improvement on the TTRPG genre as a whole. However there are some things which need finessing and a decent number of problems that can be improved upon.
Some of the biggest complaints about the game involve designing your character and how much more narrow your options are for designing a character. Wanna be a duel-weilding or sharp-shooter Barbarian? You can, but you'll always suck compared to a Fighter or Ranger in the same vein.
In top of this, increasing your proficiency in skills feels...well to put it bluntly, dull. Going from Master to Legendary at level 15 in any skill chagnges your bonus from 17 to 18...not very exciting. You have to wait another level to get a Legendary Skill Feat before you start feeling actually Legendary.
A lot of this has to do with the Pathfinder Playtest design mentality which puts so much weight on balance and "class niche" that it doesn't allow much design flexibility or variance outside of the scope of what the classic version of that class can do.
Here is my proposed solution that allows people to have a lot more design flexibility, while maintaining the Playtest's design goal of being more structured, and also fixing the problem with skill proficiency on the way there.
1) Every class needs different paths to take. Plenty already do, like the Sorcerer's Bloodlines or the Barbarian's Totems. But every class needs something like this so that my Paladin feels more substantially different from yours. Paladin is actually a good example because it's a very easy one. Have the different Paladin paths be tied to the different Alignments, each one adjusting how the Paladin's base powers work and only allowing some class feats to be taken by certain alignments. Other classes might be trickier, like the Fighter, but I think it would be doable.
2) Get rid of Skill Feats. Instead, fold in the abilities of skill feats with the proficiency increases. Maybe not all. Some are...
Pathfinder's strength is also its greatest weakness: lots of customization.
The problem is that there are so many customization points, that each one has to be small so that things don't get out of control. It would be better to have fewer customization points that are more powerful.
I actually think Pathfinder should change the game to scale players from 1-10 instead of 1-20. This consolidates power to make for more powerful choices. It also means that spell levels equal character level, so you always know that at level 6 you can cast 6th level spells.
You could just house rule to give every player more feats generally, mission accomplished.
No this is a playtest, if you have to house rule the game for it to work then the rules are failing to facilitate an enjoyable experience, if we have to rewrite the game for it to work then it needs to be fixed.
...So I really love a lot of things in the Playtest and I find certain elements to be a big improvement on the TTRPG genre as a whole. However there are some things which need finessing and a decent number of problems that can be improved upon.
Some of the biggest complaints about the game involve designing your character and how much more narrow your options are for designing a character. Wanna be a duel-weilding or sharp-shooter Barbarian? You can, but you'll always suck compared to a Fighter or Ranger in the same vein.
In top of this, increasing your proficiency in skills feels...well to put it bluntly, dull. Going from Master to Legendary at level 15 in any skill chagnges your bonus from 17 to 18...not very exciting. You have to wait another level to get a Legendary Skill Feat before you start feeling actually Legendary.
A lot of this has to do with the Pathfinder Playtest design mentality which puts so much weight on balance and "class niche" that it doesn't allow much design flexibility or variance outside of the scope of what the classic version of that class can do.
Here is my proposed solution that allows people to have a lot more design flexibility, while maintaining the Playtest's design goal of being more structured, and also fixing the problem with skill proficiency on the way there.
1) Every class needs different paths to take. Plenty already do, like the Sorcerer's Bloodlines or the Barbarian's Totems. But every class needs something like this so that my Paladin feels more substantially different from yours. Paladin is actually a good example because it's a very easy one. Have the different Paladin paths be tied to the different Alignments, each one adjusting how the Paladin's base powers work and only allowing some class feats to be taken by certain alignments. Other classes might be trickier, like the Fighter, but I think it would be doable.
2) Get rid of Skill Feats. Instead, fold in the abilities of skill feats with the proficiency increases.
The developers have already said on other threads that they won’t be changing the level scale from 1-20.
agree, but while we are at it, lets not add level to proficiency in a skill, lets instead gain skill point, as many as we did at level 1 for the class, at each level.
then we invest skill points to advance our training:
0 untrained
1-2 apprentice
3-5 adept
6-9 profession
10-14 expert
15-20 master
21 legendary
each skill can only gain 1 point per level or each skill cannot exceed level +1, not sure which would be best yet.
Please no. The many skillpoints per level was one of my most unliked parts of PF1 and had our table headscratching every level up. I am very glad PF2 steered away from that.
The many skillpoints created an mostly unneeded flexibility. In most cases, your character concept builds on some skills that you will always max. Rarely do you reevaluate all your skills each level up.
I think PF2 went a bit too far with only one point every two levels but I like the direction of the change. It creates the skill base at level 1 but still enables you to pick up new skills.
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So, musing on better ways to give out weapon/armor proficiencies, I scribbled down this v0.0001 houserule on martial proficiencies
The idea is that it makes weapons/armor choices more flexible, working with PF's powerful idea that characters are unique, players have choices, and not every wizard is a stereotype. I've just mocked it up for three classes, racial feats, and the fighter dedication, at the moment, to see if people think it has any potential.
embedding more skill uses in different degrees of proficiency is a good idea, although I don't think I would want to get rid of skill feats entirely. I like that there is some modification and customization of what exactly you can do with skills.
I think a good way of resolving the "locking" of certain combat styles, etc is to have combat archetypes. I don't think they should be mandatory (it might be your concept fits perfectly well within an existing class), but having some general archetypes like "Archer", or "duelist", that would allow you to expand on certain combat styles, would be pretty good.
Hmmm...
This is how I'm envisioning where I'd like the Playtest to end up maybe:
You get...
1) Ancestry (HP, movement, Ability Boosts and/or Flaw, Traits, and at least 1 physical characteristic.)
2) Heredity (Package of additional physical characteristics, pick 4 out of 6 choices.)
3) Half-Heredity (Optional package of additional physical characteristics, pick 1 to 3 out of 4 choices, for each characteristic you pick here remove 1 pick from your main heredity, gain access to relevant ancestry feats.)
4) Heritage (Package of cultural characteristics from your ancestors, pick 1 out of 2 choices, gain 1 optional heritage language.)
5) Culture (Package of cultural characteristics from your society, pick 2 out of 3 choices, gain Common and 1 other language.)
6) Class (Gain class features + 11 feats, every class gets the same number of feats, gaining new spell slots is now a feat, spell proficiency is a feat, none are mandatory.)
7) Skills (Gain 1 skill feat from your background and 1 skill feat each time you gain a skill increase.)
8) General (10 feats on odd levels, general, ancestry, and archetype feats rolled into one pool, archetype no longer costs class feats.)
This takes ideas from all over the forums including this one.
Looks like too many pools for my tastes, I personally would be fine with 3 genetic feats or traits (including half heritages) and 1 cultural heritage ability, big flavorful and juicy
+class skills and general of course
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Looks like too many pools for my tastes, I personally would be fine with 3 genetic feats or traits (including half heritages) and 1 cultural heritage ability, big flavorful and juicy
+class skills and general of course
I agree. Pathfinder already has a reputation for being overwhelming for newcomers. Heck, I am the kind of person who loves world building, character creation, and fine details, and even I feel like that would end up way too much.
I honestly think that the Ancestries are fine where they are, although needing a bit of fine tuning in the details. I would like an option for cross cultural characters (a human raised by dwarves), but other than that, everything seems good there.
I still really think that my Archetype revamp fixes so much and creates for a much more dynamic and diverse set of characters.
Even if you left skills exactly as is, that alone would be enough to fix the Playtest to the point of being one of, if not the single, best TTRPG for me.
I'll have to disagree, the Ancestries even with the (misnamed) Heritages are not sufficiently flavorful to express anything but the most generic delineations possible. It feels too restrictive at the moment.
Although my ideal version of these things is a bit more daunting, I'm sure a decent mid-way point is there to be found.
@ D@rK-SePHiRoTH-
I did my most extreme preference.
Where do you see it as too many pools?
Is it the number of categories, the choices within each package, or both?