I'm I the only one taken aback by Rogues getting double the number of Skill Feats?

[LordVanya]

I mean, I could understand like 4 or 5 bonus skill feats, but a whole 10 seems like overkill.

[Selkor]

Hmm it does seem a lot in comparison to other classes, but I'm wondering if they get so many due to the sheer number of skills. They get Stealth or Thievery and then 9 + INT. That's a lot of skills to be trained in. I imagine its tied to making sure they feel like they have feats to match. Although, I did think that almost everyone starting with 4 + INT and usually a bonus skill or two seemed to be a bit odd.

[Fuzzypaws]

What I really want is for skill feats to not be their own progression at all. Instead, when you gain or advance a skill proficiency, e.g. when you raise Stealth to Expert, it just comes with a skill feat. Then the rogue still gets more skill feats, but that's because they get more skill advances in general.

I'd be okay with skill feats not existing at Trained and only proccing at Expert+, so long as all the feats were better / broader and elevated to Catfall tier, and also so long as you can acquire Expert at 1st level by doubling up on skill assignments.

[Siro]

I'm not too concerned about Rouges getting skills feats and such. They are the 'Skill Class' of the game, being able to max out six different skills, compared to the other classes three. Skill feats themselves are a further representation of this {ie it changes the process of raising the skill from being a simple +1, to different things you can do with it through skill feats.)

That being said, I would not mind tweak to the system that would allow other classes to get more skill increases/feats without making the Rouge lose that skill spot. {the multiclass rogue 'Skill Mastery' feat can help with this, however its a pretty high cost to pay having to use two of your class feats to get it.) The problem is seen through the other traditionally 'skilled' class such as the Bard, or the Ranger, as {at least from the little I have seen} the game calls for specialization, meaning a good portion of the skills you were using at the beginning will become less and less reliable/used as you go further up in level {the 1.3 update and the new chart as help this a bit, however this problem still remains for skills that are not checked against the chart, but made against a creature.)

Which is the reason why I wouldn't mind some greater interaction between Skill/Skill Feats and Int. I've noticed a couple of times people saying Int is the new Cha, as Int only provides more skills that you are 'Trained' in mirroring the above problems. Keeping in mind the Rogue, I would not mind Int to be more integrated with the Skill process { a loose idea would be you get additional skill feat and skill increase at every 4-5 levels, limited by your Int. So someone with a +0 mod in Int would only be able to use that skill increase to increase a skill from 'Untrained' to 'Trained' and could only gain a Skill feat that requires 'Trained' or lesser. Someone with a +1 mod would have that limit increased to 'Expert' and so and so forth. Of course regardless of your Int mod, how far you could actually increase the skill would still be limited by your level.). So a smart character can focus a little bit more then on 3 things, while a smart Rogue could go even further.

[The Once and Future Kai]

I was okay with it until one of my players fielded a mid-level Rogue. Character creation was brutal. This adds a ton of unnecessary tracking complexity to the game. I'd much prefer fewer skill feats that scale better. In general and for the Rogue.

[ErichAD]

The skill increases aren't all that useful a class feature without those skill feats to back them up. I don't think giving skill feats and skill ranks at different intervals is a good move, and believe that skill feats should simply be unlocked with skill proficiency improvements.

[Noir le Lotus]

The Rogue is just the illustration that the new skill system is wonky.

In 3.X, skills work exactly the same for everyone, you just roll a D20 and add your bonus, the DM gives you a DC, you pass or fail, that's all.

In PF2, skills are a nightmare : you have proficiency levels and skill feats, both modify how skills work. that means that now the DM gives a DC for an action but he doesn't know anymore what the PCs can do. On the Pc side, it's awfully complicated as you have to keep track of all the specific skill talents you get through skill proficiencies and skill feats. As the rogue gets a ton of them, I'm not even sure that an additionnal page to your character sheet is enough.

And even like that, the skills are not even clear on how they work. I read the rules on pickpocket and between the skill description, the proficiency modifications and the skill feats dedicated to this action, I still can't understand what my PC can pickpocket depending on what feats and proficiencies he has ...

I can't imagine what the debate will be at the table when a rogue will try to pickpocket the key of the prison guards.

[Ediwir]

I found most skill feats to be a drag for my players in playtest adventures because they do not add to combat. In a campaign, skill feats would be much more relevant, and I can already see situations where they don't have enough...

[PCScipio]

Skill feats have very little value at the moment , so having double the number means almost nothing.

[EberronHoward]

I like that the Rogue gets one per level. It helps get them closer to that mythical D&D ideal of Martials doing things all day long can be equal to a spellcaster.

Ediwir wrote:

I found most skill feats to be a drag for my players in playtest adventures because they do not add to combat. In a campaign, skill feats would be much more relevant, and I can already see situations where they don't have enough...

The Initimidation and Athletics skill feats can be useful in combat. Scribe Scroll, Trick Magic Item, and the Crafting skill feats also open up a lot of options.

[Siro]

Ediwir wrote:

I found most skill feats to be a drag for my players in playtest adventures because they do not add to combat. In a campaign, skill feats would be much more relevant, and I can already see situations where they don't have enough...

Agreed, while there are some decent ones for combat {At higher levels Battle Cry, Scare to Death, Legendary Negotiator, Foil Senses, Swift Sneak and most likely some others I missed, though in order for them to be useful, you need to highly invest in them. Which actually leads back to the point that DC's against creatures have not been changed}. Most of them however are built around non-combat, where they really do have some shine. Hopefully we get a bit more skill feats {both for combat and non-combat} during the playtest, or if not, at least by the actual games release.

[HWalsh]

Right now Rogues are the most powerful class in the game bar-none.

With the right multiclassing they put Fighters to shame in terms of DPS - They tie Fighters in terms of AC - Their HP is a little middle ground - They can get actual Dex to Damage meaning that they only need 3 stats to maximize all static advantages - They get the most skills - They are hands down already the most powerful class in PF2.

Example Human Rogue build:
lvl 01: 10/18/14/10/16/10
lvl 05: 10/19/16/10/18/12
lvl 10: 10/20/18/12/18/14
lvl 15: 10/21/19/12/19/16
lvl 20: 10/22/20/12/20/18

Giving them the best saves, Maxed damage, Maxed to-hit, Maxed AC, High HP, high Perception, compared to most other classes.

On top of this they are skill monkeys with a wide number of skills, more legendary skills than anyone else, and (again) with the right multiclassing creep easily into Fighter, Barbarian, and Paladin levels.

I am absolutely taken aback by rogues and how strong they are in PF2. It reminds me of Starfinder Operatives and that worries me a lot.

[Lightning Raven]

No. You're not. I also think this is completely unnecessary and the class would benefit itself a lot more if it was unshackled from the lame ass tradition that Rogues must be better at every skill for no apparent reason other than to make up the fact that they're weaker in combat, also for no apparent reason.

I would rather than offering a different combat playstyle from Fighters and other martials, while having less skills overall. The class concentrates every skill capabilities that could be spread out to each class. It would be preferable for the class to scale faster, like Fighters do with equipment, but being in line with other classes.

Long story short, I would prefer Rogues being on par with other martials while not being far beyond any other class that's supposed to be skilled, I mean... Bards lean way more to the support/skill side than Rogues and are still vastly inferior, which even the presence of spells doesn't make up for because Bards are Spontaneous Casters (little to no versatility).

[LordVanya]

Fuzzypaws wrote:

What I really want is for skill feats to not be their own progression at all. Instead, when you gain or advance a skill proficiency, e.g. when you raise Stealth to Expert, it just comes with a skill feat. Then the rogue still gets more skill feats, but that's because they get more skill advances in general.

I'd be okay with skill feats not existing at Trained and only proccing at Expert+, so long as all the feats were better / broader and elevated to Catfall tier, and also so long as you can acquire Expert at 1st level by doubling up on skill assignments.

100% agree.

[Voss]

LordVanya wrote:

I mean, I could understand like 4 or 5 bonus skill feats, but a whole 10 seems like overkill.

It is overkill. But not in a 'this makes the rogue better' sense. It's just more fiddly things to keep track of for no real reason. Honestly, having taken a rogue to 9th level, the skill feats feel like a detriment rather than a bonus, after 5th I just started picking things at random. None of them did enough that I actually cared about their function (the few standouts I had already).

Partly this is because so many of the skill feats feel like they're locking off the very basic features of skills until you pay the tax. Pickpocket, Survey Wildlife, Experience Smuggler... these are things that anyone can try to do without any training at all.

Even Multilingual is a weird case. I've known too many kids who can handle 2 or 3 languages by virtue of growing up with them, it isn't a product of formal education or a 'Society' skill

[RealAlchemy]

I sat down and started building a rogue with the wizard dedication feat for the L10 playtest. Building up to 18 intelligence to take advantage of the wizard dedication led to crazy skill levels and grabbing some random skill feats like spell thievery and foil senses just for fun.