Proficiency needs more scaling; Expanding on a good mechanic!

[Turkeycubes]

I've been mulling something over since August, waiting to see if Paizo would take it further than ditching signature skills. Why stop at such small differences in proficiency?

Let's expand the mechanism to add some real differences between characters! In this variation I would assume all characters to start at untrained, but have the option to be incompetent in order to focus their efforts elsewhere.

Below I have listed the expanded range of proficiencies. I do not believe this will effect balance. Characters should absolutely be excellent at some things and rubbish at others.....

Incompetent: You have avoided this sort of ability throughout your life, whether by fear or scorn you have no interest in these pursuits. You may choose any proficiency to be incompetent to gain 1 skill increase of your choice. (Proficiency=Level-6)

Untrained: No practical experience (Proficiency=Level-4)

Competent: Practice without formal training (Level-2)

Trained: Proficiency equals Level

Expert: Focused training and extensive experience (Proficiency=Level+2)

Master: Clear insight into the finer points of these abilities (Level +4)

Prodigy: Exceptional skill and talent
(Level+6)

Renowned: (Level+8)

Legendary: (Level+10)

In addition, I suggest that players add an extra skill increase as determined by their intelligence modifier. Divide 20 by the modifier, rounded down; so a character with a +3 Int Mod would get one more skill increase every 6 Levels.

Each PC would get one free proficiency increase to be applied to anything they choose at each odd level. Yes, this would replace the class ability proficiency progression!

Lastly, remove all level restrictions! Release the One Trick Ponies!!! Lol

I look forward to hearing your feedback!

[BornToDevour]

Overall, I like your suggestion, but I do have a few slight problems with it.

I do like increasing proficiency intervals to 2, and have done such for my games already. Removing level restrictions could be very interesting, but somewhat risky at that. I like it from an immersion perspective, because one of the hardest things for me to wrap my head around in many fantasy tabletop rpgs is how a non-player blacksmith can possibly make a living if they aren't at least level 7 (and therefore could deal with the goblin problem they're hiring adventurers for themselves). The playtest already helps to deal with this, but removing level restrictions might help more.

My biggest concern would be the extra time and complexity during skill allocation. The current system is incredibly simple. You gain a skill increase, you place it somewhere. You're done. With 8 levels of proficiency, you'll probably be gaining additional skill proficiencies as you level, and have to decide which to dump (and by how much) at character creation.

[Nettah]

I do think that a larger difference between trained and legendary would be warranted, but this amount is too extreme. I also really dislike incompetent awarding extra skills, it should only be a flavor option in my view, like you can choose to have a flaw in your stats.

I do think letting people be expert from level one if they have a bonus to intelligence might be worth looking into, but otherwise I think letting you get higher ranks early would completely break the game.

BornToDevour said wrote:

I do like increasing proficiency intervals to 2, and have done such for my games already. Removing level restrictions could be very interesting, but somewhat risky at that. I like it from an immersion perspective, because one of the hardest things for me to wrap my head around in many fantasy tabletop rpgs is how a non-player blacksmith can possibly make a living if they aren't at least level 7 (and therefore could deal with the goblin problem they're hiring adventurers for themselves). The playtest already helps to deal with this, but removing level restrictions might help more.

I don't get why the blacksmith need to be level 7 to make a living? At level 1 he can make 1sp a day, which sure is not a lot, but it would be enough to letting for him to get by since the lowest cost of living is 4 sp a week and by level 2 he earns enough to live a comfortable life. And this is using the rules as they are available to PC's. Actually being an NPC he might have cheaper cost of living than that and be able to earn more than a PC would doing the menial task for a short period of time.

[MER-c]

Nettah wrote:

I don't get why the blacksmith need to be level 7 to make a living? At level 1 he can make 1sp a day, which sure is not a lot, but it would be enough to letting for him to get by since the lowest cost of living is 4 sp a week and by level 2 he earns enough to live a comfortable life. And this is using the rules as they are available to PC's. Actually being an NPC he might have cheaper cost of living than that and be able to earn more than a PC would doing the menial task for a short period of time.

I had a Level one Blacksmith Monk (We flavored her as an apprentice blade-smith) earning around 13sp a week with an OK craft, granted that was with some godly rolls but that's pretty decent

As to the proposed changes, I think it's better to stick to four levels but we can add some flair to it, such as making one or two skills "Incompetent" for a larger penalty and maybe adding a first level skill feat called Prodigy that let's you select a skill you are trained or worse in, you get a permanent +x to that skill or you may select a skill and you roll twice and take the better result.

I would like to see things doubled in bonus, so Experts get a +2 and Legendary gives a hefty +6

[BornToDevour]

Nettah wrote:

I don't get why the blacksmith need to be level 7 to make a living? At level 1 he can make 1sp a day, which sure is not a lot, but it would be enough to letting for him to get by since the lowest cost of living is 4 sp a week and by level 2 he earns enough to live a comfortable life.

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. I was mostly referring to other tabletops I've played where a level 1 blacksmith would effectively lose money trying to produce even basic weapons. Crafting DCs would be 15+ and a blacksmith would have a +6 modifier at best. Failing by too much would cause you to waste materials.

Pathfinder playtest does alleviate this concern for the most part with a very reasonable crafting and downtime employment system.

[Turkeycubes]

Incompetent: You have avoided this sort of ability throughout your life, whether by fear or scorn you have no interest in these pursuits. You may choose any proficiency to be incompetent to gain 1 skill increase of your choice. (Proficiency=Level-6)

The reason I suggested this was 2 fold. One, to illustrate exactly what happens when you focus too much on your career. The other reason is to give an actual depiction of what happens when you focus on your career. It works from either prospective. This is fair, simple, realistic, and flavorful.

As for being complicated? It hasn't changed the system or mechanics in any way. You will still have little circles to check, and a regular occurrence of checks that would be noted in your class progression. The only big difference is that you can choose if you don't like the regular.

This is Pathfinder. If you can't customize, why play? What I'm suggesting is huge customization in a simple mechanism.

Thanks for your feedback, keep it coming!

[Turkeycubes]

Turkeycubes wrote:

Each PC would get one free proficiency increase to be applied to anything they choose at each odd level. Yes, this would replace the class ability proficiency progression!

Lastly, remove all level restrictions! Release the One Trick Ponies!!! Lol

I look forward to hearing your feedback!

I'd also like to draw attention to this. I've played some chapters of the playtest with this variation and didn't have any issues.

Remember, players would be picking just how much expertise they can get in each proficiency. Legendary (+10) isn't automatically received at level 20, they have to invest 7 proficiency increases (Out of 10 total) to reach that bonus. So getting +10 to attack and armor, for example, isn't possible.

Also, while "incompetence" frees up a proficiency increase from anywhere, I've specifically said that increase can only be allocated to skills.

[Nettah]

Turkeycubes said wrote:

Incompetent: You have avoided this sort of ability throughout your life, whether by fear or scorn you have no interest in these pursuits. You may choose any proficiency to be incompetent to gain 1 skill increase of your choice. (Proficiency=Level-6)

The reason I suggested this was 2 fold. One, to illustrate exactly what happens when you focus too much on your career. The other reason is to give an actual depiction of what happens when you focus on your career. It works from either prospective. This is fair, simple, realistic, and flavorful.

As for being complicated? It hasn't changed the system or mechanics in any way. You will still have little circles to check, and a regular occurrence of checks that would be noted in your class progression. The only big difference is that you can choose if you don't like the regular.

This is Pathfinder. If you can't customize, why play? What I'm suggesting is huge customization in a simple mechanism.

Thanks for your feedback, keep it coming!

Well as I stated earlier I think giving people free bonus skills from selecting certain skills as incompetent is a very bad idea, because it replaces all flavor from the choice and turns it into a min-maxing game. Most skills you weren't planning to get a higher rank in than untrained would be a no-brainer to change to incompetent instead, to get that sweet bonus skill. Also if you want the incompetent rank to exist it probably shouldn't scale with level in my opinion, to make you truly incompetent in that skill.

Letting people get +10 more than others on skill rank alone is likely going to break the game (even more so when it isn't gated behind levels), so either you would have to redo all math in the entire game or anything that is based on an opposed DC is now broken.
(Because that level 1 character with +15 athletics is going to be very annoying)

I would say this whole change is pretty complicated, and would likely require a lot more fine-tuning before being useful in a home-brew setting, but YMMV.

Going from -4; +0; +1; +2; +3 to -4; +0; +1; +3; +5 seems more reasonable to me, and it still comes with some problems in terms of proficiency in armor and weapons etc..
Adding extra ranks in between also requires a lot more skill ranks to be given to characters otherwise a class like rogue would be way ahead on every single skill roll than the rest.

You say one of the goals is to customize characters more, and I think your system is likely to make characters a lot more single skill focused than they are now. When the scaling is equal between all the ranks there is no real incentive to go for the broader approach. Why do I really need to upgrade a skill from level + (-4) to level + (-2) instead of getting a skill from +8 to +10 that my character is actually build around.

I do like the idea of getting a bigger bonus from your extra intelligence over the levels, but I have yet to see a way that seems easy to use, especially retroactively. Something like half your int modifier at level 8, 15 and 20 seems easier to implement than your system, and still it seems overly complicated compared to how I would like the final version of the game to be. But currently intelligence does seem to be to much of a dumb stat for all but alchemist and wizard.

[MER-c]

Maybe something like you gain 1+ half your int mod wherever you would gain a skill increase, though not sure how hard that breaks Rogue.

[Nettah]

Turkeycubes said wrote:

I'd also like to draw attention to this. I've played some chapters of the playtest with this variation and didn't have any issues.

Remember, players would be picking just how much expertise they can get in each proficiency. Legendary (+10) isn't automatically received at level 20, they have to invest 7 proficiency increases (Out of 10 total) to reach that bonus. So getting +10 to attack and armor, for example, isn't possible.

Also, while "incompetence" frees up a proficiency increase from anywhere, I've specifically said that increase can only be allocated to skills.

I didn't realize the system was made for all proficiencies, which in my view just make the idea more broken. I have a hard time understanding how this variation wouldn't create issues. Most increases wouldn't be equal in value so if I was a spellcaster why wouldn't I take the first 7 increases in my spellcasting proficiency? I can target 4 different proficiencies from you (fort, ref, will and AC), so you don't really have a fair chance to keep up, so your best defense is a good offense and all of a sudden it's all about rocket tag again.

[Darcness]

MER-c wrote:

I would like to see things doubled in bonus, so Experts get a +2 and Legendary gives a hefty +6

Using this system, a quick bit of math puts Incredible tasks on a PC that goes full ham into the 50% range:

Proficiency of 21 = 15 (level) + 6 (Legendary)
Ability Mod of 5 = (Max 21 if starting at 18 and putting every possible raise into it)

Incredible DC at level 15 is 37, on which your character is getting a +26 (before item or circumstance bonuses), so you need an 11 on the die (50% chance). Interestingly enough, you have the same chance to critically succeed on this task as anyone else (natural 20 only), which I would be upset about if this were the skill my character possessed at a LEGENDARY level.

Separately, a 50% chance with 'the best possible character' is supposed to happen at Ultimate, not at Incredible, which, at level 15, is going to require us to squeeze out another +3 from some item bonus (Note that the description includes 'help from other characters can make this easier', so we aren't counting the 4 or 5 spells your wizard buddy is tossing on you). Based on this math, I worry slightly that my Rogue with his LEGENDARY Athletics will actually have some trouble pulling off the 'really' complicated balancing act even when he's leaned into the skill with all his might.

But, separately from that, what bothers me is the critical success issue. Even with an Incredible task, I still have the same chance to critically succeed as the bumbling wizard to my left: a natural 20. The design goal with the 10+ rule for critical successes makes sense: if I'm really really good at something, I'm really only rolling to make sure I don't fail, rather than to make sure I succeed, so let my high rolls matter. This runs into the thematic issue outlined above, though, when the DCs are middling. Possibly the 'critical success' rules could be tweaked so allow a greater chance to critically succeed with higher training in the skill (beyond the 1 point you get from increasing your skill roll).

I don't know what the best way to do that would be, though. Lowering the critical success barrier by a flat amount just doubles down. You're one point closer to crit by virtue of getting +1 on the roll, do we really want to lower the threshold by 1 as well? Perhaps allowing critical success on 19's at Legendary helps here, as someone who is this well trained should pull a rabbit out of a hat more often than the rest of us.

[Turkeycubes]

Darcness wrote:

MER-c wrote:

I would like to see things doubled in bonus, so Experts get a +2 and Legendary gives a hefty +6

Using this system, a quick bit of math puts Incredible tasks on a PC that goes full ham into the 50% range:

Proficiency of 21 = 15 (level) + 6 (Legendary)
Ability Mod of 5 = (Max 21 if starting at 18 and putting every possible raise into it)

Incredible DC at level 15 is 37, on which your character is getting a +26 (before item or circumstance bonuses), so you need an 11 on the die (50% chance). Interestingly enough, you have the same chance to critically succeed on this task as anyone else (natural 20 only), which I would be upset about if this were the skill my character possessed at a LEGENDARY level.

Separately, a 50% chance with 'the best possible character' is supposed to happen at Ultimate, not at Incredible, which, at level 15, is going to require us to squeeze out another +3 from some item bonus (Note that the description includes 'help from other characters can make this easier', so we aren't counting the 4 or 5 spells your wizard buddy is tossing on you). Based on this math, I worry slightly that my Rogue with his LEGENDARY Athletics will actually have some trouble pulling off the 'really' complicated balancing act even when he's leaned into the skill with all his might.

I should also clarify that I didn't find the DC charts helpful. I have yet to see a system that really deals with scaling fairly. But ultimately, the issue is that PCs need to be challenged by things they aren't trained in and less challenged by things they are focused in.

The GM should be providing challenges that the PCs are not always prepared for. While the DC table is a good guide for what a challenging number would be at a given level; the GM should have a grasp on what is difficult for each of their players and give DC's based on that.

[Darcness]

Turkeycubes wrote:

While the DC table is a good guide for what a challenging number would be at a given level; the GM should have a grasp on what is difficult for each of their players and give DC's based on that.

That's suuuuch a treacherous, slippery slope. If a GM is 'basing it off my sheet', they're essentially saying 'I want this to be hard for you, so a DC that would require you to roll a 15 on the die sounds appropriate'. At that point, why am I bothering to increase my skills? The GM is just going to raise the DC on me when I do anyway....

That's why the DC table is VERY important. Could it be tweaked? Absolutely, the math is a little... wonky in places, but ignoring it (often) means that players don't have anything to reach for... which is the entire point of all this math in the first place. Having a goal for your character to reach and getting there.

[Edge93]

NOTE: This comment is directly to the OP, I had an old load of this page p when I wrote this so I didn't see ANY of the intervening comments or discussion. Oops...

A little problem I have here is that despite the flavor text of "Whether by fear or scorn, you have avoided this...", this just feels like it will encourage people to dump any skill they don't think they will use down to this level so that they can put more increases into the ones they think they will use because they feel they shouldn't keep their key skills lower at the cost of skills they don't expect to use.

This is why I like the PF2 way of "You can dump a stat or bonus but gain no mechanical benefit", because if you can get mechanical benefit in one area by dropping another it encourages dropping anything you can get away with to focus on what you want, which then makes a situation where to keep up with the new standard characters have to dump things to keep others from eclipsing them in the areas they specialize in. Or something like PF1 where maximizing your specialties in skills REQUIRES that you be incompetent at x number of other things (The specific number depending on how many skills you want to max and how many skill points your class and Int give you. Woe to you if you are a Fighter who wants to be an expert at more than 2-4 skills...).

A thought on this could be to limit the number of things you can choose to make yourself incompetent in, or to prohibit incompetence boosts from progressing you beyond trained, then this problem is mitigated by reducing or eliminating the ability to minmax with it.

Also it's worth noting that a heavily varianced setup like this will almost certainly make the skill vs. skill or skill vs. save rolls we are able to have now horribly broken.

A Fighter dumps 5 skills to incompetent, takes those skill increases and one of his initial trained skills and gets Legendary Athletics at 1st level. Athletics +15. Max Reflex DC of a 1st level player is 16. Hope you enjoy getting Tripped, Shoved, Grappled, and quite possibly Disarmed or Restrained...

Or how often an Intimidate pumper will crit Demoralize people for an easy Frightened 2 and Fleeing...

Quite a few spells that go against a skill DC or allow a skill roll to effect them will be completely wrecked by this as well because someone could very well have pumped the counter-skill to unholy levels. (I would say the reverse is true where incompetents are ruined by certain spells but they changed spells to compensate for that potential back when they bumped Untrained to -4)

Just for example. Also unless Perception is increasable by this system you will easily have liars and sneaks who can't be discerned or spotted even by the best perceivers. And if it is increasable then you will find many people pump it quite a bit, meaning you have to invest hard in stealth or deception to even have a chance of getting by a lot of people.

Just some potential problems I think bear mentioning.

[Edge93]

Darcness wrote:

MER-c wrote:

I would like to see things doubled in bonus, so Experts get a +2 and Legendary gives a hefty +6

Using this system, a quick bit of math puts Incredible tasks on a PC that goes full ham into the 50% range:

Proficiency of 21 = 15 (level) + 6 (Legendary)
Ability Mod of 5 = (Max 21 if starting at 18 and putting every possible raise into it)

Incredible DC at level 15 is 37, on which your character is getting a +26 (before item or circumstance bonuses), so you need an 11 on the die (50% chance). Interestingly enough, you have the same chance to critically succeed on this task as anyone else (natural 20 only), which I would be upset about if this were the skill my character possessed at a LEGENDARY level.

Separately, a 50% chance with 'the best possible character' is supposed to happen at Ultimate, not at Incredible, which, at level 15, is going to require us to squeeze out another +3 from some item bonus (Note that the description includes 'help from other characters can make this easier', so we aren't counting the 4 or 5 spells your wizard buddy is tossing on you). Based on this math, I worry slightly that my Rogue with his LEGENDARY Athletics will actually have some trouble pulling off the 'really' complicated balancing act even when he's leaned into the skill with all his might.

But, separately from that, what bothers me is the critical success issue. Even with an Incredible task, I still have the same chance to critically succeed as the bumbling wizard to my left: a natural 20. The design goal with the 10+ rule for critical successes makes sense: if I'm really really good at something, I'm really only rolling to make sure I don't fail, rather than to make sure I succeed, so let my high rolls matter. This runs into the thematic issue outlined above, though, when the DCs are middling. Possibly the 'critical success' rules could be tweaked so allow a greater chance to critically succeed with higher training in the skill (beyond the 1 point you get from increasing...

I actually really like that last bit, the crit on 19 and 20 at legendary. Like Keen for skills. Most ideas I've seen push things to far as you alluded to but I really like that one, it's a nice and fun but reasonable effect.

Heck, I wouldn't even be opposed to toying with that idea further. Maybe at Master you crit on 19 and 20, and then at Legendary you crit 18, 19, or 20, and you don't auto crit-fail on a 1?

Hmm, the 18, 19, 20 is probably too much now I look at it but I like the idea of getting to ditch auto crit fails on a 1 (Though still crit failing if the 1 puts you at 10 or more below DC of course).

[Darcness]

Edge93 wrote:

Darcness wrote:

But, separately from that, what bothers me is the critical success issue. Even with an Incredible task, I still have the same chance to critically succeed as the bumbling wizard to my left: a natural 20. The design goal with the 10+ rule for critical successes makes sense: if I'm really really good at something, I'm really only rolling to make sure I don't fail, rather than to make sure I succeed, so let my high rolls matter. This runs into the thematic issue outlined above, though, when the DCs are middling. Possibly the 'critical success' rules could be tweaked so allow a greater chance to critically succeed with higher training in the skill (beyond the 1...

I actually really like that last bit, the crit on 19 and 20 at legendary. Like Keen for skills. Most ideas I've seen push things to far as you alluded to but I really like that one, it's a nice and fun but reasonable effect.

Heck, I wouldn't even be opposed to toying with that idea further. Maybe at Master you crit on 19 and 20, and then at Legendary you crit 18, 19, or 20, and you don't auto crit-fail on a 1?

Hmm, the 18, 19, 20 is probably too much now I look at it but I like the idea of getting to ditch auto crit fails on a 1 (Though still crit failing if the 1 puts you at 10 or more below DC of course).

I agree that 18-20 is too much. I could see crit success on 19 at Expert, ignore crit-fail at Legendary.

Alternatively, ignoring crit-fail sounds more like a skill feat (and would be make more sense than the oddly juxtaposed Assurance feat we have today).

[nick1wasd]

Darcness wrote:

But, separately from that, what bothers me is the critical success issue. Even with an Incredible task, I still have the same chance to critically succeed as the bumbling wizard to my left: a natural 20. The design goal with the 10+ rule for critical successes makes sense: if I'm really really good at something, I'm really only rolling to make sure I don't fail, rather than to make sure I succeed, so let my high rolls matter. This runs into the thematic issue outlined above, though, when the DCs are middling. Possibly the 'critical success' rules could be tweaked so allow a greater chance to critically succeed with higher training in the skill (beyond the 1 point you get from increasing...

It should be noted that if you roll a nat20 and your total isn't enough to even base succeed, you only get a normal success, not a crit success. So that does matter that only people with a high skill roll would be able to crit an Incredible/Ultimate task.

[nick1wasd]

I really like the idea of getting "increases" instead of skill/fixed proficiency. I do think that level gating is needed, as so you don't get the stupid massive level 1 bonus nonsense. I also think that certain classes can only get x feature (save/atk/armor/percept/spell) past a certain level (master for saves and percept, expert for the rest), but that feats can let you get those higher if you're not said class. And that int might gives a FEW more increases, and let rogues get some specifically for skills (keeping them as the skill monkey), and let archetypes GIVE you an increase for a thing, pushing you to the next level even if you couldn't otherwise (that wizard can be a master in weapons if he took an increase to be expert, or even legendary if he took the feat that let's him take it up to master with an increase).

[Previloc]

Greater distinction is a great idea, I'm in favor of UTEML -4, 0, +2, +4, +6. This is close enough to work for skills, saves, armor, and weapons. Beefs up the fighter a little, but then...

While 5 proficiency ranks (UTEML) may seem small, it's a good start and I'd rather see it fleshed out better with broad capability for each level. Similarly, proficiency rank achievement needs to be spread out a bit over the level range of play - so I think current rules are a good start (I would like to see signature skills return and modify ranking rules, but as skills unrestrictedly chosen by the player).

NPC Blacksmith having problems? An Expert class could easily bypass such a restriction (can anybody say "class feature"?).

I like flavor, such as the incompetent idea, but in practice, I've seen it powergamed too often (perk/flaw analysis). The problem with such tradeoffs is that it assumes all skills are equal. Also, incompetent (as a flaw) shouldn't include level.

[Arnim Thayer]

By your title, I thought you were making an appeal for more scaled Skill Feats, something I could 10% get behind! Changing the proficiency mechanic to add MORE levels seems counter-intuitive to making the game simpler and easy to learn. If this mechanic is going to stay, replacing skill ranks (something I have enjoyed immensely as a measure of character customization), I would rather it be far more intuitive to teach then more complex.