People have been suggesting this since before the playtest, but IMO "I use a chart until level 3, then switch to a different one, then a third one at level 7, and a 4th chart at level 13" is just a non-starter since it's significantly more complex than anything in PF1.Alternative option 1:
PF1 approach: Some things go up by 1 per level, like BAB for martial characters. Other things go up at different rates, like saving throws.
IMO
Untrained: +0
Trained: 2+1/5 level
Expert: 3+1/4 level
Master: 4+1/3 level
Legendary: 4+1/2 level
(Or similar on a single chart)Now you have a variety, AND a smaller difference between low and high level, but still significant.
I agree with PossibleCabbage. That has to be one of the most convoluted messes I’ve seen outside of the FATAL system.
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The gaps are there. They aren't huge.That's...kinda my point.
They're realistically pretty large, but they're not "anything I can miss Person A on will still hit Person B", which is something that shouldn't be around anyways.
At level 12, my fighter with 35 AC was still significantly ahead of the caster druid with 29. 6 AC is still a 30% higher chance to hit and crit, and that's by no means a small amount. And from my memory of the same characters under the new proficiency system, they'd be 8 AC apart. That's very close to "anything that would hit my character would crit the druid".
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The gaps are there. They aren't huge.That's...kinda my point.
But it's not really a change either. PF1 AC gaps between armor categories looked very similar, especially when you factor in the crit mechanics.
The main difference in PF1 was that your AC scaling was entirely determined by incremental improvements in the big 6. Given access to the same budget for rings of protection and such, the AC gap between a rogue and a paladin probably stayed about the same throughout their entire lifespan, with about a 2 point swing. Shields were really the only thing that broke this trend.
I appreciate that +1/level was very polarizing, but pulling it out at this stage seems likely to create as many problems as it solves.
I agree with PossibleCabbage. That has to be one of the most convoluted messes I’ve seen outside of the FATAL system.People have been suggesting this since before the playtest, but IMO "I use a chart until level 3, then switch to a different one, then a third one at level 7, and a 4th chart at level 13" is just a non-starter since it's significantly more complex than anything in PF1.Alternative option 1:
PF1 approach: Some things go up by 1 per level, like BAB for martial characters. Other things go up at different rates, like saving throws.
IMO
Untrained: +0
Trained: 2+1/5 level
Expert: 3+1/4 level
Master: 4+1/3 level
Legendary: 4+1/2 level
(Or similar on a single chart)Now you have a variety, AND a smaller difference between low and high level, but still significant.
No, it is not. Table 10-2 in the Playtest Rulebook is twice as complex and that is meant to be used by the GM every encounter. A staggered progression like Mellored's is only a single chart the size of table 10-2 and is used only during leveling up. Leveling up already uses a chart of which class features and feats the character recieves and spellcasters have a chart of how many spells they can cast. In PF1, leveling up used a chart for BAB, saving throws, and special numbers such as monk's speed.
This is how it would work in practice. Suppose a character is leveling up from 9th to 10th level. Recorded on his character sheet from 9th level is "U +0, T +2, E +5, M +7, L +8," which is also the 9th-level row of the staggered progression chart. The player checks the 10th-level row of the staggered progression chart and sees ""U +0, T +3, E +5, M +7, L +9." The only changes are that T and L went up by +1. So the player goes to every proficiency on his character sheet marked T or L (none are marked L, but a lot are marked T) and adds +1 to those proficencies. He also adjusts the T and L values on the UTEML chart at the top of his sheet. If he receives a skill increase at that level, for example changing a Trained to an Expert, he sees that T is +3 and E is +5, so the change adds +2 to the proficiency, separate from the increase due to level.
There are other weaknesses with staggered progression, for example, no proficiency bonus would increase by level in the level up to 7th level, but the complexity is not a showstopper.
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It would look something like this:
.
.
.
.
Level Untrained Trained Expert Master Legendary
1________+0________+2_____+3_____+4_______+4
2________+0________+2_____+3_____+4_______+5
3________+0________+2_____+3_____+5_______+5
4________+0________+2_____+4_____+5_______+6
5________+0________+3_____+4_____+5_______+6
6________+0________+3_____+4_____+6_______+7
7________+0________+3_____+4_____+6_______+7
8________+0________+3_____+5_____+6_______+8
9________+0________+3_____+5_____+7_______+8
10_______+0________+4_____+5_____+7_______+9
11_______+0________+4_____+5_____+7_______+9
12_______+0________+4_____+6_____+8_______+10
13_______+0________+4_____+6_____+8_______+10
14_______+0________+4_____+6_____+8_______+11
15_______+0________+5_____+6_____+9_______+11
16_______+0________+5_____+7_____+9_______+12
17_______+0________+5_____+7_____+9_______+12
18_______+0________+5_____+7_____+10______+13
19_______+0________+5_____+7_____+10______+13
20_______+0________+6_____+8_____+10______+14
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My response to folks asking for various systems of modified %s of level bonus, is why bother? How is this system better than what PF1 already had as far as having a couple of set progressions for things like attack bonus and saves, and just leaving skill points as voluntary raises with maximums set by level controlled maximum?
Maybe you would want to make AC scale up as well, or modify the system to focus on weapon proficiencies and armor proficiencies instead of BAB, but overall, I don't see the advantage of using this chart over a free point system for skill proficiencies.
Whereas, the advantage of the Playtest system, was that that it radically simplified character progression for new players and took the focus off of raw numbers, as far as thinking about your character and what they are good at, a chart like this turns everything back around to focus on the numbers.
Also the difference between a level three expert and a level 1 trained character being a total of +1 is pretty wildly underwhelming. A third level fighter is not going to be feeling especially good at hitting things.
And the ability to make balanced monsters and adjust monsters on the fly is going to require a lot more work, maybe not more than PF1, but the simplified monster system, while controversial, is something that people who liked the Playtest really liked about it.
I was pretty happy when Jason indicated table 10-2 was going to go away. I would not be enthusiastic about adding another one like it. The benefit that one might get from it isn't nearly enough to justify the additional complexity.
Part of the problem is that people forget that legendary proficiency is not available until higher levels in the playtest, making a progression system that ties level bonus to the proficiency tier extremely restrictive.
Getting legendary proficiencies at 1st level kind of defeats the point of having proficiency tiers that scale as you level up. To work, it would involve changing a lot of aspects of the game.
If the goal is just to bring the numbers down overall, then it far better to get rid of level bonus altogether, and find another way to make level significant to character advancement.
A thing I don't get is why people want to bring down numbers on the low end relative to PF1.
A 5th level 18 strength fighter with weapon focus in PF1 gets +11 to hit. A 5th level bard with 18 Cha and skill focus in diplomacy gets a +15.
What value is it in making these numbers lower? It's not like "numbers on the low end in PF1 were too high" was a thing people had a problem was, was it?
Fair enough mathmuse. My statement was false. I was half asleep when I posted it so that definitely didn’t help. I could list a dozen reasons why I don’t like it but I don’t feel like making a dumpster fire so the short answer is that at most levels those fractions are meaningless and to be honest I hate looking at fractions in the first place. Not having them is one of the things I like about the new system. I am also coming from a player perspective so if on the GMs side of things there are fractions I’m sorry for them. I honestly don’t know because I haven’t looked. Which kind of leads to the only other point I’d like to make which is that infamous table. Paizo made it clear a long time ago that it’s going to be seriously reworked or so I have been led to believe. Therefore I think people should quit using it as an excuse to attack the final product. Your specific use of it as an example of ugly math I accept. But I don’t like how people in general have been using it lately.
My response to folks asking for various systems of modified %s of level bonus, is why bother? How is this system better than what PF1 already had as far as having a couple of set progressions for things like attack bonus and saves, and just leaving skill points as voluntary raises with maximums set by level controlled maximum?
Maybe you would want to make AC scale up as well, or modify the system to focus on weapon proficiencies and armor proficiencies instead of BAB, but overall, I don't see the advantage of using this chart over a free point system for skill proficiencies.
Whereas, the advantage of the Playtest system, was that that it radically simplified character progression for new players and took the focus off of raw numbers, as far as thinking about your character and what they are good at, a chart like this turns everything back around to focus on the numbers.
Also the difference between a level three expert and a level 1 trained character being a total of +1 is pretty wildly underwhelming. A third level fighter is not going to be feeling especially good at hitting things.
And the ability to make balanced monsters and adjust monsters on the fly is going to require a lot more work, maybe not more than PF1, but the simplified monster system, while controversial, is something that people who liked the Playtest really liked about it.
Why bother? I have two good reasons: +1 to all proficiencies per level is too much, and different rates of progression represents training in some proficiencies more ernestly than others.
Going up 1 level is supposed to make a cHaracter 41.4% better. That is because 1.414^2 = 2 and going up 2 levels is supposed to make an opponent twice as challenging on Table 4 on page 21 of the Playtest Bestiary.
Suppose a martial character hits an opponent 60% of attacks, which is 50% regular hits and 10% critical hits. +1 to weapon proficiency without changing the opponent would make that 50% regular hits and 15% critical hits, a 12.5% improvement in damage. Okay, the opponents change to have +1 in armor proficiency, so the hit rate stays at 60%, but that is really the opponent getting more powerful too.
Likewise, the +1 to armor proficiency is a 12.5% improvement, too. And the character gains more hit points, too. Going from 78 hit points at 7th level to 88 hit points at 8th level is a 12.8% improvement.
Improvements all used at the same time, like attacks, defense, and hit points are all used during the same turn, combine multiplicatively. (1.125)(1.125)(1.128) = 1.428, a 42.8% improvement in combat. That has used up the entire improvement budget of 41.4%. If we also hand out new feats, skill increases, and better gear, they have to be trivial improvements or the characters improve more than intended. Notice that the PF2 feats, both skill feats and class feats, feel weak?
In PF1 martial characters gain +1 per level in BAB. We also have the trope that Martials Can't Have Good Things, because that +1 per level is a lot. The cleric with only 3/4 BAB gains buff spells to help his and his allies' combat, the alchemist with only 3/4 BAB throws bombs against touch AC to aid his combat, the druid with 3/4 BAB transformes into a powerful animal for his combat--the 3/4 BAB classes get nice things (except for core monk and rogue).
We could solve this over-improvement problem by reducing +1 per level to +3/4 per level or +1/2 per level. We could solve it by reducing the number of hit points a character gains. We could solve it by simply accepting that characters will improve 60% or 70% per level and Table 4 needs to be rewritten. Some players prefer the first solution.
The second complaint about +1 per level is that it widens the gap between character concept and character improvement. The kind-hearted paladin of Shelyn became better at Intimidation every level. The street urchin rogue who would rather spit on the rich than talk to them became better at Society every level. The wizard who believes that stabbing people with steel is inelegant barbarianism became better at longsword proficiency every level. We have had hundreds of posts in many threads griping that +1 per level feels like it comes out of nowhere, especially when legendary proficiency's bonus was only +3 better than trained proficiency's bonus (thankfully, that is increasing to +6). Having higher rates of improvement for proficiencies that represent the characters seemed more natural and believeable.
On the other hand, +1 to all proficiencies per level solves several problems that no-one has mentioned yet. For example, the usefulness of skills is not balanced. Acrobatics seems to offer much less than Athletics. Occultism is confusing about what it covers besides occult spells. People would ignore those weak skills, but inevitably they will encounter those rare situations where those skills matter, such as Grabbing an Edge before falling into the lava pit. +1 to all proficiencies means that Paizo does not have to carefully balance the skills against each other.
Fair enough mathmuse. My statement was false. I was half asleep when I posted it so that definitely didn’t help. I could list a dozen reasons why I don’t like it but I don’t feel like making a dumpster fire so the short answer is that at most levels those fractions are meaningless and to be honest I hate looking at fractions in the first place. Not having them is one of the things I like about the new system. I am also coming from a player perspective so if on the GMs side of things there are fractions I’m sorry for them. I honestly don’t know because I haven’t looked. Which kind of leads to the only other point I’d like to make which is that infamous table. Paizo made it clear a long time ago that it’s going to be seriously reworked or so I have been led to believe. Therefore I think people should quit using it as an excuse to attack the final product. Your specific use of it as an example of ugly math I accept. But I don’t like how people in general have been using it lately.
To be fair from my side, too, Raylyeh, the staggered progression is much more complicated that +1 to all trained or better proficiencies per level. It exceeds Paizo's goal of simplifying the game.
I spent a few months trying to find the perfect staggered progression and I couldn't. Then on November 12, Unicore posted a good alternative, +1/2 per level with staggered advancement, I elaborated on it 3 comments later, and I gave up on staggered progession. The +1/2 per level with staggered advancement gives +1 to everything at even levels and gives hit points and good feats at odd levels to try to keep the levels balanced.
More recently, with Paizo firmly deciding on +1 to all trained or better proficiencies per level, I have been working on a good system for granting fewer hit points per level without crippling characters.
I appreciate that +1/level was very polarizing, but pulling it out at this stage seems likely to create as many problems as it solves.
If we assume that the game is more or less as we already know it, except that +level is removed from untrained and the rest of the game is more or less what we know, then you are very correct. And we don't know anything else, so it is difficult to not fall into assuming that.
They had been very firm in keeping +level. And then they make this giant change at the last minute. It seems very clear to me that the writing was on the wall and they recognized that. But there is a big difference between removing a poison pill and making a smash hit. And we don't have a smash hit to talk about.
We are in a weird place.
And it is totally reasonable for Paizo to keep their heads down focused on the big tasks in front of them for now. So it kinda is what it is. Tricky
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I really hate that they got rid of the level modifier on untrained skills. Proficiency Gates were a much better option to represent something that required a skill to be at least trained.
When you don't apply a Level Modifier you're effectively saying "You can't attempt this, but go ahead and roll so you fail." rather than just making it not something that they can attempt.
Just seems a bit.. clunky to me is all.
Going up 1 level is supposed to make a cHaracter 41.4% better. That is because 1.414^2 = 2 and going up 2 levels is supposed to make an opponent twice as challenging on Table 4 on page 21 of the Playtest Bestiary.I know the math is pretty complicated and I haven't spend as much time on it as you, so I think it's easier to ask you rather than to try and calculate it myself. But do you see a way to change table 4 instead to get a better solution. So perhaps going for a character growth of 1.58 or 1.73 instead? I am not sure what consequences that would have in game, but it might make the encounter table more suited for the simplified system I personally like and I imagine Paizo is aiming towards as well.
Another thing do you have anywhere in the math where you account for action economy and if so which value do you express that with?
I have ran a few "test" encounters of lower level monsters facing higher level monsters and so far it has been fairly even (like 4 monsters facing another monsters 4 levels above them or 3 facing a monster 3 levels above). The number advantage won as long as the low-level monsters have tactical options to exploit this action economy. Now I have only done this 3 times I think, so not anything I can draw any data from, I did it more just to get a "feeling" for the scenario and it was a few weeks ago, but it did seem like the action economy ended up having quite the impact.
I tried a similar simulation of throwing 0th-level Gobin Warriors at higher level characters and got that each level is a 68% improvement. I deliberately chose conditions where the action economy would not affect the battle, so I don't know the effect of the action economy.
I wrote up a table for the 68% improvement at While +1 / level is a problem, removing it alone is not a solution comment #51, but I upgraded the equal-level encounter from 40 xp to 50 xp because the monsters seemed strong at equal level. Let me do it again.
First, here is the original table 4 from page 21 in the Playtest Bestiary:
level - 4 is 10 xp,
level - 3 is 15 xp,
level - 2 is 20 xp,
level - 1 is 30 xp,
equal level is 40 xp,
level + 1 is 60 xp,
level + 2 is 80 xp,
level + 3 is 120 xp, and
level + 4 is 160 xp.
Notice that xp doubles every 2 levels, so two monsters of level X are supposed to be the same challenge as one creature of level X+2. Likewise, 160 xp means 4 creatures of equal level to the party, so that is the mirror match where the party fights a group of equal strength and should have only a 50% chance of winning.
If we change that to 58% improvement per level, to make the table I start with 40 xp at equal level, divide by 1.58 to go downward and multiply by 1.58 to go upward, and then round to the nearest multiple of five:
level - 4 is 5 xp,
level - 3 is 10 xp,
level - 2 is 15 xp,
level - 1 is 25 xp,
equal level is 40 xp,
level + 1 is 65 xp,
level + 2 is 100 xp,
level + 3 is 160 xp, and
level + 4 is 250 xp.
160 xp is still supposed to be the challenge that has a 50% chance of killing the party, barring action economy effects that give the party an advantage, and that happens at level+3 instead of level+4. I selected 58% because 1.58 is the cube root of 4 that causes the mirror-match difficulty to occur at level+3.
73% improvement per level is another convenient number for encounter design, because 1.73 is the square root of 3. That would mean that 3 monsters of level X make a level X+2 encounter. To make the table I started with 40 xp at equal level, divides by 1.73 to go downward and multiplied by 1.73 to go upward, and then rounded to the nearest multiple of five:
level - 4 is 5 xp,
level - 3 is 10 xp,
level - 2 is 15 xp,
level - 1 is 25 xp,
equal level is 40 xp,
level + 1 is 70 xp,
level + 2 is 120 xp,
level + 3 is 210 xp, and
level + 4 is 360 xp.
A 4-member party would have a very difficult time surviving a level+3 encounter and would die against a level+4 encounter. I am surprised that the lower-level encounters had the same numbers as the 58% case. I was rounding downward from exact values in the 58% case and rounding upwards in the 73% case, because the only multiples of 5 around 5, 10, 15, 20 are 5, 10, 15, and 20.
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There are other weaknesses with staggered progression, for example, no proficiency bonus would increase by level in the level up to 7th level, but the complexity is not a showstopper.
well i didn't put that much though into the exact numbers, so yea, adjusting it for the prime levels would probably be good. Putting in a chart like Mathew did to get rid of the fraction would also be good.
But it has several main points I like.
1; gives a +/- range of about 20. This means untrained can still roll and have a tiny chance of success and legendary has a tiny chance of failure.
2: smaller numbers are also easier. No reason to have a +35 roll against a +20. Your just adding to add at that point.
3: keeps most of the simplicity and benifits of +1 to level. It's still your main source of bonuses, leaving feats and item as doing interesting stuff.
4; increasing the difference as you level, this gives you different styles of play within the same construct. Low level everyone is pretty close together, everyone can try everything, you don't have any major strength, not any major weakness. And as you level you become more special and unique, until you have huge strengths, and huge weaknesses.
I have no idea if this is relevant to your post but I think I saw something about level+3 actually being a mirror match in the Playtest EXP model with level+4 being above that, so I thought I'd share mention that my group has beaten multiple encounters of level+4 or even a little higher. Granted the Demilich fight did have a lucky break for us with a slow spell, but other than that no particularly apparent feats of luck were featured in these victories.
My tables are made with hypothetical numbers, but the actual number from my low-level tests were between those two numbers, so Edge93's actual gameplay results are relevant. Real games are better data than theorycrafting.
Of course, that leads me to wonder what is wrong with my theory. Does action economy give a significant advantage to the party? That would happen if the party mastered battlefield control. Does the improvement rate change at higher levels? That would be very difficult to model. Do high level battles have a large swing factor, so a few good rolls make tough encounters much easier?
My playtesters did not get any further than the 3rd chapter, Affair at Sombrefell Hall, so I have no gameplay experience with 12th level characters in Heroes of Undarin. A demilich, level 15, is level+3 and a banshee, level 13, is level+1. The instructions to add an extra 13th-level creature to the encounter for each extra 12th-level party member seems unfair. Using table 4 in the Playtest Bestiary, two banshees and a demilich would be 240 xp, a mirror match to a 6-member party as Edge93 said. At a 68% improvement, a level+1 creature would be 70 xp, and a level+3 creature would be 190 xp, so two banshees and a demilich would be 330 xp.
I think you are underestimating just how good the class feats are. You say they are weak because they have to be, but whilst there are a few bum ones they are actually pretty strong. Especially on the Action Economy side of things that means the players are normally...I have no idea if this is relevant to your post but I think I saw something about level+3 actually being a mirror match in the Playtest EXP model with level+4 being above that, so I thought I'd share mention that my group has beaten multiple encounters of level+4 or even a little higher. Granted the Demilich fight did have a lucky break for us with a slow spell, but other than that no particularly apparent feats of luck were featured in these victories.My tables are made with hypothetical numbers, but the actual number from my low-level tests were between those two numbers, so Edge93's actual gameplay results are relevant. Real games are better data than theorycrafting.
Of course, that leads me to wonder what is wrong with my theory. Does action economy give a significant advantage to the party? That would happen if the party mastered battlefield control. Does the improvement rate change at higher levels? That would be very difficult to model. Do high level battles have a large swing factor, so a few good rolls make tough encounters much easier?
My playtesters did not get any further than the 3rd chapter, Affair at Sombrefell Hall, so I have no gameplay experience with 12th level characters in Heroes of Undarin. A demilich, level 15, is level+3 and a banshee, level 13, is level+1. The instructions to add an extra 13th-level creature to the encounter for each extra 12th-level party member seems unfair. Using table 4 in the Playtest Bestiary, two banshees and a demilich would be 240 xp, a mirror match to a 6-member party as Edge93 said. At a 68% improvement, a level+1 creature would be 70 xp, and a level+3 creature would be 190 xp, so two banshees and a demilich would be 330 xp.
I have not had time to look over all the class feats, so yes, the Playtest Rulebook could have dozens of strong class feats that I never read. In contrast, my players looked over the class feats for their playtest characters and I could see the lackluster effect of the ones they chose. We only got up to the 7th-level Affair at Sombrefell Hall, so if most of the good class feats are 8th level or higher, that would explain how I missed them.
I have my wife's character sheets handy, so let's look at her feat selection. She is an extremely good Pathfinder player and can tell good feats from bad.
Her 1st-level goblin mindquake-survivor paladin took Hospice Knight, which increased the healing from lay on hands from d4s to d6s and trained him in Medicine. Going from 1d4+3 to 1d6+3 was an 18% improvement in that ability, but since he could lay on hands only 3 times a day, that does not create an 18% improvement in combat effectiveness. The improvement instead would be that the paladin goes from 18 hit points and 3 1d4+3 healings (effective 34.5 hp) to 18 hit points and 3 1d6+3 healings (effective 37.5 hp), a 9% improvement.
Her 4th-level human nomad barbarian took Sudden Charge (feat 1), No Escape (feat 2), and Raging Athlete (feat 4). No Escape was not used during the playtest, but under appropriate conditions, it allows a Stride as a reaction. Using a nearly useless reaction as a useful action would be a 33% improvement for the turn it was used, but since it was never used out of over 20 turns, I guess it gets used only 1 time out of 40. One fortieth of 33% is about 1%. She used Sudden Charge once, and it too is an extra-action effect. One twentieth of 33% is about 2%. My wife build her barbarian around Raging Athlete, enhancing it with the skill feats Defensive Climber (Athletics feat 1) and One-Handed Climber (Athletics feat 2) and meeting the prerequisite of expert proficiency in Athletics. It let the party avoid one encounter entirely (hard to measure the value) as they climbed around its area with her aid, and let her maneuver well in two combats. My ballpark estimate is that it made her character 30% more effective overall. However, since she required two other feats to enhance it, I am giving only half credit to Raging Athlete alone. It is a 15% improvement.
Her 7th-level elf noble bard took Bardic Lore (feat 1), Lingering Composition (feat 1), Inspire Competence (Feat 2), and Triple Time (feat 4). Bardic Lore only helped her Recall Knowledge rolls outside of combat, so let's ignore that one because measuring out-of-combat effectiveness is a lot harder than measuring combat effectiveness. She hated Lingering Composition because of its rate of failure. With DC 22 and +11 to Performance, she had a 50% chance of failure. On success, it could save her one Verbal Casting action every other round; however, since its effect occurred on the 2nd round, that saved action was sometimes wasted. Thus, an always-successful Lingering Composition would save one action per two rounds, a 20% improvement, downgraded to 18% due to unpredictable uselessness, downgraded to 9% due to 50% failure rate, downgraded to 3% because it consumed spell points so it would be unavailable in most of her combats. Inspire Competence and Triple Time were never used. Inspire Competence can sit on the sidelines with Bardic Lore, since it is mostly out of combat. I would have thought that Triple Time would be useful given all the running around in large Sombrefell Hall, but she would have had to stop playing Inspire Courage to use it, and Inspire Courage was much more vital. It rates 0%.
With Bardic Lore and Inspire Competence off the list, the six rated class feats rate 9%, 1%, 2%, 15%, 3%, and 0% for improvement to combat effectiveness. I could claim that the average is 5%, which is weak. Or I could say that Malk_Content is right, because Hospice Knight at 9% and Raging Athlete at 15% rated better than weak. However, there are not enough non-weak feats to fill every slot, so average value of the best feats available to the character is a better representative of how class feats perform.
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Why is it insisted that level itself rather than the various things each level grants needs to be a significant factor in a character’s growth?
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Why is it insisted that level itself rather than the various things each level grants needs to be a significant factor in a character’s growth?
Because using level for growth is simple and permits tight math.
Compare the simplicity to the D&D 3.5 skills system. Each class received N + Int modifier skill points per level, where N would be 2 for a fighter or wizard, 4 for a barbarian or monk, 6 for a ranger, and 8 for a rogue. At first level, the character received 4 times as many skill points as usual. The skill points were spent on skill ranks and the character receives +1 to a skill roll for each rank. If a skill was a class skill, each rank cost one point. If a skill wasn't a class skill, each rank cost two points. The maximum ranks allowed in a skill were level+3.
Pathfinder 1st Edition simplified this. Each class received N + Int modifier skill points per level, where N would be 2 for a fighter or wizard, 4 for a barbarian or monk, 6 for a ranger, and 8 for a rogue. The skill points were spent on skill ranks, one point per rank, and the character receives +1 to a skill roll for each rank. If a character had any ranks in a class skill, that skill also received a +3 bonus. The maximum ranks allowed in a skill equalled its level.
In both cases, the skill ranks came from skill points which came from level. The skills the character wanted the most would have maximum ranks, either level+3 in D&D 3.5 or level in Pathfinder 1st Edition. Assigning the skill points during leveling up was tedious but it did highlight the character's priorities in skills.
A goal of Pathfinder 2nd Edition is to cut out tedious steps that require system mastery. Skill points had to go.
Pathfinder 2nd Edition cut not just the tedious step of assigning skill points, it cut out skill ranks, too. Each skill gained a level bonus. Technically, it is not directly a level bonus, since level is added to proficiency bonus and proficiency bonus is added to skill checks, but in all the forum discussions we talk like it is a level bonus. The tedious decision-making of assigning skill points was eliminated, along with the detailed customization of assigning skill points.
One other factor worth mentioning is the Pareto Principle, also know as the 80/20 rule. With any toolbox, roughly 80% of the work uses 20% of the tools. For software, that means that 80% of the time only 20% of the features of the software are used. For Pathfinder skill checks, in 80% of the skill checks, only 20% of the character's skills are rolled. If someone has enough skill points n Pathfinder 1st Edition to max out those 20% of the skills, then 80% of the time they are rolling +level to the skill anyway (or +level+3 for class skills). +1 to all proficiencies per level in Pathfinder 2nd Edition changes only the other 20% of the time. Paizo had added Signature Skills to try to emulate the class skills; unfortunately, that subsystem failed its purpose immediately and was dropped.
Pathfinder 1st Edition already had some bonuses that were based on level: base attack bonus (BAB), Fortitude save, Reflex save, and Will save. They had a multiplier that altered level, such as 1/2 for the BAB of sorcerers and wizards, 3/4 for the BAB of clerics and bards, 1 for the BAB of fighters and paladins, 1/2 for the saving throw of a good save, and 1/3 for the saving throw of a weak save. Pathfinder 2nd Edition dropped the multipliers.
That was another simplification, but it also allowed the so-called tight math. Since different classes did not have different multipliers and they did not have different skill ranks, they all had close to the same numbers at each level. If a 9th-level party encounters a barbed devil (Creature 10), then they have at least +9 to hit from level, with a little extra from Str or Dex and item bonuses and proficiency rank. That pretty much gives an attack bonus between +11 and +16. The barded devil has AC 27 (TAC 25), so the chance of a character hitting it ranges from 25% to 50%. That is more predictable than PF1 where a wizard would have +4 BAB and could probably hit the AC of a barded devil only on a natural 20. Instead, the barded devil would have a much lower touch AC (AC 26, touch 16 in PF1) so that the wizard had a reasonable chance of hitting it with a Scorching Ray. The PF1 barded devil was a sitting duck for alchemists and gunslingers and ray-shooting bloodragers that hit touch AC with a good BAB.
The numbers in PF1 were all over the place at high levels, and the class designs had several clumsy kludges to get the classes to work as intended. Encounters could not be balanced without knowing the party in advance, so writing encounters in high-level modules was iffy. Tight math allows controlled encounter design. I also find it more boring than the kludges, which often had the amusement of Rube Goldberg devices.
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I haven't read all of the above because it's a lot but FWIW my players have survived a level+4-tier encounter and two encounters slightly above that.
These were all parties above 4 people but the increased number is taken into account for EXP equivalencies.
I still have no idea how you guys managed this.
"Hp dipped low after a few heavy hits." What? Those hits should have outright KILLED somebody. "A few heavy hits" is what happened to my group on wave 5, where 3 individual attacks landed on the same character taking them from near-full to unconscious.
And despite having 2 characters drop to 0hp in the next to last wave, you still fought the final fight "spectacularly."
I can only think of two things that make this line up:
1) you had a full rest that was not scheduled into the adventure (there are exactly 2 rests on the chapter: 1 hour between wave 3 and 4 and 10 minutes between 6 and 7)
2) the gm pulled punches and didn't use the monsters' full capabilities (ie not using the wave 5 litch's Drain Phylactery ability)
Ok, 3 things:
3) the party did not use a correctly restricted equipment list
(Note:I'm not accusing you of "cheating" I'm just saying that your description of the chapter does not line up with my understanding of how the game plays, based on what I know is in the module)
Has anyone address what Jason said in the Twitch Stream / YouTube recording?
Currently he stated that the new prof system looks like this:
Untrained +0
Trained: +2 +Level
Expert: +4 +Level
Master: +6 +Level
Legendary:+8 +Level
Thoughts?
Very helpful, thanks.
Battle Medic: that is a once-per-target-per-day ability (the eratta (v?) made it one success per day at a fairly stiff DC. Just double-checking that that was handled correctly.
so there were extra hero points to be had. These were used occasionally for extra action, usually for rerolls, never for saving from death.
Double checking this too:
Hero points are "at the start of session, set value to 1" so unless you're players were doing the vague things to actively gain a second point, multiple sessions can only ever save you from death (but can do it a lot).
And it takes 3 to perform a single action. Meaning your players had to do multiple vague things for bonus points every week. And those bonus ones don't carry over (or shouldn't: obviously if a player gains one right as you're wrapping up, it would be overly punative for it to immediately vanish at the beginning of the next session. One more reason why I dislike the system as written).
Has anyone address what Jason said in the Twitch Stream / YouTube recording?
Currently he stated that the new prof system looks like this:
Untrained +0
Trained: +2 +Level
Expert: +4 +Level
Master: +6 +Level
Legendary:+8 +LevelThoughts?
Lots, in several places.
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Draco, I find your excessive incredulity a little patronizing and rather unnecessary , since as mentioned Edge's group was not the only one to clear Heroes of Undarin.
Realistically speaking, dice being what they are and the size of the playtest being what it was, it would be more surprising if no one cleared it.
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Most people that have payed any attention know by now that I’m one of DMW’s players and this is the final thing I have to say about HoU. My group did survive, without the generous cold iron equipment Edge gave his players but it was a rough, frustrating slog. We used tactics and weaknesses to our advantage whenever possible but honestly we won by sheer luck more than anything and it did claim our first and only character death.
Now more to the point. As stated above, HoU sucked but the number of posts I’ve seen that amount to “PF2 sucks because of HoU and I no longer support it!” Is just childish garbage. That scenario is pretty open about what it is and what it’s testing. DMW didn’t tell us that it was an intended TPK until the final fight but most of us had figured that out by then. PF2 is not going to be HoU: The extended Cut. Get over that scenario, seriously...
I’d also like to note, just because I don’t think it was mentioned in DMWs playtest thread, that after DD chapter 1 our group never used hero points. We, DMW included, honestly just forgot about them. We probably could have avoided the character death and a couple other unfortunate incidents throughout the playtest if we’d remembered them.
Draco, I find your excessive incredulity a little patronizing and rather unnecessary , since as mentioned Edge's group was not the only one to clear Heroes of Undarin.
Maybe not, but he's the only one that's talked about it and I'm curious on his perspective of that chapter because it differs so much from my own experience.
As I said, I haven't been trying to imply that there was just some funny business going on, just making sure I am understanding his party and their situation correctly. There are several things that could have been done "wrong" inadvertently (or intentionally) that shifted the balance point.
I think what really did it, though, was the fact that:
1) They had not updated to 1.5 yet
2) They had a cleric
Those two things radically alter the playing field in the PC's favor over what I faced (Paladin, update 1.6).
Two PCs with Battle Medic (over our 1) probably helped too, but less significantly.