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Way I see it, class DC is a way to not require skill increases and allow you to use your key stat - if you do increase the skill, you get the higher DC, provided your intelligence is high enough.
+1 for having ranger use class DC for snares by default, but I would place it on Master for everyone else, so it progresses just about when it stops.
How about if the Ranger gets to use their craft DC or class DC, whichever is higher, and the other characters just get to use their class DC? That way the Ranger can potentially get the DC higher if they invest in the craft skill/INT, but don't have to. Meanwhile, they aren't going to be outshone by an alchemist or wizard who takes Snare Crafting.
I moved Ride to an Acrobatics skill feat, because you shouldn't have to be level 3 just to learn to ride a horse. To that end we also should get a horse based background that grants it. (Also, the Cavalier dedication should probably grant it?) I will probably add some more riding skill feats that have this as a prerequisite.
Speaking of horseys, my cavalier player was complaining how all of the athletics feats are unappealing to strong people who don't want to climb or swim or jump. To that end, I also made Hefty Hauler into an athletics skill feat with some bonuses for breaking objects. I think having it require trained athletics instead of 12 strength will help for folks like alchemists and archers who want have skill increases to spare but don't want to boost strength, and the Break Open bonuses make it more appealing to traditional strong guys.
HEFTY HAULER FEAT 1
Prerequisites trained in athletics
You can carry more than your frame implies. Increase your maximum and encumbered Bulk limits by 1. You also gain a +1 conditional bonus to Athletics checks to Break Open or lift heavy objects. Your bulk increase and conditional bonus increases to +2 if you’re an expert in athletics, +3 if you’re a master, and +4 if you’re legendary.
I also added this from the Occult Skill unlocks, though I decided it made more sense as Deception than Diplomacy.
Hypnotism (linguistic, mental, enchantment) FEAT 15
Prerequisites legendary in Deception, trained in Occultism
You use the power of suggestion and subtle psychic influence to alter a subject’s mind and dredge up repressed memories. Make a Deception check against the target’s Will DC for one of two effects. The target is bolstered.
Implant Suggestion: You can attempt to subtly implant a suggestion in the mind of a creature with an attitude of indifferent or better after 1 minute of continuous, calm interaction with that creature. This acts like a Suggestion spell, except the creature makes its will save against your Deception DC and there are no spellcasting actions involved.
Recall Memory: You can draw out forgotten memories from a willing subject. You spend 1 minute inducing a calming, trance-like state in the subject, after which you attempt a Deception check against the target’s Will DC. If you succeed at the check, the hypnotized creature can reroll any previously failed Recall Knowledge check to recall the forgotten information with a +2 bonus. The information must be something the subject once knew or was exposed to.
Two more for the pile.
FAST MOUNT FEAT 2
Prerequisites
expert in Acrobatics, Ride
You can attempt to mount or dismount from a mount of up to one size category larger than yourself as a free action, provided that you still have a action available that round. Attempt a DC 15 acrobatics check.
Success Mounting or dismounting is free action.
Failure Mounting takes an action as normal.
Critical Failure You fall prone and the action is lost.
MOUNTED COVER Reaction FEAT 7
Prerequisites
Master in Acrobatics, Ride
Trigger You are targeted by an attack or need to make a reflex save against an area of effect.
You drop down and hang alongside your mount, using it to gain the benefits of cover. You can’t attack or cast spells while using your mount as cover, and returning to your normal position requires an action with the move trait. If you are legendary in Acrobatics, when you and your mount both must make reflex saves against an area of effect, using this reaction allows you to use the mounts reflex save if it is better than your own.
So I have noticed you left Magical Shorthand pretty much unchanged. May I advise that, since time stops mattering much for downtime activities once it's under the hour, one thing that could be added would be reducing downtime interval?
Such as - you can't try again for one week if Expert, 3 days if Master, 1 day if Legendary.
Mostly because the way learning spell DC scales right now, failing high level spells grows to be a rather likely outcome.
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The discussion about Assurance and disarming traps here has helped me come to what I think is the problem with disarming traps and picking locks in PF2e: The failure condition is boring.
Success and critical failure on both of those tasks are both well defined and interesting - you picked the lock! You triggered the trap! But failure is just... you get to roll again. Yaaay.
Combined with some discussion I remember earlier where people were talking about the Call of Cthulhu system and how rolls are designed to always move the adventure forward, and success or failure just determines who controls the narrative, gave me this idea:
Open Lock
Success: With three rounds of work, you pick the lock.
Critical Success: As an action, you pick the lock.
Failure: With five minutes of work, you pick the lock; during this process you break a lockpick.
Critical Failure: You break a lockpick, and the lock is jammed; it cannot be picked.
Disarm Trap
Success: With three rounds of work, you disarm the trap.
Critical Success: As an action, you disarm the trap.
Failure: You can't find a way to disarm the trap; you cannot try again until circumstances cause your bonus or the DC to change.
Critical Failure: You accidentally spring the trap; it activates immediately.
These results mean that typically speaking, only one roll is ever needed - one way or another, that single roll moves the game state forward, even if the new state is just "we now need to figure out how to deal with this trap we can't disarm".
It also fixes the Assurance issue, since Assurance will garuntee you never accidentally spring the trap, but it won't assure that you disarm the trap. And for picking locks, Assurance will make sure you get that door open eventually, but it might take you a while and cost you some lockpicks.
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Oh, changing the requirement for Hefty Hauler is *brilliant*--and thank you so much for converting Object Reading; I am grabbing that the VERY first chance I get!!
Glad you approve. :)
Huh? My first thought would definitely be to make Ride a Nature feat, since Handle an Animal is a Nature check, and Cavalier Dedication requires training in Nature.
My reasoning is that riding a trained mount is as much an act of physicality as it is being in tune with your horse. Theoretically a trained mount is supposed to be trained to follow orders already regardless of you being an animal whisperer. Acrobatics is the skill for balancing, which seems appropriate. And while Ride itself isn't especially acrobatic, the follow up feats are. Mounting a horse quickly or hanging off of it is much more about Acrobatics than Nature, IMO. (Also, being able to ride a horse shouldn't mean you can identify magic, for example.)
I suppose Cavalier Dedication doesn't grant Ride because, since animal companions don't require Handle checks, Ride is of no benefit to an animal companion; Ride isn't much use at all unless you go buy a riding dog or war horse to use instead of your animal companion, and . . . what good in combat is a 2nd-level war horse past 3rd level?
My current hypothesis on this is that you CAN use Ride on a minion. This came up during a long distance charging scenario-- our cavalier was slower than people on foot because his horse only got 2 actions a round, and that seems silly. But it occurs to me that nothing about the minion description seems to prevent an animal companion from using the normal Handle/Command an animal rule. So I reasoned that the Cav could use his first action to command a minion, letting the horse Stride twice. He could then use his second action to Handle the animal, and his third to command it, letting the horse Stride 3 times in one turn.
Ride would allow him to condense handle/command into one action, so if he spends two of his actions the horse gets 3. (The horse can't take 4 regardless unless it is Quick.) I'm not entirely sure if this is RAI, but I think it might work RAW and it makes sense to me intuitively once I parsed it out.
And, hm . . . I know the DC for hypnotism from Occult Adventures seemed pretty high, and I haven't done the math to figure out about what level a character might need to be to reliably hit that DC, but even so, 15th level seems pretty steep, compared to how easy PF1's occult skill unlocks were for any character to gain access to with a single feat.
It really depends on how much you want to pump Diplomacy in PF1-- and you could really pump skills in that game. Still, for the average character, the skill unlock was technically available at level one but useless until pretty high levels. That's crappy. You shouldn't get class features that are useless until level X. You should get abilities when they can be used.
Also, that was once per day, where this isn't.
I think 15th-level feats should do much crazier s$!* like Legendary Thief, Scare to Death, and Legendary Survivalist, so I'd probably make Hypnotism only require master at 7th level?
I don't disagree with this in principle, but you need to compare this to where spells are currently balanced. 7th level is the same point a caster first unlocks Suggestion. This is essentially Suggestion that doesn't require a spell slot AND gets the benefits of concealed casting (a class feat) built in. It is frankly better than the spell, and to have it kick in at the same level the spell becomes available would really kick an Enchanter in the teeth.
Enchantment was perhaps the most gutted school in the playtest, and that actually prevents some Paizo stories from working as written. I'm sure these spells are going to be top of the buff list in PF2, but I am not going to rewrite all the spells in the playtest myself. Not only is it more work than I want to do as an amateur, but that level of house rules complicates the game for players. As such, my skill feats are written to be less powerful than an on level spell but capable of being used without expending resources.
So I have noticed you left Magical Shorthand pretty much unchanged. May I advise that, since time stops mattering much for downtime activities once it's under the hour, one thing that could be added would be reducing downtime interval?
Such as - you can't try again for one week if Expert, 3 days if Master, 1 day if Legendary.Mostly because the way learning spell DC scales right now, failing high level spells grows to be a rather likely outcome.
This is a good call. I'll dick around with it.
Brilliant Revelation on locks and traps.
Eureka! You've really hit upon something great here. I agree that the failure condition being boring is the big issue. And I think your 4 tiers of success are getting really close to ideal, so much so that I'm inclined to try and implement them immediately. (Might need to figure out some tweaks to replacing lock picks?)
But I do see one issue: trying to disable a device mid-encounter. THAT's the big advantage to the playtest rules-- we have rules spelling out exactly how long it takes to crack a lock or trap. In scenarios where you are trying to shut off a complex hazard before it kills you or escape a monster by getting through a door, those individual rolls can become pretty damn exciting. As far as I can tell your system loses that. Well, technically you can still use it mid-combat, but rolling 3 times a round seems infinitely preferable to rolling once and then doing nothing for 3 rounds. Now, admittedly this is a corner case, but I think there must be a way to use your system and still preserve these moments.
One thought: you could make Quick Unlock allow for it. Something like "When you succeed on a check to disable a device, you can attempt to perform the task in less than 3 rounds. If you do, your attempt is one action. You may repeat this action until you fail, critically fail, critically succeed, or perform a different action that takes your hands away from the task. It takes 3 success (for a total of 3 actions) to disable to device."
Tweak times based on proficiency. The advantage to this is it is "opt-in complexity," which is more desirable than complicated basic rules. The downside is it takes something that is fun and could logically be attempted by anyone and gates it behind a feat.
I dunno what the final answer is, but I think we have definitely found the path to it. :) Kudos, Max.
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So I have noticed you left Magical Shorthand pretty much unchanged. May I advise that, since time stops mattering much for downtime activities once it's under the hour, one thing that could be added would be reducing downtime interval?
Such as - you can't try again for one week if Expert, 3 days if Master, 1 day if Legendary.Mostly because the way learning spell DC scales right now, failing high level spells grows to be a rather likely outcome.
Took your suggestion, and also made it so that you don't need to take the feat multiple times for different traditions. Honestly, how many characters even need to learn spells across multiple traditions to make it worth including that clause?
MAGICAL SHORTHAND FEAT 2
Prerequisites expert in Arcana, Nature, Occultism,or Religion
Learning new spells comes easily to you for any magic tradition if you are an expert in the associated skill. You take only 10 minutes per spell level to learn a spell of that type, rather than 1 hour per spell level. If you fail to learn a spell of that type, you can try to learn it again after 1 week or after you gain a level, whichever comes first. If you’re a master in the chosen type of magic’s associated skill, learning a spell takes only 5 minutes per spell level and you can retry 3 days later, and if you’re legendary in that skill, it takes only 1 minute per spell level and can be retried the next day.
If you wanted more excitement, you could change the failure result to something like "you may try again, but if you fail a second time treat it as a critical failure; effects that prevent critical failures do not prevent this". I considered that myself, but finally decided that out-of-combat attempts were the design space I wanted to focus on.
Oh! You could also make it a second action that anyone can attempt. Say "rushed unlock" or "rushed disarm", and then have it take a -2 penalty in addition to tweaking the failure conditions - you'd have to make sure that repeatedly rushing is always worse than rolling normally though. It could even be a gated use, so that you need to be expert or better, maybe, to attempt to rush.
That does add to the complexity, a bit, but hopefully that sort of need for a rush job wouldn't come up too often.
Hmm, maybe? You could make picking a lock normally a three action activity and doing it as a rush job an action at a penalty. HOWEVER, in the event that you need to disable a complex hazard currently trying to kill you, giving the player only one shot (or two) seems really harsh. We don't say you can't hit a monster ever if your first couple attacks whiff.
One could certainly make a case that the trap actively trying to kill you round to round would constitute a "change in circumstances" though. Like, it makes sense that a PC can't reroll a check to disable a device if they were already giving the task their full focus and just couldn't muster it. But if you're mid-encounter, then a failed role in fiction could just be you being distracted by the threat and allow you to try and focus harder with another roll.
I also think we need to talk about proficiency and DCs. Lock DCs are too high if you can jam them. Also, I feel like quality should factor into it as well. My first thought is that the DC of a lock should scale with the level of the craftsman. Perhaps a hard DC of their level. That means a specialist won't be crit failing except on a 1, but leaves room for other characters to fall behind.
But you could also make that a function of the Specialty Crafting feat. Having it provide scalings DCs to your specialty items would actually be very helpful for poisons, snares, locks, and more.
I also think it makes sense that you'd need to be an expert thief to even attempt to pick an expert quality lock, much like disabling traps is proficiency gated. That would certainly make putting some skill increases in Thievery awfully tempting though, and perhaps mandatory if the skill is going to remain useful at higher levels. That's a relatively expensive investment. It would probably be easier to accommodate in PF2 where increases seem cheaper. I wonder if it would be worthwhile to let the "skill training" feat bump you past trained?
Anyway, if I wind up using Max's thievery rules I need to figure out if I can incorporate them into my skills feats without making it too unwieldy to use. As I've said, I'm trying to minimize my impact on other parts of the game, but this idea just seems too good to pass up and could foster some pretty interesting Thievery feats. I'd probably replace Experienced Smuggler with Assurance (Thievery) for the Criminal Background. Having the experience to avoid setting off traps or jamming locks just seems way more relevant to an adventuring experienced criminal than smuggling small objects on your body.
Edit: Also, how do broken lock picks work under this paradigm? Can you still try to use a broken pick? Can you repair lockpicks with the Craft skill or do you need to buy replacements and keep spares on you?
I appreciate that you are putting a lot more thought into this than I have, it was really just a flash of insight moment for me. :)
I feel like the trap archetype of "ongoing trap that will eventually kill the PCs if not disarmed" is fairly rare; the vast majority of traps tend to be one-off effects. Also, I feel like "trap that can only be overcome by being disarmed" is bad design in the first place. If failing a disable check leaves the party with no options except to die, then what does the party with no rogue do? Choosing not to have a trap specialist should make things harder, but should never be an auto-TPK.
Certainly traps of that nature should be rare enough that the alternate rules could be part of the trap instead of the skill. The description of the trap could say "once the trap has activated, characters can continue to make checks to disable it; these checks take one round each and have no failure condition". There's certainly precedent for traps that have special disable rules written into the trap.
I agree with you on the DC of locks, that makes sense to me.
Honestly the breaking a lockpick thing was just based on a thing I thought I read on the forums that critically failing to pick a lock breaks your pick, but now that I look for it I can't find it. Honestly that part could probably be dropped, since the time cost is the real penalty for failure (especially if you have buffs you are trying to maintain).
But if you wanted more detail there you could have i.e. masterwork lockpicks that give a bonus but you risk breaking them, etc.
I appreciate that you are putting a lot more thought into this than I have, it was really just a flash of insight moment for me. :)
I feel like the trap archetype of "ongoing trap that will eventually kill the PCs if not disarmed" is fairly rare; the vast majority of traps tend to be one-off effects.
Well, a pretty significant chunk of the hazards in the bestiary currently fall into this category. I think there might an intention to utilize more complex hazards, because a simple hazard is usually only interesting if it happens mid-encounter. (And frankly at that point you are kind of back to the Complex hazard situation.)
Also, I feel like "trap that can only be overcome by being disarmed" is bad design in the first place. If failing a disable check leaves the party with no options except to die, then what does the party with no rogue do? Choosing not to have a trap specialist should make things harder, but should never be an auto-TPK.
Oh, definitely. These traps should have alternative ways fix them, and most seem too-- either dispelling or brute force usually works. But if the barbarian fails his first athletics check to break down the door, you don't stop him from trying again.
Certainly traps of that nature should be rare enough that the alternate rules could be part of the trap instead of the skill. The description of the trap could say "once the trap has activated, characters can continue to make checks to disable it; these checks take one round each and have no failure condition". There's certainly precedent for traps that have special disable rules written into the trap.
Not a bad solution, but it doesn't help you try and get past a simple lock or trap while something else is attacking you.
Honestly the breaking a lockpick thing was just based on a thing I thought I read on the forums that critically failing to pick a lock breaks your pick, but now that I look for it I can't find it. Honestly that part could probably be dropped, since the time cost is the real penalty for failure (especially if you have buffs you are trying to maintain).
But if you wanted more detail there you could have i.e. masterwork lockpicks that give a bonus but you risk breaking them, etc.
You weren't mistaken; this is how the rules operate. You can have higher quality picks, and any pick can be broken on a critical failure. A broken pick replaces any item bonus it may have had with a -2 item penalty but can still be used. So as the rules are currently written, you can use a broken pick and just keep rolling until you get 3 consecutive nat 20s or whatever and eventually pick any lock regardless of your bonus compared its DC.
Which is why your idea is already a major improvement-- the result of the lock being opened is resolved by one roll, which saves time and attention and makes your bonus more relevant. I'm just trying to work out the kinks.
I'd probably make a failure on a lock take 10 minutes rather than 5, just to line it up nicely with Identify and Treat Wounds and such. Thinking about the adventuring day in 10 minute increments and using a time tracker has really improved by understanding of time passage when I GM.
Yeah, I strongly considered 10 minutes myself for exactly that reason.
I think disarming traps - at least before they are sprung - needs to have a "you can't try again" failure condition, because being faced with a trap that you know about but can't disarm is a fun situation to have to deal with, but one that the rules don't really allow for unless you lack a rogue entirely.
It makes logical sense, at least to me, because trap disarming is in large part about know-how. The barbarian can keep bashing down the door because for the most part there isn't any complicated knowledge in how to bash a door down. But it's easy to imagine a trap whose inner workings are complex enough that the rogue looks at it and says "guys, this is beyond me; I wouldn't know where to start disarming it".
In short, I justified the failure condition by saying that part of disarming is a knowledge check, and you don't get to retry those.
I could see "Disarm an Active Trap" as a separate action with different failure conditions and time restraints; that makes sense to me. Once the trap is running it's more about finding a way to block the obvious effects via brute force than it is about disarming the mechanisms behind the trap.
Bleh, honestly, I might not worry too much about codifying this yet and just use the rules as I see fit in my own games. *I* will know when I want it resolved with one roll and when I'll want it done through real time actions, so I don't see a major need to rewrite the rules for everyone else on this. At least, not until we see how picking locks and traps looks in the final version of the game.
Yeah, that's fair. :)
Hopefully Paizo sees the same issue we see with the Playtest rules and has a good resolution for it in the final version.
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I think there's some similar stuff in my head about other stuff. Stealth, for example. Having someone roll stealth for every action makes some sense in encounter mode. But if you're making your player roll stealth every 15 feet in exploration mode something has gone horribly wrong.
So maybe the trick is lies in better defining the difference between encounter mode and exploration mode for a variety of skills and checks.
I added back in the Courtly Graces feat, but reworked rather heavily.
COURTLY GRACES FEAT 1
Prerequisites trained in Society
You either were raised among the nobility or have learned proper etiquette and bearing and can use your knowledge to carry you through social interactions. You may use your Nobility Lore or Society score when rolling Diplomacy checks against targets of society’s upper echelon, as determined by your GM. Should you choose to use Diplomacy instead, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to the check.
Special You may apply this feat against ancestries or ethnicities you select through the Cultural Familiarity general feat, regardless of their social status.
This can be used to allow for a someone well versed in the ways of society to use their knowledge to make up for deficiencies in their Diplomacy score, but it can also be taken by someone naturally charismatic to further benefit them in specific situation. The interaction with Cultural Familiarity (which I've tweaked a little more) allows you to apply this same theory to cultures you've studied but who wouldn't qualify as nobility. For example, if you wrote your thesis on the Hoards of Belkzen, you could use this feat when negotiating with an orc tribe to avoid accidentally offending them.
I think there's some similar stuff in my head about other stuff. Stealth, for example. Having someone roll stealth for every action makes some sense in encounter mode. But if you're making your player roll stealth every 15 feet in exploration mode something has gone horribly wrong.
So maybe the trick is lies in better defining the difference between encounter mode and exploration mode for a variety of skills and checks.
One rule I've applied in PF1e to speed things like this up is to make these rolls reactive. For example, I will have players tell me they are Stealthing but not roll anything; they only roll Stealth when someone is trying to spot them, so it's too late to retry.
Same thing with Perception - I assume my players are always on the lookout for traps and ambushes, so they never roll Perception until they are about to spring one. For example, instead of my players rolling Perception every time they come to a door, they just go through doors. If they declare that they are going through a door and I know that there is a trap or something they might notice, then they get to roll after they declare their action, and they don't get to change their action if they fail the roll.
Keeps things moving and limits "I rolled a bad Stealth/Perception"-based metagaming.
I think there's some similar stuff in my head about other stuff. Stealth, for example. Having someone roll stealth for every action makes some sense in encounter mode. But if you're making your player roll stealth every 15 feet in exploration mode something has gone horribly wrong.
So maybe the trick is lies in better defining the difference between encounter mode and exploration mode for a variety of skills and checks.
One rule I've applied in PF1e to speed things like this up is to make these rolls reactive. For example, I will have players tell me they are Stealthing but not roll anything; they only roll Stealth when someone is trying to spot them, so it's too late to retry.
Same thing with Perception - I assume my players are always on the lookout for traps and ambushes, so they never roll Perception until they are about to spring one. For example, instead of my players rolling Perception every time they come to a door, they just go through doors. If they declare that they are going through a door and I know that there is a trap or something they might notice, then they get to roll after they declare their action, and they don't get to change their action if they fail the roll.
Keeps things moving and limits "I rolled a bad Stealth/Perception"-based metagaming.
Does this interface with exploration tactics at all? I've found the Searching Tactic works pretty well for defining when character should roll for traps.
I've been thinking I should just carry rolls over until they actually matter-- so when players decide they want to search or stealth or whatever, have them roll once and then apply it when they actually reach the thing that requires a check, rather than letting people roll every time they reach a new door or whatever.
I didn't run enough PF2e to get a strong handle on the Exploration tactics, to be honest.
The big problem I've had with carrying rolls over like that is metagaming - even if they don't mean to, a player who knows that their last Stealth roll was a 1 is likely to stealth a lot more cautiously than someone who knows they are carrying a 20.
I didn't run enough PF2e to get a strong handle on the Exploration tactics, to be honest.
The big problem I've had with carrying rolls over like that is metagaming - even if they don't mean to, a player who knows that their last Stealth roll was a 1 is likely to stealth a lot more cautiously than someone who knows they are carrying a 20.
Mmmm, seems like secret checks might be the way to go, regardless of whether you roll over rolls, or roll them in the moment. I think I prefer the former because I like giving players some agency to specifically examine stuff but rolling every time they want to gets old.
Some poster had some really cool ideas on using exploration mode and carrying over rolls they posted about, but I don't remember who and it would be a pain in the butt to find it now.
More for the pile. I felt like there weren't enough good Coerce feats.
SUBTLE THREAT FEAT 2
(auditory, concentrate, emotion, fear, linguistic, mental)
Prerequisites expert in Intimidation
You can instill fear in someone without witnesses even being aware of your menacing manipulations. When you Coerce or Demoralize someone, you can roll a Deception check. Anyone (other than the target) whose Perception DC you succeed against is unaware that you were using Intimidation on the target. If you beat the target’s Perception DC, this imparts a -2 circumstance penalty on any check your target makes to try and convince others you were threatening them. The penalty increases to a -4 on a critical success.
If you’re a master of Intimidation, you can use this feat to make the target of your Demoralize unaware you are intentionally undermining their confidence. If you are legendary, you can attempt to sow the seeds of fear so subtly that the target won’t even realize you are Coercing them, assuming your Deception check beats their Perception DC.
Added a new feat inspired by the house rules of Varun Creed.
RALLY THE TROOPS FEAT 7
1 action
(auditory, concentrate, emotion, linguistic, mental)
Prerequisites master in Diplomacy
Your inspiring words of courage shine through even when the mind is clouded by terror. When allies within 10 feet of you are frightened, make a Diplomacy check against the DC of the effect which frightened them. You may use this action when you are yourself frightened, but you double the frightened value’s penalty on the check and the action doesn’t affect yourself.
Success Reduce their frightened value by 1.
Critical Success Reduce their frightened value by 2.
Critical Failure Your words have the opposite of the desired effect; increase their frightened value by 1.
War for the Second Crown thanks you for the additions <3
War for the Second Crown thanks you for the additions <3
Mwah daaahling.
I also adjusted Hypnotism per some suggestions by Deadmanwalking and Syri. I moved a variation of the Rogue Class feat "Blank Slate" over as a Legendary Deception feat. I'm considering if I should add Perfect Distraction too, and/or maybe Sneak Savant as a legendary stealth feat. Cloud Step is also sort of tempting me for acrobatics. Those two are really just because I don't find the current options very exciting, even if they are functional.
I'm also toying around with the idea of a legendary arcana feat that let's you Spell Sunder, utilizing your knowledge of how mystical energy flows rather than superstition. I would like it if there was some motivation for non-traditional arcane experts, especially since I feel like one of the go-to martial skills (Intimidate) is probably going to be done better by casters.
Finally, I'm considering adding a monster climbing feat. Honestly this should be part of the rules by default, so part of me is hesitant to make you need a feat for it. I dunno, I suppose I could add it as a trained use under athletics?
Oh yeah, this is the good stuff. I made a monster climbing and a monster surfing feat. I then realized I have never been satisfied with my climbing feats, and that monster climbing made more sense as an extension of Defensive/One-Handed Climber than Quick Climb ever did. Plus, if you want to climb monsters, you almost certainly wanted those other feats anyway, so rolling them into one makes it feel like less of a tax to do cool things. Not sure how I want to handle the Quick Climbing stuff yet, but that can be solved later.
The feats!
COMBAT CLIMBER FEAT 1
Prerequisites trained in Athletics
You are trained in climbing techniques that allow you to twist and weave as you climb without sacrificing your
grip. You’re not flat-footed while climbing. If you’re an expert in athletics, you can Climb even if one of your hands is occupied. You must still have one hand and both legs available in order to Climb.
In addition as an expert, when you attempt to Grapple a creature at least one size larger than you, you can roll against the target’s Reflex DC instead of Fortitude and armor check penalties apply. If you do so, the creature doesn’t become grabbed, but you instead cling to the creature. You share its space and move when it moves, and the creature takes a -2 circumstance penalty to attacks against you. The monster can dislodge you with an Escape or Break Grapple as per a normal Grapple. You may Climb the monster as though it were an incline by rolling athletics against its Reflex DC, modified by appropriate circumstances.
At your GM’s discretion, the creature may be flat-footed against you and you may be treated as out of reach by some of the creature’s attacks, depending where on the creature you cling. For example, if you climb up to the back of the head of a huge or larger dragon, you can stab at its face to reflect its flat-footed condition, and it couldn’t reach you with its bite or breath weapon.
The creature can try to use its weight to crush you by dropping prone or otherwise use the environment to damage you, dealing the damage from whichever one of its unarmed strikes the GM deems appropriate. A reflex save against the creature’s acrobatics DC lets you release your grip and avoid that damage, but may result in you falling.
MONSTER SURFING FEAT 2
Prerequisites expert in Acrobatics
If you find yourself on top of a creature, such as by successfully leaping or climbing onto it, you may treat it as uneven ground. When you roll to Balance or Maintain Balance, use the creature’s Acrobatics DC. The creature may use an action to try and shake you off by rolling Athletics or Acrobatics against your Acrobatics DC. This situation otherwise works like Combat Climber in regards to penalizing the creature’s attacks against you, sharing its space, or the creature attempting to crush you. Should you fall or be dislodged and have the Combat Climber feat, you may be able to make a Grab Edge reaction, unless the creature critically succeeding on dislodging you.
Critical Failures to Strike you while you are balancing or clinging to a creature must be rerolled as Strikes against the creature.
...Shadow of the Colossus setting guide when? :P
So I can't shake the feeling that waiting until legendary to get a climb speed feels kind of lame. On the one hand, this was an ability certain races could get at level 1 in PF1. On the other, that did cause some issues and it seems to be valued higher now, based on the level of a ring of climbing.
I'm considering lowering the climb speed to master, but I have no idea what should happen at legendary at that point. I was thinking maybe allowing for hands free climbing, inspired by this scene.
https://goo.gl/images/d64AZq
I think in general Legendary should be the point at which suspension of disbelief is completely replaced by rule of cool. Why can someone who is Legendary at Athletics hold their breath literally forever? Because it's cool so why not.
I'd be tempted to do something like spider climb at Legendary - you can cling to any surface, horizontal or vertical, as long as some part of your body is in contact with that surface; you can move at full speed and act normally while climbing this way. You only need to make a Climb check if you suffer damage in excess of [some threshold] while climbing.
I think in general Legendary should be the point at which suspension of disbelief is completely replaced by rule of cool. Why can someone who is Legendary at Athletics hold their breath literally forever? Because it's cool so why not.
I'd be tempted to do something like spider climb at Legendary - you can cling to any surface, horizontal or vertical, as long as some part of your body is in contact with that surface; you can move at full speed and act normally while climbing this way. You only need to make a Climb check if you suffer damage in excess of [some threshold] while climbing.
Yeah I'm inclined to agree. I think a climb check might be necessary in the same sorts of contexts you would roll acrobatics to balance, though. If the wall is exploding for example.
Oh yeah, that makes sense too. Not sure how to word that... Maybe just add "or if the surface you are climbing suddenly becomes unstable"?
Just to put it out there, but I think Legendary Skill feats should stretch reality as much as possible without breaking it.
Such as holding your breath for 24hs. That's beyond absurd realistically, but it still limited. Swimming throw sand/ground, on the other hand, was right out of the gate for me, but then I was watching Because Science on Dune featuring some animals that swim through sand and now I'm all for it. I mean, nature is crazy all by itself, so it's not too hard to find very crazy feats that don't include surviving in a plane of fire and somehow acquiring food, that's just absurd. Why not simply treating one day of rations as 1 month or something? Kinda like the legendary survivalist managing to have an almost self-sustaining body, almost like a monk, but instead of achieving it through enlightenment they do it with training. It's very far fetched as well and for all intents and purposes it's limitless, but it's not producing food out of thin air.
I guess what i'm trying to say is, rather than completely throwing away all logic, it's better to approach the legendary feats' creation as reality being stretched really far, but still holding on to some internal logic.
The problem with that is that you are effectively saying "non spellcasters can never be as awesome as spellcasters".
Realism needs to bow to fun and balance in all cases, imo.
But i'm not saying that. Catfall is perfectly fine as it is, as well as the example of swimming so well that you get a burrowing speed. But finding food in a plane of pure fire/etc is a little bit too much for me, I would rather have a good tie to reality, but stretched beyond fantasy levels.
Moving so fast that you leave a blur behind and get free concealment or bonus AC (since Concealment can be too powerful). Jumping really far and high. For example, mid-levels you're able to jump as high as you can jump far (using the same DC rules for both types of jumps). Climb speed so incredible that you can climb anything, even smooth surfaces. You know, pretty fantastical s$@*... But that are still just stretch of imagination, rather than something "cool" but doesn't have any consistency.
don't know about you guys, but the best stories for me, whatever the media, are those that have a good grounding and care for its own set of internal rules. Consistency keeps cheap ex machinas out of the story and for me, this is essential.
Whose to say there isn't magic involved in legendary skills, though?
I mean, this is a setting where above a certain level, anyone can survive a fall from any height 100% of the time.
Plus, there is a lot of trope support for that kind of thing - characters doing seemingly or actually impossible things "off screen" that leave the other characters wondering "how the heck...?"
As long as things are well explained and consistently so, they have my support.
For Legendary skills specifically, I think it's actually better if the "how" is not explained so that each character can come up with their own interpretation.
Maybe one character pulls off their legendary climbing by focusing their chakra into their feet and using it to anchor them. Maybe another character uses a bit of innate magic. Maybe another character created fancy gadget-boots that can grip to any surface. Maybe another character is Spiderman. :P
Coming up with unique fluff to explain your abilities is one of the most fun parts of character creation in my opinion, and I think giving Legendary skills room to breathe there is a win.
Well, that can work quite well. Having explanations and consistency is just my preference, but if the game goes about things this way maybe it can be a better options overall, because it's easier to come up with things and let the player decide how it plays out.