One of the three most important things for me with the 2E playtest were the changes to skills. The idea that you could, especially at the higher levels, accomplish truly legendary feats of skill and prowess was a big one. I like my Beowulfs and Heracleses and Legolases and so on. But then when the rules came out, the skills stuff was pretty tame at high levels, and the idea of stealing armor off a guard or leaping 100 feet or swimming for days in stormy waters in full armor seemed to be missing.
Did anything ever happen to that? Is this something we could see in a future version? Greater skill abilities and feats (the game mechanics sense)?
Paizo certainly knows that the general feedback is that skill feats are too weak and pretty uninspired right now, with some exceptions (Catfall). What they'll do with this feedback... I don't really remember they talking about that subject a lot or at all.
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In the meantime, check out my revisions.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vT8SdtcRqm_UMvEOsSGDtP71IIrq7tD OGiIgAEO50YD5mjbzkI4q6iOm2BScCT2z9g4sVG4wgW5gWYK/pub
Well, I just hope that whatever form the skill feats take, they at least remember that keeping martial characters very grounded in reality while everything else in the world is high-fantasy is not a good way to keep things.
I've been noticing this quite well, one of the biggest problems with Martial/Caster disparity is exactly this. Martial characters are chained to a lot of rules, conceptions and restraints that spellcasters simply don't follow.
Nothing wrong with letting a martial character of very high-level move fast enough (not necessarily increasing the amount of movement) that they resemble a lot of fighters in anime (that fast movement thing that only leaves a blur). For example, the rogue can move so fast that all attacks of opportunity are treated as if he's having full concealment during his movement. Badass and strong. Now if it's too insane to allow it at-will, just gate it behind some drawback. Sorry to go into a tangent here.
Well, I just hope that whatever form the skill feats take, they at least remember that keeping martial characters very grounded in reality while everything else in the world is high-fantasy is not a good way to keep things.
I've been noticing this quite well, one of the biggest problems with Martial/Caster disparity is exactly this. Martial characters are chained to a lot of rules, conceptions and restraints that spellcasters simply don't follow.
Nothing wrong with letting a martial character of very high-level move fast enough (not necessarily increasing the amount of movement) that they resemble a lot of fighters in anime (that fast movement thing that only leaves a blur). For example, the rogue can move so fast that all attacks of opportunity are treated as if he's having full concealment during his movement. Badass and strong. Now if it's too insane to allow it at-will, just gate it behind some drawback. Sorry to go into a tangent here.
Ooooooh, I like that concealment idea. I might add that as an acrobatics feat.
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I can't agree more with that, I never really understood why casters can just bend reality but a high-level Fighter chopping a large tree in one blow is considered absurd. However... there are the purists. I can already sense a backlash similar to that of the Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords, or to any other attempt to make martials supernatural. People saying it's weeabo stuff and it doesn't belong to D&D and all of that. I really hope Paizo doesn't let those people stop them from making high-level martials fun.
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That's the type of stuff I would love to see. Special abilities that offer things simple fighters can't do, but high level enough PC's can, because they've been fighting insane monsters for a living.
Here's a list of feats I would love to see martial characters to be able to do, but not exactly restricted to high level, and I know that some of these are already possible, which is a good thing:
*Use AoOs to block projectiles
*Fast Movements that mirror teleportation
*Surge of Strength capable of withstanding heavy weights (could be used defensively against spells that drop heavy stuff, falling rocks)
*Ability to block line-effect spells, breath-weapons, and AOE (like the example shown above)
*So nimble and balanced that ignore any type of difficult terrain because you're Hidden Dragon and Crouching Tigering that shit!
*Ability to send a shockwave after hitting the ground, be either a cone or radius around the user.
*Whirlwind attack that can actually cause havoc on the battlefield
*Punching air to effectively punch from afar.
*Having such physique that allows an armored fighter to shrug off a hit entirely, an heightened version of what real monks can do IRL. Google it.
*Leap so far and high that end up staying 1 round in the air then falling gracefully.
*If you're a nimble fighter with a shield, you could jump up and acrobatically protect your whole body with it, like Captain America while falling from the building and coiling his body to take the hit with the vibranium shield.
That's just things that I want, imagine the possibilities! This could also be allowed by cool weapons as well, specially the most insane stuff!
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Good stuff, people. This is the sort of thing I want to see, yes. I was hoping that skills and the associated abilities would definitely be able to reach mythic feats of prowess, and they said as much leading up to the playtest. I'm hoping that the game developers deliver on that promise of truly legendary displays of skill, as that was a big selling point for me.
Is "Cat fall" really a "truly mighty feat of skill"?
Calling the ability to ignore falling damage "truly mighty" - at fifteenth level no less - seems almost an insult.
I...can't help but agree. Just because it's one of the few ACTUALLY DECENT feats in the book right now doesn't mean that it scales well compared to magic.
I dunno, falling damage seems to happen pretty frequently in my estimation. Pit traps, shoving people off cliffs, rocs snatching you and dropping you, etc. I've seen the feat used several times at level 8 over the course of a few sessions. It's a nice safety net.
It also opens up possibilities for how you approach combat-- you can just run off rooftops and such without breaking your Stride.
Perhaps more importantly, it's also a first level feat that gets better as you level up. I don't think it's supposed to be as good as an actual legendary feat, but what people like about it is how it scales with proficiency. By the time you hit legendary.
Also, if you disqualify a skill feat from achieving something mighty (like all falling damage forever) just because it won't come up often... I'm not many skill feats are going to be make the cut just by virtue of skills tending to be noncombat things that round out your character.
Is "Cat fall" really a "truly mighty feat of skill"?
Calling the ability to ignore falling damage "truly mighty" - at fifteenth level no less - seems almost an insult.
It's situational, is really unlikely to come up outside of contrived circumstances, and is largely negated by even a first-level spell in PF2. Or in Pathfinder. Or in 5e. Or in 3.5e. Or even in 4e (but it's accessed at second level there).
I actually don't even like Catfall. It's WAY too over the top. And the worse part, it comes from nowhere. I would rather be able to shrug off 100 feet from the fall and never fall prone. That would be cool. Being immune to fall damage at such high level just doesn't come up as often.