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Oh god, back to the "You can never take 10 on anything dangerous because it's dangerous argument". Please don't. That's for the old edition. :) Let's just say it's disputed and let it lie.
Rather that say it's disputed and let it lie, lets look to the CRB and see what it says:
"When your character is not in immediate danger or distracted, you may choose to take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10. For many routine tasks, taking 10 makes them automatically successful. Distractions or threats (such as combat) make it impossible for a character to take 10.
Not every bit of the game needs to be handled by the CORE MECHANIC.
And not every Core mechanic needs an overly exploited easy button workaround like Taking 10.
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A decent amount of this discussion seems to be rationalizing the player experience on having to roll when the chance of success is X vs Y. That doesn't address my question and I want to avoid going down the rabbit hole so I'm going to set aside that discussion unless I think it ties in with the decision to make Assurance unavailable outside of a feat tax.
Okay, now I'm confused. The whole rest of my post you responded to was almost entirely about this. It was purely about why 'Taking 10' was being replaced with Assurance numerically.
My only thing responding to why everyone didn't get Assurance was the following bit:
Universal Assurance, as mentioned, they seem to be making unnecessary by making people in general succeed at unimportant things,Where have they "made" people do this? Mark's exact words are:
Mark Seifert wrote:
if there's not something interesting to come from rolling, we'd usually suggest to the GM (or adventure author) don't ask for a roll.Emphasis mine. I don't see anything in the rules that compels or requires the GM hand wave rolls that would have been beaten with a Take 10.
To be clear here: I am referring to GM advice saying 'Don't roll for this, PCs should auto-succeed' as 'making them succeed'. This is because that is exactly what that does, on a practical level, if you follow it.
That's a little less true for home games (though even there, the game's basic assumption that you do this is totally relevant), but is particularly true in something like PFS that will simply not have such checks at all.
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Okay, so thinking about this further, I have to say that this feels bad as a mechanic. Never mind for a moment that Taking 10 as a mechanic has somehow become a negative, why does Assurance ignore your ability modifier? More to the point, what is that supposed to represent in-universe? Let's suppose for a moment that I have a character named Jennifer Walters. She needs to accomplish a task, the task is Strength-based, and she has Assurance in the relevant skill. She makes one attempt with Assurance and then tries again after turning into She-Hulk.
Why do both attempts produce identical results? Why does her drastic boost to strength count for diddly? It's a game mechanic I cringe at the thought of interacting with, something that points very obviously to the machinery of the game and kills any immersion. Bringing this back to the OP, this is something that I don't know how I'd explain to prospective players, any more than the much-deservedly-maligned Animal Call feat from Ultimate Wilderness (how do you tell a player that his master of the wild character was never supposed to be using Bluff or Survival to imitate the sounds of animals, but with a feat, he can go back to doing what everyone and their grandmother should be able to at least attempt?).
I mean, if it's a math issue (the 10 from Assurance is supposed to account for both the die roll and the estimated ability mod), then why not Take 5? Call the d20 the range of failure to success that a character is capable of under stress, and explain that while 10 is the average of a d20, it's due to the presence of said stress, the adrenaline, the consequences of failure and the chance for greatness. And then say a run of the mill attempt without that stress only gets you an average of 5. Not that I agree that Taking 10 needed to go, mind you. But at least it would still represent something recognizable in-universe, which was why Taking 10 was so great.
I don’t see how immersiveness is a concern with Assurance since it’s bones are Taking 10 which is literally a choice the PC must make to risk a roll or not. You’re not in character when you’re deciding to roll a D20 or not.
I don’t see how immersiveness is a concern with Assurance since it’s bones are Taking 10 which is literally a choice the PC must make to risk a roll or not. You’re not in character when you’re deciding to roll a D20 or not.
It's not about what the character is aware of, it's about what I, both the player controlling that character and an audience member witnessing this shared story play out, am aware of. And when I'm seeing She-Hulk hulk out to no effect when I know there should be a significant difference, that breaks immersion.
Because you're right. The character has no idea what methodology his player is using to represent luck's influence in his attempt at a given task. All he knows is that he shouldn't spontaneously be weaker or less perceptive or whatever due to factors (the player's choices) that don't exist in his world.
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My take is, Assurance represents the practice it takes to make something entirely rote. It's the equivalent of field-stripping of a weapon- the army will teach you to do it. Your stat mod doesn't change the practice you've had. It's weird with the strength skills, but I think it does all right with the others.
Mechanically, it's probably really useful for the game to have set benchmarks that the designers know- "these are the DCs that any player could be automatically succeeding at".
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It's weird with the strength skills, but I think it does all right with the others.
There's actually only one Strength skill. And it's Athletics, which seems to me to involve at least as much training as raw might. Mostly, it covers climbing, swimming, and the sort of opposed checks nobody should auto-succeed on vs. remotely on-level opposition.
And both climbing and swimming are absolutely trained skills of the sort you describe in the rest of your post. So I don't find this odd on Strength-based skills at all.
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Sorry for the Assurance derail, but per the thread title - what should be baked in? Everything a skill is and does and requires should be part of the skill. Skill feats should not exist. Not enough feats to go around and we don't need IMHO to spend them on making skills work.
Even were we to get separate feats just for skills I'd still be against them on the basis that they clutter the game that I had hoped would be streamlined and take some of the overload of "yay, if I choose just this I can do this one super specific procedure".
PF2.0 seems just as if not more confusing with additions to the system (UTEML, to pick one) that are apparently an aid to simplification but don't really feel useful, to me, yet. Take this as someone who has next to no Playtest experience and leverage that with holdovers from PF1 legacy system inertia. So I'm not a new player learning a great new system, but a fan of the old looking for improvements and every now and then being tripped up by "changes".
My current excitement for the game is probably the highest it has been given all I've read, and I've been pretty terse and likely dour on some bits since Day 1 - I'm happy with a lot of post-feedback changes but still a little frustrated that things like "Skill - Feats" exist. Just saying skill feat gives me a headache.
I think I would definitely be a customer who would appreciate a product that could carve off subsystems. And then again, I crave options and choices, love new classes etc...but I like meaningful options and not entire nooks and crannies dedicated to "how I learnt to choose my way out of a paper bag instead of just opening it".
Well, feats have been changed considerably. I’ll give you some basics:
Firstly, feats are now categorised. You have class feats (specific to your class), skill feats (specific to the skills you rank up), ancestry feats (specific to your ancestry) and general feats (common to everyone). You get one or two at each level, and yes, as you thought, they come in separate slots. You cannot pick a class feat when you gain a skill feat, and you can’t pick a general feat when you should get a class feat. The only exception is that you can pick a skill feat when choosing a general feat (not sure if that’ll stay in final). Class feats are likely gonna be your main ones, or at least the combat-defining ones.
Second, skill increases are hard to come by. Unless you are a rogue, you’re pretty much guaranteed to never have more than 3 skills fully maxed out, even at level20. That’s not too much of an issue as proficiency always scales with level, but it brings us up to...
...skill feats. While some low level ones seemed to gate standard uses, these have generally been badly received and we had some hints of them being addressed. Others, however, have been very well received (Cat Fall comes to mind - an Acrobatics feat that allows PCs to soften falls similarly to the old Monk features). The main point, however, is gaining the higher level ones. These require you to invest more heavily in a skill (remember: limited increases!) and give you abilities that expand the role of the skill in a notable manner. While some were kinda crazy (Scare To Death allowing one of my players to use Intimidate to kill off two rune giants in one turn comes to mind >.> here’s hoping THAT changed), the epic-into-supernatural effect of high level skills is highly tied to them.
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One of the most egregious examples of an unnecessary (in my opinion) skill feat was "Survey Wildlife". It allowed you to take 10 minutes to identify what types of animals live in an environment and find tracks to follow, and if you critically succeed you can find signs of "intelligent and dangerous beasts".
The survival skill only has "Sense Direction" and "Survive in the Wild" as untrained actions, and "Cover Tracks" and "Track" as trained actions.
Finding out what animals live in an area seems like a prime example of a use for Survival, and the ability to track should imply the ability to notice signs of intelligent or dangerous beasts.
If someone in my game who was trained in Survival said "I want to look around for tracks to see if there are goblins in this area" and I said "Well I hope you have the Survey Wildlife feat and critically succeed on your check" I would have to dive for cover from the hail of dice being thrown my way.
So how can I formalize this? "If a skill feat enables a function of the skill that could be reasonably argued to be a natural part of training in that skill, ask the GM before wasting a feat on it" ?
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One of the most egregious examples of an unnecessary (in my opinion) skill feat was "Survey Wildlife". It allowed you to take 10 minutes to identify what types of animals live in an environment and find tracks to follow, and if you critically succeed you can find signs of "intelligent and dangerous beasts".
Ouch, haha yeah that was bad.
I'll counter with one I ended up having to look up recently while I converted the Persona system, Slippery Secrets (Deception):"Spells that attempt to read your mind, detect whether you are lying, or reveal your alignment must succeed at a spell roll against your Deception DC or they reveal nothing."
Now, that's something.
If someone in my game who was trained in Survival said "I want to look around for tracks to see if there are goblins in this area" and I said "Well I hope you have the Survey Wildlife feat and critically succeed on your check" I would have to dive for cover from the hail of dice being thrown my way.
Honestly this is a really weird one to me, because from 3.5->PF1 they made it so everyone could Track and Rangers just got a bonus.
Like why the step backwards?
It seems like in a few cases there was a lack of innovative ideas for Skill Feats so they just relegated features that were already possible before (albeit harder) to Skill Feats.
Hopefully a lot of those are cut from the final or at the very least reduced to "I get a lot better at this, but it's possible without it"
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I remember in many feats in the past, as part of what it does, it described what normally happened without a feat. And another section with the 'new' rules if you have the feat.
I think some of the feats that 'give' a new action, if all they describe is 'ohhh... here is an new use for the skill' and they don't bother to explain what would be the case if you don't have the skill. Those may be things that are in danger of just being an idea on how one could use a skill. That doesn't mean it's absolutely bad, as some uses might be worthwhile as a brand new action in some cases.
But lets look at something like quick repair. It shorten's the amount of time it takes to repair your equipment if it gets damaged. Shortening the time from a long term work to a quick exploration task in a quick short rest. I think there were similar feats for identifying magical or alchemical items too perhaps. The rules define something as being doable, but the feat means you can get your results much more quickly.
Cat fall, everyone knows everyone can fall. It lets you fall and not take damage for part (or all) of it, depending on your skill rank.
Looking at one handed climber, I don't necessarily have a problem with someone having to have 'extra' training if you only have one hand available to climb. I'd be willing to say it might only change a DC if you are using a hand with something in it. (so climbing with a dagger in your hand) I'd probably allow that, making it more difficult. However, while climbing, I'd rule the individual would not be able to use the dagger for anything, until they had completed climbing. With the feat, they could use the dagger to make attacks while they are climbing. So the feat would have specific additive usage, in my opinion.
Survey wildlife, seems like something that should probably be a normal skill check, to be honest though.
Pickpocket. I think it might make a bid difference to the viability of the feat if you add the word 'inside' in front of the word pocket. We know people actually can pickpocket items from inside pockets, but being able to do it probably requires very specific training. Pulling a billfold from someone's back pocket, is probably not too much more difficult than slashing a pouch string, or slicing the bottom of the pouch and letting its contents drop. Those sorts of things get covered by thievery skill.
If you really wanted to, you could potentially make attempting the items be a +10 or maybe +5 DC and then the feat removes the DC adjustment if you attempt such a task. Leaving the feat as existing, and having a purpose, but you haven't hard eliminated the availability of the action, to someone with a high enough proficiency.
If you are going to 'Bake In' Assurance, I would suggest you do it only for tasks which are gated to a person with the skill rank lower than the individual's current skill rank. So if that is the case, if someone is Trained in a a skill, they could choose to use 'Assurance' on 'untrained' usages of their skill. If they advance to Expert, they would then be able to use the Assurance mechanic for things that require Trained.
PS: @Ediwir the deception one seems like an interesting usage. I think I like it. I have to admit I don't know for absolute sure if it might create some balance issues, but I like the idea and would likely allow something like it.
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the ability to track should imply the ability to notice signs of intelligent or dangerous beasts.
Why would the ability track (the ability to identify and follow a specific set of tracks) imply the ability to notice intelligent or dangerous beasts? If I'm following your Chuck Taylors through the woods, why would I have the ability to see if the Owl Bear tracks 60 feet away also somehow indicate that it reads Proust?
If someone in my game who was trained in Survival said "I want to look around for tracks to see if there are goblins in this area"
That would be the Track skill Your player would roll the track check to search for Goblin tracks. He'd see no other tracks, and he'd go off following the Goblin tracks (if they're there) at half speed.
The Survey Wildlife feat gives the player the ability to walk into an unfamiliar wood, look around and say: "I wonder what creatures live here... Ah this forest is home to the following kinds of animals - these are X animals tracks, those might lead us to water. But there might also be Gnolls here"
So how can I formalize this? "If a skill feat enables a function of the skill that could be reasonably argued to be a natural part of training in that skill, ask the GM before wasting a feat on it" ?
I think your list of feats shows that what you consider a natural part of the skill training is VERY liberal. Let's just look at three.
Bargain Hunter allows you to use your Diplomacy to find the best price on items. Meaning you could take your skill in how to negotiate with people and use it to find the best price on a specific magic item or spell component - even if you're not a caster.
Expeditious Search halves the speed of a search and increases your movement while searching. A simple DC increase shouldn't cut the search speed down that dramatically
Experienced Tracker removes the speed penalty on a track action. A simple DC increase shouldn't remove the skill checks natural penalty.
Suggesting that these are all a natural part of the training in the skill, then you're expecting skills to be much broader than they are in this edition.
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Survey Wildlife
Survey wildlife lets you look around to determine what lives in an area, and possibly find tracks to follow. Since I'm not sure what "intelligent beast" entails, I assume it means monsters.
If a player without the feat says they want to look around for tracks of any monsters in the area, I can't let them because this feat exists.
If they change their request to look for goblin tracks, they suddenly gain the knowledge of what goblin tracks look like, that they wouldn't have been able to recognize by surveying the area for monsters in general?
I'm just not sure how I'll reasonably be able to sell that distinction to my players. Fortunately, I don't have to since I'll house rule a fix.
Suggesting that these are all a natural part of the training in the skill, then you're expecting skills to be much broader than they are in this edition.
Yes, quite so. Which is why I'm working on how to house rule these things.
Would you mind terribly to answer my previous question about what you would personally consider an unnecessary feat? It seems that your opinion is that as long as Paizo wrote it, it is by definition necessary and you have to adjust your perspective of the scope of skills to fit the new information. That's not particularly helpful to the question at hand, which is "Given that I feel some house rules are likely necessary, what's a good way of formalizing a house rule approach, and where should I draw the line?"
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Let me see if I can explain.
Your response to my question early on seemed to combine two concepts (correct me if I am misrepresenting your assertions):
1) Take 10 is problematic because if you can't succeed with Take 10, you only have an X chance of success;
2) Take 10 has reduced all known DC checks down to 100% or X
On the surface, this seems like the same thing. But in my attempts to discuss them, they are separate concepts that arise from the same condition, and thus are easily conflated.
I feel like this is a weird distinction to make, but I understand what you don't want to discuss now, I suppose. I'll respect your wishes and not discuss it further.
For me, #1 is like arguing that a longsword should do 1d7, not 1d8. There's no basis for me to agree or disagree. It's arbitrary what range of tasks Take 10 should work on or what the likelihood of success should be if you can't succeed by using it. If Paizo thinks it should really be Take 8 or Take 5, I can only have an opinion and there is no point in discussing my opinion.
While I don't understand how it's inherently bad, #2 speaks to a factual reality that exists or does not exist. In my experience it does not exist. I just finished a level 4-5 scenario in PFS and there might have been 10-15 Skill checks where the GM gave us the target DCs a priori. In 100% of the situations where another player knew they could Take 10 and succeed, none of them used Take 10, I checked. I used Take 10 liberally with my Investigator, but nobody else did. A DC 20 Arcana check, the player with +11 rolled the die. A DC 15 jump across a pit, the player with +9, rolled the die. DC 13, 15, and 15 checks. A player with like +11...rolled the die.
This is typical in my experience playing PFS. The overwhelming number of players roll the die even when Take 10 will guarantee success. So telling me that Take 10 had to go because players weren't rolling on Tasks with a 75% chance of success simply doesn't reflect any reality I'm familiar with. And this PbP PFS, so I'm playing with people from all over the planet, not just my local store or my same friends.
Obviously, if people rarely use Taking 10, this will rarely be a problem. Likewise, if nobody ever uses, say, the Sacred Geometry Feat it will never be a problem, and if nobody ever plays a corebook Rogue the fact that they're underpowered will never be a problem.
But it's a problem if people actually regularly and reliably use the system in question, just as Sacred Geometry and core Rogues are potentially problematic if anyone uses them. Getting rid of potentially problematic systems is a good thing, IMO, even if those problems haven't come up in your particular games.
Emphasis mine.
And I'm asking what mechanism in the game is going to get GMs to comply with that "suggestion?' It's a major paradigm shift for GMs to stop using moderate DC skill checks. In the PFS scenario I gave you, all of the skill checks would have been completed by someone Taking 10, with the exception of the nested Knowledge checks. So now PFS authors are going to stop using these types of checks? I don't see that happening.
Perhaps the scenario will just flat out tell players with X proficiency know X, and Y will know Y. If so, this will kill a lot of the die rolling.
Well, it's the intent that things you need a 10 to succeed on remain in the game and get rolled now (hence why Assurance, even when you have it, will usually not succeed on such checks).
Which, if your experiences are indicative, won't change much, since you say people usually roll such checks anyway. What will get removed is DC 10 checks in a 5th level adventure and the like, or similar low-level out of combat stuff.
But really, the fact that you seldom see Taking 10 used confuses me as to why removing it is an issue for you. I mean...removing a seldom used mechanic that becomes potentially problematic if used commonly seems very reasonable to me.
Survey wildlife lets you look around to determine what lives in an area, and possibly find tracks to follow. Since I'm not sure what "intelligent beast" entails, I assume it means monsters. If a player without the feat says they want to look around for tracks of any monsters in the area, I can't let them because this feat exists.
Nope, that's not what it's saying. At all.
If they change their request to look for goblin tracks, they suddenly gain the knowledge of what goblin tracks look like, that they wouldn't have been able to recognize by surveying the area for monsters in general?
The Track skill lets them look through the area for one set of tracks. The Survey Wildlife lets them look through the area for a minimal amount of time for a number of wildlife (animals) tracks. On one level of success they find a few, on another a lot more, and in some cases they also find tracks for monsters or other creatures beyond the animals in the area.
See the distinction yet? One is the skill to look for one thing, find only thing and follow only that one thing. The other is the ability to spend less time looking to find more things and then follow the trail of any of those things you select.
I'm just not sure how I'll reasonably be able to sell that distinction to my players. Fortunately, I don't have to since I'll house rule a fix.
It's a pretty clear distinction as written and as presented here. The obfuscated overly complex version that makes it look stupid and unnecessary is purely one of your own making. So that you can justify your dislike of it and house rule PF2 to be as close to PF1 as you can.
Yes, quite so. Which is why I'm working on how to house rule these things.
Why not just keep playing the game that behaves the way you want it to?
Would you mind terribly to answer my previous question about what you would personally consider an unnecessary feat?
It serves no purpose for me to answer that question.
It seems that your opinion is that as long as Paizo wrote it, it is by definition necessary and you have to adjust your perspective of the scope of skills to fit the new information.
I have two very distinct opinions on this topic. First being that your whole argument is that you want skills to be overly broad like they were in PF1. I like what was presented in the PF2 Playtest in terms of both skill scarcity, proficiency scaling and skill feats. You have decreed that these should all be baked into the skill and you've offered no real reason why those skill feats are unnecessary. Other than listing off how they behaved in PF1. I've given examples on more than one of why they are necessary.
My second opinion is that, yes, Skill feats as presented in the PF2 Playtest are by definition necessary for PF2 to work the way it was presented in the Playtest - and potentially in the new CRB. You DO have to adjust your perspective of the scope of skills to fit the new information - because the new information is a NEW RULESET. I see no reason to start hacking away at "fixing" something that 1. Isn't broken just because it's different and 2. Isn't broken because it doesn't actually exist yet.
That's not particularly helpful to the question at hand, which is "Given that I feel some house rules are likely necessary, what's a good way of formalizing a house rule approach, and where should I draw the line?"
That wasn't the question at hand. You asked what skill feats we felt should be baked into skills themselves of if we were fine with the skill feats as presented. Which I think I've answered pretty plainly while not explicitly.
You want a good way of formalizing a house rule approach, I've got a suggestion on that: Wait till the game is released and plan your house rule approach based on the final product and not the playtest which we know will not be the final presented text.
I just finished a level 4-5 scenario in PFS and there might have been 10-15 Skill checks where the GM gave us the target DCs ... DC 15 jump across a pit, the player with +9, rolled the die.
The DC15 jump across the pit couldn't take 10 anyways.
Okay..that made me laugh out loud.
Hey, I also find it laughable that you keep going to pit jumping as your example of taking 10.
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I think it might help to keep in mind PF2 is operating under a principle of opt in complexity. The inherent rules of the game are striving to be easy to learn, and the various ways it becomes complicated are through choices you make for your character. You therefore only need to learn the complicated bits that actually apply to your character.
One of the more complicated bits of Mathfinder included skill modifiers. Survival, Stealth, and Perception were especially guilty of this. And while I think we may have gone too far on removing some-- it should be harder to spot a tiny familiar from far away than its master up close, for example-- cutting down on DC increases as a standard part of play is definitely worth consideration.
So going through your list of feats you reject, Leshe:
Assurance is already being talked to death, so I will skip it.
Bargain Hunter-- as QuidEst points out, Bargain Hunter lets you use one of the best skills in place of any sort of job, perform, or craft check to earn money. That's actually quite strong. The other thing is that making Bargain Hunter a default mechanic means you've just made haggling over every purchase the default setting, and that's bad for anyone without a love for business management. This should not be a default feature.
Expeditious Search (Should just increase DC). This mostly bumps into the Mathfinder issue. This also seems fine to me. Taking a penalty to notice stuff is basically the same concept as relying on your perception DC, with the exception that traps with a proficiency requirement usually require you to be looking for them. Expecting someone who is really trying to search for traps to move at the normal speed seems questionable to me, unless they have the sort of expertise suggested by this feat, Trapspotter, Stonecunning, or Hazard finder. I also don't really want to ask my players if they want to give themselves a penalty every time they search for tracks and then have to calculate that, especially if I'm the one who has to roll all their checks.
Experienced Tracker (should just increase the DC.) I would honestly rather just avoid DC increases, be it through the default or the feat. I do think this feat is underpowered, and am annoyed one also needs a Ranger class feat for maximum effect. I just combined this with said feat as a single scaling skill feat to buff it.
* Forager (Should be built into proficiency increase). This mostly bumps into the opt in complexity issue. The forager feat is pretty horrendously wordy and it would be a sucky thing to go through every time your players want to forage. Theoretically, a player who chooses to take the Forager feat will know these rules and that will be enough. I'm glad your proposed solution doesn't seem to involve extra math, though. And this is another feat I had to buff like crazy to justify existing. Foraging rules do need work, is what I'm saying.
* One-Handed Climber (Should just increase DC)-- Again, Mathfinder bad. This is another where I instead buffed the feat to make it appealing to take rather than make it a default rule.
* Pickpocket-- discussed at length already.
* Recognize Spell-- I actually think this one makes sense. You automatically recognize spells you actually have in your head without this feat. But in a paradigm where 10 minutes is the default time to identify magic, it seems weird to me to expect recnogizing spells you don't know to be an instantaneous reaction by default.
* Survey Wildlife-- I think this feat could use some work. I'd say one way to justify its existence might be to think of it as the Quick Identification of local flora and fauna. Anyone can probably search an area long enough to spot signs of monsters, but being able to do it during a Treat Wounds/Identify Magic break is another. Still, this one leaves something to be desired I'll admit.
My own examples of "things that shouldn't be skills feats" are easy. Group Coercion and Group Impression. If they weren't feats it would never occur to me you couldn't just do this with the normal rules as written.
Okay..that made me laugh out loud.I just finished a level 4-5 scenario in PFS and there might have been 10-15 Skill checks where the GM gave us the target DCs ... DC 15 jump across a pit, the player with +9, rolled the die.The DC15 jump across the pit couldn't take 10 anyways.
Yeeah, that is an odd claim. Penalty for failure isn't the same as being in immediate danger, distracted, or under threat enough to deny a T10. Otherwise no one could take ten in any situation where something bad might maybe happen in failure.
Having to make the leap while temple cultists shoot at you? Sure, you have to roll. Everything is calm, but there are spikes at the bottom? Not necessary.
Survey wildlife lets you look around to determine what lives in an area, and possibly find tracks to follow. Since I'm not sure what "intelligent beast" entails, I assume it means monsters. If a player without the feat says they want to look around for tracks of any monsters in the area, I can't let them because this feat exists.Nope, that's not what it's saying. At all.
If they change their request to look for goblin tracks, they suddenly gain the knowledge of what goblin tracks look like, that they wouldn't have been able to recognize by surveying the area for monsters in general?The Track skill lets them look through the area for one set of tracks. The Survey Wildlife lets them look through the area for a minimal amount of time for a number of wildlife (animals) tracks. On one level of success they find a few, on another a lot more, and in some cases they also find tracks for monsters or other creatures beyond the animals in the area.
See the distinction yet? One is the skill to look for one thing, find only thing and follow only that one thing. The other is the ability to spend less time looking to find more things and then follow the trail of any of those things you select.
How does that work?
"Are there any tracks in the area?"
"You can't tell, you don't have the right feat."
"Are there any orc tracks?"
"Nope"
"How about wolf tracks?"
"Nope"
"Goblin tracks?"
"Yup."
"I follow them"
"Okay"I mean the first thing you should learn is spotting tracks. Then identifying and following them.
If that's not how it works, what does happen with someone without Survey Wildlife looks for tracks? How do they find a set of tracks to follow? Which they can explicitly do.
To be clear, Survey Wildlife pretty explicitly isn't based around identifying tracks, but instead "nests, scat, and marks on vegetation." If you succeed, you THEN find tracks.
Tracking assumes you already have tracks to follow. I think it is pretty reasonable to be able to roll to identify what kind of tracks those are in front of you without the Survey Wildlife feat, and nothing in the Survey Wildlife feat implies otherwise if you actually closely read it. Survey Wildlife lets you find evidence of creatures when you otherwise wouldn't have any.
In practice here is how this works, based off APs.
Players arrive at point of interest. You tell them the ground here is churned up with tracks. You tell them to roll an identifying skill check (which could be survival but could also be perception or a knowledge skill relevant to the particular creature, like arcana for dragon tracks.) You call for a Survival check-- this can be used to figure out what the creatures were doing here, like if they camped or climbed a wall and entered a building. The PCs can then potentially Track.
What Survey Wildlife lets you do is essentially make those rolls without a point of interest. Sometimes APs give your players an explicit heads up about what kind of creatures they will be facing, and other times they don't (such as most random encounters.) Survey Wildlife doesn't really do anything in the former situation, but it essentially lets you create that heads up in the latter.
Whether this is worth a feat, I dunno, but I'm pretty sure this is how the feat actually works in practice.
Having a penalty for failure was the thing that stopped you from being able to take 20. I'm fairly certain that wasn't an aspect of the restrictions from take 10, which required the ability to focus and not have distraction.
Honestly, the optional rules in 3.5 for using 3d6 and bell curve rolls, with its rules for take 16 and take 18 made me think about how it was a little odd that someone can preform their average work consistently with no risk of less than average (beyond -0.5 average). Something more like a Take 5 would make more sense to in the long run, without having paid some sort of investment.
As I see Take 10 being something that probably should have taken an investment to get. Assurance is weak enough, I see it feeling potentially a little weak for a skill feat, but see why it might be worthwhile in some circumstances.
I know it isn't technically available, but Assurance in weapon proficiency would have been pretty awesome for a fighter. Who cares about MAP penalty, I'm going to hit everything with 15 AC or less at first level for all three attacks! :)
Yeeah, that is an odd claim. Penalty for failure isn't the same as being in immediate danger, distracted, or under threat enough to deny a T10.
No it's not an odd claim.
If there are spikes at the bottom of the pit, the spikes ARE the immediate danger that you are in. Also, Taking 10 is for routine actions. If you're in a campaign where your character jumps over a pit every single session or if you've invented a subclass "Pitjumper" whose whole schtick is they travel with adventurers and jump over pits for them - then sure Take 10. Otherwise, it isn't routine.
Take 10 is so that you can be auto succeed at something you're already reasonably assured of succeeding to do, not so that you can have an I win button at every challenge that doesn't involve combat. Also, how does one calmly take their time to ensure they succeed at jumping across a pit. At the end of the calmly preparing they still have to run toward and jump over a pit.
Having to make the leap while temple cultists shoot at you? Sure, you have to roll. Everything is calm, but there are spikes at the bottom? Not necessary.
Again, the spikes at the bottom are the immediate danger in the case of jumping the pit.
It's an old PF1 flamewar that we really shouldn't take up in a PF2 thread.
You are absolutely right. I'll leave that alone.
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Okay, I'm seeing some good debate about the precise language of Survey Wildlife. The comment Captain Morgan made about "over a wide area" makes sense to me. It moves the feat up in value, but doesn't push it out of the zone of something that I would expect someone trained in Survival should be able to attempt.
I'm aware of the "opt-in complexity" issue that Captain Morgan also raised. My problem with that is the way my table uses skills means no player needs to know everything about what the skill can do, but have a rough idea of what it could entail.
So, let's say in the Survey Wildlife example my trained survivalist heard from farmers that monsters have been seen in the woods, but not where exactly. Someone mentions it might be goblins, but no one is sure. In this example he is a Level 1 Ranger with the Scout Background. Trained in Survival.
The survivalist says, conveniently, "I want to look around at what animals live in this area, maybe they're just seeing a boar. If we find monster tracks, all the better."
Being a reasonable request, I say: "Okay, you're trained in survival, have at it."
Record scratch. Freeze frame. I just made the poor Fighter, who's background is Hunter and gives him Survey Wildlife, regret his choice in background skill feat, because apparently anyone can do it if trained.
This isn't a consequence of the rules being bad, or other tables playing wrong, this is just how it's *going* to play out at my table. Stopping play to tell the Survivalist that, no, actually, he can't do that unless he has a feat (that he can't even have until next level), slows down the game and increases complexity.
Opt-in complexity is useful in some cases, but not when it demands that you abandon "Yes, roll for it" style of GMing. I hate saying no unless there's a damn good reason, beyond saving them from having to read too many rules at once.
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Record scratch. Freeze frame. I just made the poor Fighter, who's background is Hunter and gives him Survey Wildlife, regret his choice in background skill feat, because apparently anyone can do it if trained.
This isn't a consequence of the rules being bad, or other tables playing wrong, this is just how it's *going* to play out at my table. Stopping play to tell the Survivalist that, no, actually, he can't do that unless he has a feat (that he can't even have until next level), slows down the game and increases complexity.
Opt-in complexity is useful in some cases, but not when it demands that you abandon "Yes, roll for it" style of GMing. I hate saying no unless there's a damn good reason, beyond saving them from having to read too many rules at once.
It isn’t a binary case of you either say yes to Survivalist and screw over the Fighter who has the feat or say no to the Survivalist and the day is ruined. The survivalist can roll a Survival skill check and find one animal in the area (needing a second roll to find a second animal and a third for a third.) Additionally you point out that the Fighter with his feat could search faster. The Survivalist aids the roll the Fighter speeds the search and the party does exactly what they wanted to do using the rules as written.
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So, let's say in the Survey Wildlife example my trained survivalist heard from farmers that monsters have been seen in the woods, but not where exactly. Someone mentions it might be goblins, but no one is sure. In this example he is a Level 1 Ranger with the Scout Background. Trained in Survival.
The survivalist says, conveniently, "I want to look around at what animals live in this area, maybe they're just seeing a boar. If we find monster tracks, all the better."
Being a reasonable request, I say: "Okay, you're trained in survival, have at it."
Record scratch. Freeze frame. I just made the poor Fighter, who's background is Hunter and gives him Survey Wildlife, regret his choice in background skill feat, because apparently anyone can do it if trained.
"Are these tracks boar tracks" is pretty reasonable Trained use of Survival. "What are all the animals that roam the area" is not and needs Survey Wildlife
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Record scratch. Freeze frame. I just made the poor Fighter, who's background is Hunter and gives him Survey Wildlife, regret his choice in background skill feat, because apparently anyone can do it if trained.
From what I've read in this thread, I'd say that the Fighter could get a bigger picture of the area in less time than the ranger could. Ten minutes of walking about and checking things over would be able to get a general idea, but the ranger would be able to find more specific detail during their time.
Fighter-"I don't think there are any boars here. Pretty sure there is at least one owlbear, but nobody could mistake that for a goblin."
Ranger-"that may be, but something has been hacking up the local plants. These branches are cut, and poorly. I think we might have goblins after all."
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PS: @Ediwir the deception one seems like an interesting usage. I think I like it. I have to admit I don't know for absolute sure if it might create some balance issues, but I like the idea and would likely allow something like it.
Huh? You don’t have to “allow it”, it’s straight from the book.
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If someone in my game who was trained in Survival said "I want to look around for tracks to see if there are goblins in this area" and I said "Well I hope you have the Survey Wildlife feat and critically succeed on your check" I would have to dive for cover from the hail of dice being thrown my way.
Honestly this is a really weird one to me, because from 3.5->PF1 they made it so everyone could Track and Rangers just got a bonus.
Like why the step backwards?
It seems like in a few cases there was a lack of innovative ideas for Skill Feats so they just relegated features that were already possible before (albeit harder) to Skill Feats.
Hopefully a lot of those are cut from the final or at the very least reduced to "I get a lot better at this, but it's possible without it"
I feel a lot of this was PF1 is one data point, and in order to get the best data point they went as far the other way as they could. Then for the final game you come back closer to the middle.
Okay, I'm seeing some good debate about the precise language of Survey Wildlife. The comment Captain Morgan made about "over a wide area" makes sense to me. It moves the feat up in value, but doesn't push it out of the zone of something that I would expect someone trained in Survival should be able to attempt.
I'm aware of the "opt-in complexity" issue that Captain Morgan also raised. My problem with that is the way my table uses skills means no player needs to know everything about what the skill can do, but have a rough idea of what it could entail.
So, let's say in the Survey Wildlife example my trained survivalist heard from farmers that monsters have been seen in the woods, but not where exactly. Someone mentions it might be goblins, but no one is sure. In this example he is a Level 1 Ranger with the Scout Background. Trained in Survival.
The survivalist says, conveniently, "I want to look around at what animals live in this area, maybe they're just seeing a boar. If we find monster tracks, all the better."
Being a reasonable request, I say: "Okay, you're trained in survival, have at it."
Record scratch. Freeze frame. I just made the poor Fighter, who's background is Hunter and gives him Survey Wildlife, regret his choice in background skill feat, because apparently anyone can do it if trained.
This isn't a consequence of the rules being bad, or other tables playing wrong, this is just how it's *going* to play out at my table. Stopping play to tell the Survivalist that, no, actually, he can't do that unless he has a feat (that he can't even have until next level), slows down the game and increases complexity.
Opt-in complexity is useful in some cases, but not when it demands that you abandon "Yes, roll for it" style of GMing. I hate saying no unless there's a damn good reason, beyond saving them from having to read too many rules at once.
These are all fair points, and I definitely hear you. I like to tell people to roll for it myself. I think what you are describing is the virtue of leaving some "blank space" in the rules. PF1 didn't have any mechanic for explicitly doing what your Ranger wants to do in that situation, and in some ways that leaves the game in a better position for a GM like you with a table like yours. You can fill in those blanks in a way that your players find enjoyable, but feats like "Survey Wildlife" fill that space in already and give an answer of "no."
The flipside is that say your Ranger went to another table and was confronted with that exact same situation, and says "I want to look around at what animals live in this area, maybe they're just seeing a boar. If we find monster tracks, all the better." But your decision to let them roll for it is subject to GM discretion. The GM of THIS table might say no, there's nothing in the rules saying you can try and figure out what creatures live in the area; you therefore can't." In that case, the Survey Wildlife feat could let a player do something they flat out couldn't before and the GM discretion wouldn't enter into it.
Ideally, I'd like if it things like Survey Wildlife got buffed so their uses were more immediately obvious and they didn't just feel like they were curtailing normal uses of the skill. But I'll admit I'm not sure how for Survey specifically, and Survival in general feels like such a niche skill already.
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"Are these tracks boar tracks" is pretty reasonable Trained use of Survival. "What are all the animals that roam the area" is not and needs Survey Wildlife
Cue hail of dice as I can't keep a straight face while saying that.
In seriousness, though, I get that some tables will put in the effort to make sure feats like this have value. Several people have already offered GM calls that make sense if your stated goal is to ensure Survey Wildlife is useful.
What I'm after is where would you (as a group, the whole forum) personally draw the line between a skill feat being needlessly specific, niche, restrictive or unnecessary and a skill feat being a useful tool to pick up. If the response to this question is "Every feat is necessary, don't house rule, go back to PF1" then I'm not interested.
In my opinion Survey Wildlife, and others, not only fail to offer enough to beat other skill feats, but also may routinely get steamrolled over the course of play during snap judgment calls.
What I'm gathering so far is that, if feats like this appear in the final rulebook, I'm very much going to have to take it case by case. There doesn't seem to be a good way to identify a skill as immediately steamrollable by formula, except perhaps "If you think the equivalent skill in PF1e could have let you do it, the feat might be a waste".
People have already talked in-depth about Survey Wildlife. In theory it has some uses but in practice with a published adventure it really doesn't unless the GM is getting creative or wants to share his random encounter table (as N N pointed out). The benefit is not evident or tangible to be worth a feat.
But since we know what the problem is, that means we can fix it without much issue. Just attach a tangible benefit to it:
"As long as you remain in the area covered by Survey Wildlife, you gain a +2 to your initiative checks (Maybe only vs native wildlife) and are able to make a skill check to identify the creatures during initiative (perhaps with a bonus too)."
There, now it's worth taking without invalidating the regular Survival skill. It has both roleplaying and mechanical benefit so it's actually a feat regardless of how the GM rules it.
Of course, it's just an example and people here can prove it's OP or something, but I think that's the way to go in making these "gatekeeping" skill feats look palatable.
As for the pickpocket thing, I think a PF1 style feat is what we need here.
"You no longer suffer the -X penalty for pickpocketing and you can now place an item in their pocket with the same action used to steal"
So you can normally attempt anything, even stealing an item and then putting another in place without the feat, but with it you are doing something clearly special with a clear benefit: either the highly increased odds or the improved action economy.
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The more I look at it, the more it seems like Survey Wildlife doesn't just let somebody maybe find tracks, it lets them get a glimpse at the random encounter table for the area.
While the example ranger is spending at least an hour searching the farm for goblin sign (failing to follow a trail costs an hour, probably fair to charge an hour for tracks you don't know are there), the example fighter is discovering all sorts of things that might be a danger.
My issue with SW is that isn't useful in nominal play. There is no scenario in PFS that I've played where something like SW would have been of any value. If there are tracks to find, the games let's you roll a Survival roll to track the creatures. There's no situation where surveying the wildlife, or anything that comes from that action, moves the plot forward.
So let's rephrase what you just said. In all of the Pathfinder 1st Edition Pathfinder Society Adventure Path Scenarios you've played in there have been no instance where the Survey Wildlife feat has come up, therefore the Survey Wildlife feat is not useful in nominal play in Pathfinder 2nd Edition.
Of course a PF2e feat hasn't come up in a PF1e scenario...
In theory it has some uses but in practice with a published adventure it really doesn't
What Pathfinder 2nd edition published adventures have you read yet?
I'm also increasingly convinced that "what animals are here" with a side of detect dangerous beasts isn't a normal use of survival as PF2 is defining it. That would be either Nature or an appropriate Lore like Hunter or Scout. Either way, not something done in ten minute blocks.
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My issue with SW is that isn't useful in nominal play. There is no scenario in PFS that I've played where something like SW would have been of any value. If there are tracks to find, the games let's you roll a Survival roll to track the creatures. There's no situation where surveying the wildlife, or anything that comes from that action, moves the plot forward.So let's rephrase what you just said. In all of the Pathfinder 1st Edition Pathfinder Society Adventure Path Scenarios you've played in there have been no instance where the Survey Wildlife feat has come up, therefore the Survey Wildlife feat is not useful in nominal play in Pathfinder 2nd Edition.
Of course a PF2e feat hasn't come up in a PF1e scenario...
This is a bit disingenuous. It's not just that it hasn't come up in his scenarios. From a module-writing standpoint, this feat is just trouble if that's all it does, SPECIALLY for PFS which are mostly anti-exploration with no random encounters ever. To be able to use it, you'd need to include full ecology information on all of the environments in the adventure or at least random encounter tables so the GM has SOMETHING to tell the guy who used this feat that won't be totally useless.
Some adventures do have this, several APs, in fact. It's still a big luxury and you can never count on it. I don't see Paizo having to change all of their module writing style to accommodate this one feat. At least if it was built-in on Survival you wouldn't feel bad when it doesn't apply to the current adventure.
What Pathfinder 2nd edition published adventures have you read yet?
It is a Playtest feat, for which there is like 10 adventures freely available. I think it can be used in like 1 or 2 of them, 0 of the PFS ones.
This is a bit disingenuous. It's not just that it hasn't come up in his scenarios.
No, it's disingenuous to say that past experience with PF1 (PFS or otherwise)gives anyone who isn't on the dev team an understanding of the utility of an ability in PF2. They're different games.
From a module-writing standpoint, this feat is just trouble if that's all it does, SPECIALLY for PFS which are mostly anti-exploration with no random encounters ever.
So because PF1 PFS scenarios are anti-exploration with hardly no random encounters that means that an exploration based feat built for PF2 - a game that now has a robust Exploration Mode - is useless and should be stricken from the game via house rule? That seems counter intuitive from the standpoint of the designing the CRB
To be able to use it, you'd need to include full ecology information on all of the environments in the adventure or at least random encounter tables so the GM has SOMETHING to tell the guy who used this feat that won't be totally useless.
You mean like including material in PF2e Scenarios that utilizes PF2e feats and abilities. Shocking concept!
I don't see Paizo having to change all of their module writing style to accommodate this one feat.
I also don't see them ignoring the things they created for PF2 and just writing more PF1 scenarios.
It is a Playtest feat, for which there is like 10 adventures freely available. I think it can be used in like 1 or 2 of them, 0 of the PFS ones.
You mean Doomsday Dawn where each of the 10 scenarios was designed to stress test specific mechanics and wasn't built as a traditional adventure path? Doomsday Dawn wherein NONE of the scenarios were purposefully built to stress test skill feats, but this feat actually WAS useful in the Mirrored Moon Scenario?
I ask again - what PF2 Scenarios have you read?
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Stuff
Guess we'll find out~ It's already happened during the playtest so I'm feeling lucky. I don't even think this feat will exist in PF2.
Guess we'll find out~ It's already happened during the playtest so I'm feeling lucky. I don't even think this feat will exist in PF2.
What already happened during the playtest? People complained about rules they didn't understand and demanded rules to make PF2 more like PF1 because change is scary. Yeah I know.