I’m asking that if you gain a weapon proficiency, it automatically track at the same proficiency that the weapons granted by your class does.This already happens in the vast majority of cases. The Fighter Exotic Weapon Training feat and all of the weapon familiarity ancestry feats don't just make you trained in their respective weapons; they make you treat said weapons as one step down the complexity ladder. Martial weapons are treated as simple, Exotic are treated as martial. As of right now there is only one exotic weapon that isn't already paired with an ancestry, so they are all pretty much accessible this way. And every ancestry weapon familiarity also packs a follow up feat at 13th to get you to expert. And with adopted ancestry you really have access to a huge selection of weapons for this.
The only case where this doesn't quite work is the Weapon Proficiency general feat, but frankly that seems like an oversight. They acknowledged they screwed up the wording on the Fighter's Exotic Weapon Training and it didn't work as intended until they updated it. Something similar probably happened here and there's a pretty good chance it is fixed.
Rogue who takes the Rogue feat Bludgeoner never gets better with the club or mace unless they go outside the class to do so.
It remains to be seen if the Brute Attack rogue advances with their weapons. There was nothing to indicate they would in Playtest update document.
Hopefully all of these are cleared up in the final rules.
Unless I’m missing something, both of those are simple weapons, and specifically advance to Expert proficiency when Rogues get Weapon Tricks at 13th. Even if you’re not a bludgeoner, you get that proficiency.
Unless I’m missing something, both of those are simple weapons, and specifically advance to Expert proficiency when Rogues get Weapon Tricks at 13th. Even if you’re not a bludgeoner, you get that proficiency.I’m asking that if you gain a weapon proficiency, it automatically track at the same proficiency that the weapons granted by your class does.This already happens in the vast majority of cases. The Fighter Exotic Weapon Training feat and all of the weapon familiarity ancestry feats don't just make you trained in their respective weapons; they make you treat said weapons as one step down the complexity ladder. Martial weapons are treated as simple, Exotic are treated as martial. As of right now there is only one exotic weapon that isn't already paired with an ancestry, so they are all pretty much accessible this way. And every ancestry weapon familiarity also packs a follow up feat at 13th to get you to expert. And with adopted ancestry you really have access to a huge selection of weapons for this.
The only case where this doesn't quite work is the Weapon Proficiency general feat, but frankly that seems like an oversight. They acknowledged they screwed up the wording on the Fighter's Exotic Weapon Training and it didn't work as intended until they updated it. Something similar probably happened here and there's a pretty good chance it is fixed.
Rogue who takes the Rogue feat Bludgeoner never gets better with the club or mace unless they go outside the class to do so.
It remains to be seen if the Brute Attack rogue advances with their weapons. There was nothing to indicate they would in Playtest update document.
Hopefully all of these are cleared up in the final rules.
Indeed. The Bludgeoner feat never gave you additional proficiency in the first place, and was updated out of existence too. It's replacement, the Rogue Technique Brute Attack, never interacts with your weapon proficiency either. (It does give you medium armor proficiency, but that progresses at the same rate your normal armor does, staying at trained.
My concerns echo Roswynn's, in a way, except that I really miss the table from the Playtest. :( As a GM that does a LOT of homebrew, "what DC will challenge but not destroy a highly specialized character of a given level" is really really useful information to me.
Mark and I had a short discussion about this, with him basically saying "yes, it's useful information, but we found that giving it to you resulted in people misusing or misunderstanding it, so we aren't doing that." Which I completely understand, but still lament.
My concerns echo Roswynn's, in a way, except that I really miss the table from the Playtest. :( As a GM that does a LOT of homebrew, "what DC will challenge but not destroy a highly specialized character of a given level" is really really useful information to me.
Mark and I had a short discussion about this, with him basically saying "yes, it's useful information, but we found that giving it to you resulted in people misusing or misunderstanding it, so we aren't doing that." Which I completely understand, but still lament.
Mark's explanation was that the new table could be used the same way though-- you just need to adjust up a level, down a level, or what have you. And it will presumably have guidelines for that.
Not in exactly the same way; the difficulty chart isn't really a "difficulty chart" when talking about specialists. Because a core assumption is that specialists break the chart more and more at higher levels, the chart becomes less and less useful for talking about specialists at higher levels.
If I want an answer to the question "what DC will be in the 40-50% success range for a level 10 specialist?", the answer might be "add two levels to the listed DC". But if I ask the same question for a level 15 specialist, the answer might be "add four levels to the listed DC" and the only way to figure that out is trial and error.
Not in exactly the same way; the difficulty chart isn't really a "difficulty chart" when talking about specialists. Because a core assumption is that specialists break the chart more and more at higher levels, the chart becomes less and less useful for talking about specialists at higher levels.
If I want an answer to the question "what DC will be in the 40-50% success range for a level 10 specialist?", the answer might be "add two levels to the listed DC". But if I ask the same question for a level 15 specialist, the answer might be "add four levels to the listed DC" and the only way to figure that out is trial and error.
You take his modifier and add 12 to that. It's that simple. No need for elaborate chart that lists all corner cases like that.
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Which is exactly what I don't want to do, because then I might as well just have the player roll percentile. I don't want to answer to "what DC yields a specific chance of success for the specific player in my party", I want the answer to "this obscure bit of dragon trivia is most likely not something even a high level specialist knows, but there's a chance they might, so what's a DC that will give someone specialized in dragon trivia a middle-to-low chance of succeeding but still make it very hard for anyone not specialized to know?"
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It's a closely guarded secret, but dragons are actually made of styrofoam.“Why can my wizard grapple or shove around a colossal dragon if he can’t lift a boulder over his head?”What I really hope for is that the table isn't called "difficultiy DC per level" or some variant of that.
I hope the column is to be headlined "Task level" or "encounter level" or so, so no one can argue that it is referencing the PC's level.
Yes please, we had enough of those people in the playtest.
Now if we just could also write them a note saying how some things are not skill checks, we’d be golden.
(Classic “why should my wizard with Str10 lift a boulder over his head” posts. TLDR he can’t, it’s too much bulk)
See, this is a great example of the useful info a successful knowledge check can provide.
High level Wizards have learned Gracie BJJ and they can use leverage and technique rather than brute force.It's a closely guarded secret, but dragons are actually made of styrofoam.“Why can my wizard grapple or shove around a colossal dragon if he can’t lift a boulder over his head?”What I really hope for is that the table isn't called "difficultiy DC per level" or some variant of that.
I hope the column is to be headlined "Task level" or "encounter level" or so, so no one can argue that it is referencing the PC's level.
Yes please, we had enough of those people in the playtest.
Now if we just could also write them a note saying how some things are not skill checks, we’d be golden.
(Classic “why should my wizard with Str10 lift a boulder over his head” posts. TLDR he can’t, it’s too much bulk)
That’s... actually a good answer. Skill progression represents technique rather than raw power, so a high level wizard with Athletics trained and low Str has learned how to do things despite being a weakling.
(Might still have trouble with colossal dragons, however. Also won’t shut up about he book where he found his martial art tips)
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Which is exactly what I don't want to do, because then I might as well just have the player roll percentile. I don't want to answer to "what DC yields a specific chance of success for the specific player in my party", I want the answer to "this obscure bit of dragon trivia is most likely not something even a high level specialist knows, but there's a chance they might, so what's a DC that will give someone specialized in dragon trivia a middle-to-low chance of succeeding but still make it very hard for anyone not specialized to know?"
When he described the +/- 2/5/10 options, Mark Seifter specifically noted that they went with it partially because some 'math alchemy' allows it to serve this function.
Which makes a lot of sense, actually. If a specialist of Level X can get a 95% to succeed, then a +10 to the DC makes that 45% (or 50% if the 95% was only because 1s auto-fail), which sounds like what you're looking for. If a slightly less specialized character has an 80% chance, a +5 to the DC gets them to 55%, which again seems quite close and so on.
Assuming some very basic guidelines on how difficult +2/5/10 difficulties make things in-world, those modifications should thus do this pretty solidly.
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Speaking of always auto-failing on a natural 1. I hope that's gone, it always sat wrong with me that the greatest experts fail the simplest of tasks (that still have a roll) 1 time in 20. It makes the game feel more like Keystone Kops than heroic fantasy. I prefer that natual just drop things by a step. It it would be a failure on a 1 it's now a critical failure, a success on a 1 would be dropped to failure, (so far the same as the Playtest rules) but if a 1 would normally be a critical success, it still succeeds, just not a crit. Same general principal, but in reverse for natural 20s (so it is completely impossible to succeed on any task with a DC 30 higher than your modifier, some things are just out of a characters capabilities even when luck is on their side). Of course this is an incredibly trivial thing and can be house-ruled in seconds. But still, the existence of the rule is annoying.
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Speaking of always auto-failing on a natural 1. I hope that's gone, it always sat wrong with me that the greatest experts fail the simplest of tasks (that still have a roll) 1 time in 20. It makes the game feel more like Keystone Kops than heroic fantasy. I prefer that natual just drop things by a step. It it would be a failure on a 1 it's now a critical failure, a success on a 1 would be dropped to failure, (so far the same as the Playtest rules) but if a 1 would normally be a critical success, it still succeeds, just not a crit. Same general principal, but in reverse for natural 20s (so it is completely impossible to succeed on any task with a DC 30 higher than your modifier, some things are just out of a characters capabilities even when luck is on their side). Of course this is an incredibly trivial thing and can be house-ruled in seconds. But still, the existence of the rule is annoying.
It's also just a touch easier to understand than "It's a critical success, unless it normally wouldn't be enough to succeed."
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Speaking of always auto-failing on a natural 1. I hope that's gone, it always sat wrong with me that the greatest experts fail the simplest of tasks (that still have a roll) 1 time in 20. It makes the game feel more like Keystone Kops than heroic fantasy. I prefer that natual just drop things by a step. It it would be a failure on a 1 it's now a critical failure, a success on a 1 would be dropped to failure, (so far the same as the Playtest rules) but if a 1 would normally be a critical success, it still succeeds, just not a crit. Same general principal, but in reverse for natural 20s (so it is completely impossible to succeed on any task with a DC 30 higher than your modifier, some things are just out of a characters capabilities even when luck is on their side). Of course this is an incredibly trivial thing and can be house-ruled in seconds. But still, the existence of the rule is annoying.It's also just a touch easier to understand than "It's a critical success, unless it normally wouldn't be enough to succeed."
Yeah. I kind of figure the DC +/- 10 is now the definition of critical and the Natural 1/20 is the special case. Mechanically similar, but conceptually slightly simpler. And eliminates the 5% auto-success/fail absurdity. Win win.
So is this a hint that this is the way things are handled in the final? Or just a personal agreement despite what direction the game may or may not have gone?
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Speaking of always auto-failing on a natural 1. I hope that's gone, it always sat wrong with me that the greatest experts fail the simplest of tasks (that still have a roll) 1 time in 20. It makes the game feel more like Keystone Kops than heroic fantasy. I prefer that natual just drop things by a step. It it would be a failure on a 1 it's now a critical failure, a success on a 1 would be dropped to failure, (so far the same as the Playtest rules) but if a 1 would normally be a critical success, it still succeeds, just not a crit. Same general principal, but in reverse for natural 20s (so it is completely impossible to succeed on any task with a DC 30 higher than your modifier, some things are just out of a characters capabilities even when luck is on their side). Of course this is an incredibly trivial thing and can be house-ruled in seconds. But still, the existence of the rule is annoying.It's also just a touch easier to understand than "It's a critical success, unless it normally wouldn't be enough to succeed."
I hope that's indicative of the change having gone through, I would love that :D
Which is exactly what I don't want to do, because then I might as well just have the player roll percentile. I don't want to answer to "what DC yields a specific chance of success for the specific player in my party", I want the answer to "this obscure bit of dragon trivia is most likely not something even a high level specialist knows, but there's a chance they might, so what's a DC that will give someone specialized in dragon trivia a middle-to-low chance of succeeding but still make it very hard for anyone not specialized to know?"
But the table from the playtest didn't do that. It gave specific difficult at specific level. Which is basically what we will have except it there won't be every difficulty written, just the level and difficulty mods. You wanted the DC to account for specialists specialization which is what I told you (12+lvl for the specific case).
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Which is exactly what I don't want to do, because then I might as well just have the player roll percentile. I don't want to answer to "what DC yields a specific chance of success for the specific player in my party", I want the answer to "this obscure bit of dragon trivia is most likely not something even a high level specialist knows, but there's a chance they might, so what's a DC that will give someone specialized in dragon trivia a middle-to-low chance of succeeding but still make it very hard for anyone not specialized to know?"But the table from the playtest didn't do that. It gave specific difficult at specific level. Which is basically what we will have except it there won't be every difficulty written, just the level and difficulty mods. You wanted the DC to account for specialists specialization which is what I told you (12+lvl for the specific case).
There is a fundamental difference between using 12+modifier and a DC determined from a more objective, world-building source. A table that says 'an 12th level who is talented in the field will be challenged by a DC 29 skill check' can be a consistent part of the setting - the traps built by the 12th level master craftsman will likely be around there. If your rogue PC has invested very heavily in Thievery, he may have +23 - giving him a good chance to succeed. Setting the DC at 35 because that's 12+modifier just means there's no point in him investing in any further boosts - they're always 12 + modifier.
You can certainly argue that the table from the playtest didn't let you know the information I've outlined above - I wouldn't agree with you, but that's an argument over the usefulness of the table, which is different from suggesting DCs should be set based on the modifiers of the PCs.
I didn't ask for a DC table, so 12+bonus was a solution for MaxAstro's problem. I don't see the difference between "hard check for 12th lvl is 29", and "DC for 12th lvl challenge is 24, and if you want it hard add +5". Which is how I perceived the difference between playtest table and the one that will be in PF2 (I could have misunderstood though). The only shift was that table from the playtest accounted for proficiency increases while this one does that a bit less which is a conscious paradigm shift so that specialists get better with level at equal level checks rather than stay the same or get worse. If someone wants the DC to fully account for proficiency increases (making them worthless basically) then you can take my suggestion of 12+bonus.
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I didn't ask for a DC table, so 12+bonus was a solution for MaxAstro's problem. I don't see the difference between "hard check for 12th lvl is 29", and "DC for 12th lvl challenge is 24, and if you want it hard add +5". Which is how I perceived the difference between playtest table and the one that will be in PF2 (I could have misunderstood though). The only shift was that table from the playtest accounted for proficiency increases while this one does that a bit less which is a conscious paradigm shift so that specialists get better with level at equal level checks rather than stay the same or get worse. If someone wants the DC to fully account for proficiency increases (making them worthless basically) then you can take my suggestion of 12+bonus.
The difference between the set DC for 12th level being 24 and the recommendation for a difficult skill check adding 5 to that DC and having a table with that filled out like the playtest is essentially nothing. Both of those are fairly substantially different than taking the modifier of the player in your game and adding 12 to it to get a 40% success chance for them.
The table method - either of them - results in a roughly self-consistent world, and the player can get better or worse. If they go from Expert to Master, they're +2 against all those DCs. If you simply take your player's bonus and add 12, they will never improve or get worse. There's no point buying an item that gives you a bonus, or investing increases to get to higher bonuses, or anything of the sort. That's substantially worse than the set DCs from tables, in my mind.
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In other words, you can have worldbuilding DCs, where each task has a level and difficulty and gets assigned a DC at which characters can be better or worse depending on when they face it, or you can have the coinflipper style, where the player’s level determines the DC for their checks and any progression is just an illusion.
The right answer is, in this case, somewhere in the middle - tasks are world-based, but aventures that ignore the players completely end up feeling wonky, so you’ll have to present your players with tasks of a comparable level. If a lv10 rogue tries to sneak past a lv1 guard, no point in rolling. If he has to steal a lv20 dragon’s ring, plot power is required.
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I didn't ask for a DC table, so 12+bonus was a solution for MaxAstro's problem. I don't see the difference between "hard check for 12th lvl is 29", and "DC for 12th lvl challenge is 24, and if you want it hard add +5". Which is how I perceived the difference between playtest table and the one that will be in PF2 (I could have misunderstood though). The only shift was that table from the playtest accounted for proficiency increases while this one does that a bit less which is a conscious paradigm shift so that specialists get better with level at equal level checks rather than stay the same or get worse. If someone wants the DC to fully account for proficiency increases (making them worthless basically) then you can take my suggestion of 12+bonus.
My concern is that we have been told that specialists get better faster than DCs increase (so for example a 1st level specialist might have a 65% chance of success, an 8th level specialist might have an 80% chance of success, and a 15th level specialist might have a 95% chance of success, all against the normal DC) but it might not be obvious from the math how much better specialists get how fast. To flip the example around, the other thing the table doesn't tell me is what a DC set by a specialist looks like.
For example, if I am building a trap, and I'm thinking "this trap was made by a specialist who is as skilled in trap building as it is possible to be at level 15", it seems like I would have to build and optimize a level 15 character to get that DC. I could just grab the level 15 DC and add +5, like suggested, but if an actual specialist is +9 above the DC at that level then my supposedly-max difficultly trap has a 75% chance of being disarmed by another specialist. In the playtest I could have grabbed the second-highest difficulty at that level and been reasonably confident that without magical aid or special circumstances a specialist will be on roughly even terms with the trap.
Anyway, this is all stuff I can work around, just like in PF1e - as I run the system I'll get more and more of a feel for what DCs are appropriate. But I do miss the increased granularity of the table from the playtest. And please don't act like "12 + modifier of a generic typical specialist" and "12 + modifier of the actual PC in my party" are the same thing; they are clearly different pieces of information.
So basically you're missing the use as a shorthand tool for determining DCs as set by NPCs? BEecause your first example was some piece of lore. For which you should use the new table so as not to make PC bonuses irrelevant. I mean I would still use PCs as a starting point for NPC DCs as they are bound to have a skill at that nebulous "generic" level, whatever that means.
Setting difficulties so as to appropriately challenge your PCs is not "making PC bonuses irrelevant"*, and I should specify that I often design adventures not knowing what PCs will be tackling them. So it's not "I want this DC to be hard-but-possible for the dragon specialist I know is in the party" so much as "I want this DC to be hard-but-possible if the party happens to have a dragon specialist."
But even aside of all of that, usually more what I want to know is "if the party happens to have a dragon specialist, how likely are they to make this check?" One of the really nice things about the playtest table was being able to take a DC, look at the table and say "okay, this DC is in the Very Hard column, so I know that I shouldn't expect the party to make it even if they have a specialist".
*EDIT: Unless, of course, every encounter is designed to challenge the specialist. I know that is a thing that some people feel the need to do. I've encountered GMs like that: If there is a highly skilled lock picker in the party, then suddenly every lock has a super high DC. I consider that bad GMing, but it does happen, and it's one of the reasons I understand Mark's reasoning for not keeping the playtest table.
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All there needs to be to provide the information you're asking for is some guidelines in the text near the table. I'd be shocked if we don't get some of those, and even if we don't, coming up with such guidelines will be casually easy given how transparent PF2's math is.
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Setting difficulties so as to appropriately challenge your PCs is not "making PC bonuses irrelevant"*, and I should specify that I often design adventures not knowing what PCs will be tackling them. So it's not "I want this DC to be hard-but-possible for the dragon specialist I know is in the party" so much as "I want this DC to be hard-but-possible if the party happens to have a dragon specialist."
But even aside of all of that, usually more what I want to know is "if the party happens to have a dragon specialist, how likely are they to make this check?" One of the really nice things about the playtest table was being able to take a DC, look at the table and say "okay, this DC is in the Very Hard column, so I know that I shouldn't expect the party to make it even if they have a specialist".
*EDIT: Unless, of course, every encounter is designed to challenge the specialist. I know that is a thing that some people feel the need to do. I've encountered GMs like that: If there is a highly skilled lock picker in the party, then suddenly every lock has a super high DC. I consider that bad GMing, but it does happen, and it's one of the reasons I understand Mark's reasoning for not keeping the playtest table.
So (someone correct me if I'm wrong), there are two differences in playtest table and future PF2 table:
1. Playtest one had every DC spelled out for every level and every difficulty at the same level. PF2 table will have single column for level and somewhere beside will be modifiers for easy, hard almost impossible (-2, +5, +10 for example). Here the change is one of space and funkcionality, but the numbers should be the same.2. Except they changed the numbers. Old math assumed maxed out characters and item bonuses and math was punitive vs. PCs. They changed it so PCs get better with level vs lower level challenges (which is a given) but also that the specialists become better at same level challenges. This is the change that you seem to dislike.
I'm gonna be honest, all your posts seem as if you dislike the new math, and better liked the old one and just don't want to admit it. Maybe you want something in-between. Because all of your examples can use the table the same way they used the old one except PCs just have a better chance now. Like your above example of dragon lore, why can't you use appropriate level and almost impossible modifier to gain the wanted DC?
*shrug* I'm cool with it. I like math anyways, just planning on extrapolating some sort of formula to get the DCs without having the printout around.
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All there needs to be to provide the information you're asking for is some guidelines in the text near the table. I'd be shocked if we don't get some of those, and even if we don't, coming up with such guidelines will be casually easy given how transparent PF2's math is.
The only concern wit this is the potential for the maths to vary between levels - at level 1, a specialist may only be 2 above the DC, but at level 10 a specialist with the same amount of focus may be 5 above the DC. Should still be fairly easy to write some guidelines though - especially given the way PF2 works those increases are likely to occur at very obvious points (no increase till level 2 with Expert giving +2, then when you get Master it'll likely be the +5 (+4 above trained, +1 misc), and Legendary likely closer to the +10 (+6 above trained, can expect some item bonuses at this point, misc).
In fact, it probably wouldn't be that inaccurate to just say that the +2 represents the difference between an Expert and trained, +5 the difference between a Master and trained, and +10 between a Legendary skilled individual and trained, to give a ballpark for what those increases mean.
All there needs to be to provide the information you're asking for is some guidelines in the text near the table. I'd be shocked if we don't get some of those, and even if we don't, coming up with such guidelines will be casually easy given how transparent PF2's math is.The only concern wit this is the potential for the maths to vary between levels - at level 1, a specialist may only be 2 above the DC, but at level 10 a specialist with the same amount of focus may be 5 above the DC. Should still be fairly easy to write some guidelines though - especially given the way PF2 works those increases are likely to occur at very obvious points (no increase till level 2 with Expert giving +2, then when you get Master it'll likely be the +5 (+4 above trained, +1 misc), and Legendary likely closer to the +10 (+6 above trained, can expect some item bonuses at this point, misc).
In fact, it probably wouldn't be that inaccurate to just say that the +2 represents the difference between an Expert and trained, +5 the difference between a Master and trained, and +10 between a Legendary skilled individual and trained, to give a ballpark for what those increases mean.
Given what little we know of the new system and what we saw in the Playtest, it really should be as easy as a flat addition/subtraction to set the difficulty. The information we will need is what level of training the table assumes.
If it assumes Legendary at the top levels, you are going to need to subtract more. The specialist is going to have the items that give a full bonus and better attributes than someone at that level that is merely Trained.
Knowing the assumed training will allow you to figure out what at high level is difficult but possible for someone Trained that hasn’t highly optimized. Having that and comparing it to someone Legendary is a great way to allow a PC that has specialized to shine.
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All there needs to be to provide the information you're asking for is some guidelines in the text near the table. I'd be shocked if we don't get some of those, and even if we don't, coming up with such guidelines will be casually easy given how transparent PF2's math is.The only concern wit this is the potential for the maths to vary between levels - at level 1, a specialist may only be 2 above the DC, but at level 10 a specialist with the same amount of focus may be 5 above the DC. Should still be fairly easy to write some guidelines though - especially given the way PF2 works those increases are likely to occur at very obvious points (no increase till level 2 with Expert giving +2, then when you get Master it'll likely be the +5 (+4 above trained, +1 misc), and Legendary likely closer to the +10 (+6 above trained, can expect some item bonuses at this point, misc).
In fact, it probably wouldn't be that inaccurate to just say that the +2 represents the difference between an Expert and trained, +5 the difference between a Master and trained, and +10 between a Legendary skilled individual and trained, to give a ballpark for what those increases mean.
Given what little we know of the new system and what we saw in the Playtest, it really should be as easy as a flat addition/subtraction to set the difficulty. The information we will need is what level of training the table assumes.
If it assumes Legendary at the top levels, you are going to need to subtract more. The specialist is going to have the items that give a full bonus and better attributes than someone at that level that is merely Trained.
Knowing the assumed training will allow you to figure out what at high level is difficult but possible for someone Trained that hasn’t highly optimized. Having that and comparing it to someone Legendary is a great way to allow a PC that has specialized to shine.
As far as we're (or at least I'm) aware, it won't presume much beyond Trained really - other increases actually increase your chances. The flip side is that we'll be using +2/+5/+10 to the DC for more difficult tasks of the level - I was just (somewhat aimlessly) speculating about what we could tie that +2/+5/+10 to for a GM who wants to establish the differences in the world for those DCs. I think +2 corresponding to Expert, +5 to Master, and +10 to Legendary, essentially, would work. If you look at a level 16 DC, the base is what a trained person would do, +2 is what the Expert would do, +5 is what the Master would get, and +10 is what the Legend would get. The main issue with that interpretation is that it doesn't make much sense at the lower levels :P
I'm gonna be honest, all your posts seem as if you dislike the new math, and better liked the old one and just don't want to admit it. Maybe you want something in-between. Because all of your examples can use the table the same way they used the old one except PCs just have a better chance now. Like your above example of dragon lore, why can't you use appropriate level and almost impossible modifier to gain the wanted DC?
Don't get me wrong - the new PF2e table is a huge improvement over PF1e. From that point of view I love it. It's much easier to figure out if a particular DC is high or low for a given level, and I love that.
Basically my only issue comes down to I'm a fan of information transparency, and the playtest table simply had more information than the final table does.
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Without having seen the table, obviously, and working only off of what we know of the math, it would seem to me that you could fairly easily come up with a baseline DC of (level)+12 for a "typical" task of that level.
Playtest table accounted for ability score increases, boosting items and proficiency increases, at least. The new table isn't going to be as strict, but I doubt it's just eliminating all of those. Probably gonna increase slightly faster than 1 per level.
I hope it increases faster than 1/level, otherwise it's not worth the paper it's printed on.
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Without having seen the table, obviously, and working only off of what we know of the math, it would seem to me that you could fairly easily come up with a baseline DC of (level)+12 for a "typical" task of that level.Playtest table accounted for ability score increases, boosting items and proficiency increases, at least. The new table isn't going to be as strict, but I doubt it's just eliminating all of those. Probably gonna increase slightly faster than 1 per level.
One thing we learned during the playtest, thanks to the updates: The DCs started off kind of doing their own thing vaguely in tune with PCs, but based on feedback, there was an idea over here to make it so that the PCs' success rate against an on-level DC was monotonically increasing; that is, it either stayed the same or increased level by level. What we learned is that doing that is even more disfavored because keeping a monotonic increase necessitates following the PCs' increases pretty directly (that may not be intuitive, and you might think "Well you must be able to avoid that just by skewing a bit lower") but the problem is that if you don't follow pretty closely and just skew lower, at some point the PC success rate is going to spike really high, which works in that instant, but eventually the DC will catch up a little, and then you have a decrease that happened. To give some numbers, suppose the PC success rate was 75% at level 10 and 90% at level 11 but then 80% at level 12, 10 to 12 is still going up, but the spike at 11 decreases.
Anyway, what we learned is that a systematic pattern of increases by level feel fundamentally more evenhanded and less punitive, even if it's not as smooth and does lead to more back and forth. It feels more like an adventure where you find the ways to meet and exceed the regular formula and less like the numbers are just mirroring you.
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Out of curiosity - not sure how much you can say here, Mark, but I'll ask anyway - does the math still aim for the thing from the playtest where a level 8 monster and a level 8 PC are roughly equal in power?
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I think difficulties are going to feel much better now we are shifting away from item bonuses and towards increased proficiency value. Players don't always have very much agency in what items they get for a variety of reasons. You might not have market access, you might miss gold rewards, or you might not even be aware that there's an item you would want available. But the player always chooses where to put their skill increases and that makes them feel much more in control of how good they are at something.
Out of curiosity - not sure how much you can say here, Mark, but I'll ask anyway - does the math still aim for the thing from the playtest where a level 8 monster and a level 8 PC are roughly equal in power?
I'd be shocked if that wasn't the case. It is a really stupendous feature.
Edit: Well, I guess there's a case that people misinterpreted it like they did the DC table. A lot of folks seem bothered by having 50-50 odds of taking an equal level creature one on one, as if that was a situation you'd ever actually be in. I'd like it if ignorance of encounter building and adventure design didn't drive policy too much, but there is a lot of ignorance to go around.
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Anyway, what we learned is that a systematic pattern of increases by level feel fundamentally more evenhanded and less punitive, even if it's not as smooth and does lead to more back and forth. It feels more like an adventure where you find the ways to meet and exceed the regular formula and less like the numbers are just mirroring you.
Does this mean I could potentially extrapolate/memorise an f(x) such that I can have DCs by level at a moment’s notice without having to flip pages?
Because that’d be great.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Without having seen the table, obviously, and working only off of what we know of the math, it would seem to me that you could fairly easily come up with a baseline DC of (level)+12 for a "typical" task of that level.Playtest table accounted for ability score increases, boosting items and proficiency increases, at least. The new table isn't going to be as strict, but I doubt it's just eliminating all of those. Probably gonna increase slightly faster than 1 per level.One thing we learned during the playtest, thanks to the updates: The DCs started off kind of doing their own thing vaguely in tune with PCs, but based on feedback, there was an idea over here to make it so that the PCs' success rate against an on-level DC was monotonically increasing; that is, it either stayed the same or increased level by level. What we learned is that doing that is even more disfavored because keeping a monotonic increase necessitates following the PCs' increases pretty directly (that may not be intuitive, and you might think "Well you must be able to avoid that just by skewing a bit lower") but the problem is that if you don't follow pretty closely and just skew lower, at some point the PC success rate is going to spike really high, which works in that instant, but eventually the DC will catch up a little, and then you have a decrease that happened. To give some numbers, suppose the PC success rate was 75% at level 10 and 90% at level 11 but then 80% at level 12, 10 to 12 is still going up, but the spike at 11 decreases.
Anyway, what we learned is that a systematic pattern of increases by level feel fundamentally more evenhanded and less punitive, even if it's not as smooth and does lead to more back and forth. It feels more like an adventure where you find the ways to meet and exceed the regular formula and less like the numbers are just mirroring you.
That original curve for the DC was under terribly tight constraints. Staying in step with the DCs would be like walking a tightrope. Moreover, since player choices are not entirely predictable, the tightrope is outdoors in a gusty wind.
Some factors are predictable, such as automatic proficiency bonus increases by +1 per level. The ability score boosts apply to 4 different ability scores--though one might raise an 18 to a 19 for no visible effect on the modifier--so they can be expected, too. But buying skill-boosting items and spending skill increases are trade-offs. The player cannot improve everything simualtaneously. For example, imagine a bard that wants to maximize his skill in Occultism and Performance. At 3rd level, he can raise the proficiency of one skill to expert rank, but which one? And at 5th level, he raises the other. Thus, the two skills follow different curves.
With a systematic pattern of increases, i.e., a steady curve, then the skill increase causes a spike. However, the player can feel that is justified because he just spent a skill increase and roleplay it as intense training by his character. The steady curve will be set to that the spike fades, which means a minor decrease. And the second skill increase to the same proficiency rank two levels later will have a smaller spike (the original big spike combined with the minor decrease) so that the intense training will feel less intense. Hey, the training was overdue, so it did not seem as impressive, right? The numbers weave a story, and the designers just need that the story will be plausible rather than perfect.
Though the bonuses and DCs being integers means that slight decreases will be a full -1. The scale is too grainy for a perfectly steady curve.
Modeling that curve gives me a +1 as the minimum increase per level in DC, due to the +1 per level to proficiency bonus. Ability score boosts appear at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th levels, so we will want an additional +1 to the DC curve there. The other factors are expert proficiency starting at 3rd level, master proficiency at 7th level, legendary proficiency at 15th level, +1 expert tools at 2nd level, +2 master tools at 7th level items, +3 enchanted tools at various higher levels, but these are more optional, so should be only partially reflected in a typical DC curve. I would make the curve:
1st level has basic DC 11
2nd level has basic DC 12
3rd level has basic DC 14
4th level has basic DC 15
5th level has basic DC 17
6th level has basic DC 18
7th level has basic DC 20
8th level has basic DC 21
9th level has basic DC 22
10th level has basic DC 24
11th level has basic DC 25
12th level has basic DC 27
13th level has basic DC 28
14th level has basic DC 29
15th level has basic DC 31
16th level has basic DC 32
17th level has basic DC 34
18th level has basic DC 35
19th level has basic DC 36
20th level has basic DC 38
In contrast, the Low column in Table 10-2 in the original Playtest Rulebook ran from DC 12 at 1st level to DC 38 at 20th level and the Medium column in Table 10-2 in the Rules Update ran from DC 13 at 1st level to DC 36 at 20th level. I figure that DC 11 at 1st and DC 12 at 2nd would be easy to remember, so I started the curve with those two numbers. The curve has slope 1.4, DC = 10.2 + 1.4×level, rounding down, except at 2nd level.
Anyway, what we learned is that a systematic pattern of increases by level feel fundamentally more evenhanded and less punitive, even if it's not as smooth and does lead to more back and forth. It feels more like an adventure where you find the ways to meet and exceed the regular formula and less like the numbers are just mirroring you.Does this mean I could potentially extrapolate/memorise an f(x) such that I can have DCs by level at a moment’s notice without having to flip pages?
Because that’d be great.
Well, to enable mental calculation, I could simplify my curve to DC = 10 + 1.5×level, rounding down. But I can't avoid the fraction. That would give:
1st level has DC 112nd level has DC 13
3rd level has DC 14
4th level has DC 16
5th level has DC 17
6th level has DC 19
7th level has DC 20
8th level has DC 22
9th level has DC 23
10th level has DC 25
11th level has DC 26
12th level has DC 28
13th level has DC 29
14th level has DC 31
15th level has DC 32
16th level has DC 34
17th level has DC 35
18th level has DC 37
19th level has DC 38
20th level has DC 40
10.2+1.4x seems perfectly doable to me.
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NERRRDS
;)
Just a thought- I wouldn’t expect more than an extra 1/3 level tacked on. 20/3=6.6..., or +6. That’s the difference between trained and legendary, meaning that’s enough to feel like you need to advance a skill just to avoid getting worse.
I’m assuming that skill bonus items aren’t as big of a thing, though.
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NERRRDS
;)
I have been a total nerd all my life, even back in high school, 1975-1980, before computer nerds raised the status of us nerds. Fortunately, people liked me despite my lack of social awareness, and no-one gave me trouble.
Just a thought- I wouldn’t expect more than an extra 1/3 level tacked on. 20/3=6.6..., or +6. That’s the difference between trained and legendary, meaning that’s enough to feel like you need to advance a skill just to avoid getting worse.
I’m assuming that skill bonus items aren’t as big of a thing, though.
My assumptions are that skill-boosting items go up to +3, four ability score boosts could go up to +4 but practically only half that when the character started at 18 at 1st level, and improving from trained to legendary gives a +6. That comes out to +11 for a maximized skill, not counting the +1 per level.
We wouldn't want the DCs to increase at the rate of a maximized skill, since that would mean that the best a character can hope for is a Red Queen's race, running as fast as one can to stay in the same place. Instead, I figure that DCs ought to increase at the rate of a typical skill that a character trained at 1st level. Assuming the ability score starts at 14, four ability score boosts would give +3. A +1 skill-boosting item is cheap. And going from trained to expert costs only one skill increase and gives +2. So +6 is reasonable.
I have +8 in my DC = 10.2 + 1.4×level progression because I built a 5-level pattern in the progression based on the ability score boosts at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th levels. The pattern meant that the denominator in my slope would be 5, giving me a choice between 6/5 = 1.2 for +4 and 7/5 = 1.4 for +8. Too large was better than too small, because the GM can easily justify a below-level challenge when an at-level challenge is too hard, so I selected 7/5.
To change the +8 to +6, we would have to convert two of the +2 steps into ordinary +1 steps. My +2 steps are at 3rd level (expert proficiency), 5th level (ability score boost), 7th level (master proficiency), 10th level (ability score boost), 12th level (pattern alone), 15th level (ability score boost and legendary proficiency), 17th level (pattern alone), and 20th level (ability score boost). I would drop the ones labeled "pattern alone."