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At the cost of a level 2 dedication feat, you get potentially two skills at expert and the effects of a level 7 General Feat.
If you like skills and aren't getting any other dedications, that's incredibly good value even if you never take another Pathfinder Agent feat; it's the only way I'm aware of for non-Rogues to get expert at second level, and it increases the number of master skills you can have from three to four. I forsee a lot of skill monkeys being Pathfinders. Which is as it should be, I suppose. :)
It's still worse than the human version (which allows you to attempt Trained-only checks) and the Bard version (which eventually allows you to attempt Expert-only checks). I do agree that having one skill upgraded to expert (who cares about Pathfinder Lore, honestly) is a good bonus, but note that all of the archetypes in this book offer that sort of bump, they just limit it to something in particular. If you're not human or a polymath bard it's definitely worth looking at.
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If past APs are any indication, "Pathfinder Lore" is going to come in handy a lot more than other lores.
But I don't think people are ever going to waste a skill increase on a lore skill, just find something else that lets you advance it which doesn't slow your progress towards legendary stealth or whatever.
If past APs are any indication, "Pathfinder Lore" is going to come in handy a lot more than other lores.
But I don't think people are ever going to waste a skill increase on a lore skill, just find something else that lets you advance it which doesn't slow your progress towards legendary stealth or whatever.
Yeah, the additional lore skill feat is the way to go if you want to improve your lore.
(who cares about Pathfinder Lore, honestly)
Is that not essential Lore(Adventuring)?
Good point about humans and bards, although honestly I could still see humans taking this to save themselves an ancestry feat - humans have some of the best, after all. Plus it does have some slight advantages over the human version - it comes online 3 levels earlier and gives you the level 7 benefits right away.
(who cares about Pathfinder Lore, honestly)Is that not essential Lore(Adventuring)?
Perhaps in some circumstances, if you can tie recollection of specific pathfinder missions to your current problem, but I think it's intended to be more about the organization than about everything they do, which is kind of everything.
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I mean, in the Ruins of Azlant game I'm in (it's a 1e game) at one point the GM mentioned "Durvin Gest" and got responses of "who?".
So that's what Pathfinder Lore is for.
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Perhaps in some circumstances, if you can tie recollection of specific pathfinder missions to your current problem, but I think it's intended to be more about the organization than about everything they do, which is kind of everything.(who cares about Pathfinder Lore, honestly)Is that not essential Lore(Adventuring)?
Which makes sense. Unfortunately "I read about this monster in a Pathfinder Chronicle" also makes sense. The more I think on it the more it feels like there is a long list of things that make sense with that lore. And yeah you might say "Well that isn't Lore(Pathfinder) that's Lore(Pathfinder Chronicles)". To which I would respond, "I'm not really sure how Lore works, and I don't think it's possible for me to be fair or consistent with it."
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Which makes sense. Unfortunately "I read about this monster in a Pathfinder Chronicle" also makes sense. The more I think on it the more it feels like there is a long list of things that make sense with that lore. And yeah you might say "Well that isn't Lore(Pathfinder) that's Lore(Pathfinder Chronicles)". To which I would respond, "I'm not really sure how Lore works, and I don't think it's possible for me to be fair or consistent with it."Perhaps in some circumstances, if you can tie recollection of specific pathfinder missions to your current problem, but I think it's intended to be more about the organization than about everything they do, which is kind of everything.(who cares about Pathfinder Lore, honestly)Is that not essential Lore(Adventuring)?
Lore lacks rigorous rules, but one rule of thumb Paizo gives is that it should be narrower than Arcane/Nature/Occult/Religion are.
So Pathfinder Lore would be about the Pathfinder Society as an organization. To say it's about anything Pathfinders have ever been involved would be like choosing the largest library you can think of saying you have all that under Lore (super-duper library).
Or Lore (Taldan descendants). Bit too broad.
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Sure, and not being able to fully replicate one of the knowledge skills is fine. It makes sense that Lore(Pathfinder Training), (Monster Hunting), Lore(Adventuring) don't give all 4 examples of any one of the knowledge skills. The issues is that they seem to include more than 4 examples from the group of skills. Creatures of arcane significance, alchemical reactions and creatures, engineering, constructs, poisons, wounds, environment, creatures of natural origin, creatures of occult significance, creatures of religious significance, key personalities, and legal institutions. I'd say there is a strong argument for each of these to fall under Lore(Adventuring). Sure not in their entirety, maybe not all at once(character and campaign differences), and maybe not as much as the main knowledge skills, but close enough for Jazz.
Which on the one hand, makes sense. Adventures might not know advanced arcane theory but they need a wide range of knowledge for the the day to day threats they face. On the other hand that feels mechanically stronger than any of the individual knowledge skills, and certainly more so than other lore options. It's very possible for Lore(Blacksmith) to not come up in a campaign. Lore(Adventuring) could easily come up multiple times each session.
Adventuring Lore wouldn’t simply give you all the information an adventurer needs
Or to put it more simply, not including all information doesn't preclude it from including most information, nor does it give me any kind of idea of where to draw the line. And certainly a line needs to be drawn. It feels extremely easy for me to allow a lore skill to get too strong and also to be too harsh in what I allow lore to cover.
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Yeah, hard disagree on that expansive reading of Lore(PFS). Pathfinder Lore is Lore ABOUT Pathfinder Society, not any lore PFS might possess in archives about other things. Not even comparing it to Lore(Libraries), compare it to there being a library in Taldor with books written by Taldane scholars on far-flung obscure subjects: Lore(Taldor) doesn't cover that, neither does Lore(PFS) cover PFS' library of info. Likewise, Lore(Efreeti) doesn't give you info on every Efreeti's combined knowledge they learned from being summoned/bound by random spellcasters (as well as their own society's activities and knowledge) just because you hung out with Efreeti and had opportunity to ask them what they know about random stuff.
Really this isn't different than any other Lore, Lore only covers info inherently and directly related to that topic. Knowing about Pathfinder Chronicle 743821 isn't critical to understanding PFS. Hell, having Lore(PFS) doesn't even require being member of PFS or having access to it's Chronicles, somebody in Aspis Consortium could have it to "know thy enemy" etc. At best, I might say Lore(PFS) could tell you "I think PFS keeps a Chronicle related to this" (or similar for Lore(Taldor) and knowing a Taldan scholar studied the subject) but it wouldn't tell you the details of that, and even knowing of existence of that Chronicle would probably be harder than normal DC since it's ultimately obscure and tangential to PFS itself: knowing every single PFS Chronicle isn't actually important to being knowledgeable about PFS. Lore(PFS) can still be useful (beyond mere political aspects of PFS), if this info is clue and you can contact PFS archives or Taldan librarian/scholar to help you out further.
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I feel what makes Pathfinder Lore potentially quite powerful is that it plausibly applies to "things that were in Pathfinder Chronicles" because you have read some of those. So in addition to "knowing about the society" you're also going to know random things about Azlant or the Sodden Lands, or Nex, or the Crown of the world.
While it might be more restrictive, you are more likely to end up in situations where it might be important if you are part of the society. I would include recent or relevant news about the society as an option.
For example: "Did you hear what happened to the last team they sent out here? I heard they were found a week later with their blood sucked dry".
Then you would find out about rumors from around the lodge about how people thought it might have been vampires.