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Hi everyone,
I made recently my first PFS2 games. It was quite a mess because of the new rules, but one thing hit me hard when it comes to skill: only the die matters.
Because characters are trained in so many skills, and because it's impossible to improve a skill besides proficiency and attribute at low level, everyone was rolling everything without any sense of specialization.
When the sneaky goblin bard has +6 in stealth and my not sneaky at all Alchemist has +3, it's hard to justify the fact that he is stealthy. One third of the time, I roll higher than him.
I honestly dislike that. It gives me the impression that the only important thing when it comes to skill is proficiency: If you don't have the proper proficiency, you don't roll the die, if you have it, you roll it and get decent chances of success and failure whatever the way your character is built.
I far prefer the way Starfinder manages skills. At least, you can have a bit of class/racial/theme bonuses to improve a skill besides average and make you feel that when your character is good at one skill he is actually good at it.
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In PF1, it is between -3 and +16 (at least as PF1 has no real limit on skills).
In Starfinder, it is between -1 and +14.
In PF2, it is between -1 and +7.
In PF1, an average character will have 4-5 skill points per level on a choice of 35.
In Starfinder, an average character will have 6 skill points per level on a choice of 20.
In PF2, an average character will have 6-7 skills trained on a choice of 17.
So, in PF1, if you are good in one skill, your chances to get anyone close to you (a difference of less than 5) is extremely low.
In Starfinder, the chance is higher, but still pretty low.
In PF2, the chances are extremely high, and there will be certainly more than one character nearly as good as you in this skill.
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Once you get to higher levels the difference between untrained and trained gets bigger and bigger. And at that point a mid-level character who has high dex and is trained in stealth can’t really be called not sneaky even if they aren’t as trained as the rogue.
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In PF2, 1 or 2 points in the skill is a massive difference, thanks to tighter math, tighter DCs and crit fail/success rules.
In PF1, 1 or 2 points made no difference past very early levels, because if you did The Only Correct Thing and maxed the skill out, you were looking at increasingly silly numbers (+30 to a skill at level 10? Why yes of course), DCs needing to be silly in order to challenge that and 1 or 2 points being less and less relevant.
If you Didn't Do The Correct Thing and didn't max the skill out, well, you just got played by the trap of the PF1 skill system, which didn't inform you up front that you go big or you go home, starting with Perception.
Notable exception being of course Linguistics, the one and only skill where dropping an occasional point or two and not keeping it maxed made any sense.
Yes, this means PF2 doesn't have situations where your skill bonus is extremely higher than the skill bonus of anybody who didn't max the skill out. It's a feature, not a bug. PF1 rewarded hyper-specialisation way too much, leading to difference in skills which made setting DCs that could challenge both a party with nobody who optimized the skill and a party where somebody did nearly impossible. You either went for DCs that were too low for specialized people (leaving them wondering what for was their effort in raising the skill) or too high for non-optimized people (leaving them dependant on having a specialist or unable to handle the DC if by chance they didn't have one).
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It sounds like your “not sneaky” alchemist either has a Dex of 16 or is trained in stealth with no attribute modifier. Neither of those screams not sneaky.
But more to the point: the entire math engine of PF2 is built around not having massive swings between character competence so that it matters when you roll the dice. It brought skills into the overall fold of proficiency so that skills could meaningfully be used in combat without breaking the system.As a result, especially at first level, the difference between good and great is in the 10-20% more successful range, not the 50-100% range.
Between having skills and skill feats matter and having early level expertise dominate, i’d Chose making skills relevant over all levels every time
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Once you get to higher levels the difference between untrained and trained gets bigger and bigger. And at that point a mid-level character who has high dex and is trained in stealth can’t really be called not sneaky even if they aren’t as trained as the rogue.
At level 10, my alchemist will be trained in all skills but 3. So, she'll be trained in stealth not because she's stealthy but because she's trained in nearly everything.
At level 10, my alchemist will have high dexterity just because of the +4 I'll have every 5 levels.So, the main difference between a sneaky rogue and a non sneaky alchemist is proficiency: +4. It's still very close.
In PF2, 1 or 2 points in the skill is a massive difference, thanks to tighter math, tighter DCs and crit fail/success rules.
I agree for the crit fail and success mechanics. The issue is the amount of work the DM needs to invest to get it working.
For example, an NPC speaks about a portal. Half of the party rolls Arcana. The DM has to handle all the skill checks himself (otherwise players would know who crit failed and who succeeded) then invent different results for crit fail, success and crit success. And make all of that believable so players can't be sure who crit failed and who didn't. It's impossible, especially if the check was not very important (for important checks, you can prepare different results beforehand, but for non important ones, you'll often have to improvise). So, ultimately, everyone rolls and the DM gives only the success information. And the wizard doesn't succeed much more often than the rogue who's trained in arcana because he is trained in nearly everything.Well, at least, it's my impression. Maybe it will change, but right now, I don't feel I'm good at any skill (and I'm feel I'm bad at very few skills).
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You don't get to say your character isn't sneaky if you're trained in the skill. Of course, you're also completely ignoring the other benefits of higher proficiency like access to skill feats - Swift Sneak makes the Bard better than the Alchemist at stealth just by itself.
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And let's not forget about the "you can only do X if you're of Y proficiency" gating which helps make people who invested in skills be better while not prohibiting people with lower investment in succeeding at easy and moderate tasks.
Try sneaking a medium-level party in PF1 and PF2 past a bunch of dozy orc sentries in a castle. It's virtually impossible in PF1 and moderately possible in PF2 (thanks to tighter math and Follow the Expert).
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I think the difference between the wizard and the rogue will be bigger than you think.
At level 1, the rogue might have an intelligence of 10 and be trained in Arcana, for a +3; the wizard has a +7. On a check to know something about a CR 1 enemy (DC 15), the wizard needs to roll an 8 to succeed; the rogue needs to roll an 12. 65% vs. 45% success rate. The rogue can crit-fail on a 2, the wizard only on a 1; the rogue is twice as likely to fail critically. The wizard can crit-succeed on an 18+, the rogue needs a 20; so the wizard is three times more likely to critically succeed.
Let's move to level 3. The wizard becomes an Expert in Arcana. The rogue could also do that, because he "has so many skill increases", but since he's not got such an impressive Int, why would he? He's probably doing his Stealth and Thievery first. So the wizard now has a +11 while the rogue has a +5. To identify a CR 3 (DC 18) the wizard now needs a 7, the rogue needs a 13. That's almost twice as likely. Also the wizard crits on a 17, the rogue only on a 20.
At level 5 they both take a bonus to Int, taking them to 12 and 19. At level 7, the wizard becomes Master while the rogue stubbornly invests in an Int-skill and becomes Expert. They're at +12 vs. +17, against a DC of 23. The wizard needs a 6 to identify the CR 7 critter and crits on a 16+, the rogue needs a 11. The wizard's chances of beating the rogue are still about double.
Meanwhile, Joe the fighter now has Int 12 and no training in Arcana, and has only a +1. He can only succeed on a 20, and critically fails on a 12 or lower.
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Does that sound a bit forced, making a low-Int rogue compete with a high-Int wizard? Yeah it does a bit. But it illustrates that the differences do show up quite a bit between "talent" vs. "no talent, therefore no motivation". I mean, there's no rule saying the rogue can't also go for Master but it's very unlikely that someone wants to spent all their skills increases on skills that they didn't take the ability scores to support.
So what about the high-Int rogue that can properly compete with the wizard? Yeah, he can. Skills are not the property of specific classes. An alchemist could decide he wants to be a very very sneaky alchemist and put skill increases in, and be as good as the rogue.
However, when the alchemist first reaches level 7 and can gain his first Master skill, is he going to pick Stealth or Crafting as that skill? If he's picking Stealth over Crafting, then clearly he's really dedicated to Stealth and it's okay that he's as good at it as the rogue.
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Just curious, why wouldn't you upgrade the skills at 7+ into Expert and instead spend more of the limited increases on untrained>trained.
At tenth, a sneaky character, especially a goblin, should have expert stealth and both Swift Sneak and Foil Senses, and at 13th, the goblin can even stealth in plain sight.
Not sure about the roll thing. The fact that you can roll higher than him has always been the appealing aspect of tabletop roleplay, he just has on average a higher chance of success, and some classes like rogue, make it impossible to fail a Stealth Check unless it's critical if built for it.
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Lots of answers :)
You don't get to say your character isn't sneaky if you're trained in the skill.
It sounds like your “not sneaky” alchemist either has a Dex of 16 or is trained in stealth with no attribute modifier. Neither of those screams not sneaky.
When everyone is sneaky, no one is really sneaky. My alchemist is trained in stealth not because he is sneaky, but because he is trained in all skills but the one where I want him to be bad. So, he is trained in stealth because he is not especially bad at it.
Your alchemist won't be Expert or Master at anything? Not even Craft?
The feeling I get is more a low level feeling. After, you can get higher proficiencies, even if the difference between a Master and a Trained character is in fact not that big, especially if it's a wisdom or dexterity-based skill (as everyone increases these attributes every 5 levels).
And let's not forget about the "you can only do X if you're of Y proficiency" gating which helps make people who invested in skills be better while not prohibiting people with lower investment in succeeding at easy and moderate tasks.
I completely agree. In fact, I feel it's the main way the system really differentiate someone specialized in a skill and someone who's not: The latter doesn't have the right to roll the die despite having very similar "numbers".
Does that sound a bit forced, making a low-Int rogue compete with a high-Int wizard? Yeah it does a bit.
I completely agree with all your message. But it means that you have to wait for the Expert/Master proficiency to come up to be able to express the differences between 2 characters's skill set. Also, if you had taken Stealth instead of Arcana, as the wizard certainly have a 14 in Dexterity and will increase it at level 5, the difference would have been far lower.
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Lots of answers :)
You don't get to say your character isn't sneaky if you're trained in the skill.It sounds like your “not sneaky” alchemist either has a Dex of 16 or is trained in stealth with no attribute modifier. Neither of those screams not sneaky.When everyone is sneaky, no one is really sneaky. My alchemist is trained in stealth not because he is sneaky, but because he is trained in all skills but the one where I want him to be bad. So, he is trained in stealth because he is not especially bad at it.
Your alchemist won't be Expert or Master at anything? Not even Craft?The feeling I get is more a low level feeling. After, you can get higher proficiencies, even if the difference between a Master and a Trained character is in fact not that big, especially if it's a wisdom or dexterity-based skill (as everyone increases these attributes every 5 levels).
And let's not forget about the "you can only do X if you're of Y proficiency" gating which helps make people who invested in skills be better while not prohibiting people with lower investment in succeeding at easy and moderate tasks.I completely agree. In fact, I feel it's the main way the system really differentiate someone specialized in a skill and someone who's not: The latter doesn't have the right to roll the die despite having very similar "numbers".
Does that sound a bit forced, making a low-Int rogue compete with a high-Int wizard? Yeah it does a bit.I completely agree with all your message. But it means that you have to wait for the Expert/Master proficiency to come up to be able to express the differences between 2 characters's skill set. Also, if you had taken Stealth instead of Arcana, as the wizard certainly have a 14 in Dexterity and will increase it at level 5, the difference would have been far lower.
It sounds like your primary argument is that Alchemists just get too many skills, so you find yourself investing early in things you don't consider important to your character. My suggestion would be use those trained skills in relevant Lore skills instead skills your not excited about, or realizing that by level 5 someone focusing on being good at stealth is going to make your alchemist look merely not awful at hiding when hiding should be easy.
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Your alchemist sounds like a jack of all trades. You’ll have the chance of doing anything but you’ll struggle to reach the high lvl DCs without the luck of the die. When you need a 12 on the die to succeed but the legendary skilled character can succeed on a 6 and crit on a 16 you’ll be wondering if maybe you should have specialised more.
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It sounds like your primary argument is that Alchemists just get too many skills, so you find yourself investing early in things you don't consider important to your character. My suggestion would be use those trained skills in relevant Lore skills instead skills your not excited about, or realizing that by level 5 someone focusing on being good at stealth is going to make your alchemist look merely not awful at hiding when hiding should be easy.
Lore skills are so bad...
I would agree with you if I had any chance to roll them more than twice before reaching level 12.Your alchemist sounds like a jack of all trades. You’ll have the chance of doing anything but you’ll struggle to reach the high lvl DCs without the luck of the die. When you need a 12 on the die to succeed but the legendary skilled character can succeed on a 6 and crit on a 16 you’ll be wondering if maybe you should have specialised more.
It's actually the opposite that I've lived: Struggling to make an Occult check 4 times in a row, while the Fighter got it at first check. He got lucky and I got quite unlucky, but, considering that I had just 6 more in Occult than him, it was not so much of luck/unluck. And it's clearly something I've never seen in PF1 or SF.
And I agree for the crits. But when the check is: Do you know Bob? Do you find the document in the room? Do you open this lock? Then there are no crits (or useless ones). Most checks have only one success and one failure condition.| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
There are 17 skills, 15 of which are relevant (I expect most lore skills can be substituted with other skills and craft to come up rarely). Each person can specialise in 3-4 skills (assuming no rogue). That’s at best 16 skills covered, which is good. But it also means every person CAN have their own area where they’re specialising. That’s a +4 to +6 bonus over someone whose only trained (assuming same ability scores).
That seems far, far better than PF1 where no one bothered taking knowledges or linguistics if a wizard was in the party (we almost never played without one). Craft and profession were dead skills. Ride was too unless you were a cavalier or paladin. Handle animal was subpar compared to killing it (unless you had an animal companion). Escape was worth putting a rank in at best for if a caster cast liberating command (but only if it was a class skill). Climb and swim became irrelevant mid game onwards but now you’ve put half your ranks into skills you no longer use. Spellcraft was a skill tax all casters had to take. Which left face skills, survival, perception, sense motive as relevant skills unless you were going for a very specific type of character (stealth, sleight of hand, acrobatics, disguise and UMD being those skills). SOMEONE was forced to take disable device as well (plus spend a class feature on trapfinding).
Given the two scenarios I much prefer PF2’s setup.
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When everyone is sneaky, no one is really sneaky.
Why is everyone sneaky? How much group stealthing are you really doing before level 3? Because once 1 person is expert everyone gets to follow the leader.
My alchemist is trained in stealth not because he is sneaky, but because he is trained in all skills but the one where I want him to be bad. So, he is trained in stealth because he is not especially bad at it.
That doesn’t make much sense. You don’t want your character bad at stealth, so he isn’t. Why is that bad?
The feeling I get is more a low level feeling. After, you can get higher proficiencies, even if the difference between a Master and a Trained character is in fact not that big, especially if it's a wisdom or dexterity-based skill (as everyone increases these attributes every 5 levels).
It is true that the days of a wizard beating you on knowledge checks you have poured 1/3 to 1/4 of your resources into by +9 at level 12 without really trying are over. That’s a good thing.
I completely agree with all your message. But it means that you have to wait for the Expert/Master proficiency to come up to be able to express the differences between 2 characters's skill set. Also, if you had taken Stealth instead of Arcana, as the wizard certainly have a 14 in Dexterity and will increase it at level 5, the difference would have been far lower.
Yup. Characters are mostly far more competent then they were in PF1, but I say mostly because some classes were already this competent in PF1. The wizard being the obvious one. At level 1 a human wizard in PF1 had 5 (int) + 2 (class) + 1 (human) skills while a fighter got 3 (2 from class, 1 from human).
It’s good that more characters have been brought up to the level of competence enjoyed by wizards.
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It's actually the opposite that I've lived: Struggling to make an Occult check 4 times in a row, while the Fighter got it at first check. He got lucky and I got quite unlucky, but, considering that I had just 6 more in Occult than him, it was not so much of luck/unluck. And it's clearly something I've never seen in PF1 or SF.
If the difference between your skill bonuses was 6, then luck is exactly what it was.
What's perhaps different is that Recall Knowledge isn't Trained Only anymore. In Pathfinder 1, identifying a CR 1 ooze is DC 11, so everyone is likely to succeed, except that it's a trained only check so only the wizard with a +8 Knowledge (Dungeoneering) can do it.
And I agree for the crits. But when the check is: Do you know Bob? Do you find the document in the room? Do you open this lock? Then there are no crits (or useless ones). Most checks have only one success and one failure condition.
"Yeah I know Bob, that #$%$%#$% did #$%#$%# to me.. oh, you meant a different Bob, awkward..."
"You found the document, and (critical success) you notice a weird smell about it, kinda like the tobacco that the shady guard was chewing".
"You fail to open the lock and (critical) you damage your tools, can't use them anymore until you spend time repairing them / you open it and (critical) don't leave any trace of tampering" - that one is actually in the Open Lock description of the Thievery skill.
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So yeah, as a GM you're going to have to learn to actually give crit effects to checks a bit more. But I don't think this is as much of a change as it seems. It was already quite common for PF1 GMs to treat a really high roll as better than a high-enough roll. Lots of scenarios have "for every 5 by which you beat the DC"/"if you fail by more than 5" things that are basically the PF1 equivalent of crits.
The CRB gives a lot of crit effects for skills already. Critical failures on knowledge can also be quite bad ("You told me that using fire on the ooze would split it so the alchemist sat the fight out, and you said that it was immune to bludgeoning damage so we brought swords. Turns out slashing damage splits the ooze.")
If you're bad at a skill with a crit fail effect, you're more inclined to let the expect handle it instead. And that puts a stop to the "everyone is rolling" problem that you're having.
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Once you get to higher levels the difference between untrained and trained gets bigger and bigger. And at that point a mid-level character who has high dex and is trained in stealth can’t really be called not sneaky even if they aren’t as trained as the rogue.
Yep. I prefer to look at level 1 PF2 adventurers as barely competent people with no barely any skill or training.
Your trained proficiency means you've worked at a skill a bit. If you consider "in a vacuum" that trained only gives a +2 (which is 10% of what you can roll max) and that the bonus/penalties from ability score and other sources can be far more than +2 it means that training means little in comparison to other factors, at that level of training.
By the time you reach legendary it's a +8. It's more than you could ever possibly get from an ability score. It now represents 40% of the range you can roll. At this point it's incredibly meaningful.
So yes, your observation is correct at low levels. Skills, and the whole game really, are all about RNG at low levels.
TLDR: You're a schmuck at low levels, regardless of training.
Training is +3 at level 1. But yes, your point stands.
Training is +3 at level 1. But yes, your point stands.
I guess that's technically true, I was excluding the bonus from level but in terms of calculating the actually total bonus provided you are correct.
It is important when comparing a trained level 1 character vs an untrained level 1 character.
A level 1 fighter with training in stealth and a 12 dex is as good at stealth as the level 1 ranger archer with 18 dex and no stealth training.
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So yeah, as a GM you're going to have to learn to actually give crit effects to checks a bit more. But I don't think this is as much of a change as it seems. It was already quite common for PF1 GMs to treat a really high roll as better than a high-enough roll. Lots of scenarios have "for every 5 by which you beat the DC"/"if you fail by more than 5" things that are basically the PF1 equivalent of crits.
I think it's the most important thing: It's GM dependent. Some GMs don't care much about crits or don't have the imagination/time to come up with good ones. Other GMs will play a lot on it, maybe even to deadly points. The latter will make you love every single +1s.
As I play PFS mostly, it also means that the writers have to include them in the modules. As a PFS module is supposed to be played as is, lacking crit effects on most rolls is very annoying. Currently, I haven't faced any single "real" crit (besides crit successes on attack rolls and spells, but this is obvious).TLDR: You're a schmuck at low levels, regardless of training.
Yep. I find it a bit sad. I miss Skill Focus and other racial bonuses allowing you to be a bit above a schmuck at low levels.
Anyway, it looks like I'm the only one complaining about this feeling. Maybe I'll have to get used to it. I hope it'll disappear in the future modules I'll play.
It is a change that no matter what you do, you can't get far beyond schmuck status at level 1.
But I think that is honestly the intended direction.
If you play a character from 1st to 15 you will really feel the difference in power.
Early levels of PF2 feel awful in my opinion. I don't enjoy them. It's basically just adventure by RNG. At high levels though, you feel powerful and like your choices matter and you can do amazing things in your specialties. But the low level experiences make it unpleasant to get there.
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So yeah, as a GM you're going to have to learn to actually give crit effects to checks a bit more. But I don't think this is as much of a change as it seems. It was already quite common for PF1 GMs to treat a really high roll as better than a high-enough roll. Lots of scenarios have "for every 5 by which you beat the DC"/"if you fail by more than 5" things that are basically the PF1 equivalent of crits.I think it's the most important thing: It's GM dependent. Some GMs don't care much about crits or don't have the imagination/time to come up with good ones. Other GMs will play a lot on it, maybe even to deadly points. The latter will make you love every single +1s.
As I play PFS mostly, it also means that the writers have to include them in the modules. As a PFS module is supposed to be played as is, lacking crit effects on most rolls is very annoying. Currently, I haven't faced any single "real" crit (besides crit successes on attack rolls and spells, but this is obvious).
Well that's a bit of an always-true criticism. "The game is only balanced as intended by the developers if the GM actually applies the rules."
I think you'll be fine if you use crits as described. If a skill use is described with a crit effect, then use it; if it doesn't, then leave it. So if Recall Knowledge has a crit effect, use it. Don't complain that skill rating doesn't matter if the GM ignores the rule that makes it matter.
As for PFS... yeah having run Origin of the Open Road, crits do matter. During an investigation, some crit successes give you clues that give you a useful warning about the follow-up. My playeers didn't get that hint and it got them into trouble.
TLDR: You're a schmuck at low levels, regardless of training.Yep. I find it a bit sad. I miss Skill Focus and other racial bonuses allowing you to be a bit above a schmuck at low levels.
Anyway, it looks like I'm the only one complaining about this feeling. Maybe I'll have to get used to it. I hope it'll disappear in the future modules I'll play.
I didn't say that, that was Claxon.
And I don't agree with it, while playing Escaping The Grave I brought an Int 14 fighter who turned out to be pretty competent with a range of skills. I felt considerably more versatile than most PF1 characters are at low level.
I don't think you're a schmuck if you have reasonable odds of succeeding against typical DCs you run up against.
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The problem is not the PF1 or 2 or D&D whatsoever.... the problem is d20 itself, yes our beloved 20-sided dice is the problem because it varies too much in a wide of numbers so the bonus counts less and less...
Less the dice-number, more wight the bonus will have, if you have to roll a d100 for a check, well... thats total luck and d20 is a long shot of a roll.
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It is a change that no matter what you do, you can't get far beyond schmuck status at level 1.
But I think that is honestly the intended direction.
If you play a character from 1st to 15 you will really feel the difference in power.
Early levels of PF2 feel awful in my opinion. I don't enjoy them. It's basically just adventure by RNG. At high levels though, you feel powerful and like your choices matter and you can do amazing things in your specialties. But the low level experiences make it unpleasant to get there.
I've had the complete opposite experience. I feel FAR more powerful in early levels in PF2 than I ever did in PF1, both in-combat and out.
I'm pretty sure the intention of the design was to make adventurers MORE capable starting out than they were in PF1. Hence the removal of a lot of 'now you're just baseline good at this' feats - Precise Shot, for example.
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Sounds like a luxury issue of "I have too many skills trained." to be honest. This is really a non-issue since lategame you should be specialized in things your party members aren't.
I didn't say that, that was Claxon.
Sorry, I corrected (it's annoying not to be able to quote multiple messages at once...).
I felt considerably more versatile than most PF1 characters are at low level.
And that's kind of my point. More versatility, less specialization and skill checks are all about the die :)
If I take the example of Starfinder (that I find at a good spot when it comes to skills):
My Envoy started with +1d6+8 in Diplomacy. My Mechanic started with +10 in Engineering and +9 in Computers. My Mystic started with +14 in Mysticism (the highest you can get at first level).
Level 1 average checks are at DC 16, so all my characters still had to roll the die, even my over-specialized Mystic. But they were far above the other characters, so I was feeling my competence.
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Your alchemist won't be Expert or Master at anything? Not even Craft?The feeling I get is more a low level feeling. After, you can get higher proficiencies, even if the difference between a Master and a Trained character is in fact not that big, especially if it's a wisdom or dexterity-based skill (as everyone increases these attributes every 5 levels).
Probably shouldn't have used level 10 to make your point then.
At level 10, my alchemist will be trained in all skills but 3. So, she'll be trained in stealth not because she's stealthy but because she's trained in nearly everything.
At that point, you're more likely to be Expert at several skills or Master at 1 or 2, which would definitely show up as improved competence. And if you're not it's because you've made a deliberate choice to go for breadth, not depth so really isn't a flaw in the system. At low levels, the die has more impact, as it always did.
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"You found the document, and (critical success) you notice a weird smell about it, kinda like the tobacco that the shady guard was chewing".
That's rather clever. I think applying an additional sense hit is a great way to handle Critical Success on Perception. I'm probably going to just do that standard now, so appreciate that little tidbit (also nice example!)
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Hi everyone,
I made recently my first PFS2 games. It was quite a mess because of the new rules, but one thing hit me hard when it comes to skill: only the die matters.
Because characters are trained in so many skills, and because it's impossible to improve a skill besides proficiency and attribute at low level, everyone was rolling everything without any sense of specialization.
When the sneaky goblin bard has +6 in stealth and my not sneaky at all Alchemist has +3, it's hard to justify the fact that he is stealthy. One third of the time, I roll higher than him. ...
SuperBidi has a good eye for estimating probabilities. I calculated the odds. A difference between +3 and +6 bonus means that the +3 rolls higher 34% of the time, ties 4% of the time, and rolls lower 62% of the time.
SuperBidi did not break down how much of the +3 and +6 came from ability scores and how much came from proficiency, so I am having a little trouble parsing the numbers. It could be a Dex 16 bard trained in Stealth gaining a +6 bonus versus either a Dex 16 alchemist untrained in Stealth or a Dex 10 alchemist trained in Stealth for a +3.
EDIT: I now noticed that SuperBidi said, "My alchemist is trained in stealth not because he is sneaky, but because he is trained in all skills but the one where I want him to be bad. So, he is trained in stealth because he is not especially bad at it." An alchemist uses Dexterity for throwing bombs and Intelligence for making them, so I would expect a PF1 alchemist to be put some of his many skill points into the Dex-based Stealth skill. The alchemist is a bad example.
In PF1, the difference between Dex 16 and Dex 10 is the same value 3, so I guess that that isn't the complaint. In PF1 the difference between 1st-level trained in a class skill and untrained is 4 rather than 3, but that is not much to complain about. Maybe he was comparing 3rd level, where the difference is from skill ranks and class skills in PF1 can be 6, but at the same level in PF2 the difference between Untrained and Expert is 7.
During the playtest, playtesters complained how the proficiencies did not have enough difference. In the playtest the proficiency modifiers were Untrained = level-2, Trained = level, Expert = level+1, Master = level+2, and Legendary = level+3. One complaint from half the playtesters confused the other half: they wanted Untrained to be really bad at higher levels. The Paizo developers listened to the complaints, so Pathfinder 2nd Edition has Untrained = 0 always, Trained = level+2, Expert = level+4, Master = level+6, and Legendary = level+8.
I wonder whether SuperBidi misses the class skills. Those are gone in PF2 so a wizard can be as trained in Athletics as a ranger. The playtest had introduced Signature Skills to mimic class skills, but those had no effect until 7th level, so the playtesters did not like them. Signature Skills were dropped in the very first playtest rules update. The closest replacement was giving the classes automatic training in the iconic skills for the classes.
Finally, back to mathematics. PF2 has critical successes for skills. That ought to emphasize the difference between +3 and +6. The +3 rolls 10 higher than the +6 only 5% of the time, and rolls 10 lower 20% of the time. The Sneak action for Stealth lacks a critical success result, so the difference between normal success and critical success is not demonstrated there.
A level 1 fighter with training in stealth and a 12 dex is as good at stealth as the level 1 ranger archer with 18 dex and no stealth training.
And that Dex 18 ranger whose trained in stealth? He’s got +8 which is the equivalent of a level 4 Dex 14 stealth character.
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I felt considerably more versatile than most PF1 characters are at low level.
In PF1 wizards were allowed to be versatile at low levels. I’m glad fighter’s have finally been allowed to the table.
I didn't say that, that was Claxon.Sorry, I corrected (it's annoying not to be able to quote multiple messages at once...).
I felt considerably more versatile than most PF1 characters are at low level.And that's kind of my point. More versatility, less specialization and skill checks are all about the die :)
If I take the example of Starfinder (that I find at a good spot when it comes to skills):
My Envoy started with +1d6+8 in Diplomacy. My Mechanic started with +10 in Engineering and +9 in Computers. My Mystic started with +14 in Mysticism (the highest you can get at first level).
Level 1 average checks are at DC 16, so all my characters still had to roll the die, even my over-specialized Mystic. But they were far above the other characters, so I was feeling my competence.
I guess if that’s fun to you then I understand why PF2 would be bad. I prefer not Starfinder myself.
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In PF1, the difference between Dex 16 and Dex 10 is the same value 3, so I guess that that isn't the complaint. In PF1 the difference between 1st-level trained in a class skill and untrained is 4 rather than 3, but that is not much to complain about. Maybe he was comparing 3rd level, where the difference is from skill ranks and class skills in PF1 can be 6, but at the same level in PF2 the...
He clarified in an additional post that he misses the other ways of boosting a skill besides attribute and skill ranks, such as Skill Focus, Racial skill bonus, size bonus, and so forth. Those three alone would have added +11 to the goblin rouge's stealth check, parking his total bonus somewhere around +18 to the Alchemist's +1 (assuming 16 dex on the rogue and 10 on the alchemist) so I can definetely see his point if that was something you enjoyed.
I think I prefer PF2's way of things. A +18 at level 1 seems less than ideal to my tastes.
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In PF1, the difference between Dex 16 and Dex 10 is the same value 3, so I guess that that isn't the complaint. In PF1 the difference between 1st-level trained in a class skill and untrained is 4 rather than 3, but that is not much to complain about. Maybe he was comparing 3rd level, where the difference is from skill ranks and class skills in PF1 can be 6, but at the same level in PF2 the...He clarified in an additional post that he misses the other ways of boosting a skill besides attribute and skill ranks, such as Skill Focus, Racial skill bonus, size bonus, and so forth. Those three alone would have added +11 to the goblin rouge's stealth check, parking his total bonus somewhere around +18 to the Alchemist's +1 (assuming 16 dex on the rogue and 10 on the alchemist) so I can definetely see his point if that was something you enjoyed.
I think I prefer PF2's way of things. A +18 at level 1 seems less than ideal to my tastes.
I see that my reading comprehension is poor this morning.
I miss the size modifier myself, though I understand dropping different weapon sizes--that was a lot of detail for little reward. A +1 size modifier for Small size to AC and to Stealth for Sneaking and to Athletics for Climbing and a -1 size modifier for damage in weapon and unarmed attacks would be flavorful. Right now, Small and Medium feel too similar.
Dropping numerical feats such as Skill Focus was a deliberate design choice in PF2. One of the biggest problems of PF1 was the ability to stack those feats, to get, as AnimatedPaper said, +18 at level 1. By dropping those feats, the developers hoped to reduce min-maxed character design and encourage flavorful character design that favors roleplaying.
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In PF1, the difference between Dex 16 and Dex 10 is the same value 3, so I guess that that isn't the complaint. In PF1 the difference between 1st-level trained in a class skill and untrained is 4 rather than 3, but that is not much to complain about. Maybe he was comparing 3rd level, where the difference is from skill ranks and class skills in PF1 can be 6, but at the same level in PF2 the...He clarified in an additional post that he misses the other ways of boosting a skill besides attribute and skill ranks, such as Skill Focus, Racial skill bonus, size bonus, and so forth. Those three alone would have added +11 to the goblin rouge's stealth check, parking his total bonus somewhere around +18 to the Alchemist's +1 (assuming 16 dex on the rogue and 10 on the alchemist) so I can definetely see his point if that was something you enjoyed.
I think I prefer PF2's way of things. A +18 at level 1 seems less than ideal to my tastes.
It is far better in PF2 than in PF1 if you ever wanted to consider using your skills in a contested fashion in encounters. The simplicity of moving wrestling into athletics is a wonderful addition to PF2 that would be impossible if first level characters could get +11 to +14 bonuses on their checks.
It also makes moderate dedication an actual possibility for characters because you don't need ludicrous DCs to establish the difference between expertise and moderate proficiency. Instead of numbers, it will quickly become apparent (probably by level 4 at the latest) how much better a character is who has 1 or 2 skill feats in a skill than one who does not, even if their training is close to the same. Once characters start getting expert skill feats, the gap really starts to grow, and even with 10+ trained skills, you will not feel "as good" at most of the things you can do as the Expert in the group. You might still have a chance to succeed, but you will also quickly fall onto the wrong side of the +/-10 scale and be critically failing more than twice as often as the Expert, and requiring natural 20s to critically succeed.
I do think one of the harder shifts for GMs of PF2 is changing your thinking about skill challenges to accommodate for 4 tiers of success and NOT letting every non-combat situation be resolved by a single pass/fail die roll, but that is very much to the future benefit of roleplaying games in general for the pass/fail single die roll resolution to become extinct. Imagine if combats were resolved by a single die roll for success or failure, players would hate combats and complain about how boring/deadly they were based upon the difficulty class.
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John Lynch 106. A bit off topic. But it's pretty neat to me that PF2 changed so much from the original playtest... you were constantly critical back then to the point that (I think it was) Erik Mona posted that maybe you should think about trying a different game.
And now that the full game is out, your viewpoints have become some of the most valuable on these boards. You've got a lot of good assessments.
A year ago, I groaned when I saw your name pop up in a post. And now when I see it, I go, "Oh, well let's see what JL 106 has to say. He seems to have a good understanding of things."
Haha.
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I felt considerably more versatile than most PF1 characters are at low level.And that's kind of my point. More versatility, less specialization and skill checks are all about the die :)
If I take the example of Starfinder (that I find at a good spot when it comes to skills):
My Envoy started with +1d6+8 in Diplomacy. My Mechanic started with +10 in Engineering and +9 in Computers. My Mystic started with +14 in Mysticism (the highest you can get at first level).
Level 1 average checks are at DC 16, so all my characters still had to roll the die, even my over-specialized Mystic. But they were far above the other characters, so I was feeling my competence.
Well, I think there you really are bumping up against some of the design goals of PF2 that I think are showing through:
* Very few checks where the outcome is basically assured. So letting you have a +14 at level 1 when a typical DC is 16 would be against the design goal.
* Keeping characters who "are at least trying" and "trying really hard" in the same ballpark. The maximum skill bonus for a character at level 1 is +7, while the floor is -1. But the distance between someone with a 10 ability and trained is the distance between +3 and +7; a noticeable difference if you do a couple of checks, but not so much that you just have to give up altogether.
PF1 had trouble with setting up challenges that challenged both the specialist and the dabbler. Something that was achievable for the dabbler was trivial for the specialist, and something challenging for the specialist was entirely out of reach for the dabbler. PF2 brings them closer together, but you still notice the specialist being successful more often and critically succeeding more often.
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You get your first skill feat at 2nd level. A rogue or human can get it at first. A human rogue can in fact have up to 3 skill feats at level 1. And there are lots of ancestry feats which relate to skills, like Very Sneaky or Distracting Shadows for stealth.
It is the feats that really set your character apart from their teammates who also trained in the skill. It doesn't really matter what their respective bonuses are if Quiet Allies or Terrain Stalker is on play, because those feats eliminate the need for a bunch of rolls.
I've got a group with a bard, sorcerer, and ranger, and the latter is the party face despite only having 14 Charisma at level 8. Skill feats like Glad-Hand means he gets to roll in situations where the charisma based classes just can't.
There are 17 skills, 15 of which are relevant (I expect most lore skills can be substituted with other skills and craft to come up rarely). Each person can specialise in 3-4 skills (assuming no rogue). That’s at best 16 skills covered, which is good. But it also means every person CAN have their own area where they’re specialising. That’s a +4 to +6 bonus over someone whose only trained (assuming same ability scores).
That seems far, far better than PF1 where no one bothered taking knowledges or linguistics if a wizard was in the party (we almost never played without one). Craft and profession were dead skills. Ride was too unless you were a cavalier or paladin. Handle animal was subpar compared to killing it (unless you had an animal companion). Escape was worth putting a rank in at best for if a caster cast liberating command (but only if it was a class skill). Climb and swim became irrelevant mid game onwards but now you’ve put half your ranks into skills you no longer use. Spellcraft was a skill tax all casters had to take. Which left face skills, survival, perception, sense motive as relevant skills unless you were going for a very specific type of character (stealth, sleight of hand, acrobatics, disguise and UMD being those skills). SOMEONE was forced to take disable device as well (plus spend a class feature on trapfinding).
Given the two scenarios I much prefer PF2’s setup.
Craft actually has more relevance than you'd think because it has absorbed several other rarely used skills like Knowledge Engineering or Appraise. None of which would be investing in on their own, but I think together they can be worth the price.
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I think that SuperBiDi indicated what he missed was the Skill Focus and racial bonuses.
Really, in second edition, you could argue that all skills are sort of automatically 'class' skills. you get a boost + level with just training, and all you can start out with is trained or untrained.
I say that, because that is sort of how it appears. It isn't completely accurate. For instance, there are options of what Skill Feat you have, those can give you a bonus/focus with a specific skill above and beyond simply trained. There could also be item bonuses that could come into play with having tools.
Granted, compared to having racial bonuses, trait bonuses, skill focus bonuses, second edition does seem to have a feeling at first level of just having a single big switch of either on (trained) or off (untrained).
I, for role-playing reasons, always had some skills that were not maximized as my characters advanced to reflect interest.
In first edition you had a matrix of untrained vs trained, and class vs. non-class. which amounted to a spread of untrained,class/non-class; trained, non-class; trained, class. And traits or feats helped to make something potentially not normally a class skill for a class get treated as a class skill. Some of those same feats also might give other bonuses to specific skills, as might racial choices.
Now you have untrained/trained/trained with skill feat as pretty much your selection. (aside from attribute, which we also had in P1)
I will confess, I'd prefer to see more than the binary seeming (but also technically including an option for a skill feat) choice of trained/untrained. But I certainly generally prefer things not being as widely spanned as they used to be. (especially at higher levels)
Note: there is an option to make someone not-bad at skills in general, allowing them to add their level to a skill even if untrained. That might be an option for some characters who don't want to be bad at skills. Another options could be to homebrew a new level underneath trained, called familiar. It would simply give +level not 2+level. It might be cool if at character creation during class level, they could trade 1 trained choice for 2 Familiar choices once (or perhaps twice for a rogue).
Alternately, having something like the original P1 traits come back, and allow a small circumstantial or status bonus on a particular skill might give an option for flavoring someone lightly specialized in a particular skill.
As AnimatedPaper says, I think SuperBiDi may have been implying having a bonus that almost insures a person always rolls higher than another less invested character. But I wouldn't want to see a return of giant ranges/gaps. So while I'd like to see an easy way to be poptentially midway between trained and untrained, and/or a way to provide for a form of some skill specialization at 1st, other than the very specialized skill feat (defined only by background choice). However, I wouldn't want it to spread the expected range by that much, as I wouldn't want it to break adventure design based on current math.
One way, I as a GM might handle rolls where everyone rolls and the 'least' skilled individual is the one who makes the check, would be rather than having that character provide all the information, have it be that that character picks up a clue, mentioning something, which triggers one of the higher skilled characters providing the meat of the revelation. Basically, providing the ability for the one character getting credit for enabling the success, but also acknowledging the more specialized character's investment and allowing them to play a roll in the party success. This might help keep the invested characters from getting as frustrated by less invested characters making a roll they missed.
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@SuperBiDi,
I know you said you are primarily playing at PFS tables, so you are stuck with the rules as written, but I think a way to get more difference at level 1 for the home table, if you feel that is lacking, is probably to go with giving each character 1 extra skill feat at level 1, rather than focusing on trying to change the bonuses.
Also, I see this argument as the strongest defense of secret rolls for skill checks. For stealth, it doesn't really matter what the high roll is so much as the low roll and having the higher bonus raises the whole party's floor significantly.
For secret knowledge checks, you won't know what information is accurate and what information is not so you are probably more likely to believe the expert than the novice anyway.
So many answers. I agree with most of you :)
* Very few checks where the outcome is basically assured. So letting you have a +14 at level 1 when a typical DC is 16 would be against the design goal.
To get that score I had maximized attribute, Skill Focus (so a feat, not something you have a lot in SF), racial bonus (once again rare) and theme bonus (only a single +1). And that doesn't give me an automatic success on a normal check.
* Keeping characters who "are at least trying" and "trying really hard" in the same ballpark. The maximum skill bonus for a character at level 1 is +7, while the floor is -1. But the distance between someone with a 10 ability and trained is the distance between +3 and +7; a noticeable difference if you do a couple of checks, but not so much that you just have to give up altogether.
A difference of 4 at level 1 and of 9 at level 20 (I consider 18 and 24 in the attribute, as it's so easy to get more than half of your attributes at 18 at level 20). When you think about it, the wizard with the highest possible intelligence and legendary competence in a skill can be challenged by the party rogue with average intelligence + trained competence.
I'm not defending PF1 system. I hated so much my +0 in Perception on my level 14 fighter. But having him challenging the ranger or the druid of the party without much investment is... sad for the ranger who invested heavily in the skill.I know you said you are primarily playing at PFS tables, so you are stuck with the rules as written, but I think a way to get more difference at level 1 for the home table, if you feel that is lacking, is probably to go with giving each character 1 extra skill feat at level 1, rather than focusing on trying to change the bonuses.
You have the answer to your question ;)
I'll check the skill feats, because right now, I haven't found them baffling.| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
the wizard with the highest possible intelligence and legendary competence in a skill can be challenged by the party rogue with average intelligence + trained competence.
How does that figure? A difference of +6 on Legendary vs. Trained and 10 INT vs. 20(since the Wizard has Legendary) for another +5
So the Wizard in that scenario has a +11 total over the Rogue, how is that "challenged"?
If your point was a Wizard with 20 INT can't "out knowledge the Rogue" simply because the Rogue has Trained, that's pretty accurate to life. The Wizard in that case is the person who didn't study for the test, while the Rogue is someone that studied but maybe isn't as fast a learner.
I think your major gripes are hinged on the old concepts of what bonus values amounted to.
+11 in this edition is the equivalent of a whole success tier and 55% better results, so that's a huge difference. Heck, that's a huge difference even in PF1, but it's a monstrous difference in this edition.
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A difference [...] of 9 at level 20
That's literally a whole success tier of difference. As in, the "just trained" individual fails and the "highly skilled" individual succeeds. Or its a success and a critical success.
"If one of them can succeed half the time, the other one can critically succeed half the time."