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So multiclass archetypes in the CRB give you an extra trained skill and a clause saying that if you're already trained in that skill you can pick another skill to gain training in instead.
Some of the new non-multiclass archetypes in Lost Omens book (and presumably future non-multiclass archetypes) change that formula up a bit by allowing you to instead advance the selected skill to expert if you're already trained in it.
As a player I love these options, because it's really hard to get Expert or better in skills in PF2. Skill Increases are limited, Intelligence can only ever get you more trained skills, they're just a very limited resource in general and having extra ways to improve that is awesome.
However this kind of indirectly creates a new problem in that it makes the order in which you gain abilities much more important, because you can't access Expert skills normally otherwise, a character who gets Trained in a skill early is able to advance more skills than someone who delays that training, even if the end results are otherwise identical.
These fighters have identical feats and identical stats and both took Armiger Dedication at level 2.
Except the first goblin put 12 points in Int at level 1 and decided to become Trained in Intimidation and at level 5 used their ability boost to bump themselves from 12 to 14 Charisma. The second goblin started instead with 14 charisma and 10 int and used their ability boosts at 5 to give themselves 12 int.
What happens because of this is Goblin A is an Expert in intimidation, while Goblin B is only trained in intimidation but is also trained in something else as well
I think this puts undue emphasis on the order in which you acquire your abilities, which presents potential book keeping problems because it becomes much more important to remember not only what you took, but where you took it.
I think it also poses a problem to newer players who might not spend as much time planning their build in advance and not realize until after it happened that some choice they made at level 1 may have permanently reduced the number of Expert skills they could obtain.
Don't really have a conclusion to this, just something that feels kind of weird and potentially not great to me, even if as a player I like the ability to snag more skill upgrades.
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Well in regards to the skills, I’ll sorts take what I can get. I’m not crazy about the skill proficiency curve at the moment and there’s no real way to advance skills without a skill increase (Rogue MCD and Human Ancestry are about it).
In that sense, I hope the option gets explored more rather than less, then the order of events can matter a bit less because there’s so many roads to Rome it doesn’t really matter. You’ll be able to acquire proficiency reasonably.
Now they seem to be on this “continued investment” thing with Archetypes, where one leads to another leads to another, which ultimately I think could be cool but it does kind of seem excessively incentivized by having less than even benefits on certain Archetypes (essentially to get bang for your buck, you’d have to go into the next archetype to get the real value).
If it were easier to progress skill proficiency (or at least accessible outside of Archetypes and skill increases) then it would probably be fine. A General Feat IMO that does that isn’t out of the question to me.
It's not too bad from trained to expert, since most chars can get basically every skill they could want trained at level 1 anyways. It's pretty unlikely you'll ever pick up new "trained" skills after level 2.
If there was a feat that allow you to go from expert to master, THEN it would be really critical to know what increase was when.
It's not too bad from trained to expert, since most chars can get basically every skill they could want trained at level 1 anyways. It's pretty unlikely you'll ever pick up new "trained" skills after level 2.
If there was a feat that allow you to go from expert to master, THEN it would be really critical to know what increase was when.
Well that’s sort of their point, technically there is, the level 7 skill increase.
Now, of course you could select your increases so that at 7 you can increase what you like to master, but by extension you effectively have another option because of the archetype.
I do hope we get more options to increase skills outside of Trained, even if it’s only at mid to high level, preferably in something accessible via a Skill Feat or General Feat.
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I think this puts undue emphasis on the order in which you acquire your abilities, which presents potential book keeping problems because it becomes much more important to remember not only what you took, but where you took it.
I don't understand this point. When levelling your character and deciding what Skill to improve the Proficiency of, why does it matter "where you took it"? You are either Untrained, Trained or Expert when making the choice- I don't see the additional bookkeeping factors you are concerned with.
If the Goblins in your example both wanted to be Expert in Intimidation, why wouldn't they just Train it at Level 1 with their default free choices? This seems like a "I didn't pay attention when building my character" issue, and the only real solution to that is to make every option identical, which I am not a fan of.
I don't think "new players"/who don't plan out their build are in bad situation, just because of normalized retraining.
Although I honestly wonder if even retraining is necessary, if you mark down a Skill Proficiency from Levelling, the official character sheets don't assume you are recording WHEN each is gained, so maybe the Archetype would just give Expert? I mean, that's clearly achievable by retraining swap, but since there isn't necessarily any direct difference from the retraining itself (e.g. if you end up with same Trained skills, just nominally changing the level order they were taken), why should retraining be necessary?
I mean, really it's not much different than if you qualified to gain both Skill Proficiency and Feat at the same given level, like a Rogue. Or anybody gaining Class Feat and Skill Feat at same level, and choosing Additional Lore (which grants Trained Proficiency). So by the OP's assumptions, not just the level you gained them at matters to determine Feat effect, but the order you designated /a single level's benefits/ would change the effect of the Feat? That seems dubious and ridiculous. I don't see how adding Proficiency in at later level is fundamentally different, I just don't think build timing should impact Feat function here.
I can see that being very FAQ-worthy, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just said you gain Expert benefit of Feat even if you raise Proficiency of skill after you took the Feat. It just doesn't seem worthwhile to force invoking retraining rules just for some interaction like that.
I guess if that function is desired, it might be clearer to Errata such text (at minimum) to read "if you ARE trained" instead of "were already"?
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This looks like a place where you'd use the retraining rules. The only problem there would be needing to do the retraining before leveling up in order to avoid the caveat on retraining regarding retraining skills to a higher proficiency level.
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This rewards people who invest in the Skills associated with an Archetype before taking said Archetype.
That seems entirely reasonable to me. Prior planning like that or sticking to an existing concept (ie: taking an Archetype that synchronizes with what you're already good at) seems like behavior worth rewarding in a minor way.
You can also fix this with Retraining as long as you do it before you get more Feats in the Archetype (retrain Archetype, retrain one Skill, retrain Archetype again).