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So ran into this problem earlier. I have a bard who is a miner. So, of course, I took the miner background. But lo and behold, turns out that is the wrong call if I want to be good as good at mining as I can be. Turns out I should take some other background and pick up the ‘additional lore’ skill feat at level 2, choose mining, and then it automatically upgrades at 3, 7, and so on.
Is it too much to ask for a skill feat that upgrades an existing lore skill at the same rate additional lore upgrades? As much as I want more skill to upgrade with class upgrades, Bard essentially assumes you sink those into perform.,
I'd let you take Additional Lore for a Lore you were already Trained in.
This seems perfectly legit, especially since you're getting less out of it!
If you brought chocolate, I might even let you swap out the Background Miner for another skill going along with that being a recurring theme in PF2. Whether I'd limit it to another Lore skill would be a question of balance I'd have to consider, but it's silly to have your dedicated miner have to wait a level to actually start mining so as to better dedicate themselves.
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I'd let you take Additional Lore for a Lore you were already Trained in.
This seems perfectly legit, especially since you're getting less out of it!
If you brought chocolate, I might even let you swap out the Background Miner for another skill going along with that being a recurring theme in PF2. Whether I'd limit it to another Lore skill would be a question of balance I'd have to consider, but it's silly to have your dedicated miner have to wait a level to actually start mining so as to better dedicate themselves.
Problem is this is a society character. . . So gotta follow the rules.
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Man, it'd be pretty cool if background lores auto-advanced like additional lores from the feat do. A lot of times, especially with more generic backgrounds, those lores are more flavorful than highly relevant anyways and Pathfinder 2 kinda discourages you from picking many skills just for flavor reasons.
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The other thing is a background lore taken from an AP's player's guide is likely going to be extremely useful, so having that auto upgrade would be a major upgrade. I'd absolutely let Additional Lore apply to it though. That is still a dirt cheap way to get some nifty stuff.
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The other thing is a background lore taken from an AP's player's guide is likely going to be extremely useful, so having that auto upgrade would be a major upgrade. I'd absolutely let Additional Lore apply to it though. That is still a dirt cheap way to get some nifty stuff.
Is the one case where it's good going to be enough to justify keeping the most niche skill in the game as the worst skill in the game? Outside of an AP or one off module, Lore is basically a throwaway skill.
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The other thing is a background lore taken from an AP's player's guide is likely going to be extremely useful, so having that auto upgrade would be a major upgrade. I'd absolutely let Additional Lore apply to it though. That is still a dirt cheap way to get some nifty stuff.Is the one case where it's good going to be enough to justify keeping the most niche skill in the game as the worst skill in the game? Outside of an AP or one off module, Lore is basically a throwaway skill.
APs and modules are Paizo's bread and butter, aren't they? I have always heard the quality of the prewritten adventures is the main draw for a lot of folks.
That aside, a generic day job lore can be extremely profitable with enough downtime, and Additional Lore is a really cheap way to keep your proficiency in it maxed out. It also makes less narrative sense to automatically become a master of something you don't really use anymore as an adventurer rather than something essential to your class. Like a wizard should get automatic scaling in Arcana before their lore, IMO.
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Maybe you're right, admittedly I've approached backgrounds as a much more significant part of my character's identity than I suppose the default rule assumptions are.
But I think it's still a fair point that the PF2 skill system doesn't leave a lot of room in its budget for flavorful but less mechanically relevant choices, which a lot of background lores are likely to be, and that it's kind of unintuitive that you're arguably better off avoiding taking backgrounds that are central to your character concept because a feat is likely easier to budget than three skill increases.
Like a wizard should get automatic scaling in Arcana before their lore, IMO.
Wouldn't mind that either though, this game's skill budget is really thin for classes that aren't named Rogue or Investigator.
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Yeah, Additional Lore should let you upgrade your starting lore, full stop. I wouldn't mind if characters got auto scaling in their class skill AND background, but u suspect others would. There were people complaining divine sorcerers were automatically TRAINED in Religion.
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Honestly, more skill increases only help the game. I don't want a repeat of 1E where you'd play a vigilante to be a Fighter with skills. Sufficient skill increases as a baseline should be in the core classes. And even if it's just Lore skills, you'd need a bunch before they are more useful than other skills.
As for prewritten adventures being the bread and butter, they are, but you'd need a new character every adventure to take advantage of Lores, and more people I know prefer taking a character through multiple over making new characters all the time.
Yeah, for my PFS2 Han Solo expy, I decided on the Gambler background for him. He'll pick up Additional Lore: Underworld and Experienced Smuggler to actually get the intended Lore use at increasing proficiencies. That said, as a Rogue it's really no big deal to have to burn the extra skill feat vs starting with the Criminal Background, and Games Lore/Lie To Me still fit the concept.
Personally I would to have a 3-7-15 free lore proficiency increase to allow for the background or other chosen lore to increase freely. Heck moving it to 5-10-15 would be fine too if it needed to be differentiated from skill increases.
Though I like the feat in general I still find it silly that you need to choose a different background than the background you are interested in if you are really want to be good at the associated lore skill without spending skill increases.
For example in order to become a strong wartime leader / military strategist you can either hail from an established academy (Martial Disciple) and then sink your precious skill increases into Warfare Lore or start as a pig farmer (Farmhand), spend one feat (Additional Lore) and become a legendary general "for free".
Note that this is not so much about the auto-levelling ability of the feat as the price performance ratio is not over the top (5 feats in 20 levels vs 9 skill increases, so roughly a 1 to 2 ratio and this feat gives you a 1 to 4 ratio, albeit for a lore skill) but about the fact that my background selection can actually make the lore skill I am interested in ineligible for Additional Lore.
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Yes, the amount of Lore subskills is ridiculous, given the small-to-no benefits (unless an adventure adds some).
The Extinction Curse Play's Guide even adds more subskills! *shock*
You should be able to have a lore skill for anything you can plausibly justify as a thing someone gets paid to do in the setting. There's essentially an unlimited number available.
This is fine because lore skills essentially have three uses:
1) Working a day-job during downtime.
2) Whenever the adventure specifically calls for a specific lore.
3) Whenever a player can appropriately justify the given skill as relevant to check.
So there's no reason you can't have "clown lore" and "clown makeup lore"- the latter doesn't perform, they just do the makeup for the clowns. "Cooking Lore", "Baking Lore", and "Pastry Lore" are all valid lore choices which are distinct, albeit related.
To that end for the OP, I would suggest taking additional lore in something that is a subset or superset of "mining lore" like "prospecting lore" or "mines operations lore". Since the high paying jobs in the industry are not "swinging a pick real well" it's "knowing where the valuable ores can be found" and "knowing how to make sure the mine is safe." If you're taking time out of an adventuring schedule to get paid well in mining, it's not because you are good at using your muscles to move the earth, it's because you're consulting about "where to dig" or "inspecting for safety" or "advising on how to reach a difficult bit of ore."
I mean, "I specialize in understanding how mines work" is arguably more applicable to situations that involve "adventuring in a mine" than "I specialize in mining."
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(even on a success, you're not guaranteed to learn something actually helpful)
While technically true, that is a GM ignoring both the advice that comes with "recall knowledge" in player and GM sections. But also what it says under success.
You should always get a piece of useful information on a success. Anything else is the GM going off script for the action.
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I dont feel skill increases are all that tight. A four man party without a rogue can get 12 out of 16 to legendary. That's immensely good coverage.
If the group spreads out their skills perfectly, which just highlights the problem. There shouldn't be that strong of an incentive for a group to min-max their skills like that.
If someone wants to overlap for whatever reason, or if someone wants to pick a skill that might not be useful in the campaign but matches up with their character's identity and flavor, there goes a whole third of their skill budget and one of the group's skill options. Admittedly I'm more concerned with the individual flexibility than the group coverage.
You can't really make up for it by just adjusting your build to get more skills, because PF2 puts a pretty strict limit on the number of skills you can advance (outside a few specific options that give you extra experts).
(even on a success, you're not guaranteed to learn something actually helpful)While technically true, that is a GM ignoring both the advice that comes with "recall knowledge" in player and GM sections. But also what it says under success.
You should always get a piece of useful information on a success. Anything else is the GM going off script for the action.
It just say "remember useful information on a topic": useful doesn't mean helpful [or to what degree it's helpful] in that particular situation. How useful or helpful it is varies greatly from DM to DM. For instance you might want to roll on your lore: sewers of [insert city] and you remember that an old abandoned tunnel allows secret entry and exit from the city that leads through the area you're rolling for [clearly useful] but it doesn't help with the current problem of trying to use the sewers to bypass the guards to get into a locked off area.
If the group spreads out their skills perfectly, which just highlights the problem. There shouldn't be that strong of an incentive for a group to min-max their skills like that.
For me, it highlights that it requires a particular way of playing the game: making the characters together. If you make character independent of other players, it's an issue: more so in a game like PFS where players might change each time you sit down at the table. For myself, I rarely make characters together with others when I enter an online games.
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All giving more skills will do is increase the amount of sameness between characters.
Yes, surely, giving a character more flexibility in how they define themselves will just make them all identical.
PF2 basically made everyone (minus the rogue) have about as many skills as a PF1 fighter. That doesn't feel great if your character concept wants some breadth, or if you want to pick up some extra skills that might not be useful because they fit your character concept. Doesn't feel great and I don't think it's super hard to understand why. Obviously for characters who only care about one or two skills in the first place it doesn't matter at all, but that leaves a lot of other ideas out in the cold.
Kinda drifting off the topic of lore specifically though so I'll leave it at that.
All giving more skills will do is increase the amount of sameness between characters.Yes, surely, giving a character more flexibility in how they define themselves will just make them all identical.
I mean, if you're happy with everyone essentially being a PF1 fighter in terms of skills (only worse, since you can't just add more Int because Int caps at trained) that's fine, but I don't think it's that weird that some people might not be as excited about it.
Heck, we could take away skills and then everyone would be MORE unique!!! If everyone just got a single skill just think of all the uniqueness! ;)
I really like Possiblecabbages suggestion for dealing with the OP issue. If your character concept is to get even more focused on your character's back ground, choosing a more specialized lore in that field will really hit that home. Your character will get better at general mining skill checks every time they level, but their particular field of interest will be their strong suit. Nobody knows everything about their specific field of study anyway, so it will be far more interesting for you to specialize in rock identification, or mining machinery. You can still earn income in the general area of mining with your more specialized lore, but there will be specific skill checks that allow you to really shine as an Expert/Master/Legendary tradesperson.
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Heck, we could take away skills and then everyone would be MORE unique!!! If everyone just got a single skill just think of all the uniqueness! ;)All giving more skills will do is increase the amount of sameness between characters.Yes, surely, giving a character more flexibility in how they define themselves will just make them all identical.
I mean, if you're happy with everyone essentially being a PF1 fighter in terms of skills (only worse, since you can't just add more Int because Int caps at trained) that's fine, but I don't think it's that weird that some people might not be as excited about it.
Obviously there is a sweet spot. I think being (baseline) legendary in 1/5 of the things you can optionally be Legendary is plenty. I realize that some characteristics some characters get legendary in as just a function of their level, but I'm a firm believer that the more high end stuff you hand out the less special it feels.
I've gotten into this arguement before about class feats, and how doubling them just meant (in the example thread) every ranger got everything they could want, which means no ranger had to make any real choice.
EDIT: and if you want some breadth, you can always not take something at legendary to push another skill higher. Adding more skills doesn't increase breadth it just makes everyone more legendary.
I don't think more skill increases are the answer either.
However, a level 11 or 15 general feat that advances 2-3 trained skills to expert would be nice to see, get some breadth of skill actions and skill feats without needing to miss out on a legendary skill increase.
And I'd also like to see additional lore explicitly work in advancing the background lore skill, instead of having to work around it with a similar lore that covers most of the same topics.
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PF2 basically made everyone (minus the rogue) have about as many skills as a PF1 fighter. That doesn't feel great if your character concept wants some breadth, or if you want to pick up some extra skills that might not be useful because they fit your character concept.
This is wrong on multiple points.
The PF1 Fighter has 2 + Int Modifier skill points per level. In PF1 you need to keep investing those skill points every level to keep building the skills. If you want to be able to find anything, one of those skills would have to be Perception.
In PF2 everyone gets at least Trained in Perception automatically. Also, they have grouped what used to be covered by Sense Motive with it, so that is two skills from PF1 you are automatically trained in.
The worst of the PF2 classes for skills is the Sorcerer. They get Trained in Bloodline skills and 2+Int modifier other skills to choose to be trained in. Most classes have 1-2 skills they are automatically trained in plus 3+ Int modifier.
If you want a broad education, you can make sure you have an Int 12 and pick up Skill Training to get two more skills of your choice trained.
Your background will also give you a Lore and at least one other skill and skill feat. It is also possible to get skills off of Ancestries.
The limitation is how many skills you can increase in proficiency. With the exception of the Rogue class or Dedication, it is fixed for all classes. You get a skill increase every odd level starting at 3rd. This limits the classes to a maximum of 3 legendary skills. Assuming you want to maximize the number of Legendary skills, you would only have one other skill at Master level, no other skills at Expert level, and several others at Trained.
If you want broader training, you either have to not take everything to the maximum proficiency, take the Rogue Dedication along with Skill Mastery, or if you are mostly about Recall Knowledge actions get the Bardic Lore feature and take Occultism skill to Legendary.
In addition to all of the above, there are lots of skills from PF1 that have been combined together into one PF2 skill. Athletics covers Climb and Swim skills from PF1 plus a few other things. Acrobatics now includes Fly skill. Deception is Disguise and Bluff. There are a lot of other skills that got combined in the editions,
In general, a PF2 character will be more broadly trained by default than a PF1 character.
I realize that some characteristics some characters get legendary in as just a function of their level, but I'm a firm believer that the more high end stuff you hand out the less special it feels.
I found it odd to hear that stance that the suggestion about Lore skill increases, where there is literally an infinite amount of them, makes you feel less special for letting one get to legendary for free...
useful doesn't mean helpful...
Yes, useful doesn't mean it helps you at the moment: you can learn something of value that doesn't apply to your current situation. Finding out, with Lock Lore, grathlord anglewood made the lock you're looking at might not give you any insight on how to pick it. Now in a different situation, knowing that might allow you to track down a skeleton key for his locks if you have the time an money. Valuable but not something helping you on the 5th floor in a dungeon with a time limit.
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In general, a PF2 character will be more broadly trained by default than a PF1 character.
You're right, but that broad training stays at a basic level. What I meant, and probably could have worded better, was that you get three fully advanced skills, which is what a fighter with the FCB got in PF1.
You're right that there are more options to provide some degree of training, but that comes at the cost of it being much harder (or rather, impossible for non-lore skills) to fully advance additional skills. You're just stuck with three (unless you're a rogue they jut get more for reasons).
Adding more skills doesn't increase breadth
Eh? I mean it literally does. Being good at four things is, by definition, more broad than being good at three things. This assertion doesn't make sense.
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All giving more skills will do is increase the amount of sameness between characters.Yes, surely, giving a character more flexibility in how they define themselves will just make them all identical.
PF2 basically made everyone (minus the rogue) have about as many skills as a PF1 fighter. That doesn't feel great if your character concept wants some breadth, or if you want to pick up some extra skills that might not be useful because they fit your character concept. Doesn't feel great and I don't think it's super hard to understand why. Obviously for characters who only care about one or two skills in the first place it doesn't matter at all, but that leaves a lot of other ideas out in the cold.
Kinda drifting off the topic of lore specifically though so I'll leave it at that.
Eh? The PF1 fighter had 2+ INT skill points. Most PF2 classes have 5+INT trained skills, and several have more. And that's before you get into skill list consolidation making each trained skill cover more ground. And it is really easy to get level to untrained skills.
I guess technically your Rangers have less skills they can "max," but a "maxed" skill means something entirely different now. In PF1 it meant "I can now crush these DCs on a natural 1." In PF2 it has a lot more to do with access to skill feats, which frankly is a whole new dimension of versatility that most PF1 classes didn't have access to. The closest ones are the late editions like Kineticist and Vigilante. Even the older classes that had the option to get such abilities (Rogue Talents) had to sacrifice combat power to do so.
PF2 feels much, much more generous with skills than PF1.
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PF2 feels much, much more generous with skills than PF1.
I feel like that's really dependent on the class you play. PF2 feels way better for Champions, Clerics and Fighters, but I felt a really significant downgrade for classes like Rangers and Alchemists who went from having a broad swath of skills and a strong emphasis on being good at them to... not at all (although master monster hunter is helpful for certain ranger builds at alleviating that to some degree).
My Monk on the other hand feels about the same.
In PF2 it has a lot more to do with access to skill feats, which frankly is a whole new dimension of versatility that most PF1 classes didn't have access to.
While you're right here, that's just another exacerbating factor.
Trained auto scaling is designed to make it feel like you can have a wide array of skills you're 'pretty good' at, but activities gated behind proficiency and game's math assuming some degree of optimization means that ends up really not working out at higher levels.
Yeah everyone has 4 legendary skills now, but the person wanting to be skillsy (but not one of the skill classes, or investing any resources outside of skill ups I guess) isn't actually a skillsy character, they are the same as everyone else.
You're right, but that wouldn't be new, that's how the game works right now. I'd love to have ways to make my character have more skills they excel in, but as it stands we can only be as skillsy as the developers permit us to be with our class features.
But I don't think in general giving characters a little more wiggle room is inherently bad either. Beyond the issue of skillsy character builds, three is just not a lot of choices and I think puts undue pressure on the player to make the right decision for the group.
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@Staffan:
I think you're right that in the long run, Trained isn't enough - you need to advance to Expert and maybe collect an item to "keep up".
But I'm coming around to the idea that "every character must maximize their number of Legendary skills" might not be correct either.
At some point there may be more value in having two Expert level skills than one Legendary level skill. Especially in a smallish party without a skill monkey (rogue) class in it.
Which seems... alright to me. I mean, why give us the choice not to go Legendary if it would always be the right answer to do so?
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Yes, useful doesn't mean it helps you at the moment: you can learn something of value that doesn't apply to your current situation. Finding out, with Lock Lore, grathlord anglewood made the lock you're looking at might not give you any insight on how to pick it. Now in a different situation, knowing that might allow you to track down a skeleton key for his locks if you have the time an money. Valuable but not something helping you on the 5th floor in a dungeon with a time limit.useful doesn't mean helpful...
Learning something completely irrelevant and not pertinent to the situation at hand is not useful in the slightest, it’s useless. Information existing does not make said information automatically useful.
Intentionally misinterpreting the rules in the most malicious way possible to screw your players every chance you get is not healthy for the system, the argument, or the game in question.
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I feel like that's really dependent on the class you play. PF2 feels way better for Champions, Clerics and Fighters, but I felt a really significant downgrade for classes like Rangers and Alchemists who went from having a broad swath of skills and a strong emphasis on being good at them to... not at all (although master monster hunter is helpful for certain ranger builds at alleviating that to some degree).
Alchemists are great skill monkeys if you look at pure math-- mutagens let them basically make up the proficiency gap a specialist has. What issues they have are pretty much combat focused; any loss in versatility is really just from losing their quasi spells.
You can also make a helluva skill monkey Ranger. They have a lot of skill enhancing class feats, and unlike most PF1 classes (and even a few PF2 classes) they can have all their core combat feats in hand by level 2, or level 4 if they use a crossbow. Outwit is also a really good boon to skills that no other class can really emulate, but it does admittedly come at a hefty cost. Combine that with tbe best perception in the game... I think a single Ranger can be really really good at all the things a PF1 Ranger was really really good at. They aren't quite the "Fighter but better" of old, but they can get higher skill bonuses than a rogue in their field and their class feats are nearly as good as the rogue's for skills.
Trained auto scaling is designed to make it feel like you can have a wide array of skills you're 'pretty good' at, but activities gated behind proficiency
Have their been any activities gated behind proficiency beyond hazards and I guess Crafting? I feel like there's open design space for there to be, but I haven't seen anything else yet that uses it and I've read a fair amount of AP material.
And using skills other than Thievery/Disable Device to disable hazards wasn't really a thing you could do in PF1. You might need to keep Religion upgraded to exorcise haunts, but thats not something you could do with Knowledge Religion at all in PF1. So it doesn't feel like much of a loss, and you can pretty much always deal with a hazard without those skills anyway.
and game's math assuming some degree of optimization means that ends up really not working out at higher levels.
That's not how skill DCs work; that is how how combat scores work. Per page 503: "Note that PCs who invest in a skill become more likely to succeed at a DC of their level as they increase in level, and the listed DCs eventually become very easy for them."
Leaving a skill at trained is pretty much just as likely to succeed at on level DC at 20 as level 1, adjusting for increased ability scores and maybe an item bonus.
Also, as a more general thing, calibrating skill DCs in PF1 was so inherently broken that is is kind of hard to have a meaningful conversation about them.
Edit: Also feels worth noting that any class CAN get some extra proficiency boosts if they are willing to invest in the right archetypes, but that's a pricey thing.
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Also feels worth noting that any class CAN get some extra proficiency boosts if they are willing to invest in the right archetypes, but that's a pricey thing.
I actually ran into this recently while working on a character I might go ahead and play at some point: a barbarian Aldori duelist. I took the Skilled Human heritage for Intimidation and was trained in Acrobatics and Athletics at 1st level. At 2nd level, the Dedication takes the character to Expert Acrobatics; 3rd level skill training makes Athletics Expert, and then 5th level Intimidation goes to Expert without needing to spend a skill training on it.
I thus found myself in a situation I would never have expected: actually not sure what else I wanted to raise to Expert. In fact I wound up tentatively becoming Trained in Stealth instead (though Expert Society was tempting, and if I ever play the character for real I might go that way instead).
Also, Skill Mastery is a really good feat, and for some characters might be worth the rogue multiclass just to get it.
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I think I've actually got a pretty good way to examine how the Ranger compares between editions: one of my players converted her level 7 Ranger to PF2 when the new edition comes out. Said player is really good at making flavorful decisions over powerful ones.
Acrobatics +7 DEX (5) 2
Appraise +0 INT (0) -
Bluff +0 CHA (-1) 1
Climb +5 STR (1) 1
Craft (bows) +6 INT (0) 3
Diplomacy +0 CHA (-1) 1
DisableDevice +7 DEX (5) 2
Disguise -1 CHA (-1) -
Escape Artist +6 DEX (5) 1
Fly +5 DEX (5) -
HandleAnimal +10 WIS (2) 5
Heal +6 WIS (2) 1
Intimidate +3 CHA (-1) 1
K.(dungeoneer)+6 INT (0) 3
K.(geography) +6 INT (0) 3
K.(nature) +8 INT (0) 5
Perception +13 WIS (2) 6
Ride +9 DEX (5) 1
Sense Motive +6 WIS (2) 2
Sleight Hand +10 DEX (5) 5
Spellcraft +4 INT (0) 1
Stealth +14 DEX (5) 6
Survival +11 WIS (2) 6
Swim +5 STR (1) 1
Perception +15;
Languages Not set
Skills Acrobatics +13, Athletics +11, Crafting +11, Intimidation +9, Lore: One Terrain +11, Medicine +11, Nature
+13, Religion +11, Stealth +17, Survival +13, Thievery +13
Str +2, Dex +4, Con +2, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +0
Plus Clever Improviser, which means she can try any trained only check and has 7+ability score in anything not listed here.
So right away, we can see that the PF2 character has higher numbers across the board, but that's not super important. What is worth noting is that in order to get trained a rank or two into various skills, she had to not max out her ranks in her key skills.
But lets go down her PF1 skill list and compare how she performs in PF2.
Appraise: She went from nothing at all here to a +11 trained in Crafting. Huge gain. She also has more ability score freedom and wound up with a higher intelligence.
Bluff: Went from a -1 to a +7 thanks Clever Improviser. She isn't great at it but she has a chance to sell a lie if she is forced to, which she did not before.
Climb: 1 rank for +5, vs +11 trained Athletics. Like acrobatics, she will continue to get better without further investment, but her PF1 version will probably never spare another rank for it.
Craft (Bows): Her crafting has gotten so much better it isn't funny. Not only will her score scale, but she can now craft anything instead of just bows and arrows. Plus she has effectively gained Knowledge Engineering.
Diplomacy: See Bluff.
Disable Device: Much like acrobatics or climb, this will continue to scale in ways it wouldn't before. Yeah, she may not wind up with the proficiency to disable high level hazards, but she wasn't gonna be good enough in PF1 for it either really.
Disguise: See Bluff.
Escape Artist: 1 rank is nice for having the option, but it is going to become useless as her CMB outpaces it. This one is kind of a tie, because CMB scales in much the same way her acrobatics, athletics, and unarmed scale in PF2.
Fly: Should she wind up with fly cast on her, she will be basically garbage compared to her PF2 self.
Handle Animal: Even if she'd maxed her ranks in this, her bonus would still be lower than her expert proficiency. This one kind of feels like a tie.
Heal: For her single rank, there's no comparing to being trained. Plus Medicine is so much more useful than Heal it isn't funny.
Intimidation: Oh, hey, went from nothing to essetially maxed ranks. Cool.
Knowledge time!
Dungeneering: She had decent investment in PF1, and is still worse at it with no investment in PF2. (Clever Improvisor and Occultism.)
Geography: Same investment as dungeering in PF1, but her expert Nature means she is way better in PF2 and will continue to be.
Nature: 5 ranks is a high investment, and she's still worse than her PF2 version would be untrained. Given her PF2 version is actually an expert, and ouch.
Arcana, Engineering, History, Local, Nobility, Planes, Religion, plus Linguistics: All of these non-class skills got no investment, and now they have what would be max ranks. The ones she actually trained in (engineering and religion) she got even better at.
Perception: PF2 just has a higher bonus and didn't have to invest anything in it, where PF1 can't really catch up with max investment.
Ride: I don't think Ride checks are a thing in PF2, but they would probably be acrobatics if they came up, so PF2 Ranger wins again.
Sense Motive: She's gotten GREAT at Sense Motive with zero investment. No comparison.
Sleight of Hand: She effectively gained a couple extra ranks to max this out. Mostly the same, but some of these checks wound up in Thievery which she's only slightly better at while others wound up in Stealth which she's MUCH better at.
Spellcraft: Considering Nature can be used to Identify Magic now, and she can attempt checks requiring the other skills too, this little token rank feels so very left behind
Stealth: Nearly maxed in PF1, actually maxed in PF2 for a higher end result.
Survival: She's an expert at this, and with her Hunt Prey Bonus she winds up at the same total score to Track as her PF1 version who had a track bonus and maxed ranks.
Swim: See climb.
Across the board, she's at worst stayed about the same for skills. She's notably better at many, many things, and there is a huge list of things she's OK to great at now she couldn't even try before.
Now this doesn't touch on her Favored Enemy or Favored Terrain bonuses, however often they apply, but it also doesn't touch on all the new utility she gained from skill feats and potentially skill feats. If you maxed her ranks in her best skills she'd wind up unable to even use lots of her other class skills.
You can also shatter those numbers with feats and items in PF1, but again, PF1 had broken skill ranges.
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Yes, useful doesn't mean it helps you at the moment: you can learn something of value that doesn't apply to your current situation. Finding out, with Lock Lore, grathlord anglewood made the lock you're looking at might not give you any insight on how to pick it. Now in a different situation, knowing that might allow you to track down a skeleton key for his locks if you have the time an money. Valuable but not something helping you on the 5th floor in a dungeon with a time limit.useful doesn't mean helpful...Learning something completely irrelevant and not pertinent to the situation at hand is not useful in the slightest, it’s useless. Information existing does not make said information automatically useful.
Intentionally misinterpreting the rules in the most malicious way possible to screw your players every chance you get is not healthy for the system, the argument, or the game in question.
I fear to tread here, given how most of our discussions go, but I have to.
Useful is subjective. It will vary from GM to GM. I have to local GMs with very different ideas of useful: one would tell me that acid stops the regeneration on a troll, one would say "this troll has a crit effect that does X". If the GM really thinks the source of the lock is more useful to the plot than the traits if it are in the moment, that's entirely within the rules. This is why I've always been wary of GM empowerment, because they are too much of a variable for something that vague to not have regular problems show up.
Also feels worth noting that any class CAN get some extra proficiency boosts if they are willing to invest in the right archetypes, but that's a pricey thing.I actually ran into this recently while working on a character I might go ahead and play at some point: a barbarian Aldori duelist. I took the Skilled Human heritage for Intimidation and was trained in Acrobatics and Athletics at 1st level. At 2nd level, the Dedication takes the character to Expert Acrobatics; 3rd level skill training makes Athletics Expert, and then 5th level Intimidation goes to Expert without needing to spend a skill training on it.
I thus found myself in a situation I would never have expected: actually not sure what else I wanted to raise to Expert. In fact I wound up tentatively becoming Trained in Stealth instead (though Expert Society was tempting, and if I ever play the character for real I might go that way instead).
Also, Skill Mastery is a really good feat, and for some characters might be worth the rogue multiclass just to get it.
Oof, I hadn't looked at Skill Mastery enough to remember specifics when I wrote that. That's an excellent feat if you want to go skill heavy. Also, the rogue archetype feels really solid for like... most classes. Light armor training for casters, Surpise attack for anyone with underhanded skills. Sneak Attacker for melee folks with a flanking buddy or one of the zillion other ways to create flat-feet.
There aren't a lot of characters who can't justify the Rogue archetype if they want Skill Mastery, especially when humans can get the dedication for an ancestry feat and elves for a heritage.
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Yes, useful doesn't mean it helps you at the moment: you can learn something of value that doesn't apply to your current situation. Finding out, with Lock Lore, grathlord anglewood made the lock you're looking at might not give you any insight on how to pick it. Now in a different situation, knowing that might allow you to track down a skeleton key for his locks if you have the time an money. Valuable but not something helping you on the 5th floor in a dungeon with a time limit.useful doesn't mean helpful...Learning something completely irrelevant and not pertinent to the situation at hand is not useful in the slightest, it’s useless. Information existing does not make said information automatically useful.
Intentionally misinterpreting the rules in the most malicious way possible to screw your players every chance you get is not healthy for the system, the argument, or the game in question.
I fear to tread here, given how most of our discussions go, but I have to.
Useful is subjective. It will vary from GM to GM. I have to local GMs with very different ideas of useful: one would tell me that acid stops the regeneration on a troll, one would say "this troll has a crit effect that does X". If the GM really thinks the source of the lock is more useful to the plot than the traits if it are in the moment, that's entirely within the rules. This is why I've always been wary of GM empowerment, because they are too much of a variable for something that vague to not have regular problems show up.
The troll examples you use are useful though. Finding out who the locksmith was while trying to pick it is not. Unless said locksmith installed bypasses in their locks and now you can make use of, but that wasn't the example used.