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.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.
That's the issue though: say you rolled because you wanted to see if there was a bypass. What if there isn't one but you rolled a success? the roll gets you something useful but there is NOTHING in the situation that the roll could help with. It's not the DM being a dick but the info isn't there. Do you mean to say that making the roll forces the Dm to add info that MUST be helpful NOW that didn't exist before the roll?
It's much like the roll for troll weaknesses: you can find out it's vulnerable to acid but that's not helpful if no one has access to it and you're fighting it NOW. sure you could use it later, but like the lock example so to is the lock maker's name: you COULD leave, spend time and cash to look for a skeleton key [which is helpful with more than that specific lock] just like you could go and get acid for that [or future] trolls. Useful NOW and useful in the future are both useful: helpful NOW and helpful in the future are both helpful. The game doesn't make a distinction between now and the future in the Recall action and useful/helpful hints for the future is in no way "malicious" or to "screw your players" by default.
So we are vastly overstating how *necessary* it might be for characters to have more than trained in most skills.
For very certain skills and skill uses, yes. You talked about the DC to climb a wall, but you kinda danced around DCs to trip enemies or identify monsters or disable traps, etc. Those all have pretty meaningful scaling naturally built into them... for the latter example, the trained only character often won't even be allowed to roll at all!
I think it is difficult to compare because skill use in PF1 is totally different than in PF2.
In PF1 you had fixed DC's for e.g. climbing a (regular) wall and thus for some skills a base level of proficiency was more than ok. Can you consistently climb a rope and wall? Yes? All good! Then you had scaling DC's based on competitive rolls where you needed your modifier to be as high as anyhow possible, e.g. sneak versus perception. Other than that (and a few feats) overall skill level meant nothing. If you had +20 sneak due to skill or magic items did not matter much.
In PF2 things are totally different and skill proficiency level has become very important as checks and feats can easily be gated behind skill proficiency. Your +20 thievery based on DEX18 and trained proficiency might be worthless versus a lock that requires expert proficiency which a character with a thievery modifier of also +20 (DEX14 but said expert proficiency) can probably easily open. Same about your selection of available skill feats, where many of those are restriced by skill proficiency level.
Due to the importance of skill proficiency levels and the reduction of the amount of overall skills it is understandabe that you do not want to inflate skill proficiency levels for your finite amount of skills. However this also leaves the Lore skill and its infinite subcategories a little in the dust and might be worth looking at.
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For something you didn't train over those 19 levels, spent minimal investment, against increasingly harder obstacles, you only got about 15% worse.
Take climb as an example: at level 1 for you to be a test, it's just a basic wall to climb.
But at level 20, for it to be a level 20 task, that wall has to be perfectly smooth, probably even leaning out.
And even if you didn't invest in any tools to help you, (unless the GM rules you need to be at least a master to even try) you have a chance to make it.
For something you didn't train over those 19 levels, spent minimal investment, against increasingly harder obstacles, you only got about 15% worse.
Take climb as an example: at level 1 for you to be a test, it's just a basic wall to climb.
But at level 20, for it to be a level 20 task, that wall has to be perfectly smooth, probably even leaning out.
And even if you didn't invest in any tools to help you, (unless the GM rules you need to be at least a master to even try) you have a chance to make it.
Yeah that all seems pretty reasonable. Also, I feel like you're gonna wind up with some skill boosting items to skills your non-main skills just because of how treasure is doled out. I'm not gonna sell something which is useful for half price if it can boost a tertiary skill for free. Similarly, if I'm a specialist who upgrades their primary skill item, I'd rather hand my old item down to another partner. Some of that my vary based on how your group tracks loot shares, I'll admit.
Also, there's a lot more ways to get other bonuses at 20. Aid or Follow the Expert from a Legend is a whopping +4 circumstance bonus. A party with a bard with inspire competence and a legendary sneak can apply that bonus to most any out of combat skill checks. An Alchemist in the group could provide up to +4 item bonuses to skills you lack equipment in. And it becomes easier to spend a low level spell slot on Heroism or some other status bonus.
I don't know what combination of those things your party will have on what checks, but I'd say you're likely going to have at least one 1 quite often. So on average I don't think your odds really decrease.
Can we just first just agree the rule *IS* wonky?
I mean, we can argue the situation isn't wonky enough to merit a houserule or a fix...
...but if you don't *even see* the issue your opinion isn't worth much to me. The ruleset makes it so you're better off taking a DIFFERENT background than the one providing the skill you want to become legendary in.
That's objectively, factually, unquestionably wonky.
It would have been objectively, factually, unquestionably better if Paizo had caught this BEFORE publication so the issue would never have appeared.
The only question remaining then is: is it worth errataing the ruleset as it stands? I can understand the arguments for "no, it isn't".
I would still prefer it if Paizo officially acknowledged the current implementation is awkward, even if that's all they do.
The rule isn't actually wonky, but that particular interaction is. And comparing the playtest version of the feat with the current version, I think it was somewhat intentional. The old version let you apply the skill increase to any Lore category. The only reason I can think of to change it is because the wording felt confusing to a layperson. So in making the rule itself less wonky you wind up with a wonky corner case.
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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.Except you're not. From level 1 to level 20, DCs increase by 25.
That isn't always going to be the case.
Take scaling a castle's walls, for example.
I'm fine with their being different "levels of castles." Perhaps one is old and roughened and easier to climb whereas another is made of magically hardened ice, which is slippery, smooth, and nearly impossible to climb.
What I wouldn't be fine with, is if the same castle's DCs changed for no other reason than we leveled up. That destroys verisimilitude, immersion, and player agency. Just don't do it.
The crumbly old castle should not be just as hard to climb at 20th-level as it is at 1st.
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I think a lot of people confuse the *adventure design* principle that you should not give high level people low level challenges and expect them to be challenged for something like "magically, all the walls get harder to climb." It's like how you fight progressively larger elementals throughout your adventuring career- it's not that the small ones grew or stopped existing, they're just not interested in fighting you.
Personally I manage this by- if you're trying to breach the spooky necromancer's spooky castle, they've considered "I don't just want people climbing in" so have taken steps to make the walls hard to climb. So this is a level appropriate challenge. If you just want to climb up a drainpipe in the city or a tree in the forest to get a better look around, that's going to be a trivial challenge past a certain level. It's in no one's best interest to ensure a given tree is hard to climb.
Lockpicking might be a clearer example- if the PCs are off to rob some nefarious NPC, the status of the person you're robbing is going to determine both the quality of the loot and also the caliber of their security. The high king of the Dwarves is just going to spring for better locks than the regional underchief of some Orc tribe. But "rob the local Orc Chief", "Rob the Dwarf King" and "Rob Asmodeus" are challenges appropriate for three different level ranges anyway.
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I think a lot of people confuse the *adventure design* principle that you should not give high level people low level challenges and expect them to be challenged for something like "magically, all the walls get harder to climb." It's like how you fight progressively larger elementals throughout your adventuring career- it's not that the small ones grew or stopped existing, they're just not interested in fighting you.
Personally I manage this by- if you're trying to breach the spooky necromancer's spooky castle, they've considered "I don't just want people climbing in" so have taken steps to make the walls hard to climb. So this is a level appropriate challenge. If you just want to climb up a drainpipe in the city or a tree in the forest to get a better look around, that's going to be a trivial challenge past a certain level. It's in no one's best interest to ensure a given tree is hard to climb.
Lockpicking might be a clearer example- if the PCs are off to rob some nefarious NPC, the status of the person you're robbing is going to determine both the quality of the loot and also the caliber of their security. The high king of the Dwarves is just going to spring for better locks than the regional underchief of some Orc tribe. But "rob the local Orc Chief", "Rob the Dwarf King" and "Rob Asmodeus" are challenges appropriate for three different level ranges anyway.
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That becomes murky with simple dcs anyway.
Having something be master dc isn't out of the ordinary for high level play and I would argue that a gm only including legendary dc challenges at 15+ is harming their own world building.
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Think about how boring the game would be if investing in a skill at level 1, meant that you stayed exactly as good at performing increasingly difficult tasks with that skill, through level 20, without ever having to invest any other resources in that skill. A basic level 20 task is not a similar task to basic level 1 task. In addition to your permanent items, attribute bonuses and skill increases, level 20 characters get hundreds of thousands of gold. By level 20 it costs very, very little to be able to temporarily boost a skill check, at least as much as being expert in the skill. With Mutagens, you can get a +2 for 12 gold. That means, for a tertiary or lower skill, you can relatively easily be sitting on 10 boosts to that skill for less than 1% of your level based resources.
Trying to look at skills in isolation from spells and items and what becomes relatively easy to access as you level up is not representational of the game in play. By level 20, if you don't have emergency plans in place for passing essential skill checks that you are only trained in, you have probably sold dozens of items that could have helped you without ever considering the need to hang on to a back up. Having to deal with needing to roll a 13 instead of an 11 or better was a deliberate character choice and not a failing of the game.
Think about how boring the game would be if investing in a skill at level 1, meant that you stayed exactly as good at performing increasingly difficult tasks with that skill, through level 20, without ever having to invest any other resources in that skill.
That sounds more like a critique of TEML as a system than anything else.
In PF1, you could not just invest in a skill at level one and expect it to be considered adequately invested in for handling level 20 challenges. Trained is not the same thing as spending a skill point every level or else there would be nothing like expert or master or legendary. Yes skill mastery was a feat but that is still only one feat.
In PF1, you could not just invest in a skill at level one and expect it to be considered adequately invested in for handling level 20 challenges. Trained is not the same thing as spending a skill point every level or else there would be nothing like expert or master or legendary. Yes skill mastery was a feat but that is still only one feat.Aside from Acrobatics, I found it worked exactly like that, presuming it was a class skill. Maxing a knowledge ranks always enabled one to successfully identify monsters. Diplomacy rarely needed more than max ranks to be good at it. Bluff and Sense Motive while opposed aren't skills that NPCs have in spades, and most of the other skills you didn't even need max ranks, just enough to hit a certain DC.
Trained in a skill in P2 gives you +level to that skill. That's the exact same investment as putting a rank into it every level.
Keeping a skill maxed out to level 15+ in PF1 was much more like increasing proficiency from trained to expert to master to legendary. You are thinking about the numbers only on the player side. The numbers on the other side of the GM screen have changed as well (which is why folks are discussing this).
Training alone, by level 15 is very low investment in PF2. Expert is pretty average investment, but is easily made up for on occasional skill checks with cheap consumables.
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Keeping a skill maxed out to level 15+ in PF1 was much more like increasing proficiency from trained to expert to master to legendary.
[..]
Training alone, by level 15 is very low investment in PF2.
I mean, you keep saying that but they're both the equivalent of a +1 to your intelligence modifier. That's how it was sold going into PF2 too.
Expert is pretty average investment
Not sure that's right either. You have fairly limited access to Expert. Outside the ones you get 'naturally' from leveling up, more Experts require you to sacrifice skills on the high end or take very specific multiclass options, neither of which are particularly cheap investments given that dedications often have specific requirements and build limitations and class feats are your main source of power in PF2.
Keeping a skill maxed out to level 15+ in PF1 was much more like increasing proficiency from trained to expert to master to legendary.
[..]
Training alone, by level 15 is very low investment in PF2.I mean, you keep saying that but they're both the equivalent of a +1 to your intelligence modifier. That's how it was sold going into PF2 too.
Expert is pretty average investmentNot sure that's right either. You have fairly limited access to Expert. Outside the ones you get 'naturally' from leveling up, more Experts require you to sacrifice skills on the high end or take very specific multiclass options, neither of which are particularly cheap investments given that dedications often have specific requirements and build limitations and class feats are your main source of power in PF2.
I mean, Wizards automatically get expert proficiency in their weapons at level 11 in PF2 for a +15 to attack. By level 11 in PF1 a wizard has a +5 BAB. The numbers very clearly do not line up one for one.
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Can someone show me a character who actually become less skilled than PF1? Because it seems to me when you examine what the same character made between the different editions can actually DO, the PF2 character comes out way ahead.
Like, the PF1 could max more skills. But the PF1 skill list was so much bigger that the value of having a maxed skill is vastly less. If I want to build a PF1 Ranger as a rugged outsdoors men who is good at climbing, jumping, and swimming, that was half of my base skill ranks. In PF2 that is all one skill. PF2 gives me free perception as well, which any well built character would be maxing. And if you wanted to craft more than one thing, forget about it.
The idea that PF2 two characters are less skilled or varied or whatever than PF1 characters is really perplexing to me. It seems like my players have more actual ability than they really know what to do with.
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Zapp has the right Idea with his last suggestion. This is what I will be doing going forward.
(Though I might give Dedicated Lore for free to your original Background lore just cause I think Players should get naturally better at their starting job as they progress)
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In PF1, you could not just invest in a skill at level one and expect it to be considered adequately invested in for handling level 20 challenges. Trained is not the same thing as spending a skill point every level or else there would be nothing like expert or master or legendary. Yes skill mastery was a feat but that is still only one feat.
Skill Mastery for +3, the feats that gave +2 to two skills, the traits that gave a +1 trait bonus.
That makes a total of +6 for the dedicated user of a skill over the PC who just did the 1 point every level thing.
Which is the difference between Trained and Legendary BTW.
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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.,
So I think we may have gone off the rails with our original premise because I do not think this is even possible for most builds.
"Skill Feats Level 2
At 2nd level and every 2 levels thereafter, you gain a skill feat. Skill feats can be found in Chapter 5 and have the skill trait. You must be trained or better in the corresponding skill to select a skill feat ."
"Source Core Rulebook pg. 247
You have specialized information on a narrow topic. Lore features many subcategories. You might have Military Lore, Sailing Lore, Vampire Lore, or any similar subcategory of the skill. Each subcategory counts as its own skill, so applying a skill increase to Planar Lore wouldn’t increase your proficiency with Sailing Lore, for example ."
Between those two rules most of the time you will not actually be able to take the Additional Lore skill feat at level 2 because you would not be trained in that Lore skill at that point in time. The Skills do not share the same proficiency.
It is possible to game the system a bit to use your starting ability boosts to get you trained in an additional lore skill early in order to grab the skill feat at level 2 and thus be able to advance it easier than your background lore skill. But this is a more deliberate design/build path decision made by the character that comes with some lost opportunity cost. It also means it is a lore skill you start out with just like the Background Lore skill so its kinda the players decision on how he prioritized those two pieces of knowledge.
For the vast majority of players they will be able to advance their main lore skill faster until they get ability boosts at level 5 which can give them the INT to invest in getting trained in a new skill to allow them to be eligible to take the Additional Lore Skill feat.
Uh, what? All Additional Lore requires is that you're trained in Lore, which every character gets via their background.
Additional Lore gives you training in another lore skill as its benefit.
OP's complaint is that you're required to pick a new skill with additional lore, while they want to find a way to more easily advance their background skill.
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Uh, what? All Additional Lore requires is that you're trained in Lore, which every character gets via their background.
Just because you are trained in one type of Lore (like from your Background) you do not have universal Lore training. It says so in the CRB. The problem isn't with Additional Lore itself its the restrictions on which Skill Feats you can take.
There's no problem. Additional Lore requires you to be trained in Lore. If you have training in a Lore skill, you're, by definition, trained in Lore. There's isn't even such a thing as 'universal lore training' to begin with.
Also, Additional Lore requires you to pick a different subcategory (hence the OP's problem). So I guess you're arguing it's impossible to ever take the feat? You realize why that's dumb, right?
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I do not know how else to illustrate the issue when I have it bolded up above. The CRB clearly states
"Each subcategory counts as its own skill, so applying a skill increase to Planar Lore wouldn’t increase your proficiency with Sailing Lore, for example."
So that means you being trained in your background lore does not mean you are trained in whatever new lore you are trying to apply the Additional Lore feat too. It specifically states each one counts as its own skill for the purpose of proficiencies.
Because you are not trained in that non background secondary lore skill yet you cannot select the skill feat "Additional Lore" at level 2.
The sole exception is if you have spent your resources at level 1 to obtain a skill increase early. Allowing another Lore skill to be considered trained. Allowing you to select a skill feat for it like Additional Lore.
So that means you being trained in your background lore does not mean you are trained in whatever new lore you are trying to apply the Additional Lore feat too.
Giving you training in a new lore skill is what Additional Lore does, though.
If you're already trained in the skill, you can't apply Additional Lore to it in the first place, because Additional Lore requires you to pick an 'additional' skill. That's literally the whole reason the OP made this thread.
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You can take the feat by applying your skill increases first just like normal... you just have to wait until you can increase your attributes. So the whole level 2 pickup theorized by OP doesn't work. Makes the quickest way to prioritize lore in most cases to take it as your background and apply the Skill Improvement at level 3.
I quote the rules and you call my argument dumb? I thought we were here for spirited discussion?
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"Source Core Rulebook pg. 258
Prerequisites trained in Lore
Your knowledge has expanded to encompass a new field. Choose an additional Lore skill subcategory. You become trained in it. At 3rd, 7th, and 15th levels, you gain an additional skill increase you can apply only to the chosen Lore subcategory.
Special You can select this feat more than once. Each time you must select a new subcategory of Lore and you gain the additional skill increases to that subcategory for the listed levels."
Nothing makes this impossible or says that you can never pick it up.
Additional Lore is also a General Feat so you have opportunities to pick it up but two things are spelled out very clearly in the rules.
1.) You need to be trained first
2.) Lore skill proficiency does not transfer from one Lore skill to another
Last thing I'll say on this topic. I mean if you want to bar players at your tables from taking Additional Lore more power to you, but yeah I'm going to call that silly.
Choose an additional Lore skill subcategory. You become trained in it.
Read this line again. You pick an additional skill subcategory and you become trained in it.
The feat exists to give you training in a Lore subcategory you aren't currently trained in. The word 'additional' even tells us that you can't apply it to a skill you're already trained in (hence the existence of this thread).
So the argument that you need to already be trained in Lore(Whatever) in order to take a skill that gives you training in Lore(Whatever) fundamentally doesn't make sense.
Would you make the same argument about the feat Skill Training?
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I read the line but we are interpreting it differently.
To me the reason they say additional is because every character will have one lore skill since every character has a background.
The next part about you becoming trained is futureproofing or extraneous (such statements are not uncommon throughout the CRB). Lastly it describes the real benefit of the feat which is the free progression at certain levels.
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It's not barring the players from taking it just following the rules. I do not find that silly.
The prereq for Skill Training is to have Int of 12. Not to be trained in that skill. So no I would not make the same ruling except in the sense that I would make a player meet his prereq before taking the feat that demands it. A big false equivalency if you ask me.
EDIT: Additional point - Squiggit's interpretation renders the prerequisite on the skill itself entirely meaningless because all players start as trained in a lore from their background. They could have easily left that line out entirely if their intention was to have you able to take Additional Lore only after being trained in any one Lore skill since that happens by default. It seems to me that interpretation contains more problems and conflicts than it resolves.
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EDIT: Additional point - Squiggit's interpretation renders the prerequisite on the skill itself entirely meaningless because all players start as trained in a lore from their background. They could have easily left that line out entirely if their intention was to have you able to take Additional Lore only after being trained in any one Lore skill since that happens by default. It seems to me that interpretation contains more problems and conflicts than it resolves.
How about the prerequisite being futureproofing for backgrounds that do not come with a lore skill and where you really need to buy one before you can pick up this feat?
For me as a non-native speaker this feat is entirely clear as it is written.
1. Be trained in any lore in order to pick it up (currently all characters are).
2. When you take the feat select a lore subcategory that is not the original lore subcategory and become trained in it (you now will have at least 2 trained lore subcategories).
3. At levels 3, 7 and 15 your proficiency in the selected lore subcategory rises (chosen lore subcategory goes to expert, master and legendary).
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EDIT: Additional point - Squiggit's interpretation renders the prerequisite on the skill itself entirely meaningless because all players start as trained in a lore from their background. They could have easily left that line out entirely if their intention was to have you able to take Additional Lore only after being trained in any one Lore skill since that happens by default. It seems to me that interpretation contains more problems and conflicts than it resolves.How about the prerequisite being futureproofing for backgrounds that do not come with a lore skill and where you really need to buy one before you can pick up this feat?
For me as a non-native speaker this feat is entirely clear.
1. Be trained in any lore in order to pick it up.
2. When you take the feat select a lore subcategory that is not the original lore subcategory and become trained in it.
3. At levels 3, 7 and 15 your proficiency in the selected lore subcategory rises.
That is a fair possibility!
My biggest issue with that interpretation though however is the text that specifically states that they are to be treated as their own skill and that proficiency in one does not mean proficiency in another.
Being trained in "Lore (foo)" means you are trained in Lore for things that care about "Trained in Lore", but it does not mean you are trained in "Lore (bar)" for things that care about being "Trained in Lore (bar)" such as "making skill checks for Lore (bar)" or "using Lore (bar) to earn money.
Lore is an unlimited number of different skills under one header, but "trained in any of them" is equivalent to "trained in lore".