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Just remember that Skills and Lores compete for the same resource, skill increases. And Skills have a lot more in-game applicability then Lores, which only ever come up occasionally, and then in very narrowly defined circumstances. That, plus there is a quite short list of Skills, as compared to an arbitrarily long list of Lores.
This isn't really true, because the Additional Lore skill feat is such a cheap way to upgrade a Lore to legendary. When combined with the right campaign, that also nets you anywhere from a +2 to +10 effective bonus on related DCs.
I don't object to the idea of a wizards getting an extra trained lore related to their thesis or school or whatever, as it is quite flavorful. But Lores don't really compete for skill increases like that.
School based Lore skills would be a really awesome way to make each school specialist more flavorful and unique from each other, but I think they should probably come in the format of the additional lore feat and not just an extra trained skill at level 1.
I think a house rule that specialist wizards get additional lore as a free skill feat (focused on their spell school) while universalist wizards just get a free skill feat for a knowledge-based skill would probably be the only "equalizing" I would consider in boosting the power of the wizard.
However, I actually think that the wizard is probably fine as is, and that choosing to pick up additional lore in your school of specialization is worth doing even without an extra bonus feat. And that people have been far too focused on additional lore as a money maker feat rather than a way to build a character really knowledgable about a specific topic.
Just remember that Skills and Lores compete for the same resource, skill increases. And Skills have a lot more in-game applicability then Lores, which only ever come up occasionally, and then in very narrowly defined circumstances. That, plus there is a quite short list of Skills, as compared to an arbitrarily long list of Lores.This isn't really true, because the Additional Lore skill feat is such a cheap way to upgrade a Lore to legendary. When combined with the right campaign, that also nets you anywhere from a +2 to +10 effective bonus on related DCs.
I don't object to the idea of a wizards getting an extra trained lore related to their thesis or school or whatever, as it is quite flavorful. But Lores don't really compete for skill increases like that.
Taking a feat for a flavour lore skill has an opportunity cost though. Also, since everybody can take that feat, it is not something a Wizard has going for them.
That's why I consider giving them a free lore, ideally thematically appropriate to their chosen school, as a nice solution. It adds flavour, but no real power. Plus, it is probably not something you want to invest skill increases into, so it is neutral in that regard too.
Just remember that Skills and Lores compete for the same resource, skill increases. And Skills have a lot more in-game applicability then Lores, which only ever come up occasionally, and then in very narrowly defined circumstances. That, plus there is a quite short list of Skills, as compared to an arbitrarily long list of Lores.This isn't really true, because the Additional Lore skill feat is such a cheap way to upgrade a Lore to legendary. When combined with the right campaign, that also nets you anywhere from a +2 to +10 effective bonus on related DCs.
I don't object to the idea of a wizards getting an extra trained lore related to their thesis or school or whatever, as it is quite flavorful. But Lores don't really compete for skill increases like that.
Taking a feat for a flavour lore skill has an opportunity cost though. Also, since everybody can take that feat, it is not something a Wizard has going for them.
That's why I consider giving them a free lore, ideally thematically appropriate to their chosen school, as a nice solution. It adds flavour, but no real power. Plus, it is probably not something you want to invest skill increases into, so it is neutral in that regard too.
Assuming your choice is only for flavor, sure, but Lores can actually be really good if you tailor it the campaign. If you give wizards a limited menu of Lores to choose this is unlikely to come up, but if you left it open ended so a wizard could define their own area of expertise, it can suddenly become a really potent feature. Giant Lore in Giant Slayer, for example.
I like the idea of wizards getting a free Lore skill with options such as based on school, or perhaps other options such as Academia lore, or Astrology lore, or Astronomy lore, Scholar lore, Scribe Lore as long as it is a more knowledge based lore than active professions like Wood-carpentry lore, or Stonemason's lore.
Since the effect of INT in the game is to give you More skills, not specifically give you deeper knowledge (it does a little for INT skills granted) I can understand why they looked at a typical maxed INT wizard and decided its base skills could be lower than many other classes.
I'm not entirely certain I agree with the idea of that free skill auto-advancing like the additional lore feat, since that is granting more to the class than was, for instance originally called out, it has less starting skills. Granting auto-advancing would be more like giving them another free-but pre-defined feat.
If anything, I wish all wizards had a free unspoken for class feat at level 1. I really feel like all classes should have had this, even if there was a feat that 90% of all would take at 1st level.
Anyway, wizards typically hold the role of deep and often focused (even to the sacrifice of other knowledge) and so that is why I think they chose to as mentioned, with the combination of INT being their primary stat, and far less reasons to be too concerned with other stats, start it with less skills.
If you really like the idea of a specialist wizard being 'special' with their knowledge. Allow them to start out with a single LORE skill from a very select list, based off of Thesis, School, or a couple specific generics, and allow them to begin with it as Expert.
This would definitely give them the LORE of being focused experts in a limited field of magic they have chosen to study, and potentially allow for further differentiation between a couple first level wizards.
Having an expert at 1st level in a lore would certainly be striking, and could be significant in certain circumstances, but those would be limited.
As they leveled up, this head start would become less significant, but by then their spells are really what begin to define the wizards at that point more. And an expert skill is probably even worthwhile, in the select circumstances where it is relevant, even at higher level play.
Wizards don't need more skills, period. They can solve problems by altering reality, let's have those who can't cast spells be better at "mundane" ways of getting ahead.
I think wizard's ability to alter reality is greatly overblown until level 10 wish.
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Wizards don't need more skills, period. They can solve problems by altering reality, let's have those who can't cast spells be better at "mundane" ways of getting ahead.I think wizard's ability to alter reality is greatly overblown until level 10 wish.
How about; Wizards don't need more skills period. They can solve problems by using their versatile bag of spells available.
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How about; Wizards don't need more skills period. They can solve problems by using their versatile bag of spells available.Wizards don't need more skills, period. They can solve problems by altering reality, let's have those who can't cast spells be better at "mundane" ways of getting ahead.I think wizard's ability to alter reality is greatly overblown until level 10 wish.
I agree. In fact, why do wizards even get skills? There's never going to be more than like 10 skill checks in a session anyway, by level 5 the wizard has enough spell slots to use a spell to skip all of them. It's not like spell slots do anything else.
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I agree. In fact, why do wizards even get skills? There's never going to be more than like 10 skill checks in a session anyway, by level 5 the wizard has enough spell slots to use a spell to skip all of them. It's not like spell slots do anything else.
Man, you really don't like the limited nature of spells.
I was answering to the exaggeration allegation, sorry if I bother you| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
If you've spent any time in graduate school, you've probably met the person who is one of the world's leading experts on their particular small subject, but they struggle to boil water and are confused about how to make the floor clean like it was last week.
I feel like that archetype of person is what we're invoking with the Wizard. If there is a need for "a more practical wizard" that should probably be a subclass (i.e. thesis) or a different class.
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I feel like that archetype of person is what we're invoking with the Wizard. If there is a need for "a more practical wizard" that should probably be a subclass (i.e. thesis) or a different class.
A thesis for skills would be great
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I will disagree that Wizards will get less trained skills compared to PF1, but one thing I will agree on is how valuable a trained skill is becomes invalidated in the higher levels, a variable that Intelligence is specifically designed to help with (that is, having more trained skills being a good thing).
In short, unless you have class features intrinsically tied to Intelligence, Intelligence and its value only decreases the higher level you get since, in the higher levels, "trained" isn't going to be enough for a lot of tasks. It might work for sub-par encounters or for certain things that other more qualified party members can't help with, but realistically that's unlikely to happen.
Some might say "Well, you can still use it to aid and give a +1 or +2 to a skill!" That's all fine and dandy, but in a lot of cases (such as Thievery, Stealth, etc.), you aren't realistically allowed to aid those checks, and plus there are much better ways to aid someone without investing in numerous trained skills, most notably the Bard class who can use Perform with the Inspire Competence composition to basically aid anything and bypass physical limitations that skills like Thievery possesses (such as being unable to directly aid someone picking a lock or certain traps). (Probably still not applicable via Stealth unless they take some Wizard multiclass and take the Conceal and Silent spell feats, but if specialized in, is still certainly possible.)
One way that Wizards can make use of Intelligence's decreasing value is through Rogue Dedication and taking Skill Mastery in place of certain class feats, able to bring skills up to Expert and even Master without sacrificing Legendary-tier skill increases (plus getting a free skill feat in association with those skill boosts!), making them at least passable or even still useful in high level content. However, since this comes at a cost of class feats, you might be sacrificing very useful features that become unmatched in the endgame. Retraining is a thing, but time you spend retraining is time that could be spent earning income instead, so it still comes out to be a loss in money.
All in all, there's not so much a worry of "less skills," and more of a worry of "less useful skills," in my opinion. And that's much more crucial in determining Intelligence's value in the long run, as compared to attributes like Wisdom, Dexterity, Strength, or even Charisma, there's no real diminishing returns for investing in it later.
