Controlling "difficulty" and balancing player expectations

[Staffan Johansson]

KrispyXIV wrote:

Uh, ok, so, lets check this out (ignoring in combat uses, because those are fundamentally different).

No use of Diplomacy fails outright on a Failure. Both Make and Impression and Gather information allow you to try again. A failed Request results in a denial, but a possible less extreme alternative (also, doesn't forbid trying again).

Make an Impression says you roll to improve their disposition at the end of a conversation that's at least 1 minute long. So once you've rolled, the conversation is per definition over.

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Indimidation's Coerce activity explicitly only doesn't allow retrying on a Critical Failure. Otherwise, they become unfriendly, but you can keep trying.

But you only get one try to Demoralize per combat.

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High Jump and Long Jump - No penalties for failure, you still get to leap normally. Don't take high stakes actions unless you're good at it - you couldn't convince your average high school track star to leap over a yawning chasm, methinks.

I still get to Leap normally, but if a normal Leap would get me what I want, I wouldn't need to High/Long Jump now, would I? If I need to roll a 20 in order to clear a 15-foot danger, and I fail and only get to make a normal 10-foot leap, I land in the middle of the dangerous thing.

So should your typical adventuring party just ignore challenges covering half the skills in the game? Remember that each character will only be able to specialize in two skills, which menas no more than eight out of sixteen in the whole party (and that's assuming no overlap).

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Swim - Nope, no penalties for failure.

Yes, there are, though you do get multiple shots. If you're in water and haven't succeeded on a Swim check that round (except for the round you're getting in), you either sink 10 feet or are moved with the current.

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Maneuver in Flight - As above. Try again.

That depends on the GM. The skill specifically says that the GM determines the consequences based on the attempted maneuver, with "blown off course" when faced with strong winds being one possibility.

[KrispyXIV]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

No use of Diplomacy fails outright on a Failure. Both Make and Impression and Gather information allow you to try again. A failed Request results in a denial, but a possible less extreme alternative (also, doesn't forbid trying again).
Make an Impression says you roll to improve their disposition at the end of a conversation that's at least 1 minute long. So once you've rolled, the conversation is per definition over.

If you only get one chance, then it's a dramatic situation and task and a "dabbler" should not be guaranteed a favorable success rate.

As this is implemented in APs and such, obstacles requiring Diplomacy as a downtime or encounter activity can be retried once per time-unit - presumably via a new conversation.

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But you only get one try to Demoralize per combat.

Using suboptimal skills or attacks in combat is not advisable. That said, using a Trained Skill tied to your primary combat stat will generally have a good chance of success against a weak save - better than an attack in some cases.

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I still get to Leap normally, but if a normal Leap would get me what I want, I wouldn't need to High/Long Jump now, would I? If I need to roll a 20 in order to clear a 15-foot danger, and I fail and only get to make a normal 10-foot leap, I land in the middle of the dangerous thing.

The stakes are apparent beforehand, and on a normal failure you may still have a second opportunity to recover and Grab an Edge - giving you an explicit second chance not to fall, with an item bonus!

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So should your typical adventuring party just ignore challenges covering half the skills in the game? Remember that each character will only be able to specialize in two skills, which menas no more than eight out of sixteen in the whole party (and that's assuming no overlap).

You absolutely should not attempt to jump over a bottomless pit just because your party member Andy the Acrobat made it look easy. If a bottomless pit has any significant chance of you falling in and dieing on a failed check do not gamble, even if you succeed like, 80% of the time.

Stakes are important. High stakes should be approached with extreme caution by mere dabblers in a skill.

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Yes, there are, though you do get multiple shots. If you're in water and haven't succeeded on a Swim check that round (except for the round you're getting in), you either sink 10 feet or are moved with the current.

Sounds like three chances to try a turn.

Also, as an aside Swim DCs are conditional and don't typically scale based on level. These checks are generally pretty easy at Trained, eventually.

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That depends on the GM. The skill specifically says that the GM determines the consequences based on the...

And those consequences described are not particularly dire - save that a critical failure indicates that it should certainly be more dire.

None of the Failure examples put you in danger or prevent trying again.

[dirtypool]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Example Text

You keep stating that your issue is that the "dabbler" is being unfairly disadvantaged by the current system - yet every time you provide an example it is something that the "dabbler" should be yielding to a specialist to do.

If the trained dabbler is attempting to craft an accord with the hostile village elder instead of the expert, that's an issue with the parties approach to the challenge and not the rules of the game itself.

[Campbell]

So when it comes to things that are opposed to either a Save or Perception the issue is that nobody is really a dabbler in those things. PCs are least expert and NPCs have values pretty close to PCs here. An edge was definitely given to defense here.

[Staffan Johansson]

dirtypool wrote:

You keep stating that your issue is that the "dabbler" is being unfairly disadvantaged by the current system - yet every time you provide an example it is something that the "dabbler" should be yielding to a specialist to do.

If the trained dabbler is attempting to craft an accord with the hostile village elder instead of the expert, that's an issue with the parties approach to the challenge and not the rules of the game itself.

Because there might not be an expert. A four-person party will, for the most part, only be able to have eight skills at a specialist level. At level 11+, that goes up to twelve. And that's assuming that people don't double up on any skills – and for skills that mostly benefit the individual who has them, like Athletics or Stealth, they very well might.

So for about half the skills in the game, a dabbler is all you get.

Also, skills are fun. They let you solve problems in non-violent ways, and they give you insight into how the setting works which lets you figure out how to deal with things. At first level, any given character probably has between five and ten skills, and you're able to put up a decent show in all of them. I'm trained in Nature, so I have a good chance of knowing wolves get more dangerous if they outnumber you and they like to drag you down. I'm trained in Society, so I know orcs are brutal and can fight on despite severe wounds. I'm trained in Survival, so I can handle myself in the woods. I'm trained in Intimidation, so I can scare people into doing what I want. I'm trained in Athletics, so I can shimmy up trees and walls to get to where I need to be. And I'm trained in Stealth so I can infiltrate places. Maybe I'm even trained in Thievery so I can get into locked places and use my keen senses (Perception) do deal with traps. I have many ways in which I can deal with things that come my way, and I have an OK but not spectacular chance at success with most of them.

That stuff up there makes for a pretty well-rounded ranger, who can do pretty much what I'd expect a ranger to do. But now bring me up to say, level 8. I've gotten three skill increases, so I can be e.g. a master at Survival and an expert at Stealth. So now I can get by even in highly hostile terrain, and they pretty much keep pace at sneaking (because monster perception goes up even faster than normal DCs), but I'm no longer as scary to level-appropriate foes, because my Intimidation doesn't keep up with Will saves. I don't know as much about level-appropriate animals or people, because Nature and Society doesn't keep up with level-based DCs. I can't push level-appropriate foes around as easily, because my Athletics doesn't keep up with Fortitude and Reflex saves. And there's no way I can disarm any of the traps we encounter, because they all have a big sign on them that says "Expert trap-handlers only".

And you say that I should let other party members do these things. But how? The wizard's busy focusing on Arcana and Crafting. The bard's doing Performance and Diplomacy. And the Champion has their hands full with Religion and Medicine. So who's going to do the athletic stuff? Who else will know about animals, fey, and humanoids? Who else is going to deal with locks and traps?

I don't want the avenues in which I contribute meaningfully to narrow as I get to higher levels. Higher levels should expand my options, not narrow them down.

[HumbleGamer]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

I don't want the avenues in which I contribute meaningfully to narrow as I get to higher levels. Higher levels should expand my options, not narrow them down.

I think that 2e was meant to bring more balance for what concerns the Board Game aspects

- Powercreep has been drastically tuned down ( if not removed ).
- Multiclassing has been replaced by dedications, which simply enhances your main class.
- Skills offer a progression in terms of party, allowing different characters to specialize in different areas.

Talking about skills, for what I have seen until now, challenges seemse affordable for any character which has at least the trained skill ( or untrained improvisation/Clever improviser ), at least for what concerns Premade Adventures.

We have also the possibility to invest our points wherever we want, eventually avoiding our primary stat past 18 ( we will have 1 less hit/dc from lvl 10 to lvl 19 ).

Some skills require you to be trained/expert/master/legendary in order to deal with specific tasks, but apart from thievery ( and eventually survival for environemental hazards ) I didn't find anything else.

Apart from the trained skill, every class but rogue is given the possibility to max up 3 skills ( or eventually to level many Master/expert skills, especially with the rogue dedication and some dedication classes which gives you the expert rank ).

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A lvl 5 Character with trained skills with +2 stat bonus has +9 which is a 50% against a DC of its level. Seems ok.

The main problem I happened to see is when some players tends to level up stats past 18 ( apart from the main stat ). For example, playing a character thinking that by lvl 20 its const will increat from 19 to 20, instead of expending stats points somewhere else.

Obviously, combat tasks will see you dealing with the enemy DC ( This also includes recall knowledge, stealth, perception, etc... ), and because of that they could be higher than any other out of combat task. But that to me seems pretty normal.

There are limits which a party can overcome by creating sinergy and versatility, through being specialized in different areas.

Apart from thievery ( and surv for natural hazards ), if I got it right, you can do anything.

Obviously your bonus won't be high as your main skills, but that's part of the balance.

A lvl 8 DC is 24 ( since your example was about a lvl 8 ranger )

If you are trained in your skills ( let's leave apart Thievery for now ), you will have

+8 lvl
+2 Trained
+X Stat
+X Circ
+X Item

Let's not consider status bonuses since they are rare

If you plan to stealth, use thievery and since you are a ranger, I assume that you have at least 16 dex by lvl 8

So, you will have a +13 on your rolls, which is a successo on 11+ ( 50% success ).

What's wrong with it?

Given how thievery works, you should consider increasing it as second skill, so thievery will be +15 ( +16 with perfect tool )

By mastering stealth you could achieve a +18 ( 8+6+3+1 )
If you have 18/19 dex, increase those bonuses by 1.

Given how stealth works, you could also rely on it for your initiative checks.

I mean, while it is true that we have to make choices and we can't fully specialize in everything, it is also true that we are allowed to make a decent party, specialized in different ( maybe not all ) areas.

Thievery is not an option? We'll try to deal with the challenge by using athletics and acrobatics.

Nobody is well trained in religion?
We could rely on diplomacy or deception.

And so on.

Very long post, so probably I got lost.

[dirtypool]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Because there might not be an expert. A four-person party will, for the most part, only be able to have eight skills at a specialist level.

SOMEONE in a roleplaying group is going to specialize in Athletics, someone in a roleplaying group is going to specialize in Stealth. You keep saying the same things over and over and you keep using oranges as exemplars of apples.

Staffan Johansson wrote:

And you say that I should let other party members do these things.

No I didn't say that, I said of your specific examples of someone who trained in athletics attempting to leap a chasm that requires a DC appropriate for someone who is an expert - should let someone who is an expert attempt the leap. Why did I say this one specifically? Because there isn't a game group in the world where players haven't figured out that Athletics is important. You yourself called it out as a skill likely to be doubled up on. Anything beyond my commentary on the athletics example is you putting words into my mouth.

Staffan Johansson wrote:

I don't want the avenues in which I contribute meaningfully to narrow as I get to higher levels. Higher levels should expand my options, not narrow them down.

Yes, you've made the argument multiple times. We've all heard you. What you may have missed is some of us saying that there are ways to mitigate your issue with the system. In standard play, retraining allows you to prioritize your skills for the types of encounters you're facing in your current level range. And if that isn't enough, consider the skill point variant from the GMG. If that still doesn't satisfy your take on skills, based on all of your comments - I believe there is a game that does deliver on all of your expectations. It has nearly 20 years of generic content to support it, and 10 years of specific content.

[Unicore]

If being good at skills is a fundamentally important part of your enjoyment of playing PF2, then you really should consider MC into rogue, or expending more resources on having ways to boost your skill bonuses when you need them.

If you are a ranger, the outwit ranger is actually phenomenally good at using skills against your hunted target. It's like getting free skill boosts in every skill you might need to use against an enemy in combat. If being able to utilize a handful of different skills much more effectively didn't feel worth the trade off of other hunter's edges, then maybe being good at skills isn't really as much of a character priority for you as you think it is. The thing about skills in PF2, is that being good at more than one or two things requires actual character investment. Even Clerics, Champions, Bards, Wizards, Sorcerers, Druids, Alchemists and obviously Rogues have many ways to invest class resources in being good at skills. Actually even the monk and the barbarian have class resources they can invest in being good at a couple of specific subsets of skills so it is really only the fighter that doesn't have inherent class choices they can make to be better at skills.

Honestly, I think having one specialized skill and boosting more skills to expert AND investing resources in skill boosting resources is a more fun way to approach PF2 than trying to over specialize in 2 or 3 things and letting everything else slide. Expert proficiency with item bonuses and decent stats really does let you stay just under specialized levels and if you get the ability to apply status or circumstance bonuses to skills (like through aid) then you have a pretty reasonable chance of doing almost all but the most legendary things with your skills.

Also, I think we are getting a host of new archetypes that will let you spend class resources on getting pretty good at a bunch of skill focused character concepts, so it is very likely that, by the time the APG drops, you will only be skill starved if you are actively investing all of your class resources into combat feats.

[The-Magic-Sword]

Generally, how your party builds their characters is a pointer to how they want to solve challenges. A party where no one took stealth probably needs a different plan than sneaking, because that's how they work- you need to look at how to use your skills to solve your problems, not the other way around.

Now occasionally, it comes up anyway here or there, but its ok to only have a toss up chance at passing, because no one check should govern too much of the consequence in your overall goals.

Failing the stealth check you only dabbled in means a fight, or a tense negotiation or whatever. Failing a check just brings the challenge to a different stage.

[Henro]

I feel like, if the entire party neglects to invest in stealth, and they have to solve situations using other methods than stealth because of this, that feels pretty expected? Why have the ability to invest in skills in the first place if there is no way to not be good at skills?

[HumbleGamer]

Henro wrote:

I feel like, if the entire party neglects to invest in stealth, and they have to solve situations using other methods than stealth because of this, that feels pretty expected? Why have the ability to invest in skills in the first place if there is no way to not be good at skills?

Depends the situation.

Situation A

The party faces a group of bandits who asks for a "fee", in order to let them pass.

The barbarian uses its extraordinary intimidation, and because so the bandits allow party to pass, even without a fee.

Situation B

The group has to pass through a path inside the mountain, which also sees a larger section of the tunnel, where an old dragon sleeps.

Now the entire group decides to try to sneak away, prefering to avoid a combat with a mighty opponent.

The whole group, not only the one master in stealth, has to roll in order to pass past the dragon.

If just one fails, the dragon wakes up and spot everybody ( or at least the ones who failed the check ).

[Henro]

That’s a different thing than which was being argued, I feel. Even so, the game has built-in ways to deal with the issue you described - Quiet Allies and Follow the Expert to be precise.

[HumbleGamer]

Henro wrote:

That’s a different thing than which was being argued, I feel. Even so, the game has built-in ways to deal with the issue you described - Quiet Allies and Follow the Expert to be precise.

You expect too much if you think you can avoid similar situations by using follow the expert and quiete allies.

However, I think the point was that while it's true that the goal could be achieved ( I did some math in my previous post ), the more you proceed, the more difficult the outcome, if you compare low levels to high levels.

To make it short, I think that what Staffan feels is related to:

lvl 1 character Trained in:

- Stealth
- Thievery
- Survival
- Nature
- Craft ( snares )
- Athletics
- Intimidate

Can face an opponent having nice opportunities with any of these skills.

The more he proceeds, the more the difference between all the skills ( which means that the character will be inclined to prefer skills with higher proficiency, because the trained ones would be bad in terms of odds ).

Which leads to the question:

"Why the more I proceed the more I can't keep up with what I have always done with no problem at all?"

I know that is meant to provide "specializations", but on the other hand it's true that we don't have any possibility to get more skill points, apart from the rogue dedication.

[Henro]

I mean, if you ask me I think there ought to be more ways to gain some random skills to expert at higher levels. The way things are right now, you end up with a few highly specialized skills (legendary) and many dabbling skills (trained) at high levels. I think having a few pretty-good-at skills (expert) in addition to that would be a good thing. Personally I'd be a fan of something like a simple skill feat that gets a trained skill to expert available at higher levels, so that people have the option to broaden a character's skillset.

I don't think I expect too much of quiet allies and follow the expert at all. In many previous versions RPGs, "I'm-stealthy-but-the-group-isn't-I-guess-we're-all-seen" was a big issue. These options alleviate both reasons for that issue existing (multiple rolls increasing the chance of failure, and party members relying on trashy stealth rolls.

[HumbleGamer]

Henro wrote:

I mean, if you ask me I think there ought to be more ways to gain some random skills to expert at higher levels. The way things are right now, you end up with a few highly specialized skills (legendary) and many dabbling skills (trained) at high levels. I think having a few pretty-good-at skills (expert) in addition to that would be a good thing. Personally I'd be a fan of something like a simple skill feat that gets a trained skill to expert available at higher levels, so that people have the option to broaden a character's skillset.

Yeah I agree ( mostly because I find cool the idea of a well built party, even if it could lack some skills ).

Henro wrote:

Personally I'd be a fan of something like a simple skill feat that gets a trained skill to expert available at higher levels, so that people have the option to broaden a character's skillset.

That would be an interest topic ( I was thinking about a general feat or eventually an ancestry one ). Extra options are imo always welcome ( if balanced ofc ).

Henro wrote:

I don't think I expect too much of quiet allies and follow the expert at all. In many previous versions RPGs, "I'm-stealthy-but-the-group-isn't-I-guess-we're-all-seen" was a big issue. These options alleviate both reasons for that issue existing (multiple rolls increasing the chance of failure, and party members relying on trashy stealth rolls.

What I meant to say is that even with Quiet allies and follow the expert some tasks could be way too hard to achieve, if not nearly impossible.

But I understand that it's only legit ( If you plan to sneak around a dragon, you have to be good at it. And not necessarily you will be saved by a team mate which is more expert ), and I like it.

Thinking about it, Stealth is probably the only one skill I'd like the whole party to have and level up.

[Ubertron_X]

Henro wrote:

I don't think I expect too much of quiet allies and follow the expert at all. In many previous versions RPGs, "I'm-stealthy-but-the-group-isn't-I-guess-we're-all-seen" was a big issue. These options alleviate both reasons for that issue existing (multiple rolls increasing the chance of failure, and party members relying on trashy stealth rolls.

Our group failed every single stealth roll using follow the expert and quiet allies so far. Level + Expert Bonus (simulating trained) + bad dexterity bonus + an average roll always seems to fall short on the mostly even level enemies we encounter. I know that because my warpriest is the one to roll.

[Staffan Johansson]

Henro wrote:

That’s a different thing than which was being argued, I feel. Even so, the game has built-in ways to deal with the issue you described - Quiet Allies and Follow the Expert to be precise.

Quiet Allies doesn't work as well as it should. It basically lets the whole group make a single roll to Avoid Notice using dabbler-type values. But since there's usually someone in the group who dumps Dexterity, and since Stealth rolls are in general harder than other rolls (because all creatures have good perception), the effect is basically that the chance of avoiding notice for the whole group changes from something like 1% to 30%. That's a significant boost, but it's not something I'd like to rely on.

[dirtypool]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Henro wrote:

That’s a different thing than which was being argued, I feel. Even so, the game has built-in ways to deal with the issue you described - Quiet Allies and Follow the Expert to be precise.

Quiet Allies doesn't work as well as it should. It basically lets the whole group make a single roll to Avoid Notice using dabbler-type values. But since there's usually someone in the group who dumps Dexterity, and since Stealth rolls are in general harder than other rolls (because all creatures have good perception), the effect is basically that the chance of avoiding notice for the whole group changes from something like 1% to 30%. That's a significant boost, but it's not something I'd like to rely on.

How should it work then? Should it simply not exist and the player who dumped Stealth is just a liability to this challenge? Or do you feel that a 2nd level feat should provide a nearly guaranteed success for any stealth challenge?

[Staffan Johansson]

Henro wrote:

I mean, if you ask me I think there ought to be more ways to gain some random skills to expert at higher levels. The way things are right now, you end up with a few highly specialized skills (legendary) and many dabbling skills (trained) at high levels. I think having a few pretty-good-at skills (expert) in addition to that would be a good thing. Personally I'd be a fan of something like a simple skill feat that gets a trained skill to expert available at higher levels, so that people have the option to broaden a character's skillset.

I would probably be significantly less annoyed at things if the "natural" skill progression looked more pyramidal.

Let's say you start with 7 skills (plus background Lore). That's a fairly normal amount: 4 from your class, 1 from your background, and 2 from Int (or 5 from class and 1 from Int). Normally, this would give you:

Level 5: 2 expert and 5 trained
Level 10: 2 master and 5 trained
Level 15: 1 legendary, 2 master and 4 trained
Level 20: 3 legendary and 4 trained

(I'm assuming no boosts spent on Int - either way, those would just increase the number of skills you get Trained.)

But let's say we add a level 7 general feat that boosts a skill from trained to expert, and we assume that a character will take that feat at level 7, 11, 15, and 19. Then we'd instead get:

Level 5: 2 expert and 5 trained
Level 10: 2 master, 1 expert and 4 trained
Level 15: 1 legendary, 3 master, 1 expert and 2 trained
Level 20: 3 legendary, 1 master, 2 expert and 1 trained

That would also give you a meaningful choice to make regarding skills vs combat stats: do you want better skills, or do you want mobility (Fleet, Feather Step), or survivability (Toughness, Diehard)? Currently, the two are siloed from one another pretty strongly, and this would let them bleed over a little in between one another.

I think a general feat would be better than a skill feat, because in most cases the +2 from a skill increase would be better than the expanded use you'd get from a skill feat, and I wouldn't want to pit those against one another.

[Staffan Johansson]

dirtypool wrote:

How should it work then? Should it simply not exist and the player who dumped Stealth is just a liability to this challenge? Or do you feel that a 2nd level feat should provide a nearly guaranteed success for any stealth challenge?

The thing is, even for a specialist Stealth is hard. Ignoring item bonuses, the best you can do against equal-level "moderate" Perception is an 8+ (that's assuming you start with Dex 18, increase it whenever you can, get anklets of alacrity at 17th level, and increase your Stealth at levels 3, 7, and 15). And that's using the Moderate Perception column from the GMG – not the high or extreme.

For the usual use case of Quiet Allies, where you have at least one party member who doesn't care about Dex because they wear full plate, the needed roll starts at 14 for a 3rd-level character. At 20th level, you need a 19 to succeed (a bonus of +24 against Perception DC 43). At that stage, what is even the point?

To be perfectly fair, I don't think Quiet Allies would be broken if it just let the specialist's roll cover for, say, one ally per proficiency level. Or maybe use the progression from Group Coercion/Impression: 4 for an expert, 10 for a master, or 25 for a legend.

[dirtypool]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

The thing is, even for a specialist Stealth is hard. Ignoring item bonuses, the best you can do against equal-level "moderate" Perception is an 8+ (that's assuming you start with Dex 18, increase it whenever you can, get anklets of alacrity at 17th level, and increase your Stealth at levels 3, 7, and 15). And that's using the Moderate Perception column from the GMG – not the high or extreme.

For the usual use case of Quiet Allies, where you have at least one party member who doesn't care about Dex because they wear full plate, the needed roll starts at 14 for a 3rd-level character. At 20th level, you need a 19 to succeed (a bonus of +24 against Perception DC 43). At that stage, what is even the point?

To be perfectly fair, I don't think Quiet Allies would be broken if it just let the specialist's roll cover for, say, one ally per proficiency level. Or maybe use the progression from Group Coercion/Impression: 4 for an expert, 10 for a master, or 25 for a legend.

This is not what I asked for. I didn't ask you to explain to me, again, how you feel it's broken. You've provided that multiple times. I asked how you feel it SHOULD work. What are you expectations of how Quiet Allies should behave? How would you improve it? What would be the benchmarks needed for you to feel it "works correctly" in a revised format?

[Staffan Johansson]

dirtypool wrote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

The thing is, even for a specialist Stealth is hard. Ignoring item bonuses, the best you can do against equal-level "moderate" Perception is an 8+ (that's assuming you start with Dex 18, increase it whenever you can, get anklets of alacrity at 17th level, and increase your Stealth at levels 3, 7, and 15). And that's using the Moderate Perception column from the GMG – not the high or extreme.

For the usual use case of Quiet Allies, where you have at least one party member who doesn't care about Dex because they wear full plate, the needed roll starts at 14 for a 3rd-level character. At 20th level, you need a 19 to succeed (a bonus of +24 against Perception DC 43). At that stage, what is even the point?

To be perfectly fair, I don't think Quiet Allies would be broken if it just let the specialist's roll cover for, say, one ally per proficiency level. Or maybe use the progression from Group Coercion/Impression: 4 for an expert, 10 for a master, or 25 for a legend.

This is not what I asked for. I didn't ask you to explain to me, again, how you feel it's broken. You've provided that multiple times. I asked how you feel it SHOULD work. What are you expectations of how Quiet Allies should behave? How would you improve it? What would be the benchmarks needed for you to feel it "works correctly" in a revised format?

I did suggest that in the last paragraph: let the specialist use their own Stealth roll for a certain number of allies dependent on proficiency level. Given how hard Stealth is to use in the first place, I don't think that would be broken. Someone who has maxed out a skill and spent skill feats on it should be able to do amazing things with it.

Or as an alternate, instead of the "carry" being a freebie (unless you count taking the feat in the first place, of course), apply a penalty per character you're covering for. Perhaps -1 per character at Expert, -1/2 characters at Master, and -1/4 characters at Legendary.

Plus, overuse of Stealth risks the Patented Colville Screw (sneak deep into enemy territory, do something that alerts the enemy, and then have to fight the entire enemy force at once instead of in encounter-sized bits), so it has its own limitations.

You could also go through and revise all Perception values to make Quiet Allies work as is, by making sure a skill bonus of level+2/3/4 provides a fair shot. That would probably be better, because it would give the master sneak the option to either sneak by themself and be nearly guaranteed success, or bring along their allies and risk getting caught. But that would require revising every monster printed as well as the monster building guidelines, and that doesn't seem likely.

[dirtypool]

Before we get into adding fractional penalties back into a game that was by and large built to remove them, or address the idea of a level 2 feat providing a reasonably successful bypass for stealth challenges to people who explicitly used Dex as a dump stat, let's get into the big point that you keep repeating.

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Given how hard Stealth is to use in the first place

Describe what you think is so difficult about using Stealth, because comparing Bestiary monsters Perception DC's to same level Stealth doesn't seem to be quite as challenging as you keep repeating.

Let's look at the Bestiary 1 Monster group at Level 5 vs a 5th Level character with a High Dex and an expert proficiency in Stealth.

Of the 25 Monsters listed only 2 give me a lower than 50/50 chance of success, 1 gives me a flat 50/50 and the other 22 are greater than 50/50 odds.

The bulk of the monsters fall in the range where I have either a 12 in 20 chance of beating their DC or a 13 in 20 chance.

Bounce on over to level 10, if we raise our Ability but not our skill there are now 3 monsters with a dead 50/50 chance, and 3 monsters with less than a 50/50 chance of success.

If we raise our ability and our skill that leaves us with only one on the other side of the 50/50 line.

We never picked up an item and it still doesn't seem overwhelmingly difficult to roll a success to beat the monsters DC.

[Unicore]

Remember too that their is a feat that you can take with just training in stealth that makes it where you never even have to roll for most exploration activities you will do in a certain kind of terrain. If you know the general environment your campaign will take place in, that can cover you very well and if you have a week of downtime, you can switch which of those environments you specialize in.

Helping players realize that there are a lot of different ways to accomplish the same goals and that some of them will be much easier for the team than others is a good skill to develop as a GM.

[Staffan Johansson]

dirtypool wrote:

Describe what you think is so difficult about using Stealth, because comparing Bestiary monsters Perception DC's to same level Stealth doesn't seem to be quite as challenging as you keep repeating.

Let's look at the Bestiary 1 Monster group at Level 5 vs a 5th Level character with a High Dex and an expert proficiency in Stealth.

Of the 25 Monsters listed only 2 give me a lower than 50/50 chance of success, 1 gives me a flat 50/50 and the other 22 are greater than 50/50 odds.

The bulk of the monsters fall in the range where I have either a 12 in 20 chance of beating their DC or a 13 in 20 chance.

And that's for a specialist. Max Dex, maxed proficiency.

I haven't compared against all Bestiary monsters, but I am assuming that they are fairly close to the monster-building guidelines from the GMG. A 5th level monster with moderate Perception has about +12, so a Perception DC of 22. Maxed out, you're at +13, so you need a 9 to succeed. And that's for a specialist. The dabbler (starting Dex +2, increases Dex with boosts up to 18 but not above, and doesn't raise the skill) is at +10 and needs a 12. That's less than 50%.

If I had my way, "moderate" Perception would be +10, the DC would be 20, the dabbler would succeed on a 10 (55% chance) and the expert on a 7 (70%). Note that we're talking about a "moderate" Perception. We're not talking creatures known for their exceptional senses.

Quote:

Bounce on over to level 10, if we raise our Ability but not our skill there are now 3 monsters with a dead 50/50 chance, and 3 monsters with less than a 50/50 chance of success.

If we raise our ability and our skill that leaves us with only one on the other side of the 50/50 line.

We never picked up an item and it still doesn't seem overwhelmingly difficult to roll a success to beat the monsters DC.

See, you seem to think that a specialist with a 50% success rate is desirable. For me, it's not.

Let's turn things up to 20th level, and let's say I want to sneak by Cerberus (who, for the sake of the argument, we'll say is a 20th level creature) and get into Hades. Cerberus is a dog, which is a creature known for their sensory acuity, and it has three heads so it can monitor three directions at once. I'd be comfortable giving Cerberus Extreme Perception, which is +39 for a Perception DC of 49. Cerberus is one of the most perceptive creatures in the multiverse. This is the kind of creature I feel that a person who is Legendary at Stealth and has maxed their Dex should need a 10+ to sneak past. As written, I'd need about a 14.

And if the specialist needs to sneak past a pit fiend or a balor, creatures that are not known for hyper-sensitive senses? They should have at least a 75% chance of that. Probably more.

[dirtypool]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

And that's for a specialist. Max Dex, maxed proficiency.

You said it was hard even for a specialist. You repeated that, multiple times across multiple posts. The numbers I shared indicated that it is not that hard.

Staffan Johansson wrote:

A 5th level monster with moderate Perception has about +12, so a Perception DC of 22. Maxed out, you're at +13, so you need a 9 to succeed.

In Bestiary 1 7 Monsters fall exactly at that level you indicate, with only 5 having a higher DC while 13 have a lower DC than that.

Staffan Johansson wrote:

And that's for a specialist. The dabbler (starting Dex +2, increases Dex with boosts up to 18 but not above, and doesn't raise the skill) is at +10 and needs a 12. That's less than 50%.

That dabbler with an 18 Dex trained in Stealth would be at an 11, not a 10. They'd have a 50/50 shot of beating the DC of 7 monsters, a less than 50/50 chance of beating the DC of only 5, and would still have a greater than 50/50 chance of beating the DC of 12 Monsters. Much more nuanced chances than the flat "less than 50%" you just indicated.

Staffan Johansson wrote:

the dabbler would succeed on a 10 (55% chance) and the expert on a 7 (70%). Note that we're talking about a "moderate" Perception. We're not talking creatures known for their exceptional senses.

There's already a game out there with success thresholds like the ones you're proposing.

Staffan Johansson wrote:

See, you seem to think that a specialist with a 50% success rate is desirable. For me, it's not.

If the specialist has a greater than 50/50 chance of beating the DC's of all the listed creatures of that level except one then the specialist has a success rate considerably greater than 50%. You love to find these median numbers that prove the math of the game is faulty, but then you exclude the rest of the data that conflicts with your personal narrative.

[HumbleGamer]

dirtypool wrote:

How should it work then? Should it simply not exist and the player who dumped Stealth is just a liability to this challenge? Or do you feel that a 2nd level feat should provide a nearly guaranteed success for any stealth challenge?

It's not about how it should work.

The system is ok.

If you have people unable to stealth and try to pass next to a dragon, it is logic that the party will have a huge penalty ( and failure would be more likely to occour than a success ).

My comment was to point out that even with those 2 features the success is not granted at all ( and it would still hard to achieve in normal and hard situations ).

[dirtypool]

HumbleGamer wrote:

It's not about how it should work.

The system is ok.

I absolutely agree with you, but the poster I was replying to agrees with neither you nor I. I was attempting to initiate a dialogue about their expectations versus the game itself rather than the current circular debate about the math not "working."

[HumbleGamer]

dirtypool wrote:

HumbleGamer wrote:

It's not about how it should work.

The system is ok.

I absolutely agree with you, but the poster I was replying to agrees with neither you nor I. I was attempting to initiate a dialogue about their expectations versus the game itself rather than the current circular debate about the math not "working."

To me he simply supported my point of view ( when I told you not to rely that much on those features, or give anything for granted. If not, eventually, the failure ).

He shared what happened to him just to point out that "It's going to fail anyway. I tried and I brought down the whole party, and my chances were low ).

[dirtypool]

HumbleGamer wrote:

He shared what happened to him just to point out that "It's going to fail anyway. I tried and I brought down the whole party, and my chances were low ).

That was Ubertron_X who brought up his experience at the table using the feat, I replied neither to him nor to you, nor to Henro. I replied to Staffan Johansson.

[HumbleGamer]

dirtypool wrote:

HumbleGamer wrote:

He shared what happened to him just to point out that "It's going to fail anyway. I tried and I brought down the whole party, and my chances were low ).

That was Ubertron_X who brought up his experience at the table using the feat, I replied neither to him nor to you, nor to Henro. I replied to Staffan Johansson.

Oh sorry, my bad ( was on mobile before and misread the quote ).

[Ubertron_X]

dirtypool wrote:

HumbleGamer wrote:

He shared what happened to him just to point out that "It's going to fail anyway. I tried and I brought down the whole party, and my chances were low ).

That was Ubertron_X who brought up his experience at the table using the feat, I replied neither to him nor to you, nor to Henro. I replied to Staffan Johansson.

Correct. And because of this our Ranger will probably retrain a skill feat which despite showing great promise when reading it obviously by numbers is not worth taking if not all characters in the respective gaming group are build for stealth. So no more sneaking attempts as a group and more frontal assaults.

[Staffan Johansson]

dirtypool wrote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

And that's for a specialist. Max Dex, maxed proficiency.

You said it was hard even for a specialist. You repeated that, multiple times across multiple posts. The numbers I shared indicated that it is not that hard.

60% is still not where I want the specialist to be. It is moderately acceptable at low levels, but it's not great.

The problem is that even at high levels, maxed Stealth against moderate perception stays at around a 60% chance. At almost every level, you need an 8 or a 9, sometimes a 10, to succeed against a moderate Perception at the same level.

Compare the moderate Perception values from the GMG to the regular DCs from the core book. They are consistently about 2 points higher (rarely 1, sometimes 3). And that means makes Stealth effectively a more difficult skill than most. In addition, you'll rarely be using Stealth against a fixed DC the way you'll often be doing with Athletics – you pretty much always roll against a Perception DC.

Quote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

A 5th level monster with moderate Perception has about +12, so a Perception DC of 22. Maxed out, you're at +13, so you need a 9 to succeed.

In Bestiary 1 7 Monsters fall exactly at that level you indicate, with only 5 having a higher DC while 13 have a lower DC than that.

I'm using the GMG guidelines because (a) they are less susceptible to random flukes of distribution (e.g. if level 5 happens to have a lot of creatures with low Perception and level 6 has lots with high) that will hopefully even out with more releases, and (b) I'm not going to go through dozens of monsters to average things out.

Quote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

And that's for a specialist. The dabbler (starting Dex +2, increases Dex with boosts up to 18 but not above, and doesn't raise the skill) is at +10 and needs a 12. That's less than 50%.

That dabbler with an 18 Dex trained in Stealth would be at an 11, not a 10. They'd have a 50/50 shot of beating the DC of 7 monsters, a less than 50/50 chance of beating the DC of only 5, and would still have a greater than 50/50 chance of beating the DC of 12 Monsters. Much more nuanced chances than you just indicated.

I think you misunderstood what I meant with "increases Dex with boosts up to 18". I mean that the character starts with a 14, for a Dex bonus of +2 (which means it's one of the character's better stats), and increases it with boosts to 16 at level 5 and 18 at level 10. But the character does not go on to increase it to 19 and 20 at level 15 and 20 because at that point the boosts are better spent on shoring up lower stats.

So at 5th level the character has Dex 16, for +3, and a proficiency bonus of +7, so +10.

Quote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

See, you seem to think that a specialist with a 50% success rate is desirable. For me, it's not.

If the specialist has a greater than 50/50 chance of beating the DC's of all the listed creatures of that level except one then the specialist has a success rate considerably greater than 50%. You love to find these median numbers that prove the math of the game is faulty, but then you exclude the rest of the data that conflicts with your personal narrative.

Just to make you happy, I compared the common level 5 monsters from Bestiary 1 on AON to maxed Stealth, and then I did the same with level 6. At level 5, the mean roll needed to succeed is 8.6, and the median is 9. At level 6, it's 9.8 and 10. Judging by this admittedly small sample it seems the median and mean are close enough that judging overall chances by the median is fair. In addition, the median is the same I got from using moderate Perception values.

This does not hold for all levels. I also checked level 20, just for funsies. Level 20 only has four common creatures in Bestiary 1 (balor, baomal, pit field, and pleroma), and they all clock in at Perception +34 to +37 instead of the moderate +33. So by that standard, the 8 I calculated I'd need to sneak at level 20 should actually be an 11. I don't know if this is a case of inflation ("Of course it should have high stats, it's the top devil! And the top demon! And the top aeon! And... um, a two-headed turtle sea monster?") or just a fluke because of the small sample size.

But I'm not going to go through the Bestiary monsters level by level. My sample at levels 5 and 6 showed that things were close enough that I could judge things by the GMG values.

[Virginia J.]

I've removed a couple of posts that were unnecessarily heated. If you're unhappy with someone's opinion, make sure that your response isn't antagonistic. There's always room for civil debate.

[dirtypool]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

60% is still not where I want the specialist to be. It is moderately acceptable at low levels, but it's not great.

Let's try placing your bold for emphasis at a different point in that sentence.

"60% is still not where I want the specialist to be." It isn't a fault of the design, it isn't broken math, it's just not your preference.

Staffan Johansson wrote:

I'm using the GMG guidelines because (a) they are less susceptible to random flukes of distribution (e.g. if level 5 happens to have a lot of creatures with low Perception and level 6 has lots with high) that will hopefully even out with more releases, and (b) I'm not going to go through dozens of monsters to average things out.

I used the Bestiary because it presents printed examples of finished monsters and not white room theorizing that assumes a baseline that agrees with my point and disregards any variance that doesn't. Your own further analysis to determine an exact numerical median fails to take into account that there are more monsters at the Low and Terrible than there are above. Yet out of five levels of possible DC's you have thus far continued to only present the moderate value - because it best fits your narrative that the numbers are wrong.

But the numbers will likely never be right for you, because your expectation is a success threshold beyond what this system has built for in regards to this mechanic.

[Unicore]

I'd just like to point out that this thread is not the thread for examining the actual math and determining whether the system itself is fair or not.

The purpose of this thread was to encourage GMs to look at the expectations of their players and to help provide GMs ways of making sure that the game can be fun for everyone.

If everyone at the table wants to be able to pull of complicated stealth missions without seriously investing in the resources to do so, then the GM can very easily just create in game situations that will give the team +2 or even +4 circumstance bonuses to specific kinds of skill checks. Noncombat encounters are one of the easiest things to adjust on the fly and tailor to your players expectations.

[Staffan Johansson]

dirtypool wrote:

I used the Bestiary because it presents printed examples of finished monsters and not white room theorizing that assumes a baseline that agrees with my point and disregards any variance that doesn't. Your own further analysis to determine an exact numerical median fails to take into account that there are more monsters at the Low and Terrible than there are above. Yet out of five levels of possible DC's you have thus far continued to only present the moderate value - because it best fits your narrative that the numbers are wrong.

But the numbers will likely never be right for you, because your expectation is a success threshold beyond what this system has built for in regards to this mechanic.

I did calculate both a mean and a median roll needed. They were close enough that the mean roll needed was rounded to the median (8.6 to 9, 9.8 to 10).

Looking at the common level 5 creatures, and assuming I run into (or rather, try to avoid) a representative sample of them, my specialist gets about a 62% chance of success (ignoring crits in either direction, because they generally don't matter much when sneaking). It should be noted that this sample includes the Ochre Jelly with a terrible Perception of +7, but which compensates with Motion Sense which makes the sneaking more difficult (or at least requires you to support the sneaking with an Occultism roll to realize this). Removing it doesn't change the outcome much though (61% instead of 62%). At level 6, the average chance for the specialist is 56%. If I switch to the dabbler, the average chance is 47% at level 5 and 42% at level 6

I also looked at one of the mid-levels, 12. Level 12 only has six common creatures, so that wasn't so much work. At that level, it turns out that there are actually more creatures with higher perceptions than expecteed, though the variance is significantly smaller (there's one 21, two 22s, and three 23s). Again, one of the creatures is nearly impossible to sneak by because of special senses (the cauthooj with its thought sense). The specialist's average chance here is 58% (about the same as at level 5 and 6), but the dabbler drops to 33%.

Anyhow, these numbers are just pointless illustrations of the main point, which is that if you want to have meaningful differences between dabblers and specialists, any challenge will either have to be calibrated to be a significant challenge for the specialist and nearly impossible for the dabbler, or a significant challenge for the dabbler and a cakewalk for the specialist. Given that in PF2, most characters will have about half their skills at the dabbler level, I would have gone for the second of those options. You, and apparently the developers, clearly prefer the first.

Another thing is that these artifacts of the game system are not clearly communicated to players, at least not that I can find. There's nothing that says "If you want to be sneaky, you'd best focus on being the sneakiest you can be, because otherwise you'll fall short." With most other skills, there's at least a mix of "simple" and opposed tasks – sometimes you use Athletics to jump or swim, and in those cases the DC is presumably at least somewhat fixed, and sometimes you use it to shove or trip opponents and are then opposed by their save DCs. But with Stealth there's always an opponent involved, so there's really no long-term point in being Trained in Stealth. That is a trap option.

[Exocist]

Just to settle this debate on guidelines vs printed monsters, here's the actual values - mean, median and mode

Uses all monsters currently listed on AoN.

[The-Magic-Sword]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

dirtypool wrote:

I used the Bestiary because it presents printed examples of finished monsters and not white room theorizing that assumes a baseline that agrees with my point and disregards any variance that doesn't. Your own further analysis to determine an exact numerical median fails to take into account that there are more monsters at the Low and Terrible than there are above. Yet out of five levels of possible DC's you have thus far continued to only present the moderate value - because it best fits your narrative that the numbers are wrong.

But the numbers will likely never be right for you, because your expectation is a success threshold beyond what this system has built for in regards to this mechanic.

I did calculate both a mean and a median roll needed. They were close enough that the mean roll needed was rounded to the median (8.6 to 9, 9.8 to 10).

Looking at the common level 5 creatures, and assuming I run into (or rather, try to avoid) a representative sample of them, my specialist gets about a 62% chance of success (ignoring crits in either direction, because they generally don't matter much when sneaking). It should be noted that this sample includes the Ochre Jelly with a terrible Perception of +7, but which compensates with Motion Sense which makes the sneaking more difficult (or at least requires you to support the sneaking with an Occultism roll to realize this). Removing it doesn't change the outcome much though (61% instead of 62%). At level 6, the average chance for the specialist is 56%. If I switch to the dabbler, the average chance is 47% at level 5 and 42% at level 6

I also looked at one of the mid-levels, 12. Level 12 only has six common creatures, so that wasn't so much work. At that level, it turns out that there are actually more creatures with higher perceptions than expecteed, though the variance is significantly smaller (there's one 21, two 22s, and three 23s). Again, one of the creatures is nearly impossible to sneak by because of...

Untrue, sometimes you have to sneak past things that don't have combat level that's a threat to you, but represents a threat to you in other ways. I.E If you need to make sure none of the low level guards of the king catch you sneaking into his rooms to search for evidence of something because it would incriminate you in the eyes of the nobility. In that case a trained score would constitute a much higher chance of success, if not practically guaranteeing it. Similarly, when you do go into an encounter while avoiding notice, you would roll stealth instead of perception, so if you have significantly lower wisdom than dexterity, its likely worth it to do it to cheese your way into rolling it for initiative.

[Deadmanwalking]

Exocist wrote:

Just to settle this debate on guidelines vs printed monsters, here's the actual values - mean, median and mode

Uses all monsters currently listed on AoN.

With rounding to the nearest whole number, on Perception, the mean on that table line up almost precisely with the Moderate Perception Guidelines in the GMG from 1st to about 15th, at 16th through 19th it's about a point over and 20th specifically is, in an isolated capacity, at the High Perception Guidelines of the GMG (jumping a massive three points at that level specifically).

So...for something like 95% of a character's career basing things on the Moderate line in the GMG (maybe the moderate line +1) is probably the way to go.

Just for the record.

[Exocist]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Exocist wrote:

Just to settle this debate on guidelines vs printed monsters, here's the actual values - mean, median and mode

Uses all monsters currently listed on AoN.

With rounding to the nearest whole number, on Perception, the mean on that table line up almost precisely with the Moderate Perception Guidelines in the GMG from 1st to about 15th, at 16th through 19th it's about a point over and 20th specifically is, in an isolated capacity, at the High Perception Guidelines of the GMG (jumping a massive three points at that level specifically).

So...for something like 95% of a character's career basing things on the Moderate line in the GMG (maybe the moderate line +1) is probably the way to go.

Just for the record.

Thanks I wanted to include the guidelines by the table already took up my entire screen because I first wanted to include mean/median/mode just so I didn't have to get into arguments about the "correct" average to use.