Very disappointing trends in Advanced Player's Guide

[hyphz]

So, looking through some sections in the APG, they're reflecting trends in development that seem to be very negative - and undoing a number of the improvements in Pathfinder 2e compared to 1e and 3.5e D&D.

Feat Creep! Some of the APs were already pushing this, with PCs being unable to learn an organization's internal language unless they took a Feat, no matter how much time they spent with them. Now, without a feat, they cannot speak in innuendo (Doublespeak), estimate the numbers of objects (Eye for Numbers), read upside down (Glean Contents), take extra time to search as they travel (Thorough Search), consult with an underground guild they are a member of (Underground Network), or calm people down (No Cause for Alarm), even if they are legendary in the related skills.

Yes, there's cause for alarm.. On the topic of that feat.. what the heck is the deal here? It's harder to use on targets with a better will DC. Plus, it contains a big abstraction break. One of the problems with the Frightened condition is that a character who is frightened doesn't necessarily have it (you don't gain Frightened if you're on 2HP and a dragon is bearing down on you), so the use of this feat implies that there are two kinds of fear; regular fear that someone can be talked down from without a feat, and the actual Frightened condition which does require a feat. This is really awkward to visualise.

Weak Feats Concealing Legerdemain - who's really going to train Thievery but not Stealth?

.. Oh, and class features too You have to be a member of a particular class to give someone a bonus by sharing information with them (Clue In)..

[Gorbacz]

You're assuming that stuff like doublespeak, glean contents or through search is stuff every GM would allow without the feat. That's not the case.

[Martialmasters]

The is also a case to be made that if you spend a lot of downtime learning or if it serves the story Arc you could be given a feat or an approximation.

[hyphz]

I can see reading a sealed letter as something featworthy. But not being able to read a letter because you saw it upside down? That'd be a very pedantic GM.

[Salamileg]

hyphz wrote:

.. Oh, and class features too You have to be a member of a particular class to give someone a bonus by sharing information with them (Clue In)..

Wouldn't that normally be represented with the Aid action? Clue In just allows you to do the same thing without spending an action beforehand or rolling.

[Gorbacz]

hyphz wrote:

I can see reading a sealed letter as something featworthy. But not being able to read a letter because you saw it upside down? That'd be a very pedantic GM.

You need to play with more GMs :)

On a more serious note: I'd likely run it that without the feat, you need Expert or Master to quickly read upside-down text. With this feat, you need Trained.

For me, the intention for a lot of skill feats is more "you can do it easier/with lower proficiency threshold" rather than "you can only do it with the feat".

[Zapp]

This is a lost cause.

The core rulebook already contains a lot of feats that makes GMing hard since it's easy to accidentally allow something that a feat gives you.

Paizo reserves the right to monetize (through feats) every little thing. The "yes, but" school of games mastering has no traction here.

You're supposed to say no unless the player can prove he's allowed to do something.

A reductive GMing style, but hey, how would otherwise Paizo be able to fill up book after book with a thousand feats, controlling every aspect of the world.

An edition where it's easier to wing it than PF1, this is not...

[Gorbacz]

Zapp wrote:

This is a lost cause.

The core rulebook already contains a lot of feats that makes GMing hard since it's easy to accidentally allow something that a feat gives you.

Paizo reserves the right to monetize (through feats) every little thing. The "yes, but" school of games mastering has no traction here.

You're supposed to say no unless the player can prove he's allowed to do something.

A reductive GMing style, but hey, how would otherwise Paizo be able to fill up book after book with a thousand feats, controlling every aspect of the world.

An edition where it's easier to wing it than PF1, this is not...

And yet, between this and the agonisingly crippling Incapacitation trait, you play it. Just how much pain more will you bear? :)

[WatersLethe]

If a feat or rule offends me, I house rule it. I've already done quite a bit.

Doesn't mean the game isn't awesome and fun, and super playable even unmodified.

[Grankless]

Doublespeak is definitely worthy of a feat. Being able to say literally any old bullshit and your allies automatically understanding you is far away from, say, actually designing code phrases with the party.

And Glean Contents does a *lot* more than just "let you read upside down". Decipher Writing is not the same as just reading something. Please read what skills do before you whine about Paizo.

[AvalonRellen]

The argument being made that Paizo is "monetizing" every possible action in the game is being made in bad faith. The suggestion of such a trend is hyperbolic in nature, because it can be shown that just about every one of these dissenting examples are being made into feats in order to do something better, faster, or with less buy-in than you would normally need.

The real problem is that it takes no effort to loudly declare that Paizo is ruining the game and locking every action behind a feat. The onus is then pushed on to the other readers of the forums to show that the doomsayer's are in fact incorrect. This situation is rinse and repeat, because nothing said is likely to change any minds on the other person's side of the argument.

[hyphz]

Well, that's where it gets confusing. Doublespeak doesn't say "you can say any old ****"; as written, you can't even say "We'll agree that when I shout 'spoon' I'm going to throw a fireball" because that is disguising your meaning by relying on shared experience.

I don't know about monetization. What it seems is that there is a temptation to use a Feat to provide a rules description of how to resolve a particalar thing.

[thenobledrake]

hyphz wrote:

Well, that's where it gets confusing. Doublespeak doesn't say "you can say any old ****"; as written, you can't even say "We'll agree that when I shout 'spoon' I'm going to throw a fireball" because that is disguising your meaning by relying on shared experience.

That's not what the feat does.

The feat has nothing to do with the players actively establishing a code and then later using said code.

What the feat does is allow for the players to spend zero time or effort outside of taking this feat, and then be able to hide any message they want inside whatever sentence they happen to be saying.

The character could be in the middle of a conversation about the processes of corn farming and not be inserting any out-of-place words like "spoon" and still be communicating a more detailed message than "I'm going to throw a fireball" in the meanwhile.

Your summations of the other feats you mention appear to be equally not actually accurate, since every one of them reads to me as a thing which a character can do without a feat but the relevant feat greatly improves their ability to do so - much like how anyone can jump, but feats relating to jumping improve their jumps in some way.

[TwilightKnight]

Too often people “doomsay” when Paizo releases new rules, but unless your are playing PFS all of the rules are optional. If there is something you don’t like, change it. Very simple. No one can make you play the game in a way you don’t want to play. It’s a very rare campaign that doesn’t have at least a few house rules. Even PFS has house rules. In fact it has an entire Guide full of them. Given that this topic include just a few examples of “troubling” rules out of a multiple hundred page book, it’s hardly cause for concern.

[Xenocrat]

Paizo publishing new rules is very hard on people who struggle to understand published rules, film at 11.

[Shisumo]

I actually really appreciate Thorough Search, because "I know what my stats are, but I want to do better than that through fast-talking the GM" is kind of an obnoxious thing.

[Deadmanwalking]

hyphz wrote:

Feat Creep! Some of the APs were already pushing this, with PCs being unable to learn an organization's internal language unless they took a Feat, no matter how much time they spent with them. Now, without a feat, they cannot speak in innuendo (Doublespeak), estimate the numbers of objects (Eye for Numbers), read upside down (Glean Contents), take extra time to search as they travel (Thorough Search), consult with an underground guild they are a member of (Underground Network), or calm people down (No Cause for Alarm), even if they are legendary in the related skills.

Let's examine these one at a time, shall we?

Doublespeak - Allows allies to automatically succeed at discerning your meaning (meaning you don't need to roll to use it), while others need to critically succeed to determine the same (a success reveals you're hiding some message, but not what it is). As a GM, I'd certainly allow a PC without this Feat to pass along secret messages via innuendo, but it would require a check to succeed at rather than being automatic, and enemies would definitely only need a success to catch your meaning. Even for GMs who allow this normally, this Feat is an absurd upgrade to how good you are at it.

Eye For Numbers - This is a single action that automatically succeeds, and gives you a bonus to Decipher Writing to boot. I don't think most GMs would allow a player to know this kind of information in the midst of combat without a roll. Again, as a pretty permissive GM I'd allow them to try, but there'd be a Perception check involved to do it as an action, or it would take time outside combat.

Glean Contents - As others note, this allows so much more than 'reading upside down'. Decipher Writing is a specific action used only on things that are really hard to understand, and that normally requires full access to the document in question. It's used for codebreaking, not reading a letter. Being able to do it in conditions as described in this Feat (including reading sealed letters through the envelope) is amazing, and not something I can imagine any GM normally allowing without at least imposing huge penalties...and this Feat allows it at no penalty whatsoever.

Thorough Search - You can generally spend twice as much time and attempt a Search check twice. There's no rules provision for actually gaining a bonus on the roll without this Feat, however, and I don't suspect most GMs would allow doing so given that fact. Now, IMO, rolling twice would usually be better and that makes this a somewhat weak Feat, but weak and redundant aren't the same thing. This Feat allows an entirely new thing, rules-wise, that you cannot accomplish without it.

Underground Network - Underground Network makes you automatically part of such a guild everywhere you have spent a week (or spent a single day of downtime on getting connected), and adds additional bonuses to Recall Knowledge related to the info you get to boot. It's so much better, easier, and faster than the hoops almost any GM is gonna make you jump through to get similar benefits in a particular settlement it's not even funny.

No Cause For Alarm - Frightened is in fact manifestly mechanically distinct from fear that does not inflict the Frightened condition, just as being down HP and having the Wounded condition are very different mechanically despite being similar thematically. This Feat has done nothing to change that, and I don't think most GMs would allow the removal of Frightened without a Feat (and certainly wouldn't allow you to do it in an area effect). I do agree that it being vs. Will DC is awkward and weird, but that's a single weird mechanic, not a pattern of anything, and the Feat's fine in concept, it's only the execution that is a tad off.

So, in summary, all of those Feats (with the possible exception of Thorough Search) are way more effective at what they do than just about any GM is gonna let you approximate without the Feat. Much like anyone can Climb, but Combat Climber makes you much better at it, they serve an entirely legitimate role even in games where the GM lets you do similar things without a Feat.

[dirtypool]

Zapp wrote:

This is a lost cause.

From your perspective I believe that is true. There is an easy solution to your dilemma.

Zapp wrote:

You're supposed to say no unless the player can prove he's allowed to do something.

That's a preference of yours, not a default GMing style of either of the two editions.

Zapp wrote:

An edition where it's easier to wing it than PF1, this is not...

I've not had any trouble "winging it" in this edition, and it has been easier to do so than in PF1. Both as a player and as a GM. The GM I play for has equally found it easier to "Wing it"

If this is such a lost cause that you find so utterly unplayable, the solution remains the same. Houserule it until it plays the way you want, or play the older edition. You can, however, stop speaking for the rest of us as if only your opinions and preferences are valid at any point in time.

[Deadmanwalking]

Zapp wrote:

An edition where it's easier to wing it than PF1, this is not...

I have no trouble at all winging it in non-combat situations in PF2. Combat is a bit more codified, but that's not always a bad thing by any means.

[MaxAstro]

Basically, everything Deadmanwalking said.

And besides all of that, I have had a longstanding rule, literally since PF1, of "if you want to attempt something that requires a feat without the feat, you can try at a -4 penalty".

Solves all potential issues of this sort right quick, and considering how GM-friendly PF2 is it technically isn't even a house rule.

[Squiggit]

Feats that feel like the hedge into what characters should be able to do by default is definitely something I've been a little worried about, but these examples don't really seem to be that. DMW's analysis is pretty much spot on to me.

[KrispyXIV]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Zapp wrote:

An edition where it's easier to wing it than PF1, this is not...

I have no trouble at all winging it in non-combat situations in PF2. Combat is a bit more codified, but that's not always a bad thing by any means.

The level based DC table, and the fact that it is properly tuned, makes Winging It super easy and most importantly it makes it feel fair as well.

[PossibleCabbage]

From where I sit the purpose of skill feats is "to express what aspect of a given skill your character is most interested in". Like being a legendary athlete who focuses on climbing feats lets you be Alex Honnold, and being being a legendary athlete who focuses on swimming feats lets you be Michael Phelps. But while the greatest climber in the world is unlikely to drown quickly if they fall out of the boat, the world's greatest swimmer isn't going to just wake up in the morning and free solo El Cap.

So if your character heavily invested in "Society" with an emphasis on its seedy underbelly, why wouldn't you take Underworld Network? Other than "there's another feat available at the same level that reflects your vision better" that is.

[Charlie Brooks]

I have a very different take than the original poster on what these feats are.

Fortunately, Archives of Nethys was terrific and has all the APG stuff up on release, allowing people to easily access these feats and form their own conclusions.

[Gortle]

Zapp wrote:

Paizo reserves the right to monetize (through feats) every little thing. The "yes, but" school of games mastering has no traction here.

You're supposed to say no unless the player can prove he's allowed to do something.

Only if you fall for it and allow it to exist at your table.

I do not. I expect that players will improvise new uses for old skills/spells/powers/feats. I support it and enable it.

[Temperans]

Its too soon to say if they will just continue to add feats that people though they could already do.

But given what happened in PF1, its very likely that it will eventually happen.

[Deadmanwalking]

Temperans wrote:

Its too soon to say if they will just continue to add feats that people though they could already do.

I legitimately hate Feats that do this. I don't think that description applies to any of the Feats brought up by hyphz in this thread.

Nor do I think it applied to most of the PF1 Feats people described that way if you actually read them and looked at what they did, as opposed to just lazily going 'Oh, there's a Feat for analyzing the relationship between two people, I guess nobody can figure out two people are married without that Feat'. Ignoring that the Feat let you perfectly analyze a relationship, no matter how secret, with a flat DC they could not oppose with Bluff, in only one minute.

Now, GMs can be lazy in precisely that way, which is unfortunate, but the rules in no way mandate such laziness, and I have yet to see a PF2 Skill Feat that isn't actually useful even if you assume that most basic actions are possible with the skills alone.

[Gortle]

hyphz wrote:

Feat Creep! Some of the APs were already pushing this, with PCs being unable to learn an organization's internal language unless they took a Feat, no matter how much time they spent with them. Now, without a feat, they cannot speak in innuendo (Doublespeak), estimate the numbers of objects (Eye for Numbers), read upside down (Glean Contents), take extra time to search as they travel (Thorough Search), consult with an underground guild they are a member of (Underground Network), or calm people down (No Cause for Alarm), even if they are legendary in the related skills.

Yes it is a problem. Far too many feats that provide a bonus in a very narrow situations. Or are for a stupid thing anyone with half a brain could do. For me Survey Wildlife was a prime example of this in the base book.

Paizo really doesn't seem to get that most of this is just rubbish and a waste of time to read. So far from reading the APG 2 out of 3 feats fall into this category. It is very dissapointing.

Fortunately there is some good stuff too. Some new builds and concepts have been enabled. I like a lot of what they have done. But I have mixed feelings about the sheer volume of waste.

hyphz wrote:

Weak Feats Concealing Legerdemain - who's really going to train Thievery but not Stealth?

.. Oh, and class features too You have to be a member of a particular class to give someone a bonus by sharing information with them (Clue In)..

I agree, a very poor choice. I don't let the lack of a rule stop me from using a skill in a new situation or even in just an obvious way, nor the fact that there is a rule/feature buried in a class somewhere do I let it stop the players from trying something anyway. Often the restrictions on the feature make it impossible to take, or are just a waste of space.

It's a pity that the sheer volume of mess this creates forces us to go online and use the better tools there to filter through it all. Driving us away from the books. I have the books and PDFs, but online just seems easier.

[Rysky]

Quote:

Paizo really doesn't seem to get that most of this is just rubbish and a waste of time to read.

That is an extreme assumption you are having there.

[Mark Seifter]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Its too soon to say if they will just continue to add feats that people though they could already do.

I legitimately hate Feats that do this. I don't think that description applies to any of the Feats brought up by hyphz in this thread.

Nor do I think it applied to most of the PF1 Feats people described that way if you actually read them and looked at what they did, as opposed to just lazily going 'Oh, there's a Feat for analyzing the relationship between two people, I guess nobody can figure out two people are married without that Feat'. Ignoring that the Feat let you perfectly analyze a relationship, no matter how secret, with a flat DC they could not oppose with Bluff, in only one minute.

Now, GMs can be lazy in precisely that way, which is unfortunate, but the rules in no way mandate such laziness, and I have yet to see a PF2 Skill Feat that isn't actually useful even if you assume that most basic actions are possible with the skills alone.

My favorite PF1 example for this is Rumormonger, which came out long before I worked at Paizo so I was out in the community for all the discussions. A lot of people were unhappy about it in numerous places with the idea that "Now no one can ever spread rumors except a rogue with this talent" but the actual talent let you roll an easy Bluff check scaling only via settlement size (and not on how ridiculous the rumor is) and then "If the check succeeds, the rumor is practically accepted as fact within the community" within 1 week (or more often 1d4 days because you succeeded by 5). That's pretty far beyond what almost any GM would allow on a basic Bluff check. Imagine a player asking "I would like to roll a DC 20 Bluff check to spread a rumor that I am the true heir to the throne, and if I succeed, after a week, that rumor will be practically accepted as fact within this large town that is the capital of the kingdom."

[Ian Bell]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Glean Contents - As others note, this allows so much more than 'reading upside down'. Decipher Writing is a specific action used only on things that are really hard to understand, and that normally requires full access to the document in question. It's used for codebreaking, not reading a letter. Being able to do it...

FWIW, 'this feat also does all these other things!' is a non-sequitur to the initial complaint. Basically all of the 'loose papers' part of the feat (as opposed to the 'sealed message' parts) would seem to pretty easily qualify as things-you-shouldn't-need-a-feat-for, to me.

[Brew Bird]

This seems like another one of those problems that's caused by bad GMs, not bad rules. Are these kinds of obnoxious rules lawyers really the norm? If so, then it sounds like there's a much deeper problem in the hobby itself, one that no rulebook is going to solve.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

I don't have a problem with the feats themselves, but I do have a problem with being able to actually allocate feats for these kinds of things.

Not to mention there's so many new things in the APG that I can't even reasonably get to work on learning the new options, much less compare and contrast what is and isn't available.

Yes, this is the nature of new content and bloat, but I'm more worried about having all these options and not knowing what to take, or wanting a bunch of options but not having the feat space(s) to take them.

[ikarinokami]

Brew Bird wrote:

This seems like another one of those problems that's caused by bad GMs, not bad rules. Are these kinds of obnoxious rules lawyers really the norm? If so, then it sounds like there's a much deeper problem in the hobby itself, one that no rulebook is going to solve.

I didnt realize the extent of this issue until i read the battle medicine thread

[Temperans]

Mark Seifter wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Its too soon to say if they will just continue to add feats that people though they could already do.

I legitimately hate Feats that do this. I don't think that description applies to any of the Feats brought up by hyphz in this thread.

Nor do I think it applied to most of the PF1 Feats people described that way if you actually read them and looked at what they did, as opposed to just lazily going 'Oh, there's a Feat for analyzing the relationship between two people, I guess nobody can figure out two people are married without that Feat'. Ignoring that the Feat let you perfectly analyze a relationship, no matter how secret, with a flat DC they could not oppose with Bluff, in only one minute.

Now, GMs can be lazy in precisely that way, which is unfortunate, but the rules in no way mandate such laziness, and I have yet to see a PF2 Skill Feat that isn't actually useful even if you assume that most basic actions are possible with the skills alone.

My favorite PF1 example for this is Rumormonger, which came out long before I worked at Paizo so I was out in the community for all the discussions. A lot of people were unhappy about it in numerous places with the idea that "Now no one can ever spread rumors except a rogue with this talent" but the actual talent let you roll an easy Bluff check scaling only via settlement size (and not on how ridiculous the rumor is) and then "If the check succeeds, the rumor is practically accepted as fact within the community" within 1 week (or more often 1d4 days because you succeeded by 5). That's pretty far beyond what almost any GM would allow on a basic Bluff check. Imagine a player asking "I would like to roll a DC 20 Bluff check to spread a rumor that I am the true heir to the throne, and if I succeed, after a week, that rumor will be practically accepted as fact within this large town that is the capital of the kingdom."

Oh I also dont like those types of feats. But keep in mind that I am not saying that it was prominent or that most of those feats deserved it. But a few did exist.

The ones I think of are things like: Bilge Rat (you cover you other eye to help vs dazzled/blinded), Colleague (you are good friends with a merchant who is willing to help you out), Collective Recollection (Aid Another on Knowledge check + guaranteed same knowledge), Confabulist (try to save a failed lie with another lie), etc.

[Deadmanwalking]

Ian Bell wrote:

FWIW, 'this feat also does all these other things!' is a non-sequitur to the initial complaint. Basically all of the 'loose papers' part of the feat (as opposed to the 'sealed message' parts) would seem to pretty easily qualify as things-you-shouldn't-need-a-feat-for, to me.

You think you can do codebreaking or deeply in-depth reading on upside down documents at no penalty? That seems like an unwarranted assumption to me, and the sort of thing that it's well within a GM's remit to forbid. Personally, for that one, I'd apply a penalty rather than flatly forbidding it, but I wouldn't argue with a GM who did forbid it.

Reading a brief letter upside down should not require this Feat, and nothing in the feat's text implies it does.

And clarifying that it applies very specifically to Decipher Writing was the point of my response, so no, I don't think most of my paragraph is a non-sequitur, though I admit the parenthetical aside regarding envelopes is a slight digression.

[Squiggit]

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Yes, this is the nature of new content and bloat, but I'm more worried about having all these options and not knowing what to take, or wanting a bunch of options but not having the feat space(s) to take them.

I feel like this is definitely going to feel like more and more of an issue as the game progresses. Even in the CRB I think you could feel how much of a bottleneck feats could become for certain builds.

Ian Bell wrote:

Basically all of the 'loose papers' part of the feat (as opposed to the 'sealed message' parts) would seem to pretty easily qualify as things-you-shouldn't-need-a-feat-for, to me.

The ability to decipher the meaning of a message without having to even read the whole thing seems pretty reasonably within feat territory to me.

[TwilightKnight]

Zapp wrote:

You're supposed to say no unless the player can prove he's allowed to do something.

I do not recall seeing this rule codified in any Paizo product and I strongly disagree with it.

Gortle wrote:

Paizo really doesn't seem to get that most of this is just rubbish and a waste of time to read.

I cannot express how strongly I disagree with this statement.

[Gortle]

TwilightKnight wrote:

Gortle wrote:

Paizo really doesn't seem to get that most of this is just rubbish and a waste of time to read.

I cannot express how strongly I disagree with this statement.

Fair enough it is a bit broad and off the cuff. I play and enjoy this game. Further APG is enough to help me get some more of my friends over the line on this system. But I won't hold back on critism if I think its warranted. I retract my comments, but I'll put together my thoughts in a more reasonable form and post them later.

[Strill]

TwilightKnight wrote:

Zapp wrote:

You're supposed to say no unless the player can prove he's allowed to do something.

I do not recall seeing this rule codified in any Paizo product and I strongly disagree with it.

It is codified implicitly. Imagine you're a new GM, and you have a player whose character concept is a wilderness tracker. He says "I'm an experienced tracker, so I want my character to use his Survival skill to check for dangerous animals." You say "sure, roll survival". He rolls a success, and you tell him there are dire wolves nearby.

After the game, another player comes in and tells you "Hey, I took the Survey Wildlife feat, but that other guy didn't. If he can find out what animals are nearby with just Survival, then what does my feat do?"

What do you tell him? That his feat does nothing? That the other player will have to take Survey Wildlife? Do you tell him that Survey Wildlife's benefit is that you can make the check in 10 minutes, and not some other arbitrary timescale? If so, what is the alternative timescale? 15 minutes? 30 minutes? an hour? a day? Since you're running under narrative time, and not a strict clock, when will the ability to make that check faster come into play, and how will it be beneficial? If you say that you need Survey Wildlife to make the check at all, then does the other player who didn't know about Survey Wildlife get a chance to rebuild his character since he didn't realize that he needed one particular feat in order for his character concept to work within the rules?

Furthermore, how do you address the fact that your original ruling is mechanically more powerful than Survey Wildlife? You only asked for a Survival check, but Survey Wildlife requires two checks, one survival check, and then a recall knowledge check on top of that. Obviously Survey Wildlife, which cost a feat, has to be better than the alternative, so does that mean that you have to make the checks harder for anyone who doesn't have it?

The simple solution to all of these questions is that the designers did not intend for you to be able to survey wildlife at all without the use of a feat, and in order to run the rules as written, you were supposed to tell your player "no, you can't figure out what dangerous animals are nearby, because it's not listed as a possible action in the Survival section of the book."

If you instead choose to GM without telling the players "no" all the time, then every feat like Survey Wildlife which gets added, is another annoyance and complication to your GM style. Most likely, you just tell the players not to take it, and that it is off the table.

[thenobledrake]

Strill wrote:

After the game, another player comes in and tells you "Hey, I took the Survey Wildlife feat, but that other guy didn't. If he can find out what animals are nearby with just Survival, then what does my feat do?"

What do you tell him?

I tell him this:

The benefit of the feat is not the being able to find signs of creatures, it's to make the activity of finding these signs, identifying what they mean, and coming up with specifically useful information take 10 minutes rather than a GM arbitrated amount of time.

And sure, time-saver features are not something that everyone agrees are worth while - but that's because people, in my opinion unrealistically, portray their characters as not just getting things done in a timely fashion because that's how people do things even if they aren't specifically "on a clock."

[Franz Lunzer]

I just checked what Survival actually does, in the CRB:

survival wrote:

You are adept at living in the wilderness, foraging for food and building shelter, and with training you discover the secrets of tracking and hiding your trail. Even if you’re untrained, you can still use Survival to Subsist.

Nothing in there about checking for dangerous animals.

Without survey wildlife you should probably do the following:
Perception checks to find tracks of wild animals.
Nature Recall knowledge checks to identify those animals.

[Wheldrake]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

(After a very informative overview of the feats in question...)

So, in summary, all of those Feats (with the possible exception of Thorough Search) are way more effective at what they do than just about any GM is gonna let you approximate without the Feat. Much like anyone can Climb, but Combat Climber makes you much better at it, they serve an entirely legitimate role even in games where the GM lets you do similar things without a Feat.

The only thing that is really lacking is a "normal" listing, as in how to handle such tasks *without* the feat in question.

I'm OK with a feat granting extra expertise above and beyond what skills already allow. It really looks like that is what is happening here. All these results should be obtainable, to a lesser degree and with a greater time and roleplaying investment, to anybody *without* these special feats. And I think the PF2 rules are open-ended enough to allow for that.

[Gortle]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

hyphz wrote:

Feat Creep!

Let's examine these one at a time, shall we?

Doublespeak - I can see the point in this feat if you are doing a lot of social encounters in your game, and you really want to put some numbers around this. I would always just do this as a simple roll, but fine there may be some games that will want this.

Eye For Numbers - This is so narrow. Really why is it here?

Glean Contents - Opening Sealed letters. Reading from a glimpse. So narrow, why is it here?

Thorough Search - this just puts a mechanic around something that comes up all the time. The players guess that there is something here but just can't find it. So they take more time and try again. Now there is a mechanic and a feat for it?!? The benefit of this feat is half the time and a +2 circumstance check. The +2 is useful. But you can get that from Aid from another PC. The half the time when you are searching is of vanishingly small effect. This is very much a null feat.

Underground Network - This does seem to be of benefit to this skill use for Gather Information. I'd have normally handled this with a simple Diplomacy Check, maybe a Deception check is the player asked to be more discrete and was taking time.

No Cause For Alarm - A real mechanic to reduce fear. Now I can't improvise this action with a diplomacy roll. I guess it is useful to have it codified. Not one I'm likely to think worth while to take. Frightened reduces every round anyway. Probably an OK ability.

Doublespeak, Underground Network are things there is a small chance I might take in the right sort of diplomatically heavy campaign. Probably not even then though. Eye For Numbers, Glean Contents and Thorough Search never ever. So very very specific and narrow.

I'm 5 out of 6 with the original poster on these skill feats.

If this is how you play your game then go for it. There are a lot of different type of groups, and its right that we should play the game how we each want. But these are to my mind just infringing on common sense and how the GM will improvise and deal with what the players try to do. I don't especially need mechanics for these or want them in the game. Are these new features or new restrictions? Odds are, two years from now and several books done the track I'll forget these even exist. But then some player will bring them up ....

[TSRodriguez]

Eye for Numbers is a fun rp heavy choice, I like it, but I get why its looked down upon.
Glean contents comes up a lot in game, most of the time the answer to "can I see If I notice something in the documents" is met with "Its too clustered, but make a hard Perception to get a vague idea" I think is very useful in a espionage setting.
Thorough Search is great for someone who wants to be extra careful, a player of mine already choose this for upgrading his character. (Aid can fail)

[vagrant-poet]

MaxAstro wrote:

Basically, everything Deadmanwalking said.

And besides all of that, I have had a longstanding rule, literally since PF1, of "if you want to attempt something that requires a feat without the feat, you can try at a -4 penalty".

Solves all potential issues of this sort right quick, and considering how GM-friendly PF2 is it technically isn't even a house rule.

Same. Low level characters try ">> Sudden Leap" all the time!

[Fumarole]

hyphz wrote:

Weak Feats Concealing Legerdemain - who's really going to train Thievery but not Stealth?

A locksmith perhaps. Also, someone who is a member of, oh I don't know (and this is a completely random example), the city watch might have need of opening locked doors or disabling boobytraps. These people would need skill in Thievery but not necessarily Stealth.

[Captain Morgan]

Franz Lunzer wrote:

I just checked what Survival actually does, in the CRB:

survival wrote:

You are adept at living in the wilderness, foraging for food and building shelter, and with training you discover the secrets of tracking and hiding your trail. Even if you’re untrained, you can still use Survival to Subsist.

Nothing in there about checking for dangerous animals.

Without survey wildlife you should probably do the following:
Perception checks to find tracks of wild animals.
Nature Recall knowledge checks to identify those animals.

Personally, I'd allow someone without the feat to figure out there are dire wolves nearby if there was actually a reason for them to look in the exact places wolves were. So for example, if they find a mauled corpse, and they wanted to roll survival to find tracks for what did this. Survival could tell you there are large quadropeds with paws nearby, and medicine would tell you the corpse was torn apart by something in that that vein. And then a recall knowledge check using either a hard or very hard DC would tell you what they were exactly. In an AP, those checks would probably be specifically called out.

Survey Wildlife is a lot broader, and should let you figure out there are dire wolves without needing to stumble upon a kill site or something directly. A character without the feat might be able to approximate that by spending hours and hours combing the woods for such signs, but Survey Wildlife can do it in 10 minutes.

[cartmanbeck]

I've never understood the idea of wanting more things to be left up to GM interpretation. I personally like to have all these things be feats so that I (as the GM) don't have to come up with the ways that all these things work on the fly. If a player can point to a feat and say "it works like this" it makes my life SO much easier.

If you want to play an RPG that leaves a ton of stuff up to GM interpretation, those RPGs exist... play them.