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We all like free stuff; I'm just proposing a less complicated way of doling it out.
Schools are too complicated. The Spells school gives you scrolls, and the Scrolls school ... doesn't. 90% of the items on the lists are useless to the people who don't select those lists, so there's very little difference between segregating the lists and making one big list, allowing fighters to choose a scroll of grim tendrils, or a wizard to choose a potency crystal if they want - because they won't want.
Earn Income is a far worse offender than the schools, though. Explaining a confusing system to a first level player - the most easily confused - should earn the GM extra AcP. "Take your character level, subtract two, that's your task level, unless you're level 1, then just subtract one. Now roll and look up the DC on this table - ignore the 'what happens if you're legendary at level 1' columns - and see how much you earn if you fail or succeed. But if you critically succeed then look up the next task level." LOL
Burn. It. All. Down.
1. We are all given stuff way beyond Wealth By Level. If a character consistently earns 10 Treasure Bundles, they'll have about 160% of WBL from Treasure Bundles alone. Now, apparently, people are only "supposed" to be getting 8 Treasure Bundles. That means they will have about 130% of WBL. (This is consistent with the Rebuild boon, which takes away 15% of gold earned, leaving a rebuilt character with 110% of WBL.)
2. Translating two School items per scenario into Gold Per Level gives another 30% overage on WBL.
3. Translating Earn Income per Downtime day into Gold per Level gives ... 3-4% of WBL.
So, as designed, we're getting 130% from Treasure Bundles, another 30% from Schools, and 3-4% from Earn Income. As a practical matter, since I find it hard to believe 10 Treasure Bundles is not both the mode and median of all Chronicles handed out, it's more like 160% from Treasure Bundles, 30% from Schools, and 3-4% from Earn Income.
We can achieve the same results as {8 TB + Schools + EI} by just revising the formal guidelines for Treasure to be 10 Bundles, and just cutting Schools and Earn Income. Characters will be earning 160% of WBL, just as intended. If people don't like having stuff taken away, then just put 12 Treasure Bundles in the scenarios and cut Schools and Earn Income. {10 TB + Schools + EI} = {12 TB}. Either way, cutting Schools and Earn Income is my proposal because there are easier ways to give out the same rewards.
If people are absolutely dead set on the idea of temporary, "use it or lose it" consumables, at least get rid of the whole Schools thing. No more Hufflepuff or Slytherin, Kreighton "Santa Claus" Shane shows up with a big bag at the beginning of the adventure, and says, "Ho, ho, ho! Choose an item out of my bag!" and there's one bag. And then the bag could even be customized for each scenario if someone really wanted to put in the effort to do so - this is already done for a number of scenarios, anyway.
But, bird's eye view, there's no reason for anyone to receive anything but Treasure Bundles and AcP. Everything a character could want should be purchasable with those two currencies.
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I like you Watery Soup, but I have to disagree on both fronts. I like The schools system, it just needs to be implemented better and advertised better. I run into so many players that have don't know about it and they're like level 5 or something. And personally I hate the treasure bundle system as it punishes people for playing up(even with the level bump) and breaks immersion but that is for a different thread.
Getting a free item, free skill and skill feat is good obviously, but the fact that it came from the school where your Pathfinder trained which chances are different from other Pathfinders and your other characters injects some verisimilitude and less sameness which PF2 has a problem with. Earn Income is base PF2 rules so I don't see it going away and I wouldn't want it to for some of the same reasons. I have based entire characters around their dayjob. I also don't believe that Earn Income is accounted in wealth by level as that can vary wildly.
PS. LOL at Kreighton Claus.
Venture-Agent, Minnesota
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The treasure bundle system doesn't punish people for playing up -- it's the entire PF2 rule system that does that because the math is so tight. Higher CR creatures are more deadly, and higher CR skill checks are so much harder to make.
What the treasure bundle system does instead is take away the reward for playing up, which is a different beast altogether.
I also like the schools system, and think that the simplified model will work better now that it is here.
Hmm
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I like Pathfinder schools. I don't like that the Spells school got restricted so hard. Was that necessary? As others have pointed out, depending on your spell list you may only have one option (or even none?) At your current level, and they removed the option to do a lower level scroll at a higher level.
I also really liked it as a way for my Wizard characters to get more spells in their spellbook without having to buy as many scrolls.
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I like the downtime system a lot. Earn Income is a pittance but the existence of the system allows for investment in crafting and there are skill feats and boons and stuff to make it more worthwhile if you're into it. And if you're not into it you can afford an extra potion or something now and then.
Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku
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While I agree that the earn income system is more complex than it needs to be, it doesn't really need to be -more complex for the player-.
As in PFS 1st ed, you ask the player to roll a d20, and add their highest of lore, perform, or craft, and then you (the GM) tells them what they earned. That's how it worked in PFS1 too, you didn't ask everyone to separately check the table for how much they earned - you the GM told them how much they got.
Problem is that downtime has a lot of various applications and you can really benefit from it if you put in the effort. There's a clear difference between a new player ("How does this work?" "Oh, roll d20. Nice, you got 16 extra silver pieces") and a veteran who's delved deep into the system ("Okay, I'll be crafting this piece of equipment with this boon and that boon and maxed stats and it'll result in couple extra gp as a discount, though it'll take a few scenarios before I actually finish the item") or other forms of downtime ("I won't roll, just note down that I'm retraining a feat" "I'm studying towards a new language" "I'm practicing my medicine with this boon").
As to the schools - I like that they simplified the schools. I don't like that they restricted some of the school items so much, especially scrolls. No more soothe? No heal as level 2 scroll, just 1 or 3? Why can't I pick a burning hands heightened to my level?
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Here is the design philosophy behind Earned Income, as I understand it.
The developers wanted to include Crafting into the campaign, because a lot of players really enjoy that aspect of Pathfinder. To do that, there needs to be some opportunity cost to keep the "crafter" characters on somewhat level footing with "noncrafter" characters.
That is where Earned Income comes in.
So to get rid of Earned Income, they would need to create some other kind of opportunity cost to balance crafters and noncrafters, or get rid of Crafting entirely (which I don't think they want to do).
On the flip side, there are a lot of players who like the narrative aspect of giving their character a Day Job and they invest character resources (skill ranks, feats, tools, etc.) into making the character an exemplar of it's chosen profession. The developers see value in that, and Earned Income is a nice reward for that investment, but is offset by the opportunity cost of not being able to Craft items while Earning Income.
Then there are those who are somewhere in between, and for those characters, the Schools balances those two camps. Instead of Crafting an Item, you borrow it, but at the expense of having less time to Earn Income.
I agree the Schools could still be even more simplified and refined, however.
Tangentially related are the Treasure Bundles.
Treasure Bundles are fiddly bookkeeping, but they are an improvement from PFS-1. Still, I'm not a fan. A possibly better system would have 10 bundles in every scenario and give players treasure for each bundle they find, up to a maximum of 8. (These numbers are off the cuff; it could be 12 bundles with a max of 10, for instance.) Knowing that it is ok to miss a couple of Bundles and it won't reduce your reward would help with a lot of criticism that Treasure Bundles have received over the last several days.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Also, if you get rid of earn income and crafting, you now need an opportunity cost for retraining...
Additionally, you lose the ability for players to offer to spend downtime as a favor to influence the outcome of a negotiation. (as occurs in a certain scenario.)
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Also, if you get rid of earn income and crafting, you now need an opportunity cost for retraining...
Or just a regular cost. Make Downtime days purchasable by AcP - you can retrain or Craft or save them all to build a fetchling azata from Antartica.
Additionally, you lose the ability for players to offer to spend downtime as a favor to influence the outcome of a negotiation. (as occurs in a certain scenario.)
That's:
(A) one scenario
(B) a backup option on a failure
(C) grossly disproportionate to the value. The mathematically inclined at my table quickly figured out that it was better to give up Downtime than to pay, because the payment was greater than a critical success on Earn Income.
It's because the value of Earn Income is so small relative to a Treasure Bundle. Given the chance to give up all a scenario's Downtime for a 20% chance at recovering a single lost TB, I'm pretty sure it's always worth giving up Downtime. It may even be worth it at 10%.
Venture-Agent, California—Silicon Valley
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Make Downtime days purchasable by AcP
Please no.
It's because the value of Earn Income is so small relative to a Treasure Bundle.
A level 6 field commissioned character critting at a task at their level both times earns 30 gold for the 12 days. That's two full treasure bundles for their level. That's pretty good if you ask me.
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Base downtime is fairly small. however if you invest (ie Field commissioned, Storied Talent (or other similar boons), skill increasing your earned income skill, seeking out item bonuses for your skill, etc) It can add up to 1-2 TB worth. With the new expectation of "normal" being 8-9 Treasure bundles, that's somewhere between 11% and 25% for someone who wants to invest into it. Crafting requires a similar investment to make it pay off.
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A level 6 field commissioned character critting at a task at their level both times earns 30 gold for the 12 days. That's two full treasure bundles for their level. That's pretty good if you ask me.
That's pretty disingenuous.
My level 6, field-commissioned, Int-maxed alchemist can't even reliably crit a Level 6 task, so holding that up as an example is pretty non-representative.
Base downtime is fairly small. however if you invest (ie Field commissioned, Storied Talent (or other similar boons), skill increasing your earned income skill, seeking out item bonuses for your skill, etc) It can add up to 1-2 TB worth. With the new expectation of "normal" being 8-9 Treasure bundles, that's somewhere between 11% and 25% for someone who wants to invest into it. Crafting requires a similar investment to make it pay off.
I think you've nailed it exactly.
1. "Base" downtime - per the rules of the game - is small.
2. Society has introduced a whole bunch of rules to make that much better.
3. If a player puts a bunch of effort into it and maxes it hard, they get way more rewards.
To be clear, I put a bunch of effort into it, retrained my Downtime school, did the math on switching to Envoys' Alliance (pro tip: not worth as much as people think), and my most advanced character has some pretty sweet rewards. So this is neither "I'm jealous someone else is getting this" nor "I'm unwilling to do math for a game" nor "I think my alchemist is overpowered" (which anyone who's played with me can attest to).
As a matter of fact, it comes from going through all of that and realizing that this level of complexity is unnecessary.
It's like the US tax code. There's the necessary part where people pay their taxes, and then there's literally thousands of pages to award loopholes to people rich enough to pay a lawyer to read it all.
We have Factions, which necessitate a Faction Boon, so now there's a Faction Boon Slot, but in order to get some of the higher level rewards, you have to have the Improved Faction Champion boon so you can get the bonus Faction Boon Slot. At some point, someone takes a step back, and realizes it doesn't need to be this complicated.
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As a matter of fact, it comes from going through all of that and realizing that this level of complexity is unnecessary.
While the finding your result on the table is tricky, sometimes, the "base" complexity is you roll a dice and check the number on a table then multiply by days spent. If you want yo wring the mist out of it, you go looking for the loopholes.
I see it similar to the effort put into one's character. I could have a wizard who just spams magic missile and electric arc. I could also have a wizard with a diverse spellbook and carefully srlected feats to maximize my value yo the team. The Wizard class doesn't need to be simplified to accommodate those disinterested in fine tuning their character.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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We have Factions, which necessitate a Faction Boon, so now there's a Faction Boon Slot, but in order to get some of the higher level rewards, you have to have the Improved Faction Champion boon so you can get the bonus Faction Boon Slot. At some point, someone takes a step back, and realizes it doesn't need to be this complicated.
Faction champion / improved champion boons and boon slots all got removed.
So it is now a lot less complicated.
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Venture-Agent, California—Silicon Valley
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A level 6 field commissioned character critting at a task at their level both times earns 30 gold for the 12 days. That's two full treasure bundles for their level. That's pretty good if you ask me.That's pretty disingenuous.
My level 6, field-commissioned, Int-maxed alchemist can't even reliably crit a Level 6 task, so holding that up as an example is pretty non-representative.
A level 6 expert in crafting with an eyepiece should have +15. That's a 7 to succeed and 17 to crit. The difference is 5 silver per day. This is a 5% chance to crit fail, 25% chance to fail, 50% chance to succeed and 20% chance to crit. Calculating the average gold per 8 days is 12.6g per block. A bit less than a treasure bundle but not useless.