This is something I've tossed around in my mind a bit for a while and decided to actually try writing it out.
We have the standard: Untrained, Trained, Expert, Master, Legendary Ranks
I'm proposing a new "occasionally" used Skill Rank: Familiar (Untrained, Familiar, Trained, Expert, Master, Legendary)
It falls between Untrained and Trained.
Untrained is 0 + no level + attribute; Trained is 2 + level + attribute; Familiar falls in between with 0 + level + attribute. Standard statements which talk about giving skills at trained level, do not change, they continue to move Untrained to Trained, skipping Familiar. It is otherwise, sort of a helf-rank skill.
A skill with a Familiar rank can of course use any untrained use of a skill, as would be expected. They also can preform Aid checks to assist in Trained uses of the skill for someone else whom is skilled. They can also preform Trained skill actions, if they are supervised by someone whom is at least trained in the skill. (basically enables a Follow the Expert, from a guiding individual whom is at least Trained.)
How do you get a Familiar rank skill?
You may trade in one unrestricted Trained skill choice for 2 skills at Familiar rank. (I might limit this to one trade off like this per person, but I'm not absolutely certain on this) You can't trade a Trained rank in a particular specified skill (or even a subset of options) for 2 Familiar skill ranks, the original Trained rank needs to be unrestricted in its selection choices.
Other ways you might get a Familiar rank skill. The GM may grant certain skills as a boon at a Familiar level due to campaign setting or role playing due to your characters exposure to the skill use. You might also get certain ones based on your character choices.
For instance, the GM may give any character a free Lore skill in their own Ancestry or primary cultural identity with which they were raised in. The same, they may be granted Familiar with the Lore specific for the Locale in which they were raised. (while this may slightly, but only slightly) reduce the value of the "Ancestry" Lore line of Ancestry feats, they already granted more than one skill, and you could allow them to choose to choose a free alternate LORE at Familiar level if your feel it discounts it too much.
[additionally, you might consider giving anyone who learns any particular living language, a free Familiar ranked Lore skill related with the specific ancestry or Culture, as frequently knowledge of the language includes at least a bit of understanding of the underlying culture in the wider sense.]
Spending 1 Trained skill choice you can advance 2 Familiar skills up to Trained. Or can move one Familiar skill to Trained and adopt a new skill giving it rank of Familiar.
This options is relatively simple rules addition. I don't imagine it is likely to create any situations that are really unbalanced, and allows starting characters a wider range of potential investment in starting skills. It also allows you to get an extra skill that would maintain your level bonus to any uses, from the start. (albeit without any +2 for being trained)
Anything right off the bat anyone sees that this sort of option would break?
Anyone feel that limiting splitting 1 Trained rank into 2 Familiar ranks is too limited and should allow you to do it more than once? If so why?
Anyone feel that offering the 'follow' the leader like function following Trained individuals, enabling the use of Trained actions without being fully trained is unbalanced?
I know there are other feats that allow adding level to untrained skills, but I feel like this still has some use, especially at the lower levels, so I don't really feel like they prohibit each other from existing.
Anything else it would be appropriate for Familiar ranked skills? Any other guildelines for when a GM might grant them?
I would have made it `1/2 level + attribute`.
The F should stand for Fraud rather than Familiar.
EDIT: I feel it needs to be at least 4 points under what trained should be, so either `trained - 4` would do as well.
Well, 1/2 level might be an option to consider. However, an issue with that would be that at first level it would be numerically exactly the same as untrained, and part of the whole purpose of this is to enable some extra skill diversity at lower levels. In such a case the only advantage would be having access to the equivalent of follow the expert with someone who is trained in it. I suppose it wouldn't be unheard of to say 1/2 level (min 1).
Trained -4 doesn't seem like it would work at all, since that would put Familiar as worse than Untrained for any levels prior to 8 if you do 1/2 level, or 4th level if using + level -4. Again this seems to make it unusable at starting levels where it was intended to provide viable diversity.
Given that I believe there are a couple of different single skill feats that grant level to all untrained skills, I really didn't feel like granting it to one (or I suppose more accurately two) specific skill(s) was not too much.
Your Fraud label comment actually gave me an idea for a Skill feat for Deception. It might allow you to, with a successful deception check, use a trained activity of a skill you have Familiar rank in without having someone trained actually supervising you. It might also remove a limit of only swapping a single Trained rank for a pair of Familiar ranks. Either removing the limitation, or allowing another Trained rank to be swapped for another pair. The GM has the latitude to have work, items, and such done via this method to be flawed and items made might be more prone to breaking over time, or flaws in how something done otherwise revealed over time.
Thanks for the feedback!
How about 1/2 level + 1?
As Familiar is already a game term, I'd use "Dabbling" or "Dabbled".
I don't know if it's really needed but I don't think it's unbalanced. You 2 for 1 upgrade math seems to work out. It might be a nice story-given half-skill for the GM to give as you say.
You could also make the leveling-math 2 + half level (or 1 + half level) to limit familiar/dabbling skill to basic uses and leave really high level challenges to trained+ skills.
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This seems very similar to Untrained Improvization at level 7 (use any untrained skill at Level+Attribute), investigator's Keen Recollection and Bardic Lore.
So, it's unlikely to really break anything, although those classes should probably get something because their "special thing" became a lot less special.
In fact, during the 2E playtest, untrained skills more or less worked this way; untrained skills still added your level but at a -1. People didn't like that, wanted a bigger difference between Trained and Untrained, so Trained became a +2 and Untrained lost the Level modifier.
Personally, I'm inclined to go a step further and add the Level modifier to all skills (so basically switch everything over from Untrained to Familiar, to use your terms). The reason is that at higher levels, the difference between having your level and not having it becomes much bigger than all the other factors.
For example, if you're at court trying to impress people and you have some social checks, any DC where the outcome is even just in doubt for the level 10 Bard, is going to be an almost guaranteed critical failure for the barbarian that isn't trained in those skills. The barbarian might have a charisma of 10, while the bard has a charisma of 20 and is probably a Master, so that's a difference of 10+6+5=21. With "everyone is familiar" it becomes only a 11, which is still huge. But it means that any DC that's Very Hard for the barbarian is only Very Easy for the bard.
Why does that matter? Skill challenges. The current system locks people in their niches a bit more than I like. You can't really have a skill challenge where everyone has to make the check now, because some people are automatically critically failing. Whereas if they're a bit closer together, you can put the DC a bit in the middle and it's a long shot for the one character, but the other one is likely to either succeed or crit, and thus bail out their mate.
Ascalaphus, isn't that problem with skill challenges and some charas being untrained what Follow the Expert is for? You do not get your level to untrained skills per default but you have to have at least one character in the party that is Expert+ in the skill, then you can get it.
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I don't think that's a complete solution. You can't follow the expert for example when you're in a chase scene (since that's more like encounter mode). PFS has gotten around that so far by most chases being in low-level scenarios, and offering more alternative skills than the GMG suggests. But just because you've been able to employ a workaround doesn't mean there wasn't an issue in the first place, and that might get worse at higher level.
Hmm. Seems a bit complicated. When I first saw the title here my immediate thought was a way to codify level-as-proficiency-bonus rather than as a form of skill proficiency selection.
So Untrained Improvisation might make you "Familiar" (I like "Competent" to avoid a familiar that's familiar with skills) with all skills at level 7. Maybe a level 1 feat could make you Familiar with your choice of 3 skills.
If you want to upgrade a skill you're Familiar with, it goes Familiar > Trained until level 7, when you can go Familiar > Expert.
But I like the core of the idea. A way to add level-as-proficiency seems like fun.
That part on treating each "Dabbled" rank as half increases is quite elegant!