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It's not uncommon to see people on these boards pointing out that the optimal way to distribute your stats is to maximize your primary stat and then put your other 3 boosts into your saving throw-related stats. Not only does this promote very same sets of stats for any character building within a particular niche it also needlessly punishes any build that needs to push more than one non-save stat.
It also impacts how wide the gap between the six stats is. In this edition intelligence drew the short straw as it does nothing to grant you more skills, doesn't interact in combat the way all other stats do, and it doesn't even pump a save. If you divorced stats from saves and instead tied them to another mechanic it would open up design space for more interesting stat arrays without unduly impacting how mechanically sound your character's build is.
Has anybody tried changing how stats impact saves or is it something that people are content to live with as a legacy feature?
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Skills and languages, as long as you aren't rolling in a combat situation trained doesn't actually depreciate as much as people think it does.
Plus it boosts lores and a few skills as well.
I would rather they had gone the 5e route of having 6 saves personally.
There is a spectrum of peoples' preference ratio of Talent vs Training. For those who prefer the former, gutting the existance of (starting) ability scores (or boni; as a simulationist I prefer raw scores to exist forever but that's another story) would be a major anathema.
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Skills and languages, as long as you aren't rolling in a combat situation trained doesn't actually depreciate as much as people think it does.
If you have a GM that lets you reroll knowledge tests, which isn't always a given. Languages can also - still - be replaced with a low-level spell or telepathy.
I would rather they had gone the 5e route of having 6 saves personally.
That hasn't worked out in practice. 5e rarely uses most of its non-traditional stats. Without looking I think strength is the next most used save after the big 3.
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Another issue with our current six stats as it relates to saves is that while the physical stats are easily silo'd, which makes it easy to picture a strength save, a dexterity save, or a constitution save the mental stats outside of intelligence are pretty nebulous. For example, it makes little sense that intelligence and wisdom don't have active social uses for bringing people around to your point of view, that wisdom is both accumulated common sense and your ability to sense the world around you, and that people still debate if charisma is a purely mental stat. When we can't figure out where the bounds of these stats are it makes it much hard to figure out how they can interact to save a character from danger.
For me, I could see making saves even more binary and using just physical and mental as the two saves. Characters use their highest stat in each category to power their saves. Classes and/or feats could then specify that you get a bonus to certain types of save within those silos to bring back some of the lost design space.
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There is a spectrum of peoples' preference ratio of Talent vs Training. For those who prefer the former, gutting the existance of (starting) ability scores (or boni; as a simulationist I prefer raw scores to exist forever but that's another story) would be a major anathema.
It just seems odd that the 'ideal' adventurer focuses on exactly three of these stats plus one other. I'd like to push the design such that being good at what your build is good at is more important than building around the metagame of saves and skills with the greatest in combat use.
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The GMG is full of ideas for how to mod the game, including adjusting attributes. From a number of your posts Verdyn, I think you’d really enjoy reading it thoroughly for getting a sense of how flexible a system PF2 can be for you, without having to completely reinventing the wheel.
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I would rather they had gone the 5e route of having 6 saves personally.That hasn't worked out in practice. 5e rarely uses most of its non-traditional stats. Without looking I think strength is the next most used save after the big 3.
I think that's even intentional - the each class gets proficiency in one of the 'good' saves (DEX/WIS/CON) and one of the 'bad' saves (STR/INT/CHA), with the split in effectiveness by design. At least in the early books, there are only a handful of examples of effects that'll force an INT save at all.
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The GMG is full of ideas for how to mod the game, including adjusting attributes. From a number of your posts Verdyn, I think you’d really enjoy reading it thoroughly for getting a sense of how flexible a system PF2 can be for you, without having to completely reinventing the wheel.
You miss my purpose entirely. I may never play another game of PF2 again, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in what it means for the future of fantasy RPGs. D&D 5e took no risks, but PF2 aimed for something new and that makes it, for all its features that I find questionable, extremely interesting. As I missed the playtest and the discussions that happened around it, it makes sense that many of my posts will tread on soil that others have already tilled.
I don't mean to hit a raw nerve with my questions, I merely want to tease out the whys and hows of PF2 by picking the brains of those who've played it extensively and care enough to post here.
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Have you considered instead consulting the playtest forums and all the discussion contained therein? It seems more likely to be productive than constantly attempting to create discussion on what PF2 is not.
That said, I think 4e attempted that, linking two different stats to each defense. However, 4e also only had two stats increase every 4 levels, and only by 1.
So at that point, you're really comparing two completely different things, as the way PF2 handles it would practically guarantee you increase your saves every 5 levels if it operated under a similar system, up until a stat hit 18.
If you decouple saves from stats entirely, some stats will be left out too: CON, for example, wouldn't have much left - HP only, no skills.
There is an easier to apply, and probably better alternative: if you look for Deadmanwalking's house rules, in the Homebrew section, he allows players a choice (at character creation) about which stat applies to will saves.
If I was concerned about not having diverse stat distributions, I would do something like that.
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That said, I think 4e attempted that, linking two different stats to each defense. However, 4e also only had two stats increase every 4 levels, and only by 1.
Yeah. Str/Con, Int/Dex and Wis/Cha.
Int and Str still ended up being kind of subpar since Dex ran Initiative and Con ran HP... but it definitely made the stats feel a bit less two-tiered.
Though conversely, it made a handful of class options that pointed you two to stats within the same category (a Cha secondary Cleric or a Dex secondary wizard, for instance) kind of unappealing as a result.
as the way PF2 handles it would practically guarantee you increase your saves every 5 levels if it operated under a similar system, up until a stat hit 18.
I mean that's basically how PF2 is and arguably part of the problem some people have with three core saves and four stat boosts. It makes builds with a primary stat outside those three often feel like they don't have a lot of flexibility and builds with two stats they value outside the 'good' three feel like they have to sacrifice their save progression to keep the rest of their kit up.
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I don’t mind having stats tied to defenses, but I think either every stat should have a defense, or no stat should have one.
Whether that means going the 4e method of stat pairs (higher of str/con for fort, higher of dex/int for ac and ref, higher of wis/cha for will) or moving to 4 stats, some examples
Build = Str+Con
Agility = Dex
Intellect = Int+Wis skills including perception
Willpower= Charisma + Will saves
Or
Build = Hp and Fort saves (hit and damage bonus decoupled from stats)
Agility = Ref saves and Initiative
Intellect = Ac and skills
Willpower = Will saves and ??
Under this system, the assumption would be that you spread out your boosts (i.e. if you get 4 boosts of 3 stats each, you would assume the player puts 3 boots in every stat by the end) so you can choose which stats to be better at, at the expense of others, but not so much it warps the game.
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After playing the game since Playtest, I do feel it might have been a better alternative to decouple saves from stats. With the way things currently are, investing in main stat + save stats is always the clear cut best choice unless you have the blessing of being SAD and having one of the save stats as your main (Druid, Thief Rogue) or you're a Strength martial with Bulwark and don't mind being trapped in a Resilient Sphere every once in a while. It cuts on build diversity in such an obvious manner that even my newbies naturally gravitate towards the same stat spreads on most classes.
And god forbid you have two main stats and neither of them is a save stat (Interrogator Investigator, Playtest Magus, etc).
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I think it's good the way it is. When you starting carving away the differences between stats for the sake of "build diversity" you wind up with nominally different, practically the same builds.
Ability scores need to have weighty reasons to exist, or else they become dumpable, forgettable, and builds become no-brainers.
I'd be interested in an armor rune that gives an extra boost to your lowest save at high levels if save imbalances are actually a problem, though.
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To be honest if you removed will saves from wisdom and fort saves from con I will have very little incentive to invest in those.
Wisdom would be about as bad as int, although it has better (IMO) skills to boost.
Con is still mildly important as it determines HP, but without fort saves being tied to it, it's certainly less devastating to leave it at 12.
Int and charisma already have little value unless you specifically are playing a class that uses that stat, with charisma contributing to some handy skills. But if you weren't planning to use that skill can be ignored. Extra trained skills from int is ignorable IMO. It's a mild bonus. There are many methods to get extra trained skills, so it's not an exclusive benefit of int.
Str is used for melee attack, but no saves.
And then you have dex, which can be used for attack (and sometimes damage), AC, and reflex saves. Dex still does too much in this edition, just like every edition before.
If you remove the saves from Con and Wisdom, IMO you might as well get rid of the classic stat distribution and simply have two base stats: Offense and Defense.
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I mean, tbh, I think it works out fine enough. It does make sense that most adventurers would be wise, hardy, and nimble, though not necessarily physically strong, extremely smart, or sipremely charming.
I've never even really had an issue with int, cha, and str being bad at my tables. There's enough connection to society that making friends and manipulating people frequently yields boons, enough times where obstacles can be broken down, and enough times were even simply being trained in a skill lets you participate if you're Aiding or Following an Expert.
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The GMG is full of ideas for how to mod the game, including adjusting attributes. From a number of your posts Verdyn, I think you’d really enjoy reading it thoroughly for getting a sense of how flexible a system PF2 can be for you, without having to completely reinventing the wheel.You miss my purpose entirely. I may never play another game of PF2 again, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in what it means for the future of fantasy RPGs. D&D 5e took no risks, but PF2 aimed for something new and that makes it, for all its features that I find questionable, extremely interesting. As I missed the playtest and the discussions that happened around it, it makes sense that many of my posts will tread on soil that others have already tilled.
I don't mean to hit a raw nerve with my questions, I merely want to tease out the whys and hows of PF2 by picking the brains of those who've played it extensively and care enough to post here.
I don't think you are really listening to me either. I understand that you are interested in discussing the philosophy of some of the choices made in the design of PF2 and what could have been if other choices were made. I am trying to tell you that the GMG actually walks through quite a few of those choices and offers alternative systems of play based upon making different design choices. It is the one PF2 book that I think you would really enjoy reading as it explores both why the designers made the choices that were made, AND presents a lot of simple and interesting ways to change the math and the system.
From reading multiple threads you have been asking these questions in, I think reading the GMG would give you a much more advanced perspective on some of the ideas that you are interested in exploring.
If you remove the saves from Con and Wisdom, IMO you might as well get rid of the classic stat distribution and simply have two base stats: Offense and Defense.
Following up on this thought:
What if we essentially tried this, and for anything offensive you use one modifier in place of ability score and for anything defensive related to ability score you used another.
You get a +4 modifier and +2, and can choose to allocate either to either stat.
For anything that's neither related to offense or defense let's assume you have a +3 modifier.
And let's assume you get an "increase" at level 5 that can be applied to offense, defense, or neutral. If your modifier is 4 or more it only increases by 1/2 (and has no immediate effect). If it's less than 4 it increases by 1.
How does this shake up the game?
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To be honest if you removed will saves from wisdom and fort saves from con I will have very little incentive to invest in those.
Wisdom would be about as bad as int, although it has better (IMO) skills to boost.
I don't necessarily agree with decoupling either, but even without Will saves Wisdom would still cover Perception and by extension your default initiative, which makes it still hugely important.
Though I'm not sure it would even be bad if there wasn't a lot of incentive to invest in Wisdom. You don't invest in Strength, Int, or Charisma unless you have class features or you want to leverage the things they benefit... but everyone is more or less expected to invest in Wisdom. Is that really a good thing?
To be honest if you removed will saves from wisdom and fort saves from con I will have very little incentive to invest in those.
Wisdom would be about as bad as int, although it has better (IMO) skills to boost.
I don't necessarily agree with decoupling either, but even without Will saves Wisdom would still cover Perception and by extension your default initiative, which makes it still hugely important.
Though I'm not sure it would even be bad if there wasn't a lot of incentive to invest in Wisdom. You don't invest in Strength, Int, or Charisma unless you have class features or you want to leverage the things they benefit... but everyone is more or less expected to invest in Wisdom. Is that really a good thing?
See my above idea of switching to a offense/defense/neutral system. What do you think?
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When I was thinking of making my own RPG system I worked out my own method of representing stats and making them all of roughly equal importance. I never got beyond the basic framework for the base stats but I'll post it here in full for discussion.
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Stats
Each character has four primary stats. Physical, Intellect, Charisma, and Senses (PICS). Your PICS can be considered as base stats and will usually range between 3 and 10 though larger a smaller numbers may come into play. By themselves, PICS only gives an idea of what a character is good at. To do anything with them a character will need some FAME.
FAME stands for Force, Avoid, Manipulate and Endure and represents what your character can do with their base stats. In addition, each point of FAME adds +1 to rolls when used but we’ll touch on that a bit later. For now, just remember that PICS are base stats and FAME is a modifier to how those base stats are used.
To avoid having to write Physical Force or Sense Avoid a bunch of times instead we’ll abbreviate each stat down to the first letter of its name. For example, a character has a Physical stat of 7 written as P7, if the character rolled using that stat’s Force (in this example 2) that would be written as PF7(2).
That covers PICS and FAME so let’s look at what each stat represents about a character. I’ll also include a sample character Bjorn the Mighty as an example so these systems can be more easily understood. His stats are P8 [PF8(2), PA8(1), PE8(1)]; I3; C6 [CF(2)]; S5 [SE(1)]. That might look like a mess now but as each stat is explained Bjorn’s stats should become clear.
Physical (P):
This is an overall look at how a character interacts with the world around them with their body.
Physical Force (PF) represents a character’s bodily might, power, and strength and might be used to land a crushing blow in combat or kick down a barred door. Physical Avoidance (PA) represents how able a character is to dodge an attack but it can also represent how well they can walk a tightrope or avoid slipping on ice. Physical Manipulation (PM) represents how well a character can use their fine dexterity for things like picking a look or writing calligraphy. Physical Endurance (PE) represents how well a character can resist an opposing force such as a punch but also represents their ability to endure heat and cold or fight off disease.
Bjorn the Mighty is an exceptionally physical character with a Physical stat of 8. His FAME has an additional two points assigned to Force with one point assigned to Avoid and the final point going to Endure. With the points assigned this way, Bjorn would be an excellent melee combatant and an all-around athlete.
Intellect (I):
This is an overall look at how a character interacts with the world around them with their critical thinking.
Intellectual Force (IF) represents a character’s accumulated knowledge and ability to learn and remember things. Intellectual Avoidance (IA) represents how able a character is to stay clear of logical traps and represents the application of knowledge. Intellectual Manipulation (IM) represents how well a character can think outside the box about any given idea. Intellectual Endurance (IE) represents how well a character can resist mental fatigue from something like a long night of studying or typing a particularly dry essay.
Bjorn the Mighty isn’t blessed with great intellect having a 3 in this stat. He assigns no starting FAME here but is otherwise not penalized. Bjorn would be considered a little slow by most people but not to the point of impairment.
Charisma (C):
This is an overall look at how a character interacts with the world around them with their social skills.
Charismatic Force (CF) represents a character’s force of personality, it can be the first impression they give off or how well they can quickly intimidate somebody. Charismatic Avoidance (CA) represents how able a character is to stay clear of emotional goads it can also represent them keeping their cool when something shocking happens. Charismatic Manipulation (CM) represents how well a character can apply their social manipulation over a longer period of time such as when giving a speech or when conducting a prolonged interrogation. Charismatic Endurance (CE) represents how well a character can resist emotional fatigue from torture or other extended periods of strife, it can also represent how well they can maintain a simple lie over a long period.
Bjorn the Mighty is fairly charismatic having a 6 in this stat. He’s assigned both his FAME points in this stat to Force. Bjorn attracts a lot of notice when he wants to but some people find he’s not nearly as interesting long term.
Senses (S):
This is an overall look at how a character interacts with the world around them with their senses.
Sensing Force (SF) represents a character’s ability to spot things at a glance such as keys in a cluttered drawer or a drop of blood along a trail. Sensing Avoidance (SA) represents a character’s intuition and how quickly they’re able to respond to danger it could also represent a 6th sense or connection to a deity. Sensing Manipulation (SM) represents how well a character can search over an intermediate period of time such as trailing somebody through the woods or looking over a page for a misspelled word. Sensing Endurance (SE) represents how well a character can stay alert on watch but can also represent their sense of direction or their ability to keep an accurate time count without a watch.
Bjorn the Mighty is just above average at Sensing with a 5 in this stat. He’s assigned his FAME to Endurance. Bjorn is a good choice to stand watch.
In a broad sense Force and Avoidance happen in an instant and generally require the character’s ability to actively participate in the activity. Think of Force as an instant offense and Avoidance as an instant defense. Manipulation usually takes time and requires a character’s active participation. Endurance can be either long-term or instant and is passive meaning that it can be used even in cases where a character cannot act.
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Or... maybe make a character and base their stats on what you think would make sense for that character. I tend to like characters that are decently intelligent and charismatic. If that means they aren’t as wise or hardy... I play around that. You have a team around you for a reason.
I take issue with this because saves are purely reactive. You can't take a proactive action in a fight to avoid your saves being targeted.
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And why does your character need to be focused on saving throws? If they aren’t wise, they aren’t wise. That means knowing that mental effects are a weakness. If they are meant to be a scrawny sorcerer, then you know that Fort saves aren’t your thing and you and your team work around mitigating things.
The gameplay actively punishes your concept in a way that it wouldn't punish a very similar character who was stupid instead of being foolish. I don't feel like you should ever feel suboptimal because you chose to play a character on a theme rather than on game mechanics.
I have a Catfolk changeling bard who has a -1 wisdom modifier and I’m not planning on focusing on raising wisdom because she’s meant to be an unwise teenager. So I roll (and role) with that. She is an effective bard, but she has weaknesses and that’s fine.
You're relying on your GM going easy on you then. If they play intelligent monsters intelligently and hit you with mind control effects you will suffer greatly at high levels.
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The GMG is full of ideas for how to mod the game, including adjusting attributes. From a number of your posts Verdyn, I think you’d really enjoy reading it thoroughly for getting a sense of how flexible a system PF2 can be for you, without having to completely reinventing the wheel.You miss my purpose entirely. I may never play another game of PF2 again, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in what it means for the future of fantasy RPGs. D&D 5e took no risks, but PF2 aimed for something new and that makes it, for all its features that I find questionable, extremely interesting. As I missed the playtest and the discussions that happened around it, it makes sense that many of my posts will tread on soil that others have already tilled.
I don't mean to hit a raw nerve with my questions, I merely want to tease out the whys and hows of PF2 by picking the brains of those who've played it extensively and care enough to post here.
I don't think you are really listening to me either. I understand that you are interested in discussing the philosophy of some of the choices made in the design of PF2 and what could have been if other choices were made. I am trying to tell you that the GMG actually walks through quite a few of those choices and offers alternative systems of play based upon making different design choices. It is the one PF2 book that I think you would really enjoy reading as it explores both why the designers made the choices that were made, AND presents a lot of simple and interesting ways to change the math and the system.
From reading multiple threads you have been asking these questions in, I think reading the GMG would give you a much more advanced perspective on some of the ideas that you are interested in exploring.
Especially since the GMG explicitly talks through things like Alternative Ability Scores. I recall Mark also talked through something similar in the playtest forums.
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I don’t feel “suboptimal” at all. She plays the way she is meant to play. And while GMs (and everyone at the table really) do meta game to an extent, constantly having the caster role will saves because we know those are weak is rather meta game-y to an extreme. It isn’t a video game, why are you dealing with such an adversarial relationship with your DM/GM? You can put together challenges without meta game targeting people.
Think of it this way. Shouldn't an ancient elf, or lich, or dragon be doing things like making insight checks against the party as they advance through their layer and battle their underlings? Thus by the time the players face them shouldn't the boss know who the threats are and take actions to disable them as efficiently as possible? This isn't adversarial, this is playing an ancient intelligence intelligently and probably TPKing a party that doesn't meta game their saves. This is a game design issue not a GM issue.
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Shouldn't an ancient elf, or lich, or dragon be doing things like making insight checks against the party as they advance through their layer and battle their underlings?
No, I don't think that a PF2 monster should be making checks that don't exist in PF2.
This is a game design issue not a GM issue.
Sure, but if you're going to spend thread after thread lecturing us about what's wrong with PF2 as a system - you should try to know what skills, rolls and checks actually exist within the system.
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No, I don't think that a PF2 monster should be making checks that don't exist in PF2.
The name of the check doesn't matter. The mechanic exists in PF2 and intelligent foes should use it.
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The name of the check doesn't matter. The mechanic exists in PF2 and intelligent foes should use it.
It does matter. You present yourself as some sort of rules expert here to free us all from the shackles of this restrictive game. You're the game messiah, but you haven't even gone to the simple step of making sure you're talking about the right game.
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No, I don't think that a PF2 monster should be making checks that don't exist in PF2.The name of the check doesn't matter. The mechanic exists in PF2 and intelligent foes should use it.
Except any PC would be considered unique and therefore make that check rather difficult maybe extraordinarily so. Definitely not a thing that adversary could count on succeeding. In the example provided it would be almost impossible to know that this specific PC has a lower Wisdom than average via Recall Knowledge. It would also require their spending an action in combat to Recall Knowledge and having the appropriate skill; a lot of enemies (maybe even most) don't have Arcana, Society, Nature, Religion, or Crafting. I hope when they critically fail that check you play them as getting a piece of false information that they act on or if they fail you don't allow them to make another attempt. This is where your unfamiliarity with the system accompanied by your adversarial/argumentative nature works against you. You might want to try being more receptive to the feedback you're getting from people that actually play the game.
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It does matter. You present yourself as some sort of rules expert here to free us all from the shackles of this restrictive game. You're the game messiah, but you haven't even gone to the simple step of making sure you're talking about the right game.
The name of any given rule is meaningless next to its mechanics. Complaining that a race is unbalanced instead of making the same complaint about an ancestory doesn't invalidate the complaint.
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The six ability paradigm has already been acknowledged by the designers as an imperfect system that it is hard to get away from. I think the OP missed a key point about PF2. For all that it is a new system and a chance to do new thing, itLzk needs to remain recognizable as Pathfinder/D&D to make sure there's an audience to buy it. The ability scores are essentially sacred cows that didn't make the list for slaughter this time around.
They tried to make Charisma a better stat sith Resonance, for example, and people rejected it during the playtest. So if you want insight, should check out the playtest forums. Or...
Especially since the GMG explicitly talks through things like Alternative Ability Scores. I recall Mark also talked through something...The GMG is full of ideas for how to mod the game, including adjusting attributes. From a number of your posts Verdyn, I think you’d really enjoy reading it thoroughly for getting a sense of how flexible a system PF2 can be for you, without having to completely reinventing the wheel.You miss my purpose entirely. I may never play another game of PF2 again, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in what it means for the future of fantasy RPGs. D&D 5e took no risks, but PF2 aimed for something new and that makes it, for all its features that I find questionable, extremely interesting. As I missed the playtest and the discussions that happened around it, it makes sense that many of my posts will tread on soil that others have already tilled.
I don't mean to hit a raw nerve with my questions, I merely want to tease out the whys and hows of PF2 by picking the brains of those who've played it extensively and care enough to post here.
I don't think you are really listening to me either. I understand that you are interested in discussing the philosophy of some of the choices made in the design of PF2 and what could have been if other choices were made. I am trying to tell you that the GMG actually walks through quite a few of those choices and offers alternative systems of play based upon making different design choices. It is the one PF2 book that I think you would really enjoy reading as it explores both why the designers made the choices that were made, AND presents a lot of simple and interesting ways to change the math and the system.
From reading multiple threads you have been asking these questions in, I think reading the GMG would give you a much more advanced perspective on some of the ideas that you are interested in exploring.
Do what Unicore suggested at the top of the thread.
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The name of any given rule is meaningless next to its mechanics. Complaining that a race is unbalanced instead of making the same complaint about an ancestory doesn't invalidate the complaint.
The name is meaningless next to the mechanics, but in this case the mechanic itself is different. The more you post about PF2 the less it seems that you understand PF2
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After reading many of the OPs posts/threads, I would suggest he goes and plays Amber with some like-minded individuals.
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And that’s fine to me. Make me roll the will save (it would be lower anyway as catfolk have a wisdom penalty). If she fails, in character, she would figure the voices in her head don’t make sense usually... why is today supposed to be different? I nearly died to a haunted rope... the character still had fun swinging on it, even though it turned into a noose that required holy water to cure.
But she is functions how she is expected to function as a low wisdom character with high charisma and dexterity and moderate other stats.
The hyper focus on “optimal” takes away from letting the characters be characters and dealing with the world from there.
Honestly, I don't think it's as much "hyper focus on optimal" as people just having different definitions of how crippling a weakness can be before it starts interfering with your fun with the game. You do critical fail a whole lot more in PF2 if you have a very low save, and a lot of these effects just render you useless for the fight (sometimes outright kill you).
I'm not one to try and make some hyperoptimized build and put that above my concept, but I don't think having a 20-30% chance to be taken out of a fight every time I roll a Will save is very fun. And, as stated before by other people, you can make a not-booksmart (Low Int), bad with people (Low Cha) or weak (Low Str) character and pretty much choose to which level you want that weakness to be relevant mechanically, but for Dex, Con and Wis, the difference between your concept involving foolishness or not might be the difference between living and anticlimactically dying to Phantasmal Killer. I don't think that's a very good state or affairs.
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I think having the saves linked to the higher of 2 stat pairs would help the situation. I'd like to see Fort linked to Con or Str, Reflex linked to Dex or Wis, and Will linked to Int or Cha. I think I might implement that house rule in the next campaign I run.
That said, it's probably not a good idea to break from what they've done already. Maybe for PF3.
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I think having the saves linked to the higher of 2 stat pairs would help the situation. I'd like to see Fort linked to Con or Str, Reflex linked to Dex or Wis, and Will linked to Int or Cha. I think I might implement that house rule in the next campaign I run.
That said, it's probably not a good idea to break from what they've done already. Maybe for PF3.
I'm a bit surprised you had those pairings. Is there a particular reason you didn't do Dex/Int for Ref and Wis/Cha for Will, as 4e did?
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I'm a bit surprised you had those pairings. Is there a particular reason you didn't do Dex/Int for Ref and Wis/Cha for Will, as 4e did?I think having the saves linked to the higher of 2 stat pairs would help the situation. I'd like to see Fort linked to Con or Str, Reflex linked to Dex or Wis, and Will linked to Int or Cha. I think I might implement that house rule in the next campaign I run.
That said, it's probably not a good idea to break from what they've done already. Maybe for PF3.
I just think it works better thematically for me. I think Cha and Int are both better fits for Will saves than Wisdom and Wisdom is certainly a better fit for reflex than either of those stats.
Mechanically, I like emphasizing characters taking one of Int or Cha by having a downtime facing stat in one of their saves.
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I just think it works better thematically for me. I think Cha and Int are both better fits for Will saves than Wisdom and Wisdom is certainly a better fit for reflex than either of those stats.
Mechanically, I like emphasizing characters taking one of Int or Cha by having a downtime facing stat in one of their saves.
I think Intelligence as Reflex makes quite a bit of sense, actually, and the example I like to use is, oddly, fighting games. If someone throws a Hadouken (Fireball) at you, you might avoid it on prediction, i.e "judging by this guy's previous movements, positioning and average player habits, he'll throw a fireball now, so I'll jump", or on reaction, i.e "I see the animation of his fireball being cast, and press the button fast enough to jump".
Intelligence is evading on prediction, as it is general quick thinking, prediction and cognitive ability (just look at Devise a Stratagem). Dexterity is evading on reaction.
Honestly, I'd like to se a 3x3 stat breakdown like Chronicles of Darkness, where it's Physical, Mental, Social; with Offence, Defense, Utility in each category. It's pretty smooth as a system, although porting it into something like Pathfinder would be quite difficult because of how it selects and targets things. Or simplify to 4 like Shadow of the Demon Lord (Strength, Dex, Int, Cha) and roll from there. 6 is just an awkward number to work with, too many to hyper focus, too few to spread out in a nice even wash/be comfortable neglecting some of them.
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For the ''omniscient lich'' scenario:
How does it know? Did it use an action in combat? in which case, cool, roll the skill agaisnt an extremely hard recall knowledge check of the PC's level, because the PC is Unique.
Did it use scrying? That's a nice metacombat spell, it requires a save though, and a link to the target. Plus it can be countered by savy players (my players know that my monsters scry, and they take precautions for that).
Did it use Clairvoyance/Clairaudience/arcane eye? Well then that's an invisibile sensor, players have options for these.
It targets the will save of the bard, cool, what with? Let's say phantasmal killer, it's a kickass spell! On a failed checked the bard takes a lot of mental damage and is frightened 2. On a crit fail its even more damage and fleeing, and a chance to die, double ouch!
The bard and the party knows this, maybe the bard can take the sorcerer archetype and the counterspell feat? Good defense to have as a bard because occult has a lot of potent will save spells, and you want to shield that.
Maybe the bard has ''no cause for alarm'' as a skill feat, which allows them to use their high diplomacy to mitigate the frightened condition? Maybe eventually they cast mind blank, which mitigates a lot of those weaknesses.
There's ways around a weak save.
And monsters are not omniscient, if you want to play them smart, play them smart! But have a logical rationale as to why they know the things they do, because players have access to the same ressources they do, and it creates more fun.
GM's don't play to win, GM's play to make it fun. If you're playing to win as a GM, you're doing a s!+@ job.
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I personally favor reducing the number of stats vs expanding, though I'm not really sure I think theres an issue with the number of stats, and more just that str, int, and cha, in most tables, just don't feel like the do as much.
Every character needs/wants good defenses, but most mages can live with a lower carrying capacity, people who are in fighting centric games can live with less skill, and people who don't want to socialize can live with low cha.
I don't think this is helped much by the fact that while all 3 stats have some really good stuff for them, you have to invest in them; we all know demoralize is good, but you still have to invest proficiency ranks; Athletics is pretty good, but you still have to invest, arcana and occultism both have handy skill feats, but you... well, you get the idea. Con, Dex, and Wis just give you stuff, really good stuff, by just putting in the points.
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I just think it works better thematically for me. I think Cha and Int are both better fits for Will saves than Wisdom and Wisdom is certainly a better fit for reflex than either of those stats.
Mechanically, I like emphasizing characters taking one of Int or Cha by having a downtime facing stat in one of their saves.
I think Intelligence as Reflex makes quite a bit of sense, actually, and the example I like to use is, oddly, fighting games. If someone throws a Hadouken (Fireball) at you, you might avoid it on prediction, i.e "judging by this guy's previous movements, positioning and average player habits, he'll throw a fireball now, so I'll jump", or on reaction, i.e "I see the animation of his fireball being cast, and press the button fast enough to jump".
Intelligence is evading on prediction, as it is general quick thinking, prediction and cognitive ability (just look at Devise a Stratagem). Dexterity is evading on reaction.
Seems like a fine argument. In general, though, I think of pattern recognition in the moment as falling under Wisdom and not Intelligence. Intelligence to prepare a strategy for how to approach a situation and responds quickly makes a lot of sense, but I think that should be a buff you take at action speed rather than a reactive speed save. Something like adding a rider to recall knowledge to add to your saves against an enemy due to preparation is something that would be cool to see as a general feat option.
I think Intelligence works better as a response to Will affects. The idea is that you act rationally when an effect would ask you to act irrationally.
I'm not really that convicted on my take over every other. I think making reflex int/dex based works better than the current state of affairs.
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Is the problem that some classes face weaknesses other classes dont, or is it that weaknesses are too debilitating to even have in PF2?
On a side note to the "every stat has a save" thing from 5E, Intelligence being just as much if not more of a dump stat in that edition has the unfortunate side effect of Int-save spells tending to be even more broken than the rest, since very few creatures have especially good defenses against them. Harder to cover weaknesses against 6 saves.
As for distribution of bonuses to ability scores, I've long advocated for Will being shunted to Charisma or made a choice between it and Wisdom, as well as Intelligence getting to do more for skills, but at this point I kinda think the easiest thing would just be to let any mental stat be the one that affects Will. Stupefied affects all of them, right? And Intelligence (understanding the phenomenon) and Charisma (force of personality) make just as much sense for avoiding Will effects, overarching as "Will" can be.
Perception is important and dictates many things, and Wisdom still has a few really good skills, but it's a lot easier to not care about them without Will being in the same stat. It's a lot easier to be a book-smart Fighter who's not good at social skills or common sense if you aren't increasingly likely to get ganked by mind magic because your academic training doesn't help for some reason. Really there's a lot of argument for Wisdom and Intelligence being too close together and only being separated because of tradition and having too many attributes if grouped, but I think the system mostly works, and Will is just The Big One in Wisdom's wheelhouse that doesn't need to remain exclusive to it.
(With recent characters I've also been pretty chuffed at always needing a good amount of either Strength or Dexterity to keep up AC. But, it's better than it once was, when Dexterity was *always* demanded (or would have been if AC scaling worked). And at least you can ignore the Strength requirement of heavier armor if you don't care too much about the check penalty or speed drop, though armor proficiency is a whole other conversation.)
Summary: 5E's system is kinda neat but also underutilized and unbalanced, I think setting Will to any mental stat would be a simple way to make Wisdom less mandatory and let Intelligence and Charisma be okay/good options, my personal gripe is with AC and armor being kinda punitive at times.
Honestly, I'd like to se a 3x3 stat breakdown like Chronicles of Darkness, where it's Physical, Mental, Social; with Offence, Defense, Utility in each category.
I've always enjoyed the Attribute distribution in Storyteller/Storytelling/Story Path. I think something like it would only work in a D20 system if we finally jettisoned the raw scores and pared down to just generating the modifier at creation.
Is the problem that some classes face weaknesses other classes dont, or is it that weaknesses are too debilitating to even have in PF2?
I'm not particularly sure either is an actual issue. The Boost system allows for an Ability distribution that doesn't cause any class to be unable to account for their Ability Flaw corresponding with a Save, and weak saves themselves aren't particularly more debilitating than in prior editions.