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You see. To me it seems like PF2 only offers token value to Versatility, and I hate it for it.
The math of the game encourages specialization. The feat silos encourage Specialization. The items/currency encourages it.
People talk about how good Alchemist/Summoner are because of versatility. But the more I read about them the more it seems like they are mostly good because either: The person is roleplay and thus don't care or they are using none class abilities to actually be relevant. Their versatility is rarely useful because they are versatile.
Before people start with the "did you even play with those classes". Yes I have, everyone else in the party was generally better even when using their class abilities.
If I have to enter into more details, I'd say that the game encourages both versatility and specialization. Roughly, the most optimized characters are specialized in a few areas, in general one main role given by their class, a few skills to supplement or complement that role and a secondary role in case the main role meets a golem/swarm/whatever monster that is immune or super resistant to your main role.
Super specialized characters are not very strong. They don't overshadow the less specialized characters in their main role, and if a situation puts them out of their main role they are sitting ducks. Versatile characters are quite fine as long as it doesn't impact specialization. When you start losing on your main role to expand your options, you cross a line where you start losing on efficiency.
But the game gives you that very easily. Improving Athletics on a Fighter is actually improving your versatility (as long as you either have a free hand or a weapon with a related trait). Same with Intimidation. So you don't have to take something completely unrelated to the character you're playing to improve its versatility.
Also, Alchemist is the weakest class of the game. Not because its versatile but because there are many issues with the class.
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You know very well I am talking about your game. As fun as it was to play because of fun RP, the alchemist did more damage to me than the actual monsters. While the battle took twice as long when I failed to roll high enough to hit.Woah, you got a second pf2e game going? Nice, I was wondering what you were gonna try next after your fighter!You see. To me it seems like PF2 only offers token value to Versatility, and I hate it for it.
The math of the game encourages specialization. The feat silos encourage Specialization. The items/currency encourages it.
People talk about how good Alchemist/Summoner are because of versatility. But the more I read about them the more it seems like they are mostly good because either: The person is roleplay and thus don't care or they are using none class abilities to actually be relevant. Their versatility is rarely useful because they are versatile.
Before people start with the "did you even play with those classes". Yes I have, everyone else in the party was generally better even when using their class abilities.
Oh, I genuinely thought you meant you tried an alchemist or summoner in another game, since your character was a fighter in that game, and yeah you got hit a few instances 1 splash from the alch, and a few instances of 1 scatter from the Gunslinger who were both doing a lot of damage in those fights. I know the alch triggered a positive weakness at least once for instance.
You did get that sweet sweet katana double crit.
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The game encourages versatility since there's only so much specialization you can engage in and you have to spend the rest of your choices on something else.
I mean, if you decide "I want my Barbarian to be intimidating" once you bought Expert Intimidation at 3rd, you have your 5th level increase to spend elsewhere, and once you bought Master at 7th you have 3 more to spend wherever before you get legendary at 15th. For your class feats you grab raging intimidation at 1, and Terrifying Howl at 10 but the rest aren't spoken for. For skill feats you want Intimidating Glare, Intimidating Prowess, and eventually Scare to Death but the rest of your intimidation feats are pretty optional (do you want to coerce or just demoralize? Your choice.)
Pigeonholing someone into doing more than one thing is perhaps not the most elegant way to encouraging versatility, but it's there.
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Raging Intimidation grants intimidating Glare and Scare to Death (once you qualify), so in that sense, it's three feats in one and a way for Barbarians to squeeze out a couple of additional Skill Feats.
I see both sides of the specialization/versatility conversation. The game encourages specialization, because you have to focus on something in order to keep up with the math. But it forces versatility, because you can only focus on something so much. It's just, when the math is that focusing on something means that you have a 50/50 chance of succeeding (or with extra work to temporarily buff/debuff, maybe 60/40), anything less than that may not be far off being specialized, but also fails more often than it succeeds. So I seldom feel like I'm actually any good at something I haven't focused on. It just means I get to try to make a roll when trained is required.
And, yes, some classes are hurt more than others. Swashbucler in particular, because not only do they barely have enough skill increases to increase Acrobatics and whatever their Style skill is, but they also need STR, DEX, CON, and CHA (except Gymnast), meaning most Swashbucklers are going to start with a 10 (or lower) INT. If they want a way around that, they can take Acrobat, but now they're sacrificing a class feat just to buy back some skill increases for other things in a class that really needs its class feats.
There are certain skills that are an exception. Medicine combined with Assurance remains useful (adding Battle Medicine even moreso) and you can get to the point where it works by 3rd level, even if you are only trained.
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Moving this to a separate post, because someone favorited the other one before I added this, and I don't want to force their endorsement...
Speaking of respectful complaints, I really wish more things in 2E worked like Raging Intimidation and Acrobat. When I heard 2E would have Class Feats, I had high hopes that classes would be modeled around the 1E Vigilante. For the most part, once you selected an option, that option would continue to improve without having to spend anything else on it (spellcasting was the exception, I think, for the versions of Vigilante that got that). It bothers me in 2E that if I take a class feat at level 1, in many cases if I want it to still be relevant at level 10, I need to spend another class feat on it, instead of getting to do something unrelated. I understand the value in being able to swap out pieces of an ability, but for me it adds to the feeling that even though all these options exist, once I'm down a path, if I want to remain capable of using something, I generally need to continue to invest in it. I'd even have been fine with fewer class feats if they autoscaled in some way.
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Yeah, the first few rounds of classes were pretty stingy in giving out skill boosts to people who aren't rogues (and later investigators). But the Inventor gets autoscaling Craft proficiency, so I wonder if we couldn't/shouldn't back-port that to classes that are stretched really thin with their skill choices (like if the swashbuckler gave autoscaling on their class path skill, that wouldn't be unreasonable.)
Or, just extending it further, what if every class had autoscaling proficiency with a key skill. It's not like casters aren't going to push nature/arcana/occultism/religion as far as it goes anyway.
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Yeah, the first few rounds of classes were pretty stingy in giving out skill boosts to people who aren't rogues (and later investigators). But the Inventor gets autoscaling Craft proficiency, so I wonder if we couldn't/shouldn't back-port that to classes that are stretched really thin with their skill choices (like if the swashbuckler gave autoscaling on their class path skill, that wouldn't be unreasonable.)
Or, just extending it further, what if every class had autoscaling proficiency with a key skill. It's not like casters aren't going to push nature/arcana/occultism/religion as far as it goes anyway.
I usually don't raise my tradition as a CHA-caster. And often not as another kind of caster either. Since it offers few benefits for doing so IMO.
And I expect someone who decides to play a Swashbuckler of a given style to choose Acrobatics and their style's skill as one of the three they will always increase. Granted both will not reach the upper level at the same time. Unless they go Acrobat of course. Which was very likely done on purpose.
In fact I feel Acrobat may have originated as a Swashbuckler class feat and they decided to make it an archetype so that other classes could use it too.
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Yeah, the first few rounds of classes were pretty stingy in giving out skill boosts to people who aren't rogues (and later investigators). But the Inventor gets autoscaling Craft proficiency, so I wonder if we couldn't/shouldn't back-port that to classes that are stretched really thin with their skill choices (like if the swashbuckler gave autoscaling on their class path skill, that wouldn't be unreasonable.)
Or, just extending it further, what if every class had autoscaling proficiency with a key skill. It's not like casters aren't going to push nature/arcana/occultism/religion as far as it goes anyway.
I would second one auto-scaling skill proficiency per Class. If it was limited to one gained from your Class/Class Path specifically, that would make a lot of sense and also open up choices quite a bit.
It's a straight power increase though in some cases and does mean that starting skills per class means quite a bit in determining value.
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And I expect someone who decides to play a Swashbuckler of a given style to choose Acrobatics and their style's skill as one of the three they will always increase.
Which gives them one whole skill that they get to pick for themselves.
Oh and the Swashbuckler's underlying mechanics don't work with ranged weapons unless you take a feat, and even then only a narrow selection of them.
... And people say this tabletop has the most versatile characters they've ever seen?
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And I expect someone who decides to play a Swashbuckler of a given style to choose Acrobatics and their style's skill as one of the three they will always increase.Which gives them one whole skill that they get to pick for themselves.
Oh and the Swashbuckler's underlying mechanics don't work with ranged weapons unless you take a feat, and even then only a narrow selection of them.
... And people say this tabletop has the most versatile characters they've ever seen?
If someone wants to play a Martial that is not interested in raising Acrobatics and a style's skill, I would definitely advise them to play something else than a Swashbuckler.
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For half a Swashbuckler's levels, it's 2 skills, not 3, that they can increase. They get two skills to Expert by 5th, but then at 7th and 9th can make those Master. Then at 11th can finally make a 2nd skill Expert. It's all part of why I just really don't like Swashbucklers before 10th level or so. But that's an issue specific to that class, for the most part. Barbarians have similar problems getting more increases, but they aren't generally as dependent on their skills as a Swashbuckler is, so I don't mind it as much. You can bump Athletics and Acrobatics, or one of those and Intimidation, and you're ok as a Barbarian. For a Swashbuckler, you increase your two skills, or you're hurting your chances of contributing in combat as well as out.
Acrobat as a Swashbuckler Feat would almost be preferable to the archetype, as now if you want it, you're locked into the dedication.
More generally, I wish that there was either a Skill Feat or General Feat that was just "Give this skill autoscaling at these levels."
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More generally, I wish that there was either a Skill Feat or General Feat that was just "Give this skill autoscaling at these levels."
As I mentioned before, you couldn't do this simply because the Rogue exists. The game is built with the assumption that skill increases are simply something you can't get without paying Class Feats.
Even then, as The Raven Black mentions, it would become an autopick option.
That said, I auto pick Fleet most times in General Feats anyways (some exceptions, but it's just such an objectively good choice on most characters) so a little competition in the General Feat only category might be good. But it would be weird to get a General Feat that specifically does something with Skills that isn't also a Skill Feat.
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I think such a feat would become an auto-choice because Too Good to be True and then would be decried as a feat tax that should be included in class progression, like Perception.
There are already autopick General feats. I'm getting a little tired of taking some combination of Toughness, Diehard, Fleet, and Ancestral Paragon. You only get so many General Feats, and I don't think anyone gets bonus ones, so that would be the category where it would have the least impact on something like Rogue. But, I mean, Rogue would have access to it like anybody else, and they'd still get more skill increases for free, so I don't think it would be that big of an issue.
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My argument isn't really that the Rogue would be devalued, it's that the Rogue would be buffed even further than they already are.
Since Rogues get Skill Feats more often than any other class, giving them an option to expand proficiencies means they can grab proficiency locked skill feats at an increased rate than they already could.
Is it a huge deal if it's general only at 3/7/15? Maybe not, but the Rogue is arguably one of if not the strongest class in the game, so it doesn't exactly need help.
I actually think the "free skill increases on a single Class granted skill" is the easiest most organic solution. Thief getting Thievery/Stealth for free is less of an issue and it helps reinforce class concepts in skills (which outside of the initial trained, is all but nonexistent in terms of skills).
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I do wish they would add a few general feats that allow additional skill ups. General feats are incredibly boring right now. General feats should be the feats used to allow a little outside the box building with skill ups like they do saves.
Almost all characters take the same general feats on every character over and over and over again. General feats need some work on making them interesting.
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I don't think making Rogue a little stronger is going to break much, though I do consider Rogue one of the better classes, as it is both the best skill class and holds its own with Martials in combat.
I will amend my earlier statement, because Humans can get a few bonus General Feats (at the cost of heritage or ancestry feats). They're also the ancestry that gets a heritage that advances a skill to Expert automatically.
I'd just rather the game not be built around keeping one class or one ancestry from being a little too good at the cost of many other classes struggling to do anything outside their box. That's an oversimplification, but also my general thought whenever one build is pointed to as a reason everyone else can't have something.
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I'd be less concerned about making the rogue a little more powerful at what it does (skills, murking people with the right set-up) instead of making the rogue better at its weaknesses (needs set up, you're the squishiest martial).
Being good at what you're good at is fun. Having weaknesses you have to plan around is just part of the deal.
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And I expect someone who decides to play a Swashbuckler of a given style to choose Acrobatics and their style's skill as one of the three they will always increase.Which gives them one whole skill that they get to pick for themselves.
Oh and the Swashbuckler's underlying mechanics don't work with ranged weapons unless you take a feat, and even then only a narrow selection of them.
... And people say this tabletop has the most versatile characters they've ever seen?
Not the most versatile I've ever seen. Just more versatile than PF1. D&D/PF are all class and level based game. So by their nature they are specialized and have been from the beginning. So that is not new. PF2 is far more versatile than D&D or PF1 in my experience.
The most versatile game I've ever played is probably GURPS. No classes. It's point-based. You can build any way you want to build. Class based games are by their nature specialized. PF2 went farther than any other edition of D&D to make things as wide open as they can get in a class based game while still being effective.
Almost every character I make between the background, base skills, archetype feats, ancestry feats, and general feats has tons of skills. They gave so many ability boost, it's hard not to have fairly good across the board abilities. You don't really need to take any specific feats on any specific character and you're still going to do fine in an adventure.
PF1 felt super specialized with its feat chains and limited skill points. PF2 feels very wide open for all classes.
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I agree with this, mostly because all the different rules for recalling knowledge are all over the place. The rules in the skills chapter don't, like, list DCs or anything. I found them later in the GM chapter, which is weird to me. I feel like it's okay for players to generally know how difficult something is, so why put that in the back of the book?
This speaks to my greatest complaint about Pathfinder 2E — the Core Rulebook is an organizational disaster. I can’t think of other examples off the top of my head, but in numerous unrelated instances we’ve had to flip all over the book to gather up the rules on a given topic. Archives of Nethys has helped with this, but it’s a serious problem with the book.
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And I expect someone who decides to play a Swashbuckler of a given style to choose Acrobatics and their style's skill as one of the three they will always increase.Which gives them one whole skill that they get to pick for themselves.
Oh and the Swashbuckler's underlying mechanics don't work with ranged weapons unless you take a feat, and even then only a narrow selection of them.
... And people say this tabletop has the most versatile characters they've ever seen?
Not the most versatile I've ever seen. Just more versatile than PF1. D&D/PF are all class and level based game. So by their nature they are specialized and have been from the beginning. So that is not new. PF2 is far more versatile than D&D or PF1 in my experience.
The most versatile game I've ever played is probably GURPS. No classes. It's point-based. You can build any way you want to build. Class based games are by their nature specialized. PF2 went farther than any other edition of D&D to make things as wide open as they can get in a class based game while still being effective.
Almost every character I make between the background, base skills, archetype feats, ancestry feats, and general feats has tons of skills. They gave so many ability boost, it's hard not to have fairly good across the board abilities. You don't really need to take any specific feats on any specific character and you're still going to do fine in an adventure.
PF1 felt super specialized with its feat chains and limited skill points. PF2 feels very wide open for all classes.
I feel like we're heading towards a back and forth, and I don't want to debate in this thread. But I do want to say that my personal opinion is that 2E is less versatile and open than 1E. There are a lot of options that have been published in a relatively short period of time, but I find far too many of them locked behind classes or archetypes. In 1E, you could choose your fighting style or boost your magic or various other things and not lose any of what makes your class your class, because combat feats, metamagic feats, etc. were separate from classes (though obviously some classes got more and some feats were locked behind class requirements). I like that classes have class feats now, but too many options that should be class independent are locked behind them. Rangers shouldn't be the TWF class, etc., and if you want to TWF as not a Ranger, you shouldn't need to sacrifice an actual class ability or lock yourself out of all of the other archetypes to take Dual-Weapon Warrior. Character creation in 2E is incredibly frustrating to me and my least favorite part of this edition. The game itself plays well, and things like the three action economy are great, but I've had so many character concepts just fall apart, because you can't get access to two different things in any reasonable number of levels.
1E Pathfinder was the most like a system like GURPS of any of the editions I've played (I skipped 3rd, 3.5, and 4th). 2E feels like a step backwards in that regard, where they've really leaned into your class mattering the most of anything. Feat tress and such were a problem, but now everything feels like it is behind a feat tree, which starts with your choice of class or archetype.
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I agree with this, mostly because all the different rules for recalling knowledge are all over the place. The rules in the skills chapter don't, like, list DCs or anything. I found them later in the GM chapter, which is weird to me. I feel like it's okay for players to generally know how difficult something is, so why put that in the back of the book?This speaks to my greatest complaint about Pathfinder 2E — the Core Rulebook is an organizational disaster. I can’t think of other examples off the top of my head, but in numerous unrelated instances we’ve had to flip all over the book to gather up the rules on a given topic. Archives of Nethys has helped with this, but it’s a serious problem with the book.
When they told us it was a reference book, they weren't exaggerating.
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I do get feeling that more classes should have inventor's feature of "scaling 'main skill' profiency" <_<
Inventor in general seems like it was a "here's what we probably would have done in hindsight" class with martial weapon proficiency by default, scaling main skill increases, and their companion choice getting the two commands for three actions right out of the gate.
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I feel like we're heading towards a back and forth, and I don't want to debate in this thread. But I do want to say that my personal opinion is that 2E is less versatile and open than 1E. There are a lot of options that have been published in a relatively short period of time, but I find far too many of them locked behind classes or archetypes. In 1E, you could choose your fighting style...And I expect someone who decides to play a Swashbuckler of a given style to choose Acrobatics and their style's skill as one of the three they will always increase.Which gives them one whole skill that they get to pick for themselves.
Oh and the Swashbuckler's underlying mechanics don't work with ranged weapons unless you take a feat, and even then only a narrow selection of them.
... And people say this tabletop has the most versatile characters they've ever seen?
Not the most versatile I've ever seen. Just more versatile than PF1. D&D/PF are all class and level based game. So by their nature they are specialized and have been from the beginning. So that is not new. PF2 is far more versatile than D&D or PF1 in my experience.
The most versatile game I've ever played is probably GURPS. No classes. It's point-based. You can build any way you want to build. Class based games are by their nature specialized. PF2 went farther than any other edition of D&D to make things as wide open as they can get in a class based game while still being effective.
Almost every character I make between the background, base skills, archetype feats, ancestry feats, and general feats has tons of skills. They gave so many ability boost, it's hard not to have fairly good across the board abilities. You don't really need to take any specific feats on any specific character and you're still going to do fine in an adventure.
PF1 felt super specialized with its feat chains and limited skill points. PF2 feels very wide open for all classes.
I've played PF1 and PF2 extensively.
I can say definitively based on experience, not opinion, that PF2 is far less specialized than PF1. PF1 very much encouraged and rewarded specialization far more than any edition of D&D I've ever played. It was so specialized that most classes built around a particular weapon or spell for maximum benefit. Most martial characters were built to use a single type of weapon from 1st to 20th. If you were a two-hander fighter, you would work extensively to boost this type of fighting. I built entire characters around single spells like heal or holy word in PF1.
There is no way to build a character in PF2 around any single thing. If you try to do so, you will feel woefully inadequate. PF2 does not reward specialization nor require it.
There is no way to build around any single focus spells, any single spell, or any single strategy in PF2.
PF2 both rewards and requires being able to do multiple things or you will get quite bored as a player. If you try to focus on just being Mr. Longsword, you will be super bored as you take one or two feats and you're all done being Mr. Longsword.
So this is coming down to what exactly do you mean by specialization? What does that mean?
I've made PF1 characters where I specialized in having high saving throws. I did stuff like stacked a the monk with the paladin class, then jacked up my physical abilities and my charisma to I had absolutely insane saves. They were untouchable saves. It was almost like having magic resistance.
I could not do this no matter how hard I tried in PF2. I could try to specialize as much as I want in PF2 and it just won't happen.
PF2 is too narrow in its math for specialization. It's why I agree with the critics who say specialization is not rewarded in PF2. It isn't. You can try to specialize, but it won't get you a whole lot in PF2. You'll end up tacking on some other abilities to have interesting things to do in a battle.
If you play a two-weapon warrior, you'll spend the vast majority of your time using Double Slice which you get at 1st level. If you want to do more interesting things, you'll likely branch into casting or skill feats because most the additional two-weapon feats just don't do much due to the action limitations in the game.
If you're a two-hander fighter, you'll probably just pick a maul or a Power attack then do that over and over and over again. Then pick some casting so you have something that boosts up your two-hander ability. Once you pick up Power Attack and Furious Focus and maybe Knockdown, you're pretty much done with your specialization track.
I'm not sure what concept you and Squiggit are looking for, but specialization is not in PF2. Specialization is a way to make a boring, ineffective character with lots of wasted feats.
I tried to specialize when I first started PF2 and build a character like I did in PF1 because that's what I knew. Then I found out that in actual play specialization wasn't ideal. Usually you move, do your two action ability, round is done. You get that 2 action ability at relatively low level.
So now when I build a fighter or a ranger, I often go into archetypes to pick up a wider array of abilities to be more useful overall. When I build a fighter as an example, I tend to multiclass caster to have some spells to boost my fighting ability because the feats are not better than adding some casting ability.
Or if I'm playing a monk, I pick up a shield and multiclass into Champion because the action economy from flurry makes it easy to use a shield and champion's reaction allows me to either use it as my reaction or Attack of Opportunity.
I find using archetypes and feats to provide a wider array of options useful in more situations makes your character more powerful than specialization. Specialization in PF2 is not rewarded and is a path to a weaker character in my experience.
I'm far more in agreement with players who say "specialization is not rewarded in PF2." It isn't. Versatility is rewarded in PF2. Picking up a bunch of abilities that activate in more situations is a far better way to build a character than specialization in PF2.
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Like I said, I don't want this to turn into a large discussion in this thread. I don't disagree with the statement "Specialization is not rewarded in PF2" and I don't disagree that the limits PF2 puts on you forces you to diversify. PF2 is also more balanced than PF1. But that doesn't make the system flexible like a points-based system is. PF2 achieves its balance and forces versatility by restricting options. That's what I don't like about character creation.
I'm going to cut it short there, because this isn't the thread for a full discussion on it. I don't fault anyone for enjoying 2E. There are aspects of it I find really fun. I just don't see it the same way you do, and I have also played PF1 and PF2 extensively. I offered my post as my opinion, because that's what it is, and this is the thread to vent about our opinions and criticisms of the game. No one has to agree with us.
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Like I said, I don't want this to turn into a large discussion in this thread. I don't disagree with the statement "Specialization is not rewarded in PF2" and I don't disagree that the limits PF2 puts on you forces you to diversify. PF2 is also more balanced than PF1. But that doesn't make the system flexible like a points-based system is. PF2 achieves its balance and forces versatility by restricting options. That's what I don't like about character creation.
I'm going to cut it short there, because this isn't the thread for a full discussion on it. I don't fault anyone for enjoying 2E. There are aspects of it I find really fun. I just don't see it the same way you do, and I have also played PF1 and PF2 extensively. I offered my post as my opinion, because that's what it is, and this is the thread to vent about our opinions and criticisms of the game. No one has to agree with us.
That's probably a more accurate description that I can see. The math is so tight that there isn't much of a way to go outside of it, so you have to find ways to have more abilities to activate and use that fit within the action paradigm of PF2. It can be constricting at times in a way PF1 was not.
If you build a two-weapon fighter in PF1, you were extraordinarily good at two-weapon fighting. But if you build a two-weapon fighter in PF2, you're kind of as good as anyone else at attacking as a martial but you just do double slice over and over and over again because the action system constrains you from using things like Flensing Slice or something else.
I noticed this playing higher level martials. It got super boring swinging the weapon over and over again. High level feats might offer cool abilities, but they would do less damage than my standard strike so why bother taking them. So I switched to adding casting or some other class because the high level feats were not adding much worthwhile to my effectiveness. It's like you picked up the optimal feats for your class in the first four levels and the other stuff is just fluff that isn't really more effective.
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The game encourages versatility since there's only so much specialization you can engage in and you have to spend the rest of your choices on something else.
I mean, if you decide "I want my Barbarian to be intimidating" once you bought Expert Intimidation at 3rd, you have your 5th level increase to spend elsewhere, and once you bought Master at 7th you have 3 more to spend wherever before you get legendary at 15th. For your class feats you grab raging intimidation at 1, and Terrifying Howl at 10 but the rest aren't spoken for. For skill feats you want Intimidating Glare, Intimidating Prowess, and eventually Scare to Death but the rest of your intimidation feats are pretty optional (do you want to coerce or just demoralize? Your choice.)
Pigeonholing someone into doing more than one thing is perhaps not the most elegant way to encouraging versatility, but it's there.
There are ways to be more specialized. A classical one is to increase Acrobatics to get Kip Up. Kip Up is an improvement to any character, and put on a low Dexterity character (like a Full Plate user) Acrobatics is nearly useless besides this feat. You also have characters who increase Stealth just for initiative, others who get high Athletics just for Escape or Underwater Marauder, etc... If you want to play a Barbarian who just bash things you have ways to spend your skill increases to slightly improve its combat ability without getting versatility out of it.
I had a discussion in the past with a player who was raising Acrobatics, Stealth and Athletics on all their characters, just because they are the skills giving you mechanical benefits.
So the game doesn't pigeonhole you into doing more than one thing, it encourages you in doing more than one thing as it's the way to get the most optimized characters.
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Add me to the "+1 auto-scaling skill at creation" group.
Building on that, though I like Assurance, I wish it could be somehow baked into skill math without having to occupy an explicit slot.
Mostly because, I was a fan of "taking 10" from the prior edition, and, I think that there should be some instances where a character who has invested into a skill shouldn't have to roll for a band of common skill functions below their level.
Proficiency Gating, perhaps combined with Rarity, but worked into reverse, would have been a nice place to nest that. If, for example, a chapter in the book said "Characters who have Master Proficiency with a Recall Knowledge Skill can obtain an automatic Success to do so against Common creatures of Lower Level".
Something like that.
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(I just hope that there are devs taking notes for PF2’s version of Unchained)
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oh no, I've been corrupted by eldritch forces and now agree we should be able to get item bonuses to Class/Spell DCs.
(I made own thread of why I came to that conclusion, main reason being that I think on max level if you invest everything to your main stat, you should have chance of success versus moderate and severe soloboss extreme bonus saves even if extreme soloboss can still only fail on nat 1 extreme bonus
Like yeah extreme bonuses are supposed to be super rare, but I still think success should be possible for +2 and +3 enemies)
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Lot of good gripes in here! I'm a big fan of PF2 but I've been running it for 2.5 years and I've really come to be frustrated with some bits. First, the pieces that are easy to change but annoying that I have to:
1. Fundamental rune progression being required makes them a check mark rather than a bonus. It also makes backup weapons and multiple weapon options (which are in line with the ethos of PF2, really) too expensive to maintain. Not good--APB fixes.
2. Alignment is really restrictive but not evenly so. TN characters being immune to all planar damage is silly, and cheeses like alignment checks via divine lance grind my gears! Tougher fix, but an expansion of alignment damage and a reduction in alignment restrictions via the variant rules has been a huge boon.
3. Static item DCs are really bad in this game. Fix in progress, but it shouldn't be too hard.
And then there are things that don't have a good fix. Well, just the one main thing.
1. Skill feats. Boo skill feats. Most are things that characters should reasonably be allowed to try, but players often think they can't if they don't have the feat. A few are just mandatory for functional use of some actions, like Intimidating Glare as a clear example. The variant "rule" to deal with this is completely unhelpful. I've got a long term project to strip these out and let players perform their skill actions much more freeform.
Except that last point, everything I'm not a fan of is still something I can adjust, so it's all going just fine still. :)
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Lot of good gripes in here! I'm a big fan of PF2 but I've been running it for 2.5 years and I've really come to be frustrated with some bits. First, the pieces that are easy to change but annoying that I have to:
1. Fundamental rune progression being required makes them a check mark rather than a bonus. It also makes backup weapons and multiple weapon options (which are in line with the ethos of PF2, really) too expensive to maintain. Not good--APB fixes.
2. Alignment is really restrictive but not evenly so. TN characters being immune to all planar damage is silly, and cheeses like alignment checks via divine lance grind my gears! Tougher fix, but an expansion of alignment damage and a reduction in alignment restrictions via the variant rules has been a huge boon.
3. Static item DCs are really bad in this game. Fix in progress, but it shouldn't be too hard.
And then there are things that don't have a good fix. Well, just the one main thing.
1. Skill feats. Boo skill feats. Most are things that characters should reasonably be allowed to try, but players often think they can't if they don't have the feat. A few are just mandatory for functional use of some actions, like Intimidating Glare as a clear example. The variant "rule" to deal with this is completely unhelpful. I've got a long term project to strip these out and let players perform their skill actions much more freeform.
Except that last point, everything I'm not a fan of is still something I can adjust, so it's all going just fine still. :)
I struggle with all those things except the skill feats. On the items point I firmly believe an item should be a consumable or not a consumable. Fixed dc items just seem like a consumable in sheep's clothing (imo) bc the item has a lvl range of expected use on the character before selling it due to obsolescence. I'm not a fan. I'd rather item effects be toned down and useable from pickup all the way to lvl 20 than GREAT..... for a lvl or two then thrown away. It was my same complaint with the playtest spell strike. Less powerful but constant usability will always be more preferable to me than a couple instances of high efficacy.
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I'd rather have a method for upgrading fixed DCs by spending gold.
Or that.
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Oh yeah! Has anybody brought up rituals yet? I absolutely adore the idea that anybody sufficiently trained in magic skills could still perform a magic ritual with the right components. However, in practice it seems like most rituals are balanced around monetary costs and anticlimactically high DCs. To make matters worse, since most rituals requires at least 8 hours of chanting, if you fail the 'very difficult' +5 DC, you will probably have to start over again the next day.
Naturally, there needs to be some balance point to prevent rituals from being too reliable or easy to simply spam until the party gets what they want, but I feel like it wasn't put in the right place. The high chance of failure, with next to no way to mitigate the DC aside from having a high skill modifier, doesn't make rituals feel difficult or risky, it makes them feel random. The fact that failing a ritual often means starting again the next day drains the tension, and while the critical failure chance adds some spice, in several cases the results are unsatisfying penalties for failure--apparently your God cares about the technique of your pleas to bring your dead friend back to life that if you mess up they become angry with you. while this more than fits a pantheon like Greek gods, it doesn't seem to mesh with the goodly deities your heroes are most likely directing their appeal to.
I would have liked there to be more engagement to the execution of a ritual than a couple secondary checks which are more likely to impede the ritual than add a minor non-stacking bonus. For example if the ritual required a variety of components and foci, and for each one you didn't go out of your way to bring to the table, the DC increased to the as written risky chance, while the role of the secondary casters could be elevated to granting a more substantial benefit on a success, rather than simply not jeopardizing the odds.
As for costs, in some rituals it makes perfect sense why the cost is what it is, since you are essentially recruiting a supernatural hireling, but for some rituals the cost seems to be so high simply to impose a resource penalty on the party for the attempt
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I'd rather have a method for upgrading fixed DCs by spending gold.
I think that's a rational solution, except avoiding a monetary cost to upkeep loot is exactly why I switched to ABP.
Ideally, items should have their effects gated by their level but their chance to be successfully used controlled by the character level, in my opinion. Haven't sorted out how to do that yet, but finding a way to make loot more long-term, exciting, and not game-breaking will take some effort from me haha.
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Oh yeah! Has anybody brought up rituals yet? I absolutely adore the idea that anybody sufficiently trained in magic skills could still perform a magic ritual with the right components. However, in practice it seems like most rituals are balanced around monetary costs and anticlimactically high DCs. To make matters worse, since most rituals requires at least 8 hours of chanting, if you fail the 'very difficult' +5 DC, you will probably have to start over again the next day.
Naturally, there needs to be some balance point to prevent rituals from being too reliable or easy to simply spam until the party gets what they want, but I feel like it wasn't put in the right place. The high chance of failure, with next to no way to mitigate the DC aside from having a high skill modifier, doesn't make rituals feel difficult or risky, it makes them feel random. The fact that failing a ritual often means starting again the next day drains the tension, and while the critical failure chance adds some spice, in several cases the results are unsatisfying penalties for failure--apparently your God cares about the technique of your pleas to bring your dead friend back to life that if you mess up they become angry with you. while this more than fits a pantheon like Greek gods, it doesn't seem to mesh with the goodly deities your heroes are most likely directing their appeal to.
I would have liked there to be more engagement to the execution of a ritual than a couple secondary checks which are more likely to impede the ritual than add a minor non-stacking bonus. For example if the ritual required a variety of components and foci, and for each one you didn't go out of your way to bring to the table, the DC increased to the as written risky chance, while the role of the secondary casters could be elevated to granting a more substantial benefit on a success, rather than simply not jeopardizing the odds.
As for costs, in some rituals it makes perfect sense why the cost is what it is, since you are essentially recruiting...
I don't even pay attention to the rituals at this point. They aren't even usable. Someone a while back said they are for NPCs. I don't know. I would like to be able to use them, but they don't seem usable in most campaigns. Not worth buying. Not worth trying to use. A lot of good spells removed from the ability of PCs to use and just wasted space in the book.
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I think the issue with Rituals is more to do with the fact that there are just so ridiculously few of them when compared to actual Spells coupled with the fact that they are, as others mentioned, uncommon/rare and also expensive to actually make use of.
They could have quite easily expanded on them, kept the DCs lower, and offloaded pretty much all of the Spell effects that have a duration longer than 10 minutes to being Rituals but... it just didn't shake out that way, instead, they seem to only really be aimed to being used for narrative purposes as they're essentially locked behind the absolute need for the GM to say "Okay, you want to do this so you're going to need a handful of NPCs, buy the supplies in a MAJOR nearby city, and hope that every participant makes the DC check" in order to even have the opportunity to use a given Ritual one time.
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...they're essentially locked behind the absolute need for the GM to say "Okay, you want to do this so you're going to need...the supplies in a MAJOR nearby city...in order to even have the opportunity to use a given Ritual one time.
Why does it have to be a major city?
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I'd rather have a method for upgrading fixed DCs by spending gold.I think that's a rational solution, except avoiding a monetary cost to upkeep loot is exactly why I switched to ABP.
Ideally, items should have their effects gated by their level but their chance to be successfully used controlled by the character level, in my opinion. Haven't sorted out how to do that yet, but finding a way to make loot more long-term, exciting, and not game-breaking will take some effort from me haha.
I've been having Invested items use the characters class DC for effects. It works pretty good and makes items do what we wanted them to.
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They should have handwaved all the ritual mechanics and just kept the rituals' effects. They are not supposed to be used outside of extreme circumstances, that should be handled through GM decisions. As written, it looks like you are supposed to use them but at the same time the conditions are so limiting that you can't really do so...
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I've never had any issues with rituals when I wanted to use them.