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Beta build for a small guide I created to making optimal use of voluntary flaws. Not compleated yet (I need a conclusion, right now it just kinda .. . stops) but it has some useful ways of doing things and thinking about generating characters. I hope you find it useful and constructive comments appreciate. Please make sure you read through the whole thing before you comment though, I may have addressed your issue later on in the guide.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19dTyf8NnBGsciPJHNIIkTHSlERYlcAuJTY6N788 jQB0/edit?usp=sharing
Beta build for a small guide I created to making optimal use of voluntary flaws. Not compleated yet (I need a conclusion, right now it just kinda .. . stops) but it has some useful ways of doing things and thinking about generating characters. I hope you find it useful and constructive comments appreciate. Please make sure you read through the whole thing before you comment though, I may have addressed your issue later on in the guide.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19dTyf8NnBGsciPJHNIIkTHSlERYlcAuJTY6N788 jQB0/edit?usp=sharing
Link is not functional and the url doesn't work anyway.
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Your forgot one important case: When you want to play a character with 18 in an attribute and that attribute is the one that is reduced by your class. Like an 18 Str Gnome.
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Your forgot one important case: When you want to play a character with 18 in an attribute and that attribute is the one that is reduced by your class. Like an 18 Str Gnome.
Wait, what? That seems like the ONLY time it's worthwhile given how important breadth of ability is in PF2.
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I like it if I don't need two out of [int, cha, str] and the build I'm going for really wants a high secondary stat.
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Your forgot one important case: When you want to play a character with 18 in an attribute and that attribute is the one that is reduced by your class. Like an 18 Str Gnome.Wait, what? That seems like the ONLY time it's worthwhile given how important breadth of ability is in PF2.
Not everything is about optimization (I know, it may sound strange in my mouth, but my characters are not very optimized actually).
I also like voluntary flaws to give lower abilities than the Ancestry minimum. I gave an 8 in Charisma to my Alchemist as she is of a nerdy type, and a 10 Str to my Orc Summoner because I want to go against the usual Orc tropes. It gives a lot of freedom when building your character, as I can get matrices that you can't get without it, like an 18/16/14 one on a Human.
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Your forgot one important case: When you want to play a character with 18 in an attribute and that attribute is the one that is reduced by your class. Like an 18 Str Gnome.Wait, what? That seems like the ONLY time it's worthwhile given how important breadth of ability is in PF2.
I've found that breadth of ability is near worthless. The game math actively rewards focusing on 4 stats and, more importantly, doesn't punish dumping your non-saves. In fact, the game punishes you for trying to do anything you aren't heavily invested in (be it stats or skill increases).
With this in mind almost all characters should dump two of the non-saves to 8 in order to boost a save (usually con) or to fix an ancestry flaw.
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Your forgot one important case: When you want to play a character with 18 in an attribute and that attribute is the one that is reduced by your class. Like an 18 Str Gnome.Wait, what? That seems like the ONLY time it's worthwhile given how important breadth of ability is in PF2.I've found that breadth of ability is near worthless. The game math actively rewards focusing on 4 stats and, more importantly, doesn't punish dumping your non-saves. In fact, the game punishes you for trying to do anything you aren't heavily invested in (be it stats or skill increases).
With this in mind almost all characters should dump two of the non-saves to 8 in order to boost a save (usually con) or to fix an ancestry flaw.
The usefulness of breadth really depends on the DM more than the game itself as the game offers multiple ways to deal with DC's. "As the Game Master, it’s up to you to set the difficulty classes (DCs) for checks that don’t use a predefined DC. The following sections offer advice on how to set appropriate DCs and tweak them as needed to feel natural for your story. Picking a simple DC and using a level-based DC each work well in certain circumstances, and you can adjust both types of DC using the advice on adjusting difficulty."
You can have games where things like Clever Improviser/Untrained Improvisation and/or lowish stats can be involved and still be useful but it requires the DM to not target every DC at the highest skill possible: having the group make group attempts where a certain number of successes at some task can be targeted so the breadth characters have a decent chance success while the focused have a decent chance at crits and it can leave both satisfied.
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Your forgot one important case: When you want to play a character with 18 in an attribute and that attribute is the one that is reduced by your class. Like an 18 Str Gnome.Wait, what? That seems like the ONLY time it's worthwhile given how important breadth of ability is in PF2.
Nope, I addressed it, still not possible. Nothing in the voluntary flaws system says you can boost a stat twice, and the voluntary flaws happen during the ancestry phase. So, say, a gnome cannot boost their strength twice.
A NOTE ON RACES WITH FLAWS IN STATS YOU NEED
Unfortunately, while there is a rule saying you can stack flaws on an attribute with a bonus, technically there is no reverse rule (you can’t stack bonuses on attributes with flaws.) That is to say, you cannot take two ability boosts on an ability score with a flaw in the same phase. For example, if we wanted to make a Gnome Fighter, we cannot use the Voluntary Flaw system to put our Free Boost from Gnome, and our free boost from Voluntary Flaws both into strength and end up with gnome with 12 strength in the Ancestry phase (and thus an 18 strength overall). A GM may house-rule this as an option, but it is not possible ‘rules as written.’
Not everything is about optimization (I know, it may sound strange in my mouth, but my characters are not very optimized actually).
Also addressed that:
NOTE ON ‘OPTIMAL BUILDS’
This guide is going to primarily focus on builds that want an 18 in one ability score and a 16 in another. THIS IS NOT THE ONLY WAY TO BUILD A CHARACTER. I have seen and even played characters that don’t start with any stat at 18 and they did fine. This guide should not be misinterpreted. This is not a ‘you must do this to create a character’ guide but a ‘if you want to do this, here are some tips’ guide.
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Likewise, as an exception to the normal rules for ability boosts, you can apply two free ability boosts to an ability score receiving an ability flaw during this step; the first ability boost cancels the ability flaw, and the second ability boost increases the score by 2.
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Likewise, as an exception to the normal rules for ability boosts, you can apply two free ability boosts to an ability score receiving an ability flaw during this step; the first ability boost cancels the ability flaw, and the second ability boost increases the score by 2.
Wow, How did I miss that? I re-read that paragraph like three times before writing up the first posting. Well, I guess I'll have to go back and re-write my guide a bit. Thanks for pointing that out.
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The basic purpose of voluntary flaws is so you can start with an 18 in a stat for which your ancestry has a penalty, and you can start with an 8 in a stat in which your ancestry has a bonus.
So you can have a Dwarf with 18 Cha and 8 Wis, or a Gnome with 18 Str and 8 Cha.
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Your forgot one important case: When you want to play a character with 18 in an attribute and that attribute is the one that is reduced by your class. Like an 18 Str Gnome.Wait, what? That seems like the ONLY time it's worthwhile given how important breadth of ability is in PF2.I've found that breadth of ability is near worthless. The game math actively rewards focusing on 4 stats and, more importantly, doesn't punish dumping your non-saves. In fact, the game punishes you for trying to do anything you aren't heavily invested in (be it stats or skill increases).
With this in mind almost all characters should dump two of the non-saves to 8 in order to boost a save (usually con) or to fix an ancestry flaw.
As Graystone alluded to, we're playing different games, mainly due to playstyle. If one boosts in each way possible, you can outpace the CRB's difficulty curve. This naturally leaves room for secondary and tertiary investments to function (unlike in PF1), especially if facing obstacles whose DCs are neutral to level, which would be many of the non-combat ones. And in PFS, some obstacles are simply story beats rather than challenges, except if nobody in a random party can overcome them, then it's an unexpected issue.
And unlike SuperBidi whom I envy for being able to take flaws for RPing purposes only, it pains me to take those penalties.
Also, as one player of mine put it back in 3.X, he'd never take a stat less than 10 in one of my campaigns because of all the different challenges. In a dungeon-crawl, my opinion would possibly shift, though more likely I'd just play an Ancestry that had the flaw I wanted anyway (which now that I think about it is what I typically do!).
Your forgot one important case: When you want to play a character with 18 in an attribute and that attribute is the one that is reduced by your class. Like an 18 Str Gnome.Wait, what? That seems like the ONLY time it's worthwhile given how important breadth of ability is in PF2.I've found that breadth of ability is near worthless. The game math actively rewards focusing on 4 stats and, more importantly, doesn't punish dumping your non-saves. In fact, the game punishes you for trying to do anything you aren't heavily invested in (be it stats or skill increases).
With this in mind almost all characters should dump two of the non-saves to 8 in order to boost a save (usually con) or to fix an ancestry flaw.
Even a focus on saves means that you usually don't have very many options. Dex, con, and wis are locked in at at least 10 without affecting things.
Str and cha can commonly be dumped... but then, what am I to do with my kobold barbarian that wants to do intimidation?
Int is the closest thing I can find, and even that still provides you with more trained skills- and many classes might but into a lack of skills if they go below their base.
So depending on what you are playing, it can be hard to use it without feeling like you are making things hard on yourself in at least some area.
Voluntary flaws are a useful option for fun option, but I wouldn't view it as something "all" characters should aim for. At the end of the day, it does create a net negative in stats in favor of some customization.
Even a focus on saves means that you usually don't have very many options. Dex, con, and wis are locked in at at least 10 without affecting things.
Str and cha can commonly be dumped... but then, what am I to do with my kobold barbarian that wants to do intimidation?
Int is the closest thing I can find, and even that still provides you with more trained skills- and many classes might but into a lack of skills if they go below their base.
So depending on what you are playing, it can be hard to use it without feeling like you are making things hard on yourself in at least some area.
Voluntary flaws are a useful option for fun option, but I wouldn't view it as something "all" characters should aim for. At the end of the day, it does create a net negative in stats in favor of some customization.
There are 16 non-lore skills. If we assume a 4 man party where everyone has dumped int and picked a 3+int skills class then you have 4 characters with 4 skills each (background, class forced skill, 2 skills from int). Turns out that is exactly 16 skills which covers the early game and then the party makes judgement calls over which skills to boost as they level. Sure, they'll probably never land those int skills but that's a party composition issue. It's not even a hard to resolve composition issue either. Int caster, ranged characters, Thief and Druid all can dump str and cha and Thief goes hard on skills anyway.
As for the intimidating barbarian in your example, yeah, you can't afford to dump stats if you need two non-saves for some reason, but that barbarian is also not boosting a save stat if it's doing that which is an actively poor decision. Unless you think you can reliably intimidate with 10 cha, proficiency and items which I don't think is a mathematically accurate assumption.
It might create a net decrease in stats, but some stats are just more valuable than others. Non-saves (that aren't tied to your main schtick) simply don't do enough to justify not dumping them in 99% of cases in favor of a save stat.
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You can dump DEX if you go Full Plate (Bulwark).
While at low level (PFS), dumping WIS or CON is feasible depending on your build.
There are some builds where using flaws is not desirable, but not that many.
And many people tend to forget you can use flaws even when human. They miss an opportunity for their character to be even better at what really counts for their build.
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Save attributes are important once in the 2-digit levels. Before that, they are far from mandatory. So it really depends on what you play. For PFS, or low level adventures, you can nearly ignore them. For high level adventures, you have to take them into account, but at the same time it's very easy to create a high level character with everything right in place. The only case where you have to take them into account right from level 1 is for level 1-20 campaigns. And that's considering that the campaign does not meet a premature end and that your character will survive all along. So not that common.
There are 16 non-lore skills. If we assume a 4 man party where everyone has dumped int and picked a 3+int skills class then you have 4 characters with 4 skills each (background, class forced skill, 2 skills from int). Turns out that is exactly 16 skills which covers the early game and then the party makes judgement calls over which skills to boost as they level. Sure, they'll probably never land those int skills but that's a party composition issue.
This computation is not working. It means that only 1 character is Trained in Athletics, 1 in Acrobatics, etc... Athletics, Acrobatics, Stealth and Medicine are very useful to have even if you're not supposed to be the best of the party in these. There's also the option to Aid, which gives a +1/+2 bonus at high level. So being Trained in a skill can be useful even if you're actually bad at it. And for every check that everyone can make (Recall Knowledge, for example) rolling with a low bonus is not useless. And then you have haunts and complex traps, where you want as many people as possible to participate even if their chances of success are low.
And that's before taking the GM impact into account.
One pitfall I found in some builds lies in the background step.
If you need to start with 18 and 16 in specific stats plus a specific skill feat, you can find yourself just out of luck because the combination does not exist yet.
A specific skill feat... or just Battle Medicine?
A specific skill feat... or just Battle Medicine?One pitfall I found in some builds lies in the background step.
If you need to start with 18 and 16 in specific stats plus a specific skill feat, you can find yourself just out of luck because the combination does not exist yet.
Define "need" here vs. "want" which seems more likely.
Having an 18 in one's main offensive shtick makes the character viable, so I'm not seeing where the 16 AND a specific skill feat are required.And as SuperBidi's example reminds us, many PC-defining skill feats are available through backgrounds.
Assurance or Trick Magic Item actually. Titan Wrestler would be nice if it was available.
Assurance doesn't seem very defining, and some are available, i.e. Assurance (Athletics). Which others might be so PC-defining they can't wait until 2nd level?
Trick Magic Item doesn't seem PC-defining at 1st when magic items are scarce and unlikely to change one's build. Are there specific items to build around at 1st?
Titan Wrestler also doesn't seem PC-defining at 1st when Huge enemies are rare, unless a small PC (odd for such a PC build) facing Large enemies (which remain quite limited).
Which is to say I'm not seeing the lack of any of these at 1st as some sort of flaw or "pitfall" in the system. I'm happy at how much 1st level PF2 PCs can do, more than 1st, 2nd, 3.X, PF1, etc. where many campaigns started at 2nd if not higher. (I had one veteran new to my DMing who complained for starting at 1st in 3.X because he thought there was just nothing worthwhile to do then. He thanked me afterward for showing him otherwise.) If somebody needs to begin more capable than 1st allows, that might be time to talk about starting at higher level, or just trimming their expectations to reflect playing a character only 0-5% into their journey.
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Well, I noticed the problem with a few builds I was designing recently. And I guess I am not the only one.
Come to think of it, these were builds where I wanted to have a 2 Skill feats combo without having to wait till level 4.
Note : as I play only PFS, most of my PCs' play expectancy is level 6 max.
Examples of aforementioned combos : Trick Magic Item + Assurance to cast Shillelagh from a scroll, Battle Medicine + Assurance to use Medic dedication while dumping WIS.
Last note : Kobold (for Dragon Disciple) Barbarian or Monk or Fighter wants Titan Wrestler very much. But Battle Medicine too (because PFS).
The very first levels are always problematic. The worst I had is a character who doesn't speak her native language until level 2 and Multilingual (Fleshwarps only speak common).
But starting at higher level is a bit hard for beginners as there's immediately a lot of choices to make.
At least, I find that PF2 allows characters to be efficient earlier. I remember PF1 where playing a Bard was really hard before level 7-8. In PF2, most of the defining abilities are available earlier (Wild Shape at 3 instead of 5 for example) so you have less levels playing a lame duck when you have a character that is a bit more complex than "fighter with a greatsword".
Examples of aforementioned combos : Trick Magic Item + Assurance to cast Shillelagh from a scroll, Battle Medicine + Assurance to use Medic dedication while dumping WIS.
Last note : Kobold (for Dragon Disciple) Barbarian or Monk or Fighter wants Titan Wrestler very much. But Battle Medicine too (because PFS).
And 2 of your 3 examples speak of Battle Medicine, as expected.
For Shillelagh, you need to be at least level 3 to cast it with Assurance. So having to take it at level 4 isn't changing your build that much (even if I agree that your build is super strong at level 3 so it's sad to lose that level specifically).|
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Examples of aforementioned combos : Trick Magic Item + Assurance to cast Shillelagh from a scroll, Battle Medicine + Assurance to use Medic dedication while dumping WIS.
Last note : Kobold (for Dragon Disciple) Barbarian or Monk or Fighter wants Titan Wrestler very much. But Battle Medicine too (because PFS).
And 2 of your 3 examples speak of Battle Medicine, as expected.
For Shillelagh, you need to be at least level 3 to cast it with Assurance. So having to take it at level 4 isn't changing your build that much (even if I agree that your build is super strong at level 3 so it's sad to lose that level specifically).
Battle Medicine because PFS ;-)
For Shillelagh, several dedications get you Expert in Nature at level 2.
Examples of aforementioned combos : Trick Magic Item + Assurance to cast Shillelagh from a scroll, Battle Medicine + Assurance to use Medic dedication while dumping WIS.
Last note : Kobold (for Dragon Disciple) Barbarian or Monk or Fighter wants Titan Wrestler very much. But Battle Medicine too (because PFS).
And 2 of your 3 examples speak of Battle Medicine, as expected.
For Shillelagh, you need to be at least level 3 to cast it with Assurance. So having to take it at level 4 isn't changing your build that much (even if I agree that your build is super strong at level 3 so it's sad to lose that level specifically).Battle Medicine because PFS ;-)
For Shillelagh, several dedications get you Expert in Nature at level 2.
I didn't thought about that. But it's a very specific build. Roughly, you are aiming for a level 2-3 maximized efficiency. No comment on that, but it explains why you want to have all your feats ready as early as possible. For most classical level range, it is in general a problem only for those who want to be medics.
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One pitfall I found in some builds lies in the background step.
If you need to start with 18 and 16 in specific stats plus a specific skill feat, you can find yourself just out of luck because the combination does not exist yet.
True. I, OTOH, was tripped up when Secular Medic offered a choice between DEX or WIS. I had intended to leave DEX at 0 and WIS at 2. I had to either boost WIS to 3 or invest points into DEX (I chose the latter).
I don't consider that Battle Medicine makes a healer out of a character. And half of the classes of the game have healing abilities, so, in my opinion it's really a lack of luck if noone can produce healing. In general, it's more that noone wants to actually heal.
This computation is not working. It means that only 1 character is Trained in Athletics, 1 in Acrobatics, etc... Athletics, Acrobatics, Stealth and Medicine are very useful to have even if you're not supposed to be the best of the party in these. There's also the option to Aid, which gives a +1/+2 bonus at high level. So being Trained in a skill can be useful even if you're actually bad at it. And for every check that everyone can make (Recall Knowledge, for example) rolling with a low bonus is not useless. And then you have haunts and complex traps, where you want as many people as possible to participate even if their chances of success are low.
And that's before taking the GM impact into account.
Well yes, that's essentially a worst case scenario where everyone has dumped int, nobody has picked a class with more skills and the party wants every skill available. I'm sure most parties have no issues with this because they either choose skills to ignore (crafting, performance and stealth are skills I rarely see taken by choice) or because they have somebody who dumped cha+str for int instead.
Aid is nice. The local int character should assign their extra trained skills to things they want to Aid with in the future after trained stops mattering. Unless the local face character has one for all anyway.
I'll take your word for it on recall knowledge. Given it needs an int/wis boost just to hit a 50% success rate it feels more efficient to leave it to whoever specialized in it than to have multiple characters waste spots on it just to coinflip at best and have a large misinformation chance at worst depending on level and rarity.
However, you really don't want everyone rolling on haunts and complex traps because those often get proficiency gated. That's the worst possible time to have people who aren't specced for it try anything especially because they can have F and CF effects that make things worse for the party.
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So this is all well and good, but can we stick to the guide? If you want to start another thread on the pros and cons of the voluntary system, by all means do so, but this is just a guide designed to help people to play the race/class combination they want.
Also, updated the guide a bit.