An open letter to Paizo, please consider altering some of your approaches when building scenarios / APs / Modules

[Enchanter Tim]

Chiming in since I experienced some of this with VampByDay.

I definitely, extremely dislike gating by skill proficiency. To me, high DCs are ok (though they should be used sparingly). It's a really challenging lock or trap or whatever. Hopefully there's good design around it. But what's really bad is when you roll that Nat 20 and just make the DC only to be told that you don't have Expert in the skill, so you simply can't do it. Everyone is cheering and then you just say no? What?! Way to kill the fun.

Imagine if you had this in other aspects of the game. AC 30, but can only be hit by if you have martial weapon proficiency of Master. Or Will DC of 24, but only if you have expert. Otherwise, you just fail, don't bother rolling.

The only place I could see this being used is in Mythic-type campaigns or when dealing with Artifacts. Even then, Crits only moving you up or down the success track mostly solves this. No need for the arbitrary gating.

[The Raven Black]

Enchanter Tim wrote:

Chiming in since I experienced some of this with VampByDay.

I definitely, extremely dislike gating by skill proficiency. To me, high DCs are ok (though they should be used sparingly). It's a really challenging lock or trap or whatever. Hopefully there's good design around it. But what's really bad is when you roll that Nat 20 and just make the DC only to be told that you don't have Expert in the skill, so you simply can't do it. Everyone is cheering and then you just say no? What?! Way to kill the fun.

Imagine if you had this in other aspects of the game. AC 30, but can only be hit by if you have martial weapon proficiency of Master. Or Will DC of 24, but only if you have expert. Otherwise, you just fail, don't bother rolling.

The only place I could see this being used is in Mythic-type campaigns or when dealing with Artifacts. Even then, Crits only moving you up or down the success track mostly solves this. No need for the arbitrary gating.

If it is proficiency-gated, the GM should tell you before you roll. Doing otherwise is pretty cruel IMO.

[Ravingdork]

Regarding the original post:
After hundreds of sessions with dozens of groups, I can't say that I or anyone else I've gamed with shares that experience.

[Michael Sayre]

The Raven Black wrote:

What we can gather from the product reviews is far more balanced that what we can get from the boards.

TLDR; Reviews are great but their level of detail will determine the impact they have on future products more than where they're posted.

Yes and no, honestly.

When I was the Pathfinder lead for organized play, I used to put adventures on the schedule where I would tell the team "This is going to end up with exactly a 3-star average review. It will sell better than average for a scenario on release by a notable margin because the new players will love it, but some number of the following 10 people whose avatar names I can quote from memory will review-bomb it for very predictable reasons. None of those reasons, in my opinion, outweigh the benefits of selling as many more of these adventures on release as I know we'll sell."

This played out so predictably that I was right literally every time I made that prediction and even once used the data as part of my justification for going over budget on such an adventure (since I knew we'd make enough money off it to compensate the difference.)

So while reviews are a good way to get your voice heard and I know that I and several of my colleagues, at least, read all the reviews for the products we work on, the quality and detail of the review is often more pertinent than where it was left (though putting it in the product page reviews does give it a higher chance of being seen than something that flashes past in a forum discussion).

5-star and 1-star reviews with no details are kind of equally lower-value (though I guess the 5-star-no-detail reviews at least don't leave us wondering if they were left because of an actual issue with the book or if the reviewer was a bigot who doesn't like our "woke agenda"), while a 2-star review with detailed play experience might actually be more valuable from an "affecting the course of development" angle than a 4-star review that just says "Had a great time playing Malevolence, more haunted houses please!" That's one of the areas where forum discussion brings in some notable value, since it makes it easier to see what went wrong where, and whether it's a GM issue (meaning that we need to improve the way we communicate information to the GM) or a structural issue (our encounter balance is off somewhere or the stories/mechanics just aren't very good).

[Staffan Johansson]

Enchanter Tim wrote:

Chiming in since I experienced some of this with VampByDay.

I definitely, extremely dislike gating by skill proficiency. To me, high DCs are ok (though they should be used sparingly). It's a really challenging lock or trap or whatever. Hopefully there's good design around it. But what's really bad is when you roll that Nat 20 and just make the DC only to be told that you don't have Expert in the skill, so you simply can't do it. Everyone is cheering and then you just say no? What?! Way to kill the fun.

I'd rather see proficiency gating work the other way around. You're a Master in Thievery? You automatically succeed in disabling the trap. Otherwise, roll.

[Staffan Johansson]

gesalt wrote:

The rogue thing is just the niche protection so prevalent in the system. You need a wide variety of skills to deal with prof gates and hazards so you're pressured into bringing a skill monkey along to provide 2 people's worth of max skills

Niche protection is bad. Niche protection can work in a game like, say, AD&D 1st ed where there are four primary classes and then some variants on that, but PF2 has 20 classes and counting. Why have 20 classes when every party needs to bring a rogue or investigator to deal with hazards, a bard for the buffs, and a cleric for the heals?

I like PF2, I really do. It is my favorite flavor of D&D. I just wish the system wasn't so tightly tuned to demand specialization while not giving enough resources with which to keep up outside a narrow field.

[Captain Morgan]

Don't think I've run into most of the OP issues. Overusing extreme encounters is a thing, though. Giving an extra level to the party definitely works but won't occur to GMs who don't read the forums, and it feels like often they don't bother to until they have already grown frustrated. Might be worth mentioning the option in the milestone track.

I haven't seen many problems with profiency gating, as I've only seen them on hazards which tend to have lots of solutions. There's usually at least two skills you can use. They almost by definition don't pursue the party so retreating is an option. You can often trigger them from afar. Dispel can often one shot them. And if all else fails brute force usually works, albeit brute force feels bloody brutal because hazards don't shiv, they balls nasty.

I think proficiency gating makes more sense on static, non-encounter based challenges, though. I never got why they weren't used for locks. The multi success model makes locks feel tedious on their own without additional pressures exerted on the party. Plus with the nat 20 upgrading tiers of success, a lock doesn't reliably stop someone even with a high DC. I'd rather not bother rolling for things the party can succeed on eventually, and just tell them they can't roll if there's no chance of success. It also feels better narratively if investing in a good lock stops all but the best thieves despite nat 20s.

I could do without requiring expert and above proficiency to spot hazards, though. New players don't necessarily realize their high wisdom but low proficiency cleric or druid just straight can't find certain things while Searching. Plus the characters who are best at spotting traps usually benefit the most from Avoiding Notice instead.

I often find myself with questions on how hazards are supposed to work, though, both narratively and mechanically. I sometimes feel they tried too hard to standardize the format.

1. In fiction, how do characters spot a haunt that doesn't manifest until someone enters the room?

2. In fiction, how does a character get close enough a proximity based trap to disable it at touch range while only triggering it on a critical success?

3. Mechanically, how do characters identify what skills/proficiencies or methods disable a hazard? I've used Recall Knowledge for it, but this could be spelled out. (Especially given Vamp's anecdote of rolling a nat 20 on something they couldn't even attempt.) Maybe that should be built into the stealth DC to spot the hazard instead.

4. How many actions does it take to use non-theivery skills to disarm a trap? I've only seen one hazard ever spell this out. I've begun assuming it is always a two actions modeled after the Disarm a Trap activity unless explicitly stated otherwise.

[Staffan Johansson]

Captain Morgan wrote:

I haven't seen many problems with profiency gating, as I've only seen them on hazards which tend to have lots of solutions.

Proficiency gating is bad. Hazards in general have ridiculous DCs anyway (a level 10 hazard will have a Disable DC of 32 to 35 according to the GMG, which is 5-8 points above the 27 of a typical level 10 task, which is already too high). This is compounded by a complex trap being treated as a same-level creature for XP/encounter building purposes, which means that a same-level complex trap on its own is a Trivial encounter, and if you want the trap to be even a Moderate encounter it needs to be level+2. So that Disable DC of 32 just went up to 35. A 10th level character who wants to be the Best at traps would have +23 or so (+16 Master, +5 Dex, +2 item). If you don't have someone pushing their trap mastery as high as it will go, you might instead be looking at +15-16. In the words of Dr. Rumack: "Good luck. You'll need it."

Plus, looking at the guidelines for hazards, level 5+ hazards should require Expert to disable, and 9+ require Master proficiency. Since hazards as established often out-level the party, that means that those are in play from level 3 and 7, at which point you have one (1) skill of the appropriate proficiency level. Better hope you chose the right one.

I'm of the opinion that if someone is putting in serious resources into being the Best at something, at least outside of regular combat, they should be able to trivialize challenges of that nature with 80%+ rates of success. 50-60% should be for dabblers.

Trained proficiency should be for average professionals. Expert is for experienced professionals, the kind where people tell their friends about them because of the quality of the work. Master proficiency should be able to easily perform at an Olympic-plus level, and Legends should be able to do mythic stuff like running on clouds.

Quote:

I think proficiency gating makes more sense on static, non-encounter based challenges, though. I never got why they weren't used for locks. The multi success model makes locks feel tedious on their own without additional pressures exerted on the party. Plus with the nat 20 upgrading tiers of success, a lock doesn't reliably stop someone even with a high DC.

It shouldn't. Even modern locks really don't keep even dedicated amateurs out, let alone professionals. What they do is delay you, which dramatically increases the chance of you getting caught while fiddling with the lock.

[Staffan Johansson]

Thinking about it a little more, I think part of the disconnect is that some skills are measured against The World, in the form of mostly static challenges where you can easily see how awesome you are, particularly with some skill feats sprinkled in. If you're a Master Acrobat with Catfall, you can jump off a 50-foot building and land unharmed in a three-point pose. If you're a Master Athlete with Water Sprint, you can literally run on water. That kind of thing is awesome.

But other skills are mostly tested against Opposition, meaning leveled stuff where the typical challenges you face will be roughly scaled to your own level. There's no way for the Master Thief to show off the way the Master Athlete does, because everything the Thief does is subject to the Red Queen's Race where you run faster and faster just to stay in the same place. Master thieves should be able to do things like picking locks and disabling traps from a distance by throwing their lockpicks into just the right spots and similar things that are on par with Water Sprint or Wall Jump. If Autolycos can do it on Xena, or Parker on Leverage, a Master thief should be able to do it in Pathfinder.

[Malk_Content]

I would still like printed adventures to have three difficulties. Printed by having the standard encounter and then a green modifier for easy and a red modifier for hard.I don't need this, because I'm experienced as a GM and talk about tastes within my group, but for new GMs picking up an adventure it would be great.

E.G

MODERATE 1

3 (Green 2, Red add Elite to 1) Gribblegrabbers

[Staffan Johansson]

If you do want proficiency to matter regarding hazards, here's an idea:

1. Reduce the DCs to a reasonable level.

2. Require X number of successes to disable them.

3. A successful roll gives a number of successes equal to its proficiency rank. Add an additional success on a crit, or two if you're a master or legend.

So, take that level 10 trap I mentioned earlier, which is supposed to be a Trivial encounter for a level 10 party? By the book it has a DC of 32, or 35 if disabling it is supposed to be the hard thing about it. Maxing out your Thievery gets you about +23, so you have a 60% chance of success. That's 1.67 rolls on average.

If you instead drop the DC to the supposedly level-appropriate 27, the Master now succeeds on a 4, which means 50% chance of 3 successes and 35% chance of 5 successes, for an average of 3.25 successes. If you want it to take the same average time for the specialist, that's 5.4 successes. Let's call it 5, because that still makes it possible for the specialist so succeed on a single roll, make it highly likely in two, and near-certain in three.

But now someone who's not a specialist has a sporting chance. Let's say it's an Expert (+14) who has masterwork but not high-magic tools (+1) and Dex +3, for 18. That's a success on 9+ and crit on 19+, for an average of 1.3 successes per attempt. Now you'll need at least two attempts (and that's if either one crits), most likely four. You'll still manage to beat the trap (assuming you survive), but it's going to take a lot longer.

[Captain Morgan]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

I'm of the opinion that if someone is putting in serious resources into being the Best at something, at least outside of regular combat, they should be able to trivialize challenges of that nature with 80%+ rates of success. 50-60% should be for dabblers.

But complex hazards are regular combat. They have initiative and give out the same experience. Why should they be so much easier to not just "hit" but basically one shot? Simple hazards aren't regular combat, but generally one of three scenarios applies with them:

1. The hazard is triggered; the disable DCs don't matter.

2. The hazard is spotted and can be neutralized without attempting a disable check See Ash Web and other mold hazards which can be removed with ray of frost repeated enough. The disable DCs don't matter.

3. The hazard is spotted and you need to hit a disable DC. But you only trigger the hazard on a critical failure; you just repeat the check on a regular failure.

Which means that using your example of the maxed specialist with +23 against a DC 35 disable, they only have a 15% of actually "losing" against the simple hazard.

Now, if a complex hazard triggers initiative, then a regular failure has the consequence of prolonging the encounter, but again, that is a regular encounter.

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Hazards in general have ridiculous DCs anyway (a level 10 hazard will have a Disable DC of 32 to 35 according to the GMG, which is 5-8 points above the 27 of a typical level 10 task, which is already too high).

By comparison, a 10th level creature has a high to extreme perception DC of 32-34, so if you want to bypass them as an encounter via stealth you need a similar result. If the creature has below average perception it might be easier, potentially much so if you can add some bonuses... But usually a hazard just requires the best character to succeed and sneaking by at minimum requires the worst character to succeed. (And that's with Quiet Allies. Without that feat, it is nearly impossible.)

Or if we are talking about after initiative is rolled, a 10th level creature probably has AC 30. The AC is a couple points lower, but most classes can achieve higher skill bonuses than to hit bonuses and a single hit rarely makes as much of a dent as a single disable success. (Though the whole party landing hits can outweigh the one specialist disabling, which is why I like when hazards have multiple components to destroy or disable so the whole party can be working towards the same "goal.")

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Plus, looking at the guidelines for hazards, level 5+ hazards should require Expert to disable, and 9+ require Master proficiency. Since hazards as established often out-level the party, that means that those are in play from level 3 and 7, at which point you have one (1) skill of the appropriate proficiency level. Better hope you chose the right one.

But looking closer at those guidelines, we have this. Table 2–14 indicates the high and moderate proficiency requirements by level; you can use lower proficiency ranks than the ones listed, and if you use the high rank, consider a secondary, perhaps less-efficient method to disable the hazard using a lower rank. For instance, the bloodthirsty urge haunt in the Core Rulebook can be disabled with master Religion, or by a higher DC with expert Diplomacy.

And you know what? I just looked at all the 10th level complex hazards and these guidelines are actually followed. (Unlike, say, the CRBs guidance on how often you use use severe boss monsters.) I can't find a single hazard 10th level hazard which can only be disabled by the max level proficiency. The max level usually lets you target the lowest DC or end the encounter with one success instead of multiple. But there are several 10th level hazards which even trained can work on.

Which is probably why I have never actually seen a party that lacked any of the possible tools to disable the hazard. Not every party will have the exact skill tool to trivialize the hazard, but not every party has the exact spell to trivialize a particular monster. It seems to me like this only actually causes a problem if the GM tells the player what skill they need but not what proficiency. Which goes back to my point that the problem is lack of rules clarity, not DCs or proficiency gating.

Staffan Johansson wrote:

It shouldn't. Even modern locks really don't keep even dedicated amateurs out, let alone professionals. What they do is delay you, which dramatically increases the chance of you getting caught while fiddling with the lock.

You know that even occurred to me as I was writing the post. The thing is that while that is true in real world burglary, it almost never matters for in game dungeon delving. You rarely face time pressures of getting caught in dungeons. The closest thing you get is heists which just use victory points anyway. So I guess I don't actually want real world simulation here because I wouldn't want to play a Pathfinder campaign about petty larceny.

[feelsbradman]

VampByDay wrote:

...

Sometimes on the forums an individual’s tone can be ambiguous. I say this as neutrally as possible. I’ve ran all 2e APs except the Frozen Flame, and Alkenstar AP.

If the GM is reading ahead of time, not vastly ahead, but reading ahead, then they can tailor these AP to your party. It isn’t a huge time sink changing “X” skill to “Y” and the same line of thought applies to the challenge of encounters.

I’ll secretly deflate AC or Strike values by 1 or 2 if I feel like it isn’t fun. The math in these rules are a baseline, it requires and encourages a good GM to make slight adjustments in play.

To me, all of your gripes sound GM specific considering there are ONLY so many pages in these books and they are written for the widest appeal possible.

Not saying your experiences aren’t true, but if I was your GM and I saw your post I would probably feel ashamed I hadn’t done more for my party.

[Staffan Johansson]

Captain Morgan wrote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

I'm of the opinion that if someone is putting in serious resources into being the Best at something, at least outside of regular combat, they should be able to trivialize challenges of that nature with 80%+ rates of success. 50-60% should be for dabblers.

But complex hazards are regular combat.

By combat I mean the typical combat stats. One of the features of Pathfinder 2 is that things like your attack bonus, AC, and saves are pretty much on rails once you've chosen your class. A 10th level martial non-fighter will have an attack bonus of +21 (Expert +14, stat +5, item +2), and there's really not much you can do about that. You might be missing a point or two (if you didn't start with an 18 in your attack stat and/or haven't gotten a +2 weapon yet), but that's what the game assumes and that's what the game will give you.

But skills? They can vary a lot. A 10th level trained character with a 12 in their relevant stat and no item bonuses has +13, while a Master with maxed-out stat and a +2 item hits +23. That's a spread of 10 points, and I'd rather see a situation where the former has a decent chance of success and the latter breezes through level-appropriate situations than one that challenges the latter and makes it impossible for the former to succeed. It is OK for PCs to trivialize things that challenge their specialized skills. If you can get Hardison to a place where he has access to a system, he will be able to hack it.

Quote:

By comparison, a 10th level creature has a high to extreme perception DC of 32-34, so if you want to bypass them as an encounter via stealth you need a similar result.

Creature Perception is also way too high, primarily for narrative reasons.

In fiction, it is downright common for heroes to be made aware of a powerful threat that's beyond their ability to confront directly, and instead they have to sneak past it (or occasionally use other trickery or persuasion methods). But since most creatures have a high Perception, the effect is that any creature you can sneak past you could probably just kill instead. And that feels wrong.

Regarding skills in general, I read a Twitter thread by Rob Donoghue that noted a critical thing about D&D (and derivatives like Pathfinder) that can be boiled down as follows:

* A d20 makes for very swingy results.
* This works great in combat, where each individual roll is pretty low-stakes because of how hit points work in D&D. So what feels like a small advantage on any one roll becomes a big advantage over the course of a whole fight – particularly when you also include the benefits of teamwork (more actions, bonuses from cooperation, stuff like that).
* This works significantly less well on all-or-nothing rolls, which is what you tend to have with skill checks. They will also be much less subject to various cooperation benefits, because YOU are the only one who can do that thing (unlike fight, which everyone can do in their own way).
* Since much more hangs on this one roll, failing it feels much worse than missing in combat. This means players want to make really sure they can increase their chances as far as they can.
* A possible solution is to turn it into multiple rolls, perhaps using methods like clocks.

[Captain Morgan]

I agree that creature perception is too high on average, though luckily that can be adjusted if you want an encounter to be be avoidable. Greater cover can provide up to +4, and sleeping or distractions can provide up to -4. I think the bigger problem with sneaking past encounters is adventure design. Wasting page space on encounters you won't actually use is bad. It can make XP budgets wonky. And dungeon map size often means if you sneak past an encounter in room A1 the fight you start in A2 will just altert the A1 enemies anyway.

That is an interesting tweet series, and it is a good illustration of why victory point challenges have been popular. Thanks for sharing it!

That said, I think hazard skill checks already function the way you think they should. Complex hazards already rely on multiple rolls. And hazards only triggering on critical failures means the specialist will likely succeed even if it takes a couple rolls-- your example build with a little teamwork buff (Aid, Inspire Competence, Guidance, Mutagens, etc) only crit fails on a natural 1 even against above level hazards, and hero points and other fortune effects can further mitigate that.

The single point of failure/success isn't skill checks to disable, it is Perception checks to spot. Fail that on a simple hazard and it doesn't what the disable DCs are. And in a complex hazard it suddenly becomes a full blown combat. The specialist still has the same odds of overcoming the challenge eventually but suddenly each failure along the way had consequences it didn't before.

[Puff Stanley]

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Shot: "I've had a hard fight with a Clay Golem"

Chaser: "Paizo, please change the way you run your business"

All I can say to the OP is "git gud".

omg shut up

[Jonathan Morgantini]

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