I threw this poll up on the subreddit, but I'm curious: rogues, investigators, and certain dedications aside, what are the three Legendary skills you tend to gravitate towards?
You don't have to justify your choices, but if you want to elaborate - feel free!
Myself, I tend towards skills like Acrobatics and Athletics for overall usefulness. Crafting is also incredibly high on my list (though likely not on the same character) just because my groups don't play with "fantasy Walmart" where everything is easy to purchase. And while I love Medicine, I very rarely take it up to Legendary just because by the time Legendary Medicine becomes "a thing," I have other ways to deal with out of combat damage.
Nearly every class I do Acrobatics for Kip Up as trip sucks for PCs as well as NPCs.
Martials Athletics, especially strength-based martials.
If I'm the Medic, Medicine.
Intel-based casters I like Arcane and Crafting.
Charisma-based casters I like Intimidation and Diplomacy.
Wisdom-based casters I tend to do Religion or Nature depending on if I want to use rituals.
But always Acrobatics regardless of class for Cat Fall and Kip Up.
Kip Up and Cat Fall are such solid pick-ups no matter the class. I have a friend who always works in the Acrobat Dedication into his build, arguing that if his build has room for it, a class feat for "a fourth Legendary skill" is entirely worth it. And I don't disagree!
I am a GM, so I have to discuss the 19th-level characters made by my players.
The ranger got Crafting, Stealth, and Survival up to Legendary. The champion did that for Crafting and Stealth. I lack the character sheet for the druid, but she has used legendary Nature and Stealth. The sorcerer went for legendary in Medicine as the party healer and Diplomacy as a Harmlessly Cute leshy, but I don't know what else. The monk is legendary in Athletics and I don't know what else.
The party is very sneaky, loving to ambush enemies. Thus, the Legendary Sneak feat has been a goal for most of them.
The champion uses Crafting for shield repair and transferring runes and the ranger uses Crafting for snares, and they both pushed Crafting up to legendary for extra speed. And because I occasionally let them make a Crafting check for Recall Knowledge.
Of the two rogues, one is classically focusing on Stealth and Thievery, and the other multiclassed to arcane sorcerer and went legendary in Arcana, Deception, Diplomacy, Society, and Stealth.
I do like Stealth. Don't always have room for Legendary Stealth, but I do usually work it up a bit, sometimes not taking the three full Legendary skills.
Hard to answer as I don't have many level 15+ characters, so it's more dependent on the classes I raised to these levels than to my personal tastes.
So I just listed the skills I've raised on all my characters, and the result is:
4 characters raise it:
Occultism
Religion
3 characters raise it:
Intimidation
Diplomacy
2 characters raise it:
Stealth
1 character raises it:
Medicine
Crafting
Society
Arcana
Deception
I vote for Occultism, Religion and Intimidation, then. I feel that Diplomacy is less of a skill I choose than one that the game forces on me (it's really used a lot and my Oracle who's not Trained in it suffers from this lack).
But overall, the list shows my taste for Charisma and Intelligence based skills, with Religion as a good contender because I have lots of religious characters (Champion, Divine Sorcerer, Oracle, Divine Summoner).
And I'm (currently) the only one who would never raise Acrobatics beyond Trained!
I hadn't really considered going the "multiple Master" route, which I think is a great way to go. It seems that as of this writing, Athletics has pulled quite ahead!
With Survival ranking so low, for those who go the Survival route - how far do you typically take it? Expert? Master?
Survival checks are usually against flat DCs dictated by your environment, not your opposition. If you're in an area where tracking or subsisting is easy you don't need more than trained. It is also a really good candidate for Assurance, especially mixed with Expert Tracker. It only starts to call for Legendary in really specific campaigns, like journeying through the first world.
I haven't actually run a character to Legendary myself, but based on my players:
Intimidation: has the best skill feats in the game and the best combat applicability. It can be a little awkward to use as a social tool, though, so best paired with...
Diplomacy: weak skill feats, but you need raw numbers to throw at problems. Bon Mot is great if your party builds for it, but otherwise most feats do things that usually won't matter. Ie, group impression rarely matters more than just impressing the leader of a group. Legendary Negotiation is weird. However, I have noticed some GMs and players really call for Shameless Request as a must have item. If you tend to try to turn every quest reward into a negotiation or your GM resents you doing so, you best take this feat.
Acrobatics: Kip Up is cool, but the big appeal to me is falling from orbit with Cat Fall.
Stealth: really strong skill for initiative, especially on ranged strikers or rogues, and has 4 must have skill feats: Quiet Allies, Fast Stealth, Foil Senses, and Legendary Sneak.
Religion: used for common enemies and the master/legendary skill feats have cool options.
I for one really love the high level options for Acrobatics, Deception, and Stealth and frequently find myself gravitating towards them more than most. They're all really great for getting out of a tight spot--or into one. ;P
Stealth, intimidation and acrobatics.
These give in combat and out of combat power and utility even without skill feats, with feats you can do some impressive things.
Just don't expect a good reputation using intimidate as your social skill.
This is a really fun idea for a poll!
I'm not surprised to see a lot of folks saying they'd leave Survival and Performance in the dust if they had to choose one to ditch. I wonder what could be done to make them more competitive options?
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This is a really fun idea for a poll!
I'm not surprised to see a lot of folks saying they'd leave Survival and Performance in the dust if they had to choose one to ditch. I wonder what could be done to make them more competitive options?
So what's interesting is, I started the poll on a whim after discussing on a Homebrewing stream the difficulty of sitting down and designing skill feats since there's a balancing act of what skills bring to the table at a baseline and what niches that the current skill feats don't cover. It ended up with me looking into what skills the community valued. Sometime on stream next week, we'll take a look at the data and see if there's anything important we can glean from it!
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Skill Feats are a big reason for skill choices.
On an intel-based caster like a wizard, I like Arcane for Unified Theory and Magical Shorthand. I like Crafting for Quick Repair, Magical Crafting, and Alchemical Crafting, Inventor, and Craft Anything. I like to be able to make consumables or items for cheaper if I have sufficient downtime.
For Stealth you want Foil Senses, Swift Sneak, and Legendary Sneak.
For Religion I like Pilgrim's Token and Battle Prayer, though not sure what they will do with Battle Prayer with alignment damage gone.
Intimidation you Intimidating Glare, Quick Coercion, Battle Cry, and Scare to Death. Terrifying Resistance isn't bad.
The value of skill feats is what drives my skill up choices.
Skill Feats are a big reason for skill choices.
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The value of skill feats is what drives my skill up choices.
This is SO true!
A skill without good skill feats is far less attractive/valuable.
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Before thaumaturgy was released? Lots and lots of lore skills.
If you grab skills like lore (undead), you can skip wisdom based skill checks. And the additional lore feat automatically lets you grab legendary rank in those skills just by trading feats. So you can do this without being bound by the limit of three legendary skills.
Unfortunately for the ID investigator, thaumaturges can now pull this off without going out of their way.
It is still a nice way for wizards to show off how smart they are, since they aren't as bothered with skills and skill feats (assuming you aren't just waiting for unified theory)
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So thinking about the results of the poll with Survival coming in last, we can take a look at the common rarity Survival skill feats and see their use.
Experienced Tracker: Our Exploration mode skill feat that lets us move more quickly while Tracking. I'll admit that I've been playing since the playtest and can count on one hand the number of times I've had players Track and I certainly can't think of any times that speed would be of the essence. I'm currently playing in a Quest for the Frozen Flame game where I feel like something like this would shine, but I still haven't thought "Oh, y'know, I really wish our group had this."
Forager: A Downtime skill feat focusing on Subsist - another action that tends to get forgotten, especially as PCs get to higher levels. I'm running a Kingmaker game where this could see some use, but when compared to other skill feats, it doesn't quite stack up.
Survey Wildlife: I've had this skill feat show up in a few games to fine results, though I imagine that it's not the first pick of many players. Even when it is, it could get forgotten. Sitting nicely in Exploration mode, I think it's a great way for rangers and druids to do a little pre-planning for a battle. A bit niche, however.
Terrain Expertise: A passive math feat - you don't see many of these nowadays. I actually have this feat one my QftFF character and I feel like it's come into play rarely, if ever. Again, this would be the AP to have the skill feat in, but it does feel a little extraneous.
Environmental Grace: Skipping right over Expert and going into Master - this feat already presumes some deity stuff, which feels like it's narrowing down the focus quite a bit for a not terrible skill feat. It's just that putting it into that little box there does make it a bit trickier.
Planar Survival: Another Subsist feat and one that is even more niche. We're going to be needing a game where we're planeshopping and without supplies. Sort of the "if I'm high enough level to jump to other planes, why don't I have a bag of holding filled with food?" or "if I'm going to be in a campaign that assumes I will need this feat, it becomes a feat tax for at least one player." So, while I think it's a cool idea, I can see why it's likely to get neglected.
Legendary Guide: Hoo, this would be so great, but it exists in Exploration/Downtime space. Ignoring and reducing difficult or greater difficult terrain for overland travel and hexploration is a fantastic boon... for a party lacking magical travel or one in which time is of the eseence. Or, really, any group that is going to not abstract travel. If hexploration is key to your game (like Kingmaker), this is a great pick up. But is it worth getting to Legendary for?
Legendary Survivalist: I think if you're going Legendary Survival, this is a big reason for it. Myself, as a GM, by level 15 tracking food and water is somewhat out the window - but I can see that being an interesting moment around the table. Lost, stranded on the Plane of Fire with nothing to eat. The Legendary ranger is fine, taking care of everyone and hunting up some form of food. But... this still feels incredibly niche!
I don't want this to be some sort of "review" of the Survival skill feats, but just looking at what reasons someone would have to take Survival up to Legendary. To me, it seems that if you're playing in a game with a lot of focus on the Exploration and Downtime modes - looking at you Kingmaker - then it's a more attractive choice. But, lacking that, it does seem to be a choice for very specific playstyle/tables/campaigns. What sorts of skill feats would make it more attractive in your eyes? Or... what sorts of games or playstyles do you think would really make you want to invest into it more?
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Survival Skill feats suffer from being niche narrative options, they’re cool on paper, but in actual practice in this combat simulator game they do nearly nothing.
Surviving without food and water is something nice for low level survival horror games, at level 15 those genres don’t intersect. For a reason.
Being able to hold your breath indefinitely or survive in space or ocean depths or certain hostile planes like Positive and Negative is cool.
Being able to recover faster from damage or poison/disease would be good, like out of combat use Survival instead of Fortitude for saving throws.
I do like Forager to eliminate the bookkeeping for rations and subsistence in the wild. Forager is such a good feat that trained survival is sufficient to handwave survival in the wild.
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Survival Skill feats suffer from being niche narrative options, they’re cool on paper, but in actual practice in this combat simulator game they do nearly nothing.
Surviving without food and water is something nice for low level survival horror games, at level 15 those genres don’t intersect. For a reason.
Being able to hold your breath indefinitely or survive in space or ocean depths or certain hostile planes like Positive and Negative is cool.
Being able to recover faster from damage or poison/disease would be good, like out of combat use Survival instead of Fortitude for saving throws.
Yes please have survival do more, Or delete it from the game and wrap it into Nature. As it is, it is not doing enough to justify its existance.
There are 2 things that need to be separated from this discussion, which involve skill choices.
Skills based on your class choice and skills based on your personal preference.
In personal preference skills, in my games at least, Athletics, Intimidation, Medicine, and Stealth are by far the most favored by players.
However, the class matters a lot in the choices, mainly due to the key attribute used:
In these cases, characters with Strength as a key attribute almost always prefer Athletics, often taking Medicine and Survival as secondary skills due to normally having some investment in Wis, leaving Intimidation and Stealth aside, even though they often prefer these due to the bonus of these to be smaller.
Characters with Dexterity as a key attribute tend to take Stealth as a primary skill, Acrobatics as a secondary skill, and then Thief, Medicine, and Survival as a third skill for the same reasons as Strength-based characters.
Characters with Intelligence as a key attribute tend to take Arcana or Occult as a key attribute to try to use in RK, a few try manufacturing if the table has some house rules that deal with the creation of items in a useful way, otherwise they end up resorting again to Medicine and Survival for at least the reason mentioned above, as there is usually some investment in Wis due to improvements in Will and Perception.
Wis-based characters, on the other hand, tend to choose Medicine and Survival as their primary skill and Nature as their secondary skill.
Finally, Charisma-dependent classes tend to choose Intimidation, Diplomacy as primary skills and Acrobatics, Medicine, and Survival as secondary skills.
Acrobatics is a special case for experienced spellcasting characters, as it is the main way to get rid of grab in these classes, since progression in unarmed attacks is limited and Athletics is also not an option.
Some players sometimes invest in Acrobatics also because of Kip Up regardless of the investment in Dex, but in general there are few, it is a high investment for a single feat of skill, usually those who follow this path are because they already had a high Dex due to the need for AC.
I do like Forager to eliminate the bookkeeping for rations and subsistence in the wild. Forager is such a good feat that trained survival is sufficient to handwave survival in the wild.
Forager is really convenient, yes. But it must be said that it isn't really improving your overall performance so much as removing an annoying element of the game. Which is sort of the problem with tracking food in the first place. In theory, there is a table out there that enjoys it, and it is sort of important for realism... But in practice most people would rather skip it.
Putting Survival into Nature is an interesting idea... But I already feel Nature is a little bit stacked as a skill. It covers a lot as a knowledge skill, it Identifies most Magic, and it Commands Animals as well. I guess the other magic skills get Decipher Writing as a trade off for Commanding Animals, but I find that less interesting.
Tracking also feels like it would wind up in Perception, not Nature... Which I guess might be fine? Tracking feels a bit like Sense Motive as something that you either need or you don't so it might as well stick in something that auto progresses.
Survey Wildlife has room to be a real MVP feat but requires some consensus to make it so. The big problem with the feat is "nearby" is a vague term. Is that within a mile? 10 miles? But a 10 minute activity is a reasonable thing to have happen a few times throughout a day of overland travel when the party stops to rest, eat, or poop. Which basically makes this a chance to catch wind of upcoming encounters and roll a whole bunch of knowledge checks ahead of combat or designate a Hunted Prey. I think the feat could us a rewrite to make this sort of functionality more obvious and intuitive.
I also think Legendary Survivalist could use a punch up. Reducing your sleep time (or eliminating it) would be one option.
For a campaign that deals with urban challenges, encounters, etc., instead of just focusing on dungeons and wilderness exploration, Society is a solid choice for any Int-based character*. Especially with a selection from Courtly Graces, Streetwise, Connections, Criminal Connections, Quick Contacts, Underground Network, and/or Biographical Eye; it has more uses than just Legendary Codebreaker!
*- not only investigators; although they do seem to get the most use out of it
For a campaign that deals with urban challenges, encounters, etc., instead of just focusing on dungeons and wilderness exploration, Society is a solid choice for any Int-based character*. Especially with a selection from Courtly Graces, Streetwise, Connections, Criminal Connections, Quick Contacts, Underground Network, and/or Biographical Eye; it has more uses than just Legendary Codebreaker!
*- not only investigators; although they do seem to get the most use out of it
True, Society has some strong skills which dovetail nicely with a face. Legendary Linguist is kind of awesome. A lot of those other feats are situational but really good in their lane. The Connections oriented feats are interesting. They require some serious GM buy in to work, and my concern is that if a GM is prepared to go that route they might just introduce you those networks already.
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Skill Feats are a big reason for skill choices.
I tend to find them mostly useless. If I put aside what I consider tax feats (Intimidating Glare, Continual Recovery/Battle Medicine), I generaly take mine rather randomly and tend to forget about them anyway. I hardly use them even once, most of the time the GM either consider they are baseline from the skill (like Foil Senses) or they never come into play.
Skill Feats are a big reason for skill choices.I tend to find them mostly useless. If I put aside what I consider tax feats (Intimidating Glare, Continual Recovery/Battle Medicine), I generaly take mine rather randomly and tend to forget about them anyway. I hardly use them even once, most of the time the GM either consider they are baseline from the skill (like Foil Senses) or they never come into play.
Strange. Cat Fall and Kip Up are extremely nice and Acrobatics can be used to escape and for flight. High value caster skill and preferred over Athletics by my casters.
Skill feats come up quite a bit in my campaigns. If you want to stealth against creatures with Tremorsense or some other type of sense, then Foil Senses is a must have. The rogue is a popular class and my group likes to stealth and ambush targets.
Unified Theory is only valuable if you know you'll get to level 15. Magical Shorthand is only helpful if you find a lot of spells or buy a lot as a preparation caster.
As far as martials with Athletics, Titan Wrestler is a must if you want to use Trip or grapple a lot.
Surprised you haven't found skill feats useful.
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Cat Fall
I should be getting close to 300 games and I would have used it only once. Falling (during combat) is a rare event.
Kip Up
THE reason to raise Acrobatics (as the skill is otherwise quite useless).
Acrobatics can be used to escape
You can use unarmed attacks, that go to Expert for everyone for free. And for martials you get to Master.
flight
I've never seen a single maneuver in flight during combat. Unless the GM is annoying their players, flight tends to be handwaved (as long as the character doesn't try to do crazy things).
If you want to stealth against creatures with Tremorsense or some other type of sense, then Foil Senses is a must have.
No, you don't need it. Foil Senses is only useful if you don't know about the creature special senses. Otherwise you just have to take precautions against the special sense.
Titan Wrestler is a must if you want to use Trip or grapple a lot.
I consider Titan Wrestler a tax feat (if you don't have it you can't use Athletics in all situations).
I think more than 50% of my characters skill feats have been useless (never used or never succeeded or used and succeeded but the GM would have given the same result if I hadn't had the skill feat).
I should be getting close to 300 games and I would have used it only once. Falling (during combat) is a rare event.[/quote[
I use Cat Fall to leap off walls, jump into holes, and avoid climb checks. If it is short enough, I leap down instead. No damage. Land on my feet. One action with no check. I've used it quite often. Also I can just stop flying and drop for one action into battle.
You can use unarmed attacks, that go to Expert for everyone for free. And for martials you get to Master.Unarmed attacks stop at Expert. Athletics on high level monsters can be quite nasty. Legendary Acrobatics gives you a better chance to escape than unarmed attacks. It's not fun getting swallowed by high level things with immense strength and Athletics.
No, you don't need it. Foil Senses is only useful if you don't know about the creature special senses. Otherwise you just have to take precautions against the special sense.You don't always know what your stealthing against when heading in. Foil Senses covers you in those instances, but not a priority skill feat.
I consider Titan Wrestler a tax feat (if you don't have it you can't use Athletics in all situations).I think they are too kind on the ability to grapple or trip immense creatures myself. As a person who has done grappling and trying to take someone down, physical size is a huge impediment to grappling or tripping even a larger human against a smaller human much less some of these ridiculous sized creatures that a human can trip or grapple. It gets ridiculous. Requiring a skill feat is what I consider kind by the designers.
I think more than 50% of my characters skill feats have been useless (never used or never succeeded or used and succeeded but the GM would have given the same result if I hadn't had the skill feat).Some of them are bookkeeping like Magical Shorthand. You can scribe a spell anyway, but nice to do it faster and more efficiently.
I like Combat Climber as well and Underwater Marauder. Situational, but when those situations do come up they are very helpful.
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IMO it's not like Acrobatics and its feat is bad it's just more situational in combat than Athletics, Intimidation, Medicine, Stealth and even RK skills. But there's a good amount of situations where it could be necessary and will work pretty well like keep balance on uneven ground or to spellcasters to scape from a grab (the additional proficiency bonus makes a good difference in a class that don't have str/dex as key stat and that get 20% of casting failure during this situation).
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I like Acrobatics for casters because the Dex stat is higher value for casters than strength. Sets up your AC and reflex saves which are real nasty at higher level. I don't buy up Athletics much for casters. Seems like a bad skill choice for non-martials that us it a lot.
I use Cat Fall to leap off walls, jump into holes, and avoid climb checks. If it is short enough, I leap down instead. No damage. Land on my feet. One action with no check. I've used it quite often. Also I can just stop flying and drop for one action into battle.
But there are always other ways around the challenge. That's my main gripe about skill feats: There are so many, and they are so niche, that most adventures/GMs won't assume that you have a specific skill feat to win an encounter. So you can leap off walls with Cat Fall, but there will be a path for those who don't want. The feat just removes an impediment, when it even does (I've seen countless situations where a skill feat would have been super logical and thematic but where the adventure went to great length for everyone to participate eliminating the advantage of the skill feat entirely).
As for Swallow Whole, I always have a way for my casters and martials to be able to act while swallowed. One-handed weapons and unarmed attacks for martials and spells without verbal components (like Harm) for spellcasters. Trying to Escape the grasp of a gigantic creature with maxxed out Athletics is rarely the best course of action even if you somehow managed to have high Acrobatics.
As for my skills, I prefer those who give me abilities that nothing can replace. Acrobatics can in general be replaced by magic (Fly, Spider Climb, these kind of things). On the other hand, if you need an Arcana check to identify the enemy or an Occultism check to stop the ritual or a Religion check to dismiss the haunt or a Thievery check to disable the trap, there won't be many other choices available. I quite like when my skill checks really matter, when everyone is looking at my die hoping for a good result. Hence my choice of skills.
As of now (and as far as I remember), I've been able to use Stealth, Thievery, Occultism, Religion, Diplomacy and Crafting in situations where the lack of such a skill would have been a massive issue for the party. I've never seen Acrobatics being one of them and I don't expect to see it ever.
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I use Cat Fall to leap off walls, jump into holes, and avoid climb checks. If it is short enough, I leap down instead. No damage. Land on my feet. One action with no check. I've used it quite often. Also I can just stop flying and drop for one action into battle.But there are always other ways around the challenge. That's my main gripe about skill feats: There are so many, and they are so niche, that most adventures/GMs won't assume that you have a specific skill feat to win an encounter. So you can leap off walls with Cat Fall, but there will be a path for those who don't want. The feat just removes an impediment, when it even does (I've seen countless situations where a skill feat would have been super logical and thematic but where the adventure went to great length for everyone to participate eliminating the advantage of the skill feat entirely).
As for Swallow Whole, I always have a way for my casters and martials to be able to act while swallowed. One-handed weapons and unarmed attacks for martials and spells without verbal components (like Harm) for spellcasters. Trying to Escape the grasp of a gigantic creature with maxxed out Athletics is rarely the best course of action even if you somehow managed to have high Acrobatics.
As for my skills, I prefer those who give me abilities that nothing can replace. Acrobatics can in general be replaced by magic (Fly, Spider Climb, these kind of things). On the other hand, if you need an Arcana check to identify the enemy or an Occultism check to stop the ritual or a Religion check to dismiss the haunt or a Thievery check to disable the trap, there won't be many other choices available. I quite like when my skill checks really matter, when everyone is looking at my die hoping for a good result. Hence my choice of skills.
As of now (and as far as I remember), I've been able to use Stealth, Thievery, Occultism, Religion, Diplomacy and Crafting in situations where the lack of such a skill would have been a massive issue...
I'm the reverse. I like skill feats that work like magic so I don't have to bother with those spells. Cat Fall means I never have to memorize feather fall or anything similar. I don't need to case freedom of movement to escape with Acrobatics.
I see skill feats as magic for skill users. So they do magical-like things but with skills.
If you have a high value stat for a particular skill, then I like to vertically integrate my build. Get Acrobatics and Stealth, then boost up Dex which improves AC and Reflex saves.
One of the big factors of optimization I rarely see discussed on these forums is statistical optimization. Some classes are better than others because their key stats are easier to optimize than other classes. The druid is an exceptional class because you can focus all their stat improvements into Str, Dex, Con, and Wisdom, all high value stats along with casting ability.
If you optimize our character by eliminating the need to dedicate spell slots to a particular area with an always on skill feat, I prefer that.
As far as whether that is needed or not, nothing is particularly needed. A DM should always set the game up to succeed without skill checks being required.
I as an old school gamer handwave a lot of social interaction skill checks if the player provides a great bit of roleplaying. Good roleplaying always supersedes skill checks as that is what I grew up with in D&D. Original D&D did not use skill checks for social interactions and the like. Good role-playing was an expected part of the game and problem solving absent a roll.
That's why I'm mostly focused on the rules for combat. That's the main place where rolls should be required for conflict resolution. In most other places, let the players coming up with reasonable and cool solutions handle the rest.
So I like skill feats that work in combat and lessen my reliance on magic for combat or skills and skill feats that handwave mundane activities like learning spells or subsisting. And toss in a coolness factor for a skill feat and I might take it.
Some of my players like Entourage just for the RP opportunities.
I don't expect or want skill feats to override magic. I'd rather they be an alternative to magic that works in a similar mechanical fashion. So far I've been pretty pleased with skill feats, though I think Crafting feats and Crafting in general needs some more oomph and ease of use.