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IMO, Intelligence and Charisma are the worst attributes, and the most often dumped, alongside STR. I houserule that INT or CHA can be added to Will saves instead of WIS.
INT still needs a boost after that, so I use the following feats (deadmanwalking)
Skill Expertise (Feat 7, General, Skill)*
Prerequisite Int 16, trained in at least two skills,
Choose two skills in which you are trained. Your proficiency rank in the chosen skills increases to expert.
Special You may take this feat a second time if your Intelligence score is 22 or higher.
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Thinking about it more, I think the issue is that untrained skills being unoptimal, but not useless was the design for the playtest, so the consequences of some skills not progressing at at all wasn’t something thoroughly tested in the initial development.
If untrained meant -2 to trained’s +2, then it wouldn’t be such an issue. A party face is still going to be +4 to 8 better, right from level one and grow to stay a full tier of success better at a minimum. I do think that better action/activity gating would have been necessary, to make sure untrained meant you just couldn’t do advanced things with any skill untrained, but it would have solved the basic “don’t even ever try it” which happens with recalling knowledge, social skills, and even athletics and acrobatics pretty quickly into the game.
I mean, equally, no level to proficiency also solves this issue, but my experience with testing no level bonus to proficiency is that leveling up starts to feel really flat most the time punctuated by too large of shifts. Like a no level to prificiencies system probably needed 2x as many tiers with half as much of a boost.
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A lot of hubbub is made about the mental stats but I think the biggest problem is actually constitution. The attribute does nothing other than prevent death, which is too important not to boost but is also not very interesting. It's a tax boost that probably should have been removed for the same reason perception was made fixed.
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A lot of hubbub is made about the mental stats but I think the biggest problem is actually constitution. The attribute does nothing other than prevent death, which is too important not to boost but is also not very interesting. It's a tax boost that probably should have been removed for the same reason perception was made fixed.
In what way did they fix perception? When they locked proficiency scaling to your chassis so some classes just have it worse by default or when they then gated some checks behind proficiency so that parties without a legend scaling proficiency class just get screwed by proficiency gates? No, the moment they kept 3 save stats and 3 non-save stats they made sure you would have three taxes to pay and one boost left-over.
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If untrained meant -2 to trained’s +2, then it wouldn’t be such an issue. A party face is still going to be +4 to 8 better, right from level one and grow to stay a full tier of success better at a minimum. I do think that better action/activity gating would have been necessary, to make sure untrained meant you just couldn’t do advanced things with any skill untrained, but it would have solved the basic “don’t even ever try it” which happens with recalling knowledge, social skills, and even athletics and acrobatics pretty quickly into the game.
This is mostly just untrained improvisation. If you look at the numbers, a level 7 character with untrained improvisation and a 10 in the stat (+7) is equivalent to a level 1 character with an 18 and trained (1+4+2=7). Even if made baseline, it just eases doing the easiest of tasks and so still results in "don't ever even try" as the DCs jump in anticipation of stat and skill proficiency increases. At best, you have a shot at using skills you didn't progress but which you still have a high modifier for through your ability scores.
Thinking about it more, I think the issue is that untrained skills being unoptimal, but not useless was the design for the playtest, so the consequences of some skills not progressing at at all wasn’t something thoroughly tested in the initial development.
This I wholeheartedly agree with. I liked level being added to even untrained skills, and think you’re quite right that taking that out created several problems that have yet to be addressed.
That’s partly why I’m hoping we’ll eventually get a skill focused book that adds on to Influence, Research, Chase, and other related skill based encounters. I could even imagine an entire add-on system being written, but simply giving more options would be helpful.
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I sort of agree. It's always annoying when your level 15 barbarian comes into a village and can't really NOT critically hit and pulp anyone they Strike. But since he's not trained in Intimidate he's weirdly un-frightening.
Frightening means they lock their doors and hide.
Skill in Intimidation means you can make them do what you want.The strong Barbarian is not less scary than a powerful Sorcerer anyway.
Demoralizing is generally going to be against people just as scary as you, and being scary isn't all there is to coercion.
The high level Barbarian without intimidation is like how people constantly underestimate Logen Ninefingers until they realize who he is in the Joe Abercrombie books, since he's someone that actively tries to look weaker than he is (strategically, since an enemy that underestimates you is easier to beat.)
Normal people should be somewhat perturbed by the presence of high level characters regardless of their skills. When people know you've killed a dragon, whether it was by calling down lightning from the sky, with your bare hands, or with an axe the size of a man that they probably shouldn't get on your bad side.
There aren't really rules for this but high level PCs should just have a mien of danger about them, and are treated differently as a result, just like a merchant would treat a conspicuously wealthy potential client differently.
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I'm still searching for the sweet spot in between "you should use a social skill for social challenges, otherwise what's the point of social skills" and "you should be able to use topical skills based on the topic of the social challenge, so that people who didn't go Face have a shot too".In my opinion, the big issue is that GMs (and adventures) ask for social skill checks for no valid reasons but to roll dice.
Like, you're looking for a ship, you go and ask at the harbor's master office => Diplomacy check! But is it really sensitive information?
You ask information about an investigation to the guard => Diplomacy check! But is the case secret? Or is it accessible information?
You ask the librarian where to find the book you're looking for => Diplomacy check! As if it wasn't his job to give you the book you're looking for.So you end up in a situation where every social interaction has to be handled by the face because there's a potential for a skill check. That's not normal. There should be a small number of interactions that have to be handled by the face and that should be obvious: Speaking to the king, lying your way through the guards, etc... And for the other interactions, roleplay and not rollplay.
For me I hand these sorts of situations by not requiring much in the way of a DC. There is no reason for most everyday DCs to be set as level appropriate challenges that are 50:50 only if you have invested in the right skills items and maxed your attribute. A level 15 fighter with a reputation and at least one trained social skill should not have a tough time asking for directions.
I agree, but it puts a lot of work on the GMs shoulders to figure out DCs for gathering information, or influence if there is not even a general sensible range. The end result most often being the GM deciding to just hand waive it or let these kinds of encounters largely happen with one player making all the rolls. I don’t really see those as optimal design strategies, especially as quick and easy to set up influence encounters can really help bring NOCs and settings alive, but you have to either design them around your party’s trained or better skills, or leave players really stretching how they would honestly want their character acting in order to participate.
Like you could use the default level of the settlement as a DC for gathering uncommon information/general influence encounters around town, but that could pretty quickly leave your party unable to interact around town, and discouraging them from even trying to get to know the locals.
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I definitely think the system currently leans too heavily on level-appropriate DCs instead of asking "just how hard should this be, if we didn't think about these particular characters" and just using the Simple DCs instead.
Use Simple DCs, set DCs sensibly, and that sometimes means that the PCs aren't ready for a challenge yet, and sometimes it means they're more than ready for it and kind of easily walk over it.
At its best, it's something they previously weren't ready for, now they are (easily), and the players really see that their characters got more powerful.
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Like you could use the default level of the settlement as a DC for gathering uncommon information/general influence encounters around town, but that could pretty quickly leave your party unable to interact around town, and discouraging them from even trying to get to know the locals.
You could, but I don’t see how that would benefit your game. I would (and do) use the same static DC for every settlement and random NPC, at least as far as “Make an Impression” and other basic interactions go. While this means that even the barest investment in Diplomacy means you’ll critically succeed almost automatically, I’m fine with that. Especially given the rules limiting how much Make an Impression gives you.
There’s a Pratchett quote I keep thinking of, something like “fifteen minutes after meeting Nanny Ogg they’ll have know her all their lives.” My mom and some of my cousins have that ability, and it pleases me greatly that I can simulate that in game.
Fox-In-Love comic on this topic
https://foxes-in-love.tumblr.com/post/187620646410
Edit: All that said, this is for basic, -1 or NPCs with no stats at all. For actual challenges, returning to your point about needing at least SOME ability to participate in influence encounters, I think I agree with you. I can make influence stat blocks, and add-on a skill check to any influence stat block so that even my most singl-skill focused (such as is possible in PF2) can have something to roll, but it would certainly be easier if Influence (and Chase and Research) like Perception, was just something anyone could participate in. At least there IS a defined defense for every character, as social checks reference your will DC.
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So I may Garner some side glances here.
While there may be some mechanical issues with charisma and intelligence. They are no actual other issues, those issues are player generated and fueled by a lack of better verbage description.
Intelligence can be a representation of what you have learned and improving it reflects your willingness to study and learn more.
Would step on rogues toes but higher intelligence giving you more proficiency boosts in skills would go miles to making it more attractive. And TBH I've gone out of my way for many martial builds to bump up intelligence or charisma because recall knowledge is useful and not every caster is going to know them all.
Furthermore, these stats do something important. Give those that are not genius level IQ a way to mechanically Play such a character. And giving those who are not as charismatic (often those who are shy and struggle with talking a lot) a mechanical way to be a silver tongue.
I don't think breaking these up into even more stats is good for the game (more complexity, I already have a couple players who can struggle at times), and I don't think devaluing them from mechanics is good either.
At most, a change to their description to better reflect their intent, and maybe some mechanical adjustments.
Intelligence: this skill reflects your efforts in learning. The more you have. The more proficient you are. Every modifier bump of intelligence will grant you another proficiency point to become better in another skill.
Charisma: the force of your personality. A higher charisma gives you Will saves
Wisdom, this is the problem stat imo. Wisdom is normally something gained through experience. You've been there, you've seen that, seen and heard enough to recognize certain things in life. You could easily make druids and clerics charisma based and it would probably only help them.
The more I look at attributes, the less STR really even qualifies as a Dump stat. An 8 STR has a whole lot of mechanical effects on a character, leaving really only wizards and Sorcerers in a position where they don’t need it for armor or for carrying stuff.
Dex really is no more important for many martials than STR is. The difference is that you can’t really tank DEX without consequence since penalties to reflex and AC are harsh. That and the ability to make ranged attacks sometimes is pretty useful, but weapon runes already complicate that a fair bit at higher levels, where attributes really start normalizing out.
The issue of “dump stats” and mechanical incentivization to make PCs uncharismatic and less intelligent is because those stats don’t represent things that are very easy to mechanically represent in the game without starting to tread in uncomfortable waters and remove agency from the player in decision making.
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It's no different than if a DM didn't track encumbrance much
Or doesn't require rolls even if your role play moment sounded good when using diplomacy
Or you ask if their 8 intelligence character would really be coming up with mathematical theory to overcome this obstacle
Imo it's all or nothing. You accept the reality of imperfection and rely on common sense and human decency, or you weed it all out at the risk of homogenized gameplay and getting a bit more 5e syndrome