As fan of skill development systems, also I am not a fan of those non-existing meta-things floating in the air defining how good can you be in certain things. I am talking about the concept of level.
Well I understand that it defines your learning curve for acquiring proficiencies, but in the case of skills seems more like it defines what you can get no matter how much you invest on it.
I.e. a skill feat requiring level 7 and master on a skill, no matter if you decided to specialize getting a background and as skill to begin as expert and invested all your effort on it vs just getting the master proficiency at the edge of the required level, in both cases both must wait for level 7, with that meta-concept of level defining your progress completely like an invisible barrier.
This said, and using the skill points variant in GMG, my house rule is just to remove the level requirement for both skill proficiency and skill feats.
Notice that this way if you start expert via background in a skill, you could get master at level 5 and legendary at level 9 if you invest all your skill points.
I have no problem with that and is a way to reward who invest more in specialization, at the same time that open the door to players to set their objectives for each game (wants to specialize or prefer versatility?). At the same time allows players to enjoy some feats that rarely could get in most of the adventures just because level limitation, and/or allowing them to enjoy it more time even if the adventure just barely reach the required level.
I put an example for low level: if a character get Medicine from both background and class it would be expert on Medicine, and get a General or Skill feat at level 1, you could get Continual Recovery as it has the Skill trait (and General so can be acquired with a general feat) and later at level 2 could get Ward Medic.
Notice that those requiring master proficiency you usually get it at level 6 with the skill feat, unless your ancestry has some feat granting a general or skill feat to spend at level 5.
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- Halfing ancestry character takes Halfling Lore Ancestry Feat to become Trained in Stealth & Acrobatics
- Appropriate Background to become Expert in Stealth
- Rogue class to become Master in Stealth, and take the Swift Sneak Skill Feat
- At 2nd level, increase your Stealth to Legendary and take the Legendary Sneak Skill Feat.
Skills with combat actions can become problematic if you fast track them. It's so hard to get decent bonuses in PF2, if you suddenly are +4 or +6 above the curve for things like trip it will really show.
The worst case scenario would be if you get Scare To Death at level 2 with +8 from proficiency, the chance to kill enemies instantly would just skyrocket.
my house rule is just to remove the level requirement for both skill proficiency and skill feats.
Notice that this way if you start expert via background in a skill, you could get master at level 5 and legendary at level 9 if you invest all your skill points.
My warning on this:
Do you understand why those level requirements are there for the proficiency increases? Why it is that you have to wait until level 7 to get your first Master skill, and you can't get Legendary until level 15?
To help guide you towards what I am trying to point out, consider - are the enemies defenses going to be adjusted to match this new possibility of the player characters? Are the enemies going to be built this same way? Are you going to have an enemy swashbuckler with legendary intimidation using Scare to Death at level 10 against a party of level 8 player characters?
Or is this just a power bump to the players so that they can feel awesome getting things that they couldn't get before?
Personally, I am of the opinion that characters shouldn't be 'Legendary' after a single level of adventuring...
- Halfing ancestry character takes Halfling Lore Ancestry Feat to become Trained in Stealth & Acrobatics
- Appropriate Background to become Expert in Stealth
- Rogue class to become Master in Stealth, and take the Swift Sneak Skill Feat
- At 2nd level, increase your Stealth to Legendary and take the Legendary Sneak Skill Feat.
No trained + trained is not incrementing proficiency. That is only an exception I do with backgrounds, which you can also ignore if don't fit in your game. You can only increase proficiency by spending skill points.
That exception with backgrounds comes from far and gives relevance to what you learnt. So it is not the same a Wizard with Scholar than if was a Guard if want to specialize in Arcana. If not getting a background is just like selecting a feat, because the skill proficiencies really are not a concern if just you are interested on it, that could be achieved just giving you some extra class proficiencies instead.
This comes from the master game of skill development we played, which had Training Packages granting extra ranks to skills so you could start being better on them. Making matter your choice.
I put an example for low level: if a character get Medicine from both background and class it would be expert on Medicine, and get a General or Skill feat at level 1, you could get Continual Recovery as it has the Skill trait (and General so can be acquired with a general feat) and later at level 2 could get Ward Medic.You are wrong. You CANNOT get expert in sny skill at level 1. If you get Medicine from your background and class, you become trained in medicine and one skill of your choice. You cannot stack them.
Responded in the post above.
Notice that using the variant you get 1 SP (Skill Point) on levels 2-5, so you should wait until level 3 to get your first expert, delaying the feats to level 4.
What I want using the variant is a more skill development based system for more flexibility concerning skills, not the opposite. So using the background is the way in this case.
Are you going to have an enemy swashbuckler with legendary intimidation using Scare to Death at level 10 against a party of level 8 player characters?
No problem just banning what doesn't fit. In that case the feat indeed can sound stupid from a RPG perspective instead a miniature tabletop battle game one. Probably changing it to remove cooldown of 1 minute on critical success so you can scare weak opponents continuously while getting critical successes.
But not going to sacrifice an entire skill development system just for a bit absurd feat. If someone wants to be a legendary artisan, legendary sage (lore skill feats), or legendary thief, why not?, mostly are fine.
And, at the end are just options. You have to focus too much to get that proficiency for a feat at level 6 and 10, neglecting the others, and with so few skills you have lesser survivability chances. So is more typical to master at the same pace and legendary at level 12 if you don't focus totally or more normally (if training other skills) at level 14.
But, in any case, are options which is good.