Is there really a "Bad" Stat?


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

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Dark_Schneider wrote:
MEATSHED wrote:
Also the 2nd point doesn't really make sense because if you wanted to get expert in religion you could just spend your standard trained skill into religion instead of a skill you only planned to have trained.

?? So you are saying that losing something planned is not a concern?

As mentioned, I got surprised, about what is qualified as important and with so many assumptions, like if when adventuring you would only face the predefined A, B or C and that's all.

Your point was that it saves you skill points if you want to go to expert, which it doesn't unless you want more expert skills than you get naturally (the absolute lowest a character gets with 0 int is 4, most get 5). There is also how easy it is to get extra trained skills outside of raising intelligence.


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I feel that in an idea PF3, all characters should have a good reason to take every attribute, but no character is required to take any attribute. I look at the current attribute system as such a waste of character building, where you have all these stat increases, but you need to spend 8 of them on you main stat to stay competitive, at least 5 of them between str and dex so your AC is good, and most if not all of the others on WIS/Con for your saves, hp, and perception, leaving very little actual character building potential left. Instead, the current stat set up leaves you way more room than the rest of the system to screw up your character. So many new characters, due to no fault of their own because this is never mentioned in the books, show up with a 14 in their key stat, or an ac of 14, and we need to "correct them" so they can actually hit something and don't get crit every round. And in reverse, the current attribute system gives you very little reason to take certain stats on certain characters. There is very little reason for a caster to take str, or a martial to take int, or someone not invested in cha skills to invest in cha. These dump stats also reduce "real" character building options, because you just write them off, and its as if they never existed if you know what your doing, but you have new players going "I think my fighter should be smart and charismatic" and then crit fails every fort save while only succeeding at like 2 recall knowledge's. In a game filled with real choices going out of its way to avoid ivory tower design, the attribute system feels like a step 15 years back.


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Dark_Schneider wrote:
Unicore wrote:

The real problem with INT particularly as an attribute is that there is nothing your character can really do with it that you as a player don’t have to do with it first, beyond m possibly having it represent a database in your character’s mind.

There are classes that let you do more, but there is no generic option for letting a character try to critically think their way out of a situation. You can talk or fight or sneak, but thinking your way out always falls back on the player, not the character.

Trying to mechanize critical thinking will always be tricky, which is why it tends to get class locked with features like devise a stratagem , the mastermind racket, and prepared casting. PF2 has raised the bar on how much the player has to critically think to have a character who is good at critical thinking. I think this has lead to a fair bit of player frustration. Especially because players can critically think for characters who cannot with relative ease.

There are other things, like deciphering, or maths. This last one is a good example, as probably the players uses their own maths instead the character's, or even worse get a calculator (any GM allows that?). That is totally wrong, we all are at least trained in maths (by school), and in modern society the Int value can be high on average compared to a fantasy RPG character. So if a character wants to approximate the numbers of an army, must check with its Lore War or Society skills using Int, but I am almost sure that some GMs gives that info to the player if it asks without requiring any check, as they could see it something normal.

So remember to require a check as the characters are not the players, who have learned in academics opposed to their characters, with Int and its associated skills the ones showing who went to academics.

The player can have the ideas, but is its character who executes it. So the player could guide ahead the correct direction, but is the character who have to make the check when required,...

D&D / PF characters have way more education than someone from, say, the 1500s had. With just 3 trained skills you can (technically) know everything about all arcane magic, primal magic, divine magic, the gods, the natural world, the biology of animals, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, fungus, plants, and undead, as well as learn spells or tap ley lines. Also at the very minimum all characters know 2 languages even with a negative Int, so it's not like we have to assume characters should be dumb because its a medieval setting.


Squiggit wrote:
exequiel759 wrote:

I totally disagree on Str being a subpar attribute. It has the best combat in the skill, it's the only skill that naturally allows you to add it to weapon damage, and it (kinda) allows you to drop Dex if you wear heavy armor with bulwark, more so if you took Mighty Bulwark.

In YuriP's table I would switch Cha and Str around since if you aren't planing to be a face Cha isn't really useful for you.

Strength is in a sort of interesting place, because if you're building a melee character who isn't forced to use finesse weapons, it's a monster of a stat that points you to the best damage output and gives you options (though possibly requiring feats) to replace a lot of what makes Dex important, while also buffing Athletics which is generally just a very versatile skill.

Especially at low levels, the damage gap between Str and Dex without modifying factors is huge, which makes Strength really enticing.

But if you aren't doing that, the stat becomes very easy to avoid. You might want a little to hit a certain athletics or carry weight benchmark, but it's not something a lot of builds need to worry about.

That's not entirely different than the problems Int and Cha have, it's just that Strength is more prevalent in general and there's nothing like Bulwark or Plate Armor to improve perception or will for high int/low wis characters.

Perpdepog wrote:
IMO that only really works in a game whose classes are more heavily siloed than PF2E's. Making the fighter good at leveraging strength de-incentivizes fighters from going Dex. I'm not saying it doesn't work, games do work that way, but that it'd probably necessitate larger changes to PF2E than swapping saves around would.

I mean, isn't that kind of how PF2 already works? Outside archery builds (which are somewhat separate by design) you don't really see Dex-focused fighters much. People just aren't picking short swords over mauls very often.

The same is true in reverse, sneak attack silos rogues into...

I have yet to play with a strength-based fighter, actually.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Bluemagetim wrote:

Mechanically speaking.

Int could use additional benefits. when you pump up a stat for its own mechanical benefits and not just as a key stat you want to feel like your good at something because of it. Int allows you to me mediocre at a lot of skills and gives you languages. So if the campaign isnt set up to require checks from many different skills from that int character or isn't asking players to speak or read non common languages the rest of the party has covered its not going to feel like your good at anything.

One BIG issue, IMO, is the lack of "interesting"/"useful" skill feats for the Int-based skills other than Crafting. Alchemical Crafting, Quick Repair (especially to fix shields), Snare Crafting (maybe), Magical Crafting, Tattoo Artist (if the character has access), Inventor, Rapid Affixture, and Craft Anything are all "good;" however, most of them apply to downtime or out of combat actions.

Seriously, other than Arcane Sense (if there is no other way for the character to get detect magic) and Unified Theory (only if the character is Int-based and going to Legendary proficiency in Arcana already); Root Magic and Consult the Spirits (if there are appropriate "lingering spirits, psychic echoes of the departed dead, and spirits from beyond reality, who tell you about things like strange auras, effects, or the presence of unnatural occult beings"); Courtly Graces, Streetwise, and maybe Connections and/or Criminal Connections; and possibly some situational Lore feats (if the character is "built" for it) there isn't much that would draw a character to invest in Int for the relevant Arcana, Occultism, Society, or specific Lore checks.

Contrast with Medicine (as important as, if not more than, alchemical and/or magical healing with Battle Medicine/Stitch Flesh, Continual Recovery, and Ward Medic) and Nature (Natural Medicine to treat wounds; Express Rider and/or Train Animal for mounts and/or animal companions).


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Dark_Schneider wrote:

Surprised about how easily are extra trained skills underrated. You get:

1) It is better to be trained than untrained. A co-op check, if you are alone (so improves individual survivability). It is better if you can succeed with a 16 than only with a 20.

The base DC to Succeed at the Aid action is only 15 in the Remaster, so you likely have a better than 5/20/50/25% chance of Crit Success/Success/Failure/Crit Failure, respectively, even whilst untrained.

Dark_Schneider wrote:
2) Saves you skill points. Use extra trained skills as starting then improve. I.e. you could be a Wizard but be interested to be able to cast Resurrect ritual, use Int to get trained in Religion then just use 1 skill point to get expert, instead using 2 SP.

What's a Skill Point? ;P

Dark_Schneider wrote:

3) Also, take advantage of it to get trained in skills that usually you wouldn't, i.e. get Athletics even if you are a caster to compensate your probably low Str.

Certainly I can only see advantages.

I agree. Especially after our party got raked over the coals by trying to climb a steep slope while trying to fend off the gargoyles roosting at the top. Only the fighter had Athletics, and he couldn't take them all on alone. Between the hit and run tactics of the gargoyles and all the falling, it was nearly a TPK.


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Ok I just thought of the WORST possible way to buff Intelligence: Since it reflects the character's thinking skills, tie it to how long the player gets to choose their actions in combat. When a character's turn behind, their player gets 30 seconds + 30 per point of Intelligence to decide what the character will do that round. If they don't decide by the deadline, the character loses any remaining actions. Thus, players of smart characters get plenty of time to plot out their brilliant plan, while players of dim characters have to do the first idea that comes into their head. Like I said, this is a TERRIBLE idea, though it might be funny for a one-shot...

More seriously, maybe there could be a repeatable general feat that gives the character a number of skill boosts equal to their Intelligence. It'd be powerful, but it's also competing with Diehard Fleet, and Toughness, so maybe ok?


exequiel759 wrote:
Dark_Schneider wrote:
Unicore wrote:

The real problem with INT particularly as an attribute is that there is nothing your character can really do with it that you as a player don’t have to do with it first, beyond m possibly having it represent a database in your character’s mind.

There are classes that let you do more, but there is no generic option for letting a character try to critically think their way out of a situation. You can talk or fight or sneak, but thinking your way out always falls back on the player, not the character.

Trying to mechanize critical thinking will always be tricky, which is why it tends to get class locked with features like devise a stratagem , the mastermind racket, and prepared casting. PF2 has raised the bar on how much the player has to critically think to have a character who is good at critical thinking. I think this has lead to a fair bit of player frustration. Especially because players can critically think for characters who cannot with relative ease.

There are other things, like deciphering, or maths. This last one is a good example, as probably the players uses their own maths instead the character's, or even worse get a calculator (any GM allows that?). That is totally wrong, we all are at least trained in maths (by school), and in modern society the Int value can be high on average compared to a fantasy RPG character. So if a character wants to approximate the numbers of an army, must check with its Lore War or Society skills using Int, but I am almost sure that some GMs gives that info to the player if it asks without requiring any check, as they could see it something normal.

So remember to require a check as the characters are not the players, who have learned in academics opposed to their characters, with Int and its associated skills the ones showing who went to academics.

The player can have the ideas, but is its character who executes it. So the player could guide ahead the correct direction, but is the character who have

...

Yes but I mean you need the training, something that we usually take for granted as we all get training on it.


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Jerdane wrote:
Ok I just thought of the WORST possible way to buff Intelligence: Since it reflects the character's thinking skills, tie it to how long the player gets to choose their actions in combat.

Ooo! My high school group did something like that for a while!

It was players' fault, the DM would try to get a quick answer to "what do you do" (in or out of combat) to keep the tempo up and the player would say "look, my character is a lot smarter than I am, give me time to reflect that."

Formalizing it didn't last very long, but it did get the notion out of our systems. Gods be thanked!


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Dark_Schneider wrote:
The player can have the ideas, but is its character who executes it. So the player could guide ahead the correct direction, but is the character who have to make the check when required, that is not always of course, but if some kind of skill is required, just when your character want to climb, that don't uses its player skill.

The bigger issue is that the vast majority of decisions that would be guided by anything like an intelligence stat have nothing to do with die rolls in PF2, or are guided by choices before dice are even rolled. Many tables will get very upset at players who have characters that have flawed intelligence and insist on trying to role play those flaws, often with good cause, because intelligence is a very nebulous and difficult "attribute" to quantify in the real world, and attempts to do so have caused harm to many people. So using stereotypes, even well meaning ones, about what "lacking intelligence" can mean can get dicey, even before dealing with the fact that many adventuring parties would immediately exclude an adventurer who is incapable of critical thinking, learning quickly, or who acts impetuously upon poorly considered evidence, at least any such character that didn't immediately defer to others, which again gets into weird and uncomfortable space pretty quickly for a collaborative game.

Unless you choose specific classes, there is really know way to mechanically represent a character who has very high levels of situational awareness and a sharp tactical mind. Most of the decision making elements of the games are intentionally divorced from die rolls.


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Unicore wrote:
Dark_Schneider wrote:
The player can have the ideas, but is its character who executes it. So the player could guide ahead the correct direction, but is the character who have to make the check when required, that is not always of course, but if some kind of skill is required, just when your character want to climb, that don't uses its player skill.

The bigger issue is that the vast majority of decisions that would be guided by anything like an intelligence stat have nothing to do with die rolls in PF2, or are guided by choices before dice are even rolled. Many tables will get very upset at players who have characters that have flawed intelligence and insist on trying to role play those flaws, often with good cause, because intelligence is a very nebulous and difficult "attribute" to quantify in the real world, and attempts to do so have caused harm to many people. So using stereotypes, even well meaning ones, about what "lacking intelligence" can mean can get dicey, even before dealing with the fact that many adventuring parties would immediately exclude an adventurer who is incapable of critical thinking, learning quickly, or who acts impetuously upon poorly considered evidence, at least any such character that didn't immediately defer to others, which again gets into weird and uncomfortable space pretty quickly for a collaborative game.

Unless you choose specific classes, there is really know way to mechanically represent a character who has very high levels of situational awareness and a sharp tactical mind. Most of the decision making elements of the games are intentionally divorced from die rolls.

You can make the same argument for Wisdom, of course. In that shrewd decision-making is difficult to RP.

The physical stats and Cha (especially when the latter is framed as attractiveness more than personal magnetism) are much easier to fill out, since they're purely imaginary constructs. Nobody expects the player of a 20 Str barbarian to be able to bench press a refrigerator. But they DO expect the player of a 20 Wis druid to be sensible. It's a bit of a bind.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Calliope5431 wrote:
Unicore wrote:
Dark_Schneider wrote:
The player can have the ideas, but is its character who executes it. So the player could guide ahead the correct direction, but is the character who have to make the check when required, that is not always of course, but if some kind of skill is required, just when your character want to climb, that don't uses its player skill.

The bigger issue is that the vast majority of decisions that would be guided by anything like an intelligence stat have nothing to do with die rolls in PF2, or are guided by choices before dice are even rolled. Many tables will get very upset at players who have characters that have flawed intelligence and insist on trying to role play those flaws, often with good cause, because intelligence is a very nebulous and difficult "attribute" to quantify in the real world, and attempts to do so have caused harm to many people. So using stereotypes, even well meaning ones, about what "lacking intelligence" can mean can get dicey, even before dealing with the fact that many adventuring parties would immediately exclude an adventurer who is incapable of critical thinking, learning quickly, or who acts impetuously upon poorly considered evidence, at least any such character that didn't immediately defer to others, which again gets into weird and uncomfortable space pretty quickly for a collaborative game.

Unless you choose specific classes, there is really know way to mechanically represent a character who has very high levels of situational awareness and a sharp tactical mind. Most of the decision making elements of the games are intentionally divorced from die rolls.

You can make the same argument for Wisdom, of course. In that shrewd decision-making is difficult to RP.

The physical stats and Cha (especially when the latter is framed as attractiveness more than personal magnetism) are much easier to fill out, since they're purely imaginary constructs. Nobody expects the player of a 20 Str barbarian to be able to bench press a refrigerator. But they DO expect the player of a 20 Wis druid to be sensible. It's a bit of a bind.

I'd actually say Cha is one of the biggest examples. Lots of stories about people who are bad at talking playing high Cha characters and getting their character hamstrung by their own social awkwardness, or the opposite with low Cha characters talking themselves out of needing to roll because the player was more active.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Wisdom in RPGs is a weird stat too. Perception and will saves being linked to the same innate character trait is a strange conceit. Like lots of people can be very perceptive without having any faith in themselves or strong will power. Perception very easily could have been either a Wis or Int proficiency.

I have long advocated for more proficiencies and no attributes, with perhaps a grab bag of “attribute feats” or “characteristic feats” that characters could get that would work more like backgrounds and give bonuses to a number of linked proficiencies. So if “Strong” was one, it could give a bonus to melee unarmed and weapon attacks, damage with melee and thrown attacks, and athletics checks, and carrying capacity, but there could be variants on it like “scrappy” that do some of that, but not all of it and give some other bonuses instead. Maybe each one gives less and characters start with more or you link a bunch of stuff together and just give one or two. Having some that don’t feel as powerful to metagame analysis wouldn’t be that big a deal because new ones could be released and the types of boons they give could be more varied, like backgrounds can be. That would be a very different game though. And is maybe beyond the scope of this thread.

Wisdom as an attribute maybe doesn’t make a ton of sense, but the things it lumps together work well enough mechanically. It is a little funny that we as players can accept that sense motive can be an in game action where our trust in another character is determined by a die roll, but we can’t have a similar thing for making a plan or figuring out if we trust ourselves and whether our own ideas are sound. Players really hate being told they are not allowed to think for themselves though, so I get why INT can’t really be the mechanical attribute for coming up with good plans or problem solving.


Squiggit wrote:
...

Very fundamental RPG-issue indeed. Influence of mental stats and how they should be acted out at the table ones requires discussion. The comparison to more physical attributes is a useful reference point, IMO. (Like analogy of requiring players to bench press during the session to demonstrate their characters' abilities ... ;-))

However, since we usually act via our "player's stats" at the table - and preferences differ to which extent player decisions should define character decisions or vice versa - it might be difficult to portray a solution that really suits everyone.


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exequiel759 wrote:

I wouldn't be surprised an hyphothetic 3rd edition overhauled the amount of stats and how they work since most of the things in the Remater were made to go away from D&D, though at the same time I wouldn't be surprised they didn't because the six stats are an easy way to sell the game as a "D&D-like" (see how many people had an outrage with some Remaster changes because they removed X thing that came from D&D).

Also since it's most likely that if this were to happen Constitution would be merged into Strength, which ironically would kinda be a Dexterity buff since at least in PF2e Dex characters want to increase their Strength already (unless they are thieves) but they also obviously need Con so if you merge both together you'll be benefiting Dex characters a lot. I guess pure Str-based characters would still have both more damage and HP than Dex-based ones so that could compensate itself?

It's not like this system is going to be released tomorrow or anything, so this is literally pure speculation.

Hell, there's a variant rule that actually does this. It's not popular as it makes some very fundamental changes to the system that isn't supported in any VTT's that I know of and whose benefit is mostly "you can shift numbers around different" but I could imagine a 3e that does change out hte attributes.

However, I'm definitely in the camp of "remove attributes entirely." There's already a trend for TTRPG's to try to move away from the D&D bioessentialist roots, and having literal numbers describing exactly how smart or fit you are has some uncomfortable real word parallels.

I don't think it'd be morally bad to keep attributes, mind, it's simply a trend I've observed and I enjoy putzing with stats in many video games, but in Pathfinder attribute arrays tend to not be very interesting decisions to begin with. Especially with KAS, many classes really only want a particular array, give or take a boost in a tertiary attribute, with the "variety" simply being a different ironclad array needed to support a particular build. They're not really build-defining or interesting in themselves, they're simply the numbers you need to shift around to make the actually interesting decisions you made - weapons, archetypes, feats, spells - work.

Having a convoluted rework where we're separating out DEX into two stand and combining STR and CON and all this other stuff seems less interesting than simply having players explicitly state their intentions with a build and then by default making them *good* at the things they've chosen to do. Throw more feats in, those are fun. Fighters that can switch between rapiers and mauls and bows or specialize in one of those depending on feat choice, and then if htey take an archetype to cast spells then the only forethought required there is that they took the archetype and the archetype itself is responsible for making sure it's balanced rather than MAD restrictions. If a bard invests feats into doing melee then they can do melee.

It's likely more complicated than I'm making it out to be, since most TTRPG's use attributes of some kind, but I'd love for a third edition that just assumes you've got a +4 or whatever to your class's schtick, a +3 or +2 to an archetype's schtick, a set amount of HP that only gets modified if you go out of your way to do that, and so on. It seems like it would remove a lot of complexity in the system that isn't providing a porportionate amount of depth, which would make room to add complex stuff (like more feats) that *do* add more depth.


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The variant stats rule does well but only half. It is good how it splits Dex, and moves Will saves to Cha, but makes Str too strong and Int is untouched while Cha is improved a lot.


I also feel that we are moving towards a system without attributes. I feel that it's a cheap solution to some problems that do exist, but could probably be dealt with in some way that didn't throw away a significant part of character customization.

Silver Crusade

Unicore wrote:
Players really hate being told they are not allowed to think for themselves though, so I get why INT can’t really be the mechanical attribute for coming up with good plans or problem solving.

GURPS has (or, at least, had the 20 or so years ago I last played it) a Tactics skill.

For a little while it became a real issue as players (with some justification) wanted to roll against their characters tactics skill (significantly higher than the players skill) to have the GM give them a good plan.

I (the GM) tried it for a session or two and then just killed the idea, telling the players they could have their points in tactics back if they wanted (there were still some game mechanical advantages to tactics but I forget what they were except they were fairly minor)


pauljathome wrote:
Unicore wrote:
Players really hate being told they are not allowed to think for themselves though, so I get why INT can’t really be the mechanical attribute for coming up with good plans or problem solving.

GURPS has (or, at least, had the 20 or so years ago I last played it) a Tactics skill.

For a little while it became a real issue as players (with some justification) wanted to roll against their characters tactics skill (significantly higher than the players skill) to have the GM give them a good plan.

I (the GM) tried it for a session or two and then just killed the idea, telling the players they could have their points in tactics back if they wanted (there were still some game mechanical advantages to tactics but I forget what they were except they were fairly minor)

As a teen, I added a Tactics skill to the Hero System (Champions RPG) which proved popular among my players. It worked fine, but that's also a simpler combat system both for maneuvers & resources (even if PC/NPC creation was way more complex). Note it didn't aid with strategy, merely gave what would immediately be the best tactic.

I don't think that'd translate well into an Int-based PF2 skill though with all the extra variables & necessary teamwork. What's best for your PC to do depends a lot on what your peers will/do support.

Int itself is an awkward stat when paired with Wis. How can a dumb person be as wise as a deity? I try to think of Int as processing new data, rote knowledge, & conceptualizing with Wis more folksy and in-the-moment awareness. So in one's head vs. in one's space.
Except what the heck does that mean at the table?! Not much if the players are kinda expected to keep track of clues and pay attention to details; a.k.a. be both intelligent and wise (and persuasive too for some RPing preferences).
"Your PC can't do physical/magical task X," is straightforward as it's a limit on the character, but when you start placing mental limits on the PC, it also limits the players ability to well...play. Which implies the inverse, that feeding a smart PC better ideas is kinda playing the PC for the player.

Question for GMs to ponder: "Would my PC know better?"

Note that I have intentionally made low-Int PCs so I could justify a more casual playstyle. Not brash or unwise, but also not needing to dwell on every nuance as if I myself were there and in possible mortal danger meaning I should analyze everything every step of the possibly-trapped way. That became a headache long ago.

As for PF2, a 14 Int gives effectively two (low-level) feats; two Trained skills + two languages, as well as +2 in Int-based skills. If taking Int-based skills (some which the party kinda needs), that's pretty solid IMO, even if I'd prefer my skill feats support other skills (which should pose no issue). If one has a KAS in Dex/Con/Wis (& no secondary stat req of course) or wears heavy armor, there's some spare stat points for a good Int, especially if the party's covered Cha skills (or if one needs to shackle oneself from dominating RPing, something I've seen several players do).


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I think the problem with int is solved by allowing the trained skills gained by int auto scale to expert at level 5. If you gain a +1 to int at level 5 you get expert instead of trained in the skill right away.
Just dont go past expert without investing with level up skill increases.
The human heritage skilled human has that kind of scaling and would never be picked if it only got to trained. (the general feat from versatile would simply be strictly better even if you wanted skills)
its a better trade off when deciding well do i want a language and expert in a skill or do I want extra hp and fort or extra perception and will. Most people will still take the hp, AC, and saves over expert but it is at least a better option than trained.


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I think that the simple solution is the best. Just allows that all skills to auto-progress. This solves the skills problems and honestly it's not like this would break the game anyway.


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Bluemagetim wrote:
The human heritage skilled human has that kind of scaling and would never be picked if it only got to trained. (the general feat from versatile would simply be strictly better even if you wanted skills)

Is there someone that takes skilled though? The fact that it stays expert at max is more troublesome than a benefit IMO (or probably it is my inner ADHD that hates having 3 legendary 1 expert skill. I don't think people would get mad if the skill went up to legendary or at least if you chose a Lore skill that it went up to legendary since it more or less the power budget of a feat).

YuriP wrote:
I think that the simple solution is the best. Just allows that all skills to auto-progress. This solves the skills problems and honestly it's not like this would break the game anyway.

I mean, it would take away from playing a rogue or investigator. Also Paizo is literally afraid of giving higher stats which is the reason why they went with the 4* and 5* instead of simply allowing the stats to go higher so I don't think they would be to eager to remove an entire mechanic from the game and give you a higher bonus with all your skills.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
exequiel759 wrote:
Bluemagetim wrote:
The human heritage skilled human has that kind of scaling and would never be picked if it only got to trained. (the general feat from versatile would simply be strictly better even if you wanted skills)

Is there someone that takes skilled though? The fact that it stays expert at max is more troublesome than a benefit IMO (or probably it is my inner ADHD that hates having 3 legendary 1 expert skill. I don't think people would get mad if the skill went up to legendary or at least if you chose a Lore skill that it went up to legendary since it more or less the power budget of a feat).

Yeah a friend of mine chose skilled human on his last character.

That's kind of what I don't like about the current progression though. You start off with probably too many skills trained and despite getting skill ups every other level they are really only going into 3 skills you want to get to legendary. You could choose to get less to legendary, does anyone do that often?
So because you really only have 3 skills at legendary and a bunch of trained, skilled human getting you a guaranteed expert is kinda nice but only because most of your trained skills at level 1 are staying trained.
Maybe that heritage should scale to master and int based ones scale to expert. A characters skill list would look more varied.


Squiggit wrote:
Unicore wrote:
The physical stats and Cha (especially when the latter is framed as attractiveness more than personal magnetism) are much easier to fill out, since they're purely imaginary constructs. Nobody expects the player of a 20 Str barbarian to be able to bench press a refrigerator. But they DO expect the player of a 20 Wis druid to be sensible. It's a bit of a bind.
I'd actually say Cha is one of the biggest examples. Lots of stories about people who are bad at talking playing high Cha characters and getting their character hamstrung by their own social awkwardness,

Hey, I resemble that.

Though I have found that I do well enough when playing PbP.


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exequiel759 wrote:
Is there someone that takes skilled though?

Of the 12 characters I've played, eight have been humans with the Skilled heritage. The exceptions were a Druid who wanted the Gnome ancestry feats that allow talking to animals, an Elven Rogue in a campaign where elves played a central role in the story, a Duskwalker in a hack and slash campaign about fighting undead, and an Ancient Elf Monk who wanted to combine might and magic from Level 1 and didn't have access to the Magus.

In one case, the Skilled heritage allowed the character to take a feat he otherwise wouldn't qualify for. For the other characters, I took it because I like skill increases. If I don't need to use free archetype feats to realize a character's concept or patch weaknesses, I'll spend them on archetypes that boost skills. I doubt I'm the only one who enjoys versatile characters.

Incidentally, half of my characters have had Intelligence as a primary or secondary stat. "A sharp mind can overcome anything" is a big part of the fantasy I'm looking for when I play tabletop RPGs. I'd still consider Intelligence weaker than every other attribute and would love to see it buffed in a future edition.

But be wary of granting too many skill increases for Intelligence. Go too far, and it'll be too easy for characters to step on each other's toes, especially in large groups that use the free archetype variant.


Thaliak wrote:
exequiel759 wrote:
Is there someone that takes skilled though?

Of the 12 characters I've played, eight have been humans with the Skilled heritage. The exceptions were a Druid who wanted the Gnome ancestry feats that allow talking to animals, an Elven Rogue in a campaign where elves played a central role in the story, a Duskwalker in a hack and slash campaign about fighting undead, and an Ancient Elf Monk who wanted to combine might and magic from Level 1 and didn't have access to the Magus.

In one case, the Skilled heritage allowed the character to take a feat he otherwise wouldn't qualify for. For the other characters, I took it because I like skill increases. If I don't need to use free archetype feats to realize a character's concept or patch weaknesses, I'll spend them on archetypes that boost skills. I doubt I'm the only one who enjoys versatile characters.

Incidentally, half of my characters have had Intelligence as a primary or secondary stat. "A sharp mind can overcome anything" is a big part of the fantasy I'm looking for when I play tabletop RPGs. I'd still consider Intelligence weaker than every other attribute and would love to see it buffed in a future edition.

But be wary of granting too many skill increases for Intelligence. Go too far, and it'll be too easy for characters to step on each other's toes, especially in large groups that use the free archetype variant.

As GM I've never really seen the toe-stepping thing come up all the often in any group I've run for. Usually what happens is the group all roll for their most relevant skill for any checks where the entire party can see it and I treat any non-high roll that's high enough to work as an aid check. For more specialized skills or checks where only one character is making a check (the rogue up ahead picking a lock for example) they'll often bring in the team if they find the task difficult. More skills just means everybody gets to roll dice for tasks and it keeps the table engaged.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
exequiel759 wrote:
Is there someone that takes skilled though? The fact that it stays expert at max is more troublesome than a benefit IMO (or probably it is my inner ADHD that hates having 3 legendary 1 expert skill.

Yes.

That one extra skill at Expert could, for example, be used on Medicine to qualify for Continual Recovery and Ward Medic. Without impacting the three "core" skills that the character wants to increase to Legendary.

Say, a barbarian with Legendary proficiency in Acrobatics (Cat Fall, Kip Up), Athletics, and Intimidation...


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Dragonchess Player wrote:
exequiel759 wrote:
Is there someone that takes skilled though? The fact that it stays expert at max is more troublesome than a benefit IMO (or probably it is my inner ADHD that hates having 3 legendary 1 expert skill.

Yes.

That one extra skill at Expert could, for example, be used on Medicine to qualify for Continual Recovery and Ward Medic. Without impacting the three "core" skills that the character wants to increase to Legendary.

Say, a barbarian with Legendary proficiency in Acrobatics (Cat Fall, Kip Up), Athletics, and Intimidation...

It also lets you qualify for Magical Crafting if you want to do some downtime rune improvement without needing to fully invest in the Craft skill.


Unicore wrote:
I have long advocated for more proficiencies and no attributes, with perhaps a grab bag of “attribute feats” or “characteristic feats” that characters could get that would work more like backgrounds and give bonuses to a number of linked proficiencies. So if “Strong” was one, it could give a bonus to melee unarmed and weapon attacks, damage with melee and thrown attacks, and athletics checks, and carrying capacity, but there could be variants on it like “scrappy” that do some of that, but not all of it and give some other bonuses instead. Maybe each one gives less and characters start with more or you link a bunch of stuff together and just give one or two. Having some that don’t feel as powerful to metagame analysis wouldn’t be that big a deal because new ones could be released and the types of boons they give could be more varied, like backgrounds can be. That would be a very different game though. And is maybe beyond the scope of this thread.

I mean, it'd be very different in terms of "I don't think there's a reasonable way to make this a variant rule" but I don't think that game would appeal to a completely different audience. 2e's all about feats, and making yet more of the system be feats wouldn't likely alienate anyone who wasn't already on board with a feat heavy system. I maybe wouldn't want something like "you get bonus damage to melee weapons" where it's essentially mandatory depending on class, I think the choice to put your dice bonus to melee weaponry can be simplified into a single decision as part of a subclass feat or archetype without the need to filter through feats to find which ones you absolutely must take to function, but the *gist* I feel is interesting.

I hope the idea keeps floating around long enough that by the time there's talks of a third edition Paizo's willing to make more drastic changes like these, without the same limitations that came with appealing to existing 1e players during 2e's playtest. I think the only real "core" thing to 2e that would have to stay to stay interesting to people would be the feat-centric rules, the focus on balance and tactical team focused combat, and maybe the three action economy so long there's no brilliant alternative.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I LOVE Skilled. It's allowed several of my characters to take feats and do things they wouldn't normally be able to.


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Pronate11 wrote:
I feel that in an idea PF3, all characters should have a good reason to take every attribute, but no character is required to take any attribute.

My guess is, in the interest of having as clean a break as possible with the OGL, PF3 will have a completely different set of 6 attributes. It wouldn't surprise me if the physical stats go in the direction suggested by the GMG where strength subsumes Con and Dex gets split into "agile hands" and "quick feet". It likewise wouldn't surprise me to see the three mental stats be recontextualized into like "mental quickness", "mental toughness", and "mental potency."


3-Body Problem wrote:
Thaliak wrote:
exequiel759 wrote:
Is there someone that takes skilled though?

Of the 12 characters I've played, eight have been humans with the Skilled heritage. The exceptions were a Druid who wanted the Gnome ancestry feats that allow talking to animals, an Elven Rogue in a campaign where elves played a central role in the story, a Duskwalker in a hack and slash campaign about fighting undead, and an Ancient Elf Monk who wanted to combine might and magic from Level 1 and didn't have access to the Magus.

In one case, the Skilled heritage allowed the character to take a feat he otherwise wouldn't qualify for. For the other characters, I took it because I like skill increases. If I don't need to use free archetype feats to realize a character's concept or patch weaknesses, I'll spend them on archetypes that boost skills. I doubt I'm the only one who enjoys versatile characters.

Incidentally, half of my characters have had Intelligence as a primary or secondary stat. "A sharp mind can overcome anything" is a big part of the fantasy I'm looking for when I play tabletop RPGs. I'd still consider Intelligence weaker than every other attribute and would love to see it buffed in a future edition.

But be wary of granting too many skill increases for Intelligence. Go too far, and it'll be too easy for characters to step on each other's toes, especially in large groups that use the free archetype variant.

As GM I've never really seen the toe-stepping thing come up all the often in any group I've run for. Usually what happens is the group all roll for their most relevant skill for any checks where the entire party can see it and I treat any non-high roll that's high enough to work as an aid check. For more specialized skills or checks where only one character is making a check (the rogue up ahead picking a lock for example) they'll often bring in the team if they find the task difficult. More skills just means everybody gets to roll dice for tasks and it keeps the table engaged.

I might be exaggerating the risk based on my experience with 3.5 and Pathfinder 1E, where my friends would occasionally chastise me for rolling dice at every opportunity instead of waiting for others to step forward. I haven't had as much trouble with that in 2E. I'd like to say that's because I'm older and wiser, but I suspect it's at least in part from playing on virtual tabletops, where everyone rolling a knowledge or identification check is less disruptive. It's quicker to click a button than to roll physical dice, and it's faster for the GM to scan a list of rolls than to ask each player what their result was.

As you point out, the Aid system also helps. If a party has two people who invest in Diplomacy, one can support the other.

Having said that, I still dislike the idea of skill increases becoming too common. If several people have invested in a skill that generally uses table time, such as Diplomacy or Deception, and a scene where it's relevant comes up, the spotlight usually goes to the quickest or most assertive player. As someone who is far more deliberate and who enjoys seeing shy players talk, I like some degree of niche protection. It's much easier for me to talk if the rest of the party says, "Thal, you've got the best Deception. Start fibbing."

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Dark_Schneider wrote:

Surprised about how easily are extra trained skills underrated. You get:

1) It is better to be trained than untrained. A co-op check, if you are alone (so improves individual survivability). It is better if you can succeed with a 16 than only with a 20.

2) Saves you skill points. Use extra trained skills as starting then improve. I.e. you could be a Wizard but be interested to be able to cast Resurrect ritual, use Int to get trained in Religion then just use 1 skill point to get expert, instead using 2 SP.

3) Also, take advantage of it to get trained in skills that usually you wouldn't, i.e. get Athletics even if you are a caster to compensate your probably low Str.

Certainly I can only see advantages.

Especially given the change to the Aid Another rules, lowering the DC to 15. Being able to reliably give a bonus to the main user of the skill (out of combat) shouldn't be underrated.


Bluemagetim wrote:

I think the problem with int is solved by allowing the trained skills gained by int auto scale to expert at level 5. If you gain a +1 to int at level 5 you get expert instead of trained in the skill right away.

Just dont go past expert without investing with level up skill increases.
The human heritage skilled human has that kind of scaling and would never be picked if it only got to trained. (the general feat from versatile would simply be strictly better even if you wanted skills)
its a better trade off when deciding well do i want a language and expert in a skill or do I want extra hp and fort or extra perception and will. Most people will still take the hp, AC, and saves over expert but it is at least a better option than trained.

Maybe not auto-scale but at least allow to apply to any skill to upgrade up to X, which X could be Expert (safe) or Master (aggresive), Legendary could be excessive.

Also including the 1st level, allowing to use the points from Int to upgrade trained skills to Expert, if not those characters starting with 18 could have many Int points wasted forced to get other skills instead improving those it really wants.


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exequiel759 wrote:
YuriP wrote:
I think that the simple solution is the best. Just allows that all skills to auto-progress. This solves the skills problems and honestly it's not like this would break the game anyway.
I mean, it would take away from playing a rogue or investigator. Also Paizo is literally afraid of giving higher stats which is the reason why they went with the 4* and 5* instead of simply allowing the stats to go higher so I don't think they would be to eager to remove an entire mechanic from the game and give you a higher bonus with all your skills.

It's not bad as you think.

Rogues and Investigator still able to keep a lot of skill feats more than any other intelligence class and some of their class feats also affects like some skills works (like the feats to detect and disable traps) also not everyone that will want to play as Inventor, Wizard, Witch and Int Psychics to get a lot of skills to compete with them. Their niche as martial skill monkeys still preserved. Also this already happens in low levels (specially level 1) without problems.

This is just how the skills works in older editions with the exception that you won't have skills options locked by your class nor you need to be a rogue to disable traps.


What I like with Skilled Human is that it allows me to have 3 skills at Expert at level 5 instead of having to wait for level 11 for that. It allows me to increase my 3 Legendary skills right off the bat instead of increasing only 2 of them during the single-digit levels.


Deriven Firelion wrote:

As a DM, I let the characters keep rolling if they fail. I don't see why they can't keep spending an action to keep trying to remember some detail. It's not like they gain some immense advantage from it that someone isn't already taking care of.

For example, martials often obviate the need for Recall Knowledge by taking weapon runes they know are likely to activate weaknesses, bypass weaknesses, or at least not have much resistance to.

And the martials often coordinate to take different runes to handle different weaknesses or resistance.

My particular group always has someone take at least one fire rune weapon, a sonic, and someone gets holy. This handles evil outsiders, lots of regeneration, and has at least one rune that creatures aren't particular resistant to.

So I don't like to limit any caster or class from using Recall Knowledge to give them a cool moment if they make the roll at some point and there is weakness they can exploit.

Problem with being too lose with Recall Knowledge rules is that you run the potential of absolutely gutting the reason for existence of say a Lore Oracle or Investigator. Two examples of a class subtypes whose main shtick is getting extra knowledge on a success or increasing the odds of a success

Letting RK be done after a fail and not increasing the DC after ever success really destroys the whole reason for being out of many of their class features/feats which they lose a ton of other capacity to get. (Literally all of Lore Oracle's specific focus spells are to improve RK).

But no-one is playing them you say? Well.. why would they ever play them as well in the future if you remove a major reason for them to even exist? Something to think about.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

How do people feel about the stats themselves in relation to how you view your character. For example you take an 18 str is that a core element of your character or is it just the thing you need str at to have as much hit and damage on your rolls?


Orikkro wrote:

Problem with being too lose with Recall Knowledge rules is that you run the potential of absolutely gutting the reason for existence of say a Lore Oracle or Investigator. Two examples of a class subtypes whose main shtick is getting extra knowledge on a success or increasing the odds of a success

Letting RK be done after a fail and not increasing the DC after ever success really destroys the whole reason for being out of many of their class features/feats which they lose a ton of other capacity to get. (Literally all of Lore Oracle's specific focus spells are to improve RK).

But no-one is playing them you say? Well.. why would they ever play them as well in the future if you remove a major reason for them to even exist? Something to think about.

The advantage of RK classes is that they have better action economy with RK, not that they succeed at their RK where others fail. As such, a reroll rule is more beneficial for them, since they can retry much more often.

The Investigator can use that reroll rule together with their 5 RK check action (Reason Rapidly) to guarantee success on anything below "incredibly hard".


Bluemagetim wrote:

How do people feel about the stats themselves in relation to how you view your character. For example you take an 18 str is that a core element of your character or is it just the thing you need str at to have as much hit and damage on your rolls?

I don't see why a character wouldn't have their attributes emphasize their character traits. An 18 Strength character is obviously physically strong, and an 18 Intelligence character is probably pretty smart, etc.

Honestly, the only attribute that would be easy to "fake" is Charisma, and that is because they specifically have options to "fake" things.


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Bluemagetim wrote:

How do people feel about the stats themselves in relation to how you view your character. For example you take an 18 str is that a core element of your character or is it just the thing you need str at to have as much hit and damage on your rolls?

It's just the stat a melee needs for armor and attacks and such. It's not like I have some Olympian athlete in mind with an 18str character, it's just what the mechanics result in for particular builds.


Bluemagetim wrote:

How do people feel about the stats themselves in relation to how you view your character. For example you take an 18 str is that a core element of your character or is it just the thing you need str at to have as much hit and damage on your rolls?

I don't ever roleplay a character that doesn't reflect their attributes, though the specific nuances can change, and sometimes how two different characters with the same attribute score relate.

For example, in my current game, my Exemplar and the Champion both have an 18 - or I suppose +4 we should start saying - in Strength, but through roleplaying and just general narrative tropes my Exemplar has mostly become the 'super strong one' (probably for his penchant for turning foes into pink mist with Titan's Breaker) whereas the Champion has his strength more related to the usual Champion 'sturdiness'.

He is also physically huge - 7'2" to the Champion's 6'2" - so that plays a part in it, as well.


YuriP wrote:
This is just how the skills works in older editions with the exception that you won't have skills options locked by your class nor you need to be a rogue to disable traps.

I really wouldn't take how skills used to work in other editions because in the only system I could feel really skilled was PF2e. In 3.5 / PF1e the whole skill ranks concept wasn't bad per se, though in practice not maxing out skills was always going to be a bad option with certain skills because some of them have DCs that keep up scaling while other skills only had DC 15 at best. Like most things in those system, it literally was about how good you were to identify which skills were actually useful (because let's remember there was actually 40+ of them for some reason) and only take those that are actually commonly used and that had actual scaling DCs. Also the amount of skill ranks you got was ridicously low in comparision to the amount of skills there was in the game, so even the skilled characters had like, at best, 1/3 or 1/4 of the whole skill list.

5e did improve skills in the sense that they reduced the skill list from 40+ in 3.5 and I believe around 20+ in 4e to something like 18, though what they did screw up was that skills literally are an afterthought in the system and actually don't have any rules attached to them whatsoever, not to mention that due to how stat progression works in that system and the very few amount of skills you get from your class, as well as the fact that you either are or aren't profiicent in something makes all non-bards feel useless outside of combat, and bards in particular are the exception here because they still add half their Prof bonus on everything and have spells to solve everything.

I still think people exagerate on the "you need to be legendary if you want your skills to be relevant" because as long as you aren't expecting to be grappling, tripping, feinting, or those kind of checks in which you are against another being you can go by even with trained skills. Much like the 3.5 / PF1e situation in which there was skills that were more useful and better to take and max out the same happens in PF2e, though unlike those sytems in which otherwise you were literally rolling a flat dice at level 20 if you didn't have the skill here you at least add your level + 2 or your level with stuff like Untrained Improvisation.


Bluemagetim wrote:

How do people feel about the stats themselves in relation to how you view your character. For example you take an 18 str is that a core element of your character or is it just the thing you need str at to have as much hit and damage on your rolls?

I play the stats, definitely. But mostly the highest and lowest ones. For example, I don't play the high Dexterity, Constitution and Wisdom of a high level character unless they are the main stat of said character. As I'm nearly forced by the system to improve them, I don't consider them meaningful from a roleplay point of view.


Bluemagetim wrote:

How do people feel about the stats themselves in relation to how you view your character. For example you take an 18 str is that a core element of your character or is it just the thing you need str at to have as much hit and damage on your rolls?

It's a strange one: Strength and Charisma are stats that, to me, I tend to roleplay often on my characters, so if I'm playing a character with high Strength, I'll make a point of them being really strong, and if their Strength is low, I'll roleplay them as really weedy. As for the rest... not so much. Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom are stats I will boost on most of my characters regardless, including my scrawny Wizard, and I don't really feel like it's interesting to roleplay every character as exceptionally agile, hardy, and perceptive just because those are attributes I boost out of necessity.

Intelligence is also a big exception because even on a character with low Intelligence, I'm rarely going to make stupid decisions for my character because by and large, that's not what the games I play are about. My character may be unintelligent, but I'm still going to make tactical decisions in combat, pick up on clues, and generally think about what to do. I can still roleplay my character as being unintelligent, but that's inevitably going to clash somewhat with their ability to make sound choices based on rational thinking and memory.


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Orikkro wrote:
Deriven Firelion wrote:

As a DM, I let the characters keep rolling if they fail. I don't see why they can't keep spending an action to keep trying to remember some detail. It's not like they gain some immense advantage from it that someone isn't already taking care of.

For example, martials often obviate the need for Recall Knowledge by taking weapon runes they know are likely to activate weaknesses, bypass weaknesses, or at least not have much resistance to.

And the martials often coordinate to take different runes to handle different weaknesses or resistance.

My particular group always has someone take at least one fire rune weapon, a sonic, and someone gets holy. This handles evil outsiders, lots of regeneration, and has at least one rune that creatures aren't particular resistant to.

So I don't like to limit any caster or class from using Recall Knowledge to give them a cool moment if they make the roll at some point and there is weakness they can exploit.

Problem with being too lose with Recall Knowledge rules is that you run the potential of absolutely gutting the reason for existence of say a Lore Oracle or Investigator. Two examples of a class subtypes whose main shtick is getting extra knowledge on a success or increasing the odds of a success

Letting RK be done after a fail and not increasing the DC after ever success really destroys the whole reason for being out of many of their class features/feats which they lose a ton of other capacity to get. (Literally all of Lore Oracle's specific focus spells are to improve RK).

But no-one is playing them you say? Well.. why would they ever play them as well in the future if you remove a major reason for them to even exist? Something to think about.

Not if you don't have those PCs in your campaign.

A party of wizard, rogue, cleric and fighter don't care about lore oracle and investigator. Heck, I'd bet over 50 percent of people who play pathfinder 2 literally don't know those classes EXIST, and maybe 10 percent could tell you in depth what they actually do and how they're played.

The system is freaking enormous and most people only know the 4-5 classes that they regularly play with


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I find roleplaying stats to be a little weird because they're part and parcel of baseline effectiveness too. Everyone is expected to boost their save stats to some degree, but that doesn't mean I want to play someone who's especially hardy or wise thematically.

... There's also only a limited amount of room for exceptionalism. It's harder to play a character whose gimmick is 'raw strength' to some extent because generally everyone who cares about strength is going to have the same score as you, even if they thematically aren't meant to be exceptionally strong, it's just a game conceit.

So you're only notably better at lifting or pushing or wrestling than someone who avoid strength entirely (who at the same time might not want to be noticeably weak as a character trait, it's just a game design conceit).

... As I've gotten older I've kind of started to fall in love with systems that separate a lot of these mechanics out. It can feel kind of liberating to just have your character be really good at something because you want them to be good at it, rather than being good at something because a confluence of game mechanics tell you that's what you're supposed to be good at, or struggling against the current to try to do something out of the box.


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I think stat roleplaying made way more sense in older editions. For example, in PF2e if you are playing a 3rd level Strength-based fighter you are going to have a +4 Strength modifier 99,9% of the time, so while you can roleplaying your character as physically strong there's thousands of other 3rd level Strength-based fighters and martials in general out there so it's not like you are that special. In 3.5 / PF1e there were races with +4 to certain stats and since most of the progression was item based and that there really wasn't much guidelines on how much money to give to your players and when to give them there could be 3rd level characters with 18 Strength, 20 Strength, or 26 Strength.

Not like I would want to come back to those days, though the newer and more polished design also made those kinds of numerical advantages don't really exist and thus removed some of that "uniqueness".


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Orikkro wrote:
Deriven Firelion wrote:

As a DM, I let the characters keep rolling if they fail. I don't see why they can't keep spending an action to keep trying to remember some detail. It's not like they gain some immense advantage from it that someone isn't already taking care of.

For example, martials often obviate the need for Recall Knowledge by taking weapon runes they know are likely to activate weaknesses, bypass weaknesses, or at least not have much resistance to.

And the martials often coordinate to take different runes to handle different weaknesses or resistance.

My particular group always has someone take at least one fire rune weapon, a sonic, and someone gets holy. This handles evil outsiders, lots of regeneration, and has at least one rune that creatures aren't particular resistant to.

So I don't like to limit any caster or class from using Recall Knowledge to give them a cool moment if they make the roll at some point and there is weakness they can exploit.

Problem with being too lose with Recall Knowledge rules is that you run the potential of absolutely gutting the reason for existence of say a Lore Oracle or Investigator. Two examples of a class subtypes whose main shtick is getting extra knowledge on a success or increasing the odds of a success

Letting RK be done after a fail and not increasing the DC after ever success really destroys the whole reason for being out of many of their class features/feats which they lose a ton of other capacity to get. (Literally all of Lore Oracle's specific focus spells are to improve RK).

But no-one is playing them you say? Well.. why would they ever play them as well in the future if you remove a major reason for them to even exist? Something to think about.

The Investigator in my group is the one having trouble making the RK checks.

So many on here make RK checks seem like some auto-success skill action. It isn't. Not even with a high intel and maxed out skill, much less with a trained skill.

Fighters and classes who use other stats don't spend their time on RK checks. It's primarily wizards and investigators trying to take advantage of their intel stat in some meaningful way. So I let them reroll.

Martials don't care about RK checks, they just keep stabbing or hitting it until it dies.

Same with most other classes.

RK is not an essential skill for winning. It's one of main skill actions for intel-based characters to take advantage of intel or abilities based on Intel like an investigator. Most other classes don't give a rip about whether the wizard or investigator made their RK check.

I've never seen a fighter need a RK check. Most of the martials in our group get a shifting run or carry a back up bludgeoning weapon. If they hit the thing with their S or P weapon and it doesn't work, shift to a bludgeoning weapon. That's their RK check.

So I'm being loose with the RK checks for intel-based classes like the wizard and investigator. I want them to feel like it's useful.


Base stats made a lot make a lot more sense when you either roll for them or can have them change, such as getting a new body in an Altered Carbon game, than they do in games where they don't change except slowly by leveling up. In a game like PF2, they could ditch them entirely or set a primary and secondary array for each class and 99.5% of characters would be fine. They're already all but set for you and vestigial so ditching them or making them interesting in some other way for PF3 would be a big improvement.

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