With Eye for numbers you can get a pretty precise assessment of an amount of things by looking at the heap for 2 seconds.
It really doesn't though: 200 could be anything from 150 to 250...
Try doing this IRL. I know I can't.
If it was actually a precise assessment I'd agree but I can guess at a dozen things as well as it can tell me there are 10: both might be off by 5 or so. Getting an answer that could be 50% off seems pretty inaccurate.
You could be playing a criminal character making a deal with other shady types and you quickly count the payment without taking your eyes away from the otherside for too long. You see theres about the right amount so you hand over the goods. Or you see that its not enough and you use a deception check to start combat.
As I pointed out above, even this isn't super useful unless you're fine with a substantial loss: people can slip you 15,000 and you could count it as payment in full for a 20,000 one. "About right" can be substantially off as you "rounded to the first digit in the total number".
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With Eye for numbers you can get a pretty precise assessment of an amount of things by looking at the heap for 2 seconds.It really doesn't though: 200 could be anything from 150 to 250...
Try doing this IRL. I know I can't.If it was actually a precise assessment I'd agree but I can guess at a dozen things as well as it can tell me there are 10: both might be off by 5 or so. Getting an answer that could be 50% off seems pretty inaccurate.
You could be playing a criminal character making a deal with other shady types and you quickly count the payment without taking your eyes away from the otherside for too long. You see theres about the right amount so you hand over the goods. Or you see that its not enough and you use a deception check to start combat.As I pointed out above, even this isn't super useful unless you're fine with a substantial loss: people can slip you 15,000 and you could count it as payment in full for a 20,000 one. "About right" can be substantially off as you "rounded to the first digit in the total number".
TBT I was not trying to convince anyone that it's a must have feat. I was refuting the idea that it was a feat tax.
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Well, no, lip reading is at least a real skill. I definitely don't have it.
I don't think you can get stabbed in the chest 10 times and then recover in literally 10 minutes because you used a medkit on you either.
PF2e isn't a IRL simulationist game and doesn't try to be, so IMO saying "the system shouldn't have this because I can't do it" is really reductive when most likely most of us wouldn't even be able to run 30 meters straight without losing our breath. PF2e characters are superhuman, and on top of that, the system simplies skill rules because PF2e's focus isn't being a IRL sim, its being a combat sim. If for you it wouldn't make sense for someone to be automatically available to make a check to read lips or count stuff really fast then how do you explain a blacksmith being equally as good as crafting a sword as crafting a ship or any other vehicle? Anyone bats an eye when all crafters are technically equally as good as crafting every single non-magical object in the universe, but reading lips is going to far?
I often feel people forget that characters already can do all sorts of weird stuff, though other IMO way more simpler stuff is for some reason locked behind a skill feat.
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TBT I was not trying to convince anyone that it's a must have feat. I was refuting the idea that it was a feat tax.
Not a tax per se, but its existence might stop a DM from giving out info they would normally give as it makes it seem that you need a feat to make a quick guesstimate at numbers of items. For a feat, it should grant you something you normally can't do and this feat is pretty light on that: a +2 to break a mathematical hidden code is about it and it'd still be niche feat for a game with hidden codes in it.
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I would personally never make a very smart character pick up Eye for Numbers to do what it does. It's something I would consider part of having that high an IQ. It's one of those feats that looks like it was written that made the cut because they needed some filler. Tons of those in PF1.
I agree. The Thaumaturge should have Eye for Numbers automatically.
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Firstly, you distorted the message, it's "the system could have this because I can't do it". Secondly, it's not even that at all. It's "the system could have this because it's a valuable addition to a character's abilities, could help and change a story and it's believable that not all characters have it". That makes your objections irrelevant. Also, "characters already can do all sorts of weird stuff" doesn't mean they should be able to do everything. It's an obvious fallacy.Well, no, lip reading is at least a real skill. I definitely don't have it.PF2e isn't a IRL simulationist game and doesn't try to be, so IMO saying "the system shouldn't have this because I can't do it" is really reductive
You are literally accusing me of the same thing you are doing.
I'm not saying "Eyes for Numbers should be removed from the system and characters shouldn't be able to use it" I'm saying Eyes for Numbers should be just a reugular action, not a feat. I'm also not saying "characters should be able to do everything", I'm saying characters can literally do all tons of weird s~~~ naturally and doing fast math literally falls under that so why make it a feat instead of a regular action for everybody? I'm not asking for stuff like Wall Jump or Water Sprint to become regular actions since those are improvements to stuff you can already do, while Eyes for Numbers is literally "if you want to do math fast take this" and IMO that's really bad feat design for something like a skill feat and more so when the "benefit" it gives you is the more niche thing in the universe.
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I agree. The Thaumaturge should have Eye for Numbers automatically.
I'd rather have it than Dubious Knowledge... :(
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Skill feats don't feel like they have a consistent design paradigm. Some let you do entirely new things you'd never otherwise try, like Read Psychometric Resonance. Some let you do a thing so reliably it defies common sense, like Forager. These are good. Others would be very useful in the right campaign, like Underwater Marauder. These are acceptable. But some just let you do things will almost never happen and don't necessarily warrant a feat if they did, like Group Impression. And others are so niche I struggle to think of any campaign they'd be useful in, like Eye for Numbers. There are also feats which are mechanically strong but invented in order to charge a feat tax, like Continual Recovery.
Well, no, LIP READING is at least a real skill. I definitely don't have it.....You are literally accusing me of the same thing you are doing.
I'm not saying "Eyes for Numbers ...What the heck are you talking about? With you I was very clearly discussing Read Lips, not Eye For Numbers.
And was saying from the start that Eye For Numbers is a terrible feat and characters should count everything they want without that feat just fine.
And yes, it shouldn't exist. At least in this form.
Lol mb. Most of the discussion here was about Eyes for Numbers so I guess I assumed it was about it, but anyways, most of what I said also applies to Read Lips too. Read Lips allows you to make a check (unlike Eyes for Numbers which at least has the decency to be something that happens automatically) to try and discern what someone is saying at a distance, leaving you to flat-footed and fascinated during the process. This, effectively, could be summarized as "your senses are so good that with measure you can look at something vey minute happening very far from you" and I have to say...isn't this the purpose of Perception already? Legolas is able to watch how the orc army is advancing into Isengard with the hobbits from many, many kilometers away in like 2 seconds but I need a feat to read the lips of someone 10 meters away from me? You want some examples of stuff the system already allows you to do with investing a single feat? know about any topic in the world, know how to identify any magic item, learn any spell, craft or repair any non-magical object, stabilize and/or treat the wounds of someone that could have been stabbed in the chest 20 times 10 seconds prior or receive the explosion of a nuke bomb in the chest a point-blank range, order any kind of animal to do any kind of order as long as they aren't hostile, know how to play every single instrument as well as sing and dance, determine the position of all cardinal points (possibly the most tame thing I mentioned yet), or disable all kinds of devices regardless of their nature, but allowing someone to take their time to read lips requires a feat?
Like Captain Morgan said, skill feats don't have a consistent design philosophy. Some of them give you very esoteric actions, others improve the stuff you can alreaedy do, and others allow you to do the most basic stuff or stuff that for someone with superhuman capabilities shouldn't be that hard to do but that requires a feat while other similar or way harder stuff doesn't. I don't know if I already said this before, but if all skill feats were in the same power level as Eyes for Numbers or Read Lips I wouldn't have a problem with them (I probably would have a problem with skill feats in general in that case, and I kinda do to be honest, but I digress) but the matter of fact is that those feats are in the very bottom of the skill feat list, even if you exclude all the non-1st-level skill feats they would still rank among the lowest.
Are any of the differences relevant to the rest of the conversation? Is Lip Reading more or less worthy of a skill feat than Eye for Numbers? What about it makes it so? Why does it satisfy you more to have one or both of these things as a skill feat, instead of an ungated skill action that anyone can do?
I'd argue that Lip Reading is more worthy of being a feat. Outside of encounters it grants an automatic success: This means while others might have to roll a perception check vs a Dm fiat DC, you could tell what people are saying across a noisy bar or what the guards are saying while you watch through a spyglass from a building hundreds of feet away. Still niche use, but one with an automatic success and that, IMO, is what bumps it up to feat worthy.
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I think the issue at hand is that there's no real definition of what a "standard" character can do without feats: on one hand, characters can clearly do stuff that is beyond normal by default, like fully recover from being stabbed by a sword in the space of ten minutes, but then stuff like counting really fast or reading lips is inaccessible to a typical individual. The only reason we know the latter is because we have feats that specifically allow this, and if those feats didn't exist, those actions would probably be assumed to be default to all characters. Beyond the power level of any individual feat, the issue I find with this is that it means a first-time GM is assumed to have to read tons of feats just to find out what can and can't be handwaved RAW: not only is this an unrealistic expectation that most GMs are unlikely to fulfil when they're still grappling with so many other much more important rules, it also leads to inevitable disappointment when players find themselves told that the things they were doing naturally out of many other roleplaying elements are in fact things they can't do without a certain feat.
I've requested to rename the thread Skill Feats is whack. We'll sort this out.
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I'm not asking which existing feat has better mechanics.
Of course it's a matter of mechanics. If not, then what basis are you using to determine what feats are good or not?
Why does the game need to gate these things behind feats, rather than being a skill anyone can try to do?
Feats generally allow you to do something you normally can't or allows you to do something easier than you normally could: IMO Lip Reading does so and Eye for Numbers doesn't
Is there that much specialist knowledge involved in either?
100% accurate lip reading? I'd say that's a talent that's not normal while getting a +/- 50% estimate of items isn't.
Is either thing going to come up so often that a player will spend scarce resources on it and feel good about all the mileage their PC is going to get out of that investment?
Depends on the campaign: Should we not include Quick Swim because the DM might run a game in a desert? You have a game that revolves around a lot of intrigue, scouting and spycraft and you might find Lip Reading more used than Battle Medicine.
If 'guaranteed success' is what tips you over on the issue of Read Lips, would it not be better if the player could take Assurance (Society) and get a guaranteed success on all sorts of Society rolls, not just this one roll that they might or might not have to ever make once in a campaign?
What makes you think reading lips would use Society? I think the majority of people would have you make a Perception check and you're NOT getting Assurance on that. Even if you find a Dm that uses Society, you're left with a Dm fiat DC which means Assurance might not be enough to make the rolls: for instance, you'd be out of luck on a very hard level based DC.
Bottom line, IMO Read Lips is a good feat in its niche: if the feat has an issue, IMO, it's that its niche isn't that big and a lot of games don't fit it. Eye for Numbers has 2 parts, one that's completely useless [guestimate number of items] and one that is a niche ability in a niche ability [a bonus to deciphering writing [codes] but only numerical codes...].
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There's reading someone's lips when they are talking at you, or in a place that isn't crowded and talking nearby to someone else - and then there's lip reading like in spy movies or heist films where someone sitting across a busy airport or other locale is reading the lips perfectly of someone in an entirely different room talking to 3 people.
The latter is what the feat is enabling you to do - which is not a skill most people have. You might even say it's a feat to have that ability.
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Depends on the campaign: Should we not include Quick Swim because the DM might run a game in a desert? You have a game that revolves around a lot of intrigue, scouting and spycraft and you might find Lip Reading more used than Battle Medicine.
Quick Swim is IMO a perfect example of a feat that deserves to be a feat but it is criminally underpowered for a feat that requires master proficiency to take in the first place. Quick Swim is literally Powerful Leap but for swimming...but unlike that feat the investment it requires is higher, and thus has to compete with other feats that also require that investment like Paragon Battle Medicine, Foil Senses, or even within Athletics itself against something like Wall Jump or Water Sprint which I find way more useful out of the gate. Quick Swim (and Quick Climb) should IMO give you 1/2 your speed on their respective movement speed (swim speed for Quick Swim and climb speed for Quick Climb) that should scale to full your speed if you become legendary in Athletics like it currently does.
There's reading someone's lips when they are talking at you, or in a place that isn't crowded and talking nearby to someone else - and then there's lip reading like in spy movies or heist films where someone sitting across a busy airport or other locale is reading the lips perfectly of someone in an entirely different room talking to 3 people.
The latter is what the feat is enabling you to do - which is not a skill most people have. You might even say it's a feat to have that ability.
I won't repeat myself, but characters already have access to stuff that would normally be abilities that would require dedicated training without having to spend a single feat or access to some abilities even without being trained in the skill (though in that last case they would at least have a a high chance of failing at doing so).
The problem with Read Lips is that it is an action that most people would want to try in a social-heavy campaign at least once sinc they can already do other similar stuff without any kind of investment, and like Teridax said, "it leads to inevitable disappointment when players find themselves told that the things they were doing naturally out of many other roleplaying elements are in fact things they can't do without a certain feat" which IMO goes against the basic premise of RP if you have to gate those actions behind a feat. Swimming or climbing fast can and deserves to be a skill feat because it is an improvement over the things you can already do (even if I find the current iteration of that improvement to be a little lacksluster), but since reading lips isn't a regular action you can find under either Perception or Society the implications here is that you can only do that with that feat, and IMO that's bad design.
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Skill Feats are whack. It's a franken-system that breaks the rules...
Isn't this the nature of feats, in general? Like the rules specify what things you can do while taking a feat unlocks an additional thing that you can do because you took the feat.
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Almost but not quite getting a bronze medal at the village fair bean guessing contest is pretty disappointing for a skill feat.
This was glossed over a bit earlier but I think it's a fairly valid criticism of the existing system. We have options that enable super niche activities but don't even necessarily let you be particularly exceptional at them.
Genuinely the worst feeling in Pathfinder isn't having a niche ability that's almost never going to matter, it's finding the one time your niche ability is relevant and still not getting to really do anything special with it.
I feel like if you have something that might only be relevant once (or less) in a typical campaign, when it does come up it should feel like a moment where the stars align for you... but PF2 isn't very good at making characters feel special like that.
Untrained, Trained, Expert, Master, Legendary.Five levels of skill.
What is so special about your scenario that it's not just increased DC?
I feel like they could have done a lot more with skill proficiency tiers.
We have trained-only actions but nothing beyond that, I think it could have been interesting to take some existing feats and consolidate them into expert/master/legendary actions to create a real sense of defining what it means to be legendary in a skill.
We have trained-only actions but nothing beyond that, I think it could have been interesting to take some existing feats and consolidate them into expert/master/legendary actions to create a real sense of defining what it means to be legendary in a skill.
Or at least more options to allow you to increase the DC for extra benefit like with Medicine, though I agree some skill feats should probably just become things you unlock by virtue of having a higher proficiency (ehem, Continual Recovery and Ward Medic).
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I feel like if you have something that might only be relevant once (or less) in a typical campaign, when it does come up it should feel like a moment where the stars align for you... but PF2 isn't very good at making characters feel special like that.
I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only GM who fairly frequently will allow a skill feat to apply in situations where it feels like it SHOULD apply even if RAW it clearly doesn't. And/or will have it apply in different ways than strictly written.
I absolutely LOVE the intent behind skill feats but quite often absolutely loathe the implementation. I strongly get the feeling that they just received very, very little attention so they're this incredible mish mash of incredibly cool things, kinda useful things, almost useless things, and things that actively make the game worse by their very existence by gating things that should be accessible to all characters (perhaps gated behind proficiency level) and gates them behind a feat.
So my solution to the above is to be sometimes be insanely liberal in interpreting how skill feats work. As an example, you have Eye for Numbers you definitely win the count the bean contest in any non PFS game I run (and probably PFS games unless its a major point)
Do people feel the Thaumaturge is strong in actual play? What are their main combat roles?
Do people feel the Thaumaturge is strong in actual play? What are their main combat roles?
I find it to not be terrible. It is a good damage dealer. Standard martial accuracy and damage boosts that actually get better with strange and complicated creatures that have resistances and weaknesses.
It has some action economy problems as well as hand usage problems to deal with as part of their 'unable to perfectly optimize' design. For action economy it is somewhere between Ranger and Swashbuckler - they have to use an action targeting a creature in order to get their combat boosts going, and it needs a skill check (unlike Ranger) but still has some effect if the check fails (unlike Swashbuckler).
Do people feel the Thaumaturge is strong in actual play? What are their main combat roles?I find it to not be terrible. It is a good damage dealer. Standard martial accuracy and damage boosts that actually get better with strange and complicated creatures that have resistances and weaknesses.
It has some action economy problems as well as hand usage problems to deal with as part of their 'unable to perfectly optimize' design. For action economy it is somewhere between Ranger and Swashbuckler - they have to use an action targeting a creature in order to get their combat boosts going, and it needs a skill check (unlike Ranger) but still has some effect if the check fails (unlike Swashbuckler).
Do you have an idea of what kind of damage it deals? What does its rounds look like? If I'm in a group with a fighter, barbarian, or rogue, am I going look like this guy doing really cool things that would amaze a reader, then fighter or barb boy suddenly burst onto the screen murdering what I was doing cool things to attack and look at me and say, "Your implement looks real cool." Then walk off making me look like I wasted my time.
That's the thing I don't want to end up looking like. That's just annoying and I saw it happen to the swashbuckler way too often.
Technically, my first character ever that wasn't for a one shot was a thaumaturge. I made a "Snow White meets Blade" character in which I was mirror / whip wielding witch hunter that was a changeling herself which was trained by a Geralt of Rivia-esque dwarf.
The only class I can think that deals more damage than a thaum would be barbarians or fighters with a fatal weapon, though your crits don't feel as good since weaknesses don't multiply on crits, though your slightly lower accuracy (kinda?) helps here since you don't crit as often lol. Utility-wise you can work as a sort of off-brand rogue or as a functional investigator if you take tome, tons of mobility with mirror, the perfect face and later an off-brand bard if you take regalia, and an off-brand fighter with weapon. Wand isn't that good if you want to use it as your main implement but if you use it as a sort of second attack without MAP after or before attacking with your main weapon can be effective (and if you go firearm + wand, despite some action economy issues, you'll be able to play a wandslinger lol) and lantern has some neat although minor benefits. I haven't seen amulet, bell, or chalice in play so I don't know how effective they can truly be.
The feats aren't fantastic though. They aren't bad, and the Scroll Thaumaturgy line of feats, the Talisman Esoterica line of feats, and Thaumaturgic Ritualist effectively give you the Scroll Trickster, Talisman Dabbler, and Ritualist archetypes in a single class, though if you don't want to use any of them you'll strugle a little when selecting feats. If you are playing with Free Archetype and take one of those archetypes you'll become hyper specialized into it though, like a thaum that takes both Scroll Thaumaturgy + Scroll Trickster Dedication is eventually going to become a bounded scroll-caster lol.
So Thaumaturge sort of competes for a role like the rogue? Damage dealing, versatile class.
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Do people feel the Thaumaturge is strong in actual play? What are their main combat roles?
It is a bit like the Kineticist. You can build it to fit a wide range of options. Probably most naturally fits a striker roll.
Yeah, not exactly a "build your own martial" kind of class, but you can effectively make a thaum to cover most if not all roles in a party (not at the same time ofc).
Do you have an idea of what kind of damage it deals? What does its rounds look like?
I can describe the basics of my particular character. But Thaumaturge is one of the classes that can be built to go in a lot of different directions and go deep on them. A Bard is a Bard, but a Thaumaturge is not as predictable.
If I'm in a group with a fighter, barbarian, or rogue, am I going look like this guy doing really cool things that would amaze a reader, then fighter or barb boy suddenly burst onto the screen murdering what I was doing cool things to attack and look at me and say, "Your implement looks real cool." Then walk off making me look like I wasted my time.
I'm not sure I can answer this at all because of how much powergaming your group does. I'm comparing my character to an Animal Companion Ranger, a Warpriest Cleric, a Universalist Wizard, a Bard, and an Archery Monk.
My character is an Amulet/Tome Thaumaturge at level 6 currently. I went with a Dex build (so no strength bonus to damage) and am using a d4 finesse weapon or sometimes a hand crossbow. In the last combat, here are the damage rolls that people were throwing out (I removed the Bard's Inspire Courage since it applies to everyone or no one depending on if it is active or not):
Ranger 2d8+3 ~~ 12
Animal Companion 2d8+3 ~~ 12
Bard 2d6+1 ~~ 8
Archer Monk 2d6+0 x2 ~~ 7 x2 = 14
Wizard 3d4+4 ~~ 11.5
Thaumaturge 2d4+4 +5 ~~ 14
So the winner on most damage typical (barring crits) is probably the Ranger with Animal Companion. Thaumaturge makes a pretty good showing though. Also to note, these enemies didn't have any inherent weaknesses, so I am only getting the Personal Antithesis weakness damage.
My typical rounds are more defensive than offensive. Because that is how I built my Thaumaturge to be. I'm using Exploit Vulnerability if I don't already have a target - which is common since we tend to focus fire enemies down. Then often stride, strike or reload, strike depending on which weapon I am using at the time.
There was one round in that combat that I didn't even make any attacks at all. The cleric had dropped and the party had dropped my active EV target. So that round was: ◆ Root to Life, ◆ Exploit Vulnerability, ◆ Stride. But that is less common. I can usually fit in at least one Strike action. I did also have a round that was: ◆Tumble Through, ◆Strike, ◆Strike. (The last enemy was trying to run away. I wanted to prevent that.)
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So Thaumaturge sort of competes for a role like the rogue? Damage dealing, versatile class.
Kind of. You're less explicitly skillful than a rogue, the one thing you're especially decent at is Recall Knowledge, but your selection of implements can change the calculus a bit (Regalia comes with natural bonuses to diplo, tome gives you extra skills) so you can lean into skill based stuff if you want.
You have a smattering of miscellaneous utility, like the ability to pick up free daily talismans or scrolls, and at the same time you do pretty good damage (most of the time).
Though being a cha-based martial with a base 8 hp you're also one of the squishier characters in the game.
One odd quirk of the class is that it thrives the most in medium/low information structures. Because you exploit weaknesses as a damage gimmick, the rarer and more esoteric the weakness the better, while common weaknesses or weaknesses that are heavily telegraphed so the party can prepare for it can render your damage gimmick meaningless.
Since your combat mechanic is (usually) per target you can also feel kind of bad at swapping between enemies, too. Usually manageable, but it can kind of add up and you don't get any action compression on your attacks like rangers.
Hmmm. Doesn't sound particularly strong like I heard. Seems more a class about versatility with some single target striking ability.
I mean, versatility is strong in this system. Rogue is probably the second strongest class in the game and the versatility of a rogue is entirely skill-based.
Hmmm. Doesn't sound particularly strong like I heard.
I fully expect that compared to what you are used to with your gaming group, nothing published by Paizo for PF2 ever will be.
I'm not meaning to bash the play style. Just trying to manage expectations. Powergaming is not the target any more.
I mean, versatility is strong in this system. Rogue is probably the second strongest class in the game and the versatility of a rogue is entirely skill-based.
Doesn't hurt that rogue can put out a lot of damage too.
Hmmm. Doesn't sound particularly strong like I heard.I fully expect that compared to what you are used to with your gaming group, nothing published by Paizo for PF2 ever will be.
I'm not meaning to bash the play style. Just trying to manage expectations. Powergaming is not the target any more.
Buddy, I'm talking PF2 strong. The fighter, rogue, champion, barb, druid, bard, magus, and most higher level casters are strong.
I've been playing PF2 for 3 plus years now or whenever it came out. I know how to make PF2 shine.
We're powergaming in PF2 just fine. Plenty of really strong options.
But a few trap options like the swash and ranger.
I'm wondering whether the Thaum shines at higher level. Some I've read describe it on the upper echelon of the PF2 power scale, but I'm not completely convinced.
I know a while back Super Bidi was describing it as extremely strong. He generally knows how to optimize a class. I'm going over some builds and not seeing it. Seems a convoluted, action intensive playstyle for some decent single target damage if the target has a weakness to exploit. You can get a lot of those big, bad weaknesses on other characters that combine with the big hammer abilities.
It kind of seems like a middle of the road damage dealer, somewhere beneath the rogue and maybe ranger level damage? So lower to middle martial damage.
I mean, versatility is strong in this system. Rogue is probably the second strongest class in the game and the versatility of a rogue is entirely skill-based.
What is the "Strongest" Class then if it isn't Rogue?