I'm working on a skill feat tier so my players don't have to dig as much when they level up. I've hit a little pothole with magical shorthand, specifically in how it interacts with the activity it modifies.
The learn a spell activity takes 1 hour per spell rank. Magical shorthand modifies the activity in the following way,
"When you succeed at Learning a Spell, it takes 10 minutes regardless of the spell’s rank."
That's pretty narrow language. It doesn't seem like magical shorthand modifies the duration of the activity if you fail the check, so what happens here? Are you forced to commit to the normal duration of the activity if you fail the check? If so, does that not mean you still have to be prepared to spend hours attempting to learn a spell if you fail your check?
I would say no, personally. It helps to consider the pre-remaster version:
"If you’re an expert in a tradition’s associated skill, you take 10 minutes per spell level to learn a spell of that tradition, rather than 1 hour per spell level."
It made hour long increments into 10 minute increments. I think the remastered feat's intent was to further improve upon this, not to create an incredibly janky divide between succeeding and failing at the check.
I think you're correct with a strict RAW reading, but PF2 really isn't meant to be run strict RAW.
I would say no, personally. It helps to consider the pre-remaster version:
"If you’re an expert in a tradition’s associated skill, you take 10 minutes per spell level to learn a spell of that tradition, rather than 1 hour per spell level."
It made hour long increments into 10 minute increments. I think the remastered feat's intent was to further improve upon this, not to create an incredibly janky divide between succeeding and failing at the check.
I think you're correct with a strict RAW reading, but PF2 really isn't meant to be run strict RAW.
My interpretation does result in jank. I think I've read so many skill feats that I'm expecting jank now. The original language helps clarify the intent. Given that, this is a great skill feat.
Edit: Probably.
I would say no, personally. It helps to consider the pre-remaster version:
"If you’re an expert in a tradition’s associated skill, you take 10 minutes per spell level to learn a spell of that tradition, rather than 1 hour per spell level."
It made hour long increments into 10 minute increments. I think the remastered feat's intent was to further improve upon this, not to create an incredibly janky divide between succeeding and failing at the check.
I think you're correct with a strict RAW reading, but PF2 really isn't meant to be run strict RAW.
My interpretation does result in jank. I think I've read so many skill feats that I'm expecting jank now. The original language helps clarify the intent. Given that, this is a great skill feat.
Edit: Probably.
I think on a wizard or witch it is pretty great, yeah. Adding lots of spells to your book/familiar is part of what you need to make the class shine, and this makes it easier and cheaper.
My party recently rules that a cleric can't teach you common spells, though, because they don't "know" the spell but have it granted through prayer. So be aware of that.
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I think on a wizard or witch it is pretty great, yeah.
Especially Primal and Divine Witch where the tradition skill used for learning spells is Wisdom on a class that has Intelligence as key ability. The bonus for learning spells is lower and more likely to fail the check.
My party recently rules that a cleric can't teach you common spells, though, because they don't "know" the spell but have it granted through prayer. So be aware of that.
That's...
You know what... nevermind. Not worth arguing about.
I'm sure the Cleric players are much more concerned about losing the ability to cast from scrolls, wands, and staves than your Witch character is about having to find someone else to learn spells from.
Yes, I know casting from those items only technically requires that the spell be on the spell list - not that the Cleric 'knows' the spell. But this group is already into pretty loose readings of rules territory.
I didn't push the issue since I came in on a party with an arcane evolution sorcerer so could already pilfer some spells, but yes, I'm inclined to agree with you. I certainly didn't anticipate that reading when I built the character. But this group also tended to assume you need to purchase scrolls of every spell you wanted to add to your book, which didnt jive with my assumptions either.
I'm going to be buying some scrolls soon for that purpose and will need to decide if I want just feed them to my familiar to avoid spending additional gold or use Learn a Spell. I lean towards the latter, if only because I have magical shorthand.
If anybody cares, this project is making me a little crazy. Whatever happened to get skill feats in the state they're in must have been too complicated to reckon with at the time.
Eye for Numbers is making it so I can't count things accurately and every time I use divine guidance my bible keeps quoting Stone Cold Steve Austin to me. I think I'm just going to tell my players to pick assurance.
Automatic Knowledge is another Skill Feat that is easy to recommend, especially if Assurance is already being considered.
The need for 2 Skill Feats does really start to eat into one's build budget, but if simplicity and utility are in high demand, I think the Feat is worth mentioning directly.
I am not sure I understand the nature of your project, but Assurance would not be at the top of my list for feats to recommend to new players. Knowing when to use it and when not to requires a pretty sophisticated understanding of DC progressions. I personally like it for Athletics, Survival, and very little else. (Those two skills often rolled against static environmental DCs and face chunky penalties.)
Automatic Knowledge is another Skill Feat that is easy to recommend, especially if Assurance is already being considered.
The need for 2 Skill Feats does really start to eat into one's build budget, but if simplicity and utility are in high demand, I think the Feat is worth mentioning directly.
How do you figure? Automatic Knowledge always felt like a trap to me. Assurance isn't good for hitting DCs your level or higher, and knowledge DCs in particular are rife with increases (as opposed to penalities on the roll a la MAP for Trip.) And once you fail that Automatic check, you can't retry it at your full bonus that could actually succeed.
Anyway, if all you want to do is highlight good feats, then here's a some top tier choices:
Battle Medicine
Continual Recovery
Ward Medic
Quiet Allies
Assurance Athletics
Foil Senses
Swift Sneak
Legendary Sneak
Intimidating Glare
Intimidating Prowess
Battle Cry
Scare to Death
Kip Up
Divine Guidance
Legendary Linguist
Cat Fall
Break Curse
Trick Magic Item
Second tier choices: good for specific builds or campaigns.
Crafter's Eye
Natural Medicine
Additional Lore
Magical Shorthand
Courtly Graces
Streetwise
Forager
Terrain Stalker
Survey Wildlife
Magical Crafting
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But this group also tended to assume you need to purchase scrolls of every spell you wanted to add to your book, which didnt jive with my assumptions either.
I'm going to be buying some scrolls soon for that purpose and will need to decide if I want just feed them to my familiar to avoid spending additional gold or use Learn a Spell. I lean towards the latter, if only because I have magical shorthand.
LOL.
Probably best to double-check that they don't rule that Learn a Spell from a scroll consumes the scroll.
To be clear - it doesn't consume the scroll.
But thinking it does is the only reason that I can imagine for requiring purchase of scrolls to learn spells from.
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But this group also tended to assume you need to purchase scrolls of every spell you wanted to add to your book, which didnt jive with my assumptions either.
I'm going to be buying some scrolls soon for that purpose and will need to decide if I want just feed them to my familiar to avoid spending additional gold or use Learn a Spell. I lean towards the latter, if only because I have magical shorthand.
LOL.
Probably best to double-check that they don't rule that Learn a Spell from a scroll consumes the scroll.
To be clear - it doesn't consume the scroll.
But thinking it does is the only reason that I can imagine for requiring purchase of scrolls to learn spells from.
In defense of a position I don't actually agree with... There's not really clear guidance on how you gain access to a spell book or tutor to learn spells from if you aren't buying scrolls. The learn a spell activity costs are simply materials expanded in the learning, but do not encompass the learning itself. My assumption was magical libraries or schools were common enough to let you gain easy access, but there's nothing formalizing that assumption. It is a bit like how the costs for transferring runes between weapons assume a PC is doing it and make no mention of the additional costs an NPC would charge for their time and labor in addition to the 10% material costs.
These kinds of debates are a big part of why I wished they ditched the material cost to Learn a Spell. I'd rather be charged to access to the spell to begin with and feel excited about finding an enemy spell book instead of dreading additional nickel and diming.
And we are all aware that Learn a Spell does not consume a scroll, though witches can skip the Learn a Spell roll and cost if they feed their familiar the scroll. But using Learn a Spell means you have a scroll leftover you can use in a pinch. So there's a bit of a trade off. I'm planning on buying rank 1 scrolls or summon undead and summon fey. Learning a rank 1 spell will only cost me one gold with magical shorthand, but using a 1st tank, 3 action scroll as a 5th level character seems unlikely. So I might opt to just have my familiar eat it and save the gold. But the rank 2, 2 action final sacrifice scroll is more likely to see a rainy day use.
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I am not sure I understand the nature of your project, but Assurance would not be at the top of my list for feats to recommend to new players. Knowing when to use it and when not to requires a pretty sophisticated understanding of DC progressions. I personally like it for Athletics, Survival, and very little else. (Those two skills often rolled against static environmental DCs and face chunky penalties.)
How do you figure? Automatic Knowledge always felt like a trap to me. Assurance isn't good for hitting DCs your level or higher, and knowledge DCs in particular are rife with increases (as opposed to penalities on the roll a la MAP for Trip.) And once you fail that Automatic check, you can't retry it at your full bonus that could actually succeed.Automatic Knowledge is another Skill Feat that is easy to recommend, especially if Assurance is already being considered.
The need for 2 Skill Feats does really start to eat into one's build budget, but if simplicity and utility are in high demand, I think the Feat is worth mentioning directly.
All right, I finished my evaluation this morning. I can explain myself, and I suppose I should if I'm going to vaguepost about it.
My project was to create a basic evaluation of Pathfinder 2nd Edition's skill feats within a limited scope. I laid out all the common skill feats from the core books and main sourcebooks (so no adventure paths, no lost omens) and did a little feasibility study for each one. I sorted each one into six categories emphasizing the play experience you'd get out of them, with the categories being,
Forager (Forager)
Mandatory (Things that you're definitely taking if you focus on the skill)
Consistent (Great stuff you'll get consistent use out of.)
Situational (Potentially great but with limited use cases.)
Miserable (If you're getting use out of these, the overall game is probably worse for it)
Uncertain (Not totally sure what they do)
I wanted to do this for several reasons.
1. It was personal. I was intrigued by the ocean of terrible skill feats, and I wanted to determine why so many of them were bad as a creative exercise.
2. General improvement as a game master. Having more knowledge of the game would help me create better scenarios for my players.
3. I like having solid options to present to my players and I hate knowing I gave somebody bad advice, which is easy to do when you don't know which way is up in a confusing landscape like this one.
4. I wanted to determine which skills were most lacking in the feats department so I could write some skill feats myself.
My findings were troubling, to say the least. Around 1/3 of the skill feats I evaluated went into the miserable category, and the distribution is not even at all.
Edit: For what it's worth, I measured assurance by whether or not there were fixed difficulties for skill activities present to use it with and whether or not there was anything definite opposing your checks. For skills like medicine, assurance is a consistent friend. For skills like diplomacy? Not as useful, as many difficulty classes for diplomacy are at the GM's discretion. For skills that recall knowledge, it's almost a trap, so assurance is all over the place.
Dubious knowledge makes assurance on a recall knowledge skill pretty good, as long as it doesn't make your GM angry that they have to make up fake information all the time alongside giving you a correct answer.
I picked spell book prodigy on my current human wizard because I have the spell substitution thesis and I really like being able to switch spells up every time my party has to stop to rest. The "turn crit failures into failures is nice" as it basically means that I try to learn every single spell I possibly can, as soon as I gain access to it in some fashion with no real consequence, and has allowed me to have an absurd number of spells to swap around. It would be a nightmare for a newer player or someone who suffers from decision paralysis, but it has been a lot of fun.
My GM does not make the failure take an hour, largely because the times where it really matters that you can learn a spell in 10 minutes, are times where your party is just not going to let your character sit around for hours fumbling around at something. I would not recommend setting any short rest/exploration activity up as something that can balloon out to almost a full days rest if the player fails the check. It is a recipe for making everyone at the table angry and resentful of the feat.
There is the secondary issue of “how do you track the value of learning new spells?” It is more of a theoretical game design issue, or a specific table issue, than a problematic balance issue that can’t easily be resolved by GMs making sure that all the players are having fun and don’t feel unbalanced, but it can become problematic if either the players or the GM are trying to hardline some RAW character balance at the table.
There is GM guidance for handling players making use of consumables vs always selling them and checking in with how much permanent wealth a character has, but the spell book doesn’t fit cleanly in that advice. If you have a player like me, who routinely spends 50% or more of character wealth on scrolls, is the money spent learning those spells supposed to factor in to permanent wealth? How I am supposed to track that? Should a GM be compensating a wizard who has bad luck critically failing learning high rank spells? It isn’t hard to handle it on a character by character basis depending on what feels fun for the table, but it also is pretty common for different players to have different expectations and for some players to try to treat gold like a finite, real world resource, while others want to use the fun stuff they find or buy consumables, which can lead to arguments about how to divide loot. This is an issue that is way bigger than learning spells, but learning spells can play into it.
I am not sure I understand the nature of your project, but Assurance would not be at the top of my list for feats to recommend to new players. Knowing when to use it and when not to requires a pretty sophisticated understanding of DC progressions. I personally like it for Athletics, Survival, and very little else. (Those two skills often rolled against static environmental DCs and face chunky penalties.)
How do you figure? Automatic Knowledge always felt like a trap to me. Assurance isn't good for hitting DCs your level or higher, and knowledge DCs in particular are rife with increases (as opposed to penalities on the roll a la MAP for Trip.) And once you fail that Automatic check, you can't retry it at your full bonus that could actually succeed.Automatic Knowledge is another Skill Feat that is easy to recommend, especially if Assurance is already being considered.
The need for 2 Skill Feats does really start to eat into one's build budget, but if simplicity and utility are in high demand, I think the Feat is worth mentioning directly.
All right, I finished my evaluation this morning. I can explain myself, and I suppose I should if I'm going to vaguepost about it.
My project was to create a basic evaluation of Pathfinder 2nd Edition's skill feats within a limited scope. I laid out all the common skill feats from the core books and main sourcebooks (so no adventure paths, no lost omens) and did a little feasibility study for each one. I sorted each one into six categories emphasizing the play experience you'd get out of them, with the categories being,
Forager (Forager)
Mandatory (Things that you're definitely taking if you focus on the skill)
Consistent (Great stuff you'll get consistent use out of.)
Situational (Potentially great but with limited use cases.)
Miserable (If you're getting use out of these, the overall game is probably worse for it)
Uncertain (Not totally sure what they do)I wanted to do this for...
If you're homebrewing skill feats, you might be interested in what I did during the playtest. Some of them made it into the final rulebook (probably from parallel creativity rather than a dev reading my work) and the published skill feats are much better than they were in the playtest... But yeah, there's a lot of bad ones.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42f3h?Captain-Morgans-Revised-Skill-Feats