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After making each of the Playtest Martials without touching the Casters which my group did touch I came to the weird feeling that Dexterity is becoming the forced secondary stat of literally everyone with the exception of an Solarian who doesn't want to use Solar Flare/Solar Shot. You need AC to survive as any class using Light or Medium armor which the Casters fall into but you need Dex to hit with any gun which 3 of the Martials use despite 1 of them being the heavy armor, big gun class, I feel like this makes the other stats more imbalanced.
Does anyone else feel this way about how Dex is pretty much in every build you do with few exceptions and when those exceptions come up it feels worse to use Str since enemies can fly at low levels? This needs to bew fixed but I have no way to do this outside of a ranged brutal thrown weapon....Am I the only one who is suffering from
"EVERYTHING MUST USE DEX OR ELSE SUFFER!"
Casters needing dex is nothing new, but I feel like soldiers should at least be able to substitute strength for dex when wielding a two-handed gun or something. Hell, just make strength their key stat and give them intimidating prowess for free; it'd clean up a lot of the class's jank.
That's like the problem I am running into with the two system using the core rules. Con helps you to survive but not everyone is expected to use a bow in Pathfinder while in Starfinder everyon3e is expected to use a gun or other ranged weapon which change the dynamic of which I have been building characters. It is hard to justify not having Dex when the scenarios give us flying enemies as early as level 1 which is another reason it seems to focus upon this.
If Soldier and Envoy could attack using their KAS over needing Dex then this problem would feel less like a requirement.
I mean, you could build a funny melee envoy if you wanted to. Lead from the Front gives you medium armor, so dex is less of a must. Get a fly speed and you can wrassle anything.
But yeah, I feel like choice of dex or strength would be much better than locking each martial class into a specific stat. Make a weapon trait that makes you aim with strength instead of dex for the heavies; it's much cleaner than whatever the hell else is going on.
On literally every single Starfinder class I've playtested, Dexterity was the other attribute I was consistently boosting besides my key attribute every time. I can understand this being the case on casters and the Envoy due to the importance of AC (and the Envoy's gunshots), as well as the Operative of course due to it being their key attribute, but it really did not feel right on the Solarian or Soldier, despite being essential in practice. The Soldier needs Dex for Primary Target, of course, but the Solarian needs it too for Solar Shot and a backup gun, as they will run into encounters where enemies will be out of melee reach. Going into those encounters with 0 Dex will leave you feeling almost entirely ineffective, as your shots will frequently miss.
While I think it makes sense for Dex to be a more generally important stat in a game where ranged combat is more prevalent, I still believe something ought to be done for the Solarian and Soldier, neither of which I think ought to have the stat in high amounts unless they're specifically opting into a build that relies on Dex skills or certain types of gun. The Solarian I think shouldn't be made to rely on ranged attacks at all, and ought to just have the ability to close gaps and enter melee range no matter the enemy, whereas the Soldier I think needs to have Primary Target's Strikes use Con for the attack roll instead of Dex (that, or have all of the Soldier's two-handed Strikes use Dex for the attack roll).
I mean, in Pathfinder everybody wants at least +3 dex unless they're a heavy armor user, since "not optimizing your AC" is a poor choice. So this is doubly true when the assumption is "ranged combat."
But I mean, that means you put three stat-ups into dexterity over your career, you have three opportunities to do this at character creation (plus your KAS) and one additional one at level 5 so this isn't a huge ask.
I do think Pathfinder gives more wiggle room to take less Dex. As a medium armor user you can easily just start out with a +1 Dex mod and do okay for AC, while having decent Dex saves over time. It's specifically that in Starfinder you will almost certainly be making ranged Strikes and not many melee Strikes, so Dex becomes even more important, whereas Strength becomes much less useful in this game unless you're a Solarian or some specific other build, like some Soldier fighting styles currently.
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Just because PCs can fly at first level because Stafrinder has more opponents who have ranged attacks, doesn't mean there are going to be lots of encounters against a single or groups of all flying creatures with ranged attacks at low levels.
I'd be more concerned if the developers had said that SF2e was going to have a flying ranged meta. Starfinder needs a ranged meta to allow for more diverse PC species and allowing flying for PCs at 1st level helps that, but that doesn't mean there needs to be more encounters against flying ranged opponents. I also think that using severe and extreme flying ranged-only encounters should be used really and causally, if at all, especially if the party isn't all using characters with primary ranged attacks.
In general, I think Dex has always been one of the best Ability stats to have, It's great for attacks, defense, and saving throws. Despite that, I don't always go for Dex. I tend to optimize more for having lots of skill options than having powerful attacks. Weapons with the professional trait can help with characters like that
In SF1e the way around having a 10 Dex and Str and still being effective in combat is to use grenades because they always do at least 1/2 damage. Grenades in SF2e are better in several ways, but because a Crit save negates all damage they are less relatable. I don't like that some high CR creatures are basically immune to them if they have a high enough saving throw bonus.
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If you're a caster, Dex is not the only way to make ranged attacks.
If you're a SF1 (1!) martial, Dex is not the only way to make ranged attacks. Thrown weapons used Strength and had respectable damage from level 1 onward.
In PF2, Thaumaturges can get away with chunky armor by using a Wand implement to have a ranged plan.
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In SF2, Reflex saves are probably going to be a bit more important, because there's more guns that do area/reflex damage. And guns use Dex to hit. So yeah, SF2 is currently leaning really heavily towards Dex, especially for martials.
I do think Pathfinder gives more wiggle room to take less Dex. As a medium armor user you can easily just start out with a +1 Dex mod and do okay for AC, while having decent Dex saves over time.
My experience is that while some people will start with medium armor since they can't afford more than a few stat-ups for dex, but since you increase stats 4 at a time you will eventually switch to light armor since your 4 stat boosts likely go to your KAS and the 3 save-relevant stats. So once you have +4 dex, you might as well wear light armor.
I do think Pathfinder gives more wiggle room to take less Dex. As a medium armor user you can easily just start out with a +1 Dex mod and do okay for AC, while having decent Dex saves over time.My experience is that while some people will start with medium armor since they can't afford more than a few stat-ups for dex, but since you increase stats 4 at a time you will eventually switch to light armor since your 4 stat boosts likely go to your KAS and the 3 save-relevant stats. So once you have +4 dex, you might as well wear light armor.
I had to fight the urge to exclusively do this with characters. I tend to build KAS, Dex, Con & Wis. If KAS is one of the 3 saves then I have a free stat in Cha. I value the defensive stats very high...
I mean, in Pathfinder everybody wants at least +3 dex unless they're a heavy armor user, since "not optimizing your AC" is a poor choice. So this is doubly true when the assumption is "ranged combat."
I could look at all my non-Dex based character and I'm pretty sure neither of them has a Dex higher than +1 or +2 because medium armor allows me to ignore its existance for the most part. I feel people often exaggerate how important Dex is in PF2e because I never felt hampered by semi-dumping Dex consistently with most of my characters.
A classic alternative to Dexterity is a caster Dedication to grab a few cantrips. So either Int, Cha or Wis. As there are no Dedications in SF2 so far, I think it pushes towards Dex more than it should.
Casters honestly don't really need Dex. Con works better to increase their survivability, and Armor Proficiency is not exactly hard to grab. So it's a level 1-2 issue at most.
I also feel that grabbing armor is more visually accepted in Starfinder than in Pathfinder: Wizards are supposed to wear robes when space wizards can wear anything they want.
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I also feel that grabbing armor is more visually accepted in Starfinder than in Pathfinder: Wizards are supposed to wear robes when space wizards can wear anything they want.
Cue a Witchwarper in a giant hotdog suit with a placard advertising the 'Wiener Wizard'.
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I also feel that grabbing armor is more visually accepted in Starfinder than in Pathfinder: Wizards are supposed to wear robes when space wizards can wear anything they want.Cue a Witchwarper in a giant hotdog suit with a placard advertising the 'Wiener Wizard'.
"Der Wiener Wizard, the fun since Sixty-One!"
...I could not resist.
...Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a background eventually symbolizing 'Worked a job in a silly Mascot costume at a food/entertainment/amusement place'. I bet Golarion World has a couple employees like that.
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I also feel that grabbing armor is more visually accepted in Starfinder than in Pathfinder: Wizards are supposed to wear robes when space wizards can wear anything they want.Cue a Witchwarper in a giant hotdog suit with a placard advertising the 'Wiener Wizard'."Der Wiener Wizard, the fun since Sixty-One!"
...I could not resist.
...Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a background eventually symbolizing 'Worked a job in a silly Mascot costume at a food/entertainment/amusement place'. I bet Golarion World has a couple employees like that.
Mascot costume power armor needs to be a thing.
Chiitan deploying a chain sword and rotary laser.
I'm still in the camp of boy PF and SF switching to the stat spread suggested in the GM guide (I haven't checked if it is in GM core)
That spread being:
Physique/Body(combined str+con)
Dexterity
Agility
Intelligence
Wisdom
Charisma
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(this comment is totally unrelated to the topic)
I wouldn't be surprised an hyphotetical PF3e (so an hyphotetical SF3e?) would probably move away even more from their D&D roots and change the attribute's names, though certainly not with the GMG variant. Most of the problems with the current stat array is that Constitution doesn't do anything besides boosting HP, so it kinda makes sense to mix it with Strength which is the most similar attribute. However, splitting Dex into Dex and Agility creates exactly the same problem again and for literally no reason whatsoever. A distribution of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma would be perfectly fine, though I would probably merge Intelligence and Wisdom too since Intelligence do have some overlap too (both in mechanics and flavor) and, at least in PF2e, Intelligence has also lost some of the things that used to make it unique.
The names I would personally use would be Agility (Dexterity), Insight (Intelligence, Wisdom), Might (Strength, Constitution), and Presence (Charisma).
(this comment is totally unrelated to the topic)
I wouldn't be surprised an hyphotetical PF3e (so an hyphotetical SF3e?) would probably move away even more from their D&D roots and change the attribute's names, though certainly not with the GMG variant. Most of the problems with the current stat array is that Constitution doesn't do anything besides boosting HP, so it kinda makes sense to mix it with Strength which is the most similar attribute. However, splitting Dex into Dex and Agility creates exactly the same problem again and for literally no reason whatsoever. A distribution of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma would be perfectly fine, though I would probably merge Intelligence and Wisdom too since Intelligence do have some overlap too (both in mechanics and flavor) and, at least in PF2e, Intelligence has also lost some of the things that used to make it unique.
The names I would personally use would be Agility (Dexterity), Insight (Intelligence, Wisdom), Might (Strength, Constitution), and Presence (Charisma).
I really do think dexterity improving to hit on finesse and ranged weapons, AC, stealth, thievery, acrobatics, reflex saves and can still be consistently used for initiative is far too much. Wisdom similarly does a lot too now since it is the main initiative stat. Wisdom does spells, will saves, perception/initiative, medicine, religion and nature. Which is still less than dex. Combining wisdom and intelligence might be fine, but it would end up doing a huge amount. I would say clerics should probably use charisma because the origin of the word is some akin to divine favor and I think it fits, but idk. Agility would likely do stuff like reflex saves, AC and acrobatics. Where as dex might do stealth, to hit rolls and thievery
There's a real chance for PF3 they go with the alternate stat variant in the GMG, where Strength and Constitution merge and Dex gets split into two- one for ranged/finesse combat and legerdemain; one for reflex, acrobatics, and sneaking.
I mean, in PF2e you can use any stat for initiative and even when Dex is fairly common due to Stealth it still isn't Perception, so that one doesn't really count IMO. In regards to your other points, Dex only really matters in AC if you use light armor, because heavy armor users can dump Dex and medium armor uses can leave it at +1 and forget it exists. Reflex is also considered the weakest save because failing a Reflex save only means taking more damage, while Fortitude and Will can be way more harmful in that regard. Also, I don't know if this is common in most tables but at least in Paizo's APs all instances in which you can make a Thievery check they also suggest you to make an Athletics check instead, and while Stealth can be useful I don't think its a must have either since I play with people that never take Stealth and its not like we suffer from that or anything. I'd honestly argue that in PF2e Strength and Dexterity are pretty much on equal footing, so if they were to split it up in a future edition I (and certainly a lot of other people) would hate it.
I mean, in PF2e you can use any stat for initiative and even when Dex is fairly common due to Stealth it still isn't Perception, so that one doesn't really count IMO. In regards to your other points, Dex only really matters in AC if you use light armor, because heavy armor users can dump Dex and medium armor uses can leave it at +1 and forget it exists. Reflex is also considered the weakest save because failing a Reflex save only means taking more damage, while Fortitude and Will can be way more harmful in that regard. Also, I don't know if this is common in most tables but at least in Paizo's APs all instances in which you can make a Thievery check they also suggest you to make an Athletics check instead, and while Stealth can be useful I don't think its a must have either since I play with people that never take Stealth and its not like we suffer from that or anything. I'd honestly argue that in PF2e Strength and Dexterity are pretty much on equal footing, so if they were to split it up in a future edition I (and certainly a lot of other people) would hate it.
PF2E definitely helped the balance but splitting dex would allow dex to damage to come back for more than just one kind of rogue. Also reflex saves are useful for more than just taking less damage. Grease at level 1 immediately comes to mind as a kind of non damage effect that dexterity would help you avoid
Yeah, the alternate stat variant gives you your Finesse stat to damage with a Finesse weapon. The two main animating principles here are:
- Con is vestigial as it's purely reactive and adds to no skills.
- Dex does more different things than any other stat.
I think you aren't taking into account that, if Strength is already a much stronger attribute than it used to be in older editions and is on pretty much equal footing with Dexterity, in this hyphotetical scenario Strength also includes Constitution which is the ultimate "I must not dump this" attribute of them all.
In this hyphotetical scenario, a non-heavy armor user would want to have some Dex much like how Dex characters want some Str to deal damage in melee and have HP (not to mention that I find having each physical attribute dedicated to each of the "armors" in the system, AC and HP, is also simple and easy). This system wouldn't need a thief-equivalent option to have Dex to damage because the thief would want to have HP anyways so they are going to take boosts into Strength anyways. I remember I used to play mostly Dex-based characters in PF1e because even when it was a hassle to get Dex to damage the benefits were just incredible. In contrast, in PF2e I barely have the need to play Dex-based characters because not having Dex isn't a dealbreaker anymore and I certainly haven't suffered from it nor I found myself in situations in which I said "wow, I wish I had taken a Dex boost earlier" because Strenght now offers stuff that Dex doesn't.
Not to mention that some of these changes aren't made as much as for balance but for simplifying stuff to make it more palatable for newcomers. Mixing Strength and Constitution but then splitting Dex into two different attributes pretty much leaves you in the same place you were before but with different problems that didnt' exist before, plus just the fact that changing sacred cows like stats is usually something that is frowned upon (look how when alignment was removed there were a ton of post of people arguing about it when alignment doesn't even play a big role in PF2e anymore).
If Paizo wants to change stuff to lessen their ties with D&D they have to change stuff for the better, and if I in the 2 or so years I been active in online discussions about PF2e I haven't seen a single "Dex is too strong" posts neither here or in the subreddit. But anyways, I feel this discussion is a little pointless because SF2e isn't going to change attributes and talking about it here is probably way too off-topic for a place that supposed to give feedback about SF2e.
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It's sort of been an interesting trend with this playtest to see people discovering old quirks of PF2's engine all over again, between concerns about attribute balancing and threads about boring attack routines feels like PF2 year one all over again.
I think you aren't taking into account that, if Strength is already a much stronger attribute than it used to be in older editions and is on pretty much equal footing with Dexterity
People aren't taking that into account because it's simply incorrect.
There is a certain subset of characters who can use their Strength to reduce their reliance on Dexterity, but that is not really the same as the two stats being equally as important on their own. Like, the simple fact that the only characters who get to not worry about Dex are the ones who have invested into reducing their reliance on the attribute, while whole swaths of character archetypes care minimally, if at all, about Strength kind of undermines the whole premise from the get go.
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I never said Dex is a dump stat, but I as I said I consistently leave Dex at +1 and use medium armor and I never suffered from it.
People aren't taking that into account because it's simply incorrect.
I mean, I really won't write an answer for what you said here because your answer is leaving out half of my original comment out for whatever reason.
There seems to be a lot of suggestions for how to reimplement attributes in 3e, including using variant rules that haven’t worked in 2e and didn’t make it to the remaster, yet nobody seems to be asking whether we even need attributes to exist in a new edition to begin with.
Ability scores exist in 2e because they’re one of those sacred cows from 1e and its D&D roots, but they serve no functional purpose that isn’t already achieved by proficiencies or, in some rare cases, feats. As this thread indicates, they don’t lead to very interesting choices when most classes have the same optimal combination of attribute boosts laid out for them, and as those Piloting threads show, along with the ones around the Solarian and Soldier’s key attributes, they force certain mechanics to be tied to one of six scores in ways that are not always very thematic or conducive to interesting mechanics. My stance is that we could easily do away with attributes in 3e, and both Pathfinder and Starfinder would be only the better for it.
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There seems to be a lot of suggestions for how to reimplement attributes in 3e, including using variant rules that haven’t worked in 2e and didn’t make it to the remaster, yet nobody seems to be asking whether we even need attributes to exist in a new edition to begin with.
Ability scores exist in 2e because they’re one of those sacred cows from 1e and its D&D roots, but they serve no functional purpose that isn’t already achieved by proficiencies or, in some rare cases, feats. As this thread indicates, they don’t lead to very interesting choices when most classes have the same optimal combination of attribute boosts laid out for them, and as those Piloting threads show, along with the ones around the Solarian and Soldier’s key attributes, they force certain mechanics to be tied to one of six scores in ways that are not always very thematic or conducive to interesting mechanics. My stance is that we could easily do away with attributes in 3e, and both Pathfinder and Starfinder would be only the better for it.
I think Ability scores are more important for Starfinder than Pathfinder. Species in Starfinder get much stranger than in Pathfinder and you need some way to make them different. I guess it would come down to is it more efficient to list Ability score differences or list all proficiencies and feats each species has advantages or disadvantages in. Starfinder species also need more features up front than Pathfinder, getting rid of ability scores takes away more differences that are built in from level one. At least for me having strange and unique species is more important than classes. Starfinder has 140 playable species at some point it gets hard to make lots of differences with only 6 Ability scores. I'm not tied down to one system so whatever happens in 3e I hope it leads to more ways to show differences in between species at 1st level.
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I don't see PF3e removing ability scores for multiple reasons. The first one being that even if proficiency tiers kind of have a similar purpose, people like having a numerical way to represent their capabilites in gameplay terms. Even if practically 99% of fighters are going to have a +9 to attack at first level people want to have that +4 in Stregth or Dexterity because thats an easy way to represent that your character is physically stronger or more agile than other people, even other PCs. The second would be that something would need to be introduced so not everyone would be equally as good as everything at 1st level, because even expert becomes more common at 1st level I don't think people would like that the only difference between someone good and someone that is really good in something is just a +2. For example, anyone in the current system can become trained in a skill in which its attribute is one of their dumpstats, but if other player becomes trained in that same skill but they have at least a +1 or +2 in the attribute that governs that skill they are going to be better than the first character. In a system without attributes both are going to have the exact same modifier.
I think Ability scores are more important for Starfinder than Pathfinder. Species in Starfinder get much stranger than in Pathfinder and you need some way to make them different. I guess it would come down to is it more efficient to list Ability score differences or list all proficiencies and feats each species has advantages or disadvantages in. Starfinder species also need more features up front than Pathfinder, getting rid of ability scores takes away more differences that are built in from level one. At least for me having strange and unique species is more important than classes. Starfinder has 140 playable species at some point it gets hard to make lots of differences with only 6 Ability scores. I'm not tied down to one system so whatever happens in 3e I hope it leads to more ways to show differences in between species at 1st level.
If you want ancestries to feel radically different from one another, attributes are probably the least interesting way of going about that. As Perpdedog mentions, you’d get way more mileage out of different senses, means of locomotion, and other ancestral abilities, and the less page space you spend on hyper-general stats that everyone has, the more space you could dedicate to truly unique effects.
I don't see PF3e removing ability scores for multiple reasons. The first one being that even if proficiency tiers kind of have a similar purpose, people like having a numerical way to represent their capabilites in gameplay terms. Even if practically 99% of fighters are going to have a +9 to attack at first level people want to have that +4 in Stregth or Dexterity because thats an easy way to represent that your character is physically stronger or more agile than other people, even other PCs. The second would be that something would need to be introduced so not everyone would be equally as good as everything at 1st level, because even expert becomes more common at 1st level I don't think people would like that the only difference between someone good and someone that is really good in something is just a +2. For example, anyone in the current system can become trained in a skill in which its attribute is one of their dumpstats, but if other player becomes trained in that same skill but they have at least a +1 or +2 in the attribute that governs that skill they are going to be better than the first character. In a system without attributes both are going to have the exact same modifier.
Proficiencies are how characters have been representing their capabilities in fine-grained mechanical terms since AD&D introduced skills, and as mentioned already, this is very much the case in 2e. A level 20 character with a a +7 in Charisma will still not be good at social skills if they’re untrained in them, so even if attributes are factored into the math, the bigger part of the modifier comes from proficiencies.
The above also assumes literally every other aspect of 2e would remain unchanged in 3e, right down to the numerical values of proficiency ranks, which to me is a strange assumption to make. If current proficiency ranks don’t add a big enough difference on their own (and I’d argue they do), then you could easily have each rank add a +3 or a +4 instead, or have characters reach higher ranks more easily early on. This is literally just a matter of refactoring numbers, which is something that is neither unique to attributes nor something they’re especially good for.
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I also hope they won't remove ability scores, they are a nice way to see what your character is. Because "My character is good at Diplomacy and Athletics" doesn't paint anything like "My character has high Charisma and above average Strength" does.
A level 20 character with a a +7 in Charisma will still not be good at social skills if they’re untrained in them, so even if attributes are factored into the math, the bigger part of the modifier comes from proficiencies.
Does it?
Adding your level to a check is trivial, so we have +8 between Legendary and Untrained Improvisation and +8 between 24 and 8 in your attribute. So Attributes contribute as much as Proficiency to the overall success of your actions. Which is a rather good balance to me.The only gripe I have about attributes are saves. 4e saves were giving much more freedom in character building, I don't see why being both Intelligent and Charismatic is supposed to be a big flaw.
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Does it?
Adding your level to a check is trivial, so we have +8 between Legendary and Untrained Improvisation and +8 between 24 and 8 in your attribute. So Attributes contribute as much as Proficiency to the overall success of your actions. Which is a rather good balance to me.
Adding your level to a check only happens if you're trained or have the relevant feat that partially mimics proficiency, so it's a +7 versus a +28 that you're comparing here. You can dump your ability score and still be competent in a skill if you're legendary, but that +7 to your ability mod won't help you much if you're untrained. Even when you add Untrained Improvisation into the mix just to favor your point as much as possible, the +7 you get from maxing out your key attribute is still less than the +8 from being legendary. Your character having high Charisma is meaningless if they're untrained in Charisma skills, and your high Strength character will suck at Athletics checks if they're untrained in the skill, just as they'll suck at Strength-based attack rolls they're untrained in. Nothing happens without proficiency outside of very low levels, which is why attributes are entirely redundant relative to other mechanics that achieve a similar purpose.
I feel like the best way ability scores could work would be if there was no dump stats at all. Like there are 4 ability scores, each boosts its own save and important thing. Now the choice is always something like AC or hp, instead of hp or more skills or AC or more damage with weapons you will never use
Even when its fairly common to give 5e some flack in the PF2e community, I'd say one of the better decisions 5e made was to remove the Fortitude / Reflex / Will saves after what they did in 4e to simplify it even more into just using your stats as your saving throws. The problem is that in practice most effects in 5e still call for Con, Dex, and Wis saves most of the time so being proficient in Str, Int, or Cha saves feels really bad. In a system with 4 or so stats it would be much easier to balance that, more so when most of the stats that normally don't require saves would likely be merged into those who normally do.
You can dump your ability score and still be competent in a skill if you're legendary, but that +7 to your ability mod won't help you much if you're untrained..
Both you and SuperBidi are right here. Yes, if you are at least trained in something your stat doesn't contribute much to your overall modifier in the high levels, but its also really easy to add your level to stuff even if untrained so your stat is always important in the overall result. Not to mention that it IMO makes perfect sense for someone to become legendary in, for example, Medicine even if Wisdom is your dump stat. A low Wisdom usually is represented by a lack of awareness or common sense, but that doesn't mean that such a person wouldn't be able to be a fantastic medic. I also know a ton of people who are shy but when playing a TTRPG by putting themselves in the shoes of their characters they are perfectly capable of being the face of the party. This people, in gameplay terms, likely have a low Charisma but are trained or better in Performance or other Charisma-based skills. I'm all for simplification in TTRPGs (to a certain extent ofc) because that makes the hobby more approachable for newcommers, but I feel the granularity between someone that is good with a thing and has a high attribute to support it, bad at something even if they have a high attribute to support it, or good at something even if they have a low attribute to support it is something that has to stay.
One of the better things that alignment had was that it just required two words to give an overall description of your character in a short, summarized way. Attributes in that regard have a similar role and purpose, thugh unlike alignemnt people seem to have a more general agreement on which each attribute is meant to represent. Like SuperBidi said, if someone says their character has "high Strength, low Wisdom" its very easy to picture how that character likely looks and acts from that alone, while a character with "high Athletics, low Nature" could mean that character spent most of its life in the city and not that they are unaware or lacks common sense.
I'd argue this whole discussion could be summarized as "nature vs. nurture". Someone with a high attribute is naturaly better at something, while someone with a high modifier in a skill trained to acheive its status.
Who doesn't get untrained improv unless your fine being terrible at most things?
Otherwise, a +7 stat and +8 skill level are pretty close. Raw capability vs training, they both matter to be the best.
Attributes are what you are, a huge part of your identity.
Having the basic way most people defend themselves be ranged combat does stress some parts of the system. It means Dex is the most valuable offensive stat, especially for enemies. Class mechanics can help a lot with this issue. It also makes the problems with medium armor worse.
STR just needs more things that support it, like heavy weapons requiring or gaining bonuses from strength, just make sure they are worth it. Shields that require strength.
Easier access to heavy armor or buffs to medium armor.
Having gear that can justify the opportunity cost of having or focusing on STR is an easy fix I think. Someone must make tech to keep big or strong individuals viable in combat, especially the Vesk.
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Both you and SuperBidi are right here. Yes, if you are at least trained in something your stat doesn't contribute much to your overall modifier in the high levels, but its also really easy to add your level to stuff even if untrained so your stat is always important in the overall result. Not to mention that it IMO makes perfect sense for someone to become legendary in, for example, Medicine even if Wisdom is your dump stat.
To be clear, the point isn't that attributes don't make a numerical difference in 2e -- they make a huge numerical difference, because they're factored into the math, and the difference between a -1 and a +7 attribute modifier is tremendous. The point is that this numerical increase isn't a property exclusive to attributes -- proficiency ranks are the other major way to represent how good a character is at something -- so in a system with different math, you could easily do everything attributes do just using stuff like proficiency ranks.
A low Wisdom usually is represented by a lack of awareness or common sense, but that doesn't mean that such a person wouldn't be able to be a fantastic medic.
I think this is the other problem with attributes, in fact several problems: for starters, attributes are so broad that you can't use them all that effectively to describe what your character's good at. That they're tied to stuff like saves, attack rolls, and so on also means that characters will boost certain attributes regardless of thematic relevance: a Wizard will want to boost their Dexterity and Constitution, so despite the stereotypical Wizard being a frail elderly man, in practice they end up actually becoming quite nimble and hardy. They'll also be boosting Wisdom as one of their four stats too, so despite the stereotypical Wizard also often lacking the good judgment to determine whether being able to do something with magic means they should, they will in practice also become quite wise.
The other problem here is that what you're describing is an intangible that is expressed in roleplaying terms, not mechanical ones: if a character lacks common sense, is really shy and introverted, or takes a bit more time than most to understand complex concepts, that's something that your player will have the freedom to act out, but there is no "roll for common sense" check in Pathfinder, nor should there be. Characters don't need stats to roleplay these particular elements; at best they act as roleplaying prompts -- and not terribly specific or helpful ones either, much like alignment, especially when they lead to unsavory tropes like low-Intelligence characters being roleplayed as having a learning disability, all for laughs (this especially tends to happen with Barbarians).
Edicts and anathemas are a good example of how more detail makes a difference: "lawful good" describes an entire spectrum of different characters and deities, from Iomedae to Zohls, but "sacrifice yourself in the pursuit of good" is a far more specific edict that informs a character's ideology much more precisely, just as "rebuke someone due to their homeland" is an anathema that itself is far more informative than just a position on a nine-square grid. Proficiencies versus attributes are no different, and I think being able to describe a character's ability to pick locks versus move undetected versus handle a gun through individual proficiencies makes for a much more fine-grained description of a character than just Dexterity as one big stat. When a character is really good at most of those things, let alone all of them, you don't even need a Dexterity stat to know that this character is very nimble and agile, and the same can be said for other stats and the proficiencies through which they're expressed.
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STR just needs more things that support it, like heavy weapons requiring or gaining bonuses from strength, just make sure they are worth it. Shields that require strength.
Even though I don't think Strength is in a bad spot in PF2e, I'm of the opinion that in an hyphotetical PF3e the system could easily ditch armor and weapon categories in favor of simply having characters be proficient in "weapons" rather than "martial" or "simple" weapons, or just "armor" rather than "light and medium" armor and so forth. However, for the sake of not having everyone running in full plates, I think Strength requirements would be the way to go in such a system. Even in PF2e as it is right now I feel each armor type is pretty much balanced against each in a rather nice way. Light armor favors a high Dexterity so Dex-based characters gravitate towards it almost immediately because they likely can't meet the Strength prerequisites of the other types of armor, medium armor which provides a solid middle point between Dex and Str-based characters, and heavy armor which is the "numerically better" option but at the cost of movement and that is exclusively relegated to Str-characters. Weapons, in the other hand, would need to be seriously revised to fit in such a system because in PF2e simple weapons are usually worse than martial weapons in most scenarios and advanced weapons are supposedly better than martial weapons though with a few exceptions I don't think that's the case at all, though mostly because of the feat tax that comes innately with them and not because they are bad themselves.
This is the kind of simplification I would like to see, because in practice if all martials use martial weapons and there's no reason to have simple weapons anymore because casters now can sling magic bolts much better than use a crossbow it allows you to both save page space and smooth the gameplay of both martials and casters. Removing attributes, however, takes away a narrative tool which gives characters that extra characterization which I usually find hard to come by in the more supposed "RP heavy" systems. I could see the removal of attributes if their "flavor" (for lack of a better term) was moved into something else like saving throws. For example, let's say PF3e adopts 5e's attributes as saves system. Even though your Athletics modifier wouldn't be influenced by any attribute in this system, you'd still have a way to tell your character is physically capable because they would have a high Strength save and thus easily resist effects that target it.
Proficiencies versus attributes are no different, and I think being able to describe a character's ability to pick locks versus move undetected versus handle a gun through individual proficiencies makes for a much more fine-grained description of a character than just Dexterity as one big stat.
The same point can be made about classes. Actually, classes imply attributes which themselves imply skills. So an Oracle will be good at Diplomacy.
Removing these constraints is perfectly possible, there are classless games out there, but I'm not sure it would fit the general design of PF2. PF2 strongly encourages coordination through a form of gatekeeping: A Barbarian will have hard time casting spells, and spells cover specific challenges the party needs to win over. But that's not an issue because the Wizard next to them is very good at spells but has hard time facing big monsters.
This coordination through gatekeeping is at the heart of PF2 gamedesign. It's what justifies the party to exist and it gives every character a moment to shine.
You may prefer different systems and different gameplays, but I don't see neither attribute nor classes disappear. And if you remove attributes then classes will just force skills on the character to still encourage Barbarians and Wizards to cooperate. So attributes will just be moved one step higher, in my opinion.
As a side note, I do think you have quite some freedom when building a character in PF2. I agree with you about the save issue, that's why I advocate D&D4 saves or even attribute agnostic saves so you'll be able to express whatever you want when it comes to attributes. But still, even in this quite constrained system, you can build characters that are extremely different. The system modularity is super high.
The same point can be made about classes. Actually, classes imply attributes which themselves imply skills. So an Oracle will be good at Diplomacy.
But they won’t be, not unless they’re proficient in Diplomacy. That’s the point. Not sure why we’re talking about classless games or lack of niche protection when 2e’s niche protection is enforced through proficiencies, which follow a standard progression that highly depends on what kind of class you’re playing. It is proficiencies, not attributes, that form the basis of 2e’s modularity and gating of effectiveness at things like attacks, defense through AC and saving throws, spells via DCs, and so on. That’s why Fighters stand out for having legendary attack proficiency, and why casters are generally not allowed to get more than expert proficiency in Strikes. Attributes have nothing to really do with this, and all of this would hold true in a game where attributes didn’t exist.
Proficiencies do not make up the basis for modularity, as you have very little say in what the most important ones (attacks, spells, saves, and perception) are other than picking a different class or investing a lot into an architype. Modularity comes from attributes (and skill proficiencies), which you do have choices over.
That is not what modularity means. Modularity is about breaking up a complex system into components that are easy to isolate, i.e. modules. Attributes are by nature not modular due to how they insert themselves into lots of different things, but proficiencies are modular due to how they each cover a very specific range of mechanics despite relying on a common framework.
If we're going to talk about choice, though, proficiencies still win: although your attack proficiencies and saves are fixed, your skill proficiencies are largely up to you, and it is those proficiencies that give the player freedom to determine exactly what their character is good at outside of the essentials of their class. By contrast, attributes aren't a good source of choice, because on top of your key attribute, which you'll get punished for not increasing, you'll also generally want to boost the same stats regardless of class, namely Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom. Some classes let you change this slightly, usually classes with heavy armor proficiency that let you opt into Strength instead of Dex, and others will have Dex/Con/Wis as a key attribute and let you pick a fourth more freely, but those are the exception and not the rule, and even then, there are still some picks that are more desirable than others (you'll often want Strength just for melee damage rolls in Pathfinder, for instance, or Dexterity for ranged attack rolls in Starfinder). The system of proficiencies therefore enables more choice through skills than attributes.
There seems to be a lot of suggestions for how to reimplement attributes in 3e, including using variant rules that haven’t worked in 2e and didn’t make it to the remaster, yet nobody seems to be asking whether we even need attributes to exist in a new edition to begin with.
Ability scores exist in 2e because they’re one of those sacred cows from 1e and its D&D roots, but they serve no functional purpose that isn’t already achieved by proficiencies or, in some rare cases, feats. As this thread indicates, they don’t lead to very interesting choices when most classes have the same optimal combination of attribute boosts laid out for them, and as those Piloting threads show, along with the ones around the Solarian and Soldier’s key attributes, they force certain mechanics to be tied to one of six scores in ways that are not always very thematic or conducive to interesting mechanics. My stance is that we could easily do away with attributes in 3e, and both Pathfinder and Starfinder would be only the better for it.
Attributes add granularity, but I wouldn't be opposed to a hypothetical system that only has proficiencies, but then we might just have attributes by another name
I'd say proficiencies are already "attributes by another name", and the more fine-grained version of them too. If we go through the history of games that led to Pathfinder, D&D and AD&D originally just had ability scores that determined most things you could do, and characters were expressed in very broad terms. It's only with the release of an AD&D supplement called Player's Option: Skills & Powers that we started seeing the precursors to what would then become skills and feats in D&D 3e, with options to purchase powers and specialize in specific skills. From then on, character customization became much more precise, as players became able to focus on much more specific aspects of their character than ability scores allowed, and that degree of precision has remained with PF1e and now 2e.
Ability scores have also remained, because they're a major marketable feature for D&D and were part of the OGL-covered material that PF2e originally drew from, but I would argue they're vestigial design at this stage for Pathfinder: they're certainly recognizable in the same sense that alignment is a recognizable feature in tabletop games, but that doesn't make them automatically a worthy addition to a game's design unless that's what your brand is based on, which I'd argue is true for D&D but not so much for Pathfinder, given how Paizo's been distancing themselves from D&D-isms since the OGL controversy. Even before then, 2e made sure to envelop everything ability scores did within the wrapper of proficiencies, with only very few exceptions (Hit Points and Bulk limits are the only two aspects of ability scores that don't use proficiency IIRC), and I can't imagine the developers making proficiency less important than attributes in future editions given how well that's worked for 2e's design.
In more practical terms, doing away with attributes would also avoid certain design problems we're dealing with now in 2e: Dex being the god stat every class has to be designed around in Starfinder is one example, and if it came down to just proficiencies the Soldier wouldn't need most of their features spent on re-keying all of their bonuses to Constitution (while still needing to pick Dex for Primary Target), nor would the Solarian struggle with needing to boost Dex just to make their Solar Shot not suck. In Pathfinder, doing away with attributes would avoid the awkwardness of the Magus dumping Int and performing extremely well, and more broadly we wouldn't have the problem of certain classes being inherently MAD, because their dependencies would be on proficiencies that are much easier to allocate exactly as needed. There's a lot of content in 2e that's designed just to make up for the fact that attributes are quite rote and restrictive in practice, and much less to work around proficiencies, so my guess is that in 3e, the latter system is far more likely to survive than the former.