I feel that's a bit reductive when classes like the sorcerer and oracle both use the same attribute and feel vastly different from each other, or the wizard, psychic, and witch, or the animist, cleric, and druid. In 5e I would probably be inclined to agree with this statement, but in PF2e where we have multiple classes for each attribute and there really isn't any overlap then I don't know why that would change with less or more attributes.
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Lets say you have a system with 3 core attributes.
One for physical power one for speed and reflexes and one for mental stuff.With that set up all caster types are going to draw off the same mental stat, there will be no differentiation based on core attributes for all the different kinds of casters you want in your game, that is unless you have derived stats that provide that differentiation at which point why not just start with more mental stats that lend the descriptive quality to them.
Yeah, you could make a bad set of attributes and it'd cause a problem, but I don't see why that is being treated as an argument against the whole concept? You could have 3 stats that are all appropriate for both magic and mundane means - for a random example: "heart", "violence", and "finesse". Each one of those could work for a martial character - a selfless protector who defends their allies might be a more heart-based character, an in-your-face martial combatant might be more violence-based, and a technical fighter who fights with control might be more finesse-based. Similarly, you could easily have magical options for each of them - a healer who cares more for protecting allies than hurting enemies might be heart-based, a dangerous stormcaster might be violence-based, and a highly technical magician who controls the enemy via their magic might be finesse-based. At the same time, I feel like those stats all give you good ideas for what that character's narrative might look like, without outwardly dictating anything. If we're moving away from the sacred cow of 6 attributes, we don't have to stick with slightly modified and merged versions of the existing attributes.
As an alternative solution to your final question, if you find there's a problem with 3 core attributes, why do you say we have to start adding more of those mental stats back? Why not remove the attributes entirely and let the casters be differentiated by their own unique mechanics instead of the attribute they're based off of, which is not a very interesting area of differentiation IMO.
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I'll second the notion that attribute systems can be meaningful in different systems when done right: the frequently-used trifecta of might, finesse, and spirit maps well onto both martial classes (Barbarians for might, Rogues for finesse, Champions for spirit) and casters (Sorcerers for might, Wizards for finesse, Clerics for spirit), with plenty of room for hybridization and different distributions of those attributes. The question then becomes how that could fit into a framework like Pathfinder's: some aspects are absolute no-brainers, like mapping those onto the big 3 saves (Fort for might, Ref for finesse, Will for spirit), while others might leave more wiggle room, such as certain skills. I would personally still favor a no-attribute model, as proficiencies very well could just capture that kind of split already, but there are nonetheless interesting alternatives to worth considering.
Lets say you have a system with 3 core attributes.
One for physical power one for speed and reflexes and one for mental stuff.With that set up all caster types are going to draw off the same mental stat, there will be no differentiation based on core attributes for all the different kinds of casters you want in your game, that is unless you have derived stats that provide that differentiation at which point why not just start with more mental stats that lend the descriptive quality to them.
Yeah, you could make a bad set of attributes and it'd cause a problem, but I don't see why that is being treated as an argument against the whole concept? You could have 3 stats that are all appropriate for both magic and mundane means - for a random example: "heart", "violence", and "finesse". Each one of those could work for a martial character - a selfless protector who defends their allies might be a more heart-based character, an in-your-face martial combatant might be more violence-based, and a technical fighter who fights with control might be more finesse-based. Similarly, you could easily have magical options for each of them - a healer who cares more for protecting allies than hurting enemies might be heart-based, a dangerous stormcaster might be violence-based, and a highly technical magician who controls the enemy via their magic might be finesse-based. At the same time, I feel like those stats all give you good ideas for what that character's narrative might look like, without outwardly dictating anything. If we're moving away from the sacred cow of 6 attributes, we don't have to stick with slightly modified and merged versions of the existing attributes.
As an alternative solution to your final question, if you find there's a problem with 3 core attributes, why do you say we have to start adding more of those mental stats back? Why not remove the attributes entirely and let the casters be differentiated by their own unique mechanics instead of the attribute they're...
I wouldn't say I am arguing against the concept of a 3 attribute system as a whole. I am more or less saying it has its own positives/negatives.
And actually now that I think about it back in Adnd before the sorcerer there were really only two casting stats int and wis. When the sorcerer was introduced in 3rd addition I remember being pretty excited for it because now my favorite stat can be used to cast spells. it really was a benefit to the game.
I still feel like a +1 skill increase is too little to feel like an actual increase. Unless there's more ranks of proficiency so you could still climb that ladder faster. But at that point, you're back to 1e's skill points.
I do miss skill points, though. Felt much more rewarding than 2e's "which singular skill will I get better at?" every two levels.
That framing feels odd to me. You don't choose a singular skill to get better at every two levels, you get better at ALL your trained skills and choose a skill every two levels to get even better at than those other skills. And at the alternating levels you get to choose a skill to get better at via a skill feat. And that's assuming you don't gain anything else from your general feats, class, or archetype.
Skill ranks were just never going to survive in the tight math of PF2 anymore than feats like weapon focus and greater weapon focus would.
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I'm honestly glad skill points aren't a thing anymore. They were too much trouble for something that, in the end, really didn't matter at all when a few wands and scrolls with low-level spells could replace most skills in the system. Also, the whole "you can distribute your skill ranks to whatever skill you want" was kind of a lie because it always felt bad to not increase certain skills unless they were those skills with low DCs, which again, at that point why invest in them in the first place when magic is a thing. But well, skills had a ton of problems that were conflicting against each other like most of 3.X / PF1e.
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Lets say you have a system with 3 core attributes.
One for physical power one for speed and reflexes and one for mental stuff.With that set up all caster types are going to draw off the same mental stat, there will be no differentiation based on core attributes for all the different kinds of casters you want in your game, that is unless you have derived stats that provide that differentiation at which point why not just start with more mental stats that lend the descriptive quality to them.
As others said, that won't really be true because with only 3 stats you can reorient them to mean different things entirely than just "physical, mental"... but even if it was true, does it matter?
Every martial in the game draws off STR or DEX and it's their class mechanics and how they interact with those that actually makes them feel distinct. Like, a melee Thaumaturge is probably using STR and they don't play at all the same as a Fighter who is also using STR.
Clerics being based on WIS gives them a better initiative than Wizards but it doesn't really impact how different spellcasting feels at all. Really, which casting stat you're using doesn't really impact how spellcasting feels at all: it just impacts where you have to point points to make casting work and thus what non-casting things you'll be naturally better at.
You could do that in a system with no ability scores/attributes at all, where everything is just skill based. And it would be significantly simpler by removing a layer of stats.
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Blades in the Dark is an interesting case study here. It has three attributes-- insight, prowess, and resolve-- which map to resistance rolls against consequences from deception or understanding, physical damage, and willpower or mental harm respectively. And each attribute has four actions/skills grouped underneath it.
What's interesting is your score in the attribute is determined by your investment in the skills, where Pathfinder does it the other way around. The more skills under prowess you invest in, the better your prowess score when you need to roll against physical harm.
I wouldn't necessarily want Pathfinder to go in that same direction, but it's a neat example where ability scores aren't setting your baseline aptitude for things.
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I think this is a case of "if it isn't broke, don't fix it."
I strongly feel that less attributes would only serve to make characters more homogeneous and less interesting.
I also think that the current terminology is quite clear in describing a character's various qualities. Many of the alternative names proposed above would require more explanation to come with them as they don't strike me as being as intuitively appropriate.
I think the terminology is, largely, only clear because you're used to it. The wisdom/intelligence distinction is certainly harder to explain than the difference between mind and spirit.
As to homeginization, Teridax really hit the nail on the head:
On a more subtle level, there are also build options that hinge on specific skills that will remain somewhat mediocre even if you commit skill increases to them, so even if you do build your character to be good at something, they still don't have that much incentive to commit more to that thing. In all cases, the end result is less build diversity overall without any real gain, all to accommodate what I find to be a legacy mechanic from Pathfinder's D&D roots.
As it currently stands, while bardic lore is supposed to be a thing, you're always incentived to invest training and increases into charisma skills because you're a charisma caster. Having less or no attributes helps you build a bard who is an oral historian without necessarily being a highly skilled diplomat. That's pretty nice for skald or shaman types.
I think of wisdom as the thing that governs making that judgement call on what to do with the information you have. I never really understood how it governs how well a pc spots things or how fast they should go in combat. I have plenty of friends who are very intelligent but make really bad choices in life. I would think of them as high int low wis.
Lol I'm not sure how good they are at spotting things though, I know I am terrible at noticing my surroundings.
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I think of wisdom as the thing that governs making that judgement call on what to do with the information you have. I never really understood how it governs how well a pc spots things or how fast they should go in combat. I have plenty of friends who are very intelligent but make really bad choices in life. I would think of them as high int low wis.
This I think is the core of the paradox with mental attributes: the big 6 ability scores are instantly recognizable to fans of D&D and D&D-descended games, much like alignment, and the symbolism attached to those makes them super-memeable because it's really easy to imagine people you know IRL or in fiction who are famously chaotic, intelligent, unwise, evil, and so on. The problem is that in the order of causality, mental or alignment labels follow from the behavior, not the other way round: Garak from Star Trek DS9 didn't follow a character sheet with 20 Charisma, that character sheet with 20 Charisma was made to emulate Garak from Star Trek DS9. You might create a high-Int, low-Wis character to emulate one of your friends, but if you intentionally make poor decisions in situations where the game expects you to exercise tactical acumen regardless of character, your players and GM are likely not going to be happy with you. Mental attributes as in-game statistics are really good for describing roleplaying tropes in simple terms, but really bad at actually defining roleplay in ways you'd expect from them.
Characters can become famously ditzy, reckless, or excellent at planning, but all of those labels tend to emerge naturally from player decisions and roleplay, almost entirely regardless of attributes. Even now that Pathfinder's ditched alignment (mostly), many players will still make alignment-based jokes and references or frame characters along those axes. I therefore suspect that even in a game without attributes, players would just as well joke about a character being high-Int, low-Wis when they roleplay a very methodical character who still misses the obvious when it comes to reading the room, more so even than if that character had an Intelligence stat that keyed into knowledge checks and a Wisdom stat that keyed into perception. Those stats would still exist in the tabletop zeitgeist, and likely still will for many years to come, but their staying power in my opinion never stemmed from their ability to prescribe roleplay, so much as describe it.
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Alignment is exactly what I was thinking of as a point of comparison: instantly recognizable and understand on a surface level, but deeply flawed when you really try to think about it.
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In regards to weapons, the design of simple / martial / advanced is vestigial now that there aren't "half-martials" in PF2e like the rogue used to be in 3.X / PF1e and now even bards can have access to martial weapons too. I would really love for a similar approach to what I described with armor would be applied to weapons too, with some weapons like advanced weapons probably having both Str and Dex requirements if necessary. Again, in PF2e casters don't really have a reason to gish other than personal preference, so if a caster takes attribute boosts to become proficient in a few weapons it wouldn't break anything. And this is talking about how these changes would make a difference in PF2e. Assuming PF3e is designed with this in mind from the get go, then less unforeseen cases would appear in such a system.
One of my big wishes for a hypothetical PF3e or some kind of PF2.5 (.75?) is an overhaul of the profiency system, especially for weapons. It doesn't really feel fit for purpose anymore. It could be as radical as the requirements you noted, or my personal idea i've been tinkering with in my off-time is some-kind of point based system where each class can "spend" points to get weapon profiencies at character creation. So a wizard could go all in for a martial weapon and be left with nothing else, whilst a fighter could pick from a large swathe of weapons.
It's never made much sense to me that a level 1 character is able to use virtually any weapon they find, even if it's completley different from what they're usually using.
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One of my big wishes for a hypothetical PF3e or some kind of PF2.5 (.75?) is an overhaul of the profiency system, especially for weapons. It doesn't really feel fit for purpose anymore. It could be as radical as the requirements you noted, or my personal idea i've been tinkering with in my off-time is some-kind of point based system where each class can "spend" points to get weapon profiencies at character creation. So a wizard could go all in for a martial weapon and be left with nothing else, whilst a fighter could pick from a large swathe of weapons.It's never made much sense to me that a level 1 character is able to use virtually any weapon they find, even if it's completley different from what they're usually using.
Eh, what's been found out through actual play is that most characters only need one-two weapons - a melee weapon and a ranged one, if you're being spicy two melee weapons for dual wielding. Having proficiency in three weapons and proficiency in all weapons is a smaller gap than one to two, the wizard with one martial weapon is 70% of the way to the fighter with 4 and the druid with two is 90%
And it makes stuff awkward with random loot weapons if the GM doesn't change the weapon type and begs the question of why switching from a shortsword to a longsword is exactly as difficult as from a shortsword to a shortbow (or maybe it isn't, which is it's own bag of issues).
Mmm, that's a good point. I hadn't considered that.
Yeah, martials aren't proficient with all martial weapons because it makes sense, but because its easier than actually making you choose which weapons you are proficient with because in the end it doesn't really matter because you are going to end up in the same spot pretty much.
That's why I think my stat prerequisites proposal could work in a future edition, because most martials are going to still be proficient in more or less the same amount of weapons they currently are just by virtue of them being, well, martials which commonly need to raise their Strength or Dexterity modifier (and thus meet those weapon's prerequisites in the process), while still keeping those same weapons away from the hands of casters unless they want to invest into those attributes. This also allows for certain "premium" weapons like advanced weapons (or special magic weapons) to exist by having higher than normal or weird stat prerequisites, but unlike the current system in which access to those weapons can only be gained through a feat which most of the time isn't worth it, here its possible for someone to naturally become proficient in them while increasing their attributes. It isn't free because attribute boosts are way rarer than a general feat (although this one doesn't scale), but it also doesn't require someone that wants to use a particular weapon for flavor to have to waste feats to have access to it.
It pretty much skips a step in the process but the character ends up in the same place, while making the whole thing smoother to the player. This is pretty much like the Remaster change that casters use their spellcasting proficiencies for all traditions, unlike pre-Remaster where they used to be tradition-specific only.
I wouldn't necessarily want Pathfinder to go in that same direction
It is a different type of game. It is good for what it does. But I prefer PF2.
example where ability scores aren't setting your baseline aptitude for things.
Yes there are definitely pluses and minuses for having ability scores.
Alignment is exactly what I was thinking of as a point of comparison: instantly recognizable and understand on a surface level, but deeply flawed when you really try to think about it.
Flawed doesn't necessarily means it is not useful. Simplifications have their place, and that is most commonly when reality is so complex.
Alignment was really useful for flagging sides. But these days we often want a more complex story in our games.
The question really is why do we have ability scores?
Is just to support mechanics?
Or is it to help us visualize our character?
Something else?
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I still feel like a +1 skill increase is too little to feel like an actual increase. Unless there's more ranks of proficiency so you could still climb that ladder faster. But at that point, you're back to 1e's skill points.
I do miss skill points, though. Felt much more rewarding than 2e's "which singular skill will I get better at?" every two levels.
That framing feels odd to me. You don't choose a singular skill to get better at every two levels, you get better at ALL your trained skills and choose a skill every two levels to get even better at than those other skills. And at the alternating levels you get to choose a skill to get better at via a skill feat. And that's assuming you don't gain anything else from your general feats, class, or archetype.
Skill ranks were just never going to survive in the tight math of PF2 anymore than feats like weapon focus and greater weapon focus would.
Yes, going from Untrained to Trained means that skill will forever scale with you, but with level-based DCs scaling faster than that (DCs seem to go up by 4 every 3 levels), eventually that Trained proficiency will not swing it anymore (meaning that if you have to roll a 10 at level 1 for a success, you'd need to roll a 12 by level 6, a 14 by level 12, and so on). Boosting that one skill means keeping up with the DC, instead of getting ahead of the curve. Meaning you steadily get worse at the skills you don't invest in. +1 items and stat boosts help catch up, but they feel more mandatory than optional.
And skill training and proficiency is the reason I do not like Intelligence as a stat. It never makes me feel smart, all it does it grant me a +2 on the skill I chosen if I am not level 9 (I do not remember the level fully) if I did choose Improviser, sure I can not do trained actions unless I am a human but...Now if I could spend Skill Feats on upping Skill proficiencies maybe I would find more use for most of my skill feats, which currently I struggle with.
The higher level you are, the less use Intelligences has on a normal character unless it's your Key Attribute Score. Even then all that is going is supplementing the stat with benefits you actually want long term.
I kind of like the way things are right now, so for me it would more be some fine-tuning.
STR is the attacking stat for most weapons, governs the all-powerful athletics skill, helps with bigger armors and adds to weapon damage. Take it if you want to be strong, trip people, use big weapons and wear armor. I find it's working as intended.
DEX used to be the god stat. Now it's less powerful but still incredibly useful - it governs Reflex saves, AC (with a cap), ranged weapons and a lot of great skills, from stealth to thievery. Take it if you want to be a nimble dodger, use finesse weapons and skulk in the shadows. That's pretty much WAI.
CON is a mixed bag. It governs HP and Fort save, two very important things, but nothing else. As such, it can hardly be skipped even on a backline character, but looks pretty barren. It also makes the kineticist look a bit bad on the skills department since no skill comes from CON. It could be revamped a bit but I don't think fusing it with STR is a good idea. You can be a glass canon or a sturdy defender - and that would also be a big problem with all those scrawny casters. Most usually dump STR but keep an adequate CON in order not to die when someone sneezes in their general direction. So if we fuse both, all casters will then need to invest in STR and suddenly become all strong and powerful. It's a problem when STR is fused with another attribute. I don't know if you guys played Pillars of Eternity but Might both governs physical strength and magical might - so all DPS wizards are muscular bodybuilders, and that kind of sucks in an RP perspective.
So yeah, leave CON alone and just maybe give it a couple skills - maybe Medicine ?
INT is arguably the weakest stat since it governs merely your trained skills (that can be easily enhanced or replaced), your languages (that a single spell can make obsolete), lores (that are usually very narrow), crafting (very campaign-specific unless you're a shield user) and arcane/occultism/society which are at least useful for recall knowledge. Pathfinder specifically decided to let skill upgrades depend on your class, not your attributes, and I don't think it could/should be changed... BUT Intelligence should be used for ALL knowledge skills (including religion and nature). I understand the appeal of giving them to clerics or druids, but someone maxing intelligence and maxing religion SHOULD be better than a moron maxing religion. It would also be more useful if lores were either broader or given for free every other level.
WIS is the new god stat in PF2. It governs will saves (godly), perception (godly), initiative (godly) and some skills including medicine (godly). It would probably be better if some of this would be split over other attributes - like I said, Medicine can be INT or even CON, and all lores SHOULD be INT.
CHA is an ok-stat. It governs all the face skills, that are useful and likable to many players, and has a bevy of great skill feat supports, from bon mot to battle cry to longer diversion to feint that help a lot in diversifying combat. A lot of players can invest in it to make their character just a bit better at what they're doing (hitting, feinting, casting...)
Ultimately, I don't think there should be much change here, but maybe this time DD5 did it right. Saves could be determined by the best of two stats. STR or CON would govern Fortitude, INT or DEX would govern Reflex, CHA or WIS would govern Will. It might help Int and Cha, but will perhaps weaken CON.
I think there's certainly an argument that for INT we could make some skills (like any "knowledge" based skill) be either INT or whatever skill they currently are: So Arcana, Crafting, Lore, Medicine, Nature, Occultism, and Society could have an option to all use INT (and some are already INT based).
I think also allowing each character to choose to have will saves based on any mental score could help. Wisdom has enough going for it, that it can stand to lose Will saves and have them go to Int or Cha.
You make those kind of changes, with some sort of supplementary system for INT giving some extra skill proficiency increases and skill feats without completely supplanting skill niche classes (like the Investigator and Rogue) and you'll have a gone a long way at fixing INT.
The next worst stat in terms of what it does is Con, but since everyone needs HP and Fort saves...I actually think it's ok to leave it alone.
I agree that Str and Dex are both working as intended. Wisdom has too much, but if you let people move Will saves to a different stat it's feasibly acceptable to make a poor perception/initiative character (and remember we're moving medicine possibly to INT). Sure having poor perception and init sucks, but that's kind of the point. To make a tough choice between stats while making it rewarding to invest in INT.
Honestly, if I could choose which stat controlled Will saves, I'd likely not increase wisdom as much, and focus more on Charisma for those sweet charisma based skills and accept poor perception/init.*
As long as there was at least 1 person in the group with high perception/init.
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I understand the appeal for reverting Religion and Nature back to INT, but coming from 1E, I like that A) the Wizard doesn't know everything and B) that the Druid and Cleric are actually good at their respective fields.
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Yes, going from Untrained to Trained means that skill will forever scale with you, but with level-based DCs scaling faster than that (DCs seem to go up by 4 every 3 levels), eventually that Trained proficiency will not swing it anymore (meaning that if you have to roll a 10 at level 1 for a success, you'd need to roll a 12 by level 6, a 14 by level 12, and so on). Boosting that one skill means keeping up with the DC, instead of getting ahead of the curve. Meaning you steadily get worse at the skills you don't invest in. +1 items and stat boosts help catch up, but they feel more mandatory than optional.I still feel like a +1 skill increase is too little to feel like an actual increase. Unless there's more ranks of proficiency so you could still climb that ladder faster. But at that point, you're back to 1e's skill points.
I do miss skill points, though. Felt much more rewarding than 2e's "which singular skill will I get better at?" every two levels.
That framing feels odd to me. You don't choose a singular skill to get better at every two levels, you get better at ALL your trained skills and choose a skill every two levels to get even better at than those other skills. And at the alternating levels you get to choose a skill to get better at via a skill feat. And that's assuming you don't gain anything else from your general feats, class, or archetype.
Skill ranks were just never going to survive in the tight math of PF2 anymore than feats like weapon focus and greater weapon focus would.
If you want to keep up with the DC by level chart, you actually don't need anywhere near the amount of investment you're talking about here. From level 1 to level 11, the DC-by-level goes from 15 to 28 - after taking into account you getting +10 from level here, you only need to get +3 from any source to maintain the same chance of success. If you boosted the ability score at level 5 and 10, you only need to buy a +1 item bonus item to keep up with the chance of success, with the sub-100 gp expense barely being noticeable at all at level 11. Even from level 1 to 20, the DC only goes to 40 - after taking into account the +19 from leveling you've gained, you only need +6 to maintain your chances of success. If you've got +3 to your ability modifier (at some point you might've hit 18), you can get away with only boosting it to expert and keeping that +1 item from before, or invest in a +3 item and maintain the same chances of success without needing any skill increases invested at all.
I understand the appeal for reverting Religion and Nature back to INT, but coming from 1E, I like that A) the Wizard doesn't know everything and B) that the Druid and Cleric are actually good at their respective fields.
I agree with sentiment B, but disagree with sentiment A.
I think it does make sense that high int characters are very good at knowledge based things, but also think that Druids should be equally as good (assuming similar investment of feats and skill increases) at Nature and a Cleric at Religion.
Which is why I suggested that you allow the skills I previously proposed to be use INT or their original attribute.
Yes, going from Untrained to Trained means that skill will forever scale with you, but with level-based DCs scaling faster than that (DCs seem to go up by 4 every 3 levels), eventually that Trained proficiency will not swing it anymore (meaning that if you have to roll a 10 at level 1 for a success, you'd need to roll a 12 by level 6, a 14 by level 12, and so on). Boosting that one skill means keeping up with the DC, instead of getting ahead of the curve. Meaning you steadily get worse at the skills you don't invest in. +1 items and stat boosts help catch up, but they feel more mandatory than optional.I still feel like a +1 skill increase is too little to feel like an actual increase. Unless there's more ranks of proficiency so you could still climb that ladder faster. But at that point, you're back to 1e's skill points.
I do miss skill points, though. Felt much more rewarding than 2e's "which singular skill will I get better at?" every two levels.
That framing feels odd to me. You don't choose a singular skill to get better at every two levels, you get better at ALL your trained skills and choose a skill every two levels to get even better at than those other skills. And at the alternating levels you get to choose a skill to get better at via a skill feat. And that's assuming you don't gain anything else from your general feats, class, or archetype.
Skill ranks were just never going to survive in the tight math of PF2 anymore than feats like weapon focus and greater weapon focus would.
I dunno what to tell you about that mandatory feeling, because those are all ways to boost your stats with the same net effect skill ranks had. I can tell you that at higher levels ability boosts and cheap bonuses aren't all you have access to-- follow the expert Aid, and status bonuses are all better than they were at level 1. The remastered alchemist can give two or three people +4 item bonuses to whatever skill is relevant at the time, and keep those bonuses running for every waking hour. A bard can provide +4 circumstance bonuses to every out of combat, non-stealthy skill check in the game. The circumstance bonus of Follow the expert also becomes +4, and while that will add your level without trained proficiency, being trained is still +2 better than being untrained.
DCs by level out scaling trained proficiency is a common complaint about PF2, but it ignores how many ways you can boost skills outside of proficiency, and largely will do so even without trying thanks to ability boosts and hand me down items from the specialists.
Plus, there are always simple DCs as well. Trained proficieny + Assurance athletics gets better as you level and is much more reliable than legendary proficiency on its own if you need to climb a hundred foot cliff with multiple checks.
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I think there's certainly an argument that for INT we could make some skills (like any "knowledge" based skill) be either INT or whatever skill they currently are: So Arcana, Crafting, Lore, Medicine, Nature, Occultism, and Society could have an option to all use INT (and some are already INT based).
I think also allowing each character to choose to have will saves based on any mental score could help. Wisdom has enough going for it, that it can stand to lose Will saves and have them go to Int or Cha.
You make those kind of changes, with some sort of supplementary system for INT giving some extra skill proficiency increases and skill feats without completely supplanting skill niche classes (like the Investigator and Rogue) and you'll have a gone a long way at fixing INT.
This seems like a lot of work to make wisdom and intelligence relatively interachangable, to the point where I'd question why keep them as separate stats.
FromSoftware give each magic type a casting stat, but the number of spells you can prepare is governed by a memory stat for all characters. Theoretically you could use something similar in TTRPGs, but with the memory stat also counting towards lore and knowledge skills. Meanwhile, you could condense the casting power stats into a singular "will" stat which would also be used to resist mental effects.
I'm not sure that idea would hold up under close scrutiny, but it certainly would make sense that everyone needs some understanding to use magic and the focus to make it a reality.
This seems like a lot of work to make wisdom and intelligence relatively interachangable, to the point where I'd question why keep them as separate stats.I think there's certainly an argument that for INT we could make some skills (like any "knowledge" based skill) be either INT or whatever skill they currently are: So Arcana, Crafting, Lore, Medicine, Nature, Occultism, and Society could have an option to all use INT (and some are already INT based).
I think also allowing each character to choose to have will saves based on any mental score could help. Wisdom has enough going for it, that it can stand to lose Will saves and have them go to Int or Cha.
You make those kind of changes, with some sort of supplementary system for INT giving some extra skill proficiency increases and skill feats without completely supplanting skill niche classes (like the Investigator and Rogue) and you'll have a gone a long way at fixing INT.
For compatibility with existing framework. I'm not trying to reinvent the game, just tweak it. If you rolled int and wisdom into one skill, we'd have to evaluate how many ability boosts you get to start with and how many you get as you level your character. Straight combining them would be a power boost to everyone, though I'm not sure exactly how impactful it would be.
A simple option would be as you suggest, just treat your wisdom and intelligence scores as the same value.
For non-Int based classes it doesn't get you much, just some skills and languages. The benefits of higher INT are so small that basically no one increases Int unless it's your key score.
For Int based classes, it gets you quite a bit. Essentially it lets you change your key score to Wisdom.
Thinking more on this topic....I think the devs were too scared about skill niche protection for certain classes. Making sure Rogues (at the initial release) were the undisputed kings of skills. In doing so, they didn't do the obvious thing that INT should have at least done, give you more skills (and I mean more than just trained skills). It's obvious in my opinion that they knew they needed to give something, but were too scared to give scaling skill proficiency increases or additional skill feats, as that would have quickly dethroned the rogue from that skill niche.
Arguably though Rogues never needed it. Rogues are a great combat class, and are also good at skills without needing to invest anything into them by virtue of the chassis.
The Investigator needs the most help in terms of niche protection, with its class combat chassis being...awkward lets say. But its an INT based class, so by giving INT more skill stuff it would actually help the Investigator while helping other INT classes too. And might make it competitive enough for people to seriously consider whether they should take more Wis or Int or Cha.
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For visualizing how DC by level impacts your success chances, ]I found this chart really helpful. If you're trained only and don't invest at all, it falls off hard... but if you're getting ability score boosts and an item you can actually keep it at a not awful failure rate for quite a while.
And of course, if you're investing in the skill aggressively you shoot way up.
I don't think Intelligence is a product of Paizo wanting to protect the rogue's niche, but rather them trying to keep things as simple as possible. A "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" situation. Though I agree Paizo was certainly too conservative in the early days of PF2e and it shows when you compare new classes to old ones.
I also think that increasing your Int modifer to gain an extra skill increase or skill feat wouldn't be as elegant of a solution as people seem to think it is. When you increase 5 out of the 6 attributes it means you need to add a +1 to all the relevant checks and DCs. Intelligence is the exception because it grants both a trained skill and a language, though as someone else already said, this isn't a deal breaker. However, even if it isn't much, its technically way better than what the other 5 attributes have. I feel the problem here isn't the benefits that increasing Intelligence have, but rather that Paizo overcompensated by making less things be linked through to Intelligence.
If Intelligence granted an extra skill increase or skill feat it would IMO kinda become both way better than the other stats in terms of power budget and it would be silly noy to invest into it when it would literally increase your character's power. Not to mention that it could lead to characters wanting to leave Int as low as possible in character creation so they can raise it every 5 levels to get more expert, master, and legendary proficiencies that way, unlike say a wizard that would be limited to 4 extra trained skills at 1st level. This can be fixed, but it would make the whole system around increasing Int needlesly complicated when by that point there's way better solutions like the Int and Wis merge.
So between a sorcerer and an oracle the charisma stat being at a +4 is kind of a big deal in differentiating them from Wizards and Witches +4 to intelligence or Clerics and Druids +4 to wisdom then?
By default it determines a set of skills that will stay relevant even at trained?
Thinking more on this topic....I think the devs were too scared about skill niche protection for certain classes. Making sure Rogues (at the initial release) were the undisputed kings of skills. In doing so, they didn't do the obvious thing that INT should have at least done, give you more skills (and I mean more than just trained skills). It's obvious in my opinion that they knew they needed to give something, but were too scared to give scaling skill proficiency increases or additional skill feats, as that would have quickly dethroned the rogue from that skill niche.
Arguably though Rogues never needed it. Rogues are a great combat class, and are also good at skills without needing to invest anything into them by virtue of the chassis.
The Investigator needs the most help in terms of niche protection, with its class combat chassis being...awkward lets say. But its an INT based class, so by giving INT more skill stuff it would actually help the Investigator while helping other INT classes too. And might make it competitive enough for people to seriously consider whether they should take more Wis or Int or Cha.
Rogue skill gains should probably be somewhere between normal classes and the investigator.
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Thinking more on this topic....I think the devs were too scared about skill niche protection for certain classes. Making sure Rogues (at the initial release) were the undisputed kings of skills. In doing so, they didn't do the obvious thing that INT should have at least done, give you more skills (and I mean more than just trained skills). It's obvious in my opinion that they knew they needed to give something, but were too scared to give scaling skill proficiency increases or additional skill feats, as that would have quickly dethroned the rogue from that skill niche.
Arguably though Rogues never needed it. Rogues are a great combat class, and are also good at skills without needing to invest anything into them by virtue of the chassis.
The Investigator needs the most help in terms of niche protection, with its class combat chassis being...awkward lets say. But its an INT based class, so by giving INT more skill stuff it would actually help the Investigator while helping other INT classes too. And might make it competitive enough for people to seriously consider whether they should take more Wis or Int or Cha.
In practice, this skill niche is currently very strange.
For example, if you play a level 1 one-shot, or even a small adventure of 1-4 levels, this niche simply varies from non-existent to barely relevant.
For example, a rogue with 0 int has Stealth + Racket Still + Background Skill + 7 = 11 skills trained at level 1.
An alchemist with 4 int has Crafting + Background Skill + 3 + Int (4) = 9 skills trained at level 1.
So just from the base, the rogue already has more skills without any extra investment. However, as the classes go up in level, the rogue will have up to 6 legendary skills, while the int-based character is limited to 3, causing the advantage of these characters to disperse with progression.
It's a strange process, in which, except for Aid, the characters actually become less and less skilled and intelligence becomes less and less relevant as they progress. Because although thematically the characters become legendary in 3 skills while they are trained in the rest they have, mechanically due to the higher DC and minimum proficiency requirements, in several tests. What happens in practice is that the characters become less skilled as they progress.
That's why I said that for me, the Skill Increases skill should actually be “you 1 plus your intelligence bonus to skill increase” instead of “you gain a skill increase”. This is because, in addition to maintaining the skill balance that we have at the beginning of the game, it would also keep the benefits of the intelligence bonus relevant over time. The game wouldn't break because it already has worked like that since the very beginning. The difficult thing to explain is the opposite, which is why the character becomes less and less skilled as he becomes stronger.
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Thinking more on this topic....I think the devs were too scared about skill niche protection for certain classes. Making sure Rogues (at the initial release) were the undisputed kings of skills. In doing so, they didn't do the obvious thing that INT should have at least done, give you more skills (and I mean more than just trained skills). It's obvious in my opinion that they knew they needed to give something, but were too scared to give scaling skill proficiency increases or additional skill feats, as that would have quickly dethroned the rogue from that skill niche.
Arguably though Rogues never needed it. Rogues are a great combat class, and are also good at skills without needing to invest anything into them by virtue of the chassis.
The Investigator needs the most help in terms of niche protection, with its class combat chassis being...awkward lets say. But its an INT based class, so by giving INT more skill stuff it would actually help the Investigator while helping other INT classes too. And might make it competitive enough for people to seriously consider whether they should take more Wis or Int or Cha.
In practice, this skill niche is currently very strange.
For example, if you play a level 1 one-shot, or even a small adventure of 1-4 levels, this niche simply varies from non-existent to barely relevant.
For example, a rogue with 0 int has Stealth + Racket Still + Background Skill + 7 = 11 skills trained at level 1.
An alchemist with 4 int has Crafting + Background Skill + 3 + Int (4) = 9 skills trained at level 1.
So just from the base, the rogue already has more skills without any extra investment. However, as the classes go up in level, the rogue will have up to 6 legendary skills, while the int-based character is limited to 3, causing the advantage of these characters to disperse with progression.
It's a strange process, in which, except for Aid, the characters actually become less and less skilled and intelligence becomes less and less relevant as...
What you say is true, and it's kind of annoying to me as well.
While high int characters start with lots of trained skills, because of limited number of skill proficiency increases, they get relatively worse at the total number of skills as they level. And those skills left at trained only become irrelevant to most adventuring related tasks.
Sure, they might be nice from a RP rounding out your character standpoint, in the same way that the free lore skill from backgrounds is, but like...it's not actually useful or good long term.
Exequiel does bring up a good point that the kind of thing I've proposed in this thread does make it a lot more complicated to explain what happens with increases to INT. However, I honestly didn't follow the rest of their post. I think something got lost because the arguments just didn't make sense to me (as in I couldn't follow what issue they were highlighting or what problem they thought it caused).
That's why I said that for me, the Skill Increases skill should actually be “you 1 plus your intelligence bonus to skill increase” instead of “you gain a skill increase”. This is because, in addition to maintaining the skill balance that we have at the beginning of the game, it would also keep the benefits of the intelligence bonus relevant over time. The game wouldn't break because it already has worked like that since the very beginning. The difficult thing to explain is the opposite, which is why the character becomes less and less skilled as he becomes stronger.
I been thinking about this and...I actually kinda took a liking for this idea, though it wouldn't be something I would tweak into the current system. Let's say you are a 4th level wizard with a +4 Int modifier. One level earlier, under this "1 + Int mod skill increases" system, you had to raise 5 skills to expert. This means that your 4th level skill feat (and possibly 3rd level general feat too) required you two sift through at least 5 skill feat lists to choose one.
I feel this is something Paizo wouldn't want players to do since PF2e is clearly designed to be more narrow in that sense. You gain an ancestry feat? You only have to look at your ancestry's feat list to make this choice. You gain a class feat? Only your class feat list. And so on. Skill feats technically allow more freedom in this sense but, to be fair, if you took an increase in a skill its very likely your next skill feat is going into a feat from that skill. Not to mention choice paralysis when you take increases into a skill that doesn't have good skill feats, but now imagine that when you took skill increases into 5 of them.
In a system in which skill feats weren't a thing (or rather most of them were baked into the different tier proficiencies of the skill itself, with the few that change too much how the skill works made into general feats) I would really like this "1 + Int mod skill increases" idea, but in the current system where I also would have to chose which skill feats I take, I feel its a bit too convoluted and it could potentially slow down leveling up a character significantly.
1+int skill increase at each odd level wouldn't work. Int based characters would run out of skills to increase very fast (Level 10 to be exact when int goes to +5). Levels 11 and 13 you would have every skill you are trained in maxed already as well.
I think a better idea would be to give characters 1 extra skill increase at a +4 int(only on odd levels or else rogues that invested in +4 int and investigators would end up with 12 legendary skills). This would give most classes a max of 6 legendary skills and rogues invested in int and investigators 9 legendary skills.
Another idea I had was at levels 3/7/15 they can increase a number of skills equal to their int mod. This would give 10 legendary to +7 int characters and investigators would have 12 or 13 legendary skills depending on their apex which still sounds like a lot. A rogue with a +4 int would have 10 legendary skills.
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I don't think Intelligence is a product of Paizo wanting to protect the rogue's niche, but rather them trying to keep things as simple as possible. A "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" situation. Though I agree Paizo was certainly too conservative in the early days of PF2e and it shows when you compare new classes to old ones.
They actually asked questions about ability scores during the playtest. The challenge of course is the playtest community was mostly PF1 players (which makes sense) and PF1 players are very familiar with the ability scores. Making radical changes is hard, and making radical changes to something that familar with all they other stuff they were already changing would have been a very difficult sell. So having the same ability score array is a point of familiarity so it still "Feels like Pathfinder".
They asked a question specifically about having ability scores vs ability modifiers. Scores won, despite logically scores actually not mattering at all in PF2 because nothing uses them (unlike in PF1, where mechanics like drain do interact with them directly). That was also familiarity. The Beginners Box did away with them later and just used the modifiers... and then the remaster did the same thing. By now we're used to the modifier being all that actually matters so it didn't feel like a big change anymore.
I don't think they were "too conservative" in the early days of PF2. They were listening to feedback that a lot of us already felt a lot was changing and trying to find where the "too much" line was. It's pretty hard to know where it is until after the fact. I'm sure they'd make some more changes with the benefit of hindsight, but the system turned out pretty well. :)
I wouldn't at all be surprised to see changes in PF3 when its time comes, though.
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That's why I said that for me, the Skill Increases skill should actually be “you 1 plus your intelligence bonus to skill increase” instead of “you gain a skill increase”. This is because, in addition to maintaining the skill balance that we have at the beginning of the game, it would also keep the benefits of the intelligence bonus relevant over time. The game wouldn't break because it already has worked like that since the very beginning. The difficult thing to explain is the opposite, which is why the character becomes less and less skilled as he becomes stronger.I been thinking about this and...I actually kinda took a liking for this idea, though it wouldn't be something I would tweak into the current system. Let's say you are a 4th level wizard with a +4 Int modifier. One level earlier, under this "1 + Int mod skill increases" system, you had to raise 5 skills to expert. This means that your 4th level skill feat (and possibly 3rd level general feat too) required you two sift through at least 5 skill feat lists to choose one.
I feel this is something Paizo wouldn't want players to do since PF2e is clearly designed to be more narrow in that sense. You gain an ancestry feat? You only have to look at your ancestry's feat list to make this choice. You gain a class feat? Only your class feat list. And so on. Skill feats technically allow more freedom in this sense but, to be fair, if you took an increase in a skill its very likely your next skill feat is going into a feat from that skill. Not to mention choice paralysis when you take increases into a skill that doesn't have good skill feats, but now imagine that when you took skill increases into 5 of them.
In a system in which skill feats weren't a thing (or rather most of them were baked into the different tier proficiencies of the skill itself, with the few that change too much how the skill works made into general feats) I would really like this "1 + Int mod skill increases" idea, but in the current system where I also...
Oh no, I have options for my character at each level...? What is the issue here when spellcasters have to sift through hundreds of spells at even 5th level (rank 3 spells) to pick two of them?
In a system in which skill feats weren't a thing (or rather most of them were baked into the different tier proficiencies of the skill itself, with the few that change too much how the skill works made into general feats) I would really like this "1 + Int mod skill increases" idea, but in the current system where I also would have to chose which skill feats I take, I feel its a bit too convoluted and it could potentially slow down leveling up a character significantly.
I don't think that this is a great problem. What makes the people to lose too much time during skill feats selection is the high number of circumstantial feats.
Currently, the people lose too much time seeking for a good skill feat for a feat was improved but don't have a good useful feat like Battle Medicine, Kip Up and so on. So a player that improved its nature skill easily don't find anything good in the expert list of nature feats and begins to search in all other trained skill feats for a more useful feat to pick instead. This is what makes these players to slow down its skill feat choice selection. Instead, a char that can improve multiple skill like a rogue usually already have a small list of very useful skill feats from different skills that he wants to pick because they are all accessible to him.
I don't think Intelligence is a product of Paizo wanting to protect the rogue's niche, but rather them trying to keep things as simple as possible. A "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" situation. Though I agree Paizo was certainly too conservative in the early days of PF2e and it shows when you compare new classes to old ones.They actually asked questions about ability scores during the playtest. The challenge of course is the playtest community was mostly PF1 players (which makes sense) and PF1 players are very familiar with the ability scores. Making radical changes is hard, and making radical changes to something that familar with all they other stuff they were already changing would have been a very difficult sell. So having the same ability score array is a point of familiarity so it still "Feels like Pathfinder".
They asked a question specifically about having ability scores vs ability modifiers. Scores won, despite logically scores actually not mattering at all in PF2 because nothing uses them (unlike in PF1, where mechanics like drain do interact with them directly). That was also familiarity. The Beginners Box did away with them later and just used the modifiers... and then the remaster did the same thing. By now we're used to the modifier being all that actually matters so it didn't feel like a big change anymore.
I don't think they were "too conservative" in the early days of PF2. They were listening to feedback that a lot of us already felt a lot was changing and trying to find where the "too much" line was. It's pretty hard to know where it is until after the fact. I'm sure they'd make some more changes with the benefit of hindsight, but the system turned out pretty well. :)
I wouldn't at all be surprised to see changes in PF3 when its time comes, though.
I agree, the designers were more conservative in their choices during the game development because they want to diminish the too much strangeness into the PF1 players with too much radical mechanics changes. They want to prevent a new 4e problem that the players don't recognize the game.
But once that we are already familiar with new mechanics, probably a PF3 will be more bold with changes and new ideas.
In a system in which skill feats weren't a thing (or rather most of them were baked into the different tier proficiencies of the skill itself, with the few that change too much how the skill works made into general feats) I would really like this "1 + Int mod skill increases" idea, but in the current system where I also would have to chose which skill feats I take, I feel its a bit too convoluted and it could potentially slow down leveling up a character significantly.I don't think that this is a great problem. What makes the people to lose too much time during skill feats selection is the high number of circumstantial feats.
Yes, I know. I said so myself.
In a system in which skill feats weren't a thing (or rather most of them were baked into the different tier proficiencies of the skill itself, with the few that change too much how the skill works made into general feats) I would really like this "1 + Int mod skill increases" idea, but in the current system where I also would have to chose which skill feats I take, I feel its a bit too convoluted and it could potentially slow down leveling up a character significantly.