Altering Proficiency Calculation

[Indi523]

I am not a fan of the Proficiency bonus adding the entire character level. This makes the ability to hit things at 20th level impossible for 1st level characters.

I don't want the other games no increase for level either which is an alternate rule in the GM CORE

I would like to change the bonus to 1/3rd the level rounded up or down as normal. Thus at 1st level the bonus is +0 while at second level the bonus is +1 (2/3rd =0.667 rounds up to 1 while 1/3 =0.333 rounds down to 0, etc.

This gives a bonus range from 1st to 20th level of +0 to +7 added to proficiency and makes having legendary proficiency the most important bonus at +8.

I like this range. Player to Player this works well as everyone recalculates there bonuses based in the new proficiency.

It may require certain adjustments for monsters or flat DCs since higher powered DC's will become harder but perhaps this is OK. Just normally accept high powered monsters are more powerful and guide the party to treat them as such. It would place many dragons outside the easy kill range of a normal group.

Do you all think this could work? What changes to DC's, monsters or other checks do you thing should be made to make this work and what good or bad do you see with this?

[Taja the Barbarian]

Yeah, this is basically D&D5e Bounded Accuracy System (where proficiency goes from +2 to +6 over 20 levels).

The major impacts would probably be:
A lot of work on your part to modify every creature the PC's encounter.
Some players being disappointed that they 'progress' so slowly (this is a significant 5e complaint).
Balance-wise, lower level foes should be more powerful and higher level foes will be a bit weaker as proficiencies all be in a +/- 1 point range, which will impact encounter design a bit with a lot of 'trash mobs' (now at a relative +2 attack and saves) possibly being more dangerous than the actual 'boss' (now likely at a relative -2 attack and saves).
HP and Damage Output will continue to be important, so you can't necessarily throw the PC party against foes outside the normal CR ranges and expect things to work well.

I know there is at least one other recent thread on this general idea in this forum, and I'm betting there are many more if you are willing to search a little bit...

[Indi523]

The Difference with Pathfinder 2.0 that I like is the levels of training
Untrained, Trained, Expert, Master and Legendary.

To my mind this softens the spread. Low level trained mob at 1st lvl +0 with +2 for trained is a +2 while a 20th level legendary is +7 and +8 for a total of +15. This still make the spread +13 points.

To my mind that is not so much of a difference.

So the adjustment to monsters can be by creature level I think. Should not be to hard just reduce their DC, AC, Skill Checks and to hits etc. by the number below based on creature level.

In some cases such as dragons a DM might not reduce the checks and let the numbers go as stand to make them much tougher. Of course he should tell everyone this beforehand so they can make better choices and increase the reward possibly.

1 (0-1) -1
2 (1-2) -1
3 (1-3) -2
4 (1-4) -3
5 (2-5) -3
6 (2-6) -4
7 (2-7) -5
8 (3-8) -5
9 (3-9) -6
10 (3-10) -7
11 (4-11) -7
12 (4-12) -8
13 (4-13) -9
14 (5-14) -9
15 (5-15) -10
16 (5-16) -11
17 (6-17) -11
18 (6-18) -12
19 (7-19) -12
20 (7-20) -13

[Loreguard]

Don't forget to include adjustments for Zero level and Minus 1 level creatures in your chart. (even if it means calling them level 1) But you might consider making them -0 instead of -1, for instance as you are reducing the consequence of individual levels so maybe being lower in level doesn't mean they need to drop more?

I'd also suggest you NEVER not adjust the creature or challenge per your chart. However, after adjusting the creature (or item/trap/etc) for the chart, you should feel to adjust individual end values by one or maybe two if you feel it helps you feel like it gives the creature the right flavor. It might be a good idea to print out an updated creature by level expectations so you can reference it when making adjustments so you know if a creature falls within Extreme, High, Moderate, Low or Terrible for particular aspects to help you stay in the guard rails.

Also, you'd want to print off an updated DC by Level table to reference for coming up with level appropriate DCs. Remember to re-DC any defined DCs in the skills section that are level based, such as heal checks, for instance.