Proficiency from multiple sources

[NotSteve333]

Hi all! I'm going to GM my first Pathfinder 2e one shot tomorrow, and I was making a character to prepare and familiarize myself with the rules a bit more. No one at the table, including me, will have played 2nd edition before, but we all have played a decent amount of 1st.

When making a character, it's real easy to get trained proficiency on the same skill from multiple sources, and the rules say in this case one of them should be allocated to any other skill. I know my players love to min max, and would much rather have these trainings stack, going up in the proficiency ranks. I was thinking of allowing this in the case of skills, cause it doesn't seem like it would be that broken, especially since they're already getting their character level to the roll as well. That being said, I've never played 2nd edition before, so I don't really know.

Does anyone have input on if this is a terrible idea?

[NorrKnekten]

Pretty much a no, Don't do this.

Proficiency increases beyond trained are gated by both the level and amount you reasonably can get because the maths and DCs are already tight to the point that it would be that broken to simply give the characters a +2. Getting their level to their DCs does not do anything but let them keep up with the increasing DCs of their challenges. But proficiency lets the players stay ahead of it, If you were to let them go up to expert or master before those levels the end result is that people just won't need to roll.

Especially once you consider other feats and bonuses which further improve and scale of these increases, Its not so fun when assurance is a guaranteed success on all but the toughest creatures or when feats unlock further improvements that were never supposed to be available to characters below a certain level.

[Ascalaphus]

Agree with what NorrKnekten said, but also, spending all your skill increases on one skill can actually backfire.

Pathfinder 2 adventure design uses a lot of skill challenges that are set up so that everyone can and needs to participate. They're about pooling together a bunch of successes at checks, and one superstar character alone isn't going to achieve enough, you need everyone to chip in. So if everyone is a specialist only, there's a good chance that some rounds they just don't happen to have any of the needed skills, that they would have had if they'd built their characters according to the normal rules.

[Finoan]

NotSteve333 wrote:

No one at the table, including me, will have played 2nd edition before, but we all have played a decent amount of 1st.

Please, please, please, please please do not expect to use your 1st edition system mastery in PF2. There are plenty of things like this in PF2 where the system is designed to actively counteract or even punish PF1 mentality.

No, do not spend all 3 actions of your turn attacking.
No, do not blitz rush the enemy.
No, do not rely on save or die spells.
No, do not treat skills as second-rate stats that you can ignore.

There are probably guides specific for PF2 that can explain the game meta more than I can do here. But a quick summary: PF2 is much heavier on teamwork among the party for combat success rather than numerical dice advantage. For numerical stats, the most important stat is 'Level' and the descriptions of relative level are, if anything, understated - don't put the party up against higher level enemies and think that they will still steamroll it like they could in PF1. PF2 also has a stronger core for skills and skill challenges for those players and campaigns that are willing to engage with it - characters are more than just their combat stats.

[BotBrain]

This will break the game wide open and your players will never ever fail a check in that sill.

Since you're coming from first it's really important to note the numbers in pf2e are much more tightly controlled, and even a +1 will have a big impact on whatever you're doing.

This isn't to say you can't meddle with the rules or numbers, but with Pf2e it's a really good idea to have a feel for the system first before you do so.

Also what Finoan said is vital for meeting the system where it is. I've seen too many people try to brute force their way through combats with triple attacks and it always ends badly.

[BotBrain]

Also - with respect to "adding level to DCs". It's important to know that this is also how monsters, traps and so on behave. A level 1 character attempting a level 1 check and a level 5 character attempting a level 5 check have more or less the same chances of success if all else is equal. That's what the +level is for.

[The Raven Black]

BotBrain wrote:

Also - with respect to "adding level to DCs". It's important to know that this is also how monsters, traps and so on behave. A level 1 character attempting a level 1 check and a level 5 character attempting a level 5 check have more or less the same chances of success if all else is equal. That's what the +level is for.

This post also helps underlining the importance of being Trained in key skills: you have to be Trained or better to get the +level.

So, Trained vs Untrained at level 1 is a +3 difference. But at level 5, it is a +7 gap.
In a game where every +1 matters.

[Tridus]

The main thing this does is make things that give extra training in skills WAY better than they normally are. Getting training is drastically easier than getting proficiency bumps are, because as you level those proficiency bumps help you get ahead of the difficulty curve and make you better at things.

In a party of 4 or 5, you don't need to be trained in everything most of the time. There's usually someone better at it who can lead, and in a lot of cases you can either just let them handle it (disabling devices, diplomacy), or you can follow the expert (terrain obstacles with athletics, group stealth, etc).

Having this option is going to really promote more specialists and those specialists are going to be good at more things. That means you'll have a lot more scenarios where two people are Master at something and thus extremely good at it, and no one else is Trained and thus probably shouldn't attempt it at all.

I don't think its a good idea. It feels like PF1 mentality and considering how busted PF1's skill system was (you could beat DCs by comically huge margins to the point that there was no reason to bother rolling), I don't view that as a good thing.

You should run the game as-is first before you start even thinking about changing stuff like this.

[Claxon]

As other have mentioned, this is a really bad idea.

The math in PF2 is very unlike the math of PF1.

Honestly, being experienced players of PF1 is probably a detriment to understanding PF2 rules and playing the game as intended because there are many things that were deliberately changed. Even the best built fighters (most accurate martial characters in PF2) have a significant chance to miss their first attacks against an on level enemy. It's probably in the 20% to 30% range. And that's intended game design. Attacks are never guaranteed to succeed. And that's why earlier in the thread you have someone mentioning that you should never make 3 attacks in a round, because at a -10 penalty to attack you will not hit. There is one exception to that, which is the high level flurry ranger who only suffers a -4 to their 3rd (and additional attacks if applicable).

My recommendation is forget everything you know about PF1. It WILL screw you up in PF2. And no, don't let proficiency from multiple sources stack. Seriously. Please play the game with the rules are written first. Learn and understand the game as is. It's not perfect, there are things that I think should be changed. But asking this kind of question (should I let proficiency stack to high levels) underscores a lack of understanding of the game as a whole. And I don't say that to be rude, but to emphasize my point that you need to experience the game rules as written, and then think about how you want to tweak them to get the game experience you desire.

Letting skill proficiency increase I do not think will give you the result you like.

Also bear in mind that normally, most characters can only achieve Legendary status in 3 skills. With what you're suggesting someone could easily achieve a 4th, and maybe a 5th. Normally only Investigators and Rogues get that many legendary skills, due to how skill proficiency increases work.

[Squark]

Yeah, this has the potential to backfire horribly. A level 1 PC being expert in athletics* (or worse, master, if you're getting athletics proficiency from your ancestry, background, and class) is incredibly overpowered, but at the same time you could end up with a lot of the PCs helpless in exploration. So it's not even really MinMaxing because you're Adding new weaknesses, not minimizing them.

*Athletics is probably the most notable offender, but a number of other skills like Intimidation, Diplomacy, and Deception could have outsized effects if PCs ate able to break the normal proficiency boundaries.

[Zoken44]

First I'll say, I agree with everyone else. I recommend against it.

But let's get some positive stuff in here.

YAY! you're joining 2e! that's awesome!
And you're being cautious by checking with other players first, GREAT job. And you're taking the initiative to be the GM, that's really cool of you.

I recommend encouraging your players to put those extra proficiencies in the "Recall Knowledge" skills (Arcana, Occultism, Nature, Religion) as taking an action in combat to do one of these checks is a great "third-action" and can reveal weaknesses, resistances, low saves, or other useful information

Or into Medicine, especially if they have a positive wisdom modifier. Non-magical healing is common and expected in 2e and having more people who can make medicine checks can really help.

another place to put them is intimidation. another good "third-Action" is demoralize. You make an intimidation check against an enemies Will-save-DC. if you succeed, they are frightened 1, lowering all their attack rolls, skill checks, and saving throws by 1.

all of these things are basic skill actions ANY player can do right from level 1.

[Claxon]

Yeah, it's worth mentioning that it's good to have at least one person that will take medicine to legendary proficiency and will pick up the skill feats Continual Recovery and Ward Medic. And they might as well also pick up Battle Medicine.

And depending on how your GM handles giving players knowledge about enemies, having skills for Arcana/Occult/Nature/Religion can be incredibly essential and helpful, to just so-so. It depends on how stingy your GM is with the information. But if you have a spell caster, you're going to have a least on the bases covered.

I will also add that, if there's a human in the party it's worth it (IMO) to grab the Clever Improviser feat to give okay coverage across all feats. If you have a small party of only 4, you're not going to have all skills covered deep. And depending on character concepts there may be certain skills that are missing. Clever Improviser won't let a character go up against on level challenges and succeed. But depending on the GM style, it can be valuable. Oh, there's a lock? Well it's just a poor quality lock and you're level 10 so you have a 10+dex modifier to pick that lock. It's value depends on if the GM ever bothers to add in below level challenges into the game (I think it's good to do so).