The basic concept of this thread:
While I think many people have a lot of interesting ideas for how to build a game from scratch that removes the concept of having 6 core attributes that attempt to define a character's essential traits, I think a better starting point for proving how easy and non-destructive such a system could be for a future PF3, is to show that it could fit exactly over the existing PF2 framework and math without really changing anything about the overall system.
Eventually, I plan on taking my own personal stab at this, which I hope to post a link to here, but it is an idea that I don’t want any individual ownership over and there are some basic challenges about it that I feel like are worth opening up for discussion before spending hours trying to build something that missed a core design requirement of the task. This thread then exists to: 1. Come up with some key design requirements for an attribute-scoreless variant rule for PF2 that seeks to work within the existing math of the game; and 2. Start brainstorming ideas that might meet those requirements.
One last point that feels important for the Original Post is to explain why I think this exercise is worthwhile.
Here is my current best effort to distill a version of my own personal "why?...why!" that is very likely to create its own debate here. That is fine with me as well. There are numerous other threads where this has been talked about that people can look through if they want, but I personally don’t want to do that now, so I won’t expect anyone else to do so either.
Why imagine an attribute scoreless variant rule for this roleplaying game:
1. Attempts to classify groups of traits together into "essential categories" that can define and describe a person with as few measurements as possible is a very common conceit of many different kinds of games. It is a simplification that often makes games faster to learn and to play, I am not trying to attack any games for having done this...but...when it has been done in the real world, it has led to a lot of problematic oversimplifications and created value hierarchies that have often been more about maintaining existing cultural norms and values than it has been a process of legitimate scientific research, or of helping people understand the amazing and vibrant diversity of life. Simplification has often been used to normalize certain traits and ignore, or even worse, erase variance and difference.
2. Simplicity in games is often necessary to keep those games from getting overly complicated, but sometimes past simplifications have become so out-of-date that they are not nearly as mechanically useful as they might have once been. I argue that attribute scores have become this in PF2, particularly because attributes no longer do anything by themselves; they just give bonuses to other defined proficiencies/character abilities that are also shaped by other elements, usually much more so than by attribute scores. (There are a couple of very specific exceptions in PF2 where a value for something like carrying capacity is shaped directly by an attribute score and nothing else, but there are so few elements like this that just adding them as their own proficiency/character ability adds 0 complexity to the game because they already had to exist as category on a character sheet anyway).
3. Even if you were to argue that having 6 specific “attributes” that distribute a set of bonuses out to other proficiencies/character abilities is something that simplifies the game in a pleasing way to you, balancing the value of those bonuses is very difficult and not something PF2 hit out of the park with its initial design. Some attributes, like Wisdom, can attach to primary defenses, multiple valuable skills, and spell caster accuracy. Others, like Charisma, can literally do nothing at all for a character that is not building to use charisma-based spell casting or charisma based skills. Does a character that wants to imagine themselves as asmart and wise diplomat really need to boost all 3 mental ability scores to be able to represent this character fantasy effectively? Is it necessary to make that character nearly unplayable in PF2 because they will have practically no physical defenses? What if it were possible to have “Relatable Wisdom” as one character trait rather than "smart," "wise," and "charismatic" as three that all had to be separate to provide an equal value to having a boost to charisma, but just for diplomacy, a boost to will saves to represent their ability to keep an even head in stressful situations, and a boost to society to represent their understanding of political and social systems? Does having exactly 6 partitioned attribute scores really help describe this character better than having the bonuses a character would get to certain rolls from attribute scores be accessible through a more flexible and diverse system of giving out these bonuses?
The next post I will make in this thread will either be to start putting together some design requirements for this system, or to respond to questions or concerns that other people raise here.
Here are some design requirements that jump out to me:
1. The variant rule should not require changing creature/NPC numbers at all. This means the bonuses that can be earned by whatever replaces attribute scores should be able to exactly match what you can currently build.
2. existing PF2 characters should be able to be ported over to an “attribute-less” (really attribute scoreless) system with as little changes as possible. If any changes are necessary, they should probably make existing characters that get labeled as sub-optimal a little easier to play, without overly boosting already optimized builds or lowering the current ceilings of PC builds.
2b. This new system shouldn’t be a way to hyper optimize characters generally into having the equivalent of +4 attribute score modifiers to more different things than they could have at level 1 with attribute scores. Instead it should probably aim to allow a broader range of things that they can get solidly to +3 at and maybe have +4s in the same number of things, but not necessarily things that have to go together with attribute scores. Like a +4 wisdom Druid now already gets +4 to spell casting, perception, 4 skills (including 2 magic ones and medicine, one of the most valuable skills in the game) and a saving throw. Nothing should exceed that, but maybe a +4 to a key accuracy and save should be possible for non dex and wis classes without necessarily also getting 4 skills a perception as well?
3. It should either be no more complex than assigning attribute scores now, or at least able to be engaged with at that level of simplicity, even if it can be engaged with in more complex ways.
4. It should enable character builds that are not currently possible or make existing suboptimal builds (because of MAD requirements) more viable in general play. (Without this one, I think we just end up back at “attribute scores” as the solution.
5. It should encourage more vibrant character descriptions and ways for players to imagine the strengths of their character than the existing attribute score system.
6. It should prevent having a very narrow band of viable character trait arrays. For example, every Barbarian is going to want to be as accurate with melee strikes as possible and most will also want damage and athletics boosts as well, but what if there were ways to get a +4 at intimidation at the cost of a point of damage or athletics? What if a barbarian could have an extra HP or two instead of +4s in both athletics and damage bonus?
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I think the easiest solution to implement in PF2e would be something similar to Prime modifier in DC20. For those that aren't aware, it works like this:
Prime Modifier
Your Prime Modifier represents your overall experience and prowess as an adventurer. You use your Prime Modifier as the primary bonus you add to Checks involving attacking, casting a Spell, or overall awareness of dangers around you. Your Prime Modifier is commonly associated with the following:
• Attack Checks (made to Attack with a Weapon or Unarmed Strike).
• Spell Checks (made to cast a Spell or use a supernatural ability).
• Save DCs (the difficulty of resisting the effects you impose on other creatures).
• Awareness Checks (your ability to perceive and detect things around you).Prime Modifier Value
Your value of your Prime Modifier is always equal to the value of your highest Attribute. If your highest Attribute changes, your Prime Modifier derives its value from the value of your new highest Attribute. Your Prime Modifier is not an Attribute, nor considered the Attribute that it derives its value from.
If we make a direct equivalent to it, it would apply to weapon and unarmed attacks, spell attacks, spell DCs, class DCs, and Perception. I personally wouldn't allow it to work with Perception since in PF2e most classes don't max their Wis modifier for Perception anyways, but I think it would be perfectly fine for everything else.
Martials with a non-Str KAS would be getting a +1 to hit though. I personally think its fine and wouldn't break the balance of the game, but I think most will disagree.
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First, I think it’ll be helpful to go through an example to show what type of differences ability scores actually provide a character, to make sure we’re not losing customization points by glossing things over too much. I'm going to use Barbarian as an example, since it gets thrown around a lot. To keep things simple, I'll also just compare two different builds at level 1.
Strengthmaxxed Barbarian
Versatile Human (Toughness), Martial Disciple (Athletics), Barbarian (Cinder Dragon)
Str 4, Dex 1, Con 3, Int 0, Wis 1, Cha 0
Natural Ambition: Sudden Charge
Class Feat: Acute Vision (Low thrown accuracy makes Raging Thrower less attractive)
Perception +6
Weapon: Greataxe +7, 1d12+4 (+4 from raging)
Ranged: Bola +4, 1d6+4
AC (Breastplate): 18
HP: 24
Trained Skills:
Athletics + 7
Intimidation +3
Warfare Lore +3
Medicine +4
Stealth +4
Survival +4
Skilled Barbarian
Versatile Human (Toughness), Martial Disciple (Athletics), Barbarian (Cinder Dragon)
Str 3, Dex 3, Con 1, Int 1, Wis 1, Cha 0
Natural Ambition: Sudden Charge
Class Feat: Raging Thrower (Higher dex, lower delta between Str and Dex makes it attractive)
Perception +6
Weapon: Greataxe +6, 1d12+3 (+4 from raging)
Ranged: Bola +6, 1d6+3 (+4 from raging)
AC (Kilted Breastplate): 18
HP: 22
Trained Skills:
Acrobatics +6
Athletics +6
Intimidation +3
Warfare Lore +4
Medicine +4
Stealth +6
Survival +4
Differences
Attacks: Going from +4 to +6 in accuracy with a ranged throwing weapon is a significant upgrade. Equivalent to the main damage boon of the Fighter class. It goes from a tertiary option, to a very strong secondary option. The -1 to the greataxe attack and damage relative to the Strengthmaxxer hurts, but for half of the remaining levels it will be a 0 relative difference. Note how the idea of even taking Raging Thrower is a whole lot more attractive with increased dexterity.
Defenses: Same, one wears a Breastplate, likely planning on going into heavy armor in the future to avoid spending more ability boosts on dex. The other wears a kilted breastplate, and may switch to leather in the future. Major differences are 1 bulk and later access to various runes.
HP: Having a decent ranged option the Skilled Barbarian decides to get by with a lower Con, since they can back off if need be. The two point difference in HP is minor, and both will continue to invest in Con so the gap doesn’t grow wider.
Skills:
One additional trained skill from intelligence (Acrobatics), granting a significant increase in exploration traversal capabilities, as well as in-combat maneuverability. See uneven ground, tumble through, squeeze. Will continue to improve as Skilled increases their dex later on.
-1 Athletics. Annoying, but again will be equivalent for half the later levels.
+1 Warfare Lore. Could come in handy, especially with the DC reduction for specific lores.
+2 Stealth. Stealth becomes a real option. Very likely to get future skill increases. Will continue to grow as Skilled increases Dex later on.
Conclusions
Both of these are super viable barbarian builds, I know since I’ve played ones very similar to both. An attributeless system should allow for:
1. Significant mechanical incentives to wield different weapons or engage at different ranges, either by accuracy, damage, or both
2. Incentives to use different armors
3. Varying the number of skills a character can be effective with relative to others
4. Significantly changing the degree of effectiveness a character has with various skills relative to others
5. Create interesting tradeoffs and incentives between feat options
If it doesn’t deliver on these, I don’t think I would even consider it. Are there other things I’m missing here?
Getting into the nitty-gritty of this, I think there are a few things to consider:
On a broader level, WatersLethe also highlights how different modifiers and DCs can end up with different numbers based on attribute distributions, including different modifiers to key statistics such as Strikes or class DCs that all fall within the realm of the viable. If we're aiming for zero disruption to the math and existing characters, the variant would therefore have to take into account the above somehow.
In my own opinion, although I believe that it is possible to come up with an attribute-less variant and even a variety of them, I also think at least some level of disruption to the existing math and to character builds is inevitable, as is a certain degree of complexity. While I do believe a future edition would be better off without them, attributes are tied pretty intimately to PF2e's math, which makes them difficult to remove or replace. Adding additional layers of choice for the players who want to lower their key attribute to become better at skills or the like I think also tends to lead to reinventing attributes under another name.
Like I said in the other thread, you can probably just have the different classes use the monster building tables to replace attributes by telling you which tracks on which tables to follow as well as any changes mid progression if necessary.
Sure you'd need to account for a few things, like monster DC having item bonuses PCs aren't allowed to have or giving ever class an extra skill or two to replace extra trained int skills, but it should mostly be minor things. Worst case, you invent an extra table or two to cover things monsters don't care about.
Has the bonus of separating skills from attributes. You could just pick 3-6 for the high track and leave those extra trained skills on the low track while archetypes that boost skills let you move some of those lows to medium or high.
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The thing with "class progression charts" is that those would effectively be attributes with another name. It would require a ton of work to balance because PF2e's math is so tight, and the difference between choosing your own attributes or those being effectively picked for you is pretty much the same.
I think that within the design boundaries of PF2e we could come up with ways to decouple attributes from combat-related stuff, since most combat options usually use your KAS or KAS-1 and thus the numbers are the most consistent across the board, even between multiple characters, but remove them entirely would be a titanic endeavor that I don't think would be worth it.
I regularly construct creatures and NPCs with the GM Core's Bulding Creatures rules which uses 12 tables and a few paragraphs of suggestions. I barely pay any attention to Table 2–1: Attribute Modifier Scales, because those attribute modifiers are purely cosmetic. They do not effect the numbers from the other tables.
Thus, we already have a character-building system that does not use attribute modifiers. But it relies on a lot of judgment by the builder about which other choices go together.
The full set of tables is Table 2–1: Attribute Modifier Scales, Table 2–2: Perception, Table 2–3: Skills, Table 2–4: Safe Items, Table 2–5: Armor Class, Table 2–6: Saving Throws, Table 2–7: Hit Points, Table 2–8: Resistances and Weaknesses, Table 2–9: Strike Attack Bonus, Table 2–10: Strike Damage, Table 2–11: Spell DC and Spell Attack Bonus, and Table 2–12: Area Damage. Items, Resistances and Weaknesses, and Area Damage do not depend on attribute modifiers, so that leaves 8 categories that are effected by the attribute modifiers. And the tables left out carrying capacity and INT bonus to initial trained skills.
Skills category splits into 17 skills. Armor Class splits into unarmored, light, medium, and heavy. Saving throws splits into fortitude, reflex, and will. Strike Attack Bonus splits into simple, martial, and advanced weapons and unarmed strikes and is further split by melee versus ranged. And Spell Attack Bonus is constant across all traditions after the Remaster, but which attribute applies varies by tradition. That is 38 numbers that are modified by attributes, not counting special class abilities.
Strength (6) Simple, martial, and advanced melee weapon attack bonus, Strike damage, Carrying capacity, Athletics
Dexterity (11) Simple, martial, and advanced ranged weapon attack bonus, unarmored, light, medium, and heavy Armor Class, Reflex saving throw, Acrobatics, Stealth, Thievery
Constitution (2) Hit points, Fortitude saving throw
Intelligence (7) Spell DC and Spell Attack Bonus, additional initial trained skills, Arcana, Crafting, Lore, Occultism, Society
Wisdom (7) Perception, Will saving throw, Spell DC and Spell Attack Bonus, Medicine, Nature, Religion, Survival
Charisma (5) Spell DC and Spell Attack Bonus, Deception, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Performance
To remove attribute modifiers without altering the final numbers, we would need to replace them. For example, fighters could have a +2 melee attack bonus, a +2 ranged attack bonus, and a +2 boost to one of those two bonuses. Finesse melee weapons can use the ranged bonus.
And you could bring back the class skill bonus from Pathfinder 1st Edition to give a fighter a bonus to Athletics and Intimidation.
There are a lot of different ways to approach the problem for sure and I think looking at multiple different approaches is a good idea/way to see what levers can be modified and how much.
The approach I am likely to take is similar to mathmuse’s and might get labeled as “attributes by another name” by some, but has some significant differences that address my primary concerns from the OP.
My idea, like Mathmuse is to try to identify every bonus that attribute modifiers can affect, and then replace 6 attributes that distribute them, with a potentially infinite list of feats that can distribute them in much more diverse units based upon traits that make those connections make more sense. I had been considering different names for this: character feats, ability feats, but I think Trait feats makes the most sense because these are not supposed to be the kind of thing that primarily comes from training or experience typically, but represent character traits that are deeper than a thing you learned to do (like proficiency.
This does inherently add complexity, but in the same way feats already do. You have a limited number of these choices to make, so they don’t complicate anything in play, just perhaps add more variety to character creation and leveling up at attribute boosting levels. This will allow for existing attributes to be fully recreated within the new system, but not limiting players to only having 6 choices for each previous attribute boosting levels. Characters would get 2 trait feats (or just traits if that doesn’t confuse people about how they function) at ancestry and background choice (ancestries that currently allow for 3 and a flaw would actually have one that they can choose that combines the 2 set bonuses and flaw into one supercharged trait), Classes would each give 1 (or a choice of however many the class offers) unique trait as the key boost that can handle some of the classes that get particularly unique bonuses tied to an attribute (like a commander).
For starters I think only the 6 existing attributes would be pretty easy to make as repeatable traits. They stay exactly the same. Then you need the special ancestry ones and he key class ones and you have everything mandatory for making the game function as is, but the space to expand it in any direction you want by offering new traits that combine the various trait bonuses in new ways.
Maybe you make it where no bonus to any one proficiency or ability can go up by more than one in any step that gives traits, Or maybe you set a level cap so that nothing in the game can benefit from more bonuses than that cap. I kinda like that so that if you have two traits that do boost the same proficiency past the current level cap, that isn’t forever wasted, because it could kick in when the level cap rises (unfortunately only at levels 10 and 20 for the base version of this that has to stick to the existing limits).
The reason this feels different than attributes to me is because we have de-essentialized Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma as the only possible matrix of traits that define a character. Traits can more represent the kinds of features that actually make characters unique and good at what they do, but still include all the past ways of imagining characters. For example “Massive Arm Span” is a pretty big deal in many sports: Boxing, Swimming, Climbing, acrobatics, etc. right now that gets mostly subsumed within the attribute of STR, but it’s not actually tied to STR and could provide bonuses to a whole host of different things (I am not trying to create and balance an example yet), and it would give a much more interesting and unique narrative description for a character than, “another point of strength.” Physically we could have a whole host of slightly different traits that can be chosen to build a “strong” character but without making all strong characters exactly the same: wide frame, powerful legs, dense muscles, barrel chested, scrappy, wiry tendons, + a slew of magical options as well.
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What do you think about having each character start with a +4/+2/+2/+2/+2/+2 stat array, with the key attribute increasing by 1 at 10th and 20th level (up to +6), while the rest would increase by 1 at 5th and 15th level (up to +4)? This would remove the need for partial boosts, which I feel aren't really that popular with people, and while certainly a buff for most characters, it really wouldn't make that much of a difference in the long run IMO.
Its still "attributes by other name" in nature, but its easily the most simple way to implement this.
I was thinking about backgrounds. In PF2 each background typically grants two attribute boosts, a skill feat, and the trained proficiency rank in two skills, one of which is a Lore skill. In non-attribute PF2 the background would have to change, since attribute boost would no longer be meaningful. That would be a great place to provide the feats that mimic the effects of attribute bonuses.
For example, Hefty Hauler Athletics feat increases the encumbrance limit, which mimics the Strength bonus to bulk limits. The backgrounds Cannoneer, Junker, and Laborer grant Hefty Hauler.
Cannoneer background grants Strength or Dexterity plus one other, Athletics training, Warfare Lore training, and Hefty Hauler feat. I imagine that non-attribute Cannoneer background could offer Acrobatics training, Athletics training, Warfare Lore training, Hefty Hauler feat, and a feat that boosts ranged attack bonus.
Junker background grants Strength or Wisdom plus one other, Athletics training, training in a terrain Lore, and Hefty Hauler feat. I imagine that non-attribute Junker background could offer Athletics training, Crafting training, training in a terrain Lore, Hefty Hauler feat, and Canny Acumen feat.
Laborer background grants Strength or Constitution plus one other, Athletics training, Labor Lore training, and Hefty Hauler feat. I imagine that non-attribute Laborer background could offer Athletics training, Survival training, Labor Lore training, Hefty Hauler feat, and Toughness feat.
Like I said, I think there are a lot of different approaches a person could take to this, and my goal is not to say one is better than the others on any kind of objective "this is how it should be in the future" sense.
For me, the goal of this version is to prove the concept to people who might be skeptical and do so within the existing framework and math of PF2 because I believe the core idea of trying to go attribute scoreless is to establish that trying to have some set number of essential attributes that every roll key off of (in PF2's case, 6) is the past of RPGs, not the future, because: 1. the effort always falls short of representing the potential diversity of characters, 2. Some attributes always end up being better than others in ways that impact game balance, and 3. RPGS and PF2 design in particular have already moved past attribute scores being necessary because they don't do anything by themselves anyway.
Because of that, I don't want to do anything like create a new attribute spread that is the baseline of all characters because that reduces the diversity of potential character builds. What I want to do is make it so that there are not 6 different values that basically define what your character can be.
That is why my vision for attribute scoreless PF2 is to replace the part of character creation where you assign attribute boosts to x number of 6 attributes, with a feat selection process where you can choose from a pool of feats that lump groups of bonuses together (that I am calling trait feats to keep them away from other existing terms in the game, but in a new edition could be called ability feats) that are very close to the balance level of the 6 existing attributes. Because there is already a massive imbalance between different attributes, this is a pretty big window of power levels, but that is ok, it means it will be pretty easy to make these because we just have to stay above the floor of charisma for a martial with no charisma skills, and below the ceiling of Wisdom for a Druid, who might actively use every single bonus given by that boost, including boosting primary attack and an important defense.
The other major difference between existing attribute scores and my feat based "trait" bonus system is that each individual boost is its own unique thing. To best be able to replicate existing characters this will mean players need to be able to choose 4 feats that do exactly the same thing at character creation and up to 6 times by level 20, but I don't really want all the other trait feats to have versions 1-4 because that is part of what makes existing attributes boring. Having it for 6 basic ones is just a necessary concession, but I really doubt that many players will choose 9 total basic attribute traits because most characters don't want all or even most of the bonuses an existing attribute gives, they want one or two bonuses from it.
I think things like distinguishing what armor a character can use is going to be easy with this system. It is already well established that the difference between STR and CON is a bit of a contrivance and more about mechanics than actually trying to have narratively relevant variables. If we just use the trait bonus characters have to carying capacity to determine what armor they can wear without penalty, then we cover what already exists and can have many different ways for characters to improve their carrying capacity and ability to wear heavy armors without that having to correlate to how hard they can swing a melee weapon.
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Well, let's see
Fighter with base +1 wis vs moderate
Level 01: +06 vs +07
Level 05: +12 (item +1) vs +12
Level 10: +19 vs +19
Level 15: +26 (item +2) vs +26
Level 20: +33 (item +3) vs +33
So that's on track.
What about vs high AC?
01: 18 vs 16 (half plate)
05: 24 vs 22 (full plate)
10: 29 vs 30
15: 37 vs 37
20: 45 vs 45
Would need adjusting in the earliest levels. Champion is 1 behind extreme.
Saves w/ +1 wis (scaling to +4) and bulwark (static +3) against moderate and low?
01: 07/05/04 vs 07/04 (no bulwark)
05: 12/12/11 vs 12/09
10: 21/18/18 vs 19/16
15: 27/26/25 vs 26/23
20: 34/32/33 vs 33/30
A little uneven in the 10-15 range, the numbers are fine at 09 and 16, but any save on the master track hews pretty close to moderate when the save isn't a primary stat. Key attribute master follows high, non-key attribute legendary is also high, key attribute legendary is actually also mostly high. It gets a couple levels at +1 until 20 where it's 1 behind extreme.
Hp?
01: 020 vs 021-019
05: 078 vs 078-072 (includes tough)
10: 158 vs 179-171
15: 233 vs 279-271
20: 328 vs 379-371
Alright, no salvaging this one.
Strikes vs high?
01: +09 vs +09
05: +16 vs +15
10: +23 vs +23
15: +30 vs +30
20: +38 vs +38
Uneven in places again, but largely hews to high. Non-fighter martial follows low.
How about spell dc from a full caster?
01: 17 vs 17
05: 21 vs 22
10: 29 vs 29
15: 36 vs 36
20: 45 vs 42
Little uneven. Big player spike at the very end with legendary, final attribute boost and apex.
Spell attacks?
01: 07 vs 09
05: 11 vs 14
10: 19 vs 21
15: 26 vs 28
20: 34 vs 34
Yeah, we already knew these weren't meant for players. Neat how things even out at the very end.
Overall pretty consistent. HP aside, I think you could run it as-is at levels 5-18 with only minor issues like spell attacks and martials with non-offense key stats, and nobody would be sad to see those issues go away.
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The problem I see for using charts is that players aren't going to like needing to consult a chart to recalculate their whole character at each level. It used to be a chore back in the day when base attack bonus and save progression tracks were a thing in PF1e, and it would be a chore here too.
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I've attempted this kind of variant twice in the past: my first attempt was years ago and focused on trying to preserve an element of choice to building one's character, with a generic bonus that could be increased on some statistics through "ability feats". My assessment was that choices overwhelmingly skewed towards certain features that boosted defenses and raw power, such that there was far less choice than appeared. It was fairly straightforward and kept some of the subtleties of attributes, with more choice on how to boost skills, but ultimately I think added more power than depth by giving everyone equal access to the same benefits.
My second attempt was a bit more in-depth and instead focused on trying to completely remove attributes (as well as standard item bonuses), with multiclass dedications adjusted accordingly. This I think led to more meaningful choices in the sense that characters could choose skills more freely, and made having lots of trained skills more valuable, but was also quite complicated, such that I don't think its implementation would be practical.
It is also for this reason that I would advise people to actually try to write down what their idea of a system would be: general principles are great, but the devil really is in the details here, such that seemingly simple concepts can easily translate to complicated or troublesome implementations. There's quite a few mechanics outside of proficiencies that rely on attributes, and while it's not an unsolvable problem, it does complicate any solution that tries to be comprehensive.
I also think that if the intended goal is to have an alternative to attributes that doesn't change the math at all, doesn't disrupt choices at all, and doesn't involve any additional complexity at all, then the best system to achieve that within 2e will just be attributes. You can change their names to something different, but if you want something that walks exactly like a duck and quacks exactly like a duck, the subset of things that will perfectly satisfy those criteria will be very small.
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Something that I think is worthwhile to strive for, is to break out of the trap of some attributes (or their replacements) being too dominant. Right now, that's dex/con/wis for AC/saves/HP and your to-hit stat (varies by class, not always actually your key stat).
If people could pick five out of ten widgets, but three of those widgets are seen as essential to survival and the fourth as essential to just being effective, then there's only one really free choice.
I think this relates to the difference between point-buy and class based RPG systems. A problem that point-buy systems always have to watch out for is people just putting all their points into a few "essential" things. A vampire campaign where one PC puts everything into Fortitude has a problem, because anything that can scratch that PC will just turn the other PCs into a bloody smear. In Pathfinder, we also have this a bit (because current attributes are a bit point-buy-like): a party where some PCs take Dex and wear armor and others ignore it, isn't gonna work that well.
But PF2 does go further than a lot of point-buy systems in limiting the damage here. You can't just say "I'll take no skills at all so I can take more strength" for example.
It's pretty hard to convince people that you don't have to put boosts into dex/con/wis because at some point you're gonna have to make some hard saving throws and failing them is gonna feel bad. But it makes it hard to make a diplomatic wizard you know?
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A variant I've been thinking about is when your attributes don't apply to saving throws / AC / to-hit / spell DCs and such. If they were mainly there for skills, and some other sub-critical stuff like bulk limits.
Then for the combat-y things you could maybe give people 2-3 picks from:
- emphasize melee offense
- emphasize ranged offense
- emphasize save X
- emphasize HP
- emphasize AC
- emphasize spells
So a barbarian isn't asked to choose between Will save and Occultism and a wizard isn't picking between HP and Diplomacy.
So I think that the key to making trait feats works is that players need to be able to choose as many of them as they would choose attribute boosts and that this system doesn’t try to shift the bonuses attributes give into a generic array of bonuses that excludes player choice. Instead most trait feats should probably boost at least defense in some fashion, some kind of offensive ability, and at least one skill. Remember, the ceiling for an attribute boost is a +1 to everything given by an attribute like wisdom to a Druid or Dex to a thief Rogue. These trait feats can be beefy with the bonuses they give out.
The second trick is that each one only gives out a plus one and the only way to get to a +4 trait bonus at level 1 is from the key boost you get from your class. Each class will essentially need there own to tie up any class specific attribute features, but for the existing classes these will pretty much look like one of the traditional six attribute traits (because I am trying to make he costing game work with as little changes as possible). In the future there can be more, and I think alternative key trait features for existing classes can be worked in eventually as part of class archetypes and subclass features (as it will have to be to make some of the existing options). This is how we will make the kineticist’s class DC and blasts attack number key off of there fort save, for example, without having to list kineticist class DC and blast attack roll modifier in ever trait feat that boosts fort save, and avoid having the kineticists key trait class feature not just give out a flat +4 bonus.
As far as certain traits becoming the ones every character takes, with the exception of the 6 attribute traits that mimic existing attribute boosts, the other traits will not be repeatable, so wv n if one is really good for a lot of characters, that is only like saying that it is a good idea to boost wisdom at least once. Not like giving every character a +4 to wisdom starting.
Edit: lastly, ideally, in a new system it wouldn’t be necessary, and we could have a lower starting cap that increases more gradually, but to keep with the existing math, there is going to have to be a level cap to the value of any trait bonus you can get. So the trait cap maxes out at 4 until level 10 and then stays at 5 until 20. You could choose a trait that might provide a boost to some proficiency or feature that you can’t use until level 10 or 20, but at least it is not totally lost and there should be other trait feats that are more useful to you in the mean time.
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I’ve been working on two variants based on the ideas I shared earlier in this thread. As Teridax pointed out, what I initially thought was going to be simple rules to implement in PF2e ended up revealing a surprising amount of undesired consequences the more closely I examine them. For that reason, the variants I’m going to post here aren’t finalized, as I’ve likely overlooked several things that would impact the system negatively.
Both variants are designed to be used together, though they can function independently as well. That said, using them in tandem is, in my view, the closest we can get to an attribute-less PF2e without fundamentally changing the system to accommodate it.
Key Modifier
The Key modifier variant provides a way for characters to focus on the attributes they truly want without negatively impacting their combat prowess, even when their class doesn’t support those choices.
Building a Key Modifier Character
Your Key modifier represents your overall experience and prowess as an adventurer. The value of your Key modifier is always equal to the value of your highest attribute modifier. If your highest attribute modifier changes, your Key modifier derives its value from the value of your new highest attribute modifier.
Your Key modifier commonly replaces the appropriate attribute modifiers in the following statistics:
* Weapon and unarmed attacks.
* Spell attacks and spell DCs.
* Class DCs.A Key modifier character is more flexible with their choice of attributes. You can choose to replace the attribute boost from your class's key attribute to one attribute of your choice. For the purposes of abilities, feats, and effects, the attribute from which you derive your Key modifier is considered your class’s key attribute.
Playing with a Key Modifier Character
Some Key modifier characters may have advantages that a normal character wouldn’t, such as higher attack modifiers on weapons and spells they normally wouldn’t because of their otherwise lower attributes. Some tables may also prefer to go a step further and allow certain classes to calculate some statistics, such as meeting an armor’s Strength requirement as a non-Strength champion or to calculate your AC as a non-Dexterity swashbuckler, using the character’s Key modifier in place of their usual attribute modifier.
At GMs discretion, include the following list of statistics to be affected by a character’s Key modifier.
* Actions with the attack trait, such as Dirty Trick, Escape, Force Open, etc.
* Armor Class, up to your armor's Dex Cap.
* An armor’s Strength requirement.
* Other statistics at GMs discretion (see below).If changing a class’s key attribute can result in having certain statistics lower than normal, such as a low Perception modifier in classes that normally have a Wisdom key attribute such as cleric or druid, or low Hit Points in classes that normally have a Constitution key attribute such as kineticist, the GM could allow those classes to instead replace the appropriate attribute modifier for those statistics with their Key modifier. For example, the GM could allow a champion to use a +4 Charisma Key modifier to overcome an armor’s Strength requirement because it would otherwise result in the champion taking penalties from armor they’re wearing they normally wouldn’t have taken, but shouldn’t allow a fighter to use a +4 Constitution Key modifier to calculate their Hit Points because fighters aren’t a class that can normally start with a +4 Constitution modifier. In any case, both the GM and players should work together to customize this variant rule to their preferences.
Standard Attribute Progression
The standard attribute progression variant offers an alternative to the default method of generating attribute modifiers, simplifying the process while enabling more customization in other parts of character creation. It is recommended to use this variant with the Key modifier variant, though it can also be used independently.
Building a Standard Attribute Progression
Rather than building your character's attribute modifiers, each of your character's attribute modifiers start at +2, while your class’s key attribute starts at +4. You don’t get attribute boosts from your ancestry, background, or class. At 5th and 15th level, increase your other attributes by 1, to +3 at 5th level and to +4 at 15th level. At 10th and 20th level, increase your class’s key attribute by 1, to +5 at 10th level and to +6 at 20th level.
Playing a Standard Attribute Progression
If you’re playing a character using the standard attribute progression and the Key modifier variants, it may be tempting to choose Dexterity, Constitution, or Wisdom as your key attribute because of the benefits those attributes give to a character’s defenses. To discourage this, the GM can implement the following modifications: The highest attribute modifier that can be applied to your Perception modifier, number of languages known, Bulk limits, Hit Points at 1st level and every level thereafter, Fortitude saves, Reflex saves, and Will saves can’t be higher than +2 at 1st level, increasing to +3 at 5th level and to +4 at 15th level. This helps prevent players from min-maxing their characters, preserving the intended spirit of these variant rules.
Playing around with trait feats in place of attribute boosts and scores, the only place I have found a difficult bit of math to keep exactly the same is with attribute/trait modifiers to spell casting proficiency. Classes like the sorcerer completely obliterate the ability to tie tradition to anything that would be useful to destinguish different kinds of casting from each other.
But the solution seems very simple and straight forward: traits just list “spell casting modifier and don’t distinguish between getting a spell casting modifier from one attribute or trait from another. This will make it nearly impossible for casters to end up with less than a +4 spell casting modifier at level 1, unless they just completely build themselves to be a martial, but they won’t hit +4 on skills unless they really focus on it. In theory, this could mean a wizard goes 3 points in wisdom-like traits, and sorcerers can more easily get +3 in their casting skill, but I don’t think that will break anything.
It might seem like this is going to reduce the value of CHARISMA and INTELLIGENCE as traits (at least the repeatable versions of these that stand in for old attribute scores), but I think the reality is that CONSTITUTION and STRENGTH were also going to be devalued in a system that allows more flexible combinations, so it was only ever going to be Dex and Wis that were in a position of keeping at the top tier of traits.
The idea of trait feats looks really interesting, particularly its ability to capture finer aspects of characters that are normally subsumed into attributes. My main issue at this stage is that I'm having a difficult time conceptualizing them, let alone considering their limitations and risks, and would likely be able to give much more concrete feedback in the presence of tangible examples and a basic rules framework, in a manner similar to exequiel759's proposals. It doesn't have to be fully-formed, but one or two examples as a basic proof of concept with a basic explanation of the associated rules I think would go a long way.
If there is one criticism I'd make from this high-level description, it's that the proposal of a new range of feats I think brushes up against point #3 of the second inaugural post: replacing modifiers with a range of feats that provide modifiers adds complexity for both the designer and the player. There is, however, the potential for greater depth to be extracted from this system, so I do think it's still a worthwhile endeavor.
I'm worried because even the existing feat load is cognitively challenging for many people. If the "trait feats" have a bunch of little things to remember, it's going to be a large additional cognitive burden.
I will try to put together more fleshed out examples when I can, especially for the kinds of examples that would deviate from the 6 current attributes.
One advantage of at least first trying to recreate what is is that the cognitive load should stay about the same. The big difference is you don’t try toremmber what STR affects or WIS, you just have to remember what bonuses are important to your character or what traits sound interesting to imagine a character around. There already is a place on the character sheet to record the attribute modifier on every proficiency and relevant ability any way. We can use that space for recording trait modifiers instead and we can use the space where attributes are to just have space to list your trait feats.
Starting from a new edition you can have symbols for most of the important modifiers in the game and the traits can list their symbols but for now that will have to be written out.
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I'm not wild about the term "trait" since that's already widely used for another key game concept. How about "accent" or "aspect"?
Re: Intelligence. It's already the case that high intelligence sets you up with a bunch of skills, but those depreciate in quality because at higher level you do need some expert+ upgrades to keep up with DCs. Now, some classes also get low base amount of skills because they're expected to have high intelligence (wizard). Can we do something useful in this area?
I'm not wild about the term "trait" since that's already widely used for another key game concept. How about "accent" or "aspect"?
Re: Intelligence. It's already the case that high intelligence sets you up with a bunch of skills, but those depreciate in quality because at higher level you do need some expert+ upgrades to keep up with DCs. Now, some classes also get low base amount of skills because they're expected to have high intelligence (wizard). Can we do something useful in this area?
The important part of this exercise is proof of concept. Names and the exact details of the feats and their balance points will be a lot easier to dial in once we can be sure the core idea of replacing 6 static attributes that have values ranging from -1 (but really 0) to 6 (and kinda 7 with capstone items) with feats that give out a special pool of bonuses that increases by 1 but has level caps so that they can stack with each other, but not to the point that a player chooses all feats that boost one modifier.
I think for that sake I will just refer to scores vs feats as they could be called ability feats, attribute feats, character feats, aspect feats, or whatever (accent sounds too minor to me for things that will represent important descriptive characteristics of a character).
That is also why it is a little tricky to try to provide a set of examples until we've really settled down on what possible bonuses can be dolled out and what is too many good ones to group together. Like, if we were designing a new system and I proposed a feat:
Wise
Gain a +1 ability modifier to Perception Checks; Spell Casting DC and spell attacks; Will Saves; and the skills: Medicine, Nature, Religion and Survival.
This feat can be taken multiple times.
next to a feat:
Charismatic
Gain a +1 ability modifer to Spell Casting DC and spell attacks; and the skills: Deception, Diplomacy, Intimidation and Performance.
This feat can be taken multiple times.
That wouldn't look anything like balanced or fair as one gives 2 additional core bonuses than the other (perception and will saves), but that is where our basic math is going to be for feats instead of scores, so there really is a lot of flexibility.
Now, beyond the feats that have to replicate an attribute boost exactly, if we don't have the "this feat can be taken multiple times," to contend with, and we don't have 3+ feats that give exactly identical bonuses (which we could do instead of the "taken multiple times" route, by having "Strong," "Stronger," "Even Stronger"), then I also think the balance concerns will be not too serious.
We might need to limit it so that instead of exactly a level cap for the bonuses you can get from feats, you can only ever boost any one modifier by 1 point during each of the Ancestry, Background, Class, and Attribute Boosts steps of character creation. The only reason this might be necessary is to prevent everyone from ending up with at least +3s to every single key modifiers/bonuses (attacks, defenses, perception, and Hitpoints), which would be most likely to happen in those Attribute Boost steps where people would be too easily able to double dip. I am not really sure that would be a problem, but for the sake of replicating what already is and then just adding more variety and decentralizing the six existing attributes, I think only +1 per stage is fine, and the same level of complexity as existing attributes, because you can't boost one attribute 2x in any stage of boosts currently.
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I was thinking a bit about how I'd go about it. I'd want to just make a big split between "combat effectiveness" stats and "skill challenge" stats.
For the skill side, we could maybe just keep the current attributes, dropping constition since it doesn't affect any skills. That means you'd have left over:
Strength
- bulk capacity
- armor penalty
- Athletics
Dexterity
- acrobatics
- stealth
- thievery
Intelligence
- arcana
- crafting
- occultism
- society
- lore
- extra skills (maybe not anymore?)
- extra languages (maybe move to Charisma?)
Wisdom
- perception
- medicine
- nature
- religion
- survival
Charisma
- deception
- diplomacy
- intimidation
- performance
The attributes aren't totally equally valued here, but they're not miles off either.
And on the combat side, you'd have Aspects, which you pick completely separately from Attributes:
- melee to-hit bonus
- melee, thrown and propulsive damage bonus
- ranged & finesse to-hit bonus
- spell attack, spell DC, class DC
- hit points
- fortitude
- reflex
- will
You could just give people a sack of points to spread over aspects, but I think you want to ensure that people have to spread them a bit. You can do a diminishing returns setup, where a +4 in one accent costs more than +2s in two accents. It could be tied to Ancestry/Background/Class, where each of those gives you some hardwired accents that you can't move, and then you get more accents to flexibly place where you want them.
Ok so what are some potential examples people might want to throw out to bring the feat system to life and give it some color?
Here are a couple completely off the top of my head that might be way out of line and would really stretch the essential boundaries of existing attributes:
Quick Wits
Your character keeps their wits about them even in the most dangerous situations.
Gain a +1 ability modifier to Reflex Saves; Armor Class; Perception checks; the skills: Acrobatics, Arcana, Deception, Survival and Thievery; and gain training in one additional skill.
In my mind, this Quick Wits Feat would be a weaker feat than most, as it doesn't boost any offensive abilities, but it does boost 1 more skill than most "mental ability" feats will, and is probably better than Intelligence as an attribute boost for anyone not trying to be a caster.
Slightly Gishy
Your Character's aptitude for magic is as much a part of their physical body as it is the power of their mind.
Gain a +1 ability modifier to Spell Casting DC and Spell attack Rolls; Melee attack rolls; Ranged attack Rolls; and to one of the 4 magical tradition skills (Arcana, Nature, Occultism or Religion).
In my mind, this would be an interesting way for players that are really trying to gish to make sure they are getting boosts to pretty much every important offensive modifier, but at the cost of a damage boost, any kind of defensive boost, and it only increases the modifier of 1 skill, so it is definitely not like getting the best of taking both "Strong" and "Intelligent" as one feat. And since you can only take it once, you'd still have to take other feats to boost each offensive modifier 2 more times, and your Class attribute boost is not going to boost all three offensive modifiers , so the character is still, best case, only ending up with a +4 in one and +3 in the others.
Scrappy
Your character may not look like a muscled brute but can really pack a punch and take one as well.
Gain a +1 ability modifier to Melee Attack Rolls, Melee Damage, Armor Class, and Hit points.
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Here are a couple completely off the top of my head that might be way out of line and would really stretch the essential boundaries of existing attributes:
Quick Wits
Your character keeps their wits about them even in the most dangerous situations.
Gain a +1 ability modifier to Reflex Saves; Armor Class; Perception checks; the skills: Acrobatics, Arcana, Deception, Survival and Thievery; and gain training in one additional skill.
In my mind, this Quick Wits Feat would be a weaker feat than most, as it doesn't boost any offensive abilities, but it does boost 1 more skill than most "mental ability" feats will, and is probably better than Intelligence as an attribute boost for anyone not trying to be a caster.
Slightly Gishy
Your Character's aptitude for magic is as much a part of their physical body as it is the power of their mind.
Gain a +1 ability modifier to Spell Casting DC and Spell attack Rolls; Melee attack rolls; Ranged attack Rolls; and to one of the 4 magical tradition skills (Arcana, Nature, Occultism or Religion).
I think this adds a lot more precision to the discussion and helps with feedback; thank you for sharing these examples. Just to start with the requirements set out in one of the thread's first posts:
Beyond this, though, I have a few questions and concerns:
To point to the first variant I made, prior to the remaster, I also ended up reaching the same conclusion as Ascalaphus and exequiel759, and decoupled "must-have" benefits from skills, such that the ability feats I created focused mostly on boosting certain defenses, melee damage rolls, and Perception, with skill increases being separate. I will also say that while this did meaningfully improve particularly MAD classes, such as by letting the Magus boost their melee power and defenses while still having accurate spells, it disrupted the balance between classes, because equal access to all of these benefits significantly buffed classes balanced around weaker attributes and also let their modifiers increase beyond what is currently allowed by the game's mixture of class key attributes and partial boosts. On a more basic level, it also meant all of the choices around these feats were made at levels 1 and 20, which I guess is somewhat similar to what we already have with attributes in practice, and also meant classes normally trained in more skills like the Wizard instead focused purely on defenses and Perception. Unless the above trait system is structured to avoid this kind of issue, it is likely to encounter similar shortcomings.
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I also think that, ideally, if we want a replacement for attributes the replacement has to be simpler and, if possible, not change the math of the game as much. An attribute trait or feat system that requires dozens upon dozens of feats to be printed and their own ways to get them IMO is way more complicated than just using attributes. Its important that variant rules are supposed to solve problems certain tables could have, and I honestly can't say someone that doesn't like attributes in PF2e would want to replace them with feats, more so when attributes are easier to use.
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Teridax, thank you for the thoughtful reflection and analysis! I very much do think dialing in the numbers is going to take some time and thought. These examples are purely thought experiments to look at what might be possible.
Before I jump into your questions, I want to go on record as leaning towards “you can only get +1 to any modifier in any one stage of boosts.” Previously, I had been considering just having level caps, but I think it works a lot better to also not let a player get to a +4 in something during the attribute boost stage just by doubling or tripling up on boosted modifiers.
Let me try to answer your questions:
1. For the sake of this variant rule version that could go in an unchained style book and keep as closely as possible to the existing math, yes! The Cleric’s Key attribute class feature will give a set of bonuses that is essentially just “Wise 4” but with any additional parameters to make the class work, like class DCs (which should correspond to a modifier connected to the class). It would be impossible to get to plus four at level 1 in anything that you don’t get a class bonus to.
I don’t love this for a future edition version, but for “just getting rid of attribute scores in PF2” it keeps the math right, and it is secretly a lot more flexible than it seems because the key attribute class feature is something that could be changed with class archetypes and sub classes, something that will already be necessary for the rogue.
2. So yeah this is just having the class key attribute feature be basically one ability feat or a choice of them if it’s a flexible KAS class.
3. Some feats are going to be better than others for different classes, yes. This is already true and to accommodate all 6 current attributes as ability feats like wise and charismatic above, than it is b necessarily the case that the range of power levels will be pretty broad. Acknowledging this though, if you cannot take any but the 6 attribute ones multiple times, and you can only get a +1 at any stage, than as long as there is only one OP feat that does something like “give +1 to every defense” then it is still going to be very difficult to get +3 or better to all defenses and a +4 to main attack.
Also, carrying capacity modifier determines how heavy of armor you can wear so it is essentially a defense unless you are going all in on AC boosts (which will be limited by heavy armor as is the case now.
So making the feats equally powerful isn’t even close to a goal of mine, only “get them with in a decent range of what attributes do now.” I think most should be limited to 2 to 3 total key modifiers (attacks, defenses, perception, etc), and most should boost 3 to 4 skills, but a handful that veer from that is fine as long as they don’t offer too many that are the same spread of modifiers. For example 1 feat that offers 2 saves and perception with no attacks and 2 skills is probably fine, but 3 that do that will lead to a problem.
4. I did talk about this a little bit earlier in the thread. It could be possible for the key attribute class feature to do stuff like say “your spell casting ability modifier is the same as your performance ability modifier” for bards, religion for clerics, nature for Druids, arcana for wizards, intimidation for sorcerers, etc.
I also think it might be fine for all casters to just have a pretty easy time getting to a +4 to their casting modifiers and still have the flexibility to not have every wizard look like an INT +4 build. They still can’t learn spells off having a +3 to nature but only a +1 ability modifier to arcana. I think this one is worth continuing to think about and considering.
Also, I really don’t think there will be any added complexity to playing the game from switching from scores to feats. All that stuff will be written on the character sheet same as now. Building characters and leveling them up at 5/10/15/20 would have the potential to be more complicated, but it could also just be picking existing attribute replacement feats if you don’t want to dig.
The way the feats are organized and presented will either do a lot of the extra potential cognitive work or make for harder work. An online resource can easily have the modifiers searchable and speed things up considerably. It’d get harder to do in print books with always new feats getting printed in each book. For a new edition I think a lot more could be done, but for this version, it’d only appear in PF2 as a variant rule in one book, so that isn’t going to be all that much of an issue. All of this is to say that feats in place of scores has the room to let players add complexity to character creation if they want the more vibrant options, but it doesn’t require players engage in that complexity.
I also think that, ideally, if we want a replacement for attributes the replacement has to be simpler and, if possible, not change the math of the game as much. An attribute trait or feat system that requires dozens upon dozens of feats to be printed and their own ways to get them IMO is way more complicated than just using attributes. Its important that variant rules are supposed to solve problems certain tables could have, and I honestly can't say someone that doesn't like attributes in PF2e would want to replace them with feats, more so when attributes are easier to use.
Since one of the key reasons to do this is to decenter 6 essential attributes and allow for more varied and diverse ways to put a character together, I think adding more ways to mechanically represent difference between characters will require a fair bit of new options to do that. In my mind this is a feature. Not every wizard needs to have the same inherent aptitude (attribute modifier to the skill) to practice occult rituals or forge horse shoes, or learn the same number of starting skills to all be good at applying their minds to the pursuit of magic.
Another example of a feat that would show how these feats can be different:
Built for labor
Your character has a body that excels at completing long arduous tasks.
Gain a +1 ability modifier to Fortitude Saves; Carrying Capacity; Hit Points; the skills Athletics, Crafting, Lore, and Survival; gain the skill feat additional Lore.
Re: point #4, although tying a class's key modifier to that of a skill is an elegant solution for many spellcasters and martial classes, it does hit a few edge cases with classes like the Kineticist and Magus, whose identifying skill uses a different key attribute. That much can be fine, though, it'd be okay for these classes to be both good at that skill and their stats.
While I do agree that these modifiers would cease to be complex once they're all written down, the process of assembling them at character creation I think would be significantly more complex: currently, players look for ancestries and backgrounds that offer overlapping boosts towards the attributes they want, and this does a similar thing with a far larger spread of statistics, far more permutations of statistical boosts, and currently less flexibility in that all the trait feat boosts listed thus far are fixed. Even with the aid of an online tool, which I don't think ought to be counted as part of the solution, this might make character-building take a fair bit more time.
On a much smaller scale, and starting off of the vanilla framework of attributes, what if every PC could swap the modifiers on any two trained skills for free at character creation, once per character? Let's say Amiri the Barbarian is trained in both Thievery and Intimidation, but the latter skill is much more important to her identity than the former: with this swap, she could apply a higher modifier to Intimidation in exchange for a lower Thievery mod. Similarly, if Lem the Bard is trained in Deception and Occultism, but is more interested in being knowledgeable about occult magic than good at lying, he could sacrifice his Deception mod for a higher Occultism mod. This wouldn't get rid of attributes, but this would give characters a bit more wiggle room to become better at the things that truly matter to the player, without needing to tank a character's stats to get there.
Rather than a system in which you use primary attributes to determine your secondary skills based off of them, why not have a system that does it backwards? One wherein your secondary skills determine your primary attributes?
This is an approach I find quite interesting. Although I struggle to think of how it could fit PF2e's framework, the idea of becoming better at adjacent things you're good at via the accumulation of transferrable skill comes across as a more organic expression of the cross-skill aptitudes that attributes try to emulate, plus it calls back nicely to skill synergy mechanics from editions past. I may prefer Pathfinder without attributes, but would still be very keen to see examples of this kind of implementation, whether in existing games or just as a simple proof of concept, as it sounds like it could open up completely new ways of building a character.
Yeah, it's an idea that definitely got me thinking. Especially since I prefer keeping attributes if possible.
The problem with that it's that the amount of skills isn't even between attributes. There's even attributes without skills at all! (Constitution). Like, being trained in Athletics is going to give you a +4 Strength at 1st level, but you'll need to be trained in Acrobatics, Stealth, and Thievery for a +4 Dexterity?
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I’m going to be a bit obtuse in that I didn’t understand Waters Lethe’s first post in that it seemed to be all about attribute scores, and then a lot of other folks posts also seem to keep mentioning them. I thought this thread was about a scoreless variant. I understand there is a need for replication of function, attributed by another name/approach, but I did have a bit of a problem understanding!
But, in the interest of trying to be of (however limited) assitance, the problems that seem to keep continuing as the conversation moved into removing attribute *scores* are that the game’s essential mechanics are plagued by two distinct problems: One, that all attributes and *their derived functions* are not only not created equal, but also function quite differently - Hit Points for example is a number that depletes, while AC is a number to beat….which is compounded by; Two, that the game isn’t exactly…smooth at transitioning….or “equal” in how non-combat and combat…events or situations are handled. Skills and their derivations have different weights or…perceived importance than the raw derivations of combat HP, AC, damage and saves.
So while I’m incredibly interested in the work here (and it is great to see such collegiality, especially where some here have elsewhere butted heads) I really would like to see some grappling with what *I think* is the central issue - overcoming the problems of the greater ruleset.
(From the outside, it really looks as if the essential math of a possible PF3, in which these ideas begin as the initiation, rather than a retrograde “optional fix” could very well benefit from this, which I think was discussed in the original “PF2 Unchained ideas” thread.)
I guess it seems to me that “checks” ought to be streamlined so that damage is a “check”, casting is a “check”, AC is a “check”, bluffing is a “check”…even HP would become a “check” rather than a static number that is depleted. While I have been playing DnDs for more than 40 years, and love the baroque, esoteric and bespoke artefacts that still populate the rulesets, sometimes I wonder if a more uniform, graceful system could be employed. And yes, I know there are likely other systems that function possibly like what I have mentioned.
(I also really liked Ajaxius’ concept.)
I hope any of this helps, and is not taken as a criticism at all. This is one of the most interesting threads I’ve read in a while.
Yeah, I assumed that was the case, so I guess I still prefer the removal of attributes for a future edition. If Paizo has to brute force new skills into existance to accomodate for such a system, it would only lead to what happened in PF1e and D&D 3.5 where skills which are now consolidated became split again into multiple worse and situational skills that nobody uses. I certainly don't want to return to the days of 20+ Craft skills, 10+ Knowledge skills, Athletics split into Climb/Swim/Jump, Perception split into Listen/Spot/Sense Motive, etc.
I was thinking about this comment in the Pathfinder 2e Unchained thread I made a while ago and I got an idea; what would you guys think if PF3e did away entirely with skills but kept skill actions? Attributes would determine a baseline proficiency with its related skill actions, but there would be ways (likely skill feats) to become better at some skill actions and unlock new ones as well. When I talk about "becoming better at some skill actions" I don't mean it in a numerical way, but rather by improving the effects of those skill actions or being able to probably merge a few of them together in a single action.
I'm not really sure such a system would fit PF if I have to be honest, more so after looking how skill feats have fared in PF2e, but nonetheless I wanted to see if there's someone that would like such a system in a future edition to be a thing.
I would personally not see much of a point in having attributes if they were determined by the things you put proficiency into, even if proficiency was made to work around everything, like damage, HP, carrying capacity, etc, but I am not trying to disuade anyone from putting thought into such an idea. A lot of fun video games kind of work that way. I do think it might be outside of the scope of designing an attribute scoreless variant of PF2 though, especially as it seems entirely like a 3rd edition exercise and not something that could be applied in a unchained version of PF2.
I understand that many people here are not convinced my feats instead of ability boosts idea would be something that they would personally use or be interested in seeing in a PF2 unchained book. I know I don't have the time to fully flesh it out and write and balance all the feats myself right now either. I think it would probably take me 20 to 40 hours of dedicated writing time to do that and I have other things much higher on my list to fill the 30 minutes of dedicated writing time I get in a day right now.
So far though, the negative reactions seem to be:
It seems like it will complicate character creation.
It seems like it will be too hard to balance.
I think both of those are addressable concerns (for reasons I feel like are pretty well discussed above), but it will be hard to convince skeptics until the whole system is probably laid out in front of them, which is fair.
As far as thinking about what character/ability feats might contain, there is obviously all the existing bonuses that attributes currently give to work with, but what do people think about sneaking in something like skill feats that would be directly connected to something a character can innately do? I created the one example above with Built For Labor. I know ancestry feats do this already, and I think that in a future addition of the game, Ancestry feats and character feats would perhaps occupy the same space, but I wouldn't do that for a variant rule for PF2.
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I'm personally a big fan of incorporating skill feats into things that boost your attributes; it's one of the things I think backgrounds do very well. In some cases, feats like Hefty Hauler can be used as stand-ins for what existing feats already do, as Mathmuse points out above.
I do think one of the things that is probably not being communicated well in the way I am putting my ideas together across multiple posts in a (not really that) long of a thread, is how the "[Character] Modifier limit" is not the same thing as an ability score, and will not be confusing in practice if it feels confusing to first understand it from preliminary writing.
So, for example, "Carrying Capacity (or Encumberance Bulk Limit) [Character] modifer" is a thing that is going to have to be recorded on a character sheet as it will be the thing that determines how heavy of armor you can wear without penalty, and it will be limited the same as "melee attack bonus [Character] modifier" to a 4 max at level 1, but if you had the Hefty Hauler feat, you would have a +4 [character] modifier and a +2 untyped bonus to your Carrying Capacity. As far as I have seen, that is like the only new modifier that has to be tracked differently from every other proficiency and ability where there already is space on the character sheet to keep track of attribute score modifier and other bonuses separately. So it is probably one that probably will draw extra scrutiny and feel the most different, but it is also really a pretty minor thing to keep track of, and once there are character sheets that have it listed the way that it will work, I think all of that confusion will go away.
In that regard, I think a Character/ability feat like Built for Labor would make a lot of sense to have Hefty Hauler built into it, as well as increasing the carrying capacity character modifier. Would that be in place of additional lore or in addition to it?
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There is another cool thing that can be done with the ability feats (I am leaning towards that, so I will call them that unless it seems like it is confusing people. I know I started with trait feats, but agree that trait is too load bearing in PF2, so that is why I have switched).
Right now, in PF2, a fairly common complaint is that ancestry feels a little bit hollow as means of defining a character, in as far as what you get from it. But if Ancestries could include some unique, or slightly restricted ability feats that are not generally available to everyone, it would make ancestry feel more vibrant.
For example, you could have some Dexterity/agility/mobility ability feats tied to having tails or wings or other appendages; or size and strength ones tied to particularly beefy ancestries. This is also how I would handle the existing disparity between ancestries that allow for flaws and an additional attribute. None of these would be must take, and they can all include very specific flaws that are not nearly as problematic as something like a blanket penalty to charisma, when maybe it is an ancestry that many other ancestries dislike, so it should just maybe have a penalty to diplomacy when entreating with other ancestries, but might even have a bonus to intimidation (if it is a dislike based in fear) or maybe a bonus to deception (if it is a dislike based in assumptions of inferiority).
I think this system would open up so much flexibility and new character types as well as give a needed boost to the vibrance of ancestries, without giving in to any essentialist narratives because these would be optional feats that characters get to choose a handful out of a bucket of many. Again, I think the presentation and sorting of these ability feats is going to be very important to making it an easy system to use, but that doesn't seem to be unimaginably difficult to implement.