Pathfinder 2E Here's The Pathfinder 2nd Edition Skill List!

Oh, and that makes sense, which is something that I like, but I wish it were toned down a pinch, like maybe every four or five levels instead of every level. At least some homebrew adjustment will work off of that, so it can be closer to World of Darkness in that your Skill and Ability Score values aren't completely made negligible in rolls after a certain point.

Morrus said:

It's another Tuesday, which means another look at the previous night's Pathfinder 2nd Edition preview! There's only a couple of month to go until the full playtest rules are released (I have the hardcover on pre-order). Until then, Paizo continue with their twice-weekly glimpses into the ruleset - and this time we look at skills!

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• 17 base skills down from 35.
• Lots of consolidation -- Athletics contains a bunch, and Use Magic Device is replaced by the relevant Lore skill
• You are trained in more skills than before -- fighter has an extra one, for example (3+ Int mod)
• Skill list --
  • Acrobatics (Dex)
  • Arcana (Int)
  • Athletics (Str)
  • Crafting (Int)
  • Deception (Cha)
  • Diplomacy (Cha)
  • Intimidation (Cha)
  • Lore (Int)
  • Medicine (Wis)
  • Nature (Wis)
  • Occultism (Int)
  • Performance (Cha)
  • Religion (Wis)
  • Society (Int)
  • Stealth (Dex)
  • Survival (Wis)
  • Thievery (Dex)
• Skill proficiency --
  • Untrained -2, trained +0, expert +1, master +2, legendary +3 (plus level and ability modifier)
  • Each level of proficiency unlocks new skill uses
  • Medicine's Administer First Aid ability is available at the untrained level, being trained allows you to Treat Disease and Treat Poison
• Skill feats --
  • Usually at even levels you choose a skill feat
  • Rogues get them every level
  • Prerequisite is a level of proficiency in a skill (e.g. "legendary in Medicine")
  • Example is the Legendary Medic, which lets you remove diseases and conditions.
  • Stealth has skill feats like Quiet Allies (help your party sneak), Swift Sneak (move at full speed while sneaking), and at legendary level you just sneak everywhere constantly.

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Pretty much the 4e list! Truthfully, is there much daylight here between the 4e and PF2 skill systems? I guess that you can add more 'ranks' in PF2, but then you could get Skill Specialization and other similar bennies in 4e as well that would amount to the same thing.

They've opted for SLIGHTLY more generic names than 4e uses (Lore vs History). Performance and Crafting are anomalous here though. The others correspond to 'approaches' fairly well (I'm sneaky, I'm diplomatic, I'm learned, etc.) but these 2 purely represent actual manifestations of doing specific things (IE making something or the generic act of performing). I'd leave those two out, as any checks would be in terms of a goal (IE I am trying to fool people with my performance, that's Deception, not Performance). I'd chalk that up to a slight holdover of older concepts, oh well. Otherwise its a step forward for sure.

I see they did lose Perception and Insight, which sucks. Yeah, 4e's is still a cut better than this, but its getting there...

AbdulAlhazred said:

I see they did lose Perception and Insight, which sucks. Yeah, 4e's is still a cut better than this, but its getting there...

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They did not lose Perception. Now everyone gets Perception automatically.

AbdulAlhazred said:

Performance and Crafting are anomalous here though.

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In 4e the developers really didn't think a crafting subsystem was necessary. PF2 devs want there to be a crafting subsystem so PCs can make things if they want. From that perspective having a Crafting skill makes sense because you need some way to realize the crafting mechanics as game rules.

Performance fits into that part of the game as well. A previous blog entry talks about how they want to add more downtime activities - things you can do between adventures. Crafting is one of those options, so is Performing or practicing a trade. If you're interested in such things, you can use your Performance skill to stage a performance and try to make some money or attract the attention of a patron during downtime.

Shasarak said:

They did not lose Perception. Now everyone gets Perception automatically.

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It seems weird to me to call it a 'skill' in that case, and what about "the guy who's more perceptive than others"? That would have been the whole point of having the possibility of training it or not. Eh, anyway...

Thx.

AbdulAlhazred said:

It seems weird to me to call it a 'skill' in that case, and what about "the guy who's more perceptive than others"? That would have been the whole point of having the possibility of training it or not. Eh, anyway...

Thx.

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In the playtest you can "train" in anything, even in saving throws, so yes you can be an expert or a master in Perception

AbdulAlhazred said:

Pretty much the 4e list! Truthfully, is there much daylight here between the 4e and PF2 skill systems? I guess that you can add more 'ranks' in PF2, but then you could get Skill Specialization and other similar bennies in 4e as well that would amount to the same thing.

They've opted for SLIGHTLY more generic names than 4e uses (Lore vs History). Performance and Crafting are anomalous here though. The others correspond to 'approaches' fairly well (I'm sneaky, I'm diplomatic, I'm learned, etc.) but these 2 purely represent actual manifestations of doing specific things (IE making something or the generic act of performing). I'd leave those two out, as any checks would be in terms of a goal (IE I am trying to fool people with my performance, that's Deception, not Performance). I'd chalk that up to a slight holdover of older concepts, oh well. Otherwise its a step forward for sure.

I see they did lose Perception and Insight, which sucks. Yeah, 4e's is still a cut better than this, but its getting there...

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Not sure the 4e system is actually better. Putting craft in there is an improvement (and when running myself I drop Dungeoneering for Engineering), and I understand the reason they pulled perception out. But 17 skills, gaining general competence as you level up (and at the same rate) and a five point spread from untrained to fully trained? That's all 4e - and 11 of the 17 skills are either exact matches or slight renames (Deception/Bluff, Medicine/Heal, Intimidate/Intimidation). This leaves Craft, Lore, Occultism, Performance, Society, and Survival to match Dungeoneering, Endurance, History, Insight, Perception, and Streetwise, and I can argue that both ways. Craft in is an improvement - but you don't need Arcana, Occultism, and Lore in the same block of 17 skills.

And it's skill feats vs utility powers...

Neonchameleon said:

Not sure the 4e system is actually better. Putting craft in there is an improvement (and when running myself I drop Dungeoneering for Engineering), and I understand the reason they pulled perception out. But 17 skills, gaining general competence as you level up (and at the same rate) and a five point spread from untrained to fully trained? That's all 4e - and 11 of the 17 skills are either exact matches or slight renames (Deception/Bluff, Medicine/Heal, Intimidate/Intimidation). This leaves Craft, Lore, Occultism, Performance, Society, and Survival to match Dungeoneering, Endurance, History, Insight, Perception, and Streetwise, and I can argue that both ways. Craft in is an improvement - but you don't need Arcana, Occultism, and Lore in the same block of 17 skills.

And it's skill feats vs utility powers...

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As I said, my take on 4e skills is that they are actually 'knacks' or 'approaches' far more than they are something you were just taught. They may involve being knowledgeable and experienced in a specific approach, represented by the +5 trained skill bonus, but in essence they're "I solve problems using my physical abilities (Athletics)" etc. Thus "I solve problems by singing and dancing (Performance)" is non-coherent because it isn't a way of solving problems. 4e lacks Performance as a skill because anything you do when you perform is in service of some way of solving a problem. You are either inspiring people, deceiving them, bluffing them, convincing them, etc. In other words it is simply a technique for applying a social skill. Otherwise its being used for non-conflict purposes (IE making a living, which can simply be hand-waved, there's literally no point to putting mechanics on that).

4e DOES have a basically non-mechanical way of letting you decide what sorts of things like making stuff and performing and other 'career activities' your character is familiar with, its the background system. It has no numbers associated with it, and that's intentional. Its also entirely open-ended, you simply state what backgrounds you have at character creation. If you want to be able to 'play the flute' you pick 'Profession: flautist' as one of your backgrounds. You get 5 choices by default, so you can probably make any reasonable character. Technically there isn't a way to add these later on, but its not like its exactly hard to make it work in practice.

Finally 4e did add the 'Martial Practices' subsystem in MP2. It wasn't elaborated on much, and I feel like it wasn't really a very well-thought-out concept, but it can work as a way to add some weird 'skills' to certain PCs (IE if you want to be a master forger you can use an MP to achieve that, at the cost of either 1 or 2 feats).