Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2e and Skills

[Emerikol]

So I've been watching the information coming out of Paizo on PF2 and I'm pretty excited. In fact, I haven't felt this excited in a long time. I feel like they are keeping all that I loved about 3e and smoothing off some of the rough edges.

My only concern is the skill system, and correct me folks if you think differently, but wouldn't it be really easy to just drop the class level affect on skills and maybe tweak the bonus to be a bit better for the various proficiency levels? So far that is my only tweak. Most of the rest of it sounds good.

I'm sure there may be a feat or two and/or a spell or two but we've handled that easily for years.

Does this sound reasonable?

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm with you on this. I'm not a fan of artificial advancement. If you add your level to all attacks, checks, and saves, and the DC of checks and AC of monsters that are likewise increased by the level they are meant to be an appropriate challenge for, then the numbers are just being inflated for the sake of inflation. At that point, you might as well remove the bonus and decrease the target number both by level; you'd have the same chances of success either way, the only thing that kind of inflation does is narrow the range above or below your level that the DM can use without creating too much or too little of a challenge.

Personally, I would be thrilled if they just dropped the level-based bonus, but I know that such bounded accuracy is unpopular with their target audience. I'm fine with Paizo's goal of making level disparity a significant consideration, but there's got to be a better way to achieve that goal.

 

[Shasarak]

I have no problem with adding levels to skills. The main problem I have is artificially inflating DCs so that you are stuck on a treadmill of always needing a 12 to pick a lock because locks always get more complicated as you level up.

In fact adding skill ranks makes it even better so that although the 20th level Barbarian may have a +20 to his Spellcraft roll he still does not know as much about Spellcraft as the trained 1st level Wizard.

 

[NaturalZero]

I have no problem with adding levels to skills. The main problem I have is artificially inflating DCs so that you are stuck on a treadmill of always needing a 12 to pick a lock because locks always get more complicated as you level up.

In fact adding skill ranks makes it even better so that although the 20th level Barbarian may have a +20 to his Spellcraft roll he still does not know as much about Spellcraft as the trained 1st level Wizard.

As long as a DC 12 lock is the same DC at 1st level and at 10th, the supposed treadmill would function like pretty much anything else in a game with levels. DMs don't usually pit level 2 boss monsters against level 15 parties, and he always has the option to use the level 12 lock at that level, or something more ornate with a higher DC.

 

[Charlaquin]

As long as a DC 12 lock is the same DC at 1st level and at 10th, the supposed treadmill would function like pretty much anything else in a game with levels. DMs don't usually pit level 2 boss monsters against level 15 parties, and he always has the option to use the level 12 lock at that level, or something more ornate with a higher DC.

But at 10th level, the untrained barbarian can pick that DC 12 lock on a 3 or higher, which is pretty silly. It also means the DM constantly has to escalate what kind of locks he uses, so that by 10th level you’re dealing with masterfully engineered puzzle locks on mithril-banded doors just to keep pace. That’s the treadmill - it’s just a treadmill for the DM instead of the players.

For me, the flatter that curve, the better. Dice bonuses are a boring form of advancement anyway. Give me a System where your bonuses never increase but you constantly gain new things you can do any day of the week. Horizontal advancement > vertical advancement if you ask me. That is one thing I like about the PF2 Proficiency system. The different levels of Proficiency gating what kinds of tasks you can attempt in addition to giving you a small bonus to the roll makes it nicely diagonal, and with a comfortably shallow incline. Personally, I’ll most likely just rip the +level out and adjust target numbers accordingly if it’s still present in the full release.

 

[CubicsRube]

I agree that new things are far more interesting.

I'm not keen on the pf +level to everything, but it sounds like it'd be easy to scrap.

But in the case of lockpicking as above, maybe a masterwork lock just cannot be picked unless the character is proficient to master level or higher.

You dont need a sky high dc then, as it's locked behind gates that only some characters choose to open.