Bulmahn on Pathfinder 2 Design Goals; Plus Proficiency Clarifications & Archeologists!

This is my second attempt to do this today, as I had all this compiled earlier and then the internet flaked out on me just as I hit "Save". So... starting again! Today's Pathfinder 2nd Edition news update, remarkably similar to the one I wrote about an hour ago, includes Jason Bulmahn talking about game design goals, Mark Seifter clarifying some things about the new proficiency system, and Erik Mona discovering that the most popular archetype is the Archeologist! All, of course, will be added to the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Compiled Info Page!

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• Design Goals & Pathfinder 1 --
  • Jason Bulmahn on talking about design goals -- "It's been kind of fascinating watching some of the debates go round and round issues that we hashed out a year ago, some of which are deeply nuanced looks at how the math behind a system influences the overall feel and verisimilitude of a system. The fact that many have intuited our intent after just a few blogs is a testament to their understanding of the game. We could do better in talking about our goals and driving motivations, but I am worried that it is a bit too "techie" and not interesting to many. Still, I think it is probably worth giving a try. I think I am going to talk to folks in the office in the coming week about the best way to communicate some aspects of our design philosophy. The "why" behind the new rules. Is that something you want to see?"
  • The design goals for the new proficiency system -- "We knew that this one was going to raise some eyebrows. Fundamentally, this system is trying to replace a fundamental part of 1st edition that caused us HUGE problems at the high levels of play, which distorted character choice and severely hampered design. A huge disparity is statistics between characters/adversaries of equal level really warps the play space and it led to stability problems with the entire game engine. The goal here to find a middle ground that still allows characters to excel in the places that they want, but not in such a way as to dominate the game. To allow monsters to be an appropriate challenge for their level without having an ability that practically auto-cripples some characters." (Bulmahn)
  • On his love for Pathfinder 1 -- "... in regards to PF1. Let me state unequivocally. I LOVE the game. It was my life's work for the past decade. I do not at all want it to go away, but I cannot let my love and efforts blind me to the fact that it is not perfect. There are things that could be even better, making the game more approachable and hopefully widening out the audience of people who love the game just as much as I do."
  • Mark Seifter agrees -- "A hearty agreement here. I would not have left my degree to come work here if I didn't absolutely love PF1. I still play PF1, and in fact I just played in a PF1 Ironfang Invasion game earlier today. PF1 is a great system and works really well for my group, especially with our house rules to match our particular group style. But that doesn't mean there aren't ways to improve the chassis, fixing some of the issues with, for instance, the fast vs slow save progression compared to spell DC meaning that optimized PC and NPC spellcasters alike can eliminate multiple targets with one spell on any but the luckiest rolls if the spell targets a weak save. The presence of these issues doesn't mean the game isn't great; far from it. But just because the game is great, it doesn't mean it couldn't be even better."
• The Mark Seifter Math Hour --
  • On different types of group skill check -- "We did the math there and suggested some rough guidelines for situations like (in roughly descending order of difficulty): "Everybody can keep rolling until it works with nothing bad on a failure"; "Everybody can roll once, only one person needs to succeed, and trying and failing doesn't do anything bad"; "Only the best person will roll this, possibly with assistance"; "Everyone has to roll and something bad happens to the people who fail"; "Everyone has to roll and if anyone fails, the whole thing fails" ... There's no reason we can't give advice for all of those situations. They all come up in adventures after all!"
  • On not scaling DCs according to the level of the characters -- "...we give examples of what tasks might be by level and elsewhere some suggested DCs for tasks of those levels (with several gradations within each level, to help GMs decide), but we go a step farther and have a significant discussion about the fact that you shouldn't scale things by level arbitrarily; a simple oak tree is a simple oak tree."
  • On auto-successes -- "I'm going to make a minor correction to this because I've been seeing it spread, so I'll repeat what I said about it before with a small clarification as to how this differs: There is an option you can choose (actually before Expert) that gives you the ability to auto-succeed at some checks depending on what your rank is. It is not Taking 10; it scales with proficiency rank and not with your bonus (so the level 7 Master is much better at using it than the level 20 Trained character, even though the level 20 Trained character would potentially have a higher result with 10+modifier)."
  • Legendary high level rogue vs. non-legendary high level guard -- "So a legendary rogue, maybe level 15? Pretty high level. I'm going to actually spot this random guard at least trained proficiency in Perception because a level 15 guard is an incredibly powerful figure on the worlds stage and is weirdly terrible at being a guard if he hasn't trained in Perception. We'll also assume that we've decided to build this guard out full PC style, since the numbers work out similarly anyway. The guard's Wisdom is not his primary attribute, but the rogue's Dexterity is. We'll say the guard has 16 Wisdom? It could be maybe 18 at the most or potentially much lower. If I recall correctly, this guard is going to be under the DC a legendary rogue can just not roll and auto-succeed with the right skill feat. Supposing the rogue didn't bother with that skill feat but does have some kind of magic cloak , we're looking at a situation where the rogue's bonus of ~+28 is going to roughly equal or surpass the guard's DC of 28 (we don't have opposed rolls) leading to near certitude of success. Even if the level 15 trained guard somehow had 18 Wisdom and some kind of magic goggles boosting him to a DC of 31, the equal level legendary rogue is still looking at a 90% chance of success. If the guard was actually untrained? It's even easier, though that just doesn't seem plausible for a level 15 guard."
  • What happens when his untried fighter friend tries the same thing? -- "But the difference is that in PF2, the untrained 14 Dex 15th level fighter is at +15 (or worse from armor, perhaps +14) instead of +2 (or worse from armor, perhaps +1), so while he is still more likely to fail than succeed against DC 28, he at least has a reasonable shot at trying, rather than no chance at all (opposed roll +1 Stealth vs +20 Perception)."
• Ancestries allow for wide variation -- "Just a note, we will be talking a lot about ancestries soon, but I wanted to make one quick note. The way they are built allows for a wide variety of variation and differentiation between members of the same ancestry. We do not want to mandate anything aside from a few basic characteristics. That is half the reason we made this change, to allow your ancestry to speak to who you are as an individual." (Bulmahn)
• Running out of resonance? "...in all honestly, it is very difficult for a low level character to run out of resonance (which is by design). Mass playtesting might show us otherwise, and we are looking forward to that feedback." (Bulmahn)
• There will be monsters! Erik Mona confirms that there will be monsters available for use when the play test land in August -- "There will be a big monster download for free on August 2nd. The actual monster book for Second Edition (no matter how large) will presumably come out with the Core Rulebook in August 2019."

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What are the most popular archetypes? Erik Mona took an informal poll and got these results:

TOP 10 OVERALL
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Archaeologist (Bard) 40 (!!!)
Lore Warden (Fighter) 24
Eldritch Scoundrel (Rogue) 22
Vivisectionist (Alchemist) 20
Arcane Duelist (Bard) 17
Zen Archer (Monk) 17
Tattooed Sorcerer (Sorcerer) 17
Titan Mauler (Barbarian) 16
Mooncursed (Barbarian) 13
Drunken Master (Monk) 12 (TIE)
Evangelist (Cleric) 12 (TIE)
Skirmisher (Ranger) 12 (TIE)​

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Finally, over on TRAILseeker, we have a little poll running:

As you may know, Paizo announced Pathfinder 2nd Edition a couple of weeks ago. The final game doesn't arrive until August 2019, and no third party licensing information is being released until early 2019, so there's no rush on our end of things to plan TRAILseeker's future; we have the luxury of taking our time and consulting with you, our patrons.Here's where we are right now, although nothing is set in stone (and we have 18 months to wait):

• TRAILseeker will continue to support Pathfinder 1E as it always has. That's not going away.
• We will launch a second Patreon, TRAILseeker II, which will focus exclusively on Pathfinder 2nd Edition.

Our question to you is this -- would a Pathfinder 2E Patreon, which works just like this one, be of interest to you? We need to gauge overall interest levels. The team would be the same -- Felipe (editor) and Alex (layout) would be doubling up their efforts to run both Patreons simultaneously, and we anticipate that there will be an eager pool of writers willing to contribute.

Let us know in the poll! And remember, this is still 18 months away. No rush!

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[RevTurkey]

I guess it’s a very D&D old-school way of approaching skills really. In early editions...combat skills rose very rapidly for fighting classes so that a higher level character was insanely better than a ‘normal’ guard or soldier NPC. In reality, you wouldn’t have such a difference...but it made the rise to power fun and entertaining...and within it’s own bubble universe, worked great.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Saelorn...Is it not possible to design a more elegant and more pseudo-realistic method for situations that both show up at the table commonly and also rarely? Btw, I’m not trying to be negative about this for the sake of it...just questioning the sense of it. If it makes the game simple and fun then fair enough, that is enough of a reason I suppose. I just wonder if there is a way they can do this which serves both the high fantasy, high power end goal for characters without too huge leaps between party members and yet keeps a bit more realism in there for the partial-simulation aspect.

Honestly, I'm not sure that you can do it within the framework of the basic d20 mechanic, because the d20 check can only be shifted up and down in linear increments. If you want the high-level expert to be out of the d20 range of the low-level expert, but within the d20 range of a high-level non-expert, then you necessarily need to bring the high-level non-expert up out of the range of the low-level expert. The parameters involved are directly contradictory.

You could do it by varying the number of dice involved. If experts rolled 3d20 and took the highest, but you still added in a level-based flat bonus, then you would get probability curves that made a little more sense. That way, low-level experts could still beat high-level non-experts if the dice were in their favor, but it's hard to say whether it's worth the added complexity.

 

[3catcircus]

The only way to solve this in a d20 system with a flat power curve is to let each level of proficiency (or some factor thereof) to allow you additional dice when rolling a skill check.

I sound like a broken record, but I continue to look to the d20 dice pool mechanic in Twilight:2013 as an example of how to do this.

Ditch the sacred cow of the D&D3e-based d20 mechanic or continue needing to have gigantic bonuses and gigantic DCs, I don't see any other way.

 

[ccs]

Hmm. The more I read about their new skill/prof system the less impressed I am.

But to be fair, I haven't found any skill system I actually like in D&D

 

[Shasarak]

Thanks for the info and the replies. It does seem a bit wonky from what I have seen so far. I don’t understand why the massive numbers by adding level are needed to simulate skill use..if anything it seems counter-intuitive to me.

Here is another example: 2 characters...Jack and Jill, both with equal strength, dexterity and constitution...both human, both the same age, both equal height...in fact...let’s make them twins...both fighters...Jill went out adventuring and killed a lot of beasties with her bow and arrows...reaching 20th level....the other, Jack stayed home. They are faced with the task of climbing the hill to fetch a bucket of water...they both are untrained in this...why is Jill at a +20 advantage on a d20 roll compared to Jack? Seems a bit nuts to me. I hope it’s just me not understanding it properly.

Gary Gygax explained this in the ADnD Dungeon Masters Guide. Gaining XP for killing beasties works great if you want to play a game involving killing beasties. It is not supposed to be "realistic"

 

[Khaalis]

In PF2...Am I right in thinking that say for example you have a Blacksmith who has everyday crafted his wares for his entire life say 40 years...awarding him maximum proficiency bonus of +5 but being a ‘normal’ chap and only 1st level...he’ll have a +6 total before stats playing a part...but a 20th level Wizard who has a fleeting/passing familiarity with Blacksmithing by virtue of how many Goblins he has incinerated with Fireballs is somehow naturally about +15 better off (75%ish) than our rubbish Smithy...is that how this plays out? Am I missing something obvious because that doesn’t sound like it is the right maths for skills.

Actually after the guard example discussed above (Level 15 Guard), I would assume that a 40 year veteran blacksmith is probably more likely a Level 15+ Blacksmith. So I assume we can expect that NPCs will have "levels" in some form of NPC/Professional Class style system.

 

[GreyLord]

Gary Gygax explained this in the ADnD Dungeon Masters Guide. Gaining XP for killing beasties works great if you want to play a game involving killing beasties. It is not supposed to be "realistic"

I think;

In AD&D Jack and Jill had no skills and hence with both their STR being the same (well, unless Jack had extraordinarily high in which case gender modifiers would have kicked in with AD&D) they would have had the same difficulty fetching a pail of water...

On the otherhand, in AD&D, if Jill and Paul were adventurers, and Jill was a Fighter and Paul was a Wizard...Jill would have a THACO (or if you looked it up on the To Hit Table) far higher than Paul. Paul's combat ability to hit would be around where Jill was 12 levels ago if equal levels...BUT...Paul would only be 18th level (I think) because the XP tables were different as well.

Jill would dominate if it was purely a hand to hand combat and part of that would be because they don't both add their level as their bonus (oh...excuse me...proficiency) to hit.

With that in mind, and considered just what Gygax thought of 3.X...I'm almost positive he would have hated what has become of the RPG scene these days...whether it was 5e OR Pathfinder 1e or 2e.

He would probably consider all of them an antithesis to what he created in regards to AD&D in the first place.

On the otherhand, Dave Arneson probably would be great with D&D 5e (IMO).

 

[Kobold Boots]

I think;

In AD&D Jack and Jill had no skills and hence with both their STR being the same (well, unless Jack had extraordinarily high in which case gender modifiers would have kicked in with AD&D) they would have had the same difficulty fetching a pail of water...

I think:

That a good number playing the game right now, or really in any edition missed the point entirely of the rules of the game being a toolbox and not something absolutely prescribed.

So many discussions about fiddly bits that make no difference at all to the actual game play when friends get together to have a good time.

Be well
KB

 

[CubicsRube]

My thought is the levels give you access to feats (training) which can be spent. If your an expert at something you are an expert at it no matter what level you are (at least that would be my preference). The difference is a 20th level "expert" has only spent a little bit of its possible training to be an expert at something, while the 1st level person would have spent everything they have to gain that expertise



Yes, that is possibly a feature of my proposal. However, you could separate defense from offense training if you want, or go with 1/2 level with higher bonuses. There are lots of ways that would be more palatable to me.

To be clear, I am not a PF1 or PF2 player, but I do look at if for ideas for my own game. And to be honest the 1-20 bonus difference is not something I am interested in. My preferred system would be to have static ability score and training increasing a dice pool. So you would have ability score + training as follows:

untrained: d20
Trained: 2d20 (take the highest)
Skilled: 3d20 (take the highest)
Expert: 4d20 (take the highest)
Master: 5d20 (take the highest)
Grandmaster: 6d20 (take the highest)

Ive thought about the above before. Each level becomes progressively less of a bonus representing the gains slowing as you learn, but it makes the more learned you become in a skill, the more consistent youd become.

Id like to change for 5e the above and just use a bonus based on the stat-10(so a 15 would be +5 for ex).

The math for skill use works ok, but combat requires too much rejigging and there is a number of corner cases

 

[CubicsRube]

My understanding of what they have said about scaling to date is that they want to preserve the gap between high level pcs&creatures and low level to keep the heroic feel of PF. But! They dont want people of the same level to be hugely divergent in mpdifoers as it makes it hard to run and balance adventures. Theyve said that they recognise that high level pf suffers from scenarios where you have to choose between an autowin for some characters or an autofail for others (paraphrasing here, but thats the gist).

I think from what i understand from their design goal here that itll aheive ehat they want, but i think the +level scaling is too much for my taste