Pathfinder 2's Proficiency System Explored

Proficiencies are the big news for Pathfinder 2nd Edition today! We take a look at Paizo's new blog on proficiencies, and I break down Mark Seifter's daily novel (I have no idea how that guy has time to work on the game!); some of the quotes below get a little opaque, so free to skim past them unless your Pathfinder system mastery skills are strong. We also very briefly look at magic items and Resonance again.

Paizo also showed off this Dwarf illustration by Wayne Reynolds

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• The Pathfinder 2nd Edition Compiled Info Page was getting very long, so I've added anchor links and a little menu to it so that you can jump to the part you want easily.
• The new Paizo blog (by Mark Seifter) takes a dive into the proficiency rules found in Pathfinder 2nd Edition! You start with a number of proficiencies decided by your class, and increase them based on class and feat choices. Your proficiency modifier to a weapon, skill, or save, is your level plus a bonus based on your proficiency rank. Proficiency comes in five ranks, with a 5-point difference between the top and bottom:
  • Untrained (-2)
  • Trained (+0)
  • Expert (+1)
  • Master (+2)
  • Legendary (+3)
• Mark Seifter on proficiencies --
  • Other modifiers to your check -- "...proficiency modifier is only one modifier you apply to your check. Ability modifier, anything you get from your item, bonuses from your spells, circumstance bonuses, etc are still going to add on."
  • On the difference between being trained and having a high level-based modifier -- "Your tomb raider actually wouldn't be able to practically sail at all, though you might know basic facts like the names of different ships that you read about somewhere. An actual sailor trained in the skill would be able to practice sailing. Now if your tomb raider became trained in it, that's a different story."
    • Again on that difference -- "Disabling traps, performing the profession of a lawyer, and constructing and building a complex building would all be trained uses of the skill, so the untrained barbarian can't do any of those. The level 15 barbarian who actually trained at being a lawyer throughout those 15 levels (reminds me of the monk/rogue lawyer PC in one of my 3.5 games) would have a higher bonus than a 5th-level NPC expert lawyer would have (probably 4 or 5 higher assuming the lawyer had better Intelligence), though the expert lawyer might have some skill feats (to make some up off the top of my head, perhaps a skill feat to help read potential jurors and select a more sympathetic jury, to coax extra info out of a witness, etc). Then again, at that point the barbarian decided that being a lawyer is a significant enough part of her superhuman 15th level character that she spent resources to make it so." .... "The untrained barbarian is more likely to know that Justice Ironbriar is the harshest judge in Magnimar than the law school student, but she still can't actually practice law effectively at all, let alone superhumanly well." ... "This is really hard overall because there is a separate skills blog, so I'm trying to keep this as tied to proficiency as possible. However, essentially, the skill you'd use to be a lawyer, working like Profession did in PF1, has a list of uses, and practicing law (Practice a Trade) would be listed in the trained only uses."
    • And again on that difference -- "As I've said in another thread, not counting any sort of temporary buff effects or circumstance bonuses or penalties, it is possible to build two level 20 characters in PF2 with an all-day gap between their bonuses in the same skill of around 17-18. Proficiency is one piece of that split, with a potential gap up to 5 (and 5 is a really big advantage; all other modifiers being equal, which is almost certainly an overestimate of the untrained character, and rolling the same number on a d20, half of the untrained character's successes are critical successes for the legendary character, and half of the untrained character's failures are successes for the legendary character)."
    • And yet again on that difference -- "I have no doubt that Cosmo's goblin bard in one of our 17th-level playtest games had almost as high of an Acrobatics bonus as my Strength-based monk in the 12th-level playtest did; maybe even equal or a point higher. But the bard was not able to use Acrobatics to balance in mid-air in order to navigate reverse gravity and deal with flying enemies with ease."
    • And again! -- "The level 20 near-demigod character who is trained in baking can make all the kinds of baked goods you'd expect in a basic cookbook, with what is probably a higher bonus than the level 10 master after spending 100 years baking cookies, cupcakes, brownies, and more in her timeless demiplane. But the level 10 master might be able to invent a brand new food that nobody else has ever heard of before, something the level 20 character just doesn't have enough of a frame of reference to do, even if she's exceptional at following the basic recipes she knows."
    • And... again ... "This is another good example. The 8th level swim-focused master in Athletics might just flat-out have a swim Speed, for instance, and not even be rolling while moving let's say 30 feet per action, while the 20th level untrained Athletics character does have a really high bonus to Athletics, so will usually critically succeed at the DC to Swim in running water and move, say, 15 feet (using the PF1 success by 5 or more on Swim checks to go half speed here as an example for a critical success)."
    • Same difference for a level 7 character -- "I happen to have some numbers handy for level 7, so let's see: It's looking like a skill gap up to about 11 at that point."
    • Comparing that to D&D 5E -- "I've heard the 5e gap is smaller from other forum posters and took their word for it, but my knowledge of 5e isn't very thorough, so I'll take your word for it as well. It's certainly been a better feel for me so far to be able to have a wide spread like that but only between a character who's exceptionally bad at the skill and one who is amazing than it is to have a situation where two people sit down at the table and both think they are playing a specialist in a given skill, but one of the two of them is +20 or more better than the other is so the other one is actually vestigial, which can happen easily in PF1 (it's happened to me a lot; I'm usually the one with the PC who is better, and it's very awkward as a player and I'm sure frustrating to the other player)."
    • On how the system opens up more options for players -- "Broad competence is also a hallmark of many fantasy stories (and actually many stories in a lot of genres). At some point, all the PCs are going to want to try to do something together involving untrained skill uses, like disguising as actors to infiltrate the Lord Mayor's mansion and its sharp-eyed guards who are certain to be on the lookout for charlatans. In PF1, you had a few choices: you could just never try to do that, you could try it straight out and pretty much fail automatically because Amiri has no ranks in Disguise, you could maybe find some spellcaster-only option that granted an enormous bonus that essentially erased the other characters' investments anyway so it's fine that Amiri didn't invest, or you could have the GM decide not to use the skill system because the idea was so cool and to handwave that Amiri doesn't have to make a Disguise check. In PF2, it's still going to be dicey and the group might want to come up with some ways to help Amiri (like thflame's idea of shifting the best gear onto her to help out) because she's still the most likely to land them all in hot water from a critical failure, but the plan also might succeed."
  • Skill degrees of success -- Seifter was asked if there was more than just pass/fail. He replied "My crystal ball says you are going to be very happy!"
  • Auto-success at mundane tasks -- "There is a skill feat that, depending on your current rank, lets you just succeed at tasks with your skill when they are below a certain threshold without even rolling. This is particularly useful if you are under stress, debuffed, or in bad circumstances, as you can just succeed at those tasks despite your penalties. It's not an especially giant threshold; it's mainly to help you auto-succeed at tasks that have become mundane for you by now, like you said."
  • You don't have to max any skill you want to be useful -- "This is one of several nice benefits. You can put in as much as you want and get something useful if what you want to put in is "not much" or something awesome if what you want is "all in." For instance, in one of our 14th level playtest games, my alchemist was trained in Thievery because it was really easy for him to do with all that Intelligence, and that let me pick locks and disable some types of traps if necessary. The rogue was still way better than I was, but I was a competent if not stellar replacement when we were forced to split up our efforts in different areas and wasn't just useless like someone with 1 rank would be at 14th level in PF1."
  • Evasion, a class feature -- "Evasion is actually the name of the locked-in class feature that makes you a master at Reflex saves, and what I describe in the blog is the ability to treat all your successes on Reflex save as critical successes!"
  • Could there be ranks above Legendary? -- "This is similar to one of the "where would mythic go" (and also "what about reskinning for superpowered stuff at low levels like in mythic") conversations we had a while back. In theory, mythic could be a new rank above legendary that gives +4 and unlocks better benefits for all the rank-based abilities, plus even more ridiculously awesome new mythic-only abilities, and then if you wanted low level mythic (or legendary) play, you just do as you say and give some mythic (or legendary) ranks way earlier than normal. It's much easier to make this change than it would be in PF1. So many exciting possibilities for tweaks and modifications and further customization for players and GMs with some of the new rules; I'm pretty excited about how cool of a book we can make with those kinds of topics!"
  • On skill stagnation -- "If you want to mimic the idea that your skill you raised at 2nd level and never used again stagnates with disuse, we have the tools for that too! Using the retraining rules, you can not only return yourself to untrained to represent that stagnation, you'll even get to pick a new skill that you actually want to keep up to date too!"
• Vic Wertz on why things are named the way they are:
  • On feats and proficiencies: "They have the same name because they work the same way. Once you understand how proficiency works with weapons, you understand how it works with armor, and with skills, and with saves. And once you understand how ancestry feats work, you understand how skill feats work, and how class feats work."
  • On skill ranks: "There were skill points in 3.5: each level, you received skill points that you then invested into skill ranks on a 1:1 basis. When we were working on Pathfinder First Edition, I pointed out to Jason that was a completely extraneous layer of abstraction, so we just skipped that whole pointless transaction and gave you ranks to invest directly into a skill. (I think very few people actually noticed.)"
• On power level -- the above blog addresses Pathfinder's "power level" directly: "The best part about proficiencies is the way they push the boundaries for nonmagical characters, particularly those with a legendary rank. If you're legendary in something, you're like a character out of real-world myth and legend, swimming across an entire sea while beating up sea monsters like Beowulf, performing unbelievable tasks like Heracles, or hunting and racing at astounding speeds like Atalanta. While we did perform a bit of research on things like real world Olympic records and average expectations when it came to the lower ranks, masters and especially legends break all those rules. Want your fighter to leap 20 feet straight up and smash a chimera down to the ground? You can do that (eventually)!"
  • Seifter clarifies -- "I think that one comes early in the master levels, actually. Don't expect trained or expert (and all characters start with at least something at expert at 1st level, even if certain categories are much harder to reach expert) to be drastically breaking real world records; these are characters at their earliest levels in the game. The world record for even a running high jump is about 8 feet up."
• How does the Pathfinder Playtest affect Pathfinder Organised Play? A new Pathfinder Society campaign will be launched in August using the new rules, and adventures thereafter will use the new edition. Unfortunately, I understand very little of that blog entry (it's rather jargon-heavy) but if you are involved in the Pathfinder Society, check it out.
• Logan Bonner speaks on resonance and magic items --
  • Item slots (which are going away) -- "Worn items that would conflict with others have a listing and you can't wear two of the same type. So if you had two worn footwear items, they'd list that, but rings wouldn't list ring because you have plenty of places to wear those."
  • Whose resonance is used when a potion is used on an unconscious character? "The drinker. For items you drink, the person drinking it has to activate, and there's a special rule for this happening while you're unconscious."
  • But it's the user when it's a wand -- "The person who activates the item spends the resonance. So if you're using the wand on someone (by being able to cast heal or by having a UMD equivalent), you're spending it."
• Seifter on fumbles and monster reactions -- "There is no monster with a "fumble" reaction. There are a few PC (and thus NPC) abilities that trigger on an attack roll critical failure, but those aren't reactions to make the NPC who rolled the critical failure act like a goof; they are reactions where the PC with the reaction does something awesome like make a riposte."
  • Even those with class "fumble" reactions -- "...even then, it doesn't make the PC act like a goof. It lets the monster make a riposte or do some other cool thing."

 

[Charlaquin]

One concern this does potentially raise, if we’re interpreting attack bonus and AC math correctly, is that it seems to assume you will always increase proficiency with your weapon(s) of choice as early and often as possible. And while that’s not an unfair assumption to make for most players, it does create the possibility of a system mastery gap, where players who don’t realize the importance of keeping up their weapon proficiencies end up unable to hit enemies of an appropriate CR to their level. We’ll have to see exactly how increasing Proficiencies works in practice to know for sure how much of an issue this will be, but it’s something to watch out for.

 

[TwoSix]

One concern this does potentially raise, if we’re interpreting attack bonus and AC math correctly, is that it seems to assume you will always increase proficiency with your weapon(s) of choice as early and often as possible. And while that’s not an unfair assumption to make for most players, it does create the possibility of a system mastery gap, where players who don’t realize the importance of keeping up their weapon proficiencies end up unable to hit enemies of an appropriate CR to their level. We’ll have to see exactly how increasing Proficiencies works in practice to know for sure how much of an issue this will be, but it’s something to watch out for.

I imagine that proficiency upgrades are built into the class features of martial classes. They did mention fighters being able to get legendary proficiency at 13th, for example.

 

[Arakasius]

I do think bonuses will certainly matter more if the balance between Attack and Armor Class is that close. Weapon Focus before was mostly used for feat prerequisites since most classes really didn’t need the bonus when at level ten it was only the difference between hitting on a 2 or a 3. But I don’t think they can do the math as simple as you guys are putting out. The examples we’ve been using is a high dex, leather armor character. Both high dex, breastplate wearers as well as full plate armor with shield is going to push that even higher.

So we’d have a few things.

1. The 27 AC for light armor wearer would be more like 29 for breastplate and 30+ for full plate, adding 2 more for using a shield.
2. At that point the 16 Attack just doesn’t work, even if you restrict equipment bonuses to weapons (which I’m very doubtful they’ll do, you can craft nice weapons but not nice armor wouldn’t work)
3. The above math makes iterative attacks useless, you’ll never be able to hit on second or third attacks at the -5/10 penalty.
4. Hit points are now higher, with max on every level as well as ancestry health at level 1. Those changes make characters roughly 50% hardier.
5. If you combine real high survivability with high health it’s just going to make combat a slog. I don’t see any reason they’ll fall trap to that issue from 4th.

Anyway the math just doesn’t work for adding level to AC unless you add a bunch of modifiers to the attack rolls but not the armor. I see no likelihood they’ll rebalance spells by removing defensive buff spells and keeping offensive ones, sure things like flanking will help, but it won’t be enough since under this system you’re going to miss more than you hit. I do hope there is some scaling since current PF1 rules are stupid for scaling past level 6/7. I figure they’ll find some sweetspot of the difference between Attack and AC they want at level 1 and then try to keep that difference mostly the same through higher levels. My rough guess on two characters with equal gear/etc that they’d want to have the player hit on about a 7/8 on their first attack. (Before anything like flanking, which would reduce that by 2)

 

[3catcircus]

I'd be fine if they used proficiency + attribute mod for both attack and defense and used armor as damage reduction only - i.e. attack roll + proficiency + attribute mod > defense roll + attribute mod + proficiency = a hit. AC value of the armor + AC value of shield = amount of damage subtracted from the damage inflicted.

No mess regarding arms race between AC and level-based bonuses to hit. No worries about DR since it can be made inherent to natural armor.

 

[Charlaquin]

I do think bonuses will certainly matter more if the balance between Attack and Armor Class is that close. Weapon Focus before was mostly used for feat prerequisites since most classes really didn’t need the bonus when at level ten it was only the difference between hitting on a 2 or a 3. But I don’t think they can do the math as simple as you guys are putting out. The examples we’ve been using is a high dex, leather armor character. Both high dex, breastplate wearers as well as full plate armor with shield is going to push that even higher.

So we’d have a few things.

1. The 27 AC for light armor wearer would be more like 29 for breastplate and 30+ for full plate, adding 2 more for using a shield.

We don’t know any of that, since we haven’t actually seen the armor yet. One thing we do know though is that +2 AC from a shield will only apply if the defender spends one of their actions to get it.

2. At that point the 16 Attack just doesn’t work, even if you restrict equipment bonuses to weapons (which I’m very doubtful they’ll do, you can craft nice weapons but not nice armor wouldn’t work)

You can absolutely craft nice armor. That’s the difference between, say, half plate and full plate. Or leather and studded leather. Keeping +1/2/3 for Expert/Master/Legend craft to weapons would only serve to give players the ability to upgrade weapons the same way they’ve been able to do with armor for years.

3. The above math makes iterative attacks useless, you’ll never be able to hit on second or third attacks at the -5/10 penalty.

Only against same-level foes. Iterative attacks have always been garbage against same-level foes. They mostly help you clean up trash mobs faster.

4. Hit points are now higher, with max on every level as well as ancestry health at level 1. Those changes make characters roughly 50% hardier.
5. If you combine real high survivability with high health it’s just going to make combat a slog. I don’t see any reason they’ll fall trap to that issue from 4th.

I mean, hit point math is already in 4th Edition territory. It’s calculated almost identically.

Anyway the math just doesn’t work for adding level to AC unless you add a bunch of modifiers to the attack rolls but not the armor.

I’m not convinced that’s true. Adding level to both attack and AC is the same math as not adding level to either when the opponents are of equal level. And not adding level to either works just fine for 5e. Assuming equal level, equally proficient foes with equally upgraded equipment, both will hit on a 10 and crit on a 20. Factor in the natural tendency to focus on upgrading offense over defense, and it’s likely both will hit on somewhere around an 8 and crit on an 18. Seems about right to me.

I see no likelihood they’ll rebalance spells by removing defensive buff spells and keeping offensive ones, sure things like flanking will help, but it won’t be enough since under this system you’re going to miss more than you hit. I do hope there is some scaling since current PF1 rules are stupid for scaling past level 6/7. I figure they’ll find some sweetspot of the difference between Attack and AC they want at level 1 and then try to keep that difference mostly the same through higher levels. My rough guess on two characters with equal gear/etc that they’d want to have the player hit on about a 7/8 on their first attack. (Before anything like flanking, which would reduce that by 2)

We’ll see. I think you’re making a lot of assumptions based on how things work in PF1 that might not hold up in PF2. Personally, I’m seeing one of the devs saying, “Proficiencies work the same with weapons and armor” and using that as my baseline assumption. I don’t think you’re wrong that that wouldn’t work with PF1’s math. That tells me the math must be changing.

 

[CubicsRube]

I don't understand this sentiment. The math is trivial and anyone (in the US) who is age 11 or older has been exposed to negative numbers in school. I suspect the concept is introduced even earlier in school in other parts of the world. It really isn't that hard to do the add and subtract in your head on the fly.

I dont think you understand my comment.

The maths is trivial, but it adds to the time spent in combat when ylu have multiple poaitive and negative modifiers. It increases cognitive load in aggregate and it takes me out of imagining the battle when we stsrt talking in numbers too much to resolve actions.

Its not about difficulty, its about slowing down combat and task resolution for no apparent benefit.

Any time a complexity is introduced into a system, it should be measured against the value it brings. Thats part of streamlining. I don't feel that the -2 to +3 range adds value.

 

[Arakasius]

Well ofc I am making assumptions on the math. You are as well. Regardless I don’t see them going to a ten on hit, 20 on crit system because it takes away the new mechanic they’re adding. We do know iterative attacks can hit on a -5/-10 (although rarely maybe on the second). I would guess they’re going for that 7/8 to hit to make iterative useful. Iterative aren’t a thing in 5e with penalties so a flat math of 10/20 that works there doesn’t really work in fifth. I do hope they’re doing something about buff stacking too

As for what the dev said about proficiencies working the same I just took that to mean you’re adding -2/0/1/2/3 to the value you’re modifying, not necessarily that they’re making armor also scale with level. And if they do add level there is going to be even more bitching from the PF grognards about ACs being similar a lot more then there is about skills. I could see them doing it, but they’re going to get criticized for it.

 

[Arakasius]

Also I’ve heard conflicting things on the shield. We do know you only get the DR for raising the shield, but I’ve read mixed reports on whether you get the passive AC bonus for raising it or if you always have it.

 

[Ancalagon]

+1 AC per level can work, IF every class also gets +1 to hit per level (on top of other bonuses such as proficiency, ability etc). It worked fairly well in Star Wars Saga. BUT about that:

1: It only worked because armor didn't add to AC for most people (it replaced your level bonus instead.) This is why "high level" heroes in star wars rarely bothered with armor, but it was worn by mooks and by "armor specialists" (who got *some* benefit out of it, just not full AC value).

2: It *stopped* working (in Saga) at very high level because the AC bonus outpaced the BAB of a lot of classes, they made the mistake of having different classes having different BAB progression.

As has been noted by someone else, the only real value of having +1 per level is to add bigger distinction between the heroes, mooks and bosses. With bounded accuracy HP and damage output become the larger differentiation.

 

[Markn]

This paragraph from Mark Seifter gives us a bit more info:

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.

1. No opposed skill checks
2. I might be misreading it but it seems like the DC for a skill check is the opponents skill +10. Mark says the guards skill is about 18 making the DC 28.