Pathfinder 2E PF2: Second Attempt Post Mortem

[dave2008]

This is definitely my experience. A couple of times everyone failed the RK check and then it was pretty much no fun. If this was a Call of Cthulhu or similar game, then such failure is expected and the answer is "to the library to do some research!" and I think once that's actually what we did -- we left and asked for help. But D&D is often structured so this is impossible, and when this last happened to our group we just made random rolls and looked sadly at the GM until they took pity on us and said "having tried a variety of things, you have landed enough to make another RK check" which was nice of them.

On the other hand, it was amusing to be pummeled in the face with rock and respond with a variety of options like "I sing calming songs" or "I use Absalom Lore to explain why they should no longer be here" or "I implore the Gods to speak sense to the spirits". But yeah, the need for a single skill is like gating for a specific level of training -- it makes it possible that the encounter cannot be run in a way that is fun.

I'm not sure it does any harm to ignore gating expertise levels, or to allow any vaguely useful skills for haunts.

Make me wonder why they didn't use the VP system for haunts.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Make me wonder why they didn't use the VP system for haunts.

Probably the haunt rules predated the VP ones; I'd suspect most of the DMG optional systems were late design.

 

[dave2008]

Probably the haunt rules predated the VP ones; I'd suspect most of the DMG optional systems were late design.

Good point, but it still would have been a good thing to add haunts to the VP section in the GMG.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I mean the other half here is that, as a GM, you gotta give hints beyond just RK to give the players a chance, or if it's that hard you have to give the players a chance to back out and do the CoC-style research.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I guess gamey to me means routine with little variety.

IDK, that sounds like real life to me!

 

[payn]

IDK, that sounds like real life to me!

Its true, life is gamey as hell.

 

[Celtavian]

And that might be realistic, but it's not fun.

If I'm facing a level 1 foe at level 1, I have many ways of dealing with them. I can try to outrun them (Athletics). I can try to turn them to my side (Diplomacy). I can try to coerce them (Intimidate). I can try to fool them (Deception). I can try to understand them (whatever knowledge skill is appropriate).

But at level 8, or even higher, facing an 8th level foe, some of those avenues will be harder than they were at level 1 against the level 1 foe. My competence, relative to the challenges I'm facing, have narrowed.

It doesn't matter that I'm much better at dealing with, say, a level 4 foe at 8th level even in my weaker areas, because the chances of a 4th level thing being a narratively meaningful challenge are nil.

Let me see. The bolded statement does not jibe with my experience in PF2 using skills.

If you're an expert in say Deception with an 18 charisma at lvl 8, you should have a Master +6 proficiency, +4 Charisma, and an item bonus of +1. That would be +14 proficiency +4 cha +1 item bonus for a +19 Deception bonus.

A creature lvl 6 (generally lvl-2 is a common mook) has a Perception DC of 23 to 25. So you succeed on a 4 to 6 roll.

A creature lvl 8 which is on level has a Perception DC of 25 to 27. So you succeed on a roll of 6 to 8.

I think one of the often overlooked bonuses for early PF2 players is the item bonus to skills. It's very important to pick up an item to become an expert in a given skill. Even without the item, you would boost the rolls needed by 1.

You definitely become much better at using skills against enemies as you level. I've built characters in PF2 around skills, especially Stealth, Intimidate, and Deception, and they've been very effective.

It took my group quite a while to get used to PF2 from years of playing PF1 and 3E. It's a different game. We overlooked item bonuses and other ways to boost skills like gaining a circumstance bonus on Strength with Intimidate. But there is a definite improvement in skill ability moving up the ranks with proficiency along with item bonuses and statistic boosts.

 

[Staffan]

Let me see. The bolded statement does not jibe with my experience in PF2 using skills.

If you're an expert in say Deception with an 18 charisma at lvl 8, you should have a Master +6 proficiency, +4 Charisma, and an item bonus of +1. That would be +14 proficiency +4 cha +1 item bonus for a +19 Deception bonus.

A creature lvl 6 (generally lvl-2 is a common mook) has a Perception DC of 23 to 25. So you succeed on a 4 to 6 roll.

A creature lvl 8 which is on level has a Perception DC of 25 to 27. So you succeed on a roll of 6 to 8.

I think one of the often overlooked bonuses for early PF2 players is the item bonus to skills. It's very important to pick up an item to become an expert in a given skill. Even without the item, you would boost the rolls needed by 1.

You definitely become much better at using skills against enemies as you level. I've built characters in PF2 around skills, especially Stealth, Intimidate, and Deception, and they've been very effective.

It took my group quite a while to get used to PF2 from years of playing PF1 and 3E. It's a different game. We overlooked item bonuses and other ways to boost skills like gaining a circumstance bonus on Strength with Intimidate. But there is a definite improvement in skill ability moving up the ranks with proficiency along with item bonuses and statistic boosts.

Again, the problem is not the specialist not being good. The main problem is the non-specialist falling behind. If I'm 11th level and Trained in Stealth, and I have an Dexterity of +4, that's +17 against a typical level 11 creature's Perception of +21.

My preference would be that Trained is the baseline, at least in skills, and should get you a success chance of 50-60% against level-appropriate challenges. Increasing things beyond that would allow you significantly higher chances in your area of specialization, as well as allow for more ability to deal with various penalties/DC adjustments (e.g. the +2/+5 DC for recalling knowledge about an uncommon/rare thing).

In other words: a 20th level character Trained in Thievery should have a good chance of disarming a 20th level hazard. A 20th level character who has dedicated themselves to Thievery (Legendary, best items, skill feat support) should be good enough at it that they just give the hazard a stern glare and then it gives up and goes away.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Again, the problem is not the specialist not being good. The main problem is the non-specialist falling behind. If I'm 11th level and Trained in Stealth, and I have an Dexterity of +4, that's +17 against a typical level 11 creature's Perception of +21.

My preference would be that Trained is the baseline, at least in skills, and should get you a success chance of 50-60% against level-appropriate challenges. Increasing things beyond that would allow you significantly higher chances in your area of specialization, as well as allow for more ability to deal with various penalties/DC adjustments (e.g. the +2/+5 DC for recalling knowledge about an uncommon/rare thing).

In other words: a 20th level character Trained in Thievery should have a good chance of disarming a 20th level hazard. A 20th level character who has dedicated themselves to Thievery (Legendary, best items, skill feat support) should be good enough at it that they just give the hazard a stern glare and then it gives up and goes away.

I really disagree with this idea of skill leveling. As DCs go higher and levels go up, at-level challenges should be more challenging because they are creating more specialized, more ridiculous circumstances, thus requiring more specialization. What you get for putting in the minimal effort into Stealth at 20th level with a Dex +4 bonus is a half-half shot at a DC 36, which falls short of the DC40 recommend for 20th level. But you know what makes up that gap? Following the Expert with your 20th level Legendary Stealth thief.

To me, I see skill checks in a more naturalistic fashion: at early levels you'll see many more at-level checks because you're low-level and there are just many more low-level checks to make. But as time goes on, at-level challenges drop off exponentially, becoming rarer and suitably more hard as circumstances become crazier but harder to get consistently. Thus the specialists become important, but being merely Trained in Stealth is still useful since you're still getting a +26 at 20th level, allowing you to bypass 90% of the most commons Stealth checks.

For example, you need to infiltrate a castle. Simply sneaking all the way into the inner keep is going to be too difficult for the Trained Stealth Fighter... but it turns out that people don't guard 40 ft sheer walls like they do places that you can just walk through, so it's a much easier Stealth check to make it to the wall where he can then use his Legendary Athletics to scale it. Similarly the Legendary Deception Bard can bluff and disguise his way through a good portion of the castle, getting deep enough in that security ends up dropping off (because no one could ever get this deep anyways!) and he can get by Untrained in Stealth.

 

[Retreater]

It's up to GMs (and adventure designers) to come up with fantastic settings that would require such high DCs. I feel that in too many cases, numbers are just scaled up to keep up with the treadmill of level advancement. "Is there a reason this castle wall should be significantly harder to climb than the one you climbed at 3rd level?"
So at high levels, maybe you should be climbing out of the caldera of an exploding volcano? Climbing the body of an angry titan (like Shadow of the Colossus)?
Or, the alternative, is to just assume that characters of sufficient level to be climbing a titan can make regular Climb checks and that characters who are low-level simply cannot perform these feats. Or even if they did, they'd still be incinerated by the volcano or swatted to paste by the titan - in which case, the game can already limit what they can do based on HP. No real need for skill checks at all, because HP limits the types of challenges characters can conquer.