Pathfinder 2E Regarding Competence

[Retreater]

You want to feel progress, so your ability numbers go up. Then the DCs have to go up because you need to feel like you are using your heightened abilities. It's really a part of the same treadmill of fighting monsters with higher AC/more HP/etc.
We can't stay at 1st level forever in this genre of game, so I understand it, even if it breaks verisimilitude.
So why does it now take a DC 35 to climb a wall or break down a door? Well, that door or wall has been magically enchanted - I guess?

 

[Philip Benz]

Sure, that treadmill is one possibility.

But what if the DM keeps most DCs on the static DC scale, based on the guidelines from the individual skills, and only uses enhanced DCs now and then, or when you are actually offensively using a skill against a specific creature or NPC adversary? That really disrupts the treadmill.

For example, my 11th-level players recently went running around an underground cave system, and ran across several 50' or 60' cliffs. I kept the base DCs to climb fairly low (DC20, "wall with small handholds") and dropped it to DC15 once they'd put in a rope to climb. At that level, they would only fail on a nat 1. But when somebody did fail, they ended up scrabbling with "grab an edge", and it was pretty funny. Even though the DC had become routine for everyone. OF course, the wizard kept a few feather fall spells prepped, which go off as a reaction, so he saved some of his teammates from a 25-30 hitpoint fall.

Of course, that doesn't prevent the DM from having that one, magically enchanted door that is really hard to open, with a killer lock on it that is really hard to pick. It's just not every door that has the enhanced DC.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Yeah largely I think the problem is that the treadmill argument is only meaningful if difficulty becomes this entirely abstract thing-- if all of the things in my dungeon for level 5 characters, and all the things in my level 15 dungeon are level 5 and 15 challenges respectively, and there isn't even flavor difference between them, you're going to see a treadmill. But obviously, there's serious problems with the fiction if that's happening-- If you're immediately replacing Young Dragon statblocks with Adult Dragon statblocks, you're gonna get that sense, but let them fight a bunch of young dragons? they'll feel how much more powerful they are.

The relative power level of challenges should be reflecting their relative difficulty in the fiction of the game world-- you should not be leveling basic zombies or something up with the players, their stationary power level should serve as a measuring stick for the concept of growth. Players feel great when they're decimating hordes of creatures that used to challenge them as solos or small groups, not using the players level to pick DCs can mean that non-maxed skills can be important, particularly if you're running exploration mode correctly and everyone has a set activity they're doing as you move through the environment, so things can't always be covered exclusively by specialists.

If there can be said to be an issue, its that what we call the 'game' is really a rules engine, and therefore a lot continges on the adventure design, a GM who makes all the DCs standard DCs of the parties level is naturally going to create that feeling, while a GM who respects that a simple door is a low dc, or that they can let the PCs encounter monsters weaker than them they've seen before to telegraph their growth, really won't have that problem.

 

[Staffan]

My problem with high-level DCs are mostly with things that naturally scale with PCs, but aren't a matter of active opposition – things like Recall Knowledge (because you're facing higher-level monsters, you now know less about them), Identify Magic (because you now find more powerful items, you are worse at IDing them), Craft/Repair (same), and the like.

Oh, and I really really dislike things like lingering composition that has you make a Performance check against "a standard-difficulty DC of a level equal to the highest-level target of your composition". If you want an ability that wants you to invest in a skill, have the effect based on your proficiency level instead.

 

[kenada]

I miss having more interaction with the skill system. Each level you can pick which skills to focus on or learn in 3E/PF1. You can also boost your stats and find magic items to help improve your ability. Everything is so tightly wound in PF2 that it often feels like there is little you can do for the sake of variety. You go off the path just a bit, and the system punishes you harshly with ineffectiveness. I do like moving away from the gonzo nature of 3E/PF1 skill math, but I feel PF2 design choices were often an overreaction.

That’s one of the complaints my group has about post-3e systems. There’s a skill points variant in the GMG, which adds a bit more flexibility. We used it in my PF2 game, but (of course) my players ended up more or less following the normal progression.

 

[kenada]

Bounded Accuracy blows. It incentivizes you go with skills that match your stats, otherwise you have to wait a dozen levels to equal someone who specializes in that stat. A fighter who takes History but doesn't have good intelligence is going to pale to a Wizard who didn't touch the skill. Why have Animal Handling on a Ranger when a Paladin is going to have the Charisma to outstrip you on it?

This is the problem with small numbers, especially on a linear die roll. There's just no benefit to simply having the skill, you have to have the stats to really use it. It's why in my game I split uses into "Trained" and "Untrained", where people who have the skill are at Advantage on Untrained checks and people who don't have the skill are at Disadvantage on Trained checks.

Isn’t that more of a problem with how 5e implements it? Even with an ability score cap, most people are going to get more out of their modifiers than they are out of their proficiency bonus. Additionally, there’s no way to specialize and make yourself better because everything increases at the same rate (unless you can gain expertise in a skill, which seems to have turned into a hack to work around this problem). If higher ability scores were more rare, or you got more out of your training, it might be different. I think PF2 does a better job here than 5e with the Proficiency Without Level variant because: you are penalized using a skill untrained, and you get more out of training.

 

[kenada]

Yeah largely I think the problem is that the treadmill argument is only meaningful if difficulty becomes this entirely abstract thing-- if all of the things in my dungeon for level 5 characters, and all the things in my level 15 dungeon are level 5 and 15 challenges respectively, and there isn't even flavor difference between them, you're going to see a treadmill. But obviously, there's serious problems with the fiction if that's happening-- If you're immediately replacing Young Dragon statblocks with Adult Dragon statblocks, you're gonna get that sense, but let them fight a bunch of young dragons? they'll feel how much more powerful they are.

The relative power level of challenges should be reflecting their relative difficulty in the fiction of the game world-- you should not be leveling basic zombies or something up with the players, their stationary power level should serve as a measuring stick for the concept of growth. Players feel great when they're decimating hordes of creatures that used to challenge them as solos or small groups, not using the players level to pick DCs can mean that non-maxed skills can be important, particularly if you're running exploration mode correctly and everyone has a set activity they're doing as you move through the environment, so things can't always be covered exclusively by specialists.

If there can be said to be an issue, its that what we call the 'game' is really a rules engine, and therefore a lot continges on the adventure design, a GM who makes all the DCs standard DCs of the parties level is naturally going to create that feeling, while a GM who respects that a simple door is a low dc, or that they can let the PCs encounter monsters weaker than them they've seen before to telegraph their growth, really won't have that problem.

This touches on one of the key differences between “leveled” combat and “level” skill DCs. In combat, you’re fighting commensurately scarier creatures. They’re hitting harder and depleting more of your resources, there are more of them, and so on. In the skill scenario, the difference is entirely in the description. It makes me wonder if instead of using a “scaled” DC it might not be better to use skill challenges or the VP subsystem. That way, you get to feel how your skill proficiency lets you overcome the steps easily, but the overall challenge still matches the nature of the task.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Isn’t that more of a problem with how 5e implements it? Even with an ability score cap, most people are going to get more out of their modifiers than they are out of their proficiency bonus. Additionally, there’s no way to specialize and make yourself better because everything increases at the same rate (unless you can gain expertise in a skill, which seems to have turned into a hack to work around this problem). If higher ability scores were more rare, or you got more out of your training, it might be different. I think PF2 does a better job here than 5e with the Proficiency Without Level variant because: you are penalized using a skill untrained, and you get more out of training.

A lot of it is 5E's design, yeah. Very low BA makes things more difficult because we aren't working with, say, GURPS' 3d6, where you can gain really consistent results and having more skills largely increases your consistency in the face of complications. Being a d20 game makes having very low numbers way more difficult to create skill gaps. PF2 tries to get around this with their proficiency system by making the numbers consistently go up. But their Proficiency Without Level system also does it way better because of that -2 making an instant +4 gap between someone having a skill and not. To go back to my previous examples, a Fighter with 10 Int will be equally as good trained at History as a Wizard who has no knowledge of it isn't necessarily ideal, but in this system you also have way more chances for advancement: ASIs are handed out more and you can choose to upgrade a skill to exceed someone. This makes it much better compared to 5E, where that Fighter is going to be waiting half the campaign at least to even equal the Wizard.

 

[Staffan]

This touches on one of the key differences between “leveled” combat and “level” skill DCs. In combat, you’re fighting commensurately scarier creatures. They’re hitting harder and depleting more of your resources, there are more of them, and so on. In the skill scenario, the difference is entirely in the description. It makes me wonder if instead of using a “scaled” DC it might not be better to use skill challenges or the VP subsystem. That way, you get to feel how your skill proficiency lets you overcome the steps easily, but the overall challenge still matches the nature of the task.

The problem there is that your combat numbers increase more or less automatically. You get more hit points at each level, if you're a non-fighter martial you improve your attack proficiency at level 5 and 13, and get better magic weapons at level 2ish, 10ish, and 16ish, and probably get a bonus from increasaing your attack stat at level 10 (and maybe 20 – or 5 and 15 if your attack stat doesn't start at 18). You don't really have any control over those numbers.

But with skills, you have the choice of which ones to increase, and those you don't will fall behind what's expected. A 12th level party trying to fight a pair of 12th level creatures will be in for a Moderate fight more or less regardless of what choices they have made. Their feat choices might affect what approach they take to the fight, but it will still be a Moderate challenge. But if you're 12th level trying to negotiate a treaty, and haven't boosted Diplomacy, you're in for a rough time. On the other hand, if you have maxed your Charisma, become a Master Diplomat, and gotten a +2 item, and maybe you have some skill feat to help in a non-numerical way, you're (slightly) ahead of the curve.

 

[Philip Benz]

Exactly. Staffan summarized the customization possibilities in PF2, but it doesn't stop there. Your ability to use skills you are at least "trained" in does increase every level, since your level factors into the total bonus. Sure, you can also increase your proficiency from trained to expert and above (at later levels), you can lean on your stat bonus for a given skill, you can acquire item bonuses and sometimes you can apply situational bonuses such as spells or the assistance of another PC.

Very quickly most mundane tasks (those with fixed DCs or DCs based on the sample tasks for each skill) will become routine, nearly automatic for you.
Skill checks based on your level (or more likely your adversary's level, skill DC or save DC) will remain hard to meet, and will in fact get harder and harder to achieve unless you really put everything you've got into that skill.

I really enjoy this level of customization, but I also appreciate that it is greatly simplified compared to the fiddly skill point system we used in DD3.5 and PF1. Some folks claim that including your level in every skill, save and DC is a problem, but I maintain that's a matter of opinion. I see it as a feature.

 

[Sabathius42]

A lot of it is 5E's design, yeah. Very low BA makes things more difficult because we aren't working with, say, GURPS' 3d6, where you can gain really consistent results and having more skills largely increases your consistency in the face of complications. Being a d20 game makes having very low numbers way more difficult to create skill gaps. PF2 tries to get around this with their proficiency system by making the numbers consistently go up. But their Proficiency Without Level system also does it way better because of that -2 making an instant +4 gap between someone having a skill and not. To go back to my previous examples, a Fighter with 10 Int will be equally as good trained at History as a Wizard who has no knowledge of it isn't necessarily ideal, but in this system you also have way more chances for advancement: ASIs are handed out more and you can choose to upgrade a skill to exceed someone. This makes it much better compared to 5E, where that Fighter is going to be waiting half the campaign at least to even equal the Wizard.

Isn't the INT score supposed to reflect both the ability learn things and how much "schooling" a character has been through? Wouldn't this a count for the even start of a wizard and a fighter.

In other words, I feel like this system just models a military guy who read a bunch of history as part of his training versus this wizards guy who has read 10 books for every 1 the fighter has and happened to buck up bits of all the knowledge's during doing so.

 

[Philip Benz]

It's interesting that you mention the effects of a high INT score. As things stand, in PF2, the only thing that raising your INT does for you is give you an additional trained skill for each +2 you tack on. Some folks have proposed house rules that allow you to improve proficiency in more skills as you climb levels, based on a high INT score, but detractors object that it would amount to giving a disproportionate bonus to INT-based classes. I'm kind of on the fence about it, but at the end of the day I feel it's probably an unecessary fix to the perceived problem of INT not giving sufficient bonus to skill advancement.
Personally, I would have liked to see more auto-sclaing skills, like with the Additional Lore feat, or certain archetypes, but the skill system as it stands in PF2 works fairly well, so I see little reason to jiggle things with more generous house rules.

 

[Staffan]

It's interesting that you mention the effects of a high INT score. As things stand, in PF2, the only thing that raising your INT does for you is give you an additional trained skill for each +2 you tack on. Some folks have proposed house rules that allow you to improve proficiency in more skills as you climb levels, based on a high INT score, but detractors object that it would amount to giving a disproportionate bonus to INT-based classes. I'm kind of on the fence about it, but at the end of the day I feel it's probably an unecessary fix to the perceived problem of INT not giving sufficient bonus to skill advancement.
Personally, I would have liked to see more auto-sclaing skills, like with the Additional Lore feat, or certain archetypes, but the skill system as it stands in PF2 works fairly well, so I see little reason to jiggle things with more generous house rules.

I've been toying with a general feat that improves a skill from Trained to Expert, and possibly from Expert to Master (if you're high enough level). There's already a skill feat that will bring one up to Trained, and a general feat is a slightly higher cost than a skill feat. The only other way of getting more good skills involve spending class feats, either on specific dedications that mostly bring you up to Expert (with very few cases giving you auto-scaling skills) or on multi-classing as a Rogue or Investigator and taking the Skill Mastery feat (one Expert to Master, one Trained to Expert, and one skill feat in one of the two skills) at level 8+.

This would also solve the problem of there not really being very many non-skill general feats that are good outside of very specific circumstances. The ones I see are mainly Fleet, Toughness, Untrained Improvisation, or using Adopted Ancestry or Ancestral Paragon to turn one into an Ancestry feat. Maybe Canny Acumen to shore up a bad save or Perception until your class catches up.

 

[kenada]

The problem there is that your combat numbers increase more or less automatically. You get more hit points at each level, if you're a non-fighter martial you improve your attack proficiency at level 5 and 13, and get better magic weapons at level 2ish, 10ish, and 16ish, and probably get a bonus from increasaing your attack stat at level 10 (and maybe 20 – or 5 and 15 if your attack stat doesn't start at 18). You don't really have any control over those numbers.

But with skills, you have the choice of which ones to increase, and those you don't will fall behind what's expected. A 12th level party trying to fight a pair of 12th level creatures will be in for a Moderate fight more or less regardless of what choices they have made. Their feat choices might affect what approach they take to the fight, but it will still be a Moderate challenge. But if you're 12th level trying to negotiate a treaty, and haven't boosted Diplomacy, you're in for a rough time. On the other hand, if you have maxed your Charisma, become a Master Diplomat, and gotten a +2 item, and maybe you have some skill feat to help in a non-numerical way, you're (slightly) ahead of the curve.

Not sure we disagree. I didn’t say it explicitly, but I meant to imply the use of lower DCs in my proposed alternative. Instead of having e.g., some very fancy pants wall, be DC 40+, you’d instead use the VP subsystem with lower DCs. Individually, the checks would be pretty easy, but in aggregate it’s still a challenge. That would help give a chance to non-specialists. Additionally, the VP subsystem is flexible about which skills PCs can use, so those with other specialities might have a chance to try those instead.

This doesn’t help in-combat use of skills. Honestly, I don’t like the way Recall Knowledge works in combat. I don’t really have a good solution to that unfortunately. However, are people who didn’t invest in a skill likely to use them on their own initiative? I’d expect PCs to spend most of their action economy on doing the things they invested into when building their character (feats, items, spells, etc).

 

[Staffan]

This doesn’t help in-combat use of skills. Honestly, I don’t like the way Recall Knowledge works in combat. I don’t really have a good solution to that unfortunately. However, are people who didn’t invest in a skill likely to use them on their own initiative? I’d expect PCs to spend most of their action economy on doing the things they invested into when building their character (feats, items, spells, etc).

Yes and no. The problem, as I see it, is the narrowing of PC competence. A 1st level character facing 1st or 0th level foes can have a pretty good shot at both Recall Knowledge (various skills, level-based DC), Trip, Grab, Shove (Athletics, save-based DC), Feint (Deception, Perception-based DC), or Demoralize (Intimidate, save-based DC). Based on your stats and the opponent's defenses, you'll have slightly different chances of success, but your chances will be reasonably close. Your choice of trick will likely depend more on where your opponent is weak than where you are strong. But at higher levels, you probably haven't invested equally in about eight different skills (five for covering most monster Recall Knowledges plus Athletics, Deception, and Intimidate) and associated stats/items, so even if you're fighting a big burly dumb thing (good Fortitude, bad Will) it is probably not worth using Intimidate over Athletics, because the gap in your skills is too big.

 

[kenada]

Another way of looking at it is high level encounters require specialists. It’s like how young athletes can play a bunch of sports, but professionals typically focus on one. One could argue the same holds for adventures in games like PF2. You have to specialize as you gain levels. The problem you cite with skills is no different than how most lower level characters can fight okay at lower levels, but martial specialists will be clearly better at higher ones.

Should it be like that? I don’t know. Personally, I’m not a fan of the skill systems in most D&Ds (and that includes PF2). Using a d20 for skills is too swingy. I also don’t like having to set DCs. However, I suspect it’s working as intended. Otherwise, someone who didn’t invest into specializing in tripping could trip effectively at higher levels, and that would encroach on the tripping specialist’s niche. Again, though. Is that a good thing? I don’t know.

 

[Staffan]

A thing to consider is that in the playtest, the difference between proficiency levels was only 1 point (so Legendary proficiency bonus was level+4). I'm one of those who thought 2 points per level would be better, but I might have been wrong. It would probably have been better to have different benefits for higher proficiency levels, along the lines of Repair and Treat Wounds. For example, Recall Knowledge could give you more information at higher proficiencies, Thievery could give you more successes toward disarming/lockpicking, and things like that. Some of that can be found among skill feats, but perhaps some should have been baseline.

Another thing is that there's not really any mechanic for effort in PF2. Well, there are hero points, but those are rare, rerolls are fickle things (particularly if your odds aren't good to begin with), and one might be loathe to spend a potentially life-saving hero point on rerolling a skill check. If you take a game like TORG Eternity, for example, players have both Possibilities and cards they can spend to improve their rolls (after rolling, so you only spend resources if they'll actually make you succeed (or reach the right success level). That means that even someone with middling skill probably can succeed in a thing they find important, it will just be expensive; while someone who's good at the thing probably can get by just using their skill.

 

[kenada]

A thing to consider is that in the playtest, the difference between proficiency levels was only 1 point (so Legendary proficiency bonus was level+4). I'm one of those who thought 2 points per level would be better, but I might have been wrong. It would probably have been better to have different benefits for higher proficiency levels, along the lines of Repair and Treat Wounds. For example, Recall Knowledge could give you more information at higher proficiencies, Thievery could give you more successes toward disarming/lockpicking, and things like that. Some of that can be found among skill feats, but perhaps some should have been baseline.

There are two issues I see with that approach. First, I’d expect those benefits to be factored into the system’s assumption for balance. Instead of having a higher DC, a lock for a master of unlocking might require many times more successes. It’s theoretically doable by someone who’s just trained, but time or other circumstances might prevent it. The bigger issue is PF2 is designed with everything being’s a check on the same scale. Skills are used to make attacks and as defenses. If they didn’t scale, PF2 wouldn’t be able to do that.

I don’t think PCs should necessarily be able to do everything, especially once the challenges grow beyond just lower level ones. It’d be like if someone who could only cast 1st level spells could be as effective as someone who could heighten them well beyond that. However, I do agree that the game could probably give PCs more opportunities to customize their skills. Maybe use the Skill Point Variant with 2/3/6 skill points gained instead of the baseline 1/2/4?

Another thing is that there's not really any mechanic for effort in PF2. Well, there are hero points, but those are rare, rerolls are fickle things (particularly if your odds aren't good to begin with), and one might be loathe to spend a potentially life-saving hero point on rerolling a skill check. If you take a game like TORG Eternity, for example, players have both Possibilities and cards they can spend to improve their rolls (after rolling, so you only spend resources if they'll actually make you succeed (or reach the right success level). That means that even someone with middling skill probably can succeed in a thing they find important, it will just be expensive; while someone who's good at the thing probably can get by just using their skill.

Something I did when I ran PF2 was allow PCs to spend hero points to boost each other’s results. That’s a bit better than a reroll, and it can help make an impossible check possible. We had a situation where the barbarian was fighting a mimic and was grappled to it. The check would have been basically impossible, but everyone chipped in hero points to help her escape. The idea for using hero points this way was inspired by Justin Alexander’s design notes on momentum in Infinity RPG. In particular, I really liked how it encouraged off-turn engagement.

And sometimes the players trolled each other by e.g., upgrading an attack that did 1 damage into a crit. It was fun.

 

[Justice and Rule]

There are two issues I see with that approach. First, I’d expect those benefits to be factored into the system’s assumption for balance. Instead of having a higher DC, a lock for a master of unlocking might require many times more successes. It’s theoretically doable by someone who’s just trained, but time or other circumstances might prevent it. The bigger issue is PF2 is designed with everything being’s a check on the same scale. Skills are used to make attacks and as defenses. If they didn’t scale, PF2 wouldn’t be able to do that.

I don’t think PCs should necessarily be able to do everything, especially once the challenges grow beyond just lower level ones. It’d be like if someone who could only cast 1st level spells could be as effective as someone who could heighten them well beyond that. However, I do agree that the game could probably give PCs more opportunities to customize their skills. Maybe use the Skill Point Variant with 2/3/6 skill points gained instead of the baseline 1/2/4?

I feel like the simplest solution to most PF2 problems is just give them a bit more. Like, Free Archetype and Ancestral Paragon should have been baseline in my opinion, though I get why they weren't. In this case, every 4th level I'd add a new thing: Competence. At 4th/8th/12th/16th/20th you upgrade one skill that you already have by one skill level. 5 upgrades won't keep everything to legendary, but it'll help get 2-3 more skills to Master, which should be enough.

Something I did when I ran PF2 was allow PCs to spend hero points to boost each other’s results. That’s a bit better than a reroll, and it can help make an impossible check possible. We had a situation where the barbarian was fighting a mimic and was grappled to it. The check would have been basically impossible, but everyone chipped in hero points to help her escape. The idea for using hero points this way was inspired by Justin Alexander’s design notes on momentum in Infinity RPG. In particular, I really liked how it encouraged off-turn engagement.

And sometimes the players trolled each other by e.g., upgrading an attack that did 1 damage into a crit. It was fun.

Hero Points are an underdeveloped function, but in being there they are something that can be expanded upon. Spendable narrative currencies are generally great and I'd love to see the bigger games use them more often, as it's a great way to let players have big moments they create without just resorting to GM fiat.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Hero Points are an underdeveloped function, but in being there they are something that can be expanded upon. Spendable narrative currencies are generally great and I'd love to see the bigger games use them more often, as it's a great way to let players have big moments they create without just resorting to GM fiat.

Apparently there is a Hero Point deck now, so I'll have to go look at that.