Skill Feats In Pathfinder 2

Monday's Pathfinder 2 preview over at the Paizo blog talked about skills, so it only makes sense that the Friday preview would take a look at skill feats in the upcoming game.

"One that will stand out to risk-averse players is Assurance, which allows you to achieve a result of 10, 15, 20, or even 30, depending on your proficiency rank, without rolling. Are you taking a huge penalty or being forced to roll multiple times and use the lowest result? Doesn't matter—with Assurance, you always get the listed result. It's perfect for when you want to be able to automatically succeed at certain tasks, and the kinds of things you can achieve with an automatic 30 are pretty significant, worthy of legendary proficiency." This puts a new spin on critical results, as the Assurance feat lets you get the result that you might need for your character, even if it is a low roll.

Characters get a feat on every even-numbered level, so this is going to mean (at least) 10 feats for a character over the course of playing across 20 levels. "At their most basic level, skill feats allow you to customize how you use skills in the game, from combat tricks to social exploits, from risk-averse failure prevention to high-risk heroism. If you'd ever rather just have more trained skills than special techniques with the skills you already have, you can always take the Skill Training skill feat to do just that. Otherwise, you're in for a ride full of options, depending on your proficiency rank." We saw in the update about skills how the number of skills, and how your character advances in them. Skill feats are the road to further customization of your character's skills, and may be a missing piece of the advancement pie.

We know that skill mastery is going to be in "tiers" of expert, master and legendary, and the skill feats will give extra abilities with skills. For example, the cat fall feat: "Your catlike aerial acrobatics allow you to cushion your fall. Treat all falls as if you fell 10 fewer feet. If you're an expert in Acrobatics, treat falls as 25 feet shorter. If you're a master in Acrobatics, treat them as 50 feet shorter. If you're legendary in Acrobatics, you always land on your feet and don't take damage, regardless of the distance of the fall." At the cost of one feat, you receive a lot of new capabilities for your character's acrobatics skill. I suspect that more than a few Pathfinder 2 games are going to see a lot of high level rogues falling from very tall things.

Legendary characters, on either side of the screen, are going to be tough to beat in Pathfinder 2 games. "Legendary characters can do all sorts of impressive things with their skills, not just using scaling skill feats but also using inherently legendary skill feats. If you're legendary, you can swim like a fish, survive indefinitely in the void of space, steal a suit of full plate off a guard (see Legendary Thief below), constantly sneak everywhere at full speed while performing other tasks (Legendary Sneak, from Monday's blog), give a speech that stops a war in the middle of the battlefield, remove an affliction or permanent condition with a medical miracle (Legendary Medic, also from Monday's blog), speak to any creature with a language instantly through an instinctual pidgin language, completely change your appearance and costume in seconds, squeeze through a hole the size of your head at your full walking speed, decipher codes with only a skim, and more!" This is going to mean that there are going to be some pretty impressive high level characters in Pathfinder 2 games.

What do you think? Is the added flexibility that skill feats will give to character counter the changes to the skill system, or make them better?

 

[Celebrim]

I have mixed feelings about this. I read the description of what Legendary characters can do, and my first reaction is that it sounds ridiculously over-the-top.

Actually, mine too, though in point of fact that isn't really my problem with it.

My problem is that I think everything ought to be quantifiable and incremental. There ought to be a relatively smooth progression and it ought to at every stage represent a finite number. I have a huge problem with rules that are written as defacto absolutes. As an example, I get very uncomfortable reading something like, "Fire Elementals or immune to fire." or "Wall of Force cannot be broken by physical force." To me that strikes me as very primitive rules, however intuitive that they may seem.

So when I read something like this, "Your catlike aerial acrobatics allow you to cushion your fall. Treat all falls as if you fell 10 fewer feet. If you're an expert in Acrobatics, treat falls as 25 feet shorter. If you're a master in Acrobatics, treat them as 50 feet shorter. If you're legendary in Acrobatics, you always land on your feet and don't take damage, regardless of the distance of the fall.", my problem is that that is a very ungranular progression. You'd kind of expect the next step to be "100 feet shorter", but the next step is infinity. It's a big jump between 50 and infinity, and I don't like things that aren't quantified. The explanation for how this works isn't even that important to me, the really important point is how it is going to play in a game.

As for people who are complaining about unmagical people doing superheroic things, I don't have much sympathy for that. If you don't want your game to be superheroic, don't play at higher levels. At any level above 8th or so, you no longer have anything but a pretence of being realistic or gritty. If you are complaining about how the 20th level rogue leaping off a 100' cliff and landing nimbly ruins your gritty realistic game, and yet you have a 20th level wizard in the party then you are a fairly ridiculous person in my opinion. 20th level wizards have nigh demigod level power in D&D, and always have. They can alter the very fabric of reality. It's like on the one hand insisting that its perfectly OK for one party member to be Dr. Strange the sorcerer supreme, and at the same time complaining that Batman and Captain America aren't realistic and break the laws of physics. If you want a gritty game where what people can do is mostly limited to what is realistic, don't play at high level. Once a fighter hits 15th level, they are no more limited by what a person can realistically do than the wizard is.

 

[dco]

You must hate all editions of D&D then, because feather fall is a level 1 spell.

That's magic.
You can also use a parachute at level 0, that's an item.
If you are invulnerable to fall damage, that's superhero theme.
If someone uses a spell to teleport he is using magic.
If someone crosses a portal he is using an item.
If someone jumps contries or continents he is like Hulk.

So, wizards get Feather Fall at level 1. But the fighter cant get it until something like level 20?

I fear, this is still a case of ‘fighters cant have nice things’.

They can, but it gets a bit ridiculous for a lot of people and personally I don't see the point, I can use my old Champions 4ed and create a fighter with superpowers since the beginning, no need to wait 20 levels and buy a new book.

 

[Caliburn101]

Is it magical to kill six guys with two knifes in six seconds? Kill something the size of a condo? Stab through stone?

And that's before magical weapons and spells.

As you are new to the thread and actually challenging something genuine, I shall answer.

I have seen attack sequences with swords (duel wielded) faster than 1 per second - a lot faster, and in the real world, you get stabbed, you tend to die a lot.

Killing something the size of a condo usually means significant trauma be inflicted generally, or a single targeted trauma is inflicted to a critical organ. There is very good evidence to show Neanderthals hunted Mammoth by direct attack with flint-tipped spears - so yes, big things can be brought down with primitive weapons. In addition, it's a fact that war elephants used to be killed in battle by people without guns.

Stabbing through stone depends on the stone. You probably mean granite or something equally hard, which would be extraordinarily difficult if not impossible. However another hand held weapon like a sledge hammer can do it just fine.

I never said D&D was a physics simulator.

I did say it didn't completely ignore physics.

As for the 'jokingly?' added point that physics doesn't need to be codified in the rules... as the personal experience of every human being in the world gives them the tools to understand what is plausible in this regard and what is not, then no, it wouldn't be... would it...

The falling feat is as completely implausible as can be imagined because it is mundane.

Magic is implausible, but it IS codified in the rules, so conflating the two issues is entirely invalid.

Simple... although you'd think it wasn't based on the responses here.

 

[Caliburn101]

LOL. Sir, you have nothing to teach me about logic, I assure you.

Great! Then let's see some. I didn't actually say I had anything to teach you on the subject, merely that you should use some in this instance.

That's the best you can do? Really?

The real irony of this is that I'm not even defending the skill feat as written. My impression of the skill feats as written are actually pretty poor. But it has nothing to do with 'science' or any illogical and irrelevant crap like that.

Actually, you have defended it. Read your own words - you are quite happy people jumping impossible distances with a high jump skill.

Critiquing my point of view with the counterpoint detail you have attempted is a well worn (because it's effective) debating technique, and generally, one doesn't debate a topic with another unless there is some contrary point of view.

But by all means, if you do agree with me, I would be delighted to read why you do.

 

[Jason Dolph]

Maybe some of you need to rename Legendary to Mythical to get the idea? Look at the PURELY SKILL BASED or skill plus magic item feats attributed to Paul Bunyon or Liu Bu or Masamune or pick a Legend. Your characters won't have this for every skill, maybe a handful. You can easily cap power tier for a campaign if desired, but don't pretend this stuff is inappropriate for characters so powerful likely most of the world has heard of them.

 

[Caliburn101]

Funny how a night's rest and some coffee makes a circus like this worth a little more of one's time.

 

[Celebrim]

Actually, you have defended it. Read your own words - you are quite happy people jumping impossible distances with a high jump skill.

Let's count the number of times your logic fails you just in this little distance.

#1. So, being quite happy with PC's jumping a great distance is not the same as defending a skill feat. They simply aren't the same thing. I can be quite happy with PC's jumping a great distance and not happy with the skill feat. They are independent of one another. So, you fail.

#2. The word impossible is misused. Why do you think it is impossible to do a 70' long jump? Well, you think that because in real life, a jump of just 29' is a very long jump. In real life, it is impossible for a normal human to jump 70' on the surface of the Earth. The problem with this statement is that all of its logical basis of that statement is inapplicable to the situation. It's not logical to apply an argument from real life to this situation. We aren't discussing real life. We aren't discussing a game trying to simulate real life. The game takes place in another universe and not on Earth. The game does not and is not trying to simulate real life. Moreover, the characters in question have levels and hit points and all sorts of things that they would not have if we were in any way trying to simulate real life. It's pretty easy to show that even if levels were a reasonable way to simulate real people - and they are not - that there are no people Earth that are more than about 5th level characters. So, the skills attributed to 5th level and lower characters are not implausible for people in the real world, but the ones attributed to say 15th or 20th level characters are impossible for ordinary people - but these are not ordinary people. 15th level characters are not simulating the real world in any fashion and never ever have been. (Heck, even first level characters though more plausible as simulations of real life abilities are still not actually motivated primarily with simulating real abilities.) High level characters are simulating fantasy super-heroes. They are potential members of some sword swinging, spelling-slinging justice league, and Batman and Captain America have nothing on them. So the distances are not impossible given the actual conditions being simulated. They are only impossible in a situation you are illogically including in the game, and one that is irrelevant to the discussion - real life. It's not impossible for a superhero to jump 70', and if you don't want to simulate superheroes than you shouldn't be playing a high level game because high level characters have always been superheroes. It's not even implausible for a high level character to jump 70' and quite arguably it is necessary for the game.

Critiquing my point of view with the counterpoint detail you have attempted is a well worn (because it's effective) debating technique, and generally, one doesn't debate a topic with another unless there is some contrary point of view.

But by all means, if you do agree with me, I would be delighted to read why you do.

#3 Again, just because I don't like the skill feat as written it is illogical to conclude from that that I actually agree with you. Those are again two completely different things. There aren't only two possibilities here. I can both not like the skill feat as written and still disagree with you. In fact I'm doing both, but you lack the basic logic to deal with that. There is a contrary point of view and the fact that I'm being contrary to you in no way means that I actually like the skill feat and am defending it. If you had a bit of logic in your thoughts in this thread, you would realize that.

 

[Azgulor]

Just as a side note:

Pathfinder as a RPG is a game emulating a fantasy experience. Although the fantastical is present, there is typically an internal logic/consistency to it. Yes, PF1 the game produces mundane results that are at odds with the mundane results we see on Earth.

However, to make the argument that Golarion "operates by different rules" while excluding magic is somewhat disingenuous. Because according to Paizo, Golarion inhabits the same reality as Earth. There are AP installments that interact with Earth. Yes, it is a game representation/alternate reality of Earth but things like breathing, gravity, etc. are assumed to be equivalent within the representation of the game.

THIS is the source of heartburn for myself. I don't mind the existence of Legendary tier content existing. I think the implementation is lacking based on what has been described thus far. However, the #1 issue I have with it is that it has been presented as being a mundane result. While things like hit points and other abstractions are presented that way as well, they are intrinsic to the DNA of the game. Legendary tier feats/unlocks, on the other hand, feel like a step too far.

I admit it's a purely subjective benchmark, but it's not a baseless one.

 

[Celebrim]

Just as a side note:

Pathfinder as a RPG is a game emulating a fantasy experience. Although the fantastical is present, there is typically an internal logic/consistency to it. Yes, PF1 the game produces mundane results that are at odds with the mundane results we see on Earth.

For me, that produces no heartburn. There could be any number of reasons why fantasy humans are able to achieve mundane results that are astounding or impossible in reality. As one of many possible examples, it could simply be that the muscles of people on Golarion are made of somewhat different stuff than the muscles in the real world and operate by somewhat different principles and so can be trained in some fashion to be stronger than is possible for muscles in reality. This presents no particular problem.

However, to make the argument that Golarion "operates by different rules" while excluding magic is somewhat disingenuous. Because according to Paizo, Golarion inhabits the same reality as Earth. There are AP installments that interact with Earth. Yes, it is a game representation/alternate reality of Earth but things like breathing, gravity, etc. are assumed to be equivalent within the representation of the game.

THIS is the source of heartburn for myself.

I can see why that would be confusing. The only thing I can tell you is that the game Earth is also not the real Earth and its inhabitants must also be like the inhabitants of the Golarion. When interacting with Earth, does anything suggest that the world the PC's are interacting with is an alternative Earth containing magic and other things that don't work in this universe, or is the Paizo Earth notably mundane and a place where magic does not work? And if so, do the PC's generally have to obey a new set of laws when on Earth?

I don't mind the existence of Legendary tier content existing. I think the implementation is lacking based on what has been described thus far. However, the #1 issue I have with it is that it has been presented as being a mundane result. While things like hit points and other abstractions are presented that way as well, they are intrinsic to the DNA of the game. Legendary tier feats/unlocks, on the other hand, feel like a step too far.

Again, I think it is possible to be both mundanely strong and durable and also be superhumanly strong and durable. Magic is not the only way to 'power up'. Legendary heroes can be above 'peak human fitness' without having magic as an explanation for it, and even many heroes that are supposedly just 'peak human fitness' are regularly portrayed accomplishing feats that are superhuman. So that in itself doesn't bother me.

That said, I do agree the implementation is lacking based on what has been described so far.

I admit it's a purely subjective benchmark, but it's not a baseless one.

I don't think subjective preferences are baseless just because they are subjective. I just think many people with subjective preferences don't realize that their preferences are subjective. I also think that people often try to covert subjective preferences into objective preferences because they lack the language to describe or think about their objective preferences, and end up grasping for something they do have the language for which ends up being a proxy for something more objective. Back in the '80's and '90's there wasn't a lot of language for describing RPG design or evaluating what made an RPG design good, so 'realism' ended up being a proxy marker for a lot of things that in retrospect made absolutely no sense.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Earth is an E6 world.