I’m skipping over chapter 3 (classes) as I’m not feeling up to investigating those and I’m jumping into chapter 4 (skills).
Basics
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| Image courtesy of Paizo, Inc |
This is a very clear and concise section laying out what you
need to know.
General Skill Actions
These skills are all pretty clear and well laid out, though
the high-level description of Earn Income where Lem performs for a bunch of
extraplanar creatures in the celestial realm is a bit nuts. It's fine. Nothing
actually wrong with it.
Decipher Writing
The sample difficulties of Decipher Writing's tasks is badly
laid out. It's not just split between pages, but there's a whole page of a
table (laying out all the skills, key abilities, and actions) between the first
three examples and the last. That is just not good.
Earn Income
At the end of the Ending or Interrupting Tasks section in
the sidebar, the part about rerolling when you start again is written weird. It
makes it seem as though rerolling is an option if you had a good roll, but it
is not if you had a bad one. I understand that it’s for mechanical reasons so
that if you fail you don’t get to just take a break and try for a better result
in a day or so. Why not just say “Generally speaking, you can’t try for a
better result by pausing to do something else, whether you had a good or bad
initial result.”
It would have been nice if “Staging a Performance” could have
been on the previous page with the rest of the action, but it’s fine.
Identify Magic
It's calling out the Magical Traditions and Skills section
by mentioning page 238. That is correct, but it should say "below" or
something to indicate immediately that it's on the same page.
Recall Knowledge
It'd be nice if this could have all been on the same page.
Specific Skill Descriptions
Finally, onto the meat of this chapter. The descriptions
(and actions) of all the various skills that are called out in the skill list
of the character sheet.
Acrobatics
Under the Acrobatics skill, we have the Balance and Tumble
Through as untrained actions and Maneuver in Flight and Squeeze as Trained
actions. These are all fine, though I don’t know why Tumble Through is an
untrained action when Maneuver in Flight especially since you won’t be able to
succeed for very long if you don't become at least Trained in Acrobatics
because the Tumble Through DC is based on the enemy's Reflex DC.
Balance
This is just crunchy enough. It could be done on the fly
without this action being specifically called out, but Paizo knows its audience
and put it in the book to cover their bases. I wish Climb and Swim were done
this cleanly.
Tumble Through
It is unclear as to whether Tumble Through triggers
reactions based on movement on a success. I assume the reason it is called out
in the failure state is that you're not moving, but you tried to. It’d just be
nice if the success state called out if it triggered or not as well.
Maneuver in Flight
This is a VERY vague action, but it covers a lot of ground.
It should say that these maneuvers never allow you to move farther than your
speed. I don’t care that a steep descent is in the examples. A steep descent
isn’t the maneuver, arresting your fall before impact (or at your desired
altitude) is.
Additionally, it’d be nice if the examples could have been
on the same page as the text and having a callout to aerial combat on page 478
would have been nice.
Squeeze
I don’t really like this as an action. Making it a Trained
or Expert skill feat seems more in line with the intent, to be honest.
Additionally, I feel that fitting into a space barely big enough for your head
is probably closer to Legendary than Master, but maybe that's me. I'd also move
the Quick Squeeze feat to require Master proficiency and the Squeeze feat.
The other thing I don’t like about this action is that there
is not one word dedicated to what your character is wearing while trying to
squeeze into a space barely big enough for their shoulders (or head). I kind of
feel like it should make a difference if you are wearing armor or not. Or
carrying a shield. Etc. Can DM’s make a ruling at the table to deal with this?
Yes. But it still seems silly.
All in all, Acrobatics is fine. Removing Squeeze as an
action is really the only change I'd make. If I was going to.
Arcana
No issues here except that it would have been nice if the
suggestion on setting a DC was a little clearer. For example, “The GM sets the
DC for the check based on the spell’s level and rarity; usually treating the
spell as if it were one level lower than its actual level.”
Athletics
The standard assortment of actions related to athletics:
climbing, grappling, jumping, pushing, and swimming with a bit of tripping,
force open (nice call back to bend bars/lift gates), and the trained action of
disarm.
Climb
I wish Climb was all on the same page. It speeds it up a
tiny bit at the higher Speeds, but if climbing was treated as Greater Difficult
Terrain it’d remove the need for Table 4-4: Climb and Swim Distance. Critical
Success could increase the distance by 5 feet, failure means you don’t move
that round and critical failure is you fall halfway through your climb for
that action.
Another option, and one that I’m leaning towards honestly,
is to almost completely disassociate your climb speed from your land speed
(still maxing out at your land speed) since being able to walk faster doesn’t
really translate into being able to climb faster. Being a more skilled climber
does. This is really two options in one. The first is to use table 4-4, but each
row is tied to your Athletics proficiency. The second is to just keep the base
climb speed of 5 feet per action on a success and 10 on a critical success. I
prefer the second. No table needed and it already accounts for a more athletic
person being able to climb faster on account of being more likely to get
critical successes more often. Throw in the quick climber skill feat and you
have a very skilled climber.
There’s also the “issue” that characters can climb with a
TON of weight and barely have it affect them. My table deals with this by
saying that if you are carrying more bulk than your Strength modifier (minimum
of 1), then your climb check is treated as one step worse.
That minor change makes it so that you can still climb in
full kit, but it’s going to be very hard unless you are very strong or very
athletic.
Force Open
Force Open should not have the Attack Trait. It should have Manipulate instead. Other than that, I like Force Open, but at the higher levels, it's almost easier to just break through most items via attacking vice forcing them open because of the way that damage scales.
I’m very much considering making the Striking Runes not
apply to damaging inanimate objects so it’s just the weapon’s base damage
trying to overcome the item’s hardness and hit points. Shield’s throw a wrench
in that idea, but it might be okay for them to be the outlier.
Grapple
It's at least on the same page, but only the name, traits,
and requirements are in one column, whilst everything else is in the other.
Makes it easy to overlook the entry.
Other than that, Grapple is good. My table adopted a
modified bit where if you’ve successfully grabbed or restrained a creature, you
only need to spend an action to maintain the grapple (this still modifies your
multi-attack penalty) – no roll needed. Many tables will probably hate that,
but if it encourages my players to actually use maneuvers (especially since so
many monsters have very high numbers for DCs and skills), I’m okay with it.
High Jump, Long Jump, and Leap
The numbers are generally
too high, but if they were realistic, jumping is less enticing, especially
since the game likes everything to be in 5-foot increments.
Seems that an average vertical leap should be about 1-2
feet, while a High Jump should extend it to about three feet (about the height
most professional athletes can jump) and a critical success launching you up to
five (world record height or more). Not overly "heroic" numbers
though. Also takes into account wearing almost nothing. Start throwing on armor
and other equipment and I'm sure that those numbers should be even lower.
Long jumping is a bit closer to human numbers. With Olympic
records maxing out at just under 30 feet, having the long jump maximum be equal
to your Speed is fine, though it’s a little too easy to max out those numbers.
Not really that big of a deal.
The bigger deal is that, from what I’ve seen, those top
distances all end up with the jumper landing prone. And they’re not wearing
adventuring gear.
Additionally, the Failure and Critical Failure results
should be on the same page as the rest of the Long Jumping write up.
I’d love for Paizo to errata the jump numbers to something a
bit closer to realistic numbers, but I’m not going to change any of them at my
table. It’s not worth the space for a house rule for vertical jump changes and
I do not know how to bring the long jump numbers to a spot where they at least
nod to reality without breaking other things, or adding a table of DC’s and
distances.
What I do instead is make jumping in full adventuring kit
harder. This is the same rule as I made for climbing. If you’re carrying more
bulk than your Strength modifier (minimum 1), your jump check result is treated
as one step worse.
Shove
I like the Shove action. You get the basic effect you were
looking for on a success, extra on a critical, and fall prone on a crit
failure. Great risk-reward scenario.
The little callout on forced movement is well placed and
succinct.
Swim
Much like Climb, I think the distance swum per action could
be simplified. Treating it as Difficult Terrain with a Critical Success adding
5 feet of movement would pretty much cover it. Will there be some higher speeds
where it allows them to swim just a bit faster? Sure, but that’s honestly a bit
of a rarity on an already rare event in most games.
Removing the base swim distance from being based on your
land speed is an option here as well (just like for climb). There can be an
argument that a faster person can swim faster, but I don’t think that argument
holds water (forgive me) for it to matter in a game. Either tying the distance to
your Athletics proficiency or just keep the base 10 feet on a success and 15 on
a critical success (my personal preference) would work. The Quick Swim skill
feat still exists, so even faster swim speeds are still on the table.
There's a weird thing where the failure state for swimming
is described in the action description, but not in the Critical Success,
Success, and Critical Failure section. Also, I'm not sure what the difference
is between a Failure and a Critical Failure in this scenario. There should also
be a callout to the aquatic combat to go along with the existing drowning and
suffocation callout.
And like climbing and jumping, this action makes no mention
of swimming with gear on. It is entirely possible to swim in full adventuring
kit, but it is very difficult and exhausting. I bring over the same rule from
climbing and jumping to address this. If you are carrying more bulk than your
Strength modifier (minimum 1), your swim check result is treated as one step
lower.
Trip
Another situation where the title, trait, and requirements
are separated from the rest of the text. Other than that, I like the Trip
action.
Disarm
Why is Disarm the only maneuver where you don't get what you
want on a success? I get that it would make disarming PC's happen WAY too
often, but every other maneuver costs your opponent an action. You could make
the Critical Success result the Success result (requiring an action to pick it
back up) and make the Critical Success have the item drop into an adjacent
space (requiring two actions to pick it up), but as I said before, no PC will
be able to hold onto their weapons, so it's probably too much.
Instead, making the Success result require the target to spend
an action to reaffirm their grip brings the Disarm action more in line with the
other maneuvers (by costing the target an action on a success) without making
it that everyone will look like they’ve greased their weapons.
Crafting
With Crafting, we get to repair items, craft items, and the
ability to identify alchemical items.
Like with many of the things, it’d be nice if the beginning
of the Crafting section was with the rest of it on the next page. The art could
be shrunk a little to make room for it.
Repair
Repair is fine, though with most shields, you'll never need
to be higher than Trained to bring them back to full health. With my house rule
for shields, I'll be changing the Success and Critical Success categories to
repairing one or two dents respectively.
Craft
Should have a requirements section that says something along
the lines of "see below." Since it does have requirements. Or it
should at least call out that you need the proper tools.
Other than that, I like how crafting works. It's simple, clean,
and universal. Sometimes the base 4 days is a little much, but I don't want a
more complicated formula for something that isn't essential to the type of game
Pathfinder normally is.
Summary
Figured I’d list out the house rules discussed above for any
who want them. I’m only listing out the ones I actually use, so squeeze
becoming a skill feat isn’t going to be in here (it’s not a common enough
action for me to care about changing it), etc.
- Jumping, Climbing, & Swimming: If you are carrying more bulk than your Strength modifier (minimum of 1) the result of your Athletics check is treated as one step lower. This limit can be increased by the Hefty Hauler skill feat. This limit is ignored if you have a climb or swim speed for that movement type.
- Climbing: You can climb a distance of 5 feet per action on a successful check. You can climb an additional 5 feet on a critical success.
- Swimming: You can swim a distance of 10 feet per action on a successful check. You can swim an additional 5 feet on a critical success.
- Disarm: On a success, the penalties last until the creature spends an action to firm up their grip vice a free action at the start of their turn. This action does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
- Grab: If you already have your target grabbed, you can maintain the grapple by spending an action (no roll needed).
Extra: Falling
There's a call out about falling on page 243. Falling has
been pretty anemic since the D&D moved away from a d6 or less of hit points
per and Pathfinder 2e is no different. It's a little better than before since
it's always assuming you are rolling a 5 on a d6 for every 10 feet fallen. The
problem is that characters start with so many hit points that it doesn't matter
all that much after 3rd level (if not earlier). This is exacerbated
by the fact that there are so many options to cut the damage in half or reduce
the falling distance by X feet.
Currently, at my table, we do a point of damage per foot
fallen over five feet. Additionally, for every full ten points of damage taken,
a critical hit card gets drawn.
It's made it so that my players have thought twice before
jumping down off of rooftops or down a 10-foot pit. They've taken the
time/actions to lower themselves down vice risk taking a crit card and a solid
amount of damage. This still falls apart at the upper levels (as a lot of the
mundane aspects of the world do in PF2e), but it makes falling a bit more of a
threat for longer in the game.
I’m looking forward to trying the Stamina rules from the
GameMastery Guide for a short adventure once we finish with Age of Ashes (soon,
I hope) and if that works out, then the normal rules will go back into play,
but the damage will be applied to both a character’s stamina and their hit
points equally. A critical hit card will probably still be drawn.
--
I've reached almost 3,000 words, so I'm going to take a
break and cover more of the skills later.
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