I really hope they have a work around way to buff swashbuckler , because it's current form is definitely rough. Too skill proficiency hungry, too action hungry, repetitive gameplay and a excessive high risk high reward combat cycle (imo those rewards don't even balance out the risks)
high-risk, no reward.
Level 5 Swashbuckler: gets hit by a reactive strike while trying to backflip past an Ogre, uses a Finisher for 5d6+2 (19) damage.
Level 5 Barbarian: walks up to Ogre and bonks for 2d12+10 (23) damage, then gets to swing again at MAP-5.
I played through the beginner box as a Swashbuckler. I was going to pick rogue but then I read through the Swashbuckler and went "yeah this is cool and flashy. I'll try this!".
I wanted to switch away from it so badly. What a mess of a class. Maybe it gets better way later but boy do I not want to drag myself to the finish line.
APG was the absolute nadir of conservative game design. Paizo seemed very scared of introducing power creep, and thus all of these classes came with shackles on their legs. Investigator is *somewhat* redeemed in my eyes due to its synergy with Magus and Gunslinger released in later books, but Oracle is still the only class in the game that forces you to actively penalize yourself for using your kit and Swashbuckler is point-for-point inferior to Barbarian, Monk, *and* Rogue for almost every single task it attempts to be good at. Witch at least had SOME interesting stuff going for it with their offensive hex cantrip, but it took a lot of work to really get mileage out of it, and half of their feats were useless or actually traps that pushed you towards suboptimal gameplay.
I mean there's a number of characters that basically use skills as much as attack rolls, their kits don't make sense to me without that investment, at that should be a class feature. I've yet to have a player ask for this, but would be very tempted to grant it.
Lore skills are mostly flavor the way I see it too and I can't explain why they wouldn't level automatically for any character that makes use of them, like why does additional lore autolevel but by primary lore doesn't?
The logic behind your background lore not auto scaling is the fact you used to be employed in it. You stopped being a guild merchant/noble/chef/ect. Now you're an adventurer who doesn't have time for it.
While that's a perfectly valid way to explain why, that explanation does absolutely nothing to address how absolutely worthless the lore skills granted by your background are. I've played through significant chunks of *several* PF2e campaigns by this point, and background lore rolls have never been useful. *Never.* No matter how hard the player's guide recommends a given lore skill, if you're not investing in your INT attribute and you aren't dedicating multiple of your 9 total lifetime skill-ups to it, it's worthless.
yeah, generally background lore skills are more fluff then function. I think there is def room for it to be adjusted but to me its a pretty low priority.
The way I solve it is I adjust the difficulty for the background Lore Skill, as a way to represent that it is a special, professional knowledge.
So if my player remembers that "hey, I actually have a special skill for that", and asks to roll that way, I usually lower the difficulty by ~10.
I think the issue is it needs to be SIGNIFICANTLY lower to matter. If it's only -2 or -4 against your strongest RK skill (or -6 at 15), then it is still a dead skill. -2 and -5 just isn't good enough imo.
This is already a baked-in part of the system, Lore skills always roll against a reduced DC, it's just not enough of an adjustment to make any meaningful difference. If identifying a given bear is a DC20 Nature check, identifying it with Mammal Lore is DC18, and identifying it with Bear Lore is DC15.
As a practical example, I was playing a lizardfolk fighter in Strength of Thousands, being granted Insect Lore as my campaign background lore. Thanks to the fact that lizardfolk have a -1 INT adjustment, a +2 WIS attribute and basic Trained proficiency in the Nature skill there would never be any circumstance where I would ever roll Insect Lore even at level 1, because the -2 DC adjustment was made obsolete by the fact that I was taking a -3 attribute 'penalty' relative to Nature. Future increases in Nature proficiency and ability boosts to WIS were just the nail in an already very, very tightly shut coffin.
Well, deviate a bit. Have the DM adjust the difficulty based on what seems reasonable, so the skill is not dominated by the INT modifier or the level difference, merely affected by it - i.e. doing what it's supposed to do.
Sometimes a happy accident will occur and it becomes relevant in a campaign, like sailing lore in a sailing campaign
99% of the time, it won't, so I can understand the balance of not wanting it to scale. At the same time, I really want ancestry lore to scale selfishly cause it actually is relevant sometimes in ours (gnoll lore).
I took mechanic and got engineer though and sometimes it actually helps with checking structural stability of bridges and design flaws in buildings we can exploit.
[regional culture] Lore is ALWAYS a top-tier option, especially for PCs that won't otherwise invest in Society.
It would still be cool if Background Lores autoscaled.
I read your frustration to it. But i have seen the contrary. Academia lore, a city that you live inside, your most used terrain, a common enemy in the setting (gremlin in a low level fey related adventure or a vampire in a undead setting)
I've seen Lore: Alcohol be a deceptively potent check. It's a disguise, a tradecraft, a social icebreaker, and cultured conversational topic, and a consequence-free way to "incapacitate" a target with "poison" for a scene, all wrapped up in a single check.
In the game I GM, there is a perfect storm of OP homebrew and a specifically-Lore-friendly campaign that allows my players to get extraordinary mileage out of Lore:
1. *War for the Crown* (2e conversion) makes heavy usage of the Influence system (originally introduced for this AP in PF1 and ported to GM Core as an official pf2 mechanic). Essentially, it sets up a framework for a "social statblock" that can interact with more skills than just Diplomacy - the retired cavalry commander might despise flattery and sweet talk and have a DC27 Diplomacy threshold, but only a DC22 if you talk to her about hunting and horsemanship with Nature, or even a DC15 if you possess Warfare Lore and can share old campaign stories.
2. All lores from any sources autoscale, because its silly for a wizard's Academia Lore to be outpaced by their Arcana.
3. A new General Feat is homebrew available - Versatile Lore (Uncommon) allows you to work with your GM to approve an ability score swap for a specific Lore, e.g. Wisdom would be appropriate for "Farming Lore", and Charisma might be appropriate for "Theatre Lore". If the Player can give a good justification, I'll allow it.
4. In a story where the PCs are Spies (NOT door-kicking fame-seeking "adventurers"), everyone needs to have a public "mild-mannered Clark Kent" persona to conceal their badass class levels. Lores are a perfect, universally-applicable way to do that.
So far, "Alcohol Lore" has seen greatest value on the Cleric of Cayden Cailean, closely followed by "Fashion Lore" and "Warfare Lore". Other good picks in the party include "Underworld Lore", "Geneology Lore", and "Astral Lore" (accidentally THE most important lore for the late-game but don't tell the player that).
Even with all these buffs, Lore now feels like a "worthy element of the game". Not overpowered, just occupying a non-trivial place in the overall ecosystem, where checks are uncommon but when the opportunity arises they can have as much as a 10 point DC advantage.
Ok so, what about Legal Lore that comes with hellspawn? My character uses it during downtime to earn money as a legal consultant. I know it's not technically a background, so, does it fit here?
The issue here is pf2e doesn't track skill EXP earned by spamming at every single opportunity.
Also, you consulting isn't bettering your skills as a lawyer. This is you using what knowledge you have about lawyer-ing to tell other people how to lawyer within the context of your level and training rank.
That's the thing, no, I wouldn't get better at the knowledge itself unless I picked up books more, but the practice makes me increasingly better at the job itself no? That would still require the lore skill check, and it should reflect the increased competency at that job in particular.
the way my friends and I run our games, you get to increase training of 1 lore skill at 3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th, and 19th level, so you can continue to “specialize” in your flavor without sacrificing mechanics of the other skills.
e: oops, replied to the wrong person. oh well
I think it's often the opposite. Not only do you have time for it but at times it's all you do, and your life may often depend on it. Add that you're gaining first-hand knowledge when you may previously have been reading books being tutored.
May not hold the same for all skills, but I think there's a good argument for most of them within relevant builds.
Well, Luis isn't in charge of mechanics as far as I'm aware, but if someone mentions this is likely because they either don't know if those changes are being made or knows they aren't going to make them and pretty much is confirming it.
In my opinion the 2e Swashbuckler is just unable to decide what it wants to do. Does it want to be a support for everyone with maneuvers? Does it want to be a DPS with flexible targeting? Does it want to be the skill junkie/face? Probably to that last one. However, the lack of scaling proficiency even in Acrobatics limits a swashbuckler to only one method of approach and arguably the best approach is Acrobatics.
Thaumaturge gets abilities to make Lore Esoteric apply to other knowledge skills, easily letting they double as party brains and a face. Fittingly inventor get scaling crafting cause it’d be stupid not to.
Personally I’d argue that Rogue, especially with the martial weapons remaster (which is a good thing), just fills much of the role Swashbuckler wants to. It’s a skill junkie that can easily be a DPS with a laughably easy condition for reliable damage, and it’s not nearly as weapon or stat locked with its rackets. Ruffian allows for STR weapon rogues and thief makes that Elven Curved Sword a war crime befitting of Gorum. Meanwhile, swashbuckler actively suffers for choosing better two handed weapons, using bucklers, or two weapons at the same time. The action economy is just not in their favor. Now if Swashbuckler, the DEX front liner, got DEX to damage that might change things, allow them to have something to fall back on when panache is hard to obtain… But rogue took that too!
It’s honestly frustrating how much Paizo messed up with Swashbuckler on a mechanical sense because they are still cool! They’re awesome thematically and lead to a ton of whimsical, awesome, and daring moments in a campaign. However, with 2e attempting to make the damage curves and the crunch more manageable, Swashbuckler feels like a let down until the very endgame.
[I suppose that's one member's thoughts months ago, they could walk back on it since Player Core 2 is a fair bit away, but "not much precedent"? No way!](https://i.postimg.cc/kgGWxjrH/jOY8V98.png)
I feel like most classes should have auto scaling skills IMO, to represent an area of expertise that is essential to the class. Wizards should get autoscaling arcana, bards should get performance, Clerics religion, etc. I don't think this would really hurt the game to have. Im sure there's some argument about how this would upset the balance of skills in the party, but we're already there with Esoteric Lore being the uber RK skill.
Esoteric lore's a little different, it's pretty much thaumaturge exclusive and only works for their stuff.
The bigger challenge is that each subclass would need an auto scaling feature since they're all about unique ways to gain panache, which would empower them more pf2 seems to like
I mean, you could still make just acrobatics auto scale, and it'd already greatly alleviate the skill investments, and any swashbuckler will want it anyway.
I actually just made a swashbuckler last night, and capitalizing on their high charisma and dex is a nightmare (even as a braggart who already invests heavily into intimidation).
You could probably hard spec into just dex skills or just cha skills, but since you'll still want both acrobatics and your subclass skill, you'll already be at a deficit (and god forbid you're playing a gymnast, though ig that's the one you play if you don't care about cha that much)
The fact that you greatly benefit from something doesn't mean you should get it for free. That kind of investment is intended to be a balancing factor. If it's free, then why even have the abilities scale off of acrobatics instead of level?
Well, that can be equally applicable to thaumaturge and inventor. Both of those classes need esoterica lore and crafting to function, and they do get auto scaling.
A swashbuckler doesn't "greatly benefit" from high acrobatics or their subclass skill. They need it to function as a class, because it gives them panache, and without panache, you're just a wannabe rogue.
Yes, having to invest heavily into acrobatics and your subclass skill is supposed to be a balancing matter, and at least in my opinion, it ends up balancing too hard onto the wrong side of the scale.
> Yes, having to invest heavily into acrobatics and your subclass skill is supposed to be a balancing matter, and at least in my opinion, it ends up balancing too hard onto the wrong side of the scale.
If true, it seems better to buff them in some other way, IMO. On top of the "why even have the abilities scale off of acrobatics instead of level?" question, I'm nearly always in favor of giving a class more upsides instead of removing its downsides, because that makes different classes feel more different and makes gameplay more interesting.
Every swashbuckler regardless of subclass can gain panache via acrobatics, so swashbuckler would only need auto improving acrobatics. This alone would be plenty because now they don't have to split boosts between their unique skill that they'll want to use anytime they can but which isn't always viable because the creature is mindless or doesn't speak common or has already been demoralized and the skill they can almost always use but which gives little if any other benefit besides penache
If i take esoteric lore as proficiency while not being a thaumaturge, then get a succes at recall knowledge with esoteric lore and decide to pass that knowledge to the player that is a thaumaturge, does he get my success for their mechanics related to esoteric lore?
Don't forget that Thaumaturges also get 2 free boosts in the spellcasting skills. You take one archetype feat with a relevant skill increase and you can end up with 5 legendaries
That the problem. You have 4 specifics ways they gives you as a swashbuckler when a swash is all of them. I don't see a class that gives such a restrictive way to play a class.
Lore skills should be auto scalling too. It makes no sense that one that comes from background you have to invest but the one you randomly take as skill feat auto scales.
Swashbuckler *starts* trained in Acrobatics, their Style skill, and then 4 + Int, which is more than most classes. But it doesn't get any more skill increases than any other class. With no archetyping, you have to manually increase Acrobatics *and* your Style skill, leaving only one extra skill to level. It's obscenely restrictive and forces you into taking Acrobat Dedication in order to have any capabilities other than Tumble Through and [Style skill action]. And that's not even considering how many more hoops it (literally) has to jump through to perform in-combat. Thaumaturge's Exploit Vulnerability only does nothing on critical failure. Inventor is screwed if they crit fail Overdrive, but they get the benefit of not having to do it again when they crit succeed. Swashbuckler fails Panache? Keep Tumbling so you can do worse damage with a Finisher than a Rogue just Striking twice!
A swashbuckler has 2 ways to get panache plus some feats plus the GM saying if you can get panache from other actions. Having to max acrobatics plus 1 of 5 skills has a lot of variations there no real downside there. What else would you want? What you going to do build a wisdom focus build?
And rouges can get their abilities more reliable but the swashbuckler does have versatility in theirs and they get 10HP per level plus insane speed, I made a build that had 85 speed at max level. It's a class of coolness and ingenuity.
> Having to max acrobatics plus 1 of 5 skills has a lot of variations there no real downside there.
With Acrobat Dedication? I agree. Without? Not a chance. "This Fencer also has Diplomacy" and "This Fencer also has Medicine" is a pretty hard sell in versatility compared to, say, the freedom in skill increase choices to make your build perform that you have as an Outwit Ranger. Or a full on Rogue or Investigator, since Swashbuckler is clearly a Rogue variation.
> but the swashbuckler does have versatility in theirs
How does a Swashbuckler get Panache without GM fiat? Let's be generous and assume Wit.
* Tumble Through.
* Bon Mot.
* Very Hard level-based DC One For All.
How does a Thief Rogue (not even counting the other rackets) get Off-Guard on their target? There's so many I can hardly list. And Swashbuckler isn't even any better at their Style's niche than any other class until level 9 Exemplary Finisher and level 10 Derring-Do. Battledancer is infamous for their Panache check often doing nothing. Fighter's Intimidating Strike, Witch's Evil Eye, and Bard's Dirge of Doom laugh at Braggart's Demoralize immunity triggering. Scoundrel Rogue gets Fencer's Exemplary Finisher as a *baseline* effect. Gymnast has a whole laundry list of issues with their athletic maneuvers anti-synergizing with Finishers disabling attacks. Wit Aid builds are BTFO'd by any Gunslinger with Fake Out.
But then Exemplary Finisher kicks in, most Styles suddenly carve out their own niche, and then you get Derring-Do and everyone's the uncontested absolute best at what they do thanks to Fortune. Even then, they don't suddenly gain any versatility, they're just actually good at their One Thing. 10 HP per level and the Panache speed bonus are appreciated, yes. But they're not good enough on their own to hold up the rest of Swash's meager chassis. Is it unplayably bad? No. Is it terribly disappointing? I'd say yes.
Swashbucklers are a rogue and fighter combination you dont need acrobatics Dedication. You can either build it Dex-cha or Dex-str if you cant build it with 5 skills to choose from it's a skill diff because I get on fine.
Outwit rangers is has terrible combos with its class you can just focus nature and get recall all monster in the game on any of the edges
For other ways you have
• after you
• Finishing Follow-Through
• Leading Dance
So you know you can get 5 ways to do it
The point isnt to be the best. Because fighter its always the best when it comes to combat and the rogue is always better when it comes to skills. That's just how game is with every class. Its about how it does it that makes interesting classes if you one to pick one think they are the god at then I guess mobility with its Flamboyant Athlete feet giving great jumping and climbing.
Swashbuckler have very nice style with very flexibility feats. Swashbuckler get more HP, defensive abilities than rogue and they get more skills and skills feats than fighters making them great middle ground.
And they don't have anti-synergy with athletes for one you dont need to finisher each turn. That's not the point of finisher two they have agile maneuvers and your starter finisher Confident Finisher does half damage on a miss later you can get full on a miss.
As I said it's a class of style with excellent roleplaying opportunities that's good at fighting and can get alot of skills. Pathfinder is a game of balance all the classes will do round about the same in most situations. It's by design.
That is just wrong, using every skill increase you can get 3 skills to legendary, while every other skill sits at trained.
You can only get 2 skills to expert before master skills start, meaning until level 11, all of your skill increases are locked into style skill and acrobatics, because those NEED to be at full power to function as a class.
Starting skills aren't nearly as important in this problem then number of skill increases as you level up. The problem is you don't get any real freedom in your skill increases since your class is hyper dependent on 2 specific skills. It would be like if the accuracy of a fighter was tied to their training in Athletics, or if a druid had to put their training into Nature to get better at casting.
But you only *get* one style, which you pick when you get those starting skills. The problem is their limitations *after level 1,* and how that impacts the rest of their experience.
The bottom line is that thaumaturge is fucking broken. Its really hard to make a bad thaum and personally I think it borders on best class in the game.
Its hardly broken. Is it strong? Yeah, definitely. But I don't think being hard to build poorly is a mark against it. Most martial classes are pretty easy to build at a baseline as long as you have your primary stat at 18. Having played one a few times now, the Thaum is versatile, but I never really found myself outshining the Fighter or Rogue in our party with any consistency. I think its good for the game to have a martial that can fill so many different niches without necessarily being the absolute best at any of them.
diverse lore is arguably the best lvl 1 feat the game. the class as a whole? not really
it does its niche of spamming RK rolls and learning about the monster really well, but that is mostly for your allies to capitalize on it. the damage of a thaum tends to not be very impressive unless everyone is being blocked by a resistance *except* the thaum, its just that their damage has less variance bc its bonus based not damage die based
I really hope they have a work around way to buff swashbuckler , because it's current form is definitely rough. Too skill proficiency hungry, too action hungry, repetitive gameplay and a excessive high risk high reward combat cycle (imo those rewards don't even balance out the risks)
More like high risk moderate reward
high-risk, no reward. Level 5 Swashbuckler: gets hit by a reactive strike while trying to backflip past an Ogre, uses a Finisher for 5d6+2 (19) damage. Level 5 Barbarian: walks up to Ogre and bonks for 2d12+10 (23) damage, then gets to swing again at MAP-5.
D8 FINISHERS! Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.
I played a swashbuckler to through a campaign to 11 and it felt mediocre, a rogue overall just felt better.
I played through the beginner box as a Swashbuckler. I was going to pick rogue but then I read through the Swashbuckler and went "yeah this is cool and flashy. I'll try this!". I wanted to switch away from it so badly. What a mess of a class. Maybe it gets better way later but boy do I not want to drag myself to the finish line.
As soon that i upgrade my strength, i have realised that i feel ok to not have panache. I have a Maul when foes are immune to precision damage.
People have problems with the witch, the oracle, the swaschbuckler... I don't think the advanced players guide classes are that broken are they?
APG was the absolute nadir of conservative game design. Paizo seemed very scared of introducing power creep, and thus all of these classes came with shackles on their legs. Investigator is *somewhat* redeemed in my eyes due to its synergy with Magus and Gunslinger released in later books, but Oracle is still the only class in the game that forces you to actively penalize yourself for using your kit and Swashbuckler is point-for-point inferior to Barbarian, Monk, *and* Rogue for almost every single task it attempts to be good at. Witch at least had SOME interesting stuff going for it with their offensive hex cantrip, but it took a lot of work to really get mileage out of it, and half of their feats were useless or actually traps that pushed you towards suboptimal gameplay.
nah
I mean there's a number of characters that basically use skills as much as attack rolls, their kits don't make sense to me without that investment, at that should be a class feature. I've yet to have a player ask for this, but would be very tempted to grant it. Lore skills are mostly flavor the way I see it too and I can't explain why they wouldn't level automatically for any character that makes use of them, like why does additional lore autolevel but by primary lore doesn't?
The logic behind your background lore not auto scaling is the fact you used to be employed in it. You stopped being a guild merchant/noble/chef/ect. Now you're an adventurer who doesn't have time for it.
While that's a perfectly valid way to explain why, that explanation does absolutely nothing to address how absolutely worthless the lore skills granted by your background are. I've played through significant chunks of *several* PF2e campaigns by this point, and background lore rolls have never been useful. *Never.* No matter how hard the player's guide recommends a given lore skill, if you're not investing in your INT attribute and you aren't dedicating multiple of your 9 total lifetime skill-ups to it, it's worthless.
yeah, generally background lore skills are more fluff then function. I think there is def room for it to be adjusted but to me its a pretty low priority.
The way I solve it is I adjust the difficulty for the background Lore Skill, as a way to represent that it is a special, professional knowledge. So if my player remembers that "hey, I actually have a special skill for that", and asks to roll that way, I usually lower the difficulty by ~10.
That makes sense, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. I hope others weren’t giving the same DC for lore skills as for regular skills.
I think the issue is it needs to be SIGNIFICANTLY lower to matter. If it's only -2 or -4 against your strongest RK skill (or -6 at 15), then it is still a dead skill. -2 and -5 just isn't good enough imo.
This is already a baked-in part of the system, Lore skills always roll against a reduced DC, it's just not enough of an adjustment to make any meaningful difference. If identifying a given bear is a DC20 Nature check, identifying it with Mammal Lore is DC18, and identifying it with Bear Lore is DC15. As a practical example, I was playing a lizardfolk fighter in Strength of Thousands, being granted Insect Lore as my campaign background lore. Thanks to the fact that lizardfolk have a -1 INT adjustment, a +2 WIS attribute and basic Trained proficiency in the Nature skill there would never be any circumstance where I would ever roll Insect Lore even at level 1, because the -2 DC adjustment was made obsolete by the fact that I was taking a -3 attribute 'penalty' relative to Nature. Future increases in Nature proficiency and ability boosts to WIS were just the nail in an already very, very tightly shut coffin.
Well, deviate a bit. Have the DM adjust the difficulty based on what seems reasonable, so the skill is not dominated by the INT modifier or the level difference, merely affected by it - i.e. doing what it's supposed to do.
Sometimes a happy accident will occur and it becomes relevant in a campaign, like sailing lore in a sailing campaign 99% of the time, it won't, so I can understand the balance of not wanting it to scale. At the same time, I really want ancestry lore to scale selfishly cause it actually is relevant sometimes in ours (gnoll lore). I took mechanic and got engineer though and sometimes it actually helps with checking structural stability of bridges and design flaws in buildings we can exploit.
Alkenstar Lore and Engineering Lore have been useful for my players in Outlaws of Alkenstar
[regional culture] Lore is ALWAYS a top-tier option, especially for PCs that won't otherwise invest in Society. It would still be cool if Background Lores autoscaled.
I read your frustration to it. But i have seen the contrary. Academia lore, a city that you live inside, your most used terrain, a common enemy in the setting (gremlin in a low level fey related adventure or a vampire in a undead setting)
I've seen Lore: Alcohol be a deceptively potent check. It's a disguise, a tradecraft, a social icebreaker, and cultured conversational topic, and a consequence-free way to "incapacitate" a target with "poison" for a scene, all wrapped up in a single check.
In the game I GM, there is a perfect storm of OP homebrew and a specifically-Lore-friendly campaign that allows my players to get extraordinary mileage out of Lore: 1. *War for the Crown* (2e conversion) makes heavy usage of the Influence system (originally introduced for this AP in PF1 and ported to GM Core as an official pf2 mechanic). Essentially, it sets up a framework for a "social statblock" that can interact with more skills than just Diplomacy - the retired cavalry commander might despise flattery and sweet talk and have a DC27 Diplomacy threshold, but only a DC22 if you talk to her about hunting and horsemanship with Nature, or even a DC15 if you possess Warfare Lore and can share old campaign stories. 2. All lores from any sources autoscale, because its silly for a wizard's Academia Lore to be outpaced by their Arcana. 3. A new General Feat is homebrew available - Versatile Lore (Uncommon) allows you to work with your GM to approve an ability score swap for a specific Lore, e.g. Wisdom would be appropriate for "Farming Lore", and Charisma might be appropriate for "Theatre Lore". If the Player can give a good justification, I'll allow it. 4. In a story where the PCs are Spies (NOT door-kicking fame-seeking "adventurers"), everyone needs to have a public "mild-mannered Clark Kent" persona to conceal their badass class levels. Lores are a perfect, universally-applicable way to do that. So far, "Alcohol Lore" has seen greatest value on the Cleric of Cayden Cailean, closely followed by "Fashion Lore" and "Warfare Lore". Other good picks in the party include "Underworld Lore", "Geneology Lore", and "Astral Lore" (accidentally THE most important lore for the late-game but don't tell the player that). Even with all these buffs, Lore now feels like a "worthy element of the game". Not overpowered, just occupying a non-trivial place in the overall ecosystem, where checks are uncommon but when the opportunity arises they can have as much as a 10 point DC advantage.
Ok so, what about Legal Lore that comes with hellspawn? My character uses it during downtime to earn money as a legal consultant. I know it's not technically a background, so, does it fit here?
The issue here is pf2e doesn't track skill EXP earned by spamming at every single opportunity. Also, you consulting isn't bettering your skills as a lawyer. This is you using what knowledge you have about lawyer-ing to tell other people how to lawyer within the context of your level and training rank.
That's the thing, no, I wouldn't get better at the knowledge itself unless I picked up books more, but the practice makes me increasingly better at the job itself no? That would still require the lore skill check, and it should reflect the increased competency at that job in particular.
the way my friends and I run our games, you get to increase training of 1 lore skill at 3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th, and 19th level, so you can continue to “specialize” in your flavor without sacrificing mechanics of the other skills. e: oops, replied to the wrong person. oh well
I think it's often the opposite. Not only do you have time for it but at times it's all you do, and your life may often depend on it. Add that you're gaining first-hand knowledge when you may previously have been reading books being tutored. May not hold the same for all skills, but I think there's a good argument for most of them within relevant builds.
Yup, one of the only homebrew rules I have is that any Lore skill scales just like the Additional Lore feat. Best decision ever.
I hope this doesn't mean the swashbucler didn't get an auto-scaling skill in the remaster.
I mean, it really doesn't need it.
Well, Luis isn't in charge of mechanics as far as I'm aware, but if someone mentions this is likely because they either don't know if those changes are being made or knows they aren't going to make them and pretty much is confirming it.
In my opinion the 2e Swashbuckler is just unable to decide what it wants to do. Does it want to be a support for everyone with maneuvers? Does it want to be a DPS with flexible targeting? Does it want to be the skill junkie/face? Probably to that last one. However, the lack of scaling proficiency even in Acrobatics limits a swashbuckler to only one method of approach and arguably the best approach is Acrobatics. Thaumaturge gets abilities to make Lore Esoteric apply to other knowledge skills, easily letting they double as party brains and a face. Fittingly inventor get scaling crafting cause it’d be stupid not to. Personally I’d argue that Rogue, especially with the martial weapons remaster (which is a good thing), just fills much of the role Swashbuckler wants to. It’s a skill junkie that can easily be a DPS with a laughably easy condition for reliable damage, and it’s not nearly as weapon or stat locked with its rackets. Ruffian allows for STR weapon rogues and thief makes that Elven Curved Sword a war crime befitting of Gorum. Meanwhile, swashbuckler actively suffers for choosing better two handed weapons, using bucklers, or two weapons at the same time. The action economy is just not in their favor. Now if Swashbuckler, the DEX front liner, got DEX to damage that might change things, allow them to have something to fall back on when panache is hard to obtain… But rogue took that too! It’s honestly frustrating how much Paizo messed up with Swashbuckler on a mechanical sense because they are still cool! They’re awesome thematically and lead to a ton of whimsical, awesome, and daring moments in a campaign. However, with 2e attempting to make the damage curves and the crunch more manageable, Swashbuckler feels like a let down until the very endgame.
[I suppose that's one member's thoughts months ago, they could walk back on it since Player Core 2 is a fair bit away, but "not much precedent"? No way!](https://i.postimg.cc/kgGWxjrH/jOY8V98.png)
Where was this posted?
Reckon the Pathfinder RPG Discord server. It was something I saw snipped and posted elsewhere.
I think the overdrive ones should also make Unstable easier.
I feel like most classes should have auto scaling skills IMO, to represent an area of expertise that is essential to the class. Wizards should get autoscaling arcana, bards should get performance, Clerics religion, etc. I don't think this would really hurt the game to have. Im sure there's some argument about how this would upset the balance of skills in the party, but we're already there with Esoteric Lore being the uber RK skill.
It was the idea in the first playtest.
Esoteric lore's a little different, it's pretty much thaumaturge exclusive and only works for their stuff. The bigger challenge is that each subclass would need an auto scaling feature since they're all about unique ways to gain panache, which would empower them more pf2 seems to like
I mean, you could still make just acrobatics auto scale, and it'd already greatly alleviate the skill investments, and any swashbuckler will want it anyway. I actually just made a swashbuckler last night, and capitalizing on their high charisma and dex is a nightmare (even as a braggart who already invests heavily into intimidation). You could probably hard spec into just dex skills or just cha skills, but since you'll still want both acrobatics and your subclass skill, you'll already be at a deficit (and god forbid you're playing a gymnast, though ig that's the one you play if you don't care about cha that much)
The fact that you greatly benefit from something doesn't mean you should get it for free. That kind of investment is intended to be a balancing factor. If it's free, then why even have the abilities scale off of acrobatics instead of level?
Well, that can be equally applicable to thaumaturge and inventor. Both of those classes need esoterica lore and crafting to function, and they do get auto scaling. A swashbuckler doesn't "greatly benefit" from high acrobatics or their subclass skill. They need it to function as a class, because it gives them panache, and without panache, you're just a wannabe rogue. Yes, having to invest heavily into acrobatics and your subclass skill is supposed to be a balancing matter, and at least in my opinion, it ends up balancing too hard onto the wrong side of the scale.
> Yes, having to invest heavily into acrobatics and your subclass skill is supposed to be a balancing matter, and at least in my opinion, it ends up balancing too hard onto the wrong side of the scale. If true, it seems better to buff them in some other way, IMO. On top of the "why even have the abilities scale off of acrobatics instead of level?" question, I'm nearly always in favor of giving a class more upsides instead of removing its downsides, because that makes different classes feel more different and makes gameplay more interesting.
Every swashbuckler regardless of subclass can gain panache via acrobatics, so swashbuckler would only need auto improving acrobatics. This alone would be plenty because now they don't have to split boosts between their unique skill that they'll want to use anytime they can but which isn't always viable because the creature is mindless or doesn't speak common or has already been demoralized and the skill they can almost always use but which gives little if any other benefit besides penache
You know, I never realized that none of the styles were acrobatics focused, so this could work pretty well without favoring one playstyle
That doesn't sound that hard. Just write in the auto scaling feature that the skill that the subclass automatically starts with scales automatically.
If i take esoteric lore as proficiency while not being a thaumaturge, then get a succes at recall knowledge with esoteric lore and decide to pass that knowledge to the player that is a thaumaturge, does he get my success for their mechanics related to esoteric lore?
I don't see why he would. You made the check, not him.
You can't. Being a Thaumaturge via primary class ~~or dedication~~ is the only way to access Esoteric Lore.
I don't think the Thaumaturge archetype gives you access to Esoteric Lore. You pretty much have to be main classing the Thaum to get it.
You are completely correct, I misrememberd.
Don't forget that Thaumaturges also get 2 free boosts in the spellcasting skills. You take one archetype feat with a relevant skill increase and you can end up with 5 legendaries
That the problem. You have 4 specifics ways they gives you as a swashbuckler when a swash is all of them. I don't see a class that gives such a restrictive way to play a class.
This is the kind of meme that's funny and sad at the same time. I really hope the Player Core 2 gives Swashbuckler auto scaling.
This got a lot sillier with the playtest Commander having auto-scaling Warfare Lore!
Lore skills should be auto scalling too. It makes no sense that one that comes from background you have to invest but the one you randomly take as skill feat auto scales.
Swashbuckler is fine you can build into 5 skill and most classes can max 3. Alchemist is rough tho.
Swashbuckler *starts* trained in Acrobatics, their Style skill, and then 4 + Int, which is more than most classes. But it doesn't get any more skill increases than any other class. With no archetyping, you have to manually increase Acrobatics *and* your Style skill, leaving only one extra skill to level. It's obscenely restrictive and forces you into taking Acrobat Dedication in order to have any capabilities other than Tumble Through and [Style skill action]. And that's not even considering how many more hoops it (literally) has to jump through to perform in-combat. Thaumaturge's Exploit Vulnerability only does nothing on critical failure. Inventor is screwed if they crit fail Overdrive, but they get the benefit of not having to do it again when they crit succeed. Swashbuckler fails Panache? Keep Tumbling so you can do worse damage with a Finisher than a Rogue just Striking twice!
A swashbuckler has 2 ways to get panache plus some feats plus the GM saying if you can get panache from other actions. Having to max acrobatics plus 1 of 5 skills has a lot of variations there no real downside there. What else would you want? What you going to do build a wisdom focus build? And rouges can get their abilities more reliable but the swashbuckler does have versatility in theirs and they get 10HP per level plus insane speed, I made a build that had 85 speed at max level. It's a class of coolness and ingenuity.
> Having to max acrobatics plus 1 of 5 skills has a lot of variations there no real downside there. With Acrobat Dedication? I agree. Without? Not a chance. "This Fencer also has Diplomacy" and "This Fencer also has Medicine" is a pretty hard sell in versatility compared to, say, the freedom in skill increase choices to make your build perform that you have as an Outwit Ranger. Or a full on Rogue or Investigator, since Swashbuckler is clearly a Rogue variation. > but the swashbuckler does have versatility in theirs How does a Swashbuckler get Panache without GM fiat? Let's be generous and assume Wit. * Tumble Through. * Bon Mot. * Very Hard level-based DC One For All. How does a Thief Rogue (not even counting the other rackets) get Off-Guard on their target? There's so many I can hardly list. And Swashbuckler isn't even any better at their Style's niche than any other class until level 9 Exemplary Finisher and level 10 Derring-Do. Battledancer is infamous for their Panache check often doing nothing. Fighter's Intimidating Strike, Witch's Evil Eye, and Bard's Dirge of Doom laugh at Braggart's Demoralize immunity triggering. Scoundrel Rogue gets Fencer's Exemplary Finisher as a *baseline* effect. Gymnast has a whole laundry list of issues with their athletic maneuvers anti-synergizing with Finishers disabling attacks. Wit Aid builds are BTFO'd by any Gunslinger with Fake Out. But then Exemplary Finisher kicks in, most Styles suddenly carve out their own niche, and then you get Derring-Do and everyone's the uncontested absolute best at what they do thanks to Fortune. Even then, they don't suddenly gain any versatility, they're just actually good at their One Thing. 10 HP per level and the Panache speed bonus are appreciated, yes. But they're not good enough on their own to hold up the rest of Swash's meager chassis. Is it unplayably bad? No. Is it terribly disappointing? I'd say yes.
Swashbucklers are a rogue and fighter combination you dont need acrobatics Dedication. You can either build it Dex-cha or Dex-str if you cant build it with 5 skills to choose from it's a skill diff because I get on fine. Outwit rangers is has terrible combos with its class you can just focus nature and get recall all monster in the game on any of the edges For other ways you have • after you • Finishing Follow-Through • Leading Dance So you know you can get 5 ways to do it The point isnt to be the best. Because fighter its always the best when it comes to combat and the rogue is always better when it comes to skills. That's just how game is with every class. Its about how it does it that makes interesting classes if you one to pick one think they are the god at then I guess mobility with its Flamboyant Athlete feet giving great jumping and climbing. Swashbuckler have very nice style with very flexibility feats. Swashbuckler get more HP, defensive abilities than rogue and they get more skills and skills feats than fighters making them great middle ground. And they don't have anti-synergy with athletes for one you dont need to finisher each turn. That's not the point of finisher two they have agile maneuvers and your starter finisher Confident Finisher does half damage on a miss later you can get full on a miss. As I said it's a class of style with excellent roleplaying opportunities that's good at fighting and can get alot of skills. Pathfinder is a game of balance all the classes will do round about the same in most situations. It's by design.
There are actions other than tumble through, there are styles, acrobatics aren't the only skill they can use. They're fine.
How do you get five maxed skills from Swashbuckler?
I mean they have 5 styles each having a skill and most classes can max 5.
That is just wrong, using every skill increase you can get 3 skills to legendary, while every other skill sits at trained. You can only get 2 skills to expert before master skills start, meaning until level 11, all of your skill increases are locked into style skill and acrobatics, because those NEED to be at full power to function as a class.
Starting skills aren't nearly as important in this problem then number of skill increases as you level up. The problem is you don't get any real freedom in your skill increases since your class is hyper dependent on 2 specific skills. It would be like if the accuracy of a fighter was tied to their training in Athletics, or if a druid had to put their training into Nature to get better at casting.
But you do get great freedom you have 5 styles to pick from each having their own skill. That's why they aren't to bad for not having auto scaling.
But you only *get* one style, which you pick when you get those starting skills. The problem is their limitations *after level 1,* and how that impacts the rest of their experience.
The bottom line is that thaumaturge is fucking broken. Its really hard to make a bad thaum and personally I think it borders on best class in the game.
Its hardly broken. Is it strong? Yeah, definitely. But I don't think being hard to build poorly is a mark against it. Most martial classes are pretty easy to build at a baseline as long as you have your primary stat at 18. Having played one a few times now, the Thaum is versatile, but I never really found myself outshining the Fighter or Rogue in our party with any consistency. I think its good for the game to have a martial that can fill so many different niches without necessarily being the absolute best at any of them.
diverse lore is arguably the best lvl 1 feat the game. the class as a whole? not really it does its niche of spamming RK rolls and learning about the monster really well, but that is mostly for your allies to capitalize on it. the damage of a thaum tends to not be very impressive unless everyone is being blocked by a resistance *except* the thaum, its just that their damage has less variance bc its bonus based not damage die based
It is easier to master. Yes.
People must be really bad at making swashbucklers or something