Scentfinder: of stats, skills, & saves

In Scentfinder,  the core rolling mechanic will be roll-equal-to-or-under-stat to succeed. Ill use the d20 & values are presented as such, but it could easily be converted to use a d100 as one fancies (1/20 being equal to 5/100). Rolls of 1 or 20 won't be natural critical results either, as the system already handles criticals elegantly enough.

 

How PCs & their stats improve through their progression is often central to a game's feel. It has to match the tone of the game & the supposed power PCs wield over their world.

In Gubat Banwa, PCs are warriors of legend; in Lancer, they're elite mecha pilots; in Trespasser, they're survivors killing not to be killed; in Blackbirds, they're destitues destined to play a role in the fate of the world. I never could be sure what exactly PF1 or 5E PCs were supposed to be; the scale changes a lot throughout leveling, a bit too uncontrolably to my taste.

What I think PF2 is most suited to -- & what I aim to make Scentfinder represent is casting PCs as tangible heroes. Members of the Fellowship of the Ring; powerful Darkest Dungeon II characters; Vermintide's Ubersreik Five. They're supposed to win this fight; they won't be killed by any one of their innumerable enemies. But one wrong move, one overconfident stumble in front of an accursed champion, & they're at death's door. The end of one is a tragedy, moreso as it could spell doom for all.

Here's how I've chosen to represent this.

The core mechanic:

• Whenever a player character (PC) is tested, they roll a d20.
•  A relevant target value (skill or save) is defined.
• The result of the roll determines its degree of success. From best to worst:
• Equal or inferior to [target value]-10: Triumph.
• Equal or inferior to [target value]: Success.
  
• Superior to [target value]: Failure. 
• Equal or superior to [target value]+10: Bungle.

Modifiers:

A roll can be modified by circumstance, items & conditions.

Each of these can Favour a roll, no more than once per kind of Modifier. Each of these can also Impair a roll, likewise, no more than once per kind of Modifier. Favours & Impairments cancel each other out, one for one.

A roll twice Favoured is Fated. A roll twice Impaired is Doomed. 

• Favoured rolls improve their degree of success by 1 step on even numbers.
• Fated rolls improve their degree of success by 1 step.
• Impaired rolls worsen their degree of success by 1 step on even numbers.
• Doomed rolls worsen their degree of success by 1 step.

Away with Abilities & numerical growth

I've chosen to cut Abilities (PF2's 6 core stats) out of Scentfinder. I initially planned to simplify them to their actually useful component, the modifier, or to reduce their number, or to merge them with saves... but in the end, I took inspiration from PF2's own NPCs: Abilities do not really matter. In 3 years of playing PF2, not once a creature's Abilities was actually relevant to an action or roll. Values derived from the PCs' own Abilities obviously play a role but... why not focus on these actual values, then? 

Furthermore, I've also decided that a PC's skills & saves will be determined at character creation, and that they won't undergo numerical growth afterwards. I do not find pertinent to try & emulate PF2's strange quasi-stagnation & slow loss of relevance of secondary skills, and if anyone dislikes the idea of never improving their innate odds of success through pure leveling, they shouldn't have been playing PF2 anyway (see my design manifesto). PCs will achieve progress through other channels, & improve their odds through various circumstancial modifiers.

A note on retraining: I've heard some worry over the fact that a character would be unchanging after character creation. Firstly, numerical changes are not the only kind of change a character can undergo; secondly, retraining or reallocating a character's base stats is not only planned to be fully possible but is also very easy with this system.

 

Skills

Here's the new skill list: I modified it to better suit both my taste & the changes I made.

1. Agility: move with freedom & flexibility
2. Charm: persuade & convince
3. Deception: deceive & disguise
4. Dexterity: hand-eye coordination & sleight-of-hand
5. Intimidation: threaten & pressure
6. Might: move with strength & endurance
7. Perception: detect & see through
8. Stealth: hide & move undetected
9. Arcana: study magic as a science
10. Crafting: know of technology
11. Faith: channel superior powers, know of their dogmas & of the powers of the mortal soul
12. Medicine: know of ailments, remedies & anatomy
13. Nature: understand the natural world
14. Occultism: know of alchemy, esoteric lore, obscure mysticism, & supernatural creatures
15. Society: know of peoples, customs & communication

Explanations:

• Since Athletics being broken was only tenable while it was the only strength-based skill & Acrobatics was notably underutilised & had its uses confused with Athletics by new players, I reworked them: Athletics has been renamed to Might & mainly handles grappling, shoving, swimming & climbing, while Acrobatics has been renamed to Agility & mainly handles jumping, balancing & contorting.
• I deleted Performance, as it was both shunned by players & borderline useless to anyone who didn't use very specific mechanics. As it has been clear for a long time, we do not need this particular skill to measure how gracefully or precisely a character moves nor how well they can make an impression on someone: others already do exactly that. The fact that it even exists in PF2 is strange to me.
• Perception has been renamed to Awareness & made into a skill, since my system will try to limit its notorious overuse in systems where this kind of "detection skill" exists.
• Nature & Survival were merged together, as to reduce confusion between their uses.
• Diplomacy was renamed to Charm, Religion to Faith, & Thievery to Dexterity to better reflect their uses.
• Dexterity will also be used for Disarming.

During character creation, PCs will define their proficiencies so that: 

• 3 skills have a value of 14
• 3 have a value of 12
• 3 have a value of 10
• 3 have a value of 8
• 3 have a value of 6

I considered having only one emblematic skill above all others, but figured  it would neither be satisfying nor foster healthy variety in play (especially given how I plan to handle attacks, more on them in a later post). 

I find the values drop enough to make specialists shine, but not so fast that secondary skills are unusable & not so low that the worst skills are not even worth attempting against middling foes or challenges.

A PC's choice of class could inform the allocation of these stats. The state of classes focused on the heavy use of several skills is particularly worrysome to me, but I believe I can make them keep this "skill monkey" status without making them completely outshine other classes through sheer numbers. Indeed, their absurd amount of skill feats is compatible enough with my vision that it is on this front I plan to make them shine.

Saves & defense

Saves:

Here's a choice I agonized over for a while, but I'm confident it is a healthy one: saves will also be innately static, & players will determine their saves' values themselves at character creation. 

• There are three saves: Vigour (VIG), Reflex (REF) & Willpower (WIL)
• Saves start at 5. They cannot be inferior to this value.
• Saves cannot be superior to 15.
• A new PC freely allocates 15 points into their saves as they whish.

Saves shall act as a way to show what fate is likely to befall a character & what kind of attacks they'll be able to consistently foil:

• [0] SAVE
  Trigger: you're in danger.
  Test VIG, REF or WIL, determined by the particular danger you're facing.
  T: avoid all damage & effects.
  S: reduce received damage to 1, & endure any additional effects.
  F: roll received damage & endure any additional effects.
  B: maximise received damage & endure any additional effects.

HP:

"HP" now means Heroism Points, & will still be the ressource against which is accrued received damage.

They will be dependent on one's choice of class, as it is the ultimate measure of a creature's likeliness of death & relationship to danger -- of the difference between a brutal barbarian & a wily witch.

At 0 HP, a character will fall, but won't imediately die, & could keep contributing to the battle even as they're at death's door. I'll expand on "Death & Dying" rules in a later post.

Armour:

I've done away with PF2's Armour Class: whenever a PC is in danger, they'll make a save -- it will often be REF saves for AC's old uses, but I plan on making creatures more apt than ever at targetting all kinds of their foes' weak points.

My NPCs have sometimes been known to use a custom rule of which PCs will now get a taste in Scentfinder: Different armour types will grant resistance against one damage type & weakness to another. Their choice won't be a matter of which gives the highest defense score anymore, but a real tactical decision:

• Light armour grants resistance to Piercing & weakness to Slashing
• Medium armor grants resistance to Bludgeoning & weakness to Piercing
• Heavy armor grants resistance to Slashing & weakness to Bludgeoning

Classes who make particular use of amour will enjoy special benefits whenever wearing certain types of armour (or even not wearing one at all), like damage reduction against effects targetting specific saves or being able to make use of specific active or passive abilities.

More on resistances, weaknesses & HP in a later post where attacking & damage values will be discussed.

What about ancestries & backgrounds?

As one might have noticed, up until now, I've completely ommited ancestries & backgrounds from this character creation process.

Even if I technically could, I won't even attempt to reproduce the plethora of choice PF2 provides on these two fronts, especially since these choices aren't always meaningful, or are sometimes very setting-dependent.

I plan on designing a list of Gifts & Burdens (taking some inspiration from games like Legend of the Five Rings). They would be innate (darkvision, mobility...) or acquired through past experience, and would notably allow players to choose how to embody their fantasy species of choice & GMs to adapt the game much more precisely to their own worldbuilding by either encouraging or banning certain options.

 

 

To be continued in posts where we'll  discuss the two remaining pillars of combat: one dealing with attacks, damage & HP values, & another about the new magic system I envision.