Review of Pathfinder 2nd Edition

[Nanshork]

I've been putting this one off for a while since it is so long (over 600 pages) and I feel like I'm probably not going to like it, but this needs to be done so here we go.  As always I'm going into this blind (except from being exposed to the general hate of this new edition that permeates the internet).

Pathfinder 2nd Edition (which I'll just call PF2E, and this review will assume knowledge of PF1E) came out in late 2019 to lots of rage and dismay despite the fact that PF was 10 years old at the time which is pretty damn old for a single edition of an RPG that was still being supported.  This means that we now have PF grognards.  I'll let you figure out how you feel about that.

There are 11 chapters in the core rulebook.  These are followed by a conditions appendix, character sheet, and glossary/index.

  1) Introduction
  2) Ancestries & Backgrounds
  3) Classes
  4) Skills
  5) Feats
  6) Equipment
  7) Spells
  8) The Age of Lost Omens
  9) Playing the Game
  10) Game Mastering
  11) Crafting & Treasure

As is standard for Paizo there is lots of art and color and fluff text everywhere.  I don't like it but it is what it is.


Introduction

This is the standard chapter that you should expect (although sometimes I get surprised).  This is a roleplaying game, it uses dice, it has players and a GM, blahblahblah.  There is a paragraph about how everyone is responsible for being inclusive to all identities and life experiences which is just a sign of the times I suppose. 

As an heads up, I don't know if it is my PDF or what but there is something really wrong with the bolded font.  It's fuzzy and hurts my brain.

The game still has levels and XP and the standard six ability scores with ability modifiers.  Ancestry is the new word for Race for reasons that I would probably find to be extremely stupid.  Backgrounds is self-explanatory, and classes and feats and skills are all still around as well.

There are some new things however.  Critical Successes and Critical Failures are not just determined by rolling a specific number on the d20 (although 20 and 1 still cause them) but also by rolling 10 over (or under) the DC.  Like other systems, critical rolls now impact the result instead of just being an auto-success/failure.

Instead of putting a specific number of ranks into skills, you have a proficiency bonus determined by your rank (and there are five ranks: untrained, trained, expert, master, and legendary).

We still have the familiar initiative, rounds, and turns, but during your turn you have three actions to use which aren't classified into types and so you can just do whatever (although there are "activities" that require more than one action).  Casting a spell is called out as requiring two of your three actions.  Free actions still exist.

Speaking of actions, attacking is the Strike action (and attacking has a proficiency rank just like skills, and so does AC by being proficient in the armor).  Critical success on attacks do double damage (and the book is very excited about this, there's an exclamation point and everything).  Full-attacking is using multiple Strike actions on your turn but at the standard -5 penalty per extra attack that you're used to (with possible ways to reduce it according to the text).

The three standard saving throws (Fortitude, Reflex, and Will) are still around (with proficiency bonuses) and critical successes "usually" mean that you just ignore whatever caused the save roll.

Other tidbits gleaned from the key terms part of this chapter: Ancestry helps determine HP (like Starfinder), everyone starts with 15gp instead of it being determined by class, items have levels (like Starfinder), Monsters/NPCs/Hazards/Diseases/Poisons have levels but their range is -1 to 30 (I don't know how a negative level would work), spells go to level 10 now (which is the opposite of Starfinder), there is a rarity system for items and also "spells, feats, and other rules elements" (I have no idea how a rare rule would work either).

And now we unexpectedly get an explanation of the contents of every chapter and a bunch of rules text!  I don't like the layout of this book so far.

Aside from the actions rules we already knew, there are three types: Single, Reaction (used when it isn't your turn, requires a trigger), and Free.  Actions have associated symbols because some people think that's helpful even though this isn't a board game.  Activities have symbols denoting how many actions they take up.

When it comes to character creation, we're doing something new.  All stats start at a 10 and are then adjusted by boosts (which increase by 2 unless the score is already 18+ and then it increases by 1) or by flaws (which decrease by 2).  Ancestry, Background, and Class selection all adjust ability scores, however a level 1 character can't have any ability score higher than 18.  Rolling ability scores is listed as an alternative method, and there is no point buy.  We also get helpful charts of races and classes with ability score information so you can come up with pairings without having to flip back and forth between chapters.

As an aside, none of the core races have a penalty to Dexterity or Intelligence, but Goblins have replaced Half-Orcs as the "monstrous" core race (Paizo loves goblins).

We haven't deviated from the standard 9 alignments so there's none of this stupid lawful=good and chaos=evil stuff that D&D 4E had.  There's also some more character fluff in the same vein as Ancestry replacing the word Race that I see as annoying but I'm not going to get into that.  Also, there official character sheet has an "Achievements" section where you can record things like "Farthest Distance Fallen" or "Most GP Gained At Once" or "Deaths".  Ugh.

Moving on, leveling up now costs 1,000 XP (it goes away forever).  This eliminates things like de-leveling due to XP loss which I like.  Also, all characters get four ability boosts every 5 levels, and proficiency bonuses go up by 1 every level.


Ancestries & Backgrounds

From a terminology perspective, basically Ancestry = Race and Heritage = Sub-Race.

Each ancestry has multiple heritages which give you an ability or an action you can use or elemental resistance or whatever.  Heritages can do all kinds of stuff but are relatively minor in scope.

You also get an Ancestry feat at 1st level and an additional feat every 4 levels thereafter.  This is completely separate from anything gained from class levels, and conceptually I like it.  Your dwarf can be dwarfy without having to decide if they'd rather be dwarfy or clericy.

The ancestries are: Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Goblin, Halfing, Human.  Where are the half-races (half-elf/half-orc)?  They're human heritages.  Goblins are the new "breaking away from stereotypes to be good" races.

There is a pretty extensive list of backgrounds, which grant you the following: two ability boosts (usually one to one of two choices and one to an ability of your choice), training in two specified skills, and a pre-determined skill feat.

Languages are listed as Common, Uncommon, or Secret and everything that grants languages specifies which list to choose from.  No more party of first level characters that combined know every language in existence (unless you really work on it, you can't just default to Aklo because nobody else picked it).


Classes

I'm seeing a lot of Starfinder here too (which isn't totally unexpected, although there's less Starfinder than I would have liked).  Every class has a Key Ability which determines DCs.  HP are static at each level (and added to the HP from your ancestry). 

There are 12 classes:
  - Alchemist
  - Barbarian
  - Bard
  - Champion (Paladin replacement, good but not automatically LG)
  - Cleric
  - Druid
  - Fighter
  - Monk
  - Ranger
  - Rogue
  - Sorcerer
  - Wizard

Each class gains proficiency in listed skills or weapons or defenses or other things at various levels.  In addition, you gain class features (of course) and access to the list of class feats for that class (you can class feats independently of ancestry feats or skill feats or general feats, so you're gaining feats all the time but for different things from different lists).  I like this on a conceptual level.

As you level up you also gain increased proficiency ranks at specified intervals as well as the ability boosts that I mentioned earlier.  Class features can include increased proficiencies or "actual" class features.  This means that the fighter has class features just like everyone else, although I'm not making claims as to how good those features are when compared to spells.

Animal companions and familiars are massively nerfed compared to PF1E/D&D 3.5  Animal companions are gained from feats, require you to spend one of your actions to give them action, and can only gain item bonuses to speed and AC (and AC bonuses are capped for them).  Animal companions also get have stat blocks that are quite stripped down (abilities modifiers instead of scores for example) and most of their abilities are derived from your level.  Also, level 1 characters start with young companions, having them grow up requires spending more feats.

Familiars are also gained by feats (although class features might grant the feat), require spending actions to grant them actions, and have states derived from yours.  They also don't get any sort of attacks and don't even have stat blocks so no super powering your familiars into combat machines in this game.

PF2E has Archetypes, but Archetypes are really code for Multiclassing and this feels like 4E where you spend your feats to do it.  Sometimes you spend a feat to gain a feat from your muticlass' feat list.  I am honestly not a fan.


Skills

Skllls have gotten some adjustments (of course).  Now every skill can be used untrained, and some skills additionally have uses that can only be performed if you are trained in them.  For example, everyone can use the Deception skill to lie but only someone trained in Deception can use the skill to feint.  In addition there are now general rules for using skills to earn income so Profession is gone forever.  Other general non-skill specific  uses of note: identifying magic, learning spells from another caster or a scroll, begging (the city version of Survival).

Fly is also gone as a skill, that's been rolled into Acrobatics thankfully.  The deception skill can create a diversion so you can sneak, it's nice to see that as a general skill use.  Gather Information got rolled into Diplomacy (which maxes out at Helpful).  Knowledge has been replaced with Lore and is now a crazy general skill that's all over the place (Circus Lore is an example, along with Alcohol Lore if you want to be a bartending clown).  Specific knowledge skills that were important (like Nature or Religion) are now their own independent skills. 

As an aside, skill uses now have traits (such as attack or move or concentration) and armor check penalties don't apply to uses with the attack trait (such as using the Athletics skill to Disarm).  In addition, there are listed results for what happens on a success vs critical success, as well as what happens on a critical failure (because skills can crit now).

All-in-all there isn't anything drastic here except that a lot of things that used to not be skill checks (like disarming or tripping or shoving someone) are now skill checks so they follow the same rules as everything else (and also the crit thing).  I think I like these changes as a whole.


Feats

As I mentioned earlier, this system gets a lot of feats.  Aside from the Ancestry feats in the ancestry chapter and the Class feats in the class chapter, we now have General Feats (feats everyone can take) and Skill feats (feats based on skills, both ones that are for skills in general as well as feats for every skill specifically).

Skill feats have both a level requirement and a proficiency requirement (for example, if you want the feat that lets you identify spells as a free action you need to be level 7 and have Master proficiency in one of the skills that can identify spells, along with knowing another feat).

With the fact that you gain skill feats independently from other kinds of feats, and that there are feats here for all kinds of stuff, I see this as another plus.


Equipment

As I mentioned previously, items now have levels (and there's a rule where you can't craft items of a higher level than your own).  In addition, encumbrance has been simplified into a system called Bulk.  You can carry a number of Bulk equal to 5 + Str mod or you become encumbered.  Items have a number to indicate their bulk or their bulk is "Light" which is 1/10 of a Bulk, with the total rounded down.  In addition, creatures have Bulk (a medium creature is 6 Bulk for example).

We also get some general information on damaging/breaking items, actions needed to change your equipment, "shoddy items" (which you can't buy on purpose during character creation), and then the general item information that seems pretty on par with PF1E.

Three types of armor are still around but now some armor have traits (like you can sleep in it or helping on Reflex saves).  Shields don't have armor check penalty anymore but tower shields reduce your speed. Almost everyone can attack unarmed without spending a feat.  Weapons can have way more kinds of traits than in PF1E, things like reducing multiple attack penalties or extra damage against flat-footed opponents.  In addition, Exotic weapons are now Advanced weapons.

In case you've forgotten, proficiency bonuses apply to weapons and armor as well as skills.  This means that they apply to AC and attacks.  These are also done by category, not by individual weapon.  Also, the common/uncommon item typing has shown up here but I haven't seen any real rules about what that means.

We also get general gear, class specific starting gear options if you want some guidance, alchemical items, 1st level character magic items, formulas (which are used for item crafting and can be reverse-engineered), basic services, housing, animal rental/purchase prices, and general rules information about how bulk/pricing is converted when items aren't small/medium.


Spells

Spells do have some general rules changes.  Spell attack rolls are made using your spellcasing ability mod (and have their own proficiency bonus, as do spell DCs).  Also, there are now four types of spellcasting: Arcane (Wizards and some Sorcerers), Divine (Clerics and some Sorcerers), Occult (Bards and some Sorcerers), and Primal (Druids and some Sorcerers). 

Heightening spells is now a general rule and not locked behind a feat (and like D&D 5E casting some spells in higher level slots can make them more powerful).  Other than that, spells are spells.

The biggest difference is that there aren't class specific spells.  Whatever type of spellcasting you have, that's the list you pull from.  Well, there's that and there's the fact that spells go up to 10th level now (probably because 10 is a round number). 

In addition to the regular spell system, there are two alternate spell systems.  There are Focus spells which are cast using Focus Points instead of spell slots (bardic music abilities fall into this category now as an example).  All of the spellcasters (as well as some non-spellcasters such as Monk) get access to some of these and they are class list restricted.  There are also Rituals which remind me of D&D 4E rituals more than anything else except they're locked behind skill requirements instead of needing a feat and are for big out of combat stuff (like animating objects of awakening animals or communing with nature).

I feel like there's a little too much standardization here, it's very different than the PF1E/D&D 3.5 way or just every class can do their own thing with their own systems.


The Age of Lost Omens

This chapter is the general expected chapter about the world and the planes and different locations and cultures that could someday get their own splatbooks because that's how PF1E did it.  It also talks about where to find some of the more iconic creatures (such as demons and serpentfolk), as well as different factions, religions, faiths/philosophies (atheism for example), and domains.


Playing the Game

Here is how you play the game.

Proficiency bonuses are spelled out here (basically your level plus a number based on what your proficiency rank).  Rules on rounding and multiplying more than once are here.  In addition, we get everything else.  Damage gets a few pages.  It's very in depth.

Other rules of note: Hero Points are a thing on a per-session basis (mainly for re-rolling or not dying).  Jumping is a regular action with a defined distance.  There are rules for helping your allies aim at a target they can't see.  There are actions you can take during overland travel (called Exploration Activities).  You can only benefit from 10 magic items (which can be changed daily).  Retraining costs no money but does take time (and you can only retrain feats, skill proficiency choices, and class feature choices). 


Game Mastering

Here is how you run the game.

Most of it is either standard or non-standard but in the end not meaningful IMO.  We do get a sidebar basically saying that the rarity system is there as a tool to the DM to make things as open or not in terms of what options the players have.  You might want to make rare items rewards and not found in shops for example.

In the spirit of I'm not sure what, there's also some stuff in here that I wouldn't have thought of.  An example is how long it takes for everyone to sleep and how long each watch is for groups of 2-6 (because everyone needs 8 hours of sleep or it doesn't count, barring any race/class/feat abilities).

WBL is still around, but the table now also has suggestions for permanent vs consumable items, and there are different tables for party WBL and character WBL (party WBL is for making sure that the party meets minimum expected magic items levels and is used to track thing during leveling to meet those standards, character WBL is for making characters above first level). 


Crafting & Treasure

Alright, remember earlier when I said you can only have 10 magic items active?  That isn't exactly true.  Some items require you to "invest" in them, and you can only invest in 10 items at a time.  In addition, if you don't invest in the item you can still wear it, you just don't get the magical benefits (not investing you in your magic armor doesn't stop it from being armor).

Other than that, the treasure tables are sorted by level with page numbers for each item listed and differentiation between permanent and consumable items.  This is done for both magic items as well as alchemical items.

We also get information on different material items can be crated out of.

The most interesting thing in this chapter is weapon and armor enhancements.  These aren't just buying pluses or specific abilities and finding the cost.  These are done by purchasing runes that are etched into your equipment.

Want +1 to your AC?  Get the +1 Armor Potency Rune (which has a level of 5).  Oh, you have a potency rune?  You can have property runes equal to the bonus from your potency rune (which maxes out at 3), and this is on top of the Fundamental runes (of which there are 2 of per type of equipment, one being the Potency rune).  These are also on top of whatever effects are on your magic armor/weapon already.  There are even rules for transferring runes between equipment.


Final Thoughts

I can't tell if this edition is two steps forward, one step back or one step forward, two steps back.  It's not bad, but while there are specific elements about it that I like I'm not sold on it.  It definitely it's a D&D 5E clone which is one of the things that I've heard against it.  I'm just kind of meh on the book as a whole.

Honestly if I'm looking for a new Pathfinder I'll either play Starfinder (which I was expecting this to take a lot more guidance from, I love Starfinder so much more than PF2E) or I'll wait until Savage Pathfinder comes out (because Savage Worlds is getting Pathfinder and I expect that to be amazing).  I won't be keeping this one.

[Eldritch_Lord]

My overall opinion is that PF2 is basically the bad/meh parts of PF1 (over-fiddliness in customization options, fear of handing out interesting abilities at higher levels, etc.) plus the bad/meh parts of 5e (bland classes, tightly constrained numbers leading to samey characters, etc.) with none of the redeeming features of either game, so I'm in the "one step forward, two steps back" camp, personally.

That said, a few comments:

We still have the familiar initiative, rounds, and turns, but during your turn you have three actions to use which aren't classified into types and so you can just do whatever (although there are "activities" that require more than one action).  Casting a spell is called out as requiring two of your three actions.  Free actions still exist.

Worth noting is that the main benefits of moving from the standard/move/swift setup to the three-equal-actions setup were supposed to be, according to the developers in the earliest playtest discussions, (A) simplifying actions for all those poor players who couldn't figure out full attacks and complicated combat options and (B) scaling spell action costs so you could cast minor spells in addition to your big guns (without needing a Quicken Spell equivalent) or spend more actions to boost a spell inherently, with actions thematically mapping to verbal/somatic/material components but mechanically being determined based on the spell's power.

Point (A) turned out to be false, since iterative attack penalties are still there (and martial types are capped at 3 iteratives instead of 4 except for 20th-level fighters) and previous free and/or combo-able options like "using Power Attack" or "having a shield do anything at all" are now their own actions and thus harder to assess compared to plain ol' attacking in terms of effectiveness.

Point (B) turned out to be false, since basically all spells just default to "2 actions, V and S components," and where they don't do that they basically have an action cost based on their PF1 components, and where they don't do that the spells that can be cast with more actions for better effect are just laughably bad past low levels.  Exhibit A is everyone's favorite, magic missile, which on the upside can be cast with 3 actions to launch 3 missiles at 1st level (winner: PF2, unless your DM thinks that's unbalanced in which case PF1) but on the downside requires you to spend a 7th-level slot and 1 action or a 5th-lvel slot and 3 actions to get 5 missiles, which a PF1 (and 3e) caster gets with a 1st-level slot and 1 action just for having CL 9 (winner: PF1 by a mile).

For all that the scaling-action system is theoretically better on paper in terms of explanations to new players and use in play, in practice the actual PF2 implementation is hilariously terrible.

When it comes to character creation, we're doing something new.  All stats start at a 10 and are then adjusted by boosts (which increase by 2 unless the score is already 18+ and then it increases by 1) or by flaws (which decrease by 2).  Ancestry, Background, and Class selection all adjust ability scores, however a level 1 character can't have any ability score higher than 18.

Y'know, at least 5e lets you get up to 20 at 1st level.  Hard-capping things at 1st level just ensures that characters wlll be more same-y at those levels if they try to max out their key stat (which they almost certainly will), especially since the multitude of Free boosts means that increasing your key stat is trivial.

I just don't understand the reasoning behind this setup.  I guess they felt that handing out more ability boosts and then hard-capping ability scores would lead to more diversified characters stat-wise, maybe?  But if you're gonna do that, don't just impose a bunch of caps to ensure cookie-cutter characters, incentivize characters to have secondary and tertiary stats characters actually care about!  This isn't difficult, we've known this since at least 2006 with 3e's dual-stat casters and ToB's secondary mental stats that were nice if you boosted them but not overly punitive if you didn't.

You also get an Ancestry feat at 1st level and an additional feat every 4 levels thereafter.  This is completely separate from anything gained from class levels, and conceptually I like it.  Your dwarf can be dwarfy without having to decide if they'd rather be dwarfy or clericy.

Conceptually it's great, yeah, but in practice it leaves the different races feeling less dwarfy or elfy or whatever.  You get 5 ancestry feats over a character's career, but the races lack their traditional racial features to start off with, so a PF2 Dwarf or Elf doesn't feel as "elfy" as a PF1 Dwarf or Elf.

For elves, they're missing the elven weapon proficiencies, trancing instead of sleeping and sleep immunity, perception bonuses, CL/Spellcraft bonuses, and Enchantment save bonuses to start, and to (only partially) recover those they have to spend all of their ancestral feats: Elven Weapon Familiarity (minimum 1st, has the full effect), Unwavering Mein (minimum 1st, doesn't actually grant sleep immunity), either Ageless Patience (minimum 5th, requires spending extra actions for the bonus) or Elven Instincts (minimum 5th, only applies to initiative), Elven Lore (minimum 1st, skill bonus only), and Ancestral Suspicion (minimum 5th, has the full effect).  Congrats, the PF2 Elf is as elf-y at 19th level as a PF1 Elf was at 1st.

For dwarves, it's even worse: they're missing seven different traits, so even if they spent all of their ancestral feats on the equivalent picks (Stonecunning for Stonecunning, Eye for Treasure for Greed, Vengeful Hatred for Hatred, etc.) they can't ever get everything back.

Granted, if you didn't care as much about those specific traits it doesn't seem so bad...but the things you replace them with are the kinds of things a PF1 alternate race would get, and those still got 4-7 nice racial perks right at character creation, so whatever way you slice it, PF2 starting characters feel much more like humans in funny hats than any other race and that feeling persists for most if not all of the game.

Maybe if they handed out a whopping five ancestral feats at each of those five levels the system would be good for customization and feeling [race]-y, but as it stands it just fails to achieve what it set out to do.

Animal companions and familiars are massively nerfed compared to PF1E/D&D 3.5  Animal companions are gained from feats, require you to spend one of your actions to give them action, and can only gain item bonuses to speed and AC (and AC bonuses are capped for them).  Animal companions also get have stat blocks that are quite stripped down (abilities modifiers instead of scores for example) and most of their abilities are derived from your level.  Also, level 1 characters start with young companions, having them grow up requires spending more feats.

Familiars are also gained by feats (although class features might grant the feat), require spending actions to grant them actions, and have states derived from yours.  They also don't get any sort of attacks and don't even have stat blocks so no super powering your familiars into combat machines in this game.

Companion creatures are even nerfed compared to 5e (where the find familiar feat at least gives you a familiar that's an actual independent creature with its own stat block that doesn't cease to exist for the round if you don't spend actions on it), which is pretty impressive.

The deception skill can create a diversion so you can sneak, it's nice to see that as a general skill use.

That was actually a general skill use in 3e, I didn't even notice they'd taken that out in PF1 until you mentioned it here and I went to look at the skill description.  Wonder why that was ever taken out (aside from the usual "Jason Buhlman and Skip Williams hate rogues" reason, of course).

Skill feats have both a level requirement and a proficiency requirement (for example, if you want the feat that lets you identify spells as a free action you need to be level 7 and have Master proficiency in one of the skills that can identify spells, along with knowing another feat).

With the fact that you gain skill feats independently from other kinds of feats, and that there are feats here for all kinds of stuff, I see this as another plus.

As with actions and ancestry feats, this is another "great in theory, terrible in practice" change.  To use this particular example, in 3e you can identify a spell being cast with no action simply by having 1 rank in Spellcraft, no need to wait for 7th level to do that, let alone needing to take a feat to be able to perform one of the core uses of the skill.

That's a general trend of PF2, frankly: things you used to get for free (especially very-flavorful-but-not-very-powerful stuff and things you need to do your main job) are all taken away and then doled back out piecemeal, but with at most half the effectiveness and having at least twice the level prerequisite.  It really gives the impression that the PF2 devs were petrified of giving characters anything fun or useful, which is something already seen in the PF1 era and only exacerbated by drawing on 5e for inspiration.

If I were to ever run a PF2 game (gods forbid), I feel like I'd need to hand out three or four times the normal number of feats and give the players four or five actions per round instead of three just to maintain parity with what (and how much) you could do in 3e/PF1, before we'd even get to any theoretical benefits the system in general has over the PF1 one.

So, yeah, overall a major step back even from Starfinder, which I personally found to be a major step back from PF1 (though only as a matter of playstyle preference compared to just playing "PF1! In! Space!", rather than a matter of objectively bad math and design like with PF2).  It's no surprise to me that the reception of PF2 by PF1 fans was nearly universally negative, and just makes you wonder why they tried to mix in 5e stuff and make the game worse for it when anyone sticking with PF1 likely did so because they weren't a fan of 5e to start with.

[Nanshork]

I'm on a phone so won't be quoting.

I think most PF1 racial traits are shit and ignore them so them being gone made no impact on me whatsoever.

I also don't compare PF2 to 5E more than I would compare it with any other system that is being published right now (of which there are many).  I don't see them as related in any way.

Lastly, in my opinion Starfinder is a massive improvement over PF1 in every way and would never just play PF1 in space.

[Theaitetos]

Thanks for the review, Nanshork. It's a good, brief overview.

I think most PF1 racial traits are shit and ignore them so them being gone made no impact on me whatsoever.

Yeah, but even shit is very flavorful, right?    (I guess, I never tried it tbh).


The racial traits of a race need to be diverse, so they have to offer something for most/all classes, and they can't be too strong in any one area, to avoid locking specific races to a class to be effective. That's why most racial traits are useless ("shit") for most characters. But they still give a flavor to the race. I'm with Eldritch Lord here.


I think they did a good first step on improving readability of rules, and had a good rule system bone structure, but the flesh on top is lackluster. The lack of racial traits, the rewording stuff (e.g. "ancestry") and the ability boosts are probably linked to the "every race is equal" creed of the modern Baizuo.


The different feat types, like ancestral feats, are really nice and give you the option of finally taking some more flavorful feats instead of being locked into the usual ones. PF1 feels as if it has 10 bazillion feats, but 95% of them are bad because others are much better and required to do your job. The content of all the new feat types is weak-sauce though.


I especially miss proper drawbacks: Why not give races specific drawbacks to take in exchange for racial traits/feats? We need really greedy dwarves, arrogant elves, smelly goblins, anger-prone orcs! Or classes steeped in tradition that prevents them from accessing other things - the Wizard's school specialization is a wonderful thing that I wanted in some form for all classes (e.g. Fighters refusing to use bows/x-bows because of honor or something). And why is every Oracle curse now linked to its mystery with zero choice left? It sucks, it's bland, and you can't even roleplay into your curse anymore - a Life Oracle scared to cast a high level (healing) spell because it might kill them is just yuck.


The mere fact that character customization has died despite the rules setting up good structures that allow for more customization, is a mark of failure imo.

[Nanshork]

You're welcome, I'm glad you like it!

As for flavor (in terms of the races or anything else), I have always seen flavor as mutable and not tied to mechanics.  If you want a greedy dwarf or an arrogant elf (or arrogant dwarves and greedy elves) then just do that.  I don't need mechanical benefits or drawbacks to play a character the way I want to in any system.

Here's a 3.5 Barbarian reflavored as a Monk.

[Eldritch_Lord]

I think most PF1 racial traits are shit and ignore them so them being gone made no impact on me whatsoever.

They're definitely unimpressive on the whole, but the point is that the idea of ancestry feats was pitched as "you can be a dwarf cleric who gets more dwarfy and more clericy as you level, unlike in PF1 where your race is something you only care about at 1st level!" as if they're basically taking a PF1 dwarf cleric and adding both dwarfy and clericy perks, when in fact it's an illusion and the PF2 dwarfy stuff merely attempts to reach parity with where the PF1 dwarfy stuff started.

Regardless of whether one considers the racial perks in question to be flavorful or powerful or whatever, the end result is that the marketing pitch was deceptive and the mechanics fail to meet their goals.

I also don't compare PF2 to 5E more than I would compare it with any other system that is being published right now (of which there are many).  I don't see them as related in any way.

I mean, PF1 and 4e aren't related in any way either, in terms of mechanics or flavor or setting or design philosophy or anything else, they could hardly be more different while still being D&D-clone games...but PF1 was created in direct response to 4e being the next big thing and the changes between 3e and 4e being perceived as bad ones, and was explicitly marketed to people who liked 3e over 4e and wanted to keep playing it (or something really close), so one can still talk about why certain decisions were made in PF1 relative to 4e, whether keeping or ditching certain things from 3e was good or bad, and similar.

Likewise, the subject of a "Pathfinder 2" was a topic on the Paizo forums for years, both positively (e.g. "I love the trend of lots of partial casters, I hope when PF 2e comes out they use that pattern for more classes") and negatively (e.g. "I switched to PF so I could keep playing 3e but in a supported form, PF 2e better not change too much"), and after PF Unchained came out in 2015 everyone was assuming PF2 was right around the corner and talking about how they hoped Paizo would listen to their feedback and tighten up the system and basically make it a "PF 1.5" and so forth...but when it actually dropped it was dramatically different from PF1 and was obviously taking a lot of design cues (and the entire marketing pitch) from 5e, hence the backlash from the players who just wanted "PF1, but more so."

Lastly, in my opinion Starfinder is a massive improvement over PF1 in every way and would never just play PF1 in space.

Taken on its own merits, Starfinder is definitely head and shoulders above PF1 as a standalone game, sure.  But it's in a weird middle ground where if you want to play "Pathfinder in space" because you specifically want to have alchemists and summoners on spaceships and all the Golarion baggage and such it's much worse at providing that experience than just pulling a Spelljammer and literally using the PF rules in a space setting, while if you specifically don't want all the PF-specific baggage there's no reason to choose it over a bunch of other sci-fantasy RPGs like e.g. Stars Without Number.

PF2 is in the same space, to me.  If you're looking for more Pathfinder, PF2 utterly fails to deliver, and if you're not looking for more Pathfinder, why play it?

[Nanshork]

Yeah, I don't care about things like marketing cues and being printed at the same time.  In fact I have never paid attention to any marketing for any pen-and-paper RPG so don't really care about that (and everything has deceptive marketing so even if I did pay attention to marketing I wouldn't believe it until I got my hands on the books anwyay). The only systems I compare with each other that aren't different editions of the same system are PF1 and 3.5 specifically because of how PF was developed as basically 3.75 to capture the market of people who didn't like 4E.

PF2 is in the same space, to me.  If you're looking for more Pathfinder, PF2 utterly fails to deliver, and if you're not looking for more Pathfinder, why play it?

Starfinder is my favorite space-based system, that's why I'd play it.

[Raineh Daze]

It strikes me that every time a new system fiddles with the action economy to make it "simpler", you wind up with the same action economy, albeit maybe the actions now have clearer names.

[Kremlin K.O.A.]

Ancestry is the new word for Race for reasons that I would probably find to be extremely stupid.  Backgrounds is self-explanatory, and classes and feats and skills are all still around as well.

Not sure if you will find it stupid, but the reason for the Ancestry thing?
To make:
Ancestry
Background, &
Class,

The ABCs of character Generation.

I mean, PF1 and 4e aren't related in any way either, in terms of mechanics or flavor or setting or design philosophy or anything else, they could hardly be more different while still being D&D-clone games...but PF1 was created in direct response to 4e being the next big thing and the changes between 3e and 4e being perceived as bad ones, and was explicitly marketed to people who liked 3e over 4e and wanted to keep playing it (or something really close), so one can still talk about why certain decisions were made in PF1 relative to 4e, whether keeping or ditching certain things from 3e was good or bad, and similar.

How quickly we forget.
It wasn't because of backlash against the 4e Rule Set.
It was because Hasbro made WoTC pull that change of the OGL from 3e to 4e, massively restricting how people could make content for D&D
Then killed any chance of suggesting 'but we would never abuse the lopsided agreement to screw over anyone!' By suddenly pulling the Dragon, and Dungeon, magazine licencing from Paizo.
At the time, Paizo was planning to make Adventure Paths for 4e, but no longer trusted WoTC to not just steal them, so they needed a system to publish their Adventure Paths on.
So they pulled a Bender and said "We're gonna make our own D&D, with Blackjack, and Hookers."|
Had they not done so, people would have got used to 4e and played the Paizo Adventure Paths in it.

[Nanshork]

Ancestry is the new word for Race for reasons that I would probably find to be extremely stupid.  Backgrounds is self-explanatory, and classes and feats and skills are all still around as well.

Not sure if you will find it stupid, but the reason for the Ancestry thing?
To make:
Ancestry
Background, &
Class,

The ABCs of character Generation.

 

I LOVE IT!

[Kremlin K.O.A.]

Ancestry is the new word for Race for reasons that I would probably find to be extremely stupid.  Backgrounds is self-explanatory, and classes and feats and skills are all still around as well.

Not sure if you will find it stupid, but the reason for the Ancestry thing?
To make:
Ancestry
Background, &
Class,

The ABCs of character Generation.

 

I LOVE IT!

So not a stupid reason then? 

[Nanshork]

Ancestry is the new word for Race for reasons that I would probably find to be extremely stupid.  Backgrounds is self-explanatory, and classes and feats and skills are all still around as well.

Not sure if you will find it stupid, but the reason for the Ancestry thing?
To make:
Ancestry
Background, &
Class,

The ABCs of character Generation.

 

I LOVE IT!

So not a stupid reason then? 

Nope, but then again I think puns are pretty great. Especially when they're hidden like that.