I'd love feedback on any or all of the following issues:

I'll take a stab at it, since I've read the replies so far and don't see some of my suggestions mentioned, but I'm not really trying to talk you into PF2 - PF1 is a fine game that has provided me (and others) countless hours of enjoyment, and if you want to keep playing it, hats off to you. But I feel some of your PF2 criticisms don't seem to jibe with mine (or my players) experiences, so here goes...

1) Default character sheet is baaaaad.

I generally use Foundry and Pathbuilder 2e, but I accept your dislike of the default character sheet. I find it hard to believe you can't find one more to your liking - or perhaps just modify your preferred PF1 sheet since you seem to be ok with that?

2) Backgrounds are neat but just seem "extra" and unnecessary. Just get a stat boost and skill+lore of your choice. They're so unimportant why make me go through a list of "none of this is what I want"

I think backgrounds are generally accepted as a decent proxy for/aid to backstory these days, but if you and your players hate them so much just make a generic "Apprentice Adventurer" background that all take with 2 free boosts and a Lore chosen from a 1/2 dozen broadly applicable ones (ie Underworld, Nobility, Warfare etc). I'm pretty flexible in modifying or creating unique backgrounds if a player doesn't feel one fits his character. It's not a big deal, as you mentioned.

3) Stat generation is neat, but hard to track in practice. I'd rather take the "standard array"

Ok - so give players the choice (or force them if you're determined) of an array of 18/16/12/12/10/10 with no racial modifiers, or 16/14/12/12/10/10 before racial modifiers, whatever works for you.

4) Every player needs a rulebook. Real DnD 4e energy on this one.

I find this no more true than PF1 and 5e, which you are comparing PF2 to. In fact, less so since Paizo has such an excellent policy with regards to 2e.aonprd.com that most of my players find a phone a superior option to a physical rulebook, even for tabletop games. Are you seriously claiming that PF1 (or even 5e) was more playable than PF2 by players who don't have access to a rulebook? I find that a bizarre claim.

5) Trick Magic Item is a silly name, it's like your class doesn't actually let you know how to activate an item, the item just has a rule against letting you use it unless you pull a fast one on it.

Ok - I don't find it any less apropos than "Use Magic Item" but I accept your dislike of the name.

6) Stronger enemies are more vulnerable to damage than weaker ones. Makes some sense mechanically, the vulnerability needs to scale with attacks at their challenge level to stay relevant, but seriously big bag dragon is so weak to cold that 3 damage becomes almost 30? That's SOME vulnerability.

Perhaps it would help if you thought of it in terms of a percentage of the monsters HP? It scales such that even an Ancient Dragon will feel some annoyance at being hit with a bit of a damage type that they abhor.

7) I thought we were tryna go away from Save or Suck mechanics in modern TT? Why would Treat Wounds be save or suck? I got stuck by a goblin so a trained medic stitched me up. I got stabbed by two goblins and an master medic was like "I may have doubled the roll of the last medic but I'm sorry, I've completely forgotten how medicine works and can offer you no benefit. Like I get that you're trying to heal twice as much in the same amount of time but a medic isn't going to go "I can either try to stitch one of these stab wounds in 10 minutes, or try to rush through 2 in the same time." They're going to go "I have 10 minutes, lets see how many of these stab wounds I can sew." No fail forward at all?

I understand where you're going with this, but I'm sure if you asked a carpenter or plumber how difficult it is to do a job where a homeowner completely botched an attempt first vs. a clean approach, most would prefer the second. Anyway, Treat Wounds is walking a balance between realism and expediency - we don't keep track of every wound and blow and heal them independently as a concession to speeding up game play. I actually enjoy it when my players are like "no thanks Grog - I'll wait til Bones is done with the wizard instead of you taking a stab at stitching my wounds up..."

8) Direct Damage cantrips are just terrible...

Compared to? PF1 - they are miles ahead. 5e - I think they are pretty comparable, and with much better variety and balance. Yeah - maybe they don't have the big hitters like Eldritch Blast or Toll the Bell or whatever is the It cantrip these days (I quit 5e when Tasha's came out), but in exchange for slightly less damage they have more unique side effects and situational uses. I much prefer the PF2 model with more viable choices - do you prefer 5e with every lock spamming Eldritch Blast and no other real options? I find cantrips reasonably fulfill the role of giving casters options to spam when not wanting to burn spell slots.

In the end, I do find PF2 to be much more streamlined than PF1 - you objected to the larger numbers, but those are mostly static and once calculated on your character sheet (which admittedly you have to redo every level) pretty easy to manage. PF1 on the other hand is a nightmare to keep track of buffs/debuffs and what stacks and what doesn't. I honestly don't know how people play it past level 8 or so without Hero Lab (I'm currently playing in a L14 Iron Gods campaign).

Also, I find your claim that PF1 characters are easier to generate than PF2 characters a bit hard to grasp - I took a stab at rolling up a replacement for my L14 Warpriest (since he ended one session in a dicey situation with 1hp), and it felt like a job, and not a very fun one at that. Can't even imagine attempting it without Hero Lab (which is way too expensive for most players and a horrible value compared to Pathbuilder 2e IMO BTW).

I concede your point that Skill Feats are very numerous, and not super important to character expression, which can lead to some OCD players blowing a gasket if trying to level up in-game. I'd keep a short list of universally useful ones (like Assurance, Battle Medicine etc) and suggest they take one of those and allow them to retrain it for free if they decided differently after a more thorough review. I also tend to warn my players a session (or two) ahead of time to be ready to level up, so they have time to think about it offline.

Incidentally, I didn't see you mention some of the fiddly bits that I find difficult to deal with without technology (namely Foundry):
1) persistent damage - I'm always forgetting that when trying to move combat along
2) Fatal and Deadly traits complicating criticals
3) Keeping track of myriad status effects (Wounded, Frightened et al)

Foundry handles those beautifully, and I've come to rely on it. Not sure how I'll deal with these issues if I every run a tabletop game again, and because of that I've been investigating some lighter rule sets for actual table top play (Savage Worlds:Pathfinder and Fantasy Age).

I'm on the anti-bloat bandwagon, and have abandoned PF for 5E, which I find a wholly superior rules system. I'm saddened by this, as I have a lot more affection and respect for Paizo as a company than Wizards. I also really miss the quality of the Paizo AP's (their strength IMO) - Wizards' efforts have been improving with each AP, but they're still far short of the quality of most Paizo offerings.

So how does the bloat lessen my enjoyment of the game?

1) The other characters are often stupid and/or bizarre. I confess to liking a fairly standard Tolkeneqsue flavor to my role-playing. I enjoy a few flavorful steps outside those bounds when they are appropriate to a setting and really add something (ie Dark Sun). When I end up in a group with a ratfolk gunslinger, a kitsune occultist and an oread skald, I'm pretty much ready to pack it in. I understand that gonzo over-the-top fantasy really appeal to some, but I'd rather pass. Also, I've noticed a tendency for people using the latest/greatest races/classes to build to have much less of a personality, being all crunch and no fluff. Nothing says this has to be true of course - you can have a boring halfling thief or a grippli witch with an interesting and well-developed personality, but it is a trend I've noticed (or perhaps most discussions on forums focus on crunch and just leave off the personality aspects as irrelevant to the topic at hand).

2) The AP's being produced are now less usable. The last AP I subscribed for was Mummy's Mask, and I found it frustrating to even read through with the magic items from many varied books and monsters from sources I had no interest in buying (ToHC etc). Yeah, I can work around anything as a GM, but the more work it requires the more likely I am to reach a point where I'd rather just convert to 5E.

3. With each new chunk of rules released, there comes a chance of power creep and unfortunate (from a non-munchkin's POV) rules interactions. Paizo seems to have done a reasonable job of combating power creep, but it is there (although I've stopped buying books prior to the hybid classes and Unchained so I may be out of touch).

In the end, I understand that there are people who live for variety, and are super keen to roll out their najali investigator in an attempt to relieve their boredom with the standard races and classes. I personally view PF as having reached a golden age with the Core + APG books, and have been increasingly less happy with it with each subsequent release (the Advanced Race Guide is a particular thorn in my side).

The question is, are there more people who think like the former, or more people like me? Despite my unhappiness with the direction Paizo is taking PF, I really wish them well and hope they have a profitable and happy future. The last stats I saw noted that there were 12k 5E games (or chars forget which) running on Roll20 vs 8k PF games, which I find alarming for the future of PF. Anecdotally, I also notice much slimmer pickings for PF groups on the Roll20 LFG forums. On the other hand, I've heard second hand reports that Paizo's tables were much better attended than Wizards at GenCon. Not sure what to think.

My player's have just been rebuffed from Thistletop (near wipe on the bridge as all of them hustled over it at once), but so far I've made a few changes and additions.

One of the largest is that I've had Balor captured by Nualia and gang. This got him out of the picture, lent some urgency and I found it more acceptable than him taking off to Magnimar to beg for troops. Instead, I had Mayor Deverin rush to Magnimar to beg for troops, along with Shaylelu (whose knowledge of goblin activity was vital to convincing Mayor and Usher's Council that this was not a minor matter for Sandpoint to handle on it's own).

Going forward, I'm thinking of switching things up with the return to Sandpoint for the Scribbler's Lair. As written in the book, it just seems too serendipitous that the secret to Runeforge lies in the hands of some crazy dude back under Sandpoint.

Instead, I'll have the players finding hints and clues in the library at Jorgenfist, and drop suggestions that things would go much faster with the assistance of an expert in Thassilonian history/language to assist (our party's only speaker of Thassilonian and knowledge/history monkey is the alchemist). Hopefully they teleport back to Sandpoint to pick up Brodert Quink, who will now be a captive of the Scribbler down below. I'm playing Quink as obsessed with Thassilon, and sneaking down into the catacombs despite the Mayor forbidding him from doing so (he goes the long way around from the beach after Ameiko and the Mayor hire a mason to brick up the entrance to the smugglers' tunnels under the glassworks). After exploring the main catacombs, I'll have Quink either hire a gang of local Scarzni to clear the rubble from the downstairs, or else purchase scrolls of move earth/dig in Magnimar to do it himself. This leads to the sinkhole and his capture by the Scribbler, who will keep Quink alive for interrogating about the world above (being a speaker of Thassilonian). Once they rescue Quink and return to Jorgenfist, they will eventually be able to discover the riddle to allow entrance to Runeforge.

Damn straight. Each and every item you craft costs gold. Each and every swing does not cost gold. This is fact. If you can't acknowledge this, then I have nothing more to say to you.

I purposely stayed away from the 'reduction ad absurdum' case of paying per sword swing, hp healed, fireball cast etc. Let's assume our happy party goes off adventuring, and drags themselves back to the inn battered and bruised. Your character has 8 points of con dmg, a nasty curse, 38 hp of dmg and (soon) a hangover.

A restoration spell will use 100gp in diamond dust, and according to http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateEquipment/gear/lodgingAndService s.html, the friendly local cleric of Abadar (or anyone else) will want (caster level)*(spell level)*10+100gp to cast it, or say, (10*4*10+100) for a 10th level cleric. So, that's 400gp for effort plus 100gp for mats, assuming you do it at his/her convenience.

If I was in said group, and our oracle had access to restoration, I'd expect him to cast it for the 100gp in mats only, when it was convenient (ie according to group triage and his personal plans). Would you also expect this, or would you be comfortable with the oracle charging 20%x400+100, or 180gp for his time, effort and mats?

I'm arguing that crafters who expect to pay only 100g in the above scenario (I have a gut feeling this includes most if not all Pathfinder players), but then demand materials cost + 10% profit for crafting an item are greedy hypocrits.

Of course someone should pay the materials cost of any items crafted, as well as pay for the cost of aquiring any spells needed that the crafter might not have. But some crafters seem to think a profit is also reasonable in this case. Why not a profit for the poor oracle then? The only difference is the amount of time taken. The crafter had to burn a feat? The oracle had to burn a spell slot learning restoration as well. Both are sunk costs freely chosen by the player.

Is it because the crafted item is eating into your weird, artificial 25% WBL cap? What happens when that cap is reached btw, you suddenly find yourself surrounded by pugwampis and unable to craft anything? I don't understand the WBL limits on crafting, to be honest. I guess NPC wizards have a very short, NFL-like career as magic item crafters.

Or is it the time taken? Of course I'd expect to wait until a crafter finished his own items, or even paying customers, ahead of mine, just as I'd expect to wait if the oracle had to cast all his 4th-level spells on more important (to him - 8 con is pretty important to me) causes.

I think it comes down to two separate issues:

1) the unspoken code of treating group members like family, and not making a 'profit' off of them, which only seems smart since one day the fighter may be deciding who to charge, the troll beating on the cleric or the ogre stomping on the wizard. For those of you claiming a 10% surcharge is fine, I'm assuming you are also fine with paying your cleric for restorations and remove curses *after* the adventure is over? With a decent 'friends and family' discount of course? After all, he could be out memorizing different spells in those slots, or casting spells for profit at the local temple. Which leads me to...

2) the game has introduced a way of monetizing a nebulous, often hand-waved concept of 'downtime' for magical crafters, while all other characters get nothing, except for the pathetic 'profession check in gp per week' (so 700gp/week vs 20-30gp/week). I don't run the stock crafting rules in my campaign (for this and other reasons - I hate them), but if I did, I'd feel compelled to add ways for all the other characters to 'monetize their downtime'. You can handwave it, but saying that the rogue is forging documents and made 550gp this week, or the fighter has taken on a task acting as a bodyguard for the mayor during an important diplomatic event, for which he gets 1000gp, the cleric made 200gp casting spells for locals, but received a request to come to Magnimar for a stretch where he could likely earn much more etc. The problem is professions don't scale at all with character level, whereas crafting has this goofy artificial limit (given enough 'downtime') of 25% of WBL, which does scale. Your 15th level wizard just made a Staff of Obvious Compensation earning 50k during these last 4 months, while Joe's 15th level fighter made 400 horseshoes for 80gp total, in stiff competition with the L2 exp down the street.

NB: I haven't read UC so if that introduces other methods of making scalable money during downtimes I regard that as an improvement.

If it is a low level game that is unlikely to see high levels, I will generally play a martial character, since they tend to perform better than sorcerers and wizards at such levels and are unlikely to leave me with nothing to contribute with but a crossbow after the first encounter (which just isn't fun for me). However, if it starts in the mid- to high-levels, then I will most likely play a spellcaster, as they are far more versatile and allow me to really let loose with my creative, world-altering thinking.

I haven't actually played much Pathfinder yet (long time D&D player but I've been on a hiatus due to lack of local groups I'd care to play with), but I think there are a few issues at play here.

First is the feeling you're "cheating the system" of suffering through the perilous low levels of being a caster in order to bask in the glory of high-level power. This doesn't seem nearly as big an issue with Pathfinder as it was in old AD&D, but I can still understand it irking some players, especially the dude who suffered through the lower levels as a sorcerer, only to have you come waltzing in a L9 with a freshly rolled wizard ready to start competing with him for loot, spells and glory.

As to your, cast 'sleep' then x-bow for rest of adventure - it seems to me that Pathfinder has provided quite a bit of relief to that scenario. Three 1st level spells plus an arcane bond, plus cantrips etc. When I play wizards, I enjoy husbanding my power like Gandalf, trying to use the minimum needed and let the martials handle the chaff, pulling out the big guns (ie my spells) for boss fights. As a DM (currently planning out a campaign), I also tend to kind of front load magical items to give the casters more to do - ie wands of useful spells, scrolls with fun spells if they are a sorcerer. Maybe you just need a better mindset to enjoy playing casters at low level.

Second is an issue of party balance and not 'stepping on toes'. If I'm rolling up a character, I tend to go last since I try to help fill in holes and I'm confident of my ability to create an enjoyable personality of most roles/races. This doesn't just extend to class/role. If we already have a dwarf, I'd rather not play a second one and impinge on the first character's dwarven role. Humans being an obvious exception (I find I enjoy groups most when it's mostly human with one or two demi-humans for flavor). If you jumped on being the barbarian at 1st level, and others chose, say, life oracle, bard and alchemist to make a somewhat balanced party, then you got bored and switched to wizard/witch, it'd leave a bit of an odd group with no brute and lots of competition over caster items (with armor and weapons getting sold).

Finally is the issue of their being no consequence to character death. If you get bored of a character and replace him/her, and the new character comes in with WBL gear, it will likely be much better tailored and chosen for his role. This likely puts them in a *better* position than the PC's, who will have a motley collection of drops and junk that they have accumulated over the levels. For my next campaign, I'm combating this in a couple of ways. First, they'll each roll 4 sets of stats on 4d6 keep 3 and take whichever they wish. A replacement char (either due to death or retirement from boredom) will get whichever they wish set from the remaining 3 sets etc. They'll also get NPC WBL not PC WBL with items chosen by me (the DM), not hand picked items by the player. That will leave them underpowered, but with the dead PC's items split among the surviving players perhaps they'll donate some gear to the newb, or else they'll catch up in time.

Coolest Intelligent magic item you've seen/made?

In game preferably, but in-game items based off of other fiction are more than welcome. Also, post/link stats if you have them.

My favorite was Ruffles, the intelligent rope of climbing. It couldn't speak or communicate telepathically, but could not and shake it's 'head' (end of rope). Ruffles was a giant coward, terrified of edged weapons and often had to be talked or coerced into climbing up into unknown or dark places. He was also quite lazy and would basically hang out in a backpack for most of the day, occasioanally popping his head out to see what's going on (and fleeing back inside at the first sign of an edged weapon wielded by someone he didn't recognize).

Eventually we came upon a rope of entanglement, which Ruffles was apparently attracted to, and he entwined with it and became a more powerful intelligent rope of entanglement and climbing (but still quite cowardly).

This was in our long running Undermountain campaign, so not sure if the DM made it up or if it was an Ed Greenwood/TSR invention.