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This book is absolutely fantastic, there's so many interesting ideas just jam-packed into it that I'm never going to be able to use because there's too many character ideas. It kind of makes me feel bad that I'm still disappointed by Gather Might and Enduring Might, since there's so much other cool stuff that I should be able to ignore it.
Gather Might is just +2 to all physical stats for every point of burn reduction you would have gotten instead. It only lasts until the end of your turn though. "Maximum of +10 when spending a full round plus a move action to gather might with the supercharge class feature".Instead of mitigating Burn with Gather Power you use it to boost your stats.Does it stack with a stat belt and elemental overflow? On a mechanical level I get why it only lasts until the end of your turn, but I'm still super disappointed you can't beef up and stay in your boosted form for the duration of a fight. Maybe if it was "you gain these bonuses until rounds/level pass or you take a point of burn". I just want to be a super saiyan for reals, you know?
I think I read there was a medium archetype in here? If so can I get information on that?Your supreme power is a bonus style feat and both feats for that style without meeting the prerequisites. You mean all three feats for the style?
I gotta chime in to say that while most of these are focused towards the Monk/Kineticist overlap, the one that buffs your physical attributes for a round is awesome and great for all kinds of Kineticists. It lets you pump up the DCs of your offensive utility talents, or just boost your accuracy (and damage) a little. Very versatile! So, would you say this this feat is to go even further beyond?
So it's a jump and a glide as opposed to a jump during a charge. Interesting. Does it have something built in that lets you jump higher than normal?Can anyone give a tl;dr on what dragonfly style does?Basically its a style that gives you high ground against whatever you're fighting as long as you are next to a wall, the second style feat lets you use any creature as a wall for this (your size or larger), the last feat lets you high jump + glide to charge someone. A little I guess? Still doesn't do much to improve on the 4x DC for high jumping, which means only specific classes are going to be able to use it effectively without standing on a high spot to begin with.
Can anyone give a tl;dr on what dragonfly style does?Basically its a style that gives you high ground against whatever you're fighting as long as you are next to a wall, the second style feat lets you use any creature as a wall for this (your size or larger), the last feat lets you high jump + glide to charge someone. So it's a jump and a glide as opposed to a jump during a charge. Interesting. Does it have something built in that lets you jump higher than normal?
As for getting more out of items, that's where Focus Points come in. This new pool unites two similar concepts: the extra spells you could cast via Spell Points and the extra energy you could put into magic items to get more out of them (think of this along the lines of the occultist's focus powers or the Charisma-based Use Magic Device skill from First Edition). Going to have to read over it in more detail, then run it, but this sounds like exactly what I wanted out of Resonance as a system. Give characters extra boosts that they have to decide between instead of taxing basic competency.
SnipThat's not really optimal. Nobody actually needs Str 20 at 1st and taking it is almost always a mistake, IMO. But yes, you can hit 30 in both on a very focused Barbarian...which would be why I mentioned that, using the treasure it starts with, you can give it a Belt/Potions in the same way and give it 34s. Really? I always go for 20 Str when I'm going for a big beefy character, and it's usually worked out quite well for me. That's besides the point though, as is buffing the monsters. The point is that in PF1e a PC character can reach the same level of physical prowess as a fairly beefy monster. Of course that's not true in all cases, as there's monsters with stats way above and beyond what a character can reasonably reach without going into one of the aforementioned super optimized builds, but a Barbarian striding into battle with legendarily high strength and endurance is well within the realm of possibility. Now in PF2e that's actually impossible, because stat boosts are just gone. I get why, having to keep track of damage, attack, skill, and carrying capacity changes when your strength goes up and down is something that could probably stand to be streamlined. Instead though all those effects get split up between various effects and abilities, so for example damage increases come from Rage, Badger Rage, Enlarge, and... I think nothing else? Then if you want to get the attack improvements you need to go to other stuff, and then for the skills and carrying capacity you have to go for even more stuff, and etc. So in PF2e it's possible to have the equivalent of 30 strength, but it's way more work to do. You can consider it an optics thing since I think it might still be doable at that level.
How are we defining impossible in this case? Do you mean it's impossible for a PC to have those stats in their normal walking around no buffs no magic no abilities state? If so yes, it's impossible (assuming you also don't include the various tomes in those numbers). A PC in actual play though? Around level 9 (which is the earliest I'd imagine you could encounter one of those) those numbers are fairly achievable. Still pretty doable. 20 Str/18 Con base, with the two levels into Con for 20. Potion of Bull's Strength plus Rage gets you to 28, at which point you can either say "eh, good enough" or get another boost from Enlarge Person or Alter Self or something. Extra bonus points if it's a buddy casting the spells on you instead of a potion you're drinking. Rage brings Con to 24, plus Raging Vitality to 26, plus a Potion of Bear's Endurance for 30. That doesn't seem particularly niche or super optimized to me, just needs the right stat allocation (which is also the "optimal" allocation for a Barb), one feat, and two-three items which you can get ahold of with minimal issue if they haven't been passed out in the loot already. Maybe a bit trickier than it should be, but still achievable at 9. Or get a +4 belt of one stat or the other, a 9th level character should have enough gold for one of those plus a magic weapon and other assorted gear. On the other hand if monster buffs come into the picture then all bets are off since they can be geared up with anything your heart desires and start the fight with as many buffs as you can think of. That's usually reserved for unique encounters though like bosses or those weird miniboss-type encounters in APs that have a bunch of lore and backstory that the PCs never find out about.
At level 13, +7 Con is already more than a PC can get. 'better than is even possible for a PC' is a recurring, annoying theme in the bestiary. It's not even the main thing of a Trechery demon, that's it's deception, disguises, innate miracle spell!. For reference, a PC can get a total of +4, realistically. 16 max start, 19 from stat ups. Maaaaybe a +5 if they pick the con-potency item over their class attribute. +7 is way out. How are we defining impossible in this case? Do you mean it's impossible for a PC to have those stats in their normal walking around no buffs no magic no abilities state? If so yes, it's impossible (assuming you also don't include the various tomes in those numbers). A PC in actual play though? Around level 9 (which is the earliest I'd imagine you could encounter one of those) those numbers are fairly achievable.
I don't understand the bullet sponge argument personally. I like longer combats. I felt one of the weaker parts of the 1st edition system is that if you have a boss character take on players there's a very high likelihood that the boss character would get owned in 1 round. I'd much rather a fight that's done in 1 round because the players planned around the encounter or found the secret macguffin that makes the boss easier to kill as opposed to taking an actual full session to chug through its health pool. Bullet sponges just aren't fun and make the players feel like everything they do is ineffective. That holds true in just about every instance that they appear in.
Except you could also do that in PF1e right off the bat by just taking X levels of Fighter and Y levels of Wizard. Which also didn't lock you into taking ONLY Wizard/Fighter bonus levels for a set period of time. And also actually gave you faster access to prestige classes, since at minimum an Eldritch Knight prestige class would come online at level 8, with the major abilities you'd actually want showing up at level 10 while in PF1e you could get in at level 7 if you really gunned for it, or whenever you want if you decided to take more Fighter levels for one reason or another.Except that's a ridiculously weak trap build in PF1. You'll end up with a crappy fighter who can use crappy spells. Or you'd wind up with an Eldritch Knight. Or you'd wind up with a Fighter who's basically a Fighter, except that he has utility abilities or the ever handy True Strike spell. Or you'd wind up with a Wizard who qualifies for Eldritch Knight but hasn't taken the prestige class for some reason since that one Fighter level isn't doing too much for him. That one's kind of a trap option I'll admit.
This! I regularly upvote developer posts.You can still assume that those very vocally blaming Paizo to not listen to them how bad PF2 is will probably not upvote a post by a dev. It is quite a fair assumption that those upvotes don't come from that alu hat wearing crowd cursing PF2 at every turn because it is not exactly PF1.I'd say that is a very individual and wrong assumption. I regularly upvote if I think the post contributes positively to the discussion. A dev weighing in, even if s/he says something I disagree with, counts about 90% as something like that. Hell, I even give Gorbacz the occasional upvote, because he says something which contributes positively to a discussion. Why is everyone calling it upvotes? People use it for different things. Some people use it as an upvote, some people (like me) use it more to bookmark specific posts because the search option is usually more trouble than its worth when I'm trying to find an unofficial FAQ answer that I half-remember from 7 months ago.
Considering how few General feats you get (actual General feats, not Skill General Feats) they should probably be significantly stronger than class feats.
Ya, your probably right canon-wise. I am no Golarion expert. It just seemed like the sort of rough and tumble place where I could see a Goblin PC as not being a problem. This isn't really the best place to discuss the nature of goblin PCs (there were a good many threads on the topic back when it was first brought it), but Golarion/Paizo football-head goblins have a set of personality traits and quirks that make them fairly unique among the various incarnations of goblins in RPGs. Read the first part of Rise of the Runelords for more info.
Except you could also do that in PF1e right off the bat by just taking X levels of Fighter and Y levels of Wizard. Which also didn't lock you into taking ONLY Wizard/Fighter bonus levels for a set period of time. And also actually gave you faster access to prestige classes, since at minimum an Eldritch Knight prestige class would come online at level 8, with the major abilities you'd actually want showing up at level 10 while in PF1e you could get in at level 7 if you really gunned for it, or whenever you want if you decided to take more Fighter levels for one reason or another.
But then I didn't find any feat in the Rulebook to reload quicker than usual for non cleric classes, not even amongst the fighter feats. So why should a cleric be more capable of reloading a crossbow quicker than a dedicated fighter?I don't feel like "a cleric who can reload a crossbow faster" equals "as good as a single fighter and single cleric, but in one character".I guess this particular concept is not so tough in PF2, but I think it would feel like a pretty garbage character. If I want to get faster crossbow reload on a cleric it's gonna be a mess and will probably lose most cleric abilities in the way.This is because clerics are not mainly about being expert sharpshooters? It is doable but it tied to costs. Wanting to be as good as a single fighter and single cleric, but in one character all the same sounds like a contradiction. At least if you create a cleric with a fighter multiclass archetype you do not lose any spell progression like you would by multiclassing in PF1 where you would also forgo cleric class abilities. Better question, why can't a Fighter reload a crossbow quicker?
I guess this particular concept is not so tough in PF2, but I think it would feel like a pretty garbage character. If I want to get faster crossbow reload on a cleric it's gonna be a mess and will probably lose most cleric abilities in the way.This is because clerics are not mainly about being expert sharpshooters? It is doable but it tied to costs. Wanting to be as good as a single fighter and single cleric, but in one character all the same sounds like a contradiction. At least if you create a cleric with a fighter multiclass archetype you do not lose any spell progression like you would by multiclassing in PF1 where you would also forgo cleric class abilities. I don't feel like "a cleric who can reload a crossbow faster" equals "as good as a single fighter and single cleric, but in one character".
That already existed, it was called Explosive Missile. Just clean the wording up for PF2e and there you go.
#1 : Another consideration would be a way to reduce the iterative attack penalty as you level up,I am surprised they left in that punishment (like non-casters need to be kept there). I feel like "encouraging new tactics by making the main one suck" isn't as handy as "encouraging new tactics by making the other ones better". Plus the new action system does that already, the only reason "stand in place and full attack" was a thing was because you were already locked in there for your two attacks that probably will hit, you lose nothing by taking the later ones and maybe snagging a nat 20 for some bonus damage. If there was a way to trade out attacks 3 and 4 for extra AC or a bonus effect (which isn't affected by BAB like combat maneuvers are) you can bet that people would take that instead.
On first read I agree with about 90% of what you're saying, except that it would make character advancement almost glacial if you were to cut it down to half the levels. A good deal of the fun of leveling is saying "oooh, and next level I'm going to get THAT thing!" which kind of fades away if you've spent 3 months at level 4. Basically do this, but do it all the way to level 20 instead of just 10.
I'd honestly argue that most of the "bloat" has been POSITIVE in terms of balancing. Not everything of course, but Fullcasters haven't really gotten much more powerful over time besides a few exceptions coughArcanistcoughPactWizardcough and it seems like the wide majority of feats benefit the low end of the classes way more. Half casters got more cool and interesting options, and of course the wide variety of combat feats meant that even the magically inept could do interesting stuff. Even Magic Tactics Toolbox had one of the best Fighter options to date printed in it (well, second best after Weapon Master's Handbook) despite ostensibly being a book for casters only.
I guess for my 2c: 1. Create a new edition of Pathfinder that's much simpler to learn and play—a core system that's easy to grasp but expandable—while remaining true to the spirit of what makes Pathfinder great: customization, flexibility of story, and rules that reward those who take the time to master them. So this is two parts, the simpler to learn/play part, and retention of customization and rules mastery part. At the very basic mechanical level, PF2e IS simpler to pick up and play. However, the really bad layout of the playtest and the way everything is turned into keywords makes it really hard to navigate, since you have to flip through the book to check and double-check what every word means. PF1e has the same problem, where every time someone in a game uses a status effect the GM has to double-check exactly what that status effect does and affects, but it's not to the same level that PF2e does it since it's generally applied more sparingly. As for the customization and rules mastery, I personally feel like those go hand in hand. More customization rewards system mastery because you're able to create the character you want from the available options. If all the options are kept at a relatively even playing ground then the only issues are making the exact thing you want. The most "optimal" barbarian is a standard greatsword-wielding charge maniac, but with rage powers alone you can create a beefy tank monster, someone who can harry opponents, an area controller, and it even has options that make a Barbarian/Caster hybrid possible, all in the core rulebook. There's an easy out for players who want something simple or who don't know what they want to make or how to make it, but those rules exist for more experience players. To PF2e's credit, this is kind of replicated in the rules currently, but it still feels like everything's too segregated to really allow for someone to get into the game's guts and make something unique. Customization and depth sure, but right now it feels more like it's barely deep enough to reach your shoulders while standing up, where before you could go scuba diving. 2. Ensure that the new version of the game allows us to tell the same stories and share in the same worlds as the previous edition, but also makes room for new stories and new worlds wherever possible. I don't really feel like this would affect the design of the game much, beyond keeping the power curve in the world roughly the same as before. 3. Work to incorporate the innovations of the past decade into the core engine of the game, allowing the best rules elements and discoveries we've made to have an integrated home in the new system (even if they aren't present in the initial book). Mixed results. Some parts of it have obviously shown back up from Unchained, such as the 3-action system and affliction tracks and the Unchained Rogue's abilities, but other really interesting and unique class options are missing. Stuff like Masterpieces for the Bard, Advanced Armor and Weapon Training options for the Fighter, or any of several dozen cool abilities that used to be in an archetype. The best ideas from PF1e for each class, combined together to be the options for the new base forms of the class for PF2e. Right now it feels more like just a reboot of the core rulebook. 4. Forge a more balanced play environment where every character has a chance to contribute to the adventure in a meaningful way by allowing characters to thrive in their defined role. Encourage characters to play to their strengths, while working with others to bolster their place in the group. This is probably the most achieved goal so far, though it does feel like characters are getting TOO stuck in their own roles. 5. Make Pathfinder a game that's open and welcoming to all, no matter their background or experience. Like #2, I don't really think that's much of a game design thing. That's more of a marketing thing if anything I feel.
This isn't an evolution. It's a completely different game.Yes, that is a problem for me, the playtest feels more revolutionary, than evolutionary. A similar thing occurred with 4th Ed, to not so hot results (curing the headaches by cutting off the head). Would you say that the playtest feels more like the gritty reboot of PF rather than the sequel?
So on the most recent blog post, the design goals for the game were finally listed out and are as follows:
From the Halfway to Doomsday blog post I'm making the thread for two reasons: first, since not everyone is aware of or reads the blog posts, it might be helpful to keep those people in the loop with regards to the game design behind the scenes. Second, it would (hopefully) focus discussion in here as opposed to the comments on a blogpost which has material apart from the stated design goals.
... were you expecting them to only publish the Core Rulebook and the Bestiary?I'll have my optimism in Paizo slowing down the release schedule and applying more quality control.Well, in this very thread you can find this:We are already putting plans down for books that come after the core.Note "books" plural. It would probably help if the publishing cycle isn't as slow as Starfinder's. It's been over a year and the fifth book is releasing this month, with three of those being GM material.
Jeez Gaterie, dude, chill out. You're getting way too worked up about nothing.
Such as?I am one of those people that have been around since Basic D&D, and I think the idea of changing spell levels to spell ranks is a great idea. Not order though, order sounds more like something that would apply to things like divine, arcane, primal, occult.Check out the 1st Ed AD&D DMG, it has some comments, ways to go on this. I dunno, I didn't see it in the DMG. I skimmed through the rules section on spells and the closest thing was a note for "refereeing" which refers you to the PHB for creating new spells. Pretty sure it's the 1e AD&D DMG too, it's the one with the City of Brass on the cover.
I really do think they should have Alchemist allowed to throw to induce splash or to avoid splash. Like some sort of... Targeted Bomb. Maybe a mixture you pour or combine with the bomb's chemicals. An Admixture you might even say.
For Potions, sure. For Wands and Scrolls though?
Those all seem like really solid updates. I guess if I had to nitpick I'd want the advanced proficiency bonuses to also be boosted a bit instead of just +1 compared to the others, but yeah, otherwise seems like some pretty good changes. Still a bit worried about Resonance though. If they're going to still keep the Cha requirement for resonance, it might make characters with more Cha overall better at everything just because they can equip more gear, even if other characters are technically better built.
PLEASE DO: Make the four floating ability score bonuses more obvious. Or, I guess, more obviously floating random bonuses not tied to class, background, ancestry, etc. Right now the section on character creation is the only place that those bonuses are listed, and it's not 100% crystal clear to someone reading that section that the bonuses aren't referring to the bonuses from other sources.
Don't forget feats, feats, feats, and feats which are different than feats.This doesn't bother me so much personally for some reason. But you do have a point. Just this last playtest session, one of the players got their character mixed up a bit because they assumed feats were interchangeable. And the fact that all skill feats are general feats, but not all general feats are skill feats can be problematic. And Class and Ancestry Feats are something else entirely. Maybe rename class feats to some other name, do something similar to Ancestry Feats, rename General Feats to just Feats and then Skill Feats can stay the same. That would keep Feats only as the name for things where one is a subset of the other and not independent the way Class and Ancestry feats are. Oh hey, the thing I said would happen happened. Take THAT naysayers on a random blogpost three months ago!
-PBS is "required" because it's the only option you have at that level. -Weapon Mastery is analogous to the Fighter's Weapon Training. Weapon Focus/Specialization doesn't exist, and if it did would probably be called "Improved Weapon Proficiency" but otherwise fulfill a similar function.-Improved Precise Shot is roughly analogous to the Incredible Aim feat, though that's a special action instead of a passive bonus to attacks. -I would really strongly disagree that Deadly Aim is the same as the Deadly bonus damage. That's not important though. -You're correct about Mobility/Shot on the Run
The point that I was trying to make though is that people seem to be vastly understating the amount of options available in PF1e even with all the extra feats you "had" to take, and overstating the options in PF2e at the same time. You get "31" feats, but out of those you have maybe the same amount of options available as in PF1e when making a character, and in some cases you have less.
How many of those PF1 combat feats are no longer necessary since archery and twf penalties are no longer a thing? How much functionality is now baked into weapon crit specialization or the weapon properties themselves?How many of those 31 are skill feats? How many ancestry feats?And how many of those skill and ancestry feats were built into base skills and ancestries in PF1e? And how many feats need to be used to acquire things you would have gotten from a class passively? Precise Shot not existing anymore because of the lack of the penalties is a good thing, but is also separate from any discussion on siloing class feats or the number of class feats available to be picked. That's a basic game mechanics change which then cascaded into a change in feat design. If that penalty still existed, you can bet that Precise Shot would too. Also, apart from that feat, the number is the same. Point-Blank Shot is still there, and is the only (therefore required) Fighter 1 ranged feat. Double Shot (which we'll use as an analogue for Rapid Shot) is a level Fighter 4 feat. Triple Shot (which would effectively be the replacement for a BAB bump) is a Fighter 6 feat. That pretty much covers the feats "required" to be an archer, so they're pretty much equal if you ignore how the PF1e Fighter had everything up besides the BAB bump at level 3. Which leaves 3 levels to take stuff like Deadly Aim, Blind-Fight, Manyshot (if you wanted to, that feat always seemed kind of bad), Mobility/Shot on the Run, Improved Unarmed Strike/Deflect Arrows/Snatch Arrows, Weapon Focus/Weapon Specialization if you wanted to be boring, or just delay your combat feats a bit to get some general feats like Skill Focus, Improved Initiative, or Animal Affinity. Also, wow, after looking at the CRB again, I had forgotten that Precise Shot used to only be a prerequisite for Improved Precise Shot and Pinpoint Targeting. It just became so ubiquitous later on that I always associated it with being a problem feat tax feat.
So basically section feats off into sort of schools? It feels kind of similar to how Bo9S did it. I guess I don't disagree with it completely, as long as it's still possible to poach from other lists in some way or swap out one list for another, but it might be adding an additional level of complexity that doesn't really need to be there? If you start picking feats you don't want to have to worry about picking a perfect feat and then finding out it's the wrong KIND of feat, so you can't use it. Or having cool and unique feats effectively shackled to one of those groups, limiting the potential creative space.
I may be reading it wrong, but I think his point is that rarely do people pick the Class first, most pick a concept and then see where the execution can be done.Several times, I've been asked by a friend of mine that they need e.g. a rogue NPC. I pride myself on the ability to make the entire theive's guild distinct from one another, despite class similarities. So I guess your view only works when "what kind of rogues are available" is a large set.It also doesn't solve the "what kind of TWF do I wanna be? Better go read every single classes version" problem.You know, thinking about it that might be part of the problem I have personally. When I make a character I don't say "I want to play a Rogue, so let me see what variety of Rogue I want to be this time", I say "I feel like being a sneaky stabby person, or a super skillmonkey, or a whirlwind of knives and anger" and then because of my previous experience with the game I might gravitate towards Rogue for that character. PF2e on the other hand is structured more to benefit someone who goes into character creation in the other way, where they say "I want to make a Rogue, so let me see what kind of Rogues are available to me right now." Yeah, you have it about right. Not to say that I don't do that on occasion when there's a cool new archetype released for a class (or when trying out a new class for the first time), but those are the exception instead of the rule.
Changes to reactions. My guess is Paladin is at least getting affected.
It also doesn't solve the "what kind of TWF do I wanna be? Better go read every single classes version" problem. You know, thinking about it that might be part of the problem I have personally. When I make a character I don't say "I want to play a Rogue, so let me see what variety of Rogue I want to be this time", I say "I feel like being a sneaky stabby person, or a super skillmonkey, or a whirlwind of knives and anger" and then because of my previous experience with the game I might gravitate towards Rogue for that character. PF2e on the other hand is structured more to benefit someone who goes into character creation in the other way, where they say "I want to make a Rogue, so let me see what kind of Rogues are available to me right now."
Go beyond a certain level and it feels like you need notecards just to keep track of everything. I was going to say that you did also have to do that in PF1e on occasion, but then I remembered that usually that took the form of remembering how all your bonuses were calculated, particularly when a miffed GM asked to see your math after having an attack roll 10 higher than it should be according to him. I guess it's trading out one mess of memorization for another, though at least the old one was a mess you didn't have to remember while in the middle of a game.
Ah, I seem to recall there was another book with a similar issue. Cool ideas unfortunately locked to races nobody plays. I think it was one of the Blood books, but I can't remember which one. Definitely not Beast, I remember that one being at most a 50/50 split. Might be Seas? Also holy crap Asura Style and Cerberus Style are cool. Although there seems to be a typo, Cerberus Snare requires Cerberus Crush as a prerequisite, while Cerberus Crush requires Cerberus Snare.
Ah, I seem to recall there was another book with a similar issue. Cool ideas unfortunately locked to races nobody plays. I think it was one of the Blood books, but I can't remember which one.
Fighter Class Feats: 11 Ancestry Feats: 5Skill Feats: 10 General Feats: 5 (+1 if Human) Yes, you're correct that Fighters get 31 feats in PF2e. 11 of those are class feats (analogous to the 11 combat feats in PF1e), which means they get (potentially) half as many combat feats as the Fighter in PF1e. Skill Feats and General Feats are analogous to the normal 10-11 feats from leveling any character, so the PF2e fighter is somewhat better off in that sense as it can select 15 total, except that as a class with 3 + Int skills those skill feats are going to be chosen from a significantly smaller pool. So effectively you get more, but because they may not be very beneficial to your character, they count for less. On the other hand, the PF1e fighter could pick and choose to either select more "class feats" to augment whatever they were going for (which also let them speed up reaching their peak build) or choose to go for something they were trained in or need, like a Skill Focus or Healer's Hands or something. So let's call it even. And finally Ancestry Feats. These don't interact with class features at all, and in PF1e most of them were just things you started the game with, so they count for nothing. So in conclusion, PF1e and PF2e have effectively the same number of choice slots.
Condescending much? So I guess it was condescending VERY much in that case.
I would really love to know what comments you're reading where it sounds like someone wants to make a character that's a 10th level Fighter and Rogue simultaneously, because I haven't seen anything to that extent and it seems to be unduly coloring your perception of the situation as a whole.
Right, but Paizo (for the most part) did a good job of avoiding that issue by keeping all the new classes fairly different from each other, either by filling in a mechanical niche that wasn't taken already (or was taken in an unsatisfactory way) or creating a new mechanical niche for the class. I imagine they can do so again, especially with all the groundwork that's already been laid out through PF1e's content.
Niche protection isn't really a valuable concept except from an accessibility standpoint. Ensuring that a player can't take a feat that won't function for the class he's playing is a great idea. Locking in item choice and play style is just going to slow people down as they try to find which class Paizo decided to put the player's character concept under. I'm personally kind of confused by the cries for niche protection as well. I'm under the impression that niche protection is meant for classes, not characters. Barbarians get rage and do rage things and Wizards do casty things. That's their niche. If the Barbarian suddenly got access to spellcasting while still being a good (or better) Barbarian, then THAT'S an issue with niche protection because there's no reason to play a normal Barbarian when you can be one that's also casting, or there's no reason to play a Wizard when you could play one that's also able to smash real good. Being able to take levels in Barbarian and Wizard and then be a Rage Mage who smashes stuff adequately and cast stuff adequately isn't an issue with niche protection. Or, more relevant to PF1e: Vivisectionist Alchemist and a Rogue. You could play a Rogue and get that Sneak Attack, or you could play a Vivisectionist and get Sneak Attack plus 6th level spellcasting plus a built-in steroid plus a whole list of other class features plus better sneak attack than a normal Rogue thanks to access to invisibility and polymorph effects. THAT'S a situation where people should be crying about niche protection.
If you want to fix CLW wand spam (and the CLW potion spam that would replace it if you nerfed wands specifically)This kind of adds to the feeling I'm getting that a lot of people haven't even looked at wands in PF2e yet. No, that mostly covers it. 10 uses per wand, and each wand would take approximately an entire 4th level character's free gold amount. That seems like a pretty good deterrent to spamming cure spells to me.
Of course, if having a CLW wand is the equivalent of having a cleric, then you'll see the cleric role losing its identity as a healer class, but this can be addressed with specific nerfs to wands (like how they were reduced to 10 charges).This seems like a non-problem to me. Wand spam is around in PF1, and according to the survey done by the PFd20srd Clerics were the third most played class, close behind fighter and rogue and more common than wizards (and fighter was apparently boosted by being a common multiclass dip). It wouldn't be nearly that commonly played if it's core identity was threatened by wands. Honestly the best thing that could happen to Clerics is losing the "healer class" stigma. You can build a Cleric to be a pure healer, sure, but they're just as valid and viable when built in a variety of other ways, and retain the ability to act as secondary healers in a pinch. Plus throw in wands, potions, and abilities that let other characters heal without being Cleric'd and that opens up spell slots to do a lot more.
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