I've been tearing through the Advanced Player's Guide, and the book was a joy to read. The greatest complaint that there's been about Pathfinder 2 was a dearth of content, when it has to compare with more established games such as first edition and Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition. The Advanced Player's Guide handily combats that, adding new feats, rituals, spells, and more in a way that make the world feel a bit more real, and a bit less like one huge combat situation. I won't be commenting on heritages or the new classes as they don't catch my interest the way that the core set of classes did, but instead I'll focus on the material useful to existing players and tables.
1. New rituals like a balanced Simulacrum, Create Demiplane, Clone, Heroes' Feast and Teleportation Circle not only add a wealth of traditional dungeon-delving flavor back into the game, but also allow traditionally marginalized classes like the Ranger and Fighter to wield strong utility if they are so inclined. Rituals like Heartbond give guidelines to explore opening up permanent spells, without using the old Permanency spell and all the frustrations that caused.
2. The influx of new spells has added a huge wealth of character options, but also some areas of severe disappointment. Spells such as the iconic Lightning Storm and Ice Storm for Primal casters are limited to an area so small I had to reach out to friends to make sure it wasn't a misprint, and spells such as Spike Stones and Seal Fate have damage so weak for their level I'm not sure what the point of their inclusion was. Despite how sorely I missed Lightning Storm, Ice Storm, and Spike Stones coming from previous editions, I actually wish that they didn't get printed—then, at least, they'd have a chance to eventually exist in a usable state.
On the positive side, I have a friend who absolutely refused to touch Pathfinder 2 when it was released for the dearth of non-combat spells. I'm happy to say that new spells like Secret Chest, Familiar's Face, Pet Cache, Ghostly Tragedy, and Cozy Cabin have all scratched the itch for flavorful spells that make magic more than just a few tactical options in a board game.
3. Skill feats are a mixed bag. In concept, they're excellent, flavorful options. I love the new Influence Nature skill feat to bits, and the Battle Planner feat brings character concepts to life in a powerful way when, and only when, they play to the theme. These are exactly what I want from my feats. On the other hand, every skill only gained one or two feats from the book, and some of them appear to not empower, but curtail the existing uses of skills—Aerobatics Mastery, for example, allows an exemption to a rule that wasn't written. This leads to awkward situations where existing players realize they suddenly need a feat tax to do something they've been doing for months before—yikes.
4. Finally, the big one—Archetypes. I love them. Some are short and sweet (such as the Scroll Trickster) and some are almost full classes in and of themselves (such as the excellent Cavalier). Some act as a patch to multi-classing, such as the Martial Artist, and some such as the Sentinel and Viking allowing characters to get scaling proficiencies they otherwise couldn't.
All in all, I had high hopes for the APG, and on the whole, it delivers. So many new concepts and ways to think about the game, so many new options, so many more unique spells for flavoring both fights and roleplaying. Rituals were an unmitigated success in my eyes, while skill feats and spells were a mixed bag. When they're good, they're GOOD. When they're Lightning Storm/Ice Storm/Spike Stones bad, they single-handedly knock a star off the review. Nearly two, but that would be unfair to the rest of the book. First book since the core rules that I'd call essential, and it sets the bar for future releases.
