| Felsley |
Heya,
I read through the description of the Paladin-class, and stumbled upon a curious issue; I'm used to reading RPGs and technical manuals, and I know PF is a notorious complex and extended system, however, I thought I'd share my experience so far with 2e:
Layout; it's outdated, and hard to read (Ok, not exactly, it could just use a few "final touches" which I assume will be in the final product; either way, it's way easier to read than the 1e rulebook) - and for the sake of ease, it would help immensely to have some sort of flow-charts of the prerequisites (Exalted RPG had some neat charts that made it easy to follow) to the various feats and skills. I want to play a game, not spend time constructing a spreadsheet to build a character ^^
Feats and powers; it gets confusing with the same name to describe different aspects of the class. Skills are, well, skills, skill-feats are normal feats, class-feats are class-specific abilities and class-powers are... Spells? I can wrap my head around the feats, though it might make it easier to distinguish if class-feats were called something else entirely. Powers are neat, though; the concept of spell-like (dare I say) feats(!) seems cool. Why they are listed in the spells-entries, I don't get, as well as how they work exactly - until now, for the Paladin, I've been looking for class-feats and powers equally in the feats and spells section, without any luck. Even tough it says in the Paladin-description that they use divine spells, there's no list of Paladin-specific powers (er... Or spells..?).
Power-pools, rarities and classes; in general, there's a need for a more user-friendly approach to understanding basic concepts like how to read entries. I spent a long time to figure out how power-pools worked, and indeed, where to find the class-specific powers - the icons of the classes are already present (title-page of the class-chapter), so why not use those as identifiers on the stat-blocks of the various spells, powers and feats? Another thing was the rarity color-code; again, it took me a while to figure out what those were (granted, it was plainly described on p.10, my bad).
More power-pools, less spells-per-day tables (read: restrictions); finally, on a personal note, I like the concept of power-pools and the freedom and flexibility it brings to the table in terms of a more adaptable spell-user. I honestly can't remember if 1e has any such spell-point mechanic for spells (I never bothered playing a spell-user for this exact reason), so it would be a fine, optional rule to add in. It's fairly easy to flesh out (AD&D 2.5 S&P did a pretty good job at a useful system) and it would allow for a more versatile preset spell-toolbox.
Unify terms; be vary of ambiguous terms and concepts - again, I know it's a new(er) game, and I spent a lot of time reading back and forth to grasp rules and concepts that should be easily described in one single entry and with distinguished terms, which got mixed up with other, similar-sounding concepts and terms.
All in all, this is actually a well-done overhaul, and once the kinks and confusion settles, it's a very well done edition - so far! ^^
I hope you find this post constructive (it was certainly meant so), and feel free to comment in the same spirit as it was intended.
-F