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Below are my thoughts on this, I’d be curious if anyone finds an ability that doesn’t make sense following these rules:

If the ability requires a melee weapon, it requires a melee weapon performing a melee strike.
If the ability requires a ranged weapon, it requires a ranged weapon performing a ranged strike.
If the ability specifies a thrown weapon, it requires a weapon (ranged or melee) with the thrown trait performing a ranged strike.
If the ability specifies a required weapon, it works as above based on the type of weapon in the requirements.

If the ability specifies a melee strike, you can perform it with any melee weapon.
If the ability specifies a ranged strike, you can perform it with any ranged weapon or a melee weapon with the thrown trait.
If the ability specifies a thrown strike, you can perform it with either a ranged weapon with the thrown trait or a melee weapon with the thrown trait.

Examples with the abilities mentioned in the first post:

Point Blank Shot: requires ranged weapon (and thus the text only applies to ranged weapons making ranged strikes).
Double Slice: requires melee weapons (and thus the text only applies to melee weapons making melee strikes)
Rage: requires melee weapons (and thus the text only applies to melee strikes)
Raging Thrower: specifies thrown weapons (and thus the text only applies to weapons with the thrown trait performing ranged strikes)

This is an interesting thread, and here is my initial thought as a forum (backseat) designer.
Add another character choice at 1st level that would grant the equivalent of one auto-scaling feat.

Choices:
Combat Style -- whatever it takes to be competitive
Expertise -- bonus Skill Increase and Skill Feat at levels 1, 5, 9, 13, 17
Animal Companion -- all the main Animal Companion Feats
Spell Adept -- limited spell casting, choose one spell list, 1 slot per spell level up to 8th?
Lay Healer -- basically giving Lay on Hands + Mercy Feats
Mastery -- bonus Class Feat at levels 1, 5, 9, 13, 17

I'm surprised that "spell" bonus isn't a category, since they specifically called out "powers" as still being spells.

I think having a spell bonus would address most of the confusion. I assume that it did exist at one point but was combined to make the math work..

As other posters have noted, I think the simplified 3 action system is one of the best innovations of 2E. Adding a new action type would turn us back around in the wrong direction. One version of D&D had a rule that changed movement speed into a currency. Instead of using an action, you would spend 10 feet of movement to stand up from prone. I would embrace and expand upon that concept, to fix several issues in 2E.

..break into design mode, feel free to skip…

Instead of a race granting 25 feet of movement they would instead grant 5 points of Speed. Well, scratch Speed, because we’re going to expand the concept further.. so let’s call it Stamina. (Note: I don’t like that term either). What can you do with Stamina?

Move 5 Feet = 1 Stamina
Move 5 Feet in Difficult Terrain = 2 Stamina
Draw a Weapon = 1 Stamina
Open an (unlocked) Door = 2 Stamina
Stand up from Prone = 2 Stamina
Grab an Item out of a Backpack into Hand = 2 Stamina

..now we’re really going to break things..

Raise a Shield = 2 Stamina
At this point, we drop the 3 action system into a 2 action system. Everyone can take 2 actions and spend Stamina.
Stamina is reset to full at the end of your turn (you start at full).

Make an Opportunity Attack = 2 Stamina
Nimbly Dodge an Attack = 2 Stamina

..and we just rewrote the Reaction system.

What about Running people down?
Action (1): Adrenaline Rush – You gain 2 Stamina

What about Spellcasters and “full-round” casting?
Gather Power = 1 or more Stamina (this may require a skill check).
Description: You convert Stamina to Spell Power at a 1 for 1 ratio.
Some spells cost Spell Power (you will need to build up in combat to cast), metamagic uses Spell Power..

.. and I’m done stream of consciousness designing -- thanks if you made it this far…

I agree that Raise a Shield, Superstition, taking a Stance, etc doesn't feel fun to me. Its also unbalancing for melee versus ranged, because ranged doesn't need to spend an action to move.

My solution is adding another trait that basically says once per turn, when you move you can also perform one other activity (i.e. Raise a Shield).

Example Rule: Once per turn, when you perform an activity with the Move trait, you can simultaneously perform a second activity with the On The Move trait that costs the same or less actions.

This is interesting, but it doesn’t feel right.

I like the idea that some items cost focus to activate, cast a Fireball from a Flaming Sword, or using Focus to “awaken” the Giant’s Blood to drink and polymorph into a giant.

I don’t want to track both the non-focus effect and focus effect for every magic item on my character.

I also don’t want to track if I used the once per day (free) use of an item or not. If needed, I would rather see the “spell point” method used for the item, i.e. when you invest in the item for the day, you gain 1 Focus.

I don’t like items having both charges and a Focus option (wands or staves).

I don’t like Focus being based on Charisma. I’d rather have Focus be called Will Points (WP) and based on the higher of Int, Wis, or Cha. I would also have Will Saving Throws work the same way (and drop the Skill Training bonus from Int to balance the "mental" stats).

Of course, if you had 1st to 10th Tier spell, and you cast spells at a Tier equal to one half your character level (and thus your Character Tier is one half your level). That transitions quite readily to replacing Level in the basic formula with Tier:

Skill = Ability Modifier + Tier + Proficiency + (Temporary Bonuses)

Someone had to say it..

*snip*

If nearly everything related to a specific weapon group or fighting style were stripped out and given over to a separate feat pool, you wouldn't have to build a custom class feat or archetype to cater to every fighting style.

*snip

Archetypes are a separate feat pool; they are feat chains or feat trees grouped under a specific theme. Dedication is the only thing that makes them different from a “normal” feats and note that dedication is a separate trait from Archetype (thus presumably an archetype could exist without dedication). Archetypes are also easily expandable by class. An Archer dedication feat could require Hunt Target, and thus would only be available to Rangers with the Archer archetype.

Archetypes could have other traits like “Fighting Style” to tie them directly with class options. For example, instead of putting archery class feats directly in the fighter class, they could have a class feat, or just a built in 1st level class feature, that says pick one of the initial feats of a Fighting Style (which begin on page XXX). In the text of the class it would be explained that when you pick a class feat you can always choose an additional feat from your chosen fighting style instead of the generic fighter class feats.

Later supplements would create more Fighting Styles (or expand existing ones), and when a new player is creating a Fighter and says.. “I’d really like to use a whip!”. The experienced player or GM can say “No problem, that’s in the Masters of Pain rulebook”.

Thanks for the feedback and analysis! The corollary, though, is that we have to provide enough feat options to cover the things each class wants to do in its stereotypical concepts, as you suggest. A decent part of the push for removing gates (or certain gates) comes from several missing niches in certain classes in particular (archer paladins, for example), so with the added pages we'll get in the final book, if we don't paradigm shift, we will definitely need to come up with some awesome feats to fill these niches.

I think adding a multitude of class feats is a poor design decision. A player with no desire to be an “archer” paladin will need to plow through all the “archer” feats that are meaningless to their character concept. Followed by perhaps in the core rulebook or undoubtedly in a supplement all the paladin “great weapon fighting feats” and “two weapon fighting feats” and “mounted ally feats”, when from the get go they wanted to be a healing paladin with a sword.

The design team came up with a great concept of class feats, which I believe was at least in part to address the issue that not all PF1 classes had features that could be swapped out for archetype abilities; but after gracefully addressing that issue the next decision was to slam abilities from the class specific archetypes into a big old pile of class feats.

Jason just published a stream discussing simplicity versus complexity and barriers to entry. In PF1 you could pick a class and play, or you could pick a class and archetype and play, or with a lot of game experience you could try to build through multiple archetypes and/or multiple classes.

The design of class feats along with generic archetypes and the revamped multi-class rules have opened up a huge design space that seems to be over-utilized in the case of class feats and under-utilized for archetypes.

I also like ranger as a separate class.

Though I understand the sentiment with it's current state; I'd like to see what else they come up with.

On a related note the Animal Companion feats could just be rolled into an Archetype so that anyone can take them. The same could be said of crossbow (Crossbowman) feats, and snare (Trapper) feats.

Choosing an class and a "base" archetype would make it easier for new players to create their characters, control future class feat bloat, and add a huge amount of options for experienced players, but I'm ranting a bit based on one of my earlier posts.

Personally I would like to see the chance of success for a skill, attack, or spell versus an equal level opponent be in the 70 to 80 percent range. I find it really discouraging to have spells or attacks do nothing, especially if you are having one of those nights where the dice are against you.

..with a 55% chance to succeed with a Paralyze spell (versus same level).

Opponent (-3): 50% chance to slow, 20% chance to paralyze, 30% to do nothing
Same Level Opponent: 50% chance to slow, 5% chance to paralyze, 45% to do nothing
Opponent (+3): 35% chance to slow, 5% chance to paralyze, 60% to do nothing

..with an 80% chance to succeed with a Paralyze spell.

Same Level Opponent: 40% chance to slow, 40% chance to paralyze, 20% to do nothing
Opponent (+3): 40% chance to slow, 25% chance to paralyze, 35% to do nothing

Chances against the same level opponent hit the target, but against the +3 opponent, the 25% chance to paralyze is way too high, at least if you’re trying to represent a challenge -- like a boss. Except, the 65% to do something (with your limited spell slots), once again, is on target. The problem isn’t the chance to do something -- it’s the chance to almost end the battle with a nasty (save-or-suck) critical effect. To address this we add the creature ability of Enhanced. Enhanced reduces the critical chance against the opponent, look at a Level + 3 Boss, with Enhanced +5.

Boss (+3): 60% chance to slow, 5% chance to paralyze, 35% to do nothing

You have a good chance that your spell did something against the boss, but a very slim chance of a save-or-suck critical effect. Enhanced (+5) increases the amount over hit roll needed to critical from +10 to +15. How do we deal with a variable critical chance at the gaming table? On the creature stats in the bestiary or adventure, we specifically state the critical targets.

Normal == Armor Class: 11 [critical 21]
Boss (Level +3 over party) (Enhanced +5) == Armor Class: 14 [critical 29]

Obviously the average damage per turn would greatly increase with this system, but you can keep a similar time to kill by increasing hit points. I would leave the opponent’s offensive side of the equation (boss attempting to hit the players), unchanged, so a Boss (+3) casting a paralyze spell would have the roll effects of Opponent (-3) above, 50% to slow, 20% chance to paralyze and 30% chance to do nothing.

Can we have Archetypes back?

I like choices. I like reading through splat book after splat book and trying to match a specific archetype’s (or two!) ability with a feat chain to fit a character’s theme or just come up with something unique and interesting. I like considering if I should multi-class, what level I should multiclass and how that fits my character. Many players are not like me.

I don’t like scrounging through 1,000 combat feats to find the 20 that are relevant to me. I don’t like feats that nobody should take because they are so specific or situational that they are “trap” options. I don’t like reading through one hundred 1st level spells to find the ones with meat on them.

Over 60% of the druid class feats are order specific, over 33% of the Barbarian class feats are totem specific. Can you imagine 3 years from now when you’re reading the “Complete Guide to Druids” handbook (or webpage), and you’re skipping 30 of the 35 first level class feats because they aren’t relevant?

We need archetypes back. The barbarian class should have a very limited set of “generic” class feats that any barbarian can choose. Not a lot of choices, making a “standard” barbarian easy for a new player to create. The specific totems should be archetypes. You can continue to add new ones in book after book, but a barbarian with the animal totem archetype would only need to consider the barbarian class feats, and the animal totem class feats. They don’t need to even skip by the dragon totem class feats, because they are found under the dragon totem archetype.

In my opinion spells (and what were previously known as combat feats) need to work the same way. New players (and I) don’t want to comb through 30 1st level spells, which would surely become 100 or more 1st level spells in 5 years. You can capture the essence of the wizard or cleric in 10 or fewer spells per level. Add any additional spells to Archetypes, specific Schools or specific Domains. A cleric of Iomedae would only review 10 1st level cleric spells, and the 3-6 additional spells (from domains).

Using the design set forth so far, these Archetypes don’t even need to be limited to specific classes. A generic Archer archetype that in 1st edition was limited to Fighters, in 2nd edition it could easily be cross-class. Instead of the choosing the Storm Order archetype, perhaps an Archer archetype would be a better fit for a elven druid character concept.

I think we need a new basic action to carefully watch an area and/or enemy.

Guard (Basic Action – 1 action)
You are actively scanning for threats and prepared to take advantage of strategic openings. You can use the Attack of Opportunity reaction until the start of your next turn. Using the Guard action is apparent to all observers. You cannot Guard when you are flat-footed. Using this action ends your turn.

What does this give us?
• Adds the capability to use the threat of an opportunity attack as a tactical decision (with a cost) to all characters.
• Allows quicker decision making for players during combat -- because you know who is guarding and can perform an opportunity attack.

Mechanically, Guard is the same as readying an action to strike, except in exchange for being limited to a specific trigger: “A creature within my reach uses a manipulate action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action it’s using”, it costs 1 action instead of 2 actions.

You could adjust the Fighter class feature for compatibility, replacing Attack of Opportunity with something like Combat Awareness. Combat Awareness: You can use the Guard action as a free action at the end of your turn. Attack of Opportunity would gain the prerequisite “You are guarding” and be added to the list of Specialty Basic Reactions (page 309).

You could add a Guard (action) trait and apply it to defensive actions. Guard trait: When you use an action with the Guard trait you can use the Guard action as a free action at the end of your turn. Some actions that could qualify for the Guard trait: Raise a Shield, Dueling Parry, Twin Parry, and Parry (from the weapon trait).

Multiclassing into a specific class will never be as powerful for all classes. Some classes always get more out of it. That's not a problem and never will be a problem.

I agree with your post. Though I lead my post with Fighter Dedication being mostly useless for those three classes, skipping the multiclass feat was a perk of the suggestion, not the main point.

Barbarian, Ranger, and Paladin have historically been described as martial classes. The fighter class feats are basically combat feats from PF1E. Several of the fighter class feats are already duplicated in the three classes, a trend that would likely continue in future supplements.

Granting them easier (though limited) access to the fighter class feats allows for more customization right now and in the future, removes cross-class duplication, and doesn't increase their overall power (except skipping one feat).

Liir wrote:

Where does it say that you can't spend two or more of the "Step 4: Four Free Ability Boosts" on the same Ability Score?

Page 18, Ability Boosts.

Quote:

When you gain multiple ability boosts at the same

time, you must apply each one to a different score. So,
for example, if your character is a dwarf, she receives an
ability boost to her Constitution score, her Wisdom score,
and one free ability boost, which can be applied to any
score other than Constitution or Wisdom.

Given that information, really need to stop using the word “free” in that section.

Instead of:
After you’ve chosen your character’s ancestry and background, you have four free ability boosts you can assign to her ability scores as you see fit.

If should say something like:
After you’ve chosen your character’s ancestry and background, apply an ability boost to four different ability scores of your choice.

... or they could just swap Step 4 with Step 5 and let those four free ability boosts really be "Free" (while retaining the 18 ability score maximum at 1st level from page 18).

After reading a large portion of the Dex to Damage thread, I started thinking about how I would address the issue. Many posters approached the problem by attempted to carve out a unique combat experience when using finesse weapons. I prefer systems to be consistent; and thus would rather have Dexterity directly impact damage as Strength does today. Instead, I set out with the following goals.

1. Make Strength more valuable to Dexterity based characters.
2. Close the Strength versus Dexterity divide.
3. Simplify.

The result ends up changing how armor works, by replacing the Armor Check penalty with a new attribute of armor (and shields) called Burden. Here are the "bullet-point" changes:

• Armor Check penalties of armor and shield are replaced by a new "property" called Burden.

• Burden reduces your Reflex Saves and Dexterity and Strength based Ability Checks (including Skill Checks).

• Movement is reduced by 5 ft per point of Armor Burden (note this excludes Burden from Shields).

• Arcane Spell Failure is 5% + (Burden x 5%)

• Burden of each item worn is reduced by your Strength Modifier, when Armor Burden is reduced in this way, the Armor provided is increased an equal amount
(Note: Burden is not increased by a negative Strength Modifier)

• Armor Burden and Max Dexterity Modifier is adjusted by the Wearer's Size. (Example: Small is -1 Burden and +1 Max Dex, Large is +1 Burden and -1 Max Dex), this offsets the movement penalty for smaller creatures.

• If you are not proficient in the armor or shield you are wearing increase the item’s Burden by 1. Burden from items worn with which you are not proficient apply their Burden as a penalty to attack rolls.

Example Items:
Leather [Armor: +2, Max Dexterity Modifier: +8, Burden: 0]
Studded Leather [Armor: +2, Max Dexterity Modifier: +5, Burden: 1]
Chain Shirt [Armor: +2, Max Dexterity Modifier: +4, Burden: 2]
Scale Mail [Armor: +2, Max Dexterity Modifier: +3, Burden: 3]
Chain Mail [Armor: +3, Max Dexterity Modifier: +2, Burden: 3]
Splint Mail [Armor: +4, Max Dexterity Modifier: +0, Burden: 3]
Full Plate [Armor: +6, Max Dexterity Modifier: +1, Burden: 3]

Using these modifications you need a higher Strength to get the most of your armor. May your burdens be lifted!