Ouatcheur's page

HUGE disagreement here.

You are removing 2 martials and 2 casters classes, to add 4 caster classes. Do you hate martials or something?

Current PF2 Corebook:
7 MARTIALS (4 MELEE + 3 RANGED) VS 5 CASTERS.

You propose:
5 MARTIALS (3 MELEE + 2 RANGED) VS 7 CASTERS.

In reality we need MORE martials and LESS casters.

Why?

Simple!

Let's look at official Adventure Paths (APs) for guidance.

Except for fact that APs tend to sometimes use too many solo monsters, overall they are too be seen by DMs as "representing well" the design philosophy and intended balance of the game.

Examining LOOT DISTRIBUTION, it seems like this:
(I ignore loot useful for everybody)
- Between 66% and 75% of the loot seems intended more for martials.
- Between 25% and 33% of the loot seems intended more for casters.

Ergo, according to Paizo and what the APs seem to indicate, a PROPERLY COMPOSED 6-persons PC PARTY "should" be made up of:

2 MELEE MARTIALS
2 RANGED MARTIALS
2 CASTERS

And for the martials, a little bit extra emphasis on the melee ones.

So, IMHO, the 1st core book should definitely focus 2/3 of the classes on martials, with only 1/3 on casters. If following the "as designed" philosophy, of course. Otherwise it means most APs, as written and designed, are full of bull, at least relative to loot distribution.

In all, Paizo should not make *lots* of changes. The remaster is not a completely brand-new-from-scratch version. It needs only to be just slightly different enough from 5E to feell a bit different, and remove "copyrighted" stuff. but it shoudl not go so over the top with changes, that it ends up moving totally away from classic fantasy tropes. There is a reason why Sigil and Planescape and Gemworld and other such "exotic" serttings are much less popular: because the CLASSIC fantasy setting remains what is the most preffered playstyle. so the game should not try to deviate too far from the classic classes. Not in the 1st book!

Thus, here is my own list:

Most classes renmain the exact same, changes are in uppercase:

MELEE MARTIALS: Barbarian, Champion, Fighter, Monk, WARLORD.
RANGED MARTIALS: Alchemist (*), Ranger, Rogue.
CASTERS: Bard (Occult), Cleric (Divine), Druid (Primal), Wizard (Arcane).
(basically 1 for each spell list!)
Pushed to next book: SORCERER.
Definitely added-in: KINETICIST.
Total Classes: 13.

(*) Crafting/economy need *huge* revamp. Alchemist too!

My total:
5 MELEE MARTIALS (1 new class!)
3 RANGED MARTIALS (same number)
4 CASTERS (1 less than vanilla, but see below...)
1 Special CASTER (kineticist)

With a new melee martial that would "complete the set" of melee martials according to their respective "power source" for their quasi-supernatural abilities:

Fighter: None (100% training-based!).
Warlord: Arcane.
Champion: Divine.
Barbarian: Primal.
Monk: Occult.

Maybe give each martial feat based on its "magical power source type" lol.

Warlord class would be a "melee controller", able to make a bit easier things such as Trippping, Flanking, Shoving, Pulling, Movement, etc. And a "Command Aura": while a Champion gets mainly defensive/retribution aura powers, the Warlord would have tactics/manoeuvering auras. And finally, use "tactical" stances.

It would also be a class that, while not the best attacker by himself, becomes noticeably better when partnering attacks with another melee fighter using their "tactics" work.

For example, if both the warlord *and* an ally both try to Trip an opponent, it would work better than if two fighters tried to trip the opponent. Basically, would be the "team-based" warrior, thus have a unique flavor.

This class would fil the need for a martial that isn't dead-simple to play. Not as complicate as a wizard of course, else it would need to be pished into book #2.

All the casters you listed are quite cool, but IMHO none are "different" enough to deserve being in the 1st corebook. Playerrs can *already* currently *approximate* respective thematics of all of them. Want to play a summmoner? Wizard or Sorcerer just pick a couple summo nspells, done. Not "dedicated" summoner sure but it mores than throws the proper needed concept around. Psychic? Thaumaturge? Again, just curating the spells picked does 90% of the needed work.to "get" the right flavor.

So while NICE to have them, because httas way you have the RIGHT mechanics for them, still thematically they aren't "core" enough to absolutely need to go into the 1st corebook. Toy can just adapt another caster class.

Even the Magus: it's a gish, so almost by definition it should go into Book #2. Kind of like the Swashbuckler which is a Fighter/Thief mix, or any other "combo-mix" class also: those have to go in book #2, not book #1. Keep book #1 is for the "most pure" core concepts.

Power Attack can be situationally quite useful. Like many other things it is a sidegrade not an upgrade.

However when you compare it to the other level 1 Fighter Feats, it sucks a bit for it to be a mere sidegrade that requires situational things to shine a *little* bit.

Plus, the constant feeling of ending up dealing LESS damage doesn't feel that I am "power" attacking to me. Striking twice I might deal clearly more damage, and the power attack maths *barely* give me more, only on a d12 weapon.

Let's compare the benefits of the ftr L1 feats:
i.e. Are they clearly Sidegrades, or clearly Upgrades?

Sword & Board Fighting Style gets Reactive Shield:
Clearly an Upgrade. You can now Raise your Shield as a Reaction instead of an as Action, freeing up your 3rd action for something more useful. Won't be used EVERY round, but definitely regularly.

2 Weapons Fighting Style gets Double Slice:
Also clearly an Upgrade. You can fuse the damage to better bypass resistance, but mostly you do 2 attacks with your second "off hand" attack WITHOUT MAP! Becomes your go-to way to attack nearly all the frigging time.

1 Weapon & Free Hand Fighting Style gets Snagging Strike.
Also clearly an Upgrade. You are basically doing 2 Actions for the price of 1. aka getting a free +2 to hit again, whenever you hit the foe, no additionnal roll needed! And if your party is not dumb, they Delay to act right after you, so they can ALSO get that benefit. Granted it is a flat footed bonus which is the same as many other ways to get it (Flanking comes to mind), otherwise it would be a 5-stars feat. But it's still quite good!

Ranged Fighting Style gets Point Blank Shot:
Also a *very* nice upgrade. +2 to hit with all of your preferred fighting style attacks, is really, really good! And it's only 1 Action. You'll end up using it nearly every round. Abbsolutely every round in those lots-of-tiny-rooms dungeons, like let's say the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path.

And then finally 2-Handed Weapon Fighting Style gets... Power Attack:
Which is only a much more _circumstancial sidegrade_.

Now, it can even become ALREADY totally mathematically a _DOWN_grade trap option right at level 1, if your Cleric for example likes to cast Magic Weapon. Or absolutely no later than level 4, when you finally have cash for your first Striking Rune.

All the Level 1 Fighter Feats for all the various fighting styles, are all clearly nice upgrades, EXCEPT for Power Attack, which is a *bit* useful but only in *some* situations, and _really_ quickly becomes a useless trap option. Definitely not all DMs allow "easy painless overnight free PC retraining", so while not "stuck" with it, it will probably actually _cost you_ to be able get rid of it later. Then you're nearly stuck with NEXT TO NO SIGNATURE FEAT for your chosen fighting style.

We House Ruled a "fix":

- Power Attack becomes a clear upgrade, not a mere occasionnal sidegrade, and remains useful at all levels.

- Assumed that it will be used relatively regularly, too.

We changed it to:

Power Attack: <> (1 Action)

Traits: Barbarian, Fighter, Flourish, Press.

In order to deal a mightier blow, you gain momentum to push your strength beyond its limits, focusing everything on offense to the detriment of defense. However, this leaves you momentarily reeling and unbalanced.

- Make a Strike with a melee weapon wielded in two hands. That attack loses any potential Precision Damage.

- The attack's base damage adds twice your Strength bonus instead of addding it only once. Note that for Critical Hits, this is added before the doubling of the total weapon damage.

- Until your next turn, you become Clumsy 2.

...

Who cares if electric arc does more damage if you're fighting highly mobile ennemies with +13 to reflex that are gonna reduce your damage to nothing? Cast daze instead they only have +5 to will.

And how do you expect to learn that?

Recall Knowledge is VERY badly designed.

As written, a ssuccess lets you learn basically NOTHING NEW.

Whoopedooo I learned that trolls can regenerate! So frakking uselessly useful! EVERYBODY AND THEIR DOGS KNOW THAT! It's not "special knowledge", it's the most basic bardic tavern stories lore that even kids learn. It's simple raw folklore. Like today in the modern world we don't need to have "Trained" a Special Undead Lore skill to know that vampires hate garlic DUH. We just naturally learned it from stories. Well, we aren't super brithgher than medieval people, and medieval people ALSO had storytellers too.

So you basically need CRIT successes. Ouch. Oh, and it's really useful only for the "tough" monsters, so double ouch. Better roll that nat 20 then!

And how many of those crit successes will you need before getting THE info you really need and wannt? The Recall Lore action doesn't let the player specify WHICH knowledge is gained, only "some" single weakness, DM call.

A success should be a USEFUL success. A crit success should basically be much closer to "here are all the monster stats!" or something. _OR_ give some super specific obscure stuff "Ok THIS particular vampire is named Count Von Drake Bananavich, is a wuite strong vampire, about 2 levels above yours. He really hates bananas, not garlic, and values nobility and diplomatic discussions, and attempts at deceiving him tend to throwc him into a rage."

Not "one stoopid half-useless thing."

Like:

- If a Normal success: "oh that werewolf is a human that can morph into a wolf at full moon"
or
"That fire elemental can make strong fire-based attacks and is immune to fire damage"

= super stupid obvious USELESS shit that everybody already knew anyway.

- If a crit success: "oh that werewolf is resistant to non-magical weapons and is weak vs silver" (with DM patting himself in his stupid back for giving TWO bits of info... despite both being ALSO basic common knowledge. Meanwhile party spellcaster still has nbo idea if he should cast an ATK spell, or a FORT, or REFL, or WILL save spell. OR just magic misdile because the critter is (very often) relatively equally excellent with ALL of its defenses.

The only way Recall Knowledge can be useful is if:

a) DM is *vastly* over generous with the Recall Knoweldge's actual effect. Like, learning something good about goblinss you instead learn about several something good about the "green skins" instead, which is all goblins, all orcs, all hobgoblins, and all ogres.

b) DM doesn't use an Adventure Path especiallly the earlier ones that have tons of super tough fights that are typically almost all above party level, with MOST fights being vs solo minibosses, and almost all fights being vs completely different "party will be encoutering this specific kind of monster only once in the entire campaign", basically wasting 1st round to have A SMALL chance to get the weak point of a critter in a fight where the monster can VERY easily downs 1 or 2 PC per round because his +14 attack vs your AC means it hits 90% of the time and crits 40% of the time. Instead DM uses way more "lower than PC levels" enemies, doesn't make EVERY fight so dang "maximum hard possible for party level" and introduces lots of much, much easier overall difficulty fights (not even neccesarewilyy in an "attrition sequence", and OFTEN reuse the same monster types again (so wasting up a few rounds to try to learn about an enemy in one of the easier fights, can be a useful investment for later on in the campaign).

At that point it is kinda a super circumstancial results "Basic Action".

IMHO way better guidelines shoould exist for DMs tro adjudicate what Recall Kneodlge gives. Like, EVERY monster should not only specify the DCs, but WHAT you learn too. The most *important* stuff first. *Not* the most *obvious* stuff.

The way our DM deals with Recalll Knowledge, he goes "by the book", so basically we need a Crit success to get a single bit of info that *MAYBE JUST MAYBE* might be something useful. Basically 90% of the time, it's a complete waste of time. Oh yeah it's got some great wbp spitting attack! DUH MORON it looks like a half spider half reptile thing, of course it's got a web spitting attack!!! What's the name of the attack? What does it do exactly? What's the Attack bonus or Save DC of which Save? Half or Negate? Secondary effects? Gimme some actual juice man!

And if I crit success you better gimme more than a single "it's strong vs X attacks (naming a *super obvious defense*)". We want the obscure weak points bot the obvious strong points. Like "That Chillghost has low Will saves and is weak vs Fire. It also has a super powerful 3 Actions attack that targets all adjacent foes." It's a frigging crit success for god's sake.

And also, giving us the name of the critter as freebie bonus is cool, on any success. *Not* as *THE* bit of "crit success" info we can get.

To be honest, I think it's intentional.

There are some effects, that if you can use them once per combat are going to really change the game.

Goz Mask for example. If you introduce a mechanic that allows you to refocus it after 10 minutes then you can pretty much count on having it 90%+ of combats. Which means now your whole party buys 1 and use Obscuring Mist. The flat 25% chance to miss by the enemy that the whole party ignores would completely change the game dynamic.

In short, there isn't an easy way to introduce the kind of change you want.

I think the best thing to do is simply to allow for higher level, more expensive versions of certain items to have more uses per day. But we don't have guidance on how to adjust the pricing for such things.

If an item doesn't have the invested trait, you could simply buy multiples of them. But the invested trait will stop you from switching between multiple Goz mask.

I'd do both: item is pricier and allows more total uses per day, with the caveat that each time you use it, it becomes inactive and you can't use an of the remaining daily charges until you spend 10 minutes on that specific item to refocus.

Greater Goz Mask: price x 10, 2 charges
Major Goz Mask: price x 10 , 3 charges

But that also opens the door to having everything else wands allowed to be several uses per day, too. Suddenly it takes 2 hours of refocusing after every fight lol.

Yeah, Cantrips should be compared to like a Str-martial who picks up a bow because they're fighting a flying thing. Rather than a martial using their top combat option.

The danger in making cantrips too good is that these are your "safe" option to contribute because it consumes absolutely no resources, so if they're too good then why would you use the stuff that needs resources.

Full agreement here!

My main beef with powering up cantrips to deal a bit more damage is that if they do that, suddenly the Acid cantrip becomes SUPERBLY GOOD at destroying stone traps and (not too thick) walls from afar. Instead of 1d4+4 damage = 0 effective damage vs stone, and then 1d4+5 after an ability boost becoming "ok you can destroy that 5 foot thick wall, it will only take you two or three days". Instead that 1d6+5 means you're effectively able to "destroy stony stuff" 6 times faster.

Nothing in the rules say you can't cast the same cantrip round after rounds... HUNDREDS OF TIMES. No rule for "your throat is getting too hoarse" or any stuff like that. Same thing a warrior can swing his greataxe hundreds of times in a row, without getting tired. Meanwhile the ranged guy will lack ammo way before making a dent.

Cantrips should be like secondary backup weapons. Not be as good as primary attacks.

Rolling Stats with a Mod only:

All scores start at -2, roll 1d6 to get a stat from -1 to +4.
(Roll 2d3 if you want something with a bit more of a curve)

Alternatively (Slightly higher powered):

Roll 2d6, and subtract the low dice from the high dice. Should give modifiers between 0 and 5.

1d6 averages to +3.5

And PF2 needs it's maths to be quite tight.

Thus, in other words: Such an optional rule should use either one or the other ways, but not give the DM or the players a choice between both of those ways.

Rolling for stats leads to a more powerful PC Party overall.

Why?

Simple:

By rolling sometimes you get high, sometimes average, and sometimes low.

If a player roll very high, of course he'll keep that PC. Dah. And the player will try very hard to make it survive, but he will have an easier time of it because after all that PC has nice stats: he's above the power curve.

But if he rolls low, it is a nigh certainty that the player will ask the DM to allow him to "reroll his character". Else, outright adopt a high-risk-taking chaotic personality and act in order to try to "suicide" his PC as soon as possible, without making the move TOO obvious for the DM. Lots of ways of taking extremely stupid risks. At low level: trying a hard jump over a deep chasm. Or selling your climbing kit, then trying climbing down that 100 feet tall cliff by hand. At high level: trying a hard jump over the lava pool. Not running away against the big bad way too though for the party yet monster that the entire party decided to flee from, "nobly sacrificing" himself, so that the others can get safely away. Doing any number of Leeroy Jenkins, running headlong ALONE right into the middle of several foes, "seemingly" running away (but the wrong way, towards more rooms that have even more monsters). And so on. Basically, anything that is sure to probably deal your PC twice his MAX HP if he fails a though check, or that is sure to lead to monsters deciding to finish him off and eat him right now, instead of running after the other PCs. Or try to murder the king, or piss off the other PCs (NOT pissing off their players, though) and attack them, etc. Whatever works!

Then the death-wish player will simply roll a new PC (unless he was such a dick of it that DM simply says bye-bye loser for good). In any case, statistically speaking, after rotating through a few PCs, the "crap" PCs (i.e. anything merely average is also seen as unacceptable crap by those players) tend to get rather quickly filtered out, eventually leaving only "above-average" PCs.

Also, a temporary story or event based unfairness in-between the different PCs/players is ok. But a PERMANENT imbalance, not so much. Think of it this way: how would you react if one player said "Ok, half of all the treasure ewe will ever find will go to me (rolled high during PC creation), and Bob will get zilch (he rolled low), and you the other guys you split the rest evenly between you".

Campaigns are much healthier when things are more fair. 99% of the time, when a player is asking to roll, what it means is that what he really wants is not "randomness", but free extra power. Otherwise he'd accept whatever he would roll, even crap scores, without whining, or asking for a reroll, or trying to kill off his PC, or, failing all that, leaving the group.

Sometimes it is even the GM who spontaneouslky say "oh your PC has too bad scores, just reroll!" But it would never occur to them to say "Oh your PC is too strong above the average curve, you need to reroll"! What's even the frigging point of going rando, if you won't even accept the randomness? So most of all, using random rolls = breaking the nice and thight math of game balance, right out the gate.

Bye owlbear! We will miss you!

Bye owlbear! Hello hawkboar!

Agreed.

The proper way is to differentiate between hiring

- Hirelings:
Non risky tasks, relatively safe environment.

Example 1: Labourer.
Example 2: Cart Driver.

If the work require to be "far from home" for extended periods, then the pay should be better. If the work is relatively menial, but the
environment is not super safe, but in case of a battle the hireling is
expected to just take cover and avoid the fight, then he gets hazard pay.

As being a very different thing from hiring

- Henchmen:
Risky tasks, hazard pay, not dangerous every day, semi-dangerous environment, overland travel or patrol or sentry guard post.

Example 1: Caravan Guard.
Example 2: Man At Arms

Again, the duration of the job (how far from home and for how long),
the amount, intensity, and frequency of exposure to risks, and what the
NPC is expected to do in case of dangers, all affect the pay.

A good trick is to imagine an NPC setup without the PCs at all. Say soldiers in a little mercenary group, or a crew of pirates . They expect to be paid every day, not just "the days that they have to go fight". They also expect that the amount of danger is "reasonable". This means not being put into fights for days on end, with AMPLE downtime after each battle. They also expect to battle human-sized foes, not fantasy monsters. And they expect a share of the loot, too. And raiding and pillaging, too (or else, pay them better).

Now you want fighters that follow you into a dungeon, fighting SEVERAL times per day against TONS of high fantasy dangers.

Unless they are clearly weaker than the PCs, or extremely friendly (more like helpful companions than real "for hire" henchmen, then), the *strict bare minimum* they'll agree upon is a daily pay with hazard pay *AND ALSO* a full share of the loot (to their families if they die), albeit the PCs will typically get first choice. But a magical item's atual value is part of the loot so if the party of 5 finds a 35 gp magical dagger and 35 gp, this means 10 shares of 7 gp each, thus their 5 henchmen will get 7 gp and the party gets no coins and can split the dagger between themselves.

It's like having friends come help you when moving out: you pay them beer and pizza. Vs hiring professionals, you still give beer and pizza AND pay up the wazzoo too. Henchmen also expect to be treated fairly, not take more risks than the PCs (i.e. not willing to be the first ones to go front row), and not be more loyal than strictly necessary. A king might have his 20 men willing to rush into a deadly fight for him. After all they SWORE an oath to serve him. But mercenaries? They're in it for the money, and very few will accept "You work for free, until we find some loot to split up between ourselves fairly" nor will accept "You work for that fixed pay,and when we find nice loot, you won't get any big extra bonus".

Typically the henchmen are clearly weaker than the PCs, and thus get some fixed pay (which might vary by danger level off current area - overland travel to the dungeon is not the same as the days actually inside the dungeon) + say half a share.

Hazard Pay is for when you expect hopefully there probably won't be any fights, or maybe one, at worst two, and if there is a fight you expect hopefully it won't be too hard to win. That's like x2 to x5 normal "safe" pay. Dungeon Exploration however is more like "Extreme Hasard" pay and is at least 10x normal pay, if not more.

All of that is "negotiable", but ultimately the GM's goal is to make it so hiring "pros" to do the fight for them, will ultimately cost them more than what they themselves gain from being one of the adventurers. This is because "hiring" means having to pay some kind of premium, some extra. the only exceptions are when the NPC is in it by loyalty or super helpful or if doing the adventure aligns with their own goals. But if the NPC is mercerary-for-the-money, then a 5-men party of 4 PCs + either a 5th PC of an henchman-at-arms, it should be noticeably more economical for the first four PCs to get a 5th PC, than an NPC "same level" henchman. Same for the amount of actual risdks thae 56th man is going to take for therm: a Pc is a more loyal and reliable companion than a henchman.

And most of all, the GM should adjust the XPs. A party of 4 Level 1 PCs + 4 Level 1 henchmen, the situation is not "Just give the same XPs and split the XPs by 8 instead of by 4". Nope. The party suddenly counts as being a much stronger party i.e. as being a higher level party. So the encounter itself is now clearly worth LESS XPs, ssay, only 40 XPs instead of 80 XPs, and THEN the GM divides the XPs by 8 characters.

Basically, sure the fights are much easier. But the PCs have to go through a ***LOT*** more fights (in this example, 4 times as much!) to earn the same amount of XPs.

Basically they won't level up as much. As single henchman that has a motivation to be there "for story reasons", fine. But hiring on purpose as a way to make winning fights easy, ok if very short term, but long term it should be a losing proposition both in terms of money and EXPs.

In other words: if and only if the party seems too weak, add a single temporary companion, capable compared to other PCs, but not overshadowing any of them, that is 100% linked to the current adventure. Make sure he gets his fair share of the loot AMD of the EXPs. If possible make sure his goal will be reached within a single level. For example he wants too find the (MacGuffin) (that GM adds in last room of the 1st dungeon level), not make him stick around for the entire Adventure Path (which would basically become a DM PC).

Players that insist on hiring henchmen, typically do so around levels 2-5 when their PCs get rich enough to hire a few men-at-arms, but they aren't so high level that the men-at-arms suddenly start dying like so many useless flies every fight. Allow it, at say half a loot share per NPC henchman, and after a few NPCs "don't make it back", the party's reputation is damaged and nobody is willing to work for them except at extra pay and full loot share. After a few more "don't come back", their reptation is completely ruined and nobody want to be hired by them no matter what.

Typically if the GM points out that fights get slower the more NPCs there are in the party, AND makes swure to tell them that the XPs they got was say "your party is stronger by 2 soldiers, so the module say 80 XPs for that encounter... by a party of 4. With the soldiers in your group, this means that encounter is worth only 60 XPs instead." And then show how they would have already leveled up two game sessions ago. Thrust me they will drop the extra meat FAST, all by themselves.

...

I manage to average out to a TPK every three sessions ...

We're running Abomination vault. Party: 1 cleric, 1 oracle, 1 sorcerer, 1 ranger, 1 fighter. The spellcasters are the iconics PCs. Level 1.

Just reached level 2, cleared the ground level after about 6-7 game sessions of 5-6 hours each. We waste a lot of time on useless stuff I know.

My fighter gets downed *every* non-trivial fight i.e. every fight except vs the Mitflits. Often downed in a single blow. I even reached Dying 3 "rol for 12/20 chances of permadeath" a couple times. The other PCs each got downed at least once, average twice. One fight would have been 100% TPK if we had better understood the rules or if the DM didn't try to "help" us (say for example by not making the enemies attacks the best way they could, with the most powerful attacks they have).

And apart from 1 obtuse player always "doing his own stuff, we all know playing independently instead of as a team is a surefire way to lose, so we always try to maximize our team synergy and combo bonuses, too. Flanking, Dazing, Dazzling, Demoralizing, etc. Even then it's super duper hard fights all the time. For a module calibrated for only 4 PCs!

What I recommend other GMs:

- Check your group playing style / how they use PF2 "system mastery":
If they play like in D&D 5E, everybody maxing out his own heroics without a care for the tactical situation of their friends, assume party is 1 (or maybe even 2) level(s) lower that it really is. Especially if they use the iconics, which are actually weaker than properly built PF2 PCs should be.

- Check how "hard" the Adventure Path is considered by the web. Adjust it's level by 1 or maybe even 2.

- Insert a couple different short level 1 "easy" adventures just to make them level up BEFORE doing the "actual" real adventure.

=====================

Alternatively, a way that players that like to try different characters might love:

Warn every player in advance that the campaign style is they are members of a local (and new) Adventuring Guild, and that there will be lots of PC deaths (just because the system and modules are both quite hard, not because the GM will go out of his way to make it hard), a expect lots of deaths, and players will not constantly play the same character, too. So don't waste too much time creating "your" PC.

Pregen a stack of say 20 PCs using a tool like this: http://rmangels.net/codex/pf2epcgen/

Experience is for the entire party, all characters level up together, including those that aren't played.

Every time the party is in town, including Day 1, and the party spends 1 day of downtime there (enough to fully rest and max HP and spells), each player must either pay 1 Hero Point, or put his PC (if he has one) back in the guild. Then every player without a PC draws three characters "from the guild". Then the GM gives the players 1 minute to choose which one they will play (else they are forced to choose the first one they drew - it's a quick choice from ancestry/class, not a min-maxing analysis of every skill and power), and they put the non-chosen characters "back into the guild". Every time a player makes his selection within that minute, he gains 1 Hero Point. the HP are assigned to the player not to the characters.

Every time your PC dies, the rest of the group is forbidden to just "continue exploring more", and must try to come back to town ASAP.

Every time your PC dies, you gain 1, 2 or even 3 extra Hero Points (gained AFTER he died, though), depending on how "heroic" his death was. If he died needlessly or stupidly, 1 HP. Normal = 2 HP. Self-sacrificing dramatic moment = 3 HP.

All players automatically gain 1 Hero Hero Point every session start, and all Hero Points are lost upon Level Up. Levels up are done BETWEEN sessions as to not waste game session time.

Right before every level up, new adventurers (at least one) might join the guild. The goal is to finish the full Adventure Path before the guild goes extinct (i.e. less members left than number of players), in which case EVERYBODY loses.

...

Every other Fighter fighting style has it's "style defining" feat that is baseline of attacking: dual wielding has Double Slice, free-hand has Snagging Strike/Dual-Handed Assault, Sword and Shield has obviously tons of shield feats. Yet Power Attack, which I assume was supposed to be THE feat for 2 handed builds, mathematically fails to be that. Unless it's Exacting Strike that was supposed to be THE feat for 2 handed builds.
...

Full agreement from me!

Sure, most PF2 Feats are "situational", or "give a really tiny bonus".

But those Feats are the essentials, the core, the "Bread & Butter Combat Feats". Even other fighting class has them, for example the Ranger has a Level 1 Ranger Feat allowing them to shoot *TWO* arrows with *ONE* action, which is just as insanely good as Double Slice is (which the Ranger also have, too).

The argument that Power Attack (PA) is there to help the fighter "cross through" damage resistance, this is super situational, and this feat tactic benefits the same way EVERY fighter, it is not something specifically for "the 2H big weapons fighting style".

While every other style gets something special for their own specific combat style, plus they also get PA, the 2H fighters do not get a feat for their own specific style, "but they get" PA! ... Which everybody else can also get anyway.

In other words if you remove PA, then the "big weapon" fighters get absolutely ZILCH.

Power attack should be a feat that works EVEN BETTER with big weapons.