RPGnoremac's page

A reddit post made be remember the two things that I was really worried about when switching. That was Martial vs Casters and Prepared casting. I mostly played 5e and PF1 Arcanist/Spontaneous Casters.

After playing enough Pathfinder 2e I found I actually enjoy casters the most in PF2 than any other version. The combination of focus spells, cantrips and lack of concentration from 5e make casters feel really fun along with the spell variety. There are a lot of fun spells :). The 4 degrees of success really make the spells feel more unique to me.

Biggest example is a basic spell like Fear is so much more interesting than most level 1 spells in other systems.

I was VERY worried I would hate playing prepared casters. After playing quite a bit of PF2E I love how it makes every character I play feel different. It is just so fun playing a Prepared Caster in Pathfinder Society.

For consistent groups of players I think I prefer spontaneous or flexible casters but in general it is so nice that the casting styles feel different.

The Witch may not know, but I would say the player should know and pick it. It shouldn't be in the DM's hands unless the player has told you to pick for them. In either case, it depends on the story you want to tell.

Gorum would push the witch towards violence.

Cayden is a solid adventurer choice.

Lamashtu would introduce some darker themes.

Thanks for the input. For some reason I thought I had to choose as the GM. I let him pick his patron.

I really can't think of much, because I pretty much just went in expecting to like everything.

I guess the thing I was most worried about was Archetypes vs Full Multiclassing since I always enjoyed multiclassing in other systems.

Overall I was expecting to like it but after playing I like more than I ever imagined. Especially once the APG hit.

Just my experiences after picking Bard...
Do I want an animal companion? Beastmaster works out great.
Do I want to fight up close? Weapon archetype / Champion / Sentinel all works great.
Do I want to focus 100% on spellcasting? Class feats + caster archetypes.
Do I want to use a bow to weave while I cast spells? Archer archetype
The list just goes on and on :).

It is so nice being able to take these options and not worrying about hindering your self, at least too much anyway. Nothing like PF1/5e where you can severely hamper your character multiclassing poorly.

If I get to play in a free archetype game I plan on even delving deeper into archetype combos.

I will list my top things would be...

1. As someone else mentioned I think interesting combat skill feats would be good overall for some of the "weaker" skills. Medicine/Athletics/Charisma skill are already great. I find Intellect/Dexterity/Wisdom characters not as fun in this regard.

2. Of course new ancestries / classes / archetypes :), Shifter/Kineticist type classes are on the top of my list.

3. More feats for ancestries/classes that have low amounts of feats. It would be nice if all ancestries had similar amount of feats. Core ancestries of course can have a bit.

There really aren't many specific things I need in the game at this moment. I am already kind of falling into too much content to actually play :).

Hello all,

I am GMing my first campaign and one of my players is a divine Fervor Witch. As far as I can tell the Witch doesn't know who the deity or being is that is giving them power.

Out of curiosity what deities do you think would make the most since for this? I am also thinking about giving the blessed one to the Fighter since they don't seem to interested into looking at archetypes right now and I am allowing the free archetype rule. I think it would be a fun little storyline.

Originally I was thinking Medic would be good but realize by RAW it seems like battle medicine needs a hand free which means it would be a little clunky for a two handed fighter.

The adventure I am running is the Beginner Box and Troubles in Otari if that helps anything. After that I am not sure where the campaign is going.

However, even with an optimal build and spamming EA + xbow, I hit maybe 2 times with actual attack spells on an evoker over the course of four months. I didn't want to play battlefield control, the character I brought to session zero was very much not the sort to use spells outside of her school, besides and everyone loved her, so that's the path I took.

Out of curiosity were you using truestrike and were your allies knocking enemies down and intimidating them for you? It sounds like you played a lot so you probably did these things.

With truestrike+flat foot+demoralize you shouldn't be missing that much. If I didn't have these conditions I probably wouldn't even cast an attack roll spell. Mainly because save spells feel so much better.

Lets be honest even Pathfinder 2e Martials miss a lot except for Fighters/Gunslingers. The differences is in a session a caster makes maybe 4-6 attack rolls while Martials makes 20+. So they don't feel it as much.

Also did you have good experience with AOEs and save spells? From everything I read these spells feel quite good and align with the blaster caster persona. In my opinion casters in every system feel great in this department.

Really though there is very strange scaling between casters and martials for attack rolls. They are about equal at level 1 then fall behind quite a bit and somewhat catch up when they get legendary.

On the reverse end I find the 4 types of success feels AMAZING for a caster. Having enemies crit fail vs fireball / debuffs feels amazing.

Yes familiars are super easy to get. So I guess maybe I should let them do too much out of combat. The new campaign the player chose Witch and Familiar Master as the free archetype.

Just trying to figure out a good balance for the familiar.

This sounds like the perfect thread for greystone to go on a rant.

The rules are clear about the eidolon.

Summoner, Act Together wrote:

Act Together

Single ActiontoThree Actions
SummonerTandem
Source Secrets of Magic pg. 53
Frequency once per round
You and your eidolon act as one. Either you or your eidolon takes an action or activity using the same number of actions as Act Together, and the other takes a single action. For example, if you spent 2 actions to Act Together, you could cast burning hands (2 actions) and your eidolon could Strike (1 action), or your eidolon could use its Breath Weapon (2 actions) and you could Stride (1 action).

This lets you each use separate exploration activities like Avoid Notice as you travel.

Not sure how I missed that when reading the ability. So easy to miss a few words. Logically I feel that would mean Mature Animal Companions and Independent familiars should be able to do this to then correct? Since they get to do one free action a round.

I do see the big thread about familiars. That thread just gives me more confusion.

How should Eidolins/Animal Companions/Familiars be treated for out of combat and exploration activities?

I am GMing my first campaign and one player has a familiar and one is a Summoner. I can't seem to find info about of combat activities for companions.

For example I have 3 players and when exploration starts...

Player 1 wants to search

Player 2 raise shield

Player 3 stealth

Should I let the Eidolin and Familiar to do things during this time? Would a familiar be able to "scout" and the eidolin stealth also at the same time?

Also since the Eidolon + Summoner have the same trained proficiency can the eidolin just aide everything they do anything out of combat?

In combat it would be "Act Together" Eidolin uses aide, Summoner uses pick lock then the reaction would be used for aide.

Also should companions get free perception checks when checking for traps/hidden items/enemies? My gut says no but I just wanted to double check.

Do medium armor characters feel like they must take this archetype? Should this archetype even exist? Other armor gripes and discussion.

I personally have never felt like I needed to grab this feat. Not because it is bad. So I like that it is in the game for some fun builds.

All it really does is give +1 ac but you lose 5 speed late game. Then of course you can "dump" dex and put those points into other things. Dex can be good for ranged attacks though.

The only gripe I have is how badly balanced unarmored is early game while late game it is equal to other types. Just a strange situation to me that casters like Wizard/Witch are incentivized to pick up some a proficiency then retrain once they hit 18/20 dex.

I actually find this archetype more interesting for unarmored characters compared to medium for early game. I also find Champion to be much more interesting though when it come to archetypes.

So overall I almost never grab this archetype. I would rather pick up light armor and retrain it for most characters.

In general I don't think that Wizards are underpowered. Their features seem to be about the same power level as other classes. I just don't find their feats particularly interesting though.

Just wanted to comment on Deriven's comment about weapons. I don't think you would really have to go out of your way to get a particular proficiency. Just having turns being spells + focus spell/crossbow shot/recall knowledge should make you quite effective.

On a side note I find recall knowledge to me the least satisfying combat action. It entirely depends how much info the GM gives you. Also a lot of the time you can get knowledge you as a player you already know.

I admit PF2 really fits perfect with me. Before I played PF2 I probably would have really been into PF1.

After playing PF2 I feel it really is great being able to easily make characters that are good and fun.

I personally find PF2 character creation more rewarding than PF1.

Overall it is definitely interesting hearing everyone's opinions in the thread.

PF2 suffers this as well. And like Claxon has mentioned, you only have to optimize once in PF1. In PF2 you have to optimize every single battle.

I am incredibly concerned about the difficulty comparisons with regards to PF1 to PF2 because I don't get many chances to convince my group to keep playing PF2, but I also am not going rebalance every single encounter for an AP because that defeats the entire purpose of buying an AP. I have enough to do as it is. Either combat works as printed, or it doesn't.

I mentioned it earlier but it does take almost no effort to just raise players level by X to make the game easier and have players hit more in general.

I think it is crazy to expect APs to run perfectly without any changes for every group. To expect a group of PF2 Veterans and PF2 newbies to have a good challenge and fun without any adjustments just seems impossible to me.

I haven't played enough PF1 but depending on the players I bet some of those APs were hard for players too.

I would say PF2 APs are okay for newer players and leaning more on the hard side so far. Truly though there are some players that just hate not having a high hit chance by default.

Stacking debuffs/buffs in PF2 can easily get you to a good hit/crit but some players want the reverse where by default you have a good hit chance and stacking buffs/debuffs can put your chances to amazing. That has kind of been my experience in 5e/PF1 where characters have a pretty good chance to hit but once you start stacking buffs/debuffs their hit chances can hardly miss or as high as 80% hit chance.

Well after posting in the rules it was stated that Dragon Breath is not an innate spell so Dragon Breath is very hard to make scale well for most characters.

There are a few characters like Wizard/Witch/Sorcerer(Arcane) that can still use it quite effectively though.

It seems like it is a very "niche" archetype now and you just pick the few things that make your character better. The high level stuff can be quite fun in general though.

To me even the basic kobold breath would be excellent for a monk, simply because of flurry of blows:

1 action to perform 2 unarmed strikes + Kobold Breath ( ever 1d4 rounds ).

You might also consider to use the focus points for other stuff:

lvl 1 Ki strike ( 1 focus pool )
lvl 2 Sorcerer Dedication
lvl 4 Basic Basic Bloodline spells ( 2 focus pool )
lvl 6 Basic Sorcerer Spellcasting
lvl 8 Dragon Disciple Dedication
lvl 10 Claws of the Dragon
lvl 12 Meditative focus

by lvl 12 your unarmed attacks would deal 3d6 ( 1d6 base + 2d6 greater striking runes ) + 2d6 ( damage depends your element ).

so you will be able to do 2x strikes + 1 breath ( even if not so good it would be better than a third attack ).

And you will also have an extra focus point to perform a ki strike, to boost even more your attacks.

ps: remember to go for a ring of wizardry ( it's just uncommon, so it would be quite easy to get with a lot of effort during downtime ), in order to get 2 more lvl 3 spells ( haste 3/day ). To proceed further into spellcasting may not be worth it, given the cost.

That would definitely be an interesting way to go. I do have a lot of ways to go with the character since I am just level 2. So far flurry of blows + electric arc has been surprisingly effective. There are definitely a lot of options what is what I love about PF2. Just have to rethink which direction to take my character.

I did want to add I was trying to avoid going the spellcaster dedication route for two reasons though.

1. The campaign is on Roll20 without any books and I find it SUPER annoying adding spells manually.

2. Every character I make ends up being a caster or hybrid caster so I was trying to stay away from that route by just going for martial feats + dragon breath but seems like dragon breath might just not be worth the trouble.

Also I really want to try to fit in a nice stance + upgraded stance (stumbling or tiger stance).

That is true, but when I sat down to play some 2e with people and someone can't hit anything, there isn't any advice I can offer him aside from "Well, roll better.*" At least in PF1 you can minimize the impact poor dice rolls have on your character.

*There are tactical level decisions players can make to increase their chances of hitting in combat, but even then there's only so much you can do depending on party makeup.

I mean I understand your point but the game tries to make a good challenge so I feel it is only logical monsters + players have somewhat similar chances to hit.

The game of course could have done the route of giving higher hit % for both players and monsters. I actually have no idea if this would be better or worse. All I know is crowd control spells with high % chance to hit can really break games. I have seen this a lot of times in tactical video games too.

I think it is kind of strange to think players should eventually get huge advantages over monsters in hit/dodge percentage. PF1 it definitely felt like you could do this if you just focus your feats good.

Oddly two players in our campaign had the complaint of "We never get stronger the monsters AC keeps up with our attack so our hit% never goes up". I really am surprised people would expect to be better than monsters at equal challenges.

I admit it is actually fairly common in both TTRPGs and video games that players actual do progress better than enemies. It isn't uncommon in video games where players have like a 70% chance to hit at low levels in games than all of a sudden have 99% chance to hit by the end.

Have you considered, since you are a combatant, to instead go for the dragon barbarian archetype? It would be more efficient and less demanding.

I admit I didn't look at Barbarian much. It looks like I could get Dragon Breath at level 12 with Barbarian if I look at it.

What would my DC be based off of if I took Barbarian? All I see is that Barbarian archetype gives you trained in Barbarian DC.

My stats are
STR 12
DEX 18
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 16 (thought Dragon Breath was an innate skill)

I am not sure if there is a way to get a decent scaling breath type attack. If there is I of course would love to have suggestion. Kobold is 1d8 every 2 levels which feels like will always be worse than just attacking unless there are like 4+ enemies.

As far as I can tell my best option would be go Sorcerer for
(2) Sorcerer Dedication
(4) Basic Spellcasting
(6) Basic Blood Potency (reach spell?)
(8) Dragon Disciple Dedication
(10) Dragon Breath
(12) Expert Spellcasting

Overall that would work okay but would have to give up every class feat :(. If only there was free archetype in my game lol. Then I could do lots of things.

The comparison is super strange. I also feel Alchemist bombs are mostly balanced around the Alchemist class feats like calculated splash + expanded splash.

Also there are just a lot of benefits of bombs over scolls.

Scrolls take more action (3 unless for some reason your character is always carrying around a scroll) while a bomb takes 1 action since you will either have quick bomber or quick draw if you are planning on throwing bombs regularly.

I am not saying Alchemist are super strong but in general there are a lot of feats that makes bombs better. Also I am not sure most Alchemy items are supposed to be a "good value" for buying since pretty much the characters that use them get the items for free.

I guess I will just give up on using it then for Monk since I would like to grab some Monk feats. Well if it is not an innate there are only a few classes that can use it somewhat effectively without it falling off hard.

That is very disappointing since the only class that gets scaling arcane traditions is Sorcerer/Wizard/Witch and Wizard/Witch generally don't want Charisma and Sorcerer can already learn it by going Draconic.

Out of curiosity how can Oracle be charisma based arcane? I haven't looked everything about Oracle super thoroughly but I know normally they are just Divine.

Also to get a multiclass proficiency it would be very awkward. Since you would have to...

Go (2) Caster Dedication > (4) Basic Spellcasting > (6) Random Caster Feat > (8) Dragon Disciple > (10) Dragon Breadth > (12) Expert Spellcasting

Looks like I have to give up on any sort of Dragon Disciple using Dragon Breath. I could still use it for the level 12+ stuff though. The real question would be what level to take the dedication feat.

The real problem is my character is stuck with Charisma instead of Wisdom so I can't get Ki Blast which is pretty much just as good but wanted to breath ice as a dragon and not sure the GM will let people change anything.

Thanks for the responses. Kobold Breath has "Each creature in the area must attempt a basic saving throw against the higher of your class DC or spell DC" which is a lot more versatile. At the same time Kobold Breath seems kind of weak sadly :(

The best it can do is 1d8 heightening vs 2d6 from Dragon Breath.

I am planning on running a high Charisma based Dragon Disciple Monk. Originally I was under the impression the Dragon Breath from Dragon Disciple was an innate arcane spell. https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1945

I looked at some older threads but no one seem to have have an actual answer. Innate spells are actually quite complicated themselves but since innate spells scale with your highest tradition Dragon Disciple seemed decent for casters.

Originally I was planning on it being an innate spell and playing as a Monk since their divine spellcasting would cause it to scale decently.

Has there been any official updates on what this was actually supposed to be. Shape of the Dragon says it is an innate spell and pretty much every spell I have seen states that it is an innate spell or a spell that uses X tradition proficiency.

If there is controversy I guess I will ask the GM to be sure. If it is not an innate spell it seems like it would be quite bad since it would be an Arcane Spell based of Charisma which means so little characters could even use it.

It is an arcane spell but it doesnt exactly say innate spells. Shape of the dragon states it is an innate spell.

If it is an innate spell then it scales with your highest spellcasting proficiency

If it isnt an innate spell then it would only really be usable by Wizard/Witch or Sorcerer which would be really sad/bad.

I looked a little more and there seems to be no consensus, so I am not sure. It seemed logically to me that it was an innate spell since Shape of the Dragon was... I guess I will post this in the rules thread.

I feel it is oddly bad for Draconic Sorcerers. I am not sure that is much of a problem. Also by RAW I think you can take it on any non Draconic Sorcerer which would actually be really good.

By RAW all you have to do is be a Kobold and GMs are free to wave that restriction too.

There are a lot of classes that can benefit a lot from it.

Champions/Monks

-Dragon Breath - Since logically it should be an innate spell and both these classes spell DC scale. They can also use their tankiness to be in a good position and get focus points.

-Shape of the Dragon - Haven't ran the numbers but feel any martial should be able to use it good.

Charisma Casters

-Pretty much benefit from everything.

It definitely feels like an Archetype you want to pick and choose the things that really fit for your character. For example I am playing a Monk and am mainly just getting it for Dragon Breath and all the 12+ feats probably.

I probably wouldn't consider it a super strong archetype but I find it very thematic and cool. I do kind of wish it was less limited though and players could freely choose it. I didn't really want to be a Kobold but that is the only way for me to be a Monk Dragon Disciple without asking the GM for exceptions.

This discussion really interest me because I am very tempted to play with the free archetype for our next campaign. In general I think it is clear that there are powerful archetypes.

The real question is does allowing free archetypes break the game when a player picks one of these archetypes as a free archetype?

For example wouldn't Jalmeri Heavenseeker be just as big of a problem with a player picking it up in a regular game for balance?

The only difference I see is a player can take Jalmeri Heavenseeker + class feats with the free archetypes.

Has anyone played with the free archetype variant and had these players taking powerful archetypes really unbalancing the game?

I mainly look at the variant rule as a way to just have players have more choices and experiment with the archetypes. I found new players almost just ignore archetypes without the rules.

The real question when deciding to use the free archetype rule is what to do about the restrictions about "Special You can't select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the Jalmeri heavenseeker archetype." I found out a lot of people have different opinions on this part.

Personally I feel that the "free" archetype shouldn't have these restrictions since there are a lot of classes I don't even want class feats for sometimes :(

RPGnoremac wrote:

I am curious, for PF2 did you play this way too? I feel if you attacked down players in PF2 then it would have easily been just a lot more difficult with both games following encounter building.

Of course in every game if you put monsters way more challenging it can be dangerous. In my experience 5e you kind of had to do this unless the players really messed up their characters. There were some rare monsters (intellect devourer) that were just way too powerful. I really find it super strange that even...

I attack players when they go down in PF2e as well, but I find it just doesn't happen all that frequently (them going down that is). And when it does the next attacks miss or the target only gets hit once more before getting healed up and not allowed to go down again (god I love the dying/wounded system)

Being able to get back up to full HP before nearly every fight helps as well in PF2e imo (as it did in PF1e). It stops HP attrition from being as big of a threat as it can be in 5e across a long adventuring day.
You have options like healer warlock or the healing spirit cheese. Both came after I had already run my longer campaigns by the time Xanathars released.
That said I did houserule healing spirit as 40d6 healing for a level 2 spell is stupid, especially the visual of how players have to act to get it (obvious an exploit rather than intended ability).

I have run to completion for 5e
- Hoard of the Dragon Queen (only a half adventure technically, but long enough)
- Princes of the Apocalypse (actually run the first half two other times too)
- Out of the Abyss
- Curse of Strahd
- Tomb of Annihilation

(and waterdeep dragon heist and lost mines of phandelver although both are only to level 5).
I have also run other published adventures but not finished them.

There also tend to be oh so many ways to mitigate enemy actions or reduce their effectiveness in some way in PF2e. And stuff like evasion to improved evasion boosts their survivability even...

Ah sounds like your players were just playing more risky in 5e and you had a lot of encounters in the day, which I know 5e is balanced around but I have never had that happen in any games. I played a bit of Curse of Strahd and found the amount of encounters a day were super low and played Storm King's Thunder and there were maybe 2 instances where we had more than 2 fights in a day.

Normally players tend to rest a lot in the games we played which imo makes 5e super easy. PF2 we do this too but feel the game is much more balanced with lots of resting.

It is interesting that you had such experiences in 5e. Since I just never thought of it being hard in the least. Admittingly I was always some multiclass caster who had the shield spell. Since playing a pure martial just seemed super boring in 5e. Also arcane casters were super powerful in 5e.

Biggest thing is probably the resting thing since if players rest every 2 battles the games difficulty way favors casters.

Personally I am not a huge fan of "time sensitive" making the game more difficulty. I just find it not fun losing battles because you had a large amount of encounters and are out of slots. Especially since DnD/PF it is super easy to just say "I want to rest".

I really do enjoy how PF2 battles are quite tough when everyone has full life and a good amount of spell slots. I hate when battles are balanced around..

Having Slots = Super Easy Battles
No Spell Slots = Hard to impossible battles

It is nice how PF2 most battles are quite challenging in all circumstances. Even PF2 casters out of spell slots are quite good with skill actions + focus spells + okay scaling cantrips.

I attacked downed PCs in all three systems though? In PF1e characters just didn't go down or they had the ability to reverse the state very quickly.

5e has downed state rules for a reason (as does PF2e), while some people don't like running dangerous games. I am not sure the default assumptions of a system should be ignored when considering its lethality.

It is about how often a player going down occurs and what sort of scenarios a system encourages / allows for. 5e having no MAP, split movement and bounded accuracy while also having PF1e style HP progression but not its sheer number of options to mitigate threats means encounters can be quite dangerous if the party doesn't have the option of short adventuring days.

I decided to edit my post since you already answered my original question. Out of curiosity were you following encounter building rules in all systems? I just find it super odd that 5e was tough at all compared to PF2 unless you really were putting them against tougher enemies than they should have been fighting.

I played 3-4 campaigns on 5e and the only time I ever went down was because one of our allies did something stupid. Other than that I found most the battles super easy when GMs used the CR rating. Except for some broken monsters like intellect devours that just were super powerful for their rating.

I get that, but that's just not how my group really works.

The GMs tend to run APs because we have busy lives, infants, hustling at our jobs, etc. None of us really have the mental bandwidth to do it from scratch anymore.

So while it's possible and feasible to do, it's simply not realistic for my group. And I expect I'm not the only one in this sort of position, where as a player, you can't expect a GM to lower the difficulty of pre-written adventures to support your play style.

I would say it takes the GM almost no effort to do this sort of gameplay though. For APs all you have to do is raise player level by a certain amount and give out the same XP. I would say with how XP works in PF2 this is super easy.

The real deterrent "some GMs just don't want to lower the difficulty". Like one poster mentioned when playing video games if a game has easy/normal/hard vs normal/hard/very hard some people will select normal instead of easy because of their perception. Kind of the same thing for PF2 where people don't want to play below "normal" even though they might enjoy it more and it would fit the group better.

I really haven't GMed other system but for PF2 it seems super easy to change difficulty based on what players want. If players want an easier game just raise the players level by 1 or 2. The truth is maybe the GM actually likes it being a decent challenge for players. They have to have fun too, I actually am not sure how PF1 GM's even have fun at all. When monsters have like a 5-10% hit change and a 90% chance to get hit.

For a comparison I have played in a few APs as written and my experiences have been...

PF2 Extinction Curse: I really felt there was a lot of challenging fight and enjoyed it's difficulty. Some fights were tough but it was nice that monsters always had a chance to do something.

DnD 5e (3 APs): I found the APs all super easy and never really was in a threat of death unless GMs decide to put players against things way over their level.

PF1 (Iron Gods): We were 3 new players to PF1. Difficulty has just been super weird. Early on things regularly killed players in one round, then there was the Fighter who basically got hit on a 20 only for most the game. Any monster that could be tripped easy was super easy. Then there was just random things where if you didn't have an answer to the game is super difficult. Swarms, Freedom of Movement trivializes so much and so many disabling effects. So many monsters in the campaign are just immune to lots of small attacks. Things just dies so fast and overall most fights are easy for 3 new players. I can't even imagine what it is like for people who know what they were doing.

Overall my favorite games go PF2>PF1>5e. When it comes to difficulty I am very surprised people praise PF1 for it. I love the character creation but combat difficulty has been strange to say the least. There are just so many instant disables and even bosses dies super quick.

This has been a long thread but just wanted to say I really loved all the APG classes. I wouldn't really called them "wonky" mechanics. I feel they are really fun and make the characters more fun.

All the characters are just so different so far!

Rogue mainly wants to attacked flat footed people all the time.

Ranger has to hunt all the time.

Swashbuckler has to get panache all the time.

I think PF2 does an amazing job making all martial characters feel different.

Then again I am someone who loves Pathfinder 2 and enjoys Pathfinder 1. From this thread you can definitely tell there is a lot of bias for each edition :)

Are voluntary flaws an optional rule? I assumed the optional in the rulebook was meant it was optional for players to take rather than it being an "optional" rule.

I have never played a campaign before with strangers, didn't realize it was ever something players wouldn't be okay with.

Oddly I have always just played with friends and normally we don't have much of a session 0 other than making characters sometimes.

I would much rather make my character during my first sessions for these reasons though, but understand some people might not like to have a session where players just make a character.

I have a random question from this thread. Shouldn't players know if a monster is dead or not in general? Or from now on after every combat do I have to check monsters vitals...

I really feel like a player should be able to tell if a monster is actually dead if they are in combat with it. I don't think having to manually check every body would be fun "just in case it has a mechanic"

I feel like that is why PF2 defaults to death and it is up to the GM to let players know if something isn't dead otherwise everything is just assumed dead imo. Asking every time you fight monsters "is it dead"? Just isnt fun to me.

As a player I am not sure I would be happy with this outcome personally. I really don't think anything like this should ever have happened even if it is by RAW.

PF2 has so many rules that players shouldn't get penalized for not knowing how regeneration works especially after a successful recall knowledge. Expecting players to know monster mechanics in super detail is kind if crazy to me.

I know there are rules for everything and normally I always try to follow them but this just screams not fun for me at all. This isn't really a PF2 issue, I just don't think anything like this should happen for any game.

Gaulin wrote:

I feel like making metamagics cost a free action but only one per spell would make them a lot more viable and fun, without being too overpowered.

I agree. Certainly on some limited basis via a feat.

I mean metamagics for free for a free action would be a crazy power jump for caster and not sure how you are saying they wouldnt be too overpowered

It would 100% forces casters to grab metamagic feats which PF2 tries to avoid. Of course some some classes do kind of have amazing almost mandatory feats.

It would just push metamagic from being a situational 3rd to just making spells better.

"Maybe" a metamagic focus power like cackle would be okay but I think that might just be a little too good still.

To be fair PF2 is quite complicated and there are 10+ characters which can bring crazy amount of things to a table.

"Skill" as you call it quite complicated in PF2 and TTRPGs in general.

Outside of a fight skill just has so many factors and adding roleplaying to the mix too.
-Making good characters is of course important.
-Knowing what the enemy does makes most battles a lot easier. Generally players shouldnt use out of game knowledge though.
-Having a group that synergizes.
-Using combat tactics effectively, I real feel PF2 feels better in this department. Main issue is if you dont know what monsters use it is hard to play smart.

Then the game tries to balance 4 seemingly random characters together against an "encounter rating" of random creatures with different abilities.

Overall I really think it is crazy to think every encounter will be balanced great where 4 random character will almost always win every fight when they have bad luck.

Some groups will be better than others and some of that falls on the GMs shoulders. That is why most video games have easy/medium/hard.

I think PF2 does a decent job with this but as everyone can tell everyone experience in PF1/PF2 is so much different. I really feel PF2 does a great job with how many factors are in the game.

I think with a decently synergistic group and good tactics most severe fights should be doable. I think PF2 does quite good with this and feeling challenging.

Another problem with the 1 action Metamagics is that Concentrating on a previously cast spell also takes an action. If you have to concentrate on a spell, that only leaves you 2 actions to actually do anything else, like being persistent Slowed 1 after casting any ongoing concentration spell. That is crippling for casters.

5e solved the problem by allowing casters to maintain 1 Concentration effect per round as a free action that can still be interfered with by damage or situational/environmental disturbances. Why didn't Pathfinder 2e do the same?

Just want to say 5e is so much worse IMO and would never want their limiting mechanic. Characters only get one concentration action and the abilities go away randomly if you get hit.

Not sure why anyone would want that. In Pathfinder 2e you get the option to have 2-3 "concentration" spells at once. Also 5e had every buffs/debuff spell with concentration becaus of this.

Theoretically in PF2 the spells with sustained actions are supposed to be stronger. Yes it takes an action but it is supposed to be a "strong" lasting effect. It is fun being able to combine buffs in PF2.

I would say 5e feels so much worse for casters in this department. Since 2e gives a lot more freedom. 5e you just cast your 1 concentration spell per combat than just use nukes/heals every turn because if it.

I personally love metamagic in PF2. I think there are plenty of good ones so far..

My favorite is probably reach spell, it can potentially be a lot more helpful than move+cast spell.

It is nice that metamagic is useful at every level while in PF1 it is mostly great at higher levels with some exceptions.

I do look forward to some new ones in the future. I know they kind of are staying away from once a day abilities but I would love some more powerful metamagic that uses focus points or just once a day.

at this time, for our group, for our GM, the time needed to run the AP as published is the limits of available diversion time
I tell him to ignore the rest of his real life and focus his time on AP-revising for session preparation yet he keeps balking at that

I wish we all had more time
but given RL commitments, investing the time to pre-vet, then adjust the AP is a non-starter

I’d love to full blown homebrew GM a game for our group
currently not viable

so we are playing ‘straight out of the box’

I do want to say I hear Age of Ashes is the toughest AP for some fights.

My GM was pretty much like this too which 100% gave some players bad impressions IMO. They did not enjoy getting knocked out / crowd controlled on a regular basis.

PF2 makes it super easy to make APs easier though. Just give players a level or two and for the encounters give the XP as written. You could also just give most enemies the "weak template".

But yes I had the same experience with our GM in Extinction Curse where monsters were just trouncing allies and just kept running as written. By level 7+ we played smarter and the game felt so much better. Now that we know better I feel using the above examples at the start of these APs would help everyone's enjoyment at the start.

I even made a thread and pretty much everyone said running APs as written for a new group can feel really bad.

In general tactics are hard to teach. No matter what I say players will run up to giant monsters using 0 defensive actions and get pummeled.

I've been reading this thread, and I am the GM who ran the encounter that is being discussed here.

Since this does discuss an AP encounter, I am going to go ahead and spoiler alert here.

I just wanted to say I really enjoyed the read. I am little surprised that they came to the conclusion "lucky rolls" is what determined the fight. Especially since some weren't even that lucky/unlucky...

Just for examples missing when you require a 14+ isn't even unlucky, yes the monster hits more but that is what makes them tough!

Main difference I feel are APs in PF2 difficulty is just too high for a lot of groups. I am almost positive if you just increased every player level by 1 or even 2 players would have felt a lot better in this regard.

Since I feel that would give the same feeling as PF1/5e. We also felt battles were just crazy difficult sometimes in Extinction Curse.

I feel like this isn't really a PF2 problem since if players enjoy these types of combats you can leave it as is but there are like 100s of ways to make these players happy. I bet even using proficiency without level would help because then boss fights or big monsters wouldn't feel so crazy.

Out of curiosity did your players enjoy the on level or lower battles? I feel PF2 really pushes monsters 2+ party to be tough opponents

In my experience I feel players really enjoy beating up monsters lower level than them :)

Does anyone else feel that a guide might be helpful that shows gives a new player "a rough summary" of each class, kind of like a "choose your class guide". IMO the classes definitely all feel great but sometimes mechanically they feel a lot different than what new players imagine.

It's been well over a year since release of this game, and still I have absolutely no frackin' clue why attack spells were bungled so badly.

tl;dr: just pretend nobody uses attack spells and you're fine

Yup it is kind of strange that they made save spells feel AMAZING imo which indirectly makes attack spells feel really bad.

Currently we are in a weird situation where the only decent way to use an attack spell is true strike.

We are also in a weird situations where electric arc reigns supreme and makes every cantrip look horrible. Only saving grace is if players cause flatfooted attack spells are "ok" compared to electric arc on a single target.

IMO they just did wonders with saves since...
Crit Failure: Rare but destroys a monseters
Failure: Casters are normally super happy with this result.
Success: A lot of times depending on the spell I am happy with this too.
Crit Success: Okay this still sucks but in my experience it isn't very common but still a lot more common than a crit failure.

It is probably 100% to late for them to change things but I would have loved if they just gave them a "miss" effect like save spells so that they are different than melee attacks and accuracy wouldn't be as big of an issue. I love the success effects of saves, also makes spell variety so much better.

My only guess is they are scared of buffing attack spells because +1-3 potency runes will increase damage by 10-30% (roughly) which might be more than they want.

My biggest problem is Primal/Divine casters just feel even worse. As far as I can tell if you want to use attack spells you 100% want to either use a hero point or find a way to get true strikes.

Which there will be 0 new players that will play a Druid and be like you know what I will go Sorcerer multiclass + basic spellcasting and by a staff of divination... Instead they will be like me use Produce Flame / Ray of Frost then after a few sessions cast electric arc + saving throws spells the rest of the game. Luckily there are A LOT of spells to choose from :)

Split shot also has some additional restrictions on it, these being:

- Single target
- No duration
- No effects beyond damage

Meeting these criteria drops the list to

Acid Arrow, Acid Splash, Admonishing Ray, Divine Lance, Produce Flame, Shocking Grasp, and Telekinetic Projectile

So 7 spells across 4 spell lists.

Out of curiosity how does Acid Arrow work for this. If you use a level 2 acid arrow does each monster take 1d6/2 (rounded down) every round . That seems to be how it reads to me but seems kind of odd at the same time.

Yep

Almost everyone understand flanking from the start. It is moderately easy to get and happens fairly often even with novices.

Making enemies Frightened or Stupified takes more effort and doesn't last. Timing is important. Casters really need it to get their critical chances above 5% so they can shine.

This is one huge thing I love about PF2. Every character can support each other very well. Even just from skills not even going into class features.

There is one thing for certain if players delay tactical combat will go 100% smoother. I am realizing some players really have a hard time comprehending when delay is good or bad. The power of buffs/debuffs can easily double if you delay smart.

Strength - Tripping / Grappling really helps your ranged characters and other melee so they don't have to get into dangerous positions.
Intellect - Let's players find information about the enemies so you can exploit them or finding about an AoO is great.
Wisdom - Same as above but also gets battle medicine!
Charisma - I admit I just love Charisma so much between bon mot and demoralize you can really help your party.

Sadly it is rare to see new Martial players use these options. In my limited experience some players almost always use a second attack than using this effects. Even when you tell players a -1 to all dcs is great it seems like players would rather just do Xd10+X even at like a -10 penalty and maybe flank. Oddly I see players do attack+attack+demoralize instead of demoralize+attack+attack too...

This can leave casters getting 0 benefits from the team and feel worse because of it imo. If a martial trips + demoralizes a caster actually could probably do decent damage with a true strike + spell (fire ray is decent).

Delaying has been a surprisingly hard tactic to teach and casters can benefit greatly from it to before unloading their "big spell". Just as a random example of a turn order...

Player A (Bard)
Player B
Monster A
Player C
Player D

I mentioned oh player C/D could delay so the Bard can buff/debuff the enemy before your attack for 0 negative effects. Then these things can occur...

1. The player agrees and delays his turn for a net gain of +1-5 modifier. Yay we win the fight easy.
2. The player states that is stupid "I lose my turn". Then they just walk up an attack giving no buffs for the team and just losing like 20-50% damage. This causes the players to have a much harder fight.
3. I spend like 10+ minutes explaining and normally they delay but afterwards they still don't seem to understand why it was good.

It really just seems like common since to me but it is surprisingly hard to teach people.

Oddly I actually saw a player delay until after Monster A in this type of situation completely losing his turn. I do this in PFS because I got tired of explaining this :(, it is just so hard to get 3+ players to delay for positive results in PFS.

So when a "simple" tactic like this is hard to teach I 100% understand why it is hard to explain why casters are good. Without delaying casters can feel so much worse. In this example if Player B is in a group that doesn't delay their power level would be horrible. Even just looking at level 1...

If Player B uses Magic Weapon the ally that he used it on could get knocked out and he would have "wasted his turn".
-Delaying and using it first gives the Martial a great turn

If Player B uses fear and the monster rolls a success they get frightened 1 and it immediately end on the monsters turn.
-Frightened one is good if your party all attacks but near useless if the monster goes next.

If Player B uses a cantrip and no one debuffed he could miss.
-This one isn't a huge negative but just a quick example that cantrips with 0 debuffs/buffs are just ok.

If Player B uses bless then the ally right next to him dies he "wasted his turn"
-Bless is great if everyone gets to use the +1 buff right away.

In all these examples delaying 100% makes players more powerful and casters especially. Moral of the story is Caster's aren't weak with smart tactical play but if no one wants to use tactics they could potentially feel bad. Having a Caster use Synthesia first vs last in turn order is game changing.

I am finding VERY hard to explain any sort of tactics to players though. Just for example I find it super hard to show that demoralize/bon mot/recall knowledge/athletics manuevers are actually good. It is just impossible for some people to see trip is sometimes better than Xd10+X in some situations.

here you go
Bumbling Babboons
GM posted that last year; I only learned of it the 5th of this month when he shared that link
I was one of the four players, all of which had the same thought
that wasn’t our John McClane moment of Die Hard winning, that was us being tossed in the deep end and, fortunately, this time, the dice gods said,
sure, let’s give those idiots a moment of the Teela Brown gene, after all, their denouement will be a TPK

none of us were thrilled or juiced by that fight, it left a bad taste
we all did the like, seriously? look at the GM

of the four, two of the lot are gone gone (not playing PF2e, not in touch), the two of us left have been joined by three others (for a party of five, with the GM not adjusting encounters due to party size)
** spoiler omitted **

yes, in the irrelevant fights (L-# ones) we rocked the beasties
in the fights that really matter (L+2,L+3,L+4), we reconsider our choice of past times

I just wanted to say I really enjoyed the read. Overall it kind of felt like the group just doesn't like tough gritty gameplay and the boss just overturned for them. It is perfectly understandable.

It is hard to tell what tactics the players used, it seemed like most players just healed + attack but maybe there was more in between. Out of curiosity were the players debuffing the boss at all? It kind of sounds like they just attacked. PF2 kind of reminds of JRPGs where it is vital to use buffs/debuffs to overcome your enemies.

I get the feeling why they feel like battles are 100% luck based is because they don't want to use tactics like knocking the boss prone and slowing him or using an action to move away to limit the bosses attack... I love that about PF2 that these tactics are viable. Like I said it is hard to tell but in your example you never mention 1 debuff or buff. Again I can't tell from the example if this is true or not, but in my PF2 experience I see players walk up and die instead of doing attack>attack>move away they will just attack>attack>attack.

I am finding out that some players much prefer the easy fighting of PF1/5e. PF2 you end your turn next to a strong monster without raising a shield / debuffing there is a really chance you will be knocked out.

We actually have a player who gets really upset when he gets hit by any Crowd Control. One day he got hit by suggestion and swallowed whole lol, he 100% doesn't enjoy those sorts of things. Our entire party failed confusion check in PF1 the GM basically had to give us the win against the boss, there is 100% no way we should have survived.

I am really thinking of running Abomination Vault on slow XP progression specifically so I can add a lot more encounters to the AP (including a bunch of social encounters in town). I feel like PF2 is a better system if you don't try to rush it and only focus on the extreme, higher level encounters.

The APs are limited for space already so they don't need to add these things themselves, but they are how GMs bring their specific game worlds to life. Don't just throw nameless goblins at the party. Have them harassed two or three times by goblins wearing clown make up in the woods on their way too or from a dungeon, especially if it will eventially makes sense as to why in a later encounter.

Wrath of the Righteous did this really well on their Hex Crawl books, and monsters off of random encounter tables who end up folding themselves into the story become amazing fun for the PCs.

I havent read this AP but as a player I can say at early levels I much prefer faster leveling. Even though PF2 is much better in this regard pretty much every character I make really starts to shine at 4. Then once I get past the level 1-3 I really wouldnt mind slower leveling.

I know PF2/PF1 likes the "flat" leveling but it is such a strange phenomenon to me still.

Otherwise once we are a decent level I really wouldn't mind slower leveling. PF1/PF2 I have no idea why but I feel I am leveling super quick. Maybe I am just having more fun but in my PF1/PF2 games I feel like I just got a level then all of a sudden I am up another level.

A little off topic but I think it would actually be really fun to play in a very specialized group. For example a super stealthy charismatic group would be super fun.

Not only would you be able to actually stealth as a group but you could talk your way out of a lot of situations!

Pretty much every TTRPG I have played there is always one or two players that just ruin stealth for everyone :(

A +1 rune item at level 5 and a +2 rune item at level 13 to spell attack rolls and spell save dcs would probably be enough to appease all of us who think that casters need a little love without utterly terrifying people who consider them just fine. Seems like a half measure. The perfect solution for everyone

Personally as someone who mostly plays casters I wouldn't quit if a table really wanted to homebrew them to be better. Giving them that sort of bonus puts them dangerously close to overshadowing martials. On the reverse end I feel a martial player might get upset since this makes them indirectly contribute less.

One thing is for certain you NEVER want cantrips to come close to Martial on demand damage. Electric Arc comes a bit close. After playing 5e/PF1 I think it is safe to say balance really isn't a huge factor for players to have fun though.

I was the only one that played a caster in Extinction Curse from level 1-4 (Druid) 5-9 (Bard) and I can say for certain I always felt super powerful. There was an awkward level at 5-6 where telekinetic projectile felt bad but that was about it.

I have zero experience with other players playing casters other than in PFS I never heard anyone complain then again no one in PFS really complains about much :)

These threads tend to go around in circles.

The problem lies in several places:

1) There is nothing exclusively good about the Wizard chassis.

The Wizards chassis doesn't give it a defined place in any particular table, everything from its core can be achieved elsewhere.

I think this just isn't true. Normally when I look at classes I look at their base features and Wizard does get some unique features. Also I would say all classes don't exactly have define places in PF2 since the classes are built to be played however you want.

Their special "base features are"
-Extra Spell Slots
-Arcane Thesis (Super unique except for familiar master, which was unique before APG)
-I don't want to go super into detail but they are all quite
unique.
-Unique Focus Spells (They are unique just feel kind of weak to me, there are plenty of other weak focus spells in the game too)

I also wanted to say they were more unique before the APG, Witch steps over their toes now.

So yes they definitely have some unique features. If a player likes those things well a Wizard would be a great for them. Generally when comparing classes I just look at their base features first.

Then of course feats do matter but those are so subjective because everyone values different things. Also I love to mix and max archetypes so much that I sometimes barely use class feats.

I am definitely not saying they are super strong or anything but there are definitely merits to picking them. Truthfully though Wizard never appeals to me in PF1/5e/PF2, they have always been the generic character "good at spells". I always much prefer the specialized Sorcerer type of character. Some people like the basic Wizard flavor though.

The Wizard has unique penalties/limitations built into it with no pay off.

I admit I really dislike how limited the poor Wizard gets for weapons. It just really pushes them in "pure caster" territory.

Overall I 100% love the Sorcerer over the Wizard for lots of reasons. In general I have had fun as every caster I played with from level 1-X, which is what the thread is about.

I did state Wizard at a base level seems the worse at low levels though which is kind of sad. Things like spell blending/spell substitution barely do anything until 5+.

I consider Witch to be the worst caster in the game atm. Worse than Wizard by a long shot imo.

Overall I feel all casters are great and there are definitely certain subclasses I dislike though. With feats/archetypes I feel every caster can shine great though!

Witch definitely wins for flavor for me, from a pure power perspective I understand Wizard might be just as good though. Hexes and familiars are just so fun.

I am planning on making a familiar/healer character that carries around potions and heals players. Can't decide on Witch/Wizard/Druid.

Witch you get hex cantrip + any choice of spell list
Wizard you get a focus spell + 1 extra spell slot + arcane spell list
Druid you get goodberry + better life/proficiency + primal spells - a worse familiar.

They all have their pros and cons, that is what I love about PF2 though. There are just so many ways to make a character!

Personally I feel in PF2 this isn't a huge issue. I think it is more important to just make sure every player is having fun. For example in PF2 characters can be so different and versatile that two Rogue's can actually play quite differently.

For example would could use the Champion Dedication / Bastion and actually be the team "tank".

The other Rogue could take Dual Weapon Warrior dedication and dish out as much damage as possible.

Even two Rogues taking the same multiclass dedication can be super different. For example would could take all the shield feats from champion while the other one takes champion reaction + lay on hands to support the party.

So for combat it is very unlikely that even same classes will have the exact same role. Also I kind of find it fun if players sometimes overlap. I find it boring if EVERY group is Tank>DPS(Bow Or Melee)>Healer>Magic Character.

Skills are a different story but as long as your GM is taking notes he can tailor your game to the skills you are are lacking though. For example if no one has intellect they shouldn't make a puzzle part of the main storyline that requires Arcana/Occultism/Crafting...

The nice things about skills is all you really need is a starting 14 or higher then you can be great at 2 or 3 skills of your choosing. I definitely prefer it when everyone is good at different skills in a group though.

Then again it can be kind of interesting when players have to do other tactics to get around obstacles. If no one has Charisma your group just has to tell the truth and get townspeople to like you through action rather than diplomacy checks!

I haven't looked at Inventor thouroughly but if that is true it is odd.

I do feel it would be hard to make a feat for all the things the inventor could do with its potential weapon.

I dont think it is much of a problem to pick an archetype to benefit your specialization from your weapon. This is true for a lot of characters imo.

For example Druids can pick up some combat feats to improve wild shapes.

Sorcerers have bespell but will want a martial archetype to make use of it.

Wizards can make "athletics" better but have no feats supporting it etc.

That is pretty much how I play all my characters :)

Oh I feel all the spell list are great which is a good thing. Divine I havent looked much into but man Primal/Arcane/Occult have so many spells that look good I can never decide!

There was a super long discussion about Wizards awhile back. I am definitely not a huge fan of them in general but you have to admit their thesis have some great potential at higher levels. Low levels are a different story.

Spell blending and spell substitution are just great at higher levels! Their focus spells are ok... but definitely not as fun as others imo.

Personally I definitely feel they lack the "fun factor" of other classes to me.

Pretty much every class has super fun features to mess with. While Wizards just dont appeal to me. Also I 100% like Cha over Int.

I do admit that an illusionist Wizard seems super fun though. Their focus spell is fun and they get access to some fun sneaky metamagic!

Other than that I will go with Witch because they have so many fun features and feats.

That's why the Wizard School Specialists should have their proficiency in their school bumped to Expert. So, an Evoker, for example, would be Expert at all Evocation spells, and Trained in the rest. This mirrors how Fighters specialize in 1 weapon type, and become better with it.

Wouldn't that just make the problem worse. I have to be honest if a Wizard was one step above all casters I am pretty sure everyone would just play a Wizard for an offensive spellcaster.

Fighter "kind of" works because every other martial has "something" that makes them better than Fighters while attacking like Rage/Hunt Prey etc.

Like I said I am not sure if Fighters are actually the strongest but they can 100% feel that way when you as a player a whiffing your attacks and the Fighter just wallops them with crits/hits.

Spell casters just don't have the oomph from being a spellcaster class like martials. For the most part a Wizard cast a Fireball just like a Sorcerer with a few exceptions. Nothing like Rage/Hunt Prey though.

I do hope Secrets of magic they add some sort of cool spell specializing, doesn't have to be raw numbers but I 100% want to make characters specialize in schools and have some sort of advantage. Wizards get a very small advantage.

Trying to scale back the power level of the encounters to accommodate 2 players is proving challenging.

Does anyone have any suggestions for this predicament?

From the encounter guidelines it theoretically should be super easy.

I haven't played a long campaign with 2 players in PF2 and I also wrote a similar thread on reddit and they gave varying answers but it felt like most felt like the guidelines worked.

People of course recommended the free archetype variant... then again I am pretty sure people just love that variant so much that they will recommend it whenever possible! It does seem fun.

Following the rules https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=497

It should be quite easy in theory for 2 players

Trivial = 20 XP Budget
Low = 30 XP Budget
Moderate = 40 XP Budget
Severe = 60 XP Budget
Extreme = 80 XP Budget

Have these not been working out for you? Once you understand the rules it should be super easy to scale back any encounter by adding weak templates and taking out monsters.

Then if you are finding the battles are too hard just add a level or two if they are really unoptimized to the PCs and you should be golden.

I personally feel like dual class wouldn't be fun but I guess some people like it, on the other hand free archetype seems like something I would love in every campaign but still have yet to try.

IMO the real problem with 2 players is the lack of skills, you will pretty much have to 100% tailor skill challenges for the players which shouldn't be horrible. I also wanted to add I guess it depends on how your 2 players are built. If both went like 100% support I would probably add a Fighter character with 0 feats who just attacks and adjust encounters to 3 players.

Back to topic here is my take on PF2 after two volumes of AoA (so keep in mind that I might be biased) and after we decided to take an extended break (which I do not know if we will ever recover from).

What do I like:

I really, really, really like the character building rules in PF2, with its many pillars and up to now not overly many opportunities to game or break the system. Yes, there are pitfalls like not maximizing your main attributes or chosing the wrong base chasis (for hard stats or mechanics), however the amount of customization is simply stunning.

I did want to say this is the number 1 reason I enjoy PF2. It is just so fun being able to make such wacky fun viable characters with easy and having players be somewhat balanced is just amazing. Just going Witch / (Herbalist/Alchemist + Familiar Master) you can actually have your familiar run around giving out items is just great to me and 100% RAW!

I have never felt this way playing any other game yet. It is just so easy to make a fun viable concept that is super unique. I love my Draconic Tripping Sorcerer (horsechopper) and I barely put thought into it.

I really feel the archetype + feat system is AMAZING! Just want to reiterated this point even more but with the APG character options is just crazy. You can take a Monk like 100 different ways that all feel different. I am really looking forward to playing a "healer" Monk, who runs around healing people with Lay on Hands + Battle Medicine + runs at lightning speeds using flurry of blows in between :)

What I do not like:

Monsters often feel superior to player characters by hard stats like to-hit or spell DC, with even same level monsters often severely outclassing the Fighter or Wizard. Note that nobody of our group wants to play Superman, however winning by surviving is not what we would call heroic high fantasy either.

I am very surprised so many people seem to dislike that "on level" enemies have higher number than players. It is just a number they gave for encounter building rules after all. By the encounter building rules it is quite clear that a player isn't supposed to be fighting 1 on 1 with monsters their levels for like 90% of fights. So you should be fighting 2 monsters at your level as a 4 party for a moderate encounter or 4 -2 monster levels. Of course GMs can ignore this and have mostly severer/extreme encounters, sometimes I feel like the APs do this...

They could have easily raised all the monster level by +2 and all the encounter building rules by +2 and I guess these players would be happy because "I am better than an on level monster".

I admit I even more surprised that any players would even care or notice. I have never played a TTRPG and compared my stats to monsters 1 to 1... I have played through 5e/PF1/PF2 and just killed the monsters without much thought if "I was better".

Some of the encounters seemed overtuned to the point that we could tell by end of round one that this would be TPK without our GM not playing our enemies to the fullest, showing mercy or some other deus ex machina shenanigans. And any such victory is a bitter, hollow victory because deep down you simply know that you were...

Are you talking about in the Adventure Paths? If so I have just played Extinction Curse and 100% agree. The game seems to be written to be unforgiving to new players starting an AP. Ironically PFS is so much better in this regard.

I feel it will actually be super easy to make fun encounters for a homebrew campaign because you could have the encounters mostly be in the trivial-moderate difficulty which imo is how PF1/5e really feels for most fights.

I haven't got to play yet but I heard the Beginner Box really solves this issue and helps players learn. We chose to start with an Adventure Path and really feel like it was a bad intro to PF2.

Ok, PF1 at level 1-4 is crazy difficult at least in Iron Gods, but once we got to 5 it felt much more like I was a hero.

Personally I feel spell slots is a non issue in PF2 compared to PF1. Mainly because low level debuff stay good and combination of focus spells + scaling cantrips feels like I always have stuff to do.

PF1 I spent like 6+ spell slots on buffs otherwise things went poorly. The best thing I should do in PF 1 was do nothing for any easy combat. Obviously I did cast spells for fun and just had to rest more.

My buffs were so impactful I probably could have just afked until a boss fight.

I did play an Arcanist in PF1 which I think has the least spell slots.

At least in PF2 I can cast 1 focus spell and some decently scale cantrips on easier battles. At higher levels you get 2-3 focus spells an encounter.

Then again in PF2 a lot of battles are more challenging so I feel casting spells is necessary.