I feel like Asmodeus, with his connection to D&D, is the most likely on the chopping block.

I could also see Irori being the one to bite it. He doesn't really do much and I probably see him the least used by players among the non-evil gods.

My insane pick is Urgathoa. She could die, get in line at the Boneyard, then get back out of line, leave and go back to whatever she was doing. When you're the god of cheating death, you cheat death.

Is this really a good experience for new players? Does this fill the fantasy of a wizard?

To the first, no. To the second, yes.

Wizard needed work regardless of attribute bonus to cantrip thing. After Witch its the caster with that's the most bare bones and its options are pretty underwhelming (even witch gets to steal spells from other traditions). Unless you're univeralist, it requires you to gamble on a spell school that may or may not be helpful and its focus spells aren't spectacular.

That said, the class fantasy of the wizard is 'person who pulls the right trick out at the right time' so yeah, trading lower base damage for a wide array of damage types, variable areas of effect, and built in scaling seems kinda fair.

Also, have they said that all existing spells were getting errata to remove the attribute bonus?

I think the whole "well PF1 low level casters had it worse" is pretty disenginuous.

In PF1 absolutely nobody expects cantrips to be good for anything more than easy to land damage. PF2 decided to make cantrips scale at about half the rate of a martial's attack. But you know what else is different? A level 1 spell in PF1 was just as useful at lv 20 because eveything but DC scaled with level.

Yeah PF1 early caster game play was bad, but you got rewarded by getting increasingly stronger. PF2 early game just got worse, while keeping the same bad damage scalling.

DCs in 1E didn't scale off character level. They scale off spell level. DC was 10+ Spell Level + Ability Mod + Misc.

Without taking some specific options, a level 1 spell's DC don't go up automatically. Without taking feats, they'd only go up with ability score increases. Unless it was a creature's bad save, a level 1 spell would get worse as you leveled up (even before accounting for effects that are HD capped like Color Spray). Damage spells would have some limited scaling, but the DCs were fixed.

In 2E, DCs scale automatically based on character level, proficiency, and ability score. Spell level (or rank shortly) doesn't figure into the DC. Damage dice don't scale, so a level 1 spell is always gonna do mostly the same thing but the DC will scale with you.

Okay, so to recap this thread so far to make sure I'm on the right page:

1. Early-level casters are kind of a bummer because they have so few resources. People have suggested getting around this either by providing more resources (scrolls) or by having your caster do non-caster things (weapon attacks, skill actions, etc.). Both these solutions are somewhat dissatisfying because the first is a GM patch job, while the second is basically telling the player not to do cool caster stuff.

2. As evidenced by developer tweets, the game is balanced around a hypothetically perfect wizard who always has the right spell prepared for the right situation. It is unrealistic to expect brand new players to possess this kind of system mastery, and casting "wrong" really hurts when you have so few slots.

3. Those who are having a good time at low levels are generally either deviating from audience expectations (i.e. using the mitigation strategies outlined in #1) or have a lot of PF2/general TTRPG knowledge.

4. People are worried that the remaster will inadequately address the feelsbad of low-level caster play, due to the cantrip rework and recent developer responses.

So... from a game development standpoint, what are some possible solutions? How would you make a baby wizard feel better?

I’m not sure why ‘swinging a weapon’ is something considered ‘non-caster’ in PF all the sudden. In 1E every caster either had something early on. Fiction is full of casters who have to use things other than magic. Older TTRPGs all but required weapon use. With cantrips being significantly better, what’s wrong with “I cast electric arc and shoot with my bow” or “I stab them with my spear and cast chill touch?” That’s something a martial cannot do at early levels.

As for how the devs look at casters, I think the same can be said of martial regarding their expectations. They don’t expect a fighter to be using a single club with no backup weapon. Not a ton of monks out there looking for the best armor. There’s some level of optimal play expected. Even early casters can cover a ton more damage types than any martials in exchange for some lower damage. Sure a caster’s average damage is lower, but if something is weak to basic save damage spell even a success is going to hurt.

zeonsghost wrote:

A Rogue can't do much about invisible enemies.

Fighter, Investigator, Ranger and Rogue get Blind fight at 8th lvl and mostly stop caring about invisible enemies. Or take some scroll or wand.

You're looking at a suboptimal way to play a martial.

My particular fighter as an example doesn't need many feats. So I take casting archetypes to buff myself with things like see invisibility and heroism. I don't need casters much for fixing a lot of things. Sure, it makes it easier, but it isn't needed.

Caster players should be having fun bringing the hammer like every other class because utility casting is easy to obtain and often unnecessary.

The thread is about early level play. A caster dedication isn’t getting access to see invisibility until 6 and heroism til 8 (where some martials get blind fight). I can see 6th level as the end of that early play experience, but 8th level feels firmly past that point. Plus you get a fewer spell slots to make use of. While you could use a consumable, that is expensive and can be done with a skill feat (trick magic item).

That’s all just for buffs and utility stuff. Offensive spells are gonna be less available and less effective as an MC’d martial. Sure a champion/sorc could cast fear, but they can also just demoralize and have the action free. Meanwhile at early levels, a caster can be -1 to hit over non-fighter/slinger martials. I can make up a damage loss with a long spear in most cases if I feel the need to be “bringing the hammer”

Maybe I just look at my casters differently, but I'm not playing any of them (except Magus) based on how much damage I can get out of cantrips. Don't get me wrong, I like electric arc but I'm not playing Druid or Wizard for it. When I look at when full casters do their best work in the tables I'm involved in, its when they bring down a severe encounter to something more manageable.

A fighter can't lock increasingly large giants in grease for the rest of their lives. A Rogue can't do much about invisible enemies. Champions aren't going to heal off a crit mid-fight to keep someone from death spiraling. Sure, its a TTRPG and not a PVP MMORPG so classes don't need to be 100% balanced, but they do need to do different things. A cantrip isn't a replacement for a weapon attack. It's a minor spell in a completely different design space than "Bastard Sword" or "Arquebus."

Casters are high ceiling, low floor classes. It's going to have bad encounters and more bad builds. It also turn fights from 'we are going to die' to 'that was rough.' Yes, that's less than 1E's casters turning fights into '1 slot/encounter easy mode' that you could get to. But everyone spent 20 years complaining about how bad that was.

Guess you can't make everyone happy.

While it's nice to see these ancestries and heritages made available freely, none of them are the one I want to be made available. When do the BEASTKIN get to be used freely in Society play?

The Bad News: It's a Rare Heritage, so the odds of it just become free are low. Simply put, there's just not a lot of Beastkin on Golarion.

The Good News: Tieflings sure get a lot of options like Form of the Fiend, the Beastbrood lineage, and Towering Presence that can give that same flavor with a hint of post-Worldwound flair.

Sgt Splash, A poppet water kineticist. They are dressed up like a toy fire fighter, with an articulated bucket pump and hose. Their person lost their home in a fire and they want to make sure other people don't lose their homes too. Still trying to find a background that fits.

It's been almost a year since Jack helped us rebuild our lodge here in Milwaukee. He recruited a new VC, helped me navigate dealing with players engaged in some pretty heinous behavior. He was in my life for half a dozen emails, but he's touched the lives of a dozen gamers here in MKE by helping to empower us make a safe community.

May many happy stories be told of his time among us.

In addition to phobia accessibility standards, a flat file for some adventures would be a nice option as a GM. Sometimes I find the art gets in the way of the formatting for when I'm running a pre-written adventure. The art is often wonderful and evocative when I'm reading the adventure before hand but when I'm at the table its as much a hinderance as anything else. Even if its not something easily including in the print version, an artless or less-art version in PDF shouldn't be too hard to implement as a bundle in or secondary product.

EDIT: Also in general some content flags for things like that would be handy in the table of context. Put an adorable little leshy next to the page number or something.

Add another vote to this.

I know our VC is looking to get Quests going at another store and we've got some older players looking to start new characters alongside our newer players. Smooths the whole thing out.

I don't currently have any Drow, but a recurring NPC since my Crimson Throne game is Todd, the Drider Wizard. If asked about it I imagine he'll change the answer every time. Though he probably thinks they were changed by whatever caused New Thassilon to be there and that being close to their ruins in and around Korvosa made him a time paradox. Either that or Yeastwarping a wedding cake created some kind of fixed point in time.

To play Asmodean advocate on the 'hunt the enemies of your people' thing. Can ancestries or cultures have 'bad guy' edicts? While it does strike me as being similar to coded language, APs like Blood Lords exist where the edicts you pick are probably going to swing to less than heroic. Hellknight Orders are long-standing PC options and I can't imagine their edicts are all going to be something we'd aspire to be personally. An Asomdean PC (to stay on theme) already has the edict 'torture the weak' among its tenants. If the game is going to have room for villainous PCs, there's going to have to be something that denotes 'PC of less than upstanding ethics' among the options.

Because you have to swing them like fishing poles if you don't want to break them, they should be nerfed to do as much damage as a fishing pole.

zeonsghost wrote:

Now I want to play a Tien inventor who *really* wants to make the Katana from the classic meme so lovingly shared above.

For added accuracy/memery, they should actually not be Tien.

That's a fair point.

Katana is actually fine. Good for the open hand fighter, laughing shadow magus who doesn't go finesse, or a thaumaturge of Tien origin.

Now I want to play a Tien inventor who *really* wants to make the Katana from the classic meme so lovingly shared above.

I am looking forward to Riventhun stuff hopefully, but also looking at various Dwarven cultures in general and animal friends. One of my favorite things were all the cats in the Dongun Hold art and now I am obsessed with the idea of Dwarves and the pets they might have.

More Dwarf animal friends or we riot (slowly. Not all of us took unburdened iron)

I always felt like you could take anti-Paladin in a different direction from 'the photo negative of a Paladin' to something more weird.

As is, the Paladin and Anti-Paladin are part of the same system. They're warriors for a deity granted powers by that deity sent forth to extoll their beliefs. I feel like to be 'the opposite of a Paladin' you'd need to be outside that divine system. A warrior for justice and order who does so because they belong to an order of warriors who believe gods either endorse injustice or are apathetic to it, would be as much an anti-paladin philosophically as the current anti-paladin.

Though I get that no longer fits the champion class chassis and lacks a certain charm that comes with the schlocky one we have today.

Not knowing the whole scene, there's a lot of ways to cheat at cards.

Conceal an Object (Stealth), Palm an Object (thievery), Lying (Deception), Create a Forgery (Society), Craft a deck of marked cards (Crafting), plus any related lore skills (Gambling, Gaming, and even Legal Lore make some sense).

zeonsghost wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Just to be clear, modern mongolia as country is a civilization, the yuan dynasty was a civilization. However various nomadic people in the steppe don't have a civilization, but they do have societies. By and large I would say that civilization=good in all cases is the bad ideological assumption, not that calling something uncivilized is the bad thing. Calling something uncivilized makes assumptions about what we should value and that we should value civilization. This isn't to say primitivism is desirable, or that something which isn't a civilization is primitive. I am just pointing to how "civilization" means class society. Rigid social roles like man and woman, black and white, working class and capitalist class, or in feudalism serfs, landlords, priests, and monarchs. Deleuze and Guittari have work responding to another guy, forget the name,...

I think you're conflating civilization with agrarian societies. The people you're calling 'uncivilized' have all the hallmarks of civilization. They've got language, traditions, a system of self-sustenance, social rules, social roles, and a mastery of the technology they use to sustain themselves. They all just look different to someone whose used to conflating agrarian civilizations to non-agrarian ones.

This is exactly in line with what I said?

Unless I grossly misread it, you conflated non-agrarian civilizations with being uncivilized. They still are civilizations, just different than agrarian ones.

I do like Reaver, though Marauder is a close runner up for me.

Just to be clear, modern mongolia as country is a civilization, the yuan dynasty was a civilization. However various nomadic people in the steppe don't have a civilization, but they do have societies. By and large I would say that civilization=good in all cases is the bad ideological assumption, not that calling something uncivilized is the bad thing. Calling something uncivilized makes assumptions about what we should value and that we should value civilization. This isn't to say primitivism is desirable, or that something which isn't a civilization is primitive. I am just pointing to how "civilization" means class society. Rigid social roles like man and woman, black and white, working class and capitalist class, or in feudalism serfs, landlords, priests, and monarchs. Deleuze and Guittari have work responding to another guy, forget the name,...

I think you're conflating civilization with agrarian societies. The people you're calling 'uncivilized' have all the hallmarks of civilization. They've got language, traditions, a system of self-sustenance, social rules, social roles, and a mastery of the technology they use to sustain themselves. They all just look different to someone whose used to conflating agrarian civilizations to non-agrarian ones.

To bring it all the way back to Pathfinder.
I can play a Shaonti wizard who would be (as far as the Order of the Nail is concerned) a Barbarian. Mechanically, she's no different than any other wizard despite having studied with her people's wizards and not in Korvosa.

I can play a gambler from Korvosa whose a sore loser and who gets into barfights all the time and now adventures to pay off gambling debts and bar tabs. She's from 'civilization' and is mechanically a fury instinct barbarian, but has no ties to the cultures regularly called 'barbarians'

And that's sorta the problem with the name.

Barbarians, as description assigned to groups of people, has nothing to do with with the character class Barbarians save when people play a Barbarian Barbarian.

Zaister wrote:

YuriP wrote:

PF2.5!

It sounds a lot more like 2.1

Yay, more quibbling about 3.75 or whatever version number we want to use!

Putting forward 2.ORC respectfully.

Without knowing why a player doesn't want to use free archetype I can only offer some broad suggestions.

If they're new the game or just don't want to deal with that many options, just have them play a regular character. While they'll lack in the power that comes from a wider tool-kit, the math all mostly works the same. The power from free archetype is mostly horizontal, so vertical progression stays the same.

If they just don't know what they want to play, I'd sit down with them as a GM to go over ideas and options.

If they feel like their concept doesn't vibe with an archetype, I'd probably point them to whatever the nearest thing that just does what they do. Mauler Barbarian, Blessed One Cleric, Wizard Witch, etc.

That's definitely one of the weird ones I've had with the influx of new players. You get Wayfinders easily enough but then only these specific Aeon Stones from a Lost Omens book.

It’s better to make them free than to discount

Is it?

I want more options to be available at base or with lower AcP costs, but some options are more complex mechanically or have story complications that make putting some kind of investment requirement in place. Versatile heritages have definitely confused some of our senior players locally. Odd ancestries like automata have lead to some odd corner questions that ended up on my lap as VA. Having some level of flow control helps make that stuff easier to deal with.

Because PFS has to make accommodations to a wide range of folks and Pathfinder originates in part as a reaction to changes in D&D, the system in place serves as a compromise position. The folks who like your Tolkien ancestries aren't swarmed by all manner of androids, lizardfolk, and geniekin but those who want them do have access to them in a more measured capacity.

I know that restriction of the anthropomorphic options from 1E that were available in 1st ed society has put a damper on our local lodge from folks just played Kitsune (we had a LOT of furries). I also know that a number of our players were annoyed at sitting down with a table full of fox people.

If your local lodge is bringing in a lot of new people, a beginner box day isn't a bad idea to teach people both to play and GM. As a bonus, it gives 2x AcP. GMing is a good way to earn a fair bit of AcP and GMing 2e is remarkably easy compared to a lot of other RPGs.

Finally, last year at Paizocon is when they rolled out the AcP starting grant. If there's going to be changes to PFS options, it'll be there. It's about a month and change away. Idk that we'll see as sizable a change as we did last year but I personally hope some of the older, more iconic options get a points shave.

That works, yes.

The Firearms ammunition rules specify Alchemical Crafting for basic black powder ammunition, but Munitions Crafting gives you that.

Thank you so much!!

Black Powder only has one entry for both the explosive item in various quantities from 'dose' to 'keg', and the firearm ammunition.

It doesn't have an Activate trait. It has an Activate entry and that is for the explosive item. An interact action to light it up and make it go boom. Try to avoid being in the blast radius when that happens.

The firearm ammunition item is loaded and used like any other type of ammunition. It uses the Reload action and the Reload time entry of the weapon it is being used in.

So a firearm weapon with Reload 1 would take one action to load. The ammunition can stay in there indefinitely - much like the bolt in a crossbow. Then the loaded firearm can be fired using the Strike action.

So can Munitions Crafting make basic firearms ammunition?

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3158

So I've got a player starting a gunslinger and we're trying to figure out how many actions it is to load and fire. We've run into a snag.

1. Blackpowder ammo is alchemical and has the activate trait.
2. Magical ammunition has to be used the turn its activated.
3. The alchemical trait says its specifically not magical.
4. Most firearms have a reload speed higher than 0.

So how does this actually work?

Ways I can see it:

1. Alchemical ammo is non-magic ammo, so its an action to activate, an action to load, and remains on standby until fired. 3 actions to fire a Reload 1 firearm.

2. Like the above, but works like Magic Ammunition it has to be activated the same turn you want to shoot it. Same 3 actions to fire.

3. It works more or less like any other ranged weapon. If its reload 1, you spend an action to reload and you're off to the races.

AFAIK there's no Errata for it yet and the discussions I can find either focus only on magic ammunition or treat alchemical ammunition is though its magic despite the alchemical trait saying it specifically isn't magic.

In the mythological version of demons, devils, and the like in fantasy types of games, evil is a real thing just like gravity or heat. It is an integral part of overall fabric of the fantasy universe manifested in creatures like devil and demons whose purpose is cause evil in some fashion which often manifests as murder, corruption, unnecessary conflict including war and feuds, and the like.

So a Tiefling being imbued with this mythological idea of evil as an existing force in the fabric of fantasy reality, then that force that is a part of their being pushes them to do things that align with the universal force of evil.

May be voices in their head, a conflicting conscience, a natural violent impulse, whatever you come up with to make it fun and interesting.

Simple stupid evil can be pretty boring with some guy that randomly murders people to be the strongest. But conflicted, complex evil can be fun to roleplay where you fight against the impulses of your nature to become something else.

There is no hard answer to your question. In these fantasy games, you can take it in a lot of different directions.

I want to build off this in a weird direction. In a world with an evil that is a force of nature, a Tiefling could be schmuck bait to lure people to evil through no fault of their own. Create an evil Tiefling, get one evil person. Create a tiefling in a society conditioned to fear things like tieflings, get a whole bunch of people do give into their worst selves and do a bunch of evil. If that Tiefling isn't evil, all the better. People love to dig in when forced to justify their bad actions. Cause more division and discord.

It could be something as simple as social pressures. If everyone expects you to be evil, treats you like you're evil, and does evil to you what's that do your perception of the world. Maybe there's no cosmic call towards evil that tieflings feel just like there's no cosmic influence on an celestial sorcerer. The cross section of nature and nurture are nuanced areas of discussion and nothing says you have to be burdened by a call to evil or goodness b/c of an ancestor getting nasty in the past-y.

For an example:
Maybe that sorc gets up to propping themselves up as the head of a cult and does some wicked stuff in 'the name of heaven.' Maybe the tiefling's skepticism due to years of getting dumped on make them the perfect needed hero to point out that sorc is just using everyone.

If I'm building for ranged, no reason not to have a finesse weapon. If nothing else, you'll want to cover main damage types and that's hard to do a single ranged weapon. I think hand cannon is the only thing that gets modular.

Hello!

This is nice that we can get boons from Blood Lords for Achievement Points, but what about boons and chronicles for actually playing this Adventure Path. Are they will never happen, like Edgewatch?

I believe this was on the 'boons only, no chronicles' list.

Two Votes on this.

I think having them use PFS legal characters for a sanctioned trip through the beginners box is going to help new people only have to learn rules once.

zeonsghost wrote:

Why not just...remove it?

Because it's an iconic part of the game, nothing more, nothing less.

The 9 Grid system is a alignment system. It's not THE alignment system, it's not the best alignment system, it's a alignment system that is iconic to Pathfinder.

You can remove just like you can remove classes and levels, but the more you overhaul/take away the less the game is Pathfinder. You're not playing "wrong" if you're having fun, and you're still playing a game, but are you still playing Pathfinder at that point is the question if you keep removing iconic things.

If I remove class from Pathfinder, the game doesn't run. It's the main tool players use to interface with the game.

You don't like alignment because some say it is a thing, and others describe that thing in a way that... supports that definition? Each alignment is a cosmic constant with a broad enough definition that there are many different ways to approach it. My post - the one you're referring to with the "cosmic constant" descriptor - says as much on its own.

You could indeed remove alignment, but doing so would uproot the premise behind several important setting elements, in Golarion or in any official D&D setting. If you play a homebrew without those, or you never engage with them, feel free to ignore them at your table. But this is why alignment isn't going away.

Nobody disagrees that "fighters get expert martial weapon prof at first level". There's no single piece of the game that has so many incompatible takes as to why it should be a permanent, unchanging feature of two different games for decades than alignment. It is less sensible than saying 'PF2E should have AC go the other way b/c that's how D&D was decades", because that's at least a mechanic that does things rather than some inconsistent narrative device that just starts fights.

I think you're trying too hard to categorize things under strict definitions that... isn't really necessary or correct.

That these are broad concepts that reference general trends rather than specific rules is a feature, not a problem. There's no incompatibility or mismatch, there's just broad definitions that can fit a lot of different ideas. That's not a bad thing.

This is why I don't like alignment. We've got some folks like you saying its broad and lacks strict definitions. Then there's others saying its something akin to a cosmic constant. With 2E, the rules have a strong alternative framework with the classes tied closest to it that it can be removed. Why not just...remove it? Clerics have their god's edicts. Champions have that plus cause.

Better than reading 'demon-blooded sorcs should be evil b/c evil blood'.

The fact that the nine-point Alignment system encompasses many different individual sets of values is... kind of the point, though.

It's not supposed to be a shorthand for your character's beliefs and personality. There are billions of possibilities for that, not nine. Alignment represents your ALIGNMENT with the planar axes representing fundamental forces. It's not that hard to see that a character who is marked Neutral or Evil is tending oddly toward being giving and benevolent, and tell the player to correct their sheet. It's not hard to observe that a character who is allegedly Lawful is playing fast and loose with the rules of organizations they're not even opposing, and tell the player to correct their sheet.

The point is that those pairs of letters on your sheet represent ACTUAL SUPERNATURAL FORCES in the setting. You can have real problems with the philosophy of, say, Ragathiel, and still be Lawful Good, and various spells, weapons, and entities will all recognize you as such.

I don't see how it can this immutable, unchanging, cosmic rule when the highest embodiments of it can have incompatible frameworks within the same 'side' of the chart. You can be Lawful Good and follow the Laws of Mortality, be damned to fade out because you're not the 'right' Lawful Good to get sorted at the boneyard. In that regard, deity matters cosmically as much if not more than alignment in your cosmic role. Without a deity, regardless of alignment the same thing happens.

That's all top of a Paladin pile-up of effectively incompatible nominally Lawful Good ideologies from either LG or LG-adjacent gods. All of that is without getting into the other alignment/deity mismatch conflicts. It just makes the whole thing messy, up to varying interpretation, and tied to player power.

As a GM, I've gotten more play out of telling players of characters with required deities to call their own balls and strikes. It puts playing their character back in their hands instead of leaving it up to our different interpretations of what those two words mean. They're more likely to do something that requires breaking it and dealing with the clean-up if we discuss than its used as a red card.

Catching up on this thread has been wild. I think the discourse on Paladins and Lawful Good makes a strong case for why alignment doesn't work. Whose definition of 'Law'? Whose definition of 'Good'? Are those different than the definitions of 'law' or 'good'? Whose definition of Lawful Good? That's not even getting in setting where different Lawful Good gods have different takes on what those are.

For example, Erastil and Ragathiel probably have different takes on what that entails. A god of community is less likely to see every criminal as a place to sheathe your sword in the same way the god of killing evil beings is. A Paladin of Abadar (LN) is going to have a different take on the above conflict than a Paladin of Sheyln (NG). So if I'm a GM using this world, whose version of Lawful, Good, and/or Lawful Good am I supposed to use to mediate the game? It becomes easiest to ignore it, stick to cause and tenants, and get on with life.

I don't accept that it would be a better game. There is value in alignment.

It is a mechanic that makes the game worse the more its enforced. What other rule in the game is like that? If my GM thinks lawful good means I do as Gygax would do and purge all the goblins, despite my gods rules saying I shouldn't do that, what makes about alignment is making this game better? We could just skip to "my deity's creed is X,Y,Z" and take out the moral complexity you're so concerned about by binning alignment and going with something less vague than the opinions of the "genocide is good, actually" guy.

Over my years of gaming the biggest thing I've noticed is the more a game enforces D&D Alignments, the more it inhibits gameplay and storytelling. As a brief two-word sum up of a character's morality and ethics its lacking, but fine. As soon as your GM's vision of what those two words mean is different from yours the game grinds to a halt for another episode of 'Whose alignment is it, anyway?'. Then in the games where its not enforced, it doesn't matter outside clerics/champs. So why is so much ink printed into a book for something that is either fetters or meaningless?

Even the cosmic stuff is a little messy. If a demon is always evil, then does it have free will? If yes, why is it always evil? If not, then what makes it different from a robot running eatmortals.exe on repeat? It makes more sense there, but in general you get better stories explaining why something is rather than stating it as fact. Something bestiaries already do pretty well, describing the sorts of souls that end up as type of creature in a way that's more interesting than "Chaotic Evil".

We've already got systems in Pathfinder regarding causes, tenants, and anathema. Even dividing that out of the classes that have them, you can take them to "what motivates you, what do you hold important, and what lines won't you cross" to get a more well-rounded character than "Chaotic good is like Robin Hood. No not that Costner Robin Hood, the Elwes one." and then a 2 hour discussion about which Robin Hood is actually chaotic good.

Is this prestige in 1E or Fame in 2E?

In 1E, the scenario should list a primary and secondary objective after the conclusion. Each is worth one.

2E, there's also a primary and secondary. Each being worth 2. There's faction-based stuff that may grant more depending the scenario.

Okay. So let's go over some super simple questions.

1) How many hands does your average character have?

If they were Hecatoncheires the rules would work the same. No part of reloading the firearm forces you to put it under your arm to do so. No where in the rules does it say reloading a weapon with fatal aim from a two handed position forces it under your arm. We run rules as written. No where is it written its changed. It is written in the property that reloading specifically does change anything. Why overcomplicate it?

But you don't need the extra action when wielding it one-handed.

Only when wielding it two-handed.

All of the mentions of reloading are part of the section on using it 1 handed underarm. You aren't changing to the 1-handed underarm option when reloading if you were using it in two hands.

The reload state has it temporarily in 1 hand while you reload it w/o using an extra action. It is not shifted to the '1 hand underarm state' when you do this.

The state 'underarm' or 'two-handed' is not changed via reloading.

By the way, this is perfectly making my case, referenced in my first post, as to why the weapon is so popular in Society.

Nobody enforces the rules on it.

Outside of Sociy, people ask what's the point of using this weapon, when the action economy is so terrible.

I can't speak for outside my area, but Jezail doesn't even seem to be the most popular gun among the firearms using characters (I think its mostly clan pistols or Arquebus) and there's still a lot more characters with a focus on bows.

As for enforcing the rules:

Holding the weapon underarm stably enough to fire is significantly more complicated than just releasing one hand from the weapon, ~

This seems to the relevant part. If you're using it underarm, all the following applies.

It's a different clause than the "When you wield the weapon in two hands, it gains the fatal trait with the listed damage die."

The layout seems to be

If two handed, then (gain fatal die listed)

If underarm, then (behaves as follows)

If the read the way you say it does, it would be ordered differently. With the reload portion before both the two-handed and underarm descriptions.

It depends on how you look at it. There's a few hurdles, but they aren't insurmountable.

Problem #1 is the problem all large animals have. They just don't fit everywhere. Sometimes that option is just gonna be turned off. It doesn't feel great, but its comparable to someone who focuses on negative damage in a scenario with undead. Have a backup plan.

Problem #2 is what happens when it dies. Companions are nice, but they aren't the most durable things. Area damage and attacks can quickly take them out of action. If it goes down, you're gonna have to use your downtime to get a new one.

Problems out of the way, animals give you access to very powerful action economy and mounts in particular give you a great mobility when you're in the right environment. PF2e seems to have a better range of scenarios than 1E with regards to being in doors. Just expect that sometimes you're gonna have to fight on the ground.

When I'm teaching new players or starting experienced players who are new to PFS, I advise that a character build should have three things.

1 Primary Combat trick. At the end of the day, Pathfinder puts emphasis on combat. Have something you want to be doing that contributes to combat. PF2E is a team sport. Things like demoralize, knocking things prone, and flanking help everyone win. And yes, big damage can be your combat trick.

2 Things to do in skill challenges. Pick which skills you're gonna progress ahead of time. It helps to make them do different things. Diplomacy for social challenges, thievery for exploring. Society for urban adventures, Survival for wilderness. If everyone can safely cover two bases, they're in good shape.

3 Backup plans. Know what you want to do when the things you're good aren't working. Have a ranged option, have some way to heal in combat, know what skills you're fine at. Well designed scenarios will try to kick you in the dump stat, know what you'll do about it.

I like firearms, I think they're just a bit shy of where I'd like them to be power-wise. It feels like they were tuned to compete with crossbows (simple weapons) and not composite bows (martial weapons). I've had the most fun with them on classes where it's part of their kit rather than being focused on a weapon. I've got an investigator and a rogue/druid with firearms and it feels good to mix them in when the time is right. I imagine a gun-wielding Thaumaturge would be pretty cool.

As for gunslinger itself. It's...fine. I like the utility the class brings. I love the crafting feats that give a different sort of feel and access to a wide array of damage types. One handed firearm builds seem to have a high floor to access and a low ceiling. The ways are where I think the class loses it for me. They...are kind of boring and feel underwhelming in play. The drifter and pistolero need extra feats on top of the Way to hit class fantasy. The sniper is one and done. The vanguard exists. The spellshot one is cool, but takes up an extra feat with an ability that conflicts with other things it does. The archetype its supposed to go into uses cha where it uses Int.

2E technology guide?

Shut up and take my Skymetals. I am in.