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Ran Chapter 1 of Doomsday Dawn on Sunday, wanted to provide some brief feedback from the players and I, on matters not covered by the surveys.
The Party:
Human Bard
Goblin Alchemist
Human Ranger
Dwarven Wizard
The GOOD:
1) The spellcasters were VERY pleased with the new magic system - particularly the fact that cantrips are decent now. Initially they expressed misgivings about the spells per day count going down from PF1, but after playing for a while they changed their tune.
2) The action economy - universally loved. Simplifies matters while still providing a structure. One said that they used to get frustrated when a cool idea wouldn't pan out because of PF1's action economy, but with PF2's she felt the freedom to do "cool stuff".
3) Exploration mode - they liked that it was codified somewhat, and could lead to more appropriate initiative rolls. One expressed a bit of hesitation because Dexterity wasn't the be-all-end-all of initiative any more, but they ended up seeing the logic of it.
The CONFLICTED:
1) The skill system. There was a feeling that nobody is significantly better than anybody else under the new system - that a legendary rogue would only be marginally better at Stealth than a dwarven cleric of the same level, stat mods aside. Once said that it feels like there's no room for specialists in the new system, no way to truly feel like you're extraordinary at something. They understood the importance of flattening the numbers to make high level play less ridiculous, but that this is not the best way. Another player suggested that instead of proficiency levels providing a flat bonus, perhaps they act as multipliers. For example:
Untrained - Stat mod only
Trained - 1/3 level + Stat
Expert - 1/2 level + Stat
Master - 2/3 level + Stat
Legendary - level + Stat
2) Resonance - They understood the logic behind this one as well, but expressed concerns on how it would play out. They agreed to reserve judgement until we got to play the higher level Chapters, when the players might actually have some magic items on which to use Resonance. In particular, the Alchemist expressed concerns. She saw herself at higher level, unable to use any magic items because unlike everyone else, she had to use all her Resonance on a class feature. Perhaps split off Advanced/Quick Alchemy into its own pool and use power points, and reserve Resonance for magic items only?
The BAD:
1) Lore skill - Much confusion on this one. It was unclear how specific lore had to get - the module mentioned "Gnoll Lore", which given how limited skill advances feel seems a ridiculous choice to make. Or should it be analogous to the old Knowledge skills like History and Geography? Given the examples given, those categories seemed too broad. In the end, nobody took any Lore skills except those granted by backgrounds.
The feeling was that this skill needed more structure - perhaps even a specialization system. A listing of categories, like:
History
Grography
Planes
Nobility
etc
Then give people an extra initial proficiency rank if they want to specialize further, starting at Expert - for example, Chelaxian History, Mwangi Expanse Geography, Ethereal Plane, etc.
2) The Dying rules - these are a confusing mess. Nobody could understand how one could be at full HPs from magical healing, and still have the Dying Status. The intent was clear - a desire to stop people from being able to pop back up after being taken to 0hp with no repercussions. But nobody liked the implementation, and nobody understood that intent. Since its magic, why would there need to be realistic repercussions? The thought was that it was "the power of God", so why punish outside of consuming party resources as usual. One suggestion was to reduce the dying threshold to Dying 3, and that any increase to HP that brings them above 0 remove all Dying status.
3) The players found the format of the character sheet jarring - the feeling was that there weren't enough free text fields, nor enough lines for equipment. And that needed numbers were hard to find - though they admitted that would get better as they got used to it.
Additionally the format of the rule book was a bit difficult. For example:
-a) Wizards - one of their main class features involved specializing in a particular school of magic, but the spell list had no way to determine school short of looking up each spell individually
-b) The color coding of rarities - but reading the forums, that's a known issue
-c) The feeling was that conditions should be in an appendix in the back of the book for ease of use - there are so many, and most are new, so they would need to be referenced often.
-d) It was understood that this was intended to be its own animal, but nobody could see why at least a few pages weren't devoted to major changes from 1st edition.
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Forgot to add one more BAD:
4) Requiring an hour to identify magic items. Theoretically it increases the mystery of any found magic, but realistically requiring this even for potions seems bizarre. For example, without going into details, certain Chapters of Doomsday Dawn are time sensitive. That being the case, why even bother including magic items as treasure? They won't usable anyway.
At the very least, provide some way to circumvent that time limit. Reintroduce the Identify spell perhaps, but instead of providing a bonus, have it reduce the time required?
Example:
Level 1 - 20 minutes
Heightened(+1): Reduce the time required by 5 minutes, to a minimum of 1 minute.
Quick Identification reduces time depending on you skill level. 10min, 5min, 1min, 3 rounds.
Well that's MUCH better. Thanks!
There's a 1st level alchemist feat that makes identifying alchemical items only take 1 action (IE, 2 seconds) too.