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I thought it would be useful to have a thread of differences from 1st Edition, to help people who are familiar with 1st Edition with learning the 2nd Edition rules. (There is a process of "unlearning" stuff that can get in the way of learning the new system.)
I'll start with a couple of obvious ones.
1. Not all creatures have Attacks of Opportunity. That is now a class feature for fighters and a class feat for some other classes. Creatures have different kinds of Reactions that may take the place of AoOs.
2. Feats are now grouped into General Feats, Skill Feats, Class Feats, and Ancestry Feats, which you can get at different times as your character levels up.
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Cool idea.
Character creation is more similar to that of Starfinder than Pathfinder 1.
Retraining is available. So don't stress out too much about choices for feats and skills. Especially during the playtest.
Reach weapons can attack adjacent targets.
Only a very small set of class abilities are mandatory and those come up at 1st level. All other class features are selected as class feats. Also, pay attention to what the class ability per level table says. Some classes get to pick a class feat at 1st level and some don't. Also some mandatory class abilities have a choice that has to be made.
Spells scale their power based on the spell slot used to cast it with, not the class level of the class used to cast it with. Cantrips automatically scale themselves to the highest spell slot available to the caster.
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General
Perhaps the most important is that character power level has been reduced. Not as noticeable at early levels, but substantially at higher levels.
Most things (saves, AC, skills, attack bonus) get a +1 bonus every level.
These things have an associated proficiency which gives you a small bonus to the roll and is relevant for unlocking some feats and other perks.
Untrained: -2
Trained: 0
Expert: +1
Master: +2
Legendary: +3
A lot of master and legendary proficiency is lock to particular classes.
You have fewer bonuses you can stack, so the difference in competency between a character that has super specialised in a particular thing compared to someone that is essentially untrained in that thing has been greatly reduced.
Someone talk about 4 degrees of success.
Spells
The spell lists have been divided into four: cleric, wizard, druid, bard.
Sorcerers pick a blood line which is tired to one of the four spell lists. They are then that type of caster.
Sorcerers and bards now get spells at the same level as the prepared casters.
Spell DCs for your various spells now are all identical. Still based off your main caster state, but now it includes your level and your proficiency.
Paladins and Rangers do not have spells in the traditional sense.
Paladins use spell points to cast "spells". The other casters also get spell points.
Generally when you are casting a spell from a magic item it requires an additional resource cost called "resonance". Few people like it as it is currently implemented.
Actions
Rather than move, standard, swift, free, immediate actions, you get 3 actions a round and 1 reaction.
You can make 3 attacks at level 1, but it takes all your actions and you get -5 on the 2nd attack and -10 on the 3rd.
There are some class feats/abilities and weapons that can reduce this penalty.
Haste grants 1 extra action that you can only use for some specific actions.
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Everyone cannot take 10 as a choice if they want to out of combat.
AC scales now.
Degrees of success:
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It takes an action to change a 1-handed grip to a 2-handed grip, or vise versa. Don't ask me why this is.
...
AS already stated, drop a hand is a free action
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkz1&page=7?Multiclassing-and- Archetypes#313
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Dying is very different. No negative hit points. Instead you get the dying condition at 0 hp. If you reach dying 4, you are dead. Even if you are healed to positive hp, you need to make a save to get back up, and you maintain the dying condition.
and another important distinction!
When you're reduced to 0 Hit Points, you get knocked out...You immediately move your initiative position to directly before the creature or effect that reduced you to 0 HP.
so even if brought to dying 3 (somehow) your party gets a full turn to get to you to help! This avoids those rare, but crummy situations in PF1 where someone brought you to one point away from negative and your turn was up next. with how high the DCs were, it often became a "roll a Nat 20 or you're dead".
so even if brought to dying 3 (somehow) your party gets a full turn to get to you to help! This avoids those rare, but crummy situations in PF1 where someone brought you to one point away from negative and your turn was up next. with how high the DCs were, it often became a "roll a Nat 20 or you're dead".
Ha! I had already been houseruling that in PF1 actually -- you make your stabilize check 1 round after the blow that knocked you out.
473. There are now rituals that take much more time and may have other elaborate conditions, including Resurrection. Any class can do them so long as you have the knowledge about it and the required level.
474. The GM has more control over access to spells and magic items. A lot of spells are now classified as Uncommon or Rare which the players do not automatically have access to. Magic items are not available for purchase in settlements by default anymore.
Overall power level on everything has been reduced along with damage spikes.
You can still min/max but the gaps have narrowed on things like damage, saves, skill checks.
Magic weapons give you the bonus to hit but a bonus dice on damage, A +1 1d12 weapon deals 2d12 damage, +2 3d12.
Cantrips scale with level automatically +1 dice level 3,5,7,9 etc and ability score to damage at level 3.
Without weapons spellcasters might out damage martials.
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In PF1e wasn't it already move action to draw -> standard action to drink for potions? I know most people didn't run it that way, but RAW you have to draw a potion like anything else, right?
Anyway, my contributions (and a couple things I particularly like):
-Flat-footed is a set -2 now.
-Flanking makes your target flat-footed.
-Shooting into melee penalty died in a fire and I danced on its ashes.
-Crafting magic items at high levels no longer requires you to put the campaign on pause for months (unless you are trying to make/save money crafting, and even then you can adjust the time to fit your needs). Related: you can make money crafting magic items.
I didn't see spell resistance (SR) when I looked through the Bestiary.
Shooting into melee penalty needs to come back. It's actually really hard to do.
-Monks can not do leathal damage with their unarmed strikes normally. They are treated as Untrained like the standard rules for using non leathal weapons to do leathal...and yes there are creatures immune to non leathal damage.
-Apparently you can knock out undead. Not immune to non leathal.
- It is two free actions to drop two items.
-Magic Armor Bonus Adds to Saves too.
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-Monks can not do leathal damage with their unarmed strikes normally. They are treated as Untrained like the standard rules for using non leathal weapons to do leathal...
Not true, fortunately.
Powerful Fist
When striking with your fist, you deal 1d6 damage instead of 1d4. You use your normal proficiency when making a lethal attack with a nonlethal unarmed attack.
On a related note: (almost) everyone can punch now without having to take a special feat. Unarmed attack is included in Simple weapon proficiency which everyone except Wizard gets.