This threads are about my thoughts about the races viewed from a PF2 perspective. I have not played PF since about 2012 and since then I have been playing OSR games/5E. This means I will not be marking them down if they are missing things PF1 gave you as all races are in the same boat so in that regard they are fine compared with each other. In general though you are getting less racial abilities than say 3E, 4E, 5E and AD&D but everyone is in the same boat.Mechanically its fine but you might like the candy virtually every other edition of D&D offers YMMV that is a subjective thing.
I will consider their racial boosts, flaws, feats, and overall package in my rating. When it comes to stats I rate the primary ability first relevant to your class and also rate con and dex highly due to most characters want a decent score here due to saves, AC, extra hit points etc which are good for everyone.
Anything that I think it good or bad will get mentioned. Generally I rate always on abilities higher than a situational ability unless that situation is fairly common and/or very powerful.
Then I will give an overall observation of anything I think is cute. I am only human but so may misread or miss something so feel free to point anything out, hopefully I don't muck it up to bad. Also note if I mention D&D without a quantifier such as 1E, 3E , B/X I am referring to 1E-5E+ OD&D, BECMI, Pathfinder and clones but not related games like 13th Age or DCC.
All PF2 races also get 1 free boost except humans so in a way that is nice as you can have a good anything but you can still trip up a bit when you discover some things don't work even if you have an 18 prime all of the time if you want it. All races get racial feats, what ones are actually good depends on how much you want to use weapons and what class you are on so its kind of a wash there. If you're a fighter you probably want to use your racial weapons as long as you are playing to sterotypes due to exotic weapons being martial for you and how it interacts with class feats.
Dwarf.
Dwarves seem t be a favourite for D&D players and are usually very good in most versions of D&D. A bonus to constitution is always good going back to AD&D. They get boosts to con (great), wisdom (useful), + 1 free and a -2 to charisma which unless you want to play a charsima based class is fairly minor hit so in effect you get around 2.5 boosts as long as you don't care about charisma or -1 resonance to much along with a minor hit to charisma based skills.
You also get a whopping +10 hit points which is great at level 1 but racial hit points will matter less proportionally as you level up. Darkvision over low light vision is nice.
Great stats and racial hit points and then you hit the feats. A lot of these feats are situational and/or are based of things going back into AD&D. Even ignoring that fact there are way to many situational ones here (like almost all of them) so the stand out ones are weapon cunning and familiarity IMHO which are semi useless for some classes. You also pick up Darkvision and are not slowed down as much in heavier armors but you already move slow at 20.
Great racial package as such, weak feats I foresee a few Dwarven orphans who have been adopted or they have very close friends from other races. Main drawbacks are slow speed and weak racial feats.
Elves
Elves are basically the opposite of Dwarves. Racial package is a bit meh but you get good racial feats.
SO dexterity and intelligence as boosts, con as a flaw + 1 free. Dexterity and intelligence really only matter a lot for 2 classes-0 the Rogue andd wizard although intelligence in PF2 is not a dump stat unlike 5E as more skill points are always nice but I don''t consider it a great secondary or tertiary stat. And the constitution flaw hurts although I think you can buy it off with your free boost but then you are in effect +2 Dex and Int.
Languages, low light vision and 6 hit points are all worse than the Dwarf package but you do get 30' movement and that is unique to elves. That is good you may be squishy comparatively but you're fast. This leaves feats. Several stand out. Ancestral Longevity is a free skill and you can change it daily it seems. That is better than +1 skill and its versatile. More skills are nice, being able to change it is neat. Skill monkey Elf option.
Nimble also stands out and its another +5' movement. Elves are now 10' faster than anyone else, 15' faster than slow races. Thats not bad in this low powered race meta.
Otherwordly Magic. I thought this was really good as cantrips are very good in PF2 IMHO. From level 3 you get 2 dice+ ability score to damage and that scales up to 3 dice at 5th, 4 dice at 7th etc. PF2 critters have hp similar to 5E ones and 2 dice+ ability mod is a level 8 or 10 ability. Comparatively PF2 cantrips hit harder than 4E and 5E ones. Looks great until you read innate ability. Buried somewhere in the text innate abilities are keyed of charisma and not intelligence so the 5E high elf gets a better deal here. Still decent but being adoptive into elf culture could be beneficial for some races. Doesn't scale very well either so utility over damage might be better.
Elf weapons cold be useful YMMV but a not bad elf package and 2-4 decent feasts makes the elf the best race so far and they make decent anythings for the most part, just a bit more squishy although they are a bit weaker at charisma based classes as using your free boost on charisma for example is not as good as other races who can get charisma+dex and con for example.
Gnome
Racial abilities basically add up to weak Dwarf but your stats are very very good for a spellcaster. This is because your flaw is strength and you get constitution+ charisma and your free one can be dexterty or whatever. Any charisma based spellcaster (Bards, Sorcerer) in effect gets 3 boosts and strength is a dump stat. Rogues can also get dex to hit and damage and have uses for con and charisma. So the Gnome is one of the better spellcasters in the game even if you pick wizard. Moving onto racial feats.
Animal Accomplice. You get a familiar. Familiars can be useful if you get creative and have been useful since forever in D&D. YMMV but this can reward clever players. Its not great but not bad.
Animal whisperer. Makes the prerequisite feat a bit obsolete but talking to animals can be useful in exploration and social pillars and can reward clever players. Not sure if its worth 2 feats to talk to animals and gain a +1 bonus though YMMV.
1st world magic.
Similar to the elven ability you get a primal (Druidic) cantrip as an innate ability. Gnomes do get a charisma bonus so this could be useful to a Bard or Sorcerer, not so much for damage perhaps due to the half scaling thing.
Overall great spellcaster option, weaker than a Dwarf but strength makes a good dump stat and 3 boosts are nice. Racial feats are a bit lacking though. I think my parents might be dead though and Gnome orphans can be put up for adoption.
Goblin
Low racial hit points, medium speed of 25'+ darkvsion. Goblins are another small race that are better than Gnomes IMHO although the -2 wisdom hurts more than strength. This is because Goblins are useful at all of the classes with the exception of wisdom based casters. They can even make decent fighters although PF2 doesn't reward dex based fighters that well so a Rogue MC into fighter might be the better bet. Goblins are charismatic who knew.
As the new it race Gobbos have decent class feats. Stand out ones are.
Burn It.
Goblin pyromancer! And if you can use your free boost to offset your wisdom flaw (IDK if this is legal I think it is?) you can even probably make a cleric of Sasraena (sp?) work as they pick up burning hands and fireball. PF2 has damage tuned a bit lower in some ways so this ability is not to bad so while the race may be weighted towards Alchemist I think Sorcerer or Bard might be the better play.
Flame Heart.
Resist fire damage, fire damage is common in D&D's.
Rough Rider.
If you want a mount this is not a bad option.
Very sneaky.
This lets you sneak at 15' instead of 10' if I have read it right. And it helps vs flat footed so its easier to hit.
Goblin Weapon feats.
Check out the dogslicer for Rogues. Just saying.
Halflings.
The better goblin. Your stat arrays is betetr than the Goblins and Gnomes IMHO and as it turns out the small races make great charisma based casters. A penalty to strength mostly doesn't matter in that situation or if you are a Rogue. Low hit points though and no form of darkvision. Its like Paizo though of this already. Nice basic package there though unless you want a halfling fighter (not recommended). Golden for Bards, Sorcerers, Rogues etc and you have decent speed by PF2 standards.
Distracting Shadows.
Basically the same ability as 5E. Not sure if the same trick works in PF2 but you may be able to hide behind larger members of the party and try to get surprise. Guess where Paizo got the idea for this ability, it has King Snurre on the cover.
Lucky Halfling.
At first glance I thought this was great and once again it looks similar to a 5E halfling ability. A key difference however is you can only use this once per day vs daily. In PF2 however this is more useful due to critical failures. Useful effect but once a day hurts proabbly need to be buffed to once per minute or hour, at will is too good in PF2, OK in 5E.
Sure Footed.
Turns success into critical success on fairly common D&Disms of climbing and balancing. Useful.
Titan Slinger.
Bonus damage in a common D&D situation vs large critters. Once upon a time halflings made decent fighters with slings and thrown weapons.
Humans
Mr/Mrs Average all around on the racial traits. medium speed, 8 hit points.Nothing to get excited about. However they get some of the best racial feats in the game.
Racial Feats.
Adapted Spell.
This ability is great. Put simply you can filch a cantrip and cast it at full power from another class and key it off your classes primary spellcasting stat. If your class has meh cantrips this is one way to pick up better ones or get adopted. You might make a better archer getting this than mucking around with a bow.
Clever Improviser. More or less +1 to all the skills you are untrained in. For a low skill fighter that is a lot of skills and almost eliminates the untrained penalty. Less useful for Rogues. If you want a skill monkey this is good.
General Training.
You get a general feat. Its a general feat. This means you can get adopted to cherry pick another races stuff.
Natural Ambition
You get a class feat. This can be very useful for obvious reasons and in effect you get hurt less (less opportunity cost)if you multiclass at level 2.You miss out on a level 2 class feat but pick up an additional level 1 feat and some of them are better IMHO than level 2 ones anyway.
Skilled.
Pick up 2 skills. By level 5 you can be more or less a PF1 human but are 1 skill up.
Half Orc/Elf
You are basically a human but get to pick some other bits and pieces. The half elf is better due to better choices of the heritage feat and they can cherry pick human and elven feats. Human feats> Half Orc and Orc Feats and there are some nice elven ones as well.
If you want to make a halfling slinger PF2 so far seems to very much support it. They do flat 1d6 damage + half str bonus damage not reduced by size. Also they don't have the volly trait so really solid short/midrange option with solid damage. If you pick halfling weapons feat you can gain access to the staff sling which is 1d10 damage + half your strength modifier. So the halfling staff sling hits as hard as a heavy xbow and reloads in one action instead of two.
I see a resurgance of halfling slingers in this edition if this keeps up.