I wrapped up the first part of the adventure the week before last, and I got ready to choose some magic items to give them, as the adventure suggests.
Among the items that I was looking forward to giving my parties was the Monkey Pin. Our Rogue had tried to climb up to inspect the dark corner in the goblin room of Part 1, and failed repeatedly, so I figured I would give him an item that would make climbing a bit easier for him. The Monkey Pin was a good fit, because it turns a regular success critical and a critical failure less bad.
But it requires Expert level in Acrobatics.
WTF?
Magic Items were great for 2 things in 3.5/PF
1st thing, they're good at plugging up holes your character can't do. Helm of Mind Reading is great for someone who can't read minds, because now they can. Boots of Elvenkind are great for a beefy meat man fighter who can't sneak well.
2nd thing, they're good at enhancing someone's strengths. A rogue with those boots of elvenkind would be a pretty radical rogue in the wilderness. A wizard with a wand of fireballs can cast fireballs a lot more than a wizard who can't.
In PF2 you can only do the second thing, and it's really annoying.
There's also a 3rd level magic item that requires you to have Expert in a weapon, which apparently only Fighters get at first level.
Monks don't even start with Expert in Brawling, despite it being their main focus, and by end-game probably the only weapon they'll be using for damage output.
It also highlighted to me that the skill system feels really frustrating because your skills go up super slowly. you get a skill increase maybe every 3 levels, which means you can't easily spread out or get better at something you're lacking in. I don't want Pathfinder 1 levels of ridiculous numbers, but it feels frustrating. And you don't get an increase in weapon proficiency until level 13 for most classes, meaning that you stay at Trained for over half of your adventuring career.
This wouldn't be an issue if MAGIC ITEMS and SKILL FEATS weren't tied directly in to your skill proficiency level.
If a Magic Item's effects improved with you proficiency level, then would that fix your problem?
In that way you could have an item that helps untrained character be somewhat able to preform, increase experts abilities to new levels, and still incentivize growing your proficiency and not simply replacing characters with items.
I personally would like if more things improved with your proficiency. There are some skill feats, like Cat Fall or whatever it was called, that have a nice improvement curve as you level, but most don't.
Just a thought.
Have a nice day!