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I don't know about Reviewers, but some 3rd party publishers will get a copy of the rules this week I think, to open the possibility of 3pp material at launch.
About being easy to play, in a interview Bulmahn said that he managed to explain the rules to a person that never had contact with TTRPG in 5 minutes and not was only playing it right but thirty minutes later this player managed to betray his companions leaving them to die while escaping with the treasure.
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I haven't seen many "formal" reviews, but Known Direction was at Paizo Con and played it, and everything I heard from them on their site/blog has been overall positive.
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A trustworthy review can't be made until someone has received the rules and GM'd a game with their group for at least a few sessions.
People are notoriously bad at eyeballing rules systems to predict how they feel to play. Since ease of GMing is a huge part of what makes a rules system a success, we can't go off of what people say after just playing it either.
Personally, the best review I could imagine is the top threads on this forum a year after release.
A somewhat decent day 1 review could be an article summarizing the initial reactions of a hardcore PF1 fan and a hardcore D&D 5e fan. I'd never trust just one reviewer for initial impressions.
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I agree, Waters. But I'm making my decisions in the next 8 or 10 weeks, so... I'm just trying to get a clue before spending what will end up being hundreds of dollars and committing to a system for a year. I would rather just stick with 3.5 and homebrew in what I need, but kids today- they always want the latest fashion. And if PF2.0 works for them and for me, then I'm willing to go with it, but I need information now to make the call...
The full rules will be released in 7 weeks so hopefully you can wait till then.
Check out Archive of Nethys on August 1st when the full rules will be posted and wait maybe a week to check out reviews. You'll be golden by 8 weeks.
I agree, Waters. But I'm making my decisions in the next 8 or 10 weeks, so... I'm just trying to get a clue before spending what will end up being hundreds of dollars and committing to a system for a year. I would rather just stick with 3.5 and homebrew in what I need, but kids today- they always want the latest fashion. And if PF2.0 works for them and for me, then I'm willing to go with it, but I need information now to make the call...$30 gets you all the pdf you need to run the game.
That all it is? Nice. I'm still going to see if someone can grab me a copy at GenCon, but I do all my playing online anymore, so I am very interested in knowing it's such a good price point!
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As the others have said, third party publishers have gotten (or are getting) copies early, and there are people who've gotten demo games and the like. But there aren't any full reviews of the new rules. Have you looked at the playtest version? PF2 is not the playtest, but they do share the same base chassis. A lot of things have been changed since then, like resonance being gone and classes getting a bit of an overhaul. But you can see the basic direction with the three action system, featified classes and the like. The Playtest page is still up. Scroll down toward the bottom for the download link. The update documents are also available to see a bit of how it changed during the test. As well as the playtest adventures (warning on those though, they were made for tourture testing the rules, so aren't necessarily the most fun adventures to play). It's changed even more since then.
Based on the playtest and what's been revealed since then, I'd say it's likely it will meet your needs. Simplification for ease of play and easier to get into, while also having rich options, is the exact niche they're going for. And I did find combat faster to play, but also still interesting. The three action system and lack of universal attacks of opportunity also introduces a new level of mobility for tactical play that wasn't really there in PF1. I had issues with some of the playtest, but that was with details, a lot of which are apparently fixed. The base system seems sound, fun and just what you're looking for. The playtest was also fairly badly laid out with a lot of page flipping needed for looking things up, but again that is something that they've been working on to make the final version easier to learn. In many ways, I think it might be easier to learn for new players than for ones with PF1 experience, because they don't have all the preconceptions about how things work.
Also the Archives of Nethys and the D20PFSRD will be very useful resources. And will also be great for your students not having to spend a lot of their own money. For PF1, all of the rules content was freely available on those sites, and will be the same for PF2. So if they've got internet access, either at home, through the school, or even on their smartphones, they can have free access to the rules. Online or cell-phone app die-rollers can reduce or eliminate the need for physical dice (assuming they've got access to these devices at the table of course). Archives of Nethys, I believe should have the full rules up on day one, while D20PFSRD might take a few days to a couple of weeks.
Paper minis does sound like a good way to go, Paizo does sell their own, but you could also make some yourself. Another option, if your school has the equipment, you've got the tech savvy, and you want to be a bit nuts, you could use a projector and a virtual tabletop program on a laptop to handle maps and character locations. My group has been doing this for years now (yeah, we're a bit odd). You could just project the maps and character locations on the screen, and have the players tell you where they're moving their characters (laser pointers help for this). This also lets you display pictures for important NPCs and the like. Or if they're using laptops too, they can move them themselves, but that's more equipment intensive. One advantage of the projector option, is you can use the maps straight out of modules or adventure paths. When I first got into D&D back in the late 80s early 90s, I dreamed of using the overhead projectors from school for maps, well with current tech, it's even better than that.
Your plan is awesome. So I wish you the best of luck. I'd also love to hear how things go if you do end up going this route.
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There's also the Free RPG Day adventure tomorrow. I'm not sure if that's going to have quickstart rules or not.Latest playtest rules. Things weren't locked in enough for the final edition when they needed to start getting things in place for it.
actually, it was written with the printed playtest rules put out last gencon, without any of the updates - this was confirmed on Know Direction a few months ago