While I enjoy PF 1E I am interested in buying into 2E. What are the pros and cons of the new edition? Note this is not a bash either edition thread. Only one to inform of 2E.
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Three action economy is dead simple and really satisfying in play. Martials have more to do, while casters got reined in somewhat. Ancestries - the new terminology for Races - have been pretty thoroughly overhauled, and are a more important part of each character. Balance is better pretty much across the board; it's very hard to be useless or overpowered. The bulk of character customization has now been tossed into Feats (broken into General, Skill, Ancestry, and Class, none of which are competing with one another for slots), and a lot of the flavor in builds is in Archetypes, which are themed feat chains that also replaced multiclassing. A chunk of the fanbase thinks Alchemist and maaaybe Witch are hurting somewhat, but classes broadly are considered flavorful and competitive - and our first entirely new class, Inventor, is coming out in two months, while a playtest for the second, the Thaumaturge, goes up tomorrow.
Also, the setting has gotten a lot of love, which is my preferred 2e perk; a lot of really gross older material has seen scrutiny and revision, most notably in how a lot of 'monster' Ancestries are depicted (mostly shying away from the idea of them all being evil) and in the white-Avistani-as-default mindset much of 1e had. The new Mwangi Expanse book is Paizo's new high water mark, IMO.
I think they're pretty much all changes for the better, though if you really loved 1e optimization, you're probably gonna be unhappy.
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The biggest difference I feel is that the game of "I will win the fight before it starts by stacking numbers in my specific area of expertise" is largely gone, and replaced by an emphasis on tactics and teamwork.
Character building is very smooth and easy, and every character who makes even remotely sensible choices (like don't show up with a fighter with 10 str and 10 dex) is going to be able to pull their weight. The majority of choices you're going to make is picking feats out of different bins (class feats, ancestry feats, skill feats, etc.) but since feats no longer represent "math enhancers" but instead represent "a different option you have" you can just pick and choose based on what sounds neat or fun and be okay. Another thing is that because of how stat boosts work, you can build basically any ancestry to work with any class- there's no more shopping for out specific kinds of Aasimars because their stat boosts are perfect.
But your ancestry choice is going to matter beyond chargen, because of ancestry feats at higher levels, so it's worth putting some thought into. Retraining is pretty generous, and since feats are "more options" not "more power" a GM can increase the number of feats without really affecting the balance of the game too much.
PF2 is a very GM-friendly system, monsters and NPCs qua monsters are super-easy to build, but it's also a system that puts a lot in the GM's hands. It's an RAI-centric system and a lot of things (notably the rarity system) are left to the GM to make calls on.
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Pros:
1. 3 action system better for storytelling and feels more natural.
2. Extremely balanced from 1 to 20. You can run monsters out of the box and have them challenge players. The math is level based, so challenges work for the most part.
3. Focused less on power gaming and more on visually creating the character you want. You can make whatever type of character you want and it will look like it does what you want it to do for the most part, but it won't give you much of an advantage over any other type of character.
Cons:
1. Summoning spells suck in this edition. They made the level too far behind the level of enemies you would fight at a given level. They need to do some kind of template that raises their attack rolls to an appropriate level to make them worth using with high level slots.
2. Low level wizards are pretty terrible. The arguments to play one surround ideas like using Recall Knowledge which isn't much of a help most of the time or spell versatility which requires you to buy all the spells and take a thesis that allows you to change 1 out in ten minutes. Their feat selection is poor. Wizard players that are used to having power will feel very unhappy until they are much higher level.
3. Some rules make no sense like not being able to speak using a battle form that can usually speak like a dragon or becoming a super version of yourself with something like Righteous Might.
4. The game is hard. One of the biggest complaints I've had from players getting used to PF2 is that the game is difficult. Often even the trash can be difficult. You don't cut them down in 1 round like PF1. It takes real work to beat a group of enemies that are around lvl-2 if more than a few. Lvl+2 or more enemies can be quite nasty as well. They don't go down in 1 hit or 1 round. You have around a 50% or higher failure rate for spells and attacks against very tough enemies. And they can do a lot of damage in return.
The power of what you can take on shifts some at certain points. usually around lvl 7, 11, 15, and 19 and as you get better striking weapons. But combats are still very dangerous compared to PF1. You cannot in general build up AC or saves high enough to be easily resistant to powerful creatures spells and attacks.
This game is built for hard damaging combat where you will give and receive damage nearly every fight. The most dangerous fights will be real slam-bang action that a DM will have to be careful to modulate. You can ramp it up some if you have very experienced min-max players or tone it down if new players, but you really have to learn to manage encounters or it can be a real painful experience for your players.
My players are min-maxers who have years of experience tactically, but even I have to be careful as I've thrown too much at them a few times. They really got a bit discouraged, especially if they had a series of bad rolls with the enemy rolling well.
Not sure if Pro or Con:
1. Critical hits are way more common by enemies. Expect to get crit a lot.
2. Mobility is a huge part of the game. The faster you move, the better. Mobility can take an action a round, which will reduce you to two actions of doing something else. Mobility combined with Action Economy enhancing feats can be very powerful.
The monk can move super fast. So a monk can move so fast that a standard 25 foot movement enemy must spend 2 actions just to close to attack them, while the monk can flurry two attacks on them and move or hit them again. It can make for some very mobile fights because mobility in PF2 is a strong defensive and offensive ability that can really change how a fight plays out.
I would give it a shot. I think it's overall fun. It will take some getting used to if your players are used to feeling very powerful and thrashing everything with spells and abilities. That ain't PF2. PF2 is the bloody street fight version of these types of level-based games.
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The 3 action economy is groundbreaking, and it makes a lot of things work that don't really work in other editions.
Due to the fact that you have 3 actions, and how the multiple attack penalty works, it is no longer a case of "move up to the enemy, then stand there attacking over and over". Once you are adjacent to an enemy, there is a lot more incentive to throw in a skill action (like demoralize or feint) than just attacking with every action.
The way multi-classing works means that you never fall into the trap of falling massively behind because you multi-classed wrong. (As it works via feats, a level 20 fighter multi-classed into rogue is still a level 20 fighter, while in other editions multi-classing can really handicap you by making you miss spell or attack progression).
Effects that have saves have critical success and critical failure effects, giving spells and other abilities a lot more depth. You will find that many spells still do something small on a successful save (with the crit success being the "it does nothing" effect).
Criticals occur on a natural 1/20, but also when you get +10/-10 from the DC, which means critical occur more often, and having high Saves/AC/Attack Bonus means you get to Crit more/be Critted less.
I want to iterate again how important skill actions are for martials. Never spend a turn using all 3 actions to attack (as the Multi Attack Penalty makes it unlikely you will hit on the third attack). Instead use the first action for a skill action like demoralize, which will make the target easier to hit.
Some things that classes in pf1 had by default are optional feats instead - you generally get more feats though, so this basically just means that they have replaced those features with you choosing between multiple options.
Creature stat blocks can still be confusing like in 1e, as a lot of creature abilities are still buried in a glossary at the end of the book. But, they are generally better at conveying the information you need to run a creature.
The combat maneuver rules from 1e don't really exist in 2e, with the things it did covered by skill actions that are pretty easy to understand. Grappling doesn't grind the game to a halt anymore.
Ancestries don't give you nearly as much at level 1, with a lot of their abilities being something you gain over time from ancestry feats.
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I've heard from several folks that an adjustment was in how often they got hit, or even dropped, as compared to 1st Edition. It happens FAR more frequently in 2nd Edition. What's more, it's by design. This can make characters feel less OMG-amazing and--especially against higher level enemies--more like they're really fighting for their lives.
Fortunately, it's easier than ever to set up encounters to get the play style feeling you want. If a play group wants that feeling of ROFL-stomping everything, all the GM needs to do is lower the encounters by a level or two. If you want a more gritty feel, leave it as is, or possibly raise the levels by 1 (to a max of +4 party level since +5 is guaranteed TPK).
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- Level is everything.
- Best Practices of PF1 are the best ways to TPK in PF2, especially using all your actions to attack.
- The die is much more important than in PF1.
- Debuffs, whether mundane or magical, play a very important role in winning a fight.
- Max your attack stat, get your DEX as high as possible for the armor you are proficient in.
- Stats are pretty balanced, even if WIS is king and INT is a little subpar.
- Have 2 healers (not necessarily Clerics) in a party. They will put the party back to full HP between encounters without using limited ressources. The encounters suppose that the party enters them at full health.
- Have some in-combat healing, whether mundane or magical, for when the dice are not on your side.
- Do not go too far from the combat healer.
- Everyone can raise a shield for better AC. Everyone can attack thrice in a round.
- Attacking thrice a round is usually the worst tactic. Better to attack twice and use the other action for something else (move, raise a shield, recall knowledge about an opponent...).
- Help each other make the most of your abilities. Several times, I put my Bard in harm's way just so that the Paladin could use their additional attack.
- The 30ft range is of paramount importance. Always take it into account when planning your movement.
- Bard is the most powerful Caster. Fighter is the most powerful Martial. Each class also has its own thing that cannot be poached.
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PF2:
-Your PCs start off as the genetic misfits of their ancestry lacking traits supposedly common to their people.
-Level 1 is once again a meat grinder and the most likely level for a TPK.
-Classes give up every feature they had in PF1e and now buy them back feat by feat to make the game seem like it has actual content.
-Until level 15+ where characters are finally allowed to break the math by a tiny bit, you will be at set brackets to succeed at everything all game long unless weaker encounters are deliberately used to give a sense of progression.
-Your character will, in theory, have many different options for each combat round but the game's simple math will mean that there is always an optimal path to take. For some classes like the Bard, a powerhouse to be sure, this path will often be all-consuming and leave a player feeling like a walking buff pylon who might cast synesthesia against the session's largest threat.
-Magic just isn't. Many spells have been cut, made 'rare', or simply nerfed to where you wonder how magical events in the past ever happened.
-NPCs and monsters cheat. Unlike PF1 everything you face is built using different methods than your character so good luck ever doing that cool thing you saw an NPC of our class and ancestry doing.
-Familiars are worthless. Paizo wrote them weak to begin with and has only made them weaker every time they can be bothered to mention them at all.
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Until level 15+ where characters are finally allowed to break the math by a tiny bit, you will be at set brackets to succeed at everything all game long unless weaker encounters are deliberately used to give a sense of progression.
There are a number of issues with your statements, but I'll focus on this one for now since it strikes me as the most egregiously mistaken observation.
Though it's true the math is much tighter in this edition, it is possible to start pulling ahead well before 15th-level.
In any case, even if you were right, the power to get ahead comes primarily in the form of having a wider breadth of options in which to appropriately overcome encounters, not in the raw numbers. This is something that I feel a lot of people don't realize with this game.
Example: At low levels a spellcaster might only have one damage type due to limited spell selection. If they encounter something with fire resistance and only have produce flame and burning hands, they're going to come off as weak. However, when that same character gains two levels, and diversifies their spell list (to include acid arrow say) then they're going to be much more powerful against both creatures with fire resistance or acid vulnerability. The fact that both the spell DC and the target's saves went up doesn't really matter here. The fact of the mater is that the character is much stronger all the same.
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Until level 15+ where characters are finally allowed to break the math by a tiny bit, you will be at set brackets to succeed at everything all game long unless weaker encounters are deliberately used to give a sense of progression.There are a number of issues with your statements, but I'll focus on this one for now since it strikes me as the most egregiously mistaken observation.
Though it's true the math is much tighter in this edition, it is possible to start pulling ahead well before 15th-level.
In any case, even if you were right, the power to get ahead comes primarily in the form of having a wider breadth of options in which to appropriately overcome encounters, not in the raw numbers. This is something that I feel a lot of people don't realize with this game.
Example: At low levels a spellcaster might only have one damage type due to limited spell selection. If they encounter something with fire resistance and only have produce flame and burning hands, they're going to come off as weak. However, when that same character gains two levels, and diversifies their spell list (to include acid arrow say) then they're going to be much more powerful against both creatures with fire resistance or acid vulnerability. The fact that both the spell DC and the target's saves went up doesn't really matter here. The fact of the mater is that the character is much stronger all the same.
This is said as if PF1 characters never gained any broader abilities.
Your example is especially poor as the example character could have started with Electric Arc and Magic Missile at level 1 and never had the issue in the first place. More damningly it ignores that a caster in PF1 had more options for role diversity than a PF2 character does in addition to having the ability to ensure that it was impactful against higher level foes. Even PF1 martial classes had options to switch things up even if they often traded away versatility to perform their role so well that rolling dice was often a formality.
PF1 could, in fact, support a greater total range of character power which could allow for things like martial characters not needing to focus on a single combat style to meet the average power level of their party.
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The idea that monsters using different rules than PCs is “cheating” is wild to me - tons of games do it, and I would argue to their benefit!
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The idea that monsters using different rules than PCs is “cheating” is wild to me - tons of games do it, and I would argue to their benefit!
It's hardly a wild complaint when PCs can play an ancestry that is also stated up as a monster and get different stats and benefits than the monster does. As but a single example, imagine the bewilderment of the scientist that catalogues that every single Sprite that chooses to adventure is wingless at the start of their travels. That's statistically impossible, but the only way to resolve it is to fluff that characters starting at level 17 are the rare Sprites that do start adventuring with wings and to just gloss over that it doesn't jive with the rules.
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I agree with you on the silliness of wingless pixies, but the idea that low level 1e characters are more versatile than 2e characters is somewhat hard to take in. Between skill consolidation and feats (1) no longer belonging to unnecessary feat trees, and (2) being placed into isolating "buckets" so that investing in non-combat options doesn't totally screw over your combat capabilities, I'd argue that 2e characters are vastly more versatile than their predecessors.
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I agree with you on the silliness of wingless pixies, but the idea that low level 1e characters are more versatile than 2e characters is somewhat hard to take in. Between skill consolidation and feats (1) no longer belonging to unnecessary feat trees, and (2) being placed into isolating "buckets" so that investing in non-combat options doesn't totally screw over your combat capabilities, I'd argue that 2e characters are vastly more versatile than their predecessors.
PF1/3.5/3e to me devolved into the highest tower by the end. How much can i specialize my character so that i can get that extra little bonus, pf2 hard capped everything so you can get only as tall and then you need to go wide.
Leads to less variety in general but more 'viable' options. It's not like 5e where you always will have a chance to succeed but where if you do invest a bit you will be pretty decent at it.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I actually really love that the feat lists are set up in such a way that forces you to diversify your build - when I build a full intimidation focused barbarian, I can get all of the relevant intimidation skill feats, but still have skill feats left over that I have to think of something else to invest those in.
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The idea that monsters using different rules than PCs is “cheating” is wild to me - tons of games do it, and I would argue to their benefit!It's hardly a wild complaint when PCs can play an ancestry that is also stated up as a monster and get different stats and benefits than the monster does. As but a single example, imagine the bewilderment of the scientist that catalogues that every single Sprite that chooses to adventure is wingless at the start of their travels. That's statistically impossible, but the only way to resolve it is to fluff that characters starting at level 17 are the rare Sprites that do start adventuring with wings and to just gloss over that it doesn't jive with the rules.
Not every single Sprite Adventurer, just the PCs, which are unique, with all that entails.
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PF2:
-Your PCs start off as the genetic misfits of their ancestry lacking traits supposedly common to their people.
-Level 1 is once again a meat grinder and the most likely level for a TPK.
-Classes give up every feature they had in PF1e and now buy them back feat by feat to make the game seem like it has actual content.
-Until level 15+ where characters are finally allowed to break the math by a tiny bit, you will be at set brackets to succeed at everything all game long unless weaker encounters are deliberately used to give a sense of progression.
-Your character will, in theory, have many different options for each combat round but the game's simple math will mean that there is always an optimal path to take. For some classes like the Bard, a powerhouse to be sure, this path will often be all-consuming and leave a player feeling like a walking buff pylon who might cast synesthesia against the session's largest threat.
-Magic just isn't. Many spells have been cut, made 'rare', or simply nerfed to where you wonder how magical events in the past ever happened.
-NPCs and monsters cheat. Unlike PF1 everything you face is built using different methods than your character so good luck ever doing that cool thing you saw an NPC of our class and ancestry doing.
-Familiars are worthless. Paizo wrote them weak to begin with and has only made them weaker every time they can be bothered to mention them at all.
You forgot the biggest pro compared to PF1.
You can actually play the game to a high level without waiting for some caster to buff himself with 10 buffs, scry preparing for everything, then solve every battle using a spell.
And that it plays closer to an actual story that isn't about every superhero fantasy character killing every fantastical monster with complete and utter easy at high level.
You did forget some of the pros of PF2 versus PF1 where every high level character is some optimized beast where you didn't seem to mind that the player could build the math to completely destroy everything it faced.
Seems you were ok with the math when it was so heavily slanted in the player's favor as to make the game a trivial exercise in pointless gaming, whereas now that the fights are actually challenging you complain about the math not allowing you to shift it in your favor until lvl 15.
What does this really show? That you don't play the game for one because you can shift the math in your favor quite a bit earlier. If you played PF2, you would know that. But it sounds like you don't, so how could you possibly know how the math works or what works in the game.
Bottom line is you don't. You just miss the overpowered PF1 paradigm where you could build some monster character that destroyed everything easily.
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-Classes give up every feature they had in PF1e and now buy them back feat by feat to make the game seem like it has actual content.
This complaint always strikes me as odd if someone is comparing PF1 and PF2, because PF1 did this as well via archetypes. Using the class feat system is just a lot more straightforward and moddable.
Which for the benefit of the OP, archetypes that change your innate class features are largely gone. Not completely, but we only have 2 examples of such class archetypes. Instead, most archetypes just add feats to your feat pools, for you to select or not as you choose.
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You forgot the biggest pro compared to PF1.
You can actually play the game to a high level without waiting for some caster to buff himself with 10 buffs, scry preparing for everything, then solve every battle using a spell.
And that it plays closer to an actual story that isn't about every superhero fantasy character killing every fantastical monster with complete and utter easy at high level.
You did forget some of the pros of PF2 versus PF1 where every high level character is some optimized beast where you didn't seem to mind that the player could build the math to completely destroy everything it faced.
Seems you were ok with the math when it was so heavily slanted in the player's favor as to make the game a trivial exercise in pointless gaming, whereas now that the fights are actually challenging you complain about the math not allowing you to shift it in your favor until lvl 15.
What does this really show? That you don't play the game for one because you can shift the math in your favor quite a bit earlier. If you played PF2, you would know that. But it sounds like you don't, so how could you possibly know how the math works or what works in the game.
Bottom line is you don't. You just miss the overpowered PF1 paradigm where you could build some monster character that destroyed everything easily.
I was the GM... *Drops the Mic*
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I was the GM... *Drops the Mic*You forgot the biggest pro compared to PF1.
You can actually play the game to a high level without waiting for some caster to buff himself with 10 buffs, scry preparing for everything, then solve every battle using a spell.
And that it plays closer to an actual story that isn't about every superhero fantasy character killing every fantastical monster with complete and utter easy at high level.
You did forget some of the pros of PF2 versus PF1 where every high level character is some optimized beast where you didn't seem to mind that the player could build the math to completely destroy everything it faced.
Seems you were ok with the math when it was so heavily slanted in the player's favor as to make the game a trivial exercise in pointless gaming, whereas now that the fights are actually challenging you complain about the math not allowing you to shift it in your favor until lvl 15.
What does this really show? That you don't play the game for one because you can shift the math in your favor quite a bit earlier. If you played PF2, you would know that. But it sounds like you don't, so how could you possibly know how the math works or what works in the game.
Bottom line is you don't. You just miss the overpowered PF1 paradigm where you could build some monster character that destroyed everything easily.
So was I...*Drops the Mic*
You loved the game when the math was the players hitting on a 1 or killing Ancient Gold Dragons in a round with ease. Math so completely in the player's favor with ridiculous feats and spells that ended fights in a round or two before they even started.
You got anything more? None of that in PF1 was any more real than PF2. None of it. The monsters still didn't follow the rules for players and had plenty of abilities players couldn't get.
Players in PF2 have plenty of abilities monsters can't get.
How many monsters you see with skill feats? Or who get to boost their saves from a success to a critical success? Or get to rage with dragon abilities? Monsters are limited as well.
You talk a lot of smack for someone who doesn't have much experience playing or DMing PF2. All the stuff you listed clearly shows you don't even know how PF2 works or what player's can do with their abilities.
Your assertions are mostly false with a few that really don't matter.
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Until level 15+ where characters are finally allowed to break the math by a tiny bit, you will be at set brackets to succeed at everything all game long unless weaker encounters are deliberately used to give a sense of progression.There are a number of issues with your statements, but I'll focus on this one for now since it strikes me as the most egregiously mistaken observation.
Though it's true the math is much tighter in this edition, it is possible to start pulling ahead well before 15th-level.
In any case, even if you were right, the power to get ahead comes primarily in the form of having a wider breadth of options in which to appropriately overcome encounters, not in the raw numbers. This is something that I feel a lot of people don't realize with this game.
Example: At low levels a spellcaster might only have one damage type due to limited spell selection. If they encounter something with fire resistance and only have produce flame and burning hands, they're going to come off as weak. However, when that same character gains two levels, and diversifies their spell list (to include acid arrow say) then they're going to be much more powerful against both creatures with fire resistance or acid vulnerability. The fact that both the spell DC and the target's saves went up doesn't really matter here. The fact of the mater is that the character is much stronger all the same.
This is said as if PF1 characters never gained any broader abilities.
Your example is especially poor as the example character could have started with Electric Arc and Magic Missile at level 1 and never had the issue in the first place. More damningly it ignores that a caster in PF1 had more options for role diversity than a PF2 character does in addition to having the ability to ensure that it was impactful against higher level foes. Even PF1 martial classes had options to switch things up even if they often traded away versatility to...
PF1 focused on a single combat style far more than PF2, by a wide margin.
PF2 martials are more versatile by a good measure than PF1. You would know this if you actually played PF2 for any length of time. You are listing more proof that you don't even know PF2 classes or martials.
I played PF1 from the very beginning. It did not take long to see PF2 martials and casters are far more versatile than PF1. It is so easy to build a switch hitting character in PF2 compared to PF1 that no one should be focusing like they did in PF1 on a Two-hander fighter or Archer fighter any more. You can make fighters that can easily do both with a high level of proficiency.
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I played PF1 from the very beginning. It did not take long to see PF2 martials and casters are far more versatile than PF1. It is so easy to build a switch hitting character in PF2 compared to PF1 that no one should be focusing like they did in PF1 on a Two-hander fighter or Archer fighter any more. You can make fighters that can easily do both with a high level of proficiency.
This is a problem of expectation clashing with game design. People usually want to specialize and expect to be rewarded for it (because specialisation usually means that you give up on other aspects of the game). Powergaming aside, if I want to play a Conan type character I want to be good or even the best with swords and be able to easily whack things simply because of my melee specialization, not just being good or very good with swords while being equally good at challenging Robin Hood to an archery duel. Note that it is well understood that not being able to specialize (as much) is probably better for the overall game balance as well as most probably leading to overall stronger characters having access to a phletora of options, however it might also not be what (at least some) players want. For example, not being able to specialize (as much) seems to be a huge stumbling block for many players trying to understand the Wizard.
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I played PF1 from the very beginning. It did not take long to see PF2 martials and casters are far more versatile than PF1. It is so easy to build a switch hitting character in PF2 compared to PF1 that no one should be focusing like they did in PF1 on a Two-hander fighter or Archer fighter any more. You can make fighters that can easily do both with a high level of proficiency.This is a problem of expectation clashing with game design. People usually want to specialize and expect to be rewarded for it (because specialisation usually means that you give up on other aspects of the game). Powergaming aside, if I want to play a Conan type character I want to be good or even the best with swords and be able to easily whack things simply because of my melee specialization, not just being good or very good with swords while being equally good at challenging Robin Hood to an archery duel. Note that it is well understood that not being able to specialize (as much) is probably better for the overall game balance as well as most probably leading to overall stronger characters having access to a phletora of options, however it might also not be what (at least some) players want. For example, not being able to specialize (as much) seems to be a huge stumbling block for many players trying to understand the Wizard.
Conan is far easier to simulate in PF2 than PF1. Conan picked up a variety of weapons and fought well with them. He didn't use the same sword over and over again.
What the problem is not so much expectation, it's power fantasies. PF1 was a game for people who liked to fulfill power fantasies. It was the most lop-sided edition in the favor of the players ever created. The 3E ruleset overall was the most lop-sided edition in favor of the players ever created. I can see how gamers who miss the power fantasy of making this sickening character that can crush everything they became accustomed to over the last 10 years.
But for people who like to tell stories and simulate fantasy characters, PF2 is heads and tails better. Want to make a Gandalf? Super easy to make a wizard who can use a sword in combat. Want to play Conan? Easy to make a barbarian or fighter who wears no armor and can still hang in battle. Want to play Elric? Easy to make a magus or a wizard who can fight.
There's no argument that PF2 is far, far better at simulating various fantasy characters in fiction. PF1 was terrible for simulating most fantasy characters. I eventually reached a point where I accepted that D&D was its own fantasy genre with its own norms because of how terrible it was at simulating fantasy.
Now PF2 does a great job of simulating the visuals of fantasy character while providing a much more challenging and better simulation of the fantasy genre where even a high level character can feel endangered by an army of orcs if that is the fantasy simulation the DM wants. Or giants. Or demons. Or kobolds.
In stories, 80 year old rangers who is one of the greatest warriors of his time fear orc armies. In PF1 high level fighters laughed at orc armies. In PF2 you can make that orc army that the greatest fighter of the land fears.
Even if you spend a bunch of time going over every complaint, you can narrow it down to one major complaint with PF2:
1. It doesn't allow fantasy power gaming any longer. You don't get to kill The Dark Lord with one spell. You don't get to kill the ancient dragon in 1 round. You don't get to scry and die the evil lich.
PF2 is dangerous across all its levels. If you go up against The Dark Lord or some equivalent BBEG, you don't get to power game the math so much in your favor that you beat them easily. To a DM that plays these games primarily to simulate great fantasy stories, that makes PF2 heads and tails better than PF1.
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Yes one of the Pros of PF2 is that for most characters you don't have to spend feats to keep up. Its all about getting something new abilities.
But by the same token, a Con of PF2 is that you have a lot less control over what part of your character you focus on.
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Its one of those weird things where versatile PF1 character are great. But few people actually make them because they are too focused on a specific combat style. So few people actually think about those characters when complaining about it.
Its also something that happens in PF2, but slightly different. In PF2 it takes the form of people picking the exact same feats every single time, and just changing the descriptions.
So PF1 total freedom to build as you like, but beware of balance V.S. PF2 balanced as much as humanly possible, but beware of illusion of choice.
Instead of specializing in say something like Two-hander fighting or spellstriking with shocking grasp, you can specialize in a concept.
I had a druid. I wanted to make a storm druid who could turn into a dragon or elemental and fight. Sure enough I was able to do this in a highly effective manner. By lvl 16 I was able to hit people with tempest surge, chain lightning, summon a sandstorm, or turn into a dragon and go into battle and use a breath weapon. I was still able to use a bow and fire it well enough to hurt things. Basically, I was able to build this powerful storm dragon type of half-elven druid who still looked like she was trained in eleven weapons like the bow while being a powerful caster.
Right now I'm working up a shadow sorcerer who is a powerful wielder of occult magic able to call upon the shadows to harm and control his enemies while having a glare so intimidating he can kill people with it. He dresses like a Victorian gentleman who carries a cane with a shadow demon head on it.
You may not be able to power game specialize where you push the math in your favor stacking mathematical bonus on top of mathematical bonus, but you can certainly build concepts in PF2 better than any edition of D&D I've ever played.
Next party I'm trying a psychopomp summoner who is a healer and support caster employing a spellcasting eidolon and summoning spells to use creatures to bolster his support effects.
You can build so many character concepts in this edition. It is nearly limitless how you can mix and match all the parts to make an interesting character.
I freely admit you can't stack the math in your favor which I used to do a lot. I sort of missed it at first. I know some of my players miss it. But the actual character concepts you can make once you learn the PF2 system are astounding and nearly limitless.
The PF2 system is incredibly robust at writing down an idea for a character with no mechanics at all. Write the concept down and then figure out a way to build it. You'll find that you can often build a character that fits the concept quite well. It's pretty fun to build characters in PF2.
In PF1 you knew what you were going to do right from the beginning. Caster, spell focus, greater spell focus, keep adding spell feat after feat to maximize the DC of your spells or a single spell ad nauseum. Same with a martial building feat upon feat to maximize your fighting style. If the DM did something to make your fighting style obsolete, you sat there looking pathetic.
PF2 isn't that way. You can build a complete concept. You want to play a dual wielding fighter who is also a field general. You get the two-weapon fighting feats and pick up Marshal and the fear aura, you can build this fearsome field general who boosts the party while also being able to fight well with two weapons.
PF2 keeps getting better the more I learn about it and the more they add.
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PF2 is dangerous across all its levels. If you go up against The Dark Lord or some equivalent BBEG, you don't get to power game the math so much in your favor that you beat them easily. To a DM that plays these games primarily to simulate great fantasy stories, that makes PF2 heads and tails better than PF1.
The issue with this is that for some this somehow seems to cut the heroic part out of their roleplay experience. Of course this heavily comes down to personal and subjective preferences and may wildly differ from GM, group and individual player. Its the same difference in between a John Wayne or Roger Moore Bond style of movie and story versus a Bruce Willis Die Hard or Daniel Craig Bond style of movie and story. Some people need to almost always stay on top to feel heroic, for others barely surviving by the skin of their teeth is truely heroic.
And while personally I do not prefer to one camp over the other my own experience after two volumes of AoA was more like "a ragtag group of amateurs that managed to stumble across a story larger then themselves but that somehow managed to have survived thus far however unlikely" rather than "an undauntable brotherhood of shining heroes that all cut their own paths while twarting evil plans and besting any opponent with skill, cunning and courage".
All of this is of course heavily dependent on how story was written by the module creators, how it was presented by the GM, how it was taken on by the players as well as the overall "difficulty setting" of said module, and should therefore just serve as an example that I can at least relate what people may dislike about the "grittiness" of PF2.
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Personally I don' find someone easily crushing their enemies to be heroic. I think heroism is heroism because it is something above and beyond what is easy for the character. In my eyes superman very rarely manages to be a hero because most of the time he is just beating up people who can't possibly hurt him. Sure, its a sort of public service that he takes out the bad guys, but its about as heroic as picking up trash on the side of the road (because to him its basically the same thing). He does manage to be heroic in the few occasions where something is actually a credible threat to him, and somewhat heroic in the amount of restraint he shows, but I don't think heroic restraint is really a theme that you can easily express in an RPG.
For a marvel example, I think Steve Rogers was more heroic before he became Captain America than he was after, because he was already getting into fights with bullies even though he knew he would lose (not that Captain America isn't a hero, I just think Steve Rogers was a bigger hero when the bullies where stronger than him).
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Math so completely in the player's favor with ridiculous feats and spells that ended fights in a round or two before they even started.
Your players' characters actually had to fight? Whoa. Just how weak and pitiable were they?
...but beware of illusion of choice.
Fake news!
In PF1 high level fighters laughed at orc armies. In PF2 you can make that orc army that the greatest fighter of the land fears.
Absolutely true. There also comes a point where the average orc warrior can't touch the high level fighter, even on a natural 20. Such a fighter could wade through any number of those orc warriors with absolute impunity.
It's the orc lieutenants and larger-than-life warbeasts that pose at least some small threat. The orc chieftain and his elite bodyguards pose a moderate threat. The world-devouring demon he summons upon his death using the sacrifice of his whole army (and yours) to complete the ritual is the real threat.
The GM can challenge PCs at any level and set up adventures ranging from survival horror grind fests to big damn heroics. Easily.
Fantasy power gaming still exists. It's just that now you need the GM's cooperation. You can't just run away with the campaign narrative simply because you have high numbers and nothing could hope to realistically stop you.
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It doesn't allow fantasy power gaming any longer. You don't get to kill The Dark Lord with one spell. You don't get to kill the ancient dragon in 1 round. You don't get to scry and die the evil lich.
Aaahhh, those were the days. A fighter and a thief ambushed an ancient red in flight, attacked fully buffed, and moments later the body of this once mighty dragon hit the rock of the mountains it was flying over.
The horror of the excel sheet I used to keep track of all the different numbers.... I was checking that file about a month ago, glad to never go back to that.
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You loved the game when the math was the players hitting on a 1 or killing Ancient Gold Dragons in a round with ease. Math so completely in the player's favor with ridiculous feats and spells that ended fights in a round or two before they even started.
Why was the dragon just sitting there waiting to take it? Ancient dragons should invest in anti-scrying protections and have better than even odds of being the one who sneaks up on the party full buffed and eats one of them for a snack.
If you had your monsters as passive threats that didn't play the game every bit as hard as the PCs then it's on you that encounters fell flat.
You got anything more? None of that in PF1 was any more real than PF2. None of it. The monsters still didn't follow the rules for players and had plenty of abilities players couldn't get.
Unless the player was playing that same kind of monster, it never got to 3.x levels but there were plenty of monstrous ancestries and templates for PCs to take that worked exactly the same on them as they did on anything the DM cooked up.
Plus, even with racial bonuses, many of which were outlined by the creatures type and/or size all those skill bonuses and bonus feats worked exactly the same for the enemy as they did for the party.
Players in PF2 have plenty of abilities monsters can't get.
How many monsters you see with skill feats? Or who get to boost their saves from a success to a critical success? Or get to rage with dragon abilities? Monsters are limited as well.
You never send NPC enemies built the same as PCs after your party? No rival groups, guilds, or cults that aren't just copy-paste stat blocks from the back of the book? Your PCs never fight each other either?
Your games sound pretty dull if your dragons just wait to die and your parties never face anything built like themselves with murder on their minds.
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PF1 focused on a single combat style far more than PF2, by a wide margin.
Only if you built them badly or played a terrible low-tier class in a game where other players were playing high-tier classes. If the group agreed to a certain style of game within a given power envelope it opened up a ton of space for builds that didn't need to do any one thing to keep up.
PF2 martials are more versatile by a good measure than PF1. You would know this if you actually played PF2 for any length of time. You are listing more proof that you don't even know PF2 classes or martials.
I never said PF2 didn't give martial classes more options than they tended to have in PF1. My claim was that PF1 casters had more options and PF1 martials had more options that people credit them with.
This was even more true if, as I did, you came to PF1 from 3.x and could easily port things over.
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You may not be able to power game specialize where you push the math in your favor stacking mathematical bonus on top of mathematical bonus, but you can certainly build concepts in PF2 better than any edition of D&D I've ever played.
Next party I'm trying a psychopomp summoner who is a healer and support caster employing a spellcasting eidolon and summoning spells to use creatures to bolster his support effects.
You can build so many character concepts in this edition. It is nearly limitless how you can mix and match all the parts to make an interesting character.
I freely admit you can't stack the math in your favor which I used to do a lot. I sort of missed it at first. I know some of my players miss it. But the actual character concepts you can make once you learn the PF2 system are astounding and nearly limitless.
The PF2 system is incredibly robust at writing down an idea for a character with no mechanics at all. Write the concept down and then figure out a way to build it. You'll find that you can often build a character that fits the concept quite well. It's pretty fun to build characters in PF2.
In PF1 you knew what you were going to do right from the beginning. Caster, spell focus, greater spell focus, keep adding spell feat after feat to maximize the DC of your spells or a single spell ad nauseum. Same with a martial building feat upon feat to maximize your fighting style. If the DM did something to make your fighting style obsolete, you sat there looking pathetic.
PF2 isn't that way. You can build a complete concept. You want to play a dual wielding fighter who is also a field general. You get the two-weapon fighting feats and pick up Marshal and the fear aura, you can build this fearsome field general who boosts the party while also being able to fight well with two weapons.
PF2 keeps getting better the more I learn about it and the more they add.
So why play PF2 for this when you can get even more character options with a FATE based system while still having crunch for combat scenes? If you want crunch, PF2 has less of it than other games. If you want story the same is also true.
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Aaahhh, those were the days. A fighter and a thief ambushed an ancient red in flight, attacked fully buffed, and moments later the body of this once mighty dragon hit the rock of the mountains it was flying over.
The horror of the excel sheet I used to keep track of all the different numbers.... I was checking that file about a month ago, glad to never go back to that.
Tolkien had Bard merc Smaug with a called shot and a single arrow. Gandalf made a single combat maneuver check to blast the Balrog off the bridge at Moria. The grandfather of D&D showed us that fantasy combat doesn't need to have scenes that drag on for pages to be effective.
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Hmmm, I think that most of the pros and cons have a little more to do with what someone expects out of the game, to be honest. What I consider good might be dulled to a person that already has decided that they don’t like the game, for example, because of a variety reasons. And okay, fair enough, someone that really likes the game might disagree with some sort of criticism that I have to offer. That probably sounds a little too obvious, but it’s still a good idea to keep that in mind as you comb through the replies, OP.
But — of course! You are asking for opinions after all, so yeah. Keep in mind that I have both played and ran some APs (or, well, some of their books at least, in most of the cases) and am currently running a homebrew campaign, set in Osirion. Here’s the pros:
— From the GM’s side, I think that what jumps to me the most is the encounter building. Running a homebrew campaign, I can count the number of times on my hand when an encounter went unexpectedly. If I make an encounter thinking that that encounter is going to be tough, then it usually is. If, otherwise, I want it to be an opportunity for the players to show off their capabilities (i.e how strong they are/have become), then that’s what usually happen. There’s some nuance there, still: A high DR enemy will prove to be difficult to a more melee party, an enemy with high saves is going to be a sour experience for spellcasters, etc, but once you get a feel for the system, those hiccups that might happen will not happen anymore. But it’s not how tight the whole encounter building feels. To me, the biggest pro of this aspect is how much time I waste compared to other games. I know that you don’t want to start and edition wars, but I can’t help but compare: When I first got into the first edition, I had just started college, right?. Time was tight, and I remember spending hours building these encounters, thinking that they’d be a big challenge, just for them to become a cakewalk. These villains were amped up to be these enormous threats, and... They just didn't come through. It felt... Antithetical, I guess, to the narrative. I think that you can, absolutely, provide tough challenges for your players on the first edition, but it requires so much time from you that you have to ask yourself: What exactly are you trying to achieve, here? As someone that doesn’t have tons of time on my hands anymore, I’d rather spend my time prepping about different challenges, story beats and etc rather than one or two encounters. Though, if time isn’t an issue for you, then that’s probably kind of bleh.
— From the player’s side, being able to build a character without, well, gimping myself, is plenty of a relief. I can absolutely pick up eh options for roleplay reasons and be fine with them. That’s not to say there aren’t better options, there absolutely are, but because of the way that the math works, it’s usually fine. In different games, you could otherwise kind of be dead weight. In some other games, if only one player optimizes their character, then any kind of semblance of balance in thrown off the window.
— It goes without saying that the internal game systems are a work of elegance, tbh. Like… The degrees of success, the way dying works, the action system, how different sorts of feats work, the introduction of a metacurrency etc. Of course, not all of them are original to the game, but still. For new players, these cliqued way faster than any other internal systems of any other RPGs, aside those that are plenty light ofc(like the many PbtA games). I will concede that hazards are a hard exception, though. They are hard to wrap our head around, at least for me, and even now that I do understand them, there’s just something off about how they work.
Now, for the cons:
— Hmmm… Interestingly enough, I do think that veteran GMs might have a harder time understanding the system than newbie GMs, and that’s because we often learn to, hmmm, how can I say this? “Read the implications of the rules”? I’ve played plenty of other RPGs: Cortex Prime, Shadowrun 4e and 5e, Fate, D&D 5th, Savage Worlds, many PbtA(though they’re not relevant to my example), and in most of those, you do have to overtone on your encounter building, compared to the guidelines that you’re usually given to follow for that. You do have to trust the system while learning from it, I guess, because a game of PF2E runs very differently than other traditional RPGs, and that can be jarring, if not disheartening, initially.
— Mild gear, ahm, I’m not sure of what synonym can be used in here. You know… The one that starts with a p and ends with a n. Most gear offered play exactly into the breadth perspective, but my players have consistently held on to them to later sell them, and have refused to buy them (aside from drakeheart mutagens and, ofc, runes). They instead in saving for the essentials (i.e runes), even though we’re playing a game that has been advertised in having a hard limit on the access of item levels because of the situation (siege). For those that like to spend hours scouring through the gear to find every little advantage that you can find, well… There’s plenty of useful stuff, but eh. It’s no PF1e, much less no Shadowrun.
— Veeeery different paradigm: And this is the biggest con. The game does nothing to soften whatever blow might be felt by the people that come to it expecting an experience more similar to DnD 5th or PF1e. I’ve heard a player say that they feel their sorcerer was weak, for example, in the end of the same session where they did like 180 damage from a lightning bolt on level 8.. And I’m not dunking on them, I can absolutely see where they are coming from: But I don’t think the problem is the game, specifically, but the fact that what classes can do or what they should do isn’t telegraphed well, even if class roles are more rigid than ever. Though, I will concede that I'm not sure how they could do that aside from being very on the nose about it...
Edit: Oh, here's another con! When people talk about the difficulty of this edition, I do think they are usually coming from APs. And that's true, adventure paths tend to set the bar higher rather than lower for that. And because most of APs are, of course, heavy on combat, when most of them are severe encounter or similar, then it can naturally feel like a slog. They're otherwise excellent, and on higher levels that inherent, rigid difficulty does alleviate without completely going away, but depending on how you and your players like your campaigns, if you do go for an AP, consider trimming your encounters or offering(not allowing, offering) alternative solutions to them, that's okay.
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Tolkien had Bard merc Smaug with a called shot and a single arrow. Gandalf made a single combat maneuver check to blast the Balrog off the bridge at Moria. The grandfather of D&D showed us that fantasy combat doesn't need to have scenes that drag on for pages to be effective.
The problem is the balance in between we always just kick the BBEGs behind and we never just kick the BBEGs behind as both extremes can become stale fast. If every BBEG is a fight to the skin of your teeth even if the party is mega prepared, especially trained and / or the bad guy clearly underestimated his opposition thats nearly as bad as not having any BBEG available that can literally touch your players. There is a reason why the cited examples are singular events.
That having said I really like it when you can thrash talk and dispose the BBEG from time to time while coming up with a witty one-liner, for example because the henchmen fight was the real boss fight and the BBEG has by now squandered all his ressources, and I really dislike it when every single BBEG fight is a drawn out slugging match just because the opponent has a BBEG label.
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Tolkien had Bard merc Smaug with a called shot and a single arrow. Gandalf made a single combat maneuver check to blast the Balrog off the bridge at Moria. The grandfather of D&D showed us that fantasy combat doesn't need to have scenes that drag on for pages to be effective.The problem is the balance in between we always just kick the BBEGs behind and we never just kick the BBEGs behind as both extremes can become stale fast. If every BBEG is a fight to the skin of your teeth even if the party is mega prepared, especially trained and / or the bad guy clearly underestimated his opposition thats nearly as bad as not having any BBEG available that can literally touch your players. There is a reason why the cited examples are singular events.
That's on the DM though. Even at high levels in PF1, you can set up scenarios where just finding the big bad is sessions worth of effort as they comb the multiverse for clues. If you do that well then even if the actual battle is an anti-climax you've likely entertained your group. If you take the time to set contingency plans for the big bad the way an overly paranoid player might then that first fight will almost never be the end of that BBEG.
Yes, this takes a lot of work. The depth of the system and how much you need to sift through to run it is PF1's biggest strength while also its biggest flaw. I get why people dislike PF1 and exaggerate its flaws but PF2 swung too far the other way.
That having said I really like it when you can thrash talk and dispose the BBEG from time to time while coming up with a witty one-liner, for example because the henchmen fight was the real boss fight and the BBEG has by now squandered all his ressources, and I really dislike it when every single BBEG fight is a drawn out slugging match just because the opponent has a BBEG label.
This is the big con of 5e for me. Legendary actions and saves seem almost required to make a single creature encounter memorable and they force every fight they feature in into the same pattern.
PF2 is dangerous across all its levels. If you go up against The Dark Lord or some equivalent BBEG, you don't get to power game the math so much in your favor that you beat them easily. To a DM that plays these games primarily to simulate great fantasy stories, that makes PF2 heads and tails better than PF1.The issue with this is that for some this somehow seems to cut the heroic part out of their roleplay experience. Of course this heavily comes down to personal and subjective preferences and may wildly differ from GM, group and individual player. Its the same difference in between a John Wayne or Roger Moore Bond style of movie and story versus a Bruce Willis Die Hard or Daniel Craig Bond style of movie and story. Some people need to almost always stay on top to feel heroic, for others barely surviving by the skin of their teeth is truely heroic.
And while personally I do not prefer to one camp over the other my own experience after two volumes of AoA was more like "a ragtag group of amateurs that managed to stumble across a story larger then themselves but that somehow managed to have survived thus far however unlikely" rather than "an undauntable brotherhood of shining heroes that all cut their own paths while twarting evil plans and besting any opponent with skill, cunning and courage".
All of this is of course heavily dependent on how story was written by the module creators, how it was presented by the GM, how it was taken on by the players as well as the overall "difficulty setting" of said module, and should therefore just serve as an example that I can at least relate what people may dislike about the "grittiness" of PF2.
Even James Bond has his butt kicked. It depends on the John Wayne movie.
This is fantasy. Very rarely in fantasy is the BBEG a pushover. Even Conan had trouble fighting the main BBEGs.
In PF1 the characters became Superman written in a way that is never challenging. The wizard was Superman and martials were Batman or maybe Robin at high level. Martials were sidekicks and the wizard could run alone.
As I stated before, it was the most lopsided edition of D&D in the player's favor ever created along with the 3E ruleset. Not even Advanced or 2nd edition created such a lopsided environment with math so easily gameable in the player's favor.
PF2 as far as difficulty is a throwback to when D and D based games were far more dangerous.
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I'll say one thing that I don't necessarily think has been mentioned in his thread... PF2 is fundamentally a less epic game. This is by design. 3.x tended to fall apart in weird and unfortunate ways as you got to higher and higher levels and the style fo game shifted from heroic to superheroic to epic. PF2 saw that, concluded that "heroic" was the sweet spot, and has put real effort into putting more or less the entire level curve into that heroic block.
So as you go up in level, there's a lot less of the dramatic shifts in what kind of game you're playing. There's no point where "apply all the buffs" or "scry and die" suddenly become the win plans. Things adjust a bit, because the kinds of threat you're facing change, and your character will develop new abilities, but If you build a tanky champion who's going to stand out front with a shield and soak the enemy hate, or a two-weapon fighter who wants to stab again and again and again or a beastmaster ranger who wants to knock the foe to the ground and then hit them while they're down, then you're fully capable in that role at level 1, and you can keep doing that just fine, as a solid contributor to party effectiveness, all the way through to level 20.
Admittedly, there are some archetypes that aren't supported as well as we might like (yet) but in general, you're not going to start out with an archetype that works, and then suddenly discover that it's stopped working 5 or 8 or 10 levels in, and you're also not going to have to wait until level 3 or 5 or 8 before your overall design "turns on". The builds that are viable generally start out viable and stay viable.
Oh, and everyone always gets to pick some cool new thing, pretty much every level or two. That's nice, too.
...
More broadly, I note that we're seeing one guy who really hates the game, and is willing to spend lots of mental energy insisting that it's horrible, and a bunch of people who rather like it. I'm honestly not sure why he's here. Maybe arguing with people on the internet is how he processes stress?
I'll say one thing that I don't necessarily think has been mentioned in his thread... PF2 is fundamentally a less epic game. This is by design. 3.x tended to fall apart in weird and unfortunate ways as you got to higher and higher levels and the style fo game shifted from heroic to superheroic to epic. PF2 saw that, concluded that "heroic" was the sweet spot, and has put real effort into putting more or less the entire level curve into that heroic block.
So as you go up in level, there's a lot less of the dramatic shifts in what kind of game you're playing. There's no point where "apply all the buffs" or "scry and die" suddenly become the win plans. Things adjust a bit, because the kinds of threat you're facing change, and your character will develop new abilities, but If you build a tanky champion who's going to stand out front with a shield and soak the enemy hate, or a two-weapon fighter who wants to stab again and again and again or a beastmaster ranger who wants to knock the foe to the ground and then hit them while they're down, then you're fully capable in that role at level 1, and you can keep doing that just fine, as a solid contributor to party effectiveness, all the way through to level 20.
Admittedly, there are some archetypes that aren't supported as well as we might like (yet) but in general, you're not going to start out with an archetype that works, and then suddenly discover that it's stopped working 5 or 8 or 10 levels in, and you're also not going to have to wait until level 3 or 5 or 8 before your overall design "turns on". The builds that are viable generally start out viable and stay viable.
Oh, and everyone always gets to pick some cool new thing, pretty much every level or two. That's nice, too.
...
More broadly, I note that we're seeing one guy who really hates the game, and is willing to spend lots of mental energy insisting that it's horrible, and a bunch of people who rather like it. I'm honestly not sure why he's here. Maybe arguing with people on the...
I think that a lot of people in the world find opposing points of view (such as liking a thing they don't) existing personally offensive and feel the need to try and stamp that out.
On the PF2 thing, I don't have the hard time convincing players to play it that I did with PF1. PF2 has the mechanical depth and deep character customisation* (which is what drew me to PF1) while also being a lot less clunky.
Difficulty should come from in world challenges (the dragon being strong, the lich being a ruthlessly intelligent spellcaster, the environment being inhospitable, etc) - not from out of world stuff (the rules being dense and hard to understand, certain actions taking a long time for the table to resolve, etc).
*it actually has a lot more choice in how you build your character, and lets you take more of those options on a single character, while also having that same character be easier to understand and run.
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Yes one of the Pros of PF2 is that for most characters you don't have to spend feats to keep up. Its all about getting something new abilities.
But by the same token, a Con of PF2 is that you have a lot less control over what part of your character you focus on.
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Its one of those weird things where versatile PF1 character are great. But few people actually make them because they are too focused on a specific combat style. So few people actually think about those characters when complaining about it.
Its also something that happens in PF2, but slightly different. In PF2 it takes the form of people picking the exact same feats every single time, and just changing the descriptions.
So PF1 total freedom to build as you like, but beware of balance V.S. PF2 balanced as much as humanly possible, but beware of illusion of choice.
This illusion of choice argument sounds great in the heads of those making it. But PF1 gave the illusion of choice as well. Builds for doing specific things were the same over and over again. There was no choice. You wanted to build a 2-hander wielder you were taking weapon focus and power attack no matter what. You were going to take two-weapon fighting and the associated feats no matter what.
This idea that PF1 offered all this choice is the illusion. I played PF2 as a player and DM for years. The players took the same feats over and over and over again. They knew what fighting styles were most powerful and how to build them. They knew how to build out casters and what abilities to take to maximize it. There wasn't choice. There was just optimal ways to build that were the same for everyone.
Now those choices take up less of your overall character build than they did in PF1. You can build more into a character now like actual fantasy characters in book who aren't known for doing one thing.