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Yes, I play one and have one played in my PF2 games, what do you want to know about it?
What I'd like is some consistency in your grarg.
Your argument is that all the core classes need to be playable right out of the box meeting a basic threshold of competence without checking a guide or the hive mind or the entire system is shot.
That argument is absolute dross to start with. But you're not even arguing it consistently. There is no standard by which the mystic fails that test and alchemist passes it.
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I don't think that EAC/KAC has a chance of returning. In the PF2 system a +1 or +2 to hit is a really big deal (since you crit when you pass the DC by 10), so it's unlikely they would represent "easier to damage this thing with one kind of weapon" that way. Weakness/Resistance seems like an easier call.
Plus since KAS/EAS were pretty much always within 1-2 of each other, you could just replace the difference with "a circumstance bonus to hit" when the circumstances apply.
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I don't think that EAC/KAC has a chance of returning. In the PF2 system a +1 or +2 to hit is a really big deal (since you crit when you pass the DC by 10), so it's unlikely they would represent "easier to damage this thing with one kind of weapon" that way. Weakness/Resistance seems like an easier call.
Plus since KAS/EAS were pretty much always within 1-2 of each other, you could just replace the difference with "a circumstance bonus to hit" when the circumstances apply. [/QUOTE
Or just give the armor some form of energy resistance or damage reduction.
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Yeah, I think the "player facing armors have different EAS/KAS" is easily represented through "armor specialization effects". Like in PF2 if you have armor specialization in say, plate armor, you get some resistance to slashing damage when you're wearing plate armor. That's a mechanic that's easy to transfer to Starfinder.
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Yeah, I think the "player facing armors have different EAS/KAS" is easily represented through "armor specialization effects". Like in PF2 if you have armor specialization in say, plate armor, you get some resistance to slashing damage when you're wearing plate armor. That's a mechanic that's easy to transfer to Starfinder.
Replacing EAC/KAC with "armor specialization effects" also opens up the design space to be able to make a larger variety of armor choices and modifications. I think this will be a win for Starfinder 2e.
There's also precious materials, who afaik are heavily underused in PF2. Given that people in SF should have access to loads more of those in both quality and quantity, making them more common for characters to have would add a cool layer of customization and could incorporate some of the aspects of different ACs.
But the ACs getting converted into mostly armour groups and differ by specialisation effect would make a lot of sense as the primary method.
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Stamina. If we keep stamina, I'm happy. Not as a poorly implemented optional rule tacked on after the fact. Bake it in. It's the best thing Starfinder has and losing it will hurt bad.
Yes, I play one and have one played in my PF2 games, what do you want to know about it?
What I'd like is some consistency in your grarg.
Your argument is that all the core classes need to be playable right out of the box meeting a basic threshold of competence without checking a guide or the hive mind or the entire system is shot.
That argument is absolute dross to start with. But you're not even arguing it consistently. There is no standard by which the mystic fails that test and alchemist passes it.
Thank you for your concern about the consistency of my argumentation, but I will not buy into your attempt at whataboutism. We can talk about how SF1 Mystic sucks without having to refer to any other game.
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I think starfinder is finding a pretty good balance between those two.LMAO, no, in order to have in any way an enjoyable SF1 Mystic 1-20 experience you need to know that you have to max your Dex and dump all your feats on long arms, so you have a gun that shoots reasonably well on all those turns when you're not using any of your preciously few spell slots because SF1 nerfed full casters (good move) but unlike PF2 didn't give them at-will autoscaling cantrips (bad move).
This is, frankly, worse than PF1 because in PF1, for the most part, you don't need to actively contravene your character's thematic image to be playable. A "flimsy space cleric with a honkin' big gun" is entirely antithetical, yet that's the only way to have a pleasant experience unless your GM was nice enough to let the scaling cantrips variant rule from Galactic Magic available.
Don't even get me started on how later SF1 classes are "idk, you can summon a bush from far future for 3 rounds, cool" while CRB Operative is still king of the hill with their DPR and skills through the roof. Enhanced will likely fix some of that now that designers won't have to worry about where the floor and the roof are.
I think the problem here was actually setting expectations, and Paizo didn't do a good job of it on the Starfinder classes. They needed at some point to say that everyone, and I mean everyone, relies on a guns at least to a significant extent for their overall combat power. Almost everyone (not Operative) and a few other niche builds (besides melee) should use long guns. If your class doesn't have the proficiency built in, it needs to get it. And you need to be aware you probably want to use your guns 50%+ of the time, even as a spell caster. There are no "full spell casters" in Starfinder. They're more like Paladins, Rangers, Inquisitors, or Bards from PF1. In which spell casting was a useful tool you occasionally used, but not the thing you primarily did. At no point is this really conveyed. And the class proficiencies don't help to point you in that direction either. But pretty everyone should get long arm proficency and specialization if it wasn't built in.
However, you are being a bit hyperbolic. To get what you needed from long arms, it was 2 feats. Long arm proficiency, and versatile specialization (because you qualify and no one should ever take the specific specialization feat). Maybe weapon focus, but that applied if you were anything except a full BAB class. I also don't think you needed to max dex, but you do want to start with a 16 in it. Which is also true of anyone not using heavy armor.
However, I do agree with you that if you didn't know this going into Starfinder it made spell casting characters unpleasant to play.
And I hope that in SF2 the will give casters scaling cantrips so that they can do more casting. Though I do actually hope guns remain an important tool, even for casters.
To me, Starfinders setting was one of magic in decline as technology has usurped a lot of what magic could do. Not that magic actually got weaker, but people's dedication to it waned in the face of technology that could easily replicate it.
Something that probably isn't hugely important to most people, but I really need to stick around for narrative reasons is that the armor in Starfinder needs to continue to provide pretty much complete environmental protection assuming your have your helmet on.
It may not seem like a lot, but having hot/cold temperatures, noxious inhaled poisons, and even radiation just not be a challenge to you if you have a level appropriate armor are important features to me.
Can you expand on why it's important that it's attached to armor?
For example, what if it was just a Guardians of the Galaxy style helmet that was a universal item, just like a comm unit?
Or what if there was a "planet acclimation module" that handwaved specific planet issues? Or is it less about planets and you don't like environmental effects in general?
It's a magic vs tech issue in my mind. Tech pretty much needs a full body covering. Magic is...well magic. And technically speaking even the tech armor thing isn't 100%, because there was plenty of armor that didn't cover the whole body and instead used forcefields and such.
I just feel armor is a thematically appropriate place. It's like our space suits, but armored and more feasible to be used in combat. I could see other options existing that do the same thing, but I can't imagine them being more ubiquitous or cheaper than space suit armor.
Planet acclimation units sounds terrible, as in my mind ignoring exceptional high low temperatures and radiation the armor should provide extremely comprehensive protection against general environmental effects. It shouldn't be something you need some special device for each planet. However, just as in current Starfinder, armor doesn't make you completely immune to "environmental hazards". There can still be pockets of fire/high heat, extreme cold, high(er than your level) radiation, etc that are on a planet but don't constitute the majority of the planet's environment. And you can also have hazards that are higher level than what your current level of armor can protect against.
Edit: Something else I just thought of that's narratively important is that you basically need tech, magic, and bioorganic equivalent options for basically every kind of essential gear in game. Armor could be magically powered, it could be tech based, or it could be some sort of symbiote style organism you wear. And they all need to be roughly comparable.
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I've watched the video of Erik and Thurston talking about the new edition, and it did alleve my fears about flight and other racial abilities coming in at level one - what they describe as the starfinder meta being different from pathfinder. But it also said that they're getting rid of the EAC/KAC split.
What there was no mention of (because they spent half the time on useless tangents like crossovers) was Stamina. Based on the rest of the conversation I have a feeling it's going away too, which is really saddening to me, because I also agree that it's a cornerstone of Starfinder that needs to stay.
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I wonder if you couldn't so something homologous to stamina by creating a class of items that are basically "personal shields" which give you temp HP that you don't need to heal, it just recharges periodically (or after you repair it when it breaks.)
I wouldn't bet on Stamina going away just like AC. A lot of the community seems to be pretty invested it and it's not incompatible with the PF2 system at least. I imagine that will be one of the big questions of the actual playtest.
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I also don't think you needed to max dex, but you do want to start with a 16 in it. Which is also true of anyone not using heavy armor.
When it comes to the math of the game I feel I must be the worst player at making characters.
Level 3 mystic
Str: 10 (+0)
Dex: 12 (+1)
Con: 12 (+1)
Int: 15 (+2)
Wis: 16 (+3)
Cha: 8 (-1)
Armed with grenades and a survival knife
EAC 14, KAC 14
According to the math, I have no idea how my characters survive, yet somehow, they all have survived so far.
I'm currently playing in a 3rd- through 6th-level game
playing at high tier with an APL of 4.83 for a party of 6.
We are in combat with 4 Cybernetic zombies and the big bad Boss of the scenario. I'm flanked against a wall with no escape by 3 zombies, I'm using grenades without throwing them to avoid 3 AOO for using a ranged attack. Meanwhile, everyone else is shooting from a distance. We're in round 2 of the combat and only one player has not gone yet, so far I've done 3 more points of damage than the entire rest of the party combined. I'm certain my character is not optimized to beat the math so must be luck, whatever works...
Some of my Pathfinder 2e characters are even less optimized than this one. My goblin merchant sorcerer only has spells that are only useful for social encounters and downtime. so I'm not really worried about Starfinder 2e having tighter math. That might change at higher levels.
I wouldn't mind learning the math better, but currently, my Shirren Mystic is having too much fun collecting local music and concert t-shirts which by the way had a big payoff this game getting us access to secured areas of the building we are in.
Is there a guide somewhere to the assumed math characters sould be built to?
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Well I will say Starfinder math is pretty forgiving for the most part, especially compared to PF2.
But I imagine in Starfinder 2, character creation will be nearly identical to PF2, especially in terms of how ability scores are determined.
That should mean it's feasible to start with 14/16 in a secondary stat while keeping your main stat high.
In Starfinder 1st Ed, my character usually start with a 16 in their main stat and the others and dex at 16 (unless I'm playing a character in which ranged attacks are the "main" thing in which case I can spread around the remaining points to other abilities). It can a little tough at the first few levels without extra con/wisdom, but by the time level 8 rolls around you should have increased Con/Dex/Wisdom twice and whatever score is your main class ability score.
I will walk back my earlier statement and say it's probably acceptable to start with a 14 in dex, but 12 definitely seems too low. And I'm also very confused by your strength 10 character wielding a melee weapon. Granted it has the operative quality so you can use your dex to attack with it...but you still have a low dex.
At the end of the day, what counts most is having fun. So if you're doing that and surviving fights then the rest doesn't matter.
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Yeah, a Shirren Mystic in PF2 creation rules can easily end up with 18/16/14/12/10/8 spread (this is something I do with Dwarves all the time in PF2 because it's neat and easy to remember and Shirren have the same +/+/-) Or rather, in the ORC stats it would be a +4/+3/+2/+1/+0/-1 spread.
So that character above might be Str +0, Con +1, Dex +3, Wis +4, Int +2, Cha -1.
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In starfinder I have a number of characters that have really. really bad ACs and they manage to survive. Some of them (A ysoki muscle operative and Dragonkin Mystic) are even melee. The vanguards AC is a LITTLE better because they're dex based but still goes a while between armor upgrades because they have DR, are a bucket of HP, and bounce everything away from them with bullrush to avoid getting full attacked.
(In my last 5-8 half the party was hiding behind the level 5 dragon....with and EAC9/KAC11. In the game before that the musclerat took off her armor to wear scuba gear.)
A little bit of DR/miss chance/Energy resistance or fast healing where your buy in is 1:1 goes a lot further than armor where your options are either all in or don't bother. The NPCs have a LOT of + hit. You CAN play the red queens race with constant armor purchases and max dex but you don't have to.
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Yeah, a Shirren Mystic in PF2 creation rules can easily end up with 18/16/14/12/10/8 spread (this is something I do with Dwarves all the time in PF2 because it's neat and easy to remember and Shirren have the same +/+/-) Or rather, in the ORC stats it would be a +4/+3/+2/+1/+0/-1 spread.
So that character above might be Str +0, Con +1, Dex +3, Wis +4, Int +2, Cha -1.
The way my character ended up playing, if I could rebuild the stats, I'd be tempted to bump up my charisma, but would probably go with what you suggested. It's been kind of interesting paying someone with high cultural skill and interest, with a very social personality but low charisma. I'm able to find and get us into social situations then I'm useless dealing with them. It's kind of the social equleven't to setting up flanking for some one else to make the attack in combat.
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Thank you for your concern about the consistency of my argumentation, but I will not buy into your attempt at whataboutism. We can talk about how SF1 Mystic sucks without having to refer to any other game.
The SF mystic doesn't suck. You got sucked into a paradigm of other games, refused to take the least possible effort to adapt, and blame the system for the resulting mess. No, we're not going to make the conversation contingent on accepting your premise slash conclusion.
You're whatbouting with the whataboutism. My point is entirely central to the conversation.
Any system that gives you freedom to build is going to have some level of character disparity. The question is how much. Your argument that freedom to build is a bad thing because it leads to bad characters (
under an incredibly narrow definition of bad characters) Is completely, totally, and utterly ripped apart by the fact that by your definition pf2's guardrails did nothing to prevent bad characters from existing anyway.
Those who give up liberty for securit...No wait. Wrong quote
Those who give up meaningful build freedom for character parity will find that they have neither.
With meaningful build freedom I have the choice to work around the parts I feel are broken.
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I will walk back my earlier statement and say it's probably acceptable to start with a 14 in dex, but 12 definitely seems too low. And I'm also very confused by your strength 10 character wielding a melee weapon. Granted it has the operative quality so you can use your dex to attack with it...but you still have a low dex.
Originally I didn't even have a melee weapon, I picked one up largely to be able to threaten a square so I can set up a flank for someone else. I can heal stamina but still have to wait until someone has taken at least one HP of damage so while I'm waiting for that to happen I figure I might as well set up flanks and help spread out damage before I heal everyone in a 30r doing that helps me stay close to the people that likely need the healing most.
I have a few spells that do damage to someone that hits me as a reaction. I've never had it trigger once. I think the spell actually works on the GM more than a creature in the game. I cast the spell and then even taunted opponents and couldn't get them to attack me. This happened playing with different GMs too.
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I know my group considered character creation in PF2e pretty painful and boring. The feat options are not especially flashy, so they primarily viewed character creation as "Reading through options until you find the option you dislike the least".
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Early in the playtest there were quite a few "least bad" feeling class feat tiers, but I haven't experienced that personally since then. There are definitely tiers of ancestry feats where I go back to the level 1 tier instead, or grab a heritage to open up my options.
Mostly I just want more feats to get my builds online faster so I use Free Archetype by default.
I know my group considered character creation in PF2e pretty painful and boring. The feat options are not especially flashy, so they primarily viewed character creation as "Reading through options until you find the option you dislike the least".
To be honest, while I'm not super excited about most general feats in PF2, the class feats obviously have goodies and depending on Ancestry there can be some neat options. General feats are pretty meh. The ones that stand out are fleet, incredible initiative, and the one that can increase (one of) your saves or perception. Those kind of bonuses are obviously telling about how flat most general feats fall IMO.
All that said, I always found Starfinder feats to be even worse. It's been a while since I played, but there were legitimately times I didn't even bother to select a feat because there were simply none that were interesting at all in Starfinder. They're all super situational. And if you find yourself in the situation they're very good. And if you don't they're a waste. And the problem I have is I find it very hard to imagine my character in those situations enough to justify it.
I think Starfinder 2 will have the same class/ancestry/general feat breakdown and it will generally be for the better. Though I expect general feats will still be very disappointing.
To be honest, while I'm not super excited about most general feats in PF2, the class feats obviously have goodies and depending on Ancestry there can be some neat options. General feats are pretty meh. The ones that stand out are fleet, incredible initiative, and the one that can increase (one of) your saves or perception. Those kind of bonuses are obviously telling about how flat most general feats fall IMO.
All that said, I always found Starfinder feats to be even worse. It's been a while since I played, but there were legitimately times I didn't even bother to select a feat because there were simply none that were interesting at all in Starfinder. They're all super situational. And if you find yourself in the situation they're very good. And if you don't they're a waste. And the problem I have is I find it very hard to imagine my character in those situations enough to justify it.
I think Starfinder 2 will have the same class/ancestry/general feat breakdown and it will generally be for the better. Though I expect general feats will still be very disappointing.
When I said feats in regards to PF2e, that was for all types of feats. Ancestry, Skill, and Class included. With class it's especially bad on casters, god their feats are dull.
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Fortunately Class feats can be used to multiclass and archetype which is a smorgasbord of good options.
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When I said feats in regards to PF2e, that was for all types of feats. Ancestry, Skill, and Class included. With class it's especially bad on casters, god their feats are dull.To be honest, while I'm not super excited about most general feats in PF2, the class feats obviously have goodies and depending on Ancestry there can be some neat options. General feats are pretty meh. The ones that stand out are fleet, incredible initiative, and the one that can increase (one of) your saves or perception. Those kind of bonuses are obviously telling about how flat most general feats fall IMO.
All that said, I always found Starfinder feats to be even worse. It's been a while since I played, but there were legitimately times I didn't even bother to select a feat because there were simply none that were interesting at all in Starfinder. They're all super situational. And if you find yourself in the situation they're very good. And if you don't they're a waste. And the problem I have is I find it very hard to imagine my character in those situations enough to justify it.
I think Starfinder 2 will have the same class/ancestry/general feat breakdown and it will generally be for the better. Though I expect general feats will still be very disappointing.
You are entitled to your opinion, and perhaps it's because I don't play casters, but I've felt all the other classes I've built had plenty of interesting feats to choose. Ancestry feats are heavily dependent on which ancestry you're playing. Some ancestry are pretty good, others are very bad in terms of interesting offers.
IMO, they made the "size" of feats abit too small for my taste so they don't have much "room" to do much to begin with. Each being seeming to try and fit the balance of something like a "talent" style class feature from PF/SF 1es.
And it's not like they can increase that to make them more impressive, since that'd throw off the balance against the existing options and probably eat up more word count.
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I'd rather see that kind of feat just give the full version from the start, and if for some reason the higher-level version is too powerful for level 1 have the feat auto-scale. Another example are all the ancestry weapon feats, where you need one feat to get proficiency in some weapons, another to get critical specialization, and a third to get your proficiency to scale (at 13th level even, so depending on your class your proficiencies might be way behind). Miss me with that nonsense, just include scaling in the first feat.
Amen
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I find that general feats (or any type of feat) can be fun and useful if your character has an additional motivation other than just being in their class, and picking feats to hit things harder.
My goblin merchant sorcerer took Bargain Hunter, what merchant wouldn't want an additional 2 gp!
My tengu fortuneteller oracle took Prescient Planner, I role play it as my fortune-telling skills are how I knew what to bring.
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I'd rather see that kind of feat just give the full version from the start, and if for some reason the higher-level version is too powerful for level 1 have the feat auto-scale. Another example are all the ancestry weapon feats, where you need one feat to get proficiency in some weapons, another to get critical specialization, and a third to get your proficiency to scale (at 13th level even, so depending on your class your proficiencies might be way behind). Miss me with that nonsense, just include scaling in the first feat.Amen
This is exactly why Starfinder players are concerned about the cantina.
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This is exactly why Starfinder players are concerned about the cantina.I'd rather see that kind of feat just give the full version from the start, and if for some reason the higher-level version is too powerful for level 1 have the feat auto-scale. Another example are all the ancestry weapon feats, where you need one feat to get proficiency in some weapons, another to get critical specialization, and a third to get your proficiency to scale (at 13th level even, so depending on your class your proficiencies might be way behind). Miss me with that nonsense, just include scaling in the first feat.Amen
Eh. I'm not seeing it. Feat chains are a separate issue. By and large, you can get all the interesting stuff into a level 1 ancestry, it's just the existence of feat chains make it feel like there are fewer choices because if you want X at level 5 you have to also have taken baby brother X at level 1. In classes a feat chain might be an impactful character building arc (though I still don't like having too many feat chains), in Ancestries the feats are overall less powerful and have fewer slots, so the chains feel extra restrictive.
I do think ancestry feat chains need to be rethought.
Rather than taking additional feats, "auto scaling" as someone put it would be better. In fact if balance necessitates it I'd be open to having less ancestry feat slots and having things that grant additional abilities as you level rather. It could even have options built in, as there are some ancestry feats that currently have branching paths.
I haven't played PF 2E, are class feats in that system similar to things like mechanic tricks, solarian stellar revelations etc? Class specific abilities that you pick up every couple levels? Or are they different from that? I hope that things like revelations/tricks remain in SF2E and if that's basically what class feats are with a unified name that will be a relief for me.
I haven't played PF 2E, are class feats in that system similar to things like mechanic tricks, solarian stellar revelations etc? Class specific abilities that you pick up every couple levels? Or are they different from that? I hope that things like revelations/tricks remain in SF2E and if that's basically what class feats are with a unified name that will be a relief for me.
Yep, class tricks with unified name.
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I haven't played PF 2E, are class feats in that system similar to things like mechanic tricks, solarian stellar revelations etc? Class specific abilities that you pick up every couple levels? Or are they different from that? I hope that things like revelations/tricks remain in SF2E and if that's basically what class feats are with a unified name that will be a relief for me.Yep, class tricks with unified name.
Glad to hear it. I'll kind of miss the flavor of the class specific names but it makes sense to just call them class feats to get the point across.
One thing I think would be cool with SF2 would be to make some of the alternate rules for PF2e (such as stamina and resolve points) as the default for SF2. That way it still has a separate feel while still being compatible.
I'm all for this. Make stamina the default with an optional rule for how it works in PF2. Letting SF keep that mechanic and built from the ground up with it in mind. Sadly I feel like they won't want to do this for something as fundamental as HP balance for keeping the systems compatible but I really like stamina points as a system in SF and it'd be a shame to see it lost and just in as an optional rule the game isn't balanced around by default.
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Optimization is like tennis or chess. You need to play within about one standard deviation of what you're doing or its not going to be any fun. That's much easier to regulate as a group than it is to put mechanical options into a game that seems dead set on keeping everyone level.
That's the thing about PF2, though. That's the big freaking deal. With PF2... that's not true. The core of the system is balanced well enough that you can have a party where one player has been reading the online CharOp discussions for months, and another player walked in just knowing that they wanted to be a dwarf with an axe, and maybe getting some really basic advice about things like "try to get your primary attacking stat as high as you can. AC is pretty important too." and have them sit down at the same table and be able to both function usefully as members of the same team. This is something that PF2 does really well, and it's not an easy thing to do.
Pretty much any other system with decently complicated combat rules? I'd agree with you. This one is different.
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I think it's possible to keep stamina in Starfinder if Paizo is making the assumption you are only playing one of the games at a time, but that would require both games to have a variant rule to adjust to the other. It sounded like the extent to which Paizo is thinking of mixing the two games in official products suggests it will likely be limited to borrowing creatures or items from one game to the other in an adventure. In that case, keeping stamina seems more possible.
Really come down to if stamina is part of the core rules that have to be fully compatible or can be considered part of the meta. I would think it falls under core rules, but Pathfinder 2e has a variant rule for stamina, so it could be meta, assuming both versions of the stamina rules are made to be identical. The other issue is how that would affect organized play since organized play normally doesn't allow variant rules.
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Optimization is like tennis or chess. You need to play within about one standard deviation of what you're doing or its not going to be any fun. That's much easier to regulate as a group than it is to put mechanical options into a game that seems dead set on keeping everyone level.That's the thing about PF2, though. That's the big freaking deal. With PF2... that's not true. The core of the system is balanced well enough that you can have a party where one player has been reading the online CharOp discussions for months, and another player walked in just knowing that they wanted to be a dwarf with an axe, and maybe getting some really basic advice about things like "try to get your primary attacking stat as high as you can. AC is pretty important too." and have them sit down at the same table and be able to both function usefully as members of the same team. This is something that PF2 does really well, and it's not an easy thing to do.
Pretty much any other system with decently complicated combat rules? I'd agree with you. This one is different.
Also, with teamwork you can get really, really effective.
I think it's possible to keep stamina in Starfinder if Paizo is making the assumption you are only playing one of the games at a time, but that would require both games to have a variant rule to adjust to the other. It sounded like the extent to which Paizo is thinking of mixing the two games in official products suggests it will likely be limited to borrowing creatures or items from one game to the other in an adventure. In that case, keeping stamina seems more possible.
Really come down to if stamina is part of the core rules that have to be fully compatible or can be considered part of the meta. I would think it falls under core rules, but Pathfinder 2e has a variant rule for stamina, so it could be meta, assuming both versions of the stamina rules are made to be identical. The other issue is how that would affect organized play since organized play normally doesn't allow variant rules.
I think the only problem with keeping stamina is that you are practically guaranteed to get feats that interact with it. Which wouldn't be compatible with the standard PF2 system. But personally, I think that is acceptable.
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Those who give up liberty for securit...No wait. Wrong quote
Those who give up meaningful build freedom for character parity will find that they have neither.
With meaningful build freedom I have the choice to work around the parts I feel are broken.
PF2 also has quite a lot of build freedom. You get ancestry, heritage, background, class, you generally get class path, and then you get three kinds of feats (four if you count "skill" and "general" separately). That build freedom is not absolute. Your class is going to decide the things that you're particularly good at, and there's no way to grab that top slot if you aren't starting out as the class that gets it. Still, there's quite a lot of flexibility.
Further, there is a degree of character optimization. You can seek it out and find it, and make yourself stronger with it. The gains are real... but they're lean. You'll feel them at the table, but it won't be enough to utterly marginalize someone who didn't optimize in that way.
Oh - but there is one lesson from PF2 that's likely to be true for SF2 when it comes out. Personal optimization gets less important. Party optimization becomes much moreso. You can get a lot of mileage out of figuring out ways to work with your fellow party members - to make them stronger and let them make you stronger. There's a lot of really awesome combos that you can't really make work on a single character, but that can sing when you have two characters that are designed to create them together, and that start getting even better as you have more folks joining in. There's a lot of options that aren't necessarily good or bad in a vacuum, but that could be effectively useless or completely awesome depending on who the rest of your party is. Just something to be ready for, when it comes.
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Pretty much any other system with decently complicated combat rules? I'd agree with you. This one is different.
Hmm. Let me take another whack at making my point.
PF2 does not have what I consider sufficient build freedom for me to really like the system (starfinder is kind of on the low end of that but got a bit better as it added options), so PF2 being very well balanced doesn't undermine my point.
I would prefer more build freedom in the game, and then deal with the resulting power imbalance by letting each individual group decide where people want to be on the power curve and self police the individuals.
PF2 has what I feel is a lot of illusion of build freedom. The math is so tight that anything that just makes you worse is right out: you need that 18 for the +1 to hit and more chances to crit. Anything outside that lane is right out. While there are theoretically a large number of feats, many of them are incredibly situational, are required for basic functionality, or go into a tree. If the standard tree progression is meh ok awesome you're not really making 3 choices to pick 3 feats you're making 1 choice to follow that tree. It's like the first two years of college. Sure you can pick your classes after all the requirements.. oh wait that's all your classes
Many abilities were just taken out of the old classes/races and then are trickled back in as special abilities and choices. On my more cynical days it looks like they designed the system to have X amount of power and then decided to let people have window dressing so it LOOKED like they were building the place.
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I think the thing about "build freedom" is that it's largely a perception thing. People think "you need an 18 in your KAS" but ultimately, there's a number of classes that really don't need that at all. There are classes who want to roll to hit, who can't start higher than a 16 in the stat they use to attack with, and they mostly perform fine (and there's hope that the Investigator gets better with the remaster.)
The math being tight *also* means, you cannot be hopeless at something you have chosen that's important to you. Like a fighter with a +0 Charisma Mod who nonetheless invests in Intimidation *can* be good at it.
The paradigm shift is that we have to start thinking of feats as "here's a new thing your character can do" and *not* "I have chosen to be better at a thing."
But I think the "I want to feel build freedom" thing is why the "Free Archetype" variant is incredibly popular in PF2 games. It's only a slight power boost, but it's an enormous flexibility boost.