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A spin-off from the lengthy thread The game doesn't do a good job at teaching new player's how to play is the idea of an adventure path specifically designed to teach Pathfinder 2nd Edition and its tactics, for both players and GMs. This subforum has hosted ideas for adventure paths before, such as Design your AP, Redux. Let's have fun imagining an adventure path for beginners.
My own thought is that if the AP is going to talk about tactics, then let's talk about it in character. The player characters are recruits in a training camp and are forced to practice tactics in combat scenarios. Thus, I called the 1st module Beginner's Boot Camp. But why would an adventurer be in boot camp?
Paizo has been slowly developed the country called Sarkoris Scar, the former site of the Worldwound. For example, Lost Omens Rival Academies is set there, though Sarkoris Scar's Academy of the Reclamation is only one of many featured academies, the others being from foreign lands. This clearly establishes that Sarkoris Scar has been looking to outsiders to reclaim land from the remains of the Worldwound invasion. That seems a prime recruiting opportunity.
Thus, my thoughts for an adventure path to teach PF2 tactics is:
Sarkoris Scar Adventure Path
Here be demons! The Worldwound portal that let thousands of demons invade Golarion has been closed, but now people must reclaim the land. Join the immigrants who want to make the land called Sarkoris Scar habitable again. Go through relentless training and then face the true challenge. Each module contains an article of advice for new GMs. A three-module adventure path for 1st to 10th level.
Beginner Boot Camp
To defeat demons, a prospective reclaimer must train. The drill sergeants know that any lapse could lead to death, so they won't be easy on your characters. But don't worry, because medics are on standby to patch the recruits back together. For 1st-level characters.
Into the Shudderwood
The fey horrors of the Shudderword allied with the champions of Mendev to hold off the demonic horde. As allies they are not particularly friendly. Go into the woods to learn from the creepiest creatures this side of the Abyss. For 4th-level characters.
Demon Hunter
Finally the heroes are ready to hunt demons. Yet their adversaries lie in wait for any slip-up in their tactics. Only remembering and exploiting the weaknesses of these fiends can defeat them. For 7th-level characters.
But perhaps other themes and other settings would have more universal appeal. What are your ideas?
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Beginner's Boot Camp would not be entirely about training. The training would be only one third of it. The recruits would also have a rowdy time in local taverns (or a pious time in local churches for the religious teetotalers). And before the end of the module, they would be sent out to perform routine labor, such as building a wall around a ruined village for safety before restoring the village which won't be safe for the recruits.
The PCs will be put together as a team and trained as a team. This could be arbitrary, or maybe the players could design their PCs as a family or friends. The first exercise will be trying to beat up on a veteran fighter who blocks their attacks with a shield and fights back. A champion will stand by to save people with a champion's reaction and Lay on Hands, so despite a brutal 1st-level battle, no-one can die. Then they can fight animals, aberrations, and oozes in arena pits. The oozes are to demonstrate the difference between which targets to hit with a 3rd Strike (oozes, of course) and how much critical hits matter. We will need to balance the encounters for spellcasters versus martials, so that both get equal training while fighting as a team.
But all work and no play in fake training encounters would grow dull, so we need a real fight. A barroom brawl is classic. Tell the players that drawing a sword in a fistfight will get them tossed into jail, to keep the fight non-lethal at 1st level. However, that means we will also have to construct a thrown-into-jail scenario for the PCs who don't abide by the rules. Maybe we can combine that with the non-rowdy outings of the excessively lawful PCs; for example, maybe the local temple of Iomedae is the jailer.
At 2nd level, when the players have learned enough to handle real risk, we introduce real work and real danger. The recruits are given relatively safe work in a cleared area, such as the building a wall mission I mentioned earlier, but "cleared" merely means that the powerful demons are gone. It does not mean that the wildlife is tame. The surviving wildlife would have to be quite vicious to have survived the Worldwound.
And then back for some more training after the PCs understand what real danger is like.
The module would develop a vocabulary of its own that sounds more like the game terms. Perhaps "Taking a 3rd Strike action" would come out as "Tripling your strikes," but the trainer's fictional medieval speech should have an obvious interpretation as game mechanics.
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I can see a barroom brawl spun out of control as a great and natural place for learning the victory points subsystem utilizing the chase to get away from the superior-to-the-players npc town constables.
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The mechanical focus for the first module of this teaching AP should be on introducing all the basic encounter types, traps or other skill-based challenges, and the victory points system.
Letting the PCs face a PL+2 foe at level one, in a situation where they have no risk of failure, is a good idea. The idea of a series of arena encounters designed to show off different enemy types is also good. I like Tristan d'Ambrosius's idea of having the bar brawl evolve into a chase so the VP system can be introduced early. That seems like a nice endpoint to level one.
I like level 2 being where the PCs are allowed out into the world. Their placement on repair duty could be framed as a punishment for the brawl or as a mission of mercy to defend an important farm from the local wildlife. This would also be a good point to solidify the cast of low-level NPCs the party will be working alongside after having introduced them in the level 1 scenes. I think a potentially major accident while rebuilding the wall could function as a standalone trap to introduce that mechanic.
The final encounter at level 2 could be a Vermlek, and some PL-1 undead rising from the outpost's small graveyard. For added drama, this should happen just as the PCs are feeling safe behind the wall and congratulation themselves on a job well done. This shatters the illusion that a wall is enough to keep you safe this close to the Worldwound and pushes the party to complete their training and get commissioned as full members of the reclaimers.
The end of this AP should be a final gauntlet of tests, the PCs being commissioned, and then a routine patrol into the wilds. The "boss fight" here would be facing down for PL+0 instructors (including the one they faced at the start of the AP) to show their rapid growth into capable reclaimers. I think I'd favour ending this module without another big fight, but instead ending it with some small skirmishes and a hook to carry the party to the next module.
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Definitely could benefit from a training moment where PCs are put into a wresting match.
Key details would be putting the combatants up on a 15ft ish ledge to trigger fall rules, so the players can learn all that stuff at the same time.
Not knowing how useful Athletics can be might be a missed opportunity, but not knowing that foes can Shove you off a ledge, nor how deadly that fall dmg is at low level, can easily be lethal.
Could even make the opponent an ooze, and hand out a bags w/ many doses of high level Implosion Dust. That'll teach them about the size limitations of athletics (and that consumables are usable!).
If they can get the ooze to hit Tiny, then that'll also help with understanding how good a Reach advantage can be.
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I would ensure new players know how cool skill actions are by having the instructor ask them about their skills and then pointing out that many skills can be used in combat.