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The cover page looks like that statue had to be put back together in a cave with a box of scraps.
I just want to say nice Iron Man (first movie) reference.
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I really hope we get an awakened clockwork construct ancestry; constructs are one of my favorite creature types, and clockwork is one of my favorite varieties of construct.could also be an awakened construct in general, with clockwork specifically being a heritage, like how awakened animals work, covers more ground that way
This I could definitely see. Expand the automaton ancestry: Clockwork could be one heritage, Jistkan construct another, magical effigies/golems a third, etc.
Pretty sure they're just a Poppet.
Pretty sure they're just a Poppet.
Looks a bit big for a poppet, I think? They're the same size as the Necromancer iruxi next to them, and lizardfolk are Medium.
I wonder if maybe it's not that someone new's figured out the Jistkan Automaton Core production, so much that they've figured out a much better repair process? Like, as long as a Jistkan automaton's core is intact, they do canonically continue to "live" with their soul anchored in their core. So perhaps the Iconic Runesmith got a new body, and that's why they don't match the Jistkan aesthetics?
Pretty sure they're just a Poppet.Looks a bit big for a poppet, I think? They're the same size as the Necromancer iruxi next to them, and lizardfolk are Medium.
Oh, I see. I was under the impression the necro was a kobold and basing the runesmith's size on that, but that does make more sense.
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Yeah the runesmith is definetly not a jistkan automaton. Either there's a lore expansion coming detailing modern automatons or we're getting some flavour of awakened contruct heritage.I'd previously thought/hoped they might be a Wyrwood, but the art's looking less and less like that.
A generic construct ancestry could have a wyrwood heritage added down the line. (Lost Omens: Arcadia next year trust me)
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I'm still a huge proponent of the idea that they're a Thassilonian automaton. Xin was a prolific clockwork artisan, after all. And New Thassilon coming back is still relatively fresh in the lore.
What could be more iconic than a Thassilonian using Runes for the Runesmith?
This is definetly the best theory yet.
I'm still a huge proponent of the idea that they're a Thassilonian automaton. Xin was a prolific clockwork artisan, after all. And New Thassilon coming back is still relatively fresh in the lore.
What could be more iconic than a Thassilonian using Runes for the Runesmith?
They've even got a polearm like a proper Runelord! A glaive would match… Karzoug… could this be a reference way back to the start of the setting?
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It's probably already been mentioned at this point (given that we're 10 pages deep), but it couldn't hurt to talk more about it since I'm seeing so much excitement for mechanical expansion in Impossible Magic.
I'm super excited to see some more Impossible Lands lore, especially since the impact(s) of Godsrain.
Yes, I was thinking more along the lines of mechanical rules, but now that you mention it… I would like to see any fallout occurring since The Slithering included in the book. It’s hard to know if there are PFS scenarios that would affect the Mwangi continental lore, but it would be great to also see those stories’ repercussions in the book!
A hope i have is for the Archmage to return as either an Archetype or Destiny.
Given how both Geb and Nex are the most iconic Archmages of the setting and that they are heavily implied to be connected to the book's theme.
A Mythic Destiny or Archetype would be every fitting for a book with the title Impossible Magic.
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I wanna see more mythic spells as a whole. The main one I want would of course be bringing in a mythic rank 10 teleport to restore the capabilities of 1E teleport. Gotta justify Baba Yaga's traversal somehow.
It's easy, NPCs don't follow the rules that PCs use.
Baba Yaga found or researched a rare version of teleport spell not available to players.
But then again, a 10th level mythic spell that allowed you to go anywhere in the universe doesn't really seem like a problem.
In PF1 you could also accomplish it by simply casting plane shift twice, though you might be up to 500 miles away from your desired destination. Not as straight forward as Greater Teleport, but a handy method for certain situations.
Overall, I find that I have to remind players that PF2 isn't really the same game as PF1. The underlying lore is largely the same, but the mechanics changed massively.
If you had ideas that were very mechanic dependent, they may be shattered.
I tell players not to think of this game (PF2) as a successor and that trying to import their old character into this game would be a bit like trying to import a D&D 3.5 character into PF2. When I make that analogy, they often understand what I'm getting at.
It doesn't do a lot to assuage their sadness at not being able to play their previous character as imagined, but they do find inspiration for a new character more compatible with this systems mechanics.
For me as a GM, it's actually a little annoying honestly, that so many people come to a new system with preconceived notions about how they want their characters to look like and function before they've understood how the game works.
It's a bit like if you came to play PF2 and wanted to play a "mechanics accurate" version fo Ultra Instinct Goku and being disappointed that you couldn't make a hand to hand fighter that absolutely wrecked everything and no one had a chance to beat. That's obviously an extreme example, but I feel it still illustrates the point.
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It's a bit like if you came to play PF2 and wanted to play a "mechanics accurate" version fo Ultra Instinct Goku and being disappointed that you couldn't make a hand to hand fighter that absolutely wrecked everything and no one had a chance to beat. That's obviously an extreme example, but I feel it still illustrates the point.
That's more than a little disingenuous. It's not unreasonable to expect that something that was possible in the setting for any given character would continue to be possible. Sure, the method or exact mechanics might change, or take time to be published, but you don't expect things to just stop existing or become impossible if you aren't a demigod.
But yeah, I'll never understand why some people try to shove a given character into a system rather than building a character around the system's mechanics.
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Best you can do is adapt a character, translate it, but not port it
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I cannot deny that the NPCs don't follow PC ruies excuse is technically correct, and is Paizo's official stance, it's just not an excuse that is satisfying in my experience. I've also tried to use such an excuse with players to justify some other 2E isms, like needing to be mythic to create a demiplane (player designed a character around a wizard that had a demiplane, but in 2E, that character no longer functioned because now the wizard had to be either mythic, or no longer able to make a demiplane), and in my experience, that excuse rarely actually assuades opinions. It usually just ends with more disgruntled players. (I just ended up making a non-mythic casted version of the ritual to assuade them)
It's worth noting that in PF2 Create Demiplane was not mythic until War of Immortals changed it. My answer there amounts to "mythic rituals are bad design and I'm reverting it."
The PF2 ritual version of it is still too difficult DC wise relative to the PF1 version without further adjustment, but at least its possible to do it. They went way too hard on making this stuff largely impossible for PCs (especially with the mythic rituals) and then still using it frequently for NPCs who can do it "because reasons".
I'm with you on that: NPCs not following PC rules is great when it means you can create an NPC quickly on the fly for a surprise situation in game. It's not great when it's a handwave for things that NPCs get to do that the PCs never can because the rules say they can't despite being some of the strongest people on Golarian "because reasons". That's really bad for verisimilitude. My advice there is aggressively house ruling stuff to make it more accessible to PCs. It can still be difficult, but it should be possible.
The fact of the matter is, least for universal-scale teleportation, it was something you didn't even need to be mythic to do. It was a 7th-level spell, Greater Teleport, not even 9th level. But ultimately, while I'm fine with 10th rank teleport stopping at Galactic (especially because it avoids some thematic barriers in Starfinder), canonically, Baba Yaga is a mythic creature, and I think a logical step is that if a 10th rank vanilla Teleport can take you on a galactic scale, a 10th rank mythic Teleport can take you on a universal scale. Mythic by its nature is already very restricted, and I think that Mythic rank 10 would be about as safe a place to put such a spell as can be. (It also doesn't hurt that a similar effect can be technically achieved with two castings of Gate, and you cannot do it with either of these spell sets without first learning the location of a planet within the universe)
But overall, I just wanna see other mythic spells and rituals to represent some other really cool things to show they can be done by some PCs who at least attain mythic capability, even if it's not available to the average PC. Even if there is a low chance of actually getting to use a mythic spell, there is a condolance and a bit of satisfaction knowing there is a path, if not a restriced path. I don't see many folks complaining that Wish is now a hyper rare ritual that they likely will never actually get to use, for example, because regardless, they still see it, and know it is theoretically attainable in some permutation of the game.
IMO, PF2 overcorrected from how powerful this kind of magic was in PF1. There were legit, game breaking cases and some stuff needed reining in. There were also really cool things players could do that could also create really interesting narratives (like the desperation Wish/Miracle cast when things go totally sideways) that just don't exist anymore RAW.
Beings that can actually cast rank 10 mythic spells are so rare that there's no problem with letting them be able to do it. At that point they're a step below the gods.
I know that some tables don't like house rules, but the flavour of the game changed drastically between editions on this stuff. If you like the old flavour better, house ruling some of this stuff back in by making these effects more accesable is the way to go.
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One way to make things NPCs do that players can’t feel difficult/beyond the scope of the campaign, but not impossible is to just say, “yeah you could probably learn that [technique/spell/etc] but you’d have to find someone to train you and it is more complicated than a traditional x spell (or feat), it is only a part of an archetype.
If the player is really into it, than we throw something together. If they aren’t, well the. The NOCs probably spent years developing that tho g and it can just be part of the background world flavor.
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It's a bit like if you came to play PF2 and wanted to play a "mechanics accurate" version fo Ultra Instinct Goku and being disappointed that you couldn't make a hand to hand fighter that absolutely wrecked everything and no one had a chance to beat. That's obviously an extreme example, but I feel it still illustrates the point.That's more than a little disingenuous. It's not unreasonable to expect that something that was possible in the setting for any given character would continue to be possible. Sure, the method or exact mechanics might change, or take time to be published, but you don't expect things to just stop existing or become impossible if you aren't a demigod.
But yeah, I'll never understand why some people try to shove a given character into a system rather than building a character around the system's mechanics.
I don't actually think it's that disingenuous, because the systems (PF1/PF2) are that extremely different.
While we have examples of characters in lore doing crazy things, they generally were also high level characters with what we might assume are mythic levels/tiers to accomplish those incredible feats.
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One way to make things NPCs do that players can’t feel difficult/beyond the scope of the campaign, but not impossible is to just say, “yeah you could probably learn that [technique/spell/etc] but you’d have to find someone to train you and it is more complicated than a traditional x spell (or feat), it is only a part of an archetype.
If the player is really into it, than we throw something together. If they aren’t, well the. The NOCs probably spent years developing that tho g and it can just be part of the background world flavor.
Or pull what I like to call "the Runelord excuse:" The PC just (ha!) needs to rule a nation and organize hundreds or thousands of people to participate in one or more rituals. Which is how all of the non-mythic Runelords were able to create artifacts, etc.
The systems are different, but you are comparing bringing a character in from a seperate setting, to bringing in a character from the same setting. Apples to oranges. To use your example, you're coming into a conversation where someone is complaining that a dragonball character cannot do dragonball things in dragonball, and then saying, well stop complaining because a naruto character cannot do dragonball things in dragonball.
We're not asking to shoehorn in the lore of another setting, we're asking to be able to do the same things we were able to do in the same setting. While because mechanics have changed, the setting is still the same.Characters that were played in 1E have not even aged more than 20 years yet. And if anything, from the side of mechanical expression, characters are actually more capable...
Okay, but walk with me on this.
Ignore what your character(s) used to be able to do.
Let's look only of canon example of NPC characters and their deeds as performed in APs or books.
I don't know this with certainty, and I expect that there are probably exceptions (because dozens if not hundred+ people have been custodians of the lore at different times) but I think generally most (not all) of the things that people are complaining about not being able to do are things the high level or mythic NPCs are doing.
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Believe me, I have tried. I have tried to give the same sorts of excuses you did. It doesn't work on players. And frankly, if you tried your arguments with them, you'd have even worse luck with it. Your approach isn't exactly gonna net you a happy player. A begruding player, sure, but not a happy player. But it started to make sense when I tried to approach it from their point of view.
Also, I fail to see your last point. I've been in games that went up to level 20. I have players who tried to tie their characters to characters from those games. When most 1E adventure paths go to such high levels, saying that it doesn't matter because it is high level is not that strong a point? Because people have memories actually playing at those levels and getting to do those things? Mythic, sure, that's a bit more rare, but high level?
The Greater Teleport, for example, was not mythic, it being canonically done by a mythical being was my attempt to make a bridge to get a mythic conversion in 2E, but she could not do it because she was mythic, any high level wizard could do it. Runelords didn't need a lore excuse like a turbo-elaborate exclusive ritual to make a demiplane. It was just a thing wizards could do. And as was pointed out, it was a thing wizards could just do in Legacy Pathfinder. So you didn't even have to exit the 2E system, to do that.
These are the sorts of arguments my players used on me. And frankly, I ran out of good arguments against them. After awhile, "Because Paizo said so," only does so much.
Did the players actually want to use the spell/ritual or did they just argue for the sake of arguments ?
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Believe me, I have tried. I have tried to give the same sorts of excuses you did. It doesn't work on players. And frankly, if you tried your arguments with them, you'd have even worse luck with it. Your approach isn't exactly gonna net you a happy player. A begruding player, sure, but not a happy player. But it started to make sense when I tried to approach it from their point of view.
It may not be the nicest approach, but I'm not worried if my players are happy about everything.
Players who approach my table with a predisposed expectation of what their characters can do are (IMO) entitled. And I don't really feel bad for telling them no. They can either figure out how to accept that not everything is the same. I can and do understand that it can feel bad, but that doesn't change anything from my perspective.
In the end, I'm not a GM that thinks players should get everything they want. I want players that fit the system, not to have players that want me to bend the system to fit them.
Also let me add, I will try to adjust the system as I see fit to help everyone have a good time. But I don't think "having a good time" is predicated on being able to do something like create a demiplane.
I was running Kingmaker at the time War of Immortals came out, which is a 1-20 adventure path. They had already planned to learn the ritual while drafting their character, as they built their wizard character around some Thassilonian demiplane stuff, as they were the clone of a former self reduced to level 1, and wanted to return to their former heights. So they had planned to relearn the ritual.
Anyway, during character creation, this was a legal story, because it was a learnable ritual. They made a character under these assumptions, I greenlit the character, and Create Demiplane was established as a character goal from day one. They had played the character for over a year before the War of Immortals hit, and removed a core aspect of their character's backstory. The errata made these former assumptions suddenly impossible if I had enforced them. My suggestions were along the lines of, "Well we can say they were mythic." but they frankly were never meant to be mythic. And frankly, I don't blame them for being cross. It's one of the cases where sometimes the GM should bend because a player was legitimately done dirty. And on a specific case basis, upholding an errata for something you already promised your player, that your player entered the game assuming he was allowed to have, is not really worth losing a player over. The player did nothing wrong in this case. (In the end my solution was to combine the spells such that if you cast it normally, it worked as legacy, but if you spent the resources to cast it as a mythic ritual, it got the enhanced benefits).
Also wasn't gonna help my case when a mid-adventure villain made use of Imprisonment. Which would have made him a Mythic creature to have done.
Though I'll repeat, ultimately, I personally don't mind these rituals becoming mythic, I'll repeat my request, because some folks seem to go over that: I...
In a case like this, I would likely tell the player they can still access create demiplane as a non-mythic custom (one use) ritual, but make sure they understood this is more a carved out exemption because the rules were changed after the character and concept was created. And I'd make sure the understood the ritual would be time consuming to research, expensive to enact, require the assistance of others with the right skill, and be a unique one time use deal (from the perspective of the game world, I prefer every demiplane be a unique ordeal to create, not something that a wizard could do every day multiple times a day with spell slots like in PF1).
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Yes, changing your game in progress because of new material, against the wishes of the people at that table is likely to result in hurt feelings. It is also not something anyone asks GMs to do. Even in PFS play by post games a GM is not expected to to change the arbitration of rules mid game without talking to everyone first and seeing if it’s how the table wants to proceed.
Yeah, generally for games in progress I wouldn't apply rules updates the impact characters.
In the above example, the rule doesn't technically impact the character in the sense that they didn't have access to those rules bit yet, but I am sympathetic because they'd predicated their driving character motive based on things that became not normally possible during the course of play.
Because of that, that individual character would have an exception but other player (if they happened to playing a caster) wouldn't also have access to the same theoretical ritual.
But more generally, it's up to individual GMs and tables to decide if rules updates midway through a game should be implemented and what their impacts are.
In general for me, I approach it from the perspective of "Give me a good reason to not implement this change". Something like "Well my character was interested in creating a demiplane once it became available" is not convincing. Whereas, "I made this characters driving motive to return to the heights of his power where he specialized in the creation of demiplanes" is enough of a reason to give some level of compromise.
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Did the players actually want to use the spell/ritual or did they just argue for the sake of arguments ?
Something like "Well my character was interested in creating a demiplane once it became available" is not convincing. Whereas, "I made this characters driving motive to return to the heights of his power where he specialized in the creation of demiplanes" is enough of a reason to give some level of compromise.
I can chime in on this a bit.
Create Demiplane was not something done at the table during play, but it was something my PC in Stolen Fate pursued, and the GM directly granted them the ritual via studying the boss' stuff.
(Can't remember off the top of my head which of the two "made a pocket plane" libraries actually granted the ritual, lol. Might have been the one about 2/3 the way through, though could have been the one right before the end.)
The near-direct access to that ritual during the AP was a large part of why my PC did "post game retraining" to take more Ritualist feats.
It's interesting to talk about this part of pf2 that's still there, but is not shared at the table.
I spent probably an hour or two after the campaign concluded spinning an epilogue of my own, which I would call a part of playing pf2.
Seeing how much gp Philo Stone + contracted ritual work could make, guesstimating the cost of build + operating a hospital in the Puddles, etc. The Create Demiplane ritual was studied and pursued by my PC for the same exploit that the AP has a point of convenience, A to B travel.
It's one of the only ways to make a permanent spacial wormhole that doesn't need spellcasts for each transport. (the only PC possible way?)
One performance of the ritual makes the demiplane, and two more can add permanent portals to link locations. (and the ritual is only 800 gp!)
I ended the epilogue while she was grappling with the choice to sell or deny use of that ritual to connect big cities like Ketapesh & Absalom, as that big a change to the world seemed a good stopping point.
But I did sketch things out far enough to verify she could make & keep her own demiplane to help her people.
At story start, the goal was to evacuate them away to a better place, but by the end, she used that link to enable them to tough it out and maintain their home.
Soooo, long way of saying that, yes, reading about a ritual you might never cast during a session is genuinely a fun and neat part of pf2. And the devs locking those options into things PCs would never be able to achieve does prevent them from being a part of that aspect of pf2 play.
It's also not going to be a straightforward egg to chicken scenario. That PC was crafted to have a bunch of distrustful people back home in need of help, but that was always intended as a rather unbound problem that could be addressed in many ways.
The solution gravitating toward, and then locking onto, Create Demiplane could only happen because I had read the ritual, and knew it was quite doable for the PC.
And because the AP was rubbing the PCs' faces in demiplanes the entire campaign, lol.
Create Demiplane is just a rare case where I can say that if my campaign had happened after the edit into a mythic ritual, then that personal story would never have happened in the way it did.
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The GM should indeed have the max fun for everyone goal only, rather than stick to errata.
But then this has always been true.
The only place were GMs cannot willfully ignore errata is PFS.
But I think now-Mythic rituals would never have been in reach of PFS PCs anyway.
The GM should indeed have the max fun for everyone goal only, rather than stick to errata.
But then this has always been true.
The only place were GMs cannot willfully ignore errata is PFS.
But I think now-Mythic rituals would never have been in reach of PFS PCs anyway.
I general goal I have is absolutely max fun for everyone (and that includes myself or the person GMing, especially as being the GM requires the most effort).
But I also don't view "my character needs to do this for me to have fun" as a valid reason to change the game.
If the group as a whole find something with the game to be an issue because it makes it not fun, then we can look at addressing that.
To go back to the earlier issue around Create Demiplane. If all the players decided that it was absolution essential to their fun that the group of PCs be able to create demiplanes, we could talk about what that would look like. What conditions, circumstances, requirements would be involved to make that fun. And I would also mention how this would likely fundamentally change the way NPC approach things and how they can access things.
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The GM should indeed have the max fun for everyone goal only, rather than stick to errata.
But then this has always been true.
The only place were GMs cannot willfully ignore errata is PFS.
But I think now-Mythic rituals would never have been in reach of PFS PCs anyway.
Rituals are not in reach of PFS PCs. They don't allow PCs to do rituals in PFS at all, outside of a scenario plot one.
The systems are different, but you are comparing bringing a character in from a seperate setting, to bringing in a character from the same setting. Apples to oranges. To use your example, you're coming into a conversation where someone is complaining that a dragonball character cannot do dragonball things in dragonball, and then saying, well stop complaining because a naruto character cannot do dragonball things in dragonball.
We're not asking to shoehorn in the lore of another setting, we're asking to be able to do the same things we were able to do in the same setting. While because mechanics have changed, the setting is still the same.Characters that were played in 1E have not even aged more than 20 years yet. And if anything, from the side of mechanical expression, characters are actually more capable...
Okay, but walk with me on this.
Ignore what your character(s) used to be able to do.
Let's look only of canon example of NPC characters and their deeds as performed in APs or books.
I don't know this with certainty, and I expect that there are probably exceptions (because dozens if not hundred+ people have been custodians of the lore at different times) but I think generally most (not all) of the things that people are complaining about not being able to do are things the high level or mythic NPCs are doing.
I don't really want to ignore what my characters used to be able to do when we're playing in the same setting, though. Especially when plenty of NPCs can still do those things because the plot says so.
This is a thorny issue because Paizo can't be constrained when creating PF2 by "well this will break a PF1 character if we change it". Constraints like that would make it impossible to redesign problematic elements.
But I totally get a player feeling annoyed that their character in Golarian could do stuff, and then an edition change happened and now they can't make another PC that can do those things. Even though you're playing in the same world and if its like my table those characters continue to exist while other adventures with other characters are going on, the hard break of a system change pulling things back can feel pretty constraining.
I think that's why one of our players ultimately left: they felt too constrained by PF2 but the rest of the group didn't want to play PF1 anymore due to its issues. That's how it goes, unfortunately.
Some of it can be addressed via house rules, and in the case of the whole mythic ritual thing, just ignoring that update entirely. But the whole tone of the game shifted between editions and that is going to be difficult for some players with a long history to accept, especially when their old characters are still kicking around the world and should still have the same powers that new characters just can't get.
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But I totally get a player feeling annoyed that their character in Golarian could do stuff, and then an edition change happened and now they can't make another PC that can do those things. Even though you're playing in the same world and if its like my table those characters continue to exist while other adventures with other characters are going on, the hard break of a system change pulling things back can feel pretty constraining.
You do not even need an edition change. An errata is enough. And we had such in PF1 too.
That said, I was pretty unhappy when PF2 made CG Cleric of Gorum impossible, so I get the feeling.
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But I totally get a player feeling annoyed that their character in Golarian could do stuff, and then an edition change happened and now they can't make another PC that can do those things. Even though you're playing in the same world and if its like my table those characters continue to exist while other adventures with other characters are going on, the hard break of a system change pulling things back can feel pretty constraining.I think that's why one of our players ultimately left: they felt too constrained by PF2 but the rest of the group didn't want to play PF1 anymore due to its issues. That's how it goes, unfortunately.
Some of it can be addressed via house rules, and in the case of the whole mythic ritual thing, just ignoring that update entirely. But the whole tone of the game shifted between editions and that is going to be difficult for some players with a long history to accept, especially when their old characters are still kicking around the world and should still have the same powers that new characters just can't get.
I also get being annoyed that their character can't do the same things (because of the idea of consistent lore), but also I can look at the different editions mechanically and say that for the most part, it's for the best.
As you said, "that's how it goes unfortunately". I'm not interested in playing PF1 mechanically anymore, especially as a GM, but even as a player. The playing field was far too uneven between characters depending on class and player knowledge.
Now (in PF2) there's not really a secret treasure trove of knowledge that will make your character twice (or more) as powerful as other characters. A highly optimized character might be 20% better than an unoptimized one, and you have to actively work against expectations to make a bad character, and even novices should generally recognize when they're doing that.
Ultimately for me, if a player decides they don't like the baseline of PF2 (which I do alter with house rules but not in a major way IMO) they are free to play in another game with another GM. I won't be upset that they decided my game wasn't for them.
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As you said, "that's how it goes unfortunately". I'm not interested in playing PF1 mechanically anymore, especially as a GM, but even as a player. The playing field was far too uneven between characters depending on class and player knowledge.
Now (in PF2) there's not really a secret treasure trove of knowledge that will make your character twice (or more) as powerful as other characters. A highly optimized character might be 20% better than an unoptimized one, and you have to actively work against expectations to make a bad character, and even novices should generally recognize when they're doing that.
Ultimately for me, if a player decides they don't like the baseline of PF2 (which I do alter with house rules but not in a major way IMO) they are free to play in another game with another GM. I won't be upset that they decided my game wasn't for them.
Yep, absolutely. We had the same group together for an extremely long time. Eventually someone didn't want to play what the rest of the group wanted to anymore. Wish them well and everyone moves on.
I don't want to play PF1 a whole lot anymore either, and I absolutely refuse to GM it. I am still in one game because the GM is running the whole "Runelords" saga and doesn't want to convert (which is totally fair). But once we finish Return of the Runelords, I think that's it for PF1 for me.
I also get being annoyed that their character can't do the same things (because of the idea of consistent lore), but also I can look at the different editions mechanically and say that for the most part, it's for the best.
It's for the best since new edition creators can't be constrained by a requirement that every character from the last edition be a valid character in the new one. That's not a viable way to design a new system since one of the biggest upsides of an edition change is being able to cut a lot of baggage loose.
Some folks can separate the editions in their head, and some folks don't think that way. There's no right or wrong answer there, since it's just about player preference and how a game feels. So I absolutely get how those folks feel because my favorite PF1 character wouldn't work the same way in PF2 either and in my head the PF2 version just feels "off", even though she's actually a pretty good character in PF2.
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Some folks can separate the editions in their head, and some folks don't think that way. There's no right or wrong answer there, since it's just about player preference and how a game feels. So I absolutely get how those folks feel because my favorite PF1 character wouldn't work the same way in PF2 either and in my head the PF2 version just feels "off", even though she's actually a pretty good character in PF2.
Absolutely. There is no right or wrong, only player preference (as long as we understand that does include the GM too).
And I totally understand a player being disappointed they can't do what their previous character did, or even being disappointed that the thing they wanted to try in PF1 and never got around to isn't available in PF2, but that's simply how it goes. They could try to find another group that wants to run that kind of game, but I won't.
In PF1, perhaps my favorite character was an Inquisitor. There's no direct mechanical translation, though spiritually I feel like a Thaumaturge comes kind of close. The Inquisitor was simply a powerhouse with all the self buffing they could do, their bevy of skills, and their martial prowess enhanced by class features.
Unfortunately, it has no place in PF2 in terms of a direct translation because it could simply do too much.