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To preface my response: I don't have any problem with raising grievances. In fact, I am trying to help by weeding out weak arguments so that the resulting list of grievances that you have are more meaningful and better supported.
So, to critique the critique:
Static Item DCs
...
Bulk & XP
Yeah, that is my feelings on those too.
Having Items with fixed and unchanging DCs for their abilities isn't by itself a problem. The problem comes when there is no way for the characters to buy upgrades. That results in having a nice item that becomes central to a character's play--that then gets obsoleted with no recourse.
Bulk isn't a terrible system, but even that can probably be handwaved away with a player's agreement to simply not go overboard on what the characters are carrying. XP is a system that is best replaced with milestone leveling.
Lack of common 1 action skill choices
Don't forget about Aid. At low levels when you have nothing better to do, it is worth making the attempt. At higher levels, the bonuses that you can give to your allies can't be beat. This is PF2's response to Chrono Trigger's Dual Tech and Triple Tech abilities.
Just don't houserule nerf Aid to make it so that it doesn't give those bonuses like it was designed to.
Counteract spells
Counteract is supposed to be difficult and unexpected. Yes, that might make it annoying to a player who wants to build a character optimized for it.
But do you know what the most annoying use for Counteract would be...
Having enemies counteract your party's spellcaster casting Heal on you.
Skill Feats & General Feats
I feel like this is a misunderstanding of what those categories of feats are intended for.
Class feats are what you use for combat.
Skill Feats and General Feats are what you put on your character so that you can be more useful and powerful when the campaign asks you to do something other than kill things.
Yes, there are some Skill Feats and Class Feats that are useful in combat. That doesn't change the game design concept that the game should be about more than just killing things, and that these feats are intended to let you build your character for those other things. So if your campaign doesn't feature those other non-combat encounters and challenges, that is a campaign problem, not a game design problem.
Difficulty Scaling: doubling in power every 2 levels might be a bit too fast, maybe we want that every 4 levels?
That is something that can only be handled with houserules. The game has to have a chart for this. One chart. For all non-houserule games. Yes, it may have been chosen somewhat arbitrarily. But something had to be chosen, and this was it.
Lores
For the most part, they are opt-in. You get one for free from your Background. That is all you need for many campaigns. If a campaign rewards a particular Lore skill, you can get that one if desired. But you aren't required to spend build resources getting Lore skills that aren't going to be useful.
Exploration Activities
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Downtime Activities
Similar to Skill Feats, this is a feature of the game being designed for more than just combat. If your campaign doesn't value anything other than combat, then you won't find much value in these systems. But that is a campaign problem, not a game design problem.
Consumables
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Buff Spells
The other option is to rebalance the game math around the expectation that the party is going to be coming into every fight with their buff spells and buff consumables in effect.
It won't change the actual difficulty of the game. It would just punish those players who don't understand that pre-buffing with spells and consumables is mandatory in order to succeed at combat.
Archetypes
Similar to Lore skills, these are also opt-in. The intent is to allow you to customize your character based on playstyle goals.
The PF1 style of archetypes tended more towards minmaxing and tinkering with the game math. Which is a character build goal that was actively designed against in PF2. PF2 archetypes are not intended to increase character power.
Stealth
Yes, the rules are very complicated. The difficulty is that it can't be too easy or else the enemies would be able to do it too well. Being TPK'd by a small group of stealthy ambush predators that the party can't even successfully detect would not be a fun way to end a campaign.
Vancian Casting
My problem with Vancian Casting is that it is pretty much the only place left in PF2 design that uses daily attrition for something that is a significant portion of a character's overall combat power. There are some other things that are using attrition, such as 1/day abilities like Halfling Luck or a basic version of Battle Medicine. But those are not a major portion of a character's contribution to combat.
Ending up as the only character in a party where you have an actual need to retreat from the dungeon to rest for the night in order to continue being useful in combat, but none of the other characters do ... doesn't seem very fun.
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for XP this includes quest rewards not scaling properly: you will gain 10XP from a completing a quest (Minor/Moderate/Major Accomplishments) at level 1 and the same amount at level 2, which incentivizes completing quests as late as possible.
What would the advantage be? You are just leveling up a bit later, which seems counterproductive.
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static item DCs are supposed to be changed by the upcoming (2027) item book
Changed how? The item rules are in GM Core. Is GM Core getting errata to go with the new book?
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static item DCs are supposed to be changed by the upcoming (2027) item bookChanged how? The item rules are in GM Core. Is GM Core getting errata to go with the new book?
Checking my notes on the presentation: "Rules for upgrading items and keeping them relevant, including nitpicky detail-y stuff around keeping item DCs up to level."
I would not expect errata to the GM Core, just a system GMs can use.
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I was expecting this topic to be moved to "General," since it doesn't discuss how the rules work but rather complains about what they are. But since that hasn't happened yet, I'll leave my two cents here.
Static Item DCs: these should scale if the PC has access to the spell list, similar to how wands also do
This is an issue that was raised here a long time ago, and I believe there is near-unanimous agreement on it among the regulars of this forum and the players I know: the system of fixed DCs for items based on their level is a very poor and limited solution that creates a sort of built-in obsolescence. It is something I also hope will be addressed in future versions of the system.
Lack of common 1 action skill choices: you attack twice or cast a spell, now what? you've got a small subset of common options:
* move
* recall knowledge
* take cover in various forms like raise shield
* demoralize
I know there are more choices like Athletics maneuvers or Feint, but those usually don't come up that often after attacks. In general, I'd like a couple more options for other skills that are generally useful, like something other than Tumble Through for Acrobatics, something related to Performance or something other than Recall Knowledge for most Wis/Int skills, etc
I have to disagree there. In my opinion, deciding what to do with the third action is one of the most interesting aspects of the game, as it almost always ties back to the specific capabilities of the chosen class and character. It’s an aspect left open for players to find interesting ways to utilize. I don’t think there’s a lack of options, nor do I find the existing ones to be poor; it isn’t hard to find a use for that third action—even if it’s just taking a Step.
Forgive the *ad hominem*, but complaining about a lack of options for the third action betrays a lack of understanding of the game. Virtually every class has a way to use that third action efficiently—not to mention the general options already mentioned, which are perfectly solid (and which would take up this entire post if I started listing them).
Counteract spells: Counteract as a mechanic is fine, but it requires using your highest level spell slots more often than not. That coupled with the amount of condition removal spells makes it very difficult to succeed (as opposed to Dispel Magic, which is fantastic)
I have no complaints about counterspells in PF2e. In fact, the game was designed in contrast to D&D in this regard. The idea is precisely to avoid the kind of counterspell standoff that happens in 5e. While nullifying an opponent's spell might be cool, it creates an unwanted slowdown in combat. From a gameplay perspective, it’s better for two spellcasters to blast each other—dealing damage to one another and the surrounding area—than to have characters burning actions just to cancel spells constantly, dragging the fight out too long.
Skill Feats & General Feats: too much trash combined with must picks
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Utility Spells: Try to build a spellcaster by going through 1st level spells on AoN. How long does it take you to pick your spells? How many of these spells are so situational, that you never pick them? Feels like there 5 spells out of 40 that I always pick.
It’s not just skill-based or general feats; the entire system is essentially riddled with bloat—options that are overly situational and/or purely thematic but offer little practical utility, whether they are feats, items, or spells. In fact, this is something I’d like designers to adopt as a standard for future editions: ensuring that every game element has a practical, broad application in gameplay, rather than being merely situational or thematic.
Consumables: they're bad because they are balanced for classes that can get them for free and have a heavy action tax; I've never seen players use them
Consumables, in fact, are in a somewhat trickier spot due to how items functioned in the previous version.
Previously, an item's price was the primary limiting factor for acquisition; consequently, high-level items had to be expensive to prevent players from accessing them too easily early in the game.
In the 2nd Edition, item levels were introduced, allowing GMs to restrict player access. However, the pricing standard for items matching the character's level remains very high.
This places consumables in a particularly awkward position. On one hand, a consumable matching the character's level is so expensive that players prefer to save up for a permanent item—to the point where selling the consumable to fund that purchase is sometimes the better option. Conversely, at mid-to-high levels, low-level consumables that remain useful become excessively cheap and accessible. The situation escalated to the point where Paizo had to place a usage limit on True Strike because of it.
To address this in future editions, the ideal approach would be for the system to rely even more heavily on item levels. This would clarify restrictions on accessing items above the player's level—perhaps even mechanically, such as by having an item cause side effects when used by weaker or unprepared characters.
Doing so would allow for a smoother item pricing progression, preventing items at the player's level from being prohibitively expensive, while also narrowing the cost gap for lower-level items that otherwise become trivialized at higher levels.
Difficulty Scaling: doubling in power every 2 levels might be a bit too fast, maybe we want that every 4 levels? This is mainly an issue in sandbox campaigns and your run of the mill PL+4 boss. No, not interested in Proficiency without Level.
I don't see a problem with the current progression. Reducing the impact of progression diminishes the sense of change for players, which can make the game more tedious. Leveling up, gaining new abilities, and seeing old abilities become more powerful—crushing enemies that once posed a challenge—is one of the main joys of a level-based progression game. I wouldn't want a version of PF2e with a flatter progression than the current one; if I actually needed flatter progression, I’d prefer to go straight to the proficiency without level variant. I have no interest in a middle ground.
Bulk & XP: This is probably an unpopular oppionion but these systems are simple in most cases and very, very complicated in edge cases; for bulk this includes complicated conversions for different creature/item sizes like large PCs or horses and for XP this includes quest rewards not scaling properly: you will gain 10XP from a completing a quest (Minor/Moderate/Major Accomplishments) at level 1 and the same amount at level 2, which incentivizes completing quests as late as possible. I suppose most of you simply handwave this due to its complexity or never run XP.
I don't see any issues with the current encumbrance system. It’s actually one of the simplest I’ve come across, since it tries to account for space—not just weight—while using a single metric. To me, the game could at most offer better guidelines for converting weight and volume into "bulk." But aside from that, I think it works fine as is.
As for the XP system, I think you might have misunderstood it. It’s already based on the players' level. If they save minor side quests for after they’ve leveled up, those quests will yield less XP, just as usually happens with encounters. You—or your GM—likely just forgot to account for that.
Lores: Hate them. Similar to languages, these can be useful or not do anything. They are entirely up to GM fiat, unless they are coupled to a specific class like Thaumaturge. Anyone of you put a skill increase into Architecture Lore? In a way, they work like +2/+5/+8 modifiers to other skill checks which they technically should have been in the first case.
For me, Lores presents a different issue.
The problem with Lores is that they share the same slot as Skills, justified by the fact that their DCs are lower. However, except for special Lores tied to specific classes, no player sacrifices a skill slot just to pick up an extra Lore.
In my view, Lores should be a mechanic separate from skills; a character would gain extra Lores much like they gain languages. However, these Lores would automatically progress at levels 2, 7, and 15, and they would compete with languages for slots (forcing the player to choose between an additional language or an additional Lore). Furthermore, languages would also feature proficiency levels—not for speaking, but for comprehending texts and documents in complex languages with higher DCs—thereby replacing the use of the society skill for that purpose.
Downtime Activities: everyone has 7 days of downtime, what do you do? Ah well, let's roll Earn Income, we're done. APs are wildly different in that regard as well. I think we need a more structured system that is used in APs as well, has more choices and is fun to run.
I actually feel the opposite. To me, downtime shouldn't be heavily regulated by rules, and most abilities shouldn't rely on it.
For context, I’ve played in many games where the GM simply ignores downtime—either because they don't want to track the time, or because they consider the standard daily rest sufficient for downtime activities. They often treat money earned from "Earn Income" tasks as just enough to cover the cost of living; this serves both to make adventure loot feel more valuable and to convey that life isn't so easy that you can just make money in any settlement you stop at—especially one plagued by unemployment or other negative social conditions.
In my view, downtime should be handled primarily through roleplay, with as few rules and pre-packaged activities as possible.
That’s not to mention adventures where the fast pace leaves no room for downtime at all, which effectively kills off any activities reserved for that phase.
Exploration Activities: great in theory, but not used in adventures at all. Treat Wounds takes 10 minutes, so what? Nothing in AP X says that this section should be completed in Y amount of time. And if they do like some parts in AV, 10 mins don't matter. Homebrewing restrictions is also difficult, because 10 minutes is such a short amount of time that it does not really matter. Other systems solve this better, e.g. healing 2d8 without a check, then making a Medicine check to see if your healing decreases to 2d6 the next time around. Or torch timers. No, 2e does not expect you to be at full health every encounter; the combat rating is based on that but that does not mean that you need full hp to complete a 60XP encounter.
This is an issue with the adventure itself, not the system.
None of my friends complain about exploration activities; they understand that it’s up to the GM's discretion. Ten minutes is a reasonable amount of time for someone to investigate a room while another character refocuses and others treat their wounds. If the GM decides that a specific part of the adventure doesn't allow for downtime, they can simply introduce encounters or other events to interrupt exploration activities—and that’s that.
Honestly, I don't see a problem here. Furthermore, yes, PF2e expects everyone to be at full strength when a new encounter begins. This greatly simplifies balancing, and there is no shortage of tools, abilities, and spells to make that happen.
Archetypes: Great idea, s@!$ty execution. Multiclass archetypes are wildly useful, some archetypes poach class feats (Beast Master, Blessed One) devaluing class choices to a certain degree, while most of them are terrible flavor options often tied to APs. Where are the class archetypes that were so fun to play with in 1e?
Sorry, but they’re still there; you just didn't pay attention to them. We do have several interesting class archetypes, though, such as the Avenger and the Battle Harbinger.
The issue with class archetypes these days is that Paizo has chosen to release full classes instead of them. The reason is most likely commercial: classes attract far more attention and sell more books than archetypes do. It is much more marketable for Paizo to release a Necromancer as a full class rather than an archetype. I say this because we already have Necromancer archetypes, yet they don't garner even 10% of the attention the class itself did—not just because the class is mechanically bolder, but primarily because it carries the weight and prestige of being a full class.
Many people here wish Paizo had focused more on archetypes like they used to, but everyone gets incredibly excited whenever a new class is announced. So, Paizo's current stance makes sense, and honestly, I doubt it will change in a future edition.
Stealth: way too complicated, does not fulfill the fantasy of sneaking through sections, requires too many checks and only a single failure to become observed, stealing objects does not really work nor sneaking in combat. Comes online very late. There are a lot of balancing issues in here.
I don't think the stealth mechanics are complicated; besides, simplifying them further could trivialize effects like invisibility (which already compete for relevance starting at level 15—or level 13 if playing a Halfling or Goblin). The only part I think could be improved is that the Stealth roll used during exploration could very well serve as the initiative roll, in my opinion. But that’s a minor detail.
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I’ll go on record as liking items having a static DC, but that not having enough variants to upgrade to with some items, or a more standardized system for upgrading them is unfortunate. It does seem like an issue getting fixed though.
As an almost always GM, having items have static DCs makes dropping higher level consumables on the party a lot of fun. They would lose that if the DCs were always based on level. And conceptually, I think it is very useful for level to be so meaningful in PF2. It just makes Gaming a lot easier. I do sympathize with players getting attached to gear that regresses in value. I think that is why I usually err towards dropping over powered consumables than permanent DC based items that are already at or behind the party level.
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To preface my response: I don't have any problem with raising grievances. In fact, I am trying to help by weeding out weak arguments so that the resulting list of grievances that you have are more meaningful and better supported.
So, to critique the critique:
Static Item DCs
...
Bulk & XPYeah, that is my feelings on those too.
Having Items with fixed and unchanging DCs for their abilities isn't by itself a problem. The problem comes when there is no way for the characters to buy upgrades. That results in having a nice item that becomes central to a character's play--that then gets obsoleted with no recourse.
Upgrade rules don’t fix anything. The static DC items that have upgrades are just as bad, because the upgrades simply cost too much.
In pf2e, you are almost always better off with items that simply don’t fall off in the first place, and there are enough of those items to kit out a character quite well. The option to pay a [expletive] load of gold just to keep an item alive doesn’t change that. It’s a false choice.
Now, if upgrades were MUCH cheaper - like a 10th of a new on level item - it could be worth it then. But that’s not what most proposed item upgrade rules look like.
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COMMENT EDITED TO REMOVE A SWEAR AS IT'S AGAINST OUR FORUM RULES! Please stop swearing so much! This is a repeat offense! - MEC 09/04/2026
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static item DCs are supposed to be changed by the upcoming (2027) item bookChanged how? The item rules are in GM Core. Is GM Core getting errata to go with the new book?Checking my notes on the presentation: "Rules for upgrading items and keeping them relevant, including nitpicky detail-y stuff around keeping item DCs up to level."
I would not expect errata to the GM Core, just a system GMs can use.
95% chance this is going to cost just as much as a new item (maybe minus the cost of the item you’re upgrading, as if that knocks off anywhere near enough) and therefore be not only [expletive] near useless, but worse than the (already pretty bad) on level item you could have bought that generally has a bit better effects.
I guess you’ll be able to upgrade ashen rune and security badge though, because every level should be subject to their [expletive].
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COMMENT EDITED TO REMOVE SWEARS AS IT'S AGAINST OUR FORUM RULES! Please stop swearing so much! This is a repeat offense! - MEC 09/04/2026
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To preface my response: I don't have any problem with raising grievances. In fact, I am trying to help by weeding out weak arguments so that the resulting list of grievances that you have are more meaningful and better supported.
So, to critique the critique:
Static Item DCs
...
Bulk & XPYeah, that is my feelings on those too.
Having Items with fixed and unchanging DCs for their abilities isn't by itself a problem. The problem comes when there is no way for the characters to buy upgrades. That results in having a nice item that becomes central to a character's play--that then gets obsoleted with no recourse.
Upgrade rules don’t fix anything. The static DC items that have upgrades are just as bad, because the upgrades simply cost too much.
In pf2e, you are almost always better off with items that simply don’t fall off in the first place, and there are enough of those items to kit out a character quite well. The option to pay a s#++ load of gold just to keep an item alive doesn’t change that. It’s a false choice.
Now, if upgrades were MUCH cheaper - like a 10th of a new on level item - it could be worth it then. But that’s not what most proposed item upgrade rules look like.
I think it is a much bigger problem for level 3 attack/control items to remain usable at high level than for them to have upgrade options that require gold investment. Players get a ton of treasure in PF2 and don’t need to be hoarding it for 20 levels. Runes, consumables, pretty much everything but worn items, don’t require investment and will end up leading to way too many bags of holding full of 100+ items that could be useful in this situation and now a player has to look up x thing they found 4 months ago to see if it is the one. Maybe some players like playing with bags full of useful stuff (count me one of them, especially with scrolls), but it is at least very opt in right now, as opposed to the default state of all the things.
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To preface my response: I don't have any problem with raising grievances. In fact, I am trying to help by weeding out weak arguments so that the resulting list of grievances that you have are more meaningful and better supported.
So, to critique the critique:
Static Item DCs
...
Bulk & XPYeah, that is my feelings on those too.
Having Items with fixed and unchanging DCs for their abilities isn't by itself a problem. The problem comes when there is no way for the characters to buy upgrades. That results in having a nice item that becomes central to a character's play--that then gets obsoleted with no recourse.
Upgrade rules don’t fix anything. The static DC items that have upgrades are just as bad, because the upgrades simply cost too much.
In pf2e, you are almost always better off with items that simply don’t fall off in the first place, and there are enough of those items to kit out a character quite well. The option to pay a s~&+ load of gold just to keep an item alive doesn’t change that. It’s a false choice.
Now, if upgrades were MUCH cheaper - like a 10th of a new on level item - it could be worth it then. But that’s not what most proposed item upgrade rules look like.
You are aware that paying for upgrades to fundamental Runes is already a basic rule of the system, right ?
As is paying for upgrading a property rune to the Greater version, or a staff that has Major and Greater versions ...
I don't see how this would be different.
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To preface my response: I don't have any problem with raising grievances. In fact, I am trying to help by weeding out weak arguments so that the resulting list of grievances that you have are more meaningful and better supported.
So, to critique the critique:
Static Item DCs
...
Bulk & XPYeah, that is my feelings on those too.
Having Items with fixed and unchanging DCs for their abilities isn't by itself a problem. The problem comes when there is no way for the characters to buy upgrades. That results in having a nice item that becomes central to a character's play--that then gets obsoleted with no recourse.
Upgrade rules don’t fix anything. The static DC items that have upgrades are just as bad, because the upgrades simply cost too much.
In pf2e, you are almost always better off with items that simply don’t fall off in the first place, and there are enough of those items to kit out a character quite well. The option to pay a s@@! load of gold just to keep an item alive doesn’t change that. It’s a false choice.
Now, if upgrades were MUCH cheaper - like a 10th of a new on level item - it could be worth it then. But that’s not what most proposed item upgrade rules look like.
You are aware that paying for upgrades to fundamental Runes is already a basic rule of the system, right ?
As is paying for upgrading a property rune to the Greater version, or a staff that has Major and Greater versions ...
I don't see how this would be different.
Your underleveled staff or (non-fixed DC) property runes doesn’t shut off because you leveled up. It keeps working. You have a meaningful choice as to whether it’s worth the money to upgrade for more capabilities - sometimes yes, sometimes no. Maybe you get the greater rooting rune. Maybe you keep the standard. But you’re not forced to get the greater rooting rune just to keep being able to root people.
And fundamental runes aren’t comparable to most items as they’re basically just a system math thing - to the point where there’s a variant rule that just does away with them and gives you the math upgrades.
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Upgrade rules don’t fix anything. The static DC items that have upgrades are just as bad, because the upgrades simply cost too much.Doesn't make sense. If upgrades (would) cost too much, it's just 'items cost too much' because upgrade cost would be based on it most probably. And items do not cost too much. Characters have quite enough of them by default. Often more than a lot of players can remember and manage using effectively.
There's some truth that upgraded low level items would often be probably worse than ones of higher level. But... that's the actual reason for items' planned obsolescence. Duh. Just don't upgrade things which aren't worth it.
And demanding reducing upgrade costs to 10th of on-level price is absurd.
Yes, most on level items cost too much for the benefit they typically provide to be worth it, given the wide array of lower level items one could instead purchase. The game contains a large variety of items that don’t get outscaled, or are only partially outscaled, enough to spend all your GP on.
This is much more dramatic when many of the on level items one could purchase will effectively turn to ash within a few levels, which both makes them suck to get on level and worthless at the level they’d be worth the GP. If you want on level items to be be exciting treasure instead of “wow guess I have to sell this vendor trash”, removing fixed DCs is a good starting place.
Vastly reduced upgrade costs - or better yet, autoscaling - only absurd depending on what your comparison point is. If your comparison point is buying on level fixed DC items, sure. If your comparison point is never spending a dime on anything for it’s fixed DC effect - cause they almost always suck - and instead buying things that don’t have an expiration date, well, then all it’s doing is opening the field of items possibly worth using from… maybe a couple hundred to several times that.
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Static Item DCs: these should scale if the PC has access to the spell list, similar to how wands also do
I don't think anyone is going to disagree with this one. The fact that most players ignore items with DCs is already telling how bad this problem is.
Skill Feats & General Feats: too much trash combined with must picks
Skill feats: I think these shouldn't exist. Most skill feats are honestly trash; some feel mandatory for their respective skills, while others revolve entirely around combat, even though skill feats supposedly weren't designed to compete with combat options. Most skill feats should simply be baked into the skills themselves, with the rest turned into general feats. This isn't talked about very often, but your choice of skill increases effectively determines your skill feat options going forward as well. If you become an expert in Medicine at 3rd level, you're likely going to take a Medicine skill feat with your 3rd-level general feat or your 4th-level skill feat. Why wouldn't you?
General feats: The number of general feats is awfully low. If you look at every general feat at 7th level or higher, they all have prerequisites that either require other general feats or specific proficiencies, which means certain classes can't access them. It also doesn't help that Diehard, Toughness, Incredible Initiative, and Canny Acumen feel almost mandatory for every character. I'd rather have a general feat at 1st level and every two levels thereafter rather than a skill feat at 2nd level and every two levels thereafter, but I'm saying this assuming we take the few skill feats which are worth the hassle and turn them into general feats instead.
Bulk & XP: This is probably an unpopular oppionion but these systems are simple in most cases and very, very complicated in edge cases; for bulk this includes complicated conversions for different creature/item sizes like large PCs or horses and for XP this includes quest rewards not scaling properly: you will gain 10XP from a completing a quest (Minor/Moderate/Major Accomplishments) at level 1 and the same amount at level 2, which incentivizes completing quests as late as possible. I suppose most of you simply handwave this due to its complexity or never run XP.
I'm surprised Bulk has survived this long in D&D and D&D-adjacent systems when I've never played at a table that used those rules RAW. Most dungeon loot is immediately sold in the nearest town, so when players write down everything they find in a dungeon, they aren't really carrying all of it with them; they're essentially making a list of the items they're going to sell once they're done with the dungeon. Most non-AP campaigns have tons of downtime so it can be assumed the PCs take a few days coming back to the dungeon to retrieve everything they found there. Bags of holding are awfully cheap to get as well.
I also used to use XP in PF1e because the XP values were right there on the monsters themselves. Now that you actually have to look at formulas to determine how much XP the party gets, I honestly feel like the system was asking me to switch to milestone leveling instead. Ironically, I find it much more thematically appropriate for PCs to level up based on the things they actually do, rather than randomly leveling up in the middle of a dungeon in the middle of a session.
Lores: Hate them. Similar to languages, these can be useful or not do anything. They are entirely up to GM fiat, unless they are coupled to a specific class like Thaumaturge. Anyone of you put a skill increase into Architecture Lore? In a way, they work like +2/+5/+8 modifiers to other skill checks which they technically should have been in the first case.
I'm okay with Lores, but I think they should allow you to do more things, and arguably allow players to replace certain skills at GMs discretion. For example, Blacksmith Lore should allow players to craft metal items using their Blacksmith Lore modifier instead. This wouldn't let you craft magical metal items, since Magical Crafting would still require you to be an expert in Crafting. However, you could become an expert in Crafting, take Magical Crafting, and then use specific Lores to craft the items you think are thematic for your character at a lower DC (like it happens with Lores and RK) using the Lore modifier instead.
I agree with languages, though. I've never played in a campaign where languages were an issue. In fact, I think that with the last three PF2e characters I made, I completely forgot to choose which languages I knew, and it literally never came up. Translate is a 2nd-rank spell that, when heightened to 3rd rank, can be made into a wand, allowing the party to effectively forget that languages even exist in the game. I think languages should be handled by Lore skills and skill feats/general feats.
For example, every PC is assumed to understand all common languages, or at least to be able to communicate normally with members of all common ancestries. Demonic isn't a common language, so PCs aren't assumed to be able to communicate with demons. But if a PC has Demon Lore, it seems reasonable to assume that one of the things they most likely know how to do is communicate with them. Much like how Thorough Search and Expeditious Search exist as general feats to improve Perception, there could be general feats that allow PCs to eventually understand all uncommon or rare languages. If the GM wants to run a campaign where the PCs venture into an unexplored area where they wouldn't be able to communicate normally, that's something the GM should handle with campaign specific rules IMO.
Archetypes: Great idea, s+~&ty execution. Multiclass archetypes are wildly useful, some archetypes poach class feats (Beast Master, Blessed One) devaluing class choices to a certain degree, while most of them are terrible flavor options often tied to APs. Where are the class archetypes that were so fun to play with in 1e?
I said this in another thread, but I think PF2e has a serious feat bloat problem. I feel like we could have a “general class feat” list to avoid every martial class having Reactive Strike at 6th level, for example. That way, instead of every class being printed with 50-60 feats each, 10 of which are repeated from other classes, and more than 20 of which are highly situational, they could instead have 20–30 really good feats that actually compete with each other.
Archetype bloat is even worse. 90% of archetypes aren't even real options because they're simply too weak to be worth taking. If archetypes were more specialized and didn't feel the need to pad themselves with a ton of useless feats, we could have far fewer archetypes, with each one having a distinct niche that helps players specialize in that area or allows characters who are already specialized in it to access options that normally aren't available to their class.
Vancian Casting: this is probably controversial but no complaints
This is the biggest problem with PF2e, and it needs to be removed ASAP. The whole system has already moved toward an encounter-based design, yet half the classes in the game still have to deal with the daily-based design of Vancian casting. I can't hate Vancian casting more than I already do honestly.
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We also need to get rid of fundamental runes. Items to keep up with the math aren't fun.
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Let me preface this with: I love the system. This is more of a collection of thoughts that could be looked at before the next edition arrives. Maybe you also have your own subsystems that you'd like to share, especially for downtime and exploration.
No system is perfect, and we've all got our complaints. Some of mine are on your list!
Static Item DCs: these should scale if the PC has access to the spell list, similar to how wands also do
Yeah lots of folks agree this is a problem but there's less agreement on how to fix it. Some item powers are good enough that if they scaled effortlessly you'd just use that item forever. Something is coming next year it sounds like as a way to upgrade an item and keep the DC more relevant, but it's definitely a problem now.
Lack of common 1 action skill choices: you attack twice or cast a spell, now what? you've got a small subset of common options:
* move
* recall knowledge
* take cover in various forms like raise shield
* demoralize
I know there are more choices like Athletics maneuvers or Feint, but those usually don't come up that often after attacks. In general, I'd like a couple more options for other skills that are generally useful, like something other than Tumble Through for Acrobatics, something related to Performance or something other than Recall Knowledge for most Wis/Int skills, etc
Feint, Bon Mot, Battle Medicine, Aid, cast a 1 action spell like Guidance on someone else, etc. Also some classes are much more action intensive than others (Thaumaturge and Exploit for example). So yeah, if you make a Fighter without any skills that grant options, you're going to run out of stuff to do. But there are lots of options out there.
Counteract spells: Counteract as a mechanic is fine, but it requires using your highest level spell slots more often than not. That coupled with the amount of condition removal spells makes it very difficult to succeed (as opposed to Dispel Magic, which is fantastic)
100% true. In fact there was just a discussion about this on Reddit recently. There's four different condition removal spells, and they basically require being in a top 2 rank spell slot to have any chance of working (as any condition from an enemy below that has a low enough save DC you can probably just shrug it off anyway).
It really sucks for a spontaneous caster as these functionally have to be signature spells to work and you don't have signature spell space for all 4 of them. So maybe you take Cleanse and/or Dispel, but that's it. Even scrolls aren't practical for this because of how fast they decay into uselessness and how top rank scrolls are actually pretty expensive.
I get why counteract itself works the way it does, but there's too many spells to remove conditions. Clerics with the feat that lets them use their Divine Font for whichever one they want are basically the only class in the game actually good at this. Everyone else can maybe prepare one ahead of time if they know for sure what they're fighting, can prepare it the next day to remove it if it's still there, or are just SOL (the spontaneous casters).
Skill Feats & General Feats: too much trash combined with must picks
Fair. These vary wildly in value and I see a lot of the same ones over and over again.
Consumables: they're bad because they are balanced for classes that can get them for free and have a heavy action tax; I've never seen players use them
Your players are missing out then. Consumables are great. For a group that doesn't have someone like an Alchemist it's really about when to deploy them, but there's a lot of them that quickly become very affordable for what they do. And of course, there's some really great scrolls.
My only issue with consumables is the sheer quantity of them making it hard to find what I need, but bloat in general is becoming a problem as the game ages.
Bulk & XP: This is probably an unpopular oppionion but these systems are simple in most cases and very, very complicated in edge cases; for bulk this includes complicated conversions for different creature/item sizes like large PCs or horses and for XP this includes quest rewards not scaling properly: you will gain 10XP from a completing a quest (Minor/Moderate/Major Accomplishments) at level 1 and the same amount at level 2, which incentivizes completing quests as late as possible. I suppose most of you simply handwave this due to its complexity or never run XP.
I'm with you on both. I don't use XP at all, I use milestones. APs literally tell you what level the PCs should be at any given point and tell you to add random encounters until they get there, so why bother with the XP math at all? It's just not adding anything for a game like PF2 with how important level is to the game balance.
Bulk works fine in the simple case and becomes completely nonsensical outside of it. My favorite example is how a 1 medium longbow = 2 medium longswords = 20 medium shortswords. Which itself is weird, but okay. Have a large creature carry them (like a large PC or a pack horse) and suddenly 1 longbow = 20 longswords = indeterminate shortswords. It makes no sense at all.
Or, what's the bulk requirement of picking up downed player? It's 6 for a medium creature, but does that include gear or not? If it doesn't, most PCs are functionally impossible to pick up for someone of equal size. Or what's the bulk of something unusual like a statue? I have absolutely no idea how to estimate this, and the game's example of 1 bulk = 10 pounds is broken so often by the game itself that it's not at all reliable.
This system just doesn't work well outside of the simple case.
Lores: Hate them. Similar to languages, these can be useful or not do anything. They are entirely up to GM fiat, unless they are coupled to a specific class like Thaumaturge. Anyone of you put a skill increase into Architecture Lore? In a way, they work like +2/+5/+8 modifiers to other skill checks which they technically should have been in the first case.
Almost no one is putting skill boosts into Lore because Additional Lore exists, and a skill feat to get auto legendary is great value. Lores are great if you know the theme of the campaign. Like, Spore War tells us up front it's about fighting Treerazer and his army, so you know for certain Demon Lore is going to be relevant. (Likewise a player in my extinction Curse game noticed Xulgaths were important to the plot and so took Xulgath lore. It got heavy use.)
As a GM I frequently find ways to incorporate Lores and am pretty generous in terms of when I'll let someone use one, which is definitely a GM fiat thing. But in a long-form campaign like an AP there is usually a theme and lores related to that will be relevant. The players guide often tells you some of them.
In PFS? Yeah, just total guesswork.
Exploration Activities: great in theory, but not used in adventures at all. Treat Wounds takes 10 minutes, so what? Nothing in AP X says that this section should be completed in Y amount of time. And if they do like some parts in AV, 10 mins don't matter. Homebrewing restrictions is also difficult, because 10 minutes is such a short amount of time that it does not really matter. Other systems solve this better, e.g. healing 2d8 without a check, then making a Medicine check to see if your healing decreases to 2d6 the next time around. Or torch timers. No, 2e does not expect you to be at full health every encounter; the combat rating is based on that but that does not mean that you need full hp to complete a 60XP encounter.
Exploration activities are used all the time, though? Search and Scout are pretty standard when travelling or exploring a dungeon. That's how you're carefully searching room by room and being on alert for enemies.
These are used to give some standard exploration options so you don't have to constantly ask what people are doing and someone doesn't have to say "I'm searching for traps" in literally every room they go in.
Downtime Activities: everyone has 7 days of downtime, what do you do? Ah well, let's roll Earn Income, we're done. APs are wildly different in that regard as well. I think we need a more structured system that is used in APs as well, has more choices and is fun to run.
That sounds like PFS, and yeah, downtime in PFS isn't much use if you're not retraining. But in a home game you can have more or less, you can use it for crafting, and such. Again, this is just a way to shorthand what you're doing during that time. If that time is plot relevant then you give it more attention. If not, you say "I'm going to spend 7 days adding flaming to my sword and making it cheaper" and you're done.
Buff Spells: BBEG spends their turn casting Invisibility, then dies to fighters before they can take their next turn. In a similar fashion, PC casts bless, combat is over in the next round. Maybe this is an action cost issue? You can prebuff heroism, are there other 10 min buff spells?
Bless is a first rank spell, and its' not bad for what it does, but later on the actions are valuable on better stuff, yeah. Buffs can be quite good, but it needs to be the right buff in the right situation.
Prebuffing is largely not a thing by design: 3.5/PF1 had so much of it that you could win encounters before they started just by planning and buffing. It was too much: at one point we needed index cards to track all the buffs we had running.
Utility Spells: Try to build a spellcaster by going through 1st level spells on AoN. How long does it take you to pick your spells? How many of these spells are so situational, that you never pick them? Feels like there 5 spells out of 40 that I always pick.
Yep, bloat is a real thing and a lot of spells are just too niche to take when there's others that are broadly applicable. This is why spontaneous casting largely feels better than prepared casting in PF2.
Archetypes: Great idea, s@*+ty execution. Multiclass archetypes are wildly useful, some archetypes poach class feats (Beast Master, Blessed One) devaluing class choices to a certain degree, while most of them are terrible flavor options often tied to APs. Where are the class archetypes that were so fun to play with in 1e?
Class archetypes in PF1 were mechanically terrible to implement because of how they were so complex. They'd conflict with each other, change how things work, may or may not stack (or might do so in completely broken ways), etc. Getting rid of that system was IMO one of the best changes. The archetype system is great, especially if you want to add utility or flavour to your character instead of just more raw power.
The choices are more limited if you're an optimizer, yeah, but that's entirely self-inflicted. There's a lot of pretty useful archetypes out there.
PF2 actually has class archetypes, but only a few classes have them.
Stealth: way too complicated, does not fulfill the fantasy of sneaking through sections, requires too many checks and only a single failure to become observed, stealing objects does not really work nor sneaking in combat. Comes online very late. There are a lot of balancing issues in here.
Stealth should only require one check to sneak through a section, because it's also an exploration activity. If the whole team is doing it? Quiet Allies makes group stealth actually work since it's one roll for the whole party.
Stealth in combat is hard to do before legendary, yeah. That's on purpose, since it's hard to hide from someone while they're looking directly at you.
Vancian Casting: this is probably controversial but no complaints
Yep it's definitely controversial. ;) Some folks love it, some folks hate it. I'm fine with it, but it creates problems at times with how the game actually works and how rigid it can be.
But making all spellcasting per-encounter powers as well would really change how the whole game feels and I'm not sure that's for the better.
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I’ll go on record as liking items having a static DC, but that not having enough variants to upgrade to with some items, or a more standardized system for upgrading them is unfortunate. It does seem like an issue getting fixed though.
As an almost always GM, having items have static DCs makes dropping higher level consumables on the party a lot of fun. They would lose that if the DCs were always based on level. And conceptually, I think it is very useful for level to be so meaningful in PF2. It just makes Gaming a lot easier. I do sympathize with players getting attached to gear that regresses in value. I think that is why I usually err towards dropping over powered consumables than permanent DC based items that are already at or behind the party level.
The problem is that, even with items that have multiple tiers, the lag in DC progression—within a game with such tight math—quickly renders the items obsolete. Even if an item upgrades every four levels, the DC deficit is brutal when you are facing enemies whose saving throws scale normally while your item's DC lags four levels behind.
Additionally, a GM could still provide items with higher DCs—such as spellhearts, which use the item's DC if it is higher than the player's own.
Skill feats: I think these shouldn't exist. Most skill feats are honestly trash; some feel mandatory for their respective skills, while others revolve entirely around combat, even though skill feats supposedly weren't designed to compete with combat options. Most skill feats should simply be baked into the skills themselves, with the rest turned into general feats. This isn't talked about very often, but your choice of skill increases effectively determines your skill feat options going forward as well. If you become an expert in Medicine at 3rd level, you're likely going to take a Medicine skill feat with your 3rd-level general feat or your 4th-level skill feat. Why wouldn't you?
The worst part is, I have to agree. I’ve often wondered if it wouldn't simply be better if most skill feats were just integrated into the skills themselves—end of story.
Skill feats don't bother me as much these days, though; I’ve gotten used to them through play and have a good mental grasp of which options are actually worthwhile for each skill. That said, I admit I almost always pick the same ones for each skill, with only minor variations.
If skill feats didn't exist at all, I probably wouldn't miss them much, and character creation would be smoother and faster. Plus, it might help designers balance the utility of the skills a bit better—for instance, Medicine ends up being a "super-skill" because of its feat selection, whereas Magic and Society skills are used mostly for Recall Knowledge, accompanied by a collection of highly situational feats.
One point I forgot to mention regarding milestones is that, while I—as a GM—find the milestone mechanic more practical and straightforward (especially in pre-written adventures and Adventure Paths where level progression is already mapped out by chapter), as a player, I feel it loses some of the fun and the delightful anticipation of nearing a level-up—watching your character's XP total and seeing how close you are to advancing.
I realize that, in terms of roleplay, XP calculations don't really help; in fact, they can drive players to act for the sake of the reward rather than for the sake of the roleplay itself. However, looking at the RPG as a game, it is often more fun to see your combat performance, quest efforts, and other events rewarded with XP gains. Milestones take that away.
[I agree with languages, though. I've never played in a campaign where languages were an issue. In fact, I think that with the last three PF2e characters I made, I completely forgot to choose which languages I knew, and it literally never came up. Translate is a 2nd-rank spell that, when heightened to 3rd rank, can be made into a wand, allowing the party to effectively forget that languages even exist in the game. I think languages should be handled by Lore skills and skill feats/general feats.
I have played (and still play) in PF2e games where language matters. However, even with high-Intelligence characters, exotic classes, and diverse ancestries, it often happens that no one in the party speaks the creature's language; that’s where the aforementioned *translate* spell comes in (in my case, via a wand, since the spell is too situational for me to prepare or add to my repertoire).
That said, I do understand the issue with languages. Usually, languages other than Common only come up in side quests. This is because the GM doesn't want players who lack a specific language to become a hindrance to the story's progression—or, when they want a mysterious, unknown language to be investigated, they likely don't want the challenge trivialized by the luck of a character's build choices.
Even so, the language mechanic is so simple and easy to use and maintain that I don't think it's worth the trouble of removing it; to me, expanding it to function like a Lore skill would actually make more sense. Otherwise, it’s better to leave things as they are—where a GM uses it occasionally when they find it interesting, but it doesn't become a decisive factor in the adventure.
This is the biggest problem with PF2e, and it needs to be removed ASAP. The whole system has already moved toward an encounter-based design, yet half the classes in the game still have to deal with the daily-based design of Vancian casting. I can't hate Vancian casting more than I already do honestly.
I didn't mention this earlier, trying to see if they wouldn't turn this thread into yet another argument about it. However, I 100% agree with you.
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Most critiques in this thread are quite reasonable. I'll throw in a couple of my own not mentioned yet:
- Class and Spell DCs are the only player numbers that don't get item bonuses. This causes some weirdness with enemy defensive stats, as values have to be both low enough for spells to be effective, but high enough that a similarly strong skill or attack doesn't just steamroll the creature. I feel like item bonuses should either be tossed in the next edition (so items can focus on granting interesting perks instead), or casters should be able to gear up, too.
- Saving throw upgrades at high levels were a bad idea. Degrees of success are one of the more interesting aspects of the game, and it sucks to just turn that aspect off once you hit the back half of the game.
- Caster limitations are a little too nitpicky, and it's slightly too easy to exploit a caster's weaknesses. While each specific element in a vacuum isn't bad and can absolutely be justified, there are slightly too many of them, which leads to casters feeling weak at low levels and often nonthreatening as enemies. Just easing up on one or two of these limitations would do a lot to even things out. Not sure which ones, though (not a game designer).
- One more nitpick about spells: Saving throws stealthily make spells worse due to roller's advantage and the lack of interactions with buffs and hero points. 4e-style "roll to attack a passive defense" might be nice.
- HP starts a little too low and scales a little too aggressively. Fights at higher levels tend to drag, and melee damage is often overwhelming at low levels. I don't mind tactics changing as a campaign evolves, but I think a better balance could be struck here.
- Not enough skill increases. Either that, or four tiers of proficiency for everything is too many. At high levels, PCs who try to remain broadly useful find themselves falling off in efficacy, while PCs who hyper-specialize find themselves surprisingly useless in certain situations. In either case, everyone kind of feels weirdly worse at things at high levels than they do at low levels, and all those free "you become trained in X" perks feel like a waste. I don't mind there being a tradeoff between generalization and specialization, but it might be too steep here.
- Do we even need ability scores anymore? NPCs don't use them for anything, and there's a pretty obviously "optimal" way to do your spread as a player (max key stat, then AC, then saving throws). I feel like there's nothing here that proficiencies alone couldn't handle. Having them doesn't really hurt anything, though, so this is more an argument for design efficiency than it is pointing out a genuine flaw.
- What the fresh heck is even going on with advanced weapons? Do they add anything to the game that can't also be handled by rarity and access?
- I feel like a little flat damage on everything instead of pure dice rolls for ranged weapons and spells would help a lot of stuff feel better and more consistent (like 2-action heal, monster attacks, and legacy cantrips).
- Draw Steel/the OG PF2 playtest might have been right about that whole "chip damage on a miss" thing. I'd love to see a way to make sure no turn is truly wasted. This would have to be factored into HP values and such, though.
- This is more a writing style critique than a mechanical one, but Paizo adventures are way too wordy, linear, and overly mechanical. I once played in a session where the GM read straight out of the book while we sat there and rolled dice when prompted, with almost zero roleplay or player freedom outside of combat (obviously this was a GM issue, but the fact that you can run an adventure that way is embarassing). Dungeons are often unreactive, important details are hard to parse from flavor text at a glance, and read-aloud text/NPC Q&A is often way too long and script-like. Worse, many adventures and scenarios have roll-this-check-to-continue bottlenecks (a cardinal adventure design sin), or scenes with potentially variable outcomes that wind up not narratively mattering (for example, chases that do nothing except buff/debuff initiative).
- Flip mat and adventure maps are often (but not always!) dull with few tactically interesting features. I feel like we could use more cover, elevation, choke points, sight lines, hazards, et cetera. Furthermore, more combats should be designed to take advantage of these features. With hardcover adventures costing as much as a hundred bucks, I believe we can do better than barren dungeon rooms and flat plains.
Obviously, all of these are manageable during play (and most are fairly easy to homebrew fixes for), but they're my nitpicks nonetheless.
- I feel like a little flat damage on everything instead of pure dice rolls for ranged weapons and spells would help a lot of stuff feel better and more consistent (like 2-action heal, monster attacks, and legacy cantrips).
That reminded me of something I’d like to see in a future edition: fewer dice in damage rolls!
The number of dice scales significantly with progression. This isn't an issue when playing online, but it becomes a hassle during in-person games when you have to roll—and sum up—more than ten dice.
I’d like a future edition to use more flat values instead of dice. Dice would still be used, but the count would be capped at around 5 or 6. For automatic damage increases gained through progression, flat values would simply be used instead.
For example, electric arc, which currently deals 2d4, could deal 1d8, with its heightened version adding +2 damage per rank. A fireball—given its higher base level and availability starting at level 5—would roll one extra die (averaging one extra die for every 4 levels of the base spell); it would roll 2d6 + 14, with its heightened version adding +7 per rank. This would still ensure some die-roll variance without requiring so many dice to be rolled. After all, mathematically speaking, the more dice you roll, the more likely the damage is to land near the average; so, a flat bonus wouldn't actually change the outcome that much, but it would certainly speed up mid- and high-level combat in face-to-face games.
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I agree with languages, though. I've never played in a campaign where languages were an issue.
This is interesting. I've only been GMing PF2E for about 19 months (Rusthenge, then (so far) up to 8th level in Seven Dooms), but the need or desire for specific languages (usually Aklo and Thassilonian) has come up at least a dozen times in the adventures so far.
In regards to languages, out of 3786 monsters in PF2e, 2310 know common. And out of the 1476 that don't know common, 90 have truespeech and 152 have telepathy. This means that 2552 out of 3786 monsters (more than 2/3s of the whole roster) can communicate normally with PCs. This effectively means that, unless the GM goes their way to design a campaign where languages matter a bit more, that PCs aren't going to have problems of arriving to a place and not be able to communicate. Even if we are talking about interplanar locations in the Great Beyond like Heaven or Hell.
My point is that asking a +4 Intelligence character, like a wizard or investigator, to select four languages on top of their ancestry's languages (or five in the case of humans), when more than likely none of those languages is going to play a role in the campaign or otherwise reflect anything meaningful about the character's personality or background, is IMO unnecessary.
As I said earlier, I'd rather see languages handled as skills or skill feats. Everybody could be assumed to speak, or at least understand, all common languages, with Society allowing you to make a check to understand what someone is trying to tell you (so effectively Decipher Writing, but while listening instead of reading). Ancestries or Lore skills could then enable PCs to communicate normally with certain creatures, if applicable (Demon Lore for demon, Angel Lore for angels, etc.).
This way, you make character creation a bit smoother by removing something that, more likely than not, isn't going to matter at all, while still leaving the option for those who enjoy campaigns where languages play a major role. It also avoids forcing players to buy a wand of translate ASAP when the PCs inevitably start running into encounters or locations where they don't speak the necessary languages.
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James Jacobs has talked about languages in adventure writing and why that was intentionally left as a GM opt in thing rather than something that has regularly been made a big deal. I am definitely one of those GMs that plays it up, but usually I will have leaders of groups understand basic messages in common, but might make more complicated diplomacy a challenge without the right language.
Why in earth are people buying wands of translate though? A rank 3 translate spell as a wand is 360 gp and not until level 7. (Necessary for 2 way conversation). 10 rank 3 scrolls costs 300 gp available at level 5. 5 of them is probably as many as you would need in a campaign and if you do need more, you can certainly buy more in about as much time as you could use a wand 5 times. I don’t know why so many players make their lives miserable trying to avoid consumables.
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James Jacobs has talked about languages in adventure writing and why that was intentionally left as a GM opt in thing rather than something that has regularly been made a big deal. I am definitely one of those GMs that plays it up, but usually I will have leaders of groups understand basic messages in common, but might make more complicated diplomacy a challenge without the right language.
Yeah I did a PFS scenario in PF1 a very long time ago where the whole thing assumed you spoke a certain language. I didn't, and it functionally crippled my ability to participate and it really sucked.
We then did another one where I was the ONLY one with the relevant language. I was also the resident prepared spellcaster, so I was casting a LOT of Voluminous Vocabulary. The alternative was the GM changing the scenario (frowned on in PFS) or a lot of people just not getting to do much.
Languages are tough because they can really add flavour and make the world seem a lot more real, but too much of it can shut down the ability of the game to function as a game.
I know I do this a lot in my own games where most things can speak common (whatever common is for the area they're in), but ones that have their own native language tend to prefer it. That tends to cause them to view someone using that language in the initial interaction more positively.
Of course, sometimes no one shares a language and you're trying to communicate in other ways, which is pretty fun in small doses.
I actually find myself with an entirely litany of complaints about Pathfinder 2e.
But, really, what’s the point of posting them here?
There are a LOT of excellent game systems out there . It’s just a matter of looking to something that better fits my personal preferences.
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Difficulty Scaling: doubling in power every 2 levels might be a bit too fast, maybe we want that every 4 levels? This is mainly an issue in sandbox campaigns and your run of the mill PL+4 boss. No, not interested in Proficiency without Level.
PWL really does seem like it'd solve this issue, maybe I just don't see this myself as I tend not to use this because I tend to run encounters for the party based on level even in a sandbox.
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In regards to languages, out of 3786 monsters in PF2e, 2310 know common. And out of the 1476 that don't know common, 90 have truespeech and 152 have telepathy. This means that 2552 out of 3786 monsters (more than 2/3s of the whole roster) can communicate normally with PCs. This effectively means that, unless the GM goes their way to design a campaign where languages matter a bit more, that PCs aren't going to have problems of arriving to a place and not be able to communicate. Even if we are talking about interplanar locations in the Great Beyond like Heaven or Hell.
My point is that asking a +4 Intelligence character, like a wizard or investigator, to select four languages on top of their ancestry's languages (or five in the case of humans), when more than likely none of those languages is going to play a role in the campaign or otherwise reflect anything meaningful about the character's personality or background, is IMO unnecessary.
As I said earlier, I'd rather see languages handled as skills or skill feats. Everybody could be assumed to speak, or at least understand, all common languages, with Society allowing you to make a check to understand what someone is trying to tell you (so effectively Decipher Writing, but while listening instead of reading). Ancestries or Lore skills could then enable PCs to communicate normally with certain creatures, if applicable (Demon Lore for demon, Angel Lore for angels, etc.).
This way, you make character creation a bit smoother by removing something that, more likely than not, isn't going to matter at all, while still leaving the option for those who enjoy campaigns where languages play a major role. It also avoids forcing players to buy a wand of translate ASAP when the PCs inevitably start running into encounters or locations where they don't speak the necessary languages.
A piece of advice I read a long time ago that I apply to all my PFS PCs is to get Draconic if possible, as it covers many of the creatures that do not speak Common.
It did change a tough combat encounter in a PFS scenario into an memorable RP session, with the deities of the Untrained Diplomacy check also blessing my PC's efforts.
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Heightening spells took one Hell of a beatdown in P2E...
Can't they come up with a feat that requires "3 more actions" to cast a spell, giving you the heightened effects up the the highest rank you can cast without spending a higher slot, but you get fatigued, or otherwise crippled for doing so?
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I also really like the idea of communication being universal by default, but then the linguistic trait letting you gain a bonus for speaking the same language as the target besides common. This would, among other things, allow animal companions to Demoralize without taking a penalty RAW.
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I'm okay with Lores, but I think they should allow you to do more things, and arguably allow players to replace certain skills at GMs discretion. For example, Blacksmith Lore should allow players to craft metal items using their Blacksmith Lore modifier instead. This wouldn't let you craft magical metal items, since Magical Crafting would still require you to be an expert in Crafting. However, you could become an expert in Crafting, take Magical Crafting, and then use specific Lores to craft the items you think are thematic for your character at a lower DC (like it happens with Lores and RK) using the Lore modifier instead.
Going back to what I said about Lore skills, if PF3e took this approach, or something similar to what I’m describing here, I think Lores should become much more common. What I mean is, for example, if you’re playing an elven fighter, you’ll start with both Elven Lore and Fighter Lore. The use of Elven Lore would, of course, Recall Knowledge (and speaking elven, as a follow-up to my write-up on languages). But Fighter (or whatever class) Lore is where things can get interesting.
A somewhat common criticism of PF2e is that every class should have an auto-scaling skill. This is often brought up with classes like the alchemist or bard, where giving them auto-scaling on Crafting and Performance would make perfect thematic sense. If every class had its own Lore skill, it could be used to allow PCs to make certain checks with their class Lore skill instead. For fighters (and most Str martials) it could be all Athletics actions with the Attack trait, barbarians the Coerce and Demoralize actions, wizards the Learn a Spell action, runesmiths the Craft action in regards to runes, etc. Your class Lore skill would also use your KAS.
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The decision to have dice rolls matter more was a very intentional design goal of PF2, based upon how little they mattered in PF1, and one that I think improved the game. There still are flat bonuses to damage, but it really matters if you are using a d12 weapon or a d8 weapon, especially as you level up and do additional damage dice.
I know the remaster change to cantrips was upsetting to some because it replaced attribute with another dice, but I have found this has really strengthen the d6 cantrips, and have grown to like it a lot.
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Jumping on this - I also feel like we could probably do with more flat damage and less dice on things for variance reasons too. It is not fun to hit the boss and then roll 1 damage. (Or crit and then oops, you rolled a 1 for damage and deal less than some normal hits)
It's actually interesting here because monsters will very often have a lot of flat damage even for ostensibly dex-based opponents. Where PCs might have 2d6+2 a monster will have 1d6+7.
If it were up to me I think I'd go for a goal of everything being runnable with 1 set of dice plus a pile of d6 or something? Maybe 2 sets.
This also probably has a side effect of lowering the HP/damage curves across the board a bit, which I wouldn't be opposed to anyways - there are some very spiky damage jumps that can be problematic for mixed-level groups like society play. (In particular the 3-4 band is troublesome because for a lot of martials level 4 almost literally doubles their damage per hit)
My son would vehemently disagree with this assertion. He was rolling 14d12 (plus some other stuff) on Vicious Swing crits in the endgame and he never got tired of that. Big smile every time.
If you're only rolling 1d6 and most of the damage is flat numbers, why bother with the d6 at all? When it's d6+30, the d6 is barely matters.
PF1 ended up like that at lot at higher level and it was a thing. (Course, PF1 also had cases of "I'm not going to even bother rolling this skill check because I'd need a -5 on a d20 to fail." The dice not mattering is not really healthy for the game.)
I know the remaster change to cantrips was upsetting to some because it replaced attribute with another dice, but I have found this has really strengthen the d6 cantrips, and have grown to like it a lot.
On the d4 cantrips it was a straight nerf. They needed to add 2d4 instead of 1d4 to them. That was the upsetting part. The single target d4 cantrip spells weren't good enough in the first place to justify a nerf.
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Jumping on this - I also feel like we could probably do with more flat damage and less dice on things for variance reasons too. It is not fun to hit the boss and then roll 1 damage. (Or crit and then oops, you rolled a 1 for damage and deal less than some normal hits)
I agree with this. I feel the separation between attack and damage rolls is somewhat archaic now that we have so many different degrees of success, and it wouldn't be a huge stretch to combine the two. This is a simplification other games make that speeds up play quite significantly during combat, as it essentially halves the number of rolls you have to make for some of the most basic actions characters make.
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I'll back up Tridus and disagree on "1 die then adds."
For one, my players still, after decades, love rolling dice.(Me, I'm the type to -- assuming my GM is okay with it -- to roll 2d6+28 for my 10-die fireball, knowing that'll cover the standard deviation (which is two-thirds of the results of 10d6).)
Second, I've always sorta assumed that part of the reasoning for fixing HP as a value is "why bother randomizing both HP and the damage that they'll be absorbing? just one of them works fine." It is still good to have one of them randomized, IMO.
High five!!!
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The decision to have dice rolls matter more was a very intentional design goal of PF2, based upon how little they mattered in PF1, and one that I think improved the game. There still are flat bonuses to damage, but it really matters if you are using a d12 weapon or a d8 weapon, especially as you level up and do additional damage dice.
I know the remaster change to cantrips was upsetting to some because it replaced attribute with another dice, but I have found this has really strengthen the d6 cantrips, and have grown to like it a lot.
I don't care for this myself. I prefer more flat bonuses so if you use a dagger or shortsword or some other weapon for style reasons, you don't fee like you're hamstringing your damage. I hope they adjust it some in future editions to make sure your choice of weapon die size isn't so impactful you're optimizing based on weapon die size rather than using the weapon you want your character to use.
It's been a long time since a rogue using a knife was any good. That's kin of sad given that is a traditional rogue weapon.
I agree that the number of dice increases exponentially at higher levels, and it can be a bit tedious when playing in person and having to stop for at least 10–15 seconds just to count the result. But I also agree that PF1e had a problem where the base weapon became almost irrelevant after the early-to-mid levels, because the sheer number of flat bonuses you stacked onto it completely dwarfed the weapon’s base damage die.
IMO the real problem here is property runes like flaming or frost, since those are what bloat the number of dice you have to roll with each attack. A future edition could instead make these runes modify the damage you deal rather than simply adding more damage. That or put a limit of 1 property rune.
I also agree with Deriven that daggers and other d4/d6 weapons simply feel bad to use, because in PF2e the benefit they get from fundamental runes is literally half of what d10/d12 weapons get. PF3e really needs to take a serious look at revamping how equipment works, and hopefully ditch the simple/martial/advanced categories, because they encourage the design of weapons that are intentionally worse than others. In a roleplaying game, every weapon should be equally valid to use, though of course each should still have its own mechanical niche.
I agree with this. I feel the separation between attack and damage rolls is somewhat archaic now that we have so many different degrees of success, and it wouldn't be a huge stretch to combine the two. This is a simplification other games make that speeds up play quite significantly during combat, as it essentially halves the number of rolls you have to make for some of the most basic actions characters make.
I'm curious: how would you remove attack rolls while still keeping degrees of success? The attack roll is what determines the degree of success of an attack, so unless you somehow translated that into the damage roll (which I imagine would cause d4/d6 weapons to suffer because of their lower numbers) I don't really see how that could work. If anything, it would be appropiate for lower die size weapons to have more crit chance since those have the best chance of going through the gaps in the enemy's armor.
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I'm curious: how would you remove attack rolls while still keeping degrees of success? The attack roll is what determines the degree of success of an attack, so unless you somehow translated that into the damage roll (which I imagine would cause d4/d6 weapons to suffer because of their lower numbers) I don't really see how that could work. If anything, it would be appropiate for lower die size weapons to have more crit chance since those have the best chance of going through the gaps in the enemy's armor.
I didn't say remove attack rolls; I merely spoke of combining attack and damage rolls, and I'd be much more inclined to remove damage rolls for the reasons you described. In fact, I just wrote a thread in the homebrew section listing an easy way to simplify away damage rolls and make them entirely dependent on the attack roll, save, or other check they're attached to.
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Third Actions ... I know there are more choices like Athletics maneuvers or Feint
My problem is that Feint is such a poor option so almost no one takes it.
I'd also like to see Recall Knowledge be rounded out a bit more themativally to include deduction and the various RK abilities to be a bit more even.I'd be happy to see more pratical uses for Acrobatics in combat and even some INT or Wis combat skills based around pattern recognition or movement prediction.
Counteract spells: Counteract as a mechanic is fine, but it requires using your highest level spell slots more often than not. That coupled with the amount of condition removal spells makes it very difficult to succeed (as opposed to Dispel Magic, which is fantastic)
Making Counteracting Magic strategies too easy gets boring and breaks encounters for the GM, and the players really don't like it when you do it to them. So I think it is right for the game to make it a difficult option.
That is a problem everywhere, including spells and items too. Some things are literally flavour only and others are significantly powerful. I don't want everything to be perfectly the same but so much trash is just a waste of time.Skill Feats & General Feats: too much trash combined with must picks
every 2 levels might be a bit too fast, maybe we want that every 4 levels? This is mainly an issue in sandbox campaigns and your run of the mill PL+4 boss. No, not interested in Proficiency without Level.Scaling is important for balance. Yes I'd like it to be a bit less steep but this was a core design choice so changing this is major
Bulk & XP: This is probably an unpopular oppionion but these systems are simple in most cases and very, very complicated in edge cases;
Just ignore it unless it gets silly. This is a time honoured table top technique. Don't sweat the details you don't care about.