Pathfinder 2E PF2 Peeves

I'm interested in specific things in PF2 that people miss or don't like. I'd rather this be a list of peeves than a debate about the relevance of each.

While I overall have a positive impression of the game, these flaws are serious enough to make me not buy or play PF2 unless they are fixed. For me, its 4 main things.

1: Fighters get a Dex option, but when they get mandatory armor proficiency increases, they only get those on heavy armor. Dex fighters seem to be a trap option. This could be a simple typo.

2: Exploration play is dead. The entire exploration mode is too sketchy to use. There is now no surprise round. For me, this basically makes exploration play a waste of time. Why bother putting time/energy into scouting, if there is no payoff? This part of the game is very important to my group. By the same token, the Message spell lots its utility as a com radio - meaning that in split party situations, those whose characters are absent can't even offer advice in-game. This is a very bad design choice in my world.

3: Sorcerers. A cool aspect of the game is that sorcerers now can have a different spell list based on their bloodline. But this is written as if the 4 spell lists (arcane (wizard), divine (cleric), occult (bard), primal (druid)) were equivalent. Which they are not, by far. Just compare the abilities of the 4 classes that normally have these spell lists. Compare a divine sorcerer to a cleric; the cleric gains LOTS of free heals, better armor, better weapons, and better hit points. Domains are at least as good as bloodlines. Bleh! Also, compared to wizards, sorcerers get one fewer spell per day.

4: Monster Levels This is the least troublesome: monsters of a certain level are not equivalent to characters of the same level, and are not supposed to be. A single monster is supposed to be a had encounter for a party of 4 heroes of the same level. A group of monsters 4 levels below the PCs with equal numbers is also a hard encounter. Looking at the numbers, except for hit points, monsters are better than PCs of the same level at everything by 2-3 levels.

I'd prefer if they increased monster levels by 2 and adjusted the encounter tables so that a level +2 encounter was considered "hard". This would also leave design space for monsters under level zero; a problem in designing low-level adventures right now is that there are no monsters more than 1 level below the party.

Ok, I'll fall to the temptation to add one more:
5: Mandatory Clerics Cleric is the only class that can heal in a serious way, and AC vs. attack bonus numbers mean PCs WILL take damage. This means everyone is now on a 5 minute adventuring day unless there is a cleric.

Siloing of weapon styles into class feats rather than general feats is a big one.

Class feats being dependent on one central class feature (like Ranger's Hunt Target and Paladin's Retributive Strike) is another.

Hunt Target reduces the multiattack penalties against your target, but half the weapon styles (the other being two-weapon style) directly supported by the class is the crossbow, which cannot take advantage of this feature well (the one feat that addresses reloading crossbows only allows you to combine reloading with moving, it still doesn't allow you to take more than 2 shots in a round). The other major benefit of Hunt Target is ignoring ranged penalties for the second range increment, but the second range increment for crossbows starts at 120ft, which is beyond the 100ft limit for declaring a creature for Hunt Target. So, the only way it gives you an advantage is if you let your quarry slip away from you.

I haven't studied Retributive Strike as much, but from what I understand, many of the Paladin's class feats are dependent on it, and it's a Reaction. This significantly changes the flavor of the Paladin from proactive to reactive.

I dislike that proficiency is used as a gate for feats rather than a means to advance in skill. As it is an untrained fighter with a little luck can pass the average DC for a master thief to sneak so long as they are the same level. I feel like characters can only really specialize in combat since the designers seem to want everyone able to act while exploring.

I don't like class feats. If I was to homebrew a new class, I'd have to build not just the class, but also create a varied group of feats to go along with it.

I'd rather they had created feat groups, and assigned a couple groups to each class. Like, rangers would be able to select from Primal and Ranged feats, while paladins would get Divine and Melee feats, etc.

I'll have to see in regards to the level of monsters, but in our first session a party of 5 (level 4 characters) took out a Treant which is a level 8 monster with noone dying. Action economy is still king in solo vs party encounters. In the next session I had a Elite Green Hag plus a bunch of low level demons (dretches + quasits) fight the party. The Paladin went toe to toe with the Hag with no support for 4-5 rounds and didn't go down, only using the lay on hands he had to heal himself. He was at single digit health when the rest of the party got clear of the demons, but the hag went down the next turn.

On the matter of sorcerers and non cleric healers our game should also be a good test. We have feral druid, paladin, imperial sorcerer, angelic sorcerer and monk as the party. The angelic sorcerer will be the main party healer so I'll see how he holds up. (he was an oracle in pf1 pre conversion) Nothing right now screams manditory cleric healers though but I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Anyway a couple peeves of mine.

1. Don't like the -2 on the AoO attacks. Adds bookkeeping with it seems minimal payoffs. I just don't see why they thought it was needed to balance this, just let it be a regular attack roll.
2. Ancestry feats don't feel right. I feel a bit more should be baked in at level 1. I don't mind giving 1 or 2 ancestry options as you level, but it shouldn't be more than that. I'd prefer if you got 2 feats at level 1 and then maybe 1-2 more total over the life of a character.
3. Don't like that Righteous Might doesn't allow spellcasting. (pretty minor peeve but it felt weird)

We discovered last night that Illusion spells work against Skeletons. I tried Color Spray just to see if it would work. If we interpreted the rules correctly, then Skeletons are immune to Mental spells, but Color Spray doesn't have that attribute. I wonder if that's intentional, or an oversight? Anyways, Color Spray inflicts a variety of Conditions, and that sent us off into the land of trying to interpret all of the related Condition rules. It took a while for us to parse all of the language, but in the end there really wasn't anything new.

We added a new player. (The game has a number of fringe players who don't consistently show up to play.) They selected the pre-gen Gobo Alchemist. The rules related to extinguishing the persistent damage from an Acid Bomb raised eyebrows around the table.

Satyrn said:

I don't like class feats. If I was to homebrew a new class, I'd have to build not just the class, but also create a varied group of feats to go along with it.

I'd rather they had created feat groups, and assigned a couple groups to each class. Like, rangers would be able to select from Primal and Ranged feats, while paladins would get Divine and Melee feats, etc.

Click to expand...

Paizo's answer to "combat styles shouldn't be siloed in classes" is "ok, we'll duplicate some of the class feats across the classes". *forehead slap*

So just follow Paizo's lead, and rehash the existing feats.

Kind of annoying that bigger dragons and elementals have bigger weaknesses. So if a Level 1 Cleric uses Tidal Surge on a Fire Mephit it presumably does 3 damage. But if that same character uses it on an Elder Fire Elemental, a Level 11 creature, that same Tidal Surge does 15 damage.

Class feats could just become general feats with a requirement that you have to be that class to take them. That way they don't have to reprint them for every cllass.

A lot of the basic things should be open to most classes and if a class is good at it give it some sort of advantage to represent that. See 5E combat styles for example.

Zardnaar said:

Class feats could just become general feats with a requirement that you have to be that class to take them. That way they don't have to reprint them for every cllass.

A lot of the basic things should be open to most classes and if a class is good at it give it some sort of advantage to represent that. See 5E combat styles for example.

Click to expand...

That doesn't solve the siloing problem, because it's not future proof. It only solves the page space issue, which is the lesser problem.