Bringing back the discussion to Pathfinder 2, yes, I'm trying to play the game as I believe it was intended to be played.
But in some areas I'm failing miserably. When I do I call those out, because I don't think I'm especially bad at gaming. I think the alternative explanation - that those subsystems aren't good - is more plausible. But I leave that up to each reader.
In order for the readers to do that I must first not hold my tongue.
Instead I am trying my best to fearlessly explain my experience with the system, so that possible deficiences aren't swept under the rug.
Specifically:
1) first off, the need for a second round of errata is now excruciating. Please Paizo take an official stance on several issues that have plagued the community for months. (Just sort the Rules subforum of Paizo PF2 forums on "threads with the most replies" and you'll get a very good idea of what those issues are)
2) Recall Knowledge. Specifically using it to gain info about monster weaknesses and such. As far as I understand, this action is meant to have a real impact on gameplay. However, making it an action (thus making the cost of "1 action" significant) makes no sense if you can just think about this at home (or anywhere else where the cost of "1 action" is insignificant). So I'm assuming it's to be used in Encounter Mode. But there the cost is exorbitant! Having a ~50% chance of learning a single piece of information is way WAY too costly, especially compared to the alternative - just attacking and seeing what works!
More generally, I find this to pick apart what otherwise is a fairly natural information transfer, chopping it up in ridiculously small and discrete chunks. Was this really a problem with other games that needed such a detailed solution? Hell no! GMs have solved this issue in every other iteration of D&D with no need of help, and especially not this kind of incredibly mechanistic and cluttery help.
Not only that, the rules seem to expect the GM to be able to come up with good info nuggets on the spot. Personally I consider a feat like True Hypercognition truly preposterous in every way. I cannot even begin to understand how to use this in actual play, and the rulebook is utterly silent on advice.
A recall knowledge subsystem of this complexity should have been relegated to a supplement, with something much simpler in the CRB.
3) Crafting. Okay so the idea is simply "the only real benefit of crafting should be access to items even when there's no magic shoppe". But the subsystem is incredibly overwrought and complicated. The only reason as I can see is for complexity's sake. That is, if you like to tinker for tinkering's sake. But the details steal play time, and make the results so difficult to predict that even to this day there are plenty of gamers that believe you can save money using Crafting. (Hint: you can't, you can only gain money relative to your friends, which definitely is not the same thing)
A crafting subsystem of this complexity should have been relegated to a supplement, with something much simpler in the CRB.
4) Medicine. Somebody should have killed a lot of darlings here. The game is clearly predicated on the assumption every encounter is started at full health or close to it. Going into an encounter at 50% hp is toying with death (at least given the difficulty of official adventure paths). If you have 100 hp there's no reason to worry if you're five or ten short, but if you only have 40 or 60? Then you stop and rest for a number of ten-minute periods before proceeding, it's that simple.
Not only is Medicine incredibly complicated - it's a minigame in itself.
But it jives badly with what I understand to be another expectation of the game: that your choice of (10-minute) activities is supposed to be an interesting aspect of between-fights, with meaningful decisions. In order for that to happen, the number of such activities need to be between 1 and 3. For instance, you can have 1 or 3 focus points. If you rest for 60 minutes, you have six such 10-minute periods, and everything about having to make choices and decisions fall away, since you can simply say "I'll do everything".
But Medicine isn't powerful enough to bring you back up to health in merely 1-3 periods. After a moderate fight, the party can find that more than one hero were downed, and is now at minimal hp. To bring back everybody to full health without spending resources (potions, spell slots...) we quickly found that you need to rest for maybe 40-80 minutes!
I believe that session time is best spent on adventuring. On encounters - including exploratory and social, not just combat. I believe session time spent on "between encounters" is essentially wasted time.
The rules make you spend too much time on between encounters, asking you to choose between DCs, keeping track of who is immune to what Medicine check, and lots more useless clutter. And for what? Healing STILL takes too much time for the "choose your activity" minigame! Having to rest up for half an hour to one hour after nearly every fight also throws a wrench in the flow of time whenever you assault a dungeon. That other monsters just sit on their hands for 10 minutes per fight is much easier to accept than they doing nothing for hours on end.
But the most scathing criticism against the current system is that the following would have been much simpler and faster, and made much more sense both given the in-game world and the other mechanics of the game:
Each time you take a 10-minute rest, you heal one third of your hp while you take an activity.
Note how this draws the same conclusion the devs did correctly draw when it comes to Perception. "We note that Perception is so valuable we're not going to make it a choice where a player can end up without it". The same goes for Medicine - it's that powerful!
This would also accomplish the other goals of the game design better. It would drastically cut back on time wasted by players on administering Medicine. And most importantly: it would have meant the developers actually looked at what players want in the age of 5th Edition!
A healing subsystem of this complexity should have been relegated to a supplement, with something much simpler in the CRB.
5) Talismans
As a player you're asked to do a lot of admin for very little payoff.
This is exactly the kind of magic item design that I hated in 4E: highly conditional requirements; insultingly small benefits. People aren't computers, and asking players to remember highly specific conditions for a minimal bonus is something that should only happen in video games, where the player can trust the game to track it for him or her.
Unfortunately almost every magic item in PF2 (with the notable exception of fundamental weapon runes etc) is very far from what makes magic items fun and wondrous.
3E, PF1 and 5E all offer a far superior "magic item experience" to 4E and PF2.
But the section on Talismans is especially egregious. Frankly, the rulebook would have been plain better off if Talismans were ripped right out of the CRB.
6, 7, 8...) There's plenty more of misfires in the PF2 rules but I think I've made my point already.
The crude and clumsy Incapacitation trait, inflexible skill increases and saving throw upgrades, too-nerfed low level magic, strangely low utilization of precious materials, ... the list goes on.
Does this mean PF2 is atrocious and 5E is perfect?
No.
I'm playing (=GMing) PF2, not 5E.
It just means that just because you like a game doesn't mean you have to somehow overlook its deficiencies.
In fact, if I hadn't liked PF2, I wouldn't have bothered critiquing it.
Yes, that means that the more I like a game, the more likely it is I want it to be perfect, and the more likely it is that you can read me pointing out what's bad about it. If I say nothing of a game, that isn't likely to mean it's perfect. Quite the contrary, it likely means it's not good enough to catch my interest.
Zapp
PS. Maybe reading this helps you evaluate the thread's topic "was that a fair review?"
Let's first remember a review can hardly go in-depth to a degree that requires having played the system for extensive periods of time. You get to decide which of the above issues that are important to you, and whether you feel the reviewer should have caught them and brought them up.
