I have only gotten to play the game as a player, but I am looking forward to stepping behind the screen shortly and a lot of that has to do with the monster design. It is my earnest opinion that these monsters look like they will be more fun to play than 5th Edition monsters. Let's not get it twisted. This is not me saying that 5th Edition monsters are boring, especially more recent designs. In comparative analysis this stuff gets overblown.
Here's why Pathfinder 2 Monsters look more fun to me:
- Monsters are built off a similar number base as player characters. A monster of the same level as a player character will generally have a similar number of hit points and do a pretty similar amount of damage. This keeps the game exciting for me because both player characters and monsters go down pretty quick.
- The level scaling makes higher level monsters really scary. I love that out of the box you can use higher level monsters as meaningful solo fights and lower level monsters as minions and have them feel that way.
- Things like resistances, weaknesses, and immunities are fairly common. This means that players need to adjust and change tactics for each monster. They are all like puzzles for players to solve.
- Monsters have a lot more active rather than passive abilities. Coupled with the three action economy there is a lot to play with on each individual monster turn. How monsters are played really matters.
- A lot more monsters have an impact beyond the encounter. Things like diseases, poisons, curses, and other long term consequences are plentiful.
- They are not afraid to play around with the form. They make trade offs in the monster math all the time to make monsters feel unique. They also often include different abilities you can trade out for monsters like zombies to give them different feels.
- This is subjective, but I really like the way Paizo writes Monster lore. It feels more focused on using the creatures. It also has a lot less passive voice.
I have seen the impact of some of these things as a player. Small differences in design can make a big impact. Ghouls in Pathfinder 2 are leaping all the place, feasting on dead corpses, and carriers of both disease and paralysis. Fighting them felt really different to me.