What gets me playing Draw Steel and not Pathfinder 2e?

[Retreater]

I honestly can't help but think a lot of this is an artifact of how the GM or adventure is structured here; its just worlds apart from what I saw in any of the games I played in.

Whatever the reason, it's not a fun time. I don't know - maybe drop us in a proper 2E AP, and that would be more dynamic? But really, the only change we're talking about is to make it more difficult on the rogue and gunslinger - and hoping that by decreasing their effectiveness the thaumaturge gets to try some more creative things.
What I really need is more actions. I move slow because I'm in armor. I have to move to get to opponents. I also have to take actions to make my armor as effective as it needs to be (raising shield). My damage suffers if I don't take an action to exploit weakness.
My character can't fiddle around because I never have actions to waste, because there is a flat tax on every round just to exist as a melee martial.
Pathfinder 2 is boring because I basically get one action that matters in a turn while the system is built on a three action economy. My turn is usually 30 seconds and I wait 15-30 minutes to go again.

 

[Enrahim]

That sounds probable. While PF2e has a lot of conditional attacks and such, if one's played 4e, there's no where near the amount of pushing targets around the battlefield; there's just enough to screw up their action economy by the combination of needing to get up and reclose (at least for ones without large reach).

I think the common comparison to 4ed is apt, as I think they are both in the positional tactics niche; tough they do it somewhat differently. 4ed I think was relying more heavily on special terrain, interactive objects and lingering location effects making fine-manevering a bigger part of the game. I think DS master stroke with regard to positional tactics is to not having to rely so much on that by making the creatures and normal basic terrain relevant trough the slaming mechanics.

 

[Hermes_Alexandria]

Both Drawsteel and Pathfinder compete in the exact same niche: low roleplay tactical boardgame like experiences with map figurines that get to have names.

Draw Steel has very detailed mechanics for out-of-combat Tests, Negotiations and Downtime proceedures. Whilst players can simply roll for outcomes the system is built to reward engagement with the fiction. Given that many class abilities interact directly with these non-combat systems, players would likely be disappointed by a campaign that focused only on combat.

 

[Campbell]

Booth Draw Steel and Pathfinder Second Edition put substantially more effort into non-combat mechanics than D&D typically does.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Whatever the reason, it's not a fun time. I don't know - maybe drop us in a proper 2E AP, and that would be more dynamic? But really, the only change we're talking about is to make it more difficult on the rogue and gunslinger - and hoping that by decreasing their effectiveness the thaumaturge gets to try some more creative things.

I don't know if they're "proper"--there were distinctly some problems with the first of these two, but if anything they were the opposite of being able to just roll over things--but the two 1-20 APs I played in were https://paizo.com/store/pathfinder/adventures/adventurePath/ageOfAshes
and

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/390845/The-Skaldwood-Blight?language=ht

I don't know what your GM has done--my suspicion is low-ball the overall encounter numbers, perhaps because they consider the extent ones unattractively difficult--but producing a result where you can reliably roll over the opposition the way you've described is intrinsically favoring some types--particularly mages and ranged attackers--over others.

What I really need is more actions. I move slow because I'm in armor. I have to move to get to opponents. I also have to take actions to make my armor as effective as it needs to be (raising shield). My damage suffers if I don't take an action to exploit weakness.

I can't speak of the specifics here as I know the Thaumaturge only by name. I will say that while its attractive to do raise shield, its not strictly necessary, and probably doesn't make that much difference unless you have to absorb a blow or have a high plus magical shield. Also, while you can't get more actions, you can get more movement if you work at it, both through feats and magic items.

My character can't fiddle around because I never have actions to waste, because there is a flat tax on every round just to exist as a melee martial.
Pathfinder 2 is boring because I basically get one action that matters in a turn while the system is built on a three action economy. My turn is usually 30 seconds and I wait 15-30 minutes to go again.

Again, this is radically different from my experience, and I was playing a sword-and-board type. Most rounds I got two useful actions in, and that's about what the game assumes you'll have. The three action economy is built assuming one of the actions will be spent on something useful that's not an attack, whether its moving, raising a shield, or doing some kind of useful overhead.