I briefly included my thoughts in my preview of PF2:
http://www.5mwd.com/archives/4964
Quoting that:
Before I started reading the Pathfinder 2 rulebook, I thought about what I wanted the game to do. I mentally laid out my “deal breaking” problems that I would want addressed, which I listed at the start of this review:
1) Reduce the “number porn” of higher level play
2) Reduce or limit the mandated complexity of characters
3) Place some focus on play other than combat,
4) Magic item Christmas Tree & Treadmill
Bonuses for characters were not reduced. Comparing the numbers for monsters with monsters in a Pathfinder 1 Bestiary show monster math is fairly close to the same, and Pathfinder 2 monsters are higher in a number of places.
While I don’t think the game needs to go with the flat math and bounded accuracy of 5th Edition D&D, Pathfinder 2 could easily have halved their bonuses by only adding 1/2 level to d20 checks rather than level. And not assuming magic items in their math would further reduce the number bloat.
Characters are just as complex as they were in Pathfinder 2. There are no simple characters for people who just want to sit down and play, as even the fighter and rogue require choosing one or more feats every level. And while the fighter is often considered simple as it doesn’t have spells, it requires selecting and managing more feats than normal.
The combat focus in the game bugs me. Too often my Pathfinder campaigns descended into lurching from combat to combat in a dungeon, especially when running the published adventures. While you don’t *need* rules for roleplaying, encouraging that type of play helps. After all, nothing stops you from roleplaying in a game of Battletech or Warhammer 40,000 either, but that doesn’t mean those are RPGs. A good roleplaying game with continually suggest personality traits, and maybe even include a section for “personality” or “flaws” on the character sheet.
Lastly is magic items. Which isn’t any better in Pathfinder 2. The edition has even added the new Resonance mechanic which pretty much solely exists as a crutch to prevent why higher level parties don’t just buy dozens of low level magic items. It’s the definition of a rules patch: it doesn’t remotely fix the underlying problem and just smooths over a more irritating proud nail.
-edit-
Clarifying what I want:
I liked Pathfinder a lot but the rules became problematic. After a while, the rules over rulings really got in my way as a GM. Players would try to "win" fights via the rules as often as with in-world strategy. If not more, because good strategy was also often shackled by "the rules". The most effective way to win was to find an exploit and use it against me, putting me as a GM in the position of either ignoring "the rules" or acquiescing to rules layering.
The numbers got to me with that. Because the game because a
Red Queen's Race. You constantly got bonuses to attacks and ability scores and damage that all generally meant very little as enemies got bonuses to AC and saves and hit points at roughly the same rate. You never really got any better. But the math went up and up with continually increasing bonuses. It was an illusion of advancement. And it lead to silliness in the world, where everything had to scale up to maintain its challenge for the PCs. They level up and suddenly every lock in the kingdom improved in quality, every random encounter became deadlier, every wall steeper, and every door more reinforced.
Now, the counterpoint to this is that you can use lower level challenges in the game. The party can encounter lower level monsters or locks or doors. But at that point it's not worth rolling: success is guaranteed. You just auto-win and move on. You've improved out of playing the game.
Similarly, characters were too complex. Even a "simple" class like the fighter was complex, as you needed to read through feats continually, choosing one almost every level, and planning around lengthy feat trees. Meanwhile, the "hit stuff" barbarian involved a lot of math, and required looking through length rage powers that also needed to be tracked.
This was great for "lonely fun". Where you sat around a built a character or two. That was how people were expected to engage in the game between sessions: building characters.
Which isn't a bad thing per se... but not everyone engages with the hobby like that. Arguably, most players don't, preferring to show up and play with friends. From my experience, most gaming groups tend to have one really dedicated player who knows the rules (the GM) and three to five other players who are interested to varying lesser degrees. For every player interested in complexity, there's one who doesn't care and finds leveling up a chore.
And a complex game with complex characters
doesn't make the game more fun and interesting at the table. Often, high complexity and lots of choices gets in the way, causing imbalance and option paralysis.
And, magic items played a part in that. Because in 3e and Pathfinder, magic items weren't magical. They were basically feats. Another character option to choose for your build. And that's lame.
You can really see this in the old RPG Superstar contests, where the rules and advice tell you not to add any story or lore to magic items because anyone could make a particular item. There's no "special swords used only by the Golden Guard".
Magic items as feats causes a cascade of side effects.
First, you can't award alternate rewards, like keeps or sailing ships. Because those can just be sold to break the character's wealth-by-level. Second, you can't award unique and rare magic items because, again, those can be sold and are generally worth a disproportionate amount of money. Any rare and wondrous treasure that is found will be shaken until it becomes gp and then turned into the player's chosen build item. Third, because magic items are common, at mid-levels you can buy an endless amount of consumables. Wands of
knock or
cure light wounds or
detect magic.
What I wanted from Pathfinder 2 was a game halfway between PF1 and 5e. Simpler and faster but with more tactical depth. Simpler characters but more complexity than 5e where you can choose and opt into builds. Magic items divorced from the basic math of the game. And more restrained bonuses.
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