Pathfinder 2E design - options and (missed?) opportunities

[SeñorSockpuppet]

I've been following the Playtest and Release of Pathfinder 2nd Edition with some interest; as a DnD 3.5 Edition player who eventually switched to Pathfinder.

Now the differences between PF1 and PF2 are numerous and I have very little actual play experience yet to properly gauge PF2 and its strengths and weaknesses; despite that, a few observations:


The Good
3-action system offers many options, starting from level 1.
Some new actions are very nice (Leap! Leap! Leap!)
4-degrees of success system (theoretically) allows for less binary results; spellcasters are no longer feeling useless when their spells are saved against
Rituals allow narrative effects (teleport, resurrection, planar ally, etc) to be attained by non-spellcasters; the "secondary caster" requirement turn these effects into a cooperative effort

The Bad
The Disarm function of the Athletics Skill has been nerfed to be useless.
PF1 eventually realized what was wrong with Combat Maneuvers, and "fixed" them via the Greater Feats or the appropriate Rage Powers (Impelling Disarm, Savage Dirty Trick, Knockback, Knockdown...heck, even Tactical Reposition)
The 4-degrees of success are basically made for giving the special effect to the critical success and the basic effect to a normal success...but PF2 Disarm fails here. If Players don't want to get disarmed, introduce lovely pieces of equipment like Weapon cords / locked gauntlets to PF2 ??
I mean, if the options and solutions are there in PF1, why not adapt them?

The promising "skill unlock" and "tiers of proficiency" mechanic is woefully under-utilized;
just looking at the untrained and trained skill uses offers too few options unlocked by training,
and no options unlocked by attaining expertise, mastery and legendary skill.
Yes, there are skill feats, but I'd expect each skill to have at least ONE Use available at "Untrained / Trained / Expert / Master / Legendary", and have skill feats available to expand upon these options

Sunder as Combat maneuver is gone. The basic action "Strike" (=Attack) only mentions the option to hit Creatures, not items.
Yet Traps, walls, doors etc list hardness/HP and there is text suggesting that you could damage doors somehow to destroy/break them...
Afaik, Acid Splash is a spell that can target either a creature or an object - but it deals extremely low damage...


All in all, i think the system shows much promise, and many possibilities - but in many cases, I have the impression as if the designers were being extremely careful or simply not brave enough to embrace the design options provided by the core structure of their system.

However, beyond these musings, no matter my personal opinion - I'd love to learn about your opinions!

Therefore, I ask each person who posts in this thread to mention (in your opinion) one good/interesting element of PF2 AND one bad/disappointing element of PF2.

[pabelfly]

Apart from what's been mentioned I really like the bulk system and the ability to select your own skills to make a character. Modifying the latter idea for my homebrew rule set I'm working on.

[Segev]

I think they grossly underutilize the "degrees of success" in their saves, particularly on save-or-suck spells. They have a mechanic which, coupled to the "keep saving until you break free" mechanic from 5e, could have allowed for a "keep saving until you critically succeed or fail" with a "half-effect" on a non-critical save, a "nearly-full, but temporary" effect on a non-critical fail, and both having repeated rolls at the end of each turn. Each time they roll, they get the effect of the tier they rolled. Critical success ends the effect positively, and critical failure ends the chance to keep saving (and maybe has a permanent effect, depending on the actual spell effect).

I also think they had a neat idea in "skill feats," but blew it by essentially locking away all the cool uses of skills behind them, rather than using them to open up strange or esoteric uses of the skills that would normally not be thought about. It actually makes the skills themselves next to useless; they might have been better served just making "skill feats" all there are, and having one of them per level. I still don't like that, but what they have now is PRACTICALLY that with a tacked-on facade of a skill system that is even more anemic than in PF1.