Pathfinder 2e - First Read-through

    So I broke down and got the new Pathfinder 2nd Edition Core Rulebook and the Monster Manual.  About $100 worth of books, though I was lucky and got a sale, on top of all the books my friends and me have purchased for the 1st Edition.  I have not yet had a chance to run it, but I want to do a few articles with my first impressions, and some character creation.

My Background With the Series

    I came to Pathfinder a little late, a few years after it came out.  I co-ran a rotating GM campaign that went from levels 1 to 12, played the Rise of the Runelords campaign all the way through (to level 18), and ran a lot of 1-shot adventures.  So I have a good amount of experience with the 1st Edition, and we have a communal pile of books that include every hardback that Paizo published, and the Ultimate Psionics because that book totally rocks.
    As for what I think about Pathfinder, I don't like it as much as I used to.  I initially liked it a lot, I thought it did a good job of building on the old Dungeons and Dragons 3.5.  And at first it was neat to see the new options in each book, but soon it started to become a lot to keep track of.  One of the turning points was when talking to a friend and one of us made the comment that, "it's more fun to make a character than to play a character."  With so many options, such intricate feat chains, it takes a lot of effort to plan out your character to be effective or take advantage of a particular mechanic - which makes actually playing them a bit of a letdown.  Worse, the proliferation of options means that the quality of those options varies wildly.  Some feats are so specific that you wonder if you'd ever use them - and others seem like things anybody should be able to do, or should be covered by a skill or part of another feat.  Which means you have to wade through a ton of options and throw out lots of them to try and find the little gold nuggets.
    Still, while it is not my favorite system (none is at the moment, I like DnD 5th overall but it has some serious problems in my opinion) I have run games for it recently, and keep up on what's happening.  When I heard about the playtest I was optimistic.  I would love a simpler, more streamlined Pathfinder.  I got the Playtest Pdf and I was not impressed.  Like with DnD 5e I think it's a great idea to have fewer abilities to keep track of (and plan for), but I also think that if you're going to have fewer abilities then they need to be broader and more generally useful so you don't feel like you're wasting anything.  Which neither DnD or the Playtest seem to agree with.  So I didn't follow all the twists and turns of the Playtest, and didn't run out to buy the new 2e book.  Still, I couldn't resist (I'm weak-willed, I'll admit it), and thus we are where we are.

What I Don't Like After Reading Over The 2e Core Rulebook

    In no particular order...

1) The layout is weird to me

    The 2e book is about the same size as the 1e book, 623 to 568 counting to just before the character sheets and index/glossary.  Now, the page count only matters to me because I'm paying for it - the bigger the book the more it costs.  So I really don't want to pay for anything useless.  Let's look at the new (left) and old (right) pages of class abilities side-by-side (and I apologize for my phone camera pics, I couldn't find a Pdf to screenshot so had to do it by hand)...

    Okay, so having the name of the ability larger is a good thing, but the space under the name for the keywords (which I'll rant about next) has a lot of wasted whitespace.  Here's another sample page, from the Fighter's class feats...

     Having artwork scattered throughout the book gives your eyes a break from all the text, but it also takes up space that could be used by the text.  The art doesn't tell you anything about the game or how to play it, so it is low-value to me as a GM.  Likewise the sidebar on every right-hand page listing the major chapters of the book is kind of useful, but it also takes up space.  This book is about $60, which is $10 more than the last book, but with the layout I feel like I've paid more for less game.

2) I am not a computer

    I mentioned the keywords above, they are on everything.  Every ancestry (race) and feat has them, take a look at some fighter feats...

    I really, really hate this.  This is computer-speak.  I, as a sentient being, know that if I am reading the list of Fighter Feats, then all of these feats belong to fighters.  I don't need you repeating it EVERY TIME.  The example above at least has some other keywords, the Concentrate, Stance and Flourish keywords do at least refer to specific rules.  It's kind of annoying to have to flip back to the page that defines those rules, but eventually they'll get memorized so that's not a big deal.
    What pisses me off is insulting my intelligence by telling me that Halflings have the keywords of "Halfling and Humanoid."  No s**t Sherlock.  It says Halfling on the box, and a Humanoid is anything human-shaped.  Maybe you might have to define humanoid in the glossary, but it is not hard to figure out.  If you want to write computer rules for your game, put them in a separate document.  One of the things I love about RPGs is the human element, so computer-speak is not welcome at all, in the slightest.  Again, I'm paying for each page, so me paying you to insult me is not cool bro.

3) People have said the book contains "everything you need to play" and that is incorrect

    NO MONSTER RULES, AT ALL.  So the 1e Core Rulebook didn't have any monster creation rules either, but it did at least have 7 pages on creating NPCs.  Not much, and I'm not saying it's praise-worthy, but at least it had something.  With this book I can only make monsters as PCs, which is more work than I want to do and I'm not sure how well it would balance in the long run.  In 2e, no monsters for you, go buy the $50 book with them (Spoiler Warning- there are no monster creation rules in there either, maybe those will be in the next $80 book).  Come on people, this is a basic thing you need to run a game.  If you're going to make one super-huge and expensive book then at least make it complete.
    I have a suggestion for where those monster rules could go - in the 25 pages of useless background.  Oh yeah, who cares about stupid rules for building monsters, what you really need is a broad and so-vague-it's-worthless setting.  Here is an image for the "Inner Sea" region, note the desert area called "Golden Road" in the middle-ish...

    Now here is the entry for the "Golden Road" country/region...

      This description is crammed into the bottom-half of the page (who needs more text or a close-up map when you can stare at the lovely picture of camels?) and is full of names that mean nothing and hints at story that boil down to "like Egypt and the Silk Road."  The little setting material here is not enough to do anything meaningful with - and totally zero value to me since I'm not paying another $100 for stuff I can write on my own (or with my players).  Even for those who do want a setting, this is not enough to start writing campaigns.

4) The art is different, but not in a good way

    This is a pretty small complaint, but I'm talking about all of my first impressions here so I'm including it.  Look at this...

     I know my phone picture is bad, but this has a kind of cartoon-y feel that is at odds with the more realistic style in the last book and elsewhere in this book.  Just a random, minor complaint.  Back to more pressing issues...

5) Who the hell designed that character sheet, and why haven't they been publicly beaten with a stick?

    This is the sample character sheet in the back of the book...

     (to mis-quote Crow T Robot) I'm a color-blind robot and even I know you don't use Burnt Umber as a background color!
   

6) I was really hoping for a lot more innovation, I'm not sure who this game is written for

    Here's a page out of the combat section...

    There's the good old grid.  Hope you don't like that artsy story-game "theater of the mind" crap.  Okay, so some out there are saying/ thinking, "well, the first edition only had a grid" and they are right.  So who is this game for?  Is it only for the people who liked the first edition? (and in that case, why would they re-spend all their money for this instead of playing the game they already like?)  Why can't it also accommodate new players and styles of play?
    Here's an easy example.  In 2e, just as in 1e, all living creatures move in exactly 5-foot increments.  And if you like that, great.  But what about this extra rule...

Gridless Combat (optional rule)
    If you don't use a grid, then divide all speeds by 5, so the standard 30' movement become a "Speed 6" value.
    When using skills, if multiple characters are racing each adds their Speed value to their Acrobatics roll.
    In combat, you can spend 1 action to move towards or away from a foe that is near you (GMs call), or 2 actions to close to melee if the foe is far away (again, ask your GM about this).  With or in place of that, you can spend one action and divide your Speed value as you see fit as a bonuses to either your AC, Attack roll or Damage roll (representing your moving for an advantageous position during the turn).

    There, simple, takes as much space as one picture and gives some options to those people who don't like playing on a grid.  So why can't Pazio do that?  Why isn't this edition trying to reach a broader audience and be better than the last?
    The funny thing about reading this rulebook is that I don't see why I would recommend this to someone who either hates or likes the first edition.  If you hate the crunch, this is still pretty crunchy and is likely not going to add anything new that your current game doesn't do.  If you liked the crunch then this is likely going to be too simple, and a lot of the new stuff you could house-rule yourself into your current game (take out the stupid rule to change all of an anchetype's abilities or none, instead pick and choose from the same level or lower - and bam, you're got almost all the extra flexibility in character creation; then simplify everything down to 1, 2 or 3 actions, maybe drop or consolidate any skills you don't like - there you have it) (ie, use the stuff in Pathfinder Unchained and some elbow grease).

7) If you're going to say that Encounters, Exploration and Downtime are the 3 major pillars of play then you should organize your rulebook around them

    This one really drives me nuts.  So the rules divide the game into those 3 phases above.  Which means the game is supposed to flow between them.  So you would think the rules would be laid out around them.  Nope.  Let's look at one phase, Downtime.  Now, the "official" Downtime section - the one with the chapter title of "Downtime Mode," is on page 481.  And just page 481, that's it.  not much to go on.  Well, those are not all the Downtime rules though.  Page 294 has the table with the Costs of Living.  Pages 236-237 have the "Earn Income" skill action and the table for how much you earn based on how well you roll.  Page 240 has the "Subsist" skill action.  Pages 244-245 have Crafting (pages 577-579 have the rules for normal and special materials).  Pages 500-502 have some more downtime rules in general.  And finally page 248 has "Treat Disease" and page 251 has "Create Forgery" and I don't know how many pages have downtime-related feats.  So that's at least 9 non-contiguous blocks of rules for what is supposed to be 1/3rd of the game.
     Who wrote this?  Who proof-read it and thought it was good?  You create a system to help guide the game, for both players and GMs, from the large background stuff to the moment-by-moment stuff and back, and you decide to cut it up and scatter it across your book instead of committing to it and build on it?  Why create it in the first place?  Again, not a computer, I know that crafting a sword and swinging a sword are two different time-frames, I don't need you to call them "Downtime" and "Encounter" - don't make up these divisions unless you want to actually use them.

What I Like After Reading Over The 2e Core Rulebook

    Okay, so the whole thing isn't bad, there is stuff I like (again, in the order it came to me)...
   

1) You Build Your Attributes Over Your Background

    Rolling for attributes is no longer the default method.  Instead all attributes start at 10.  When you pick your Ancestry (used to be called Race, I'm okay with that change too) you get a +2 bonus to 2 attributes, usually a -2 to one, and then one +2 that can't go in your boosts, but can go anywhere else.  So from your culture and your free time you built up some of your abilities.  Then you pick a Background and it gives you one boost chosen from two skills, and one more boost that can't go to the one you picked.  Again, your first job gave you some abilities.  Your Class has a key ability score that gets a boost.  And finally you have 4 more boosts, they just have to be applied to 4 different attributes.
    I really like this because your character's attributes now align with their history.  If your Wizard has an 18 Strength then it's because you've been sinking every free boost (and your character his/her free time) into developing Strength.  No more all-18s from the dice gods or rolling set after set after set trying to get the scores you want.  Love this, it will be mandatory in all games of 2e I GM.

2) Multiclassing is closer to my ideal

    I have always loved multiclass characters, but I've always hated the systems.  If I want to play a Fighter/Wizard hybrid it's because I want some of both classes - like the Fighter's Melee abilities and the Wizard's spells that enhance melee.  I don't care about Charm Person or Teleport, I'm a fighter who uses magic to be a better fighter.  But in 1e (and other systems) you have to take a whole level, getting all that Wizard stuff I don't want and diluting the character instead of enhancing it.
    Now, sadly the 2e system is not exactly at that ideal (actually I should have put some of it in the stuff I don't like, but I don't fell like editing this even more - I'll address it in another post), but it is a lot closer.  You can choose individual (mostly) abilities and combine them with fewer wasted options.

3) Things have been simplified

    Bulk is a good thing to import from Starfinder.  The 3 action system is pretty good (with some exceptions, "Raise A Shield" is a f***ing joke).  I like the Arcane, Divine, Occult, Primal divide of spells and some abilities (again, some issues with it).  Choosing an ability each level instead of a fixed class and interminable anchetypes is a good change (though as I said above, you could house rule it into 1e).

Mostly Though, It's A Mix

    From what I've read I've got a few "damn"s and a few "cool"s and a lot of "meh"s.  I don't think it's a bad game, I don't think it's a good game.  I think it's a confused game, that doesn't know who it wants to appeal to or what it wants to be good at.  I think some work and house rules could make it a lot better, I'm not sure if I would want to do that work though.  Going to keep reading it, not sure if I want to run it.


    So those are my first impressions, and I'm sure I left out a lot of stuff.  So I'm going to be making some characters and looking at the rules in more detail in the future.  Let me know in the comments if you've read or run it and what you think.