Pathfinder 2nd edition Readthrough: Character Creation, and the lack of point buy.

Disclaimer: I was not a fan of the PF 2e dev diaries, or of the play-test. This does not mean I'm going to do nothing but bash this book, and I legitimately hope to be pleasantly surprised, but keep in mind this read-through is likely to be very biased. A fair bit of it is also for comedic purposes. It is by no means a declaration that people should not play PF 2e, that people are wrong for enjoying it, or anything along those lines

Character Creation

There is technically how this book should be used and the action cost symbols before this, but they are not worth covering in detail unless people want a rant on my opinion of the symbols. Also I cannot read, so you can blame that for me forgetting this was before Ancestries.

We have some new artwork on top of the Reading Rules section, and finally not a three-person party, instead it's a two-person party. Even better! Anyway, we have what I think is the iconic Monk, with a Khopesh...okay. And some random halfling who I swear I cannot remember being an Iconic. They are wandering through some nicely designed if hazy ruins while weird multi-colored lizard things lurk in the foreground. Decent art, no idea why it's here specifically.

Anyway on Reading Rules, it provides the template for the various abilities and feats you can use. I'll get to Featmageddon eventually, but for now the abilities have Pre-reqs you need to use them(Halfling, owns a donkey, capable of Handstands), triggers for reactions and free actions for when you can use them (When the moon is full and not a cloud in the sky), Frequency for how often you can use them(Once per every 6.1 seconds, guaranteed to drive players insane), Requirement for what you need to perform the action (Once a week, when fighting a sparkling vampire, you can banish it to Hollywood), and the actual action itself.

Onto Chargen, and we start with defining the attributes and their effects, and the only thing to note is that Charisma does not mention being the parent stat to a limiting resource on magic item use conjured from the pits of the infernal to dog martials who were not paladins to the end of time and space.

Anyway, on to ability scores and now this has changed a lot. Point Buy does not exist and Rolling the dice is now an optional rule (Which will not stop people from enforcing it on me and my inevitable rolls of 10 in everything). Instead, everything starts at 10, and you get several Ability Boosts, which give you +2 to a stat until it reaches 18, at which point it's a +1, so take that you terrible, nasty, evil people who cheated the system to get a 20 to start with in 1e. Or actually managed to roll an 18, which is less evil. Anyway, you get one from your Background applied to a stat dependent on which one, one from your class to a stat dependent on it, a mix of boosts and flaws (-2, always!) from your Ancestry that is variable, and four free ones. No, this will not be abused, and definitely will not affect people's choice in Backgrounds I'm sure.

Anyway, the next step is Concept, which is wonderful as we haven't actually seen Ancestries, Classes, or Backgrounds yet. They do give a summary, but only of Classes and Ancestries, so if you want to make a concept incorporating a Background better skip to page 60.

For the racial summaries, Half-orc and Half-elf aren't there, because I suppose they are just branches of human or something. We do have goblins now, which I give ten minutes before they become the new Kender, given they are described as short, scrappy, energetic, the other rumors I have heard about them, and the Halfling has been abused for it enough. Goblins have a Charisma bonus despite having "spent millennia maligned and feared". They also have Dex, which makes more sense, and a penalty to Wisdom, which makes sense. They also have a free Ability boost, which every race gets, except the Human which instead has two free boosts and no flaw. Yeah, no Human is definitely not going to be what people pick for whatever class the current races don't slot into.

The description for Gnome and Halfling are ridiculously similar, both being described as short and curious, although Gnome's are hardy and eccentric, and Halflings are humorous and adaptable, so they are completely different. Elves short summary doesn't make a mention of the forests and nature aspect, so no idea if my feral elf stalker can be used again. Dwarves...are dwarves.

Not much in the class description, although the Bard's description of having occult secrets confirms my theory that they must draw power from Great Old Ones. The Paladin is now the Champion, more on that later. Cleric mentions it's spells healing allies and harming foes, so it might not be a healbot, at least in intent this time.

We now have the sheet which...gah. I do suggest you look up the colorized version as the B&W one does not do it justice. I have no idea why random boxes for numbers are in weird shapes, why it's Black and Red, or why it looks like an eyesore, but maybe I'm too used to the MW sheet for 1e.

It does Featmageddon though, as it shows that at minimum your expected to get 38 feats over your character's lifetime. Oh boy.

There is a sidebar on Voluntary flaws which starts the boiling rage when it mentions taking Flaws for the sake of RP, but it at least suggests handing out a free ability boost in return, which means this goes from stupid trap advice that suggests RPing requires crippling your character to min-maxer dream optional rule.

Up Next: Ancestries