Pathfinder 2nd edition Readthrough: I sink my teeth into the meat of the game. Watch out for bone splinters.

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

Attacks

The one thing you should never screw up. Players or designers

So, attacks in PF 2e are at their core the same, roll a d20, attach all applying modifiers, see if it beats, meets, or falls under the Target's AC. There are some new things in this case. The first is Finesse weapons, mentioned here that allow you to apply your dexterity to-hit on the weapon, removing weapon finesse. Bit of playing catch-up to DnD 5e, but nice to see at least feat tax removed off of the field. Another is that with BAB gone, you can now do multiple attacks any time, up to three attacks, but you take a -5 to the first, and a -10 to second. Apparently the fourth attack just disappeared into the ether. There's also a weapon quality that lessens this penalty, and I really hope this does not become a trend of a massive weapon quality list applying various modifiers depending on situation. What is this, Shadowrun?

Anyway, I need to see better math to fully evaluate this, and more info on the three action system, but gut feeling is not amazing. Sure, the chance of getting an extra attack in at 1st level is nice, but at a -5 penalty even regular enemies stand a very good chance of not getting hit. Never mind any oppositions that's a 1st level fighter in decent armor. Removing the full-attack option is nice but even then, it seems like HP pools have gone up while damage values remain the same, and maybe even gone down (bye-bye fourth base attack), so it's yet to be seen if this actually increases combat effectiveness or is just there to provide the illusion of it.

Anyway, next up to note as a change is that Move and Attack as actions have been renamed Stride and Strike....Urgh. Just name them Move and Attack, no one cares if they have special names attached, at least not fire a standard fantasy RPG. I'm getting Apocalypse World flashbacks of being given a character sheet and seeing one of my powers was called "Insano like Drano".

Anyway, moving on, to spell attack rolls, it now states that unless you are a casting class, innate spells use Charisma as a to-hit bonus stat. This was typically Dex before, and while you can choose whatever arbitrary stat you want, I'm pretty sure this is just more attempts to tie magic items to the Charisma stat eternally. More reasons to play a Paladin. Champion. Whatever you want to call it. Oh, and it also applies to the Difficulty Check, so the Fighter's access to miscellaneous magic equipment just dropped even more. No idea if it affects CLW wands, if those are even in the game still with their evil out of combat healing abilities.

Perception

Anyway, we go next to perception, which fittingly has a picture of some random guy tossing dice and coins into the air. I'm not sure what the Perception check to notice that is, but I'm going to guess it's pretty low. Anyway, Perception is still keyed off of Wisdom, just so the random guy who spent the last decade staring at religious texts in a small chapel in between the bank and medieval equivalent of McDonalds is better trained at noticing small details in stressful situations than the trained fighter or the streetwise thief. Now, this section does mention various things that can give penalties or bonuses, such as a spyglass or fog and such, but fails to define what any of those actually are. Hopefully this is actually given later, or I guess I'm going to need to make my own chart. (Except for the spyglass, which actually does list it's bonus. +1 to see far objects. The most useful of all dungeoneering tools). We also get a mention that not all creatures are Proficient in Perception. This better not mean classes as well or I withdraw my previous Ragnarok image about Perception.

And then we find out that initiative is now determined by perception, so now even less classes will want to to invest into the attribute that helps determine initiative. I sincerely doubt this will make the people who already take Dex not take Dex, but now the bookish cleric not only sees better but also reacts faster than most of the party.

Saving Throws

There's not much here that's different. The most is that sometimes making a saving throw against something costs an action for when the DM really wants to pull out the effects that will hurt you the most. As long as it's not a Rust Monster, you're probably a bit safe. Anyway, it gives a basic saving throw, which apparently is a specific type of saving throw, which I think is really just for damaging saving throws? I'm not sure if the example is just the blanket rules for Basic Saving Throws, or if it's just a specific example. If the former, it's literally just the results for a Fireball except you avoid all damage if you critically succeed, and you take double damage if you critically fail. How that interacts with Evasion (If Evasion exists) I don't know.

Oh, and we also have a sidebar letting us know that Advantage and Disadvantage from Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition are here, except we are calling them Fortune and Misfortune for reasons of brand. It doesn't give any indication of when either of them is supposed to come up at all, only that they exist and you can't stack Halfling Luck with Fortune because Hafling Luck is Fortune? Hopefully later in the book something actually tells me when they are used.

Skill Checks

Basics are largely unchanged except the new proficiency rules. Also, while it again lists a large number of things that add modifiers to the check, again no list or table or anything of what these actually are. And then we note that Total Modifiers should be all added together, we leave Skill Checks. I expected Skill rules here, but apparently I was mistaken.

Next Up: Special Checks, for when Normal Checks just don't suffice.

Pages Covered: 5 (Yes I'm slow. On the plus side the APG will be out by the time this is finished. (Still true six months later) No I don't know how I'm going to fit the bestiary in here)