Originally Posted by
Serafina
My main issue is that the system makes me feel it's missed opportunities all over the place.
Take the multiclassing system.
In theory, it's exactly my jam - I loved 4E multiclassing/hybrid classes. The way it allowed you to blend two classes together to create a very specific character, and you mostly get powers out of it that will stay relevant for your entire career? PF/3.5 could never really accomplish that, very few classes could give you that with a short dip, mostly they just gave you abilities that petered out or powered up your main class, rather than being representative on their own.
And then PF 2E doesn't really deliver on that because what you can do with Dedication feats is pick class feats that will have lost most if not all of their significance by the time you can pick them. If only they had allowed you to pick same-level feats - they almost had it right!
Or take the proficiency system.
They could have done a lot of that, and demarked clear tiers of play with it. Which they do a little bit here and there. But mostly, they really lose out on giving out cool stuff to Master- and Legendary proficiency, especially with Skills and Weapons. Yes, they put some truly supernatural stuff into Legendary Skills - but a lot more could have been done, and every time I look at it I still think "okay, where's that but for weapons?"
And I could go on like this for so many more things. Yes, a lot of that is probably just change resistance or the system not being what I'd have hoped or wanted. But that shouldn't be the case - I didn't have those problems with 4E or 5E (or with alternate PF systems), I just approached those as new systems, and PF 2E is a new system too. So why would this system induce change resistance when the others didn't?
And that right there is a major issue that I don't really have an answer for.