Pathfinder 2 Release

[Kurald Galain]

4e, IMO, did a pretty good job of this. Whether it was the Eladrin choosing when to teleport, the Dragonborn choosing when to use their breath weapon, or even the races like Half-orc or Deva whose ability was just a bonus, there was an in-game choice of when to use it.

Yes, I concur. In 4E it is immediately obvious from gameplay which race a PC has; this is really not the case in 3E or P1.

That's fair. It just remains my position that the things they reduced from "all of the above" to "one or two of the above" weren't worth much to begin with

Looking more closely, it turns out that some races DO get an active racial ability that adds a choice in gameplay and distinguishes them from other races, right from level one.

• Elves can gain an SLA, or a floating skill slot, or +5' to movement.
• Gnomes can gain an SLA or a familiar, even if you're not a caster.
• Halflings can hide behind larger party members, or gain a reroll each day.

But yes, these are among half a dozen of dross abilities, and it would be nice if the other races also got one.

[HeraldOfExius]

While it isn't fair to expect everything from a system that only just came out, the way it's designed leads me to believe that we won't have much support for playing as anything other than mostly generic humanoids. Things like Wyrwoods would be difficult to handle without making them (even more) broken, since their only real feature was "Type: Construct." Are you just supposed to gain more of the benefits of being a construct as you level up? Obviously Wyrwoods fell into "get GM approval to play as one," but that's still more support than "homebrew it yourself, because it doesn't fit into the acceptable power range for PFS."

[Pex]

While it isn't fair to expect everything from a system that only just came out, the way it's designed leads me to believe that we won't have much support for playing as anything other than mostly generic humanoids. Things like Wyrwoods would be difficult to handle without making them (even more) broken, since their only real feature was "Type: Construct." Are you just supposed to gain more of the benefits of being a construct as you level up? Obviously Wyrwoods fell into "get GM approval to play as one," but that's still more support than "homebrew it yourself, because it doesn't fit into the acceptable power range for PFS."

I literally have never heard of wyrwood until just now reading what you wrote.

There are players who want to play these obscure races of high fantasy, to bring in a bit of cosplay (my word) in the game, but it is niche. That isn't and shouldn't be Paizo's priority and undeserving of blame for not supporting it. For now they need to be generic and familiar enough to get their new system running. If it proves successful and there's a market for obscure high fantasy races then they can publish material for it for those people who want it. Maybe they'll let a third party publisher do it. For players and DM who are ok with it they can use that without a problem.

[HeraldOfExius]

I literally have never heard of wyrwood until just now reading what you wrote.

There are players who want to play these obscure races of high fantasy, to bring in a bit of cosplay (my word) in the game, but it is niche. That isn't and shouldn't be Paizo's priority and undeserving of blame for not supporting it. For now they need to be generic and familiar enough to get their new system running. If it proves successful and there's a market for obscure high fantasy races then they can publish material for it for those people who want it. Maybe they'll let a third party publisher do it. For players and DM who are ok with it they can use that without a problem.

I don't expect the system to be filled with all the obscure options of the past 10 years right out of the gate, but I'm just noting that the system has an inherent role that at level X, what you are has Y impact on what you can do, and there is no inherent support for being anything which would have more than Y impact at level X. Essentially, there is an upper limit to what your ancestry can give you, which makes this fundamentally different from 3.PF, where your race, templates, etc could change things substantially.

[Rynjin]

Comparing CRB to CRB, P2 has more racial/ancestry choices out of the gate. P1 didn't really hit the same quantity until APG, so let's be fair before falling into "one book vs. entire run of content" comparisons.

I'd argue this is the MOST relevant comparison.

A new edition needs to provide a compelling reason to switch games. If it cannot compete on options, it needs to compete in every other arena. Fewer, but more interesting options, perhaps. Or just a really good chassis for a game of a certain style to be built off of. Or some other selling point, like being very easy to setup and play.

These are things PF2 does not do. The options are both fewer AND less interesting for the most part. The chassis is fine, but not good enough to compel existing players to switch, and has its own flaws. It's not particularly easy to setup (make characters) or play, being your standard mid-crunch game. And it doesn't have any other kind of "killer app" function that acts as some kind of draw.

Compare/contrast 5e, which is another game I don't like, for the record, but it has a clear and focused design philosophy. It provides less options, but far fewer traps, and every choice you make feels significant (where it stumbles is you make VERY few of them in the character building arena). The chassis is interesting and well built, facilitating ease of play and GMing, but still providing a lot of minute to minute options.

5e is clearly built on the philosophy of creating a simplified, user friendly game, and its lower power level compared to 3.5 (and presumably 4e...I didn't play enough of it to make a judgment) is a natural function of that.

PF2 meanwhile seems to have seen that and decided to work it backwards, starting the game with the concept of "people like lower power levels, let's work with that" and failing to understand why it works in the game they're partially aping.

So you're left with this weird mishmash of a game that does not compel many people to swap to from the old game, is unlikely to draw players from 5e, and doesn't compare well to other rules medium games either (like Savage Worlds).

It is perfectly fair to compare it to Pathfinder with all the years of content because that is one of its main competitors.

[NomGarret]

Oh, don't get me wrong, there are certainly times to make such a comparison. It's a perfectly valid basis for answering "should I play this now instead of what I already have?" My point is that it's not appropriate for "is this a good system?"

[CasualViking]

Add in AP design considerations and your second point explains your first. It's a lot easier to run PFS and design APs if you know that all possible characters will have their bonuses in a very small range, for one. For another, if all the abilities are low impact and have very little ability to change the flow of a narrative, then linear stories become much easier to tell.

Yes. That becomes much easier.

What becomes harder is justifying why I should play this instead of a computer RPG.

[TotallyNotEvil]

I did a quick look through some classic spells... And man, they were merciless.

Nerfed into the ground.

[EldritchWeaver]

I did a quick look through some classic spells... And man, they were merciless.

Nerfed into the ground.

Any particular examples?

[Rynjin]

Any particular examples?

The saving throw system in general is what does it if anything does. Everything is arranged in degrees of failure, so some spells really get hit hard by needing a Critical Failure to do what used to be their effect on a simple fail.

I think it actually works out for most spells now, as a LOT have been fixed from uselessness from in the playtest (the AoE classics like Fireball, EX, used to do like half damage on a save, and 1/4 damage for a critical success) and some spells are actually buffed (Paralyze replaces the entire Hold X line, and they don't get to save every turn any more, and are stunned on a simple success).

Maybe TotallyNotEvil is working on Playtest knowledge, or I just haven't read enough spells yet?

[Particle_Man]

Yes. That becomes much easier.

What becomes harder is justifying why I should play this instead of a computer RPG.

And don't they have a Pathfinder Adventure Card Game for this sort of thing (Totally balanced PFS games, etc.) anyhow? It is completely controlled, and you won't get power imbalances. And the Adventure Path for the PACG runs on rails.

Although now I am wondering (with the talk of cantrips and 2e multiclassing) how far one could go as a half-elf multiclass cantrip-mancer, getting as many of them from as many sources as possible.

[Kurald Galain]

I did a quick look through some classic spells... And man, they were merciless.

Nerfed into the ground.

That appears to be the case, yes.

• Web only immobilizes on a fumbled save (a failed save reduces your speed), its area is halved, and its range reduced to 30'.
• Slow only staggers on a fumbled save (a failed save gives you 2 actions instead of 3), and only affects one creature.
• Stinking Cloud only staggers on a fumbled save (as per Slow), and no longer lingers after leaving the cloud.
• Glitterdust only blinds on a fumbled save, and then only for one round.
• Sound Burst doesn't stun any more, it just reduces your actions to 2, and then only on a fumbled save.

Well, that sucks.

You can make a case for crowd control spells being too strong in 3E/PF. Not saying I fully agree, but you can make a case for some nerfing there. Even so, this is seriously overdoing it.

[Gnaeus]

Any particular examples?

Haste and slow single target
Mage Armor is 1 AC
Gate is a travel spell only
All the summons and Polymorph nerfed
Lesser restoration takes a minute
Teleport higher level, 10 minute casting time
Fly higher level, worse speed
Glibness is a +4 bonus
Lots of spells have a sustained duration requiring constant action expenditure.
Fireball less damage, lower range

Pretty much every spell I look at is higher level, slower cast, less effective, or some combination.

[Segev]

Pretty much every spell I look at is higher level, slower cast, less effective, or some combination.

Given the gripes about spellcasters outshining non-casters all over the place, does this nerf make it so that they will not? If so, does it make it so that nonspellcasters will outshine spellcasters everywhere?

[EldritchWeaver]

Given the gripes about spellcasters outshining non-casters all over the place, does this nerf make it so that they will not? If so, does it make it so that nonspellcasters will outshine spellcasters everywhere?

So both the spells were nerfed (as examples show, on several axes even), requiring more spells to be cast to compete with the PF 1 version (if possible), and the number of spell slots has been reduced. This is a nerf a enormous proportions. At some point you kill the usability of classes. Can the casters only compete, because the martials were nerfed, too? Or in other words, if you transplant the PF2 spells and magic classes into PF1, how well would they hold up to the rest of the game (excluding magic stuff)? And the most important part: Are wizards still fun to play?

[Divine Susuryu]

So both the spells were nerfed (as examples show, on several axes even), requiring more spells to be cast to compete with the PF 1 version (if possible), and the number of spell slots has been reduced. This is a nerf a enormous proportions. At some point you kill the usability of classes. Can the casters only compete, because the martials were nerfed, too? Or in other words, if you transplant the PF2 spells and magic classes into PF1, how well would they hold up to the rest of the game (excluding magic stuff)? And the most important part: Are wizards still fun to play?

You've actually just caused me to realise that the changes between systems are troublesome for fluff too, given that PF2 and PF1 are supposed to be the same world. Magic, at least, is easy to justify because of some cataclysmic event. It might be a copout, but at least it's a copout that keeps the lore consistent. But in Golarion of however long ago, there were people that could attack six times in a round, everyone could make attacks of opportunity, dropping a hand or putting it back on a 2 handed weapon didn't allow for attacks of opportunity, shields just protected you rather than having to be repaired all the time, and so on.

This could have been averted by a full reboot of Golarion, but then you run into issues with the Runelords and other powerful casters. Given how non-impactful magic is now, there's no way you could justify the Runelords or similar having the in-world power they did. So you'd either have to rewrite everything to do with them or just give them only arbitrary personal powers that there is never any way for PCs to access, which on a humanoid boss feels a bit cheap.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Pretty much every spell I look at is higher level, slower cast, less effective, or some combination.

Not to mention that PF2 uses the incredibly, incredibly stupid heightening mechanic from 5e (though at least they actually call it heightening, instead of not defining it and having players come up with silly terms like "upcasting" to describe it).

Spell levels are exponential*! The qualitative and quantitative difference between a 7th- and a 5th-level spell is not the same as the difference between a 3rd- and a 1st-level spell! A naive "1st-level spell = 1 spell point, 9th-level spell = 9 spell points" setup doesn't work, and people have known that since at least 2004 when UA and XPH came out! So why in Boccob's name do 5e and now PF 2e insist on making you spend entire spell levels on piddly linear improvements?

And not only that, but blasting spells have been on the weaker side since 3e due to XdY/level damage not keeping up with (XdY+X*Z)/level hit points, and this whole heightening setup just makes them even worse! Figuring out appropriate amounts of damage by caster level and/or spell level is literally the simplest spell effect determination because it's essentially pure arithmetic, yet (A) both 5e and PF don't even have the decency to make all spells of a given level deal the same damage (e.g. in PF2, lightning bolt heightened to 6th deals 7d12, chain lightning deals 8d12, entirely aside from the latter's area being strictly superior) and (B) PF2 gives you more HP overall than 5e and PF1 do with the ancestry HP at 1st, yet most blasting spells deal less damage than their PF1 and/or 5e counterparts.

I just don't understand why the 5e and PF2 devs were so scared of letting spells scale "for free," by caster level or otherwise; it makes some sense in 5e if you squint, but so many things in PF2 scale linearly with character level that sticking with CL and having spells do the same would be so much better and more logical.

* Even the sad nerfed versions of spells in 5e and PF 2e are exponential, they're just e.g. 0.5x^1.5 instead of 4x² now.

[Blackhawk748]

But in Golarion of however long ago, there were people that could attack six times in a round, everyone could make attacks of opportunity, dropping a hand or putting it back on a 2 handed weapon didn't allow for attacks of opportunity, shields just protected you rather than having to be repaired all the time, and so on.

Wait...what? Thats insane. That is straight-up insane. Taking a hand off a weapon shouldn't do that and why do sheilds take damage?! WHY?!?!

[Divine Susuryu]

Wait...what? Thats insane. That is straight-up insane. Taking a hand off a weapon shouldn't do that and why do sheilds take damage?! WHY?!?!

Manipulate actions trigger some reactions, and release has the manipulate tag. Raising a shield takes an action, of course, can't just have a shield protect passively, but I was a bit inaccurate on that. You can have your shield take damage through a feat to block blows. Given that this takes an action, damages your shield, and might break it and damage you, I'm not sure how useful it is.

[stack]

In 5e, blasts not scaling is not as big of a deal since weak enemies stay effective for much longer due to the very limited attack and AC scaling. A low level fireball can still clear mooks. With PF2 adding level to everything, that is less true.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Divine Susuryu
Given how non-impactful magic is now, there's no way you could justify the Runelords or similar having the in-world power they did. So you'd either have to rewrite everything to do with them or just give them only arbitrary personal powers that there is never any way for PCs to access, which on a humanoid boss feels a bit cheap.

It does seem like they've written themselves into a corner here. I'm assuming this has been raised on the Paizo forums, and duly ignored.

Originally Posted by Divine Susuryu
Given that this takes an action, damages your shield, and might break it and damage you, I'm not sure how useful it is.

This does sound nuts. Just...plain nuts.

Now I'm waiting to hear how many feats it takes to hit the bathroom. Several, I'm sure.

[Blackhawk748]

Manipulate actions trigger some reactions, and release has the manipulate tag. Raising a shield takes an action, of course, can't just have a shield protect passively, but I was a bit inaccurate on that. You can have your shield take damage through a feat to block blows. Given that this takes an action, damages your shield, and might break it and damage you, I'm not sure how useful it is.

Ok, that's dumb, and that sounds like they've never actually held onto a shield. You don't have to 'raise' it for it to work, you just move it with your sword. Do I have to use an action to 'raise' my sword? No? Then why do I do that with my shield?

Also, that just sucks. I am not breaking my gear.

[Greg_S]

That appears to be the case, yes.

• Web only immobilizes on a fumbled save (a failed save reduces your speed), its area is halved, and its range reduced to 30'.
• Slow only staggers on a fumbled save (a failed save gives you 2 actions instead of 3), and only affects one creature.
• Stinking Cloud only staggers on a fumbled save (as per Slow), and no longer lingers after leaving the cloud.
• Glitterdust only blinds on a fumbled save, and then only for one round.
• Sound Burst doesn't stun any more, it just reduces your actions to 2, and then only on a fumbled save.

Well, that sucks.

You can make a case for crowd control spells being too strong in 3E/PF. Not saying I fully agree, but you can make a case for some nerfing there. Even so, this is seriously overdoing it.

There's also a keyword possessed by ~25 spells called "incapacitation". Basically, a spell with this keyword is less effective against creatures of over 2x the spell slot's level. As an example, a sorcerer learns baleful polymorph at level 11. Baleful polymorph's effects:

• Critical success: no effect
• Success: enemy takes a -1 penalty on skill checks and its DCs until it uses an action to save vs. being sickened
• Failure: target gets polymorphed for a minute but can make a will save on its turn to recover
• Crit fail: target is actually affected by baleful polymorph, becoming an animal permanently

But because this is an incapacitation spell, using it on a level 13 creature or higher now ups the enemy's save result to the next tier. Your best outcome on a foe 2 levels higher than you is that the enemy loses one or more turns trying to save (it's not clear in my reading if the subsequent saves they make against the imposed conditions also get upped to the next success tier), and it's more likely you just chucked your highest slot to apply a small penalty and one lost action. So spells with this keyword have really limited lifespans! You're level 11 at the earliest, and I think level +/- 2 is the expected enemy range for most fights?

Can you heighten the spell to increase the potential targets to higher level does? Prepared casters can, but a spontaneous caster would have to spend another spell known at a higher spell level to do so unless they chose it as a signature spell.

I get that save-or-lose is a powerful effect but it sure looks like they went overboard with the incapacitation keyword.

[Pex]

That appears to be the case, yes.

• Web only immobilizes on a fumbled save (a failed save reduces your speed), its area is halved, and its range reduced to 30'.
• Slow only staggers on a fumbled save (a failed save gives you 2 actions instead of 3), and only affects one creature.
• Stinking Cloud only staggers on a fumbled save (as per Slow), and no longer lingers after leaving the cloud.
• Glitterdust only blinds on a fumbled save, and then only for one round.
• Sound Burst doesn't stun any more, it just reduces your actions to 2, and then only on a fumbled save.

Well, that sucks.

You can make a case for crowd control spells being too strong in 3E/PF. Not saying I fully agree, but you can make a case for some nerfing there. Even so, this is seriously overdoing it.

Ugh, so they kept having spells be useless from the playtest. This is the deal breaker making me not want to play the game. Yell all you want spellcasters were too powerful in 3E or Pathfinder. They're still entitled to have spells work. I'm not happy with all of how 5E nerfed spellcasting, but at least the spells do what they're supposed to do within 5E parameters you have fun casting them. They're powerful within 5E if lower powered than previous incarnations, subjective to taste.

[Raven777]

Did they axe Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration?

[137beth]

I read the early blogs that came out before the playtest. However, I avoided the playtest itself, and didn't read the preview blogs this year. Since this is a Paizo product, I'm going to wait until there have been one or two rounds of errata before I really dive into the system, so I don't yet have any opinion on whether I actually like the rules. I do, however, have a complaint about the naming of the Core Rulebook. To explain what my complaint is, I'm going to ramble about the PF1 Core Rulebook for a bit.

I think that the "core rules" of a game should be self-contained, without references to rules in another book. If the "core rules" require the use of rules in another book, then that book should also be part of the core rules.

D&D 3.5 is pretty clear about this. There are three core rulebooks. All three make references to the other two, but you can use all of them without having to refer to any rules outside of those three books. Some other, simpler systems manage with just one core rulebook which is entirely self contained.

Pathfinder 1e has two core books. The issue is that the name of one of the two core rulebooks is a lie. The name "the" Core Rulebook makes it sound like that one book contains the full core rules of Pathfinder, with everything you need to play included. Except, it isn't actually self-contained. The so-called "core rulebook" includes the druid class, which gets an animal companion. But where are the stats for animal companions? They are in another book. If you want to play a druid in Pathfinder, you either need the bestiary, or you need to refer to the online rules. Either way, the so-called "Core Rulebook" isn't a self-contained set of rules.

There are other examples. The Summon Monster spells are in the Core Rulebook, but the stats for all the creatures you can summon are in the Bestiary. With calling spells it is even worse: not only does the CRB not give stats for the outsiders you can call with Planar Binding, it doesn't even provide a list of what you can call in the first place. That, too, requires referencing the bestiary or another source with the same information.

The misinformation was not limited to the title of the book. Paizo's store used to assert that "players" only need the Core Rulebook to play, while "GMs" will also want the Bestiary. This was also a lie, since "players" will want to know the stats of their summoned monsters, familiars, and animal companions. Over on the Paizo forums, it was somewhat common for Paizo employees to repeat the assertion that the Core Rulebook is all you need to play, often in response to complaints about "bloat."

Again, I don't have a problem with a game system having two core rulebooks. If Paizo had called the Core Rulebook something else, and if they had made it clear up front that there were two core books that you needed to play Pathfinder, then I wouldn't have had any complaint about it.

For Pathfinder 2, Paizo has again opted to have books with the titles "Core Rulebook" and "Bestiary." I tried to figure out, based on AoN, whether the title of the new "core rulebook" is misleading like the 1e version. I.e., is the 2e Core Rulebook actually self-contained, or does it refer to rules in the Bestiary (or some other book)?

While there may be some discrepencies between the website and the actual books, it appears to me that 2e has the same issue as 1e. The 2e Core Rulebook contains summoning spells, including Summon Animal. The new PRD seems to indicate that the Core Rulebook doesn't even include a list of what animals are summonable, let alone their stats. The Paizo store page for the Bestiary also says that it contains stats for summonable monsters.

I'm a little disappointed, but not surprised, that Paizo went with a misleading title again. On the other hand, the website no longer makes the claim that "players" only need the Core Rulebook to play (or if it does than I don't see it), so that's an improvement. And again, I don't yet have an opinion on the rules themselves.

[Divine Susuryu]

The misinformation was not limited to the title of the book. Paizo's store used to assert that "players" only need the Core Rulebook to play, while "GMs" will also want the Bestiary. This was also a lie, since "players" will want to know the stats of their summoned monsters, familiars, and animal companions. Over on the Paizo forums, it was somewhat common for Paizo employees to repeat the assertion that the Core Rulebook is all you need to play, often in response to complaints about "bloat."

I really want to zoom in on the part I emphasised here. What is bloat in a tabletop game? Given that it's trivially easy for a GM to say "Okay guys, we're playing with books X, Y, and Z only" in any individual game, cries of bloat have always puzzled me. Yes, there may be more material than certain people want to deal with... but if it's their game, make it a precondition to stick to what they're comfortable with. Trying to change "I don't like how much content there is" to "the system is bloated" is equivocation. The sort of person who complains about it has it entirely in their power to avoid.

[Kurald Galain]

Ok, that's dumb, and that sounds like they've never actually held onto a shield. You don't have to 'raise' it for it to work, you just move it with your sword. Do I have to use an action to 'raise' my sword?

Yes, it's called the "attack" action. I really like the idea of being able to spend an action on your shield for extra defense benefits; this makes using a shield an active choice in gameplay (as opposed to a flat AC bonus that you write down and forget about).

No comment on this particular execution, though. Having shield usage provoke OAs is ridiculous.

I really want to zoom in on the part I emphasised here. What is bloat in a tabletop game? Given that it's trivially easy for a GM to say "Okay guys, we're playing with books X, Y, and Z only" in any individual game,

Is it, though? Seems to me that there's a pretty big stigma against banning books.

[upho]

You can make a case for crowd control spells being too strong in 3E/PF. Not saying I fully agree, but you can make a case for some nerfing there.

Maybe. Aside from maybe large scale BFC stuff like walls, I honestly don't think it would be a particularly strong one though, considering that at least most P1 control spells targeting creatures were (usually rightfully) nerfed from 3.5. Even if mostly indirectly through far more limited spell DC boost options and spell resistance being a greater problem. And also because related effective combat stuff (like serious debuffing and action denial effects) was made accessible to non-casters in P1, and therefore less of a C/MD balance issue than in 3.5.

Even so, this is seriously overdoing it.

I agree. But I unfortunately have to say that at least AFAICT it's also more balanced to martial abilities, if in a needlessly skewed way (see below). So I think it's more a case of the system overall seriously overdoing it, making build option and action choices in general far less meaningful.

Given the gripes about spellcasters outshining non-casters all over the place, does this nerf make it so that they will not? If so, does it make it so that nonspellcasters will outshine spellcasters everywhere?

Yes and no, I think. Yes insofar that casters probably have an overall power far closer to non-casters. No insofar that casters still have a considerably greater general adventuring toolbox and range of combat action output parameters (effects, targets etc). IOW, it appears to me that at least on paper spells still give casters far more numerous and varied options than non-casters have, while each spell is much weaker and often has fewer possible uses than before. Kinda the opposite of what SoP does in P1.

The net effect on class balance is awkward, and it seems there's a greater risk of casters ending up rather useless in combat against enemies above their level. Which is extra annoying due to the fact that this risk should've been quite easily fixed through the added degrees of success/failure. An example of a potentially great design concept poorly implemented.

Pretty much every spell I look at is higher level, slower cast, less effective, or some combination.

True. I would've greatly preferred if they'd brought caster power down by reducing versatility. Or - much better - if they'd decided on a higher overall power floor and a far greater variety of PC abilities, bringing the versatility of non-casters more in line with that of casters instead.

Spell levels are exponential*!
/snip/
I just don't understand why the 5e and PF2 devs were so scared of letting spells scale "for free," by caster level or otherwise; it makes some sense in 5e if you squint, but so many things in PF2 scale linearly with character level that sticking with CL and having spells do the same would be so much better and more logical..

Yep, I agree this is another issue, and AFAICT so far, much more so in P2 than in 5e. And it's yet another example of a potentially great design concept poorly implemented.

[Kurald Galain]

Maybe. Aside from maybe large scale BFC stuff like walls, I honestly don't think it would be a particularly strong one though, considering that at least most P1 control spells targeting creatures were (usually rightfully) nerfed from 3.5. Even if mostly indirectly through far more limited spell DC boost options and spell resistance being a greater problem. And also because related effective combat stuff (like serious debuffing and action denial effects) was made accessible to non-casters in P1, and therefore less of a C/MD balance issue than in 3.5.

Agreed. It is not my experience in P1 that caster/martial balance is a serious problem, at least at levels 1 through 10 (and people rarely play above that anyway).

And it's yet another example of a potentially great design concept poorly implemented.

That seems like a fair summary of the thread so far. I still really like the ideas of the three-action system, the four success levels, TEML, and feat-based racial abilities (and I wouldn't miss the ribbons); but find the implementation rather lacking.
That's the opposite how I feel about 5E: there, I strongly dislike the idea of bounded accuracy, but I find its implementation fairly solid.
In both cases that just means I'll stick with P1 for the foreseeable future