History YMMV / Pathfinder

** Come ''2nd Edition'', many of the character options were quite balanced, which is one of the praises of the system. That being said, some feats and builds were still considered more powerful, if not [[GameBreaker more broken]].

*** In terms of General Feats, Toughness is often picked for a character at some point. What does it give? A flat bonus to maximum HP that scales with level, along with a reduced DC for Recovery Checks. This makes the PC far more durable, especially when compared to another General Feat at the same level called Diehard, which increases the Dying value at which the PC would die.

** Aroden. While he ''did'' help create the Azlanti civilization and slew numerous [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils demon lords]] and other monsters, he also [[WithFriendsLikeThese often left his followers high and dry in times of need,]] and when the woman who was basically his best friend was turned into an evil lich slave of [[SorcerousOverlord Geb]], he [[WhatTheHellHero didn't lift a finger to help her]]. The second edition adventure path ''Extinction Curse'' only makes him look worse, namely [[spoiler: in order to make Azlanti inhabitable, he stole five life giving orb-things from the Darklands and only left one, thinking it would enough to sustain the native Xulgaths (Troglodytes). It wasn't, the race nearly went extinct, and they hate humans as a result.]]

** Sarenrae is never referred to in anything but a positive light and presented as unambiguously Good, but she tends to have some of the most unpleasantly militaristic followers outside of Hell's employ. Notable actions include attempting to slaughter or forcibly convert any believers in the Osiriani gods to gain more power for her as well as actively hunting down possible infant incarnations of a messiah among the oppressed peoples of Casmaron ([[Literature/TheBible King Herod]]-style), and it's stated that they hate ''all'' undead, even good ones.

* FanDislikedExplanation: Despite his popularity as a villain, some ''Pathfinder'' players dislike the constant handwave of why the Whispering Tyrant has cheated death so many times being "nobody has found his phylactery yet". Even though there are numerous powerful beings and gods who have tried, or on paper should be able to find it, every time the topic is brought up to Paizo, they restate that nobody has found it yet. Some feel the JokerImmunity given to him is annoying and makes any story involving him boring because of said reason, as he just inevitably returns due to how liches work.

** Arazni, so very much. She started out as a ''paladin'' following the god Aroden, only to have her god die mysteriously and to be horribly killed by [[OurLichesAreDifferent the Whispering Tyrant shortly after]]. As if this weren't enough, the evil {{Necromancer}} Geb turned her into a lich under his control out of spite towards the Knights of Ozem. While she eventually broke free of his control, she remains a twisted and evil undead demigod with none of her original goodly nature, at best only becoming more neutral in her actions due to having time to dwell on things.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: 2e removing some of the early DarkerAndEdgier lore and elements has generally been well received, or at least accepted, but some of the changes have been criticized for the reason or way they were changed. For example: slavery was removed across the setting, with many evil factions either having abolished it, being destroyed off-screen, or having been outright retconned from ever existing, which while good to prevent players from using it, left some players feeling "left out" of the setting's development, and also feeling it was too much of a swing in the other direction design wise[[note]]In so far as going from "the settings has slavery" to "the setting no longer/has never had slavery", without making it feel natural.[[/note]]. Other changes, such as renaming things like Paladin becoming Champion or removing the drow (the latter of which is more due to the OGL debacle with [[Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast WotC]] in 2023) have been criticized for being unnecessary or excessive.

** A big example among fans: In ''Wrath of the Righteous'' part 5, [[spoiler: Iomedae]] summons the [=PCs=] to her realm to tell them she needs them to help rescue her herald from the Abyss. Then, for some reason, she forces the players to answer some questions to prove themselves (even if they have been nothing but loyal so far) and if they answer wrong she blasts them with massive sonic damage. And any characters who object to this she [[DisproportionateRetribution magically renders mute for life]]. Not only is this rather unbecoming of a supposedly Lawful Good deity, but it also opens some PlotHoles of its own (such as the aforementioned oddness of having to "test" the [=PCs=] despite having them working for her for the past four books as well as making you wonder [[FridgeLogic if she can summon people across planar boundaries, what keeps her from just summoning her herald back]]? The writers later admitted to feeling like they could have handled her better, and in the Owlcat created game of the module, the meeting with her was redone to better fit her intended image.

* CommonKnowledge: It is commonly assumed that Hellknights are a military branch of Cheliax due to how often Hellknights appear to be working on behalf of Cheliax. Hellknights to work with Cheliax often, but the two are separate, as Hellknights predate House Thrune's take over of Cheliax, and are a separate organization. In lore, House Thrune has made many attempts to get the majority of Hellknight organizations to side with them, but has at best only been able to form working relations with them. On top of that, the Hellknights are known to occasionally side against Cheliax, should they find Cheliax is abusing some form of law or agreement made. Many, especially newcomers, assume they are part of the same side for understandable reasons.

*** With the sheer number of classes and the ''massive'' amounts of freedom the player has picking out their ancestry, feats, background, skills, and even their attribute boosts, Second Edition has several hundred potential options for a player to work with, and pretty much ''all'' of the builds can be effective so long as the player doesn't ignore their class' primary statistic. With that in mind, however, one aspect found at virtually every table, from newbies to masters of the system, is someone stacking their skill increases in Medicine. Medicine went from being one of the most maligned and forgotten skills in both ''Pathfinder'' and ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' to an ''absolute'' must-have. It's been buffed to be essentially free healing, and the system itself basically assumes someone in the party is going to put time and dedication into the skill to ensure the party is topped off over long dungeon crawls. While healing magic has been buffed overall to avoid the "yo-yo" concern of ''[=D&D's=]'' Fifth Edition's healing meta[[note]]Where players tend to oscillate between being at 0 [=HP=] and a comically small number, typically through the spammable Healing Word spell, because there was little incentive to actually care about bringing a person above double digit health in the middle of a fight.[[/note]], and consequences were added towards going to 0 to make it even less appealing, healing spells are still an expendable resource best reserved for actual combat. Medicine checks do have a cooldown, but they're otherwise infinite and don't rely on a (relatively) small resource, making them ''the'' option for out-of-combat healing. As part of this, the Continual Recovery skill feat is generally considered a must, as it reduces the cooldown from an hour to 10 minutes, allowing for a party to take multiple 10 minute breaks in quick succession to heal. In the niche circumstance that a person with a focus on Medicine isn't at the table, there will likely instead be someone with a focus spell that provides healing, as the Focus Points that are expended to cast them can be replenished over a 10 minute break.

*** With the sheer number of classes and the ''massive'' amounts of freedom the player has picking out their ancestry, feats, background, skills, and even their attribute boosts, Second Edition has several hundred potential options for a player to work with, and pretty much ''all'' of the builds can be effective so long as the player doesn't ignore their class' primary statistic. With that in mind, however, one aspect found at virtually every table, from newbies to masters of the system, is someone stacking their skill increases in Medicine. Medicine went from being one of the most maligned and forgotten skills in both ''Pathfinder'' and ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' to an ''absolute'' must-have. It's been buffed to be essentially free healing, and the system itself basically assumes someone in the party is going to put time and dedication into the skill to ensure the party is topped off over long dungeon crawls. While healing magic has been buffed overall to avoid the "yo-yo" concern of ''[=D&D's=]'' Fifth Edition's healing meta[[note]]Where players tend to oscillate between being at 0 [=HP=] and a comically small number, typically through the spammable Healing Word spell, because there was little incentive to actually care about bringing a person above double digit health in the middle of a fight.[[/note]], and consequences were added towards going to 0 to make it even less appealing, healing spells are still an expendable resource best reserved for actual combat. Medicine checks do have a cooldown, but they're otherwise infinite and don't rely on a (relatively) small resource, making them ''the'' option for out-of-combat healing. As part of this, Continual Recovery is generally considered a must, as it reduces the cooldown from an hour to 10 minutes, allowing for a party to take multiple 10 minute breaks in quick succession to heal. In the niche circumstance that a person with a focus on Medicine isn't at the table, there will likely instead be someone with a focus spell that provides healing, as the Focus Points that are expended to cast them can be replenished over a 10 minute break.

*** With the sheer number of classes and the ''massive'' amounts of freedom the player has picking out their ancestry, feats, background, skills, and even their attribute boosts, Second Edition has several hundred potential options for a player to work with, and pretty much ''all'' of the builds can be effective so long as the player doesn't ignore their class' primary statistic. With that in mind, however, one aspect found at virtually every table, from newbies to masters of the system, is someone stacking their skill increases in Medicine. Medicine went from being one of the most maligned and forgotten skills in both ''Pathfinder'' and ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' to an ''absolute'' must-have. It's been buffed to be essentially free healing, and the system itself basically assumes someone in the party is going to put time and dedication into the skill to ensure the party is topped off over long dungeon crawls. While healing magic has been buffed overall to avoid the "yo-yo" concern of ''[=D&D's=]'' Fifth Edition's healing meta[[note]]Where players tend to oscillate between being at 0 [=HP=] and a comically small number, typically through the spammable Healing Word spell, because there was little incentive to actually care about bringing a person above double digit health in the middle of a fight.[[/note]], and consequences were added towards going to 0 to make it even less appealing, healing spells are still an expendable resource best reserved for actual combat. Medicine checks do have a cooldown, but they're otherwise infinite and don't rely on a (relatively) small resource, making them ''the'' option for out-of-combat healing. In the ''extremely'' niche circumstance that a person with a focus on Medicine isn't at the table, there will likely instead be someone with a focus on Nature, as an early feat for Nature allows that skill to be used to Treat Wounds, mimicking the major appeal of Medicine, though Medicine is still preferred given the sheer volume of feats it has to heal more than just damage.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: Over the course of Second Edition, some of the DarkerAndEdgier story elements were downplayed or abolished, leading many players to fear that the setting will suffer from the same problem as [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons its competitor]] where the setting isn't in need of heroes because it's been sanitized so much. Paizo seems to have anticipated this response, because the Player Core in its introduction to each microregion states the local threats and corruption in no unclear terms when previously players had to dig for them themselves. Absalom for instance is noted to have both the glory and ''squalor'' of a major city, and it's said that its opportunity is built on a pile of corpses. Both things were true before, but never mentioned so explicitly, which affirms that regardless of what changes Golarion is AWorldHalfFull.

* CrazyAwesome:

* UnexpectedCharacter: Leshies getting promoted to a core ancestry in the Remaster. They were popular, but not to the same level as goblins, and have rather specific origins that make as many of them existing at once as the other common ancestries quite unlikely. The ritual to create more leshies has never been given stats, rituals are always uncommon, and as leshies are plant constructs traditionally created to guard natural environments, having so many leshies around runs into similar problems as the RidiculouslyHumanRobots trope. The idea that they were on the rise and may develop their own nation soon came across as somewhat contrived as a result.

** The encounter with [[spoiler:Iomedae]] in the original, print version of ''Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth'' has become rather divisive. Some feel it was terribly handled, since the players can be punished and almost killed if they don't handle it right from a roleplaying angle, while others feel it wasn't and players are complaining about being punished for making bad choices in front of a good aligned god. This got to the point that the same encounter in the ''Wrath of the Righteous'' PC game is '''completely''' different, all the way down to its context.

*** The alchemist is probably the single most divisive class out of all the Core Rulebook classes. The class had overall been refocused from the mostly self-sufficient damage class with self-buff utility it was in First Edition, to more or less a walking item dispenser with a focus on buffing and supporting allies. While plenty of people like this concept, a lot of people feel the clunkiness of item usage combined with many of their buffs and benefits not being as good as spells limits the alchemist's true usefulness as a support character. In addition, two of the three initial research fields are also considered largely unsupported and subpar, with bomber being the only truly viable field. [[note]]The chirurgeon's benefit allows the alchemist to use their crafting skill modifier in place of medicine for medicine-based checks, but still requires them to skill up medicine's proficiency to get medicine skill feats and higher profiency medicine bonuses, making the point of the benefit mostly redundant. Meanwhile, even with the errata'd benefits for mutagenist (see below for more on that), mutagen-based feats pigeon-hole the alchemist into building for Beastial mutagen, which forces them into melee with a ''cripplingly'' low AC, making the risk-reward tradeoff not worth it.[[/note]] Finally, until they get Perpetual Infusions at 7th level, a lot of players feel running an alchemist in combat is boring, as they cannot spend every turn dispensing items or using Quick Alchemy without running out of infused reagents or items too fast, resorting them to making boring regular strikes that the class isn't designed to support. Many wonder why some form of Perpetual Infusions is not supported from level 1 in the same way spellcasters get cantrips.

*** Ironically, one of the most infamous videos about Pathfinder 2e accused the ''whole game'' of this. [=YouTuber Cody=] Lewis a.k.a. [=Taking20=] was one of the most prominent early adopters of the system, but announced a year and a half into the system's life that he was dropping it due to an issue he described as an 'Illusion of Choice'. Effectively, he believed the system locked player builds into an MMO-style 'rotation' that meant doing anything outside of the same rote actions in sequence was too punishing, which in turn led to a stagnant gameplay loop. The video caused a stir amongst the community and was widely condemned, especially after he released a follow up video detailing some white room maths comparing the system to ''Dungeons and Dragons'' 5th Edition, and got multiple rulings and calculations in ''both'' systems wrong. While the videos have since been largely considered bunk and it was eventually revealed by Cody's own players that it was in fact ''him'' ruling the system improperly that lead to many of his issues [[note]]said players explained that they actually still play the system under a different GM[[/note]], the damage the videos did to the game's reputation was wide-reaching, and to this day experienced players are forced to spend an inordinate amount of time debunking the videos to prospective onboarders who've seen them that the game doesn't fall into this trope wholesale. On the flipside, there are some long-term players (usually those who are lapsed or close to lapsing on the game) who think Cody had a point, even if his examples were flawed. To them, the game's tight power caps, tougher monsters, more stringent character roles, and anti-munchkin rules that can lead to ObviousRulePatch and StopHavingFunGuys situations that force players into a level of optimisation and styles of gameplay that don't necessarily match the experience they want, at worst devolving into the exact rote repetitive action rotations Cody accused the game of.
*** With the sheer number of classes and the ''massive'' amounts of freedom the player has picking out their ancestry, feats, background, skills, and even their attribute boosts, second edition has several hundred potential options for a player to work with, and pretty much ''all'' of the builds can be effective so long as the player doesn't ignore their class' primary statistic. With that in mind, however, one feature found at pretty much every table, from newbies to masters of the system, is someone stacking their skill increases in Medicine. Medicine went from being one of the most maligned and forgotten skills in both ''Pathfinder'' and ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' to an ''absolute'' must-have. It's been buffed to essentially be free healing, and the system itself basically assumes someone in the party is going to put time and dedication into the skill to ensure the party is topped off over long dungeon crawls. While healing magic has been buffed overall to avoid the 'yo-yo' concern of D&D's 5th edition [[note]]Where players would oscillate between being at 0 [=HP=] and a comically small number, typically through the spammable Healing Word spell, because there was little incentive to actually care about bringing a person above double digit health in the middle of a fight.[[/note]] and consequences were added to going to 0 to make it even less appealing, healing spells are still an expendable resource best reserved for actual combat. Medicine checks do have a cooldown, but they're otherwise infinite and don't decriminate a resource, making them ''the'' option for out-of-combat healing. In the ''extremely'' niche circumstance that a person with a focus on Medicine isn't at the table, there will likely instead be someone with a focus on Nature, as an early feat for Nature allows Nature to be used to Treat Wounds, mimicking the major appeal of Medicine, though Medicine is still preferred given the sheer volume of feats it has to heal more than just damage.

** The entire premise of the adventure module ''Rasputin Must Die!'', which is part of the already-pretty-bonkers "Reign of Winter" adventure path: the party must use the Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga to travel to real-world-Earth --specifically, to a remote part of Russia -- in 1918, at the height of the First World War, and assassinate Gregori Rasputin. Who isn't dead, and in fact is a powerful wizard -- and a son of Baba Yaga. Along the way, they'll have to battle not only real Russian soldiers, but also DieselPunk and/or KaiserReich flavored enemies like haunted tanks, sapient clouds of mustard gas that animate their victims as zombies, and [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Nosferatu]] Cossacks.

** The Medium's influence mechanic rapidly shoots up, can offer very harsh penalties very quickly, and cannot really be reduced until the Medium selects a new spirit or use specific things depending on factors like archetypes. And getting five points of influence turns the character into an NPC until the channeling finishes, which heavily discourages using abilities that increase the chance of the Medium's spirit gaining control. In effect this gives the Medium only 3 influence points a day they can use for any of their features, maybe pushing it to 4 if desperate, which makes it unappealing from a gameplay angle when compared to other classes.

*** The magus can be one of the most rotation-locked classes in the game. The bulk of its power budget is invested in Spellstrike, which is an extremely powerful ability that lets you compress a spell attack into a weapon strike for only two actions. It's extremely potent, but the tradeoff is that to use Spellstrike again, you must either use a dedicated action to recharge it, or cast one of the magus' signature conflux focus spells, which will recharge Spellstrike along with its other effects. This can lead to a forced loop of Spellstriking followed by conflux spells and then Spellstrike again, though the skill cap of the class (and what stops it from being this trope wholesale) is knowing how and what order to use these actions in actual play when rote combat rotations won't pay off. The big exception to this is the Starlit Span hybrid study, which is the only subclass option that let's you Spellstrike at range. The safety provided by not needing to wade into melee (combined with the fact that it's the only hybrid study that doesn't need [[ScrappyMechanic Arcane Cascade]] to get any of its default bonuses) allow a player to play an extremely safe, powerful ranged burst damage dealer without needing to engage in any more complexity the class forces on its melee builds.

* Crazy Awesome:

* ItsHardSoItSucks: In an ironic inverse to the above, 2nd Edition is accused of this. However, while some of it can come down to issues in the early adventure design[[note]]the first year and a half of the game was notorious for overtuned encounters even by Paizo's lofty standards, with ''Fall of Plaguestone'' in particular becoming an infamous newbie killer despite being billed as a starter adventure at the system's launch[[/note]], in reality the core design of the system prevents outscaling enemies around your level in a way that means you ''have'' to engage in the more strategic and mechanical elements of the game just for your characters to survive, let alone win. This can be exhausting for players who just want a light-hearted beer and pretzels game, or who find forced engagement with the higher-end meta stifling. A clever [=GM=] can simply lower the stats of a creatures or reskin a weaker one with the aesthetic of a more powerful one to give the players that CurbStompBattle feel, but this requires the GM knowing to do that, and savvy players who know how the system works will quickly catch on that's what's being done. While there is skill to be found in those tactical elements the game expects players to engage in, those who prefer being able to overcome its maths and mechanics through builds or system mastery (as you can in systems like 1st Edition) will chafe hard against the system and feel the challenge is purely up to the whim of the [=GM=], while others feel the baseline difficulty is too punishing to allow true build expression outside of the optimal meta.

%%* Crazy Awesome:
%%** Cayden Cailean, in his mortal life as well as during his godhood.
%%** The entire premise of ''Rasputin Must Die!''.

** The Prismatic Ray pantheon (consisting of [[LadyOfWar Sarenrae]], [[LoveGoddess Shelyn]], and [[StarPower Desna]] in a [[{{Polyamory}} gay polycule]] that focuses on protecting the innocent, fighting evil, and adding beauty to the world) hardly has any mention in canon and was only created on-the-spot during a Paizo blog post as an example for how a cleric worshipping a pantheon would work in 2nd Edition. Despite this, the pantheon remains a very popular choice among those playing faith-based characters, especially among the game's {{LGBTFanbase}}. The three goddesses have been especially welcomed among new players migrating to 2E from ''Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition'', who were surprised at such positive LGBT representation among Paizo's characters.

* HilariousInHindsight: Sarenrae's holy symbol features what would later become ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'''s "Praise the Sun" gesture. This came full-circle in ''VideoGame/PathfinderWrathOfTheRighteous'', where Sarenites say the line completely unironically as a ShoutOut.

* StopHavingFunGuys: 2nd Edition's detractors effectively consider it the ultimate 'Stop Having Fun' edition of [=DnD=]-likes. While the game is tightly balanced, with interlocked stipulations to prevent munchkins and powergamers from breaking or exploiting the game, some players find it overbearing to the point it stifles fun for the sake of balance, while at the same time requiring very high-level mastery of its systems and mechanics to function at even moderate levels of progression and difficulty. Some of its harshest critics accuse fans and Paizo themselves of being too scared of [[{{Munchkin}} Pun Pun the Kobolds]] and [[InsaneTrollLogic peasant railguns]] for their own good, or it being designed for [=GMs=] that are salty about their CreatorsPet boss villains being one shot by players, so they rely on the more heavily-restricted power cap and [[ObviousRulePatch obvious rule patches]] like incapacitate to stop them from winning through out-of-band damage and/or save-or-suck mechanics. It doesn't help that 1e did nothing about its flagrant core balance issues for ''years'', with the developers coasting on smugly and snidely deflecting any criticisms by telling fans who claimed a "balanced" game to go pick up ''[[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragonsFourthEdition D&D 4e]]''; even the announcement of 2nd Edition involved pot-shots at the much-despised Spellplague storyline that kicked off the [=4e=] incarnation of ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' that was, by then, about a decade in the past and long since replaced by [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragonsFifthEdition a completely new edition]]. Critics of [=PF2e=] frequently describe it as repeating and even magnifying the worst mistakes of [=D&D 4e=] without meaningful improvement.

* ItsHardSoItSucks: In an ironic inverse to the above, 2nd Edition is accused of this. However, while some of it can come down to issues in the early adventure design[[note]]the first year and a half of the game was notorious for overtuned encounters even by Paizo's lofty standards, with ''Fall of Plaguestone'' in particular becoming an infamous newbie killer despite being billed as a starter adventure at the system's launch[[/note]], in reality the core design of the system prevents outscaling enemies around your level in a way that means you ''have'' to engage in the more strategic and mechanical elements of the game just for your characters to survive, let alone win. This can be exhausting for players who just want a light-hearted beer and pretzels game, or who find forced engagement with the higher-end meta stifling. A clever [=GM=] can simply lower the stats of a creatures or reskin a weaker one with the aesthetic of a more powerful one to give the players that CurbStompBattle feel, but this requires the GM knowing to do that, and savvy players who know how the system works will quickly catch on that's what's being done. Ultimately, players who don't want to feel the challenge is purely up to the whim of the [=GM=] will chafe hard against the system and resent their lack of autonomy in being able to overcome its maths and mechanics through builds or system mastery.

* StopHavingFunGuys: 2nd Edition's detractors effectively consider it the ultimate 'Stop Having Fun' edition of [=DnD=]-likes. While the game is tightly balanced, with interlocked stipulations to prevent munchkins and powergamers from breaking or exploiting the game, some players find it overbearing to the point it stifles fun for the sake of balance, while at the same time requiring very high-level mastery of its systems and mechanics to function at even moderate levels of progression and difficulty. Some of its harshest critics accuse fans and Paizo themselves of being too scared of [[{{Munchkin}} Pun Pun the Kobolds]] and [[InsaneTrollLogic peasant railguns]] for their own good, or it being designed for [=GMs=] that are salty about their CreatorsPet boss villains being one shot by players, so they rely on the more heavily-restricted power cap and [[ObviousRulePatch obvious rule patches]] like incapacitate to stop them from winning through out-of-band damage and/or save-or-suck mechanics. It doesn't help that 1e did nothing about its flagrant core balance issues for ''years'', with the developers coasting smugly and snidely deflecting any criticisms by telling fans who claimed a "balanced" game to go pick up ''[[TabletopGame/Dungeons&Dragons4thEdition D&D 4e]]''; even the announcement of 2nd Edition involved pot-shots at the much-despised Spellplague storyline that kicked off the [=4e=] incarnation of ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' that was, by then, about a decade in the past. Critics of [=PF2e=] frequently describe it as repeating and even magnifying the worst mistakes of [=D&D 4e=] without meaningful improvement.

*** Ironically, one of the most infamous videos about Pathfinder 2e accused the ''whole game'' of this. [=YouTuber Cody=] Lewis a.k.a. [=Taking20=] was one of the most prominent early adopters of the system, but announced a year and a half into the system's life that he was dropping it due to an issue he described as an 'Illusion of Choice'. Effectively, he believed the system locked player builds into an MMO-style 'rotation' that meant doing anything outside of the same rote actions in sequence was too punishing, and lead to a stagnant gameplay loop. The video caused a stir amongst the community and was widely condemned, especially after he released a follow up video detailing some white room maths comparing the system to ''Dungeons and Dragons'' 5th Edition, and got multiple rulings and calculations in ''both'' systems wrong. While the videos have since been largely considered bunk and it was eventually revealed by Cody's own players that it was in fact ''him'' ruling the system improperly that lead to many of his issues [[note]]said players explained that they actually still play the system under a different GM[[/note]], the damage the videos did to the game's reputation was wide-reaching, and to this day experienced players are forced to spend an inordinate amount of time debunking the videos to prospective onboarders who've seen them that the game doesn't fall into this trope wholesale. On the flipside, there are some long-term players (usually those who are lapsed or close to lapsing on the game) who think Cody had a point, even if his own examples were flawed. To them, the game's tight power caps, tougher monsters, more stringent character roles, and anti-munchkin rules that can lead to ObviousRulePatch and StopHavingFunGuys situations force players into a level of optimisation and styles of gameplay that don't necessarily match the experience they want, at worst devolving into the exact rote repeditive actions Cody accused the game of.

** Aroden. While he ''did'' help create the Azlanti civilization and slew numerous [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils demon lords]] and other monsters, he also [[WithFriendsLikeThese often left his followers high and dry in times of need,]] and when the woman who was basically his best friend was turned into an evil lich slave of [[SorcerousOverlord Geb]], he [[WhatTheHellHero didn't lift a finger to help her]]. The second edition adventure path ''Extinction Curse'' only makes him look worse, namely [[spoiler: in order to make Azlanti inhabitable, he stole five life giving orb-things from the Darklands and only left one, thinking it would enough to sustain the native Xulgaths (Troglodytes). It wasn't, and the race nearly went extinct, and they hate humans as a result.]]

** Sarenrae is never referred to in anything but a positive light and presented as unambiguously Good, but she tends to have some of the most unpleasantly militarist followers outside of Hell's employ. Notable actions include attempting to slaughter or forcibly convert any believers in the Osiriani gods to gain more power for her as well as actively hunting down possible infant incarnations of a messiah among the oppressed peoples of Casmaron ([[Literature/TheBible King Herod]]-style), and it's stated that they hate ''all'' undead, even good ones.

** The Prismatic Ray pantheon (Consisting of [[LadyOfWar Sarenrae]], [[LoveGoddess Shelyn]], and [[StarPower Desna]] in a [[{{Polyamory}} gay polycule]] that focuses on protecting the innocent, fighting evil, and adding beauty to the world.) hardly has any mention in canon and was only created on-the-spot during a Paizo blog post as an example for how a cleric worshipping a pantheon would work in 2nd Edition. Despite this, the pantheon remains a very popular choice among those playing faith-based characters, especially among the game's {{LGBTFanbase}}. The three goddesses have been especially welcomed among new players migrating to 2E from ''Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition'', who were surprised at such positive LGBT representation among Paizo's characters.

* ItsHardSoItSucks: In an ironic inverse to the above, 2nd Edition is accused of this. However, while some of it can come down to issues in the early adventure design[[note]]the first year and a half of the game was notorious for overtuned encounters, with ''Fall of Plaguestone'' in particular becoming an infamous newbie killer despite being billed as a starter adventure at the system's launch[[/note]], in reality the core design of the system prevents outscaling enemies around your level in a way that means you ''have'' to engage in the more strategic and mechanical elements of the game just for your characters to survive, let alone win. This can be exhausting for players who just want a light-hearted beer and pretzels game, or who find forced engagement with the higher-end meta stifling. A clever [=GM=] can simply lower the stats of a creatures, or reskin a weaker one with the aesthetic of a more powerful one to give the players that CurbStompBattle feel, but this requires the GM knowing to do that, and savvy players who know how the system works will quickly catch on that's what's being done. Ultimately, players who don't want to feel the challenge is purely up to the whim of the [=GM=] will chaffe hard against the system, and resent their lack of autonomy in being able to overcome its maths and mechanics through builds and system mastery.

* StopHavingFunGuys: 2nd Edition's detractors effectively consider it the ultimate 'Stop Having Fun' edition of [=DnD=]-likes. While the game is tightly balanced, with interlocked stipulations to prevent munchkins and powergamers from breaking or exploiting the game, some players find it overbearing to the point its stifles fun for the sake of balance. Some of its harshest critics accuse fans and Paizo themselves of being too scared of [[{{Munchkin}} Pun Pun the Kobolds]] and [[InsaneTrollLogic peasant railguns]] for their own good, or it being designed for [=GMs=] that are salty about their CreatorsPet boss villains being one shot by players, so they rely on the more heavily-restricted power cap and [[ObviousRulePatch obvious rule patches]] like incapacitate to stop them from winning through out-of-band damage and/or save-or-suck mechanics.

*** Many would pick a gnome flickmace for a Fighter, to the point where it became a [[MemeticMutation meme in the community]], at least in the pre-remastered version. Gnome Flickmaces belong to the flail group, which has an already powerful critical specialization effect, namely knocking a creature prone on a critical hit. Fighters are more likely to score critical hits than other martials as they are expert in martial weapons instead of just being trained, and though the gnome flickmace is an advanced weapon where Fighters are only trained in, they can become expert in the weapon by taking certain feats like humans' Unconventional Weaponry, meaning that they would be more likely to score critical hits and get the critical specialization effect once they reach level 5. Additionally, since Fighters have Attack of Opportunity / Reactive Strike, this means if the creature tries to get up afterwards, [[CycleOfHurting the Fighter could strike at them again, potentially landing another critical hit, causing the creature to waste that action and take more damage]]. What ultimately makes the gnome flickmace absolutely broken is the combination of the Reach and the Sweep traits, where the fighter could bring a lot of enemies around them down to their feet, so the others could gang up on them. The remastered version mitigated this a bit, where the flail critical specialization effect calls for a saving throw to avoid being knocked prone instead.

** Another name that gets applied to the First Edition of the game is "Mathfinder", a (usually) affectionate dig at the fact that the game mechanics basically revolve around stacking modifiers to the Moon, which can mean a lot of math every round[[note]]In Second Edition there is a much greater focus on ability variety with vastly simplified mathematics, meaning it doesn't get this epithet very often[[/note]].