On the paizo's messageobard there's a subject about ambush. The situation described is: "a bunch of kobolds sets an ambush to the PCs". I think this is the kind of common situation that should be easily resolved by the system (at least for a D&D-like rpg); if the system has problem with this situation, there's no point in trying to handle any actual situation happening during an actual rpg game with this system.
The thread is 3 pages long, ie 120+ posts. And it has at least 1 children thread with 50 posts (about the "unnoticed" condition).
There's a 35-year experience DM explaining he needed 4 session of play (and several reading of the rules) to understand how it works. And still, those people thinks the system is good. The thread contains some pearls like "It is a pretty amazing and flexible system" - because obviously, a D&D-like system unable to handle an ambush in a simple way is amazing.
...
Reading the Paizo's messageboard is a bit like watching people eating their own shit. In slow motion. While agreeing the bad taste is the proof of the superior quality.
Anyway, the whole problem is: the Stealth roll to avoid being seen is the initiative roll. ie, encounter starts at the moment you roll for stealth. So it's totally possible to gain init while having noticed nothing - so you're in encounter mode, it's your turn to act, but there's nothing special (apart from the fact you hear the combat music and you're restricted to 3 action). And you shouldn't be denied your round because it would mean the surprise round is back and the surprise round was intentionally removed.
... The consensus in this case is that every single creature in pf2 has an undefectible spider-sense: they didn't notice anything but they know something is wrong and they start to look around. This is not a joke or an hyperbole, this is the actual consensus of the actual pf2 players on the actual PaizoBoard. Every single creature has an undefectible spider-sense.
And there are other problems; how do you decide where the encounter starts? Think about it: the ambushers want to start the encounter when the defending team is in the most possible disadvantageous position; if the defending team spots the ambush, they'll start the encounter from a more advantageous position (probably from further away), or maybe they can even avoid the whole encounter?
... Well they can't, since you determine if the ambush is spotted at the moment the initiative is rolled. So
you start by deciding that the ambush is successful, and then you roll to determine if the ambush is successful. There's no way to avoid the ambush since you've already determined it is successful. There's no way to start in a more advantageous position since you've already determined the ambush is successful. If the DM decide there's an ambush, you have no way to spot/avoid it. Railroad to the maxxxxx!
Now let's imagine another situation: the rogue is scouting (in the usual sense) ahead of the party (*). He arrives at the ambush place, roll init! Because it's the init roll that will determine if he spot an ambusher and if he's spotted. Let's assume he spot an ambusher but no one spots him: since encounter mode has begun (init was rolled), when it's the turn of the ambushers, their spider-sense activates and they start looking for the rogue.
Even if you sneak around an avoid notice, you can't avoid encounters. Hurray for railroad!
This is not a joke or an hyperbole: this is the actual opinion of several actual pf2 DM; like the actual 35-year-experience DM, who write: "[...] It would appear though that there is no way though using Sneak alone to achieve the condition of “Unnoticed” which is the condition most people seem to be concerned with. Personally I am content to say that it is more fun for an encounter to happen than to not happen so I like it the way it is." As I said, reading the PaizoBoard is like watching people eating their own shit in slow motion. My opinion: if after 35 years of DMing, you still think a rule that encourage railroading is a good rule, you should:
a/ stop playing rpgs - and maybe play Imperial Assault or another game where there are only scripted encounters.
b/ not breed (in order to improve the Human specie).
(*) Anyway, I don't think it's possible for the rogue to scout (in the usual sense).
There's a "scout" activity in the explorations tactics: "You scout ahead and behind the group to watch danger, moving at half speed. At the start of the next encounter, every creature in your party gains a +1 circumstance bonus to their initiative rolls."
In other words, if the rogue is scouting:
1/ he has no way to spot an ambush, or any encounter for that matter, before encounter mode starts.
2/ when an encounter starts, he start with the party - and not "ahead" nor "behind".
3/ everyone gets +1 init, because that's what scouting is about.
I sincerely think the first sentence of the activity ("You scout ahead and behind the group to watch danger") is just a catch-all to prevent anyone from
actually scouting; in other words,
if a player says "I scout ahead of the party, trying to spot hazards and ambushes", RAW and RAI the DM should deny his action by answering "OK... It seems to be the scout tactic. If an encounter starts, you'll be with the party and everyone get +1 init".
And as you can see, the scout tactic doesn't involve stealth at all. This is quite consistent, since the system prevents you from being sneaky while looking around at the same time: if the tactic is about looking around to gather information, it can't be stealthy.
Last note: this impossibility to look around and to sneak at the same time is so nonsensical
and integrated in the system, that everyone seems to enforce it for the PCs, but some posters seems not to enforce it for NPCs. There are poster explaining that if the party is sneaking, they can't spot the ambush (since they aren't looking around), but the ambushers get a roll to notice the PCs (although the ambushers are stealthy so they shouldn't be allowed to look around at the same time).
I know many games that don't use the same rules for PCs and NPCs, pf2 is the only one I know where this asymmetry is in disfavor of the PCs.
... OK, now I think I can answer Lago (and Djelai and other people who have the same interrogation):
Lago PARANOIA wrote:What does PF2 bring to the table?
pf2 removes every RPG element from pf. The game is designed to go from one encounter to another while ignoring everything the PC do in-between. It's a skirmish game (like Imperial Assault or other similar games) pretending to be a RPG, with rules designed to avoid any player input outside of combats.
If you want to play a skirmish game but your friends want to play a rpg, maybe pf2 is the game you need.
Side note 1: the skirmish part of pf2 seems good - there's a consensus among the people who have played it (including several non-fanboys) that the skirmishes are fun and the 3-action-system is cool. Maybe this consensus will change in the next 6 month or the next year, but right now it's the consensus; right now, when Yesterday's Hero explains the 3-action-system is cool, you shouldn't answer "no it isn't", you should ask yourself "why is it better than the sandard-move-swift-system ?".
Side Note 2: You can use pf2 to play rpg - you can use any skirmish game to play rpg since this is how rpg are born. But using pf2 to play rpg is just a giant Oberoni's fallacy: in order to do that, you have to ignore every rule that's not about combat (you have to ignore exploration rules, downtime rules, maybe the DC rules, etc).