DnD's CR system was so bad I made an algorithm to design encounters. I still use it in our Pathfinder 2e game and am always called out by my players for changing stats. Which brings me to my only gripe with PF2e; the amount of player Meta-Gaming due to ease of access. PF2e has a lot of awesome and terrifying creatures, but if you want to keep a creature mysterious, you need to change its name.
What're you looking for? Pathbuilder2e for character creation. Pathfinder nexus from demiplane for the full dnd beyond treatment, archives of nethys for the rules free online.
As someone who has been playing TTRPG's for over 30 years most of the d20 based games have the same feel. Pathfinder 2e is a blend of PF1 (which is basically D&D 3.75) and D&D 4e. I have never found it to be any more or less stale than other systems. Even in terms of its crunchyness that is almost irrelvent given that many players these days can't even function without digital resources. At its core is it like every other d20 system, but it has far more rules to cover a lot of situations. You may find that during the course of most games that you only use 30% of the rules because you are not encountering the others. As far as equalized it is very balanced, all the classes have their niche they fill and for the most part there are very good it. That in no way means every player will be good at every class, far from it. But, they absolute biggest advantage PF2 has is in its encounter building. It actually works... long gone are the days of wondering "will the party just stomp this encounter?" It is just as easy to challenge a 1st level group as it is a 15th level group. Sure, the fights take longer because of the abilities of both the players and monsters, but again that is true in most games. For me, personally I will not go back to D&D because the DM is a player too, and DMing D&D became "not fun" because of all the work I had to put into it. But of course, everyone should play the game that fits their group, without question.
When you mention equalized, is that a way of saying balanced? if so, I'm unsure how this would be seen as a negative. I've been playing Dnd 5e and Pathfinder 2e consistently for a few years. I struggle to find more things to do than run ahead and attack in 5e, and the opportunity attacks sort of lock you in for movement. Comparatively I feel like I always have multiple options to choose from in PF2e. So I cultivated the opposite opinion, feels much less stale to me. As for roleplaying, I enjoy that equally in both systems. just depends on the storyteller and players for the most part. I assume this to be true for all systems, as I've played 5 systems so far and don't plan on sitting on a single one. How long have you been playing PF2e? what parts of it do you not enjoy?
Even though I really like PF2e and I do think it is worth it to give it a shot, I have to say this is the first time I read a critique of the system that I actually agree with. It is a bit stale and too equalized, and for sure is way crunchier than 5e, which can or cannot be your thing. Creating new characters is really fun, though, and it is kind of hard to build a bad one. And a VT with good automatization (I use Foundry) actually make it pretty easy and simple to play.
