PF2 Voluntary Ability Flaws

[Yerdiss]

Hi,

I tried to apply the optional rule for Voluntary Flaws to a new Pathfinder2 character (PF2Core, sidebar page 26). The HLO Ability Screen has info on it that, for a moment, led me to believe it would work. For example, the legend includes the greyed-out icon for "Ancestry Flaw (Counteracted)". But I couldn't quite get it done according to rule's RAW. So I would guess it's not possible after all. Since it's an optional rule, I think it's not appropriate to file as a bug report, so I'll post it here as a request.

I'll quote the official rule, for context (emphasis mine) and give an example to illustrate what I'd like to be able to do.

OPTIONAL:
VOLUNTARY FLAWS
Sometimes, it’s fun to play a character with a major flaw even if you’re not playing an ancestry that imposes one. You can elect to take two additional ability flaws when applying the ability boosts and ability flaws from your ancestry. If you do, you can also apply one additional free ability boost. These ability flaws can be assigned to any ability score you like, but you can’t apply more than one ability flaw to the same ability score during this step unless you apply both of the additional ability flaws to a score that is already receiving an ability boost during this step. In this case, the first ability flaw cancels the ability boost, and the second ability flaw decreases the score by 2. Likewise, as an exception to the normal rules for ability boosts, you can apply two free ability boosts to an ability score receiving an ability flaw during this step; the first ability boost cancels the ability flaw, and the second ability boost increases the score by 2. For example, a dwarf normally gets an ability boost to Constitution and Wisdom, along with an ability flaw to Charisma. You could apply one ability flaw each to Intelligence and Strength, or you could apply both ability flaws to Wisdom. You could not apply either additional ability flaw to Charisma, though, because it is already receiving dwarves’ ability flaw during this step.

As I read it, I would be allowed to make, say, a Rowdy Dwarf Wizard. I could begin with the free boost on intelligence (STR 10 DEX 10 CON 12 INT 12 WIS 12 CHA 8), then apply two optional flaws to wisdom to turn that into a flaw and apply the extra free boost to strength (STR 12 DEX 10 CON 12 INT 12 WIS 8 CHA 8).

Or make a Sociable Dwarf Sorcerer. After starting with the Dwarven base (STR 10 DEX 10 CON 12 INT 10 WIS 12 CHA 8), I could add two optional flaws to strength and intelligence and then put both boosts into Charisma to turn if from a flaw into a strength (STR 8 DEX 10 CON 12 INT 8 WIS 12 CHA 12).

Or finally, I could make that Dwarf just very frail and chatty by negating the constitution boost to mitigate the charisma flaw (STR 10 DEX 10 CON 12 INT 10 WIS 12 CHA 8) would become (STR 10 DEX 10 CON 8 INT 10 WIS 12 CHA 12)

If I try to paraphrase the ancenstry ability score rules, I'd say ancestry is the first adjustment of your ability scores. You'll get an initial roster of ability scores with a fixed distribution defined by the ancestry, and your first pool of free boosts/flaws. Humans have a "10/10/10/10/10/10" roster, plus a "+2/+2" pool, and other ancestries in the core book have a "12/12/10/10/10/8" roster, plus a "+2" pool. You can optionally add "+2/-2/-2" to the free ancestry pool. Then you can apply the free boosts/flaws whichever way, so long as no score is lowered below 8 or increased above 12 during the ancestry step. If I'm not direly mistaken, that covers all the cases of both the standard rule an the optional rule.

I couldn't find any explicit way to opt into adding the two flaws and one boost. I did see the option to lower scores, but that turned out to be only manually lowering the scores for flavor (which I believe was the basis for the playtest rules). HLO does state that "This ability score's starting value has been reduced below 10 as a voluntary flaw", so that's nice.
However that's where the support for this optional rule stops. Best I can do is manually apply "-2/-2" or "-4" and overspent one ancestry boost. The variant where the flaw is both mitigated and boosted is not possible at all.

It would be good if the ability screen offers a way to use this optional rule. It would give me exactly the type of flexibility I appreciate, for example when playing a character whose ancestries default flaw is the key ability for their class.

Any chance that we'd see support for this in the near future? That'd be very welcome!