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So feats are great, everyone loves them. Except at character level up. My group absolutely hate having to make 1 feat choice out of the hundreds of feats, they literally sit there looking at the feats and become paralyzed with indecision. It doesn't help that all the feats are mooshed together in one fat repository in the core rule book, that's combat, magic, crafting, high bab, high stat, improve feat, skill and racial feats that aren't coherently arranged.
Is there a simple, sorted format for feats available somewhere? Like for example if I had a rouge player that is only interested in skill feats is there a print out I can give him of JUST the skill feats and for the fighter can I have a print out of JUST the combat feats and for the wizard a print out of JUST the magic feats etc?
Use the filter on d20pfsrd to quickly sift through.
There's always http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats, which sorts the feats that way. Of course, there are still hundreds of feats from countless sources listed there, but it will at least help sort things by category.
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Yep, online filtering is your friend.
You can also download that list to a spreadsheet and then do whatever you want with it.
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they literally sit there
Are... are you guys leveling up during the game, and sitting around waiting for each other? You're not supposed to do that. Fixing that would solve the problem. From the rules:
A character advances in level as soon as he earns enough experience points to do so—typically, this occurs at the end of a game session, when your GM hands out that session's experience point awards.
You do not have to do that, and I'm not suggesting that you must. However, I am suggesting that the authors of the book were smart enough to anticipate the problem, and gave us an official way to handle the issue.
People are supposed/intended to level up at home, on their own, as the "game away from the game." They are supposed to be free to spend hours & hours going over things if they wish, or spend 1 minute just taking the very first thing that seems reasonable, etc. Whatever feels comfortable for them, they should do.
I guess if your whole group decided to do this together, then they have, but then they get issues like this. They kinda need to let go of one or the other. Cake-eating is causing problems.
Class guides usually suggests what feats you should pick up - take a look.
And don't forget: this isn't a video game. Not having the most maximized character possible, i.e. picking the greatest possible feat every time won't ruin your experience.
If still in doubt, just pick up class specific stuff: extra hexes, extra revelations, extra spells, etc.
they literally sit thereAre... are you guys leveling up during the game, and sitting around waiting for each other? You're not supposed to do that. Fixing that would solve the problem. From the rules:
A character advances in level as soon as he earns enough experience points to do so—typically, this occurs at the end of a game session, when your GM hands out that session's experience point awards.You do not have to do that, and I'm not suggesting that you must. However, I am suggesting that the authors of the book were smart enough to anticipate the problem, and gave us an official way to handle the issue.
People are supposed/intended to level up at home, on their own, as the "game away from the game." They are supposed to be free to spend hours & hours going over things if they wish, or spend 1 minute just taking the very first thing that seems reasonable, etc. Whatever feels comfortable for them, they should do.
I guess if your whole group decided to do this together, then they have, but then they get issues like this. They kinda need to let go of one or the other. Cake-eating is causing problems.
I try to do this, but I have had sessions where more than 1 level was gained during the session, or we end 2-3hrs of play from level (I usually play 8-9hr sessions), in this case I ask them to bring a leveled up version of the character also, which the OP could do also.
People are supposed/intended to level up at home, on their own, as the "game away from the game."
That's great and all with your veteran D&D buddies where this all makes sense and looking at excel power charts is inherently fun but when you've got people who's game experience is Mario Kart and Monopoly it's a little different. Yes they are eager to play but no they are not keen on leveling up and daft they be if they try to do it alone.
We typically level up either at the end or the beginning of the session, they've played the beginner box so they understand the gist of how to play but the beginner box is pretty much auto-level up. Now that they have real character sheets and stuff the game has taken on a real headache mode for everyone involved.
While I appreciate that there's free resources like deetwentyperferesserd or whatever telling people to look at a 8,000 word plus chart like this
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/feat-tree
Is literally paralyzing.
I was thinking more along the lines of
IF YOU HAVE: Power Attack
> Cleave
> Improved Bull Rush
> Improved Drag
> Improved Overrun
> Improved Sunder
ADDITIONALLY:
>> BAB+1 Str13 > Shield Of Swings
>> BAB+1 Str13 > Furious Focus
>> BAB+1 Str15 > Pushing Assault
>> BAB+6 > Bloody Assault
>> BAB+6 > Death Or Glory
I dunno, if there's nothing simplier I guess I'll have to just micromanage them for the rest of forever.
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People are supposed/intended to level up at home, on their own, as the "game away from the game."That's great and all with your veteran D&D buddies where this all makes sense and looking at excel power charts is inherently fun but when you've got people who's game experience is Mario Kart and Monopoly it's a little different. Yes they are eager to play but no they are not keen on leveling up and daft they be if they try to do it alone.
We typically level up either at the end or the beginning of the session, they've played the beginner box so they understand the gist of how to play but the beginner box is pretty much auto-level up. Now that they have real character sheets and stuff the game has taken on a real headache mode for everyone involved.
While I appreciate that there's free resources like deetwentyperferesserd or whatever telling people to look at a 8,000 word plus chart like this
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/feat-tree
Is literally paralyzing.
I was thinking more along the lines of
IF YOU HAVE: Power Attack
> Cleave
> Improved Bull Rush
> Improved Drag
> Improved Overrun
> Improved Sunder
ADDITIONALLY:
>> BAB+1 Str13 > Shield Of Swings
>> BAB+1 Str13 > Furious Focus
>> BAB+1 Str15 > Pushing Assault
>> BAB+6 > Bloody Assault
>> BAB+6 > Death Or GloryI dunno, if there's nothing simplier I guess I'll have to just micromanage them for the rest of forever.
People are going to be lining up to help you after that post.
For what it's worth, Archives of Nethys has a much better search function and filtering ability. Just checking off Feats and searching for "Power Attack" gives a long list of results. But that's a free online resource like d20peefersed.
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If they're really that new, why not ask them what they want their character to do and either level them up for them or pre-emptively sketch out a couple of paths they could take, explaining what it will let them do and having em choose from choices you intentionally narrow.
I would suggest taking a look at Hero Lab if you want an easy way to quickly level up characters. It is a little expensive, but it will give you a list of all available feats that your character qualifies for (for the books that you have purchased in hero lab).
Alternatively, I would suggest having all your players sit down and plan out your feat selections for your character's entire lifetime in a single sitting. For every level. That way you will already know what you're getting when you level up.
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People are going to be lining up to help you after that post.
I admit, you made me laugh out loud at that deadpan delivery.
For the original poster, look, if you're going to deride actually useful sites that people suggest, then you're not going to get the help you need. So, maybe that's just the conclusion you need to have: the full (not beginner-box) Pathfinder is not the right game for your group. While you are on a Pathfinder forum, I don't think anybody here is going to try to oversell it or convince you to stick with something that isn't right for you. So you will have to make it right for you, and if you can't (or won't) then that's just how it is.
To be blunt, if your players are Mario Kart gamers and they expect to keep it at Mario Kart levels, then they need to play Mario Kart. If they are willing to go outside of Mario Kart mindset, then they can have a richer game with Pathfinder. But Pathfinder isn't intended to be point-and-click easy. It's intended to be read-and-explore interesting. They're different things.
Personally, I'd show the previous paragraph to your players, and let them get a sense of reality and fairly decide if this is still a viable game for them. Maybe reading it, they want to go back to Monopoly. All decisions are fair game, since we're talking about a person's free time and/or gaming/entertainment time.
Here is another guide, an official guide, for character building. However, it's 160 pages and still involves reading. But it does offer some good build advice if you can convince players to use it. As for this:
That's great and all with your veteran D&D buddies where this all makes sense and looking at excel power charts is inherently fun but when you've got people who's game experience is Mario Kart and Monopoly it's a little different. Yes they are eager to play but no they are not keen on leveling up and daft they be if they try to do it alone.
...that was pre-emptively answered in my post:
I guess if your whole group decided to do this together, then they have, but then they get issues like this. They kinda need to let go of one or the other. Cake-eating is causing problems.
In other words, yeah, OK, you guys do it that way, but then it's expected you will have these problems. You can cobble together sites like the ones you deride, but that's only a partial solution, and in your case a completely not-acceptable solution, so the game offers you very little alternative. The game expects you to make choices that you aren't making, so you've exhausted what it offers. So we come back to you have to let go of one or the other:
- let go of doing it together so that everyone can take time to learn at their own pace, or
- do it together and let go of being timely
I suppose there is a 3rd option:
- do it together, set a timer, and mandate that everyone is done at the timer, and if their characters suck, everyone accepts the suck
Again, if your group isn't willing to make some choices here, it really boils down to cake-eating: trying to have all benefits and accepting no downsides, until all the mutually-exclusive choices implode and the group falls apart.
If there's any chance your players will level up during a session, it helps to have a pre-leveled version of the character on hand.
In general, I tell new players to focus on what they want to do, then use the feat searches/filtering to look at feats that effect just those things. So if you want to be a grappler, filter the feat list on "grapple".
I am a huge fan of Hero Lab, too. In addition to the prerequisite checking, it also has a decent search for each item. It's also very handy for making different iterations of a character and comparing them.
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I think what you're looking for is probably the Pathfinder Strategy Guide, sounds like exactly what you need. It has detailed info on suggested feats, spells and such for leveling in multiple paths for each class.
Don't level up in the middle of a session. Bad idea. Tell them they leveled up at the end of the session and then they have until the next session to figure it out on their own time.
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Hero Lab is a beautiful tool if you want to invest in it.
People are going to be lining up to help you after that post.
I didn't put points into intimidate for nothing you know.
If they're really that new, why not ask them what they want their character to do and either level them up for them or pre-emptively sketch out a couple of paths they could take, explaining what it will let them do and having em choose from choices you intentionally narrow.
This is a sensible idea, I think if I just have them build a level 7 character and take photocopies of each sheet as we build it it should make things a lot quicker.
If they are willing to go outside of Mario Kart mindset, then they can have a richer game with Pathfinder. But Pathfinder isn't intended to be point-and-click easy. It's intended to be read-and-explore interesting.
They are very much willing. Their appetite was whet with the beginner box but that dried out a bit as they moved to the full version. I understand that Pathfinder is more in depth and I appreciate the mechanical intricacies it affords. I looked into moving to D&D5 but they're already comfortable with Pathfinder terminology so I don't want to switch games on fledgling players. It's just frustrating that the practical depth makes the game inaccessible without a large amount of prior learning.
Again, if your group isn't willing to make some choices here, it really boils down to cake-eating: trying to have all benefits and accepting no downsides, until all the mutually-exclusive choices implode and the group falls apart.
I just want the cake to be nicely presented and evenly proportioned is all. And baked, not boiled.
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The class and build guides exist for a reason.
http://zenithgames.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-comprehensive-pathfinder-guides .html
Also I always plan out a character with leveled up character sheets typically 2 levels in advance.
I think guides are a great solution. I use them all the time.
They are very much willing. Their appetite was whet with the beginner box but that dried out a bit as they moved to the full version. I understand that Pathfinder is more in depth and I appreciate the mechanical intricacies it affords. I looked into moving to D&D5 but they're already comfortable with Pathfinder terminology so I don't want to switch games on fledgling players. It's just frustrating that the practical depth makes the game inaccessible without a large amount of prior learning.
Do you have access to The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Strategy Guide? It seems to me that was pretty much designed for people like your players. It's probably not going to result in the most powerful characters possible, but I found it a good introduction to the mindset of "building" a character.
I usually just make each decision as to the development of my character in isolation from the others I've made, which doesn't really work very well in Pathfinder and can also result in the paralysis you've encountered. The strategy guide was a good introduction to the concept of constructing a character in a particular direction and making choices which worked well with other choices. It also helped cement the idea of pre-requisites, which wasn't an idea I fully appreciated until I built a couple of mid-high level PF characters. (Again, I'm talking mindset, not effectiveness).
they literally sit thereAre... are you guys leveling up during the game, and sitting around waiting for each other? You're not supposed to do that. Fixing that would solve the problem. From the rules:
A character advances in level as soon as he earns enough experience points to do so—typically, this occurs at the end of a game session, when your GM hands out that session's experience point awards.You do not have to do that, and I'm not suggesting that you must. However, I am suggesting that the authors of the book were smart enough to anticipate the problem, and gave us an official way to handle the issue.
People are supposed/intended to level up at home, on their own, as the "game away from the game." They are supposed to be free to spend hours & hours going over things if they wish, or spend 1 minute just taking the very first thing that seems reasonable, etc. Whatever feels comfortable for them, they should do.
I guess if your whole group decided to do this together, then they have, but then they get issues like this. They kinda need to let go of one or the other. Cake-eating is causing problems.
This is a fact of life for our games, sadly. I'm pretty much the only one who can guarantee to be able to spend time on the game outside of our sessions. We frequently begin the session with everyone else opening their bags for the first time since last week.
It's possible to make this a feature rather than a bug though - if everyone levels together and the group is good at giving and taking advice, it can be a good way to learn the rules of an RPG (in our experience). Albeit it probably works better with a simpler game than Pathfinder.
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It may look like there's a bajillion feats worth choosing but, once they become more familiar with the game, your group will likely find that there are really a rather small handful. Most people end up using a lot of the same feats over and over because some of them are just more useful or at least less situational than the rest of the dross.
I'm not sure how long you've been playing but your players will learn however it is a big game and requires a fair bit of investment. It is possible that PF is not the right game for your players however it seems more likely that you are being impatient based on the tone of your posts. They didn't start out doing everything you mentioned that they can do with ease now so it seems fair to say that they will, eventually, be choosing feats with ease as well.
If they fear making the wrong choice, perhaps allowing them retrain freely would be helpful. Being able to ditch that feat they though was going to do a certain thing but just didn't work out as they anticipated might mitigate their analysis paralysis.
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If they fear making the wrong choice, perhaps allowing them retrain freely would be helpful. Being able to ditch that feat they though was going to do a certain thing but just didn't work out as they anticipated might mitigate their analysis paralysis.
I think that's good advice. I'll always let a player switch out a mistake he made in character creation, no questions asked. Provided there's nobody out trying to finagle some benefit from temporarily learning something, who is harmed by allowing 'take backs'? Some of us don't learn well from theory but have to see it in practise to really understand.
Here is another guide, an official guide, for character building. However, it's 160 pages and still involves reading.
I think what you're looking for is probably the Pathfinder Strategy Guide
Do you have access to The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Strategy Guide?
This looks pretty good. It's a bit heavy on the reading but I think it has a decent outline for what people want while still giving them flexibility on their characters. I'll have to look into it some more but this seems like it might solve my problem.
This is a fact of life for our games, sadly. I'm pretty much the only one who can guarantee to be able to spend time on the game outside of our sessions. We frequently begin the session with everyone else opening their bags for the first time since last week.
Mmm, this is exactly the case with me. I think it's unfair to expect people to understand the Pathfinder system- even after quite a few games. Most people just want to roll dice and hit goblins which is fair enough; this is a 'game' after all.
I'll always let a player switch out a mistake he made in character creation, no questions asked. Provided there's nobody out trying to finagle some benefit from temporarily learning something, who is harmed by allowing 'take backs'? Some of us don't learn well from theory but have to see it in practise to really understand.
I might apply this to my current group and simply allow them to rebuild their character if they don't like something, though this means more looking at the feats section at least they can play knowing their can 'take back' if they don't like it.
Thanks for the help everyone. I'll see if this works out for my group now. :)
Maybe stick with the beginner box, possibly with a few house rules, until you reach level 5?
This looks pretty good. It's a bit heavy on the reading but I think it has a decent outline for what people want while still giving them flexibility on their characters. I'll have to look into it some more but this seems like it might solve my problem.
They probably won't need to read the whole thing, much of the strategy guide is broken down by class. A wizard for example has about 9 pages of dedicated advice walking him through the steps to make a level 1 character and how to level him up, with suggestions for feats, skills and spells. These are quite detailed up to level 5 or so, and then they gradually become more sporadic as the player is more experienced and better able to make his own choices.
There's also a 36 page chapter detailing "playing the game", breaking down how the game works (with page references to the relevant rules sections) and offering useful tips and tactics. This section is really helpful and condenses a great deal of information that can be hard to find in the CRB.
While the "playing the game" section is also useful for more experienced players, the guidelines for building and leveling characters are perhaps a bit on the simplistic side for players that want to run amok with the full range of feats available in Pathfinder. Still, the strategy guide is a very useful resource for players that are new to the game. :)
I was about to suggest the Pathfinder Strategy Guide, but Suthainn already did. It will help you build effective characters, which is all you need to be successful.
A game like Pathfinder is tricky to learn, so do not become disheartened. Huge lists of feats can be rather overwhelming to look at, but filters and a quick CTRL+F search for keywords can help immensely.
Leveling up at the end of a session is, from my experience, much easier to do than in the middle of one. If that is not possible for the group, then I would plan out another level or two. No harm in being prepared and if something seems less useful later on than when you initially saw it, swap it out for some other feat you have jotted down.
EDIT: and by the time I got back to submit the post, it seems like the suggestion was already seconded. Hope everything works out Jader.
You could also try the feat tree page. That always helps me to plan my feats for the long term.
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Another thought:
Limit the options available. Corebook only, or something cuts down on options but if your players are as green as you say then they won't know what they are missing.
I tend towards two answers for new players:
Book limits or class limits. Book limits are for those that just want to play. Class limits are for those that want to play something specific or join an ongoing game. With a class limit I can put just about everything for that class in their hands have them learn the class or at worst just the specifics of it that they are using.
However their character should never be my responsibility. In you (generic) are going to play it you need to know it... Even if you are learning as we go.
What we do in our group and what has helped with a new guy is to decide what feats you are going to take for the entire time the character is going to be played (say 1-15) That way there isn't any waiting for what feat to choose at 3rd level, since it is already on your list. You can also do the same for your skills and decide ahead what your skills will be for the next several levels. It is kind of pregenerated, but it is up to the player with GM input.
If you don't wish to set an entire session aside for this, use part of one and plan out a few levels ahead. Do this for the next few game sessions until the characters are completed.
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Wow. I always have my character planned for levels in advance. Being paralyzed just would never happen.
I'd be, like, YES, FINALLY! and take it and be done like instantly.
==Aelryinth
have you thought about playing with the variant multi class rules.
basically at 1st level a person selects two classes. and instead of getting the 3rd, 7th, 11th 15th and 19th level bonus feat. you get a class ability instead.
If they fear making the wrong choice, perhaps allowing them retrain freely would be helpful. Being able to ditch that feat they though was going to do a certain thing but just didn't work out as they anticipated might mitigate their analysis paralysis.I think that's good advice. I'll always let a player switch out a mistake he made in character creation, no questions asked. Provided there's nobody out trying to finagle some benefit from temporarily learning something, who is harmed by allowing 'take backs'? Some of us don't learn well from theory but have to see it in practise to really understand.
If you trust your players not to take advantage of this, this is a great idea. If you are concerned that some players might game the take-back system, you can restrict the free retraining to just the previous level.
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If you trust your players not to take advantage of this, this is a great idea. If you are concerned that some players might game the take-back system, you can restrict the free retraining to just the previous level.If they fear making the wrong choice, perhaps allowing them retrain freely would be helpful. Being able to ditch that feat they though was going to do a certain thing but just didn't work out as they anticipated might mitigate their analysis paralysis.I think that's good advice. I'll always let a player switch out a mistake he made in character creation, no questions asked. Provided there's nobody out trying to finagle some benefit from temporarily learning something, who is harmed by allowing 'take backs'? Some of us don't learn well from theory but have to see it in practise to really understand.
I'm not even sure what "game the take-back system means," to be honest. The point of gaming is to be having fun playing an alter ego that you like to play.
If someone makes a wrong choice and produces an alter ego that they don't like to play, am I supposed to kick them out of the group, or am I supposed to force them at gunpoint to play something they don't want?
I guess I'm unusual -- I don't really think nonconsensual roleplaying is a good idea.
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I'm not even sure what "game the take-back system means," to be honest. The point of gaming is to be having fun playing an alter ego that you like to play.If you trust your players not to take advantage of this, this is a great idea. If you are concerned that some players might game the take-back system, you can restrict the free retraining to just the previous level.If they fear making the wrong choice, perhaps allowing them retrain freely would be helpful. Being able to ditch that feat they though was going to do a certain thing but just didn't work out as they anticipated might mitigate their analysis paralysis.I think that's good advice. I'll always let a player switch out a mistake he made in character creation, no questions asked. Provided there's nobody out trying to finagle some benefit from temporarily learning something, who is harmed by allowing 'take backs'? Some of us don't learn well from theory but have to see it in practise to really understand.
gaming the system would be to take cleave early levels when it's useful and then trade it out later when it becomes less useful calling it a *mistake.
I tend to come to the table at 1st level with a basic build design already plotted out. I may make tweeks here and there if the AP makes me change my mind on some element...but in general I know what feat I'm taking at what level before the AP even starts. Leveling up takes me on average 3 minutes tops.
I can definitely sympathize with OP. I've been playing and running Pathfinder for years, and feat selection is still definitely overwhelming for me.
In fact, it has gotten more overwhelming instead of less as time goes on and new books with new feats are released.
Not sure I can add anything to the already excellent advice given, just wanted to chime in and say that yeah, the huge number of feats out there without a whole lot of organization is definitely hard to slog through. :)
Have first level characters make choices about level 2 from the start of the game. Then when they do level to 2, tell them to figure out level 3....
I did this for this character, even buying things for the other class from initial funds....
It might be nice if the pfsrd feat list had a filter to strip out the crud that should never have seen ink. Obviously this might get a bit contentious...
Most of those I game with are old fogeys that actually RED the rules and have the next few levels intricately planned out.
To your point, they need to plan a level ahead and show up ready to play. A GM of my acquaintance will make you play as you on file character if you're not up to date. I got real sharp making sure my Ranger had arrows! If they can't keep their toon straight, have them mislay stuff. Imagine the Rogue upon finding he left a +2 dagger at the inn, then finds it being used to carve beef! Yes, this GM was petty, but we showed up ready to go.
Typically, our RotRL campaign hasn't leveled 'in-game', but we've set aside an hour or two to discuss possible building options, and how they'd improve the character/work with the group.
We've also done 'free retrain' if something is patently Just Not Working. Sometimes it's even been in the context of the continuing stories of the characters.
It's amazing how much more powerful some characters can become if you dump unneeded multiclassing, etc.
But it's also a learning curve, too. Intimidating at first, and contentious at the higher end, because opinions become solidified and folks stick to their guns a lot more (after all, they've been playing the character for over twelve levels at that point, etc).
But definitely don't micromanage your players on this.
It may look like there's a bajillion feats worth choosing but, once they become more familiar with the game, your group will likely find that there are really a rather small handful. Most people end up using a lot of the same feats over and over because some of them are just more useful or at least less situational than the rest of the dross.
I think that this sort of highlights what the problem is. There are a vast array of feats, and only a small percentage of them are good. Unless you already know what the good ones are, all those other feats are things you have to read though and consider before rejecting and moving on to the next one.
For less experienced players, a curated list of feats is probably a good idea. If the GM can just disseminate a couple of lists like "feats I can guarantee to you are useful" and "feats you should avoid, even if they sound good" that's going to save people a lot of headache.
I agree wholeheartedly on being lenient with retraining if people are struggling with analysis paralysis when it comes time to pick a state. (I mean, I have to build a level 5 martial for next week, and I've been thinking about feats for four days now, and I haven't even gotten to buying equipment yet, and I'm not new to this; there's just a lot to consider.)
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I've spent decades building characters and it's one of my favorite things to do. From a purely optimization perspective I can spend days effort to figure out my next level (I've actually spend 3 days mulling over if i'm sure I want to follow through on my previous decision to gain a level of Dragon Disciple and if so, what feat should I take) for a character that leveled the last time I played. However, I'd like to offer an alternative to going for true optimization (and as the GM you have it in your power to make optimization less necessary).
How about allowing the characters to develop organically and based 'solely' on what the character's are doing, or tried to do and failed to do, or wished they could do but couldn't. The more the players get into the mentality of the character the better they should be able to express what they'd like to do (and then it's up to you and them to pick from what should be a drastically narrowed down list.)
I still do this to varying degrees today:
My character stumbles across graffiti he couldn't read? He takes a point of linguistics and picks up the language he thinks it was.
My character witnesses a big bad evil guy that has a tripper bodyguard. My melee character starts looks into acquiring Combat Expertise, Improve Trip, etc.
If the cleric channels to heal an ally and inadvertently heals up a dying enemy. Pick up selective channel.
A related but slightly different technique is to identify a goal by picking a 'capstone feat' and working backwards.
I want to be that blade spinning guy that indiana jones shot and scare people... aka Dazzling Display... well that has prerequisites. So now they've got a clear path of progression pre-decided for the next few levels at the very least.
Anyway, my point is that it's OK for new players to learn the game organically rather than from optimization. In fact it's been my experience that some of the best learned lessons were learned because of 'abysmal failures'. But that's not a bad thing! Some of the most epic encounters ever were when, one or two of the characters were killed.
One of my least favorite things in Pathfinder is the speed with which advancement occurs. It's hard for a person (particularly a novice) to get a firm grasp on a character and it's abilities if it keeps gaining new abilities every other gaming session. (In PFS it only takes 3 or 6 if you play in slow mode, or only 1 session if you play a module vs a normal scenario, and in a bunch of APs it only takes 1-2 sessions o. In contrast, back in Living Greyhawk it could take 5-10 sessions to level. )
As long as you are still gaining stuff (whether it's treasure, important knowledge, prestige in the form of titles, royal accolades, land, alliances whatever, resolving side quests, whatever) you don't necessarily need to be gaining a new level every other session.
It's not RAW but you could even have characters gaining their current level's abilities over the course of one (or more) sessions. "Alright, you've gained enough XP to level, so your HP and BAB etc have increased but since you haven't yet figured out what feat you want to select we're going to leave it blank and press with the game. Maybe something in the course of today's session will give you some ideas."
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Having thought about this a bit, I think one of the big problems is that all these feats are spread over how many books? Now certainly it was anticipated this by having layers of rules so you could restrict to just the core books, etc. But in 2016 people are going to look stuff up on the internet, and they're going to stumble upon something like "alchemist" or "warpriest" or "kineticist" and think "man, that's awesome, I want to play one of those." So it's a losing battle to try to keep a lid on this stuff.
So you end up using a half-dozen or so different books for your campaign, and though working through a big pile of RPG books referring back and forth from one to another has been one of my great joys in life since like 1989, but again it's 2016 and "reading a PDF" or "looking at the SRD" is just much more exhausting than working with a physical book. Don't get me wrong, I love ebooks, I have hundreds of books on my kindle, but things that are references are much easier and more pleasant to use in the dead tree format (cookbooks are another good example here.) Electronic books are better if they're the sort of thing you start at page one and you read through until you finish, and most books are like this but the way you (or at least I) interact with RPG books is that there's a lot of flipping back and forth to compare things.
This would would point to the solution being "buy the physical books, they're a little more expensive but they look nice on the shelf" but the problem is that again because times have changed, these books are updated in a way that they never were in 1996. We used to have books with confusing text or errors and we'd have to just figure out what it means (I don't think any edition of Shadowrun has had Matrix rules that were consistent and easy to follow), but things have gotten a lot more formal and organized so when something ships with a significant error, it likely gets fixed. I mean, the ACG had what, ten pages of errata? So you're forced to either print out the errata pages and pin them inside the cover, referring to them often until you know exactly what got changed, or you have a book that's simply wrong in some places and thus an unreliable reference.
So we're left with the problem that there's a lot of information, it's not especially well organized, and there's no especially easy, reliable, or pleasant way to consume and internalize it. I"m not sure what the solution here is, I mean the history of every successful RPG ever suggests that eventually the game will collapse under its own weight so a revised edition will be needed, but I'm pretty sure Paizo (rightly) wants to avoid that for as long as they possibly can.