Most of the things I'm about to say have been said many times on this message board, but now that the initial flurry of Alpha release posts has died down a little, I'd like to take a moment to "cast my vote" so to speak.
I'm pretty much committed to Pathfinder, so regardless of how it turns out, I'll still be buying a copy. I'd just like to write out my wishlist for the project for whatever that is worth. Thanks for reading.
Let me start by saying that I loved the changes. Every one of them. But I'm the kind of person who loves change for no other reason than to have change. I'm realistic enough to know that most people don't feel that way and, in fact, most people hate change. Therefore, I grudgingly vote to have as few changes as possible to maximize backward compatability.
Races - pp. 4-7
As much as I love them, I vote to scale back the changes to the races. Many seem to feel the half-elf is underpowered compared to the rest of the races, and I see what they are saying, but in the games I run, half-elf is the most popular PC choice for race for some reason. If most people really think it's necessary to give the half-elves a boost, then fine, but I'd prefer the races get scaled back to PHB 3.5.
I would, however, like to see some additional Pathfinder-influenced races added. PHB gnomes should probably originate from some other continent, but Varisian gnomes should have more fey-like abilities, like maybe a +2 to Charisma instead of Con and other, different flavor abilities.
I'd like to see some kind of Shifter-like race (a la Eberron) that originates primarily from the Lycanthrope town of Nybor.
I'd like to see some kind of Warforged-like race, recently discovered in a comatose state in ancient (Sloth) Thassilonian ruins.
I'd especially like to see an LA+0 Planetouched race or races. Devil-blooded people might originate from "Devil-haunted Cheliax" while Genie-blooded people might originate from Qadir. I've seen plenty of opportunity for other types as well. Nualia was an aasimar. There seems to be mention of Rakshasa crossbreed in Korvosa, so there are plenty of possibilities.
In all, I like the changes too much to throw them away, but I think it would be better to leave the races mostly unchanged, but include an Appendix at the back of the book or chapter titled something like "Option: More Powerful Races" with all of these changes in them.
Classes - pp. 8-19
Again, beautiful work here, excellent ideas. But also again, I'd like the classes left mostly alone, maybe with a few things added to fill out the "Dead Levels." Maybe give the Fighter just a little extra attention more than the others. Then throw in an appendix "Option: More Powerful Classes."
I would like to see additional Pathfinder-themed Base Classes. Really, the more the better. Not really a fan of Prestige classes. In fact, I kind of hate them, but a few carefully chosen ones may not be inappropriate.
Skills - pp. 20-31
The combining, adding and subtracting of skills that's been done seems fine to me. I don't see any reason to backtrack on that one. I don't see a reason for the fly skill, but then I don't think I know the full story on that one. However, I feel very strongly that the skill point assigning method of the PHB 3.5 is really the way to go here, but please include the skill assigning rules listed in the Alpha documents as an optional rule.
Feats - pp. 31-39
I haven't studied the feats enough to form an educated opinion on them one way or another. But I know I really like some of the new ones!
Combat - pp. 40-45
Many of the combat rules certainly needed some work and there's some good ideas here. The only one at this point that I wish was scaled back is the Cover rules. I don't really like variable cover rules and thought it was a good change when they got rid of them in the move from 3.0 to 3.5. If you are engaging in any kind of combat, you have to come out from behind cover to a certain extant to participate, so regardless of amount of cover, you just get a +4. The only exception to this is something like an Archer's slit. Okay sure, that should probably provide more cover, but I've always ruled that they still just get +4, but you can't really see them, so attacking them gets a %50 miss chance for full concealment and that pretty much balances out to a more realistic chance of missing an archer behind a slit.
Spells - pp. 46-59
Some of this falls under the purview of changes to Class. It pains me to say, but the domain and specialist powers may need to be relegated to optional rules, as much as I love them. I've heard several convincing arguments that spellcasters were nerfed in the change from 2nd to 3rd edition, so, I don't know, maybe keep them, but only after long and careful consideration of who might be alienated by such drastic changes to the class.
The Spells themselves certainly need fixing. I don't feel I've given sufficient time and study to what you've done here to say for sure that the changes are appropriate, but my initial impression is very good.
Conclusion:
I'm pretty much married to Pathfinder at this point, so almost no matter what's been decided, I'll come along like a good fanboy. I would love to see lots of new content added. However, I hope that great restraint is exercised when determing to change something to protect backward compatability as much as possible. Thanks for making a product that gives my passion for the hobby a renewed vigor.