I haven't really been paying that much attention to the changes in Pathfinder, although I'll definitely give it a looksy when it comes out. I looked through the Beta and didn't really notice many differences. I've stayed out of these threads because I'm not really much a designer type myself and figured much better brains than I were working on it.
Can someone give me an overview of some of the changes that are likely to happen for the RPG?
Well the most obvious and likely are the changes to races and favor class mechanic. Races now get two +2 stats and one -2, humans and half-elves get a +2 of their choice. Please not that the Half-Orc is now a viable character option beyond melee warrior types.
• Favored classes do not penalize EXP awards, instead you receive a bonus (either hit point or skill point) for each level you take.
• Classes have been altered/added-to which hopefully gives players a reason to stick with a single class from 1st to 20th.
• Skills have removed the cross-class cost (double cost). Ranks start at 1 and go to 20, max rank is equal to your level. Having a skill on your class list gives a +3 bonus (making it equal to the 3.5 skill system).
• Many feats have been slightly reworked and new feats to fill combat style gaps have been added.
Again Pathfinder is a bunch of small changes which will hopefully result in a big (good)impact on play.
One of the things I've noticed that's a big change is way magic items are created. There is no longer an XP cost.
Not only that: XP cost is no longer part of the game. There is no longer any way to get XP deducted. And I really love it. Never made sense to me that doing something epic like creating an actual magic item all by myself would make me less experienced.
Races have changed. Generally, you get a net +2 ability bonus, more races get automatic proficiencies, and weapon familiarity is now a core ability for every race, not just gnomes and dwarves. There have been other changes and additions, often to support the supposed archetypal roles these classes fulfill. For example, elves now get +2 int and bonuses on spell penetration rolls, which reflects their supposed mastery of the wizardly arts.
On a related matter, favoured classes work differntly now.
Look up the classes again. Big changes there. Those classes which suffered from boring higher levels (what is there for a paladin at higher levels in 3e? Just more smite, more remove disease, and a couple of spells more.) now got a lot more abilities to shore up the ranks, a lot of fixed features have been converted into options (for example, all animal parters, like special paladin's mounts, familiars, and animal companions, can now be traded for something different; and if a class was getting a fixed bonus feat before, it can now choose from a list).
Note that BAB and HD are now linked: weak BAB means d6, average means d8, and strong d10 (with barbarians being the proverbial exception with the d12). This also means that classes like wizards and rogues are a bit more resilient now.
The Skill system has been streamlined (a huge improvement there!) so the whole half-rank thing is gone for good. Several skills have been consolidated (there are no longer separate skills for Hide and Move Silently - it's one skill called Stealth now), and there have been a couple of changes, too.
There have been changes to a bunch of feats, as well as a lot of new feats (and there will probably be more still in the finished game). A lot of these are geared towards higher levels, since the 3e core rules were a bit weak there. Plus, you get one feat at every odd level (1,3,5) now instead of one every 3 levels plus at 1st level.
The old mechanics for all those special actions like disarm, grapple, trip, and so on have been consolidated into one mechanic: combat manoeuvres. That system still needs some work, but it's definetly an improvement over the separate mechanics in 3e. Instead of remembering which one is an opposed attack role and which is a touch attack followed by a raw strength roll, or a strength versus strength/dexterity roll, or grapple roll, or.... you just make a CMB (combat manoeuvre bonus) roll against a DC dependant on the other guy's CMB.
There has also been changes to some of the spells
Also, since the old tables for character generation and advancement (i.e. XP needed to level, XP rewards for encounters, point buy values for character creation, etc.) weren't open, they made their own tables for those things. The numbers look different, but usually, they work out pretty much like the old ones.
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One of the things I've noticed that's a big change is way magic items are created. There is no longer an XP cost.Not only that: XP cost is no longer part of the game. There is no longer any way to get XP deducted. And I really love it. Never made sense to me that doing something epic like creating an actual magic item all by myself would make me less experienced.
Seriously! I got rid of most xp costs in my 3/3.5 games long ago. I instituted the Power Components option. I'm glad they got rid of it here, but I still don't know if I like the costs. Oh well, I never knew anyone to take magic item creation feats they didn't get for free anyway.
...or needed to become a Lich.
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All of the above mentioned things are good changes, but the two most impressive changes at my table have been:
1) Channel Energy. Take the old cleric's turning ability, toss out the messy table and change it to damage for undead and healing for living creatures...1d6 at first and it scales up as you level up. This has been the most widely apreciated change so far. Of course if you prefer your cleric of the negative side of the spectrum, reverse who gets healed and who gets harmed.
2) Negative Levels. In our current campaign the Cleric and the Ranger/Rogue were both hit by Vampire spawn, and got the wonderful negative levels. This is when I pulled out the PF rules and explained to everyone how the negative levels don't become permanent (Unless you just plain run out of positive levels and die but that is a different problem) You now roll a saving throw every day for each neg level you have recieved. I hadn't realized before how negative level creatures hd moved out of vogue until I pointed this out and we all sighed with relief. No more fail your save and undo your character. Now it is just ugly until you make those saves (-1 to pretty much every thing important on your character sheet for each negative level is still a pain but that just motivates the Restoration)