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Biggest improvement is that Pathfinder is still supported.
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Skills- although there is room for improvement, the inherent bonus for putting a rank in a class skill is an improvement by orders of magnitude over the x4 skill points at level one in 3E. 3E's skills were a huge improvement over 2E, but PF also cleaned up and combined some skills.
I actually kind of hate the skill system and always have, but I preferred the 4x skill points at level 1 thing and Rogues were much better off when Class Skills mattered. Frankly, I thought the best "skill system" was pre-Rogue (yeah, way back before the first supplement that added them), when everyone could do anything with the appropriate attribute check.
CMB and CMD- another huge improvement. 3E was such an improvement over 2E it was easy to overlook how complicated combat maneuvers were, and PF made them work better. Another improvement that could be taken further in the same direction, combat maneuvers seem to peak between levels 6 and 8. I would consider giving martial classes scaling feats for improved combat maneuvers, increasing the CMB by +2 for every five levels.
While I agree CMB/CMD is better than 3E's wall of text for each individual maneuver, I don't agree that this was an improvement over 2e. I greatly preferred the freedom the GM had in adjucating these maneuvers in previous editions.
Spells- I loved a lot of the broken spell combos in 3E (3.0's empowered simulacrum might be the most entertaining op spell I can think of), and PF still has powerful spell combos, but PF fixed some game-breaking combos.
PF is better than 3rd in this regard, but 3E crapped the bed so much when it came to spells, that Pathfinder had no room to do much more than stick an airfreshener in the mess and walk away.
In my opinion, the things Pathfinder improved most on in my eyes are:
1) Archetypes are way better than Prestige Classes in my opinion, when it comes to customizing characters.
2) I really like Alchemists, Oracles, and Witches (though I really, really miss Warlocks, Dragonfire Adepts, Binders, and Psionics in general)
3) Customer Service--no game company this big talks to their players as much as Paizo
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Archetypes. Instead of hundreds of prestige classes and dozens of base classes, just swap some things to do what you want. Also less rules books put out overall.
The PRD, including errata. Also faqs easy(-ish) to find on the company site.
CMB/CMD so much simpler to have all these wrapped up together, even if the way it scales makes it not work too well against non-humanoid opponents.
Gotten rid of dead levels for the most part. Including feats every odd level.
The skill system revamp. Really, 1/2 ranks was such a pain to figure out, especially with all the multiclassing 3e encouraged.
Sneak attack works against most things now, yay.
The bab/hit die size tie in.
Traits, retraining, words of power, all fun.
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Not being owned by WotC and controlled by Hasbro's marketing is a huge improvement imo.
Skills by far being the number 1 improvement. Maybe not such a deal when you create 1st level characters, but when you make a lot of NPCs of higher levels or new creatures with Hit Dice, it becomes a huge improvement.
With the PF system, you only need to know that a 9 HD creature can have 9 ranks in any skill and asign the ranks as you like. In the 3.5e system you have to asign all skill ranks for the 1st HD and check that you don't get over any limits, then asign all skill ranks for the 2nd HD and check that you don't get over any limits, and so on.
Pathfinder skill ranks are a massive improvement in that regard.
CMB is also a great thing. While the statistical success chances for a high optimization tactical wargame may not work out so well for some people, for groups who just want to have some simple fun exploring and interacting with NPCs, it's such a big help.
Oddly enough, I actually consider the skill system as a whole to be one of the very few things completely mucked by in the shift from 3.5 -> Pathfinder. While I appreciated the streamlining and changes to class skills, in combining and simplifying skills they removes a tremendous number of options for players. Many skills simply do not do what they once did, include far less guidance then before, or are just generally downgraded in overall applicability - which is a major disappointment.
Archtypes rather than tons of new classes was a huge step in the right direction though. A slowdown in crunch publication as a whole also helped slow the power creep of 3.5.
More freedom of design.
Back in D&D 3.0/3.5 I played a stealthy cleric. He had Dexterity 18, and thus, at low levels he could Hide and Move Silently off his Dex bonus. The entire party--cleric, rogue, rogue/sorceress, bard, ranger, barbarian, and paladin--adopted a motif of sneaking in everywhere. The paladin kept up in stealth by the party chipping in to buy her Boots of Elven Kind and Cloak of Elven Kind. My cleric had Intelligence 16, so he could afford to assign 4 skill points per level to the cross-class skills Hide and Move Silently. But sometimes he had to short the stealth skills to improve his other skills. And he could not afford the permanent experience point loss from the D&D multiclassing rules. Eventually I used a loophole: my cleric was an elf, so Wizard was a favored class. One level of Wizard and the archery feats he had been taking all along let him take the Arcane Archer prestige class, which offered more skill points and had Hide and Move Silently as class skills.
D&D made me jump through hoops like that. Pathfinder doesn't.
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I think the best change was to reduce the pace of releasing new rules.
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I much prefer the new skill-point system: you just couldn't be competent at mid to high levels in a non-class skill in 3.x, which led to unmotivated multiclassing. This frustrated me a lot. Consolidating the skills also helped, though our home games always give extra skill points as I think there are still too few.
I like at-will cantrips, and also the school, domain and bloodline powers that give low-level casters something to do once their few spells are gone. They aren't perfect yet (my sorceress has a notably useless one) but they're definitely in the right direction.
I like CMB/CMD. We always avoided manuver-using characters because the 3.x rules seemed so broken. In a recent Pathfinder game we actually had the scene where two characters open a door behind a guard's back, grab him, drag him through the door, and close it before anyone notices (okay, the Silence spell helped)--using the rules as written.
I like the attempts to unify the monster rules and to clarify what, for example, increasing or decreasing a monster's stat does to its abilities.
I really, really like that Paizo seems to listen to its players. I hadn't had that feeling about WOTC/TSR for a long time.
I much prefer the new skill-point system: you just couldn't be competent at mid to high levels in a non-class skill in 3.x, which led to unmotivated multiclassing. This frustrated me a lot. Consolidating the skills also helped, though our home games always give extra skill points as I think there are still too few.
I like at-will cantrips, and also the school, domain and bloodline powers that give low-level casters something to do once their few spells are gone. They aren't perfect yet (my sorceress has a notably useless one) but they're definitely in the right direction.
I like CMB/CMD. We always avoided manuver-using characters because the 3.x rules seemed so broken. In a recent Pathfinder game we actually had the scene where two characters open a door behind a guard's back, grab him, drag him through the door, and close it before anyone notices (okay, the Silence spell helped)--using the rules as written.
I like the attempts to unify the monster rules and to clarify what, for example, increasing or decreasing a monster's stat does to its abilities.
I really, really like that Paizo seems to listen to its players. I hadn't had that feeling about WOTC/TSR for a long time.
I agree with you.
Skills work much better. Fly? Look at the classes that have it as a class skill. They can cast Fly. Class skill, measured as a skill.
The roguish classes got devalued by this change in mechanics, but they're still useful. They're just not the only character in the party likely to have a good Bluff check.
In most parties, they still are.
Encouragement of single class builds over tons of multiclassing is something I appreciate.
Archetypes are another thing I think is good design.
"X powers" (rage powers, rogue talents, whatever) are something I like quite a lot as a design concept, even if the specifics aren't always well designed.