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Oh sorcerer is stronger without a doubt, the psychic spell list is nothing compared to the sorcerer/wizard spell list. Aside from both being d6 psychic casters they aren't really related. They serve completely different purposes, psychic is stuck as mental powers and amplifying their spells + occult powers while sorcerer is just Whatever powers you want.
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I find it interesting that PF would be called more homogenized than 4th, considering that the powers in 4th only did damage, inflicted condition (save ends) or moved the user or the target.
Reincarnation dicipline does a nice job of dealing with the Sorcerer list being better. It picks any spell list and grabs a single spell known from it (at least one less than current max spell level). You can change the spell known every day, and change the spell list every level.
Yeah, a reincarnation discipline amnesiac archetype Psychic has better spell flexibility than a sorcerer, with access to important occasional use spells that don't make sense as permanent spells known. You can grab stuff like Permanency and Create Demiplane during downtime and then swap in something spammable for adventuring.
I kind of regard Amnesiac as a mandatory Psychic archetype, the flexibility is worth the small chance of a lost action in combat since I'd mostly use the amnesiac slots for utility spells anyway.
Another reason Psychic casters are competitive and different than Sorcerers is that with a two feat investment they have a relatively good chance after the recent FAQ on identifying spells of casting spells in a crowd, which is much harder or has a big metamagic feat investment for divine/arcane casters.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/cunning-caster
Not very recent, but I can recall a setting that uses something similar to D&D/Pathfinder's 'fire and forget' magic system. It was Roger Zelazny's Amber books, specifically the ones in which Merlin (no relation to the Arthurian legend) was the main character. He described preparing his magic as 'hanging' spells, in which he would complete 99% of the lengthy ritual required to cast the spell but leave out a trigger word that would complete the casting at a later time. If any of you haven't read the Amber series, you should give them a shot.
That being said, I think the magic of just about every other fantasy setting I've come across would be better represented by spell points. I recently ran a game in which I homebrewed a point-based casting system. The players unanimously agreed it was superior to the clunky spell slot system, and I think it made some of them interested in playing a caster when they otherwise wouldn't be.
In regards to the OP, I agree with most of your sentiment. After seeing how they went in a totally different direction with the Kineticist, I was really disappointed that all the other classes adhered to Paizo conventions so strongly.
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Not very recent, but I can recall a setting that uses something similar to D&D/Pathfinder's 'fire and forget' magic system. It was Roger Zelazny's Amber books, specifically the ones in which Merlin (no relation to the Arthurian legend) was the main character. He described preparing his magic as 'hanging' spells, in which he would complete 99% of the lengthy ritual required to cast the spell but leave out a trigger word that would complete the casting at a later time. If any of you haven't read the Amber series, you should give them a shot.
That being said, I think the magic of just about every other fantasy setting I've come across would be better represented by spell points. I recently ran a game in which I homebrewed a point-based casting system. The players unanimously agreed it was superior to the clunky spell slot system, and I think it made some of them interested in playing a caster when they otherwise wouldn't be.
In regards to the OP, I agree with most of your sentiment. After seeing how they went in a totally different direction with the Kineticist, I was really disappointed that all the other classes adhered to Paizo conventions so strongly.
Modern day "Vancian" would actually be much better described as "Zelaznian" since Merlin's description of preparing his spells is closer to anything you might see in D&D/PF than anything Vance wrote. I actually made the point once that true Vancian casting as described in Vance's own books assumes that even very powerful spellcasters have a finite amount of mental space, and more powerful spells actually "eat up" space that could otherwise be used for multiple smaller spells, ironically meaning that Vance's magic would probably be best portrayed by a point based system that requires you to assign your points at the beginning of the day. I think Drop Dead Studios' Spheres of Power actually has a casting tradition like this that's pretty much right on the money for how Vance portrays magic.
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On the psychic, it probably was supposed to be the psychics equivalent to the wizard/sorcerer for the principle of spell power progression. Paizo never intended to muscle in on the psionics created by dreamscarred and therefore did not as much. Let's not make mountains out of molehills here.
Is it the most disappointing class of occult adventures. Yes, but this is a book with some of the most interesting class bases this side of paizo's 3rd party support. It's kind of like complaining about one nice slice of cake not being as good as a massively delicious chocolate gateaux(the metaphor is very representative of my tastes but you get the idea).
Do spell slots have issues. Yes.
Are there better casting systems. Yes.
Should paizo then tear up all the products they have made up to this point and rewrite all the materials to incorporate all of these other better casting systems. No.
That's my point here. You have to take some of the bad with the good, because otherwise all aspects of consistancy and history that help make a game excellent end up flying out the window and you are left with nobody really is happy about. You can use 3rd party support and other products to help make the game you want to play, but respect the fact that other people might not want to play the exact same way you do, with the exact same systems you do. They have just as much right to enjoy the game ay you do.
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And as for the Kineticist, I think the biggest difficulty the class has more to do with the fact that many of the individual elements shared similar abilities and skills, that necessitated a lot of copy pasting of skills. I actually like the Kineticist and would defininatly like to see it expanded to include a greater variety of elements, powers and abilities.
But considering the fact that it needed to share space with quite an assortment of new classes, archetypes, rules, feats, spells, items and other things, I completely understand why paizo elected for skimming it down to expand on latter, rather than giving us a book will 1000 pages of material.
I'm disappointed that the Faith option sucks and you can't turn your psychic info a decent healer.
I'm disappointed that the Faith option sucks and you can't turn your psychic info a decent healer.
The Faith options sucks as a healer, I wouldn't say it sucks. And you can heal very well once you hit level 18 and get Miracle...
Pain discipline is very good at self healing, Self Perfection is meh at the same, with the exception of removing negative levels without paying a material component cost.
All Psychics have Healing Warmth on their spell list, which allows a slow d8 per caster level healing (max 10d8) per standard action. Other than the slowness, that's actually good. 10d8 at 10th level vs. 4d8+10 for a 10th level Cleric casting a same level Cure Critical Wounds. In combat healing isn't smart, so even Clerics should be doing it this way.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/h/healing-warmth
For removing status effects in combat you have Placebo Effect. It won't make your life easier after you win, but it'll let you survive to worry about that problem.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/placebo-effect
Once you have 6th level spells you can use Withdraw Affliction to remove poison, diseases, and curses.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/w/withdraw-affliction
I'm not going to tell you that Temporary Resurrection is a good choice of spell known to replace Raise Dead, though.
I'm disappointed that the Faith option sucks and you can't turn your psychic info a decent healer.The Faith options sucks as a healer, I wouldn't say it sucks. And you can heal very well once you hit level 18 and get Miracle...
Pain discipline is very good at self healing, Self Perfection is meh at the same, with the exception of removing negative levels without paying a material component cost.
All Psychics have Healing Warmth on their spell list, which allows a slow d8 per caster level healing (max 10d8) per standard action. Other than the slowness, that's actually good. 10d8 at 10th level vs. 4d8+10 for a 10th level Cleric casting a same level Cure Critical Wounds. In combat healing isn't smart, so even Clerics should be doing it this way.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/h/healing-warmth
For removing status effects in combat you have Placebo Effect. It won't make your life easier after you win, but it'll let you survive to worry about that problem.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/placebo-effect
Once you have 6th level spells you can use Withdraw Affliction to remove poison, diseases, and curses.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/w/withdraw-affliction
I'm not going to tell you that Temporary Resurrection is a good choice of spell known to replace Raise Dead, though.
I was unaware of Healing Warmth, doing research now.
That said, because of the way the ability is worded they do not get access to wands which is the main thing that sucks.
Personally, I did NOT want revamped Psionics. Did not like that system, though I did rather like the Psychic Warrior of 3.5.
Initially, I was very reluctant to get into another magic-type. However, it grew on me as the print date approached and I ended up racing around town on the street date to purchase it. I rarely pay full price for hard bound PF books, but I did this one and do not regret it. Psychic magic is just fine, thank you. Refreshing to have a 3rd type, IMO.