Also Wizards *aren't* the only ones who cast from a book. Magi do too, so do arcanists, as do certain witches, inquisitors, hell, even *Fighters*...
Also Wizards *aren't* the only ones who cast from a book. Magi do too, so do arcanists, as do certain witches, inquisitors, hell, even *Fighters*...To be fair, the Inquisitor ones should be readily identifiable by their predisposition to bashing people over the head with said book, usually after loudly declaring that person a heretic.
Subtlety is an actual stat with mechanics in Dark Heresy.
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While not "canon" for the mechanics of Golarion vis a vis the roleplaying game, the Pathfinder Tales series indicates that this really isn't how the living breathing people in the world deal with things. In spoiler tags in case any of this ruins anything for any one.
Having read most of the Pathfinder Tales, I'm aware of basically all these examples. I'll respond in spoilers as well:
Radovan is not a spellcaster, and I specifically noted almost nobody in universe can tell the difference. Varian has a disability, of the sort the rules don't really reflect well, but he's still a Wizard and recognizable as such.
In terms of the Paladin thing, an unseen group were referred to as Paladins until they met with them, at which point only the leader was referred to that way from then on. That's more assumption than wrong usage.
The character in Winter Witch does not cast spontaneously. He casts as the low level Wizard he is. He also appears to have what's basically a super-power (in game terms, some sort of custom template). It does not work like conventional casting at all.
In the Worldwound Gambit you have a character who is very obviously a fire-based Sorcerer tell people to call him a Wizard. He is immediately corrected, by someone smart and educated, that he's a Sorcerer once someone actually hears about his powers and their source. So that one's really just more proof that this is an in-world thing. Hendreggan just wants people to think he's a Wizard.
Indeed, as proof he's a Sorcerer and not a Wizard someone even mentions him never memorizing spells from a spellbook.
Short version: None of those disprove spellcasting classes as an in-world thing. They provide evidence for people sometimes lying about what kind of caster they are, and for random peasants not being able to tell, and for martial characters
So yeah some one who perhaps studies another person might be able to reason out their "class" but even then it isn't always clear. And even if they could figure it out, the actual in world words don't necessarily equate.
The in-world words seem to equate pretty damn closely, actually. Now, accurately determining someone's Class is not something everyone can easily do (indeed, it's a Knowledge-Local check by the rules) and someone without that Knowledge dealing with an obscure Classn (so DC 10 or 15 + CR) is likely to get it wrong...but that doesn't mean they don't exist as in-world things.
Also Wizards *aren't* the only ones who cast from a book. Magi do too, so do arcanists, as do certain witches, inquisitors, hell, even *Fighters*...
What Witch Archetype gets a book?
Magi are pretty distinct from Wizards, IMO. Inquisitors are Divine and work very differently in an obvious way as well. A Child of Acavna and Amaznen might well get mistaken for a Fighter/Wizard, but that's a pretty niche example, y'know? Another good niche example is the Eldritch Scoundrel Rogue, who's probably not readily distinguishable from a Rogue/Wizard. But those are all exceptions, not the rule.
But my point was never that nobody in-universe might make a mistake. Nor that there might not be a little blurring with some weird Archetypes along the edges (heck, I specifically noted that most people couldn't tell a Wizard and Arcanist apart), it's that they were mostly distinct enough that 'Wizard' is an in-universe thing people can and do talk about (and are usually correct about given how common the Class is).