Alchemists get 3 skill ranks + INT, it was erratad in a post in the General Discussion.
Wizards get 2 + INT because they have the highest INTs out there. They usually have 5 or 6 trained skills – meanwhile, say, a Fighter, with 3 + INT, has 3 or 4.
No one not focused on Cha gains bonus RP
Alchemists do
No one not focused on str gains bonus bulk
Not bulk but rogues get to eliminate the need for Str with Dex to damage.
You don't get bonus perception if your class doesn't want wis
None of the wisdom based classes start off with expert perception.
This isn't an outlier in terms of game design.
To my mind, wizards don't make sense as "skilled" classes, anyway.
Knowledgeable, sure - so give them bonuses to knowledge checks. But rogues and bards are expected to be sneaky, charismatic, quick-fingered, acrobatic, duplicitous, AND knowledgeable, while wizards are really only expected to be knowledgeable.
Paizo's methodology - which I agree with - seems to be to give high skills to the classes that are expected to have a broad area of competence, while the classes that are focused on a specific thing tend to have lower skills.
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As more and more skill feats get printed, the number of attractive options which require you to be master or higher is going to increase significantly. I figure this places the bottleneck more on "which skills are signature skills" and "non-rogues only get 9 skill increases" than on starting skills.
For a number of non-rogues, the difference between "starting at 3 trained skills" and "starting at 6 trained skills" is that the former will end up legendary at 2-3 things and largely hopeless at everything else, and the latter will end up legendary at 2-3 things and competent at a few others."
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They did errata alchemists to 3+ int I think originally those and wizards were set to 2 because they were going to be stacking int due to class demands.
Still I think wizards probably should get boosted to 3 as well they won't have the skill points to really attain high levels of skill with more than 2-3 things regardless.
One interesting thing though is even untrained as you progress in levels stops being that huge of a deal. You can still reasonably succeed at just about any normal non speciality type check. Trained unlocks some extra options for how to use skills which is nice. Beyond that it really only seems to matter a lot if you are trying to go for some speciality feat or you really want that extra +1 +2 to succeed.
I get what your saying and I think Int probably needs a bit of a boost maybe add more signature skills or something, but your statement that classes don't get class features that counterbalance their expected low stats is just wrong.
Clerics Need Wis and Cha, and likely Str or Dex and Con, Int will be the least important stat for them and they will most likely leave it at 10. They get more skills to compensate for that.
Wizards are not designed to be a combat class so they don't need Str/Dex/Con as much so a wizard is more likely to have 12 or 14 wis than a cleric is likely to have 12 or 14 intelligence and the class design accounts for that.
It's not perfect, I think Int still needs buffed overall and giving wizards 3+Int skills seems like a reasonable boost but this isn't an abnormal design principle and it is present throughout the system.
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Characters tended to have too many Trained Skills and quickly exhausted those that made sense for a character to have and just started stuffing them into any old random Skill for the heck of it.
This is a playstyle thing for sure, but some of us don't think that only certain skills make sense for any class. In my current campaign, one of my players is playing a stealth mage and loving it. I love playing extroverted party face characters regardless of my class. These options shouldn't be denied us because it doesn't fit into the tropiest stereotypes.
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I think spellcasters getting so many trained skills is the problem here. Clerics get 5 base ranks, Bards get 7, and Sorcerers (who can use the same spell list as wizards, so a better spell list can't be the balancing factor for why Wizards get fewer) get 5. Fighters, monks, and barbarians all get 3. The classes with immense out of combat utility from spells tend to get more skill ranks than classes without that utility from spells, which doesn't seem quite right.
I was pretty disappointed by Wizards and Alchemists getting fewer skills, but I was primarily disappointed by the difference between the spellcasting classes. It seemed the int-based classes were intentionally denied the benefits of their primary ability score. The lower base might be fair though, it just needs to apply to the other spellcasters as well. If Wizards, Clerics, and Sorcerers all had 3 base ranks and Bard had 5 (because of fewer spells per day and a flavor based more on skills) and Fighters, Monks, and Barbarians all had 5, I think that would be fair. Alchemists, no longer receiving that utility from the "spellcasting" they had in first edition, should probably have at least 5 as well.
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That wizards have the least skills is understandable. I'm fully of the opinion that skills and spellcasting should be inversely proportional. Skills are how non-casters are able to participate, so those without spells have the most need for them. I do kind of think that 2 + Int is probably too few skills for any class to get, but wizards should definitely be on the bottom of the pile in that regard because they're on the top of the pile for spells.
Why the alchemist has so few doesn't really make sense to me. The alchemist isn't a spellcaster. Their bombs are basically on par with cantrips and scale similarly but have limited uses per day, as making them consumes Resonance.
I'm trying to understand why the two classes whom by general description would have the most book learning get the fewest skill points. I would understand if they got say 2 general skills plus 3 slots only usable for knowledge skills or something along that line as having them with a bunch of physical skills doesn't really fit, but the flat 2 is just bothering me.
You're right.
Now that Int is not as important, Wizards should get more than 2, maybe 3 or 4. It's silly, but Wizards know less than many other characters now.
Wizards had low Int because there were stat boost items basically and could gain another 3 skills at full rank. Stat boosts at level 5, 10, 15 won't affect the number of trained skills.
Wizards had their spells, which no one else could get. Now with a 4 feats, anyone can get their spells too (which I don't agree with).
So yes, Wizards could use a skill bump to 3 + Int.
Alchemists could also be bumped to 3 or 4 as well.
I think spellcasters getting so many trained skills is the problem here. Clerics get 5 base ranks, Bards get 7, and Sorcerers (who can use the same spell list as wizards, so a better spell list can't be the balancing factor for why Wizards get fewer) get 5. Fighters, monks, and barbarians all get 3. The classes with immense out of combat utility from spells tend to get more skill ranks than classes without that utility from spells, which doesn't seem quite right.
This^^^^
Spellcasters are definitely getting too many trained skills, when it should be the other way around (or at least equal).
2:
3: Clerics, Wizards, Alchemists
4: Fighters, Monks, Barbarians, Druids, Paladins, Sorcerers, Rangers
5: Bards
6:
7: Rogues
8:
First of all, skills haven been consolidated, so all of the classes are really getting a huge boost in skills. So all classes already got a boost, so there has to be a really good argument for why they'd get more than PF1.
Rogues: One of the reasons why rogues were getting so many skills is that many core rogue skills were spread out. Now that these core skills are consolidated, rogues should be getting less skills, not more. They should be getting 8 trained skills, maybe less.
In fantasy literature, rogues are certainly not the most knowledgeable, and sometimes among the least knowledgeable (and wise).
Rogue skills: Acrobatics, Deception, maybe Diplomacy, maybe Performance, Society, Stealth, Thievery. 7 skills, even including the maybe skills. There is no need for a base of 10.
Rangers: Same as rogues, many of their core skills are consolidated now, there is less need for them to have more skills than the other classes. Fighters would know more about cities, Rangers would know more about the wilderness, there's no need for a huge skills disparity.
Clerics: Game wise (and in terms of fantasy tropes) has the best reasons for knowing the least. And they are hands down one of the best classes in the game, especially with resonance now.
Sorcerers: Not sure why they are getting so much more than other spellcasters. A little more is OK.
Alchemists: They're no longer spellcasters and should benefit from high int.
Wizards: The core wizard skills are: Arcana, Crafting, maybe Lore, maybe Nature, Occultism, Society. Only 4-6 (5) skills with the consolidation of the knowledge skills. So there's a good argument for keeping Wizards at 2 or 3.
In general though, they need to make Int a little more useful as a stat. Having less base skills is a step in that direction, because right now no class needs more than an Int of 10, they can get their core skills and more.
Honestly, D20 has always been one of the most stingy RPG systems when it came to skills. If you're not a rogue, you have to focus on a very narrow set of abilities. And even with consolidation, you still need quite a few. If you want to be able to identify spells, that's four different skills. To identify monsters, five.
I wouldn't be opposed to everybody getting more skills (except the rogue, 10 + Int is plenty), but the martials need them more than the casters.