Classes with variable at will abilities?

[Gaulin]

I find whenever I play pen and paper games I tend to save spells or abilities that can only be used a number of times per day. When a friend tried to get me to play pathfinder I did a quick read and thought all classes were either boring passives or limited to uses per day.

But now after checking out a lot of classes, I see there are lots of options. I've been reading and learning a ton, but I was wondering if anyone has any cool classes that fit this criteria. A number of cool abilities you can cast as many times as you want.

My favourites so far are the kineticist with the variety their blasts have and a lot of their abilities don't cost anything, and the witch with all their awesome hexes (and shaman to a lesser extent).

[Ryze Kuja]

Witch. Best. Class. Ever.

[Decimus Drake]

Another witchlover here. I have been known to fall into the trap of “but I might really need it later” but knowing I’ll always have some hexes to use encourages me to blow my big spells without worrying that I’ll be left standing in the corner twiddling my thumbs later in the day. The witch is also one of the better full-casters at avoiding the 15 minuet adventuring day; when the witch is out of spells they can still contribute a great deal in combat situations with hexes such as Evil Eye, Misfortune and Slumber.

[Nirdish]

Warlock Vigilante gets to sling bolts of energy all day, Mesmerist gets to use their stares at-will, there are some Oracle abilities and Shaman hexes that are usable at-will.

[Meirril]

You might consider a Magus. I'm partial to the Eldritch Archer archetype, with a Firearm instead of a bow. Just because Archer is in the name doesn't mean you need to choose a bow.

While it seems like you can't go all day, you most certainly can. There are several cantrips that can be used to get your extra attack with spell combat. Cantrips don't do much, but just getting the extra attack from your weapon plus a d3 of damage is good enough. Especially if you throw on a bunch of extra d6 damage by using your arcane pool by enhancing your weapon.

This leaves you free to use your most powerful spells as battlefield changers like slow, haste and confusion while you use low level spells for burst damage. You could even learn utility spells like you're a wizard. Kind of a waste though considering Magus is a combat focused class, not a generalist like a wizard.

[MrCharisma]

I'm a big fan of the Magus, and the Witch: WHY NOT BOTH?

My favourite classes tend to be martial characters with some magic (Magus/Paladin/etc). Their main schtick is to get up in someone's grill and deal out some damage, but they have other options for when things get tough. This means that when I run out of my X/day abilities I can still swing my sword, or stand between the wizard and the ogre. I'll be less effective, but I'll still have something to do.

The Witch doesn't quite fit this, but I like way hexes work. It's kind of the same feeling as the paragraph above.

One thing I'll add is that I hate the Sleep Hex. It's easily the most powerful low-level hex, but that's my problem with it. I use that hex on an enemy and either I win the fight with a single failed save or I wasted my turn - Neither of these options make for interesting game-play for me, for the GM, or for the other players at the table. If I'm in a highly optimised game you might need that kind of power just to survive (and in that game I likely won't win the fight with a single save), but for most games it's a hard pass from me. Obviously it depends on what you want from your character, and a power fantasy is definitely a big part of why people play these games, so there's no "wrong" answer. (Rant over, play the character you want =P )

[avr]

There's one more archetype which gets witch hexes too; sylvan trickster for the rogue. And spirit guide oracles can get a few shaman hexes.

Some abilities have long enough durations (hours/level) to be close to always on, and some of those have significant effects. Wild shape is not a weak passive.

If you have the gold then some magic items have at-will effects and others are usable often enough to be effectively at-will, like wands. There's a few abilities which are limited by your resources rather than per-day, like a grenadier alchemist's ability to attack alchemical weapons to normal weapons.

Some people like to take one of those other genuinely weak at-will abilities and try to make something out of it. Wild empathy for example.