Resourceless characters like the Kineticist can be easily converted to spell slots (with proof!)

[Teridax]

This is more of a manifesto and a proof of concept than a brew in its own right, so I'll start with the point I want to prove: in a future Pathfinder edition, I think characters ought to be resourceless by default, because it's much easier to convert a resourceless character to daily resources than the reverse. To prove this, I homebrewed a class archetype for the Kineticist called the Kinetic Mage. The full details are in the linked document, but here are the highlights:

You no longer get impulse feats from your class features, and instead you get special slots called impulse slots, which work much like spell slots and are used to cast a certain number of daily impulses. These impulse slots determine the level of your impulses and their effects, much like heightening a spell, and you can still select at-will impulses using your class feats if you want.

You can choose to be a prepared or spontaneous Kinetic Mage. If you're prepared, you prepare impulses into your impulse slots each day, and if you're spontaneous, you have a repertoire of fixed-level daily impulses you can use impulse slots with, along with signature impulses that level up automatically based on the impulse slot used to "cast" them (just like signature spells!).

Instead of reflow elements, your daily impulses all go up in level, up to 2 extra levels. Because Kineticist impulses are generally balanced to be a rank below slot spells of your level range, this makes your 9th-rank impulse slots equal in power to 9th-rank spells.

There's a few details more, like getting an Elementalist focus spell to start and an improved Kinetic Activation feat in your dedication, but that's the meat of it. Beyond letting you play a Kineticist more like a traditional spellcaster if you're so inclined, this should also hopefully demonstrate how the slot-based caster framework is fairly simple to describe and apply to a class suited for it in 2e. If a spellcaster were designed using a framework like the Kineticist's, any player wanting to play them with a more traditional, daily resource-based playstyle would be able to easily opt into that, just as those wanting to avoid daily attrition would easily be able to get what they want as well. The reverse isn't as easy, however, and although it's somewhat possible to take daily attrition out of current spellcasters, it's much more complicated to pull off in my opinion and comes with its own issues.

Worth noting is how the above also enables a lot more customizability, as well: the Kineticist's framework lends itself easily to thematic specialization, so starting from that baseline could make it much easier to develop any kind of thematic caster. I chose to make my archetype a 3-slot caster, but it would be fairly simple in my opinion to make it a 2-slot caster in exchange for some buffs (for instance, a snall handful of free at-will impulses, or more gate junctions), or even potentially a 4-slot caster with some more tradeoffs (for instance, by nerfing the class's durability while forcing them to opt into a dual gate). In an environment where there's been increasing player demand for thematic casters and casters without the daily attrition of spell slots, the solution in a future edition could be to make thematic, attrition-free frameworks the default for any magic-user, and enable hyper-versatility, daily resources, and Vancian preparation through character options.