Sorry for lack of updates. Mama raised a quitter. I'm trying to curb the habit.
Occult Adventures
Kineticist. The one class I wrote a guide on. See my next paragraph for why. Here in the 'class fantasy' paragraph, we already have plenty to talk about. I mean, you're an element bender. There's no way around this comparison, you watch Avatar: The Last Airbender? You think that show is super cool? This is your class. It's really neat to have a character around that interacts with magic without being a typical "Vancian" spellcaster. Without Kineticist, you can play an elementalist, sure...by picking a wizard, arcanist or sorcerer and leaning toward those spells. You'd be giving up a lot to never cast a spell that's not related to your element, though. It's just not the same thing.
Mechanically, I want to say before anything else that this is a pretty solid class. You end up feeling a bit fightery for having relatively few, but decent options in combat. That said, this is one weirdly structured class. I have it on good authority that the designer is quite an intelligent man, a polymath from MIT...and I can see it in the design. I can. It's just a very 'It makes perfect sense to him' design. It's essentially a remake of Warlock from 3.5 D&D conceptually, but with more care put into it. I like this class, but I wouldn't recommend someone play it who was new or just wants to jump into a character. Your decisions are quite important.
Oh, and it's one of the few classes in the game that can be 'hard countered': Eventually, you're gonna run into someone who's immune to your chosen element. That's part of the decision process: You can either be extremely effective at one element, or have the variety to never deal with this situation. It's a situation no other class really puts you in. You can decide whether you like that or not on your own.
Medium. This is a spirit medium of the 'real' kind, not the charlatan kind...which this book also has in it. That's part of why I think Occult Adventures is the peak of Pathfinder. Anyway! I think this is a compelling concept for a class, someone who deals with spirits, and who channels them to gain powers. This is a huge roleplay opportunity, your chance to play a person who's wildly different in personality based on which spirit he's picking that day.
This is another class I referred to as support style several times: It has 3/4ths AB, some spells(though not as much as the other support style classes) and its key spirit-channeling ability which gives you a potentially huge amount of versatility. I think this is a solid class which can fill a lot of roles, but I do feel like you're going to end up favoring certain spirits based on what your group needs. Groups without much spellcasting are going to see the medium picking Archmage or Heirophant constantly. Et Cetera. Maybe that's a small problem. Their spell list also isn't the greatest at base, seemingly built to have a little of everything and suffering because of it. Still, you get some solid spells where it matters, as well as the ability to supplement that further with your spirit channeling.
Mesmerist. Sure, rogue can be a con artist. Bard can be a tricky spell-user. But neither fills the role of a charming, deceitful manipulator quite like Mesmerist does. Another support-style class, he gets a little of everything in the best way, feeling like an alternate take on Bard and a class you can take to fill that exact role with a much different play style and feeling.
You get extra damage via painful stare. You get no-save debuffs, you get 6+INT skills, 3/4ths AB and even spells. This is a great class. You also get Tricks, though, a compelling pseudo-spell ability where you can plant little contingencies in yourself and other people, and some of them are really powerful. Highlights include Mask Misery which can reduce duration of or even end debuffs or crowd control abilities, and Mesmeric Mirror, which can get you a mirror image spell as a swift action. It's a class that requires a little planning and foresight, but that's hardly a steep price to pay.
Occultist. I happen to like the idea of this class: a spooky, jack-of-all-trades researcher and practitioner of the occult. You can just play a Witch or something, but this class certainly feels different. Unique in this aspect. It's more than just playing a rogue or investigator and saying you wear black eyeliner and cart skulls around. Your capabilities back up your fantasy.
This class would definitely work fine if you wanted to play it. I honestly believe that. It disappoints me fairly bad, though. You don't really get anything that makes you truly want to play an Occultist over other classes, but on top of that you have to deal with its convoluted Mental Focus "Investment" system. Where Kineticist feels well designed but confusing, Occultist feels poorly designed and confusing. You invest points into your implements, which determines what bonuses you get that day and what you can spend on which powers. I can see where this might have been an interesting system at some point, but it's a hell of a lot to deal with for just...the same powers other classes get. It makes you want to play them instead to avoid the investment busywork.
Psychic. I do sort of hate that Pathfinder decided to turn psychic classes into more traditional classes, but I can't say I don't get why. Psychic manages to continue feeling alien and weird while being more easily understood than 3.0's power point toting classes while still being a unique full-time spellcaster. This is another class fantasy you can sort of do with other classes, but not really...and I'm glad for its existence.
You're a Sorcerer-style caster with a pool of points you can use to gain bonuses or special effects out of your spells. You also pick a discipline, which makes this class feel a bit like Oracle. The Spell List is okay. I hate dealing with these locked-in lists at the end of a class page: they always feel weirdly restrictive. It's not a bad selection, though, and the psychic spells can be quite powerful. I dunno, don't take my lack of wording to say this class is bad. The spell list is solid, and you're a full-time caster, so your fun and effectiveness ride on that selection of spells.
Spiritualist. This is the class for if you have a dead wife, near-crippling mental complex, or secret psychic friend like Fredbear. Sorry! Sorry. I just don't like this class's feeling very much. I don't feel it does enough that's different from Summoner in tone and feel. I mean, I guess your pet ghost feels way more like a ghost than summoner could manage, but it's often in ways you wouldn't really use or won't come up. It's also quite melancholy in nature in a way Medium isn't. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but every other class can be taken in multiple directions. Try as I might, I can't make "This is my pet ghost, but like...we're happy about this arrangement" work.
You get a worse spell list and a worse pet than Summoner. You get none of the abuseable abilities of Summoner's Eidolon and you don't get to hand-build your ghost friend. You're seriously married to your ghost friend's effectiveness, limiting your multiclassing options. I said there's no class that's unplayable and I mean that, but I really can't find much in this class to prove it. Some of the ghost types have some interesting abilities, which can prop them up a bit. That's about the nicest thing I can say. Sorry.
Ultimate Intrigue
Vigilante. You know how people say that you should always be yourself, unless you can be Batman? Well, Pathfinder's developers heard about that too. Now, let's put aside the ridiculous idea of playing a modern style of superhero, okay? Let's all take five minutes to imagine that cool Fantasy Avengers artwork...to picture Hulk in Shakespearian tights, to oogle all the obviously-inspired-by-comic-books abilities Vigilante gets and! Gone. Breathe out, and forget all about it for the duration of this discussion. Honestly, there's a lot of potential here. There's the obvious characters like the Scarlet Pimpernel, The Three Musketeers, or even Zorro. There's also the idea of secret cultists, cult leaders, Thieves' or Assassins guild elites...this class can easily fill a great niche in a Pathfinder game.
The idea is you get social abilities based on blending in or fooling others, then also a host of combat or skill abilities. You also get a costumed identity with a different alignment than yours, which makes for some interesting roleplay potential. The "social" abilities are okay, and only truly shine when you're able to stay in one place for most of the game. When you can't, they range from 'situational' to 'okay but neat'. It feels like most people will end up taking the disguise powers. That's fine, but disguise is one of those skills where you really have to work and be inventive to get use out of it. Getting additional capabilities surrounding it is, at least, helpful.
You pick between Stalker and Avenger(I know, shut up) as a specialization: You're essentially picking Rogue or Fighter. Either decision seems okay, but there's a few things about Stalker which are notable. It gets D8 sneak attack, but only when the enemy is flat footed or thinks the vigilante is a friend. If you activate it via flanking? You only get D4s. That combined with lack of Debilitating Injury means Stalker is more reliant on its abilities and creating situations for its effectiveness. Not a deal-breaker, but certainly worth noting. As for Avenger? In addition to all the utility powers it can take as well as stalker, you get a 1:1 AB and the ability to just take bonus combat feats if you want those instead. You can also take Mad Rush, which is a pounce. There are worse deals.
Ultimate Wilderness
Shifter. So you want to play a shapeshifter, a wild-shaper without dealing with spellcasting. Without Shifter, that's impossible. With shifter, you can play a melee combatant, a D10 hit die, 1:1 AB beefy warrior type who gains their power from wildshape. I'd say that's pretty solid in terms of fantasy. Not even 3.X really had anything like this: It had a prestige class, but it hardly felt as sleek and well laid out as Shifter.
Okay so, we have to talk about that big old elephant in the room. This is the one class that might be unplayable. It received major updates via errata, and if your GM is a stickler and insists you can't use the new version? I'd skip this class. Without these updates, this is quite a hamstrung class. The thing is, you're intended to use natural attacks, and that means your 1:1 attack bonus is quite wasted, and your uses of wildshape are frankly piddly and too precious to "waste" on out-of-combat utility. The update fixes both of these problems.
Let's move on to what you can actually do. You get WIS to AC, which is handy as hell if you like being naked. You get claws of your own which naturally raise in bonus. You get wildshape measured in some hours per day, and the (extremely important) ability to make iterative attacks with your natural weapons. You also get Shifter Aspect, a potpourri of selectable personal bonuses. I'm always on the fence with stat-boost abilities that give enhancement bonuses: it means they're not compatible with magic equipment, which gives the same bonus type. Still, it can save you having to buy that item, and that's a valid play style. There are some nice bonuses aside from these inside the minor aspects you can stack on top of using wild shape for your "major" form too.
@}-,-'--
Well, that's it. I hope this helped someone, because it was a little demotivating to go through every single class and talk about it. Pathfinder sure has a lot of them. Still, I think I'll take that over prestige classes. No questions of identity, no fiddly requirements, and no wildly varied balance. As we saw, they're all fairly playable, and only a few of them stand out as being notably "bad". Even then, out of them (Spiritualist, Cavalier, and Gunslinger), only Spiritualist really has me pulling at my collar and sweating when someone mentions playing one. I know this is all based on my feelies since there's few sources of an objective "good" in terms of classes, but it's still closer than I expected.
