It is a strange direction for Pathfinder, but in a way, fitting. Pathfinder feels more about adventuring with heroes that don't fit the normal "fighter, mage, thief" roles and the game does it very well. This plays to a strength of the system, you can literally play through a module with one person playing a Professor X style psionic, another playing a Sherlock Holmes investigator, and a third person playing a Conan style barbarian and have it all work together. D&D 5 feels limited to the same roles we have seen before (simple, but then again familiar), and kudos to Paizo for pushing the edge and putting out books that break the hero mold and let us play something new.
The game is changing, and I can't really consider Pathfinder to be in the same game-space as D&D anymore. Both are dungeon games and focus on heroes battling evil, but how they go about it is vastly different. D&D gives you a simplified system with preset roles that we are all familiar with, the ranger, the paladin, and the mage. We choose a role and we make choices as we level, but in a simplified framework where our choices are guided. D&D 5 is a lot like Fantasy Age in that regard, where set heroes level up preset advancement paths.
Pathfinder is a superhero game with heroes that can mix anything and be anything. Sherlock Holmes the bare-fist-fighting monk? Sure. Merlin the barbarian? Let's do it. A Clint Eastwood style gunslinger cleric? Sure, why not. All in the same party together out saving the world, one bad guy at a time...or hordes of them all at once. The fun here is in the possibilities, and while you pay for it in complexity, the options and potential is endless.
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