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Since Paizo published the magazines for several years, I think they have the rights to distribute the PDFs as they see fit.

Low levels are improved for almost all classes without a serious hike in overall power. Classes are very much improved, with each class now getting a lot of versatility and many interesting powers. The skill system is streamlined, making NPC creation a bit easier and reducing the need to buy...

To be fair, the transition between 1st and 2nd edition drew a lot of hate. Not as much for the transition from 2nd to 3rd, but I think that's more because 2nd edition had been floundering for years before the announcement.

There's a huge line between not wanting to be told that the current edition sucks and wanting marketing people to lie to you. There are a lot of ways to say, "we improved upon X" without also saying, "X was no good from the beginning," or worse, going as far as saying, "people who like X don't...

I think what could have worked better from a marketing standpoint is if the changes in 4th edition had been emphasized as an evolution of the game's elements rather than a complete reinvention. The planar setup of 4th edition, for example, is pretty cool and succeeds in keeping a lot of elements...

From my perspective, I was open to the idea of 4th edition and interested in it. The marketing largely annoyed me because so much of it seemed to be focused on, "3rd edition is a bad system," which I disagreed with. From that angle, it made me wonder whether 4th edition would be my thing, since...

Reading through the rulebook, the spell description for Nightmare states that, "Creatures that don't sleep (such as elves, but not half-elves) or dream are immune to this spell." While that will probably get errated out in a later printing, there is still the barest of hints that elves don't...

Energy Substitution isn't an official Pathfinder feat, but a sorcerer with an elemental bloodline can pull that stunt from 1st level on.

The GMing section of the rulebook has a few recommendations for places to end if you want to stop a campaign before 20th level. I imagine picking one of those capstone points and then advancing as per E6 would work just fine.

The DDI model doesn't interest me. I don't see how that would change if applied to Pathfinder.

The Tarrasque can regenerate, so no. If you could stop its regeneration and somehow deal 1,716 points of nonlethal damage, though, you could conceivably beat the tarrasque to death. Good luck with that, though.

In terms of racial archetypes, I don't see a big deal. It seems that dwarves are still excellent warrior types, elves are possibly the best option for wizardry, and so on. The only race that seems to have lost its niche in the transition is the half-orc, which can now be something other than a...

Unless I'm missing something, it seems that an armor check penalty is only applied to the Swim skill once, rather than being doubled as it was in 3.5. Not something that will impact many campaigns, but it's one less exception to remember.

It seems that the designers felt that gaining new spells was a class feature in and of itself. Non-spellcasting classes, or classes that have limited spellcasting like the paladin and ranger, don't have the dead level issue - unless one considers getting a bonus feat a dead level as well.

To my knowledge, elves only started not sleeping as of the Complete Book of Elves in 2nd edition. Even then, ithe reverie was an 8-hour cycle that was essentially the equivalent of sleep, if I recall correctly - elves just recalled old memories rather than dreaming. 3rd edition is the first time...

I would actually liken it more to Mystara in that it's a massive world with dozens of different fantasy cultures - some based on real world culture while others are fantasy (and sometimes sci-fi) gone gonzo. Also, the events in the different regions of Golarion seem fairly contained to the...

I imagine it was cut because space was at a premium and the trance rules have very little effect on the game (not to mention that they're easily added in as flavor). My personal preference is for elves that sleep anyway, since I like tossing out late night ambushes and prophetic dream sequences.

As to the supposed boost in power that the wizard got, it looks to me like the boost is handy at low levels, when wizards traditionally suffer, while the most abusable spells at higher levels got pulled back. Additionally, defensive casting is now harder and melee characters have a host of new...

Elves sleep. Gnomes may speak to any animal rather than just burrowing mammals, and are no longer limited to one minute per day when doing so.

Except that melee characters now have a ton of extra feats and abilities, while some of the more problematic spells have been scaled back. Except that monsters are being rescaled and there are new feats and abilities to boost poor saves. I'll have to see this one in game before I see it as...