How does Pathfinder bias things toward casters?
How doesn't it bias things towards casters?
Facetious response aside, let me count the ways.
Let's start with character creation, because Pathfinder makes it real clear like before you have even made a caster that you should make a caster and only a caster. You just have to listen.
So let's say you want to be a Wizard. +1 HP/level, just for existing.
You then start assigning stats. Upon looking at the point buy system for more than about 15 seconds you realize it is heavily biased towards Single Attribute Dependent characters. Aka, you. So you take an 18 Int and 16 Con, offsetting it with 1 or more meaningless 7s and 8s. Now you might argue that the 3.5 PB system was also favored towards SAD characters. You'd be right. But the PF PB system is more biased in that regard.
So while the 3.5 Wizard would only be running a 14 Con, the PF Wizard can easily run 16.
+2 HP/level, and you haven't even actually done anything yet.
Then you pick your race. Several races give you a +2 in whatever you want, and one of these is clearly better than the others so you take a human, with +2 Int. You might argue that there were already +2 Int races in 3.5, but those were non core and had drawbacks that made them not really worth it. Gimpy Elves are Gimpy.
+2 HP/level and +1 save DCs.
So then you get to the favored class mechanic. Every time you take a level of your favored class you get 1 HP or 1 skill point. The favored class can't be changed, but the bonus can be different level to level. Of course one of these is clearly better than the others.
Obviously, this system only makes a real difference for classes that don't have to multiclass or PRC to be viable. While a Wizard can PRC if he wants to, it is by no means necessary.
+3 HP/level and +1 save DCs.
And then you look at the other stuff. Now some of the class features are very obvious traps like "flail for the piddly shit of 2d4+half level". But because they are very obvious traps, you just continue reading as if they don't exist. And there are other things in there like "You get large bonuses to Initiative and always act in the surprise round. PS: Fuck you beatsticks."
And when you actually get to the spells themselves some of them are nerfed, but mostly in meaningless ways. The ones that actually were nerfed were quite meaningless on a power scale of things. None of this matters though, as you still have at least 1 good spell at each level meaning you're no less effective, just less interesting. And this is without just saying fuck it and importing 3.5 spells.
So then you look at what you're up against enemy wise. Now there's this bit in the PF books that says something to the effect of "You don't need +x stat items to stay on the RNG, so don't feel compelled to give them to everything. Instead give them cool but useless items". Of course this is a blatant lie, but if your DM actually buys that your enemies will all have pathetic saves, allowing your +1 DCs (more, if you use feats on Spell Focus and such) to mow them down like the useless mooks they are. Obviously, the DM should not actually do this and if he is remotely intelligent he won't. But we're discussing Pathfinder, so there is at least a 50% chance he will. Giant type enemies are now considered a subtype of humanoids, so have fun blowing away Ogres, Trolls, and actual Giants with much less resource expenditure.
Dispel? Went from a serious threat to your buffed up run to completely trivial. A 3.5 character has to think carefully about how they will deal with suddenly having their stats cut in half from losing all their buffs. The PF character loses 1-5 buffs at most depending on which Dispel is thrown and what its CL is. Except he doesn't, because that change means Dispel is so worthless it joins the ranks of other fail spells like Evocation.
Clearly, the stage is set for you to just own everything as a caster even more than you could in 3.5.
So what happens if you don't heed the obvious warnings and opt for a beatstick instead?
Let's walk through the process.
You decide you want to be a Fighter. No HP boost, because fuck you.
You then start assigning stats. Remember how the PB system was biased in favor of SAD characters? It's biased at least as strongly against MAD characters. Nowhere to put those meaningless 7s and 8s you see. Good luck even getting 18 Str, 14 Con, and the other important stats over fail levels.
You're still not any better off than you were in 3.5, and you're actually a bit worse.
Then you pick your race. Of course you go for +2 Str. But as you could already get a +2 Str race in 3.5 core, this makes no real difference.
Still no better off and actually a bit worse.
Then you get to the favored class mechanic. You know, that thing that rewards pure class characters? Well you're a beatstick, so you're going to be multiclassing and PRCing like crazy just to try and stay relevant. +1 HP/level will not stop you from being a fail character.
And then you look at the other stuff. Most of the traps here are not so obvious but they are even more common. In fact there are more traps in here than a tranny bar.
But seriously. Vital Strike line is a trap, the whole Critical based line is a trap, the net effect of attempting a maneuver in PF is that you fail to perform that maneuver in PF so those lines are traps, the Whirlwind attack line is a trap (which shouldn't surprise anyone), the Cleave line is a trap, the TWF line is a trap... It's like playing Minesweeper where 90% of the squares have a fucking bomb under them. Can't even move without blowing yourself up. What's the point of having more feats when there's so few feats worth taking and so many feats have been heavily nerfed? Even the old standbys no longer work. Improved Trip doesn't because it's a maneuver and therefore fails, because you lose the free attack, and because the Spiked Chain got nerfed for no discernable reason. Power Attack also got nerfed hard, and unless you're a retard who thinks that 14 is a larger number than 48 you'll realize this. Yes, some dumbfuck over there was actually saying this. Repeatedly.
This of course means your only option is to auto attack for piddly shit, and get put out of your misery in two rounds only to come back with a real character and enjoy your Caster Edition. Oh, they'll try to distract you from this with meaningless fluff features like "an AC that still gets auto hit, so you don't care" and "lol +saves against fear" but that's like offering someone a lollipop as consolation
after raping them. You're not going to accomplish anything but making the situation worse and you should have never done such a terrible thing (making beatsticks fail even harder) in the first place.
You can't even bring in 3.5 stuff to save them as Leap Attack, Shock Trooper etc are still hamstrung by the gimped out PA.