While I agree there are more boxes ticked per level in Pathfinder, I don't necessarily think that means that the system gives you more character development freedom. You still need to plan out your feat paths to meet requirements for later feats, so you can suffer for taking things that would make more sense by narrative path.

If you want to be a prestige class, you can spend multiple feats to get those prerequisites. Some things in the system are not possible (being a Bard in Heavy Armor without spell casting failure...even after spending 2 feats for the proficiency and 2 to reduce failure).

AC / Hit scaling (imo) feels atrocious. Stats would be fine, but they tie into the hit formula, so if you have your stats scale without a cap, so too must your AC to let things be a challenge to hit. This is quite penalized if you split your specialty between 2 things. By giving those little BAB or Stat boosts along the way, it makes things become ridiculous when you think about them (like the AC to hit a Dragon). I could expand more on this, but it ties into a problem that is rooted in the system more than 'choice complexity'.

Originally Posted by _Vic_

So, in my honest opinion, 5e its fine to play and its fun, but I think the illusion of choice it´s in 5e. When you choose your subclass it´s auto-level up the next 17 levels besides choosing your stat improvement(and choosing your spells for spellcasters, yes, but that´s the same for any game ruleset).

You can mess up your character in 3.5 and PF; yes, but because you have open choices, they do not railroad your character from level 3 to 20 (Not that it matters that much if you are playing a roleplaying tabletop, flawed characters are fun to roleplay, but I suppose it matters more in a videogame. That´s why you have respec options) This is great when you start playing or if you are playing short adventures but it gets old fast when you are a veteran with several years of experience or playing large campaigns.

There is some truth in that...though there can be a few more or less options along the way depending on subclass.

I think that playing flawed characters is fine (I played much more WFRP than any edition of D&D), but that is also why I think that the direction your character progresses level to level should be more malleable to what the story has set forth instead of changing your perception of the story to fit the character you had in mind (when it comes to Tabletop).

If I make a character in 5e D&D, I just make the character and how I progress, if I multiclass, etc is based on the story and it isn't penalized too heavily. If I make a character in Pathfinder, I make the character based on what I want to be at level 20 because the system punishes you for not planning ahead. So generally I find that I don't make any more choices as I level, I just check off a box that I already decided to check when I made the character. In that sense, the character does not develop with the story.