In many ways the natural heir to D&D being far more a development of the system from 1st Edition to 3.5 Edition & not unfairly refereed to as D&D 3.75 on occasion. Designed to be compatible with 3.5 whilst polishing many of the flaws of that system out. It comes from Piazo the long-time publishers of Dragon Magazine for wizards indeed they only stopped when that magazine turned into an online D&D insider Perk.
The system is very well supported but can happily be run with only two volumes The core rule book & the Bestiary of which there are now three, indeed one if you are happy to do the slight conversion needed to use 3.5 edition monsters with it & already have a 3.5 Monster manual. However the additional books are useful well balanced with the core game & give you as much variety as 3.5 at its broadest but with an eye to not letting unforeseen game breaking combinations in. Mechanically it is a D20 system with all the classes one has come to expect form D&D over the years as well as some nice extra core classes and more sensible prestige classes in the additional books.
The default setting is heroic & fairly high fantasy & is not quite as gritty as it might be characters are for the outset hero's all be it weaker ones than they will become.
A good sound system that's fun to play & will fit a huge variety of play styles.....
http://www.spiritgames.co.uk/results.php?search=pathfinder&menu=1some of the support avalible locally....
Ginger
