How to create a unique PC
 

We play Pathfinder 1st edition. No 3rd party publications. I am trying to come up with a unique PC. In Herolab there are 40 various classes but 3/4 of them seem to be pretty useless as Player Characters. Arcanist, Enlightened Scholar, Oracle, Inquisitor, just to name a few just do not fit into our games (and seem pretty useless to me). Which pretty much leaves fighter, Rogue (both), cleric, Warpriest, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Hunter, Magus Sorcerer and Wizard. These are the usual classes we end up playing. So we pretty much

I am trying to run a Witch but everything I wanted her to do, she cannot do: No fortune telling with tarot cards, to make potions I need to take Cauldron at 1st level even though there are Hexes more important that are needed for defense/offense.

It seems like there are only so many ways to create a Rogue or a FIghter or mage or cleric. After you play one for so many times they get boring.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Profession (Fortuneteller) is a skill; strictly speaking that's pretty much just for earning gold during downtime but it's certainly something you can do. And nothing is stopping you from simply taking Divination-school spells and fluffing the act of casting them as using the tarot. There's even a feat that you can take to make your divinations better by using a deck of cards as a focus. You might also look at the Cartomancer archetype and see if it suits you.

Cauldron does cost you a hex slot, but it gets you Brew Potion two levels before most casters would even qualify for that feat, and you'll get another hex at every even level anyway (plus you can take more with the Extra Hex feat). You'll just have to decide whether your character is more combat-oriented or support-oriented for their first level.

If you want more specific or in-depth advice, I'd recommend checking out a forum more oriented around character optimization, such as the Playground. But the point is there are tons of ways, even with third-party materials off the table, to build a character of any class in this game.

The main way to tune the main classes is to choose one or more archetypes, each of which changes the class to a greater or lesser extent.

If you think the Arcanist is a useless class, you are completely missing how powerful it is. If you are looking for an extremely powerful skill monkey nothing can compare to a well built Inquisitor. Rogue vs Inquisitor in the mid-high levels has a 15-20 point swing in favor of the Inquisitor for perception and a number of other skills. The Enlightened Scholar is 3pp so I am not familiar with it. But I will say a good witch build is easy to do. In fact is fairly easy to create an overpowered witch without too much work.

It's time to take a fresh look. Like you, I've been playing D&D/PF for a long time (my first game was in 1979). It does get old after awhile, but I find the character class doesn't matter so much as how the character reacts to situations.

For example, when I think back to memorable scenes, they're never about the specifics of what the PC did, they're about how the PC reacted to some stimuli. Right now I'm playing a Mnk3/Wiz1/Rog5 and even at 9th level, the character isn't particularly powerful; I'm sure the party mage could do better in the short term. But my PC has staying power and can keep going after the mage has shot his wad and needs to retreat or be protected. Having said that...

You talk about power levels, but if you really just wanted a powerful character, you'd go full wizard or (as Minous says) arcanist.

When I'm looking for a new character concept, I try to pick things I haven't picked before. You can add archetypes (as Farling points out) to tweak some of the powers of the base class. Lately, I've tried slayer, brawler, summoner, and bard. (I've never liked the bard class much. Playing one has immersed me in the rules for the class and there are some interesting aspects to the class that I hadn't known before.)

So, my advice? If you can't pick one, assign random numbers and dice for it! If you get a roll you don't like, don't change the roll! Instead, let that randomness point you in a new direction. And instead of being focused on power level, look for character interaction potential. :D

Don't discount Oracle so easily. It is a sorcerer equivalent for divine magic. Very flexible!

Our group uses 3pp (specifically Drop Dead Studios and Dreamscarred Press massively, so archetypes of the main classes that use those systems are what is popular).

That said, there are a ton of very powerful Paizo Pathfinder classes. It really depends on what you want to be good at.

From your list, I'll second both the Arcanist and the Oracle as being top tier classes in terms of both fun to play and power.

There are a ton of first party classes (Paizo Pathfinder):

Alchemist
Antipaladin
Arcanist
Barbarian (and Unchained)
Bard
Bloodrager
Brawler
Cavalier
Cleric
Druid
Fighter
Gunslinger
Hunter
Inquisitor
Investigator
Kineticist
Magus
Medium
Mesmerist
Monk (and Unchained)
Ninja
Occultist
Oracle
Paladin
Ranger
Rogue (and Unchained)
Samurai
Shaman
Shifter
Skald
Slayer
Sorcerer
Spiritualist
Summoner (and Unchained)
Swashbuckler
Vigilante
Warpriest
Witch
Wizard

Not to mention (in some cases) more than 70 archetypes (my list includes 3pp, from the aforementioned sources... so maybe a bit less than that number, but still many).

If you're including Fighter, Hunter, and Rogue as the stronger classes, then most of this list is just as powerful.
Generally speaking these three can be interesting, but they aren't that powerful.

Even in only first party material, all of the classes have about a bajillion archetypes, some of which completely change how the class plays.

A couple of quick examples:
- Archaeologist bard doesn't sing, instead getting rogue stuff and luck bonuses
- Fey trickster mesmerist is like an outward-focused druid, applying buffs and quasi-polymorphs to allies
- Sacred servant paladin trades away some martial stuff to get to invite angels to hang out instead
- Synthesist summoner gets to Shazam into a superhero or space gorilla or whatever instead of summoning things
- Monster tactician inquisitor is the combination of a Pokemon trainer and a battle nun
- Bladebound magus gets a magic talking sword as a wisecracking and/or edgy partner