Party was a lvl 1 Samurai (with 1 adventure under his belt), a lvl 2 Barbarian, a fresh made oracle and a 2nd player run level 1 fighter to bring up to 4.
We brushed death MANY times. Seeing the party was light on healing I spent my 2 PP on a CLW wands. I had a second character that I had decked out with a fair range of equipment BUT I had forgotten to upgrade this characters kit.
I wont tell you the game but it was a TIGHT one - not because of the module, nor because of the bad rolls or any DM bias - it was TIGHT (ie TPK was a possibility) because WE as players had a bad party mix and because our equipment sucked - the level 2 barb had not invested in anything since its creation. Lets just saw my freshly bought wand saw a LOT of use.
We faced a swarm at one point - did anyone have alchemist fire etc? Nope. I kick myself here because I invested in my other character. That was VERY tight.
Another factor was our party make up. A lack of an arcane caster hurt.
Finally we lacked BADLY in the foriegn languages department - and missed a lot because of it.
My take aways from this? Painlords guides to PFS play are worth the read! Invest EARLY in alchemist fire and other area attack weapons, TORCHES are a useful item even if you have dark vision - carry some! And linguistics is never a bad investment... at the least invest in your own faction language.
Backup characters? We nearly had an ALL fighter party with NO ONE having UMD if it wasn't for the oracle player having that back up character. I'll be branching out some and bringing a wider range of backup characters moving forward (my backups on the day was a fighter and gunslinger)
That said? GREAT game, appreciated the GM, he did a great job and being on the cusp of defeat made the victory a little sweeter.
