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Pretty verbose writeup below, tried to highlight the important parts. I played with 3 others, all rocking Level 1 Occult Adventures playtest characters. I think we were hampered by a lack of healing. Between myself (mesmerist), a medium, and two spiritualists, we were hurting pretty consistently (which makes sense given most PFS scenarios expect a balanced party).
For the most part, I didn't remember to use my Hypnotic State, but the benefit (even using the suggested -2 to will saves) wouldn't have been very helpful.
Overall, I was pretty disappointed by the requirement to pre-plant a trick, and it only lasting 1 minute per level. That made it very difficult to plan ahead, and when I thought I was planning appropriately, there was no encounter to make use of it. Only being able to implant it on one person at a time was similarly disappointing, since it would've been nice to get the opportunity to have interactions with everyone at the table for some more roleplaying opportunities.
That said- I'm hoping to give this character another try, because I think the theme and goal are awesome.
Knowledge
Awesome knowledge check, good to see the mesmerist is able to apply superior mental skills toward studying
Got a 15 for an arcana check, learned a tidbit at the beginning of the adventure
Rolled a 20 for a 27 arcana which was also awesome
Survival
Basically no use, and not sure I’m seeing a benefit here for the class
Perception
Really dependent on the dice (wisdom not being something I put stats into) but makes sense as a class skill
Strength
Rolled well (rolled an 18 for a 20) to kick open a door
Thank heavens for the +2 to the will save.
Initiative is poor (and was consistently), but understandable. Need to figure out how to get my trick (Misdirection) up right before combat first.
Able to jump in and do some damage!
Rolled a 15 to get 17, managed to hit a barbarian with my heavy mace
Took 8 damage, leaving me at 1
Feeling like I’m just a poor fighter vs. being a really cool mesmerist
Set off my Misdirection when we passed an effigy that seemed to point to an encounter
However, looks like it might be a waste (indeed it was)
Despite a +2 thanks to strength, failed my climb and fell down a cliff and took 4 damage, putting me at -3
Thankfully, the Spiritualist was able to head into the next are and use Perception to find our foe.
I kicked off Misdirection (mesmerist trick) right before we started combat! We'll see how it goes
Cast Ray of Enfeeblement, and hit! The opponent managed to make its fort save however, so it (only?) dropped 3 strength.
Despite only getting a 13 for an attack roll, the spiritualist still hit the opponent (AC 9) without needing my Misdirection to assist :(
Cast flare, succeeded which I played off flavor-wise as distracting the opponent
Walked up to an enemy, swung my heavy mace for 6 damage
Ouch, got knocked out by another enemy and failed my fort save (rolled a 7..)
Wow. Party of 4 had only one person standing at the end of the encounter- with 3 hp.
This is probably more due to being 4 brand new characters vs. ‘weak’ occult adventures characters, but still pretty vicious.
Needed to get a little creative and rest up for the night to get 3 more HP back (thanks to a teammate's Heal check)
I wasn’t able to setup my Misdirection again! During a conversation, one of my teammates ran up and charged the opponent vs. trying to talk it out. Although it was hilarious, in terms of missing out on using my trick, very lame.
Got off a Ray of Enfeeblement! Downed the strength by 6
Just sort of ran up and did some damage. Overall feeling bummed that I wasn’t able to test out the trick again.
