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I just completed a level 1 campaign intro naval battle objective scenario playing a commander.

My commander character:

versatile human, cannoneer/artillerist background, Int +4, Dex +3, Ch +2 Str +1,

Drilled tactics: Reload!, Naval Training (defensive retreat and coordinating maneuvers were not drilled

Feats: Plant Banner, Deceptive Tactics (via natural ambition), Incredible Initiative, Hefty Hauler

Squadmates: 2 Ballista crews of 2 people each

Armor: studded leather Weapons: Arbalest crossbow, rapier

The commander is a just-out-of-academy naval ensign in charge of two scorpion ballistas on a small, swift pirate hunter galley. The galley is pursuing a fast smuggler ship to retrieve a certain high priority cargo item known only to the captain. As the galley is closing in and getting ready to board the smuggler ship, a kraken surfaces and attacks the smuggler ship.

My character's objectives:
1. Fire the ballistas on the kraken
2. Damage the kraken with ballista fire.
3. Once the kraken has destroyed both ships, escape on a rowboat.

My guy met all of his objectives. The stars were plant banner and reload. By planting his banner at the central mast, the increase in his command aura to 40' each direction enabled both the bow and stern ballista crews to benefit from his reload tactic. Ordinarily, a ballista requires 5+ actions to fire, meaning most of the time - and all of the time with a moving target - firing will be once every other round. When the ensign used two Reload! actions on his turn, each one allowed a 2-action reload to be performed as a reaction by one of the crew members, doubling the rate of fire. Since the chance of the kraken not critically succeeding at his artillery basic reflex save was very low, the extra attacks were very helpful in achieving objective #2.

The naval training was great in this scenario as well, especially since it is not limited by the banner emanation. Unfortunately, it didn't save his squadmates from the deadly poisonous kraken ink.

I felt the pain of his second rate fighter power in melee and ranged combat (firing his crossbow and attacking a tentacle), with his dex mod one off the maximum, low strength, and trained rather than expert in martial. I think most commanders would want strength for their combat ability score, but dex made more sense for a naval artillery commander. But the reduction in direct combat ability was more than offset by the commander powers, which were awesome and thematic. The warfare lore was really useful. He felt very cinematic, but did not overpower the other player characters.

I'll update at higher levels, but the introduction to this class I have had was very fun and satisfying. The scenario was pretty niche in terms of using less broadly applicable tactics but the Reload! would work great with a crossbow platoon for sure.

I am now double GMing this adventure path - for my family group weekly as noted above, and for two friends and two of their teens every third Saturday.

My family just finished the crypt/goblin lower level of the citadel, discovered the tunnel back to Breachill, found Voz's note, and will be running into the Bloody Blades next session. They are still having a blast. The gelatinous cube gave them a scare, but having Alak along has really helped even out the encounters. Pib and Zarf tagged along for half a level also, providing a lot of color and mostly hanging back but helping with a few well-timed spells/cantrips. I give the NPCs a penalty to their initiative rolls so the player characters and monsters usually go before them and are in the spotlight. Alak almost died fighting the ghouls in the secret crypt and the players were hugely upset. After they returned to Breachill and he was saying goodbye, the party paid him to stay for another week to help them find Alseta's Ring, so I am hopeful that will get them through the challenging encounters ahead. I do benchmark leveling and let them level up a little earlier than recommended to compensate for their inexperience as players.

The barbarian player is a very good plot analyst and picks up on even subtle clues, the rogue is super cautious in combat but enjoying how much of a skill monkey his character is, and my daughter loves blasting away with her sea surge and hydraulic push - taking out enemies and the decades of accumulated dust. :P

My friend group is finishing up the first level. They are experienced players and doing well. They decided to let Alak go his own way, so it will be interesting to see how the combat encounters go.

I just did my first session with all new RPG players - a family group of my husband, my 11 year old daughter, and a friend - and they didn't quite make it through the fire encounter the first night, but it was a blast. They created a human barbarian, an arctic elf sorcerer with a pet snow leopard (she took the animal wrangler background and will take the animal trainer archetype at level 2), and an elf rogue.

Because they were not only new to PF2e but also to TTRPGs in general, I scaled down the fire expansion to one new square for every three squares of fire (33% expansion compared to 50%), lowered the fire mephit damage to all 1d4s and only 1 persistent damage, and added in an extra round between round 3 and 4. I gave them a NPC/DMPC human cleric of Calistria to bring the party to four and help keep them alive, and I gave the barbarian a lesser healing potion, the rogue a lesser bottled lighting and the sorcerer a lesser frost vial. Finally, I had a single bucket of drinking water set up just outside the townhall door, to give quick access to one bucket and provide a clue as how to fight the fire. I had the wagon/cart merchant even offer a ladle of the water to the rogue as a sort of introduction/kind offer, but she thought it was weird and checked the water for poison, and he wandered off uncomfortably. :D

They had no idea what they were doing and yet things worked out amazingly well. My daughter had randomly created this character (with no nudging from me) that chose the elemental bloodline with water as her element. She managed to put out and control the western door fire and a mephit-created fire all on her own while her pet, Puffadoodle, rescued two children who had been kind to her earlier and took them out of the fire. When the Mephit fire-blasted her for 8 points of damage and one persistent (she only has 12 hp total) and the cleric for 4 and 1 persistent, she critically failed the roll to put out the persistent damage after manipulating her water cantrip to douse herself, used her hero point, and rolled a 20, so I had her cantrip put out persistent fire damage on her and the cleric and gave her another hero point. The rogue almost single-handedly took out the mephit with his bottled lightning, a bow hit and a rapier hit. The barbarian lost two rounds fleeing and encouraging everyone else to flee because the whole town seemed a little stepford-wifey to him with their cheerfulness and adoration of Lord Breachton (good instincts, bro), but then he helped townspeople get out and organized the bucket brigade.

We had to stop early because of my daughter's bedtime on a school night and she was begging for one more round. All but 6 villagers have been rescued, the fire brigade reaches to the dais and buckets start arriving next round, and smoke inhalation doesn't begin until next round. The mephit is dead, and the worst part of the fire is out and it should be completely out in 2-3 rounds.

The players agonized over priority choices, and felt the pressure of figuring out what to do first, and mostly made good choices. They weren't too good at catching hooks (two of them stayed in background at Wizard's Grace where they were supposed to introduce themselves to each other before the meeting; the rogue rebuffed the water-offering merchant, and the barbarian wouldn't even talk to the stonecutter dwarf who wanted to hire him for his shop).

So next time we'll wrap this up, listen to speeches, get rewards and head to the keep. Hopefully they'll keep having fun, and I'll manage the encounters to the right threat level.