Okay, I've been quiet for awhile now, using the beta rules with my regular gaming group. We're very pleased with the way some of the changes work and the thought that went into those changes. We're all in agreement that we like the redefined skills list, combining some similar skills into new unified skills (such as stealth and linguistics) with a couple minor exceptions. One player doesn't like that rope use disappeared as that something he liked to incorporate into all his characters, and a couple are confused by lumping the old jump skill --strength-based-- into one skill with balance and tumbling which are dexterity-based. On the other hand, we all firmly agree that the changes to skill ranks seems unnecessary, like you tried to reinvent the wheel... and the new system isn't better, its just different. From my perspective, trying to maintain a game compatible with all my old D&D and third party D20 sourcebooks, the change to skill ranks means an extra step when adding prestige class levels. Its just an unneeded annoyance to have to look at the skill rank prerequisites and subtract 3. We went back to the extra skill ranks at first level (class + int modifier x4) as presented in the Player's Handbook. We also agree universally that the class changes are good all around, with special emphasis on barbarian rage... and we've been trying to modify the monk class to work in a similar way with Ki points. Its good stuff.
There are some other things that have slowed us down with debates and even arguements. For one thing, the class abilities are more powerful, and the player races also feel amped up... the two combined have given the players a decided edge. We started playing at the medium speed xp advancement, but around roughly 12th level, I wanted to switch over to the slow advancement. We didn't set anyone's level back, but they had to catch up to the altered xp table before advancing again. The early levels went fast because the PCs were just way tougher than the monsters and NPCs with the altered hit dice and different starting hit points. We started play with the racial hit point bonus. We had tried some side games, starting over with different characters using different starting HP & ability score method --occasionally with a different DM-- usually playing to about 5th or 6th level. As the primary DM, I found myself CONSTANTLY re-evaluating challenge ratings (a mechanic I hate tinkering with) based on how easily the players crushed monster opposition... and NEVER the other way around. Even having moved to the slow advancement XP table, everyone advanced way too fast, recieving too much reward for too little expended effort (in this case, effort being defined as hit points used per encounter vs available healing, spells and limited use magic items used, etc).
I'm sure the game as is makes a lot of gamers happy because the players moved from encounter to encounter, dominating everything like some kind of Hollywood or Anime super heroes. Considering we had players who reached level 20 in a little under 2 months, even using some game sessions to start and play entirely different characters, we're probably NOT going to follow up with Pathfinder's official release unless it gets majorly toned down... something that we hope happens but don't really anticipate. We had fun game sessions, and other people playtesting are probably having those same experiences, and I'm guessing the immediate fun is going to carry more weight than the long term stuff we typically enjoy. But our games aren't about tearing through opposition and levelling up fast in spite of a greatly hampered XP table. So, we'll probably borrow stuff from the beta and house rule it into our regular games from now on, but Pathfinder is not going to become our D&D replacement.
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Our main playtest game consisted of a party of 4.
* dwarf fighter 8/cleric 11
* human paladin 10/monk 10
* half-orc barbarian 12/rogue 6
* elf sorcerer 18
Our side games included an all halfling party of a druid, a monk, a bard, and a wizard; an all fighter party consisting of an elf, a dwarf, a human, and a half-orc, and an "evil" party with a gnome cleric, a halfling ranger, a dwarf rogue, a human fighter/sorcerer, and a half-elf wizard.