Well, instead of posting a variety of threads I thought I would go with the status quo and post my own playtest thread. This game is an online game in a private forum, so no link sorry (unless someone like Jason wants to see it), and It's mostly DM run anyways (I make all the rolls). I'm running the Shackled City Adventure Path (the Hardcover).
The group is a bit blind to most of the changes, I only told them the 1st level stuff and will try and gauge their reaction by the new levels. They'll be getting ample opportunities to tweak their characters though if they don't like something. They're only using the Pathfinder classes.
For players, they did 28 point buy. I took a vote and they decided to use the Racial HP modifier.
What I ended up with was:
Level 1 Half-Orc Cleric of Kord with Luck and Strength domains
Level 1 Human Fighter (Charger)
Level 1 Half-Elf Rogue
Level 1 Human Druid
Level 1 Human Fighter (Archer)
Level 1 Gnome Sorcerer with Destined Bloodline
Their first impressions were good. The fighter was a bit leery about the channel changes for some reason, thinking they might be overpowered, but he was reassured when they effected a whole area, and not just selective targets by default. Most agreed the previous turning/rebuke system was far too cumbersome. The cleric loved the changes, now that he didn't have to be a healbot.
The group really liked the racial changes, they finally felt like they could play other races and be on the same footing as humans, especially half-orcs who were unjustly punished for their lineage.
The group liked the HP changes and the favored class mechanic, anything that boosted the survivability at low levels with a bonus for them.
The group liked the skill consolidations, they only were iffy on the combination of Concentration into Spellcraft; and that was because concentration was now based off of Int. I gave a good argument for why managing magical energies would be better for smart people over tough ones and they agreed though. No one missed use rope. The only other gripe with skills was that diversification was harder with only a couple of point to start off with, but that was mostly from the low skill classes (2+). Regardless, they were fine after realizing after 1st level they were basically getting 4 points for 1 if they invested a new skill.
The group really liked the getting rid of Exp costs, as was I. It was something that never made sense to me as a DM and as a player. It seemed to penalize characters who wanted to be prepared and had already sunk their experience into crafting (by buying a bunch of feats).
I'll add more a bit later, since this is ongoing, sure I forgot some stuff as well...
