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Okay, so the Paizo goblins ate my first attempt at this thread, lets try again! On Wednesdays, Vigil and I get together and I run a SWSE Dawn of Defiance game. However, we both were so excited at the new Paizo Pathfinder RPG rules that we decided to create characters and begin playtesting. Vigil ran us in Seige of the Spider Eaters by Tim and Eileen Connors from Dungeon 137. We managed to play through the entire adventure in one day thanks to our getting together at 11 am this morning and playing till about 7pm. Because we only had 3 players plus the DM, Vigil created a character so our party would be balanced and so we could try all 4 classes. Our party consisted of a Half-elf Cleric (played by Vigil), a Human Fighter (played by one of our friends), a Halfling Rogue (played by Vigil's wife), and an Elven Wizard (played by me). We created our characters with maximum hit points for 1st level plus our Constitution modifier and any other bonuses. In addition, each character received a flat amount of bonus hit points, regardless of race or class, 6 hit points.
On Races:
The half-elf is playable again! To quote Vigil, "They finally feel like they have half the benefits of both elves and humans." The bonus hit point for Favored Classes made everyone want to stick with their race's Favored Class. Humans felt very similar to 3.5, as did elves and halflings although the extra +2 to an ability score was nice!
On Classes:
The capstone abilities for classes have created a strong desire in all of us to actually playing our characters up to 20th level and not multiclass.
The Cleric's new Domain abilities are a useful improvement. Our cleric took the Chaos and Travel domains and his Touch of Chaos ability became his preferred attack option. A very nice combo we found was Touch of Chaos followed by the Wizard casting Sleep, giving a very good chance that the enemy would fail the save. The turning as healing/damage to undead, was also very useful as it allowed the cleric to actually get to cast the spells he had prepared rather than converting them to cure spells.
The Fighter, said he didn't notice any real difference yet between 3.5 and Pathfinder, but he did enjoy gaining a new skill at 2nd.
The Rogue, was most happy with the Rogue Talents. She was happy to gain Weapon Finesse at a level earlier than usual and without losing one of her feats. The sneak attack's ability to affect more creatures came into play as Vigil allowed it to work against some Skeletons we fought. It allowed her to participate in the fight more than she would have in 3.5.
The Wizard's at will cantrips was very nice, allowing us to not need sunrods thanks to Light. I went with a Generalist wizard so the Universal Specialist's Hand of the Apprentice was my ace ability. Thanks to the Hand's at will usage I was able to do something "wizardy" even when I couldn't/ran out of spells to cast. In fact, the damage I dealt with it was on par with the fighter (who was using a sword and shield style) when the fighter wasn't Power Attacking. The Arcane Bond ability became a lifesaver, when I had my Arcane Bonded ring cast feather fall on our cleric. Overall, I am much happier with the wizard at low-levels, feeling far more useful than in 3.5.
On Skills:
Gaining the extra skill trained at 2nd level allowed us to feel more organic with our character growth. We all chose new skills that were used in the adventure that we didn't have before, thus allowing our characters to learn from their past. The Appraise skill also got used for the first time in our games. Normally we just ignore the appraising of items but the usage of Appraise to identify magic items has made Appraise a must have skill for my Wizard.
On Feats:
Toughness, previously was a useless feat to me. 3 hit points was a pathetic gain for the cost of a feat unless it was a low-level one shot adventure. However, combining the benefits of Toughness and Improved Toughness actually has all of the player's relooking at this feat. (I did take it and am very happy I did.) Power Attack was used a lot less often by our fighter than usual but when he did use it, the extra damage saved our butts! (Namely in the fight with a webbed hydra.) The only Combat Feat that got used was Dodge by our Rogue. We are very happy with the change in Dodge since it applies to all attacks. Being her only Combat Feat, she just wrote her Dodge bonus into her AC so she wouldn't forget it. This is perhaps the best part of the new Dodge, as too often players and dm alike would forget they have Dodge and thus forget to declare an opponent for their Dodge.
On Combat:
Unfortunately, we haven't been able to use the CMB yet. Our Rogue did use the new Feint rules however. The flat DC for the Deception check created a much smoother flow to the combat than an opposed roll would have.
Extras:
We chose to go with the fast xp gain to better simulate 3.5's level gain rate and so we can play with the new abilities sooner. On a personal note, I have always been a player who preferred fast level progression till at least 13th level. With the changes presented in the Pathfinder, I don't mind low-level play as much and wouldn't mind doing a medium or slow level progression. The only recommendation I have at this time is perhaps a Feat that allows you to treat one skill as a class skill regardless of class and can be taken multiple times.
From my side of the screen:
A lot of Mordulin's post was from our post-game discussion, but I can still add some anecdotes and opinions.
First, my cleric DMPC didn't contribute much to the fights. The fighter, rogue and wizard could all consistently hurt foes, while my best trick was the Touch of Chaos. Which means I could make a foe suck at his next roll.
Second, the positive energy turning as healing brings some changes to how the game is played. I couldn't use it in combat with living foes, because I'd heal them too. Heck, I had to tell the fighter to make sure everything was dead after the fight was over. I didn't want to bring anything that was just in the negatives back, ya know. We never worried about coup de gras'ing downed foes before. Now we do.
Third, a d6 as healing isn't anywhere as good as a d8+1. Frankly, each time I used turning as healing, I had to blow two turn attempts just to generate enough healing to do any good. At least it affects the whole party, so I'm sure that it's balanced overall. It just seems like turning attempts are going to be used up quickly.
As far as running the adventure is concerned, I didn't have to do much differently. HP's for NPC's were easily adjusted and CMB's for medium creatures were basically their grapple checks. I rolled skill checks as printed rather than checking to see if the bonus listed matched the formula. Granted, this is low level stuff. High level conversions will likely be a lot harder.