I had a chance to run a small playtest this past Saturday. The party consisted of three 10th level characters, a half-orc cleric, a human fighter, and an elven rogue (build as a ranger).
This post will relate specifically to the races and classes. I will post the impressions on combat and feats in their respective forums.
CLERIC
The cleric was relatively straightforward. Despite some concern of the domain abilities, they really were not a big impact. Instead, what became obvious is that the half-orc makes a hell of a good cleric build. The racial strength combined with the BAB made the cleric as effective as the fighter (and in some cases more so). The half-orc used a shocking great axe in combat. Combined with power attack, he dealt comparable damage to the fighter.
FIGHTER
Creating the fighter character actually raised a couple of questions. The fighter was built as a human fighter with heavy blades as his main weapon training. This raised the question regarding the human racial familiarity. As a human fighter, can Exotic Weapon Proficiency (bastard sword) be taken as the racial weapon familiarity? I allowed it, as I did not see it to be a problem. However, this may need to be clarified in the race section because it could just as easily have been ruled that as a fighter he was already proficient with bastard swords (as a two-handed martial weapon).
ROGUE
This class caused the biggest discussion on class abilities. There was some concern that the rogue talents were too much. They weren’t. What became obvious though, was that the Pathfinder rogue makes a better ranger than the 3.5 ranger.
The character was built as a woodland scout. The character’s 1st level skills were (with a 14 Intelligence): Acrobatics, Appraise, Climb, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Linguistics, Perception, Stealth, Survival, and Theft. The remaining five skills were: Deception, Disguise, Knowledge (dungeoneering), Swim, and Use Magic Device. All rogue skills, so they are at max ranks using the Pathfinder skill system.
The rogue talents selected included fast stealth, quick disable, ledge walker, improved evasion, and surprise attack. Combine these abilities with a good selection of bow related feats, the new d8 hit die, sneak attack, and uncanny dodge and you have effectively a ranger. In fact, compared to a 10th level 3.5 ranger, the pathfinder rogue in “ranger” configuration is a better character (even with the 3.5 ranger having a slightly better BAB and Fort save).
As far as i would rule, to get the human prof to be exotic, you need to be proficient with it martially first.