Last weekend I played a level 1 half-orc medium with a build almost exactly the same as Serisan's in his post, but I had Int: 12, Wis: 8, and Cha: 14 and one level lower. I kept The Beating up the whole day with the ability to trance The Bear.
The rest of the party was all level one Pal, water Kineticist, Sorc, and Fighter.
First fight was against 3 dire rats and pretty much one great axe swing brought down a rat while the other two were dispatched by the rest of the party. The rats didn't have enough health for the beating's damage bonus to matter.
Second mission had us delivering medicine to the orphanage. High charisma and trained bluff let me talk our way into checking out the house and then another bluff kept the head mistress from raising concern over what we were doing.
Third mission was the puzzle room which didn't really use anyone's abilities.
Fourth mission had us tasked with taking out a devil in a chelaxian woman's house. We had time before opening the door to allow me to trance into The Bear, so I had my double claw bite combo ready. The DR on the demon would have made Big Sky useful to trance into if I started off in The Bear. That said, I hit with two claws and bite allowing me to get the +2 damage from The Beating on the successive hits. It would have been much more damage if not for the DR, but the bonus damage from The Beating is pretty much the same as the DR reduction that Big Sky would have offered. This fight was also over in one round as we all connected with our attacks.
Final fight was in a tight alley and I've heard this can be a potential TPK. The enemy barbarian started it off by knocking our fighter unconscious. Our kineticist slicked the barb's weapon causing him to drop it. The enemy caster went next and color sprayed our party as well as the enemy barb. The only ones affected were the barb and our paladin taking them out of the fight. The rest of the fight was me poking over the fighter's body with my long spear while the kineticist blasted from behind. The enemy cleric started channeling and brought everyone low. Our sorc climbed up the roof to color spray them promptly ending the fight. I didn't really do much this fight besides act as a wall for the kineticist and sorc.
Overall thoughts
I felt like I was a capable mêlée figther mostly due to the orc's great axe proficiency, and the extra natural attack from the bite is a nice combo with the Bear's claws. I could only really see trancing when we had time to prepare for a fight as a full round action to grow claws didn't seem to be that big of an improvement over my normal great axe + bite. The séance bonus from the beating was only really relevant with my claws as the great axe killed things in one shot at this level. I really like this class for PFS as I can discuss with the party beforehand whether the flanking bonus from the beating would be better than the ability to go large in relation to the rest of the party's capabilities.
In regards to the concerns of capabilities and options in combat, I felt it was the exact same as my level two paladin. Trance 1x/day is equivalent to smite once a day, though less powerful. Otherwise its just swinging weapons all day like most other mêlée characters would at this level.
Building the character didn't seem too difficult as most of the spirits did not seem very useful especially for a level 1 character. This narrowed the list down to basically strength or dex with three spirits each to choose from. I wish I had access to the medium related feats as I couldn't get weapon focus or power attack without a BAB at level 1.
The influence limit was a non issue as I was mainly planning to grow the claws from The Bear and thus never worried about going over 1 influence with a single spirit. I do wish the trance started out as a standard action, so I could at least get in position to full attack the following turn. These early fights are over too quickly to lose a whole round. More trancing per day would allow me to think about taking more utility spirits which would make it more interesting.
I plan on taking this character through the Emerald Spire, so I should be able to level it up to the more interesting stage where I can dual vessel. Really looking forward to Waxworks with The Bear using my three natural attacks to trigger the Wax Dip.
Glad you liked my build. :-)
Thanks for the playtest!