As always, I have a complete and utter disregard for spoilers. If you don't want this module spoiled, skeedaddle.
Party composition:
Fighter 1 (reach weapon focused)
Occultist 1 or 2 (can't remember, but she had at least 1 other session this week, Evocation and Conjuration implements)
Summoner 2 with melee-ish Eidolon
Dirge Bard 2
Witch 3
Medium 3
Nobody noticed the first secret door. We proceeded down the partially open door and the Bard fell down the hole. Eidolon breaks the trap open after the Moon Spider sealed it. Dirge Bard eats some delicious, delicious poison for STR damage and we move from "let's roll for perception" to "let's take 20 the whole dungeon."
Skeleton in the adjacent room is noticed before the cage falls, so we trigger the cage using one of the corpses. Fighter bashes the skeleton and it reassembles outside. I smash it, the Eidolon takes the head and throws it down the pit. Convenient, that. We take the secret passage to the crypt. There are 6 skeletons, but they all use full-round actions to leave their coffins, which means that we have more than enough time to obliterate them without taking damage.
The adjacent hallway has another pit, which is triggered without stepping on it via the Fighter. Spider climbs up, gets smooshed. Adjacent room with webs (which we had seen from the hallway with the first pit) is initiated using Spark on the webs. Smoosh. We backtrack to the other door. Zombie gets similarly smooshed. We take the secret door to the falling ceiling room, chuckle at the note after the Occultist disarms the trap. Proceed through adjacent hallway, ignore the pit trap.
Oh, there's a giant portcullis here? Take 20 on a Strength check to break it, using my Anytool as a crowbar for the +2 and enjoying The Bear's seance bonus. 27 bends the bars and we proceed to the room with the pit to level 3, ignoring the entrance to the final encounter. We find a pit trap, but fail to notice the secret door. Walk around, open the path back to the entrance, then proceed to the swarm room.
Bard is paranoid, so he runs from the swarm as he claims he has nothing he can do against it, fails to recall that we marked the trap, so he falls in and eats more delicious, delicious poison. Occultist and I both throw Acid Flasks at the swarm, which takes care of it. The Witch was readied to Burning Hands if it approached, but she was able to save the spell because of our alchemical cruelty. Eidolon, Fighter, and Summoner take care of the Moon Spider in the pit, rescuing the poor Bard, who is now at heavy encumbrance. I didn't realize that STR damage affected encumbrance, but the Bard insisted it did, so I just rolled with it.
As they're doing the rescue mission for the Bard, Occultist and I play the Dwarven Door Game, see the final encounter on the other side of the secret door, and I quickly close the door again. There's a lot of humorous delaying on both sides, a few buffs, etc. Eidolon opens the door, readied attacks from skeletons both miss, Eidolon and I wreck them. I 5' in and get hit with Hold Person, failing the save with a pitiful roll. Party moves in (generally) and Witch spams Magic Missile. I'm not sure where that was coming from, but the player was extremely competent, so I'm assuming that was legal. I break free of the Hold Person after 2 rounds, just in time to charge in and kill steal from the Fighter.
Thoughts:
Generally, my rolls were decent. One of the biggest bonuses of The Bear is simply the number of dice I roll on each attack, which accelerates most combats quite effectively. I got Power Attack before this session, but I only used it once or twice. The monsters simply didn't have much HP, so it wasn't necessary here. Dice rolls had a larger impact on everything than modifiers, which is pretty much expected at this level. Honestly, the character performed at the same general level of effectiveness as the last two sessions (Emerald Spire 1 and God's Market Gamble), which is to say quite well.
This is the first scenario where The Bear's bonus to break checks mattered. I had honestly written that off until tonight, when I found it suddenly mattered several times - the pit traps, the portcullis, etc. Seriously, at least 3 times tonight. I still haven't used Trance, though, and now I'll have Enlarge Person as a spell anyway and The Beating isn't worth using a Trance on right now. At least my level 3 bonus was...oh yeah, another use of Trance each day. Honestly, this felt like a dead level to the Strength build. Since I'm in PFS with this character, I don't have access to Beseech at this time, else I'd be channeling damage occasionally.
Occultist spent a fair amount of time summoning an eagle, which was sort of hit or miss. It was a good flank buddy for the final encounter, but other times it came out just in time for the fight to be over. There were also some timely energy rays from the Evoc implement.
For the most part, this entire module was a lesson in patience, aka TAKE 20 EVERYWHERE. We finished in something like 4.5 hours, maybe 5. The Bard was the only one who was ever in any real danger and only once did I think "Man, he deserved that." Of course, at the same time that I was thinking that, I was playing the Dwarven Door Game, which I won, thank you very much.
This playtest has unlocked a new spirit! Would you like Paladin, Keep, Forge, Uprising, Brass Dwarf, or Sickness to become unlocked?
That is a rather difficult choice!
In keeping with Drusk the Bear's inclinations, I choose Uprising.
I built an Occultist for Gamehole Con, which took place the first weekend in November. I've had the opportunity to play her twice so far, the first in Trial by Machine and the second in Level 2 of Emerald Spire.
I went with Evocation and Conjuration as my two schools. Being able to use the energy ray and shocking grasp from the evocation school was great against certain season 6 baddies. And because I was able to use my increased int score to load up on skills, I had good enough perception and disable device scores to act as an impromptu rogue in Emerald Spire. I'm debating taking a level of Rogue so that I can have the trap finding ability.
I can see uses for the Servitor summoning ability, but as stated above, it was hit or miss for Emerald Spire. Up against skeletons and such, my little eagle didn't do any real damage, but it gave flanking to some of my companions and was able to offer a bit of distraction during battle.
So far, I'm really liking how the Occultist plays. I just leveled to two after Emerald Spire, so I think my next school choice will be Transmutation. I'm hoping to get in at least two more games before the playtest is over.
Poor talons. At least those are good against zombies, and bites work well on skeletons (as do claws, making claw/claw/bite where it's at for an undead battle royale).
The biggest problem for the eagle, besides being a slow cast, was that the one encounter where it stayed out and did things (the Bone Priest), it was severely hampered by the fact that the monster had DR/Magic and Bludgeon.
Oh, on that subject, are there plans to have an Arcane Strike-type feat for Psychic casters? That'd be quite handy.