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Morning Paizo. I don't really think your survey is enough to give "True" feedback, so I wanted to come back to the forums and do a post-up.
My character for the playtest, part 2, was a Dwarven Monk. I wanted to experiment with multi-classing, and wanted to see dwaves "in action".
Here were my thoughts on everything (for those reading, minor spoilers below). I ended up using Rogue, even as I saw that it would probably
be better to be a fighter. I also wanted to see how combat manuevers worked, so I "Experted" Athletics and took lots of skils aroudn it.
*The rogue add-on feels MUCH weaker than the fighter add-on. Rogue gets "suprise attack", which doesn't really come into play terribly often
(especially considering how relatively easy it is to flank etc). Fighters get full access to all weapons and armor; and fighter feats are simply
better at low levels. I'd like to see something more iconic... maybe make the sneak attack "d4 style" be what you get as a rogue multi-classing
(since sneak-attack is probably why you took it anyway).
*For wanting to be a manuever specialist, I sure couldn't find any athletics-based skills that let you do a manuever better than anyone else.
I used the opportunity to become a jumping specialist... which turned out good. Assurance was a lot better than I thought for athletics... the ability
to just know I could make 15 foot jumps (expert athletic + extra 5 foot feat + quick jump) was good for determining landing spots.
*Combat in general felt pretty sloggish. Part of the problem were the monsters... when they generally have ACs in the low 20s and our highest was 20;
and they get +13 to hit compared to our +8, it felt like the scenario where they rarely missed and we rarely hit.
Only the containment fields on the elementals kept us alive... those things were rough. Our GM said this has been a general belief, and that crit immunity at low levels will be discussed; much less the air/earth elementals ability to take exactly 1 hit without everyone go into "ready" mode.
*You sure reintroduced the "Cure Light Wound" effects quickly. Yes we had long combat days... but at no point did we actually enter a combat with less than full health. Medicine is required; and like a lot of skill-check based thing, sitting there rolling dice until that person rolled a 1 (and the party
became "bolstered" for them), then moving to the next peson seemed like a waste of time. I know you want longer adventuring days... but I thought part of the CLW effect was it removing the danger of traps and the need to ever go in combat with less than full hp.
*Manuevers were actually pretty good
The gnoll fight (we had a player who had made their background a slave by gnolls, so yes, it was a fight) was great for testing the "push" manuever; and indirectly the "grab edge" reaction. Grappling seemed effective. Disarm seemed terrible so I did not even try. For the crab, grapple leading to it ending up tripped on a nat-1 showed lots of potential danger
*However, it emphasized that there felt like almost no difference between an "expert" and a "trained" character. Lacking any exciting feats, the +1 was a 5% bonus... leading to the die having a lot more outcome than how I spent my skills. I think your introduction of the -4 to "untrained" skills
really did what it was supposed to... we stopped doing the "everyone roll every knowledge check" scenarios. I think this could be extended.... double the bonuses to each level on everything. It should fix itself... a legendary armor vs legendary weapon user is still relatively the same. And I do think the
difference between a Legendary person at a skill and a untrained one should be the difference in a critical (a success for the untrained guy being critical for the Legend).
*With the higher hit points and "static" options, games don't feel as diverse as 1st edition. I've been a big advocate and really trying to push the idea of change. But I feel like I am playing the same problems of 4th edition... they tried to overbalance everything, and doing so took away options and
made everyone seem kinda "blah". I don't like that feeling... I can't put my finger on it, but I think something needs to make the combats more exciting and have more options.
*Animal companions were god-awful. We had a ranger and a druid (animal companion specialist). The druid's animal companion occasionally got a hit for a little damage, but the rangerrarely felt it was worth 1 of his actions for 2 low-damage attacks from the animal companion. Also, they suffer from lack of feeling special as well.
*Monks still feel bad relative to the "weapon" classes. With the magic weapon spell being 1st level, and all the emphasis on making a weapon magical adding dice, a d12 feels like a requirement for weapons. Anything not rolling d12 had better have some amazing keywords to make it worth swinging. Also, the expert in unarmored did not make up for what armor can do for you. Not that it mattered (see the monster's high to-hit).
Again I can't emphasize the combat is starting to feel very 4th edition-like. It seemed you went SO safe in the design of the new edition that you took no risks and effectively made everyone feel the exact same. You have lots of potential actions that could be useful in a variety of circumstances... fill up our arsenal of options. As a monk, I should have had a million extra actions for Athletics to be cool... I had none (I think there was one that lets
you do str in damage if you start a grapple... that is terrible). Barbarians should have options to make their various rages more cool. And experts relative to trained should feel more diverse.
And just so we can say it, I'm not coming down hard... I like the way the levels are set up and the fact you are trying to give options. They just don't feel risky enough. You took the game's power level down 95%... I think you need to consider dialing it back up in the final edition.
Always a fan! I know this is playtest and far from the final version.