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Party:
Me: Inventor 10. Ratfolk with Rat Familiar, Heavy Crossbow Innovation and construct companion through feats, maxed for this level. Other feats that were relevant were Kickback Strike, Megaton Strike, and Clockwork Celerity. Was playing with the assumption that Familiar could reload the Crossbow with Manual Dexterity; if this is a bad ruling, the only change would be switching to Crossbow and reducing damage die to d10 from d12. Innovations were Complex Simplicity and Manifold Alloy, Offensive Boost was Piercing. Called the weapon a "Kinetic Railgun."
Gunslinger 1: Drifter, built to be a melee tank with decent DPS, a shield boss as a weapon, and a decent AC/HP.
Gunslinger 2: Pistolero Tiefling, used tail and wing shenanigans a lot. Air support, did a ton of Called Shots.
Monk/multiCleric: Tree stance tank, goal was to minmax AC and hold a frontline while offering out heal support when out of position. Mostly yelled "I AM GROOT!"
Alchemist/Witch: Toxicologist with cantrip support to amplify elemental damage, pretty solid support.
Enemy team: 2 Interlocutor Kytons and 2 Nabasu Demons.
Additional notes: Field was large enough that enemies could theoretically be out of 120' Crossbow Range. Basically a large arena map with scant cover and a area of rough terrain in the center.
Thoughts: Party functioned well despite lacking a dedicated healer. GM rolled very well, with the one exception being the round that the Monk was at 15 HP and somehow ate a full round from an Interlocuter where it missed three times in a row. I also rolled well when utilizing the Railgun, I think rolling 13+ for 90% of my attacks. Never critted except one time when a Nabasu had 5 HP left. No one went down, but the GM admitted afterwards that he had reduced the Interlocutors' HP by 32 apiece. Don't think it would have impacted the fight much, but would have likely been enough to down a few players. As-is, we managed to have no one drop.
Crossbow build was fun, but I realized pretty quickly that, while effective, I was not contributing much to the party outside of omnipresent range and damage output. More utility options would be nice for the class outside of the options that exist to add the Trip trait and its siblings to weapons. Alternatively, unlocking these options for ranged weapons like Bows or Crossbows could alleviate this somewhat. Companion did not share my luck with dice rolling, and never got a chance to roll damage once despite having a handful of attacks against both kinds of enemy. Mostly went turret mode, unloading a 28-30-ish damage bolt a turn and conveniently procc'ing weaknesses with Manifold Alloy.
Most satisfying turn of the combat was a round where an Interlocutor had managed to close the gap with my Inventor. Since I had a bolt pre-loaded from the prior turn, I moved 30' (fleet), shot the other interlocutor at roughly 70' away, and had Kickback Strike propel me to a full 85' away from the Interlocutor that had closed the distance. Eating its AoO and attack on its turn was rough (was at 22/126 HP since it crit the AoO), but felt good to launch myself across the field at mach speed. Companion used its free move to place itself in the path of the Interlocutor, forcing it to have to eat 3 actions to reach me. It chose to scrap the construct instead, which still ate a round and change. Joke's on him, it wasn't hitting anyone anyways.
Being 3 points of accuracy behind Gunslingers felt a bit off. Might be worth giving Weapon Innovators a bonus to attack with Overdrive active to compensate for their inherent lack of accuracy due to not having their key stat tied to Attacking otherwise, meaning their Strength or Dexterity is capped at 16 level 1. Thankfully didn't matter much this game due to my consistently good rolls when it mattered.
Megaton Strike was nice, but sadly dice were swingy and a bit below average on the damage. (10, 7, 5, 3 on 4d12)
Clockwork Celerity didn't activate this game, but in a following game I was able to use it to trigger Unstable additional uses 3 times in a row with impunity due to it not having any drawbacks for attempting the check. (1/125 odds) Its a nice feat but somewhat limited since it still suffers MAP. Other innovation types probably have the better versions. Adding Reload to the list of options for Weapon Innovator would be appreciated, since being tied only to Strikes dissuades people from using it alongside multi-action effects like Kickback Strike.
Cunning rune is solid on this class. If you're maxing Int anyways, might as well go Lore route and try to pinpoint weaknesses. Might be cool to spec the class, or, at least Weapon Innovators, towards trying to adhoc weaknesses for what they're fighting at the time since Lore synergizes well with their skillset. The flavor's even already there through the acknowledgement of the Ustalav Undead-slayer Inventors.
Overall, enjoyed my time with the build, but wish they had more utility options that involved their weapons, OR that weapon innovators just commit fully to using feats like Megaton Strike or adding additional damage through stronger offensive boosts, additional damage riders like Bleed, etc and being a full-on DPS class. Also, lucked the hell out that the GM blindly pitted us against monsters weak to Manifold Alloy, choice felt very vindicated. Fun class, a bit threadbare at the moment.
Next thing we'll be doing is a speedrun of Plaguestone, I intend to use the same character levelled down and with a flintlock musket for that. Should be a good time.
Alchemical Crossbow will be wild on this class in PFS play.