Benjamin Robson wrote:

Very good points. I especially agree with the ranger sword and board archetype for early feat access.

However, without TWF (and ITWF and GTWF) where are you getting the extra attacks with the off-hand shield?

prototype00

You don't actually need the TWF feat for a second attack, just to reduce the penalties from -6/-10 to -4/-4 or -4/-8 to -2/-2 with light weapons. In the case of shield master you ignore the extra weapon attack penalty. However, yes, you will need to invest in dex/feats to get the extra attack from ITWF and also if you want to use Two-Weapon Fighting earlier than level 6 as a Sword and Board ranger.

You could ignore Improved Shield Bash and TWF and just use one shield for attack the the other for defense. This may not fit what people are looking for when dual-shielding, but it does allow you to use feats for other stuff.

You seem to be overlooking the Ranger Sword and Board archetype which can take Shield Slam at level 2 without pre-requisites, a whole 4 levels early. Most classes must wait until level 6 to get the free bull rushing goodness; more importantly, the free bull rush from Shield Slam will trip the target if they are bashed into a solid object like a tree or wall, this is not a normal part of bull rush.

Furthermore Ranger will have access to the Shield Master feat at level 6 as a bonus feat, 5 levels earlier than anyone else! This is the best feat for any shield build, you don't even need the TWF feat since you ignore all penalties even the full -6/-10 for not having TWF with two heavy shields.

I made a paladin shield fighter before I realized how early rangers get these feats, so many regrets.

I desperately need a way to view the non-mobile PRD on a mobile device. Besides the fact that Navigation almost never works on my ios5 iPhone, I can't use any of the zoom features that make reading charts and such far easier.

I even tried using UserAgent Faker to trick your mobile PRD site to think I'm using Chrome or Firefox on a non-mobile device to no avail. Your PRD still forces me into the mobile version. So my only option left is to appeal to you to add a tiny link to view the non-mobile PRD on my mobile device.

Thank you.

Also death attack will fail if the barbarian detects the assassin or recognizes him as an enemy. Since you can't sneak attack him from invisibility or flanking due to uncanny dodge, so you must feint to sneak attack which requires the barbarian to recognize you to be feinted.

I personally have been looking over an alchemist vivisectionist build that uses the battle poi.

The idea (and where the problem is too) is to use the poison conversion ability to turn poisons into inhaled type and soak the battle poi on that. Now of itself the battle poi won't produce enough smoke to give the concealment you want, so the next process is to add a smokestick into the battle poi itself (somehow) in order to get a nice big cloud of smoke around you in addition to the poison. The problem (obviously enough to me) is the fact that this idea while feasible in spirit could run into problems on the RAW end and with a GM that doesn't like the idea.

The battle poi is an unusual weapon, it says it is a pair of chains that counts as having two-weapon fighting but it isn't listed as a double weapon on d20pfsrd.com. Probably an error on the srd though. Attaching an inhaled poison seems to be a stretch though a contact poison might work just a well. I thought there was a holy sprinkler mace that had holes to spray holy water when it hit but I guess not, designing weapon like that with smokesticks could be pretty cool and allow for a vivisectionist to go moonlight stalker.

I know there's a mistmail shirt in the 3.5 MIC that grants concealment in your square without blocking your own sight, it's of course 3.5 material and a swift action so it interferes with feinting. Similarly there is the Mistmail from pathfinder that forms a fog that follows the character providing concealment but you lose your armor bonus temporarily.

In my quest to find a viable feinting build I have looked at Improved Two-Weapon Feint (UC) and the Moonlight Stalker feat chain (UC). Since these are the only ways to get a full attack while feinting.

Overall I found that Improved Two-Weapon Feint starts too late (level 8-9) to be useful at all and loses a very valuable attack making it questionable to use at all. I put a lot of emphasis on getting something to work early, preferably around level 5-6 it should come together otherwise it may never see play or get used very rarely before the campagin inevitably ends. As such I abandoned ITWFeint for Moonlight Stalker Feint which grants feint as a swift action.

The base class used was a Ninja as Rogues are not as fun, and Vivisectionist gives up smoke bombs for sneak attack.

Overall it's far from a perfect sneak attack build and may not even be viable, if there is any interest I will expand on my decisions and choices. I probably won't get a chance to play this build in the near future but there was a complete lack of Moonlight Stalker builds and especially Ninja builds on these boards.

Let me know what you think, what you would change, and where you might take a similar build.

Side Notes:
-Moonlight Feint is a swift action so you won't benefit for the Ki Pool extra attack on the same turn, but haste would be really good to have.
-Feint does not count for ranged attacks so I did not touch on it, but that would be so cool if it did.
-If my math is correct attacking through 20% concealment shouldn't be an issue with Blind Fight since you will only have a 4% chance of missing due to concealment. You're more likely to roll a critical miss than miss due to partial concealment.

I would think that increasing an encounter CR by +2 should help with strong parties by adding minions and advancing templates.

To make a more memorable boss fight you could do multi-staged so that the party uses up resources early. This way when the big bad comes out then the only one who could deal with him is a smiting paladin. Perhaps having dread mummies guarding the demi-lich chambers.

You could pull a phoenix revival. Just when they players strike down the big bad, have him come back bigger and meaner. Maybe they struck down the grand vizier's living body and completed his transformation to lichdom.

To deal with the paladin specifically, you may need to use displacement or mirror images as was mentioned before. For archerdins, throw up a windwall, force him into melee. Have the big bad move around to avoid full attacks. Use total cover: have the room change as you fight, have walls fall from the ceiling to grant full cover and force the paladin to move to a new spot.

As said repeatedly: Nerfing the ability during a campaign in which we have a paladin as a PC is out of the question for me. I will not even suggest it.

You are a good DM.

So just use a different weapon untill level 11 for no penalties, apply brawker archetype for plus 1 to hit and plus 3 damage, Plus 1 for every 4 levls so plus 2 to hit and plus 4 damage on each swing at that point. Seems like it at least could be relavent.

If you take the Sword 'n Board Ranger Combat Style, you can get Shield Slam at level 2(!) and Shield Master at level 6. This would allow the build to come together much sooner.

You have the most important feats down. You don't have enough str to make (EDIT: I wrote 2 weapon rend at first) double slice useful enough

Other feats to consider

Improved TWF for another shield attack
Lunge for reach
Extra lay on hands, if you want to stick to oath of vengeance
Greater Mercy (it looses effectiveness as you level up, but it's a really useful feat at lvl 3). If you are interested in this one, I'd recommend not taking power attack till later (lvl 5) and moving your twf and improv shield bash to be your lvl 1 feats

On the ninja side, I'd recommend forgotten trick and not take the combat trick feat to have a flexible combat feat 2/3 times a day

Some other interesting shield feats
Shieleded Move
Saving Shield
Shield focus
Missile Shield

Hope that helps

This is great, thank you! I think I'll go for the Extra Lay On Hands for the Extra Smite, followed by Missile Shield. I don't think my DM will go for getting temporary feats from Forgotten Trick, plus I need those Ki Points for extra attacks especially if I only take 2 levels of ninja.

I was making a Paladin for a game and was considering dipping Ninja for 2 or so levels, mostly for the charisma-based ki pool but also the Ninja trick and skills.

I was considering going the route of Oath fo Vengeance two-weapon shield bashing, not interested in mounted combat, focusing on a bow, nor two-handers. If anyone has other paladin build ideas I would be interested.

My party make-up is
Wizard
Ranger (Crossbow)
Monk (Hungry Ghost)
Alchemist

I'll be the main meat-shield. Healing will likely be a CLW wand.

With 20-point buy, Human, looking at very average stats (I don't mind).
STR 14
DEX 15 (For TWF)
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 10
CHA 14

Feats:
1 Power Attack
1 Two-Weapon Fighting (Human Bonus Feat)
3 Improved Shield Bash
5 ?
6 (Ninja Trick: Combat Feat?)
7 Cornugan Smash
9 Shield Slam
11 ?
13 Shield Master

The ninja dip will delay Shield Master to level 13, it will also slow progression of Smite Evil damage. There are Falling concerns: Sneak attack may be considered a cheap shot and violate the Code of Conduct, Poison Use is out of the question.

I was considering using Shurikens with the Flurry of Stars trick and Smite Evil. Smiting would help to overcomes the low damage, damage reduction, low to-hit issue when combining two-weapon fighting/rapid shot/flurry of stars (that's 6 stars at 6 bab with -6 in penalties).

Sources can be anything on D20PFSRD except 3rd party materials.

Anyone have recommendations?

- Dimensional Agility (lvl11)

- Dimensional Assault (lvl11)
- Dimensional Dervish (lvl13)

If you are willing to, you can take some fighter levels, and get the three dimensional feats by lvl 12, and already speeding-up the crit feats... May be worth it, i haven't really decided yet! =]

The Dimensional Agility feat line are not (Combat) feats and cannot be taken using the Fighter's Bonus Feats nor with the Magus's Bonus Feats.

Though you really only need the first feat in the chain to use Spell Combat's full attack after teleporting with Dimensional Door.

Multiplying: When you are asked to apply more than one multiplier to a roll, the multipliers are not multiplied by one another. Instead, you combine them into a single multiplier, with each extra multiple adding 1 less than its value to the first multiple. For example, if you are asked to apply a ×2 multiplier twice, the result would be ×3, not ×4.

It's x5 on a critical for a Lance during a charge with Spirited Charge.

The Kensai recieves the canny defense ability, Int bonus to AC upto class level. Then one of the suggested arcana is prescient defense which grant the magus his/her Int bonus to AC against a particular enemy. Would this stack, does the magus then apply his/her Int bonus to AC twice against this one opponent?

Int is not a type of bonus, they are from diffeerent sources, so they stack. Note that canny defense just increases the dex bonus to ac, not ac directly

I know that this has been brought up in other threads, but the answers didn't actually address this question. (This sentence added to demonstrate that I know how to use the search function.)

Can a wizard with the Dimensional Agility feat continue to take actions after using the Shift ability granted by the Teleportation Subschool?

Most of the threads I found merely said that Shift didn't count as qualifying for the feat, a sentiment with which I agree, without actually addressing whether or not the feat permitted a wizard to Shift away from threatening enemies and then loose a spell.

I, for one, think that it should, but I'm interested in the thoughts and opinions of others on this matter.

Shift (Su): At 1st level, you can teleport to a nearby space as a swift action as if using dimension door. This movement does not provoke an attack of opportunity. You must be able to see the space that you are moving into. You cannot take other creatures with you when you use this ability (except for familiars). You can move 5 feet for every two wizard levels you possess (minimum 5 feet). You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier.

The issue with Shift(Su) is that it is neither Abundant Step(Su) nor is it Dimension Door the spell/spell-like ability. Just because it says it works like dimension door does not make it Dimension Door and therefore does not fit the requirements of the feat chain. By RAW, this ability will not qualify you for the Dimensional Agility feat.

Your mileage with houserules will depend on your DM.

To me it seems that Energy Attunement only applies to your weapon basic damage, so 1d8 for a longsword or katana and not the entire 1d8 + your strenght bonus or any other boni, making the Blackblade less attractive.

Bonus to damage due to strength is of the same type as the weapon used. The bonus damage from strength on a katana is slashing, just like the katana's 1d8 damage normally, changing the weapon to deal fire damage means the bonus from strength is also fire damage. The same is true for Power Attack's bonus damage.

Also, I find the Blackblade an Arcane-Point-Wasting-Machine unless you can enchant it: for having an effective and competitive weapon, you have to use your Arcane Pool ability to render keen or whatever, your Katana and thus consuming your swift action.

It only consumes your swift action at the start of combat when you use the Magus Arcane Pool ability to enchant the weapon, which lasts for a whole minute (most combats last only 4-5 rounds). Even without Blackblade it is the most efficient use of the Arcane Pool considering the duration and bonuses it can grant that stack with any existing bonuses your weapon already possesses.

People have suggested using metamagic rods with the Magus so I ask is that impossible since one hand has a weapon and the other hand must be kept free in order to benefit from spell combat?

People have gotten some use out of the Hexcrafter archetype and using the Witch's Prehensile Hair hex (Ultimate Magic) to wield the rod, keep in mind it has a limited duration.

Alternatively there is the Alchemist's Vestigial Arm discovery (also from Ultimate Magic) that can wield the rod, this one requires you to take levels in Alchemist though.

Would you say that you can take all your attacks in spell combat, cast as your spell, and then instantly benefit from the extra attack from haste during that very same full attack?

I assume that the spell you are casting is Haste for the extra attack, with that in mind there are three issues I have with that particular order of actions.

First, all attacks must be made in order of highest to lowest BAB, you are adding one on the end at your highest, this goes against the rules.

Full Attack

If you get more than one attack per round because your base attack bonus is high enough (see Base Attack Bonus in Classes), because you fight with two weapons or a double weapon, or for some special reason, you must use a full-round action to get your additional attacks. You do not need to specify the targets of your attacks ahead of time. You can see how the earlier attacks turn out before assigning the later ones.

The only movement you can take during a full attack is a 5-foot step. You may take the step before, after, or between your attacks.

If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest. If you are using two weapons, you can strike with either weapon first. If you are using a double weapon, you can strike with either part of the weapon first.

Second, you are casting a spell between attacks, this is not allowed by Spell Combat rules. However, the extra attack isn't possible until after the spell is cast so this is an unusual scenario.

Spell Combat (Ex): At 1st level, a magus learns to cast spells and wield his weapons at the same time. This functions much like two-weapon fighting, but the off-hand weapon is a spell that is being cast. To use this ability, the magus must have one hand free (even if the spell being cast does not have somatic components), while wielding a light or one-handed melee weapon in the other hand. As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action (any attack roll made as part of this spell also takes this penalty). If he casts this spell defensively, he can decide to take an additional penalty on his attack rolls, up to his Intelligence bonus, and add the same amount as a circumstance bonus on his concentration check. If the check fails, the spell is wasted, but the attacks still take the penalty. A magus can choose to cast the spell first or make the weapon attacks first, but if he has more than one attack, he cannot cast the spell between weapon attacks.

Third, Haste grants you an extra attack on a Full Attack Action, with Spell Combat you are doing a Full Round Action that gives you all your attacks. Technically you aren't allowed to make the extra attack with Haste with Spell Combat, this may not be RAI.

When making a full attack action, a hasted creature may make one extra attack with any weapon he is holding. The attack is made using the creature's full base attack bonus, plus any modifiers appropriate to the situation. (This effect is not cumulative with similar effects, such as that provided by a speed weapon, nor does it actually grant an extra action, so you can't use it to cast a second spell or otherwise take an extra action in the round.)

Per the core book, Touch spells don't discharge if you miss the touch attack, so does that carry over to the Magus as I think it does? Letting you keep hold the spell until one of your basic attacks hit or you cast another spell?

According to Spellstrike, you can replace a free melee touch attack granted by a spell with a free melee attack with his weapon as part of casting the spell. Technically you would still be holding the charge and can continue making touch attacks next round, however it appears that you are required to be casting the spell at the time for Spellstrike to be used. You can no longer Spellstrike with the held charge after the first attack misses.

You also have no precedence in the Spell Combat rules to make the melee touch attack with a held charge and gain the rest of your attacks. Discharging and attempting to discharge a spell does not count as casting a spell for the purposes of these abilities. There is also no FAQ entry for Ultimate combat regarding this scenario, I would love for the magus to be able to hold a charge and discharge a held charge on a melee attack.

Spellstrike (Su): At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell. If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell combat, this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by spell combat melee attacks. This attack uses the weapon's critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifier.

Touch Spells and Holding the Charge: In most cases, if you don't discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round until the spell is discharged. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates.

Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets as part of the spell. You can't hold the charge of such a spell; you must touch all targets of the spell in the same round that you finish casting the spell.

Not that it's come up but since you can deliver touch spells through the melee weapon, it I absolutely positively have to heal or buff an ally 15 feet away, can I hit them with my whip? Maybe using whip mastery to switch it back to non-lethal damage, just in case?

There is no reason in the rules that a none-attack spell with a range of touch cannot be cast through a Spellstrike. Another thread has argued ad nauseum regarding whether or not Arcane Mark, a touch spell that is decidedly not an attack spell can be used with Spellstrike. It appears to be allowed by RAW, however the intent of the developers is currently unknown. The more curious question is how do you calculate the AC to hit, can a person lower his AC to make it easier for the healing attack?

Hopefully this helps. Love the Whip Magus build by the way, can't wait to try my own out.

Oooh. Better question: Could a Shadowdancer take the feats, once they have their shadow jaunt ability? that seems to fit the class and ability quite well.

No, Shadow Jump states that the Shadowdancer moves "as if" by means of a dimension door spell. Unfortunately the feat chain requires either Dimension Door as the spell (spell-like abilities count), or Abundant Step, of which Shadow Jump is neither.

However I'm sure you can work something out with a DM.

If someone with a magic weapon attacks the subject of a blink spell (or blinker) then does that attack count as an attack capable of striking ethereal creatures and, thus, have a 20% miss chance rather than the full 50% miss chance?

Magic weapons cannot be used to attack an ethereal creature. A common misconception is that ethereal = incorporeal and that weapons with the ghost touch property could be used, this is not the case. You cannot strike an ethereal creature unless it is with a force or abjuration effect/spell, you are also in the ethereal plane, or you have a magic weapon that specifically says it works in both ethereal and material plane. There may be an artifact or special weapon like that but I can't think of one off the top of my head.

Also, whatever the miss chance, does that attack do full damage or only 50% damage?

The blink spell itself doesn't say anything about only doing half damage, but it does say that ethereal creatures are incorporeal, and the incorporeal condition states that incorporeal creatures take half damage from magic weapon attacks and spells.

One of my players argued recently that an attacker with a magic weapon who can also see invisibility has no miss chance against a blinker (per the spell description) and that the attack does full damage (because the spell doesn't say otherwise).

Instead, I ruled that the attack had no miss chance but did only 50% damage because of the blinker's incorporeality (per the incorporeal condition). I did this because the ability to see invisible creatures doesn't change the ethereal creature's resistance to magic weapon attacks.

However, a blinker is only ethereal half the time, right? So, if a magic weapon does 50% damage half the time and 100% damage half the time, does that mean it "averages out" to 75% damage?

The problem is, the blink spell only seems to address miss chances with regards to weapon attacks, and it does not address damage relating to the blinker being ethereal (thus incorporeal, thus taking half damage from magic weapons) half the time.

Thanks for any light you all can shed on this for me!

- Atavar

Since the damage cannot be dealt with any normal weapon to an ethereal creature, it would be 100% damage 50% of the time and you can't hit him for the other 50% because neither a magic weapon nor a ghost touch weapon is enough to actually hit an ethereal creature.

The incoporeal line is inconsistent with the rest of the blink description and the Etherealness special quality. I'm guessing that this specific instance is referring to the lack of a physical body in the material plane. RAW says however that a weapon that could hit an ethereal creature, which is not simply a magic weapon, would indeed deal half damage to it.

Another fun RAW fact about Blink is that the 20% miss chance for the Blinker is neither due to etherealness nor concealment and can therefore only be overcome by something that pierces a magical miss chance and not by a weapon that is works on both planes. D7D 3.5 had a feat called Pierce Magical Concealment that overcame miss chance due to magical effects and not just concealment. It was loved by blinking rogues all over.

I am making a Bipedal Eidolon that uses weapons instead of natural attacks.

My question is can I spend 1 Evolution Point to remove the claws from my base form and make them hands?

Under limbs (arms) you may only use weapons if the Eidolon has hands. Now, you can replace claws with either pincers or slam for 1 Evolution Point, would it works the same as for hands.

I appreciate the help.

The specific rules on hands you are referring to is clarifying that you can only use limbs(arms) to wield weapons and that you can't use limbs(feet) to wield weapons. Claws do not preclude the use of weapons in the hand.

You also cannot remove the claws or any evolutions from the base form to regain evolution points, that is not an option provided by the Eidolon class feature. There is the option to exchange base form claws for a slam attack under the Slam(Ex) evolution simlarly with hooves(feet only) and pincers, but you cannot exchange the base form's claws for another evolution point to put towards Weapon Training for example.

I did overlook the Maker's Jump, my bad. It does allow a single level dip in another class while still hitting the feat at level 7. I don't know what would be useful in this case but more options/flexibility is always good.

Regarding races, there are actually two CR 1 monsters in Bestiary 2 that gain Dimension Door, the Jinkin Gremlin and the Brownie. This is according to d20pfsrd.com.

You might be able to work these but they are Tiny sized Fey with some unusual and powerful ability scores and special qualities(DR 5/Cold Iron, the Brownie's other spells, the self + 5lbs restriction on the Jinkin's Dimension Door).

You may be able to find a DM somewhere that would allow it, but most DMs would not and should not allow them. Not without some major balancing and a damn good backstory from the player.

Ultimate combat has a feat tree based on dimension door or abundant step, which lets you zip around like a flea.

I really like this idea, must have read more X-men/X-calibers than I thought!

What I'm not sure of is what is the quickest route to either of these two requirements?

Is there a race with dimension door as a spell like ability, is there an monk archetype that moves adundant step to an earlier level?

Many thanks for looking and any answers!

Full casters seem to qualify for Dimensional Agility before anyone else (level 7), the monk is stuck waiting until level 12 for all current archetypes. Summoner gets Dimension Door as a 3rd level spell qualifying him at the same time as a Wizard would qualify (level 7) despite slower spell progression.

That leaves you with the Wizard, Cleric (with the Travel Domain), and Summoner qualifying at level 7, just in time for your seventh level feat. Sorceror just misses that cut-off getting Dimension Door at level 8 and waiting for the ninth level feat get a Dimensional Agility.

Now with Wizard you can get Dimensional Agility at level 7 and Dimensional Assault at level 9, but you don't qualify for Dimensional Dervish (the best one) until level 13 due to BAB, this can be fixed by multiclassing as a higher BAB class for a couple of levels. The wizard will have more dimension door spells per day then anyone else qualifying this early, but will lack the health, AC and attacks per round to really utilize it.

The Cleric would be ideal with 3/4 BAB if not for the limit on a single domain spell useable for dimension door, you may eek out a couple more by using higher level domain slots I'm not too familiar with Cleric spellcasting to really back that up.

The Summoner has the BAB and, if you take the Synthesist archetype, can be an effective melee combatant. The caveats with Summoner are really just the confusing rules text for the Synthesist archetype, your mileage may vary depending on your DM.

The least cumbersome method of qualifying might be the Horizon Walker's Terrain Dominance(Astral Plane) which grants 3+Wisdom Modifier per day uses of Dimension Door as a Spell-like ability. This method has the advantage of requiring a commitment of only 6 skill points, a feat in endurance, and 3 levels in Horizon Walker (A full BAB, d10 hit dice, 6+int skill points prestige class). The earliest you can qualify for Dimensional Agility with this method is 9th level (3rd level Horizon Walker). However you can add this onto a Monk and utilize that high Wisdom for extra BAMFs per day.

That's what I've seen so far in terms of qualifying for Dimensional Agility/Dervish. Beware prestige classes and abilities similar to Dimension Door, I believe the Shadowdancer's Shadow Jump does not qualify for Dimensional Agility due to not being Dimension Door the spell/spell-like-ability nor Abundant Step.

I would refrain from using a Monster race for qualifying (such as Nymph). These races are not balanced for use by PCs and often times only get a single use of the sought after spell as well as some really powerful abilities.

If anyone can find any other methods of getting Dimensional Agility, please let me know.

•Light Sensitivity: Dhampires are dazzled in areas of bright sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell.

"Dazzled gives you a -1 to attack and -1 to perception (not a big deal considering this character is CMB dependant."

This looks like you might be overlooking the rules of Combat Maneuvers where you add bonuses to attack rolls as well as penalties to attack rolls on CMB checks.

Relevent PRD quote:

Performing a Combat Maneuver: When you attempt to perform a combat maneuver, make an attack roll and add your CMB in place of your normal attack bonus. Add any bonuses you currently have on attack rolls due to spells, feats, and other effects. These bonuses must be applicable to the weapon or attack used to perform the maneuver. The DC of this maneuver is your target's Combat Maneuver Defense. Combat maneuvers are attack rolls, so you must roll for concealment and take any other penalties that would normally apply to an attack roll.

Now this also means that you apply penalties from Combat Expertise/Power Attack and bonuses from charging on CMB checks. Furthermore, you can add attack roll bonuses from Weapon Focus and a weapons enhancement bonus to the CMB check, provided you are using that weapon to make the CMB check.

Now in your case, using unarmed CMB you can apply weapon focus(unarmed) to CMB checks and if you cast magic fang/magic weapon on your fists then the enhancement bonus applies to grappling. Amulet of Might Fists will apply its enhancement bonus for all your unarmed CMB checks

I think the utility is you are firing the spell through the gun, which means you're going to have a much longer range. A two-handed long gun has a 40 to 80 foot range. Most rays and ranged touch spells have a range of close, or 25ft + 5/2 levels. That means firing through the gun seriously increases your range. An arcane sniper with a rifle could hit up to what, 800 feet away with a close range spell? And you get to add any enhancement bonuses to it. Note that that includes the ones you sacrificed a spell for. So, you could sacrifice a spell to enhance it to +3, and then get a +3 to hit that guy at 800 feet.

The description does not mention that the spells use anything from the gun except for 1)the critical multiplier for spells with attack rolls, 2)the enhancement bonus for spell attack rolls or DCs. Nothing else from the gun is mentioned, it doesn't say it uses the range of the weapon or anything like that.

If you want to extend the range of a spell then you must still rely on increased caster levels or the reach spell metamagic feat as before.

It also makes no mention of spells applying the enhanced properties of the gun, which means a gun with flaming property that is used to cast scorching ray does not get an additional 1d6 fire damage.

You might be able to get a DM to houserule that any spells cast through the gun use its range, but you might also requrie a normal attack roll as opposed to touch to balance the extra range.

They poorly define "casting through the gun." Are they shooting the spells? If so, that may be ok for DC spells against something likely to make the save, but otherwise that blows. You are trading a touch attack or no attack for an attack vs normal AC.

The text specifically says the Arcane Gun is used to cast the spells and shoot pellets/bullets otherwise. So from my interpretation all spells are unchanged except for the enhancement bonus they receive from the gun if they are of the types ranged touch, ray, line, or cone.

As far as I can tell the only downside to this archetype is what you trade away, that and the explosion if you use a broken gun. The extra lost spell schools and the extra spell from specializing do hurt, just make sure to grab IMO the best two schools: Transmutation and Conjuration.

Personally this archetype makes no sense to me in that you seem to give up a whole hell of a lot for mostly fluff. If someone could explain to my addled brain how this isn't a horrible trade off for basic fluff that with a flexible DM I could achieve without the AT please do.

It seems to me the big bonus here is the enhancement bonus to spell attack rolls and DCs. Granted most of the best save-or-suck spells aren't rays, ranged touch, line, nor cone. You can use this archetype to improve your enervation, ray of exhaustion, lightning, slow and scorching ray (There doesn't seem to be a single-target only restriction like for the ranged magus). It would be nice to find an exhaustive list for the Spellslinger to use.

Benjamin Robson wrote:

Of course you won't get Trapfinding to disable traps, but you will get dispel magic and minutes per level summons to exhaust those traps.

What level do people actually find this viable?

Easily by 8th level a rogue defeats any magical trap including CL 17 minimum spell traps, and specialists can bypass these traps by this level. An 8th level caster will need to roll a natural 20 on the dispel check to achieve this.

Do you really think that casting around 20 3rd level spells is a viable means of being able to get through a trap???

Likewise setting off traps is setting off alarms..

I know that given my druthers in planning out a party, I'd rather be able to bypass the trap so that it would be set off by the enemies and not by my party. That my party could sneak past such a trap and not have to deal with being Imprisoned, killed by death magic or the like along with alerting everything nearby to come out and kill us.

-James

You are correct, dispel magic is not viable for every or even most magic traps, especially ones with increased caster level. It would only work reliably with low level alarm spells that couldn't disabled without trapfinding, unless all traps have bloated caster levels to which I couldn't find a straight answer.

If you need to be the best trapfinder then rogue is hard to beat, but a Summoner's eidolon with its +8 racial bonuses to any skill is something that should be considered when looking for an alternative skill monkey.

I'm going to give my +1 for Summoner with a skill-monkey eidolon. You can use all your evolution points for the eidolon on "Skilled", as mentioned by Castilliano, and choose any 4 class skills on top of the already decent selection of class skills they get(starts with Perception and Stealth).
I would also recommend taking the Master Summoner archetype[Ultimate Magic] if you take this path, since your eidolon's evolutions won't be combat based you can take advantage of standard action summons that Summoners get while you eidolon is out. If your eidolon is not summoned, you can use summon monster more than once whereas it is normally restricted to only one set of monsters at a time. Throw on top of that the free Augment Summoning feat from Master Summoner and the Superior Summoning feat from Ultimate Magic; you may of course become too powerful like that.

Of course you won't get Trapfinding to disable traps, but you will get dispel magic and minutes per level summons to exhaust those traps.