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The belt and book wouldn't do anything. There may be some specific character/class abilities or feats that allow you to do what you want, but it isn't clear exactly what it is you are trying to accomplish. Perhaps you would have more luck if you tell us specifically what you are trying to do.
In a world with the kind of magic represented by the Pathfinder system it isn't terribly difficult to find a justification for where such a thing would come from. Rescued from a traveling menagerie.
Those are just a few off the top of my head. Obviously what fits for your character is up to you, but I wouldn't consider it 'gamey' if someone decided that velociraptor was what they wanted.
But I’d note that going archery instead of melee on a cleric has more costs than just eating up your turn + all your feats (and a Domain here): it takes you out of melee. Party composition and other roles matter of course. In a typical 4 person party you probably want at least 2 on the line, and if your character needs to be one of them, whether you are making a cleric or not, you probably shouldn't be an archer. You can structure with other concepts in mind, but they generally have to be planned for, usually as a group. Since we are primarily talking about archers though, the 'on the line' isn't really something that is going to be happening, whether it is an inquisitor archer or a paladin archer or a cleric archer, so the poor rogue better figure out some way to manage to deal damage without this particular character. In the general sense, of which cleric is the best option, I will certainly agree that party composition matters. In my experience though, as long as you are looking at building a support character, in most parties the more mobile ranged cleric is more useful then a melee cleric. That said, I have most often played with 5-6 PCs, not a 4 man group.
I would add in a couple of arcane casters from a seaside area showing up and taking out the beholders due to copyright violations.
My advise would be that unless the party is in a particularly tight time situation or the magic items they are trying to create are very expensive it really isn't worth tracking closely or worrying about. Assume that they will have a reasonable amount of time to craft the items that they can afford and get on with the game rather then dealing with the minutia of tracking time.
Question: As a 9th level cleric, when are you going have time to use your bow and all those archery feats vs all the spells you have? Every combat round after the first when none of the other PCs are in serious trouble.
If you want to primarily be an Archer, Inquisitor is a very strong choice. That said, I believe that the archer cleric is one of the strongest options out there for a support cleric. You won't put up huge numbers, but you can be one of the most effective team players there is. The key to this concept is mobility, usually via a mount. Unlike a melee cleric, it is easy for you to get where you need to go to render aid when someone gets in trouble, you don't have do disengage from combat, with a mount you have greater speed, and you also have a free move action to do something like pulling out a scroll, since you fighter just got blinded and you didn't memorize remove blindness today, but you have a scroll for every occasion in your haversack. This flexibility alone makes for a strong character. Of course archery is really the only non-spell option for participating at range, so you are going to invest in that. You aren't going to be as great as a dedicated DPS archer, but you can make up for a lot of that by playing smart. If you can manage the last few points on an enemy that your melee character has just mauled bringing it down before its turn, that is more effective then a melee cleric doing a lot of damage to a different opponent, but not bringing it down. Archery lets you focus the damage you do where it is most effective. And of course your first turn in a combat is probably a group buff, making everyone more effective for the whole combat. After that, unless something is going wrong you use your archery focusing on already wounded combatants. Since you aren't planning on using a whole lot of spells in combat you have plenty of (probably unfilled) slots available for utility magic. This isn't a sexy high numbers concept, but it is an extremely effective one. As for the build itself, you don't need a super high WIS since you are going to focus on support. A moderately good DEX is enough. You don't really need to spend a feat on boon companion since your aren't planning on taking your mount into melee so you can pick up some good archery feat.
Magic Vestament says that 'an outfit of regular clothing counts as armor' so any of the outfits would work. Beyond that, it would be a GM call, for example I don't know that if all your character has was a loincloth magic vestment would work. Magic Weapon requires that the target be a weapon, not just something that you improvise to use as one.
Survival for tracking to trail the bandits to their lair.
I'd also be totally open to anything the players came up with on their own, giving a reasonable chance of success to their gambits.
I'd consider a bloodrager and eldritch scion magus both with the aquatic bloodline. At 4th both would have waterbreathing and a 30' swim speed. Both can be moderately 'tanky.' While the magus is more complicated in theory, in practice it is often a few go to tactics via spell combat/spell strike and isn't difficult to figure out and can give a nice 'nova' effect that your son might like. The bloodrager would be more steady and dependable damage, and that might suit you well. This would also let the two of you work together a be a team.
I would definitely make the choice to 'sell his soul' matter. He needs to slip deeper and deeper into evil, finding it easier to justify doing bad for the 'right' reasons. My goal for the rest of the campaign would be to show the party that the paladin damning his soul wasn't worth stopping the great evil, that it just opened the door to a worse evil, as the ex-Paladin becomes less and less moral, and more convinced that only he has the will to make sure the 'right' thing is done. I can see a villain utterly believing in his own goodness and righteousness (sure, he detects as evil, but that is a technicality only there because of his willingness to sacrifice himself, it is really 'proof' of how noble he is.) He knows what is right. He is the one that makes the hard calls. He understands sacrifice is necessary, that prices must be paid and the he is the only one worthy of power and so he needs to gather more and more. Of course plenty of bad things out there would be happy to give such a fallen champion more and more power, making him a legitimate threat that eclipses the one he originally gave his soul to stop.
Thieves is a big concept. For example, Cayden Cailean fits fairly well with a con-man, but not so much a burgler and probably not a mugger. Beyond that, people are complex things and there is a lot of room for different characters within the simplified alignment structure. Someone could worship Erastil, a believe a whole lot about what he talks about, but for reasons that seem good to him decide that thievery is the way to go. Beyond being complex, people are also great rationalizers. Lawful beliefs would limit most thievery, but probably less then Good ones would, and infiltrating a thieves guild and doing what you had to to maintain cover would be acceptable for quite a few moralities, as long as the need was great enough. The 'higher, better goal' is probably more significant then the willingness to partake of thievery as a means to that end. For your first question, I would consider Khepri to be an interesting option, especially for a 'street trash' background.
The original alchemist has the ability, which includes the ability to shift between simulacra even if you aren't in your own body.
The two situations usually have very different solutions. In a low equipment game, full casters tend to be more powerful because they don't rely on equipment nearly as much. However, they are obviously pretty terrible in an area where magic doesn't function. My first bit of advice would be to not worry so much about such things, trust that although your GM may throw such things at you from time to time, overcoming those obstacles will be part of the fun and just building around them from the outset will probably make the game less fun, not more. Trust that your GM will assure that for the majority of the game all characters will be able to properly contribute and play what you really want to play. Obviously the nature of your group, the skill level of your GM and, to an extent your own personal views on what is fun might make the above advice irrelevant. That being said, if I wanted to build a character that I thought would be strong, regardless of weird circumstances it was thrown into, I'd think pretty strongly about a vivisectionist alchemist. Enough magic to create buffs when equipment is lacking, enough non-magical combat abilities to be strong when magic doesn't work and overall a pretty fun and versatile class. The ragebred would obviously be a strong option here as well, although if you push the build too hard it can approach the 'broken' territory, which may or may not be an issue depending on your group dynamics.
If you are the GM, then you can absolutely create a lich that works like this.
You know your game and group best. Good luck.
This is an interesting way to get there, and I expect your Skald with VMC Oracle would work well enough. That said, I think an evangelist cleric would be a better option. The only place you are worse on your list of desires is skills and except for unusual circumstances I don't find skills all that desirable in a cohort anyway (let the PCs, not their lackeys take the lead in that sort of thing.)
I think what you want to achieve is a big ask. Having the final encounter basically be just skill checks is likely to feel pretty anticlimactic unless you have a lot more skill at this sort of thing then I personally do. What I think I would do is set up the discussion with the Fairy Queen as the penultimate encounter, and this is one of the places where I would resort to GM trickery, hiding the fact the win or lose the result would be the same. For example: "You have convinced me of the worthiness of your cause and so I will allow you to enter the Shadow Arena, there to prove by combat the justness of your claims" or "False creatures, it is clear you are trying to deceive and have no honor. To the Shadow Arena with you, where your falseness will be proven by combat for all to see." Then you can set up an epic final battle where every PC can showcase their abilities and contribute fully.
I'd start with the easy thing first. While the character may well have multiple spell books, their are a finite number of spells that really desirable as an 'I really need this right now" spell. I would expect that a little bit of thought could reduce the needed spells to a single book (particularly a blessed book which is a good investment anyway.) This would greatly reduce the need for extra-dimensional shenanigans.
What MrCharisma is saying is that the ability to tell someone what they must do (Command) is stronger then the ability to tell them what they can't do (Forbid Action.) If everything else is equal, Command is stronger. As you and he both agree, everything else isn't the same, the save every round is a rather huge difference and certainly makes them closer to equal. Your contention that GFA ends up being stronger is certainly supportable. Personally, I'm not so sure you are right, but I think it depends on the play style and meta aspects of the particular game/group. Command is a very strong spell for keeping the enemy from getting away, something I and my players tend to value highly. The fact that there is a save every round is fairly irrelevant since usually whoever is important enough to be targeted by command is going to be the focus of the group and they are almost certainly not going to survive to their second save anyway. Some groups play in such a way that 3-4 rounds of combat is about as long as most fights are going to last. Others play in a way where fights going ten or more rounds is more typical. Clearly, the utility of GFA vs. GC is going to vary based the environment you are in.
I will note that I might disallow this as a GM for simple logistical reasons when using miniatures and a grid if it became cumbersome. This wouldn't be based on any rules. I'd certainly clear this with a GM before doing it, and I would choose not to try it in an environment like PFS since it is fairly esoteric and I wouldn't want to put a GM on the spot.
Caster level is definitely not total levels of casters. It is the level of the casting class you are using to activate the staff. In the case of UMD it would be zero (which means you would use the level of the staff.) Unless your cleric has fireball on it's spell list, you can't use those caster levels to activate the fireball staff. Similarly, I believe that when using UMD to activate a staff there is no relevant casting ability score. So you would use the minimum ability score required to cast the spell, just like wands do.
You might want to think about a Dandy Archetype Ranger. Still a pretty strong martial character at the base, CHR is a major secondary stat, and some really good bonuses on face skills as well as a few unique abilities that might be a lot of fun. It has some spell casting, but not a lot and that might be a good way to get into the magic of the game, without needing mastery to make the character 'work.'
I believe that it would allow creatures to share the same space regardless of size. It wouldn't change the space of any of the creatures though, so a large creature would still take up 4 squares, but those squares could have allys in it. They wouldn't get the flanking bonus, because that comes from the swarming racial trait, not rat stack, so it would be of fairly limited utility. Squeezing doesn't have anything at all do to with occupying the same space. You don't 'ignore the rule' it still applies if the area is too small for you, but other creatures being there doesn't have anything to do with that.
the subject of the spell gains a bonus on Fly skill checks equal to 1/2 your caster level. That's kind of like a lot of training... No question the animal has the ability to fly at that skill level. Having the fly skill doesn't mean that it has been trained to fly on command though, two entirely different things. Obviously, a different GM might have a different opinion, but I think that if the much more obviously natural air walk has a fairly difficult training requirement and the fly spell doesn't mention it as a possibility, the logical conclusion is that it isn't possible. (Extraordinary mounts could change this, high enough INT and the question changes, I wouldn't have an issue with it for a paladins mount, but wouldn't allow it for a Druid's AC. But I wouldn't require such a special mount to have the extra air walk trianing either)
I don't believe there is any trick that will command a mount to fly via a spell, and it seems extremely unlikely that a terrestrial mount would want to do this on it's own. So the fly spell would be pretty useless if cast in that way. Air Walk is of course a whole lot closer to a mounts normal method of locomotion, which is why air walk has a trick option.
I see 10 Loot 4 Less plus one about explosions. Is there any recommends or "skip it" for the line? My personal favorite was 'Fezzes are Cool' but they pretty much all have some good items and fun ideas. If you are looking for something that can be a 'prize' for the whole parts and won't take up slots, Crazy Kragnar's Used Chariots is pretty fun.
I'd go for a high DEX arcane duelist bard. You should be able to do OK damage on your own, help support the Barbarian both with inspire courage and helping him by also being in melee. You wouldn't take much focus away from the other PCs and it has a lot of RP potential as well. Skald would also be a possible option.
I highly recommend the Rogue Genius Games loot 4 less line.
As described, there is no particular interaction with a persons shadow and the shadow plane at all. What I would probably do is add some flavor, maybe with a minor mechanical effect but nothing too horrible. By first thought would be that on the shadow plane the character gets his shadow back, but as an anti-shadow. Basically a slightly glowing area where a shadow would normally be. I'd go for a couple of minor, offsetting mechanical effects, -2 to any stealth rolls and a +1 to the very first attack roll against any native of the plane (as the anti-shadow is distracting to them.)
Okay. I think I understand more or less how you want to play. I think your choice of dirty trick is a pretty strong one. That really means your 'role' in the party is more a battlefield controller then a striker. You would debuff/disable an opponent and the others should be able to take them down quickly. Since your range with this is just hand-to-hand I'd be looking for spells (and maybe feats) that would help with mobility. Unfortunately the travel domain isn't available for Calistra (seperatist cleric might be an option.) For the cleric half I would focus on three jobs, in pretty much this order:
I wouldn't worry too much about buffs, perhaps long term ones here and there, but I wouldn't plan on spending actions in combat on them. For the Brawler half I'd go with your idea of dirty trick, which is a terribly flexible maneuver. I'd enhance this ability to be flexible by keeping in mind that other maneuvers combined with martial flexibility can be situationally effective. You don't need to be a grapple specialist to successfully grapple the puny wizard after all, one or two feats is sufficient. Basically my goal with this character would be to quickly get up close and personal with the highest threat, disabling them and setting them up for the strikers to pummel. One note: You mention monk, and with the high point buy it would be pretty strong. The martial artist monk can be of any alignment, would give you WIS to AC which with that high a point buy is a pretty big deal. You would lose some of the flexibility of brawler, and full BaB, but it might be an ok trade.
This should probably be posted in a 3rd party forum. There are a number of things here that a way out of normal for pathfinder. You might be able to use some of the ideas from this thread though.
How to make those two classes 'mesh' depends a lot on what you are really interested in playing. You could build a caster with a combat chasis, which basically means playing just as a regular caster but you have better defenses etc. You could build a front line combatant who has spellcasting, primarily for out-of-combat healing, condition removal and utility magic. Or you could try to find something that synergizes, where the spell casting enchances the melee combat or the melee combat enhances the spell casting. Any of those options can be effective and any can be fun, but what would be the most fun for you depends entirely on you. Personally though, with that kind of game and the party composition I wouldn't expect to get a lot of mileage out of a reach cleric. I'm seeing at two other characters that are probably going to want to go in fast and hard. With gestalt and that high point buy they are probably going to be pretty effective at that too. That isn't to say that the reach build is bad, just that I wouldn't expect to see a lot of AoO from it.
I would think that anyone could hate the undead.
Any character whose player brings the GM a 6-pack before gaming.
I would think about taking ordinary creatures/people from the area and applying the Nightmare Creature template.
I didn't talk about Frostfallen in my first post since your edit seemed to imply you had decided against it. Assuming you don't care about the cold damage, it is pretty clearly the superior option.
Frostfallen keep special attacks. Zombies and Skeletons do not.
[ Declaring an attack must be something other than making an attack, otherwise the language would simply refer to an attack roll instead of a declaration. I believe the point of the language here it to clarify when you have to decide to use the feat. You can't roll, see you have a 19 and say 'Ok, I'll use combat expertise'. You have to decide up front, before anything else.
It would be capped of course. As I said though, I think this class feature and the Cunning feat are such a can of worms that I would just say that it didn't work period were it to come up.
I'm not sure how the 'end effect' is not the 'benefit.' Cunning would be a difficult feat to use with this ability. When you 'lose the effects' which skill ranks would you lose? I would probably not allow it as a GM because it would be a mess. But I presume you would agree that if you lent your Exemplar the cunning feat, the quintessentist would lose access to some skill ranks. Those are the same skill ranks I would expect the exemplar to gain. When it comes down to it though, what you are trying to do is the get access to any spell trick that Paizo has quashed numerous times already when they have accidentally created a loophole. Even if I were convinced that you had found one that they hadn't closed, I wouldn't allow it if I was your GM.
Skeleton of creatures that use wings to fly can't fly, so that would argue for a zombie option. Depending on what you want to do, I could argue that a regular zombie might be better than a fast zombie. If you just want a flying platform that you cast spells from, the DR might be better than not being staggered and getting an extra attack.
This is one of the areas where there are no rules, because the effects can vary wildly from spell to spell, and a GM has to adjust for that. Action economy, as you are aware, is one of the most powerful things you can mess with and any magic item that adjusts that needs to be looked at carefully by a GM to ensure that it is balanced. So there is, and should not be, a 'standard' adjustment for this. That said, I have seen some people use swift action activation of a spell as being equivalent to a quickened spell, hence 4 levels higher and with a commensurately higher caster level needed (so a swift action haste would be a 7th level spell with a caster level at least 13) and that isn't a horrible starting place.
Once again, that isn't what anyone has said. Mages would be present in a high seas encounter about like they would in any other encounter. For example, if a treasure ship of a kingdom is transporting something of enough value, a powerful spell caster might very well accompany it. A naval ship dedicated to hunting pirates might have a mage as part of the ships company. A mage might choose to become a pirate captain (or crew) for lots of reasons, just like they might choose to adventure in caverns underground. What they probably wouldn't be is simple hirelings employed for a fairly low amount. I would say that it would be rare for a ship to have a mage without having cannons etc. unless that mage was a pirate that was just starting out or something similar. So ships in order of power would most commonly go something like this: Lowe: Just crew with personal weapons
Obviously there would be exceptions, but that is what I would most commonly expect to see.
You are sharing the feat, along with all the choices you made as part of the feat. The feat transfers with all the choices you made, no new chance of a choice exists. The exemplar never 'gains' the feat itself, it is 'granted' the feat that the quintessentialist already has.
No one is saying there are no casters who are pirates or no casters who aren't engaged in protecting ships from pirates. They are just saying you can't buy them for a few thousand gold a year. Also, alchemists are technically not casters, which creates all sorts of problems for alchemists that want to craft magical items.
First thing I would say is that the ship-to-ship combat rules in Pathfinder and Scull and Shackles are not great. I'd strongly recommend the Razor Coast Fire as She Bears supplement as an alternative. Leaving that aside for now, I think you are missing a few things about Pirates. While Pirates may occasionally buy things for their ships, they are usually more interested in stealing them, and the ships themselves of course. If you manage to take a board a ship with cannons, then you don't have to buy them. I suppose you could try enslaving mages as an alternative, but that is somewhat problematic even if the moral issues don't bother that particular band of cut throats. I also think you underestimate the cost of hiring mages. Yes, their are rates for spell casting services, but those rates generally assume the spell caster is staying home in comfort and safety, not living on a pirate ship. And as others have mentioned, even with the Pathfinder rules magic is not as impressive in a ship-to-ship battle as you seem to think. In our group, the focus was always getting in close as quickly as possible and boarding in any event. We didn't want to destroy the other ship, we wanted to take it intact and sell it (or keep it).
Your party is perfectly workable against standard challenges (what you would find in an AP.) Yes, you would end up weaker then a more balanced tactically designed party, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing for game play. Of course individual levels of optimization matter too. As Magda mentions, condition removal is an issue you will want to think about as a party. Some of that a Paladin can cover but for the rest the only real option is UMD, probably from the bard although if you went with a mysterious stranger gunslinger and got a trait for UMD you could handle this pretty well yourself, which might be nice since it appears your bard is already taking over the trap disabling role for the group and doesn't have versatile performance for more skills. Of course almost any class can be built and played for any of the three main combat roles, but I would be surprised if a sandman bard was built primarily as a support character, I would expect battlefield control instead. They are a very 'casty' bard. Given that everyone except the Bard is full BaB, I would expect you do to ok without any support characters as long as you can heal up and remove conditions after fights.
One obvious problem is even if you can avoid a TPK, how long will it take for our crippled hero to get out? A long session with only one player isn't going to be fun for your group. My instinct would be to go one of two ways, either declare it a TPK right now, so everyone can make new characters and be ready to go next session or basically deus ex machina them out of their situation quickly. If I decided to get them out, I'd probably have the footsteps he heard approaching be friendly. The exact nature of those 'friends' would depend a lot on the campaign and particulars of where they are, but somehow someone who could help them get back on their feet quickly so they can resume the fight would show up.
Wizards generally make better skill guys then clerics, just because they have more skill points due to intelligence. You might want to think about Shaman. If you like complicated classes with a lot of moving parts, it should be right up your alley. It also has 4+ int skill points. It is also 3/4 BAB so you can hang in the front line.
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