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For Arcane Strike, keep in mind that SLAs aren't arcane or divine. What makes a spell arcane or divine is the spell being granted by a class and that class specifying that its spells are arcane or divine.

For example: Cure Light Wounds is an arcane bard spell.

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If you look at the Actions in Combat, it's "Cast a spell" and "Use spell-like ability".

In the Magic rules for spell-like abilities, it says "The user activates it mentally."

In the Universal Monster Rules entry on spell-like abilities, it consistently uses "use" rather than "cast".

Based off those three entries, I'd say they aren't "cast" therefore don't qualify as a prerequisite for anything that says "cast spellname".

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Silent Image is an Illusion (Figment). You can use them to create something to hide behind, but you can't actually change how something that exists looks. That would be a Glamer. You could create an illusion of a big rock and hide behind it, but you couldn't create an illusion of a big rock and hide IN it.

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For the Eidolon, I'm fond of the Combat Reflexes and Bodyguard combination. In Harms Way is also nice, but I don't know if I'd go that far down the chain.

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Most (all?) classes will not get "Spell-Like Abilities" and spells are treated differently than SLAs. So most characters never actually meet the requirements of Quicken Spell-like Ability.

A lot of the wizard specializations, cleric domains, and sorcerer bloodlines grant spell-like abilities. Those abilities are usually pretty useless by 10th level and being able to quicken them keeps them at least moderately useful.

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You should be able to use Vital Strike and get a Cleaving Finish though.

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Keep in mind that if you're in a reasonably sized town, you can usually rent another wizard's spellbook for half the ink cost instead of buying a scroll.

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I like the Splash Weapon Mastery feat myself. With the relativity short range increment of your bombs and other splash weapons, the fact that it works as Far Shot would be enough to get it.

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Unless you want every one of your feats to be Spell Mastery, not really.

I'd suggest making a wizard-like witch. The Bonded Witch archetype is pretty interesting for half-elves since you get a bonded item instead of a regular familiar. Otherwise, there are quite a few familiars with swim speeds.

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They take all the damage. A +1 humanoid shapeshifter bane weapon has a +3 enhancement bonus to attacks and damage vs. shapeshifters. At +3, a weapon can ignore DR/Cold Iron and DR/Silver. This is listed under the damage reduction special ability.

If it were a +1 construct bane dagger, it would not be able to overcome a golem's DR/Adamantine. You'd total up the damage, then apply the DR. If no damage gets through, that's tough. The bane portion of the damage doesn't automatically bypass DR.

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I've always interpreted it as "it's impossible to use Stealth in the same round you attack, run, or charge".

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I generally rule that people who are swallowed have total cover from attacks not originating in the same stomach. They're in enough trouble as it is.

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The sniping rule (-20 to stealth) is the only exception I'm aware of to the "it's impossible to use Stealth while attacking, running, or charging" rule.

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If you go with back to 3.5 damage reduction:

Piercing, bludgeoning, slashing, adamantine, and "-" are (Ex)
Magic, Silver, Cold Iron, Evil/Good/Lawful/Chaotic, and Epic are (Su)

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Mage Armor isn't a Magus spell. You'd have to get Spell Blending at 4th level Magus or higher to pick it up. Otherwise, you're UMD-ing a wand or getting it from another party member.

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If you don't take that many Arcana that require swift actions, Arcane Strike is pretty good.

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Nope. Your best bet if you want a semi-druid summoner is to take either the First Worlder or Wild Caller Summoner Archetypes.

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Check the "Spell Resistance" entry for the spell. Anything with "No" doesn't care about SR.

Dispel Magic is "Spell Resistance: No"

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I'd go with "A". The Alchemist is trained to understand magical formula which is only a small part of a spell. Due to their training, they can pick out the parts of a scroll they need without a check. They don't understand or care about all the hand waving and funny words.

Alchemists should be able to copy from other formula books just fine. The formula book is just another form of arcane writing. It just doesn't have all the information a wizard or magus needs.

The fact that they can automatically identify a scroll they can't actually cast a spell from isn't that big of a deal.

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The serpentine eidolon does have the best Dex. You could get reach on one of its attacks and get Combat Reflexes and Bodyguard.

That would work well with the Shield Ally ability.

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It's meant to apply to both the number you animate and the max you can control. It says it works with the Command Undead feat, which doesn't animate anything.

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We just said the eidolon has no race or gender so was always dealing with a -4. It seemed to work out. The only thing that was a pain was the 10 to 30 minutes it had to spend redisguising itself if it got into a combat where it used any of its natural attacks.

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I made disguise one of the eidolon's class skills and took the evolution for a bonus to it. It was kind of like shapechanging except it actually had to mold its features like clay. Whenever it popped claws and fangs, it'd have to re-disguise itself.

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As far as I know, you can't do anything that requires an action in the middle of another action.

You can whirlwind attack with a reach weapon and spiked armor or some other weapon that doesn't require hands.

You should be able to use things like Cleaving Finish that don't require any kind of action.

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On the magus I played, I took Arcane Strike and limited myself to picking Arcana that didn't require a swift action. It seemed to work out well and required less resources than using Arcane Accuracy to compensate for the attack penalty of Power Attack.

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Arcane Sight allows you to effortlessly see magical auras. Since the entire area of the silence would be have a visible aura, you should easily be able to plot the shortest course out of it.

The only effort involved is in identifying the school of magic, which isn't necessary information in this case.

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I don't see why not.

To speed up combat a bit, I'd have the player just make one check to see if the target is knocked back and prone instead of two separate checks. It would be kind of the evolutionary equivalent of the Awesome Blow feat.

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My opinion is that it's essentially a +5 weapon that you haven't unlocked all the bonuses on. If you wish to enchant it further, treat it as going from +5 to +6. Also, by doing that you'll be losing some of your arcane pool flexibility since you're still capped at a +10 total.

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I'd go for Greater Mercy personally. If you're having to heal yourself in combat to stay up, more healing per action is more important than more healing actions for the day.

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For a concept like that, I'd refer to the Spellblade archetype. It doesn't allow spell combat and dual wielding in the same round. It does a lot of what you're talking about though.

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In 3.5, you could have a potion belt that would let you draw a potion as a free action and a scroll organizer that did the same thing for scrolls. You could probably make a wand bracer to do the same thing. I personally don't think it's a big enough deal to warrant a feat.

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cheating little note: you do not lose Improved Spell Recall! Talk to your GM about this!.

In the general rules for applying archetypes:

"If an archetype replaces a class feature that is part of a series of improvements or additions to a base ability (such as a fighter's weapon training or a ranger's favored enemy), the next time the character would gain that ability, it counts as the lower-level ability that was replaced by the archetype."

At 11th level you get Spell Recall instead of Improved Spell Recall.

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I like the black blade quite a bit because it guarantees you'll have a level-appropriate weapon. My GM can be a little stingy with the loot sometimes.

My bladebound magus skipped Power Attack and took Arcane Strike instead. He picked up Weapon Focus at 3rd level. I wanted to skip things that took away from his attack rolls. You'll have a hard enough time trying to hit if you're using Spell Combat with any regularity.

Since he's using Arcane Strike all the time and didn't have much of an Arcane Pool anyway, I tried to pick arcana without action costs or pool expenditures (Concentrate, Empower Magic, Maximize Magic, etc.). He generally only spends the point at the beginning of combat to add more enhancement bonuses and Keen to his weapon.

Then again, my GM does tend to have multiple encounters a day without the opportunity for rest. We have to be careful rationing our resources. I can't afford to have him nova on every fight.

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See if your DM would let the Spellblade create a Force Athame for each of his off hands. :)

Failing that, go with Myrmidarch and carry around a melee and a ranged weapon at the same time.

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The Black Blade can only communicate telepathically with its wielder. The social skills are pretty useless unless it's trying to convince its wielder to do something.

As a GM, it would make a lot of sense to replace the Knowledge (Arcana) with another knowledge skill more suited to the sword's special purpose. I.e. if it's out to destroy aberrations, give it Knowledge (Dungeoneering) instead.

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First, it is a question of the action to go from merely carrying the weapon in a way that one cannot use it to attack to wielding the weapon properly and being able to attack.

This requires a move action, or can be done as part of a move action, etc.

Forget for a moment greatswords and polearms. If this were someone with a scimitar, would you say it's a move action to put their other hand on the weapon to get 1.5 str damage? It's being properly wielded either way.

I personally believe that putting your other hand back on the hilt of a two-handed weapon requires the same amount of effort, which is nowhere near the effort of actually drawing a weapon from a sheath.

As the absolute worst-case scenario, I'd think it would require the same amount of effort (and possibly follow the same restrictions) as activating Power Attack.

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This means you can just skip most DR.

GMW won't help with DR.

This bonus does not allow a weapon to bypass damage reduction aside from magic.

It would appear that the Arcane Pool enhancement would, but that's somewhat debatable. Best clear it with your GM first.

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Then what stealth bonus do you get for concealment ?

Concealment doesn't grant a stealth bonus. You must have either cover or concealment to use stealth at all.

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1. Only the first d6 is multiplied: "this bonus damage is not multiplied on a critical hit or by using feats such as Vital Strike"

2. A bomb can do precision damage to a target directly hit by the bomb but that won't effect the splash damage in any way.

3. I'm pretty sure it's only supposed to work with direct hits and not splash damage. As written though, it looks like it would apply to both. Ask your GM.

On a crit, static bonuses are multiplied. Bonus dice are not.

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If you're a primary negative energy channeler, you might as well get Command Undead and Undead Master. Make him a Dhampir so you can simultaneously heal yourself and your minions.

Since you're also likely going to be working with a party on non-undead, having positive energy for healing them is nice since you won't be able to spontaneously cure.

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Mathwei why can't you further enchant the black blade? It being a sentient item doesn't mean it can't be enchanted.

It's more a class feature than a magic item.

It will eventually be a +5 weapon. The magus will eventually have an additional +5 of special abilities to add. Since the max is +10, if you could add something else to the sword, you'd eventually get to the point where you couldn't use all of the bonus granted by your arcane pool.

How would you determine what the cost of adding an additional enchantment would be? Is it a +5 sword that's just pretending to be less powerful until it thinks the wielder is ready? Given it's odd ego progression, how would anything added increase its ego?

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Every black blade has a special purpose, which is already included in the blade's ego.

If your GM added Keen to the blade for free, there isn't any real official way to calculate the ego. I'd just bump the ego by whatever the enhancement bonus equivalent would be (i.e. Keen = +1 ego, Vorpal = +5 ego).

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With an Int that low, you're going to have difficulty making concentration checks for spell combat. Combat Casting might be a good idea.

You won't be able to use Shield Other unless you multiclass.

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The "when casting a spell" is the only thing that stops you. I'd allow it in my games, but I don't think it would fly in a PFS game.

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Does this mean an oracle of life cannot get this feat?

No they can't. You have to have a choice to begin with and an Oracle of Life doesn't have a choice.

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Versatile Channeler feat is what you need. I'd suggest going with negative energy first, then picking up positive energy later. Later you can pick up Undead Master for extra minions.

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I was commenting on their usefulness to the signifiers, not that the signifiers would have a large number of them. I'd imagine that the vast majority of them would be clerics of Asmodeus, as stated earlier.

Of the arcane casters, the ones who can summon devils would be of the most use. That kinda rules out the Magus and Bard. There'd be a fair amount of Wizard/Diabolist in the mix, but they would probably be unarmored. An armored arcane caster would probably be an Eldritch Knight or a Summoner.

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Fire vampiric touch on a white dragon ?

If you're a wizard trying to cast vampiric touch on a dragon, something's already gone horribly wrong! :)

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Why would you want to though? You're taking untyped damage that a target can't possibly resist and giving it a type that they might possibly have resistance to or be immune to.

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Bombs aren't improvised weapons. Even if you were to rule that they can be used as an improvised weapon, only the first d6 is actual weapon damage. All the rest are bonus dice that aren't multiplied on a crit and can't be modified by feats.

Splash Weapon Mastery is what he should get.