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That is EXACTLY how the game was initially designed back in the days of Gary Gygax, and strangely, the game was still popular. I don't know what changed... I do. People learned that there was more than just one way to play, and to find the one they enjoyed the most. 
Gary Gygax had a lot of ideas that are now generally considered bad RPGing. One of those being the instant death with no warning or save. You are faced with an intersection. If you turn left, you die. No spot chance. No save. You are dead. A lot. He did like the style of play that involved having a big stack of prerolled characters and expect to chew through half the pile before the end of the adventure. So saying 'Gygax did it' is not always an encouraging thing. 
I'd say this is fairly racist. 
Well... several things immediately come to mind for me for how a "Book of the Damned" style book about celestials could be used... 1) It would have new celestials, which would include new allies for spells like planar ally 2) New player options like prestige classes, spells, and magic items that, unlike those presented in Books of the Damned, are not aimed at evil themes. 3) New deities (and associated benefits) for player characters to worship.
An ancient story tells of how Shelyn stole the glaive Whisperer of Souls from her half-brother Zon-Kuthon in an attempt to redeem him. Obviously, this didn't work, but to the intelligent weapon's great frustration, neither do its continued attempts to corrupt or influence her. If the goddess of beauty and love can wield an evil weapon, I see no reason a paladin cannot. 
My players tried really hard to redeem spoiler:
Nualia in Rise of the Runelords. It was mostly because of the Diary pages that someone had made on the Community Creations forum. At first I was going to make her completely gone over, but they brought up some good, and painful points that caused her to flinch. For several weeks leading up to her execution at Magnimar, they were visiting her almost every day, despite her cold demeanor.
They enlisted a Cayden-ite patriarch of a Varisian Caravan who helped create a distraction so that they could bust her loose. I did try to help them plan it out, but they were really thinking linearly, so a few rolls later and a couple of errant crossbow shots later they were running for their lives. I had given them a sort of Atonement Ritual that they went through. It was a Cayden ritual that was for breaking the pact that Lamashtu had with Nualia, granting her freedom... She would have become a recurring villain if not for the dedication of two players. 
Okay, let me try my hand at this (my katakana is a bit rusty): * Adherer (アドヒーラ adohiira)
Yeah. I tried doing that a week or two ago and I gave up a few pages in. If you're still on one of the first three or so pages, I could send you the Excel sheet I was whipping up, but I'll note that I wasn't checking for multiple posts by the same people, so some people's votes may be counted twice on it. Edit: Actually, I'm having to leave for a mother's day dinner and am not sure if I can wait for a reply. I'll just post what I have so far in case it helps. I don't guarantee perfect accuracy, but it will hopefully at least assist. Undead 1
Demodands 1
Goatmen 1
0HD Anything 1
Mythological Creatures 5
Templates 1
SKR reminds me a lot of Morello over at the League of Legends forums. Morello is the head (IIRC) of the Design and Balance team and with a competitive game, you'll see a lot of nerfs and buffs. When the nerfs come out, nobody likes it and there are plenty of "Morello Sucks" threads. This is despite the fact that he is just in charge of the team and doesn't make the full decisions, the team does. This whole "don't put your name on a brand" is a lame excuse to vent out frustration and I'd like to think our mothers also taught us about basic human decency. Someone has to let us know about the changes and there's really no reason to crucify someone over a game. It's a great game, yes. But still, when you step back into the grand scheme of things... there's very little reason to not approach these things with reason and levelheadedness instead of anger and passion. 
Stupid sexy B3-catfolk... It's like I'm wearin' nothin' at all... ...nothin' at all... ...nothin' at all... 
Wow, you sure miss a lot when you don't go online for a few weeks (Wizards, Paizo, Pathfinder, etc)
It's all about finding a group of people that all play the same way you do. Be that high theatre or tabletop wargaming. 
This is only partially true. Some words are clearly more emotive than others. "Offspring" is not a very emotive term, for example. "Babies", on the other hand, is very emotive. Playing emotional games with words to win a debate is dishonest and indicates a lack of truth-seeking motivation. We're talking about the dishonest use of words to try to win an argument, not to find the righteous ground. Rhetoric over reason. On the matter of morals and ethics, emotion is as relevant as reason. What do we define as good? Compassion, love, generosity. Emotional.What do we define as evil? Cruelty, hatred, greed. Emotional. Point 1 - in any sufficiently large statistical sampling, a lack of radical exception to the norm would be very surprising--whether due to a good-corrupted spirit or to gene mutation is irrelevant. We are talking about an enormous sampling to produce a few non-evil, non-sadistic Goblins. Are you saying that once Goblins get older they fail to be able to use their intelligence to think, "Maybe what I've been doing all these years is wrong?" Because if they can use their intelligence and they don't ever rebel against their lives, it implies something else than you suggest. The statistics are irrelevant. What is relevant is that the description of alignment allows for non-evil goblins. As for goblins failing to use their intelligence, I would refute that in three ways: 1) The way goblins are raised (I base this on the information provided in Rise of the Runelords: Burnt Offerings) is such that any goblin not predisposed toward aggression and selfishness will likely not survive childhood. Therefore while adult goblins may be evil, there is no way of telling if a goblin infant will actually share that predisposition. 2) Indoctrination - especially of the very harshest kind - prevents humans from using their intelligence to realise that they are committing evil atrocities, can goblins cannot be expected to be any better? 3) Point of view is VERY important. Nobody believes that they are the bad guy, after all. Goblins very likely justify their behaviour toward other humanoids under the heading of necessity. They have to raid caravans because no-one will trade with them. They have to eat people because they cannot afford to waste any resource of food. They have to be terrifying and fearsome to their foes to make them feared and respected and keep them from raids and attacks. They have to worshiop[ fearsome deities for the same reason. It's a 'do it to them before they do it to us' world out there, and only the toughest and most dedicated survive. Point 2 - what came first, the culture or the evil? If Goblins are all predisposed to evil (which seems rather obvious to me: see Point 1), then of course their culture is going to be an evil one. That goblin culture is predisposed toward evil is not in doubt. However that does not mean that a goblin raised away from goblin culture will be any more disposed toward evil than the young of the culture it is raised in. There is no indicator one way or the other on this. You're saying that every single Goblin culture in every single Goblin tribe across all of Golarion must be equivalent in their mass production of evil goblins. But why is that? And why are there so few rebels? Why are there so few who buck the system? Why are there no rebellious goblin tribes devoted to N deities or G deities? You get that in other species, such as human or elf or dwarf. Why do you not get that in goblin, if they're "more like humans"? Simple: Most goblin tribes interact with other goblin tribes, often competitively. Mainstream goblin culture sees following neutral or good deities as weakness. Therefore any goblin tribe turning from an evil path toward a good one would likely be attacked by it's neighbours. Given that they would be outnumbered by said neighbours, it is unlikely that they would survive long. Any goblin using their intelligence as you imply above will likely also realise that showing such inclinations among other goblins will make them a target. So even if there were individuals and tribes out there that are non-evil, don't expect to find them easily; they would either retire to places far from interactions with others, or else disguise themselves as being as nasty as their neighbours. In fact, given goblin interactions with other humanoids - attacked by adventurers, dominated by evil masters etc. - it is highly likely that most goblins have the impression that everybody in the world thinks and acts the way they do. How would they know about the creeds of good aligned deities? How many missionaries have gone to convert them? Now consider human history: there is no act that goblins perform in fantasy that some human culture or organisation has not performed in history, yet humans are not, by their nature, evil. Many of these cultures perpetuated themselves for some time, unless called to task by external cultures. Further, many of those performing such actions on other humans justified them as righteous and justified usually on the basis that those they destroyed were not human. In short, your own arguments are what have been used to justify such acts. "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster..." 
I can distinguish between real human sapient beings and evil fantasy creatures just fine. My trouble is separating the "Why X race is Evil" arguments for fantasy creatures from those used to stereotype and malign real human sapient beings. Especially when a lot of those same arguments were used by the same authors who wrote a lot of the fantasy fiction we're basing our games upon as well as some embarrassingly racist stuff. Honestly, it's incredibly hard to find a piece of late 19th/early 20th century literature that's not dripping with Social Darwinism. And to have 21st century gaming where the humans are basically viewed through a modern lens but the orcs, gnolls, goblins and so forth can naturally be born "bad" or "stupid" or what have you?
A lot of things are pretty much arbitrary. A snake with a woman's head is a naga which is an aberration. If you have a woman who's a snake from the waist down, she's a lamia matriarch, who's a magical beast, unless she has eight arms, in which case she's a maralith who's a demonic outsider. If you've got an otherwise normal human with snakes in place of her hair, she's a medusa, who's a monstrous humanoid. 
Yes, but they SPARKLE! in the sunlight when they do. (So, so sorry.) You're off the force McHinkle. Turn over your badge and your d20s. 
In PF, you can still lose your paladinhood under coercion by having your alignment forcibly changed (say, by a cursed item) or being forced to violate the code of conduct. This seems unfair if you think of it as punishment, but note that when you atone there is no additional cost for penance in this specific situation. Fluffwise, I like to think of the loss of paladinhood in such a situation as a divine circuit breaker. Your god is removing your powers so that they can't be abused by a third party. As soon as the threat is gone, you can use atonement to reset the circuit. Ergo, your god is protecting you and yours rather than punishing you. 
Animal Cruelty For a second and more nefarious use of your donkey, purchase an alchemist's fire 20gp) and a bag of spice (cinnamon, 1gp/pound) before you have to travel through high CR monster territory with low level PCs. If your 2nd level party encounters something particularly dumb, hungry, and nasty (like a Bulette CR7), dump the spice bag on the donkey and smash the alchemist's fire on it. The donkey has 13 hp so it will survive with at lest 1 hp, and will likely panic and run off screaming and smelling of savory spicy BBQ. Run the opposite way and hide. Our pack mules kept getting killed and eaten by wandering encounters, so we got in the habit of saving any poisonous critter parts we found and clay jugs of green slime and other horrible things and keeping them in the saddle bags. Anything eats *our* mule, it's gonna die soon after, 'cause that's how we roll. "Aw. Spam's dead again, but hey, he took a Carrion Crawler with him!" 
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I love the nature of adventuring. Adventuring has traditionally been a very dangerous if lucrative profession. Adventurers die, and die, and die some more. Some are lucky enough to only have to die once. What separates the adventurers that make it from the ones who were just another party that never returned? Well, I think creativity and preparation make the largest difference. I didn't think much about this sort of thing, until Peter Stewart said the following in another thread.
So since Peter asked, here's the beginning of a short advice column concerning D&D/Pathfinder and preparing for adventure. I'm cool with people asking questions or advice or tips on specific things; and I'll also answer questions concerning D&D 3.x as well (though I may have to reference the 3.0 SRD for particularly old school stuff, to make sure I'm not blurring too much). As a simple disclaimer, I want to let everyone know that the advice below will assume that the standard rules are in play. It doesn't assume house rules or changes to the system. Just the goods, plain and simple. If your GM has any quirks concerning item availability, changes any spells, or otherwise alters something, YMMV. Enough babbling, on with the tips!
Introduction: Adventuring is a hard life. Few take up its call. Those who make it, go down as legends, and retire wealthy and with many amazing stories. Those who do not, inevitably forge their own stories as the ones who just survived, or never came back, or was the one that didn't make it. Yes, adventuring is a hard life. A life that takes you by surprise. The key to surviving isn't just about whose muscles are largest or who knows the most spells. Preparation, and clever thinking, can lead you to greater degrees of success. Shall you brave the dangers and come out on top, or be another tavern tale of the ones who never came back? The first installment covers some general adventuring equipment. Motel 6: There are a lot of monsters and enemies who like to spam darkness spells (and deeper darkness). Creatures like tieflings, drow, shadow demons, darklings, and dark folk are notorious for this. Many people complain that this is unfair; especially since most of these creatures either care nothing about the lighting condition's drawbacks, or can see through them fine (such as in the case of darklings and dark folk). So what is an adventurer to do? Light spells (that is, the light subtype) such as light, continual flame, and daylight pierce magical darkness spells that are a lower level than themselves. A good adventuring tool is to have an item or two that has had a heightened continual flame spell cast on it to at least 4th level. That costs 330 gp including the material component, to have it purchased by NPC spellcasting. Suddenly, the legions of darklings and dark folk are nothing to you, as your continual torch (be it a torch, amulet, or even your belt buckle) shimmers and provides light that is unquenchable by spells such as darkness or deeper darkness unless they are also heightened. Since spell-like abilities are the level of the spell they are mimicing, that means a 4th level continual flame is never overpowered by a creature's SLAs. I'm most fond of having continual flame cast on the inside of a locket, so you can conceal or reveal the light easily enough, and carry it without having hands free. We'll leave the light on for you! First Aid: There's a lot of terrible things that will hurt you in your adventuring career. Poisons, disease, incorporeal touch attacks. A lot of this stuff can leave you weathered, or even dead. So how do you deal with these things? How do you prepare for them away from the comfort of civilization? Buy potions of delay poison and lesser restoration for 50 gp each. Yes, you heard me, 50 gp. Both are 1st level spells at 1st caster level, thanks to Paladins and Rangers. That sets the price of these items at 50 gp. The magic item creation rules clearly state that the value of magic items are based on the lowest possible caster levels, regardless of who makes 'em; so even if a cleric makes either, they're still only worth 50 gp. Both potions are useful for helping a party keep up and going. Delay poison makes you immune to poison for 1 hour and ends poisons, but won't cure any of the ability damage taken beforehand. Lesser restoration removes ability penalties, heals 1d4 ability damage, and removes fatigue. Good potions all around to have on hand during an adventure. +1 Swords? We don't need no stinkin' +1 Swords: Magic weapons are expensive, but sometimes you just need one. DR/Magic is pretty common, incorporeal creatures are a pain, that wizard is getting you down with protection from arrows; but you don't feel like shelling out 2,000 gp for what amounts to +1 damage over a masterwork blade? Well magic weapon oils are 50 gp, and they last 1 minute at caster level 1. The oil can be applied to a melee weapon, ranged weapon, or poured right into a 50-stack ammunition sack. This is one of the main methods for 1st-3rd level PCs to even be able to combat incorporeal creatures like Shadows with any hope. Works for monk unarmed strikes as well. Since you can decide which weapon to apply it to, it's less of a gamble; as if you need it on your melee weapon, you use it on your melee; if you need it on your bow, you use it on your bow; and so forth. Lay off the Juice Son: Okay, so steriods aren't a to be abused, but oils were made for it. You can apply an oil to a willing target during your turn. Having several party members slather down the party's melee with cheap potion effects can turn a fight really fast. Have one PC slather him or her with an oil of enlarge person, then the rest of the PCs apply oils like protection from evil or shield (I recently checked, yes you can make potions of shield, as personal range spells still declare you as a target), and expeditious retreat (see commentary about shield, above), true strike (see above, yadda-yadda), and remove fear. Suddenly, you have a juggernaut of destruction, at the cost of 50 gp per potion. Best yet, the person you apply the oil provides you with soft cover if you come in directly behind them in relation to the enemy, which means enemies cannot make AoOs against you for applying the oil. Notice I mentioned using enlarge person first? Well there's a reason for that. Your ally expands, providing cover to the other PCs who jump in to apply oils. For a 200 gp investment, you can hit your main tank with up to 4 solid buffs all in one round, many of which normally are only available to mages. Screw aid another. 50 gp can get your party's fighter a +20 to his next grapple check, which can end a fight instantly (hint: the penalty to bind up an enemy during a grapple is -10). Right to Freedom of Alignment: Ok, let's face it. Sometimes your alignment bites you on the butt. It's great being a good guy and all, except when you're trying to infiltrate that evil cult that has the "No Paladins" sign hanging out side. So what's the poor poorly aligned fellow to do? Drink a potion. 50 gp nets you 24 hours of undetectable alignment. Thanks bards! Alchemy? Alchem-you!: Alchemical goodies can often be overlooked, but they can be pretty useful, especially at low levels; but some are useful even at higher levels. Turn some vicious villains into trivial trials with a clever splash of chemical supremacy! Alchemical weapons such as alchemist fire or acid flasks are beautiful when used by the whole party. They ignore damage reduction and target touch AC. They're ranged weapons, so they benefit from feats like Point Blank Shot, and Rapid Shot. They can be dual-wielded as well. By having your party focus-fire on a single tough cookie, you can bring them down to size in short order. For example, let's say you're facing down an enemy NPC in banded mail and carrying a tower shield. His AC is easily 22-23 at 1st level. Excellent time for a BBQ wrapped in tinfoil! Have everyone toss an alchemist fire. A 4 person party can easily land 4d6 damage on round 1, and another 4d6 on round 2 (from the burning). Sucks to be that guy! Tanglefoot bags are amazingly good. Chuck a few of these at people or creatures you just don't like. It's an auto-entangle, which is already a petty nice debuff, but also threatens to glue them to the ground, prevent them from flying, and forces tough concentration checks to cast spells. Worst case scenario, the critter is still slowed by 1/2 its speed. Probably the most overlooked alchemical item is the humble smoke stick. Cheap, and surprisingly effective. Unless wind conditions are much against you, dropping one of these lets you use Stealth as if you were a Ninja Turtle collecting bells, gain total concealment vs ranged attacks, and ruins sneak attacks. Yes, ruins sneak attacks. You can't sneak attack a target with concealment. You can drop a single smoke stick at your feet and even if you're surrounded by 20th level rogues, blind, and in the dark, you're immune to their sneak damage. Excellent against dirty roguish sorts, and even prevents an assassin's Death Attack. Brutally efficient. Holy water. The anti-shadow. At 25 gp a pop, this stuff is kind of like acid of alchemist fire for undead and evil outsiders. Incidentally, it specifically affects incorporeal creatures as well. It deals 2d4 damage as a ranged touch attack that doesn't provoke attacks (see item description) if you shake the water at the enemy. 2d4 averages 5 damage, which means a 1st level party can tear a shadow apart by just running up and splashing it with holy water. Statistically, 4 holy waters will outright kill a shadow (and less should force the shadow to flee for its unlife), and frankly, 100 gp for a dead CR 3 enemy seems entirely reasonable to me! The fact it also deals splash damage, and is party friendly is double the fun. Alchemists even get to add their Intelligence modifier to the damage, allowing them to take apart some truly nasty critters in short order. Aw, Nets: Nets are arguably one of the strongest weapons in the core handbook. They deal no damage, but are a non-magical ranged touch attack (meaning even the -4 non-proficiency penalty isn't so bad usually) which inflicts the Entangled condition on the target, and all that implies. To escape it, you must spend a full-round action to even attempt to be free (either via a hard Strength check or a DC 20 escape artist), which means that either an enemy has to deal with it, or waste actions to be free. Hitting the same enemy with multiple nets in the same round almost ensures the condition will remain for the entire encounter; because no one wants to spend round after round trying to de-net themselves. Who you gonna call?: A good investment for anyone who really hates incorporeal creatures is a +1 ghost touch net. Valued at 8,000 gp, it's not a terribly expensive tool if the entire party chips in to get it. Why is this tool so great? Well it has full effect on incorporeal creatures, who auto-fail on Strength checks to move away from you (allowing you to control how far they move away from you), and since it counts as both corporeal and incorporeal, you can prevent them from moving through objects while ensnared in your net. Entangled is also a sucky (if rare) condition for incorporeal creatures, as they rely heavily on Dexterity for both offense and defense (-2 to attacks and -4 Dex means -4 to incorporeal touch attacks and -2 AC) and most thrive on improved mobility which is outright denied in this case. I'll try the 9 Iron: Golf-bagging is often a complaint by some of the casual gamers. Personally, I love golf-bagging. I like having that extra weapon on hand for a particular occasion. Ever look at the Pathfinder iconics? Loaded with seemingly random assortments of weapons, with obvious spares and backups. Golf bagging has lots of advantages. Grab a cold iron, silver (or mithral), and maybe adamantine weapon. Carrying them allows you to bypass the DR of virtually anything. Definitely have an assortment of silver and cold iron arrows (they're cheap and easy enough to store/carry). It's cheaper to carry lots of +2 weapons of different materials than it is to carry one or two +3 weapons, and it makes you less of a target vs sundering or shattering (because who bothers with that when you've got a backup weapon in easy reach?). You can go a very long way with just different material weapons and a greater magic weapon spell to keep your hit and damage top notch. It's also easier to rely on special materials for all the low CR enemies who require things like silver or cold iron to hit (such as imps, quasits, lycanthropes, or fey). It's not magic, it's brains: There's a lot of very mundane methods for dealing with magical effects that suck. One of my favorites is the bag of chalk. A piece of chalk is 1 copper piece. A hundred pieces of chalk is thus 1 gold piece. Crush the chalk up into chalk powder and store it in cloth bags with a tie. Now you have the perfect weapon against invisible people. Have you ever seen the clingy puffy mess that chalk dust makes just when you're dealing with basic chalk erasers in school? Now imagine grinding up 100 pieces of standard issue chalk and scattering it through the air. You'd create a nice 10 ft. cloud of super clinging dust. Better than flour for spotting invisible creatures! Anti-invisible grenades, for 1 gp. Eat that Will o' Whisp. Clay jugs are pretty heavy when filled, but are pretty useful. Their obvious use is for carrying large quantities of water or similar liquids (ideally packed on burden beasts such as mules, horses, or oxen), but can often be adapted for adventuring purposes. They can just as easily carry coins and the like, or you could place food in them, fill them with black powder to make a bomb (if your campaign has such fare), create weapons or traps with them (fill them with spiders, scorpions, snakes, or whatever), or even keep potted plants in them (carrying around your own plants makes the entangle spell useful in the most amusing places). At only 2 copper pieces, you can figure out what to do with them later. Flasks are 3 coppers with similar uses. Keeping a few vipers in a state of sedation (via nonlethal damage, sleep spells, or other means) can be a good method of extracting lots of injury poison for the budding assassin, alchemist, or other poison using character. Just milk their glands for poison daily. Finding and keeping vipers isn't usually very difficult for adventurers. In fact, the clay pots can be useful storage devices in this case. If someone has a viper familiar, you could just ask nicely for venom. His name is Babe: Paul Bunyan had the right idea. Oxen rock as animal cohorts. They're cheap at 15 gp and share statistics with aurochs. They are large quadruped beasts of burden with impressive strength, which means they can carry some truly astounding loads. They are also beefy and dangerous in combat. They have gore attacks for 1d8+9 damage and can even trample. Training them for war is not a bad idea for someone with Handle Animal. Have the party ride around on these strong beasts with high Constitution, and just dare something to try and harass your mounts while you rest. For a good 1-4 levels, the oxen will be more dangerous than your PCs. You can train 3 of them at a time, and cover them in leather or studded leather barding on the cheap. Oxen cost 15 gp, have a 40 ft. movement speed, +9 Perception, low-light vision, scent, +7 gore at (1d8+9), trample (2d6+9, DC 17), and the following carrying capacity: 600 lb. light, 1,200 lb. medium, 1,800 lb. heavy, 9,000 lb. push/drag. Horses are so last season. ========================================= I'm going to pause here for a moment. I'm not even finished with equipment, but I need a bit of a break. ^-^" 
I think that people react negatively to some of your posts less because of your hardline stance against metagaming and rules bending/breaking and more because of the tone and the rhetorical tactics used. For example, you're sometimes oddly aggressive while simultaneously obviously wrong, which isn't a ingratiating combination, then when somebody points out corrections or other viable interpretations, you go off the rails, backpedal, move goalposts, and (with increasing frequency) start multiple other threads on the exact same topic for no clear reason. The reason you're encountering opposition at every turn is not (primarily) due to your positions themselves (well, except for the positions that are indefensible and transparently erroneous, such as the notion that free access to every wildshape form is "abusive"), but the way you present them and the way you respond to responses. I don't know if you're under the impression that the threads you create look like a guy standing up for sanity against a world of people bending rules and metagaming, but they don't. They look like a guy who doesn't have much idea what he's talking about being bizarrely hostile towards everyone else, ignoring contrary evidence and challenges to his position and using piles of classic weaselly debate techniques to keep an argument going. That's what the new players who you want to help are seeing. You can't help being demonstratively wrong when you're demonstratively wrong, but you can help being hostile, which not only looks better to the new players, but avoids attracting total beatdowns on your position. As people in the druid wildshape thread suggested, with a little grace you could have had a thread that actually won respect for your position, instead of a thread full of people badgering you about your use of "abusive". This post isn't intended to be an attack, but seriously, man, a little grace, kindness and openness would complement the passion you have way better than threats and combatitiveness.
Random magic item; .
SIX DEMON BAG, TYPE I
DESCRIPTION
1 – gust of wind, as the spell.
The user should keep track of dretch demons slain, as the bag only contains six of them, total, and the caster level of all effects is reduced by one for each missing dretch. If all six are destroyed, the bag loses all power, but as long as at least one remains, it can be ‘recharged’ by using lesser planar ally or lesser planar binding to call additional dretches to replace those slain, up a maximum of six dretches. CONSTRUCTION
Sorry folks, I know we sorta dropped a grenade on this issue and then left the room, but we've been a bit swamped trying to get the Gencon books out the door. We will revisit this issue once the current crisis is averted. Hang in there.. we will find a reasonable solution for this one. Jason Bulmahn
Kobolds Suggested Deities: Abadar, Iomedae, Sarenrae, Torag, Apsu
Kobolds tend to be over looked in the wild, seen as a nuisance at best or a slight step above vermin at worst. However, when eggs or young are taken and raised with a meaningful hierarchy they can be turned to good and industrious members of society. In the wild they are brutally bullied and will always carry a small chip on their shoulders which will drive them to either prove themselves at every opportunity or to harbor deep grudges. A good mentor can turn this impulse to help them try and better themselves at every point where they fail or are thwarted by something (be it an event or a person). Feeding of a young kobold is fairly easy as they'll eat anything put in front of them. Housing for kobolds is also fairly simple as they will prefer to share space (either with others who are of their age or with those whom they feel safe with). Because of their small stature and light sensativity they gravitate towards basements (if given an option). No kobold child likes to be more than a story above ground however. Entertainment for the young is important for how they grow and socialize. Kobold clans will always have a story teller, and young kobolds have an instinctive desire to be told stories. If they are left alone, the kobold with the best imagination will be picked to be the story teller and the others will listen to whatever stories it makes up. Story telling, play, and socialization are vital in ensuring a kobolds natural paranoia of those that are larger than them don't overwhelm their personalities and push them towards the cruelty that tribes display in the wild. Kobolds tend to be lousy cooks, but surprisingly enough very capable brewers. Their natural affinity for traps allows them to be capable trappers, and their desire for safety makes them decent defensive engineers. Kobolds enjoy working with their hands and are excellent miners (second only to dwarves) and metalworkers for fine work (such as jewelery). Their low strength makes them less capable blacksmith, but if a kobold gets it in his mind to be a blacksmith, he will usually try and invent tools to assist him with this work. (hope this is ok folks; I'm always nervous about writing what's in my head.)
Heck, all that digging around in themselves might also give them some applicable mundane practical knowledge about anatomy that could prove useful for some of their ailing customers. Where the anatomy roughly matches up of course... Awesome that this thread lives on! [tangent, inspired from the above]
Some might even use their 'augur' reputation (even one that is *not* an auger) to smuggle items from one end of the city to another, in a place no local authority can search.
Absolutely. James was very clear in his direction to Hal and me. It's just, y'know... they're filled with fiend blood. Being good is a lot harder a choice for a tiefling. Oh, you're totally taken care. We call out Desna specifically as a deity who welcomes tiefling worshippers; there's a picture of a cleric in Sarenrae's robes. We have a short talk about how you can play a tiefling paladin. And there are a couple of paragraphs about tieflings who choose to turn from evil. That's not all, but that's what I got from a quick refresher of the text. So yeah, you should be okay. :) 
Yes. While the crunch makes it far easier to play an evil tiefling (intentional, as tieflings are supposed to feel an inner pull toward dark emotions), there is quite a bit of support for tieflings who resist that pull. (Edit: fixed a grammar problem.) 
I'd want a Thieves' World style anthology where all the iconics live in the same town, drink at the same bar, but cross paths only occasionally.
I may plan to strip the racial restrictions from darn near everything in the book and use them instead for non-race-specific organisations created by the given races. For example: Elves create an order of druids called the leafsingers. It's all elves at first. But eventually, their secrets get out, or maybe they start allowing other races to become members. There's nothing inherent in the elf that makes them uniquely able to learn the abilities of the leafsinger. They just came up with it first. Stuff I don't mind being restricted to race is biology-specific stuff or things that depend on specific racial abilities. A drow-only antimagic class building on their spell resistance would remain race-restricted, for example. Or restricted to any races with spell resistance. 
Okay, long ago in my childhood, I loved the game Shadow Over Mystara. A fe months back I stubled across a site that had a complete walkthrough of the game, as well as a bunch of other cool stuf and I though, "how cool would it be to run a Pathfinder game based on the old console game." So flash forward a few monthes and here we are. I am working on the idea as a whole AP type game that will eventually take the characters from level 1 up the climax at level 15. Anyway, here are my notes on the first chapter. I have decided to write them out episodically so that they string together like a tv series.
Long Synopsis
Of course the goblins fall for the trap hook, line, and sinker. The fight should be difficult, but not overly so. The raiding party is entirely standard goblins and the PCs should have a fairly easy time defeating them. If they are smart they will keep one or two alive to interrogate. With a CD 12 Intimidate check or a DC 17 Diplomacy check they will be able to get the location of the goblin camp from them fairly easily. Goblins are inheritly distrustful of people who are nice to them. They always want something. Otherwise a DC 12 Survival check will allow the PCs to pick up the goblins's trail fairly easily. The PCs will eventually find the goblins's lair in the mountains. A random encounter or two maybe approriate here, such as a hippogriff or a griffin attack. Remember that the PCs are still first level, so nothing to dangerous. The goblins should be divided up into a couple of groups throughout the caves that they lair in. Sprinkle in a few goblin rangers, fighters, and a domesticated giant spider or two. Finally they will meet the leaders of the goblins, a goblin druid who is in the process of praying to a dragon's skull when the PCs find him, and the chief (use these stats) who has a group of goblin fighters with him. This battle should be harder, but not enough that it actually threatens a TPK (save that for later :) ). The PCs will also find some human slaves, survivors of the last caravan, and be told that the goblins have been selling their victims to slavers. From there the PCs should either find a note instructing the goblins where to send the slaves or else one of the slaves overheard the goblins talking about the village of Trintan. 
Trolls are perhaps some of the hardest creatures to raise. Their natural ability to heal from most injuries means they can usually be mentally lazy and still live to a fairly old age. These same abilities also cause trouble with their interactions with other species. Where two trolls might think nothing of beating each other to establish dominance or simply as a means of saying hello for other races this can easily be fatal. As such many 'normal' trollish cultural norms simply can not be applied in a civilized raising of a troll. Trolls must be taught that not everything can simply be healed in most cases. A rather effective method of this is to allow something the troll develops an attachment to become broken. Once broken care must be taken to explain why the thing can not be fixed and how many things are like that in the world. While the troll child might throw a fit about this it is important to not give in and allow him to prove to you that 'anything can be fixed and healed' -- as this defeats the purpose of the lesson. Another method of instilling this lesson is considered fair more dangerous and inhumane but involves allowing the troll to regularly become hurt by fire or acid so that his wounds heal slower. Being exposed to the same mortality and rate of healing of 'normal' folk can cause a troll to understand the world better. Understanding the fragile nature of the world however simply leads the troll into the next mental pitfall: Frustration at a broken world, and their own feelings of hurt and lost when something they care for breaks. Many trolls do develop deep attachment and devotion to other things and people -- but as the disappointment of these things breaking or dying grounds with each new attachment that is broken the troll becomes more and more frustrated at their inability to fix or heal the hurt to the object and their emotions. Once a troll has learned to be careful around others and things one of the most deep seated frustrations for trolls can be overcome -- specifically that the rest of the world is fragile and can break easily by teaching them out to repair and craft objects and relationships. With training trolls can learn to be very meticulous and marvelous craftsmen able to mend almost anything. They tend to take great joy in these accomplishments and it often becomes a major part of their physiological make up to be good at this and recognized for it. A troll that isn't complimented on his repair jobs or that is unfavorably compared to another craftsman can quickly find resentment feeling him. Once the dual hurdle of the fragile nature of the world, and the ability to help fix this is jumped raising trolls becomes a much easier task. With the major frustrations the above problems removed trolls tend to be much more accepting of others, and much more community oriented because they find their skills valued. 
Oooh, I just had an amusing 'XPH in Golarion' moment. Spoiler:
A community dedicated to rasing a neothelid. Over generations of its upbringing, it influenced them, and they influenced it, so in the end, they were unable to tell each other apart anymore.
Thus were born Elans 
Recommended Deities: Desna, Erastil Recommended Environment: Remote, rural monastery/temple or village, with connection to large subterranean environment. Okay, so Neothelids. Due to their immense lifespans and low reproductive rates, it is very unlikely that one will find more than one lone immature neothelid to attempt to raise. Even if multiple neothelids are found together, it is a good idea to separate them so as to reduce the potential danger if they revert to their natural tendencies. Presuming that they grow to adulthood in a roughly similar manner to other creatures but at a much slower rate, there should be a relatively long period during which a neothelid will be open to moral formation. This means that raising a neothelid will require either a very long-lived caretaker, or else an organization of many individuals committed to cultivating the neothelid's potential over the long-term. A relatively large organization is probably better, given the need for plenty of livestock to sustain the neothelid's nutritional needs. It will also need a great deal of space in which to live, and it will likely need to be hidden from the general populace, at least until it becomes capable of demonstrating its trustworthiness and value though some dramatic good deeds. The best option is a large subterranean environment, which will also feel more comfortable to the neothelid than being forced to live above ground. Under no circumstances should this be a cave connected to the darklands. If the young neothelid's kin discover its location and come for it, it will mean certain disaster. The organization raising a neothelid will need to be led by a very strong-willed and intelligent individual, who is capable of resisting the neothelid's powerful mental abilities. It is also best if this individual has potent mental powers of their own, so that they can model for the neothelid how one may use those powers for good and resist the tendency to control others to selfish ends. Obviously, a very powerful benevolent spellcaster or psion is the ideal choice. This role-modeling will be vitally important, as one of the great challenges for the neothelid will be coming to grips with being much more powerful than nearly every other member of normal society. It will need to accept that this does not give it the right to force its will upon others. The doctrines of a freedom-loving deity such as Desna might help in this regard, if the neothelid can be taught that the free will of others must be held sacred. Alternatively, the traditionalist doctrines of Erastil might help the neothelid understand the importance of living as one member in a community, and placing the needs of others first. The neothelid's natural tendency to cultivate servants should be discouraged, even such seemingly harmless expressions as commanding worms. It would be dangerous for it to develop a taste for mental domination, as almost no normal people would be able to resist it. It should be taught that compelling others to do its bidding is both cruel and lazy, and that it is a far bigger accomplishment to be able to work with free-willed friends than to build an army of slaves. Desna might also be a good alternative focus of worship to the neothelid's natural affinity for the beings of the Dark Tapestry. The neothelid will likely demonstrate fascination with the nighttime heavens, especially if it spends most of its time underground and only rarely is allowed to come to the surface. A knowledgeable tutor in astronomy could help the young neothelid develop an interest in the stars, rather than the dark places between them. Ultimately, given its eventual level of power, it is unlikely that the neothelid will be able to avoid eventual contact with either other neothelids or other emissaries from the Dark Tapestry. It should be prepared for this eventuality, so that it stands at least some chance of resisting the lure to return to its people's ways. The goal of raising a neothelid should be that the creature either embraces its powers and channels them into being a guardian of the weak, or else that it at least decides to withdraw from the wold and refuse to use its powers for evil. Either way, perhaps only the long descendents of the neothelid's original "parents" will know whether the project was successful. 
yes a black person if he she wishes to represent with a black character should learn to draw/write wahtever ... wow.
12 years I have played this game, and this is the first time I've ever started a monk thread. Good lord, the world is ending. What am I thinking, I am left to wonder. What horrors have I unleashed, knowing good and well horrors likely abound. Well, my sick curiosity must be sated. It is of course FOR SCIENCE!!
Introduction: It's not doubt that monks are loved. There are many fans of them. There are also lots of problems with them (as seen by countless threads, including one where Paizo is on trial for murdering Flurry of Blows in a heat of passion, and another where people question if Monks should actually be good at anything). Monk fans rejoice with excessive glee each time that the devs throw them a few tablescraps to fill an extra page in a book, so they can come back and errata/nerf said tablescraps into cardboard. For a moment, someone got what looked like a cookie, just long enough to get excited that they may taste a sweet tasty treat before having it snatched away with their innocence. But what if we could rebuild the monk? We have the technology. We could make him smarter, faster, stronger. We could make him everything that monks should have been. We can do science to it and we shall turn our cardboard cookie into a real cookie! The Million Dollar Mystic: I propose a very simple thing that has worked for my group in the past, and I want to see if it works for yours as well. This isn't homebrew, this is glorious, wonderful, mad science! Forget all you know about the Pathfinder monk. All of it. Now walk into my lab, and let us look at what we're working with. This is the monk. That is, it's the old one. Pre-Paizo. Look at it in all its helplessness. So frail, but so vivid. Like a butterfly in a hurricane. Paizo tried to grow it into something bigger, but I propose, my friends, that simple evolution is not the answer. I propose that cross-breeding is the key to creating a thriving species of Monk! Let us look at the monk's flaws for a moment.
So what does it need? It needs mystical powers. Something innate, and not very flashy unless you want it to be. Like an inner reserve of energy that lets them do magical things. Paizo tried to do this, with the Ki Pool, but it was a failed breed. It ended up being a gimpy pup whose inbreeding was obvious in the way its tongue hung out of its swollen and ill-shaped mouth. We need to widen the gene pool for the monk. Let us look to the possibilities. For this, I have looked into a nearby source of power. Psionics. A power gained through inner focus. The perfect creature to splice with the monk to create a better life form. I Seek Volunteers: I cannot do it alone dear colleagues. SCIENCE demands a battery of tests. I want to see what the scientific community can gleam from this grafting of mind and flesh. So let me get down to the details. I ask that you take the monk I have linked here, the original 3.5 monk in all its horrendous shame, and without changing anything (that includes using new PF flurry of blows), give him the psionic progressions (Power Points, Powers Known, Power Levels) of the Psychic Warrior. In addition, allow him to choose Powers from the Psychic Warrior Power List. Then build him. Break him down, and rebuild him again. Play to your hearts content. Theorycraft, roll him in one-shots, break him if you can, and share your results. Show us what you can dream of with him. So me what you are capable of doing with him. Share him with us. Offer thoughts and ideas. To Show I'm Willing: I'm going to put out a few simple builds and explain why these two things function so well together. Here are the basic of why I suggest this theory be put to the test by the community.
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Koji the Ki Warrior CR 5
Overview: Koji is a martial artist from the far east, who practices a strange form of martial art. He is traveling across the world to learn the wonders of the world. He has several tattoos of meditational mantras inscribed across his arms, which can be activated to increase his size (basically like potions of enlarge person).
Koji is quick, mobile, deals decent damage for a 5th level character, has a solid AC, good saves, various mystical abilities that fit with his theme, and is both active and magical without being overly flashy. He is also great as an aesthetic warrior, as most of his buffs and/or static modifiers come from his spiritual focus, and not his magic items. 
Regarding racial diversity in art, I think y'all should take a gander at the Prismatic Art Collection Kickstarter project. The Prismatic Art Project isn't just awesome because it'll provide a big archive of freely-available stock art for gamers and publishers, but also because you can personally get art from me (including a Paizo-blog-style goblin of you) for a measly $50! 
I just came across this god, and love. I'm looking at creating a Paladin of Tsukiyo, and am wondering what his code of conduct would look like. Being a god of madness...perhaps his followers believe that those who are mad/insane have seen the face of Tsukiyo, have gained un-understandable knowledge, and threfore are not capable of functioning under normal scoietal rules. Therefore...cannot harm the mad or insane as they are the children of Tsukiyo.
As a moon-god, and a patron of madness, I see him as a proponent of the belief that what you see is *not* necessarily what you get. The books cover may be a lie, just as the moon is always the moon, no matter if you see all of it, half of it or none of it. The moon never changes, only what you can see of it changes, and any judgments you make of the moon say more about yourself, than the moon. A priest (or paladin) of Tsukiyo might seem, especially to more dogmatic lawful sorts, maddeningly cautious and 'non-judgmental,' as they insist that just because something *seems* obviously black or white, right or wrong, doesn't mean that one is seeing the deeper truth of the matter. Wait two weeks, they say, and the moon appears to be a very different thing than when you first saw it. If you had leapt to judgment when the moon was dark, you would have made a terrible mistake. The seasons are similarly deceptive. Come to Minkai in the dead of winter, and it might seem a bleak and lifeless place, colorless and inhospitable. Months later, blossoms are wafting fragrance through the air and birds fill the air with song. The winter is revealed as a lie. And, many months later, the spring and summer and fall will have passed, and winter will again be truth. There is the secret of the 'madness' of Tsukiyo. Everything is a lie. Everything is true. It's all a matter of where you stand (and what blocks your view, distorting the appearance of what you gaze upon). The paladin of Tsukiyo cannot simply reject the darkness within himself (and within all men), cannot proudly deny rage or desire, for that way lies *true* madness. He must recognize that men are like the moon, and that you never see them all at once, a simple truth, for they are more complicated than that. Everything changes. People, like the seasons, change, and what can be said truly about a man today, may not have been true yesterday, and may be a lie tomorrow. The life of a priest or paladin of Tsukiyo is an exercise in self-exploration. Rather than pretend that he never has an impure thought, he accepts that impure thought, and symbolically pulls such things into the light. Rather than seeing the dark side of his own spirit as unwholesome or shameful (something to deny, and therefore never truly face or conquer), he sees it as the worldly aspect that he must transcend, and regards acknowledgement of his faults as a source of strength, being admonished that the worst hypocrites are the ones who claim purity of self, and engage in scurrilous or dishonorable deeds under the cover of night, staining both themselves and the night with their inequity and self-deception. To the paladin of Tsukiyo, the warrior or cleric who never admits to fault, is setting himself up to never be able to rise above the most worldly and unjust parts of their own natures. Each revelation about the self is a challenge to be acknowledged, confronted and overcome, as tricky to find as a skulking goblin and as dangerous to grapple with as an oni. Woe be to the evildoer who thinks that a paladin of Tsukiyo will never draw steel. He is not the god of redemption. 'The moon has horns,' some say, and a servant of Tsukiyo will take swift action, when he feels that it is necessary, refusing to show mercy to those who have neglected to confront their own inner darkness, and allow themselves to wallow in unjust or malicious ways. The existence of the paladin of Tsukiyo is proof that a person can overcome such things, and those who do not even try are held in low regard. Like the moon, one can shine with inner light, or be obscured with shadow, and while Tsukiyo looks askance at those who deny the darkness (and so give it power over themselves), he has even less patience for those who surrender entirely to self-deception, or mire themselves in inequity, living a life without balance between shadow and self-illumination, worldly matters and spiritual concerns.
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Play a summoner, whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a summoner cohort whose eidolon will eventually take Leadership and gain a really loud and opinionated monk with vow of poverty who refuses to adventure with anyone who doesn't also take a vow of poverty.
From the Iron Pony Contest thread:
Language Trait: Xenophobic* (0 RP) Equestrian (¿common?), bonus: Zebra, common, other, other. *The one time another pony spoke in another language, Zecora, nobody understand it. Racial abilities: Cutie Mark: Adaptability x2 (2 RP), alternatively, under the GM, permision you may choose choose up too 2 RP worth of abilities pertinent to you special talent, elven magic if your special talent is magic for example. Prehensile Tail (2 RP) Hoofed (1 RP), this should really count as a penalty. Let's asume that this also gives them hoofes as a natural attack. Non-dexterous (-2 RP): ponies may only grasp with their mouth one item at a time. They may wield two handed weapon, but suffer a -2 penalties on attack rolls with unmodified weapons (double base cost) and a -10 in any check involving hands. Net: 3 RP[b] [b] Ability score modifiers trait: Standar (0 RP): -2 STR +2 DEX +2 CHA Racial abilities: Spell-Like Ability (3 RP): Mage-hand at will Mage hand Finnesse (2 RP): unicorns may treat a single object within reach as wielded they may not add their STR bonus to damage rolls with that item and use their dextery modifier and BAB for attack rolls. Natural Attack (1 RP): Gore id6 Net: 7 + 3 = 10 RP
Ability score modifiers trait: Greater Weakness (-3 RP): -2 STR +2 DEX -4 CON* *In the race episode thre pegasi are shown winded up, also fligth is hard to balance. Racial abilities: Fligth X3 (8 RP) Cloud Smithing (2 RP): pegasi may treat clouds as solid objets and build structures from them as if they were made from rock, alternatively they can treat them as more comfy textures. A pegasus need to ramain 7 days a mmonth, not necessarily continous, to mantain such structures. Net: 7 + 3 = 10 RP
Ability score modifiers trait: Human Heritage (0 RP): Racial abilities: Hardy (1 RP): Fertile Hoove (1 RP): any area with an earth ponies living in their for a month is treated as the blessed crop version of the plant growth spell with a caster level equal to the earth pony level. Bonus Feat (4 RP) Relentless (1 RP): becuase I got 1 extra point Net: 7 + 3 = 10 RP Humbly,
PSD: Sorry for the wall text, but some spoilers weren't showing.
Wait, is Fluttershy a protean? Are proteans Bronies? No, but Discord is definitely a Protean. 
Wait, is Fluttershy a protean? Are proteans Bronies?
If I groked it correctly, the wizard with the imp is LN. No mention of his role-playing motivations are provided, so perhaps he's playing to show the imp the path to redemption, or at least Neutrality instead of Evil? Devils are notoriously difficult to redeem, and the imp will likely be fighting to drag the wizard the other way to Evil, but it can happen. Even with the paladin's chosen archetype, should he outright slay the imp when it might still be able to throw off the shackles of its born alignment? Wouldn't redeeming its soul be a more worthy goal than simply slaying/banishing it back to damnation in Hell? If the imp isn't simply for pure power/optimization purposes, it could be a source of some rich roleplaying for both the wizard and paladin. 
I like how Evil hat presented the good-evil thing. Humans have FREE-WILL, they can choose to be and do 'evil' or 'good' as it suits the individual; everything else MUST follow their NATURE. As for the OP, it's in an Orc's nature to be aggressive and violent. It's the Orc's choice to use that nature for the defense of others or to dominate others. Wait... what? This makes no sense. Humans have a nature, and they have free will. Orcs only have a nature? Really? What about elves, dwarves, halflings, etc.? Can you really count as the same general type two groups, one of whom has free will and the other of which doesn't? That's pretty huge right there. I mean, sure, it gets very silly when every dark elf you meet is a chaotic good rebel trying to redeem his race, but at the same time, I think most people assume that any living non-outsider with an INT of 3+ has free will, and if you aren't acting on that, you should make sure your players know that, because it's a massive departure from custom.
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