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If I were going for pure power, 9-level casters win. But I prefer 6th-level casters because I feel like I don't have to hold back using them to avoid breaking things. Oracle and Bard top my list for favorite classes. They're both very versatile and get party-useful stuff for free. Plus, ASF can suck it. I still need to try Warpriest one of these days.
You can take extra discovery and take vestigial arm twice, but parasitic twin does not seem to be on the list so they cannot take that one. For a fun combo, take mutation warrior and Eldritch Guardian and get a Mauler familiar. Mutagen can be used via the Share Spells feature. Give familiar mutagen and laugh as your cat/goat/etc goes from a harmless animal to a horrific beast. It also gets your combat feats due to the archetype. Also, Eldritch Guardian gives bonuses versus mind-affecting effects, which would help. Play half-elf for dual-mind and you could have a *very* nice will save against most things. You know, for a fighter.
I agree with Ashiel's reasoning. Which is why at my table we house-rule down many feats that exist just to unlock a fighting style to the minimum remotely reasonable level (including some being free). For example, TWFing is one feat for all three bonus attacks (gated by BAB of course). The only martial that gets away easy is the two-handed fighter, needing only power attack. Martial fighting styles and their basic feat requirements for approximately maintaining effectiveness:
And this doesn't even take into account feats like Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, or Critical Focus. A fighter of even the simplest fighting style (Two-Handed Fighting) can spend at least 8 feats on that style without gaining anything but more DPS (Power Attack, Furious Focus, Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec, Greater Weapon Spec, Improved Critical, Critical Focus). Weapon Focus is itself often the gate to more feats that the character will want to meet their style (e.g. Slashing Grace). The fact is that, aside from fighters, most martials could spend literally every feat they ever get on doing nothing but pumping more to-hit and damage into their full-round attack and have absolutely no other tricks. And with the way the game is typically played, it's practically demanded of them. Casters? I could spend all my feats on Skill Focus and still be at 80-90% of my potential power.
I'm gonna jump on the 6-level caster bandwagon here. They're the best. Options when you need them, but sword-to-the-face technique is always there for you as well. Oracles, clerics, and druids are good for the same reason. But they get 9-level casting! Brilliant! Side note, bard and oracle are my favorite classes. Every time I play a 1st party full martial character I leave disappointed. I'm currently playing an unchained monk that's pretty fun.. but would be so much more fun if they could do more than punch it in the face (for offense, that is). Horrifically expensive and late-to-the-game ki powers notwithstanding.
I'm not arguing anything, just tossing around ideas that might help the OP find a satisfactory ruling at his table. If you want to make a big deal out of the minutiae then you're on your own.Minutiae? You are supporting a big rule change in the rule forum and call it "minutiae"? Allow me to reiterate: There are no rules for death. Any assertions about how rules should and should not work for death are invalid because it's unreasonable to expect that the writer of a duration-based spell had such interactions in mind, or even that the writer of duration-based rules in general had that in mind. If this were law, we'd fall back to a reasonable expectations standard. Would a reasonable person expect to still be diseased if reincarnated into a new body? Probably not. Would they expect to still be cursed? Probably so. What if revived into the same body? They'd probably still expect to be diseased. What if revived from a finger of the former body? Now we're getting into tougher territory. But this isn't law, so evidently we instead fall back to senseless mewling.
I'm not arguing anything, just tossing around ideas that might help the OP find a satisfactory ruling at his table. If you want to make a big deal out of the minutiae then you're on your own.Minutiae? You are supporting a big rule change in the rule forum and call it "minutiae"? We're talking about death, one of the least rules-explicit occurrences in the game. There are no rules. Even in a rules forum you have to fall back to guess work and fluff when that happens. I can't change a rule if it doesn't exist. (And don't even start on "then just do what the rules say even if it's dumb". Down that path lies taking actions while dead and similarly stupid stuff.) And on top of that, I'm not even proposing to "change" these non-existent rules, just throwing out ideas for how the fluff/rules might interact were there to be specific rules. I'm not trying to be 100% rules rigorous here because it's impossible: we're already outside of that realm.
@Diego Delivery parameters are different from target parameters. "Touch" is a delivery mechanism, not a requirement of the target. Likewise for being unable to target invisible creatures. I would argue that not being able to target sightless creatures is a delivery issue for color spray, not a target issue. A sightless creature fails to see the colors, thus is never affected, but becoming sightless afterwards does nothing. The type of invalid target I was referring to is simply the kind that says "Target: one creature" and the like. The object/creature divide is quite notable. Same with things like "one humanoid" as changing creature type is very difficult. Besides all that, my post was entirely speculative. It's never come up in my games so I wasn't trying to offer a concrete ruling, but rather some ideas that could be brought to the DM to see what seems most palatable.
This is a place where you have to try to think of what is reasonable, which means it's going to see table variation. Death and revival, despite how commonly it can occur, is simply not covered all that well by rules materials. At least not in any explicit manner. Speaking in flavor terms, if you're dead then your body and soul have separated. Depending on how you are revived this could matter. If we presume that the spell is merely suppressed, and you are revived into your former body (e.g. raise dead), then all effects remain in full. However, if you are revived into a new body (e.g. true resurrection sometimes, reincarnation always) then any effect that targeted your body would be gone (or rather, still on the old body), but all other effects would follow you. So a permanent polymorph wouldn't follow, but something like major curse would. If we presume that the spell is dispelled if you become an invalid target, then effects targeting your body would be dispelled, but those that affect your mind/spirit would remain. So things like curses, negative levels, and ability drain would follow regardless. (I typically treat ability damage as a physical issue and drain as a metaphysical one.) EDIT: Short version is, find some fluff explanation of how death and resurrection works that your table likes, then extrapolate from there.
Because the other 5 could fail? Or the grabs automatically fail due to size differences, so now you need damage?
No, you are assuming it's for a single foe. It never states a single foe. It states "to continue grappling the foe", and if you are already grappling 6 foes according to my earlier logic, then you can continue to grapple each foe. "The foe" refers to a single entity rather than a group in this case because it is referring back to the prior part of the sentence that says "an opponent", which is unambiguously a single entity.
Alchemist
If 3rd party, Warder is probably best though. It has a maneuvers system based on intelligence, along with some other nice int-based benefits and an ability (armiger's mark) that helps force foes to focus on them. They also have a nice archetype (Dervish Defender) that gives int-to-AC the same way Monk does, but it allows light armor and bucklers, making it much more convenient to use. Student of War is also a nice full BAB prestige class with some int-based benefits, including swapping your dex for intelligence for AC. Use another full BAB class as lead-in and you're g2g. Not slayer, though. It's studied combat ability and the SoW key ability conflict on actions (both are move/swift depending on level).
It's not, but you pick the first 4 from the prioritized list that the character has equipped and roll randomly between them. Armor is #2, so most people have it on the list. Magic clothing is actually #8, so it is completely possible. #10 is "anything else", which could also be clothing if the DM was being weird. I'll have to keep this in mind for my current monk character. As it is, he will mostly likely *always* have "magical clothing" be an option once he gets a monk's robe. In which case? Naked monk. Oh yeah.
I would like to add to this that magical armor (which the druid hopefully has if she's facing off against a dragon) is intensely durable. It gains +2 hardness and +10 HP for every +1 of flat bonus it possesses. +3 leather armor, a relatively cheap enchantment on a flimsy base type, still has 8 hardness and 40 HP. Destroying it instantly with energy would require 96HP worth of damage. Even making it "broken" in one go takes 56HP of damage. Doable for a dragon, but by no means guaranteed. In fact, it takes a CR18 red dragon (Very Old category) to even break a 50% chance of destroying it all at once. And that's a weak armor!
I recommend Slayer with a variant multi-class in barbarian. You lose some feats, but you get sneak attack, lots of skills, trapfinding (via a talent), evasion (via a talent), uncanny dodge, rage, full BAB, 2 good saves, and can deal a boatload of damage while still getting to keep your skills. In fact, the slayer is better at some key skills than rogue due to the various skill bonuses they get from studied combat (not just an in-combat ability!) and track. A strength-based build only needs 1 feat (power attack) to be effective forever, and if you're doing a barbarian mix I assume you want to have decent strength (at least 14, probably 16 to start). You basically look like a Barbarian/Rogue hybrid, but are better than what you'd be if you were *actually* barbarian/rogue.
To add a bit of fun to this, here's an indirectly relevant faq: With a two-handed weapon, you add 1-1/2 times your Dexterity bonus on damage rolls, and with an off-hand weapon, you add half your Dexterity bonus on damage rolls. As per the ability's text, if an effect would prevent you from adding your Strength modifier on damage rolls, you don't add your Dexterity modifier. However, any other effects that would increase the multiplier to your Strength bonus on damage rolls (such as the two-handed fighter archetype's overhand chop) do not affect your Dexterity bonus on damage rolls. This indicates that effects that increase your strength bonus to damage are fundamentally different from the base strength multiplier to damage that is offered for how a weapon is wielded or its primary/secondary nature. This lends credence to to the position that effects such as Dragon Style do not count the same way as a standard multiplier to strength and thus it's reasonable to say that they therefor don't interact with power attack the same way either. (And yes, Dragon Style and Overhand Chop use the same wording.) Of course, it's all conjecture. Like I said in my other post, you have two options here: You can read it like a lawyer and get your -1/+3, or read it like someone who's looking for intent, balance, and following standard design patterns of the system and get -1/+2. Regardless, I doubt anyone here will convince anyone else. The existing conversation is enough to give anyone looking for an honest answer the detail they need to come to a reasonable conclusion within the context of their own game.
Since I can't resist: It doesn't matter. Power attack calls out one-handed weapons wielded in two hands explicitly. It doesn't have to "treat it as a two-hander" because it's calling it out exactly for what it is: a one-hander in two hands. Nothing more, nothing less. It just happens to assign that category the same bonus as a two-hander. There is no usable evidence to be found down this path, one way or the other. PS: Sarcasm/snark NEVER help your position in an argument. It only makes the other person frustrated with you for being disrespectful and causes them to work to prove you wrong just out of spite. It's not a tactic to use when you're looking for an honest result. But, I suspect you've already come to your own conclusions and are merely looking for validation and have grown frustrated that you haven't found it. My advice? If you grow frustrated and begin to express it outwardly, you've already lost. Best to step back and collect yourself before moving forward. You can be absolutely correct and no-one will care if you try to prove it with anger.
It was actually written into the spell description. They got a save. Make the save, and the light doesn't move with your eyes. Fail the save and the light was targeted on the eyes and you were blinded.Back in AD&D times, you could blind someone by casting Light directly on their eyes. Continual Light would perma-blind them. Well, there's no accounting for bad rules design. Then again, this was 2nd ed, so I shouldn't be surprised. That edition from what little I can recall was all about weird (nearly-)auto-win spells and abilities.
Back in AD&D times, you could blind someone by casting Light directly on their eyes. Continual Light would perma-blind them. And when that kind of thing becomes abused, then you make a rule to patch it. In this case I would've probably ruled that the light only emanates outward from the eyes (because magic) so it doesn't blind them. In fact, now they have permanent flashlights that always look right where they look. A DM's first instinct should always be to say "yes" to zany ideas, saying no only if they have a concrete reason (like you've given) for saying otherwise. It just makes things way more fun.
Characters don't pick knowledge checks, knowledge checks pick them. No guessing involved. I find it's just easier to announce which knowledge it is since there are usually 4-5 players each with an oddball spread of ranks (we don't usually have a single knowledge-monkey type). Sure, they *could* metagame, but the folks at my table make honest efforts not to and that is enough to make what metagaming does happen be an acceptable price for the time saved. Then again, my table complains when the DM chuckles as he admits to making us do a perception check when nothing is there. "Awww, you're not supposed to tell us that!"
This is an all-too-common case of rules ambiguity. The intention is almost certainly that dragon style/ferocity represent stand-alone bonuses that scale with strength and don't interact with other rules and/or feats. However, if you read the rules like a lawyer, the natural weapon is indeed at 1.5* to strength and thus would get -1/+3 from PA. Do note that if you go down this route, the first attack from dragon ferocity would only get -1/+2 from PA since that attack gets 2* from strength, which is not 1.5* (it does not say 1.5* or greater). Personally, I dodge this issue entirely with a house rule that locks PA to the same multiplier as strength no matter where that comes from. A boost for martials, to be sure, but that's fine and avoids weird edge cases. Given that most strength-based characters have at least a +4 strength mod by the time they'd have dragon ferocity, that alone puts the feat on par with weapon specialization (unarmed strike). Between that and the additional benefits, I'd say it's best to take the conservative approach here and leave power attack at -1/+2 (which is likely the intended interpretation anyway). Otherwise you're looking at a single feat easily being worth 2-3 feats.
since looking up a faq is hard *sigh* Yet again they create a rule in a FAQ. I hate it when they do this. So evidently, when using another ability score modifier in place of strength modifier, the two-handed bonus and off-handed penalty multipliers apply but none of the rest do. Because reasons.
In the case of guided, I'd say you would multiply wisdom modifier to damage just as your would strength modifier to damage. This would mean dragon ferocity would effectively multiply your wisdom bonus by 1.5* for unarmed strike damage when using that property. Normally the multipliers for two-handed attacks and off-hand/secondary attacks would also apply, but guided specifically carves those out. Since Dragon Ferocity is neither, it is not affected by that limitation.
There are several changes in our Golarion, some of which are due to house rules on the system, others from campaigns that have played out. 1) Galt no longer has its Final Blades. They were recently destroyed by a group of rebels, only one of whom is believed to still be alive. The revolutionary council is all but disbanded, leaving Galt even more unstable than usual. 2) Alignment is a planar energy thing, not a morality thing. All tieflings are "evil", all aasimar are "good", most races need the Aura class feature to gain an alignment. Some non-divine classes (like Monk) might gain it at higher level. Things that only affect alignment X have half effect on neutrals to compensate. 3) The river kingdoms are joined by an unusually stable monstrous Kingdom known as Terra Dracones, nestled between Brevoy and Pitax. Its leaders are of draconic descent and are believed to be actual dragons (or slowly becoming dragons). Despite having many monstrous races within, the kingdom is largely peaceful and trades with nearby kingdoms regularly. Races that are truly evil to the core (e.g. Drow) are unsurprisingly absent. 4) Related to #3, there are 6 draconic gods known as Bahamut, Tiamat, Agatha, Dao, Kala, and Prometheus. Tiamat is the only Evil god among them, but is also a silent deity who requires no code of her followers despite granting her clerics a lawful evil aura. These deities replace the existing draconic deities. 5) Psionics exists (from Ultimate Psionics), but is largely considered indistinct from magic. It's viewed more like an extreme version of the difference between sorcerer and wizard. 6) Kobolds were adjusted to -2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Int so that they don't suck. Halflings lose their +Cha and gain +Wis instead for some variety in the small-size bracket. I've been considering going through and adjusting racial ability score mods for all the races my table allows to give more variety. Did you know that something like 70% of races have a bonus to dexterity? And only 3 have a bonus to strength? (Not counting races that can choose.)
Then all he ever gets is a probably 5/day ability to get +1 attack/damage for a minute. Presuming he takes nothing else to use his arcane pool points. He never gets more than the +1 because it's based only on magus level.
Sundakan@ has the right answer for this specific case: A temporary drop (damage or penalty) does not reduce your actual score and won't affect whether you meet prerequisites. In cases of Drain or race changing I believe you still have the feat, you simply lose access to its benefits, so you could theoretically still use feats with it as a prerequisite, but there are only a small number of cases where that's helpful due to prerequisite repeating that frequently happens. To do it any other way would play havoc with a handful of prestige classes. For example, what would happen to a shadowdancer if it had dex 13 and took 2 dex drain? Would it lose its Dodge feat and thus no longer meet prerequisites for entire class levels? I don't know. (My table house-rules away all ability score prerequisites for feats, so this doesn't matter for us. But it's a fun thought experiment.)
As voideternal@ notes, Undead and Outsider are both primary types. A creature can only truly be one of those types, and there are very few edge cases where they can be "treated" as more than one primary type (e.g. aasimar with scion of humanity), but those are to my knowledge always alternative racial traits, never baked into the creature. Your best bet is to grab an existing demon/devil and change its type to Undead while keeping its subtype. This would negate con, give it Cha mod to HP, make it heal from negative energy, etc. Their HP will probably drop somewhat, but they'll gain a host of immunities in exchange. Undead/Outsider is a dangerous play to make, by the way. Both types individually have a large host of resistances and immunities, and overlapping the two makes for a creature that will be immune and/or heavily resistant to just about everything. There's a reason why Undead and Outsider(evil) are the most common banes and favored enemy types.
*IF* the DM is feeling generous you can *eventually* find celestial armor and perhaps upgrade it for a final AC of +3 higher than what mithral chain gets you, but this is entirely up to DM fiat. According to the rules it would max out at +8 AC (1 less than mithral chain) with no bonus equivalents (though it does get fly 1/day). This armor is a fine stretch goal, but not so much better that you need to claw after it. Your AC should be fine without it. Ah, my bad. My eyes moved up a row when scanning the armors table, I guess. That said, it's still a specific armor with a cost high enough that it's unreasonable to attain it before around 11th or so level, and also above the base value of almost all cities (even Absalom is only slightly higher) making it difficult to find one for sale. Being a specific armor, any modifications to it whatsoever are custom magic items that are therefor subject to DM approval. Granted, it's probably not hard to get approval in this case. Still, best to stick with the mithral chain shirt to start. If you get lucky then upgrade to celestial and push it to +5, but it's not something to sweat over. Bracers of armor are a non-option in this case since they're more expensive and worse in all ways except weight and incorporeal foes until very high level, and even then they only come to about break even. They're mostly for those that can't use armor at all (e.g. monks).
Don't overthink it. Just use a mithral chain shirt and upgrade it as you level. Mithral chain shirt is fine for your whole career. It gets up to a +9 armor bonus (+1 over bracers of armor) and has a max dex of +6 (only 1-2 lower than your estimated final dex). This means, at worst, you end up 1 point of AC behind bracers of armor but get +5 of bonus equivalents in exchange (e.g. fortification). While reaching that final goal you are easily ahead on AC for almost no extra cost (1100gp for the base item granting +4 AC, which costs 16000gp via bracers). *IF* the DM is feeling generous you can *eventually* find celestial armor and perhaps upgrade it for a final AC of +3 higher than what mithral chain gets you, but this is entirely up to DM fiat. According to the rules it would max out at +8 AC (1 less than mithral chain) with no bonus equivalents (though it does get fly 1/day). This armor is a fine stretch goal, but not so much better that you need to claw after it. Your AC should be fine without it.
My group mostly plays with Golarion deities in Golarion. We did make a homebrew setting at one point, but only played in it a couple times. A few highlights from the pantheon, however:
I consider natural weapon users the balancing case for the price of amulet of might fists, not the unarmed strike user. The monk can always just pick up a temple sword for single-weapon price and flurry away, the shape-shifter build can't. If you want balance then make Amulet of Mighty Fists be unarmed strike only, cut it down to the same price as a single magic weapon, then create a separate item that boosts all natural attacks at the original price and call it something like Amulet of Tooth and Claw. If you want to compare for the monk use case, compare it against single weapon price: 50k.
If third party content is okay, I recommend Soul Knife with the War Soul archetype. Take the Discipline Blade Shapes blade skill at 2nd level and now you can reform your weapon into any kind of light blade you want. If you get DM permission to swap one of the martial disciplines out (a practice the book itself recommends for thematic characters) then you get can get all swords by selecting a discipline that gets heavy blades. To expand on the concept as you level you can take Bladewind at 8th level for what amounts to Whirlwind (but really you summon one blade per target and attack all simultaneously). At 16th you can then take Bladestorm to throw one blade at each foe within 30ft simultaneously. There are also blade skills that change your damage type to be elemental, among other fun things. If you can't use 3rd party content then your best bet is the Mindblade archetype of Magus, which has some similarities to Soulknife but is still very much a caster/martial instead of a pure martial and doesn't get fancy tricks with their weapons. Either way, blades formed from pure force of will.
You cannot use eldritch conduit to cast AMF on someone else because AMF is an emanation but eldritch conduit only works on cones, lines, spheres, and cylinders. An anti-magic field isn't typically something to fear. It's centered on the caster and prevents them from casting. VERY few things can cast one and still be much of a danger, typically outsiders and dragons, and even they would think twice. An Oracle's best bet, in the rare case an AMF comes out on a creature that isn't puny with one going, is to run and hide. If you're lucky the party wizard will have a wall of force or prismatic wall to trap the foe with, or the party beatsticks will be able to take the creature down sans-magic. NOTE: DR/magic, DR/material, and DR/alignment are all supernatural abilities, AFAIK, and would be suppressed in an anti-magic field. Dragons and Outsiders won't give up their DR lightly.
That rule is using the Conjuration school as an example: its spells do not allow SR because they summon the energy in-hand and hurl it, but after being summoned the energy is non-magical so the hurled energy can pierce the AMF. This is in contrast to evocation which typically creates the energy in-place. A good rule of thumb for whether the AMF will stop the attack before it gets there is whether SR is allowed. If it's allowed, the attack won't reach. If not, then casting the spell from outside the field would still allow striking someone inside. Telekinesis, for example, could pick up an object that is outside the field and throw into the field, but could not pick up an object inside the field (it allows object SR). Given that most spells allow SR you will probably find the list of allowable spells largely being conjuration spells.
The only time I use puzzles in my games is if there's a resource-consuming way past them (time counts as a resource for this sometimes), *OR* if I have a way to keep dropping more hints until they get the answer (which only works in longer term puzzles). Optimally all puzzles can be ignored and plot can continue, perhaps with rewards missed. The reason being exactly what Boomerang Nebula@ says: Either people get it quick, or never. If they get it quickly it's no fun for you since you spent time on a puzzle, while if they don't get it then it's no fun for them. Spoiler: You must be mini-me because all I hear is EEEEE!
Ever boil a pot of water? Measure how long that takes sometime. Now imagine boiling a 10ft diameter sphere of water with the same size of flame. That's how long heat metal would take to boil that water. The steam around the weapon itself is a VERY small portion of the water, too small to reasonably affect the orb within the time limits of the orb's duration. You could get rid of 100 gallons of water and the orb would still have literally thousands left (about 3800, to be more exact). EDIT: Honestly, this is one situation where I wouldn't give a reward. Heat metal is expressly supposed to get *weaker* in water, and he's deliberately putting them in water. He's hamstringing himself.
You're right that I don't have a source. Because there isn't one. It's not the rule and I wasn't attempting to say that falling damage is (as written) typed at all. What I was trying to say is that is what I think it should be because it's the only thing that makes any sense whatsoever, and it seems obvious to me that it being untyped is an oversight that is not considered worth the time to correct. It wouldn't be the only inconsistency left in the rules by far. But I hope you note that I did say in my first post that the actual rule is that falling (or being fallen on) ignore DR, yes? I implied that it's insane, but it's still the rule.
If you're a lawyer, falling damage is not reduced by DR, and neither is damage from a rock falling on you. If you're a normal sane person, falling damage is physical damage (bludgeoning), DR reduces physical damage, therefor falling damage is reduced by DR. We're talking about core rulebook rules here, people. These things are famous for wonky wording, odd oversights, clumsy copy-paste, and laughable loopholes. Not as bad as 3.0e, but they still have their moments. It's already been clarified that DR *does* apply to spells, but only to ones that deal physical damage, and that the line about spells ignoring DR is only because 99% of the time it's energy damage (or untyped, which is also non-physical).
Charm person basically makes you think of the caster as your best friend. Would you actively attempt to get your friend killed or hurt? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the person. A drow totally would if it gave her even a minor advantage, a paladin wouldn't even if it meant staring down the devil himself. But that is neither here nor there. The problem is neither the spell nor the character, it's the players. They need to work out their differences before any attempt at an in-game solution can be worked out. You need the offended to clearly articulate why they are upset and work towards a solution from there. Apologies will likely be needed. Once the players get back into working-together mode they can work together to figure out how to make things work in game in a way that keeps the game fun.
If your corpse has been raised as undead then you cannot be resurrected, even by true resurrection, until that undead has been destroyed. Even if it's mindless. This is a strong hint that at least part of your spirit is bound to the corpse in order to keep it animated (given that true rez requires nothing of the corpse, only the soul).
really? As a true deity I would have thought Anubis wouldn't be directly subordinate to someone elseUm...in Golarion, Anubis is a servitor of Pharasma and has the same anti-undeath stance (and domain spell substitutions) as she does. Very bad choice. Yeah, this seems odd to me as well. I couldn't find any info on Anubis aside from the basic stuff for cleric features. Him being anti-undead I could believe, but him just doing whatever pharasma says seems odd. Either way, there's probably an LN god that will work somewhere. If not, drop the undead and suddenly things get a lot easier.
It works for standard shields because those are both on the shields and weapons lists. Scizore only appears on the weapon list, so therefor it (by strict RAW) cannot receive shield enchantments. If you want to do it anyway, it's reasonable to allow enchantments treating is as a light shield. The bashing enchantment, however, would either have to be restricted or only apply to using it for bludgeoning. Otherwise it'd be FAR too strong on base dice.
Also: Everyone may as well stop talking about alignment detection/hiding. In the long run this strategy *will* fall apart, whether due to the paladin directly witnessing something, an unfortunate hit from a dispel magic, etc. And the undead themselves? That's proof of continued evil behavior right there. There is no point in masking alignment as a "solution" to the OP's problem since that won't actually solve it. An undead-using cleric cannot hide. Much better to make the alignment not matter, which requires that either the Paladin and Cleric share the same faith and thus the cleric is given a pass on the no-evil thing, or that they are working together against a greater foe (whose defeat marks the end of the campaign). Both require at least a touch of DM assistance/hand-waving.
#1 would still cause the paladin player to eventually fall and be forced to retrain. It doesn't wreck the party, but it does interrupt the flow of the game at some point until that little side-story is resolved. Usable idea, but not perfect. #2 is the better suggestion if playing a pre-made, so as to avoid disturbing the story too much. There *has* to be a LN god that both sponsors paladins and is okay with undead. I noticed Anubis is LN and has the death domain, but not much more definition beyond that. It's a stretch to say he would sponsor paladins, but maybe not much of one. I may be biased towards #2 since it's basically what I suggested before ;)
There's only one way I can think of to make an undead-using cleric work in a paladin party.. First off, worship a neutral deity. If you worship an evil deity your Aura ability will make the evil shine like a beacon to the paladin right at 1st level, but if you worship a neutral deity you have until 5th level to figure out some way to mask your alignment. The deity themselves will have to be one friendly to undead. Pharasma, for example, hates undead so she's right out. Anubis would probably work (LN). Secondly, reconsider being *actually* evil and instead consider merely walking the line and calling it neutral. You can be very unsympathetic and consider using undead as a tool to merely be a necessary evil without actual going full evil yourself. The key is that you must use the undead for good purposes to counteract the effect that creating them would have on your being. Thirdly: Even with the above, the Paladin player would have to be one who worships/serves a god that is not strongly opposed to undead. I'm not sure which that would be, but there is probably one. Then you have to use the alternative paladin codes that are deity-specific so that merely working with undead in the party doesn't immediately cause the paladin to fall. Anubis might actually work here as well. So an LN cleric of anubis working with a paladin of the same is probably the only remotely stable Undead-Using Cleric + Paladin combo out there. In fact, if you both serve/worship anubis, the DM can even handwave the "don't work with evil" requirement of paladin w/r/t to you due to being commanded by the same god. If you can't work out something like the above, then your best bet is to plead with the paladin player to play something else. Failing that, hold the concept for another day. Think of it this way: If you play this character now without the above cooperation, it rips the party apart and you still don't actually get to play it. So your worst case is to save it for when you actually get to play it.
Not a full build, but to borrow from an older post of mine:
Something like the above, focusing on self-buff extracts, would be both strange and potentially deadly. It's optimized for strange, though. You can ditch the extra arms and some other stuff for more practical abilities. Note that mutagen is NOT a polymorph effect, so you can stack it with a real polymorph effect to gain double weird-add-on goodness. How about a big cat with a fly speed? Or a vouivre with pounce? While goblins have a strength penalty, they won't need much strength given the sheer quantity of natural attacks they could potentially have combined with the strength buff stacking between mutagen and polymorphing. Technically that race choice was just for the rubber body discovery, so feel free to swap it out for something more practical if desired.
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