slacks's page

I don't think PF lends itself to play without a battle map at all. Furthermore, the map lets you do all sorts of fun and interesting things that just would not be feasible using narration.

Horse animal companion, favored enemy, and spellcasting are the ranger's advantages over other archer builds.

If you take a dolphin as an animal companion you can teach it to understand common... and forge documents.

It is important not to help some people too much or they become reliant on you. I have a friend that I boardgame with who is smart but very lazy when it comes to paying attention to the game, he would often ask for "advice" on all the options available to him on his turn which caused a huge slow down. Now we just tell him to choose for himself and instead of telling him a rule, tell him to go find the answer himself. As a result the game goes much more smoothly because he actually knows the rules and thinks about his options without bugging the rest of us (most of the time).

If I have a lead ingot and cover it in gold leaf, is it a gold ingot?
If so, I have a gold ingot to sell you ;).

It seems like the 8-16 limit is just as arbitrary as the 7-18 limit already in the rules (before modifiers).
Why is it that a score of 7 is min/max'ed while a score of 8 is not?

I don't think there is a problem with the score limit. The problem actually seems to be with the player's weak character concept (apparently), or your perception that they are somehow gaming the system.