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Just because he's an ally is no sign he's a friend... Which is ultimately where role-play on the GM's part comes into play. In some situations it might make a lot of sense for an NPC to switch sides in which case it's awesome. In other cases you have NPCs who are fiercely loyal to each other. That's the judges call. Hopefully there is enough information in the scenario to steer him on this issue.
You might consider taking a look at Breaking of Forster Nagar, it's an adventure published by rite publishing, they use an enemy who is essentially exactly what you describe, canibalistic savages who are invading a city of ice... It's a really well written adventure written by Ben McFarland with cartography from Jonathan Roberts (who is working on the official Game of Thrones maps) and edited by (now) Paizo's Mark Moreland. Kind of a hidden gem in the RPG world, well worth the $10 for the PDF and... mostly on topic :P
It's a matter of interpretation. "An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing." No-where does the spell suggest the charmed person is suddenly an idiot. Killing your allies is suicidal and harmful. Particularly if you were ordering the charmed character in a reckless way that is clearly going to get them killed.
I think Scott and nosig nailed it. It's great as a substitute for diplomacy and you can use it to avoid encounters, but there is nothing that makes the charmed person act against his nature. If your allies start attacking his buddies, he's going to attack them right back. He's certainly not going to attack his own friends because his new-found buddy is asking him to.
Most people have poor memories when it comes to numbers like that. That's why we invented pencils. If a player is constantly forgetting basic things like how many hit points his character has, I start to wonder what else is getting forgotten. If you can't keep track of hit points, how can you reasonably keep track of spells per day? Spell durations? Etc...
I've taken to putting up sticky notes with all my active buffs and durations up where everyone can see them. I like the transparency and there is no questions or confusion about what's active at any given time. I also ask about how much time has elapsed frequently to and update as appropriate. I know this isn't exactly what you asked, but I find that the more transparent I am as a player, the fewer weird moments I have with the GM in general. A sticky with "False Life 18 HP 10 hours" written on it would have avoided any sort of jolting mid-combat conversations like that.
Just a suggestion, but people respond better to directed instructions than they do open ended suggestions. It's like when giving CPR, you don't say "somebody call 9-1-1" you look at an individual person, use their name if you know it, make eye contact and say "You, you there, in the blue shirt, Bob, Go call 9-1-1. If you don't have a cell phone, borrow from Sally." So I guess what I'm saying is, you do not have to run more, but instead of leaving it open ended, start tapping the likely suspects, maybe use Painlord's Tips on coordination, and get some buy-in that way. I work with an AWESOME Co-coordinator (Thanks Ogre) his wife, my husband, and a handful of others (actually, thank you all!) that keep things going when I'm not there. This is why when Verdigris is around I've learned not to make eye contact and feign hearing loss.
This was my wife's first big GMing/ campaign and she did just fine with running Carrion Crown through the first three books and it was pretty crazy awesome. Harrowstone was IMO the best of the three. If a brand new to GMing person can use the book to turn out a great quality game, I don't think you have any worries about edit quality.
If you are GMing: Sczarni faction mission: There is some potential confusion about the Sczarni faction mission which mentions the fence specifically but he doesn't have the list the players are looking for, the list they are looking for is in the warehouse.
Perhaps, have Barnell tell the PCs he gets all his clients from his contact.
HOW DOES ONE DEAL WITH A CHILDISH CHEAT AT THEIR TABLE. You don't deal with them. You can't make a childish person act non-childish. (Actually the term childish is rather insulting to well behaved children, many of whom are great players). If someone is acting like a spoiled child at the table you can either cope with it, kick them out of the group, or find a new group. If you treat the symptoms it will only turn into a different problem. You can't fix people (legally).
Now, perhaps even though you outright called me willfully ignorant twice you didn't actually mean it? I will allow you to retract your personal attacks if you'd like. Someone who knows about a rule and chooses to pretent he doesn't is willfully ignorant... it is the definition of the term. You should take any questions about this to the PFS forums because it's polluting this thread.
0gre: I was not the first to reference that table, nor was I the first to post it. Either way, you are correct that it is not used for PFS play. I actually wonder if they do have a definitive list. I am better that they do not and actually prefer to reference simply the core book which seems to purposefully leave a list off. There is a definitive list, it's potions of all spells at their minimum caster level. Further if any spell is on the cleric/ wizard/ druid spell list it must be crafted using one of those classes, so for example you can't have a potion of stoneskin in PFS because it's on the wizard spell list and you can't craft a potion of stoneskin as a wizard. Bless weapon works because it's only on the paladin list.
The "lowest possible caster level" to create a potion of Barkskin +5 is level 12. Thus when you buy a potion of Barkskin +5 it is purchased at caster level 12. Please show me a reference on a PFS legal source.
Items are legalized in PFS on an inclusive basis, if something is not listed as being legal it isn't. It's pretty clearly spelled out in the guide. The d20pfsrd is not a legal source for PFS and the table you reference is not included in any PFS legal products (and contains several errors such as the mis-pricing of the oil of bless weapon).
The "lowest possible caster level" to create a potion of Barkskin +5 is level 12. Thus when you buy a potion of Barkskin +5 it is purchased at caster level 12. Where is this "Potion of barkskin +5" listed? There is no such item. There is a potion of barkskin and if you increase the caster level to 12 it is +5, but there is no item called a potion of barkskin +5.
I mean, I've seen what I've seen at tables; people seem to assume that you can make the potions at the level you want. Though in fairness i've seen it on the potions listed below that are listed with a +, so who knows? I know, because I read the guide to PFS and the FAQ? Maybe you and the folks you see doing this should take the time to do that. Even if you argue against, potions of barkskin +5 are in the book, and would require a 15th level caster. So you're looking at 4 hours of barksin. Heroism would "only" be an hour 40 minutes. The potion of greater magic fang +5 also exists, and that is 20th caster level. Shy of ignoring the rules, they do not exist in PFS.
Ask your GM about Rapid Reload or Quickdraw for the sling, most reasonable GMs will let you grab one or the other. If you are in organized play things are a little murkier and I would stick with the racial trait from the APG or with the feats from the Halfling book which allow something similar. The APG racial trait is a bit better IMO and if you really want that bonus to climbing and acrobatics you can take Skill Focus to make up for the loss. You can take any feat that is available to ranged weapons, feats which require the bow or crossbow say that explicitly (like Manyshot does).
The paragraph most people seem to ignore on magic item creation: Not all items adhere to these formulas. First and foremost, these few formulas aren't enough to truly gauge the exact differences between items. The price of a magic item may be modified based on its actual worth. The formulas only provide a starting point. The pricing of scrolls assumes that, whenever possible, a wizard or cleric created it. Potions and wands follow the formulas exactly. Staves follow the formulas closely, and other items require at least some judgment calls. Basically, there are no hard/ fast rules to item crafting, the formulas get you stated and after that it's a judgment call which means the GM is always going to be involved.
Foresight is pretty awesome if you do ray attacks or use a bow or a gun. Many wizards will find little use for it though. I do think diviner has the best set of school powers... it's just paired with a fairly weak set of spells for bonus spells. I just turned 3rd level and there is little in the way of divine spells for 1st and 2nd level... it's just kind of bleh.
Seems to me they are both good enough where you can comfortably pick whichever you like without worrying about it. Beyond a certain point you are splitting hairs. The way I see it the value of "act in the surprise round" is an ability with widely varying usefulness depending on the campaign. I've found it quite handy, but if your GM doesn't do surprise rounds often it's almost worthless. YMMV.
Actually with the piecemeal armor rules you can have one team working on the breastplate, one team working on the arms and one team working on the legs. An entirely reasonable and realistic take on the problem.The problem with that is if you divide the labor too much you get a red arm, a green arm, a blue leg and a yellow leg, which will go with the black breastplate/helmet. And the right foot still has nothing but the primer coat because it got dented and when my cousin fixed it he didn't bother to finish painting it.
I tend to agree with you on the idea of having races be rare and special. I just don't think it's reasonable that they are far more rare in some areas than others.I can cede your point. I do think there needs to be some effort expended in order to qualify for them. Driving 3-4 hours for a con is not something I have sympathy for. I have a minimum of that drive to attend cons in my area and it doesn't stop me, but that may just be a cultural thing (If you live in Nebraska you get used to long drives). I'm ok with effort. I just don't care for the idea that it's a lot more effort for some than others. Currently, people in bigger cities have access to more player options than people in more rural areas.
A lot of people keep implying that these are only available at conventions. That simply isn't true. It does need to be an 'event' but that event isn't necessarily a convention. Sure, it's mostly through convention play. I'm not adverse into opening them more but nothing I've seen offered up in the thread really seems to work in my mind. The problem is what qualifies as an 'event'? In general, the places which are big enough to support 'events' with five plus tables also tend to be big enough to have conventions. So essentially it's just another way of making an option available to the same groups of people. I tend to agree with you on the idea of having races be rare and special. I just don't think it's reasonable that they are far more rare in some areas than others.
I would prefer the races were not concentrated in the groups of players who go to conventions. Some people don't like conventions or are in remote areas where conventions are less accessible. A person in the Bay Area could easily have 2-3 racial boons without making a lot of effort, while a people in Fresno or Bakersfield would have to either put on a beginner's bash (no longer available) or travel 3-4 hours to get to a convention. Others just don't have the money or inclination to attend a crowded convention. I don't like the idea of having them as an always available option either, I would just like to see the boons distributed in a more democratic way.
You mean above and beyond the 32-pg Pathfinder Companion Supplements: Also worth mentioning is "Classic Monsters Revisited" (Link) Which has a great rundown of the Golarion 'take' on all the classic monstrous races, including "orcs, ogres, goblins, hobgoblins, trolls, bugbears, and more". It's a 3.5 resource, but it's largely focused on the place these creatures have in Golarion and their behavior rather than rules stuff so it doesn't matter too much.
You are probably fine. There is a difference between prestige and fame and the wording changed between the seasons. You are probably best off starting a new thread to get some help but... in a nutshell: You fame is the total of all prestige you've ever earned. You never spend fame, it's with you forever. If you earn 2 prestige in a scenario your fame increase by two also. There is a table in the guide which lets you know how expensive an item you can buy without and that table is based on how much fame your character has. You have to spend the gold, the fame isn't spent but determines the max value of item you can buy. Prestige is earned each scenario and it's spent on a variety of things. For example, you can buy an item worth up to 750 gold for 2 prestige (once per session). You can also get raise dead, or other services spending prestige. Prior to season three the wording was a bit different so older scenarios have slightly confusing terms and don't have spaces to track fame and prestige separately.
I just have the players make Handle Animal checks to push the animal every time they try and get the horses to do something other than ride it. That is often enough to stymy that tactic. And I can't see a horse jumping to it's death with any Handle Animal check. You could probably fool it other ways though.
I used that image as a reference while writing the scenario, it's a really evocative image. The final encounter is in the tent area in the lower right of the picture.
Sounds like you are arcane focused, but you might also consider the a Dark Tapestry Oracle, (from Ultimate Magic) they get a shape change ability which starts as alter self then goes to Beast Shape I then later Beast Shape III, including magical beasts. It's limited to size medium/ small only though.
Jason, let's say I bring in a character that simply does not work in Golarion. Either of us can make up examples. (The son of Elminster, who now rules Galt. The PC isn't "deranged" or "mistaken". He really is the son of Elminster, who really did migrate from Faerun to Avistan, where he really has taken over Galt.) Would you feel a calling to explain to the two nice people at the table, who are playing their first Pathfinder game, that my PC must be deranged, despite my protestations? Why would I need to? Don't people 'get' that other players have no influence on canon? I guess I don't think people, even new players, are incapable of making that distinction.
The game says nothing about it, thus it is a product of the game. Push it past 8 hours and the game makes a gesture about it, but until then, nothing. Rules are inevitably approximations. I'm not sure I'd want the core rules to cover things like endurance over eight hour marches. In any case it's a rule that would get ignored most of the time regardless.
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