Avadriel's page

I like almost everything in this book, but I have to ask, Paizo, do you hate ranged rogues or something? You have no rackets that support ranged attacks, and now you release two ancestries that are lorewise known for rogues: sprite and kitsune, but you give both of them a ranged natural attack feat that doesn't work with sneak attack? Why the torture?

I have my pdf if anyone wants vague spoilers I will check back in a bit after my drive home.

Are there any size related mechanics that are either new or expanded on for the tiny sprite heritages?

Play a commoner with max umd and lead off with a maze scroll then set up a portable hole up on the ground where he will reappear then just ready an action to close the hole. Otherwise max handle animal and buy trained stirges with the exclusive defend and attack tricks for 20 gold a pop and just watch him drop if he swings at you and you laugh as you out duel a paladin without class features

Kensai magus with flamboyant arcana and the following feats:
Power Attack
Combat Reflexes
Martial Focus
cut from the air

This allows you to parry melee and ranged attack rolls as attacks of opportunity, much like a jedi deflecting attacks in the movies. On top of that, you don't wear armor, so you can wear just robes without gimping yourself. Lastly, you can grab spells that simulate force powers.

How are the new drawbacks? Are any of them interesting or are they all just more piles of numbers?

What about using the nameless one feat from arcane anthology? just put on your ritual mask and suddenly people can't identify you anymore, you don't need to lose any rogue levels to have a secrete identity.

fast movement, because kiting is fun, and mobility is king.

Slap a Hat of Disguise on that so they won't know what's up until they charge him and get a face full of tentacle.

Its funny, because they way polymorphs effects work, he gets a + 10 on disguise checks from wildshape to appear as on octopus, but no actual penalty to disguise himself as his normal race. so in effect, with a har of disguise he has a +10 on a disguise check to appear as himself, and if they penetrate his disguise, he still looks like himself. When success or failure of a skill check has the same result, something fun and probably unintended is happening.

I don't know of any other ways, but it looks like you just want to be a super damage blaster caster, and were willing to consider being a wizard, what if you went cross blooded sorcerer 1, wizard 19 with the trait that increases your caster level by 2 up to your character level? You would end up with a spell casting progression that was slower than a normal wizard, but you would be doing up to 2 extra points of damage per damage dice.

Also worth mentioning, if you go wizard, you could also pick up the creative destruction discovery to get temp hp based on your damage dice from evocation spells.

They retain their ability to breath; per beast shape, their type and subtype does not change when using wild shape, though according to the polymorph rules in the magic section, they gain the ability to breath while swimming since the new form gives them a swim speed.

So, just to stir the pot with my paranoid and somewhat annoyed views that a vigilante is better at everything than a rogue/ fighter, there is a vigilante talent that has you choose a type of thrown weapon.

Whenever you throw your chosen weapon type, it gains the returning feature. Additionally, starting at level 14, whenever he throws more than one of his chosen weapon in a round, he can apply all magical properties that were on the first weapon he threw to every weapon he threw after that, so if you have a +5 javelin, you throw it, and your 3 or 4 other normal javelins, and they not only all return to you, but they also all count as +5 javelins when you throw them.

TO stir the pot further, the talent gains it second benefit at "level 14"
not vigilante level 14, so you could get it with a level 2 dip in vigilante.

if it wasn't for flavor though, star knives would still be better since ultimate intrigue gave us a way to add dex to damage on a starknife

I hate to say this, but with your class, Focused shot is worse than it would be for most other classes.

The Eldritch Archer has the ability to effectively skip taking rapid shot because spell combat gives him/her an improved equivalent to that ability as long as he/she is within 25 feet + 5 feet / 2 levels. Spell combat with acid splash or ray of frost gives you two attacks at the same penalty as rapid shot, with an additional 1d3 damage on one of the attacks.

Spell Combat also acts similarly to manyshot, since it adds spell damage to one of your attacks.

The problem with focused shot, is that as a standard action, it cannot be used with your ranged spellstrike ability or your spell combat ability. It is basically unusable with the parts of your class that make you a good archer.

if you really want to make the equivalent of Ashe, I would suggest using the level 1 spell snowball with spell combat as a good way to start.

As far as the feats you listed as additional options, bullseye shot can be difficult to use for the same reasons, but since its a move action, it can at least be combined with spellstrike.

You have not told us what traits you took, if you did not take the trait magical lineage or another magic trait, I would strongly recommend that you take "additional traits" feat. This would give you two more traits, and if you take magical lineage snowball, you could also pick up the intensify spell metamagic feat, and be adding quite a bit of cold damage to your attacks.

As far as multi classing goes, the magus, and the eldritch archer archetype in particular give abilities that are in most ways superior to what would be gained from going into those prestige classes. The attraction of those prestige classes is being able to enter them from a wizard, and having nearly full wizard casting progression while also being somewhat martial, as a 6 spell level caster, you lose a lot of the appeal. In Pathfinder. multi classing in general is not something that is usually done for casters.

Eldritch Archer can be a very strong single class build, So I would not recommend multi classing.

Druid with a wounding amulet of mighty fists turning into a Giant Octopus with Wildshape. This will give you up to 9 natural attacks per round and each one will add one point of stacking bleed. assuming all your attacks hit

round 1: 9 bleed
round 2: 18 bleed
round 3: 27 bleed

for extra fun, give the druid some summoning feats, and shade of the Uskwood feat. Druid starts fight invisible and uses all its level 3 spells summoning 1d4+2 stirges before it attacks your players as a giant octopus. remember, stirges while attatched drain 1 point of con per round, which is sort of like bleed. You don't even need to feel bad about doing it, you said they have a wizard, if he can pass his concentration check, he can fry them all if he has even one AOE spell.

Want a really scary assassin? Unchained Monk with Monk of the Mantis archetype

With a level 18 character taking accomplished sneak attacker, they have only 6d6 sneak attack, but read on to understand the true terror of the build

Feats
1 snake style
Monk lvl 1 bonus -- retrain at level 10 to medusa's wrath
3 weapon focus unarmed strike
5 Accomplished sneak attacker
7 snake sidewind
9 snake fang
11 dimensional agility
13 dimensional assault
15 dimensional dervish
17 dimensional savant

if you go to 19, pick up beliers bite for 1d4 bleed on unarmed strike

Give this character an agile + speed amulet of mighty fists, and a permanent greater magic fang, they can always make a full attack using either flying kick or dimensional dervish

with dimensional savant, if you beat any of them on initiative, you will have 6 attacks at full BAB (1 normal, 1 speed, 2 flurry, 2 medusa's wrath) plus 4 at lower bonuses, all of these attacks will get sneak attack since they are flat footed, which comes 2d8 + 6d6 + 5 dex mod damage per hit. With a dex of only 28, each hit averages 44 damage, even if only 4 of the 10 attacks hit, that is an average of 176 damage, which should be enough to put down a single person rather easily (maybe not the paladin)

For attacks where you don't win on initiative, you do the same thing, except you make your first attack a stunning fist attempt, succeed or fail, all attacks except the first one are sneak attacks, and if they fail the stunning fist save, you get two extra attacks at full BAB.

Since the paladin is the only party member with a good fort save, most of them have a good chance of failing the stunning fist save.

for practical reasons, I would always recommend killing the witch first, then the sorcerer, then, because this is supposed to be an evil nemesis, kill the paladin, saving the bard for last.

then begin your evil GM laugh.

I keep a list of monster's home brewed from various mythologies or fictional series, my two favorites are:

carnivorous sheep; lightning resistant flammable sheep that have jagged teeth and a variant of the attach ability that causes bleed damage if forcefully removed (without a heal check)

Knight Hawks: Roc sized birds that live in rocky areas and hunting for anyone wearing shiny armor (full plate, breastplates and the like primarily) when they find their preferred prey, the fly down grapple their target, and carry it into the sky before dropping it on a convenient rock to break open the hard shell to get at the tasty insides (much like certain birds of prey do to tortoises.

Also, a room with a programmed image of a 60 stirges attacking mixed in with 5 real stirges

Is it just me, or is anyone else bothered by the fact that a vigilante can effectively and actually get more combat feats than a fighter while still you know, having narrative power?

Isn't the advantage of wearing light armor that you have a higher max dexterity bonus?

Besides, giving up shield proficiency is a joke, for less than 300 gold, anyone who doesn't care about arcane spell failure chance can use a darkwood heavy wooden shield without proficiency penalties. Since he is a fighter, its even worse since at level 7, he wont have any penalties from using a non masterwork heavy shield.

I would give no bonuses, and point him in the direction of the several archetypes that lose heavier armor proficiency feats, and possibly other classes such as slayer and swashbuckler.

The old KOTOR Star Wars game had "Duelist" feats that improved attack and AC when using a free-hand style, and they could do something like that easily enough in Pathfinder. As it is, Pathfinder just has some class features and feats that usually still assume you're fighting in a front-on sword-and-shield stance.

Not saying it couldn't be an option, but those KOTOR feats had nothing to do with keeping a free hand, they gave a + 1 to attack and AC per rank for wielding a single weapon, and if you watch the combat animations, they always kept both hands on their weapon.

As far as providing a benefit, there are already a number of benefits provided either by classes, feats, or magic items. Additionally, as others have mentioned, having a free hand gives you all of the benefits that having a free hand entails:

-Holding something such as a torch in your offhand
-Being able to use combat maneuvers that might not be possible with both hands occupied
--having a hand free to cast
--being able to open doors (seriously, try this holding a sword and a shield)
--Other uses for a free hand I haven't thought to mention, I'm sure there are a few

Bestiary 5 has a playable small race that has a bonus to strength rather than a penalty, Orang-Pendak,

If you want an intelligent mount, you can either put a point into its intelligence when it gets to a high enough level to have an ability score increase (bringing it up to a 3 which lets it understand one language) or you can try one of the combinations of feats or classes that can get a familiar, and give it the Mauler Archtype. (you could also play a paladin since their mount starts with an int of 6)

If you want a flying and intelligent mount, take a look at the monstrous mount feat, it will allow you to pick up an intelligent flying mount, as long as you meat all of the prerequisites.

I would like another playable fey race.

I like martial characters better, despite the fact that spells are more powerful.

I had hoped to find a non-gimp offensive melee with AC 27 or more by level 3, like what can be done with Heavy Armor and Tower Sheild.

Raising that to AC 32 or so by level 7 without doing what I've done in the past (spend nearly 100% of my wealth on AC gear.)

Chained Rogue -- Halfling

AC and attack bonus will be better if you dump stats to have a dex of 20, but with a dex of 18 you can still be quite good

Stats (after racial modifiers)
STR 9
DEX 18
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 12
CHa 14

1 Dodge
2 Offensive defensive
3 weapon finesse

Gear
+1 chainshirt
+1 darkwood heavy shield
masterwork Rapier

AC =26 (at level 3)
10 + 4 (dex) + 1 (dodge) + 3 (shield) + 5 (armor) + 2 (offensive defensive) + 1 (size)

level 7 build
1 Dodge
2 Offensive defensive
3 weapon finesse
4 Combat trick (combat expertise)
5 improved feint
6 Shadow duplicate (blood of shadows)
7 weapon focus rapier

traits
threatening defender

Gear
+1 Agile Rapier 8,320 gold
+1 Mithril chainshirt 2,100 gold
+1 Darkwood Heavy Shield 1,207
+1 ring of protection 2,000
+2 belt of incredible dexterity 4,000 gold
+1 cloak of resistance 1,000
3 potions of shield of faith or 6 scrolls instead
1,223 gold remaining

AC = 34
10 + 5 (dex) + 5 (armor) + 4 (shield) + 1 (dodge) + 4 (offensive defensive) + 1 (size) +2 (combat expertise) +2 (shield of faith)

Shadow duplicate will allow you to gain a single mirror image as an immediate action after being hit by an attack, (miss chance applies against the triggering attack) once a day, plus an additional time for every five rogue levels you have.

flanking or improved feint will allow you to add sneak attack damage and insure you benefit from offensive defensive.

your attack bonus at level 7 if you are using combat expertise will be a + 12

You are also spending less than half of your 20,000 on dedicated defensive items

Can the new spells "Dancing Darkness" and "Motes of Dusk and Dawn" create areas of supernatural darkness?

The spells lack the restriction the the darkness spell includes so it seems like they should, but at the same time, it seems slightly odd that a level 1 spell could do what a level 2 spell could not.

These spells also lack the wording in the darkness spell that prevent them from stacking with each other, so what happens in the following circumstance

Dancing darkness is cast and all 4 orbs are concentrated in the same area,does the light level drop multiple steps (one for each orb)?

Motes of Dusk and Dawn is cast with some of the motes shedding light and some shedding darkness, since the orbs have to be kept so close together that they will always overlap, do two light motes and two darkness motes negate each other causing the spell to do nothing?

Lastly, since light shedding motes increase illumination by up to two stages rather than shedding light as a torch, can they create areas of bright light?

There is also the minor issue of the mauler archetype not being applicable to a improved familiar, since the mauler replaces speak with others of its kind, which improved familiars don't receive.

For starters, you can be glad your friend isn't a Goliath druid with the destruction domain, because then the cyclops would auto confirm all of their critical threats

other than that, if you are level 13 you theoretically have a sneak attack value of 7d6, spend a bunch of gold and get a level 15 caster level wand of fiery shuriken (you are a ninja, so its even thematic sort of). at caster level 15 a fiery shuriken spell gives 8 touch attacks each doing 1d8, if you uses your invisible blade talent, they can all be sneak attacks, which will give you a standard action that does 232 fire damage on average. granted, fire resistance screws your damage, but keeping in mind that you should have higher initiative than your druid friend, you should be able to get two uses off in combat before they can attack with their summoned monster. (unless the gm is forgetting it takes a full round to cast summon nature's ally, not just a full round action)

Of course, this is just starting an arms race, and if you do go this route, bosses will be even less fun.

all these methods you guys have listed have one major flaw, they don't leave you with a tarrasque.

Best way to deal with a tarrasque is to summon an infernal duke using gate, have it melee the tarrasque once, banish it, then use handle animal to tame the tarrasque. Since drain does not heal naturally, the tarrasque will be tamable with handle animal until it somehow gets that point of intelligence back. now you have a tarrasque for a mount and you can resume conquering the world while the heroes that threw a tarrasque at you in an attempt to halt your conquering armies quake in fear at the new weapon they have given you.

at that point just sow the ground with salt, it would be cheaper, and if collateral damage is the goal, making the land impossible to farm resulting in widespread famine and starvation sounds like a great way to go about it. I mean as long as we are flying around overhead.

Aelryinth wrote:

The magic of the Runes specifically says you have to be close (5' or 10'), meaning whatever squiggles they are made of aren't resolvable unless you are that close, even with a telescope (gotta love magic).

Explosive runes say you have to be close to take damage, but doesn't say you have to be close to trigger the explosion.

Well actually they say that people close enough to read them get no save, so if you can read them at 100 feet, that is a 100 foot radius explosion.

if you have the staff mastery feat and turn it into a greatsword could you one hand it?

Give the dragon full plate, and choose spells without somatic components or even just give them woad paint. now the dragon which normally would have a difficult to hit ac is even harder to hit, and its spell casting is not really hindered.

The katana double walking stick is messed up and needs some errata. Clearly it shouldn't do bludgeoning damage with the blades and should have its blade stats as the listed ones.

The katana double walking stick along with a number of other weapons first appearing in ultimate combat have similar issues with clarity of function. Considering that they have not received an errata, is there even a chance that an errata will ever occur, especially an errata in the comparatively near future?

If not, would giving it stats like a pair of wakizashi that it is described as be appropriate or do you have an alternative set of statistics that you would recommend,

I know this is from before you started working for paizo, but whats your opinion on the katana double walking stick? does it do bludgeoning damage at all times or do the blades share stats with a wakizashi which the description says they resemble?

Two things, first, only the wearer of a handy haversack can get anything out of it. that means that if you where it while sleeping, he has to remove it from you, which you can make difficult or impossible by using glue or similar means to prevent it ever leaving your possession, locked gauntlet can also work since you can't sleight of hand things being held in hand.

Two, if you are willing to use a gammy method, carry weight up to exactly one coin over your medium encumbrance, so you are heavily encumbered. Inform your GM of the situation, and ask to be alerted if you ever become less encumbered. IF you do, then someone has robbed you.

Also, if you are 4th level or higher, just use keep watch, its a first level paladin spell.

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

2. This one is just wrong. Anything that adds to attack rolls adds to CMB. Heroism, True Strike, Pale Green Prism Ioun Stone, flanking, etc. This is true even for maneuvers that don't use weapons.

I would argue that since the majority of methods that add straight attack bonuses are spells, something martials generally don't have access to, my point still stands. The fact that you pointed out the ioun stone, which costs 30,000 for a +1, sort of proves my point. It's one of the few unqualified attack bonuses, and it is super expensive for very little benefit.

Two points, first, you can get a cracked version of the ioun stone for only 4,000 gold that gives the same bonus to attack. you can also pick up a flawed version for 28,000 that gives a moral bonus instead (yeah too expensive until way late game)

second, Don't all of the combat maneuvers you are saying can't be done with a weapon benefit from amulet of mighty fists?

Don't think it works with spell conduit due to specifying enemy, but I have used a similar tactic with spell storing to give myself in-combat buffs or healing by hitting myself, risky since it applies damage as well but with some builds its really good for action economy.

Thank you to everyone who has or will contribute an insight, based on your comments I will be revamping and possibly redesigning the encounter over the next couple of days and I will post back with the revised version of the encounter.

Once again, thank you for your insights.

Any allies for the Wizard?

Don't care how powerful you are or what's prepped, if you're a solo boss you'll almost always fail due to "action economy". Needs at least one or two good body guards/

Think Black Tentacles have a major flaw in that Freedom of Movement (almost a must have in those high levels) make them almost worthless.

Thats why he was using spellbane to prevent anyone from benefiting from the spell.

Basic build is outlined below.

STATs:
Str 10
Dex 14
Con 12
Int 28
wis 12
Cha 9

Race elf:
Alternate racial trait Arcane Focus.

Class Wizard 20
archtype spell sage

Trait
Signature Spell Black Tentacles
Magical linage Black Tentacles

Feats
1: Combat Casting
3: Spell Focus Conjuration
5: Spell Focus Divination
Wizard: Heighten Spell
7: Spell Specialization Black Tentacles
9: Mages Tattoo (Conjuration)
Wizard: something?)
11: Steward of the great beyond (arcane discovery)
13: Spell perfection Black Tentacles (via retraining after 20)
15: Arithmancy
Wizard: Widen Spell
17: Augment Summoning
19: True Name
Wizard: Quicken Spell

He would have several instances of Quickened widened Black tentacles prepared, which would be level 7 spells with spell perfection and magical linage.

Equipment
+5 Adamantine Haramaki of spell Dodging (total effective bonus of 7)
Ring of Freedom of Movement
Belt of stoneskin
Headband of vast intellect + 6
Otherworldly Kimono
+5 Mithril buckler of spell turning
Ring of Protection +5
Amulet of Natural Armor + 5
orange prism ioun stone

His opening move of combat is to cast a quickened widened black tentacles on himself, cast time stop, cast spellbane (antimagic field, disjunction, greater dispel magic, freedom of movement) and spell bane (dimensional anchor, dimensional lock, disintegrate, and shield)

If he gets more than two rounds out of timestop he casts other buff spells on himself. On his next turn he uses his otherworldly Kimono on the most heavily armored target in the group, then spams spells starting with his lowest level attack spells until he either dies, kills the enemy, or survives getting to 40 hp (in which case his contingency'd teleport goes off).

The key portion of his build is maximizing the caster level of black tentacles. Do to spell specialization, mages tattoo and arithmancy, he is getting a + 4 to the caster level from these feats, which would be doubled to eight from spell perfection, he can add +4 from the archtype ability, the ioun stone adds one, and his trait signature spell also adds one, bringing his caster level for the spell to 34, which gives black tentacles a + 39 on its CMB checks to grapple. Since he disabled freedom of movement via spellbane, unless the party have rings of freedom of movement, or a freedom domain cleric, this should be able to grapple all but the full BAB martial characters.

The easiest way for him to be shut down is for the party to cast their own spellbane which would include spellbane as one of the forbidden spells, this could even be done from a scroll.

The party will have some advance knowledge of the wizards tactics, though how much will depend on them.

Do you have any suggestions or perhaps any ways to further boost black tentacles via magic items?

Avadriel wrote:

though it does beg the question; in a setting where it is established that planets move, do subjects get thrown either into space or through the planet depending on where they are when the spell goes off? And if you place the spell on someone on a ship, does it blow a hole in the back of the ship since a hardness of 30 will exceed anything the ship is likely to be made of?

I really like these kinds of questions. That said, if you let flying creatures hover on a ship (or keep up without blowing their movement each round), you should probably treat force effects the same way.

I can say with all honesty that I do not allow flying creatures to ignore movement of the vehicle they are flying over. If there is a rule somewhere that says otherwise, please direct me to it.

For example, if you cast spellbane and choose freedom of movement, does it prevent the functioning of a ring of freedom of movement?

If you instead chose shield, would it prevent a broach of shielding from working?

If you chose magic weapon, would magic weapons lose their enhancement bonus?

though it does beg the question; in a setting where it is established that planets move, do subjects get thrown either into space or through the planet depending on where they are when the spell goes off? And if you place the spell on someone on a ship, does it blow a hole in the back of the ship since a hardness of 30 will exceed anything the ship is likely to be made of?

But flurry of stars plus ki point/ mythic point... 8 stars in one turn.... Possibly more dpr I don't know. I am the only dpr focused member. The problem is encounters get smoked by me. I know. Fuk it, I'll only use shadow clone and shadow split with unarmed fighting. I'll just pull a naruto XD.

Honestly, I'll drop firearms and see what happens. Or retrain invisible blade.

whats the barbarian focused on if not dpr?

Ninjas have the issue of getting sneak attack very easily once they hit level 10 and get invisible blade. I think you will have a much larger dpr drop than you believe from not using firearms. Without being able to hit touch ac, your targets should all have an ac higher than 10, which is what an invisible ninja normally targets while using fire arms (flat footed touch ac is a joke).

If your damage is still too high, then focus on other abilities and feats, or just ask the gm to let you retrain your invisible blade talent to something else. Without at will greater invisibility you will have a much harder time sneak attacking, and your damage will drop severely. Rogues and ninjas were balanced under the expectation that sneak attack was something that would be hard to get, invisible blade was a mistake of a talent, its too good for its cost, and it makes every other talent in the game look like trash, compare it to hunter's surprise, a talent that serves the same function but only lasts for one round and is only usable once per day.

What dpr should a martial level 12/2mythic character have on average anyway (if they are focusing dpr?)

Anyone doing 180-230 is on the high end of the average damage the way I figure it for level 12, mythic 2. Anyone doing more than that is a severe outlier. Whether or not doing more is a problem depends on a couple of factors; If you have anyone else in the party who focuses on dpr, beating them by more than 30 dpr a round may make them feel bad. If you are killing things in combat more quickly than anyone else in the party, or worse, faster than multiple people combined, you should tone it down, if you erase an entire combat in one round, the gm either has to tone you down, or tone the encounters up, and toning the encounters up can make the game unfun for all of your party members.

Kawarimi does nothing against magic missiles, magic missiles does not need an attack roll.

This really sounds more like a problem of you building a character that is too optimized. If your group is playing less optimized characters, building a dpr machine using the cheesiest(for the record, I view any exploitation of touch ac targeting guns as cheesy because of how exploitable touch attacks are against bestiary monsters) rule combinations you can find will anger a lot of groups.

Yes you will have to build a less optimized character for them to be happy. or at least a character that is optimized differently. I also frequently have more optimized characters than the people I play with, the way I get around the issue is to build optimally around a very sub optimal concept, (example being a bloodrager that threw cards for its attacks using a belt of might hurling, or a finesse(elven curved blade) two handed weapon tank that relied on dexterity and combat expertise for ac). Find a concept that I like that might be really weak, and optimizing that concept allows me to make characters closer to party average that I can still be happy with.

The other thing is to make sure your build doesn't step on anyone else's toes. Since you know what the others are playing, build something that does not overlap with their concepts as much as possible, if you have someone trying to be an ac based tank, don't over optimize and have higher ac than they do or it will make the feel bad. Likewise, if you have a character in the party that only does damage, then building a character that eclipses their damage and can do other things will make them feel bad.

level 12 mythic 2 gunslinger dual wielding double barreled pistols with rapid shot can pull off 18 attacks a round all doing their normal damage dice plus 21 damage per hit (10 dex, 8 deadly aim, 3 enhancement bonus) and that is without advance firearms, and without mythic they only lose 4 attacks and 1 point of damage per attack. Its not your ninja that broke the game, its allowing weapons that target touch ac to make full attacks that cause problems.

This gunslinger does similar damage to your rogue, but is harder to shut down because it isn't stopped by crit immunity or uncanny dodge.

Edit:
also level 12 barbarian with mythic vital strike and improved vital strike could be doing 3d12+111 damage per standard action, and with mythic power granting an extra standard action, our barbarian can be triggering 2 of these attacks per round. while its lower damage than the gunslinger or the rogue, it ignores most of the deficiencies with both, specifically since wind can stop a barbarian. If you use a bloodrager instead of the barbarian, the damage goes up even farther.

the real question is, if a spell component pouch has an infinite number of free items in it, how long does it take to clean up the mess when you accidentally dump it out?

That having been said, if a buckler loses its AC bonus for the whole turn even from just one two-handed attack, I see no good reason to say that a more encumbering shield encumbers your defense any less. Threatening with a weapon is, fundamentally, a different matter altogether. You CAN switch grip and resume threatening. You CANNOT switch grip and resume defending with your shield.

A lot of clerics think you are wrong as they pass their mace(insert weapon of choice) to their shield hand to cast a spell while keeping the shield bonus (This can be use with a buckler to avoid the clause that says you lose its ac bonus if you use the buckler hand to cast a spell(you don't lose the ac bonus since you used the other hand to cast the spell))

or you could be an alchemist with vestigial arm discovery.

Golarion must be a very nice place; when ever I play a rogue the only traps that my GM allows to be detected let alone disabled are ones that cast beneficial spells, like cure critical wounds. All of the other traps are like the Acid Arrow in Ravingdork's example, or worse, and have been ruled as impossible to disarm or detect.

for 9,000 and change + quick draw you could have a +3 quick draw light shield and do the same thing with a +4 shield bonus instead.