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Do Sphere Powers with a melee-touch range function like Touch spells in regards to holding the charge? (These are mostly Destruction and Light talents, but others are possible with certain casting drawbacks.)
For example, could I use my standard action and spend SP to cast a Destructive Blast or a Glow effect as a melee touch attack, but wait several turns before making the touch as a separate standard action?

In most cases, if you don’t discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round until the spell is discharged.

As a standard action, you may deliver a burst of blunt magical force as a melee touch attack or a ranged touch attack within Close range. A ranged Destructive Blast counts as a Ray attack.

As a standard action, you may cause an object or creature in Medium range to glow for 1 minute per caster level. This requires a touch attack or ranged touch attack.

The Personal Conflict drawback lets me grab either Totemic Aura or Totemic Presence as a bonus talent. The Domain Spheres class feature gives me Totemic Aura AND Personal Conflict. Can I still select Totemic Presence as my bonus talent from Personal conflict, or is Domain Spheres intended to be making the decision for me?

Can a tiefling with an variant heritage take a racial trait that replaces Skilled or the SLA? On one hand, the variants have still have the Skilled and SLA, just with different spells/skills involved. One could interpret, for example, a Pitborn's Shatter SLA as the default for the race. Only one alternate racial trait (Underworld Guide from Blood of Shadows) specifically mentions that it replaces the DARKNESS SLA. On the other hand, racial traits probably (I can't find the text atm) follow similar rules to class archetypes where you can't trade something out twice.
My motivation is that I want to play a certain tiefling bloodline because the stat adjustments and flavor are perfect, but some of the options on that d100 chart look really tasty.

The Fiendish Heritage feat (yes I know it's outdated and unnecessary) might be the only rules-legal way of getting the alternate ability modifiers AND a chance to roll on the d100 chart.

I want to create a rod that contains two +2 metamagic feats (not to be used simultaneously), counts as a weapon (sword cane), and gives two stats a +5 competence bonus, but I'm having trouble estimating the cost.
The base price for a mid-strength +2 metamagic rod is 73000
The base price for competence bonuses are Bonus^2*100
I haven't seen guidelines for making a rod count as a weapon, although many of them double as maces, clubs, etc.
Being slotless doubles the price (does this even apply to weapons and rods?)
The biggest issue is the order of operations using the following formula from Magic Item Creation. Metamagic is similar to metamagic, and skill bonuses are similar to skill bonuses, so do I do some funky formula nesting to get the final cost, or just use the Multiple Different Abilities formula since they aren't all similar to one another?

I am having some trouble reconciling this ability with the text of Animate Dead.

Now, the HD limit calculation seems very straight forward at first. In the example given: 4 HD/CasterLv * (7 Cleric + 2 * 3 Agent) caster levels = 52HD of undead. What's tripping me up is that Agent of the Grave is a 5 level class, but, as per the class chart, the 1st level does not progress spellcasting from the base class at all. So, the effective caster level when reanimating for our Cleric/Agent in the example would be 12 (7 Cleric + 2 * 2 Agent), for a total of 48HD of undead.
Am I just misunderstanding how Caster Level works in regard to prestige classes, or is there really something wrong here? It could be that the example is simply wrong, or that the Agent was supposed to be a full-spell-progression class and the chart is wrong, or the Agent breaks the normal Animate Dead rules just because.

Does the Spirit Vessels revelation only affect the undead created with spells cast from Oracle spell slots? Or could, say, a Wiz 7/Ora 1 with the revelation be able to cast (arcane) Animate Dead to control (6HD/lv*7WizLv=) 42 HD of undead? There's an FAQ that makes me think it would work this way, but I want second opinions.

First: Do familiar archetypes follow the same stacking rules as class archetypes? I don't see any indications one way or the other.

Second: Does the Mauler archetype's Increased Strength ability count as "altering the familiar's intelligence score" for the purpose of archetype stacking? It notably does NOT contain the usual "this ability replaces/alters..." line.

At 3rd level and every 2 levels thereafter, a mauler's Strength score increases by 1. As a result of this ability, the familiar's Intelligence score remains 6; a mauler can never have an Intelligence score higher than 6.

Third: Let's assume for a second that familiar archetypes can stack, and that Mauler somehow doesn't alter the intelligence feature of the familiar. How would a Mauler/Sage's INT score be calculated?

A sage's Intelligence score is always equal to 5 + its level, but the sage gains the additional natural armor increases of a familiar only half its level.

This ability alters the familiar's Intelligence score and natural armor adjustment.

An unusual contradiction. Its INT can never be higher than 6, but must always equal 5 + its level.

This is a no-brainer as far as RAI goes. The central RAW question, however, is: if an archetype implies that it replaces/alters an ability, but doesn't explicitly call it out as such, is the ability replaced?

A player with a Ice-themed witch wants permission to take the Winter Oracle's Freezing Spells Revelation as a hex (or possibly a feat). I don't see a problem with this, since feats, Revelations and Hexes are about equivalent in power.
I'm thinking about giving it the standard "once per enemy" drawback of most offensive hexes for consistency, but am open to other kinds of limitation, such as a feat or level prerequisite, action usage, or only allowing it to affect one target per spell. (Elemental Focus or Chilling Amplification look like good candidates for a feat prereq, though I'm not really sure how the latter would stack)
What do people think? Should the player be allowed to take it as it is written for oracles or should I tweak it first?

Alchemists get Brew Potion for free, and so many bonuses to Craft[alchemy], but so many of their extracts are 'personal' range, thus do not qualify to be made into potions. This seems kind of odd to me, since brewing is such a big part of the Alchemist's theme.
They can't make potions out of most of their formula list, and they can't make potions off of other lists (I think?). Is there some part of the potion crafting process I'm misunderstanding?

Oreads with this racial trait learn how to mimic the magic of their shaitan ancestors. Once per day, such an oread can cause a touched piece of non-magical iron or steel to grow into an object up to 10 pounds in weight, such as a sword, crowbar, or light steel shield. This object remains in this form for 10 minutes or until broken or destroyed, at which point it shrinks back to its original size and shape. This racial trait replaces the spell-like ability racial trait.

This ability is seriously lacking details on just what it can affect, and how.

1) What kind of action is this?
2) Does the touching have to be done with hands? (Turning leg shackles into greaves when the character's hands are bound)
3) What level of detail can this ability produce? Are we talking Prestidigitation or Fabricate?
4) Just what defines a "piece of iron or steel"? (Turning a foe's weapon into 4 square yards of foil or his helmet into a metal hood or bubble)
5) Do attended objects get a saving throw?
6) Can this affect Cold Iron?
7) Can this affect an object heavier than 10lbs? (turning a whole iron wall into a shield) [Probably not, based on the "grow ... then shrink" language]
8) If not, then what about part of a >10lb object? (turning a statue's arm into a mace)
9) Can an object be transformed into a smaller object? (a crowbar into a lockpick) [again, the "grow...shrink" suggests no]
10) Can a small, multi-part metal object be treated as a single "piece of metal" (turning a door's locking mechanism into a statuette of yourself)

Aligned Class (Ex)

Evangelists come from many different backgrounds, and they show an unusual range of diversity. At 2nd level, the evangelist must choose a class she belonged to before adding the prestige class to be her aligned class. She gains all the class features for this class, essentially adding every evangelist level beyond 1st to her aligned class to determine what class features she gains. She still retains the Hit Dice, base attack bonus, saving throw bonuses, and skill ranks of the prestige class, but gains all other class features of her aligned class as well as those of the evangelist prestige class.

Say my PC is Swashbuckler 5/Evangelist 10. He would have the class features of a 10th level Evangelist and a 14th level Swashbuckler (5 levels + 9 levels of Evangelist)

What happens if I take another level in Swashbuckler after that? Would I not gain any benefits from taking more Swash levels other than saves and BAB, because I've already gained the next 9 levels of class features? Or would I continue the Swash's class feature progression at level 15, as if 9 of the 10 Evangelist class levels were also Swash levels?