Belzakan's page

I was looking over the rules for monster cohorts and the general idea is that a cohort can't be an animal or have animal intelligence. If you take a look, all other cohorts follow this basic idea, except the Giant Vulture (Bestiary 3). Even worse, the Giant Vulture is available as an Animal Companion too.

I was reading it again and again, and it makes no sense in some points... The spell states that I can use some of the abilities of the magical beast whose form I assume and there's a list of those abilities. But there are several other abilities that in fact are the same (or almost the same) but named in different ways. For example, I can turn into a dragonne and use its roar, that is very powerful compared to the shriek of the hieracosphinx that I can turn into, but can't use the ability by RAW. Is there any kind of clarification somewhere? Seriously, it makes no sense to me!

WotC released a lot of base classes. Some asian flavored classes are off topic for PF (I think), so lets forget them (but I still like them!). Putting just some of the classes that are not based in optional systems (like Tome of Battle) lets see what we have.

Archivist- Nice idea, a divine caster that studies like a Wizard. I think that can be done for PF.
Beguiler- I get the concept, but it’s a bit unnecessary.
Dragon Shaman- Different mechanics, so lets forget by now.
Dread Necromancer- Same of the Beguiler (but here we have bigger differences like channel energy and arcane spells together).
Duskblade- I love the concept, that’s really interesting.
Factotum- Pointless.
Favored Soul- Spontaneous divine caster, a must!
Hexblade- Interesting, but needs a lot of work to be fine.
Knight- Cavalier, perfectly PFed.
Scout- See the Beguiler.
Spellthief- It works better as a Prestige Class IMO.
Spirit Shaman- I think it can be mixed with the Favored Soul in one new class.
Swashbuckler- I don’t want a Fighter/Rogue, I want a swift swordsman!
Warlock- I love, but I know that a different spell system at this point it’s not interesting.
Warmage- See the Beguiler.

Now let’s put together that info and the new classes. Oracles are great, I think they work nicely. Cavaliers too. The Summoner is more like a restricted role, just like the Witch. I think the Summoner works better as a Prestige Class… The Alchemist is interesting, but maybe something like an Inventor (like the Artificer) would be nicer. Why make just potions and bombs instead of an item building oriented class? I don’t know about the Inquisitor…

Finally, I’d really like to see a mechanic like the old AD&D kits for restricted roles (Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Scout, Witch, etc) and conceptual classes like the Cavalier, the Oracle, the Swashbuckler, the Spiritual Mystic (Favored Soul+Spirit Shaman) and the Occult Blade (Duskblade+Hexblade).

In the end, I know it was a little bit off topic, but I hope it helps in some way for future developments.