BlueEyedDevil's page

As a note I am looking for semi permanent options (so no wands) and Pathfinder things only (so not 3.X) options. Thanks to everyone who has helped so far.

Just in case there was confusion. When, in my post, I said "looked it up, still the same" I meant that the PF rules are identical to the 3.5 rules on this. It's really cheap to add an up to +5 enhancement to your claws.

This is to say nothing of peripheral Druid spells that allow the application of other effects (flaming property etc.) to natural attacks. Even without permanency, wands/scrolls of these types of spells work well.

I haven't really dealt with this in PF, but in 3/3.5 days, the rules for finding someone to cast Magic Fang/Greater Magic Fang+permanency was surprisingly cheap if treated like buying a magic item. This worked both for monks and natural weapon-bearing creatures/characters.

Looked it up, still the same:

Greater Magic Fang, Permanent, treated as a magic item...

Magic Fang +5 (assuming a metropolis, even though the rules say one cannot assume that a character can find a character capable of casting 9th level spells even in a metropolis, they say nothing about a caster level cap) cost = spell level x caster level x 10 + material component costs. 3 x 20 x 10 = 600 gold for GMF, 5 x 11 x 10 + 7500 = 8050 for Permanency. Total, 8650 per natural attack for +5 enhancement. Assume instead one goes for caster level 20 on Permanency (the better to avoid dispelling) the price only goes up to 9100.

Ranger by far, nothing really good and crunchy is hiding in the first two levels of fighter. As a lightly armored skill-beast, ranger is the the obvious pick. Also, when you go back to ranger, don't go for animal comp, go for the companion bond, that way you can be the ultimate party-booster.

blackbloodtroll wrote:

ossian666 wrote:

Nope. You can dual wield those suckers and look stupid as heck.

Of all the silly weapons, you consider the shield to be one to make you look stupid?

Captain America disagrees with you.

I have no problem with using ONE shield as a weapon and being viable...there is a funny turtle factor that comes into play when you start walking around with 2 strapped to your arms and need someone else to wipe your butt for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCy1Lye7o0w&feature=related

Go to 6:09

Is the RAI question really that hard? Has it somehow not been made imminently clear at what levels a character is expected to be able to make/afford +5 weapons?

This is clearly not RAI.

But so what? The game has always had loopholes, and finding them is part of the fun. If we were playing a game that was obsessed with perfect scaling and balance, that never rewarded the ingenuity of the player, we'd be posting on another site's boards (you know which one).

However, I've found that gaining an this powerful too early begins to sap the fun out of the game. Even if it doesn't overbalance actual play, once you have +5, what items are you going to spend the next ten levels looking forward to?

Cleric has been more powerful overall since the 3.0 reboot. I will now reveal my geezer-gamer status:

In the pre 3.0 world, here was the breakdown:

If you wanted to own earth-shattering, supreme power, you had to play a wizard. Here's the cost you payed:
*Your tenth level character could be killed by a lucky shot from an arthritic kobold.
*Just looking at armor made you break out in hives.
Here's what clerics had: seven (yes, seven, who remembers that?) levels of spells. Armor? Yes, please, with seconds. No full 1:1 level ratio THACO frontliner? The cleric is literally the next best thing for attack and hitpoints. How the cleric paid dues:
*No edged weapons, unless you owned some of the later splatbooks, even then, you usually couldn't wield an edged weapon without worshipping an evil god.
*As mentioned: seven spell levels, and though some of the spells got quite powerful, none of them ever had the pizazz of wizard spells. Wizard spells were Ferraris, and cleric spells were Ford Escorts; reliable, better than nothing, but no-one's impressing their date with one.

How wizards got more powerful in 3.0:
...uhhh, familiars? Oh, and mithral shirts.

How clerics got more powerful:
*Nine, count them, nine glorious levels of spells.
*Wizards still have Ferraris, cleric spells are now like Volvos: kinda boxy most of the time, but some models can handle as well as a sports car.
*Edged weapons? Take the proficiency, or worship a god who bestows it, or take a level of some full BAB class. After that, sky's the limit.

Clerics, gods love 'em, have been overpowered ever since. Not that I mind.

They probably weren't +2 bows, they were probably composite bows. (That's what I'm hoping, anyways) Even so, those would be some very strong bandits.

I said +2 str bows, I didn't mean +2 enchantment. For there to be a +2 str bonus on a bow it must be:

Composite Longbow (or shortbow, but he's saying they're long): 100 gp
Masterwork: 300 gp
100 gp for every point of str damage: 200 gp

total: 600 gp per bow. This is like arming 13-year-olds with .50 cals.

I can't believe no-one's noticed this:

1st level players with 90 gp worth of equipment faced down 8 npcs (presumably with NPC classes) who inexplicably had equipment worth more than the party's entire wealth put together. +2 comp MW longbows cost 600 gp each (you can't have a str bonus otherwise).

This doesn't invalidate other arguments about balance, retreat, etc. Even without the mechanical advantage, first levelers should be careful when outnumbered. But there is a certain degree to which this story sounds like: "We showed up with rusty flintlocks, they had AR-15s, we got our asses kicked."

Those +2 str bows are pure GM fail, characters that level shouldn't have them.

You could also make Kermit a ranger (who just happens to sing a lot) and make is animal companion a boar. Though that might start getting weird.

No, his companion would be a golden-furred bear. He'd just be dating an orc.

In 3.0 ambidexterity was the prereq for TWF, 3.5 changed this because two feats for TWF was expensive (TWF w/Ambidexterity still had the normal -2). Ambidexterity in 3.5 was a class feature for the Tempest prestige class, which reduced and eventually eliminated all TWF penalties.

It depends on the story. An epic-scope story, saving the world and all that (I've really only played in one), worked all the way into 20 because the increasing abilities meant more than having the wherewithal to fight higher level monsters.
My epic-level cleric was magically feeding entire towns, sanctifying places for the protection of the general populace, using high-level connections to cement major political changes, helping rebels topple kingdoms, slaying dragon-king tyrants, and other such things. Because we were playing in a "world-gone-wrong, Sauron-got-the-ring" sort of world, reaching such high levels really mattered for what we could do for everyone.

However, in games with a non-epic scope, where we were just playing 'adventurers' I found that fun potential kind of dries up around twelfth or thirteenth.

This is a home campaign. Play an actual Zen archer, i.e. someone who is dedicated (to a monastic degree) to archery. Clerics don't have to actually have gods, sometimes they just have ideals.

Pending GM approval (my own GM instincts would allow this in the interest of coolness) allow your character to be a seeker of a certain philosophic ideal, and the meditative practice of the bow is his devotional form.

Also, I'm pretty sure a syringe full of a seven percent solution of heroin would kill a rhino.

Aravan wrote:

Yes Holmes according to the books did have a drug problem, though I think it might have been heroin.

It was cocaine. In fact, the line from the recent movie, where Watson tells Holmes, "You do realize that what you've been taking is for eye surgery?" is an oblique reference. Cocaine was used at the time to make patients' eyes grow wider and reduce their blink response.

Thank you, I was reading through and waiting for someone to get that right before I had to correct it. Yes, it was cocaine, why else do you think Robert Downey Jr. gets the character so right?

Historically, there's no such thing as a "composite longbow." A composite bow that, when strung, was the size of a longbow would be difficult-to-impossible to string. The advantage of a composite bow was that it had the equivalent pull of a longbow, but was small enough to shoot from horseback. The composite bow was the signature weapon of Eastern steppe peoples, with the Mongols being the primary example. Composite bows never appeared in lands with a lot of rain because water tended to dissolve the glues that held a composite bow together.

Uhh, I wasn't saying that the bows were the size of longbows when strung, I was saying their staves, previous to shaping, were the same length as a longbow's.

Moisture has always been bad for bows, irrespective of where they originated of what style they were made in. The Turks and the Mongols as history and the systematic pillaging of Europe and Asia have shown, managed to keep their bows in working order wherever they went. Both made laminated leather cases that the entire strung bow could be placed in to keep the whole thing dry.

Here's a number of things I have considered changing about bow, based on my own mechanical and historical knowledge.
Nothing here is necessarily cohesive with anything else here, idea-wise.

*Longbows cannot be used with any sort of plate armor. This would be historically accurate; the flanges and plates around shoulder and elbow would both prevent proper extension of the arm, and would block the path of the bowstring. Specially designed "Archer's Plate" could be possible.
*Longbows are two-handed weapons: i.e. one applies 1 1/2 times one's strength mod to damage with the weapon. This is accurate to the yew longbows of Britain; the drawing of the bow was a complicated muscular task that involved every bit of strength that both sides of the upper body had to offer.

-On a historical note, very few bows would actually conform to the idea of a "shortbow". Most bows used from horseback were mechanically altered in some way, either by offsetting the center, as with the Japanese daikyuu, or recurving the length, such as with the composite recurves of the various steppes archers. Recurved bows, if flattened, would usually actually be as long as normal longbows.

Consider the four possible draw lengths of a bow: Anywhere from the elbow to the shoulder (these are usually called "snap" bows by my archer and bowyer friends), to the shoulder/breast (often called breastbows), to the corner of the mouth (this is the normal, Olympic draw that most everyone knows), and the full clothyard arrow draw(this is what British war archers would use, drawing to the point where the thumb of the drawing hand is under the ear, (this measurement gets its name from the way of measuring a "yard" of cloth in relation to someone's frame).

Shortbows (i.e. "snap" bows) don't get shot the same way as other bows. By and large, an instinctive "point-don't-aim" method gets used when firing, allowing for much much faster firing.

*Shortbows allow the user to make AOOs, they threaten a range of 10-15'.
This can allowed through feats or some other special training. Maybe a feat tree would allow the "reach" on a shortbow to increase.

*Shortbows, because of their swift firing time, come in a surprising speed and angles, allowing the wielder to make Bluff checks to catch an opponent flat-footed.

*Allow "re-stringing" of a bow for different shooting. Some cultures created bows with alterable pull-lengths for use in different terrain ("Princess Mononoke" shows this at the beginning, where the main hero quickly restrings his bow from one length to another before jumping on horseback). Allow one certain type of bow to be quickly shifted from longbow for ground fighting to a shorter draw for horseback use. Allow another model of bow, the Warbow, that acts as a normal longbow (normal attack rate, etc.) and can be restrung for a deeper, heavier draw, that allows a full-round action draw to shoot full clothyard arrows (which were incredibly heavy, and would have higher damage, knockback/knockdown, power attack, or all of the above).

Actually, +1 seems a little cheap, but +2 seems way too expensive [shrug]

As I recall, back in 3/3.5 there were a lot of different materials, metals from elemental planes etc. That would confer a single point of energy bonus damage to any weapon constructed of them. You could look these up, if you have the resources, and perhaps add their costs into the item, along with some fee for 'alloying' them together.
Otherwise, one point of damage from three elements is still only +3 which is the average damage effect for any one full-powered elemental property. I don't think having that be its own +1 equivalent power is too far out there.

If you have access to the Weapons of Legacy 3.5 book, there is an item, called the Scales of Balance, that is exactly and precisely what you are looking for. I don't have my copy any more, could someone else here help?

Read "Guns, Germs, and Steel"

I don't have a name for this syndrome -and HW, try not to be insulted here, I think everyone who's gamed has suffered from it at some point- where a gamer wants to use their character to illustrate some philosophical stance and demonstrate its value, even if the system really doesn't support that point.

Example: once for a bit of fun, some friends of mine played a one-off game where each player was allowed to choose some character of god-like power, something already established in fiction, to play.

One player chose Smaug.

One player chose Thor.

One player chose Darth Vader.

One player chose Shaft (need you ask? Yes, this player was a skinny white kid from the suburbs).

Guess which character didn't survive the game? No matter how cool you might suppose Shaft is, he isn't going to beat Darth Vader in a fight. The rules don't support it, reality doesn't support it, good gaming doesn't support it.

If you really want to keep these parts of the character as a flavor piece, re-skin your aversion to money. Gems aren't money, though they have value, and it wouldn't be unusual for there to be lots of gems in a jungle setting, so maybe your GM helps you out, and you start finding gems, or artifacts, or just barter and trade goods in hoards (that's more realistic anyway).
If this doesn't interest you, and you really want to commit to this ideal, then it has ceased to be a character quirk, and has become something you, personally, are exploring philosophically.
Respectfully, the gaming table probably isn't the place for that.

Back to "Guns, Germs, and Steel": better weapons defeat weaker weapons, however virtuous the wielders of either are. Choosing weaker weapons and armor for cultural reasons has always, without fail, historically been the death knell of a group. It's nothing personal, and it is an amoral judgement, but history is clear on this.

If you really want your character to work, look up the times where, at least temporarily, those using more primitive weapons took down more advanced invaders. King Shaka, the Apache Scouts, and King Lapu Lapu of the Philipines (he's the one who personally beheaded Magellan) are a good place to start.

One hint, all of them used the terrain against their opponents.

The alignment of werewolves/monks is not a problem at all.

I'm glad people care, but my concern here is not whether werewolf monks can exist without GM intervention (they can, even if they turn CE, as ex-monks they retain all monk abilities. They just can't level up again in Monk).

My concern is the overall power level of the encounter. That's the problem I'm grateful to have feedback on.

What's the thing you're going for? Why werewolf monks? Are you looking for flurry of claws/bites? Other monkish powers used in conjunction with werewolf abilities, or ablative enemies who fight first as monks, then as they near defeat wolf out and go into Crinos form (forgive the reference)?

Adding flurry to natural attacks is iffy, though as I recall, a WW's bite and claws would be weaker than a 5th level monk's punch, so really the only thing you'd gain would be a strength bonus.

I think the usual concerns about high powered encounters at lower levels should be more important. Have the players received hints about the nature of the enemy? Have they been given opportunities to pick up a couple of silvered weapons. Do they have some wolfsbane available to treat the bitten?

You have expressed laudable concern for balance, which tells me you're a conscientious GM. If by mid-encounter it becomes clear that you've botched the power level and the party has no hope in hell, have an out. Let someone notice that there's a stash of silver weapons (spoils from a defeated party of werewolf hunters) in the corner, or something similar.

Also remember, if they stay put, you will know which square they occupy, nothing more. You won't actually 'see' them, and all blindfight/invisible opponent penalties apply.

Ninjaiguana wrote:

The_Scourge wrote:

The only combat manouver with a size limit is trip.

Tiny pixie tetori monks for everyone!

"Oh gods, my nose! HE'S GOT MY NOOOOOOSE!"

Got your nose in a full nelson hold, punk!

Points for anyone who creates this character based on the gnomes from Discworld, either Wee Mad Arthur or the Mac Nac Feegles.

When rolling HD at level-up, both the GM and the player roll a die, the player keeps the higher roll.

This one I lifted from the Green Ronin pirate book:

For low magic worlds, each character starts with 1d4+1 'lives'

Every time the character would be killed, he or she instead loses a 'life' and somehow survives, miraculously. However, the character is still out for the rest of the fight.
There was some table for lasting wounds that went with it, but as I recall, one could roll, or DM would choose.

I remember one character in a game I ran was hit, nat 20, by a Vorpal blade, she survived, but he vocal cords had been destroyed. It was actually a pretty cool development.

Players don't know how many lives they have, the GM keeps track. Also, there was either a feat or a trait "Nine Lives" that changed the number of lives to 2d4+1 (or the full 9 if you felt generous).

I've seen a GM allow Force as a energy type, it swiftly unbalanced the game.
Force is very specifically its own special type of damage, not an energy type. No variable energy-related spell or magic item names Force.

I've gone down this path; as tempting as it seems, don't go.

Writing out Buddhist sutras in their own blood was considered a devotional act by many Buddhist sects that you could hardly call evil.

Esoteric Tibetan Buddhism used various human-derived items: rattles made from finger bones, bowls made from skulls, as ways to emphasize one's separation from the physical.

The most devout Catholic I know owns a cane with a knob made from the top of a Priest's femur (it's carved to look like an owl) which he got from a reliquary shop in the Vatican.

Objects derived from people aren't inherently evil unless your ethos specifically focuses on the sanctity of the body.

As an answer to the initial question...

Three words:

Battle of Agincourt

BlueEyedDevil wrote:

How are you going to put on a metal glove when each finger of which is larger than your fist?

The same way you use one hand to wield a large dagger which has a grip the same diameter as your thigh.

A large gauntlet is a small object. Just like a medium rapier.

If a gauntlet is clothing, then a +1 gauntlet would re-size to fit the wearer, like all magic clothing.

No. First of all, since it isn't defined, we have to go off of common sense and artistic representation to determine handle sizes. The handle of a large dagger, or sword, or what-have-you, is not as big around as a thigh/telephone pole, more like a can of Fosters. Size Huge is where you get into telephone pole size.

Secondly, no, it isn't the same. The physical mechanic involved is actually and clearly different. You do not grasp a glove onto your fist any more than you grasp your underwear with your pelvis. The mechanic is, in fact, clearly and obviously reversed.

If it is a garment, and it magically resizes, problem solved; it is now a medium +1 gauntlet.

And before I get calls about fantasy setting and RAW and rpgs being able to do things differently from reality:

I want to use my fantasy to cast spells, fly, and slay monsters, not wear gigantic pants.

Are we seriously playing the 'bonus as definition' game here? Look up gauntlet in any dictionary... okay, never mind.

This is a game for thinking people:

How are you going to put on a metal glove when each finger of which is larger than your fist?

Yes, it's a weapon, but it's also a garment; it's something a character must don to use. The rules are clear that you can't wear clothing or armor that's the wrong size...as is the most basic understanding of reality.

Although a gauntlet is part of some armor, it is not "armor" itself.

A large sized gauntlet is a one handed weapon for medium creatures.

Can you put large sized armor spikes on medium armor?

Transitive property: armor is made up of pieces, gauntlets are pieces of armor. Yes, they ARE "armor" themselves. Can't wear them, can't wield them. It follows both rules and common sense. If something is both armor and a weapon, and one must wear it to wield it, if one can't wear it, one can't wield it.

As for size large spikes on medium armor...no, the rules are less clear, but common sense rule, by my GM instinct, says no, trying to move with spikes the size of short-swords sticking out everywhere is implausible.

Though if you did, you gain automatic free admission to a GWAR concert.

I'll answer the question this is posted under first, then maybe the question implied in your actual entry.

Safest character:

Cleric. Hands down.

3/4 BAB. Good armor access. Best, easiest healing. Best buffs. Also, that whole 'murdered by undead' thing...no, undead literally run screaming from them. Come at him confused, he hits you with break enchantment, or hold person.
Clerics, played with even a modicum of care are the most unkillable characters.
After that...I know monks get almost nothing but hate on these boards, but people seem to forget their most salient feature: they are very, very, very hard to kill. All good saves, evasion, with only a little tweaking, the most competitive AC in the game.

I don't know your brother's play style or level of experience, but lightly armored support types (Rogue and Alchemist) are best tackled by those with experience. By that measure, I would nix Horizon Walker, considering you're most likely to get there through Ranger. Again, lightly armored might not be the way for him to go.

Barring anything else, if melee inexperience is the problem, create a ranged character, someone who stays out of the fray. That's a good way to observe and figure out how to survive.

Again, I must extoll the virtues of the wondrous flour sack, it costs something like five copper. The only expense is in weight. The old rules for use as a mundane Invisibility Purge were in Dungeonscape, I think.

Just make sure he or she wears a long heavy coat and a pilgrim's buckle hat.

Note: I feel that characters have gotten above their value-limit if anything they own is worth more than half their expected level wealth. (this is the same rule I use for higher-than-first-level character creation, I forget if it's an actual rule).
i.e.If a 9th level character has an item worth 30,000, that might be too powerful for him or her.

If you are dealing with intelligent monsters, and they figure out that they can't hit a character, don't have them act like idiots, flailing away.
A group of hobgoblins might not be supra-geniuses, but they are cunning and know tactics. Have the monsters use party tactics:
Everyone attacks one member at a time.
They flank.
They use assist another to open up holes in the character's defense; add three otherwise useless fodder making assist another checks, that melts away that armor bonus fast.

I personally don't like the idea of a 'treasure audit' but if your player have managed to get their AC this high, either they are sitting on tech they shouldn't be for their level (I know tech would be SF, but it fits here)
or they've used their resources to optimize here at the expense of somewhere else.

In the first instance, there are several options, it may sound cheap, but if your party is walking around with a lot of expensive goods that they really aren't qualified to defend, have them targeted by thieves.
Don't just make it some sort of 'your stuff was stolen while you slept' frippery, but instead have your villains plan an elaborate 'Ocean's 11' sort of heist, where your party gets invited to the grand ball, but they have to leave their better items with the guards. The whole thing gets burglarized. The embarrassed duke offers the party compensatory (level appropriate) items while they track down their old gear. If people complain, remind them that their gear is extremely expensive stuff, and thieves would happily steal high-value, easily transportable stuff like that.
This can turn into the basis for a new adventure, which will hopefully have your characters at the proper level for their recovered equipment by the time they've broken the thieves ring.

In the second option, look to see where they left things bare to optimize their AC. Poke them there a few times, and even let it be known to them that word has gotten around that they have this achilles heel, and maybe they should invest in patching that hole.

As said above though, never spank the players for doing their jobs well, but prod occasionally to keep the game exciting.

Keep normal BAB, lose favored enemy. This is class would be someone who spend most time figuring out fiddly little tricks and traps, not studying creatures. Also, lose Endurance and make Ref the only good save. This is a character who focuses more on cleverness than toughness.

Review your facts about wolves:

Usually mate for live (not always, but almost).
Incredible senses of smell and hearing.
Migratory: places they consider their territory they will often only consider their territory during certain seasons.
Often (not always) the only breeding pair will be the alpha male and the alpha female.

Consider not one boss. But two, a mated pair: A Werewolf and Warg. They fight in unison, like wolves would.

Something that actually happened in a campaign:

GM: the stone slab slides into place, sealing the hole in the floor. You're going to have to go to the entrance on the other side of the mountain.
Me: How heavy is this slab?
GM: You estimate five tons.
Me: Can I get a rope around it?
GM: Yes.
Me: [pointing to map] is this pillar stable?
GM: Yes.
Me: And the floor is smooth?
GM: [beginning to look nervous] That's how I described it.
Me: Okay. I'm going to anchor the block-and-tackle at the pillar, loop rope around the slab, lubricate the floor with oil and grease, then have the barbarian and the cleric pull on the rope while I lever the slab with my crowbar. Once it's out of the way, we'll wedge a couple of metal spikes under it to keep it from sliding back. Will that work?
GM: [blinks] It'll take ten minutes.
Me: That's shorter than going to the other side of the mountain.
GM: I should have never let you raid that store.

I think this question is really "What's the best cheap, non-magical equipment?" (who stays first level for longer than the first floor of the dungeon?)

A GM of mine once, as a reward for helping a besieged town, allowed our party access to the stock of a general store whose owner had been killed. I then spent the rest of that campaign MacGyvering the heck out of everything he'd allowed us to take.

A few suggestions:
Rope.
At early levels, don't bother with Alchemist's Fire, just get lamp oil. You can do most of the things you wanted to do with AF with oil, though you have to be a little more creative. Even after you can easily afford AF, keep a lot of oil around: you can't do the 'let's see how long it takes the monsters to notice they're ankle deep in flammable oil' trick with AF. Also, you can't lubricate rusty things with AF.
Rope.
Spikes/pitons: Wedge doors, climb, create pulley systems and tripwires.
Crowbar.
Rope.
Block and Tackle: no-one has yet, in 3, 3.5. or PF, given mechanics for in-game operation of this, so it depends on the GM, but actual real-world equations for the lifting and pulling power of a B&T exist.
Wire.
A sack of flour: every time a character of mine ends up going through an abandoned kitchen in some stronghold (there always is one) he grabs a small sack of flour. As a thrown weapon, it's a mundane Invisibility Purge, spread on the floor, it can be used to either track invisible creatures, or left in place as a time record to see if things have come or gone since you've been there last. Depending on how adventurous your GM is, a large sack of flour can be used to make a bomb. (Look up flour bomb on Youtube if you don't understand.)
Also, you can make pancakes.

Grease or lard in large amounts can be used to make traps and mimic the effects of the Grease spell.

Handsaw: you don't need Craft:Trapmaking to saw 3/4 of the way through the stringers on a set of stairs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN-no1Ka7yU

A bit androcentric. Even vikings manage to mention their mothers and sisters.

Simply put, I would tell him to buy a wand. He probably doesn't realize that he'll most likely never have to use that item more than 50 times. The only reason he would need an at-will wondrous item is if he wasn't a caster, in which case he wouldn't be able to custom make magic items because I don't let players go to an npc wizard with requests like that.

Exactly. Do the math. Average length of combat (in my experience) 5-6 rounds. Number of times you will use this wand instead of something more powerful, 1 out of 4, maybe 1 out of 3 times. Average use per battle, approx. 1.5. Number of battles it will take for you to run through a 50 charge wand: over 30. Level you will be 30 battles from now?

Seriously, ask around, do you know anyone (barring people who actually build wandslingers) who has gone through an entire 50 charge wand without discarding it for something better. I'm sure it happens, but I haven't seen it in 20 years involvement in RPGs.

Aside from the barbarian's sword (core book) I have liked all of the art.

Yeah. Silliest sword ever.

This is one of the most polished systems ever. Almost no other system has gotten to basically revise the same rules three times (3, 3.5, PF) without trying to relaunch as a fully different edition and system.

When I came to PF after the demise of 3.5, as an inveterate player and GM, I found every, and I mean every, issue I'd ever had dealt with, from the 1/2 point skill system, the spellcasting ability for Arcane Archers, the hit die size for arcane casters, the rules for turning undead, the advent of CMB/CMD, everything spoke of people who knew and played the system.

Beaudactylis. (points for anyone who gets the reference)

I'm mainly signing in to express my relief at a lack of any MLP references.

Ultimate Heroics (Heroism?)

Allow for the expansion/adaptation of skills.
Create different ways in which someone can be a hero, not just by blowing things up/chopping them to pieces.

Add rules for creating a skill battle that is just as gripping as a physical battle. At the very least rules for a diplomacy/bluff confrontation (if you don't think diplomacy can't be heroic/gripping/funny, watch anything by Aaron Sorkin).

I agree -1 to Skill Tricks, they were a patch (a decent one, but we can fix things at the source here). Instead, Feat chains with multiple skill trick-type abilities?

Add expanded rules for settings and more specifically genres different from standard fantasy.

Example: Noir Rules
Every character has a tragic flaw: alcoholism, greed, cowardice, that the GM may invoke once per session.
Alignment becomes dependent on self-awareness. A psychopath could be convinced that he is a paragon of virtue, and that everything he's done is justified. A paladin trying to detect evil on him would get a strange, fuzzy reading.
Bad luck: a table similar to random encounters, except once per session, something just goes wrong for everyone. Their lot gets stolen, their wife leaves them, the critical piece of equipment breaks, that magic item turns out to be a cheap knockoff and burns out after two uses.
If using hero points, recover a hero point when doing something particularly hard-boiled/pointlessly idealistic in this uncaring world.

Other settings/ideas: Wild West, High Intrigue (Game of Thrones), Medieval Superhero (Marvel's 1602).

I see a bigger lack of Arcane power as a problem.
The Inquisitor should be able to fake some of the roguey stuff, bane instead of sneak attack, etc.
But No-one really seems to be able to bring the area effects or on-demand energy attacks.

If you still want to bring the monkish style fighting, plus a bit of the on-demand arcane power, how about a Magus (Black Blade, Kensai) into Eldritch Knight? You could still be part of a sect dedicated to the eradication of demons and such (the Black Blades are kind of a blank slate), but you'll be able to do some monkish style antics, too.

Otherwise, if you want to be a monk, but with bigger punch (sic) consider being a Qinggong or Master of Many Styles Monk/Fighter (Unarmed)

Here's a few spells from the other books, in case you have access (Advanced Player, Ult Mag, Ult Com)

Adv Play:
Grace: Move around the battlefield w/impunity, who needs Mobility?
Instant Armor: No shirt? No shoes? No problem.
Weapon of Awe: Free +2 to damage that lasts 1 min/level. Sacred bonus, will stack with most anything else you're using.

Ult Mag:
Murderous Command: 'I am not the droid you are looking for, but your buddy there is.'
Archon's Aura: you will be blinded by my awesomeness.

Ult Com:
Bestow Weapon Proficiency: What am I going to do with this ridiculously powerful exotic weapon I just found? Hmmm.
Deadly Juggernaut: Thank you for putting a row of weak minions in front of you, mr. big boss, I will now hit you with the strength of their souls.

I stay away from the War domain, it's kinda underpowered. The first 6 spells are normal cleric spells, and the first three of those don't scale well.
The Strength, Destruction, and Luck domains are actually really powerful for combat.

Irrespective of domain and feat choice is spell choice. Woe unto the GM (I've been on both sides of the screen in this scenario) who forgets the cleric, quietly buffing away in the corner.
Since you seems to be saying you've never played a cleric before here's a few spells to never be without.

Divine Favor, very few spells scale this well. At caster level 8th it provides +3 att/dam (it maxes out at 6th), in terms of pure BAB (I know it doesn't actually add to BAB and thus add extra attacks) and damage, it actually erases this difference between an 8th level cleric and an 8th level fighter with Weapon Spec. Actually you'll be at +1 on the fighter until 9th. You should never be without a couple of these in your pocket. Even though it doesn't grow after this, it will continue to be a useful patch for small encounters for the rest of your cleric career.

Calm Emotions. What? Why? This spell could be renamed "Power Word: Referee's Whistle" Essentially, so long as you concentrate, and no-one makes any actual attacks, you can have everyone on the battlefield shuttle back and forth, get into position, drink potions, etc. Yes, that means the other side can too, but depending on the enemy, that might leave them far fewer options. Also, if you find any way to maintain concentration as a move or free action, you can buy yourself free buff time.

Hold Person: Hello mr. big bad with a poor will save, meet mr. coup de grace.
Shatter: why do I need to spend a feat on learning to Sunder?

Divine Power, picks up where Divine Favor leaves off, it's essentially Haste on steroids, save it for the big bad. (DF and DP used to stack, PF got smart about that).

Righteous Might: It's Enlarge person with a better str bonus, plus a bonus to Con. Also, DR/Good or Evil that scales for level. It's benefits stack w/Divine Power. These two in tandem killed many a Big Bad back in my cleric days. Seriously, Hulk Smash.