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In the Dungeon that is not a Dungeon thread the idea came up of a series of WWI style trenches fueled by war magic.

Either as an active battlefield, or an abandoned dungeon complex, this idea is kinda awesome, so I wanted to see what people might break out in the Pathfinder War to end all Wars.

If i ran this as a campaign setting, I would break out the firearms from Ultimate Combat.

But As for Deployment, Permanent Symbols of Mirroring. Like Mirror image for all.

Just cooked up a domain focused on disease. Intended for NPC followers of a Demon Lord. I wanted to solicit thoughts. Is this appropriate? Balanced? Does balance matter for NPC domains?

Pestilence Domain

Bleeding Touch (Sp): As a melee touch attack, you can cause a living creature to take 1d6 points of damage per round. This effect persists for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 your cleric level (minimum 1) or until stopped with a DC 15 Heal check or any spell or effect that heals damage. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.

Aura of Decay (Su): At 8th level, you can emit a 30-foot aura of decay as a standard action. Living creatures in this aura (except you) take 1d6 points of damage per round as their flesh rots. They also take a cumulative –1 penalty to Strength each round they remain in the aura. Once outside the aura, the penalty fades at the rate of –1 per round, but it begins building again if they reenter the aura. Plant creatures take 2d6 points of damage per round. You can use this ability for a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric level. These rounds do not need to be consecutive.

Domain Spells: 1st- ray of sickening, 2nd- pox pustules, 3rd- contagion, 4th- plague carrier, 5th- epidemic, 6th- plague storm, 7th- fester, mass, 8th- finger of death, 9th- cursed earth;

I have been pondering the idea of how far you can stretch one single NPC.
A single NPC with leadership could be stretched into a small group of enemies, but is this a good way to design small group encounters?

This could be used to model:
A warboss and bandit gang,
A detective and city watch patrol,
A military squad with leader and attached caster.
And my favorite: An underground cult.

I also think it may be possible to fully populate a small dungeon with one npc, recomended WBL, and leadership rules.
Example:
Leader: 8th lv evil cleric
Cohort: lv 6 evil cleric
followers: 8 lv 1 Adepts

Each cleric can cast animate dead and takes control undead as a feat.
Undead (Aproximate, based on a tenuous, in progress build):
Leader: 48HD animated, 8 controlled
Cohort: 24HD animated, 6 controlled

that seems like enough baddies to populate a small dungeon area for a 3rd-4th lv party.

Any thoughts on the matter?

By RAW, can arcane strike be used to enhance natural weapons? For example, the claws that draconic and Abyssal sorcerors get.

How does Two-Weapon fighting work with extra weaponry? The blade boot and the Barbzau Beard both allow off hand attacks while leaving both hands free giving you a max of four different weapons for your two hands. Are the penalties same as for two weapons?

I had an idea for a monster that was made of paint. The paint monster would flow over surfaces and "paint" over them with its body. I also thought it should have some power to alter the object it paints similar to marvelous pigments. (I had an image of it painting doors sealed or suffocating victims by painting their faces away.)

However, im not even sure where to start with modeling this kind of beast. The best i could think of was starting it off as an ooze. Any suggestions?

Just wanted to confirm. When an entry for natural attack says 2 slams or similar, it means 2 attacks at full BAB? Not just another name, right?

Casting spells while

submerged can be difficult for those who cannot breathe
underwater. A creature that cannot breathe water must
make a concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) to cast
a spell underwater (this is in addition to the caster
level check to successfully cast a fire spell underwater).
Creatures that can breathe water are unaffected and
can cast spells normally.

My question is how this interacts with Silent Spells or the Hold Breath ability. Hold Breath can be gotten from Water Elementalist at level one, so if he can ignore the concentration check, this could drastically affect his tactics.

In addition, it seems that opening your mouth to speak verbal components does not cause water to flood your lungs.

Aside from water breathing, is there a way to safely cast while underwater?

What exactly do inquisitors of nethys do? I was looking over Inquisitors to make an NPC when it struck me that some gods don't seem to have much inquisition based needs. Particularly nethys, as from what I see in gods and magic, his tenants are "Use Magic!!". What would inquisitors do? Thaey don't have a reason to punish abuses of magic, Nethys himself is the biggest abuser. Do they hunt people down and force them to study cantrips?

First off, I think archetypes and prestige classes can coexist together in harmony.

HOWEVER as i have watched the prestige vs archetype discussions on these boards i have seen this design philosophy: that the best prestige classes are the ones created yourself. But has there ever been guidelines on creating balanced and interesting prestige classes in pathfinder.

Archetypes have the guideline of balancing the class feature being traded, but the closest things i have found are the "Prestige Class Creation Cookbook (d20)" and an old 3.5 article i once found on point buy base classes.

To those who favor this philosophy: what guidelines do you use?
Also is it a good idea to build rules around custom prestige classes without giving some official guidelines as to how to implement them into the existing rules?

The purpose of this exercise is to see if the other martial classes can really out-monk the monk. Assuming that a player wants to make an unarmed martial character what is really their best option? For this test, lets assume the primary goals of a successful “Monk” are going to be unarmed fighting and Combat Maneuvers. Lets say the secondary goals to be mobility and skills.

So the setup is this: A Monk, a Brutal Pugilist Barbarian and a Fighter, all human at level 5 with the same statistics. No magical gear. The stats were lifted from Ostag the Unslain from the NPC guide. They calculate to a 32 point buy, not accounting for 4th level increase, but are not ridiculous from 4d6 rolled stats.
Stats are Str 18, Dex 15, Con 15, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 14 Hit points calculated by max at first level and average roll for the rest. All favored class bonus into HP

Statblocks:

Given these stat-blocks and the original intent, what class would you recommend for an unarmed martial character?

Note that the fighters armor training allows armor while the pugilist cannot wear it. There are other options, such as the mobile fighter archetype but for simplicity I chose to keep vanilla fighter for the weapon training. Also, I may have made some errors calculating the statblocks.