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A Pain Psychic gets Live On, which is Lay on Hands at your psychic level -3. It explicitly stacks with lay on hands abilities gained from other sources.

A VMC Paladin gains the ability to lay on hands a number of times per day equal to 1/2 her character level, healing as much as a paladin of her character level – 4.

Since they explicitly stack, does that mean you add them together into one big pool of lay on hands? Would a level 20 pain psychic with VMC paladin have 18+cha uses of lay on hands that heal 16d6?

Unity and Determination: Castilonium’s guide to the Path of War Zealot

Welcome to my first guide! It covers the Zealot class made by Dreamscarred Press and released in Path of War: Expanded. The excellent guides by Path of War designer Elricaltovilla are unfortunately out of date and were written when PoW:E was in beta and undergoing revisions, so the Zealot is quite different from how it was back then.

I don't claim to know all the possible tricks a Zealot can pull, but I feel this guide is complete enough to spark discussion on the class. There's even a section that offers advice on how to keep track of the many resources a Zealot needs to handle. Hopefully the community will be able to offer new ideas, correct my embarrassing mistakes, and help in creating an awesome guide for an awesome class!

There are two WIP sections: The maneuvers & disciplines section, and the sample builds section. I'll add to them eventually. In the meantime, take a look at this guide by Shawshank for info on disciplines and maneuvers. It focuses on advice for non-initiator archetypes, and it only goes up to 6th level maneuvers, but it’s the most recent and complete guide for PoW:Expanded disciplines. Elricaltovilla has also written guides for all of the disciplines from the original Path of War book, linked above.

I joined a game with a GM who uses houserules that greatly increase the potential AC a character can have. He showed me a level 6 character built using his houserules that has 50 AC while completely naked.

Now, most of the increases to AC are tied to dodge bonuses, which can be dealt with using feint, stealthing, turning invisible, or blinding the enemy. But one feat he modified, Two-Weapon Defense, grants a shield bonus to AC equal to your BAB + 2 as long as you wield two weapons.

So, what ways are there to bypass a shield bonus to AC? I could try disarming the enemy's weapons, but a simple Quick Draw and a truck load of backup weapons makes that moot. And I can't disarm unarmed strikes or natural weapons. Are there any feats or abilities that negate a target's shield bonus to AC?

By the way, this is a no-magic-classes game, so I can't just plop a save-or-die spell on an enemy.

Around the mid/high levels, you might encounter enemies that have a heavy melee chassis (d10 or d12 HD, full BAB, larger than medium size, several attacks, high AC, DR) that also have spellcasting, like dragons and outsiders. Sometimes they have Antimagic Field, a 6th level spell that can only be countered by a 9th level spell. How do you beat them if they cast antimagic field and start ploughing into your party with their vastly superior stats, while your party's stat-boosting magic items and casters' spells get nullified? Aside from having an optimized archer that doesn't get beelined, I can't think of anything. I'd love some advice on how conventional melee character or a caster can contribute against one these things.

PS: Yes, I'm aware of the irony that I can't think of a way that a caster can contribute against something.

Dirty Tactics Toolbox is out now. In this thread, kindly post neat optimization tricks you've found with this book.

I'll start with Invigorating Poison.

This is a long duration pre-buff that gives you an easily stackable +4 to certain ability scores. Sometimes even more than one at once. Familiars and animal companions can inflict a poison on you to save you action economy. Cast this spell on your fighter, and when combat starts, have your compsagnathus familiar bite them to give them a +4 alchemical bonus to strength. Have a Pooka improved familiar? Have her sneeze on you to give you +4 to both wisdom and charisma.

What other tricks have people found with this book?

I'm going to be the controller/anvil/god wizard for my group. I will be an aasimar shaman grabbing battlefield control and buff spells from the wizard spell list via Arcane Enlightenment, and I'm the only full caster in the group. I'm not so concerned about overshadowing other players because I'm going to be playing a support role, but I am concerned about making the game boring, unchallenging, or frustrating for the DM.

I was thinking about using Dazing Spell with various metamagic reduction traits, but I've got to ask, does permadazing all the monsters make the game boring or frustrating? When I DM, I personally get frustrated when potent foes get defeated by a single action, whether it's from a save-or-die using caster or an AM Barbarian charge. I'm looking for opinions from people who have actually played as/with hardcore lockdown characters, like dazing blockbuster wizards and hangover clerics.

I still want to be able to want to be able to pull my group's bacon out of the frying pan if things get too hot, but I don't want to rely on spamming Dazing Fireball/Ball Lightning every combat. Does anyone have any advice for making a more group-friendly (and DM-friendly) controller?

I'm going to DM a one on one game with a friend, and I'm looking for an adventure published by Paizo that fits my style of DMing. I prefer more linear games with clear goals for the players to work towards, rather than open sandbox ones. So far, my players have been having fun due to my ability to improvise and roleplay characters well, but the difficulty of running games is stressing me out.

So far I have DMed From Shore to Sea and the 1st level material of Rise of the Runelords. They were very difficult for me to DM well due to the haphazard layout of the events and the lack of detailed maps for most encounters. They provide large scale maps for the towns or islands that the games take place on, but very few small scale, tactical combat-sized maps. As far as I could tell, all I could do was show the players the map, ask them where they wanted to go on it without them having any knowledge of where they were going or what they were doing, and run whatever encounter happened to be in the area they selected, if there even was one. Dotted through the list of events are "random-ish" events that I guess I'm supposed to run if the players are twiddling their thumbs. The problem with those is that I never know when it's the proper time to insert them into the game.

I have also started DMing Way of the Wicked, which was not published by Paizo, but I've found it fits my DMing style much better than other things I've tried. Everything I've read seen so far has a clear goal and some sort of constraint to keep the players on the task, and there are highly detailed maps for nearly everything. I would really like to find more modules or adventure paths by Paizo that are similar to WotW's structure.

Short version:

• I'm good at improvisation, roleplaying NPCs, and running combat.
  
• I'm bad at creating cohesive storylines, maps, or encounters on my own.
  
• I prefer tactical scale maps and storylines that force players to keep their sights on the goal.

Say a level 5 sorcerer has a familiar with the Protector archetype. It has replaced its deliver touch spells ability with Shield Master.

Now say the sorcerer takes a level in paladin with the Chosen One archetype. A Chosen One's familiar has the Emissary archetype. But the Emissary and Protector archetypes are mutually exclusive, because they both replace deliver touch spells.

So what happens with the familiar? Does it stay a protector? Does it lose the protector archetype and become an emissary?

I need advice on which would be better for me, a life oracle spirit guide or a life shaman witch doctor worshipping Anubis. I want to focus on Channel Energy, damage redirection with Shield Other, and using wizard spells via the Arcane Enlightenment hex from the shaman's lore spirit. My party's composition varies from session to session because we have a large pool of players and GMs, so there is no guarantee that there will be a martial to frontline. I need to build a level 3 character right now, but I'm planning for higher levels too. Ideally, I would like to have Fey Foundling, Selective Channel, Fateful Channel, Craft Wondrous Item, and a familiar. I considered playing an Oracle focused Oradin, but I want to lose as few spell levels as possible. I am only limited to core races, so no Aasimar.

These are the builds I'm considering:

Half Elf (middle aged) Oracle (spirit guide)
Stats (15 point buy):
Str 6 (7 -1 age)
Dex 8 (9 -1 age)
Con 14 (15 -1 age)
Int 14 (13 +1 age)
Wis 8 (7 +1 age)
Cha 20 (17 +1 age +2 race)
Feats: Skill Focus Perception (Half Elf), Fey Foundling (1st), Selective Channel (3rd), Fateful Channel (5th), Eldritch Heritage (Draconic) (7th). The Familiar Folio has a rule that allows characters to replace the 1st level power of certain bloodline arcanas with a familiar, and Draconic ones gain a fly speed of 30.

Human (middle aged) Shaman (witch doctor)
Stats (15 point buy):
Str 6 (7 -1 age)
Dex 8 (9 -1 age)
Con 14 (15 -1 age)
Int 14 (13 +1 age)
Wis 14 (13 +1 age)
Cha 18 (15 +1 age +2 race)
Feats: Fey Foundling (human), Selective Channel (1st), Craft Wondrous Item (via Fetish hex), Toughness (3rd, will retrain to Quick Channel at level 5), Fateful Channel (5th), Improved Familiar (Arbiter Inevitable) (7th).

Pros for Oracle:
Less MAD and thus it has a higher charisma.
Spontaneous casting and more spells per day. This is very powerful in combination with the Arcane Enlightenment hex, because you can switch out your wizard spells known every day.
Higher Channel Energy dice via the elf favored class bonus, useable by half elves.
Gains spells from the Cleric spell list (and thus Shield Other) 1 level sooner than Shaman.
Can cast Paragon Surge.
Can take the Divine Protection feat, if I find room for another feat.
Doesn't need to use a different class' spell list to cast Summon Monster.

Pros for Shaman:
Gains Craft Wondrous Item at level 2.
Much less feat starved.
Gains a second pool of Channel Energy uses.
Prepared caster. Not completely sure how much of an advantage this is, though.
Knows the entire Shaman spell list.
Has a familiar from level 1.
Can cast Wizard spells 1 level sooner than Oracle.

Playstyle:
These characters will trundle around in full plate with a tower shield for maximum AC. They won't make attack rolls, and a casting of Ant's Haul will cover carrying capacity.
They will cast Shield Other on as much of the party as possible.
They will use Channel Energy to heal everyone and grant them a free d20 reroll with Fateful Channel.
Their familiar, with the Protector archetype, will further increase their AC and reduce the damage they take. The Shield Master ability starts working at level 5 for the Shaman and level 7 for the Oracle. The Shaman's familiar is nigh invulnerable because Arbiter Inevitables have regeneration 2.
If nobody needs healing, they will use buff or battlefield control spells as needed.
During downtime, they know a variety of utility spells to craft with.

My main hangup with the Oracle is that it's extremely feat starved, and my hangup with the Shaman is that I'm worried I won't have the right spells prepared for a given situation. Can anyone offer me advice or insights?