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We're just finishing Trial of the Beast and are looking for another player. Post here if you're interested.

I’ve got a question about crafting dragonhide armor.

First, let’s make sure I’ve got crafting masterwork armor correct.

Let’s say you’re making a masterwork breastplate. It has two components; the breastplate component (200 gp, 2,000 sp to create, craft DC 15 [10 + 5 armor bonus]) and the masterwork component (150 gp, 1,500 sp to create, craft DC 20 [masterwork]). It costs 1/3 of the market price in raw materials, so 116 gp (66 gp for the breastplate and 50 gp for the masterwork component). If you miss a check by 5 or more, you have to pay ½ the cost in raw materials (33 gp for the breastplate, 25 gp for the masterwork component). You make both parts separately and when both are finished your masterwork breastplate is finished.

This is correct, right?

But trying to make dragonhide armor confuses the snot out of me. The PRD states “Dragonhide armor costs twice as much as masterwork armor of that type, but it takes no longer to make than ordinary armor of that type (double all Craft results).” But the craft skill states “To create a masterwork item, you create the masterwork component as if it were a separate item in addition to the standard item.”

So how do you craft it? There can’t be a separate masterwork component because that would take longer to make and dragonhide specifically states that it doesn’t. And is the craft DC 20 (masterwork) or 15 (10 + armor bonus)? "Ordinary armor of that type" is DC 15, but you make more per week on the same craft skill roll if the DC is 20. And I don’t understand how the “double all Craft results” part fits in.

This is what I have so far:

200 gp (breastplate cost) + 150 gp (masterwork) = 350 gp x 2 (dragonhide) = 700 gp market price
Raw materials = 233 gp (1/3 market price)
Craft skill failure = 116 gp (1/2 raw materials cost)
Breastplate = 200 gp, 2,000 sp to create, craft DC ?

Am I close? What am I missing?

1. Flesh to Stone doesn't work on liches because it requires a Fort save, and undead are immune to effects requiring Fort saves unless they specifically work on objects (and Flesh to Stone targets a creature).

You're absolutely right.

But I do find it strange that that means you couldn't turn a corpse to stone because it isn't technically a "creature." Likewise if you cast stone to flesh on an object you can't use flesh to stone to reverse it.

I have two questions about spells and how they affect liches.

1. Would flesh to stone work on a lich? The spell states that "only creatures made of flesh are affected by this spell." There's no mention of "flesh" in the template itself, but the description of the lich in the template says "withered corpse," which suggests flesh.

2. If you kill a lich and it goes back to a phylactery that you haven't touched, can you find the lich with discern location? The spell states "to find a creature with the spell, you must have seen the creature" and "to find an object, you must have touched it at least once." If you kill the lich, the lich goes to their phylactery. You've seen the creature, so therefore you can find the creature with discern location, but if the lich is in a phylactery which you haven't touched you can't find the phylactery with discern location!

The red dragon is chaotic neutral, the erinyes lawful evil. It's a strange party, but it works.

If there's no fey in later adventures I'll have to add one. Shadar-kai seem like a good choice, but I'm not sure if there are other lawful evil fey or not.

The monster "under the lava" is a perfect mate for a red dragon.

As for the eladrin, they aren't fey; they're outsiders.

As for the Porphyry House, I've used the one in Dungeon #146. I don't know if I want to add more to it, and I don't have Dungeon #95.

I don't have the books here with me, so I'll have to "look under the lava" tonight. I'm vaguely remembering something . . .

yeah, that's not gonna happen... Hmmm.... Unless somehow the erinyes has had a major change in outlook, his distrust of Lawfuls, not to mention Hatred of Evil will be more likely to start a fight. Maybe if the rest of the Party can hold him down...

Erinyes are lawful evil, as is the PC. Are you talking about how the fey will feel about the erinyes? Either way, I'll check it out, too.

Thanks for the help!

I'm DMing the Savage Tide and the PCs are currently in Scuttlecove taking care of the Crimson Fleet. It's a longstanding tradition for the PCs to find someone to mate with to carry on their line (and to play as their next PC), and two PCs are left. I'm looking for NPCs or monsters further along in the adventure path that fit the bill for them.

PC #1: A male red dragon. He wants to keep his line pure and only mate with another dragon (he's not too particular about the variety). I've already used Xiureksor, the green dragon mentioned on the Isle of Dread. Are there any other dragons coming up?

PC #2: A female erinyes. She wants to mate with a fey. I've already used Tyralandi, the half-fiend nymph, and she's a female to boot. Are there any fey coming up?

I could easily add who they're looking for to the jail in Gaping Maw in the next adventure, but they're already rescuing a whole bunch of people there and I don't want to shoehorn anyone else in if I can avoid it.

Does ECL work the same way in Pathfinder as it does in 3.5?

The players I DM for love the half-dragon, half-celestial, half-fiend etc. classes under the Savage Progressions articles. But all I could find in the Pathfinder RPG about ECL talks about not using them for a few of the base races. Do they work the same otherwise?

What about the evil ones would they "mate" with other races especially reds and whites?

I think it's a big contest among themselves as to who can create the strangest half-dragon.

Blue half-dragon human? Been done. Black half-dragon bear? Cool. Green half-dragon lizardfolk? Gross, but okay. Red half-dragon purple worm? Wicked. White half-dragon celestial dire badger? You win.

Options include:

1) Sundering (props to Slime);
2) Readying an action to step with and attack before them, disrupting their shot and gaining AoO;
3) Grappling (archers tend not to be good grapplers);
4) Overrun or Bullrush (hard to fire a bow from the ground, particularly if you dropped it on the way down);
5) Trip, especially if you got it Improved;
6) Any number of other combat actions and options within the 3.x rules that rarely get used.

I can add:

7) Flanking.
8) Backing the archer up against a wall.
9) Disarm.
10) Deflect arrows feat and magic items with that feat.
11) Caltrops (though sometimes tough to use properly).
12) Spells that create difficult terrain.
13) Spells that mare ranged attacks difficult to use (wind wall, protection from arrows)

The Savage Progressions archive on the Wizards site breaks down many templates into their respective level adjustments. For example, half-fiend is broken down into 4 levels. That makes quarter-fiends and eighth-fiends possible. A little tougher with dragons and some of the other half creatures, but it's possible.

And keep in mind that most templates increase CR but not HD. If a creature's CR is more than twice it's HD chances are it doesn't really work. The monster's CR might be correct by RAW, but it doesn't have the hit points to support it.

In one of the Dungeon magazines there was a column by Monte Cook that described a "quick and dirty" CR adjustment. Does anyone know which issue this is in?

Assuming it was Monte Cook and not someone else, and assuming it was Dungeon and not Dragon.

The players are having a blast, so it's not a problem.

But they've got too many allies, so I'm going to cut them down a bit.

The night before the pirates arrive, Manthalay, King Quotoctoa, Rowyn Kellani, Xiureksor, Bua Gorg, and those mentioned in the spoiler are going to try to kill Lavinia and the party while the bullywug tribe kills the troglodytes.

That should give the PCs something to think about!

They just added two gargoyle tribes to their army (the ones in the book and a kapoacinth tribe as well).

At this point I've cooked up some betrayals for them from their allies; otherwise they won't even need to be at the final fight to win it!

Paladins can continue to smite a designated evil opponent until he drops

Legen [wait for it] . . .

dary!

Dispel Magic only takes one roll to resolve

Awesomeness!

There will be rules for stairs

Next on FOX, When Stairs Attack!

Out of curiosity, what is your party's line-up? What little you wrote certainly describes an oddball collection of characters.

1. Allson Lionasp, Thri-keen Thri-keen 4/Warblade 4

Everything's in a book somewhere except lich (homemade bloodline level). The marilith level is the obah-blessed template broken down into levels and the abyssal dragon is the same thing with the abyssal dragon template. The abyssal dragon level is a little more powerful than it should be, but it helps to compensate for the player who doesn't always show up on a regular basis.

I'm DMing Tides of Dread and so far my party hasn't taken on a single adventure written in the book; they're far, far off the beaten path. Even so, they've done spectacularly well for themselves and Farshore, but there are no Victory Point awards for what they've done.

How many Victory Points would you assign to each of these?

1. Beat the troglodytes near Farshore, but did it non-lethally. They've explained that the Crimson Fleet is coming to destroy Farshore and likely them, and all 20 troglodytes and their 4 remaining lizards are going to help Farshore defend themselves.

2. Found the 4 Pyremian monk/clerics. But since one of the PCs is a red dragon, another is a devil, and another is a gold half-dragon (all fire-related), the party managed to convince the clerics that they're avatars of Pyremius. The monks have agreed to help defend Farshore.

3. Found Xiureksor (CR 11 green dragon). They dropped his Dex to 0 and made him a deal; in exchange for his life and hoard, if he helped Farshore he could keep the treasure from as many pirates as he killed.

Nope. Canadian, eh.

Dragons and other flying creatures have a supernatural ability that they can use at will as a free action:

Magi-scientifi-flight (Su): You are able to warp the laws of magic and science to make yourself fly. No one knows how. Elminster and Steven Hawking got together and tried to figure it out once, but the problem was so complex that they gave up and went to Branson.

If you see this ability being used and attempt to identify it, you become helpless for 10 minutes as your grasp of reality is ripped from your mind. If you try a second time, you're just too stupid to live and the powers that be remove you from existence. Period. Really, you're not supposed to think about stuff like this.

I'm afraid the Pathfinder-related book of templates you're looking for isn't going to be coming down the line for a while. The PFRPG and Bestiary should have a few surprises for template lovers. Barring all that, you have Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary, right?

Anything regarding templates is good, so I am intrigued. I was going to buy PFRPG anyway, but now I might have to buy the Pathfinder Bestiary, too.

And no, I don't have the Advanced Bestiary. It might be fantastic, but I won’t be getting it, and here's why:

[/climbs up on soap box]

I want to buy a Paizo PDF, because the managing editor suggested a PDF from the competition because he was trying to help out a customer. He could have said buy such-and-such Paizo PDF, but he didn't; he suggested the best product he could come up with based on what I was looking for, even if it wasn’t from his own company. And you know what? I’ll bet any other employee at Paizo would have done the same. That’s why Pathfinder RPG, and Paizo, are so popular; because they listen to their customers, learn what they want, and do their best to deliver it. And you know what? That’s how you make a company successful. That’s how you earn customer loyalty. Not by taking legally-purchased PDFs away from your customers with only hours notice and giving no recourse for them to be able to download them ever again. Not by promising online features that you never deliver. Not by canceling print copies of the two most popular magazines that support your brand. Not by refusing to support your previous products just because the new one is out. And not by forcing companies to stop selling their previous products if they want to support the new one.

This is why Paizo has gained my RPG business, why another company has lost it, and the reason why I just bought four PDFs instead of one.

[/climbs off soap box]

By the way, I went with the suggestions to buy Classic Monsters Revisited, and Sweet Mother of All That’s Holy is it ever fantastic! Kobold slang!? Goblin fighting tactics (or not, I guess)?! Racial variants!? A feat that mimics scraping your nails across a blackboard to creep someone out?! Just, wow. You couldn't knock the grin off my face with a 2 x 4.

I had her teleport once; underwater beneath the boat. From there she started calling vine horrors or assassin vines or whatever it is (I don't have the book in front of me).

Then the dragonfire adept in the party (who is also a red dragon) put on a cloak that made him go from medium size to large size, which made him weigh 3,100 lbs. in weight, which sent him crashing through the floor of the rotten boat and vines, and then used his aquatic adaptation ability to breathe fire on her.

She died and the players will never forget it.

Is the Advanced Bestiary available as a PDF through Paizo? I haven't been able to find it on the site, though I've found other Green Ronin products.

That said, Paizo has indicated that there is a lot of interest in a similar book for the Pathfinder RPG line once that is out in August, so the chances of seeing one sometime in the future are probably pretty good.

I want said Pathfinder/Savage Species book right now.

I believe Sean K Reynolds is very experienced in this design area. Tie him to his desk immediately and don't let him go until it's finished. Please and thank you.

I plan to buy a Pathfinder PDF to get a sweet discount and to spite a certain company who shall remain vague. A hint would be Wizards something-or-other. No, wait, that's too obvious. Make that Something-or-other of the Coast. That's better.

But I'm not that familiar with the setting, so I figured I would ask those who know. I have tons of adventures, so that's not really what I'm looking for; what I'm most on the lookout for are templates and racial classes a la Savage Species or Savage Progressions. Are there any Pathfinder PDFs that have lots of either?

I would like to see racial levels like are in the Savage Species book and the Savage Progressions online articles.

At first I thought maybe WotC was doing this to stop the sale of 3E books that are compatible with the soon-to-be-released Pathfinder RPG, but that doesn't explain stopping the sales of 4E books.

So now they've angered 4E players, 3.5E players, and every other player of D&D versions down the line who now can't download their PDFs through online stores they thought they had agreements with. If WotC is planning to start their own download store, that's fine, but it should have been up BEFORE this announcement came down, and something should have been worked out with sites that sell PDFs so that customers could still download them from WotC.

I may be thankful to WotC for making such a great version of D&D with 3.5, but I'm thankful to Paizo for supporting it the way WotC SHOULD have. You guys are the best.

Pathfinder RPG, here I come.

And if anyone is interested in letting WotC know how you feel, they're doing an online survey here. I've taken it and I know there's a spot near the end where you can give them your opinion to your heart's content.

By a strict reading of the fly spell that it only works when in the air or when you're airborne, you couldn't fly in space because there's no "air." You also couldn't fly while ethereal, because there's no "air" there. And you couldn't fly in a room with no air in it. None of which make sense to me. The flight is magical, not with wings that require air flow to work.

But there are separate and distinct rules covering swimming and flying. If fly works underwater, do they gain a swim speed? Can the flyer take 10 on swim checks? Do they get a +8 racial bonus? Do they suffer movement penalties and bonuses for up and down movement that swimmers aren't subject to? Can they make dive attacks?

I agree that logically fly should work underwater, but unless the spell is rewritten it would take far too many DM rulings to make it feasible under the rules.

Include a few Savage Progressions and rules for building them.

I like the big 6. I like the Christmas tree effect. But giving PCs better abilities at higher levels isn't going to solve the problem (at least, not this particular one).

The easiest solution is to simply adjust CRs. For example, a pit fiend is CR 20 assuming a party with standard magic items for their level. If they have far more items than normal, or if they specialize in fighting devils and have specific magic items and class abilities for fighting them, the same pit fiend should be CR 18 or 19. If they have far fewer magic items than normal, it should be CR 21 or 22.

The DM should be able to look at a monster, know what his PCs have for abilities and items, and adjust the CR accordingly. I think a section on evaluating and adjusting CRs would go a lot further to solving the problem than adding class abilities or changing magic items.

I've ran four campaigns that went from 1st level to slightly epic (I won't get into the problems of epic play). Here's what I've noticed about high level play, and possible ideas to fix them. I haven't played a lot with Pathfinder (we're playing the 2nd Savage Tide installment using some of those rules now), but what I've seen so far would apply to it as well:

1. Limited buffs are bad. When I DM spellcasters they pretty much have to cast a quickened spell and a standard action spell every round to be any kind of threat, and with limited buffs they don't stand a chance.

Don't limit buffs. It's a pain for the DM to keep track of them all, especially when they're dispelled, but it's really the only way to do it. The biggest problem is multiple buffs from multiple casters; keeping track of the caster level of every buff someone has on isn't fun. Dispel magic and related spells might work better if they simply had a 50/50 chance of dispelling or not, with the assumption that the caster levels of enemies will scale with the PCs.

2. CRs become less and less meaningful based on the party's equipment. I had a 15th level party face a CR 16 undead, which they had excellent equipment to face, and a CR 16 demon, which they didn't. The undead was killed in 3 rounds while the demon was a near TPK.

I don't know that there is a fix for this. Hopefully they balance out; an easier CR 16 for a harder CR 16. But I think it might be worth mentioning that CRs should be decreased for parties who have specialized training and equipment for that type of monster.

3. Spells become save or die, or they have effects even if you make the save. There aren't very many lower-level spells that do this.

As a DM, it stinks to spend time preparing a monster who gets turned to stone or killed or whatever just for missing a single save. It might be worth considering taking a certain amount of damage (I haven't really thought about the damage) to ignore the effects of a spell. You still take damage, so the spell isn't wasted, but it gives you an option.

4. Fighters begin to lose their luster if they can't get full attacks, but if they get their full attack they usually kill whoever they're fighting. There's not a lot of middle ground.

I don't think there's a fix for this. You just have to keep the bad guys moving, but if they're fighters, they lose attacks as well. I think it's too embedded in too many rules to fix.

5. Ranged weapon PCs become incredibly powerful; they can stand still or move very little and still attack virtually anyone on the battlefield. I've found this is tempered somewhat by the fact that they have to take many, many feats to do it effectively.

No fix, really. It takes a long time to be able to do it.

6. Healing becomes very important. Mass heals go off on a regular basis to keep everyone alive. Arcane casters usually teleport away, drink potions, and come back, while clerics are forced to continually heal and do little else.

More quickened spells that can heal would be nice. That way the cleric could heal with a quickened spell and still cast a useful spell in combat (or vice versa).

First, you don't need to add the entire draconic template; do a search on the Wizards site for template classes and you'll find the draconic template broken down into class levels.

Second, check www.d20srd.org for bloodline levels; the dragon levels might work for you.

You can draw a weapon as part of a move action with a base attack bonus of +1; opening a door could work the same way, but . . .

Opening a door while moving doesn't make sense unless the door opens the way you're moving. And then you've got door size, weight, your strength, and people in the way to consider.

In the interest of not adding a bunch of rules, leave it as a move action. Part of the game's strategy is determining who gets into a room first, and part of that is who opens the door.

Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way.

It seems that the big problem with dispel magic is stopping to recalculate stats when tons of buff spells are dispelled; figuring out what types of bonuses there are and what stacks and what doesn't. So what if instead of being dispelled they were, for lack of a better word, penalized?

Target opponent: When dispel magic is targeted against a specific opponent they are magically hindered proportionately to the number of spells active on their person. For every active spell affecting them they suffer a -1 penalty to attack, AC, and saving throws. The penalty is lessened by 1 for each active spell that is dismissed or has its duration run out. Multiple castings of dispel magic overlap but do not stack.

Example: An opponent has bull's strength, mage armor, and true strike currently active. They are hit with a targeted dispel magic. With 3 spells active, they suffer a -3 penalty to attack, -3 penalty to their AC, and a -3 penalty to their saving throws. Once the true strike is used up, the penalty drops to -2. If they were later blessed, the penalty would remain at -2, but if dispel magic were cast on them after being blessed the penalty would increase to -3 (overlaps).

It still takes a little calculation, but hopefully a lot less than changing their stats spell by spell. It also provides a penalty that might make them think twice about buffing themselves up too much to begin with (and thus helping to stem the source of the headache before it starts). The penalty also doesn't always specifically affect what they were trying to buff; if someone had mage armor active and was hit with dispel magic they might dismiss it to remove the saving throw penalty. And as a specific spell, dispel magic can still be targeted and removed.

The problem I have with dispel magic is multiple casters. If you have a PC with buffs cast by a cleric 5 and wizard 7 being dispelled by an enemy spellcaster it is not fun trying to keep track of which spell was cast by whom and the DC for each.

What about giving dispel magic a 50% chance to dispel a spell, or 11 to 20 on a d20? Much easier to keep track of and is within 5% of the normal chance of success assuming the spellcasters involved are the same level. You could add/subtract 5 for every 5 level difference between them. As for greater dispel magic, allow the caster to reroll for two spells of their choice that they failed to dispel that they've identified plus 1 for every 5 level difference.

On the character sheets I give to my players, I show the CM DC (combat maneuver difficulty class) right along with the AC, touch AC, and flat-footed AC. The CMB goes along with BAB, base melee attack, and based ranged attack. Makes it easy to keep track of.

As for the bonuses and penalties, I like them the way they are (15+). Combat maneuvers should be difficult to pull off. I would even make it more difficult; change the size modifiers to be what they were for 3.5 grapple rules to make backwards compatibility even easier.

If you want to curtail maneuvers, why not allow characters with improved trip/disarm/etc (or even greater trip/disarm/etc) to use them as attacks of opportunity? It would make those feats slighty more valuable to take ...

I like that. Allow them to be attacks of opportunity only for those who took the feat.

Many stat blocks for 3.5 give a creature's grapple bonus. In most cases, that's the creature's CMB as well, and you just add 15 to get their CM DC.

But when it comes to larger and smaller creatures, the math doesn't work because 3.5 grapple gives a +4 bonus/penalty for size differences while Pathfinder doesn't.

In the interest of backwards compatibility, what about making the CMB for monsters larger or smaller than medium scale the same as they do for the 3.5 grapple rules?

Here's my vote:

For each iterative attack that you can make due to a high base attack bonus, you may forgo the attack to instead take a 5 ft. step.

If you cast a spell that takes a standard action or less to cast, you may also take a 5 ft. step if your base attack would allow iterative attacks. However, on any round that you do this, you may not cast a second spell (such as a swift, immediate, or quickened spell).

Simple, easy, makes it easier to move around the battlefield, and even gives spellcasters more options.

I think it should be ruled just as drawing a weapon is; it takes a move action on the part of the receiver or can be done as part of a move action. It shouldn't be any easier to take a weapon from someone's hand and make sure you don't hit them with it than it is to draw it yourself.

As for the giver, it should be a move action, but they should forgo all attacks of opportunity while holding the item (they have to hold it still enough for someone to take).

A touch attack at DC 5 to grab the item might be in order as well in some circumstances (riding a horse, violent motion, etc.).

A huge dragon is the size of a 747 Jetliner if not bigger and the best you can make is one human-sized suit of hide?!

???

Um, A huge dragon fits in a 15 ft. x 15 ft. square. And if you manage to kill a dragon, chances are it wasn't a one-hit-wonder; you probably beat on it for a good long while before killing it and likely wrecked most of the scales that you could use to make armor. I think that rule makes sense.

He's referring to the picture. Iron (or steel) at that volume would require a bit more than a 20 strength to wield. I don't know if you lift weights, but a 15lb dumbbell is quite small. The head of the earthbreaker, as pictured, would weigh in excess of 500 pounds.

That's making the assumption that the entire head of the weapon is iron or steel and not just plates over a wooden base.

But anyway, the greatclub as written is too weak compared to other weapons of its size and type, so the earthbreaker is needed to fill the mechanical gap.

I agree. Add the earthbreaker.

And use the same picture, too. It's wicked. I would make it my avatar if I could.

Sorry, posted twice. Stupid Internet Explorer freeze-ups . . .

I think it's lame that a suit of dragonhide armor doesn't protect you against the dragon's breath weapon. Dragon's are generally immune to whatever their breath weapon is, and I think it's safe to assume that it's their scales that do it (since that's what would be affected first if they were hit with the effect).

Would it be terribly unbalancing to give dragonhide armor resistance 5 to the same energy type as the dragon's breath weapon? Or if the breath weapon doesn't deal damage, such as a shadow dragon, then a +2 save vs. whatever the breath weapon does?

Maybe it could scale up as well; resistance 5 or +2 save for light armor, resistance 10 or +3 save for medium armor, and resistance 15 or +4 save for heavy armor.

I would be happy with resistance 5/+2 across the board, though.

Here's my vote.

With a polearm, you can attack someone adjacent to you with a -4 penalty and deal 1d6 dmg. plus 1/2 Str modifier.

It's tough to fight close in with a 10' weapon and it would be difficult to put all of your weight behind the attack.

Add a feat that reduces the penalty to -2 and lets you add your Str modifier.

I agree that masterwork tools don't always make sense. But if you're not able to get a +2 bonus on every skill, it makes putting ranks in some skills worth more than others because some couldn't benefit from the bonus.

What about adding a time constraint? For example, using masterwork tools to gain a bonus requires a minimum of one minute's use?

1. Why are there no prices given for cursed magic items? What if I wanted to actually make one? How do I figure out the market price for a cursed item that I made?

2. It doesn't look like the errata has been taken into account. The table on page 19 says that for multiple different abilities you multiply the higher item cost by 2; but in the text on the next page it states "For items that do take up a space on a character’s body, each additional power not only has no discount but instead has a 50% increase in price." Which is it?

3. Fixing #2 would help, but getting rid of it entirely would be even better. Figuring out what are similar and what are different abilities is always a pain. Why not use a scale? Take every ability that isn't the most expensive and make it cost 50% more.

4. The addendum talks about the magic item's "slot". Maybe I've just missed it, but I haven't been able to find a table anywhere in the Pathfinder info that says what "slots" are, how many a PC has, or any other information about them.

5. Please, please, please remove or change the "Item Requires Skill to Use" and "Item Requires Specific Class or Alignment to Use" sections. It just makes PCs want to make magic items that only their specific class and alignment can use just so that they can get the discount when creating it.

I like the trap the soul idea at 10th level, but make it a supernatural ability that traps the soul in the weapon that causes death. And if the assassin is killed or the weapon destroyed, the soul is freed.

One soul maximum sounds fine; I would add an extra soul every three levels above 10th, but I realize that's getting into epic play and beyond Pathfinder's scope.

I vote no racial restrictions on prestige classes. EVER. If I want to play an arcane archer, I shouldn't be forced to choose a specific race.

+1 level of spellcasting every other level sounds good.

I've never understood imbue arrow. If I can cast fireball, I can aim it exactly where I want it to go. If I imbue an arrow with fireball and miss, what exactly happens?

Imbue arrow should work with any touch range spell or ray as well.

Death arrow save DC should be 10 + arcane archer level + Cha.