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An interesting idea from "King_of_Castamere":

Hinyasi Brawler 1/Armored Hulk Barbarian 14

22 Strength 16 Dexterity 14 Constitution 11 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 7 Charisma

Rage Powers: Smasher, Lesser Hurling, Hurling, Greater Hurling, Hurling Charge, Superstition, Body Bludgeon

Feats: Catch Off-guard, Throw Anything, Two Handed Thrower, Improved Grapple, Power Attack, Deadly Aim, Shikigami Style, Shikigami Mimicry, Shikigami Manipulation

A "Beat and Yeet" Barbarian, if you will. Grab people and smash them into other people, regardless of if said other people are adjacent or across the room.

I was poking through the Martial Arts Handbook, and a particular interaction of feats and abilities popped into my head. Specifically, the Shikigami Style chain and the Barbarian Rage Power "Body Bludgeon". Shikigami Style increases the damage you deal with improvised weapons by a total of 3 size categories for the chain, and Body Bludgeon treats the foe you're hitting someone else with as an improvised weapon. A Small sized foe would both take and deal 4d6 damage when used as a weapon, with a Medium enemy taking and dealing 4d8 damage.

My question is, what class would best build towards this? There's several classes that gain access to rage powers. Bloodrager has easy access to things like Enlarge Person, and had Bloody Knuckled Rowdy to help ease the feat burden. Barbarian has a number of other rage powers to help a grapple stick. Fighter (Viking) has the benefit of lots of feats to help the chain. Skald has things like Magic Warrior to make your wielded foe also a magic weapon. Ranger (Wild Stalker) doesn't offer much. There's also Spiritualist (Exciter), but I'm not familiar enough with the class to know what else it can offer besides spellcasting.

Thoughts?

Looking at the boons granted by the various Eldest, Magdh seems like hers is the most useful, with a +4 to all Intelligence-based skills. While this may seem best suited to an Intelligence-based class, I actually had a different idea.

Gnome Lore Oracle. Lore Keeper lets you use Charisma instead of Intelligence for Knowledge-checks, but the Boon bonus should still apply. Sidestep Secret on top of being small would give you solid AC and Reflex saves, aided further by Magdh's second boon. Alien Mind would boost AC, Reflex, and spell DCs. Pick up the Irrepressible trait and you're using Charisma to Will against charms and compulsions. Play an older gnome and take Breadth of Experience for a further +2 to Knowledge skills. Take the Magical Linguist alternate racial trait to get the most out of Spontaneous Symbology.

Two thoughts:

Jistkan Artificer + Peg Leg trait = fully functional Edward Elric. Full Metal Alchemist ahooooooy!

Shared Training looks really, really, really good.

Throw in a level of Brawler (Constructed Pugilist) and Deific Obedience for Brigh and you'll be more machine than man.

Personally, I have fun using the intense specialization ability of a fighter to play concepts that would be nonoptimal or difficult to pull off for other classes. Sure, you could be Greatsword Fighter #148828282, but a Barbarian can usually match your output and have more interesting class features in the process.

But with things like AWT and/or the big pile of fighter archetypes, you can build for flavor. Maybe there's some exotic weapon that you really like the flavor of but only does like 1d3 damage. Take AWT Focused Weapon, and the dice damage dice scales like a warpriest. Maybe you really like a particular feat path that has a huge pile of prerequisites, and a fighter can get you there twice as fast as some other classes. Maybe you just REALLY hate missing, and want to be able to jack your attack accuracy through the roof.

If you really want to milk Intimidate, grab Dazzling Display, Shatter Defenses, Violent Display, and Disheartening Display. The idea is to use either Enforcer/Cornugon Smash or Sneak Attack/Violent Display for a free Intimidate/Dazzling Display, which is escalated by either the Thug ability to increase it from shaken to frightened, then Disheartening Display bumps it up to to Panicked, so when they're flat--footed and running away you can wail on them with AoOs and Sneak Attacks. Combat Reflexes can also be good here, and eventually you can build towards stuff like Sneaking Precision so you can tack on Critical feats to your Sneak Attacks.

Skill Focus isn't worth it. Some useful traits to look into are Mock Gladiator (to let you apply Enforcer with a weapon without attack penalties) and possibly take Bruising Intellect and just tank your Charisma and bump Intelligence instead, to get more skill points instead of fighting against a racial Charisma penalty.

That's not even touching multiclass stuff like Rage and Mutagen. Even just single classing, Elritch Heritage (Abyssal) is a higher inherent Strength bonus than the tome by 1. Muleback Cords adds +8 effective Strength, and Burdenless armor multiplies the size of each weight category by 50%.

So a single single classed PC, with no outside help and a couple magic items, could reach an effective Strength score for carrying of 62, with an end result of...66,432/132,864/199,680. Which is the weight of 15 African elephants. And that's not even making him large.

So yeah, that's one hell of a pack mule.

Traits: Muscle of the Society, Efficient Packer
Feats: Cut Your Losses
Equipment: Masterwork backpack
Magic items: Muleback Cords, Burdenless armor (pretty strong multiplier)
Archetypes: Pack Mule (Fighter)
Prestige Classes: Pathfinder Chronicler

Just a few things you might be interested in.

I'm designing a character for a very high level campaign (level 18) and running into some problems with skills. Namely, at what point I stop investing in one and branch out to others. Is there a practical upward limit for various given skills? Like, once I reach a given bonus is it better to invest in something else? Or should my 2+int skill points character just be REALLY good at two things and relatively terrible at everything else?

So I was poking through some of the ACG feats and hit on an idea for a potentially awesome (and probably evil) slayer build based around Killing Flourish and Violent Display. So, here it is.

Human Slayer 15/Rogue (Thug) 5 (25 PB)
Str 18
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 10

(1)S1: Weapon Focus (Kukri), Dazzling Display
(2)S2: Two-Weapon Fighting (Combat Style Talent)
(3)R1: Intimidating Prowess
(4)S3: Fearsome Finish (Combat Trick talent)
(5)S4: Killing Flourish
(6)S5.
(7)S6. Imp TWF (Combat Style Talent), Violent Display
(8)R2: Disheartening Display (Combat Trick Talent)
(9)R3: Improved Critical (Kukri)
(10)R4: Bleeding Attack Talent
(11)R5: Dastardly Finish
(12)S7:
(13)S8: Powerful Sneak Talent, Merciless Butchery
(14)S9:
(15)S10: Critical Focus, Assassinate Talent
(16)S11:
(17)S12: Gruesome Slaughter, Deadly Sneak Talent
(18)S13
(19)S14: Not sure
(20)S15: Not sure

The idea here is to basically be as brutal and bloody as possible. You kill someone (maybe with assassinate), you demoralize them through Killing Flourish. They become shaken (and eventually also sickened).

Thug lets you bump that to frightened.

Because you used Sneak Attack or scored a critical, Violent Display triggers, letting you also use Dazzling Display.

Because you have Disheartening Display, the fear is bumped to Cowering.

Because you have Dastardly Finish/Merciless Butchery, you can now coup-de-grace the cowering targets. Potentially even as a swift action, meaning you could theoretically kill two or three in a round, each one triggering more instances of the first combination if you need it.

I think it's a fun, thematic, and potentially mechanically effective build. Thoughts?

I think a lot of the idea of magic items being rare and magic shops being impractical is based on the idea that a given group of PC's are special snowflakes, when in reality they're not.

Just looking at Golarion, there are countless organizations and guilds and nations and the like populated by people with class levels. Even people with NPC class levels are going to have magic items.

Adventuring, crime, education, conquest, law enforcement, the military. These are all things that would involve themselves in a magic item economy. Economies that have been going on for thousands of years. There's going to be a pretty solid stock of magic items in the world, even accounting for ones lost in dungeons and the like.

Sure, as the PCs rise in level they become more powerful figures in the setting, with effective wealth reflecting that, but they're still likely to have peers, even if just in regards to ancient heroes. And that means that items of their caliber would have existed.

I mean, this is obviously relative to a given setting, but most of the well-known and often-played settings, including Golarion, are based in that kind of high-fantasy world.

Full orc Barbarian with the Wild Rager archetype. 18 Strength, 18 Con. Dumber than a box of rocks and just as sturdy. Really fun for your party when you inevitably get dominated.

Dwarf Wizard. 18 Int, 18 Dex, stick the 8 in Con to bump it up to 10. Dwarf save bonuses and racial stats would help shore up the weaknesses of having that kind of array. Favored class bonus into HP, maybe start with Toughness or Steel Soul as feats. Definitely take a trait for +Fort save, maybe also +Will.

You could also do the cheesy Synthesist Summoner with something like an ancient gnome or whatever and put the 18's in mental stats.

Either way, you can't go wrong with a ranger with Favored Enemy: Undead. Possibly with even the Corpse Hunter archetype. A good switch hitter ranger is a solid addition to any adventuring party.

I personally like my orc characters to have names that mean something relevant to the character in the Black Speech.

Then that means you've played a lot of games with an optional rules interpretation that I suspect isn't part of the majority of games, and are passing balance judgments based on such. While it's a total valid observation for the games you play, it doesn't really mean much for anyone else who isn't in those games.

Flurry doesn't have to stack. The point is that you can grab an archetype that drops that class feature, then get the same feature in an entirely different class. There's nothing "redundant" about that, because you're not trying to stack anything. Flurry already works with BAB from non-monk levels, so in this case you'd simply flurry as a monk of your cleric level, with the monk levels counted as non-monk levels for this purpose.

An aasimar Sylvan sorcerer with Celestial Servant and Evolved Companion would have a pretty hardy animal companion. Combine it with Evolved Summoned Monster and grab Mighty Summons, Mythic Companion, and Blessed Companion from Hierophant via Dual Path, and you'll be able to drop some pretty durable bodies onto the battlefield. Speedy Summons from Archmage will let you drop the summons faster, too, letting you, say, summon some monsters and cast Haste in the same round and giving them all the buff.

Deadly Aim works just fine with firearms. Firearms target touch AC, but are not in themselves touch attacks. This was clarified in an FAQ a while ago. It's also better for Gunslingers than standard archers, because the fact they hit touch AC means that they can use it more reliably, since their target hit number is lower.

Manyshot, however, doesn't work with firearms at all, so it's a dead feat.

Musket Master is the best gunslinger archetype in my opinion, since it allows you to get free action reloads with two-handed firearms.

Regarding your build, you're way too squishy. Drop your Wisdom and bump up your Con if you can. More grit is nice, but it doesn't matter if you're dead. Even musket masters will be close enough to combat for getting hit in the face to be a factor.

Depending on what level you start, waiting till level 4 to have picked up Point-Blank and Precise might be a bit painful, even targeting touch AC. Goblin Gunslinger is great, but ultimately those few levels of big hit penalties are going to suck more than taking the damage hit from using a smaller weapon.

Also, as nice as Goblin Gunslinger is, it doesn't actually say it lets you pick up a larger starting weapon, so it's mostly useless until you've reached a wealth level to buy your own new gun anyways.

So progression would look something like:

1. Point Blank Shot, Rapid Reload (Musket)
3. Precise Shot
4. Deadly Aim
5. Goblin Gunslinger
7. Rapid Shot
8. Weapon Focus
9. Snap Shot
11. Signature Deed
12. Improved Precise Shot
13. Improved Snap Shot
15. Combat Reflexes
16. Greater Snap Shot
17. Clustered Shots

The last two feats can be whatever, if you ever get there.

The absolute best (and silliest) animal companion focused build that I've played involves an Aasimar Oracle (either Nature or Lunar) who takes the revelation that gives them a companion. Aasimar have access to the Celestial Servant feat that bumps their companion to a magical beast (which has d10 hit dice and fighter BAB progression) and gives it the celestial template (which lets it smite and gives it resistances). The oracle favored class bonus lets you treat your effective level as higher for one revelation, so you can have a companion at a higher effective druid level than your actual class level.

If you really want, you can also take Scion of Humanity and the Huntmaster feat to bump up your effective druid level one more, as long as you've got a horse, dog, small cat, or bird companion.

That said, even without the Oracle shenanigans, Celestial Servant is a really strong feat choice for a companion focused character. Aasimar are particularly appropriate for WotR, and the Plumekith variant gives you the right stats for a ranged hunter. If you're nice to your GM, you could also potentially drop the SLA for a +2 to Strength, letting you go for a melee approach, too.

On the Mythic side of things, the Hierophant path has Beasts Fury, Mythic Companion, and Blessed Companion. Take Dual Path so you can snag stuff for yourself from Champion, and you should be able to make a pretty solid mythic hunter.

Since it doesn't give any Disguise bonuses or anything, it's largely an amusing RP trick. That said, it could be a cool thing for a genderfluid character to allow them to change their body to fit their mood.

So I was recently in a game that started at 12th level, and allowed any material on the PFSRD, including the psionic stuff, so I figured I'd see what I could come up with. Basic rules were: 25 point buy, open race choices, standard WBL. And I ended up coming up with a Zen Archer build that I found to be frankly ridiculously overpowered in its SADness.

Race: Aasimar (Plumekith)
Class: Monk 3 (Zen Archer)/Soulknife (Soulbolt) 3/Soul Archer 6

Starting stats
Str 12
Dex 18
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 18
Cha 8

Final stats
Str 12
Dex 18
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 27
Cha 8

AC 28 (higher with MV/MA)(+10 fighting defensively)
Saves 11/16/19
BAB +11/+5/+1

Feats:
(1)SK 1 : Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Wild Talent
(2)Monk 1: Improved Unarmed Strike, Perfect Strike, Rapid Shot
(3)Monk 2: Psionic Shot, Far Shot, Weapon Focus (Mindbolt)
(4)Monk 3: Point Blank Master, (Zen Archery)
(5)SK 2 : Deadly Aim, (Focused Offense blade skill)
(6)SK 3 : (Psychic Strike, Enhanced Mind Blade)
(7)SA 1 : Intuitive Shot, Fighter's Blade, (Focused Defense blade skill)
(8)SA 2 : Manyshot
(9)SA 3 : Greater Intuitive Shot, (Freezing Bolt bladeskill)
(10)SA 4 :
(11)SA 5 : Hawkeye, (Mind Shield bladeskill)
(12)SA 6 : (Reflexive Shot)

The beauty of this build is that you're using Wisdom for attack and damage with your mindbolts, and Greater Intuitive Shot lets you expend your focus to add Wisdom to your damage rolls a second time when full attacking. At level 12, you'd have a BAB of 11/6/1, plus the iterative attacks from Rapid Shot, Manyshot, and any Haste effects, allowing you to pump out 6 shots in a round, each doing 1d8+Wis+DA+enhancements+1 in damage.

Wisdom also adds to the other obvious things, like AC, Perception, Will saves, and even your AC a second time should you need to be fighting defensively. You also threaten in melee with both your unarmed attacks (which use Wisdom for attack and damage while focused) and your ranged attacks, and don't provoke for firing in melee, letting you get really close to the action.

WBL for level 12 is 108k. Invest in a Crystal Bow +2 (44.8k), Headband of Wisdom +6 (36k), Cloak of Resistance +3 (9k), Amulet of Natural Armor +2 (8k), Ring of Protection +2 (8k), and a Handy Haversack. By this level, you should be able to bum a Magic Vestment or a Mage Armor from party members. If you want to downgrade the Crystal Bow to only a +1, you get another 33.6k to play around with, to possibly upgrade your other defensive items, maybe grab some Bracers of Armor or Bracers of Archery.

Fighter's Blade means the monk levels and the first level of Soul Archer won't count against your Enhanced Mind Bolt progression, so you'll have a free +5 weapon. I recommend Seeking and Holy for some of your enhancements. Linked Striking is also the best option for tearing apart a single target. The boost from the Crystal Bow means you could have a +1 (or +2) Seeking Holy Linked Striking Mindbolt

This means that a Hasted full attack action, at a single evil target, expending your focus for Intuitive shot and Psychic Strike, would be at: +18 (2d8+2d8+4d6+42)/+20 (1d8+4d6+27)/+20 (1d8+4d6+27)/+15 (1d8+4d6+27)/+10 (1d8+4d6+27). That's a lot of damn dice.

And this isn't one of those builds that's only good at higher levels. Starting from level 1, you're a perfectly solid archer with infinite ammo and a free weapon, and you only get better, especially once you hit level 7 and start adding Wisdom to damage rolls.

The build as a whole is also kinda thematic, as monks and psionics can share similar themes, and using Wisdom to guide your mindbolts into hitting harder and more accurately is pretty awesome. Thoughts?

Here's the dynamic duo, 25 point buy, at level 12. The rogue takes his favored class bonus of 1/6th of a rogue talent, the fighter takes HP. The Swashbuckler archetype gives kukri proficiency and lets you take Combat Trick twice.

Grimm, human Rogue (Swashbuckler) 12

Str 13
Dex 29 (18+2+6+3)
Con 12
Int 13
Wis 10
Cha 7

Feats:
1: Combat Reflexes
B: Two-Weapon Fighting
2: Finesse Rogue (Weapon Finesse)
3: Paired Opportunists
4: Combat Trick (Combat Expertise)
5: Butterfly Sting
6: Combat Trick (Outflank)
6b: Weapon Focus (Kukri)
7: Broken Wing Gambit
8: Offensive Defense talent
9: Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
10: Opportunist advanced talent
11: Improved Critical (Kukri)
12: Feat advanced talent (Seize the Moment)
12b: Entanglement of Blades advanced talent

Equipment: Belt of Incredible Dexterity +6, +1 Agile Menacing Kukri x2
Attack: 18/18/13/13, 1d4+10+6d6 SA (15-20/x2)

Reaper, human Fighter (Polearm Master) 12

Str 25 (16+2+3+4)
Dex 20 (16+4)
Con 12
Int 13
Wis 10
Cha 7

Feats:
1: Combat Reflexes
1b: Combat Expertise
1b: Power Attack
2: Improved Trip
3: Paired Opportunists
4: Fury's Fall
5: Weapon Focus (Guisarme)
6: Outflank
7: Broken Wing Gambit
8: Greater Trip
9: Improved Critical (Guisarme)
10: Critical Focus (Guisarme)
11: Tripping Strike
12: Seize the Moment

Equipment: Belt of Physical Might +4, +3 Guisarme
Attack: +25/+20/+16, 2d4+15 (-4 hit and +12 damage with Power Attack)
+3 to hit with AoOs.

When they're flanking with each other, made easier by Flexible Flanker (so they can stand diagonal from each other and still flank), their attack bonuses go up by +6, with an additional +4 on AoOs. I'm too lazy and bad at math to run a full sim, but assuming both get a full attack with only one crit trigger, you're looking at

2d4+27 (x3) + 1d4+10+6d6 (x4) from the full attacks, with the one rogue crit triggering 6d4+81 damage from Butterfly Sting, which triggers another 2d4+12d6+20 from Outflank and Seize the Moment, which triggers another 3d4+6d6+37 from Paired Opportunists. The fighter crit allows him a free trip, which if successful triggers another 3d4+6d6+37 damage from the provoked AoOs.

Total average damage per round: 482. This gets a lot higher with external buffs (Haste, Heroism, Inspire Courage, etc). That's THREE TIMES the HP of a CR 12 red dragon. With a little party support, in a single round, they could kill a CR 20 Red Dragon Wyrm.

:D I aim to please.

Really, though, the combination is utterly absurd. Combat would go like:

Get into a flank. Rogue full attacks, and if he scores a critical threat (on 15-20), the fighter gets an automatic x4 crit. The crit then triggers Outflank, giving the rogue an AoO, which triggers Paired Opportunist, giving the fighter an AoO. If the rogue crits on that AoO, rinse and repeat until you're out of AoOs, you don't crit threat, or whatever you're fighting is paste.

I had an idea that might be interesting. Musket Master + Trench Fighter, focusing on rifles. Grab a Far-Reaching Sight and a Distance weapon, stack a bunch of static bonuses (Deadly Aim, enhancement, Weapon Training, etc), perhaps UMD some form of scrying, and spend full round actions sniping bad guys from a mile away.

Because Pathfinder obviously needs a Spec Ops sniper PC to make ranged combat even more broken ;)

Usage of the Sap Master/Knockout Artist feats in combination with Enforcer means you could make them shaken for a long, long time.

Alternately, a Thug dealing nonlethal with high crit range weapons and Enforcer has even more ways of rendering an enemy frightened, on top of the sickened condition from Brutal Beating. That also opens up Sneaking Precision and Critical feats to add even more debuffs to your melee attacks.

The Master Summoner archetype not only gives you Augment Summoning for free, it lets you skip Spell Focus (Conjuration), which could be a dead feat depending on your spell selection. A Half-elf Master Summoner going for a Commander build is set up pretty nicely for feats, with the bonus Skill Focus going towards getting his familiar early. At level 3, he'd have Skill Focus, Arcane Heritage, Augment Summoning, AND Combat Reflexes. Pretty solid start, and at that level you wouldn't necessarily start feeling the drag of reduced eidolon level yet.

Some interesting usages of the feats opened up might include Evolved Familiar (fitting, really) to give it Skilled in UMD, further improving your army of personal spellcasters. Boon Companion would also offset the level delay on your familiar. Improved Familiar is of course an excellent choice, as well.

Also of potential note in the races section is the fact that you can have small sized Aasimar/Tieflings with no changes to the base racial stats, only the size. Meaning that an Angelkin Aasimar halfling would be a small sized character with a BONUS to both Strength and Charisma, making it a superb mounted Summoner.

Human Arcane sorcerer, possibly with the Sage bloodline. Stack as much primary casting stat as possible (spells/day). Gifted Adept and Wayang Spellhunter for Magic Missile.

1st level feats are Toppling Spell and Spontaneous Metafocus (Magic Missile).

Metamagic is your friend. Toppling spell, Elemental Spell (cold) + Rime Spell, Echoing spell, Quickened spell. You're not going to be doing much damage, but it will be consistent damage. Tack on as many extra debuffs as you can via metamagic.

You could also do one of those janky Crossblooded Orc/Draconic sorcerers and rely on Elemental Spell to qualify your missiles for the extra dice.

You could make a trio of Android bards.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojYK6CW8gdw[/url]

My question is exactly that. Specifically, the interaction between Throw Anything and the Alchemical Weapon ability of the Grenadier archetype.

Throw Anything
All alchemists gain the Throw Anything feat as a bonus feat at 1st level. An alchemist adds his Intelligence modifier to damage done with splash weapons, including the splash damage if any. This bonus damage is already included in the bomb class feature.

Alchemical Weapon
At 2nd level, a grenadier can infuse a weapon or piece of ammunition with a single harmful alchemical liquid or powder, such as alchemist’s fire or sneezing powder, as a move action. This action consumes the alchemical item, but transfers its effect to the weapon in question.

The alchemical item takes full effect on the next creature struck by the weapon, but does not splash, spread, or otherwise affect additional targets. Any extra damage added is treated like bonus dice of damage, and is not doubled on a critical hit. The alchemical treatment causes no harm to the weapon treated, and wears off 1 minute after application if no blow is struck.

So if I were to infuse, say, an acid flask (a splash weapon) into my arrow and fire it, would it gain the +Intelligence damage modifier from Throw Anything, despite the fact it no longer splashes? The fact that Throw Anything says 'if any' in regards to the splash damage makes me think it works with splash weapons that don't splash.

I'm personally a fan of the Explosive Missile discovery, especially with Grenadier.

Using a heavy crossbow, you could infuse a bolt with an alchemists fire and launch a bomb with that same bolt, for 1d10+1d6 fire + 2d6 bomb + int mod.

Firearms are even better for that trick, since they still resolve against touch AC, but that involves a feat investment.

Then consider a witch. You also get some healing abilities, as well as debuffs and control spells. Great for softening up targets for the bruisers, or preventing incoming damage.

Don't forget humans have the Heart of the Fields alternate racial trait that allows them to add 1/2 their level to a Profession. It lets them ignore fatigue 1/day, too. Because those farmers daughters (or sons, in some cases) really know their stuff, and they have endurance.

Nope, it seems the mechanics are fair game. So, the text of the archetype.

Martial Weapon Proficiency: At 1st level, a grenadier picks one martial weapon to become proficient in the use of. This ability replaces Brew Potion.

Alchemical Weapon (Su): At 2nd level, a grenadier can infuse a weapon or piece of ammunition with a single harmful alchemical liquid or powder, such as alchemist’s fire or sneezing powder, as a move action. This action consumes the alchemical item, but transfers its effect to the weapon in question. The alchemical item takes full effect on the next creature struck by the weapon, but does not splash, spread, or otherwise affect additional targets. Any extra damage added is treated like bonus dice of damage, and is not doubled on a critical hit. The alchemical treatment causes no harm to the weapon treated, and wears off 1 minute after application if no blow is struck. At 6th level, a grenadier can use her alchemical weapon ability as a swift action. At 15th level, this ability becomes a free action. This ability replaces
poison resistance.

Precise Bombs (Ex): At 2nd level, a grenadier gains the precise bombs alchemist discovery as a bonus discovery. This ability replaces poison use.

Directed Blast (Su): At 6th level, a grenadier can detonate a bomb so that it splashes in a 20-foot cone rather than affecting a radius. The cone starts at the alchemist and extends away from her in the direction she chooses. The alchemist designates one creature in the squares affected by the cone to be the target of the bomb and makes her attack roll against that creature; all other squares in the cone take splash damage. If the alchemist has the explosive bomb discovery and throws an explosive directed blast, the cone of splash damage is 30 feet long instead of 20 feet. This ability replaces swift poisoning.

Staggering Blast (Su): At 10th level, a grenadier’s bombs become particularly overwhelming when they explode.Whenever a grenadier scores a successful critical hit with a bomb, the creature directly struck by that bomb is staggered for 1d4+1 rounds. A successful Fortitude save (DC equals the bomb’s Ref lex save DC to avoid splash damage) reduces the duration to 1 round. The effects of this ability stack with a frost bomb’s staggering effect, but not with the effects of the Staggering Critical feat. Additional hits from a staggering blast add to the effect’s overall duration. This ability replaces poison immunity.

I was working up a grenadier recently. The Staggering Blast ability seems like it would play well with the Explosive Missile discovery from UC, as you could potentially get a higher crit range if you fired the bombs through a crossbow.

Magic, in the game, is not just exerting your will to achieve whatever you want. Spells require specific steps to achieve specific results. That's why a wizard can't just write down any gobbledy-g00k he wants to be a spell. He has to do research and find/polish technique. In this way, magic is very similar to science - the only difference is that the laws of reality in a magical world are different from the laws of reality in a scientific world.

Sorcerers would like to have a word with you ;)

I wouldn't mind an alchemist archetype based around firearms/siege engines/explosives. Essentially a high-tech weapons engineer.

While lacking a racial intelligence bonus, gnomes make excellent alchemists. And with Ultimate Combat out, you can have some fun with firearms.

Master Tinker +Gunsmithing +Master Alchemist +Swift Alchemy means that you can make your own firearms and not need to spend a feat on proficiency, and you'll be able to churn out guns and explosives at a prodigious rate.

Add in Pyromaniac and the racial favored class bonus, and you'll make a lot of bombs.

Make yourself a rifle, take the Explosive Missile discovery on top of every other bomb-related discovery you can get, and you'll essentially be pint-sized artillery, shooting high explosive rocket launchers at touch AC.

Half-orc barbarian, follower of Rovagug (with the Sacred Smasher trait). Take the Gatecrasher alternate racial trait and the Smash feat. Wield a Maul of the Titans. Take the Destroyers Blessing feat to regain rage rounds and heal yourself when you sunder things.

I'd personally like to see a sorcerer archetype along the lines of the old 3.5 Warmage. And I mean an actual archetype, not just a bloodline. Limited evocation-centric spell list, armored casting, bonus damage, stuff like that. Because sometimes when I play an arcane character I just want to nuke the hell out of everything.

The presence of archetypes for caster classes doesn't bother me. In fact, I'm glad for it. After all, it is "Ultimate Combat", not "Ultimate Fighter, Barbarian, and Rogue". Pathfinder isn't 4E with clearly defined 'power sources' and appropriate books.

Paladin, ranger, monk, inquisitor, magus, alchemist, they all got archetypes in Ultimate Magic. They're both combat and magical classes.

Nearly of the caster archetypes presented had something to do with the new rules presented in the book or were combat-oriented. Clerics, druids, and bards straddle the line between 'magic' and 'combat' nearly as much as some other classes, so it would have been unfair to exclude them entirely. The new Wizard archetypes were based on new rules presented in the book (siege weaponry and guns), though the Mad Bomber was new, though served to fill space.

Note that the Sorcerer, Oracle, and Witch, all pure casters, didn't get squat.

I'm honestly glad that they didn't just make a book with a whole crapton of archetypes only for the more 'martial' classes (fighter, rogue, barbarian, ranger, cavalier, paladin). Even if it had meant more material per class, the book as a whole would have appealed to a lot less people.

The more classes you can support in a book, the more people are likely to use it, if it covers their favorite class. Otherwise, the book would have very little appeal to anyone who didn't just play Big Dumb Fighter types.

Unless otherwise noted, damage bonuses like that would only apply once per attack, similar to the Evoker Wizards ability. So it would only apply to 1 Scorching Ray, but to every target affected by Fireball.

We actually used this particular combination to great effect in a game of mine. We gave the Muleback Cords to our half-orc barbarian, then buffed him with Bull's Strength, Enlarge Person, and Ant Haul. He had something like an effective 42 Strength for the purposes of carrying capacity while raging, which was then further multiplied by being Large and Ant Haul. Being able to have a party member lift up siege engines and drop them on people's heads with a minor Wondrous item and three low-level spells was pretty absurd (if loads of fun.)

So, after seeing the Gift of Tongues and Magical Linguist alternate racial traits for gnomes, I got myself an idea for a gnome sorcerer who focuses almost entirely on either glyph and/or language dependent spells. Alternately, it could be an Oracle of Lore.

The problem is, on at least a cursory examination of the wizard/sorcerer and cleric spell lists, there are surprisingly few spells with the Language Dependent descriptor.

The ones I was able to find:

0-level
Message

1st
Command
Forbid Action

2nd
none?

3rd:
Suggestion

4th:
Lesser Geas

5th
Geas/Quest
Greater Command
Greater Forbid Action

6th:
none?

7th
none?

8th
none?

9th
none?

That's it. Looking across two of the largest spell lists, for a grand total of 7 spells with the language-dependent descriptor? Am I missing something?

A bit of a long one whose origins I don't recall, but I love it.

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; big men and small character; steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce; fancier houses but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.

Remember, spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember to say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember to say "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak, and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

I'm a fan of Inquisitors making the most out of Intimidate, which means Cornugon Smash, Dazzling Display, and/or Intimidating Prowess. They can also work quite well with the Enforcer feat, letting you punch people to scare them and possibly take them prisoner (synergizes well with a Merciful weapon, if you're the 'take em alive' sort.)

Just an angle to keep in mind for build suggestions and the like, especially for half-orcs who use the favored class bonus.

Half-orcs. I've always been a big fan of the 'noble savage', brutal thug, or war leader characters. And with the Pathfinder changes to half-orcs, they're now completely viable for any class a human could do, and far more interesting. Half-orc wizard? There's an interesting roleplaying concept. Half-orc bard? Savage Skald. Half-orc monk? Focus on calming the 'inner beast'. Half-orc sorcerer? The race just screams 'raw power' being an excellent fit.

Gravity Bow isn't worth it in the slightest, you'd be better off using those rogue talents spent on Major Magic to pick up extra combat feats and sniping-related talents. Archery is unfortunately a bit feat-intensive, as you need Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Deadly Aim, Manyshot, and Improved Precise shot.

Note that afaik you wouldn't be able to use Vital Strike with Shot on the Run, as Vital Strike is a standard action. So he'd just step out, fire a single shot, then stand there. Firing multiple arrows far trumps a single one with double weapon dice, especially if you can get Sneak Attack from range. The jumping in and out of shadows to snipe may work a bit at low levels, but it doesn't scale well at all, and the damage won't be competitive to even a standard full attack.

For a battle oracle (or combat cleric), the spells I'd personally recommend for each level are:

1st: Divine Favor, Bless, Shield of Faith
2nd: Spiritual Weapon, Aid, Grace
3rd: Magic Vestment, Prayer, Wind Wall
4th: Divine Power, Blessing of Fervor, Spiritual Ally
5th: Righteous Might, True Seeing, Disrupting Weapon
6th: Hero's Feast, Blade Barrier, Greater Dispel Magic
7th: Bestow Grace of the Champion, Holy Word, Ethereal Jaunt
8th: Divine Vessel (oracle only), Holy Aura, Greater Spell Immunity
9th: Winds of Vengeance, Overwhelming Presence, Miracle

After 5th level spells, it gets harder to find ones that specifically buff you in melee combat, though some of the lower level spells do scale to a decent degree.

In some cases, RAW trumps RAI regardless, hence why I flagged this thread as FAQ and think other should do the same.

So I decided to play a half-orc Inquisitor of Gorum, but I'm having a hard time deciding just how to build it. This is what I have so far:

Bael, Half-orc Inquisitor of Gorum 9 (heretic archetype)

Str 22 (base 16, +2 racial +2 level +2 magic)
Con 14
Dex 14
Int 12
Wis 16 (base 14 +2 magic
Cha 8

Feats: Power Attack, Weapon focus (falchion), Dazzling Display
Intimidating Prowess, Cornugon Smash, Precise Strike, Outflank, Paired Opportunists

Skills: Intimidate, Perception, Sense Motive, Stealth, Survival, Diplomacy 1/2, Bluff 1/2, Knowledge Nature/Religion 1/2,

HP: 66 (Max 1st, average +1 each level)

Abilities: Inquisition (Heresy), Judgement, Stern Gaze, Lore of Escape, Hide Tracks, Solo Tactics, Detect Alignment, Bane, Discern Lies, Second Judgement

Darkvision 60 ft, Intimidating, Orc Blood, Weapon Familiarity, Orc Ferocity

Favored Class: Inquisitor, bonus going to Intimidate

Items: Belt of Strength +2, Headband of Wisdom +2, Cloak of Resistance +2, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, +2 Falchion, +1 Adamantine Breastplate, lesser metamagic rod of extend, Mwk Composite Longbow (+6 Mighty),
various mundane equipment

Saves: Fort +11, Ref +7, Will +12
AC: 21, DR 2/-
BAB +6/+1

Attack: +2 Falchion +15/+10, 2d4+11 (+13/+8 with PA for 2d4+17) 18-20/x2 crit.

Spells known:
1st: True Strike, Wrath, Divine Favor, Shield of Faith, Bless
2nd: Weapon of Awe, Bloodhound, Flames of the Faithful, Invisibility
3rd: Keen Edge, Righteous Vigor, Heroism, Cure Serious Wounds

What I'm a bit iffy on is the feat selection. Yes, I have a ridiculous Intimidate (+28 right now), but pretty much every single feat is invested in making the most of it, and I feel a bit like a one-trick pony. Is having that kind of Intimidate really worth it, or should I use my feats/favored class bonus for other things, like heavier armor or more HP? Or should I raise my Int a bit, take Combat Expertise/Gang Up and try to make the most of the Teamwork feats?

Basic build guidelines are: 25 point buy, average WBL for level 9 (44k), Core and APG all allowed, other books situationally if I can make a good argument for them.