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OK, I've been looking over the Alchemical weapons section when it hit me...is there any reason an alchemist couldn't combine a Thunderstone with a Pellet Grenade and Flash powder into a single grenade that explodes when it strikes a hard surface and combines all three effects? It would, of course, cost as much as all 3 items combined, and weigh 2 LBs (the weights of all 3 items combined) but it would be very effective against casters or ranged weapon users (Blinded, Deafened, and taking 3D6 damage)- since the Thunderstone/Flash powder combo is the actual trigger, the slow burning fuse isn't necessary, so there would be no 1-3 round delay or move action required, just throw and forget.

Herein lies the tale of my Samsaran Spiritualist's first (and last, probably) Psychic Duel.

Our 4th level party was asked by a high level priest to lie in wait and watch a meeting between him and someone he didn't trust, and to take action if the individual attacked him.

My spiritualist had just picked up the "instigate Psychic Duel" spell, and so, during our surprise round on the enemy (who drew a weapon to attack the priest, so as they say "it was on", I cast it, figuring it was effectively the best crowd control spell we had on hand.

Well, it turns out the mysterious stranger was a level 15 (!) Spellcaster, who failed the will save, and for the first round of combat I rolled abysmally awfully on initiative, while he rolled only a little better.

So the party was hacking away at him while he was flat footed, and his turn comes around. Cue a re-enactment of the first scene of the movie "Scanners" (Yes, THAT ONE ) and let's say my character was NOT Jack Nicolson's character) One 8th level spell slot and 16D6 untyped damage to my spiritualist, and both he and his phantom were, as they say, History.

OK, I did mention my character was a Samsaran, right? So when the priest tried to bring him back, his soul had, as per his race, already moved on.

The GM was unprepared for this (though he should have taken the possibility of the Samsaran going down into account in a level 15 VS level 4 fight) so he simply had the priest use Miracle to effectively undo the death.

Would this work? If so, what effect would it have on the Samsaran, whose spirit was reincarnated, then yanked out of its body and crammed back into its old one by a paradox-like divine equivalent of a wish?

Now Phantoms can't wear physical armor due to "interferance"...but can you cast "Mage Armor" on one to give it a +4 Armor bonus to armor class?

Hi, I want to make a spiritualist whose phantom is a martial artist. Looking through the feats, the only effective style that a phantom (given their static unchangable stats) would qualify for would be Scorpion style.

However,

Under the description for a phantom, it says their attacks are always considered slams, even if they appear to be armed.

Does this mean that even if it takes the "Improved Unarmed Strikes" feat, its attacks are NOT "unarmed Strikes" and thus cannot trigger things like Scorpion Strike, Gorgon Strike, Medusa's wrath, etc?

Looking at the recently updated PRD, I'm seeing some things that I thought Paizo has said they weren't planning to do with Pathfinder - Haven't they said they weren't interested in doing cyberpunk or Sci Fi? I'm pretty sure I've seen that in the annual contest rules or something...Our gamemasters don't even want to include the psionics rules, and now we're going to wind up with laser rifles in the standard Pathfinder rules?

orcs VS Space marines?

Orc Space marines?

Sounds a bit too much like Ralph Bakshi's "Wizards" to me...

Ebon eye doesn't appear to directly affect casting, just the ability to see clearly in certain conditions...why couldn't you put this on, say, a Gunslinger or Ranger to limit their ranged attacks in bright conditions?

Most spellblights specifically affect spellcasting in some way, but Ebon Eye seems like a generic kind of curse that could hamper anyone, not just casters...if you were putting it on someone with Bestow Curse or Major Curse, I would think that, since it is the right power to be such a curse, you could put it on anyone (Most spellblights, you wouldn't bother putting them on someone like a barbarian, since they specifically mess up casting.)

I'm setting up an underwater entrance to a dungeon, and I want to set up the following trap:

Airlock Trap

However, I haven't done any physics in a long, long, time. Can anyone crunch some numbers and figure out how many atmospheres of pressure would be required to displace that 25,000 cubic feet of water at sea level?

Also, if that much pressure was suddenly released, how severe would the decompression sickness ("The Bends") Be? Actual damage, or more of a "Fort save or sickened for 1D4 minutes?"

And yes, this is a high level dungeon...this trap would kill anyone less than level 10 outright most likely.

I want to be fair, and one of the PCs has built himself an Iron Golem, and wants to use it to help him build a castle outside of town.

How does this sound as a house rule for this kind of thing?

Using Constructs to perform labor or produce goods:

Unlike Followers, Constructs are unaffected by Leadership scores and typically just do what they are told with no particular inspiration or initiative. On the plus side, they are capable of working without rest all day and night if necessary.

The Downtime system assumes that the player character is the one trading or working for goods, influence, Labor, or magic. If the player character has access to a construct or other source of “Free” labor that can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, each such construct can produce 5 points of labor or goods per day, provided they have a skill or talent appropriate to that labor or good. If the construct has no skill but instead simply does what it is told, it can only produce 3 points of goods or labor per day, and should be given careful instructions on what to do when a task is completed in order to avoid the “Sorcerer's Apprentice” effect, where the construct continues with a task long after it ceases to be beneficial and perhaps even becomes dangerous or harmful.

This is the equivalent of taking a 10 on a skill check 3 times per day for the unskilled construct and rolling and assuming an average roll of 15-20 for the skilled construct, adjusting for the skilled construct's extra skill. Constructs cannot produce Influence or Magic capital. Also, Constructs perform the actual labor or produce the actual goods themselves, instead of bargaining with other NPCs. Unless instructed to do so, constructs will not take the initiative to perform repairs or maintenance if some event occurs that impedes their work.

For example, a construct ordered to dig a moat around a castle won't stop to repair or replace its shovel or other digging tools if it is broken unless it was instructed to do so, and will continue to attempt to dig the moat without tools, reducing its labor output significantly, it will also continue to work if it rains, possibly becoming mired in mud and risking collapse of the moat, and if it completes the moat and receives no further instructions, it will continue to make the moat deeper and (unless it has engineering skill and has been instructed to reinforce the sides of the moat) the moat may collapse by being made too deep, possibly burying the construct in the process.

Using a construct for large construction projects may cause some resentment among local workers who may see it as stealing their rightful wages, and may retaliate by raising the price of influence capital, or even sabotaging the work.

For example, a bunch of ditch diggers may sneak in at night and fill in parts of the moat while the construct is busy working in another area, possibly un-doing days worth of the construct's efforts, or even hire a gang of thugs to attack and damage or destroy the construct. The PC may find himself being snubbed by local merchants, or worse, charged excessive prices for everything they purchase.

Players should consider carefully what sorts of tasks to have a construct perform, perhaps limiting it to particularly dirty or dangerous tasks that the locals wouldn't want to do anyway, or limit it to working out of sight of the locals, doing interior and underground work for example. (Then again, The PC could find himself confronted by some surly dwarf miners, informing them that they know the sound of mining operations when they hear it and why not hire some REAL miners instead of “handing a pick to some rusty tin can of a golem.”)

Why couldn't a wizard cast a Wall of Iron horizontally, to act as a bridge over a chasm, or as a floor or ledge merged with a wall or cliffside (or upward at an angle to act as a ramp?) I know the spell assumes you're using it to act as a barrier between you and a monster, or to drop on someone, but I see no reason why you couldn't use it for something more utilitarian.

Potions are nice and all, but there is one variation that don't seem to have a direct rule: generic Philters.

Also, there are some contradictions in the rules for brewing potions:

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/magicItems/magicItemCreation.html - Says it takes 1 day.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/feats.html#_brew-potion - Says 2 hours for low cost (250GP or less) potions, or 1 day per 1000GP for expensive ones.

Currently there is only one "Philter" listed, and it's treated as a Wondrous Item rather than the potionlike item it actually is.

The special "Philter of Love" is fine as far as it goes, but it makes no sense that it couldn't be brewed as a potion in a weaker form. The main issue is that it's a Charm Monster effect with permanency and no save, and normal potions are limited to level 3 or lower.

A Generic Philter would be a highly concentrated potion that can be mixed into food or drink like an ingested poison (Would replace the normal save with Fortitude) - because it's more concentrated, it would have multiple doses in a bottle (Say, 5 doses, at 5 times the cost in ingredients and time) and could be produced in powdered form so it could be mixed into a spice like salt, pepper, ginger, etc. Philters would usually be offensive effects like Charm, Sleep, Reduce Person, etc, though there is no reason you couldn't put a helpful effect in your pepper shaker to make it seem harmless. (Insert "Red Bull Gives you Wings" joke here)

Just like a normal potion, the brewer defines the effects. For example, a Charm Person Philter could be "set" to charm the consumer to the first creature it sees, or to the brewer of the philter (though that would be less useful, since it makes it harder for the brewer's allies to use.)

And how about magical poisons? They could work by concentrating the potion even more, creating a poison that casts a spell on the victim instead of having a "normal" poison effect. Considering some of the nasty things poison can do to a character (Draining constitution or other stats for example), casting a spell on them is comparatively mild. Like brewing all potions, magical poison can be quite expensive. They would substitute the usual save for a FORT save (this would make Philters just an ingested version of a magical poison.)

OK, my alchemist wants to try making these for the party's rogue, who is jealous of his bomb class feature and has taken to carrying around kegs of gunpowder, much to the nervousness of the rest of the party:

Thunderflash (Impact triggered) Grenades:

This is simply any of the normal grenades (Fuse or pellet) fitted with a Thunderstone and flash powder instead of a fuse to ignite the charge.

When the grenade strikes a hard target (or is struck) the Thunderstone, flash powder, and the grenade's normal effects go off.

10 foot radius. DC 15 Reflex halves damage, Fort 13 save or be blinded for 1 round, Fort 15 save or deafened for 1 hour. (yes, basically it is a medieval flash-bang that goes off on impact.)

One new type of grenade: substituting glass shards for the pellets used in pellet grenades. The shards do slash damage instead of pierce damage.

The augmented grenades are heavier (2 LB each) and would be thrown like a splash weapon with a 10 foot radius and a range increment of 20 feet.

Add 80GP to the base cost of the grenade for the appropriate ingredients. Crafting it is a DC 25 Craft (Alchemy) check.

Since this combines 3 alchemy items into one item, would that raise the DC of the crafting check (Maybe +1 per item added, for a total of 27 instead?) or would it be (as I computed it to be) the DC of the highest DC item incorporated?