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I've looked around the Rules Question board and elsewhere online and I've yet to find anything that properly explains what dizzying defence is actually meant to do.

At 15th level, while wielding a light or one-handed piercing melee weapon in one hand, the swashbuckler can spend 1 panache point to take the fighting defensively action as a swift action instead of a standard action. When she fights defensively in this manner, the dodge bonus to AC gained from that action increases to +4, and the penalty to attack rolls is reduced to –2.

At first it seemed pretty straight forward - you get to make all of your attacks at a -2 penalty but get +4 to AC as a swift action (basically improved fighting defensively). However, looking at the fighting defensively as a standard action rules, the whole fighting defensively thing seems kinda weird; for reference, these are the fighting defensively as a standard action rules:

You can choose to fight defensively when attacking. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC until the start of your next turn.

For one, I'm not sure how this is meant to work as if you've spent your standard action to fight defensively then you can't attack besides AoOs; the rules (RAW) don't say you make an attack, just that your attacks are at a penalty and this costs you a standard action (a bit like the problem with monkey lunge).

With dizzying defence making it a swift action, couldn't you apply the penalties after you've attacked (meaning the penalties are just for AoOs)? I've also heard people say it gives you an extra attack as a swift action - I don't think this is right as fighting defensively never says it gives you an attack, but I'm not sure as it's suggested a lot that it does. Is it just improved fighting defensively?

An FAQ on this would have been really appreciated from Paizo.

Just checking as one of my players asked and I couldn't find any clarification online: are the deeds a gunslinger can do detirmined by gunslinger level or character level?

The text in question is "A gunslinger can only perform deeds of her level or lower". It sounds like it's character level to me, but I'm not certain if there's something obvious I'm missing.

Thanks

I tried to find a straight answer for this but I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for.

As far as I know, weapon enchantments do stack. However, there are a few things I'm unclear on:

1) let's say that a barbarian wanted a greatsword with +1 flaming and +1 frost. Does this cost an extra 4000gp (because the two +1 abilities are 2000gp each) or does it cost 8000gp as the two +1s add up to a +2 bonus?

2) let's say this barbarian wants a +1 flaming and a +1 frost sword, but only has 2000gp on him. He goes with flaming and then loots a few villages and comes back with some more money. Could he add the +1 frost bonus to his flaming sword, and if so, how much for?

EDIT:

3) another question I was just discussing with the GM. The defending weapon enchantment says:

A defending weapon allows the wielder to transfer some or all of the weapon's enhancement bonus to his AC as a bonus that stacks with all others. As a free action, the wielder chooses how to allocate the weapon's enhancement bonus at the start of his turn before using the weapon, and the bonus to AC lasts until his next turn. This ability can only be placed on melee weapons.

If there was a +1 flaming and +1 defending sword, could the weilder add 2 as a bonus to their armour class?

The last session I ran was quite a bloody one, and a PC and animal companion died. The problem is that I'm not sure if I'm being to harsh on the players, as the player whose animal companion died felt as if it was unfair. I know this would normally be a discussion to have with the player in question, but I've already asked them and we can't come to an agreeable conclusion.

Background info:

Level 4 party, only two of them were in the area as the party had split. The two party members were a grippli charging build on a roc, and a dwarf Warpriest.

An undead megaraptor (stats reduced to 20hp and 14AC) rose from a pile of bones. The grippli got the higher initiative, then the dwarf, and then the raptor. The grippli decided to try to diplomacy the raptor, and the dwarf ran. The raptor was unintelligent undead, and pounced and rolled a 17 and 18 against the roc with its talons (2d6+6 each), and killed it.

The problem came because, through two very lucky dice rolls, the animal companion was killed in one shot. The grippli was given chance to run away (which they did) and the raptor did not follow.

***

I felt bad for killing the roc, but I'm not sure what else I could have done. What I want to know was if this was too harsh, and if lucky rolls came up again and could kill a character/companion, what to do?

So, in the group I GM for, one of the players wants to play an evil character who will have goals that will most likely go against the party. We have a few house rules on PvP:
-nonlethal PvP is okay, so you can knock someone out. Only time this isn't okay is in the middle of an encounter (because a knock out could mean Dragon food)
-lethal PvP is okay, so long as all involved agree with it, and what it could mean for their character
-betrayal is okay so long as I'm informed beforehand, so I can prepare. Betrayal in this sense isn't literal stabbing in the back, rather leading the party/a character into a less than ideal situation (that I'll create, so it's not totally damming and some could stuff can come out of it)

Basically, with those rules in mind, I'm looking for advice on how best to handle an evil PC who will most likely betray the party - tips on what restrictions to set would be appreciated as I've never GM'd for something like this before, and have only played in a game where a Stabby McBackstab couldn't keep it in his sheath (a boss fight isn't a fun time to be colour sprayed - this was not following the aforementioned PvP rules), and I don't want it becoming like that.

The player hasn't written a backstory yet, so I can't give much more information, but they do know the PvP rules, and so I reckon they'll be looking to set up a betrayal.

A player and I were looking at the feat animal ally:

Prerequisites: Nature Soul, character level 4th, must not have an animal companion or mount that advances as an animal companion.

Benefit: You gain an animal companion as if you were a druid of your character level –3 from the following list: badger, bird, camel, cat (small), dire rat, dog, horse, pony, snake (viper), or wolf. If you later gain an animal companion through another source (such as the Animal domain, divine bond, hunter's bond, mount, or nature bond class features), the effective druid level granted by this feat stacks with that granted by other sources.

At first it seemed simple enough, but then it was pointed out that, by RAW would it be possible to have a very high levelled animal companion through this. The reasoning was that your animal companion is 3 levels lower than your character (so a level 4 fighter with this feat could have a level 1 dog), and that the druid level from this feat stacks with other animal companion classes. So let's say the fighter character is level 5, and he took is 5th level in Hunter. His character level -3 is now 2, and his Hunter level that is stacking is now 1, meaning that the animal companion should be level 3. If this character went to level 20 with all of their levels in Hunter, their Hunter level would be 16, and their character level -3 would be 17, and if this stacks, then the animal companion level is 33.

This isn't to say this is how the feat was meant to work, or that it should ever be allowed to work that that, but is it a valid interpretation of RAW?

I know that people generally accept that spellstrike can be used with a two handed weapon, but what about spell combat with a one handed weapon that you use a free action after casting the spell in your off hand to grip with both hands, gaining a 1.5x strength bonus.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but would it work for a Magus to use spell combat to cast a spell with their off hand (which is free), use a free action to grab their one handed weapon with two hands after casting the spell (so in between the full round action), and attacking with 1.5x str. Basically, is the casting of the spell in spell combat simultaneous with the attack, and could I interrupt it with a free action to grab my sword with two hands?

Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, but when looking for it, I couldn't find an accepted conclusion.

A player in one of my games wants to play a Juju Oracle, which I'm fine with, but I'm not totally clear on if he can control his juju zombies without a command undead spell.

Sorry, it's probably got an obvious and easy to find answer, but I've heard people say yes and no. He says he can, but I'm not sure where he got that from. The undead he's control are devils, so they wouldn't be very happy about him killing them and forcing them to be his undead slaves.

I've seen a lot of people claim that CR isn't actually very useful when determining the challenge of an encounter, especially at higher levels. But I'm not sure how true these claims are; at high levels, yes, CR does get thrown out of the window pretty quickly, but what about lower levels? And at what level does CR become obsolete?

I don't know if this is a common occurrence in groups, but the discussion of whether we should allow PvP in our group came up, and it made me wonder what the general consensus was on the matter. I personally dislike it as I think it can get out of hand (with people making characters specifically to get revenge on the character who killed them, and sometimes simply fun being ruined because of one That Guy), but others in the group have argued that it adds more to the realism of the adventure.

Please note that this isn't me asking for advice on PvP in the group I play in (that's all sorted), but rather what do people think of player versus player combat in general?

Hi, I'm new to this forum so if this is the wrong place to ask then I apologise in advance :)

Anyway, I was recently asked by my players to GM a level 20 mythic adventure for them in the same vein as God of War (basically, having open season on gods and demon lords). The only problem is that, well, I'm not all too sure how difficult I should make it; I want it to challenge the players, and for every important fight to be at least a little epic, but I don't want the players to die immediately.

But, first of all, the players:

The players rolled their stats through 2d20-lowest, and at the end of that they could choose to replace any stat with a 20. All races and classes (as well as archetypes) were available, and all but the leadership feat is okay; in addition to this, adding a template (such as half Dragon) to their character did not cost levels, but instead cost money (they started with the standard 880,000gp). I wanted to let people have 'OP' characters, and I encouraged them to experiment with different builds.

The characters are a merfolk arcane bloodline sorcerer, a merfolk mongrel mage, a suli skald, a human commoner, maybe an orc Abyssal bloodrager, and a human wizard (as well as an as of now unmade Drow noble necromancy-focused cleric). Unfortunately I can't remember their stats or build off by heart.

The players themselves aren't inexperienced - they have played quite a few games before - but they're certainly not veterans (if I were to take a guess, I'd say they've been playing for on average a year).

With that in mind, I'm not sure how difficult to make the fights; I've got an idea of who they're going against, the tarrasque and Cerberus are examples, and I want to end with Lucifer - by then they'd be mythic tier 10 - but I don't know how tricky I should make the battles themselves. Eg, for a fight with a demon Lord, would it be unfair (and more importantly unfun) for the demon lord to summon a load of demon critters and then stand at the back and cast, or could (with their stats and class in mind) they only handle a demon Lord if said Lord was getting up close and personal without mooks (which would make it easier). Another example is how smart should I make a creature with 30something intelligence (something I definitely do not have) without it coming off as deus ex machina - should I make them trick the players and target their weakspots that aren't immediately apparent, or play them as simply talking brutes? Basically, as all of the baddies I've GM'd before have been unintelligent monsters that were never meant to be very difficult (I'm probably too forgiving of a GM), I'm stuck on the best (by that I mean most challenging in a fun way) way to play superintelligent god-like beings, or even how to make a difficult fight that isn't too difficult as for it to be unfair.

tl;dr I've never ran a level 20 campaign before, now I am, I don't know the best way to play difficult monsters and to create challenging situations. Please help :)