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So I bought the adventurer's guide the other day, and I liked the book a lot until I got to the Sanguine Angel. The class requires Improved Shield Bash and Iron Will (trash feats), plus weapon focus longsword and a gender requirement, so I wasn't particularly interested right off the bat.

Then I saw what it could pick up at level 2: Furious Huntress, which gives STRENGTH TO ATTACK ROLLS WITH BOWS.

This is the first instance of this ability which literally makes a bunch of brand new archery builds all by itself, AND YOU PUT IT ON A PRC WITH LITERALLY NO TIES TO ARCHERY AT ALL WITH A BUNCH OF UNRELATED FEAT REQUIREMENTS AND STUPID FLAVOR REQUIREMENTS!!!!!

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?!?!?!?!

You could have put this on an archery based barbarian prc or archetype and made my day, but instead you staple it onto a completely unusable PrC that has nothing to do with archery. WHY?!?!

I'm so sick of having to cherry pick abilities from behind pointless gating or places that make no sense to come from just to do something new and interesting. I'm tired of stupid inconsistent and illogical rules FAQs that change how rules should intuitively work to cut off what you percieve to be overpowered (Changing Dex to Dmg so you can only get 1.5x with 2handed on an Unchained rogue, but no 2x dex from other sources, this is a stupid ruling).

Why do you keep doing these things? Why do I need to jump through so many damn hoops just to get a basic uninteresting but otherwise ESSENTIAL STATS BUFF? If you're worried about power level, it's way too late, because the scaling in pathfinder is already way too out of control. It's far too easy to deal hundreds of damage in a round past level 9 or so.

I'm really tired of these stupid senseless choices, the unintuitive nature of classes and rulings that are only made to clearly cut off specific build paths.

does empower spell increase the number of rays fired, do the number of rays count as a variable numeric effect?

After trying really hard to build a bunch of different half-caster classes, I noticed a fairly annoying trend:

Half Casters like to hit things, but in order to hit things well, they need to sacrifice their spellcasting stat to the point where the only spells worth casting are usually self or party buffs, movement/utility spells or spells that have no saves attached. You could choose to max your casting stat and sacrifice your offense, but at that point you are failing to leverage one of the biggest advantages of your class in order to still be a sub-par spellcaster compared to full casters, it sort of feels like that path is a trap.

Some classes might be able to get away with it more than others, the bard in particular due to inspire courage might be in the best position to sacrifice physical stats, but the bard's spell list isn't really built for being a battle-caster unless you take the Arrowsong Minstrel archetype, which gives up a lot of it's utility.

But the question is, is this a solvable problem? Giving Half-Casters their casting stat to hit and damage would let them use their spells to full effect, but also force them into the realm of SAD full casters inhabit and probably make them too strong. Smaller things like giving casting stat based health bumps, adding it to AC instead of dex or changing some saves to a casting stat might alleviate some of the MADness, but it's a delicate balance.

Or perhaps people think this isn't a problem at all, but simply how half-casters need to function in order to be balanced, I'm genuinely curious what people think about this issue and if there is a good solution to it.

I'm not super knowledgeable when it comes to playing the half-caster classes, but I do know that a lot of the traditional fighting styles (two weapon fighting, archery) tend to suck up a lot of feat slots and on a half caster using his early feats to do class or ability score related shenanigans, like an Eldritch Scion Magus taking Noble Scion and Desna's Shooting Star, or taking weapon finesse/focus into piercing or slashing grace, or a bard taking flagbearer and lingering performance.

What do people find to the best, or at least most efficient and useful combat feats to be picking up as a half caster?

Obviously this varies greatly by build, but I'm not really sure where I'd want my half casting class to go later on in terms of combat options, or when I don't necessarily need them. For example, If you're a magus and plan on using spell combat or spellstrike all the time, is it best just to take things that modify basic attacks, or do you branch out and look for a secondary option to use when you're not spell-swording?

is there a feat for multiclassed monks that increases your stunning fist attempts per day? I know there used to be a similar thing in 3.5, but i'm not sure if pathfinder ever made one.

So ever since I bought the Divine Anthology I've wanted to use Desna's Shooting Star as a Skeletal Champion LG Paladin of Desna. The whole concept was essentially to be a master of all things charisma, and the character despite his "condition" was a chipper, goofy knight named Fortescue (nod to MediEvil if anyone's played it) who in my head sounds a lot like John Cleese. He lost most of his memories and was "adopted" by an order of paladins. All he knew was that they found him with a symbol of desna and has taken desna as his goddess, since he feels lucky to have been given a second chance, despite having to constantly struggle with the dark urges of his undead nature.

I've found it rather difficult however to get my DM to consider the character due to the template. I can understand why, undead have a lot of really powerful immunities, and the Everything Charisma route while heavy on multiclassing leads to being serviceable to powerful at almost everything.

On the other hand, my current character is a big dumb brick of a barbarian that has one-shot pretty much everything it hits. So far I dislike the character because it has no RP value at all and exists purely because I'm not fond of starting at level 1 and couldn't make up my mind on a character.

To the question at hand though, do any other DMs allow or have allowed in the past characters to take templates? If so which ones? have any of them added to your games instead of detracting from them? Have they been a good source of roleplaying fodder?

So the concept of these builds exists purely for the purpose of showing off the exponential effect of having a large pool of stacking bonuses available for use, but the result is still pretty absurd even though these builds really aren't that well optimized.

So those are just two examples of how pathfinder can become a game of layering stacking bonuses as much as possible. While these two builds aren't really playable, you can see the thought process that goes into creating any other character with an absurdly high stat in them. Other builds are far more practical, but those tiny bonuses are still there, adding up and up and up until suddenly you have an unhittable monster that deals hundreds of damage, or has a spell or crowd control ability save DC of 46.

I'm beginning to think this might be a serious problem lurking under the hood of the basic pathfinder game mechanics, and I'm curious if others feel the same way

This might actually be more appropriate in the homebrew section, I wasn't sure which it should go in. I was thinking about taking a weed whacker to the feat system the next time I DM'd a pathfinder campaign and I was looking for some advice on whether or not my ideas are sound or might lead to catastrophic results as far as power level goes. I've always hated having a bunch of filler feats required to get to really cool stuff, it basically means only the fighter gets to play with a lot of them. On top of that I've never accepted the idea that the fighter's exclusive feats were somehow vital to the integrity to the class, they just take away from options other classes should have access to, fighters are always going to be terrible, feat exclusivity won't change that.

Below are the changes I was thinking about, let me know if you think I've torn a hole in the space time continuum somehow or opened pandora's munchkin box of game ruining. Or if you like the idea and think I've missed something else bloaty, let me know.

~~~~~

Fighter level requirements become BAB requirements

Power Attack/Deadly Aim/Piranha Strike, Combat Expertise, Mounted Combat and Two-Weapon Fighting: become basic combat mechanics.

Point Blank Shot: rolled into precise shot, feats that required point blank shot no longer do.

Critical Focus: removed for being terrible

Mobility: removed for being terrible.

Dodge & Combat Reflexes: dodge is rolled into combat reflexes, any feat that required dodge requires combat reflexes instead. I wanted to make combat reflexes a basic game mechanic originally, but I thought that might change the combat dynamic too much if everyone could possibly have 2 or more opportunity attacks each round.

Endurance & Diehard: rolled into Toughness for being kinda boring

Spell Focus: no longer a requirement for any feats. While spell focus was thematically appropriate for most feats, mechanically speaking it didn't make much sense for those schools who didn't rely on bumping spell DCs.

+2 to two skills and +2 to a save feats: removed as prerequisites for being pure unadulterated bloaty garbage, with the exception of the improved +2 saves feats.

~~~~~

So I've been doing some theorycrafting on builds for our Rise of the Runelords campaign, and the more I build I seem to feel like multiclassing is almost never worth it compared to whatever the appropriate archetype is for your build. For example, looking at a two handed fighter at 20th level, versus Bloodrager 1 / Twohanded Fighter 5 / Sentinel 6 / Furious Guardian 8, while my flat damage is higher, I lose out on the 19th level capstone of 2H fighter which pretty much guarantees automatic crits, plus a bunch of extra feats. The only real benefit it seems is having higher reflex and will saves.

When I built a mythic vital striker for our wrath of the righteous campaign, I originally built it as Ora 1 / Pal 2 / Rngr 1 / 2H Fighter 6 so I could capitalize on having a high charisma and massive strength score, but the build actually ended up better as a straight Swashbuckler since I could both defend and hit everything with dex, keep a little charisma reliance and still had a lot of really good class features to back it up.

I wanted to replace the same character with a Magus (Eldritch Archer) / Arcane Archer so I wasn't just a damage machine. The split between dex, int and str was too much of a burden, my spellcasting took a hit and demons were resistant or immune to all my damage, so instead I rolled up a straight cleric, got wisdom to hit/damage with mythic guided hand, and still had fantastic spell power to back it up with on the utility front.

So far my experience in pathfinder is that there is almost always a better option than multiclassing to do what you want to do, unless what you want to do is explicitly done by multiclassing (Mystic Theurge, for example). The rules inherently punish it with the exception of a few things like the half-elf's multitalented trait and the Magical Knack trait.

So I have to ask, when is it actually worth it to multiclass?

So I built an orc bloodrager recently, my DM allowed me to have a badger familiar and I've basically used to to bust up the character. I gave it the valet archetype, took Amplified Rage so I could hit 30 strength while raging (The badger holds a permanent readied action to cut himself upon combat starting). I also took ranks in ride, so my badger is intelligent, also gets my ranks in ride, and rides me, so he can use the ride skill to negate hits (lol).

My other group broke the game because the DM messed up. He gave us a version of potion of love that has no save and "dominates" things (by making them obsessed with the user). So naturally the party barbarian throws it at an elder brain and ends up making the entire illithid hive his love slaves (the amount of tentacle hentai jokes that followed were the icing on the cake).

is there any way to get a style feat like dragon style that works on unarmed strikes, to work with a weapon or monk weapon? I was disappointed to find that monk weapons aren't naturally interchangeable with abilities requiring unarmed strikes.

I'm not familiar enough with witches and hexes to know all their options, but is there a way to gain a witch hex that doesn't involve a specific class archetype or leveling into witch? A feat or item perhaps?

So the site I kept my Wrath of the Righteous character on recently had a catastrophic data failure just as we were about to start the last book. I'm having trouble deciding what variety of minmaxed horror show I want to play (we're all doing it, may as well keep it up) so I'm basically just asking for an open call on ideas. I've got a few thoughts, most of them revolving around abusing Mythic Guided Hand or Mythic Vital Strike, or both. Or just becoming an unstoppable god of unlimited spells, but I'm curious what cool stuff other people could come up with for such a high powered character.

| So I was playing around with the idea of what Shadowrun's priority
| system would look like if applied to pathfinder. My rendition is almost
| certainly not balanced but I put it together to get a feel for the idea
|
| Then realized I have no bloody idea how to make a table on this forum
*
Priority Race Abilities Class Skills Wealth

A Core + Template CR+1 30 pt buy Wizard, Arcanist, Druid 10 + Int Mod/lvl 5000 gp
31-40 RP Cleric, Witch, Shaman

B 21-30 RP 25 pt buy Sorcerer, Oracle, Bard, Skald 8 + Int Mod/lvl 2500 gp
Magus, Summoner,

C 16-20 RP 20 pt buy Alchemist, Investigator, Warpriest, 6 + Int Mod/lvl 1000 gp
Inquisitor, Hunter, Paladin, Ranger, Bloodrager

D Advanced 15 RP or less 15 pt buy Barbarian, Swashbuckler, Brawler, Slayer, Gunslinger 4 + Int Mod/lvl 500 gp

E Core Only 10 pt buy Fighter, Rogue, Monk/UCM, Cavalier, Samurai 2 + Int Mod/lvl 100 gp

~~~~~

If you can follow that mess, I'm impressed. The basic gist of priority is that each piece of character creation gets assigned a priority from A through E, and the strength of each is based on the assigned priority. I made this assuming it was for a 1st level party, although if you pick priority A for race, technically you might not be CR 1 (handwave) but the general idea of priority is no matter what you pick everyone ends up relatively balanced against each other by the end of it.

The class selection looks a bit like a tier list, both intentionally and not so intentionally. I figured the simpler classes (mechanically and thematically) should end up on the lower end of the spectrum. That and magic takes a great deal of devotion, so if you want the most powerful magic, you miss out on other stuff.

This is all basically personal discretion, but it seemed a neat thought experiment.

also if anyone knows how to fix that table, it would be greatly appreciated. In the mean time, quote my post and copy it whole cloth into notepad and you'll be able to at least read it without your eyes bleeding.

i've been looking but can't find anything, does anyone know of a small race that has an option to grab a bonus feat like a human?

so I wanted to be a fire focused blaster mage for a camapign coming up, and I asked my DM for a Firebolt cantrip that's identical to ray of frost or acid splash. He wants me to use the spell research rules which would cost an absolutely outrageous 500 gp and a week of time in game instead of starting with it.

First of all, it's a cantrip, it's going to be useless in two levels, and second it's turning cold or acid into fire damage, which is essentially a nerf because more things are resistant/immune to fire damage than anything else.

Do other DMs find this unreasonable? because I certainly do, Firebolt should already exist as far as I'm concerned.

so yeah, I cant seem to edit my posts because the button is missing, anyone else?

EDIT: naturally, I post this and it comes running back, typical

EDIT 2: informal bug report then I guess?

EDIT 3: nope wait, the edit button is still gone on all of my other posts, WHUUUT?

Pathfinder has tons and tons of options, but I know theres still quite a few character concepts out there that the rules either have hobbled really badly or just never bothered supporting.

The Sniper is probably one of the best examples of something the rules constantly get in the way of, you need to jump through a lot of hoops just to be competent at it because of how stealth works. Stealth in general honestly is really hard to do if you plan to drop any bodies because the system really doesn't want you to one shot things out of stealth, single attack damage generally doesn't keep up with HP very well, so being a Corvo style character is pretty hard.

I also really like the idea of the Eldritch Archer, but my god bow rules make them MAD as all hell. They need Dex to hit, Str for damage, Int for spells, and Con to stay alive, and they can't really go the typical archer route of making tons of attacks because casting spells through or alongside arrows generally requires a full round. Focused Shot would be great if it didn't require a standard to activate, the most you can hope is your DM lets you use it with ranged spellstrike/ranged spell combat anyway.

And of course, there's the Pure shapeshifter, The copycat, the mimic, the guy whose only skills are your skills. This really doesn't exist in pathfinder, and the way polymorph spells give you creature abilities is awful, they could at least update the spells so that when new creatures come out you dont need DM permission to take their abilities that aren't on the list.

What other concepts have you found the rules getting in the way of, or just straight up ignoring?

So we had a character creation session for rise of the runelords last night, a week before which I said I'd be rolling up krugthunk the orc barbarian of hitting things really hard. I get there last night and our newer player says he's rolling up a cavalier, two front liners, I can deal with that. my buddy to my left then goes "im rolling up a monk or a fire kineticist" ... okay, three primarily damage dealing characters, well maybe the cleric and the wizard can make up for it. Our regular cleric then announces "I dont want to play a cleric again, I'm rolling up a fighter" and I wanted to smash my recently surgically repaired head into the table because the last time this guy played a martial, he basically just ran into every fight head first and immediately got downed because he has no defense, no damage and no idea how to play a martial. Everyone said "well you don't have to switch" but when we're looking down the barrel of a party that has basically no useful skills and no useful magic, I feel like switching made me the only sane person in the room.

So now I've essentially said screw it, I'm rolling up an illusion focused arcanist with a bunch of face skills, not because I wanted to, but because I just couldn't get anyone to work with me on roles except the one guy who wasnt there that night who texted "I'll fill" which might be our only saving grace. How do you deal with this type of thing?

This seems to be a subject that comes up a lot, and I was thinking, maybe it would be beneficial to compile a list of what the highest possible AC, Damage, Saves, Bluff, Intiative etc. etc. etc. is at first level. We should probably stick to paizo material, starting gold (traits like rich parents count) and to permanent bonuses only (things like class features and fighting defensively are, technically permanent because they require no gold and you can do it whenever you need to most).

Highest AC: So far I'm looking at a Gathlain Fighter with Defender of the Society, Dodge, and Shield Focus, wearing four mirror armor /w an armored kilt and a tower shield, with a total AC of 10 + 7 armor + 5 shield + 2 Dex + 1 size/natural/trait/dodge, for a total of 28 or 30 when fighting defensively. This comes at a costly -2 or -4 to attack rolls, but you could choose to go heavy shield and have 26 AC without the penalty.

Damage: This one i'm not confident on, but I'm guessing something along the lines of Lizardfolk Barbarian, 24 Str while raging, full attack with 3 primary natural attacks, two claws and a bite with power attack at +6/+6/+6 dealing 1d2+9,1d4+9,1d4+9 for a total of 30 to 37 damage.

So I wanted to start a dishonored style intrigue campaign that offered a bunch of unique powers for my players (one power per customer, so not everyone can get blink), some based on the games, some of my own imagining. My biggest concern is balancing them, particularly a Blink or Far Reach style power, as I know dimension door at will is pretty darn potent.

So I was thinking of using the Combat Stamina system and having the perks spend stamina points to use some of the more powerful aspects of their abilities, so it limits their use in combat

Here's what I was thinking for a lvl 1 Blink baseline, still working on the wording

Shadow Perks: Basic Perks

Shadow Slide: You can teleport from one location to another by passing rapidly through the plane of shadow. As a standard action you can teleport up to 15 feet (range upgrades at higher lvls) in any direction as Dimension Door except you must be able to see your destination and cannot pass through solid objects. I want them to be able to move vertically without making tons of checks, but also have to climb/acrobatics to the top of climbable objects only partially in the square they teleport to as part of this and slide into cover using stealth/acrobatics out of it, but not attack. Wondering if it should have a short recharge.

Shadow Strike: As a full round action, you may spend 3 stamina points (might need scaling) in order to teleport to an unaware target using Shadow Slide (also messing with stealth rules, cuz they're not great in 3.X) and make one attack at your highest base attack bonus (will allow for vital strike and other "as a standard action" feats, because I dont like the way they are worded). If this attack hits, it automatically threatens a critical hit, and you add your sneak attack dice to it, if any (sneaky stabby character essential, but useless in combat to start).

~~~~

so this is sort of the type of thing I'm thinking of using, anyone see any serious holes or exploits in it, or have any ideas to regulate/improve the syntax/wording? Is it still to strong? or possibly too weak?

has anyone ever done some work with figuring out how high you can get a single weapon or natural attack's damage dice for the purposes of vital strike? I'm actually rather curious how dumb we can make vital strike. So far the biggest natural attack I've found obtainable by shapeshifting is the Behemoth Hippopotamus's 4d8 bite attack, or the Formain Queen's 4d8 claws, that you can up to 6d8 with improved natural attack.

so I have an annoying necromancer party member who I very much want to screw over, is there any way to make my character immune to reanimation should he die?

are the sodden lands like florida or closer to colder/windier climes?

If I create a Blade Barrier in a creature's space and it fails it's reflex save, does it take damage a second time when it attempts to move out of the area on it's following turn? what if it doesn't move? what if it moves through multiple squares of the blade barrier's area?

I'm considering allowing quick draw to apply to alchemical splash weapons and potions for alchemists in a campaign I'm running. Can anyone thing of anything particularly abusable about this?

It allows alchemists to make full attacks with splash weapons, but that's what I'm intending to allow from the start.

can you convert open cleric spell slots into cure spells or do you HAVE to prepare a spell in that slot to convert it?

basically I'm nickel and diming my player wealth and I'm trying to shave down the 12k I set aside for goggles of night, anyone know of a better solution for getting darkvision moneywise?

So I'm creating a cleric archer who has a bard cohort that has the flagbearer feat and the banner of ancient kings. The banner is a magic item that doubles the flagbearer feat's morale bonus but he's trying to deny that bonus to the rest of the party based on this line:

"As long as you hold your clan, house, or party’s flag, members of that allegiance within 30 feet who can see the flag (including yourself ) gain a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, and saving throws against fear and charm effects."

citing that the party members don't have any attachment to the flag because they're not tied to it in any way. My counter-argument is it's a bloody MAGIC banner and it does this:

"If mounted on a longspear or pole at least 8 feet in length, the banner shifts in appearance to match the heraldry or coat of arms of the person who attached it. If that person has no device, the flag instead displays a device that echoes the owner’s personality (such as a favorite animal, favored weapon, or holy symbol of the wielder’s deity)."

So there should be a way to include everyone in the party

So I've been digging through bard archetypes for a cohort I'm building at level 11, and I'm not sure which archetype to give him, in fact I'm leaning towards nothing at all. I want his major role to be buffing the party, and a lot of good archetypes hit things like Inspire heroics or inspire greatness. Voice of the Wild getting druid spells seemed cool until I read the last ability, you give up 3 amazing bard performances for an incredibly janky near-worthless one.

I've been trying to avoid ditching my skill based abilities too. Things like suggestion, fascinate and dirge of doom aren't particularly important to me since:

A. It's wrath of the righteous, demons all day erryday resisting my spells n having super high saves

B. his save DCs probably wont be amazing and he's not really needed for offense.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good bard build or archetype?

if you don't like them, ban them in PFS and let home players sort their own games out. I'm tired of seeing things errata'd out of existence that are unqiue and interesting, like Divine Protection, the Scarred Witch Doctor and so on.

I can only assume this was intentional design, but honestly I'd love to be able to play a martial tank with good mental saves that isn't limited to one alignment. The Bloodrager could've been the perfect opportunity to do that, but no, apparently martials can't have nice things.

1st one: random assassins come to kill you in the night, and the book seems to just to assume that A: the party is sleeping together in the same location and B: someone is on watch (IN THE MIDDLE OF A HEAVILY GUARDED WELL PATROLLED CITY), because otherwise you need to roll a DC 25 perception check to not get your throat cut and die immediately.

I don't know who designed that encounter, but, da heeeelll?

2nd one: orks orks orks orks orks! tower full of like, 6 orcs and an orc skald all making them rage, basically they hit any one of us and we immediately drop, except the party tank, and they crit him, then me, and the others got knocked out quickly after.

holy crap I've never had this much of a problem with an adventure. So far every enemy we've faced past the plague house drops you if it connects even once.

I mean, I get to torment my DM by rerolling a new PC now, so that's a plus, but DAYUMN.

So I'm working on coming up with a heavy intrigue campaign, but I'm not sure on what locale to use. I definitely want it to be in a big city, probably capitol city so we can work politics into the campaign. I was thinking of using Egorian in Taldar, and have the start of the campaign take place after a bloody coup by the king's daughter who starts making the local law enforcement seem a lot more LE than neutral, have the noble houses close ranks and starts forming a new Army of Exploration, which drastically reduces availability of food and water and other supplies for the populace and starts making people in the city desperate and in a constant state of civil unrest.

Seems like a pretty good starting point for an intrigue based campaign, big city, unhappy residents, royals clamping down on dissidents and so forth, but does anyone have any better/other ideas for a location for an intrigue based campaign. I had thought of Cheliax but we're already in the middle of Wrath of the Righteous, and going from demons to devils seems a bit much.

would love you longtime, thanks :P

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/simulacrum

So I'm getting access to this spell soon, and I'm a bit curious about something:

"Simulacrum creates an illusory duplicate of any creature. The duplicate creature is partially real and formed from ice or snow. It appears to be the same as the original, but it has only half of the real creature's levels or HD (and the appropriate hit points, feats, skill ranks, and special abilities for a creature of that level or HD)."

let's say I make a 6th level simulacrum of my 12th level PC, does it need to be an exact copy of my 6th level self, same feats and skill and spell choices? The bold text sort of suggests that I could just make a 6th level simulacrum of myself and give it whatever feat/ability choices I want.

Second, just to complicate things more, This campaign uses the mythic rules, so would the simulacrum have half my mythic tiers?

if there's any book that I want ruled into pathfinder the most, it's the Epic Level Handbook. I miss playing obscenely high level games with world-breaking power against ridiculous enemies. We're on our way to completing Wrath of the Righteous right now, and the higher level and more mythic tiers I get, them ore I miss epic level play. Come on paizo, let's get Epic!

I feel like this might fall more under the territory of "DM Call", but I'm interested in what peoples opinions are on this interaction:

The Stars Are Right (Su)

If you prepare your cleric spells while the stars are visible to you, you may spontaneously cast any of your Stars subdomain spells by swapping out a spell of an equal spell level. Any Stars subdomain spell that you cast while the stars are visible to you heals you of an amount of hit point damage equal to the spell's level; this effect happens as you cast the spell.

Domain Mastery

At 1st level, when an ecclesitheurge chooses his cleric domains, he designates one as his primary domain and the other as his secondary domain. An ecclesitheurge can use his non-domain spell slots to prepare spells from his primary domain's spell list.

Each day when he prepares spells, an ecclesitheurge can select a different domain granted by his deity to gain access to that domain's spell list instead of his secondary domain spell list. He does not lose access to his actual secondary domain's granted powers or gain access to the other domain's granted powers. For example, an ecclesitheurge with Glory as his primary domain and Good as his secondary domain can choose to gain access to the Healing domain; until the next time he prepares spells, he uses the Healing domain spell list as his secondary domain spell list instead of the Good domain spell list, but still keeps the granted powers of the Good domain and does not gain the granted powers of the Healing domain.

This ability alters the normal domain ability.

~~~~~

If I took the stars subdomain as my secondary domain, would I be able to swap out the spell list with domain mastery but still cast it spontaneously with the Stars domain ability?

Mechanically speaking it would make sense, you're still using the Stars domain, you're just replacing it's spell list.