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Thank you for your help.

Thank you everyone. I guess the consensus is no damage. Thank you for your help!

Swarms do damage and inflict the distraction ability to any creature who shares a space with them.

They have to take no action to do this, just the fact that they are sharing a square counts.

Stinking cloud does not affect a swarm in any way, except that it may make it easier for them to eat your face since you might be nauseated yourself from the cloud, and slower to run.

Thank you for your response. May I ask where you found this answer? I can't seem to find it in the Core Rulebook.

Obviously they do their normal damage in addition to vomiting on anyone in the swarm. I will not be swayed from an interpretation that allows me to have thousands of insects vomiting on my players.

Are you serious? I CAN DO THIS?!!? That is spectacular. But, Do they still do their damage? My players protest that.

My group's witch character likes to cast "stinking cloud" on vermin swarms (such as centipedes or locusts). If swarms do automatic damage, how does being nauseated affect that? I can't seem to find an answer about it and would love any references about this. Thanks!

Let me rephrase ... why aren't they doing anything about him? If I were either of these two, I'd be trying to calm him down, then forcibly (magically) restrain him when he went nuts.

Why, in-character, are they associating with this lunatic?

Well, the witch is a cat folk and she grew up with a super abusive tribe, so she likes crazy violence. The bard likes to hang out to get stories for his performances. The half-Orc is a generally nice guy, but he was abandoned as a baby, then grew up in Lastwall, where they suddenly realized he was half-Orc and betrayed him. My players have damaged characters, I guess. Also, I think I am not making the game as immersive as I should. I think I need to be trying to pay more attention to alignments and consequences. I'm new, so we're all learning together.

What is the rest of the group doing while this guy is being a sociopath?

Well, he is the "tank". The other two (we're a small group who plays over Skype) are a witch and a bard. The witch spends most of combat casting misfortune on foes and the bard usually sings to buff everyone up. He also shoots arrows. It's a little frustrating. I'm trying to get them out of the ruts they're in, but it isn't easy.

Just roll for initiative, at that point both people are ready and willing to fight. Maybe the boss attacks first, maybe the half orc. If you feel it works best, give the half orc a natural 20 on his initiative roll, to account for being the first one to escalate to aggression (though this is a house rule).

As for punishing him when dealing with shop keepers and the sort, start giving his character some bad reputation. That way, bars, people, shops, and such charge higher prices to him and maybe even the whole party. If it gets bad, have shop keepers refuse service. At the worst, set a bounty on his head and make it a -hard- encounter, where someone could easily die (not saying you should kill, but rather that someone, or a few of the party members should go unconscious).

Thank you, this is great advice. I appreciate your help.

There is no roll. Assuming he's in full view of the people he's about to attack, you roll initiative. He's initiating combat while his enemies (whether or not they are is irrelevant) can fully see him. The people he is attacking are aware of him and see him about to attack. There is no surprise. That's how Pathfinder works.

Thank you for your help! I was trying to make it too complicated. Thank you.

That's just normal combat starting. If both parties are aware of each other and the situation is tense, then the actual aggressor doesn't really matter. Just roll initiative.

As for attacking snobby NPC's - probably the same consequences that would happen in real life if you shot a commuter for bumping into you or knifed a delivery guy for being late. That's called aggravated murder, and you could go to jail for life. I would suggest that you prepare a whole guards/court/jailbreak scenario and be ready to insert it into your campaign at a moment's notice.

OK, thank you for clarification. I think I was just making it more complicated than it had to be! Also, thank you for scenario advice. That's a great idea.

Hi there, everyone. I have a half-Orc who likes to talk smack to potential enemies. If they talk smack back, he just wants to hit them right away. How do I skill check this? For example, it was a tense standoff before a boss battle. The boss character called the half-Orc an idiot. Then the half-Orc said, "I just want to hit with my axe". So, is that a sudden attack? A sneak attack? I was kind of doing a "roll your stealth and I'll roll boss perception to see if it notices you're trying to attack." that doesn't seem quite right. Anybody know a better way? I don't mind the smack talk--it fits his character.

Another question is, how do I make consequences for this if he does it for "snobby shop keepers" or NPCs that he thinks are talking down to him?

Thanks for advice!