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I just ended a campaign as GM, and now one of my friends wants to GM. He said he is running a Razor Coast campaign, which sounds cool. He said core races only, so I thought I would try building an arcane archer, which I have looked at since 3.0 but never made. We have 25 point buy, which is plenty to build most characters. We also start at 4th level. The players have so far said they are playing a rogue, a cleric, a witch, a fighter, and possibly a barbarian, so we're also pretty well covered in terms of party composition.

The current build I have is an elf ranger 2/wizard 2, with Str 14, Dex 18 (with racial and the point at 4th) Con 12, Int 16, Wis 13, and the charisma will be rolled later as the GM wants to roll the dump stats for some reason. (Guess people don't like dump stats, kind of a separate discussion.) I figured I would go ranger 4/wizard 4 before getting to arcane archer, which would likely be how I leveled the rest of the game. But then this nagging voice in my head started thinking this could be a weak character who is spread too thin. I

was considering focusing more on one side or the other rather than trying to balance them both equally but I'm not sure. I could go ranger 6/wizard 1 to get to arcane archer faster and be better in the archery department, or do ranger 1/wizard 5/eldritch knight 3 and basically be a caster with some archery. Not sure if I really want the second option, even though I'm sure it would eventually be the more powerful way to go. Our group is split between two GMs and we tend to level slowly as a result, so who knows if I would pay off. If I did the first option I would get more now, and could boost the weak con over the int I am currently pumping, but I would never be much of a caster.

I liked the freebooter archetype for ranger, since the pirate idea fits the campaign and the favored enemy and animal companion wouldn't really be leveling up once I went arcane archer. I didn't really have a specialization or archetype for wizard. Any advice would be welcome, even "arcane archer sucks, play a switch hitter." This may be my last character for a while since I have a baby on the way, so I am more indecisive than normal here.

My group is starting a side campaign and I want to give the one player who always plays the cleric a break. I wanted to do something different than the standard heavy armored cleric, so I thought I'd try an elf cleric. I would take dexterity as my second highest stat and take archery feats.

What would be the best way to do this well? Should I take a level of zen archer monk? Are there domains that would help?

I have been GMing a Pathfinder Eberron game for a couple friends I used to work with whenever we get together. One of the players has a human bard. When the party fought a vampire that they had been chasing for a long time, the bard broke his lute to have a stake to finish the vampire. I thought this was dramatic (although if they'd thought about it, they would have brought a stake) and the player had been carrying the same instrument the whole campaign.

I thought it would be cool to work in a magical lute as treasure somewhere. Unfortunately I saw very few magical instruments in my books and no lutes. Would anyone know any good ones off the top of their heads? The party should be 7th level soon.

Okay, my D&D 3.5 DM said he needed a break one week of every month. I volunteered to DM provided I could run Pathfinder, which I figured would help introduce it to the group for future play. Even though I will not be GMing for a few more weeks I have already had many questions regarding what is allowed.

One player asked if he could play a Gunslinger. I am setting the campaign in Ptolus, where firearms exist, so I said yes. He asked if the gunslinger could be a Vanara. Odd combination, but the race doesn't seem overpowered, so sure. Then he asked if the vanara's prehensile tail could be used to reload. He said he knew it couldn't wield a weapon, but thought it could hold the gun while reloading with the other hand. This way he could fire with the right hand while holding the gun with the tail and loading with the left.

I did not anticipate this question. To some extent it seemed reasonable. However, it would make him significantly faster than a normal gunslinger. I also question the ambidexterity required in such an action, loading those old guns seems like it would be difficult to do while firing with another hand. Two weapon penalties should apply at the very least. What do you all think?

I am new to Pathfinder as a long time D&D 3.x player and I have mostly lurked on these boards. I noticed that rogues are being described as weak in PF. It seems like to me they lost nothing from 3.0, and gained many advantages, i.e. the new abilities they can pick from as they level, the condensed skill list, the bigger hit die, and the fact that sneak attack works on more monsters now. If rogues weren't regarded as terribly weak before, why would they be considered weak now?

1)The Jester casts spells similiarly to the bard, but he doesn't seem to share the bard's ability to cast in light armor. Is this an omission or deliberate?

2) Similiarly, jesters have both search and disable device, but don't have trap finding. What good is disable device without trap finding? Again, was something left out?

3) Why are jesters the only class with hide and move silently but not spot and listen? That's sort of unusual, isn't it, I mean they can sneak past people, but not recognize it in others?

Anyway, it's still a cool class that I'm planning on playing, I'm just curious about this design decisions or whatever they are.