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4th level party will be going into the absurdly spacious sewers soon, trying to reach the abandoned underground city buried beneath the regular city.

I'm a bit lacking for sewer ideas, though. I can think of otyughs, and... well, that's it. I know they're escorting a bumbling weaker-than-them warrior with a penchant for charging into trouble and needing to be rescued, but I can't really think of anything to do here. Help?

Set to be a player in an upcoming home game in one of my players' new homebrew settings. I'm the experienced one in this upcoming group, and the new GM'd requested I play someone capable of healing and helping the others, to help it go more smoothly.

My usual go-to choices for such a character have seen a lot of use lately, though. I think playing another bard, oracle, or witch would bore me right now, and I'm all for helping out, but I'd like to have fun too. Cleric seems like a no-brainer, but I prefer to avoid playing a heavily faith-based class in a new setting when I don't know the pantheon very well yet.

So... I've ruled out all the good options that have come to mind. Or at least to my mind. Anyone else have suggestions?

I'm surprised I haven't heard much about any of you dashing diplomats and highborn nobles having bitten the dust yet. Ah well, I'll kick things off.

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Here's the standard format.

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We have a political intrigue sort of game coming up, and 3 of the 4 players have roughly settled into what they want to play at this point (a skill-heavy rogue, an occultist, and a shifter).

Player 4 is stuck, and we've all tossed around ideas, but gotten nowhere.

He says he thinks we need more healing capabilities (particularly at low, "pre-CLW-wand" levels) and wants to be able to do some of that. He'd also like to be able to have a presence in combat, and to have some social skills.

We pretty much all think the best options for what he wants are witch and oracle, but he hates witches and doesn't want to play a class he doesn't have fun with (understandable), and is playing an oracle in the campaign we're currently doing, and doesn't want to play another one right away. His own favourite class is the cleric, but he's been struggling with hitting all three of his requirements (particularly getting good skills) at once.

Any advice we might give him? Cleric builds? Unconventional oracles? Other options?

We've done 3 levels of bouncing around, from the pacts worlds, to near space, to the vast. So far no drift encounters rolled.

What sort of encounters will others be doing out there?

PCs are soon to do a thing where they'll be delving into a semi-open-ended gauntlet of 16 tombs. They're like mini-dungeons that can be tackled in any order. They're going to have to do them all eventually to progress with their goal (unless they get really clever), and if they're clever they'll find the hints about which ones have the toughest guardians and save those for last. They might ultimately go in any order though, so I need them all ready.

I've got most of them. This last one, I still need the main guardian. There's a theme of announcing the glories of the guardian's boss and inspiring people with his name in this one, so I figure the guardian ought to be a bard. He's evil, but will be leading a unit of bound angels who're forced to obey his commands (mostly choral angels).

He needs to be CR 14.

I've already used a (mummified) dragon in one of the other tombs, so we probably shouldn't do another dragon. There's likewise been plenty of daemons, demons, devils, divs, elementals, kytons, and qlippoth guarding the other tombs, so no more of those.

On the one hand, it'd make sense for the leader to also be angelic. On the other, it'd be funny if he was something the angels hated being forced to work for.

I've never found a more certain way to judge whether a build would be fun than to see if people shout about how unplayably bad it is.

I've had my fair share of chained monks and rogues, Int-Fighters, melee 1/2-BAB types, pyrokineticists, and recently a couple of throwing builds, though. Time to try something new.

So what can't possibly be made viable? What's bad, and should never be used by anyone, ever? What's my next fun build going to be?

To clarify: I'm not talking deliberately-crippled builds, like the Wizard with Int so low that he can't cast spells. Just 'bad' stuff like the chained rogue that I'm going to try to make a fun and useful character out of (and succeed at).

Lonjiku! After he survived RotRL when his daughter didn't, Jade Regent, for us, has been that adventure centered around escorting a grumpy, critical old man across the world.

Some do it because stopping the oni is the right thing to do, even if Lonjiku is insufferable. Some are doing it so that Lonjiku will end up on another continent and won't be able to gripe at them anymore, and some just hope the old man won't last very long or produce any more heirs, and the Amatasu scions who were so kind as to bring the emperor over can put forth a new ruler of Minkai from among their own number.

All in all, it's great! I pity those poor characters though.

Can't recall if it actually exists. Is there a way for a (human) sorcerer to get more uses/day out of that first 3 + Cha modifier power?

Vivisectionist gets 1d6 sneak attack at 1st level and every 2 levels after, and is said to stack levels with other sources of sneak attack.

...But how does that work when the other source doesn't grant it at the same rate? Eldritch Scoundrel gets 1d6 at 3rd level and every 4 levels after. Would a multiclassing of the two use the slower rate? The faster one? Whichever you got into first? Would you just count them up separately instead of adding the levels together?

Bit of a situation in a campaign I'm playing in: Super-stealthy enemy (we think it's a quasit, we think with witch levels) constantly harrassing the party (and our hometown), but never stopping to fight. It's been stealing volatile alchemical materials, alcohol, fuel, etc. recently, and we're pretty sure it intends to cause some sort of explosion. Not sure how big or where, but probably somewhere in town.

We can't track it (flying doesn't leave enough of a trail), we've failed to ambush it (we predicted some spots it might steal from and laid an ambush, but it beat my 32 Perception result, which was nearly the best the party could manage and stole right from under my nose), and we're pretty low-level with not a huge variety of options. As the one prepared 'caster' in the group, I'm feeling like it's my responsibility to pull out some miraculous solution, but I don't know what that solution might be.

The party consists of an investigator (me), an inquisitor, a psychic, and an unchained summoner and angel eidolon. All 3rd level and single-classed. We're super broke, but the town and its guard likes us enough that I think we could probably requisition most sorts of 1st and 2nd level potions or scrolls (above 2nd isn't available), but not in large quantities. The GM has vetoed the Inquisitor using detect chaos/evil every six seconds, for being cheesy.

The enemy is (we think) a quasit with (we think) witch levels. We've been harrassed with fiendish animal attacks that seem to line up with Summon Monster I (not too difficult, but it's annoying and tends to hit us when we try to rest, or get into other fights), with no sound of casting that we've been able to hear, so I'm assuming Silent Spell is involved. Invisibility (or maybe Vanish) seems to be used heavily, and a Hold Person spell that targeted us was identified at one point. Haven't seen anything yet that would suggest 3rd level spell slots.

Any thoughts on how to deal with this darned thing?

Dispel Magic is useful, Prayer is awesome, and my domain slot has Fly in it, which is pretty great. Those are three of my four 3rd level slots.

...That aside, I'm an 8th level CG cleric of Desna with one extra 3rd level spell slot, and I can't figure out what it should be filled with on any given day. It's been Magic Vestment until now, but we've all got at least +2 armor as of our last big encounter. Even our wizard does. So that's out.

I'm trying to avoid anything which--while it may not be outright evil--could be seen as unsavoury. Party wouldn't take well to someone bestowing curses, or striking enemies permanently blind, no matter how powerful those spells might be.

We're mostly facing animals and magical beasts as we roam across the world. Very few dungeons. Our stops are more-often in small towns and villages.

I'm a bit unclear on the Inquisitor's exploit weakness ability. Do all applications of it apply only when scoring a critical hit, or is that only for the DR and regeneration parts of the ability, with the energy vulnerability part not requiring a crit?

(Sorry if this has already been asked. I tried looking for the answer myself first, but I'm on mobile and it's a bit awkward to search for anything.)

I've got a big new campaign coming up, and I've hit a bit of a roadblock. I have a starting adventure in mind, and a general idea of the plot, but it seems I've run out of ideas on villains, or at least non-mook ones. Any help?

Party's going to be in the 1st to (probably) 3rd level range over the course of this. They've got an Alchemist, Kineticist, Magus, Oracle, Psychic, Sorcerer, and Vigilante

Villains (at least these initial ones) are military from a super-xenophobic "Kill all non-humans" nation who sent a big spaceship thing crewed with goons to chase after two of the PCs (for being a fox-man and giant bird respectively). The rest of them got caught up in it when those two tried to hide out in their town, and the ship started bombing.

...But 'airship full of soldiers' just describes the mooks. Can't have generic warriors for all your enemies, and I'm at a bit of a loss to what to do with the individual officers, and any other notables (whoever those might be). The party's pretty big, and generally clever (including clever enough to run when necessary), so I'm sure they'd pull through even if, on occasion, I threw them up against some folks who really outclassed them.

Any early-villainous-NPC suggestions?

(...I just realized the new Villain Codex might actually be great here! I don't have it yet, but maybe soon...)

During the course of their adventures, the PCs wound up separated by a Crypt Thing, and the Brawler, all on her own, encountered a Rhu-Chalik (Bestiary 5). It knocked her out and had more than enough time for the monster to copy her consciousness and send it off to its masters.

Now, 8 levels later, they're going to be confronting those masters. A collection of aberrations, mostly. I haven't worked out all the details yet. They have a copy of the brain of one PC (albeit, a copy of her 4th level brain).

So, knowing that they're going to be faced with an unarmed-striking hero (the rest of the party has changed composition enough since 4th level that that out of date information won't be useful regarding any of the rest of them), how might some enigmatic aliens prepare themselves. I don't want to be unfair to the Brawler, but I'd also like to unnerve her by having enemies know her, and ready with tactics tailored to her unarmed, power attacking, punchy style.

Basically what are some weakness of unarmed brawlers that I can exploit? Which ones might be too nasty, and would threaten to verge into being unfun?

I know a bastard sword can be wielded two-handed as a martial weapon, but what about the folks who don't have martial weapon proficiencies and want to take one, but don't want to go as far as taking Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Bastard Sword)?

I'm making an alchemist with the Grenadier (PFS Field Guide) archetype. He gets proficiency in all simple weapons and bombs from his class, and his archetype also gives him proficiency with one martial weapon. Is bastard sword a legal choice for that when it isn't actually martial?

I've got an idea of a four-armed NPC dual-wielding two-bladed swords, and I'm trying to figure out how the to-hit bonues work here.

Assuming BAB 11, Multiweapon Fighting, and no other bonues, what do his bonues on each iterative attack look like, and how many iterative attacks does he get? (I'll adjust for things like Str bonues once I've moved this character a bit further out of the conceptual range and gotten such numbers down).

Please ignore for now whether dual-wielding double weapons is silly, impractical, unrealistic, or unoptimized. I'm currently just trying to see what the to-hit numbers look like.

I've never had experience with Mesmerists before, but I'm building one now as a villain. I love the Mesmerist Tricks, and the stare abilities and such. I've got her set to fall back through the dungeon implanting tricks into key enemies as she goes. Should be great.

When they get to her she uses a rapier and fights alongside a Bottled Armada (from AP #57, pg. 86). Finesse and painful stare, and a weird swarm. Not the greatest build, but eh, she's not meant to be super optimized or anything. It should be fine.

Spells though, I'm a bit stuck on. She's 9th level, and I know she's got Charm Monster, Symbol of Mirroring, Burst of Adrenaline, Expeditious Retreat, Magic Mouth, and Obscuring Mist. That leaves three 3rd level spells, three 2nd level spells, and two 1st level spells.

... I honestly don't like much of the Mesmerist spell selection. It's very same-y, very "Save or take a -2 penalty", or "Save or spend the next [Mesmerist's Level] rounds being useless. The former is boring, and I think the latter might actually TPK the party based on how they've handled things up to this point.

Any other spell suggestions?

(Party is a gunslinger, an oracle, and a cleric, if that makes any difference, and they might have a pyrokineticist ally with them when this goes down, though that's not guaranteed.)

I have an encounter in mind in which a hellknight and crew are executing NPCs that the PCs might want to rescue, recruit, and get information from. The setup involves all those NPCs individually tied up inside a room, and that room being set on fire. A backdrop of the NPCs screaming and dying in the background while the hellknight and her flunkies try to prevent the PCs from getting to them in time.

The longer the PCs take, the more captive NPCs burn to death. I'm looking for some advice in balancing this in such a way as to make the enemies a credible enough threat to bar the PCs' progress and slow them down, but not so good at it that all the captive NPCs die before the PCs can get to them (which would probably take about 9 rounds).

The PCs are all 4th level. They consist of a sword & pistol gunslinger (who will probably shine if he goes against a heavily armoured opponent here), an oracle who fights at medium or so range with an extending polearm, and a melee finesse fighter 1/cleric 3 who usually takes the front-lines.

The hellknight is low-ranking and doesn't actually have to have levels in either of the hellknight prestige classes yet. She's likely to be a cleric, fighter, inquisitor, or warpriest, but her class isn't set in stone. Her flunkies will likely be just 1st or 2nd level warriors, and I'm not sure how many of them to include. The enemies would be built more for stalling than for taking the PCs down (the real threat is the fire killing the NPCs in the background), and I'm not exactly sure what to go for since I'm aiming to do that instead of just having the NPCs fight to take them down as though it were a normal combat.

Obviously can't be totally precise, but I'm aiming to try and stall them for 6 or so rounds out of 9 or so to ensure this feels like a just-in-time rescue. With that in mind, what should I be going for to build this stuff? Levels, numbers, spells, equipment, any particular tactics, etc.

One sentence summary: I'm a first time GM, and my game came to a screeching halt when a player stood up and left the game after the rest of the party voted against what he wanted to do.

Longer version: I've played a bit, but this is my first time GMing. It was going pretty well, and everyone seemed to like my NPCs, and the plot-hook, and the dungeon, and even the random encounter on the way to the dungeon.

Partway into the dungeon, they encountered a room that was supposed to be a bit of a challenge. They came upon a locked door, and a devil that was bound to guard the place. He told them that they could release the magic locking the door by going down a side passage and doing some things there. He explained that he was forced to fight them if they tried to go deeper into the dungeon, but didn't actually have to get aggressive until they tried to go for the door he was bound to. He told them freely that he would rather they die against some other guardian in the process of trying to unlock the door instead of having to kill them himself, and promised that he would let them through to the side areas without a fight, and only attack them if they succeeded there and the door unlocked. He also said that if they attacked him preemptively, he'd call for help from the adjacent rooms, which would be a tough fight (probably not unwinnable, but tough).

It was supposed to be a difficult decision and it was. Two players wanted to go through, since the devil was going to allow it and they expected he'd stay true to his word. Two players wanted to fight the devil and risk his reinforcements instead of going past him and having no escape route. The last player wanted to retreat from the dungeon and come back better-prepared.

Well, they talked it over, and eventually four out of five of them settled on going forwards. The last one still wanted to retreat and come back later. When it was pointed out to that last one that he was outvoted, he stood up and declared "Fine, if you're not going to listen to me, then good luck getting through all the traps without a rogue", and he left. Walked away from the game, lay down, and went to sleep. The rest of the party broke apart to vent. Nobody was happy. Nobody was in the mood to game again that night, even after calming down.

This player... does this. This was my first time GMing, but I've played with him in other games and other systems, and he's threatened to ditch the party when people don't follow his plans at least once per game (He's got other problems too. His characters are always better than everyone else's by a lot, they always have a long-term goal of assassinating the most important NPC around and usurping their power, and he always gets really angrily dramatic about being 'completely useless' when another PC comes across an encounter that's suited to making them shine). The other players (when they've been GMing their own games) have talked to him about his problems, but it doesn't seem like it's doing anything, and I'm sure as heck not just going to sit idly by. People were having fun, and then with one sentence he made a game crash and burn. Now nobody wants to go back to it, and I don't really feel like I want to run or play any more games with him in them.

So: Is there anything I should do before kicking out the player? Questions to ask, talks to have, etc.? Or is this the sort of thing where I should trust that the previous GMs have probably already tried their best, and go with the finisher right away?

(His character abandoned the party and dungeon... and walked right into the frozen antarctic wastes, at least two weeks from the nearest civilization. He's got no survival skill, and he just walked away from the ranger PC who got the group out here. Also they'd already gotten past the dungeon's only trap by that point. Heh.)