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Six Freedoms Acolyte (Monk)
Like the River Kingdoms themselves, these fragmented, quarrelsome aspirants have a thousand names and a thousand self-styled masters, yet all of them share in common a pious devotion to the Six River Freedoms. United in the belief that the Six River Freedoms represent the principles by which they may best achieve self-actualization, Six Freedoms acolytes blend the radical individualism of the River Kingdoms with the disciplined focus of more traditional ascetics.
Courts Are for Kings (Ex): At 3rd level, a Six Freedoms acolyte learns from the fourth Freedom that laws can be flexible. For the purposes of alignment-based spells and effects, he is always treated as being the most beneficial alignment. This ability replaces still mind.
You Have What You Hold (Ex): At 4th level, a Six Freedoms acolyte internalizes the sixth Freedom’s wisdom, gaining a +1 bonus on disarm and steal combat maneuvers, and a +1 bonus to his CMD against these maneuvers. These bonuses increase by +1 every four levels, to a maximum of +5 at 20th level. This ability replaces slow fall.
Walk Any Road (Ex): At 5th level, a Six Freedoms acolyte learns to safeguard his third Freedom, gaining immunity to the entangled and grappled conditions. At 11th level, he becomes immune to all effects which hinder movement, as though under the constant effect of freedom of movement. This ability replaces purity of body and diamond body.
Say What You Will (Su): At 7th level, a Six Freedoms acolyte may draw upon his inner strength to resist restrictions on his first Freedom. He may spend 1 ki point as a standard action to ignore all supernatural effects which silence him or limit his speech (such as zone of truth) for one minute. This ability replaces wholeness of body.
Slavery is an Abomination (Su): At 12th level, a Six Freedoms acolyte may secure the fifth Freedom for any creature. As a standard action, he may spend 2 ki points to touch a creature, suppressing any charm or compulsion effects upon it for a number of rounds equal to his Wisdom modifier. This ability replaces abundant step.
Oathbreakers Die (Su): At 15th level, a Six Freedoms acolyte adopts the grim severity of the second Freedom. Whenever any creature violates an oath given to the Six Freedoms acolyte, he immediately becomes aware of the breach. As a free action within one week of the violation, he may will the oathbreaker to die. The oathbreaker must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 the monk’s level + the monk’s Wisdom modifier) or die. This ability may be used once per violated oath. This ability replaces quivering palm.

Gorum's Stompers
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 9th
Slot feet; Price 16,000 gp; Weight 5 lbs.
Description
These crimson leather boots, almost completely obscured by layers of black iron plates, exhibit a raucous boldness in their design.

Once per day as a standard action, or as a free action at the end of a jump, the wearer of these boots may stomp the ground to generate a sudden shockwave that sends nearby creatures and objects flying. When activated, Gorum's stompers make a bull rush against all creatures and objects within a 15 foot radius of the wearer, with a CMB equal to the boots' caster level plus the wearer's Strength modifier. Affected creatures are knocked prone unless they succeed on a DC 17 Reflex saving throw, and affected flying creatures must succeed on a DC 15 Fly check or fall. Creatures and objects that are thrown into a solid surface such as a wall take 1d6 damage.

In addition, when the wearer deliberately jumps from a height of 20 feet or greater, the boots convert the energy of falling into a particularly powerful blast of force. The wearer may activate the boots as a free action upon landing, converting up to 5d6 points of lethal falling damage into nonlethal damage; for each 1d6 points of lethal damage converted in this way, the boots gain a +2 circumstance bonus on all bull rush attempts made during that activation. If the wearer takes no lethal falling damage as a result, he lands on his feet instead of falling prone. Using Gorum's stompers in this manner counts as its daily use.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, telekinesis; Cost 8,000 gp.

The Advanced Race Guide features a racial archetype for Gunslingers called the "Buccaneer", not to be confused with the archetype for Bards called the "Buccaneer". One of the Buccaneer's abilities is as follows:

"Exotic Pet (Ex)
At 5th level, a buccaneer gains a familiar as a wizard of half the buccaneer's class level (though the exotic pet never gains the ability to deliver touch spells or share spells). This pet is typically a monkey or parrot (use the stats for a raven familiar). Such animals are useful scouts, even in the thick of combat. As long as the pet is within 30 feet of the buccaneer, the buccaneer also gains the benefit of evasion."

While I will begin by offering my opinion that this ability is poorly-written and shows evidence of being incompletely thought out, I am interested in knowing if there is any errata or other material that might clear up some of the questions that the ability poses. I'm not really interested in "you can just fix it yourself" arguments; of course I can, but that is no excuse for poor initial design (if indeed it is poor initial design and I'm not way off the mark here). I am, however, interested in how you might go about personally answering the questions if there is no concrete official answer.

The problems:

1. Is the familiar gained as a result of this class ability a magical beast? If so, at what point does the creature cease being the animal type and acquire the magical beast type? Familiars are explicitly indicated as magically-augmented animals (hence the type change), but gunslingers have no magical capabilities or even supernatural abilities, unlike other classes which gain familiars or animal companions.

2. Does the buccaneer's familiar gain an empathic link? This ability is a supernatural ability, ostensibly due to the binding ritual that links master and familiar together. Is the buccaneer's exotic pet in fact bound magically to the buccaneer?

3. Speaking of binding rituals, does a buccaneer whose familiar dies or is dismissed gain the ability to acquire a new one, as a wizard does? If so, how does the buccaneer do so, given that they do not normally possess magical capability and cannot perform a binding ritual? Is there still a 200gp cost involved?

4. Does the buccaneer's levels stack with any wizard levels for the purpose of determining the familiar's abilities? The rules for familiars state: "All familiars have special abilities (or impart abilities to their masters) depending on the master's combined level in classes that grant familiars." This, along with the fact that a buccaneer's familiar is treated as a wizard of half his level, would seem to indicate that they do stack. If so: does the buccaneer's familiar gain the ability to deliver touch spells or share spells? Does a buccaneer with enough levels in wizard to get 12 levels in a familiar-granting class gain the ability to scry on his familiar as a spell-like ability? Do the answers to these questions depend on whether he took his buccaneer levels first, or his wizard levels?

Imagine that you're the magistrate of a small city, and you've captured a sorcerer who has been causing all sorts of troubles; he's been stealing with mage hand, or setting things on fire with spark, and in general performing criminal mischief with his spells or bloodline powers. He's been caught before, and given the lash or the stocks, but he hasn't learned, and he remains up to his tricks as soon as he's let go. The last time you caught him, he managed to escape through the use of his magic, but now you've got him again and you are determined that this will be the last time he is going to be a problem.

Now, assume, for the sake of argument, that you are not simply going to execute him, either lawfully or by turning a blind eye while someone gets their hands dirty on your behalf. Either your city's laws prohibit it, or his crimes--while troublesome--don't justify execution, or you have any other reason not to see him dead. You know that you can't simply lock him up, because he'll find a way to get free again. Exile would simply make him someone else's problem, and you're unwilling to foist him onto your neighboring cities. If only you could... get rid of his magic!

How would you do it? Is there a means, within the current Pathfinder system, to do so? (I seriously doubt that, aside from destroying an artifact with mage's disjunction.) Do you think this is something which should be possible at all? If so, how difficult should it be? Should there be a way to reverse it?

This is primarily a thought experiment--I've been thinking about crime and punishment in a world that has wizards and clerics walking the streets--so I'm not really looking for complete, coherent systems, but I am interested in seeing what sorts of ideas people have about this subject. Please, tell me what you think!

I wasn't able to find anything explicit about this in the rules or on the forums, and though I have an inclination of my own, I thought it would be good to get some second opinions as well.

Does being underwater in and of itself provide concealment of any kind, whether a miss chance or an ability to use Stealth, either to creatures in the water or creatures out of the water?

I realize there are easily circumstances in which the answer would be "yes"--murky water, for instance. But I'm interested in water in and of itself.

At a glance, the prerequisites required for the various critical feats seem dramatically outsized for the conditions they inflict. You need BAB +9 to even get the prerequisite feat, Critical Focus, let alone meet the prerequisites of the feats themselves.

I allow that I may be missing some sort of value calculation, so what I'm asking is whether there is a good reason for the prerequisites to be so high, and so narrowly limited in some cases to characters like 15th-level fighters.

Good evening, folks.

A close friend of many years has made the difficult decision to realize his dreams and break free of the stifling mediocrity of corporate America; in other words, he quit his job to create a game studio with a couple of his associates, and now they're making a video game.

The game is Solarial, a science-fiction themed sandbox adventure game in the vein of Terraria or Minecraft. The Kickstarter project for the game has just gone live as of today, and I'd like to spread the word as far and wide as possible, because word of mouth is what makes the wheels of Kickstarter turn.

You can find the project here! The project is set for 60 days, with a very modest goal, so I have high hopes--so long as word gets out!

If you guys like the project, please share it with your friends. Every pair of eyeballs and every donation, no matter how small, helps; it all adds up.

This is something I'm mostly interested in seeing others' opinions on, since I have done ideas myself but haven't come to a concrete conclusion yet. So the general question is: how much do you, as a GM, help direct your players' actions by suggesting, subtly or otherwise, courses of action to them?

For example. Let's say the PCs are going through a dungeon, and usually they search the rooms for secret doors, hidden items, and so on. But in one particular room, for some reason, they forget or neglect to search, and there's something important in that room. Do you remind them that they forgot, recommend they thoroughly canvass the area, or just let them completely miss it?

Another example. There is a particular knowledge check which can be made to recall an important piece of information relevant to the task at hand, but no one so much as broaches the subject of making a knowledge check. Do you let them know they can make a check, or let them only make it if they get the idea to do so themselves?

Again. The PCs are in a situation where they could use the help of a particular NPC, magic item, spell, or other assistance. Such an aid would prove to be very useful (let's say, using Speak With Dead on a particular corpse). But no one gets the idea to do so. Do you remind them that that aid would be useful, or recommend that course of action?

These are, of course, all generalizations of situations which have happened in my own games. I'd be interested to see how other GMs deal with it. I'd also like to hear from the player's perspective: what would you prefer your GM do in situations like those, and why?

Several of the campaign traits listed in the Jade Regent Player's Guide grant PCs a bonus to combat rolls made against enemies who "threaten" the NPC identified in the trait. My question is this: Do these traits' bonuses apply when

a) the NPC is threatened by an enemy in the sense of being in combat with an enemy, or otherwise in imminent danger posed by the enemy; or

b) literally occupying an enemy's threatened square in combat?

Because the traits do not use more precise language ("threatened square" or the like), I think that there could be good faith arguments for either interpretation. I'm interested in seeing if perhaps someone from Paizo has clarified this in an official capacity, or if it's just up to the GM to make the call.

Recently one of my friends and regular players decided he wanted to get some experience GMing Pathfinder, and as I was likewise interested in playing a game for once instead of running one, I agreed that this was a good idea. We began browsing the Adventure Paths to decide on which one to run, and I wondered whether Jade Regent--being the most recent AP and therefore likely to be the beneficiary of five years of experience writing APs--wouldn't be a good idea to start off with.

However, a major concern I have after merely reading the Jade Regent Player's Guide is that the major NPCs of the Adventure Path are... well, really major. They have class levels in PC classes. They're strong, they're tough, they're experienced adventurers with wealth to their name. The PCs are all but required to design a pre-existing relationship with one of the NPCs, and of the campaign traits in the Player's Guide to represent these relationships, the vast majority of them put the PCs in a subordinate role.

The whole thing reads like an institutional parody of the worst "GM's Pet NPC" horror stories out there, minus the parody. The very fact that the Player's Guide offers a suggestion that the players could play the NPCs as their own PCs (as well as the fact that one of the NPCs is a long lost heir to an empire) suggests to me that the entire thing was written to star the NPCs, where the PCs end up being hangers-on, students, or people who are just incidentally along for the ride.

Is this impression accurate? I haven't read much more beyond the Player's Guide, on the possibility that my friend ends up running this AP, so for all I know the NPCs all die en route or otherwise disappear, or there are other events which serve to showcase the PCs as more than just plucky sidekicks.

As far as I know, the only rolls which automatically fail on a roll of 1 are attack rolls and saving throws. The question recently arose in my group whether rolling a 1 on a caster level check to overcome SR should also be considered an automatic failure, given the following text from p.217 of the Core Rulebook:

"The defender's spell resistance is like an Armor Class against magical attacks."

Implying that the caster level check is the magical equivalent of an attack roll. So the question is, is this simply an instructive simile or to be taken more literally?

Thoughts?

I'm preparing to run the Kingmaker AP for my group, and so the players have been working on their characters for the last few days. One of them has come up with the idea for a ranger who has been blind from birth. Difficulties? Oh yes. But because it's a cool idea, we've been doing some thinking on how to make it a viable concept without simply removing any penalties or obstacles the character would face in trying to do her duties.

So. In combat, a blind character essentially treats all opponents as invisible; they take a -2 penalty to AC and lose their Dexterity bonus to AC, which is analogous to an invisible character getting a +2 bonus to hit and ignoring his target's Dex bonus. In addition, all opponents have total concealment versus a blind character. (The other penalties, such as limited move speed, are minor and not really under consideration here.)

So in order to successfully attack a target, the blinded PC would first need to discover the location (i.e. the square) that the target is located in, and even then, any attacks would have a 50% miss chance. Taken as it is, this would make for a lot of misses and a lot of frustration. Some frustration is fine, but the point is to mitigate it a little bit. So the question becomes twofold: One, how would the PC go about locating a target's square, and two, how would the PC mitigate the concealment penalties one the target has been located?

A few ideas have cropped up, but they raise questions, too. Using Keen-Eared Scout, beating your Listen (Perception, in Pathfinder) check by 10 gives you the "precise location" of an unseen creature. Some of my players think this means that succeeding on such a check would negate concealment penalties, because precise is precise, after all, not "vaguely somewhere in this 25-square-foot area". However, I notice (and cross-referencing from 3.5 rules) that normally beating a Listen/Perception check by 20 allows a PC to identify the square that an invisible creature is located in, but that concealment penalties still apply. This would mean the feat halves the margin you need to identify the location, but my hunch is that the concealment penalty would still apply.

However, this also raises questions. Beating what Perception check? Obviously, if the target is trying to be stealthy, then it would be an opposed check against Stealth. But what if the target is in combat, or patrolling a corridor, or just standing around smoking a cigarette and not trying to make any Stealth check? Is there a good Perception DC to be able to hear someone who is just standing still, but not making an effort to be quiet? For that matter, the DC for hearing the sounds of combat is -10, but it's a far cry from being able to hear that swords are clashing over there to knowing exactly what squares the combat is taking place in. Or is it?

So. For the sake of argument, the PC has somehow targeted her opponent's square, and attacks. What methods are available to reduce the concealment penalty? I've posited a seeking longbow, but are there other methods, and how would they interact with the necessity of having to locate the target audially beforehand? I'd be interested in any related thoughts on the subject of "blind archers" as well, if anyone has any clever ideas.

I looked over the magic item crafting rules and was unable to find an explicit statement on this question: Does creating a magic item require the creator to be of the same or higher caster level of the item itself?

The ambiguity comes in the fact that the item's caster level is not listed in the prerequisites in the magic item lists, and the only relevant text I can find reads, "A creator can create an item at a lower caster level than her own, but never lower than the minimum level needed to cast the needed spell."

This doesn't seem to square with the CLs listed for specific magic items; for instance, a Belt of Giant Strength +2 has CL 8th, but the only spell required in its creation, bull's strength, has a minimum caster level of 3.

Am I missing anything here?

On page 35 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, regarding the ability Bardic Performance, we see the following statement: "Starting a bardic performance is a standard action, but it can be maintained each round as a free action."

I am leaving aside the rules/balance question of whether allowing a performance to continue while other actions are undertaken is good or bad. My concern here is simply with the fact that I cannot imagine a way in which this could reasonably sync up with reality in any meaningful way. For certain Performance skills--singing or oratory, for instance--it makes natural sense for a bard to be able to continue his performance as he takes other actions--stabbing a fellow, running to and fro, opening doors, pulling levers. Even casting spells: a skillful bard could work command words into a spoken performance seamlessly, and employ the somatic component as dramatic gestures as accompaniment.

How do you imagine the same thing happening with performance involving instruments? Flutes, lutes, horns, drums, what have you; all of them require you to be using at least one hand, and most of them require two hands to be used with any effectiveness. I imagine if your bardic performance is a few notes of sound at a time with a lot of six-second silences in between, you could justify taking your hand away to make an attack, or climb a wall, or cast a spell, or drink a potion, but I doubt bards are intended to all specialize in Performance: Minimalist Avant Garde Music.

Problems of suspension of disbelief occur when things like this occur. When my bard says to me, "while continuing to play my lute to inspire greatness, I open the door and attack the man on the other side," I immediately begin wondering where she grew those extra arms.