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The Feral Shifter druid archetype gives us the Animal Focus ability from the Hunter. But is also replaces the druid animal companion.

Considering that Animal Focus on the hunter is used in large part to buff you Animal Companion, this is a pretty weird design choice. Without an AC, those druids are only left with a lack luster ability.

What if this character actually has an animal companion either from feats or other class levels ? Will this Druid get the permanent Animal Focus buff to his AC the same way a Hunter would ? It sounds like it would not work but I would like to hear what others have to say.

I drop a weapon during combat. My unseen servant is instructed to go and pick up the weapon.

A bit later I use the ''Call weapon'' spell to call that weapon back to my hand. Is the unseen servant a valid ''ally'' for using the spell ?

Let's say I take 1 level in Cavalier and 1 level in hunter. I chose an animal companion that is available to both classes. So the two classes effective druid level stacks for statistics and abilities of the companion.

But:
Cavalier's companion gets light armor proficiency instead of Share spell.
Hunter's normally has the share spell.

Does that mean that my companion will have both share spell and light armor proficiency ?

Long story short, I am making a gnome character whose distinctive feature is having a lot of hair. Thick Hair, facial hair and body hair. For fluffy reasons I want some of his abilities to be related to his hair. That is how I came up with the beard familiar Idea.

Before you go at me saying there is no such things as a beard familiar, this would actually be a tumor familiar. I am just going to pretend it is my character's beard.

The character is multiclass and his main role is melee combat mounted on a wolfdog animal companion. I plan on taking 3-4 alchemist levels for strength mutagen and utilities + the tumor familiar discovery.

I am interested in taking the Thrush as the animal template for the familiar. This would give my character + 3 to diplomacy thanks to his magnificent beard. The beard would also have the ability to talk and fly and possibly use wands ?

I am also interested in taking the ''valet'' archetype for the familiar. My character will sideline as an alchemy crafter so the bonus to crafting would be welcome. I also have the ability to share teamwork feats with my mount, so having those feats also work with the familiar would be icing on the cake.

My main concern is protecting the said beard from being killed during combat. It would be rather exposed if just sitting on my face. This is where the valet archetype becomes a problem as it removes the Improved Evasion feature and makes the familiar even more so vulnerable.

Here are some relevant points I can think of:

-This campaign is already started. My character is now Cavalier 2, Alchemist 1, Brawler 1. I will get the beard familiar upon taking Alchemist 2.

-My character has decently High HP. 17 constitution + most of his HD are d10. So that should help the familiar tankiness a bit.

-I could always have the beard fly off to safety during combat to prevent it from taking damage, but I would rather if possible have the ability to keep it on my face.

- I suspect my GM will be amused by the beard familiar concept and probably will give me a break by not specifically targeting my beard all the time. However that does not help vs AOE attacks.

-I am not sure how people usually protect their tumor familiar when they are about their bodies. The +5 fast healing is nice but that does not protect you from a fireball one-shot when you do not have Improved evasion. Can they be considered as having ''cover'' from your body ?

-The Thrush template and Valet archetype are not mandatory. At this point those would be my preferences but if you have better ideas I am listening.

- An Idea I had was taking a 1 level witch dip with the Synergist archetype to protect the familiar from damage, but I am not even sure this would stack with the tumor familiar, and I would rather not take a witch dip ideally.

-I am also looking for ways to benefit from my familiar in combat. With a valet I could get some benefit out of teamwork feats. The feat ''Shake it off'' for exemple would be of interest. If both my beard and my mount have it, that means +2 to all saves to everybody. If that is allowed but I think it is.

-What about equipment? Can a tumor familiar have armor or other things that could help it survive one-shots by AOE spells ?

So there you have it. I am looking for interesting suggestions and ideas on how to get the most out of this concept. Any help is welcome!

The Bloodrager Archetype ''Bloodrider'' gives you the fast rider (ex) ability instead of fast movement.

Fast movement affects only land speed but Fast rider is not clear on the subject.
Would the speed upgrade also affect flying speed ?

As per the magic item creation rules, it seems it is impossible to craft more than one magic item a day. This should include potions.

Regardless of the time needed for construction, a caster can create no more than one magic item per day.

This seems incompatible with the Mutagenic Mixology (Ex) ability of the Concocter alchemist.

A concocter can make one such concoction per day at 2nd level and a second per day at 4th level. A concoction becomes inert 24 hours after it is created.

For this ability to work as written, you need to be able to brew at least two potions a day. At first this seems to be incompatible with the magic item creation rules, but I can see a few possible things going on.

1. This is a specific exception to the rule. When using this ability you can brew more than one potion a day, but only when they are being infused with a mutagen.

2. The original rule states that a CASTER can create no more than one magic item per day. Here they refer specifically to casters. But in the FAQ, paizo says that alchemists are basically not casters.

Alchemist: Is an alchemist a spellcaster for the purpose of crafting magic items other than potions?

As written, no, alchemists are not spellcasters, and therefore can't select feats such as Craft Wondrous Item.
The design team is aware that this creates some thematic problems with the idea of an alchemist creating golems and so on, and plan to examine this in the future.

If we go pure RAW based on that, would it not imply that alchemists are exempt from the 1 per day limit for crafting potions? They cannot take other crafting feats anyway as they lack the prerequisite of having caster levels.

3.Somehow we are all wrong about the 1 per day limit applying to potions, scrolls and consumable magic items in general, this rule was intended for other things. I say that is very unlikely as the rule seem quite clear. But really this rule is weird. Why would a lev 20 cleric be unable to brew more than 1 potion of cure light wound a day? This is silly and if I was running a game I would house rule that you can, as long as you stay withing the 1000GP per day limit. Unlikely to see any kind of abuse with that, potions are expensive and situational. Wand crafting is already a lot more powerful than potion crafting, even with the 1 per day limitation.

Please help me make some sense out of that.