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Forgive the blunt question, but I'm looking for any kind of material regarding this topic.
A half-fiend character has been captured, and will be subjected to Detect Thoughts and Mark of Justice; she can try to resist with her Spell Resistance, but will the caster somehow "know" the spell failed (and why)?

To expand the topic: how about a successful Will save? Of course the caster does not get any information with spells such as "Detect THoughts", but what about Charm Person or the like? I once remember reading something like the -target- gets the feeling of something forcing his or her mind when allowed a save (so no spell spamming from hiding), but does the caster get any feedback from purely mental spells?

So I'm about to play in a Skull & Shackles campaign. My character concept is an elf arcane caster with a focus on creating magic items, weapons and constructs. Since I still don't know if we're going to play gestalt, I'm focusing on the Magus. Bladebound, to be exact.

Then I take a look at the Soulforger, and I'm not quite sure I'm reading it right. It seems almost self-limiting and contradictory: I'll try to address the issues one by one.

1) The Soulforger is focused on the creation of "armaments of surpassing power": while he *can* craft himself a very good weapon, by class features it will almost certainly be the only weapon he will ever wield, thanks to his Spell Combat and Spellstrike limited to his Bonded Object only.
I find this somewhat contradictory to the theme of "magical weapon artisan", "a-magical-weapon-for-every-circumstance" character; but I could be wrong. At this point, however, even considering that he will always fight with his Bonded Object, the Soulforger is only one feat ahead of a standard Magus.

2) Since he gains his ability to "craft" a magical weapon through his Bonded Object ability, by class features the Soulforger is completely unable to craft magical weapons for his allies. Even stranger, he is also unable to craft himself a magical armor.
This is where things start to fall apart in my head. The archetype still retains the full Magus armor proficiency, but can't craft himself a magical one even if his life depended on it. He's focused on magical weapons. Can he craft magical weapons? No, he can craft -one- magical weapon. He could do everything better by using a feat, so why am I going to choose this archetype over a feat for my Magus crafter?

3) The Soulforger adds his Magus level to all Craft checks to manufacture weapons, armors and shields -as well as skill checks for crafting Magic Arms and Armors.
Now, this is when I think either the archetype is trolling me, or I am not reading it right. Soulforgers get a -huge- bonus on mundane Craft rolls, enough to make me gasp, and can use that to probably create a dozen or so masterwork weapons, armor and shields per day. This is good, very good. At the same time, they get that same bonus on their Spellcraft check -hooray! Get magical items fast, and get them early. But wait... what can they craft? Hint hint: bonded object. Nothing more. Unless they take the feat, of course, in which case they can craft whatever they want but still be unable to use it.

So let me get it straight: all of this archetype's features are focused on crafting his weapon and that weapon only. The archetype is so nerfed while not wielding his weapon (no spellstrike and spell combat, spellcasting is impaired) that he becomes, combat-wise, a rogue with no sneak attack (a disadvantage; situational, but a disadvantage nonetheless).
Once he maxes out his bonded weapon (something he gains 5/6 level earlier, but he could've gotten anyway) a Soulforger is left with a massive bonus on Crafting that he will probably never use because
a) he cannot craft other magical weapons, for himself and his allies;
b) even if he could, you still would not be able to use them.

Soulforger baffles me. A character without this archetype can do everything it can, only slower.
It is designed for the "casual" crafter who has a single weapon in mind, does not want to waste a feat and wants access to his custom weapon as early as possible?; is it designed for the "hardcore" crafter looking for the titanic skill bonus, but nerfing him on his battle prowess and imposing upon him a dreaded "feat tax"?

Am I ignoring something? Something about this archetype, the Magus, the item creation rules... an errata somwehere?

[Edit: wrong section, this should go into Rules Question... my bad :( ]
Hi everyone!
I will be playing a Legacy of Fire campaign, modified from 3.5 to Pathfinder, in a couple of days, and I came up with an interesting character concept that would require both the Tetori and Monk of the Four Winds archetypes.

Alas, upon further inspection, the two archetypes are not compatible for they both require giving up the Abundan Step class feature. But then I took a closer look at the Quigong Monk, and it seems almost to good, so please tell me if I am wrong.

1) Quigong Monk is a normal monk archetype and can stack with other archetypes.
2) Differently from other archetypes, Quigong Monk does not force you to switch every class feature, but lets you pick and chose wich ones to keep and wich ones to trade in. While the text says "A qinggong monk can select a ki power (see below) for which she qualifies in place of the following monk class abilities", some tables seem to contradict this (I am looking at you, Abundant Step) so I'm not quite sure here.
3) "Even if a qinggong monk selects a different ki power in place of a standard monk ability, she can select that monk ability later as one of her ki powers." This means that a character can trade Abundant Step at 12th level for, say, Shadow Walk, and then later trade Quivering Palm at 15th for Abundant Step.

So, question: is it possible/legal to:
a) combine Quigong, Tetori and Four Winds, not trading a single monk ability for Quigong powers until level 15;
b) reach 12th level and trade standard monk's Abundant Step with the Tetori's class ability;
c) proceed levelling till 15th, trade standard monk's Quivering Palm with the lower-level Quigong's Abundant Step
d) trade that Abundant Step for the Four Winds ability that requires Abundant Step

End Result: A full Tetori/Monk of the Four Winds hybrid that gains Abundat Step "two times", one at 12th level and the other at 15th, both traded for different abilities from the two archetypes.
Is this legal? Overall, it seems slightly less powerful than either normal build, since it gives up a 15th level ability for a 12th level one -and yet I can't shake the feeling that this is horribly munchkin-y and not the way Quigong is supposed to be used...

Weird discussion I had with a GM I'm not going to play with.
He's relatively new to the GM role, and in his first campaign he's probably going to house rule a lot (not the brightest idea, if you ask me)... all rules based on the premise that "Golarion has less magic than the average fantasy world".

This quickly became an ugly argument filled with passive-aggressive one-upmanship regarding rules lawyering and general Golarion knowledge. Whathever, I'm going to decline their offer to play so no problem.

But the question still stands, just how magical Golarion is compared to other "standard" fantasy settings? Just to be sure I haven't lost something written in some obscure manual.

Happened in a gaming session: a Pit Fiend has a tail attack with Grab. That means he can start a grapple manouver after a successful tail attack.

Now: what I can't find anywhere is IF the pit fiend can still perform a full attack action while grapped. The rules say that grappling itself is a standard action, and that mantaining the grapple can also inflict damage with a natural attack -so I'd say no.
But, at the same time, I've read in an errata that "a monk may flurry while grappling", and also the Pathfinder SRD says "A grappled creature can still make a full attack". Does that refer to the defender (grappled) instead of the attacker (grapling), and the flurry thing is a special monk bonus?

Long story short: can a Pit Fiend attack with its tail, grapple successfully and, on following rounds (or even the same), unleash a full attack on its grappled foe while at the same time rolling to mantain the grapple?

Some game designers at Paizo have openly stated that they not want the game to be all about balance: that they want the player to be able to make "mechanically wrong" choices. One case, such as the Vow of Poverty, was openly stated to have been made deliberately "mechanically weak" for roleplaying reasons -for since it is a sacrifice, you shouldn't have something to gain from it.
I'd like to expand this concept a little. I'll try my best not to sound like a troll now (which I'm not or, at least, am not trying to be).

Pathfinder, or any other RPG, actually works on two different levels: the mechanic, and the flavor. The "mechanic" issue is inherent in the concept of a "game": players should be granted the ability to make choices; these choices should affect the outcome of the game; there should be good choices and bad choices, but the difference is not inherent and rather depending on the current and future game context, the player's previous and future strategy and his personal tastes.

The flavor level is a completely different matter, one more concerned with internal coherence, "dressing up" and narrating what happens on the mechanic level. For instance, a ray spell that hits but fails to overcome SR can be described as being dispelled by the enemy with a casual hand wave, a quick snarl or stare; it could be done in a dozen of different ways, which do not enter or even make contact with the game mechanic (and a good GM makes sure that his players do not misunderstand what he's narrating and go think the bad guy is counterspelling, which is an entirely different scenario).

The two levels -are- separate. The RPG experience treats them that way by it's own nature (roleplaying / game); in most games I know of, characters don't get to "do [something important]" by simply describing "I do [something important]": sometimes there's randomness involved, sometimes it's as simple as comparing two values and seeing which one is higher and sometimes it requires the GM to value the action a number of "story points" that the character can or can not spend. "I seduce the maid" might suffice if the game does not possess a detailed romance mechanic; "I kill the dragon" might work in a game more concerned with intrigue and politics, with incredibly detailed social combat rules. The concept is the same: RP choice > mechanical decision > mechanical outcome > RP consequence. There is no jump from RP choice to RP consequence for things that represent the core of the game.

When a game designer creates a generic mechanical element (feat or archetype) that is, by its own design, a bad mechanical choice but a great RP choice, he's making the mistake of mixing the two levels. On this matter, I preset you with this. The idea is interesting. It certainly is flavorful. It -will- open up many interesting roleplay scenarios. It's

Requiring the expenditure of a mechanical-level resource (feat slot, class levels, gold pieces) to make a good RP-level choice leaves a balanced player with only one side to pick: do I play the game, and make an inherently good game choice, or do I play the role, and make an inherently wrong game choice? Most RPGs are a collaborative effort, and other players may become frustrated at the roleplayer's Halfling Wizard with 20 points in Dexterity and an Intelligence of 3: an exaggeration, of course, but why not?

You see, that's a choice. You are entitled to make choices in a game. You are even entitled to make terrible choices in a game. Playing a Wizard that cannot cast spells, and that probably never will, is your right. It's part of the game.
But if you make a choice -that- bad, you are also deliberately choosing to fail at the "game": that does not make you a better roleplayer. That does not say anything about your skills at roleplaying at all; it just says that you either do not understand the game-level, or do not care.

If that's your choice.
What if it was a condition forced on you by a game design philosophy, "You must make a choice between the game and the roleplay, excelling in one will spell doom on the other"?

I am not preoccupied about using or not using certain troublesome classes, feats or archetypes; I am more concerned about their creation process: since game designing material does not spring forth from raw chaos, but it's rather a product of human intellect and attention, this makes me believe that Paizo really wants to keep the mechanical-level and the RP-level mutually exclusive.

I see this as a contradictory position, that can only lead to more RP feat-taxes and sub-par archetypes, much to balanced player's frustration. There are houserules, sure, but I really wonder where this company is going...

Hello, good folks!
My long-running Savage Tide campaign is "nearing" the beginning of Serpents of Scuttlecove, a part that I'm really looking forward to experience. As such, I'm looking for any kind of advice from fellow GMs and player alike to run the adventure "at its best" -whatever that meant for you & your group.

Lots of info about my current campaign (for those who care):

So, what am I looking for? Pretty much anything you can help me with: tips on major NPCs characterization or how to run certain scenes or dialogues, encounters that you though too easy or too hard, background music, tweaks to NPCs statistics. Any help would be really appreciated.

The title says all.

The people I play with, they're not "unwilling" to roleplay. They are completely "uncapable" of it.
Their character sheets have absolutely NO information written on the upper part, except for race, class & level -they are faceless, hairless creatures existing in a non-dimensional, wheightless space.
They do not have names -they call themselves with their real name, as there is no "in-game" mode of conversation among them.
They have no background -and when asked to create one to use as plot hook for the first session, only two bothered ("I won a turnament" & "I saved my village from goblins").
They make their characters perform stupid, slapstick actions such as kicking their NPC patron (a noble) or addressing her with "Yo, brother" (sic), "saucy wench" and such.
Maybe it's because the campaign just started, they had no time to grow attached to their characters, but still... not even the name...

I can see where this is headed, and maybe that's what they really want: simple, easygoing gaming session to unwind from the pains of everyday life. I have nothing againts such style of play, but it's not what I'd like -and being a part of the group, I think I'm entitled to my share of fun.

I'll get to the point: being a DM for more than 12 years, words fail to express my disappointment of our latest gaming session. Not in the players' actions, but in my inability to make them hooked. I have red Savage Tide, I know it has potential, but I am at loss on how to make them feel interest in the roleplaying aspect of the campaign (which most definitely do NOT involve such comical antics): a little chat with the players themselves, XP bonuses, XP penalties, coherent in-game consequences, I have absolutely no idea on what could work and what could end in "disaster" with players leaving the gamning table.

So, I'd like to have a little feedback, see the opinion folks here on the Paizo forum may had on the issue. Anything would be appreciated; I feel almost stupid for writing this. :)