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This is something that I see frequently come up and nobody really seems to have a definite answer for this.

Can a plant creature with immunity to polymorph effects be a druid and use wild shape?
Can an undead barbarian with immunity to mind-afecting effects benefit from the morale bonuses from rage?

There might be more, but morale and polymorph seem to be the most common cases. Does anyone have a clear answer to that?

I'm not a fan of the Dungeons & Dragons dragons with all their spells and magic, and stuff, so I came up with these ones instead, which I think work much better as "generic" dragons.
Only a quick and dirty writeup, but I think it should include all the relevant numbers.

Young Dragon CR 7
3,200 XP
Large magical beast
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +11
DEFENSE
AC 19, touch 9, flat-footed 19 (+10 natural, -1 size)
hp 82 (12d10+22)
Fort +10, Ref +8, Will +8
DR 5/magic; Resistance acid 5, cold 5, electricity 5, fire 5; SR 17
OFFENSE
Speed 40 ft., fly 80 (poor)
Melee bite +15 (2d6+4/19-20) and 2 claws +10 (1d8+2)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks breath weapon (30-ft. cone, once every 1d4 rounds, 4d10 fire damage, Reflex DC 18 for half)
STATISTICS
Str 18, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 12
Base Atk +12; CMB +17; CMD 27
Feats Flyby Attack, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Power Attack, Skill Focus (fly)
Skills Bluff +4, Fly +6, Perception +11, Sense Motive +5, Stealth +5
ECOLOGY
Environment any
Organization solitary
Treasure double

Adult Dragon CR 10
9,600 XP
Huge magical beast
Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +18
DEFENSE
AC 22, touch 7, flat-footed 22 (-1 Dex, +15 natural, -2 size)
hp 129 (14d10+52)
Fort +13, Ref +8, Will +9
DR 10/magic; Resistance acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10; SR 20
OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft., fly 100 (poor)
Melee bite +20 (2d8+8/19-20) and 2 claws +15 (2d6+4)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks breath weapon (40-ft. cone, once every 1d4 rounds, 8d10 fire damage, Reflex DC 21for half)
STATISTICS
Str 26, Dex 8, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 14
Base Atk +14; CMB +24; CMD 33
Feats Cleave, Flyby Attack, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Power Attack, Skill Focus (fly)
Skills Bluff +8, Fly +9, Knowledge (arcana) +6, Knowledge (history) +6, Perception +18, Sense Motive +9, Stealth +6
ECOLOGY
Environment any
Organization solitary
Treasure double

Old Dragon CR 13
25,600 XP
Gargantuan magical beast
Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +25
DEFENSE
AC 24, touch 4, flat-footed 24 (-2 Dex, +20 natural, -4 size)
hp 195 (18d10+102)
Fort +17, Ref +1, Will +12
DR 15/magic; Resistance acid 15, cold 15, electricity 15, fire 15; SR 23
OFFENSE
Speed 60 ft., fly 120 (poor)
Melee bite +26 (4d6+12/19-20) and 2 claws +21 (2d8+6/19-20)
Space 20 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks breath weapon (50-ft. cone, once every 1d4 rounds, 12d10 fire damage, Reflex DC 25 for half)
STATISTICS
Str 34, Dex 6, Con 22, Int 18, Wis 18, Cha 16
Base Atk +18; CMB +34; CMD 42
Feats Cleave, Flyby Attack, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Critical (claw), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack, Skill Focus (fly)
Skills Bluff +12, Fly +12, Knowledge (arcana) +13, Knoweldge (history) +13, Perception +25, Sense Motive +13, Stealth +7
ECOLOGY
Environment any
Organization solitary
Treasure double

Do you think these look about right, given their CRs?

By accident I came upon an article that proposed that recent editions of Pathfinder/D&D appear to have a problem with the balance between spellcasters and mundane warriors because there is a common assumption that spellcasters can throw all their good spells at their enemies in three encounters per day. Mundane warriors would have their impact on the enemies at a slow but steady pace, but when you don't give them the time to do it before spells are recharged, they won't make much of a difference at all.
The somewhat counterintuitive reason that is proposed is that adventure modules are actually too hard. They are designed in a way that highly encourages, or maybe even enforces, that spellcaster give everything they have as soon as they can, because otherwise the party will not survive. On the other hand, if encounters are easier, the warriors can merrily chip away, while the spellcasters have their really powerful spells but don't want to waste them on the little critters and keep them for when they run into something really big.

Whether or not that actually is the case is of course debatable. However, I would be really interested to get more evidence either for or against that hypothesis. The article is over two years old and Paizo has released a huge amount of adventures in the meantime.
What I want to ask for is for people to check the adventures they have for the Encounter Levels they include, as well as the assumed average party level for these encounters.
I think the relevant section from the DMG was never included in the SRD and as such isn't in the CRB or Game Mastery Guide either. But supposedly a good balance would be:
30% - EL lower than APL
50% - EL equal to APL
15% - EL equal to APL+1 to APL+4
5% - EL greater than APL+4

Might be interesting to see how that turns out.

As always with any thread dealing with this topic, I want to appeal to people to not start crying in anger because this idea will "ruin Pathfinder FOREVER!" and "makes fighters completely useless!". And as always, I don't expect that this appeal will be paid any attention by these people. They never are.

But anyway, talk about a "Pathfinder Light" show up every so often again and again, so there are actually people interested in playing a game that is like Pathfinder but much less complex and hard to learn and to run. If you play the game for complex tactical combat, this idea is not for you.
This proposal for Pathfinder Fast Play is aimed at people who never really think about adding modifiers for range increments and soft cover, rarely have encounters on difficult terrain, don't have fog and wind come up during fights, and whose fighters regularly use full-attack and whose wizards prepare fireball three times per day anyway. This is important. This proposal is completely and utter broken and unbalanced. It's not a goal, but an issue that is already assumed to be irrelevant for the entire content of this concept. This isn't anything that is significantly different from what D&D did for over 20 years and that all the OSR retro-clones are still doing to this day. What is relevant though, is that all players and GMs who would play in a game like this have to have a mutual unerstanding that there will be no optimization in that campaign. There needs to be a mututal understanding that combat is not a mathmatical problem for which an optimal solution has to be calculated.
The basic idea is "rulings, not rules". That is, the rules of the game just provide a general framework how most common things work. If the players want to do something, they describe their plan and all the rules and dice rolling are simply there to help the GM detrrmine if the action succeeds or fails. It's rules for a game that is all about exploring the world and interacting with it through a story that develops as it goes.

That being said, here the actual crunch of the concept:
Ability Scores: Work just as in the CRB.
Races: Work just as in the CRB.
Classes: Work just as in the CRB, except for class features that might become redundant because of later changes.
Favored Classes: To keep the rules short and simple, these are just dropped completely.
Skills: The Skill list and the system of gaining and distributing skill ranks works just as in the CRB. The rules for using specific skills can change though.
Feats: Work just as in the CRB, though some specific feats might become redundant because of other changes later on.
Monsters: Stay mostly identical to the Bestiaries. A notable exception for the Grab and Constrict abilities.

The major changes:
Combat Grid: Not used, or entirely optional. In larger fights, markers can still be used to indicate the rough relative position of all combatants to each other. Movement ranges and spell areas are eyeballed.
5-foot step: Taking a lesson from Star Wars Saga, these don't exist.
Attack of Opportunity: Provoked when moving out of an enemies threatened range, casting a spell, or attempting a Combat Maneuver, or a character does anything else that requires stopping to dodge any attacks.
Flanking: There is no flanking. Sneak Attack only works when the target is denies Dex Bonus to AC.
Reach Weapons: Do not exist, their range is just like any other weapon. (Though it should be considered when trying to stab at an enemy trapped in a pit or a cage.)
Casting Times: Casting a spell is a full-round action. Spells with a casting time of a swift action become standard actions. Spells with a casting time of a full-round action become 1-round actions.
Defensive Casting: Spellcasters can not cast defensively. The Combat Casting feat provides a +4 bonus to Concentration checks for taking damage of any kind.
Negative HP: A character at 0 hp is unconscious and stable. A character at negative hp takes 1 point of damage every round until a healing spell is cast on him or a DC 15 Heal check is made.
Stealth: If a character has cover or concealment, he can make a Stelath check to hide. If the GM says an NPC has his back turned to the PC, the PC can make a Stealth check to sneak up on the NPC and stay undetected even when outside of cover or concealment.
Shoting into Melee: A flat -4 penalty to hit. No adjustment for other creatures staying in the line of the shot, no chance for hitting another creature (since exact positions are not tracked). In specific situations like using a hostage as a shield, the GM is encouraged to come up with something on the fly, but it should be kept basic and simple in ordinary fighty.
Grapple: Grapple becomes a simple "Pin" combat maneuver, which is a standard action. When beating the targets CMD, the target is pinned until the next turn of the attacker starts. A pinned target can make a combat maneuver roll or Escape Artist roll as a standard action on its turn to escape.

This is the draft for now. Any suggestions what things should be simplefied or where these proposed changes could be improved? Remember, under the assumption that the game is played at low-optimization and casual tactical complexity.

While I was looking for ideas how to run a game that consists to a major part of the PCs traveling through the wilds like in a hex-crawl sandbox game, I cam upon this interesting article.

A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming

This is intended as an introduction to BECMI, ACKS, and other retroclones, but I noticed that pretty much everything it speaks about isn't really specific to those rules, and in fact isn't really opposed to the rules of a game like Pathfinder, from which it wants to separate those Old-School games.
In the end, it's really just about the way you run the game, not about how open or detailed the rules are. It probably works better at lower levels or in an E6 game, but even in Pathfinder, PCs can still attempt anything the players can think of (excluding spells). All the feats and class features merely provide bonuses that increase the chances of success.

I think a Pathfinder game can be greatly enhanced by making use of these methods of planning adventures and running games, which have been given not much attention in the last one or two decades, when the style of successive highly tactical combat with optimized characters became more of a default assumption in community discussions.
At least since the very first days of D&D 3rd Ed., adventure modules have been designed and presented as a number of combat encounters pre-scheduled in a more or less linear fashion. Notable exception here being obviously Kingmaker. But I think those kinds of adventures have even been around in AD&D 2nd Ed. and people had to look waaay back before you find a stage where class-level based games and purely narrative games where not treated as entirely different things.

Here someone explains why random encounters are boring and there is alway only one per journey. But the real reason is that random encounters are only a single element in a bigger complex of interrelated mechanics, which simply can't work without the others.
I'm not even a fan of sandbox games and think they sound extremely boring. What I always wanted was to run and play games in which the GM prepares an antagonist and a general goal for the PCs, but the players decide how to deal with it and in what way progress through the campaign. It's still plot-driven, but for all the overland travel and exploration of dungeons, I think the game needs to use those mechanics of old-school hex-crawl games.

Do other people have experience with this, and can share insights on where certain things work really well and what other things need additional considerations and preparations to be fun in a game using Pathfinder rules?

I've never really been using random encounters as they always seemed like 4 additional rounds of combat crammed between two segments of the actual adventure.
Now I will be running a game in which the PCs will spends a great amount of time traveling through wilderness and when they get into dungeons, they have a task to perform there and not just clean out all the monsters from every room.
I think random encounters are going to actually be an important part of a game like this. It's a sparsely populated world of vast open wilderness with only relatively few small towns and villages. Like in a Dark Sun game, getting from one place to another should be just as important as what's happening in the home base and the villains stronghold.

But as I said, I've always avoided using random encounters and basically made all my dungeons like in 3rd Ed. and Pathfinder adventures, where they are one long winding corridor full of enemies that you have to cross to get to the dungeon boss at the end. I've taken a look at Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, and that type of dungeon seems a lot more exiting. A place to explore and search for the thing you need, while maybe trying to not meet all the creatures that inhabit the place.

Can anyone give me some pointers on how to do random encounters well? Anything that isn't just "a group of 1d6+2 orcs comes around the corner in front of you", but the start of interesting situations.

The rules for heat dangers say that in conditions of extreme heat you take 1d6 points of lethal damage per minute with no save, and in addition you also have to make a Fortitude save every 5 minutes or take 1d4 points of nonlethal damage.

That seems rather redundant to me. 5d6 lethal damage with no save plus 1d4 nonlethal damage on a failed save? It doesn't seem like that would matter anymore at that point. Is it supposed to work that way, or did there get something mixed up?

I will start a new game in my homebrew setting soon, and being a prehistoric world that is mostly wilderness with just some small villages clustered in a few areas, PCs will regularly be spending a lot of time in the wilds and off the few roads there are. Even if it's just patrolling for monsters or bandits near their village or making a quick visit in the next village on the other side of the forest, every adventure that does not take place in just a single village will have wilderness passages.

In the past, I almost always skipped over those parts. Because traveling on a well known road during spring or fall, what could really happen that wouldn't turn into grinding routine after the third time?
But for this campaign, I want to make it a major aspect of the game, and so I want it to be something exciting and not dreadfully boring. Since I barely ever tried it, I am needings lots of help and advice on this.

I think I will be using the hex-maps from Ultimate Campaign. Without modern maps based on extensive land surveys, any location that isn't directly next to a landmark that can be seen clearly from a dozen miles away or along a road will be hard to pinpoint exactly even with a map. If the location of a destination is narrowed down to a single hex, the exploration rules can be used as a base to determine how long it takes the PCs to find the exact place they are looking for.
Also, it's easy to track where the PCs actually end up when they are getting seriously lost.

Some things I am completely lost about is keeping track of supplies. Should finding food and water be something that is relevant unless the characters are traveling though deserts or mountains? I expect almost any character to have decent ranks in survival and simply moving at half-speed for a day to restock supplies seems a bit boring and not interesting at all.

I usually don't pay anny attention to the efficiency of feats, equipment, and spells and just pick what I think looks nice on the character. However, working on a campaign setting, I want the premade NPCs to not be too bad and have a bit of a punch behind them. Most build optimization guides seem to target high level characters, but I expect most of the NPCs I'm going to make to be in the 3rd to 7th level range, and so I need to know what good combinations there are, that become effective no later than 6th level.

Any pointers you could give me? If it can be done with CRB only, that would be particularly great, but anything related to oracles would also be welcome. The extent of my own knowledge doesn't go much farther than "power attack good for two-handed warriors" and "entangle is a great spell".

Shadow demons seem to be the only incorporeal creatures that do not have incorporeal touch attacks. Is that on purpose or a mistake? In D&D, it had a special ability that allows its claws to affect corporeal creatures.
Lacking a body, they wouldn't be able to make any claw attacks, except against other incorporeal creatures.

I think these two creatures would work exceptionally well as templates rather than just creatures with fixed stats. Does anyone know about templates for them for Pathfinder?

I've learned to live with all distances and heights being counted in feet. An odd system of measurement, but it comes up so often that you soon get used to it.

However, it's a different thing with temperature. I can understand that american writers like to write their books with measurements they are familiar with, but except for people living in the United States or Belize, none of us has any clue what the temperatures given for certain effects in the Pathfinder books and the PRD mean. Either we have to go online to look up the conversion calculation and get out a calculator to get these numbers into C, or, what I think most commonly happens, we just don't care enough and ignore the whole rule completely.

However, this could very easily be solved if any temperatures given are written as (90F/??C) instead of just (90F). It would be really great if that could be added to future books and new printings of old ones, as well as to the PRD.

I've seen lots of mention of wishes for a Pathfinder Light system, which never really seemed to take off. And apparently, most of these suggestions where about discarding feats, less class features, and so on.

However recently, I've come to think that the complexity of the game (which is a problem inherent to the d20 system) could be reduced by approaching the issue from a different direction.

I think that the system of class features, skills, and feats is not actually the problem. That part is actually very easy and all the problems really come from using 6 books with character options at once and already planning ahead 10 levels in advance.

I think the real issue is all the rules for everything else. There is attacks of opportunity, moving through difficult terrain, getting grappled, reach weapons, range increments for ranged weapons, effects of wind, holding your breath, crafting magic items, figuring out which bonuses stack and which don't, 5 foot steps, falling prone, being at 0 hp, recovering from negative hit points, moving through snow, fighting on slippery surfaces, and many other more.

I believe that the whole game can become a lot easier if these things get an overhaul.
The great thing about this approach is, that making characters and most regular uses of skills and attacks remain unaffected and those things that change would be the ones that people have difficulty remembering anyway, because they come up so rarely. Which is partially because nobody wants to look them up again all the time.
And it would also much less work than going over all the classes, races, and feats and rewriting half of it.

Now, for this thread, I mainly want to collect what people think which parts of the rules would benefit most from being replaced by something simpler.
This is not about what you think is "too difficult" or not, or what "already works, if people would just read the rules carefully", and things like that. Everyone can play the game as written in the CRB if they want to. This little project is directed entirely at people who would like to have a simpler game, for whatever reason. Also, any ideas don't have to come in a single package, it should be easily possible to pick some of the options and don't use others.

For now, let's just collect what could be done in a simpler way. How to do it will come later.

--

Here my own list of things that I want to change:

- No Combat Grid: Most games work without one, and so could a d20 game like Pathfinder.
- -> This directly affects Attacks of Opportunity.

- Rules for 0 and negative hit points.

- Penalties for range increments.

- Grappling

- Moving on unusual terrain

Though Pathfinder is my RPG system of choice (with SWSE for Sci-Fi games), I still have great love for several more "simpler" games like AD&D, Dragon Age, and others.
I actually consider it one of the major flaws of the d20 system, that it tries to cover pretty much any imaginable situation with a specific rule. Other games tend to assume that lots of things are just successfully completed automatically without any rules to see if it works or not.

This is very much a matter of personal preference and playing style. If you play Pathfinder for the tactical combat and building character, simply handwaving things and ignoring specific rules won't enhance the game, but only chaos and arbitrary situations.

But you can also play the game by focusing on interaction and story progress, while letting the rules fade into the background. (Though you can of course also do both.) And I think in such situations, the d20 system tends to get a bit clunky and occasionally getting in the way. But in the old tradition of AD&D, you don't actually have to use every single rule there is, but keep it to the bare bones or anything in between.

What I am looking for are ideas which can help to free the players from being tied to the dice all the time and enable both players and GM to simply go with the flow and come up with resolutions to things as you go. I already got a couple, but would really like to get some additional ideas from other people as well.

1. Only roll dice when the outcome is uncertain. There are many rather mundane actions that can be resolved by using the regular rules, but quite often it just isn't neccessary. When you ask someone for the way to the temple, you don't need to make a Diplomacy check to Gather Information. When a rogue in light armor drops his backpack to climb a tree to look around, you don't really have to make a Climb check. The Swim skill and the Ride skill, say that you don't need to have Ranks in the skills to swim or ride, and don't have to make checks for most "ordinary" situations in which you swim or ride. The skills are for situations in which you perform extraordinary attempts at riding and swimming.
I think that's a good advice to actually a great range of situations. If a failed roll has no real effect on how the adventure progresses and it seems like a task that almost everyone would be able to complete without any problem, skip the rolling of dice. I would even extend that to "don't make checks against a DC of 10 or lower", unless there are circumstances that would complicate things. Like climbing a tree in plate armor with a heavy load. Intution tells you it's not guaranteed to work, so roll the dice and add the modifiers.

2. Use +2/+4 bonuses and -2/-4 penalties on the fly. I think there are lots of rules for fog, and smoke, and thick vegetation, wet floors, loud noises, and so on. But those come up very rarely and I wouldn't be suprised if most GMs would have to look them up. While you of course can look them up, for a game that puts less emphasis on tactical combat, I instead favor very strongly to simply apply a small modifer to any relevant rolls like attack rolls, Perception checks, Reflex saves, and so on.

3. For small encounters, don't use a grid. Not exactly about dice, but works similarly. If you have an encounter in which you have only 4 PCs and three or four enemies, you can keep track of everyones general position pretty well in your mind. Saying "I step into position to flank the ogre together with character B" and "I back up so the ogre can't reach me with a 5-foot step" can often be precise enough. The really critical things to know is "who is flanking" and "who is in what characters threatend space". All that the grid really does is giving precise information about that. If a group has a more laid back approach to combat, it's not really neccessary. For highly tactical combat, that obviously is not an option, as movement speed and line of sight become completely arbitrary.

4.Simplefy spell durations. Keeping track of how long a spell lasts is one of the more complicated parts of the game. However, this can be quite significantly simplefied:
If you play in the low- to mid-level range of 1st to 10th level, a spell that lasts 1 round/level will last 1 to 10 rounds. Since most fights last in the range of 3 to 5 rounds, a very significant portion of such spells being cast will last until the end of the encounter, and will be long over by the time the next encounter starts. So to simplefy, you could also say that "1 round/level" means the same as "for the rest of the encounter.
Similar, a spell with a duration of 1 hour/level will last between 1 and 10 hours. That almost always means "the whole adventuring day". 1st level characters will rarely crawl through a dungeon more than 1 hour at a time, and even 10th level characters are very unlikely to go full 13 hours in one go.
Spells with 1 minute/level are less clear, but a good estimate is "one series of rapid encounters", like storming a small bandit hideout which includes clearing 4 rooms of bandits in rapid succession. It will probably last long enough to clear the entire gatehouse of a castle, but will have ended by the time you continue to the next strongpoint where the defenders have holed up.

To clarify this right from the start: I personally don't have any real interest in it and tend to mentally just bunch it with all the other "generic" fantasy worlds like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms.

But obviously, lots of people have a HUGE love for it and I am quite curious from an artistic point of view, why this is so. So I am wondering why Golarion is your setting of choice (or even just one you like to use frequently), and even more so what particular aspects make it stand out above the other GreyLance Realms settings?

Is there anything unique about it, or is it more a case of taking all the best of the common elements and putting them together in just the perfect way?

I am creating a couple of thematically grouped spells, and I am having trouble finding spells that relate to entropy.

I am looking for spells that make targets weaker and lowering their defenses. They also should be 1st to 4th level and if possible use relatively easy mechanics that are easy to track and remember.

So far I have:

Cause Fear
Sleep
Ray of Enfeeblement
Hold Person
Ray of Exhaustion
Bestow Curse
Inflict Pain

I am compling a reference guide for a campaign, that among other things includes a shortened and simplefied list of feats for players not familiar with the rules, as well as for me as a list when creating NPCs and monsters.
The campaign is intended to go only up to 7th or 8th level, and in the unlikely event that the PCs would actually make it to 10th level, it would then become an E10 game.

There are a couple of feats that I think appear completely pointless and have no reason to be picked by any player, but maybe I am missing important things or some things actually aren't that bad in a low-level game.

Diehard: Is it ever good for anything?
Deflect Arrows/Snatch Arrows: Seems way too situational and then not much useful.
Double Slice: Unless you have a lot of strength, that's just +1 or maybe +2 damage per hit with an off hand weapon. Weapon Focus seems much better.
Manyshot: Why take it when it's basically the same as rapid shot, with the only exception that either both hit or both miss (which doesn't really sound like an advantage).
Quicken Spell: You need to be 7th level to use it on level 0 spells, and 9th level to use it on 1st level spells. Is there any point to taking it that early?
Vital Strike: I would see some use for it in a low-level campaign, but it requires a BAB of +6, which basically means you wouln't want to use it anymore, right?
Whirlwind Attack: Still a funny idea, but the prerequisites are way too expensive.

I am very much intrigued by Reign of Winter and might even run it this winter. But I don't like the Golarion setting and especially the idea of visiting other planets and Russia in world war one.
While this one might look a bit tougher to adept to another setting, looking up the descriptions and reviews, it might not actually be such a huge undertaking.

So what would I really need to have in a world, to make Reign of Winter work?

I think Baba Yaga might actually be quite easily replaced with just some demigoddess of winter and cold, who likes to visit the lands covered in snow during winter.
She also needs to have semi-immortal daughters, who rule over a decently sized, but not neccessarily big domain somewhere in the subarctic regions.
For the Planet of Ice, the PCs could simply be transported to the north pole, which is normally unreachable and unexplored by people of their homeland.
How to make Rasputins base and troops normal fantasy fare depends on how they will make an appearance in the not yet released adventure. But I think it could just be another continent on the opposite hemisphere of the planet, that is unknown to characters living in the setting.

That probably leaves the hut. Is the fact, that it has legs, actually relevant? I think of just making it a normal hut that appears and disappears during violent snow storms in any place that is below freezing. People will enter the hut, conjure a snowstorm, and after the storm calms down after an hour, the world outside is a completely different one. If the hut actually gets to fight anything, it could get some kind of guardian spirit instead, I would assume, making the rest of the plot work as well.

Since it's still a nature deity, the Winter Spirit would want winter to happen according to the natural cycles of the year, and some upstart witch trying to steal that control and have heir way with this power is as unacceptible to the spirit as it is to the PCs.

Are there any problems with that approach, or any other things that need to be present, to run the AP in an existing setting?

I've been doing a bit of work on a new campaign setting for a couple of years and have already been running two short mini-campaigns in a "proto version" of it. Now disappointed with the other RPG systems I've been trying I've finally nailed it down to Pathfinder, mostly because it's a much neater and more ordered version of the game I already know best, but also to some extend because of the possibility of making it available to a greater audience. For free. And having checked on the terms, I want to apply for the PFRPG Compatibility Logo as well.

If anyone is interested in the specifics of the world, you can take a look at a great deal of the semi-completed work here or at the website I created for it, the Barbaripedia (still in an early stage).

In this thread, I want to give a short summary of the general concept, followed by the specific differences between the standard Pathfinder rules and assumptions, and an Ancient Lands campaign. The aim of this thread is to get some input from other people, how much these peculiarities seem to be a good and working solution to represent the game world, but also for other things you think could be useful additions.

--

Basic Concept
The name Ancient Lands has two meanings. For one, it is a world, which from our perspective is ancient to what we consider a "common" fantasy world; but it is also a world that is regarded as ancient by the people who live in it, because of its age.
At the core of the entire concept stands the idea, that the Ancient Lands are a world that is dominated by tribal or pre-historic societies. The social, economical, and political situations are losely modeled on those we associate with post-Roman Europe, ancient India, or the prehistoric Mediterranean. Ancient Egypt, Mycenae, merowingian France, pre-christian Germanic people, American Indians, or the Huns are all good examples for the kind of world people in the Ancient Lands are living in. One aspect that is important to me, is that I don't want any of the races and cultures to be real world analogs. There are no Germanic tribes, no Aztec empire, no Pacific islanders, no Chinese, and so on.
I draw many inspirations from the continents Xen'drik (Eberron) and Kalimdor (WarCraft), but the main difference is that the current age of the Ancient Lands is not a time thousands of years after the local civilizations of elves, giants, and lizardfolk have been destroyed or faded into obscurity. Which is also a strong theme in the worlds of Middle-Earth or the Forgotten Realms. Instead, the world that is described in the Ancient Lands is one, in which these great civilizations are just starting to emerge from the prehistoric barbarian tribes. It is an age in which kingdoms are founded, but many of which also disappear quickly to be eventually forgotten in time, in which mages are starting to turn their attention to other worlds that might exist outside their own, and in which the mighty dragons and giant kings still have to be slain. But it is also an age, where most of the world is still uninhabted wilderness entirely dominated by nature spirits who have a much greater effect and more direct influence over mortal humanoids than any distant and abstract gods. And deep below the surface of the earth and at the bottom of the oceans, there are still beings from a far older time, when the planet was a hostile world of lava, boiling seas, and permanent storms that have never been seen anywhere since.
Player Characters in this world are usually not adventurers traveling the lands in search of quick and dangerous ways to gain great riches, but are instead members of small tribal clans, who are counted among the warriors and shamans who defend their people against the countless threats of a wild and dangerous world, where many small civilizations vanish without leaving anything behind for later generations. But the people of the Ancient Lands are not only trying to survive, they are also constantly struggling to improve their lives and society, by creating greater accomplishments than their ancestors and the people who inhabited their homeland before them. And to do that, the bravest and most capable people of a clan have to go outside the relatively safety of their villages, and explore the vast wilderness around them, where ancient ruins still hold many secrets and treasures left behind by the spirits that build them in long forgotten times.

The Rules of the World
Here I come to my ideas how I think this concept can be best realized within the rules of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

Maximum Level 10th
I was contemplating making the Ancient Lands an E6 setting, but decited against it for various reasons. Instead, the Ancient Lands are a setting in which you won't find almost any NPCs of 11th level or higher, with only very few exceptions for certain "unique" and semi-immortal beings.
In my personal experience, and matching what I heard from many other people, 10th level is already a point of character advancement that is reached by very few groups even in relatively long running campaigns. Generally, I envision the setting as a world in which combat is not always desirable and avoiding it when possibly is given a certain priority. If any individual group likes to run a game in which combat is more frequent, using the slow XP progression is one option. If the PCs should reach 10th level but the adventures are far from over yet, turning it into an E10 game is no problem at all.

Character Races
While the Ancient Lands are a setting for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game system, I do not envision it as a Dungeons & Dragons world. That means that among other things, that the creatures inhabiting the world, do not exactly match those of the CRB and the Bestiaries. This affects the existing selection of humanoid races as well.
Wood Elves: Wood elves are the race with the strongest position when it comes to learning and advanced military, and also one of the most numerous. However, the Ancient Lands is not an elf-centric setting. The wood elves are not a unified people, nor are they inherently good or superior to anyone else. Their cultural advantage is based almost entirely on being the first who rose from savagery. When it comes to individuals, personal learning and experience make the much greater difference. There also is no real difference between nature and civilization in the society and culture of the Ancient Lands, wood elf is merely a term to emphazise that these elves are tribal people living in relatively simple conditions, just like everyone else.
Dark Elves: Less numerous than the wood elves, but still one of the major races, the dark elves are one of the two major races that inhabit the southern part of the Ancient Lands. Spending the mid-day in their underground homes, they emerge at sunset to work, trade, and hunt in the jungles late into the night. They are not more inherently evil than any other races, but tend much more to isolation than most wood elven clans and are not nearly as welcoming of visitors and strangers.
Lizardfolk: Lizardfolk are more numerous than either wood elves and dark elves, but rarely travel out of the jungles of the Southern Ancient Lands the the subtropical islands near the coast. While the majority of them still lives in ways that many of the other races regard as savage, lizardfolk civilization is just as old as that of the elves and there are some centers of culture, that rank among the most advanced places known in the entire world.
Gnomes: The gnomes of the Ancient Lands combine traits and elements of the dwarf, gnome, and halfling races. In an attempt to make the dwarves less drunken scottish viking miners, and the halflings less english cleptomanics, it seemed like the sensible thing to merge the elements that work for the Ancient Lands in a single race. Gnomes are kind of in the middle between them, so that's what they are called. Gnomes are not very numerous and not a major military power in the greater state of things, but their knowledge of mining and metalworking by far surpases that of the other races. Their control over the supply and trade of steel makes them a much more important player in the Ancient Lands than many would think.
Humans: Humans are not native to the Ancient Lands. Instead, they are descendants of barbaric people who lived on the wide plains far to the east of the Ancient Lands, but where hired as mercenaries by elves who needed additional guards to protect the few caravans that brought goods from unknown lands beyond the plains and are still fantastically valuable and expensive. Many of the plains clans eventually made their whole living by working for elves, and considerable numbers eventually moved their whole families to the Ancient Lands, where they either became vassals to some local chiefs, or established themselves as minor rulers. The humans of the Ancient Lands lack major cities and only a few of their chiefs rank as equals among the mover and shakers of the region. But it is still possible to run an Ancient Lands campaign with a party consisting only of humans and taking place in human dominated lands, if being vassals to an elven people is not to the players liking. It isn't to many of the humans either, so this isn't something that would keep anyone from enjoying the rest of the setting. It is still perfectly according to the design intent of the setting.
Kaas: The kaas are a new and custom race that losely corresponds to the archetype of the "noble orc". There kaas are humanoids who stand somewhat taller than humans with slightly bestial features. They are covered in light brown fur, have thick dark manes, and faces that have some faint resamblance to wolves or lions. The kaas are at home in the northern parts of the Ancient Lands and are known both for their strength and their exceptional ability to climb on rocks. Culturally and technologically, the kaas are quite comparable to the humans, but they are a native people of the Ancient Lands and have been around longer than anyone can remember. They have a very complex tradition of shamanism, but generally do not tollerate mages among them.

As mentioned before, an important aspect is, that this world is not an elf-centric one. Elves do play a central role and as a race have considerable advances, but the intend is not to portray them as superior in any way. If individual elves are portrayed as racists pricks, then these individuals are meant to be racist pricks. People of questionable character who are controlled by their prejudices. Predjudice and elitism are themes that the setting does incorporate, but as aspects of a world that is harsh and unfair, and in which people don't neccessarily share our perceptions of right and wrong.
Settings in which elves are portrayed as just plain better are rather annoying and you don't have to be an elf-hater to be seriously turned off by that. In the Ancient Lands, any such notions are meant as delusions by the characters, and any hatred directed at them is entirely within the goals of their design. ;)

Character Classes
The Ancient Lands portray a society in which many of the institutions taken for granted in a medieval or early modern society have yet to come into existance. This manifests in the number of classes that are most commonly appearing in the Ancient Lands.
Barbarian: The barbarian is basically a no-brainer here. Barbarians exist among all the races and even include elven warriors who throw themselves into battle with an unnatural passion.
Fighter: The fighter is the class of the "common warrior", if such a thing exists in the Ancient Lands. Fighters make up the bulk of NPC warriors the PCs will encounter.
Ranger: While the fighter is a tribal warrior who protects the village and goes into battle at the side of his chief, the rangers is more of a frontiersman and scout. Many of them are still counted among the warriors of their clan, but are usually much more concerned with patrolling the borders than taking part in the politics and rivalries of the other warriors. For an Ancient Lands campaign, rangers should be of the Skirmisher archetype, or any other ranger archetype that replaces spellcasting.
Rogue: The rogue class basically applies to all the people who can handle knives and bows well, but are not usually considered warriors. In an Ancient Lands campaign, the Minor Magic and Major Magic rogue tallents are not appropriate and should not be available.
Adept: The adept is a new class (name might still change) that represents all kinds of spellcasters who are not shamans. These can be witches, warlocks, sorcerers, or whatever they may call themselves. The Adept class very closely matches the Wizard class, but uses the Class Skill list of the Witch and is converted to the primary magic system of the Ancient Lands Campaign Setting.
Shaman: A shaman is a spellcaster who serves as an intermediary between the mortal people and the beings of the spiritworld. The spirits tend to take forms that are invisible to normal people an interpreting their will and demands requires insight into a very alien way of thinking and percieving the world. Shamans train their whole life to learn to communicate with the spirits and maintain harmony between the villagers and the spiritworld. The shaman clase closely resembles the oracle class but has been adapted to the magic system of the Ancient Lands Campaign Setting. They do not gain additional known spells from their mysteries, but also do not have the oracle curse feature.
Oracles and Sorcerers: If any group prefers the regular spellcasting mechanics of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the oracle and sorcerer class make the best substitutes for shamans and adepts respectively.

Allegiance
Allegiance is a kind of "alignment" system that has been introduced many years ago by the d20 modern game, but has gained suprisingly little attention anywhere. (The Conan d20 Game is the only other game I know about that uses it.) In a world like the Ancient Lands, objective notions of Good and Evil have no real use and things are almost always much more complicated. It is also a world, in which people have priorities and notions of morality that can be quite different from what we are used to. Allegiance is a method that repaces alignment and serves as a very useful tool to help players assuming the point of view of a person that lives in a very different world than themselves.
Basically, a character has up to three Allegiances, which are a strong devoted loyalty to a person or group, or commitment to a certain ideology. The main idea is for players to write down what things are of the greatest priority to their character. When faced with difficult descisions in which there are no obvious right or wrong options, the allegiances of the character can be a very powerful tool to remind a player that they might be playing a character with rather different views than themselves. Save a child or save the king might seem like an easy choice to us, but if the character has loyalty to his king as one of his allegiances, and believe that all members of the clan have to make sacrifices to protect the king, his choice might be different.
In addition, characters who know that they share an allegiance, treat each other as allies or at least like-minded individuals, and making Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate rolls against such NPCs gains a +2 or +4 bonus to the roll. On the other hand, characters might now that they follow allegiances that oppose each other, and they get a -2 or -4 penalty to these rolls, because they never really trust each other.

Background
Background is a new aspect of a character and basically represents the station of his birth. In the Ancient Lands, not everyone is born equal and it makes quite a difference what class of people you belong to. A lowborn commoner might face harsh punishment if offending a highborn nobleman, while the nobleman can insult any commoner as much as he wants to with no real repercussions. However, a member of the lowborn class will find much more acceptance and openness from other lowborn, than any highborn would ever see. Every rank brings with it certain benefits and drawbacks, and it is up to the players to chose which of the six options they chose. In the Ancient Lands, this is not just a purely sociological concept, but people tend to be very much aware of the social rank of any person. (And it requires a Disguise check to pretend that you belong to another group than your own.)
Highborn: Even in societies with no real notion of nobility or aristocracy, there are still certain families who hold almost all of the power and wealth in their clan. These people are shown great respect by members of the other ranks, but it also means that they can not easily mingle and particularly people of the lower ranks will outright refuse to treat a highborn like any other people, as this calls for trouble from other highborn. In situations where characters from lower ranks gain great prestige and power, they almost automatically advance to the highborn rank, even if they are not born into it. Personal accomplishment is ranked much higher than birth, and those who have the ability to take power deserve to be treated that way.
Clansmen: The clansmen are often identical with the "old families" and long established bloodlines of the clan. These are people with full right within the clan, which includes serving as a warrior, owing property, or voting on important descisions. Clansmen is assumed as the default rank for most Player Characters, unless the player explicitly decides to pick something else.
Freemen: A freeman is a person who is not a member of the clan, but still a respected member of the community. Freemen families are considered guests of the chief in his domain and can be forced to leave at any time, if the chief choses so. They also have no right to vote on public descisions. Freemen are very common in independent towns and cities, but in smaller villages they often live as servants on farms owed by clansmen families.
Lowborn: The lowborn class consists of all kinds of people who are permited to live in the community of a clan, but have basically no wealth or power. Many of them are slaves or poor freemen, but some are actually impoverished clansmen as well, who are forced into servitude to others. Lowborn lack any previleges or special rights, but they are often treated as almost invisible and usually know a lot more of what's going on around them and in their masters home than anyone else expects.
Hermits: Hermits are individuals who have renounced their ties to their clans or lords to devote their lives entirely to the persuits of a higher calling. Many of them are shamans or adepts and treated with very high respect by both highborn and lowborn. They are perhaps the only people who can mingle with others regardless of their social rank and a well known hermit will be a welcome guest in the home of a chief even if he just cared for a sick beggar. However, hermits are expected to act according to their calling and those who abuse the reverance they recieve might eventually find a hard time recieving hospitality and shelter.
Outcasts: Only under the most severe conditions do the clans ever condemn any of their own people to exile. It is a sentence for the most despicable people who could barely escape execution, but quite often their chances to survive another year all by themselves are pretty slim. Anyone who has no clan or at least the personal protection of a chief who vows for him, is considered as entirely untrsustworthy and not welcome in any decent community. Even if they have not been punished with exile, they must have been raised by people who were, and no such person could ever raise a child to be honorable and trustworthy. Small communities of outcasts can be found in many places, and most are very bleak places to live. More often than not they are ruled by brutal thugs who intimidate those weaker than themselves and even those who try their best at a honest live are often forced to steal to survive. However, most outcasts share a certain bond or common understanding of their desparate situations. Even if they are hiding in secret among other people and disguise their true identity, they are still able to recognize one another and form vast unofficial networks of contacts. Outcasts hiding among freemen and lowborn are very common in larger towns, where clan allegiance is not as important, and they are usually in control of large parts of the underworld. Other outcasts tend to have very few problems finding these people and making contact with them, even if most of the townsfolk have no idea they even exist.

Honor
Honor is a system from the recently released Ultimate Campaign. For the Ancient Lands, additional Honor Codes need to be drawn up, but I think it's a system that should work quite well.

Magic
As mentioned before, the Ancient Lands Campaign Setting does not use the standard "vancian" spell slot system. Instead, magic in the Ancient Lands is based on a concept of manipulating natural energies in the environment and creatures to bend them to your will, much like you can control your own body or thoughts. The adept and the shaman spellcasting classes use a spell point mechanic similar to the power points from Psionics Unleashed. There are about 60 spells (of which a 10th level spellcaster can know 21 or more), that can be increased in power by spending more than the minimum amount of spell points, by the Augmentation mechanic. With augmentation, a spell basically becomes a more powerful version of itself, for example allowing the charm spell to not only affect creatures of the humanoid type, but also of the magical beast type or even outsider type. As the number of spell points that can be used to power a spell is limited to the same number as the Caster Level of the spellcaster, new options and variants are automatically added to your known spells as you increase in level.
Spells range from 1st to 4th level, but more powerful effects are possible by using Incantations, magical rituals that take a long time and expensive resources, which can be of 5th level and higher, though not requiring a specific caster level.

Taint
In the cosmology of the Ancient Lands setting, there is only the material world and the spirit world. However, outside this "natural world", there is an infinite Void of space and time that blends elements of both the Astral Plane and the Far Realm. It is the home of demons (who have more in common with quori than tanar'ri), who can not enter the natural world themselves, but take possession of mortal creatures, turning them into hell hounds and similar beasts.
The Void is a realm entirely alien to the natural world and any energies comming from the void cause the normal reality to slowly start to fall and corrupt. This corruption is known as Taint and can affect both the environment and creatures. With the exception of ghosts, pretty much all undead creatures are the result of corpses being corrupted by the taint, or living creaturs being killed by it. And creatures affected by taint also cause everything they come into contact with to be tainted as well, though the effect somewhat decreases with every transmission, or the whole world would already by corrupted. However, magical energies from the Void give a spellcaster great power and many are tempted to learn to use them, even with the terrifying consequences it can have for them and anyone around them.

Blood Magic
Blood magic is an ancient and almost forgotten form of magic, in which the energies that power are spell are not drawn from the environment in small quantities, but directly from the blood of the blood mage or another living creature. Blood magic is not inherently evil, and despite what many people believe, does not cause the spread of Taint (rather the opposite of it). But it is a very gruesome and violent form of magic, especially when used to harm a creature, so most traditions have abandoned it centuries ago. However, some blood mages still exist, especially among the priests of small isolated cults that worship ancient beings from the earliest days of the world.

Deities
The Ancient Lands does not have any deities as they commonly appear. Instead, religion is almost entirely based around keeping the local spirits happy by doing what the shaman says is the spirits will.
There are some beings that could be called gods, but they are actually more like extremely powerful spirits, being the spirit of the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, and the Oceans, as well as some others, like the universal spirit of the Hunt or the Spirit of Healing. These are not personal gods that one could talk with and who could hear the please of any worshippers, but rather ideas or concept worshipped by deeply philosophically inclinded monastic cults. Villages might offer gifts and prayers on the day of the solstice or a night of a full moon, but these are still offered to local spirits, with the Sun and the Moon being higher powers who watch over and bless these interactions.

I like the idea of the Dirty Trick maneuver, but it seems rather weak unless you invest into the Improved Dirty Trick and Greater Dirty Trick feats.
Since it's a standard action, you don't benefit yourself from any of the penalties to defense that the target suffers, and it might only help some of your allies who attack right after you. But since it's just a move action to remove the condition, almost all targets will probably chose to do so and then still get an attack or cast a spell. And if they have an initiative count shortly behind yours, your allies won't have much chance to benefit from the penalties either.
And even then, the penalties aren't that great.

This seems to be a severely underpowered option with a rather steep feat tax to make it useful.

Or am I missing something?

Under Section 5 of the Compatibility License it says.

In order to make use of the compatible content, your product must operate under and rely on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Standalone game systems are in no event authorized hereunder.

You agree to use your best efforts to ensure that the licensed products are fully compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game as published in August, 2009. Your products may additionally be compatible with other systems.

What exactly does that mean?

I am working on a campaign setting (which will be entirely free and non-commercial) that I would like to release with the "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatible" logo.
The setting does not use some of the classes from the CRB (like paladins and monks) and others only with restrictions (rangers have the skirmisher archetype by default, rogues can not use the minor magic and major magic rogue talents).
Would that make the game not "fully compatible" and therefore ineligible for the License?

Even if there is no strict definition of what constitutes incompatible content, knowing the intent of that section would help me a lot.

I am working on a campaign which will be low level and relatively low-magic. Since it's basically a tribal society there won't be much stuff to buy. Once you got your masterwork weapons and armor and stocked up on potions, there are not a lot of options to spend any coin on. (Other magic items would be treasures, but not for sale.)

So alternatively, completing quests could be rewarded with Influence and Labor, and loot from defeated enemies could include Goods and Magic. Building yourself a fancy home would certainly be a way to start spending your capital, but I am wondering if there is more you could do with it. As you perform deeds that help the locals and complete assignments for the lord, you gain both prestige and some measure of power through popular support.
Now the question is how to use the capital resources that you accumulate? You could use Goods and Labor to improve the defenses of the town, which in turn nets you more Influence (say at an exchange rate of 2:1 instead of the regular 3:1). Now you can use the optional rule on page 81 of UCam and spend Influence points on Diplomacy and Intimidate checks, but there must be more that you could be doing with it.

Any ideas?

I am looking for ideas for magic items to place around in the campaign I am preparing.
For context, it's a world in which there are no NPCs above 10th level and powerful outsiders play pretty no direct role. Which limits the items to minor and medium items, but no major items (which would be lesser artifacts).
Also, making and possessing magic items is a major deal, so I am not looking for minor things like automatic campfire lighters or waterproof bedrolls.

Items would not have to be statted up completely, simply the idea would already help me out. Hints to items from the SRD are also welcome.

Some ideas I already have:

Falcon Helm: A viking style helm plated with copper and etched with a feather pattern. The wearer of the helm gains a +10 competence bonus to Perception checks.

Winter Wolf Cloak: A cloak with a hood made from a winter wolves pelt. The wearer gains resistance to cold 10 and when the hood with the wolves head is worn up, the wearer can exhale a 20 ft.-cone dealing 5d6 points of damage as a spell-like ability three times per day.

The magic item pricing chart only includes the price for a resistance bonus to all saving throws, which is bonus squared times 1,000 gp.

Now I want to make custom items that provide a resistance bonus only to Reflex saves, or only to saves against poison. What do you think would be a good price?

Is having a bonus to only one save worth more or less than one third the price for having a bonus to all three?

I am thinking of X * 250 gp for either Fortitude, Reflex, or Will saves, and X * 200 gp for more specific saves like vs. poison, vs. fear, and so on.
But that's really quite cheap and could be seen as a kind of cherry picking, so there would also be good arguments to make them twice as expensive.

Since I am not a fan of spell slots and psionics comes with a lot of unique flavor, I decided to create a magic system that combines the best from both.

In this version, it is meant for campaigns with a level range of 1st to 10th, so there are only 1st to 4th level spells and augmentation options are usually limited to what can be done by a 10th level spellcaster.

The system is intended for two spellcasting classes that can either replace or complement the normal spellcasters.
The Adept is basically a wizard with no arcane bond and arcane school.
The Shaman is pretty much an oracle without curse and no bonus spells (but revelations) from mysteries.
Both classes share the same spell list.

Spells known and spell points per day work just as with a psion for both classes.

Since it's a 25 page document, I won't format everything for this forum, but this pdf version should be perfectly serviceable.

Augmentable Spell Point Magic System

The idea is to have a magic system in which spells are very versatile but correspondingly relatively few in number. The whole system has just over 60 spells as of now, of which a 10th level caster knows 21. (Or a bit more with the Expanded Knowledge feat.)
One of the main ways to achive this is augmentation. A spell only improves in duration and range as a caster gains additional levels, but the primary effect is based on the number of spell points used to cast the spell. A spell with augmentation options can be cast with more spell points to improve its effects. The maximum number of spell points that can be spend to cast a spell is equal to the characters caster level.

The first part of the document is basically the standard spellcasting rules with minor editing changes and people familiar with magic in Planescape might not really need to read it, and those who known psionics won't find anything new there. The meat is in the second part, where all the individual spells are described.

Any types of comments are welcome, but anything regarding the effects of the spells or ideas for additional spells that should be added to the list, are what I am particularly looking for.

The spell detect magic is terribly unclear when it comes to supernatural abilites.

Supernatural abilities are defined as "magical but not spell-like. Supernatural abilities are not subject to spell resistance and do not function in areas where magic is suppressed or negated (such as an antimagic field). A supernatural ability's effect cannot be dispelled and is not subject to counterspells."

This establishes that they are magic.

Detect magic has the line "If the items or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make Knowledge (arcana) skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura: DC 15 + spell level, or 15 + 1/2 caster level for a nonspell effect.) If the aura eminates from a magic item, you can attempt to identify its properties (see Spellcraft)."

This established that the spell can detect magical nonspell effects. And what is a magical effect that is not a spell? A supernatural ability.

However, the rest of the spell only tells the Aura Strength and the Duration of a Lingering Aura for spells and items. Which can lead to the impression that it only works on the auras of spells or items and nothing else, if one gives the spell just a single read.

The spell description should at some point include the words "supernatural abilities" to finally and completely remove all ambiguity.
I think basing the aura strength on the HD of the creature would be a good solution. Like making the effective level of a supernatural ability equal to half the creatures HD.

Without using spells (looking at bard and cleric here). Cavalier seems to be supposedly made for this, but seems highly inferior to a fighter in anything else. And not really great as a commander either.

I am preparing a game where society is ordered into clans, in which some of the older families have great influence and form a kind of informal "aristocracy". In a group of warriors, these guys would be the "gang leaders", who regard themselves as being responsible for their people and naturally take charge. Be they humans, wood elves, dark elves, or hobgoblins.

What could I do to make these warriors, both as NPCs and as templates for Player Characters who want to emulate them?

The Leadership feat comes to mind, but at the time it becomes available the followers it provides are way out of league with anything that character would be facing. Skill Focus Diplomacy or Intimidate would be a nice detail of fluff, but doesn't really add to their ability to lead troops in combat either.

Lots of questions, and I am probably not the only one. So lets's have a thread:

Here is one thing I can't get my head around, and that potentially might actually require some extensive playtesting.

Assuming I have 1000 zombies and I want to turn them into an army. I can make them into one gargantuan unit of 1000 soldiers, two huge units of 500 soldiers, five large units of 200 soldiers, ten medium units of 100 soldiers, and so on.

Under what circumstances is which option the better choice?
A larger unit has better attack and defense values, but can only attack once per turn. Two smaller units might be more vulnerable and have a harder time dealing damage, but they can each attack during the same turn.

Does anyone have any additional insight into this?

I kind of like the Honor Codes from UCam and think they could really help to add some additional aspects to the game that assist the players in playing characters with morals and priorities different from their own. It's often fun, but all too easy to slip back into "what would I do" quickly.
So even an informal honor code for a character can help, especially when it provides you with a new resource that you can use. (The full rules are in UCam. Basically you remind people of your perfect reputation to get special favors, but get a slight blemish to your Honor, as a truly honorable person would not exploit his reputation for personal benefits.)

Now, I am thinking of developing new Honor Codes for my setting that represent the morals and priorities of its people. However, I feel they might be a bit human-centric and the world really is about the early realms of elves and lizardfolk, with humans being one of the smaller mercenary races fighting in the greater conflicts.
So I am now searching for ideas what things elves and lizardfolk could be considering as "honorable". Actions that show that a person will not easily abandon his ideals, give in to pressure and opposition, or go back on his word. Things that show they are reliable and will honor their agreements. It does not have to be things that you would like about a person or approve off, but rather things that show a person is dependable and someone you can negotiate with, even if he's your enemy.

I'm still a bit confused about how you use teams and businesses in the Downtime rules, and I think it's a big enough thing to warrant its own thread. If anyone else has questions regarding these things, just ask them and we might pool our limited understanding together to solve them out.

Now supposed I have recruited two teams of soldiers and they are now my "Mercenary Company". I want to send them to work patrolling the surrounding area for bandits and weak monsters to generate goodwill with the locals in the form of Influence (one of the four "resources" your teams can generate).

I know that to generate Influence in this way, each point of Influence requires of me a 15 gp investment (food, medical supplies, danger pay, and so on I assume).

Now what I don't know is how long are they going to work and how much Influence do they generate?
And what on days when I don't want to send them out and order them to not create Influence at all. For example guarding my little personal stronghold. Do I have to pay them nothing?

--

Pouring some more over it, I've come up with this possible solution:

Since it consists of two Soldier teams that provide a +5 bonus to earn gp, Influence, or Labor, the whole Mercenary Company has a bonus of +10.
I send them working for one day and they roll 1d20+10 for a result of 23. Page 79 tells me a 23 grants me 2 Influence.
Now at nightfall they return to me and then I have to pay 30 gp for the expenses they had during their hard work that day, and then I get to cash in the 2 Influence on my account.

Is that correct? That still leaves open the question of upkeep for having these guys at the ready at my stronghold the whole time even on days when they don't work. Do they get no wages at all?

The Paizo store only seems to accept credit card and Paizo products are not available at RPGNow.
Credit cards aren't that common here in Europe, and I don't want to get one for a single 10€ purchase.

So is there any way to buy the pdfs without a credit card? I've got 10€ right here that I want to give away just like that, and it would be so easy if the store would accept paypal or one could buy the pdfs at another place.
But I'm not so excited to pay 30+€ for a hardcover at a store or amazon. So any option for me?

I am trying to make an alternative magic system closely modeled after the psionic powers system and making heavy use of augmentation. And now I am dealing with making a low-ish level polymorph spell.
The Metamorphosis power is already designed for power points and augmentation, but it seems considerably more open ended than the Alter Self and Beast Shape. And that seems to be one of the main reason that makes most spells way too good and versatile, with polymorph effects being particularly notorious.

I think with beast shape, I would be playing it relatively safe. But metamorphosis is much more flexible. Does anyone have experiences with these and can tell me something about how much more powerful the metamorphosis powers are in practice?

The issue just came up in another thread and I guess this would be the right place to put a separate thread for it.

People were talking about the Adventure Paths being more popular than the stand-alone adventures, which possibly might lead to the APs being of a higher quality, which in turn leads to them being more popular, ...well, and so on.

However, leaving the question of how much effort the writers are putting into each type of product aside, I think one thing that makes the APs more interesting than single-issue adventures is the fact that the single adventures might actually be a bit too short.
In an AP, you usually have the first issue laying the groundwork, the second issue getting the main plot rolling, and then you are getting fully into the thick of things. On the other hand a single issue adventure has about 30 pages in which the situation needs to be established, the opposition introduced, and the opposition defeated, preferably with some additional things going on as seasoning. Because of this, the plots have to be relatively simple and straightforward and you can't really build up to anything great.

But still that doesn't mean that the Adventure Paths are the answer to everything. I am in university and when we're on a good roll, we have a game every two weeks, but usually more like one every three or four weeks. Since people graduate or switch universities and new people join frequently, the groups change often and I feel that running a full 6 issue Adventure Path seems rather risky to commit too.
To put it blunty, they are simply too long.
Three issues that would result in 8 to 12 games would be a lot more managable, but still having the big advantage of the neccessary space to give the whole campaign some amount of scope and complexity.

So this is my suggestion to the good writers and people in charge at Paizo: When it comes to planning the APs for the future, consider if it would seem worthwhile for you to try out one or two APs of three issue length and maybe see how people feel about them?
If they get positive feedback, it might be possibly to release future APs of different length in an alternating rythm of 6-3-6-3, or even just 6-6-3-6-6-3. Or perhaps keeping the main line running at 6 issues per AP and instead occasionally relase 2-part adventures in the regular Adventure Module line.
Either way, it would be a way to keep the quality that makes the APs great, while maybe making them more accessible to people.

As a GM, I prefer to keep the rules of the game as simple as possible and do as much as possible with fluff instead of mechanical customization options. Not only is it less overwhelming for new players and those who never really read the whole rulebooks. I think it also helps averting the tendency to see the game as a big pile of mathmatical optimization problems rather than a story in which actual people with complex personalties are trying to do what's right and best.

If everything you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
And if you have a huge number of abilities on your character sheet, you start to solve every problem by finding the right mechanic or rule. The shorter the character sheet, the more imaginative players get and think of the game as a story, not a chess game.

Traits seem to be somehow on the border between the two approaches. On the one hand, they seem to be meant to be reminders for the players of certain strength and weaknesses they came up when planning their characters personalty and backstory, which I think is great.
But in practice, they seem to be mostly used as a way to trim some numbers that aren't really needed in combat and get additional bonuses to the primary abilities for maximal statistical efficiency. Which I really don't need in my games.

What's people's experience with traits and these situations?

What do you think of this:

A scout ranger gets Favored Terrain on all levels he would get Favored Enemy, and Favored Enemy on all levels he would get Favored Terrain.

Favored Terrain seems like a less powerful but more useful ability to me, so I think they should be balancing each other out.

In case there are still people who don't know about it, E6 is a simple variant system in which 6th level is the maximum level and you use any additional XP you gain to buy bonus feats for 5,000 XP each. (Seriously, this is the whole system. Everything else is just commentary.)

I'm quite familiar with how regular E6 works and behaves, but are there any special considerations to keep in mind when doing it in Pathfinder? Are the any things that work differently than under 3.5e in a meaningful way?

Virtually all the time it really doesn't matter what levels and classes the people in a settlement have. But occasionally you have to defend a town or a village, or might even attack one yourself. And then it comes really handy to have a quick reference chart of some sort to generate those numbers quickly.
The old DMG had tables to get a comprehensive list of every single person in a settlement, but that is way too much work. If I need spellcasters to help with something, I'd like to be able to make a quick peek at a table and know "there will be about two 5th level clerics, eight 3rd level clerics, and 12 1st level clerics in this town".

Anyone seen anything like this, or made it?

I've created three custom races for the setting I am working on and would like peoples oppinions.
They were not created using the ARG rules but I rather went with what I thought fitting.

--

Gnomes

• +2 Constitution, -2 Strength: Gnomes are not very strong because of their short stature, but they are incredibly enduring and resilient.
  
• Small: Gnomes are Small creatures and gain a +1 size bonus to their AC, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, a –1 penalty to their Combat Maneuver Bonus and Combat Maneuver Defense, and a +4 size bonus on Stealth checks.
  
• Slow and Steady: Gnomes have a base speed of 20 feet, but their speed is never modified by armor or encumbrance.
  
• Low-Light Vision: Gnomes can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.
  
• Keen Senses: Gnomes receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception skill checks.
  
• Hardy: Gnomes receive a +2 racial bonus on saving throws against poison, spells, and spell-like abilities.
  
• Obsessive: Gnomes receive a +2 racial bonus on a Craft or Profession skill of their choice.

Kaas

• +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Intelligence: Kaas are exceptionally strong and tough.
  
• Medium: Kaas are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
  
• Normal Speed: Kaas have a base speed of 30 feet.
  
• Low-Light Vision: Kaas can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.
  
• Armored Hide: Kaas have a +2 natural armor bonus from their thick fur.
  
• Fearless: Nezumi receive a +2 racial bonus on all saving throws against fear.
  
• Intimidating: Kaas receive a +2 racial bonus on Intimidate skill checks due to their fearsome nature.
  
• Sure-Footed: Kaas receive a +2 racial bonus on Acrobatics and Climb skill checks.

Kaas are tall and powerful humanoids who frequently grow to seven feet of height and beyond. Their bodies resemble muscular humans covered in light brown hide and their heads resemble both mountain lions and wolves with horns like those of a wild goat or ibex. Their heads are covered in dark brown manes like those of a lion. Kaas are at home in the northern mountains and are strong climbers, but they have spread out into the lowlands many generations ago and can be found all over the colder climates of the Ancient Lands.

Nezumi

• +2 Dexterity, -2 Charisma: Nezumi are agile but often erratic and short tempered.
  
• Medium: Nezumi are medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
  
• Normal Speed: Nezumi have a base speed of 30 feet.
  
• Low-Light Vision: Nezumi can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.
  
• Armored Hide: Nezumi have a +1 natural armor bonus from their thick fur.
  
• Fearless: Nezumi receive a +2 racial bonus on all saving throws against fear.
  
• Keen Senses: Nezumi receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception skill checks.
  
• Sure-Footed: Nezumi receive a +2 racial bonus on Acrobatics and Climb skill checks.

Nezumi are humanoids standing somewhat under 5 feet tall and are found in many of the southern jungles of the Ancient Lands. They are covered in short sand-colored fur and have faces resemling those of rodents or dogs. Often making their homes in the trees above the forest floor, they are very good at climbing and even jumping from tree to tree. Nezumi are very daring and at times might even seem suicidal when it comes to taking risks, but it has served their race very well against the many threats of the wilderness.

There are no dwarves, orcs, or halflings in the setting and these three are kind of replacing them, so I took rather generously from their traits. Other races are humans, elves, half-elves, and lizardfolk.
What I am still a bit unhappy about is that the Nezumi don't really have any traits that are unique to them and not shared by any of the other races.

Looking over the rules for making armies, the type of soldiers you have in an army seems to be pretty much irrelevant. The CR of the army defines everything and only the size of the Hit Dice any any special abilities makes any difference to how the army will perform.

Is that intentional or am I missing something?

Of course it adds some flavor to your troops if you can say "these are the elven archers I got from the hidden village after I defeated the green dragon". But I think it would also be nice if a unit of "ten elven ranger 9" or "25 human barbarian 7" would be different in any way from a bunch of "500 human warrior 1" that I just recruited from my farms.

I love sword and sorcery worlds and bronze age settings a lot, but I'm not a fan of early modern settings, like Golarion. So it's often some converting and adjusting of adventures and APs for me. The Kingdom Building system from Kingmaker is an interesting idea, but I think there could be some changes made to make it more fitting to represent the small domains of a chief.
Unfortunately, Ultimate Campaign, in which the rules will be reprinted, will be released only two weeks and it might even take a bit longer until they will be accessible in the PRD. So if you don't know the rules but want to understand the specifics of the system, I'm afraid you'll have to wait for a bit more.

To summarize, you control a certain area of territory in which you can found major settlements. In each of these Cities, you can invest Build Points from your treasury to create new buildings for merchants, craftsmen, and all kinds of public services. Once per month you roll dice to see how much income your settlements generated and how much you had to spend to maintain them. If you make surplus, you can invest the profit into new buildings, but those also consume additional resources every month, so you need to find a good balance of what special buildings you have in your kingdom.
You can also fill certain public offices with NPCs or even other PCs in the party, and then you add one of their ability modifiers (often Int or Wis) to the rolls you make every month to see how well the economy performed and if the locals are still happy. If they get too unhappy, the economy suffers and you might lose parts of the territory you control.

Now since some barbarian with his companions and their followers can hardly be called a Kingdom, I suggest calling these territories simply domains for the purpose of this thread. Similarly, not every major settlement would actually be a city, but mostly relatively minor towns, so I'd say let's call them just towns.

But the bread and butter of the system are the special buildings you can get for your town.
I suggest that the following buildings should not be available at all, or at least require that a town has a minimum of 50 already existing special buildings.
Academy: There simply is no formal education in a town of barbarians.
Cathedral: There might be one in the primary religious center of the entire culture, but an individual chief should not have one in his town.
Library: Like an Academy, it would be rather out of place.
Luxury Store: Could be feasable in a major trading center with contacts to distant lands, but usually there wouldn't be much of a customer base for their goods.
Magic Shop: In a setting leaning towards Sword & Sorcery, these would be out of place.
Monument: Might work, but I don't have much of an idea for what would seem apropriate in this context.
Park: Doesn't seem to make sense.
Theatre: Neither does this. Bards and minstrels would rather perform in Taverns or the chiefs keep.
Town Hall: Since the whole government would take place in the chiefs home, there is not much need for it.

That said, there are a number of special buildings that I think are still missing and should be added to the list:
Heros Grave (4 BP): The resting place of a famous hero, often the founder of the clan. A smaller version of the monument. Loyalty +2, Unrest -1.
Keep (27 BP): A smaller version of the castle. Usually the home of the chief or one of his most loyal followers entrusted with governing the area. Economy +1, Loyalty +1, Stability +1, Defense Modifier +4, Unrest -2, limtited to one Keep or Castle per town.
Palisade (3 BP): A much cheaper alternative to stone walls. Defense Modifier +2, Unrest -1.
Town Square: A central meeting place where the elders and leaders of the town gather to discuss matters of public concern and where the chief adresses his people. Loyalty +1, Stability +1.
Warrior Hall (20 BP): A central meeting hall were the accomplished full time warriors of the clan gather and train. Since this is basically the headquarter for military forces in the area, it makes the town a lot more secure. It also promotes pride in the clans might and displays the forces that the chief commands. Defense Modifier +2, Loyalty +1, Stability +1, Unrest -1.
Witch Hut (10 BP, may not be adjacent to more than one building): A lesser version of the casters tower. A witch can provide vital services, but is generally mistrusted. 2 minor items; Economy +1, Unrest +1.

Another thing that needs to be adressed is alignment. Alignment really doesn't work at all for Sword & Sorcery games. But like character alignment can be very well replaced with Allegiances, so can the alignment of a domain be replaced with a certain type of society.
Here some ideas:
Hunters: This clan uses a lot of hunting and also trading over agriculture. +2 Economy, +2 Loyalty.
Druidic: The people of this domain live under the protection of an influential group of druids or shamans. While not rich, such clans are less at a risk of famines or uprisings against unpopular rule. +2 Loyalty, +2 Stability.
Traders: These clans gains their wealth from trade. While they are often wealthy, their fortunes are fickle and hard to predict. +6 Economy, -2 Loyalty.
Raiders: This clan relies heavily on stealing goods and riches from their neighbors. While they often live well and can easily compensate for a bad economy by increased raiding, people of these clans are prone to turning against each other. +2 Economy, +4 Stability, -2 Loyalty.
Cult: This domain is populated by deeply devoted followers of a minor deity, ancient horror, or demon lord. The isolation of the people makes them poor, but they rarely turn against their leaders and perform their work as it is expected of them. -2 Economy, +4 Loyalty, +2 Stability.

This was all brewed up rather quickly but I still, and even because of it, I'd want to hear peoples oppinions of where I could add to this and how I might adjust the modifiers and BP costs a bit better.

I am using a barely defined term on purpose (or at least think it is), since I don't have any specific setting in mind. Rather, I am thinking of a certain feel for a campaign and making a setting for it.

The basic idea is a world and adventures resembling 70s and early 80s fantasy movies and comics, and myths and epics of the Bronze and Iron Age, but set in a world based on the basics of Pathfinder. A world that should be illustrated by Frank Frazetta.
City states and tribal culture, large prehistoric and pseudo-prehistoric animals, dark cults, and so on. While the classics of this genre are usually humans-only, I would like to run a game that sets these things in a world where elves, dwarves, and orcs also could play a part. Dark Sun was close, and I would say still should be a major source of inspiration, but it is rather post-apocalyptic survival than making a start at the dawn of civilization.

I am looking for ideas and advice people have from planning or running such games, to help me making my own.
What things work well, which ones should be avoided? I am looking for pretty much everything, be it classes, items, monsters, or variant rules, or certain types of organizations, locations, adventure plots, and ways in which society works.

All general advice is wellcome, but in case anyone is interested, the world I have in mind specifically is one in which the elven and dwarven kingdoms are still young and solidifying their power. Humans, halflings, and orcs would still be living in tribal clans, like the North American tribes, or clans of the central Asian Steppes. Most of the land is still untouched forests with only small portions of farmland, as in Roman time Germania or Viking Scandinavia. Nature spirits still rule most of the world and appeasing them is just as much, if not even more important, than worshipping the distant gods.

I think a good way to start is with the character classes:
Barbarians, fighters, rangers, and rogues are all very good and obvious candidates for player characters.
Druids, witches, and oracles, complement them well as the dominant spellcasting classes. I think oracles are even better suited than clerics, since it seems to me that in such a world, a priest is much more a scholar and mystic than a holy warrior.
Since we're at the topic of gods, I also think that gods for such a setting should be focused primarily on aspects of the natural world, than aspects of civilized society. Deities of hunting and the weather should have a much more priminent role than gods of art or commerce.

I consider using Dark Creepers and Dark Stalkers as a race of Aberration-God cultists, that happened to find their gods in the Underworld and change over time (same for derro, cave giants, and grimlocks).
But there seems to be very little background fluff for them, except for what was already in their Fiend Folio entry thirty years ago.
The live underground, hate light, and sometimes come up to the surface at night. And that seems to be it. What do they want? How do they interact with other races? What do they do? Even for bugbears and ettercaps I have some idea why PCs would encounter them and what would likely happen in that case. With the Dark Ones, I really don't have any clue.

Anyone inveted to post new creatures and comment on those already posted, and check the numbers for accuracy.

Wisp - CR 1
XP 400
Tiny outsider (incorporeal, spirit)
Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +5
==DEFENSE==
AC 20, touch 10, flat-footed 12 (+7 Dex, +1 dodge, +2 size)
hp 5 (1d10)
Fort +0, Ref +9, Will +3
Defensive Abilities incorporeal; Immune critical hits,
precision damage, electricity, mind-affecting, petrification,
polymorph; Resist cold 10, fire 10; SR 12
==OFFENSE==
Speed fly 50 ft. (perfect)
Melee incorporeal touch +8 (1d3)
Space 2-1/2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 1st; concentration +1)
3/day – faerie fire
==STATISTICS==
Str –, Dex 24, Con 10, Int 5, Wis 13, Cha 11
Base Atk +1, CMB +6, CMD 16
Feats Dodge, Weapon Finesse (B)
Skills Fly +23, Perception +5, Stealth +19
Languages Sylvan (does not speak)
SQ glow
==ECOLOGY==
Environment any
Organization solitairy, flock (3-6), or swarm (10-20)
Treasure none
==SPECIAL ABILITIES==
Glow (Ex) A wisp always glows as if under the effect of a light
spell. As a swift action, the wisp can reduce the glow to be as faint
as a firefly, or restore it back to its full intensity.

A wisp is a small spirit in the form of a ball of light. They can be found anywhere in the wilderness but are rarely seen during the day and come out mostly at night. The most common color of whisps is a pale white, but light icy blues, purples, or green are also not unusual.
Wisps communicate in their own simple language that consists of high ringing sounds, slight movements, and subtle shifts in brightness, but most can understand Sylvan as well.
Wisps are simple creatures and being incorporeal have no physical needs. They take all their sustenance from the energy of wild plants surrounding them, but can occasionally be seen in almost entirely barren desserts and frozen wastes, where all life is hidden from the eyes of travelers. Wisps tend to live close to powerful nature spirits like nymphs, dryads, or treants, and often serve as lookouts that serve the greater spirits as additional eyes for miles arounds.

I made wisps outsiders and used the spirit subtype I use in my campaign, but they could also easily be made into fey.

I am preparing for a campaign I want to run and it will focus heavily on fighters, barbarians, rogues, and rangers (with sorcerers and oracles also being around).

The biggest issue I've found is what to do with rangers? They can track and run and get passive bonuses against favored enemies, but how often do you really have to track something? For a campaign in tribal societies, rangers are a perfect fit and should play a major role, but what would they really be doing, except being a weaker fighter? Barbarians have rage and can be the parties strongman, by breaking things, toppling constructions, and shoving stuff over ledges, which actually does come very handy in a lot of situations. And rogues are rogues.

Most characters I've played where rangers and I really enjoy the theme a lot, but none of them really had anything particularly useful to contrivute to the party except chipping away at enemies as the fighters little sidekick.

Scrapping together all Archery options I could find would be one way, but I would like rangers to focus more on being skilled nature guys. If a fighter wants to, he could do all the archery stuff as well, plus more.

While I was modifying some creatures, I noticed that the skills for the Cave Giant and Erinyes don't seem to add up.
Now I am wondering if those are just mistake, or I am not aware of some modifiers that I would need to take into account?

A cave giant has Strength 23 (+6) and wearing Hide armor (-3). So if he has no ranks in Climb, he would get a Climb modifier of +3; if he has 1 rank he would get a Climb modifier of +7.
Yet it's listed as +6. Is there a -1 penalty I am missing?

The erinyes seems to either have 3 skill ranks unused, or it only has 3 of it's 4 additional Class Skills for being an outsider used. Or alternatively, the creator forgott that any creature with a Fly speed has Fly as a class skill.
Any information on this?

When I was trying to make something like a spriggan from The Elder Scrolls, I noticed that an advanced kodama pretty much has all the abilities and power that you neeed. (I can post the stats if aynone wants them)
So instead of comming up with something entirely new for the bigger spirits, like the god of a mountain or a large lake, converting the already existing Jinushigami seems like a much better idea. Now bumping up a CR 5 creature by 2 HD to make it CR 6 is easy. But downgrading a CR 20 beast with 24 HD to something that works at roughly CR 15 is a bit more daunting, especially as I don't really have any experience how things in that power range actually work out.

The creature is intended for a low optimization P10 game and still be threatened by a large enough horde of 7th level characters. If everything they can hurl at it just bounces off without any effect, it's too strong. If it can easily kill 10 7th level character before going down, that would still be okay.

Can anyone give me any helpful advice how to approach this?