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I'm contemplating createing a changeling druid. The Mother's Gift feat, available to changelings, has as one possibility:

Hag Claws (Ex): You gain a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls with your claws.

Would this bonus still apply if the changeling was wildshaped into an animal form with claws?

Last night I encountered a situation where the party has to drag a heavy object. The AP calls for a "strength check with DC of 15":

I handled it by having each character try the strength check on their own, with the happy result that the weakest character dragged the weight away by herself, with a growl and a snort. In retrospect, it seems that Aid Another would be a better way to handle the check, but I'm not sure of the mechanics of it.

First of all, is a "strength check" a skill check, to which Aid Another can be a applied?

Second, Aid Another doesn't seem too satisfying in a situation where each character really can help more-or-less equally. Would it be better to assign a DC for each subtask e.g., a quarter of the load, and make each character pass that check by themselves? Or, even better, determine how the load compares to their maximum dragging capacity (5 times their maximum carrying capacity) and determine a straight yes / no based on that?

In this case, the characters had a better chance to move the weight by each giving it a go individually than if they had all made their Aid Another rolls and helped the strongest! Obviously the result would be different if the weight was much heavier.

After having last played Basic D&D when I was 11, I'm having a great time playing Pathfinder with my own 11 year-old son. We tried the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set over the Christmas break, but some research led me to propose getting into Pathfinder instead of 4e. One of the issues is the availability of the products in French; we live in France and, though we've only used the English language products so far, any friends of his that join us are more likely to be comfortable in French than in English. The newer 4e products aren't being translated, whereas the translator for Pathfinder here does seem to be keeping up.

Anyway, we just finished "Masters of the Fallen Fortress" with him controlling two characters and me GM'ing, handling two others, and generally providing tactical advice. A good time was had by all, but one thing I'm still wondering about is the general course of events for bursting into a room with bad guys. The party rogue checks for traps, sees if the door is locked, attempts to pick the lock, and then opens the door. If that doesn't work, the ranger kicks in the door :).

At that point, how does surprise work? Are the monsters within tipped off by the attempts to open the door? In retrospect, a perception check for them would make sense. How about if the door is kicked in in one try? I could see ruling either that the monsters are alerted by the noise, or that they are totally surprised by the brutal entrance.

I ended up not running any surprise rounds, but I'm wondering about how to do this "properly."