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I was wondering, would it be bad to create a campaign were the PCs are supposed to fail at the end, instead of saving the world like it always happens? Not exactly 100% chance of failure, but an almost certain chance of it happening.

For example, an evil god has ascended and want to destroy golarion. The PCs could battle against his evil forces during the campaign, and in the end that said god will be just one step to destroy the entire world, but the pcs cant defeat him. Instead, they sacrifice themselves in a battle against his lieutenant, managing to protect a small part of the population while all the other living beings are anihilated.

To me, it seems like it would be an interesting way to end the campaign, while also giving the opportunity for the next campaign to be in a post-apocalyptic golarion, were the remaining races united themselves to fight the hordes of evil creatures to survive in a destroyed world!

There are varying degrees of failure - the god could just have won and destroyed everything, but I find it more interesting when there's space for another campaign to continue in that setting.

What you guys think? I particularly dont like the idea of good always defeating evil, so im attracted to the idea of an interesting campaign with a bad end (not bad in terms of not enjoyable, but in terms of the good guys being defeated), although im not sure about what players in general think of this, so it would be cool to see your opinions!

So, its pretty clear that charm person makes your target perceive you as a friend. But it also let you order him to do something he normally wouldnt, if you make an opposed charisma check.

Now, how far can this go? Can you order someone to kill a person he loves, or to sleep with you? If so, would it be an evil act to force them into something they dont want to do?

I have a player in my group using it do some questionable things, and with his high charisma he tends to have good chances at the opposed check. Even if spells like charm/dominate person arent inherently evil, I would say that forcing someone into doing something they normally would never agree to is a harder evil act.

What are your thoughts?

Disclaimer:This is a very long and argumentative thread, and I hope you read everything carefully to really understand all of the points I'll make.

The eidolons appearance had been the source of a lot of arguments about how much freedom the summoner have at designing how it looks like. My objective with this thread is to prove that the eidolon can look like any creature the summoner wants, although he cannot impersonate a specific individual, like Ron The Mad Dwarf. The Ultimate Magic book will be a key point in my arguments.

First, lets take a look a what is said about the eidolon in the class description:

The eidolon's physical appearance is up to the summoner, but it always appears as some sort of fantastical creature. This control is not fine enough to make the eidolon appear like a specific creature. The eidolon also bears a glowing rune that is identical to a rune that appears on the summoner's forehead as long as the eidolon is summoned. While this rune can be hidden through mundane means, it cannot be concealed through magic that changes appearance, such as alter self or polymorph (although invisibility does conceal it as long as the spell lasts).

As you can see, there's three key points in here: fantastical creature, specific creature and glowing rune. So, lets go by parts:

*Specific Creature: Specific creature means exactly that, a specific creature. Specific refers to something "unique", "individual", or "only one option". Creature nearly always means a single being, not a group of beings, like sharks or such. In other words, you could make your eidolon look like an elf, but not the specific elf called Kalenz The Archer, or any other specific individual elf for that matter. You can look like someone from that race, but not a specific person. Now you could say that there are others limitations, like fantastical creature and glowing runes, but we will get to those now.

*Glowing runes: That is built within the rules, so yes, your eidolon always have one of those in its forehead, and anyone who sees it will know that something is not right. But, it also specifies that it can be hidden by mundane means, like a hat covering the forehead or something like that.

*Fantastical Creature: Now, this is the main point of the argumentation, and is where the Ultimate Magic comes in. "Fantastical Creature" is a very vague definition, specially in a fantasy game like pathfinder. Before ultimate Magic, it was very hard to define exactly what could be done with it, but the book brought to us a new view over the eidolon's appearance. Lets see a quote from the summoners section:

The summoner is a complex and unusual class. Its most prominent class feature is the eidolon, a customizable monster that “always appears as some sort of fantastical creature.” What kind of fantastical creature this is remains up to the player. Fortunately, mythology and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game have many examples of fantastical creatures that an eidolon might resemble, from fish-people to angels, and from spider-centaurs to undead monsters.

As you can see, UM gives multiple examples of what "fantastical creatures" could be, like angels and undeads. This book also brough "Eidolon Models", which are packages with advices for the player to build his eidolon with the appearance of a creature he wants it to be. Lets take a look at some of those packages:

The eidolon looks like a celestial being such as an angel, archon, or azata. Angel eidolons usually appear as beautiful humanoids with large, feathered wings.

It specifically states that the eidolon may look like an angel, archon, or azata, reinforcing my last statement that "Specific Creature" refers to a specific individual, not a type or such. Those are considered, as per the Ultimate Magic, fantastical creatures, and as such your eidolon may look like them (although you need the evolutions for the wings and such). Now, lets take a look at the Fey Model:

The eidolon looks like a fey creature such as a dryad, nymph, pixie, or satyr. Fey eidolons usually appear as attractive humanoids and may have insect or butterfly wings. An aquatic fey such as a nixie can be created by adding the gills and swim evolutions, resulting in a 24-point model.

Again, it specifies that your eidolon may look like a creature such as a nymph or dryad, but again you would need to spend some points to get wings and such, although Ultimate Magic also states:

Using a model does not change the eidolon's type or give it special abilities unavailable to other eidolons—it is basically a shortcut to allow a player or GM to quickly create an eidolon with a specific look in mind. Each model states the total number of evolution points required to build a complete eidolon with that model; in many cases this build requires most of the summoner's evolution points, so only a more powerful summoner's eidolon is a close approximation of the intended creature. For a low-level summoner, some of the eidolon's features (such as extra hydra heads) may be cosmetic until he gains evolution points to spend.

With this in mind, you can look like a nymph, but you dont get the Fey type or something like that, its merely a matter of appearance for roleplay purposes. Secondly, the second bolded phrase also states that until you can afford evolution points for things like wings, those will be merely cosmetic, so although you may have the appearance you want right from the start, you cannot gain advantages for this, such as using those cosmetic wings to fly. This should be obvious, im just reinforcing those points.

Now, we got a lot of examples as to what a "fantastical creature" may be, but there are even more specific cases on this matter, which makes us think what exactly is the range that "fantastical creature" may encompass. To explain those questions, we must take a look at two specific models:

The eidolon looks like a sleek aquatic predator such as a shark or orca.

Now, many would say that an animal that we may encounter in the real world shouldnt be considered a fantastical creature, right? Well, this model specifically shows a shark or orca as being possible examples for a fantastical creature that the eidolon may look like. This again revolves to one of my first arguments: you may look like even a shark, but cannot have the exact same appearance as the Hungry MacSharking, the specific creature that is the druid's animal companion.

With this in mind, we could safely assume, by having this prior precedence, that eidolons can look like an animal, even an aquatic one like a shark, as long as he doesnt have the same appearance as a specific one, like the monkey he just met in the tree. This also doesnt limit itself for those though, as vermin are also an option for models:

The eidolon looks like a large insect or other vermin. Taking the limbs (legs) evolution an additional time creates a giant spider.

This one also states that you may look like a vermin, such as a giant spider, which means even vermins are also an option.

Now, what about the more common races? Following the previous statements, It seems logical to consider such races like gnomes and elves as an option for the eidolons, each with its own ties to the fey or nature themselves, being essentially fantastical. We have precendence for other races being allowed as an appearance option for the eidolons:

The eidolon has the upper body of a humanoid and the lower body of a fish. This model can be used to create an aquatic humanoid such as a merfolk or sahuagin.

Essentially, your eidolon may even look like a merfolk or sahuagin by following this model. Again, you can only look like someone from their race, but cannot impersonate a specific individual from them.

Now, what aboult humans? Could they also be considered "fantastical creatures" for the purpose of looking like them? Lets take a look at another model:

The eidolon looks like a humanoid warrior. The natural armor of a bodyguard eidolon appears to be a suit of metal plate, though this armor is actually part of the eidolon's body. Bodyguard eidolons are normally trained in a variety of dangerous weapons.

This only states a "humanoid warrior". It doesnt specify races and, as such, could also be a human. He cannot take off his armor as its part of his body, but his appearance is essentially that of a human (or any other humanoid) with armor. He may not bypass as a specific individual, but he may look like someone who belongs to that race.

Now, as I hope my points got well explained, I want to reiterate the arguments of this whole thread: your eidolon may look like any creature you want, even from some race like merfolk, as the models have proven my statements about those being considered "fantastical creatures". What you cant do is look exactly like a specific person of that race or type, and as such you gain no mechanical advantages besides the roleplay aspect of it (you could still specialize in disguise if you wanted, but that comes with the price of spending evo points). Also, dont forget that whatever form you take, you always have the "glowing rune" on the forehead, and as such someone would immediately know that something is wrong with your eidolon, unless you hide it in some mundane form, like a hat or such.

With all that said, I hope that I have enlightened the community as to the near endless choices that are available to them for customising the eidolon's appearance, and thus improving the roleplay aspect of such a great class as this.

Life Drinker:

So, im right at assuming that only creatures of exact half the magus level can activate his ability? If yes, this seems to be pretty bad for a capstone. I mean, how many times do you kill a cr 10 creature at level 19~20? Unless he is the BBEG and always brings a bunch of cr 10 underlings to use this, I dont think it will come into play.

Im asking because I want to make sure im understanding the ruling, and to know if this could be possibly a typo and they meant half or lower/half or higher. Thoughts?

Instead of going the Big Dumb Fighter route, lets discuss the Smart Handsome one, aka the duelist! No need to dump int anymore, and what is cooler than walking around on the battlefield with finesse and style?

Lets discuss the duelist PrC, his advantages and weakness, and make some optimised builds for fun! The duelist is an awesome class, and I bet we can build some great ideas around it.

I'll start by giving a sample build at level 12, 20 point buy:

Honestly, crane riposte synergizes so well with duelist that I think its a must have in any build of him. Parry and AOO against two attacks is just too good to pass.

Now, lets start the duelist discussions!

So, what is the highest possible hit dice of undead minions that you can get (with build)? Im aware of juju oracles but would like other options too, their fluff is way too weird for my tastes. I heard mystic theurge makes a good minionmancer, but not sure if their hd cap is the highest.

Edit: with a build all the way up to level 20.

Does using both silent and still metamagic on a spell like charm person prevents someone from noticing you're casting? With the aid of eschew materials, no one would see you moving, talking or using anything suspicious. What happens here?

Lets suppose we have a crossblooded sorcerer with serpentine and undead bloodlines. Here goes the text for their arcanas:

Serpentine:
Your powers of compulsion can affect even bestial creatures. Whenever you cast a mind-affecting or language-dependent spell, it affects animals, magical beasts, and monstrous humanoids as if they were humanoids who understood your language.

Undead:
Some undead are susceptible to your mind-affecting spells. Corporeal undead that were once humanoids are treated as humanoids for the purposes of determining which spells affect them.

So, how would these two interact? Would the sorcerer be able to enchant zombie animals, zombie magical beasts and zombie monstrous humanoids?

As a side question, undeads can be affected by mind-affecting spells with this bloodline. Color spray is mind affecting, so does it means they also get stuned and unconscious, even while being immune to such conditions? Or they're only affected by enchantments?

So, were well aware of how enchantments can mess pretty hard with people minds. Some extreme examples are the dominate spells, where one strips the control of its targets own body, forcing it to do whatever he pleases, regardless of the victims consent.

Other examples are spells like charm person and unnatural lust. They invade your mind and changes the way you perseive people, the later putting you into some very embarassing positions, if not traumatic.

Now, how do you view these spells, and the way they affect alignment? Is invading someone minds and private thoughts something wrong, even if it were for a good cause? Would stripping an evil person of its ability to think and act by itself, as per dominate, be something wrong even if he were to be used for the greater good, to pay up for his crimes? What about forcing an poor rogue girl to kiss your half-orc 7 cha partner?

The objective here is to discuss the enchantments that mess with your head, and the repercussions it have on alignment. Thoughts?

So, were well aware of how enchantments can mess pretty hard with people minds. Some extreme examples are the dominate spells, where one strips the control of its targets own body, forcing it to do whatever he pleases, regardless of the victims consent.

Other examples are spells like charm person and unnatural lust. They invade your mind and changes the way you perseive people, the later putting you into some very embarassing positions, if not traumatic.

Now, how do you view these spells, and the way they affect alignment? Is invading someone minds and private thoughts something wrong, even if it were for a good cause? Would stripping an evil person of its ability to think and act by itself, as per dominate, be something wrong even if he were to be used for the greater good, to pay up for his crimes? What about forcing an poor rogue girl to kiss your half-orc 7 cha partner?

The objective here is to discuss the enchantments that mess with your head, and the repercussions it have on alignment. Thoughts?

So, lets assume we have an sorcerer with serpentine bloodline. Then, he takes the eldritch heritage feat for arcane bloodline, getting a familiar. Now he got two familiars sources: one from his bloodline and another for his feat. By RAW, what happens? Does he get two familiars?

The Rogue is considered by many one of the most underpowered classes, but thanks to ultimate combat, it’s possible to make a build that would make many damage dealing classes cry. With the combination of feats like sap adept/sap master, it’s possible to make insane amounts of non-lethal damage.
There are some variations to this build like using saps or the bludgeoning feat, in this one I will be using unarmed strikes to combo with some feats, and a dip in unarmed fighter mostly for the bonus feats:

unarmed fighter archetype 1, scout rogue archetype 19

+28/+28/+28/+28/+23/+23/+17/+17 (+2 attacks from medusa’s wrath), and the damage would be 1d4+20d6+65, obtained from the combination of sap adept/sap master/knockout artist, averaging ~135 per hit, or ~1080 if all attacks hit. Ever wanted to beat a Tarrasque to unconsciousness with your bare hands? This rogue can do that.

Also, to make it even more insane, you can combine offensive defense rogue talent to get +20 dodge AC per turn, or crippling strike to do up to -16 str penalty to your target. Sure, this doesn’t make the class OP, but there’s no doubt that a rogue can be insane in combat with this build, while still maintaining his utility out of combat with his skills.