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So I've started GMing War for the Crown a while ago (online, via Roll20), we just finished the Book 1 Wyssilka fight today, and are gonna handle the finale of the book tomorrow before a break while I set up Book 2. The adventure has been quite... shall we say, unique, and I've been advised to share the results here!

Foreword: I tend to be a reasonably lenient GM, and try to help encourage creative solutions. This has resulted in very unusual circumstances, but people love having me as a GM, so it works out!

Characters:
-LG Human Male Paladin (Shining Knight) of Iomedae
-TN Human Male Occultist (Silksworn)
-NG Kitsune Female Swashbuckler (who's in human form most the time)
-NE Human Male Cleric of Norgorber (who's telling both the other PCs and players he actually follows Cayden)

Certainly that last one gave me some pause, but as the player is my best friend, I will trust in her decisions. I'm aware of the Norgorber involvement in the AP, especially where it comes to later books, but I've studied the details, and, ultimately, I found the idea workable. It helps that the character is from Vyre, which has some very... unique cultural takes on being a Norgorber cultist that do not particularly mesh all that well with the Norgorber caste in Taldor.

Part 1 - The Gala
Right off the bat, the group really liked Martella. I helped set things up with a sort of pre-session (at the tailor shop they were getting clothes from) to set things up, and that segueing into the actual meeting with Martella the next morning worked quite well, and rapidly established Martella as being both clever and resourceful.

The way the party were able to adapt to waiting in line before the gala felt so appropriate. The Swashbuckler even thought it would be interesting to actively go buy the knickknacks available at the store, and spent the money to get these trinkets in her inventory. They picked up pretty quickly that Kathann's singling out probably meant she was helping them and was one of Martella's allies.

The gala itself proceeded rather smoothly. The Paladin quickly finished his Politicking mission, and proceeded to hobnob with anybody that looked reasonably just and heroic (developing a special fondness for Remilliard Kastner, who was one of the bonus senators I added into the event), while the Occultist made a beeline for the Archives to talk to literally every intellectual there, as well as Abrielle for completing his Discovery mission.

The Cleric focused on getting his Sabotage mission done quickly, then attempted, with repeated and often hilarious failure to influence the Gallery. He also made very quick success in befriending both Kalbio and Wyssilka during the event, which turns out to be quite fitting. (And his player was the only one to notice the correlation between Wyssilka being a halfling and having raccoon facepaint... that was quite the foreshadowing!)

The Swashbuckler wanted to talk to a lot of random NPCs after she was done doing her Spy mission on Pythareus, and that included Pythareus himself. She didn't have any skills that worked well for that... but what she did have was Bluff. A whole lot of Bluff. So she literally faked her way into influencing him, despite the high DC I set for it.

When Malphene showed up and Martella asked the group to keep an eye on her, half the party decided not to and just spend that social round socializing instead of stalking her. So only the Paladin and Cleric ended up showing up to stop her, failed to either Diplomacy or Intimidate her, and ended up having to fight an extremely lopsided battle that actually proved to be rather dangerous for them.

And then Stavian's announcement, which caught the entire group by shock. This scene went over very well with them, and Stavian's default script proved incredibly effective at communicating his general slightly-off-ness. Then the party were caught trying to fight the assassins, and then things went dark.

Part 2 - The Sublevels
So remember that part about three humans and one kitsune? Yeah, nobody has darkvision. And nobody brought torches, candles, or any of that. They fumbled in the dark until they found the candles, and then were able to use a flint and steel to light it and gain at least some light.

It is at this point that it came to light that the Cleric has claustrophobia. Being trapped in an enclosed space didn't sit well with him at all, so he ignored every room, quickly taking the candle into the next one in a desperate attempt to find some sort of way out until it dawned on him that he was actually stuck. The party worked together quite effectively to solve the puzzle, and the players absolutely loved the escape room style challenge. And with that handled, they were able to get into the main sublevels.

Despite the issue with Malphene before, the party was immediately sympathetic to her loss, and worked hard on befriending her. Jowuan, they were less happy about having to pay for, and ultimately never bought any spellcasting from him. As for Imistos, everybody more or less ignored him, except for the Cleric who thought he looked suspicious but was clearly trying to avoid attention, so more-or-less left him alone. The other nobles to rescue were mostly considered accessories, and I didn't force too much involvement with them.

After easily defeating the phantom armors, the Occultist used Item Reading on Dignity's Barb (psychometry is an amazing thing, since this basically let him peer directly into the Taldan zeitgeist) and immediately decided he wanted to use it. The rest of the path out of the museum was uneventful, as the path they took was one without traps (other than the wig ooze, which was spotted quickly and done away with). They definitely found all the circles appearing everywhere ominous, and once the Occultist found Glendower's autobiography in the library, conspiracy theories began to circulate (with the prevailing one that Glendower became a ghost).

The Occultist also did not particularly appreciate Viecar, due to being a devout follower of Aroden. (He insists Aroden isn't actually dead and will return.) He did, however, appreciate the gishvits. After deciding to befriend them by voluntarily sharing information with them, he immediately started considering what it would take to get one as a familiar.

Nobody expected Dagio (though they expected enough rats to buy out Mimips's stock of alchemist's fire, despite no common language), and, while surprised, ultimately decided to leave him unconscious but not bleeding so that he can recover. Due to his fascination with Glendower's intellect, the Occultist felt sympathy with the rat and later decided to seek out ways to negotiate with him.

Similarly, while people were suspicious of the halflings afterward, the Cleric didn't realize the sheer ramifications of his positioning until Imistos rolled higher than him in initiative... and was 10 feet away. What followed was quite the amazing roll of dice where, in view of everybody, Imistos got a nat 20 attack roll, followed by a nat 20 confirm, followed by max weapon damage and max sneak attack damage, which knocked the Cleric from full health down to a sliver. Luckily the earlier persuading with Malphene led her to lend her blade in support, and she was able to distract (and kill, with very lucky rolls) Imistos while he limped off to try to not die.

After taking another rest break, the group went off to go find Martella, though the Cleric already knew the hint on who captured her.

Part 3 - The Safehouse
Stealth, alongside the Occultist having successfully influenced Gloriana earlier to get the Pathfinder Support, enabled the group to take out the entrance guards stealthily. One of them was taken out before his turn, and by the time it was the other's turn, they were already at their flee point in Morale so they didn't even bother triggering the alarm.

Efarni was another story. Nobody trusted him, and by the time he got a good chance, he decided his best bet was to dump a stink bomb on the group, run to the northern door, and open it and shout the alarm directly at the entire warehouse.

The battle of the warehouse proved to be quite complicated indeed, not only because multiple party members got nauseated by the stink bomb and were stuck dealing with half a dozen rogues as well as Efarni and Mr. Smiles, but because half of them were practicing nonlethal tactics, as the Cleric felt like he shouldn't be killing followers of Norgorber and the Paladin simply didn't like killing, which added a surprising amount of penalty to everybody's attack rolls. Up until the Occultist imbued the Paladin's weapon (Malphene's +1 Rapier reward) with Human-Bane, which was suddenly meaning it was dealing so much nonlethal damage it was looping around and very nearly killing them with lethal damage instantly.

Battered by the battle but unwilling to take a rest, the group continued into the safe house, where the paladin ran ahead, got a javelin trap in his arm, and decided to be more cautious from then on. The cultists up near the sleeping quarters proved to be quite the challenge, especially owing to Commands to flee and tricky total defense into sudden shift tactics. They fell too, but took so much damage that they died before they could be healed, which pained both the Cleric and Paladin. (To add further insult to injury, the round the Occultist finished using Spellcraft to speed-ID their potions as healing was the round the last one died.)

The party met the fantionette, but nobody took her bait. Everybody just assumed she was a child, due to their prior attempts to nonlethal the rogues above, and nobody got close enough to warrant the Will saves for the aura (or get sneak-attacked by her), nor rolled high enough to beat the fantionette's Bluff, so they just told her to stay there since they were at a loss of where else to take her and went back around.

They also decided to handle the halfling guard outside Wyssilka's room in an interesting way, since, rather than immediately leap into combat, they decided they'd rather not actually bother with that, and instead started trying to buy the Gixx-follower's loyalty. Being easily won over by the opportunity for free gold (and the promise that they'll try to keep his boss alive), the halfling left them alone for the final room, and after spotting and disabling the final trap, they went in to deal with Wyssilka.

They also greatly enjoyed Wyssilka as a character. In general, being able to so enthusiastically talk about what was going on while still being clearly unrepentantly evil made Wyssilka affable in a strange way to them, and when combat finally broke out, they fought hard against the dangerous sneak-attack-prone cultists, even despite getting Outflank.
Things were going pretty well, with the Swashbuckler dealing a lot of damage (and resisting Wyssilka's Hold Person), but in one single round, Wyssilka both KOed the Swashbuckler and had her Spiritual Weapon KO the Cleric (who she didn't recognize as the guy who influenced her, due to a high Disguise result and Oath of Anonymity)

The Paladin fell afterward, and the Occultist tried to forcefeed a potion to the dying Swashbuckler, prompting Wyssilka to just kill the still-unconscious character before going to try to kill the Occultist, who at that point was convinced to escape via a stolen gaseous form potion and barely survived the negative energy Fervor before escaping.

With one PC left dead and two more unconscious and at Wyssilka's mercy, this would seem to be the end of the campaign. But with the Occultist leaving to try to get help, I ruled that the Pathfinder agents were able to storm the place and force a retreat from Wyssilka, rescuing both Martella and the other three party members (who, at that point, would require just as much recuperation as Martella herself), so people could keep playing. Though with the fact that they didn't get the experience for Wyssilka, they didn't get the massive 2000 gold payoff, and they didn't qualify for the first triumph for their relics, they'll have a little bit of catching up to do during the between-book downtime.

And Wyssilka herself is on the loose, and since every single Silent Blade member either fled or was nonlethaled, they'll be returning to cause the party some more mischief later.

As a Pathfinder Player Companion Subscriber, I aim to gain the benefits of the books and PDFs as soon as possible. That's my actual primary reason for subscribing; I don't use the physical books, I just want the PDFs. (I understand you don't offer a PDF-only subscription; this isn't about that.)

The problem is that the PDF doesn't become available until the product ships. And while I was informed on May 14th that it would be 1-7 days until the product shipped (and thus that the PDF would be added to my digital content), it's now May 28th... two weeks past that. I've received no confirmation of the order shipping, it's made no effort to charge my card, and it's rapidly approaching the point where I am paying an extra $9 for what will only amount for one day advance on the book. This isn't something I'm at all inclined to do.

Is there any sign at all of what is happening to my order? ...And is there going to be anything to compensate for it being over a week late? My Ruins of Azlant campaign is running tomorrow, and I would very greatly like to see what's in there for Azlanti-related history before I finalize a level-up. But right now it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

The party I have been GMing Wrath of the Righteous for over the last several months has been trusting. Very trusting. They're quite prone to redeeming reasonably redeemable enemies, and while it took a while for them to find a good chance to confront her, this party was able to effortlessly persuade the halfling, Nurah Dendiwhar, to give up her evil ways and begin a road to redemption.

And throughout their journey of Citadel Drezen, they disabled, and subsequently befriended, Jestak, and learned from her that Staunton Vhane's younger brother was potentially redeemable as well. Of course, the idea of saving people from demons continued to appeal to them, so they continued through the citadel, freed the captured crusader Maranse, and allowed him to join their cause against Vhane.

It is about this time that things started to go bad for them. Once they reached Joran Vhane's quarters and begin to fight against him and the babaus, they began to be outnumbered; not only by Staunton Vhane coming to stop the PCs from redeeming Joran, but by Kiranda, who wasted no time in shedding the Maranse disguise and stab the wizard in the literal back. This forced the party to retreat, an act that cost the life of Jestak (but fortunately neither Nurah nor Irabeth, nor any of the PCs).

It was at this point that as a GM, I needed to decide how Vhane and Kiranda would react to this attempt. Vhane's decision to kill his brother was obvious, and as the PCs left him unconscious, this proved to be an easy task (and one encouraged by Kiranda, who overheard the party's desire to redeem him). As for Kiranda, I decided she would test just how gullible the party was, and pull the exact same trick over again, this time disguising herself as Joran Vhane fleeing from his psychotic brother just as the party re-enters the Citadel.

So the party go to challenge Vhane again, and, predictably, Kiranda betrays them again, causing them to be caught off guard yet again and struggle through the fight despite their mythic power. And Kiranda managed to teleport away before she was killed, and thus moved to Chorussina's room (as detailed in her tactics). And, as the party moved on without finding Vhane's treasure, I followed the AP's directives of having a minion use the Oil of Life that was in Vhane's treasure to revive him... and left enough hints that it was Kiranda.

The party was able to take out Chorussina easily enough (due to the entire ritual circle failing saves against an Arcane Surged Confusion), but Kiranda was able to survive long enough to escape. Yet again. It's clear at this point that she's continuing to be a thorn in the party's side, and it is at this point that I feel I am fully justified in 'slipping' her a Nahyndrian Elixir just to make her that much more of an recurring antagonist to the party.

And all the while, the players have been loving it. They love just how much she's been deceiving them and taking advantage of their gullibility, and are definitely keen on seeing her continue to tease and torment them, both physically and verbally.

Has anyone else been having fun with this mischievous succubus?

As they are not spells, we know that supernatural abilities do not provoke attacks of opportunity, are not subject to Dispel Magic (which specifically calls out spells, not magic), and do not create manifestations when used (though they may have more immediately obvious effects one can use to notice their use).

However, supernatural abilities are still magical, as evidenced that they are still defeated by antimagic zones. And as Detect Magic is not limited to spells, you may use it to detect the properties of any magic auras on a given creature.

The question arises from Paladins, who have passive supernatural abilities--abilities that are not used or triggered but instead provide a static, ongoing benefit, like Divine Grace and the paladin's auras.

Because these abilities are not activated and are always on (without any option to turn them off), taken literally, a paladin would appear to detect as magic at all times, whether they would like to or not. Is this interpretation accurate?

In the campaign I run (homebrew setting), a war is initiated between two nations, one of which is very much stronger than the other (and generally portrayed as villainous, using propaganda to spread racism heavy enough to make non-human characters kill-on-sight).

The party, as high-ranking residents of the smaller nation and having previously established their value and strength, were consulted on military matters on what to do with the oncoming war. The military commander mentioned that one way to shore up the difference between the two armies and give the smaller nation more of a chance was to conscript additional soldiers into the army--require a strong part of their population to serve in the military and fight in this war to save their nation--a suggestion that the party's paladin agreed to.

However, one of the players complained heavily about this. Her opinion was that because conscription involves forcing people to fight, and potentially die, against their own free will, that it was without doubt an evil act to do so, and that the paladin should have fallen on the spot for agreeing to it. In this situation, she argued that the propaganda the other nation was using was far more moral, since it's still allowing people to battle and murder under their own free will, even if said free will is horribly misguided and innocent demihumans are slain in the process.

What are all of your thoughts on the situation?

Consider the following two sections of the Ancestor subtype for Unchained Eidolons, released in Blood of the Beast:

At 1st level, an ancestor eidolon gains all of the racial traits associated with its summoner’s race; a summoner who isn’t a 0-Hit Die creature must choose one 0-Hit Die race of his choice from the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. For any effect dependent on class level, an ancestor eidolon uses its total Hit Dice instead (such as with the human’s skilled racial trait). An ancestor eidolon counts as a creature of its chosen race’s type and subtype for all effects, except for the purpose of meeting feat prerequisite requirements. An ancestor eidolon gains only the standard racial traits of its race; it cannot select alternate racial traits.

[...]
At 16th level, the ancestor eidolon gains a bonus feat, chosen from the following list: Dodge, Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Toughness, or any feat that lists the eidolon’s chosen race as a prerequisite. The eidolon must meet all of the chosen feat’s prerequisites.

The 1st level ability states that Ancestor subtype Eidolons do not meet the prerequisites for taking feats. The Ancestor eidolon of a half-elf summoner counts as a half-elf. It's vulnerable to human-bane and elf-bane weapons, it's capable of being hit by Enlarge Person or Hold Person, and so on. But it doesn't count for feats, so it can't take, say, Exile's Path.

The 16th level ability states that, among a list of basic feats, you can also select any feat that lists that race (half-elf) as a prerequisite, which Exile's Path qualifies for. Except that you must meet all the feat's prerequisites, which you don't, because the 1st level ability told you already you don't qualify for feats like Exile's Path. This renders the ability to select a racial feat by this ability self-invalidated, and you are in fact forced to pick one of the other six.

Was it intentional that the Ancestor Eidolon is incapable of selecting a racial feat, even with the 16th level ability that offers them as choices?

Imagine the following scenario:

A non-kitsune (human for simplicity) character selects Adopted as one of their traits.
Through Adopted, they select to have been raised by Kitsune, and select the Nine Tailed Scion trait.
Now the trait says they can take Magical Tail in place of a freely chosen class feat.

You are talented with kitsune magic. You gain a +1 trait bonus on caster level checks for your racial spell-like abilities as well as those from the Magical Tail feat (Advanced Race Guide 193). Additionally, you can select Magical Tail as a bonus feat whenever your favored class grants you a bonus bloodline feat, combat feat, or metamagic feat instead of the normal type of feat granted by that class. You cannot exchange specific feats granted by a class or race for Magical Tail in this manner; for instance, a monk cannot exchange his Stunning Fist feat for Magical Tail.

With this premise, consider the following questions:

1) If this character selects Ranger as their favored class, may they select Magical Tail as a style feat, considering the class permits them to ignore prerequisites? Or does it asking them to select from among a list of feats count as a specific feat for the trait's exception?

2) If this character selects Fighter as their favored class, may they select Magical Tail as a bonus combat feat? Fighter does not allow one to ignore prerequisites, but does the trait saying "you may select" make it an option when it otherwise would not be?

As per a discussion in this thread regarding the new Living Grimoire archetype for Inquisitors, I felt getting some sort of official stance regarding the book from the class, and other improvised weapons, in combination with various feats, including Weapon Focus and Craft Magic Arms and Armor.

The following questions are framed from the point of view that the book as part of the Living Grimoire archetype is an improvised weapon, although one the Inquisitor takes no penalties for.

1) How do improvised weapons interact with Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and similar feats? Are you considered proficient with the improvised weapon if you have an effect that causes you not to take penalties for wielding it, such as the Rough and Ready trait, or the Catch Off-guard feat?

2) Is there any point at which an improvised weapon stops being improvised and starts simply being a weapon, based on how the character is using it, for the purposes of feats such as Catch Off-guard?

3) Is it possible for an improvised weapon to be made masterwork? If so, can it be enchanted through use of the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat?

If any related inquiries come to mind, please bring them up. And please hit that FAQ button!

Relevant rules excerpt:

Psychic Access (Su)

At 4th level, the mindblade gains access to an expanded spell list. She adds two spells from the psychic class spell list to her magus spell list as magus spells of the same spell level. These must be spells of levels the mindblade is able to cast. At 7th, 11th, 14th, and 19th levels, she adds two more psychic class spells to her spell list, following the same restrictions.

When a mindblade takes the spell blending arcana, she gains spells from the psychic class spell list instead of the wizard spell list.

This ability replaces spell recall, knowledge pool, improved spell recall, greater spell combat, and greater spell access.

A level 4 Mindblade Magus uses Psychic Access to add a base form of an undercast spell, say, Mind Thrust I, to their spell list, and subsequently learn it as a 1st level spell known. At level 7, they add Mind Thrust III to their spell list, and pick it up with one of their new third level spells known, and replace MT1 accordingly.

Can they undercast Mind Thrust as Mind Thrust II, even though they never added it to their spell list?

Additionally, can they use retraining to replace having added Mind Thrust I with the level 4 iteration of Psychic Access, getting a different psychic spell that they could have cast at level 4 on their spell list instead?

A random interaction in the rules left me with a curious question.

Let's take a hypothetical character, Bob the Magus. Bob is a fairly high level Magus, and has access to level 4 spells. However, Bob isn't very bright, and only has 11 INT.

As per the rules, he can only cast level 1 spells, and must fill his higher level spell slots with them. However, what happens if he attempts to apply metamagic to those spells?

Scenario 1: Bob has Intensified Spell and Empowered Spell as metamagic feats. He wants to fill his level 2 slots with Intensified Shocking Grasp, his level 3 slots with Empowered Shocking Grasp, and his level 4 slots with Intensified Empowered Shocking Grasp. Can he, and if he does, can he cast them? (My feeling is yes, as they are level 1 spells made to occupy higher level slots.)

Scenario 2: Bob has Heighten Spell as a metamagic feat. He wants to fill his level 2, 3, and 4 spell slots all with Heightened versions of various level 1 spells. Can he, and if he does, can he cast them? (My feeling is no, as the Heightened spell indicates it actually increases the spell level, and is s difficult to cast as those other spells Bob lacks the INT to cast.)