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Plotting a bit for character of a homebrew centaur race (no large size, +2 con, +2 cha, -2 int, so nothing crazy) and I was hoping to focus on using the hooves as her main form of attack. The hooves in question being primary weapons 'cause we figured why not.

But well, as you've guessed, this doesn't really seem terribly viable as I'd rather focus solely on the hooves and not turn myself into eldritch horror McGee with every form of natural attack under the sun. Probably doesn't help that I want some magic for diversity's sake (Played a fighter once, non-caster isn't really for me) and am so far looking mostly at warpriest, ranger or druid... preferably without the wildshaping stuff.

I'm not entirely opposed to picking up a flamberge, but I figured I'd give the advice forum a try before giving up completely on just kicking people around.

I'm re-making one of my old 3.5 characters in preparation for an upcoming campaign, but the guides tend to be a few years old, and who knows what's come out since, so I figured I'd check if anyone have any fun tips on spells.

I've played the game long enough to know about the basic utility spells, so no suggestions on things like dispel magic or haste please. For this thread I'd rather focus on wind, electricity and maybe some water spells for the purposes of blasting and battlefield control.

I'm planning my first character that will be making use of maneuvers, but while I've been able to make sense of most of the PoW classes so far, I've run into one part that's a bit confusing.

I'm mainly going to go with a desperado warlord, so there's going to be a main focus on solar wind and tempest gale. The guide I was looking at recommended a few levels in Myrmidon fighter, and that looks kinda nice if I'm going to be honest.

But I'm a bit confused on how the maneuvers gained from the fighter levels would work with the rest of the character. Like warlords working off of charisma while myrmidons keying their initiating off of wisdom. and how high level maneuvers I can get from the fighter depending on when I take levels in it?

Basically I kinda need someone to break down multiclassing initiator classes on a very basic level for me.

I wrote up a psychic armory character recently after having fallen in love with the flavor of the class and the fact that it actually makes throwing builds work well for once.

But unfortunately my DM isn't as fond of the archetype as I am, and thinks it's too powerful. So now I'm half-heartedly looking for an alternative, though from my searches so far my hopes are kinda low.

But, well, does anyone happen to know a class that works similarly enough? And that isn't a magus, gods above and below don't turn me towards the magus. I never want to make one of those again.

Things I liked about the psychic armory:

* Due to the panoply re-appearing each round it made throwing much smoother than having to wait for a blinkback belt or ricochet toss, both which comes online kinda late when it's your preferred means of combat.

* The versatility of the panoply was also really nice. Normally I don't bother much with special abilities since they're often so situational and having the multiple sets available just made it more fun to theorycraft with what one might apply. So... some means of similar versatility would be really great.

* The mobility options. I grabbed the telekinetic athletisism and psychic platform blade skills and the up the walls feat for some silly running and jumping.

* A bit of magic or psionic flair, I mixed with gifted blade in my previous build and combined with the versatility of the various weapon sets it gave a nice enough amount of magical feeling. If it wasn't for this I guess fighter might've been an option, but the warrior spirit way of enchanting weapons never gets a chance to come into play on the fighter I'm already playing. The duration's just too low and combat happens suddenly.

So... yeah, I don''t really think there is anything that does thrown weapons in a way similar to the psychic armory. I tried to build a card caster before but that just felt like a mess, and pathfinder doesn't seem very fond of throwing builds. But maybe someone out there has any ideas?

While I love the flavor of the crystalline creature form of a superior psicrystal, the text in the book (Psicrystals expanded) is rather brief on the subject and there's a few things I was wondering about.

* As the psion levels up, they can choose animals from an expanded list, mfor example bigger ones. Does being able choose from large sized animal companions allow you to choose a "grown" creature that normally starts smaller or does it just refer to the base form?

For example, a psionic character at lv 7 can pick "any large animal from the animal companion list" but the amount of animal companions that starts out large... well, there's 2 of them. Whereas many other creatures grow to large at varying levels.

* How closely do they resemble animal companions in function? Is it just the stats or do they get the usual animal companion bonuses and stuff?

There's probably a bunch of other odd things I haven't thought of either, as the entry crams a potentially rather big change into a very short description. But maybe someone has experience with this and can explain a bit?

So this is a bit annoying, but I remember some time ago I was checking out psionics and I'm pretty sure I found a psionic power that functioned by creating a flash of light from the user's weapon to bestow some sort of negative effect on the enemy (I wanna say blinding or maybe dazzling but it's a very vague memory). There might've been a mention of crystal somewhere in the description too but... Well, I'm not 100% sure. It might even have been a blade skill.

It's not a huge deal, but it's been bothering me for months that this is just out of reach and I can't find it again.

I was planning on making a sorcerer with a giant dragonfly companion (yes, sylvan bloodline) and I've more or less figured out how to deal with the intelligence issue. What I was surprised to find though was the "curious companion" feat which allows you to choose a plant or vermin companion and well, I thought those were options allowed by default?

The feat seems to be from wilderness origins and I could've sworn that vermin and especially plant companions were around before that, so I'm a bit confused about if I'll need to grab that feat too.

Not a pathfinder society campaign by the way.

I was planning on making a sorcerer with a giant dragonfly companion (yes, sylvan bloodline) and I've more or less figured out how to deal with the intelligence issue. What I was surprised to find though was the "curious companion" feat which allows you to choose a plant or vermin companion and well, I thought those were options allowed by default?

The feat seems to be from wilderness origins and I could've sworn that vermin and especially plant companions were around before that, so I'm a bit confused about if I'll need to grab that feat too.

Trying to build a card throwing focused character and I'm having some issues deciding on class(es). I've been eyeing a 3 cartomancer/17 card caster combination, but the damage on regular attacks seems like it would be really low or leave me very MAD since I can't figure out how to use dex to damage or str to hit with thrown weapons.

So I've started looking around a bit and was wondering if the cartomancer's share spells ability works with other spellcasting classes they might take? For example warpriest spells, which would make the regular attacks a bit more potent.

I got all the essentials for my fighter sorted out and grabbed the item mastery option from advanced fighter training, figuring I'd have a bit of fun with the dimensional agility chain. However, the uses one can get out of teleportation mastery per day are... quite low. 2 times per day becoming 3 at level 20, and even though I have the feats to spare for "just fun" stuff I'm hoping that there's some way to get a few more daily uses.

And before someone suggests the whole abundant tactics thing, that won't work. I also need teleportation mastery to be on the build at all times to qualify for dimensional agility feats.

Alternately, is there an item that does the dimension door thing that would let me use the feats with it, since they're on my build already?

I was kind of hoping that I wouldn't make myself look bad by making another thread about the mechanics of soul knives, but here we are...

I'm still working a bit on my gifted blade that I intended to have go into the primarch prestige class, but the prereqs has me a bit confused.

Now, in Primacy of the blade which the primarch gets at level 1 it mentions that gifted blade manifestation progresses as normal, so I'm pretty sure that that archetype is meant to work as base for this prestige class. But getting the metal awakening and progression requires the blade skill Telekinetic edge which is entirely useless when you don't have a psychic strike, but okay, the Primarch gets a small psychic strike ability a couple of levels in and I can accept a mostly useless kinda-sorta feat tax.

But then one gets to the actual feat prereqs that are weapon focus (fair enough) and swift imbuement, which has psychic strike as a prereq, which the gifted blade doesn't get...

Am I missing something here? or is it just impossible for a gifted blade to get into a prestige class that makes specific note about how their manifestation levels progresses?

I'm rather new to psionics but I was wondering if someone could elaborate a little bit on how the emulate melee weapon blade skill works for soul knives? Am I right in assuming that the mindblade (normally 19-20 x2) can change its modifiers to be more like the chosen weapon or have I completely misunderstood it?

And just in case I am correct, how does this work if you've picked Deadly blow, which raises a mind blade's critical multiplier by 1?

A friend of mine mentioned the possibility of a more psionic game (in a setting without spells)and I started wondering how I'd try to build one of my favorite characters for that kind of game.

Of course, me being me, I ended up with the probably most inefficient class wishlist I could have thought up, and now I'm wondering if it's even possible to make it work.

Basically, for that rogue-ish feel, I'd want to start off with the cutthroat soulknife archetype. So far so good, right?
Well, then ideally I wanna go and grab a level of shadowdancer because I'd really like hide in plain sight and that's not on the list of rogue talents the cutthroat can choose from.
And before anyone goes "But look at those feat prereqs!" I'm painfully aware of them, but they might be necessary anyway because...

I also wanna go elocater, the ability for gravity to be optional just seems like too much fun to pass up on. (Though I need to figure out how to get past that "ability to manifest 1st level powers" requirement).

So that's Cutthroat, shadowdancer and elocater, and if possible I'd really like to do two-weapon fighting as well because the character has a history of that. This will of course leave me very feat starved and I'm not sure if what remains is enough to make it a viable build.

Any tips?

Finally going to start playing my first fighter this upcoming saturday and I spent a few feats on getting improved/greater bullrush and Seize the opportunity (from path of war) that allows for an attack action like vital strike or a combat maneuver instead of the regular attack of opportunity. And I just thought I'd check if anyone has any ideas on items that enhances the ability to bullrush or gives it some sort of fun tricks?

Before anyone starts suggesting shield bashes, my fighter is a two-handed one who favors the earth breaker. Bullrush isn't the primary objective of his build, but I figured it might be fun to occasionally send an opponent off towards my allies. We're a pretty melee heavy group so I'm sure they'll appreciate a round of baseball.

So this is a concept that I've kind of fallen in love with, and while I don't really have a campaign to play the summoner in yet I've at least been wanting to figure out how to build a viable eidolon that doesn't do the pounce-bite-claw-rake thing. The aesthetic I'm going for is pretty much what the title says, a big stag/elk skeleton.

Unfortunately while there are some nice guides out there they mostly seem to focus on the kitty or bipedal type eidolons, I've actually not been able to find a single one that discusses gore as an option... which I guess there might be a reason for, but still.

Quadruped base form is a given, I know that much. Is there some kind of rule on if it's possible to trade away the bite that comes with the base package to mitigate the cost of a gore attack instead?

Aside from that I've pretty much just figured that I'd go for the gore evolution and pump the undead appearance evolution when possible. Probably also go large and maybe even huge? Aside from that I'm not entirely sure what evolutions to take for decent damage.

If the DM allows it I'll also apply tusk razors to the eidolon, for a 19-20 crit range (and then maybe add keen?).

Feats are also a bit of a question mark, though it would be cool if I could get it to qualify for awesome blow. Just to have the eidolon plow through enemies like a skeletal bowling ball.

I'm not really trying to build the optimal murder eidolon here, but it'd be nice to have something that can manage to hold its own while still retaining its flavor.

Any tips?

I've been considering trying to stat up a summoner and her eidolon for when I get the opportunity to use them, but a few things has me a bit confused.

First of all, I'm looking at making an eidolon that's essentially a big skeleton megaloceros (giant elk). So the quadruped base form is kind of a given, but I have no interest in the bite attack that comes with the package since I'd be going for a gore attack instead, so...

1. Can I get rid of the bite attack somehow, like when leveling or just dismissing it from the start? I don't really mind it being there I guess, but...

2. "Eidolon attacks add the eidolon’s Strength modifier to the damage roll, unless it is its only attack, in which case it adds 1-1/2 times its Strength modifier." Am I right in assuming that this means that I need to get rid of the bite to get the higher STR bonus on the gore?

3. Eidolons get multiattack eventually, does that mean that I lose the 1-1/2 bonus since it has more than one attack, even if it is of the same type?

4. A minor thing but if I can get rid of the bite, is it possible to get a refund on it? It's a 1 point evolution normally and gore costs 2 points, so it would be nice if I got to mitigate the cost of the weapon I prefer this way.

5. Do eidolons take their equipment with them when they're dismissed and re-appear with it when summoned again or does it just drop to the ground the instant they go poof?

I saw someone mention tusk blades in the topic dedicating for building an elephant animal companion and I really liked the thought of them, since I've been interested in one day having a ram or elk-like companion in a campaign. However, then things started snowballing with me being doubtful about the stats of the elk, finding the megalocerous a bit more acceptable, going on wikipedia and seeing a megalocerus skeleton and ending up wondering how in the world I could possibly have a skeleton megaloceros as an animal companion... And then just flipping the hypothetical table and starting to look at eidolons instead since they're a bit more malleable.

I'm assuming that with a quadruped form, gore and hoof evolutions and the undead appearance evolution (you can't imagine how delighted I was to see that) I could get a decent start on my way to my lovely though probably subpar eidolon. However, I'm a bit less certain about if tusk blades work on eidolons? I've never really played or built a summoner so I have no experience whatsoever to go by. Would it need the weapon training evolution? The tusk blades aren't listed on the weapons page but count as animal gear on the equipment page so I'm not sure how it works.

So I'm going to be trying out my first fighter in a few weeks and decided to go for the tactician archetype. However, I'm a bit curious about how that particular archetype works with weapon training since, at lv5 a tactician gets the.... well, tactician ability kinda like the cavalier class and it states that it replaces weapon training 1.

So my question is, since the archetype only switches out weapon training 1, does that just mean that a tactician's weapon training gets a bit delayed (getting it at lv9, being able to take advanced weapon training options or extra weapon groups at 13) or does it work in some other manner?

I'm contemplating a character for a game that I will soon be returning to and rather than the magic/support/ranged builds I usually do, this time I want to make a fighter and hit things hard.

Very hard.

If possible, I'd like to be able to hit things hard enough to move them a bit if I so wish. I realize that keeping enemies close enough to continue getting full attacks is what fighters benefit the most from but sometimes you just really wanna hit a homerun (particularly if it's possible to move them towards the other fighter in the team).

I haven't rolled stats for the guy yet but I know I'll be going strength over dex, and I'm looking at the tactician fighter archetype because I like the flavor; race is also already picked... but aside from that, does anyone have any fun ideas on how to hit someone hard enough to send them flying a bit? I've looked at the bull rush strike feat a bit but my crit range will probably be very limited since I've been dying to play with the earth breaker hammer and hammers in general have bad crit ranges.

So somehow during my quest to build my first kensai magus I slipped on the slope of wanting to incorporate intimidate in her possible strategies, and I've put in a few feats towards that. Namely dazzling display, violent display and shatter defenses, and then a cruel weapon because why not. (I know that violent display isn't PFS legal, it's a home game).

However, I can't really claim to have used intimidate much in that past, and I'm a bit unsure how much of a bonus one needs to be decent at it.

I'm building at lv15 to get an overview and so far she's got the following:
+15 skill ranks
+3 class skill bonus
+8 ability modifier (int because of bruising intellect trait)
+5 competence bonus from a glorious gorget.
I might also go for obtaining the spell "raiment of command" for an additional +5, though the spell seems a bit odd as its entry says that it's a sorcerer/wizard spell but it's not on the wizard/sorcerer spell list.

So at level 15 that would be +31 intimidate, +36 if I can get the spell. Is that decent enough for in-combat useage of intimidate? or should I try to fit in a skill focus or get the memorable trait for a bit more duration on affecting enemies?

Building my first magus, a kensai, and I think the guide I'm looking at is a bit outdated, so I figured I'd ask about this here just to be safe.

I really do like the flavor of the "Opportune Parry and Riposte (Ex)" part of flamboyant arcana, letting me use a arcane pool point to try and parry an opponent's attack and allowing a counterattack if successful... if the magus has a panache point.

My confusion stems from that while flamboyant arcana seems to indicate that arcane pool points work as passive panache points for this, a different arcana, arcane deed (which has flamboyant arcana as a prereq), doesn't allow pool points to work as passive panache points.

Does flamboyant arcana simply work differently and allow pool points to work as panache for the passive part of opportune parry & riposte or is the counterattack not possible?

Statting up a magus for the first time and I'm having a little bit of trouble with a part of the character concept. I'd like her primary element type to be acid, while the staple magus spells shocking grasp and snowball are electricity and cold element respectively. Out of the two I do like shocking grasp the most, but I was wondering if there are some ways to swap that element type.

The first way to mind was to combine magical lineage with elemental spell, but that means that intensified spell will make shocking grasp take up a level 2 slot. Adding wayand spellhunter doesn't ring too well with me because the flavor text doesn't mesh with my character's background at all and I'm not sure if my GM would approve of stacking the two traits.

I also know of the option to take a level in wizard to get the admixture evocation school power, but multiclassing doesn't seem all that tempting either.

Anyone know of any other ways to accomplish this?

(This is not for pathfinder society by the way.)

So I'm gonna be playing a nature fang archetype druid in an upcoming game and I've only really got one thing left to figure out. Namely if there's a way to re-gain the wild empathy ability somehow? The nature fang trades it away for some nice things and the only reason I want it back is because it's got good flavor more than anything; so it's not a disaster if it can't be done, but if anyone knows of a way then perhaps you'd care to enlighten me on it?

Basically I'm playing a chaotic neutral cleric of a chaotic evil deity in a campaign, for most part I'm casting-based and it's fine and dandy for most part. However, a major annoyance of mine though is that when I look up spells a lot of them have the [Good] descriptor which effectively means that they are off limits to me. Which wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that they seem a lot more effective than the ones with the [Evil] descriptor, especially against such things as undead and evil outsiders which are fairly common enemy types.

So I was wondering if there is any way of getting around that pesky "A cleric cannot cast spells of an alignment opposing that of their deity" rule? Changing my deity is definitely not an option, so if there isn't a way I'll just have to accept it, but I'm not going down without a fight... or in this case, a trip to the advice forum.

I'm on my way into a new campaign, throwing my cleric into a party consisting of two sorceresses and one psychic warrior who supposedly is on the tanky side. Now, my cleric usually does support spells/buffing, and I've had some good success with that in a campaign where the melee output comes from monks, but I've never seen a psychic warrior in play before and am uncertain how to best go about buffing one of those.

Does anyone have any experience and advice to offer on buffing that class or does it tend to work as with regular fighters where strength and size will be the way to success?

I should also point out that I make frequent use of the 3rd party spell "body to body" which is essentially shield other but allows me to share spells cast on myself with the recipient of the body to body spell, so personal range spells are welcome as suggestions.

I'll be going in as a 10th lv cleric by the way, but feel free to suggest spells of higher levels as it'll likely become relevant eventually.

So I'm playing a cleric (Ch N, deity is Ch E) in a party with a witch, wizard, another cleric and two monks, one of which is feeling a bit overshadowed by the other one. The other monk player has very good system mastery and can accomplish the things he wants to do efficiently, but it's a bit more difficult for the less experienced friend.

Not that I can do a whole lot of difference advice-wise since I've never built a proper melee character, but what I can do is try to help out by buffing my buddy... And that's where I could use some advice, 'cause I'm still a bit new to clerics and their spells.

Friend is a medium tengu monk who likes to throw things and would if the opportunity presented itself pick up one guy and beat up another with it, though medium size makes it a bit tricky I suppose.

This is not for PFS, I'm not entirely sure how her build looks like in terms of scores and feats, just that she's got pretty good strength. And I'm not asking for just PF spells, if it's been published/it can be sourced, chances are good our DM will accept. So bring on 3.5 material and whatever else you can think of that might help me help my friend.

I very recently switched out my gishy cook character for the drow cleric that I've had sitting on the bench for a while, as his concept seemed more interesting than just playing every anime protagonist trope to unintentionally ridiculous (and admittedly hilarious) levels. Of course, this has come with the proeblem that I have no experience with clerics whatsoever and figured I'd look here to see if anyone had any advice on how to do so efficiently.

CN drow scroll scholar cleric of Vhaeraun, 12th level

Ability scores: (rolled)
12 STR
17 DEX
16 CON
16 INT
19 WIS
17 CHA

Feats so far:
Lv 1: Selective channeling
Lv 3: Dodge
Lv 5: Mobility
Lv 7: Spring attack
Lv 9: Planar touchstone (catalogues of enlightenment)
Lv 11: Channel smite
Extra: Weapon finesse (granted because I took a drawback)

My general style is to have him flit in and out of close range, dealing some damage and unpleasant effects with debuffs. The catalogues of enlightenment got him the touch of chaos power from the chaos domain, and he uses a +1 conductive rapier for melee at the time being. Normal domains are travel and trickery.

I think my main concern right now is that I'm unsure what feats to take from here (although whip proficiency is admittedly growing tempting because of flavor), what buffing spells I should keep the most in mind, and hopefully how to reliably do at least double digit damage. I tried asking for advice on that last one during our last session only to have one of my... fellow players tell me "oh you wanna do damage? Play a fighter" despite me having told them that I'm not looking for stellar damage done, just enough to hold my own. The rest of the players are cool, but because of that one guy I don't really want to ask for advice where he sees it anymore.

Oh, and please don't suggest dual-wielding scimitars. I really don't want to go down that path.

My arcane gish character ended up taking the "Signature mount" feat at level 9 and thus his pet tiger ended up qualifying for being his animal companion. However, due to some shenanigans he kinda ended up separated from his precious "Spot" (yes, he named the tiger "Spot") for close to two levels and so I'm only just now finding myself pressed to finally write up her character sheet. However, since I'm not very used to animal companions in general and big cats in particular, I'm a bit unsure on feats.

Since my character is now lv 11, and thus getting his next feat, I was considering the "evolved companion" feat, going for the reach option. But I'm not sure if he'd qualify since the requirement is animal companion class feature... Or if I should grab "boon companion" and bring Spot completely up to par with her master.

But anyhow, those are minor concerns compared to what feats to pick for the tigress. Our group likes to use a saying that goes as follows: "Well, you know what the guy who underestimated the tiger says, he says "Help, I'm being mauled by a tiger!" So I think combat reflexes would be a decent first option, seeing as anyone who provokes an AOO has clearly underestimated the tiger.

But that's just one feat, and I need three more at this level. And more options for the future over and above those wouldn't hurt. I'm getting her an INT increase as quickly as possible, so aside from combat reflexes, one feat needs to be on the animal companion list while two can be whatever she qualifies for.

I've kinda been looking at "Chokehold" and "Body shield", but the prereqs are kinda harsh, with both improved unarmed strike and improved grapple on there, so I'm not sure if that would be worth it. Any feedback on that from past cat-tamers?

Last but not least, I'd like to say that I'm not just looking to make the most efficient shredder the world has seen. High damage is of course nice, but it would also be neat if she could pull off something slightly less expected than "turn this guy into a scratching post, rinse and repeat forever." That said, it doesn't necessarily mean to go looking for the most out there options just for the sake of oddity. A sort of balance would be nice.

Basically, our GM loves to throw us lots of constructs to battle as of late (as well as elementals, but that's more to the grievance of our rogue) and as an arcane caster, I'm as far as I know not very well equipped to be dealing with these things. Especially as I've only recently started growing into the role of battlefield control from a more blast-y setup. So to rectify that I've been looking a bit at some spells that might be decent for dealing with the issue, but since I lack experience, I figured I'd check with more experienced deconstructors on this forum (this is non-PFS by the way and we use pretty much every D&D material if we can source it).

Anyhow, things I've been looking at:

The "Chains of Light spell, 6th level.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/chains-of-light
Looks good and all at first glance (to me anyway) but since constructs tends to not be awfully bothered by paralyze, I'm not sure how much of an effect, if any, the "The creature is paralyzed and held in place" part actually is.

Then there's the spell "Sabotage construct", another 6th level spell
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/sabotage-construct
I have no real experience with mind effecting ailments, so I'm not sure how effective confusion would actually be. Any input on that is greatly appreciated.

And then there's the spells "Apparent master", 5th level, and "Control construct", which is 7th level.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/apparent-master
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/control-construct
Now, the latter of these kind of makes me want to laugh evilly, but that could just be inexperience and the text phrasing it as wresting control away from its master; which undeniably sounds pretty badass.

This is pretty much just what I've found without digging super deep, so if you have opinions and suggestions outside of these spells then that's very much welcome.

So I was looking at some feats for my hengeyokai sorcerer the other day and stumbled across the one known as "racial heritage", which at first reading (sadly a skimmed one) seemed perfect to obtain the racial favored class bonus of another humanoid race (human would in fact have been my to-go one)... Except that the pre-requisite says that only humans can take it. Ops.

Seeing as the best gift one can give a sorcerer are more spells known, and the human racial class bonus does exactly that, I'd very much like to know if there is a way around this. Anyone got any tips?

So I'm still trying to get a good hold on crafting mechanics, and I think I have most of the basics down. But I only just now noticed that my character can sacrifice a spell slot to learn one of his spells as a 2/day spell-like ability (it's a homebrewed class), because of this I'm wondering if spell-like abilities can be used for item crafting or if one has to cast the spell as... well, a spell, for purposes of crafting a magic item.

I'd be very glad if you could back up your responses with the source.
Oh, and this is not for PFS.

I'm trying to make a forgemaster archetype paladin and for some reason (possibly because I've been awake too long) I just cannot seem to wrap my mind around the skill checks involved. Now, forgemaster gives me the "Craft Magic Arms and Armor" feat for free at 5th level and I was considering picking up the craft wondrous items feat as well because it seems overall handy. But my build as-is isn't exactly super bright (14 INT) and I'm worried about having to put skill points into so many skills that I end up screwing up what's otherwise necessary for a non-channeling cleric.

So... basically, I guess what my actual question is, is what "craft" skills will I need to put points into to properly use these creation feats? The page for this mentioned spellcraft an awful lot but I don't think it's quite as cheap as just maxing that?

And, you know, explain it like I'm an idiot, because it might just be necessary at this point.

My GM recently presented me with a feat called "Culinary ashe" for my half-elven battle chef character and it essentially works kinda like brew potions, except the results are edible non-spoiling food items rather than potions. I'm not sure if the feat in question is homebrew or obscure D&D in source, but it probably doesn't matter much.

He did make one major edit to it though, and that is that the spell level imbued can be up to lv9 spells instead of the regular limitation that potions tend to have.

Now this seems like good flavor for the character (pun 100% intended). But I'm rather new to potions overall,and my character comes with one unfortunate limitation; He's a gish based in Sorcerer, so his spells known list is rather limited and I'm sort of unfamiliar with buffing in general. Because of this, I don't know exactly what spells to pick to make him able to continue being a ridiculous blaster at times and also able to make good use of the "Potion brewing".

So, um, I guess what I need advice on are spells that'll be generally good for handing out to party members in the form of snacks to devour at their convenience, popular enough to sell (GM pointed out that the removed spell limit will make the treats special compared to potions and thus very much sell-able) and just generally good to have at hand for when he has time and possibility or need to throw a buff or similar at his friends.

... Damage dealing spell tips are also welcome, 'cause I reckon that painful pastries can be pretty fun as traps.

Keep in mind, arcane (because sorcerer) spells up to lv9 that'll be handy and otherwise fulfill the criterias needed for potions.

So in a campaign where I play something of a battle-chef character (cullinomancer homebrew prestige class to be specific, it's hilarious) our GM recently presented me with a feat called "culinary ashe" that... I can't remember if it's homebrewed or some obscure D&D material. But it's essentially "brew potion" only that instead of potions the result is magic food that doesn't spoil until consumed.

Anyhow, that's not exactly the important part, just explaining why I'm interested in the following. My character is a gish based in the sorcerer class, so his spell selection is kinda limited. He's a half-elf though, so that makes him eligible for the paragon surge spell that grants a feat for 1 minute per level, and as I'm sure many of you are aware, one of those feats is "expanded arcana" which allows the addition of extra spells known for as long as he has the feat (which isn't very long).

So basically it pretty much literally boils down to: can one cast paragon surge, grab a specific spell and use that to create a potion? I'm suspecting that it's not rule legal because a potion takes a day to brew, which of course is much longer than the duration of the spell. But I'm kind of unsure how it works. Does one only have to "know" the spell long enough to cast and imbue the spell into the potion and then just let the potion brew in peace after that without further imput from the caster or does the potion creating require that he actually know the spell for the full duration of the brewing?

My GM did admittedly say that he'd allow it, but I'd rather not pull this kind of trick if it's not rule legal. Especially since he also made the edit to the feat that removes the upper limit of spell level, whereas I'm fairly certain that the regular only goes up to lv4 spells.

Okay, so I ended up re-rolling a character in a campaign because said character wasn't thematically appropriate for the setting (she was very woodland-y with a dinosaur craze going on, and the campaign turned out to be in the underdark which sports neither of those things). No pressure from the GM or anything, it was my choice. And now I've made a replacement druid to better suit the campaign. Well, aside from one thing that is...

I am very unsure how to go about feat choices and overall tactics for animal companions. My last character would just have gotten hers at lv6 (racial levels before that)and now I suddenly find myself much deeper in the waters than what I had expected in terms of how much time I'd have to get used to the mechanics and stuff. Basically more feats to pin down than I'd expected.

Anyhow, the companion I decided on for this new lv6 druid was the giant weasel, fluffed as a (giant)marten or mink, the jury's still on the fence which coat is the neatest, but that's the last of my issues.

Giant weasel stats I wasn't sure if copy/pasting would have been alright so there's the link at least.

So, uh, yeah. Advice on feats, ability score placements (aside form the common advancement to 3 INT), skills and just about anything in terms of tactics or general tips would be very much appreciated.

In the campaign that I've been playing for a good time now we ended up leveling up to 11 last night, and for my sorcerer that means he gets to pick his final 3rd level spell. So after looking over the spell lists I ended up pretty much falling in love with the spell "Aqueous Orb", but since I've mostly been blasting/buffing until now and only recently started to get into battlefield control/debuffing my DC for spells is kinda low and needs to be improved.

Basically I need some advice on how to make my katamari- I mean aqueous orb more of a hassle for the opposition.

My sorcerer is as stated now level 11, he's of the dragonic bloodline (brass) and has a charisma of 19. Equipment isn't noteworthy because i've been horribly neglectful of that up til now, though that's going to change next time we go shopping.

But yeah, any advice on this? My DM is pretty cool so I might be able to change a trait if needed, and I haven't yet picked the feat for this level.

I'm making a character with some racial levels and as such, she's getting a bit of a late entry to the druid class. So now I'm a little bit curious how the two following things interact if taken.

The Signature Mount pretty much gives a character an animal companion two levels below the character's hit dice if an appropriate skill rank is maxed out.

Meanwhile, a druid gets to choose between domains or an animal companion upon entry in the druidic class. In this case the companion would end up being four levels below character level, as the character has four racial levels.

Of course, the "boon companion" feat would be used in either case at some point.

So basically, what I'm wondering is that if the character takes the "signature mount" feat at third level, and goes into druid on her fifth, does she still get the option to get domains from the druid's nature bond or... how does the two interact?

I'm playing a sorcerer in a campaign that recently converted from 3.5 to pathfinder and thus found myself delighted at some of the new stuff that the class was granted. However, I've always been and currently am, a bit underdeveloped on the equipment side, as I'm pretty much indecisiveness incarnate and keep getting stuck in the mindset that a bad choice will have irrevocable consequences (which is silly, given how our DM throws treasure at us).

So I figured that I'd turn to more experienced players for a bit of a hand with this. I've got around 100-300k to spend. The reason for the huge variation being that I've got an expensive thing in mind that I wanna buy, but who knows when we'll get there; and by that time I might very well have repaired the hole that equipment will put in my savings.

Our DM is not only generous with the loot, but is also very openminded about mixed sources. He's been alright with 3.5/PF/3rd party/dragon magazine stuff in the past, so basically, if you can provide a source, chances are that he'll allow it.

Also, my sorcerer prefers blasting, which goes with his hot temper from an RP perspective, but I'm not averse to utility/buffing when needed. Although to be quite honest, the encounters tend to be short due to the Rogue/fighters/druid dishing out a lot of damage, so battlefield control and buffing/de-buffing doesn't tend to be needed... Which is a bit sad because my damage output isn't nearly on par with theirs. Another reason it's about time to overlook my equipment choices, I suppose.

My Sorcerer is a hengeyokai of the Brass draconic lineage with stats as follows:

STR: 15
DEX: 16
CON: 16
INT: 17
WIS: 10
CHA: 19

HP: 68
AC: 17 (usually 21 with mage armor)

I've been considering trying to pick up a scale mail (Mostly for the dragon theme, my sorcerer is obsessed with them) with what I've figured will be 0 ASF (Elven-forged from AEG mercenaries Mithril and Caster armor special property from... forgotten realms I think). As well as possibly a quicken metamagic rod (I'm still new and confused in regards to metamagic) as well as some wands such as glitterdust. But outside of that, I'm kinda stumped, so suggestions would be much appreciated.

Just don't forget to source the item/equipment/item template/special property or whatever, as my DM will want to take a look at that for considering if the item is alright to use.

Oh, and if the item is dragon themed, that's a definite plus. Just not anything made out of dragons, as my sorcerer wouldn't want anything to do with that. He's neutral, if not outright positive, in regards to even chromatic dragons unless they personally wrong him.(Yay for fluff).

One of the campaigns that I've been playing in for a while has just been converted to pathfinder, which prompted me to re-work my sheet and take a bit more of a look at just what the heck I've been doing until now (the campaign had been on ice for some months so some of it had been forgotten). And, well, the conversion was rather kind to my sorcerer, what with the bloodline stuff, which in this case was Draconic (brass type dragon).

So I pretty much looked at his list of bonus spells, noticed the Shape of the dragon" spells and thought that yeah, I can have some fun with that. My character is very dragon themed and his grand aspiration is to one day become a true dragon himself. Mostly as a mythology gag, he's a carp hengeyokai after all.

But anyway, this got me thinking that "Hey, form of the dragon is a personal spell, and sorcerers/familiars get the share spells feature... this could be fun."

(I grabbed "Skill focus: knowledge arcana" as a bonus feat, took eldritch heritage for a normal one, and then improved familiaro n top of that because he had that in 3.5 too. Just in case you happen to be wondering how a Draconic bloodline sorcerer has a familiar).

My sorcerer as of now is level 10, full on sorcerer (though I might take a level in fighter soonish to make loot piles more fun) and his familiar is going to be a Faerie dragon once we make a detour to where they live.

So aside from choice of familiar (which I don't want to change), does anyone have any fun tips on hijinx that can be done with those? My known spell pool is a bit limited, but our GM is rather generous with treasure, so wands and other items shouldn't be too hard to afford.

I'll be playing a gish with spellcasting based in the sorcerer class, his bloodline is primal elemental and at 9th level I plan on having him take the "Signature mount" third party feat.

Now, what I'm wondering is if the share spells thing will work with my character's companion/spell list. Since the ability in question goes like this:

"Share Spells (Ex)

The druid may cast a spell with a target of “You” on her animal companion (as a touch range spell) instead of on herself. A druid may cast spells on her animal companion even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the companion's type (animal). Spells cast in this way must come from a class that grants an animal companion. This ability does not allow the animal to share abilities that are not spells, even if they function like spells."

Does that mean that since my character gets his companion via a feat rather than class, he cannot cast spells via this feature? I'm unsure since technically a sorcerer can be a class that grants an animal buddy (sylvan wildblooded) but isn't in the case of my character as his bloodline is a different one.

I'm currently neck-deep in attempting to build my first gish-type character, and happened to come across the feat "Signature mount" that I am now quite interested in as it meshes nicely with my character.

However, since the feat relies on one of two scores for the animal companion's level, I'm a bit torn on which one to prioritize as I've never played with an animal companion before.

With the feat in play, my animal companion's level will be the number of ranks - 2 in whichever is highest of handle animal or ride. So I will pretty much max or at least come close to maxing out one of them, but don't really know which one is more important. I will of course be putting ranks into both, but yeah, obviously one is going to become the target of favoritism.

The mount in question will be a tiger that I will be obtaining at level 9, making the tiger lv7 if I max the ranks in whichever score is chosen when I obtain it (the animal companion needs to be rideable, character is medium and tigers grow to large at lv7). And my character's build will be Fighter 1/Sorcerer 3/Cullinomancer 6 (homebrewed 3.5 PrC)/Eldritch knight 10 if we end up reaching 20.

I suppose tips on animal companions and mounter combat will be appreciated too, though I'm not exactly trying to optimize, just to get a better idea of what I'm doing.

Alright, first of all I'd like to say that I'm new to both this forum and generally not too well aquintanced with PF yet. I do however have some experience playing D&D 3.5 for about a year, but just in case I slip and say something that seems odd or/and silly or outrageously stupid, that's probably the reason.

Anyhow, this thread isn't meant as an introduction. Rather, a friend of my current GM is planning a Pathfinder campaign and me and some buddies are joining it, with both me and one of them deciding to contribute with druid buddies. However, I have only ever played sorcerers before and am a bit unsure on what to go for when it comes to druids. I've read some guides of course, and they have been a good help, but I figured I'd ask here for some more specific advice on how to lessen a specific "handicap" of sorts that my character will have; namely racial hit dice.

The race in question is the "Ratatosk" from the "Expedition to the demonweb pits" 3.5 book, and that my GM put together via "savage species". He has since revised is slightly to fit into the PF system so that shouldn't be much of an issue. Basically, the Ratatosk are humanoid-sized squirrel-folk and according to GM would work out as follows in terms of their first few levels:

"Ratatosk:

LA: +1"

So yeah, that's pretty much what I'll be playing. My character's ability scores at 5th level (starting level for the campaign) stands as follows:

STR: 15
DEX: 19
CON: 17
INT: 14
WIS: 16
CHA: 15

However, what I'm worried about is that because her first druid level will be taken at effective party level 6, her effectiveness will be lacking and she risks falling behind in terms of usefulness. So I was wondering if anyone have any advice on how one can sort of make up for those lacking levels? "Boon companion" might aid my animal buddy and if I'm allowed to take "Practiced spellcaster" from 3.5 I might remedy some spell power, but apart from that I'm kinda lost. So you know, advice would be very much welcome.

... Oh, and on a slightly lesser note; with the above in mind, at what level (if any) would a T-Rex animal companion become a possible choice for my dinosaur-crazy little squirrel girl? I'm guessing it will be very high level, but since the PF animal companion selection (and inexperience with it) confuses me I thought I might as well ask.

Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to read!