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My wizard finally got his improved familiar, a Nosoi. Being an outsider he gets the outsider class skills, instead of the animal class skills for normal familiars. Unfortunately, "due to their varied nature, outsiders also receive 4 additional class skills determined by the creature's theme".

Reverse engineering from Nosoi's skill bonuses, three of those class skills are Fly, Knowledge (History), and Profession (Scribe). Can I choose the fourth one? Or is there a better way to do this than reverse engineering from the bestiary entry?

I was thinking about creating a PFS character from the Kingdom of Man - just because the First Rule alone is so awesome.

I heard there are PFS legal prestige classes for Rahadoumi characters, but I couldn't find them. Any idea where to look from? Or, which source books would have more information about Rahadoum. Also, do you have any other mechanical ideas for a character following the First Rule? Clearly, clerics and paladins are out of the picture.

I'm starting to run PFS games for a home group, starting from level 1. I already ran We Be Goblins! for them. The goblins were a hit, and that got me thinking if I should continue the theme. What scenarios are out there that feature goblins?

So far I know of We Be Goblins Too!, Goblinblood Dead, and Frostfur Captives, and Rise of the Goblin Guild. Also, part 1 of Rise of the Runelords has lots of goblins. Are there others?

There are boons in #4-16 The Fabric of Reality and #4-25 The Secrets Stones Keep that I'd like to combine. It's somewhat unclear if what I'm planning will work.

The boon from #4-25 is not relevant for my question, so I'll leave it out. The boon from #4-16, and the question are inside separate spoiler tags. Let's try to keep the thread as spoiler free as possible.

Boon from #4-16

And the question

Once again. I know this has been asked before, but I noticed that the FAQ has been changed regarding familiars.

It is intended that animal companions or familiars can not activate magic items.

Meaning that no familiars benefit from UMD anymore? Really?

There is a notion of improved familiars with hands later in the FAQ, but it refers to the magic item slots available for the named familiars. The list is awfully similar to the old list of familiars who were able to use UMD. Is that still the intent? Can the following familiars benefit from UMD?

The brownie, faerie dragon, imp, lyrakien azata, mephit, quasit, sprite familiars, granted by the Improved Familiar feat, use the Biped (hands) section of the chart.

At 2nd level, a bard can choose one type of Perform skill. He can use his bonus in that skill in place of his bonus in associated skills. When substituting in this way, the bard uses his total Perform skill bonus, including class skill bonus, in place of its associated skill's bonus, whether or not he has ranks in that skill or if it is a class skill.

I'm somewhat confused on how this is supposed to work with the masterpiece Pageant of the Peacock, RAW.

By gracefully weaving your body through subtle forms and postures you can convince others of your breeding, eloquence, and refinement. For the duration of the effect, you gain a +4 circumstance bonus on Bluff checks, and may attempt a Bluff check in place of an Intelligence check or Intelligence-based skill check.

Now, if I have Cha 16, no ranks in Bluff, and 4 ranks in Perform (act), my skill bonuses for Bluff and Perform (act) are +3 and +10, respectively. I'm allowed to use my Perform (act) skill bonus in place of my Bluff bonus. So, when I'm using Pageant of the Peacock, it is a Bluff check with a skill bonus of +10, from Perform (act), and after that I get the +4 circumstance bonus on Bluff checks from the masterpiece, making it a total of +14 Bluff check?

To me, this seems to be the correct reading of the rules. I'm especially interested in the RAW, as this is used in Pathfinder Society.

What happens to characters that are of Lantern Lodge or Shadow Lodge, and playing in a play-by-post game that happens to end after Aug 14? Has this been covered somewhere?

In general, where are the rules for online play? I wasn't able to find them.

There are a few scenarios where the BBEG (or one of the other encounters) is written to escape under certain conditions. If they're carrying some gear, should I give the players less gold because the loot got away?

PFS Guide tells DMs to reward creative solutions, and give full reward if an encounter is bypassed by roleplaying. But this is somewhat different, as there was combat, and the enemy escaped with the loot.

For what it's worth, I've seen DMs usually deducting the loot in this case.

Lessons of Chaldira is a trait from Faiths of Purity. It's legal in Pathfinder Society, and requires the character to follow a NG deity called Chaldira Zuzaristan. It's a halfling deity, but you don't have to be a halfling to become a follower. You need to be of LG, NG, CG or N alignment, though.

Your studies of Chaldira Zuzaristan’s exploits have given you a knack for avoiding trouble. Once per day, when you fail a saving throw, you can reroll the saving throw. You must take the second result even if it is worse.

This can be compared to Improved Great Fortitude, Improved Lightning Reflexes, or Improved Iron Will. They have the same mechanics, except that Lessons of Chaldira can be used to any type of a saving throw, and can be used after a failed saving throw. Which means that it's better than any of those three feats. Traits should be as effective as half of a feat. This alone makes the trait clearly overpowered.

There's no question about the above, and should be enough of a reason to ban the feat from Pathfinder Society. The following is my evaluation of how overpowered the trait is.

Lessons of Chaldira doesn't have feat prerequirements, but you need to follow a specific deity. In my opinion these prerequirements balance each other out, give and take.

The fact that Lessons of Chaldira can be used on any saving throw makes it about as good as all three Improved saving throw feats combined. Sure, you get more rerolls with three feats, but it's highly situational when you need to use more (different types of) rerolls than 1/day. I'd say it's about as situational as how often you benefit from the ability to know whether the saving throw failed or not. Thus, IMO, Lessons of Chaldira is worth about three feats.

A few weeks ago the rules of Canny Defense were changed.

The original rules read "When wearing light or no armor and not using a shield, a duelist adds 1 point of Intelligence bonus (if any) per duelist class level to her Dexterity bonus to modify Armor Class while wielding a melee weapon". It was 'clarified' in the FAQ that "Her Int-based bonus to AC ignores the max Dex limitation of armor because the Int-based bonus to AC is not a Dex bonus".

How does this affect existing Pathfinder Society characters who have Canny Defense? For example, characters who bought Bracers of Armor +4 to overcome the Max Dex restriction? Or characters who multiclassed to sorcerer to get access to Mage Armor. Etc.

Being a rules change - and we can argue whether it's a rules change or clarfication, but IMO that's pretty clear - I'd say it's fair to let those characters retrain parts of their character that are clearly influenced by the change. Unfortunately, I don't have any clear guidelines for the 'clearly influenced' part.

I've found a few items you should never buy.

- mithral buckler, buy a darkwood buckler: other stats are the same, but darkwood buckler is cheaper (1005 gp vs 203 gp). Darkwood buckler is made of wood, while mithral is a metal. This might come into play through some spells. Also, druids can use darkwood buckler.
- mithral chain shirt, buy a mithral shirt: other stats are the same, but mithral shirt weighs less (7.5 lbs vs 5 lbs)

Notice how these items are perfectly Pathfinder Society legal. What else is out there? Could you also mention if they're legal in the Society.

Are there good sources for names around Golarion? Either printed in some of the products, or as an online resource.

More specifically, I was looking for Andoren names.

Yesterday I played a PFS scenario where my Eidolon took some ability damage. Does he recover from the damage between sessions, or do I need to heal that magically? As this happened in PFS, I guess I need either RAW pointed to me, or someone from the staff answering this one.

The best I could find was the following.

The eidolon does not heal naturally.

After taking damage, you can recover hit points through natural healing or through magical healing.

Natural Healing: With a full night’s rest (8 hours of sleep or more), you recover 1 hit point per character level.

And specifically not under Natural healing:

Healing Ability Damage: Temporary ability damage returns at the rate of 1 point per night of rest (8 hours) for each affected ability score.

To me it looks like ability damage heals but it's not natural healing, but some kind of a fading effect where the lost abilities return.

This would mean that my eidolon would get its lost ability points back. Is this correct?

Pathfinder Core was released Aug 13th this year. The official errata 1.0 came out at the same date. It has been three and a half months since, and we haven't seen any new errata or FAQ.

Still at the same time there are a number of discussions going on, figuring out how some rules are meant to work. Some of these discussions have received some semi-official feedback from Paizo staff, though it matters little when actual rules are concerned.

Errata should be updated to at least tackle the most prominent issues. FAQ should be published as well, where clarifications and rulings could be explained in more detail.

Don't get me wrong, I love the product. It just has errors that need to be fixed.

I've been playing a dragon disciple now for fifteen levels in our Second Darkness campaign. He started out as a brb1/sor4 and went to dragon disciple after that. Whether the classes before DD are brd5 or brb4/sor1 or what not, matters little regarding the topic. Which is, that I've been quite happy with the prestige class. It's a good mix of melee and spell-casting ability, not really shining in either. Sure, the character would be more optimized staying single-classed but it wouldn't be a gish.

But then. I was shocked when I realized what DD 9-10 is about. You get sorcerer BAB, sorcerer saves, and only one caster level. The lost caster level is substituted by wings and the ability to use Dragon Form II twice a day. Why would I ever want to sacrifice a caster level for those? The character can anyway fly, through fly, overland flight or wings from the sorcerer levels. Which leaves only the dragon form. But changing into a dragon will make the character worse in combat and removes his spell-casting ability.

Instead of a capstone ability, DD gets robbed of power if he ever levels beyond DD8. How does that make sense?

So, now I'm finishing the campaign with a brb1/sor6/dd8.

I'm going to play a PFS scenario tomorrow with my paladin. I know that a cleric of Lamashtu will attend the game as well. While the cleric is not not evil, he will detect as evil because of his deity's alignment.

How this should be handled in Society games? I'm referring to the associates rule from paladin class description.

So far the monk has advanced to level 6. He has godly monk stats, and is built towards a straightforward, bare-knuckled fighter.

Beta had changed two of his feats. Even when the changes were minor, that called for conversion, in my opinion.

Weapon Finesse no longer requires BAB +1. It meant that there was a better option than Toughness on first level. It freed one feat on level 5. I opted for Agile Maneuvers, as the monk has way higher Dex than Str. I feel this change made him more what I wanted from him. I'm a bit dubious whether Weapon Finesse is overpowered on level 1. Probably not, though.

The other thing was Dodge (taken as bonus feat). Dodge is now a swift action - as are all the Ki options. Meaning that monks can't dodge while they're being monkish. I replaced Dodge with Improved Grapple. This felt counterintuitive and stupid. Monks get a bonus feat that doesn't work with other monk abilities.

No other conversion was needed. The monk in question relies mostly on brute force, so I kept the bonus hp from the favored class.

Currently, his stats are as follows:

In Pathfinder Beta introduction Jason writes "I wanted to give every class a reason to be followed up through 20th level". It's a great design goal, and things are clearly for the better. Naturally there are some classes and levels where multiclassing is tempting. However, I think the monk has it worse.

There is a pair of new feats: Vital Strike and Improved Vital Strike. They are great for anyone with iterative attacks - maybe even to the point of being overpowered. The one class with iterative attacks to spare is the monk. Especially with all the two-weapon fighting feats they are drooling all over Improved Vital Strike.

The only way they get the feat is to multiclass. One might argue monk 9 is needed for Flurry of Blows penalties to disappear. Someone else could argue monk 15 is needed for maximum unarmed damage with Monk's Belt. After that all they need is full BAB.

It's not the biggest of problems, and could be easily fixed. But it shows how the latter monk levels aren't really delivering. None of the class abilities after monk 15 is that special.

And that, my fellow Pathfinders, is where the problem lies.

How does the Toughness feat work in Pathfinder?

The feat says: "Benefit: You gain +3 hit points plus 1 hit point per Hit Die. Every time you gain a level or gain Hit Dice, you gain +1 hit points."

Consider a 3rd level elven wizard taking the feat. How many hit points does he get?

3 - because you gain three when taking the feat, or
4 - because he just gained a level, and therefore gets 3+1 hp, or
6 - because his hit die is 3 from his character level?

I'd say 3 but I might be mistaken.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about two-weapon fighting. The numerous threads about rangers and monks have been an inspiration; monks because Flurry of Blows is essentially two-weapon fighting.

I've read the v3.5 Main D&D FAQ concerning both Flurry of Blows and Two-Weapon Fighting, and Guy Fullerton's comprehensive Analysis of Attacking with Two Weapons. I recommend those two sources, and nothing else, for everyone interested. There is a lot of confusion around two-weapon fighting but those two get it right.

Finally, I thought what Pathfinder has done to two-weapon fighting. The new additions (so far) are Double Slice, Two-Weapon Rend, and Weapon Swap. How do these change two-weapon fighting?

I'll see what I can do - without using a Rogue. I chose a two-weapon fighting monk to illustrate some of my points. This might be a sub-optimal choice, or break some rules. Please let me know how to improve the concept.

Human Monk
Str 10, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 10 (just to keep things simple)

Level 4
Two-Weapon Fighting (human bonus)
Double Slice (lvl 1)
Weapon Finesse (lvl 3)
Dex +1 (lvl 4)

Full attack using unarmed strikes as both primary and off-hand weapons, taking circumstance bonus to his primary hand's light weapon from Double Slice, and using a Ki point to get an extra attack:

+3/+3/+3/+1 (BAB +2, Dex +3, Flurry -2, TWF -2, DS +2).

Not that bad for a 4th level character with 15 being the highest stat to begin with.

Now all we have to do is to give him somehow more damage per hit to make him effective. Flaming frost shock weapons is one way, unfortunately not that good for high-level monks. Rogue levels would be another one but I'm trying to achieve something without resorting to the most combat effective class there is.

By the way, when he reaches level 9 and takes Improved Two-Weapon Fighting he's at +9/+9/+9/+2/+2 (BAB +6/+1, Dex +3, Flurry -0, TWF -2, DS +2). Notice how his off-hand attacks are lagging far behind his primary hand.

Found the Alpha 1 version of the feat. From that it's pretty clear that A3 Double Slice is usable with primary hand, as well.

"Benefit: you gain a +2 circumstance bonus on attack rolls made with your off-hand weapon."

I'm playing a human monk in our Rise of the Runelords campaign, ran by Navdi. The campaign itself is heavily into roleplaying but I'll try to look how the monk fares from a gamistic point of view. That is, I'll save you from most of the in-game reasoning. And I'm not going to spoil RotRL in this thread.

We're playing with Alpha 3 rules, complemented by the SRD. In addition, we used racial hit points, and the feats from RotRL. The abilities were rolled: 4d6, lose lowest, throw six times, distribute freely. I was given some slack as the first set rolled - though nice - had only one high score. We agreed that well-rounded abilities fit the concept better. Incidentally, the second set rolled was something best described as godly monk stats.

Abilities: STR 16, DEX 19 (+2 racial), CON 16, INT 12, WIS 16, CHA 11

One of the bigger problems was selecting the feats. I was craving for Weapon Finesse but it had BAB +1 pre-req, as did Weapon Focus. And which monk feat to take? Eventually I settled for brute force - something describing the character.

Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike, Weapon Proficiency (Longbow), Stunning Fist, Toughness, Two-weapon Fighting

The rest of the stats are more traditional for monks all around.

Special Qualities: AC Bonus, Flurry of Blows
Skill ranks: Acrobatics 1, Climb 1, Escape Artist 1, Perception 1, Sense Motive 1, Stealth 1
Equipment: Nothing worth mentioning

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the stats. BAB +1 or Weapon Finesse as bonus feat would've been superb but you can't have it all.