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My Ranger just hit level 4, gained a Hawk companion, and I'm super confused about its stats. I was all ready with the 3.5 stats but the PFRPG core book came out just in time (and I love it!), so now we're going by official non-beta rules.

So... I'm looking at pg. 53 and I feel a little dumb. Some of these numbers seem to coincide with old rules and others leave me in the dark. I understand the simple stuff (Ability Scores changed, that's easy), but some entries have me scratching my head (the new Skill rules). Here's the three main issues:

It says AC: +1 natural armor. But without the Bestiary, how do I know what his base AC is?

My hawk used to have +5 Talons as a single attack. Now he gets Bite/Talon/Talon, all at BAB + Ability bonuses, is that correct?

Now, on to skills. This confuses me to no end- do animals still have 'base' skills from their template, or do Companions start without that? Hawks used to have crazy Perception bonuses (well, Spot, but you get it). Does my hawk now only get a single rank for Perception? Or do Animal Companion skill points stack with their natural abilities?

I realize that some of these questions will get answered when the Bestiary arrives, but in the meantime I've got a band of Lizardfolk to defeat, and they're not waiting 'til September!

As soon as I read the Gazetteer I picked Cheliax as the bad guys. Then I picked up the Campaign setting and again find myself drawn to evil Chelish plots.

Can a Good PC be from Cheliax? Is the whole country meant to be the nemesis?

I've always been confused about exactly which Knowledge skill covers exactly which creatures. Some races covered under "Dungeoneering" are found outside of a "dungeon" pretty often.

I realize having one skill to identify ALL creatures is overpowering, but I think they need to be revamped. Arcana pretty clearly covers magical beasts, but why does Religion cover undead? You don't have to know the holy texts to tell a ghoul from a vampire.

Could we get rid of some specialty skills like Engineering and instead make room for a couple different categories of creatures? Like Knowledge: Humanoids, Outsider, Fey, and Construct? Or a new category like Fantastic that covers oozes, elementals, constructs, et cetera?

Does anyone else get confused by these Knowledge rolls?

I house-ruled it as soon as we started our Pathfinder campaign. The consolidated skills are brilliant and long overdue, but honestly... Swim and Climb? Fighters are the most likely to put points into the physical skills and they have few enough points already. Skill points are valuable and no one has the spare points to max out a skill like Swim, that gets used a fraction of, say... Perception, or even Acrobatics.

Please give us Athletics to roll Swim and Climb together at last!

I was under the impression that when I bought a print copy of a book, I got the PDF download for free. Is that for subscribers only, though? If I do get a free PDF, where do I go to get it? It doesn't show up in the Downloads section.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, I just wanna be clarify.

I like the idea of Rangers being the dual-wielding specialists, but currently, I don't see that really happening. Maybe I'm wrong; if so, please correct me.

Here's the core of my problem: The only benefit to the Two-Weapon path is that you can take the Feats even if you don't otherwise qualify. What this boils down to is their Dexterity requirements. But Rangers wear medium armor and use bows regularly (even the dual wielders), so they tend to have a high Dex as a result of that. And that means that disabling the Dex requirements is a little underwhelming.

Every Ranger I have GM'd for, played, or played with has had a high Dexterity as a matter of course. Can anything be done to make Rangers the true "Dual-Wielding Specialists" that they claim to be? Or am I missing something?

(I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this, so if it belongs in Playtest, can a mod move it? Thanks!)

In the Ranger class description (p.36), it lists Deft Shield as an available combat feat for a two-weapon Ranger. This feat is not listed anywhere in the book.

Also, in the master list of Feats (p.80), it lists Double Slice as giving a +2 bonus to attacks with your offhand. On page 85, Double Slice lets you add your full Strength bonus to off-hand damage rolls. Which is correct?