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The Phlogistonic Regulator Armor Modification only gives 1/2 your level in resistance to Fire / Cold; however, the other resistance based armor modifications: Metallic Reactance (Acid/Electricity), Harmonic Oscillator (Sonic) and Otherworldly Protection (Vitality/Void) all give a resistance of 3 + 1/2 your level. Is this intentional or is this an errata that hasn't been fixed yet?

I mean starfindees gonna need to be de-OGLed it just remains to see whether they get a "remaster" or just a whole new edition.

It would be nice to see Starfinder get the 2E update. I quit playing it after PF2E came out because going back to 1E mechanics just felt like putting on a straightjacket.

Personally, I can't wait for nice updated books. It's been several years, and the system has been refined over that time. People who complain about "I gotta buy more books" can always just go to Archives of Nethys if they want, but the rest of us would like to have the shiny new tomes for our shelves and games!

I didn't see where it had been posted, but does anybody know if there are plans to release a Spell Card box that has all the stuff that was published in Dark Archives, Gods & Magic, etc... These spells are becoming more common at the table and the lack of cards is being felt.

If there is a legitimate problem, those employees affected should address it with the Washington State Labor Board. Period. End of Story. Until such an action is resolved, anything else is mere speculation and a lot of 'he said - she said' between disgruntled employees (who would NEVER exaggerate things) and a company (which has legal restrictions on what they can and cannot say regarding employees).

It is ridiculous to run around screaming for resignations, corporate restructuring, reparations, etc... when NOTHING has yet been proven.

I have no doubt that events occurred that some may have found offensive. Whether or not they were over-reacting to minor things because of a pre-existing bias, or if they were acting appropriately to events that caused actual, tangible harm is something none of us know until ALL the evidence has had time to come to the surface.....and that is NOT going to happen for quite some time.

There are VERY few times in history where one side of any problem is blameless.

I give Paizo a ton of money for great products, and for no other reason. Their internal difficulties are their own business and there are legal recourses for aggrieved parties. Public forum is NOT the place for it.

Interesting for those who don't use electronic options for characters, like Herolab, etc... Personally, it's not something I would ever use. However, if they ever decide to contract to do conversions of all the 1E Adventure Paths to 2E, and print them as something similar to the Special Deluxe Editions that were done for RotRL and COtCT, I'd fling money at them so fast their head would spin!!

Personally, I'm glad to see that thus far everyone at Paizo seems to be in good health and working as hard as is possible under the conditions we all have to cope with. As an adult with a mature sense of expectations, I will patiently wait until they are done, however long that may be, confident that the end product will be as fantastic as everything else they are putting out these days. I trust that they, like all sane adults, will pay little attention to the rantings of petulant children who lack the emotional maturity to understand that the world is not about only themselves and their wants. Having already run Kingmaker once, I look forward to seeing how things develop on a second play through with the awesome 2E rules.

There is still no option for case subscribers to order this item.

It all scales with level. Class DC is the target number for all class abilities, focus powers, spells, etc... across the board. So as you level, your initial low-level abilities stay relevant and don't end up completely useless.

I just finished both running 1E Kingmaker and playing in a 1E Kingmaker game. I thought I was done with this AP forever. Then they announce a 2E version...….Dammit! Just when I thought I was out....THEY PULL ME BACK IN!!!

Now I know with certainty that I will run this again. It'll be fun to see the changes both in scripted events as well as the upgrade to the improved 2E system. I'm curious how the campaign will progress and unfold with a new mix of PC's.

Yep, I have the Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne collected editions on my desk right next to the Kingmaker softcovers, but as soon as it said "Pathfinder 2" my interest level went to zero.

Hey Jess...didn't know you were on this forum. LOL (this is Max) Did you try the full playtest for 2E? Our group loved the changes that made it through the process.

I like the optional change. It definitely saves space where applicable and cleans up the book.

I don't get the problem people are having. I read the book cover to cover. Character creation takes maybe 30 minutes maximum for any class. Where is the confusion? I can understand it if you are coming at it from a min-max munchkin style but if you just want to build a decent character, it's extremely quick.

Aaaarrrggh!!! We just finished our last session of Kingmaker last week. Where was this set a year ago!!! Well, I guess I'll have to run it again in the future at some point.

Yep. Exactly as I assumed. I have Skald player who was hoping. I don't allow any custom crafting, so he'll have to just replace the item.

Can a Hybrid class use a magical item that is specific to one of it's parent classes. As a specific example, can a Skald, use the Resplendent Robes of the Thespian, and gain the SR, Save bonus and Spell Pen boost?

I'd rather just use Roll20 and do a little prepwork.

So, Planar Focus (Cold) causes 1d4 cold damage per two levels to anyone who attacks the Hunter and/or their companion while it's active. The way it reads is that it inflicts this damage on every attack, whether or not they even hit. So a 10th lvl Hunter / companion with Cold up who is attacked by something with 3 attacks is going to inflict 15d4 cold damage to the attacker even if they miss by a mile with their melee attacks.

This seems hideously broken and overpowered to me. I've scoured the forums trying to find some kind of clarification about this. It makes far more sense to me that the damage only gets inflicted if either A) the attacker actually hits you, or B) the damage is only inflicted once a round on each attacker regardless of the number of attacks made.

Is there an official ruling on this that I just haven't found yet? I am including the exact wording of the ability below for the sake of clarity:

"Cold: Creatures that attack you with natural attacks or
melee weapons take 1d4 points of cold damage for every
2 class levels you possess."

..... now that I re-read it, it seems to be pretty indicative of a 'once per round' damage per attacker....but that they do not need to actually hit you. Opinions?

Basically, when firing through an arrow slit, the side which is wide (since they are sort or a triangle shape with a roughly 2-3ft gap narrowing into a 6" gap)allows the person using it to ignore its cover modifiers since from their point of view, they have a wide open field of fire. When you're on the other side of it, even if standing next to it, you lack the ability to ignore it because you're still dealing with a 6" gap only and can't move to gain a better angle. In my games I rule that anybody not standing directly in front of the arrow slit has 100% cover and cannot be targeted by those outside.

What I'm doing for my campaign is this. I have created a specific character for each of the 10 background traits. (I always give each PC a free 3rd trait which must be selected from the player's guide backgrounds for each campaign).

They get to select the background trait they want, and will receive the character designed for that trait. They know their basic stats (Str, Dex, etc...), Alignment, BAB, Saves and any racial abilities, traits and feats that would be readily apparent to someone who just woke up knowing nothing.

Other than that.....nothing. They don't know their class, skills, abilities, names or anything else. They can learn what they are capable of through experimentation. When they attack with a weapon, they'll find out whether or not it feels 'familiar' and I'll let them know if they have proficiency or a feat/trait that pertains to it's use. Try to roll for a skill and I'll reveal if they have a skill rank in that skill (although anyone with a rank in perception and sense motive will know that upon waking).

Some characters may have feelings about certain things which will guide them towards choices that will slowly reveal their capabilities.

So far, everyone is absolutely delighted in this start to the campaign and are eagerly anticipating the first game session.

When I ran Legacy of Fire, I opened up the racial options to any humanoid race since Katapesh is sort of the one place where you can find anything. We ended up with a Gnoll (reformed follower of Sarenrae)Barbarian, Medusa (scaled down to PC race level)Sorceress, Kasathan Fighter, Goblin Alchemist, Kitsune Ninja, Serpentfolk (HIGHLY nerfed)Oracle of Sarenrae and a Skinchanger (bat) Investigator.

We had a great time, and remember.....

"Welcome to Katapesh!, where everything is allowed!......except that which is forbidden"

*sigh*... I love my paladins, but I would never, NEVER make Strength a higher stat priority than Charisma. Leave the day to day bashing to the fighters. You have Smite Evil to make up anything you lack in strength when it really matters...and for that you need Charisma...and for your lay on hands, and for your spells, and for your social skills.....get my point? My default choices for paladins stats are:

Str: 14
Dex: 13 *needed to qualify for Dodge and other nice feats
Con: 13 *bump to 14 at 8th lvl
Int: 10
Wis: 12
Chr: 17 (+2 from Racial Mod) *bump to 18 at 4th lvl

Traits: Seeker (There is no more valuable skill in the game than perception), Armor Expert (helps with those pesky ACP from Full Plate)

Feats: (These are my usual choices, in order) Shield Focus, Dodge, Greater Mercy, Vital Strike, Imp Initiative, Extra Mercy

I usually pick up a Belt of Strength +2, and upgrade it to Str/Con, as well as a Headband of Chr +2 (Headband 1st though). Longsword +1, Holy is also a "get as soon as you can" item for me, along with Full Plate and Large Shield. For Ranged attacks I carry javelins since (especially in PFS) you can usually get within 30ft of an enemy and they let you take advantage of your Strength damage. A haversack is useful for managing weight.

This makes a really good Paladin Tank who can definitely protect others by shrugging off hits and healing as a swift action with some high-powered lay on hands (+1d6 from Greater Mercy is awesome)

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Johnnycat93 wrote:

A knife costs $200, a wooden holy symbol costs $100, a common musical instrument is $500.

Yes, yes, and yes.

A good knife, the sort you'd actually be willing to rely on in the wilderness, is typically in the $50-150 range.

An actual holy symbol affiliated with a church is usually a little cheaper, but normally in the $20-50 range (among other things, it's a church fund raiser, and the community enjoy supporting their local parish. They're a little harder to find on-line, though, because you need to know which community you're looking at.

Oh, and a common musical instrument? The cheapest guitar by Martin is over $600. A "standard student trumpet" is about $200, but a good one will run you $500-600 or more. A Yamaha "student" flute is $436.

So, yeah, that conversion rate is looking pretty good.

Recall that "dagger" also covers kitchen knives or the 15$ crap I can get at safeway. A masterwork knife, y'know the "good stuff", would be somewhere in the realm of $30,000.

A wooden holy symbol also covers some twigs tied together or something carved in ones free time. $100 is steep at best.

Common refers to quality. You can pick up a crappy aucostic guitar for less than $100. What you're describing could be considered masterwork which jumps suddenly to $10,000.

I'm fine if we want to keep cherry-picking cases for both our sides but things are going to keep breaking down and looking weird the more we examine them.

Um.....a "Dagger" is most certainly NOT a kitchen knife. It specifically states in the description that it is a "Fighting Knife". It does not represent grabbing your cheese knife and going after a Goblin with it. In the past (2.0-3.5) there were clear distinctions between "Knife" and "Dagger", with the former being far cheaper and doing less damage.

My normal game table has 8 PC's and we haven't had any real problems in our campaigns, but we stick to the following guidelines/rules:

1.) Keep a tight control on crazy race/class/feat combinations. The less "weird stuff" in your game the easier it will be for everybody.

2.) Absolutely NO Min-Max characters. In our game no PC may begin with any stat below 8 AFTER racial modifiers.

3.) Double the number of any "mook" enemies to counter action economy problems and have them all act on the same initiative roll.

4.) Give the Advanced Template to all "Boss" enemies and then double their new HP totals. This will prevent what should be a thrilling end battle from becoming a cake-walk as five people smash the enemy before it even acts.

5.) Pre-Draw out any needed maps on 1" grid paper / game mats, etc... whenever possible. Not having to draw things in game is a HUGE savings on time and keeps the action flowing.

6.) Likewise, have any needed miniatures / pawns sorted out and ready to go. Don't spend time digging through your collection for every fight.

7.) Print up cheat-sheets that have the combat stats of every enemy that will be faced in that session. This saves another HUGE amount of time wasted flipping between various books since you have it all in front of you.

8.) Ban all electronic devices from the table. Nothing stagnates a game like a player who has no idea what is going on because they were playing a game on their phone instead of watching the actions of the other players and deciding what to do as events unfold.

9.) All treasure gets divided equally into "shares". If people want to claim an item, it gets deducted from their share or they can toss in additional gold if their share isn't sufficient. If they can't afford it....too bad, unless the entire party is willing to give up the portion of their shares that the item generates.

You are the DM. Period. If something will disrupt the game, do not allow it. Period.

Before every new campaign, I provide a list to my players of exactly what races, classes, etc... will be allowed. I do not allow anybody to min-max a character. (aka, nobody may start with any stat below 8 AFTER racial modifiers, no Tieflings/Aasimars in this campaign, etc...)

If somebody wants an archetype, feat, magic item, etc... that you think will make the campaign un-fun for the others. Just say..."No". It doesn't matter if it's in a book somewhere. Just because Paizo published it, doesn't mean you have to use it in your campaign. For that matter, you could always decide to just run a "Core campaign" and only allow stuff from the main book....and maybe one or two supplements. As long as you let everyone know ahead of time, it ends the problem before it starts.

my 2 cents.

Holy Weapon Balm is some of the best stuff you can get for fighting incorporeal, undead and so forth. Especially if you put it on a bundle of 10 arrows.

I just ran CoCT a couple of years ago, but I am going to snap up a hardcopy of this the moment it is released. This is hands-down my favorite AP and I will definitely run it again in the future. Gaming groups change over time and I'm certain that in 10 years I'm going to have a whole group of people who haven't experienced this little gem, and I'll have the nice new hardcover to use when that happens!

Well, the Bestiary definition seems to have settled it with the inclusion of Supernatural Abilities as an exempted source! Makes sense, otherwise the combo would be horribly broken.

You see the confusion. Normally I would say the DR does not apply since it is not effective vs. Spells or spell-like abilities. However, Life Link is a Supernatural ability, not a SPA.

I can see both opinions that 1.) DR only applies once vs. all the damage or 2.) DR does not apply because you are willingly sacrificing the HP and giving them to another.

Fortunately, I'm not the DM this time so it'll be up to him to decide for the campaign.

So, here's something that is coming up in our WotR campaign. We have a Life Oracle with the Life Link revelation, who also has the Mythic Ability of DR 5/Epic.

Would the DR apply vs. the damage being received from the Life Link? My assumption is No, however in the write up of Life Link, it merely says "Each round at the start of your turn, if the bonded creature is wounded for 5 or more hit points below its maximum hit points, it heals 5 hit points and you take 5 hit points of damage."

This is vague enough to warrant inquiry and discussion I think. If DR does apply, it would make the Oracle able to heal 5 HP/round to every bonded ally with no ill effect. That seems a bit uber to me, but opinions may vary and I'm not sure if the designers considered this as a possibility.

It depends on the relationship. A mature, adult relationship will have no problems at the table. I run our game and my GF plays in it. She gets zero favoritism. Monsters attack whomever it seems best to stomp and I randomize it if no clear target has distinguished itself. No extra loot or anything else. Everyone in the party is equal and balanced. As far as PDA, she does get the occasional shoulder squeeze and a quick smooch on the cheek when we have a lull in the game while people look something up, but it's by no means distracting. When she was first learning the ropes, I would help her with a rules questions, but the other players were also willing to dive in and help coach her on tactics. Having other women and non-perv players in my game is a big help. Now she's gotten skilled enough to handle most situations without any trouble and rarely asks for advice.

That said, I have seen games torn apart by GM vs. SO drama. This invariably occurs when one or the other is trying to "buy" the affection and attention of the other. Something that is usually indicative of an unstable relationship in the first place. I have zero interest in playing a game where the resident "Mary-Sue" character is an untouchable juggernaut while the rest of us are begging for loose change. Fortunately, 'most' of those situations occur with younger gamers who are still figuring out how healthy relationships actually work. At my age, we don't game with too many of those people anymore....but once in awhile they do turn up.

She's a fun NPC to have around. In our game she ended up getting involved in a relationship with the Master Chemyst Alchemist's alter-ego (A hulking NE monstrosity). I played the conflict between her and the other Kuthite up to try to draw the party into some split loyalties, but in the end, they sided with her mostly because they didn't want to risk angering the Alter-Ego. Funny thing was, the alter-ego had a alignment changing event right before the campaign endgame and in his now NG alignment decided to rethink his association with her. It was good RP and fun drama.

Contingency Spell with Remove Paralysis or Dispel Magic ready to eliminate the condition is also good.

Deadmanwalking has pretty much hit the nail on the head. Far, far too many people are using modern day and historical monotheism as their basis for deciding what a "highly religious" person would do.....which is monumentally wrong. Golarion is a polytheistic world, just like ours was for most of our history. During that time you saw almost zero instances of religious dictatorships and persecutions. Polytheistic religions venerate ALL the gods, however, an individual priest might only directly serve the interests of one god.

Example: A priest of Anubis is going to be concerned with those funerary rites needed to ensure a proper afterlife. He is not going to demand that all the farmers who pray to Osiris for abundant crops suddenly stop praying and worship only Anubis. That would be idiotic. Now, if worshippers of Set were defiling and robbing tombs, he would speak out against that behavior but that's because they are directly opposed.

In Golarion, a Paladin of Abadar isn't going to lay the smack down on a follower of Iomedae just because they have different interpretations of what is the right way to be "Good". In all likelihood they would team up to better serve their community. A Paladin would even work with followers of an Evil god (such as Asmodeus) for short durations to accomplish the greater good (such as battling demons of the worldwound, etc...)

The Gods of Golarion (for the most part) are NOT in competition with each other. There are exceptions such as the hatred between Sarenrae and Rovagug, but it is because they are opposing forces, not just "other gods".

I've had Paladin that will offer prayers to Gods other than their own specific patron, such as when burying a friend. My Paladin of Iomedae prayed to her and to Shelyn when his friend who was a devout follower of Shelyn was killed. He felt it was the honorable thing to do to acknowledge her faith along with prayers to his own patron deity. "Good" must outweigh Zealotry.

/rant

In my group, we are running through all of the AP's in order of release and we are in the final module of Legacy of Fire. So far, here are the results:

Rise of the Runelords:
Great campaign for introducing Golarion and the Pathfinder system. The second module (Skinsaw Murders) was definitely the favorite of the campaign. The PC's bonded will with several of the NPC's and all in all it was a decent campaign with one exception. Runeforge....the 5th module was like quicksand made with molasses. It took forever to get through and really just felt like one endless dungeoncrawl. Which is fine if you like endless combat, but we were having a hard time staying focused with session after session of grinding through it. After that though, we enjoyed the final chapter.

Curse of the Crimson Throne:
Hands down the best campaign we may have ever played or is at least tied for first place. Fantastic and memorable NPC's, Nice variety of quests and locations. Chase rules are always fun when used and bloodpig remains the groups favorite game to this day. Even two campaigns later we talk about this AP constantly.

Second Darkness:
We also enjoyed this one quite a bit, but I think a large part of that was having a Mwangi Ekujae(sp?)Elf Summoner in the party who really helped drive the plot on the players side. We had some memorable moments such as the "tower battle" in the second module and the entire module set in Ziirnakaynin (sp?) was also a blast. The key to this one is to really push the urgency of the built in deadline for the plot. The PC's should always feel like they are running out of time and under pressure.

Legacy of Fire:
We've had fun in this one so far, partially because we all love Arabian Adventures / Persian style adventures and secondly because as a lark, we decided to open up our normally highly restrictive racial choices to allow, well, anything. As a result we've got a Kasathan Fighter, Kitsune Ninja, Medusa Sorceress, Goblin Alchemist, Bat Skinwalker Investigator, Gnoll Barbarian of Sarenrae and an extremely nerfed Serpentfolk Oracle of Sarenrae. With that combination of characters, everything becomes entertaining. We are looking forward to the conclusion as it should be fun, but the party has really learned to hate wishes. LOL

Next up: Council of Thieves.

I have never seen this martial / caster disparity in any game I have ever participated in. Vanilla fighters remain a popular choice in our games and we generally have one in every campaign because a straight-up fighter is a fantastic option and in 90% of our encounters ends up the MVP.

You do not need magic or gimmicks to have a fun game. What you need are players that cooperate and are interested in playing a ROLE-PLAYING GAME instead of just rolling dice for damage.

As a (literally) card carrying male witch, I can tell you that the term "Warlock" is indeed extremely insulting and offensive to us.

However, I personally see no issues with it being used as a label in a game. Most people are ignorant of the difference between the terms witch and warlock, and do not mean to be insulting by their use of it. The phrase "witches and warlocks" has been used so often by literature and media that when used as a reference, I consider it mere confusion or ignorance and no harm done. So, call your male witch a warlock in game if you feel a need to differentiate genders, just don't call a real Wiccan one.

I cannot express how saddened I am by the responses to the initial question. I just looked through three pages of discussion of feats, class dipping, bonuses, combat advantages, etc.....

Is that the only difference you people see between a fighter and a ranger? Really? I think the decision between the two classes is simple.....WHO is your character? What is his background, his upbringing, his personality? Did he spend his youth tracking through the wilderness, or honing his skills in the militia? Was he influenced by others to walk the path he has chosen?

Story and roleplaying trumps numbers and feats, otherwise you might as well just play a wargame.

/rant

Having fought with both light and heavy blades, I can tell you that the techniques between the two are dramatically different. I think the classifications work well as they are. How you strike, defend, move, etc... can all change dramatically based on weight and style of the blade.

Is there a reason you don't have Magic Missile, Ray of Enfeeblement, Shocking Grasp, Burning Arc, Flurry of Snowballs, etc...?

I think the biggest disconnect is that originally the Class was called: "Thief"

Many, many years ago the entire concept changed into something more versatile and it was renamed "Rogue".

A LOT of older players never grasped that change properly and indoctrinated generation after generation of new players into the, very wrong, concept that Rogues were all some kind of thief archetype.

I've always found it best to think of them as scouts, spies, experts, etc... Sneak Attack is perfect for anyone who is trying to infiltrate a location, regardless of motive, and their other abilities can really help build a nice Dex based combatant, so long as you are not trying to build some optimized min-max nightmare. They are excellent flavor and it's very rare for us not to have one in every party.

I have never given any character a primary stat higher than 17 at 1st level. Let's face it, a 17 Int is going to give you the bonus spell you need and Spell DC's of 14 for your 1st level spell. That's pretty good, and statistically, killing your other stats to try and eek out 1 more point of DC is counter-productive. Bump your Int at 4th level and after that pick up a Headband for +2 and later +4 Int. If you need more than that, something is seriously wrong.

My default stats for a Wizard:

Str: 10 You don't need a lot, but don't penalize yourself with encumbrance and climb/swim penalties that could kill you.
Dex: 14 +2 AC and Ref is a life-saver. Even better with a Belt +2
Con: 13 +1 HP, +1 Fort and a little longer before death in the negtives. Bump at 8th level for more survivability
Int: 17 Plenty of Int for skills and Spells, raise at 4th and then buy Headbands
Wis: 13 +1 Willpower is always good, plus it helps with Perception and other skills. Bump at either 8th or 12th level.
Chr: 12 You ALWAYS need to be able to talk to people in Pathfinder. Maybe it's not your primary job, but being able to use social skills is key to most adventures.

There is nothing less fun (IMO) than some min/max over-specialized character that is more caricature than character. As a DM, I will not allow people to create characters with serious deficiencies just in order to make some broken uber-concept. No Chr 6, Str-20 fighters allowed.

We are currently in module 4 of Legacy of Fire and have had a fantastic time with it so far. I think the biggest problem people had with it stems from an unfamiliarity with Arabian mythology. Most players/GM's are immersed in the western European style of fantasy gaming with knights, dragons, etc... Middle Eastern adventures have a different flavor and you really need to exploit that in order to get the best out of the AP. Most of those in my group are pretty familiar with the music, food, customs, legends, etc... of the Middle East, so we meshed with the themes right away. I have Arabic music playing softly in the background as we play to help establish mood and we started the first game session off with a group meal at our favorite Iraqi restaurant.

I personally see no problem with a Cleric, Paladin, etc... showing proper veneration to Gods other than his particular Patron, so long as they are not in opposition to each other. A Paladin of Iomedae, encounters a Cleric of Sarenrae. They each wish the blessing of their own and the other's deities upon them. No problem.

A Cleric of Erastil who works tirelessly on behalf of his community is asked to sit in judgement over an accused. He prays to Erastil for wisdom, but might also offer respectful words to Iomedae to see that Justice is served.....or perhaps thanks both Erastil and Shelyn for the healthy birth of a new child.

As long as their own deity always takes the highest precedence, I see no issues there.

Now, common folk who do not derive power from a deity, most likely would always pray to whomever is relevant in a given situation....just like those of use who are polytheistic do now and historically.

My party plans ahead for long dungeon campaigns such as this. Plenty of Wands of CLW (cheap way for mass healing between fights without using up spells/channels), Potions to handle middle of the fight emergencies, scrolls of napstack so that (at least once a week) they can barricade themselves into a room for a two hour refresh when things are dire.

If they do leave, they encamp nearby so that the martials can maintain a watch on the location while the casters recover spells, etc... Even so, remaining bad guys inside will definitely consolidate forces, create chokepoints for defense, change out spells if possible to better adapt to the party's tactics, etc...

This has the benefit of encouraging players to conserve resources. You can't just nuke every room full of bad guys. You will likely need those high-end spells later. They have to weigh the efficiency of annihilating a room full of mooks with a fireball, vs. the consumption of healing resources if they just let the martials bash it out.

Nobody talks about the games where they strolled through the dungeon wiping out dozens with each swing and fireballing everything in sight. They recount the stories where they were down to their last few HP, out of channels and almost all spells, fighting a desperate battle against overwhelming forces in which only their creativity and teamwork saved the day. THOSE are heroic stories worth telling.

Assured Drinker pretty much solidifies the rule that drinking an extract provokes AoO.

We (because we use common sense) have always played it that way from day one anyway. However, as a house rule, we use Sleight of Hand instead of a Concentration check in order to "drink defensively". It just makes a bit more sense to us since you are trying to conceal your action instead of focusing your mind. We also allow a sleight of hand check to drink a potion for anybody, so it gives everyone a reason to invest a few points there. We just set the DC the same as casting a spell of the same level for game balance.

We are beginning Council of Thieves shortly. I am absolutely stealing this idea and remaking my character outline.

We use a similar system to Taku's. Every item found is assigned a "sale" value based on what we can get for it. Shares are divided equally. If any character want's an item, they can "purchase" it by deducting it's (sale) value from their share and/or putting in gold to make up the difference. If they can't afford it, it gets sold, unless the entire party agrees to forfeit dividing it's value until more loot can be found. Until then it stays a party item on loan.

It is the responsibility of every player to create a character that does not ruin the fun for other players. Clearly, his character violates that basic tenant of courtesy. Why a DM would allow somebody to play an asshat like that is beyond me. I would be very clear up front that you have no desire to deal with his BS attempts to dominate the flavor of the game.

I've always just gone with the ruling that a basic set of clothing (not winter furs, etc...) does not count against encumbrance when worn. Spare sets in a pack, etc... do count.