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Oops wrong place. My bad.

It is a bit of a silly build that generated some questions.
So it involves feats and spells that generate weapons. Taking the Flame Blade Dervish combat feat and the one that allows me to use it with Spellstrike and spell combat my question is can I combine dancing dervish while holding a scimitar in one hand generating a flame blade in the other as part of spell combat and use both or do they simply cancel each other out and I simply can spell strike while generating flam blade into the scimitar and does flame blade dervish combat still apply?

The lower part of my book binding is coming off but not the top, yet. I bought it at my LGS as well but they recommended I contact you guys. So my email has been sent as well.

So one of the things I loved about Golarion was Aroden and the Worldwound. So since I don't know the answer to these either via Pathfinder or Starfinder I thought I would just recreate my own. I am planning on making 2 planets, a moon, and a spatial anomaly. The two planets are going to represent the Lands of Mammoth Lords (allowing me to introduce barbarians with ray guns! lol) and Ustalav (I love the idea of a dark undead world where living creatures struggle to survive sort or like Van Helsing movie). The Castle Moon where Nerosyan was recreated and is in a direct path for what the WorldWound spits out. The rest of Mendev? Who knows but the moon has atmosphere and standard gravity just that the constant battles has forced the citizens of the Castle City (is it Nerosyan then?) to create force fields to protect their farms and basically non combatants civilizations behind the castle city. Finally the WorldWound appears to be some type of black hole anomaly but closer inspection is that it is a wormhole type spatial event. Though not something that could be believed the three have made a trade agreements with each other as none of the areas want to be overrun by what is spit out of the anomaly. So thoughts?

Think this question falls here since it is rules related.
I am running the game and came across something that sort of confuses me. I plan on my 8 player group to encounter some Space Goblins! Now Space Goblins are CR 1/3 so I was going to have 3 to get to CR 1. I however run into the problem that if I add more creature the CR goes up by 1 per creature. Now since I had so many players I was going to up the APL to +2 anyway. My question is it 3 Space Goblins or 9 Space Goblins the characters would encounter? I just want a challenge for the characters.

So I like to poke around in DrivethruRPG website and look at whatever the search spits out. In the case of this I came across a third pary Alderac who printed the 'largest dungeon' and 'largest city' and got an idea. Why not in a classic Diablo (og) style have a city attached to a dungeon except in this case it a giant biosphere out in the Void. The place had citizens and the guard keeps anything that wanders out of the dungeon at bay. They prayed to the gods for help and a rift formed nearby. Travelers from the rift found it to be a one way trip and now are stuck though they believe that if the dungeon is completed then it will allow return trips via the rift.

This is basically me allowing players to play from Pathfinder, Starfinder, of via the rift Interface Zero (Gun Metal Games) 3rd party cyberpunk. I figure I will let conversion of part of the city be towards the IZ habitants (NPCs) and convert the guides to fit with Starfinder. That is my idea for a first campaign.

To be honest if I was just running a straight Starfinder only game (which may happen) I think it would be an adventure to either establish as or erradicate a rogue space pirate band within Diaspora.

There is a 3rd party making a game called Interface Zero which is a Cyberpunk genre using Pathfinder as one of the interfaces. They already announced that when starfinder comes out they are going to work on a conversion guide and or a supplement to use it. I am excited for that because my players have been playing shadowrun but want the level structure of d20. So lets see what happens.

Sean K Reynolds I have a question for you since James was unable to answer it he sent me to you. The question is what are the items used by the character described in the intro of Chapter 3? I have a player who is interested in either a) collecting them from the fallen hero or b)recreating them so he may become a hero of legend as well.

Well i was pretty much coming up with stuff for the character name which I didn't mind. So which thread can I direct this question to as regards to the items?

James I was curious about the items vaguely described in chapter 3 of the Ultimate Equipment book. The items used by Aram the Golden-Heart because I have a player who has been 'researching' the history of this legend and wants to either a) recreate them or b) retrieve them.

Thanks Liz! I love paizo and would order from you guys but if I don't support my locals I may never get those books. That local is what turned me on to you guys in the first place.

I have a question in regards to release of the book. I went to my local bookstores (both my comic shop and major bookstore chain) looking to see if they have gotten copies of this book. They were checked at the store when they were expecting it and they said July 1st. I am wondering why that is? I mean my local bookstore is really good about having Pathfinder products. In fact until I started looking at the website regularly I usually just walked in and there was the latest release. So why is it the release date is so late?

I agree Liz is the awesome.

James this guy is asking a question I am posting the thread here.
http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz5tos?Is-this-martial-artist-monk-overpowered

I appreciate both the information and just entertainment you bring to this thread. So thank you again for the help and insight into this world you have created.

The question is since Martial Artist does not have a ki pool how does he still have abundant step? Is this something that was fixed with errata or can be fixed? I just want to know cause I intend to play a monk in the future and was looking at this archetype.

Well I hope they update the weapons from earlier books with things introduced by later books. Like applying deadly (which was in Ultimate Combat) to weapons from the core rules. Maybe this is the forum to ask this. Can someone direct me to the weapon that is like a halberd with reach? I don't care about brace I just wanted to have a slashing/piercing weapon like a halberd with reach? Or is that going to be an option or new weapon introduced in this book?

Okay I will point out the simple solution to this is turn off the sound effects for Bard on your computer. That is it you don't want to hear the joke or whatever you don't have too. I turn music down on some of the MMO's I play just so I get the more realism of the sound effects of combat.

Now as for the Bard being hated world over I doubt that very much. One of the MMO's that paved the way for this. Pathfinder and Pathfinder Online was probably played by both players, developers, and game designers alike. That MMO had a Bard in it and they were really useful. They had access to certain buffs early on in the game through their bardic performance. Things like making running faster so you covered more distance more quickly than if you tried doing it solo. (Not saying what the MMO is for sake of not risking copyright infringement).

Also look at some historical military strategy and engagements. There is documented proof that music has been apart of war since nearly the beginning. They were used just like they are in Pathfinder inspire, demoralize, and even enhance others. Later when combat and war became more evolved and much larger the music shifted to deliver orders to troops so they knew whether to stay still or charge forward. However it never left the role of inspiring or even comforting. How many movies have you seen where they got a PA system playing music over it in a base or a soldier walking around with a boom box.

Goblinworks, I trust your judgement and I hope you make all the classes grand and fun. That is all I can really ask for really is something that is fun to play.

I will keep this brief unless more explanation is needed.

Big rainstorm, bigger boom, town covered in flaming horse crap (no horses harmed). All to save my party and all my fault. Leader of the group comes out to see what it is all about. Exact words were, "We are leaving I can't stay in a town where it's source of fun is to make it rain sh**."

Now here is a scary building a mithrial golem and using him like a club. I dare you to disarm him, double dare you. Lol

Honestly if you going to pull the Warmage card pull it from the 3.5 Complete Arcana and go nuts. There is also a Warmage of Cormyr in the Forgotten Realms book that is a prestige class so War Mage may not be exclusive to DragonLance. Also grab Metamagic Feats from Complete Arcana too, Sudden <insert metamagic> spells are the best. The Warmage from Complete Arcana is a very broken class be warned.

Now as for your proposed armor make sure you have Med armor prof or your still at other penalties.

As for whether or not I would allow it I honestly don't know. When I allowed my players to make their characters I said play something you will enjoy I will work out the rest. I make up my games based on the party line up not with what I think the party line up is going to be. I currently have a group of 7 and between all of them I have no primary healer. Everyone has taken steps to get around that with wands, potions, scrolls, and even spells. However the players did not sit down with those who had healing abilities and said. "Take these so you can keep me alive."

Of course I am not sending my players into a multi-layer dungeon of doom.

James are we going to get more on different gods in Golarion for all the races?

Hey I think it is cool someone is asking. I have always treated phantom steed as just this default thing that I wouldn't even bother having in my spells until level 14 when it got the ability to fly. I can always find other uses for my 3rd level spell slots until then and use my horse as my mount.

I agree with you that the DM is trying to make it more challenging for you and I agree he is countering you. I also agree that this is the mark of a bad DM. I would recommend that your party start countering him back though. He starts making anti-trip monkeys start going the path or other CM and change it up. Start taking the tactic feats that allow you better damage in attacks and increases your attacks. And when you come face to face with an opponent you think you can easily defeat, retreat. If you start throwing the game in different directions all at once the DM going to have a heck of a time keeping up. Ask about the terrain and find the most difficult terrain to fight on. Slow the fights down to an absolute crawl. So when the critter makes a five foot step it more like full movement and the AoO's are back.

I have a very similar situation with a GM and this is my response. I do nothing a whole lot. I have some of the best combat abilities in the group and I generally just stand back. Unfortunately my GM likes story and intrigue more than combat. So I generally stand around and do nothing. It drives him nuts, and I just point out that i am a combat build and I have no interest in intrigue or subtlety. Also the fact that I am on such a railroad that even if I participated I wouldn't find any answers because he doesn't want us to yet. I just shrug sit in the corner and read.

Okay I just did a quick build on hero lab to answer a few of the questions.

BAB: +12 So the attack structure is: 12/7/2. Using 20 point buy I was able to get melee up to 13/8/3 (before magic items)

I chose half elf and put his stat boost in int and boosted both wisdom and int with stat boosts at 4-20 levels stats are as follows
Str: 12 Dex: 12 Con: 12 Int: 18 Wis: 18 Cha: 12 (Point buy 20)

Spell break down: Cleric: 0-7 (7 being 1 Spell/1 Domain Spell) Magus: 0-6 (6 being 2 Spells) with a Headband of Mental Superiority you get a one spell boost to both Spell lists at 7 (which means boost in the lower ones as well)

Mind you this was just a quick rundown as I am not the best person for optimization builds. Just thought I help give you an idea what it would look like.

So here one I was contemplating, making a trip monkey Magus. I was wondering if spell strike goes off if I do a trip attack?

You know Black Tentacles doesn't have a limit on height it just says that it attacks everything in the area. Am I reading this right?

Here was a battlefield condition I wasn't expecting to happen. The caster of the group slowed down some cultists with black tentacles but missing the cleric. However the combat guys got up and the druid's companion bull rushed and knocked the cleric back and prone.

So the question is as the GM of this game I ruled it that the black tentacles got another grapple attempt and got +4 on it's grapple due to being prone. Is this the correct ruling?

Ninja is my opinion. He gets the talents flurry or shurikens (change that to batarangs), smoke bomb, lets give him shadow clone, and Improved Unarmed fighting. Feats give him disarm and trip feats stunning fist and even a style feat or two. As far as DC Universe was concerned (before the reset) he was in the top five fighters on the planet. If I remember right it's Shiva, Connor Hawke (Green Arrow's son), Batman, Ra's Al Ghul, and Robin (Tim Drake). Reasons for this is Shiva has beaten Batman. Connor's fight with Shiva came to a draw (through the actions of Tim stopping them from killing each other literally). Batman has defeated Ra's on several fights including a duel with swords. Tim Drake I listed because he technically beat Shiva at one point and time (though he was enhanced with a drug at the time) and has faced off with Ra's and survived. Ra's has even begun calling Tim Young Detective only second person to get such a title from Ra's.

If you are using Golarion there were a couple of flying cities that crashed down during the course of history. You could have a city that is half sunken in the ground that creates natural maze like terrain. I have actually been working on a sunken city in a swamp. The overgrowth of slimy vines, thick heavy moss, trees and leaves make for an excellent ceiling. Wooden walkways that are about to collapse into the swamp make for natural traps (nonlethal just mood setting). Also gives me access to trolls which are one of my favorite monsters.

I use Hero Lab for my NPC's so they are usually pretty balanced and decent. I do grab from the books every once in a while (like the NPC guide). Yeah I agree at low levels the NPC's suck against players but they are supposed to. You are talking low level PC's and a single robber against a group of 5 going to go squish pretty quick. But take that same robber and team him up with a lvl 5 leader type (add in a few more robbers) and the fight goes from being 5 on 1 to fair. And at the higher levels the numbers actually start going against the players. Yes, they have more of everything at that point but then it becomes tactical. Does the wizard blow the fireball on the two guys approaching him or the 5 going after the fighter or rogue? Does the rogue flank the two guys going after the wizard or feint the guys charging him and hopes he can stealth away for better positioning? You also got to remember that your players shouldn't metagame the fact they know the five or however many guys charging them are only lvl. 1 or 2.

A good example was one where my players almost killed me because they thought I made an encounter too challenging. I had them come in contact with a level 7 Summoner Synthesist (CR6). At that point they were a mixture of 4th, 5th , and 6th level characters. Their CL came out to be 6th lvl so fair fight (though it was 7 against one). However the way I designed the summoner for melee combat he had potions and spells at hand to increase both his fighting potential and AC. Now the math seems wrong but this guy came out with a 36 ac (Touch 12 Flat 33). However that AC was only for a short amount of time and it dropped rapidly during combat. His normal AC came out to around 24 after all the short term spells expired. But it was those first rounds that had my players freaked.

I always recommend unless you don't have the time to prepare making your own NPC's just so you know their story. That way you can make them less faceless fodder (like in my opinion lots of the beasts from bestiary) but more in depth. Did the summoner my players killed have a family? Will they come seeking revenge? Will they have the resources to resurrect the summoner to go after them again? My players will just have to wait and see.

This is just a personal playing style but I always tried to play wizards a certain way. I would always have a school/home/sanctuary to store my stuff as a wizard. So I would have my big heavy tomes on bookshelves and then one for travelling (this was in 3.x system) and the other for storing spells I came across. So I would have the spells on my shelf organized by level of spells and then I have the travelling one set up to put the most useful (or used) spells in the travelling book. That way I was prepared and I had another source in case a thief stole my travelling spellbook. In the case of the game I am referencing I got forced out into a river at an early level trying to stay away from necromancers and undead. So my spell book got a little damp.

See I am planning a Magus with a reach weapon to keep enemies at bay while I blast them. I am going to take a weapon with trip and the trip feats. Now if you want a reach weapon I would recommend a Lance. It is a reach weapon and it works well with your mount that you get as a paladin. But if you are going to be in a game where you won't be on your mount often I take the advice of the other players and try sword and board.

Most of the time I used a longsword with my characters. I read a lot of the Salvatore stuff and didn't want to come off as a Drizzt clone or something. Now my favorite character by far is still my Warmage. I had him using a Glaive (he had a longsword as back up) as his primary weapon. See I looked at the Warmage as a ranged spellcaster who didn't want folks getting close. So to keep them at 'optimal' range I would poke at them with my glaive (it being a reach weapon kept those scimitar wielders back) to keep them out of threatening range then back up and blast them. At early levels it was really effective and at later levels it didn't matter because I hardly used it in place of my spellcasting. However with PF CM system I don't know how effective a strategy this will be. I am thinking I will try it with a Magus next time I play and use a polearm as my weapon. Not sure it will be a Glaive again but who knows. The thing of it is I would rather play around with something and have a cool backstory than be min/maxed out the wazoo. My group already has house rules in place for optimization.

Anyway the problem I see with your dervish dance, greatsword, and even longsword is they are all slashing weapons. If your GM gets tired of you literally slashing through his campaign he might introduce DR/bludgeoning critters and all you mighty slashing power goes out the window even with high crit ratios. Variety is the spice of life which is why I always have a bludgeoning weapon of some sort with my character. Think with my Warmage it was a heavy mace.

This might be partially my fault since I posted a straight up lvl. 7 Summoner Syntheist build in another thread.
http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz3chk?Looking-for-ideas-on-a-Melee-Summoner-buil d#6

So anyway be warned pretty much gave him a blueprint for this guy. Now there is one thing you need to note. There is nothing stating that the spells I listed have to be casted after the eidolon is summoned. There is nothing stating that any armor the player is wearing stacks on top of the eidolon.

Well to be honest it is sort of an unspoken rule in my gaming group that we don't play the same race as other players. I got lucky once played a half dragon which was a lot of fun. Any small races honestly is what I haven't played. I just didn't like the lesser damage of the small creature. Next Pathfinder game I agreed not to play a caster type character so I am going to play medium size character. I think I might play a halfling for my next caster like character. The Advanced Race Guide will hopefully be out and I can use stuff from it.

If you want smartest people on Earth in the Marvel Universe.

-Reed Richards
-Peter Parker
-Bruce Banner
-Hank Pym

All of them are off the chart Geniuses and the order I put them in is actually pretty close to the mark. All 4 of them were that smart before they became superhuman. Also with the exception of Reed Richards and Hank Pym none of them got boosts to their intelligence from what they were doing or exposed to.

Tony Stark is a genius but he is not as diverse as the four above. He is focused in engineering and has the capacity to grasp concepts quickly. Now ironically from a combat point of view the smartest/best tacticians are these four.

-Captain America
-Cyclops (Scott Summers)
-Hawkeye
-Cannonball (Sam Guthrie)

I listed the last one because Sam managed to keep his team (X-Force) out of reach of the above teams who at one time or another pursuing them. He learned strategy and tactics under some of the best there are which include Charles Xavier, Magneto, Cable, and Cyclops. Also I like Sam so I am biased only X-man to knock Gladiator of the Shi'ar on his butt which the entire X-men (including Wolverine) couldn't do.

I did a funky build of a bard(Dervish Dancer)/barbarian(spirit totem/Urban Barbarian)/Duelist. Take Chaos as your totems slap Elemental Fury (your damage type choice of course) and go to town. Take two weapon fighting ,improved unarmed combat, and weapon finesse. I recommend an Aldori Dueling Sword for your piercing weapon. Drop your controlled rage into Dex and go smack something. You can still do your battle dance while raging and just go to town. You can switch that out to a Dragon Disciple and just do the dance with a one handed weapon, boost the strength, and power attack.

Or as someone suggested do a hybrid just straight up Bard/Barbarian in whatever mix you want. Just find something you like honestly and run with it. The way I have always seen it once you get to level 15 it's all over but the killing. And by this point you can kill a lot and may run into the problem of, "Hmmm how do I want this thing to die?" I ran into that problem with casters especially cause so many choices.

I still think the fighter is going to win. Also your GM said no magic items he didn't say no special materials. Special materials for weapons and armor are listed in the equipment section. That means the Fighter can get adamantine weapons and armor. He going to blast most anything out of the water plus he is going to be a pain to do damage to. I agree two handed weapon is awesome for massive damage but take advantage. Two short swords and two weapon fighting the Fighter with the weapon focus, weapon training, and improved critical range he going to outdamage a monk. He just took away the Monks flurry ability pretty well. Take the fortitude feats and you just got around it. I would recommend taking dwarf as the race so movement isn't hindered by anything. The thing of it is you can build a fighter to be the killer of <insert class here> the thing of it is a fighter is vulnerable to almost everything else. If you put the fighter against all classes at once (except himself) you could design him perfectly to kill certain classes but that leaves him open to the others. That why the fighter gets so many feats it isn't solely to be the class killer it is so that he can diversify and be effective against all not overwhelming to some and overwhelmed by others.

These types of games are designed with group dynamic in mind. Solo fighting so rarely happens in combat it is almost an improbability. And if it does happen that means the party has messed up. And unless your GM is gunning for you, you shouldn't find yourself in such situations often.

Mine a pretty simple house rule. Double feats. Every odd level you get 2 feats instead of one. This is a rule we had back in 3.5 D&D (but it was every 3 lvls.) However the rule applies to foes as well so it stays balanced except for monsters. The reason behind this was because by I think the first Complete books you had over 300 feats out in the books (not including 3rd party prints) and if you wanted to be the true master of that you needed variety. Now while I would love to see it where feats had upgrades like any feat that had improved or greater it just you spent the feat on the first one and then x levels later you get the next. Still requires planning on your part cause you wouldn't get the max benefit if you take it too late in your career.

Actually you can't have a large Eidolon it states that it has to be the same size as your character. Now you can modify this a lot I did one very similar to this as an NPC. Now what you want is potions and wands that enable you to enhance and increase your abilities such as Barkskin, Bull's Strength, Mage Armor, and Enlarge person. And pow you are one big tank. I changed it up with only a 7th lvl. character. If you want to really trade in on the strength give your Eidolon claws and geats that increase it's damage with those. They are right the regular Summoner is better than Synthesis unless you want a melee guy with some casting.

*Moves boulder aside from the cave entrance*
Tengu: Squawk! (Light spell and surprise that the Kobolds were in here.)
Dwarf: Hmmmmm I was right the boulder was not wedged in the hole; it was blocking it. (Dwarf being impressed with his stonecunning ignoring the obvious.)
Elf: Oops wrong cave. <whisper to the dwarf> Put the boulder back.

Okay I got a melee build for you guys. I have got to have done something wrong with the math. Cause if I built this right then it is an ungodly melee build it's 7th level build. Also it takes a few rounds unless you do this ahead of time.

I went with the synthesis build for this the thing with this. Attributes I will get to these, Dwarf race, Feats: W.P. nodachii, Dodge, combat casting, W.F. Nodachii, weapon +1 Keen Nodachii
spells
Mage armor
Shield
Bull strength
Enlarge person
Heroism
Haste
Potion of Barkskin +3
Ring of protection +1

Now eidolon traits
Bipedal hooves
Improved natural armor
Attribute increase strength

Now this is where it gets weird with synthesist you fuse with you and you take it's physical Attributes.
Str 30
Dex. 13
Con. 15
(This is after casting enlarge person and bull strength)
So the AC is the screwy thing based on my math AC is 38 (+10+ 4 armor [mage armor], shield +4 [shield]' +1 Dex, +16 Natural Armor, +1 deflection, +2 dodge 1 for haste, 1 for dodge)

Nodachii + 15 (16 if you apply weapon focus)/ 10 / 15 (with haste) 15- 20/x2 2d8 +15 (2 handed with the strength damage

As I said I think I screwed up the math.

That is the simplest solution eliminate the demigod. I would recommend a disappearing demigod not destruction. Two ways to do it one have the Demigod captured by another god that is cutting off his power and the players' quest is to reestablish him. you can even re-reward them with the Eidolons later. Another way is due to the actions of the players forwarding the agenda of the demigod he is rewarded with higher god status. The elevation would eliminate his ability to directly influence the players (eliminates the Eidolons) and make them High Priests in the new deityand start them in establishing the temple of this new god. It should help a lot.

My question is where in the world is the first sheet even coming from? Gem Mage as far as I can tell isn't even in Pathfinder. The only references I am finding is from Forgotten Realms. So I don't even know if it is even legal in the Pathfinder system. I didn't look at the other sheet at all. If it was just like the first one I just don't see it working too well if you were planning on running it.

I mean if you want the absolutely best kick butt wizard build. Well you shouldn't be running a wizard. Wizards are great and awesome but they are broadly focused even if you choose an arcane school. If you pulled from anywhere any type of 'caster' I recommend the Warmage from 'Complete Arcane'. This guy makes the Magus look like he has a head cold and a busted arm. They get all the combat spells (even a few from the divine side) plus the Suddens that are available in the Magus Arcana. You can also take the regular metamagic feats. Oh and because the rules in the 3.5 and even under Magus Arcana you can apply multiple metamagics to spells. There also the fact that Warmages get the ability to cast spells in armor just like the Magus.

This is how it went, lvl 1-3 I was the same as all other casters except I didn't have utility spells, lvl. 4-6 I made the fighter in the group cry out in anger cause I could kill things before he could close on things (even after taking some barbarian lvls.) the other casters in the group wanted to kill me because my damage with spells was greater then theirs, lvl 7-10 I could annihilate almost entire armies with a super enhanced fireball (sudden empower, sudden maximize (I took it early) (the exact area of the fireball was I believe 150 ft. in all directions from the center of the blast with the damage being 10d6+10 at that point due to a high charisma and my charcter level). I almost never ran out of spells to cast because I always started with the weakest first and usually just took a couple more whacks with those to kill the minions. I still had my arsenal of powerful spells to take care of the masters.
(A fave trick was to sudden empower a Flaming sphere and chase down kobolds, orcs, and anything else I wanted with it. Sometimes it was just a straight up empowered flaming sphere.) Oh and by 10th lvl most of the party was just trying to work on builds that worked well in supporting me.

Elf going with a Elemental Wizard focus on Fire. There are many benefits to this in my opinion. There is the fact that most bad things don't like fire so you have that going for you. Then instead of loading up on craft feats taking three arcane discoveries opposition research, fast study, and staff-like wand. This helps offset your opposition school (single school for being elemental), makes you less of burden needing an hour to study your spell book, and makes you better with a quarterstaff on top of feats you can take. Spells there one in the Inner Sea Magic book called wand weapon where you put a wand into your weapon and can activate it while it is there. This gives you multiple combat options as well as letting you give a weapon some magic capabilities at low levels. It is going to be a combat build but not fleshed out cause well haven't gotten to play it.

Actually Quickdraw feat allows it to be a free action not a swift to draw a weapon. So if spring loaded supplements Quickdraw then it is still fine. Sorry your blanket appears dry warm and fuzzy hehe.

Wow I thought you couldn't take two archetypes but it isn't perfect. It is very close to perfect. But without trap finding you can't disable magic traps.

Usually when I am playing in a game I play the spellcaster type. The worst the one where everyone in the group (gm included) was ready to kill me. For me it was always about getting the biggest boom no matter what system and I did it well. The worse one where I was like 'God, I feel horrible I am unbalancing the whole game.'. It was the Warmage from 3.5 quite literally at around 10th level the gm decided to send an army after us from our arch nemesis. My warmage literally walked up onto a hill and saw them coming. He cracked his knuckles and said, "I got this.". Then I sudden maximized a spell I had prepared as a Empower fireball. With the damage output of the two plus the bonus damage from the class i vaporized an entire army in one shot. The reason why this made it so bad for the group was we had a Sor. and a fighter. The fighter ended up taking levels of barbarian so that he might actually make it to one of the bad things before I killed it. And the poor Sor was stuck in a utility role cause I could always outdamage him with combat spells.

I will be honest next game I am playing in if it pathfinder is either going to be a straight up fighter, barbarian, or monk mainly cause I love what paizo did with the classes made them mush more appealing.

Oh and for those looking to recreate my Warmage be warned we had some house rules and the closest I have found in the books for it is a Magus but he would never get the high level spells the Warmage was going to get.

As for my other players we got one guy he is forbidden from playing a rogue. Mainly cause he is more devious than our GM and has a tendency to damn near make us cry from either frustration or laughter. We have another player that doesn't really care just as long as they have fun (I love that type of player). We have one guy when he plays it just blows us all away and I will admit he smarter than all of us and runs awesome games. Then we have the classsic combat monster type, and he has a very hard time seeing past combat into anything else. He is a great player though and can create characters and run multi tiered combat like nobody I know.

I am also going to point out that most of the 'ranged touch attacks' you are speaking of have range. These spells are designed to be used at range not at point blanks melee. If the fight does get that close you have options. You can take a five foot step back and fire off that ranged spell if you really want, you can make a melee attack, or a melee touch attack. If you want you can provoke an AoO and just run for it and get away. If you are going to provoke do it doing something smart not trying to be awesome and going out in a blaze of glory. There are feats you can take to mitigate provoking attacks. Just my PoV as playing spell casters for a lot of years.