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I am using the Game Master's Apprentice (GMA) deck to emulate a GM for me so I can play a downtime heavy pathfinder game solo. I am doing this as I have had immense difficulty finding anyone interested in a downtime/kingdom building game as of late. I noticed many players like combat heavy games and downtime/kingdom building campaigns tends to focus more on social/skill encounters and less on combat. But this does not mean combat encounters cannot happen in such games.

I plan to play an ecclesitheurge cleric that worships an empyreal lord and has the ultimate goal of founding a mystery religion dedicated to them and spreading their faith. Constructing shrines, temples, helping out people, are all things to help grow his influence. I plan to have leveling up handled by every 5 or 10 rounds of downtime or every 2 completed random encounters/quests from NPCs gives 1 level. This of course means there may be some combat encounters depending on what cards are drawn and I wonder what monsters are appropriate for a solo cleric to fight?

I plan to start at level 1 and at level 7 will take the leadership feat and get a cohort warrior (maybe paladin) to be a defender/protector for my cleric. Until that point though, I am thinking I would have to have one or two enemies that my cleric faces and they would have to be very weak given ecclesithruge clerics cannot wear armor and are as squishy as a wizard. I read that the CR for a solo character is Level/4 so at level 1 that is a CR 1/4 enemy. That means at level 10 a CR 2 enemy is a fair challenge, but that seems low. Any advice or suggestions? I know a solo table top game is unorthodox, but it has been done before according to other solo rpg fans.

So my GM, that I have known for 8 years, has possibly allowed a fellow party member steal my ecclesithurge's bonded holy symbol. I made my perception check in the morning to notice it was being stolen, but failed the check. The Paladin (played by the DM since the player was not available) mentioned that they saw the female rogue rummaging through his things and the rogue refused to give an answer. A week after this, my the GM had me do another perception check and my cleric noticed that my holy symbol was gone. I have already argued with the GM how this is unrealistic that my ecclesithurge cleric could go a week without noticing his bonded holy symbol was missing. He essentially told me this is the story he has told and I have to go with it.

I questioned the party members and the NPCs with our party and I found that the thief and the satyr druid (both played by females players who I believe do not like me OOC) were hiding something when I made a sense motive check. Regardless, they refused to admit to stealing it and stated the last time they saw it was a week ago and so we moved on to one of the large cities on the continent. I now plan to try and find my holy symbol next session and need advice for doing so. We are all level 3 and I do not have access to Locate Object since that is 3rd level for a cleric and Communion is a 5th level spell. I could buy a scroll of locate object and see if indeed one of my party members have it on their person.

Since I worship an Empyreal Lord, Winlas, I will not be able to go to a temple to my deity for assistance. I do however have good relations with Abadar and Irori priest and could request they cast communion for me and help me in getting my holy symbol back.

I am only 1 more goal away from becoming a jeweled sage of the Sacarab Sages and either need to become possessed via a magic jar or a similar ability, permanently destroy a haunt, or defeat divs, followers of divs, or an evil necromancer. The thing is, it has to be a 7-11 scenario as my wizard is level 10 and going slow. Does any one know which scenarios or modules can fulfill these requirements?

I have always played the archon's Aura of Menace penalty as not stacking despite the fact that the rules as written certainly could lead one to arguing that. If this was the case, then the archons would of long ago defeated the forces of evil as even a Balor or Pit Fiend would eventually roll enough 1s if they are up against hundreds or thousands of archons.

My question is do the effects stack for each archon as to being hit by the effect? For example, if a target is up against four archons and fails their save against all of them, do they have to hit each archon in order to remove the -2 penalty, or do they only need to hit one?

Another interesting point is that if one had an archon on the field, a cleric who cast archon's aura on themselves, and wearing a halo of menace it could be argued the penalty would stack for all since they are and coming from different sources.

I played this scenario recently with my cleric and I liked it! It was my first time visiting the plane of Heaven and I always wanted to play a game where this was possible. While the scenario did a good job portraying Heaven as the stereotypical celestial bureaucratic realm, I felt that Paizo watered it down a little too much for PFS in a few ways that could of made it unique. From what I have read about the planes, most have qualities that affect it such as special gravity, magic rules, etc, but this was ignored when our party went to Heaven. Since Heaven is a strongly aligned Lawful Good plane, you will receive a +2 bonus to INT, WIS, and CHA for each alignment step you match and -2 if you do not. This was not acknowledged at all given my character is Lawful Good along with the paladin and we received no bonuses on our diplomacy or knowledge checks.

I felt the various archons you encountered in the plane should have reacted more strictly to the PC's personalities and alignments. Yes archons will treat non evil creatures politely, but they are still quite a judgmental lot and even the chaotic character's in our party should of been eyed suspiciously.

I also felt that the writer of this scenario should of added a little section for the GM to use if a character in the party worships one of the Empyreal Lords and especially Winlas since you enter his domain in the scenario. It felt odd knowing that my cleric, who worships Winlas and plans to become a mystery cultist, was just sidelined and ignored despite how devout and fervent he is to Winlas and how deeply respected the Empyreal Lords are in Heaven. I even roleplayed how happy and reverent he was the entire time, but there was nothing the GM could do to acknowledge it. I was not expecting my character receives the red carpet treatment (He is only level 4 after all), but there should of been something in the scenario that GMs could use for rp purposes.

Overall, I liked the scenario and would like more of these that require trips to other planes. I just wish they would stick to the rules that applies to the planes. I am sure if we traveled to the Positive or Negative plane we would be subject to its dangerous environment.

It has already been explained that enhancement bonuses must be applied to something that already has an armor, shield, or in rare cases, a natural armor bonus in order to work. The enhancement bonuses is added into the bonus and thus is not separate and cannot be stacked with the mage armor spell in the case of magic vestment on armor or the shield spell if it is casts on a shield. This is understood and is not what I am concerned with.

My question is can you cast the spell on a piece of magical clothing like Cassock of the Clergy and have it give an Armor bonus of + 5 (max), 0 from being clothing and + 5 from magic vestments? The spell itself says that it can be cast on clothing but says "an outfit of regular clothing".

This was asked on the forums back in 2007, but I never saw a definitive answer and must ask again for clarity sake. As per the rules as written, I am inclined to say no since PFS requires RAW rather than RAI and little GM discretion.

So my Ecclesitheurge Cleric could have a total AC of only 34 rather than 39 if one cannot use magic vestments on magical clothing. I do not care either way it is just since I cannot wear regular armor I need to find as many ways magically to raise my AC.

As a full round action you can swing the aspergillum and dispense the holy water as a ranged touch attack up to 10 feet. My question is does this only mean swinging in a single direction or can you swing in an arc or twirl around while doing so? I have seen real life aspergillum's used in this way.

Would this be knowledge planes or knowledge local? I could see both, but local would be a higher DC since knowledge local deals mainly with the cities, towns, and people on the material plane.

I plan on making a cleric of the empyreal lord Winlas with the ecclesitheurge Archetype. Now I have been doing research on the archetype and I really like the flavor of it, and it is exactly how I like to play a cleric. The last I check Winlas is legal for play and his domains/subdomains seem decent enough. Given the armor and shield restriction of this archetype, I was planning to have my primary domain be the subdomain Defense so I can prepare the shield spell and my secondary domain be knowledge. If I recall subdomains can be picked with the archetype’s Domain Mastery and not sure why they would not be included and if not I will just stick with the Protection domain. My only question about the archetype is can the Blessings of the Faithful ability be cast on yourself as well?

I essentially plan to have this character be a holy man dedicated to spreading knowledge and goodness. He will be very ostentation in dress and in mannerism and will be very big on rituals and ceremonies. He will focus largely on buffing allies (Blessings ability, bless, etc) and weakening enemies (Bane, prayer, etc) and at later levels will use holy magic attacks like holy word or holy smite. I also plan to take the Mystery Cultist prestige class at level 8 since that fits well with the fact he worships an empyreal lord. This character will not enter melee under any circumstance and will not use any weapons until level 8-9 where I plan to buy an Everflowing Aspergillium and use its ranged touch attack ability to spray evil creatures with holy water and the weapon fits perfectly with the theme of this character.

I do not have too much experience playing a cleric in Pathfinder so any other tips would be appreciated.

Hello all!

I created this class by using an old d20 prestige class from the Encyclopedia Arcane supplement series Conjuration volume as reference. The class in that book is called Soulbinder, but I created a good version of that class to offer good arcane summoning spellcasters an option. There is also an Infernal Binder prestige class and variants running around, but I never saw a good version so I made this. Please tell me what you all think as have tried to balance the prestige class and make it suitable for pathfinder.

Celestial Binder

Calling forth beings is perhaps the most dangerous form of conjuration magic. Many prefer to stick with summoning as the creature will obey your will and this is a safe road for the cautious spellcaster. Summoning creatures however has its limits and these can be avoided by calling forth creatures from the planes and binding them by entering into a temporary contract of service with them. Calling and binding any creature however is dangerous unless one is skilled and/or has appropriate gifts to offer. This goes the same for good-aligned outsiders as even though they are good and noble creatures, they are not too keen on being called forth by any old caster to serve their whims. Celestia lbinders however, never need worry about this. Celestial binders are those spellcasters who specialize in calling forth good aligned creatures from the planes of Heaven, Nirvana, and Elysium. With their immense knowledge, skill, and character they are able to call forth these beings and get services from them with little or even no payment involved. Celestial binders tend to be much more pious, wise, and compassionate compared to other arcane spellcasters.

Hit Dice: d6

Requirements
To qualify to become a Celestial Binder, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.

Spells: Must be able to cast conjuration arcane spells of 5th level or higher.

Feats: Spell Focus - Conjuration, Skill Focus – Diplomacy

Skill: Knowledge (Religion) 10+, Knowledge (Arcana) 8+, Knowledge (Planes) 10+, Spellcraft 10+, Diplomacy 10+

Statistics: Intelligence and Charisma 16+

Languages: Must be able to speak, read, and write Celestial.

Alignment: Celestial binders have many views concerning ethics, but all share the same sense of morality. Celestial binders can therefore be any good alignment. This tends to shape their particular calling focus. Lawful good celestial binders will prefer to call and summon Archons and other lawful good outsiders, neutral goods will prefer Agathions and other neutral good outsiders, and chaotic goods will prefer Azatas and other chaotic good outsiders.

Class Skills
The Celestial binder's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int)

Skills Ranks per Level: 2+ Int modifier

Table: Celestial Binder
Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special Spells per day
1st 0 0 0 2 Celestial Sage, Celestial Diagram +2 +1 of existing spellcasting class
2nd 1 0 0 3 Voice of Righteousness +1 of existing spellcasting class
3rd 1 1 1 3 +1 of existing spellcasting class
4th 2 1 1 4 Celestial Diagram +4 +1 of existing spellcasting class
5th 2 1 1 4 Virtuous Cause +1 of existing spellcasting class
6th 3 2 2 5 +1 of existing spellcasting class
7th 3 2 2 5 Celestial Diagram +6 +1 of existing spellcasting class
8th 4 2 2 6 Holy Light +1 of existing spellcasting class
9th 4 3 3 6 +1 of existing spellcasting class
10th 5 3 3 7 Celestial Saint +1 of existing spellcasting class

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the celestialbinder
prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency:
Celestial Binders gain no proficiency in any weapons or armor

Spells per Day: A celestial binder continues training
in magic as a means of furthering his mental
abilities. Thus, when a new celestial binder level is
gained, the character also gains spells as if he
had also gained a level in a spellcasting class he
belonged to before he added the prestige class. He
does not, however, gain any additional benefits a
character of that class would have received, only
the new spells.

Celestial Sage (Ex): The celestial binder may add their full celestial binder level to all knowledge planes and religion checks. This acts as the Bardic knowledge class ability. Celestial binders are sought after sages on all matters that concern the planes and divinities.

Celestial Diagram (Ex): After studying and conversing with various divine and celestial sources, a celestial binder can create a unique diagram design to bind good creatures while protecting the celestial binder. The listed bonus for this class power is added to any check required when creating a diagram. The number listed in the bonus is inclusive and does not stack with previous Celestial Diagram bonuses. Furthermore, the celestial diagram has all of the benefits of a regular diagram and also acts as a magic circle against good for purposes of containing a good-aligned creature when using any planar biding or calling spell.

Voice of Righteousness (Ex): When you make a charisma check to attempt to convince any good creature(s) to agree to offer their services to you through planar binding or another calling spell, you receive a +4 bonus to the check. In addition, if you ever roll a 1 on your Charisma check, the good creature(s) instantly leaves instead of attacking you. This represents the righteousness of the celestial binder's character that is pleasing to the creature.

Virtuous Cause (Ex): When you call a creature(s) whose alignment exactly matches yours, you can make a diplomacy check against their will to convince them to offer you their services instead of a charisma check. If you succeed, they offer their services at a 50% discount to any monetary payment they ask as long as the request made is not against their alignment. This represents the common cause for good that the creature shares with the celestial binder. If the creature(s) alignment is within one step of yours, they offer their services at a 25% discount.

Holy Light (Sp): After spending so much time around good creatures and even visiting the various good aligned planes, a celestialbinder has gained the unique ability to call down a beam of light to destroy their foes. As a standard action, the celestialbinder can call forth the beam of light to target any creature within 50ft as a ranged touch attack. The holy light deals 1d8 + celestialbinder level damage and counts as good aligned for purposes of overcoming damage reduction and ignores cover. If an evil outsider or extraplanar creature is hit by this attack, they must make a will save against the celestialbinder's highest spell level DC or be sent back to their original plane. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + Wisdom modifier. This attack has no effect on good creatures and only half damage to neutral creatures.

Celestial Saint (Su): The celestial binder has now achieved a status that makes them a Saint in the eyes of all good-aligned outsiders. Their dedication to the cause of good and their extraplanar friendships has made them masters of calling for aid from any good-aligned outsider. The celestial binder may call forth 4 additional hit dice of creatures when they cast planar binding and ally spells. The celestial binder's goodness has now made them forsake all use of evil creatures and thus can no longer summon or call forth any evil-aligned creatures via spells or items. As such, when a celestialbinder calls forth any good-aligned creature they receive full hitpoints for their hit dice. All creatures whose alignment matches the celestial binder's and whose hit dice is 14 or less instantly agrees to any service without payment.