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On looking back through my order history, I noticed that I missed a subscription shipment due to a declined payment method. I would like to have this order reprocessed if that's possible. The payment information has been updated and should be accurate at this time.
Thank you for your time.

I'm in the process of building a guardsman-type character with a guard dog-type animal companion, and I thought that using a silent whistle (APG) might be a fun way to issue commands to his canine companion.

The text of the silent whistle states that a DC 5 Perform check is needed to do the same sorts of signals possible via a signal horn. The beast whistle (canine) doesn't have this Perform check language in the description, but it costs 5gp vs the silent whistle's 9sp. Negligible cost, I know. Also, the silent whistle can be heard by anyone with Keen Senses, and so could be used to communicate with other party members. I assume the Perform check definitely applies to that use of the whistle.

My question is thus: Would I use a Handle Animal check alone to issue commands via the whistle, or would I also need to make a Perform check as well?

Thanks in advance for any and all guidance!

So, I've finally gotten the chance to play an alchemist in a weekly game. Grenadier archetype, 2nd level.
We recently had an encounter in some tight tunnels, and to avoid hitting a party member with his bomb, I decided to target an intersection on the ceiling near the fighter. I used Precise Bombs to exclude his square from the splash damage, and the GM went for it.
Despite the GM giving the okay, I'd still like some reassurance that this was a legitimate tactic.

Question:
Can an alchemist, with the Precise Bombs discovery, target a grid intersection adjacent to an ally and still choose to exclude the ally's square from the splash area?

I know there'll be a few "if everyone's happy with the ruling, just go with it," but I'd like my sneaksy trick verified before I try to take it on the road (perhaps to PFS play or something).

Thanks in advance for help & guidance!

I'm building my first wizard for PFS, and I was looking at going the bonded object route instead of a familiar. I plan on using the False Focus feat, and I've been looking at the more expensive holy symbols to make the most out of that feat.

I came across the Teaching Staff in the Adventurer's Armory, which is one of the channel foci introduced in that book, therefore it should function as a holy symbol worth 75gp for purposes of the False Focus feat. Since it's a staff, I'd like to also use it as my bonded object. I know - putting all my eggs in one basket might be a bad idea.

The wonky bit comes in with the wording of the bonded object class feature, which states that the wizard gets a masterwork version for free. Would that cover the cost of the Teaching Staff, or should I still pay for the staff out of my starting funds, and simply ignore the free masterwork bit?

On a related note, has anyone tried something similar, and what considerations do I need to be mindful of? Other than "don't lose the staff," that is.

Thanks in advance for all of your good advice! I hope to get started with PFS soon!

Just got finished watching this on SyFy, and it was mildly entertaining. As someone who did not stick with WotC during the shift to 4E, there was some stuff that I didn't quite get, but I still recognized plenty of rules-y goodness. Sorta.

Spoilers Abound

Anyway, if you aren't completely opposed to the concept of a direct-to-DVD Dungeons & Dragons movie, give this one a look.

I've been mulling this around in my head a little bit lately, and got to wondering about party composition. I think we're all familiar with the "traditional" party composition - the Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, and Mage. Sometimes we stray a bit from this format - especially when we have more than 4 players - and I think the proliferation of archetypes allows us to step even further away from the Old Ways.

So, to that end, I'd like to see some examples of non-traditional party composition that you've either experienced, or would like to see in an upcoming game. A discussion of the pros and cons of each, with a nod to archetypes and specializations is what I'm aiming for, here.

To start, I'll put forth 2 sample parties that I'd like to see, and one party that's currently running in my home game.

Home Team - this is the current group makeup of my home campaign

Holy Rollers - this team is based around a crew dedicated to a single deity

Eldritch Emporium - a party that focuses on arcane power

So, there you have it. A couple ideas and a current non-traditional adventuring group. I'm eager to see your input, and thanks for the participation!

I've been hunting around with my google-fu, and been unable to find any solid examples/rulings on this archetype, so here goes:

How do the Beast Bonded Witch archetype and the Improved Familiar feat interact with respect to the class features of the archetype?

Say, for example, Stan the Spooky is a Beast Bonded Witch with a Voidworm as his familiar. Stan is level 8, and wants to use his Familiar Form power, but a voidworm is not a normal animal. Does he simply lose out on that class ability? Would he be restricted to the two animal forms that his familiar can assume via the voidworm's Change Shape ability? What if he had a pseudodragon?

Moreover, what's up with Twin Soul?

Should Stan die and occupy the body of his faithful familiar, what happens when he tries to hop into a new meatbag? Magic Jar is the basis for the ability, but the spell has a duration now [much to the chagrin of former body-hopping players]. Do you only seize control temporarily, like a ghost's Malevolence ability, or is it permanent, resulting in the death of the former host? Imagine the sheer flavorful bizarre-ness of a witch with a Spirit Oni familiar who resides not in his original body, but in a fiendish flying mask, hopping from body to body and living the good life.

And Transfer Feats . . .

Say Stan the Spooky decides to bank a couple feats in his "starter" familiar, knowing he's going to pick up Improved Familiar at 11th level. At 11th, he gets his spanking-new familiar and withdraws those banked feats, cashing them in immediately for a couple shiny Extra Hex feats of the Major Hex persuasion. Does that work like my fiendish little heart hopes it will, or must my previous familiar actually die?

Anyway, thanks in advance for any help, advice, or feedback!

Getting another campaign started up in the near future, and I thought I'd put the ol' feelers out and try to put together a collection of exciting and memorable encounters that I can either place into the flow of the campaign, or maybe pop in as intriguing random encounters [vice the usual "okay, so some bandits jump out of the bushes"].

So, what sort of encounters have you experienced in the past [published or homebrew] that completely blew you away and stick with you to this day?

What encounters would you love to throw at your jaded old party of pros, just to shake them up a bit?

Howsabout newbies? Okay, so there's nothing but grizzled old vets in my game, but it's a worthy thought exercise . . .

The majority of the storyline is inspired by the Icewind Dale Trilogy; take the rightful ruler to find and reclaim her ancestral home. That story has obvious parallels in the Jade Regent AP, so I'll be reading through that one for inspiration. The second 1/3 of the campaign will draw heavily from Kingmaker AP, what with rebuilding the kingdom. The Final Phase is when things get really wild, and should start around 15th level, running through to 20th [with maybe some Mythic shizzle in there, depending on when the release falls with respect to the campaign].

Looking forward to your suggestions! I'll try to hunt down some of my old ones to spark some creativity and add to the pot. Thanks in advance for your rockin' help!

Well, in the next couple of weeks, our group will be getting back into regular gaming. As one of the potential GMs, I've been tasked with putting together a couple campaign concepts to present to the group for review. I've got two ideas that really interest me, but I've not run any campaigns with similar themes, so I thought I'd run them by the community here for any comments, tips, and ideas.
I'd very much appreciate any feedback, whether you've participated in games similar to either of these or not. Situations and rules to take special note of, story opportunities that might be missed, and so forth.
I've spoilered the two concepts below to save you all a wall of text. Thanks in advance for your help and insight!

Campaign 1: Swampworld

Campaign 2: Reclaiming the Crown of the Elf Queen

Now that we've got both Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Equipment, I sorta figured we'd have a solid collection of rules for vehicles. Unfortunately, I'm not able to find any organized grouping of vehicle modifications such as armor plating, improved controls, and so forth. I know there are a few scattered here and there, but my search-fu has been insufficient to the task of locating anything resembling a comprehensive list of vehicle rules.
If anyone knows of an extant compendium of vehicle rules, I'd love to hear of it. I'd rather not have to sort through all of my books and pdfs in order to cobble together my own "Ultimate Rides," but I'm thinking that I just might have to do so.
Thanks in advance for any helpful advice or finger-pointing.

I'll be heading to this here convention the first weekend in August, and I was curious to see if there are any fellow PF junkies attending. From the looks of their nifty color-coded schedule, it appears that there are 2 definite PF games lined up; "We Be Goblins" and "Soul Stealer."
So, if you're going, I'd love to hear from you, and maybe hook up for a game or whatnot. Hope to see plenty of you there!

I know there's been a bit of buzz about this line of spells since UM came out, and some folks have even mentioned the vast potential could provide the material for an entire guide. . .

So, anyone seen a guide for these spells? I daresay that I'm not suited to penning one, but I'd be more than happy to contribute ideas to anyone with the authorial fortitude to put one together.

Thanks for your time and attention, folks. May your wizarding ever break your GM's brains!

Experienced player & GM living in Branson, commuting to Springfield, looking for games. Just finishing school [3rd week of April], work doesn't officially start until 1st week of May, hours are still very flexible.

I've been playing in the D&D milieu since 2nd Ed. I've run games in 3/3.5 and Pathfinder; my primary group has switched almost completely to Pathfinder. I've got some play experience with nWoD, Aberrant, Alternity [yeah, for the short time it lasted], Exalted, and some Shadowrun. My game of choice, though, is Pathfinder. Not really looking for any other system right now.

Honestly, I'd much rather play than run a game; I seem to get wrangled into running them for my core group 9.5 times out of 10, and I'd like a little break.

I travel up to Springfield several times a week already, so adding in a game night up there shouldn't be a problem. Ideally, I'd like a game in the Branson / Hollister area, but I do have a friend with similar gaming experience that lives in the Springfield area, and he's interested in hunting down a game up there, too.

I've got a library of pretty much every non-world-specific 3/3.5 book, and most of the Pathfinder books, and am very willing to bring them along. I use HeroLab as my primary character management tool, but I've got no problems maintaining paper character sheets.

I've gotten pretty handy with spellcaster-types, mostly because nobody in our regular group plays them [except my friend in Springfield], but am interested in trying out some stabby-stabby fun.

I'm also very interested in playing in a campaign that features the acquisition and/or administration of a party stronghold of some sort. Always wanted to do that, but never got the chance to play in that sort of scenario. Wars and sieges and the like are cool, too!

Anywho, if you're interested in picking up a competent player with a solid grasp of the rules [and the humility to admit when he's wrong], I'd love to check your group out!

Just had to share this. My pup, Ophelia, likes to be involved in all social events, even our gaming.

Ophelia Rolls 20s

Looking over the new special material in UC really got me thinking about using them to add more flavor to my monsters. The easiest way is, of course, equipping them with gear made of the new materials. Next is adding feats that make use of some of their properties [many of them have the Fragile property, which feats like Splintering Weapon utilize]. The third, and most interesting to me [at the moment], is to alter the DR entries of various monsters.

So, here are a few of my ideas for alternate DR entries, plus a little of the method behind my madness. Please feel free to add your own to the list!

Daemons-->Gold
Right now, we have 3 main races of Evil outsiders --> Demons [CE], Devils [LE], and Daemons [NE]. The demons tend to represent wrath, chaos, and unbridled passions. Their bane is cold iron, which could be seen as restraining, orderly, precise. Shackles are often made of iron, and it could also represent law and order. Very much anti-demon [and fey, with their almost demonic capriciousness]. The devils are beings of law, pride, and tyranny. Silver is often associated with the moon and its constantly changing phases. It represents purity and malleability, something which devils are rather averse to. So, what about daemons? Well, for a time, the daemons were known as "yugoloths." They were the mercenaries of the Lower Planes; fighting for whomever was paying the best at the moment. Hungry and greedy. They still have that hunger and greed, albeit for the souls of mortals. I feel that gold, which represents this weakness, is a fine candidate for overcoming their DR.

Dragons-->Various
Dragons are the iconic creature for our beloved game, but sometimes they get to feeling a little generic. "Oh look; another blue dragon. We've got magic weapons, right boys? We're good." You know what else has "DR x/magic?" Pretty much everything with DR. You know what weapons overcome that DR? Pretty much everything you've got in your arsenal, by the time you're fighting big dragons. I think maybe it's time to spice up the dragons and give them back a little of their fire. Altering their DR entries from just "magic" to "Magic & [special material]" is a good way to go. For younger ones [say Adult and younger], the entry should be "Magic or [special material]." Once you get to the older individuals, the entry should be "Magic & [special material]."
Picking the best special material for each dragon type could be done as a generic handwave [e.g. all Red dragons are weak against Gold], or you could make things even more interesting by requiring research or trial-and-error to find the particular weakness of a given dragon [the Ancient Red dragon that lives in Deathfire Mountain is vulnerable to Bronze]. Using the new materials also gives the PCs a bit of a break when they can't get ahold of magic weapons for one reason or another.

Okay, I know I said "a few," and 2 entries barely constitutes "a few," but I think that's a good start for now. Let's see those ideas coming!

Well, my google-fu has failed me yet again, so I put forth this query to the masses;

Whilst looking over the Craft Construct feat detailed in the Bestiary, and comparing notes with the info in AP #43 [Haunting of Harowstone] & Ultimate Magic [p111], I find myself with a few questions regarding the creation of animated objects via the Craft Construct feat.

#1 --> Where the devil does it list the minimum caster level to create an animated object of a given CR or HD? Is it tied to the animate object spell? If so, does that mean that nobody short of epic characters can ever animate a Colossal object?

Well, okay . . . that's really just one question, but it's a bit of a thinker [for me, at least]. Ultimate magic did nothing to expand upon or clarify the base construct crafting rules; it simply gave you more goodies to add to constructs, and that's all well and good. I'd like some hard-and-fast rules for building the buggers, though.

Entry in UM:

So, are all varieties of animated objects available to an 11th-level caster with the appropriate feat? Craft DC+5 for not having animate objects on the wizard list, of course. If CL 11 is the only caster requirement, can I animate a Colossal object, which would normally exceed the limits of the spell, because I'm not using the spell?

I noticed a thread about this that popped up in the Spring, but nothing ever came of it. Perhaps I'm over-thinking this, but I really would appreciate some clarification here. Gotta get to work on my Iron Golem Man suit . . .

So I've got me a stockpile of cheap bleed effects, right? As ammo, shuriken have a 50% chance of being destroyed when you use them, anywho. So, accepting the loss, suppose I get them made of bone [a material with the "fragile" quality], and then every time I score a hit, I elect to give them the broken condition and inflict me some bleed damage on my target. As shuriken are basically just vectors for sneak attack and poison, the -2 damage penalty from bone doesn't seem to matter that much.

The Bleeding Attack trick requires me to hit with a sneak attack, whereas the Splintering Weapon merely requires that I score a hit. BA scales with my sneak attack dice, but the duration is tied to the dice, too. SW deals a flat 1d4hp bleed effect, with no limit to the duration.

While I can stack the SW bleed on top of any sneak attack effect [Pressure Points, for example], BA is the only sneak attack effect that can be applied to a given attack.

Both abilities can be picked up at 2nd level for the ninja; one is a ninja trick, the other is a feat.

Thanks in advance for your input!

Well, I've got to throw a few scrolls around to keep my newest batch of players happy, so I thought I'd devise a safe way to store those scrolls in the depths of the dungeon until the PCs come along [and turn the storage devices into a small bit of treasure, too!]

What I've come up with is this:

Scroll Case of the Wanderer
Aura: none [faint transmutation]; CL 5th
Price: 355gp; Weight 1/2lb

DESCRIPTION
This well-crafted darkwood scroll case is decorated with illustrations of various overland scenes; rolling plains, forests, ocean waves, & mountains.
Close inspection reveals a cunningly-secured latch [DC 15 Perception] that opens the case. The entire case is treated to be waterproof, protecting the contents inside. It comfortably holds up to 5 scrolls, although more can be wedged inside if needed [requiring a full-round action to retrieve a scroll].
The case, and all of its contents, are protected by a "magic aura" spell that causes the case to register as nonmagical.
The case gets a +4 on all of its saves if unattended, has Hardness 10, 10hp, and a Break DC of 35.

CONSTRUCTION
Requirements: Craft Wondrous Item, "magic aura," "augment object" Cost: 177gp 5sp

The "augment object" spell is found in the "Stronghold Builder's Guide," for those that don't know. I'm not sure if it's text is OGL or not, so I won't reprint it here. Basically, it makes objects a bit more durable.

So, does that look like a good price point for the case? The Handy Haversack runs 2000gp, the Efficient Quiver 1800gp, both of which protect their contents from the elements, although the case doesn't have expanded storage space [I estimated the 1 extra scroll would be accounted for in the masterwork construction], so I figured that 300gp on top of the base item would be about right. Questions, comments, and whatever are quite welcome! Let's see some feedback!

I've got a couple of questions about the siege weapons section of UC; they may have been answered elsewhere, but I'll ask anyway.

1) I noticed that there are weights listed for the ammunition for the siege weapons, but not for the weapons themselves. Might not be important information for everyone, but it could be useful in certain situations [i.e. carrying capacity of the critters being used to haul them around].

2) Targeting Platform. Where be? Mentioned on p160, but that's it. I can kinda figure what one is used for, and probably how it works, but I'd like something solid to look at [also with weight for logistics purposes].

Thanks for your patience with my inane questioning!

So, I have a series of ideas for an adventure, and I'd like to recruit the collective knowledge base to help flesh it out. Any input on encounters, tricks, traps, mini-quests and such are welcome. I expect this to eventually morph into a fun one-shot (or perhaps something bigger) for my players.

Let's get started!

Target level range: 12th to 15th
Primary Locales: Once-great forest, drowned by dark magic
Main Antagonist: The Crawling King, a Worm That Walks that drowned the forest
Miscellaneous Encounters: Marsh Giant Plague Zombies hosting cockroach swarms; a froghemoth (because they are awesome); a witchfire attended by several will-o-wisps (possibly with a grudge against the Crawling King)

Those are just a few ideas to get the juices flowing. I kind of want the enemies to focus around vermin, undead, and aberrations; things warped by or thriving in the blighted environment. I look forward to collaborating with you all, and thanks in advance for your input!

Okay, it seems that my Google-voodoo was not sufficient to locate any threads that directly address my question, so I'll put it here. If you know of any thread(s) that address this issue, please feel free to point 'em out.

While looking over the item creation rules for wondrous items in the PFRPG Core Book, I noticed the line that states "The cost for the materials is subsumed in the cost for creating the item" [pg 553]. So, if I plan to create -say- an "Amulet of Protection from Evil," and I happen to have a shiny amulet worth 1500gp, would the value of that amulet help to offset the enchantment cost, or would it be an unnecessarily pricey base item?

From a DM standpoint, I would tend to rule in favor of this idea; I also like using Power Components as part of my treasures, but I'm currently a lowly player and have to convince my DM that it's reasonable.

Thanks in advance for you help and patience.