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I was having a friendly discussion today with a stranger on Reddit. His build for a ranged rogue was a scoundrel using Pistol Twirl from the Pistol Phenom dedication while wielding a Gauntlet Bow and a shortbow.

Would you allow a Gauntlet Bow to trigger Pistol Twirl? Can it even be twirled? I'd assume it was locked in one orientation on the gauntlet, otherwise it would spin on you when you were trying to fire it, or require a 2nd hand to lock the position/steady it.

Would you also allow a shortbow (not a loaded, 1-handed firearm) to benefit from "the foe is flat-footed against your melee and ranged attacks, rather than only your melee attacks." benefit of Pistol Twirl? This to me feels like it violates the spirit of a feat/dedication based on firearms/crossbows.

Do you stop wielding the gauntlet bow as soon as you use that hand to nock an arrow? I ask since the Free-Hand trait says "When you're not wielding anything and not otherwise using the hand, you can use abilities that require you to have a hand free as well as those that require you to be wielding a weapon in that hand."

As I said, it was a friendly discussion. I'm not trying to "win the argument". I'm just wondering if I should change my outlook on the subject, or a ruling if I was GMing for a player who wanted to do this to build a ranged Rogue.

Storm Giant has an obscenely high attack modifier for rock throwing. It's +10 over their melee attack and 10 higher than other creatures of their level. It's on par with level 20 creatures to hit modifier, even though they are level 13 creatures. I'm sure it's a typo, but in the mean time they will likely hit/crit above level foes on their 3rd attack, and almost always critically hit on the first or second attack when throwing rocks.

While mentioned several years ago in the Typos/Mistakes of 2nd edition thread, there was never an errata for the Bestiary 1 which would address this first printing mistake. I hope this has been addressed in the Monster Core book, but in the mean time can this be added to FAQ so Archives of Nethys can be updated?

Fire Gate-Aura Junction: Enemies in your kinetic aura gain weakness to fire from your fire impulses. The weakness is equal to half your level (minimum weakness 1).

Kindle Inner Flame (KIF): As a candle can light another, you awaken the latent potential to channel fire in other creatures. You shed faint, glowing embers, as do your allies while they're in your kinetic aura. Anyone shedding these embers gains a +1 status bonus to Reflex saves and Acrobatics checks and can Step as a free action once per round. When an affected creature takes a move action, its Strikes deal an extra 2 fire damage until the end of its turn.

Does passively generated damage trigger the aura's weakness?

I'm already seeing people on Reddit adopting the assumption that the fire damage from ally strikes benefiting from KIF will trigger the Aura Junction weakness to impulse generated fire. I understand the reasoning "the impulse initiated the fire damage, therefore it triggers the weakness aura", but that is counter to the strike being the cause of any damage. The level 12 heightened effect even removes the bonus fire, and grants the flaming rune instead. Would that still be "impulse generated damage", or is that a bog-standard flaming rune? Does/should any of that ally strike generated bonus fire damage trigger the aura's weakness to your impulses?

Are Skeleton (ancestry) PCs eligible for versatile heritages? It seems so weird to me that someone stripped of their flesh could still be a half-orc or Dhampir, even though they aren't a human/orc or Vampire/Mortal any more.

At 15th level, a creature that fail its save is exhausted and stunned for 1 round.

Does the exhaustion last until resting/otherwise treated, or only 1 round? The stunned effect is obvious, but I am not sure on exhaustion. The fatigued effect at level 10 seems to be the usual (until rested) since no duration is mentioned.

The Draconic bloodline arcana variant for Imperial dragons states: "Whenever you cast a spell that affects a creature with the shaken, frightened, or panicked condition, increase the spell’s save DC by 1."

I see 2 different ways this could work and not sure which is meant.

Option 1: Is the spell save DC increase meant to apply to all spells you cast as long as the target is already under a shaken, etc. effect?

or

Option 2: Does the spell save DC increase only applies to spells that cause shaken, etc.?