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The swashbuckler's precise strike ability mentions: "She can even use this ability with thrown light or one-handed piercing melee weapons, so long as the target is within 30 feet of her."

Do Javelins count as light or one handed melee weapons for the purpose of precise strike? Technically, you can use a javelin as a one handed melee weapon. Speaking of, if you do use a javelin as a melee weapon, will it gain the benefits of Swashbuckler Finesse so you can use dexterity on attack rolls, or would you be forced to use strength?

I'd argue that a swashbuckler using a javelin as a melee weapon would be able to apply Swashbuckler Finesse to attacks with it, therefore they would also be able to apply precise strike when throwing them, but I was wondering if there was an official ruling on the matter.

The alternative would be throwing shortspears.

The Boon Companion feat has a prerequisite of "animal companion or familiar class feature". The Animal Ally feat states "you gain an animal companion as if you were a druid of your character level -3"

Does a companion gained through Animal Ally qualify as a class feature? My friend says that the animal is granted by a feat, not a class feature, so you dont qualify for Boon Companion. I was originally under the impression that the feat grants you the class feature, but it doesnt explicitly say that, it just says you gain an animal companion.

Is my friend right? Does the fact that the animal comes from a feat rather than a class feature prevent me from qualifying for Boon Companion? If possible i'd like an official ruling for Pathfinder Society. I had planned on building a fighter with a wolf companion for pfs but i dont want to hit level 7 and have the GM tell me i dont qualify for boon companion.

Thanks!

I'm with Sean on this. A lot of contestants burned their wordcount on backstory to the encounter, instead of using it on the location.

Wordcount instructions were as follows:

"Altogether, your entry must be no longer than 1,500 words. You may divide this word count as you see fit between describing the Location and the Encounter (for example, you may spend 300 words describing an old castle Location, and 1,200 words describing a specific Encounter in the castle)."

In the example, four times as many words are allocated to the encounter. Only 300 words are assigned to the Location. And within the Location section, contestants are instructed to describe "Why is it here? Who lives here? What role does it serve?" which can heavily relate to the backstory of the encounter.

Given all of this, it's rather unfair to nitpick about contestants "burning" their wordcount describing the encounter backstory rather than the location.

So I suppose that in order to use the Tactics domain's "Seize the Initiative" power, you need to expend a standard action as well, right?

And nobody has given me a reason why you need to "declare the destructive smite before making the attack" if the ability requires its own action.

A single melee attack could refer to any melee attack made in any circumstances. It's worded like that just to say that you need to expend one use of the ability for each individual melee attack.

And again, if this ability takes its own action to activate, why on earth does it say "You must declare the destructive smite before making the attack." If the ability took its own standard action and didn't modify an existing attack, this line of text would not be needed. After all, your action would be "Destructive Smite". The fact that you have to "declare the destructive smite before making the attack" strongly implies that the Smite isn't a standard action of its own.

You can't just assume that an ability takes a standard action just because an action isn't specified. In fact, the Raven Familiar "Speaks one language of its master's choice as a supernatural ability." It's not like it needs to take a standard action to speak Common.

And frankly, if Paizo intended this ability to require a standard action, they would have specified it, just like they did with the Fire and Water domains. The fact that they did not do so, in conjunction with the clause about declaration, implies to me that they did not intend for the ability to take its own standard action.

Yes I meant Ferocity, not Rage.

And how do you guys figure that Destructive Smite needs to be restricted to a standard attack action? The ability doesn't mention standard action anywhere. In fact, I think the text strongly suggests that you can use it in conjunction with full attacks.

The ability reads:"You must declare the destructive smite before making the attack." This certainly implies that it modifies an existing attack. I interpret this to mean that it can be applied to any single attack that you make, even if it is part of a full attack or a charge. To use it for a whole full attack, you'd need to expend multiple uses, of course.

For a battle cleric, I had considered taking the Destruction and Rage domains. Both of the level 1 domain powers (Destructive Smite and Ferocious Strike) are pretty much exactly the same, just worded differently. But because they are different abilities and do not require any actions to use, my interpretation is that one can apply both buffs to a single attack.

What do you guys think? Can I apply both domain powers to a single attack?

Leadership is just an overpowered feat. Technically it's CR 9 but in practice it certainly isn't.

Handle animal takes actions to use (it's not like i can train them), and I can't use wands of speak with animals because it isn't on my spell list.

So in pathfinder, unlike in 3.5 dnd, Celestial/fiendish animals don't get a bonus to their int, so it stays below 3.

This means that they cannot understand any languages, making the tongues spell worthless for this purpose.

In short, how on earth am i supposed to control them in battle??? Is it even possible??