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The level one synthesist wants to take the following two evolutions:

Shadow Blend (Su)*
In any condition of illumination other than bright light, the eidolon disappears into the shadows, giving it concealment (20% miss chance). If it has the shadow form evolution, it instead gains total concealment (50% miss chance). The eidolon can suspend or resume this ability as a free action. Source: Advanced Race Guide

Shadow Form (Su)*
The eidolon's body becomes shadowy and more indistinct. This shadow form grants the eidolon constant concealment (20% miss chance), and its melee attacks affect incorporeal creatures as if it had the ghost touch weapon property. The eidolon's melee attacks deal only half damage to corporeal creatures. Source: Advanced Race Guide

So I looked up lighting conditions and determined that next adventure he would be mostly in "normal" light. The Core book describes this as:

"Normal light functions just like bright light, but characters with light sensitivity and light blindness do not take penalties. Areas of normal light include underneath a forest canopy during the day, within 20 feet of a torch, and inside the area of a light spell."

So since normal light is described as just like bright light, with two exceptions, does this mean that under normal light the shadow blending in ineffective?

I've got the Pathfinder Society boon allowing me to start a character based on one of these three races - and I am at a loss. I keep exploring and discarding various race/class/concepts and end up going in circles. So my question is, if you had such a boon and were building a PFS character - what would you do and why?

Presuming that you have the skill, and are not in combat or otherwise distracted, is it legal to take 20 on knowledge rolls?

In PFS I am occasionally playing with a summoner, who I presume is the master summoner arch-type, who swarms the enemy with packs of dogs. He summons multiple dogs in the same summoning, appearing and attacking at once. I believe as many as five. At one point he had nine on the board at once. He is currently third level. I can't figure out how he does this.

I will inevitably be his GM at some point. I want to hold him to the rules, but I don't want to be obnoxious about it. But I am concerned that his dog pack will overwhelm many encounters in many scenarios.

So I am looking for any rules I should be sure to enforce, and any tactical advice suitable for PFS scenarios or modules.

Thanks!

I'll be running this scenario Saturday. I see that the three reviews of this scenario are very critical. Yet when I read it through it seems like it would be a fun scenario.

Those of you who have GMed or played this scenario, what advice do you have for me?

So the party is beating on this Bearded Devil. The alchemist is down, after taking massive hit point damage from 2 claws and the beard. The two party clerics heal him back up a bit above zero. The alchemist, staying down, elects to stab at the Devil with a silver dagger. The Devil fights back, hits with a claw, knocks the alchemist back unconscious, at which point the player helpfully suggests to the GM that the Devil could attack a different character with the second claw attack - which the Devil in fact does.

Next round, same thing - Clerics bring alchemist back to above zero, alchemist stabs at Devil, Devil hits with one claw, and elects to use second claw against a different character.

Now consider the Devil's position. He knows he is not going to win the fight, in a round or two he will be defeated and returned to hell. He is evil. Wouldn't it be more evil, (especially considering that the alchemist isn't doing total defense or playing dead) to hit the alchemist with the second claw, which then activates the beard attack, most likely killing the alchemist outright? In other words wouldn't an evil outsider prefer to kill rather than randomly spread ineffectual damage around different party members?

On the other hand this was a PFS game, does the alchemist in this case "deserve" to die? What would you do if you were the GM?

There seems to be an ongoing discussion/argument claiming that overly optimized characters are too powerful and are damaging to organized play. Some posters argue that it is not that optimized players are too strong, it is that PFS scenarios are too weak.

My admittedly limited experience differs. I find the most important variable to be the size and level of the party relative to the tier being played.

Recently I played 2 different tier 1-2 scenarios. In the first we had 2 first level characters and 2 second levels. It was the most exciting PFS game I have ever played. For several rounds I thought we were facing a TPK, and we all felt like heroes when we defeated the bad guys. In the next game we had 2 first levels and 4 third levels. Yes, we elected to play down. It was the most boring PFS game I have played. We massacred the bad guys without really trying.

Consider that the tier 1-2 scenario is supposed to work for anything from four first level characters to 6 characters of mixed levels one, two, and three, up to 5 third levels playing down. This is asking a lot.

Consider the difference between 4 players and 6, all of the same level. The group with 6 is 50% stronger, is it not?

Consider the difference in levels, would it not be fair to say that a second level character is roughly 50% more powerful than a first, and a third level twice as powerful?

If this very rough math is correct, then the "Power" the scenario must deal with ranges from 4 (4 first levels), all the way up to 10 (5 third levels). So the strongest party a scenario must handle is 2.5 x stronger than the weakest.

Is my math screwed up, or I am just arguing something that is already obvious? In any case it seems to me that this imbalance is the key problem in organized play, more so than optimized players.

I played at a table yesterday where the GM declared that PCs could not know how badly damaged a character was, and it was bad form to let the cleric know how many hit points the PC had remaining. This was in the middle of a combat. The ruling was that the cleric could only know if someone was wounded, whether it was one point of damage or one point remaining could not be known. I didn't ask but I think he meant only during combat, as once combat was done it would be simple enough to inspect the various wounds. He also argued that there was a clerical spell that tracked this information, which meant that normally the information was not available.

This struck me as kind of dumb. I don't think there is a rule, other than the spell he mentioned, that backs up his interpretation. Correct me if I am wrong. Or perhaps it is a sort of unwritten rule that many GMs follow.

My inclination is to play it his way when he is GM, and forget about it when I GM or with other GMs.

What do you think? How do you do it at your table?

I was the GM for a society game for the first time yesterday and nearly inflicted a TPK. I determined that the boss monster's wand was not fully charged to avoid this. So questions:

1) Was I a wimp? Should I have played it out without pulling punches? Two party members were still up, they still had a chance to win.

2) How common should it be for PCs to die?

3) How common should a TPK be in society play?

Thanks!

I assume you add up experience points and then divide by the number of characters.