Tom Sampson's page

Taja the Barbarian wrote:

Wrong John Silver wrote:

I've been thinking about using PF1 in an OSR way. And that led me to wonder: what happens to the martial-caster disparity if metamagic rods just don't exist? What if you can't find them, can't buy them, can't make them?

Is this idea coming from 'personal experience' with these rods, or just from seeing them on the item lists?

Two things, mainly. First, every build for a caster I see involves a time of "just add metamagic rods," and that regularly suggests to me that they're too important as part of a build, and thus improving diversity in the space involves banning them. I wanted to be sure there wouldn't be some unforeseen effect from doing so.

The main unforeseen effect will be widening the gap between full spellcasters and partial spellcasters, as full spellcasters can far more easily afford the spell level costs of metamagics.

Second, I greatly dislike the magic mart and will not allow the simple purchase of magic items (except for some low-level potions and scrolls). However, I'm aware how Wealth By Level expects the ability to convert gold into magic items without issue.

This has been put to the test a great many times and will commonly result in greater spellcaster supremacy, because the spellcasters now have a much tighter monopoly on magic and thus the gap between being a spellcaster and not being one is now much greater. It is actually the martial classes that rely upon magic items the most.

Tom Sampson wrote:

The Wizard only feels like he is a step ahead on odd levels. On even levels, the Arcanist typically feels superior to both the Wizard and Sorcerer as a best-of-both-worlds spellcaster

A 6th level Wizard can have four different 3rd level spells and six different 2nd level spells at their disposal. An Arcanist gets one and two respectively; you are so far behind the Wizard here that it's not even funny. In combat a Wizard will often just have the right spell prepared and can cast them immediately, while your Arcanist will have to take a move action to pull out your spellbook, a full-round action to quick study, and then two rounds later you can cast the right spell. Most of the time you won't have the luxury of doing that, and will just have to cast whatever you have prepared right now. Even when you do have time to Quick Study, very often you are just going to be studying a staple spell that a Wizard would have prepared or a Sorcerer would have learned. In these cases, you're waiting 2 rounds and spending valuable action economy and reservoir just to match the baseline of Wizard or Sorcerer. There are many common circumstances where Quick Study is the worst of both worlds. And when we specifically compare against the vast repertoire of a 6th level Wizard, you're going to be the worse far more often than you are the better of both worlds.

This is a bizarrely idealized circumstance for the Wizard. In your scenario, the Wizard is evidently entering the encounter with all of his 3rd level spells intact, all of them are different spells, one of them will happen to be the right spell to solve the encounter (and thus whichever spell(s) that turn out to be ineffective will not weigh him down), the Arcanist's 3rd-level spell will happen to be invalid, 2nd-level and 1st-level spells will not suffice to address the encounter at hand, the Arcanist didn't simply enter combat with his spellbook in hand, and while the Arcanist uses his move action to draw his spellbook he will not be using his standard action to cast something useful. Realistically speaking the Wizard will not have all 3 of his 3rd level spells during an important encounter and runs a risk of having prepared the wrong spell in which case 2 rounds will not even be enough for a Wizard to remedy this issue. The guessing game is the primary difficulty of Wizards.

Meanwhile the Arcanist can either attempt to switch his spell with the Quick Study exploit in combat or he can simply use his 3rd level slot(s) to cast a 2nd level spell if need be, which will often also prove effective. If the Arcanist has an arcane bond, he can also spontaneously cast any spell within his spellbook regardless of whether or not it is one of his spells prepared. If the party scouted out the foes or dangers ahead of time, the Arcanist can even quietly use quick study to switch his spell to better prepare for the encounter by taking 6 seconds (1 round) of time before combat has even begun. If the Arcanist has the School Savant archetype, he can even have an additional spell prepared for every spell level he is capable of casting.

Outside of combat, a Wizard can just leave slots empty to be prepared later in the day, something they can afford to do because they have more spells slots than you to begin with and don't need to consume spells. With Fast Study, it doesn't even take them very long.

This is indeed a strength of the Wizard and a good decision, but not really an advantage compared to the Arcanist, who could also leave spells unprepared in order to perform partial spell preparation later in the day while remaining even less burdened by the issues of leaving a spell unprepared because he can use all his spell slots regardless.

As to the comparison with Sorcerer, if the Sorcerer really wants to prioritize spell flexibility above all else they can afford a Ring of Spell Knowledge type II by 6th level, giving them essentially a better version of Quick Study for 1st and 2nd level spells. The Arcanist is only at an advantage with 3rd level spells, of which he gets only three per day, and is just plain outclassed at 1st and 2nd level spell slots. The Arcanist definitely has his advantages here; he's got much better flexibility at his highest spell level, and the Sorcerer spent a lot of money to replicate a better version of Quick Study. But that is the reality of the situation, any Sorcerer willing to splurge has access to a better version of Quick Study.

I believe we've discussed this before. I would not call it a better version of Quick Study because the Sorcerer is ultimately limited at 4th level spells when using the Ring of Spell Knowledge and will typically be unable to cast his 2 highest spell levels with a ring and only fall behind further from level 14 onwards and would need to wear additional rings if he wishes to flexibly cast more than one spell at a time in this fashion, unlike the Arcanist who can simply swap all his spells. All this wealth expended will also put the Sorcerer behind when it is time to purchase a lesser metamagic rod for the quicken spell metamagic. What you recommend are certainly good purchases but the Arcanist is nevertheless significantly advantaged here even when the Sorcerer is using them and the Arcanist needs far fewer system mastery tricks to be so advantaged.

Age categories are typically not appropriate for PC's, but the same applies to Wizard and Sorcerer.

Age categories and their bonuses to mental ability scores are fully intended for use by PCs. That is likely a major reason why they carry such increasingly vicious penalties to physical ability scores. They are simply unpopular because of those penalties. Allow me to cite the relevant rules on age from Pathfinder Core:

You can choose or randomly generate your character's age. [emphasis added] If you choose it, it must be at least the minimum age for the character's race and class. Alternatively, roll the dice indicated for your class on Table: Random Starting Ages and add the result to the minimum age of adulthood for your race to determine how old your character is.

With age, a character's physical ability scores decrease and his mental ability scores increase (see Table: Aging Effects). The effects of each aging step are cumulative. However, none of a character's ability scores can be reduced below 1 in this way.

When a character reaches venerable age, secretly roll his maximum age and record the result, which the player does not know. A character who reaches his maximum age dies of old age sometime during the following year.

The maximum ages are for player characters. Most people in the world at large die from pestilence, accidents, infections, or violence before getting to venerable age.

You are of course correct that the same applies to the Wizard and Sorcerer but so long as you have enough or more than enough spells you are fine either way for your encounters. That is also a major reason why this sort of comparison is increasingly less important at higher levels where there are more than enough spells to address all your needs regardless, assuming you are not simply in the habit of trying to solve all your problems with only your highest levels of spells, anyway.

At any rate, playing a character with all the added frailties of old age might not be the most fun for someone new to spellcasters.

Dasrak wrote:

One of the biggest advantages the Sorcerer has over the Arcanist is spell slots. The Arcanist is really tight on spell slots, and is only made even tighter by its reliance on Consume Spells to fuel its hunger for reservoir. A 6th level Arcanist with 22 Intelligence has 13 spell slots total, while the Sorcerer with 22 Charisma has 19 spell slots.

I'm assuming some of those slots are reserved for bloodline spells?

I'm still unpacking how the sorcerer's spells per day work vs their spells known.

The books say a sorcerer's spells known are not affected by their charisma.

Example: At level 12, sorcerers have a single 6th level spell they know, and have enough spell slots they can use it three times (before modifiers), correct?

Spells per day and spells known are wholly separate mechanics. The Sorcerer does not have any spell slots reserved for bloodline spells. Bloodline spells are just bonus spells known that can be cast with any spell slot. The Sorcerer's charisma score indeed does not affect their spells known, only their spells per day. And yes, a 12th level Sorcerer only has a single 6th level spell known. Oracles are more advantaged in this respect, as they obtain their mystery spells at the same level they obtain a higher level of spells known.

I dont know why everyone is bringing up wizards, Wizard was never on the table, I'm pondering Arcanist or Sorcerer, No interest in Wizard...

Ah, noted. I would honestly just recommend playing an Arcanist with at least 20 int then. It's the easiest to use. The Blood Arcanist archetype will already enable you to get ordinary Sorcerer bloodlines if you want, in which case the Arcane bloodline is a decent choice, using an arcane bond as an Arcanist would treat the contents of their spellbook(s) as the spells they know, meaning you could use your arcane bond to spontaneously cast any spell in your spellbook even if you haven't prepared it. Incidentally, the additional spells known bestowed by the arcane bloodline's 9th level power ("New Arcana") would for an Arcanist instead become additional spells prepared of that level. ("Feats and other effects that modify the number of spells known by a spellcaster instead affect the number of spells an arcanist can prepare.")

The Arcanist has two major advantages for spellcasting: First, it can change its spell selection daily and even change a spell mid-day, perhaps even mid-combat, with a single full round action by using the Quick Study exploit. Second, it can expend arcane reservoir points to raise a spell's caster level or spell DC, especially when using the Potent Magic exploit. These advantages tend to make the Arcanist the easier and more effective choice.

I will have to disagree somewhat with Azothath. The False Focus feat states "By using a divine focus as part of casting, you can cast any spell with a material component costing the value of that divine focus (maximum 100 gp) or less without needing that component." Nowhere does it claim or imply any sort of restriction that this feat only applies to the basic material component cost or that it does not cover additional, optional, or alchemical components. Therefore, such a restriction does not exist. It would indeed not cover foci, however, as foci are not the same as material components.

As such, this feat does indeed allow you to cover cover any total component cost up to 100gp without needing that component. Since these are indeed material components used to cast a spell and the feat only cares about the final, total cost, you could use it to replicate the effect of any 1st-level or 0th-level scroll to apply to Parchment Swarm. The same would apply for Contingent Scroll. Personally, I do not think using a 5th level spell to replicate 1st-level or 0th-level spells is a particular issue either, truth be told.

However, not every GM would be keen on this sort of usage so it may be better to ask your GM. Some of them would likely houserule some restrictions on these interactions.

I would recommend archery. It will require some feats to become strong but it should be quite potent as it comes into its own and you could use a light crossbow at first where your strength penalty will not hinder you while your inspire courage improves the damage.

As for having the spells to keep up with only being casters, at higher levels Bards do have enough spells for this, especially if your Bard has very high charisma and thus benefits from bonus spells and higher spell DCs.

But the primary issue here really is that PCs are not sufficiently differentiated from NPCs, and that is the primary purpose of NPC classes vs PC classes as well as level differences between PCs and NPCs.

I think d20's problem was treating PCs like something other than NPCs with no in game justification, unlike the way that Scion and other games do.

Like sure, have your heroes able to fend off armies, but because they're demigods, not just because the players have been playing awhile.

I believe this problem is more specific to Pathfinder. NPC classes exist for a reason, but in Pathfinder content they aren't used so much. And not only are NPCs commonly using PC classes, but it is also more common to feature high level NPCs. As such, in PF the primary differences between a player character and an NPC tend to be ability scores and wealth.

If you had a setting where the average level 12 spellcaster was an Adept and the average combatant was a Warrior, the in-game justification becomes much clearer.

Energy type isn't as much of an issue for spontaneous spellcasters. A Sorcerer can simply cast a spell that does electricity damage instead of a fire spell in the first place and so on. As a blaster, he is expected to have a variety of spells that inflict different damage types and perhaps target different saves. While he will not do +4 damage per die when casting a spell that isn't fire damage, he will still do +2 damage per die from the Orc bloodline and Blood Havoc bloodline mutation. Overcoming spell resistance is achieved by raising the caster level of your spells and feats like Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, and Piercing Spell or by casting spells that do not offer spell resistance in the first place, like Stone Discus. Saving throws are overcome by casting spells that target different saving throws (like fortitude) or offer no saving throw at all (such as Scorching Ray) but you could use feats like Spell Focus or Elemental Focus and their greater variants.

With the Flumefire Rage feat a Sorcerer can achieve +4 damage per die (and a Bloodrager could achieve +3 damage per die by combining it with bloodline mutations).

And adding half your level to spell damage is not very good compared to obtaining damage per damage die when as a blaster it is standard practice to raise your caster level (the Varisian Tattoo and Bloatmage Initiate feats, for instance), which will also make overcoming spell resistance checks easier.

GURPS is also a tabletop RPG system designed to be played without computer support and it is far, far, far better at simulationism than Pathfinder is. I recall Gygax back in the day was quite clear on D&D being gamist rather than simulationist and I think later editions of D&D haven't particularly improved on simulationism. If simulationism is what you are after, to my understanding Pathfinder is really the wrong system to be playing. Yes, Pathfinder is mechanically dense, but it isn't terribly good at simulationist gameplay.

Generally, I prefer games that adhere to a certain standard of simulation-ist mechanics. It's a component of immersion and the meat of sourcebooks that make me actually want to read them. 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e always felt like the designers cared about modelling things, even less "important" stuff like social structures and hazards. Pathfinder did admittedly break some things; create water at-will breaks droughts and channel energy breaks battlefield hospitals (unless you treat those injuries as non-hp thing, which I think is bad for system health). But, overall, I feel Pathfinder still did a good job keeping the world-building in mind.

Pathfinder 2e and 4e don't have that same feel to me, and I can point to a lack of multiclassing as an example of the pervasive design philosophy. Both systems push power-ups on a character that aren't flavor-neutral. You have to get better at being a wizard, even if your character has second thoughts about their career choice. You have to get more dwarf-y in pathfinder 2e as you level up, even if your character isn't really interested in their heritage.

5e technically has this issue with its multiclass limitations, but no one really goes into a class without the appropriate stats so it isn't really relevant. I have enjoyed the amount of video content produced for 5e, though I have my gripes with it (crossbows and polearms, weapons famous for requiring a ton of training and being speedy to attack with). The books are also bland in comparison to 3.5, which I consider the best art-wise due to variety, and the mechanics don't flow naturally out of the surrounding text (the lore is also still very borked from 4e). Really, though, the reason I'm dropping 5e is because of the OGL; I don't feel I can support them, even with eyeballs.

So, yeah. To add a bit more to my point, if I'm not looking to mechanics for immersion, I'd just prefer a system with simpler mechanics, so there isn't much draw there for me for 2e and stuff. If there's ever a Pathfinder 3e, I'll probably check...

I will admit to quite a bit of surprise at this. Playing Pathfinder for detailed simulationism or immersive mechanics feels like a recipe for mental pain if you ask me. If that's what you want you should be playing GURPS instead. It's excellent at immersive simulation mechanics. Pathfinder is something you play for the game side of things, if you don't want to ask questions about how the game mechanics make sense as part of the world and just want to have fun with the mechanics. Extensive suspension of disbelief or taking it all in stride is a necessity for enjoying Pathfinder in my view.

The boring truth of it is that it's mostly that Pathfinder continued where 3.5 left off, and neither 4E nor 5E were a lot more simple systems so people went to Pathfinder when 3.5 stopped receiving content. Pathfinder 2E also lacks the appeal of PF1E.

Ah, let me rephrase that: The boring truth of it is mainly that Pathfinder continued where 3.5 left off, and both 4E and 5E were a lot more simple systems which for most 3.5E players wasn't quite their cup of tea so they went to Pathfinder when 3.5E stopped receiving content. Pathfinder 2E also lacks the appeal of PF1E.

I wouldn't say Pathfinder really was the fix 3.5 needed. Some of the things that Pathfinder did just make me sigh in disappointment, like powering up Wizards, the rounds per day accounting of bardic performance rounds (which messes up fascinate and inspire competence performances, in addition to the use of inspire courage for large-scale warfare), the fact that the versatile performance class feature of Bards doesn't retrain skill ranks, the fact that Rangers are ironically the class that is most punished for traveling to new places and fighting new enemies, or its insistence on reproducing boring 3.5 Core martial classes instead of a system that allows for more fun and interesting options than full attacking or attempting maneuvers that often require feats and are nevertheless poised to fail at higher levels. Pathfinder replacing 3.5's psionics with its psychic spellcasters was also just a badly designed mess if you ask me. Pathfinder picks up where 3.5 left off and while it does some things better (like the new polymorphing rules or giving everyone more class features) there are other things where I just wonder why Paizo thought that was a good idea (like the fact that Pathfinder's smite evil now applies to every attack until the target is dead...). Pathfinder was more of a sidegrade to 3.5 really.

The boring truth of it is that it's mostly that Pathfinder continued where 3.5 left off, and neither 4E nor 5E were a lot more simple systems so people went to Pathfinder when 3.5 stopped receiving content. Pathfinder 2E also lacks the appeal of PF1E.

Much like 3.5E, the game is better if you ban some parts of Pathfinder, use some small houserules, and selectively allow quality 3rd party (or 3.5E) content. But mostly you accept that the game is going to be unbalanced. The same went for 3.5E.

By 7th level of warpriest I can have the following feats, Channel Smite, Cleave, Great Cleave, Guided Hand, Heightened spell, Power Attack, Preferred Spell, Weapon Focus, and Weapon Specialization. This allows me to cast Divine Favor as a swift action and still attack. When I attack with a bastard sword, I will have a +14 to hit and be doing 1d10+15 damage. I also did not have to spend a feat to get proficiency in heavy armor.

The 7th level cleric takes the following feats, Armor Proficiency (Heavy), Channel Smite, Combat Casting, Guided Hand, and power attack. That gives him a +9 to hit and doing 1d10+9 for damage.

The Mendevian Priest Cleric, again, does not need the Heavy Armor Proficiency feat, because his archetype already gives him automatic proficiency with heavy armor. Combat Casting is also not really needed, since his wisdom score is good and any enemy within melee range of the Cleric is in a position to receive a full attack with Haste, which the Wizard, etc. should be casting, but he could take that feat if he wants. If he has the Guided weapon property, he does not need the Channel Smite or Guided Hand feats either. A simple Power Attack feat would be the only feat his build needs so far, but let's assume that's not an option and we're stuck with Guided Hand. So the Cleric could easily take Cleave and Mighty Cleave just by replacing your Heavy Armor Proficiency (which the Mendevian Priest already has) and Combat Casting.

As for your damage calculations, you seem to be assuming he would be two-handing the sword (he will not, because this is a sword & shield build, which is what bastard swords are used for) and you seem to be assuming that Divine Favor gives +4 attack and damage, but this character is still only caster level 7, so with Fate's Favored he is still only getting a +3 attack and damage bonus (it's not a +4 until level 9). So your Warpriest with Divine Favor, Weapon Focus, and Weapon Specialization has +13 to attack and does 1d10+11 (2 from strength, 4 from power attack, 2 from weapon specialization, and 3 from divine favor) damage, assuming his weapon is not a masterwork and has no enhancement bonus and there is no Haste buff which the Wizard should really be casting. He does 9.075 DPR.

He cannot spontaneously cast Divine Favor so has to memorize it using 1 spell slot for each use he plans on using. That means he will probably not have it available for every combat.

Neither does the Warpriest? Are you suggesting the Warpriest should spontaneously convert spells into Divine Favor with Preferred Spell? You could, to be sure, but that seems needlessly wasteful when you can just prepare Divine Favor multiple times (people do this all the time - you could easily make all 6 of your 1st-level slots into castings of Divine Favor if you want), and since you will not be casting Divine Favor more than once per combat, you can already afford a couple of 1st-level pearls of power to reuse a single slot of Divine Favor if you prefer. Whether you're a Warpriest or Cleric makes absolutely no difference here. Spending two whole feats on casting Divine Favor spontaneously seems like such a waste if you ask me.

On round 1 the warpriest uses fervor to cast divine favor as a swift action and uses great cleave. When attacking a creature with an AC of 22 (15 + his level) he has a DPR of 12.3 without factoring in cleave. The cleric attacking the same target has a DPR of 5.075. If the cleric casts Divine Favor or any other spell for that matter they do not get to attack on the first round and his DPR goes to 10.175 on the second round but does not have the ability to attack more than a single target.

Let's say the Warpriest uses Divine Favor and neither of them used it before combat starts. The Warpriest has a +13 bonus and does 1d10+11 damage. The Cleric will spend his first turn of combat casting Prayer instead so that he benefits the party while debuffing the enemies and obtains a +2 bonus to attack and damage instead. The first round (assuming there is no surprise round), the Cleric does no damage, and the warpriest might hit two people.

The Cleric now does 6.075 DPR, but he also raised the Magus and Swashbuckler's DPR by 2 or more since they both can attack two times per round before Haste. Realistically, if the Wizard isn't casting Haste for whatever reason the Cleric should be casting Blessing of Fervor, which would raise everyone's DPR enormously, but we'll ignore that for now.

Since the Cleric is out to do more damage, we will assume he casts Ancestral Gift and we will even assume he doesn't have a specific enemy type to use Bane against and that he took a +1 shocking (or similar property he knows enemies won't resist) bastard sword instead for the next 70 minutes. Now he averages 9 DPR too. If he uses Rags to Riches, his weapon obtains an additional +1 enhancement bonus, raising his DPR to 10.45. If it's an important enemy he really wants this dead, he will use Ferocious Strike on his attacks, raising his DPR to 12.1. The Cleric does more damage than your Warpriest. Without Prayer or Divine Favor or Ferocious Strike, the Cleric still does 7.65 DPR, but with Divine Favor he does 12 DPR without Ferocious Strike and 13.8 with Ferocious Strike. Already, the Cleric is pulling ahead in damage. If he uses a +1 bane weapon with Rags to Riches and no Divine Favor or Prayer, he gets 12.375 DPR. If he uses Divine Favor and Ferocious Strike, he does 19.95 DPR. If he's hasted, he does 42.75 DPR now whereas your Warpriest would've been doing 19.8 DPR.

Just having spells enormously raises how much damage the Cleric can do over what a Warpriest could do. Now if we are both using +1 guided bastard swords the Cleric cannot make much use of Ancestral Gift, but he could use Rags to Riches, Greater Magic Weapon (at level 8 or higher) and other spells to raise his bonuses.

This also means the cleric is not using his feats to boost his spell casting. A spell focused cleric should be using his feats for things like spell focus, spell penetration, and maybe some metamagic feats instead of combat feats.

A Cleric can largely focus on spellcasting and still be an effective melee combatant by only spending a few feats. A Cleric can also focus more heavily on a melee build and put out comparable or superior performance to the Warpriest, just because of his domains and better spellcasting.

As the warpriest levels up there are still a lot more feats he can take to improve his combat ability. By 12th level the warpriest will have picked up greater weapon focus, greater weapon specialization, Vital Strike, Improved Vital Strike and Weapon Trick (two handed). This would allow him to be doing 3d10+20 when using cleave and greater cleave. This is without figuring in sacred weapon or other magic items.

To be perfectly honest, I think Vital Strike is generally bad and you should just be full attacking instead. And when you cannot full attack, you should just be casting a spell. Also, this is not supposed to be a two-handed build, so the Weapon Trick doesn't work. And at 12th level, the Cleric's Ferocious Strike also does +6 damage instead of +3 (and he has more daily uses, courtesy of his higher wisdom score) and he now has 3 teamwork feats (and he can bestow all 3 with Shared Training at level 13), which could easily give people Outflank, Improved Outflank, and Precise Strike (or Paired Opportunists) at this point (which the Warpriest could also get as bonus combat feats instead of your choices). He is also capable of casting 6th level spells while the Warpriest is still casting 4th level spells, so he could further improve his attacks with spells like Dimensional Blade if he wants.

The amounts of feats does not matter all that much if you have more than enough feats to cover what your build needs anyway. Feats like Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization are widely agreed to be very weak feats you only really take if you have to in order to fulfill a prerequisite or when you have such an excess of feats that you might as well collect those small bonuses. In addition, I was suggesting casting Prayer for a +2 to attack and damage while giving the rest of his party a +1 to attack and damage and enemies a -1 to attack and damage (fulfilling the parts where you buff the party, buff yourself, and debuff your enemies), and Divine Favor won't bestow a +4 bonus to attack and damage (with Fate's Favored) until level 9. Not to mention it is fully possible to enter combat with Divine Favor (or Prayer, except you can't debuff enemies this way) already active, given that it will last 7 minutes at level 7 (and 9 minutes at level 9) even before any Extend Spell. You don't have to wait until the first round of combat to cast it. You can cast these spells with durations lasting in the minutes much sooner if you expect to run into combat in the next few minutes, or just end up carrying the buffs from one fight into the next before they expire.

For the most part, the difference in damage between the Warpriest and Cleric as a melee-focused character is probably going to be very small, especially with the Cleric using Ferocious Strike through the Icon of Aspects to boost his melee damage in a pinch, but the difference in the ability to cast spells for his own and the party's benefit is going to be big. The Mendevian Priest archetype also means the Cleric gets free heavy armor proficiency and free teamwork feats that he can share with the party by casting Shared Training, which is also very good for the party. I doubt martial weapon proficiency will make a difference when you will be using a bastard sword anyway, but Ancestral Gift bestows automatic proficiency with any simple, martial, or dwarven weapon you choose to summon anyway if you really want that backup martial weapon while also giving it the Guided or Bane property.

Casting self-buffs as swift actions with Fervor is handy but at the lower levels you'll be fine either way and at the higher levels the Cleric is much better off with its superior spellcasting and should be buying lesser (and perhaps normal) metamagic rods of quicken spell anyway, which means Fervor loses most of its advantage.

And comparing the system mastery required to cast properly as a Cleric vs the system mastery required to cast properly as a Warpriest is a bit silly. They are prepared divine spellcasters with the exact same spell list so there's no real difference in the system mastery and learning required. You can cast all the same basic buff spells you would as a Warpriest as a Cleric too (many do), except you can cast them earlier and more frequently as a Cleric, and SilSyphus does not need to cast all the best spells in an ideal way either just because he is a Cleric. He just needs to be an asset to the team and have access to the spells they would need or appreciate in a pinch. Being able to cast Restoration at level 7 (Cleric) vs level 10 (Warpriest) and Raise Dead at level 9 (Cleric) vs level 13 (Warpriest) makes a world of difference in terms of healing capability, for instance, and there are a host of buffing spells that he has an easier time casting as a Cleric.

This has been a lot of words to say I'm honestly confused at these claims that the Warpriest is so much better or easier than a Cleric for a melee focused character when they really do the same stuff in the same way except the Warpriest has more feats than this build needs and is much worse at fulfilling the party's needs for a support spellcaster.

Given the investment in his wis score, putting a belt into strength and dex like this seems like a very big expense for very little gain, especially when you can more easily invest into a headband of wisdom and belt of constitution. The mithral armor bit should also wait, as this character is better off with full plate armor which is the best armor for his 12 dex at the moment. Purchasing mithral armor and a dexterity belt is an expensive proposition for a few more points of AC, reflex, and initiative. It's a decent option at the high levels when you are rich enough to throw around that kind of money, but right now that is bad spending.

As for losing his sword, Guided Hand will only work with a bastard sword anyway, and he is already at a level where he can cast Ancestral Gift to summon a +1 guided bastard sword (or another weapon) for 10 minutes per level, which he could even enhance further with other spells (like Greater Magic Weapon once his caster level reaches 8 or higher and Rags to Riches), since the bastard sword counts as a martial weapon too. Of course, if he has Guided Hand he could just get a +1 bane bastard sword for whatever he is fighting instead. This is assuming he stays a Cleric, however, as otherwise he would have to wait until 10th level to be able to cast Ancestral Gift.

I do not really see the value in transitioning to a Warpriest either. You have the same spell list and BAB either way, and you should have enough feats to cover your needs either way, except the Cleric has much better spellcasting when your party will really want the healing and support spells and even you yourself can put those spells to better use. With a wisdom as high as he has, he is in a very good position to make the best of the Cleric's spellcasting too. I do not think the Warpriest's Fervor and Blessings make up for the Cleric's superior spellcasting, domain, and channel energy dice. And the Sacred Weapon damage dice are meaningless since the bastard sword already does equal or better damage until level 15 where you would really much rather be a Cleric than a Warpriest.

I would disagree with the recommendation of focusing on strength instead of wisdom when you are using the Guided Hand feat, as the increase in strength will no longer improve your attack rolls. By the way, does the GM let you get the Guided property on your weapon? If he does, you really don't have a use for strength and you won't even need the Channel Smite and Guided Hand feats.

Excuse me, but I really recommend staying as a Cleric. Your party is not lacking for combatants and the Cleric class really isn't bad at fighting either. You mentioned earlier that "there's a lot of damage dealt by both melee and ranged characters, however they lack protection, healing, debuffs and buffs." In this kind of circumstance, especially with your ability scores (22 wis), staying as a Cleric is the better option, since it is much, much better at addressing these deficiencies.

I would recommend the Mendevian Priest archetype and the Defense subdomain of the Protection domain and that you use an Icon of Aspects to gain the domain powers from the Ferocity subdomain of Strength if you can (you have a great Wis score so this will help you do a lot of damage where it matters). You can prepare domain spells, like the Barkskin spell, in higher-level domain slots too (including with metamagics like Extend Spell), so I'd honestly just fill the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th domain spell slots all with Barkskin so you can cast it on the party.

I would recommend the Reactionary and Fate's Favored traits. If you pick a Drawback for a 3rd trait, I recommend Seeker. None of these spells are too fancy, but they are all handy.

When it comes to buffing the party, you can cast Prayer as a 3rd level spell or Blessing of Fervor as a 4th level spell, but with a Wizard in the party you should already have someone casting spells like Haste and Heroism, so Blessing of Fervor is probably unneeded.

With the Mendevian Priest archetype you get to save on a Heavy Armor Proficiency feat and you get free teamwork feats which get quite a lot better when you share them with your party members using your Shared Training spell.

Frankly, cure spells aren't really worth casting most of the time.

And on a sidenote, I must correct myself on the recommendation of casting Detect Thoughts as an Alchemist or Investigator. I'd overlooked the fact that it's one of those spells the Alchemist cannot actually use, since it affects an area and extracts only affect the drinker. I may as well mention that the Alchemist can utilize Alchemical Allocation with elixirs for large skill bonuses.

I beg to differ, because at higher levels you have access to spells that make it easier to find the right people and teleport to them. It's at the early levels that you are restricted to whatever you can find in the local environment. At the high levels you can move through the planes and teleport to any and all markets to purchase whatever you'd like.

You're welcome. And there's one more thing I missed: divine spellcasters do not have any requirement to sleep in order to recover their spells. So if you cast spells rampantly right before the appointed hour of meditation as a divine spellcaster, you still recover all your spells.

When it comes to cost-effectiveness, making it yourself with Craft Wondrous Item is typically the way to go.

As for downtime concerns, usually a Wizard uses a Ring of Sustenance or similar before long, which cuts down on sleeping time enormously. That opens up time to scribe spells into your spellbook on adventuring days, provided that you have a safe resting space. If you have 6th level spells, you have ways to ensure that. There is also the Cypher Script feat if you regularly find yourself needing more time to write spells into your spellbook, especially if you want to scribe multiple spells each day.

For non-combat challenges, it is rare for there to be time pressure so sensitive that you cannot just take a 15 minute break to prepare whatever spell you deem best after you discover what the challenge is, so just leaving spell slots open tends to address those for the most part.

Druids also have access to divination spells and scouting, quite obviously. A Druid that shapeshifts into a diminutive form obtains a +12 size bonus to the stealth skill and another +6 size bonus to dexterity, totaling +15. Many animal companions are capable of sneaking about also. In addition to that, the Druid can afford to leave all his spell slots open and participate in the first combat with just his animal companion and wild shape abilities and only prepare spells accordingly afterwards, unless there is severe time pressure. The Druid can even turn into an earth elemental and use earth glide (or just rest in the sky as an air elemental, and so on) to prepare spells in a safe and unreachable location while his animal companion assists the party if anything should happen. So a Druid actually has the odd option of even going into combat blind. Druids can also choose to gamble a bit with their spell selection and rely on their ability to convert any spell that turned out to be useless into a Summon Nature's Ally spell, which tends to be rather broadly useful, especially once you start getting creative. Skill checks like Perception and Sense Motive can also provide information about your circumstances.

If a Druid wishes to use magics to obtain some kind of information about his current predicament, he can use Speak with Animals, Insect Scouts, Insect Spies, Ancestral Memory, and Commune with Nature to gather information about his situation and what sorts of challenges he may expect to be faced with. Stone Tell, Speak with Plants, and Scrying are also good for espionage.

A Ranger's options are much the same, except he has no wild shape and a weaker spell selection on the whole. But the Ranger does have additional spells to help out with stealth and perception checks. Foreknowledge does make an immense difference in how effective a Ranger is out of combat, but even if he doesn't go scouting, like the Druid, a Ranger could choose to not prepare a single spell and rely on his feats and animal companion to see him through combat and prepare accordingly once he finds out.

The Cleric is much more reliant on his choice of domains as typically Clerics do not have much in the way of stealth abilities or non-magical combat solutions and depending on their ability scores and feats they might not be able to handle combat well either. Clerics do have spells like Divination, Commune, and Ancestral Memory to inform them about their predicament. Even Augury can be used to fish for information or even directly ask whether it would be a good idea to prepare a situational spell that day. He still has a high Perception and Sense Motive, at least. And the Cleric can use various alignment-detection spells as well.

Warpriests are in the exact same situation except the Warpriest has no domain spells and its spellcasting develops more slowly.

Paladins are generally out of luck. They are typically terrible at scouting, but at least they can do "gather information" Diplomacy skill checks, if there are people around that are willing to talk. Rampant use of Detect Evil can also make it clear who the bad guys are, if they happen to be conveniently within range. Still, being Paladins, their spell list isn't really needed to handle combat encounters anyway, so once again they can afford to leave lots of slots open and fill them in as the situation develops. But the Paladin spell list isn't that versatile anyway.

Alchemist/Investigator are largely the same. They can scout with various spells to improve stealth (such as Invisibility) and perception, but for divinations their options are Detect Thoughts mainly and later on Contact Other Plane and Ancestral Memory. Other than that they can attempt various other skill checks, like diplomacy or sense motive, to gather information.

Shamans can scout with their familiars. Their hexes aren't much use for scouting, but some spirit animal abilities, such as the Lore spirit animal ability (+2 initiative, +4 stealth), can be. The Shaman typically uses spells like Augury, Insect Scouts, Divination, Commune, Commune with Nature, and Ancestral Memory. The Lore spirit also provides Contact Other Plane and whatever Wizard spells you obtained via the Arcane Enlightenment hex as well as whatever Cleric spells you obtained via the Human favored class bonus.

Arcanists have the same options that a Wizard has, except the Arcanist can afford to gamble more wildly in order to cover a wider variety of circumstances with his choice of spells because his spell slots will not go wasted so long as he has any appropriate spell, and the Shaman also has access to the Quick Study exploit that allows him to replace a prepared spell with another as a full-round action. For these two reasons, the Arcanist has an easier time developing an effective spell selection with limited information.

Hunters are actually spontaneous spellcasters.

The Magus will have to scout with Invisibility or a familiar unless he has used the Spell Blending arcana to add information-gathering spells from the Wizard list to his own spell list.

The Adept can scout with his familiar and/or the Invisibility spell. For the most part, however, the Adept is so limited in his spell list that an information vacuum makes little difference, unless the Adept has been using prestige classes or the Samsaran race's mystic past life to expand his spell list.

Tom Sampson wrote:

Normally for extra spells you just pay the costs Belafon mentioned, unless you have a Blessed Book.

Note that even with a blessed book, a character still has to pay the "fee for the privilege of copying spells." The book only eliminates the cost of scribing.

Indeed. I probably should have been more explicit in stating that the fee for copying spells is separate from the scribing cost.

There is also buying or finding a spellbook or scribing a spell that you already have prepared, which normally only matters if you lost your spellbook. And then there is independently researching a spell, which is usually used to let players develop new spells, but can also be used as a way to obtain preexisting spells without anyone else.

And we should probably mention that a Blessed Book removes the material costs of scribing spells into the book. It's unsurprisingly a popular item for people who want to scribe large amounts of spells into their spellbook, as it tends to pay for itself in the long run.

Normally for extra spells you just pay the costs Belafon mentioned, unless you have a Blessed Book.

That's the sort of logic that would have you rule that neither Druids or Rangers can use the Totem Beast or Boon Companion feats because neither of them have class features labeled as "animal companion" (they're labeled Nature Bond or Hunter's Bond) even though they are clearly meant to be able to use these feats.

The more common standard is that so long as you have a hex as a class feature you have a hex class feature. And the Hexcrafter's class features that grant hexes even specifically have "hex" in the name.

As for Combat Stamina, the relevant text is actually at the bottom of the Hex Strike feat, where it states you can spend 5 stamina points to use the feat as a free action.

You are a bit over-cautious regarding stirring controversy. I do understand your concern, however, and you needn't fret on that account.

As for my own position about the power level concerns of converting standard into swifts, I've already mentioned that it shouldn't be a problem as standard actions are already more impactful than swift actions. I actually don't really have strong opinions on any supposed vital importance of being able to use a swift action twice per round. I'm simply a bit of a stickler for making sure we understand the rules correctly, and that the rules state you can ready swift actions. I suppose I may as well clarify further, since you seem to be misunderstanding where my strong disagreement stemmed from: my tendency towards rebuke stemmed from what I viewed to be goalpost-shifting, casting aspersions, selective memory, and other conducts that I do not regard as arguing in good faith. This was the source of my annoyance and somewhat pointed replies, rather than any passion for the subject of swift actions.

Now to answer your question, honestly, if you cannot use your standard action to perform a second swift action, odds are you can do other useful things with your standard action regardless, and since either way you are consuming your first turn with powering up, you can still use a second swift action on your next turn as you proceed to full attack or similar. It's not until you find yourself needing three swift actions (an issue the Magus is more likely to have) that this is really an issue and even then your other options for standard actions are still strong. The Corset of Delicate Moves suffices for any "boss fight" or similar encounter where you might want to go the extra mile to power up quickly at any rate. In brief, I doubt balance is meaningfully impacted either way. For the most part, your ability as a Magus to start a combat with Hasted Assault and Arcane Pool and then start your next turn with a Bladed Dash spell combat using Arcane Strike is impacted negatively, I suppose, but by the time you can use Hasted Assault you were already capable of just casting Haste on the party with the same standard action or using Boots of Speed really.

That's because Paizo was bending the rules again in a FAQratta to impose a new restriction against stacking the same ability score multiple times. The most common scenario for this was a Paladin with one level of Oracle (using one of those many charisma-replaces-dex-for-AC-and-reflex revelations) adding charisma twice to reflex saving throws or someone with the Evangelist obedience of Desna adding charisma twice to concentration checks (which was actually intended at the time that the Obedience was released). You shouldn't really take that FAQ as suggesting a broader principle. It's just a specific nerf to stacking ability score bonuses.

Generally, Evangelist is a bad choice because being behind 1 spell level half of the time is an enormous loss for full spellcasters. And unless you are using Fractional BAB advancement rules, Evangelist will even cost 3/4 BAB classes a point of BAB unless you delay entry. If you are using the Evangelist prestige class as a primary spellcaster, there has to be something very strong you are gaining from your obedience to make that kind of loss worth it.

Stargazer does not progress patron spells but does progress a Witch's hexes, if you are looking for a Witch-friendly prestige class. Though I should note that the Stargazer does not, however, unlock major or grand hexes, but you can simply begin the prestige class after unlocking major hexes if you prefer.

As for the original question, I think it has been definitively answered that patron spells do not advance with prestige classes according to the rules. However, it is a very reasonable houserule to permit it anyway if your playgroup prefers.

I don't see the need to buff the Arcanist to keep up with a buffed Sorcerer, to be honest. The Arcanist is frankly an excessively potent class design and one that tends to crowd out the Sorcerer's niche for no good reason.

I do agree that being behind a single level tends to be fairly devastating to a Sorcerer compared to the Wizard (this is also an issue that Oracles share) and probably fixing that is a welcome change. However, this is the sort of endeavor that suggests making some kind of Pathfinder 1.5 (if we are not there already with the way FAQs and later books have been quietly altering the game rules) rather than a one-off homebrew project.

Runestone of Power pricing will affect a lot of classes, but there is an argument to be had that the problem is that Pearls of Power are too cheap rather than Runestones of Power being too strong. For whatever it's worth, the Pathfinder Core rules on magic item creation actually state clearly that items that give bonus spells should use Pearl of Power pricing, indicating that runestones of power are overpriced. But I could see an argument that if anything the cost of Pearls of Power should be doubled.

Use Magic Device is also a far more potent skill than you take it for. Setting aside the Razmiran Priest's absurdity, there are all kinds of extremely potent uses of UMD people do not put it towards. A very basic use of UMD is to, say, activate a Halo of Inner Calm and emulate a good alignment and that you are a member of the Tiefling race. Just like that, you now have a +2 sacred bonus to all saving throws. Another use is to use Use Magic Device to activate your Ring of Spell Knowledge to emulate another class's spell list class feature so that you can store and cast spells from another class's list without increasing the level. A classic use for Use Magic Device is activating a bead of karma from the Strand of Prayer Beads as though you are a divine spellcaster to give a temporary +4 boost to caster level - or being a Rogue who is using a Holy Avenger as though he is a good-aligned Paladin. There are plenty of magic items that will do unusual and powerful things when taken outside their normal use-cases by application of the Use Magic Device skill, and even for a Sorcerer there are some clear strong advantages to be had from use of the skill even when you aren't just carrying a scroll of Raise Dead or something because your party has no Cleric or similar.

The spells known shift is interesting, since you removed it from the favored class bonuses, which is probably a good step in the right direction. Making bloodline spells appear instantly as you unlock spell levels is a bit more iffy in my book, but might be okay. There are already similar tricks you can do with the Veiled Illusionist prestige class.

As for the bloodlines, the Sage's new Sage Spellcaster bloodline power is excessively powerful. You have essentially turned the Sage into a superior Arcanist as far as his spellcasting is concerned. The existing Sage bloodline can already be used to obtain a bloodline familiar instead of the 1st-level power which is a good enough trade for him, not to mention it is possible to use a bloodline mutation.

The Bookworm archetype is also running into the same issue of trying to turn Sorcerers into superior Arcanists.

The Divine bloodline is also excessive, giving a long list of potent benefits. The Sorcerer gains access to an entire domain's worth of spells, gains all the domain powers of that domain, gains a familiar, gains a HD 18 outsider of his choosing as a minion, and gains divine spellcasting, which means our Sorcerer can now equip full plate and a tower shield without worrying about spell failure, so long as he is indifferent to making attack rolls where the lack of proficiency would actually prove a hindrance. It provides far too many powerful benefits.

The False/Razmiran Priest homebrew is a more welcome balance fix, however, fixing the issue with casting spells with expensive components for free and reducing the amount of times this can be abused per day.

If you would like to use Magical Knack to improve your caster level, the Bard class can provide bonus hit dice with its Inspire Greatness performance, at which point Magical Knack will indeed raise your caster level by 2. It's not that popular a trick though because if you are aiming for a high caster level you are still going to end up with a caster level exceeding your hit dice, causing Magical Knack to do nothing.

If you want to obtain a higher caster level, there is Strand of Prayer Beads, Orange Prism Ioun Stone (typically used with a Wayfinder so it doesn't orbit your head where anyone can try to do things to it), casting Death Knell, the Aether drug (but you'll have to learn the drug usage rules in Pathfinder), various feats (Varisian Tattoo, Spell Specialization, Bloatmage Initiate), various traits (such as Gifted Adept), and more.

The Seducer's Seducer's Kiss class feature can actually be quite decent. If the Witch just uses a +1 conductive longspear (or an elven-branched spear, likely with Weapon Finesse and perhaps even Combat Reflexes and the agile weapon property), the Witch could actually afflict someone with the kiss as an attack of opportunity once per round, since it has unlimited uses per day.

Garden of Delight, however, rewards your PC for having sex with the entire party (and even familiars and animal companions... Was this intentional, given the "any creature" wording?) every night, which is going to have severe roleplaying consequences, although the bonus is redundant with the Heroism spell. I'd ask the GM if you can have that as an automatic bonus for resting there without any sexual activity involved or otherwise just pretend this aspect doesn't exist. Honestly, who on earth came up with this?

I think my greatest disappointment with the Seducer is that it has no notion of classical seduction, which needn't be sexual at all but is more about leading people astray, getting them to follow your wishes, and that sort of thing, so it doesn't even properly fulfill the sort of roleplaying reason one might have for selecting the archetype. At any rate, so long as you ignore that ill-conceived sexual mechanic of Garden of Delight, the archetype is fine.

I think you are underrating that Loremaster dip quite a bit. If you take Secret of Magical Discipline 3 or more times, your ability to always cast the right spell, even if that spell is not on your spell list, becomes a thing of absurdity. The only real cost to this is the amount of feats it takes, but the Cauldron hex can account for one of them, at least. Losing 1 level of hex progression while maintaining spellcasting is a minor loss, all told.

While conventional illusions can be quite good, Veiled Illusionist is also usually desired more for shadow spells, which are very versatile.

As for the Mind patron, Create Mindscape is generally overpowered for the simple reason that even when the enemy passes a save they still have to spend time performing the proper activities to exit the mindscape, during which time their bodies are unable to act and lose their dexterity bonus to AC and your party can do whatever they like to your enemies. If you declare that the exit condition is to submerge yourself in a pool of water for a minute, then everyone who passes the will save needs to enter the mindscape's pool and spend 1 minute there before exiting. Create Greater Mindscape is even worse in this respect as you can target an entire encounter, removing the risk that anything will happen to your body. And Mindscape Door becomes downright necessary as a defense against these sorts of stunts but also has some utility in using mindscapes normally. Psychic Asylum is mostly used to prepare spells as a swift action. As for Microcosm, everything that fails its will save is essentially mentally sealed within, unless it can cast Wish or Miracle, so it's practically a multi-targeting will save or die spell, especially since you can just kill them all while they're sealed. Here are the rules on mindscapes.

In addition, it would be good to mention the Iron Collar of the Unbound Coven in your guide, as it clearly empowers the coven hex. If you're splitting the cost 3 ways, and are perhaps even using Craft Wondrous Item, you could get this working at level 9 without much issue. There is also the Grand Coven ritual to empower the coven further by recruiting more members, but the numbers are typically impractical unless you are using the Leadership feat or you have a party of 7 with the coven hex. Usually, however, you obtain and expand a coven's spells by incorporating various hags or a witchfire into your coven.

For races, I think there are a couple of mentions you could stand to add:

Tiefling is usually a thematic pick, and it has good ability scores for it. Usually one trades for scaled skin, prehensile tail, and darklands guide as a Tiefling.
Yaddithian is a bestiary race, though not an overpowered one, and worth noting for its unusual ability to store all your spells in your mind rather than your familiar.
Ifrit has a lavasoul variant that has good ability scores and it can get +4 to initiative along with raising the DC of effects that cause the fascinated condition, and the Witch has a few such spells that are decent, such as Mad Sultan's Melody.
Kitsune has a variant with +2 int and it raises the DCs of enchantment spells by 1.
Wayang is really only a consideration if you want to cast a lot of shadow spells, but in that case it is very strong since the race itself has a +1 to shadow subschool spell DCs and a number of GMs restrict usage of the shadow stencil set, which bestows another +1 to shadow DCs, to the wayang race also. Its favored class bonus even adds shadow spells from the Wizard list to the Witch's spells.

The Sylph race could also stand to mention Like the Wind (+5 foot speed) and Whispering Wind (+4 stealth) alternates.

I agree that the Seducer archetype has the potential to ruin or frustrate roleplay, but it also facilitates playing as the Gathlain race whose favored class bonus adds Druid spells to the Witch's list

I think you're underrating the Beast-Bonded archetype as well, since at-will Magic Jar is a very strong ability and the fact that you no longer have to worry about your familiar dying and removing your ability to prepare spells is also a strong benefit. It even allows you to give feats to your familiar, which combined with the body-snatching surely has its uses.

You're missing the Mind patron. You also seem to be severely underrating the Gate spell for some reason.

I'd also like to recommend the following prestige classes:

• Loremaster: You only ever need 1 level, the Cauldron hex covers a feat prerequisite, and with a high int you can immediately take the bonus feat secret for a Secret of Magical Discipline feat. Secret of Magical Discipline is very very strong and since you only need 1 level of the prestige class it works quite well for witches.
  
• Pathfinder Savant: Not as exciting but also useful and versatile, assuming you use Prestigious Spellcaster. It's better if you like using scrolls or Use Magic Device.
  
• Veiled Illusionist: The only feat prerequisite is a feat you'll likely want anyway. The main appeal is all those illusion spells, like if you wanted to cast Invisibility, Mirror Image, or Shadow Enchantment for instance.

Evangelist should also be rated lower. I know some people like it but... being behind 1 level of spell progression really hurts for a spellcaster, so you should honestly avoid it unless you have some kind of crazy trick in mind.

I'll have to caution you that in PF "tanking" is not really a role as there are no good ways in PF to really force your enemies to attack you. High AC and low damage means that monsters ignore you as obviously a bad target unless the GM is being unusually accommodating. Typically what you just do as a martial to keep your allies safe is stand or move in front of them and use a large threatened area with AoOs to try to keep enemies from being able to move past you, typically with Trip or Stand Still maneuvers. In 1st-party Pathfinder, "taunting" foes is only really feasible with the Antagonize feat or magic like the Suggestion spell.

With that said, there is actually a Path of War class for this, specifically the Warder, as the Iron Tortoise and Eternal Guardian disciplines in particular seem quite suited for this playstyle. Iron Tortoise actually does possess some maneuvers that are designed to cause enemies to attack you (enraging strike and taunting turtle) but you will want the Discipline Focus feat to make those DCs work, and the Armiger's Mark class feature also lets you taunt enemies rather effectively. The Shield Brace feat also works for two-handing weapons with a shield. Also, Golden Lion maneuvers that give morale bonuses are much stronger with the Community-Minded trait, turning their 1 round durations into 3 round durations.

If you select 16 str - 12 dex - 12 con - 14 int - 10 wis - 7 cha as your point buy and play a Dual Talent Human, you can obtain a +2 to both Strength and Intelligence (18 str and 16 int total, or you could switch those scores around for 16 str and 18 int if you prefer all the benefits a Warder gets from his int, such as raising the saving throw DCs of taunting abilities among other things) and you should put your favored class bonus towards extra armiger's mark uses. I also very strongly recommend retraining hit points whenever possible to maximize your hit dice ("Unless stated otherwise, retraining costs gp equal to 10 × your level × the number of days required to retrain." and retraining hit points takes 3 days per hit point - if you have no master, the price does not go up but the actual time spent training is doubled) seeing as this character is made to get attacked and you have a d12 hit die. Maximizing hit points is very much worth it, if not necessary, for a character who intends to get attacked a lot.

For non-Path of War solutions, a reach cleric with the Growth subdomain and the Combat Reflexes and Stand Still or Improved Trip (Dirty Fighting is a valid substitute for Combat Expertise if you prefer) feats and likely a race that gets extra domain power uses as their favored class bonus (Dwarf, Half-Elf (using the Elf favored class bonus), or Half-Orc really) would also work.

By RAW, no, but that doesn't make much sense at this stage. After the spellbook preparation ritual business, it's clear that there are all kinds of spellbooks for non-Wizards which had to have been scribed somehow. Cold Irony is explicitly written by a Bard who did not require a spellbook somehow. Even stranger is that the rules from Arcane Anthology explicitly permit prepared divine casters to make meditation books the same way as spellbooks are made.

I would say just ask your GM. Some won't allow it, playing by RAW. Some will just allow it outright. And some will allow it so long as you have the Scribe Scroll feat. Me, I would allow it so long as you have Scribe Scroll, since this usually gets used with Mnemonic Vestment, Ring of Spell Knowledge, Lore Oracle's Arcane Archivist revelation (which can be obtained as a variant multiclass Oracle), Versatile Spontaneity feat, Arrowsong's Lament masterpiece, etc. I think it makes more sense thematically this way (if you can scribe a scroll, it makes sense for you to know how to write a spellbook despite not being a Wizard), and it's a valuable enough capability for a spontaneous caster that paying a little bit for it makes sense too.

But another idea that is certainly rules legal and may work well for your character is to use Craft Wondrous Item and use it to make Pages of Spell Knowledge which you place inside a book binding as a spellbook. That would actually make your Sorcerer's spellbook a very real spellbook for you.

Anywhere but Here, Shadow Walk (coterminous to Material Plane only), Janni's Jaunt, Limited Wish, Wish, Miracle. Getting Plane Shift as a SLA (various obedience boons) or scroll or staff or equipping Amulet of the Planes should work as well.

Answer to Question 1
Domain levels from your base class and Exalted prestige class do not stack, unfortunately. There are prestige classes that do stack with existing domain levels (Hellknight Signifer, Stargazer, and Dawnflower Anchorite, for instance), but Exalted, for whatever reason, does not. I'd say that Exalted's domain powers would at most be capped at 10th level but if you are particularly strange you can advance the Exalted prestige class with the Evangelist prestige class and obtain both sets of boons. So if you choose to follow 5 levels of Exalted with 10 levels of Evangelist, you would have 14 levels of Exalted. The last 4 levels of advancing as if you took extra levels in Exalted would do nothing except scale up any class features that scale with Exalted level. This is not particularly worthwhile, especially since you lose a level of advancement thanks to Evangelist, but since we are discussing the upper maximum, I would suspect 14 levels of domain powers from Exalted to be that upper limit, assuming no epic levels.

Answer to Question 2
Correct. Regardless of advancement of domain powers, your access to domain spells scales with your caster level and spell slot. If a Cleric were to enter the Veiled Illusionist prestige class, for instance, he would still obtain access to all his domain spells as he continues advancing spellcasting despite not advancing any of his domain powers. So you would have full access to all 3 domains' spell lists at full caster level for your domain slots. This is also sometimes used as a way for Druids with a domain bond to add a Cleric domain. 6 levels of Druid followed by Exalted with a single Shaping Focus feat gives the Druid sufficient advancement of wild shape for most purposes.

Answer to Question 3
The text "The exalted can use each spell-like ability only if she is able to cast divine spells of that level." uses your spellcasting to determine access to SLAs, meaning that if you can cast a spell of that level, you obtain access to the domain SLA of that level. So if you can cast 9th level spells, you gain all 9 domain spells as a spell-like ability once per day. If you have 6 levels of Druid and 5 levels of Exalted, then you can cast spells of the 6th level, so every domain spell from your Exalted domain from spell levels 1 to 6 is gained as a spell-like ability, and as you continue advancing spellcasting and unlocking higher level spells, you gain access to higher level spell-like abilities.

Just to be clear, spell-like abilities do not have caster level requirements to be usable. An Aasimar can use Daylight as a spell-like ability at level 1 with a caster level of 1, for instance, despite that being a 3rd-level spell, so the caster level of the Exalted spell-like abilities has no bearing on when you unlock them.

You cannot make a disarm against a target you cannot attack. So, unless the weapon you are using has reach you cannot make a disarm against a whip unless the target is next to you. When you make a disarm you are targeting the character not the weapon. A GM is of course free to allow it, but that is a house rule not the way the game normally works.

This is the issue, yes. There does tend to be table variation on this specific issue because while the player is not within reach of the threatened area, the weapon through which the AoO is provoked is within the threatened area at the time of provoking the AoO so at some tables you are allowed to take AoOs that target the weapon but the not the hand that wields it.

I suspect you're right though. If an enemy using the Lunge feat hits you at 10 feet, provoking an AoO by making an unarmed strike without Improved Unarmed Strike, while you do not have 10 feet of reach, you typically do not get to take that AoO anyway and do him damage by targeting his fist, because he is technically still outside your threatened area. (Interestingly enough though, Lunge does increase your threatened area for the duration of your turn, so if someone does something that provokes an AoO on your turn while you are lunging, you actually get the extra threatened area to make the AoO.)

So by that token, under this ruling, you do not get to take any attack of opportunity if someone performs a combat maneuver with a whip from a distance where you do not threaten them, not even by targeting the whip. So although Whip Mastery does not stop his attack from provoking an AoO, performing the maneuver from a sufficient distance as to be outside their threatened area would still prevent the AoO.

Incidentally, on the subject of sundering whips, if the whip in question happens to be a stinging whip instead of a regular whip, then the whip is made of metallic wire and would have 30 hitpoints and 10 hardness, assuming it is not made of special material.

To do that, you need to use Stike Back.

It is one of the first things I learned in this forum. Before that, I was convinced that you could do it simply by reading an action without needing a specific feat.

The Strike Back feat actually allows you to do hp damage with a non-reach melee weapon to someone attacking you with a reach weapon with a readied action. (By the way, if you are readying an action for a melee attack and haven't moved that turn, you can take a 5 foot step as part of that readied action to give yourself reach. Depending on how you move, that 5 foot step can even move you outside their attack range, such as by stepping into adjacent range of someone with a reach weapon or stepping out of the way to hit someone else the moment they try to attack.) And sometimes there are feats that allow you to do things that are normally permitted without it. The False Casting feat, for instance, lets you use the bluff skill to deceive people into thinking you are spellcasting while using a spell-like ability or magic item, which seems like a basic use of the skill, not a feat. I think the original Prone Shooter feat was especially egregious in this regard, as it removed the attack penalty for shooting a crossbow while prone (there is no such penalty).

The key phrase is here: "The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun." So the RAW is pretty unambiguous: Readied actions take place outside your turn but reorder your initiative afterwards. They do not change when your turn ends for rules purposes.

And that should be enough to settle it.

I'm pretty sure this exists specifically to prevent weird "end of turn" issues where in order to ensure you have 1 end of turn each round, you would have to resolve your "end of turn" retroactively at your normal spot in the turn order if your readied action doesn't happen that round but much later if it does happen (which works horribly with Create Pit, where failing to take a readied action might somehow result in you falling in before an enemy moves to attack you or an ally takes their turn, radically reshaping the round, and if multiple people have readied actions at the edge of a Create Pit the permutations get out of control and if their readied actions affect other people's readied actions you could even achieve temporal paradox), and that's why I don't think Diego Rossi's ruling is a good way to go even if we are ignoring RAW above. The alternative would be to give you your "end of turn" at the normal time but also let just count it as a new "end of turn" on top of your regular end of turn if you get a readied action, but then we run into issues like readying actions so you can double-count Path of Glory effects with multiple end-of-turn interactions each round, and that's not even going into the absurdity that is possible with Overwatch Style and Overwatch Vortex, where you can ready four ranged attack actions, letting you effectively "end your turn" five times per round, and that's before we count stunts that let you essentially take additional standard actions.

For sanity's sake, you should only get one "end of turn" event per round (unless you somehow get entire extra turns, ie. Time Stop), and that should happen when your turn actually ends at its original spot in the turn order. Readying an action will change your initiative, but your turn still ended at its original time, as the text indicates. If you somehow get an effect that lasts until the end of your turn from your readied action, I just rule it lasts until your next turn ends. A bit odd, but no different from what is possible with Contingency or various other methods of granting people standard actions outside their turn and those don't affect initiative.

You should not be recommending Kineticist to a new player. Come on. That class is a bit of a mess of convoluted mechanical interactions.

I would honestly recommend the Paladin, perhaps the Tempered Champion archetype if you want to trade out spellcasting for feats, although I think having Paladin spellcasting is okay because the player doesn't have to cast spells until he wants to, and he gets to learn a variety of game mechanics without being overwhelmed. It only gets 2+int skills, but if you play a Human Paladin and put your favored class bonus into skills (which is advised, because the Paladin is good at self-healing and staying alive but has poor skills), you get 4+int skills (and a much-appreciated bonus feat for being Human). You can also put a feat into Cunning if you want another skill per level. The Paladin very much lends itself to a virtuous knight sort of character, involves charisma, and has a good will save, even if you were to dump wisdom (which is honestly a reasonable call for a Paladin).

If he takes the weapon divine bond (which is a popular choice) instead of the mount bond, he won't have a mount either.

You can activate the book, but you can't use it unless you have the Lore master class feature.

Book of the Loremaster wrote:

a bard can consult it while using the lore master class feature in order to gain a +5 competence bonus

To use the book you need to use the class feature, not simply "convince" the book that you have it. The book will add its bonus to the check made using the class feature, but without the class feature it add to nothing.

Excuse me, but this is wrong. The entire point of Use Magic Device is to let you use magic devices when you don't have the appropriate qualities to activate them normally (and also, the Book of the Loremaster cannot be activated unless you are using the lore master class feature). As the "emulate a class feature" description explicitly states, "sometimes you need to use [emphasis added] a class feature to activate a magic item" and emulating a class feature provides the capacity to be treated as using a class feature for the purposes of using the magic device.

I think this will help. I'll quote the 3.5 PHB's UMD text for reference, with the missing example text intact, which I bolded:

Emulate a Class Feature: Sometimes you need to use a class feature to activate a magic item. In this case, your effective level in the emulated class equals your Use Magic Device check result minus 20. For example, Lidda finds a magic chalice that turns regular water into holy water when a cleric or an experienced paladin channels positive energy into it as if turning undead. She attempts to activate the item by emulating the cleric’s undead turning ability. Her effective cleric level is her check result minus 20. Since a cleric can turn undead at 1st level, she needs a Use Magic Device check result of 21 or higher to succeed.

This skill does not let you actually use the class feature of another class. It just lets you activate items as if you had that class feature.

If the class whose feature you are emulating has an alignment requirement, you must meet it, either honestly or by emulating an appropriate alignment with a separate Use Magic Device check (see above).

Note that Pathfinder has inherited all the actual UMD rules text word for word, without a single change. It is only the example text that's missing from the SRD. So it's still the exact same skill, in both D&D 3.5E and PF.

The "emulate a class feature" block is not limited to convincing a magic item that you only have the class feature. It lets you activate the magic item as if you were actually using it. UMD even lets you emulate the usage of a class feature with limited daily uses for the purposes of activating a magic device. Now the text of the Book of the Loremaster requires you to take 10 or 20 while using the lore master class feature. You can emulate that you are using the lore master class feature, and then you just need to take 10 on a Knowledge check, and the book can be activated for the +5 competence bonus on the Knowledge check.

@Tom Sampson

Your Furious example is wrong. You need the class feature (or to be under the effect of a RAge spell) to benefit from the Furious effect.

UMD wrote:

Emulate a Class Feature: Sometimes you need to use a class feature to activate a magic item. ... This skill does not let you actually use the class feature of another class.

Furious wrote:

When the wielder is raging or under the effect of a rage spell,

Using UMD you activate the Furious ability, but after activation, it goes dormant again, as you don't have the class feature and you aren't raging.

The Furious ability doesn't have a duration, so activating it doesn't allow you to benefit from it.

UMD wrote:

Action: None. The Use Magic Device check is made as part of the action (if any) required to activate the magic item.

You use UMD to trike the Furious weapon into "believing" that you have entered a rage, but when you attack it check your status again and you aren't in a rage. Attacking is an action that you can do while raging, but it is not part of triggering/maintaining the rage.

I'm sorry, but this is wrong also. It's right at the top of the UMD skill's text block:

If you are using the check to emulate an alignment or some other quality in an ongoing manner, you need to make the relevant Use Magic Device check once per hour.

It is clearly possible to emulate a quality in an ongoing manner, and in this instance you are emulating the rage class feature in an ongoing manner, so you just need to make the relevant UMD check once per hour for the sake of the Furious weapon. For the purposes of the magic item (and only the magic item), you count as raging.

I would not regard a bladed scarf as an "ordinary scarf" (the presence of blades strikes me as distinctly unordinary for scarves) but feel free to ask your GM if they feel like being lenient since both the spell and the bladed scarf aren't much good anyway. Incidentally, Silk to Steel is a transmutation effect and as such I would give a proper 15 foot reach if you use a scarf like a whip with that spell. To be honest, I think those rulings otherwise are patently absurd and come from a place of not accepting that Pathfinder operates on game logic and not simulationism. If you get to attack like a whip, then you attack like a whip does, 15 foot reach included, plain and simple.

If you want a way to power up bladed scarves in particular, there is the Mortal Usher prestige class (which also lets you wield your scarf as a whip), but the Morrigna Wrappings class feature only arrives at character level 13, which is very late. It also advances any class you want, but it only offers half progression.

It is worth noting that neither of these options provide whip proficiency should you wish to use it that way. But there is a race trait (Caravan Drover, for Half-Orcs) which can be obtained with the Adopted social trait which allows you to treat whips as martial weapons.

By RAW, it clearly works. Exotic Heritage lets you select a Wildblooded bloodline option. Sylvan is as such a valid Eldritch Heritage option. Eldritch Heritage then gives you the 1st-level bloodline power. Animal Companion is indeed the 1st-level bloodline power of the Sylvan bloodline and clearly refers to itself as a bloodline power. As such, it is granted by the Eldritch Heritage feat when combined with the Exotic Heritage prerequisite. There is no need to overcomplicate it.

The fact that it also counts as the bloodline arcana does not somehow undo the fact that it is a 1st-level bloodline power (neither does Eldritch Heritage or Exotic Heritage declare a restriction against obtaining bloodline powers that are also bloodline arcanas - it only says that you must select a 1st-level bloodline power, which this is). The fact that it counts as both merely means that it should be treated as both the arcana and the 1st-level bloodline power for the purposes of effects, which is to say that an effect that applies to either the bloodline arcana or the 1st-level bloodline power would apply to this as well. The fact that the Sylvan Wildblooded Sorcerer replaces both his arcana and 1st-level bloodline power for his Animal Companion has no bearing on the fact that the feat has different prerequisites and gives the bloodline power by its own mechanic. Neither is there a "prerequisite" mechanic built into bloodline powers. Don't invent rules that don't exist. It makes a convoluted mess out of the rules and invites a text-free rules debate since now your rules are inferred rules and not written rules in any book (which is also a surefire sign your rulings are no longer RAW - Rules As Written). At the end of the day, bloodline powers are just class features. And if you get another class's class features because a feat or archetype or magic item or whatever says you get it, then you simply get that class feature like your feat/archetype/item says, regardless of how the original class would've gotten it.

From a RAI perspective I would guess that it is also most likely meant to be allowed. I'm fairly certain the designer was fully aware of the Exotic Heritage + Eldritch Heritage (Sylvan) combination, which was also originally done in numerous playgroups before Pathfinder FAQratta limited Eldritch Heritage to non-wildblooded powers (in fact, it was probably the reason for the FAQratta), so the fact that our designer deliberately opens up wildblooded options through Exotic Heritage now and yet did not detail any restriction against the Sylvan wildblooded bloodline strongly suggests that the designer consciously intended for it to be a valid option.

From a balance perspective, it is worth noting that while you can get the Eldritch Heritage feat at level 3, you would not gain an animal companion until the 6th level (unless you get a Boon Companion feat before then, since you do already have the animal companion feature for the Boon Companion feat) because your animal companion only appears starting at effective Druid level 1. So in exchange for the full animal companion list, you lose an extra 2 effective druid levels for your animal companion over what a Nature Soul -> Animal Ally combination would've given you (and you only get a Knowledge (Nature) bonus whereas Nature Soul gives you the same bonus to both Knowledge (Nature) and Survival), and that's beyond the fact that Eldritch Heritage also needs 13 charisma and obviously spending Eldritch Heritage on the animal companion limits you from collecting a different Eldritch Heritage. So balance-wise, this certainly cannot be described as a "strictly better" option. There are definite trade-offs involved.

So, in brief, yes, you can use Exotic Heritage to get the Sylvan bloodline, but you'll get the animal companion at -2 sorcerer levels and then -3 druid levels for a -5 druid level penalty total, meaning you won't get the animal before level 6 (unless you get Boon Companion at level 5 or through feat retraining).

No. Only the first attack is at 1.5

@Tom Sampson: just because it is treated as a single attack does not mean that all the attacks that are accumulated into it are treated as the first attack.

By definition, if it is treated as a single attack, then all the attacks that are accumulated into it are part of the first attack. You can't both treat it as a single attack and count your attacks iteratively. It defies logic.

Similar reasoning as with combining sneak attack with scorching ray. Only the first get's the special rider.

No. The reasoning is very dissimilar. First off, sneak attack is a special beast with its own special rulings and restrictions, and second off scorching ray invokes volley rules on sneak attack because it is a multitude of attacks that are fired simultaneously. If you are playing a Magus and got Weapon Specialization (Ray) (which is FAQ legal), each ray will do +2 damage in Pathfinder. Anyway, Pummeling Style is only a single attack and sneak attack is not even being used here, so the comparison doesn't work.

Note that for this combination dragon style specifically states the first damage roll each turn. There are multiple damage rolls each attack as such it still only applies once, to the first successful damage roll.

Incorrect. If the text were what you say, then you would be right, but the text actually states: "Further, you can add 1-1/2 times your Strength bonus on the damage roll for your first unarmed strike on a given round." Not the first damage roll, the first unarmed strike.

Consider Pummeling Style's text which states: "As a full-round action, you can pool all your attack potential in one devastating punch."

The text is clear here. The two feats are extremely compatible in their language so Dragon Style would apply just fine.

Problem with Master of Many Styles and the Dragon Pummel is that Master of Many Styles replaces Flurry of Blows. So you need to take TWF to gain the benefits of such a Combo and wait till you hit +6 BaB. OR take two levels into Brawler. or something else someone will be sure to make note of.

Er, no. Master of Many Styles takes Style feats as bonus feats which lets him ignore all their prerequisites (except the Elemental Fist prereq). He can get Pummeling Charge on level 2 just fine.

"As a full-round action, you can pool all your attack potential in one devastating punch."

Yes, it's a single attack. The language is very clear on this.

If it makes you feel any better, it also means that a Swashbuckler's Opportune Parry and Riposte or pre-nerf Crane Wing can negate an entire Pummeling Style attack.

I think this is a very clear-cut case, BigNorseWolf.

As a full-round action, you can pool all your attack potential in one devastating punch.

Alright, that's more of a fluff line, but it certainly conveys the intent that the feat is meant to be treated as a single attack.

If any of the attack rolls are critical threats, make one confirmation roll for the entire attack at your highest base attack bonus. If it succeeds, the entire attack is a confirmed critical hit.

Here the mechanics clearly treat it as a single attack, especially where "a confirmed critical hit" reinforces the singular.

Both the RAW and the RAI confirm that this is a single attack.

Since the entire attack is a single punch, it would be the first hit out of Dragon Style for the 1.5x str modifier damage.

The question of whether or not you think it's "too good" or "too greedy" is not only highly subjective but also has no bearing on the rules.

Yes, because Pummeling Style counts as a single attack, meaning all of the damage totaled is still part of your first attack, adding 1.5x every time.

I would sooner recommend the Horn of the Criosphinx feat to add 2x your strength, however.

I allow people to intentionally get hit by attacks and effectively reduce their AC/CMD to zero. I'm not sure why this invokes rules debate. Clearly you can always go ahead and take it if that's what you want.

If people use this for their benefit with stuff like reposition maneuvers, good. The GM should be rewarding, not punishing, player creativity.

We went over that on the last page. Apparently not: Ring of Spell Knowledge also has you treat the spell as if it were on your class list.

By the way, you can UMD a Ring of Spell Knowledge to treat a spell as if it were on your class list and thus avoid the +1 level penalty for storing or casting a spell not on your class list.

Yes, the question of Page of Spell Knowledge working with UMD has indeed been answered by the FAQ.

Tom, your replies about UMD show that you don't know its limits.

Using UMD to appear good to an item don't change/remove your original alignment. So using UMD you can convince the gate to work as if you were good, but in addition it still affect you as you were evil too.

You are in the same position of a half elf using a item that will help elves but harm human. You get both effects.

Well, here: "Emulate an Alignment: Some magic items have positive or negative effects based on the user's alignment. Use Magic Device lets you use these items as if you were of an alignment of your choice. You can emulate only one alignment at a time." While it doesn't explicitly state whether you are no longer treated as possessing your original alignment, it certainly implies it to my eyes, considering its implications towards avoiding negative effects based on your original alignment and its restriction against emulating multiple alignments. So, there is a difference of opinion between the two of us on this issue. To me, it would be reasonable to infer that for the purposes of the item, you should be treated as possessing only that alignment (esp. considering that simultaneously possessing multiple alignments is impossible). Since this is not directly stated in the text, I suppose there could be table variation on the issue. I have a feeling most GMs would lean back towards one alignment only if I were to find an item that gives different perks based on alignment with the question of whether I could UMD it for a multiple perks option, however.

You tried to patch your initial position changing how your example gate work:

Frankly, I was just avoiding getting bogged down in another digression with a quick patch so that I could move on with the actual example instead. At no point did I agree with your assessment, I'm afraid.

that could work if you interpret "pass" as activating the gate, depending on how the gate work, but I would require a better definition of the item operation. As written the rogue isn't activating the item at all, so it is a bit of a gray area if he can use UMD on it.

A magic gate is certainly a magic device. It responds differently based on the user's alignment, and the "use" of a magic gate seems obvious enough, so the magic gate can be UMD'd for a desired alignment-based response.

If you use your interpretation it would be possible to sue UMD ti convince a scroll of holy word that your evil rogue is good and so make it immune from the spell when cast.

I suppose you could debate that point but many GMs will rule that while you can alter the item's behavior with UMD, you can't alter the spell it casts. So for instance, I could UMD a scroll of Paragon Surge to count as a Half-Elf to activate the scroll itself, but I still wouldn't count as a Half-Elf target for the actual spell (a theoretical exercise as most GMs aren't asinine enough to have you still expend a scroll without being able to use the spell just because you misunderstood UMD).

Again, your interpretation would have the rogue able to bypass a Forbiddance spell if generated by an item but not if cast by hand.

If the item generates its own forbiddance-type effect, yes. If the item just casts forbiddance, no. It's the difference between UMDing a device and UMDing a spell (which is not a legal use of the skill).

That table hasn't a entry for "class" so you can't choose to emulate a class.

The feature is spells. Not divine caster. There is no UMD ability that change the source of your spells.
The incense require you to be "a divine spellcaster", show me where the UMD table allow you to change the source of your spells.

It still falls under the "emulate a class feature" entry. Let us look at the Cleric's Spells class feature: "Spells: A cleric casts divine spells." By UMDing the "Spells" class feature, one additionally obtains the considerations of "divine caster" and "cleric" because these are inherent to the class feature and therefore to being considered a user of the "Spells" feature of the cleric. You are putting forth the exceedingly bizarre interpretation that I can UMD a class feature to use a device yet still fail to use a device which would be satisfied by actually possessing the indicated class feature. I'm afraid I find such an interpretation, while understandable at first glance, to be erroneous upon deeper consideration.

Thus, I must profess I do consider your understanding of UMD rules to be immature. This is not said to insult you or otherwise condescend via some form of elitism. It is only said in the hope that you would further your understanding of the UMD rules should you wish to engage UMD rules discourse as an arbitrator. Perhaps not the most agreeable sentiment, all told, but there you have it.

I apologize for any harshness or rudeness on my part.