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The Hindering weapon fusion gives you a circumstance bonus, so it should still stack. But you will have to use a melee weapon to gain the fusion. Hope this helps. :)

https://aonsrd.com/WeaponFusions.aspx?ItemName=Hindering

With alignment based spells my group homeruled them so they work a bit more like in 1e. Meaning that the caster can choose to deal any alignment damage they want, when they cast the spell, as long as it's not opposed to their deity's alignment. (it might only be useful for clerics, but my players have no interest in playing divine sorcerers or oracles).

In general, my group have just removed alignment damage (except from spells or runes), to avoid the entire "it's optimal to play TN with a good deity" and "players feeld punished for RP choices". In our homeruling only celestials, fiends, proteans and axiomites are able to deal and receive any of the "natural weapon" alignment damage.

Oh wow, I hadn't noticed that. It's literally useless, unless I've misunderstood how the metamagic action work. I think the person who wrote it, might have been influenced a bit too much by the description with the "esoteric gestures" and therefore thought it should have the manipulate trait,and didn't think about how it negates everything the feat is supposed to do. :/

If the spell has somatic components, then no I don't think so (at least I haven't found a way yet). But I know the sorcerer has a 12th lvl feat that does: Blood Component Substitution

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1824

So it depends a lot on what lvl and class you are.

Otherwise if your GM allows you to get uncommon spells and you are primal or arcane you can try using the "Airburst" spell since it's only 1 action verbal to cast.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=857

It's a bit risky since it targets everyone around you and requires a Fort save, but it might help you if the enemies don't have reach. At least if the enemies save, their aoo gets -2. :)

What kind of evidence is it your players specifically want, before they want to go in? Direct evidence that the murder hotel IS in fact a murder hotel? Or enough evidence that the hotel is the latest lead for the missing people, so maybe it should be looked into?

Because the "reason to enter the hotel" and difficulty in creating/gaining enough evidence necessary for a warrant differs a lot between those two options.

It might be an oversight when the creature was made since Avsheros is a fallen planetar, and normal planetars have "regeneration (deactivated by evil)".

Since a lot of Avsheros' abilities have been flipped to the opposite to fit a fallen celestial, I would personally change it to (deactivated by good) if I know my players have some way of doing good damage.

Otherwise you could remove Avsheros' "Blasphemous Arms" ability and just make it an unholy weapon (and then maybe remove equal gp loot elsewhere) and then the PC can only deal the killing blow to Avsheros by his own greatsword. While a good PC is enfeebled 2 while wielding an unholy weapon, a unconscious/dying creature gets -6 AC, so it balances out.

The whole "one save every 24 hour" is only if a PC gets petrified.

Otherwise the devs have said it's "..if the creature isn’t petrified, the slowed condition ends once 1 minute passes without the creature failing a saving throw against calcification. Please use that!" It's an oversight which haven't been errataed in the Bestiary yet.

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42woo?1-The-Show-Must-Go-On#25

Since A6 has a "Moderate 13" encounter rating, and the zombies are 11, I assume there are 5 of them (100xp budget).

And regarding the zombies, they are definitely strong, but how hard the actual fight will be, depend a lot on, where you place them on the map and how much the PC's learn from recall knowledge+use that knowledge/general tactics.

If your pc's succeed in recall knowledge and learn about their seawater retch and/or improved knockdown, they might use kiting and hit-and-run techniques, which are quite effective since the zombies are perma-slowed 1 and mindless.

Overall I'm pretty sure it's 5 zombies, but whether you will use all 5 zombies or not depends a lot on your players and how hard you want the fight to be.

I think I got lucky; I cut the whole tombs part from the Hermitage because I couldn't even figure out what the point was.

I think the point of all these "pointless" encounters is to make sure the PC's earn enough XP (or at least very close) to gain a level, and maybe the tombs was to mix things up between demons and corrupted retainers?

Overall I agree that it felt pretty pointless. If you're going with milestones it IS pointless, especially since their "loot" is just robbing the hermitage crypt which feels weird if your team is all good-aligned. In general the sheer amount of encounters per dungeon with 3/4 chapters of the entire book being dungeons, it's just tiresome if your players aren't into that (I've cut so many encounters already or made the "enemies" more willing to talk and/or make deals with the PC's).

I think the writers made a mistake having so much of the book be dungeon crawls, especially since the premise with the circus doesn't evoke the idea of dungeon crawls. I would have liked more performance battles or just more social encounters which there at least was some of in chapter 2.

That's a tough one. Maybe hint about Balennis involvement somehow. Maybe your players can find "another one" of Nemmias camps with a journal or something like that (if they haven't found both the one in the forest and the one in the barn). This can give hints about Balennis role in the corruption and that she left "for some tower towards (direction of aeon tower)".

Revenge can be a decent motivator and Balennis corruption of Nemmia --> Nemmia murdering Myron in chpt 1 and subsequently hermitage demon corruption/infestation --> circus members were killed at hermitage --> It's all that Balennis fault we lost our people from the circus.

However, I don't know how your players feel about the idea of going to the tower since it's very clearly another dungeoncrawl, and they might think it's as hard as the hermitage (which imo is the most difficult chapter in the entire book, and the I don't think the corrupted trainers should have been lvl 2 creatures with their damage output). But that is a discussion you have to have with your players.

If you manage to get them to go and deal with the tower, but your players are still nervous about combat, Captain Morgans advice is good, about adding the weak template to creatures (or potentially cut some of the creatures in a encounter unless you play with XP instead of milestones).

The most important I would say is to keep an eye on the encounter threat-level and I would advice against adding encounters together unless the book says so (even if it would make more sense to add them together). As you mentioned in the obituary you added one of the wrecker demons to the Horba encounter which bumps that from moderate to near extreme threat level for a 4 PC party, and depending on who you add together that can easily happen again in some places in the tower.

I wish you and your players the best of luck. :)

Is there any magic (either spell or item) that removes sickened? Because so far I haven't been able to find any. Restoration would only be able to remove the drained condition.

Edit: A champion with lay on hands and 8th lvl greater mercy feat would be able to do it. So if it turns out there are no spells/items a helpful NPC champion will do. :)

I second Ograx's comment about Tanessas oddly low AC and saving throws, and I think there might be something wrong with Ginjana Mindkeepers saving throws as well (her AC is fine).

Right now Ginjanas highest save is +18 Reflex, which for a lvl 11 creature is in the "low" category according to the building creatures rules, and her other saves being below "terrible". As her dex modifier is +7 (con and wis +3 each), her current saving throws seem more fitting if she was a lvl 7 creature. :)