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In my experience, often the most effect way is to frame the issue as a problem you are having, not something they are doing wrong and ask them to help you. The means they aren't defensive and are invested in solving the problem.

I really like that idea, thanks! I wasn't sure how I was going to approach the conversation without sounding accusatory. I'm also glad you brought up the "30 gather info rolls" thing, because that is almost assuredly going to come up. I'll try to keep that positive frame of mind when speaking to him.

But set yourself a crazy long term goal. Like ruling a kingdom, conquering the world, or my personal favorite opening a quiet little cabaret where you've forced various monsters to be the staff and entertainment.

Haha! I'll think about trying to set myself a ridiculous goal to keep from going hollow three sessions into the campaign. Technically my last character had this, but my party members would have obstructed it. Ultimately, they would either try to stop me or be side characters in a story where I would be a rather boring main character just trying to set up contacts around the continent.

I'm just saying that maybe, if you're stuck at some point, just run down your skills and see what your character CAN do out of combat, then just start trying it.

I'll give that a shot. Normally, I think going down that route would be a dud, but being a Mesmerist, I have all kinds of new skill unlocks to play with. I'm sure I can have a little bit of fun with Hypnotism and Dowsing. Also, condolences to your GM. I could see myself doing that in a fit of irritation to prove some sort of shallow point.

My last character was also fit to start a business of some sort. Our party had me as the face and natural charlatan and a warforge who could create other warforges. We were going to start a business building and selling "dumb" warforges to do manual labor for construction, cart pulling, random tasks, etc.. We eventually decided against it because none of us really wanted to just play a business simulator every week and at least one player said they wouldn't enjoy themselves at all in that scenario. So I'm mostly trying to avoid business ideas that don't have a new adventure each day.

Thanks for the input everyone.

I could be wrong, but I expect that retiring one character and starting with a new one will make the situation worse, not better for you.

I've played the character for a long time and I mainly stopped playing him due to going on a hiatus from Pathfinder in general. When I came back, everyone else had new characters too. I didn't want to be the level 8 in a group of level 4s, and I wanted to try something new anyways.

Just because you found something you wanted to find when you were young doesn't mean that you won't ever have a goal again

The heart of the problem for me is I don't have much initiative/creativity to find a new goal. Which is mostly the reason I made this thread, to get some ideas.

As you finish out plot points consider what they naturally point to.

I appreciate your ideas that you offered. In regards to an area being tough to explore, I can't help but feel the DM is always giving subtle to not so subtle threats he'll kill us if we do things like go through his uncharted territory or try to uncover the secrets as to why his guides are the only ones who can safely traverse through those lands. I think I need to just challenge him on one of those points and see what happens. I tend to get attached to my characters and their lives so I play overly cautious.

When you bring up businesses, there are definitely things I could have done with the last character in that regard. I think I just put them on the backburner because it didn't sound exciting for anyone but me in the party. I'll see about what I can do to bring the rest of the party into it.

I do think both Dave and Mark are right that I should have another conversation with the DM about structure though. I'll just have to figure out how to word it in a not rude sounding way.

It made the sandbox game far more interesting and rewarding as I ended carving out a section of land and establishing my kingdom there.

This was the original intention with my last character (he was a underground crime lord), but as the campaign went on, I settled for enjoying the company of the party and not endangering myself and the party. Maybe I should be playing less cautiously :/

Preface: I've been playing a sandbox campaign with the same group for about 4 years now. The problem is that the sandbox feels as though it's made of rock rather than sand. The bounty boards never seem to refill, there are large unexplored patches of the map that we can't enter unless we have an expensive "guide." If we try, the dm threatens our demise (tempted to try him on that, but I'm not interested in conflict). He has a few passive quests that don't actually come up, like finding cult activity. Entire months in game and out of game time can go by without combat (not necessarily a bad thing, but the lack of XP is painful). And the dm insists there is stuff to do, and we just have to find it. We've toured every town and did the traditional ask for rumors thing turning up nothing.

I'm good friends with my dm, so I don't want to tell him his campaign feels rigid, dead, and not tailoring to the players. So I want to see what I can do myself. I recently retired my last character that I played for 2 1/2 years and I'm bringing in a Mesmerist. I was thinking of making some backstory where he is obsessed with finding someone else with psychic magic to learn from, so he searches through the uncharted lands. Problem is, say I find the tribe of psychic magic users and my personal quest is now over. Now what? I don't really know what else to do after that, and I don't want to get stuck in the trap of just delivering packages every session (what we do when the group has no idea what they want to do). Any ideas?

I have tried to talk to my dm about how it feels to play the campaign, but we have differing ideas on how to run one. I'm not willing to say his or my ideas are better as I'm sure more creative people would still have fun in his campaign.

TL;DR: Played in a sandbox campaign for 4 years and don't know what to do now. What should I do?

A living creature is neither an object nor a substance.

I thought about that too, but it didn't seem like a very strong argument, but it seems to be the best I got, other than what Tarik suggested.

Fully depends on your interpretation of the mechanic. Me personally, basic things like holy symbols, silver/cold iron, and similarly opposed things would NOT count as a hated object. That's the basic rigour for your outsiders. Business as usual.

To me, a hated object is something that's personal to that fiend. Presenting the daemon with the sword that banished it for a thousand years and a day or a shard of the mirror it was imprisoned in for a millenia or something along those lines.

Of course there's no RAW way to argue any of this, but thematically I like that interpretation. Plus it stands to reason that hated objects aren't something that you can come by easy, at least extrapolating that part of a Paladin's capstone is to have a universal hated object for fiends in regard to smite banishes.

That aligns with my personal interpretation of the rule (and I can agree with the "holy symbol and silver" as "business as usual". But I don't know if my player's would buy that. I know I wouldn't if I was in their shoes. As a GM I can just play the "I'm the GM, what I say goes", but I like to avoid that as much as possible.

I do think you're right about the lack of a RAW way to argue the rule. I'll probably just have to put my foot down.

Background:Currently in my campaign, I have my player's preparing to fend off "a great evil" as I am a cliche and vague GM. They're currently learning all about various planar beings and such, and it's great fun. The player's will soon learn what the "evil" specifically is, but they are currently speculating. They've speculated that a Daemon could be the "evil", so they're are contemplating obtaining a scroll of Banishment.

The Actual Question: Banishment states "You can improve the spell’s chance of success by presenting at least one object or substance that the target hates, fears, or otherwise opposes. For each such object or substance, you gain a +1 bonus on your caster level check to overcome the target’s Spell Resistance (if any), and the saving throw DC increases by 2."
One player laughed and just said they just needed to get the whole town present when the spell is cast and the DC will just be unbeatable because daemons are "Notorious for their hatred of the living". I argued that that wasn't what the rule meant, it meant something like silver or holy symbols, but as a rule lawyer myself, I can't present a real argument. Any help on how to interpret that?

TL;DR: Do having many humans present during a banishment spell cast on a daemon make the DC impossible to beat?

Far Strike does sound like the thing I need. I don't think I will be doing more than a dip for it though. The character is not lawful, so only an ex-monk is doable. This might be taking it a bit too far, but I'll be taking Fighter levels for some more ranged feats and BAB. The magus levels are still a thing too, but I am considering changing them out for the Eldritch Guard archetype under fighter (the character has a "pet", but I don't want him to die in two hits, so I needed something that scales). So we got a 1Monk,3Magus,1Fighter(Cad for the Catch Off Guard eventually so I don't need a backup melee). GM has a plot going for the Blackblades, so I am considering pitching in my boomerang character as a Blackblade (yes yes, no familiars allowed, blah blah, I have it handled). If he says no, I might ditch all the magus levels and go full fighter with the monk dip. I still am not doing much for damage yet unfortunately, I might end up just doing ranged disarms and other support character things.

While startoss style sounds cool, if it's not on the PFSRD and doesn't have a Paizo sticker on it, my GM won't be cool with it unfortunately. As for the Belt of Mighty Hurling, it sounds great, but my GM tends to laugh when we ask for magic items (Yet there's Magus Blackblade wielders running around. Idk). Not saying it's impossible to get, but I don't want to put all my eggs into a basket that's relying on a magic item. Thanks for the suggestions. It's certainly helping me expand my thinking a bit.

Obviously the standard ranged feats are applicable. You'll want to look at Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and Deadly Aim come to mind. Unless your GM houserules you being allowed to throw two boomerangs at once you won't be able to take advantage of Rapid Shot/Manyshot. Charging Hurler looks like it might be an interesting option for the boomerang.

Also, I applaud your usage of the boomerang. It is such a fun weapon to use, but very hard to justify taking an Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat. Hopefully that puts you in the right direction you are looking!

*EDIT*

Is your GM going to allow iterative attacks with just the one boomerang per round? If not, then you'll want to look at Quick Draw to be able to draw multiple boomerangs per round. If your GM will allow you to throw the boomerang, catch it, then throw it again in one round, then you will not likely need Quick Draw.

The standard range feats do seem like my only real option. The GM probably wouldn't allow me throw multiple boomerangs without taking Two Weapon Fighting, and the boomerang won't make it back to me before the end of the round. I have switched gears a bit and have taken the class and archetypes Magus (Eldritch Archer and Kensai). This gives me a healthy AC bonus, and proficiency with the boomerang. I don't want to get terribly reliant on spells to deal my damage though, so anyway to increase my raw damage output without magic is still ideal. I was considering taking Dazzling Display and its respective feats to build a more intimidating build, finishing it with Deadly Stroke (Double Damage if they are shaken).

I have an idea for a character who specializes in using the boomerang. As a bonus, GM is altering the rules for the boomerang slightly so it comes back after being thrown. The problem is, I can't get a good combination of Class and Feats to make anything really viable. Ranger seems like the best option, but I'm doing a maximum of 9 damage a round at level 5 with what I have built now. Any advice on essentially a thrown weapon character that can deal slashing/bludgeoning damage and has unlimited ammo would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know what you want from the strangler but I'd go classic or snakebite striker when dipping brawler for a slayer.

Snakebite striker would be nice for the more versatile d6 sneak, but the strangler gets 2d6 sneak (+ the slayer d6) when I am grappling and/or pinning someone at 2nd level. Granted that is more situational, but I also don't want to give up Martial Flexibility. Considering I am only dipping two levels, I get more benefit dipping Strangler than Snakebite Striker, but classic Brawler is still an option.

While working on a Slayer with the archetype "Stygian", I needed to get the feat Combat Expertise (don't remember why atm. I think it was for Slayer's Feint because garbage Cha) Having 7 int, I considered a dip into Brawler for Brawler's Cunning. The unarmed attack would also meld nicely for what I had in mind for the character as well as emergency Martial Flexibility. I found the archetype for Brawler "Strangler". This archetype also adds a bit of color to my backstory, as well as providing a visual. This character is level 5 with 4 levels in Slayer (backstory demands that that cannot be changed). My questions are:
Do I go with this archetype or stick with just vanilla brawler? Giving up unarmed strike sounds like it removes the ability to deal any real damage as this archetype due to having pitiful damage of d3 nonlethal. Or having a light melee weapon, then suffering a -4 to my cmb.
What if I take the feat Improved Unarmed Strike? Do I get the d6 because he is still a Brawler or just a d3?
I like the idea of stacking sneak attack dice when I have someone pinned, but would it be worth the loss of an unarmed attack? It is also worth noting I intend on playing a semi stealthy character with decent physical stats all around.
Either way, I am going to be taking only two levels into this class, then moving fully into Slayer. Monk levels are out of the question.
Sorry if any info is incomplete or hard to understand. Can't fall asleep so I thought I'd ask these questions.