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I would go with a yes on that, Diversion. Ultimately, the holy symbol really is just that--a symbol. I'd even go so far as to say you could probably get the clergy to paint or carve the symbol directly on your shield, gauntlet, tunic, etc. for the same 1 gp that you would be paying them to carve or paint it on that piece of wood. Either way--painted on or glued on--having your holy symbol on your gauntlet allows you to present it just as well as hanging it around your neck.

My earlier post should say "Talisman of Soul-Eating" where it says "Ring of the Cacodaemon". Not that anyone probably would have noticed, but hey.

Well, some ideas that come to mind immediately are the spell Blood Money or any of the multiple methods to gather Soul Gems or equivalents: a cacodaemon familiar from the Fiendish Vessel cleric archetype or the Souldrinker prestige class; the Soul Pool from the Souldrinker prestige class; the spells Summon Cacodaemon and Summon Cacodaemon, Greater; a Ring of the Cacodaemon; or the spell Create Soul Gem.

Even basic, 1st-level mooks have souls worth 100gp a pop, with higher level enemies having more valuable souls. If you're willing to bow down to one of the Four Horsemen, harvesting souls to use as material components for magic item crafting is a piece of cake. A Fiendish Vessel (5)/Souldrinker (2) would be able to harvest 1,000+ gp worth of souls and soul fragments per day pretty routinely, and even more as they move up in levels.

Of course, this is the undeniably evil way of saving money...

EDIT: Just realized Blood Money specifically prohibits use for magic item creation. :/

Only question, can we actually repair a candle of invocation using wish? If not, then we simply have to get an associate to sell our object worth more than 4,200 GP, and create an infinite loop of cash. In addition, if we can't repair candles then we get an additional wish to work with.

I would definitely say no to this one as a GM.

In addition, burning a candle also allows the owner to cast a gate spell, the respondent being of the same alignment as the candle, but the taper is immediately consumed in the process.

The candle isn't broken or inert; it has been consumed, and therefore no longer exists. Repairing it would be impossible.

On the topic of traits, any bonus from traits, unless otherwise specified is a trait bonus, not an untyped nonus. Ergo trait bonuses to caster levels do not stack.

Semantically, the wording of the rules simply states that "trait bonuses" do not stack. Nowhere does it state that all benefits derived from traits are treated as "trait bonuses". The wording is even done in such a way as to clearly indicate that not all traits provide "trait bonuses", but rather that many of them do.

Many traits grant a new type of bonus: a “trait” bonus. Trait bonuses do not stack...

Most traits' entries specifically call the benefit a "trait bonus", whereas others (such as both Gifted Adept and Signature Spell) do not state that the effect is a bonus at all.

Pick one spell when you choose this trait—from this point on, whenever you cast that spell, its effects manifest at +1 caster level.

Pick one spell when you choose this trait—from this point on, whenever you cast that spell, you do so at +1 caster level.

RAW, using both is fine due to the very clear wording of both traits. While a GM could certainly exercise some discretion with this one, I would say that the fact that the writers specifically deviated from saying that these are trait bonuses is important. Either (or both) could have easily said something along the lines of, "...whenever you cast that spell, you do so with a +1 trait bonus to your caster level." Alternatively, the entries could have just had "This is a trait bonus." at the end. Either way, the writers specifically omitted any reference to trait bonuses, deviating from the style of almost every other entry that gives a numerical bonus. I think that was deliberate.

Voidstick is a nice little tool for any arcane necromancer, being a source of resuable UMDless desecrate for only 2500 GP.

Got to laugh at the function it describes at the second ability that "pales in comparison to the voidstick’s most potent function" being nothing more than a HUGE waste of gold.

Awe, c'mon! Paying literally a thousand times as much to raise a standard zombie is totally worth it! You have to pay that premium for the extra joy of using your channels or your Command Undead spell to take control of it after you raise it. I mean, where'es the fun in having it permanently under control as soon as it's created with Animate Dead?

Undead Master. Stay away from this feat - it's a trap. ... it doesn't actually improve the max total you can control at any time.

I realize this is an old thread, but since it's still active I thought I'd point out that this isn't technically true. As most other minionmancy guides point out, the wording of Animate Dead clearly and intentionally allows for the breaking of the normal HD pool in specific circumstances.

The relevant wording is as follows:

No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control...

Only undead you control from previous castings of the spell can be pushed out of the control pool. If you can manage to animate a larger number of HD worth of undead than your control pool would normally allow with a single casting of the spell, they're all yours to keep until you cast it again. While neither Desecrate nor Undead Master can put you over the total HD limit by itself, they do when combined. Here's a chart of the effect of the two separately and combined.

http://i.imgur.com/v9ClaHE.gif

Combined, Desecrate and Undead Master add 16 HD of undead per casting compared to Desecrate alone, assuming you are making standard skeletons or any kind of zombies. While this isn't terribly special at high levels, it is ridiculously good at 5th level, as it can allow you to animate almost twice your normal HD pool if you plan it right. Imagine having seven 5-HD grizzly bear skeletons (plus one random mook to use that one leftover HD) at 5th level.

If you factor in the various easy-to-get bonuses to caster level you can have by 5th level...

• Gifted Adept (Animate Dead): +1 CL
• Signature Spell (Animate Dead): +1 CL
• Spell Specialization (Animate Dead): +2 CL
• Death Knell: +1 CL

... you actually end up being able to animate 56 HD with one casting at 5th level. Not only can you make more mininons than you normally could, you could apply the Bloody variant to a horde of skeletons and still have 28 HD worth when your max pool is only supposed to be 20 HD. (Note: Although both Gifted Adept and Signature Spell are traits, one is a magic trait and the other a regional trait. They are also both unnamed bonuses to CL and therefore stack. Just make sure your GM will let you use a trait from The Inner Sea Primer for the latter.)

At higher levels, you can easily increase your CL by even more. A Candle of Abaddon adds +2 CL and can be used a whopping 240 times if you plan your animations properly, an orange Ioun Stone adds +1 (albeit at a very high cost), and a Prayer Bead of Karma adds another +4. All are unnamed bonuses, so they stack. Combined with Desecrate and Undead Master, you can have WAY more undead in your Animate Dead control pool than the stated cap.

And this is all assuming you're playing purely Pathfinder rules. If the GM allows some imports from 3.5, jacking your CL is even easier.