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So without going into the bull that involves my GM throwing an effectively CR 33 green dragon at a 5th level character and a hundred and fifty commoners, I'm curious to know a few things:

-Does an Alkali Flask bypass the Acid Immunity of a dragon immune to Acid?
-Does an Alkali Flask inflict double damage on a Green/Black Dragon for it bein an "acid-based creature"?

Assuming a 20th level wizard has 4 7th level spell slots, 4 2nd level spell slots, 4 1st level spell slots, and a belt of giant's strength +6

1 Cast blood money: provides all material components, deals 1 str damage per 500 gold cost of spell. (so 10 strength damage for a 10 HD Simulacrum). A 5th level wizard can cast up to 5th level spells.

2 Cast Simulacrum: Create your Simulacrum

3 Cast Limited Wish: duplicate Restoration. Heal that nasty Str damage

4 Cast Sculpt Simulacrum: No point raising suspicions as to why they all look like you.

This should net you two Simulacrums a day. But Wait, there's more!

Start by creating a Demiplane with the Flowing Time trait. Cast Greater Demiplane, double the amount of time that passes there, permanency it, then continue casting, each time doubling the speed of time within the plane. Within a month you should have 2^(4*30-1) = 2^119 = ~6.646*e35 seconds pass on the plane for every second in the real world. Take the Immortality discovery. Within another month you should have three Simulacrum's for each and every person on the planet. With four years and ten months left to figure this thing out. But with 3/4's of Earth's population now being Simulacrums of yourself, it'll be pretty easy to outpace McDonalds.

Edit: Why stop there? Use Interplanetary teleport to start setting up Simulacrums on other planets. Take over Mars. Mercury. Venus. Pluto. The Asteroid belt. Nobody said you were limited to Earth. Create the greatest restaurant chain the galaxy has ever seen! All set to serve your ever-growing army of Simulacrum-wizards that don't look like you.

20th level wizard, you say?

Method 1: Cast Wish
"I wish I was the proprietor of a restaurant chain that dwarf's in every aspect the fast food chain McDonalds, and that my restaurant chain will continue to do so for the next fifty years."

Method 2: Simulacrum
Create a dozen simulacrums of yourself, then have them cast Prestidigitation on everything they serve, making it all taste incredible. They can also use Fabricate to create massive, perfectly prepared portions of food instantly. For bonus points serve salads and incredibly healthy food on the cheap. Create traps of Fabricate, each operated by a simulacrum. Make a profit. Rinse. Repeat. Take the First World by storm.

You can continue to change the terms of the challenge, but at that point, it is truly an impossible challenge.

According to Occult Adventures, Battle Host is an archetype of Occultist that focuses on combat in lieu of summoning & versatility. MY question, however, is if Battle Hosts get Focus Powers?

Panoply Bond (Su):

At 1st level, a battle host forms a supernatural bond with a specific weapon, suit of armor, or shield. This selection is permanent and can never be changed. The bonded item is masterwork quality and the battle host begins play with it at no cost. The bonded item is immune to the broken condition for as long as the battle host lives. If a battle host dies and is restored to life, the bonded item is also restored
if it was destroyed. Any magic powers associated with a battle host’s bonded item function only for the battle host; in the hands of anyone else it is only a masterwork item. The bonded item starts as an implement for any single school of magic at 1st level, and gains access
to additional schools of magic at 2nd, 10th, 14th, and 18th levels, granting the battle host access to base focus powers and resonant powers accordingly. The battle host’s bonded item serves as his implement component to cast occultist spells of all the schools that he knows. However, he must split his mental focus among the schools he knows for the purpose of determining resonant powers and using focus powers, even though he possesses only one physical item as an implement. This ability alters implements, mental focus, spellcasting, and implement mastery.

Noted. I'd ammend the above post but I can't access edit for some reason.

According to Pathfinder Bestiary monsters with the skeleton template can retain pounce. When in doubt check monster listings with the template applied, it usually straightens things out.

Skeleton Template says, in part, "Special Attacks: A skeleton retains none of the base creature's special attacks" and "A skeleton loses most special qualities of the base creature. It retains any extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee or ranged attacks."

So are Pounce, Rake and Grab special attacks or extraordinary special qualities that improve melee attacks?

Pounce and Rake are listed as special attacks, therefore you would lose them. Grab is a special quality of an attack, so you would keep it. Personally I would consider pounce as a special quality that improves its melee attacks (because full attacks on the charge are an improvement) but by RAW it's a special attack.

EDIT: according to the Pathfinder srd, Skeletons retain the Pounce Special Attack. So apparently my interpretation of inheriting Pounce is RAI.

Random question: if I go expanded element (aether) do I get access to the aether boost composite blast?

Alright, another question then. The rules explicitly state that you cannot use Vital Strike with Kinetic Blast. Does the same hold true with Kinetic Blade?

Dealing Nonlethal Damage

Certain attacks deal nonlethal damage. Other effects, such as heat or being exhausted, also deal nonlethal damage. When you take nonlethal damage, keep a running total of how much you’ve accumulated. Do not deduct the nonlethal damage number from your current hit points. It is not "real" damage. Instead, when your nonlethal damage equals your current hit points, you’re staggered, and when it exceeds your current hit points, you fall unconscious. It doesn’t matter whether the nonlethal damage equals or exceeds your current hit points because the nonlethal damage has gone up or because your current hit points have gone down.

Huh, I was unaware that non-lethal damage was treated so much . . . differently.

Edit: Was this a Pathfinder change?

Philo Pharynx wrote:

stuff

Are we sure Aether works like that? Specifically, I'm unsure how burn interacts with temporary hit points. Cause if burn consumes your THp first, and those THp recover over time, there's nothing stopping you from, say, taking two burn to amp your Ward, waiting 2*level minutes, taking two more burn to amp your Ward, waiting 2*level minutes...

Throw in a ring of sustenance and do all this while your party is finishing up their naps/praying for spells/reading their books/cooking breakfast. Now your Ward is capped only by how many burn you want to accept up to your Con, making it... relatively costless?

Here is how I understand this:

But, you must also understand the burn Mechanics Limit:
-you cannot have more burn than 3+con modifier at any one time

So you can spend all that burn, and wait for the thp to come back, but once you've gotten to 6 or 7 burn (assuming con of 16 or 18 respectively) you can't burn anything anymore. Regardless if you have any THP to spend or not!

I currently have 5,000 platinum to spend, and two weeks before our next session to figure this stuff out.

Edit: also, do you only earn one thing a room can provide or everything it can provide(ex: if a room generates +8 gp/goods/labor do I pick one for it to generate or do I gain all 3 (provided I pay for the goods & labor of course))?

Alright here are the details:

In a campaign, got downtime, wanting to know how much capital I can generate with a trade ship, using the Ultimate Campaign Downtime rules. The ship in question is 200ft long by 40ft wide by 30ft tall, and moves using steam engine running off a permanent Heat Metal and two Decanters of Endless Water (it has coal backup if we sail into no-magic zones). It has 16 sailors and 4 ship mages (mages obtained via quest, most annoying npc villians ever), though it has room for 60 people (mostly to man the cannons). Other points are it's amphibious (can beach and maneuver out of water, albeit poorly) and about one fifth the coastal cities were devastated by tsunami recently (which may or may not be our fault) :P

Now here's my question: How do I figure out how much capital this massive thing brings in when it's not carrying us through the campaign? All other rooms are accounted for, but it has 78,750ft^3 dedicated purely to cargo, complete with it's own loading crane. How would this massive "room" translate towards Generating Capital?

Edit: corrected spelling errors

Divine protection, and requires domain, blessing, or mystery to take.

On another note, does this mean we might be seeing another DPR Olympics thread around here soon?

Edit: ninja'd

1)In fact, a Dire Wolf would keep it's Trip Attack, as it is a part of his Natural Attack.

2)If you hand a skeleton a reach weapon, it attacks with that weapon from reach.

3)Correct.

Scratch that. Exoskeletons are their own catagory of undead, not a special subset of skeletons.

There are also Zombie subtypes.

However, unlike Skeletons, there is no rule for creating them. Using the same rule as Skeletons (2x HD to create, 1x HD to control) is will probably work though.

Don't forget, you can stack multiple templates on top of each other, with certain exceptions liked in the templates.

A good example of template stacking is the Apocalypse Zombie

Zombie subtypes require a specific spell cast prior to animation (like haste or contagion) in order to create. There are also exoskeletons and frost fallen you can create with animate dead. I'd look at exoskeletons as they are undead hand grenades (and might count as skeletons for applying templates but don't quote me on that).

Dot

Maybe a Spell Warrior Skald going archer? It provides bonuses that will stack with the bards but doesn't prevent spell casting. You can get spells, skills, awesome skald healing, and can double up on the buffs to make the party twice as awesome. Plus the song counts double with archers because you enchant the bows and the arrows (and its specifically called out as stacking with other enhancement bonuses).

Barbarian, Cavalier, Paladin. Actually with no full casting healer Paladin might work well in this group. They got skills and casting covered so my recommendation is a full martial type character.

Isn't that usually frowned upon by gm's

Well after you factor in the -2 for inappropriate weapon size and the fact you won't gain any of the usual 2H bonuses with it it's not as bad as it sounds. Or you could just grab a whip and Indiana jones it.

Perhaps try using a small-sized longspear as a medium character? A 2h small weapon counts as 1h for a medium creature. Of course, that kind of invalidates the entire reason you went Phalanx Fighter . . .

Alright, my gaming group is starting at level 3 in a story driven campaign with a fair chance of grueling combat. We have 4 members in our party: a twf rogue, a blaster sorcerer, a skald and a bear shaman druid. The sorcerer and rogue are new, I'm playing the skald, and the other guy needs some help making a wildshape focused druid for primary melee. i need to know what feats, stratagies, and builds would make an effective melee druid using the following stats: 16, 16, 15, 14, 12, 10

How would you handle real world combatants? In my group I have two US Rangers who both have served at least ten years abroad and have killed at least a hundred people between the two of them. If this was done at the table, the'd both have earned the right to be 4th level Rangers, favored enemy human. I don't know about your group, but in mine there's a HUGE gap between the civilians and ex-military/government.

My recommendation would be to come up with a different idea. There's a lot more to RL experience than a feat and the Expert class

Thank you, Nicholas, for providing evidence of the mass consensus against no feats for familiars. While I find the lack of hard evidence depressing, arguing against the vast majority will not prove anything (for or against) this ruling.

@ Eigengrau: Every DM I have played with so far has allowed me to take feats for my familiar as I level, according to the above mentioned rules. Ask your GM what his opinion is, and go from there.

Take everything on these boards with a grain of salt. This is the internet, and people will go above and beyond to shove their opinion down your throat as fact.

@ everyone else: sorry for bringing up a dead horse. I'll let you rule your boards now

Hmm, I double-checked both the bestiary and core rulebook and can't find any grounds to your claim. I did notice the iconic witch familiar only has one feat, but then again society isn't know for proper RAW interpretations.

What do you have to support your claim?

Edit: I guess the question is now; is gaining a feat an effect related to HD?

Familiar Basics: Use the basic statistics for a creature

of the familiar’s kind as described in the Pathfinder RPG
Bestiary, but with the following changes.
Hit Dice: For the purpose of effects related to number of
Hit Dice, use the master’s character level or the familiar’s
normal HD total, whichever is higher.

Next, give the creature additional feats. Creatures gain

one feat at 1 Hit Die and one additional feat for every 2 Hit
Dice above 1. Most additional feats should be focused on
increasing the creature’s combat abilities, but metamagic
feats and skill feats are also possible choices depending
on the creature’s role.

Basically, when you get a feat, so does your familiar.

You've all heard it before. Unseen servants come in handy. Seriously. My question is: HOW handy? Better than Grease? More useful than a Bag of Tricks? So let us come together in the name of United Pathfinder Fans Against Boredom (UPFAB) and list 101 uses for a seemingly endlessly useful spell:

1-Caltrop Delivery System: Have it move 15ft forward and scatter caltrops

2-Potion Administration: It's only a standard action, and how hard can it be to pour a potion down an ally's throat?

3-Crossbow Reloader: Because I don't have enough BAB or Feats for Rapid Reload.

4-Weapon Holder: In case I need a free hand for . . . something

5-Door Opener: Sometimes you don't want to be the one to open that particular door.

Last zen archer I played I ran out of good feats to take by lvl 9. Zen Archers tend to be like that. Honestly, I'd take any trait that'd shore up my weaknesses. On that note Second Chance allows a reroll of a save 1/day. It might help.

Wisdom in the Flesh is really good. Make one skill a class skill, and it functions off Wisdom.

You always know a working joe : )

You might want to consider other options Brawlers are currently lacking some of the support other classes have to offer.

Traits: Your goblin Armor Master is not allowed to have traits unless he spends a feat on it (Additional Traits).

APG p326 wrote:

Character traits are only for player characters. If you want an NPC to have traits, that NPC must “buy” them with the Additional Traits feat (see page 150). Player characters are special; they’re the stars of the game, after all, and it makes sense that they have an advantage over the NPCs of the world in this way.

Equipment: A level 1 Heroic NPC should have 390gp in total value. A level 2 Heroic NPC should have 780gp in total value. (CRB p454). These guys are WAY over-equipped.

O-Yoroi is 1700gp
Tower Shield is 30gp

Ability scores: A level 1 (or 2) Goblin should have slightly higher ability scores. Assuming you are not going with the standard heroic array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 but are instead doing 15pt buy then:
Str 12 (14-2 = 5pts)
Dex 16 (12+4 = 2pts)
Con 14 (14+0 = 5pts)
Int 13 (13+0 = 3pts)
Wis 10 (10+0 = 0pts)
Cha 6 (8-2 = -2pts)
Total: 13pts

There are 2 points remaining.

- Gauss

Traits: Ah, didn't know that they were PC only.

I'll make some changes, but I won't be able to post until tomorrow.

The concept was these were goblins who had as much armor packed on as physically possible (so much they waddle not walk). I thought about full plate but I figured the O-yoroi armor stats fit better (lower armor bonus, bigger armor penalties because, well, it's goblins). With this idea in mind the escalation to Tower Shield fit naturally. Besides the comic relief of a bunch of Goblins in heavy armor with tower shields and daggers was too funny to pass up XD

So far we have a Ranger and a Rogue in the group, with a possible Paladin joining too. The obvious weakness is their CMD and Touch AC, as you can just as easily rip the shields right off the little guys. But since they're raiding a goblin's fire starter camp, there will be vials of alchemist's fire lying around to use.

So I decided to run a pathfinder game since I couldn't find one. My victims are starting out at level 2 with 1 negative level accrued (it's a story thing) and I'm contemplating throwing four of these guys at them first encounter:

Considering we have yet to have any mages sign up, would this be too cruel to throw at my party?

Here's my advice:

- Undead are very expensive early on, but get comparatively cheap at later levels (ymmv depending on use) as the cost is additive. Most other things in pathfinder are multiplicative.
- Infernal Healing is your friend (fast healing works on living and undead alike)
- Create one or two awesome minions vs twenty or so not so awesome minions. This will keep you from bogging down your turn having to roll 50 attack rolls, moves, and whatnot. (Easiest way to do this is to animate bosses and heavy melee brutes)
-Templates Stack, except for Flaming and Bloody (so no endless reusable suicide-bomber skeletons).

I suggest using the Frostfallen template (it's a zombie template if I recall correctly, so you can't make bloody frostfallen) in combination with Fast (by casting haste or remove paralysis on the corpse) to make some exceptionally good brute minions. Just look out for fireballs.

EDIT: Also, another approach is to animate some non-combat minions to help cover the holes in the party. I've gotten some good use out of creative uses for zombies outside of combat and my party has thanked me for it.

You cannot run more than one judgement at a time, ever. At 8th level, you can pick two effects for using judgement instead of one. as a swift action, you can change one of your judgement effects into another effect. I hope that clears it up.

First of all, point out that it is specifically a Supernatural ability. Then, look up the reference text for the spell Deeper darkness and show it too him. The link u want to point out is the part that says dark vision won't work in supernatural darkness. This is the key part of your argument. Afterwards describe the Shadowdancer ability as your character taking the darkness from anywhere within ten feet to wrap himself in a shroud of supernatural darkness which then blends into the shadows, thereby granting you 'concealment' if you will and allowing you to stealth.

Let me know if this interpretation helps.

A lightsaber whose blade you can extend to one mile in length in the flash of an instant and vice versa. most epic magus weapon ever.

Make it a Blast Shadow. Now you have a Blast-Shadow Tarrasque who is unquestioningly loyal to you regardless if you have the ability to control it or not.

I prefer the ever-simple explination of "I give x the finger and Reality agrees"

In my gaming group, we tip them over at negative hitpoints and keep track of their progressive death. After the battle we total up whomever's still alive and tie them together. Usually they're all unconscious, so we wake them up, question them, and execute them one by one.

Concerning Zombies

If you want controlled intelligent undead, ask your DM about the Zombie Lord template. It's listed under Zombie variants and the cost is about the same as a bloody skeleton (or at least is hinted at, see the link). I usually equate the value of an intelligent zombie as roughly the same as an invincible skeleton.

As for your questions:

1) yes

2) yes. Anyone can willingly fail a save. Almost all cure/buff spells have saves, but it's assumed you willing fail this save because you want to be healed/buffed. Make sense?

Depends on what you want to become.
Conduit of divine power? Cleric or Oracle work here
Hunter of Evil and King of Damage vs said opponents? Can't beat a paladin
Divine Bard/Rogue who lacks nothing in the hurt department? Inquisitor fits the bill, (and fits best thematically with Tiefling imho)

Don't forget Rangers or Druids, as they are also divine casters.
I could throw any number of builds out there, including my go-to inquisitor, but in all reality I don't know what you prefer to play and where you want to go with this. I'll help you build, but you need to provide some direction of your own so I know what to build towards.

EDIT: I mean no, I'm not a hero, I'm a meat popsicle ; )

Usually I am either a morally questionable hero, a decent person who doesn't give a damn about all those big over-our-head plot lines and is just along to keep his friends safe, or a merc who also doesn't give a damn about all those big over-our-head plot lines and is just along to ensure my employer has no excuse not to pay me.

They're 3.5 material. Uttercold Assault allows all your cold spells to deal 50% cold and 50% negative energy. Fell Animate is metamagic that makes anything killed by a blast spell rise as a zombie under your control the round after (subject to animate dead control limits)

Look into Uttercold Assault. A must-have for blasty necromancers, as is Fell Animate.

Get a Necklace of Fireballs and set yourself on fire!

They almost never release errata, save for hardcovers, and they do not do FAQs of campaign setting material. James' word is as good as a FAQ due to that.

Cheese, misinterpretation of the rules...close enough.

Ergo for those who treat James Jacob's words as canon, it has been officially fixed. For those who don't, it has not. I will say I have yet to find a DM (society or otherwise) who won't let me create non-evil undead. YMMV.