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I'm putting together a one-shot for friends and giving them some pre-gens to choose from in case they don't have the time to make their own. They include some common knowledge because some players are new. Below are their mini-backgrounds (forgive my corny but totally serious names).

Please share your ideas. I can provide stats for any/all of these if desired.

Ripachip, Ysoki Spacefarer Operative
Ripachip didn’t fit in with the rest of his kin. He believed in justice, faith, and righteousness, leading him to follow Iomedae. Unfortunately, outside of working for the church, there aren’t many jobs that reflect his beliefs. So he joined up with a crew of odd job bounty hunters he made friends with along the way. They may not have much in common, but they share a special bond, and Ripachip hopes he can rub off on them.

Alex, Half-elf Ace Pilot Envoy
Alex grew up in a family of pilots. Boring pilots who flew freighters for corporations from point A to point B and back again. As soon as she was old enough, she entered into as many racing contests as she could. As good at social manipulation outside of the races as she is at piloting, she managed to save enough credits, and curry enough favors, to get her own ship. She takes no nonsense from anyone and knows how to get things done, though her adrenaline junkie side occasionally takes over and she throws caution to the wind.

Lee Getties, Human Icon Technomancer
From a young age, Lee knew he was destined to be a star. His parents didn’t see things the same way. They forced him to focus on his studies and enrolled him in only the best schools. His teachers recognized his talented mind and taught him about computers, creatures, engineering, and technomancy. But he put all his spare time into his music. He stayed up late every night practicing, skipping dinner by telling his parents he needed to study. At the age of 7, he began streaming under the name Arclight42. Upon reaching adulthood, he got his own place, half of which is just a lab. He built his crowning achievement, the Starcaster Mk 1, a combination electric guitar and laser blaster that lets him use music to focus his technomancy. He seeks adventure and any chance to show off his talents.

Note: there is no righteous guitar in the rules; it's just a laser blaster with the guitar added for flavor

Selith, Lashunta Mercenary Solarion
Selith took a vow of silence in recent years. After a decade as a hired gun, often for the wrong sorts of people, he decided to make amends for his past actions by sacrificing his own voice. Upon doing so, he realized some of the cosmic truths of the universe and his solarion powers manifested. He now serves as a bodyguard for his trusted friend, someone else in the group.

Bolts, Android Outlaw Mechanic
Bolts awoke in their android body in an apartment on Absalom Station. Unfortunately for them, the body’s previous soul was an outlaw, and they almost immediately had to run. They barely had time to learn about society before it was their enemy. So they took to the outlaw life. They became good at hiding, and traded their machine and computer skills for food and shelter. They eventually came upon their preferred illegal activity, hacking and rigging vidgames. This put an even larger bounty on their head once they were discovered, but they had amassed a wealth of information and contacts, and blackmailed a high ranking security official that spent his spare time gambling on vidgames and cheating on his wife. Now all but their smallest charges have been dismissed and they are more careful than ever. They spend their spare time augmenting themselves and making a living as a bounty hunter. They resent the society that once made androids their slaves, and that made them a criminal from birth. They don’t identify with any culture or gender or organization and they are grumpy to a fault, never having anything positive to say and making no friends. Despite this seeming lack of empathy and devotion, they spend all their time with a close group of companions and have no plans of leaving them.

I realized halfway through I was writing close to the iconic android but went with it anyway

Pak’Sha’Th’Tak, Shirren Priest Mystic
Pak grew up in the traditional Shirren ways. Order, discipline, and loyalty were important. Upon reaching adulthood, she chose to become a female member of society, and she quickly became addicted to choices, as many Shirren do. She left home, and journeyed to multiple worlds. Upon learned of the faith of Desna, she realized her true calling. Her love of travel, adventure, and the stars were a perfect match. And her faith was rewarded with the powers of a mystic. She is unusually exuberant about new experiences and always has a positive attitude, even with the odds stacked against her.

Rem, Kasatha Bounty Hunter Soldier
Rem, short for Remu Taldaloka Fansari of Clan Ketl, House Bandalin, Scourge of the Beast, is a large Kasatha out in the universe for his Tempering, the phase of all Kasatha’s lives where they leave their families and traditions to explore other cultures and worlds. Rem was never great at his studies, but he appreciated the balance that Kasathas see in the universe and the peace that brings. But he lost his appreciation for that the moment he began studying some of the barbaric fighting styles of old Golarion. Now he lives for the spirit of battle, the joys of victory, and the thrill of the hunt. Fiercely dedicated to his friends, he sometimes takes offense on their behalf unnecessarily.

“Voidwhip”, Vesk Xenoseeker Solarion
Voidwhip, once known by a more traditional Vesk name, was one of the cultural elites that shirked off the Vesk militant nature. He and his siblings sought to understand other races better, to search for peace, and to expand their horizons. It was on a trip to Absalom Station where it all went wrong. Their ship was attacked by void wraiths, incorporeal undead that pierced through all of their defenses. The crew’s energy weapons only did so much, and Voidwhip was unarmed, at least at first. Hiding in an escape pod, preparing to flee for his life as soon as one of his siblings joined him, he looked out into the void of space. The stars really were beautiful, and the space between them equally so. His Solarion path was laid out before him. His vision blurred and a bladed whip of pure black darkness emerged from his left arm. Without thinking, he rejoined the crew and fought back the wraiths. Nowadays, he still seeks peace, but he knows he has a purpose on the battlefield, and with his Vesk might and Solarion abilities, he knows he is nearly unstoppable.

Hi all. I know what you're thinking. Who needs to unchain the druid or paladin? As part of my growing custom rules, I want to update some of the core classes to match the design methodologies of later books.

What I mean by that is that many core classes and nearly every post-core class has a lot of variety built into the class without archetypes. Oracles have revelations, rogues have talents, etc.

I'm hoping to update Druid, Paladin, and Fighter to have options (nature's gifts, divine gifts, fighter talents maybe?) where if you pick certain options you end up with the original core class (maybe with a buff for fighter like free stamina). Questions:

0) Am I nuts?

1) Have others already done this? Or was something like this done in 3.5? I would love to see similar ideas.

2) It looks like most classes are either customization (talents, etc.) or specialization (bloodlines, etc.) or both (mystery + revelations). Any thoughts on which of these should go for which classes?

3) My favorite idea is (regardless of the answer to 2) I'd like the druid (again with no archetypes) to be able to roughly go three paths: wild shape focus, spellcasting focus, miscellaneous nature/fey/companion powers focus. Obviously, they'd get some of each but they'd have the chance to enhance with nature's gifts. For example, the Quick Wild Shape feat is cool, but what if you could use a swift action between the movement and attack parts of a charge? So you could charge in as an eagle but suddenly turn into a panther and make a pounce attack. (Ok yes, I'm nuts)

Thanks in advance for tips and/or answers.

preface: I've been putting together my own set of house rules that I will implement in my future campaigns. I like a lot of the things done in Kirthfinder but I have differences in my goals for the game. If I become happy enough with the result, I'll share them here.

actual query: I've been thinking that moving through threatened spaces could function better as a combat maneuver rather than part of acrobatics. I'm curious if anyone has done that or what potential benefits pitfalls you can foresee. My take:

benefits:
- to me, it just fits with other maneuvers like overrun and dirty trick
- focusing on it could be done with similar feats to the combat maneuvers (and classes that get combat maneuver benefits) rather than having to max acrobatics and take skill focus, etc.
- it puts a lot of classes that can do well in melee without acrobatics as a class skill (alchemist, cleric, druid, fighter, inquisitor, magus, oracle, paladin, and ranger) on equal footing with those that do (barbarian, bard, monk, rogue) without burning a trait or feat

pitfalls:
- the game doesn't necessarily need more combat maneuvers or maneuver feats
- CMB falls off at high levels due to CMD scaling better (though to be fair, acrobatics also falls off. I should probably compare the numbers in excel or something)

Thoughts? Am I nuts?

It's been a while (or possibly hasn't happened) that someone posted ideas to build Ty Lee from Avatar. For those not in the know, she was an acrobat that could shut off people's bending or paralyze them by hitting pressure points.

A vanilla monk could arguably fit the bill for this build, but with a million options in pathfinder now, I'm curious what you folks could come up with. Shutting off magic or paralyzing people not required. But it would be nice to be able to do some form of melee debuff by level 3 or so and be fun throughout the rest of the build, not just a one-trick pony.

Variant multiclassing, stamina, and all normal rules are all on the table.

This came up in preparation for the last session of my mythic game. Mythic contingency makes it so that you can cast contingency on others besides yourself. This brings up two questions when considering the original text of contingency.

1) When casting contingency on another person, does the caster or the target need to have an ivory statuette of the target? Or is the caster's ivory statuette enough? By RAW, you do not need a second one.

2) Let's say the caster casts contingency on himself. When he then goes to cast contingency on another target, does the one on himself get dispelled? By RAW, it would, though I suspect that's not the intention.

In both cases, I believe the Mythic rules may be lacking because the original spell was limited to personal. In my game, I ruled that there must be a statuette for every target, not just the caster, and I ruled that you can have up to one contingency per target (unless the target also knows mythic contingency). What's the actual intention of the above two points?

I hate to make a FAQ thread for a book that most people don't have access to, but this question is important enough. One of the types of Skinwalker in Blood of the Moon gets access to the Distraction ability and references the Bestiary for the rules.

A creature with this ability can nauseate the creatures that it damages. Any living creature that takes damage from a creature with the distraction ability is nauseated for 1 round; a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 creature's HD + creature's Con modifier) negates the effect.

Format: distraction (DC 14); Location: Special Attacks.

I believe this ability was made for swarms and opening it up to PCs/NPCs creates some devastating builds. Archers, monks, casters using auto-damage effects like magic missile, alchemists whose bombs do damage on a miss, and others. This is the nauseated condition:

Creatures with the nauseated condition experience stomach distress. Nauseated creatures are unable to attack, cast spells, concentrate on spells, or do anything else requiring attention. The only action such a character can take is a single move action per turn.

Even if the wererat-kin isn't focusing on con, an enemy potentially rolling saves up to 7 times in one round is bad odds for him. I do need a question here I suppose. Was the intention for Distraction to trigger off of every attack, just their natural attacks, or was Distraction even the ability intended to be given?

Flavor question: what's so distracting about a wererat-kin doing damage anyway?

(side note: I'm interested in seeing what a wererat-kin wizard using toppling spell magic missiles looks like)

Maybe my search fu is weak, but I can't find a thread about this issue. Please link if you know of one.

Let's say I have a whip, or I simply threaten 10+ ft because I have reach. Or an enemy decides to walk through multiple threatened spaces for some other reason. Can I forgo my attack of opportunity from the first square the enemy moves out of? Or do I have to take the attack of opportunity on the first eligible square and lose the chance if I don't?

My reading of the rules leads me to believe the latter but I'm not certain.

note: I fully understand a single action only provokes one attack of opportunity. The question is only about when you can take it.

There are a couple old threads on this topic with no consensus and no FAQ button hits. Seemed worth a new thread.

Telepathy (Su) The creature can mentally communicate with any other creature within a certain range (specified in the creature's entry, usually 100 feet) that has a language. It is possible to address multiple creatures at once telepathically, although maintaining a telepathic conversation with more than one creature at a time is just as difficult as simultaneously speaking and listening to multiple people at the same time.

It seems obvious that two creatures with telepathy can communicate telepathically with each other. What isn't clear is how telepathy works with one telepath and one non-telepath.

To use a specific scenario, when a human receives telepathic communication from a demon, can the human respond telepathically or must they respond in manner normally allowed to humans? If they can respond telepathically, what enables that? Is the demon granting them an ability they don't normally have or is the demon able to read the surface thoughts of the human, indicating this ability should likely grant a save?

I have seen a lot of variation on this issue (non-PFS), but I am merely looking to get a definitive answer for the games I run.

I'm referring to the Page of Spell Knowledge on page 314 of Ultimate Equipment. I see a couple threads on this item so far, but I don't think it's been addressed the appropriate way to use it. I'm seeing three ways it could potentially work:

1) By RAW, it appears if you simply have it, bam, spell is on your spell list.
2) You must have it during your daily spell preparation. Then after that, maybe it doesn't even matter it you have it?
3) You must wield it to use it.

Personally I like option 3 best, but I'm sure most players would hate that. Thoughts?

The flavor of this item is all out of whack for me. Paizo's RPG Superstar competition heavily discourages the creation of spell-in-a-can items, yet this could only be more a spell-in-a-can if it were an actual can. The fact that it is a page makes it even worse. "Party, you find a page with magic writing on it. Now make a check to see if it's a scroll or a page of spell knowledge."

If option 1 above is correct, then now we have the visual of a sorcerer walking around with a bushel of magical papers sticking out of his back pocket.

Call me stupid (no, really), but I can't find clear rules on what dispel magic (or similar) does to a magic device trap. Symbol spells of course function as spells and everything seems very clear cut.

Do magic device traps simply function like magic items? A successful dispel magic would make it cease to be magical for 1d4 rounds? I'm guessing it wouldn't dispel it permanently.

I was torn about where to post this, but ultimately settled on advice as that's what I'm looking for.

In a campaign I'm running, there is a very high level enemy wizard that shows up once in a while. Despite his overall evil intentions, the good that the party is doing is actually in line with his interests so he currently has one of his cohorts helping the group. But that's all a bit of back story.

I'd like this wizard to have angered a demon lord in some way. I'm currently leaning towards him (and his most powerful cohorts) stealing a powerful artifact from a demon lord (or from a demon lord's followers). My campaign takes place in almost 100% canon Golarion, but this is one area I'm willing to bend the rules as I might not have until September to hear more about Golarion artifacts.

Without worrying about the intricacies of how one might go about stealing this artifact or said artifact's stats (which I can make, but suggestions are welcome), do you all who know the Golarion lore have any ideas of what demon lord would be good to steal from and what sort of artifact it could be? This wizard is powerful and he got that way through paranoia and seeking out power in many dark places. He is an Asmodeus worshipper and is currently affiliated with Cheliax elite (though I haven't nailed down the specifics there) and even his cohorts don't know much about him.

Any thoughts? Ultimately, I'm looking for a reason for demon worshippers to every once in a while show up and summon a host of demons. It's a constant struggle for the group and this wizard's cohort to get along and this will be another stumbling block on the long road to him having to choose a side in the final battle; fight for the group or for his master.

We've seen a few rules threads come out of that discussion about some notorious barbarian that frequents these parts. This is one I can see being relevant to any games with mounts.

A druid with a horse mount enters a room. At the other end of the otherwise empty room is an archer about 100 ft. away. The horse rolls a 10 on his perception check for a total of 16, easily beating the "see a visible creature" from 100 ft. away DC of 10. The druid, however, rolls a 1 and his Perception check is only +1 so with his 2 he fails to see the archer.

Can the druid and mount still charge the foe? If not, what if the druid cast Speak With Animals before entering the room? Could the horse then say "There's an archer over there and we can to charge him together!"

edit: This is the relevant line from Charge:

If you don't have line of sight to the opponent at the start of your turn, you can't charge that opponent.

I was in the middle of posting to the advice forum for how to make playing a UC Dervish Dancer not painful for levels 1 and 2 and you can see why in this sample 20 point buy stat block I made:

While looking at the rules, two things occurred to me:

1) It really seems like this archetype was meant to have Dervish Dance as a bonus feat. Otherwise you'll be stuck with very weak melee attacks and only limited spells for buffing/debuffing. Is this archetype supposed to hurt this bad for levels 1 and 2? I know James Jacobs said weapon finesse is a feat tax for Dervish Dancer, but was the intent really for this tax to make your first 4-8 game sessions with your Dervish Dancer like this?

2) It looks like the text of Battle Dance doesn't give any indication that it replaces Bardic Performance. This seems like an editing error, but it does exist in the Battle Dance section of Dawnflower Dervish from Inner Sea Magic:

This ability alters the standard bardic performance ability.

So what's the verdict? Is the weapon finesse feat tax for a Dervish Dancer bard supposed to be counteracted by the ability to do both Battle Dance performances and Bardic Performances (albeit only one at a time and limited by the performances that are replaced by the other Dervish class abilities)?

The playtest rules state that constructs cannot be raised or resurrected. Are there any ways to bring a construct or half-construct back from destruction? Or are you playing on hardcore mode when you play a construct or undead?

Note: I have no problem with it being hardcore. I'm just curious if there are existing spells or methods of bringing back this type of character.

I'm referring of course to the spell. I've seen a few discussions about it, but I'm hoping to get some definitive answers, possibly even a FAQ. Reading the spell using RAW, it goes something like this:

Target one location (up to a 10-ft. cube/level) or one object

I can target a location or object. Seems clear.

Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)

The location or object can be at close range. Still clear.

You cause an object or location to emanate magical vibrations that attract either a specific kind of intelligent creature or creatures of a particular alignment, as defined by you.

And there goes all our clarity. How far do these vibrations go? Do they need line of effect? Do the creatures need line of sight to the object/location? In other words, if you conceal the object in a bag, will it not work until you bring it out in the open?

The rest of the description seems fairly cut and dry.

I've seen two vastly different interpretations of the spell. One is that the true range of the spell is irrelevant (or touch) because you are preparing it ahead of time and that the range listed is actually for the effect of the spell. The other is that sympathy has some variation of infinite range. If you drop a human sympathy into the middle of a field with hundreds of humans around, they will all converge on that position. Both of these don't feel right.

Whatever the true case is, this spell block needs revising for it to be clear.

Sidenote: it occurs to me that my most recent posts (about minis and Aroden secrecy) may have come across negative towards Paizo. Those are out of the ordinary though as I heart Paizo. I was saving this post for when Skull and Shackles' release gets closer, but now seems as good a time as ever.

APs are generally designed so you can play any character concept you want. Even Jade Regent with its Asian fantasy theme has the built-in ability to essentially play any character as long as you swing by Sandpoint. I'm sure Paizo will make sure Skull and Shackles allows the same freedom, but at the same time, it's the only adventure path that will let your whole group go 100% pirate-themed without your GM wanting to make you walk the plank.

So I'm wondering, if you were going to build the most appropriately flavorful pirate party (4-5 PCs), what would you build? To be clear, I'm not talking about most optimized. In fact, I think some choices would be decidedly suboptimal. Stats and/or important character choices are welcome as maybe this will give people concepts they want to try.

I already have a four person group in mind, but I'll start with my favorite of the bunch:

A Sea Singer bard, choosing a monkey familiar at second level, with a focus on using a rapier and a whip, taking the appropriate trait/feats to be able to use the whip to zip around difficult distances and gaps on ships. Also, being able to disarm somebody at high levels and throw their weapon 15 ft. away (possibly over the side of a ship) is pretty cool.

How do the people of Golarion generally refer to the different classes in the game? This occurred to me when my players were trying to figure out just what an NPC was. He's a magus. It went something like this:

PC: "What kind of skills do you use in battle?"
Magus: "I blend sword and spells to defeat my enemies."
PC: "Ok. So what's your profession?"
Magus: "I work for my master doing whatever he requests of me."

Something like that. I was being intentionally cagey for my own amusement sure, but it got me thinking. Which classes are named professions? Which ones can be named but carry a stigma so the characters would want to call themselves something else? Which classes really can't be named because they are too gamey?

I'll get it started with some examples from my games:

Fighter: rarely called that. Warrior is better, or perhaps something based on their build: fencer for example.

Wizard: could be wizard, mage, or a slew of other fantasy names

Cleric: cleric or priest

Some of the others are tough though. And archetypes might make things even tougher. What are your thoughts? Is there anybody out there that tries to avoid class names entirely?

(P.S. I realize certain regions may have special terms or may not even have classes represented. I'm asking for in general or for major regions like Varisia, Cheliax, etc.)

Some background info
The campaign I play in has been at epic level for a while. It was a 3.5 game using the Wizards epic rules. We updated most of the game to Pathfinder but without official Pathfinder epic rules, we decided stick with what already existed. That means using the epic spell seeds, making our own spells for exorbitant amounts of money, etc. As with many groups, we found that 3.x epic spells didn't work. They were poorly balanced in some cases and downright broken in others.

A new direction
We have now ditched the epic spellcasting system from 3.x. We're keeping certain things, like the concept of epic saves and epic BAB. This keeps us from having somebody in the party with a +30 Will save and somebody else with a +8. We also keep the idea of "epic" items being quite expensive and rare. Other than a few things like that, we're very close to the Pathfinder epic suggestions. 10th level and higher spell slots open at 21st level and higher. We expanded the bonus spells per day charts using the same progression as 1-9. And this works very well for metamagic. Now you can take your 9th level Dominate Monster and put it in a 10th level slot with Piercing metamagic to have a decent chance of overcoming high CR creatures' SR.

But...
That's not all we want. We want 10th level and higher spells as well, which is why I'm here. I'd like to see if any of the Pathfinder community has some interesting ideas for mythic spells (I like James Jacobs' term better than epic).

I know some of you are thinking, "But Wish is the pinnacle of all spellcasting!" Wish, however, has limitations that keep it balanced. It costs a large amount of money (which remains large enough to keep wishes from flying around in our campaign). It does well for the things listed in the spell description, but anything more either doesn't work or is twisted by many DMs to not give the PC exactly what they want.

Even though we're expanding into higher spell slots like they've been there all along, we made them cost ten times as much (but take the same amount of time) to research as 1st-9th level spells.

So what are your ideas? All suggestions are welcome.