inverseicarus's page

I was looking at buying some sling bullets made of special materials, specifically Cold Iron and Silvered.

In 1E...

Cold Iron doubles the cost of the weapon, which is practically nothing for a sling bullet (2sp instead of 1sp for 10 bullets.)

Silvered sling bullets, I believe would be 2gp per bullet, plus the 1sp, for a total of 20.1gp for 10 bullets.

In 2E, 10 sling bullets would be considered an item of "light bulk" and Cold Iron and silvered would each cost 50gp, while a full set of plate armor costs 300sp (30gp).

Was there a mixup with GP/SP in the Special Materials section, or have they intentionally been made vastly more expensive?

I thought that this was going to be a problem too, and was really disheartened by the twist as my knowledge of the River Kingdoms is very limited. But just a few reads through the wiki pages have given me four really cool ideas. The restriction of having to fit in the River Kingdoms actually gave me better ideas than when I was brainstorming prior to the announcement of the next round's twist.

Samuel Kisko was right. Think more niche.

The people of the River Kingdoms are an extremely diverse set of groups all fighting for power. There are large established ones, but there are also smaller transient ones that rise and fall as is convenient for your stories.

Without going into detail, the Guide to the River Kingdoms goes on, at great length, about how literally every forum of government has been tried.

Anything that you can reasonably frame in this chaotic setting would fit well, even if it isn't directly related to one of the major powers in the area.

If you've got a really good archetype, and not just a sterotype that's hard-coded to a corner of the world, you can probably fit it in to the River Kingdoms.

Is there a preferred/provided template for this, or will it just be a bulleted list?

I missed it if one was posted.

I wish I had the time to get champion, but life happens.

I've started sitting with the page open on my iPad while watching TV with my wife, maybe I'll get Marathon.

Another interesting way to approach archetype design is to think of what sort of multiclass characters would be interesting, and then do something to make it attractive for one class to multiclass with your version of the second class.

For example, a Monk/Druid is a fairly standard multiclass from back in the 3.5-time, and it's still pretty powerful in Pathfinder.

Could you change the Monk class to be a little more Druish?

Could you change the Druid class to focus more on using your fists?

If you did either, you'd create a "natural multiclass", and make it so that anyone playing a Druid would at least consider dipping for a touch of Nature-Monk.

Aaaaaand that's enough helping the competition for me.

You are seriously asking if the collective imagination about what classes can be is exhausted.

Come up with a neat idea, independent of class, and then figure out which class it fits into best, and what sort of tweaks would be required to add the new powers and balance it.

Does it sound like a Fighter archetype? Will you give up Weapon Training? Armor Training?

You have the power to mutate any class into exactly the sort of experience you want to play.

A fully-Divine Bard?

A Ranger that loses his Bond and gains something like a Paladin bonded weapon?

A Monk that gets Abundant Step early, and gets Dimensional Dervish related feats for free at set levels in place of bonus feats.

You can (and should) also tie in lore or locations, especially with the focus on the River Kingdoms.

Will you make a bandit-like archetype? How will it be different than all the Rogues out there?

Razmiran is right on the border of the River Kingdoms, and the flavor/fluff there is fantastic.

Obviously, it has to fit in with the setting, and some of those examples already exist, but I'm just trying to convey how free form it all is.

You are only limited by your imagination here.

Anything that's a PITA for a GM is an immediate red flag for me.

You can have a really cool item, but if it requires me to have two post-it notes to use it and track it from the GM-side, that's a problem.

It's not a game breaker by any means, but it's certainly a tie breaker in my book: Item price.

While I'm not running the numbers on every item, I try to imagine what level characters would get the most mileage out of it. When it would be expected that a PC could buy the item, or find one in a treasure pile.

Some of the items don't make sense at all economically. Like, I read the item and think "oh, hey, that seems useful for a ~5th level Ranger" only to see that it costs so much that you'd be 15th level before you had enough money to get it.

If an item is cool I don't even get that far. A bunch of items just wowed me and I'm excited to see them come up again later. I'm okay with someone getting the price wrong or having minor errors in their entry if the item is just that cool. The details can always be fixed, the core idea behind an item is really all that matters in my book.

When I have two items I don't really like though, my eye jumps to the price and creation requirements.

This is going to interact interestingly with the voting system they've set up.

Making it through the first round is now heavily reliant on impressing the sort of people who will spend 80 hours in 7 days voting, which is probably a specific type of person.

Hope you Champion Voters liked my item!

Sulaco wrote:

I would love to know the total number of times submitted and still in the running. Based on the number of repeats I've seen, some more than a dozen times, the total is probably about 70.

I would be surprised if it is less than 1,000 at this point.

I'm pretty sure they said that there were hundreds of entries from the beginning, not thousands.

Maybe they were just trying to make me feel better about my chances.

I saw my item after the culling, so I'm feeling pretty good. :)

Congrats to everyone who made it this far. I'm going to have to step up my voting efforts to match some of you ironmen.

I'm just checking, does doing sneaky things like collapsing "3,000 gp" to "3,000gp" to make it one word to slip in under the limit count as grounds for reporting?

Like I said in the other thread, there are a ton of good items.

Best of luck to everyone.

It's not even close, and some people actually reversed it, so it costs twice as much to craft an item than to buy one on the streets.

There are some seriously good entries. I started voting to see what the competition would be like, and some people really brought their A-game.

Now it's just really fun, so here I am voting over and over.

No. Reporting items for breakingt he rules is for things like going over wordcount, stealing from another published source, not being a wondrous item, or plainly being for a game that isn't Pathfinder (for instance, referencing THAC0.)

Ah.

I may have reported a few for other things like price != 2xCost, but I'll be sure to not to that going forward.

There are a lot of items that don't have the price of the item as 2x the cost to craft it.

Is that a "breaking contest rules" issue? Or is only what was specified in the FAQ grounds for that vote?

If we press the "Report this item for breaking the contest rules" button do we get to submit a reason as well?

No, and if you do that you can't vote for the other one.

If you see one really flagrant rule violator next to a really good item, what should you do?

My item totally got thrown under the bus.

Luckily, you had immunity from last week!

I had one where I seriously loved both items. I stared at them for a long while and shook my head as I clicked the one I liked just a bit more than the other.

Hope you get the votes you need, other person!

Just remember, there are HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of items submitted each year, and only THIRTY-TWO make it to the next round. That means hundreds are rejected for various reasons. And even if only 25% are rejected for being really bad, that's still HUNDREDS of items that are... destined for infamy, so to speak. :)

Well I feel a little better, having previously thought that my chances were one in thousands.

I'm thinking of running a new game. I normally play online with a bunch of friends who live on the other side of the country, but recently two of my local friends have joined us. They seem interested in getting in more games (our online group only plays once a month), and I was hoping to do a tabletop, sit-down, face to face game.

Can anyone suggest adventure path that would work well for a small number of PCs, such as two? I might be able to find a third, but I'm not certain.

I'm currently in a Rise of the Runelords game, so that one's out.

I'm willing to tweak encounters to make it more conducive to two players, but I was just wondering if there are any APs DESIGNED for that size group, or easily scaled down.

Joana / Joey,

That's awesome, thank you for taking the time to post the conversions and link them up. I may yet choose Second Darkness as our adventure path :)

I was thinking of starting up a new group with my buddies. We've moved to Pathfinder in our other games, and this caused a few headaches in Curse of the Crimson Throne and Rise of the Runelords, because the DM had to convert all of the NPCs.

This time around I want to avoid that and just use an adventure that was written using the PFRPG, with the monsters all statted up using the new rules.

Since the PFRPG and Second Darkness both came out around the same time, I was wondering if it used the 3.5 rules, or the PFRPG rules. It looks like a really fun adventure, but I really don't want to be converting baddies for hours if I can help it.

Also, regarding an intelligent mount, are there any explicit rules about that?

If your Paladin's horse has a 6 INT, do you need to make a Ride check to have it attack with it's hooves? At INT 3, animals understand language. Can you just tell it to do it?

If there are no explicit rules, what Ride checks do you think can be negated by an intelligent mount?

- Guide with knees
- Fight
- Leap (defer to mount's Acrobatics)

That seems about it. Most other things are something the rider does.

Also, there's the Trick Riding feat if you have 9 ranks of Ride (so, 9th level) which lets you skip ride checks with DC 15 or lower, which is everything but leaping off the mount.

Ride Skill wrote:

Guide with Knees: You can guide your mount with your knees so you can use both hands in combat. Make your Ride check at the start of your turn. If you fail, you can use only one hand this round because you need to use the other to control your mount. This does not take an action.

This is not "normal" riding. This is Legolas riding with no hands so he can shoot people from horseback. Most iconic scenes have the rider using one hand to ride (requiring no check) and chopping people down with the other. But if you DO want to do this trick, it's only a DC 5, and you'll therefore succeed 95% of the time.

If you want to use your weapon and a shield, you need to make this check.

I guess with the advent of the Cavalier class, Paladins don't have to be the iconic mounted warrior. Completely negating the armor check penalty for Ride checks at level 1 is pretty tempting for a dip.

While you're all correct that you can be a "decent" rider (and still fail moderate checks 30% of the time) you completely devote 1 of your 2+INT skill points to ride every single level, as well as take a Feat specifically for ride checks, that seems like a heavy investment, especially considering you're also going to want to take the other mounted feats (Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge, etc).

But sure, if I ever want to play a Paladin, it will be a Paladin X / Cavalier 1.

The image of an armor-clad paladin riding in to battle, his mount's hooves slamming small goblins, is fairly iconic. This seems like a fairly big change from that, and doesn't make it nearly as possible.

There are certainly benefits from fighting on your mount, but there are also many disadvantages. Being pretty much unable to handle your mount properly in combat seems like a really harsh penalty.

Yes, the Paladin's mount is intelligent (minimum INT is 6), but that has no bearing on Ride checks. Even a Druid who can buff the mount's INT and actually talk with it doesn't get any benefit to Ride.

The Masterwork comment makes sense, but it still seems prohibitive. Even a -6 when your bonus is a +8 or 9 is fairly serious. I guess you could also get Mithril items, reducing the penalty by 4 on each, for a total of -5 in Full Plate with a Large Shield.

For what it's worth, I'm playing a first-level Druid who uses her companion as a mount. In Wooden Leather armor and a Large shield, I only have a -3. With Masterwork items and Darkwood, I can completely negate the penalties.

I'm just curious if this was fully intended, and keeping an eye on it in case I ever decide to play a Paladin in the future.

I noticed that Ride now takes an Armor Check Penalty. In 3.5, it didn't, except to do a quick dismount.

I did some searching, and I found this post from 2008:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/olderProducts/pathfind erRPGBeta/feedback/alpha1/skillsFeats/armorCheckPenaltyAndRide&page=1

It looks like during their rules simplifying, they globally applied the armor check penalty to all Ride checks.

A 5th level Paladin gets her mount. Assuming she spent one of her 2+INT skill points a level on Ride, every level, she'd have a bonus of 8+DEX. Assuming one of the worst AC penalties (Half plate and a large shield), the Paladin has an AC Penalty of -9. Assuming the Paladin has a +1 DEX bonus (the most you can get out of most Heavy armors), they have a net +0 to Ride checks.

Simply guiding with her knees fails a quarter of the time, and she loses one of her hands.

If she wants her mount to attack, she will fail half of the time.

Using the mount as cover or trying to make it jump are very unlikely to succeed. For some reason, spurring your mount also takes the AC penalty, and is just as hard.

Good luck rolling that 20 for a fast dismount.

Was this an oversight, or an intentional reduction in power for heavily-armored mounted warriors?

I talked to my DM, and he said it seemed pretty terrible. I'm bringing it here for discussion so we can come up with a decent house rule at the very least, and maybe get some errata from Jason & crew.

For reference, here are the 3.5 rules:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/ride.htm

And here are the PFRPG Rules:

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/skills/ride.html

Gorbacz wrote:

wraithstrike wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

wraithstrike wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

Qinggong Monk is what Monk should have been from the get-go.

I applaud Paizo for their fixes, but I would prefer them in core. Phase one of Monk fix arrived in APG (brass knuckles), phase two comes now (QM), I bet that Ultimate Combat will include some fighting style that gets rid of Flurry of Misses issue. Just why it takes three books while Paladin took one? :)

Brass knuckles don't transfer the monk unarmed damage anymore. Neither does the cestus. Either Sean or Jason said so in a recent thread. :(

Link...or...it...didn't...

Sorry Mr Bag of Devouring. I have to share my pain with you. There is a post above the linked one also.

edit:The post

Sean K Reynolds:
None of those three weapons allow a monk to use his level-based unarmed damage; they just do the damage listed on the weapon table. This isn't errata (they were never intended to allow monks to do that, as they can already deal lethal or nonlethal at their discretion), it's a clarification of the use of terms like "with unarmed attacks" in the descriptive text of those three weapons (they aren't unarmed attacks, and mentioning unarmed attacks at all confuses the issue).

A monk can still use brass knuckles or a cestus as part of a flurry (thus the "monk" entry in the Special column), but not rope gauntlets.

Wraithstrike, honey, that post is in a thread regarding Adventurer's Armory, back from before APG was published (post is from May 2010, APG arrives in August 2010).

In Adventurer's Armory, brass knuckles didn't allow monk damage.

In APG brass knuckles were reprinted with a change that allows monk damage.

I see. I did not check the date. I am happy again.

Do adamantine brass knuckles make the unarmed damage bypass DR?

Just a little thread necromancy here. Seemed better than starting an entirely new one.

My monk is about ready to hit 13th level, and gain SR 23. I'm terrified that this will make mid-combat heals an absolute hell, because as I understand it, I would have to take a standard action to lower my SR.

I don't understand why.

Cure Light Wounds says the following:

"Saving Throw Will half (harmless); see text; Spell Resistance yes (harmless); see text"

and

"When laying your hand upon a living creature, you channel positive energy that cures 1d8 points of damage +1 point per caster level (maximum +5). Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell deals damage to them instead of curing their wounds. An undead creature can apply Spell Resistance, and can attempt a Will save to take half damage."

Does CLW used on a friendly, living target have SR applied to it? If so, why don't friendly targets also make saves for heals, to halve them?

For clarification, say I knew what my bedroom looked like (could envision it) and I was in another room 900 feet away. I'm a 12th level Wizard, so my range is 880 feet. What happens if I try to teleport to bed?

You instantly transfer yourself from your current location to any other spot within range. You always arrive at exactly the spot desired - whether by simply visualizing the area or by stating direction. After using this spell, you can't take any other actions until your next turn. You can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn't exceed your maximum load. You may also bring one additional willing Medium or smaller creature (carrying gear or objects up to its maximum load) or its equivalent per three caster levels. A Large creature counts as two Medium creatures, a Huge creature counts as two Large creatures, and so forth. All creatures to be transported must be in contact with one another, and at least one of those creatures must be in contact with you.

If there is no free space within 100 feet, you and each creature traveling with you take an additional 2d6 points of damage and are shunted to a free space within 1,000 feet. If there is no free space within 1,000 feet, you and each creature traveling with you take an additional 4d6 points of damage and the spell simply fails.

What if you don't know the distance to the area you want to jump to? If you attempt it, and the distance ends up being out of range, does the spell simply fail? Do you teleport to the max distance of the spell in the direction required?

My DM and I talked it over and we decided to go with the following interpretation until any official word comes in:

When the spell is cast, only foes in the area have to save against it. The plants ignore friendly targets. (This is roleplayed by asking the goddess of nature to "leave the humans and the elf", or whatever).

There is no save at the end of the first turn the spell is cast(as per the "... but those that remain in the area must save at the end of your turn" line). This means no "double saves" on the first turn, and it also means that my allies do not need to save against it.

At the end of my subsequent turns, everyone has to make save, friends (and myself) included. This simulates that the plants essentially go wild after the initial casting of the spell.

The entire area is rough terrain for everyone for the entire duration, including allies.

We're both happy with the interpretation we have agreed on. It lets the spell work as a escape aid, for one turn, even if we're in base-to-base with the monsters, and it doesn't give all of my allies free reign to move through the thrashing vines after the first round.

Someone in the old thread pointed out that the word changing had to have been intentional, or else it would have been copied and pasted like many other spells.

They also weakened entangle a lot. Breaking free is a move action now (used to be a full round action). The DC is lower.

Maybe when they did all this to weaken the spell, they added a little kick back in.

My DM is a pretty laid back guy, and we have changed rules based on discussion before. There's no hostility on either side, and if it comes down to it I'm fine accepting his ruling. This is a long-running group that's converted from 3.5 through the PF beta to the final version, and this has happened a few times.

I think we changed the way Empower Spell worked three times before Jason explicitly responded to it.

Anyway, I'm glad to see a bunch of people clicked to make this a FAQ candidate. Either way, I'd just really like to know!

Bless specifically states in the Area field, "The caster and all allies within a 50-ft. burst, centered on the caster".

Bane does not say this. "Area 50-ft.-radius burst, centered on you." The description says "Bane fills your enemies with fear and doubt. Each affected creature takes a -1 penalty on attack rolls and a -1 penalty on saving throws against fear effects. Bane counters and dispels bless."

Entangle's area is "plants in a 40-ft.-radius spread". Its description says "This spell causes tall grass, weeds, and other plants to wrap around foes in the area of effect or those that enter the area. Creatures that fail their save gain the entangled condition. Creatures that make their save can move as normal, but those that remain in the area must save again at the end of your turn. Creatures that move into the area must save immediately. Those that fail must end their movement and gain the entangled condition. Entangled creatures can attempt to break free as a move action, making a Strength or Escape Artist check. The DC for this check is equal to the DC of the spell. The entire area of effect is considered difficult terrain while the effect lasts."

For Bless, it's obvious it only affects allies, because the Area explicitly states that it only targets allies.

Bane has a generalized area, but explicitly says enemies, and then says affected creatures.

Entangle has a generalized area, uses the word foes, and then uses generalized "creatures", as opposed to "affected creatures". Then it gets even more nebulous by saying creatures that enter need to make saves.

I also mashed the FAQ button. Let's get Jason and the others in here if we can.

Talked with my DM about this today, out-of-game. He said it applied to everyone, even the druid herself, and that it would be too powerful any other way.

I guess that's the way we're playing it in my group :)

Even a 10th level Rogue that took skill mastery and had a UMD of 15 (full ranks plus good Cha) would not be able to reliably cast from 4th level scrolls, or any spell with a casting stat higher than he possessed.

If Skill Mastery lets you take 10 on UMD, you'd have a 25 on your UMD checks.

To use a scroll, the DC is 20+CL.

For a 4th level Wizard/Cleric/Druid spell, it's a DC 27.

You can scrape another +2 from somewhere. Take Skill Focus for a +6 at level 10. Now when taking 10, you have a 31.

Taking a 10 to emulate an ability score would give you a 16, which is enough for 6th level spells.

And if you were squeezing this rock until it bled, you could carry around a Wand of Eagle's Splendor. A flat DC 20 check gives you another +2 to the roll.

So, for 1 feat and 1 Rogue Talent, your non-spellcaster can cast 4th level spells from scrolls she bought.

Or just buy wands and make the flat DC 20 check all the time.

One thing I never understood (and subsequently ignored) with my Monk is that Flurry Attacks are more accurate than a single attack. The only answer I came up with is that the Monk enters some sort of Zen trance and moves so quickly that he's better at hitting the enemy.

However, there are several Monkish feats that state "as a standard action, make a single melee attack" (Scorpion Strike, etc). My monk is deliberately focusing in order to slow an enemy, and he's less accurate than when he's swinging all crazy-like?

Support things you like/use/enjoy.

The PRD is freely available, and you can use it whenever.

If you like Paizo's stuff, and have any interest in them not going out of business, buy the books (or PDFs).

I own the Core Rulebook and the APG. I hardly ever open them, because the PRD (or the SRD) are easy to use and hyperlinked for my convenience. Then again, I play in online games mostly, and not at a table.

A few days ago I started getting my friend into the game, and it was easier to have a physical book to pass around.

Because, despite what lots of folks might think... monks are intended to be a defensive class, not an offensive one. They've got a LOT of defensive stuff; great saves, lots of AC boosts, immunities/resistances. The idea behind the monk is that he might not do damage as quickly as a full BAB class, but he'll be around longer to DO the damage because he's harder to kill.

The full BAB bit with flurry allows them to do better damage when they do their iconic thing, but prevents them from augmenting it with feats and other stuff as quickly as a normal full BAB class.

But anyway... yeah. It's because they perfect defense over offense, basically.

My Halfling Monk is level 12 and with buffs and a total defense hits ~35 AC. Mobility makes it near 40 on AoOs from movement.

A little 2 foot boxer holds the line against Lamias and Stone Giants just fine in Rise of the Runelords.

edit: and don't even think about trying a combat maneuver on him.

Crocodile (Alligator): Charisma 2

I know there are feats that allow you to use your Strength Bonus instead of your Charisma Bonus, but even that will only give a Level 4 Crocodile (Alligator) a +4 Intimidate (19 Strength).

A level 4 Leopard would get a +3 Intimidate (Strength 16) with that feat.

Still, just seems that they should have an innate bonus somewhere.

I think just give animals the feat that lets them replace Charisma with Strength for intimidate.

Just to be clear, Intimidating Prowess does not "let them replace Charisma with Strength". It reads

Benefit: Add your Strength modifier to Intimidate skill checks in addition to your Charisma modifier.

So a crocodile with a 2 CHA and 15 STR still has a -2 to intimidate, even with the feat.

Today in our game my Druid cast Entangle, and I was under the impression that my allies would not be affected by it. The DM ruled that they were, and as arguing in the middle of combat generally ends badly, we played it like that and we ended up slaughtering the goblinoids anyway.

I found this old thread.

There was no clear conclusion, but it seems that the general consensus is that your allies ARE effected.

This spell causes tall grass, weeds, and other plants to wrap around foes in the area of effect or those that enter the area. Creatures that fail their save gain the entangled condition. Creatures that make their save can move as normal, but those that remain in the area must save again at the end of your turn. Creatures that move into the area must save immediately. Those that fail must end their movement and gain the entangled condition. Entangled creatures can attempt to break free as a move action, making a Strength or Escape Artist check. The DC for this check is equal to the DC of the spell. The entire area of effect is considered difficult terrain while the effect lasts.

Emphasis mine.

I take "foes" to mean "enemies of the caster". The text then switches from "foes" to "creatures", which causes people to think "foes" was just a bad choice of wording, and that the plants grab everyone.

I disagree with that, and think that "creatures" refers to the same foes from before, but just generalizes the creature type (so you know it works on animals, humanoids, dragons, whatever). I think the grass only attacks creatures that are your enemies, or that you otherwise designated. While you don't control the plants directly, when you cast the spell, you can say/pray/think "grab the goblins, leave the humans and the elf."

The terrain would still be rough terrain because of all the writhing plants, but it wouldn't be actively grabbing at all your friends.

As noted in the old thread, the wording of the spell was changed from 3.5. It went from "creatures" to "foes" in the first sentence, which appears to be an intentional change. This is the strongest argument for my view.

The best argument against my understanding seems to be "On page 214 of the core rule book, under "Area" it states; 'Regardless of the shape of the area, you select the point where the spell originates, but otherwise you DON'T CONTROL WHICH CREATURES OR OBJECTS THE SPELL EFFECTS.'"

So is the word "foes" really just a bad choice of words? Are druids seriously affected by their own entangle spells? Doesn't that seem odd?

I'd be a jerk and rule the other way, especially consider there is a Rogue Power that does that:

Ledge Walker (Ex): This ability allows a rogue to move along narrow surfaces at full speed using the Acrobatics skill without penalty. In addition, a rogue with this talent is not flat-footed when using Acrobatics to move along narrow surfaces.

It seems counter-intuitive that only Rogues that took at at 2nd level would get use out of the second half, and after 4th level nobody would.

Flat-Footed itself says:

At the start of a battle, before you have had a chance to act (specifically, before your first regular turn in the initiative order), you are flat-footed. You can't use your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) while flat-footed. Barbarians and rogues of high enough level have the uncanny dodge extraordinary ability, which means that they cannot be caught flat-footed. Characters with uncanny dodge retain their Dexterity bonus to their AC and can make attacks of opportunity before they have acted in the first round of combat. A flat-footed character can't make attacks of opportunity, unless he has the Combat Reflexes feat.

As Lincoln pointed out, the important word her is "caught", with the intent being "caught by surprise at the start of combat".

Voluntarily walking across a narrow ledge still reduces your ability to dodge (unless you're a trained Ledgewalker).

Boon companion.

Ah.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/boon-companion

It's from Pathfinder Chronicles: Seekers of Secrets. Doubt my DM will allow it.

-Druid with animal companion (horse.. pffft.. i ride a velociraptor!)

-Ranger (gets animal companion at -3 levels, can get a feat to negate the -3)

My Druid is small, and riding a Tiger (my DM waived the -5 to Ride checks because I wrote some lore/backstory about a tribe of half-fey Tiger riders).

What feat negates the -3 for Rangers?

Also, it should be noted that the Mounted Combat feat is an immediate action.

Once per round when your mount is hit in combat, you may attempt a Ride check (as an immediate action) to negate the hit. The hit is negated if your Ride check result is greater than the opponent's attack roll.

Not only is it once per round, it consumes your immediate/swift action for the turn.

You cannot use another immediate action or a swift action until after your next turn if you have used an immediate action when it is not currently your turn (effectively, using an immediate action before your turn is equivalent to using your swift action for the coming turn).

There are several feats and abilities that are activated as swift actions, and if you negate a hit on your mount, you can't do any of them on your next turn.

One good example is using your mount as cover. With an immediate action, you make a DC 15 Ride check and drop down to the side of your mount, gaining +4 to your AC. You can't do this and also negate a hit on your mount.

So basically, if there is a team of organized goblins or whatever, and they want horse meat, they can get it. The rider can only negate the first hit, if they all have shortbows, arrows are going to get through.

Also, be sure to make your players apply their AC penalty on their Ride checks. Having it as a class skill, with 5 ranks and a +2 DEX only makes a +10 Ride. That fighter in Banded Mail and a Heavy Shield takes a -9 to the check, for a grand total of a +1.

He probably won't even be able to control the mount in combat with a bonus like that, let alone negate a hit.

Just making sure here, all of these characters are still modifying the level of the spell, right? Even on cantrips?

The Quickened Acid Splash was a 4th level spell when the sorcerer cast it?

Merciful is a +0, so that's a fantastic use for a sorcerer. For someone who slots, not as useful (unless you allow them to slot a merciful and a normal one, and they want to waste the slots).

I really like the visual of a street beggar begging for a copper and a sorcerer looking down dismissively and dousing him with pseudo-acid.

My party of 5 level 2s were forced to run away from 2 wasp swarms after my witch cast burning hands twice and rolled poorly.

In another group (Rise of the Runelords), we were something like 6th level and fighting a swarm of rats, and were at a complete loss at what to do, until the Cleric just started channeling on them.

Talk to your DM about using Intimidate/Bluff to do this. Maybe combine the two, make an Intimidate Check against their Sense Motive.

For dumb creatures and animals, looking like a threat should be enough to convince them to attack you as opposed to the guy in the back wearing a dress.

Smarter foes would see you trying to distract them, and attack the caster if it suited them.

One of my goals as a Witch (before I died) was to make a Helm of Opposite Alignment and make the Paladin in the party put it on.