slitherrr's page

The unfortunate thing about (1) is that the ally has to die, first. Since breath of life isn't a cure spell (the Chirurgeon ability has special language to make curative infusion apply to it, but it's almost certainly not a cure spell any more than restoration is), it means you'll need some expendable ally to use the trick with.

Which I guess is kind of the whole point of implant bomb anyway. What I guess I mean to say is that this clever trick is unfortunately not subverting that requirement at all, even though it is clever.

Absent any yea or nay from N. Jolly, here's a document with minor corrections and additional thoughts on Metamorph, Blood Alchemist, Alchemical Sapper and Lycanthropist. I don't want to really dive in without getting some blessing from N. Jolly first, but three of those were specifically requested in the thread and the fourth was really easy, so there it is.

Summary of thoughts: Metamorph has an interaction with a couple of monstrous humanoid (giant) forms that makes it an absurd lockdown bruiser with free universal UMD after spending eight full levels being completely lackluster. Alchemical Sapper takes a major sacrifice to get an ability that can be quite good, but requires setup and doesn't have much to do after blowing its wad in the first round. Blood Alchemist has an ability that straight-up doesn't work unless your GM allows evil PCs, and is overall pretty lackluster in that it requires you to be stationary and have battlefields in a particular configuration to do anything, and then eliminates your main way of doing ranged damage on top of that, so again, probably better as an NPC, although I can see combining it with Preservationist. Lycanthropist is basically a beastmorph that doesn't allow arbitrary mix/matching (which hurts a lot, and makes darkvision completely inaccessible through the ability) that makes up for that some amount by having an option for DR/silver.

Working on a character for a game that starts at level 1 and has the houserule of only being able to take 1 archetype for a class, no matter how stackable it is, and I could use a bit of help. I want to make a Hyde type alchemist, centered around shapeshifting, and since the metamorph archetype apparently sucks before level 9 and is too strong after that point, I was thinking Beastmorph. Would Beastmorph without vivisectionist be just fine for an alchemical shapeshifter, or should I look for a different archetype to use?

The group I'm running in has two Hyde alchemists--one is Beastmorph with a two-level barbarian dip for a gore attack and rage (with plans for Master Chymist later), the other is a straight Chirurgeon (a very "suboptimal" archetype, but with a slight payoff offset at level 10 due to an extreme lack of resurrection in the world's canon) with a little bit of bomb versatility. The chirurgeon was mostly a hitpoint sponge until level seven but has started getting some scary momentum that will probably continue (with polymorph spells), and the beastmorph has been a consistently terrifying damage dealer who has nevertheless suffered a little bit by being two levels behind on extracts. In your position, I'd personally go straight Beastmorph without worrying too much about the lost sneak attack damage, having access to some area effect damage is not a terrible thing and will give you some versatility even though you lose some dpr.

A good read. Pointed out things I had not thought of, including some very strong forms to take I somehow missed while putting in reaserch time. And I put in a lot of time. I guess I will be updating my spreadsheet.

Gegenees was in Bestiary 5 (2015), so hasn't made an appearance yet in the seminal polymorphamory guide. Monstrous humanoid (giant) is kind of a weird subtype, too, so it might be easy to miss for people scanning giant lists.

I have the time and desire (my biggest problem is just knowing when new stuff comes out, so I'd rely on this thread and the Giant in the Playground x-post to supply those requests), if N. Jolly has the trust. What's the best way to handle it? I PM you an email address to give edit permissions to, or I make a copy and you link to it from your guide? The latter requires less trust and is easier to revert, but might be a more confusing experience for newcomers.

It occurs to me that Mummification might not stack with any polymorph spells, since it's an ex ability that arguably depends on form ("making yourself into a living mummy" and whatnot). That severely cuts down on its use for a natural attacking hyde that depends on polymorph spells. Has anyone played with this at a table to have any input how GMs would typically swing with that? It seems to make beastmorph even more of a no-brainer for that build, if mummification was something the alchemist wanted to pick up.

Can anyone please explain how N. Jolly's Master Hyde build is able to perform all those natural attacks? Is it the bite+claw from feral mutagen and the hoofs from skinwalker shift?

Wearboar-kin (ragebred): Gore and 2 hooves.

Feral mutagen: Bite and two claws.

Pretty much it. He's basically taking advantage of the fact that the mutagen and ragebred natural attacks don't overlap.

Yeah, that's my bad, I'll try to change that later, but updating this guide isn't super high on my list with all the stuff I have. Thanks for bringing it up though so I can get it cleared up.

Any time. My alchemist has non-zero influence from your guide, so anything I can do to make it even better.

...I'll stand by AA as the best bountiful bottle drink.

Except Alchemical Allocation is personal target, and can't be made into a potion. You do the same with Orchid's Drop in the guide:

As long as you’re using this with Alchemical Allocation, the price tag for it isn’t terrible

To James: I also agree that the editorial stuff in d20pfsrd isn't always helpful, but I get what the person who owns that site is trying to do, too. The real culprit is how hard it is to reconcile all these moving pieces, and the resources Paizo can bring to bear on that.

I'm glad how, after the fact that burrow was C&P from 3.5e content was pointed out the first time and acknowledged, we can get two more people in here to point out the exact same thing. Great job?

To Dr Styx: That takes a standard action, since it's an SLA, and also works only to a depth of 1-4 feet. It'd be only barely faster than doing hitpoint damage with claws.

Serisan: As annoying as that answer is, it's definitely the best one :/. House rules!

So Imperial Dragons have "burrow", and in fact get faster burrow speeds as they get older and larger. But these dragons exist in the Underworld, which is far beneath the surface of the planet, and far beneath the surface of the planet (on Earth, at least), soil stops existing, replaced by stone (and this goes double for dragons, who would prefer to exist in areas of volcanic activity, where heat and pressure would make soil nonexistent). The universal monster rules state that stone cannot be burrowed through without overriding text in the individual monster entry, and the individual monster entry has no such text. So:

1) Am I wrong about the composition for the Underworld, and it is much more full of "earth" than would be parallel in the real world? If so, point out the specific reason why.

2) Am I wrong about the specific burrow rules for the Imperial Dragon, and there's some caveat in some dumb place that talks about how they're an exception?

3) Do Imperial Dragons spend loads of time preparing tunnelable paths in their lairs for escape (presumably by carving out sections of loose rock that the burrow rules can apply to at a speed much slower than the burrow speed)?

4) Should I encourage the group to allow a house rule, stating that Imperial Dragons get to burrow through stone? They have adamantine claws, after all, and obviously them not having it seems like it would be an oversight, but I'm playing with a group that will at least want a solid rules-based argument for why the house rule exists before they get murdered by this thing.

That's quite a lot of smoke!

Related question, then, how tall is the smoke cloud from an eversmoking bottle? 5'? 10'? It's certainly not a cube, smoke doesn't do that.

Note the red dragon: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/dragons/dragon/chromatic- red

Smoke Vision (Ex)

A very young red dragon can see perfectly in smoky conditions (such as those created by pyrotechnics).

Pyrotechnics, obviously, is called out, but what other spells? More precisely, which of these can be seen through with smoke vision, and which spells not in the list below am I forgetting?

fog cloud and derivatives (solid fog, acid fog, cloudkill, euphoric cloud)

obscuring mist

blood mist

aggressive thundercloud

And if I wanted to generate a lair environment that takes advantage of my smoke vision, are there any sources that provide good examples of what that would look like? Like, how far they allow darkvision, what effort they take to maintain, that sort of thing?

I guess, but to me 'expect table variance' sounds like you're suggesting either interpretation is equally valid, when clearly both cannot actually be correct.

Some sides don't have to describe why they believe they are correct. They just point out the rules, the English language, then apply proper grammar and determine exactly what the words say. RAW being genuinely unclear is fairly rare.

This is the fundamental misunderstanding, here. You are suggesting that there is only one interpretation of any set of words. Clearly, there is probably only one intent (which we don't know, since the designer is not here to weigh in), but the nature of the English language (and all human language) is that it is ambiguous and amorphous.

The words that exist in this item's description have two interpretations, and they're both very clearly spelled out and grammatically cohesive, and yet both are contradictory. This is not an impossibility--this is language. The way forward is to determine the most likely valid interpretation (which is why we bring in concepts of balance and designer intent and so forth), not to stand and shout at each other over which interpretation is clearly correct.

Yes, congratulations, magic items increase your power level.

Sarcasm becomes you. No wait, it actually makes you look petty. Nobody is arguing that magical items shouldn't increase your power level. My argument, which I've maybe not made clear enough for you, is that 5000 gp is a pretty small price to pay compared to the cost of a discovery, for something that is better than a discovery.

A preserving flask 'is capable of preserving an extract of a particular level.' The extract from an admixture vial is not an extract of a particular level.

Under what reasoning? Two extracts have been combined into a single extract--that's a completely plausible interpretation. Hell, the level is even defined more completely if you accept my interpretation (that is, it is two levels higher than the highest component extract), but that of course wouldn't have the balance problems. And trying to rules-lawyer from this angle doesn't address the thrust of my balance argument, which is that 100% gain in action economy for two buffs that I'm already going to probably cast (e.g. heroism and haste) loses nothing by taking up those slots.

I guess that depends on your definition of RAW.

If you use the "only I'm in charge of the English language" version, then yea others might not be welcome.

If you use the "RAW is an interpreted thing and welcome to table variance" version then all are welcome.

Are you welcoming or not? ;-)

Couldn't have said it better.

it exists for a reason and you can't handwave it away.

It's very easy to handwave away. Two different people wrote the copy, and Paizo has terrible QA.

The language around "as if he had the combine extracts discovery" is also pretty clear: combine these in exactly the same way that discovery does it, just by spending money on an item rather than spending a discovery. You're both acting like this is completely cut and dried, when it's just as likely that someone forgot the distinction between "extract" and "formula" when making source material as it isn't.

The two extract slots argument doesn't really change the balance equation. With your interpretation, I can cast the equivalent of "cure critical wounds" at level 4 rather than level 10. Two slots to bring myself from nearly dead to full strength in a single round is a bargain (and with chirurgeon archetype, I can just deactivate the extracts if I really need to prep something else later, and have a minute to do it in). I can haste and heroism, which I'd probably be using the slots for anyway, in a single round. And if I did feel that was too dear a cost, I'd just get a level 1-3 preserving flask, and suddenly, it's not a factor until I have to use it. Or a boro bead, and I can get the slots back. This is all pretty great stuff, and clearly eclipses what combine extracts can do. If you're arguing that the people who designed this thing designed it to be almost strictly better than something that costs a discovery, then you can argue it, but I don't think it really holds water. At the very least, dismissing the alternate interpretation as a "house rule" is both rude and unreasonable.

That's really not the implication of the words there (more specifically that's hardly the only interpretation, the way you make it sound, but I would also argue that your interpretation is also not the one that follows most logically).

an alchemist can use this simple-looking glass vial to combine two extracts into one usable extract as if he had the combine extracts discovery

The language there does not have any requirement that the extracts exist before being combined. It specifically says that they are combined in the same way that the combine extracts discovery creates an extract that is composed from two different formulae, that is, with the same mechanics and limitations. The item then imposes a further limitation that the extract can only be on 3rd level or lower. Given the balance issues I've already pointed out, this seems to follow logically, as well as being exactly what the words say. Getting hung up on how the item refers specifically to the extract rather than the formula is arguable, but doesn't seem like the most reasonable intepretation.

I know this thread is pretty old, but I have input here:

Once per day, an alchemist can use this simple-looking glass vial to combine two extracts into one usable extract as if he had the combine extracts discovery.

It seems extremely reasonable to interpret that has having the same requirements and limitations--in essence, you use the admixture vial as the container in question at the moment you are preparing extracts to mix them in the same way that they would be mixed if you were using combine extracts. Since you are essentially buying a per-day usage of combine extracts without having to pay the cost of a discovery, this seems like a reasonable limitation. Otherwise, at level 7, I'd just shove haste and beast shape I into an admixture vial and call it a day, a combination that would otherwise require me to be level 13 to even attempt to pull off. Or hell, how about a double cure serious wounds--6d8 + 14 healing for the cost of a standard action (aka more than the total average hitpoints for a level 7 alchemist with a Con of 10)? Yes please!

The CR was 12, according to Hero Lab. It's interesting that you bring up raising an army of peasants, because far from being an isolated outsider, he was actually an active participant in the government of the region (one of five capos who all had a loose detente with each other when they found out they couldn't rid themselves of any of the others outright). Also, it was a pretty war-torn region (which created the vacuum that allowed the cartel to get a foothold)--we've had trouble enough getting holy water at all, much less three hundred vials for a hundred peasants (if we could convince the peasants to follow us).

Of course, we didn't even know he was a vampire until we killed him, so the point was moot. This whole thread was about what we could have done, not what we're going to do, since (as mentioned), he's dust.

SPACEBALL12345 wrote:

I'm guessing your DM allowed the undead antipaladin to double dip on CHA for fort saves?

Yeah, that's interesting, I don't really know (etc etc)

Just following up (for my benefit), the FAQ is pretty clear: http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9sgk, but there are still lots of published materials with the incorrect AC and the devs haven't responded specifically to it. Looks like we're house-ruling this.

..lots of stuff..

Haha, these are all great, even for things that aren't vampire antipaladins.

Our specific party makeup is a highly unoptimized gaggle of six characters between levels 8 and 10 (one 10, the rest closer to 8 than not). Tanky diplomat with ok trip and good saves and a bard cohort, archetypical barbarian (cleave, power attack, etc), repeater crossbow rogue, rapidfire ranger, sorc with lots of fire spells, oracle as a healbot. Honestly, we only survived because we had enough levels and hitpoints to just tank his crap while the sorc and oracle whittled him down, but like I said, we're heavily unoptimized. I'm more interested in all the various options I hadn't thought of than how our specific party will be more effective against him (since we've already killed him).

I see no energy resistances outside of what being Undead grants (Cold only), so any good elemental attack that doesn't grant a save will do a number on him.

Lightning also (vampire template), but yeah. The trick was finding one that didn't grant a save.

Blade Snare from inner seas before he even draws his sword for an opening surprise round move

No sword (brawler), but the other suggestions are great--it's nice that sleet storm forces an acro roll rather than a reflex save, that's a nice find.

Offensive Healing is also an option.

True as far as that goes, except that it allows a will save, and most things with great healing would be terrified to be adjacent to this guy. Still, definitely a thing.

Disrupt Undead
Searing Light
Vials of Holy Water

Are all ranged touch attacks with no save that love to give undead the smackdown

These are all great. Holy water was an obvious one (albeit underwhelming, damage-wise--still, 2d4 is better than zero!), but I didn't know about searing light or disrupt undead.

I'm guessing your DM allowed the undead antipaladin to double dip on CHA for fort saves?

Yeah, that's interesting, I don't really know how those should stack. Maybe a good question for the rules subforum. It's moot, though, undead type is immune to pretty much any fort save that matters.

Also, love your nick.

Also, based on what you've written, denying his Dexterity to AC by any means would hurt his AC quite a bit I imagine, as his ring and chainmail only account for 7 pts.

I didn't fully describe this, so here's the full breakdown: +7 armor, +2 shield (+1 buckler), +3 dex, +6 natural (vampire template), +1 deflection (ring), +1 dodge feat. The cloak is actually a cloak of resistance. And yeah, we definitely could have used more ranged touch attacks (scorching ray), although our sorc is pretty terrible at hitting with those, unfortunately (not really built for it, he likes the AoE). And I do wish we had an alchemist, because they make life better in general (I play one in my other campaign and love him to death).

Hey, we just went through a fight today that was pretty interesting for our group tactically. None of the characters are particularly optimized, and for this particular fight it really showed--we were having a tough time. I couldn't really think of any great silver bullets (so to speak), so I wanted to float this here to see if there was anything that would have been particularly effective that I'm just not thinking about (aside from garlic, which would have been great).

Anyway, this is the thing:

Dwarf vampire, Antipaladin 11

Ring of protection +1, cloak of protection +2, gauntlets of spell storing (with a special ability-stealing spell, not super-important), and other kit. He's built as a brawler:

Crusader's Fist
Deflect Arrows (1/round)
Dispelling Fist
Improved Unarmed Strike
Stunning Fist (2/day, DC 17)
Weapon Focus (Spiked gauntlet)

Fiendish boon is at +3.

AC 30 (touch 15), CM Defense 32, Attacks are +19/+14/+9/+14 (three unarmed and a slam) at 1d4+7, with the unarmed getting stunning fist 2/day, touch of corruption (from crusader fist), and flaming burst (from fiendish boon). The slam does negative levels.

Fort/Ref/Will at +17/+14/+15. +2 vs spells.

To top it off, he had adamantine chainmail, so add DR 2/adamantium to the mix.

Tough to hit with regular weapons, resists almost everything that could be thrown at him, and packs a real wallop that can only be taken for so long before the negative levels start taking their toll.

So aside from cheesy things like, "everyone has a fly potion and just stays out of reach", or "everyone kites him with ranged weapons", how would you guys approach this fight, or add to a character build or kit to make it easier? Is there some amazing counter to this out there that I'm just missing? He eventually runs out of corrupting touch, but fiendish boon basically lasts forever, and he can do negative levels for days.

Yes, that's why they become an ex-druid for teaching others the language.

That is, indeed, one thing that happens. I'm proposing that "The Druidic Order Is Pissed At You" needn't stop there, even if any further consequences are concocted from the GM's imagination.

I mean, we already had a quote from JJ come in and lay down the law, that should pretty much settle what's in the RAW: Linguistics can be used to buy Druidic. Done. Whether an individual game wants to put additional restrictions on top of that is entirely up to the people playing that game.

As for the ex-druid problem: The same problem the Loremaster faces, I would imagine, which is that Druids might get ticked off if they learn someone is going around teaching their secrets and try to cut it off at the source.

And poison resistance +6 is unaffected by the prior swap for the skill bonus heal?

No, since it is part of a progression (+2, +4, +6, immunity), that +6 becomes +4 (and "swift poison" becomes "poison use"). It's an obscure quote, but this is the relevant bit (UM p 14):

If an archetype replaces a class ability that is part of a series of improvements or additions to a base ability (such as a fighter’s weapon training or a ranger’s favored enemy), the next time the character would gain that ability, it counts as the lower-level ability that was replaced by the archetype. In effect, all abilities in that series are delayed until the next time the class improves that ability. For example, if an archetype replaces a rogue’s +2d6 sneak attack bonus at 3rd level, when she reaches 5th level and gains a sneak attack bonus, her sneak attack doesn’t jump from +1d6 to +3d6—it improves to +2d6, just as if she had finally gained the increase at 3rd level. This adjustment continues for every level at which her sneak attack would improve, until at 19th
level she has +9d6 instead of the +10d6 of a standard rogue.

Source: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2mgp5?Chirurgeon-Alchemist-Archetype-Question-a bout

Diseases are a bit lame in this game. He'd save each time (same DC), until infected. Once infected, he's immune to further infection.

Just to clarify, this is just while the character is still afflicted, right? In other words, the character is no longer immune to that disease once cured (this is what it seems to be by reading the rules, but I didn't know if there was a cite from somewhere that would change that).

You can complain about my very obvious statement, but I only made it because you invited the comparison. I hope the point I'm trying to make is clear, regardless.

...James Jacobs link...

I defer to JJ's expertise, then.

Oh, I of course acknowledge that the spell lets you speak the language... but it says nothing about teaching the language, which can be an entirely different animal.

Right, I'm saying this too, but the reason I think that is the case is different from the reason you think it is the case. What I mean is that I interpret tongues as strictly communication, without the meta-understanding of how it is being said. There is, in fact, no reason for it to not even be able to communicate with perfect fluency. The Google Translate comparison doesn't apply, because Google Translate isn't magic--magic can just pop in and say, "This translates perfectly," because magic is like that.

By this reasoning, I further think that it doesn't give any help to teaching the language, because it doesn't actually confer any knowledge about the language--you hear yourself speak a language you know, you hear them speak a language you know, and the other language never even enters that loop of understanding without some incredible contortions and a couple of linguistics experts to untangle it. This sidesteps the entire problem that your Google Translate explanation tries to solve, and does it more neatly by not having to arbitrate how well or poorly tongues conveys any particular message.

My point is that RAW, you spent the skill point, and boom, you know druidic. Anything other than that, is GM fiat.

I disagree. Like Shar Tahl pointed out, it says "only" in the entry. It has the massive coincidence of saying "Druid (only)" there, then also having Druidic pointed out specifically as being a language only available to Druids in the Druid class entry. Wait, did I say massive coincidence? I meant to say that that is exactly RAI and RAW--obtaining Druidic via Int bonus languages or Linguistics is limited to Druids (who get it through the class, anyway, but it still gets a listing in Linguistics just for completeness's sake even though it's explicitly caveated with terminology that only appears for Druidic in that listing), and Loremasters through a very special exception that is specifically listed in the class. Your argument is completely backwards--it is literally only through GM intervention that you will be able to learn Druidic, except in that very special Loremaster case (and that Loremaster would arguably still have to face repercussions if the Druids ever get wind of what he's up to).

If your Hunter really wants to get up to this, they're really going to have to go through the effort of finding that Loremaster, or chain-casting dominate on that Druid, or whatever (or, you know, whatever your GM wants--insert usual "GM is Jesus, Brahma and Odin" caveats here). Welcome this as the story hook that it is.

I have become addicted to reading Japanese webnovels via machine transltors like Google Translate.... and honestly, I would say that you would have a VERY rough time trying to do this without any understanding of the inflection, subtle word choice ques, and grammatical structure. And heck, just try understanding metaphors and compound words (going back to words we recognize, "hippopotamus" means "horse of the river", which comes from the fact that their head looks horse-like when it is mostly covered in water).

I agree with your intent, but I don't think this argument really applies. Google Translate is pretty amazing, but it's still not magic--all of those fiddly bits you have to worry about when you're reading Japanese don't really apply, because they're just dealt with by the spell. Since the spell pretty clearly only allows communication, not knowledge of a language, I'd argue that the crux of it is that you don't really hear that language--you hear yourself speaking your native tongue even though you're speaking Sylvan or whatever, you hear them speaking your native language even though they're speaking Sylvan, and magically it just all kind of fits in place syntactically and lexically, like a master translator had endless time to compose the perfect translation between the two and dub it over the audio track of your life.

It is a weird place for language to be missing, though. If it were a copypasta error, I'd expect it to be missing from one end or the other, not precisely excised from the middle.

So how about you seek out a level 4 loremaster who took druidic as his bonus language to teach you? Does that work?

That's completely fine--the Loremaster specifically can take Druidic as a bonus language. The Loremaster is not bound by the same strictures as the Druids, although they might find themselves in trouble if the people running around speaking Druidic blab about where they learned it, and thus might be unwilling to teach you with that hanging over their heads.

Its like counting in binary.

I lol'd, and I do love the numeric coincidence of that guideline. However, 32k isn't an enormous city, and level 15 is pretty badass--Rome, Constantinople, and Xi'an, right around the first century, had something like 400k inhabitants. By the time of Renaissance, multiple cities had something approaching a million inhabitants. Does that mean their fantasy equivalents have a couple of level 18s, an adventuring party of level 17s, two adventuring parties of 16s, and so on, when that is about the experience level of people who start prepping to take on gods?

Having fast healing before the infernal wound is a conundrum, but I feel like the most consistent action with what I've been arguing so far would be to interpret that the spell has already been cast, so the effect is already in place and won't be disrupted by the wound.

I'd maintain that the only sensible action is "all-or-nothing" on the fake-SR check. You can rationalize it by saying, "The infernal wound is interfering with spells that have a healing effect. By interfering with that part of the spell, it interferes with the spell as a whole." This is the only way you're going to get around having to worry about other weirdness for spells that do multiple things, and it's not a big balance-breaker--the situations where "Infernal Wound's" capacity to potentially stop Giant Form I from allowing a troll form (at a maximum 15% chance, since the minimum caster level is 13) are niche enough that it probably counts as "interesting tactical choice", not "game-destroying side-effect".

This spell grants the creature touched the ability to speak and understand the language of any intelligent creature, whether it is a racial tongue or a regional dialect.

Given the wording here, I would argue that this a) conveys no abilities with regards to literacy (i.e., it doesn't say anything that gives me reason to believe that you can write down anything in that language, or read it), and b) doesn't actually grant you the ability to understand the language itself as a thing, only to map words spoken in that language to meanings and meanings in your head to words spoken in that language. It's a bit hand-wavy, but think of it like a Babel Fish that only requires the Babel Fish to be in one person's ear--rather than hearing a language being spoken that you don't understand, you hear Common, and whenever you speak to that person/thing intending to understand it, it magically turns into some language that person/thing understands even though you're hearing yourself speak Common.

I guess this doesn't prevent someone else from writing down whatever you speak in some phonetic alphabet (with lots of ranks in linguistics to get it right, and about a hundred castings of this over a couple of weeks with the Druid there in the room either complicit or bound in order to get down an adequate dictionary), but there's no guarantee that what's coming out of your mouth is Druidic unless that Druid is there, you're talking to him/her/it, and that Druid only knows Druidic. As a GM, I'd probably argue that Druidic has some sort of inherent magic that prevents it from being the language chosen as the medium of communication--because why not? You'll never meet anyone who literally only knows Druidic, so Tongues is never invalidated, it just keeps you from being able to weasel into learning a language that's explicitly secret.

However, they differ in the timing of their damage. To remedy this discrepancy, you could cast it as a quickened spell on an attack.

I see what you're getting at--and incidentally, this muddles things even further with glyph spells and the like where the damage could be triggered at some arbitrary time. There's probably still a useful distinction between "the spell's effect is specifically to do damage" and "the spell's effect is to specifically enhance an object's ability to do damage", but you're right that it's ground that isn't as clear as I tried to make it sound.

Interesting notion, which I suppose could mean a quickened dazing magic weapon cast while hitting someone would evoke the dazing spell?

No, I don't think so. The "effect" here is still the +X on the blade, which isn't changed at all by the casting time of the spell.

It doesn't say "in the description"

It doesn't need to say that to be reasonably interpreted as meaning that. The spell component pouch very obviously exists to stop people from having to bother with inane bookkeeping, and the interpretation that supports that is "if a cost isn't given in the description, it doesn't cost". Likewise, the Transformation component is pretty obviously a failure to be completely consistent in the descriptions (probably an interaction with a desire to have fewer things to change when stuff inevitably changes costs in a rewrite, which isn't a problem when the component is "amount of MacGuffin" where the end cost is completely arbitrary), not a sudden case where potions of Bull's Strength are free. It's less tedious and more useful to keep track of all my Bull's Strength potions, it is more tedious and less useful to keep track of my stack of tiny lanterns and rancid butter.

As written, "you take the form of a bat...this ability otherwise functions as beast shape II" would seem to indicate that you become a diminutive bat, but I agree that that seems like a typo. I would probably argue that you become a Tiny bat (which has real-life precedent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabat), rather than that it works like Beast Shape III, just by the power difference.

I just don't understand how this applies to spells like fireball (the check would happen when you cast it- no damage has been done so no dazing spell) then the effect of the fireball happens and poof the damage happens.

Ah, I see where you're coming from. This probably has to be solved by merging effect and cause then the two are temporally coincident, which seems completely reasonable, but I haven't poked around enough in the spell list to inevitably find the case where that's going to make something weird happen.

That seems like a strange omission to me, when the Alchemy class feature is otherwise identical between the two. It's pretty clear, though.

Subject to the usual GM/campaign setting caveats

I do doubt there are mechanics for inducting non-Druids into the order of Druids, although I'm open to quotes from RAW. That said, the GM can always do whatever they want, any time, for whatever reason.

If you can't tell the object of their intent in this case, they deserve to bypass the caster level check.

My point isn't that the GM is stupid or obtuse and can't determine intent, my point is that even opening up that sort of argument is silly if you don't have to account for intent in the first place.

Dazing Spell would be a confounding factor, except that if you take my interpretation of "these things (i.e., Dazing Spell, the DC check against healing) happen when the spell is cast", then it doesn't present any conflict--the dazing spell effect would happen when Greater Magic Weapon is cast (i.e., it wouldn't do anything useful), and it wouldn't happen again, just like Infernal Healing (and Giant Form I, when the form provides fast healing) would invoke the DC check when they are cast, but not when the healing actually happens. In both cases, the effect is still magical (that healing is not happening for your normal everyday reasons, just like that +1 isn't some "natural" attribute of the blade), but the metamagic/DC check is against the spell, not the effect.

Subject to the usual GM/campaign setting caveats, the Druidic language is typically treated as a guarded secret among the Druidic order, and by RAW, teaching it to non-Druids is strictly forbidden, which is pretty clearly spelled out in the Druid description. Even if Hunters are thematically a kind of Ranger/Druid hybrid, they're still not Druids, and they aren't specifically given the language, so they don't have it available.

I would say that arbitrating it based on "intent" is asking for trouble--you'll have players who just insist that they're only casting spells for their other effects any time they need to bypass something like this. Unfortunately, that isn't any good for generating guidelines for dealing with the issue at hand, but if I were GM, I'd rule that using Giant Form I that way would invoke the DC check, simply because it is a spell that happens to have a healing effect (but using Giant Form I for a form without fast healing would not invoke that clause). It doesn't make sense, to me, to insist that something magical that clearly causes healing to happen as a consequence of being cast doesn't fall under the realm of "magical healing"

Infernal Healing doesn't heal, it grants Fast Healing

Yes, it magically grants magical fast healing. Also, this is the funniest string of words I've read all day.