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I am looking to play a Holy Tactician Paladin (from ultimate combat). However, the Battlefield Presence ability isn't worded spectacularly well.

You grant allies a teamwork fight by using a standard action. The ability does not list a duration, but it says that you 'direct your allies in battle.' Because it's a standard action and because it says 'in battle' my DM is ruling that I have to activate it as a standard action at the start of every battle. He doesn't think a duration of 'forever' is reasonable. The only ability I know of that only works in combat is the various Style feats, which specifically state that you have to turn them on at the start of a fight. Those are swift actions, though. I don't know of any class abilities which only last until the end of battle; everything either has a listed duration or lasts until you rest.

The most similar ability is the cavalier's Tactician ability, which is also a standard action but has both limited uses per day and a duration of rounds. The fact that the paladin version doesn't have limited uses makes me think it might really be intended to last all day. Or, that they just completely forgot to put any limits on it.

On the other hand, if it really does last all day, why does it need a standard action to activate?

The ability doesn't function while you're flatfooted or unconscious. Does that mean the bonus is suppressed while flatfooted or unconscious, or that they lose the teamwork feat and I have to spend a standard action to reactivate it? If they lose the feat entirely when I'm flatfooted, then I always have to activate the ability at the start of the battle because I'm flatfooted until I go (unless I go first, in which case arguably I'm never flatfooted). Unless of course I do some crazy rogue multiclass in order to never be flat-footed.

The ability grants the feat to allies within 30', and only functions as long as they can see and hear me. Does that mean if they go farther away than 30', they lose the benefit? Because that would be pretty useless, as soon as a party member charges they'll probably be outside of range.

The errata for Ultimate Combat doesn't mention it at all at the moment.

Two questions:

If I summon a Flaming Sphere on top of someone, does that count as 'entering their space' and thus they save or take damage? IE, does flaming sphere deal damage immediately upon appearing? If not, can I spend a move action after I finish casting to move it into a creature?

Second, if a spell (like Flaming Sphere) has a duration in rounds, does the spell disappear at the beginning or end of my turn when it runs out? IE, if I cast Flaming Sphere at 3rd level and it lasts 3 rounds, do I get to attack with it 3 times or 4 times? If it disappears at the end of my turn three rounds after casting it and I get to attack with it when it first appears, I should get 4 attacks.

Can anyone spot any flaws in the following train of logic?

If a monk carries a reach polearm in his hands, he is still able to threaten adjacent squares with his unarmed attack because he can kick people. This means he can make opportunity attacks against anyone in a 10' radius. He isn't proficient with any reach weapons, so his attacks at 10' will be at a -4 unless he takes a feat to gain proficiency.

If a monk carries a polearm and uses Whirlwind attack, he threatens everything within 10', so he gets to attack everything within 10'. Nearby enemies get hit by unarmed attack, farther enemies get hit by the polearm. Of course, this isn't a flurry of blows, so the monk only uses his regular BAB, not his monk level.

You can make trip combat maneuver attempts in the place of any attack. So, if you use Whirlwind attack, you can substitute trip attempts for all your attacks. Monks use their monk level instead of their BAB for trip attempts, so these should be reasonably accurate.

If the monk has Greater Trip, all those trips provoke attacks of opportunity.

Normally, the disadvantage of using a reach weapon is that if an enemy moves adjacent to you, you must 5' step back in order to hit them on your turn.

A large creature with a reach weapon has a deadzone equal to their normal reach, and threatens out to twice their normal reach. This is a large disadvantage to a normal polearm wielder because now they have a 10' deadzone and cannot 5' step away from an adjacent enemy to attack them.

However, our monk can become large (buy a ring of permanent Enlarge Person, maybe, or bribe a wizard), and all that means is that his unarmed attacks now threaten up to 10' away and his polearm now threatens out to 20'. This then allows him to whirlwind attack to attack or trip every enemy within 20'. He doesn't care about 5' stepping away because he can just kick people, so he doesn't mind being large.

This does force you to use an Amulet of the Mighty Fist instead of enchanting some Brass Knuckles, and you'll also have to enchant your polearm, so this is not a cheap build.

You need to be level 9 to pull this off as a monk, since Spring Attack requires a +4 BAB, you get that at level 6, you get Spring Attack at 7th, and then Whirlwind Attack at level 9. That pushes Greater trip back to level 11.

A warrior can get Whirlwind Attack by level 4, by retraining his level 1 or 2 fighter bonus feat to Spring Attack at 4th and then taking Whirlwind Attack as his level 4 bonus feat. The fighter has a deadzone and therefore may not want to become Large, though. He could possibly fix this by taking Improved Unarmed Strike, although his damage with those attacks will be lousy.

The one thing I'm not sure of is how Lunge fits into this. Lunge increases your reach by 5', but how does that work with a reach weapon? Does it increase your base reach by 5' and then the reach weapon doubles that?

Thoughts? Did I miss some reason why this wouldn't work?

A newly-formed gaming group started a Pathfinder campaign a few weeks ago, with a friend DMing and myself as a monk. We both have a couple of pet peeves with the monk class and he's been working on ways to house-rule them away. To limit power levels, he's banned prestige classes, paladins, and wizards, as well as requiring his approval for anything non-Core. We also have a number of new players that aren't very munchkinly, plus an experienced druid.

According to the DPR Olympics thread, Monks seem to have both damage and survivability issues. Comparing a level 10 Monk to a level 10 fighter for average damage (for reference, this is Melvin 1.2.2):
The fighter has 25 AC, full attacks for 60 damage, and single attacks for 35.
The monk has 22 AC, full attacks for 39, 50 with ki, and single attacks for 12.

First houseule is that he's allowing the use of Brass Knuckles from the APG, which allows an enchanted weapon that deals monk unarmed damage. This solves the issues with permanent magic fangs being dispelled and with Amulets of the Mighty Fists being hideously expensive, though I'm still hoping to get him to retcon the brass knuckles into hand-slot tattoos with the same effect (Rule of Awesome). This increases damage to 43 (56 with ki), by replacing +3 nunchuks with +3 knuckles which do 1d10 instead of 1d6. He was considering also allowing me to Stunning Fist with the knuckles without needing them to have the Ki Focus enhancement.

To help out with damage issues (and because the DM used to play a Warforged Monk that dealt damage as if he was Huge), the DM has house-ruled that Improved Natural Attack is allowed for monks, even though he knows they specifically errata'd it to not work. At level 10, that boosts damage from 1d10 to 2d8, and avg dmg to 50 (65 with ki).

Those changes combine to allow a monk to deal a little bit more damage than a comparable warrior if he burns Ki to do so, while being slightly squishier due to lower HP and AC. Without Ki he does less damage and if he single attacks his damage is horrible.

The DM has ruled that grapple is useable on a charge because it makes sense. Trip isn't unless you have Improved Trip.

The DM has a major pet peeve with the fact that Flurry of Blows and Fast Movement can't be used at the same time, and is debating the following options:

Option 1 (his idea): You can Flurry of Blows as a standard action, but you either take an extra -2 to hit or you have to use the Monk 3/4th BAB instead of your level, he hasn't decided. This seems awkward and conducive to missing a lot.

Option 2 (my idea): A monk's 5' step is increased in distance by half his Fast Movement distance. IE, a level 3 monk can do a 10' step with the same properties, and a level 20 monk can do a 35' step. This allows better agility and repositioning while still being able to Flurry, and fits the idea of a very mobile fighter well. I stole this from 4th Ed, where monks can shift as a minor action. This is his current plan (we're playtesting it).

Any thoughts and suggestions?