Min/Max Boards

Aye.

Another quick stunt: Fiendish Obedience (Haagenti) (probably with Damned Soldier) can also be used with Crusader's Flurry to allow you to treat all weapons as monk weapons. Still, this isn't very practical, since it only pays off at level 16.

One simple way to Flurry of Blows with a weapon of your choosing is to just use Crusader's Flurry as a Sacred Fist Warpriest, which does not require multiclassing or a lawful alignment. You just have to remain within 1 step of your deity. Only having 3/4 BAB while flurrying is a pity, but getting to cast Divine Favor as a swift action + increasing it with Fate's Favored faith trait easily makes up for it. However, Crusader's Flurry might necessitate a 3 feat chain (weapon proficiency, weapon focus, crusader's flurry) depending on your weapon and racial proficiencies.

Technically yes, but I reckon most GMs wouldn't accept that as RAI and would just have it spit out all contents when you command it to close.

Incidentally, about the Stony Rampart feat above, I may as well mention that it's possible to stack two or more consecutive layers of walls so they have to shoot through all of them, and that the Open Conduit feat will give you an extra 5 uses/day.

Yes, and also a Fascinated by the Mundane feat and Untold Wonder spell. But those methods only give you a +1 to skill checks in exchange for a whole feat and the like. They're probably still decent with Heroism buffs though, since that's also a +1 to attacks and all saves, and depending on how many morale buffs you have it can apply to more too (rage, damage rolls, ability checks like initiative?).

Just in case you're curious about what being Drunk entails, here are the Inner Sea Taverns rules on it:

The RAI is extremely clear on this feat. And honestly you can probably ignore that FAQ for the most part, since there are too many ways to cast Wizard spells on damn near everything these days and it was really just meant to nerf Paragon Surge -> Improved Eldritch Heritage (Arcane), although it did put a stop to UMDing Page of Spell Knowledge to just cast spells from any spellcaster's list. (You can still UMD a Ring of Spell Knowledge to avoid the level penalty for any arcane spontaneous spellcasters though.) And even after the FAQ came out, there was content printed that wouldn't work if you interpreted it at face value (like the 2nd Evangelist's boon from Deific Obedience (Urgathoa) or the 2nd Exalted's boon from Deific Obedience (Grandmother Spider) or the Ghost Whisperer feat). Bad inconsistent FAQs where they are clearly making up the rules as they go along and pretending it always worked that way while ignoring the new FAQ part of the time and trying to keep it into account another part of the time (and thus essentially having it both ways depending on the context) is probably one of those most odious Paizo habits.

Far as I can tell any GM that allows Dreamed Secrets allows it to work as intended tbh.

Oh yeah, another piece of advice about Druids: People seem to forget that you can keep preparing a lower-level domain spell into higher level domain slots, so if there's a domain spell you want extra castings of (or a level where the spell sucks or is too situational), remember that. If there is a single domain spell you want to cast loads of times on a regular basis though, you can just use Preferred Spell or Greater Spell Specialization to spontaneously cast it out of your regular slots. Sometimes it's just fun to play a Smoke subdomain Druid and have every spell slot from 3rd level onwards be Stinking Cloud with metamagics on top (bonus points for using Wayang Spellhunter and Magical Lineage so you get Persistent Spell and Quicken Spell going sooner).

Adherent of Ancient Osirion religion trait (probably requires you to worship Bastet) lets you treat tekko-kagi as claw blades, which combined with the Catfolk favored class bonus for Monks lets you count it as a monk weapon and even use it to make style strikes as an Unchained Monk.

Ascetic Form + versatile design greataxe + Fiendish Obedience (Haagenti) using either Sentinel or Damned Soldier lets you flurry with all weapons. Sentinel has 7 BAB prereq when used with Fiendish Obedience though, according to the sourcebook. You don't actually need to be within 1 step of Haagenti to take Fiendish Obedience or Damned Soldier, and also you can also get a Flurry of Blows as a Sacred Fist Warpriest, which does not have the Lawful alignment requirement. In addition, Haagenti likes to pose as a more helpful and reasonable inventor, so it's not hard to come up with a reason to worship him outside of 1 step of CE. However, you will only unlock this stunt at level 16 if you use Damned Soldier, but getting Alchemical Allocation 2/day as a SLA at 12 is also good and the capstone is a buffed Shapechange which is a pretty decent prize for a martial at 20, especially if you are a Scaled Fist Monk and thus have a high charisma, boosting the DC of shapechange and, by extension, all special abilities obtained through polymorphing.

If a GM allows you to take Inquisitions on Druids that aren't Nature Priests, that works. You can also play a plain old Inquisitor or play a Sacred Servant Paladin worshiping Ragathiel for the Rage subdomain or Anger inquisition. If you're going Anger inquisition on a character, I recommend dipping 1 level of Ulfen Guard to obtain a rage power (Barbarian level stacks with your domain power rage), qualifying you for the Extra Rage Power feat as well.

Also, using Runic Charge + Pounce is quite clever. Now, a plain Druid that's wildshaped into a pouncing shape can just Runic Charge with Natural Spell. Alternatively, any psychic spellcaster could Runic Charge while polymorphed, but to get Beast Shape II as a psychic spellcaster, you are typically either playing a Material Manipulator Mesmerist, a Psychic with the Rebirth discipline (using Mnemonic Esoterica), using the Samsaran's Mystic Past Life alternate racial trait to have been a Material Manipulator Mesmerist in your previous life, dipping a level of Loremaster (probably on Psychic) and spamming Secret of Magical Discipline feats (ideally your int should be high enough you can immediately obtain Secret of Magical Discipline as a bonus feat on Loremaster 1), just casting Limited Wish for a polymorph of your choosing, playing a Medium using the Archmage spirit to give yourself the Beast Shape or Monstrous Physique spell you desire while otherwise casting psychic spells, or playing a Sorcerer (or Blood Arcanist) with the Psychic bloodline (perhaps mixing it with Crossblooded to also obtain the Draconic bloodline of the Esoteric variant if you want to be able to Paragon Surge for all the spells on the Psychic spell list and swap out your 1st level bloodline power for a Bloodline Familiar), which will handily afford you access to all the polymorphing spells. It is also possible to spellcast while in beast shape as a divine or arcane spellcaster by using Grasping Tail + Mischievous Tail and casting Beastspeak (usually a stunt done by Shamans or Witches, but can also be done by Spell Sage Wizards and of course anyone with the Loremaster prestige class for Secret of Magical Discipline or using Samsaran Mystic Past Life). That will let you use verbal components and use your tail as a hand to fulfill somatic components. And you can obtain Beast Shape II and higher on any character by taking Fey Obedience (The Lantern King), perhaps using the Evangelist prestige class for faster advancement, and using Polymorph Any Object to Greater Polymorph yourself (or someone else) with what is almost certain to be a +7 duration factor (animal kingdom, same intelligence or lower) or higher (if you are turning into a mammal or a creature same size as you), at which point you have permanent duration.

Alternatively, the Skald can easily obtain pounce at a high level just by using Raging Song to give himself and any allies Greater Beast Totem. He is also capable of using Spell Kenning to cast Beast Shape II+ and Beastspeak (using Expanded Spell Kenning, Runes of the Crone, or Runes of the Old Faith).

In addition, you can obtain Pounce on any character by playing a Catfolk with the Claw Pounce feat and equipping Claw Blades so you can make manufactured weapon attacks with your catfolk claws for iteratives, but you will want 10 BAB, so you'll want to raise your BAB perhaps or just take it at level 13 if you are a 3/4 BAB class. Cleric into Holy Vindicator or Scar Seeker (perhaps dipping a level of a full BAB class at 5)? Cleric/Shaman 4 + Ranger 1 into Skyseeker? Wizard 4 + Fighter 1 into Eldritch Knight? Psychic 6 + Stargazer 3 into Esoteric Knight (Claw Pounce at 14)? Just get ready to take Prestigious Spellcaster feats if you go down that route.

You can also sort of imitate Spell Combat by using lesser metamagic rods of Quicken Spell, or using the Conductive or Spell Storing property on your melee weapon. That reminds me, there is a trick with the Magus where you use Quick Draw and keep drawing and using more spell storing weapons (dropping the previous one as a free action) to do a ridiculous amount of bonus attacks as each touch spell grants you another attack. Since the stored spell's touch attack does not, strictly speaking, need to be performed with the spell-storing weapon, it is perhaps possible to obtain as many bonus attacks as you have spell storing weapons on hand (which can get massive at high levels).

Lastly, the Ectoplasmatist Spiritualist has his own version of spell combat, but unless your GM generously lifts the "can only attack with one hand" requirement which makes no sense for a Spiritualist and undermines a lot of the Ectoplasmatist's perks while leaving it mostly as a rather inferior Magus (who at least benefits from Arcane Pool, arcana, and bonus feats), it isn't particularly worth using.

Right, if they cannot provide protection from the elements (ie. heat and cold, as well as other weather phenomena) then they cannot affect people as the elements would either, so no heat/cold hazards from major image.

That's an AD&D system shock save, iirc, but in PF you can't use the spell to inflict damage, not unless you use the Shadow Gambit feat, which is awful.

Here's a fun feat:

STONY RAMPART (COMBAT, CONDUIT)
Source Planar Adventures pg. 32
Stone rises up at your command, offering cover to allies.

Prerequisites: Knowledge (planes) 3 ranks.

Benefit: As a standard action, you can call forth a low wall of unworked stone along any side of a square within 30 feet. This wall is 5 feet long, 3 feet high, 2 inches thick, and acts as a low obstacle, except that it provides only partial cover. A single 5-foot section of stone created by this feat has hardness 8 and 30 hp. You can only have one such wall in existence at a time for every 5 ranks in Knowledge (planes) you have (minimum 1); walls last for a number of rounds equal to your ranks in Knowledge (planes) before crumbling to dust. If you have 10 or more ranks in Knowledge (planes), you can create multiple walls as a single standard action by expending an equivalent number of uses of this ability.

You can use this feat’s benefit a number of times per day equal to your ranks in Knowledge (planes).

So, these walls are somewhat fragile (abnormally durable for its dimensions, but fragile on the whole), but they have interesting ramifications. First, it's a 3 foot high wall. Frankly, a wall of that height should give full cover by default, according to the low obstacle rules, but whatever. Special exception strikes and people can magically shoot you better from above this wall. But, if you are small size, this should count as cover anyway, because now most of your body is under that wall. Second, if you decide to drop prone (a free action), these walls give you total cover (and being prone is +4 AC vs ranged and -4 AC vs melee) and that is Very Fun (until they destroy or sidestep your wall, anyway). Third, they're terrain obstacles, so unless people can make their Acrobatics checks to jump over it (which is harder without a running start) or have a climb/burrow/earthglide speed, you can do some useful stunts to box in enemies so they can't maneuver well (they can still 5-foot step through obstacles, though).

You might have noticed that the Shifter class doesn't really give you much after 8 or 9 levels (9 only if you have 2 good minor aspects - otherwise you're looking at either going for 10 levels or buying Bestial Rags). Depending on whether you even get any usefufl perks from your aspects at 8th level, there might not be much benefit beyond 6 levels either (especially if you use Bestial Rags to boost the aspect you care about to 8th level). As such, the obvious solution is to simply stop taking Shifter levels and start taking levels in classes with better features instead. The biggest thing you might stand to lose from doing this is really just Shifter's Fury (depending on whether or not the GM rules that the ability to make iterative attacks with Shifter's Fury as if a natural weapon were a manufactured weapon must require Shifter levels to give you more iteratives, as opposed to scaling with BAB like normal for manufactured weapon iteratives, which they do count as), but even in that case there are other ways to get double iteratives anyway.

I'll skip most of the spellcasting multiclass recommendations (like Cleric, Warpriest, Inquisitor, Druid) since if you were going to go spellcaster, you really should've just played a Druid from the start (which is by and large a much better shapeshifter than the Shifter anyway), but you can do it. Natural Spell works with any spellcasting class. I would like to note, however, that multiclassing Shifter with the Druid will give your GM good cause to question your sanity, and that if you want wild shape on other divine casters that bad, you can do so without giving up spellcasting levels by prestiging into Green Faith Acolyte.  But, in fairness, the Druid does make a pretty good multiclass addition to the Shifter, if not for the obvious question it raises.

Multiclassing Options:

Fighter: Good for 1-5 levels, as the bonus feats are nice. Since Armor Training won't do you much good with your restrictions, you should take Mutation Warrior Fighter or Lore Warden Fighter if you want to go for more than 2 levels (which is what makes the 3rd level of Fighter worth it). I'm more partial to Lore Warden since you can just use Zerk with Amp (voluntarily failing the saving throw against addiction, which does not affect you while you are taking Zerk) for upwards of +6 alchemical bonus to strength at higher levels anyway, provided you have someone capable of removing the ability damage. You can get rid of the -2 penalty to constitution by having someone cast Remove Disease (or having a Periapt of Health to put on for a brief moment) anyway, as addiction is a disease. For weapon training you'd ultimately want Natural Weapon and Close weapon groups, and it opens up the use of Gloves of Dueling for an extra bonus to attack and damage. Alternatively you could swap weapon training and bravery for Savage Warrior Fighter (You can stack both for Mutation Warrior + Savage Warrior Fighter) and get massive bonuses to natural weapon attacks when pouncing. Ask your GM if he would allow you to count Natural Savagery as Weapon Training for things like Gloves of Dueling and the Advanced Weapon Training feat (since it's basically weapon training with the Natural Weapon group). If not, skip Savage Warrior and just take weapon training with the natural weapon group. This is all assuming you consider 5 levels of Fighter to be worth it, however. If you want to go 5 or more levels of Fighter, you should just take 5 levels and follow it with Ironbound Sword Samurai (see below). I'd also recommend mixing in a 1 level dip of Ulfen Guard (see below), simply because it's good.

Ranger: You can contemplate 1 or 2 levels of this if you either want a Favored Enemy bonus or you are using the Freebooter archetype (but spending movement actions is not the most pleasant thing; only do this if you are in the habit of buffing yourself with things like potions or spell-like abilities or you're using Rhino Charge to charge as a standard action by readying charges to go off right away). If your GM accepts that counting Shifter levels as Druid levels for the purposes of prerequisites with regards to Wild Shape feats is sufficient to let the Shapeshifting Hunter feat count Shifter levels as Druid levels to obtain the Ranger levels needed for additional favored enemies, then this is a much better dip, giving you 3 favored enemies with 2 levels of ranger + 8 levels of Shifter or 1 level of Ranger + 9 levels of Shifter. (Incidentally, from a balance perspective I personally don't have any problem with this interpretation, since an actual Druid is still a stronger shapeshifter than the Shifter, so letting the Shifter do this stunt a Druid definitely can do is still of milder consequence than if you'd had Druid levels instead of Shifter levels in the first place. And it fits thematically.) At that stage you'll probably want a Wand of Instant Enemy and bane property on your magic items, but to use a wand while wild shaped you have to be either using Lycanthropic Shifter, Ape as your form of choice, or have the Grasping Tail and Mischievous Tail feats so you can use wands while in Tiger shape, and this will require you to be playing a race with a tail. On the upside of things, that does open up using a lot of Ranger wands, potions, and other magic items since you can, for instance, stow a wand as a move action, draw a wand as a swift action, and use a wand as a standard action, but you will need to be carrying some kind of saddlebag or bag of holding (perhaps even a Polymorphic Pouch) in your wildshaped form. If you're not up for the Wand of Instant Enemy, there is also the option of purchasing an Enmity Fetish, which has its own ups (you're not spending standard actions in combat) and downs (only one use per day per Enmity Fetish, costs 40k gp, and you can only select a single creature type per fetish). Enmity Fetishes become more of an option at those levels where you are stupidly rich.

Samurai: Essentially we're after Challenge for a source of bonus damage, possibly using something like Order of the Flame so we can keep challenging, so you'll want to use a Champion's Banner to boost your challenge damage. Possibly the GM will let the banner continue working while Wild Shaped, but if not you just need allies to fasten the banner to you after wild shaping out of combat as if you're a mount, probably at the same time that they're equipping you with armor. The best archetype appears to be Ironbound Sword (take 5 levels of Lore Warden Fighter first), which stacks its class levels with Fighter levels for the purposes of all Fighter class features (NOTE: Bonus Feats is a Fighter class feature). The mount is fairly useless but if you aren't trading it out and feel like it you can use Boon Companion to give it +4 levels and Monstrous Mount to replace it for a Griffon that is intelligent and fairly useful even before we start contemplating animal companion archetypes. Alternatively you can just give it the Precocious Companion archetype and perhaps put its ability score increases into int so you have an intelligent companion and use it for all kinds of non-combat purposes, like by giving it a Greater Hat of Disguise and having it take Master Craftsman and Craft Arms and Armor or Craft Wondrous Item feats so it makes magic items for you and the party. You can also just use your mount as a meatshield in combat and/or give it an Aid Another build (use a Hand of Glory to let it equip a Ring of Tactical Precision).

Spiritualist: The only spellcasting multiclass I'm sort of recommending. Amazing 1 level dip, but you could advance it beyond that, as this is a wis-based psychic spellcaster, so you can cast in Wild Shape without a Natural Spell feat. Take the Dedication or Desperation focus for your phantom and leave it in your consciousness at all times, unless you are seriously intending to level Spiritualist and do things with it. You get +2 Fort, +2 Will from the 1 level of Spiritualist, +4 vs mind-affecting saves from having your phantom reside in your consciousness (and 1/day you can shift a mental effect to your phantom instead of suffering it, at the price of losing the +4 bonus for the duration of the effect), 2 Skill Focus feats (Diplomacy and Sense Motive for Dedication, Acrobatics and Escape Artist for Desperation), 1 bonus feat (Iron Will for Dedication, Combat Reflexes for Desperation), and a surprisingly useful smidge of spellcasting. For psychic knacks, I recommend Guidance, Open/Close (if sneaking around in Mouse form), Message (if you have Ring of Eloquence), Detect Magic (if sneaking solo), Mage Hand (especially if you are sneaking around and/or using Magic Trick), and maybe Light (but you should always have darkvision through Planar Wild Shape). If you have the Two-World Magic magic trait, Ghost Sound is amazing for creating distractions while sneaking and letting you speak while in Wild Shape (but your GM may require you to have Spiritualist as your level 1 or use Additional Traits). For 1st level spells you could go Obscuring Mist, Detect Evil, or some other fun options (I don't recommend Shield unless you take Spiritualist at level 1 instead of 9). Make no mistake, this 1 level dip is a monster set of perks, especially for your saving throws. If you continue advancing Spiritualist at a later point, you can also prestige into Esoteric Knight (and you can fix the dead spellcasting with Favored Prestige Class and Prestigious Spellcaster), but you're screwed when it comes to the Eldritch Armor power, unless your GM generously lets you use Wis as your relevant modifier instead of Int or Cha. Battle Mind helps though. I don't really recommend advancing Spiritualist (or the Esoteric Knight prestige class, except as a 2-dip for Battle Mind maybe) but if you're looking for a spellcaster path it's a possibility. You could also just prestige directly into Mystery Cultist worshiping Falayna (1 Spiritualist with Ghost Sound + 6 Shifter + Mystery Cultist equipping Bestial Rags is ideal there) and get that Divine Favor SLA + other buffs. That's pretty viable. You can also use its plethora of melee touch attack spells with Runic Charge and pounce to get free touch spells on your charging full attacks.

Scout Unchained Rogue: Congratulations, we get sneak attack on charge and we have pounce and a massive number of attacks. Also, note that "if you are able to only take a standard action on your turn, you can still charge, but you are only allowed to move up to your speed (instead of double your speed)" (see here) even without Rhino Charge. This means you can pounce people during surprise rounds and collect sneak attacks on every hit. Combat trick spots you an extra combat feat and later on you get Debilitating Injury to give enemies effectively -4 AC and another penalty with the Double Debiltation unchained talent. If you get the ki pool talent, you can use it with Tea of Transference for more smite evil uses. If you are going down the road of a sneak attacker, you might prefer to get a Headband of Ninjitsu over a +4 Headband of Inspired Wisdom. You can also get Cornugon Smash + Shatter Defenses (note that you get a +4 bonus to Intimidate if you are larger than your opponent and a -4 penalty if smaller) in order to obtain sneak attacks without charging. The Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat is a nice way to raise your sneak attack damage even higher and the Ghostslayer feat can be used to sneak attack ghosts. Side benefits of this class include a massive number of skill ranks and free unlocks on skills, but really, only Intimidate (in conjunction with Cornugon Smash and maybe Intimidating Prowess, but probably you'll want to use buffs and items to pump your Intimidate instead.) and maybe Stealth are interesting unlocks here. The added skills per level will come in handy though.

Unchained Monk: Also mostly good for 1 or 2 levels, since it gives you bonus feats and some nice saving throws, but only do this if there is something good to be had among the bonus feats. We don't care about AC bonus or Flurry of Blows, so the restrictions against armor-wearing do not affect us. If you go for 3 levels of Unchained Monk, you get a ki pool, which is really only good for using Tea of Transference to convert them into extra smite evil uses (You have smite evil from your Planar Wild Shape's Celestial template) per day, but you could just take a Perfect Style feat for that and that would let you just dip 1 level of Student of Perfection. You can also go regular Monk if you prefer +2 or +3 will saves over 1 BAB.

Prestige Class Options:

Darechaser: Not that strong of a prestige class and I don't really recommend this unless polytheism is in the cards so you can still get Chaldira's obedience at least (If it costs you that obedience, this PrC is hands down not worth taking.), but it does have some low-key perks that make it an option, but you'll probably want a dip of Oracle for the lame curse to obtain fatigue immunity (non-Oracle levels count as 1/2 Oracle levels for curses) or do something similar (probably just buy a giant supply of Allnight, which makes you unaffected by fatigue for 8 hours at the cost of -2 to skillchecks and exhaustion afterwards). First low-key perk: If you Adrenaline Rush before initiating combat (scouting is good), you get your Rush bonus to initiative, and the Dare bonus can be applied to almost any d20 roll (so it can help make an attack hit, in a pinch) but it also doesn't have a listed duration and applies to saving throws despite being a swift action (meaning you cannot Dare right as you roll a save, which means either this should be an immediate action instead of a swift or you should get to Dare ahead of time), so if your GM rules you can dare before you do something and get the bonus once the action comes around, you can use it to pump your initiative even further. There are plenty of ways to pump initiative, but it's good to have these bonuses all the same. Other than that, Powerful Leaper deed letting you jump as if you had a running start with a massive bonus helps you ignore difficult terrain (assuming you don't have a Fly or Feather Step or Freedom of Movement to resolve difficult terrain by now, but expect table variation on that last one). The Untouchable deed gives you some extra AC. And last but not least, which is probably the real reason we're even considering this PrC, the Unstoppable deed gives you temp hp equal to 2x your class level every time you enter adrenaline rush, and you can enter and end adrenaline rush as a free action (just be sure to be fatigue immune). Adrenaline rush cycling not only gives you fresh temp hp every single round (ie. end it and use a free action to renew it, at the cost of an extra round of Adrenaline Rush), but you can use it multiple times in the same round which is handy if you happen to have, say, a vicious property on your Amulet of Mighty Fists and armor spikes, letting you do +2d6 untyped damage while soaking up all the damage with temp hp by ending and renewing adrenaline rush between attacks to renew your temp hp. However, you better have a good con modifier if you do this and/or dip a level of Ulfen Guard (see below) for the rage rounds on top, since otherwise you will run out of Adrenaline Rush pretty fast until you reach the higher levels (giving you both more rush rounds and more temp hp), as such I recommend at least 3-4 levels of Darechaser before rush-cycling with vicious weapons (rush-cycling every round is still good and costs you nothing), but it's a stunt that you should be able to do for multiple full attacks per day, increasing drastically as your level goes up (or as you obtain more rage rounds with a couple of Torc of Bloody Rage, see Ulfen Guard below). The Ulfen Guard dip is strongly recommended, tbh. Anyway, that combination means that Darechaser helps you go first, gives you a bit of AC and temp hp, might help with maneuvering a battlefield (climb speed, jumping bonus, extra move speed), and helps you beat the shit out of enemies with the vicious property and a giant pile of attacks.

Hellknight: A bit of an odder road to go down, and one that will carry ramifications for RP (Hellknights are very zealous enforcers of the law who do not abide law-breaking at all), plus you will want to dip a level of Fighter or something else for the plate armor proficiency, but there are some perks here. Smite Chaos gives you another tool to smite enemies with (which you can raise with Bracers of the Avenging Knight), but the primary reason to enter this prestige class is to use Cornugon Smash + Intimidating Prowess with the Fearsomeness discipline to frighten enemies just by hitting them, which is extremely good. You could also use Dazzling Display to intimidate all enemies within 10 feet into becoming frightened, but if you are large size you will have 10 foot reach without trying so the pouncing Cornugon Smash path is better. Hellknight Plate (or Hellknight Half-Plate, which also works with the class feature) can be worn in the form of dragonskin (or Ironwood) armor. In all honesty you don't need more than 3 levels of Hellknight here, but if you want to go for 8+, you'll probably want to worship the Order of the Godclaw and take the Pentamic Faith discipline for the War domain. If you hold the charge on Battle Rage before combat, you can just use a single attack to deliver it to yourself and obtain a bonus. With a Conductive weapon property you can also use up a single attack to give yourself the bonus to damage rolls too (but you run out of uses faster this way), or get Quicken Spell-Like Ability at Hellknight 10 (assuming GM is okay with players taking that feat, but afaict it's usually fine), but the other prize of the War domain is being able to give yourself any combat feat as a swift action for one or more rounds at a time. While you can get pretty much anything that seems useful at the moment (such as Blind-Fight or a Critical feat at the instant you find you are rolling a crit), the main draw is being able to give yourself Dedicated Adversary on demand to get a +2 attack and damage bonus vs whatever you are fighting at the moment. The Summon Servant of Law and Vigilance disciplines are also fairly useful.

Horizon Walker: Nothing too crazy here and no fancy favored terrain bonus raising for this build. The only trick here is using a Scarlet and Green Cabochon ioun stone with a Wayfinder to skip the sole feat prereq and equipping Boots of Friendly Terrain for a free +2 increase to your favored terrain of choice. There are two real stunts to be had. One is going Astral dominance for 3+wis mod uses of Dimension Door per day, which you can then also use with Dimensional Assault or even go all the way to Dimensional Dervish. The other is just taking Terrain Dominance (Urban) in order to be able to hit all the many creatures that appear in urban terrains with a very large attack and damage bonus. Other than that you're mostly shopping for perks, like taking Plains to remove the move speed penalty from medium armor and get a +10 foot speed bonus. By and large the main appeal of this prestige class is if your campaign leaves you very consistently fighting in the same terrain and you want the dominance bonus (underground campaign (dungeons explicitly count as underground), aquatic campaign, campaign on a specific plane, campaign in a city, etc.) or if you want Dimension Door, but otherwise urban tends to come in handy often enough, since those terrain dominance favored enemy bonuses apply to creatures that belong to that terrain even when you're fighting outside the terrain. Just be aware that the Charm Person SLA is going to be cha-based and therefore useless unless you get someone unconscious (like with nonlethal damage) first, at which point they automatically fail their saves. The PrC gets Favored Terrain on 7 out of 10 levels (add another favored terrain from boots), so the bonus is pretty good if you're confident in your ability to cash in on it consistently. If you have a favored enemy that is certain to be native to your dominance's terrain (such as a Dedicated Adversary feat), it's possible to use Instant Enemy to make an enemy count as your favored enemy type "for all purposes" and therefore count as an enemy type which eats your Horizon Walker favored enemy bonus.

Sentinel (Haagenti): A more unusual pick, but a surprisingly potent and useful one at higher levels, and also one that fits the Shifter surprisingly well. Really, if you get at least 6 levels of Sentinel, this PrC will do you good. If not, it's rather skippable. But 10th level just gives you a few small perks (basically ferocity, some DR, and 1/day swift action cure critical wounds), and as such Sentinel level 10 is entirely skippable as well, especially since you already get similar DR for better values through Planar Wild Shape. There's quite a bit to this prestige class, so let's get a bit in depth here:

• About the prerequisites: Since Haagenti is a Demon Lord, the Sentinel prerequisite is raised to 7 BAB instead of the usual 5 (see: Book of the Damned), which is not really a problem in this case. Worshiping Haagenti as CN is not a problem either as Haagenti intentionally represents himself as a rather reasonable and helpful inventor (see the wiki page). Unfortunately, you do not have greataxe proficiency for the Weapon Focus prereq, and as such will need to either dip another martial class level first, spend a feat on Martial Weapon Proficiency, or just play a Half-Orc, Orc, Half-Elf (via Ancestral Arms alternate racial trait), or Human (via Adoptive Parentage alternate racial trait, Military Tradition alternate racial trait, or just using the bonus feat - Military Tradition is best, by granting both armor spikes and greataxe proficiencies). Probably the easiest way to enter is just 6 levels of Shifter with Bestial Rags, 1 level of Fighter, and entering Sentinel starting at character level 8. Starting with 1 level of Fighter also gives your armor spike proficiency for your Shifter, opening up traits, so there's that. But if you get the proficiency another way, you can also replace that Fighter level with an Ulfen Guard level (or you can just take 1 Fighter level and 1 Ulfen Guard level and delay Sentinel by 1).
• Now onto the benefits: The first major prize of this is getting 2/day Alchemical Allocation SLA at 3rd level of Sentinel (although admittedly only 1 level sooner than you would get it with just a Damned Soldier feat, if you entered at lvl 9), which is an extremely powerful spell that helps you take advantage of potions and elixirs very nicely (Elixir of Vision, Hiding, Tumbling, etc. and there are too many useful potions to list when you can just re-use them, but I'll mention a Bard/Medium-crafted potion of Encouraging Heroism, a CL12 Extended Barkskin potion - remember: potions/etc. don't have to be crafted at minimum caster level). Here's an Alchemical Allocation mini-guide. Next, once you reach 6th level, your Weapon Focus, Symbolic Weapon, and Practiced Combatant features will all count with every weapon and you can use swift actions to grant all your weapons, including natural weapons, a variety of options, including reach. (Just to be clear: Haagenti is very into fleshwarping and shapeshifting, the Sentinel boons give you shapeshifting to boot, and if they only meant for it to solely apply to "manufactured weapons" it would've just said so.) At level 9, you get Shapechange with significant upgrades to boot, which plays very nicely to being a Shifter (just remember that special form DCs use the polymorph effect's DC and as a SLA it defaults to a cha-based DC). Here's a guide to useful shapeshifting forms. So all 3 perks are pretty great for Shifters.
• Stunts: Taking Ascetic Style on a Versatile design Greataxe lets you obtain Ascetic Style's benefits with all weapons through Haagenti's second boon. Seems like the kind of inventive warfare Haagenti would approve of. This should allow you to equip Brawling armor and apply its benefits to all weapons now that they obtain the benefits of effects applying to unarmed strikes. (This also causes Amulet of Mighty Fists to apply to manufactured weapons.) If you go for Ascetic Strike you also get bigger damage dice with everything, especially if you throw Monastic Legacy on top.
• Side notes: I personally rule that all profane/sacred bonuses from your obedience feat and the relevant prestige class stack with each other for sanity's sake, and I point this out because by RAW Symbolic Weapon and Practiced Combatant wouldn't stack (unless you're a neutral worshiping a neutral deity, because then you can make one a sacred bonus and the other profane!), considering you already add weapon attack bonuses to CMB checks performed with the weapon, and the same problem would go for Stalwart and the Obedience's bonus to saving throws vs transmutation effects. I doubt any GM would rule otherwise, but it's important to make you aware of this issue. Also, it's a decent option to follow this PrC with 3 levels of Weapon Master Fighter, focusing on Greataxes, taking Penetrating Strike (Sentinel levels stack with Fighter levels for feat prerequisites), and equipping Gloves of Dueling. (You only need 2 more levels if you started with 1 level of Fighter.)
• Caveat: You cannot get Deific Obedience (Chaldira) if you take this prestige class, since your Sentinel deity has to be your only deity, but the perks (including Alchemical Allocation) are strong enough to make this a very worthwhile option anyway. If you want, you can always swap your Cloak of Resistance for a Cloak of Good Fortune and either get a Ring of Resistance or 5 Amber Spindle ioun stones socketed in 5 wayfinders. The Cloak of Good Fortune bonus isn't that great (+1 luck to attack rolls), but with the Fate's Favored faith trait and a Luckstone it's still something, especially if you happen to be an Aasimar with Student of Sulunai if you really want at least 1/day divine favor SLA.

Stalwart Defender: The amount of feat prerequisites is ugly but otherwise this is a decent, mostly defensive option. You get some extra strength and a lot of AC and other perks. If you want to use this prestige class, I strongly recommend using a Flawed Scarlet and Green Cabochon ioun stone (8k gp) with a Wayfinder (500gp) so it doesn't hover around you for easy stealing or sundering. Not only does it give you a prerequisite, but with Stalwart Defender 2 you can take Internal Fortitude, which will combine to make you immune to fatigued, exhausted, sickened, and nauseated, allowing you to enter a new Defensive Stance every turn, since you can just let Defensive Stance lapse at the start of your turn and enter a new Defensive Stance at the end of your turn. This trick allows you to get around the main problem of not being able to move while in a Defensive Stance, which fixes the major drawback, and also allows you to basically use "once per defensive stance" powers once per round (or more, if you end and reactivate a new defensive stance multiple times in the same turn). Since you get DR through your Planar Wild Shape anyway (which scales with your hit dice), you can skip the DR-based powers and instead contemplate Unexpected Strike, Clear Mind, Smash, Halting Blow, and Fearless Defense. For any Shifter, but especially an Ape Shifter with a reach weapon, Halting Blow+Unexpected Strike (combined with letting your stance expire and restart each round) is a pretty good combo to lock down areas with AoOs. If you're wondering how the AC bonus class feature scales (since they plain forgot to mention that or include it in the level-up table), the standard interpretation is that you get +1 AC at levels 1, 4, 7, and 10.

Student of Perfection: Mostly a brief dip to contemplate if you are fiddling with a ki pool for whatever reason (like Tea of Transference for extra smite evil or rage), in particular if you are wearing light armor (so you get a +1 dodge bonus) and using a Headband of Wisdom and happened to dip a level of Unchained Monk. If you take a second level, it appears that the RAI is that ki powers use your character level as your monk level for prerequisites, so you could get elemental fury for an extra 1d6 elemental damage (preferably acid or lightning) or you can get the Furious Defense power for +4 Dodge to AC as an immediate action until the end of your turn, but other than that the offerings are scarce, aside from perhaps Punish Mistake or Master of Riddles.

Ulfen Guard: The biggest reason you shouldn't contemplate a Barbarian dip is this PrC. This prestige class makes a great 1 level dip, as you immediately get both rage and a rage power in addition to the chosen ally feature, but you can also just progress it and help yourself to a fighter bonus feat, greater  rage, and a few other things. It has no feat prereqs and the skills it wants (5 ranks Perception and 3 ranks Sense Motive + 2 ranks of Knowledge (Nobility)) are largely good ones to have anyway. Note that the prestige class only requires you to be of Ulfen descent, not of human race, which means that races like Aasimars, Tieflings, and even Oreads that do not count as human but typically do have human ancestry will qualify for it. You could even qualify as an Orc if you want to assert that you have Half-Orc ancestry and, through that, Ulfen ancestry. If you're willing to sacrifice some more AC, the Reckless Abandon rage power is not bad. If you do dip it, you will want to use maybe one or more Torcs of Blood Rage (8k gp, just put one on, activate it for the +3 rounds, and immediately take it off again) or an Extra Rage feat to keep your rounds of rage up. Also, if you use a Headband of Havoc (8k gp) you can raise a rage power's performance by 4 Barbarian levels, but usually a Headband of Inspired Wisdom is better to wear. And don't forget that if you have rage, you can upgrade your weapons (and AoMF) with a Furious property. Later on the feat combination of Raging Vitality and Raging Brutality would also be of use. Note that you only need a 1 level dip to qualify for that, although Mighty Rage is nice to have.


Yeah, this guide was pretty short, but that's about all you needed. Pairing beast shape natural armor with animal barding will give you strong AC, Planar Wild Shape is a must-have feat, and pairing pounce with a huge number of attacks makes strong damage. Add the size bonuses you get from wild shape and you're in a good spot.