Simple Q&A Pathfinder (By RAW) I

[Xtomjames]

On Trapfinding: By RAW rules it does say that only a person with the Trapfinding ability may attempt to disable a magical trap. However, this rule ignores other means of detection and other means of disabling such a trap. A person with Detect Magic is more capable of detecting a magical trap than a Rogue, and if their disable device check is high enough there should be no reason for them not to be able to. The RAW has a logical defect. Further, I said a person with Disable Device may attempt to disarm a Known Trap, whether or not they succeed is a different matter, further still a Known Trap is any trap that is known to the person mechanical or magical.

On the summon nature's allies lists, it is an untyped rule, because we must presume that with the expansion of the series with the Bestiary 2 and other sources of monsters and potential natural summoning that the list its self will and can expand. The same goes for D&D 3.5, the lists aren't absolute, they're guidelines. They were written prior to the expansion of MM 2-5 and the Fiend Codexes, the Monsters Compendium of Faerun book, the Monsters Compendium of Eberron book, the Beastiary of Darksun, and the Shadowrun Beastiary of Kryn, all of which have other animals that weren't originally listed but are summonable via summon nature's ally.

In general animals and creatures capable of being used by summon nature's ally have a listing in their description, but this isn't always the case either (and Pathfinder from their original Beta release to their standard release ceased this practice).

In general however the list is a guideline. It gives a sense at what level spell gains access to what level CR creature.

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Called Shot rules are found in the Ultimate Combat book mostly (I haven't come across them in the ultimate magic book yet).

In most cases a called shot is a full round action, you're taking the time to aim at a specific part of the body with a ranged spell or weapon gaining a negative which represents the difficulty of the attack.

Touch attacks and Ranged touch attacks from what I can tell do not gain the negatives but rather revert back to normal AC (thus making up for the difficulty of the attack).

Is the ray spell a ranged touch attack or a normal ranged spell? If it's a normal ranged spell treat it as if it got the negatives based on the difficulty of the aimed shot. If it's a ranged touch attack the attack goes against normal AC and gains no negatives. (This is because a ranged touch or normal touch attack is so close and so exact already normally it ignores the Armor Class and is already a very precise attack.)

A talent may allow you to do a called shot as a standard action. If you give a page number and name of the particular talent you're referring too I can have a read and let you know.