Harmonic Spell translated to Pathfinder (this will contain spoilers for the final encounters so players of CotCT should stay out)

[Volaran]

My group is likely to be encountering Ileosa and her simulacra during this session or the next, and I have been wondering how to work her Harmonic Spell feat for Pathfinder.

For reference, I have re-written Ileosa as a Court Bard from the APG, so that she will be inflicting more penalties against the party, rather than only bonuses to her allies. Also, as I re-write the Harmonic spell feat, I am not excessively concerned about balancing it for PC use, as we have no bards in the party, and I would not make it usable for future groups.

The original feat is as follows:

Harmonic Spell (original version)
You can weave bardic music effects into your spellcasting.
Prerequisite: Bardic music ability, Perform (any) 8 ranks
Benefit: When you cast a harmonic spell, you can activate one of your bardic music abilities as a free action. The bardic music is incorporated into the spell’s casting time, and the effect of the bardic music lasts for as long as the spell’s casting time continues and for 5 rounds thereafter. Activating a bardic music ability with Harmonic Spellconsumes an additional bardic music use per day, but does not increase the effective level of the spell being cast.

Now, Ileosa can activate bardic music a swift action, and her duplicates as a move action so combining it will spellcasting to save time isn't much use. However, it still seems quite useful for having multiple bardic music effects in place at once. See what you think of this:

Harmonic Spell (proposed Pathfinder version)
You can weave bardic performance effects into your spellcasting.
Prerequisite: Bardic performance ability, Perform (any) 8 ranks
When you cast a harmonic spell, you can activate one of your bardic music abilities as a free action. The bardic music is incorporated into the spell’s casting time, and the effect of the bardic music lasts for as long as the spell’s casting time continues and for a number of rounds equal to the level of the spell being cast. Activating a bardic performance ability with Harmonic Spell consumes a number of the bard's daily performance rounds equal to the level of the spell being cast, but does not increase the effective level of the spell being cast.

This will let Ileosa keep up a primary effect (probably Satire or Glorious Epic), but throw up other bardic effects along with her casting. Ileosa, and even her duplicates, have quite a large number of bardic performance rounds/day, so this will also let them get the most out of that ability if the encounter is not particularly stretched out.

I am also curious whether it would make sense to stack repeated effects. For example, if Ileosa casts Irresistible Dance, and combines with the Scandal performance, the performance would last 6 rounds. If she then cast Greater Dispel Magic and wove in another Scandal performance, should I have it extend the stack with any remaining rounds of the original performance, or simply reset it to 5 rounds?

I realize that this is going to create a fair amount of bookkeeping for me, especially with Ileosa _and_ 6 False Ileosas in the final encounter, but I think it has the potential for some fun.

Any thoughts?

[Brutesquad07]

I would have it restart the timer instead of stacking. As for your bookkeeping, I have a feeling that unless you have significantly upped the strength of the False Ileosa's the book keeping won't be much of a problem. My parties smashed through those. Each PC could take one or more down in a round. By the second round only 1 was remaining the last time I ran this and that was because she was in a corner niche for 2 separate Area Effect's. They have week defense and by the time the party makes it into that room even Arcanes can melee beat one down...which of course they wouldn't because they have far better choices many of which will defeat several of them at once.