Action Economy for Spell Trigger items with lengthy casting times


Rules Questions


What is the round-by-round action economy impact of activating a spell-trigger item to cast a spell with a 1-minute or longer casting time? Specifically, can the activating character take any other actions between activating the spell-trigger item and the conclusion of the casting of the spell?

The rules regarding this, when examined closely, appear to me to be murky at best and downright contradictory at worst...

Using Magical Items (Core rules) wrote:
Activating a magic item is a standard action unless the item description indicates otherwise. However, the casting time of a spell is the time required to activate the same power in an item, regardless of the type of magic item, unless the item description specifically states otherwise.

In the same section, Spell-Trigger items are detailed:

Using Magical Items (Core rules) wrote:
Spell Trigger: Spell trigger activation is similar to spell completion, but it's even simpler. No gestures or spell finishing is needed, just a special knowledge of spellcasting that an appropriate character would know, and a single word that must be spoken. Spell trigger items can be used by anyone whose class can cast the corresponding spell. This is the case even for a character who can't actually cast spells, such as a 3rd-level paladin. The user must still determine what spell is stored in the item before she can activate it. Activating a spell trigger item is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Contrast this to the entry immediately prior to Spell-Trigger items regarding Spell-Completion items, which calls out a specific exception to the activation time for Spell-Completion items:

Using Magical Items (Core rules) wrote:
Activating a spell completion item is a standard action (or the spell's casting time, whichever is longer) and provokes attacks of opportunity exactly as casting a spell does.

This juxtaposition would seem to indicate that while the activation time necessary for a Spell-Completion item is dependent on the casting time of the spell, the activation for Spell-Trigger items is absolute.

When we examine the sections detailing specific rules for Wands and Staves, though, there's additional confusion:

Magic Items: Wands (Core rules) wrote:
Activation: Wands use the spell trigger activation method, so casting a spell from a wand is usually a standard action that doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity. (If the spell being cast has a longer casting time than 1 action, however, it takes that long to cast the spell from a wand.)
Magic Items: Staves (Core rules) wrote:
Activation: Staves use the spell trigger activation method, so casting a spell from a staff is usually a standard action that doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity. If the spell being cast has a longer casting time than 1 standard action, however, it takes the full casting time to cast the spell from a staff.

These segments make it fairly clear that the spell it being cast from the wand or staff, and that the effects of the spell are not produced before the full duration of the spell's casting time. When we look at what is involved in casting a spell with a casting time in excess of one round, we discover the following:

Magic: Casting time (Core rules) wrote:

A spell that takes 1 minute to cast comes into effect just before your turn 1 minute later (and for each of those 10 rounds, you are casting a spell as a full-round action, just as noted above for 1-round casting times). These actions must be consecutive and uninterrupted, or the spell automatically fails.

When you begin a spell that takes 1 round or longer to cast, you must continue the concentration from the current round to just before your turn in the next round (at least). If you lose concentration before the casting is complete, you lose the spell.

This raises the question of what a full-round action to cast a spell entails. For this, we turn to the Combat section:

Combat: Full-round Actions: Cast a Spell (Core rules) wrote:

A spell that takes 1 minute to cast comes into effect just before your turn 1 minute later (and for each of those 10 rounds, you are casting a spell as a full-round action). These actions must be consecutive and uninterrupted, or the spell automatically fails.

When you begin a spell that takes 1 round or longer to cast, you must continue the invocations, gestures, and concentration from 1 round to just before your turn in the next round (at least). If you lose concentration after starting the spell and before it is complete, you lose the spell.

The Combat section also provides information about spell-trigger items, but only under the header of Standard Actions (apparently under the premise that the vast majority of magical items one can activate take a standard action):

Combat: Standard Actions: Activate Magic Item (Core rules) wrote:

Many magic items don't need to be activated. Certain magic items, however, do need to be activated, especially potions, scrolls, wands, rods, and staves. Unless otherwise noted, activating a magic item is a standard action.

Spell Completion Items: Activating a spell completion item is the equivalent of casting a spell. It requires concentration and provokes attacks of opportunity. You lose the spell if your concentration is broken, and you can attempt to activate the item while on the defensive, as with casting a spell.

Spell Trigger, Command Word, or Use-Activated Items: Activating any of these kinds of items does not require concentration and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

So, there is positive verification from the rules that Spell-trigger items do not require extended invocations, gestures, spell-finishing, or concentration.

Concentration cannot be lost on the casting action because it is not required due to the spell being cast from a spell-trigger item. Similarly, there are no gestures or utterances to persist, again due the the source of the spell being a spell-trigger item. If concentration were required, there would be an ironclad case to be made that the execution of other actions (combat, spellcasting, drinking a beer, whatever) would break that concentration and prevent the spell from being cast.

Since that is not the case, though, it seems to me that the action economy for using a staff to cast a spell with a 10-minute casting time would be: Round 1: Standard action to activate staff and start the casting of the spell. Rounds 2-100: Maintain the staff's non-sundered status and continue to hold the staff, while taking any other actions desired, potentially including other spellcasting. Round 101+: Enjoy effects of spell cast from staff.

If this is not the intended action economy for this kind of action, it seems to me that a clarification to that effect is necessary in the rules regarding the activation of spell-trigger items... That said, based on a number of rulings I've encountered regarding spell-trigger items in the past, I believe that the above conclusions are in line with the intended use of this class of item...

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