Does a wisp ally (p385) need to make an attack roll each round?


Rules Questions


Each round your wisp ally occupies the same space as an enemy it “provides your choice of covering fire or harrying fire”. If a PC takes those actions it requires a ranged attack roll vs AC 15.

Do you think the wisp ally automatically provides the benefit of the chosen action without needing to roll (ie is the attack subsumed in the casting of the spell)?

If you think it needs to attack each round, what’s its bonus? (I see the options as zero, the mystic’s ranged attack roll, the mystic’s ranged attack roll using WIS instead of DEX. Something else maybe?)


Away from my book, but I'd say based on it providing your choice, it just does it without an attack roll.

Otherwise, why use a spell slot instead of just trying for the covering/harrying fire yourself?


It basically is just a wisp that is being annoying. It is not attacking it is just simulating the effects of those conditions due to it buzzing around your target.


Pantshandshake wrote:

Away from my book, but I'd say based on it providing your choice, it just does it without an attack roll.

Otherwise, why use a spell slot instead of just trying for the covering/harrying fire yourself?

There’s an efficiency boost, since the spell lasts one round per level. So one standard action gives you a number of actions of covering/harrying fire equal to your level. I wondered if that’s all it was supposed to provide or if it was auto-success as well.

Like you, my instinct is that it’s automatically successful, I just wondered at the fact it wasn’t spelled out one way or the other. I don’t yet have a good grasp on how powerful first level spells are “supposed to be” in Starfinder. The clincher, for me, was considering a first level caster and then asking exactly the question you did.

I like to ask around though, since the rules gurus often surprise me.

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