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Quote from the PFSRD

You can share spells with those you have a magical connection with.

Prerequisites: Spellcraft 10 ranks, ability to acquire an animal companion, eidolon, familiar, or special mount.

Benefit: Any non-instantaneous spell (but not any spell-like ability) you cast on yourself can also affect a creature bonded to you (such as an animal companion, eidolon, familiar, or special mount). The creature must be within 5 feet of you at the time of casting to receive the benefit. The spell’s duration is halved between you and your bonded creature (for example, a spell with a duration of 1 hour has a duration of 30 minutes for both you and your bonded creature).

If the spell or effect has a duration other than instantaneous, it stops affecting the creature if it moves farther than 5 feet away from you. It does not affect the creature again if it returns before the duration expires. You may share spells in this fashion even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of that type. This feat only applies to animal companions, eidolons, familiars, or special mounts gained through a class feature.

So, can you share touch spells like Calcific Touch or Chill touch with your familiar and let master and familiar attack with this spell at the same time?

When spells with a limit are shared like Protection from Energy, does master and familiar have a shared limit or two seperate limits? Another example would be Call Lightning which limits the total number of lightning that can be called.

Or to paraphrase it, fore some spells doubling the the number of targets and halving the duration is roughly equal in power. For other spells you nearly double its damage output, absorbed damage etc. Hard to estimate the intended power level of the feat.

People saying Masterpieces are the domain of just the bard are wrong. Any class that gains bardic performance can access them by spending a feat for each one.

Quote from PFSRD:

Are you in PR for United Airlines, by any chance?

Paizo customer: "Paizo has sold me a bunch of broken rules elements that I don't know how to use."

Rysky: "The fact that they have acknowledged this issue for years and still put out more broken rules elements without fixing it shows they care."

My thoughts exactly. This faq request is currently the most crucial one for the bard class, imho. Leaving this issue open for nearly two years just doesn't look like "deeply caring and continously supporting" the class by the developers.

Because there's not a "clear idea of the rule mechanic" because every single Masterpiece does something completely different.

I share your assessment, I doubt that there was clear well-thoughtout idea about what masterpieces are ment to be. The big thing is that masterpieces came with Ultimate Magic and even those first ones are unclear and are subject of the questions in this thread. Didn't the team communicate with each other or playtest their rules? We are not talking about following publications and other authors/teams, but about the very introduction of the optional mechanic!

Bards are not required to take Masterpieces, Bards do not automatically get Masterpieces, they are completely optional. So not getting an answer yet on these specific optional rules does not mean the Bard is not heavily supported and it also means the Bard is not unplayable until a FAQ manifests. They still have plenty of spells and Archetypes and more are being put out.

Do I want this to get FAQed? Absolutely, which is what this thread is for, requesting Masterpieces to be FAQed.

While Masterpieces are optional, they fill in the gap that the core bard has: Rather bland effects of their music. And the high number of supporters of the faq request should indicate that these rules questions are important to quite a few. Spells and archetypes are nothing special and not a very good measure for support of a class.

Which either means that all authors either weren't given a clear idea of the rule mechanic to work with, just didn't bother much or just misunderstood it. If this clear idea ever existed, why not share it and change those masterpieces that contradict the basic concept? The questions regarding masterpieces are neither hard nor complicated.

Rysky, you and I seem to have very different ideas about what "heavily supported" means. One posting and some soothing doesn't change the fact that this faq request is nearly about two years old which is far beyond "not giving a quick answer".

The fact that they're still putting out Bardic stuff including Masterpieces and are watching thread kinda kills the "they don't care about the Bard" thought.

It's a core class after all, they can't just pretend bards don't exist.

This isn't a bard problem, it's a bardic masterpieces problem. Bard is fine, it's the tacked on masterpieces that are causing the issue.

Let's agree to disagree here. Masterpieces, as a feature, belong to the bard class. It's the (as far as i know) only exclusive optional shiny toy the class has. Interweaving magic and music. Such a great idea, so much potential!

I think I google search at least once a month to see if this was ever answered. :_(

Same. And it makes me sad and loosing hope in pathfinder. Bard is a core class, a cornerstone of the fantasy genre and yet masterpieces, one of the class' few unique mechanics, is riddled with unclear rulings and unanswered questions for years now.

Sorry, obviously no native speaker, I wish I could my sentiments in a more elaborate way...

To be honest, examples like this make me loosing faith in Pathfinder. Busy or not, I expect at least a comment from the devs that this question has been noticed by them.
I can even live with them going the easy root and mutually exclude using bardic performances and masterpieces, but just give us some feedback!

I'd like new possibilities for bardic songs. The idea behind masterpieces is therefore great. It's a pity that many of the specific rules are vague and the interaction between bardic performance and masterpieces isn't clear.
=> Marked for FAQ addition.

Hello,

Does the bonus from shield focus count regarding the sacred shield's holy shield ability?