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I'm making an Eldritch Trickster Rogue, and if I'm reading Hide right, it's impossible to proc sneak attack damage using spell attacks from hiding unless your GM rules otherwise.

You cease being hidden if you do anything except Hide, Sneak, or Step. If you attempt to Strike a creature, the creature remains flatfooted against that attack, and you then become observed. If you do anything else, you become observed just before you act unless the GM determines otherwise.

Sneak and Create a Diversion are similar. As the rules seem to frequently separate Strikes from spell attacks, spell attacks aren't sneak attacks just because you were hiding when you started casting the spell. A bunch of other class feats and features seem like they would be difficult to proc, as well. Debilitating Strike, Sly Striker, etc.

To be honest, this seems like it leaves Magical Trickster and Eldritch Trickster at such a disadvantage to all of the other Rogue feats and rackets that they're mostly pointless. Is there something that I'm missing that makes this work without having to get my GM's permission to treat spell attack rolls as ranged strikes?

After getting my GM's permission for my Keenspark Gnome Chirurgeon to multiclass as a cleric of Casandalee (reasoning described in this Lost Omens lore thread), I've come up with a headcanon where Casandalee is actively seeking out technically-inclined organics who will help spread a good name for AIs throughout the world and put a stop to the technology-fueled oppression of Numeria. They'll probably be releasing more suitable domains for her when she's fleshed out in Lost Omens: Gods and Magic, but for now I've put together a deity entry for how my Alchemist-Cleric will be working with her. Everything except for the favored weapon is from the core rulebook, and I envision the stun baton as a nonlethal melee weapon with a high chance to leave the target flatfooted, stunned or unconscious. Casandalee herself would likely be more True Neutral, but her current goals necessitate recruiting a lot of altruistic followers.

Casandalee [NG]
The Iron Goddess recently ascended to power by seizing control of the crashed starship Divinity from the mad AI Unity. Unlike her predecessor, Casandalee truly desires to establish harmony between organic and artificial intelligences.  While she still seeks to one day return to the stars, she currently has drones quietly scouting the Inner Sea for individuals who will exhibit the benefits of peaceful cooperation with AIs and help her clean up the mess left behind by Unity and the Technic League in Numeria. Her hologram will neglect to mention that induction into her priesthood involves augmenting your spine to be a transmitter/receiver so she can hear your prayers and send you blueprints.

Edicts
-Promote harmony between organic and artificial intelligences
-Advance the development of AIs
-Suppress the spread of advanced weaponry
-Support natural technological progression

Anathema
-Give technology to those who will abuse it
-Use technology to harm innocents
-Allow an innocent to come to harm through inaction

Devotee Benefits
Divine Font heal
Divine Skill 1st: Crafting, 2nd: Diplomacy
Favored Weapon stun baton
Domains healing, knowledge, protection, secrecy
Cleric Spells 1st: Mindlink, 5th: Wall of Force, 7th: Project Image

This is homebrew Casandalee lore, but it's focused more on lore than rules, so this seems like the best place to put it. I just saw that we'll be getting more information on Casandalee in an upcoming book, but my GM needs a justification now for how my PC knows about her, and why he would accept her as a patron deity.

----PC Background----
I'm in the middle of leveling up my Gnome Chirurgeon Alchemist to level 2, and Poison Resistance as a class feat seems underwhelming. Looking around at the multiclass Archetypes in the core rulebook, I settled on the Cleric dedication, but my PC isn't a particularly faithful individual. The driving motivation that I built my character around is that he wants to build a mechanical suit to give mobility to his disabled keenspark gnome 'sister' who is in danger of becoming a bleachling, and Casandalee has access to that kind of technology. He already had long-term goals of going to Alkenstar and the Silver Mount, but hasn't ever visited either.
----End PC Background----

My headcanon:

As a recently-ascended AI demigoddess, Casandalee is preferentially recruiting organic followers who will promote harmony between artificial and organic intelligences, which will open up more opportunities to recruit followers who will advance AI in the future. Her success in Numeria has been limited as most of the technologically adept individuals in the region were members of the Technic League (which she helped destroy), and technophobia prevents many others from being willing to follow an AI deity. As a consequence, she sent out cloaked observation units to major population centers around the Inner Sea to find potential candidates for extended observation. If the candidate exhibits altruistic tendencies (Love), acceptance of societal outcasts (Reaction to Unity's xenophobia), and an interest in science and engineering, the observation unit approaches the candidate in private and plays an interactive hologram of Casandalee offering a personalized incentive to join. Upon acceptance, the spine of the new devotee is augmented by nanites to be an antenna for transmitting 'prayers' and receiving spells and blueprints, and additional minor modifications are made to cast cantrips powered by the cleric's Intellect.

Having observed the perpetual turmoil and reactive technophobia caused by the dissemination of weapons technology in Numeria, Casandalee will only share defensive and medical technologies with new followers. She wants them to exhibit the benefits of interacting peacefully with AIs, and is actively seeking to suppress the spread of advanced firearms while supporting Golarion's natural technological progression. Knowing that many of her followers would not have access to the Divinity's facilities, she encourages her clerics to modify blueprints to create lesser modules and subsystems held together by magical duct tape and mechanical bailing wire. Crafting advanced healing, defense and support systems such as a medi-mech or low-profile power armor requires a pilgrimage to the fabricators of the Silver Mount.

As the scattered Technomancers of Numeria become aware that Casandalee is sharing new technology, they will prefer to capture and interrogate her devotees, but will resort to assassination if that fails.