During a discussion about the odd wording that has a number of folks concerned with casting from a staff - a point was made that I had a hard time debating and was hoping the good people here might be able to help clarify.
Summoner's Spell Repertoire reads:
You can cast any spell in your spell repertoire by using a spell slot of an appropriate spell level. Each time you gain a level, you can reselect the spells in your repertoire.
At 3rd level, your repertoire grows to four spells of your choice of any spell level you can cast, though you must always know at least one spell you can cast using your lower-level slots.
My uncertainty comes from when you reach 5th level in reference to the emphasized text. At 5th level Summoner no longer has a 1st level slot to cast with. Would this mean that at 5th level you lose any 1st level spells remaining in your Spell Repertoire?
My GMs impression is that because Summoner can no longer cast at 1st level, they can no longer maintain that spell in their repetoire. Or rather, the only way for them to retain that spell in their repetoire would be to never reselect their spells again. The reasoning being that when a Summoner goes to reselect their spells in their Spell Repetoire they must select a spell that they can cast with their currently available slots.
Magus does not seem to suffer this issue because Magus maintains their spells in a written Spellbook. Because a Magus' Spellbook maintains their "Repetoire" so to speak while they can no longer cast at 1st Level the spell is still available for them to cast at a Heightened Level.
What are everyone's thoughts? Does this come across as intended? My concern was that a Summoner loses access to important lower level spells such as Mage Armor due to the fact that the spell is no longer in their Repetoire. Without the spell available in their Repetoire Summoners seem unable to cast lower level spells even from a staff, as they can not know the spell once they reach a higher level of casting.