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I have a few questions regarding the familiar ability Spellcasting:

Choose a spell in your repertoire or that you prepared today at least 5 ranks lower than your highest-rank spell slot. Your familiar can Cast that Spell once per day using your magical tradition, spell attack modifier, and spell DC. If the spell has a drawback that affects the caster, both you and your familiar are affected. You must be able to cast 6th-rank spells using spell slots to select this.

First, when it says the "familiar can Cast that Spell", it's not using my spell slot for that casting, is it? How I understand it is it gains its own use of that spell once per day.

Second, does my familiar need the Speech familiar ability before my it can use this Spellcasting ability since casting spells generally require speaking? Similarly, would it need the Manual Dexterity ability to cast spells with the manipulate trait?

This is kind of a follow up to my previous blood magic question. Feats like Blood Sovereignty and Blood Ascendency call for “two different blood magic effects” to benefit from. Do blood magics with choices (most of the bloodline given blood magics) count as two different blood magics for each choice for this purpose?

For example, could Fey get both its perfomance bonus and concealment from Blood Ascendency or could Elemental both gain an intimidation bonus and deal extra damage with Blood Sovereignty? Would they otherwise need to have a completely different blood magic from a feat (Propelling Sorcery, Crossblooded Evolution, etc.)?

Blood Magic: Casting a sorcerous gift spell granted by your bloodline or a bloodline spell allows you to benefit from a blood magic effect you know. You can typically only benefit from one blood magic effect at a time, though some feats and abilities may change this.

When it says you can only “benefit from one blood magic effect at a time,” does that refer to how many blood magic effects you can get from a single gift or bloodline spell or blood magic effects in general that’s active on you?

What I’m trying to see is if the 1 round buff blood magic effects can all be active on yourself at the same time provided I cast at least two gift or bloodline spell in a turn. For example, can I get Angelic+Draconic or two Imperial blood magic effects active on myself by casting two appropriate spells to get a status bonus to both AC and saving throws?

The casting of a spell can range from a simple word of magical might that creates a fleeting effect to a complex process taking hours to cast and producing a long-term impact. Casting a spell requires the caster to make gestures and utter incantations, so being unable to speak prevents spellcasting for most casters. If your character has a long-term disability that prevents or complicates them from speaking (as described in GM Core), work with the GM to determine an analogous way they cast their spells, such as tapping in code on their staff or whistling.

Or does manipulate and concentrate dictate the need for gestures and incantations respectively?

I was reading the remaster witch focus spells and pg. 385 conveniently had a spell for each trait combination.

-Elemental Betrayal only has concentrate
-Life Boost only has manipulate
-Malicious Shadow has both
-Patron's puppet has neither

None are subtle so they all have obvious and noticeable manifestations, but I was wondering if the gestures and incantations are dependent on the spell's traits.

Can I do this?

Two-action Act Together
- Summoner casts Thundering dominance on eidolon
- Then eidolon immediately uses the Thundering Roar action given by the spell

Weird thing is the eidolon doesn't have the Thundering Roar action until AFTER the spell is cast. Can the eidolon legally take the Thundering Roar action for the Act Together single action even if it did not exist until well after I already committed to Act Together?

Okay, so maybe the better question is this---
Do I declare the exact two actions I plan to take when I take the Act Together activity, possibly the exact targets and other decisions for those actions, OR do I simply commit to a number of actions to Act Together first then choose the appropriate actions to fit as I go?

For a more general example, let's say I two-action Act Together planning to summoner cantrip and eidolon strike a target. I resolve the eidolon strike first and it unexpectedly crits and kills the target. Do I waste the cantrip as it no longer has a target, do I still cast the cantrip but instead choose a different target, or do I have the freedom to choose any other two-action activity to complete the two-action Act Together?

Thanks in advance!!

Referring to this passage in particular

You access the vast well of power that resides within your own mind, calling forth psychic magic with nothing but thought and will. You can cast occult spells using the Cast a Spell activity. You alter some of the standard spell components when casting spells you know from your psychic spellcasting. Instead of speaking, you substitute any verbal components with a special mental component determined by your subconscious mind class feature. This represents how you exert your mind toward your intended effect. Any of these components impart the concentrate trait to the spell you're casting. You also substitute any material components with somatic components, though these tend to be simple movements of the hand or head compared to those used by other spellcasters. Your spells still have clear and noticeable visual and auditory manifestations, as normal for a spellcaster.

If I understand correctly, I can only make the component substitutions for cantrips and leveled spells I exclusively acquire from the Psychic class. For any other spell, like those from archetypes and items, I would have to provide verbal and material components as normal. This is distinct from other casters that can also do component substitutions as those casters can make component substitutions on any spell.

Is that right? Asking for a friend and that friend is me with a shiny new spellheart.

Psychics can recover 2 focus points Refocusing without having to spend 2 focus points beforehand. They only need to have spent 1 to exclusively amp a psi cantrips. Does this mean they can, given the extra Refocus time, recover all the way up to 3 focus points from 0?

The feature also says you recover 2 focus points “up to your maximum of 2” when you Refocus. Does that adjust once you bump your focus pool to 3 or should I be reading that as what prevents me from recovering back up to 3?

The major curse of the bones mystery makes you wounded 1 and the extreme curse makes you doomed 2. This means you die when you hit 0 HP since doomed 2 makes you die at dying 2 and wounded 1 brings you to dying 2 at minimum. However, with the Regenerate spell, your dying value can't increase to a value that would kill.

Now my question is, does this count as violating that curse feature that prevents you from ignoring your curse? In this case, the major curse wounded condition?

This specific scenario almost happened the other day when I cast Regenerate on our bones oracle who was at critical HP and extreme cursed. Thankfully, we were able to end the fight before she actually went down, but I wonder if this was even legitimate play if she did.

Battle Cry triggers “when you roll initiative.” If successful and it frightens the target, would the target be frightened for their initiative roll or has the initiative roll already happened by this point?

Gust of Wind's success result is "The creature can't move against the wind." It doesn't carry over to failure or critical failure. So if cast in a 5-ft wide corridor, it's vastly superior if the enemy succeeds, no? They can't move towards you at all during their turn.

There are maybe some cases that isn't true, but I even thought about the critical failure result. It's a 30-foot push back + prone, but even that is less restricting than the success result for most creatures.

Is this a correct reading on it? It's a curious interaction for a very specific grid layout.

What upcoming book do you think is our best chance of getting new deities with new spells from Secrets of Magic?

I was building a cleric with one of the new non-divine spells in mind. I didn't realize until later I was out of luck with no deities with the new spells.

Two questions on the Plant Eidolon's Field of Roots:

Your eidolon extends its roots underground to entangle and possibly damage all foes nearby. All enemies within your eidolon's reach take damage of the same type and amount as your eidolon's most damaging Strike, depending on their Reflex saves. Any ongoing effects of the save last until the enemy either Escapes or leaves your eidolon's reach. After using Field of Roots, your eidolon is immobilized until it takes a single action, which has the manipulate trait, to detach from the ground; this also ends any remaining effects on enemies from Field of Roots.

1. Does the eidolon have to uproot to use Field of Roots again after it used Field of Roots to root previously?

2. Does area affected by Field of Roots count as containing plants for effects like Entangle?

After having read it more carefully, I don't think there's anything stopping you from using Field of Roots back to back while still rooted as long as you don't mind not being able to move. The ability also doesn't create an actual field of roots; the roots just aim at each enemy. The first time I read it I thought the complete opposite for each so I just needed to be sure.

Effects like verdant burst on leshies trigger when they die. If summoned, they also get banished when reduced to 0 hit points.

They are automatically banished if reduced to 0 Hit Points or if the spell that called them ends.

Would death technically occur after reaching 0 hit points so they get banished first? Would effects like final sacrifice, which instantly slays the creature with no hit points involved, work differently?

Some on-death effects specify reaching 0 hit as the trigger. Does that distinction change anything?

I sought out a few instances where mitigating the oracle curses come up so I can get a better understanding.

For the Flames minor curse where it conceals creatures more than 30ft away, the Halfling’s Keen Eyes would not lower the flat check DC for a concealed target per curse rules. Would it lower the flat check DC for a hidden target because the curse only conceals at this point? Is it pertinent if the target becomes hidden using the concealed condition from the curse?

At moderate curse, where everything past 30ft is hidden, the flat check DC surely doesn’t get reduced.

When you target an opponent that is concealed from you or hidden from you, reduce the DC of the flat check to 3 for a concealed target or 9 for a hidden one.

For the bones moderate curse, you get a drained 1 condition that’s cumulative with additional applications of drained. A Svetocher Dhampir makes you calculate the drained penalties as if it was 1 drained value lower. If drained 1 because of the curse, you would still be under the full effect of the drained 1 as per curse rules.

What if you are drained 1 from your curse while also drained 1 from a different source so you are now drained 2? Would you be able to count the drained value as 1 lower then because you are not prevented from mitigating drained from a different source?

When you have the drained condition, calculate the penalty to your Fortitude saves and your Hit Point reduction as though the condition value were 1 lower.

I’m guessing this spell doesn’t count as a refocus for the familiar ability focused rejuvenation. It just regains focus points ‘as if’ you refocused, right?

I'm looking at the kitsune's star orb familiar and it seems to have two drawbacks with no payoff, no natural speed and one of its familiar abilities is locked into innate surge. The inanimate object aesthetic is amazing and innate surge is thematic to the ancestry but that ability doesn't even come online until level 5.

Am I reading this correctly or this there a mechanical advantage I'm disregarding, like maybe with the familiar being a tiny object instead of an animal?

Is there a difference between succeeding at an action and succeeding at a check for that action?

Still having a blast reading through the swashbuckler and saw how gaining panache requires "successfully performing the skill check" with specific actions. But going through the individual styles, most require you to "successfully" do the specific action to gain panache. No mention of checks. Gymnasts, for example, gain panache when they "successfully Grapple, Shove, or Trip a foe." Battledancers break the mold, specifying the result required for a check.

Silly example but assuming there's a difference, successfully performing a Shove or Trip check might not necessarily mean you successfully Shove or Trip if the target can't be pushed back any further or if the target is already prone, respectively.

This is is found in more general areas too. For example, in the context of using a Strike, is a trigger that asks for a successful attack roll functionally different from a trigger that asks for a successful Strike? If a Strike attack roll succeeds but no damage or effect goes through, is it still considered a successful Strike?

I know some triggers are precise about having to deal damage as an additional condition to a successful roll, so we're good on those.

Does the failure effect of confident finisher's strike, which still deals damage, count as a hit for exemplary finisher?

You execute your finishing moves with spectacular flair, adding special effects to your finishers. If a Strike you make as part of a finisher hits a foe, you add one of the following effects to the Strike, depending on your swashbuckler's style.

Would you get the Swashbuckler's panache speed bonus immediately after succeeding a Tumble Through roll and be able to use that speed bonus to Stride further during that same Tumble Through?

The Familiar Master Dedication gives you the Enhanced Familiar feat if you already have a familiar. The dedication has Enhanced Familiar as an additional feat at 4th level. If you have a familiar and get the feat for 'free', does it count towards the two feats required before selecting another dedication?

You can't select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the familiar master archetype.

Spiritual Weapon says the Strikes you make with it are melee spell attacks so you would roll with your spellcasting ability. But what does this line mean for it?

Despite making a spell attack, the spiritual weapon is a weapon for purposes of triggers, resistances, and so forth.

I'm looking to see how this works with the Battle Oracle's curse. It doesn't make the spell attack double as a weapon attack, does it? Same for counting as weapon damage? And is the player making the Strike or the weapon? I think this is relevant to suspended the AC penalty.