A)No
B)Yes
c)Yes
hm.. actually, I will check the "A" & "B" out. Answer may change in couple minutes
In theory yes 24 hours, in practical terms no, you don't need to wait for some specific time during the day (except 8 hours after your last cast spell, if you want to get them all back). There is an assumption that the day is composed of more than adventuring/8 hours of casting spells, things like traveling, setting and breaking up camp, hunting food, all the mundane things that happen in the background of an adventure. Even crafting for 8 hours a day.
Reason being, campaigns are different and there are a lot of ways having a specific time can be used to abuse or disrupt the system.
Basically as each DM's world might be different, it is up to the DM to adjudicate it. If you are OK with a class regaining it's limited resources 2-3 times a day realize that you are giving a significant boost to the class power wise. However if it works for your party and you are okay with it being more a "dungeon crawl" type game, go with it.
PF phb page 218 = Preparing wizard spells.
A) I would say yes (( sleep or meditate for 8 hours + 1 hour between rests )). Then ya could rise and repeat.
In no-adventure downtime this really should not be to much of a problem.
In an ongoing adventure, best way to prevent this is have the other party member role-play what they are doing while the wizard is ""sleeping"".
After all, what are they doing. Do they scout on ahead, get into a fight (which the wizard is not part of, and gets no exp for), do they leave the wizard by himself (wizard might get bushwhacked and die), do they just sit around the campfire and tell jokes... for 8 hours ??
A)=Part B = Cleric/Druid on the other hand, have to pray at least once per day at a special time of day (they do not need the 8 hour rest than arcane caster do). So this does put Cleric/Druids on a 24 hour timer, to pray at a special time of day once every 24 hours. ... so NO for Cleric/Druids.
so
B & C do not apply.
I agree with Skylancer here. It is what appeals to each GM and is better suited for campaing.
a) yes: you can rest 8h after each casting session but game-wise, there is also something else than waiting casters :P
b) yes/no: related to a) in this case.
c) will stay the same.
A)No, B)Yes, C)Yes would seem to be nice and correct for me (at least I like think this way and having not so much argument with other players, if we all agree) but yes, as Skylancer said: you can rest 8h, cast spells, rest 8h, cast spells. This won´t stop you :)
In theory yes 24 hours, in practical terms no, you don't need to wait for some specific time during the day (except 8 hours after your last cast spell, if you want to get them all back). There is an assumption that the day is composed of more than adventuring/8 hours of casting spells, things like traveling, setting and breaking up camp, hunting food, all the mundane things that happen in the background of an adventure. Even crafting for 8 hours a day.
Reason being, campaigns are different and there are a lot of ways having a specific time can be used to abuse or disrupt the system.
Basically as each DM's world might be different, it is up to the DM to adjudicate it. If you are OK with a class regaining it's limited resources 2-3 times a day realize that you are giving a significant boost to the class power wise. However if it works for your party and you are okay with it being more a "dungeon crawl" type game, go with it.
+1
I think that the concept of "spells per day" was derived, as Skylancer4 indicates, from the notion that a spellcaster (or anybody really) would be resting once every 24 hours, for 8 hours at a time. This is a very rough approximation of the daily cycle of humans, where we spend around 8 hours asleep, and then the following 16-ish hours awake. In terms of adventurers, I prefer to examine the concept from the standpoint of an average day, perhaps spent traveling - if one figures on 8 hours of travel (the longest period of travel before saves against Fatigue start), that leaves 8 hours for eating breakfast, striking camp, foraging or hunting for lunch and/or dinner, lunch, dinner, setting up camp, and any random encounters that might happen. This is not an unreasonable timetable. (Of course many adventurers, both in gaming and in fiction, make longer and more tiring treks, sometimes with disastrous results, by cutting down on non-travel activities like foraging, hunting, or lunch...) In general, though, it's easy to see how a "typical" period between rests would equate to roughly a day, hence "spells per day" as a concept.
Strictly speaking, the table should be "Spells per period-between-8-hour-rests" but that's not nearly as tidy...
Commit note added to previous post:
Cleric/Druids have an extra note: They can not use any spell slot, that was used in the last 8 hours. SO to get the most of their spell slots, they need to plan ahead, and make sure to use up any spell slots they want open, 8 hours before then need to do their 1 hour pray requirement (based on deity).
A)=Part B = Cleric/Druid on the other hand, have to pray at least once per day at a special time of day (they do not need the 8 hour rest than arcane caster do). So this does put Cleric/Druids on a 24 hour timer, to pray at a special time of day once every 24 hours. ... so NO for Cleric/Druids.
Note that for Clerics and Druids, the rules specifically call out that "Time spent resting has no effect on whether a [cleric/druid] can prepare spells." Thus, the Cleric and Druid are restricted to regaining spells every 24 hours, and only during that one hour period they select, but need not be well-rested to do so.
For Paladins and Rangers, the rules are even more vague - "A [paladin/ranger] must spend 1 hour each day in [quiet prayer and] meditation to regain her daily allotment of spells." This text does not call for a period of the day to be designated as the only hour in which the Paladin or Ranger is able to regain spells, nor is it clear whether "day" means "24-hour period from the last time the character meditated" or "24-hour period from some arbitrary time to the same time the following day (like sunrise to sunrise, midnight to midnight, etc)" or "period-between-8-hour-rests." Given the divine nature of the classes at hand, I tend to lean towards one of the former interpretations, and generally have characters of these classes declare when their "day" starts (using the middle option based on player input) and allowing the character to meditate for one hour, once at any time during each daily period they have identified. Since rest is not mentioned, and the other divine casting classes have no need of rest prior to prayer for new spells, I don't require Paladins or Rangers to be rested before undertaking their meditations either. That said, it's a lot of interpretations for these classes, and other GMs could easily rule differently.
Edit: Especially if they consulted the portion of the magic chapter that describes preparing divine spells, where it indicates that all divine casters that prepare spells must designate a particular period of time 1 hour long in which they must pray to regain spells. Wups! That section also explicitly states that divine casters do not require rest before praying to regain spells, but that, as Oliver McShade points out, at the time of preparation any spells cast within the previous 8 hours count against the number of spells that can be prepared.
A)=Part B = Cleric/Druid on the other hand, have to pray at least once per day at a special time of day (they do not need the 8 hour rest than arcane caster do). So this does put Cleric/Druids on a 24 hour timer, to pray at a special time of day once every 24 hours. ... so NO for Cleric/Druids.Note that for Clerics and Druids, the rules specifically call out that "Time spent resting has no effect on whether a [cleric/druid] can prepare spells." Thus, the Cleric and Druid are restricted to regaining spells every 24 hours, and only during that one hour period they select, but need not be well-rested to do so.
For Paladins and Rangers, the rules are even more vague - "A [paladin/ranger] must spend 1 hour each day in [quiet prayer and] meditation to regain her daily allotment of spells." This text does not call for a period of the day to be designated as the only hour in which the Paladin or Ranger is able to regain spells, nor is it clear whether "day" means "24-hour period from the last time the character meditated" or "24-hour period from some arbitrary time to the same time the following day (like sunrise to sunrise, midnight to midnight, etc)" or "period-between-8-hour-rests." Given the divine nature of the classes at hand, I tend to lean towards one of the former interpretations, and generally have characters of these classes declare when their "day" starts (using the middle option based on player input) and allowing the character to meditate for one hour, once at any time during each daily period they have identified. Since rest is not mentioned, and the other divine casting classes have no need of rest prior to prayer for new spells, I don't require Paladins or Rangers to be rested before undertaking their meditations either. That said, it's a lot of interpretations for these classes, and other GMs could easily rule differently.
PF phb page 218 = Preparing wizard spells......two 2 page over it talks about Divine casters (not cleric/Druid). So although i said cleric/druid... this would apply to all classes that use divine magic including paladins and rangers.
Bards/Sorcerer would fall under the Wizard enter.
...
Heh, just caught that myself, I just type slow... ^_^;