Spiritual Ally (APG) and the Oracle

[Ryan. Costello]

When an Oracle casts spiritual ally, does the spiritual ally use the oracle's BAB + Charisma modifier (the oracle's casting ability) or Wisdom modifier (as per RAW)? The only argument for the latter that I can see is that the oracle has a wider selection of weapons with which to arm the spiritual ally because of the spectrum of gods an oracle worships.

[Zeldenhandel]

Bumping this.

[Arazyr]

Well, you already mentioned that by RAW, it's Wisdom. I would be very surprised if the RAI was anything other than Cha, in this case, however. In my games, I would tend to let an Oracle substitute Cha for Wis in situations like this.

[Grick]

Ryan. Costello wrote:

When an Oracle casts spiritual ally, does the spiritual ally use the oracle's BAB + Charisma modifier (the oracle's casting ability) or Wisdom modifier (as per RAW)?

These responses are for spiritual weapon, not ally, but I think it would be the same answer.

The FAQ requests on this thread were marked "Staff response: no reply required."

James Jacobs (Creative Director) wrote:

A GM is, of course, free to houserule spiritual weapon so that it plays off of Charisma for oracles, but as written (and in PFS) it uses Wisdom to modify things.

And honestly, I'm okay with this. It means the spell is a better choice for clerics than it is for oracles, and that it works better for clerics than oracles. From a flavor standpoint, this is cool because clerics are more tied to favored weapons than are oracles (all clerics gain their deity's favored weapon as a bonus feat, after all), and as a result, you could argue that the "bonus" that clerics get when they cast this spell over an oracle comes from the fact that they're more closely tied to the "spiritual" side of the weapon.

There's already spells that oracles can cast that clerics cannot, so I don't see a problem if one or two spells that they can both cast end up being better for clerics.