Spontaneous Casters and the Spell Expertise Feats

[Fatespinner]

Let's assume you're playing a Sorcerer and you decide you want to take the following feat from the APG:

APG wrote:

Minor Spell Expertise

You are able to cast a 1st-level spell as a spell-like ability.

Prerequisite: Ability to cast 4th-level spells.

Benefit: Choose one 1st-level spell that you know. You may cast that spell twice per day as a spell-like ability. The caster level for this spell-like ability is equal to your caster level in the class from whose spell list the spell is taken. The spell-like ability's save DC is Charisma-based. If the spell has an expensive focus or material component, it may not be chosen for this feat. You cannot apply metamagic feats to this spell.

Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new spell.

The first line of the benefit states: "Choose one 1st-level spell that you know." Let's say you choose mage armor. You're 9th level now and you really don't ever need to cast mage armor more than twice a day, so this works out great. Now, when you hit level 10 and gain access to 5th level spells, you are also eligible to change out one of your spells known for a different one. Now that you have mage armor as a spell-like ability twice a day, you don't really need to have it available to cast from your daily slots, so you opt to drop it for, say, magic missile because it scales nicely with your caster level and all that.

My question: Is this legal? Since mage armor is no longer "a 1st-level spell that you know" do you lose the benefits of this feat? Are you required to choose a new spell that it applies to? Or can you continue to use your 2/day mage armor SLA even though you can no longer cast it normally from your slots?

[kyrt-ryder]

Looks legal to me. Knowing said spell isn't part of the prerequisite line, it's just part of how the feat is used. Once you have those SLA's you have them for life unless you somehow lose the feat.

[unopened]

Yep, seems legal to me too, Still i´ll go for shield instead of Magic armor xD

[Dire Mongoose]

LazarX wrote:

Here's the real question...

Since you cast all your spells spontaneously anyway why would you want to bother taking this feat as a sorcerer?

It does give you a tiny bit more staying power, if that's an issue for you. Generally I think a sorcerer is better off picking Expanded Arcana if the issue is getting the 'spells known' slot back, though. Or just being human.

[Fatespinner]

Dire Mongoose wrote:

LazarX wrote:

Here's the real question...

Since you cast all your spells spontaneously anyway why would you want to bother taking this feat as a sorcerer?

It does give you a tiny bit more staying power, if that's an issue for you. Generally I think a sorcerer is better off picking Expanded Arcana if the issue is getting the 'spells known' slot back, though. Or just being human.

Well, there's also the fact that SLAs have no components. Mage armor is probably not something that you'd ever need to be casting if you were bound/grappled/silenced/etc. but something like grease or invisibility certainly might be useful in SLA form.

[kyrt-ryder]

Fatespinner wrote:

Dire Mongoose wrote:

LazarX wrote:

Here's the real question...

Since you cast all your spells spontaneously anyway why would you want to bother taking this feat as a sorcerer?

It does give you a tiny bit more staying power, if that's an issue for you. Generally I think a sorcerer is better off picking Expanded Arcana if the issue is getting the 'spells known' slot back, though. Or just being human.

Well, there's also the fact that SLAs have no components. Mage armor is probably not something that you'd ever need to be casting if you were bound/grappled/silenced/etc. but something like grease or invisibility certainly might be useful in SLA form.

Invisibility = 2nd level spell.

That being said though, I have to agree with the above consensus. I'd never pay a feat for 2x per day use of a 1st level spell. Now, if you paid the feat and it scaled with the second highest level spell you could cast (or maybe followed some kind of progression that ended with 7th level spells at level 20) I'd be willing to buy it. But as it stands now? Totally taking a metamagic or improved initiative or great fortitude or something instead.

[hogarth]

I'd allow retraining the spell away.

[Fatespinner]

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Invisibility = 2nd level spell.

There are higher levels of this feat that allow higher level spells. The thread title just says "Spell Expertise Feats" and I used the lowest one as an example. :D

[kyrt-ryder]

Fatespinner wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Invisibility = 2nd level spell.

There are higher levels of this feat that allow higher level spells. The thread title just says "Spell Expertise Feats" and I used the lowest one as an example. :D

I see. My bad then.