Hello Pathfinder community!
The spell system can be really confusing. There are two casters in our party: a sorcerer and a druid. The ranger in the group recently hit level 4 and will now have access to spells too.
We're having a hard time calculating who gets what spells and how many times they can cast it.
According to my research, this is what should be available:
Sorcerer level 4 (18 charisma)
6 different level 0 spells
3 different level 1 spells
1 level 2 spell
Each level 1 spell can be cast 6 times
The single level 2 spell can be cast 3 times
The charisma grants an extra spell cast per day for all level 1, 2, 3 and 4 spells. However, she has no access to level 3 or 4 spells.
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Druid level 4 (16 wisdom)
4 different level 0 spells
3 different level 1 spells
2 different level 2 spells
Each spell can be cast based on how many different spells he has?
The wisdom grants an extra spell cast per day for all level 1, 2 and 3 spells.
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What does it mean when a Sorcerer learns her spells and can cast them at any time? This is different from druids who pick their spells on a day to day basis? There is no "spells known" chart for druids which makes things even more confusing. We then have to decipher the differences between "Spells known," "Spells per day" and "Bonus Spells per day".
Now we have a ranger who is going to begin dabbling in spells. We've just been "fudging" things and improvising with our own system. The problem is that each class is different and we can't settle on one rule system.
This is especially strange since the PRD says Rangers can begin casting at level 4, but get 0 1st level spells per day. It doesn't make sense, so I know I'm missing something.
Thank you for your time and patience!
With spontaneous casters they get to choose which spells they want to cast at the moment they cast them. However, they only have a limited pool of spells they can choose from (their Spells Known). They get extra castings of these spells known with a high casting stat, but their spells known pool does not increase. So "Spells Known" is the limited pool of spells they can choose from, "Spells Per Day" is how many spells of each level they can cast in a day, "Bonus Spells per Day" are extra spells per day they get for a high casting stat.
With prepared casters, it's a bit different. Prepared casters have a limitless pool of spells they can choose from, especially divine casters like the druid. They can choose any of these spells that they want to prepare for that day. However, they have to choose these spells before they do anything else and, for the rest of the day, those spell choices are stuck. They can only cast one of each spell they prepared (though they can prepare multiple copies of the same spell).
Rangers and Paladins gain spells at level 4, and are treated like other prepared casters in how they prepare and cast their spells. When they gain a spell level, they only get spells if their casting stat is high enough to grant bonus spells. So a level 4 ranger gets 0 base spells, plus extra spells for a wisdom higher than 12.
Does that make sense?
According to my research, this is what should be available:
Sorcerer level 4 (18 charisma)
6 different level 0 spells
3 different level 1 spells
1 level 2 spellEach level 1 spell can be cast 6 times
The single level 2 spell can be cast 3 times
Just one thing I wanted to clarify- you can't cast EACH level 1 spell 6 times, you have 6 first-level spell slots, and you can use each of those slots to cast any of your 3 first-level spell slots. So if you know Mage Armor, Magic Missile, and Grease, you could cast them each twice in a day, or Magic Missile six times, or Mage Armor three times and Magic Missile twice and Grease once, or any combination you can think of.
@Fork:
1 standard from class
+1 bonus spell for hign ability score
(+1 domain spell if he has a domain)
sp two or three depending on build.
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Zero level spells, known as cantrips (if arcane) or orisons (if divine), are slightly different as they can be cast as often as the caster wants. Spontaneous casters, like the sorcerer, know a fixed set of 0-level spells, while prepared casters must pick a limited number to have ready (the druid in the original post can choose four each day out of all 0-level druid spells). To put it another way, 0-level spells are accessed in the same way that the caster gets other spells, but not expended when cast. The ranger doesn't have any 0-level spells.
This chart makes for easy keeping for your bonus spells from a high casting stat. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/ability-scores#TOC-Abilities- and-Spellcasters
Make sure you read the spells portion of the characters carefully.
For prepared casters (Druids, Wizards, others), imagine a page from a notepad - with lines.
These lines have numbers: some of them have the number 0, some have the number 1, some the number 2 (the rest of the page is blank).
On each of these lines, you can write one of the spells you know (a spell in your spellbook, for a Wizard, the entire Druid list, for a Druid). These are your spells for the day. When you cast one of these, you cross it out (except for the 0. level spells).