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Quoted below:
Tea Ceremony (Su):By spending 10 minutes preparing an elaborate tea ceremony, a geisha may affect her allies with inspire courage, inspire competence, inspire greatness, or inspire heroics. The ceremony’s effects last 10 minutes. The geisha must spend 4 rounds of bardic performance for each creature to be affected.
So if I'm running a 15th level Geisha, I can use this Tea Ceremony before we enter into a battle and grant four party members the benefits of Inspire Heroics for 10 minutes for the cost of 16 rounds of Bardic Performance... then go into combat with them and use Bardic Performance to stack Inspire Courage on top of that as well?
Can I allocate different effects to different party members during the Tea Ceremony, such as Inspire Heroics to a spell-caster, Inspire Competence to a rogue and Inspire Greatness to a pair of melee guys?
Also, even though the Tea Ceremony is apparently available at 1st level, I presume that the various options are still only available to the Geisha at the levels when they are normally gained - or do they all become available at level 1 as well (when used specifically in conjunction with the Tea Ceremony)?
Anyone?
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Not official, but my thoughts.
It seems that Tea Ceremony is a separate ability from Bardic Performance. This would make me think that you could use it outside combat, and then use a separate performance in combat.
From the way the ability is worded, I would think that every ally would need to get the same benefits.
However, it is unclear whether or not you need to wait until you get the corresponding performance to use it in Tea Ceremony. The ability is worded as a non-performance that still uses performance rounds.
The write up of Tea Ceremony is frankly underwhelming in trying to answer this.
I'll base everything off of a sentence from the core rulebook: "A bard cannot have more than one bardic performance in effect at one time."
So no, you can't use Bardic Performance in addition to Tea Ceremony. Also, no, to using differing effects on different targets.
As for the last the Bard says "any one of the types of bardic performance that he has mastered, as indicated by his level."
If you aren't high enough level you can't use that bardic performance.
Not official, but my thoughts.
It seems that Tea Ceremony is a separate ability from Bardic Performance. This would make me think that you could use it outside combat, and then use a separate performance in combat.
From the way the ability is worded, I would think that every ally would need to get the same benefits.
However, it is unclear whether or not you need to wait until you get the corresponding performance to use it in Tea Ceremony. The ability is worded as a non-performance that still uses performance rounds.
It seems pretty clear that the two things are separate abilities, even if they draw from the same 'pool' of performance rounds. I would think the two would absolutely stack with an acceptable compromise being that two of the same specific effects can not (i.e. no double Inspire Courage).
With regards to my second question, I think common sense would suggest that you can't use an ability until you had access to an ability, though the wording is ambiguous. As some of the effects (Inspire Courage, Inspire Competence) are level based, I would rule that you can only use an effect if you were high enough level to have access to it.
You're already ahead of the game being able to affect more people than you normally would, provided you have the performance rounds to spend.
The problem is the bonus type. I believe the bonuses in in the bardic performances are either compentence and/or moral bonuses and those don't stack.
Inspire Comptence gives a +1 to Attack Rolls for instance as a compentence bonus, so it would stack with the moral bonuse of +2 provided by Good Hope.
The problem is the bonus type. I believe the bonuses in in the bardic performances are either competence and/or moral bonuses and those don't stack.
That sounds correct.
It doesn't appear to have a limit to the number it can affect, although it would certainly not make sense for a single geisha to be able to grant an entire army the benefits of inspire courage with a mere 10 minutes of preparation and 4 rounds worth of performance.
I will say though that if you Tea Ceremony Inspire Competence on the Group, and then tag them with Inspire Courage while in combat, it appears that they can be under the effects of both performances. Basically it looks as if you could double up by giving people the benefit of two different performances at the same time.
As long as the two bonuses are different types, it would appear to work. Not entirely clear, however.
Some interesting questions, I shall bump this.
Looks to be very situational. I doubt one can stop for a tea break in a dungeon before a fight. I think this is unfortunately one of those awkward feats that just don't work very well on paper. Perhaps something different where it lasts for an hour so the bard can do other things other than singing.
"By spending 10 minutes preparing an elaborate tea ceremony, a geisha may affect her allies with inspire courage, inspire competence, inspire greatness, or inspire heroics."
"A bard cannot have more than one bardic performance in effect at one time."
Inspire Courage, Inspire Competence, Inspire Greatness, and Inspire Heroics are all Bardic Performances. You use a tea ceremony to affect people with one of those performances. You cannot have more than one bardic performance in effect at one time.
It seems pretty clear cut to me. The Tea Ceremony is not a Bardic Performance, but Inspire Courage (for example) is. If you have someone affected by your Inspire Courage, you have a Bardic Performance in effect.
This sounds like it would work better as a trait than a feat. As part of your upbringing you learn the tea ceremony. You can use it during certain social situations to gain a circumstance bonus on knowledge royalty / nobility / local checks, on diplomacy checks, or even bluff checks.
It could even be used as an "aid-another" action to assist a bard during certain performances (either bardic or perform checks) depending on what actually the bard was doing.
Just my two-yen worth.
"By spending 10 minutes preparing an elaborate tea ceremony, a geisha may affect her allies with inspire courage, inspire competence, inspire greatness, or inspire heroics."
"A bard cannot have more than one bardic performance in effect at one time."
Inspire Courage, Inspire Competence, Inspire Greatness, and Inspire Heroics are all Bardic Performances. You use a tea ceremony to affect people with one of those performances. You cannot have more than one bardic performance in effect at one time.
It seems pretty clear cut to me. The Tea Ceremony is not a Bardic Performance, but Inspire Courage (for example) is. If you have someone affected by your Inspire Courage, you have a Bardic Performance in effect.
"The geisha must spend 4 rounds of bardic performance for each creature to be affected"
So although the Tea ceremony itself is not a performance, in order for each creature to be affected the Geisha must expend from her performance pool. (To Clarify: You are right, they do not stack because they both expend points from the perform pool = a performance)The geisha must meet the level requirement to use the performance. The trade off is 4 points from her perform pool per person and 10 minutes of preparation for a 10 minute buff that does not require the geisha to maintain the performance.
I had a question about this, and while presenting both scenarios I ultimately came to the conclusion above.