Expanded Arcana...and how it is to be used

[Cyd the Arcmagi]

Ok so a Player in a friend's Pathfinder game thinks that if you have a high enough Charisma score and the Expanded Arcana Feat, that a level 3 Sorcerer could cast a 3rd level spell like Fireball.
Am I the only on that calls Shenanigans on this?

[Marthian]

It is shenanigans. He must be confusing spell levels with regular levels because Sorcerers don't get access to 3rd level spells until 6th level.

[Baroth]

This is not possible. A level 3 sorcerer is not able to cast level 3 spells and neither the high Charisma score nor the feat enable a character taking levels in a spell casting class to cast spells of a higher level than this class allows. A best your player could argue that it is not specified which level the spell must have and thus he could gain spells that are higher than the level of spells the character is able to cast, but he could still not cast them.

[Drejk]

Until he gets 6th sorcerer level he does not gets 3rd level slots. Bonus slots from Charisma only apply to spell levels already possessed. Even if he could argue that he picks fireball (which is rather slim chance of being correct - he gets no spells known of that level before 6th sor level as well and the feat is named Extra Arcana, not Higher Level Arcana) he does not have slots to cast the aforementioned fireball.

[Istarial]

If can implies the ability to cast the spell though then a high charisma score would mean you spell slots up to level 4 or 5. So the issue is really is the wording means spells per day or spells known.

[Drachasor]

Is he giving himself spell slots for 3rd, 4th, etc spells because of high charisma? You need to make sure this isn't the case. As others have said, he has no slots until there is a number in the table. On some classes this number can be 0, indicating that if you have a bonus due to a high ability score then you can cast spells of that level.

[Istarial]

Where does it say that? If they have the lvl according to the spell and have a high enough cha to mkae the check I'm not sure why the spell slot isn't available. Esp as the bonus dosn't apply to spells known so the higher lvl spell slots are only used for meta magic feats.

[Speaker for the Dead]

Istarial wrote:

Where does it say that? If they have the lvl according to the spell and have a high enough cha to mkae the check I'm not sure why the spell slot isn't available. Esp as the bonus dosn't apply to spells known so the higher lvl spell slots are only used for meta magic feats.

Answered in this FAQ

As it says in the FAQ, "You only get the bonus spells if your class level grants you access to those spell levels."

As for 'Expanded Arcana' you can add a spell to your list of spells known. You still have to be of sufficient level to cast them.

[Shimesen]

Istarial wrote:

Where does it say that? If they have the lvl according to the spell and have a high enough cha to mkae the check I'm not sure why the spell slot isn't available. Esp as the bonus dosn't apply to spells known so the higher lvl spell slots are only used for meta magic feats.

i think you misread the rules my friend. a spell's level is not the same as a characters level. a 3rd level spell isn't available until 6th character level. thus a 9th level spell slot is the highest spell stop available to any class. metamagic feats allow you to increase the spell level to make the spells better only up to a maximum of 9th level. you cant add ANY metamagic to a 9th level spell unless you are using a metamagic rod.

[Drachasor]

Istarial wrote:

Where does it say that? If they have the lvl according to the spell and have a high enough cha to mkae the check I'm not sure why the spell slot isn't available. Esp as the bonus dosn't apply to spells known so the higher lvl spell slots are only used for meta magic feats.

A Fighter with an intelligence, wisdom, and charisma of 18 does not have wizard, cleric, and sorcerer spells slots due to a high ability score. A high ability score only increases the slots if you already have some. You must have enough levels in the class to be granted slots of that level:

Abilities and Spellcasters wrote:

The ability that governs bonus spells depends on what type of spellcaster your character is: Intelligence for wizards; Wisdom for clerics, druids, and rangers; and Charisma for bards, paladins, and sorcerers. In addition to having a high ability score, a spellcaster must be of a high enough class level to be able to cast spells of a given spell level. See the class descriptions in Classes for details.

A - means you have no slots of that level, just like a fighter has no slots. You can get a bonus to something you don't have. That's the logic to it.

[Lunas]

From my understanding of how the bonus spell slots work if say you have a level 5 sorcerer and you have an 18 charisma you gain an extra spell slot of 1st-4th level spells as in you get an extra use at that level. Since it is not possible to learn you may not use the 3rd and 4th level spells till you learn one the feat as it reads gives you one at the current highest you may learn so you get 1 extra level 2 or 2 extra level 1 spells known.

The question I have about it is does the feat do this every level or only the level you take the feat.

[Remy Balster]

Lunas wrote:

From my understanding of how the bonus spell slots work if say you have a level 5 sorcerer and you have an 18 charisma you gain an extra spell slot of 1st-4th level spells as in you get an extra use at that level. Since it is not possible to learn you may not use the 3rd and 4th level spells till you learn one the feat as it reads gives you one at the current highest you may learn so you get 1 extra level 2 or 2 extra level 1 spells known.

The question I have about it is does the feat do this every level or only the level you take the feat.

You do not get the bonus spell slots until you have 'regular' spells slots to add it to.

3 spells per day? 1 bonus spell from a high cha? You get 4 spells per day total. 3+1=4

0 spells per day? 1 bonus spell from a high cha? You get 1 spells per day total. 0+1=1

- spells per day? 1 bonus spell from high cha? You get - spells per day total. -+1=error

[Darrell Impey UK]

Lunas wrote:

The question I have about it is does the feat do this every level or only the level you take the feat.

Only the level you take the feat, think of it as taking weapon proficiency in a spell.