Spirit Ranger's Spirit Bond Question

[Arassuil]

I was looking through the Spirit Ranger archetype, and had a question regarding the Spirit Bond ability.

Spirit Bond:

At 4th level, instead of forming a bond with his hunting companions or an animal companion, the spirit Ranger forms a bond with the spirits of nature themselves. Each day, as long as he is within one of his favored terrains, the Ranger can cast augury as a spell-like ability with a caster level equal to his Ranger level. In addition, he can call upon these spirits to cast any one Ranger spell that he is capable of casting, without having to prepare the spell. At 8th level, and every four levels thereafter, he can cast an additional spell in this way.

This ability replaces hunter’s bond.

Obviously, using the Augury ability requires one to be in a Favored Terrain. But what about the ability to get the additional spellcasting? Does that require one to be in a Favored Terrain?

When I originally read the ability, I would have said you can do it in any terrain, but now I'm not so sure.

(Main reason I'm asking is for a Ranger I have in PFS; I'm planning on taking some Monk levels to get Evasion earlier, and feel the Animal Companion wouldn't be as useful, so was looking at alternatives. And since it's for PFS, I can't just ask my GM).

[Grick]

Entilzha wrote:

Obviously, using the Augury ability requires one to be in a Favored Terrain. But what about the ability to get the additional spellcasting? Does that require one to be in a Favored Terrain?

I don't think so.

Favored Terrain is only mentioned in the sentence about casting Augury. The spellcasting aspect appears to be unrelated.

Also, it would be odd for Wisdom of the Spirits to let you use Augury outside your favored terrain, but not the spellcasting (if it was also tied to FT).

I think if you don't get an official response, you should probably expect some table variation on the issue.

[MurphysParadox]

I agree with Grick. The only mention being in the favored terrain is in the middle of the sentence about the augury power. If it was meant for both, it would have been called out separately in the paragraph or explicitly for both parts. Granted, if they reorganized it so the "He can call upon these spirits..." part came first, then "In addition, Each day, as long as he...", the wording would be more clear.

[Arassuil]

Thanks Grick & MurphysParadox. Glad to see that I'm not the only one who thinks that way.

I'd expect there'll be table variation on this, but if most people read it the same way, then there's a good chance that's the way that GMs will interpret it most of the time. I could live with that.