Saving Finale and Careful Teamwork?


Rules Questions


2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.
Detective Bard archetype wrote:

Careful Teamwork (Su): A detective uses performance to keep allies coordinated, alert, and ready for action. All allies within 30 feet gain a +1 bonus on Initiative checks, Perception, and Disable Device checks for 1 hour. They also gain a +1 insight bonus on Reflex saves and to AC against traps and when they are flat-footed. These bonuses increase by +1 at 5th level and every six levels thereafter. Using this ability requires 3 rounds of continuous performance, and the targets must be able to see and hear the bard throughout the performance. This ability is language-dependent and requires visual and audible components.

This performance replaces inspire courage.

Saving Finale wrote:
You must have a bardic performance in effect to cast this spell. With a flourish, you can immediately end your bardic performance when a creature within range affected by your bardic performance fails a Saving Throw, allowing the subject to immediately reroll the failed Saving Throw.

Does Careful Teamwork, after the initial 3-round activation, count as "a bardic performance in effect" for the purpose of Saving Finale and similar spells? This question has been asked once or twice before, but it has never received much discussion or a definitive answer.

My instinct is that Careful Teamwork does not count for this purpose. But if that's true, then the Bard should be able to use other performance abilities after the first three rounds, while keeping the Careful Teamwork bonuses.


Yes, since you have a bardic performance in effect. The bonuses would end, for all parties.


That's what I was hoping. I took the question to the James Jacobs megathread, though, and according to him they do not count as perfomances.

James Jacobs wrote:

The long term duration bonuses granted should not expend additional rounds... because if they did, they'd never get fully used, and at that point having long-term durations is illogical.

They thus do NOT allow the enabling of spells like Saving Finale. Those spells can only be cast if you spent a use of bardic performance that round.

The upside, though he didn't explicitly state it, is that you should be able to use another maintained performance. Still a bit of a disappointment for my Detective, since Careful Teamwork replaces Inspire Courage anyway, but the ruling does make sense.


Actually, I would disagree with James, even if that is kind of bizarr...
on the other hand he concedes, that rulesquestions are not his area of unfailable expertise:

James Jacobs wrote wrote:

I'm not familiar with the Detective or Careful Teamwork; the deeper into the rulebooks you dig, the less the chance is that I've even HEARD of the option. My focus is not on the rulebook line (with the exception of the monster books, that is)... but on our other lines.

Which is another way of saying "That's why I keep asking folks with rulebook questions to ask them in the rulebook forums... that way they can be FAQed but they are then asked in a forum where the others reading them, be they Paizo employees or knowledgeable gamers or both, have a better chance of seeing the question and providing better answers.

After carefull reading of the respective formulations, I distinctly agree with TGMaxMaxer that it is a bardic performance in effect and therefore can be ended by a finale. And when your GM decides not to allow it that way, it is more than fair that you can activate another effect, like Inspire Courage, on top of it. All the more more, because Careful Teamwork sounds a pretty poor deal as replacement for Inspire Courage.

Secondly, you not only implicated your secondary question but explicitly asked it from the beginning, so James reaction was kind of rude, but don't take it to seriously :)


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

I'm impressed enough that he bothers to answer so many questions at all.

But anyway, I've seen enough claims on both sides that I probably won't risk continuing with this build on my PFS character. Detective gives the bard an extra Divination spell known every few levels, but that's less helpful if you can't even use some of the best (Finales) with the archetype's replacement performance.

If anyone wants to hit the FAQ button on this, it might help at least get a definitive answer somewhere down the line.

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