Arcane Dealer + Spell Dancer?

[ohako]

relevant text

Advanced Race Guide wrote:

Spell Dance:<a bunch of stuff about Spell Dance, then> This ability replaces the magus’s ability to expend points from his arcane pool as a swift action to grant any weapon he is holding magic bonuses for 1 minute.

Harrow Handbook wrote:

Arcane Dealer (Su): The magus gains the Deadly Dealer feat, even if he does not meet the prerequisites. He can use his arcane pool to grant a deck of cards an enhancement bonus as though it were a ranged weapon with 54 pieces of ammunition. The magus must use either Arcane Strike or his arcane pool to enhance the cards in order to use them as weapons. The magus must be at least 6th level before selecting this arcana.

A spell dancer cannot normally boost their weapon with their arcane pool.

A magus with the arcane dealer arcana can boost a deck of cards with their arcane pool.

Can a spell dancer magus with the arcane dealer arcana boost a deck of cards?

[VampByDay]

Interesting, I suspect that the intent was that you had to have the ability to enhance weapons to deal arcane dealer. . . The only thing I can think of is that it says you can enhance the deck AS IF IT WAS 54 pieces of ammunition, so you would still need to have the ability to enhance ammunition to use arcane dealer. Any GM would probably say it doesn't work, just because it obviously not meant to.

[ohako]

Ah, I don't know if that's strictly so. I understand in principle that I'm acting the weasel a bit...but I'd argue I'm a good weasel.

Harrow Handbook didn't wrote:

He can treat a deck of cards as a single ranged weapon when using his arcane pool to enhance weapons.

Harrow Handbook didn't wrote:

He can use his arcane pool to grant a deck of cards an enhancement bonus as though it were a ranged weapon with 54 pieces of ammunition, unless he can't normally grant any other weapon an enhancement bonus in the first place.

To put it another way

In general, a spell dancer (an archetype) cannot enhance weapons with her arcane pool.

In specific, a magus with arcane dealer (an arcana) can grant just an enhancement bonus (not any weapon properties) to a deck of cards.

I'm having trouble finding the original source for the 'specific beats general' metarule, but this does seem to be a case of 'specific beats general', does it not?

[kestral287]

Arcane Dealer grants you the ability to enhance the deck of cards. All well and good. A Spell Dancer gets that ability, strictly speaking.

But then what do they enhance it with? They don't have anything to grant an enhancement bonus. This really doesn't seem like a case of specific beats general. A Spell Dancer may freely enhance the deck as she may 54 pieces of ammunition. That just happens to be not at all.

If the Arcane Dealer specifically recycled the language of the Arcane Pool in question, calling out the ability to add a +1 enhancement and another +1 for every four levels, then you would be correct. Arcane Dealer would specifically grant you that ability, which would be redundant on most Magi but useful to the Spell Dancer. But since it doesn't, all it does is allow you to use a class ability that most Magi already have on a new tool. Without that class ability, you're stuck with just Arcane Strike to enhance the cards.