what happens if a Mesmerist adds a somatic component to a spell


Rules Questions

Dark Archive

so i have a mesmerist (Umbral Mesmerist archetype) and i plan on taking the Harrower prestige class and the Harrowed Summoning feat, and both Harrowed Summoning and the Harrower's Harrowed Casting ability add a Somatic component to modified spells (and spell-like abilities in the case of HS), but since mesmerists are psychic casters, they don't normally have somatic components, and instead have emotion components, so my question is: do the somatic components remain somatic, or do they become emotion components? and if so, are psychic casters subject to arcane spell failure?


They are somatic, but not subject to ASF (since they're still not arcane spells), I believe.


Divine casters also have somatic components but are not subject to ASF. Possibly related.


*ahem*

Quote:
Therefore, psychic spells never have verbal or somatic components, and have only expensive material components.

Dark Archive

Snowblind wrote:

*ahem*

Quote:
Therefore, psychic spells never have verbal or somatic components, and have only expensive material components.

i mostly interpreted that as referring to the inherent components of the spell, not those added by other abilities.


The Vox archetype is a reasonable example for an exception to typical psychic spells, so "never" can clearly be replaced.

Remember, specific trumps general, and the rule that psychic magic replaces verbal components with emotion components and somatic components with thought components is a general rule that can be trumped by specific ones.

The Harrower prestige and the Harrowed Summoning feat both say the spell gains a somatic component if it doesn't already have one. And, of course, it doesn't have them typically because it uses thought instead.

Even from a fluff perspective, you need to draw cards from your harrow deck somehow, and you can't just think of drawing one hard enough.

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