Harmless spells and trait question

[habibo]

So im looking at the mesmerist class and they like enchantment and stuff then i found this trait
Insistent Benefactor

You have perfected the art of forcing your magical boons on your allies.

Benefit: Whenever you cast a harmless spell, you gain a +2 trait bonus on caster level checks to overcome spell resistance, and the saving throw DC of the spell (if any) is increased by 2.

so enchantment's don't cause harm so does this apply to enchantments?

[Jeraa]

habibo wrote:

So im looking at the mesmerist class and they like enchantment and stuff then i found this trait

Insistent Benefactor

You have perfected the art of forcing your magical boons on your allies.

Benefit: Whenever you cast a harmless spell, you gain a +2 trait bonus on caster level checks to overcome spell resistance, and the saving throw DC of the spell (if any) is increased by 2.

so enchantment's don't cause harm so does this apply to enchantments?

Harmless spells specifically say they are harmless in the saving throw entry. Mage armor, for example:

Quote:

Saving Throw Will negates (harmless);

So if the word harmless appears in that spot, that trait works.

[Plausible Pseudonym]

Insistent Benefactor helps you put buffs on allies who don't have the time to lower their spell resistance (which takes a standard action) or who have been hit by another spell effect that would force them to resist helpful spells. (The Life of Crime curse prevents you from accepting harmless spells, for example.)

It's pretty niche. The only offensive use I can think of it would be to use it with Hollow Heroism. That's a harmless buff that you can later reverse to apply a penalty. An enemy who makes the (hard) spellcraft check to correctly identify and resist it would be subject to this trait, as would an enemy who is just going to resist all harmless spells from you on the (fair!) assumption that you can't really mean to buff them mid-fight.