D. Essence with a Quickened Ill Oman

[Atalius]

How does this work, say I'm an Invoker Witch. I want to use a Quickened Ill Oman (Swift action) and want to sprinkle se D. Essence on that Ill Oman to penetrate the enemy's SR. Would the act of Sprinkling D.Essence be a free action or is this sort of on done at the beginning of the day or? Furthermore, if I use my Swift to use Quicken Spell, does that mean I can't use my Invoke Patron ability to further lower the enemy's SR because that would be another swift action. Some tips appreciated!

[Atalius]

Bumpity bump bump

[Tacticslion]

Do you have a link? I'm afraid, I don't know what "D.Essence" is.

[Atalius]

Indeed my friend, indeed http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/c-d/dweom er-s-essence/

[Mister Socks]

The Dweomer Essence is considered another material component, so it's drawn and used as you cast the spell. The invoker patron ability is activated as a swift action and lasts one minute. You don't have two swifts in a round, however you can invoke patron the round before and it'll work.

Edit: My ninja powers are strengthening.

[Tacticslion]

Thanks!

(Following the text didn't work for some reason; seems Paizo added an extra space in the copy/paste version. Hence, linked below.)

So let's look at dweomer's essence first, and see how that whole thing susses out.

Link to Dweomer's Essence!

Ill Omen

Ill Omen really doesn't seem to come into it; seems like you're asking about the stuff itself.

Let's look at dweomer's essence:

Quote:

Derived from the patient distillation of rare magical reagents, a pinch of this fine white powder can be added to the casting of any spell as an additional material component to give the spellcaster a +5 bonus on caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance.

Okay, it's an extra material component. Let's look at how those work:

Quote:

Components

A spell’s components explain what you must do or possess to cast the spell. The components entry in a spell description includes abbreviations that tell you what type of components it requires. Specifics for material and focus components are given at the end of the descriptive text. Usually you don’t need to worry about components, but when you can’t use a component for some reason or when a material or focus component is expensive, then the components are important.

<snip>

Material (M)

A material component consists of one or more physical substances or objects that are annihilated by the spell energies in the casting process. Unless a cost is given for a material component, the cost is negligible. Don’t bother to keep track of material components with negligible cost. Assume you have all you need as long as you have your spell component pouch.

Nothing there about an action. It does say that you normally shouldn't worry about components unless you can't provide it for some reason.

That said,

Choosing a Spell wrote:

To cast a spell, you must be able to speak (if the spell has a verbal component), gesture (if it has a somatic component), and manipulate the material components or focus (if any). Additionally, you must concentrate to cast a spell.

... could lead to an action requirement.

Actions in Combat notes that "retrieving a stored item" is a move action. It could be argued that this is what is required to pull the item from storage (your spell component pouch), though I've never personally seen that ruling, and also it notes that casting a spell with a "1 standard action" casting time is... a standard action (duh) which could be argued to be different from retrieving a thing, but... it seems to be a weak argument.

That said, Manipulate an Item exists, and says:

Quote:

Manipulate an Item

Moving or manipulating an item is usually a move action.

This includes retrieving or putting away a stored item, picking up an item, moving a heavy object, and opening a door. Examples of this kind of action, along with whether they incur an attack of opportunity, are given in Table: Actions in Combat.

This clearly applies to the situation, since manipulating it (or at least the capability thereof) is needed for spellcasting.

That said, the following entry exists:

Quote:

Not an Action

Some activities are so minor that they are not even considered free actions. They literally don’t take any time at all to do and are considered an inherent part of doing something else, such as nocking an arrow as part of an attack with a bow.

Using material components (that, explicitly, you "Usually you don’t need to worry about") seems like it also clearly falls into this action, given it's a listed part of the action of casting the spell.

A spell component pouch itself notes nothing on time.

So there are basically two options:
- 1) it costs a move action to retrieve a spell component, but "manipulating" it is part of the spellcasting time, and thus doesn't cost any time
- 2) it costs nothing to retrieve/utilize a spell component as it's part of the spellcasting time, and thus doesn't cost any time
- 3) The third option is that it requires a move action to retrieve, and another move action to manipulate; this seems unnecessarily punitive, and seems clearly not how NPC casters are used in published adventures, but some well might want to play that way and/or feel that it's more RAW and thus what they want to go with.

If it's the former, you'll need to have the stuff on-hand (probably by taking a move action the round before to retrieve it); if it's the latter, you'll just need to have it on you (if it's the last, you can't use the item at all, meaning the rules are broken - another argument against this ruling).

Either way unless you're using rules that literally cause the game not to work, once you're casting the spell, it doesn't matter - it's just part of casting the spell.

[Tacticslion]

Now let's look at the other question!

Atalius wrote:

Furthermore, if I use my Swift to use Quicken Spell, does that mean I can't use my Invoke Patron ability to further lower the enemy's SR because that would be another swift action. Some tips appreciated!

(I'm under the working assumption you're using the Bridge* patron.)

Casting a quickened spell is a swift action. Invoke patron is also a swift action (but it lasts for a number of minutes per day equal to your level; 1 minute is the same as 10 rounds). Since you only have one swift action in a turn, you can't use them on the same turn. But! Since the patron lasts for a while, you can use that on one round, and then at some point in the next ten rounds (or so) use the quickened ill omen (plus material components). This would give you the benefits of both!

(I was ninja'd, but had already written most of this by the time I realized it, so I finished it.)

* For the curious:

Bridge wrote:

Bridge: The invoker treats other creatures as if their damage reduction and spell resistance were 2 lower. This increases to 5 lower at 8th level and 10 lower at 16th level.

[Atalius]

Very detailed thanks a lot!

[SmiloDan]

If you look at the Oracle's Haunted curse, I'm pretty sure it says that using a material component is not the same as drawing an object. Using a material component is unaffected by the curse, but drawing an object is.

So using the material component is the part of the action of casting the spell, not a separate action itself.

Right?

[Tacticslion]

SmiloDan wrote:

If you look at the Oracle's Haunted curse, I'm pretty sure it says that using a material component is not the same as drawing an object. Using a material component is unaffected by the curse, but drawing an object is.

So using the material component is the part of the action of casting the spell, not a separate action itself.

Right?

That makes sense to me! It's how I lean anyway. Nice find!