Reactive Shield and Shield Spell

[Kid_Icarus]

Say I create an Elf Fighter, taking the Otherwordly Magic ancestral feat with Shield as my cantrip, and then select Reactive Shield as my 1st level feat. Can I use Reactive Shield to cast Shield?

Reactive Shield (Reaction): You use the Raise a Shield Action and gain your shield's bonuses to AC immediately...

Shield (1 Verbal Casting Action): You raise a shield of force to protect you. This counts as using the Raise a Shield action...

I'm assuming it wasn't meant to be used this way, but RAW looks like you may be able to.

Seems like a pretty excellent way for a ranged/no shield fighter to grab an extra AC bonus as well as reduce some damage in an emergency, if it's possible.

[Darkorin]

Casting a spell is not a raise the shield action, thus you cannot do it. Reactive Shield enables you to take a specific action and not any other.

[Zman0]

I give "counts as" quite a bit of weight here.

I'm allowing it until told otherwise. I was hoping for a clarification in the errata, but no dice.

[modus0]

Kid_Icarus wrote:

Can I use Reactive Shield to cast Shield?

I would say no, because you'd be using a Reaction to cast a 1 Action spell.

Without a feat that specifically allows casting a spell as a Reaction, you can't otherwise cast a spell without at least spending an Action.

[Kid_Icarus]

modus0 wrote:

Kid_Icarus wrote:

Can I use Reactive Shield to cast Shield?

Without a feat that specifically allows casting a spell as a Reaction, you can't otherwise cast a spell without at least spending an Action.

Ok, that makes sense to me. I figured as much, I just thought maybe there was a loophole here that they should at least close. Given that both the Shield spell and the Raise a Shield action are both only 1 action, I thought it might be possible.

I know they were going for a simplification with PFv2 but I have found the book and the rule-set, and even character creation, to be far more complicated than v1. Seems like Paizo maybe had a hard time thinking outside the box as far as simplification goes on this one.

[DFang]

The Reactive Shield is a feat that allows the Raise a Shield action to be done as a reaction, which the Shield spell counts as.

Since casting the spell is only a verbal action, and raising an actual shield is also an action, there shouldn't be a problem casting Shield as a reaction then. Note that since the reaction is spent, using the magical shield to block is no longer possible. Since the magical shield is only +1AC no matter the heightened level, it's relatively balanced so I'd allow it.