Eschew Materials


Advice


Am I missing something here? Using a feat to replace a 5sp Material Component pouch just seems like a total waste of a feat. Right?


That is also my perspective. It saves you 1L in bulk for the pouch, but that's it as far as I can tell.

It'll make sense in a campaign when you're worried about losing your stuff but otherwise I don't see the benefit.


Also let's you cast with both hands occupied, right? I believe you don't need a free hand for somatic components, but yes for material.

The benefit is still marginal, though.


ChibiNyan wrote:

Also let's you cast with both hands occupied, right? I believe you don't need a free hand for somatic components, but yes for material.

The benefit is still marginal, though.

Alas:

"Unlike when providing somatic components, you still must have a hand completely free."

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32

Eschew Materials says that you still need a hand free to cast, it isn't directly replacing M components with S. Which is weird, because that's what I expected too.

There aren't even all that many spells that use M anymore anyway.

Edit- I added a component pouch for this wizard I'm building, just out of habit. Turns out he doesn't have a single spell in his spellbook that uses a material component.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Agree. A feat that just gets rid of a component pouch, especially since Sunder doesn't even exist anymore, is really bad.


I may have this completely wrong, but isn't the material component the only one with the "manipulate" trait? So it's the only bit of casting that would provoke an AoO.

(I know AoOs aren't anything like as big a deal as in PF1 but still nice to avoid)

Like I said, still going through the rules so I may be completely off here (I also did the playtest so my head hasn't caught up with the changes yet).


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I dunno, but I like it thematically if I want a caster who isn't always fumbling around for their bat guano...


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Wandering Wastrel wrote:

I may have this completely wrong, but isn't the material component the only one with the "manipulate" trait? So it's the only bit of casting that would provoke an AoO.

(I know AoOs aren't anything like as big a deal as in PF1 but still nice to avoid)

Like I said, still going through the rules so I may be completely off here (I also did the playtest so my head hasn't caught up with the changes yet).

Somatic also has the Manipulate trait :(


Meh. Ok, never mind then :-)


Cole Deschain wrote:
I dunno, but I like it thematically if I want a caster who isn't always fumbling around for their bat guano...

Yeah, that's why I took it. It bothers me deeply that you need a feat to avoid using bat poo to power your spells though, but IIRC it was more painful in playtest because you couldn't have as many feats as a first level wizard.

The Exchange

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This question popped up on reddit so I'll just repost my answer.

Quote:

It's definitely more handy in an intrigue based game where your character isn't assumed to be carrying all of his stuff with him while infiltrating a ball or pretending to be captured. Couple it with Conceal Spell/Silent Spell and nobody would notice it was you casting unless the spell originated from you. You'd memorize your spells beforehand and be able to jazz hands people to death when the action started.

Edit: I should clarify that Conceal Spell/Silent Spell will only really work with Verbal/Material or Somatic/Material spells since it uses your third action but there are a few of those in the book it's viable for.

2nd Edit: I just flipped through the spell list and funny enough but the spells you can use with Eschew Materials and Conceal/Silent Spell are all illusion spells.

2nd - Invisibility, Silence
3rd - Invisibility Sphere, Hypnotic Pattern
5th - Hallucination
6th - Vibrant Pattern
8th - Scintillating Pattern

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