Inspire Competence

[Kennethray]

I just got the 12 exp to level up in PFS. As a bard I want to take Inspire Competence but I am not clear on exactly how it works. It states:

Inspire Competence (Cantrip 1)
Uncommon, Bard, Cantrip, Composition, Emotion, Enchantment, Mental
Cast [one-action] Verbal
Range 60 feet; Targets 1 ally
Duration 1 round

Your encouragement inspires your ally to succeed at a task. This counts as having taken sufficient preparatory Actions to Aid your ally on a skill check of your choice, regardless of the circumstances. When you later use the Aid reaction, you can roll Performance instead of the normal skill check, and if you roll a failure, you get a success instead. If you are legendary in Performance, you automatically critically succeed.

So do I cast the cantrip then make a performance check, or does the casting count as an aid plus I get the "you cant make a normal failure" as extra? The duration 1 round, and wording say "when you later use the Aid reaction" do not help.

Thanks for any insight.

K-Ray

[Xenocrat]

You cast the cantrip (one action), then take a reaction on the turn of your ally when he makes his aided skill check. It needs to be after you cast the cantrip but before your next round.

You then roll a performance check instead of the usual same skill requirement for an aid check. If you fail or succeed, you get a succeed. If you crit fail, you get a crit fail. If you crit succeed, you crit succeed.

See the Aid rules on pg 470.

[Deriven Firelion]

Does Inspire Competence work for exploration or downtime activities? My player is trying to use this for Craft-Repair. I recall reading that you needed to be able to use the ability the same time as the skill your aiding to gain the advantage. I can't find this portion again.

[K1]

I am not sure for crafting/exploration/downtime activities, since it's a long process, but in terms of repair, given the "quick repair" feat, once you hit legendary it would only require an action to fix an item, so the bonus would be ok.

[Staffan Johansson]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Does Inspire Competence work for exploration or downtime activities? My player is trying to use this for Craft-Repair. I recall reading that you needed to be able to use the ability the same time as the skill your aiding to gain the advantage. I can't find this portion again.

It would fall under the "Repeat a spell" exploration activity, which says you generally only use it for short periods of time to avoid fatigue (though I can't find anything specifying how long, but I'd use the 10 minute mark from Sustain a Spell).

So I'd allow it for a task taking 10 minutes or less, but not on consecutive tasks.

[Joyd]

It probably doesn't work for downtime activities:

"Some downtime activities require rolls, typically skill checks. Because these rolls represent the culmination of a series of tasks over a long period, players can’t use most abilities or spells that manipulate die rolls, such as activating a magic item to gain a bonus or casting a fortune spell to roll twice. Constant benefits still apply, though, so someone might invest a magic item that gives them a bonus without requiring activation. You might make specific exceptions to this rule. If something could apply constantly, or so often that it might as well be constant, it’s more likely to be used for downtime checks."

That would seem to suggest that the DM may allow it provided that you're able to spend your own downtime continually aiding, but you probably cannot pop up at the last minute (or the first minute) and only aid just at that one point.

There is no such language in the section on exploration activities. This could be interpreted to mean that it works just fine for exploration activities, or it could be that we're supposed to interpret backwards a section from the downtime section that the downtime rules also apply to long-running exploration checks. (It should work fine for any exploration mode check that doesn't represent "a series of tasks over a long period.")