Question regarding Signature Spells

[Blagtict B. Blagtict]

Hello, apologies if this is stupid but I have overthought myself in a mess and could use some clarity.

The sorcerer class feature 'signature spells' says:

"You’ve learned to cast some of your spells more flexibly. For each spell level you have access to, choose one spell of that level to be a signature spell."

A player of mine asked if they need to know the spell already in order to select it as a signature spell. My initial reaction was 'of course you do', but upon reading it back I am now unsure. My initial thought was to refer to the 'spells known' table, but that is already unreliable because of things like bloodline spell feats. I have been staring at it for a while now and have just confused myself.

Can anyone help me understand how this should apply?

[mrspaghetti]

Blagtict B. Blagtict wrote:

Hello, apologies if this is stupid but I have overthought myself in a mess and could use some clarity.

The sorcerer class feature 'signature spells' says:

"You’ve learned to cast some of your spells more flexibly. For each spell level you have access to, choose one spell of that level to be a signature spell."

A player of mine asked if they need to know the spell already in order to select it as a signature spell. My initial reaction was 'of course you do', but upon reading it back I am now unsure. My initial thought was to refer to the 'spells known' table, but that is already unreliable because of things like bloodline spell feats. I have been staring at it for a while now and have just confused myself.

Can anyone help me understand how this should apply?

Your initial reaction was correct in my opinion. Signature spells are selected from your repertoire.

[Squiggit]

The class feature simply says "choose one spell of that level" rather than "one spell in your repertoire of that level" by my reading nothing actually requires you to pick a spell you know.

However, the signature spell class feature doesn't add spells to your repertoire either, so making a spell you can't cast a signature spell provides no benefit.

This might be useful for a Sorcerer who wants to learn specific spells when they gain a new spell level, but don't want those spells to be Signature spells and don't want to have to Retrain their signature spell selection, but otherwise isn't a good idea.

[thenobledrake]

Squiggit wrote:

The class feature simply says "choose one spell of that level" rather than "one spell in your repertoire of that level" by my reading nothing actually requires you to pick a spell you know.

The part of the text that makes the requirement you have the spell in your repertoire clear is where it says "You’ve learned to cast some of your spells more flexibly." (bold for emphasis).

[Astrael]

If you want to restrict this in that manner, then what about the Arcane Evolution feat that lets a sorcerer freely add spells to their spellbook as long as they can afford it, or the Esoteric Polymath feat for bards. At that point, even if they aren't in their repertoire, they ARE "your spells".

I still read it as one spell added, per level, when you choose a signature spell as you level up and gain a new level of spell slot (i.e. the odd character levels). Well, a sorcerer/bard/oracle could choose a repertoire spell if they didn't want to add a new one, but . . . O.o

Again, the RAW specifically state in other places that you have to choose from a repertoire for archetypes, restricting them and their number of spells. It does not anywhere for sorcerers or bards or oracles. Yes, they did repeat the SAME words in the APG. The extra wording for archetypes has been there since the beginning of PF2.

This explicit difference means that my sorcerer/bard/oracle does NOT have to choose a spell in their repertoire as a signature spell. It just has to be on their spellcasting tradition's list.

[mrspaghetti]

Astrael wrote:

If you want to restrict this in that manner, then what about the Arcane Evolution feat that lets a sorcerer freely add spells to their spellbook as long as they can afford it, or the Esoteric Polymath feat for bards. At that point, even if they aren't in their repertoire, they ARE "your spells".

What about it? I don't see how one has anything to do with the other. As far as I'm concerned, how Arcane Evolution works is clear, and so is the Signature Spell class feature.

Astrael wrote:

I still read it as one spell added, per level, when you choose a signature spell as you level up and gain a new level of spell slot (i.e. the odd character levels). Well, a sorcerer/bard/oracle could choose a repertoire spell if they didn't want to add a new one, but . . . O.o

Again, the RAW specifically state in other places that you have to choose from a repertoire for archetypes, restricting them and their number of spells. It does not anywhere for sorcerers or bards or oracles. Yes, they did repeat the SAME words in the APG. The extra wording for archetypes has been there since the beginning of PF2.

This explicit difference means that my sorcerer/bard/oracle does NOT have to choose a spell in their repertoire as a signature spell. It just has to be on their spellcasting tradition's list.

@Astrael is the only one I'm aware of who interprets it this way.

[Astrael]

Nope, I'm the only one continuing. The people I play with online, who I point to the RAW, agree with me that the wording is exact. Most players do NOT post here on the forums after all. Concluding that the entirety of Paizo's community posts here is a bit silly, in my opinion.

[thenobledrake]

Astrael, I think there's a good chance that the people you play online with aren't concerned about whether or not RAW says what you think it does or not - they're just agreeing to rule the way you want it to work because they don't have any objection to it.

Much like I know that my group generally doesn't really care whether our rulings are RAW or not, they just care if they make sense to us.

The two of us that do care about knowing what RAW is, though... we both agree that your interpretation of signature spells is wishful thinking.

[mrspaghetti]

Astrael wrote:

Concluding that the entirety of Paizo's community posts here is a bit silly, in my opinion.

That would be silly, and I have not done that. I'm simply making an observation that no one else has posted a similar opinion to yours regarding Signature Spells that I am aware of. One does not need the entire population to get statistically significant results, only a sample of it. If this were anything like a mainstream point of view I would have expected at least a handful of this forum's faithful to have spoken up in support of it.

[Gilbin]

I'm trying to find the original source, but I've seen a couple of posts quoting Mark Seifter as saying that signature spells do not add spells to your repertoire. Here's an example of one such post.

Found it. It's in this stream around the 00:16:05 mark.

[Timeshadow]

Not that it likely makes any difference but the Pathbuilder app does not give an option to take an additional signature spell it just allows one spell already chosen to be made into a signature spell.

[Orithilaen]

I think Squiggit's answer is right. There are two questions: (a) can you pick a spell not in your repertoire as a signature spell and (b) can you cast a signature spell not in your repertoire, assuming the answer to (a) is yes.

As to (a), I don't see any rules text expressly stopping you from picking a non-repertoire spell as a signature spell. But there's also nothing about the signature spell ability that lets you cast it if you don't already have it in your repertoire. Picking a spell as a signature spell lets you heighten (or cast at a lower level, where applicable) freely. It doesn't give you the spell in the first place.

I don't know that this particular rules interaction was intended (it's plausible that RAI is for signature spells to always be repertoire spells) but it may have some minor utility. The signature spells class feature gives you a signature spell once you can cast spells of a new spell level, but (most of the time) it doesn't give you any benefit until you get another spell level so you can heighten it. So you might pick as a signature spell a spell you don't yet have, in anticipation that you'll change your spell selection later.

[Themetricsystem]

Timeshadow wrote:

Not that it likely makes any difference but the Pathbuilder app does not give an option to take an additional signature spell it just allows one spell already chosen to be made into a signature spell.

Hero Lab Online similarly rules it the same way too.

[Kulgore]

Sorcerer spell casting: "You must know spells to cast them, and you learn them via the spell repertoire class feature."

Spell repertoire: "The collection of spells you can cast is called your spell repertoire. "

If a spell is not in your repertoire you can't cast it. Nothing in the description of signature spell alters that fact.

Signature spell: "You’ve learned to cast some of your spells more flexibly. For each spell level you have access to, choose one spell of that level to be a signature spell. "

A literal reading would be that you could select a spell not in your repertoire. And then when you cast that spell you could heighten it to whatever level you want. But if it's not in your repertoire you can't cast it in the first place so there's no value to picking a signature spell if it isn't already in your repertoire.

[Astrael]

Ummm . . yeah, it'd probably be better to quote the WHOLE conversation around a person's statement. Mark Seifter's sentence still doesn't answer about this particular question. "Oh, you definitely don't gain spells to your repertoire if the rules don't say you do." I would need to know what question was asked and what parameters were set to receive such an answer.

Also, in the stream quoted above, Mark Seifter specifically says to look at the spells chapter in the CRB for the line about signature spells. There is only one sentence in the whole chapter that mentions signature spells:

Quote:

Many spontaneous spellcasting classes provide abilities like the signature spells class feature, which allows you to cast a limited number of spells as heightened versions even if you know the spell at only a single level.

RAW in the CRB and APG, there is separate wording for the signature spells class features between the archetypes and the classes. The 3 archetype spellcasting feats SAY that you pick from your repertoire. The 3 class features SAY that you pick from spells you have access to.

The fact that there are these two different wordings about the same feature for two different uses means that they work differently, until ruled otherwise by OP staff or another errata.

Not to say anything against Mark Seifter, who I admire for his huge body of work and I enjoy watching and listening to him when he's on stream or discord, I WANT word from the Organized Play staff who make the rules for us. Quite a few times, I've run across where a designer's STATED wish for what they created is changed or negated by the OP staff. I don't have an opinion on that either way and the OP staff make the best decision they can for general balance and playability as they see it.

[thenobledrake]

Astrael wrote:

The fact that there are these two different wordings about the same feature for two different uses means that they work differently, until ruled otherwise by OP staff or another errata.

That's not exactly true as the same meaning can be conveyed by different sentences.

Also, sorcerer archetype feats being worded differently from the standard sorcerer features can be chalked up not to their deliberately different function for the sorcerer parts, but because of the assumption that the other class in play might also have spells so there is a need to specify that a Wizard taking Sorcerer archetype feats can't pick spells in their wizard spellbook to apply sorcerer rules to.

When figuring out what a single-class sorcerer character can or can't do, it only requires reading the sorcerer class - not also the multi-class archetype feats that the sorcerer literally cannot take.

[shroudb]

The fundamental issue is that you need the spells in your repertoire to cast them.

You can have every spell in the world as a signature spell, but if they are not in your repertoire, you can't cast them.

Nothing in the signature feature actually adds them to your repertoire.

[Ravingdork]

Timeshadow wrote:

Not that it likely makes any difference but the Pathbuilder app does not give an option to take an additional signature spell it just allows one spell already chosen to be made into a signature spell.

I submitted a request to PathBuilder 2E to allow for more than one signature spell per level (to account for things like Signature Spell Expansion) a while back. At the time of your writing, that change had already been implemented.

[Timeshadow]

Ravingdork wrote:

Timeshadow wrote:

Not that it likely makes any difference but the Pathbuilder app does not give an option to take an additional signature spell it just allows one spell already chosen to be made into a signature spell.

I submitted a request to PathBuilder 2E to allow for more than one signature spell per level (to account for things like Signature Spell Expansion) a while back. At the time of your writing, that change had already been implemented.

So it does not allow you to take additional signature spells.

I just updated my Pathbuilder2 and it still restricts you to one spell at each spell level to make signature even if you add extra bonus spells so I'm not sure what you are talking about.

Edit: When you take the Signature spell expansion feat at lvl 10 it allows unlimited additional sig spells to be chosen (even though it is supposed to be just 2) but again they must be chosen from those known.

[Nefreet]

Astrael wrote:

I WANT word from the Organized Play staff who make the rules for us.

The Organized Play staff has nothing to do with Game Design.

[Astrael]

Nefreet wrote:

Astrael wrote:

I WANT word from the Organized Play staff who make the rules for us.

The Organized Play staff has nothing to do with Game Design.

The Organized Play staff act as the ruling GM for playing Society games.

[HammerJack]

They do. At least for questions like "what is available in this campaign?" (not to be confused with short term questions, where the GM is, y'know, the GM). And they issue rulings for things like campaign availability of Uncommon or Rare options.

Basic rules questions like this, they don't generally issue their own rulings on, especially not rulings that aren't just relayed from talking to the design team. This really isn't an Organized Play staff kind of question, and there's no reason they would be answering it. Especially since this isn't even an Organized Play question or on the Organized Play forum.

[Nefreet]

Exactly. Different departments with different responsibilities and areas of concern.

You wouldn't see a Pathfinder Designer answer an Organized Play question anymore than you'd see an Organized Play Developer answer a Pathfinder Design question.

[Squiggit]

I mean, sometimes you do. PF1 had a lot of specific rulings in Organized Play that effectively acted as pseudo-errata for things the designers themselves wouldn't touch. No reason PF2 OP guidelines couldn't have similar things pop up about ambiguous mechanics.

Though I'm not convinced Astrael's specific issue is something that would be on their radar, because it's not something I've ever seen anyone else get confused about. It seems like a fairly niche issue.