Does the Fey Influence Ancestry feat give access to the primal spell list?

[meathome]

Hi,

One of my players, is begging for the fey influence ancestry feat from one of the modules.

(He is pre planning all his character levels before the game even starts).

He has plans to go into sorcerer archetype and mostly for flavor reasons wants the demon bloodline. This gives him access to the divine tradition. He is arguing that the feat would give access to the primal spell list, because it states: You become trained in primal DCs and spell attack rolls.

My gut reaction says no to this. The player is convinced that he is right because the pathbuilder2 app lets him pick primal spells.

So the questions:

Is he right and would he really get access to 2 traditions?

If not how unbalancing is it to actually allow it? (it seems like he is only using very few spells from the divine list and its more about the bloodline spell)

(my initial reaction was just say no and advice the player to take fey bloodline if he wants primal spells and let the party cleric cast whatever divine stuff he wants, but the flavor he made up for the character is rather neat and only works if it is a demon blooded sorcerer)

[beowulf99]

Yeah, your gut reaction is correct. Fey Influence grants a single Innate spell based on your choice of Fey. It makes you trained in Primal DC's and Spell attack rolls so that the Innate spell you gain can work.

The only spell list you can use with a class' spell slots are the ones granted by the Class. Even if Fey Influence somehow did grant him access to the Primal spell list, he couldn't draw from that list for his repertoire, or cast any of them with his sorcerer slots. Perhaps have him consider taking an Archetype into druid or what have you to gain legitimate access to some Primal spells, though that still wouldn't allow him to use his Sorcerer slots with Primal spells.

[Charon Onozuka]

Initial Reaction:

Saying an app allows it isn't a good argument. App is not made by paizo, and cannot be guaranteed to be correct in every aspect. Tools like that can be useful, but they do not replace rules knowledge.

Fey Influence gives you training in primal DCs and spell attack rolls - but only gives you a single primal spell and has no wording suggesting you get access to selecting spells from the primal tradition if you are a spellcaster. Without the feat explicitly saying it gives that to you, you just have trained in a tradition without a way to gain more spells from that tradition.

I'd interpret it similar to if you took a caster multiclass - you get access to another tradition specifically for spells provided by the option that gave that tradition. A Wizard taking Cleric multiclass wouldn't suddenly have access to the entire divine tradition for example, only for spell slots gained from the Cleric multiclass. Even if the traditions match, the Spellcasting Archetypes rules state, "All spell slots you gain from spellcasting archetypes have restrictions depending on the archetype; for instance, the bard archetype grants you spell slots you can use only to cast occult spells from your bard repertoire, even if you are a sorcerer with occult spells in your sorcerer repertoire."

So I'd rule that it doesn't work the player thinks - unless they happen to own the adventure path the feat came from and can show otherwise with the original source.

Balance-wise: Granting a single daily casting of a 1st-level spell (along with another small feature) is roughly in line with some other 5th-level ancestry feats (possibly a bit weak - but the adventure path probably places greater importance on the fey trait than an average game would). On the other hand, granting a caster full access to a second tradition would be much better than any other 5th-level ancestry feat a caster could take.

[Cordell Kintner]

Innate spells do not grant you access to a spell list for the purposes of things like scrolls/staves/wands. You must have a Spellcasting class feature that uses that list, even if it's through a Dedication. They would just need to get Sorcerer/Druid/Witch, or some other Dedication that grants you a spellcasting class feature to have access to the primal spell list.

[Ellias Aubec]

As for him saying that the pathbuilder app said he could pick primal spells, that might be correct. Spells can be on multiple lists, so those spells could be both on the divine and primal lists.

[pauljathome]

Ellias Aubec wrote:

As for him saying that the pathbuilder app said he could pick primal spells, that might be correct. Spells can be on multiple lists, so those spells could be both on the divine and primal lists.

Like most good character builder apps, pathbuilder also allows you to consciously break the rules in several places. It is NOT the job of an App to enforce the rules (although it should definitely inform you when you do something illegal)

[PawnJJ]

pauljathome wrote:

Ellias Aubec wrote:

As for him saying that the pathbuilder app said he could pick primal spells, that might be correct. Spells can be on multiple lists, so those spells could be both on the divine and primal lists.

Like most good character builder apps, pathbuilder also allows you to consciously break the rules in several places. It is NOT the job of an App to enforce the rules (although it should definitely inform you when you do something illegal)

To tag onto this, when you go to the spells section of Pathbuilder, you can select the tab for any of the spell lists regardless of your spell class. By his argument, every spellcaster has access to every spell.

(I suspect it's this way so you don't have to jump through hoops if you have an ability like the sorcerer, cleric, bard, oracle etc does to grab a spell not on your spell list)

[Joe Wells]

Yeah, you can be a single-classed Wizard and pick spells from any tradition in Pathbuilder. The app makes no attempt to validate that. You're just supposed to know what you're allowed to choose from.

Becoming trained in primal DCs and spell attack rolls is pretty much just there to let you use the spell the feat grants and that's it.

That said, maybe just let him tinker with his bloodline spells?