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Spellsong:
Prerequisites: Cha 13, bardic performance class ability, able to cast 1st-level spells.
Benefit: You can combine your bardic performance and your spellcasting in two ways. First, you can conceal the activity of casting a bard spell by masking it in a performance. As a swift action, you may combine your casting time of a spell with a Perform check. Observers must make a Perception or Sense Motive check opposed by your Perform check to realize you are also casting a spell. This uses 1 round of your bardic performance ability, regardless of the spell’s casting time.
Second, as a move action, you can use 1 round of bardic performance to maintain a bard spell with a duration of concentration. You can cast another spell in the same round you are using bardic magic to maintain concentration; if you do this, your concentration on the maintained spell ends when you end the bardic performance the spell is part of.
Question: I know it's been repeatedly debated on how this actually works, but my question is slightly different - if you continually cast new spells which are ALSO concentration spells, can you get, say 20+ concentration spells going with your performance?
It seems like the "concentration" part of the spell is "folded into" the performance, so given enough BP rounds, you could fold in a whole litany of spells with this feat.
(also, it appears like you can then be the "only class" (I say this because a bunch get this ability) that can cast more than one concentration spell at a time)
Reasonable reply: It costs 1 move and 1BP each round to maintain the first concentration spell. It costs 1 standard action to maintain the second concentration spell. So at most, you could have 2 concentration spells going UNLESS you were Hasted, at which point, because you get an extra move action, you could have three going at a cost of 2 move, 2BP, and a Standard to maintain all three. This ("logic") seems to imply that the "folded in" spell still costs a move and a BP each round to maintain, despite the verbiage that it ends when the performance ends implying that it is a one time cost.
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Well, you'd run out of move actions after maintaining two.
Yeh, the question was the last bit about it lasting until the end of the performance = don't have to waste move actions anymore (because it is a free action to maintain a performance). ie. is it a one time cost of a move and a BP or is it each turn.
It really should say "you can continue to maintain it this way until the end of your performance" - but it doesn't because, apparently, you could switch back to maintaining it with a standard action instead of the performance??? See, that is the whole online discussion of how it works. If I don't WANT to spend a move and a BP next round, what happens? Can I spend a standard? Does it last to the end of the performance no matter what? Can I fold in a new spell each round (do they stack like I implied in the first post - say 20 times?)
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Hard ruling:
GENERAL: You can’t cast a spell while concentrating on another one.
SPECIFIC: Nothing in SPELLSONG says you can cast another CONCENTRATION SPELL (at all). Thus you CANNOT have two concentration spells going at the same time, and it is a cost of 1 move and 1BP each round you want to free up your standard action for something else (including casting another spell WITHOUT the concentration duration).
Problem solved.
So, Round 1, you start a Performance and cast a spell with a duration of concentration.
Round 2, you maintain concentration on the first spell as part of your Performance and cast a second spell with a duration of concentration.
Round 3, you maintain concentration on the first spell as part of your Performance and use a standard action to maintain concentration on the second spell.
I don't see any room to chain this, even with Haste [or similar effects].
Every mention of "spell" is singular in the drscription. It doesn't even imply that additional spells could be maintained, regardless of your amount of possible move actions.
Nothing stops you from casting a second spell while concentrating in the first place, all you have to do is only cast swift action/quickened spells so it doesn't interrupt your concentration.
Nothing stops you from casting a second spell while concentrating in the first place, all you have to do is only cast swift action/quickened spells so it doesn't interrupt your concentration.
Yes, but very few things allow one to maintain concentration for two spells that both have a duration of concentration.
Gnomes with Effortless Trickery can maintain concentration on Illusion spells as a swift action, so such Gnomes have probably the easiest access outside Bards with Spellsong... but they're only illusions. Lol.
I do like how the wording of that feat implies you can downgrade swift actions to move actions:
Benefit: You can maintain concentration on one spell of the illusion school as a swift action. This has no effect on spells of other schools or on illusion spells with durations that don’t depend on your active concentration. While you may only maintain one spell as a swift action, you may take your move and standard actions to maintain other spells normally, if you wish.
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Changing a bardic performance from one effect to another requires the bard to stop the previous performance and start a new one as a standard action.
Second, as a move action, you can use 1 round of bardic performance to maintain a bard spell with a duration of concentration. You can cast another spell in the same round you are using bardic magic to maintain concentration; if you do this, your concentration on the maintained spell ends when you end the bardic performance the spell is part of.
So maintaining the concentration on the spell is an effect of your ongoing barding performance. If you want to maintain concentration on a different spell you have to start a different barding performance, and that force you into ending the previous performance.
I have to agree with Diego Rossi on this. The rules on bardic performance are pretty clear that you can only perform one bardic performance at a time. It does not matter what action type is required, any time you what to change a bardic performance you have to end your current performance. Even Lingering Performance states that beginning a new performance ends the current one.
As willuwontu points out you cannot cast a spell while concentrating on another. But Spellsong explicitly allows you to do that so that does not apply in this situation.
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Virtuoso Performance allows you to start and maintain a second bardic performance, so it is not totally impossible, but you need to use a lot of resources.
All said and done, you can maintain3 spells that require concentration.
My bad on missing the concentrate rule, but what if you have shadow bard giving you a third performance?
My bad on missing the concentrate rule, but what if you have shadow bard giving you a third performance?
How would you get a 3rd Performance going?
"Virtuoso performance does not stack with any other method of maintaining simultaneous bardic performances."
You aren't maintaining the performance, by the wording of shadowbard, the shadowbard is for you. So would you be able to put up a concentrate, and then pass is off to the shadowbard, and then continue to virtuoso performance?