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The Rogue’s Eldritch Trickster racket nets you a multiclass archetype with the Basic/Expert/Master Spellcasting feats, which includes the Psychic. And as far as I can tell, Psychic is probably the best archetype for an Eldritch Trickster to use, for a few reasons:
1.) No verbal components. For a stealthy rogue, no having to do a loud chant is huge. There are still visual elements to spellcasting, but you can’t have it all.
2.) Psychics can use Intelligence or Charisma for their key ability score, opening up a lot of different builds.
3.) several of the conscious minds have Attack Roll spells that you can combine with the magical trickster feat for sneak attack damage. Also, you can amp some of them as well. A stealthy rogue who starts off a battle with an amped Produce Flame or an amped Telekinetic Projectile is going to be laying on a lot of hurt from the word go.
So, yeah. There’s my thought: unless your concept really calls for Wizard or Cleric, your Eldritch Trickster Rogue should do some mind pushups. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
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1.) No verbal components. For a stealthy rogue, no having to do a loud chant is huge. There are still visual elements to spellcasting, but you can’t have it all.
Unfortunately: "Your spells still have clear and noticeable visual and auditory manifestations, as normal for a spellcaster."
So no stealthy casting for a Psychic.
Witch archetype is surprisingly strong. Two feats (one of which is the dedication) gets you basic lesson, a familiar, and a cantrip.
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1.) No verbal components. For a stealthy rogue, no having to do a loud chant is huge. There are still visual elements to spellcasting, but you can’t have it all.Unfortunately: "Your spells still have clear and noticeable visual and auditory manifestations, as normal for a spellcaster."
So no stealthy casting for a Psychic.
I read this as, for example, the lightning bolt itself cracking loudly when you cast it, not that thinking the spell into existence causes noise. I'm not entirely sure what in the world would be making sound otherwise. I assume the lack of verbal component is much like the silent spell metamagic feat
I read this as, for example, the lightning bolt itself cracking loudly when you cast it, not that thinking the spell into existence causes noise. I'm not entirely sure what in the world would be making sound otherwise. I assume the lack of verbal component is much like the silent spell metamagic feat1.) No verbal components. For a stealthy rogue, no having to do a loud chant is huge. There are still visual elements to spellcasting, but you can’t have it all.Unfortunately: "Your spells still have clear and noticeable visual and auditory manifestations, as normal for a spellcaster."
So no stealthy casting for a Psychic.
From the CRB: "When you Cast a Spell, your spellcasting creates obvious visual manifestations of the gathering magic, although feats such as Conceal Spell and Melodious Spell can help hide such manifestations or otherwise prevent observers from noticing that you are casting."
And from Conceal Spell: "This ability hides only the spell’s spellcasting actions and manifestations, not its effects, so an observer might still see a ray streak out from you or see you vanish into thin air."So there's clearly a notion of spellcasting manifestations which are separated from the spell effects. In my opinion, this line is there to indicate that there are visual and auditory manifestations when spellcasting and not about the spell visual and auditory effects. Mostly because there's no point in indicating the latter as the Psychic spellcasting only speaks about spellcasting components and how they are subtle in the case of Psychic spellcasting.
Still, I can see a RAW case by pointing out that the CRB only speaks about "visual manifestations of the gathering of magic" and not auditory ones and because Psychic spellcasting speaks about "spells having clear and noticeable manifestations" and not spellcasting. But in my opinion, you should expect some GMs to smash such a RAW case with RAI as I feel in that case the intent is quite clear.
But in my opinion, you should expect some GMs to smash such a RAW case with RAI as I feel in that case the intent is quite clear
I think more about the RAI of the Conceal/Silent Spell Feats.
If it is doesn't make a spell mostly concealed what is the point?To me its clear these feats help the casting, but not the effects. So a concealed Fireball will still go whoosh, flash, boom. It just may be less obvious as to where it came from. A silent Illusionary Creature is not silent, just the casting of it was.
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But in my opinion, you should expect some GMs to smash such a RAW case with RAI as I feel in that case the intent is quite clearI think more about the RAI of the Conceal/Silent Spell Feats.
If it is doesn't make a spell mostly concealed what is the point?
To me its clear these feats help the casting, but not the effects. So a concealed Fireball will still go whoosh, flash, boom. It just may be less obvious as to where it came from. A silent Illusionary Creature is not silent, just the casting of it was.
Which gets the the heart of what I was trying to say, which is that I would personally rule psychic spell casting 'stealthy' insofar as there is not chanting *before* the spell is cast that would alert someone. The casting is silent, the effect is not. Which if no one is looking at you would qualify for 'surprise' attacks IMO. I'm using common language here, I'm not sure what the sneak attack wording is, if spells can sneak attack etc, just that by the time you hear the spell effect after the casting it is too late to react normally as you would if you heard some dude chanting magic words
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Which gets the the heart of what I was trying to say, which is that I would personally rule psychic spell casting 'stealthy' insofar as there is not chanting *before* the spell is cast that would alert someone. The casting is silent, the effect is not. Which if no one is looking at you would qualify for 'surprise' attacks IMO. I'm using common language here, I'm not sure what the sneak attack wording is, if spells can sneak attack etc, just that by the time you hear the spell effect after the casting it is too late to react normally as you would if you heard some dude chanting magic words
But that's not the intent. Spellcasting comes with visual and sound effects, that's the point of the line I quoted. You can rule otherwise, but you are not following the book.
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Which gets the the heart of what I was trying to say, which is that I would personally rule psychic spell casting 'stealthy' insofar as there is not chanting *before* the spell is cast that would alert someone. The casting is silent, the effect is not. Which if no one is looking at you would qualify for 'surprise' attacks IMO. I'm using common language here, I'm not sure what the sneak attack wording is, if spells can sneak attack etc, just that by the time you hear the spell effect after the casting it is too late to react normally as you would if you heard some dude chanting magic wordsBut that's not the intent. Spellcasting comes with visual and sound effects, that's the point of the line I quoted. You can rule otherwise, but you are not following the book.
The actual spell casting is what Conceal Spell, Melodious Spell and Silent Spell affect. Conceal Spell, Melodious Spell disguise or hide the visual and aural effects of casting but don't stop them. Silent spell reduces the sound of the casting. There is a check if the GM wants.
Psychic spell casting doesn't have any verbal components so they don't need to make any sound. The rules don't require it.
Psychic says Your spells still have clear and noticeable visual and auditory manifestations, as normal for a spellcaster but that is wrong. It is a rules error as the rule it is quoting isyour spellcasting creates obvious visual manifestations of the gathering magic or under identifying spells it is You typically notice a spell being cast by seeing its visual manifestations or hearing its verbal casting components.
Bottom line is normal spellcasting does not make sound unless it has a verbal component.
It doesn't say "your spellcasting" But "your spells".
Yeah I can agree with that. So I wasn't comparing the same things. It still means Psychic spell casting is quiet
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Actually, I think the part saying
Your spells still have clear and noticeable visual and auditory manifestations, as normal for a spellcaster.Is just meant to say that if you cast a fireball, the spell obviously make the explosion sound and the visual effect as any other fireball.
It doesn't say "your spellcasting" But "your spells".
So, if they cast a spell they would:
- be recognized
- becounterspelled
- trigger aoo on disrupting stance ( and similar)
- create spell effects identical to any other spellcaster.What seems to change is that they are not affected by underwater combat rules ( breath) and they don't produce any verbal sound ( though they may produce noises with somantic movements).
This is more or less how I read the rules. Particularly I think if the PC isn't wearing something noisy like leather or metal armor I would say the spellcasting before the spell should be totally silent. I would need a good reason to assume otherwise
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This line still clearly means that you can't hide while casting. Whatever the moment you'll make sounds, you will make sounds, alerting everyone around. So for the subject of this discussion (casting without being detected), Psychic Dedication doesn't help.
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You still get the glowy hand runes when you cast Suggestion in the throne room. The guards still kill you for doing it, assuming they didn’t interrupt the casting (and your life) before you completed it.
This line still clearly means that you can't hide while casting. Whatever the moment you'll make sounds, you will make sounds, alerting everyone around. So for the subject of this discussion (casting without being detected), Psychic Dedication doesn't help.
The spell can make sounds. The casting doesn't.
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The spellcasting doesn't make a sound due to the components/feats. But the spell itself certainly does. And the spellcasting will also still have obvious visual manifestations as well, so if there are witnesses, they will know there's a spell that was cast. The only benefit here is that the spellcasting doesn't make noise.
Seriously, unless the spell itself is in an area of Silence, it will make noise. Fireball will go boom. Produce Flame will go *sizzle*. Lightning Bolt will crackle. The change in spell components don't change that.
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If you don't speak during spellcasting because there are no verbal components, there still might be other audible effects from the spellcasting. One does not necessarily impact the other. Spell components and spellcasting manifestations simply are not related.
If you're doing this around a blind corner, others won't hear YOU speaking, but they will most certainly hear the effects of the gathering magic inherent to spellcasting.
And as Darksol indicated, the spell itself will have its own observable stimuli.
So there are three things to consider regarding what can be observed:
1) The various spell components provided by the spellcaster.
2) The spell manifestations resulting from the act of spellcasting.
3) The spell's effects themselves.
The psychic doesn't have to worry about the verbal components of the first one, but that's all. Without special feats and the like, there's still plenty of observable stimuli that can give them away.
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Silent Spell says that it makes the spell casting quieter after entirely removing the verbal components - which to me implies that the act of spell casting is still not entirely silent. Now the noise it is referring to could be the sound you make with hand gestures or activating material components but the existence of sensory manifestions makes me think that it is referring to auditory examples of those. The runes that gather and twist, the strokes of color that shape the spell, or the sparkling of more subtle magic can still have auditory manifestations and there is no reason to believe those are removed/hidden without using something like Conceal Spell.
For most creatures, hearing is less precise than sight and as such it seems reasonable you may not hear a spellcaster cast a spell without verbal components from around a corner. But you also might. Removing the speaking aspect of the verbal components would certainly help, but I don't think it entirely solves the problem.
The Gathered Lore Subconscious Mind says:
Your thought components are mantras you associate with a give spell, which you mentally repeat as you cast. You might silently utter a teaching of resilience as you soon force into a barrier or hear the first three notes of a traveling song as you slip through space. Mantra components often produce runes or symbols from your learnings that are unique to spell you cast, causing your spell manifestations to resemble those of conventional spellcasters to a much greater degree than those of other's psychics.
You can either interpret this as psychic spells otherwise not producing runes and symbols, or otherwise having unique manifestations of runes and symbols. The second part seems super extremely unimportant to point out as I would assume these symbols and other stuff would look different from tradition to tradition, class to class. I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume non-Gathered Lore psychics don't produce runes, and are silent when casting. I think given the right circumstances Psychics should be more suited to finding their target 'flat footed' against their spells
I don't know what sounds "gathering magic" would even make frankly, because such a thing doesn't exist and would also make the *silent spell* metamagic useless out aside of being silenced. In my games I wouldn't want my players to be stripped of creative opportunities because the psychic and the silent spell metamagic only exist to counteract a very specific spell or being gagged. I don't know what Paizo's intention is here, but I think a psychic being the best eldritch trickster is very on theme to begin with and I hate rogues but that combo makes them a little appealing
I don't know what sounds "gathering magic" would even make frankly, because such a thing doesn't exist and would also make the *silent spell* metamagic useless out aside of being silenced. In my games I wouldn't want my players to be stripped of creative opportunities because the psychic and the silent spell metamagic only exist to counteract a very specific spell or being gagged. I don't know what Paizo's intention is here, but I think a psychic being the best eldritch trickster is very on theme to begin with and I hate rogues but that combo makes them a little appealing
Silent Spell has Conceal Spell as a prerequisite, and so it doesn't really need to repeat that the "sensory manifestations" are concealed when Silent Spell is used.
I can't imagine a situation in which a GM would create a "gotcha!" moment like that by claiming that the verbal component was silenced, but not the audible sensory manifestation.
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The Gathered Lore Subconscious Mind says:
Your thought components are mantras you associate with a give spell, which you mentally repeat as you cast. You might silently utter a teaching of resilience as you soon force into a barrier or hear the first three notes of a traveling song as you slip through space. Mantra components often produce runes or symbols from your learnings that are unique to spell you cast, causing your spell manifestations to resemble those of conventional spellcasters to a much greater degree than those of other's psychics.You can either interpret this as psychic spells otherwise not producing runes and symbols, or otherwise having unique manifestations of runes and symbols. The second part seems super extremely unimportant to point out as I would assume these symbols and other stuff would look different from tradition to tradition, class to class. I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume non-Gathered Lore psychics don't produce runes, and are silent when casting. I think given the right circumstances Psychics should be more suited to finding their target 'flat footed' against their spells
I don't know what sounds "gathering magic" would even make frankly, because such a thing doesn't exist and would also make the *silent spell* metamagic useless out aside of being silenced. In my games I wouldn't want my players to be stripped of creative opportunities because the psychic and the silent spell metamagic only exist to counteract a very specific spell or being gagged. I don't know what Paizo's intention is here, but I think a psychic being the best eldritch trickster is very on theme to begin with and I hate rogues but that combo makes them a little appealing
If you read some of the iconic encounters with the psychic Thaleon, you'll be able to read about some of his manifestions. Strokes of colors and emotions that fit his particular style are described. Each subconscious mind has a blurb about their perceptible manifestations, some of which even describe the auditory manifestations.
Emotion components tend to impart abstract or vivid effects to your visual and auditory spell manifestations
Calculation components tend to impart ordered visual and auditory effects to your spell manifestation, such as regular tessellations of light, mathematical spirals, or harmonic tones
Ultimately, the exact manifestations are left up to a player and their GM. But what the rules make clear (in my opinion) is that spellcasting has obvious sensory manifestations of all sorts so that practically any creature is aware of it - within reason - unless you have an ability that states otherwise.
I don't know what sounds "gathering magic" would even make frankly, because such a thing doesn't exist and would also make the *silent spell* metamagic useless out aside of being silenced. In my games I wouldn't want my players to be stripped of creative opportunities because the psychic and the silent spell metamagic only exist to counteract a very specific spell or being gagged. I don't know what Paizo's intention is here, but I think a psychic being the best eldritch trickster is very on theme to begin with and I hate rogues but that combo makes them a little appealingSilent Spell has Conceal Spell as a prerequisite, and so it doesn't really need to repeat that the "sensory manifestations" are concealed when Silent Spell is used.
I can't imagine a situation in which a GM would create a "gotcha!" moment like that by claiming that the verbal component was silenced, but not the audible sensory manifestation.
The interaction of Silent Spell and Conceal Spell doesn't make a lot of sense: When you use Silent Spell, you can choose to gain the benefits of Conceal Spell, and you don’t need to attempt a Deception check because the spell has no verbal components. This doesn't make any sense as none of the other manifestations are masked by making verbal ones silent: flashing light still flash, fancy hand gestures still happens, ect so why say no sound makes it automatic? This leads to the quizzical situation where a spell with verbal components can use silent spell and get concealed without a roll while spells that start out without any verbal components always have to roll because... ?
I don't know what sounds "gathering magic" would even make frankly, because such a thing doesn't exist and would also make the *silent spell* metamagic useless out aside of being silenced. In my games I wouldn't want my players to be stripped of creative opportunities because the psychic and the silent spell metamagic only exist to counteract a very specific spell or being gagged. I don't know what Paizo's intention is here, but I think a psychic being the best eldritch trickster is very on theme to begin with and I hate rogues but that combo makes them a little appealingSilent Spell has Conceal Spell as a prerequisite, and so it doesn't really need to repeat that the "sensory manifestations" are concealed when Silent Spell is used.
I can't imagine a situation in which a GM would create a "gotcha!" moment like that by claiming that the verbal component was silenced, but not the audible sensory manifestation.
I guess I hadn't ever fully read the two feats, but it brings into question something more... Psychics don't get the conceal spell feat
I guess I hadn't ever fully read the two feats, but it brings into question something more... Psychics don't get the conceal spell featI don't know what sounds "gathering magic" would even make frankly, because such a thing doesn't exist and would also make the *silent spell* metamagic useless out aside of being silenced. In my games I wouldn't want my players to be stripped of creative opportunities because the psychic and the silent spell metamagic only exist to counteract a very specific spell or being gagged. I don't know what Paizo's intention is here, but I think a psychic being the best eldritch trickster is very on theme to begin with and I hate rogues but that combo makes them a little appealingSilent Spell has Conceal Spell as a prerequisite, and so it doesn't really need to repeat that the "sensory manifestations" are concealed when Silent Spell is used.
I can't imagine a situation in which a GM would create a "gotcha!" moment like that by claiming that the verbal component was silenced, but not the audible sensory manifestation.
Multiclass wizard is hardly a burden and you can get Silent by 8th level.
The interaction of Silent Spell and Conceal Spell doesn't make a lot of sense: When you use Silent Spell, you can choose to gain the benefits of Conceal Spell, and you don’t need to attempt a Deception check because the spell has no verbal components. This doesn't make any sense as none of the other manifestations are masked by making verbal ones silent: flashing light still flash, fancy hand gestures still happens, ect so why say no sound makes it automatic? This leads to the quizzical situation where a spell with verbal components can use silent spell and get concealed without a roll while spells that start out without any verbal components always have to roll because... ?
This is something I didn't quite pick up on but I just read the feat and it seems conceal spell either implies the casting part of the spell sans verbal components is silent and not very visually flashy, or that conceal spell removes these. So silent spell just adds to that by removing the last component of sound being the words of power. In both cases the spell which comes after the spellcasting is as noisy, flashy etc as it was before. This is part of why I still think the idea the casting part which precedes the spell making a sound just seems like nonsense. Otherwise psychics should get conceal spell to remove these noisy flashy components from before casting the spell
Edit to reply to this without posting too many messages:
Multiclass wizard is hardly a burden and you can get Silent by 8th level.
but this isn't really the point. The point of the tangent on this thread is whether psychic is the best Eldritch Trickster dedication because there are no verbal components. Basically, can you stealthily cast spells for sneak attack damage or whatever. However I can't remember if 2e even allows spells to get sneak attack dice. Maybe that is just 5e. Nevermind op literally says how. Proof I hate rogues
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I think psychics make good eldritch tricksters because they have good spells for them:
- Telekinetic Projectile with longer range
- Phase Bolt which gets around cover and shields and can even flat-foot
- (Oscillating) Produce Flame with high melee damage
Even so, I think ET still suffers from spell attacks lagging behind normal rogue to-hit numbers.
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The interaction of Silent Spell and Conceal Spell doesn't make a lot of sense: When you use Silent Spell, you can choose to gain the benefits of Conceal Spell, and you don’t need to attempt a Deception check because the spell has no verbal components. This doesn't make any sense as none of the other manifestations are masked by making verbal ones silent: flashing light still flash, fancy hand gestures still happens, ect so why say no sound makes it automatic? This leads to the quizzical situation where a spell with verbal components can use silent spell and get concealed without a roll while spells that start out without any verbal components always have to roll because... ?
Conceal Spell only requires you to make a deception check if the spell has verbal components. Otherwise you just make a stealth check.
Since Silent Spell removes the verbal component, it's essentially just reminding you that you don't need to make the check to hide the verbal components you no longer have.
It's not automatic: Conceal Spell normally requires two checks for spells with verbal components, Silent only removes one of them.
Oh and Cryptic Spell [druid 4th level] feat from the new book lets you conceal manifestations in natural terrain with a Nature check. So Rogue’s Eldritch Trickster/multiclass druid might be the thing to go for for stealthy casting. Getting Wis as your casting stat isn't bad either [who says no to raising a save stat?].
but this isn't really the point. The point of the tangent on this thread is whether psychic is the best Eldritch Trickster dedication because there are no verbal components. Basically, can you stealthily cast spells for sneak attack damage or whatever.
Well yeah, WIZARDS are clearly the stealthiest caster there are... I mean the large pointy hat and the staff are just distractions from their ninja suits. ;)
It's not automatic: Conceal Spell normally requires two checks for spells with verbal components, Silent only removes one of them.
I missed that there was 2 checks. That makes more sense then... And why I never use these feats. Though a rogue WOULD have a better time making Stealth and Deception checks than the average caster.
The whole point of Conceal Spell and Silent Spell is to remove components AND magical manifestations.
It doesn't do just one or the other. You don't need a bunch of druid and wizard archetype feats just to make a stealth caster. One set of feats will work just fine.
Oh and Cryptic Spell [druid 4th level] feat from the new book lets you conceal manifestations in natural terrain with a Nature check. So Rogue’s Eldritch Trickster/multiclass druid might be the thing to go for for stealthy casting. Getting Wis as your casting stat isn't bad either [who says no to raising a save stat?].
“You guys, I think that tree just cast scorching ray at me!”
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Oh and Cryptic Spell [druid 4th level] feat from the new book lets you conceal manifestations in natural terrain with a Nature check. So Rogue’s Eldritch Trickster/multiclass druid might be the thing to go for for stealthy casting. Getting Wis as your casting stat isn't bad either [who says no to raising a save stat?].“You guys, I think that tree just cast scorching ray at me!”
*Druid using Deception check* "You have upset the forest spirits with your logging activities. Cease, and perhaps they will forgive you for your trespass."