What makes innate spells better than traditional spells? What makes them worse? How do they differ from traditional spells?
Aside from the "Innate" designation, I'm not seeing any practical difference and so am beginning to wonder why the distinction exists at all.
Do they not provoke reactions? Do they have the concentrate and manipulate traits? Does the mere act of casting them generate observable effects?
You do however automatically gain expect Spell attack/DC proficiency at lvl 12. But thats where the benefits end.
Where is this stated? I have yet to see that anywhere in the rules.
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Innate spells are a replacement for Spell Like Abilities of old.
Creating a class of "spells but not spells" was a bad idea that caused a lot of problems (SLAs). Innate Spells function like spells, except for how you get them and how often you can use them. Innate spells are granted often as a racial feat or as part of class kit/feat, but differ from gaining spells through normal class progression. Innate spells don't let you qualify for things that require spell casting.
But yeah, otherwise they function like Spell coming from spell slots.
There are some specifics (that vary class to class, source to source) between when and how Innate spells progress. The aforementioned attack/DC proficiency and spell casting attribute being charisma (unless otherwise mentioned).
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What makes innate spells better than traditional spells? What makes them worse? How do they differ from traditional spells?
They're, extremely literally speaking, spells you were born with; not spells you learned by practicing a class. That's not precisely correct in all cases, but it's a good general mental model for what a normal vs an innate spell is like.
Aside from the "Innate" designation, I'm not seeing any practical difference and so am beginning to wonder why the distinction exists at all.
Largely using the same mechanics as all other spells is a good thing! It means you don't need to learn a whole new set of mechanics just because gnomes know some tricks without being a spellcasting class.
Do they not provoke reactions? Do they have the concentrate and manipulate traits? Does the mere act of casting them generate observable effects?
They have the same traits as regular spells, provoke in the same way, are just as observable.
The main differences are:
- default ability is Charisma unless stated otherwise
- it doesn't give you the "Cast a Spell" or "Spellcasting" class features that you need to use various magic items.
- it doesn't give you the "Cast a Spell" or "Spellcasting" class features that you need to use various magic items.
I agree with the rest, but have a slightly different thought on this one.
Cast a Spell says that "Any spell qualifies as a Cast a Spell activity". That would include innate spells. So anything that gives an innate spell or focus spell or even just a cantrip would need to give access to the Cast a Spell activity.
But having the Cast a Spell activity does not give the spellcasting features that qualify a character for activating Cast a Spell activated items. For that, you need full spellcasting that, as both the Innate Spells and Focus Spells rules say, requires spell slots.
Innate spells don't let you qualify for abilities that require you to be a spellcaster—those require you to have spell slots.
Though you can cast your focus spells, you don’t qualify for feats and other rules that require you to be a spellcaster or have a spellcasting class feature—those require you to have spell slots.
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One PoV that can help with this is to separate the ability to evoke a spell effect from that of someone who has learned how to cast spells of a specific magical tradition.
When a creature learns how to normally* "cast a spell" that means that they have learned the ability to claim, command, and weave two of the omnipresent magical essences to create spells.
Someone with "full list Occult casting" is defined by their ability to manipulate Spirit and Mind essences into magics. It's not the spells themselves, but the essence manipulation that is the definitional trait of a spellcaster.
While it's similar, a Primal caster instead weaves Life and Matter, and a scroll Soothe, which cannot be made from those 2 essences, is unusable to them.
Meanwhile, an innate spellcaster is one who is able to create the same magical output and manifest that spell, but has no spell tradition whatsoever. They do not know/need to know how to weave magical essences, because their ability to manifest the magic is innate to them, and is not resultant of a learned procedure/skill.
That's where the word "innate" comes from. The "default" or "normal" assumption is that creating a spell comes from the intentional weaving of Mind, Matter, Spirit, & Life, so someone who can manifest spells "innately" is one who does not hold command over these essences.
They still "cast a spell" quote unquote, but they are not doing spellcasting as it would be normally defined. This is also why Charisma is the default stat paired with that, as it's the "manifesting your will" stat.