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A spell with a duration of sustained always lasts until the end of your next turn. Sustaining it extends its duration until the end of your next turn as well. So it doesn't matter when exactly you spend the action to sustain it as long as it happens before the end of your next turn.
So sustaining with your third action is fine.
Another super useful detail I didn't know until more than a year into pf2 play:
Sustaining a spell does not have a range limit. By default, only the initial casting of the spell has that listed range requirement. Once a sustain spell has started, you can back off and sustain from a distance.
There is no direct rule, but the tables I play at do require that you maintain "line of effect" to sustain, which is basically one step more permissive than "line of sight." If shooting an arrow is line of sight, then throwing a boomerang around a corner is "line of effect".
Note that this ruling is made without real text behind it, and is there to prevent cheese like sticking Blood in the Water on a foe, then poofing out of the room so the caster can then sustain them to death with no risk.
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And be sure to pay close attention to what exactly happens on the Sustain! Some spells are a lot better because you can repeat the 1A sustain to make sure it hurts.
There are generally 3 very different types of sustain wording:
* can -only- sustain once per round
* can only -effect- each target via sustain once per round
* can sustain as many times as you want per round
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So it doesn't matter when exactly you spend the action to sustain it as long as it happens before the end of your next turn.
For the context of the question asked, yes. I would agree with that.
There is an edge case that wasn't asked about. You do have to sustain the spell after the start of your 'next' turn (or rather, after the start of the turn the spell is scheduled to end on) in order for it to extend the duration.
So if you cast a spell on round 1 for your first two actions, then sustain the spell for your third action that round, it doesn't extend the duration farther than the end of round 2.
Similarly, if you cast a spell on round 1, then somehow manage to sustain the spell while it is not your turn before you start your round 2 (readied action or something bizarre like that), it would still set the spell's expiration time to the end of your 'next' turn, which is still going to be the end of round 2.
Sustaining won't set the expiration time of the spell to be the end of round 3 until you are using the sustain action at some point during your round 2. But it doesn't matter when during round 2 you sustain the spell. 'First action' is not required - unless an ability is requiring it (like Effortless Concentration that allows Sustain as a free action, but has a trigger of 'your turn starts').
You can also sustain multiple spells during a round. As many as you have actions to spend on them.
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There is no direct rule, but the tables I play at do require that you maintain "line of effect" to sustain, which is basically one step more permissive than "line of sight." If shooting an arrow is line of sight, then throwing a boomerang around a corner is "line of effect".
I don't disagree with putting some limits on range for the Sustain action. It doesn't come with any limits. Which does allow for some strange things that could be considered shenanigans or cheese. And I think it is fine if that limit involves being able to sustain around corners.
I don't want to call the limit that you have described as 'line of effect' though.
Throwing a boomerang around a corner is actually not line of effect. Line of Effect requires a straight line. Otherwise the example that the rule gives for Fireball doesn't work. There may be a non-straight line between the origin point of the burst and the people hiding fully behind a wall.
So it doesn't matter when exactly you spend the action to sustain it as long as it happens before the end of your next turn.For the context of the question asked, yes. I would agree with that.
There is an edge case that wasn't asked about. You do have to sustain the spell after the start of your 'next' turn (or rather, after the start of the turn the spell is scheduled to end on) in order for it to extend the duration.
So if you cast a spell on round 1 for your first two actions, then sustain the spell for your third action that round, it doesn't extend the duration farther than the end of round 2.
Similarly, if you cast a spell on round 1, then somehow manage to sustain the spell while it is not your turn before you start your round 2 (readied action or something bizarre like that), it would still set the spell's expiration time to the end of your 'next' turn, which is still going to be the end of round 2.
Sustaining won't set the expiration time of the spell to be the end of round 3 until you are using the sustain action at some point during your round 2. But it doesn't matter when during round 2 you sustain the spell. 'First action' is not required - unless an ability is requiring it (like Effortless Concentration that allows Sustain as a free action, but has a trigger of 'your turn starts').
You can also sustain multiple spells during a round. As many as you have actions to spend on them.
I don't see an edge cases here. It's still just as I said: If you cast or sustain a spell with the durqtion "sustained", it lasts until the end of your next turn. None of your examples change anything about it. In no case does sustaining just increase the duration by a round, and neither did I claim it ever does.
Throwing a boomerang around a corner is actually not line of effect. Line of Effect requires a straight line. Otherwise the example that the rule gives for Fireball doesn't work. There may be a non-straight line between the origin point of the burst and the people hiding fully behind a wall.
That was an appropriate thing to callout / correct.
As written, line of effect is pretty restrictive, and I should've checked the RaW before citing those key terms out of my own play experience.
At the table, we've usually called what's RaW line of effect as a "line of sight" for things like placing a fireball, while the table's "line of effect" is more permissive (and a fair bit outside the written RaW for that term) but how strict the GM is w/ those rules is very spell / action dependent.
With the way many spells are written, they ~"should" propagate their AoE in a manner very much not in-line with the RaW for line of effect, so it can cause issues if you are too strict w/ that RaW.
In an area effect, creatures or targets must have line of effect to the point of origin to be affected.
Not every spell is Fireball where that makes sense, and because the text lacks any other terms/instructions, how one runs "line of effect" can be a fuzzy thing at times.
I don't see an edge cases here. It's still just as I said: If you cast or sustain a spell with the durqtion "sustained", it lasts until the end of your next turn.
Yeah, my comments are not so much a disagreement as a clarification. I also note that you changed the wording slightly for this second post. My clarification is targeted more accurately to your first post, not this one.
Leaving it as 'sustain extends the duration as long as it happens before the end of your next turn' is incomplete. It doesn't account for sustaining before the start of the next turn.
"As the last action of turn 1 when I cast the spell" is also technically before the end of your next turn. But it doesn't extend the duration any.
It isn't a common thing to do (cast a spell and then immediately sustain it during that same round), but I like to be complete.
I strongly disagree with putting any unfounded limits on Sustain. It doesn't have limits.
But you still sometimes can't manage effects fully if you can't see the area for example. So you can Sustain Fire Sphere (or how it's called, plus it's an example for analoguous things) from another end of town in being in a basement. You just don't know where to move it as you don't see the area. Unless you do. Things like this.
That "need to maintain indirect L o Effect" ruling came about when we realized the lack range limit when using Blood in the Water.
That is a creature-targeted focus spell that is annoying to land due to 30ft + prerequisites, but once it is "attached" to a target, allowing it to be Sustained without limits is genuinely problematic. There's nothing like moving the flaming sphere to consider, Sustaining BitW is just holding onto the spell and keeping it from unraveling while the spirits rip apart the foe's soul via low damage chunks.
Once tagged, the caster can get themself safe with one more spell, and then spend 9 turns spamming 3 sustains each for 27 Reflex saves of damage. I don't think many foes have a good chance of surviving that damage. And pf2 has too much mobility/escape/walling for "tag once and doomed" to be valid inside the system.
Teleportation, incorporeal wall-walking, even burrowing. It's just too easy to keep away from foes.
Note that this can be used before/outside combat to pick off a foe solo, or it can be used with the whole team trying to stall/barricade a fight while they sustain-kill a target. It's actually a bad combat spell for ~98% of PCs with access to it, but its difference in mechanics makes it abusable / "too good" in such a "non-combat pick off" use-case.
Any "tag & run" strategy is genuinely too balance-disrupting, imo, and it makes sense to put more generic limitations to Sustain itself.
No way! Sustain is a duration. For all effects, it works the same way any effect with a duration would work. So, just like you don't need to be in line of sight and effect with the target for an effect of 1 minute or more to continue, Sustain works exactly the same way, except it costs the caster an action per round.
It's much easier to have unforeseen and unwanted side effects when you limit Sustain to having to be in line of effect and sight than the other way around.
Blood in the water for example can be a very powerful effect, but it's expected to continue to work even if the target or the caster runs behind a wall.
I can even understand wanting to limit some effects like flaming spherefloating flame by not knowing where you would move it, but you could still Sustain it or even blindly move it in some direction.
The other point is that with the exception of a witch with Effortless Concentration and Cackle or the animist's 1-action sustained spells, you usually don't have a way to sustain more than 1 or 2 spells and leave the field, and even if you did, you would still need actions to move. It is simply not possible to make this entire appeal that is defended there.
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Why are we talking about changing working general rule because of one broken spell, again?
For my own thoughts on the matter: I think that completely unrestricted is too much. There should be some limits involved, but it should be something decided by the players at the table.
Personally I don't think it should work if you don't have something at least resembling line of effect to the spell's effect any more. No, you can't sustain a spell effect that is on a different plane of existence from you. Around a corner just out of sight is probably fine. No, the spell doesn't need to still be within your casting range of the spell. Maybe not 800 miles away though.
Yeah, my table was very much in agreement with Finoan here.
BitW intentionally does not have the "once per round" limit, which is fine. The many-hits but low dmg nature of the spell is its whole deal. Because of the pre-req, that's at best a turn 3 option, with turn one generally being to apply bleed, turn 2 is the spell, then you're open to sustain spam, if that seems like a good idea.
While 3A sustain turns can genuinely be a good option for my Chir at times, the cost required to set that up, especially considering the spell is a L12 class feat, makes that cost:benefit fine. It's good to have niche spells actually have some potency within their niche. BitW is genuinely good for long, long fights with big HP pools to get through. But kinda bad in any other context.
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All that said, being able to stick it, then teleport, then spam sustain some creature to death is not okay. This issue of sustaining magic from outside the combat arena affects a lot more spells, though usually when the AoE is the full size of a room.
Even the concept of killboxing is fine, but there are non-sustain duration spells that can work for that. IMO, it makes sense for concept of sustaining ongoing magic to require some degree of connection to the effect be maintained.
Sustaining from behind a "soft" wall/barricade with some gaps blocking a doorway? That's fine.
Sustaining after teleporting up to the roof of a castle 2 floors away? That's problematic, imo.