Spellcasting while Holding Your Breath

[steven_mallory]

So, I've seen people on the errata threads request an answer on this, but haven't been able to find an actual answer given in the context of the remaster.

Drowning and Suffocation (Player Core, page 437)
You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to 5 + your Constitution modifier. Reduce your remaining air by 1 round at the end of each of your turns, or by 2 if you attacked or cast any spells that turn. You also lose 1 round worth of air each time you are critically hit or critically fail a save against a damaging effect. If you speak (including Casting a Spell) you lose all remaining air.

So... which is it? Does casting a spell while holding your breath (either because you're underwater, swallowed, or some other context that requires you to hold your breath) cost 2 rounds of your remaining air, or all of them? And if the answer is "it depends on the spell," in the absence of a "verbal" trait for a spell, what determines which?

This has actually come up a bunch of times in our local PFS games, and we've generally been treating it like the pre-remaster rules were still in effect on this specific point (it costs all your air unless its a spell whose pre-remaster version didn't have a verbal trait), but I'd love an official answer.

[Maya Coleman]

Moved this over to Rules Discussion!

[Baarogue]

You can cast some spells without speaking, either because they have the subtle trait or because of other benefits like the psychic spellcasting class feature. In those cases you lose two rounds of air. If you speak while casting a spell, you lose all your air

[HammerJack]

Right. After the remaster, the default is that all spells have incantations. Something needs to take those away. The Subtle trait is the most common thing to do that.

[Claxon]

Yeah, since not ALL spells require speaking (sometimes due to the spell itself or sometimes due to class features) you can have situation where you cast spells without speech or speak without casting a spell.

Apparently casting a spell without speech is still strenuous enough to cause you to not be able to hold your breath as well.

[rainzax]

Can you Concentrate and Manipulate while you are holding your breath?

=)

[Nelzy]

Any Arcane or Primal that wants to hold their breath prob uses Deep Breath
and then its a lesser issue

-------------

But Hammerjack is right, all spells make you lose all air unless things like the Subtle trait

[Claxon]

Nelzy wrote:

Any Arcane or Primal that wants to hold their breath prob uses Deep Breath

and then its a lesser issue

-------------

But Hammerjack is right, all spells make you lose all air unless things like the Subtle trait

It's worse than that, casting a spell always causes you to lose some of your breath.

Casting without speaking (like a spell with the subtle trait) will cause you to lose 2 rounds of held breath.

If you cast a spell with speech, you can no longer hold your breath and lose all rounds of held breath.

[SuperParkourio]

If you want to cast spells somewhere you can't breathe in, Air Bubble is a solid option. Occult casters don't get it, but it's range 60 feet instead of self.

You don't need to hold your breath with Air Bubble.