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Character in question: 8th level Umbral Gnome Rogue, Eldritch Trickster racket, Fey Sorcerer. I know it's a "weak" choice, but it's a of fun. But, I really want Greater Darkvision, so I want to go Shadowdancer at 10th level.
BUT, if I rebuild her as a Thief racket, I could have Shadowdancer now & likely be a lot more dangerous in combat. Only issue being, I'm not super-excited by the rest of the Shadowdancer feats.
The ShadowCASTER archetype requires the ability to cast spells as a prereq. Does having a cantrip from an ancestral feat or a heritage count? Because if it does, my Gnome Thief would be much better off & I'm pretty sure I could still get Shadowdancer at 8th. But really, all of this hinges on how valuable Greater Darkvision actually is. I only play this character in PFS2 adventures at the friendly local or conventions, so I might be over-valuing it, or maybe I'm not.
MTIA!
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I value Greater Darkvision, it assuages part of my PC paranoia, yet I think you're overvaluing it. It's not worth rebuilding a PC you find fun, especially in PFS2 where you can unlock cool perks w/ those resources.
Now in PFS1 early seasons where Deeper Darkness was the bane of PCs in so many adventures that anti-darkness consumables became a required norm, then maybe. But PFS2 tends to avoid "shut down everyone who doesn't prepare for this one trick" encounters unless forewarned. And the spammable Light Cantrip (since it auto-heightens) can counter most darkness. If there's a scenario series facing Nidal or exploring the Shadow Realms...no, not even then. The adventures will likely address that internally, though maybe keep some gold on hand.
Most people interpret casting spells for a prereq as needing spell slots, not just Cantrips or Focus Spells and never innate spells. So more than just knowing the Cast a Spell action. Given how high-level Rogue feats are some of the strongest, I wouldn't bother to get slots or pay a feat for Shadowcaster either, though I would consider how your proficiency might start to lag, but if you don't even have slots...
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Yeah, they killed off innate spells fulfilling anything (as was the case in PF1).
Also, Greater Darkvision is nice if you can get it at low cost, but not worth spending much to get it IMO.
Basically the only thing I know of where its relevant is somebody casting a 4th level greater darkness spell (or something that replicates that). It's not very common at all.
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Innate spells do not fulfill casting prerequisites.
To cite specific sources: Innate spells don't let you qualify for abilities that require you to be a spellcaster — those require you to have spell slots.
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Magical Darkness means you treat anything as concealed if you have regular Darkvision. Concealment is annoying, but there's so many ways around it that I don't think Greater Darkvision is necessary at all. Just have a Cat's Eye Elixir handy or use something similar.
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greater darkvision is cool if you have a cheap reliable source of magical darkness and teammates who can play around it. It's also good if you fight lots of enemies who use darkness offensively to negate their tool.
... But none of those things are super reliable in PFS.
Yeah, if you could get a whole party on the same page about using Greater Darkvision and 4th Level Darkness and make that your tactic, ten it could be very valuable.
But in a random party, no one else is likely to have Greater Darkvision. And they're rightfully going to be upset if you keep casting 4t level Darkness.
At one con an edition or two ago, when players rallied on their own to form balanced parties, while others were calling for casters, tanks, etc, one guy asked out for "Darkvision", assembling a team built to operate in the darkness his PC would provide. According to him, the did very well.
In PFS1, for one of those extra-hard specials only 4 & 5 star GMs could run (I think there were only two?), we had a party in our region that exploited darkness to victory.
Unsure how strong it is in PF2, what with Paizo having so many veterans on staff who've likely pulled those same shenanigans. Seems pretty normal for monsters' senses to expand greatly with level. Now a team of high-level, undetectable Rogues w/ Foil Senses...Hmm.
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I would value Greater Darkvision much more highly in a non PFS context where you can try to get the rest of the party onboard the greater darkvision train and then liberally use Darkness effects to mess up enemies without GDV. In PFS - particularly if you're playing at conventions instead of with semi regulars - you almost certainly not going to have a party that can take full advantage.
I don't have any experience with high level PFS scenarios to say whether or not its likely to come up as a counter to enemy stuff. Most of my play so far has been in the 1-4 bracket with a few plays on pregens in the 5-8.
This. You can't rely on people having Darkvision in PFS, let alone Greater Darkvision. That means you can't plan around using it to your advantage. You can't plan on doing it with regular Darkness either, unless you're something like an Alchemist handing out Darkvision Elixirs to the rest of the group.
Plus, Heightened Darkness was nerfed significantly in PF2 vs PF1 and now doesn't hard counter normal Darkvision. It's a nuisance rather than a "you're blind now" situation. And fewer creatures use it in my experience.
Generally speaking it's nice to have but less valuable than it used to be, and the situation where it's relevant itself comes up less often. Standard Darkvision is quite nice to have, though.
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The Deep Sight spell turns your Darkvision into Greater Darkvision. All traditions. Rank 3 = 1 hour. Rank 7 = 24 hours.
If you lack Darkvision, cast the Darkvision spell on yourself before the Deep Sight spell.
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That's a Rare spell, and he's playing PFS.
Also one might argue the spells don't stack, though I don't know if I'd spend any table time or emotional labor bothering to.
The only reason I could see for not allowing Darkvision and Deep Sight to stack is the Duplicate Effects rule - which would be really hard to argue since Deep Sight has a replacement effect to use in the case of a duplicate.
Deep Sight being a Rare spell from an AP is pretty close to a dealbreaker though. I think you could gain access, but you would have to play Sky King's Tomb for PFS credit (which may be hard to find a table for, and would take quite a bit of actual IRL time to finish) and then buy the "Sky King's Tomb: Cult of the Cave Worm–Undermining Arcana" boon.
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A rare spell from an AP is a absolute deal breaker IMO.
As a GM, I don't allow material from APs that are not currently being played, unless there is a very good reason to. Wanting access to Greater Darkvision via spell isn't a good reason.
As a player, I don't expect access to module/AP specific items (or rare items in general) outside of the AP the character is being played in.