Pathfinder (2e) Magic Part 3: Casting Time, Duration, and Sustain (Updated!)

hello and welcome to magic and pathfinder part 3. in the previous videos we covered magic traditions and how prepared and spontaneous casters use spell slots to cast their spells and in this video we're going to begin discussing spell mechanics starting with casting time and spell durations the cast entry in a spell description lists the amount of time needed to cast the spell this is usually displayed as a number of actions to be spent in encounter mode but could also be a number of minutes such as the case with raised dead if the spell is intended to be used in exploration mode some spells like breath of life can be cast as a reaction and the rule book states that some spells can even be cast as a free action although i'm not aware of any that have been published so far and i'm genuinely curious about this let me know in the comments if you found a spell that can be cast as a free action because so far i haven't found any now most encounter spells require two actions to be cast but many spells that cause things to manifest and persist in the environment like blade barrier summon spells wall spells a certain illusions those require three actions to be spent but two actions for most spells and three actions for spells that cause things to manifest in the environment that's just a rule of thumb always always always check each spell's description to be certain of how many actions are needed the cast entry in a spell's description tells you how long it takes to activate the spell and the duration entry tells you how long it will last after that if a spell has no listed duration then it's instantaneous it starts and ends on the caster's turn but may have effects that last longer than that for example sound burst has no listed duration and therefore it's instantaneous but the target might become deafened or stunned for up to 10 rounds more when a spell has an effect that lasts longer than the duration of the spell the effect is not considered to be magical and therefore something like dispel magic could not be used to cure the victim's deafness when the duration is listed as a number of rounds the number of rounds remaining decreases by one at the start of the caster's turns and ends when that count reaches zero some spells have a listed duration which includes the word sustain when you cast a sustained spell it is due to expire at the end of the next turn after you cast it unless you spend an action on that turn to extend the spell's duration by one more round to do this you spend one action and use sustain a spell which allows you to add enough magic energy and thought into the spell effect to keep it going for another round now the spell will cease at the end of your next turn unless you spin an action again on that turn to sustain it again and so on most spells that allow you to sustain them have a maximum duration like one minute and you cannot sustain them beyond that maximum amount of time and if a maximum duration is not listed then you can sustain it for up to 10 minutes or 100 rounds after which you become fatigued and cannot sustain that spell anymore now when it comes to sustaining spells there are a few questions that always seem to come up the first is can i sustain multiple spells at the same time and the answer to that is yes you can if you somehow have three active spells that all have a duration of sustain and have not passed their maximum duration then you could spend three actions and continue to sustain all three of them the second question is can i sustain the same spell multiple times in one round and the answer to this is also yes per the errata you can sustain spells multiple times in one round so on the round following the casting of a sustained spell you can spend three actions to sustain the spell three times and trigger its effects three times as well a good example of this would be spiritual weapon where each time you sustain it it attacks another time however the errata also adjusts a number of spells so that their effects only trigger the first time they are sustained each round this list includes flaming sphere implosion unfathomable song impaling briars and stormlord so there is nothing preventing you from using three actions to sustain flaming sphere three times in one round but you will only trigger its attack once some spells like endure elements have durations that say until the next time you make your daily preparations what this means is on the next day as part of your daily preparations you can choose to not regain that spell slot doing so basically sustains the spell and extends its duration for another day until your next daily preparations this lets you sustain the spell over very long periods of time but if you ever do choose to regain that spell slot during your daily preparations then the spell immediately ends and if you are ever unconscious or dead at the 24 hour mark after the last preparations you cannot sustain it and the spell ends also the spell must have been cast using a spell slot and you must use spell slots to continue it so you can't use charges from a wand or other magic item for this purpose and last if a spell has a duration of unlimited like magic mouth then you don't need to reserve spell slots in this way for you to continue it if the spell has a duration of unlimited then it lasts until it is either counteracted or dismissed by the caster dismissing a spell allows the caster to end it early before its listed duration is up doing so costs one action and by raw it appears that only spells that specifically tell you that they can be dismissed can be dismissed like for example aerial form says it can be dismissed so you can dismiss it but oddly enough by raw a spell like light cannot be dismissed by the caster before we close i'd like to take a moment to thank all of our patrons these videos would not be possible without their continued generosity and support members of the basics for gamers patreon community receive 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Channel: How It's Played

Views: 15,474

Keywords: best, top 5, top 10, Pathfinder, 2nd Edition, PF2, 2e, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, DND, Paizo, Game, Role-playing, RPG, games, gaming, how to, guide, basic rules, rules summary, Pathfinder rules, Pathfinder rules summary, how to play Pathfinder, critical role, critical roll, pathfinder rpg, magic, spells, wizards, clerics, spell slots, heightened, heighten, prepared, spontaneous, sorcerer, bard, oracle, Duration, Sustain, Sustaining, Dismiss, Dismissing, Spiritual Weapon, Flaming Sphere, basics4gamers

Id: apeE1ak7piM

Length: 7min 48sec (468 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 10 2020