[RPG] Spontaneous casters spell swap

class-featurepathfinder-1espells

I have a summoner in Pathfinder. I have just reached level 5, and the PRD states:

Upon reaching 5th level, and at every third summoner level thereafter
(8th, 11th, and so on), a summoner can choose to learn a new spell in
place of one he already knows. In effect, the summoner “loses” the old
spell in exchange for the new one. The new spell's level must be the
same as that of the spell being exchanged, and it must be at least one
level lower than the highest-level summoner spell he can cast. A
summoner may swap out only a single spell at any given level and must
choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains
new spells known for the level.

Emphasis is mine, other spontaneous spellcasters have the same rule.

When they say "at any given level", does it mean that at 5th level I can swap only one spell? Or does it mean that I can swap one level 0th spell and one 1st level spell?

Best Answer

Let's break down the rules here line by line:

Upon reaching 5th level, and at every third summoner level thereafter (8th, 11th, and so on), a summoner can choose to learn a new spell in place of one he already knows.

This places one restriction: you can only do this once every three levels.

In effect, the summoner “loses” the old spell in exchange for the new one.

This stops you from having both spells at once. Pretty obvious stuff.

The new spell's level must be the same as that of the spell being exchanged,

This means you can swap a 0 level spell for a different 0 level spell, or a level 1 spell for a level 1 spell, but not a 0 level spell for a level 1 spell or vice versa.

and it must be at least one level lower than the highest-level summoner spell he can cast.

This means at 5th level you can only choose to swap a 0-level spell (and receive a 0-level spell in return) or a 1st-level spell (and receive a 1st level spell in return) but not your highest spell level, which is 2.

A summoner may swap out only a single spell at any given level and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains new spells known for the level.

Given the use of the word "level" twice in one sentence, we have to assume it means the same thing in each usage. Therefore, this means one of two things:

  1. You may only choose to swap a spell of the level you just gained. At level 4, you already knew a 2nd level spell, so you can perform no swaps
  2. You may only choose to swap one spell for level 5, and no more again until level 8. This means you cannot swap both a level 0 spell and a level 1 spell, only one or the other.

It seems clear that interpretation 2 is the one that makes sense.

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