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In Pathfinder, is there any existing feat, item, or other way for a non-gnome (human) illusionist to allow spell duration concentration to use a lesser action than a standard action.

I am aware of Effortless Trickery that allows gnomes to concentrate on illusion spells as a swift action.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Welcome to the site! Please take a look at the tour and the help; they're a useful introduction to the site. And once you have 20+ rep, feel free to join the chat! There was a 3.5 skill that let you split concentration, maintaining concentration on one effect while being able to act normally. I don't think anything quite like that was brought over into PF though. \$\endgroup\$
    – Tridus
    Nov 19, 2013 at 17:44

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The only Rules As Written way that I'm familiar with would be for a Human illusionist to take the Racial Heritage feat, which says:

Choose another humanoid race. You count as both human and that race for any effects related to race. For example, if you choose dwarf, you are considered both a human and a dwarf for the purpose of taking traits, feats, how spells and magic items affect you, and so on.

This costs you two feats (one for Racial Heritage and the second to take Effortless Trickery).

Note, while the feat is called "Racial Heritage", many GMs will let you re-skin the reason for the feat. Gnomes of Golarion states that Humans and Gnomes can't interbreed but there are limitness reasons you might have this feat, for example...

  • Maybe your favorite tutor in university was a seasoned Gnomish illusionist, who took you under his wing and taught you some trade secrets.
  • Maybe you received a blessing from a Gnome (or some other fey) who's life you saved.
  • Maybe you're a fey foundling, or a human child who was carried away in a burlap sack by gremlins when you didn't eat your brussel sprouts, and spent some of your early childhood in the First World, changing you in subtle ways.
  • Maybe you just have a mysterious (never explained) knack for certain things.

EDIT: This can be stretched further (with GM permission, as always) by playing a character of any race with angelic heritage. Aasimar's Scion of Humanity alternate race trait says:

An aasimar with this racial trait counts as an outsider (native) and a humanoid (human) for any effect related to race, including feat prerequisites and spells that affect humanoids.

...Which means Aasimar Scions of Humanity qualify for the Racial Heritage feat. Note also that Aasimar can be of any race, and that:

Non-human aasimars have the same statistics as human aasimars with the exception of size. Thus a halfling aasimar is Small but otherwise possesses the same statistics and abilities as a human aasimar—the difference is purely cosmetic.

Some GMs will understandably rule this differently (I think it's quite cheesy without a very good story behind it) but rules as written this means one can play an aasimar who's an elf, halfling, or dwarf with distant angelic heritage, take the Scion of Humanity alternate trait, and then take Racial Heritage to open up the feats of another race (like gnomes).

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If the illusionist has a familiar and the DM's okay with third-party material the feat Familiar Concentration allows the illusionist to let his familiar take over concentrating on a spell.

It's a shame the illusionist isn't a bard because the feat Spellsong works. A psionic illusionist (a la Marvel Comics's Mastermind) could take the power solicit psicrystal and for fun the power co-opt concentration.

If willing to hurl the illusionist down the rabbit hole there's the feat Sutra Caster that says that "[t]he caster need not concentrate on or touch an omamori [a temporary defensive magic item created via the variant sutra magic system] again in order for it to continue working, as long as he has maintained it and it lasts." So, um, there's that.

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As Jeff Fry points out, you can use the Racial Heritage feat which will allow your human illusionist to qualify for the Effortless Trickery feat.

The only other concentration action reducer I know of is the Spellsong feat for bards.

D&D 3.5 had the Extraordinary Concentration feat, but that is not available in Pathfinder.

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