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Touch Spells and Holding the Charge: In most cases, if you don't discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round until the spell is discharged. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates.
Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets as part of the spell. You can't hold the charge of such a spell; you must touch all targets of the spell in the same round that you finish casting the spell.
You can use this melee touch attack up to one time per level.
Does that apply to Chill Touch? Why or why not? If not, please provide an example of a spell to which it does apply.
Interesting. The implication is that chill touch allows multiple targets, but the charge can't be held; therefore, you'd deliver all of the charges in the same action in the same way you'd cast, say, communal protection from evil.
However, unlike other such spells, you must actually attack the creature with chill touch. You can't simply "touch multiple targets as part of the spell"; you can touch one as part of the spell then make subsequent attacks separately. So that rule does not apply here. You make touch attacks each round until you've exhausted the spell. Whether you can make them only once per round or using your full iterative sequence is a matter for a different thread.
The aforementioned communal protection from evil is an example of a spell for which the "no holding the charge" rule applies. There are many others.
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Yep, that rule looks like it does apply to Chill Touch.
Apparently it operates as some kind of low level pseudo-AOE which isn't bad for a 1st level spell. So it generates multiple touch attacks from one spell, which isn't unheard of. Scorching Ray for example allows three attacks with one spell cast at higher levels. Doesn't seem too unusual or overly powerful.
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Interesting. The implication is that chill touch allows multiple targets, but the charge can't be held; therefore, you'd deliver all of the charges in the same action in the same way you'd cast, say, communal protection from evil.
However, unlike other such spells, you must actually attack the creature with chill touch. You can't simply "touch multiple targets as part of the spell"; you can touch one as part of the spell then make subsequent attacks separately. So that rule does not apply here. You make touch attacks each round until you've exhausted the spell. Whether you can make them only once per round or using your full iterative sequence is a matter for a different thread.
The aforementioned communal protection from evil is an example of a spell for which the "no holding the charge" rule applies. There are many others.
It looks like you're saying that the quoted rule only applies to spells that have a target of "creatures touched" and that remaining charges of Chill Touch stay in effect until each is discharged (or lose the charge through some other manner), regardless of how many rounds it takes. Am I reading that right?
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Interesting. The implication is that chill touch allows multiple targets, but the charge can't be held; therefore, you'd deliver all of the charges in the same action in the same way you'd cast, say, communal protection from evil.
However, unlike other such spells, you must actually attack the creature with chill touch. You can't simply "touch multiple targets as part of the spell"; you can touch one as part of the spell then make subsequent attacks separately. So that rule does not apply here. You make touch attacks each round until you've exhausted the spell. Whether you can make them only once per round or using your full iterative sequence is a matter for a different thread.
The aforementioned communal protection from evil is an example of a spell for which the "no holding the charge" rule applies. There are many others.
An FAQ response on the Magus class page seems to say that Chill Touch can be used over multiple rounds.
If I cast a spell that allows multiple touch attacks, can I deliver all of those spell touches through my weapon?
Yes. For example, if you cast chill touch (which allows multiple touch attacks), you could use spellstrike to cast and deliver the spell through your weapon, and in later weapon attacks you could use your weapon to deliver the remaining spell touch attacks (one spell touch attack per weapon attack).
If you have multiple attacks per round with that weapon (such as from having a BAB of +6 or higher), you can use the weapon to deliver multiple spell touch attacks per round, so long as you have uses of that spell touch attack remaining.
For example, if you are an 8th-level magus (BAB +6/+1) and you cast chill touch, you have up to 8 uses of that spell touch attack. If you make two weapon attacks in a round, you can deliver two spell touch attacks per round (one for each successful weapon attack).
Right, obviously that's how it's both intended and accepted to work, but the rules aren't clear on the subject.