Magus Spell Combat and Unchained Monk Flurry of Blows


Rules Questions


I was reading the Magus Spell Combat(MSC) ability and the Unchained Flurry of Blows(UFoB).

Since now UFoB isnt a special Full-Round action anymore, is there anything preventing it from being used with Spell Combat?

Spell combat says you do a full attack with your main weapon as part of a full round action and the text of the UFoB allow the same being part of a full attack action. Is there anything not obvious preventing then from being used together or by RAW they can be?

Thanks for any help.


Am I missing something?

Pathfinder Unchained wrote:
Flurry of Blows (Ex): At 1st level, a monk can make a flurry of blows as a full-attack action.

How is that not a full-round action? The flurry is a full-attack action, and full-attack actions are full-round actions.


He's talking about a Full-Round Use Special Ability action vs a Full-Round Full-Attack action. FoB was always a Full-Attack action, not a USA action. Spell Combat is a USA action which either functions as or contains a full-attack or possibly counts as a full-attack for the purpose of Haste and similar rules elements. The jury is still out on what, exactly, Spell Combat counts as and how it interacts with other rules elements reliant on making a Full-Attack. However, regarding FoB in particular, both normal FoB as well as UFoB are exclusionary of TWF rules elements and Spell Combat is, for all practical purposes, TWF; just with the off-hand attack replaced with the act of casting a spell. If you can't get your off-hand attack while making a FoB (either kind), then you can't Spell Combat to cast a spell as your off-hand attack.


Actually the problem comes cause Spell Combat was very ill worded comparing it to Two Weapon Fighting since absolutely nothing that works with Two Weapon Fighting, including any feats like two-weapon defense that works when you are two weapon fighting, works when you spell combat.

For example, if youre multiclassed Magus/Fighter with two weapon fighter archetype you will not gain the Two Weapon bonus of the Archetype when you spellcombat.

So its not two weapon fighting in any way or stance. After all clarifications i think that line on Spell Combat was scribed just to try to explain the penalty, but should be removed entirely since it only brings confusion.

Spell Combat doesnt exclude the Unchained Monk Flurry, since it does not work as two weapon fighting like the old one.

I think the intent is not to both work together, but there isnt a single rule by raw, that i can find, that explicity exclude both.

One solution would be to add to the new Unchained Monk Flurry the line

"Anything that doesnt work with the Core Monk Flurry, will not work with Unchained Monk Flurry unless the ability or feat explicity says it works."


I think that it's best to go by the "hands of effort" guideline here.

Spell combat is a full round action that requires two hands of effort: One for casting a spell, and the other for making a full attack.

Likewise, two weapon fighting, flurry of blows, etc, are also full attacks that require two hands of effort. It's just that this time both hands happen to be doing the same thing.

If you're using your "hand" to cast a spell, you can't use that "hand" to make the additional attacks in flurry of blows or two weapon fighting.


Quote:
At 1st level, a monk can make a flurry of blows as a full-attack action. When making a flurry of blows, the monk can make one additional attack at his highest base attack bonus. This additional attack stacks with the bonus attacks from haste and other similar effects. When using this ability, the monk can make these attacks with any combination of his unarmed strikes and weapons that have the monk special weapon quality. He takes no penalty for using multiple weapons when making a flurry of blows, but he does not gain any additional attacks beyond what's already granted by the flurry for doing so. (He can still gain additional attacks from a high base attack bonus, from this ability, and from haste and similar effects).

No hands of effort here as far as I can tell. You could literally do 0 hands of effort, as monks can use any body part to attack.

Now, where the problem would be, is the Magus's Spellcombat wording

Quote:
As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon

But IIRC this was later qualified that you get all your extra attacks from things like Haste, so it should work.

I'd personally allow it, as UCMonk flurry can't access any of the good Magus weapons easily, and still carries a bunch of restrictions. Arcane Fists is a pretty cool archetype, and the classes actually working together now (and monk not just being used for a crane wing dip...) is awesome.


LoneKnave wrote:
No hands of effort here as far as I can tell. You could literally do 0 hands of effort, as monks can use any body part to attack.

You misunderstand the term. "Hands of effort" is an unofficial term (similar to "action economy") to refer to the concept that you have only so much capacity to make attacks and that off-hand attacks are based on economy, not just limbs. For instance, if you have a longsword in one hand, a shortsword in the other, and a boot blade, you don't get two off-hand attacks because you have two off-hand weapons. Even if the off-hand weapon is a hands-free weapon (ie. boot blade, armor spikes, unarmed strike not using hands, etc), it still uses your off-hand "attack economy" so other things that don't stack in such a way wouldn't work. For example, attacking with a 2-h weapon uses up your off-hand attack economy so you can't use that same attack economy to make an attack with an off-hand weapon using TWF rules. By the same reasoning, since Spell Combat is based, in principal, on TWF rules, casting the spell subsumes your off-hand attack economy. It doesn't matter that you can make attacks unarmed "without using hands"; in fact, non-hand attacks aren't even valid while using Spell Combat as your melee attacks must be made with a hand-associated weapon. Core FoB works on TWF rules, but even UFoB, while no longer based on TWF rules, specifies that it doesn't stack with TWF extra attacks (similar to how using a 2-h weapon doesn't stack).

The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies

LoneKnave wrote:
Quote:
make one additional attack ... He can still gain additional attacks from ... haste and similar effects)
No hands of effort here as far as I can tell. You could literally do 0 hands of effort

Two hands of effort are shown in the example, so 2 not 0 are there.


So i think we all can agree that least a clarification is in order since the best we can get is some unofficial game term. (which is much less used than action economy).

If it is doable, an 4-Monk/X-Kensai Would be Interesting, but i doubt it would be really that powerful.

The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies

RafaelBraga wrote:
So i think we all can agree that least a clarification is in order

There are a ton more things far more often confused that I'd rather have clarified before this. Like Overrun.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / Magus Spell Combat and Unchained Monk Flurry of Blows All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.