Walter's Guide to the Magus and Arcane Mark


Rules Questions


In Walter's Guide to the Magus,

https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1DB6sOfbAzFmKVPgcyLWipTVqvWFjfDSv6 v_YiGQb5Yw&pli=1

the following is claimed:

"Note though, that Arcane Mark enables you to Spell Combat / Spell Strike each round with your weapon and essentially gain a free attack. Think of it like Flurry of Blows with a scimitar."

Spell combat allows you to make a melee attack and cast a spell as if you are two weapon fighting, and spell strie lets you channel a spell cast (so long as it has the range of touch) through a weapon.

How does this give you a free attack? It seems like you get to make your normal full round action attack routine, but with arcane mark cast through one of the attacks.

Scarab Sages

Touch spells allow you to make a free action touch attack as part of casting the spell. Spellstrike allows you to make that touch attack with your weapon.

So with spell combat, you can cast a spell and make a normal full attack. When you spell combat a touch spell, you cast the spell, make the free action attack, and then make your normal full attack.


Basically just prepare arcane mark and use it when you're completely out of other touch spells to use (or don't want to waste your higher value resources on a weaker enemy).


I've got it! Thank you so much!


I don't get how Spell Combat or Spellstrike using Arcane Mark gets you extra damage like a lot of posts claim, since this is a non-damaging spell -- seems to me that either way it would just add a brand to the target (like the skull ring in The Phantom comic).

Scarab Sages

You aren't getting any damage from the spell, but you are getting damage for your extra weapon attack you are using to deliver the spell.


^How? If you use Spell Combat, you do your normal weapon attack (which is the same as it would be in a single attack) and you slap your opponent with the spell (which in the case of Arcane Mark does no damage). If you use Spellstrike, you do your normal attack, and the spell rides on top of it (which in the case of Arcane Mark adds no damage).


"At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell."

Emphasis mine. I don't think it gets any clearer than that. Spell strike + spell combat + touch spell = free attack.

Silver Crusade

It took me several GM sessions at PFS to get this.

Say you're playing a 5th level magus, wielding a longsword with a +6 to hit bonus doing 1d8+2 damage.

You can attack with the longsword, +6 to hit, and do 1d8+2 damage.

Or, you can cast arcane mark using spell combat, and assuming you hit do no damage, and attack with your longsword, +4 to hit, and do 1d8+2 damage. (Using spell combat to cast a spell with one hand and attack with the other hand; pretty useless as you say.)

The important part: Or, using spellstrike and spell combat, you can cast arcane mark and make your attack though your longsword at -2, so +4 to hit, 1d8+2 damage, AND take your regular longsword attack at -2, so again +4 to hit, 1d8+2 damage. In other words, by "pulling a Zorro," if you cast arcane mark (by casting defensively, for example) you get two attacks with your longsword with a -2 to your to hit.

Spellstrike COMBINED with spell combat gives you the opportunity to make two attacks with the longsword instead of one. You're making a two handed attack (spell combat), but instead of using your spell hand you're switching the spell attack to the weapon hand (spellstrike), AND ALSO making the normal weapon hand attack. In many respects, it's like using the Many Shot feat.


Okay, I get that I read Spellstrike wrong due to reading it right after Spell Combat and not realizing that they can be used in the same attack -- and now that I have read it again, I STILL don't see how you would use both at the same time.

And yes, I read the sidebar on the d20pfsrd.com Magus page and A Guide to Touch Spells, Spellstrike, and Spell Combat {Ver 0.4 Alpha} . . . Well, now maybe it does make sense -- does this mini-guide have it right? If it does, Magus goes from being merely strong to superb. The PRD/d20pfsrd.com Magus pages could really have used some examples, like what this guide offers.


Grick's mini-guide does correctly describe how this works (as do the posts above). It's a very nice combo. I agree with you regarding the lack of examples.

Liberty's Edge

It is very simple: spellstrike isn't any kind of action, it is simply an alternate way to deliver the touch spell you have cast, making a normal attack with a weapon instead of of a touch attack with your hand.

So you use spell combat to make your normal attack routine and cast a spell, all at -2.
If the spell has a range of touch you can deliver using spellstrike, so making a normal attack with your weapon.

As you have used spell combat you take a -2 to the attack, like all other attacks in your round.


^Would have been nice if they had made this more clear. So if I am understanding right, the combination of Spell Combat and Spellstrike works sort of like a variant of Flurry of Blows, but without the class level to BAB feature of Classic Monk (Monk Unchained and Brawler don't need it). Which reminds me, we need a proper Arcane Fist archetype (or fix Esoteric); I could have sworn to having seen a pretty good Magus Arcane Fist Multiclass Archetype, but it isn't on the Pathfinder Community site.

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