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The flash forward spell lets you make a charge attack as part of casting a spell. As I read it, this means a character with pounce could combine a quickened flash forward with a regular charge to get two full attacks in a round. A magus with spell combat (or a 20th level bloodrager entering a bloodrage) could get three (!).
(With Sliding Dash, you could even do this against an adjacent enemy, moving through and past your target's square to move the 10' minimum distance for charging.)
Is there any reason why there wouldn't work? If not (just out of curiosity) what are the best ways to exploit it?
I'm unsure whether you can use Sliding Dash to charge constantly, but it still makes a very strong opener (double full attack). It'll take a lot of work to get this quickened on most martials (even using a rod runs into hand limits).
I'll see if I can get back to you on something that uses it. It's too awesome to leave alone.
I never looked into Sliding Dash, but the Problem with the 3 Full Attacks is the teleportation to your initial Position. You quicken a pounce, but return to your Position. then you spell combat to make your second pounce, but cannot make your regular full attack, unless there is another target adjacent (in which case you'd have to cast defensively).
Ah, that's the point of Sliding Dash.
Your seemingly reckless advance becomes an agile strike at the last moment.
Prerequisite(s): Dex 15, Acrobatics 10 ranks or acrobatic charge class feature, Bluff 3 ranks.
Benefit(s):When charging, instead of moving to the closest space from which you can attack your target, you can move to the space adjacent to your target and on the other side of it, as long as you move through the closest space from which you can attack the target and through the target’s space to get there. When you move through the target’s space, you must attempt an Acrobatics check with a DC equal to 10 + your opponent’s CMD. Success allows you to move through the target’s space without provoking an attack of opportunity from that target, and when you arrive in the destination space and make your attack, the target is considered flanked for that attack (or the first attack if you have more than one attack on a charge). On a failed check, you instead provoke an attack of opportunity and complete the charge as normal. Whether or not you succeed at the Acrobatics check, you take a –4 penalty to your AC until the start of your turn, instead of the normal –2 penalty.
Normal: When charging, you must end the movement part of a charge in the closest space in which you can attack your target.
Ordinarily, you couldn't combine flash forward with spell combat since you have to move at least 10 feet to charge (and move to the closest space from which you could hit your target), generally preventing you from charging anything from which you're already in melee reach. As I read it, Sliding Charge lets you bypass this restriction (though you may have to eat an AoO), since you can instead use that 10 feet to move to the opposite side of your opponent. (I see no reason why you couldn't use Sliding Charge for both charges, since it doesn't take any actions other than the charge itself.)
So suppose you start your round adjacent to your target. You then:
1) Use spell combat to make your regular weapon attacks.
2) If the target's still alive, you use your spell combat casting to cast flash forward, sliding through your target's space and making another full attack. (As a bonus, you can use both hands to add half again your Strength bonus.)
3) If the target's still alive, you can quicken another flash forward to do this again.
Although I don't see many possibilities to pull off a quickened Flash Forward (Level 8 spell). Bloodrager is out of discussion and Magus only gets it through the quicken arcana, so it's not something you can do multiple times per day.
Edit: forgot metamagic rods, nevermind my last sentences.
Plus, Spell Perfection.
I'm back!
Unfortunately, one of your hands is used up by the metamagic rod, or you take the Metamagic rager archetype and sacrifice 16(!) rounds of rage (14 with magical lineage). It's too high level for Wayang Spellhunter. Normally, that is. Tieflins with the prehensile tail alternate racial trait and the Grasping Tail feat can hold items with their tail leading to
- free: move rod to hand
- swift: use rod for quickened flash forward
- free: move rod to tail
- swift con't: pounce full attack
Fiendish sprinter may be a good option as well, allowing for 50ft charges unbuffed.
Other than that, it's a pretty standard natural attacker.
As mentioned, the quickened magic arcana is useful here.
If using a rod, the mindblade uses psychic casting, allowing you to hold the rod, cast, and fight.
Samsaran summoner: the cheesiest thing I can think of. Use mystic past life to grab Flash Forward, use share spells to apply it to your eidolon with pounce. The return warp is beneficial here, as it sets up for your standard action cast. Requires a rod, but at least you aren't using that hand for something else.
As well, any class can use a glove of storing for a light or one-handed weapon, cast, reform weapon, and attack. May require finangling for spell combat.
Tieflings can hold a rod in a prehensile tail (and changing how something is held is a free action).
Bladed Dash as part of spell combat grants a 30' move.
Quickened Flash Forward, charge, revert back, spell combat -> Bladed Dash, make second full attack.
Hmm. A few notes:
--) In addition to tails, etc., a magus or bloodrager could also just use Aroden's spellsword to hold the rod.
--) A samsaran warpriest can also get Flash Forward via mythic past life (from the inquisitor list), though I don't know how warpriests can get pounce. (Monstrous Physique isn't on any divine list.) A neat but non-PFS legal option is Pummeling Charge, especially on a sacred fist build
--) In general, the strongest way to use the combo is probably to combine it with a polymorph form that gives you extra attacks, like the calikang, but this requires getting pounce from somewhere else, and as far as I can tell there are few if any PFS-legal ways to do this. A skald could do it with Beast Totem, though, and use spell kenning for monstrous physique.
--) Hilariously (!), it's probably possible to combine the Brewkeeper's distilled spells ability and Caiden Cailean's divine fighting technique to mimic spell combat. Distilled spells lets you turn a spell of any level into a potion; Blade and Tankard Style lets you drink a potion in a tankard you're holding in place of your off-hand attacks. (This lets e.g. skalds and warpriests cast Flash Forward as part of their regular full attacks, without having to take six levels of magus and Broad Study.)
--) Finally: as I read it, Combine Extracts seems to let you use Flash Forward twice (albeit in a 6th-level slot). Accurate?
A level 10 alchemist could just make up a couple infusions of flash forward and pour them into their tumor familiar's poisoner's gloves. The familiar can then deliver them to you at any time with a simple touch attack to give you a free charge.
And twice in a round: at 16th level, that's four full attacks from your familiar alone. This makes me wonder how much you can get, total. (Keep in mind Accelerated Drinking lets you quaff as a move action if you start with a potion in your hand, and Blade and Tankard lets you quaff as part of the full attack action flash forward itself provides, so long as you've already got a tankard in your hand. And a calikang has four additional hands to hold tankards...)
A level 10 alchemist could just make up a couple infusions of flash forward and pour them into their tumor familiar's poisoner's gloves. The familiar can then deliver them to you at any time with a simple touch attack to give you a free charge.And twice in a round: at 16th level, that's four full attacks from your familiar alone. This makes me wonder how much you can get, total. (Keep in mind Accelerated Drinking lets you quaff as a move action if you start with a potion in your hand, and Blade and Tankard lets you quaff as part of the full attack action flash forward itself provides, so long as you've already got a tankard in your hand. And a calikang has four additional hands to hold tankards...)
It's at least a 4th level spell though, PF doesn't allow potions above 3rd level. Accelerated Drinker doesn't apply to extracts (as a balance thing I think). The same balance reason would probably stop you getting a Cailean Fighting Tankard and putting 6 extracts into it, each to drink as part of a pouncing full attack. If that was allowed it would be fun to make 6 charges in the same round I admit. You could call yourself the Hammer of Cailean.
It's at least a 4th level spell though, PF doesn't allow potions above 3rd level. Accelerated Drinker doesn't apply to extracts (as a balance thing I think). The same balance reason would probably stop you getting a Cailean Fighting Tankard and putting 6 extracts into it, each to drink as part of a pouncing full attack. If that was allowed it would be fun to make 6 charges in the same round I admit. You could call yourself the Hammer of Cailean.
Right. But consider the brewkeeper, his Paths of the Righteous prestige class, which provides this ability at 1st level:
A brewkeeper can spend 1 minute distilling an extract or spell she has prepared or an unused spell slot into a draught. When she does so with an alchemist extract, the draught functions as if enhanced by the infusion discovery. Spells can be distilled only if they qualify to be created as a potion or oil from the spell but without the limitation of being a 3rd- or lower-level spell.
Once a draught is created, it persists for up to 24 hours, even if it is no longer in the brewkeeper’s possession. After this point, the draught becomes inert and the brewkeeper regains the use of that extract or spell slot (although she must still prepare that slot normally, as if she had cast the spell or used the extract from that slot during the day).
As long as the draught remains potent, it continues to occupy one of the brewkeeper’s daily extract or spell slots.
A draught functions as a potion or oil, and can be used by any creature.
Cayden Cailean has an answer to everything.
EDIT: ack, never mind, forgot about the personal limitation. Though while Accelerated Drinking doesn't work, I'm pretty sure Blade and Tankard still does (it lets you "drink a potion or other liquid from the tankard" from the tankard as part of an attack); as written, the Cailean Fighting Tankard should work too.
I don't think you can use Sliding Dash when adjacent to that opponent. This line:
On a failed check, you instead provoke an attack of opportunity and complete the charge as normal.implies that you have to be able to do a normal charge in case you fail the tumble check.
The failed check just means you provoke by my reading, but you complete the rest of the charge as normal meaning you complete it per the terms listed in the feature. I see this normal as "normal for this ability", not "normal per the CRB rules".
I was looking for a way to do this with Gorum's Swordsmanship on an eldritch knight. Spellsword is just what I needed.
Aside: I accidentally hit capslock instead of shift when first typing the DFT name. How oddly appropriate.
i'll just add that any build that use a swift action to charge & pounce (and/or free action via tumor familiar and the gloves) might want to consider rhino charge to swift charge, move away (maybe acrobatcly to prevent aoo) and then ready an action to charge again (ready once i blink my eye\darw breath etc)
another way to get Pounce is the Plains Domain, which druids, clerics and inquisitors as well as everyone via VMC cleric have acess to.
I also think, that psychics like the occultist are much more suited to this spell, because they don't care about somatic components. Otherwise you'd want a quickened stilled flash forward when attacking with a two-handed weapon.
Noted for further research.
i'll just add that any build that use a swift action to charge & pounce (and/or free action via tumor familiar and the gloves) might want to consider rhino charge to swift charge, move away (maybe acrobatcly to prevent aoo) and then ready an action to charge again (ready once i blink my eye\darw breath etc)
And then there's just rhino hide armor, which lets you inch closer to the old 3.5 ubercharger builds.
edit: more charge abuse stuff while I'm at it:
--) Claw Pounce says that "when you make a charge, you can make a full attack with your claws." Despite the prerequisite/flavor, I see no reason why they have to be your natural claws, as opposed, say, to the claws you have while polymorphed into a four-armed gargoyle.
--) Vulpine Pounce gives you pounce during any round in which you also change shape into your kitsune form. Now, while you're clearly intended to use your swift action to change shape, nothing says you have to: Swift Kitsune Shapechanger says you can change into your kitsune form as a swift action, not that you must--and if you have the fast shifter racial trait, you can also change shape as a move action, leaving both your standard and swift actions free to cast flash forward (or, I guess, use Rhino Charge to ready a charge).
--) Actually, if you do use Rhino Charge, the above trick is helpful to anyone, since it effectively lets you bypass the swift action cost of Vulpine Pounce. (You can, e.g., use your newly-available swift action to turn back into human form, thus enabling you to pounce every round if you want to.)
I'm actually building a Catfolk Magus right now, looking at using Claw Pounce + Flash Forward to "charge cycle", using spell combat to cast Flash Forward as part of the Full Attack granted by my claw charge, within the full attack granted by my claw charge, within…
Depends on Jacobs' ruling about "full attack is a full attack is a full attack" (specifically the note that both spell combat and charge modify what you can do as part of a full attack) and my gm's love of munchkins, but I am 100% sympathetic to readings that it's total bork. =^ω^=
…also I would be 0% surprised for her to rule that I ripped a hole in space-time
*edit – the gm has also mentioned that this is going to be (was?) a time travel campaign, so… maybe i found the party's way home? haha