Hey there folks,
Tried to search for an answer to this however spell combat brings up a barrage of topics that aren't exactly what I'm looking for.
I suppose the core of the question is when exactly do you declare you are casting defensibly?
The main reason this is coming up is with one of my Players as a Magus.
He seems to think it should play out as, Attack, Declare casting defensibly (taking additional penalties to attack to increase the bonus) Cast Spell, Thereby dodging the penalties to his attack.
I think it should play out like most other things of this nature, where it's chosen at the start of the entire action, and the penalties would apply to the physical attacks as well.
Relevant ability quote here:
"If he casts this spell defensively, he can decide to take an additional penalty on his attack rolls, up to his Intelligence bonus, and add the same amount as a circumstance bonus on his concentration check. If the check fails, the spell is wasted, but the attacks still take the penalty."
casting is certainly not my strongest rules area, so I'm willing to admit I may be mistaken here.
TL;DR, Do you declare casting defensively at the start of the action, or directly before casting the spell?
"If he casts this spell defensively, he can decide to take an additional penalty on his attack rolls, up to his Intelligence bonus, and add the same amount as a circumstance bonus on his concentration check. If the check fails, the spell is wasted, but the attacks still take the penalty."
Doesn't matter the order, the penalties are applying to the attack rolls, that's both RAW and RAI. After all, it's all happening almost simultaneously in-world.
That is the way I interpreted it as well, but I can't really say it's RAW. After all, I can't find anything that says specifically when you decide to cast defensively.
If casting defensibly isn't decided until the spell is about to be cast, then the physical attacks have occurred before the penalties have applied.
Like I said I'm heavily leaning towards it gets declared at the start of the action and applies to all parts of that action, but I figured I'd at least ask around in case I'm missing something.
Thanks!
That's what I'm saying, he will attack with the penalties. Doesn't matter if he claimed he was going to cast defensively after trying to "sneak in" an attack. He's trying to break up an action into sections that aren't supposed to be broken. For a more direct answer to your question: "I'll use spell combat and I will cast the spell defensively", then your answer should probably be "You get your benefit and your penalties". This is no attacks, then spell, or spell, then attacks (you can't have them in between) in a separate "instance", this is a spell type of full-round action that only a Magus can do.
But honestly, why is this even an issue? Magus can, and should, have a lot of bonuses to concentration checks and since they're casting low level spells, the DC either will be met without requiring a roll or rolling very low. And this is me talking after seeing a newbie player using a magus that's not half as optimized as somebody that is trying to cheese the rules to gain extra benefits.
This is a non-issue. The guy is wrong, you're right. He eats the penalty if he really wants to eat it, but he shouldn't be needing it most of the time.
Sorry about that! not used to needing to check for the second edition boards yet!
He seems to think it should play out as, Attack, Declare casting defensibly (taking additional penalties to attack to increase the bonus) Cast Spell, Thereby dodging the penalties to his attack.
Your player is wrong.
It doesn't matter when he decides to cast defensively (he could make his attack and kill his adjacent opponent, then cast fireball at a distant enemy without needing to cast defensively). What he can't do is get a bonus on his concentration check without taking the penalty.
Remember that he CAN make his weapon-attacks, then 5-foot-step away from the ennemy, then cast a spell (hopefully now out of reach of said enemy, meaning he no longer has any need to cast defensively) all as part of a full-round action.
Regarding this player - this is an ability that broadly says: "You trade X-bonus for Y-Penalty." If they player is trying to game the system to get the bonus without the penalty then they're likely to do something like this again. It might he worth sitting them down and talking about it with them.
As the GM it's your right to make a ruling on something even if it doesn't follow the rules to the letter. You want to be as consistent and fair as possible with this (so asking on the forums between sessions is probably a good way to go), but in the end you have been appointed by your players as the arbiter of the rules, so it's your right to make the call.
(I don't know if he's really a problem player or if this was just a misunderstanding, but hopefully this helped.)