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Has there ever been a definite ruling on whether or not Spellstrike can be a) used with combat maneuvers and b) if so, can you use the spell damage in a sunder attempt?

I'm putting together a big bad wordcasting magus for my campaign and today I had the chilling thought that using a force effect with a spellstriking sunder attempt would mean he could basically cut the PCs weapons to shreds...

So one of the PCs in my game got bitten by a weretiger. The player is really excited about trying out lycanthrope, and I was willing to go there. We've had some time off since last session (in-game and in 3D) and have begun haggling over how he can learn to have more control over the curse.

The problem being, of course, that there doesn't seem to be any RAW in Pathfinder for such a project. I proffered a "wild shape like" stage leading up to full control, but that didn't seem to fly. I'm a bit leery of giving a full caster what turns out to be a pretty sweet set of buffs, but I'm unsure how to move from pure curse to something he can reasonably control. My original idea was a feat or spell, but he suggested some kind of level progression which I'm actually leaning towards.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how we can proceed? Or can point me towards some source material for ideas?

OK, this is my first venture into on-board optimization...so please let me know if I've gone really wrong :-)

I like sorcerers; my favorite PC is a pyromaniac con artist who blasts what she can't fool. But blasting is hard work--even with a four feat investment (Greater Elemental and Spell Focus) plus the cheese of an Ifrit fire elementalist, it's hard to keep DCs scaling when the average good save of critters is their CR.

So I looked into ranged touch, inspired by posters here who sing the praise of Scorching Ray. This is my attempt to squeeze as much as possible out of a single 1st level spell, freeing up spell slots for utility/buff/save or suck spells while keeping utility through the high levels.

Some remarks:

Bloodline: Elementalist or Genie, any but Air/Djinni. Being able to change energy type is key to increasing flexibility.

Goals: Use a single spell as your offensive centerpiece, so that you can conserve spell slots for other uses. Be able to do damage with any spell level you can cast. Be able to spam your main damage dealer. Have as few "dead" feats as possible.

Race: You're pretty much locked into Human, as the initial load out is feat intensive.

The Build

1st Level:

Trait: Magical Lineage (Shocking Grasp)
Feat: Reach Spell
Feat: Spontaneous Metafocus (Shocking Grasp)

At first level, you've basically defined your character concept--you'll do energy damage (electricity or your chosen energy type) out to close range with no cost in spell levels or extra casting time.

Shocking Grasp is the key here, because against the majority of targets you'll face, you get +3 to hit. This makes up for the lack of room for any ranged combat feats.

3rd Level:

Feat: Spell Focus (Evocation)

Not useful for your centerpiece spell, but fills a prerequisite. If you get Burning Hands as your bloodline spell, this at least helps.

5th Level:

Feat: Intensify Spell

Also not immediately useful, but you'll need it to make the build relevant going forward.

7th Level:

Feat: Spell Specialization (Shocking Grasp)
Bloodline Feat

Although it's a bit late, you do pick up the extra damage--a 9d6 ranged touch 2nd level spell (you can move the range up to Medium by making it a 3rd level spell.) This narrowly outpoints Scorching Ray at this level, although the multitarget and ray features of that spell make it an excellent secondary choice. For some bloodlines, you'll have Scorching Ray as well.

The best bloodline feat to take is a metamagic feat if available; I like the Efreeti bloodline, so Empower Spell slots here.

9th, 11th, 13th level: You'll probably want to pick up either Quicken Spell, Maximize Spell, or both during these levels. You have some flexibility here to grab other useful feats.

The Efreeti bloodline picks up Fireball at 7th level; you'll want it no matter what as it will be the key to carrying you forward in the higher levels.

15th Level:

Feat: Spell Perfection (Shocking Grasp or Fireball)

Either is a good choice, although you're likely to do more consistent damage with Shocking Grasp (Quickened Maximized Intensified Reach Shocking Grasp, 60 hp on average as a 5th level spell followed by Maximized Empowered Intensified Reach Shocking grasp, 77.5 hp on average as a 4th level spell; higher slots for both can increase the range.)

Notes:

Dex is key here. You may end up taking your ability increases in Dex, as you only need Charisma to give you extra spells.

You can tinker with the feat order somewhat--if you don't want Reach right away, you can go straight to Spell Specialization at 1st level; if you don't mind the full round cast, you can hold off (or ignore) Spontaneous Metafocus. Myself, I like to be able to move and cast, so that's why I went with the feats like this.

Spell Specialization is nice, but not crucial to the build, so you can ignore that chain in favor of other feats.

One point is that this is definitely a build that needs decent initiative. If it fits your concept, grab an initiative increasing trait at first level. One interesting idea is to delay the Spontaneous Metafocus and take Noble Scion of War at first level (the only level you can take it, as a matter of fact.) This makes your initiative Charisma based, which is nice enough, but gets sweeter when you can buy a Circlet of Persuasion; near as I can tell, it should stack with your initiative, putting you in double digits by 5th level.

The build works well with metamagic rods; it's cost-effective, since you can get away with the lesser rods. An Elemental Spell rod here is useful to add an energy type to your repertoire; Quicken or Maximize rods can remove the need to take one of those as a feat. (You've already picked up three metamagic feats, so you satisfy the prerequisites for Spell Perfection.)

And you'll always have an attack spell, even if you're down to first level spells :-)

One of my players has access to the Deception Domain and likes to use the Sudden Shift power:

Sudden Shift (Sp): In the blink of an eye, you can appear somewhere else. As an immediate action, after you are missed by a melee attack, you can teleport up to 10 feet to a space that you can see. This space must be inside the reach of the creature that attacked you. You can use this power a number of times each day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.

At lower levels, this doesn't present any issues. But now they're facing things with multiple attacks, and he's been interpreting this as the Sudden Shift ends the attack, even if the attacker still has attacks remaining.

Given that you have to teleport within the attacker's reach, am I off base to assume that the attacker can just resume his attacks on his PC? Pathfinder doesn't have any penalties for changing targets, although I can see something like giving concealment on the first attack after the Sudden Shift.

Anyone have a strong opinion on this?

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere--my search-fu didn't turn up a direct answer, but it may be weak...

I'm thinking of converting my favorite blasty fire sorceress concept to Words of Power, as the flexibility of targeting options could make up for the loss of utility spells. (Plus, the Efreeti bloodline arcana lets me grab things like Icy Blast to make fire spells that stagger the target, nice!) However, I'm getting pretty confused about the Selected target word.

To wit, the text says:

Target A wordspell with this target word affects a single target within range. If the wordspell deals energy damage, this word creates a ray that requires a ranged touch attack to hit, or it can be used as a melee touch attack with no range (decided by the wordcaster when the wordspell is cast). If it is used as a melee touch attack and the attack misses, the wordcaster can hold the charge and try again with subsequent attacks.

...which says to me, that if the spell does energy damage, it requires a ranged touch and grants no save. (And would be eligible for Weapon Focus, etc.) But this does not seem to be consistently followed in the text, including the example spell they gave (the Selected Icy Blast Life Leech--but that spell seems to be illegal anyway, so there you are.)

So does selected + energy damage remove the save in favor of ranged touch? Or does the Effect Word description of a saving throw override that? RAW written seems to me to say so, but the Effect word descriptions seem at variance to this.

It's enough to make me shelve the idea and go back to my traditional combination of rules exploits and spell hacks :D

I just kicked off a campaign that, because of the fluff (I'm drawing inspiration but not necessarily actual details from various Indian and Asian sources) needs to have monks be at least...somewhat viable. I know. I thought about crying too. But I dove in and came up with a few ideas.

My first fix that I've pondered (and luckily I still have time to change my mind, since the only monk in the party is 2nd level) is simple: a monk *always* gets to take his bonus movement. Even if making a full-round attack. Even if there's impediments magical or physical. I'm not sure yet if I'll go all the way to make it a freebie "ring of free action" ability, but that's the general gist.

Next, I had the same idea everyone has: let the Wisdom modifier stack with Strength (or Dexterity, for Weapons Finesse/Ranged combat builds) for combat. That seems relatively benign to me; it still leaves the monk behind in the arms race vis-a-vis a martial character going two-handed with a weapon with qualities attached to it, but it does mean that the monk can actually contemplate trying to hurt people.

But then I thought, Wisdom stacks with Dex for AC already; I'm going to stack it with Strength for To Hit and probably damage; what if I stack it with Constitution for hit points?

At that point I balked somewhat--I'm guesstimating that it would give a monk around 80 more HP at 20th than a full-BAB PC with equivalent stats (i.e., primary Strength and secondary Con vs the monk's primary Wisdom and secondary Strength). That seems like a lot. It *is* a lot. But then I thought about Treantmonk's summary of the monk as a fighter--"You should see the other guy"--and I wondered if it wouldn't be too unbalancing.

I'm also thinking about a milder version: the Wisdom mod is a bonus to your attack, and also gives bonus *non-lethal damage* (the rationale is that this damage comes from pins and holds--also, I don't mind the extra paperwork), and you can *substitute* Wisdom for Con instead of stacking them.

So I dunno. I have a few weeks before next session to tinker with this stuff...and I was wondering if any of the (more experienced) game-tinkerers here had some thoughts on those ideas.