zarneth's page

zarneth wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

Tarantula wrote:

Quote:

To activate a wand, a character must hold it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for nonhumanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area.

You aren't nonhumanoid, so it must be in hand, not tail.

This is probably the relevant thing to consider. Even if you want to argue that nonhumanoid includes Outsider(Native), your tail isn't what passes for your hands.

While I don't disagree with your point in general, you're viewing it from the perspective of someone who only had hands. There are people who have lost their hands and use their feet as hands. The Tieflings tail is coordinated enough to retrieve objects they have stowed away as a swift action. Think of how fast that is. That is a lot of coordination to not count as a hand.

And yet, if you get a dagger out of your backpack with your tail, you cannot make an attack with it. You have a hand, so the wand must be held in hand to activate it.

I'm not saying you're wrong about the hand thing. In fact, RAW I think you're right. But an inability to attack with a weapon held by your tail is completely beside the point.

I have a Tiefling Magus with the wand wielder arcana and have never run into any issues so I'm not quite sure what your concern is. You can very clearly use the wand with Spell Combat (that's basically what the arcana gives you). And you cannot use the wand with Spell Strike so there's really no reason why you need to activate the wand from the tail. What this means in mechanical terms is that basically your tail lets you retrieve the wand as a swift action; you can then full action Spell Combat using your wand and your regular attack. You could also do the same with a spring loaded wrist sheath, but then you would have only 2 wands to choose from - the wand wielder lets you have a whole library of wands at your disposal. It also means that you need to (free action) drop your wand after using it, but that doesn't really matter unless you end up having to run away.

Interestingly, there is a Tiefling feat that allows you to make even more use of your tail. Unfortunately, the GMs in my area mainly rule that it still can't be used to wield a rod. As a result, instead, I use the spell Aroden's Spellsword to put a rod (usually of Piercing metamagic) into my scimitar.

Oh it matters because the offhand needs to be empty to cast naturally as well as using dex to damage feats.

Tarantula wrote:

Quote:

To activate a wand, a character must hold it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for nonhumanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area.

You aren't nonhumanoid, so it must be in hand, not tail.

This is probably the relevant thing to consider. Even if you want to argue that nonhumanoid includes Outsider(Native), your tail isn't what passes for your hands.

While I don't disagree with your point in general, you're viewing it from the perspective of someone who only had hands. There are people who have lost their hands and use their feet as hands. The Tieflings tail is coordinated enough to retrieve objects they have stowed away as a swift action. Think of how fast that is. That is a lot of coordination to not count as a hand.

zarneth wrote:

Actually, you don't need to touch someone with the limb that "casted" the spell.

True, but if you're using your tail for the wand because your other hands are full, then you've got a problem.

zarneth wrote:

You can even deliver a touch spell with a bite attack.

IF you have a bite attack AND are holding the spell.

zarneth wrote:

So this doesn't matter for the issue at hand.

Yes, it does matter, if your GM rules that a touch spell cast from a wand involves touching the wand to the creature to be affected. Some do, some don't.

If they rule you need to touch a creature with the wand then they are already houseruling because you can hold a charge for a touch spell so once the spell is casted You can touch them in whatever way you wanted. Brushing them with your toe would work at that point.

zarneth wrote:

Spell trigger states that you are simply completing the casting with a command word. The tail isn't "using it", it's just holding it.

Depends on how you run touch spells produced by wands. That tail can't make a touch attack.

Actually, you don't need to touch someone with the limb that "casted" the spell. You can even deliver a touch spell with a bite attack. So this doesn't matter for the issue at hand.

Probably not. Prehensile Tail lets you retrieve and hold stuff, with nothing about using that stuff.

See that's basically what made me bring it up. Spell trigger states that you are simply completing the casting with a command word. The tail isn't "using it", it's just holding it.

I'm designing a Tiefling Magus that will be using the wand wielded magus arcana. I plan to have a prehensile tail either way both for fun, and to quickly retrieve more wands. The question I have is whether or not a wand can be activated while being held by a tail. A tail can be used to retrieve objects and also hold onto them. A wand uses the spell trigger activation method which doesn't require any fine manipulation. It only requires the item(wand in this case) to be held, and a command word to be spoken. The one serious issue I can see is the statement that it must be held in a hand(or whatever passes for a hand with non-humanoid creatures.) What this boils down to is whether or not a tail passes for one of those. I believe it should but I am biased. Just curious what both the official and non-official have to say.

Thanks