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Posting to mark myself as another in this exact situation, in case it gets fixed on a case-by-case basis.
I'm not arguing with anything you're saying Kazaan because I agree with it fully. Your list and mine boil down to essentially the same thing in terms of how people should interpret it. What I think you're missing is the actual thing that's being argued here (bbangerter and I ran into the same issue), the attempted loophole due to misunderstanding the "any weapon" part. I'm not trying to say that you can't deliver charges using any weapon in any hand, nor am I trying to say that TWF by itself prevents spellstrikes in any way. Kwauss wants to know whether a touch attack using the off hand attack granted by TWF can be delivered using his main hand weapon as that same attack. He wants the additional off hand attack (which is in excess of his BAB allowance) to still use his main hand weapon. Essentially, I am trying to say that in that case, you have already decided the hand/weapon using the attack before spellstrike even comes into play, and therefore can't switch the attack to another hand due to spellstrike. The only reason I've been wording things somewhat oddly is because Kwauss wants rules to explicitly say he can't do it, so I've been expressing what the rules say literally instead of how they should be understood.
It's definitely an...odd wording. My interpretation is that it means you take their perception roll (including any vision/sense factors) instead of getting to roll your own, since you only would notice things that they notice. The wording is too vague for me to even call that RAI though, just the way I would houserule it.
Basically what I think you are missing is that there are two separate things that spellstrike gives you: 1) The first, free touch attack of a spell can be made with any weapon
My problem is this - the only text to support using spellstrike with a held charge is that first sentence (clarified by FAQ). The second sentence refers to the free attack you get from casting. Why is the word 'any' being ignored/invalidated? I assume you're talking about this first sentence: 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. This is the only sentence that has the word "any" in it as far as I can tell. Notice the part that also says "whenever a magus casts a spell". Is delivering a charge the same as casting a spell? The FAQ clarifies that in addition to when you cast a spell, you can deliver charges through weapon attacks. The FAQ does not use the phrase "any weapon" for this part of spellstrike, instead it uses the phrase "that weapon", referring to the weapon you are already making a melee attack with.
I already pointed out earlier how the text for Spellstrike says that you can only perform the free spellstrike with any weapon as part of casting the spell. After that I pointed out that in the FAQ, it talks specifically about delivering the spellstrike during an attack with that weapon, meaning that the weapon attack comes first. If you read the rules as written literally, you get the free touch attack as part of the spell with any weapon. After that, the charge is delivered as part of a weapon attack, or unarmed strike. If you don't interpret rules as they are written literally, then I can't give you documentation, and instead have to ask you to interpret the intent of the rules. My interpretation of the intent of the rules is that after the free touch attack you aren't meant to get additional free attacks with your main weapon beyond the attacks you normally get with that weapon. I see the logic, but don't see the rules text that enforces that logic. Is it because when you TWF you can't use a main hand swing and then a Gore or helmet attack in place of off-hand? Let me put it into an even better context so you can see what you are asking. If I am wielding a two-handed weapon*, can I use TWF to deliver an additional attack with that weapon? The weapon is in both my off hand and my main, so I should be able to use my off hand to attack with the weapon as well, right? EDIT: *that's not a double weapon
My point wasn't exactly that you have to only use one weapon or hand, but that you have to use the same weapon or hand that you are performing the current attack with. So the additional off hand attack you get with TWF can't be used to perform a spellstrike using the weapon in your main hand, but rather it has to be with a weapon in your off hand or an unarmed strike.
Would that work? Those are attacks that you would still be able to perform normally with that weapon if you didn't have spellstrike, since you aren't actually required to use both hands for Flurry of Blows. As long as you aren't trying to perform Spell Combat and Flurry of Blows in the same round (since both are full round actions), I see no issue with using FoB to deliver spellstrikes in a later round.
I think we've been misunderstanding each other. Yes, apparently we have been. I was trying to address Kwauss' question of whether you could use your off hand to cast a touch attack during TWF, but then suddenly use your main hand weapon to deliver it for that attack due to spellstrike. Glad it seems that's been cleared up now and I think we've reached a reasonable conclusion.
I've read through Grick's guide twice, and I'll ask the same thing: does it address TWF and spellstrike? If it does, I totally missed it somehow, as well as totally missing any way in which it disagrees with what I've said. Melvin delivers spellstrike using either the free action from the spell, or an attack that he would normally get with his main weapon. There is no mention of him getting additional attacks with his main weapon due to using a touch attack with his off hand.
They float in "a circling orbit 1d3 feet away from her head", not necessarily around it. I always picture them as almost forming a halo of sorts, and they just float in a circle right above your head while sleeping.
It's a bit obscure, but a +3 or higher magic weapon actually counts as cold iron/silver for overcoming DR. There's a table in the glossary page here that lists the different DRs overcome by different levels of magic weapons.
My question is "can you take 10" while climbing or swimming? I mean, if you fail you could fall to your death/drown, so wouldn't that always be a stressful situation? Unless there's something like a shark attacking you or massive waves/ocean currents, there's likely nothing preventing you from swimming as well as you normally could. The average person that knows how to swim wouldn't be very stressed out about drowning while in a pond. Climbing might be a bit more stressful on average (at least in real life), but again, to someone who has likely made similar climbs before with no issue, it won't seem that bad. Climbing and swimming also happen to be (in my opinion at least) the two skills with the least amount of luck to them, therefore being the two skills that make the most sense to T10 on.
Incorrect. It isn't restricted to only the round you cast the spell being allowed with any weapon. It is always ANY (melee) weapon.
Notice it says weapon attacks, not touch attacks. It then specifically says with that weapon. Also,
If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. With TWF, you get an additional attack with the weapon in your off hand. It is not intended that you can use TWF to get an additional attack with your main hand.
If its a spell effect that only occurs when something else happens to trigger it, I would agree with no, the characters wouldn't know it was dispelled. Now, something like Bull's Strength, the characters would likely recognize immediately when it when went away, since its a constant effect that they would be able to feel. Whether the GM tells the players or not, depends on the group. Some GMs do their best to prevent meta-gaming, and therefore wouldn't even say that Dispel was cast, unless someone made the spellcraft check. Other GMs might trust their players not to meta-game, and will go ahead and tell them when it happens, just for the sake of speeding up the process later on (otherwise it means having to tell the player to re-do the math they likely already did, then explaining to them how X turns ago Dispel was cast on X spell effect).
Sorry, I'm a bit lazy sometimes when it comes to citing. Spellstrike (Su): 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. Right there in bold, it shows that the delivery through any weapon is only for the first free touch attack you get as part of casting the spell. You can also perform a touch attack as a standard action later (since spellstrike follows the rules of a touch spell unless otherwise noted), but since you can't use TWF as part of a standard action that is irrelevant. On a related topic, the magus touching his held weapon doesn’t count as “touching anything or anyone” when determining if he discharges the spell. A magus could even use the spellstrike ability, miss with his melee attack to deliver the spell, be disarmed by an opponent (or drop the weapon voluntarily, for whatever reason), and still be holding the charge in his hand, just like a normal spellcaster. Furthermore, the weaponless magus could pick up a weapon (even that same weapon) with that hand without automatically discharging the spell, and then attempt to use the weapon to deliver the spell. However, if the magus touches anything other than a weapon with that hand (such as retrieving a potion), that discharges the spell as normal. This segment basically means to me that the charge doesn't transfer to the weapon until the attack actually connects. It still doesn't prove or disprove that you can transfer the charge between hands between two attacks, but it does tell us that touching a weapon does not discharge the spell, so in my games I would allow it.
And this in essence says that you can only use spellstrike to deliver the spell using the same weapon you are currently attacking with. If it isn't an attack with that weapon, the initial free touch attack, or the standard action touch attack, you can't use spellstrike. Yes, it doesn't spell out word-for-word what happens with a magus using Spellstrike and TWF, but I feel the intention of TWF itself is pretty clear that you can't use your offhand attack to attack using your mainhand weapon, and Spellstrike doesn't have enough to support that it would be the exception.
Attack using full round action with TWF (not spell combat) - primary hand can deliver a touch with weapon (at -2 if you have the TWF feat), and off hand can delivery a touch attack (at -2 w/feat), but can now deliver through main hand weapon instead (at -2) due to spellstrike? Not quite. After the first free attack, Spellstrike only allows you to deliver the touch attack with a weapon at a time when you are actively using that weapon. That means that if you are using TWF, you would deliver the spell with whatever weapon you are using during that specific single attack. Your main hand attack could be a spellstrike using the weapon in your main hand. Your offhand attack is with an empty hand, so you cannot use spellstrike and therefore it would be a normal touch attack. If you happened to pull out another weapon into your offhand before that point, then you could use that offhand weapon for spellstrike (well, this part is a bit vague in terms of RAW, but I would allow it). You can't however, use your off hand to attack using a weapon in your main hand (unless its a double weapon, I suppose, but that's more semantics than anything).
Similar to how many free actions you can take in a round, I feel that you can't apply a blanket rule to Taking 10, the GM will have to judge the situation and what you're trying to do. If its just a matter of having a higher skill, higher DCs make sense. If, however, it can go wrong due to something the character can't [easily] predict/control, introducing the random element of a forced roll can be a good way to handle it. Maybe the small-time merchant driven by obvious motives will be fine with a T10 diplomacy check from both sides, but the country's king might be more whimsical in terms of what he is convinced by. Especially if you haven't gathered any info on him beforehand. In such a case at least one side should roll, although it may not always be clear which side it should be. As far as the original issue goes, I would say that you could take 10 on a sleeping dragon, or even an awake and searching dragon. However, I would have the dragon roll for perception while searching, instead of it being able to T10 as well. It might not be possible to predict which way the dragon's head might turn while they are searching, but that is something that should accounted for in their perception roll, not your stealth roll. For those that could go to either side, I would tend towards having the player make the roll, if only because in my experience, players complain far less when they fail due to their bad roll rather than due to a GM's high roll. Even on other skill checks, sometimes I think it would be fair to expect a roll instead of allowing T10. Perhaps in the case of an acrobatics check, the ground the player lands on isn't entirely stable, and has a chance of crumbling if they land in the wrong spot. Regardless of how well a person can jump, sometimes there's bad luck introduced by the environment (unless they make a perception check first to notice crumbling bricks, of course).
I don't disagree with your intent Jiggy, but I will go ahead and try to point out where other people are seeing the problem.
First, where in the rules does it say you should track X/day abilities (spells/powers/etc.) as how many you have used instead of how many you have left? If there is somewhere that specifies which to use, I missed it, meaning that either is just as potentially valid. In a way uses remaining seems to be the more valid approach, since in the case of prepared spells, its something you start out with X amount of and then reduce that amount as you use each cast. If we go with how many you have used, it works out perfectly as you have described. If however, a person goes by how many uses are remaining, it has the possible interpretation of HATSWAPCHEESE. The cleric starts off the day just as you described.
The cleric uses up all his channels.
The cleric throws on a +2 headband.
The cleric uses up his new channel.
The cleric takes off the headband.
The cleric throws on the +2 headband again.
The cleric uses up his new channel.
That's where people think the HATSWAPCHEESE exists. I think its perfectly understandable that a lot of players look at their abilities as how many uses they have remaining. It also is somewhat understandable that ability score increases immediately give you additional uses (even your example makes this assumption, in a way). IMHO, no additional uses of any abilities should be gained until you rest (or use some other ability-specific way of regaining them). I think the bonus ability score should only affect max uses, but that is never specified (again, at least as far as I have read), so there's the opening to assume that you get immediate extra uses. Which then leads to the possibility of constantly getting new uses by adding and removing score bonuses. Hence the confusion about the possibility of abuse. |
