Spellstrike with ranged touch spells?

[JoelF847]

I've seen several comments that there aren't any touch spells for the magus to use with spellstrike other than shocking grasp, and that Jason has commented that there will be more in UM.

When I first read this ability, I thought it would work with ranged touch spells also, but that doesn't seem to be the intent. Is there a reason though that ranged touch spells shouldn't work with this? It's almost like it would apply a negative metamagic feat to the ranged touch spell to reduce it's range to touch, which doesn't seem too game breaking. This would open up a lot more options for the spellstrike ability.

[slicertool]

Lightning Bolts shooting from your sword is fairly awe inspiring.

Agree on the sentiment, though. There is also the Elemental Touch spell which gives you a 1d6 touch attack ability while it is active, but the spell itself is not a touch attack.

[carborundum]

<EDIT> I was confusing Spellstrike and Spell Combat.

I wrongly assumed Spell Combat was with Touch spells only. Flavour-wise it would be cool to have spells cast with Spell Combat shoot out of your sword though :-)

[Ellington]

I'd personally prefer Spellstrike to be a standard action but usable with any spell that can affect an enemy target. You cast the spell and attack as the same action, just seems a lot cleaner to me.

[Draznar]

+1 to the idea that eventually, ranged touch spells would be able to go into the weapon to attack people with.

[IkeDoe]

Ranged touch spells are usually worse than mele touch spells, so IMHO it wouldn't be a bad idea.
Furthermore, in most cases it would be better to just cast the ranged touch spell and do the ranged touch attack instead of storing it in the weapon.
On the other hand it makes it a bit more versatile.
So I can't foresee any problem allowing Spellstrike to work with ranged touch spells.

[Kurukami]

Most cases, yes, but if you've got a hill giant up in your grill and can't back far enough away to not risk a non-defensive casting (aside from the fact that ranged attacks suck up an attack of opportunity anyways if someone's in threat range)... playing a magus, I'd much rather have the option of spellstriking with my memorized scorching ray and possibly taking the thing down so that it doesn't brain me on its next turn.

After all, anything with reach can't be safely withdrawn from, and Acrobatics isn't a magus class skill. Being able to spellstrike with ranged touch turns a close-in encounter from "oh, crap!" into "hey, I have a possibility to be awesome here".

[Cade Tealeaf]

The only thing I have to add to this discussion is that looking at the spell list for the magus, there are maybe two spells on there with range of touch. The first one is shocking grasp and the second is gaseous form, with shocking grasp being the only one with a damage associated with it. I can see gaseous form as being useful to use with spellstrike, but only if Magus's could train in bluff.

I've looked through the other spells and almost all of them are either range of personal or range of close. If ranged touch spells aren't used with spellstrike then I can't really think of a more useless class ability.