Spellstrike is not Imbue Weapon


Round 1: Magus


People seem to be using Spellstrike as a way to channel a spell (usually shocking grasp) into a weapon and hold it there. As worded, the ability does not work like that. Instead, you can cast it one round, then hit someone with your weapon the next round and channel the touch spell into the melee strike. Or you can cast it with the Spell Combat ability then channel it into the melee attack that you make. You cannot, however, precast it and just have it sit on the weapon for the next four hours until something decides to ambush you, any more than a wizard can cast shocking grasp on his/her hand and let it sit there for hours.

I think this is skewing the playtest data a lot. If the ability did work as people are playing it, I think Magi would work better, but spellstrike doesn't imbue a weapon and playing with imbued weapons makes Ultimate Magi seem more powerful than they are.


I'm not sure how some people are playing it but if the shocking grasp is the last spell you cast during your pre-battle buffing session it seems pretty clear you can hold the charge indefinitely.

Quote:

In most cases,

if you don’t discharge a touch spell on the round you cast
it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the
spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after
round until the spell is discharged. If you cast another
spell, the touch spell dissipates.

So as long as you aren't casting other spells after you've cast Shocking Grasp in effect you are "storing" the charge.

However I wouldn't mind the ability to imbue a touch spell into a weapon on an indefinite basis, or maybe limit it to 10/minutes per caster level in order to retain some sort of balance.


vuron wrote:

I'm not sure how some people are playing it but if the shocking grasp is the last spell you cast during your pre-battle buffing session it seems pretty clear you can hold the charge indefinitely.

So as long as you aren't casting other spells after you've cast Shocking Grasp in effect you are "storing" the charge.

However I wouldn't mind the ability to imbue a touch spell into a weapon on an indefinite basis, or maybe limit it to 10/minutes per caster level in order to retain some sort of balance.

+1

It was discussed in another thread. However I did it wrong, I forgot that while you hold the charge you shouldn't cast another spell.

I saw a post written by Jason B. saying that he would modify the ability because it was a bit confusing and troublesome.


IkeDoe wrote:
vuron wrote:

I'm not sure how some people are playing it but if the shocking grasp is the last spell you cast during your pre-battle buffing session it seems pretty clear you can hold the charge indefinitely.

So as long as you aren't casting other spells after you've cast Shocking Grasp in effect you are "storing" the charge.

However I wouldn't mind the ability to imbue a touch spell into a weapon on an indefinite basis, or maybe limit it to 10/minutes per caster level in order to retain some sort of balance.

+1

It was discussed in another thread. However I did it wrong, I forgot that while you hold the charge you shouldn't cast another spell.

I saw a post written by Jason B. saying that he would modify the ability because it was a bit confusing and troublesome.

I forgot you could hold touch spells indefinitely so long as you didn't cast anything else. Still, I'm glad it's going to be clarified.


Normal touch spells are discharged with `any` touch, but Spellstrike needs a melee attack to discharge, so that isn`t a worry with the weapon holding it`s charge indefinitely.
As mentioned, the clause that you lose the spell if you cast another one is still in effect.

Effectively, casting a spell via Spellstrike well ahead of time is a gamble that you won`t need/want to cast another spell before you are able to discharge the spell via a melee attack: If you win you get the spell effect on top of the melee attack, if you lose you either lose the Spellstrike spell (Magus` having few spell slots seems to be a recurrent theme) or sub-optimally don`t cast the other spell you would have preferred to and deal with the situation in another way.

Most players are not going to use Spellstrike hours in advance because there`s a good chance the spell will be wasted. If you have a remaining attack spell available just before you prepare, you might as well cast it as Spellstrike so it can carry over into your next spell prep day... You may lose it, but you would have lost it anyways when you re-prep spells. I don`t see that as super problematic...


Quandary wrote:
Normal touch spells are discharged with `any` touch, but Spellstrike needs a melee attack to discharge

No, it doesn't. It can be delivered via normal touch as normal.

Spellstrike just allows the PC to deliver via weapon what anyone can do via unarmed strike or natural weapon... that is discharging a held touch spell.

-James

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