| davidvs |
I'm confused by the last two sentences of the text about Witch familiars delivering touch spells/hexes. (Bold below is my emphasis)
If a witch is 3rd level or higher, her familiar can deliver touch spells or hexes for her. If the witch and the familiar are in contact at the time the witch casts a touch spell, she can designate her familiar as the “toucher.” The familiar can then deliver the touch spell just as the witch would. As usual, if the witch casts another spell before the touch is delivered, the touch spell dissipates. If the witch activates a hex, her familiar can be used to make the touch. She does not have to be in contact with the familiar to use this ability.
(a) My familiar is hiding in a padded box on the party's Fighter's armor, ready to crawl out and deliver Enlarge Person. If I use a hex, does the "charged" touch spell dissipate? (I think the bolded part of the rules is trying to say no, but doing so unclearly.)
(b) The fighter is 70 feet away. My familiar is between us, 10 feet from the fighter and 60 feet from me. The Fortune hex has range of 30 feet. My movement is 30 feet. Can I move 30 feet, activate Fortune on my familiar at a distance of 30 feet, and then watch my familiar take its move action to deliver Fortune to the fighter ten more feet away? (This seems allowed by the bolded part of the rules, but might be unintentional and not RAI.)
(c) My familiar is again riding on the fighter, ready to deliver Enlarge Person. Can I activate Fortune on it, so it is ready to deliver both the spell and the hex when it touches the fighter? (This seems legal by the above RAW text, but is probably unintentional and not RAI.)
jlighter
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Strictly speaking RAW, you could probably get away with B. Seems a bit of a stretch, though.
Regarding A, I wouldn't think activating a Hex would cancel a Touch spell carried by your familiar, but that leads us to C. In C, you're asking if your familiar can carry a Touch spell AND a (Touch) Hex. I'd probably say that they whichever came second would cancel out the first. Examples:
(a) Familiar is carrying a Reduce Person spell. You touch it to have it carry a Healing hex. The hex replaces the spell.
(b) Familiar is pre-set with a Healing hex for later, just in case somebody gets hurt and needs a mid-combat heal. You see a creature's armor being too much for the Fighter to penetrate, so you load the familiar with Inflict Light Wounds instead, replacing the slot previously occupied by the hex.
(c) You (the Witch), are holding a charge for Inflict Light Wounds, to smack the first person who comes near you. You see your Rogue take a nasty hit, and move to assist. You load up a Healing hex before moving, replacing the Inflict Light Wounds spell you were previously holding (this particular example is probably a good thing, because otherwise the ILW spell would discharge at the same time as the hex).
To the best of my knowledge, no creature/class/whatever can hold two charges at once. Might be an interesting feature for a Prestige class, though.
ProfPotts
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(a) My familiar is hiding in a padded box on the party's Fighter's armor, ready to crawl out and deliver Enlarge Person. If I use a hex, does the "charged" touch spell dissipate? (I think the bolded part of the rules is trying to say no, but doing so unclearly.)
Enlarge Person isn't a touch-ranged spell, so the familiar can't 'deliver' it at all. There aren't rules in place, at the moment, for 'reducing' a spell's range from (in this example) a Close ranged spell to a Touch ranged (and therefore 'charge hold-able') spell.
(b) The fighter is 70 feet away. My familiar is between us, 10 feet from the fighter and 60 feet from me. The Fortune hex has range of 30 feet. My movement is 30 feet. Can I move 30 feet, activate Fortune on my familiar at a distance of 30 feet, and then watch my familiar take its move action to deliver Fortune to the fighter ten more feet away? (This seems allowed by the bolded part of the rules, but might be unintentional and not RAI.)
Not being a touch-ranged hex, the familiar can't 'deliver' Fortune either.
(c) My familiar is again riding on the fighter, ready to deliver Enlarge Person. Can I activate Fortune on it, so it is ready to deliver both the spell and the hex when it touches the fighter? (This seems legal by the above RAW text, but is probably unintentional and not RAI.)
Since the familiar can't 'deliver' either of those effects, it's kinda' a moot point... ;)
Basically it boils down to:
With touch-ranged spells which the charge can be held on, the Witch can touch their familiar when casting the spell and use the familiar, instead of their own hand, to then 'deliver' the held charge. This is exactly the same with the Wizard's familiar. As with all 'held charge' touch spells, you can't use that 'hand' (or in this case, familiar) for anything else until you either touch something (setting off the held charge) or allow the charge to disipate. In the case of the familiar-held charge obviously stuff like walking doesn't 'deliver the charge to the floor'... but you can't hold more than one charge in the familiar and if, for example, the familiar attacked a foe, then the charge would 'go off' as normal (you generally can't pick and choose whether a held charge 'detonates' or not - it's a bit like holding a primed grenade in your hand...).
With touch-ranged hexes the Witch gets a significant advantage as she can deliver those through her familiar at any range. This is an extremely powerful ability for the Witch, limited only by the fact there's not many touch-ranged Hexes - Blight, Healing, Ward (possibly... no range is listed), Major Healing, Vision, Eternal Slumber, and Life Giver. In theory if the Witch had some way of communicating with the familiar, or even just Scrying on the area it's at, she could deliver touch-based Hexes through it from any range... even the other side of the planet (although one questions why the Witch's familiar is so far away from her...). On the other hand, nothing indicates that the familiar can hold the charge on a Hex - which is kinda' why the Witch gets to channel that power through her familiar at range - you can't 'hold the charge' on Hexes.
With that in mind, even with a touch-ranged Spell and a touch-ranged Hex (as oppossed to Enlarge Person and Fortune) you can't trigger both at the same time, either via a familiar or in person, since both require an action to trigger. What you could do is cast a touch-ranged Spell with your familiar holding the charge, then (on some later turn) have both your familiar and yourself touch the same target at the same time, your familiar discharging the Spell, and you discharging a Hex. I can't see any reason you'd ever need to do that... but you could... ;)