A player has come to me with the question of "Can one sunder using touch spells?" He is specifically referencing these two sections:
Holding the Charge "Alternatively, you may make a normal unarmed attack (or an attack with a natural weapon) while holding a charge. In this case, you aren't considered armed and you provoke attacks of opportunity as normal for the attack. If your unarmed attack or natural weapon attack normally doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity, neither does this attack. If the attack hits, you deal normal damage for your unarmed attack or natural weapon and the spell discharges. If the attack misses, you are still holding the charge."
Sunder "You can attempt to sunder an item held or worn by your opponent as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack."
His logic is that if you are holding a spell and use an unarmed strike to make a Sunder combat maneuver on a successful hit the spell would discharge and add its damage to the unarmed attack against the item being sundered. However a few problems come up with this action.
For example:
In the first round of combat casts Shocking Grasp and holds the charge. In the second round of combat he makes an unarmed melee Sunder combat maneuver. For simplicity assume there are no Attacks of Opportunity involved and the Sunder combat maneuver succeeds in its attack roll. At this point the spell discharges in accordance to Holding the Charge. My player believes that the damage for the item should be both Shocking Grasp and the unarmed strike. This seems to in line with the rules as Shocking Grasp has the Target of "Object or Creature Touched".
However it becomes a little bit uncertain when the spell is something that does not affect objects, like Touch of Fatigue. Would a spell that has a Target only of "Creature Touched" dissipate harmlessly when the sunder attempt was made? When using a spell as a Sunder combat maneuver instead of damaging an object as per the <i>Smashing an Object</i> rules does it ignore an object's resistance to elemental damage? Can you actually use a spell as part of a Sunder attempt to begin with?
Since we're good spirited guys and both willing to admit we're wrong we decided to get the consensus of our peers and see what other people thought on this situation.
