| Skylancer4 |
Does a spell that allows multiple touch attacks, such as Chill Touch or Produce Flame, count as holding a charge, causing the spell to end if you cast another spell?
Also, are subsequent touches still free actions, or standard actions, or can they combined with an unarmed strike or natural attack?
First question is yes, they do count as holding a charge.
Second question, I'm not ever sure this gets answered officially. I remember a thread about it quite some time ago. No they aren't still free actions for sure. I believe most of the wording comes down to (roughly) "as part of casting the spell you can such and such as a free action." And after that casting is where the confusion comes in.
From what I remember people are split on the action economy, if it takes another standard action to use the charge or if it can be released with every attack from the limb with the charge on it. It has been awhile and I want to say the one person from Paizo that spoke about it was of the "it's a standard action" unless it is stated to be "used like a weapon" at which point it could be released every strike. Supposedly the spells that didn't include that line were balanced on only being released once a round is what they were getting at.
| Grick |
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Does a spell that allows multiple touch attacks, such as Chill Touch or Produce Flame, count as holding a charge, causing the spell to end if you cast another spell?
Produce Flame is not a touch spell. There is no free attack, and you can't hold the charge.
Chill Touch is a touch spell. You follow all the rules about touch spells. If you're holding the charge and you cast a spell, the chill touch dissipates.
Also, are subsequent touches still free actions, or standard actions, or can they combined with an unarmed strike or natural attack?
You only get the free action on the round in which you cast a touch spell.
With a held charge, you can make a touch attack as a standard action, or you can make normal attacks with unarmed strikes or natural weapons against full AC.
Some GMs will allow you to make iterative touch attacks in a full attack. The rules are not clear on this, and James Jacobs has said it doesn't work this way.