Magus Spell Combat

[Madgrady]

The Magus spell combat rules state:

"If he casts this spell defensively,he can decide to take an additional penalty on his attack rolls,up to his Intelligence bonus, and add the same amount as a circumstance bonus on his concentration check. If the check
fails, the spell is wasted, but the attacks still take the penalty.
A magus can choose to cast the spell first or make the weapon
attacks first, but if he has more than one attack, he cannot
cast the spell between weapon attacks. (UM pg 10)"

Does this mean that I need to announce that I will be casting my spell defensively before I take ANY action? Even if I choose to attack with my melee weapon first?

[Phasics]

Yes because if you attack with your melee weapon you should be applying the penalty for fighting defensively on any and all attacks if you intend to use spell combat that round.

[Madgrady]

That's what I thought, but I just wanted to be sure.

Thanks Phasics!!!

[Phasics]

Madgrady wrote:

That's what I thought, but I just wanted to be sure.

Thanks Phasics!!!

No worries mate ;)

[kinevon]

Phasics wrote:

Yes because if you attack with your melee weapon you should be applying the penalty for fighting defensively on any and all attacks if you intend to use spell combat that round.

Casting defensively and fighting defensively are two different things.

The reason you would need to announce whether you are casting a spell defensively, as a Magus using Spell Combat, is because of two things:

1) Your weapon attack(s) suffer a -2 penalty to attack.

2) You can also choose to take an additional penalty on the weapon attack(s0, up to your Intelligence bonus, so that penalty, also, needs to be decided on and applied before the first weapon attack is made.