Restricted withdraw, proper use? Touch spell as a free action as well....

[cmastah]

Now here's the thing, I want to introduce to my players the concept of mobile enemies and was thinking of making use of restricted withdraw. I read that you can do a standard action and then move your speed without provoking AoOs from the FIRST square you leave, could you also move your speed and THEN do your standard action?

I was also thinking of surprising my players with a caster who uses restricted withdraw, uses a standard action to cast a touch spell and then hold it until the player moves in. Touching the target is a free action, does that mean the caster can wait until the target moves in and then immediately touch him before the target can make an attack (since it's a free action he ought to be able to use it even on the opponent's turn, right?)?

[cmastah]

On a side note, can you cast while moving?

[Ascalaphus]

No, what you say doesn't work, sorry.

Restricted Withdraw can only be done if you only get a Standard Action in the round. That could be because you're Staggered, or someone used Slow on you. But RW means that you spend your entire (short) turn using RW.

The way Withdraw is designed, you can't do anything else in a turn while withdrawing; you sacrifice all other options to safely get away.

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Casting while moving: not exactly. If your spell takes a Standard Action, you could take a Move Action (or 5ft step) before OR after casting the spell, but not during.

It's the same with almost everything else; you can't move-attack-move either unless you have a feat which lets you do that (Spring Attack, Flyby Attack). AFAIK, there's no such feat for spellcasting.

[Quatar]

What Ascalaphus says about restricted withdraw is true. Same for restricted charge for example.
If you want to move and do a standard action, you need to use a normal move action for that and provoke AoO normally. That's where Acrobatics comes in to avoid that.

About the spell question:
1) Free actions still can only be taken on your turn, unless it's explicitely mentioned that you can use them on someone elses turn too. "Immediate actions" which are swift actions can be taken at any time, you might be confusing that.

2) A touch attack AS PART of casting the spell is a free action. Subsequent touch attacks, or holding the charge and then touching is a standard attack action.

3) if you're holding the charge already, you can ready an action to touch the enemy when he comes close enough. But thats a standard action, so you can't do it the same turn as actually casting.

[Bigtuna]

2)"A touch attack AS PART of casting the spell is a free action" - well the rules say you get a free action that turn- So you could take a standard action to cast the spell - take a move action and THEN use the free action to deliver the attack

[Diego Rossi]

Bigtuna wrote:

2)"A touch attack AS PART of casting the spell is a free action" - well the rules say you get a free action that turn- So you could take a standard action to cast the spell - take a move action and THEN use the free action to deliver the attack

Yes, plenty of examples of that. There is even a FAQ I think.

It is one of the tricks in a magus arsenal: when using spell combat you can cast a touch attack spell, move+draw weapon, then make your free attack with the weapon.

Note that any spellcaster can cast a spell, move and then deliver the free touch attack, the magus advantage is that he can use a weapon.

[cmastah]

Thanks for the breakdown, I guess I can use melee enemies with spring attack or good acrobatics instead to emphasize the point.