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First of all, I apologize if this has been brought up before, I did a cursory search for the term Legion's Blessing and Crusader Cleric and found nothing on the subject.
Did anybody even look at the Legion's Blessing ability before this book was published?
Here is what is reads;
Legion’s Blessing (Su)
At 8th level, a crusader gains the ability to confer beneficial spells quickly to a large group of allies. As a full-round action, the crusader may confer the effects of a single harmless spell with a range of touch to a number of creatures equal to half her cleric level. The spell’s range remains touch, so all intended recipients must be within the crusader’s reach when the spell is cast. Using the legion’s blessing expends the prepared spell, but it also requires the crusader to sacrifice another prepared spell three levels higher, as when spontaneously using a cure or inflict spell. The higher-level spell is not cast but is simply lost, its magical energy used to power the legion’s blessing.
Not only does this give you a redundant ability (via the general combat rules, Important part bolded);
Holding the Charge: If you don't discharge the spell in the round when you cast the spell, you can hold the charge indefinitely. You can continue to make touch attacks round after round. If you touch anything or anyone while holding a charge, even unintentionally, the spell discharges. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates. can touch one friend as a standard action or up to six friends as a full-round action. 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.
But it also implies that spontaneously casting a cure or inflict spell drains a spell slot 3 levels higher??
The only possible use of this ability is to use a spell 3 levels lower than your maximum on 8 targets friendlies that happen to have you completely surrounded, instead of 6, but still expending that higher level slot. And that's at level 16 minimum no less. Seriously guys? Get your stuff together, if you're writing a book called Ultimate Combat, know how the classes and combat in general work. I'd love if someone could point out anything I seem to be missing that makes this thing in any way useful, but as it stands, they need to give this archetype a completely new 8th level ability, and make sure it actually accomplishes something this time.
(Sorry if I sound rude, I'm just flabbergasted because I stumbled something that is such a blatant failure in oversight)
The "six friends" text you bold from "Holding the Charge" only applies if the spell being cast is one that can affect more than one receipient. "Water Breathing" is the classic example; the recent line of "Communal" spells also qualifies. You can't just heal six of your friends with one casting of Cure Light wounds (without some special ability, such as Legion's Blessing).
The "sacrifice another prepared spell three levels higher, as when spontaneously..." bit is awkwardly phrased, but it seems clear to me that "as when" is just referring to the "sacrifice another prepared spell" part, not the "three levels higher" part.
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First of all, I apologize if this has been brought up before, I did a cursory search for the term Legion's Blessing and Crusader Cleric and found nothing on the subject.
Did anybody even look at the Legion's Blessing ability before this book was published?
Here is what is reads;
Legion’s Blessing (Su)
At 8th level, a crusader gains the ability to confer beneficial spells quickly to a large group of allies. As a full-round action, the crusader may confer the effects of a single harmless spell with a range of touch to a number of creatures equal to half her cleric level. The spell’s range remains touch, so all intended recipients must be within the crusader’s reach when the spell is cast. Using the legion’s blessing expends the prepared spell, but it also requires the crusader to sacrifice another prepared spell three levels higher, as when spontaneously using a cure or inflict spell. The higher-level spell is not cast but is simply lost, its magical energy used to power the legion’s blessing.
Not only does this give you a redundant ability (via the general combat rules, Important part bolded);
Holding the Charge: If you don't discharge the spell in the round when you cast the spell, you can hold the charge indefinitely. You can continue to make touch attacks round after round. If you touch anything or anyone while holding a charge, even unintentionally, the spell discharges. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates. can touch one friend as a standard action or up to six friends as a full-round action. 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...
Yeah... I think you're missing the point here. The idea is you can use a beneficial spell that would normally affect only one ally on MULTIPLE allies.
Interesting. While I agree that either is or should be the correct ruling, the combat section on the SRD provides no indication that it is limited to such spells. My DMs and I have always viewed that passage as working in the way I have summarized above.
As to the second sacrifice question, I can now see the interpretation there that can be made, still it is undoubtedly phrased in a confusing manner.
Aha, found the passage. Now I feel a bit foolish.
Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets. You can touch up to 6 willing targets as part of the casting, but all targets of the spell must be touched in the same round that you finish casting the spell. (Though this phrasing still makes it seem slightly ambiguous, as the two sentences might appear unrelated to a cursory glance, but I don't want to get into a RAW vs RAI debate here as I agree whole-heartedly that it doesn't work as I had been led to believe)
It seems that is indeed correct, thank you for your contribution, you've managed to clear up a misconception that has apparently been plaguing my group for a while.
I would still like to point out that the misconception arose because of the Actions in Combat reference table that is shown in the PRD that lists;
Full Round Action/Provoke AoO?
Use a touch spell on up to six friends/Yes
Which then links to the otherwise ambiguous passage I listed in the first post.
While it may seem like an obvious stretch to check the specifics of casting a touch spell in this manner, the number of touch spells that actually qualify for multiple targets is quite low as I recall, and since neither communal nor Water Breathing have ever come up in my games, didn't even pop into my mind as a reason to explain this citation. Perhaps a small addition to the pfsrd/prd that links to the relevant Touch spell description in the Magic header is in order? I don't know if anyone else has made the same mistake I did, but a simple ("in the case of touch spells which specify multiple targets") annotation on the combat Holding the Charge section could clear up all ambiguity.
Edit: @cartmanbeck, the reason this ability seemed redundant in hindsight is a misinterpretation of the Combat section regarding Holding the Charge. Read as written, citing only that page, it is quite easy to conclude that ALL touch spells can be delivered to multiple allies by using a full-round action. Having found the proper citation under the Magic heading, I realize this is fallacious, but at the time this ability seemed highly useless. And the phrasing of the spell slot thing is still pretty messed up/confusing, regardless.