Magus, Frostbite and Spellstrike

[GM Arkwright]

This beautiful post by Grick explains what JJacobs has said about Chill Touch/Frostbite and Spellstrike- Here

My GM has said that what JJacobs said is unofficial and I need something more authoritative.

Does anyone have any more rulings on how Frostbite works with Spellstrike, preferably by one of the game-designers-slash-people-who-are-empowered-to-rule-on-things-like-this?

This is for PFS.

Cheers.

[Kazaan]

Well, here are the pertinent rules

PRD wrote:

Spellstrike (Su): At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell.

prd wrote:

Touch: You must touch a creature or object to affect it... 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. If the spell allows you to touch targets over multiple rounds, touching 6 creatures is a full-round action.

PRD wrote:

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... You can touch one friend as a standard action or up to six friends as a full-round action...

Ok, first, the explicit analysis:

1) When a Magus 'casts' 'a spell with a range of "touch"' 'from the magus spell list', he can deliver it through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Chill Touch and Frostbite are both spells with the range of "touch". Chill Touch and Frostbite are both on the Magus spell list. So, provided that the Magus is actually 'casting' them (and not using a wand, SLA, or some other casting-equivalent means), he can use these types of spells with Spell Strike.

2) 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 must be touched in the same round that you finish casting the spell. This would apply to a spell like Teleport. You can touch up to 6 willing targets as part of the casting. Teleport doesn't allow you to touch targets over multiple rounds, neither explicitly nor implicitly, so that part of the rule doesn't apply.

Now, the implicit analysis:
1) Holding the Charge: If you don't discharge the spell in the round when you cast the spell, you can hold the charge indefinitely. -And- You can touch up to 6 willing targets as part of the casting... Attacking someone with Chill Touch or Frostbite doesn't qualify as touching a willing target, so you are unable to touch 6 targets as part of the casting. Therefore, your only option is to touch a single target offensively as part of the casting. If this resulted in a full discharge of the ability, then there would be no point in giving you multiple charges of the spell to use, therefore, the spell implicitly gives you the ability to touch creatures over multiple rounds. This means that the spell continues under standard "hold the charge" rules and, so long as you still have a charge left, you can continue to deliver charges indefinitely until you cast another spell.

2) ...he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. There's nothing indicating that you lose the ability to deliver the spell via weapon on subsequent rounds, which would be the default presumption via "holding the charge". Technically speaking, you're "holding the charge" immediately after you cast the spell, before you get your free discharge attempt, so your very first free melee attack is delivered from a "held charge"; therefore, discharging via weapon for charges held across multiple rounds is valid.

3) [Implicit Analysis]: You can deliver held charges across rounds via weapon with Spellstrike -And- [Implicit Analysis]: Extra charges of Frostbite/Chill touch are held until expended. Here is the final analysis. Unused charges of Frostbite and Chill Touch are held just as normal unspent charges are. Unspent charges across rounds can be delivered via Spellstrike.

Conclusion: Based on a combination of explicit and implicit analysis of the rules at hand (using no additional opinions from devs), You can hold unspent charges of Frostbite and Chill Touch just as you hold single charges of more "standard" touch spells and you can deliver these unspent charges via a melee attack using Spellstrike (using any source of melee attack; full-attack, Spell Combat, Charge, AoO, Cleave, etc.). There's nothing referring to a "special spell-like discharge ability" as JJ suggested, neither explicit in the rules, nor derived implicitly. If that were the intent, it isn't present anywhere in the rules and, barring a FAQ or Errata, it simply doesn't exist except as a dev 'opinion'. Therefore, as far as PFS is concerned, the logical deduction is that you can use these spells with Spellstrike, conserve the remaining charges over multiple rounds, and deliver conserved charges with spellstrike, but you cannot conserve charges from one of these spells and a single-touch spell like Shocking Grasp simultaneously as would be implied by JJ's comments.

[GM Arkwright]

Wonderfully and logically explained- thank you very much. I can't argue with anything you have said. I'm bookmarking this for use in the future.

[qutoes]

Ok ...
So with one of those spells going do you still get the extra attack from spell strike? My brain hurts .

Kazaan talk me through a few rounds of combat please you seem to have a handle on it.

[GM Arkwright]

You do. I believe I understand.

Round one: A wild goblin springs out of nowhere!
-The magus declares Spell Combat
-He casts Frostbite, holds the charge, and then 5-foot-steps in
-He delivers his free spellstrike attack, carrying the Frostbite charge
-He delivers his remaining attacks, also carrying the Frostbite charge.

The goblin is shocked at your strength!

Round two:
-The magus is still holding a charge of Frostbite, so if he does a full attack he gets
-His free spellstrike attack, carrying the Frostbite charge
-His remaining attacks, carrying the Frostbite charge

Wait... Something just occurred to me. With Spell Combat, a Magus can make cast his spell and attack in any order, yes?
Round Three:
-The magus declares Spell Combat
-He is still holding a charge of Frostbite, so he gets a free Spellstrike attack to deliver it
-He makes his remaining attacks
-He then casts his spell- Shocking Grasp- and gets ANOTHER free Spellstrike melee attack with it...?

Something seems wrong here.

In any case, here is an alternate Round Three
-The magus declares Spell Combat
-He casts Shocking Grasp, and delivers it with his free Spellstrike attack. This attack does not carry the Frostbite charge as he lost it by casting Shocking Grasp.
-He makes his remaining attacks.

[Kazaan]

Almost. Your round 1 is fine.

For round 2, you don't get an additional free attack from your casting from round 1. You can make your iterative attacks, applying any remaining Frostbite charges until you're out of charges, but you don't get a "free bonus" attack in subsequent rounds. This is analogous to how, when you use a touch attack without spellstrike, you get a free touch attack to deliver on the first round, but if you hold the charge, you must spend a standard action to make a touch attack in subsequent rounds or you can make an unarmed strike or natural attack via standard Attack action, Full-Attack, Spell Combat, Charge, AoO, etc. to deliver.

So, lets say, for example, he has 4 charges of Frostbite and 2 iterative attacks.

Round 1:
- Declare Spell Combat.
--- Cast Frostbite (gain 4 charges)
--- Free attack to deliver Frostbite <hit>
--- Iterative 1 <hit>, with Frostbite
--- Iterative 2 <miss>
- Result; 2 charges of Frostbite remaining.

Round 2a:
- (still holding 2 charges of Frostbite)
- Declare Spell Combat.
--- Iterative 1 <hit>, with Frostbite
--- Iterative 2 <hit>, with Frostbite
--- Cast Shocking Grasp
--- Free attack to deliver Shocking Grasp <hit>
- Net Result; 5 successful attacks, 1 miss, 4 delivered charges of Frostbite, no charges remaining, 1 delivered Shocking Grasp.

Round 2b:
- (still holding 2 charges of Frostbite)
- Declare Spell Combat.
--- Cast Frostbite (reset to 4 charges)
--- Free attack for Frostbite <hit>
--- Iterative 1 <hit>, with Frostbite
--- Iterative 2 <hit>, with Frostbite
- Net Result; 5 successful attacks, 1 miss. 5 delivered charges of Frostbite, 1 charge remaining.

[qutoes]

So really frostbite and chill touch are not spells you want to use. You are better off spamming arcane mark for the extra if you don't want to use shocking grasp or something.

[Kazaan]

qutoes wrote:

So really frostbite and chill touch are not spells you want to use. You are better off spamming arcane mark for the extra if you don't want to use shocking grasp or something.

Only if you're looking for additional weapon damage (which isn't a Magus's strong point). If you're looking for weapon damage, you're better off with a 2-h weapon, power attack, and Haste. You could use arcane mark if you don't want to blow an actual damage spell on trash, but if you're focusing down anything with real meat on it, you're going to want a combo of Chill Touch and Shocking Grasp (or something analogous).

[GM Arkwright]

Ah; I read what you wrote as saying that one would be 'holding the charge' and thus could make free Spellstrike attacks each round. My mistake.

[Benn Roe]

Touch spells are very tricky. (: You ARE holding the charge after you cast frostbite, before you've delivered all its available touches. Holding the charge, however, as per the normal rules for touch spells, doesn't grant you a "free attack". You only ever get a free attack on the round you cast the spell.

Essentially, touch spells would be terrible if they cost a standard action to cast AND required you to use a standard action to deliver their effects. They'd never do anything the turn you cast them (though I'm aware that Spell Combat actually solves this problem; if I remember correctly from the original version of the magus playtest, Spell Combat was actually introduced to solve this problem).

The rules compromise is that you can make one touch attack as a free action on the round you cast the spell, to deliver its effects. Subsequent touches from held charges require expenditure of the normal actions for making (touch) attacks (normally standard or full-attack). All spellstrike does is 1) allow you to deliver touch spells via a weapon, and 2) give you the option of replacing your free touch attack with a free melee attack.

I hope that helps.

[shroudb]

keep in mind that JJ said (not RAW, and certainly not official, but some people think it's RAI) that in multitouch spells like chill touch/frostbite/etc, you expent the charge on the first hit, and the rest of them stay with you like some sort of supernatural/spell-like ability and you don't lose them if you cast an additinal spell.

here it is:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page=513?Ask-James-Jacobs-ALL-your-Qu estions-Here#25604

[ZanThrax]

Kazaan wrote:

Round 1:

- Declare Spell Combat.
--- Cast Frostbite (gain 4 charges)
--- Free attack to deliver Frostbite <hit>
--- Iterative 1 <hit>, with Frostbite
--- Iterative 2 <miss>
- Result; 2 charges of Frostbite remaining.

Round 2c:

- Declare Spell Combat.
--- Iterative 1 <hit>, with Frostbite
--- Iterative 2 <miss>
--- Activate a wand of any non-touch spell.
- Result; 1 charges of Frostbite remaining. With any luck, you'll get to use this on an attack of opportunity before round 3 begins.

Bad touch magi can potentially be much more efficient with their spells than the standard shocking graspers, and can really benefit from Combat Reflexes and wand wielder.

[Arkadwyn]

According to the PRD, the effects of multi-touch spells do not last past the round of casting, they cannot be held and all touches must be used in the round cast or they are lost.

PRD:"Touch Spells and Holding the Charge: In most cases, if you don't discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round until the spell is discharged. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates.

Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets as part of the spell. You can't hold the charge of such a spell; you must touch all targets of the spell in the same round that you finish casting the spell."

[Jiggy]

Arkadwyn, you should check out this FAQ, as it contradicts your assertion.

You should also not embark on necro-crusades where you dig up multiple years-old threads just to spam assertions of your rightness over everyone.

[bbangerter]

Arkadwyn wrote:

According to the PRD, the effects of multi-touch spells do not last past the round of casting, they cannot be held and all touches must be used in the round cast or they are lost.

PRD:"Touch Spells and Holding the Charge: In most cases, if you don't discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round until the spell is discharged. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates.

Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets as part of the spell. You can't hold the charge of such a spell; you must touch all targets of the spell in the same round that you finish casting the spell."

That refers to friendly touch spells (such as teleport), though its not obvious from the context.

The FAQ on magus chill touch shows this to be the case though, and that you can indeed hold the charge of a multi-touch attack spell over multiple rounds.

FAQ wrote:

Magus, Spellstrike: If I cast a spell that allows multiple touch attacks, can I deliver all of those spell touches through my weapon?
Yes. For example, if you cast chill touch (which allows multiple touch attacks), you could use spellstrike to cast and deliver the spell through your weapon, and in later weapon attacks you could use your weapon to deliver the remaining spell touch attacks (one spell touch attack per weapon attack).

If you have multiple attacks per round with that weapon (such as from having a BAB of +6 or higher), you can use the weapon to deliver multiple spell touch attacks per round, so long as you have uses of that spell touch attack remaining.

For example, if you are an 8th-level magus (BAB +6/+1) and you cast chill touch, you have up to 8 uses of that spell touch attack. If you make two weapon attacks in a round, you can deliver two spell touch attacks per round (one for each successful weapon attack).

EDIT: Ninja'd by Jiggy.

[Arkadwyn]

Jiggy wrote:

Arkadwyn, you should check out this FAQ, as it contradicts your assertion.

You should also not embark on necro-crusades where you dig up multiple years-old threads just to spam assertions of your rightness over everyone.

Not my intent, was actually just reading every thread on this in an attempt to find something that officially dealt with the conflict between what is written as RAW concerning multi-touch spells and the FAQ. There is nothing there to suggest it was only meant to apply to friendly touch spells, though I agree that it makes sense for the spell to allow multiple touches over several rounds. The next obvious question is how many rounds can I hold those multiple touches? Why hasn't this ever been errata'd so as to be clear?

My position was in line with the FAQ all along, however my DM refuses to acknowledge the FAQ because it contradicts a rule that has never been errata'd. However, when I pointed out that by that logic a magus gets one free touch per level then in that one round, thereby gaining an extra attack per level, his response was to outlaw the magus class and force me to retire my character.

I was just hoping to get an official response that would remove the contradiction between the FAQ (which not everyone considers canon) and the un-errata'd rulebook. So sue me for being thorough.

[kestral287]

... So thorough that you felt the need to necro it /again/?

If your DM refuses to acknowledge the a rule then you two need to sit down like reasonable people and decide how the rules work in the absence of the one that's been removed.

And for the record, asking for official responses almost never works unless it's by hitting the FAQ button.

[Arkadwyn]

We were just about to rotate back to this campaign so I was looking to see if any reply had occurred. I did FAQ this in one of the threads. I see that official responses are few, probably because trolls are plentiful.

[PokeyCA]

The FAQ is an official interpretation of the rules. Paizo only issues errata when they reprint a book, otherwise the issued errata, the FAQs, and the printed book are the complete RAW (but not necessarily the home rules). Usually when they reprint a book, they will incorporate all of the FAQs issued up until that point, but not always. Sometimes the FAQ will stand without an errata, because the explanation of the FAQ would take up to much room in the book (Web has much more cost effective storage than a printed book).

[shroudb]

faq is cannon by raw.

the way it goes it is:

errata>faq>original print

when trying to see which is the standing raw of a rule.

[Kazaan]

You should only ever ignore a FAQ if it is irreconcilable with existing rules or other FAQs. The FAQ in question here is clearly reconcilable if you consider the context of the rule regarding multiple touch spells and also the fact that, if multi-touch spells can't be held, there would have been absolutely no purpose in making a multi-touch offensive spell because you could never use the additional touches. There is no problem with this FAQ and if your GM still refuses to accept it, dismiss him because he lacks the qualifications for the position.

[Arkadwyn]

So we decided to make Chill Touch and Frostbite work like Produce Flame, in that it lasts 1 min/level and each hit reduces the duration by 1 minute. Removes his other problem with it in that it couldn't be dispelled since the duration was instantaneous, even though you could still be using its effects an hour later.

[Kyle Zimmer]

Kazaan's explanation is almost perfect, though I request one point to be clarified.

On the second round after you have cast frostbite, and are still holding the charge, you can no longer get a free attack from spell combat. However, you could of course make a TWF round of attacks, and attack using your off hand as usual at -4weapon/-8touch, or -2weapon/-2touch if you have TWF the feat.

Could you then accordingly use spell strike for a full round with -4weapon/-8weapon, or -2weapon/-2weapon if you have TWF the feat (and your weapon is a light weapon otherwise -4weapon/-4weapon)?

At this point things are getting weird bc you are being penalized for actually doing less, ie only touching instead of casting and touching;

I think I might rule myself that if you want to use frostbite as if with spell combat over multiple rounds, you need to take TWF, in which case you can use it with spellstrike just like you were casting it.

It also might be fair to claim that it just works, as a Magus is essentially supposed to have TWF when it comes to touching and stabbing. You just obviously can't cast a spell and get spell combat again the same turn.

By RAW I think it is a little murky how that all should work.

[Volkard Abendroth]

Yes, you can TWF with held charges.

Yes, you can use weapons in your off-hand.

Yes, you can spellstrike with both weapons.

The only magus abilities that are restricted are spell combat and arcane pool, which can only be used on one weapon at a time.

There are magus builds that focus on the Monstrous Humanoid spells to acquire forms with more than two hands, allowing for more attacks/round.

[bbangerter]

Note however you cannot make touch attacks as part of a TWF routine. Making a touch attack is a standard action (one of the FAQs I dislike).

So to TWF with your magus you would need to target normal AC.