Hello all, I have a question surrounding the use of prehensile hair, spell combat, spellstrike and using a shield. I'll copy / paste the appropriate rules at the end of my question for reference.
Magus has a sword equipped in its right hand and a shield equipped in its left hand (for sake of discussion, assume 0% ASF / 0 Armor Penalty on the shield). Our Magus then activates Prehensile Hair. As Prehensile Hair is listed as functioning as another limb with the dexterity of a human hand able to manipulate objects - can the magus cast all his spells through Prehensile Hair using Spell Combat / Spellstrike while gaining benefits of the equipped shield? Meaning for all intents and purposes, Prehensile Hair is acting like the left hand would without a shield equipped or Prehensile Hair activated. Thoughts?
Thanks for your time.
Prehensile Hair (Su):
The witch can instantly cause her hair (or even her eyebrows) to grow up to 10 feet long or to shrink to its normal length, and can manipulate her hair as if it were a limb with a Strength score equal to her Intelligence score. Her hair has reach 10 feet, and she can use it as a secondary natural attack that deals 1d3 points of damage (1d2 for a Small witch). Her hair can manipulate objects (but not weapons) as dexterously as a human hand. The hair cannot be sundered or attacked as a separate creature. Pieces cut from the witch’s elongated hair shrink away to nothing. Using her hair does not harm the witch’s head or neck, even if she lifts something heavy with it. The witch can manipulate her hair a number of minutes each day equal to her level; these minutes do not need to be consecutive, but must be spent in 1-minute increments. A typical male witch with this hex can also manipulate his beard, moustache, or eyebrows. Source: Ultimate Magic
Spell Combat (Ex):
At 1st level, a magus learns to cast spells and wield his weapons at the same time. This functions much like two-weapon fighting, but the off-hand weapon is a spell that is being cast. To use this ability, the magus must have one hand free (even if the spell being cast does not have somatic components), while wielding a light or one-handed melee weapon in the other hand. As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action (any attack roll made as part of this spell also takes this penalty). 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.
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. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell. If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell combat, this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by spell combat melee attacks. This attack uses the weapon’s critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifier.
There's been a new ruling.
"Magus: When using spell combat, can the weapon in my other hand be an unarmed strike or a natural weapon?
Yes, so long as the weapon is a light or one-handed melee weapon and is associated with that hand. For example, unarmed strikes, claws, and slams are light melee weapons associated with a hand, and therefore are valid for use with spell combat. A tail slap is not associated with a hand, and therefore is not valid for use with spell combat."
So no you can't use your hair as a weapon for spell combat.
Although frankly absurd, it would work perfectly fine when you keep your offhand free and wield the shield with your eyebrows, or unshaved armpits for that matter.
yeah hold the shield with the hair and your fine!
although i would just use a wand of shield and get a +4 shield bonus 50 times for 750g :-)
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I don't think this question was answered.
Normally a magus using spell-combat uses:
hand (A) to cast the spell
hand (B) to wield a weapon
With prehensile hair, we know we can't replace hand (B), but we could replace hand (A). That would mean we could use:
hand (A) to hold a shield
hand (B) to wield a weapon
hair to cast the spell
Isn't that right?
And although I take the point of wand of shield, at higher levels 5000gp buys you a +2 heavy steel mithril shield which you can wield without shield proficiency in hand (A). This is the same as the wand but forms a basis for further enchantments.
Richard
There's been a new ruling.
"Magus: When using spell combat, can the weapon in my other hand be an unarmed strike or a natural weapon?
Yes, so long as the weapon is a light or one-handed melee weapon and is associated with that hand. For example, unarmed strikes, claws, and slams are light melee weapons associated with a hand, and therefore are valid for use with spell combat. A tail slap is not associated with a hand, and therefore is not valid for use with spell combat."So no you can't use your hair as a weapon for spell combat.
But the hair has a hand associated with it since it's prehensile and states it "can manipulate objects (but not weapons) as dexterously as a human hand". I'd argue that a tail slap on a prehensile tail would count also.
the issue is that the ruling is coming from the point of view of a character with ONLY two hands however you can have up to 5 that I can think of (alchemist extra arms and tentacle). You should be able to use any one of those hands to cast and use the remaining to do spell combat/spell strike.
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Oh, right. Thank you.
This one was only 1 month old, mind you, when I cast "animate thread" on it.
It still hasn't been answered. I didn't ask about tail-slaps or about wielding a weapon or a shield with your hair, I asked about using it as your free hand to cast spells.
I think I'm right - but I'm surprised no one's answered.
Richard
GM Arkwright and Makarion answered it perfectly well. No, you can't use the hair for spell combat. But if you wield the shield with the hair and use the hand for spell combat, it's pretty much the same thing and rules-legal.
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GM Arkwright and Makarion answered it perfectly well. No, you can't use the hair for spell combat. But if you wield the shield with the hair and use the hand for spell combat, it's pretty much the same thing and rules-legal.
Unfortunately no, this is incorrect.
Remember shields are considered as weapons now as we learned in the shield bash threads and prehensile hair is explicitly denied the ability to manipulate weapons.So no, you can't get a shield bonus as a magus unless you can grow another actual arm to wield it.
Yes, but you could argue EVERYTHING is a weapon, since you can use a chair, mug, pen, cat, etc as an improvised weapon. So you could argue that you can't really manipulate anything well with the hair.
Or you could just say you can't use an object as a weapon.
This. From current wording, you could wield a shield with your hair - as a shield. You could not perform a shield bash or otherwise attack with that shield.
I would argue that you could even carry a sword using your prehensile hair. You just couldn't attack anything with it, and you wouldn't be considered to threaten with it because you can't attack with it.