Magus and wands

[Erikkerik]

I'm legal a bit confused when it comes to magus' and the use of wands through spellcombat and spell strike, especially together wieth the tiefling tail trait.

First of all, there is an arcana that lets you use spell combat with wands, so obviously it is not normally legal to do so. Unless wand wielder only opens up for the use of wands with spells that aren't on the magus list.

Why is this, is it because 1)

1) Activating a wand (with a spell from the magus list) does not count as casting a spell.
or
2) The wand wielder arcana removes the restriction of needing a free hand hand to do spell combat, you can now do it when you are holding a wand in your hand and activating that wand also.
3) Both of the above.

If option 1 or 3, magus will not be able to use wands (say of shocking grasp) with spell combat, even with the wand wielder. Both require you cast a spell from the magus spell list.

If it's only 2, a tiefling prehensilie tail would allow the use wands through spell combat even without wand wielder.

So what is right? Does activating a wand with a spell from the magus spell list count as casting a spell from the magus spell list or not?

[Maezer]

Erikkerik wrote:

If option 1 or 3, magus will not be able to use wands (say of shocking grasp) with spell combat, even with the wand wielder. Both require you cast a spell from the magus spell list.

Nothing about wand wielder requires the spell to be from the magus spell list or requires you to 'cast a spell'. You are replacing the 'cast a spell' portion of spell combat with activate a wand.

By RAW, wand wielder does not removes the requirement for the free hand thus is largely unusable as it require one hand to be wielding a weapon and the other to be free.

Thus I have to believe RAI is that it eliminates the need for the free hand (as you don't need to complete somatic components for a wand or staff) which I believe was a large part of the justification for requiring the free hand.

Erikkerik wrote:

Does activating a wand with a spell from the magus spell list count as casting a spell from the magus spell list or not?

No activating a wand is different from casting a spell.

[Erikkerik]

Maezer wrote:

Erikkerik wrote:

If option 1 or 3, magus will not be able to use wands (say of shocking grasp) with spell combat, even with the wand wielder. Both require you cast a spell from the magus spell list.

Nothing about wand wielder requires the spell to be from the magus spell list or requires you to 'cast a spell'. You are replacing the 'cast a spell' portion of spell combat with activate a wand.

 

Sorry i ment with spell strike

[Nefreet]

The Wand Wielder arcana just lets you use wands in place of casting a spell during Spell Combat. You cannot Spellstrike with a wand, since you are not "casting a spell". If you do a forum search you'll actually find a thread I started asking that same question. My Magus' wand of choice is True Strike for that reason.

Claiming that the Wand Wielder arcana is unusable is seriously pedantic, btw. I think the intention is easily understood. Not every developer believes they have to spell out every possible interpretation of a class feature.