Touch Spell Criticals?

[Stephen Ede]

If you cast a Touch spell and don't discharge it and in a subsequent turn deliver a critical Unarmed Strike is the Touch spell a Critical as well?

Thanks

[VRMH]

Probably not - you're rolling an Attack Roll for your Unarmed Strike, so it's your Unarmed Strike that crits.

But I've no RAW to back that up.

[bigrig107]

An unarmed strike and a touch attack from a spell isn't the same thing. The touch is not part of your unarmed strike, so you can't get the damage from unarmed strike and the spell.
But yes, if you roll a nat 20 on a touch attack w/ a spell, I believe it is multiplied.

[DeltaOneG]

Yes, if you attack with an unarmed or natural attack while holding the charge the spell will also affect the target of your attack.

This part I'm not so sure about but I'm pretty sure, if the attack crits then the spell will crit as well. However you can argue that since you're not actually attacking with the spell you don't crit with it and that would be more a more direct reading of the rules.

[Kayerloth]

No not normally. You are either delivering a melee touch attack to deliver the spell or your engaging in a melee attack with a weapon (granted in this case the weapon is an Unarmed Strike). Doing both simultaneously is, if I'm not mistaken, the provenance of the Magus or classes with similar abilities. Allowing anyone to do that steps on the abilities of those classes and, as in this case, severely devalues those abilities as class abilities. That said I'm no expert in PF rules or the Magus.

See "Spell Strike"

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.

[DeltaOneG]

source link

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. You 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. (emphasis mine)

Spellstrike allows you to cast and attack. Holding the Charge would require two rounds to pull off and would generally be a waste of good actions excepting a missed touch attempt on the first turn.

[Stephen Ede]

I would point out that Spell Strike does FAR more than hitting a target with a unarmed attack when you have a spell charge stored from a previous round.

Spell Strike -
Allows you to make a Melee Attack with a Weapon INSTEAD of a Touch Attack (Weapons are generally better than unarmed Attacks, as in easier to get attack bonuses).
Allows you to use the crit threshold of the weapon which is probably better than a unarmed Strike.

Unarmed Attacks delivering Touch Spells -
Allows you to use an Unarmed Strike to Deliver a Touch Attack in a SUBSEQUENT combat round So automatically lose a round. Action economy matters!).
Allows you to use the Unarmed crit threshold which is the same as the Touch Attack crit threshold.
Requires you to have spent a feat on Imp Unarmed Strike or have Monk levels. Both a clear sub-optimal moves for a serious Spell Caster.

[Stephen Ede]

Thanks Delta. I remember the relevant rules in 3.5 but couldn't find it in my Pathfinder rules.

[Kayerloth]

Good point about Holding the Charge. It isn't, as pointed out, the same as Spell Strike and my issue would be if you accomplished the SAME thing with what you did. You aren't, you've used, on a prior turn, a standard action to cast a spell then choose to hold the charge. On a subsequent round you are using either and attack action (a specific standard action) or a full attack action (a full round action) to deliver your spell via an unarmed attack.

None of the above paragraph, of course, really answers the question you asked. I'd forgotten about Holding the Charge (duh) so my answer is in error with respect to an unarmed attack (and normally you wouldn't be 'touching' anyone if you were using a melee weapon), but that just leaves you with a 'maybe' it crits maybe it doesn't and other mechanical issues about how it resolves still mostly unanswered.

In the second part of Delta's original post he surmises if the unarmed attack crits the spell most likely also does. I'm mostly in agreement (now :)) except given all the other potential variables here I would not assume the spell threatens on the same roll. If the unarmed strike hits and threatens then I would also see if the spell threatened and then confirm them separately as needed. But the unarmed attack would HAVE to hit before the spell could hit or threaten, regardless, due to the wording under Holding the Charge.

[Stephen Ede]

Yes, thanks.
It seems the rules aren't clear on it but I'm leaning on going for "if the unarmed Attack crits on a 20 threat then the Touch Attack does as well" as a ruling. The RAW while inconclusive gives some support.

I think that's how my player has been running his Acid touch (chill Touch variation) and it gives me some fun when combined with Cyclops Touch of Insight and Snake Swiftness confirm crits using sense motive. Will give the combat a nice DragonBall Z moment when combined with an empowered Touch Attack spell.:-)

[Kayerloth]

Yep the only reason I mentioned treating the threats as separate so confirm them separately as I've had a wizard with an item that augmented both his threat range and damage with touch (range or melee) attacks. Could easily see the reverse being true as well leaving you with times when one would threaten but the other didn't. If the character had Improved Critical(Unarmed Strike) somehow they could threaten and crit while the spell would not normally be considered a threat.

PS: A x3 Disintegrate threatening on 19-20 is scary :D

EDIT: Garbled that a bit so I cleaned it up ... I hope.

[Stephen Ede]

I appreciate you raising the point of seperate crit ranges. The odd thing is that in this case the BBG has improved Crit on his Touch Attacks but not his unarmed strikes.

So I'll run it as a cascade effect for crit posibilities -
1) Roll dice - is in a critical threat on attack method (unarmed Strike)
2) Check if it's also a critical threat on the standard delivery system for secondary damage form.
3) Roll Critical confirmation and apply appropriate multipliers to all damage types that were critical threats.

It's a bit kludgy but will do until they FAQ on Unarmed Strikes delivering Touch Attack spells and how criticals from that situation are resolved.

Thank you for all those who contributed to my question