Will touch-range spells kill my horse?

[Zhalk]

I'll be simple:

Can cast a touch spell without blasting my mount right away?

I mean: If you touch anything while holding a touch-ranged spell, even by accident (as long as it is a valid target) you discharge the spell.

Does the touch of my knees count?
If not, why?
Is it because only my hands are "charged" with the spell? Or because I'm using pants?
If the second, does a glove ruin every touch spell?

I'm playing a Magus at the moment, and then I sudden realized that mounted combat casting a Shocking Grasp might not be wise.

Any thoughts?

[Zhayne]

Welcome to 'no details are given in the rules, but your GM shouldn't be a douche about it' territory.

[Louis Lyons]

No. Touch spells do not mean you become like an electric eel and let loose your magic on whatever living thing happens to be touching you. Otherwise, a GM could rule that your spell goes off and is wasted if a fly lands on you.

Your spell only goes off when you want it to and you are touching the target, releasing the spell's energy.

[Tinalles]

Here's a line from the spell description for Shocking Grasp.

PRD wrote:

Target creature or object touched

And here is the relevant text from the chapter Magic, "Aiming a spell" section:

PRD wrote:

Target or Targets: Some spells have a target or targets. You cast these spells on creatures or objects, as defined by the spell itself. You must be able to see or touch the target, and you must specifically choose that target. You do not have to select your target until you finish casting the spell.

If you choose your horse as your target, well, I guess we're having fried horse for dinner.

But if you do NOT specifically choose your horse as your target, then he gets to live to be eaten by a hideous monster that he would never have encountered if you hadn't taken him from his nice safe paddock into the barren wastelands on some damn fool quest or other.

[Diego Rossi]

Missing a few pieces of the rules, Tinalles.

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. 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.

You start holding a charge the round in which it is cast unless you attack immediately, so it will discharge if you touch anything.

The key word is touch. if you use an extensive interpretation fo the term, touching something in any way will discharge the spell. But that mean that you will discharge the spell if you touch the ground, your equipment or any other thin.

The interpretation that is usually utilized is way more restrictive and the only touches that matter are those done by your hands.
The magus FAQ somewhat support that, as tehy say:

FAQ wrote:

Magus: Can a magus use spellstrike (page 10) to cast a touch spell, move, and make a melee attack with a weapon to deliver the touch spell, all in the same round?

Yes. Other than deploying the spell with a melee weapon attack instead of a melee touch attack, the magus spellstrike ability doesn’t change the normal rules for using touch spells in combat (Core Rulebook page 185). So, just like casting a touch spell, a magus could use spellstrike to cast a touch spell, take a move toward an enemy, then (as a free action) make a melee attack with his weapon to deliver the spell.

On a related topic, the magus touching his held weapon doesn’t count as “touching anything or anyone” when determining if he discharges the spell. A magus could even use the spellstrike ability, miss with his melee attack to deliver the spell, be disarmed by an opponent (or drop the weapon voluntarily, for whatever reason), and still be holding the charge in his hand, just like a normal spellcaster. Furthermore, the weaponless magus could pick up a weapon (even that same weapon) with that hand without automatically discharging the spell, and then attempt to use the weapon to deliver the spell. However, if the magus touches anything other than a weapon with that hand (such as retrieving a potion), that discharges the spell as normal.

Basically, the spellstrike gives the magus more options when it comes to delivering touch spells; it’s not supposed to make it more difficult for the magus to use touch spells.

On the basis of the above FAQ, what matter is what your hand touches.

So, to reply to the OP, your horse will not suffer any harm unless you touch it with your hand.

[Lincoln Hills]

So, you know, don't scratch when you itch.

On a slightly related note, even casting fire shield on yourself won't injure your horse within rules-as-written, though you should definitely still check with your GM before relying on that.

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

Yeah, I think the intent here is that you need to keep your hand free to hold the charge. If you touch anything with your hand, the spell goes off, but the rest of your body (or even your other hand) should be fine.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to hold a charge unless you were flying, as your feet in contact with the ground would discharge the spell.

[Beating A Dead Horse]

Depends on the horse

[Zhayne]

Benchak the Nightstalker wrote:

Yeah, I think the intent here is that you need to keep your hand free to hold the charge. If you touch anything with your hand, the spell goes off, but the rest of your body (or even your other hand) should be fine.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to hold a charge unless you were flying, as your feet in contact with the ground would discharge the spell.

And you'd have to be naked.

[Tinalles]

Diego Rossi wrote:

You start holding a charge the round in which it is cast unless you attack immediately, so it will discharge if you touch anything.

Correct.

The problem was that I missed the part where the OP asked about holding a charge. I thought he was only asking about the first round, and planned to immediately discharge the spell, which would make the whole section about holding a charge irrelevant.

And now that I look at the holding charge section, this is one of those cases where you really have to apply some common sense. Otherwise you'd end up with scenes like this:

My Twisted Imagination wrote:

GM: Okay, the goblin's turn is done. Player Bob, you're up.

Player Bob: Great! I cast Shocking Grasp.

GM: There's nobody within reach of you.

Player Bob: Yeah. I'm going to hold the charge for next round, or maybe an attack of opportunity.

GM: What are you wearing?

Player Bob: Huh? It's a T-shirt, dummy.

GM: No, I mean what is your character wearing?

Player Bob: Oh! He's wearing a robe and wizard hat.

GM: Too bad.

Player Bob: Why's that?

GM: You have made physical contact with an object while holding the charge of a Shocking Grasp spell. Namely, your robe. Roll damage.

Player Bob: But, but ...

GM: Roll. Damage.

Player Bob: rolls damage: 3d6 ⇒ (2, 3, 2) = 7 damage to the robe.

GM: Your robe is just cloth, right?

Player Bob: Yeah.

GM: Great! Its hardness is zero, it has 2 hit points, and your spell has dealt enough to destroy it. It falls to the ground in tatters around your ankles, and the goblins laugh at you.

Player Bob: That's absurd. What's the point of even having rules for holding a charge if it's just going to affect your own gear?

GM: Hey, I don't write the rules, I just enforce 'em. For future, note that a planet is an object, and so is air. So if you want to hold the charge on something, you better be naked and floating in a vacuum. And heaven help you if your tongue makes contact with your teeth.

Player Bob: ... you really just want to get my character naked, don't you?

GM: I admit nothing.