Basically what I think you are missing is that there are two separate things that spellstrike gives you:
1) The first, free touch attack of a spell can be made with any weapon
2) Remaining charges can now be delivered as part of a regular melee attack you are already able to make with that weapon
Kwauss wrote: What is the basis for limiting it to an attack from that hand? You get a touch attack with that hand for a held charge, why can't you replace it with spellstrike through your main hand weapon?
You aren't limited to making the attack with that hand.
1) You cast a touch spell.
2) You can deliver it with any weapon.
You cannot use TWF though to make your normal main hand attacks then get your off-hand attack with your main hand weapon as well. But with spellstrike you could deliver the charge as part of ANY one of those attacks. Its not restricted in any fashion at all.
First, how does TWF work? Nothing is changed in that. Spellstrike does not required TWF though. Spellstrike simply requires you be making an attack with a melee weapon.
Possibly your confusion is thinking that spell combat is TWF? It's not (and it's also not spellstrike, though spellstrike can be used with either TWF or spell combat).
zieretole wrote: Basically what I think you are missing is that there are two separate things that spellstrike gives you:
1) The first, free touch attack of a spell can be made with any weapon
2) Remaining charges can now be delivered as part of a regular melee attack you are already able to make with that weapon
Ok, I think I see the conflation here. First, let me clean up your list:
1) You can deliver any touch spell with any weapon you are wielding.
2) You can replace the free Melee Touch attack in the casting round with a free Melee Weapon attack.
That is, specifically, what the ability grants you in the order it is presented. Regarding the first allowance, this is not something "logged" or "designated" at the time of casting. You can cast, then quick-draw a new weapon with which to deliver the charge. No where does it say nor imply that you are limited to weapon(s) you were wielding at the time of casting. You can cast a touch spell and then deliver it in any subsequent round with any weapon that comes into your possession; whether you pick it up off the ground, draw it from your sheath, someone hands it to you, you disarm a creature with Unarmed Strike and take their weapon, whatever.
Secondly, keep in mind that even fighting with two (or more) weapons isn't necessarily TWF if you're not taking attacks in excess of your BAB allowance. You could have 4 iteratives and make 4 attacks at BAB, BAB-5, BAB-10, and BAB-15 using 4 separate weapons; say for example a Longsword, Dagger, Boot Blade, and Unarmed Strike (headbutt). You're still inside your BAB allowance so none of these are an off-hand attack. For that matter, none of them are main-hand either because that designation only has meaning for TWF combat rules and you're not using them since you're sticking to your BAB iteratives. You take no TWF penalty and get full Str to all these attacks. All of them can deliver your Chill Touch/Frostbite. Throwing TWF in there simply means you're designating a specific weapon to be your off-hand which will be used to make all off-hand attacks granted by TWF rules. It doesn't interfere with delivering touch charges any more than the aforementioned attack with 4 different weapons would.
I'm not arguing with anything you're saying Kazaan because I agree with it fully. Your list and mine boil down to essentially the same thing in terms of how people should interpret it. What I think you're missing is the actual thing that's being argued here (bbangerter and I ran into the same issue), the attempted loophole due to misunderstanding the "any weapon" part. I'm not trying to say that you can't deliver charges using any weapon in any hand, nor am I trying to say that TWF by itself prevents spellstrikes in any way.
Kwauss wants to know whether a touch attack using the off hand attack granted by TWF can be delivered using his main hand weapon as that same attack. He wants the additional off hand attack (which is in excess of his BAB allowance) to still use his main hand weapon. Essentially, I am trying to say that in that case, you have already decided the hand/weapon using the attack before spellstrike even comes into play, and therefore can't switch the attack to another hand due to spellstrike.
The only reason I've been wording things somewhat oddly is because Kwauss wants rules to explicitly say he can't do it, so I've been expressing what the rules say literally instead of how they should be understood.
Ok, I went back and checked Kwauss's post and I see what you're talking about. I didn't notice it the first couple of times.
@Kwauss: When you TWF, you must designate your off-hand weapon and can only make off-hand attacks with the designated weapon. For instance, if I say I want to TWF with a dagger as my off-hand, I must continue using the dagger for my off-hand attack. When it says you can make a touch attack with "any" weapon you're wielding, that doesn't exempt it from following all other applicable rules such as being unable to make an off-hand attack with your main-hand weapon. You must follow all applicable rules. When you use TWF, you must use separate weapons for main-hand and off-hand attacks. Using Spellstrike to deliver a charge through a melee weapon doesn't exempt you from this. So, if you had, say, cast chill touch and then quick-drawn a Scimitar and Kukri, you could TWF with the Scimitar and Kukri and deliver your charges through these weapons as would be appropriate for TWF. For example, you have 2 iterative attacks and 2 off-hand attacks available with 4 deliveries of Chill Touch. You can deliver chill touch twice with your two scimitar attacks and twice with your two kukri attacks, but you can't make 4 scimitar attacks because you need a second weapon to deliver off-hand attacks. Your problem is that you're reading "deliver charges with melee attacks" to mean that you're starting with two main-hand touches and two off-hand touches and the ability lets you "swap" those touches for any weapon you have to hand. What it's really saying is that you are bypassing "touches" altogether and any legal series of melee weapon attacks you can make can, potentially, deliver a charge. You aren't "swapping out" touches for melee weapon attacks, you're just making melee weapon attacks flat-out.
Now, if you were doing Spell Combat, that'd be a little different. In that case, you can deliver your free touch using the same main-hand scimitar that you use for your iterative attacks. In fact, using cantrips like Arcane Mark and a Close Combat arcana'ed Ray of Frost, you can do this unlimited times per day; get "off-hand" attacks using your main-hand weapon. But for a normal, non-spell-combat full-attack, you can't do what you're pursuing by default rules.
I think the missing piece for me was this - the only rule that lets you attack with a held charge is the FAQ wording (not the sentence I've been citing). This FAQ clearly says 'you can use the weapon to deliver multiple spell touch attacks per round' - the weapon drives delivery of held charges, there is no ability to replace held charge touches with melee attacks (just the free one). I was misunderstanding the FAQ as clarifying that first sentence, when in fact it's independent (there really is no rules text from UM stating you can use held charges through your weapon).
So with TWF (feat or not) the individual weapon attacks can be replaced with a spellstrike. So, round two, if TWF, I can spellstrike main hand and touch with chill touch, or spellstrike and hit with main and off-hand weapon (or improved unarmed strike) the held spell. Which is what you've all been saying...
Now, presumably it's mechanically identical with a double weapon (e.g. staff magus).
Kwauss wrote: I think the missing piece for me was this - the only rule that lets you attack with a held charge is the FAQ wording (not the sentence I've been citing). This FAQ clearly says 'you can use the weapon to deliver multiple spell touch attacks per round' - the weapon drives delivery of held charges, there is no ability to replace held charge touches with melee attacks (just the free one). I was misunderstanding the FAQ as clarifying that first sentence, when in fact it's independent (there really is no rules text from UM stating you can use held charges through your weapon).
So with TWF (feat or not) the individual weapon attacks can be replaced with a spellstrike. So, round two, if TWF, I can spellstrike main hand and touch with chill touch, or spellstrike and hit with main and off-hand weapon (or improved unarmed strike) the held spell. Which is what you've all been saying...
Now, presumably it's mechanically identical with a double weapon (e.g. staff magus).
Yes. You've got it straight now it sounds like. And it would work the same for a double weapon.
Now you got it. And it is identical with a double weapon; you simply have a "held charge" which is not held in any particular limb or weapon. Normally, you'd need to make a melee touch attack in order to deliver that charge. It's only when you decide to use the Spellstrike feature that you get an additional option for delivery aside from making a Touch attempt; making a weapon attack. Just as with a normal touch, the charge isn't "stored in your hand" so much as directed through it. The energy of the spell is in a sort of "subtle field" around your whole body that is concentrated for delivery at the point of contact. The only thing Spellstrike changes is that this point of contact where the energy gets concentrated can be on the striking surface of a held weapon rather than a part of your body. So whether it's using a pair of kukri or a quarterstaff, you're simply discharging the spell with the contact of the weapon rather than contact of your body.
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