Staff Magus / Weaponwand or Staff (later) / Wand Wielder=two handed Spell Combat?

[downlobot]

Sorry, just looking for a little clarification, if possible. As a staff magus, if you cast weaponwand and slip a wand of X into your quaterstaff, can you then (in subsequent rounds) use spell combat with both hands on your quarterstaff (either attacking as two-handed weapon, or two-weapon fighting with appropriate penalties)? Same question for a magic staff.

Question 1, above, is looking only at spell combat.

Questions 2 deals with spellstrike, which seems a bit more confusing. Does activating a magic staff or weaponwand-ed (weapon) count as casting a spell for the purposes of spellstrike (which is distinct from, but can be used in combination with, spell combat)?

Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Edit: to clarify, assuming you have the wand wielder arcana

Edit 2: Staff magus may be a bit of a red herring, but that's who I'd like to build

[downlobot]

Sorry, bump, honestly curious about this.

[t3hd0n]

downlobot wrote:

Sorry, just looking for a little clarification, if possible. As a staff magus, if you cast weaponwand and slip a wand of X into your quaterstaff, can you then (in subsequent rounds) use spell combat with both hands on your quarterstaff (either attacking as two-handed weapon, or two-weapon fighting with appropriate penalties)? Same question for a magic staff.

Question 1, above, is looking only at spell combat.

Questions 2 deals with spellstrike, which seems a bit more confusing. Does activating a magic staff or weaponwand-ed (weapon) count as casting a spell for the purposes of spellstrike (which is distinct from, but can be used in combination with, spell combat)?

Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Edit: to clarify, assuming you have the wand wielder arcana

Edit 2: Staff magus may be a bit of a red herring, but that's who I'd like to build

Staff Magus does not modify spell combat, therefor this rule still applies: "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."

wand casting and spell combat is a huge can of worms, since wand wielder arcana does not specifically say the magus armed with a wand counts as "a free hand" in terms of spell combat.

RAW, it seems the only way to use wand wielder properly requires you to use weaponwand and holding your quarterstaff in one hand (made possible by the free quarterstaff master feat, which is why i assumed they included this at level 1 magus).

question 2 is more straightforward, spellstrike says "whenever a magus casts a spell ...", according to the faq, using a magic item that is "like casting a spell" does not count as "casting a spell" http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9n9y

i would assume this is why they included the wand wielder arcana, because if it counted as "casting a spell" they wouldn't have had to add in the exception at all.

lastly, i'd like to point out that i found your post to find out if weaponwand works on magical staves, since the focus of the staff magus eventually has you using staves (since they can be treated as quarterstaffs). I haven't been able to answer that question yet unfortunately.