WH witched Touch attacks / Final Embrace / Aoos

[Tashanna]

Hello,

I've made another thread about White Haired Witches but since I have other unrelated questions I decided to create a new thread.

So here they are :

1) When you constrict a creature, do you reapply any remaining touch spells you were holding the charge with?
Let's say for example that I have frostbite up and I hit a creature and make my grapple check, would the constrict deal the damage of the frostbite once more?

2) So there's this feat called Final Embrace that some people say is useful for White Hair Witches because it is supposed to make the constrict a free action.

Honestly it confuses me more than anything for several reasons :
First of all the feat says you can normally constrict only creatures one size smaller than you, where does this come from? Does this apply to white haired witches?

The second problem I have with this is assuming that one of the requirements is to have the constrict special ability, the feats says you gain that ability once more (should it be modified to be a free action ? ), and introduces a size restriction that shouldn't exist for white haired witches if I'm correct.

Given the number of monsters that are large in PFS it would quite diminish the usefulness of the WHW to be able to constrict only medium or smaller creatures.

3) When you grapple with your white hair, you are not considered as grappled. What does this mean? Could you still make an AOO with that said hair? Could you grapple a second person?

Thanks a lot for your answers in advance !

[Amrel]

Tashanna wrote:

Hello,

I've made another thread about White Haired Witches but since I have other unrelated questions I decided to create a new thread.

So here they are :

1) When you constrict a creature, do you reapply any remaining touch spells you were holding the charge with?
Let's say for example that I have frostbite up and I hit a creature and make my grapple check, would the constrict deal the damage of the frostbite once more?

2) So there's this feat called Final Embrace that some people say is useful for White Hair Witches because it is supposed to make the constrict a free action.

Honestly it confuses me more than anything for several reasons :
First of all the feat says you can normally constrict only creatures one size smaller than you, where does this come from? Does this apply to white haired witches?

The second problem I have with this is assuming that one of the requirements is to have the constrict special ability, the feats says you gain that ability once more (should it be modified to be a free action ? ), and introduces a size restriction that shouldn't exist for white haired witches if I'm correct.

Given the number of monsters that are large in PFS it would quite diminish the usefulness of the WHW to be able to constrict only medium or smaller creatures.

3) When you grapple with your white hair, you are not considered as grappled. What does this mean? Could you still make an AOO with that said hair? Could you grapple a second person?

Thanks a lot for your answers in advance !

1) RAW I do not believe so, as constrict is simply damage you get to add because of a successful grapple check (it isn't a touch attack or an attack action). It specifically wouldn't work for frostbite because that requires a ranged touch attack. RAI though I could see a touch attack working.

2) I think the text is pointing to the grab ability. Many times creatures that have "grab" can only constrict creatures smaller than themselves by one step. The important part for you is that you gain the grab special attack, which allows you to grab as part of an attack action.

Also the point of constrict is that you are crushing something, which logically would be difficult to do. This is easily remedied by casting enlarge person.

3)There are normally penalties you incur for grappling someone (I don't think you can cast spells with somatic components for example). Since in this case its your hair you aren't considered grappled because your body is, for the most part, free to do as it wishes. You can't however AAO with your hair or grapple someone else because you still have to maintain the grapple.

[Pupsocket]

Grappling with held charges is....unresolved. But the last time we had a go at it, the majority view was that one successful grapple roll discharged one charge.

[Tashanna]

That makes sense for 1) (though frostbite is not a ranged but a melee touch) and 3)

I'm still unsure about Final Embrace though tell me if I'm wrong but this is how I see it :

-Without the feat, a WHW can make a grapple check as a free action and then constrict creatures of ANY size as a swift action.

-With the feat, the WHW can still do that (choosing not to use the feat). However, she can use grab (giving her a +4 to her grapple ) and constrict as FREE actions but only on creatures medium or smaller.

Does that seem to you a valid interpretation of the rules?

[Elbedor]

Based on a cursory reading of the rules, it appears that the base ability of the WHW allows for:

Making a Grapple check as a free action and Constricting as a swift action. This can be performed against a target of any size.

Taking the Final Embrace feat still allows for the above. However, now against a target that is your size or smaller, Grappling is done with a +4 bonus and Constricting is a free action.

Sound about right?

Edit: And regarding touch charges, the text says a charge goes off if you touch anything. I'm pretty sure you have to touch something to grapple it. And Grappling isn't static. If I grapple in Round 1, I'm touching the target. And if I need to maintain the grapple in Round 2, that might entail me changing my grip, punching, elbowing, head-butting, wrapping and pinning, etc. All of those involve touching...which discharges a touch attack. But I could understand there being table variety on this.

If I were to play a WHW, I'd probably hit, discharge touch, grapple, constrict, release. All one attack. Then repeat. On the last attack of the Round, I would have to choose between releasing so the hair is free for any AoOs, or not releasing and keeping the target grappled until he either breaks free on his turn or I release on mine before starting the sequence again.

[Tashanna]

Hi, thanks a lot for your answer !

That's exactly what I settled with when playing my first scenario !

It worked out pretty well ;)

[Tashanna]

The only thing that's still bothering me is whether or not I should discharge one charge of Frostbite on a constrict.

[Ranson Sidereon]

Pupsocket wrote:

Grappling with held charges is....unresolved. But the last time we had a go at it, the majority view was that one successful grapple roll discharged one charge.

I would personally agree with Pupsocket's interpretation, it seems fairly balanced.

As for holding the spell with charges/when they go off, I was just looking into this:

Grick wrote:

There's a big level of DM influence on this.

Touch spells in combat: "If you touch anything or anyone while holding a charge, even unintentionally, the spell discharges."

Some folks say that "anything" includes a weapon you're holding, or gloves, or magic rings, or raindrops, etc. Basically walking around with a live wire in your hands.

Other, more reasonable folks say that it's deciding to actually touch something. Either with an attack, or petting a dog, etc.

Some folks go so far as to say if you don't make a touch attack (or unarmed/natural attack) then it doesn't count, so you can pretty much hold a charge as long as you want without worry. (This one seems to go a bit too far, IMO)

(Here's where he was talking about it, though it's only peripherally related to your question)

I would weigh in on option 2, with actually preferring option 3 as both a player and a GM (it just seems so petty to punish people like that). Still, I find that few people would agree with the third option, as he said; I just find the idea that you now have no control over when this charge goes off a little silly: aren't mages all about having at least some level of control over their magic? (hypothetical) If it was a home game, I think I would allow option 3, but the person must make a concentration check (DC 15 + 2x spell level) once per round when touching anything (option 2) they don't want to hit with the spell or it will discharge. Just my feeling; I prefer to let the dice decide stuff, but the situation may apply negative modifiers to the roll.... off-topic.

Anyways, at this point it's all just opinions around here. You might be able to ask James Jacobs, though. He might fire off an answer and just quell this ongoing (and I mean ONGOING) debate for once and all! ... He might.