Readying Touchs against Attacks

[Elbedor]

I was asked this and thought it a good question that I didn't have a RAW answer for. So figured I'd toss it in here to get feedback:

A wizard casts Shocking Grasp and holds the charge as he steps into a room with an enemy monk in it. The wizard goes first and readies an action to discharge the spell into the monk at the moment the monk hits him. On the monk's turn, the monk makes an unarmed attack and hits the wizard. The readied action is triggered. So now what happens?

Does the wizard need to make a touch attack roll? Or does the shocking grasp discharge automatically since contact is being made at that moment between the two?

Thoughts?

[chaoseffect]

It may seem unintuitive, but there is no RAW support for hitting the Wizard triggering the Shocking Grasp. You still need to roll to touch the Monk.

[Elbedor]

Oh, I understand that sometimes the rules don't make sense. Consider inviting an AoO when you divert your attention from the attacker to his weapon as you try to sunder it...and he gets a free attack...with the weapon you're focusing on. :p

But that aside, I wasn't sure if there was anything specific that allowed or barred this. Granted, just because a wizard has a held charge doesn't mean it discharges when you hit him with something. The contact is deemed too brief to allow that. Otherwise casters would be virtual walking landmines. So the wizard needs to actively do the "touching"...although this branches into other questions about what happens when a wizard is grappled or when an ally grabs him to drag him to safety, etc.

I just didn't have an answer to give (no rule to point to) with regards to when the said wizard had the action readied to discharge once contact by the enemy was made.

[Bob Bob Bob]

To be fair, that section of the rules is a terrible mishmash of stuff from different editions (I refuse to believe someone wrote it that counterintuitive).

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.

If you take "touch anything" to extremes then the spell goes off when you touch the floor/air/water/whatever. What was implied (but to the best of my knowledge, never outright stated except maybe in a FAQ?) is that you "hold the charge" in a specific limb/hand/finger. Whether the spellcaster can move where on the body the charge is being held (or how they would do it) is completely unaddressed in the rules. The easiest way to do it is simply to to make the readied action a touch attack to discharge the spell, if they miss the touch AC they'll still have the charge held.