Magus Aracana - Close range and wand wielder?

[downlobot]

Do the close range and wand wielder magus arcana (aracanae?) work together? E.g. if i had a wand of ray of enfeeblement that fell off the back of a magic truck, could i use it to spell combat and spellstrike if i have both arcana? Or can i only spell combat with the wand, while being able to spell combat and spellstrike if i cast the spell myself?

On a side note, how does the spell 'weaponwand' interact with wand wielder?

This is for a vanilla magus, coming up on level 3. Appreciate your input!

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Short answer: Yes.

They work very well together, and bonus: Unlike spell combat with a spell, using a wand doesn't provoke an AoO.

[Avoron]

Yes, but only because of the exact wording of the ability.

This FAQ states that casting a spell from a wand does not count as "casting a spell." This bars it from being used with normal spellstrike, which fuctions "whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list."

However, Close Range does not require you to actually cast the spell, it just allows you to deliver a ray spell as if it were a melee touch spell, which you can do with spells cast from wands. It also allows the spells to be used with the spellstrike class feature, presumably bypassing all of the normal requirements for spells used with this ability.

[downlobot]

Excellent, thank you both. Does weaponwand mix weirdly with these at all?

[Jack Rift]

Weaponwand for the most part would be unnecessary for this combo.

[Gisher]

I hadn't realized that the wording of close range would allow this. I think it opens up a nice option for a Staff Magus.

Let's say that a 12th level Staff Magus is fighting with a Staff of Many Rays in one hand. He normally gets two attacks per round. At the beginning of the first round of combat, he casts Frostbite with Rime Spell using both Spell Combat and Spellstrike. Now he has three attacks, each of which delivers one charge of Frostbite. The Magus has nine charges left.

Rime Spell Frostbite is a nice debuff, so he would like to continue using the held charges during the second round. He would also like to use Spell Combat and Spellstrike to cast another spell and get another extra attack, but normally casting a spell would disperse the remaining Frostbite charges. But since activating a staff doesn't count as casting a spell, he could use Spell Combat without losing the Frostbite charges. Using Close Range with Spellstrike then would let him use the extra touch attach to deliver both the ray and a Frostbite charge through his Staff. The remaining attacks would deliver Frostbite charges.

He could do the same thing on the third round, which would finally use up the Frostbite charges. So over three rounds, he delivered nine attacks along with eleven charges from three spells. It's not game breaking, but it is nice.