Are there any notably useful ways to get a player character to have an at-will supernatural/spell-like ability that require a touch attack that are worth the price of Conductive?
Right now, the best method I can think of is using planar ally and using a conductive weapon as part of the bargain price of a suitable outsider and letting said outsider use the weapon to great effect before going home with it, and that's not really in the spirit of what I'm looking for.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
A Warlock Vigilante can get decent use of Conductive with Mystic Bolts.
At-will abilities in PF are rare and usually weak. Conductive usually gets used with some 3+Stat mod per day ability.
That said, the kinetic blast of a kineticist might be worth using with a conductive gun. A warlock vigilante might find it easier to use their mystic bolts as a rider to some other attack than to use them alone.
Ah, yes, kineticists! I forgot about those. Thank you for the reminder. Probably a lot of fun ways to use that.
Warlock Vigilante, huh? It does have some additional versatility over a flaming/frost/etc. weapon property, a bit more power on an individual hit, but can only enhance one hit/turn. Worth considering, but probably not a high priority. (Needing to wait until fifth level to actually be able to use it isn't much of a downside given the cost of a conductive weapon) It's an interesting idea, so thank you for that. :)
conductive weapons are great because of the improved action economy. You can deal damage AND add debuffs like Touch of Chaos, Laughing Touch or Moonbeam. Most of these are sometimes not worth a standard action.
It's handy for Anti-Paladins too, if you swing that way. Some of the Cruelties are nasty if they stick!
Incidentally the Anti-Paladins can also get a semi-permanent summoned companion that can make decent use of conductive weapons at some levels.
If you can have a reasonably high WIS, then a single level of Separatist Cleric can add plenty of Conductive fun. Like a Separatist of Pharasma with Repose and Chaos Domains, so that you get 3+WIS uses/day of both Gentle Rest and Touch of Chaos. With a 16WIS through natural stat and item, you'd have 6/day strong Conductive uses.
If we're talking about building a melee build from scratch to make good use of Conductive, there are plenty of interesting things to do.
It may be worth noting that some races get a FCB that improves uses/day of 3+X abilities...
If you can have a reasonably high WIS, then a single level of Separatist Cleric can add plenty of Conductive fun. Like a Separatist of Pharasma with Repose and Chaos Domains, so that you get 3+WIS uses/day of both Gentle Rest and Touch of Chaos. With a 16WIS through natural stat and item, you'd have 6/day strong Conductive uses.
If we're talking about building a melee build from scratch to make good use of Conductive, there are plenty of interesting things to do.
It may be worth noting that some races get a FCB that improves uses/day of 3+X abilities...
If you have 6 uses of those abilities though, wouldn't you only get 3 conductive uses out of them since conductive consumes two uses of the ability?
Yes; you end up with 3 of each, for 6/day uses of Conductive.
You can also get a lot of uses/day with a Guided Hand Cleric that stacks Wisdom and a FCB that grants more uses/day.
It's also possible to use Domain Strike to channel an ability through an unarmed strike, and to use Ascetic Style to channel an ability through a Monk weapon with Domain Strike. Takes some feats to do, but the up-side is you don't need a weapon property and it only consumes 1 use of an ability.
HEXCRAFTER / ELDRITCH-ARCHER MAGUS.
As a Hexcrafter you get HEXES. These are at-will abilities that should work with a CONDUCTIVE WEAPON.
The problem is that most hexes are ranged, and therefore can't be used with a melee Conductive-weapon on a normal Magus.
The answer is of course to go Eldritch-Archer.
You could always just make a Witch with a bow, but a magus gets a better BAB and that Arcane-Pool enhancement really helps your weapon stay relevant. You also get Spell-Combat which means you get to Full-Attack, cast a spell and use a Hex all in the same Full-Round-Action.
EDIT: Also as far as I can tell these 2 archetypes stack. That's important of course.
As a Hexcrafter you get HEXES. These are at-will abilities that should work with a CONDUCTIVE WEAPON.
Nope.
...that relies on a melee or ranged touch attack to hit its target...
Hexes don't use any kind of attack roll.
Hexes don't use any kind of attack roll.
Healing hex acts like Cure L/M Wounds, so yes it'd need an attack roll against an undead or creature with negative energy affinity.
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Conductive is priceless for an antipaladin: extra damage and a powerful debuff for the same price. In Way of the Wicked I have just got a +1 conductive falchion; can't wait to use it.
In an undead heavy campaign you could also consider the paladin, but you wouldn't add any debuff, and that is the real value of a conductive weapon: the free debuff.
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Healing hex and most other hexes can only be used against a single creature 1/day, so I'm not sure how that would affect the interaction with Conductive. At the very least, you'd only be able to use it 1/day per creature.
What about something simple like the elemental touch spell?
EDIT: I also like the idea of using it with Blessings, if they weren't so limited use. Repose Blessing is a no save 1 round stagger effect (longer against undead).
What about something simple like the elemental touch spell?
That wouldn't work under most circumstances; you deliver spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities with conductive weapons, not actual spells. You might feasibly be able to house-rule it if you prepare two of the same spell or burn two spell slots on a spontaneous caster, but RAW it wouldn't function.
This could be circumvented by turning spells into spell-like abilities however. For example, Spell Hex. It'd give you three uses of a 1st-level spell per day as a hex, which means you could effectively "spellstrike" once per day with the chosen spell and still have one use left. Of course the option comes fairly late to really be useful for the purpose of a conductive weapon, IMO, but it is an option.
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Read elemental touch closely. It is not a range touch spell. It's target: you. It grants you a touch attack (with uses limited only by duration) for 1 round/level. Granted, it's not explicitly labeled as Ex, Su, or Sp, but I think it's consistent with what Conductive normally does.
It's a big investment given that you could just spend the +1 Enhancement on flaming or something similar, but you'd get to choose your element and get a small debuff. It doesn't make sense as the only use for Conductive for a character, but if you also have other uses then it's an option to extend the number of uses per day.
EDIT: So to clarify the sequence for a 5th level caster...
Round 1 - Cast elemental touch choose Cold, Move up.
For 5 rounds, you now possess a 1d6 Cold damage touch attack, which requires a Fort save or be fatigued. It does not have limited uses like with chill touch.
Round 2-5 - Use Conductive to attack, conducting your 1d6 Cold touch attack through the weapon.
...that relies on a melee or ranged touch attack to hit its target...Hexes don't use any kind of attack roll.
Dagnabbit!!
Yeah it looks like the only ones that work are:
BLIGHT HEX (useless for combat)
HEALING HEX (Good in an undead heavy campaign)
HARROWING CURSE (Maybe? Touch attack with card ... not sure actually)
MAJOR HEALING (Good in an undead heavy campaign)
LIFE GIVER (Good if someone dies next to you and you don't want to spend a full-round-action to revive them and instead only take 1 attack ... If that happens to you often enough to warrant a conductive weapon you have bigger problems)
It looks like the only good ones are Healing/Major-Healing. And only in an undead campaign.
Healing hex and most other hexes can only be used against a single creature 1/day, so I'm not sure how that would affect the interaction with Conductive. At the very least, you'd only be able to use it 1/day per creature.
The actual wording for the limit on these hexes is this:
Once a creature has benefited from the (major) healing hex, it cannot benefit from it again for 24 hours.
This means you can target them as many times as you want, but they're only affected once (Someone trying to cheese this could point out that since undead don't "benefit" from this you could hit them more than once with it ... let's just ignore the cheesy people).
This is actually pretty good for said undead-campaign.
Level 5 Hexcrafter with the Healing Hex gets 2d8+5 (~14) bonus damage on the first round attacking undead.
Level 12 Hexcrafter with Major Healing & Healing hexes gets 3d8+12 (~25.5) bonus damage on the first round & 2d8+10 (~19) if that enemy survives to a second round (~44.5 bonus damage over 2 rounds).
Level 15 Hexcrafter with Major Healing & Healing hexes gets 4d8+15 (~33) bonus damage on the first round & 2d8+10 (~19) if that enemy survives to a second round (~52 bonus damage over 2 rounds).
At level 5 an extra 14 damage is nothing to be scoffed at, and at level 15 any enemy that can survive a Magus full-attacking for 2 rounds is pretty tough. An extra 52 damage is never something to be scoffed at.
Only good if you know you're fighting a lot of undead though, so there's that.
One other thing to consider is getting a BONDED WEAPON or the CRAFT MAGIC ARMS AND ARMOUR Feat (same end result).
This changes the cost of the weapon, which could mean you don't feel the cost as much:
+1 weapon = 2 000 gp, +1 Conductive bonded-weapon = 4 000 gp
+2 weapon = 8 000 gp, +2 Conductive bonded-weapon = 9 000 gp
+3 weapon = 18 000 gp, +3 Conductive bonded-weapon = 16 000 gp
+4 weapon = 32 000 gp, +4 Conductive bonded-weapon = 25 000 gp
+5 weapon = 50 000 gp, +5 Conductive bonded-weapon = 36 000 gp
For a +1 weapon you're spending 2 000 gp more (100% more)
For a +2 weapon you're spending 1 000 gp more (+12.5% more)
For a +3 weapon you're spending 2 000 gp less (~11.1% less)
For a +4 weapon you're spending 7 000 gp less (~21.9% less)
For a +5 weapon you're spending 14 000 gp less (28% less)
LIFE GIVER (Good if someone dies next to you and you don't want to spend a full-round-action to revive them and instead only take 1 attack ... If that happens to you often enough to warrant a conductive weapon you have bigger problems)
I can shoot my friends alive? Incredible!
LIFE GIVER (Good if someone dies next to you and you don't want to spend a full-round-action to revive them and instead only take 1 attack ... If that happens to you often enough to warrant a conductive weapon you have bigger problems)I can shoot my friends alive? Incredible!
Shoot? No.
Stab? Yes
I suppose a gnome hexcrafter spending a point on their racial favored class bonus would be the way to go in said undead-heavy campaign. Why spend money on conductive when you can spend an arcane pool point and a swift action instead?
An occultist can use legacy weapon to get conductive too, though it costs a standard action. With the talisman crafter archetype they can cast their spells as melee or ranged (Su) touch attacks providing the spells target one or more creatures. Finally, a few of their knacks/cantrips meet this qualifier, so they meet the OP's condition of at-will. Daze at longbow range sounds like it might be useful to someone.
Edit: And that last can be used to shoot your friends to life with the temporary resurrection spell.
I like this idea. I'm going to have to find a way to use it.