Full attack and energy ray

[Diego Hopkins]

Can a technomancer cast energy ray twice in one round as a full attack?

Pg 331 says that "All offensive combat actions, even those that don't damage opponents, are considered attacks. Anytime you would need to make an attack roll to determine whether your spell hits a target, you are considered to be making an attack."

Pg 248 says you can spend a full action to make two attacks.

Pg 364 under magic missile has provisions for making a full attack with said spell.

Full attack allows me to fire two laser pistols in one round, which would be comparable.

I haven't seen the rule limiting you to casting one spell per round, though I may have missed it.

[Imbicatus]

No, casting a spell is a standard action, not an attack. Spells like energy ray allow you to make a free attack as part of casting the spell, but you can't combine two spells into a full attack.

[Diego Hopkins]

"Making a single attack is a standard action. " Pg 244

"Spells that deal damage, spells that opponents can resist with saving throws, and spells that otherwise harm or hamper subjects are attacks." Pg 332

They've gone out of their way to specify that casting an attack spell is considered an attack.

[Sean R]

I'd actually like to see an official ruling. Casting time is vital here. The question arises: is it the outcome of the spell with the casting itself being the action (thus not allowing it), or is the casting inclusive of the effect.

Given that even standard action casting times can be interrupted with attacks and caster checks, I'm likely to vote no on the multiple attacks with spells as a full round action, because then you get no action to cast the spells, but if casting the spell, itself, is considered the attack (not just the attack roll effect of the spell), then it may be possible to rules-lawyer into it.

SFS is Rules-as-Written. So, hopefully we can get an official response on this soon.

[Voss]

Don't need one. Casting time for energy ray is a standard action. Magic missile is standard action, see text (and text says: can also be cast as a full action).

Cast a spell, p246 (which is at least a standard action, unless stated otherwise) is a separate standard action from the attack standard action, p244.

The text on 331-2 is largely defining things so you can't finagle the restrictions on invisibility, sanctuary and similar spells.

Starfinder is pretty restrictive, not permissive, on action types.

Casting spells, like most of the things under standard action, don't include the possibility of doing multiples as full actions.

Attack and Full Attack aren't the same action, and have different requirements.

[Diego Hopkins]

Voss wrote:

Don't need one. Casting time for energy ray is a standard action. Magic missile is standard action, see text (and text says: can also be cast as a full action).

Cast a spell, p246 (which is at least a standard action, unless stated otherwise) is a separate standard action from the attack standard action, p244.

The text on 331-2 is largely defining things so you can't finagle the restrictions on invisibility, sanctuary and similar spells.

Starfinder is pretty restrictive, not permissive, on action types.

Casting spells, like most of the things under standard action, don't include the possibility of doing multiples as full actions.

Attack and Full Attack aren't the same action, and have different requirements.

Again, pg 332 explicitly says spells that require attack rolls, deal damage, etc are attacks. They've also omitted the clarification that the attack roll is simply part of casting the spell. (In the Pathfinder CRB this is explicitly laid out around page 185 in the section about touch attacks.) They've gone out of the way to declare that damaging spells are attacks.

[warbaby2]

Diego Hopkins wrote:

Voss wrote:

Don't need one. Casting time for energy ray is a standard action. Magic missile is standard action, see text (and text says: can also be cast as a full action).

Cast a spell, p246 (which is at least a standard action, unless stated otherwise) is a separate standard action from the attack standard action, p244.

The text on 331-2 is largely defining things so you can't finagle the restrictions on invisibility, sanctuary and similar spells.

Starfinder is pretty restrictive, not permissive, on action types.

Casting spells, like most of the things under standard action, don't include the possibility of doing multiples as full actions.

Attack and Full Attack aren't the same action, and have different requirements.

Again, pg 332 explicitly says spells that require attack rolls, deal damage, etc are attacks. They've also omitted the clarification that the attack roll is simply part of casting the spell. (In the Pathfinder CRB this is explicitly laid out around page 185 in the section about touch attacks.) They've gone out of the way to declare that damaging spells are attacks.

True, but I still think that - as far as multiple actual attacks are concerned - they are considered (standard) actions. Besides, while spells that require an attack roll are considered attacks under certain circumstances (ie. triggering reactions to attacks), the Full Attack action specifically only talks about weapons, not all forms of attacks.

[Eisenfuchs]

bumping this up. also curious if harmful spells on technomancer hacks has an effect on energy ray, it should have one, right?

[Pantshandshake]

There isn't really any ambiguity here. You're using a standard action to cast this particular spell, so there's no full attack available. Magic missile specifically calling out that it can be cast as a full round action is an example of specific trumping general, like Paizo enjoys so much.

[Cellion]

Eisenfuchs wrote:

bumping this up. also curious if harmful spells on technomancer hacks has an effect on energy ray, it should have one, right?

Yep, harmful spells works with Energy Ray

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

Diego Hopkins wrote:

Can a technomancer cast energy ray twice in one round as a full attack?

No, clearly.

For you to be able to do that, making an attack would have to override the rules for casting a spell. They do not. You must fulfill the rules for casting the spell, and that takes a standard action. You can't take more than 1 standard action in a round, so you can't cast the spell twice. It takes a standard action to be able to cast the spell which lets you make one attack, so taking a full action cannot give you multiple attacks with that spell, since you don't HAVE multiple attacks.

Indeed, you can't even take a full action to try to make two attacks. You have to take a standard action to cast the spell. Once you have done that, you can't take a full action on the same round. Cast a Spell is its own action type, called out in the same rules that talk about making attacks and full attacks.

You couldn't even make an attack at all if the rules for energy ray didn't tell you do do so, since you don't have another standard action either. Luckily, the energy ray rules tell you when you cast it you make a ranged attack against a target's EAC. You fire "a" ray. So for completing the spell, you get one free attack as its stated effect. That's why we tell you on page 335 under Descriptive Text that this portion tells you what the spell does and how it works.

If there was a different spell that gave you the ability to make one ranged attack per level and had a duration of one round per level, and it had no other rules saying otherwise., you could certainly make 2 of those at the normal penalties as part of a full action on the round after you cast the spell, since you won't be taking up actions to cast it at that point.

But if a spell takes a standard action to cast, it doesn't matter if it counts as an attack or not, since it has it's own rules that specify what action it takes to cast, and what the result of casting it is.

[Metaphysician]

Just because a given spell is an attack, doesn't mean its not also casting a spell. If you can't cast two spells in a turn, then you don't have two rays to make a full attack with, in the first place.