Pathfinder Chill Touch, totally confusing.


Rules Questions


Hey Pathfinder Community.
I Have a huge problem regarding "Chill Touch"

Range: touch
Targets: creature or creatures touched (up to one/level)
Duration: instantaneous

A touch from your hand, which glows with blue energy, disrupts the life force of living creatures. Each touch channels negative energy that deals 1d6 points of damage. The touched creature also takes 1 point of Strength damage unless it makes a successful Fortitude saving throw. You can use this melee touch attack up to one time per level.

So much for the description. Now the main question. In the rules it says, that if the spell says to touch multiple targets, you HAVE to do the attacks within that single round. So you cant keep the charges over multiple rounds in this case.
BUT you also just get 1 free touch attack from casting a spell or not?
So does it mean this spell is reducted to that one touch attacks and possible opportunity attacks till your next turn? or do you really get like up to 20 touch attacks at level 20 for 1 round.
You cant use the full action rule for 6 targets either, since they have to be non hostile in that case.

Please help me, i searched like hours on the internet already and still havent got a satisfied answer.


You get 1 free touch attack on the round you cast the spell.

Any charges not expended on the round you cast the spell fall under the rules for holding a charge.

Holding the Charge 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.


Thats exactly the point you wont, look at the second part.
It is exactly written in the spell, that you can touch multiple targets where the second rule is applied and NOT holding the charge.

Touch Spells and Holding the Charge:

In most cases, if you don’t discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round until the spell is discharged. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates.

Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets as part of the spell. You can’t hold the charge of such a spell; you must touch all targets of the spell in the same round that you finish casting the spell.


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Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

The specific rules within the spell Chill Touch itself override the general rules you are quoting.


JJ got asked about chill touch ages ago
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page=513?Ask-James-Jacobs-ALL-your-Qu estions-Here#25604


JJ's interpretation is interesting, and boosts the power of an underused spell -- and I like it -- but it is totally unsupported by the Rules As Written. But whether you take the Held Charge interpretation or the JJ interpretation, for sure you do not have to use up all charges in one round. IMNSHO, the "touch multiple targetsin a single round" rule is intended to apply to delivering buffs to allies, for example, Water Walk and Water Breathing.

By funny coincidence, I just wrote a blog post on delivering touch spells that you may find useful.

http://www.cayzle.com/screeds/book111.html

Dark Archive

How is JJs "ruling" anything other than describing it as a held charge spell? Seems like the exact definition of "indefinitely" to me. Level X gets X touches, they are held indefinitely until you touch something/anything X times. Melee touch attacks against opponents count, as do touches on friends (ouch, no no in PFS). This spell is generally the exact one used to describe how holding the charge works.


JJ's interpretation says that you CAN cast other spells and NOT lose your remaining unused Chill Touches. Standard Held Charge rules say that if you cast another spell your unused touches disappear.


Volkard Abendroth wrote:

You get 1 free touch attack on the round you cast the spell.

Any charges not expended on the round you cast the spell fall under the rules for holding a charge.

Holding the Charge 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.

Volkard is absolutely correct. If a touch spell has multiple charges, they exist indefinitely until expended, or at least until the caster casts another spell (at which point in time, the touch spell in question would immediately dissipate).

So to clarify: E.G.: A level 5 caster, and let's just for funsies say that this particular caster has TWF.

Round1: Touch of Whocareswhatitdoes is casted as a Standard Action - with a free touch attack - at 1charge/level - so 5 charges

Round2: The caster makes two touch attacks this round, and with each touch attack, Touch of Whocareswhatitdoes goes off IF YOU HIT, if you do not hit, it does not go off.

Round3: The caster makes two touch attacks AGAIN this round, and with each touch attack, Touch of Whocareswhatitdoes goes off IF YOU HIT, if you do not hit, it does not go off.

And so on and so forth, UNTIL, 5 charges are expended, OR, the caster casts another spell.

Fun fact: Touch spells can inadvertently go off, even when touched accidentally by allies or normal "passerbys" while the Touch spell is active. Touch spells are indefinite, so if you don't dispel it somehow, that Touch spell lingers upon you until the next soul you touch (which may even be your horse or even your familiar), so be safety conscious while using touch spells peeps.


Thats why my grippli uses his tongue for that! although he does sometimes randomly lick things...

Scarab Sages

This FAQ isn’t directly answering this question, but it indirectly does while describing how spells with multiple touch attacks work for Spellstrike/Spell Combat.

Ultimate Magic FAQ wrote:

Magus, Spellstrike: If I cast a spell that allows multiple touch attacks, can I deliver all of those spell touches through my weapon?

Yes. For example, if you cast chill touch (which allows multiple touch attacks), you could use spellstrike to cast and deliver the spell through your weapon, and in later weapon attacks you could use your weapon to deliver the remaining spell touch attacks (one spell touch attack per weapon attack).

If you have multiple attacks per round with that weapon (such as from having a BAB of +6 or higher), you can use the weapon to deliver multiple spell touch attacks per round, so long as you have uses of that spell touch attack remaining.

For example, if you are an 8th-level magus (BAB +6/+1) and you cast chill touch, you have up to 8 uses of that spell touch attack. If you make two weapon attacks in a round, you can deliver two spell touch attacks per round (one for each successful weapon attack).

Note the example at the end which talks about making attacks over several rounds.


Answered directly in FAQ.

FAQ wrote:

Touch Spells: If a spell allows multiple touches, are you considered to be holding the charge until all charges are expended?

Yes.

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