Magus spellstrike + spell combat


Rules Questions

Dark Archive

My understanding of this interaction is as follows: full round action, cast shocking grasp, free action granted by spellstrike/touch spell to deliver it through my sword, then a normal melee attack granted by spell combat.

A gm at a recent pfs game told me that the delivering it through my sword is the rest of the action and as such I would not get that second swing. Is this correct?


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The GM is incorrect.

READ THIS GUIDE.

This IS a difficult set of rules to follow, so I wouldn't expect a PFS GM to know this without taking them through it first. I would make a print-out of that guide I just linked and send it to them before your game, and discuss it before you play.


Did the PFSociety subforum get nuked? I can't see it on the list?

Anyways. You have it right, but lets walk through it anyways.

Announce your full round action is Spell Combat. You can either do your melee attacks before or after you cast your spell. When you cast a touch spell (or a spell converted by Magus Arcana to touch) you can perform a Spellstrike which gives you a melee attack with your weapon at full BAB (but includes all penalties you've accumulated for this round, including the -2 for selecting Spell Combat) and if that hits it delivers the touch spell as well as doing its normal melee damage.

If you have a standard action you can do a Spellstrike without doing Spell Combat. If you do it as a standard action you only get the one 'free' melee attack and the touch spell.

If you miss with a spellstrike, you still have the touch spell 'held' until you deliver it, or until you cast another touch spell. So you could wiff and then deliver it with a later melee attack. Starting with the spellstrike gives you at least 1 more opportunity to deliver the spell that same round by following up with a successful melee attack.

Dark Archive

Is there by chance any official ruling?

The GM in question is unlikely to change their stance as their justification was (paraphrasing): they had a 10th level Magus and it would be nice if there was an official ruling but there is not.


Ok, no there is no FAQ for this because IT IS TOO OBVIOUS HOW IT WORKS.

So you need to walk your GM through it step by step.

First, get him to acknowledge that you could use Spell Combat to do a full round attack and cast a non-touch spell like Shield in the same round. So you get your normal full round attack plus cast a spell.

Second, get him to admit you could cast an offensive spell like Fireball or Magic Missile in the same round as a part of Spell Combat. So you get your normal full round attack plus cast a spell. Around this time the GM should be looking a little sheepish.

Now point out that you get a free touch attack from casting at touch spell as outlined under 'Cast A Spell' in the 'Touch Spell' subsection in the Combat chapter of the core rulebook.

Finishing blow is that Spellstrike says you get to make a Free Melee Attack with your weapon instead of the Free Touch Attack you get for casting the spell. And spellstrike can be used anytime you cast a touch spell, which can be as a Standard action, or as part of a full round Spell Combat.

Dark Archive

I don't want to try and argue with a GM at my local store, I'll just play a different character at their tables.


DrytheSA wrote:
My understanding of this interaction is as follows: full round action, cast shocking grasp, free action granted by spellstrike/touch spell to deliver it through my sword, then a normal melee attack granted by spell combat.

Correct.

UM wrote:
Spell Combat (Ex): At 1st level, a magus learns to cast spells and wield his weapons at the same time. This functions much like two-weapon fighting, but the off-hand weapon is a spell that is being cast. To use this ability, the magus must have one hand free (even if the spell being cast does not have somatic components), while wielding a light or one-handed melee weapon in the other hand. As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action (any attack roll made as part of this spell also takes this penalty). If he casts this spell defensively, he can decide to take an additional penalty on his attack rolls, up to his Intelligence bonus, and add the same amount as a circumstance bonus on his concentration check. If the check fails, the spell is wasted, but the attacks still take the penalty. A magus can choose to cast the spell first or make the weapon attacks first, but if he has more than one attack, he cannot cast the spell between weapon attacks.

Also, see this FAQ.

FAQ wrote:

Magus, Spell Combat: If I use spell combat, how many weapon attacks can I make?
You can make as many weapon attacks as you would normally be able to make if you were making a full attack with that weapon. For example, if you are an 8th-level magus (BAB +6/+1), you could make two weapon attacks when using spell combat.

Edit 9/9/13: This is a revised ruling about how haste interacts with effects that are essentially a full attack, even though the creature isn't specifically using the full attack action (as required by haste). The earlier ruling implied that spell combat did not allow the extra attack from haste (because spell combat was not using the full attack action).

Since using Spellstrike isn't an action, delivering the Touch Attack through your weapon doesn't change any of that.

DrytheSA wrote:
A gm at a recent pfs game told me that the delivering it through my sword is the rest of the action and as such I would not get that second swing. Is this correct?

Being able to cast a spell without losing your normal attacks is the whole point of Spell Combat. If it worked the way that your GM describes then it would never be useful. You'd always be better off just casting the spell and delivering the Touch Attack through your weapon using Spellstrike. That way you'd avoid the -2 penalty and still have a Move Action. What exactly does your GM think Spell Combat is for?


Meirril wrote:
Ok, no there is no FAQ for this because IT IS TOO OBVIOUS HOW IT WORKS.

It's not as obvious as that. There are a LOT of rules in play, and some of them are specific to the Magus class (meaning he may not have read over recently).

The reason this is so difficult is because most of us just aren't that familiar with the rules for tough-spells (until we play a Magus and have to learn them).

The GM sounds like they're having the most trouble with the interaction of Spellstrike, so let's go through this step by step:

1. Spell Combat with Burning Hands would let you cast the spell, and then also attack with your weapon.

2. Spell Combat with Shocking Grasp (delivering with your hand) would let you cast the spell, deliver the spell with a touch (free action in the round you cast as per the Touch Spell rules), then attack with your weapon.

3. Spell Combat with Shocking Grasp (delivering with spellstrike) would let you cast the spell, replace the touch attack with a weapon attack (this doesn't change the action, so it's still a free action), then attack with your weapon.

So the 2 things the GM might be having trouble with are the free action from casting a touch spell, or the interaction it has with Spellstrike. The rules are all written there, but putting them all together is a bit of a headache.

At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell. If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell combat, this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by spell combat melee attacks. This attack uses the weapon's critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifier.

I also cannot stress enough how much GRICK'S GUIDE helped me understand all of this.


I'd bring it up with the venture LT or who ever. That's a fundamental intreprative error on the GM's part.

You can also direct them to this thread or any of the others like it.

The preceding statement could be interpreted as passive aggressive or as a backhanded way of rudely suggesting that OP should have made better use of the search function. My intention is only to offer sincere help, not to demean or insult anyone (except possibly OP's GM).

a highlight of that thread ia a link to a statement by Jason Bulmahn that the abilities interact the way we say they do, and much of the rest is some flavor of "The GM is an idiot" and arguing about whether the abilities are clear or not.


It is actually pretty obvious--everything you need is right there in the descriptions of spell combat and spellstrike. It's not exactly novice material, but it's something literally every PFS judge had better be able to process if they're going to adhere to PFS's "give me RAW or give me death!" axiom. Especially since it's fundamental to how a magus uses its two primary class features.


And yes, spellstrike and spell combat works with zero level spells.

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