Mord... Ah Mage's Swordmaster?

[armorwars1]

Greetings

Although the spell does not specify. Does the Mage's Sword spell allow multiple attacks if the base attack bonus is high enough to do so?

I have noticed in other force construct spells (Spiritual weapon, Guardian....etc) some of them make it a point to tell you this.

Given its a level 7 spell this would make sense to me.

[blahpers]

Mage's Sword wrote:

The sword attacks its designated target once each round on your turn.

Looks like no. It's not a very good spell.

[armorwars1]

blahpers wrote:

Mage's Sword wrote:

The sword attacks its designated target once each round on your turn.

Looks like no. It's not a very good spell.

Well, I was a bit confused because for example when a bear makes an attack it gets 2 claws and a bite, or a mid to high level fighter makes a full attack he gets multiple strikes. So "attacking its target once" could mean, a series of strikes.

[Trekkie90909]

Nope, it's strictly worse than spiritual weapon. Assuming you have lots of monies and want to do this, I'd use limited wish (same spell level) to cast spiritual ally.

[Derklord]

First, the rules say this: "When a creature’s base attack bonus reaches +6, +11, or +16, he receives an additional attack in combat when he takes a full-attack action (which is one type of full-round action—see Chapter 8)." (CRB pg. 11). For natural attacks a different rule applies: "You do not receive additional natural attacks for a high base attack bonus. Instead, you receive additional attack rolls for multiple limb and body parts capable of making the attack" (CRB pg. 182).

As the conjured sword is not a creature, it shouldn't be affected by the rule. Spiritual Weapon (not a creature either) and Spiritual Ally, which both use your base attack bonus, get iterative attacks, but then again Twilight Knife doesn't.

In the end, the only real guideline to follow is that spells only do what they say they do.

[Dave Justus]

I don't know that spritual ally is better, at least for most wizards and sorcerers.

Spiritual Ally and Weapon use your BAB (and since BAB contains multiple attacks they get those.)

Mage's sword doesn't use your BAB (and doesn't get any base attack bonus from any source) so it doesn't get multiple attacks. It does though get an attack bonus of your caster level, which for a single class wizard or sorcerer is going to be about twice what their BAB is.

Lets pretend that the GM is going to have 'WIS bonus' in spiritual ally be 'Casting Stat Bonus' and so using lesser wish gets INT bonus for a wizard. We will look at a 13th level wizard with an INT of 22 (+6 Bonus)

So for the Spiritual Allys attacks we would have A BAB of +6/+1 for an attack routine of +12/+7. Mage's Sword, as an alternative would have a +13 (CL) + 6 (INT) + 3 (ENHANCEMENT) For an attack bonus of +22. Probably more likely to do damage than the previous against most foes you are running into at that level. Of course the spiritual ally provides flanking and similar things, but that is a separate discussion.

That isn't to say this is a particularly good spell. It is a straight up copy from 3.5. It wasn't great in 3.5 but it was comparatively better as except for a few special builds, most characters in pathfinder out damage similar 3.5 characters, which means when you compare what your wizard does to what your fighter does, it is weaker now that it used to be.