Casting Frostbite Outside of combat

[rando1000]

A player is trying to cast frostbite outside of combat, hold the charge, and then enter combat later and deliver the charge as a free action.

My argument is that just because you can hold a charge doesn't mean you get a free action NEXT round if you choose not to take it the round you cast, let alone casting outside of combat. Casting the spell doesn't make you faster, you're just able to both cast and attack in one round, if you choose.

Am I wrong?

[Weables]

correct. You only get the 'touch your enemy' free action on the round you cast the spell. any round after that you need to make an attack using your actions as normal.

Quote:

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.

I grabbed the relevant text from the combat section of the PFSRD and bolded the important part. You can make touch attacks round after round, but making a touch attack is a standard action.

That being said, he can then use a regular attack to deliver both unarmed and frostbite damage, so I've seen players use this strategy to up their damage a little, but not in the way he's using it.

[rando1000]

Yeah, cast the spell two rounds ago, used a standard this round to use a wand, move to walk up, and "free action" from casting the spell to attack. So no.

[Weables]

also, I'm not 100% sure about this, but I don't believe you can use a wand while holding a charge. it would fall under casting another spell, as per the text above.

[rando1000]

Probably, but that's another issue. I'll settle for not completely abusing the system and deal with that another time.

[Andre Roy]

Don't even need to go that far. Look at the following sentence (bold).

Quote:

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.

Unless the wand was in his hand while casting, as soon as he grabs the wand from where ever it was, it would constitute "touching" it thus discharging the spell on the wand/himself.

[Volkard Abendroth]

Weables wrote:

also, I'm not 100% sure about this, but I don't believe you can use a wand while holding a charge. it would fall under casting another spell, as per the text above.

Using a wand is activating a spell trigger, it is NOT casting.

They are two very different actions governed by completely different sets of rules.

That said, touching a wand will discharge your held spell. If you want to activate a spell trigger item while holding a charge, there are other options.