Touch spells in a grapple, touches per round?

[Interesting Character]

Some touch spells, such as Chill Touch, give you multiple charges to attack with, but these charges can be discharged even on accident or by the action of someone other than the caster, but what happens if the contact is continuous such as when grabbling or when holding on to someone, then how quickly can the spell charges discharge?

Such spells can discharge without an attack so it can't be by attacks made.

If we look at the maximum number of possible touches without continuous contact, you get around a dozen maximum (the number of touch attacks the caster makes, touches from attacks of opportunity which would be one or possibly two, and then the number of touches from the target touching the caster from their attacks. So, with 4-6 attacks per round at high level by the caster and target, plus one aoo from the target and you get 9-13 touches.)

Of course, spells expecting multiple touches is 6 per round, but that assumes the caster is going from one person to the next multiple times which is about once per second, and also assumes all the touches occur on the caster's turn, both limits do not apply to chill touch (or similar) in a grapple.

[avr]

Chill touch needs an attack to discharge. Every offensive touch spell I can think of does actually; what's the exception you're thinking of? Harmless touch spells on willing targets are a different subject entirely.

[RAWmonger]

“ 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“

I think if someone touches the caster, it immediately uses one charge. But only one charge, for as long as the contact remains, or until the caster willingly discharges. But you absolutely do *not* need to make touch attacks against a target that was dumb enough to touch you while you were holding a spell. I think on your turn, if he maintained his grappled , you can discharge as many times as as many attacks you have that round, I’m not certain though

[Ryze Kuja]

Touch Spells in Combat wrote:

Touch Spells in Combat

Many spells have a range of touch. To use these spells, you cast the spell and then touch the subject. In the same round that you cast the spell, you may also touch (or attempt to touch) as a free action. You may take your move before casting the spell, after touching the target, or between casting the spell and touching the target. You can automatically touch one friend or use the spell on yourself, but to touch an opponent, you must succeed on an attack roll.

Touch Attacks: Touching an opponent with a touch spell is considered to be an armed attack and therefore does not provoke attacks of opportunity. The act of casting a spell, however, does provoke an attack of opportunity. Touch attacks come in two types: melee touch attacks and ranged touch attacks. You can score critical hits with either type of attack as long as the spell deals damage. Your opponent’s AC against a touch attack does not include any armor bonus, shield bonus, or natural armor bonus. His size modifier, Dexterity modifier, and deflection bonus (if any) all apply normally.

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.

Grapple wrote:

Grapple

As a standard action, you can attempt to grapple a foe, hindering his combat options. If you do not have Improved Grapple, grab, or a similar ability, attempting to grapple a foe provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver. Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll. If successful, both you and the target gain the grappled condition. If you successfully grapple a creature that is not adjacent to you, move that creature to an adjacent open space (if no space is available, your grapple fails). Although both creatures have the grappled condition, you can, as the creature that initiated the grapple, release the grapple as a free action, removing the condition from both you and the target. If you do not release the grapple, you must continue to make a check each round, as a standard action, to maintain the hold. If your target does not break the grapple, you get a +5 circumstance bonus on grapple checks made against the same target in subsequent rounds. Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to perform one of the following actions (as part of the standard action spent to maintain the grapple).

Move

You can move both yourself and your target up to half your speed. At the end of your movement, you can place your target in any square adjacent to you. If you attempt to place your foe in a hazardous location, such as in a wall of fire or over a pit, the target receives a free attempt to break your grapple with a +4 bonus.

Damage

You can inflict damage to your target equal to your unarmed strike, a natural attack, or an attack made with armor spikes or a light or one-handed weapon. This damage can be either lethal or nonlethal.

Pin

You can give your opponent the pinned condition (see Conditions). Despite pinning your opponent, you still only have the grappled condition, but you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC.

Tie Up

If you have your target pinned, otherwise restrained, or unconscious, you can use rope to tie him up. This works like a pin effect, but the DC to escape the bonds is equal to 20 + your Combat Maneuver Bonus (instead of your CMD). The ropes do not need to make a check every round to maintain the pin. If you are grappling the target, you can attempt to tie him up in ropes, but doing so requires a combat maneuver check at a –10 penalty. If the DC to escape from these bindings is higher than 20 + the target’s CMB, the target cannot escape from the bonds, even with a natural 20 on the check.

If You Are Grappled

If you are grappled, you can attempt to break the grapple as a standard action by making a combat maneuver check (DC equal to your opponent’s CMD; this does not provoke an attack of opportunity) or Escape Artist check (with a DC equal to your opponent’s CMD). If you succeed, you break the grapple and can act normally. Alternatively, if you succeed, you can become the grappler, grappling the other creature (meaning that the other creature cannot freely release the grapple without making a combat maneuver check, while you can). Instead of attempting to break or reverse the grapple, you can take any action that doesn’t require two hands to perform, such as cast a spell or make an attack or full attack with a light or one-handed weapon against any creature within your reach, including the creature that is grappling you. See the grappled condition for additional details. If you are pinned, your actions are very limited. See the pinned condition in Conditions for additional details.

Between the Touch Spell and Grapple rules, there isn't a whole lot of guidance for making Touch Spells while Grappled. But in the Touch Spell rules, it definitely does not say that as long as you remain touching a target, then touch spells with multiple charges continue to discharge, so let's throw that out right now. Otherwise, one could argue that if you had 20 charges of Frostbite, and you grapple your target, that all 20 of the charges would get discharged within 1 round, or 2 rounds, or one could argue that 6 Frostbite charges would go off on the same target within 1 round, or w/e, and that's simply not feasible and nowhere in the rules.

Tbh, I would rule that you would need to break contact with your Grappled target for each individual Touch Spell to "accidentally" or "purposely" discharge. And the only reason I'd rule it that way is because of my own logic for how the Touch Spells work. Touch Spells with multiple charges discharge every time you Touch anything, whether on "purpose" or an "accident", so if you maintain a continuous "Touch" of something, such as a Grappled target, you've still only "Touched" him once. This is just my opinion though.

But the Grappling rules do provide for Unarmed and Natural attacks to be made while Grappled, and Touch Spells can be discharged from Unarmed or Natural Attacks. So if your table wanted to make a different ruling, you could rule that if you succeed at a Grapple attempt to make an Unarmed/Natural attack, which would allow for discharging one charge of a Touch Spell that had multiple charges. Alternatively, if you want to have "Continuous Touch", then 1 charge gets discharged every 1 round you maintain the Grapple/Touch? I think either of these rulings would be fair as well.

And to be fair, the Combat Maneuver rules absolutely suck. I don't think I've been to a single table that didn't have a small laundry list of house rules in place to deal with situations like this, and I'd suggest you do the same.

[willuwontu]

I could've sworn there was something that said unintentional discharges were harmless, but I can't find the section right now.

[Volkard Abendroth]

A grapple attempt is an attack roll. A successful attack roll delivers a held spell.

I would rule that any successful grapple by someone holding a charge is a hit. The same for any ability that allows a grappler to inflict natural weapon damage on a grappled opponent.

I would not give automatic discharges to the target of a grapple for the same reason you would not deliver a charge to anyone striking you with an unarmed attack / natural weapon or have the caster discharge held spells into the ground as he walks.

[Interesting Character]

First, Volkard, you are assuming the caster is the grappler. Not always the case.

Second, you are thinking purely in mechanics, like an abstract game of totally balanced rules, but what would happen if it were real and not just a game? (this relates to the difference between those who play the rules vs those who play game. A difference going back to the very founders of the rpg concept given that it was Gygax who initially referred to "play the rules vs play the game" so it is a very valid line of questioning)

Third, to quote the rules "If you touch anything or anyone while holding a charge, even unintentionally, the spell discharges." Obviously we need to use some judgement to exclude the items the caster is already wearing and the ground and such, but it is quite clear that a touch spell can discharge without desire or effort of the caster and can indeed discharge against others from mere and even accidental contact. This directly contradicts your assertion of not discharging against someone attacking the caster unarmed.

In fact I've used a held spell as defense against incoming attacks as a tactic since literally my very first character and never had any gm tell me it didn't work, ever. So your assertion that a charge spell wouldn't discharge against an enemy that attacks a caster unarmed puts you in a very small minority. I'm honestly surprised you'd even make the claim that it wouldn't discharge against successful unarmed attacks much less use it as a reference of expected behavior.

[Interesting Character]

Chill Touch specifies "hands" but is the only spell I know that specifies a body part to be the toucher.

Now, as noted in my reply to Volkard, there are two halves to consider, the rules side and the game side. I'm entirely on the "play the game" side of things myself but as a gm I can't ignore the "play the rules" folks, however I always come at it from the fictional world physics first then build mechanics from that.

So to start, how dies the spell touching actually work, narratively speaking? I see some potential answers.

First, literal charges, the caster gathers spell energy into discrete packets and each packet discharges through the spell matrix instantly, like electricity jumping a gap, then the spell matrix connects to the next packet of energy, but doesn't discharge into anything already in contact. This would discharge once a grappled enemy but also would require breaking the grapple in order to release the next charge, preventing the caster from using the spell multiple times without breaking the grapple between each charge.

Second, continuous discharge. This concept is the spell continuously discharges against a target while contact remains. Normally such contact is brief enough to be handled with the normal attack rules, such as a touch attack or unarmed strike, but you can readily explain a low dmg roll as being a brief contact and a higher dmg roll as the contact lasting a bit longer. Thus, in a grapple, the target would take continuous dmg from the spell till it depleted, much like being immersed in lava does continuous dmg. Exactly how quickly the spell discharges, and thus how many charges the grappler takes per round is uncertain but needs to at least equal the number of attacks any character could make in a round. 6 makes sense since a friendly touch spell can touch 6 folks per round, so having a grappler get hit by 6 charges per full round of contact follows suit.

Third, indiscrete pulses. With this one, each charge is a pulse triggered by touch or by the caster's will, and the next pulse readies automatically. A low dmg roll indicates the contact breaking off before the pulse reached it's peak, while a high dmg roll indicates the contact lasting longer. The pulses are the charges, so the caster only gets one pulse per charge, but it also means the dmg isn't continuous. This would initially act the discrete charges but the caster could initiate the next pulse as desired meaning a grappled target would be hit by a charge when entering the grapple but would not take further dmg until the caster released another charge (though unlikely to need an actual attack roll since the target is in contact and the caster doesn't need to do anything to touch the target, but initiating pulses still takes an attack.

It should be noted that touch need not be skin to skin. This can be definitely known from the fact that such spells can hit a target through their armor (if armor could block a touch from hitting a character, the spell would hit the armor if the attack was high enough to hit touch ac but too low to hit normal AC. This is because armor is an active and passive defense, if a character can avoid a touch spell by taking the hit on the armor, then normal AC would be used. Given that objects as well as creatures can be targeted by such spells, this can be explained by saying that such spells are drawn to life/unlife energies, so a creature's worn gear are so close to the creature a touch spell basically travels through them into the creature, but when unattended, there is no creature energy to draw the spell effect away from the object. Wielded weapons are in a vague grey zone here, they can be considered either like the rest of the character's gear and touch spells get drawn to the wielding creature, or it can be considered that the touch is so far from the wielding creature that the weapon ends up targeted instead.

Snyway, just food for thought. I personally prefer the continuous option, but pulses is the most straightforward and suitable for "play the rules" folks, however, discrete charges is more interesting and the best for handling players that try every loophole to get what they want and dominate everythjng.

[bbangerter]

RAWmonger 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“

I think if someone touches the caster, it immediately uses one charge. But only one charge, for as long as the contact remains, or until the caster willingly discharges. But you absolutely do *not* need to make touch attacks against a target that was dumb enough to touch you while you were holding a spell. I think on your turn, if he maintained his grappled , you can discharge as many times as as many attacks you have that round, I’m not certain though

Would you also discharge charges when you are hit by a sword, or shot by arrows?

[bbangerter]

Interesting Character wrote:

Chill Touch specifies "hands" but is the only spell I know that specifies a body part to be the toucher.

Which is why dragons, which have claws, and not hands, can't use the spell...

Or, don't read to much into the use of the word "hands" in that. Rules are written from the perspective of bipedal humans as the common case that makes it easy to visualize. But really touch spells have no specific body part/limb associated with their delivery. Bite, gore, head butt, knee to the face - they are all good for delivering a touch spell.

[Ryze Kuja]

bbangerter wrote:

RAWmonger 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“

I think if someone touches the caster, it immediately uses one charge. But only one charge, for as long as the contact remains, or until the caster willingly discharges. But you absolutely do *not* need to make touch attacks against a target that was dumb enough to touch you while you were holding a spell. I think on your turn, if he maintained his grappled , you can discharge as many times as as many attacks you have that round, I’m not certain though

Would you also discharge charges when you are hit by a sword, or shot by arrows?

RAW, yes. If you touch anything, it discharges. Enemies, allies, doors, walls, arrows, weapons, etc. I personally think that's a bit stupid, so I only enforce it when they touch enemies, allies, or NPC's.