I'd read it as simultaneous, which would mean that the cure spell wouldn't heal the whip damage but the target wouldn't fall momentarily unconscious either.
I'd read it as simultaneous, which would mean that the cure spell wouldn't heal the whip damage but the target wouldn't fall momentarily unconscious either.To extend that logic then, you would be ok with Harm triggering simultaneously with the weapon hit? Basically, Harm drops them to (a minimum of) 1, and then the weapon drops them below 0?
Yes, IMO. The only-to-1hp limit in harm was always a bit of a joke.
Since the weapon has to hit I would rule, personally, that any spell goes off *after* the weapon deals damage. That's just my thoughts though.hmmm...
I think the opposite would happen. As you touch the enemy the spell would trigger and that would be before you get through all the of the defenses with the weapon. The weapon would still be on the armor before you could follow through and apply enough pressure to hurt the person under the padding.
Spellstrike specifically requires you to hit against regular AC (not Touch AC), so the spell won't go off when you hit the armour. You would have to hit hard enough to do damage before the spell triggers.
I definitely don't think the spell goes off before the weapon damage, and I'm not sure how it should/could/would work if they're simultaneous. Having the weapon damage apply first seems the easiest and most consistent, but I'm not sure enough to say it's definitely the case.
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Just only hit people who have a +1 or higher armor bonus. Then the whip won’t deal any non lethal damage. Even whip mastery says “you can deal damage” to an armored opponent. The word “can” in an ability usually means you can choose not to. Spellstrike doesn’t require that any damage from the weapon actually gets through in order for the spell to affect the target. Just that you hit their normal AC.
A spellstrike should be the same as any other multi-faceted attack. Every lethal damage, nonlethal damage, and heal (remembering the general rule that heals have equal effects on lethal and nonlethal) is applied, and then you check the net result to determine the target's status.
Eddie, a commoner, has a +1 flaming burst scimitar, and happens to be proficient (yay, wasted feat). His brother, a not very strong third level magus named Bernie, is also proficient and was letting Eddie practice with his blade.
1. He crits a bandit. (2d6+2 = 10) slashing and (1d6+1d10 = 7) fire. The bandit takes 17 damage, and is not enjoying life.
2. He crits a Fire Eater, which heals 100% of fire damage taken. (2d6+2 = 9) slashing and (1d6+1d10 = 12) fire. The Fire Eater heals 3 hp!
3. Bernie crits a spell-strike with Shocking Grasp. Too bad for him, Fire Eaters have lightning resist 10. (2d6+2 = 10) slashing, (6d6-10 = 13) lightning, and (1d6+1d10 = 11) fire. 10+13-11 = 22 damage!
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Now let's consider the dwarven "white magus" (nature-bonded magus) explorer, Gudrun Hargordam. She wants to whip her fighter boyfriend Torsten Ulfbrechtson back into shape with a spell-strike Cure Light Wounds, after some nasty critters got him down to 3 hp.
4. Gudrun deals 7 nonlethal, and her CLW does 9 healing.
- The "lethal" portion of the CLW is easy to figure out: Torsten is at 12 hp.
- The nonlethal healing exceeds the nonlethal damage by 2, so Torsten would heal (remove) up to 2 nonlethal, taking none otherwise.
- Since his nonlethal was never above his current HP, he never gets KO'd.
5. Let's suppose, however, that she CRITS with the whip. CLW isn't subject to crit, even with spell-strike, when its normal effect would heal; so now Torsten gets ultra-kinked for 14 nonlethal and 9 healing.
- Once again, the "lethal" portion is easy: Torsten is at 12 hp.
- The nonlethal damage exceeds the nonlethal healing by 5, so Torsten takes 5 nonlethal damage.
- Even though 5 nonlethal on 3 hp = KO, Torsten's status when the attack resolves is 5 nonlethal on 12 hp. No KO.
Hope that helps?
3. Bernie crits a spell-strike with Shocking Grasp. Too bad for him, Fire Eaters have lightning resist 10. (2d6+2 = 10) slashing, (6d6-10 = 13) lightning, and (1d6+1d10 = 11) fire. 10+13-11 =2212 damage!
Thank you that break-down did help, and that seems right to me.
5. Let's suppose, however, that she CRITS with the whip. CLW isn't subject to crit, even with spell-strike, when its normal effect would heal; so now Torsten gets ultra-kinked for 14 nonlethal and 9 healing.
Again just to clarify for people: Cure spells CAN crit, but only when used to harm undead (or anyone else who takes damage from positive energy). You can't crit with cure spells when healing your allies.
First, @MrCharisma: Thanks for the correction. Carried an extra 1 somewhere. >.<
This probably doesn't need to be said, but just to make sure it is perfectly clear to OP:
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.Any spell you want to use with Spell Strike has to be on the Magus spell list. There are ways to sneak spells onto your spell list for that class, so its technically possible to get this situation. However, I wanted to point out that a character that has both Cleric and Magus levels can't use Spell Strike to deliver spells you receive from the cleric spell list, unless they happen to be on the magus spell list too.
There's some controversy over that with regard to the Phantom Blade spiritualist archetype. By strict RAW, broken language causes the PBS's spell combat and spellstrike to literally break (as there's little overlap between the attack-dominant magus list, and the rather cleric-like spiritualist list.
I think most people translate it so that the PBS "spell-combats" and "spell-strikes" using spiritualist spells though.
Also, the nature-soul magus archetype gets one druid spell at each spell level onto the magus spell list.
This probably doesn't need to be said, but just to make sure it is perfectly clear to OP: (...) Any spell you want to use with Spell Strike has to be on the Magus spell list.
The OP's character is a Phantom Blade Spiritualist. It's generally agreed that when your class feature works like the class feature form another class, you replace all instances of that class with your class.
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3. Bernie crits a spell-strike with Shocking Grasp. Too bad for him, Fire Eaters have lightning resist 10. (2d6+2 = 10) slashing, (6d6-10 = 13) lightning, and (1d6+1d10 = 11) fire. 10+13-11 =2212 damage!
I'm still confused.
Shouldn't it actually be TWO damage?
10 slashing + [13 lightning - 10 lightning resistance] - 11 healing from fire
As to the original question, overall I think it makes the most sense to apply the weapon damage first and then the spell effect but only look at the NET results once all effects have been applied. For the 'healing whip' scenario this would result in the target not falling unconscious because we treat the effects as all having happened at the same time. However, for the 'Harm weapon' attack it results in the target still being at 1 hp because we have an order of operations... the weapon damage is applied first and THEN the spell reduces the target to 1 hp.
3. Bernie crits a spell-strike with Shocking Grasp. Too bad for him, Fire Eaters have lightning resist 10. (2d6+2 = 10) slashing, (6d6-10 = 13) lightning, and (1d6+1d10 = 11) fire. 10+13-11 =2212 damage!I'm still confused.
Shouldn't it actually be TWO damage?
10 slashing + [13 lightning - 10 lightning resistance] - 11 healing from fire
Yes, yes it should =P
As to the original question, overall I think it makes the most sense to apply the weapon damage first and then the spell effect but only look at the NET results once all effects have been applied. For the 'healing whip' scenario this would result in the target not falling unconscious because we treat the effects as all having happened at the same time. However, for the 'Harm weapon' attack it results in the target still being at 1 hp because we have an order of operations... the weapon damage is applied first and THEN the spell reduces the target to 1 hp.
Yeah I think that's the way I look at it too.
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3. Bernie crits a spell-strike with Shocking Grasp. Too bad for him, Fire Eaters have lightning resist 10. (2d6+2 = 10) slashing, (6d6-10 = 13) lightning, and (1d6+1d10 = 11) fire. 10+13-11 =2212 damage!I'm still confused.
Shouldn't it actually be TWO damage?
10 slashing + [13 lightning - 10 lightning resistance] - 11 healing from fire
No; please allow me to clarify.
- The slashing damage is 2d6+2, 2d6 (rolled 8) base and 2 enh = 10.
- The lightning damage is 6d6-10, 6d6 (rolled 23) base and -10 (due to lightning resist) = 13.
- The fire "damage" is 1d6+1d10, 1d6 (rolled 6) from flaming and 1d10 (rolled 5) from additional burst effect. Reversed to healing, this heals 11.
Thus, 10+13 = 23 net damage, vs. 11 healing. Applying both at once, we ended with 12 damage (my mistake being that I originally said 22.)
(2d6+2 = 10) slashing, (6d6-10 = 13) lightning, and (1d6+1d10 = 11) fire. 10+13-11 =2212 damage!I'm still confused.
Shouldn't it actually be TWO damage?
10 slashing + [13 lightning - 10 lightning resistance] - 11 healing from fire
No; please allow me to clarify.
- The lightning damage is 6d6-10, 6d6 (rolled 23) base and -10 (due to lightning resist) = 13.
Gotcha. That was harder than it should have been =P
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This probably doesn't need to be said, but just to make sure it is perfectly clear to OP:
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.Any spell you want to use with Spell Strike has to be on the Magus spell list. There are ways to sneak spells onto your spell list for that class, so its technically possible to get this situation. However, I wanted to point out that a character that has both Cleric and Magus levels can't use Spell Strike to deliver spells you receive from the cleric spell list, unless they happen to be on the magus spell list too.
The Broad Study magus arcana is core to the weird build of Magus/Cleric/Mystic Theurge.
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The Broad Study magus arcana is core to the weird build of Magus/Cleric/Mystic Theurge.This probably doesn't need to be said, but just to make sure it is perfectly clear to OP:
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.Any spell you want to use with Spell Strike has to be on the Magus spell list. There are ways to sneak spells onto your spell list for that class, so its technically possible to get this situation. However, I wanted to point out that a character that has both Cleric and Magus levels can't use Spell Strike to deliver spells you receive from the cleric spell list, unless they happen to be on the magus spell list too.
What level does that build enter mystic theurge? You need 6th level Magus to take Broad Study, so... 10th level?
I agree the Phantom Blade should use the Spiritualist list for spellstrike.
I guess it is time to add a drop of fuel here :(
So you say mechanic is weapon then spell for a spell
Will that include touch spells as well?
It should only include Touch spells since we're talking about Spellstrike. There are abilities that change this (the Close Range arcana, Hexcrafter has an arcana as well), but the default is that you can only use Spellstrike with Touch range spells.
If you strike with a touch spell on the weapon would the spell be released before the weapon damage?
This is essentially what's being questioned with this thread.
It should theoretically be simultaneous, but there are some scenarios where that offers more questions than answers:
1. Healing an ally with Cure light Wounds and a whip - does the ally fall unconscious due to the whip's non-lethal damage before being healed by the spell? (Current consensus is "No" I believe)
2. If you delover the "Harm" spell, does can the weapon damage take them below 1hp even though the spell cannot (I don't know if we have consensus, but I say "No".)
Would the effect be based off the type of spell or does it matter?
For most spells it doesn't matter, but there are a few that do. The type of spell shouldn't matter, it's more specific edge cases where the spell is doing something unusual, or something nit really designed to be an offensive spell.
Just in case there is confusion, we are NOT talking about Spell Combat. Spell Combat can be performed as either: Attack/Attack/Spell or Spell/Attack/Attack (putting the spell either first or last, but not in between attacks). There are other threads and guides explaining this in detail that would be better than here.
Hmmmm... you might be right. I've seen a fair few discussions about it and the result has always been that you can't crit when healing, but I don't remember the reasoning. It might not take into account Spellstrike or Alchemist Bombs.
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Healing can't crit because it isn't damage, and damage is the only thing defined as being increased by a crit. It's come up in discussions of healing bombs IIRC.
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Vhok - Again, I see no reason why you can’t choose to not use whip mastery on the attack. So if the target has any armor bonus at all, then they ignore the damage from the whip. So in the instance you present, you could deal no damage with the whip and just heal. (Unless they were unarmored/not mage armored/etc.)
In every other instance, you total everything first then figure out where that leaves them.
You wouldn’t, for example, have someone hit by a Spellstrike shocking grasp take the physical damage, trigger their life’s breath talisman if it put them negative, then take the shocking grasp damage (edit possibly triggering a second item). You would figure all that damage first, then the talisman would trigger.
Harm is a corner case. The real question should be what happens if you cast harm on someone who is already at negative hitpoints? If the physical attack doesn’t leave them at negative hitpoints, then we know they can only be taken to 1 by the spell. If the attack would leave them at negative, then would harm normally heal them? I don’t think so. It’s not going to kill them either. What almost certainly doesn’t happen is harm putting them to 1 and then the attack is applied. It’s attack damage plus harm damage. If the attack damage alone would put them negative, they’re negative. If the attack damage wouldn’t put them negative, but attack damage plus harm damage would put them negative, they are at 1.
Edit - “Harm cannot reduce the target's hit points to less than 1.” If harm isn’t the thing reducing their hitpoints below 1, then it’s not going to increase them to 1.
Hmmmm... you might be right. I've seen a fair few discussions about it and the result has always been that you can't crit when healing, but I don't remember the reasoning. It might not take into account Spellstrike or Alchemist Bombs.
Healing does not normally require an attack role.
There is no actual rule that you cannot crit, other than that it requires an attack roll.
Healing can't crit because it isn't damage, and damage is the only thing defined as being increased by a crit. It's come up in discussions of healing bombs IIRC.Healing is damage as I pointed out earlier
I can be damage but isn't always.
If you're attacking undead it's damage and can crit.
If you're healing an ally it's not damage and thus can't crit.
I feel like if you want to really get into this it deserves its own thread (or resurrect an old one, there are a few). Either way this has the potential to derail this thread entirely, so if you want to continue it I'd suggest moving elsewhere.
Healing can't crit because it isn't damage, and damage is the only thing defined as being increased by a crit. It's come up in discussions of healing bombs IIRC.Healing is damage as I pointed out earlierI can be damage but isn't always.
If you're attacking undead it's damage and can crit.
If you're healing an ally it's not damage and thus can't crit.
I feel like if you want to really get into this it deserves its own thread (or resurrect an old one, there are a few). Either way this has the potential to derail this thread entirely, so if you want to continue it I'd suggest moving elsewhere.
Normally healing does not crit because there is no attack roll.
With spellstrike, there is an attack roll. Normal rules for attack rolls apply, including the ability to crit.
In your case it doesn't matter because you are using a heal spell.
Please provide the RAW supporting your statement.
When you make an attack roll and get a natural 20 (the d20 shows 20), you hit regardless of your target’s Armor Class, and you have scored a “threat,” meaning the hit might be a critical hit (or “crit”). To find out if it’s a critical hit, you immediately make an attempt to “confirm” the critical hit—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made. If the confirmation roll also results in a hit against the target’s AC, your original hit is a critical hit. (The critical roll just needs to hit to give you a crit, it doesn’t need to come up 20 again.) If the confirmation roll is a miss, then your hit is just a regular hit.
The combat rules only care about an attack roll being made. They do not care why you made the attack roll.