So, we have a new weapon trait, and it's pretty neat.
Resonant weapons are currently limited to the Wish Blades and Knives but you can make any weapon you like Resonant with the Conducting Rune and doing so even buffs the damage considerably, from 1/ weapon die to a d8.
To gain this damage you have to have use Conduct Energy, which is a free action you gain when wielding a Resonant weapon. Conduct Energy has the requirement of, "Your last action or spell this turn had the acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic trait."
Assume that you are a character wielding a Resonant Weapon who also used Produce Flame as their first two actions on their turn. At first glance I thought that the requirement of Conduct Energy would preclude it from working with Bespell Weapon or similar other actions that trigger or require your last action to be a spell. But upon reading it again, I noticed that the requirement is worded, "Your last action or spell..." which leaves the door open to two different interpretations of this interaction in my view.
1. Both clauses apply, meaning that if your last action was to use Bespell Weapon, you would not fulfill the requirements for Conduct Energy so could not use it without first using another action with the appropriate trait.
2. Only the appropriate clause applies, in this case your last spell had an appropriate trait allowing you to use Conduct Energy, even though you used Bespell Weapon between the spell and Conduct Energy.
Neither of these free actions are free actions with triggers, so assuming you can satisfy both of their requirements, you can use both of them on the same spell.
Opinions?
Not to be too pedantic, I believe Bespell Weapon requires a noncantrip spell and thus would not work with Produce Flame. But that is beside the point.
I believe the intent is that - because Cast a Spell does not inherit the traits of the spell being cast - the spell portion only matters if your last action was casting a spell. If the text had just stated "You last action...", then it would preclude spells from ever triggering the effect. It could have been worded "Your last action this turn had X traits or was used to cast a spell with those traits" to make that more clear, but that is a bit overly verbose.
RAW seems ambiguous but I believe a strict reading leans towards option 2.
I read it as option two as well.
Does 'last action' encompass the previous turn if you used no reactions?
Bespell Weapon arguably does. But Conduct Energy specifies this turn.
Not to be too pedantic, I believe Bespell Weapon requires a noncantrip spell and thus would not work with Produce Flame. But that is beside the point.
I believe the intent is that - because Cast a Spell does not inherit the traits of the spell being cast - the spell portion only matters if your last action was casting a spell. If the text had just stated "You last action...", then it would preclude spells from ever triggering the effect. It could have been worded "Your last action this turn had X traits or was used to cast a spell with those traits" to make that more clear, but that is a bit overly verbose.
RAW seems ambiguous but I believe a strict reading leans towards option 2.
Good call on Bespell Weapon. I swear every time I look at that feat, I forget that it doesn't work with Cantrips, am then reminded of that and feel silly.
Still, amend my OP to include a non-cantrip spell, and the question still remains. The more I think on it, the more I lean towards option 2 for basically the reasons sited above.
So, we have a new weapon trait, and it's pretty neat.
Resonant weapons are currently limited to the Wish Blades and Knives but you can make any weapon you like Resonant with the Conducting Rune and doing so even buffs the damage considerably, from 1/ weapon die to a d8.
To gain this damage you have to have use Conduct Energy, which is a free action you gain when wielding a Resonant weapon. Conduct Energy has the requirement of, "Your last action or spell this turn had the acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic trait."
Assume that you are a character wielding a Resonant Weapon who also used Produce Flame as their first two actions on their turn. At first glance I thought that the requirement of Conduct Energy would preclude it from working with Bespell Weapon or similar other actions that trigger or require your last action to be a spell. But upon reading it again, I noticed that the requirement is worded, "Your last action or spell..." which leaves the door open to two different interpretations of this interaction in my view.
1. Both clauses apply, meaning that if your last action was to use Bespell Weapon, you would not fulfill the requirements for Conduct Energy so could not use it without first using another action with the appropriate trait.
2. Only the appropriate clause applies, in this case your last spell had an appropriate trait allowing you to use Conduct Energy, even though you used Bespell Weapon between the spell and Conduct Energy.
Neither of these free actions are free actions with triggers, so assuming you can satisfy both of their requirements, you can use both of them on the same spell.
Opinions?
Reviewing the rules text, I would say Option 2 applies, but you have to do things in a specific order and have an understanding GM for it to work.
Step 1: Cast a non-cantrip spell with the appropriate traits (Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, Sonic). This is usually 2 actions, though Quicken spell would help with this.
Step 2: Activate Bespell Weapon. This requires that your most recent action was a spell, meaning you could not utilize Conduct Energy first, or else you fail to meet these requirements. Even Free Actions are still Actions.
Step 3: Activate Conduct Energy. This requires that your last action or spell this turn had the relevant traits. Put into layman's terms, the sentence can be split into two separate meanings, based on the properties of the word "or," which is that either the last action you did having the trait, or the last spell you did (which is irrelevant regardless of when you cast the spell, only if it's done within the same turn and if it's done before you utilize Conduct Energy).
Step 4: Make a Strike (or even utilizing abilities like Flurry of Blows, Twin Takedown, etc.) with 1D6 bonus from Bespell Weapon and 1D8 bonus from Conduct Energy, as well as having a Persistent D8 damage from a critical hit via Conduct Energy (does not stack with Flaming's critical effect, sadly).
Step 5: ?
Step 6: Profit.
Bonus points if you utilize a weapon that already has the Resonant trait (like a Wish Blade), have Haste (giving another attack, even if at a penalty, great for the Agile/Flurry Rangers), use a non-attack roll spell (which won't affect your MAP on that attack this turn), and have something along the lines of Attack of Opportunity, which these benefits will apply to if it triggers. It's not much in the endgame, but it's pretty solid in the level 8-12 range, where you can really expect this to be the standard and especially impactful. A Fighter (or even a Champion, Monk, Ranger, or Rogue) with a spellcasting dedication (or perhaps the upcoming Magus) would make excellent use of this combo. Barbarians would be no good since they cannot cast spells while Raging unless they use Moment of Clarity, which action economy would not permit them to do, even if they were Hasted. Maybe future installments will make this viable, but until then, it's no good.
Some GMs will contest whether you can combine Steps 2 and 3 simply because they might state that, but I believe the wording is binary enough that it will function so long as you utilize Bespell Weapon first, as actions happen more frequently than spells (to the point that Bespell Weapon would otherwise deny working with Conduct Energy).
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As another interesting factoid, this synergizes extremely well with the likes of Spellstrike Ammunition, even with a Spell utilizing an Attack Roll, since activating Spellstrike Ammunition requires Casting a Spell, which triggers Bespell Weapon, and consequently, Conduct Energy, all which can take place right before the Strike, which isn't affected by MAP (as the strike you make with a Bow is the result of your Spell), combines the effects of the Spell Attack, the base Strike damage from your Bow, as well as Bespell Weapon and Conduct Energy.
As another interesting factoid, this synergizes extremely well with the likes of Spellstrike Ammunition, even with a Spell utilizing an Attack Roll, since activating Spellstrike Ammunition requires Casting a Spell, which triggers Bespell Weapon, and consequently, Conduct Energy, all which can take place right before the Strike, which isn't affected by MAP (as the strike you make with a Bow is the result of your Spell), combines the effects of the Spell Attack, the base Strike damage from your Bow, as well as Bespell Weapon and Conduct Energy.
That was definitely my initial thought, a Magus/Eldritch Archer using both to give their spellstrike ammunition a bit more oomph. I'll probably never play that character, but I love trying to see exactly how much damage you can end up stacking up.
Some GMs will contest whether you can combine Steps 2 and 3 simply because they might state that, but I believe the wording is binary enough that it will function so long as you utilize Bespell Weapon first, as actions happen more frequently than spells (to the point that Bespell Weapon would otherwise deny working with Conduct Energy).Your last action is no longer Casting a Spell if you use Conduct Energy or Bespell Weapon. So you no longer meet the criteria of the other ability (in whichever order you do it). They are free actions, but free actions are still actions.
I don't think this works so I'm with option 1 and honestly, I'd be surprised if it was meant to given how gunshy they are about letting similar effects stack. Conduct Energy feels like a limited Bespell Weapon for non-casters.
That's the quibble though. The requirement of Conduct Energy isn't the same as Bespell Weapon.
Bespell Weapon has a requirement of, "Your most recent action was to cast a non-cantrip spell."
Conduct Energy has a requirement of, "Your last action or spell this turn had the acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic trait."
It all comes down to how you interpret, "last action or spell..." vs. "most recent action."
And there is a lot of room for interpretation there. As Darksol pointed out, if you read Conduct Energy as being fine with an intervening action as long as you had cast a spell with the proper trait earlier in your turn, then you could use Bespell Weapon then Conduct Energy in that order.
Is this intended? Don't know. But it is how the requirement reads.
Some GMs will contest whether you can combine Steps 2 and 3 simply because they might state that, but I believe the wording is binary enough that it will function so long as you utilize Bespell Weapon first, as actions happen more frequently than spells (to the point that Bespell Weapon would otherwise deny working with Conduct Energy).Your last action is no longer Casting a Spell if you use Conduct Energy or Bespell Weapon. So you no longer meet the criteria of the other ability (in whichever order you do it). They are free actions, but free actions are still actions.
I don't think this works so I'm with option 1 and honestly, I'd be surprised if it was meant to given how gunshy they are about letting similar effects stack. Conduct Energy feels like a limited Bespell Weapon for non-casters.
Nice strawman. Conduct Energy has a clause that explicitly works with spells regardless of action order.
Consider the trigger wording of Conduct Energy:
"Your last action or spell this turn had the acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic trait."
The word "or," when used in this context, omits creating two separate sentences, and combines them in a way that makes nouns with identical adjectives count as the same thing. Turning them back into their own sentences, you are making them identical in way other than noun name, and you get the following trigger listings instead (since both have the same adjectives, but otherwise are different nouns):
"Your last action this turn had the acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic trait."
and
"Your last spell this turn had the acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic trait."
The "or" in the original clause serves as a combiner of the two above trigger listings to both save word count as well as create the same meaning as if they were separated.
In the first trigger, you would be correct in disallowing Bespell Weapon combining with Conduct Energy, as Bespell Weapon is not an action with those traits (I could even argue this, but that's for another point later).
In the second trigger, you would be incorrect in disallowing Bespell Weapon combining with Conduct Energy, as Bespell Weapon does not preclude the fact that your last spell that you cast within this turn possessed one of the listed traits.
I believe this distinction is deliberate, because if actions were the only things that mattered, then they did not need to add in a clause with spells on the Conduct Energy ability, as spells are already actions with the respective traits. There is the possibility of Spells being an Activity in this case, thereby disallowing Actions, but Bespell Weapon's obvious intention and identical wording clearly disproves this with a similar clause of "Your most recent action was to cast a non-cantrip spell," meaning the idea that Activities like Spells have to be explicitly called out (which isn't done so with Bespell Weapon) is boulderdash.
As far as I'm concerned, a GM who disallows the combo is just being a jerk. There's plenty of evidence that suggests it can work, and that it's intended to work, and it's also difficult to make happen once in a single turn, much less multiple times, even with Haste and AoO at your beck and call. Another what, 8 damage on average per turn, maybe 16 or more if you're lucky or have Haste or AoO? Isn't gonna completely break game balance. Especially when Bespell Weapon only works with non-cantrip spells (Focus spells work with it, awesome for those Sorcerers), making them relatively limited, it requires numerous feats from Multiclassing, the only classes to make the best use of the feat, and you have to burn a Weapon property slot that could've been used for another D6 energy effect, or a Speed, or Keen, or what have you. It's a pretty niche build that really just shores up how bad they are at damage, or improves their damage in compensation for optimization in other ways.
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It feels weird to mock someone for being certain of their conclusion and then immediately turn around and tell us what the 'obvious' right answer is.
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I always love a good thread where someone invokes a level of astronomical certainty in a position by using inconsistent language as their proofs. It's just as likely that "Your last action or spell this turn had the acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic trait" is specifically written that way because Spells are activities and the disconnect between the two texts is because two different people wrote them.
At this point we're pretty clearly in a GM is going to have adjudicate it unless someone from on high comes down and clarifies; but it's certainly not as clear cut as you'd like us all to believe.
It's not inconsistent to me. It's clearly referring to two different game terms having identical traits applied to them, one of which not being limited by action order. That's the entire purpose of the word "or's" placement in the sentence.
If you really want to argue that, then Bespell Weapon doesn't work whatsoever because doing a Cast the Spell activity means the language doesn't match the "Your most recent action was to cast a non-cantrip spell" trigger. In fact, that would only work with 1 action non-cantrip spells at best, which are very limited.
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All this arguing about a weapon - look at the stats of it. Even with Resonant active, it’s a bastard sword with disarm. Without resonant active, it’s just bad.
If the GM says “nah sorry you can’t trigger resonant and bespell off the same spell”, then just switch to using a bastard sword. It’s probably a generally better weapon anyway...
The Wish Knife is in a similar position - it’s a shortsword with disarm while you have resonant and a bad dagger without.
One thing I'm unclear on is if Conduct Energy can stack with itself. It's possible to trigger it multiple times in a turn with Haste (or some very odd combinations of effects).
Of course, the spell with intervening action interpretation allows it to be used an infinite number of times, because "your last spell was X" will remain true no matter how much you do it?
You can't use an activity with a trigger on the same trigger more than once. If you make multiple triggers, and use one for each, then sure. But action limitations and MAP already balance this out. It also still all has to be within the same turn. Once your next turn comes, the conditions met are no longer there.
Even despite that, you also probably couldn't stack an infinite amount of D8s of the same type, that falls into the "too good to be true" clause.
One thing I'm unclear on is if Conduct Energy can stack with itself. It's possible to trigger it multiple times in a turn with Haste (or some very odd combinations of effects).
Of course, the spell with intervening action interpretation allows it to be used an infinite number of times, because "your last spell was X" will remain true no matter how much you do it?
You can't use an activity with a trigger on the same trigger more than once. If you make multiple triggers, and use one for each, then sure. But action limitations and MAP already balance this out. It also still all has to be within the same turn. Once your next turn comes, the conditions met are no longer there.
Even despite that, you also probably couldn't stack an infinite amount of D8s of the same type, that falls into the "too good to be true" clause.
Conduct Energy actually doesn't have a trigger. Free actions with triggers operate like reactions, while Conduct Energy is just an action with a requirement. So I think you could trigger it multiple times, however I'd say that at the very least you couldn't benefit from Conduct Energy damage of the same type more than once. Different types, sure.
Ah, I forgot that it's a Requirement, not a Trigger, that actually helps its case even more.
Yeah, looking into it more, there's the duplicate effects rule that keeps it from stacking with itself (different elements is debatable).
On the other hand, I'm sure there's probably some way to abuse being able to use a free action an infinite number of times.
It'd probably be no different than having, say, two Resist Energy spells cast upon you. As long as they are different elements, they stack.