Magus Arcane Pool Usage Question

[Garion Beckett]

Hey guys... I bet this question has been done before but I am kind of dense so I have a question..

Arcane Pool- Swift action gives a +1 to the weapon you are holding. But here is my question. Can i use multiple points to add multiple effects to the weapon at a time?

example: You are lvl 3 and have a 20 int. you are about to fight a cr 4 thing and your healer is down. you are holding a a mw scimitar and you use your arcane pool
(swift action) to add +1 and keen to your weapon. then you use your standard action to use your pool again to use pool strike and add fire damage toy your attack.

is that legal?

[Mysterious Stranger]

The only problem I see is that at 3rd level you cannot add enchantments like keen to a weapon. That ability is gained at 5th level. At 3rd level all you can do is to add a +1 bonus to the weapon. If the character is 5th level it is no problem.

One thing I would keep in mind is that even when you can do it, you will be targeting the full AC of your opponent instead of the touch AC that pool strike normally does. Unless you have other bonuses to boost your damage this might not be a good idea.

[bbangerter]

Garion Beckett wrote:

Hey guys... I bet this question has been done before but I am kind of dense so I have a question..

Arcane Pool- Swift action gives a +1 to the weapon you are holding. But here is my question. Can i use multiple points to add multiple effects to the weapon at a time?

example: You are lvl 3 and have a 20 int. you are about to fight a cr 4 thing and your healer is down. you are holding a a mw scimitar and you use your arcane pool
(swift action) to add +1 and keen to your weapon. then you use your standard action to use your pool again to use pool strike and add fire damage toy your attack.

is that legal?

1) You cannot use your standard action in place of a swift action (without specific rules/abilities/magic items allow you to do so). So you cannot use points from your arcane pool to enhance your weapon twice in the same turn.

2) Enhancing your weapon a second time does not stack. It replaces the first application.

Arcane Pool wrote:

Adding these properties consumes an amount of bonus equal to the property’s base price modifier. These properties are added to any the weapon already has, but duplicates do not stack. If the weapon is not magical, at least a +1 enhancement bonus must be added before any other properties can be added. These bonuses and properties are decided when the arcane pool point is spent and cannot be changed until the next time the magus uses this ability. These bonuses do not function if the weapon is wielded by anyone other than the magus.

3) Pool Strike is a separate ability from your arcane pool (though it taps into your arcane pool points) - which uses a standard action to activate. This DOES stack with the arcane pool enhancement to your weapon.

Which now rereading your question. I think you are asking can you swift action enhance your weapon to +2 equivalent, then follow it up with a standard action to activate pool strike and do fire/cold/elec/acid damage? To which the answer is yes. So long as you are following the other appropriate rules such as the one noted by Mysterious Stranger that keen requires you to be level 5.

[MrCharisma]

Garion Beckett wrote:

Arcane Pool- Swift action gives a +1 to the weapon you are holding. But here is my question. Can i use multiple points to add multiple effects to the weapon at a time?

Nope.

ARCANE POOL wrote:

A magus can only enhance one weapon in this way at one time. If he uses this ability again, the first use immediately ends.

The first sentence doesn't explicitly state that you can't do what you're asking. You couldn't enhance 2 separate weapons, but it doesn't say you couldn't enhance the same one twice.

However the second sentence says that using the ability a second time ends the first instance. You Can use the ability a second time, but doing so ends the first effect, which means they can never stack.

[Tom Sampson]

For what it's worth, a version of this trick is perhaps possible with the Arcane Duelist Bard archetype, which does state that its bonuses stack with existing bonuses, but he will need a way to maintain multiple performances (ie. a Virtuoso Performance or Shadowbard spell), and the bladethirst performance is typically regarded as a poor substitute for simply inspiring courage.

Also, we already had an entire discussion on obtaining multiple swift actions in another thread, where it was noted that you could use the ready action to effectively use a standard action as a swift action, although bbangerter does not agree with this.

[Bureau of Managing Expectations]

Tom Sampson wrote:

Also, we already had an entire discussion on obtaining multiple swift actions in another thread, where it was noted that you could use the ready action to effectively use a standard action as a swift action, although bbangerter does not agree with this.

Read the thread for context. It was "noted" by Tom Sampson, and literally every subsequent poster said he was stretching beyond what the rules allow.

[bbangerter]

Tom Sampson wrote:

Also, we already had an entire discussion on obtaining multiple swift actions in another thread, where it was noted that you could use the ready action to effectively use a standard action as a swift action, although bbangerter does not agree with this.

You have that backwards. I am the only one that agreed with you that a ready could allow 2 swifts in a turn. And no one in that thread was able to produce a sufficient counter argument as to why that wouldn't work. Of particular note for anyone who wants to take up that argument, the last paragraph of my last post in that thread needs to be accounted for.

[Tom Sampson]

Bureau of Managing Expectations wrote:

Tom Sampson wrote:

Also, we already had an entire discussion on obtaining multiple swift actions in another thread, where it was noted that you could use the ready action to effectively use a standard action as a swift action, although bbangerter does not agree with this.

Read the thread for context.

I heartily do recommend reading the thread for context, yes.

Quote:

It was "noted" by Tom Sampson, and literally every subsequent poster said he was stretching beyond what the rules allow.

This is just an outright falsehood, on multiple levels. As bbangerter notes, it is not "literally every subsequent poster" and moreover, I would argue that the people arguing that you shouldn't be allowed to ready swift actions even though the rules specifically allow it are the ones stretching the rules by using an older rule about only having 1 swift action per turn to effectively invalidate a newer rule that allows you to ready swift actions when the rules trend is that specific trumps general and newer rules trump older ones in order to fabricate an unwritten limitation into readying swift actions.

This is a very simple principle that you are neglecting, but according to the rules readying a swift action is explicitly a valid use (see here: "You can ready a standard action, a move action, a swift action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition."). Readying is also explicitly a standard action ("Readying is a standard action."). The text is very clear: If you ready a swift action, it costs you a standard action and you may take that swift action when it triggers.

It really is that simple and all of that is very clear. It is the arguments against that which veer into stretching and cherrypicking rules in order to achieve a dubious "sometimes when the rules say yes it means no" sort of rules-lawyering conclusion that readying a swift action should not actually award you a swift action, which is effectively arguing that you should not be able to ready swift actions despite the rules explicitly permitting just that, or that you should have to forfeit your swift action for the turn if you wish to ready a swift action even though the readying rules clearly make no such condition and have no difficulties detailing conditions for other activities, like taking a 5-foot step as part of your readied action.

But this is all an argument that is better served in the linked thread.

bbangerter wrote:

Tom Sampson wrote:

Also, we already had an entire discussion on obtaining multiple swift actions in another thread, where it was noted that you could use the ready action to effectively use a standard action as a swift action, although bbangerter does not agree with this.

You have that backwards. I am the only one that agreed with you that a ready could allow 2 swifts in a turn. And no one in that thread was able to produce a sufficient counter argument as to why that wouldn't work. Of particular note for anyone who wants to take up that argument, the last paragraph of my last post in that thread needs to be accounted for.

I apologize. You are correct that you were in agreement, although you are not the only one who agreed. "I grok do u" agreed as well. It's been a while and I got mixed up on who was who in that thread.