Author Topic: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch  (Read 3492 times)

Offline Bauglir

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According to TOB pg 39,

Quote
Attack Rolls: Many maneuvers include an attack of some kind. All offensive combat actions, even those that don’t damage opponents (such as disarm and bull rush), are considered attacks. All maneuvers that opponents can resist with saving throws, that deal damage, or that otherwise harm or hamper subjects are considered attacks.

Ordinarily, you can't combine maneuvers with some of the most interesting things because of action costs - this is why you can't use both Arcane Channeling as a Duskblade with a maneuver, because they're both Standard actions that require you to make a melee attack as part of it. Similarly, you can't use a maneuver as part of another maneuver because the rules don't support nesting that way - the maneuver you'd chain it into doesn't usually have an offensive combat action in its rules, instead asking you to make one as part of it.

Spells are an important exception. A lot of the sillier, nonsensical ones (say, fireball), don't work because they don't meet the requirements of an individual maneuver (melee being a universal requirement). Spells that require melee touch attacks, though, are just fine. Further, since you're casting them as part of an action of some fixed length (standard, usually), the casting time isn't an issue - it just happens.

How accurate is this post?

EDIT: Certainly doesn't work with spells that tell you to make a melee touch attack as part of casting it. If touch attack spells work that way in general, we're much more limited in what we can do. Similarly, problems arise if melee touch attacks aren't melee attacks. What we need are spells with which you make an attack as a consequence of casting.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2012, 11:38:14 PM by Bauglir »

Offline linklord231

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2012, 11:52:07 PM »
If you're trying to do what I think you're trying to do, I don't think you can do it.
To be more specific:  If you're trying to initiate a maneuver as part of the same action as casting an "attack" spell, or casting an "attack" spell as part of initiating a maneuver, I don't think it works like that.  As you mentioned, you run in to conflict with the action economy - it takes a standard action to cast most "attack" spells, and another standard action to initiate the maneuver. 

However, there might be some things we could do in a similar vein.  If we could find a spell that you could cast as a free action while performing a melee attack, that would work (though I can't think of any spells like this).  You could conceivably use the "hold a charge" rule to deliver (but not cast) a touch spell as part of a maneuver.  You can almost certainly use spells like Produce Flame,  Flame Dagger, or Ice Axe to initiate a maneuver.
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Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2012, 12:57:01 AM »
Casting a spell and using a maneuver both require standard actions typically.  They can't be used together.

However, a case might be made for holding the charge on a spell previously then using a maneuver to discharge it.

Offline Bauglir

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #3 on: December 19, 2012, 01:08:35 AM »
The argument I'm making is that it works for the same reason that making a normal attack does, even though you don't normally have the action set required to make a standard action attack and initiate a standard action maneuver - it's part of the maneuver, based on the quote that defines attacks as being more than just weapon swings.

EDIT: Which is to say, I'm looking for some rules quote that either defines things differently in a more relevant context than "Initiating Maneuvers", or else which specifically says you can't combine the two. This would thoroughly dismantle my claim, but I can't find it anywhere. Possible ways of disabling these shenanigans on a technicality are also listed in the OP's edit.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2012, 01:12:16 AM by Bauglir »

Offline linklord231

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #4 on: December 19, 2012, 02:19:02 AM »
The argument I'm making is that it works for the same reason that making a normal attack does, even though you don't normally have the action set required to make a standard action attack and initiate a standard action maneuver - it's part of the maneuver, based on the quote that defines attacks as being more than just weapon swings.

EDIT: Which is to say, I'm looking for some rules quote that either defines things differently in a more relevant context than "Initiating Maneuvers", or else which specifically says you can't combine the two. This would thoroughly dismantle my claim, but I can't find it anywhere. Possible ways of disabling these shenanigans on a technicality are also listed in the OP's edit.

I'm still a little foggy on what your claim actually is
From what I can tell, basically you're saying that there might be conditions under which you can combine the casting of a spell and the initiation of a maneuver into one action.  Those conditions would be met if there were a spell that could be cast as a melee attack action (ie, you could cast this spell repeatedly as part of a full attack).
To use this technique, you would initiate a maneuver that says "as part of this maneuver, make a melee attack," and then cast the spell in place of making a normal attack in the same way that you could make a bull rush or disarm attempt.

Is that correct?
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Offline Jackinthegreen

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2012, 02:39:54 AM »
You're specifically looking for maneuvers/spells whose action to use is a melee attack?  In other words, they can be used during a full attack?  I don't think there are any, but if you know of some then listing them would be helpful.

For reference, you couldn't cast Shivering Touch and use a standard action maneuver like Crusader's Strike as the same action because they are both standard actions.

Offline Kethrian

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2012, 05:40:22 AM »
Hmmm... what about a quickened Shivering Touch, then use a manoeuvre to deliver the touch attack?
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Offline Vicerious

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #7 on: December 19, 2012, 08:39:12 AM »
Hmmm... what about a quickened Shivering Touch, then use a manoeuvre to deliver the touch attack?

Since making the melee touch attack is a part of the casting of the spell, you'd resolve the swift action first, hold the charge, and then deliver the spell with an unarmed strike used in a maneuver.  Note that this would no longer be a touch attack.
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Offline BearsAreBrown

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #8 on: December 19, 2012, 10:13:28 AM »
Quote
Holding the Charge
If you don’t discharge the spell in the round when you cast the spell, you can hold the discharge of the spell (hold the charge) indefinitely. You can continue to make touch attacks round after round. You can touch one friend as a standard action or up to six friends as a full-round action. If you touch anything or anyone while holding a charge, even unintentionally, the spell discharges. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates. 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 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.
Just cast the spell the round before then use FSCI

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Offline Bauglir

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #10 on: December 19, 2012, 12:28:51 PM »
Not quite. Holding the charge is obvious, but the action economy bites, especially since RAW you can only do it if you miss with your first attack. I'm claiming that you don't need to hold the charge in many cases.

What I'm saying is that if you have a spell that includes "make a melee touch attack" in its text (or equivalent language, or simply has range touch and describes what happens to a touched creature), but not "As part of casting this spell, make a melee touch attack," then you can cast that spell as part of initiating a maneuver, because it's considered an attack (as described in the quote above), and also qualifies as a melee attack (which all strikes require). If it weren't for the melee attack part, you could initiate a maneuver with a fireball.

I'm also claiming that the spell's casting time is irrelevant - it could take weeks, for all we care, because it's subsumed by the maneuver's fixed initiation action. In the same way as the standard action attack you make with most maneuvers is subsumed by its initiation action, or the two full attack actions are subsumed by Time Stands Still's full-round initiation.

EDIT: They fixed the struck-through bit in the Rules Compendium, good to know.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2012, 12:31:38 PM by Bauglir »

Offline Garryl

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #11 on: December 19, 2012, 04:57:10 PM »
Not quite. Holding the charge is obvious, but the action economy bites, especially since RAW you can only do it if you miss with your first attack. I'm claiming that you don't need to hold the charge in many cases.

What I'm saying is that if you have a spell that includes "make a melee touch attack" in its text (or equivalent language, or simply has range touch and describes what happens to a touched creature), but not "As part of casting this spell, make a melee touch attack," then you can cast that spell as part of initiating a maneuver, because it's considered an attack (as described in the quote above), and also qualifies as a melee attack (which all strikes require). If it weren't for the melee attack part, you could initiate a maneuver with a fireball.

I'm also claiming that the spell's casting time is irrelevant - it could take weeks, for all we care, because it's subsumed by the maneuver's fixed initiation action. In the same way as the standard action attack you make with most maneuvers is subsumed by its initiation action, or the two full attack actions are subsumed by Time Stands Still's full-round initiation.

EDIT: They fixed the struck-through bit in the Rules Compendium, good to know.

That is bogus logic right there. Spells have casting times, which indicate the action needed to cast them. You need to cast them before their effects (what happens when you attack/touch someone) actually occurs.

The bit about standard action attacks being assumed as part of the initiation action is also false. You make an attack as part of a strike because the effects of the strike specifically tells you to make an attack. No subsuming, just effect. No actions as part of an effect, just effects as part of effects. Particularly, no standard action attacks, just a melee attack.

Interestingly, Time Stands Still does specifically say "two full attack actions", rather than just having you make two full attacks. Now, full attack actions are separate and distinct from full-round actions, so again no spellcasting there. Usually, all you can do as part of a full attack action is make the attacks you're allowed as part of a full attack. There is one exception, however. Quirkily enough, the Pyrokineticist's Heat Death ability isn't written as requiring a full-round action but instead a full attack action. So you could use Heat Death with Time Stands Still. Just an interesting thing to note.

Offline Bauglir

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #12 on: December 19, 2012, 05:40:05 PM »
But spells are also attacks, by the quote I used (because they are "offensive combat actions"), so they're valid choices for the attack the maneuver tells you to make. That's what I'm asking for rules against. The melee touch attack is, again, only because every strike printed tells you to make a melee attack, not because of anything about maneuvers overall.

Also, we seem to be in complete agreement about why you can swing with a weapon as part of a maneuver - because the maneuver tells you to, you don't need to take a separate action to do it. That is what I intended to communicate by "subsume". While you would ordinarily need to take a standard action to make an attack, just as you would ordinarily need to take a standard action to cast a spell, you're doing that as part of another action with a fixed action cost, so you don't need to.

Offline Garryl

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #13 on: December 19, 2012, 07:05:16 PM »
I'm not so sure that's correct in context, but I don't have the energy to search for rules quotes to argue against it at the moment. For the time being, I'll work on a different angle from the one that should be most obvious.

Spells are not melee (nor ranged) attacks, however, nor do you "make" them. Making a spell is meaningless. Again, you need to cast a spell to produce its effects, which may or may not involve making a melee attack, but the spell itself is not a melee attack. Even Scorching Ray and Acid Arrow (two spells that have you make ranged attacks) are not in and of themselves ranged attacks.

Also, to extend your logic into the absurd (and ignoring what I just said above), what you are saying implies that maneuvers as well should be usable as part of other maneuvers and spells. And why involve maneuvers when you can cast spells off of spells (since every touch spell lets you make a touch attack as part of the casting, should you not be able to cast another touch spell for that attack). This is not meant as proof, or even evidence, one way or another in this argument, simply pointing out some absurdities that would result from this chain of logic, hopefully prompting other minds into noticing something I've missed.

Offline Bauglir

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #14 on: December 19, 2012, 07:31:22 PM »
I don't think I agree with your second paragraph there. Spells are attacks that you make (using the terminology of making an attack, of which spells are a subset, even though you might more specifically cast a spell), by the quote above (otherwise, casting a fireball or something wouldn't end an invisibility spell). The casting/attack dichotomy doesn't work for that reason, but you have a point. I think you are right in that they aren't necessarily a melee or ranged attack. As I tried to explain in the OP, we need a spell where the attack is part of the spell, not something that goes along with it (as in a spell like storm touch, which energizes your touch for some number of touches), in order for the spell itself to be a melee touch attack. Depending on the exact wording of most touch spells, which I'll have to look up when I get home, this may limit our options severely to entirely.

Also, I did just realize that by the logic of "offensive combat actions", other maneuvers (by the same quote) and full-attack actions qualify, which makes the idea nonsense by reductio ad absurdum. That said, such reasoning doesn't apply to D&D, it just means our conclusion is as stupid as Martial Monks taking Weapon Supremacy at level 1. Also, by this reasoning, I think Arcane Channeling totally works - EDIT: even if it turns out my previous paragraph justifying touch attacks in general doesn't. So we're thoroughly in crazy-town.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2012, 08:28:15 PM by Bauglir »

Offline Kethrian

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #15 on: December 19, 2012, 08:58:46 PM »
The act of casting a spell, such as Shivering Touch, is not a melee attack.  Only the touch itself is, which you must either use as part of the casting or as part of the manoeuvre, not both.
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Offline Bauglir

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Re: Maneuvers and "Attacks" OR Five-Shadow Creeping Ice Shivering Touch
« Reply #16 on: December 20, 2012, 12:36:26 AM »
Okay, so the core rules actually do make a distinction between the attack and the spell (in a way they don't between, say, casting fireball and the resulting ball of fire)? If so then, yeah, that limits these shenanigans only to poorly-written spells that explicitly have the attack as part of the spell text (since the rules don't distinguish between the casting of a spell and its effects for the purposes of actions and what counts as an attack). Which may not exist.

EDIT: There's also Arcane Channeling, which is a specific action that certainly qualifies as a melee attack and meets the more general "offensive combat action" definition given above. I think that one's ironclad RAW, barring more specific text restricting strikes to the use of regular attacks or some other specific whitelist. Which, if nothing else, gives me some fun ideas for some gestalt games.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2012, 12:39:17 AM by Bauglir »