Shocking Grasp with an unarmed strike

RangerWickett · Jan 10, 2008

If I cast shocking grasp, hold the charge, and then on my next turn make an unarmed attack, I know that if I hit my foe's AC, I deal unarmed strike damage plus shocking grasp damage. However, if I miss the full AC but hit the touch AC, do I still deal the shocking grasp damage?

shilsen · Jan 10, 2008

No. If you're trying to deal damage with the unarmed strike too, then touch AC becomes irrelevant. Either you hit normal AC and do both unarmed strike damage and spell damage, or you miss the normal AC and do neither. This is covered on pg.73 of Complete Arcane.

Arkhandus · Jan 10, 2008

3.5 makes the questions regarding Chill Touch kinda iffy, but regarding Shocking Grasp, here's something outta the Combat section of the SRD regarding touch spells in combat.

3.5 SRD said:
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.

So if your unarmed strike misses the normal AC, the attack just misses altogether. However, it does not discharge the touch spell (Shocking Grasp in this case). So you'd be able to attempt discharging the Shocking Grasp on another unarmed strike.

Nifft · Jan 11, 2008

He does make his regular (non-touch) attack at +3 if his opponent is wearing metal armor, right? The spell says "When delivering the jolt, you gain a +3 bonus on attack rolls if the opponent is wearing metal armor (or made out of metal, carrying a lot of metal, or the like)." (emphasis mine)

Cheers, -- N

brehobit · Jan 11, 2008

Nifft said:
He does make his regular (non-touch) attack at +3 if his opponent is wearing metal armor, right? The spell says "When delivering the jolt, you gain a +3 bonus on attack rolls if the opponent is wearing metal armor (or made out of metal, carrying a lot of metal, or the like)." (emphasis mine)

Cheers, -- N

I'd only give the +3 on the touch attack as I suspect that was the intent and it doesn't make sense to me otherwise. That says, it sounds like you have it right by RAW...

Mark

Nifft · Jan 11, 2008

brehobit said:
I'd only give the +3 on the touch attack as I suspect that was the intent and it doesn't make sense to me otherwise. That says, it sounds like you have it right by RAW...

The way I see it, he wasted a round casting shocking grasp (since you can't make a regular attack as part of the spell itself, only a touch attack), so why not give him the +3?

Cheers, -- N

Arkhandus · Jan 12, 2008

No, it doesn't make sense that the +3 would only apply with a touch attack. I'd say that the likely most accurate interpretation is that the +3 would apply to the unarmed attack roll.

RigaMortus2 · Jan 12, 2008

Nifft said:
The way I see it, he wasted a round casting shocking grasp (since you can't make a regular attack as part of the spell itself, only a touch attack), so why not give him the +3?

Cheers, -- N

Yeah, but that is the player's choice to do so. He could very easily made the touch attack as part of casting the spell, and then on the next round, made a normal unarmed attack, with the same end result as far as damage is concerned.

Vegepygmy · Jan 12, 2008

Arkhandus said:
No, it doesn't make sense that the +3 would only apply with a touch attack.

It doesn't?

Why on Earth would holding an electric charge on your hand help you deal bludgeoning damage with that hand (but only if your target is wearing metal armor)?

Even the RAW has context, people. It should be quite obvious that the +3 is meant to apply only to the normal method of delivering the spell: a touch attack.

Nifft · Jan 12, 2008

IMHO, magic is exempt from making sense.

Seriously, wearing conductive Fullplate would be more likely to make you impervious to electricity -- you'd be in a well-grounded Faraday cage -- not easier to hit with electricity.

Since the original bonus makes no sense, why should a secondary use be damned for the same sin?

Cheers, -- N

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