"Holding the Charge"

Here is my proposal for my House Rule on "Holding the Charge." I invite comments/criticism:

When using Shocking Grasp (or any spell involving a melee touch attack, whether cast directly or by the use of a wand or other device), the caster (or wand weilder) cannot "accidentally" discharge the spell just by incidental physical contact, but, rather, the discharge must be voluntary. There is, however, a time limit on how long the charge may be held, which is 2 minutes per level of the spell involved. If the character is touched by, for example, the character's melee opponent making a touch attack against the character, then the spell may be immediately discharged against the opponent touching the character as an Immediate Action, thus freeing the character in question to cast another spell on the character's next turn.

2 cents

I am not at all versed in all the details regarding the rules and how they pertain to this matter so let me recap and see if i understand the questoin.

"When using a wand, the caster is allowed to hold the charge and use it at someother time"

As a dm i would say no. The way i understand wands, staffs, rods they are stored magic that are unleashed when activated. I can not recall off the top of my head any rod.staff or wand that does not have an immediate effect. If you consider a wand (a firearm) and the charge (ammuntion) when you say the command word (pull the trigger) you get the effect. As with the firearm there is no delay.

Now it would be possible to have a wand tweaked either using a metamagic feat or other spell but for generic wands I would say no..

No, I think the problem the OP is addressing is that as written, you can "hold the charge" of a touch spell indefinitely, but it goes off as soon as you touch another creature (just a summary, don't attack me if this doesn't cover the full description, please). This has often lead in my gaming groups to humorous occasions where the DM asks for will saves every few minutes of overland travel to avoid itching at a scratch.

Generally, my groups tend to just say, "You can keep it for up to an hour, after that, it goes away." It's simple, it works. For the OP, I don't know if 2 minutes per spell level is a fair amount of time, or even why spell level should be a factor, but maybe 5 minutes per spell level (2.5 for a cantrip, I guess)? The stipulation of only discharging it when you intend to is a helpful boon, but that duration would leave many low level spells running out of time between encounters, while I think the rules intended for you to be able to carry over a level 2 touch spell into another encounter ten minutes later.

2 cents

Yes indeed and touch spell actual cast is a different creature all together. My intial reaction is to say that a spell would last only a certain amount of time but I would base it on the caster who is creating the power rather than the spell level itself. As to an actual time frame I would limit it max to an hour.....but tons of rules and feats can either augment this or give it a thumbs down...

My 2 Cents

I guess for my 2 cents worth, it would depend on whether you view the effect from the wand as the casting of a spell or as the discharge of a spell already cast. I'm DEFINITELY no rules guru, but as far as I know this specific philosophical question isn't discussed anywhere so I'd say it's completely up to the GM (as all things roleplaying are, in the end, regardless of written rules ).

If it's the discharge of a spell already cast, I'd say the effect is immediate and it's the wand with which you'd have to make the touch attack (but you could hold the effect in the wand per any other rules, in this case). If it's the casting of a spell from the wand (as though the wand had 'memorized' the spell rather than the caster) then you would cast the spell from the wand as though you were casting any other spell (in this case, the shocking grasp would be cast on a person, who could then discharge it as a touch attack).

Does that all make sense?

Mowgli frames it in an interesting way.

DMG said:

(If the spell being cast, however, has a longer casting time than 1 action, it takes that long to cast the spell from a wand.)

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This quote from the DMG would seem to suggest that the wand "casts" the spell. On the other hand, a stronger point I think can be made from the sentence that follows in the DMG:

DMG said:

To activate a wand, a character must hold it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for nonhumanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area.

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The "target or area" part would seem to correspond to whatever is the target or area as described in the spell. Following that, a wand of shocking grasp normally should be pointed at the creature or object to be shocked. To some it might seem that "the general direction" implies that this is in effect a "ranged shocking grasp", but that is taking it too literally, and giving the spell more power than maybe it should have.

I would still say that a GM can allow a "modified" version of the wand if they want, as long as they maintain balance in their judgment.

Leif said:

If the character is touched by, for example, the character's melee opponent making a touch attack against the character, then the spell may be immediately discharged against the opponent touching the character as a Free Action, thus freeing the character in question to cast another spell on the character's next turn.

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This is not possible. The only type of action you can do when it is not your turn is an Immediate Action. You should use that one instead.

Bye
Thanee

Thanee said:

This is not possible. The only type of action you can do when it is not your turn is an Immediate Action. You should use that one instead.
Bye,Thanee

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Excellent point, Thanee, thanks! I'll make that change to an "immediate action" rather than a "free action," but, otherwise I'm going to stand by my previous ruling. Thanks all for contributing!

J. Alexander said:

I am not at all versed in all the details regarding the rules and how they pertain to this matter so let me recap and see if i understand the question.
"When using a wand, the caster is allowed to hold the charge and use it at someother time"
As a dm i would say no. The way i understand wands, staffs, rods they are stored magic that are unleashed when activated. I can not recall off the top of my head any rod.staff or wand that does not have an immediate effect. If you consider a wand (a firearm) and the charge (ammuntion) when you say the command word (pull the trigger) you get the effect. As with the firearm there is no delay.
Now it would be possible to have a wand tweaked either using a metamagic feat or other spell but for generic wands I would say no..

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No, you didn't quite get it, JA. When a player casts Shocking Grasp for example (which is the spell being used in the game where this issue came up) he must make a successful melee touch attack to discharge the spell at an opponent. The rules are silent about whether the discharge needs to be an intentional physical contact or whether just brushing up against the character will discharge the spell upon the one so brushing up against him. My ruling for my games is that such an incidental contact does NOT discharge the spell, but the character must intend for the spell to discharge when the contact occurs.

Usually, this will be when the character makes a successful melee touch attack against an opponent. But my ruling is that if the character is unsuccessful in his first melee touch attack, and is then struck by a monster using a natural weapon such as a claw or a bite, then he can discharge the spell as an immediate action when the monster initiates the contact. And the spell description is silent about how long the spell remains active before it is discharged, but I have placed a "duration" upon the time that the held charge remains effective of 2 minutes per spell level. So, for Shocking Grasp that gives a character 2 minutes, or 12 melee rounds, in which to make a successful touch attack to discharge the spell, or the same 12 rounds to have the spell discharged by contact initiated by the monster. In my time playing 3.5 DnD, the vast majority of all the combats that I have seen are resolved, one way or the other, in FAR fewer than 12 rounds. This is when the Shocking Grasp spell is cast as a regular prepared or spontaneously cast spell. But the same thing applies if the spell is cast from a wand. The wand's effect is still immediate, in that the character has the spell energy for the Shocking Grasp active in/on his body as soon as the charge from the wand is expended. But the spell doesn't take effect until the character makes a successful melee touch attack against some opponent, at which time said opponent is shocked by the active spell energy. (Or, alternatively, if the character so chooses, he/she may discharge the spell when the opponent initiates the contact, say by making a successful claw attack against the character, as an immediate action.) All I have done is:

a) decided that the discharge of the energy cannot happen accidentally, but must be a puposeful discharge by the caster/wand-wielder, and

b) placed a limit of 2 minutes per spell level upon the length of time that the spell energy remains effective to be discharged.

rossrebailey said:

Mowgli frames it in an interesting way.
This quote from the DMG would seem to suggest that the wand "casts" the spell. On the other hand, a stronger point I think can be made from the sentence that follows in the DMG:
The "target or area" part would seem to correspond to whatever is the target or area as described in the spell. Following that, a wand of shocking grasp normally should be pointed at the creature or object to be shocked. To some it might seem that "the general direction" implies that this is in effect a "ranged shocking grasp", but that is taking it too literally, and giving the spell more power than maybe it should have.
I would still say that a GM can allow a "modified" version of the wand if they want, as long as they maintain balance in their judgment.

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I see your point, I think. You're saying that a Wand of Shocking Grasp should discharge when the character wielding it touches an opponent with the wand, right? Well, there's a problem with that in my game, namely, that the character wielding the wand stated that he was using the wand to "transfer" the spell energy into his own hand, so that he could deliver the Shocking Grasp with his own hand. This usage of the wand does not contradict the spell description of how the spell works, so I'm going to allow the character to decide these details of exactly how his wand works. Your monk/wizard, Max, is likewise free to decide these detais for his own wands, as long as the spell still works as described in the PH. There's no reason why the same spell cast by different characters can't have different details of how they function, as long as the result of the spell abides by the description in the PH. In fact, varying the details of the same spell cast by different wizards will, in my opinion, just add another level of detail and personalization to the game.