Releasing a (held) touch spell on yourself?

[Ranger19k]

Last gaming session, our party was locked in mortal combat with a Lich. The cleric tried to drop the Lich with a heal spell: he cast the spell and then attempted a touch attack against the Lich….and missed. (He rolled a 2 or something similarly painful). The cleric then “held the charge” in his right hand, fully prepared to successfully “heal” the Lich the next round. Unfortunately for him, the Lich tagged him with a Flame Strike before his next turn, which, after failing his reflex save, dropped the Cleric to -25hp, killing him instantly. And this is how we left it.


After the gaming session however, I was thinking about the situation and decided that it was really silly that the Cleric was holding in his hand the power to save himself when he was killed. I was wondering if anyone on the board would allow a PC to release a held charge on himself as a free action, and in this case, potentially save himself from death? The cleric in this scenario is already dead, so this is more of an academic / rules judgment question rather than an attempt to re-adjudicate campaign events.


Here’s the logic:

PH p 141 has the rules for “holding a charge” :

“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. “

It clearly states that it takes a standard action to use the “held spell” in a touch attack. But that standard action really comes from the touch attack, right? After all, the spell has already been cast, so that doesn’t take any time, so the action time comes from the act of reaching out to touch an enemy. But if you choose to use the touch spell on yourself, the spell is already touching you, so there is no movement or attack required, so wouldn’t that eliminate the need for the use of a standard action?


Another possibility I see is that part of the requirement for the standard action is a mental action that controls the spell – telling the spell when to release. But what kind of action is this? If it is a matter of concentration, the chart on PH 141 says that concentrating to maintain a spell is a standard action, BUT ceasing concentration on a spell is a free action. Does it make sense to anyone else that a caster holding a charge needs to concentrate to maintain that spell in his hand (thus the standard action to touch attack and a reason why you lose that held charge if you cast any other spell), but to release that spell on himself would be a simple matter of ceasing concentration – which is a free action? This is different than “dismissing” the spell, which requires a standard action, since it takes extra concentration to get rid of the spell without affecting anyone. In this particular case, it seems that releasing the held charge onto oneself would fall into the “cease concentration” category rather than the “dismiss a spell category”, and thus be a free action.


If you accept this logic, then the question is if the free action of “ceasing concentration” and releasing the touch spell on yourself can only be completed on your turn or not. While most free actions can only be performed on your turn, others (like speaking) can be performed at will. The addition of immediate action spells to the rules-set suggests that certain mental abilities fall into this category of being capable of performing at will. But would “ceasing concentration” on a spell fall into this category of performing at will?


I am not sure of the answer, and am interested in how other DM’s would adjudicate this situation. It is a pretty rare situation where a player would ever want to have a held spell affect himself after failing a touch attack to affect an enemy (in fact a healing spell against undead might be the only case I can think of), but has anyone else run into this? And if you would adjudicate allowing the player to save himself by releasing the healing spell onto himself, is this a common-sense “gut” call, or do you agree with the logic that it might be based in the rules?

Thanks.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I'd allow a free action to touch yourself, as it's not that hard to do. And once you've held the charge(s), you can even full attack with a held touch spell, it's not like it requires a standard action any more, you just need to touch someone.

However, I would not allow him to use it as the flame strike hit to heal the damage as it happened and thus negate it. Only immediate action healing should be able to disrupt an action like that (maybe a readied action, too). So he could use it before or after the flame strike, but not during. If the flame strike knocks him to -25, he obviously can't touch himself afterwards.

 

[Ranger19k]

Thanks Stream. Just for clarification, when you say "I'd allow a free action to touch yourself, as it's not that hard to do", are you saying that using a touch spell on yourself would require physically touching yourself with the hand that is holding the charge (like tapping your chest or head or something)? As opposed to saying that because the charge is being held in your hand, that the charge is already touching you, so it would only require a mental action (no physical movement) to have the spell affect you. And envisioning it the former way as opposed to the later would prevent using the spell as an immediate action. Or are you saying that no matter how you envision the mechanics of the release of the held charge that it still wouldn't make sense to allow it as an immediate action?

On the one had, if one was to start allowing held healing spells to be released on yourself as an immediate action that might make huge changes in the combat dynamics as everyone who is capable tries to do it before wading into combat, but on the other hand, the restrictions regarding what you can do while holding a charge are pretty strict (no spell casting, no touching anything so probably no melee attacks but certainly no TWF, 2HF, or S&B combat) so maybe it wouldn't be that significant after all?

Any thoughts on the ripple down effect of allowing it to be released as an immediate action?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I meant you'd have to physically touch yourself.

And I have no idea what the ripple effect would be.

 

[the Jester]

No, I would not have given him a freebie.

Here's the thing. You're basically giving the cleric (or whoever) an extra action. If you're going to allow it for pcs, you need to allow it for monsters and bad guys. Would you allow a clerical lich to cast harm, miss, then heal himself with it?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Using a touch spell once its been cast isn't itself an action, you just usually need an attack action to touch an enemy. You could actually deliver it to an enemy with an attack of opportunity, which itself isn't an action at all, either.

So I don't think touching himself as a free action is out of line at all.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

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.

I agree he'd physically have to touch himself (e.g. if he failed a save versus hold person rather than a flame strike, he would not later be able to use a held spell on himself while paralyzed).

There is no action sequence where he would have ended up alive (unless he was already injured prior to the flame strike and the hp restored were to bring him up higher).

Instantaneous damage is just that, instantaneous. So basically, even assuming he knew he'd want to do it, he either has to touch himself before the damage occurs (doing nothing if he's undamaged) or has to do so after he is dead (doing nothing if he's dead).


But then it gets even weirder.

What if he was holding "raise dead"? Could he touch himself and raise himself when he fell? He'd have to be dead for it to work, and if he were dead it would have discharged because he'd no longer be concentrating upon it.


In terms of being able to touch himself without taking an action, it seems to fall under the lines of "attack of opportunity" or "quickened spell" usage, or even "drop to the floor" action.

On the other hand:

Touch Spells in Combat

Many spells have a range of touch. To use these spells, you cast the spell and then touch the subject, either in the same round or any time later. In the same round that you cast the spell, you may also touch (or attempt to touch) the target. You may take your move before casting the spell, after touching the target, or between casting the spell and touching the target. You can automatically touch one friend or use the spell on yourself, but to touch an opponent, you must succeed on an attack roll.

It seems that it requires a standard action to touch a friend, but that it is automatic. I'm not sure what that means for this conversation, other than that you couldn't miss the lich and then touch a friend in the same round...but you could if it was an attack of opportunity?

I've confused myself.

 

[kitcik]

I don't think touching himself as a free action is out of line at all.

That's what SHE said (she was tired).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Using it on yourself, no problem. I would even permit it as a free action. It's not going to save you from the flame strike, though--you're already down.

As a readied action I would permit you to use it on yourself simultaneously with taking damage (thus living through the flame strike) but you would have to declare this before you knew the damage. You would only know the spell if you made your spellcraft roll.