Malin Genie
First Post
This is one I use a fair bit so will offer what I have culled from various discussions.
If you are touching as 'part of' the Standard action of casting a touch spell or invoking a supernatural ability (like Death Touch) then you cannot fight defensively. If because you missed, because you chose to wait, or because the spell has a multi-round duration (like chill touch) if in a subsequent round you take the Attack action (with your 'charged hand' as the 'weapon') you are entitled to Fight defensively and even use Feats like Expertise; just like Hypersmurf said.
In fact (while there is some dissent about this) the consensus seems to be that a cleric can pre-cast CLW then touch an ally the next round using FD and Expertise (and it remains an automatic hit.) Of course this would take two rounds (one to cast then the next to touch) rather than one so it's rarely an efficient use of the cleric's time (and only gives +2 AC unless the cleric has spent stat points on a 13+ INT and a Feat on Expertise just to pull off this stunt...)
The poster who asked about Q-spell raised an interesting question. Normally as part of the Standard action of casting a touch spell you get a free touch attack. If you quicken the spell, do you still get the free (non-defensive) touch attack as part of the casting? (Although in answer to the actual question she posed, if you q-spell then full attack or attack with the rest of your round you can of course benefit from FD/Expertise/etc)
If you are touching as 'part of' the Standard action of casting a touch spell or invoking a supernatural ability (like Death Touch) then you cannot fight defensively. If because you missed, because you chose to wait, or because the spell has a multi-round duration (like chill touch) if in a subsequent round you take the Attack action (with your 'charged hand' as the 'weapon') you are entitled to Fight defensively and even use Feats like Expertise; just like Hypersmurf said.
In fact (while there is some dissent about this) the consensus seems to be that a cleric can pre-cast CLW then touch an ally the next round using FD and Expertise (and it remains an automatic hit.) Of course this would take two rounds (one to cast then the next to touch) rather than one so it's rarely an efficient use of the cleric's time (and only gives +2 AC unless the cleric has spent stat points on a 13+ INT and a Feat on Expertise just to pull off this stunt...)
The poster who asked about Q-spell raised an interesting question. Normally as part of the Standard action of casting a touch spell you get a free touch attack. If you quicken the spell, do you still get the free (non-defensive) touch attack as part of the casting? (Although in answer to the actual question she posed, if you q-spell then full attack or attack with the rest of your round you can of course benefit from FD/Expertise/etc)
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