Wizard of the Spiral Tower

[twosteppre]

I know there's been a lot of debate over the implications of using longswords (particularly magic ones) as implements and what crosses over from using it as a weapon on this forum. It seemed for every response there was a different answer. I don't know if anyone else did this, but I went ahead and asked customer service for a definitive ruling. They have said the only bonus of any kind that does not apply to a spell used with a longsword implement is weapon proficiency bonus (unless the spell has the weapon keyword, as the WotST-specific powers do). This even includes Weapon Focus.

This means all of the following apply to spells used with (for example only)
a +1 Lightning longsword: +1 enhancement bonus, extra 1d6 lightning damage on critical, lightning keyword, proficiency bonus, weapon focus bonus, additional 1d6 lightning damage, and arcane implement mastery. Furthermore, this means that, as a WotST, you can gain the benefits of the Wintertouched, Burning Blizzard, and Lasting Frost feats with a Frost longsword while casting fireball (or any other spell with the implement keyword) through a longsword implement.

Again, I apologize if this has already been settled, but I wanted to make sure everyone knew about this.

 

[twosteppre]

I'm an idiot, of course it's the Wizard of the Spiral TOWER

...

There, fixed that.

 

[Fredrik Svanberg]

Nice. Swordmage/Wizard/Wizard of the Spiral Tower looks more and more appealing and perfect for a character I've been thinking about.

 

[Rith the Wanderer]

Did they specifically say this includes weapon focus? Or did they fail to rule it out?

If they did say so specifically, I swear I saw a customer service response disagreeing with that explicitly. Something like, weapon focus only applies on powers with the weapon keyword.

Also, the burning blizzard bonus for a fireball works for non-sword wizards, as long as they are holding a wand of icy rays (its dumb I know, but that seems to be the customer service consensus). Although I did recently see one customer service response that seems to disagree (but I've seen several that agree).

 

[Tale]

I swear I've seen Cust Serv rule out Proficiency and Focus with regards to Pact Blades if the power didn't have the weapon keyword. I should think it's the same thing. Only the WoST actually has a couple of Weapon keyword powers.

 

[twosteppre]

Did they specifically say this includes weapon focus? Or did they fail to rule it out?

If they did say so specifically, I swear I saw a customer service response disagreeing with that explicitly. Something like, weapon focus only applies on powers with the weapon keyword.

Also, the burning blizzard bonus for a fireball works for non-sword wizards, as long as they are holding a wand of icy rays (its dumb I know, but that seems to be the customer service consensus). Although I did recently see one customer service response that seems to disagree (but I've seen several that agree).

They explicitly stated that weapon focus was included.

 

[twosteppre]

Also, the burning blizzard bonus for a fireball works for non-sword wizards, as long as they are holding a wand of icy rays (its dumb I know, but that seems to be the customer service consensus).

That's strange. I wouldn't think that to be the case since the wand never mentions giving the cold keyword to powers while the frost longsword has an at-will that does precisely that.

 

[Rith the Wanderer]

Yeah if you look over on the the thread about keyword inheritance you'll get the full confusing history of rulings. Needless to say its fairly debated. I personally don't think this is a good ruling, but the customer service rulings have been relatively consistent.

The official ruling is, if an item has a power on it, all keywords for that power apply to all powers using said weapon or implement. This means that a frost sword does all cold damage when using the at will ability, and a portion cold damage (depending on the current keywords) when it is turned off. It seems completely nonsensical to me, but there you go.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Er. You may find it nonsense, but it's written exactly as such in the PHB. You can change that in your game, but RAW is RAW.

Tale: You never get a weapon proficiency bonus to attack rolls if the power does not have the weapon keyword. (Basically, that is what the weapon keyword tells you.) Weapon Focus or not is a completely separate issue.

 

[Alaric_Argent]

Nice. Swordmage/Wizard/Wizard of the Spiral Tower looks more and more appealing and perfect for a character I've been thinking about.

Oooo. I'm playing with a human wizard with an eye to WotST, and I've been looking at multiclassing as a fighter for use of the longsword. I had planned to play this guy (a younger brother to a sorcerer I played earlier) as an eldritch knight. What's this about a "swordmage"?