[3.5] Wands and holding a spell

[AntiTrust]

Can you hold a spell charge in a wand if the spell is a touch spell?

The issue came in when the paladin in a zone of silence needed healing and the cleric tried to cast from the wand of cure light and hold the spell before entering the silenced area and activating it.

[ericgrau]

Touch Spells and Holding the Charge
In most cases, if you don’t discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates.


I don't see why a wand would be different from a spell in this case. The differences between a spell, scroll, wand or potions lie in activation methods. Wands even let you make spell choices like targeting. The only one that doesn't let you make any choices is a potion.

In fact it seems that a paladin who makes a touch attack with a cure spell and misses would be holding the charge whether he planned to or not.

[Duke of Urrel]

I don't believe it is generally the case that the wand takes the place of the spellcaster when you use it to activate a spell. If this was a general rule with no exceptions, then a wand containing either the Disguise Self or Alter Self spell would be able to change only itself, and not the wielder of the wand!

However, Ericgrau's comment makes me think: This may be a flexible trait in wands, such that the wand's creator may decide whether the wielder of the wand or the wand itself takes the place of a spellcaster when it is activated. Maybe a wand that contains a touch spell may be created in such a way that the wand, rather than the wielder of the wand, holds the touch spell's charge when it is activated. I would insist only that this trait should depend on how the wand was designed by its creator and should not be spontaneously alterable by the wielder of the wand.

This flexible rule would have avoided much of the controversy that came up in a recent discussion of wand chambers, as I recall...

[AntiTrust]

This leads to another question. If you can hold the charge and do so and before you get to the target the wand gets sundered is the spell lost? Is the held charge held in you or the wand?

[holywhippet]

I don't think it could work. There are spells which can be held as a charge until you touch someone - like ghoul touch. Cure light wounds doesn't have that kind of ability, it's an instantaneous spell.

[Malimar]

I don't think it could work. There are spells which can be held as a charge until you touch someone - like ghoul touch. Cure light wounds doesn't have that kind of ability, it's an instantaneous spell.

[citation needed]

I'm not seeing any difference between ghoul touch and cure light wounds in terms of charge-holding, other than ghoul touch has a duration (explicitly pointed out as being the length of time the paralysis lasts). Neither mentions being an exception to the charge-holding rule cited by ericgrau upthread.

[Crake]

The answer to the OP's question is a flat and simple yes. Once the spell has been cast from the wand, it acts in all ways as if cast by someone of the wand's CL with the minimum ability score required to cast the spell (11 wisdom for cure light wounds for example, if the wand was made by a cleric). As such, the rule for range touch spells and being able to indefinitely hold the charge apply (The rule ericgrau quoted)

This even holds true for walking through an anti magic field, although while inside the anti magic field, you would not be able to discharge the spell, but as soon as you walked back outside of the anti magic field, the charge would return to your hand.


This leads to another question. If you can hold the charge and do so and before you get to the target the wand gets sundered is the spell lost? Is the held charge held in you or the wand?

The spell has already been cast, the wand has finished its function, therefore sundering it would have no effect.

[Yuki Akuma]

I don't think it could work. There are spells which can be held as a charge until you touch someone - like ghoul touch. Cure light wounds doesn't have that kind of ability, it's an instantaneous spell.

That's absolutely not how touch spells work.


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.

Notice how it says "indefinitely", there. And makes no mention of spell durations.

[Duke of Urrel]

The following is what game designer Skip Williams wrote about holding a charge:

"Whenever the caster touches anything, the held charge is discharged, even if what the caster touches isn't a valid target for the spell (in that case, the spell is wasted). The charge also is lost (and wasted) if the caster casts another spell. Otherwise, a caster can hold a charge indefinitely. DMs should feel free to set some reasonable limit to how long a character can hold a charge, perhaps 1 hour or until the caster has to go to sleep (or trance in the case of elves)."

Two points are of interest here. Firstly, it would seem that if you sunder a wand that presently carries the charge of a touch spell, the touch spell is immediately discharged. (The wand itself may also be destroyed.) Secondly, Williams agrees that you can hold a charge "indefinitely" but allows DMs to impose some "reasonable limit" on that.

See "Rules of the Game: Reading Spell Descriptions (Part Six)."

[TuggyNE]

Two points are of interest here. Firstly, it would seem that if you sunder a wand that presently carries the charge of a touch spell, the touch spell is immediately discharged.

I'm not sure where you're getting that, since touch is not reflexive: you can be touched by another creature or object without touching the other creature/object in return, so merely having the wand touched by the weapon should not discharge the spell on the weapon.