What happens to a held touch spell when you die?

[magicalmagicman]

Does it dissipate immediately?
Does it stay on your hand and activates on whatever you touch?

How about a touch spell held by a familiar? Does it stay on the familiar even if the master dies?

[FelineArchmage]

Does it dissipate immediately?
Does it stay on your hand and activates on whatever you touch?

How about a touch spell held by a familiar? Does it stay on the familiar even if the master dies?

I would say that the spell fizzles. The spellcaster is the one holding the spell and without their focus holding it it would just die out immediately.

[emeraldstreak]

What does the RAW say on death and spells in general?

[heavyfuel]

Does it dissipate immediately?
Does it stay on your hand and activates on whatever you touch?

How about a touch spell held by a familiar? Does it stay on the familiar even if the master dies?

If you die, yes. The SRD says "you can hold the discharge". Key word is "you". As soon as you're dead, you're no longer a character, but an object (a corpse) and objects aren't "you"

Tome and Blood has rules that say to treat a familiar whose master is dead equal to a familiar of a master of two levels lower. If the familiar no longer has enough levels to deliver the spell, the only logical conclusion is it dissipates.


What does the RAW say on death and spells in general?

Spells with durations linger for their duration once cast, and only spells with a duration of "Concentration" stop (since you can't concentrate on them)

[tyckspoon]

I would say that the spell fizzles. The spellcaster is the one holding the spell and without their focus holding it it would just die out immediately.

Once dead, bodies tend to hit the ground. This will usually result in touching the floor or some other object on the way down, which will cause the held spell to attempt to discharge on whatever was touched (this does not have to be a valid target for the spell - the rules for holding are pretty clear that you can accidentally trigger it on something else and waste the spell by trying to use it on an invalid subject.) So while I disagree that the caster needs to still be alive for the spell to still potentially trigger, it would take unusual circumstances for the caster to be dead and not have the touch charge get triggered against something in the process.

(Would make for an interesting 'trap' or encounter - a wizard or other caster who has been dead for some time, but who died petrified/supported by a Web/some other effect that kept him upright and has a charged touch spell still active in his hand..)