Alternative to arcane channeling...

[Elves]

I thought this was interesting. Instead of taking duskblade 3 for single-attack arcane channeling, you can get it with wiz or sor 1 by taking the "Imbued Staff" ACF from Dragon Mag 338 p58.

Cons:
Only applies to a single quarterstaff (but you can make it mwk and put morphing and other enhancements on it).
Still provokes AoOs.

Pros:
Not limited to standard action spells (useful for sorcerer metamagic?).
Saves 2 character levels.

Anyone see a use for this?

[Troacctid]

It's not that different from just taking Improved Unarmed Strike. While you do get to add 1.5x Str to damage, the opportunity cost of losing out on Spell Shield or Immediate Magic is very real (and of course if you're talking about a dip, that's obviously costlier than a feat too). I'm not impressed by it on its own. To me, the biggest selling point is upgrading it, since the associated feats are actually very nice.

[Elves]

I thought you could only deliver touch spells with unarmed and natural attacks while holding the charge, ie, not in the same round as you cast the spell? That's quite limiting.


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.



To me, the biggest selling point is upgrading it, since the associated feats are actually very nice.
Yeah, those are interesting. Invest Spell is equivalent to the archmage SLA ability and comes online at ECL 9th. Imbued Defense and Imbued Strength are both interesting Wis to x that aren't in the x stat to y thread.

[Troacctid]

I thought you could only deliver touch spells with unarmed and natural attacks while holding the charge, ie, not in the same round as you cast the spell? That's quite limiting.
That's true if you don't have the feat, but if you do have Improved Unarmed Strike, you can use it to deliver touch spells in place of the free touch attack. See the weaponlike spell rules (CAr/RC).

[Darg]

The Enchant Staff feat can be abused really easily. Daily free simulacrums are nice.

Morphing would be nice to have to deliver touch spells at even greater range by shaping it into a whip.

[Elves]

Morphing would be nice to have to deliver touch spells at even greater range by shaping it into a whip.

Or a thrown weapon. Arguably even a bow if that counts as two-handed

[Troacctid]

The Enchant Staff feat can be abused really easily. Daily free simulacrums are nice.

Morphing would be nice to have to deliver touch spells at even greater range by shaping it into a whip.
That's what tentacle whips are for.

[Anthrowhale]

The recharge staff feat looks potentially interesting. I only know one other way to recharge a staff, and it's much more awkward.