Positioning with spells as weapon

A couple of questions:

  1. My understanding is that you can engage and position in a fight using a spell as a weapon. Is this correct?
  2. If yes, what happens if you don’t script Cast a Spell on this exchange? Do you even have to?
  3. If you change the spell in the middle of the exchange, is that like changing weapons? Do you concede advantage? Do you have to spend actions to change spells?
  4. If you can’t position with a spell, do you always lose advantage when casting a spell, since you are changing weapons?

I couldn’t find these answers looking around, so I decided to ask them myself. Thanks.

  1. Yes. See Spells as Weapons on page 514.

  2. I expect that either you’ve Avoided the whole time, which is whatever, or you’ve switched to a different weapon and therefore lose the Advantage (If you’re Blocking, Striking, Beating, etc., you’re not doing it with your spell so you switch.) I don’t know how or why you wouldn’t cast the spell. Just trying to abuse the spell’s length for someother actions? Sounds sketchy.

  3. “Spells must be completed uninterupted,” page 511. If they aren’t, you have to make a Tax test and incur the Failed Casting results – Die of Fate for Unwanted Summoning, etc. My read is that if you change spells, you’re functionally changing weapons too. In fact, I reckon you might not want to do too much else in an exchange between starting the casting and finishing it.

  4. See above.

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Thanks. That is mostly what I was thinking it works.

You can block with a shield on your other hand, no?

Additional question, if you finish a spell in the middle of the exchange, do you need to “change weapon” to start another spell?

No. I just checked the Cast Spell action on page 452.

I believe the idea is that it’s like a bow: Once the spell goes off, you cede the advantage to your (hopefully smoldering) opponent. I’m having trouble finding a reference now, though.

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The action says that you must do all the actions consecutively, but you still can position with a spell and then do block/block/cast spell for instance, no? Actually, I guess not, since you roll your weapon skill to block and that means you need a weapon.

That makes sense!

Thanks, that is all I had.

I think Brawling is what you’d use with just a shield. Shrug

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