Anyway, you need to convince your troupe to allow you to do it in one round. MoH p.51 doesn't help you there.
And this does sound less "my way"? Make your point to your troupe "your way" then! They will very likely tell you, that if saying "acuere" takes one round to trigger an effect, then saying "os et orichalcum" when striking to trigger another effect certainly takes another round. So touching or keeping the touch after the second activation surely takes a third, unless you desire a hefty increase of botch dice.
Because without your pictures I understood your "thumbs outside of the fist" very differently: thumbs held really outside of where they could be impacted by a strike with that fist.
The last picture shows me not only, what you meant with "thumbs outside of the fist", but also its anatomical limits, and how vulnerable it already makes your thumb to a parry or deflection. And you still can't trigger Tonatris this way.
I don't think this helps a magus cast and attack in the same round without PM.
It is the PM virtue that allows a magus to do two things at a time, the performance and the spell. And even with this virtue, certain kinds of 'performance' incur penalties, as when the performance is a combat move.
Without PM, a magus cannot replace "normal movements with a combat move to touch your opponent and risk all those extra botch dice..."
When writing about an effect to be triggered one round before something, the author writes "before."
The author has given triggers that only require striking in particular ways.
Despite using "before" when talking about the one round directly prior, the author writes "when" for triggers with striking.
ArM5:
There is no rule preventing an effect from being triggered by striking in a particular way in combat.
There is no rule that states such an activation needs more rounds than the round in which you strike.
So, it doesn't violate any rules to have striking a particular way trigger an effect in the same round. And we have an author who specifically chooses to write "before" for an effect that must be triggered a round earlier and uses "when" instead of "before" when using striking triggers.
So far you've given these reasons for MoH p.51 not helping:
"When" means "before."
Tonatris's triggers don't work because Tonatris is a caestus instead of "is like a caestus" (MoH p.51, my underline).
"Strike" must only mean the moment of impact, while there exist dictionary definitions such as "to aim and usually deliver a blow, stroke, or thrust," (Merriam-Webster, 2a; definition 1 is about taking a course) which include more than the moment of impact itself.
You can't do it without Performance Magic, which says it applies to spells not item effects, to activate effects via combat despite previously properly saying
That's an awful lot of convolution to try to convince anyone that MoH p.51 disagrees with what I've said. You're requiring us to believe the author wasn't aware of using "when" v. "before" while writing this, the author wrote impossible triggers, dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster got their definition of "strike" wrong, and effects aren't spells but they are in this particular instance.
Yet again you are drastically skewing what I've said. I didn't say that. You can say "acuere" as fast as you want. It takes some time to trigger (no fast-casting rules for items, and even fast-casting implicitly takes a little time), but definitely well under a full round. What I've said does not at all lead toward a third round.
If I were you, I would take this as a warning. You quite clearly jumped to an incorrect conclusion. I meant "outside" as opposed to the "inside" we had already agreed on, and you can find a lot of sources that use "outside" and "inside" this way. You similarly jumped to an incorrect conclusion earlier in this thread with your interpretation of how Talismans work with Magic Resistance (it's not an error in the book, as I pointed out in another thread on it, and you don't need to show spells = effects to get there). If you keep jumping to incorrect conclusions while reading things, you might want to put more time into thinking about how you may be selectively reading to draw such incorrect conclusions.
Oh, ya. So vulnerable that a professional martial artist who teaches striking would never use it. Oh, wait. That's just what's happening.
And, depending on what exactly was meant by putting the thumb between certain fingers, this could be exactly one of the Tonatris triggers. I think it's pretty clear not every single part of the thumb must be placed between the fingers. The description isn't clear on which part. If it's the tip of the thumb, here we have the trigger for Vaulting Lightning.
This is indeed correct. But to deliver a R: Touch effect, you still need to touch with the enchanted device after it is triggered.
What your troupe needs to adjudicate is, whether delivering this touch requires a second round, or how many extra botch dice an attempt to deliver it in the same round entails. MoH p.51 is clever enough not to say anything about this.
To give you the benefit of the doubt, I assumed, that by the above you put the thumb into a position where it cannot be broken if you strike. This isn't the case with the posture in the above picture: so I excluded such postures. You tell me that you wish to include them now: fine. But this posture makes striking "likely to break your thumb" especially, if the fist hit an upward or sideways moving shield, vambrace or weapon.
It's not even the tip of the thumb going between the two fingers here - and it still endangers the thumb.
First, R: Touch doesn't say that. R: Touch leaves it vague if you touch first and then finish the spell, do everything else and finish with a touch, touch the whole time, etc. Second, even with touching after triggering it's fine: the triggering ends with the moment of impact (last bit of triggering sequence), and the weapon must be touching the target a moment after the moment of impact - it is physically impossible for this not to be the case.
First, if you want your thumb where it can't be broken when striking with a fist, cut off your thumb. Second, wrapping the thumb at least roughly like that puts it in one of the most protected spots it can be in when hitting a hard surface with your fist. This is one reason why professional fighters do it. You can also see this in skiing, where the safest position for your thumb when striking a hard surface with your fist is to have it roughly where shown in that photo. Moving it to spots other than shown in the photos above tends to drastically increase the risk of a thumb injury. But maybe professional martial artists don't know how to use their fists and maybe real-world stats on the large number of skiing crashes resulting or not resulting in broken thumbs are all wrong? Should I trust the professionals at what they do or what you say about what they do? Should I trust the real-world stats on thumb injuries or what you say they should be?
No need to anticipate an erratum when there is no error to correct:
Every core Hermetic Range says "spell," "magus," or both. Why aren't you objecting to all the other Ranges (as well as other stuff like Durations)? As for Personal in particular, Personal is defined based on a spell. Why are you excepting "spell" in one case for Personal and not excepting it at the same time in the other case for Personal? That's selective/mis-reading.
This post exemplifies the issue with these forums.
Touch range spells require a target, like every spell, the target must be touched to complete the spell. Arguablebly the act of touching replaces any more complicated targeting formulae. Since touching the target replaces any more complicated targeting, it is safe to say (I say it’s obvious) that touching completes the spell casting.
It isn’t 2 separate actions, the touch completes the cast. Casting in combat already has a penalty, the fetish to make reasonable things excessively complicated for no reason needs to be destroyed to make the game fun, there is no reason mechanically to impose more penalties.
It isn’t hard. Roll to cast spell, then roll to touch the target.
You may say this, making use of the indefiniteness of 'when'.
But if you need to specify, just when an effect is triggered, it is: after all parts of the trigger condition are fulfilled. If anything of the trigger condition is not yet completed (e.g. the last syllable of the code word not fully spoken, the last move of the gesture not fully made), the effect is not triggered.
If you intend the strike, as part of the trigger action of MoH p.51 Hew the Hell Beast, to lead to the touch delivering the effect, that touch needs to come after the code word was spoken completely, and the strike was performed. The latter is always the case, but the former is not.
Does your troupe believe, that the trigger actions can be timed well enough to lead to such a touch after the code words were spoken? What kind of extra botch dice do they require for that action? Then your troupe has just set the conditions for attacking with a R: Touch effect in an enchanted device. Tmk there are no rules for this: certainly MoH p.51 doesn't provide any.
LoM Optional Combat Rules on p.117 make triggering an enchanted item and attacking in melee two actions, but doesn't address enchanted items of 'mine' type, where touching with the right part - without further trigger conditions - always triggers an effect.
No, it is when the last part of the trigger conditions happens. And if striking in a particular way (or striking at all as opposed to merely touching) that is the strike itself.
Right.
Touching with a not yet triggered item does not provide any credit for the touch needed to deliver a R: Touch effect.
Right as well.
Just make sure you have said "os et orichalcum" completely before you impact with Troll's Wife's haft, and all is good.
I trust you with that. Then by twiddling it while striking to trigger an effect of Tonatris you really risk your thumb: which as a magus you need for other things still.
Your magus wishes to deliver a R: Touch spell with 2x Quiet Magic and Subtle Magic?
If you can touch your target all is fine: your spellcasting will usually not be noticed. With these Virtues delivering a R: Touch spell, while heartily shaking or kissing a knight's hand, is trivial, but casting a R: Touch spell upon a scared up hare or a peasant who takes you for a soul-stealing necromancer is still quite impossible.
If striking is the last remaining part of the triggering action, its completion triggers the effect, which may be in a situation where you touch the intended target.
Your SG or troupe determine, how complex and risky an action leading to such a situation is, and determine its difficulty and consequences.
You still need to hit then. And you have a SG who monitors, what you strike by accident with that item. If you wish to be really unequivocal in the wording of the trigger condition, you can specify "touch with its tip", or with another specific part, and get around trying to relate 'strike' and "touch" in mid-action. Just make sure you always guard the "tip" well.
This looks to me like a trigger condition "arrow was shot and did hit".
Specifying trigger conditions well helps a lot while playing: complicated conditions should be defined and understood together with at least the SG. And not all ArM5 enchanted devices have well-specified trigger conditions.
You can strike in many ways with a sword (also inadvertently), but you can shoot the arrow only from a bow.
An item would have to read your mind, to know whether an action of yours is inadvertent: and very few do (ArM5 p.98).
Shooting an arrow and hitting is rarely inadvertent: it requires the Lamech legend evolved over centuries to get Cain killed by accident with an arrow.
