Note that in general the enchanted item cannot read your mind, so your intention does not matter for whether you strike or touch something or somebody. Thus it is in the force, whether a touch with a blade becomes a strike.
You can without sufficient control, but still forcefully, move a blade. Especially in situations, where you already have enough other things on your mind: horses, grogs, allies, enemies, siege engines, magic, battle cries, cries for help and so on.
Once a botch comes up, your SG will determine, whether you struck something inadvertently and by accident. IME botches of sword-wielders often strike horses and comrades. But in really bad cases sword-wielders might even strike themselves.
Moving a blade forcefully is not the same as striking though. Just as an arrow shot from a bow, striking is a combat move that should be sufficiently different to arbitrary yet forceful moves.
IMHO allowing arrow shots while disallowing sword strikes seems overly arbitrary...
You can't agree with what I said and your second sentence. There is nothing in the rules that says the touch for R: Touch couldn't be the first bit of the trigger and count for R: Touch.
Which in reality is trivial to do in a single second while swinging your weapon. It happens plenty in reality.
You don't move it around as your strike lands. You move it around earlier. Is this done in combat? Yes. Just watch MMA. They don't keep their thumbs in the same spot the whole time because what makes a good fist doesn't work well for grappling, for example. How about skiers? I'll speak to cross-country skiing since that's where I have been coached by some of the best. Keeping your thumb tight as you want to with a crash in general is bad because it severely limits how you can use your poles. For example, you can't push through nearly as much distance with the pole that way. On the back end of the push you actually let go of the pole, using the strap to allow you to keep pushing (a lot of untrained people don't use the strap properly, but we're talking about those who know best).
I've only been following this conversation intermittently, because it seems a lot of back and forth about little definitions. My opinion (from reading the books in a non-research fashion) has always been that you can set triggers for a magic item based on a few things:
Word or sound activations. There are examples of command words.
Contact: Easy to have a trap go off when anyone (or specific people with the correct options) touch it.
Specific gestures: Examples exist IIRC, of a wand that does different effects if waved horizontally at or thrust towards a target.
Lack of specific gestures or words. I don't see it problematic to have an enchanted door activate an effect if someone opens it without touching the correct glyph and saying 'mellon'.
Combinations of the above.
Similarly, enchanted items can't read intent or thought, which is explicitly stated.
Regarding touch triggers in combat: I agree that striking with a weapon is an acceptable trigger. Striking with a weapon while saying a word is possible, trickier. You need to finish the word as you hit, or possibly speaking it before hitting. I don't think it should take additional time or rounds. Its probably safer to set your defined trigger to 'saying phrase before striking', because if you attack and then say the spell, your sword might not still be touching the target when you're done. If you say a phrase and miss, it would not trigger. If you say a phrase and hit his shield, it would. Similarly, arrows don't know what they hit when you fire them, so every fired arrow probably releases its spell, hit or miss, wherever it lands, whoever it hits.
The touch can indeed be the first part of a multiple part (ArM5 p.98) trigger condition. But in that case, there is not yet any active, triggered effect with a (ARM5 p.111f) range condition, which that touch can fulfill. Only once a trigger condition is fulfilled there is an effect, in whose range - R: Touch or another - at that time a target can be.
As an example close at hand: the wielder of the Troll's Wife can after striking still say either "os et orichalcum" or "ferrum et fraxinus", thereby choosing to trigger either the effect Fell the Faerie or Hew the Hell-Beast. Only by completing one of these two code words one of the two effects is triggered. Then the SG checks, whether the device now touches a being, and whether it is a creature with Infernal or Faerie Might.
You would not impress your troupe, if your magus first struck a strange little being with the Troll's Wife's haft, then jumped with Leap of Homecoming to his hand library, and - when believing to have identified the critter he struck - sunk back into his armchair with a relieved "os et orichalcum" or "ferrum et fraxinus", expecting to finally trigger the right effect of Troll's Wife currently lying at his feet.
an effect can be triggered by a complex action that naturally ends in touching the target. E.g. a sword fighting move that results in a strike. This will not happen inadvertently.
given the weapon is a talisman we could have an InMe trigger action instead of complex fighting moves without the trigger needing to penetrate magic resistance. The trigger could also be combined InMe (to choose an effect) and a specific combat move to trigger as we hit the target
At least I don't see how we should not agree with that. I am finally done with the thread, no matter if we agree or not.
The latter proposal works, and does not need a specific combat move any more to choose an effect.
The former proposal also requires to read intentions by InMe, as the item otherwise can neither know the target nor the method to adjudicate, whether some gestures form a "complex action that naturally ends in touching the target": so it can just be discarded in favor of the latter. As an alternative, you could fix a specific "complex action that naturally ends in touching the target" at time of enchanting - like a single specific attack move or 'kata'.
Note, that such continuous InMe effects, even weak ones, can add to yearly Warping (see ArM 5 p.99 Linked Trigger, p.168 Constant Mystical Effects).
It sounds like things are being over complicated IMHO, effectively rendering R:Touch spells in combat useless.
Sure, a R:Touch spell (or effects in a device!) should have drawbacks compared to a R:Voice or Sight - because you need to touch the target.
In ARM a combat round is 6 seconds, and a single Attack roll represents a series of blows and exchanges. Scoring a hit represents making a single good blow, of several lesser ones (although this may seem wierd, because Soak is applies only once as if a single hit, but never mind).
It's not GURPS with 1 second rounds, where every single, little ting is an action of its own. In the longer ArM rounds So I see no problem with a magus both casting a spell/performing the activation procedure of his device as well as touching the target. Yes, I'd require a roll of Dex+Brawl or Dex+[weapon ability], and I'd even allow this to be easier, since it seems easier to just need to touch someone for some short period rather than actually hit someone the right way to injure them. The foe may deflect dangerous strikes but doesn't mind light contact thinking it has no consequences (but it does!)
I'd allow the foe to counter this with a dodge or evasion, so Qik+Brawl or Qik+Athletics even. And yes, I'd require a COncentration roll, because this is more stresfull than just casting without attempting to touch the target within the space of 6 seconds.
But the touching part of the action is a lot less than the real attacks made a grog fighting to hack his opponent to bits.
And I see no problem with a magus with an enchanted weapon (activated by hitting a foe at saying a word) attacking with it, and if hitting the foe immediately saying the command word. if he fails to hit in a given round the device does not spend a use.
I see more challenge in a magus with a weapon as Talisman, wanting to attack with it and cast a Touch range spell. That would require a Concentration roll, and I'd require a casting roll for the spell even if the attack fails to hit. I may be persuaded to only roll for the spell if the conditions of "touching the target" applies in a round, but I don't mind the extra risk of Botching.
Not a whole lot, maybe +3?
Same advantage as a sword strike has over a punch.
Maybe larger (well longer) weapons should be easier to touch with. Then again they have the Atk stat added anyway.
Also I’d want the defender to use Evasion from LoM, using Brawl instead of weapon ability, and don’t count Dfn stat of weapons and shield
So a parry is an automatic failure? Could work.
Though it is a bit at odds with my desire to encourage make to learn Great Weapon (Staff) for use with (enchanted) staves.
Yeah, I'm not so sure about it - the reasoning isn't sound.
I wanted touching to be easier than striking actual blows in combat, and removing a weapon's Dfn stat was one way. But is it enough to touch theenemy's weapon, if you want to affect him with a R:Touch Corpus spell? That doesn't sit well with me.
Then again, I hope it does not require the caster to touch actual bare skin rather than clothes and armour. Otherwise this kind of wizard is limited to eye-pokes if he uses Corpus spells
Maybe "things a subject wears" is consideres part of that subject, with regards to Touch range. And "things the subject is carrying" isn't? Or - taking a cue from Parma Magica - things "worn or carried closely" counts, but large objects held and extended from the body.
