Can a spontaneous caster use Arcane Fist along with metamagic?

Question

If a character with the Enlightened Fist prestige class (from Complete Arcane, p.34) comes from a class that casts spontaneously (such as a sorcerer), then is it possible for her to use the Arcane Fist special ability to cast a spell enhanced with metamagic, given that it would itself take a full-round action?

Answer 1

Yes.

For Spontaneous spellcasters, metamagic effectively increases the casting time of a spell. For instance, the SRD states:

If the spell’s normal casting time is 1 standard action, casting a metamagic version is a full-round action for a sorcerer or bard. (This isn’t the same as a 1-round casting time.)

However, the Arcane Fist ability ignores the casting time of the spell you cast with it, and overrides it with its own action type:

Beginning at 3rd level, an enlightened fist can spend one of her daily stunning attempts to cast and deliver a touch spell as part of an unarmed full attack action. She can choose to deliver the touch spell with any single unarmed strike attack she makes during the action.

Many similar abilities (e.g., the Dusklbade's Arcane Channeling) limit the spells you can channel according to casting time - but not Arcane Fist! This isn't even limited to the mere full-round casting times of metamagic'ed Sorcerer spells - you could use Stunning Fist to bypass the 10-minute casting time on Resurrection if you knew the spell. Punch them back to life!