|
| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
What is the official rule about which spells allow you to deliver sneak attack damage ?
From my understanding, touch attack spells work with sneak attack, as do ranged touch attack spells. But ...
- What about touch attack spells that do not inflict damage per se (ie Touch of fatigue) ?
- Do spells that produce multiple ranged touch attacks simultaneously (ie Scorching ray) allow for more than one sneak attack ?
- Chill touch allows for multiple touch attacks at higher level, but do they have to be done simultaneously ? And if so, can you add your sneak attack more than once ?
Mind you, I know that the SRD answer for the first 2 items is a resounding NO. But what is it in PFRPG ?
|
When Pathfinder does not specifically change how something functions from 3.5, I would go with the ruling from there. The 3.5 FAQ and Complete Arcane address how weapon-like spells work with Sneak Attacks.
As Pathfinder has not specifically changed how spells and sneak attacks work, I would recommend making use of those resources.
Your God of Knowledge,
Nethys
I think this is a serious blown opportunity to clarify this.
In general whatever worked previously is your best guidance absent any clarifications down the line from Paizo.
|
|
The old rule used to be that you could sneak attack any spell that required an Attack Roll and dealed Hit Point damage, and the sneak attack damage was the same type as the spell (so sneak attack on a scorching ray would deal extra fire damage).
I'd need to pull out my old Complete Arcane to double check, but I'd go with that until Paizo puts an official ruling out.
Complete arcane says the damage is of the same type as the damage the spell deals unless the spell deals Ability Damage or Negative Levels in which case the sneak attack damage is dealt simply as negative energy damage.
So Chill Touch would deal 1d6 cold damage plus 1 pt STR damage, and sneak attack damage would be half cold and half negative energy.
Now where it gets more interesting is Vampiric Touch... I don't think Complete Arcane talks about that but my guess is that you don't gain hit points for dealing sneak attack damage with Vampiric Touch.
- Do spells that produce multiple ranged touch attacks simultaneously (ie Scorching ray) allow for more than one sneak attack ?
Per Complete Arcane, explicitly no. One action, one sneak attack. Scorching Ray was the specific example.
BTW the bit about negative energy damage sensibly applies to spells which only deal energy drain or ability damage. If you want RAW-justified munchkin pretzel logic: with Chill Touch you're striking with two separate damaging effects, just like Scorching Ray except that they're to a single opponent; the primary effect is the cold damage (as evidenced both by the order of the text and the fact that it cannot be negated with a Fortitude save), so it gets the sneak bonus.
Complete arcane says the damage is of the same type as the damage the spell deals unless the spell deals Ability Damage or Negative Levels in which case the sneak attack damage is dealt simply as negative energy damage.
So Chill Touch would deal 1d6 cold damage plus 1 pt STR damage, and sneak attack damage would be half cold and half negative energy.
Now where it gets more interesting is Vampiric Touch... I don't think Complete Arcane talks about that but my guess is that you don't gain hit points for dealing sneak attack damage with Vampiric Touch.
I saw an errata where you did, because the spell states that the damage total is the bonus temporary hp you get. However either way doesn't really matter. But I'm not sure where that was anymore... I haven't kept up my 3.5 stuff as much since coming over to pathfinder (not that I don't like it, just have better stuff IMO to focus my time on).
With chill touch it wouldn't be half and half, it would be both (or) cold only (since the HP damage is only cold). If it's both then either type of energy resistance will be effective, if it's cold only well that's easy to understand.
You can find all the details here.
|
|
Complete arcane says the damage is of the same type as the damage the spell deals unless the spell deals Ability Damage or Negative Levels in which case the sneak attack damage is dealt simply as negative energy damage.
So Chill Touch would deal 1d6 cold damage plus 1 pt STR damage, and sneak attack damage would be half cold and half negative energy.
Chill Touch does negative energy damage. Not cold. Thus the sneak attack damage is 100% negative energy