Why play anything else, but touch attack type characters?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Ashiel wrote:
Nakteo wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
The Tarrasque is a joke. Setting it at CR 20+ is a bigger joke. The party can effectively just ignore or overcome a Tarrasque as early as 11th level. Including killing it for good. That being said, its obscene defenses make it difficult to hurt at all. Let alone with ranged touch attacks which tend to cause energy damage.

I know it's a bit off topic, but I really wanna know. How? O.O

Btw, Pathfinder Tarrasque CAN'T die for good unless there's something in a book that I'm missing.

They die. Their regeneration ability specifically says that they die for a certain amount of time. While they are temporarily dead, you can cast animate dead to turn the tarrasque into a skeleton or zombie, which strips away the Tarrasque's special qualities that keep it going. At which point you can just destroy the undead creature for good.

As for simply avoiding them, like TriOmegaZero says, simply flying can avoid them more or less indefinitely. Also teleporting away works too (you can teleport your entire party away easily enough).

You cannot animate a creature with more than 20 hit dice. A better way is plain shifting the unconcious Terrasque to a positive energy plane to make it explode or teleporting the sun or the depts of the sea where it will suffocate, remember unconcious = willing (that rule sounds so wrong if think about it).

Humbly,
Yawar


YawarFiesta wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
Nakteo wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
The Tarrasque is a joke. Setting it at CR 20+ is a bigger joke. The party can effectively just ignore or overcome a Tarrasque as early as 11th level. Including killing it for good. That being said, its obscene defenses make it difficult to hurt at all. Let alone with ranged touch attacks which tend to cause energy damage.

I know it's a bit off topic, but I really wanna know. How? O.O

Btw, Pathfinder Tarrasque CAN'T die for good unless there's something in a book that I'm missing.

They die. Their regeneration ability specifically says that they die for a certain amount of time. While they are temporarily dead, you can cast animate dead to turn the tarrasque into a skeleton or zombie, which strips away the Tarrasque's special qualities that keep it going. At which point you can just destroy the undead creature for good.

As for simply avoiding them, like TriOmegaZero says, simply flying can avoid them more or less indefinitely. Also teleporting away works too (you can teleport your entire party away easily enough).

You cannot animate a creature with more than 20 hit dice. A better way is plain shifting the unconcious Terrasque to a positive energy plane to make it explode or teleporting the sun or the depts of the sea where it will suffocate, remember unconcious = willing (that rule sounds so wrong if think about it).

Humbly,
Yawar

Zombies have no such restriction. You just need to be able to control 40 HD worth of undead (CL 10+), and you can create a Tarrasque zombie.

EDIT: Fun fact. A tarrasque plague zombie carries DC 30 zombie plague.


YawarFiesta wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
Nakteo wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
The Tarrasque is a joke. Setting it at CR 20+ is a bigger joke. The party can effectively just ignore or overcome a Tarrasque as early as 11th level. Including killing it for good. That being said, its obscene defenses make it difficult to hurt at all. Let alone with ranged touch attacks which tend to cause energy damage.

I know it's a bit off topic, but I really wanna know. How? O.O

Btw, Pathfinder Tarrasque CAN'T die for good unless there's something in a book that I'm missing.

They die. Their regeneration ability specifically says that they die for a certain amount of time. While they are temporarily dead, you can cast animate dead to turn the tarrasque into a skeleton or zombie, which strips away the Tarrasque's special qualities that keep it going. At which point you can just destroy the undead creature for good.

As for simply avoiding them, like TriOmegaZero says, simply flying can avoid them more or less indefinitely. Also teleporting away works too (you can teleport your entire party away easily enough).

You cannot animate a creature with more than 20 hit dice. A better way is plain shifting the unconcious Terrasque to a positive energy plane to make it explode or teleporting the sun or the depts of the sea where it will suffocate, remember unconcious = willing (that rule sounds so wrong if think about it).

Humbly,
Yawar

I don't know if the positive energy idea made it into PF. Dumping it in the plane of fire in a volcano, hopefully deep enough to suffocate it might work. Regen does not work against effects that don't cause hp damage.


Ashiel wrote:

Zombies have no such restriction. You just need to be able to control 40 HD worth of undead (CL 10+), and you can create a Tarrasque zombie.

EDIT: Fun fact. A tarrasque plague zombie carries DC 30 zombie plague.

Yeah, I was going to say Animate Dead is capped at 20 HD, but then noticed PF buffed the zombie template to get rid of the cap. So, hurray for 40 HD Tarrasque zombies!

I'd go with the Fast Zombie template, though. Disease isn't too useful against monsters. But losing Staggered and getting an extra attack on a full attack, plus a net dex increase of +4 over normal zombie, AND a base land speed increase? That is super sexy. Gives your zombie tarrasque what...like 8 attacks? Bite, 2 claws, 2 gores, 2 slams, and a tail slap, right?


Hoardling wrote:

Thank you all for the responses and advice.

The problem I am noticing as creatures advance in CR the touch stays about the same, except for special cases. When you can roll a d20 and hit the touch 40-50 percent of the time without modifiers I consider that wrong for high level characters. High level examples: Bebilith CR 10 touch 10 AC 22. I can roll a d20 with no modes and hit the touch 50 percent of the time, sorry d20s don't have 22 on them yet. Behir CR 8 AC 21 touch 9, Dragon Turtle CR9 Touch 8 AC 23, Giant Cloud CR 11 AC 25 Touch 9. Storm Giant CR 13 AC 28 Touch 10. Kraken Cr 18 AC 32 Touch 6, Linnorm, Tarn CR 20 AC 36 touch 10. Notice I am increasing CR, but that touch is staying low if not lowering. To me that seems backwards. Yes many of these monsters have resistance if not immunities and get saves, but I just think to hit shouldn't be so easy. Like the gunslinger would have no problem hitting all the monsters. The main point is touch barely advances, but characters modifiers do so it is just gets easier and easier for them to hit. To me this is just too tempting for players to want to play. Geez I get modifiers that advance, but monsters doesn't really advance. And a large portion of the monsters touch is under 20. You can hit just by rolling a dice with no modifiers.

As for my party I will continue cause I know in the module there are some monstes with high touch, which will probably end up killing the party due to them relying so heavy on the range touch attack.

PS I hope using those stats isn't wrong, if so I do apologize I was trying to show an example with the minimum info.

You're still only looking at the AC in a vaccuum. Defenses aside, there are other factors that make hitting them difficult. For example, unless they are using Advanced Firearms or certain two handed early ones, they will provoke attacks of opportunity because they will be in the reach of said monsters.

Also, some of those monsters have different modes of movement that make them terrifying. Dragons can fly and fire spells and breath weapons at them. Kraken can swim and grab at a reach, so good luck trying to fire underwater.

Honestly, being that close to a large+ creature is pretty scary, as our gunslinger finds out all too often. Most recently with a golem that blocked most of his damage and almost tore him apart limb from limb. Mind you, it had an AC of 8 but wasn't even phased by the damage.


Ashiel wrote:


EDIT 2: The most direct method is heightened stone call+dazing rod = Big T dazed for 7 rounds. At which point the cleric and wizard use rods of SR penetration (+5 to penetrate SR, and G. Spell Penetration is another +4, which allows you to crush SR on a roll of 4+) and throw him into an empty demiplane when he biffs another Will save.

reverse gravity + gate(scroll), no saving throw.

Scarab Sages

Nicos wrote:
Ashiel wrote:


EDIT 2: The most direct method is heightened stone call+dazing rod = Big T dazed for 7 rounds. At which point the cleric and wizard use rods of SR penetration (+5 to penetrate SR, and G. Spell Penetration is another +4, which allows you to crush SR on a roll of 4+) and throw him into an empty demiplane when he biffs another Will save.

reverse gravity + gate(scroll), no saving throw.

trap the soul (trigger object) + fabricate (30000gp gem)


Watch out for the fifteen minute adventuring day, a potential source of problems.

More details here.

The Exchange

It's not like fighters miss against AC, after level 6.


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GeneticDrift wrote:
It's not like fighters miss against AC, after level 6.

The gunslinge can take penalties from rapid shot/ TWF / deadly aim and still hit with all his attacks, that is a big diference.


Yeah, I specifically dislike the gun rules for breaking basic game rules like not being able to use Deadly Aim with touch attacks and just in general being able to full attack shoot at touch AC every round all day long. Yeah, within close range, but IME most combat is at close range and even if it's not...you're a full BAB class with all ranged feats and the foe is far away...life just sucks, doesn't it? (for other examples of "guns are special snowflakes," there's also the bullet crafting ignoring the craft rules, gunslingers getting an uber weapon at level 1 w/ the "drawback" that no one can steal it and use it against them, and more...)

I hate anything involving guns in fantasy. Because it ALWAYS ends up being about the gun proponents wanting to make guns plainly better than all other weapons mechanically ("cause it's realistic," I guess?). Or plainly better but with a bunch of stupid bs "drawbacks" like the PF gun rules, where the gun either functions properly or randomly explodes, so until the drawback happens you're just awesome w/o cost, and when it does happen all of a sudden you completely suck. Awful way to balance it. If "guns" just used crossbow stats, perhaps modified slightly, I'd be fine with it. But that's never good enough. Guns just have to do 3d8 damage, or hit touch AC, or some other ridiculously stupidly massive advantage, so satisfy the people that want them. *sigh*

/rant


Just being able to hit your creature seems like it should be a really small part of effectiveness. If you have a small group of enemies that are an appropriate CR, any full BAB characters should be hitting them consistently, and then it becomes irrelevant that they beat the AC by 3 and the touch attacks beat the AC by 13, because they both hit.


StreamOfTheSky wrote:

Yeah, I specifically dislike the gun rules for breaking basic game rules like not being able to use Deadly Aim with touch attacks and just in general being able to full attack shoot at touch AC every round all day long. Yeah, within close range, but IME most combat is at close range and even if it's not...you're a full BAB class with all ranged feats and the foe is far away...life just sucks, doesn't it? (for other examples of "guns are special snowflakes," there's also the bullet crafting ignoring the craft rules, gunslingers getting an uber weapon at level 1 w/ the "drawback" that no one can steal it and use it against them, and more...)

I hate anything involving guns in fantasy. Because it ALWAYS ends up being about the gun proponents wanting to make guns plainly better than all other weapons mechanically ("cause it's realistic," I guess?). Or plainly better but with a bunch of stupid bs "drawbacks" like the PF gun rules, where the gun either functions properly or randomly explodes, so until the drawback happens you're just awesome w/o cost, and when it does happen all of a sudden you completely suck. Awful way to balance it. If "guns" just used crossbow stats, perhaps modified slightly, I'd be fine with it. But that's never good enough. Guns just have to do 3d8 damage, or hit touch AC, or some other ridiculously stupidly massive advantage, so satisfy the people that want them. *sigh*

/rant

A bit off topic, but I'd like you to have a copy of this.


Ashiel wrote:


Also teleporting away works too (you can teleport your entire party away easily enough).

I recall that being one of the best tactics for dealing with a tarrasque. Make it someone elses problem.


Nicos wrote:
GeneticDrift wrote:
It's not like fighters miss against AC, after level 6.
The gunslinge can take penalties from rapid shot/ TWF / deadly aim and still hit with all his attacks, that is a big diference.

Another fun thing to do against gunslingers and alchemists at least is wind wall. A third level spell gives them issues if used properly. So human enemies packing third level spells have another added bonus. And I find it completely conceivable that casters who have suck touch ACs would want to be packing a wind wall or protection from arrows if not other things.


Ashiel wrote:

A bit off topic, but I'd like you to have a copy of this.

** spoiler omitted **

Do you happen to have the information on a website or in some other format that doesn't involve downloading from a site I don't recognize?


Bullet Shield (Combat 225) will make a Gunslinger cry. Add high Dex, small size, massive DR and the player will want to quit the game.

The secret is not in making the monster's touch AC high - there isn't much that can do that. Instead, you should counter in other areas - SR, DR, energy resistance, cover, concealment, greater invisibility, high speed, double moves, Combat Reflexes, teleportation, etc. The list goes on and on and gets nastier and nastier as the CR goes up. That is the real balancing factor to touch attacks.


StreamoftheSky,

Just search for gun rules. There are compatible gun rules in d20 modern, Spycraft, probably Mutants and Masterminds, Freeport, Arcanis, and probably a million more third party publishers.

And in general, when you don't like rules, change them. It's not like they came down from the mountain on a stone tablet.


YawarFiesta wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
Nakteo wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
The Tarrasque is a joke. Setting it at CR 20+ is a bigger joke. The party can effectively just ignore or overcome a Tarrasque as early as 11th level. Including killing it for good. That being said, its obscene defenses make it difficult to hurt at all. Let alone with ranged touch attacks which tend to cause energy damage.

I know it's a bit off topic, but I really wanna know. How? O.O

Btw, Pathfinder Tarrasque CAN'T die for good unless there's something in a book that I'm missing.

They die. Their regeneration ability specifically says that they die for a certain amount of time. While they are temporarily dead, you can cast animate dead to turn the tarrasque into a skeleton or zombie, which strips away the Tarrasque's special qualities that keep it going. At which point you can just destroy the undead creature for good.

As for simply avoiding them, like TriOmegaZero says, simply flying can avoid them more or less indefinitely. Also teleporting away works too (you can teleport your entire party away easily enough).

You cannot animate a creature with more than 20 hit dice. A better way is plain shifting the unconcious Terrasque to a positive energy plane to make it explode or teleporting the sun or the depts of the sea where it will suffocate, remember unconcious = willing (that rule sounds so wrong if think about it).

Humbly,
Yawar

Deal enough Strength damage to it, so every time it regens it suffocates to death. Would suck for that guy, but would be hilarious to watch, as there is no 'natural' way to repair ability damage (that i know of).


Immune to ability damage.

Scarab Sages

Interzone wrote:
Immune to ability damage.

Well, the Pathfinder version.

Scarab Sages

Ahorsewithnoname wrote:
Ashiel wrote:


Also teleporting away works too (you can teleport your entire party away easily enough).
I recall that being one of the best tactics for dealing with a tarrasque. Make it someone elses problem.

Yeah! Heroes! ;)

Lantern Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Guns are not the most powerful weapons in real life(not personal scale ones anyway) Guns have 2 advantages over other weapons in reality, A they do not require training to use, B they have range.

The lack of training to use is helpful in making an army of commoner conscripts and range allows these commoners to kill trained warriors before getting into melee.

A sword will do more damage then a hand gun and most rifles, but swords require training and must be in striking distance.


StreamOfTheSky wrote:
Ashiel wrote:

A bit off topic, but I'd like you to have a copy of this.

** spoiler omitted **
Do you happen to have the information on a website or in some other format that doesn't involve downloading from a site I don't recognize?

Mediafire is legit. It is just an online file storing site, but you can also allow people to download your files if you give them the url.

It is like scribd.com in that regard, but I like mediafire better.


Focus!
If you're worried about the touch AC not advancing looking at monsters with increasing CR, you should have a look at the player's touch AC as well, except for maybe rogue and PCs with a related theme/purpose, their touch AC will mainly stay the same as well.

Now. I'd suggest:

  • Build yourself a caster using similar tactics, i. e. based around touch attacks
  • Combine it with the excellent kobold ambush stated by Ashiel
  • Watch players cry out loud for using their tactics against them
  • Do Evil GM grin(TM) behind your screen

Ruyan.


Hoardling wrote:


Sorry about wall of text, but I am trying my best to describe everything as best in detail to avoid the typical 100 questions and no answers.

To avoid wall of text, use paragraphs.

Separated by a line (double spaced).

Much easier :)


StreamOfTheSky wrote:
Ashiel wrote:

A bit off topic, but I'd like you to have a copy of this.

** spoiler omitted **
Do you happen to have the information on a website or in some other format that doesn't involve downloading from a site I don't recognize?

Wraithstrike is right. Mediafire is a wonderful hosting service, and is safe. However, if you're still fearful, I could e-mail it to you (the link is simply more convenient).


This is a non issue really.

Alchemists bombs are good but a limited resource and not exactly high damage (unless novaing).

Gunslinger touch attack is only at close range (unless there is an ability to expand this that I am not aware of).

Sorc is like a weak alchemist.

Soo if that is your party then at least 50% of all types of encounters should be taxing them such as:

  • Charging/flying/fast high damage monsters
  • Multiple small monsters with good range or fast movement
  • Combat maneuver monsters (will kill this party dead!!)
  • Magic using boss monster with some buffed minions
  • Multiple magic using/utility monsters using environment

The only two types that this party is really good against are

  • Swarms
  • single heavy brute


Once again thanks for the responses folk. I do appreciate it and I am gaining valuable information from it. The side bar conversations are entertaining.

Perhaps touch attack should be removed and replaced with Reflex save for monster, since it is almost impossible to miss with range touch, except early on. Use something like the monster has a DC of 10 + your range modifier to Reflex save against. Since really a person/monster is just trying to dodge your perfect shot spell,bomb, or bullet.

I don't understand how you can have a +6 to Reflex, but have a touch of 9, Cloud Giant. To me Reflex is jumping out of the way of something like a bullet,bomb or ray. Check out Kraken Reflex of +12, but yet a touch of 6. So he is fast, but not really fast except for fireballs and traps? Strange how I can't dodge a single small object, but yet I could avoid a large massive object or at least avoid the major portion of damage from it. Range touch just doesn't make sense to me, and I am seeing the bigger picture. I know monsters have various immunities, SR, DR, etc.. But that doesn't mean it should be a cake walk to hit a monster, especially monsters with high Reflexes and CR.

Perhaps Reflex needs to be added to touch AC and that is new touch AC.


firefly the great wrote:
Just being able to hit your creature seems like it should be a really small part of effectiveness. If you have a small group of enemies that are an appropriate CR, any full BAB characters should be hitting them consistently, and then it becomes irrelevant that they beat the AC by 3 and the touch attacks beat the AC by 13, because they both hit.

It does become relevant with multiple hits now, hitting AC by 3 the first time is great, but what about the next swing or the next you will likely miss. Hitting over by 13 means your next shot/toss(bomb)/ray will most likely hit with no problem. This is based on you maxed your die roll, excluding criticals of course.


meh, damn.

TMK touch attacks were designed for wizards and sorceres, who have 1/2 BAB progression and have touch spells. They need to be able to land attacks somehow, and lo and behold this is where touch attacks come in. The problem comes in when other classes can hit touch AC aka gunslingers and the like. You can't improve touch AC without nerfing the wizard and sorcerer's ability to land attacks in later levels (though tbh one could argue that don't need it when 'played proper'). The fix would be to make the ability to hit 'touch AC' more reserved.

My 2 sense


At their level their not likely to have the ability (feats) to use ranged touch without AoO's. You could just stand next to them...

Use concealment or any of the other tons of suggestions used. You're hearing the same info over and over, it's not touch attacks that's the issue, it's changing up combat scenario's and creature/combat tactics.

Ranged touch is nice, but remember that Gunslingers are below tier 2. They are good at what they do, but they only do one thing. It's easy to shake up battles against one-trick ponies.


DarkLightHitomi wrote:

Guns are not the most powerful weapons in real life(not personal scale ones anyway) Guns have 2 advantages over other weapons in reality, A they do not require training to use, B they have range.

The lack of training to use is helpful in making an army of commoner conscripts and range allows these commoners to kill trained warriors before getting into melee.

A sword will do more damage then a hand gun and most rifles, but swords require training and must be in striking distance.

Damn matchlock ashigaru!

Movies try to tell us otherwise, but yes, swords, axes, even spears and especially some polearms do more damage than many typical firearms. Riddled with bullets is just as dead, but split from balls to brains is especially dead.

Cracked has a long running gripe with how guns are inaccurately portrayed.

Lantern Lodge

It should also be noted that armor doesn't prevent the creatures from being touched, just from being hurt. It is not more difficult to touch a creature wearing armor with a sword then a spell, but the spell flows past the armor whereas the sword is stopped by the armor.

In my house rules, armor acts as DR instead of AC so I replace the dex mod to AC with the dodge skill (keyed to dex).


Hoardling wrote:

Once again thanks for the responses folk. I do appreciate it and I am gaining valuable information from it. The side bar conversations are entertaining.

Perhaps touch attack should be removed and replaced with Reflex save for monster, since it is almost impossible to miss with range touch, except early on. Use something like the monster has a DC of 10 + your range modifier to Reflex save against. Since really a person/monster is just trying to dodge your perfect shot spell,bomb, or bullet.

I don't understand how you can have a +6 to Reflex, but have a touch of 9, Cloud Giant. To me Reflex is jumping out of the way of something like a bullet,bomb or ray. Check out Kraken Reflex of +12, but yet a touch of 6. So he is fast, but not really fast except for fireballs and traps? Strange how I can't dodge a single small object, but yet I could avoid a large massive object or at least avoid the major portion of damage from it. Range touch just doesn't make sense to me, and I am seeing the bigger picture. I know monsters have various immunities, SR, DR, etc.. But that doesn't mean it should be a cake walk to hit a monster, especially monsters with high Reflexes and CR.

Perhaps Reflex needs to be added to touch AC and that is new touch AC.

Touch AC is fine. As you've seen from all of our responses there are ways to deal with it without changing anything.


Ashiel wrote:


(two awesome encounters)

Those are very, very cool. Also very nasty. Do you hate your players? or just their characters?

These are the best examples of wickedly smart bad guys I have seen yet. Great job!


To the OP. I was reading your comments and I noticed the word Module in a previous statement. I didn't have problems with monster combat until I tried out an adventure module. The monsters in those types of things are very basic and can be taken out by parties of different classes regardless of make. Now, this is just my experience with Modules. To better my fun I had to just buff monsters and make changes entirely to encounters.

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