Automatic success on touch attack with Vexing Dodger


Rules Questions


Call me crazy but, if your successfully climbing another creature with vexing dodger and thereby touching the creature, does that not then mean any touch attack you might perform Auto hits ?

Seems like you could land many cheeky antics this way

But why oh why did they make the price trapfinding :(


Trapfinding is equal to a trait. Not that big of a price.


LoneKnave wrote:
Trapfinding is equal to a trait. Not that big of a price.

Are you kidding ?


Nope, perfectly serious


LoneKnave wrote:
Nope, perfectly serious

Ah because clearly the rogue had too many unquie abilities at their disposal.


trapfinder (inferior trait version) is a campaign trait and home GMs should feel free to prohibit it if not playing Mummy's Mask while PFS does not allow the trait.

That said I suppose the rogue could be climbing on clothing instead of flesh. Given the low touch AC of Giants I think most touch attack rolls would be auto-hits anyway.


cnetarian wrote:
That said I suppose the rogue could be climbing on clothing instead of flesh.

Given that Touch-AC ignores armor, including shields, that shouldn't make a difference. A touch is a touch, and clothing counts as part of the target for this purpose.

That being said - RAW it doesn't matter, you can climb and someone while missing with the touch spell.


Channel spell through your feet not going to miss then ;)

Better yet goblin plus fire trail and leave flame trails all over the thing you climbing, one could make a very good argument for the amount of damage done with this ;)


Do you auto-succeed at touch attacks in a grapple? If so then this works. If not then this doesn't. I personally believe that you're required to make a touch attack in order to hit someone with a touch spell but the "accidental discharge" rules are poorly written enough that either is a possibility.


Bob Bob Bob wrote:
Do you auto-succeed at touch attacks in a grapple? If so then this works. If not then this doesn't. I personally believe that you're required to make a touch attack in order to hit someone with a touch spell but the "accidental discharge" rules are poorly written enough that either is a possibility.

The ability specifically says your not grappling


Amakawa Yuuto wrote:
cnetarian wrote:
That said I suppose the rogue could be climbing on clothing instead of flesh.

Given that Touch-AC ignores armor, including shields, that shouldn't make a difference. A touch is a touch, and clothing counts as part of the target for this purpose.

That being said - RAW it doesn't matter, you can climb and someone while missing with the touch spell.

An incorporeal touch attack goes through armor and presumably clothing as well. A regular touch attack disregards armor (not AC), which only means that chain shirt provides the same amount of protection as a cotton shirt. Since the base AC of 10 remains for touch attack AC (and deflection & dodge effects), and AC "represents how hard it is for opponents to land a solid, damaging blow" there is more required of a touch attack than just a touch. Of course, a ruling that touch attacks have to touch exposed flesh would result in characters adventuring in mummy costumes but a touch attack has to represent more than just a touch.


I know it's not a grapple, but grappling presumably requires that the two creatures involved are touching (can't do anything with both hands, can't move without the other person, grab effect on body parts, etc.) so if you can automatically count as touching while grappling then it would make sense it's the same for vexing dodger. If you don't count as touching in a grapple though then it wouldn't make any sense for vexing dodger to be any different.

Limb-Climber doesn't make them flat-footed or lose their dex so presumably they can still dodge any attempt you make to "touch" them, even if you're already in contact with them. Here's the text.

Limb-Climber wrote:

When adjacent to or in the space of a corporeal creature at least one size category larger than herself, a vexing dodger can climb that creature's body with a successful Climb check against a DC equal to the target creature's CMD. Although the vexing dodger is holding on to the creature, this action isn't a grapple; it doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity from the creature, and neither the vexing dodger nor the creature she climbs gains the grappled condition. While the vexing dodger is on the climbed creature, the creature takes a penalty on attack rolls against the vexing dodger equal to the number of sneak attack dice the dodger possesses.

This ability replaces trapfinding.


Short answer: You still need to roll to hit. A kind GM might give you a circumstance bonus.

Longer Answer: Just because you're in contact with them doesn't mean you're able to deliver the touch attack. You can explain this as perhaps needing to touch just the right spot, deliver it in a particular hand position, having to correctly channel your powers at just the right moment, etc. This is the same reason you can't autohit someone with a charged spell if they punch you barehanded.


cnetarian wrote:
An incorporeal touch attack goes through armor and presumably clothing as well. A regular touch attack disregards armor (not AC), which only means that chain shirt provides the same amount of protection as a cotton shirt. Since the base AC of 10 remains for touch attack AC (and deflection & dodge effects), and AC "represents how hard it is for opponents to land a solid, damaging blow" there is more required of a touch attack than just a touch. Of course, a ruling that touch attacks have to touch exposed flesh would result in characters adventuring in mummy costumes but a touch attack has to represent more than just a touch.

If you had to touch skin, Full Plate + Helm would give you a crazy high touch AC.

If it mattered at all what you're wearing, bikinis would give you a penalty to touch AC (because there's nearly only flesh to touch). But no, a Bikini offers the same protection from touch ACs as a full plate - arguably even more, since a bikini has no max dex bonus. Hence, touch attacks come down to only one thing: Can you touch someone?

The base-AC of 10 is "How hard is it to hit a target of average (10) dexterity".
Bonus from high dexterity and dodge/deflection effects stand for "added chance of failure because target is better than average at dodging/something deflects you before you hit them". This is literally the "can't touch this"-part of AC.
Bonus from armor comes from the added failure chance of "hitting armor instead of exposed flesh". This is the "It hit me but did no damage"-part of AC.

Since the failure chance for "Hitting armor instead of exposed flesh" is ignored for touch AC, hitting armor instead of exposed flesh doesn't matter. Hence, hitting armor is the same as hitting the targed when it comes to touch attacks.


So general consensus seems to be forget touch attacks and maybe instead look at thing that happen if a creature touches you or is next to you.

something similar to fire shield or Fire Trail

I'm kinda thinking of it as a poor mans swarm, if you can get on a creature and have a passive damage output for anything sharing your space.

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