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Touch spells with Fighting Defensively and Combat Expertise: RAW vs RAI
Is there any reason you shouldn't be able to use these with touch spells from a balance perspective? I understand some people's flavor idea may not mesh with these...
I think the point was, when you melee, not ranged attack, you can...
No idea.
Only thing I know about touch spells is they was invented by dirty old perverts or young wizard boys, as a excuse to cop a feel on succubi when they encounter them... which we approve of.
When you put it that way, who wouldn't be in favor of touching with expertise! Or a defensive touch!
Yes for two reasons
1) You can choose to fight defensively when attacking. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 to AC for the same round.
-I don't see anything there that says you actually need to be armed (but it looks like you'll get an aoo)
2) It counts as a weapon for both offense and defense, so you should be ok even if sense is applied and you need to be making an effective attack.
Tough call. Combat Expertise does specifically say you need to make an attack with a melee weapon. Fighting defensively counts as a standard action so you wouldn't be able to do it the round you cast the spell. If you cast the spell then held the charge you could probably get away with doing this until you hit something with it.
Anyone else with opinions?
I don`t know about RAW, but I would allow it.
Then again references to `melee weapons` can very easily be seen to assume they are targetting NORMAL AC (or CMD for weapon maneuvers), which Touch Attacks don`t... and taking the Fighting Defensively penalty vs. Touch AC is a very different trade-off than vs. full AC or CMD.
Technically, Fighting Defensively is a sub-set of the Attack Action, so could be read to only apply to that... Of course, all the rules for Crits/Ranged/Unarmed are all sub-sets of the Attack Action, so the game doesn`t really work if you take that at face value.
I'm with Simon on this one.
Cast and Touch = no defensive options except 'casting defensively'.
Cast and hold, touch attack next round = full options for any armed attack
I don`t know about RAW, but I would allow it.
Then again references to `melee weapons` can very easily be seen to assume they are targetting NORMAL AC (or CMD for weapon maneuvers), which Touch Attacks don`t... and taking the Fighting Defensively penalty vs. Touch AC is a very different trade-off than vs. full AC or CMD.Technically, Fighting Defensively is a sub-set of the Attack Action, so could be read to only apply to that... Of course, all the rules for Crits/Ranged/Unarmed are all sub-sets of the Attack Action, so the game doesn`t really work if you take that at face value.
I think RAW it should be allowed. However, there is precedent in the rules for not being allowed to sacrifice to-hit on touch attacks for other benefit (power attack/deadly aim extra damage), so I don't think disallowing it would be unreasonable.
And if I'm correct, the first touch after the cast is considered a free action, so action economy shouldn't be an issue. As far as I know, you should be able to do both.
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threemildchild`s point was astute:
Combat Expertise: You can choose to take a –1 penalty on melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks to gain a +1 dodge bonus to your Armor Class.
Power Attack: You can choose to take a –1 penalty on all melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks to gain a +2 bonus on all melee damage rolls.
You can only choose to use this feat when you declare that you are making an attack or a full-attack action with a melee weapon.
They use the exact same phrasing, except for the action requirement for CE...
(which means it can`t apply to `free attack` Touch Attacks included in Cast a Spell action)I realized the way the Feats work is as follows: you declare you are using Power Attack/Combat Expertise for the rest of the round. There`s no reason that one can`t use Power Attack on a 2ndry Bite Attack, meanwhile Full Attacking with your Bow WHICH DOESN´T TAKE PENALTIES (or gain bonus dmg) since the attack penalty only applies to melee. Combat Expertise`s benefit of course isn`t applied to melee attacks, but to your own general AC stat.
So whether or not one thinks Touch Attacks would qualify as melee attacks, you can still activate the Feats, although for Combat Expertise this would have to be when using the Attack/Full Attack Action with `Holding the Charge` or similar, not part of the Casting Action. Thus, IMHO Touch Attacks SHOULD be able to benefit from Power Attack bonus DMG, since `melee attack roll` and `melee damage roll` can`t plausible be construed to apply to different things... If it didn`t benefit from Power Attack, then it shouldn`t be PENALIZED by Power Attack either, and since Combat Expertise uses the same relevant phrasing that would mean one could freely use Combat Expertise on Attack Action/Full Attack Touch Attacks (gaining AC bonus) without even taking the attack penalty on Touch Attacks. I think considering Touch Attack to qualify as a Melee Attack, thus suffering relavent penalties (as well as Power Attack dmg bonus) is the most balanced approach here.
The problem is really that Touch Attacks are not well-defined in the RAW, nor is there clearly a consise term to indicate `melee range attacks`, i.e. including all of `normal attacks`, Touch Attacks, and melee range combat maneuvers. One can read `melee attacks` to BE that consise term, but then there isn`t any term to indicate `normal attacks`. 8-/
I'm still confused by this one, and the FAQ response was "no reply required." :(