Magic Attacks

[Silvise]

If I am casting say.. Hail of Stone, and 3 monsters are in my area of effect. I need to roll an AC to hit for all 3 monsters?

Also if a spell is Range Medium that is not a ranged touch attack is it?

[Josh M Foster]

I've honestly never heard of Hail of Stone, and I cannot find it in either the PRD or the d20 SRD. I'm going to substitute in Ice Storm. There's hail there. Good times.

In an area of effect like this, you need roll nothing. You decide where the spell goes off and it goes off there, assuming line of effect and all that. No roll, regardless.

If you're firing a ray, let's say scorching ray, then you make a ranged touch attack. If the spell lets you fire more than one ray, like this one does, you make one attack per ray.

The spell's range doesn't determine whether or not you can make a touch attack, it's simply the maximum distance the spell goes. Deadeye's Arrow is both medium range and a ranged touch attack.

Fireball is long range and no attack roll. Inflict Light Wounds is touch only and requires an attack roll. Different spells have different combinations of these things. If you point me to somewhere where I can read this hail of stone I can help you more.

[KaeYoss]

Silvise wrote:

If I am casting say.. Hail of Stone, and 3 monsters are in my area of effect. I need to roll an AC to hit for all 3 monsters?

Also if a spell is Range Medium that is not a ranged touch attack is it?

Don't take this the wrong way, but do you play 4e but are new to Pathfinder?

Because this sounds a bit like 4e, where the spellcaster always does an attack roll against one of the defences.

Pathfinder doesn't work that way.

Spells with a range of touch, ray, or ranged touch require an attack roll. The spell descriptions usually say so. It's usually d20+ BAB + Str (for regular, "melee" touch) or d20 + BAB + Dex (for ranged touch/ray) and you roll against the Touch AC. Harmless (melee) touch spells you cast on allies do not require a roll. The spell usually has "harmless" in the description, and such spells are "buff" spells, i.e. they strengthen or protect you somehow, rather than harming or hindering you.

Some spells require regular attack rolls (against the standard AC, not the touch AC), but they'll say that.

Most other spells do not require attack rolls. Instead, the target must make a saving throw to mitigate or avoid the spell's effects. The spell tells you what save they get. A few spells require an attack roll AND allow the victim a save, like disintegrate. Others (most popular example: Magic Missile) allow neither, they automatically hit and do damage.

Regardless of how the spell is resolved otherwise (attack roll, save, both, neither), if the target has spell resistance, you must make a caster level check (d20 + your caster level; feats like Spell Penetration add to that roll) to affect the target with the spell (unless the spell says "Spell resistance: No" in its description). This roll is made before the target makes its save, but after you made your attack roll (since the target usually won't be subject to the spell at all if you can't hit it). If you fail to overcome spell resistance, the target is not affected at all (even if the spell says "Reflex half" or anything else that would have a partial effect even when the target makes its save)

[Silvise]

A guy we play with asked to use the spell compendium for a few spells, that is where he got Hail of Stone from. He was just rolling damage all night and never once rolled to hit anything.

Do you not need to roll a d20 plus Char/Wis/Int to hit a monsters AC with a spell? I'm very confused... And a lot of spells don't say touch or Ranged touch in their info they just say Range Medium or something like that.

And so does that also mean that an Area spell that says Resistance None and Reflex No Auto hits everything in its area and does damage no matter what? No rolling anything other than damage?

[Kamelguru]

Silvise wrote:

A guy we play with asked to use the spell compendium for a few spells, that is where he got Hail of Stone from. He was just rolling damage all night and never once rolled to hit anything.

Do you not need to roll a d20 plus Char/Wis/Int to hit a monsters AC with a spell? I'm very confused... And a lot of spells don't say touch or Ranged touch in their info they just say Range Medium or something like that.

And so does that also mean that an Area spell that says Resistance None and Reflex No Auto hits everything in its area and does damage no matter what? No rolling anything other than damage?

There are very few spells that have neither attacks nor saves, and those who do are often either at reduced damage or a single target (Magic Missile for example deals 3d4+3 at lv5, while Burning Hands deal 5d4 in an area, but gives a save).

If the spell calls for no attack or no save, then it hits automatically.

You never roll d20+casting stat for hit. That's 4e. You roll d20+bab+str/dex for touch or ranged touch/ray.

[Brotato]

Kamelguru wrote:

You never roll d20+casting stat for hit.

That's actually not true (Telekinesis, Twilight Knife, Spiritual Weapon, etc.) but those are specific cases.

Edited to make sense.

[Drejk]

Silvise wrote:

A guy we play with asked to use the spell compendium for a few spells, that is where he got Hail of Stone from. He was just rolling damage all night and never once rolled to hit anything.

Do you not need to roll a d20 plus Char/Wis/Int to hit a monsters AC with a spell? I'm very confused... And a lot of spells don't say touch or Ranged touch in their info they just say Range Medium or something like that.

You roll to hit with spell when:

- the spell has range of touch and you ty to cast it on target that does not want to be touched (so you don't make attack roll with cure light wounds cast on ally).
- the spell has line Effect: ray. All rays by definition require ranged touch attack (unless purely theoretical ray require normal ranged attack roll, which happened in some 3.0/3.5 3rd party products, but were exceptions to the gneral rule of rays).
- the spell specificially calls for ranged touch attack (or ranged attack in rare corcumstances) like acid arrow.
If none of the above occurs no attack roll is required.

Quote:

And so does that also mean that an Area spell that says Resistance None and Reflex No Auto hits everything in its area and does damage no matter what? No rolling anything other than damage?

Yes. For example acid fog - it just creates cloud of acid that corrodes everything within area inflicting 2d6 points of damage every round. No attack roll, no save, no spell resistance as it is conjuration (creation) spell.