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So the recent Ultimate Magic FAQ update had me rereading the rules about touch attack spells. I typically don't play spellcasters, so I wasn't up-to-date on many of these rules. When reading them, something confused me. If you're holding the charge of a touch attack, it's said you discharge the spell if you touch anything or anyone. What about if YOU'RE touched, though? Does this mean you lose the charge if you're successfully hit with an attack? What if it's not a weapon attack, but a weapon-like spell, like a ray?
Let me begin by saying that we came across this very same problem, the rules on this can be a bit hazy, but this is how we finally ruled it at my table.
A player, specifically a paladin, was holding a dispel evil charge, which was to be used must be a touch attack. Now the paladin wanted to specifically use this charge on 1 of the enemies on the field and hadn't initially anticipated there to be several. Now here's where we get to the meat and potatoes.
We decided the paladin holding the charge was the most important thing to the paladin so much so that he would be willing to take bodily harm to protect the charge. So this being the case the paladin forsook his dex bonus to ac. which if you understand this means he no longer benefits from his dex or any dodge modifiers, and is considered flat-footed for the purpose of protecting the charge, and for the purpose of a backstabbing rogue. So even still being attacked so long as the player was specifically protecting the charge from his attackers I.e. holding the charge as a runningback would a football.
Then the charge would not go off.
This is not to be said although againt combat manuevers. Here's where it goes downhill.
Despite taking the dent in ac loss and trying your best to protect something your holding, the opposing creature if intelligent enough may understand / know what the spell does and may desire for you to lose the charge. Should they then elect to do something like grapple you with the intent of forcing the held charge to go off then your best hope is to rely on your combat manuever defense, and what we call luck.
More of a house rule at this point.
Sometimes there's a 50/50 chance things go against you or for you. At this point we would roll a percentile to decide whether or not the player that was purposefully protecting the charge still holds the charge, or if the enemy that was successful in forcing the charge to go off.
Truth be told, if the enemy is aware of the spell and wants a minion to make the charge go off before it touches him, and he orders the minion to do so, and the minion bypasses your CMD, the charge should be lost, but this can be very anticlimatic for many players, especially in certain scenarios where they only have the 1 spell and they need it to go off to turn the tide of battle.
Mind you this is mostly going off the assumption that the enemy, and not the DM is aware of the spell and how it functions. Metagaming ruins the game, and a dm saying a rogue decided to grapple you when a rogue would have more than likely tripped you instead is no fun. Hope this helps cheers mate!
a paladin, was holding a dispel evil charge, which was to be used must be a touch attack. Now the paladin wanted to specifically use this charge on 1 of the enemies on the field and hadn't initially anticipated there to be several.
If getting hit discharges the spell, the AC bonus doesn't really make much sense.
I think a more reasonable ruling is that the spell lasts until the paladin chooses to use his touch attack, or 1 round/level, whichever comes first.
As the rules specifically say "If you touch anything or anyone" and not "if you are touched by anything or anyone" I think this is justified.
Balance wise, Spite lets you cast a touch spell which then discharges when something hits you. It's a level 4 spell that lasts 1 hr/lv and costs 250gp per cast. If you could do that with any touch spell, spite kind of sucks. (Even barring not being able to cast another spell without discharging it)
Per the rules, you dont discharge unless you specifically touch someone, because it takes an action to do so. Someone hitting you is not the standard action thats required to make the touch attack.
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The charge is on a specific limb, generally a hand or claw (I'll have to check the FAQ for exactly how this works with spellstrike now). You only discharge the spell when you touch something with that hand. Unless using called shots, it's unlikely that an attack explicitly targets one of the victim's hands.
The charge is on a specific limb, generally a hand or claw (I'll have to check the FAQ for exactly how this works with spellstrike now). You only discharge the spell when you touch something with that hand. Unless using called shots, it's unlikely that an attack explicitly targets one of the victim's hands.
I would allow a Sunder attack against a hand holding a charge, which if successful would discharge the charge on the creature making the Sunder attack. This is a house rule.
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The charge is on a specific limb, generally a hand or claw (I'll have to check the FAQ for exactly how this works with spellstrike now). You only discharge the spell when you touch something with that hand. Unless using called shots, it's unlikely that an attack explicitly targets one of the victim's hands.I would allow a Sunder attack against a hand holding a charge, which if successful would discharge the charge on the creature making the Sunder attack. This is a house rule.
Not a bad idea. It makes sense since using a touch spell is considered an armed attack. I may steal this, or even incorporate the called shot rules from Ultimate Combat for striking hands specifically to achieve the same goal.
Let me begin by saying that we came across this very same problem, the rules on this can be a bit hazy, but this is how we finally ruled it at my table.
A player, specifically a paladin, was holding a dispel evil charge, which was to be used must be a touch attack. Now the paladin wanted to specifically use this charge on 1 of the enemies on the field and hadn't initially anticipated there to be several. Now here's where we get to the meat and potatoes.
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I might be wrong, but I think Dispel Evil might be a bad example here. If I recall correctly, the spell is a bit abnormal from a normal touch spell. It has a specific duration and the caster can choose to discharge the spell for an additional effect that ends the spell. If that isn't the case, the spell seems a bit more strange than I originally thought (seeing as how it has that additional effect on the caster...)
I'd use the rules for disarm if some daft fool WANTS to suffer the spell by giving a caster with a held charge a high five.