Archon's Aura of Menace: what is a "successful hit"?

[Douglas Muir 406]

I have a bunch of PCs fighting an archon at the moment. (Yeah, they're evil.) The archon just zapped them with its Aura of Menace:

Aura of Menace:

(Su) A righteous aura surrounds archons that fight or get angry. Any hostile creature within a 20-foot radius of an archon must succeed on a Will save to resist its effects. The save DC varies with the type of archon, is Charisma-based, and includes a +2 racial bonus. Those who fail take a –2 penalty on attacks, AC, and saves for 24 hours or until they successfully hit the archon that generated the aura. A creature that has resisted or broken the effect cannot be affected again by the same archon's aura for 24 hours.

The key language: you're debuffed (and it's a pretty brutal debuff, -2 to attacks, armor and saves) until you "successfully hit" the archon.

So my question: what does "successfully hit" mean? The archon has DR 10, so a lot of attacks won't get past its DR. Do these count? (I'd say no.) What about spells that don't do damage? (Again, I'd say no.) What about grappling? (I'm not sure.) And can you "successfully hit" the archon after it's dead? Will hacking up its angelic corpse help get rid of the debuff?

It's about to be a really relevant question, because the entire party failed their save against the Aura. And about half of them have no easy way to get past the Archon's DR -- they're using low-damage weapons that probably won't do 11 points of damage. (Not to mention that with his Protection from Evil up, the angel's AC is pretty good.) So, any help would be most appreciated.

thanks in advance,

Doug M.

[Whale_Cancer]

I believe a 'hit' is any attack which connects, whether it does damage or not. If you hit a skeleton with a dagger but do no damage, you still hit it.

Attack Roll wrote:

An attack roll represents your attempt to strike your opponent on your turn in a round. When you make an attack roll, you roll a d20 and add your attack bonus. (Other modifiers may also apply to this roll.) If your result equals or beats the target's Armor Class, you hit and deal damage.

The 'hit' happens before you consider anything else.

I think this applies for any weaponlike spells (anything you can crit on), but not things like casting light on the archon.

Edit: Importantly, casting something like curse (which targets the archon) or hitting them with a fireball (which will damage them if big enough) doesn't count as a 'successful hit', as it does not require an attack roll.

[cwslyclgh]

I agree with Whale Cancer's interpretation.

[leo1925]

What Whale Cancer said.
Also on the subject of spells, i think that as long as the spell requires an attack roll (touch attack, ranged touch attack or whatever) it qualifies as a hit.

[Douglas Muir 406]

leo1925 wrote:

Also on the subject of spells, i think that as long as the spell requires an attack roll (touch attack, ranged touch attack or whatever) it qualifies as a hit.

Hm. What about a spell that does damage, but does not require an attack roll -- magic missile, fireball?

Doug M.

[cwslyclgh]

Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

Hm. What about a spell that does damage, but does not require an attack roll -- magic missile, fireball?

Doug M.

technically I do not think it would count in that case BTB, I would be tempted to allow it IMG provided it over came the archon's SR.

[asthyril]

i would say if the spell overcame SR and the archon failed its save, that would definitely be equivalent to doing damage/hitting.

[Corlindale]

The official FAQ entry on the Holy Vindicator's Sacred Shield ability (which, like aura of menace, has a "hit in combat" clause) might be illuminating here:

"The holy vindicator prestige class has an ability that gives him a sacred bonus to AC until "struck in combat." Does a touch attack count as being "struck"? What about a spell like magic missile or fireball?

The ability lasts until an opponent makes a successful attack roll against the vindicator's Armor Class.

–Sean K Reynolds (11/24/10)"

So an attack would be anything targeting AC, disqualifying stuff like magic missile and fireball. I think this is a decent interpretation, otherwise it might also be considered too easy to "attack" the archon for a spellcaster. Certain spells would simply auto-succeed.