Touch-Attack with a Flaming weapon?

[Slime]

Could a weapon with an energy damage ability (or a creature with a similar benefit on a natural attack) be used for a touch attack only dealing the energy damage?

[Kenneth678]

Natural attacks and weapons fall under the normal attack rules. I don't think it is balancing if a 2 handed greatsword with flaming is a touch attakc.

[Slime]

Kenneth678 wrote:

Natural attacks and weapons fall under the normal attack rules. I don't think it is balancing if a 2 handed greatsword with flaming is a touch attakc.

Sorry if i didn't clarify enought I really meant that these attack would only deal the energy damage. ex.: The flamin great sword could be used to ONLY deal JUST 1d6 fire damage with a touch attack, no damage from the weapon (or other damage from weapon linked bonuses: ench., str.,etc.).

[Evil Lincoln]

I see what you're getting at, but the rules don't allow it, and I'm not sure I would stretch the rules except in certain cases.

Target doused in kerosene? Sure, all you need is a touch attack.

[MacGurcules]

There is a small bit of official support for this kind of thing. The deliquescent gloves note that it gives your melee attacks the corrosive quality but it also makes a note that you can use a melee touch attack to deal 1d6 acid.

[Slime]

MacGurcules wrote:

There is a small bit of official support for this kind of thing. The deliquescent gloves note that it gives your melee attacks the corrosive quality but it also makes a note that you can use a melee touch attack to deal 1d6 acid.

For some reason you got me thinking of corrosive armor spikes being an interesting option vs grappling or being swallowed-whole!

[BuzzardB]

While officially no you cannot do that, some evidence of a similar tactic can be found in Rise of the Runelords

RotRLAE wrote:

HOT GLASS TONGS: Some goblins use tongs dripping with

molten glass as improvised weapons to burn the PCs.

Which are treated as a improvised weapon (-4 atk) but do 1d4 fire damage as a touch attack.

[Xaratherus]

As far as I can tell, the rules neither explicitly allow or deny this.

Normally, I probably wouldn't allow this. If I had to do so, I'd argue that attempting to 'touch' someone with a sword would be effectively akin to dealing nonlethal damage with a lethal weapon, and would impose a -4 penalty to your attack roll. So unless the target's touch AC was more than 4 lower than standard AC it wouldn't be of any benefit.

[Scrynor]

I thought choosing to make a touch attack was explicitly a standard action. So you could do it but you could never do multiple attacks in a round because of a high BaB.

I remember it being spelled out in the touch spell rules but I could be wrong.

[Xaratherus]

@Scrynor: A touch attack is either "melee" or "ranged", meaning that it takes the same action type as making one of those two types of attacks - in this case yes, a standard attack.

Touch Attacks:

Touch Attacks: Some attacks completely disregard armor, including shields and natural armor—the aggressor need only touch a foe for such an attack to take full effect. In these cases, the attacker makes a touch attack roll (either ranged or melee). When you are the target of a touch attack, your AC doesn't include any armor bonus, shield bonus, or natural armor bonus. All other modifiers, such as your size modifier, Dexterity modifier, and deflection bonus (if any) apply normally. Some creatures have the ability to make incorporeal touch attacks. These attacks bypass solid objects, such as armor and shields, by passing through them. Incorporeal touch attacks work similarly to normal touch attacks except that they also ignore cover bonuses. Incorporeal touch attacks do not ignore armor bonuses granted by force effects, such as mage armor and bracers of armor.

The only time you can touch multiple targets in a round is when you opt to touch multiple allies (in which case you can touch up to 6 in one round, but it requires a full-round action to do so).

[Lincoln Hills]

I would allow it - although it has some potential for abuse in conjunction with sneak attack. I'm on the fence on whether the -4 'non-proficiency' penalty would come into play or not, and whether the weapon's normal crit range would be reduced to 'x2' just like a touch spell's...

[blackbloodtroll]

Flaming Net.

Flaming Snag Net for melee.