I was reviewing the rules for damage reduction when something caught my eye:
Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury poison, a monk's stunning, and injury-based disease. Damage Reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains. Nor does it affect poisons or diseases delivered by inhalation, ingestion, or contact.
(emphasis mine)
Benefit: The magus can expend 2 points from his arcane pool as a swift action to resolve all of his melee weapon attacks until the end of his turn as melee touch attacks.
Am I missing something (like an obscure FAQ ruling), or does this mean magi can use accurate strike to ignore DR? My Google searches aren't yielding anything on the matter.
I think you're misinterpreting it. The way I read Accurate Strike, is that it doesn't convert your melee weapon attack into a melee touch attack, you simply RESOLVE your melee weapon attack as a melee touch attack. RESOLVE meaning to determine the result of - meaning hit or not.
Basically, it is a different way of saying 'compare your attack roll to touch AC'.
Your attack is STILL a melee weapon attack - it's just avoiding armor to see if you connect. It still has to get through the DR to apply damage though.
You're missing something. It isn't that touch attacks bypass DR. It is that a touch attack which deals no damage due to DR still applies whatever effect it has.
For example, a venomous tentacle touch attack that does 1d4+1 damage and applies a poison effect hitting a creature with DR 10/- will still apply the poison even if it does no damage because the poison is a contact effect (which is why it is listed as a touch attack).
The idea is that the effect is applied when the attack touches the target, not when the target is damaged by the touch attack. So if it happens the moment the target is hit, it doesn't matter if the DR prevents it.
The rule you quoted means if I've coated my dagger in poison and stab you, if I don't do actual damage then you don't get a dose of poison.
@CraziFuzzy: I misrepresent nothing - the text is right there, unmodified (save for bolding, which I pointed out). Misrepresentation would be to say that the word "resolve" arbitrarily applies only to certain parts of an attack but not others, as there is no definition of the word either in game or in the english language that makes such a distinction.
@MurphysParadox: You're saying touch attacks don't bypass DR, when the text moreorless states exactly that. The distinction you're making doesn't appear in the text (which is something I want clarified).
Look, I'm not trying to be pedantic here, but I'm looking for a textual refutation to this position, or perhaps the past words of a designer that can shed some light on the matter. Agree to disagree if you will, but please understand if I don't consider "You need to parse the phrasing of the text exactly like this in this specific situation!" as an authoritative refutation.
Read what it says though:
Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury poison, a monk's stunning, and injury-based disease. Damage Reduction does not negate touch attacks...
So the first use of "negates" speaks to DR reducing the hitpoint damage to zero. The next use of "negates" speaks to special effects of the attack that will not activate if the damage is reduced to zero. It then lists special situations which are exceptions to this "most special effects". One of those exceptions is the actual touch attack. The damage is still 0, it has to be to even be considered for this list of "things that are not negated if damage was negated" because if touch attacks ignored DR, it wouldn't need to list them along with other things that occur even if the DR negates the damage.
The rule states that touch attacks have two independent factors: Damage susceptible to DR and special effects; even DR cannot cause a touch attack's special effect to be blocked because it isn't based on damage, it is based on touching the target.
Look, I'm not trying to be pedantic here, but I'm looking for a textual refutation to this position, or perhaps the past words of a designer that can shed some light on the matter. Agree to disagree if you will, but please understand if I don't consider "You need to parse the phrasing of the text exactly like this in this specific situation!" as an authoritative refutation.
Two points: You post to the forums, you get fellow player/GM responses. It is rare, across all the possible rules issues, to see a Designer comment so don't see a lack of such commentary to be implicit acceptance of alternative interpretation or an assumption of unsettled controversy.
Secondly, all we can do is parse the rules and use common sense. If touch attacks ignored DR and this was considered by most players to be the valid assumption of the rules, don't you think gunslingers would have been using this fact since the beginning of the class? It would be built into every discussion on the point. You are arguing just as strongly for us to "parse the phrasing of the text exactly like this in this specific situation" in order to see it your way.
[EDIT: fixed some harsher-than-I-intended wording in point 1]
I concur with MurphyParadox and CraziFuzzy.
The purpose of saying that touch attacks are not negated by DR is to say that for things that are caused by a touch attack (for instance a shocking grasp that has already been cast) that negating the touch attack (which deals no damage anyways) does not negate the rider of it, which is the shocking grasp spell.
The basic point of that ability is to tell you that you need only beat touch AC to make a successful hit with your weapon. It's incredibly doubtful that it was intended to allow the attacks to bypass DR.
So the first use of "negates" speaks to DR reducing the hitpoint damage to zero. The next use of "negates" speaks to special effects of the attack that will not activate if the damage is reduced to zero. It then lists special situations which are exceptions to this "most special effects". One of those exceptions is the actual touch attack. The damage is still 0, it has to be to even be considered for this list of "things that are not negated if damage was negated" because if touch attacks ignored DR, it wouldn't need to list them along with other things that occur even if the DR negates the damage.
The rule states that touch attacks have two independent factors: Damage susceptible to DR and special effects; even DR cannot cause a touch attack's special effect to be blocked because it isn't based on damage, it is based on touching the target.
This I'll accept - consider the point conceded.
Two points: Designers very very very rarely comment on threads, so holding out for one to swing on through is pretty much pointless. You post to the forums, you get fellow player/GM responses.
Secondly, all we can do is parse the rules and use common sense. If touch attacks ignored DR and this was considered by most players to be the valid assumption of the rules, don't you think gunslingers would have been using this fact since the beginning of the class? It would be built into every discussion on the point. You are arguing just as strongly for us to "parse the phrasing of the text exactly like this in this specific situation" in order to see it your way.
I fully understand that the designers are unlikely to respond themselves (nor was I counting on such); my purpose was to get a response that could cite either sound logic or an FAQ entry that would address the issue (the latter being a game designer response). For which I thank you, by the way.
But I don't consider reading the text as is (no editing or removal of exclusionary clauses) to be any kind of special parsing. Especially not compared to treating "resolve an attack" as determining whether or not it hits but not its effects - which would be completely contrary to the definition of having "resolved" an action. (That would be the parsing in question.) As such, I hope you understand when I consider such arguments to be unacceptable.
The basic point of that ability is to tell you that you need only beat touch AC to make a successful hit with your weapon. It's incredibly doubtful that it was intended to allow the attacks to bypass DR.
RAI is perfectly fine by me - I just wanted something to support this reading (which I now have).
(Edited for clarity)
One thing to support the others. The dr rules are from the core book. When it was written virtually all if not all touch attacks were stuff that logically should ignore dr. Either because it never applies in the first place (shocking grasp) or simply not physics (wraith). I think every touch in core and 99.999% in the game still conform to this.
The issue the op is mentioning is one of reading the rules too literally and is the same that came up initially with guns. (Deadly aimnand damage)
So I assume the arcane power is simply intended to resolve all attxks as normal save for using touch are.
Azoriel, you're doing it wrong. You can't agree with me, forum etiquette requires we spiral down into an exchange of ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments until a moderator locks the thread or someone brings up Hitler. It is how the internet works. We're going to get in trouble for peaceably resolving a debate.
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Azoriel, you're doing it wrong. You can't agree with me, forum etiquette requires we spiral down into an exchange of ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments until a moderator locks the thread or someone brings up Hitler. It is how the internet works. We're going to get in trouble for peaceably resolving a debate.
The point I highlighted wasn't made by you, though I avoided naming the person who did as a matter of courtesy as I did not intend for this to be a personal attack against the individual in question. If this resulted in an apparent strawman argument, my apologies - it certainly wasn't my intent to put words in your mouth, or make others believe you had said things you did not.
Edit: Blah - subtext is not my friend. =( Got it. ;)
Yes, I was being sarcastic (this statement for the benefit of others who are also a bit subtext-challenged, heh)
Somewhat on topic, there IS a 3rd party (Paizo Fans United) magus arcana that allows the weapon to bypass some DR:
Benefit: When the magus enhances her weapon using her arcane pool, she may spend 1 additional point from her arcane pool to duplicate the qualities of either cold iron or silver. This infusion does not modify the weapon’s hardness, its hit points, or its weight, but the weapon is considered to be made of the special material for purposes of bypassing damage reduction. Only a single metal type may be infused at one time. At 9th level, the infusion may instead duplicate the abilities of adamantine for purposes of bypassing damage reduction, and for bypassing hardness less than 20 when sundering weapons or attacking objects.
Though any 'proper' magus will work towards an adamantine weapon as soon as possible anyway...
I did note something of a dearth in DR bypassing arcana earlier. =/ For a while, I was thinking the only method available was through the bladebound archetype. Though I suppose this is something every weapon user faces (and most damage done by a magus is usually going to be via spell anyway)...
when a magus can, without arcana, add enhancement bonuses to his weapon, there isn't a lot of need for a specific arcana to bypass DR. a level 5 magus can add +2 to his weapon. If his weapon is already +1, that brings it to +3, and it can bypass DR/cold iron and DR/silver. get it to +4, and you can bypass DR/adamantine. Get it to +5, and you can bypass DR/alignment.
Ugh in regards to bypassing dr.. you know its not needed right? Lvl 10 with a +3 base weapon you can make your weapon +5 keen. Or just +5 before lvl 10. All for one arcane pool.
Magi aren't really designed to be versatile (though you might THINK so based on their seemingly multiclassed nature). There's a reason they have a restricted spell list, and it is such that they are limited to what will help them survive combat, and excel at it. They really are single focused at finding the best way to destroy the bad guy with their weapon strikes. They find varied ways to do this, with the arcane energy the funnel through it, but ultimately, that is their focus. It might seem like they should have a way to bypass DR, but really, they can channel so much energy into a single hit, that they pretty easily overcome the DR without bypassing it, even at lower levels.