Great use for an artifact that pisses me off

[cdkc]

So I'm tuning a published adventure and in it the players found an amulet of pure good with one charge remaining. Essentially it is used to take out one bad guy that the players may not be ready for; however, one of my players decided to take the amulet and use it as a touch attack. He did this because a neutral or evil character who touches the amulet take a s!+$ ton of damage. So now as a touch attack he does something like 8d8 damage. This is both genius and pisses me off to no end.

[Kalindlara]

I'm familiar with the adventure in question. :)

Can you give more details? Use spoiler tags if necessary. For example, a couple of questions to start you off:

Questions:

Are you using Mythic?
What race/class/path is this character? What about the rest of the party?
Where are you in the adventure?

Other information would be useful too.

I'll be back in a few hours to help some more... it's past my bedtime. :)

[LazarX]

cdkc wrote:

So I'm tuning a published adventure and in it the players found an amulet of pure good with one charge remaining. Essentially it is used to take out one bad guy that the players may not be ready for; however, one of my players decided to take the amulet and use it as a touch attack. He did this because a neutral or evil character who touches the amulet take a s+@$ ton of damage. So now as a touch attack he does something like 8d8 damage. This is both genius and pisses me off to no end.

Your player is one metagaming because he's reading rules text. And he's being an interpretive snake.

The neutral or evil character only takes damage if he touches the amulet, not if the amulet touches him.

That's an important distinction and should short circuit his trick.

[Galnörag]

I would consume the remaining charge when he uses a touch attack, because I'm pretty sure that the amulets activation mechanisms brandishing it at a foe, and perhaps renouncing them. If he uses it to obliterate a mook instead of a boss, well his wasted resource.

[Kayerloth]

Yep that is definitely not using the amulet as intended and being a bit creative with the english language vs game language.

Other notes:
1) It's an artifact, unless he's rather high level it's probably not appropriate gear.
2) The effects are only against other divine casters anyone else is not so effected.
3) They character wielding the Talisman of Pure Good must not only be good but of exceptionally pure thought and action or the target gets a Reflex save DC 19

Edit: The biggie that will slow him down and reduce his willingness to employ the trick is number 2 above.

[SAMAS]

That's actually a brilliant use of the item!

[Baba Ganoush]

Try: Sunder or Disarm (or called shot hand if you use the called shot rules). Even if they don't succeed the threat that the party may loose access to the artifact may have the rest of the players encouraging the character to put it away.
Also, I'd think it would get a non-proficiency penalty and may provoke an AOO.
I may also say that the amulet needs more than a brief touch to trigger - the difference between brushing against something hot and clutching the red-hot medallion like an Nazi SS office in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[Chemlak]

Also, it's damage per round of contact, not per contact. You'd have to grapple and pin the opponent to get a full round of contact guaranteed.