So, the reach spell metamagic feat can turn a spell with range "touch" into a ray spell. It's obvious how this works with offensive touch attacks, but how about buffs or healing spells? Do those require an attack roll? And how does it work if my ally who should receive the spell has concealment or cover? Does the miss-chance apply?
Personally, I don't think an attack roll is required because the feat description says
Spells modified by this feat that require melee touch attacks instead require ranged touch attacks.
and buffs/healing spells usually don't require melee thouch attacks.
But I'm still unsure about stuff like concealment.
Yeah, I forgot that we had to house rule that one because it didn't make any sense that you could fire an arrow (or a ray) into a swirling melee and not stand any chance whatsoever of hitting the wrong target.
Never mind...carry on.
Actually the rules take that into account with the penalties to hit -- you are trying so hard to not do so that you are less likely to hit anything -- otherwise you would simply roll to hit and then determine what you hit.
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Yeah, I forgot that we had to house rule that one because it didn't make any sense that you could fire an arrow (or a ray) into a swirling melee and not stand any chance whatsoever of hitting the wrong target.
Never mind...carry on.
I only rule that there is a chance to hit an unintended target on a fumble (roll of a natural 1 and back it up with another roll of 10 or lower, I call these critical fumbles). It's a house rule for sure, but one that I think adds flavor and a bit of battlefield chaos that is inherent in combat.
But I'm still unsure about stuff like concealment.
Unless the target has control over the concealment you should apply miss chance normally. When you fire benficial ray into your blurred friend you still have problems with seeing him correctly and thus directing beam. The same applies to miss chance from blink.
A house rule we've used when firing a beneficial ray at an ally is that the ally doesn't factor in any dex or dodge bonuses to his touch AC in such a case, assuming the ally is aware of the ray being beneficial. (Basically the player can choose to try to avoid it, and thus retain their full touch AC against it, or 'allow' it to hit them, and thus not add dex and dodge bonuses to AC.) This is to account for the target willingly accepting the ray, but still accounts for the difficulty of hitting the target with the ray in the first place (since the base 10 plus size, deflection, and other AC modifiers would still apply.)
But its strictly a house rule.
A house rule we've used when firing a beneficial ray at an ally is that the ally doesn't factor in any dex or dodge bonuses to his touch AC in such a case, assuming the ally is aware of the ray being beneficial. (Basically the player can choose to try to avoid it, and thus retain their full touch AC against it, or 'allow' it to hit them, and thus not add dex and dodge bonuses to AC.) This is to account for the target willingly accepting the ray, but still accounts for the difficulty of hitting the target with the ray in the first place (since the base 10 plus size, deflection, and other AC modifiers would still apply.)
But its strictly a house rule.
But does fit in line with the voluntary reduction of SR rules does this lowered touch only apply to the beneficial ray or last for the full round like lowering SR does?
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"Spells modified by this feat that require melee touch attacks instead require ranged touch attacks."
Pay very close attention to the text. It has a qualifier.
If the spell didn't require a melee touch attack before, it doesn't require a ranged touch attack after Reach Spell is applied. Therefore, nearly all beneficial buff spells with a range of touch do NOT require an attack roll against an ally (even a blurred ally).