Rogues handling Rods (and other touch-related questions)

[Kitty Catoblepas]

I'd like to use you guys as a sounding board for some rules questions I have, if I may. Thanks ahead of time for your help. If you guys have a PRD link or FAQ link that I've missed in conjunction with these, I would appreciate it.

For the following questions, I'm considering these magic items:

Rod of Ice:

Rod of Ice

This rod looks like a long sliver of ice and is cold to the touch, but deals no cold damage to its wielder. The wearer can use the rod to make a melee touch attack that deals 1d4 points of cold damage to any creature struck. Also, once per day on command, the wielder can touch the rod to the ground to create a 30-foot cone of ice that encrusts the earth, affecting the area as per the spell grease.

Rod of Nettles:

Rod of Nettles

This wooden rod is engraved with serrated-edged leaves of stinging nettles. This rod acts as a +1 light mace that deals no damage. Instead, the rod's venomous touch (melee touch attack) deals 1d3 points of Dexterity damage and causes the target to become sickened for 1d6 rounds (DC 14 Fortitude negates the sickened effect and halves the Dexterity damage); on a critical hit, no saving throw is allowed.

Once per day on command, the wielder may touch the rod of nettles to ordinary vegetation, causing a 20-foot cube to become tangled with nettle-choked overgrowth as the overgrowth ability of the plant growth spell. Furthermore, creatures entering or within this area are affected as if touched by the rod, though creatures with a natural armor bonus of +3 or greater are immune to this effect. A creature that saves is unaffected by the area's poison for 24 hours.

Rod of Withering:

Rod of Withering

A rod of withering acts as a +1 light mace that deals no hit point damage. Instead, the wielder deals 1d4 points of Strength damage and 1d4 points of Constitution damage to any creature she touches with the rod (by making a melee touch attack). If she scores a critical hit, the damage from that hit is permanent ability drain. In either case, the defender negates the effect with a DC 17 Fortitude save.

Questions as follows:

• 1 -- Can a user of one of the above rods make a full attack with its touch attacks or use the rod with two-weapon fighting? In the PRD, touch attacks are referred to as "attacks" and one can make a full attack (two-weapon fighting, etc) with touch attacks, so I would say, YES

• 2 -- It's been established that a Rogue can Sneak Attack with a touch attack that deals damage. I remember seeing somewhere that the damage type was related to the damage type of the attack (eg cold damage with Rod of Ice, negative energy damage with Rod of Withering), but I can't find that written anywhere. Can someone verify? Does the Sneak Attack stop being precision damage in this case? My gut says, NO

• 3 -- The Rod of Nettles allows a save for half. The Rod of Withering allows a save to negate. Do these saves halve and negate Sneak Attack damage, respectively? I'm up in the air about this one

• 4 -- What damage bonuses apply? Can the attacker use Power Attack? Piranha Strike? Weapon Specialization? Precise Strike? Strength-to-Damage? Dexterity-to-Damage? I'd say YES to everything but Strength-to-damage and Dex-to-Damage, with the ability damage rods adding Negative Energy Damage instead of extra Ability Damage. Since you can use Point Blank Shot and Deadly Aim with rays, I don't see why you couldn't use the previous with melee touch attacks, treating them as light weapons. I'd be interested to hear an argument for Rogue's Finesse Training adding Dex-to-Damage for melee touch attacks if anyone supports that.

• 5 -- What happens if a Warpriest selects one of the above as his/her Sacred Weapon? My answer is, The DM scolds the player for trying to abuse the system

[Axoren]

Dotting for good question.
This is the first time I've seen Sneak Attack Rods considered.

[CBDunkerson]

1: Yes.
2: This sounds like the Arcane Trickster capstone ability. I would not allow any of these rods to deal sneak attack damage without some special ability granting such a feature.
3: That's how it works for the Arcane Trickster.
4: All of those increase weapon damage. As these rods do NO weapon damage I wouldn't have those options do anything.
5: Again, Sacred Weapon increases weapon damage. These rods do NO weapon damage. Zero multiplied by anything is still zero.

[Andy Brown]

The rod of nettles and rod of withering don't deal HP damage, so I'd be inclined to say no sneak attack damage at all with those.
Rod of ice does HP damage (cold), so I'd be inclined toward allowing sneak attack, using all the usual rules

[dragonhunterq]

It was in a later book from 3.0/3.5 that endorsed sneak attack damage with non-hit-point damaging effects, and stated that the sneak attack would still only do hit-point damage of a relevant type.

I don't think it has been explicitly either carried forward or unendorsed (for want of a better term).

5) Rods are not a weapon you can take weapon focus with as far as I'm aware so warpriest cannot sacred weapon them.

[Dr Styx]

5) the "Rod of Nettles" and "Rod of Withering" are treated as a light mace, which can be a Warpriest can have as a Sacred Weapon. But Sacred Weapon replaces only the hit point damage of the weapon, not energy damage.

[Kitty Catoblepas]

CBDunkerson wrote:

2: This sounds like the Arcane Trickster capstone ability. I would not allow any of these rods to deal sneak attack damage without some special ability granting such a feature.
3: That's how it works for the Arcane Trickster.
4: All of those increase weapon damage. As these rods do NO weapon damage I wouldn't have those options do anything.
5: Again, Sacred Weapon increases weapon damage. These rods do NO weapon damage. Zero multiplied by anything is still zero.

I looked a little further and got the following:

2: Consider

This implies that a sneak attack damage can be dealt with a ray. It follows that sneak attack damage can be dealt with a damaging melee touch attack (to differentiate, the Arcane Trickster capstone can deal Sneak Attack damage with damaging area spells whereas normally an attack roll is required).

I know I saw a passage about Sneak Attack and damage type somewhere, but I'm not sure where. Maybe 5e, then?

3: Yeah, that's where I took that from

4: Relevant ruling
Another

Again, a melee touch attack that does damage is similar enough to a ray or other example listed for these ruling to apply. I guess it only applies to the Rod of Ice since the other rods don't deal hit point damage. I can only assume that you can't deal sneak attack damage with a weapon that deals no hit point damage under the current rules.

5: Agree

[CBDunkerson]

Yes, the rod of ice is a potential exception on some of these since it deals HP damage. However, it would still be a very odd case.

For example, what 'weapon' would you specialize in? You can't go with 'ray' because it isn't firing one. If you took Weapon Specialization (Light Mace) that would be back to boosting your non-existent weapon damage. So... Weapon Specialization (Weird cold attack attached to a zero damage physical attack rod)?

[Kitty Catoblepas]

The only weapon I could see as being applicable would be Touch Attack. I'm on the fence as to whether considering Touch Attack to be an actual weapon follows the consideration of a Ray as a weapon or as to whether it stretches too far away from that ruling.

Of course, in a home campaign, I'd rule "Sure, why not?" but it's nice to try to get others' input on it, especially for situations like PFS.