Force Ward vs Non-damaging attacks

[DrakeRoberts]

This question is in regards to the Force Ward defensive wild talent of the Aether Kineticist:

PRD says wrote:

"You constantly surround yourself with a ward of force. You gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your kineticist level. You always lose these temporary hit points first, even before other temporary hit points. If an attack deals less damage than you still have as temporary hit points from force ward, it still reduces those temporary hit points but otherwise counts as a miss for the purpose of abilities that trigger on a hit or a miss..."

1) If you are attacked with a non-damaging attack, such as the touch attack to deliver Bestow Curse or Ghoul Touch, then does the Force Ward automatically make the attack a miss and thus make you immune to the delivery of such spells until the ward is depleted?

2) It is my assumption that spells like inflict light wounds that do damage would still work (although non-damage effects would be prevented if the damage wasn't enough to bypass the ward) because the spell damage is the attack's damage. This does, however, beg the question as to whether such a melee touch attack spell (that is, one that did damage plus some other effect) would or wouldn't maintain it's charge since it effectively 'missed'. I think the intent here would be that the spell is still lost, but RAW may not agree with that.

Ideas? Opinions?

[SlimGauge]

Opinions

1) Yes, as those attacks don't do hit point damage that would overcome the force ward. Note, however, that if the touch effect can ALSO be delivered via unarmed strike (as can most held touch spells) THEN by attacking normal AC (rather than touch AC) and doing enough damage to overcome the force ward, the rider touch effect can be delivered. See the core rules under "Holding the Charge"

2) Your inflict light wounds did damage to the force ward, so it didn't "miss" so much as "miss the intended target". It is discharged (into the force ward, damaging it), but any rider effects don't trigger, because the intended target didn't take damage.

[SodiumTelluride]

Here's my take on the issue.

1) The Force Ward would not affect a non-damaging attack. I think there's a difference between dealing 0 damage (such as not bypassing DR) and not dealing damage.

2) Notice how the ability says that a warded attack "counts as a miss for the purpose of abilities that trigger on a hit or a miss". For all other purposes, the attack hits. The damaging spell is discharged, since holding the charge isn't an ability. (I think this provides further evidence for my argument concerning item 1.) Abilities that trigger on a hit or a miss would include the stunning barrier spell, the Deception domain's Sudden Shift ability, the Grab monster ability, and so on.

[DrakeRoberts]

So that's one vote for each on the first question?

[technarken]

One path makes Force Ward incredibly powerful against save or suck/die effects, maybe too powerful for unintelligent enemies that don't understand how breaching the ward helps them land their save or suck/die effects.

The other path would necessitate a change of the wording of Force Ward, but would otherwise be fine on comparison to the other good elemental defenses.

[Ventnor]

SodiumTelluride wrote:

Here's my take on the issue.

1) The Force Ward would not affect a non-damaging attack. I think there's a difference between dealing 0 damage (such as not bypassing DR) and not dealing damage.

2) Notice how the ability says that a warded attack "counts as a miss for the purpose of abilities that trigger on a hit or a miss". For all other purposes, the attack hits. The damaging spell is discharged, since holding the charge isn't an ability. (I think this provides further evidence for my argument concerning item 1.) Abilities that trigger on a hit or a miss would include the stunning barrier spell, the Deception domain's Sudden Shift ability, the Grab monster ability, and so on.

I guess the question, then, is "do spells that require a successful touch attack to affect an enemy count as an ability that triggers on a hit or miss?"

[Smoak Shadow]

Would force ward protect against undead's draining or damaging attacks that don't do actual damage. Like a shadow doing only strength damage on a hit?

[pocsaclypse]

Smoak Shadow wrote:

Would force ward protect against undead's draining or damaging attacks that don't do actual damage. Like a shadow doing only strength damage on a hit?

I came across this very same thread just a couple days ago trying to figure out how force ward would interact with a shadows touch attack too.

To the best of my understanding, force ward wouldnt block the shadows touch attack using "the slow blade penetrates the shield" sort of logic.
Force wards effects trigger when hp damage is done after an already successful attack, so since a shadow doesnt do any hp damage, force ward cant stop it.