Friendly touch spell into combat requires a roll?

[Qayinisorouse]

Hey,
So in yesterday's game our DM used incorporeal monsters and as a Summoner i wanted to cast Evolution Surge to add the incorporeal form to my Eidolon.

My party said that since the Eidolon is in melee combat i must try to "hit" him with a touch attack for the spell to work.

No one was able to show me written rule but we went on with this as a solution at that moment.

Can i get clarification on that rule please? And ac link?

Thank you!

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

I'm not aware of any such rule, nor have I ever played that way..

[wraithstrike]

That is not true, and there is no rule to support that. Not all touch spells are touch spells require touch attacks.

AC assumes that you are trying to avoid being hit.

combat chapter wrote:

Armor Class
Your Armor Class (AC) represents how hard it is for opponents to land a solid, damaging blow on you.

This is also supported by the "reach" metamagic feat.

reach metamagic wrote:

Benefit: You can alter a spell with a range of touch, close, or medium to increase its range to a higher range category, using the following order: touch, close, medium, and long. A reach spell uses up a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level for each increase in range category. For example, a spell with a range of touch increased to long range uses up a spell slot three levels higher. Spells modified by this feat that require melee touch attacks instead require ranged touch attacks.

That bolded section is saying the spells which only require touch can targeted spells, but if they are touch attacks they must then become ranged touch attacks instead of just having a farther distance.

As an example instead of having to touch someone with a cure spell you would just automatically apply it to them, however if you tried to use vampiric touch which requires a touch attack, then it would become a ranged touch attack.

[Qayinisorouse]

OK, i showed this to my friends and they rechecked.

Apparently they meant this:
"You can automatically touch one friend or use the spell on yourself, but to touch an opponent, you must succeed on an attack roll."
From: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/combat.html#touch-spells-in -combat

Turns out (they said) it was a rule from 3.5 and they didn't know it was changed. They have all been playing multiple versions of D&D for around 20 years now, and this is my 2nd game, since they were all so sure of it i didn't force a rule check.

Thank you for help (as always) guys!

[Gauss]

3.5 had the same rule:

3.5 Player's Handbook p141 wrote:

You can automatically touch one friend or use the spell on yourself, but to touch an opponent, you must succeed on an attack roll.

[Drejk]

Even 3.0 had that rule:

Quote:

A character can automatically touch one friend or use the spell on itself, but to touch an opponent, the character must succeed at an attack.