Greetings,
I have a question concerning the touch attack abilities of monsters, such as the lich or lamia.
Now imagine, for a moment if you will,
1: a lich with improved unarmed strike combat reflexs and snake riposte.
OR
2: a lamia with levels in swashbuckler and opportune parry and riposte.
In scenario one:
If a player attacks the lich and misses, it is due an attack of opportunity. What prevens it from using it's paralysing touch for that attack of opportunity? And wouldn't that make a daunting prospect for anyone attempting to face her in melee?
in scenario two:
Any player attacking would face 1: a parry from the lamia, and 2: a riposte from her wisdom drain touch, making all attacks agaisn't her a potentially damning prospect as they lower your will save vs her spells?
Is there anything in the rules to prevent this?
I read the touch attack abilitis as being standard action attacks, since they never qualify for itterative actions, but I cannot find the rules justification for such things.
Can anyone refer me to the right ruling, or tell me tha tthis is legit?
For that matter, where is the rule stating a lich with 11 BAB cannot make 3 touch attacks per round to paralyse (with spells it is easy: standard action is the action required to cast, but what about monster aiblities...)
I believe I have found the answer to my own question, but could someone check my logic please?
Using a supernatural ability is a standard cation, unless otherwise specified.
An attack of opportunity, or an iterative attack, are all attack actions, which are not a series of standard actions but their own series of attack actions.
Thus:
A supernatural ability cannot be used as an AoO
A supernatural ability cannot be used as an ''Attack'' in the opportune parry and riposte power
A supernatural ability cannot be delivered as part of an unarmed strike.
Am I correct?
1. Snake Fang (I can't find a "Snake Riposte") only allows responding with an unarmed strike. Paralyzing touch is a touch attack, not an unarmed strike. While touch spells and spell-like abilities can be delivered via unarmed strike if the caster is already holding the charge, other touch attacks do not have the concept of "holding the charge" and thus do not work that way.
2. This one is more dangerous. Opportune parry and riposte places no special restriction on what weapon to use for the attack of opportunity. A lamia swashbuckler can indeed make their attack of opportunity with their touch attack.
For that matter, where is the rule stating a lich with 11 BAB cannot make 3 touch attacks per round to paralyse (with spells it is easy: standard action is the action required to cast, but what about monster aiblities...)
The lich's paralyzing touch is described as a primary natural weapon. Barring some very specific builds, you cannot make multiple attacks with the same natural weapon as part of a full-attack routine. Your lich could make three attacks with a weapon or unarmed strike and then also attack with the touch as a secondary natural weapon following the rules for combining iterative attacks with natural weapons, but said lich cannot attack with the touch multiple times for the same reason that a T-rex only bites once instead of three times--it's a natural weapon and is bound by the rules for natural weapons.
A supernatural ability cannot be used as an AoO
A supernatural ability cannot be used as an ''Attack'' in the opportune parry and riposte power
A supernatural ability cannot be delivered as part of an unarmed strike.Am I correct?
Not quite.
For one, there's the phrase "unless otherwise specified". Both a lich's paralyzing touch and a lamia's touch attack do, in fact, otherwise specify; they do so by including the touch alongside other attacks in a single attack routine. A by-the-book lamia taking a full attack can attack with their dagger, touch, and two claws all in the same routine. If the lamia's touch attack was a mere standard action ability, they could never do that. Similarly, a lich's paralyzing touch is stated to be treated as a primary natural weapon and is usable as such in a full attack routine.
There are some fundamental misunderstandings about the phrase "attack action" versus "attack" as well, but that might not need to be hashed out to resolve this issue.
My bigger question then would be in the case of lamia matriarch, it specifies the touch attack is an OR.
Now I realise that lamia matriarchs are from rise of the runelord and thus their ruling might be a bit iffy, but wouldn't that go towards the option that their wisdom drain is a standard action supernatural ability and not an attack action part of their full attack round?
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/unique-monsters/cr-10/lamia-matriarch-sor cerer-2/
Also for snake fang and the lich/lamia, all that's missing is feral combat training and a monk level for itterative drain attacks, which tends to make me believe that it is in fact a standard action and not a natural weapon.
This is further evidenced by their entry under a (Su) ability in their monster stat block. And as mentionned above, unless noted, a su abiility is a standard action. I do not believe an entry under their stat block, which is a shortcut to their stat really, to be ''noted'' unless we can get other evidence to concur with this interpretation?
If you read the Wisdom Drain(SU) ability of a Lamia Matriarch it says "A lamia matriarch drains 1d4 points of Wisdom each time she hits with her melee touch attack. The first time each round that she strikes a foe with a melee weapon, she also drains 1 point of Wisdom."
That seems to indicate the intention is for the matriarch either perform a touch attack, or get 1 wisdom drain with their first successful itterative attack. If you decided to make a monk version of a Lamia I'd think it would be best to limit the wisdom drain to 1 point per strike. Though there is also the Lamia Hungerer you could consider, which does 2 points of wisdom damage per attack.
Most characters don't have a lot of wisdom. Typically 10 points is enough to incapacitate a player. Having a monster that does 3d4 wisdom damage a round is insane. The Hungerer does potentially 6 points a round and when I was running RoTRL it did take out characters in 2 rounds. Don't go all gung ho with stat damage. As a GM putting it in as a threat is good, but putting in too much of it is unfair.
Yes this is actually to get a fair ruling from our DM in ROTRL, he ruled it as : 1 point of damage every weapon hit, made her a swashbuckler, used opportune parry and riposte to slap back our barb once a round with 2d4 wisdom damage. Then also made touch attacks every round for that. Our barb went down every round or so and we have to feed her potions of lesser resto to get her back in the fight.
But aside from my own situation, I'd really enjoy knowing just to know.