Ability Damage!

[NeoSeraphi]

I love ability damage. Not just in D&D, but in all games. Debuffing and weakening your enemy's stats is a great way to stop your opponent dead in their tracks, especially when the rest of your party is optimized to the point that you are about even with your enemies, so just 4 points of lost Strength or Dexterity could tip the scale in your party's favor.

That said, ability damage is...unsupported, to say the least. Poisons are expensive, even for one dose, and require an action to draw, an action to apply, and an action to attack and deliver (and if you don't penetrate DR or regeneration, you just wasted your poison)

So I want to know all the ways that I can apply ability damage without using poison.

There's obviously the spell poison, from the PHB. And there's another spell I've heard about called moon beam or moon ray or something that deals Strength damage, but I don't know what book it's in. Then there's the Crippling Strike ability of the rogue, and a few maneuvers in ToB. And the ego whip psionic power.

So, what other ways are there for PCs to deal ability damage to a creature? If it's race-specific, please only mention it if the race has an ECL of 2 or less.

[Flickerdart]

The Psychic Rogue and Psychic Assassin have Mind Cripple, for 2 points of Intelligence damage.

[NeoSeraphi]

The Psychic Rogue and Psychic Assassin have Mind Cripple, for 2 points of Intelligence damage.

I've heard of the psionic rogue, but not the psionic assassin. What is the source material for these two classes?

[Piggy Knowles]

I'm working on a build now, but among other things, part of its deal involves turning into a grell and making 11 attacks a round, each one dealing strength damage, at level 8 (and I'm trying to find ways to make this more potent). It also works on various other ways of applying penalties to scores, including entangling and fatiguing/exhausting.

Also, duskblades are excellent at dishing out ability damage. Channeled Touch of Idiocy is fun. And if you don't mind having summonses do the dirty work for you, there is nothing better than an early-entry Master of Shrouds surrounding enemies with shadows and greater shadows.

[NeoSeraphi]

I'm working on a build now, but among other things, part of its deal involves turning into a grell and making 11 attacks a round, each one dealing strength damage, at level 8 (and I'm trying to find ways to make this more potent). It also works on various other ways of applying penalties to scores, including entangling and fatiguing/exhausting.

Grells aren't in the SRD. What is the source for this creature? And what spell/ability are you using to add Strength damage to your attacks?



Also, duskblades are excellent at dishing out ability damage. Channeled Touch of Idiocy is fun. And if you don't mind having summonses do the dirty work for you, there is nothing better than an early-entry Master of Shrouds surrounding enemies with shadows and greater shadows.

These are both great ideas, but I was hoping to end up with a build that is capable of dealing damage to each ability score at least twice per day. (So damage to Str twice a day, damage to Dex twice a day, etc). Preferably more, but I understand how difficult it will be so twice is the goal I am setting for myself.

[rollforeigninit]

Are you looking for actual ability damage or simply anything that Penalizes said ability score?

There's Strength Draining Strike and I believe a few more similar debuffs Inc he big 9th level Shadow Hand maneuver.

Ray of Clumsiness, Ray of Enfeeblement & Touch of Idiocy if you just need said scores down for a while. I Prevenom & Prevenom Weapon as well as Truevenom & Truevenom Weapon from Psionics.'ll give it some more thought, I'm sure there's more.

[Piggy Knowles]

Grells aren't in the SRD. What is the source for this creature? And what spell/ability are you using to add Strength damage to your attacks?

Grells are in MMII. They are aberrations that get ten tentacle attacks plus a bite. I'm using an elan who uses Alter Self to become a grell. And I am using two levels of Justiciar from Complete Warrior to add a point of Strength damage to any attack that deals nonlethal damage (which I can make all of my natural attacks do).


These are both great ideas, but I was hoping to end up with a build that is capable of dealing damage to each ability score at least twice per day. (So damage to Str twice a day, damage to Dex twice a day, etc). Preferably more, but I understand how difficult it will be so twice is the goal I am setting for myself.

Well, if you allow for penalties as well as damage, let's take the duskblade...

STRENGTH: Ray of Enfeeblement, Chill Touch (which can be channeled)

DEXTERITY: Ray of Exhaustion - exhausted characters take -6 to Str/Dex. Also, you could entangle them for a -4 penalty to Dex, either with a tanglefoot bag or a net. (Even without proficiency, a net is still a valuable weapon, since it's a touch attack to hit with it.)

CONSTITUTION: Toxic weapon, or buy/make some poison.

INTELLIGENCE: Touch of Idiocy.

WISDOM: Touch of Idiocy.

CHARISMA: Touch of Idiocy.

As for the Master of Shrouds, that would be even easier, because a Cleric 3/Church Inquisitor 1/Master of Shrouds X would still have full cleric casting, including domains. That means spells like Shivering Touch, Frostbite, Poison, Sap Strength, and probably a whole lot more that I'm forgetting. And you can use domains to pick up things like Ray of Enfeeblement or Feeblemind.

Better yet, go Cloistered Cleric 1/Archivist 2/Master of Shrouds X, and advance your Archivist casting. Druids get a TON of ability debuffing spells.

[NeoSeraphi]

I've never heard of sap strength or frostbite. What are their sources? And if druids have so many ability damaging spells, please list them! Thanks for your build, it looks very helpful. :smallsmile:

[Flickerdart]

I've heard of the psionic rogue, but not the psionic assassin. What is the source material for these two classes?
They're both from Mind's Eye, the online series of articles on psionics.

[Lateral]

I'm kind of surprised no one's mentioned Shivering Touch (and the Lesser version) yet. Seems like something someone would've already said.

[Fouredged Sword]

Fell weaken is a great metamagic effect for reducing strength. It's a penalty, but if attached to something with no save, then there is no save to resist the penalty.

[FMArthur]

One of the soulknife's "saving graces" (nothing saves it, actually) is its 13th level Knife to the Soul attack where it can substitute Psychic Strike damage dice for 1 point of mental ability damage of your choice per die. Psychic Strike peaks at 5 dice, so conceivably you could get maybe 10 ability damage in a round. That would be enough to autowin versus a lot of melee classes that typically put only an 8 in Charisma... if you can hit them, and if they're not immune to mind effects by then... and if they didn't already charge you and hit you hard enough that your body parts were an AoE damage attack against your nearby friends.

[Kantolin]

The Lurk from the Complete Psionic also gets the ability to augment up attacks to do wisdom or intelligence damage.

It's a neat tier 4ish class, although the psychic rogue beats it up in general. Still, it does that.

[Randomguy]

Ray of stupidity in spell compedium for int damage.

The holy grail for dragon slaying is shivering touch which I think deals 3d6 dex damage, but I don't know which book it's from.

[NeoSeraphi]

Ray of stupidity in spell compedium for int damage.

The holy grail for dragon slaying is shivering touch, but I don't know which book it's froom.

Shivering touch is from Frostburn.

[FMArthur]

Not just dragon slaying, really. Shivering Touch is just the Holy Grail of ability damage - it is rare that an opponent will have such a massive amount of Dexterity that Shivering Touch wouldn't still wind up the fastest way to disable a creature through ability damage even if there's a lower stat.

[NeoSeraphi]

So is there any way to reduce metamagic LA to +0 without using Arcane Thesis? (A way that applies to all spells)

I want to Maximize all my nasty poisonous spels.

[Lateral]

Other than going some form of Incantatrix? Haven't seen any.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

So is there any way to reduce metamagic LA to +0 without using Arcane Thesis? (A way that applies to all spells)

I want to Maximize all my nasty poisonous spels.

Yes (ish). Arcane Thesis is good. Some Dragon Magazine has Easy Metamagic (works for only one metamagic feat) feat. Races of the Dragon has Practical Metamagic (all feats, but requirements are hard for wizards).

Incantatrix 10 does it (Player's Guide to Faerun). Spelldancer (Some FR book?) does it, but see text.

[NeoSeraphi]

Yes (ish). Arcane Thesis is good. Some Dragon Magazine has Easy Metamagic (works for only one metamagic feat) feat. Races of the Dragon has Practical Metamagic (all feats, but requirements are hard for wizards).

Easy Metamagic and Practical Metamagic have a minimum of +0? I thought they were both +1?

[FMArthur]

You can use Easy Metamagic, and Practical Metamagic after jumping through some hoops to reduce a particular metamagic by 1 each, but neither takes it below 1.

You can get limited-use metamagic mitigation by using the 1/day Sudden Maximize feat. You could take Sudden Empower as well for a similar effect. You can take Metamagic School Focus to mitigate up to 3 levels of metamagic per day in a selected school of magic... but if it's not your specialty you need Spell Focus as well, so to get 6 or 9 uses of it total for spells from different schools, it sinks all your feats.

edit: Escalation Mage from Faiths of Eberron is trivial to enter and gives you certain free imitation metamagics up to its class level per day, and then an extra use of each one individually as the capstone. Empower and Quicken are the two effects you could use from it to improve your focus on ability damage. The class is 6 levels long.

[NeoSeraphi]

edit: Escalation Mage from Faiths of Eberron is trivial to enter and gives you certain free imitation metamagics up to its class level per day, and then an extra use of each one individually as the capstone. Empower and Quicken are the two effects you could use from it to improve your focus on ability damage. The class is 6 levels long.

Hmm...It's useful, I guess, and easy enough to get into, but I don't think free Empowers and Quickens a few times per day (especially if I screw up the CL check and get slowed) would be as useful to me as another prestige class...I don't really have a specific one in mind, but something that lets me get free Maximizes or perhaps lets me grab druid spells...

[Piggy Knowles]

I've never heard of sap strength or frostbite. What are their sources? And if druids have so many ability damaging spells, please list them! Thanks for your build, it looks very helpful. :smallsmile:

Frostbite is from Frostburn, and I think it's a super-underrated spell. Sap Strength is from Book of Vile Darkness I think?

As for druid ways of damaging ability scores, they get more poison-focused spells than any class, and more ways of entangling opponents (giving them a -4 Dex), too. And the only winter-themed debuff they DON'T get is Shivering Touch - they get all the other good ones, though, including Entomb, Numbing Sphere, Corona of Cold, and Death Hail. Other good spells include Moon Bolt, Languor, Dehydrate, and Red Tide.

(...and before you ask, all of these spells are from Spell Compendium or Frostburn. Frostburn, by the way, probably has more ability-damaging spells than any other splatbook.)

[NeoSeraphi]

Frostbite is from Frostburn, and I think it's a super-underrated spell. Sap Strength is from Book of Vile Darkness I think?

As for druid ways of damaging ability scores, they get more poison-focused spells than any class, and more ways of entangling opponents (giving them a -4 Dex), too. And the only winter-themed debuff they DON'T get is Shivering Touch - they get all the other good ones, though, including Entomb, Numbing Sphere, Corona of Cold, and Death Hail. Other good spells include Moon Bolt, Languor, Dehydrate, and Red Tide.

(...and before you ask, all of these spells are from Spell Compendium or Frostburn. Frostburn, by the way, probably has more ability-damaging spells than any other splatbook.)

Sweet. Thank you very much. Okay gotta get Frostburn...and I need a way to combine the druid and wizard spell lists...

[gorfnab]

Maiming Strike (EoE) - ambush feat that trades sneak attack for Cha damage

The Shadowcaster (ToM) Mysteries Flesh Fails and Flesh Fails Greater can do Str, Dex, or Con damage. Afraid of the Dark does Wis damage.

[killem2]

When I discovered the Reserves of Strength feat, I'll admit I was extremely tempted to jump into necromancer. Just the ability to break the cap, you could damn near destroy any creature that you could hit with high level ability damage spell.

Destroy in the sense, that they are pretty much destroyed, and creature is pretty much a goner if they go to 1 for the ability score.

Maybe if i start up a C/E theme group. haha

[Zeta Kai]

They're both from Mind's Eye, the online series of articles on psionics.

Here's (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/psi) a link, for the curious. Not bad stuff, actually. :smallcool: A rare place for psionics support from WotC. :smallsigh:

[TravelLog]

Frostburn is probably my favorite splatbook in terms of spells. Blood wind, Gelid Blood, Frostfell, Iceburg, Boreal Wind...the list of amazing spells goes on and on.

[Slipperychicken]

Shivering touch

A Spell-Storing (+1) weapon bearing an auto-resetting trap of Shivering Touch (+7500gp), set to cast the spell into the weapon every [arbitrarily small interval of time], would come out around 15,550gp. 3d6 Dex damage per hit, no save, SR: Yes. I'm getting the idea that the trap can cast Shivering Touch into the weapon from the precedent of some trapped items affecting only themselves with their traps.

[candycorn]

Frostburn is probably my favorite splatbook in terms of spells. Blood wind, Gelid Blood, Frostfell, Iceburg, Boreal Wind...the list of amazing spells goes on and on.

Spell Compendium?

[TravelLog]

Spell Compendium?

SpC has more overall, but for every good spell, there are at least 4-5 I'll never touch. Frostburn has a much higher rate of winners-to-duds. Plus, I'm a big fan of the unified favor as opposed to SpC's broad focus.

Also, note I said favorite, not necessarily most used or most useful.

[TravelLog]

A Spell-Storing (+1) weapon bearing an auto-resetting trap of Shivering Touch (+7500gp), set to cast the spell into the weapon every [arbitrarily small interval of time], would come out around 15,550gp. 3d6 Dex damage per hit, no save, SR: Yes. I'm getting the idea that the trap can cast Shivering Touch into the weapon from the precedent of some trapped items affecting only themselves with their traps.

Take Innate Spell: Shivering Touch to get it as a 3/day SLA, then take Supernatural Transformation to make an SLA into a Su ability. Then it's no save AND no SR.

[NeoSeraphi]

Take Innate Spell: Shivering Touch to get it as a 3/day SLA, then take Supernatural Transformation to make an SLA into a Su ability. Then it's no save AND no SR.

Oh geez. Can we not talk about Savage Species, please? That book is just one big mess of fail that should have never been allowed back into 3.5...

Still, shivering touch with Ocular Spell could be fun. Suddenly I have ice beams coming out of my eyes!

[candycorn]

SpC has more overall, but for every good spell, there are at least 4-5 I'll never touch. Frostburn has a much higher rate of winners-to-duds. Plus, I'm a big fan of the unified favor as opposed to SpC's broad focus.

Also, note I said favorite, not necessarily most used or most useful.

True, SpC has about 2-3 duds to every good spell. That still gives it more good spells than any other source, short of possibly the PhB. Frostburn has some great theme spells, true, but then, so does Races of the Dragon. Organizing by theme is all well and good, but sometimes, I just like to be able to quickly reference a compilation from many themes, to get an all-in-one resource. It's like Wal-mart versus the corner store.

[Zeta Kai]

True, SpC has about 2-3 duds to every good spell. That still gives it more good spells than any other source, short of possibly the PhB. Frostburn has some great theme spells, true, but then, so does Races of the Dragon. Organizing by theme is all well and good, but sometimes, I just like to be able to quickly reference a compilation from many themes, to get an all-in-one resource. It's like Wal-mart versus the corner store.

FTR, the Spell Compendium has almost twice as many spells (1,001) as the PHB (605).

[NeoSeraphi]

FTR, the Spell Compendium has almost twice as many spells (1,001) as the PHB (605).

Really? 1,001? I wonder what the last spell they decided to add in was? Oh, wait, did you include draconic polymorph in that count? Because draconic polymorph is listed in the spell index, but never made it to the actual book.

[Zeta Kai]

Really? 1,001? I wonder what the last spell they decided to add in was? Oh, wait, did you include draconic polymorph in that count? Because draconic polymorph is listed in the spell index, but never made it to the actual book.

According to this list (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/spells) (where I get my numbers), no, that spell is not included.

[Snowbluff]

A Spell-Storing (+1) weapon bearing an auto-resetting trap of Shivering Touch (+7500gp), set to cast the spell into the weapon every [arbitrarily small interval of time], would come out around 15,550gp. 3d6 Dex damage per hit, no save, SR: Yes. I'm getting the idea that the trap can cast Shivering Touch into the weapon from the precedent of some trapped items affecting only themselves with their traps.

Books/ Sources please! I have to make this happen!

Shivering touch gets my vote for ability damage, but keep in mind the ToB give a bunch of options for ability damage with maneuvers.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Really, it's not all that difficult. Touch of Idiocy + Shivering Touch + Ocular Spell = good times.

The other thing you may want to look into, as far as debuffing effects which are lethal, are negative level generation tactics. Penalty on just about everything you care to name, and if you eat more negative levels than you have HD, you flat-out die, no save.

[NeoSeraphi]

Really, it's not all that difficult. Touch of Idiocy + Shivering Touch + Ocular Spell = good times.

I want to drop people to 0, though. Touch of idiocy isn't good for that.


The other thing you may want to look into, as far as debuffing effects which are lethal, are negative level generation tactics. Penalty on just about everything you care to name, and if you eat more negative levels than you have HD, you flat-out die, no save.

Yeah, enervation specialists are fun and deadly (and cheap)

[Snowbluff]

I want to drop people to 0, though. Touch of idiocy isn't good for that.



Yeah, enervation specialists are fun and deadly (and cheap)

OOOOOOHHHHHH! This is what the theurge is for! I'll say one thing about ability damage is think about the party. Are you the only one doing ability damage? If so, will you be able to bring the target down faster than your raw damage dealer(s)? If yes, then what's his reason for existence? Your 2 damage types do not mesh at all, unless you'll confine yourself to Con damage.

[Othesemo]

My personal favorite is Waves of Exhaustion. 60 ft. cone, no saving throw, all creatures within the area become exhausted (-6 str and dex, as well as a host of other penalties). Meanwhile, Feeblemind reduces the target's int and cha to one, and they remain at one until hit with a heal, wish or miracle. The best part is that wizards, sorcerers, psions and anyone else who uses those stats for casting take a -4 penalty to the save, making it incredibly effective at locking down casters.

[killem2]

My personal favorite is Waves of Exhaustion. 60 ft. cone, no saving throw, all creatures within the area become exhausted (-6 str and dex, as well as a host of other penalties). Meanwhile, Feeblemind reduces the target's int and cha to one, and they remain at one until hit with a heal, wish or miracle. The best part is that wizards, sorcerers, psions and anyone else who uses those stats for casting take a -4 penalty to the save, making it incredibly effective at locking down casters.

This stuff sounds so friggin awesome lol.

Its not an aspect of the game I've attempted before. I wonder if there is a melee based class, that also combines these drain aspects. :smallbiggrin:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Psionics is also a great way to deal stat damage. For example: Ego Whip (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/egoWhip.htm) deal Charisma damage that can be augmented up to quite a staggering amount.

[candycorn]

FTR, the Spell Compendium has almost twice as many spells (1,001) as the PHB (605).
The spell compendium has about 350 good spells, and 651 wastes of ink.

My personal favorite is Waves of Exhaustion. 60 ft. cone, no saving throw, all creatures within the area become exhausted (-6 str and dex, as well as a host of other penalties). Meanwhile, Feeblemind reduces the target's int and cha to one, and they remain at one until hit with a heal, wish or miracle. The best part is that wizards, sorcerers, psions and anyone else who uses those stats for casting take a -4 penalty to the save, making it incredibly effective at locking down casters.
My only problem with Waves of Exhaustion is that, per the description, it's technically negative energy, which means that Death Ward protects from it. Otherwise, it's an excellent debuff.

[Zeta Kai]

The spell compendium has about 350 good spells, and 651 wastes of ink.

That appears to be a common sentiment. Does anyone have a list of which is which?