[3.5] Non-touch attack Fail to include touch-attack success: fair?

[Maginomicon]

Would it be so bad to house rule that if an attack would miss the normal AC but would hit the touch AC, to say that the attack connects but nothing happens?

i.e. "Your blade bounces off of his armor" or "Your punch gets blocked by his shield" or "Your arrow pings off of the dragon's scales".

How could that be abused, and would that abuse really be so terrible?

Mechanically, there'd probably have to be a priority line for what ends up stopping an attack. What would that list be?

I would think it would look like this:
Deflection
Dodge
Dex-bonus (the last of the "it doesn't even connect" AC bonuses)
Shield
Armor
Natural Armor (the last line of defense period)

Should defenses that also assist against Touch AC even be on this list?

[Adindra]

I thought that was the point of the different ac types and this is what already happened?


maybe its just been a normal house rule for my group but its been that way as long as i can remember

[AttilaTheGeek]

I'd rule that elemental damage (from a Flaming, Shocking, etc) weapon would go through even if it hit touch AC.

[Gemini476]

Don't forget DR and damage that fails to exceed it. That probably just pings off armour, although it could also be failing to penetrate thick skin (and therefore hitting).

I think that most spells and weapons that care about just hitting the target go for touch AC, but yeah.

Also, what would you do with various other strange bonuses to AC? Luck, sacred etc.

[Feytalist]

Many (all?) touch spells can be delivered as part of an unarmed attack (or natural weapon attack if you have claws or such), but explicitly fail if the attack misses. It would be easy enough, in that case, to have the spell be delivered if the touch AC is hit, even if the actual attack misses.

[TuggyNE]

There might be a few wacky interactions if you misread things for Stormguard Warrior or whatever it is that lets you make special touch attacks to gain to-hit bonuses, but other than that, nearly all touch attack abilities are either limited-use, a minor amount of extra elemental damage, or sometimes both, so I doubt there will be any serious consequences to this.

Honestly, it's something I almost didn't realize would be a houserule without thinking about it.