Why Do Touch Spells Feel So...Unfair?

[wayfare]

Hey All:

One issue I've noted in my games is that players often feel that touch spells are "cheap". They understand the logic of the touch attack, but still feel liek it is unbalancing. Some go so far as to suggest that it should be replaced with a Reflex save instead.

The Warlock seems unbearable to a few of my players, with its "free" magic and limitless touch attacks, despite my attempts to explain why they are T4.

What do I say to this? Can anybody help me tease out why this seems to be an issue?

[eggynack]

Touch spells obviously seem unfair because they have such a high chance of hitting. However, the ultimate effect is often lower, especially with classes like the warlock. You should show your players some actual damage comparisons, meaning a comparison that takes to-hit into account, between a warlock and an optimized archer or melee guy. It seems simple enough.

[Parra]

My guess would be to show them how to defend against touch attacks and the feeling of unfairness should largely go away.

[Cloud]

I imagine most touch spells feel unfair because touch AC doesn't scale particularly well; in fact with monsters touch AC tends to stay the same or decrease with CR, because many high CR monsters are relatively large in size. Normal AC, Health, Saves, they all scale, touch AC...stays around 10 +/- 4 for most monsters.

Of course the Warlock having touch attacks shouldn't be a concern, but it's an actual problem for the Orb spells or say, Shivering Touch.

As for the Warlock seeming unbearable...that well...to be blunt points to a lack of experience in your group. Have any of them seen what a Wizard can do? Either that or might be a perception thing, some people don't like magic being freely available, though in my mind if you're not limiting how many times a Fighter can swing his weapon, I don't see why magic has to be always limited to spell slots.

Edit: As for a player increasing his touch AC, even for characters that wouldn't otherwise use dexterity, +2, or even +4 much later on, is chump change and increases your touch AC (and even more importantly initiative). Deflection bonuses from the Ring of Protection, as well as the Insight bonus from one of the ioun stones, also helps.

[Bronk]

Maybe you could change up the opponents a bit... maybe throw in some high dexterity assassins or a dragon that casts 'scintillating scales'. Maybe your players could save up for an impaling weapon or something too, if they're that bothered.

[ArcturusV]

It's... an evolution thing. Most players, at least when new, focus on AC as the grand winner of defenses. It's why they look at something like a Fighter, Cleric, etc, and think it's this "tank" because it has better AC with shields, heavy armor, etc.

But if you throw in miss chances? It's not so great anymore. Invisible enemies, enemies using Blur, or Displacement, or Mirror Image, blinking, etc.

But in the end... yeah, touch spells will feel unfair. Based on what you do with them. If you're using your touch spells for things like Shocking Grasp, or Warlock Blasting, you can point out how, well... kind of pathetic they are compared to what even simple Rogues and Fighters will do. Your warlock blasts for 3d6 every round? My rogue stabs people in the face for 1d6+3d6 x 3 every round, that sort of thing.

When touch spells are unfair is when you start considering things like a touch that says "I win". There's quite a few out there. Between familiars, spells, metamagic, and such, they're pretty easy to deliver as well.

[shadow_archmagi]

Touch spells are widely regarded as fantastic. Getting AC to scale as fast as to-hit bonuses is already a losing battle- denying people the majority of their AC is just mean.

[Just to Browse]

Problems you might be having:
Are you throwing a bunch of tough bowling ball monsters and/or closet trolls? Those are probably creatures made to make the fighter feel sad, and are not designed to combat touch casters.
Are you in a group with a bunch of people playing fighters that take weapon focus, TWF rangers, and/or full-classed monks? Even a warlock can outdamage these people, so I wouldn't be surprised if players felt that was unfair.
If touch spells are coming from casters at low level, are you forgetting that Concentration check for defensive casting? Or perhaps the AoO for ranged attacks and spells in melee?


Solutions if a PC warlock is winning things:
Use assassins: squishy enemies with high mobility that dive to the back line and beat the **** out of the warlock. It adds a dynamic to the combat (PCs will need to protect the mage) and the warlock will feel more like a glass cannon.
Use a smart caster or someone with Armored in Life (or both!). These are people who sacrifice overall AC for touch AC. It'll be harder for the warlock to hit with his blasts, and any save-boosters will make it tougher for the warlock to get his spells off.
Cover and archery onto the warlock accomplishes a similar thing to assassins, but now the people wailing on the warlock are in the back lines and your beefy PC warriors can run forward to beat them up.

My guess is that, since the warlock has a strong lower optimization bound, your PCs who are not familiar with optimizing are taking sub-optimal choices but the warlock is suffering the least. If this is the case, your best option is just to tailor your encounters to the party. Nerfing eldritch blast or giving all enemies +bull**** bonuses to touch AC will make your warlock PC feel cheated.

[Lanaya]

The easiest way to show someone that warlocks aren't overpowered is to have them play one. Throwing around 10d6 eldritch blasts all day long might look cool, but when you find yourself in an actual campaign doing half the damage everyone else is and wishing you had more than two invocations it's quite different.

[KillianHawkeye]

As for a player increasing his touch AC, even for characters that wouldn't otherwise use dexterity, +2, or even +4 much later on, is chump change and increases your touch AC (and even more importantly initiative).

Note that increasing Dexterity won't help if you're already at the maximum allowed by your armor.

[Urpriest]

Remember, non-casters should be getting touch attacks at least sometimes too, through their maneuvers or soulmelds or the like.

[MonochromeTiger]

Hey All:

One issue I've noted in my games is that players often feel that touch spells are "cheap". They understand the logic of the touch attack, but still feel liek it is unbalancing. Some go so far as to suggest that it should be replaced with a Reflex save instead.

The Warlock seems unbearable to a few of my players, with its "free" magic and limitless touch attacks, despite my attempts to explain why they are T4.

What do I say to this? Can anybody help me tease out why this seems to be an issue?

comparing touch and non touch spells: touch you just have to deal with base AC +dex, dodge, and deflect bonuses with size categories often making the enemy even easier to hit. touch spells also have the added effect that some apply the "add str bonus to damage" of a melee attack or are a more clear hit due to hit bonuses applied to it.

non touch: after casting the spell you are entirely dependent on your enemy simply failing a save, the dice are out of your hands, your success or failure hangs on the target's roll and save bonuses being less than an arbitrary number decided by 10+casting stat modifier+spell level.

direct comparison: touch spells feel more controlled by the caster and may have a much higher chance of getting through even if the caster's int,wis, or cha are low. non touch spells rely heavily on not only your casting stat being high but your enemy's saves being low. touch has fewer moving parts to worry about and a more reachable goal.

oh right and it's also because the non magic using class communities seem to hate the magic using classes because wizards doesn't use some of their resources to, oh I don't know, buff the non magic classes to be even.

[DarkSonic1337]

On the other hand MonochromeTiger, without some additional steps touch spells require you to...get kinda close to the enemy (at least melee touch spells). Their added power and reliability are weighed against the danger such a caster is putting himself into (not just from casting in melee, which is easy enough to avoid, but by the simple fact of BEING in melee).

There are plenty of "No save just suck" spells that a player could be using without putting themselves at unnecessary risk.

Having the occasional enemy with high touch AC is actually a really good thing. It'll show the other players that their attack bonuses are often HIGHER than the classes who depend on hitting touch AC (as they'll be hitting more often in this encounter) Also throw some enemies with simple miss chances for their defense instead of AC, and stuff with decent spell resistance, and large groups of enemies, and small enemies, ect. Just make sure that you're throwing a good variety of different monsters at your players to show that AC and Touch AC are not the only defenses they have to fight.

[MonochromeTiger]

On the other hand MonochromeTiger, without some additional steps touch spells require you to...get kinda close to the enemy (at least melee touch spells). Their added power and reliability are weighed against the danger such a caster is putting himself into (not just from casting in melee, which is easy enough to avoid, but by the simple fact of BEING in melee).

There are plenty of "No save just suck" spells that a player could be using without putting themselves at unnecessary risk.

Having the occasional enemy with high touch AC is actually a really good thing. It'll show the other players that their attack bonuses are often HIGHER than the classes who depend on hitting touch AC (as they'll be hitting more often in this encounter) Also throw some enemies with simple miss chances for their defense instead of AC, and stuff with decent spell resistance, and large groups of enemies, and small enemies, ect. Just make sure that you're throwing a good variety of different monsters at your players to show that AC and Touch AC are not the only defenses they have to fight.

agreed, there is an inherent trade off in using the "easier hit" touch spells that puts the caster at much higher risk than normal spell casting (assuming they don't use ranged touch as you mentioned). albeit at the same time it's merely a different trade off from those suffered by other spell casting types, short of the "no save" spells you already mentioned of course. touch risks being in melee, ranged touch rarely has the same hit bonuses as melee touch does, normal spells are even less likely to get through a well prepared enemy, and area of effect spells may fry your friends (or yourself on a couple of them).

[Psyren]

How is your warlock doing enough damage to even be noticeable, never mind overpowered?

[Scow2]

When you turn it around, touch attacks are VERY nasty:

1. Most players (Especially martial characters, who are supposed to be good at defense) are getting their defenses from Armor, Shields, and Natural Armor - stuff Touch ACs ignore.

2. Touch AC in the hands of a player is usually mitigated by bad attack bonuses. Monsters with Touch spells tend to have excellent attack bonuses.

3. The characters that deliver the most Touch attacks are casters. The people who get hit by Touch Attacks most are Noncasters. It's yet another one of 3.5's big "**** You"s to martial characters.


How is your warlock doing enough damage to even be noticeable, never mind overpowered?It's probably a normal (Read: Low) optimization game.

[Talya]

How is your warlock doing enough damage to even be noticeable, never mind overpowered?

Eldritch Glaive is enough to be quite noticeable.

[Pokelord2]

Touch spells feel unfair because they are more reliable than other spells. In my experience with playing spellcasters touch spells are generally more useful since they don't usually require a saving throw and its based on me having a attack against someone's touch AC. I don't encounter a lot of opponents with a high touch (except when my GM doesn't feel like letting me win so soon) and most often my enemies have high saving throws. The most notable benefit of touch spells (in my opinion) is the ability to use sneak attack with it. My spellthief not only hits the enemy with a nasty spell but also steals a spell in the process.

Occasionally I'll use a non-touch spell but only if it either has no SR or if the spell has a partial effect on a successful non-reflex based save.

If you want to show that warlocks have their weaknesses remember the following:

1) Mage Slayer is a BS feat.
2) A creature with SR would force that warlock to roll TWICE in order to hit it, once to hit the creature and a second time to overcome spell resistance.
3) Some things can reflect, redirect, or outright ignore ranged touch attacks. For example: the Random Deflector of the Wild Mage. Spell Turning works pretty well against ranged attacks.

The ultimate tool to shut-down spellcasters is always a well-placed antimagic field. I once played with a guy who had his ardent take the magic mantle. He'd manifest anti-psionic/magic field and while the enemy casters were shut down him and his partner-in-crime would poison the crap out of him. No, these were not good-aligned PCs but they were good at what they did.

[Psyren]

Eldritch Glaive is enough to be quite noticeable.

I assume though that he's talking about the basic eldritch blast - if he had meant something like Glaive or Hellfire he'd have said.

[awa]

ive found the damage of a warlock may be unimpressive but the status effects it can provide can have a much bigger effect. Its not that hard for a warlock to make a low op fighter or ranger feel useless because their attack is just so reliably. (and 10d6 assumes you aren't getting any of the quite cheap blast boosting items or feats)

[Talya]

I assume though that he's talking about the basic eldritch blast - if he had meant something like Glaive or Hellfire he'd have said.

Possibly. Eldritch Glaive is, however, just a blast shape invocation, any warlock can take it. It's also a [series of] touch attack[s]. Not only that, I believe it's a least invocation, so a warlock of any level can take it. (that only becomes important once you can get multiple attacks, but it's still got an extremely low investment cost.)

[Psyren]

Oh, I have no problem with Glaive. I just don't think it's what the OP was referring to.

[awa]

i thought it was lesser.

[illyahr]

I agree with previous. Touch attacks only seem unfair because they are, by far, the most reliable form of attack. They deal underwhelming damage and are mostly Standard Actions, however, so most users only get a single use/round.

However, multiple attacks will trump touch attacks in damage output easily. As soon as the fighter hits level 6, anyone using touch attacks starts to feel pressure to keep up. A Wizard or Cleric, heck even a Sorcerer, who hits level 6 starts to pick up a veritable arsenal of attack, defense, and utility spells that a Warlock will miss out on. A single-class Warlock has an edge at low levels, but quickly shows itself to be a one-trick pony.

[Absol197]

To combat the low AC problem, I give each class a Base Defense Bonus in addition to base attack. It's treated like a dodge bonus, and isn't limited by armor. Low BAB classes get 1/3 their level as BDB, mid BAB classes get 1/2 their level BDB, and high BAB classes get 2/3 level as BDB. This helps AC keep pace, including touch AC. I also do half of armor and natural armor's bonus to DR instead of to AC (the armor as DR varient from UA, but enhancement bonuses add to both AC and DR).

So far it's working very well!

[awa]

in my experience the unfair touch attacks aren't things like the warlock blast they are stuff like shivering touch or ray of idiocy. things that one shot with very little possible defense for most pcs or monsters.

[holywhippet]

I'm almost hesitant to suggest it, but you could trying throwing an evil monk against the party warlock. Their touch AC is generally the same as their regular AC since touch attacks only ignore armor and shields which monks don't use. Give the monk a buff like cat's grace and/or owl's wisdom and your warlock will have a lot of trouble hitting them.