Touch of Golden Ice

[Mr.Kraken]

So, I've been eyeing the Touch of Golden Ice feat, from BoED. I'm playing as a Vow of Poverty Monk//Paladin gestalt, and the feat has appealed to me, but, reflecting about it there were some questions that have showed up in my mind. The feat is terribly worded IMO and it leaves a lot to the imagination.

"Any evil creature you touch with your bare hand, fist, or natural weapon is ravaged by golden ice (see Ravages and Afflictions in Chapter 3: Exalted Equipment for effects)."

It's an exalted feat, so it's not supposed to be available to everyone. Golden ice is a type of ravage, a good-aligned supernatural poison that affects only evil creatures. The Book of Exalted Deeds doesn't say what kind of save is supposed to be regarding ravages or afflictions, but since they work similarly to poisons and diseases, it's believed to be a Fortitude save.

Golden ice has a DC of 14. It doesn't scale with my Constitution like poison would, but as a monk with the feat, I don't find that to be a problem. Facing an evil creature, attacking with Flurry of Blows, every time I get an attack the creature would have to succeed on a Fort DC or take 1d6 plus its Cha bonus as Dex damage, and a minute later, 2d6+its Cha bonus as Dex damage again.

Now, onto the questions.

This ability is always active, and if the DM takes Fort saves to show a physical effect, does it mean that I can use ToGI as an at-will Detect evil, even if somehow the alignment is being hidden?

The feat specifically mentions bare hands or fists, but since it also mentions natural weapons, as a monk, can I use it with kicks, knee strikes, elbow strikes and headbutts?

Say I attack an armored enemy with my unarmed strike. I miss his AC, but I managed to pass his touch AC. Is it safe to say that I don't cause damage, but the enemy is entitled to his Fort save in order not to be affected by golden ice? I did manage to touch him, but something blocked my attack (armor or whatever).

Even in higher levels, the feat can remain relatively dangerous. With flurry of blows, there's always the chance that an enemy would roll a 1 on his Fort save. And the ability damage caused by golden ice (actually, by ravages and afflictions in general) can be quite massive. Do you think that a revision is needed?

EDIT: Taking another look at the feat, it says that any creature I touch is "ravaged by golden ice". It doesn't even mention the Fort save. Does it mean that any evil creature I touch is ravaged by golden ice without even having a Fort save?

[holywhippet]

I'm pretty sure it would be a fortitude save as with poison.

I'd say it would be always active and even hiding your alignment wouldn't stop it. The undetectable alignment spells only blocks divination spells. It doesn't block evil targeting attacks like a paladin's smite evil attack.

All monk unarmed attacks are with natural weapons so yes. Mechanically the game doesn't say what a monk is hitting enemies with.

I'd say no on touch AC as if an attack fails it is implied they either dodged it or you hit their armor. As such, you didn't actually hit them.

Not really. High level monsters are easily going to make that save for the most part.

No, I'd say it only works if they fail their save. The benefit text is fluff rather than specific mechanics.

[Crake]

If you make an attack with a natural weapon that has a rider touch effect, you must still hit the enemy's AC to apply the rider effect. If you want to make a touch attack, you can do so, but you don't get to apply unarmed strike damage.

I also don't believe there's any visual effect for passing a fortitude save, and going around touching everyone you meet is pretty bad form. Especially when you touch, say, a prince, and he suddenly falls to the ground writhing in pain because his evening activities involve mildly evil things (i dunno, beating up hobos or something). Good luck explaining that to the king before he has you executed. You basically can never touch anyone in a city, for fear of them being evil and you accidentally poisoning them, which would be a criminal offense.

For your edit: No, they still get a fort save, because when someone is cut with a poisoned blade, they are poisoned, but that doesn't negate their entitlement to a fortitude save.

[Troacctid]

You couldn't really use it as detect evil because it doesn't necessarily have an obvious visible effect. It might not have any effect at all. I mean, you can touch people with it, and if they suddenly end up paralyzed, yeah, the dude is probably evil. But if they make the save, you won't have gained any information.

[ranagrande]

Now, onto the questions.

This ability is always active, and if the DM takes Fort saves to show a physical effect, does it mean that I can use ToGI as an at-will Detect evil, even if somehow the alignment is being hidden?
Depending on how the DM handles the rolls you might be able to metagame that ability as an unintended side effect.


The feat specifically mentions bare hands or fists, but since it also mentions natural weapons, as a monk, can I use it with kicks, knee strikes, elbow strikes and headbutts?
Yes.


Say I attack an armored enemy with my unarmed strike. I miss his AC, but I managed to pass his touch AC. Is it safe to say that I don't cause damage, but the enemy is entitled to his Fort save in order not to be affected by golden ice? I did manage to touch him, but something blocked my attack (armor or whatever).
No, if the attack doesn't hit, the ravage won't apply, even if it would hit the touch AC. Maybe you were swinging harder to punch through their armor, and that caused you to miss. Note that you can choose to just touch them to bypass regular AC. It's a touch attack to start a grapple, for instance.


Even in higher levels, the feat can remain relatively dangerous. With flurry of blows, there's always the chance that an enemy would roll a 1 on his Fort save. And the ability damage caused by golden ice (actually, by ravages and afflictions in general) can be quite massive. Do you think that a revision is needed?
Nah, it's no different from save-or-die spells, except for being available to non-casters. Also, since it only works on those of evil alignment, your DM can just start sending neutral enemies at you if it becomes overpowering.


EDIT: Taking another look at the feat, it says that any creature I touch is "ravaged by golden ice". It doesn't even mention the Fort save. Does it mean that any evil creature I touch is ravaged by golden ice without even having a Fort save?
It means that any evil creature you touch is affected by the ravage of golden ice. That ravage has a DC of 14 to avoid taking damage from.

[Mr.Kraken]

You couldn't really use it as detect evil because it doesn't necessarily have an obvious visible effect. It might not have any effect at all. I mean, you can touch people with it, and if they suddenly end up paralyzed, yeah, the dude is probably evil. But if they make the save, you won't have gained any information.

The BoED describes golden ice as a crystaline substance that spreads through the evil creature's body. The creature feels a supernatural cold. Well, since it's called golden ice, I think it has to be visible to earn that name. The creature is probably coated with it if it fails its Fort save.

Now, say I shake the hand of an evil-aligned person I just met. He succeeds on his Fort save, but I could still feel the golden ice coming out of my hands, so I know that the person is evil. Or, he could feel a sudden chill and his hand turns cold to the touch.

Is this reasonable?

[Bronk]

Golden ice has a DC of 14. It doesn't scale with my Constitution like poison would, but as a monk with the feat, I don't find that to be a problem. Facing an evil creature, attacking with Flurry of Blows, every time I get an attack the creature would have to succeed on a Fort DC or take 1d6 plus its Cha bonus as Dex damage, and a minute later, 2d6+its Cha bonus as Dex damage again.


You'll want to check on this with your DM. Unlike the regular ravage listed in BoED, the Touch of Golden Ice feat grants this to your character as a supernatural ability, and those do have scaling saving throws.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm

[Chronos]

Ooh, good point, Bronk. That interpretation would make the feat a lot more valuable.

And on the detection front, the OP would really only be usig it to detect people who are evil and using magic to hide that fact. He's a paladin, so if he wants to detect ordinary evil, he can just Detect Evil.

[Hamste]

So you are saying you want to test people by exposing them to a "ravage" that paralyses them for a day and could take weeks for them to fully recover from? Sounds like a bit of a jerk move towards the evil character. If a group of good people decided to test your character's alignment by paralyzing you and damaging whatever dexterity you had down to zero with something would you feel they were doing a good thing?

I'm imagining this just stunning the barkeep who does petty evil things that does not even come close to being illegal. It just all seems to be too horrible to those who are evil and wish to keep the fact hidden (after all who wants to deal with someone evil). It is like if whenever you detected someone who is evil you beat them into unconscious. Both methods take quite awhile to recover from and are both overly cruel to people who may wish you no harm.

[Mr.Kraken]

So you are saying you want to test people by exposing them to a "ravage" that paralyses them for a day and could take weeks for them to fully recover from? Sounds like a bit of a jerk move towards the evil character. If a group of good people decided to test your character's alignment by paralyzing you and damaging whatever dexterity you had down to zero with something would you feel they were doing a good thing?

I'm imagining this just stunning the barkeep who does petty evil things that does not even come close to being illegal. It just all seems to be too horrible to those who are evil and wish to keep the fact hidden (after all who wants to deal with someone evil). It is like if whenever you detected someone who is evil you beat them into unconscious. Both methods take quite awhile to recover from and are both overly cruel to people who may wish you no harm.

Saying an evil character wishes you no harm may be kind of a stretch, but still, I get your point. Like Chronos said, I would only use golden ice as a last resort type detection.

I need to clarify something. Does having the feat means that I can't touch evil characters? As in, ever? Or do I have some kind of control over it?

And thanks for the heads up, Bronk! That takes the feat to a whole other level.

[Sian]

remember evil doesn't equal giggling hobo-murderer (thats the players most often), but merely that they're probably egocentric and puts themselves or their believes first ahead of any care of other persons.

There is no problems with being evil and never actually doing something glaringly evil, much less anything illegal (thats a whole different part of your alignment)

[Deadline]

I need to clarify something. Does having the feat means that I can't touch evil characters? As in, ever? Or do I have some kind of control over it?

No control. So yeah, you wouldn't be able to touch folks unless you want to be constantly poisoning anyone who would ping as evil (from the baker down the street who overcharges his customers because he's the only baker in town - to the mustache twirling villainous anti-paladin who's looking to take over the world).

And that doesn't even get into sticky situations like reformed fiends (they still have an evil alignment subtype, despite having a good alignment, so you still poison them too).

Basically, get used to wearing gloves in all non-combat situations. :smallwink:

[Hamste]

No control. So yeah, you wouldn't be able to touch folks unless you want to be constantly poisoning anyone who would ping as evil (from the baker down the street who overcharges his customers because he's the only baker in town - to the mustache twirling villainous anti-paladin who's looking to take over the world).

And that doesn't even get into sticky situations like reformed fiends (they still have an evil alignment subtype, despite having a good alignment, so you still poison them too).

Basically, get used to wearing gloves in all non-combat situations. :smallwink:


As much as I would like them to be, obeying basic market forces is not evil and so the baker isn't evil (If people pay for it and you don't make more money by reducing the price you are not overcharging). Now bribing the mayor with your fantastically over priced bread sticks to keep your monopoly is probably evil. Anyways I think this gets the point across nicely. Evil doesn't have to be world domination level, kicking puppies and cheating level of evil is much more common.

[stack]

Best use for the feat is combined with frozen wildshape for s cryohydra. They roll a 1 eventually.

[Deophaun]

Best use for the fear is combined with aberration wildshape. They roll a 1 eventually.
Fixed that for you.

[Chronos]

Yeah, that price-gouging baker might be evil, but he's probably not going to be wearing a Ring of Obscure Alignment or whatever. If you scan someone as evil, be wary of them, but keep your hands off of them until/unless they give you good reason. If you scan someone as not evil, then feel free to shake their hand. If they scan as non-evil and still writhe in pain at your touch, then it's a pretty good bet that they're a threat to you and need killing anyway.

[Honest Tiefling]

If Golden Ice is exalted, it cannot be that common. How easily identifiable is it? If it isn't that well known, you get known as the crazy serial killer murdering people with yellow snow, and they get known as the innocent victim of his crazy rampage.

I also feel that an Exalted good character should consider trying to reason or convert if the evil guy is not currently engaged in an activity that has to be stopped immediately.