shivering touch has both damage and duration. WTF?

[ayvango]

Should I treat shivering touch as penalty for given duration, or an instantaneous damage? Or the wizard imbues himself with ability to deliver shivering touch for the spell duration?

How should I interpret the spell description?

[Gruftzwerg]

Should I treat shivering touch as penalty for given duration, or an instantaneous damage? Or the wizard imbues himself with ability to deliver shivering touch for the spell duration?

How should I interpret the spell description?

touch spell duration = time you may hold the charge, IIRC

edit: but Sivering Touch doesn't have a charge. In this chase it's the duration of the effect on the caster. The caster may use ST for clvl/rounds.

[The Viscount]

I wouldn't say that, that would boost the power of the spell to absurd levels.
With a close reading of the lesser version of spell it mentions that the target "shivers uncontrollably" for the duration of the spell, and that this is where the Dex damage comes from.

It seems possible they intended for the damage to disappear when the duration expired, but that's not how damage works. It wouldn't be the first time the writers didn't know the rules of their own game. You can make the damage disappear at the end of the duration if you want, or just treat it like an instantaneous spell.

[ryu]

And besides Lahm's Finger Darts from book of vile darkness I believe it was is pretty much the same thing only better in every way and evil. That spell is TASTY.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The only way the spell can possibly work as per RAW is if you deal Dex damage with every touch attack for the effect's duration.

Yes, it's stupid-powerful. And yes, it's RAW.

[ayvango]

It wouldn't be the first time the writers didn't know the rules of their own game.
I'd like to fix the spell with home rule. Could you suggest similar spells at the 1-5 levels to adjust spell variables according to them?

[The Viscount]

If you make it clear that it's simply an instantaneous effect, that prevents it from getting too insane, but it still will kill dragons. If you want to bring it more in line, that's very difficult, because power level for spells is all over the place. It's at least a little bit reduced in power by being Necromancy, which some wizards might ban. You could toss on a save for half if you want, or just don't use something like a dragon with an abysmal touch ac and 10 dex. Conversely, some people counter by having the dragons know scintillating scales, which helps.

[Crake]

If you want to make the spell reasonable for it's spell level, make it a penalty instead of damage, and limit the reduction to 1 dex.

[Godskook]

I'd like to fix the spell with home rule. Could you suggest similar spells at the 1-5 levels to adjust spell variables according to them?

Ban it.

Without metamagic, it does an average 10.5 Dex damage. With maximize spell, it does 18 Dex damage. Do you know how much Dex damage it takes to neutralize a target? 10.5 Dex damage. Yeah.... We're talking a 3rd-level spell that neutralizes Dragons, the vast majority of humanoids, no save, against touch-AC(At least there's SR, but that only protects against poor optimizers). And with Spectral Hand, you can do this at 100+10*CL feet(A core spell).


If you *DO* want to balance it, give it a Fort:Negates and reduce the damage to 2d4 or 2d6. Combined, your average Dragon will at least stand a chance of staying in the air until against most players.

[Esprit15]

I interpret it as the duration the damage lasts for. Not much precedent, but also not nearly as bork, and appears to be RAI.

[ayvango]

I interpret it as the duration the damage lasts for. Not much precedent, but also not nearly as bork, and appears to be RAI.
There are spells in BoED that do temporal ability damage too. So it may be considered new general rule