physical ability damage optimization question

[AthasianWarlock]

Hello all,

I was looking at the Ghostwalk feat agony touch. It gives a ghost a touch attack that deals 1d4 to a physical ability a number of times per day= character level.

The deal is- you have to pick which one with you take the feat (str,dex,con).

So my question is, which is the the best to damage. I tried to find an average ability score table for monsters but couldn't find one.

Here are my thoughts:
Dealing dex will take them easier to attack for other party members and decrease reflex saves. Dex seems fairly low for most creatures.

Str reduces damage and makes it harder to be hit burley creatures.

Con damage can do a bunch of hp damage depending on the hit die, and works well with enervenating touch because negative levels deal hp damage too.

[DarkSoul]

Hello all,

I was looking at the Ghostwalk feat agony touch. It gives a ghost a touch attack that deals 1d4 to a physical ability a number of times per day= character level.

The deal is- you have to pick which one with you take the feat (str,dex,con).

So my question is, which is the the best to damage. I tried to find an average ability score table for monsters but couldn't find one.

Here are my thoughts:
Dealing dex will take them easier to attack for other party members and decrease reflex saves. Dex seems fairly low for most creatures.

Str reduces damage and makes it harder to be hit burley creatures.

Con damage can do a bunch of hp damage depending on the hit die, and works well with enervenating touch because negative levels deal hp damage too.Con damage will actually kill the target. A 0 in any other ability score just results in becoming helpless.

[SirNMN]

con or dex is my suggestion one paralyzes the other kill most of the scariest monsters have plenty of str to spare losing them

[Mike Miller]

I would say Dex in the event you will be fighting undead much. Con scores of - are probably more common than str or Dex scores of -. And as has been said, str tends to run high in monsters

[Forrestfire]

Constitution is my recommendation. Not only does it also deal "damage" (reducing HP through reduced Con modifier, meaning that you'll still be having a meaningful effect even if you don't kill them outright), it'll outright kill at Con 0.

Things with Con – (Constructs, Undead) are also immune to Str and Dex damage in most cases, so a situation where you can't damage Constitution, but can still damage Dex or Str, is very unlikely to come up.

[Fizban]

If you want to disable, dex is probably best. Most high level monsters have a ton of strength, and often lots of con, but dex is often low and almost never higher than con I'm pretty sure.

[Zaq]

Yeah, either DEX or CON, pretty much for the reasons already stated. DEX is good if you think you'll be able to get in enough shots of stat damage to bring the relevant stat to 0, because of the stats mentioned, DEX tends to be the lowest on many monsters. (There's a reason that Shivering Touch rather than, say, Poison (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/poison.htm) is the go-to spell for killing dragons, after all.)

If you don't think your stat damage will bring the stat in question to 0, go with CON, since it'll reduce the target's HP total and thus have a more noticeable effect on the battle before you land the killing blow.

Of course, if you or a party member tend to specialize in Reflex saves or Fort saves with your attacks, that might influence your decision a bit.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I'll agree that Dex is the best one to pick, plenty of opponents have very high Str and Con, but a high Dex score is far less frequent, especially in larger opponents.

Honestly though, you're much better off getting Mind Cripple from Psychic Rogue (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b) or Psychic Assassin (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723d), it adds 2 Int damage to every sneak attack. You can deal 6-10 Int damage per round with a two-weapon full attack at the level you gain that ability, and there's absolutely no limit to how often you can use it. There are a lot more monsters with lower Int scores than any of their physical ability scores, there are tons of bruiser opponents with high HP but very low Int, and Int 0 puts an opponent in a coma. It can even be used against undead with Death's Ruin.

[ericgrau]

Dex is often the easiest to bring to 0, but only if your dex damage is high enough and/or you fight a lot of low dex foes. If you're not able to do that then it's better to hit str or con. Con is better in general as it will drop HP by a good bit. But if you face a lot of melee enemies then str is better as the damage prevented will be much greater.

True that int is often easy to bring to 0 too if you want to change your methods entirely. But likewise not much effect if you don't commit enough to reliably bring enemy int to 0.

In both cases note the difference between ideal ability score damaging hits per round and actual hits per round. If you can do 6 sneak attacks per round but you don't have a way to move and full attack and/or your buddy is in the wrong place to set up a flank with the foe you want and/or you miss, then you're S.O.O.L. And part of committing involves either fixing all of that or else switching to str/con.

[Fizban]

One foe type to watch out for is major outsider groups- or so I thought. Surveying devils on the SRD nets a lots of huge/huge/huge type physical arrays, but demons do mostly seem to skimp on dex.

[Lapak]

With an average of 2.5 on 1d4, it's going to take a few hits to bring even a relatively low score down to zero. Unless you can amplify it somehow, or expect to be able to spam it multliple times a round, that's going to have to play into your calculations. If you can't, it means you're going to drop someone's AC by one on average if you target DEX, or do their HD in damage if you target CON. I don't expect any one target to stick around long enough to hit four or five times (or if it does, it's probably already dead) so of those choices I'd probably target CON.