How important is dexterity for a caster?

[NecroDancer]

So a lot of useful spells, like enveration, require a ranged touch attack. Warlocks also use ranged touch attacks for their eldritch blast.

Could a caster still be able to take advantage of all the ranged touch attack spells and abilities if their dexterity is 10 or less?

[Calthropstu]

Yes.

True Strike is a thing. Also, most big monsters have a touch ac of "yes" so you can hit with just the die roll alone. Don't expect to be dropping rogues or monks with touch spells, but others like barbarians or paladins should be no problem.

As far as ac goes, ac is genuinely useless to mages past level 7. You should be working to avoid getting swung at, not avoid being hit.

[Zombimode]

Depends if see 50% miss Chance as "no Problem" or not.

The effects of low dex (and low Str! People should not diregard touch attacks spells) become less pronounced as you Level and thus (slowly) you Bab increases. But for single Digit Levels trying to make this touch attack against the guy with Dex 12 and a Ring of Protection +1 can be quite frustrating.




As far as ac goes, ac is genuinely useless to mages past level 7. You should be working to avoid getting swung at, not avoid being hit.

Depends on the Encounter design. Sure, against a CR 8+ attacker threat your mage armor + dex won't do squat.

Against the 8 3rd Level warriors that have surrounded you with bows at the ready it may be a life saver.

[Rebel7284]

It depends on the character level and optimization level. For a level 1 character with very few defenses, having the extra few points of AC and initiative is very nice. On the other hand, if you're an Incantatrix persisting Draconic Polymorph, your base dex doesn't matter at all. Most games probably fall somewhere between those two extremes.

[Nifft]

Dexterity is desirable, but not critical.

Whether you can make (ranged) touch attacks with Dex < 10 depends mostly on your DM's monster palette. If you're facing zombies / oozes / thugs in banded mail, then touch attacks are probably going to connect anyway.

Of course, the opponents with a poor touch AC also tend to have a poor Reflex save, so you'd be fine targeting them with a Reflex spell or [Reserve] feat, too.

[Fizban]

Funny thing- plenty of monsters actually have perfectly good touch AC, at least compared to a caster's BAB, thanks to high dex and/or size. Devils, air and fire based elementals, fey, other tiny things, incorporeal undead (look at that dread wraith), and more when you jit monsters that just have built in deflection or other bonus types (touch only ignores armor/shield/natural). Not all, but enough to put a crimp in anyone who's doesn't have Arcane Fusion'd True Strike or massively cost inefficient Quickened True Strike, if they happen to be in use.

Weather that means dex is worth it is a completely different issue. If you value AC, reflex, and initiative, you probably want dex regardless of your ranged attack bonus. Otherwise, making good use of ranged attack spells is more dependent on simply not making a crippling habit out of them than trying to buff your attack roll, unless you were already doing that.

[RoboEmperor]

The best spells that break games and trivialize encounters don't use range touch attacks so it's not important at all.

I dump dex every single time I play a caster in favor of other, better stats.

[Ellrin]

Assuming a pure caster and not a gish, and assuming a relatively "normal" game (ie, neither super low op nor Punpun-tier high op), I'd generally rank Dex as the third or fourth most important stat, after your main casting stat, Con, and maybe Wis (if that's not your main casting stat) for Will saves or Int (if that's not your main casting stat) for more skill points, depending on build/spell availability. AC is important at low levels, Ref saves and Initiative are important at all levels. Dual stat casters, like theurges, of course push the import lower, and gishes of course push it higher (depending on build/spell availability).