The Touch Spell and the Poison Ring

[Jowgen]

As I scoured various books to look for printed uses of Bestow Curse, I began to wonder how one might improve the delivery method, i.e. adding it as a rider effect onto an already existing attack.

Spell-storing was out for non-clerics because of the difference in level. Then I began to read up on the rules about Touch Spells and holding charge, which on a whim led me to check out the Poison Ring in Dragon Compendium, which has now left me wondering if I had it backwards about wanting to add bestow curse as a rider effect.


To deliver the poison, the wearer must flip down a tiny, hollow needle so that it protrudes from the palm side of the
ring, then make a successful touch attack against her target. [...] The ring deals 1 point of damage on a successful touch attack, plus the poison's normal damage.


Many spells have a range of touch. To use these spells, you cast the spell and then touch the subject, either in the same round or any time later. In the same round that you cast the spell, you may also touch (or attempt to touch) the target. [...] but to touch an opponent, you must succeed on an attack roll.

Could it be that the poison ring's weapon damage is actually a rider-effect that gets applied to touch attacks in general, meaning that it does the damage whenever you make a successful touch-attack, e.g. to deliver a spell?

If so, this would mean that any caster relying on melee touch attacks could benefit from having one of these, as to load up on WSAs, SA damage and other stuff that triggers of weapon damage, all supplementing their touch attack spells.

Thoughts?

EDIT: the reading that the poison ring adds weapon damage to any melee touch attack as a rider effect appears to make this already pretty broken good item even more so, as that gives it applications for grapples, trips and other such things, which can very quickly get out of hand.

Another more toned down reading, which I advocate in the interest of maintaining a semblance of balance with this disproportionately powerful item, while still allowing the touch spell synergy: the free touch attack granted by casting a touch spell can be used to make a touch attack with the ring, which then also meets the conditions for a discharge.

[Crake]

You could spell storing it with sanctum spell on non-clerics?

To the main question at hand, the poison ring ability seems to be written in a way that makes the touch attack it is referring to it's own action, it makes no reference to "whenever you make a touch attack" or any other similar language. This would lead me to believe that you wouldn't be able to use it in conjunction with the free touch attack you get as part of casting a spell, similar to how you wouldnt be able to get a free unarmed attack when delivering a spell, but if you were to hold the charge, you could use the poison ring's touch attack to discharge the spell, similar to how you can use a natural/unarmed attack to discharge a held touch spell.

[Jowgen]

You could spell storing it with sanctum spell on non-clerics?

To the main question at hand, the poison ring ability seems to be written in a way that makes the touch attack it is referring to it's own action, it makes no reference to "whenever you make a touch attack" or any other similar language. This would lead me to believe that you wouldn't be able to use it in conjunction with the free touch attack you get as part of casting a spell, similar to how you wouldnt be able to get a free unarmed attack when delivering a spell, but if you were to hold the charge, you could use the poison ring's touch attack to discharge the spell, similar to how you can use a natural/unarmed attack to discharge a held touch spell.

Sanctum spell seems to be a bit of a disproportional investment for this specifically, but should work.

The idea about holding the charge and then letting it discharge with the poison ring touch attack was what initially led me to look the thing up. The text is quite clear "If you touch anything or anyone while holding a charge, even unintentionally, the spell discharges" and the ring deals damage upon a touch attack, so no argument there.

Then I wondered at how nonsensical it seemed be from a RAI standpoint. How are the touches different, especially considering that you can move between casting and touching (like, are you not holding the charge during that move)?

There are no other melee weapons that work with touch attacks, so it's hard to draw inferences from other sources regarding its intended function.

Attacking with the poison ring clearly doesn't require a special action, as the text never says "attack as a standard/full-round action", but it doesn't mention it using is in a full attack either. All it says it that you have to make a successful touch attack against the target to deliver the poison and that it deals 1 point of damage on a successful touch attack. I don't see why the touch attack from a touch spell or similar wouldn't qualify.

I've added some other relevant rule text quotes to the OP for ease of reference.

[Thurbane]

A Duskblade/Ur-Priest can deliver Bestow Curse as part of an attack. If you take Duskblade 13, you can Bestow Curse on all of your attacks during a full attack.

Death Master gets it as a 3rd level (arcane) spell; Fate and Hatred domains as a 3rd level (divine) spell.

Demonologist gets it as a 2nd level (arcane) spell (and Bestow Greater Curse as a 4th level spell).

[Troacctid]

Normally, you do need to take the Attack action to make a melee weapon attack, as per Actions in Combat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#standardActions), so it shouldn't technically need to restate the general rule. Any DM would be well within their rights—and within the boundaries of RAW—to rule that you need a dedicated attack with the ring in order for it to prick the target.

It's also not necessarily the case that succeeding on a melee touch attack against an enemy means you have touched them—tripping weapons like flails and spiked chains provide an obvious counterexample. That said, I imagine most successful poison ring attacks would involve touching the enemy, so delivering a held charge should probably work, at least.

[Ashtagon]

The physical damage from the poison ring is mundane piercing damage from the needle, and the poison is also mundane.

So, suppose the caster wants to have one of these with the poison unloaded (for safety, perhaps). That's still an automatic 1 point of extra piercing damage on the touch attack, right?

Not quite.

If you flip the needle to armed as part of the attack, that's a DC 15 Dexterity check; fail by 5 and hit cause a self-inflicted injury.

If you keep the needle in an armed position constantly, it's a DC 30 Spot check for anyone to notice (so, unlikely, but worth noting). Grim n gritty GMs may want to ask for Dexterity checks at regular intervals any time he feels your character might want to scratch their nose.

----

An easier choice would be to deliver the touch attack as part of an unarmed strike. I'm sure there's no real shortage of items that can improve an unarmed strike.

[Jowgen]

Normally, you do need to take the Attack action to make a melee weapon attack, as per Actions in Combat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#standardActions), so it shouldn't technically need to restate the general rule. Any DM would be well within their rights—and within the boundaries of RAW—to rule that you need a dedicated attack with the ring in order for it to prick the target.

It's also not necessarily the case that succeeding on a melee touch attack against an enemy means you have touched them—tripping weapons like flails and spiked chains provide an obvious counterexample. That said, I imagine most successful poison ring attacks would involve touching the enemy, so delivering a held charge should probably work, at least.

Alright, so we do seem to agree on the held charge option, which is reassuring to say the least, as I do not tend to fare well in rule disputes with you. :smallwink:

RC p. 8 expands on the actions in combat table, including the "Cast touch spell (1 standard action casting
time) and touch one target" in the same standard action category as the "make a melee attack" option, although that doesn't help us much, i.e. tell us anything new.

Tripping weapons are an interesting comparison, though a limited one I think. Their effects are triggeres specifically when one uses a special combat action, which determines their action cost. Though that does give me an idea that might help.

Could one not also compare the Poison ring to armor spikes, Mancatcher or the Ritiik? Spikes add damage to a successful grapple check, while also being a weapon you can otherwise attack with, while the other two adds a free combat actions to successful attacks. The Poison Ring could be intended to add damage/poison to touch attacks in the same manner, which I think is consistent with the "deals 1 point of damage on a successful touch attack" phrasing (i.e. making a touch attack is the condition to trigger its effect).

Or another way to look at it:

A touch spell grants us the weird ability to take our movement in the middle of a standard action, followed by the extra action of making a touch attack as part of that standard action. Normally, you have to wait and hold a charge if you want to use an unarmed or natural weapon attack to deliver it, because you only have the allowance to make a touch attack rather than a regular melee attack as part of that standard action.

Now even if the ring's damage isn't ruled as a rider on a touch, what prevents one from using the free granted touch attack to attack with the poison ring, and what would prevent the spell from discharging upon this touch? Furthermore, if you are moving between cast and touch, doesn't the charge count as held during this move up until the teach, letting it work via that rule instead? So as I see it, there are several RAW-based arguments to be made how/why it should work.

Also, in terms of RAI/in-world-logic, I don't see how one could reason the two touches to be different in a way that would explain why the ring damage and discharge would be exclusive on the round of casting but not on the one after.


The physical damage from the poison ring is mundane piercing damage from the needle, and the poison is also mundane.

So, suppose the caster wants to have one of these with the poison unloaded (for safety, perhaps). That's still an automatic 1 point of extra piercing damage on the touch attack, right?

Not quite.

If you flip the needle to armed as part of the attack, that's a DC 15 Dexterity check; fail by 5 and hit cause a self-inflicted injury.

If you keep the needle in an armed position constantly, it's a DC 30 Spot check for anyone to notice (so, unlikely, but worth noting). Grim n gritty GMs may want to ask for Dexterity checks at regular intervals any time he feels your character might want to scratch their nose.

----

An easier choice would be to deliver the touch attack as part of an unarmed strike. I'm sure there's no real shortage of items that can improve an unarmed strike.

I don't think the one-handed flip option reduces the action cost down from a standard action, I think it just makes it less conspicuous. (Also, kinda miffed it doesn't mention sleight of hand as an option.) Another limitation to keep in mind is that ring also takes up a hand while the needle is extended (you ARE technically wielding a one handed weapon with it after all), so if you wanna cast somatic component spells the other hand needs to be free.

The periodic checks to avoid pricking oneself are also a fun idea for making the ring more of a chore to handle, although a single point of DR would take care of the issue.

The downside of using unarmed strikes is that touch spells only give an allowance of a free touch attack on the round of casting, so using unarmed/natural requires wasting actions, which I don't think is worth the greater unarmed strike damage. Also, the ring is much easier to magically upgrade (i.e. no need to rely on necklace of natural weaponry).

[Troacctid]

Could one not also compare the Poison ring to armor spikes, Mancatcher or the Ritiik? Spikes add damage to a successful grapple check, while also being a weapon you can otherwise attack with, while the other two adds a free combat actions to successful attacks. The Poison Ring could be intended to add damage/poison to touch attacks in the same manner, which I think is consistent with the "deals 1 point of damage on a successful touch attack" phrasing (i.e. making a touch attack is the condition to trigger its effect).
You certainly could compare them. Both of their rider effects only work when you hit with that weapon, so if you interpret the poison ring the same way...


A touch spell grants us the weird ability to take our movement in the middle of a standard action, followed by the extra action of making a touch attack as part of that standard action. Normally, you have to wait and hold a charge if you want to use an unarmed or natural weapon attack to deliver it, because you only have the allowance to make a touch attack rather than a regular melee attack as part of that standard action.

Now even if the ring's damage isn't ruled as a rider on a touch, what prevents one from using the free granted touch attack to attack with the poison ring, and what would prevent the spell from discharging upon this touch? Furthermore, if you are moving between cast and touch, doesn't the charge count as held during this move up until the teach, letting it work via that rule instead? So as I see it, there are several RAW-based arguments to be made how/why it should work.

[...]

The downside of using unarmed strikes is that touch spells only give an allowance of a free touch attack on the round of casting, so using unarmed/natural requires wasting actions, which I don't think is worth the greater unarmed strike damage. Also, the ring is much easier to magically upgrade (i.e. no need to rely on necklace of natural weaponry).
So, with Improved Unarmed Strike, you actually can use an unarmed strike to deliver a touch spell as part of the same action. Only unarmed strikes get this allowance AFAICT, not natural weapons or spiked gauntlets or the like. Certainly there's no text to that effect in the poison ring. I'm not terribly inclined to houserule it that way either, as it seems like it would just be a free power upgrade.


Also, in terms of RAI/in-world-logic, I don't see how one could reason the two touches to be different in a way that would explain why the ring damage and discharge would be exclusive on the round of casting but not on the one after.
I don't think it holds up to in-universe logic, though. Are you going to deal an extra point of piercing damage when you use a guisarme to trip an enemy? It's a successful melee touch attack. If we're talking RAI, then I think the obvious intent is that you secretly prick someone during a handshake and poison them without anyone noticing, not that you fight with the ring the way you would fight with a dagger. Frankly it doesn't even make sense that it's a touch attack—why is it ignoring armor, exactly?

[Jowgen]

You certainly could compare them. Both of their rider effects only work when you hit with that weapon, so if you interpret the poison ring the same way...

I personally do still think the Poison Ring is too unique a weapon, even among rule-screwy oddballs like armor spikes and whatnot, for comparisons to be of much help. Especially considering how niche of a scenario it is to have both it and touch spells on the same page.


So, with Improved Unarmed Strike, you actually can use an unarmed strike to deliver a touch spell as part of the same action. Only unarmed strikes get this allowance AFAICT, not natural weapons or spiked gauntlets or the like. Certainly there's no text to that effect in the poison ring. I'm not terribly inclined to houserule it that way either, as it seems like it would just be a free power upgrade.

Huh, I didn't actually know about the IUS special rule (tracked it down in CA). Certainly makes unarmed fighters with spellcasting more workable that I thought they were.

I personally think the language of that dispensation does lend some tangential support to the poison ring discharge, as the "delivering the spell as a regular melee attack instead of a melee touch attack" line does make it rather explicitly that normal touch spells are to be delivered by a melee touch attack. The poison ring requires a melee touch attack, which touch spells grant you a free one off, so it should be able to either take that free slot or trigger form it as a rider, depending on your reading.


As for the "free power upgrade" part, I think you're actually under-selling it. The Poison Ring is stupid good in general, to the point of being a prime ban-hammer candidate in a slew of scenarios.

Like rogues. What rogue in their right mind would fight with a dagger, when using a poison ring in only looses you a measly 0-3 base damage (a pittance compared to your fistful of d6), while in turn letting you ignore armor, shield and natural armor bonuses on all enemies? Not to mention the convenient poison use and Wis-check gated stealth option on unsuspecting targets.

Same concept applies to literally any other class that gets you bonus damage so long as you hit, be it other precision damage dealers, favored enemy, or bards using DFI. Hell, make it count as one handed instead of Light (e.g. Alchemical Gold material) and you can bloody power attack with the thing. Or, you know, just get it Feycrafted for free Finesse. And it's not like you need to worry about proficiency with it.

Point being, the Poison Ring is already strictly a better choice of melee weapon than its competitors in a wide range of cases. Considering we're talking melee weapons for mundanes I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to call it broken, but its definitely far from balanced. Working on touch spells is just another drop in an overflowing barrel.


I don't think it holds up to in-universe logic, though. Are you going to deal an extra point of piercing damage when you use a guisarme to trip an enemy? It's a successful melee touch attack. If we're talking RAI, then I think the obvious intent is that you secretly prick someone during a handshake and poison them without anyone noticing, not that you fight with the ring the way you would fight with a dagger. Frankly it doesn't even make sense that it's a touch attack—why is it ignoring armor, exactly?

The rules are certainly lacking in clarity in this. The intent with touch spells does appear to very much be that "touch" refers to touching with a hand (or comparable appendage). The Spellflower spell suggests it, not to mention that the part about unintentional discharges would otherwise result in a major dysfunction, since your feet touching the ground, or getting hit by an attack of opportunity, would otherwise count.

Touching with hand is clearly also the intent for the poison ring, but you are correct that by RAW it could be read to apply to touch attacks with weapons. Which is dumb.

Now that I think about it, it also seems rather dumb that, under the rider-effect reading, the ring's damage would apply to touch attacks made for grapples and trips and such. Not dumb because it doesn't make sense in world (certainly does) but dumb because this would let you add a potentially big damage by means for favored enemy or dragonfire inspiration onto any grapple or trip build.

I know I've also kinda beaten the dead horse of how broken good the ring already is, but this just kinda puts it over the tolerance limit for me personally. Not to say that it can't still be read the rider-effect way by RAW, but at that point it goes beyond what you could reasonably expect a given DM to tolerate I think.

So I do move my personal position to it being that you can use the free touch attack granted by touch spells to make a touch attack with the poison ring, which then also meets the discharge condition.


Lastly, I also kinda agree that the ring being a touch attack doesn't quite make sense. I guess the idea was that most armor wouldn't be so solid that you couldn't get a needle through some chink somewhere, or simply slap the face or whatnot. There really should've been some exception made for full-plate and the like, so that you had to at least aim for joints and whatnot. And shield bonuses should apply.

[TheCount]

i wanted to write why it shouldnt do any damage in combat, but realize you can make a nice rake with it on someone's face even if most of thier bodies is in armor....

on that note, i always imagined it used in coat and dagger games, like political fights among nobles, the PCs being the pawns or special agents from one side amongs the many....

who would blame you, after all, if the host of the party died the next day if you only interacted with them at the greetings in said party and never wandered of from the middle of the other partygoers?

still blasphemously good for storing weapon enchantments like eager, smoking and the orther passives....

...

....wouldnt it deal 6 damage with an impact enchantment? also, can you wear and attack with more than 1 on the smae hand?

[Jowgen]

still blasphemously good for storing weapon enchantments like eager, smoking and the orther passives....

...

....wouldnt it deal 6 damage with an impact enchantment? also, can you wear and attack with more than 1 on the smae hand?

Well its not like there is a shortage of passive weapon storage space. The various complete Scoundrel hidden blades easily get you up to 8, and I am yet to need more than that.

Yes impact would up the damage to 8, but no to multiple rings on the same hand. It is still a light weapon, meaning one to be wielded per hand. Then again, you would wear multiple but have the needles sheathed for convenient switching, though then the passives likely wouldn't be active.