How do I make a weapon that always makes touch attacks?

[BizzaroStormy]

I'm basically wanting to make a short sword that always makes touch attacks. I've got 2.1 million to spend so I dont think money will be much of an issue.

[Renegade Paladin]

Brilliant energy does a lot of the job, obviously, but since natural armor still counts, it's not all the way there.

[BizzaroStormy]

Where are the rules for this and do you know how much it would cost?

[Ravens_cry]

Brilliant Energy will do it, mostly. There is some restrictions, however.
Beware Ninjas. For they are quick to post and. . .that's about it.

[Glimbur]

If you want to really break pricing guidelines, there's a second (?) level sorc/wiz spell called Wraithstrike that makes all your melee attacks touch attacks. Get a use-activated item of that as your sword for the low, low price of 12,000. I advise against actually doing this, though.

There's an amulet in Magic Item Compendium that lets you make a few attacks as touch attacks per day.

[BizzaroStormy]

I like that Idea so far, is there a way to make that wraithstrike into a continuous deal? I wouldn't mind spending about 300 grand on the thing.

[arguskos]

I like that Idea so far, is there a way to make that wraithstrike into a continuous deal? I wouldn't mind spending about 300 grand on the thing.

An item of continous wraithstrike will cost you 48,000 gp, by my numbers (Spell level x caster level x 2,000 gp x 4 [spell duration in rounds]; so 2x3x2,000x4). That look about right, someone who knows this rule better than me?

[Serpentine]

Get a cattle prod?

This sounds... potentially very broken to me

[arguskos]

Get a cattle prod?

This sounds... potentially very broken to me

It is amazingly broken. Almost any DM will shoot down continuous wraithstrike, and I'm among them. However, it's what he asked for.

[BizzaroStormy]

Sounds good to me. Time to start carving.

[Trouvere]

I'm not sure I really believe in weapons of use-activated Wraithstrike.

A Psychic Warrrior with the Psicrystal Affinity, Psicrystal Containment, Psionic Meditation, Psionic Weapon and Deep Impact feats and the power Hustle could expend his two psionic focuses to make two attacks as touch attacks in the first round, then manifest Hustle for a move action to regain one focus; in the following round, he could manifest Hustle again to regain his second focus, and then make two more touch attacks. Rinse and repeat.

[Ravens_cry]

It is amazingly broken. Almost any DM will shoot down continuous wraithstrike, and I'm among them. However, it's what he asked for.

Increase the price then. It IS a custom magic item, so increasing the cost makes sense, in-world, as it has never been done before. As would taking time with the crafting.
"WraithStrike. . . on a weapon? I don't know,boy, I have never done work like that. Hells, I don't think anyone has. This will take some time you understand, and I am not sure if I'll even get it right the first time."

[BizzaroStormy]

Well my character is the emporer so I don't think getting a weapon like this would be out of the realm of impossibility for him.

[Keld Denar]

There is also the Impaling weapon property in the MIC. Its rather limited, but its only a +1. If you made it like, a +5 equiv, that would probably cover the cost. A +6 weapon (72,000g) would be appropriate, and as it take up a lot of the enhancement bonus availabie on your weapon, there is also the opportunity cost.

Really, you could do it yourself, if you were a gish type character. Persist Spell Metamagic in Complete Arcane + Wraithstrike would be an 8th level spell slot. If you made friends with a 3rd level Incatatrix, you could get this a ton easier.

And if you hired a specially made Warweaver/SpellguardofSilverymoon/Incantatrix, he could even cast the spell on you and persist it. I'd imagine you could hire one such individual for cheaper in the short run than making an item of such. If you really are an Emperor, you could offer such an individual academic tenure in your kingdom with free reign to craft and teach and whatever else he'd want to do in return for his spellcasting assistance once per day and the investment of a single 2nd level slot.

[Kurald Galain]

Multiclass to warlock and take Eldritch Glaive?

[only1doug]

And if you hired a specially made Warweaver/SpellguardofSilverymoon/Incantatrix, he could even cast the spell on you and persist it. I'd imagine you could hire one such individual for cheaper in the short run than making an item of such. If you really are an Emperor, you could offer such an individual academic tenure in your kingdom with free reign to craft and teach and whatever else he'd want to do in return for his spellcasting assistance once per day and the investment of a single 2nd level slot.

Spellguard can only transfer defensive spells, they must give AC or save bonus or hitpoints (healed or temporary)

[ericgrau]

Brilliant energy weapon is +4 equivalent. You can sure afford it, and it avoids the realm of brokenage with a more reasonable cost that scales as the weapon becomes more powerful. And it has limitations: doesn't work against constructs or undead or natural armor. No matter how much you charge for continuous wraithstrike it will be become broken once the PCs reach the level where that price is cheap.

[Keld Denar]

Spellguard can only transfer defensive spells, they must give AC or save bonus or hitpoints (healed or temporary)

Aha, this is where the shanananananananananananananananananananigans comes in. You take the Magic of the Land feat, which states that whenever you are in a woodlands setting, your buffs bestow temp HP upon the recipient. Then, as emperor, you build a little park behind your castle and put in a wooded thicket. Every day, you rendezvous with your Warweaver Spellguard Incantatix friend and persist away! If you ever need to go out, there is a spell, I forget the name, but it creates an Acorn for DAYS/LEVEL and as long as you have that acorn on your person, the area around you is considered a woodland setting and thus Magic of the Land would apply. I wish I could claim credit for all this, but someone figured it out long before I did, and it IS rather ingenious!

V - Myrmex. Meh, Spellguards can exist for any normally high-magic kingdom. Just like any other setting specific PrC, its adaptable. Just like you can have Radiant Servants of Lathander Morninglord, you can have Spellguards of Greyhawk City, or Spellguards of Sharn, or whatever....

[Myrmex]

There is also the Impaling weapon property in the MIC. Its rather limited, but its only a +1. If you made it like, a +5 equiv, that would probably cover the cost. A +6 weapon (72,000g) would be appropriate, and as it take up a lot of the enhancement bonus availabie on your weapon, there is also the opportunity cost.

Really, you could do it yourself, if you were a gish type character. Persist Spell Metamagic in Complete Arcane + Wraithstrike would be an 8th level spell slot. If you made friends with a 3rd level Incatatrix, you could get this a ton easier.

And if you hired a specially made Warweaver/SpellguardofSilverymoon/Incantatrix, he could even cast the spell on you and persist it. I'd imagine you could hire one such individual for cheaper in the short run than making an item of such. If you really are an Emperor, you could offer such an individual academic tenure in your kingdom with free reign to craft and teach and whatever else he'd want to do in return for his spellcasting assistance once per day and the investment of a single 2nd level slot.

If you lived in Faerun.

[Kurald Galain]

If you lived in Faerun.

That would be okaerun
I mean 'cause haerun
I like you a-ny-waerun...

[Keld Denar]

*slap*

Avenue Q much?

[Vaynor]

Just buy a Ring of Continuous True Strike. 400k.

Simple formula. (bonus^2)*1000.

Ring that gave +40 to all attacks would be 1,600,000 gp.

[tyckspoon]

Just buy a Ring of Continuous True Strike. 400k.

Simple formula. (bonus^2)*1000.

Ring that gave +40 to all attacks would be 1,600,000 gp.

4 million for the Continuous True Strike, actually; once you break 200k it becomes Epic, and everything costs 10x as much. Continuous Wraithstrike would be much cheaper for an effect that is often even more powerful, since many of the monsters that are most difficult to hit rely almost entirely on Natural Armor.

[Vaynor]

4 million for the Continuous True Strike, actually; once you break 200k it becomes Epic, and everything costs 10x as much. Continuous Wraithstrike would be much cheaper for an effect that is often even more powerful, since many of the monsters that are most difficult to hit rely almost entirely on Natural Armor.

Interesting. A Wizard's post says otherwise. That's where I got the price from.

Source

Keep in mind that the rules and advice in Chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master's Guide are intended to help a reasonable person estimate what an item is worth in play. It's always a mistake to try to create the most powerful item possible for the lowest possible price or vice versa.

When the Formulas Fail: Table 7-33 provides the basic tool for determining item prices and costs, but many items don't fit the table. Many spells in the game work fine as spells, but spells come with built-in limits on their power, and chief among those is the simple fact that a spell is used up when cast and a character has only so many spells available each day. Many spells become world beaters when they're placed in items that work continuously or in items that can be reused over and over again. For example, a ring of invisibility is a command-activated item that duplicates a 2nd-level spell, and its caster level is 3rd (the minimum to cast the spell). According to Table 7-33, such an item has a cost of 2 x 3 x 1,800 gp (spell level x caster x 1,800 gp). So, a ring of invisibility costs 10,800 gp, right? Wrong, it costs nearly twice that much (20,000 gp) because an endless supply of invisibility spells are worth something extra.

Use the Correct Formula: One item people frequently ask me about is a ring oftrue strike. The spell provides a whopping +20 insight bonus on attack rolls and negates miss chances arising from concealed targets. It's only 1st level, however, because it is a personal range spell with a duration of 1 round. That means you can normally manage one attack every 2 rounds when using the spell. Also, you can't bestow it on an ally (except for a familiar or animal companion) because of its personal range.

Assuming such a ring worked whenever it was needed and has a caster level of 1st, it would cost a mere 2,000 gp by the formula for a use-activated spell effect (in this case, 1 x 1 x 2,000 gp). Sharp-eyed readers will note that any continuously functioning item has a cost adjustment of x4 (see the footnotes to Table 7-33), which bumps up the ring's cost to 8,000 gp. That's a real bargain for an item that provides so much boost to a user's combat power. Much too great a bargain.

So, what would our example ring of true strike be worth? Insight bonuses aren't included on Table 7-33, but a weapon bonus has a cost equal to the bonus squared x 2,000 gp, so a +20 weapon would cost 800,000 gp. One can argue that the ring isn't quite as good as a +20 weapon because it doesn't provide a damage bonus. That, however, ignores the very potent ability to negate most miss chances. Also, the ring's insight bonus works with any sort of attack the wearer makes. On top of all that, the insight bonus stacks with any enhancement bonus from a magic weapon the wearer might wield. Still, 800,000 gp is a lot of cash and the lack of a damage bonus is significant, so some price reduction is in order. A 50% reduction might be in order, or 400,000 gp for the ring.

Would you pay 400,000 gp for a ring of true striking? I would if I could afford it. At a price of 400,000 gp, our mythical ring of true strike is something only an epic-level character could afford. That's fine, because epic play is where the ring belongs.

[tyckspoon]

It's in the guidelines for Epic magic items; a non-epic item can provide up to +5 to hit and/or damage. If it has a larger bonus than that, the part of the price derived from that bonus is increased 10x. You can see that in operation if you look at the tables for Epic Weapons and Epic Armor; there's a massive price jump between +5 base enhancement and +6. According to the non-epic rules, 400k would be a reasonable guess at the ring's value, and if you aren't going to play Epic I suppose that's ok (it's more than 50% of a level 20 character's assumed wealth, and nobody below that can afford it without sacrificing almost everything else, so why not.. it's probably one of the least broken things you could do with that much GP. And you're not supposed to put that much of your money into a single item anyway.) But the article itself says the ring really should be Epic, and by the Epic rules it costs 4 million.

[Person_Man]

Wand of Flame Blade, Wraithstrike, or Spectral Weapon (both in Spell Compendium). Each of which is actually quite cheap. Or take a level of Pyrokineticist, or 5 levels of Master Thrower.

Also, having Touch Attacks all of the time is pointless, as your DM will just increase the Touch AC (or hit points, or miss chance) of his enemies in order to make the combats a challenge. I suggest keeping a Touch Attack method in your back pocket for boss battles for when you really need them.

[Jack_Simth]

If you're a mage, there's the reserve feats in Complete Mage; Acidic Splatter and Clap of Thunder are both touch attacks (the first ranged).

[Paul H]

Hi

Erm - what about Duskblade? They can cast spells as part of a Full Attack option at 13th lvl, so Monk/Duskblade can 'flurry' touch attack with Vampiric Touch, or Touch of Idiocy.

Cheers
Paul H

[Paul H]

Hi

Just checked - you don't even need the Monk level, just take Improved Unarmed Strike. And with Arcane Strike (CW) you can convert spells into bonuses to hit/damage.

Imp Unarmed Strike, TWF, Imp TWF, Gtr TWF, a 13th Lvl Duskblade can make 6 attacks/rnd with Vampiric Touch, doing 6D6 damage. He can also Quick Cast Shocking Grasp for extra 5D6 Electric damage/hit.

Not bad for a Pugilist!

Cheers
Paul H

[Keld Denar]

PaulH, a Duskblade can only affect 1 target once with each spell. So...unless you got 6 people in your reach, the rest of your swings are firing blanks...