3.5 Shivering Touch

[Gnosko]

I have seen a lot of talk of the Awesomesauce concerning Shivering Touch. Please explain all the wonderful broken ways this spell can be (ab)used. For instance how do you one shot a dragon with this?

[Boci]

Cast it? It does 3d6 dex damage no save, and the dragon cannot move it it has 0 dex.

[Machiavellian]

Cast it? It does 3d6 dex damage no save, and the dragon cannot move it it has 0 dex.

When your stat reaches 0, don't you up and die?

[The Glyphstone]

No, 0 dex paralyzes you. 0 Con kills you.

[Fax Celestis]

When your stat reaches 0, don't you up and die?

Just for Con. Str/Dex paralyze you, Int/Wis/Cha turn you into a vegetable.

[Greenish]

It deals 3d6 Dex damage as a touch attack. Great Wyrm Gold Dragon has 10 Dex and touch AC of 2. Creatures with 0 Dex are helpless.

[Machiavellian]

Just for Con. Str/Dex paralyze you, Int/Wis/Cha turn you into a vegetable.

My DM told me that Str and Con do (you aren't strong enough to pump blood, and thus die, and whatever Con's is)

[Fax Celestis]

My DM told me that Str and Con do (you aren't strong enough to pump blood, and thus die, and whatever Con's is)

Nope. See also:

Ability Score Loss

Some attacks reduce the opponent’s score in one or more abilities. This loss can be temporary (ability damage) or permanent (ability drain).

While any loss is debilitating, losing all points in an ability score can be devastating.

* Strength 0 means that the character cannot move at all. He lies helpless on the ground.
* Dexterity 0 means that the character cannot move at all. He stands motionless, rigid, and helpless.
* Constitution 0 means that the character is dead.
* Intelligence 0 means that the character cannot think and is unconscious in a coma-like stupor, helpless.
* Wisdom 0 means that the character is withdrawn into a deep sleep filled with nightmares, helpless.
* Charisma 0 means that the character is withdrawn into a catatonic, coma-like stupor, helpless.

Keeping track of negative ability score points is never necessary. A character’s ability score can’t drop below 0.

Having a score of 0 in an ability is different from having no ability score whatsoever.

Some spells or abilities impose an effective ability score reduction, which is different from ability score loss. Any such reduction disappears at the end of the spell’s or ability’s duration, and the ability score immediately returns to its former value.

If a character’s Constitution score drops, then he loses 1 hit point per Hit Die for every point by which his Constitution modifier drops. A hit point score can’t be reduced by Constitution damage or drain to less than 1 hit point per Hit Die.

[Greenish]

My DM told me that Str and Con do (you aren't strong enough to pump blood, and thus die, and whatever Con's is)

Your DM is houseruling.

[Draz74]

My DM told me that Str and Con do (you aren't strong enough to pump blood, and thus die, and whatever Con's is)

Then your DM is making up rules that contradict the rulebooks. (Which he is, of course, allowed to do.)

[Machiavellian]

Then your DM is making up rules that contradict the rulebooks. (Which he is, of course, allowed to do.)

ah... Jerko told me that's what it said...

[Darklord Xavez]

I have seen a lot of talk of the Awesomesauce concerning Shivering Touch. Please explain all the wonderful broken ways this spell can be (ab)used. For instance how do you one shot a dragon with this?

A) Spectral Hand.
B) Widened Spectral Hand.
C) Be a Warmage.
D) Be a Warmage and use either A or B.
-Xavez

[jiriku]

My DM told me that Str and Con do (you aren't strong enough to pump blood, and thus die, and whatever Con's is)

Your DM was creatively houseruling. 0 Str is not fatal.

Shivering touch is a great spell, although not quite as great as advertised. Its chief claim to fame is that because it doesn't allow a save, and because the Dexterity scores of your opponents don't increase very much as CR increases, it's nearly as useful at level 15 as it was at level 5. However, the restriction to touch range and a single target limits it greatly, and large classes of opponents (undead, constructs, creatures with the cold subtype) are entirely immune to its effects.

That said, it would probably be more appropriately balanced as a 4th level spell. I would houserule it to 4th level IMC, but OMG I love giving it to my low-level casters as a "secret weapon" in case some PC melee machine gets all up in their grille.

If you're interested, there are other threads on the subject.

[Greenish]

A) Spectral Hand.
B) Widened Spectral Hand.
C) Be a Factotum.
D) Be a Factotum and automatically breach target's SR.
-Xavez

Fixed that for you. Warmage doesn't even have either of those spells.

[Lin Bayaseda]

It's not awesome, it's poorly designed. Someone didn't quite think through the wide range of otherwise-exceptionally-powerful creatures that can be brought down by this low-level spell.

Congratulations, you can now kill Red Dragons because, a few years ago, someone had an editorial deadline to meet.

[Boci]

It's not awesome, it's poorly designed. Someone didn't quite think through the wide range of otherwise-exceptionally-powerful creatures that can be brought down by this low-level spell.

Congratulations, you can now kill Red Dragons because, a few years ago, someone had an editorial deadline to meet.

Making it a penalty pretty much fixes it. Powerful debiff, but it won't end the battle.

[Draz74]

Making it a penalty pretty much fixes it. Powerful debuff, but it won't end the battle.

Quoted for truth. And spelling fix.

[Yuki Akuma]

There's nothing saying a penalty to an ability score can't bring you below 1 - specific spells that give a penalty say that, but there's no blanket rule.

So it'd need a bit more changing than just making the damage a penalty.

It was probably intended as a penalty, given the flavour text and the fact that it has a duration. But it is famously badly worded.

[Defiant]

This spell is the dumbest spell I've ever seen, balance-wise.

Whoever thought that 3d6 dex damage is a good idea at spell level 3??? That person was a moron.

[Yuki Akuma]

This spell is the dumbest spell I've ever seen, balance-wise.

Whoever thought that 3d6 dex damage is a good idea at spell level 3??? That person was a moron.

Charitably, that person was not entirely up to speed on the difference between ability damage and ability penalties.

[Fax Celestis]

Charitably, that person was not entirely up to speed on the difference between ability damage and ability penalties.

Because that is exactly the kind of person that should be writing sourcebooks. -_- Not someone like, you know, me, who actually knows this crap.

[jiriku]

Shrug. I actually use shivering touch liberally among my NPC spellcasters, and have known my players to use it from time to time. I am unimpressed. Players defeat it easily by mowing down the casters at range or with pouncing charges, group encounters defeat it easily by not relying on any one monster to carry the encounter, and solo monsters defeat it easily by using Stand Still and the like to prevent casters from approaching. It is over-strong for a 3rd-level spell, but by CR 8 or so my monsters have better attack options to choose from.

[Myou]

How does one protect one's monsters from mages with cold hands who like touching them inappropriately?

[NotJesus]

How does one protect one's monsters from mages with cold hands who like touching them inappropriately?

Thermal underwear.

[Greenish]

How does one protect one's monsters from mages with cold hands who like touching them inappropriately?

There's Scintillating Scales, level 2 (?) spell that causes your Natural Armor to apply to touch AC. Obviously, a spell that fails to breach the target's Spell Resistance is quite useless, too.

[Mystic Muse]

Thermal underwear.

[Myou]

There's Scintillating Scales, level 2 (?) spell that causes your Natural Armor to apply to touch AC. Obviously, a spell that fails to breach the target's Spell Resistance is quite useless, too.

Yeah, but that depend on you having a high con mod and lots of natural armour. And being a caster. Great for dragons, but I was hoping for something more general.

[jiriku]

How does one protect one's monsters from mages with cold hands who like touching them inappropriately?

For dragons,
Scintillating scales. It's second level, and turns the dragon's natural armor bonus into a deflection bonus, dramatically increasing touch AC. This protects from shivering touch and from tactics revolving around summoning large numbers of ability-draining incorporeal undead.

Wingbind or dispel magic against enemy flyers is good, although the dragon would need to take Practiced Spellcaster once or twice in order to have a chance at dispelling the spells of a CR-appropriate PC spellcaster.

For dragons with bolt-type breath weapons, you'd be surprised how well flyby attack+wingover+breath weapon works as a defense. If the dragon ends its turn airborne and at least 100 feet from any enemy, most melee characters can't get close enough to attack it, and spellcasters can't hit it with any spell with a range less than Medium. If it also ends its turn in a source of concealment, like a cloud bank or copse of trees, it's well-protected from most archery and long-range targeted spells. Plus, if one idiot (I'm looking at you flying monk) with a high movement rate pursues while the rest of the party can't keep up, the dragon is free to mutilate that fool on its next action while everyone else is double-moving trying to get into range.

Anticipate teleportation is a useful spell, as dragons generally don't rely on teleportation and players may try to use tactical teleportation to overcome the dragon's maneuverability advantage.

There's an ability in the xorvintaal dragon template in MMV that allows a dragon to waive its AoO in order to flap its wings and bull rush a foe away. The Stand Still feat can accomplish something similar. This prevents characters from closing to within touch range.

Against shivering touch delivered via spectral hand, destroy the hand. Catching it in the area of your breath weapon while you fry a couple of PCs should be sufficient.

Additionally, any dragon with the Cold subtype is immune to shivering touch, and there are something like thirty templates that you can apply to a dragon that will either give it the cold subtype or render it immune to ability damage.

Edit: some of this is dragon-specific, but much of it can apply to any large solo monster.

Edit Edit: For other types of monsters, probably the easiest method of managing shivering touch is to use a group of 6 to 8 monsters. If the PC uses one spell to eliminate one monster in one round, that's an effective use of a spell, but it's hardly going to break the encounter. Players can do worse to your plans with web or evard's black tentacles.

Solo monsters can benefit from being immune to ability damage (undead, constructs, plants), being immune to shivering touch (cold subtype, spell immunity), having a high touch AC and considerable miss chance (most types of fey and most solo arcane casters), having considerable reach, power and the Stand Still feat (an easy trick for giants), or shrugging it off with spell resistance (many outsiders and abberations).

[JaronK]

It's especially nasty on Factotums who can use Darkstalker to just sneak close to a dragon (that dragon will NOT be beating the Factotum's Hide or Move Silently checks). Then he does the usual Spectral Hand/Shivering Touch attack in the surprise round (thanks Cunning Surge) and adds Int to damage to make it really stick. Scintillating Scales is worthless because the dragon doesn't even know he's there (if the dragon randomly casts it, the Factotum can always just wait till it goes down before attacking). So by level 8, the Factotum can drop most dragons without much chance.

By Factotum 11 he can also ignore SR, just in case the dragon had that.

Wizards can pull a similar stunt by teleporting in and using Celerity + Spectral Hand + Shivering Touch, maximizing the Shivering Touch with a Lesser Wand of Maximization.

JaronK

[Defiant]

Wizards can pull a similar stunt by teleporting in and using Celerity + Spectral Hand + Shivering Touch, maximizing the Shivering Touch with a Lesser Wand of Maximization.

JaronK

Rod

Still, I dislike the idea of a level 3 spell being able to drop just about anyone in one or two shots... it can do up to 18 dex damage.

The game focuses less on the proper balance of spells and more on the defensive options to obvious spell choices.