Ability Damage Resource 2.0

[Saintheart]

Ability Damage Resource 2.0

“Everything can collapse. Houses, bodies, and enemies collapse when their rhythm becomes deranged.”
-- Miyamoto Musashi

“Remember your three Cs: Cranium, Crotch, Center of Mass.”
-- Brotherhood of Steel Instructor, Fallout 4

Introduction
This resource compiles the ways you can cut down an opponent’s ability scores. It covers means and methods, from environmental effects down to invocations and more, as well as some tangential methods of boosting ability damage.

It's “2.0” because I am not original. A long-ago user named Empirate on the minmax forums compiled the first version of this resource 13 years ago. I have shamelessly reproduced its contents and a decent proportion of its text below. However, I added stuff that seems to have been missed and expanded the scope, thus (I think) making it more complete. I have also drawn on the Arsenic & Lace Poison Handbook , which fits well in the ability damaging space but which also is wide enough in scope that it’s not viable to insert it all here.

As for why I did this: because cracking ability scores is fun. It’s a different way of approaching combat and a little bit different to the standard methods for debuffing opponents or battlefield control.

I am always open for additional contributions or highlighting things I missed, so please feel free to add your thoughts – you will of course be credited. But as said the primary credit goes first to Empirate, wherever he or she is now. And of course to all the people he mentions in his own guide that helped him with the first version.

Otherwise, read on and have fun. Consistent with Empirate’s original guide I employ a red/black/blue rating system to which options seem more viable than others (blue being above average, black as normal, red as suboptimal).

Contents
Post 1: Introduction
Post 2: About Ability Scores
Post 3: Methods of debilitation
Post 4: When and what to debilitate
Post 5: Conditions that debilitate
Post 6: Environmental Hazards that debilitate
Post 7: Class Abilities
Post 8: Spells Part 1: By Class
Post 9: Spells Part 2: By Ability Score and By Saving Throw
Post 10: Psionic Powers, Invocations, Maneuvers, Soulmelds
Post 11: Feats
Post 12: Items
Post 13: Poisons, Ravages, Diseases
Post 14: Improving Ability Damage Rolls
Post 15: Notable Monsters
Post 16: Quickstart Combinations and Approaches
Post 17: Builds
Post 18: Acknowledgments and thanks

[Saintheart]

About Ability Scores


Strength Dexterity Constitution Intelligence Wisdom Charisma

Have you seen a character sheet? Then you know what these are! Empirate didn’t expand on the above list of stats or ratings. But I doubt this was a guide on which ability scores to target. It’s just pointing out 3.5 has a lot of options to target Str and Con, not as many for Dex and Int, and few for hitting Wis and Cha. The below guides and lists of options should bear that out. But that doesn’t mean you should avoid hitting Wis and Cha. Quite the contrary, sometimes WOTC made an option rare or difficult because it was surprisingly effective (or they thought it would be surprisingly effective).

It’s worth recapping what these stats control, though, since some have leverage beyond the obvious:

Strength: knock a target’s Str down so it’s carrying a Heavy load, and its Max Dex bonus and movement speed drops. Get it so it’s carrying more than its maximum load, and it loses Dex bonus to AC entirely and can only move 5 feet per round. Obviously it also eats into a target’s attack and damage too.

Dexterity: AC and initiative are the most obvious items chopped by this. If the target’s coming at you with daggers, rapiers, knives, etc., or is an archer, it’ll often be relying on Dex for attack rolls too. Reflex saves are obviously punched by a loss of Dex, but this isn’t quite as easy to capitalize on as a debuffed Con score. Cutting Dex also cuts the number of AoOs a creature can make if it’s got Combat Reflexes.

Constitution: If you hit a target with Con damage, then at least mathematically it makes it harder for that creature to make future Fort saves … which is handy because most of the time, it takes a Fort save to resist Con damage anyway! And that’s before the obvious hitpoint vacuuming that Con damage does. Note that the SRD itself laboriously points out that you can't smash Con down to a creature having less than 1 hitpoint per hit dice, although if you've managed to smash their Con that hard, you're aiming for Con 0 anyway which renders the point moot.

Intelligence: Cut an arcane caster’s Int, and they can’t use their higher level spells anymore. Also tends to be a temptingly low dump stat on creatures like animals and the like.

Wisdom: Nerfed Wisdom hits the Will save, but again not many debilitating effects target that saving throw. As with arcane casters, if you cut a divine spellcaster’s Wis, they can’t throw their higher level spells at you anymore.

Charisma: Sorcerers, bards, etc. rely on this ability and also can’t cast if you knock it down, but cutting Charisma also nerfs a number of spell-like and even supernatural abilities, since the DC is usually keyed to Charisma.

Also keep in mind (per PHB, p. 87) a creature’s access to a feat shuts down the moment the creature loses the feat’s prerequisites. Some common/significant feats have ability score prerequisites: 13 Str for Power Attack, 13 Dex for Stunning Fist, 13 Int for Improved Trip, 15 Dex for Two-Weapon Fighting. If the ability score goes below these thresholds, the creature can’t use that feat against you. That said, some creatures get certain feats without having to meet the prerequisites (e.g. monk bonus feats, ranger combat style, monsters with bonus^B racial feats).

And of course busting down an ability score also nerfs skill checks, although in most cases probably not enough to make a big difference.

That said -- looking for one stat to always target isn’t really that viable because it depends on your intent and on the opposition. As we’re about to get into below.

[Saintheart]

Methods of debilitation

Preface: we're talking about reducing ability scores. Not penalising attack rolls, saves, or ability checks (though they sometimes amount to the same thing). We’re also not talking about level drain, which, while a lot of fun, doesn’t actually hit an ability score.


Ability damage and ability drain are almost the same thing with two key differences:

(1) drain is permanent, damage can be healed naturally; and
(2) ability damage is unquestionably damage, while ability drain might not be. This’ll become important later.

Both can be healed by spells, though ability drain is generally much harder to remove. Ability damage and drain can reduce an ability score to 0, and usually, this means the target is either dead (if Con is 0) or helpless (if anything else is 0):

STR 0 = Falls to ground (i.e prone) and is helpless (the condition).
DEX 0 = paralyzed (i.e. the condition, i.e.e. helpless (the condition)).
CON 0 = dead.
INT/CHA 0 = Unconscious, which the SRD defines as knocked out and helpless (the condition).
WIS 0 = Unconscious ... of a different colour, because the subject withdraws into a deep sleep plagued with nightmares. Vaern rightly notes this is objectively cooler and therefore more desirable, not to mention that further spells or options apply to sleeping or dreaming subjects. (And no, elves and dragons' immunity to sleep effects likely don't touch this.)

For PCs, these amount to the same thing except in rare situations when you want to capture, not kill.

Ability damage and drain stack, but that doesn’t mean you should strain to get both on a target. Focus instead on save DCs, delivery methods, and overall debilitating effect instead. Damaging Str by 1d8 points is much better than draining it by 1d4 points. There are very few, roleplaying-related, exceptions to this rule.

Also note: ability damage or ability drain are not affected by immunity to critical hits or sneak attack. These are very different things. Even a CR 20 Pit Fiend isn't immune to ability damage as such - but it has poison immunity, Spell Resistance out the wazoo, and stratospheric saving throws off the back of ability scores high enough to make it more than a one-rounder to take him out.

Damage Reduction despite appearances is a minor problem at best. Touch attacks, energy attacks (even nonmagical ones), spells, spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities, and poisons/diseases delivered by inhalation, ingestion, or contact all bypass DR. In essence, DR only stops an injury poison or an injury disease. And if you get one hitpoint of damage past the Enterprise's shields, your ability damage/drain takes full effect anyway.


Ability penalties can be much more potent than damage or drain. This makes them just as viable for debuffing in some situations. Ability penalties often go away much more quickly (when the effect that caused them expires). They show up either as a direct penalty to a score (e.g. Ray of Enfeeblement) or as a consequence of a condition (e.g. fatigued or exhausted).

Ability penalties have two main drawbacks:

(1) Generally you can’t use them to get an ability score down to 0. Most ability penalty effects will have a hard limit on them that says they can’t get an ability score below 1. And when you're putting ability penalties and ability damage together, a creature usually gets to decide whether it applies damage or a penalty first when calculating how far its score drops. Thus, hitting something with damage and then penalizing it to get it to 0 won’t work. If you’re looking for a full knockout, it’s usually ability damage all the way.

(2) It takes a little more work to stack them, because they’re usually ongoing effects, not over-and-done like damage or drain. Two identical spells operating in the same area or on the same target, but at different strengths, don’t accumulate -- they only apply the best penalty of the two. (Without this rule, spamming Ray of Enfeeblement would be one of the easiest methods of locking up a target in the game. That said, two different spells imposing penalties do accumulate: untyped modifiers stack if they’re from different sources.)

[Saintheart]

When and what to debilitate

Decide beforehand. Make sure you debilitate a worthwhile stat even when only debuffing, maybe especially when debuffing.

To take out an opponent, attack the lowest ability score - if you can with your method(s) of debilitation, that is.

If you want to debuff the opponent, you should usually attack a physical ability score, most often Str or Dex. Empirate thought Str is almost always the better one to attack for a debuff, but YMMV. It depends on the foes you're facing.

Bringing an ability score to 0 usually takes ability damage or drain. Ability penalties won't be much use here, although they can be. A heavily armored warrior is effectively dead if you penalise his Str to below his carrying capacity. Likewise, a successful Feeblemind on a Sorcerer will end him as a threat.


Know your enemy. This is true for any kind of strategy you want to use, but especially for debilitating strategies. If you don't know what the important and/or low ability scores of your enemy are, you can forget about debuffing or taking out opponents this way. Especially if the target is simply immune to your methods of debilitation. So divination abilities and knowledge skills can come in very handy here. If you don't know what will be coming up, prepare for whatever seems most likely, or prepare something that works a lot of the time. In this case, you can probably use debilitation for debuffing only. Takeouts often require foreknowledge. But hey, downtime's for research, right?

Often, you'll know beforehand what you'll be facing, at least roughly. If you're planning to fight the Death Knights of Full Plate Castle, some Split Empowered Rays of Enfeeblement might come in handy.

• Constructs are immune to virtually everything you can throw at them from this resource. They’re not subject to ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, poisons, disease, paralysis, or any effect that requires a Fort save (unless it would also affect an object). Options that impose an ability penalty circumvent these immunities … but since they’re also immune to all mind-affecting magic, even Touch of Idiocy doesn’t work on them. The obvious spells that remove these immunities – Humanoid Essence and Greater Humanoid Essence – are pretty high level too.
  
  
• Undead are a little more vulnerable, but still problematic. The SRD says they’re immune to poison, paralysis, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or anything that requires a Fort save. What about ability damage? Well, the SRD says their Str, Con, and Dex scores are outright immune. Worse, the SRD also says anything with no Con score (i.e. undead) is also immune to ability damage, ability drain, and energy drain. (One notable spell here is Moon Bolt, which can’t do much about an undead’s ability scores, but which has its own undead-specific effect that potentially locks up an undead target for a few rounds anyway.)
  
  Bestow Curse is one of the few spells (in Core or anywhere else) that cuts through. It penalizes ability scores, bypassing Construct and Undead immunities -- and though it has a Will save, it’s not a mind-affecting spell, thus avoiding that immunity too. But that’ll only get their ability scores down to 1 at best.
  
  
• Plants and Oozes may need some forward planning too. Irritatingly, they're immune to mind-affecting effects, poisons, and paralysis. Which means Touch of Idiocy and good old Black Lotus are out. But they can be fatigued and exhausted just like any other living being, and they’re not immune to ability damage or ability drain, meaning most of our tricks still work on them. (Sometimes people get immunity to ability damage confused with immunity to sneak attack. These are not the same thing; plants and oozes have the latter, but not the former.)

It's not all bad news, though:

• Animals are vulnerable on Int. With very rare exceptions, an Animal's Int score can't go higher than Int 2.
  
  
• Magical Beasts can get above Int 2, but it's highly likely to be their dump stat as well. Aside from having no ranged attack and no flight ability, the CR 20 Tarrasque, a Magical Beast, has Int 3. (And, hilariously, while it's immune to ability damage, it's not immune to ability drain either, hence why an Allip can kill it). That said, there are some magical beasts - unicorns, sphinxes - that do not follow this rule.
  
  
• Aberrations (the SRD ones anyway, and speaking mainly of the more primitive predators like Rust Monsters, not Aboleths and friends) tend to have Int and Cha as their dump stats.
  
  
• True Dragons from the SRD - no matter how big or how old they are - all have Dex 10.
  
  
• Giants are also vulnerable on Dex - even a Cloud Giant only has Dex 13.
  
  
• Fey are renowned for their weak Con scores, right back to the test phase of 3.0: not one of the SRD fey has a Con score higher than 13.

Know your strengths. Mostly you'll only have one or two reliable methods of debilitation. We can't (or don't want to) all be spellcasters; if you're a Cleric or a Wizard, you can just prepare whatever seems likely. You can attack any stat you want, and deal out penalties, damage, or drain, whatever you feel like. But even a Sorcerer focused on debilitation will probably be relying on two or three spells at most, maybe adding in Fell Weaken or some such on other spells he can cast. Other classes don't even have the luxury of choosing which stat to go for. A Crippling Strike Rogue will attack Str, and that's it most of the time. A Shadowdancer can likewise only attack Str (via Shadow Companion). A Swordsage can mostly choose between Str and Con (though there's one sucky high-level maneuver that attacks Dex).

This is where equipment becomes important. Poisons and spell storing items open the debilitator's route to all classes. Wounding weapons debilitate Con for everybody. Also, Animal Companions, Familiars, Mounts, and monstrous Cohorts provide all kinds of debilitation options.

Nevertheless, any given PC will probably not have the luxury of choice. So in some fights your debilitation counts for nothing, while in others it might win you the day. Again, foreknowledge will help you out lots, if only to warn you whether you'll be extra-efficient or dead weight. From this follows the next one:


Debilitation isn't everything. Even as a full caster totally focused on debilitation, don't expect to win every fight with it. Non-casters should totally prepare to have at least one other schtick to fall back on. Actually, it's quite likely that debilitation will only complement your other, main abilities. It's nice for a Rogue to have the option of dealing Con or Cha damage instead of more HP damage with his sneak attacks. But it's not vital. Similarly, I consider Wounding to be one of the better weapon enchantments - but quite a few things are immune to it, and that Con damage won't kill the enemy on its own. Ray of Enfeeblement might be a wonderful 1st level spell, and really powerful when metamagicked up - but whether a split, empowered RoE is better than Wall of Force or Dominate Person or Telekinesis really depends on the circumstances.

[Saintheart]

Conditions that debilitate

Dehydrated: (Sandstorm p. 15) – leaving aside heat damage, Sandstorm says a dehydrated character “becomes” fatigued. Dehydration turns up more than you might think in spells, especially in tandem with dessication damage (which itself is a nice option because not much is resistant to it).

Entangled: Leaving aside all the other great stuff that things like Entangle and Tanglefoot Bags do, the entangled condition imposes a -4 penalty on DEX.

Exhausted: Anyone under the exhausted condition takes a -6 penalty to STR and DEX. Not easy to impose on its own, this condition is more achievable via stacking the Fatigued condition.

Fatigued: A fatigued creature takes a -2 penalty to STR and DEX, and can’t charge or run, which shuts down uberchargers. It may not be as strong as entangling, but it stacks with itself in many cases and pushes the target to Exhausted when it does.

Frostbite: (Frostburn p. 10) – anyone who takes nonlethal damage from cold or exposure gets hit with frostbite and takes a -2 penalty to Dex. Nonlethal damage from cold also turns up in a few spells out of Frostburn and is well worth remembering for that reason.

Helpless: doesn’t penalize or damage an ability score as such, but a Helpless target is treated as having DEX 0, and melee attacks get +4 bonus (the equivalent of a bonus for attacking a prone target). They can also be coup de grace’d. This is where a 0 in any ability score bar CON leaves you.

Hypothermia: (Frostburn p. 10) – anyone who takes nonlethal damage from cold or exposure also gets hit with mild hypothermia and is therefore ‘treated as’ fatigued. This likely stacks with the penalty from Frostbite for a total -4 to Dex and -2 Str, so it’s well worth remembering in cold campaigns. And if you’ve got mild hypothermia and you fail a Fort save to avoid the effects of cold or exposure, you have moderate hypothermia and are treated as exhausted. Fail another save similarly, you’re treated as disabled.

Paralyzed: A paralyzed creature “has effective DEX and STR scores of 0” and is helpless (as the condition, above).

[Saintheart]

Environmental Dangers that debilitate

Acid Slush: (Frostburn p. 16): deals acid damage, but it’s also freezing cold and imposes hypothermia (see above).

Bloodsnow: (Frostburn p.16): Come into contact with it, make an escalating Fort save once per round or take 1d2 Con damage and be nauseated. See also the spell of the same name.

Brown Mold (SRD): CR 2 hazard, and isn’t poisonous, but gets more interesting in combination with Frostburn’s rules, since any living creature that comes within 5 feet of it takes 3d6 nonlethal cold damage (thus triggering Frostbite and Hypothermia, above).

Green Slime (SRD): A CR 4 hazard, a 5 foot square of green slime deals 1d6 Con damage per round by way of devouring flesh (and also does 2d6 damage per round against wood and metal, and no damage against stone). No save. Some options below refer to this nasty little pool of verdant slop, and Dungeon 146 p. 32 has rules for using Green Slime as a weapon. Finally, the SRD says that slimes are all considered plants for the purposes of spells and similar, which may be exploitable with a bit of thought and a somewhat open-minded DM.

Snowflake Lichen (Frostburn p. 16): CR 3 hazard, take 1d6 cold damage per round when on it, and make a DC 15 Fort save each round or take 1 point Dex damage per round as well. It’s a magical plant, so theoretically capable of cultivation perhaps, and Frostburn’s trap tables indicate you can buy boxes of it.

Virulent Green Slime (Dungeon 152, p. 44): A variety of Green Slime that does 2d6 Con damage and can’t be scraped off at all.

Wisp Lichen (Und, p. 110): CR 5 hazard, mainly on ceilings but anything touching this stuff makes a Fort DC 15 save or is paralyzed (no duration specified!) and takes 1 Con drain per hour.

Yellow Mold (SRD): CR 6 hazard, if disturbed a 5 foot square of this bursts with spores that deliver a poison -- which deals 1d6 Con/2d6 Con. Sunlight renders yellow mold dormant, so a tactic might be to cover your favourite cloak in it, drop it at the opponent’s feet, and then cast Darkness on it.

[Saintheart]

Class Abilities

Acolyte of the Skin (CArc):
Poison (1): SLA, 1 or 2/day.

Arachnomancer (UD):
Spider Magic (1): You add some spider-themed spells to your spell list. Most of these are bad, though several can summon poisonous creatures (read: spiders).
Spiderform (2): You can turn into a monstrous spider. Most of the time, this is not a good idea for loss of spellcasting. The gargantuan one at 8th level is pretty hilarious, though, and this does open up movement and fighting options in a pinch.
Poison Touch (3): You inject poison with a touch attack. Damage is varying amounts of Str damage, and the ability can be used at will. You're an arcane caster though, so you're not gonna be in melee anytime soon.
Command Spiders (4): As rebuke/command undead, but spiders. Useless, you can't even use the rebuke attempts on other stuff.
Spider Blast (10): Your capstone is not that impressive, as it still relies on spider poison. At this point in the game, almost everything will either be immune or laugh in your face at the lousy debilitation you deal out with your valuable action.

Archmage (DMG):
High Arcana (1): The Arcane Reach and Mastery of Shaping high arcana are of interest to the spellcasting-focused debilitator.

Black Dog (DMark):
Dhurinda's Trick (2): Expend a prestidigation/purify food&drink spell and poison a nearby bit of food or drink with a poison you're holding. Situationally useful and very cool!
Create Poison (3): Would be more impressive if you weren't just stuck with DC 14 injury poisons. Some stuff the Dog can brew is stronger but they trend ingested.
Refine Poison (3): This is a bit more like it, expend a prestidigation/purify food&drink spell and push a poison's DC by +2.
Empower Poison (4): Exactly what it says, basically apply Empower Spell to a poison you've got.
Dhurinda's Touch (5): And this element might make all of it worth it. Expend a prestidigation/purify food&drink use, apply the effects of a poison you've got to your melee touch attack -- regardless of the poison's original delivery method. Not a standard action, one for one trading poison and a spell slot to a melee touch attack even if it draws an AoO. This is straight up one of the best ways to channel poison in the game, and ludicrously good if you have the feat Arcane Manipulation (LEoF) which functions like Versatile Spellcaster backwards, breaking up higher level slots for lower ones.

Blighter (CDiv):
Contagious Touch (5): SLA, 1/3 lvls/day. Blighters also get one or two of the better spells below a level earlier than most divine casters do. It doesn’t make up for their general suck, the Blighter is to the Druid as the Blackguard is to the Paladin, nowhere near worth taking even for the lulz.

Cancer Mage (BoVD):
Contagion (2): SLA, 1/lvl/day.
Poison (3): SLA, 1/lvl/day.
Children of the Night (4): Summon some small spiders or dire rats. Not worth it.
Infected Wound (6): One melee attack/lvl/day basically gains the Wounding ability. Also does an additional 1d6 Con damage an hour later, which we don't much care about. Nice, but un-special.
Insect Plague (7): SLA, 1/day.
Disease Form (10): You become the disease! Not that great for debilitation, though.

Cloaked Dancer (CS):
Wearying Dance (3): Will save or everyone in 30 feet is fatigued while you’re still dancing, and if you’re already fatigued, you become exhausted.

Combat Trapsmith (CS):
Combat Trapping (Enfeebler) (1): Fatigues target (Fort negates).
Combat Trapping (Sleeper) (4): Target is put to sleep, is fatigued on a successful (!) Fort save.

Diabolist (BoVD):
Imp Familiar (2): Imps are poisonous. Familiars deliver touch attacks. Familiars are just all around good in general.

Disciple of Baalzebul/Disciple of Mammon (BoVD):
Summon Osyluth (4/5): Powerful and moreover poisonous devils. Nuff said.

Dread Necromancer (HoH):
Scabrous Touch (6): Add a Contagion effect to your Charnel Touch ability, usable 1-3/day. Mostly useless.
Summon Familiar (7): Familiars are good, e.g. familiars deliver touch spells. Imps, Vargouilles, and Quasits are naturally poisonous. Opens the road to Improved Familiar, if you still want an upgrade over these.

Drow Judicator (UD):
War Strike (1): Once per day, deal an additional 2d6 Con damage with a melee attack (Fort half). Not overwhelming, but can be nice. You have to be a Drow, though.
Command Spiders (1): As rebuke/command undead, but spiders. Useless, you can't even use the rebuke attempts on other stuff.
Spider Servant (5): You gain a spider servant from a small list, which works much like an animal companion. Not bad! Regular ACs are often better, though.
Spider's Grace (8): Once per day, you gain some spiderlike characteristics. Among these is a poisonous (1d6 Str/1d6 Str, DC 18+Con mod) bite attack. Extra attacks are always good, debilitating ones doubly so.

Druid:
Animal Companion (1): Pick a poisonous or otherwise ability-debilitating AC.
Wild Shape (5): Turn into a poisonous animal or anything else with an (Ex) special attack that causes ability damage, drain or penalties.
(Also note Druid ACFs: City-Shape gives vermin shape, Drow Druid: Spider-Shape, gives spider forms, Wasteland Druid: Wasteland Shape gives access to vermin forms found in the wasteland. Which are all poisonous.)

Duskblade (PHB2):
Arcane Channeling (3): Your signature ability allows you to channel debilitating spells through your melee attacks. You have few options, but Touch of Idiocy is a good spell to channel, and there are ways to expand your spell list.

Enlightened Fist (CArc):
Arcane Fist (3): Deliver touch spell on each iterative attack in a full attack. Not bad with debilitating spells (Shivering Touch, anyone?).
Hold Ray (7): Now you can transform ray spells into touch spells. Very handy for debilitating in melee.

Hierophant (FRCS):
Special Ability (1): Interesting special abilities include Divine Reach and Power of Nature.

Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil (CArc):
Green Veil (4): This is a poison effect much like the green part of a Prismatic Sphere. 1d6 Con damage on a successful (!) save.

Justiciar (CWar):
Crippling Strike (2): Whenever you deal nonlethal damage (which will be most of the time, this being your forte), you also deal 1 point of Str damage. OK ability.

Lifedrinker (BoVD):
Lifewell (1): You already are a vampire if you took this PrC. Now you can do something with all that Con you drained!

Lurk (XPH):
Lurk Augment: Solid Strike (3): Augments your melee strike by +2 damage. If you can find a melee strike that only does ability damage, this possibly increases it.
Lurk Augment: Mental Assault (5): This deals 2 points of Int or Wis damage plus an additional point per 2 power point you spend. Provided by Zemyla. Blue rated if only because there's usually ways to enhance the number of power points you get, and Int or Wis damage doesn't come easily in 3.5 without a saving throw attached to it.

Master of Many Forms (CAdv):
Improved Wild Shape (1): This excellent ability only gets better with MoMF! Many poisonous and some otherwise debilitating forms available!

Master of Shrouds (CDiv Web Enhancement):
Summon Undead (1): You can summon Allips or Shadows, later Wraiths and even Greater Shadows, 1/2 lvls/day. These guys are serious debilitators, if not an overall good class from a CO standpoint!

Nar Demonbinder (UE):
Fiendish Familiar (1): You get an imp or a quasit as a familiar, both of which are poisonous and get the usual familiar goodies. It seems you even keep your regular familiar if you have one (or take the Obtain Familiar feat - Nar Demonbinders are arcane casters).
[rest of class abilities]: These are all geared towards getting the most out of Planar Binding spells. Guess what planar bound creatures are often good at doing?

Nightcloak (CDiv Web Enhancement):
Minions of Night (8): Summon a bunch of Shadows 1/week that only stay for a few rounds. Too little, too late.

Nosomatic Chiurgeon (Dmark):
Plague Bearer (2): 1/day, melee touch attack to impose an effect 'similar to' a Contagion spell. Get additional uses by expending spell-like ability uses from your Mark of Healing.
Isolate Pathogen (3): From here on, you can use Plague Bearer to impose any disease, including magical ones, you have diagnosed and treated with the Heal skill. That is, without an incubation period. Might take some DM cooperation, but there are some nasty diseases in the Book of Vile Darkness, let alone the DMG (Deathsong: 1d8 Str and 1d8 Dex and 1d8 Con, Fort DC 25.)

Ordained Champion (CChamp):
Channel Spell (3): Any spell you have available can be cast into your melee weapon and affects the target you hit with. Even if it’s an area or ray spell, it affects one target. This is a nice delivery system for your debilitating rays if your Dex sucks, and even stronger if you pulled the Reflex save off the spell with Spellwarp Sniper.

Paladin:
Special Mount (5): Pick a poisonous or otherwise debilitating mount.

Pale Master (LibMort):
Weakening Touch (7): Touch does 1d6 Str damage (no save), and unlike normal, if it hits Str 0, the opponent dies. You're getting it a bit late, though.
Destructive Touch (9): Touch does 1d6 Con drain (no save).

Psychic Assassin (Web): https://web.archive.org/web/20151102.../psm/20040723d
Mind Cripple (special ability like Rogue): If you damage a target with sneak attack, you also do 2 points of Int damage.

Psychic Rogue (Web): https://web.archive.org/web/20151102.../psm/20040723b
Mind Cripple (special ability like Rogue): If you damage a target with sneak attack, you also do 2 points of Int damage. Yes, it's the same ability as Psychic Assassin.

Primeval (Frost):
Primeval Form (1): Your signature ability. Pick something debilitating...

Raumathari Battlemage (UE):
Channel Spell (1): Like a Duskblade, you can channel spells through melee attacks. You're a full caster, why's this not blue? Well, you're a full caster, whatever are you doing in melee? (Especially since there’s gishes like Duskblades and Ordained Champions that can do the same or better?)

Ravager (CWar):
Cruelest Cut (3): 1/3 lvls/day, deal 1d4 Con damage on a single attack in addition to regular damage. Good, but not overwhelming.

Rogue:
Crippling Strike (special ability): 2 points of Str damage with every Sneak Attack is nothing to scoff at. Very nice with TWF, Improved TWF, Haste, and a weapon with the Speed enchantment. Also works on ranged attacks.

Runecaster (FRCS):
Improved Runecasting (3, 8): This takes your Inscribe Rune feat and turns it up to eleven. At third level, your rune can have several charges (for multi-debilitation) or work on anybody reading them or passing by them. At 8th level, you can give your rune charges/day or even make it permanent! Excellent, excellent ability for enspelling weapons (though note you can’t craft a rune so it triggers when you strike a foe).
Maximize Rune (6): With a simple increase in the Craft check DC you can make maximized versions of your runes for no additional cost.

Sentinel of Bharrai (BoED):
Nature-Friendly Spells (1): Against animals and plants, can turn a [cold] spell's damage from lethal to nonlethal. This means that the spell then does nonlethal cold damage, which therefore brings on Frostbite and Hypothermia per Frostburn's rules. Just in case you wanted to add insult to injury with Shivering Touch.

Scorpion Heritor (Sandstorm):
Envenom Blade (5): 3/day, as free action, "envenom" your weapon or a piece of ammo with scorpion venom. (1d4/1d4 Con, DC 15+Wis). The RAW has no duration or how many hits the venom lasts.
Tail of the Scorpion (9): Grow a poisonous tail 1/day, does 1d4 Con damage (DC 10+0.5*HD+Con mod). Comes way too late and too low-powered to be worthwhile.

Scorpion Wraith (SoX):
Deadly Sting (5): Coat a slashing or piercing weapon with a 1d10/1d10 Con (Fort DC 15+Wis negates) poison. Lasts 1 hour or until delivered, useable 1+Wis mod per day. You're getting this around character level 9, and if your build is Wis-focused it's useable a lot. Not clear whether it's a melee touch attack to impose (it's liquid shadow, so maybe). This compares favorably with the number of uses and level at which a Sor/Wiz would get the Poison spell.

Sea Witch (Stormwrack):
Curse of the Sea Witch (1, 3): 1/day impose something very similar to Bestow Curse as a (Sp) ability. Rises to 2 per day at level 3. Unless you cheese early entry or your DM includes casting from scrolls as an ability to cast Summon Monster III, you're not getting this at much different a level than you would Bestow Curse itself, but on the other hand it's one less spell slot to hold and Bestow Curse is one of the few ability penalisers that cuts through Construct and Undead immunity to mind-affecting powers.
Curse of the Albatross (5): Extend the Curse (of the Sea Witch) to cover an entire ship, which would include all of its crew. Very potent in naval campaigns!

Shadowdancer:
Summon Shadow (3): Companion creatures are always nice, and this one is incorporeal and deals Str damage. It also can't be turned, rebuked etc., and increases in HD as you level. All in all, quite nice, that, however it comes kinda late (10th character level at the earliest), and Shadows are not exactly the most powerful at that level of play anymore. Still, if you can choose feats, skills etc., this can be nice.

Shadow Sentinel (RoD)
Shadow Drain (7): Drain Str at 1 point per 'shadow point' invested with a hit from your special umbral weapon. Would be more interesting if they didn't gate it so you can only rip about 5 Str off a target at maximum per round if your Sentinel class level is maxed out, i.e. somewhere in the late teens depending how early you qualify.

Sorcerer:
Familiar (1): The snake is naturally poisonous, though not very. Improved Familiar opens up more options. From 3rd level on, Familiars can also deliver touch attacks (Shivering Touch, Touch of Idiocy...).

Soulknife:
Knife to the Soul (13): This lets you give up your psychic strike damage and deal 1 point of Int, Wis, or Cha damage for every damage dice of psychic strike damage you give up. Provided by Zemyla.

Spellsword: (CWar)
Channel spell (4, 6, 8): Same wording and ability as Ordained Champion, but applies to arcane spellcasting instead. But the class sweats you for half your arcane spellcasting progression and you can only pull it maximum 5 times per day.

Spellwarp Sniper (Csco):
Spellwarp (1): If it has a range greater than touch and it’s instantaneous, remove a spell’s Reflex save and make it a ray spell which hits by ranged touch attack. Sadly, most ability-damaging spells come with Fort or Will saves, and you can only alter up to 5^th level spells maximum. However, since you can freely apply metamagic to the warped spell so long as the metamagic would apply to a ray spell, things like Split Ray are now available on Mindfrost which would normally affect a single target only once.

Talontar Blightlord (UE):
Blightbringer Prestige Domain (1): More domains are always good. This one even brings with it rebuking ability vs. blightspawned creatures, which have a debilitating (but slow) disease effect. Contagion is one of your domain spells. Not great for debilitators, but excellent for Talontar Druids, who can now pull off DMM cheese. Red for our purposes only.
Illmaster (2): Your animal companion gains the Blightspawned template, which makes it much tougher and gives it a slow-working disease ability. Red for our purposes only.
Blight Touch: You can infect things with a slow-working disease, using a touch attack. Underwhelming.
Corrupting Blows (8): Any glaive (and nothing else) you're wielding gains the wounding ability. Nice enough.

Thayan Slaver (UE):
Break Will (2): Anytime you win an Intimidate check by 10 or more, you deal a point of Wis damage to your target. There's no limit to the number of times you can use this ability! This seems to be intended for "social" situation (you bullying your slaves), but can be used in a fear-stacking build as well. Totally unique ability, seems to have potential.
Crippling Strike (5): This works like the Rogue ability of the same name, except it only does 1 point of Str damage. Should stack with the Rogue special ability, though.

Thrall of Demogorgon (BoVD):
Rotting Touch (6): Deal 1d6 Con damage with a touch 3/day, no save.

Thrall of Jubilex (BoVD):
Summon Ooze (3): 1/day summon a patch of Green Slime. This can be very effective.
Contagion (4): SLA, 1/day.

Vermin Keeper (UD):
Vermin Form (1): You gain the option to assume vermin forms with your wildshape ability. Most of the time, these forms will be inferior, but who can argue the utility of more options? Most of the forms you can assume will be poisonous, allowing debilitation (and, of course, Venomfire).
Vermin Companion (3): You gain the option to replace your animal companion with a vermin. This is not so great, usually you should stick with your Fleshraker.

Vermin Lord (BoVD):
Poison (8): Very weak poison delivered by your bite attack (1 Str/1 Str).

Warshaper (CWar):
Morphic Weapons (2): Just grow yourself as many poisonous or debilitating natural attacks as you want, e.g. a Yochlol (FC1)’s spider form bite attack that’s a DC 21 poison doing 1d6/2d6 Con damage. Warshaper’s one of the most ab/useable prestige classes out there, so restrain yourself.

Wizard:
Familiar (1): The snake is naturally poisonous, though not very. Improved Familiar opens up more options. From 3rd level on, Familiars can also deliver touch attacks (Shivering Touch, Touch of Idiocy...). Excellent for everybody, and so it is for debilitators.

[Saintheart]

Spells (Part 1)

(By Class List)

Warning: Max char limit, look deeper in thread for more spells.



Assassin

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Spoiler: Level 1

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Shadow Double (DoTU, Asn 1, Hex 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Each hit of the conjured double does 1 Str damage. Not bad for its level. The double can flank and hit incorporeals which is even better.

Spoiler: Level 2

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Ice Knife (CArc, Asn 2, Wu Jen 2, Warmage 2): Does a little damage and 2 points of Dex
Increase Virulence (PHB 2, Asn 2, Brd 2, Blk 2, Sor/Wiz 2) Increase a poison’s DC by 2.

Spoiler: Level 3

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Fangs of the Vampire King (SpC, Asn 3, Blk 3): You gain a bite attack that deals an additional point of Con
Rusted Blade (CMage, Asn 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4, Wu Jen 4 (metal): Damage a living creature and if it fails the save, it contracts Filth Fever (1d3 Dex and 1d3 Con damage). Uses Rusted Blade’s DC for the initial saving throw, not Filth Fever’s DC 11-12 depending what source you go to.
Spider Poison (SpC, Ass 3, Sor/Wiz 3): A weaker version of Poison that deals 1d6 Str/1d6 Str
Toxic Tongue (CM, Ass 3): You produce a poison you can either spit (it deals 1d3 Con/1d3 Con) or apply to a weapon (1d6 Con/1d6 Con). At 10th level onward, you have better options.

Spoiler: Level 4

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Bloodfreeze Arrow (CoR, Asn 4, Rgr 4): +2d6 cold damage and paralyzes the target.
Shadow Arrow (CoR, Asn 4, Rgr 4): 1d6 Str damage on hit as a ranged touch attack, no save, though SR applies.

Bard

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Spoiler: Level 2

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Delusions of Grandeur (SpC, Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): -2 penalty to Wis, can’t reduce below 1.
Increase Virulence (PHB 2, Asn 2, Brd 2, Blk 2, Sor/Wiz 2) Increase a poison’s DC by 2.
Pyrotechnics (PHB, Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2, Warmage 2, Vigilante 2, Wu Jen 2, Sha’ir 2, Jester 2): Smoke Cloud imposes -4 penalties to Str and Dex.
Summon Swarm (PHB, Brd 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Can disease or poison the target(s). Rat swarms cause filth fever (Fort DC 12, incubation 1d3 days, 1d3 Dex, 1d3 Con/1d3 Str)

Spoiler: Level 3

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Dirge of Discord (SpC, Brd 3): -4 penalty to Dex
Geas, Lesser (PHB, Brd 3, Sor/Wiz 4, Sha’ir 4): -2 to all ability scores, increasing to -8 max, can never take an ability score below 1 by this effect
Puppeteer (SpC, Brd 3): Overlooked little gem exclusive to Bards. Subject not only mimics your actions but takes a -4 penalty to Str and Dex. If you try and make it commit a suicidal act and if the subject saves, it collapses, helpless and in a comatose state, for 1d4 rounds.
Stiffen (EoE, Brd 3, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 4): Target takes cumulative -4 penalty to Dex each round until he hits Dex 0 or saves. Also hits maneuverability progressively. Nice little lockdown spell.

Spoiler: Level 4

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Celebration (SpC, Brd 4): -2 penalty to Dex, Int, and Wis to creatures in a 15 foot burst
Inner Beauty (FC1, Brd 4): If you cast this on something evil, it takes -4 DEX and CHA penalty, and everything within 15 feet has to save or be nauseated (cast it on something good, it gets a +4 sacred bonus to DEX and CHA!)
Phantasmal Wasting (EoE, Brd 4, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 5): Touch attack, for 1 round/level the target takes -6 penalty to Str, Dex, and Con.

Spoiler: Level 5

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Body Harmonic (SpC, Brd 5): 1d10 damage to one ability score per round your Concentration lasts, have to pick a new ability each round.
Fever Dream (CMage, Brd 5, Sor/Wiz 5): If fails, subject is at least fatigued and more likely exhausted.
Nightmare (PHB, Brd 5, Sor/Wiz 5): Fatigues target for 24 hours.

Spoiler: Level 6

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Dirge (SpC, Brd 6): Area spell, deal 2 points of Str and Dex damage per round, round/level.

Beguiler

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Spoiler: Level 2

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Touch of Idiocy (PHB, Beguiler 2, Sor/Wiz 2): 1d6 penalty to Int, Wis, and Cha

Spoiler: Level 5

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Feeblemind (PHB, Beguiler 5, Sor/Wiz 5): Reduces Int and Cha to 1. Not by 1, to 1. This is neither drain or damage, only a heal or a wish-level spell can reverse it. And arcanists take a -4 on the saving throw, which makes it a hell of a debuffer in that situation.

Blackguard

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Spoiler: Level 1

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Boneblast (BoVD, Blk 1, Clr 2): Deal 1d3 Con damage.

Spoiler: Level 2

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Increase Virulence (PHB 2, Asn 2, Brd 2, Blk 2, Sor/Wiz 2) Increase a poison’s DC by 2.

Spoiler: Level 3

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Fangs of the Vampire King (SpC, Asn 3, Blk 3): You gain a bite attack that deals an additional point of Con
Investiture of the Amnizu (Blk 3, Clr 4, Sor/Wiz 4, Spellthief 4): Gain a melee touch attack that does 1d4 Int damage. Now if only you could use it as something other than a single standard action, and if you could use it more than once per 2 caster levels per casting. Marginal even if you can pull bonuses to the damage roll.

Spoiler: Level 4

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Bleed (CC, Blk 4, Clr 5, Drd 5): Every hit by a piercing or slashing weapon against the target also deals 1 point of Con damage (Fort negates). See Bloodstar.

Cleric

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Spoiler: Level 1

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Impede (CChamp, Clr 1): If something's already under an effect that impedes its movement - e.g. slow - it takes a -4 penalty to Dex. Even a tanglefoot bag impedes movement, this is solid for its level.
Shivering Touch, Lesser (Frost, Clr 1, Sor/Wiz 1, Disciple of Thrym 1): Deal 1d6 Dex damage on touch.

Spoiler: Level 2

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Bloodsnow (Frost, Clr 2, Drd 2, Disciple of Thrym 2, Sor/Wiz 3): Area effect. Succeed on Fort or take 1d2 points of Con drain.
Boneblast (BoVD, Blk 1, Clr 2): Deal 1d3 Con damage.
Dessicate (SStorm, Clr 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Maximum 5d6 dessication damage (which has virtually no immunities) but the target is also dehydrated – i.e. fatigued.
Sap Strength (BoVD, Clr 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Touch spell, impose exhaustion (-6 penalty STR and DEX).
Thin Air (Frost, Clr 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 3): You cause Altitude Sickness, dealing 1 point of damage to all ability scores.

Spoiler: Level 3

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Affliction (BoED, Clr 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4): The goody-two-shoes version of Contagion, below, except your touch inflicts one of 6 afflictions, i.e. good diseases, with no incubation period, on an evil creature. Of these, Pride in Vain (1d8 Cha) and Eternal Torpor (1d6 Dex) are the best. Why does this get a blue rating? Because the disease also adds the target's CHA bonus to the damage. See the Afflictions section below for more.
Awaken Sin (SpC, Clr 3, Pal 2): Take max 10d6 nonlethal damage. If this knocks the subject unconscious, it takes 1d6 Wis damage. Whatever would you want that for? Adding insult to injury?
Bestow Curse (PHB, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 4): -6 penalty to any ability score
Contagion (PHB, Clr 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4): Your touch causes one of 7 diseases, with no incubation period. Best choices are probably Blinding Sickness (1d4 Str plus Blindness), Shakes (1d8 Dex) and Slimy Doom (1d4 Con)
Corona of Cold (SpC, Clr 3, Drd 3): If damaged by spell, take -2 penalty to Str and Dex.
Shivering Touch (Frost, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 3, Disciple of Thrym 3): do 3d6 Dex damage. Known as the dragon-killer because dragons only come with 10 DEX.
Stiffen (EoE, Brd 3, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 4): Target takes cumulative -4 penalty to Dex each round until he hits Dex 0 or saves. Also hits maneuverability progressively. Nice little lockdown spell.

Spoiler: Level 4

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Hypothermia (SpC, Clr 4, Drd 3): Takes cold damage and becomes fatigued. Would be more interesting if it actually imposed the condition.
Moon Bolt (SpC, Clr 4, Drd 4): Deal 1d4/3 CL Str damage.
Poison (PHB, Clr 4, Drd 3): This is a strong poison (1d10 Con/1d10 Con)
Sword of Conscience (BoED, Clr 4, Pal 4) Inflicts Cha and Wis damage proportional to an evil creature's HD and how evil it is (maxing out at 2d8 Wis and Cha if the target is an evil cleric/outsider and has 11+ HD. Decent against all evil creatures, very solid against evil clerics and outsiders.

Spoiler: Level 5

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Bleed (CC, Blk 4, Clr 5, Drd 5): Every hit by a piercing or slashing weapon against the target also deals 1 point of Con
Contagion, Mass (SpC, Clr 5, Drd 5, Sor/Wiz 6): As contagion, but in a 20 foot radius spread.
Frostbite (Frost, Clr 5): 1/2 CL targets take 6d6 damage and 2d6 Dex damage.
Humanoid Essence (RoE, Clr 5): Removes many construct immunities.
Investiture of the Amnizu (Blk 3, Clr 4, Sor/Wiz 4, Spellthief 4): Gain a melee touch attack that does 1d4 Int damage. Now if only you could use it as more than just a single standard action, and if you could use it more than once for every 2 caster levels. Marginal even if you can pull bonuses to the damage roll.
Mark of Sin (CC, Clr 5): -4 penalty to an ability score, based on your deity.
Parboil (SStorm, Clr 5, Sor/Wiz 4): Deals 2d4 Int damage (and 6d6 fire damage!)
Soul Scour (UE, Clr 5): Bad news up front: this is a touch attack, and Will negates. However, 2d6 Cha damage plus 1d6 Wis damage can be very nice indeed and may one-shot fighting types on a lucky roll. Add that this spell deals another 1d6 Cha…

Spoiler: Level 6

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Dessicate, Mass (SStorm, Clr 6, Drd 6, Sor/Wiz 6): As Dessicate, but hits 1 creature/level.

Spoiler: Level 7

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Bestow Curse, Greater (SpC, Clr 7, Sor/Wiz 8): -6 penalty to two ability scores
Blasphemy (PHB, Clr 7, Nar 7, DMaster 7, Evil 7, Hades 7, Hatred 7, Mysticism 7, Orc 7): Up to CL -1, impose a -2d6 Str penalty for 2d4 rounds. Lower HD creatures than your CL get a range of effects including being paralyzed, so boost your CL.
Blood to Water (SpC, Clr 7): deal 2d6 Con damage.
Humanoid Essence, Greater (RoE, Clr 7): Removes all construct immunities.
Plague (PHB 2, Clr 7, Drd 7, Sor/Wiz 8): Upgunned form of Contagion, subject contracts a disease with no incubation period, but hits every round rather than every day. Best choices are still Blinding Sickness (1d4 Str plus Blindness), Shakes (1d8 Dex) and Slimy Doom (1d4 Con)
Slime Wave (SpC, Clr 7, Drd 7): Disgusting but effective: everything in the area is covered in Green Slime, taking 1d6 Con
Spark of Life (LibMort, Clr 7, Drd 8): Undead lose their immunity to ability damage and drain, although still can’t take CON damage.)
Tomb of Light (BoED, Clr 7, Sor/Wiz 7): Basically Hold Person, but each round the creature held makes a Fort save or takes 1d6 Con drain. Lasts as long as Concentration and your nonlethal hp holds out.
Withering Palm (SpC, Clr 7, Wu Jen 7): Deal 1/2 CL points each of Str and Con

Spoiler: Level 8

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Befoul (BoVD, Clr 8): Make a huge body of water poisonous: 1d4 Con
Antidragon Aura, Greater (DoF, Clr 8): If a dragon or dragonblood creature hits you in melee, the creature suffers 1d6 Str damage (Fort negates)
Last Judgement (BoED, Clr 8, Sor/Wiz 8): Go to hell, the spell. Only affects humanoids, monstrous humanoids and giants, but if survive by making your save, you still take 3d6 Wis damage.
Pestilence (BoVD, Clr 8, Drd 7): This spreads a disease: you infect a target (dealing 1d4 Con)
Unholy Aura (PHB, Clr 8, various domains 8): if Good creature attacks warded creature in melee, they suffer 1d6 Str damage

Spoiler: Level 9

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Despoil (BoVD, Clr 9): You kill plants in a positively gigantic radius, and every living creature also takes... all of 1d4 Str damage (Fort negates). Considering you could cast Miracle, or Gate, or Astral Projection instead...
Investiture of the Pit Fiend (FC 2, Clr 9, Sor/Wiz 9): As standard action, make everything in 10 feet take 2 Str damage.

Druid

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Spoiler: Level 1

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Breath of the Jungle (SpC, Drd 1): +2 to DC of saving throws vs. poison in the area of the mist.
Entangle (SRD, Drd 1, Rgr 1, Plant 1): It’s the primo battlefield control spell for druids for a reason. Reflex save stops you being entangled, but as said if you are entangled you take a -4 penalty to Dex.
Sunstroke (SStorm, Drd 1, Sor/Wiz 1, Summer 2): 2d6 nonlethal damage and impose fatigue, or exhausted if already fatigued. Available much earlier than Heatstroke or Hypothermia, above.
Winter Chill (SpC, Drd 1): Fort save or become fatigued.

Spoiler: Level 2

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Bloodsnow (Frost, Clr 2, Drd 2, Disciple of Thrym 2, Sor/Wiz 3): Area effect. Succeed on Fort or take 1d2 points of Con drain.
Dessicate (SStorm, Clr 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2, Thirst 2): Maximum 5d6 dessication damage (which has virtually no immunities) but the target is also dehydrated – i.e. fatigued
Numbing Sphere (Frost, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): This is very similar to Flaming Sphere, but instead of piddly fire damage it deals cold damage, plus 1d4
Persistence of the Waves (MoTW, Drd 2):Subject of spell gets -2 to Str ... and +4 to Con.
Scimitar of Sand (SStorm, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Create a scimitar that does melee touch attacks, 1d6+1/2 CL (max 1d6+10). In addition, creature hit must make Fort save or become dehydrated, i.e. fatigued.
Summon Swarm (PHB, Brd 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Can disease or poison the target(s). Rat swarms cause filth fever (Fort DC 12, incubation 1d3 days, 1d3 Dex, 1d3 Con/1d3 Str)
Thin Air (Frost, Clr 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 3): You cause Altitude Sickness, dealing 1 point of damage to all ability scores.

Spoiler: Level 3

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Affliction (BoED, Clr 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4): The goody-two-shoes version of Contagion, below, except your touch inflicts one of 6 afflictions, i.e. good diseases, with no incubation period, on an evil creature. Of these, Pride in Vain (1d8 Cha) and Eternal Torpor (1d6 Dex) are the best. Why does this get a blue rating? Because the disease also adds the target's CHA bonus to the damage. See the Afflictions section below for more.
Corona of Cold (SpC, Clr 3, Drd 3): If damaged by spell, take -2 penalty to Str and Dex.
Contagion (PHB, Clr 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4): Your touch causes one of 7 diseases, with no incubation period. Best choices are probably Blinding Sickness (1d4 Str plus Blindness), Shakes (1d8 Dex) and Slimy Doom (1d4 Con)
Dehydrate (SpC, Drd 3): You simply deal 1d6+1/3 CL Con
Heatstroke (SpC, Drd 3): Fort save or become fatigued. If already fatigued, become exhausted.
Hypothermia (SpC, Clr 4, Drd 3): Target takes cold damage and becomes fatigued. Would be more interesting if it imposed the condition.
Infestation of Maggots (SpC, Drd 3): Deal 1d4 Con damage per round until the subject makes a Fort save
Poison (PHB, Clr 4, Drd 3): This is a strong poison (1d10 Con/1d10 Con).
Quillfire (SpC, Drd 3): For 1 round/CL, you can make melee or ranged attacks with poisonous quills (1d6 Str/1d6 Str)
Rusted Blade (CMage, Asn 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4, WuJen 4 (metal): Damage a living creature and if it fails the save, it contracts Filth Fever (1d3 DEX and 1d3 CON damage). Uses Rusted Blade’s DC for the initial saving throw, not Filth Fever’s DC 11-12 depending what source you go to.

Spoiler: Level 4

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Contagious Touch (SpC, Drd 4): … Contagion, but capable of hitting with multiple infections (albeit no more than 1 per round).
Call of Stone (PHB 2, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 4): Turn enemy progressively into a statue if it fail 4 saves, but take a cumulative -2 to Dex each round as you get there.
Languor (SpC, Drd 4): Impose 1d6+1 Str penalty per 2 caster levels, maximum 1d6+10. Ranged touch attack, lasts 1 round/level. The CDiv version was stronger, but this is still really strong for its level - the Str penalty has no save.
Moon Bolt (SpC, Clr 4, Drd 4): Deal 1d4/3 CL Str damage
Phantasmal Wasting (EoE, Brd 4, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 5): Touch attack, for 1 round/level the target takes -6 penalty to Str, Dex, and Con
Poisonous Vines (SpC, Drd 4): Essentially you make heavy undergrowth that’s poisonous (contact, 1d6/2d6 Dex). The CDiv version was basically Entangle plus this, and thus the spell was nerfed.
Searing Exposure (SStorm, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 4): Nonlethal damage, but even if you save you’re dehydrated (i.e. fatigued) and dazzled 1d4+1 rounds.
Starvation (SpC, Drd 4): 1d6 nonlethal per CL up to 10d6 and become fatigued. Fatigued creatures become exhausted.

Spoiler: Level 5

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Bleed (CC, Blk 4, Clr 5, Drd 5): Every hit by a piercing or slashing weapon against the target also deals 1 point of Con
Blizzard (Frost, Drd 5, Winter 5): Besides the other deadly effects – drop 1 foot of snow each round on the area – this has indirect ability penalizing effect, since anything that’s unprotected from the cold makes a Fort save or takes 1d6 nonlethal cold damage, which would bring on frostbite and the possibility of moderate hypothermia, i.e. fatigue and exhaustion under Frostburn’s rules.
Contagion, Mass (SpC, Clr 5, Drd 5, Sor/Wiz 6): As contagion, but in a 20 foot radius spread.
Kiss of Death (MoTW, Drd 5): It's the same as Poison, but a 5th level spell instead.
Jungle's Rapture (SpC, Druid 5): Creature takes 1d6 Dex drain immediately as it turns into a plant!
Memory Rot (SpC, Drd 5): 1d6 Int damage immediately, then 1 point of Int drain each round. No end to duration unless the target makes its Fort save.
Poison Thorns (SpC, Drd 5): Grow thorns on your body that are poisonous - 1d4 Str/1d4 Str.
Spore Cloak (RoF, Clr 5, Drd 5, Sor/Wiz 6): Interesting buff that provides concealment and deters grapple, bullrush etc. by dealing 1d6 Con
Wooden Blight (CC, Drd 5): You transform the target into wood, dealing 1d4 Dex

Spoiler: Level 6

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Death Hail (Frost, Drd 6): You conjure a Blizzard that persists in its area for a bit and deals 1d2 Str and Con
Dessicate, Mass (SStorm, Clr 6, Drd 6, Sor/Wiz 6, Thirst 5): As Dessicate, but hits 1 creature/level.
Entomb (Frost, Drd 6, Sor/Wiz 6): Encase lots of targets (no AoE, you choose freely!) in ice, holding them in place, damaging them, and dealing 1 Con
Pox (BoVD, Drd 6): 1 target/CL in a very small area take 1d4 Con

Spoiler: Level 7

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Creeping Doom (PHB, Drd 7): This once (up to 3.0) excellent spell summons forth lowly centipede swarms in D&D 3.5. These have a weak poison (Fort DC 14, 1d4 Dex/1d4 Dex).
Pestilence (BoVD, Clr 8, Drd 7): This spreads a disease: you infect a target (dealing 1d4 Con).
Plague (PHB 2, Clr 7, Drd 7, Sor/Wiz 8): Upgunned form of Contagion, subject contracts a disease with no incubation period, but hits every round rather than every day. Best choices are still Blinding Sickness (1d4 Str plus Blindness), Shakes (1d8 Dex) and Slimy Doom (1d4 Con)
Rain of Roses (BoED, Drd 7): No save against ability damage, great! In an 80 foot cylinder radius, awesome, ability damage per round, fantastic! 1d4 Wis damage, mediocre, especially given spell resistance still applies.
Slime Wave (SpC, Clr 7, Drd 7): Disgusting but effective: everything in the area is covered in Green Slime, taking 1d6 Con
Word of Balance (SpC, Drd 7, Balance 7): Blasphemy (see above) for druids, but hits LG, CG, LE, or CE creatures.

Spoiler: Level 8

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Red Tide (SpC, Drd 8): Conjure a wave of sickening/nauseating water that also deals 2d6 Str damage (and another 2d6 a minute later), in a huge burst. Nice crowd control.
Spark of Life (LibMort, Clr 7, Drd 8): Undead lose their immunity to ability damage and drain, although still can’t take CON damage.)

Duskblade

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Spoiler: Level 0

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Touch of Fatigue (PHB, Sor/Wiz 0, Dsk 0): Touch attack fatigue, doesn’t affect something already fatigued. Still the lowest level debuff in this area of interest to us!

Spoiler: Level 1

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Chill Touch (PHB, Dsk 1, Sor/Wiz 1): 1 Str damage
Ray of Enfeeblement (PHB, Dsk 1, Sha’ir 1, Sor/Wiz 1): This is the number one low level debuff in core, and possibly without as well. 1d6+1/2 CL Str … would be even stronger if it did Str damage and not Str penalty.

Spoiler: Level 2

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Touch of Idiocy (PHB, Dsk 2, Beg 2, Sor/Wiz 2): 1d6 penalty to Int, Wis, and Cha.

Spoiler: Level 3

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Ray of Exhaustion (PHB, Dsk 3, Sor/Wiz 3, Sha’ir 3): Subject immediately exhausted, i.e. -6 to STR and DEX.

Spoiler: Level 4

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Toxic Weapon (PHB 2, Dsk 4, Sor/Wiz 5): next melee attack delivers a Poison: 1d10/1d10 Con.

Spoiler: Level 5

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Waves of Fatigue (PHB, Dsk 5, Sor/Wiz 5): Everything in range of the spell is fatigued.

Hexblade

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Spoiler: Level 1

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Karmic Aura (CMage, Hex 1, Sor/Wiz 1): Anything that manages to deal damage to you gets fatigued for 3 rounds. Unfortunately, doesn’t allow fatigue stacking with itself, but might allow it from others.

Spoiler: Level 2

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Karmic Backlash (Cmage, Hex 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Same as Karmic Aura, but the creature gets exhausted for 2 rounds instead.
Shadow Double (DoTU, Asn 1, Hex 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Each hit of the conjured double does 1 Str damage. Not bad for its level, especially for high-BAB characters. The double can flank and hit incorporeals which is even better.

Spoiler: Level 3

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Hood of the Cobra (CMage, Hex 3, Sor/Wiz 3): Interesting in that it is an illusion spell that deals Con damage. Otherwise, not so great, as the target can negate the whole spell with a Will save, and each instance of 1d6 Con damage (which you deal as a standard action touch attack) is negated with a Fort save.

Paladin

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Spoiler: Level 2

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Awaken Sin (SpC, Clr 3, Pal 2): Take max 10d6 nonlethal damage. If this knocks the subject unconscious, it takes 1d6 Wis damage. Whatever would you want that for? Adding insult to injury?

Spoiler: Level 4

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Sword of Conscience (BoED, Clr 4, Pal 4) Inflicts Cha and Wis damage proportional to an evil creature's HD and how evil it is (maxing out at 2d8 Wis and Cha if the target is an evil cleric/outsider and has 11+ HD. Decent against all evil creatures, very solid against evil clerics and outsiders.

Ranger

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Spoiler: Level 1

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Entangle (SRD, Drd 1, Rgr 1, Plant 1): It’s the primo battlefield control spell for druids for a reason. Reflex save stops you being entangled, but as said if you are entangled you take a -4 penalty to Dex.

Spoiler: Level 4

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Bloodfreeze Arrow (CoR, Asn 4, Rgr 4): +2d6 cold damage and paralyzes the target.
Shadow Arrow (CoR, Asn 4, Rgr 4): 1d6 Str damage on hit as a ranged touch attack, no save, though SR applies
Snakebite (SpC, Rgr 4, Sor/Wiz 3): One of your arms becomes a poisonous (2 Con/2 Con) snake. Interesting visuals, though Gutsnake is cooler. For the effect, cast something else.

Sorcerer/Wizard

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Spoiler: Level 0

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Touch of Fatigue (PHB, Sor/Wiz 0, Dsk 0): Touch attack fatigue, doesn’t affect something already fatigued. Still the lowest level debuff in this area of interest to us!

Spoiler: Level 1

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Chill Touch (PHB, Dsk 1, Sor/Wiz 1): 1 Str damage
Karmic Aura (CMage, Hex 1, Sor/Wiz 1): Anything that manages to deal damage to you gets fatigued for 3 rounds. Unfortunately, doesn’t allow fatigue stacking with itself, but might allow it from others.
Parching Touch (SStorm, Sor/Wiz 1, Thirst 1): Touched creature takes 1d6 dessication damage, 1 Con damage, and is fatigued, up to 1/caster level.
Power Word Fatigue (RoTD, Sor/Wiz 1): Make a creature with less than 100 hp fatigued, just like that.
Ray of Clumsiness (SpC, Sor/Wiz 1): This works exactly like Ray of Enfeeblement, except it targets Dex
Ray of Enfeeblement (PHB, Dsk 1, Sha’ir 1, Sor/Wiz 1): This is the number one low level debuff in core, and possibly without as well. 1d6+1/2 CL Str … would be even stronger if it did Str damage and not Str penalty.
Reduce Person (PHB, Sor/Wiz 1, Sha’ir 1): -2 penalty to Str, but +2 bonus to Dex. And slightly more squashable I guess.
Shivering Touch, Lesser (Frost, Clr 1, Sor/Wiz 1, Disciple of Thrym 1): Deal 1d6 Dex damage on touch.
Spirit Worm (SpC, Sor/Wiz 1): Deal 1 point of Con

Spoiler: Level 2

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Crystalline Memories (CM, Sor/Wiz 2): For the sake of completeness... you concentrate for 3 rounds, then deal piddly damage and 2 Int
Delusions of Grandeur (SpC, Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): -2 penalty to Wis, can’t reduce below 1.
Dessicate (SStorm, Clr 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2, Thirst 2): Maximum 5d6 dessication damage (which has virtually no immunities) but the target is also dehydrated – i.e. fatigued
Escalating Enfeeblement (CM, Sor/Wiz 2): This is a Ray of Enfeeblement, except it deals 1d10+1/2 CL Str – if the target is already fatigued or exhausted. And you can’t stack it with Ray of Enfeeblement itself. However, with the right feat selections it’s a very nice “2” in a 1-2 debilitating punch.
Increase Virulence (PHB 2, Asn 2, Brd 2, Blk 2, Sor/Wiz 2) Increase a poison’s DC by 2.
Karmic Backlash (Cmage, Hex 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Same as Karmic Aura, but the creature gets exhausted for 2 rounds instead.
Kelgore’s Grave Mist (PHB 2, Sor/Wiz 2): 20 foot radius spread, all creatures become fatigued and take a little cold damage per round.
Numbing Sphere (Frost, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): This is very similar to Flaming Sphere, but instead of piddly fire damage it deals even less cold damage, plus 1d4 Dex
Phantasmal Assailants (CArc, Sor/Wiz 2): Minimum 2 Wis and Dex damage, 4 Wis and Dex damage if the save is failed
Pyrotechnics (PHB, Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2, Warmage 2, Vigilante 2, Wu Jen 2, Sha’ir 2, Jester 2): Smoke Cloud imposes -4 penalties to Str and Dex.
Ray of Stupidity (SpC, Sor/Wiz 2): A ray that deals 1d4+1 points of Int
Sap Strength (BoVD, Clr 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Touch spell, impose exhaustion (-6 penalty STR and DEX).
Scimitar of Sand (SStorm, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Create a scimitar that does melee touch attacks, 1d6+1/2 CL (max 1d6+10). In addition, creature hit must make Fort save or become dehydrated, i.e. fatigued.
Shadow Double (DoTU, Asn 1, Hex 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Each hit of the conjured double does 1 Str damage. Not bad for its level, especially for high-BAB characters. The double can flank and hit incorporeals which is even better.
Shadow Spray (SpC, Sor/Wiz 2): Deals 4 points of Str damage.
Spectral Hand (PHB, Sor/Wiz 2): It allows you to deliver touch range spells (up to 4^th level, which is a fair number of those here) as melee touch attacks out to medium range. No Spellwarp Sniper or Ocular Spell shenanigans required.
Summon Swarm (PHB, Brd 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Can disease or poison the target(s). Rat swarms cause filth fever (Fort DC 12, incubation 1d3 days, 1d3 Dex, 1d3 ConStr/1d3
Touch of Idiocy (PHB, Dsk 2, Beg 2, Sor/Wiz 2): 1d6 penalty to Int, Wis, and Cha.

Spoiler: Level 3

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Bloodsnow (Frost, Clr 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 3): Area effect. Succeed on Fort or take 1d2 points of Con drain.
Contagious Fog (SpC, Sor/Wiz 3): Like fog cloud, but contract a disease equivalent to the shakes, i.e. 1d8 Dex damage
Dread Word (BoVD, Sor/Wiz 3): You deal 1d3 Cha damage
Hood of the Cobra (CMage, Hex 3, Sor/Wiz 3): Interesting in that it is an illusion spell that deals Con damage. Otherwise, not so great, as the target can negate the whole spell with a Will save, and each instance of 1d6 Con damage (which you deal as a standard action touch attack) is negated with a Fort save.
Mind Poison (SpC, Sor/Wiz 3): This is a Poison spell that deals Wis
Power Word Maladroit (RoTD, Sor/Wiz 3): 2 points of Dex damage (if it has less than 75 hp).
Power Word Weaken (RoTD, Sor/Wiz 3): 2 points of Str damage (if it has less than 75 hp).
Ray of Exhaustion (PHB, Dsk 3, Sor/Wiz 3, Sha’ir 3): Subject immediately exhausted, i.e. -6 penalty to Str and Dex.
Shivering Touch (Frost, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 3, Disciple of Thrym 3): do 3d6 Dex damage. Known as the dragon-killer because dragons only come with 10 Dex.
Snakebite (SpC, Rgr 4, Sor/Wiz 3): One of your arms becomes a poisonous (2 Con/2 Con) snake. Interesting visuals, though Gutsnake is cooler. For the effect, cast something else.
Spider Poison (SpC, Ass 3, Sor/Wiz 3): A weaker version of Poison that deals 1d6 Str/1d6 Str
Thin Air (Frost, Clr 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 3): You cause Altitude Sickness, dealing 1 point of damage to all ability scores.
Vipergout (SpC, Sor/Wiz 3): Spit out a bunch of snakes which can bite and thereby poison people.

Spoiler: Level 4

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Affliction (BoED, Clr 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4): The goody-two-shoes version of Contagion, below, except your touch inflicts one of 6 afflictions, i.e. good diseases, with no incubation period, on an evil creature. Of these, Pride in Vain (1d8 Cha) and Eternal Torpor (1d6 Dex) are the best. Why does this get a blue rating? Because the disease also adds the target's CHA bonus to the damage. See the Afflictions section below for more.
Bestow Curse (PHB, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 4): -6 penalty to any ability score
Bloodstar (SpC, Sor/Wiz 4): This spell adds insult to injury whenever the target is damaged, dealing 1 point of Con
Call of Stone (PHB 2, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 4): Turn enemy progressively into a statue if it fail 4 saves, but take a cumulative -2 to Dex each round as you get there.
Contagion (PHB, Clr 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4): Your touch causes one of 7 diseases, with no incubation period. Best choices are probably Blinding Sickness (1d4 Str plus Blindness), Shakes (1d8 Dex) and Slimy Doom (1d4 Con)
Corporeal Instability (SpC, Sor/Wiz 4): Good spell for taking an enemy out of the picture for a few rounds. The 1 point of Wis is handy.
Geas, Lesser (PHB, Brd 3, Sor/Wiz 4, Sha’ir 4): -2 to all ability scores, increasing to -8 max, can never take an ability score below 1 by this effect
Investiture of the Amnizu (Blk 3, Clr 4, Sor/Wiz 4, Spellthief 4): Gain a melee touch attack that does 1d4 Int damage. Now if only you could use it as more than just a single standard action, and if you could use it more than once for every 2 caster levels. Marginal even if you can pull bonuses to the damage roll.
Mindfrost (Frost, Sor/Wiz 4): You deal 5d6 damage to the target and also inflict 1d4 Int damage
Parboil (SStorm, Clr 5, Sor/Wiz 4): 6d6 fire damage and 2d4 Int damage!
Reduce Person, Mass (PHB, Sor Wiz 4): We can be short with this one. Yes I went there.
Rusted Blade (CMage, Asn 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4, WuJen 4 (metal): Damage a living creature and if it fails the save, it contracts Filth Fever (1d3 DEX and 1d3 CON damage). Uses Rusted Blade’s DC for the initial saving throw, not Filth Fever’s DC 11-12 depending what source you go to.
Searing Exposure (SStorm, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 4): Nonlethal damage, but even if you save you’re dehydrated (i.e. fatigued) and dazzled 1d4+1 rounds.
Serpent Arrow (CoR, Sor/Wiz 4): turn arrows, darts, or twigs into Tiny vipers. They’re poisonous (Fort DC 11 which is nothing to write home about, 1d6/1d6 Con which is all right.)
Sinsabur’s Baleful Bolt (UE, Sor/Wiz 4): 1d3 Con and 1d3 Str damage, +1 per 5 CL (max 1d3+3).
Stiffen (EoE, Brd 3, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 4): Target takes cumulative -4 penalty to Dex each round until he hits Dex 0 or saves. Also hits maneuverability progressively. Nice little lockdown spell.
Touch of Years (CM, Sor/Wiz 4): Your touch deals 3 points of drain to all physical ability scores
Wither (SStorm, Sor/Wiz 4): Do dessication damage, max 10d6, and target is dehydrated/fatigued.

Spoiler: Level 5

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Channeled Lifetheft (CM, Sor/Wiz 5): Depending on how you choose to cast the spell, it does damage and either fatigues or exhausts the target. Also grants you temp hp.
Cloudkill (PHB, Sor/Wiz 5): Creatures with 4 to 6 HD take 1d4 Con
Cryptwarden’s Grasp (CM, Sor/Wiz 5): You infect the target with Mummy Rot (1d6 Con and 1d6 Cha).
Feeblemind (PHB, Beguiler 5, Sor/Wiz 5): Reduces Int and Cha to 1. Not by 1, to 1. This is neither drain or damage, only a heal or a wish-level spell can reverse it. And arcanists take a -4 on the saving throw, which makes it a hell of a debuffer in that situation.
Fever Dream (CMage, Brd 5, Sor/Wiz 5): If fails, subject is at least fatigued and more likely exhausted.
Fiendform (SpC, Sor/Wiz 5): Alter Self, but take a Fiendish creature that can be summoned by a Summon Monster I-IV spell, regardless of size. Gain all Ex, Sp, and Su abilities. Lots of these guys have debilitating capabilities.
Nightmare (PHB, Brd 5, Sor/Wiz 5): Fatigues target for 24 hours.
Night’s Caress (SpC, Sor/Wiz 5): Touch does max 15d6 damage and 1d6+2 Con damage.
Phantasmal Wasting (EoE, Brd 4, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 5): Touch attack, for 1 round/level the target takes -6 penalty to Str, Dex, and Con.
Touch of Chaos (EoE, Sor/Wiz 5): Gross spell effect, but effective: Touch attack causes 1 point of Wis drain, and hits again each round if the target fails its save. That aside, takes a -4 penalty to Dex and its speed drops to 10 feet and it loses all other forms of movement.
Toxic Weapon (PHB 2, Dsk 4, Sor/Wiz 5): next melee attack delivers a Poison: 1d10/1d10 Con.
Unearthly Heat (SStorm, Sor/Wiz 5, Summer 5): Touch a creature, hit it with minor lethal and nonlethal damage and fatigue (or exhaustion if already fatigued).
Waves of Fatigue (PHB, Dsk 5, Sor/Wiz 5): Everything in range of the spell is fatigued.

Spoiler: Level 6

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Ashen Union (SStorm, Sor/Wiz 6): Hit a target with dessication damage which is impressive enough, but target is also dehydrated if affected by the spell – i.e. fatigued, according to Sandstorm’s rules.
Contagion, Mass (SpC, Clr 5, Drd 5, Sor/Wiz 6): As contagion, but in a 20 foot radius spread.
Dessicate, Mass (SStorm, Clr 6, Drd 6, Sor/Wiz 6, Thirst 5): As Dessicate, but hits 1 creature/level.
Entomb (Frost, Drd 6, Sor/Wiz 6): Encase lots of targets (no AoE, you choose freely!) in ice, holding them in place, damaging them, and dealing 1 Con.
Ray of Entropy (SpC, Sor/Wiz 6): Ranged touch attack, target takes -4 to Str, Con, and Dex
Spectral Dragon (DoF, Sor/Wiz 6): Dragon-shaped mass of shadows bites people for 1d6 Str damage and a negative level.
Spore Cloak (RoF, Clr 5, Drd 5, Sor/Wiz 6): Interesting buff that provides concealment and deters grapple, bullrush etc. by dealing 1d6 Con
Transfix (CArc, Sor/Wiz 6, Wu Jen 6): Paralyzes multiple targets in an area.

Spoiler: Level 7

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Choking Cobwebs (CM, Sor/Wiz 7): Con 1d4 damage if the creature walks in the area of two spells.
Incarnum Bladestorm (MoI, Sor/Wiz 7, Incarnum 7): Moveable cylindric area effect that does 1d6 Wis damage to all living creatures in its area! (can increase the damage by adding essentia points).
Prismatic Aura, Prismatic Bow, Prismatic Deluge, Prismatic Eye, Prismatic Ray, Prismatic Sphere, Prismatic Spray, Prismatic Wall– same spell, different levels, all as marginal for our purposes: the Green ray imposes Poison that either kills or does 1d6 Con damage instead. Prismatic Spray (Sor/Wiz 7) gives you the mechanic.
Symbol of Weakness (PHB, Sor/Wiz 7): Like all Symbol spells, very situational by virtue of 10 min casting time and highly expensive component. Deals heavy Str
Tomb of Light (BoED, Clr 7, Sor/Wiz 7): Basically Hold Person, but each round the creature held makes a Fort save or takes 1d6 Con drain. Lasts as long as Concentration and your nonlethal hp holds out.
Waves of Exhaustion (PHB, Sor/Wiz 7): No save, all creatures in spell area become exhausted.

Spoiler: Level 8

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Bestow Curse, Greater (SpC, Clr 7, Sor/Wiz 8): -6 penalty to two ability scores
Blackfire (SpC, Sor/Wiz 8): 1d4 Con
Conjure Greater Midnight Construct (MoI, Sor/Wiz 8): Soulburn Aura does 1 Str damage per essentia invested to all creatures adjacent to the construct at the end of the construct's turn. (Will save)
Flensing (SpC, Sor/Wiz 8): Piddly damage each round, and 1d6 Cha plus 1d6 Con.
Last Judgement (BoED, Clr 8, Sor/Wiz 8): Go to hell, the spell. Only affects humanoids, monstrous humanoids and giants, but if survive by making your save, you still take 3d6 Wis damage.
Plague (PHB 2, Clr 7, Drd 7, Sor/Wiz 8): Upgunned form of Contagion, subject contracts a disease with no incubation period, but hits every round rather than every day. Best choices are still Blinding Sickness (1d4 Str plus Blindness), Shakes (1d8 Dex) and Slimy Doom (1d4 Con)
Steal Life (BoVD, Sor/Wiz 8): More for completeness than anything, but also for amusement value. You drain 1 point from 1 stat of a creature per round, hitting each ability score in succession until you cycle back to the start again. This is weak as hell at these levels, but it has a hilarious secondary mechanic ripe for ab/use: if you cast it during a full moon, then for every ability point you drain you get a week younger, and the caster’s “age is reduced, but memories and abilities acquired during that week are not lost)”. So just Polymorph into something earlier that week and then cast this spell, thus making its abilities yours forever.
Touch of the Graveborn (CMage, Sor/Wiz 8): 1/3 CL, your melee touch attacks do 10d6 damage and if the creature has negative levels, it takes 1d6 Str drain.

Spoiler: Level 9

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Deadly Sunstroke (CM, Sor/Wiz 9, Wu Jen 9): Create heat up to 25d6 damage. And also fatigue them. If it’s a hot day out, 25d8 damage and exhaust them instead.
Ensul’s Soultheft (Wtrdp, Sor/Wiz 9): Make touch attacks, drain 1d4 Int per touch, get some healing.
Weird (PHB, Sor/Wiz 9): Area effect Phantasmal Killer on steroids that also deals 1d4 points of Str damage for some reason. Still not good enough for a 9th level spell...
Investiture of the Pit Fiend (FC 2, Clr 9, Sor/Wiz 9): As standard action, make everything in 10 feet take 2 Str damage.

Warmage

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Spoiler: Level 1

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Chill Touch (PHB, Dsk 1, Sor/Wiz 1, Warmage 1): 1 Str damage

Spoiler: Level 2

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Ice Knife (CArc, Asn 2, Wu Jen 2, Warmage 2): Does a little damage and 2 points of Dex
Pyrotechnics (PHB, Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2, Warmage 2, Wu Jen 2, Sha’ir 2, Jester 2): Smoke Cloud imposes -4 penalties to Str and Dex.

Spoiler: Level 3

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Poison (PHB, Clr 4, Drd 3, Warmage 3): This is a strong poison (1d10 Con/1d10 Con)

Spoiler: Level 4

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Contagion (PHB, Clr 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4, Warmage 4): Your touch causes one of 7 diseases, with no incubation period. Best choices are probably Blinding Sickness (1d4 Str plus Blindness), Shakes (1d8 Dex) and Slimy Doom (1d4 Con)

Spoiler: Level 5

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Waves of Fatigue (PHB, Dsk 5, Sor/Wiz 5): Everything in range of the spell is fatigued.
Prismatic Aura, Prismatic Bow, Prismatic Deluge, Prismatic Eye, Prismatic Ray, Prismatic Sphere, Prismatic Spray, Prismatic Wall– same spell, different levels, all as marginal for our purposes: the Green ray imposes Poison that either kills or does 1d6 Con damage instead. Prismatic Spray (Sor/Wiz 7) gives you the mechanic.

Spoiler: Level 9

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Weird (PHB, Sor/Wiz 9, Warmage 9): Area effect Phantasmal Killer on steroids that also deals 1d4 points of Str damage for some reason. Still not good enough for a 9^th level spell...

Wu Jen

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Spoiler: Level 1

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Cobra's Breath (CArc, Wu Jen 1): 1d3 Con damage, Fort save, 10 foot cone. Nice for its level!

Spoiler: Level 2

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Ice Blast (CArc, Wu Jen 2): 1d6 ice damage per 2 CL, but fatigues target for 1 minute.
Ice Knife (CArc, Asn 2, Wu Jen 2, Warmage 2): Does a little damage and 2 points of Dex
Kiss of the Toad (CArc, Wu Jen 2): Weaker version of the Poison spell (1d6 instead of 1d10 Con)
Pyrotechnics (PHB, Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2, Warmage 2, Vigilante 2, Wu Jen 2, Sha’ir 2, Jester 2): Smoke Cloud imposes -4 penalties to Str and Dex.

Spoiler: Level 4

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Poison Needles (CArc, Wu Jen 4): This spell allows several options, two of which are of interest here: your poisoned needles either deal Con (1d8/1d8) or Dex
Rusted Blade (CMage, Asn 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4, WuJen 4 (metal): Damage a living creature and if it fails the save, it contracts Filth Fever (1d3 DEX and 1d3 CON damage). Uses Rusted Blade’s DC for the initial saving throw, not Filth Fever’s DC 11-12 depending what source you go to.
Snake Darts (CArc, Wu Jen 4): Very flavorful spell (swallowing live vipers is fun), that also deals 2d6/2d6 Con
Water to Poison (CArc, Wu Jen 4): This creates a lot of poison doses (1 Con/1d8 Con)

Spoiler: Level 5

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Metal Skin (CArc, Wu Jen 5): -2 to Dex! ... and +8 to armor bonus.

Spoiler: Level 6

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Transfix (CArc, Sor/Wiz 6, Wu Jen 6): Paralyzes multiple targets in an area.

Spoiler: Level 7

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Withering Palm (SpC, Clr 7, Wu Jen 7): Deal ½ CL points each of Str and Con

Spoiler: Level 9

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Deadly Sunstroke (CM, Sor/Wiz 9, Wu Jen 9): Create heat up to 25d6 damage. And also fatigue them. If it’s a hot day out, 25d8 damage and exhaust them instead.

Corrupt spells
Remember corrupt spells sucker-punch you for ability score damage of your own. The BoVD FAQ says corrupt spells bypass undead immunity to ability damage.

Spoiler

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Lahm’s Finger Darts (BoVD, Corrupt 2): Caster’s fingers fired as missiles do 1d4 Dex damage per finger.
Red Fester (BoVD, Corrupt 3): Touch a target to deal 1d6 Str and 1d4 points Cha damage.
Rotting Curse of Urfesta (BoVD, Corrupt 3): 1d6 Con immediately, then 1d6 Con per hour.
Serpents of Theggeron (BoVD, Corrupt 3): Your arms turn into poisonous (1d6 Str/1d6 Str) serpents. Would be OK maybe on a gish … if it didn’t hit you for 1d6 Int damage.
Chain of Sorrow (HoH, Corrupt 7): Drain 2d10 Wis, and then another 2d10 on anyone the target then touches. Take 2d4 Cha damage though.
Power Leech (BoVD, Corrupt 5): drain ability score at 1 point per round.
Plague of Nightmares (BoVD, Corrupt 8): Target cannot regenerate, and takes 1d4 Cha damage

Domain-specific or unique spells
Odd bits and pieces show up here too, although you're probably reaching a bit to get them.

Spoiler

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Dark Tide (Strmwrk, Blackwater 7): Poison massive area of water, make Fort save or take 1 Str damage.
Mold Touch (PGtF, Initiate of Nature 3): conjure Brown Mold, hurl it at a target. Brown Mold does nonlethal cold damage which triggers Frostbite and Hypothermia.
Slime Hurl (CoR, Initiate of Ghaunadaur 5): conjure 3 blobs of Green Slime, hurl them as ranged touch attacks at targets. No save, no SR, up to 3d6 Con damage per round.
Spider Curse (SpC, Spider 6): Turn someone into a spider with basically Drider stats, along with a bite that does 1d6/1d6 Str poison damage (Fort DC 16 + your Wis).
Stone Spiders (SpC, Spider 7): Turn 3 stones into 3 Huge Monstrous Spiders which bite for 1d3/1d3 Str poison damage (Fort 10+1/2 CL + Wis mod.)

[Saintheart]

Spells (Part 2)

(By ability score)

This section lists the spells above by the ability targeted (alphabetized). It doesn’t include spells which just impose a condition like exhausted or fatigued, or situationally useful things like Increase Virulence or Spectral Hand.

Strength:

Spoiler

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Antidragon Aura, Greater (DoF, Clr 8): If a dragon or dragonblood creature hits you in melee, the creature suffers 1d6 Str damage (Fort negates)
Blasphemy (PHB, Clr 7, Nar 7, DMaster 7, Evil 7, Hades 7, Hatred 7, Mysticism 7, Orc 7): Up to CL -1, impose a -2d6 Str penalty for 2d4 rounds. Lower HD creatures than your CL get a range of effects including being paralyzed, so boost your CL.
Chill Touch (PHB, Dsk 1, Sor/Wiz 1): 1 Str damage
Corona of Cold (SpC, Clr 3, Drd 3): If damaged by spell, take -2 penalty to Str and Dex.
Death Hail (Frost, Drd 6): You conjure a Blizzard that persists in its area for a bit and deals 1d2 Str and Con
Despoil (BoVD, Clr 9): You kill plants in a positively gigantic radius, and every living creature also takes... all of 1d4 Str damage (Fort negates). Considering you could cast Miracle, or Gate, or Astral Projection instead.
Dirge (SpC, Brd 6): Area spell, deal 2 points of Str and Dex damage per round, round/level.
Escalating Enfeeblement (CM, Sor/Wiz 2): This is a Ray of Enfeeblement, except it deals 1d10+1/2 CL Str – if the target is already fatigued or exhausted. And you can’t stack it with Ray of Enfeeblement itself. However, with the right feat selections it’s a very nice “2” in a 1-2 debilitating punch.
Investiture of the Pit Fiend (FC 2, Clr 9, Sor/Wiz 9): As standard action, make everything in 10 feet take 2 Str damage.
Languor (SpC, Drd 4): Impose 1d6+1 Str penalty per 2 caster levels, maximum 1d6+10. Ranged touch attack, lasts 1 round/level. The CDiv version was stronger, but this is still really strong for its level - the Str penalty has no save.
Moon Bolt (SpC, Clr 4, Drd 4): Deal 1d4/3 CL Str damage.
Phantasmal Wasting (EoE, Brd 4, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 5): Touch attack, for 1 round/level the target takes -6 penalty to Str, Dex, and Con.
Poison Thorns (SpC, Drd 5): Grow thorns on your body that are poisonous - 1d4 Str/1d4 Str.
Power Word Weaken (RoTD, Sor/Wiz 3): 2 points of Str damage (if it has less than 75 hp).
Puppeteer (SpC, Brd 3): Overlooked little gem exclusive to Bards. Subject not only mimics your actions but takes a -4 penalty to Str and Dex. If you try and make it commit a suicidal act and if the subject saves, it collapses, helpless and in a comatose state, for 1d4 rounds
Pyrotechnics (PHB, Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2, Warmage 2, Vigilante 2, Wu Jen 2, Sha’ir 2, Jester 2): Smoke Cloud imposes -4 penalties to Str and Dex
Quillfire (SpC, Drd 3): For 1 round/CL, you can make melee or ranged attacks with poisonous quills (1d6 Str/1d6 Str)
Ray of Enfeeblement (PHB, Dsk 1, Sha’ir 1, Sor/Wiz 1): This is the number one low level debuff in core, and possibly without as well. 1d6+1/2 CL Str … would be even stronger if it did Str damage and not Str penalty.
Reduce Person (PHB, Sor/Wiz 1, Sha’ir 1): -2 penalty to Str, but +2 bonus to Dex. And slightly more squashable I guess.
Reduce Person, Mass (PHB, Sor Wiz 4): We can be short with this one. Yes I went there.
Red Tide (SpC, Drd 8): Conjure a wave of sickening/nauseating water that also deals 2d6 Str damage (and another 2d6 a minute later), in a huge burst. Nice crowd control.
Sap Strength (BoVD, Clr 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Touch spell, impose exhaustion (-6 penalty STR and DEX).
Shadow Arrow (CoR, Asn 4, Rgr 4): 1d6 Str damage on hit as a ranged touch attack, no save, though SR applies
Shadow Spray (SpC, Sor/Wiz 2): Deals 4 points of Str damage.
Sinsabur’s Baleful Bolt (UE, Sor/Wiz 4): 1d3 Con and 1d3 Str damage, +1 per 5 CL (max 1d3+3).
Spider Poison (SpC, Ass 3, Sor/Wiz 3): A weaker version of Poison that deals 1d6 Str/1d6 Str
Symbol of Weakness (PHB, Sor/Wiz 7): Like all Symbol spells, very situational by virtue of 10 min casting time and highly expensive component. Deals heavy Str
Touch of Years (CM, Sor/Wiz 4): Your touch deals 3 points of drain to all physical ability scores
Withering Palm (SpC, Clr 7, Wu Jen 7): Deal 1/2 CL points each of Str and Con

Dexterity:

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Call of Stone (PHB 2, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 4): Turn enemy progressively into a statue if it fail 4 saves, but take a cumulative -2 to Dex each round as you get there.
Celebration (SpC, Brd 4): -2 penalty to Dex, Int, and Wis to creatures in a 15 foot burst
Contagious Fog (SpC, Sor/Wiz 3): Like fog cloud, but contract a disease equivalent to the shakes, i.e. 1d8 Dex damage
Corona of Cold (SpC, Clr 3, Drd 3): If damaged by spell, take -2 penalty to Str and Dex.
Creeping Doom (PHB, Drd 7): This once (up to 3.0) excellent spell summons forth lowly centipede swarms in D&D 3.5. These have a weak poison (Fort DC 14, 1d4 Dex/1d4 Dex
Dirge (SpC, Brd 6): Area spell, deal 2 points of Str and Dex damage per round, round/level.
Entangle (SRD, Drd 1, Rgr 1, Plant 1): It’s the primo battlefield control spell for druids for a reason. Reflex save stops you being entangled, but as said if you are entangled you take a -4 penalty to Dex.
Ice Knife (CArc, Asn 2, Wu Jen 2, Warmage 2): Does a little damage and 2 points of Dex
Inner Beauty (FC1, Brd 4): If you cast this on something evil, it takes -4 DEX and CHA penalty, and everything within 15 feet has to save or be nauseated (cast it on something good, it gets a +4 sacred bonus to DEX and CHA!)
Jungle's Rapture (SpC, Druid 5): Creature takes 1d6 Dex drain immediately as it turns into a plant!
Lahm’s Finger Darts (BoVD, Corrupt 2): Caster’s fingers fired as missiles do 1d4 Dex damage per finger.
Numbing Sphere (Frost, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): This is very similar to Flaming Sphere, but instead of piddly fire damage it deals even less cold damage, plus 1d4 Dex
Phantasmal Assailants (CArc, Sor/Wiz 2): Minimum 2 Wis and Dex damage, 4 Wis and Dex damage if the save is failed
Phantasmal Wasting (EoE, Brd 4, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 5): Touch attack, for 1 round/level the target takes -6 penalty to Str, Dex, and Con.
Poison Needles (CArc, Wu Jen 4): This spell allows several options, two of which are of interest here: your poisoned needles either deal Con (1d8/1d8) or Dex (1d10/1d10).
Poisonous Vines (SpC, Drd 4): Essentially you make heavy undergrowth that’s poisonous (contact, 1d6/2d6 Dex). The CDiv version was basically Entangle plus this, and thus the spell was nerfed.
Power Word Maladroit (RoTD, Sor/Wiz 3): 2 points of Dex damage (if it has less than 75 hp).
Puppeteer (SpC, Brd 3): Overlooked little gem exclusive to Bards. Subject not only mimics your actions but takes a -4 penalty to Str and Dex. If you try and make it commit a suicidal act and if the subject saves, it collapses, helpless and in a comatose state, for 1d4 rounds.
Pyrotechnics (PHB, Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2, Warmage 2, Vigilante 2, Wu Jen 2, Sha’ir 2, Jester 2): Smoke Cloud imposes -4 penalties to Str and Dex.
Ray of Clumsiness (SpC, Sor/Wiz 1): This works exactly like Ray of Enfeeblement, except it targets Dex
Ray of Entropy (SpC, Sor/Wiz 6): Ranged touch attack, target takes -4 to Str, Con, and Dex
Ray of Exhaustion (PHB, Dsk 3, Sor/Wiz 3, Sha’ir 3): Subject immediately exhausted, i.e. -6 penalty to Str and Dex.
Shivering Touch (Frost, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 3, Disciple of Thrym 3): do 3d6 Dex damage. Known as the dragon-killer because dragons only come with 10 Dex.
Shivering Touch, Lesser (Frost, Clr 1, Sor/Wiz 1, Disciple of Thrym 1): Deal 1d6 Dex damage on touch.
Stiffen (EoE, Brd 3, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 4): Target takes cumulative -4 penalty to Dex each round until he hits Dex 0 or saves. Also hits maneuverability progressively. Nice little lockdown spell.
Summon Swarm (PHB, Brd 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Can disease or poison the target(s). Rat swarms cause filth fever (Fort DC 12, incubation 1d3 days, 1d3 Dex, 1d3 ConStr/1d3
Touch of Chaos (EoE, Sor/Wiz 5): Gross spell effect, but effective: Touch attack causes 1 point of Wis drain, and hits again each round if the target fails its save. That aside, takes a -4 penalty to Dex and its speed drops to 10 feet and it loses all other forms of movement.
Touch of Years (CM, Sor/Wiz 4): Your touch deals 3 points of drain to all physical ability scores
Wooden Blight (CC, Drd 5): You transform the target into wood, dealing 1d4 Dex

Constitution:

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Blackfire (SpC, Sor/Wiz 8): 1d4 Con
Bloodsnow (Frost, Clr 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 3): Area effect. Succeed on Fort or take 1d2 points of Con drain.
Bloodstar (SpC, Sor/Wiz 4): This spell adds insult to injury whenever the target is damaged, dealing 1 point of Con
Choking Cobwebs (CM, Sor/Wiz 7): Con 1d4 damage if the creature walks in the area of two spells.
Cloudkill (PHB, Sor/Wiz 5): Creatures with 4 to 6 HD take 1d4 Con
Cobra's Breath (CArc, Wu Jen 1): 1d3 Con damage, Fort save, 10 foot cone. Nice for its level!
Cryptwarden’s Grasp (CM, Sor/Wiz 5): You infect the target with Mummy Rot (1d6 Con and 1d6 Cha).
Death Hail (Frost, Drd 6): You conjure a Blizzard that persists in its area for a bit and deals 1d2 Str and Con
Dehydrate (SpC, Drd 3): You simply deal 1d6+1/3 CL Con
Entomb (Frost, Drd 6, Sor/Wiz 6): Encase lots of targets (no AoE, you choose freely!) in ice, holding them in place, damaging them, and dealing 1 Con.
Flensing (SpC, Sor/Wiz 8): Piddly damage each round, and 1d6 Cha plus 1d6 Con.
Hood of the Cobra (CMage, Hex 3, Sor/Wiz 3): Interesting in that it is an illusion spell that deals Con damage. Otherwise, not so great, as the target can negate the whole spell with a Will save, and each instance of 1d6 Con damage (which you deal as a standard action touch attack) is negated with a Fort save.
Infestation of Maggots (SpC, Drd 3): Deal 1d4 Con damage per round until the subject makes a Fort save
Kiss of Death (MoTW, Drd 5): It's the same as Poison, but a 5th level spell instead.
Kiss of the Toad (CArc, Wu Jen 2): Weaker version of the Poison spell (1d6 instead of 1d10 Con)
Night’s Caress (SpC, Sor/Wiz 5): Touch does max 15d6 damage and 1d6+2 Con damage.
Parching Touch (SStorm, Sor/Wiz 1, Thirst 1): Touched creature takes 1d6 dessication damage, 1 Con damage, and is fatigued, up to 1/caster level.
Phantasmal Wasting (EoE, Brd 4, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 5): Touch attack, for 1 round/level the target takes -6 penalty to Str, Dex, and Con.
Poison (PHB, Clr 4, Drd 3): This is a strong poison (1d10 Con/1d10 Con).
Poison Needles (CArc, Wu Jen 4): This spell allows several options, two of which are of interest here: your poisoned needles either deal Con (1d8/1d8) or Dex
Pox (BoVD, Drd 6): 1 target/CL in a very small area take 1d4 Con
Prismatic Spray, Prismatic Wall – same spell, different levels, all as marginal for our purposes: the Green ray imposes Poison that either kills or does 1d6 Con damage instead. Prismatic Spray (Sor/Wiz 7) gives you the mechanic.
Ray of Entropy (SpC, Sor/Wiz 6): Ranged touch attack, target takes -4 to Str, Con, and Dex
Rotting Curse of Urfesta (BoVD, Corrupt 3): 1d6 Con immediately, then 1d6 Con per hour.
Rusted Blade (CMage, Asn 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4, WuJen 4 (metal): Damage a living creature and if it fails the save, it contracts Filth Fever (1d3 DEX and 1d3 CON damage). Uses Rusted Blade’s DC for the initial saving throw, not Filth Fever’s DC 11-12 depending what source you go to.
Serpent Arrow (CoR, Sor/Wiz 4): turn arrows, darts, or twigs into Tiny vipers. They’re poisonous (Fort DC 11 which is nothing to write home about, 1d6/1d6 Con which is all right.)
Sinsabur’s Baleful Bolt (UE, Sor/Wiz 4): 1d3 Con and 1d3 Str damage, +1 per 5 CL (max 1d3+3).
Slime Wave (SpC, Clr 7, Drd 7): Disgusting but effective: everything in the area is covered in Green Slime, taking 1d6 Con
Snakebite (SpC, Rgr 4, Sor/Wiz 3): One of your arms becomes a poisonous (2 Con/2 Con) snake. Interesting visuals, though Gutsnake is cooler. For the effect, cast something else.
Snake Darts (CArc, Wu Jen 4): Very flavorful spell (swallowing live vipers is fun), that also deals 2d6/2d6 Con
Spider Poison (SpC, Ass 3, Sor/Wiz 3): A weaker version of Poison that deals 1d6 Str/1d6 Str
Spirit Worm (SpC, Sor/Wiz 1): Deal 1 point of Con
Spore Cloak (RoF, Clr 5, Drd 5, Sor/Wiz 6): Interesting buff that provides concealment and deters grapple, bullrush etc. by dealing 1d6 Con
Tomb of Light (BoED, Clr 7, Sor/Wiz 7): Basically Hold Person, but each round the creature held makes a Fort save or takes 1d6 Con drain. Lasts as long as Concentration and your nonlethal hp holds out.
Touch of Years (CM, Sor/Wiz 4): Your touch deals 3 points of drain to all physical ability scores
Toxic Weapon (PHB 2, Dsk 4, Sor/Wiz 5): next melee attack delivers a Poison: 1d10/1d10 Con.
Water to Poison (CArc, Wu Jen 4): This creates a lot of poison doses (1 Con/1d8 Con)
Withering Palm (SpC, Clr 7, Wu Jen 7): Deal ½ CL points each of Str and Con
Phantasmal Wasting (EoE, Brd 4, Drd 4, Sor/Wiz 5): Touch attack, for 1 round/level the target takes -6 penalty to Str, Dex, and Con.
Withering Palm (SpC, Clr 7, Wu Jen 7): Deal 1/2 CL points each of Str and Con

Intelligence:

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Celebration (SpC, Brd 4): -2 penalty to Dex, Int, and Wis to creatures in a 15 foot burst
Crystalline Memories (CM, Sor/Wiz 2): For the sake of completeness... you concentrate for 3 rounds, then deal piddly damage and 2 Int
Ensul’s Soultheft (Wtrdp, Sor/Wiz 9): Make touch attacks, drain 1d4 Int per touch, get some healing.
Feeblemind (PHB, Beguiler 5, Sor/Wiz 5): Reduces Int and Cha to 1. Not by 1, to 1. This is neither drain or damage, only a heal or a wish-level spell can reverse it. And arcanists take a -4 on the saving throw, which makes it a hell of a debuffer in that situation.
Memory Rot (SpC, Drd 5): 1d6 Int damage immediately, then 1 point of Int drain each round. No end to duration unless the target makes its Fort save.
Mindfrost (Frost, Sor/Wiz 4): You deal 5d6 damage to the target and also inflict 1d4 Int damage
Parboil (SStorm, Clr 5, Sor/Wiz 4): 6d6 fire damage and 2d4 Int damage!
Ray of Stupidity (SpC, Sor/Wiz 2): A ray that deals 1d4+1 points of Int
Touch of Idiocy (PHB, Dsk 2, Beg 2, Sor/Wiz 2): 1d6 penalty to Int, Wis, and Cha.

Wisdom:

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Awaken Sin (SpC, Clr 3, Pal 2): Take max 10d6 nonlethal damage. If this knocks the subject unconscious, it takes 1d6 Wis damage. Whatever would you want that for? Adding insult to injury?
Celebration (SpC, Brd 4): -2 penalty to Dex, Int, and Wis to creatures in a 15 foot burst
Chain of Sorrow (HoH, Corrupt 7): Drain 2d10 Wis, and then another 2d10 on anyone the target then touches. Take 2d4 Cha damage though.
Corporeal Instability (SpC, Sor/Wiz 4): Good spell for taking an enemy out of the picture for a few rounds. The 1 point of Wis is handy.
Delusions of Grandeur (SpC, Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): -2 penalty to Wis, can’t reduce below 1.
Incarnum Bladestorm (MoI, Sor/Wiz 7, Incarnum 7): Moveable cylindric area effect that does 1d6 Wis damage to all living creatures in its area! (can increase the damage by adding essentia points).
Last Judgement (BoED, Clr 8, Sor/Wiz 8): Go to hell, the spell. Only affects humanoids, monstrous humanoids and giants, but if survive by making your save, you still take 3d6 Wis damage.
Mind Poison (SpC, Sor/Wiz 3): This is a Poison spell that deals Wis
Phantasmal Assailants (CArc, Sor/Wiz 2): Minimum 2 Wis and Dex damage, 4 Wis and Dex damage if the save is failed
Rain of Roses (BoED, Drd 7): No save against ability damage, great! In an 80 foot cylinder radius, awesome, ability damage per round, fantastic! 1d4 Wis damage, mediocre, especially given spell resistance still applies.
Soul Scour (UE, Clr 5): Bad news up front: this is a touch attack, and Will negates. However, 2d6 Cha damage plus 1d6 Wis damage can be very nice indeed and may one-shot fighting types on a lucky roll. Add that this spell deals another 1d6 Cha…
Sword of Conscience (BoED, Clr 4, Pal 4) Inflicts Cha and Wis damage proportional to an evil creature's HD and how evil it is (maxing out at 2d8 Wis and Cha if the target is an evil cleric/outsider and has 11+ HD. Decent against all evil creatures, very solid against evil clerics and outsiders.
Touch of Chaos (EoE, Sor/Wiz 5): Gross spell effect, but effective: Touch attack causes 1 point of Wis drain, and hits again each round if the target fails its save. That aside, takes a -4 penalty to Dex and its speed drops to 10 feet and it loses all other forms of movement.
Touch of Idiocy (PHB, Dsk 2, Beg 2, Sor/Wiz 2): 1d6 penalty to Int, Wis, and Cha.

Charisma:

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Cryptwarden’s Grasp (CM, Sor/Wiz 5): You infect the target with Mummy Rot (1d6 Con and 1d6 Cha).
Dread Word (BoVD, Sor/Wiz 3): You deal 1d3 Cha damage
Feeblemind (PHB, Beguiler 5, Sor/Wiz 5): Reduces Int and Cha to 1. Not by 1, to 1. This is neither drain or damage, only a heal or a wish-level spell can reverse it. And arcanists take a -4 on the saving throw, which makes it a hell of a debuffer in that situation.
Flensing (SpC, Sor/Wiz 8): Piddly damage each round, and 1d6 Cha plus 1d6 Con.
Inner Beauty (FC1, Brd 4): If you cast this on something evil, it takes -4 DEX and CHA penalty, and everything within 15 feet has to save or be nauseated (cast it on something good, it gets a +4 sacred bonus to DEX and CHA!)
Red Fester (BoVD, Corrupt 3): Touch a target to deal 1d6 Str and 1d4 points Cha damage.
Sword of Conscience (BoED, Clr 4, Pal 4) Inflicts Cha and Wis damage proportional to an evil creature's HD and how evil it is (maxing out at 2d8 Wis and Cha if the target is an evil cleric/outsider and has 11+ HD. Decent against all evil creatures, very solid against evil clerics and outsiders.
Touch of Idiocy (PHB, Dsk 2, Beg 2, Sor/Wiz 2): 1d6 penalty to Int, Wis, and Cha.

Caster’s choice of ability affected, or hitting all abilities:

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Affliction (BoED, Clr 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4): The goody-two-shoes version of Contagion, below, except your touch inflicts one of 6 afflictions, i.e. good diseases, with no incubation period, on an evil creature. Of these, Pride in Vain (1d8 Cha) and Eternal Torpor (1d6 Dex) are the best. Why does this get a blue rating? Because the disease also adds the target's CHA bonus to the damage. See the Afflictions section below for more.
Bestow Curse (PHB, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 4): -6 reduction (not damage, not penalty) to any ability score
Bestow Curse, Greater (SpC, Clr 7, Sor/Wiz 8): -6 (not damage, not penalty) to two ability scores
Body Harmonic (SpC, Brd 5): 1d10 damage to one ability score per round your Concentration lasts, have to pick a new ability each round.
Contagion (PHB, Clr 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4): Your touch causes one of 7 diseases, with no incubation period. Best choices are probably Blinding Sickness (1d4 Str plus Blindness), Shakes (1d8 Dex) and Slimy Doom (1d4 Con)
Contagion, Mass (SpC, Clr 5, Drd 5, Sor/Wiz 6): As contagion, but in a 20 foot radius spread.
Contagious Touch (SpC, Drd 4): … Contagion, but capable of hitting with multiple infections (albeit no more than 1 per round).
Geas, Lesser (PHB, Brd 3, Sor/Wiz 4, Sha’ir 4): -2 to all ability scores, increasing to -8 max, can never take an ability score below 1 by this effect
Plague (PHB 2, Clr 7, Drd 7, Sor/Wiz 8): Upgunned form of Contagion, subject contracts a disease with no incubation period, but hits every round rather than every day. Best choices are still Blinding Sickness (1d4 Str plus Blindness), Shakes (1d8 Dex) and Slimy Doom (1d4 Con)
Power Leech (BoVD, Corrupt 5): drain ability score at 1 point per round.
Steal Life (BoVD, Sor/Wiz 8): More for completeness than anything, but also for amusement value. You drain 1 point from 1 stat of a creature per round, hitting each ability score in succession until you cycle back to the start again. This is weak as hell at these levels, but it has a hilarious secondary mechanic ripe for ab/use: if you cast it during a full moon, then for every ability point you drain you get a week younger, and the caster’s “age is reduced, but memories and abilities acquired during that week are not lost)”. So just Polymorph into something earlier that week and then cast this spell, thus making its abilities yours forever.
Summon Swarm (PHB, Brd 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 2): Can disease or poison the target(s). Rat swarms cause filth fever (Fort DC 12, incubation 1d3 days, 1d3 Dex, 1d3 ConStr/1d3
Thin Air (Frost, Clr 2, Drd 2, Sor/Wiz 3): You cause Altitude Sickness, dealing 1 point of damage to all ability scores.

(By Saving Throw)

This table only lists spells from the above with no saving throw (Gold), scaleable saving throw (Silver), or save-and-suck (Bronze). If a spell isn't listed below, it'll have the good old 'Fort negates' entry in its spell listing. Fort and Will saves are a pain and more or less impossible to get round, so unless you've got a very high casting stat, you might want to consider at least some of the following in the arsenal.


Gold Medal: No Saving Throw

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Not much more explanation needed. These spells have no saves out of the box. Pretty well all of these still attract Spell Resistance, though, so there's still some work to be done on this front.

Escalating Enfeeblement
Lahm’s Finger Darts
Power Word Maladroit
Power Word Weaken
Rain of Roses
Ray of Clumsiness
Ray of Enfeeblement
Ray of Entropy
Ray of Stupidity
Shadow Arrow
Shivering Touch
Shivering Touch, Lesser
Touch of Idiocy

Silver Medal: Scaleable Saving Throws

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To explain further: the normal DC calculation for a spell is 10+spell level+casting stat. These spells tinker with that, or they impose a different saving throw to the default poison/disease that underlies it.

Contagion: The save for the initial damage is the spell’s DC: 10+level+casting stat. At minimum casting level, this is superior to some of the flat saves for the conditions imposed by this spell.
Contagion, Mass: As Contagion, but all save DCs of the conditions are lower than the spell’s initial save DC.
Contagious Touch: As Contagion, but slightly higher level, and (as usual) slightly more powerful exclusive to druids…
Kiss of Death: As Poison, but druid-only and a fifth level spell.
Mind Poison: Fort save is DC 10+0.5*caster level+Int/Cha for Sor/Wiz respectively
Plague: As Mass Contagion, but higher DCs again.
Poison: Fort save is DC 10+0.5*caster level+Wis
Poison Thorns: Fort save is DC 10+0.5*caster level+Wis. Druid-exclusive spell.
Rusted Blade: Fort save for initial saving throw is spell’s DC (10+level+casting stat) rather than flat DC 12 to avoid contracting filth fever.
Spider Poison: Fort save is DC 10+0.5*caster level+caster’s Int/Cha for wizards/sorcerers respectively (no love for the Assassin who can also cast the damn spell ☹ )

For the Wis-dependent saves, I remind you Owl's Insight is exclusively on the druid list (but can be nicked by an Archivist), and increases one's Wisdom score by 0.5*CL. Other shenanigans steroiding one's Caster Level (Sublime Chord, Theurgic Specialist) may be worth considering.

Bronze Medal: Save and Suck Anyway

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Bear in mind that save and suck anyway does not guarantee a large amount of residual suck in these cases.

Call of Stone (make Fort save each round)
Chain of Sorrow (Will half)
Cloudkill
Death Hail (Fort half but ability damage is low)
Despoil (Fort half but damage and ability damage is low given level)
Entangle (Successful Reflex save doesn’t stop you moving at half speed).
Incarnum Bladestorm (Will half)
Languor: Will only to avoid being slowed, full ability penalty applies with no save!
Last Judgement (3d6 Wis damage even if save)
Memory Rot (1d6 Int damage no matter what, Fort saves only against later damage)
Moon Bolt (Fort half)
Prismatic Spray/Wall etc (Kill if save, Con 1d6 if you don’t)
Red Tide (sickened if make the save).
Sinsabur’s Baleful Bolt (Reflex half. This one is a good candidate for Spellwarp Sniper).
Wooden Blight

[Saintheart]

Invocations

Curse of Despair (CArc, Lesser, 4^th): as bestow curse against any one ability, on touch.
Enervating Shadow (CArc, Greater, 5th): -4 penalty to Str to adjacent living creatures
Hellrime Blast (CArc, Lesser, 4^th): Eldritch Blast deals cold damage and imposes -4 penalty to Dex. (Dex penalties don’t stack).
Mask of Flesh (CMage Lesser, 3^rd): Touch attack, -1d6 penalty to Cha, can’t go lower than Cha 1
Miasmic Cloud (CArc, Least, 1^st): Cloud that forces Fort save or become fatigued.
Summon Swarm (Least): See spell description for details. Good least invocation, best swapped out once you get better attacking powers.

Psionic Powers

This section was kindly provided by Zemyla! All credit goes to him, since I haven’t the first idea about psionics.
* Affinity Field (XPH, Psion/Wilder 9) and Affinity Field, Pain (CP, Pain and Suffering 9, Psion/Wilder 9): Any ability damage you take, all creatures in the area take. Fort negates. Save this for creating horribly broken infinite loops, not debuffing.
* Astral Construct (poison touch option) (XPH, Shaper 1): 1 Con/1d2 Con, Fort negates. You need to be creating at least a 4^th level construct with this power, which requires you to be 7^th level. Note that this is on every attack, so if you’re an astral construct-focused manifester, this is a not terrible choice.
* Crystalstorm (CP, Psion/Wilder 2): 1d4 Con + 1 Con/2 PP, Fort negates. Deals damage on top of the Con damage, and requires a ranged touch attack, but has no SR. Not terrible, but augmentation isn’t that great.
* Ego Whip (XPH, Psion/Wilder 2): 1d4 Cha + 1d4 Cha/4 PP, Will half. A nice, big chunk of Cha damage (a maximized, twinned Ego Whip can deal 22.5 Cha damage on average).
* Entangling Ectoplasm (XPH, Psion/Wilder 1): Entangle a creature with a ranged touch attack. No save, no SR. Damn nice at low levels, and pretty good even at higher ones.
* Larval Flayers (CP, Psion/Wilder 2): Summons 1d3 larval flayers. Each one has an ability that lets it deal 1d4 Int damage a round, but no more than 4 total. Augmenting allows you to have the flayers already stuck to a foe. Actually a pretty fair choice.
* Mindfire (CP, Psion/Wilder 3): Gives the target mindfire, dealing 1d4 Int right away and 1d4 Int each day after, Fort negates. Since you probably can’t give a creature the same disease more than once, this is fairly useless.
* Prevenom and Prevenom Weapon (XPH, Psychic Warrior 1): They’re the same, except one affects a claw and one affects a weapon. 2 Con + 2 Con/6 PP, Fort negates. Like poison, the save DC is based on your manifester level. At the base level, it’s like dealing an extra HD worth of damage. Higher augmentation is too pricey to be useful.
* Psychic Vampire (XPH, Egoist 4/Psychic Warrior 4): 2 Int, Wis, or Cha, Fort negates. Though specifying the type of damage is good, requiring a touch attack isn’t. Also, against a psionic foe, it will simply drain power points instead of dealing ability damage.
* Shadow Eft (CP, Psion/Wilder 4): Summons a shadow eft, which can use truevenom 3 times a day. Since truevenom isn’t that good, and the shadow eft isn’t that good a creature, the power in all is mediocre.
* Strength of My Enemy (XPH, Psychic Warrior 2): 1 Str, no save. This power is great because when you deal Str damage, you get the same amount as an enhancement bonus to your Str. It’s not just a debuff, it’s a buff as well.
* Truevenom and Truevenom Weapon (XPH, Psychic Warrior 4): 1d8 Con/1d8 Con, Fort negates. Not as good as poison, because it requires an actual attack, and can’t be augmented to increase the save DC. It’s not even as good as prevenom.

It’s also worth noting that at least Ego Whip if not other powers here can be grabbed by arcane casters under the spell Mental Pinnacle (Sor/Wiz 6), which essentially turns you into a Psion of your caster level. And in this space, Illithidwrought weapons are worth considering since they privilege psionic characters.

Maneuvers

Straight up debilitation is mostly the province of the Shadow Hand discipline, although others offer a little something here and there. However, quite a few maneuvers support and complement other sources of melee debilitation (often by granting extra attacks).

Diamond Mind:
Avalanche of Blades (Swordsage 7, Warblade 7): Just beat the guy to death.
Diamond Nightmare Blade (Swordsage 8, Warblade 8): (This appeared in the original edition of this guide without comment, but it’s more marginal than it first appears. You do four times your “normal melee damage”, but the trick is convincing a DM that ability damage is part of normal melee damage outside of a specific weapon like the old Rod of Recluse.)
Mind Strike (Swordsage 4, Warblade 4): on top of normal damage, you deal 1d4 Wis damage
Ruby Nightmare Blade (Swordsage 4, Warblade 4): as the Diamond version, but only double damage.

Iron Heart:
Adamantine Hurricane (Warblade 8): 2 melee attacks against each adjacent opponent, with a +4 bonus on each attack. More attacks are good, though would be better if it allowed you Reach shenanigans (it only allows adjacent).
Mithral Tornado (Warblade 4): like its bigger brother Adamantine Hurricane, even though you’ll only get one attack per enemy. However, the lower level means it can be interesting for multiclass characters, as well. Something that can channel a spell would be nice with this. Saves lots of feats on Whirlwind attack.

Shadow Hand:
Bloodletting Strike (Swordsage 5): your attack deals an extra 4 points of Con
Drain Vitality (Swordsage 2): as Bloodletting Strike, but only 2 points of Con
Five Shadow Creeping Ice Enervation Strike (Swordsage 9): the Shadow Hand capstone. On top of lots of bonus damage, you randomly deal either 2d6 Dex or 2d6 Str damage, or both. You also inflict additional status effects of a short duration (Fort negates, and halves the ability damage), of which one is, strangely, another 2d6 Con
Strength Draining Strike (Swordsage 3): your attack deals an extra 4 points of Str damage (Fort half). This is OK for the level, I think, but even the full 4 points of Str damage won’t take your foe out, just debuff him a little.

Stone Dragon:
Bonesplitting Strike (Crusader 4, Swordsage 4, Warblade 4): Your attack deals an extra 2 points of Con
Mountain Tombstone Strike (Crusader 9, Swordsage 9, Warblade 9): Stone Dragon’s capstone, this attack simply deals an extra 2d6 points of Con damage. I’d take Iron Heart’s fixed 100 damage over that any day of the week. Your target must have more than 30 HD to make this better on average! Not to mention that some monsters can’t be Con damaged...

Tiger Claw:
Hamstring Attack (Swordsage 7, Warblade 7): Just 1d8 Dex
Raging Mongoose (Swordsage 8, Warblade 8): Make two extra attacks this round, four if you’re wielding two weapons. Who wouldn’t like that? Very high level, though.

One Glorious Soulmeld

Okay, maybe I'm overdoing it a bit, but this one is significant in the ability penalty space, and a big thanks to thatothersting who pointed it out.

It's the Winter Mask soulmeld from Magic of Incarnum. Goes to the Throat Chakra and can be put on by basically any character by taking a Shape Soulmeld feat. And it potentially gives you a one-pass exhausted condition.

The soulmeld itself doesn't do much, but it doesn't have to; it's Frostburn's rules that do the work. Winter Mask gives you a melee touch attack (without specifying a standard action usage, i.e. should be usable in iteratives on a full attack) that imposes fatigue, albeit Fort negates. It's when you put a single point of essentia in it that the game changes, because that essentia point adds 1d4 in nonlethal cold damage. That, in turn, then brings on Frostburn's rules on Frostbite and mild hypothermia. Assuming your touch attack gets past the opponent's Fort save (which admittedly isn't hard, it's a pretty low DC), it's fatigued. If you added an essentia point, the creature then takes 1d4 nonlethal damage, which brings on frostbite (-2 to Dex) and mild hypothermia (...treated as fatigued, no saving throw.) Fatigued stacks with itself to bring on exhaustion, so in one touch you've hit the creature with penalties of -6 Str and -8 Dex, and if it doesn't work the first time, just keep spamming melee touch attacks until it fails the Fort save.


And yes, one glorious soulmeld to balance one appalling one: Gloves of the Poisoned Soul, which, when put on the hands chakra, gives you 1 Wis + 1 Str damage on 1 round, 1 more Wis+Str damage 1 minute later. Has slight capability for ramping because the damage increases for every point of essentia invested, but it still invokes a Fort save.


That said, there is one other soulmeld that could indirectly be useful: Girallon Arms, if you're taking two levels in Totemist. Because this then gives you four arms and, explicitly, four more natural attacks, which means four more opportunities to hit a target with a poison if you have the right ability or the right spell. And if you're going to get into soulmelds more seriously, Lamia Belt with the Double Chakra feat gives you 2 more natural attacks. Threefold Mask of the Chimera also on your totem bind grants a second bite attacks for added strength damage. (Thanks to thatothersting for all of these!)

[Saintheart]

Feats

Aberration Banemagic (LoM): “When you cast a spell that damages an aberration, you deal an extra 2d6 points of damage.” So its limitation to aberrations restricts it to campaigns featuring a lot of them. And if you’re just dealing hitpoint damage with your spells, this is decidedly ho-hum. But if your chosen spell does ability damage, it’s usually a decent upgrade on the 1d4 or 1d6 table scraps we normally get, especially if maximized. For good measure, it also ups the spell’s DC by +2. It doesn’t increase spell level, and it’s arguable stuff like Empower Spell would increase the +2d6 damage as well. See also Bane Magic and Giant Banemagic, below.

Ability Focus (SavSpec): +2 to the DC of one of your special attacks. Probably of most interest if you're spending a lot of time in another form which has a debilitating effect.

Agony Touch (Ghostwalk): just pick up a touch attack that does 1d4 damage against STR, DEX, or CON (your choice on selection). However, it requires that you have some way of being a ghost, which isn’t easy.

Animal Devotion (PHB): Pick up a bite attack. And some flight too!

Arcane Thesis (PHB 2): Basically make one of your favourite spells easier to use – you cast at +2 CL and your metamagic is cheaper. This’ll be useful if you want to Empower stuff like Ray of Exhaustion or the like.

Bane Magic (HoH): (NB: this version of the feat arguably overwrites Lords of Madness’s version by publication date -- October 2005 vs April 2005). When you cast a spell that deals damage against a specific creature type, you deal +2d6 damage. So at first glance it's a customizable Aberration Banemagic: your ability damage spells do +2d6 damage against a creature type you choose when you take the feat. Sadly, someone at WOTC inserted this smartass text: “This feat has no effect on spells that do not deal hit point damage, and the source and type of the damage remains the same.” However, some spells do hitpoint and ability damage, and profit mightily from an extra +2d6: Ice Knife, Corona of Cold, Entomb, Mindfrost, Numbing Sphere, Parboil. These qualify for Bane Magic, and would seem to have all of their forms of damage boosted by +2d6 – or allow you to pick which form of damage is increased. The indication that the source and type of damage remains the same seems a pretty good RAW argument if not RAI that if the spell does ability damage, ability damage is increased. And this feat would stack with the other banemagic feats: Bane Magic doesn’t stack with itself, of course, but Giant Banemagic is not the same feat as Bane Magic (Giant).

Bane Magic (LoM): this version wasn’t restricted to spells that deal hitpoint damage. On the other hand, it had a sort of a volley rule: if you used it on a Magic Missile, the +2d6 only applied to one of the missiles, not all of them. Some DMs may interpret this as meaning if you apply Split Ray (for example), the +2d6 only goes on one ray, not both.

Bioelectrical Surge [Psi-Spell] (Dragon #313) - Fort save (DC equal the spell's/power's "normal" DC) or 2 Dex damage for every 10 electricity damage. Not bad if you're a blaster, a CL 10 Maximised Lightning Bolt does 60 damage thereby hitting the target with 12 Dex damage if it fails its save.

Black Panda Mastery II (Dragon #309) - not a feat (you get benefits automatically when fit the prerequisites) - 1 Con damage when using Stunning Fist, Pain Touch, Freezing the Lifeblood, or Distant Touch

Blessed of Vulkoor (SoX): Drow only, but you add a Monstrous Scorpion as a familiar or animal companion, which is poisonous.

City Magic (CScape): By RAW, this feat gets through construct/undead immunities to ability damage. How? Well, the feat applies to spells of an energy subtype and which do damage. There aren't many for our purposes, but Shivering Touch fits: it's a [cold] subtype spell, and does damage ... ability damage. City Magic basically says "half your spell's damage is as normal, but the other half is 'city damage', ... and "is not subject to resistances or immunities." Therefore that pesky construct actually takes 3d6/2 Dex damage from the city, straight through his immunities. And it doesn't even increase the spell level. But as said, this is a RAW argument, and invites airborne DMGs, leaving aside it only works in urban environments.

Chain Spell/Reach Spell/Sculpt Spell/Widen Spell: affect more targets than one, or affect them further out than touch range, or affect more of the battlefield.

Corrupting Touch (Ghostwalk): Touch attack deals 1d4 Dex damage, but you have to be a ghost already – similar problems to Agony Touch.

Deadly Poison (SrpntKngdms): If a target's secondary saving throw against a poison fails, the poison does double its normal secondary damage. In most contexts this isn't much help, but if you've Lolth's Caress (below), it becomes far more interesting, especially on Con-busting poisons.

Deadly Spittle [Monster] (SrpntKngdms) - spit your venom in 15' cone

Debilitating Spell (HoH): Uses taint rules which can get stupid real quick, but impose 2 Con or 4 Wis damage as part of your spellcasting, subject to certain conditions.

Debilitating Strike (HoH): As with Debilitating Spell, but hitting people rather than casting spells on them. Might actually be more scaleable than Debilitating Spell since there’s no indication you can’t use it in a full attack.

Deep Poisoning (Dragon #322) - sacrifice +1d6 Sneak Attack damage for +1 DC of victim's Fort saves (up to +5 for 5d6 SA damage)

Disemboweling Strike (CSco): cut your sneak attack by 4d6, deal 1d4 Con damage in addition to normal damage. Can’t be used against same target more than 1/day

Drowning Glance (CM): reserve feat, but standard action allows you to exhaust the enemy for 1 round, or fatigue for 1 round even if it saves. Can only use it against a target 1/day.

Drow Scorpion Warrior [Racial, Tactical] (Secrets of Xen'drik) - after the critical hit with a drow long knife or scorpion chain, next hit with the same weapon would do 1d4 Con damage

Dual Strike (CAdv): two attacks as a standard action if you have two weapons, and using the same attack roll. At the very least this is handy if you have multiple debilitating effects on your weapons.

Empowered Ability Damage (LibMort): Just what you're looking for, huh? It's Empower Spell for an ability-damaging (or ability draining) special attack. Unfortunately, you have to be undead, incorporeal, and have a supernatural ability to drain or damage an ability score. That means the Ghost template with its punishing LA +5 or maybe you're playing a Ghostwalk campaign (and we know you're not.)

Empower Supernatural Ability (ToM): Empower Spell, but for (Su) abilities, as you might guess. Far more accessible than the horrible feat right above this one, although it only works 1/day. The biggest application it's got is to Exalted feats, of which there are a few here.

Empower Spell/Sudden Empower (PHB, CArc): do more ability damage or ability drain. Note that only ‘variable, numeric’ effects in a spell are arguably affected, so spells or options that do fixed amounts of ability damage or drain won’t be improved by this. Note the Sudden X line of feats also works on spell-like abilities, per Complete Arcane.

Entangling Exhalation (RoTD): Beloved of Dragonfire Adepts and Dragonborn everywhere, this entangles targets, which imposes a -4 penalty to Dex.

Entangling Spell (CoR): Creature damaged by any instantaneous spell that deals energy damage is entangled for 1 round, i.e. -4 penalty to Dex again. Uses a slot 2 levels higher.

Fell Weaken (LibMort): Deal damage with a spell, impose a -4 Str penalty to the target for 1 minute. Str penalties from multiple Fell Weaken spells don’t stack. But a Fell Weakened ability-damaging spell is fine, because it ‘deals damage’.

Giant Banemagic (SoX): “When you cast a spell that deals damage to a giant, you deal an extra 2d6 points of damage.” Sounds like Aberration Banemagic above … but isn’t, and that’s where it gets interesting. The RAI was clearly (given the feat description) that a spell you cast deals extra damage to giants. But the RAW reading can be ab/used to say that if you cast a spell that can affect a giant, it does +2d6 damage. Even read down to the RAI, +2d6 damage is a significant boost (see Bane Magic above). This feat turns a Lesser Shivering Touch into Shivering Touch, at least on giants, where even a Cloud Giant only has 13 Dex. And unlike Bane Magic, it doesn’t just apply to spells doing hitpoint damage.

Hamstring Attack (Dragon 313): Attack with a natural weapon in an AoO, while flanking, or while the target is stunned or prone, and you can switch out the melee damage for 1d4 Dex damage instead. Roll melee damage normally and the result is the Fort DC the creature has to pass to avoid the 1d4 Dex damage. Really this feat is just adding insult to injury: if you're doing high teens in melee damage, why would prefer Dex damage (unless the target has high Dex to AC and you want other iteratives to hit)? Seems to have most synergy with Improved Trip.

Horrific Appearance [Ghost, Haunt] (Ghostwalk) - Fort save or 1d4 of Str, Dex, and Con damage; 2 Cha damage to the Haunt user

Illithid Extraction [Psionic, Racial] (Complete Psionic) - 2d4 Int damage in a grapple

Improved Familiar (CWar): get a more tanky familiar with other, more useful abilities.

Improved Spit [Monster] (SrpntKngdms) - doubles the range of your spit attack

Initiate of Ghaunadaur (CoR): Rebuke or command oozes is nice, but our interest is in the unique 5th level spell it gets: Slime Hurl. Hurl 3 globs of Green Slime, ranged touch attack, no save, no spell resistance. Which is to say, you do 3d6 Con in one round, and the next round, another 3d6 Con if the target doesn't scrape the stuff off.

Initiate of Nature (PGtF): Similar to IoG above, its 3rd level spell: Mold Touch. Which essentially is 'create a patch of Brown Mold somewhere, or cover a living target with it on a touch.' No save, no SR, and does 3d6 nonlethal cold damage ... yep, you guessed it, that hits the target with Frostbite and Hypothermia for a -4 Dex and -2 Str penalty.

Inscribe Rune (FRCS): Runes make for great containers for spells. You can’t set up a rune on your weapon to trigger when it strikes a foe, but if you set them up as read/pass triggers and carve them onto ioun stones, you don’t have to, they become miniature sentry turrets.

Lolth's Caress (DoTU): Or "hurry up and take your second hit of ability damage already". This feat says you burn a turn/rebuke undead use and all targets in 20 feet have to take their secondary saving throws against 'the effects of poison' immediately. Obviously has most applicability for poisons that hit multiple targets, but if you're in a hurry and you want that Black Lotus extract to just bring down the target quicker, this is very useful. (And it is especially good on Con-busting poisons, since the secondary saving throw will be lower than the first by definition, deriving from Fort as most of them do).

Longtooth Elite (RoE): Shifter only, and specifically with the longtooth trait, but any time a creature takes damage from your bite attack, it also takes 1 point of Con damage (no save). By RAW extends to bite attacks you make while in a form other than that of a shifter, e.g. polymorph into a hydra and then chomp on something multiple times.

Maiming Strike (EoE): Cut your sneak attack damage and do Cha damage instead, 1 Cha damage for every 2 sneak attack damage dice you give up.

Manyshot/Greater and Rapid Shot/Improved: More attacks mean more debilitation.

Maximize Spell/Sudden Maximize (PHB, CArc): If you’re stuck for choice, you might as well boost that 1d4 or 1d6 ability damage to a nice round number. Might lock out improvements to “damage rolls” though, since you’re not making any rolls.

Metamagic School Focus (CM): For a certain school, your metamagic is cheaper and easier. Similar comments to Arcane Thesis, it works if you’re focusing one or two spells or tactics. And has good effect on the Necromancy school, since most of your heavy-hitting ability damage spells are Necromancy (starting with Shivering Touch).

Mighty Works Mastery II (Oriental Adventures) - 1d4 Str damage instead of stunning from Stunning Fist

Natural Spell (PHB): Cast while in animal form.

Necropolis Born (CArc): Pick up Touch of Fatigue as a spell-like ability, as a 1^st level caster, once per day.

Nonlethal Substitution (CArc): Put this on any [cold] spell (other than Shivering Touch). You then have a spell that at least arguably does nonlethal damage from the cold. And thus Frostburn's rules on frostbite and hypothermia kick in. Most of your blasty spells can be worked this way via Energy Substitution (CArc).

Obtain Familiar (PHB): Familiars can deliver touch spells. And share them too. Sometimes (viper) they can do ability damage themselves.

Ocular Spell (LoM): Let’s leave aside the ab/useable aspect of this feat which facilitates persisting just about any spell in the game. A decent proportion of ability-blasting spells are rays, which this feat is aimed at. Getting 2 spells off as a full-round action is handy enough, but with Split Ray, a debilitating ray hits a target four times in 1 round as ranged touch attacks. Even if you don’t cheese it this hard, this is at least one way to get a target from healthy to exhausted in one round if you pick the right spells.

Penetrating Shot (PHB 2): Turn a ranged attack with a projectile weapon into a 60 foot line effect. (This might make the Arrow of Biting, below, slightly more economical. That said, the feat's prohibition on inflicting “extra damage (such as from a sneak attack or a flaming weapon)” on anything but the first target might be used by a DM to stop ability damage applying further.)

Poison Expert (CSco): DC of the saving throw against a type of poison increases by 1.

Poison Master (CSco): Increase the damage of a poison by 1 point per die of damage (i.e. 1d6 Con damage poison becomes 1d6+1 Con damage and so on.) Obviously has best application for those poisons that already do a lot of damage: Dragon Bile at 3d6 Str damage becomes 3d6+3.

Poison Spell (DoTU): This option which allows you to slap a contact or injury poison onto a melee touch spell being cast. No metamagic, no increase in spell level, and no need to even retrieve the poison bottle or anything. This is particularly good for those who’ve got a lot of attacks and the capability to channel spells.

Poison Talons [Abyssal Heritor] (Fiendish Codex I) - 1/hour, 1d4 Str damage

Pressure Point Strike (Dragon #336) - Emerald Snake Point allow to poison enemy for 1d4 Con damage (no secondary), Royal Viper Point - impose penalty on saves vs poison (1 + your Wis mod)

Quell the Profane (BoED): a lot of prerequisites, but if you make a critical hit on an evil creature, it makes a Fort save (DC 10 + 0.5*character level + CHA mod) or takes 1d4+1 Str damage. Works on unarmed strikes. The trick is reliably getting a critical hit, but a Cleric casting Surge of Fortune and Sense Weakness always has a critical hit in his pocket. Can be ramped a bit by Empower Supernatural Ability since it’s an Exalted feat, and since it’s a damage roll things like Knowledge Devotion should work on it.

Rattlesnake Strike (Sandstorm) - by spending use of Stunning Fist, unarmed attack poisons for 1d3 Con damage

Repeat Spell/Split Ray/Twin Spell (CMage): More saves means more chance to hit someone with a debilitating effect, or to ramp an in-place fatigued condition -- and more spells hitting at once is more debilitation. Split Ray at least is less expensive than Twin Spell. Repeating Spell probably makes more sense for ability damage or ability drain spells, since these stack while it’s harder for duplicate ability penalty spells to do so.

Savvy Rogue (CSco): Crippling Strike is upgraded so you can deal Str damage to targets immune to sneak attack damage.

Serpent's Venom (CDiv): Spend a Wild Shape to get a secondary bite attack that hilariously deals bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage (1d4) and delivers a not-bad injury poison (1d6/1d6 Con, Fort save 10+0.5*CL+Con.) Would be better if it gave all your bites that poison, but you've got Spit Venom for that. Also see Venom's Gift.

Shiftsilver Mastery [Shifter] (Dragon #355) - critical hit of your shiftsilver weapon does 2d4 Con damage to creatures with DR/silver

Smiting Spell (PHB 2): Touch range spell can be put in a weapon and allow you to smack with it. Seems to have most applicability if your Dex is rubbish, but it beats having to cast and hit people in different rounds, for gishes.

Soul of the North (CArc): Pick up Chill Touch 1/day as a spell-like ability (1^st level caster). Consider with Mortalbane.

Spider Bite [Vile] (Player's Guide to Faerûn) - poison for 1d4 Str via grapple check, kiss, or poisoned food/drink

Spirited Charge (PHB): Deal double damage with a melee weapon (or triple with a lance). Your DM will question whether this applies to your ability score damage, or just to the weapon itself.

Spit Poison (LoM): Spit your poison special attack out as a ranged touch attack. But it has a lot of stupid prerequisites and it cuts the DC of the poison by 2. Stay away, pick up Spit Venom instead.

Spit Venom (SrpKngdms): Very useful if you're going down the poisons route because this actually has two functions: you can spit the poison from your natural bite attack as a ranged touch attack out to 30 feet away, and it functions as a contact poison in addition to its original poison method. As a contact poison, it is then eligible for Poison Spell, above, and can apply to any touch spell, not just the ones that do damage. It can also presumably be milked and stored for later use, and removing the melee damage from your bite arguably gets sneak attack to apply to it (we discuss this further down.) Great feat for polymorphers or Warshapers since feats just deactivate when you don't meet their prerequisites, they don't disappear entirely - shuffle your form for all sorts of different poisons.

Supernatural Transformation (SavSpec): One of the best feats in Savage Species, this takes one of your innate spell-like abilities and makes it a supernatural ability. This has two consequences, both great for mediocre stuff like Contagion and Poison which show up a lot as spell-likes above: Spell Resistance no longer applies, and the saving throw for a (Su) ability is 10+half your HD+ability modifier rather than a SLA's 10+spell level+casting stat. If you're at high character levels this can be a significant boost to the DC of saving throws, which is a significant issue with a lot of the spells mentioned above.

Thri-Kreen Poison [Psionic] (Complete Psionic) - Thri-Kreen can use their poison bite +2 times/day (can be taken multiple times)

Tormented Knight [Vile] (Champions of Ruin) - any chaotic or lawful outsider from your melee or ranged weapon attack must make fort save or suffer 1d4 Cha damage

Touch of Golden Ice (BoED): This is obscenely nice if your campaign is going to involve taking on a lot of evil characters. Golden Ice is a poison – a “ravage” -- that only affects evil creatures, and deals 1d6 Dex/2d6 Dex damage +CHA of the target. Possibly there is no saving throw, either on how ravages work or on the feat's wording that the target is immediately hit with Golden Ice. If there is a save, as a supernatural ability it is likely that save should be 10 + 0.5*your hit dice + your CHA bonus, since Exalted feats are explicitly (Su) abilities. Presumably you only get one iteration of the disease hitting the target at a time … although frankly it's not certain ... and incidentally, since you can impose it by striking a target with your bare hand, you could even argue this only requires a touch attack. Lastly, Empower Supernatural Ability should work with it as well. And by the way, since it's a supernatural ability, incorporeals aren't immune to it, and Spell Resistance doesn't apply.

Toxic Mucus (LoM): Not worth it, it takes 3 feats and you have to be an Aboleth anyway for 1d4 Dex damage in a mucus cloud.

TWF/Improved/Greater/Whirlwind Attack (PHB): More attacks mean more debilitation. These are particularly strong if you've got something that allows you to channel multiple spells on the one strike, e.g. Enlightened Fist 3 or Duskblade 13. And they go very nicely with Lolth's Caress which then allows you to blow up the stats of everybody you hit through that pass.

Venom's Gift (CChamp): If you've got the ability to wild shape into a plant (huh?), you can blow a Wild Shape use to pick up venom on your natural attacks for 1 round/CL. The saving throw is nice - 10+0.5*CL+Con, so scaleable by taking high-Con Wild Shapes - but the damage isn't (1d2/1d2 Con). At best it might stack with Serpent's Venom above. Unarmed strikes are specifically excluded, because druids are WOTC's Glorious Master Class.

Venomous Strike [Ambush] (Drow of the Underdark) - -1d6 Sneak Attack damage, +2 DC of poison on the weapon used

Virulent Poison [Monster] (Savage Species) - +2 DC of your poison attack

Vow Of The Spider Queen [Vile] (Drow of the Underdark) - allow to spit poison (3 + Con bonus)/day, 10' range increment, 1d4 Str damage

Weakening Touch (CWar): Unarmed attack does no damage but uses up a Stunning Fist and puts a -6 Str penalty on the target for 1 minute. Multiple hits don’t stack, and stun immunity applies. Would be a black rating if it at least was a melee touch attack and not just an ordinary attack roll.

Wounding Attack [Psionic] (Expanded Psionics Handbook) - 1 Con damage

[Saintheart]

Items

(Many thanks to ShurikVch who helped fill out the lists and render them more complete.)

Nonmagical:

Tanglefoot Bag: These things are nasty. As can be guessed from the name, they entangle the target (as a touch attack, to make matters worse). Best used in conjunction with a Silence spell, then hurled against enemy spellcasters. The ability penalty is only the smallest part of this, of course.

Lasso (BoED): Same problem as the Net, though it does impose a -4 penalty on “effective” Dex. Doesn’t quite entangle the target, but allows you to stop it running away by hanging onto the other end.

Net: Entangle target as a touch attack, but takes an exotic proficiency. Usually not worth your time.

Razor Net (DrComp): Entangle target as a touch attack again, and add a little slashing damage if a creature tries to escape, but same problem as the Net.

Rope of Entanglement: No save or attack roll, entangles.

Brown Mold Oil (Dragon 322, p. 33): Essentially brown mold in a bottle – direct hit with it deals 2d6 nonlethal cold damage and 1d6 nonlethal cold damage in a 5 foot radius. As said, taking nonlethal damage from cold triggers frostbite and mild hypothermia under Frostburn’s rules.

Improvised weapon (Complete Warrior), sheetlike flexible object - Entanglement (-4 Dex penalty)

Crossbow, Winch (Masters of the Wild) - Entanglement (-4 Dex penalty); Exotic Weapon; 75 gp, and 5 gp/bolt

Potions:

Not much use for these in general, but your DM might let you make oils of all manner of debilitating spells (Ray of Enfeeblement and Ray of Clumsiness come to mind). These might be interesting to apply to a weapon.

Draught of Metallic Dragon Breath, Gold (Draconomicon) - Gold Dragon's weakening gas breath weapon (i.e. Fort save or take Str damage); 2,100 gp


Rings:

Spell Storing, Minor/Major: These are very nice in that they let people other than casters inflict debilitating spells.



Rods:

Empowered Spellshard (MIC): 3/day, Empower one first level spell. Hell of a lot cheaper than a Metamagic Rod of Empower, doesn't take up a feat slot, and let's face it, you're using this on Lesser Shivering Touch. Especially if you're using that spell in one of the devastating combos set out by pabelfly below.

Greater Tentacle Rod (Arms and Equipment Guide) - if all of 6 tentacles touching the same target, DC 17 Fort or 1 Dex drain; 57,000 gp

Metamagic Rods: Some of these are good with your debilitating spells, especially Empower, Extend, Maximize, Quicken, Chain, and Sculpt.
Also, see weapons for more rods (:-b)


Shields and Armor:

Antipathy (Defenders of the Faith) - 1/day, creatures of either specific type or alignment in 60' radius must make DC 24 Will save or flee the zone and don't re-enter it for 2 hours; affected creatures withing the zone suffer a -4 Dex penalty; +4 bonus

The Spiteful Imp (?): Nice animated buckler that can spit poison 1/day (like the spell with a fixed save DC).

Poison Spike Armor (BoVD): This works like regular armor spikes plus a weak poison (1d3 Str/1d3 Str, DC 16). Not fantastic, but only a +1 price.


Weapons:
Arrow of Biting (MoF): Injects a poison on a hit (1d10/1d10 Con, Fort DC 16). This is basically a CL 7, Wis mod +3 caster's Poison. Each arrow costs ~1,500gp, which is roughly the same as a potion of Poison would cost if you could make a potion of it and it was use-activated. If you're going ranged I guess this could be useful in some situations, especially around sneak attack (see further down).

Bonebreaker Hammer (AEG): +2 warhammer does 1d6 Dex damage on a critical hit in addition to normal critical hit damage.

Diseased: This is a +1 enchantment that infects struck targets with Filth Fever. A DC 12 save negates, though. Do the math.

Enfeebling (BoED): +1 bonus, deals 1d6+2 Str damage on a critical hit, no saving throw.

Marrowcrushing (BoVD): +1 bonus, every time it does damage, it deals 1 Con damage. Superior to Wounding in almost every way.

Nightblade (MoF): +1 dagger, but when used against someone with a G in their alignment, the enhancement bonus rises to +2 and on a hit, take 1 point of damage to a random ability (Will save DC 16 negates).

Spell Storing: if you can’t channel, get one of these and hit people with your ability-damaging spells.

Strength Sapping (BoVD): This is a +2 enchantment which exhausts the target if it fails a Fort save (DC 15). As it works with every hit, this is not bad actually.

Valorous (UE): Deal double damage on a charge. If you deal ability damage with each attack, this is likewise doubled – if the DM agrees that works, see Spirited Charge for the issue. Also cheap, only +1!

Wounding (DMG): +2 bonus, do 1 Con damage on a hit. On one hand, it’s not tucked away behind saving throws or uses per day. On the other, it’s expensive for a piddling small amount of ability damage; you have to be a Thri-Kreen, er, a cheese grater to do anything substantial with this. And it doesn’t work on anything immune to critical hits. Also not to be confused with bleeding-style effects, which usually impose additional hitpoint damage, not Con.

Weakening (MIC): +1 bonus. On critical hit, target’s Str takes a -4 Str penalty for 10 minutes, can’t drop below 1, not cumulative with itself. No save otherwise.

Dagger of Venom: Not too good for its price, mostly due to the easy save and the 1/day bit.

Dessicating Burst (MIC): +1 weapon, struck creature is fatigued for 8 hours on a critical hit.

Dragonlance, Greater (Dragonlance CS): 1 point Con drain when you hit an evil dragon, on a critical hit deal Con drain equal to the wielder’s character level, no save.

Fanged Ring (DMagic): wielder deals 1 Con damage on an unarmed critical hit.

Kerrenderit Arrows (RoF): +1 Wounding arrows made of ice. These melt if kept exposed for too long (keep them in Ehlonna’s Quiver), but are a bit cheaper than regular +1 Wounding arrows. Not bad.

Poison Ring (DrComp): You look at this, see the 1 damage and think to yourself “why would I bother” … until you see what some people can do with it. It’s a Simple weapon, so pretty much anyone can use it. It’s also a light weapon, so it can function in Two-Weapon Fighting and benefit from Weapon Finesse. And to deliver the injury poison in its reservoir, all it needs is a touch attack. You can even use Bloodstorm Blade on it and throw the damn thing at people, at least by RAW.

Profane Burst (MIC): +1 quality, on a critical hit, does 1d4 Con damage to a living target.

Rapier of Puncturing: Very expensive, it not only is a Wounding weapon but can also be used to deal 1d6 Con damage on a touch attack 3/day. Crit-immunes are immune to this effect, though.

Rod of the Recluse (CDiv, MIC): If you can, get the CDiv version, because it was a lot more powerful: it acted as a +3 light mace that did no hitpoint damage but did 2d6 Str damage with every melee touch attack. Light Mace means it can be ab/used with Lightning Mace shenanigans. The MIC version is a nerfed relic item that only allows you to use the 2d6 damage thing 5 times per day, and only as a rider on a critical hit.

Spear of Impaling (RoF): +1 Wounding Shortspear that gets extra attacks vs. Elves and Dwarves. Much too circumstantial for the great cost (~32,000), and who fights with a Shortspear anyway?

Spectral Dagger (UE): This isn’t really a dagger, but a continuous Chill Touch effect. Now Chill Touch is not a great spell even for debilitators, but this is still a great weapon if your damage and debilitation come from other sources: every attack with it is a touch attack, but you can still use it like a weapon (iterative attacks, TWF, the works). Good for Crippling Strike Rogues etc., and at 20,000 gp, you can afford two.

Thirsting Blade (AEG): +4 longsword, on a critical hit, does 1d6 subdual damage that can’t be healed without drinking something, and the target’s fatigued until it’s healed of this damage.

Viper Rod: This is a weapon, although it is crafted as a rod. 1/day, this can add a nasty 1d10 Con poison (easy save at DC 14, though) to all of your attacks with it for 10 min. Not bad, although you have to be evil to use it.

Rod of Withering: This is a +1 light mace, although it is crafted as a rod. This seems to be the be-all, end-all of ability damage. Every single touch attack with this mean little rod deals 1d4 Str and 1d4 Con damage! Only thing to spoil your party is the DC 17 Fort save to negate. Too bad, but this is still a potent weapon well into the mid levels. Especially nice for Sneak Attackers!

Assassin Whip (Savage Species) - Entanglement (-4 Dex penalty); 11,021 gp

Bow of the Mighty Dragonhunter (Draconomicon) - 1 Str damage to a dragon with each hit; 36,900 gp

Dragonhunter (Magic Item Compendium) - 1 Str damage to a dragon with each hit; +1 bonus

Dreamstriker - 3/day, only half of damage, but it's Wis damage; 5th-level ability of Swift Scion (or should it be in the "Class Abilities" section?)

Evithyan's Blade (Player's Guide to Faerûn) - 2d4 Con damage to any Drow; 72,315 gp

Flensing Gauntlet (Champions of Ruin) - 1d4 Con and 1d4 Cha damage; activation up to 3/day for 1 round; 17,305 gp

Gauntlets of Mindfire (Magic Item Compendium) - 1/day, 15' cone, DC 14 Fort of affected by Mindfire for 1d4 Int damage (no incubation period); 11,000 gp

Mindcrusher - 1d2 Wis damage for psionicists out of power points (DC 17 Will save); +2 bonus

Plague Spreader (Arms and Equipment Guide) - Filth Fever, except the initial Fort DC is 20; 104,715 gp

Reaver's Cutlass (Stormwrack) - this wounding cutlass attaches to opponent and does Con damage every round; 26,310 gp

Skullshaker Hammer (Arms and Equipment Guide) - 3/day, 1d6 Wis damage; 18,312 gp

Stirge Bolt (Arms and Equipment Guide) - 1d4 Con damage each round (starting from the next after the hit - and until destroyed); 1,007 gp

Viper Whip (Arms and Equipment Guide) - Tiny Viper venom (except Fort DC is 11) with each hit; up to 10 rounds/day (divided as you wish); 38,301 gp

Viperblade (Magic Item Compendium) - Viper venom on command (Fort DC is from 12 to 18 - depending on the number of daily charges spent); 6,302 gp

Whip of Webs (Savage Species) - Entanglement (-4 Dex penalty); 10,301 gp

Other:

Stygian Ice (Frostburn) – chance to deal WIS damage on hit

Aroma of Curdled Death: This is a Cloudkill spell in a bottle. Only usable once.

Bracers of the Entangling Blast (MIC): 3/day, the next spell or spell-like ability you use deals only half normal damage, but entangles the target (-4 penalty to Dex) and takes an additional point of damage per level of the spell each round on your turn for 1d3 rounds, the damage being of the same type as normally dealt by the spell (or your choice if it deals more than one type of damage). Has no effect on a spell that doesn't deal damage, but ability-damaging spells deal damage. Leaving aside the entangling effect, this makes interesting some of the red options above which deal a tiny amount of ability damage despite being a high level spell. Even something like Shivering Touch bears thinking about since it's rolling 3d6 Dex damage in 1 round versus 3d6/2 plus possibly 9 Dex damage imposed over 3 rounds (at maximum).

Collar of Venom (BoVD): Make your natural attacks poisonous.

Collar of Virulent Venom (BoVD): Same as above, except the save DC is 20 now, and the price rises to 138,000 gp. Not worth it in a high level game really.

Dust of Sneezing and Choking (SRD): Pretty strong. Within a 20 foot radius, do 2d6 Con damage if fail a Fort save, and 1d6 Con damage if fail a second. And if you save on either throw, treated as disabled by choking (as stunned) for a ridiculous 5d4 rounds.

Glove of Venom (UD): Use the Poison spell three times per day. Average.

Iron Heart Vest, Ring of the Diamond Mind, Shadow Hands, Stone Dragon Belt, Tiger Claw Bracers: See the Maneuvers section for what you can do with these. Some might be worthwhile, as they’re not that expensive.

Phylactery of Change (A&EG): 1/day Polymorph ... for unlimited duration. ECL 7 maximum. There's a decent swag of creatures who have poisonous or debilitating effects within this category, this is great stuff for dabbling in poisons and similar.

Slime Pot: (Dragon 304 p. 56): Clearstone flasks can hold green slime, explicitly. And that means they can be flung at the enemy. Or Elukian Clay (A&EG) or Glassteel (CoV).

Vibrant Purple Prism Ioun Stone: Works as a Ring of Minor Spell Storing, i.e. spell storing weapon in another format.

Aboleth Glyph of Enfeeblement (Lords of Madness) - -6 penalty on Str, Dex, and Con for any non-Aboleth in 20'; persists for 1d4 rounds after leaving the area; 72,000 gp

Black Roses magic face paint (Dragon #337) - grappling creature may be affected by poison (DC 15, 1d4/1d4 Str); lasts 1 minute; 2,025 gp

Camellia of the Black Lady (Champions of Ruin) - at the end of Dominate Person effect, poison does 1d10 Con damage (and 1d10 more - 1 minute later); DC 19 Fort (or 21 - for worshipers of Selûne); 7,000 gp

Gem of Psychic Poison (Book of Vile Darkness) - those who're casting mind-affecting or divination spell at the creature are affected with a psychic poison for 1d6/1d6 Int damage; 28,000 gp

Psionic Bands of Mindfire (Complete Psionic) - 1/day, 15' cone, DC 14 Fort of affected by Mindfire for 1d4 Int damage (no incubation period); 11,000 gp

Vampiric Fangs (Libris Mortis) - 1d4 Con damage each round to the pinned foe; 25,000 gp

Weakening Arm (Libris Mortis) - 2/day, 1d6 Str damage; 40,000 gp

Poison-Friend Pod (Dragon #322) - makes 10' cloud (for 1 round) which forces to make DC 15 Fort save or suffer -4 on saves against any poisons for 10 minutes; DC 25 Craft (alchemy); 50 gp

[Saintheart]

Poisons

This is practically its own subject. I’m not going to duplicate the Arsenic & Old Lace handbook, which is the comprehensive deep dive into poisons and how to optimize them. See the introduction for the link to it.

Instead, I am going to reproduce one table from that thread here - poisons by highest ability damage on initial hit (below epic levels):

Strength
3d6 Str: Dragon Bile (DMG)
3d6 Str: Ulathlasss Smoke (Serpent Kingdoms, Inhaled)
2d8 Str: Colossal Spider/Scorpion venom (pre-errata)
2d6 Str + 1d4 Con: Greensickness (DScape)

Dexterity
2d6 Dex: Colossal Centipede poison (pre-errata)
2d6 Dex: Redek Vine Extract (A&EG 37)
1d8 Dex: Stonefish Venom (Stormwrack)
1d6 Dex: Giant Wasp Poison

Constitution
3d6 Con: Black Lotus Extract
2d6 Con+1d6 Str: Darklight brew (DoTU 94)
2d6 Con+1d4 Dex : Megapede venom (DScape)
2d6 Con: Wyvern venom

Intelligence
1d6 Int: Illithid Mindscorch (DoTU 94, inhaled)
1d4 Int: Rishon Vapor (A&EG 37)
1d4 Int: Jalass Smoke (Serpent Kingdoms, Inhaled)

Wisdom
1d6 Wis: Doubt Bomb (Fiend Folio)
1d4 Wis: Insanity Mist (A&EG 37)
1d4 Wis: Psychotropic Rot (DoTU 94, ingested)
1d4 Wis: Battass Smoke (Serpent Kingdoms, Inhaled)

Charisma
1d6 Cha+1d2 Con: Slowswarming (DoTU 94, ingested)
1d6 Cha: Raeliss Smoke (A&EG 37)
1d6 Cha: Burning Angel Wing Fumes (BoVD, of course)

Within this list, Megapede Venom has the highest save DC (DC 44). Many of the Colossals come in the 30-40 range. And again, this is not a complete list by any stretch of the imagination.

Other interesting poisons that go for conditions:

Choldrith Toxin (AEG): primary effect is paralysis.

Goodbye Kiss (CSco): initial effect is fatigued, secondary effect is exhausted; both an injury and ingested poison.

(Also, take a look at Dragon #322, p. 50. It introduces more powerful forms of poisons, including maximizing their damage output.)


It's also worth pointing out that there are poisons which are specifically made to affect the undead: these are positoxins, which are talked about in Libris Mortis and which I'm not going to get into right here. Arsenic & Old Lace talks a bit about them, but if you'd like to know more, LibMort is your next stop on these.

Bypassing Poison Immunity

Big thanks to Anthrowhale here who pointed these out. Poison immunity crops up across a number of types and there are a couple of monsters that can bypass it (one of which is ravages, below). These are:

Molydeus (FC 1): it's a monster, but accessible under Shapechange, and cuts straight through poison immunity. Useful if you're fighting demons in particular, but it doesn't go through poison immunity granted by constructs, oozes, plants, or the undead type.

Sertrous (EldEvls): ... okay, he's an Elder Evil, but at least he does the same thing a Molydeus does.

Shaktari (Dragon #359. p. 50): also a high-end outsider, but exudes an aura meaning everything within 120 feet is not immune to poison (construct, undead, and elemtnals remain unaffected.)

Ravages and Afflictions

Credit to Anthrowhale for suggesting I take a closer look at these. Ravages (and Afflictions) are "poisons and diseases for the good guys", set out in Chapter 3 of the Book of Exalted Deeds. Their main schtick is that they only affect evil characters, and because they're not actually poisons, poison immunity doesn't work on them. (Indeed by RAI if not strong RAW they go right through immunity to ability damage, since evil undead are not only affected by ravages/afflictions, they're smacked harder by virtue of being undead). This has the passing bonus that you don't even have to look for a class or feat that prevents you accidentally poisoning yourself, because (a) they're not poisons, and (b) if you have a G in your alignment, it doesn't matter if they are.

(Afflictions you can mostly forget about. The incubation periods are ludicrously long -- unless you're casting the spell Affliction mentioned further up, which makes them slightly better for damage purposes than diseases under Contagion's effects.)

Ravages, though, are another matter, and stronger than they appear on a first glance. Because it's only when you actually read the descriptive text and don't just glance at the DC tables that you realise a couple of things:

• Ravages might have no save. Ravages are said to function similarly to a poison, although by some readings they might not get a saving throw and instead have their damage dealt immediately. The DC listed for a Ravage is used for the Caster Level check required if you try to use Remove Disease or Neutralise Poison to stop a Ravage. If this is correct, an evil creature gets hit with a ravage, it's taking ability damage immediately and in 1 minute's time, unless one of its friends happens to have a valuable spell slot available to fix them up (they won't). Most of the stuff you'll be fighting on your travels has an E in its alignment, and I'm not talking about it being the most common letter in the English language either. Even with a save, it's a pretty good shot at knocking out major opposition depending on the ravage chosen. And at the very least it might be worth clarifying how this works on undead, since most of them are immune to effects that require a Fort save. It would be a nice interpretation that undead simply have no saving throw.
  
  
• Ravages (and Afflictions) hit high Cha creatures harder. Because when you read the entry carefully, you realise a Ravage does its damage dice in an ability score plus the target's CHA bonus. An evil sorcerer doesn't get 1d6 Dex damage from Golden Ice, they get 1d6+5 or whatever number he had, and then 2d6+5 a minute later. Depending on the target that's a damage boost you normally have to wrangle hard to get on ability damage. (Unfortunately none of the Ravages hit Cha which would be even more hilarious.) This is particularly interesting for incorporeal undead, since they usually have an above-average Cha to power their abilities and their AC.
  
  
• Ravages (and Afflictions) hit evil clerics, outsiders, elementals, and undead harder. +2 against evil clerics and outsiders, +1 against evil elementals and undead. Possibly, cumulatively, if you're an evil undead cleric. On top of the Cha bonus. An allip hit with a dose of Jade Water (leaving aside the issue of whether it gets a Fort save - which is only at +1 if it does) takes 1d4+5 Int damage, when it's only got 11 Int to play with at all. Hit with Golden Ice, it's taking 1d6+5 with its Dex only at a 12.
  
  

Of the Ravages listed, the most noteworthy are:

• Golden Ice (1d6/2d6 Dex)
• Jade Water (1d4 Wis/1d4 Int + 1d4 Wis), and
• Purified Couatl Venom (2d4 Str/4d4 Str).

Of these, Jade Water's the cheapest at a piddling 350gp a dose. The other substances cost a bomb, but Planar Binding likely gets you Couatl Venom, and Touch of Golden Ice gets around ever having to pay for this insanely useful twinkly snow ever again.

Diseases

Just a little word or two about this, because frankly it's not easy to weaponise disease under D&D 3.5 and I'm here to try and save you some time. That being said, when looking for options, I strongly encourage you to check our SirNibbles index of all diseases under 3.5, including Dragon and Dungeon magazine, for a much wider set of options than I can get into here.

Diseases' main problem is their incubation period. You can hit someone with a disease but they usually won't be feeling its effects until hours or days later. It's a rare situation where you'll want this to happen. And unfortunately - and surprisingly - there aren't a lot of spell-based solutions to this.

The foundation for disease imposition is the core spell Contagion. Most spell-like or supernatural abilities allowing you to spread disease use it as well. (Note the druid was surprisingly excluded from casting it, so, as is always the case with druids, he got something more powerful later on: Contagious Touch in the SpC, which is a Contagion with a longer duration, hitting multiple targets, and a slightly better save DC because it's coming from a higher spell level.)

Now, the positive of this spell is that it removes the incubation period. On a touch, the target makes a Fort save (set by the spell, not the disease) or gets hit with the disease's ability damage. However, there are three negatives that seriously weaken it for our purposes:

(1) The list of diseases is short and Core-only. As high as it goes is 1d8 Dex damage from the Shakes, which isn't bad, but not a patch on something like Shivering Touch.

(2) The disease's saving throw is the spell's saving throw. Yes, I know I already said this. That means Contagion has a saving throw of DC 14 minimum, since the formula is DC 10+spell level+casting stat bonus, we usually get the spell at level 3, and our casting stat therefore has to be a minimum of 13, i.e +1 minimum.) For some diseases that's actually a higher DC than default (Shakes, Mindfire, Filth Fever) ... but for others, it's actually lower, thus making some of the better diseases (Blinding Sickness) actually easier to resist. And since the level of the spell isn't ever going to change, if we want to scale the spell and keep it relevant further up, we have to seriously steroid our casting stat to get an improvement out of it. (Once again, the Druid has more options in this area: the spell Owl's Insight is druid-only and boosts your Wisdom score by 1/2 your caster level.) Mass Contagion also boosts the DC because it's a higher level spell, but then the question is how strong it is at the levels you get it.

(3) Contagion doesn't do anything about the secondary saving throw: it defaults back to the disease's standard save, so even if you could finagle the secondary damage to come in immediately, there's less chance of getting it as your level rises.

Like I said, most other spellcasting solutions amount to summoning stuff with poor hygiene. And which tend to have fixed saving throws generated by the creatures with the diseases.

Out of 3.5, I'm only aware of three options that do anything with disease. And one of them is technically third party, which we'll get to.

Nosomatic Chirurgeon (DMark): From Eberron, but the main thing it has going for it is the Isolate Pathogen class feature, mentioned further above. This basically widens the range of diseases useable with Contagion to the full gamut of magical and natural diseases (if your DM is kind or your backstory includes that you've treated it before.) The diseases under BoVD (p. 62 BoVD) are generally more powerful than the Core diseases available under Contagion. We're out of the 1d4 and into the 1d6 to 1d8 range at a minimum -- stuff like Deathsong (1d8 Str+1d8 Dex+1d8 Con), Possession Infection (1d6 Wis+1d8 Cha), and similar. But we still have the problem that the disease's saving throw is replaced by your puny Contagion spell save, unless your DM is nice.

Cancer Mage (BoVD): Also mentioned above. Unfortunately it's more useable by way of ab/using Festering Anger than anything else, really, and it doesn't make using the diseases much more potent than they are outside Contagion.

Plague Knight of Morgion (Holy Orders of the Stars p. 51): As said, this book is technically third party since WOTC only published the Dragonlance Campaign Setting, and, as you'd probably guess by now, it's specific to Dragonlance. The Plague Knight gets his own tiny spellcasting list (Contagion at 3rd level, i.e. around character level 10 or so gods help us, also Touch of Idiocy around character level 8). He can be a carrier of any disease (not just those on the Contagion table) and 2/day try and infect someone with it as a sort of smite attack. The saving throw for this is 10+Plague Knight level+Con mod, which is at least more scaleable than Contagion. At the PrC's 5th level, he can add a lot of hurt to a disease due to poor editing: he can Empower Disease, which specifically "increasing their damage by one and a half times the standard damage." Thus a 1d6 disease becomes 1d6+(1d6x1.5). It might be worth sticking around for Maximise Disease at PrC level 9 ... if it didn't say it explicitly does not stack with Empower Disease. This PrC is probably much more for theme or for NPC villains than PCs, but it at least tries to make a disease-carrying character work.

"Okay, but it's still weak-ish and with the massive incubation period to worry about ..." Well, not for two magical diseases that tamper with this rule:

Gangrenous Touch (LibMort, p. 116) - this is a (Su) ability of the Plague Blight monster, but it is described as an accelerated supernatural disease. Unlike normal diseases, it forces a saving throw every round and inflicts its damage (1d4 Con) every round.

Hunefer Rot (Epic Level Handbook, p. 199) - also a (Su) ability of the Hunefer, but also an accelerated supernatural disease, with a stonking Fort DC 35 and inflicting 1d6 Con each round if failed.

The Nosomatic Chirurgeon and Plague Knight of Morgion by RAW at least can pick these up without requiring epic levels or a special attack; they're both explicitly diseases, and pretty potent in that sense. Thanks to SirNibbles on these ones.

[Saintheart]

Improving ability damage rolls

The PHB’s glossary defines damage to include ability damage:

damage: A decrease in hit points, an ability score, or other aspects of a character caused by an injury, illness, or magical effect. The three main categories of damage are lethal damage, nonlethal damage, and ability damage. In addition, wherever it is relevant, the type of damage an attack deals is specified, since natural abilities, magic items, or spell effects may grant immunity to certain types of damage. Damage types include weapon damage (subdivided into bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing) and energy damage (positive, negative, acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic). Modifiers to melee damage rolls apply to both subcategories of weapon damage (melee and unarmed). Some modifiers apply to both weapon and spell damage, but only if so stated. Damage points are deducted from whatever character attribute has been harmed – lethal and nonlethal damage from current hit points, and ability damage from the relevant ability score). Damage heals naturally over time, but can also be negated wholly or partially by curative magic.

Summarising:
- Damage comes in 3 main categories: lethal, nonlethal, and ability damage. (Lethal and nonlethal also being known as "hitpoint" damage).
- Damage types are only relevant for determining who's resistant or immune to them. Damage types include weapon, energy, which have their own subdivisions: bludgeoning, slashing, piercing, positive, negative, acid, cold, electricity, fire, sonic. Weapon damage has a subcategories: melee and unarmed.

The most important thing that comes out of this definition: just because damage has a type doesn't mean it only does hitpoint damage.

Therefore, four things follow from this definition:

(1) an unqualified bonus to “damage rolls” applies to ability damage rolls. And if the bonus is untyped, it will usually stack with other untyped bonuses from different sources.

(2) an attack imposing nothing but ability damage is increased by sneak attack - since sneak attack is, by definition, "extra damage". Thanks to Gruftzwerg for pointing this out.

(3) a weapon that does nothing but ability damage is increased on a critical hit, since critical hits allow you to roll more damage - "extra damage" - on a critical hit, so long as it's invariable ability damage, or comes as part of the weapon's normal damage dice.

(4) meta-effects like metamagic which increase a spell's "damage" will accordingly raise ability damage for a spell or spell-like ability.

Let's go through these four possibilities.

Unqualified bonuses to "Damage Rolls"

One obvious counter is that if you don’t roll a dice for damage, there may be no bonus. So options that do 1 Con every time, or whatever, likely can’t be improved by this -- but otherwise, basically every spell, poison and many non-spell options can benefit.

(And you probably can’t increase ability drain or ability penalty rolls this way. Maybe that’s for the best, or Touch of Idiocy would have been one of the meanest, strongest contenders for boosting under the following feats.)

The highest/most scalable bonuses to “damage rolls” are from Knowledge Devotion, Master of Tactics, Eilservs School, Stormguard Warrior, and Combat Brute. And with special mentions to Decisive Strike, Mortalbane and Mark of Cania.

Knowledge Devotion (Cchamp): If you have enough Knowledge ranks and roll half-decently well (or combo Lore of the Gods and Collector of Stories and similar), you get up to a +5 insight bonus on your attack and “damage rolls” against creatures the subject of a given subcategory of Knowledge. This is a substantial boost to ability damage output. And this one at least has a strong fluff argument that you’re especially good at disabling creatures in a given area of knowledge because you’ve spent a lot of time studying them.

Master of Tactics (HoB): This is actually one of the Marshal’s Minor Auras, and thus available on a single level dip. It adds the Marshal’s CHA bonus as an untyped bonus to damage rolls while the Marshal is flanking. CHA modifiers tend to be easier to boost than flat bonuses. (There’s also the same bonus available in another Marshal aura – Over the Top – which is listed below.)

Eilservs School (DoTU): untyped +5 to “damage rolls” if you have a magic staff (a staff of 0-level Light costs only 1,500gp) and you strike a creature with a magic staff. The feat’s RAW wording is ab/useable in that it doesn’t explicitly require that you strike an enemy, doesn’t explicitly confine the bonus to any single enemy, doesn’t explicitly confine the bonus to a staff, and doesn’t specify a period during which the bonus applies, i.e. at least by RAW you could hit yourself (you’re a creature) with a magic stick on New Year’s Day and still be pulling +5 to all your ability damage rolls on New Year’s Eve.

Stormguard Warrior (ToB): the feat’s maneuver, Channel the Storm, is well-known in AoO builds – forego an AoO, get a +4 to attack and damage rolls in the next round. But the bonus is untyped and not by RAW restricted to weapon damage, i.e. 2 AoOs foregone in one round, +8 to your favourite poison’s damage next round. Combat Rhythm in the same feat is even better, but is confined to ‘melee damage’, which might be tougher to get past your DM as enhancing ability damage.

Combat Brute (Cwar): The Advancing Blows maneuver, within the feat, grants a +1 bonus to attack “and damage rolls” for each 5 foot square you bull rush an opponent. Ratcheting up bull rush is its own topic, but the main point is that the King of Pong can also debilitate significantly if he has the right method for doing so.

Decisive Strike (PHB2): This is a monk Alternative Class Feature, so it should get past your DM because there’s practically nothing you can do to overpower a core monk :D More seriously, Decisive Strike ditches flurry of blows and instead allows you to do double damage on a single full-round action strike so long as it’s delivered with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon. If you can finagle ability damage into the strike (Touch of Golden Ice? Smiting Spell + Poison Spell?) then it may accordingly double that as well since it’s “double damage”.

Mortalbane (BoVD): Mortalbane’s wording is frequently ab/used to add a variable value to a spell-like ability, thus opening up Empower Spell-Like Ability. However, the example within the feat also suggests a use for us. Whatever type of damage a spell-like ability does, it gets a flat +2d6 added from Mortalbane against living targets, but only half damage against undead and constructs. This doesn’t bother us much because these two types are basically immune to ability damage anyway, and a +2d6 to ability damage is usually a pretty good boost against anything else. Only works on spell-like abilities 5 times per day, but pumping up, say, a 1 Str-damage ability to minimum 3 Str, and possibly maximum 13 Str damage, isn’t anything to sniff at. (And as said, it opens up Empower Spell-like Ability as well ... and more importantly, unqualified bonuses to "damage rolls" since you take a fixed, nonvariable damage imposition and now make it subject to a dice roll.)

Mark of Cania (FC2): This can get very, very cheesy. The feat basically says every round you miss a target, or the target saves against one of your spells, you get a +1 to your attack rolls, saves, checks … and damage rolls. Although your AC also drops by -1. The bonus lasts until you successfully hit a target or a target fails a saving throw. So – if your DM rules the bonus is cumulative with every failed attempt to hurt someone -- your out of combat routine consists of throwing rocks (-4, improvised weapon) at trees out at maximum increment range (-20 via range increment penalties) and building up a big damage roll bonus for that debilitating ability damage or poison you’re going to deliver at the outset of combat. Or, in combat, hitting total defense and taking Combat Expertise to its maximum to make sure you don’t hit things until it’s absolutely necessary.

The (spoiler'd) table below is a summary of every other option I could find affording bonuses to ‘damage rolls’ and not limiting its bonus to weapon, melee or ranged damage. This is taking a conservative read and staying clear of more edge cases such as damage rolls when attacking with a given weapon. (And indeed one topic of persuasion to your DM may be for classes or options that give you favored enemies in this vein, since these give bonuses to damage but usually only weapon damage.)

Spoiler: The Mighty Bargain Bin of Bonuses

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Option Name	Type of Option	Source	Damage Roll Bonus	Notes, Constraints
Banner of the Goblin’s Bane	Magic Item	HoB	+2 untyped	Only against goblinoids.
Blood in the Water	Martial Stance	ToB	+1 untyped (min.)	Each critical hit you score while in this stance increases the bonus to damage rolls by +1.
Bracers of Murder	Magic Item	DoTU	+2 profane	Only against flat-footed opponents. Death attack save DC rises, reroll 1s on sneak attack or sudden strike dice.
Demonwrecker Arcane 1 – Spell Smite (Su)	Prestige Class	EttDP	+INT or CHA, untyped	Only on arcane spells that require an attack roll and “deals damage” (e.g. – Shivering Touch), 3/day max
Desecrate	Spell	PHB	+2 profane	Only applies to undead in the area of the spell.
Disciple of Dispater 4 – Iron Power (Ex)	Prestige Class	BoVD	+1 insight	Only when using an iron or steel weapon.
Dragon Descendant 1 – Rampaging Ancestor	Prestige Class	DrMgic	+3 insight (max)	+1 at first level, have to stay for 9 levels to get the full +3. Monk prestige class.
Dread Fang of Lolth 1 – Lolth’s Whispers (Ex)	Prestige Class	DoTU	+2 insight	Drow-only PrC, requires Evasion and Sneak Attack as well as BAB +5
Drowcraft	Weapon quality	Und	+2 luck	Bonuses are applied to “the wielder”, not the weapon. Only functions in an earth node or area of faezress.
Duel of Wills	Intimidate skill use	ToB	+1 morale	Requires the enemy participates in the duel
Duraak’ash 1 – Hunter’s Insight (Ex)	Prestige Class	Dmark	+3 insight (max)	Only on current target of Locate Creature ability, only gets to +3 at level 10
Elemental Archon 7 – Elemental Expertise (Ex)	Prestige Class	F&P	+1 circumstance	Highly situational and varies according to which element the archon is from.
Elemental Master 1 – Element Mastery (Ex)	Prestige Class	Drac	+1 untyped	Highly situational similar to Elemental Archon
Evereskan Tomb Guardian 1-5 – Sacred Duty (Su), Devoted Pursuit (Ex)	Prestige Class	PGtF	+5 sacred (max)	Only while in Evereskan tombs or pursuing the robber of an Evereskan tomb. Min +1, increases by class level. Elf only.
Faezress-Infused	Template	Und	+2 luck	Only while in an earth node or an area of faezress; LA +1, can be applied to any corporeal creature.
Healer’s Vision	Spell (Assn 1, Clr 1)	Csco	+2 untyped	Applies only when using sneak attack or sudden strike, 1 round/level, can be Persisted
Horizon Walker – Terrain Mastery (Ex)	Prestige Class	DMG	+1 insight	Only applies while on particular types of terrain.
Illithidwrought	Weapon quality	Und	+2 insight (max)	Bonuses are applied to “the wielder”, not the weapon. Have to be psionic for the +2, otherwise +1.
Improved Favored Enemy	Feat	CWar	+3 points damage (untyped)	Only against a Favored Enemy you have. Cheesy reading, requires the DM agrees the bonus isn’t just to weapon damage rolls like a Ranger’s Favored Enemy bonus.
Instant of Power	Spell (Brd/Drd/Rgr 1)	FoW	+4 enhancement	Immediate action, lasts 1 round, grants bonus to your “next” damage roll. Consider in combination with Shadow Arrow for Rangers?
Interfaith Blessing	Spell (Apt 2, Clr 2, Druid 2, Shu 2)	Cchamp	+1 untyped	Deity has to be Kord, Kurtulmak, or Tiamat
Interfaith Blessing	Spell (Apt 2, Clr 2, Druid 2, Shu 2)	Cchamp	+2 untyped	Deity has to be Erythnull, Gruumsh, or Lolth
Knight 2 – Fighting Challenge (Ex)	Class Feature	Cwar	+1 morale	Scales very slowly from levels 1-20
Leading the Charge	Martial Stance	ToB	+IL untyped	Assuming you are your own ally, on a charge you get your Initiator Level as a bonus to 'damage rolls'.
Lolth's Meat	Feat	Und	+1 morale	Applies after you kill an opponent with a melee attack, lasts rest of encounter. Prereq for Drow Judicator (see above).
Marshal 1 – Minor Aura (Over the Top)	Class Feature	Cwar	+CHA mod (untyped)	Only when charging.
Mark of Stygia	Feat	FC2	+4 untyped	Only when you and an opponent both stand on icy or frozen surfaces.
Mask of the Implacable	Magic Item	RoF	+4 untyped	Only against an enemy who deals the mask-wearer more than 50% of his full hitpoint total in damage.
Mastery of the Sky	Spell (Sky 8)	RoTW	+2 competence	Only while airborne. 1 min/level.
Mortal Hunter 1	Prestige Class	BoVD	+3 untyped (max)	Only against mortals, increases by +1 every 3 levels in the PrC.
Righteous Wrath of the Faithful	Spell (Clr 7, Pur 7)	Cdiv	+2 morale	1 round/level
Risen Martyr 1 – Holy Purpose (Ex)	Prestige Class	BoED	+4 insight (max)	Only on damage rolls directly related to fulfilment of Martyr’s purpose. +4 only comes at level 9 in PrC.
Scion of Tem-et-nu 1 – River Mastery (Ex)	Prestige Class	Sstorm	+1 insight	Only against river-dwelling aquatic creatures.
Slave to Evil	Feat	EldEvls	+1 insight	Only against divine spellcasters.
Slayer of Dragons	Feat	DrMgic	+2 - +5 morale (max)	Ceremony feat, requires that between 1 and half the party is downed by a dragon. Only lasts 10 rounds.
Sword of Retribution	Magic Item	A&EG	+2 morale	Only on one attack, after being hit, only against the hitter.
Tactics of the Wolf	Martial Stance	ToB	+1/2 IL untyped	While flanking an opponent, get half your initiator level as a bonus to damage rolls.
Tall Mouther Hunter	Feat	Ssouth	+2 competence	Halfling only, only applies against Aberrations.
Thayan Knight 2 – Zulkir’s Defender (Ex)	Prestige Class	Cwar	+2 morale	Against a creature that attacks you or has been seen attacking a Red Wizard, lol
Thrall Bred	Feat	LoM	+1 morale	Only when your charge is within 30 feet, and your bonus is nerfed while outside it.
Tomb Warden 3 – Power of the Dead (Su)	Prestige Class	LibMort	+CHA insight	Undead only, 1/day, 10 minutes, only while within the creature’s resting place it protects.
Touch Attack Specialization	Feat	Gwalk p.39	+2 untyped	Have to be a ghost or have a ghost form by some method, but applies to any touch attack dealing ability damage
Valiant Spirit	Spell (Brd 4, Clr 4, Pal 4)	MoI	+2 morale (min.)	Only lasts 1 minute when activated - bonus increases by +1 for each point of essentia invested in spell.
Vengeful Surge	Feat	FC2	+2 untyped	Only when you successfully save against a spell, spell-like ability, or (Su) effect, for 1 round, against the creature that targeted you
Willing Sacrifice	Spell (Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 3)	EoE	+5 profane (max)	Do 1d10 damage to a willing evil target, get half the damage as a profane bonus on your damage rolls. Lasts 1 round/level.

For those options above which depend on the bonus being given only in a particular location, it’s worth remembering that Acorn of Far Travel allows for some flexibility on this score. Especially for earth nodes and Evereskan tombs, which are the normal domain of elves and drow.

Of some note: Tactics of the Wolf + Master of Tactics above would give you CHA bonus + 1/2 IL bonus to your damage rolls essentially anytime you're in flank, and you don't have to be a rogue to get it either. And if you've got a friend next to you, the stance Island of Blades gets you flanking your opponent without anything else needed.

Similarly: Leading the Charge + Over the Top above would give you CHA bonus + full IL bonus to your damage rolls on a charge, and again you don't need to be an ubercharger to pick these up.

Getting Sneak Attack on Ability Damage

This resource isn't about how to optimise sneak attack, but you'd probably appreciate even a mild +1d6 to ability damage can make a world of difference. Not to mention that if it's a scaleable ability damage option you're looking for, consider at least the feat Craven which allows a level 20 character armed with a Rod of Withering to smash a creature for 20 Str and 20 Con before even rolling a dice.

However, there's two drawbacks to using sneak attack here.

(1) Sneak attack is pretty conditional. A lot of stuff isn't subject to it: constructs, undead, incorporeals, plants, oozes and anything immune to a critical hit. We can't do much ability damage to constructs or undead anyway, but plants and oozes are vulnerable to ability damage. And that's before you get into attacking while the target is flanked or has no Dex bonus to AC, which is its own thing.

(2) This trick can't be pulled with touch spells or ray spells.** Per the Rules Compendium, or as I like to call it, "WOTC's compendium of houseules":

Precision Damage
Any weaponlike spell that can be used with precision damage, such as sneak attack, follows the normal rules for precision damage with a few alterations.
...
A successful precision damage attack with a weaponlike spell deals extra damage of the same type as the spell normally deals unless that spell deals ability damage or ability drain, or it bestows negative levels. Spells that fall into these categories instead deal extra hit point damage in the form of negative energy.

Weaponlike spells are defined in Complete Arcane/Rules Compendium , as "any spell that needs an attack roll". So sneak attack won't add more ability damage to spells like Shivering Touch. (You'll find the Spellwarp Sniper crying over there in the corner.) This was likely a carve-out because the designers realised belatedly that damage, as they defined it, falls in one of three categories - lethal, nonlethal, or ability - and a lot of spells do ability damage.

However, because the rule applies only to spells, three forms of attack by RAW still add sneak attack damage as extra ability damage:

• Any natural weapon that just does ability damage. For example, a Shadow's touch (1d6 Str damage).
  
  
• Any natural weapon that needs an attack roll but just does ability damage/drain via a poison or disease, e.g. Touch of Golden Ice. Again, sneak attack is extra damage applied to the base damage category. One significant feat in this context is Spit Venom, mentioned above, because it takes the melee damage out of your poisonous bite attack and therefore pushes all those bonus d6s onto the ability damage instead.
  
  
• Any manufactured weapon that just does ability damage/drain. These are rare but strong: the Rod of Withering, in particular, and possibly the Spectral Dagger if your DM is openminded. Magic items that sort-of duplicate spells might also sneak through; the Arrow of Biting is basically a Poison spell in an arrow, but since it's the arrow that needs the attack roll and not the spell, a DM might be convinced that sneak attack applies to such a weapon.
  
  

Outside that, it's debatable whether a weapon that does melee damage and ability damage would grant sneak attack to its ability damage component; ask your DM, but don't be surprised if the answer is that the hitpoint damage gets the boost, not the ability damage, given how weaponlike spells seem to operate. And if you're going to run the argument that sneak attack applies to ability damage at all, expect a DMG getting thrown at your head because this looks to be one of those cases where WOTC either forgot to make the subject clear or purposefully left the issue silent. Frankly amassing sneak attack damage might be more practical for powering ambush feats which increase poison DC for each d6 sacrificed.

** If your DM is going to bar extra damage being ability damage on weaponlike spells, and you're really determined to get sneak-attack-ish d6s on your ability-damaging spells, there is a workaround: Thrall of Graz'zt, a prestige class from BoVD. Its Spell Betrayal and Spellstrike class features basically add +5d6 to damage on spells specifically against flat-footed targets, and +2d6 against targets threatened in melee (i.e. not flanking, just threatened!). The basis of the ability is surprise or betrayal rather than hitting a precise spot, i.e. not subject to Rules Compendium's snotty rules on Precision Damage. That said, you're best advised to get this ruling in writing from your DM before going down that road and have a lot of ideas for how you're going to survive at higher levels, because Thrall of Graz'zt loses 4 caster levels out of its 10. Most likely you're taking the flavourful path of an Ur-Priest (with its fast casting progression) who denies all gods but devotes himself to Graz'zt.

Getting Critical Hits in Ability Damage

I'm not going to spend much time telling you how to get a critical hit -- if you want a resource for that, stop by over here. Simplest method is Sense Weakness and Surge of Fortune, both on the cleric spell list.

What I am going to mention is the SRD's rule about critical hits that "Extra damage dice over and above a weapon’s normal damage is not multiplied when you score a critical hit.” You probably knew that means sneak attack, skirmish damage or even extra energy damage dice on your weapon are not multiplied on a crit. In general, anything variable in the damage calculation (outside the weapon's own damage dice) can’t be increased on a crit. Ability damage usually comes in d4s or d6s, and usually not as part of a weapon's normal damage. So in most cases critical hits won't do anything for ability damage.

However:

• Critical hit damage is rolled twice (or more) “with all your usual bonuses”. Any fixed number on the damage roll – for example, your STR bonus to damage, a bonus on damage from Power Attack, or from a weapon quality like Collision – is multiplied on a critical hit damage roll too. In general, if it’s a flat bonus, it gets multiplied on a critical hit. So if you can finagle a fixed amount of ability damage on a weapon hit, that may still qualify for doubling under a critical hit: e.g. the Lurk's Mental Assault.
  
  
• If your weapon does nothing but ability damage, that may also still be increased on a critical hit: i.e. the options mentioned above - Rod of Withering, spat venom, Touch of Golden Ice, and so on. Critical hit damage is not a form of precision damage and therefore locked to Rules Compendium's silly redefinition of the rules about sneak attack. Critical hit immunity is not the same as immunity to precision damage and never has been.
  
  
• Rules Compendium says precision damage on a weaponlike spell is just more hitpoint damage. Good thing that a critical hit is not precision damage. The SRD outrigjt says ability damage on a critical hit is doubled, and even the original rules on 'weaponlike spells' back in Complete Arcane announced openly that you can do critical hits with spells, and feats like Improved Critical apply to them. So if you have a method guaranteeing a critical hit - Sense Weakness + Surge of Fortune once again - then your ability damage spells can punch out a hell of a lot more pain. Taking a simple, low end example from Anthrowhale, to whom credit is due and owed: Ray of Stupidity + Lesser Rod of Maximise Spell + Surge of Fortune + Sense Weakness = 10 points of Int damage, flat out, done. That's enough to turn most fights with living things decidedly undramatic. All from the cleric list.
  
  

Meta-Effects

In the grand scheme, using Empower Spell isn't generally much chop when putting it on something like a Fireball. However, this type of metamagic becomes far more interesting in the ability damage space because spells' ability damage is usually 1d4 or 1d6 or so, and we usually aren't needing hundreds of points of ability damage to put some major hurt on the opposition. Some of the following you'd already know about from further up the thread, but it's worth restating in the specific context of ability damage - and some of the following are applicable to damage specifically, making them worth the consideration.

Split Ray, Empower/Maximize/Repeat/Chain/Twin Spell: All Core or in the Completes, and they increase the damage output of, or provide multiple iterations of, the same spell. In ability damage spells, double or more damage is virtually always significant. At epic levels, Intensify Spell is relevant. Depending how often you're resorting to ability damage, Sudden Maximise and Sudden Empower (CArc) may also be worth looking at.

Then we have meta-effect feats that trade applicability for power. Like this one: Complete Arcane's Black Lore of Moil.

BLoM adds +1d6 in negative energy damage to a spell, per 2 levels of that spell -- so long as it's a Necromancy spell. "So what, who cares about +1d6 in hitpoint damage ..." Do you not yet understand how damage works, despite the glossary entry above? Just because damage has a type doesn't mean it only does lethal/nonlethal damage. BLoM does not specify the category of damage it gives a +1d6 to. BLoM on an ability-damaging spell boosts the spell's ability damage by those bonus d6s. BLoM is everything you wanted out of sneak attack on your spells and everything the Rules Compendium cheated you out of, and more, since you don't have to jump through stupid flanking or flatfooting rules to get this.
It doesn't raise the spell's level.
It only costs an extra 75gp per spell when you cast it.
It makes a save-or-suck into a save-and-suck because even if the target saves, it still takes half the negative energy damage anyway!
"But it's only for Necromancyyyyy spells..." Yeah. And if you've been looking up the spells I've been telling you about, you'll realise most of your best debilitating spells, indeed your best heavy hitters, are Necromancy spells. Shivering Touch; Mindfrost; Poison; Contagion; Affliction; Bloodsnow; Boneblast; Contagious Touch; Dehydrate; Dark Tide; Kiss of the freaking Toad; Last Judgment; Shadow Arrow. And these aren't the only ones. Shivering Touch goes straight from 3d6 to 5d6 Dex damage with this feat, no spell increase at all. This feat rescues any high-level spell that only puts out a piddling 1d4 or 1d6 in ability damage. Last Judgment normally does 3d6 Con damage; now it does 7d6 Con damage under BLoM. Minnows like Boneblast stay relevant via Heighten Spell, since that metamagic makes the spell function for all purposes as if it were a higher level spell, which Black Lore then works off. And it'll still guarantee at least some Con damage even on a successful save.

Lastly? Despite applying to creepy Necromancy spells, it has no alignment requirements, meaning even freaking exalted characters can take it. Just a wonderful, wonderful feat for ability damage purposes, take it and don't look back.


Three more that you've already seen above: Bane Magic, Aberration Banemagic, and Giant Banemagic, which work essentially like a ranger's Favored Enemy applied to spells: you get +2d6 damage to your spell against one creature type.

For campaigns against demons or devils, BoED provides Purify Spell. Against evil outsiders, each of a spell's damage dice are increased the way they do when you size a weapon. This is cool enough because by RAW it makes a Shivering Touch spell do 3d8 damage (yeah, not 4d6. Each damage dice of the spell is raised). But the biggest cheese comes if you've also got (LoM's) Bane Magic (Outsider); your Shivering Touch spell takes a fourth level spell slot and does 5d8 Dex damage. Or maybe try on Sword of Conscience under Purify Spell and Bane Magic (Outsider): this does 4d6+2d8 Wis and Cha damage out of a fifth level slot. Or, if your DM forces the HoH Bane Magic on you: well, cast Parboil and do 2d6+2d8 Int damage.

Oddly, the BoVD doesn't have a mirror image of that feat. There's only really LibMort's Enervate Spell: against living targets, your spell does an extra 50% damage. Takes a spell slot 2 levels higher, though, which is why it's red.

There's also a couple of spells that help out too: Touch of the Blackened Soul and Mark of the Enlightened Soul from DrMagic, which basically say "drop a higher level spell slot, all your spells of lower levels now do 50% more damage on evil/good-aligned targets depending on the spell." If you're going heavy on ability damage these might be a more palatable choice than using a feat slot (and multiple higher spell slots) on Empower Spell - and note it'd likely stack with Empower, Enervate, and the rest.

Depending on the campaign there's Excised from the Web of Life (Dragon #336): take a massive hit to Cha-based skills and checks against animals, fey, and plants, but get your CL as bonus damage if the spell's against animals, fey, or plants.

For Spell-like Abilities, Empower Spell-Like Ability and Maximize Spell-Like Ability are the equivalents of Maximise and Empower Spell from CMage, and similar comments apply to them. Purify Spell-like Ability is from the BoED and does what Purify Spell does for spells. You already know about Mortalbane.

Finally, let's revisit the small list of spells that do both hitpoint damage and ability damage: Ice Knife, Corona of Cold, Dessicate, Entomb, Mindfrost, Numbing Sphere, Parboil and their ilk. Touch Spell Specialization (CArc) and/or Ranged Spell Specialization (CArc) might be worth considering for Ice Knife at least since by RAW they give you a +2 to damage on touch or ranged attacks, which is better than a poke in the eye if not ab/useable with Ocular Spell -- let alone Spellwarp Sniper.

Also, there's the Warmage and his class ability Warmage Edge, which adds Int as bonus damage so long as the spell does hitpoint damage. Warmages already have Ice Knife on their list, which benefits from the Edge since it's a hitpoint-damaging spell -- that also hits Dex. And the Warmage's Advanced Learning allows him to bring Entomb, Numbing Sphere, and Parboil onto his spell list since they're all Evocation spells from the Wizard list. And the Warmage has access to the Extra Edge feat which can ramp this up nicely, adding another +1 + 1/4 Warmage levels. An Warmage 8 with 18 Int and Extra Edge takes Ice Knife's 2 Dex damage to 9 Dex. Let alone what Parboil looks like at 2d4+7 Int damage.

A Couple of Stupid Arguments About Why You Supposedly Can't Read the Rules This Way:

Spoiler: ThERE's a FAQ On ThIS SubJeCT

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The 3.5 FAQ, dated 2008, at page 47, purportedly said this:

Do feats that affect damage, such as Weapon Specialization, increase the amount of ability damage done with an attack such as a shadow’s touch attack?
Although they do use the same word, damage and ability damage are completely different. Feats and other sources that give bonuses to damage do not affect ability damage unless they specifically say so.

First, this answer blandly and pig-ignorantly contradicts the PHB's own definition of damage, which expressly breaks damage up into 3 categories: lethal, nonlethal, and ability, and does not make significant distinctions between them along the lines implied. Nowhere is there a rule that says ability damage is treated differently in the way the FAQ implies. The invention of a rule that says "you don't get a bonus to ability damage unless it specifically says so" also contradicts the general 3.5 rule that specific trumps general, and which in turn implies that if there isn't a specific rule covering the scenario, you can safely read the general as applying.

This sort of answer is an example of why the FAQ at best has a dodgy reputation. Some were questionable; others were flat-out wrong, and this would be one of them.

(Amusingly, the FAQ answer is right for the entirely wrong reason on Weapon Specialization. That feat grants bonus damage when using a specific weapon type. But a shadow's touch attack is not a weapon type: it's not an unarmed strike, it's not a grapple, and it's not a manufactured weapon. It couldn't qualify for the bonus for Weapon Specialization by RAW).

Second and more importantly, FAQs are not binding interpretations of the rules. At all. By the 3.5 PHB's own errata, which we don't need to restate here, the only things that you read for rules are the primary source - i.e. the book that introduces a rule - and any official errata that affect that book. There are plenty of instances of former third edition writers whinging that they screwed up elements of the rules after the fact - Warlock "fixes", keen and Improved Critical stacking - and it's generally accepted that no matter the whinging, it doesn't change the fact that the rules are as given by the books and the errata. Nothing more. WoTC had plenty of opportunities, both before and after this FAQ, to correct the record on ability damage, right down to the Rules Compendium which did make a number of stupid out-of-the-blue changes to the rules. It didn't.

Spoiler: 'Some modifiers apply to both weapon and spell damage, but only if so stated.'

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The implication being no option granting a bonus to damage ever gives a bonus to ability damage unless explicitly stated. Which is a straw man and is a fail at reading comprehension. As you would know, the line comes from the PHB's glossary on damage, clarifying whether a modifier applies to both melee damage and a spell's damage, in which case it does, "but only if so stated." So, yet again, let's parse the glossary entry:

Damage comes in 3 main categories: lethal, nonlethal, and ability damage.

Wherever it is relevant the type of damage done is specified.

Types of damage include weapon damage (which is bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing) and energy damage (positive, negative, acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic).

There are two subcategories of weapon damage: melee and unarmed.

It is in this context we then get that statement: "Some modifiers apply to both weapon and spell damage, but only if so stated."

But per the preceding lines in the same paragraph a type of damage being done is only specified when it's relevant. And weapon damage is a type of damage. Therefore, if the damage type is not specified, the distinction of whether a modifier applies or not is irrelevant. A bonus to damage rolls is a bonus to ability damage rolls too.

At best you can read that highlighted section to mean that if you take an action that does weapon and spell damage to an ability score, and has a modifier to the roll, then the modifier applies to one or the other, not both.

And once again: WOTC had most of a decade and dozens of splatbooks and errata to clarify this if they wanted to. They didn't.

[Saintheart]

Notable Monsters

I haven’t been particularly thorough with the below, but this is a list of monsters that have some form of ability that deals ability score damage or drain in one form or another.

(This list does not include creatures that can use poison, only those that have poison naturally. I'm sure there are some monsters with spell-like abilities that deal ability score damage or drain that I missed. Happy to hear of additions in this vein. Yes, that pun was intended, you’re welcome, it’s yours.)

MM1:

• Allip - touch deals Wis drain; Madness deals Wis damage
• Aranea - poison deals Str damage
• Athach - poison deals Str damage
• Chaos Beast - Corporeal Instability deals Wis drain
• Couatl - poison deals Str damage
• Demon - Bebilith - poison deals Con damage
• Demon - Quasit - poison deals Dex damage
• Devil - Bearded Devil - disease deals Str damage
• Devil - Bone Devil - poison deals Str damage
• Devil - Imp - poison deals Dex damage
• Devil - Pit Fiend - disease deals Str damage; poison deals Con damage
• Drider - poison deals Str damage
• Formian Soldier and Taskmaster - poison deals Str damage
• Formian Myrmarch - poison deals Dex damage
• Fungus, Violet - poison deals Str and Con damage
• Ghost - Corrupting Gaze deals Cha damage; Draining Touch drains from any stat; Horrific Appearance deals Str, Dex, Con damage
• Ghoul - disease deals Dex and Con damage
• Gibbering Mouther - Blood Drain deals Con damage
• Golem - Iron Golem - Breath Weapon deals Con damage
• Hag, Green - Weakness deals Str damage
• Hag, Sea - Horrific Appearance deals Str damage
• Howler - Howl deals Wis damage
• Lamia - touch deals Wis drain
• Medusa - poison deals Str damage
• Mummy - deals deals Con and Cha damage
• Naga, Guardian, Spirit and Water - poison deals Con damage
• Night Hag - disease deals Con damage/drain; Dream Haunting deals Con drain
• Nightshade, Nightcrawler - poison deals Str damage; contagion (sp) inflicts disease
• Nightshade, Nightwalker and Nightwing - contagion (sp) inflicts disease
• Otyugh - disease deals Dex and Con damage
• Phase Spider - poison deals Con damage
• Purple Worm - poison deals Str damage
• Rast - Blood Drain deals Con damage
• Roper - Weakness deals Str damage
• Scorpionfolk - poison deals Dex damage
• Shadow - touch deals Str damage
• Spider Eater – Nope / 1d8+5 weeks of paralysis
• Stirge - Blood Drain deals Con damage
• Swarm, Centipede - poison deals Dex damage
• Swarm, Hellwasp - poison deals Dex damage
• Swarm, Rat - disease deals Dex and Con damage
• Swarm. Spider - poison deals Str damage
• Vampire - Blood Drain deals Con damage
• Vargouille - Kiss deals Int and Cha drain
• Wraith - touch deals Con drain
• Wyvern - poison deals Con damage
• Vermin - Giant Bee - poison deals Con damage
• Vermin - Giant Wasp - poison deals Dex damage
• Vermin - Monstrous Centipede - poison deals Dex damage
• Vermin - Monstrous Scorpion - poison deals Con damage
• Vermin - Monstrous Spider - poison deals Str damage

MM2:

• Advespa 1d4 / 1d4 STR
• Amnizu – touch duplicates effect of a Feeblemind spell (CL 14, DC Will save 14) – which cuts INT to 1
• Kelvezu - 1d6 Con poison (Fort DC 19) is constantly applied to its weapons, and it picks up +8d6 sneak attack damage, just because.
• Neogi (Can coat weapons) 1d4 / 1d4 WIS
• Teratomorph – Entropic Touch has chance of 1d6 Str/Dex drain or 2d4 Con drain.

MM3:

• Ambush Drake – 1d6 / 1d6 DEX (Bite)
• Dinosaur, Fleshraker - 1d6/1d6 Dex. Available as animal companion and carries Pounce, good tripping, and poison on more than one of its natural attacks.
• Spider, Harpoon – 1d6 / 2d6 DEX (+ hook)
• Forest, Troll (via Ogre Mage Change Shape su) allow a bite 1d6 / 1d6 CON.
• Visilight – If it pins a creature, it can drain 1d6 Cha per round. Its gaze attack causes Paralysis for 1d4 rounds as well, which no doubt helps.

MM4:

• Joystealer – attack with CHA damage.

MM5:

• Illurien – Tempest Lash forces DC 25 Will save or take 1d4 Int damage.
• Thoon Elder Brain – Overmind Blast does 2d6 Wis damage.

FF:

• Rukanyr – 2d6 / 2d6 DEX (Bite AND Bite AND Bite)
• Varrangoin, Lesser 1d6 / 1d6 DEX (tail) + Breath weapon (ex)

BoVD:

• Kython, 1d6 / 1d6 CON (Sting AND bite), improved init + multiattack (Aberration)

DoTU:

• Spitting Spider 1d6/2d6 DEX (Bite OR Spit) + Pounce (Vermin)

Heroes of Horror:

• Bane Wraith – drain either Str or Wis at a touch, though the Str drain shifts to Con drain after Str 0 is reached
• Gray Jester – if you’re happy and you know it, fear this guy. Gray Jester can feed on about 3 people at a time and cause 1d4 Cha drain.

Monsters of Faerun:

• Banelar 2d4 CON / Unconsciousness (Sting + Bite)
  
• Choldrith -- Paralysis / 2d4 CON
• Phaerimm, Young adult – (Su) 2d4 rounds paralysis (5 attacks but weak)
  
• Spider, Sword – 9 attacks (4 max on the same target except if you drop on them and they are large enough. See monster entry for more info, it could make a fun gimmick build). 1d6 / 1d6 str. (Bite)

Eberron Campaign Setting:

• Daelkyr -- all its touch attacks deal 1d6 ability damage of your choice, no save. High HD, but accessible with Shapechange at CL 20.

Dragon Magazine:

• Crystalline Cat (Dragon Magazine #304, page 60) has an (Ex) ability which applies a -10 to all ability scores (min 1). However, it takes 24 hours for the penalty to occur. And it's on the way to killing the host.
• Green Guardian (Dragon Magazine #304, page 61 has a (Su) ability that emits a cloud (30 foot radius!) that act as a DC 18 inhaled poison doing 2d6/2d6 Con damage. 10 HD and it's a plant, so druids with Assume Supernatural Ability might be interested in it.

[Saintheart]

Quickstart Combinations and Approaches

Ray of Enfeeblement + Empower Spell + Ray of Exhaustion + Split Ray: Str penalty of 12 minimum. Ray of Exhaustion as a Split Ray means the target is exhausted (-6 Str penalty) even if it saves against both spells. Ray of Enfeeblement has no save, and empowered imposes a minimum penalty of 6 Str (1d6+3 *1.5). Ray of Enfeeblement takes up a level 3 slot, Ray of Exhaustion takes up a 5^th.


Shivering Touch + Ocular Spell + Split Ray + Arcane Thesis. For one feat and one fifth-level spell slot, you can do 2 x 3d6 DEX damage at up to 60ft range, and that's before you start taking feats or adding more metamagic to increase damage further. (Credit to pabelfly on this one!)


Poison + Poison Spell (DoTU) + Smiting Spell (DoTU) + Deathblade poison: Poison is a third level druid spell, Smiting Spell raises this by 1, so a fourth level spell slot. On a successful hit with a weapon, Poison applies and if successful does 1d10 Con damage. Con damage lowers the target’s Fort save which then hobbles its save against the Deathblade poison applied via Poison Spell, and which (if successful) does another 1d6 Con primary, with 2d6 Con from the poison and another 1d10 Con incoming from the Poison spell.


Lesser Shivering Touch + Knowledge Devotion (CChamp): 1d6+5 Dex damage on a touch attack if you roll well on your Knowledge check (and you absolutely can, if you’re a cleric – you have Lore of the Gods, Divine Insight, and Guidance of the Avatar before we even go anywhere near skill ranks). On a high end roll this is enough to paralyse a True Dragon since they all have 10 DEX, out of a first level spell slot, i.e. before you start adding stuff like Empower, Reach, or the like.


Moon Bolt + Fell Weaken (LibMort) + Sudden Maximise (MinHB): Uses a 5^th level spell slot, so we’re looking at CL 9 at least. At this level, Moon Bolt does 3d4 damage, thus, 12 Str damage under Sudden Maximise, or 6 Str even if it saves. And then its Str is penalized by another -4 by Fell Weaken. Knocking down an opponent’s Str by between 10 and 16 for a few rounds ought to make life somewhat easier.


Lahm's finger darts + Knowledge Devotion. Each die hits as a separate instance of damage. By the time 3rd-level shivering touch comes online, it only takes a +3 bonus for 2d4+6 to be consistently better than 3d6, and it strikes at Medium range and auto-hits. It scales extremely well as these spells come too, going up to 5d4 Dex damage out of a 2nd-level slot at CL 13, which competes well with ... every other ability damage effect, really, just on its own. Getting 5x any bonus on top of that goes kind of hard—5d4+25 Dex damage resisted only by SR and ability damage immunity is quite a lot. And while Str damage is a downside, it's very easy to fix with either a rod of bodily restoration to restore up to 4 points at a time or ray of resurgence to heal up to exactly 5 Str a pop out of a 1st-level slot. The effect is easily strong enough to be worth putting up with it. (Credit to sreservoir for the analysis on this one!)


Touch of Fatigue + Escalating Enfeeblement + Ocular Spell: Uses a 2^nd level and a 4^th level spell slot. In 1 round, at a minimum, you get a Ray of Enfeeblement effect. If Touch of Fatigue gets up, though, it’s a minimum of -2 Dex and -6 Str penalty, since penalties stack when coming from different sources (fatigued and Escalating Enfeeblement’s penalty). At a maximum it’d be a -2 Dex and -15 Str penalty, with the average being -2 Dex and -10 Str penalty total.


Lesser Shivering Touch + Eilservs School + Spirited Charge + Smiting Spell: “Why is that moron galloping his horse at me armed only with a magic stick of Light? … wait a minute, he just did 2d6+10 Dex damage!” And it only cost me a third level spell slot. The magic staff gives me a +5 to damage rolls when I hit someone with it under Eilservs School, Spirited Charge doubles the damage, Lesser Shivering Touch does Dex damage. (Does require that the DM agrees Spirited Charge enhances the spell’s damage as well as that of the weapon.)


Spell-Storing Reach weapon (Rope Dart/Meteor Hammer here) + Shivering Touch + Stormguard Warrior: “Why is that guy just standing there while I come charging in at him from 15 feet out, not taking any attacks of opportunity? … wait a minute, he gets a +8 to his attack roll and I took 3d6+8 Dex damage as well as melee damage?” Just a friendly caster and a third level spell needed here, a Stormguard Warrior who refrains from taking AoOs gets a +4 to attack and damage rolls per refrained attack in the next round.


Thayan Slaver 2 + Intimidating Rage (CWar) + Never Outnumbered (skill trick): Infinite Wis damage to all targets within 10 feet of you. Not a single spell or caster level required. There is, of course, the requirement to beat the opponent on an Intimidate check by at least 10. The simplest chassis for that is Changeling Rogue 3 (taking the racial ACF that applies) + Marshal 1, taking Motivate Charisma as your minor aura. This allows you to take 10 on Intimidate checks and apply double your Cha bonus to it - before a single skill rank is added. Thanks to Zarvistic on this one.


Lurk + Mental Assault + Monk + Tashalatora + Decisive Strike: Tashalatora Monk is a frequent (if not obligatory) build, and Decisive Strike is a Monk ACF. Since Decisive Strike does flat-out double damage on a single melee strike without requiring any rolls, that should apply to the Lurk's ability damage under Mental Assault as well. Essentially this means that the amount of Int/Wis busted off an opponent is the number of power points invested +4, at least for that strike. Another alternative is to just seek out damage-doublers like Spirited Charge or Valorous weapons, since these certainly provide a doubling of melee damage, and Mental Assault ties the ability damage to a melee strike much closer than most options do. Thanks again to Zarvistic for this one.


Shivering Touch + lesser rod of maximize spell + Surge of Fortune + Sense Weakness = 36 Dex damage to one opponent, critical hits apply to spells. Nothing vulnerable to Dex damage will walk that off. Even a CR 20 Pit Fiend is only rocking 27 Dex, it's just the Spell Resistance you have to get over. Thanks to Anthrowhale on this one.


Greater Flyby Attack + Rapier of Puncturing + Surge of Fortune + Sense Weakness = 2d6 Con damage to everything along the path of a flight. Of course, for that amount of trouble you might as well get a Vorpal weapon for superior results. A somewhat less pricey option, while still effective anytime you've got a guaranteed critical hit like this, is an Enfeebling, Weakening weapon for a total of +3 including the mandatory +1 to start with: 1d6+6 nerfing of Str in effect on any critical hit, since Weakening hits the target with a -4 to Str penalty and Enfeebling does 1d6+2 Str damage.

[Saintheart]

Builds

Forthcoming. If you have your own, please go ahead and submit them.

From Gruftzwerg:

Shivering Tornado of Death
Arcane Channeling + Shivering Touch + Bloodstorm Blade + Whirlwind

Karakan, the vengeful Poison-merchant
This fellow makes use of Poison Spell and tries to abuse TO cheese to get much more attacks. Also stacks 2 touch spells with Arcane Fusion and thus can have 2 Poison Spells up at the same time. Beware of the cheese lvl.

Ivy the poisonous Belly-dancer
Poison Spell + Lolth's Caress
Also features persisted Spells via Spelldancer.

[Saintheart]

Acknowledgements and Thanks

Obviously I'd like to thank Empirate and Libertad and Akal Saris, who wrote the original resource and the Poison Handbook, but more acknowledgements and thanks are due to all the people at GITP who found these options long ago and saved me a lot of time leafing through books searching for them. And of course, thanks to all of you ahead of time too - without you, this guide withers and dies, and my work was pointless.

As said, I've probably missed something, but please, if I have, as the protagonist's husband in Everything Everywhere All At Once says: be kind. PlzBrkMyCampaign once noted what takes 5 hours to put together takes 5 seconds to defecate on, and this took a lot of time to put together, by someone who might not know every in and out of 3.5, but who always wants to learn and who did this out of service and interest more than anything else.

[Saintheart]

Spare Box if needed.


Take it away, folks!

[Gruftzwerg]

I feel like that "Poison Attack + Sneak Attack" deserves to be noted in the Improving Ability Damage Rolls section.

Remind you that the (base) damage type of an attack carries over to the Sneak Attack damage.
You just need an attack method that deals ability damage by default:
- Natural poison attacks
- Attack (roll) spells that deal ability damage
- Other sources that give attacks with ability damage by default (e.g. the Rod of Withering mentioned in the post)

And since there are a bunch of sources to get and improve sneak attacks, there are many build options for this simple gimmick.

[Saintheart]

I feel like that "Poison Attack + Sneak Attack" deserves to be noted in the Improving Ability Damage Rolls section.

Remind you that the (base) damage type of an attack carries over to the Sneak Attack damage.
You just need an attack method that deals ability damage by default:
- Natural poison attacks
- Attack (roll) spells that deal ability damage
- Other sources that give attacks with ability damage by default (e.g. the Rod of Withering mentioned in the post)

And since there are a bunch of sources to get and improve sneak attacks, there are many build options for this simple gimmick.

Good point and implied at least by the fact sneak attack does "extra damage". By any chance did WOTC ever make that explicit?

[Gruftzwerg]

Good point and implied at least by the fact sneak attack does "extra damage". By any chance did WOTC ever make that explicit?

Imho the question should be the other way around:

Does the "Extra Damage" source make any specific call outs to change the damage type done by the default attack?
Unless your extra damage source explicitly calls out a damage type, the default dmg type of the attack remains untouched. Thus your Extra Dmg has to follow the rules for your attack accordingly.


Let us have a look into rules compendium:

First the rules for Critical Strikes (which is also tagged as Extra Damage)

Extra damage from a critical hit is of the same type the spell deals normally. A critical hit with a spell doubles all forms of damage that spell deals. An energy-draining spell bestows twice that spell’s normal negative levels on a critical hit, while a critical hit with a spell that deals ability damage doubles that ability damage.

As it seems, I misremembered the interaction with spells thou, since those seem to have a specific exception for this.

Precision Damage
Any weaponlike spell that can be used with precision damage, such as sneak attack, follows the normal rules for
precision damage with a few alterations.
...
A successful precision damage attack with a weaponlike spell deals extra damage of the same type as the spell normally deals unless that spell deals ability damage or ability drain, or it bestows negative levels. Spells that fall into these categories instead deal extra hit point damage in the form of negative energy.

Sorry, my bad for misremembering. But I'm still very confident that we lack such an exception for poison attacks (that do ability damage as base weapon damage; e.g. natural weapons with sole ability damage)

[Anthrowhale]

Is it worthwhile to mention Ravages, Positoxins, and Afflictions?

[Saintheart]

Sorry, my bad for misremembering. But I'm still very confident that we lack such an exception for poison attacks (that do ability damage as base weapon damage; e.g. natural weapons with sole ability damage)

And I think your observation about weapons that just do ability damage (whether natural or weapons like the Rod of Withering) still holds as well. They seem to have fallen through a loophole in the rules around damage. Which makes a Rod of Withering essentially an absolute knockout weapon for a rogue, no need to really compete on hitpoint damage, smash a target and wipe out its ability scores - especially if the rogue's packing Craven. I'll make some modifications accordingly. Thanks!

Is it worthwhile to mention Ravages, Positoxins, and Afflictions?

Originally I wasn't going to get into them because I didn't want to rehash the whole Poison Handbook, but given how the resource looks on the page I'm persuaded to add some stuff to it. Will put them in, thanks for the suggestion!

[Condé]

Saintheart, you are... A Saint.

I really like this handbook but it feels really, uncomplete. I always have been interested by ability damage so you doing this is perfect.

There is a lot to go through tho.

3 things on the top of my head, I have read you don't wanna include a doublon of the poison handbook but I feel like Lolth's Caress is cruelly underraprecied. It's a feet from DotU that let you spend a turn or rebuke undead to affect any poisoned creature in the area that has not yet attempted its saving throw against the poison's secondary effect must do so immediately.
Which is pretty mean.

You can add the Rukanyr in the "Notable Monsters" list since 3 bite dealing 2d6 Dex damage (DC21) as a primary AND secondary damage is nothing to scoff at. (Even more if you combine it with the feat mentionned earlier)

Aaaand... Phylactery of change. An item from A&E that lets you polymorph 1/day for... Unlimited duration. ECL 7 maximum.
And you'll never guess how many hit dices a Rukanyr have...

How convenient.


EDIT: Here is a list of interesting low-HD or assume supernatural abiliyt trick I got when I was looking to make a build around ability damage:
(You already got some of them but I figured you would be interested.)

Ambush Drake – 1d6 / 1d6 DEX (Bite)
Wyvern – 2d6 / 2d6 CON (Sting)
Choldrith – Paralysis / 2d4 CON
Advespa 1d4 / 1d4 STR
(Outsider) Formian, Taskmaster – 1d6 / 1d6 STR
(Outsider) Formian, Winged Warrior – 1d6 / 1d6 STR + Augmented Critical (19-20/x3)
Spider, Harpoon – 1d6 / 2d6 DEX (+ hook)
Horned Beast, 1d8 / 1d8 CON
(Aberration) Kython, 1d6 / 1d6 CON (Sting AND bite), improved init + multiattack.
(Vermin) Spitting Spider 1d6/2d6 DEX (Bite OR Spit) + Pounce
Banelar 2d4 CON / Unconsciousness (Sting + Bite)
Neogi (Can coat weapons) 1d4 / 1d4 WIS
Phaerimm, Young adult – (Su) 2d4 rounds paralysis (5 attacks but weak)
Rukanyr – 2d6 / 2d6 DEX (Bite AND Bite AND Bite)
Spider Eater – Nope / 1d8+5 weeks of paralysis
Spider, Sword – 9 attacks (4 max on the same target except if you drop on them and they are large enough. See monster entry for more info, it could make a fun gimmick build). 1d6 / 1d6 str. (Bite)
Forest, Troll (via Ogre Mage Change Shape su) allow a bite 1d6 / 1d6 CON.
Varrangoin, Lesser 1d6 / 1d6 DEX (tail) + Breath weapon (ex)

[loky1109]

Weapon Finesse doesn't have Dex 13 prerequisite.

[pabelfly]

Impressive guide. Great work, Saintheart.

I feel that one of the example builds should be a modified Mailman sorcerer build, but with a heavy focus on ability damage and metamagic cost reduction. You have some really nice debuffs like Shivering Touch, Ray of Enfeeblement, and Bestow Curse, but can fall back on normal direct damage when you need to.

A notable combo, to me, would be Shivering Touch + Ocular Spell + Split Ray + Arcane Thesis. For one feat and one fifth-level spell slot, you can do 2 x 3d6 DEX damage at up to 60ft range, and that's before you start taking feats or adding more metamagic to increase damage further.

[SirNibbles]

Spit Venom (Serpent Kingdoms, page 147) is worth a mention if you're going the poison route: 30 foot ranged touch attack that applies the poison from your bite as a contact poison, with no limit on daily uses.

[thatothersting]

The "all nonlethal damage from cold/exposure forces the fatigued (frostbite and hypothermia) condition" thing is a bit interesting, albeit kind of silly. That means that the Winter Mask soulmeld from Magic of Incarnum potentially inflicts it twice with a single attack: it allows a save for fatigue directly while also guaranteeing 1d4 nonlethal cold damage per point of invested Essentia. It doesn't have any caveats that suggest an exception to the usual rules, and after looking in both Frostburn and the SRD I can't actually see any specific clauses that prevent its abuse.

Obviously not the intent, but still, it seems to work? And it's "a touch attack" with nothing said about it being a standard action to perform, so it's simply a new attack form; you should gain all of your iteratives with this option.

[SirNibbles]

The "all nonlethal damage from cold/exposure forces the fatigued (frostbite and hypothermia) condition" thing is a bit interesting, albeit kind of silly. That means that the Winter Mask soulmeld from Magic of Incarnum potentially inflicts it twice with a single attack: it allows a save for fatigue directly while also guaranteeing 1d4 nonlethal cold damage per point of invested Essentia. It doesn't have any caveats that suggest an exception to the usual rules, and after looking in both Frostburn and the SRD I can't actually see any specific clauses that prevent its abuse.

Obviously not the intent, but still, it seems to work? And it's "a touch attack" with nothing said about it being a standard action to perform, so it's simply a new attack form; you should gain all of your iteratives with this option.

This section of the Rules Compendium would seem to imply that the fatigue only applies if you take damage as a result of exposure, not just any non-lethal cold damage:

Those who take any damage from temperature exposure become fatigued, becoming exhausted if they take more damage from exposure (or if they gain the fatigued condition from any other source).
Rules Compendium, page 154

Like you said, this does not contradict RAW so any nonlethal cold damage should cause Hypothermia and Frostbite. A nonlethal version of Corona of Cold (Spell Compendium, page 52) would therefore deal nonlethal cold damage, resulting in -2 Str and -2 Dex penalty from Frostbite, -2 Str and -2 Dex from the spell's effect, and -2 Str and Dex from the Fatigued condition resulting from Hypothermia, for a total of -6 Str and -6 Dex (as well as moving at half speed). If you manage to make them exhausted, they drop to -10/10 and 1/4 speed.

Honestly though, for a 4th level spell, Fortitude save or suck isn't that game-breaking.