Glyfair said:
There is an important difference here Gort. The death touch is a death effect. That means that they can't be brought back by Raise Dead. For non-high level parties, that is a significant disadvantage (and often a crimp in high-level parties plans, too).
Glyfair of Glamis
The party was for the most part 2nd level, although the actual victim of the death touch was the party's only 3rd level character (a cleric - destruction and war domains). She has 16 hp when fully healed (absolutely lousy rolls on her hit dice - we use best of two rolls (rolled 1 and 2 when she got level 3) or half+1, player's choice).
The one inflicting the death touch was a 3rd level cleric (death and madness domains - huecuva template added on top of it). 15 hp baddy who registered as CR5 according to the math. He was guarding a desecrated shrine (considered to be of his faith now) and used desecrate to boost himself and his skeleton minions (giving him 21 hp). The party had no magic or silver weapons but had several spellcasters (and the cleric had magic weapon loaded).
Abysmal die rolls resulted in just about every spell doing minimal damage and the cleric muffed up her smite with her magic weaponed-heavy flail... a skeleton minion landed two lucky blows on her (one an AoO as she closed with the huecuva and another the round after while flanking her and miraculously surviving the attentions of 4 party members).
After screaming religious banter at each other, the cleric and the huecuva locked in combat (as the party monk tried with no luck to disarm the huecuva and the party tank sat stunned by a touch of madness spell). When I heard the smite declared, if I figured the huecuva's number was up, but she missed so I decided the huecuva saw her as a serious threat and would pull out its deadliest remaining attack, the death touch. One touch attack later, she was toast.
Two rounds later, the tank was back in action and he grabbed the heavy flail of the fallen cleric (still had magic weapon on it) and used it to shatter the huecuva (bypassing that 15/silver damage resistance).
IMO, it would have been far more effective if the cleric had simply cast magic weapon on the tank's greatclub, but she went for style and wanted to destroy the heretical thing.
Edit: Note, in case you are thinking that a CR5 monster is far too much for a 2nd level party, please note that this is a 7 person party who normally eats CR4 encounters with ease. This was supposed to be a tough but very winnable fight.
