Can somebody tell me what Wraithstrike does?

[Thanee]

Damage Reduction
A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. ... The creature takes normal damage from energy attacks (even nonmagical ones), spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities.

Damage Reduction
Whenever damage reduction completely negates the damage from an attack, it also negates most special effects that accompany the attack, such as injury type poison, a monk’s stunning, and injury type disease. Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains.

It seems pretty clear, that Damage Reduction applies to touch attacks.

It only does not negate any special attacks attached to them, when the attack deals no damage, thanks to the Damage Reduction, that's all.

The sentence about not negating touch attacks only sounds like Damage Reduction does not reduce the damage from touch attacks, if read out of context (the sentence right before that one, and the first paragraph of the ability description, which details, what attack types deal damage without any reduction).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Hypersmurf]

It only does not negate any special attacks attached to them, when the attack deals no damage, thanks to the Damage Reduction, that's all.

So if we deliver injury-type poison, a monk's stunning, or injury-type disease with a touch attack (via Wraithstrike for example), are they negated?

They're special effects attached to a touch attack.

-Hyp.

 

[Slaved]

So if we deliver injury-type poison, a monk's stunning, or injury-type disease with a touch attack (via Wraithstrike for example), are they negated?

They're special effects attached to a touch attack.

-Hyp.

That is not true. They are attacks that have special effects attatched to dealing damage.

SRD:
Injury
This poison must be delivered through a wound. If a creature has sufficient damage reduction to avoid taking any damage from the attack, the poison does not affect it.

Stunning Fist forces a foe damaged by your unarmed attack...



The damage being reduced to 0 is not a negation of the successful hit. 0 is not the same as -.

However, those examples you choose to present are based on actually doing damage, not successfully hitting. Those are very different things.

 

[Hypersmurf]

That is not true. They are attacks that have special effects attatched to dealing damage.

SRD:
Injury
This poison must be delivered through a wound. If a creature has sufficient damage reduction to avoid taking any damage from the attack, the poison does not affect it.

If the phrase "touch attacks are not negated by DR" means, in fact, "special effects attached to a touch attack are not negated by DR", then the special effect of Injury Poison attached to a touch attack is not negated by DR. So the sentence "If a creature has sufficient damage reduction to avoid taking any damage from the attack, the poison does not affect it" is overridden. If the special effect of poison does not affect the creature because of its DR, then "special effects attached to a touch attack are negated by DR", so that can't be what "touch attacks are not negated by DR" means.

If "touch attacks are not negated by DR" means its damage is not reduced, then the line under Injury poison can still be true, but no amount of DR will be 'sufficient damage reduction to avoid taking any damage from the attack' when the poison is delivered by a touch attack.

Or to put it another way:
Effects that merely require a successful hit, not to deal damage, won't be affected by DR anyway, so the note "touch attacks are not negated by DR" is irrelevant to them anyway.

A wraith deals hit point damage and ability drain. Ability drain is already covered separately as "not negated by DR", so "touch attacks are not negated by DR" is irrelevant to that. So either "touch attacks are not negated by DR" means the hit point damage is not affected by DR - which would apply to Wraithstrike as well - or "touch attacks are not negated by DR" means nothing to the hit point damage, so the note is irrelevant.

Effects that require damage to be dealt are either modified so as not to require this if delivered via a touch attack, or else "touch attacks are not negated by DR" is irrelevant.

If one rules that the phrase has not effect on hit point damage and does not permit poison to have an effect if damage is reduced to zero, then the phrase is meaningless. To me, this makes that interpretation less likely to be correct; while on the odd occasion, a rule has no meaning (Uncanny Blow in CW contains an example), in most cases, the interpretation that means something is the one to go with!

A question - if the text were altered to include the line "Damage reduction does not negate longsword attacks", do you consider this would have any effect on the outcome of any conceivable situation in the rules? Is there any circumstance under which the phrase "Damage reduction does not negate longsword attacks" would cause someone to take more or less damage than otherwise, or to suffer a special effect they would otherwise not need to worry about?

Similarly, if the line "Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack, or energy drains" were altered to say "Damage reduction does not negate energy damage dealt along with an attack or energy drains", would it have any mechanical effect on the game whatsoever, in your opinion?

-Hyp.

 

[Thanee]

That's how I see it, yes. When you can deliver those with a touch attack, it doesn't matter, whether the attack actually deals enough damage to get through the DR. The effect is applied regardless (as long as you hit, of course).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Slaved]

If the phrase "touch attacks are not negated by DR" means, in fact, "special effects attached to a touch attack are not negated by DR", then the special effect of Injury Poison attached to a touch attack is not negated by DR.

Injury poison is not attatched to the touch attack, it is attatched to the weapon that the poison is on dealing damage (for the purposes of this example).

If the weapon has a special effect that is triggered by a successful hit, such as the flaming property, then it goes off whether or not the normal damage from the weapon was reduced to zero.

Injury poison relies on that weapon doing its normal damage and causing a wound, but nothing about whether or not the attack itself was successful. You could just put poison onto a wound in a way that did not take an attack roll and it would work just fine.

If we look at contact poison we see this:
Merely touching this type of poison necessitates a saving throw. It can be actively delivered via a weapon or a touch attack. Even if a creature has sufficient damage reduction to avoid taking any damage from the attack, the poison can still affect it.


This is the type of poison you want if you dont want to have to deal with actually doing damage to the creature.

It looks like your entire post is based off of just this little bit though. The logic is faulty though. Weapon damage is only one part of the effects that a touch attack can have. Reducing it to 0 does not change the fact that you did have a successful hit, which means all of those things which trigger off of it still work. Contact poison still works, you can trip someone who has damage reduction, energy damage goes through, and the list goes on.

Injury poison, stunning strike, and injury disease all require actual damage to take place however. If you successfully hit that does not mean that they work, that is not when they trigger. They trigger once damage is actually dealt. Very different.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Injury poison is not attatched to the touch attack, it is attatched to the weapon that the poison is on dealing damage (for the purposes of this example).

... which is making a touch attack.

Weapon damage is only one part of the effects that a touch attack can have. Reducing it to 0 does not change the fact that you did have a successful hit, which means all of those things which trigger off of it still work. Contact poison still works, you can trip someone who has damage reduction, energy damage goes through, and the list goes on.

Yes, but all that would still be true even if they didn't say "Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks".

So what does "Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks" do, as a rule?

Hence my question - if they took that phrase out of the text, what would change?

-Hyp.

 

[Slaved]

... which is making a touch attack.

The attack roll is unimportant to injury poison, only dealing damage matters. You can deal damage without making an attack roll. Whether or not there was an attack roll involved the only time the injury poison works is if it goes into a wound. On a weapon that generally means making the wound with the weapon at the same time.

Damage based, not based on a successful hit.

Yes, but all that would still be true even if they didn't say "Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks".

Yep, but then there are lots of redundant parts in the books. One more point of redudancy is bad?

So what does "Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks" do, as a rule?

If you hit someone with a touch attack that has damage reduction then even though your weapon damage might be reduced to 0 you still did make a successful hit.

As opposed to concealment, which negates the hit.
Or fortification armor negates the critical.

The hit or the crit never happened, they were negated. Damage reduction may reduce the damage that it applies to down to 0 but the hit was still successful.

Hence my question - if they took that phrase out of the text, what would change?

People would still be confused but in a different way, what else is new?

 

[blargney the second]

"your melee attacks are resolved as melee touch attacks rather than normal melee attacks."

It doesn't say anything about resolving melee damage any differently.
-blarg

 

[Hypersmurf]

"your melee attacks are resolved as melee touch attacks rather than normal melee attacks."

It doesn't say anything about resolving melee damage any differently.

Damage is a part of resolving an attack.

When you make an attack, you can't say "So I successfully hit? Well, good, that's my turn done." The attack's not resolved until you know what it did!

Yep, but then there are lots of redundant parts in the books. One more point of redudancy is bad?

In this case, it makes no sense. Information appearing in more than one place is one thing. But to single one type of thing out in a way that, by your reading, means "Treat this thing just like every other thing, as described in the previous paragraph", is nonsensical.

It's the same as if they'd said "Reduce damage from weapon attacks by the amount shown. Attacks with a longsword are not negated"... and we read this to mean "The damage from a longsword can still be reduced to 0, but the attack itself isn't negated. Just like an attack with any other weapon, but we felt a need to mention longswords."

That reading doesn't make sense; longswords must be treated somehow differently to other weapons in this example, or the sentence simply should be there.

-Hyp.