Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 2777224" data-attributes="member: 3586">Yep. It's a great innovation in 3e.It caused a few balance issues as well. Harm became the poster boy for the problems. If you recall 1e/2e harm, it reduced the recipient to 1d4 hp, regardless of how many hp they had. That's also how it worked in 3e, but the touch attack was so much easier to get off (and with the increased hp in 3e as well), that it became a "you die" spell.That's why harm got changed in 3.5e to 10 damage/level of cleric (max 150), and a save allowed for half that. Touch attacks are great, but you have to keep balance issues in mind.On the other side of that, the Incarnate (a class in Magic of Incarnum) can have at 1st level a acidic ranged touch attack that deals 3d6 acid damage. They can use it every round. Sounds great, doesn't it?However, ranged touch attacks still have to deal with cover (+4 AC) and if the target is in melee (+4 AC). At that point, it becomes significantly more difficult to hit. I DMed such a character a fortnight ago, and he had real difficulties in hitting anything.There's one change worth noting in 3e: In 1e/2e, when you fired into melee, you randomly selected which target in the melee you hit. In 3e, you select your target as a matter of course, but take a +4 AC penalty for it being in melee. (I've found this speeds things up significantly). Cover penalties may also apply.If you take the Precise Shot feat, then that penalty no longer applies. That's one of the features of 3e: many combat manuevers have penalties that apply to them, and a set of feats that remove these penalties. Another example would be attacking someone with your bare hands. That provokes an attack of opportunity from them. However, if you take Improved Unarmed Strike, that penalty is removed: you no longer provoke the AoO. (Monks have IUS for free, of course!)Cheers!</blockquote>

Verification