[RotG] Miss chance for touch-delivered Cure spells

[FireLance]

From the latest Rules of the Game: There, Not There (Part 4):

Positive Energy: Unfortunately, the game has no positive energy descriptor, so you have to study a spell or effect's description to find out if it involves positive energy. The cleric's ability to turn undead creatures is a positive energy effect. The various cure spells also involve positive energy; however, to deliver a cure spell you must touch a creature and your touch is not a positive energy effect. If you're corporeal, your touch attack has a 50% miss chance and if you fail that chance, your touch attack misses and you don't deliver the spell (but you're still holding the charge as noted on page 176 of the Player's Handbook). If you pass the miss chance, you make a melee touch attack against the incorporeal creature and, if you hit, you deliver the spell. The rules don't say so, but you use the same procedure for any other touch range spell. If your touch attack avoids the miss chance, a successful hit delivers the spell to an incorporeal recipient, even if the spell is not a positive energy effect.

The logic of this eludes me. If the argument for assigning a miss chance to a touch-delivered cure spell is that a touch is not a positive energy effect, does a touch then strike as a magic weapon? If it does not, you can't even affect the incorporeal creature in the first place. If it does, does your unarmed strike now penetrate DR/magic? Or is this a really special case where a touch with your hand strikes as a magic weapon, but an unarmed strike with the same hand does not? :\

This is going on my Ignore list for rules clarifications.

 

[Li Shenron]

Maybe a nonmagic weapon (including your hand) cannot damage an incorporeal creature, but that doesn't prevent it can merely touch it?

 

[Spatula]

I think the reasoning is, your touch delivers a spell, and spells from a corporeal source have a 50% miss chance vs incorporeal creatures.

I would simply not allow touch spells to affect incorporeal creatures myself.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Except that positive energy effects do not suffer a 50% chance of dealing no damage (note that it is not, strictly speaking a miss chance though the distinction is usually irrelevant, it is relevant for things like Improved Precise Shot, Seeking bows, and sneak attacks on wizards with Ghost Form active).

So, while normal spells from a corporeal source have a 50% chance of dealing no damage to an incorporeal creature, this is not true of either force effects (like magic missile) or positive energy effects (like a mass cure spell).

The upshot is: Skip is just plain wrong. Not the first time. And probably not the last.

I think the reasoning is, your touch delivers a spell, and spells from a corporeal source have a 50% miss chance vs incorporeal creatures.

I would simply not allow touch spells to affect incorporeal creatures myself.

 

[Spatula]

So, while normal spells from a corporeal source have a 50% chance of dealing no damage to an incorporeal creature, this is not true of ... positive energy effects (like a mass cure spell).

It's not? Where does this come from? The SRD entry on incorporeality makes no mention of positive or negative energy (despite the ROTG article).

 

[Hypersmurf]

It's not? Where does this come from? The SRD entry on incorporeality makes no mention of positive or negative energy (despite the ROTG article).

Check the Incorporeal Subtype in the Monster Manual (or the equivalent passage in the SRD):

Incorporeal Subtype: An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, and spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source (except for positive energy, negative energy, force effects such as magic missile, or attacks made with ghost touch weapons). Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead, but a hit with holy water has a 50% chance of not affecting an incorporeal creature.

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I would simply not allow touch spells to affect incorporeal creatures myself.

That would be consistent with ghosts:

When a spellcasting ghost is not manifested and is on the Ethereal Plane, its spells cannot affect targets on the Material Plane, but they work normally against ethereal targets. When a spellcasting ghost manifests, its spells continue to affect ethereal targets and can affect targets on the Material Plane normally unless the spells rely on touch. A manifested ghost’s touch spells don’t work on nonethereal targets.

A manifested ghost (incorporeal) cannot make a touch spell work against a corporeal opponent. At all.

-Hyp.

 

[Spatula]

Re: SRD, yet another instance where they changed something in 3.5 and forgot to update all instances of it in the rules. *sigh*

 

[Henrix]

I fail to see the problem here.

In order to deliver a touch spell, you have to hit the target with a touch. Hitting an incorporeal creature involves a 50% miss chance. If you fail that you haven't touched the target, and the spell is not discharged.

It doesn't matter what spell is not discharged, frankly, as it is still in your hand, positive energy or not.

 

[reiella]

I fail to see the problem here.

In order to deliver a touch spell, you have to hit the target with a touch. Hitting an incorporeal creature involves a 50% miss chance. If you fail that you haven't touched the target, and the spell is not discharged.

It doesn't matter what spell is not discharged, frankly, as it is still in your hand, positive energy or not.

The problem here in, is that hitting an incorporeal creature from the corporeal world (eek) is impossible unless you're using a magic weapon or otherwise using magic.

Now, that you are using C-W is well counted for and may make sense, however. They use the justification that since the 'touch' aspect of the spell isn't magic (not positive energy, and you don't discharge) so that it actually has the reduced chance despite being positive energy.

Is the Touch "part of the spell", in which case, it shouldn't have the miss chance (see Hyper's nice quote on incorporal creatures as to why) and it'll work.

By the RotG entry, it's being defined as two things "magic enough to attempt to hit it, but not positive enough to qualify as a positive energy attack". I guess alternatively, there could be a set of phases of how 'magic' your touch is while you have the spell effect being 'held', but that's just needlessly complex imo .

Or is the touch not "part of the spell" in which case you can't use C-W against incorporeal creatures unless you have Ki Strike or similiar.