Stormguard Warrior and extra damage

[Terramotus]

The Stormguard Warrior feat's Combat Rhythm option enables one to make melee touch attacks in place of normal melee attacks in order to get bonuses per hit for the next round's damage. The feat states that "These touch attacks do no damage."

From the SRD, the Flaming weapon enchantment states that "A flaming weapon deals an extra 1d6 points of fire damage on a successful hit."

So here's the question: is the extra damage from Flaming considered part of the attack that does no damage, or does the extra damage still apply since it deals its extra damage on a successful hit?

I'm assuming the spirit of the rules is that, no, it does not apply, but I can see a case for the damage applying in the letter of the rules.

I'm sure there's some meta-rule about this that I'm missing that clears this up, though. I appeal to you, oh great rules gurus.

 

[moritheil]

The Stormguard Warrior feat's Combat Rhythm option enables one to make melee touch attacks in place of normal melee attacks in order to get bonuses per hit for the next round's damage. The feat states that "These touch attacks do no damage."

From the SRD, the Flaming weapon enchantment states that "A flaming weapon deals an extra 1d6 points of fire damage on a successful hit."

So here's the question: is the extra damage from Flaming considered part of the attack that does no damage, or does the extra damage still apply since it deals its extra damage on a successful hit?

I'm assuming the spirit of the rules is that, no, it does not apply, but I can see a case for the damage applying in the letter of the rules.

I'm sure there's some meta-rule about this that I'm missing that clears this up, though. I appeal to you, oh great rules gurus.

The specific case rules ("these touch attacks do no damage") override the flaming weapon rules.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Despite my position that touch attacks would normally trigger damage from things like Flaming enchantments- a minority opinion*- I'd basically agree with Moritheil here: Combat Rhythm specificically states that the PCs attacks do no damage when using this effect, so I'd say either 1) that "no damage" applies to any effect that would normally be delivered by that attack or 2) if you're using an effect that would normally be delivered by a touch attack, you can't use Combat Rhythm.

In the former, something about the attack negates the damage inflicted by the other effects stacked on the attack. In the latter, the evident danger of the stacked effects warns the opponent of danger, making effective use of Combat Rhythm impossible.

*there are several HUGE threads on this, with excellent points on both sides. Shortly after most of them died down, however, there was a Sage ruling in Dragon that weapon enchantments don't trigger if the underlying attack doesn't do damage.

See:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=138686&page=1&pp=30
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=172303&page=1&pp=30