Topic: Rules for Touch Spells

[Mergon]

Anyone able to tell me what rules cover Touch spells in combat? Is touch automatic? Do you have to make a separate attack roll? I've yet to find anything covering touch spells in Spell Law or Arms Law . . .

Mergon

[Marc R]

It's in RMC CT. . . .on the road at my laptop, but I believe there are two variants, I think the exact details are:

Make a melee attack, if it does a crit it's a solid enough contact for a touch.

Do a medium moving maneuver, -target DB + your agility bonus. 100 or better is a touch.

[Cory Magel]

I've never liked any of the rules I've seen due to the varying nature of spells, or poisons, or whatever reason you are trying for a touch.

For example, do you just need to touch the character in general (i.e. armor, cloths, etc) or do you need to actually touch their skin and if you need to touch their skin what if they are wearing AT20 (Full Plate Mail) and technically do not have any exposed skin?

Just touching someone with no armor on that is trying to evade you might be difficult. Just touching someone in AT20 would be very easy, but if you need to touch their SKIN it might be vastly more difficult.  Also, are you just going to rush them and go for an all out bear hug disregarding defensive thoughts or are you going to just try for a precision fingertip tap?

It really just comes down to the situation if you ask me.  If I were to put an official rule to it I'd simply judge the difficulty based on the various factors and have them making a moving maneuver roll based on that difficulty rating with the targets Qu bonus and the attackers Ag bonus subtracted/added in.

[Marc R]

I think that's the point of "attack for a crit of any kind" being good enough to count as a touch. . .I think there's other mods to the non attack maneuver that I'm forgetting without having the books handy.

To toss another potential "what if". . . .how about "what if the attacker needs to touch skin but is a ghost or other non corporeal and can touch you through your AT20?"

[Ecthelion]

We've always handled it the way that a Touch spell required the target being touched for the full round where the spell is cast, touching merely for a fraction of a second is not enough. It does not matter for us whether the skin or cloth gets touched. In cases where the spell description speaks of a critical strike being necessary for the spell effects to get applied we assume that with the critical the Touch requirement is fulfilled.

[Dreven1]

You should also read the thread I created on this same topic!

Topic: Maneuver to "touch" someone during combat / out of combat
From the RMSS thread list
(sorry I dont know how to link it here)

[yammahoper]

Touch, for spells such as Touch of Disruption, in my game:
Routine mnv, penalty is opponents DB.

[Marc R]

Well, if you're looking for RAW: RMC CT P26:

Medium moving maneuver

+(Agility Bonus+Quickness bonus)/2 - Target DB

or

+Spell Mastery Bonus with Spell - Target DB

Any result of 100 or better is a touch.

with the alternative of:

Make an attack that results in hits (no crit required) to get the touch attack off.