Investigating the Wizard Touch Attack Spells
Elder
Member Posts: 14
I like to mix it up and use less-popular spells once in a while. Like everyone, I love Magic Missile, but I like some variety, too!
I've tried out the Level 1 and 2 touch attacks and found out they are actually better than expected and can be reasonably effective in some situations. The spell descriptions don’t accurately describe them nor do them justice, so I thought I’d report what I have found (and tested).
Shocking Grasp:
• +4 To Hit
• Counts as a Crushing attack, so modifiers to crushing attacks are applied
• Lasts only 1 round, so you get only one attack.
• Damage: 1d8 plus 1/level electrical damage (so for example a Level 5 mage would do 6-13)
(This one is definitely the weakest of the three)
Chill Touch
• + 5 To Hit (for some reason this one is a bit higher than the other two)
• Counts as a Piercing attack, so modifiers to piercing attacks are applied
• Lasts 10 rounds, so you get 10 attacks
• Damage: 1d3 physical plus 1d8 cold damage, for a total of 2-11 each hit. (Cold resistance blocks the cold damage, of course, but not the physical)
• Special effect: If hit, the target must make a saving throw or suffer -2 to his THACO (the penalty lasts 5 rounds)
• The cold damage goes through whether or not the target saves! (This is contrary to the spell description.)
• The physical damage is unaffected by strength modification, so there is no extra damage even if the caster has high strength.
Ghoul Touch
• +4 To Hit
• Counts as a Piercing attack, so modifiers to piercing attacks are applied
• Lasts 5 rounds, so you get 5 attacks
• No damage
• If hit, target must Save or be Paralyzed (for 5 rounds)
For all of these spells, I also discovered that increased Strength did not increase the To Hit chances (nor did it increase the damage, not even to Chill Touch, to my surprise, even though that spell inflicts some physical damage).
I also discovered that the game treats Ghoul Touch and Chill Touch as Piercing/Missile Damage, and Shocking Grasp as Crushing damage. Modifiers that affect these attack types get applied to your To Hit Chances. For example, if the target of Shocking Grasp is wearing the belt that gives +4 AC against Crushing attacks, the attack roll suffers a -4 penalty, giving the To Hit roll a net +0 modifier (+4 bonus for the spell, -4 penalty because it counts as a Crushing attack). Note that the various armors also have modifiers for different types of attacks. For example, wearing Splint applies a -2 penalty to Shocking Grasp To Hit chances, and -1 penalty to Chill and Ghoul Touch.
Also, if the target has a ranged weapon equipped when attacked, the To Hit roll gets the +4 bonus that is given to a melee attack when an opponent is holding a ranged weapon. Thus attacking an archer with Chill Touch gives you a +9 bonus To Hit.
I found Chill Touch and Ghoul Touch can be pretty useful, and a great way to mix it up and have a bit of fun. They are even more effective in the hands of a fighter/mage combos with better base THACO, of course, but even regular mages can find them useful. A good tactic is to attack opponents already engaged with your tanks. I have used Chill Touch quite effectively, especially early-mid game; 10 attacks at +5 To Hit and doing 2-11 is pretty excellent! And Ghoul Touch can be very useful in support of my tanks. 5 chances to paralyze isn’t bad!
Shocking Grasp is the weakest by far because it lasts only one round. It scales but Magic Missile is always a better choice: ranged attack that always hits, and generally for more damage. Thus I’d never choose it over Magic Missile, but at least the scrolls you find can be used instead of selling them, knowing they attack at +4. (Oddly, the spell description in the original BG1 and BG2 manuals says this spell was supposed to do 1-10 and never miss, unless the wizard was disrupted casting the spell. I’d love to see this spell tweaked so it wasn’t a total throw-away.)
Hope this helped a few of you!
I've tried out the Level 1 and 2 touch attacks and found out they are actually better than expected and can be reasonably effective in some situations. The spell descriptions don’t accurately describe them nor do them justice, so I thought I’d report what I have found (and tested).
Shocking Grasp:
• +4 To Hit
• Counts as a Crushing attack, so modifiers to crushing attacks are applied
• Lasts only 1 round, so you get only one attack.
• Damage: 1d8 plus 1/level electrical damage (so for example a Level 5 mage would do 6-13)
(This one is definitely the weakest of the three)
Chill Touch
• + 5 To Hit (for some reason this one is a bit higher than the other two)
• Counts as a Piercing attack, so modifiers to piercing attacks are applied
• Lasts 10 rounds, so you get 10 attacks
• Damage: 1d3 physical plus 1d8 cold damage, for a total of 2-11 each hit. (Cold resistance blocks the cold damage, of course, but not the physical)
• Special effect: If hit, the target must make a saving throw or suffer -2 to his THACO (the penalty lasts 5 rounds)
• The cold damage goes through whether or not the target saves! (This is contrary to the spell description.)
• The physical damage is unaffected by strength modification, so there is no extra damage even if the caster has high strength.
Ghoul Touch
• +4 To Hit
• Counts as a Piercing attack, so modifiers to piercing attacks are applied
• Lasts 5 rounds, so you get 5 attacks
• No damage
• If hit, target must Save or be Paralyzed (for 5 rounds)
For all of these spells, I also discovered that increased Strength did not increase the To Hit chances (nor did it increase the damage, not even to Chill Touch, to my surprise, even though that spell inflicts some physical damage).
I also discovered that the game treats Ghoul Touch and Chill Touch as Piercing/Missile Damage, and Shocking Grasp as Crushing damage. Modifiers that affect these attack types get applied to your To Hit Chances. For example, if the target of Shocking Grasp is wearing the belt that gives +4 AC against Crushing attacks, the attack roll suffers a -4 penalty, giving the To Hit roll a net +0 modifier (+4 bonus for the spell, -4 penalty because it counts as a Crushing attack). Note that the various armors also have modifiers for different types of attacks. For example, wearing Splint applies a -2 penalty to Shocking Grasp To Hit chances, and -1 penalty to Chill and Ghoul Touch.
Also, if the target has a ranged weapon equipped when attacked, the To Hit roll gets the +4 bonus that is given to a melee attack when an opponent is holding a ranged weapon. Thus attacking an archer with Chill Touch gives you a +9 bonus To Hit.
I found Chill Touch and Ghoul Touch can be pretty useful, and a great way to mix it up and have a bit of fun. They are even more effective in the hands of a fighter/mage combos with better base THACO, of course, but even regular mages can find them useful. A good tactic is to attack opponents already engaged with your tanks. I have used Chill Touch quite effectively, especially early-mid game; 10 attacks at +5 To Hit and doing 2-11 is pretty excellent! And Ghoul Touch can be very useful in support of my tanks. 5 chances to paralyze isn’t bad!
Shocking Grasp is the weakest by far because it lasts only one round. It scales but Magic Missile is always a better choice: ranged attack that always hits, and generally for more damage. Thus I’d never choose it over Magic Missile, but at least the scrolls you find can be used instead of selling them, knowing they attack at +4. (Oddly, the spell description in the original BG1 and BG2 manuals says this spell was supposed to do 1-10 and never miss, unless the wizard was disrupted casting the spell. I’d love to see this spell tweaked so it wasn’t a total throw-away.)
Hope this helped a few of you!
Post edited by Elder on
16
Comments
If your initial attack is from Invisibility or stealth, do you get he +4 THAC0 bonus for the first attack? How many Ghoul Touch attacks can you make with one casting, this isn't clear from the description. Does Ghoul Touch just last until the first hit you make or for multiple attacks over 5 rounds, for example? Crushing damage is the most effective vs. plate armour, and piercing more so than slashing, so it's not all bad, though some enemies have piercing resistance - would that reduce the damage the physical attack does? My Jester (with only 15 Strength) has been using Chilltouch a bit, to reasonable effect. I've not found a Ghoul Touch scroll for him yet, though. I think for Bards (who need THAC0 help) they're not bad spells, though, if you can't avoid melee or your ranged options are not proving effective. Me too! Yes, Indeed!
I have not tested hasted or high level fighters to see if extra attacks are possible. It would be interesting to find out, and I may test that sometime. Nor have I tested attacking from stealth/invis.
Vampiric Touch works differently. It's very similar to Larloch's Drain. You cast it on an enemy. It always hits. Unlike Larloch's, however, the caster will move adjacent to the target when the spell is cast (to touch the target). The target loses HP's and you gain HP's. The spell description says it lasts 5 turns, but that is so long I haven't tested it to confirm.
Piercing is actually a pretty good damage type for BGEE as far as armor goes, as it only gets significant penalties against Full Plate (which maybe two or three enemies in the game wear), and it performs better than crushing against the more common armor types of leather and splint.
Phantom Blade: longsword, enchantment +3, 1d10+3 slashing damage , +3 to Hit, adds Str bonus (if any), speed factor 2
Spiritual Hammer (caster lvl1-6): war hammer, enchantment +1, 1d4+2 crushing damage , +1 to Hit, adds Str bonus (if any), speed factor 2
Spiritual Hammer (caster lvl7-12): war hammer, enchantment +2, 1d4+3 crushing damage , +2 to Hit, adds Str bonus (if any), speed factor 2
Spiritual Hammer (caster lvl13+): war hammer, enchantment +3, 1d4+4 crushing damage , +3 to Hit, adds Str bonus (if any), speed factor 1
Black Blade of Disaster: longsword, enchantment +6, 2d12+5 slashing damage , +5 to Hit, adds Str bonus (if any), speed factor 1 + various effects reported in the spell description
Would be interested to kno about the Plantom blade too
BBoD, on the other hand, is a nice scroll for a thief (single, dual or multi) so that gets use. It can also be very effect for a F/M character when going up against something like the Ravager that requires very highly enchanted items.
One big problem is that Shill and Spirit Ham are generally about the same, or not even as good, as using a +1 weapon, so you’d be better off with a different spell, at least assuming you have a +1 weapon, which generally you can get pretty early. And in the case of fighter combos like Jaheira, the spells are an even worse deal because you lose the benefits of having 2 proficiency points in a weapon, no matter what you are proficient in, so you lose the +1/+2 and extra attacks you would get when using your specialized weapon. (More on this below.) And another negative of these spells is that once cast, you can’t switch back to your ranged weapon until the spell wears off.
Flame Blade is slightly better than the other two and can be useful at times (especially in BG2 when fighting trolls!). On the plus side is that it does a base of 6-10 damage compared with the 2-7 or 3-6 for most +1 melee weapons usable by clerics and druids. That’s okay for those characters who can only have one proficiency point in weapons, such as pure clerics like Viconia (provided you are willing to give up a spell slot and forego the ability to switch back to a ranged weapon), but it’s not a very good deal for fighter combos like Jaheira compared to having her use even a +1 weapon that she has 2 proficiencies in (the spell has a lower To Hit chance (-2), base damage is only slightly better (6-10 with spell vs 4-9 with +1 weapon), and she loses the extra attacks).
I was unable to find any weapon proficiencies that granted specialized proficiency bonuses (for having 2 proficiency points). No matter what weapons the caster had 2 proficiencies points in, I never saw the +1/+2 bonuses and extra attacks. Flame Blade basically says as much in its description, but the others imply they are magical hammers or cudgels (clubs). However, in my tests, Shillelagh did not give bonuses or extra attacks no matter what the character had 2 points in: Club, Staff, Hammer, or Mace. Spirit Hammer did not benefit from having 2 Hammer proficiencies (caveat: this was tested with my 18th level Paladin in BG2, and not tested in BGEE).
In short, I almost always prefer other spells instead.
Also, do chill/ghoul touch get backstab bonuses for thief/mages outside of the standard to-hit invisibility bonus?
The old thac0 bonus was to try and offset the non-prof penalties in BG, where you couldn't have prof-less weapons. This is removed since they're properly set w/o a prof in BGEE.
Chill Touch's cold damage now gets a save vs. spell.
Ghoul Touch, Chill Touch, and Shocking Grasp should be treated as a punch--strength bonuses to hit and damage now apply, but it's only 1d2 fist damage (i.e. they'll only knock unconscious) instead of the weird mix of crushing/piercing/whatever damage.
Yes, you can backstab with them, but backstab multipliers only apply to the base (1d2) damage, just like any other weapon.
It's not like the spell gets a lot of use anyway at the moment, so I can't really say that this change is welcome...