Not that they were too few, but for my own taste the selection was not very wide. I don't know if 1) goes away with new spells in 3.5. IMHO the 2 disadvantages for Touch casters were that 1) there were not very many touch spells, and 2) most of the time you are casting close to the foe and provoke AoO. The new WF adds some side benefits, for example for elven arcane casters (Rapier), and may make the caster use Daggers instead of QStaffs. I think Weapon Finesse (Touch) was the must-have feat to make a spellcaster good with touch spells, given the fact that the majority of arcane spellcasters have low Str and average or high Dex for defense. Even the new 0-level Touch of Fatigue may be useful.Ĭould the release of 3.5 signal the dawn of the touch specialist? It's probably too early to tell, but until then, I suggest heeding my earlier message. There's the new 2nd level Touch of Idiocy which is the bane of casters of all types or it can easily reduce less intelligent creatures to a comatose state. There are a few other touch spells that were added as well which make me wonder if a touch-specialist could now be a viable caster type now. Using Spectral Hand to deliver multiple Shocking Grasps is likely to be tried much more often with a lot more punch, like a 5d6 jolt in your back, or worse, a 10d6 jolt on your codpiece! Beware the Hand! It no longer can flank attack, but still adds +2 on attack rolls to deliver touch spells and has the same medium distance. Spectral Hand still exists largely unmodified in 3.5. But it now seems to at least present a viable option to try. Shocking Grasp won't eclipse magic missile for utility. How many other 1st level spells have the potential of dealing 10d6 damage w/o a save? Factor in the rule that you can score a critical hit on a 20 with touch attack spells (I verified that rule is still there just to be sure), and Shocking Grasp is suddenly a much deadlier spell. The new Shocking Grasp deals a d6 electrical per caster level (max 5d6), still has the benefits of +3 to attack an opponent in metal armor, and it allows no saving throw. Risking a melee attack to dishout a mere d8 + 1 per level did not seem to be worth it. Ever since 1st edition, Shocking Grasp has seemed like the ugly stepchild of 1st level attack spells falling behind many other favorites like color spray, sleep or burning hands at the low levels, and then being badly eclipsed by magic missile at higher caster levels. There's a serious update to Shocking Grasp. After flipping thru the pages, one thing that caught my eye were the changes to and addition of touch attack spells.

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