Touch-range spells allow you to target yourself, unless the creature must be hostile or touch-based. The rules on Spellcasting state that you can choose yourself, unless the creature must be hostile or touch-based. Touch spells can be cast using familiars and feats, and you can touch up to 6 willing targets as part of the casting. However, all targets of the spell must be touched in the same round that you finish casting the spell.
To use Spellstrike, Melvin must have cast the spell, the spell must have a range of “touch”, and the spell must be within the spell’s range and area of effect. For spells that require touch, the spellcaster must physically touch the target. Some spells, like Invisibility, can target multiple creatures at a high enough level, allowing them to make a saving throw at the end of their turn.
You can cast ranged touch spells by touching the spell recipient, and you may cast a spell that normally has a range of close, medium, or long at touching distance. Some spells can target only a creature (including you) that you touch, while others, like the shield spell, affect only you. Generally, ranged touch attack spells are instant attack type spells, such as acid arrow.
For ranged touch attacks, you need the Precise Shot feat or True Strike feat. Some touch spells are meant to be used against enemies, such as bestow curse, contagion, inflict wounds, plane shift, shocking grasp, and light. The phrase “touch spell” is only ever used throughout the book in the “Targeting Yourself” section.
📹 Chill Touch is UNDERRATED: How to Use DnD Spells #27
Chill Touch is an underrated cantrip in DnD 5e. It’s not typically a good main damaging spell, but it’s the perfect tool to negate …
📹 Disguise Self: How To Use DnD Spells #9
0:00 Intro 0:14 Spell Description 0:52 How to Use Disguise Self 3:44 Disguise Self Rules 4:57 Is Disguise Self Good? 5:26 Outro …
Chill Touch made more sense back in previous editions, where it was a touch attack. At my games I call it Death’s Caress. Also, the rider effects of anti-heal and debuffing undead enemies works regardless of whether the target takes damage or not, so by RAW, it still works against enemies with immunity to Necrotic.
Here’s the use case for the disadvantage to undead when attacking you – Death Cleric. They get chill touch as part of the subclass AND can hit two targets if they’re adjacent to each other with it AND they ignore necrotic resistance (which some undead will have) AND have solid AC meaning they’re very likely not to get hit when enemies have disadvantage. The fact that it lasts until the end of your next turn means you can pretty safely keep it rolling on enemies by stepping back, casting it, then entering melee again. And if you have spirit guardians rolling at the same time, good chance you’re going to have enemies trying to swarm you.
When we played Tomb of Annihilation, our DM ran Acererak with a custom stat block. One of his changes was an added regeneration ability. My Lore Bard/Tome Warlock had Chill Touch as one of his cantrips, and I’d cast it every other round just to slow him down a bit so we could get more damage in before he healed some of it.
Just gonna point out that unless an invisible creature takes the hide action, something that usually cannot be done in the same turn as becoming invisible due to action economy, then by RAW you know where it is and don’t need something like a ghost hand to help you. It’s also not going to prevent a creature from trying to hide, as it only needs to be feasible that you could try to hide to make the attempt. If a ghost hand was enough to prevent fully hiding, then that same logic should suggest that since its much easier to see a non invisible person than a tiny hand, hiding is always impossible unless invisible or completely out of LoS (which is obviously dumb). My point is that the vid’s points are a big reach. However since lots of GMs rule invisibility wrong (I’ve done it too, even while in the know, though only in the player’s favor), the point has some validity. Though if the GM was ruling that you don’t know where the invisible thing is, thus making having a ghost hand clinging to it useful, you would have the problem that you don’t know where the thing is to target it with a ghost hand in the first place and couldn’t make the attack anyway.
• Hexblood Moon Druid • Hex targets Intelligence discretely at a distance • Cast Disguise Self as an Action, but hold the spell until you become four-legged • Wild Shape into an animal as a Bonus Action • Disguise yourself as a particular animal (e.g. the king’s dog who will be in the chamber during war planning) • Lay by the fire and listen!
I played a Pirate once. A Cleric of Besmara the Goddess of Piracy. He was just a regular old human but whenever they would board he’d use Disguise Self to transform into some kind of super intimidating humanoid. I’d look up a picture of a tattooed Orc, or a Gnoll or whatever came to mind and rushed across the gangplank. I do miss Clay Garrett…. ^_^
A couple of additional uses. You touched on camouflage, but for a hunter or commando, it’s an instant, all-body black night-sneak suit, or camo gear, or even a ghillie suit, with full hand and face make-up. For casual events, it lets your plate armor look like normal clothes (unless the armor clanks); weapons and backpacks can vanish completely. (So I would expect bouncers and gatekeepers to give you a friendly pat on the arm or shoulders as standard practice against illusionists.) For high-level illusionist-wizards (14th level) the Illusory Reality ability lets you turn one object in your illusion REAL for 1 minute (no weapons, once per illusion). Paired with Eldritch Adept & Mask of Many Faces this lets you create an endless supply of temporary (non-weapon) objects — mostly armor and clothes, but possibly rope and keys and various trinkets, coins, and jewelry, and probably half the stuff in the standard equipment list.
I have a changeling shadow sorcerer. He collects different outfits and creates identities for many situations. He uses his racial ability to change his body and he can make subtle alterations to his current outfit as needed with disguise self. Imagine this. You’re running away from a guard, disguised as a woman in a cloak. You round a corner, and shift into a younger body, like 14 or something. The guard rounds the corner, sees the distinct cloak you’re wearing, and thus he grabs you and spins you around, only to see a drastically younger face. You then SCREAM at the top of your lungs, you know what to do from here. That guard gets arrested, and you slip away at some point, dropping your illusion so you’re only wearing a plain brown cloak with no distinguishing features. Upon reaching a better spot, you change into something like an old lady. Now no matter what happens, even a worst case scenario, the guards will be on the lookout for a cloak that doesn’t exist and 1 or 2 women that also no longer exist. The ways to use these two abilities in tandem are VAST if you have a keenly deceptive mind. A changeling is good at disguise, but that proficiency skyrockets with a combined disguise self spell. A warlock could be even scarier, but I intentionally nerfed him for the challenge.
I had a Warlock / Rogue who was publicly a semi respectable Warlock who used disguise self / mask of many faces to create an alter ego sometimes seen leaving the scene of her thefts. The “Thief of Hearts” would leave taunting messages while the authorities searched for this nonexistent super villain. It was hilarious.