Weapons/Means for touch attacks

Question

Since touch attacks are against a lower AC they are easier to land than normal ones.

Are there reliable, affordable weapons that go versus the touch AC, or actions that anyone can take with a similarly reduced difficulty challenge?

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Notes (Even more chaotic info here)

My Jade Regent character who is a Helpful Halfling Oradin (Oracle and Paladin, currently only level 1 Oracle) is supposed to be able to do the following things:

• Provide fast healing 5 to as many party members as possibly by use of Life Link.
• Heal self as swift to keep from dying (lay on hands - cure light wounds once those run out)
• Use standard/move actions to support allies and/or interfere with and/or damage enemies. (Such as aid another for +4 to hit or AC)
• Has to be able to be effective against Big Bads of Evil (using Smite, for dramatic effect perhaps using his lance while riding a riding dog or such -- most recently by slapping a really powerful heal spell on something undead).

We won't be playing past lvl 15, so only 3 stat increases, thus one or three uneven stats with boosting-intention are optimal.

Either

• STR: 13 DEX: 16 CON: 14 INT: 12 WIS: 7 CHA: 18 (increase Str, Cha, Cha), or
• STR: 13 DEX: 14 CON: 14 INT: 12 WIS: 7 CHA: 19 (increase Cha, Str, Wis), or
• STR: 14 DEX: 14 CON: 14 INT: 12 WIS: 7 CHA: 18 (increase Cha, Cha, Wis)

High Strength is too expensive (14 pre-belts is doable), while high Dex doesn't seem useful enough as Heavy Armor is planned for preserving the HP-Bloodbank that is his body and as the only important DEX skill for him (riding) will be aided by Shining Knight archetype which takes away Armor Penalty for Riding (gives CHA to Saves for Animal as well). A quite few things (like lay on hands and saves and more) depend on charisma, so I want it very high.

Combat Reflexes/Body Guard with a long spear (and spiked gauntlets) would make the higher dex slightly more worth while, since beating an AC of 10 for +4 to AC is doable and useful.

Anyway, the question here really was only if there were weapons/actions that go vs touch AC.

Answer 1

Touch attacks are hard to get, the normal weapons that do that don't do damage (nets etc.).

It's somewhat expensive (more so than normal weapons, less than 3l33t magic), but you can use firearms (touch attack in first range increment) with the Holy Gun paladin archetype. It changes smite evil so it can be used with ranged gunshots.

You can rely on ray or other touch spells a lot; smite evil will work with them (though it'll be harder to get multiple attacks a round as you go up in level than you can with just plain attacks). Maybe pick a revelation that lets you do at-will rays.

In general don't obsess over smite, it's a nice but mild bonus. You should be more concerned about whether you are going to be a valid melee or ranged combatant or not in general.

Answer 2

I'm not sure why you're going to have both a low Strength and a low Dex - as a Halfling, you should be able to have a fairly strong Dex with only minimal investment. It might not be an natural 18 or 20, but a 16 (or a 15 bumped to 16 at level 4) should be feasible.

That said, I see two paths for you. First, I'll echo mxyzplk's answer of guns. The Holy Gun archetype will give you the necessary feats for free, it's Dex based, doesn't interfere with the Oradin build, stacks with the Warrior of the Holy Light archetype, and in a home game (non PFS), can instead stack with the Hospitalier archetype.¹

The second path is to build on one of the most interesting alternate racial features: Halfling Jinx.

Halfling Jinx Halflings with this racial trait gain the ability to curse another creature with bad luck at will as a standard action. This curse has a range of 30 feet, and you must be able to see the target and have line of effect to it. The target gets a Will saving throw to resist this jinx (DC = 10 + 1/2 your level + your Charisma modifier). If your target makes this saving throw, it is immune to your jinx ability for 24 hours. A jinxed creature takes a –1 penalty on all saving throws. This jinx lasts for 24 hours or until you attempt to use your jinx again. A jinx is a supernatural ability, is not mind-affecting, does not allow spell resistance, and can affect any kind of creature not immune to luck effects. This replaces halfling luck.

By itself, it's fairly decent (Cha based save, unlimited uses, and effectively permanent duration balance the small penalty and immunity if they do save), but there's a lot of feats that build on it:

• Area Jinx² lets you do it to several targets at once, although it may be hard to avoid hexing your allies.
• Bolster Jinx requires some mediocre feats, but can make the penalty significantly stronger.
• Sluggish Jinx applies it to their attack rolls.
• Distant Jinx gives you more range, but you probably won't need it.
• Worst Case Jinx² is a serious crimp on their healing capability, but monsters rarely heal in combat (other than regeneration).

The best part is that it doesn't require an attack roll at all - simply boosting your Charisma is enough to make it more likely to hit, and it works even on things immune to spells. You don't benefit from the save penalty yourself (unless they're undead and you're "healing" them), but any spellcasters in your party will probably appreciate it.

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¹ The only overlapping class feature is Smite, and the two changes are compatible. Holy Gun makes it ranged-only, and Hospitalier halves the number of uses. Most GMs would be willing to let you combine those changes, although technically they're both modifying the same class feature and so the combo is prohibited.
² These two feats come from the Halflings of Golarian book, which is less "core" than the rest of the books in question. Most GMs should allow it, or at least allow the mechanics from it, but check with them first.