Touch-activated powers and natural attacks

[panaikhan]

I'm wondering if someone can clarify a couple of points for me?

First of all, if a character has a number of abilities that can be triggered as a touch attack (standard action), do they all trigger, or do you have to pick one?

Secondly, if the character has natural weapons, can they use one (or more) of their 'touch' abilities with a natural attack, as long as it is a 'standard action' not a full-round action?

[Segev]

You cannot store more than one touch spell on a single limb, and the same would go for spell-like abilities. However, any active touch effect can be used with a natural attack instead of a dedicated touch attack if you're willing to target their normal AC rather than their touch AC.

It depends, therefore, on what the abilities in question are. Touch spells take their actions to cast and allow you to make a touch attack as part of the action. You can also activate them and "hold" the spell in your hand as long as you don't touch anything, until you later make a successful touch attack. You could even make said touch attack as part of a full attack (as a monk's flurry or as your natural attack), since you've got the spell already pre-cast.

If your power is one that triggers on touch without you having to do anything special, it would trigger with every touch. So a wight who cast Shocking Grasp who then used a Slam attack would do Slam damage, Shocking Grasp damage, and inflict a negative level. But he couldn't also cast Chill Touch without losing the Shocking Grasp.

[panaikhan]

My character will end up with several 'touch-activated' abilities.
They state "As a standard action, this character can cause bleeding simply by touch" or "As a standard action, this character's touch bestows one negative level"

The inclusion of the phrase "As a standard action" implies that generally, it can only be used once per round (I've seen somewhere -possibly 3.5- that a vampire can only cause level drain once per round).

If a natural attack fails to beat the target's standard AC, but does beat their touch AC, does the touch ability trigger?

[Ssalarn]

If a natural attack fails to beat the target's standard AC, but does beat their touch AC, does the touch ability trigger?

No. You're either making a regular attack, or a touch attack.

My character will end up with several 'touch-activated' abilities.
They state "As a standard action, this character can cause bleeding simply by touch" or "As a standard action, this character's touch bestows one negative level"

The inclusion of the phrase "As a standard action" implies that generally, it can only be used once per round (I've seen somewhere -possibly 3.5- that a vampire can only cause level drain once per round).

If these are standard action abilities, and not spells, the holding charge function may not even be an option, and the abilities may be incompatible with natural attacks. Knowing what the abilities in question are would make that easier to answer.

If they do work like spells, the process to use them with a natural attack would be:

Round 1 - Activate the ability as a standard action, then hold the charge (free action)

Round 2 - Use your standard or full attack action to attack with natural attacks; the first successful natural attack would trigger the ability.

As an aside, a vampire can only energy drain 1/round because that's a special limitation of his ability (vampiric energy drain is stronger than the standard version of the ability, dealing 2 negative levels per application).

[panaikhan]

If it helps:

The Bleeding ability is the first-level ability of the 'Realms Beyond' sorcerer bloodline.

The Energy drain ability is from the 'Souleater' Prestige class (and does increase to 2 negative levels as the class progresses)

There is a third ability (cold damage) that I might get, if I manage to enter the 'Agent of the Grave' prestige class later on.

[Yanisa]

If it helps:

The Bleeding ability is the first-level ability of the 'Realms Beyond' sorcerer bloodline.

The Energy drain ability is from the 'Souleater' Prestige class (and does increase to 2 negative levels as the class progresses)

There is a third ability (cold damage) that I might get, if I manage to enter the 'Agent of the Grave' prestige class later on.

All three of those abilities are touch attacks. They take up a standard action each and thus cannot combined together nor can you use your natural attacks to deliver these.

They don't function as touch spells (there is no line like "this functions like [spell]") nor do they function as the monster ability energy drain (there is no line like "you get the energy drain special quality").

Sorry for the bad news, but hopefully this does clear things up a bit...