What do you do without balance?

Dannyalcatraz said:

While I can see that as an issue of fairness/balance, I think it is logically consistent. Sneak attacks work by targeting "vital areas"- things those foes lack.

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Rogues, OTOH, have a damage booster that occasionally applies, and can situationally lift their damage output to more than a warrior's. They're not going to surpass the warrior's output on a regular basis, but they will do so from time to time.

To me, that is a fair trade-off.

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I agree, in the main, that it's a fair trade off and less a design flaw than a design decision. But it is also true that sneak attack-resistant foes tend to come in thematic groups. Undead-based adventures tend to be full of lots of undead types as encounters with a lot less stuff the rogue can sneak attack. As a result, I don't mind Paizo's different take on sneak attack - by allowing it against most foes.
Again, that's a design decision based on interpretation of what sneak attack does. Does it cause additional shock, worse damage to vital organs, or is it enough to envision it as doing damage more likely to disable the opponent. For the latter, you could argue that sneak attack (and critical) damage could apply to any creature that might have weak points like joints.

AllisterH said:

Er, there is no such thing as mixed infantry and armour units though....

It WAS tried in WWII but the result was that infrantry was just too fragile that even being in the backwash of a tank was dangerous (if a tank gets hit, the surrounding area is pretty much flattened as well).

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Low echelon units may not be mixed, but WWII rather showed that competent close order cooperation of armor and infantry can make both more effective, particularly in close-quarters urban warfare. Without supporting infantry, in fact, it is the tank that becomes particularly fragile in that sort of environment...

AllisterH said:

Er, there is no such thing as mixed infantry and armour units though....

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Actully, that's how US Army unit are deployed. When there is hostile infantry units our infantry dismounts from the Bradley's (who are traveling with the tanks) to defend the tanks from opposing infantry units. And, it did work in WW2. My uncle was in such a unit and fought across France. Worked very well.

Dannyalcatraz said:

Rogues in 3.X CAN do something in combat that is flavorful and meaningful.

They just can't do it against every foe.

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I think rogues are find in combat at the low levels. Other than occasional skeletons and zombies, the vast majority of opponents from the MM at these levels are humanoids no bigger than size L.

Similarly, mages don't have the resources to poach noncombat skills at these levels so I think the rogue class is perfectly designed at these levels....

It's once you hit level 11 and higher where the issue is that almost every foe seems to be not susceptible to sneak attacks AND the mages now have enough resources to be effective in both combat AND noncombat encounters.....

AllisterH said:

It's once you hit level 11 and higher where the issue is that almost every foe seems to be not susceptible to sneak attacks AND the mages now have enough resources to be effective in both combat AND noncombat encounters.....

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I see a lot of people on ENWorld saying that, but I think that this is one of those things that varies wildly from group to group- personally, I've never seen that in 3.X. It simply hasn't cropped up in any of our groups' 3.X games.

IOW, it seems to be a playstyle thing.

AllisterH said:

Er, there is no such thing as mixed infantry and armour units though....

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As others have already pointed out, it is a standard form of deployment for some forces, and has proven effective in many situations. It was an inspired reshaping of Infantry/Cavalry tactics of earlier centuries.

It also is analogous to carrier group tactics. The typical carrier group is centered around the carrier (of course) and a host of specialized ships (battleships, lighter carriers, missile cruisers, destroyers, frigates, etc.) whose primary duty is to "defend" it, but have other capabilities as well. Without the carrier, the group would be largely limited to engaging sea or coastal forces, but the carrier lets them project force well over the horizon. However, the carrier simply can't survive without those other ships.

(Disclosure: I grew up an Army brat, and I'm currently addicted to the Military History Channel, FWIW.)

Re: Rogue Sneak Attack

The single, absolute best houserule I added for my current campaign was to allow rogues (and variants thereof) to sneak attack anything.

The fact that their BAB is low enough that they miss often anyway already balances out their damage bonuses and now, suddenly, the rogue is actually doing stuff in every single combat, instead of sitting out 1/3 of the combats that I run. Then again, I use lots of undead/plants/oozes and especially vermin in most of my own adventures.

I highly recommend it. It has really, really worked.

Dannyalcatraz said:

I see a lot of people on ENWorld saying that, but I think that this is one of those things that varies wildly from group to group- personally, I've never seen that in 3.X. It simply hasn't cropped up in any of our groups' 3.X games.

IOW, it seems to be a playstyle thing.

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It was extremely campaign dependent. For instance, it said in the book that if you couldn't reach the vitals of some creature, you couldn't sneak attack it. I've heard some DMs say that meant any creature larger than L size. I've had other DMs say "The hamstring is a vital location, and reachable almost no matter how big the creature is. You can sneak attack anything that isn't immune."

At the same time, it depends on what type of adventures you are playing. I had a friend playing a Rogue in Living Greyhawk. At the time, we played through around 8 adventures(5 hours long each) in a row that took place in ancient tombs, ancient wizard towers, graveyards, were up against incorporeal outsiders, summoned elementals, and so on. There was maybe 5 or 6 creatures in that entire time that were not immune to sneak attacks. That was out of about 100 enemies we fought.

He gave up and rolled up a new character because he was so frustrated at doing 1d6+1 damage when the Barbarian/Fighter was raging and doing 2d6+12.

I have just finished playing a Rogue (Rog9/Wiz4) in our 3.5 campaign and had a blast but I used feats like Vexing Flanker to push up my attack bonus (+4 when flanking) and also the feats mentioned above from Dungeonscape to allow me to do half sneak attack damage to constructs/undead. My other tactic was to cast persistent blade and get it to attack AC10 (aid another) and give me +2 to hit for a total of +6.

I also had a wizard level from very low level, so that I had other uses and learned as many 1st level spells as I could. I used to save one party member per session from death using benign transposition or I used ray of enfeeblement or clumsiness to nerf the enemy and then cut loose with my combat ability.

The thing that really made my character cool though was having a spell storing rapier. I would charge it up with shocking grasp (5d6 damage because I had practised spell-caster feat: +4 to caster level) and I routinely managed to one-shot the enemy wizards by the end as I was doing 12d6 damage in one hit (5d6 shocking grasp, 5d6 flanking bonus, 1d6 rapier, 1d6 acid +2, for str and magic).

Being able to cast invisibility by the end was also good as I could really creep up and batter the opposition from behind.

Having said this, playing a straight Rogue would not have been half as much fun, particularly as our DM did not really like traps etc, if I hadn't had wizard levels.

I like how Pathfinder has made sneak attack available to hit all creatures, with very few immune and think this simple fix makes Rogues much more viable.

Dannyalcatraz said:

While I can see that as an issue of fairness/balance, I think it is logically consistent. Sneak attacks work by targeting "vital areas"- things those foes lack.



So I have no problem that a base-class Rogue has a problem sneak attacking such foes.

However- please do correct me if I'm wrong- there are Feats/PrCls/magic weapon abilities that address that directly.

Mechanically speaking, Warriors (other than those like Paladins) don't have any special abilities that let them do more damage to those foes, they just do more damage to all foes in general (due to better BAB and weapon/feat options). They have a constant expectation of damage regardless of their foe's type.

Rogues, OTOH, have a damage booster that occasionally applies, and can situationally lift their damage output to more than a warrior's. They're not going to surpass the warrior's output on a regular basis, but they will do so from time to time.

To me, that is a fair trade-off.

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To me, its not.

First, the goal is for all characters to be balanced in combats. I don't want them to be significantly better in half the fights and feel impotent in half the fights. I'm fine with a balance trade off between a fighter's tank role in combat (tough with decent damage) versus a rogue's striker role (vulnerable but mobile with higher damage). I don't want the rogue striker to only play that combat role half the time though.

Second, against foes they can sneak attack they still have lower BAB, AC, and hp than a fighter. Their greater damage per strike is negated when they don't hit or have fewer attacks, and they can't take the heat the way a fighter can. Against a foe that can be sneak attacked I don't think the rogue clearly outshines a fighter in combat.

Third, such add ons as feats and prcs and items can mitigate the problem but don't solve it. Despite owning dozens of 3e D&D books and hundreds of d20 sourcebooks, I don't have the Mini's Handbook, Magic Item Compendium, or the other Complete books that have these feats. The core class should stand on its own, not need to spend its resources on specific add ons to gain the ability to do its own job.

I have no problem with the flavor logic of ruling that sneak attack is striking vulnerable vitals that a magically animated boulder does not have. It is not necessary flavor but it makes sense and can add to the immersive nature of roleplaying by matching player concept and mechanics and descriptions to monster concepts and mechanics and descriptions. The consequence of this though is that it takes away the significant combat abilities of the rogue a significant amount of time. This leaves the rogue impotent in a significant number of combats. That is a play dynamic game design should avoid IMO. Sneak attack can work as well from a flavor description using "vulnerable points" instead of "vitals" and letting it work against everyone.