Staggering Strike

0-hr · Apr 26, 2007

I just want to get a confirmation that this feat is meant to function as written (I have an erratta but it's a bit old, and I don't keep up with the non-erratta mumblings from WotC). It seems a little too good to be true so I wanted to check before we start using it in our current campaign.

Staggering Strike (From Complete Adventurer)

You can deliver a wound that hampers an opponent's movement.

Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +6, sneak attack

Benefit: If you deal damage with a melee sneak attack, you can also deliver a wound that limits your foe's mobility. For 1 round (or until the target is the beneficiary of a DC 15 Heal check or any magical healing that restores at least 1 hit point), your target is treated as if it were staggered, even if its nonlethal damage doesn't exactly equal its current hit points. A target can resist this effect by making a successful Fortitude save (DC equal to damage dealt). Multiple staggering strikes on the same creature do not stack. This feat has no effect on creatures no subject to sneak attack damage.

You don't give up any any sneak attack dice? This doesn't take a standard action or anything? Seems like a no-brainer, though the multiple FORT saves each round is going to slow play a bit.

Psimancer · Apr 26, 2007

Yep, plays as written, no further errata. My monk/rogue currently has this feat and it's great!

Edit: Why is it not too good/broken? It only leaves the opponent staggered - they still get to take a standard action: attack (but not full), cast a spell, move (but then no attack), or potentially charge. And they can still 5 ft. step.

And just as a point of reference, check the Fort save on your group Tank; what is the likely hood of this working on him? Assuming he doesn't have Uncanny Dodge?

Its good against mooks, but against a BBEG???

Wish · Apr 26, 2007

I've played with it extensively. It doesn't work all that well, in practice. It's certainly worth a feat, but several conditions must be met for it to work:

1) You must successfully sneak attack.
2) The target must fail a fortitude save.
3) The target must give a hoot that it failed a fortitude save.

#1 is harder to get than you might think (uncanny dodge, concealment, fortification, constructs, undead, elementals, etc.)
#2 is also harder to accomplish than you might think. The DC isn't likely to be more than 35 or 40, and often considerably lower. At the levels where that damage is happening, excellent to absurdly good fort saves are also happening.
#3 also doesn't happen as often as you might like. If the BBEG was just going to take a 5' step back and fire a sudden maximized energy admixed scorching ray into your face, he's still going to be able to do exactly that.

All that said...

When it works, it's an absolute thing of beauty. When you charge, and power attack, and crit the marilith and you get to say something like, "And make a DC 104 fort save or be staggered for a round," that's just poetry. When the marilith looks at you and your pitiful little charging AC and your questionable hp total, and her six magic weapons and can only use one of them to retaliate against you... makes it worth it.

0-hr · Apr 26, 2007

But that's not how it will work in practice. In reality it would be:

Primary attack: make a Fort 17 or be staggered!
Off Hand attack: make a Fort 16 or be staggered!
Iterative attack: make a Fort 23 or be staggered!
Imp TWF attack: make a Fort 12 or be staggered!

And that's even more annoying when the bad guy was just going to cast a spell anyway. 4+ extra dice rolls (for this one character's turn) and it doesn't even matter. But since it's an absolute freebie, the rogue is going to ask for every save 'just in case'.

I'm a player so this ruling help me, but I'd still rather have it just be once a round, or reduce sneak attack by 1d6 or do SOMETHING to make the rogue consider whether to use it or not.

Deset Gled · Apr 26, 2007

Psimancer said:
Edit: Why is it not too good/broken? It only leaves the opponent staggered - they still get to take a standard action: attack (but not full), cast a spell, move (but then no attack), or potentially charge. And they can still 5 ft. step.

I've never seen this feat is play, but that sounds pretty darn potent to me. Being limited to a standard action can be a huge issue.

Particle_Man · Apr 26, 2007

It certainly puts most of the Ambush feats in Complete Scoundrel to shame, doesn't it.

I see it as the answer to the "paper tiger" problem with the rogue, that if they stay next to a BBEG, then they can suffer a full attack and their low AC will mean they will get hurt bad. Now they have a chance to reduce that to merely one attack by the BBEG.

Mind you, this feat would be useless vs. a Swordsage, Warblade or Crusader, since their maneuvers usually take a standard action to accomplish anyhow.

Psimancer · Apr 26, 2007

Deset Gled said:
Being limited to a standard action can be a huge issue.

Wish said:
The target must give a hoot that it failed a fortitude save.

Wish totally nailed it when he made this comment. The BIG advantage of this feat is that it stops the iterative attacks of an opponent. That in and of itself can speed things up (if that what you are worried about). To be really honest, it only seems to come up every 2nd combat or so (undead, constructs, inability to flank, etc)

StreamOfTheSky · May 3, 2007

Particle_Man said:
It certainly puts most of the Ambush feats in Complete Scoundrel to shame, doesn't it.

It really doesn't take much to put them to shame, IMHO. As a veteran rogue player, I will state right now I would NEVER take one of those horriibly ill-concieved, underpowered, excuses for ~1/7 of my character's feat expenditure.

That said, I have always loved this feat. It works nice from the limited use I've seen of it (many of the games I've played as a rogue in stopped either before or soon after I could pick it up), and never really got broken. In my current game, we're gestault, and I convinced the Fighter/Rogue to pick it up for truly obscene save DCs, and the benefit of full attacking at full BAB whilst reducing the enemy to only one attack in return. Unfortunately, it's only been one session since then and nothing we fought survived the onslaught of his full attack long enough to even make the feat come into play. Poor guy.

Darklone · May 3, 2007

This feat is also pretty useless against most PCs who aren't subject to sneak attacks anyhow. If they are clever. Or attached to their lives.

moritheil · May 4, 2007

Psimancer said:
Its good against mooks, but against a BBEG???

I'll echo this. I was thinking of it for my daggerspell shaper, but I decided against it in favor of a metamagic feat, reasoning that mooks wouldn't live all that long anyhow.

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