+1d6 sneak attack worth a feat (& vice versa)?

[shilsen]

I was looking at the Unearthed Arcana class variants (pg.58), which suggests that a stealthy fighter could be allowed to give up the bonus feats and gain a rogue's sneak attack progression instead, whilea martial rogue could lose sneak attack progression and gain the fighter's bonus feats instead. Which would equate to gaining/losing 11 feats in exchange for +10d6 sneak attack damage, or roughly one feat per +1d6 sneak attack.

As the title says, do you think +1d6 sneak attack is worth a feat (& vice versa)? Opinions?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Nope.

I'm a big fan of ... what do they call it ... oh yeah, "multiclassing" if you want that kind of character.

 

[rkanodia]

I think it's pretty reasonable. I would definitely assign some level or BAB pre-requisites, though. Fear the human fighter with +3d6 sneak attack damage at first level!

 

[Mr. Kaze]

If you limit the feat such that "you cannot have more sneak attack dice than BAB", then it's not a bad feat. But I'd never give up a series of 10-11 feats for full sneak attack as a fighter -- I'd be useless against anything that's not living, that's too far away, that the dm rules keeps its vital bits out of reach (halfling with a stick vs. Tarrasque?), and anything that's giving its undivided attention to you.

The last one is the worst: The nice thing about the bigger HD, full plate armor and tower shield using fighter is that it means you can get a creature's undivided attention while the full-class rogue of many talents gets into position for a bunch of brutal sneak attacks. (If you can't get the monsters' attention before the rogue gets into position, the rogue may not make it into position, you know?)

Vice versa is definitely not the case. Take away a rogue's sneak attack and give them 10 bonus feats and you'll be very scared because they'll likely only take half of their sneak attack and spend the rest getting things like "Weapon Finesse, Exotic Weapon: Spiked Chain, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack" or "Martial Weapon Proficiency, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Improved Critical: Longbow" or something like that.

Don't they have like a "+3d6 sneak attack" feat in the generic classes section of UA?

Cheers,
::Kaze

 

[Deset Gled]

I come down against it.

Balance wise it may not be that bad, but I think it's just bad form. There are certain abilities that are class abilities, and certain abilities that are granted by feats. IMHO, the only way you should be able to get class abilities is through class levels. If you start messing with that, you might as well give up the idea of classes all together. If you really want something that isn't modeled by the rules, make a custom class.

 

[Sejs]

I like the feat for +1d6 of sneak attack trade off, personally. It does need to have a level cap per dice of SA note tacked on to the end though, so you don't run into like was pointed out, a fighter with +3d6 SA at 1st. I'd probably just put it so that it would say "At X level you can have a maximum of Yd6 in Sneak Attack"

 

[shilsen]

Thanks for the comments. I'm looking at this more from a balance viewpoint than a flavor one.

 

[Deset Gled]

Thanks for the comments. I'm looking at this more from a balance viewpoint than a flavor one.

From a balance perspective, it isn't all that bad on it's own, once you put the proper restrictions on it that others have mentioned. I think the most powerful builds you'll see will be two weapon fighters (no longer limited by the low BAB and hit die of a rogue), which can be probably be taken care of pretty easily by strategic movement. Dervishes could potentially get overpowering.

It's probably worth noting, though, that it might open up a bit of a Pandora's Box to your players. The next thing they may want is a feat that allows raging, or a feat that allows really fast movement, or a feat that allows shapeshifting. It's just a place I wouldn't want to go.

 

[dcollins]

You may want to look at the UA "Generic Classes" on p. 76 for a somewhat different take on the issue. Here, one feat buys you +2d6 sneak attack, the next another +3d6, and the one after that an added +4d6. However, there are increasing large prerequisites of ranks in Hide and Move Silently (4, 11, and 18 ranks each) for those.

In addition, Generic Classes are supposed to entirely replace the normal core classes regime, so there's no guarantee that they're balanced in the same way.

 

[DemonAtheist]

theres an epic feat that does the same thing (+1 SA dmg). Heres a separate question tho: what if you maximize prestige classes to get more sneak attack than you should? for example:

5 rogue (3d6)
1 guild thief (1d6)
1 assassin (1d6)
1 invisible balde (1d6)


thats --- 6d6. Houserule in a Dagger of Subtlety, take the psionics general feat deadly precision at level 9, and you have one evil minmaxed SA fiend. im sure theres more you could do with this, but i dont have sourcebooks at hand...suffice to say that you need some limits to SA or its easy to break with multiclassing