D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Uncanny Dodge = Immune to Feints?

[Hypersmurf]

Slightly of at a tangent, have you noticed that UD now protects you from sneak attacks if attacked when balancing?

Huh. And no AoOs while balancing either...

-Hyp.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

"At 2nd level, a barbarian retains his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) if he is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, he can still lose his Dexterity bonus to AC through all other normal means."

Makes you wonder if they worded it that vaguely on purpose...

This forgeds that you will lose your dex bonus if you're immobilized.

UD will protect you against losing your dex bonus when you're caught flat-footed or when attacked by an unseen enemy. Other situations aren't covered, and when you're immobilized, even UD won't help you against them.

 

[BSF]

Hello,
The depth of the arguements based on grammar are fascinating. They aren't entirely my cup of tea, but they are fascinating. I can see the ruling going either way, based on personal preference. However, that does not really help the GM that is debating this issue with a player.

We don't have an "official ruling" from WotC, at least, we don't have one yet. Why don't we, the community at EN World, rewrite the Uncanny Dodge ability to include Feint? Even if it is "Unofficial" and might be trumped by a future WotC clarification. From what I have seen over the past two years (lurking) is that the people that frequent EN World are intelligent and can work out clear rulings. I'm not knocking on WotC, but they have a smaller staff of potential "designers" than the community here.

I would argue that we should evaluate it in terms of game balance instead of "designer's possible intent".

Would Uncanny Dodge become too powerful if it also prevented Feint?

What about the valid point that Feinting in combat has a game mechanic aspect to counter it (Sense Motive)?

What about a compromise wherein a sufficiently high level rogue trumps Uncanny Dodge's (theoretical) immunity to Feint?

Is there a sufficiently strong arguement that can be made either way, from the standpoint of game balance, that the ability (and/or the bluff skill) can be reasonably clarified without an arbitrary decision on the part of the GM?

Maybe there isn't a sufficiently strong arguement either way and that is why this hasn't been clarified before.

 

[Camarath]

Hello,
The depth of the arguements based on grammar are fascinating. They aren't entirely my cup of tea, but they are fascinating. I can see the ruling going either way, based on personal preference. However, that does not really help the GM that is debating this issue with a player.

Hi, nice to have you here. I am glad you found our debate interesting. I think what we were trying to accomplish with our grammatical analysis was to extranct an "offical" ruling by spelling out what exactly the sentence can mean and can't not mean. Unfortunately the construction used in this case has a lot of overtones which obfuscate it's precise meaning. But if there is one rule we all here at ENworld can agree on I think it is rule 0. And it can and does trump any interpritation of this rule by us or by WotC.

We don't have an "official ruling" from WotC, at least, we don't have one yet. Why don't we, the community at EN World, rewrite the Uncanny Dodge ability to include Feint? Even if it is "Unofficial" and might be trumped by a future WotC clarification. From what I have seen over the past two years (lurking) is that the people that frequent EN World are intelligent and can work out clear rulings. I'm not knocking on WotC, but they have a smaller staff of potential "designers" than the community here.

I don't think we have reached consensus on this issue. So I dont think we will be able to argee on a single ruling. But feel free to use any of our arguments to support your stance. (You can use mine at least. I probably should not speak for others.) I do think WotC had ample opportunity (a whole new revised release) to deal with this issue and feel that they were to some extent negligent here. If you really need some sort of ruling on this issue here are two interpretations which I feel represent to two main stances on this issue (both in my own words).

1)You retain you Dex bonus when flat-footed or when struck by an invisible attacker unless you are immobilized.

2)You retain your dex bonus unless immobilized this includes being caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker.

I would argue that we should evaluate it in terms of game balance instead of "designer's possible intent".

Would Uncanny Dodge become too powerful if it also prevented Feint?

I do not think it would be unbalanced either way you wanted to rule it. But that also depends on how big a role feinting plays in your campaign.

What about the valid point that Feinting in combat has a game mechanic aspect to counter it (Sense Motive)?

Does Uncanny Dodge trump this rule? Does this rule trump Uncanny Dodge? Does Uncanny Dodge apply here? I think that all depends on how the DM chooses to interpret Uncanny Dodge and it's interaction with this rule.

What about a compromise wherein a sufficiently high level rogue trumps Uncanny Dodge's (theoretical) immunity to Feint?

Not a bad ruling if that is how you want to play it like that. It does have some precedent with the Uncanny Dodge and flanking rule.

Is there a sufficiently strong arguement that can be made either way, from the standpoint of game balance, that the ability (and/or the bluff skill) can be reasonably clarified without an arbitrary decision on the part of the GM?

I don't really think the issue has that big of an impact on the game, to tell the truth.

Maybe there isn't a sufficiently strong arguement either way and that is why this hasn't been clarified before.

Maybe or maybe it just wasn't worth it to them to throughly test and revise the rules. Adding new content is much easier than integrating the exiting rules (and new rules) in such a way as to find and clarify these issues.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I don't plan on allowing Uncanny Dodge to work against Combat Feint. Combat Feint is exceedingly difficult in 3.5, and no one is getting the ability to automatically avoid it because of Uncanny Dodge.

I'm pretty much sticking with the ruling that Uncanny Dodge protects against Invisible attackers and flat-footedness until I hear otherwise from WotC.

As far as I am concerned, you can see the attack coming, but the Combat Feint allows you to trick the opponent into defending a certain way when the attack is coming from somewhere else.

 

[BSF]

Hi, nice to have you here. I am glad you found our debate interesting. I think what we were trying to accomplish with our grammatical analysis was to extranct an "offical" ruling by spelling out what exactly the sentence can mean and can't not mean. Unfortunately the construction used in this case has a lot of overtones which obfuscate it's precise meaning. But if there is one rule we all here at ENworld can agree on I think it is rule 0. And it can and does trump any interpritation of this rule by us or by WotC.

Hi back! I totally agree with rule 0. I have used it plenty of times in my 23 years of GM'ing.

As has been amply demonstrated, the rules are less than clear on this point. It would be easier if the rules were clearly worded. I am not really worried about how I would rule it. My players accept most of my arbitrary decisions without any real arguement. Nor am I particularly worried about any of the people posting here. Clearly, everyone can make the call one way or the other. I just have this picture in my head of a relatively new GM stuck in this type of discussion with a player, or with several players. That, coupled with a degree of egotism, makes me think that we could rewrite the description so that any GM could house rule it directly into their game and avoid the rules conflict that might arise.

Alas, I am too tired right now to give it a try. Perhaps I will try that later.

 

[Enkhidu]

This forgeds that you will lose your dex bonus if you're immobilized.

UD will protect you against losing your dex bonus when you're caught flat-footed or when attacked by an unseen enemy. Other situations aren't covered, and when you're immobilized, even UD won't help you against them.

Actually, KaeYoss, look at the proposed wording again: "At 2nd level, a barbarian retains his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) if he is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, he can still lose his Dexterity bonus to AC through all other normal means."

Being immobilized normally causes a loss of Dex bonus (if any), so it falls under "normal means." I probably also should've not used "invisible attacker" and put "unseen attacker" as it allows actually covers blindness, complete darkness, etc.

 

[Artoomis]

The solution...

I propose that we suggest that WotC clarify this poor wording by adopting one of the following clarifications:

1. ... retains his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) when he is either caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker."

2. ... retains his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) when he is caught flat-footed, struck by an invisible attacker, is subject to a feint from his opponent using the bluff skill, or otherwise loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) for reasons other than being immobilized or otherwise having his movement restricted.

Which one you like depends on what you think was intended with the current rules. It WotC would accept one or the other, at least we'd know what we were supposed to do to be "official," for times when that is important.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I wrote to the Sage, and here's his answer:

In a message dated 8/7/03 11:35:54 AM, kaeyoss@xxxxx.xxx writes:
<< Could you give me an official answer that Uncanny Dodge won't help you against feinting? >>

Uncanny dodge offically does not help you against feinting.

 

[AGGEMAM]

Good enough for me. (But then again that was what I was arguing for.)