Level Up (A5E) A5E Rogue features and maneuvers interaction

[Huntedown]

Good day everyone.
I'm looking for clarification on some interaction for the following features
EXPERT TALENT
Beginning at 11th level, you almost never make mistakes when performing routine tasks. Whenever you make an ability check on which you roll expertise dice, you treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10.

FEINTING STRIKE
You make a skillful, deceptive strike which your foe doesn't see coming.

Make a melee weapon attack roll using the result of a Sleight of Hand check instead of your attack bonus.

Since feinting strike make you use your Sleight of hand rather than attack, would the Expert Talent be apply and you wouldn't roll anything under 10 OR Feighting strike allow you to use the overall bonuses from sleight of hand (including expertise) rather than just Prof + stat mod?

 

[Pedantic]

Yeah, I don't see any other way to parse that. That's a pretty reasonable return for 2 exertion a level 11 class feature and some combination of earlier class features and skill tricks.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

i think it's only to let you use your sleight of hand modifier, actually, since it specifically says "Make a melee weapon attack roll using the result of a Sleight of Hand check". it's still an attack roll, it just uses Sleight of Hand.

that said, i agree with Pedantic that this combination is reasonable, and the phrasing of "result of a Sleight of Hand check" could easily be argued to mean the result is an ability check (which would mean expert talent applies) that then gets translated into an attack roll. so i'd probably still allow it, personally.

 

[Ondath]

Assuming you have expertise on Sleight of Hand, automatically taking 10 on the attack roll seems like the correct reading of the rules. A5E doesn't use the same phrasing as O5E on most rules, so we usually don't need to go full Crawford when parsing rules interactions and can just assume the words mean what they do in everyday interaction. So Sleight of Hand check = Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) ability checks clearly.

In terms of whether this rule interaction is balanced, I don't know. I think we'd need to see it in play. Ultimately it just means you're guaranteed a roll a 10 on most attack rolls, and since the Rogue is usually expected to hit, maybe that doesn't change the overall balance that much. Or maybe the fact that it only costs 2 exertion does make it too handy to apply (after all, at level 11 that means you can spam the maneuver 12 times over an adventuring day). I think this kind of thing we just can't deduce from white room discussions, and need to actually playtest.