Ampersand: Sneak Attack

[Ahglock]

+6 from an item, +5 from a tome. 760,000gp, remember?

And they were already getting rid of the magic items helping your stats thing, so 11 points of absurd stats are gone. Now they say, stats also don't really help you as much as well. So less bonuses, and they work in less areas. If it ends up being true, I really don't like this.

 

[Kirnon_Bhale]

I don't think a shuriken is what you think it is...

I know what they are What I am saying is that they will change - thrown as they are they will be short range melee. It is after all a simple flick of the wrist not worth an AoO usable in close quarters and at a short distance but their size precludes any real range etc.

 

[shilsen]

But I think hong is right. Life isn't fair. We all are responsible for the death of innocent kittens, regardless if h4ter or f4nboy or something in between.

I can only hope that there is no one actually enjoying it!

*raises hand*

Oh, wait - was that rhetorical?

 

[HeinorNY]

using that reasoning, the 3E skill system worked too. But in reality it recieved a lot of criticism because, for example, fighters had to spend their feats on skill focus to become good on a non-fighter skill which means you have one combat feat less.
The same will apparently be happening in 4E. Either the Fighter takes Warthog power slam (to use 4E naming conventions ) or training in stealth.

Most of the criticism on 3.5 skill system was about the fact it was too cumbersome and that's the mains reason they changed it.

I still can't see the point of those complains. Priority and character choices are a base of RPGs. And so it is in real life.

How can it be different?
You could just be good at everything? If so, isn't that the complain about SWSE skill system?

SWSE skill system is bad because characters are "good" at everything and 3.5 skill system is bad because characters can't be "good" at everthing?

I think I'm lost. What are you complaining about?

 

[Mentat55]

Using that reasoning, the 3E skill system worked too. But in reality it recieved a lot of criticism because, for example, fighters had to spend their feats on skill focus to become good on a non-fighter skill which means you have one combat feat less.
The same will apparently be happening in 4E. Either the Fighter takes Warthog power slam (to use 4E naming conventions ) or training in stealth.

I am not sure this is true.

3.5E: 20th level fighter, max cross-class ranks in Hide/Move Silently, plus Stealthy, plus Skill Focus (Hide) and Skill Focus (Move Silently) = +17
20th level rogue, max ranks in Hide/Move Silently = +23

4E (of course, no one knows for certain how skills and skill training feats are really working, but based on reasonable conjecture): 20th level fighter = +10 Stealth
20th level fighter with Skill Training (Stealth) = +15 Stealth
20th level rogue = +15 Stealth

So the 3.5E fighter is frittering away skill points AND took 3 feats AND still is inferior to the rogue by a fairly large margin. In 4E, for the cost of 1 (speculated) feat, the fighter and rogue are equivalent at sneaking around, barring differences in Dexterity and armor.

In 3.5E, being good at cross-class skills usually requires multiclassing, which adds its own baggage. A feat (or several) seems like a more elegant solution to this situation.

 

[Felon]

You have DMs much more generous than mine. Such items are rarely found, and there are no wal-magics around to buy them at. Our high-level character usually just have uber weapons. (+3 Flaming Burst Keen Speed Rapier FTW!....I was doing something like 8 attacks per round w/2-weapon fighting and a 15-20 crit range plus sneak attack...)

Right. I ran a couple of high-level campaigns and there wasn't a single +6 item or tome of any description in the game.

There are prescribed amounts of wealth by level in the DMG. If your DM wasn't adhering to them, he's deviating from the RAW. Deciding a character isn't going to have as much in the way of magic items as he's supposed to at a given level is like taking the feats out of a fighter's mouth. But by RAW, that +6 tome is very attainable.

 

[hong]

I don't think a shuriken is what you think it is...

What KB noticed before is that shuriken doesn't appear on the list of weapons you can sneak attack with. This makes no sense thematically (they're an iconic weapon of the ninjae, after all) so the conclusion is that shuriken are lumped under the "light blades" category. It's crazy but it just might work.

 

[Derren]

I think I'm lost. What are you complaining about?

That the 4E skill system is unnecessary as it doesn't fix anything. The same "problems" (although imo they are not problems at all) are still there.

 

[drothgery]

You have DMs much more generous than mine. Such items are rarely found, and there are no wal-magics around to buy them at. Our high-level character usually just have uber weapons. (+3 Flaming Burst Keen Speed Rapier FTW!....I was doing something like 8 attacks per round w/2-weapon fighting and a 15-20 crit range plus sneak attack...)

The common baseline we've got for how much treasure PCs of a given level have is the table on page 135 of the DMG... where +6 stat boosters become affordable between 12th (less than 1/2 of your wealth) and 14th (less than 1/4 of your wealth) level depending on how much of your resources you want to devote to them. Certainly my recently retired 19th level character had a +6 stat booster and had had one for a while, even though he had nowhere near 580,000 gp worth of gear (though he started out with DMG wealth at 13th level).

 

[3d6]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dramp/20080222a

An article revealing the Rogue. I'll post my impressions later, first I'm going to read cthe article.

Did anyone else get the impression that Strength is no longer automatically added to melee damage rolls? As I was reading through the descriptions of Brawny Rogue and Trickster Rogue build suggestions, it seemed like the writer felt the only use for Strength for a Trickster Rogue was to use "powers intended for the other rogue build", instead of as a general boost to damage.

I wonder if the powers just deal the listed damage with no other additions? For example, If I use deft strike, do I just deal my weapon damage + my Dexterity modifier?