Comments and questions on 3.5 from a Newbie

[Edena_of_Neith]

Patryn, is there a Feat that negates this possibility of hitting your friend, if you fire into a grapple?

Thank you, Icycool. That means, as my post above indicated, that a high level rogue is really devastating.
This Sneak Attack ability dwarfs the Backstabbing Abilities of the Rogue in 1E and 2E. And it is far, far more versatile.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Patryn, is there a Feat that negates this possibility of hitting your friend, if you fire into a grapple?

None that I'm aware of.

EDIT: You can also only feint in melee combat.

 

[IcyCool]

Lidda fires 2 arrows at Narrin. Both are considered Sneak Attacks.

Two things wrong here.

1. Feint only works for melee attacks (see Feint on pg. 155 of the PHB)

2. Feing only works for the next melee attack. As in one.

So if Lidda had a dagger out and feinted, then the next round her first dagger attack would benefit from the feint, and her second one wouldn't.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

The above assumed:

Lidda and Narrin were toe to toe ...
Narrin had his greatsword out ...
Lidda had her longbow out ...

That isn't melee combat?
If it's because Lidda is using the longbow, then Lidda would most certainly pull out her long sword and use that, if she intended a feint.
Drawing a weapon is a move action, feinting is a standard action, so she could draw her longsword (drop her shortbow as a free action) and then feint.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The above assumed:

Lidda and Narrin were toe to toe ...
Narrin had his greatsword out ...
Lidda had her longbow out ...

That isn't melee combat?

Yes, but that isn't the right question. You're considered to be "in melee" whenever you and an enemy are positioned such that one of you threatens the other. Narrin has a sword, so he threatens Lidda. Therefore, Lidda and Nerrin are "in melee" with each other.

If Narrin had a crossbow, they would not be in melee.

However, the limitation on feinting isn't that you must be in melee,* but, rather, "the next melee attack you make against the target does not allow him to use his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any)."

Since Lidda isn't making a melee attack (unless she decides to thwack Narrin with her bow!), the benefits from feinting don't apply.

* I should have been more precise in my previous post! Sorry!

Drawing a weapon is a move action, feinting is a standard action, so she could draw her longsword (drop her shortbow as a free action) and then feint.

That would work, yes.

 

[MichaelH]

How would things have gone if YOU were writing the story, from Round 2 onward?

How would you have had things go, with Claire, Narrin, Grom, Lidda, Henneth, and the dire bear, if you were running them? (assume Mialee, Tordek, and Jozan are occupied with the Damaran vipers)

Let's say that Round 1 (where they all ran a lot, see the previous page of this thread, and the top of this page) has occurred already.
We need Round 1 to have occurred as it did, to jury-rig a situation where all the characters would engage in melee.

Anyone?

I am going to play the battle out, perhaps a few times, just to see what happens. I am really enjoying this little scenario. I will start with the setup after round 1, but I am making one change. Hennet, on his turn in round 1, would never run. He would Dimension Door next to Lidda. His mage armor spell would have been cast much earlier, too. So the round ends with Lidda flanked by Claire and Narrin on the east and west, and Hennet next to her on the north adjacent to all three. The dire bear is 80 ft. to the south and Grom is 100 feet to the southwest. I am assuming north is the hillock where Lidda's party is fighting the snakes. Here is how it looks.

_________H
_______C L N



G________DB

I will post the battle later or tomorrow.

 

[MichaelH]

I ran the battle and it only took a little over 2 rounds. Here is what happened.

Round 2

-Lidda tells Hennett that the brigand thinks she's an assassin, but the elf is not necessarily hostile. She then adjusts 5 feet northwest and shoots at Narrin twice. 10+18+1=29 and natural 1, one hit and one miss. Lidda adds sneak attack damage because Narrin was running and is still denied his Dex bonus to AC until his turn in round 2. She also adds 1 to damage due to Point Blank Shot. Narrin takes 25 damage from Lidda's shot and reduces his hit points to 17. "I hate assassins!" Lidda is now dodging Narrin.

-The dire bear charges and swings his mighty paw at Claire (11+19+2=32, hit!), delivering 18 damage to Claire who now has only 6 left! The dire bear swiftly grabs and pulls Claire close to itself to attempt to rip her apart with tooth and claw (Opposed grapple, dire bear 3+23=26, Claire 11+2=13). Claire moves into the dire bear's square. Narrin was not close enough to get an AoO. At this point, the dire bear and Claire are considered to be grappling.

-Claire screams "Help!!!" and delays.

-Grom chuckles when he sees the fate of the elf. If I can't kill the stupid elf, I will get the peck assassin, he thinks. He moves 30 feet northeast and fires an arrow at Lidda, but he badly misjudged the range and missed (6+7=13).

-Hennett instinctively tries to save the elf girl. He backs off about 5 feet to the north and unleashes his potent Hold Monster spell on the dire bear. The dire bear simply cannot summon the willpower to fight off the spell and "freezes" in place, much to the relief of Claire (DC 20 Will save, 2+9=11). Hennett figures they might need some speed very shortly and pulls out his wand of haste.

-Narrin steps 5 feet northwest and attempts to cleave Lidda in two, but she sidesteps his blow (15+11=26, Lidda's AC vs. Narrin is 30). "Curses."

-Claire decides to act and steps 5 feet northwest out of the clutches of the held dire bear. She tries the same trick, casting Hold Person on Narrin, but his willpower is stronger and the spell fails (16+5=21, DC 17). Finally, she pulls her rapier just in case.


Round 3

-Lidda decides the dire bear is the bigger threat since the brigand cannot seem to hit her with his slow weapon. She moves 5 feet northwest and takes two shots. Both will be sneak attacks with point blank range. Both easily hit (5+18+1=24 and 3+13+1=17) and deal 24 and 37 (rolled 32 out of a possible 36 for 6d6 sneak attack!) for a total of 61 damage to the dire bear. The dire bear has 44 hit points left.

-The dire bear tries to break the hold, but its willpower is just not good enough (2+9=11).

-Grom is cursing all that is unholy because the elf was spared a gruesome death. He moves 30 more feet and takes a shot, but Claire's mage armor protects her (8+7=15, AC 18).

-Hennet moves 5 feet northwest to keep pace with Lidda. He activates his wand of haste and chooses to haste Lidda, Claire and himself. He does not want his wand sundered so he stores it away.

-Narrin tells Lidda she will not get away that easily. He steps 5 feet toward Lidda and nearly slices her in half. Only Lidda's great reflexes allow her to escape death. But she takes a big wound for her trouble. Narrin crits her for 31 damage on two natural 20 rolls!! "Take that assassin!"

-Claire moves 5 feet northwest and 25 feet north and tries to catch both Narrin and the helpless dire bear in a Fireball. She succeeds and does 22 fire damage. The dire bear cannot avoid the flames and takes full damage (9+3=12, DC 17). It has 22 hit points left. Narrin tries to dodge the flame but ends up making it worse for himself. He takes full damage (rolled natural 1 on his save) and is reduced to -5 hit points. This also left his armor exposed to the fire, but fortunately fire does not hurt metal armor much (half damage from fire reduces the 22 to 11 damage and the 16 hardness reduces this to nothing).


Round 4

-Lidda shoots the dire bear twice (she can't miss except with a natural 1) and deals 20 and 24 damage, killing it. She decides it might be a good idea to start dodging the half-orc. She glares at him and nocks an arrow.

-Grom really wants to kill these uppity adventurers for killing his friend Narrin, but he knows he cannot beat all three alone. Grom runs away into the forest.


They let him go, stabilize Narrin and drag him back up the hill for questioning....

 

[Staffan]

I withdraw my statement about the usefulness of the DDG Feats.
Unless you got all the DDG Feats at 1st level (which is totally illegal, not to mention impossible) forget it. Being a Generalist in 3.5 doesn't pay. That's obvious, from this thread and the example combats.

Right. Most fighters tend to take a few of those feats (Improved Trip is very good against humanoids, and Power Attack is good if you're going the classic "hit'em hard" route), but not all of them.

For example, Lidda is able to take on both Grom and Narrin because she is specialized. Specialization pays. The more specialized, the better.

Being 12th level against 5th level opponents sure helps too.

Following my logic further, multiclassing is a bad idea. Someone pointed out fighter/mages stank in 3.5. It seems I must agree with his assessment.
The exception to this would be classes that stacked with each other, such as rogue/barbarian (?, or wizard/sorcerer?, fighter/ranger?) Even then, it sounds risky.

Generally, classes whose abilities are "linear" work well for multiclassing. This definitely applies to fighters (who just keeps getting BAB and feats), and pretty well to rogues (who will lose out on those cool high-level abilities, but until they get those their progression is linear), barbarians (who will lose out on improved rage and DR), paladins (who miss sub-par spells and better smite), and rangers (who lose out on sub-par spells, a sub-par animal companion, and their fighting style).

Classes with "exponential" abilities will lose out badly when multiclassing. This means all spellcasters (though for paladins and rangers, the spellcasting is such a minor part of their abilities that it doesn't really count), monks (who get tons of special abilities, as well as extra damage and stuff - plus, their base abilities don't play well with other classes), and similar things.

I am told the Prestige Classes are better than the classes. You get more for your money (experience points) per level in a PrC than with a normal class.

Ideally, a PrC shouldn't be better than a normal class. It should provide a specialization. However, most PrCs give you more goodies than you give up (especially spellcaster classes, since spellcaster base classes tend not to have much other than spellcasting to give up in the first place). It should be noted that most PrCs carry an opportunity cost, in that they often require you to take some subpar feats or similar things in order to get in (Archmage is a very powerful class, but requires one feat that's essentially wasted - Skill Focus (spellcraft)).

That said, there are some prestige classes that are the very opposite of specialized. In the core rules, these are the Mystic Theurge, Arcane Trickster, and Eldritch Knight. These are basically "patches" for the weakness of multiclassed spellcasters, usually requiring 3-5 levels in two different classes before you can start getting the benefits of almost-full advancement in both.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Very cool thread.

monks (who get tons of special abilities, as well as extra damage and stuff - plus, their base abilities don't play well with other classes), and similar things.

Monk 2 or Monk 4 is a very powerful base from which to multiclass into any lightly armored fighter or rogue build. +3 to all three saves, Wis to AC, free feats, improved speed, improved unarmed damage, and flurry of blows. Plus, you get better skills than a straight fighter or paladin.

 

[monboesen]

The exception to this would be classes that stacked with each other, such as rogue/barbarian (?, or wizard/sorcerer?, fighter/ranger?) Even then, it sounds risky.

Here is a 12 level fighter/adventurer. A would be companion of Lidda and Hennet. Bolgor is an example of when multiclassing works, and IMO more viable than a straight fighter.

He has decent levels in the skills that I think adventuring would require (climb, jump, spot, listen, hide, move silent and balance). Fights pretty well, has decent AC and HP, strong saves + evasion and better than average land speed. Uncanny dodge and Endurance (which lets him sleep in his armor) keeps his defenses up at most times. Mobility and spring attack lets him deal with opponents with reach.

In a pinch he is able to heal himself with his wand (and possibly use other wands/scrolls with spells from the rangers spell list). He is still not able to make it alone, he needs magical support to deal with the threats you can expect at level 12.

Bolgor CR 12
Male human fighter 5/ranger 3/rogue 4
NG medium humanoid
Init +3; Listen +13, Spot +13
Languages Common
__________________________________________________ ________
AC 25, touch 14, flat-footed 25, Dodge feat +1 to AC vs. 1 opponent
HP 94 (12 HD)
Fort +13, Ref +12, Will +10
__________________________________________________ ________
Spd 40 ft.
Melee +2 falcion of frost +19/+14/+9 (2d4+11 +1d6 frost/15-20)
Ranged composite (Str +5) longbow +14/+9/+4 (1d8+5/x3)
Base Atk +11; Grp +16
Atk Options power attack, cleave, rapid shot, spring attack
Special Actions Sneak attack +2d6, evasion, improved uncanny dodge, favoured enemy +2 (undead)
Combat Gear 2 potions of cure serious wounds, 2 potions of invisibility, wand of cure light wounds, wand of entangle
__________________________________________________ _________
Abilities Str 21, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8
SQ Human traits, trapfinding
Feats Iron will, Power attack, Track, Cleave, Weapon focus (falcion), Endurance, Dodge, Mobility, Weapon specialist (falcion), Improved critical (falcion), Spring attack
Skills Balance +9, Climb +16, Hide +14, Jump +25, Listen +13, Move Silently +14, Spot +13, Survival +11, Swim +7, Tumble +14
Possessions Combat gear, +3 mithral breastplate, +2 falcion of frost, boots of striding and springing, amulet of health +2, girdle of giant strength +4, gloves of dexterity +2, wand of cure light wounds, wand of entangle, cloak of resistance +3, +1 animated heavy steel shield, ring of protection +1, adventuring gear, composite (Str +5) longbow.