Complete Adventurer Erratta Posted--ATTENTION ALL SCOUTS!!!

[Felon]

Of course, it is clearly and obviously entirely my fault when I get annoyed that someone who didn't closely read my post implies that I don't know what I'm talking about. All blame resides with me, and you should avoid anything that looks like an apology for fear of seeming weak.

Looking back over my reply to your post, I'm at a loss to see what egregious slight was contained therein. As I stated the rationalization for the skirmish ability is not clearly described, so it's not immediately obvious whether it's momentum or a variant sneak attack.

At any rate, I offer you mea culpas galore.

Effectively, the party will have to suck it up in order to get past the trap, but with the right preparation, they have a better chance of avoiding damage, or get damaged less.

Ah, I see.

 

[moritheil]

Looking back over my reply to your post, I'm at a loss to see what egregious slight was contained therein. As I stated the rationalization for the skirmish ability is not clearly described, so it's not immediately obvious whether it's momentum or a variant sneak attack.

At any rate, I offer you mea culpas galore.

Accepted. I have no ill will towards you, but I wanted to be crystal clear about where I stood.

At any rate, back to the topic, it seems that there is some disparity amongst DMs as to whether or not the actual Disable Device skill has to be used in order to successfully defeat a trap in such a manner as to gain exp from it. That is, some DMs do not consider merely springing the trap safely (or with minimal harm to the group) to be defeating it, because the trap is sprung.

 

[Ryltar]

I don't really understand what's wrong with this. (I don't play a scout, but there's one in a game I play in, and he uses this tactic. He's anything but overwhelming in combat.)

It seems to me that the point of the 10-foot move thing was to ensure the scout wouldn't get a full attack. The "5-foot shuffle" ensures that just fine. Is there some balance reason for this change that I'm missing?

Not a balance thing, but rather a logical problem I have with this. Now, while I don't think that the scout's skirmish ability has anything to do with greater force behind the attack, it has, in fact, to do with moving quickly while at the same time attacking precisely. This may be in part because of the D&D "no facing" rules, but I have a really hard time picturing any opponent being surprised and thus caught in a vulnerable spot by someone who moves forward quickly ... and then moves back to the exact same spot. I 'can' picture someone sprinting away from his starting location and loosing an arrow on the way, thus catching his enemy in the flank (or whatever) because he is too slow to turn and follow the scout's quick movement.

 

[moritheil]

Not a balance thing, but rather a logical problem I have with this. Now, while I don't think that the scout's skirmish ability has anything to do with greater force behind the attack, it has, in fact, to do with moving quickly while at the same time attacking precisely. This may be in part because of the D&D "no facing" rules, but I have a really hard time picturing any opponent being surprised and thus caught in a vulnerable spot by someone who moves forward quickly ... and then moves back to the exact same spot. I 'can' picture someone sprinting away from his starting location and loosing an arrow on the way, thus catching his enemy in the flank (or whatever) because he is too slow to turn and follow the scout's quick movement.

I believe the concept is analogous to bluffing (feinting.)

 

[Jeff Wilder]

And in the face of a gas trap, a character might just hold his breath?

No, in the face of such a trap, a party laments its choice of scout over rogue, just as, in the case of a group starving in the wilderness, the party laments its choice of a rogue over a scout.

 

[Klaus]

I have no issues with the movement thing and the Disable Device thing.

But the nerf on a mounted scout seemed unnecessary. Throw them riders a bone, will ya?

 

[Iku Rex]

Huh?

Page 110: Leap Attack
The second sentence of the Benefit paragraph should
read as follows:
If you cover at least 10 feet of horizontal distance with
your jump, and you end your jump in a square from
which you threaten your target, you deal +100% the
normal bonus damage from your use of the Power
Attack feat.

So what's the change? (Original last part of sentence: "..., you can double the extra damage dealt by your use of the Power Attack feat.")

I'm guessing they meant to get rid of the unbalancing third sentence ("if you use this tactic with a two-handed weapon, you instead triple the extra damage from Power Attack"), and the changed text is merely a "clarification" (?) on what the sentence already says. Or am I missing something?

 

[Ysgarran]

If the class can find traps, then clearly the intent should be to supplant the rogue as the party trapfinder, and it shouldn't be half-assed at doing so (although trap sense still makes the rogue the optimal trapfinder).

I always saw the scout as a 'pathfinder' kind of class and function.
The scout was someone who would recon the area ahead marking the traps for others to avoid, it didn't strike me as a class that was a path clearer.
With such an emphasis on mobility it struck me as perfectly reasonable that the scout would not want to stop (i.e. not use their mobility) and spend the time to disable trap.

Ysgarran.

 

[Votan]

No, in the face of such a trap, a party laments its choice of scout over rogue, just as, in the case of a group starving in the wilderness, the party laments its choice of a rogue over a scout.

Okay, I tend to dislike "cherry-picking" errata (otherwise I'd love to ignroe some divine metamagic errata). Obviously the designers appear to be reluctant to put a lot of it out as very problematic books often seem to haev very short errata sections (see Complete Divine). While I can houserule anything, the granting of this skill as an option to the scout is hardly some sort of disaster.

In point of fact, I look at the skill as partially being the character side of all of the enat tricks that epople are talking about. Just like Diplomacy is the character side of social skills. It's not that I want to eliminate the roleplayign opportunities but, to be frank, if a player wants to play a diplomat and isn't articulate they should have a chance due to the skill. Ditto with evading traps. Good ideas (like good roleplaying with diplomacy) give bonuses but are rarely successful unless trivial to use (casting protection from energy would be trivial because it has no failure chance). But using a clever tactic to disable the trap -- well, the skill determines your ability to execute this tactic successfully.

As seen in the ever popular Red Green Show, good ideas and technical expertise arn't always perfectly correlated.

 

[JimAde]

So what's the change? (Original last part of sentence: "..., you can double the extra damage dealt by your use of the Power Attack feat.")

I'm guessing they meant to get rid of the unbalancing third sentence ("if you use this tactic with a two-handed weapon, you instead triple the extra damage from Power Attack"), and the changed text is merely a "clarification" (?) on what the sentence already says. Or am I missing something?

I think they're trying to clarify that when you do "double damage" you're actually increasing the multiplier by one. So if you are also doubling damage for some other reason you do triple the original, not quadruple. In D&D:

X * 2 * 2 = 3X