[CONAN] Examining the Feint

[Water Bob]

The Feint is a complicated and interesting combat option. This examination is from the Conan RPG POV, since that's the game I run. I suspect that the Feint may be used a bit differently in normal d20 games since Conan uses Parry and Dodge AC's and armor that absorbs damage--thus it may be a slighlty different rule (I'm not sure.).

Let's look at one of the characters from my campaign, Silaigne, attempting the maneuver.

When Silaigne first attempts the maneuver, he gives up an attack, using his Standard action to attempt the Bluff roll for the Feint. If successful, on the following round, the target is considered Flat Footed (cannot Dodge or Parry).

So, basically, if the Feint attempt is successful 100% of the time, then Silaigne gets his number of attacks cut in half, but the other 50% of the time, Silaigne is attacking his target needing only a 10+ on the attack roll to hit.

Is it worth it, giving up half your attacks for such a bonus on your attack? Maybe. It ain't bad.

Now, let's give Silaigne the Improved Feint Feat. What this will do is allow the Feint to happen each round, instead of every other round. Silaigne would no longer have to give up half his attacks.

This almost seems like a game breaker, doesn't it? I mean, successful Feints strip the target of all of his Parry or Dodge defenses. If you get good at the Feint, the character becomes quite formidable in combat.

Is this broken?





What's it cost to be good at the Feint? A high CHR score helps, which means that's a high score that can't be put into DEX or STR (or even CON for extra hit points).

Skill points put into Bluff also help, since the Feint roll is a Bluff roll--but is this a cost? A high Bluff modifier helps the character in obvious ways, and now, this allows the character to bring a high mod skill into combat--I'd call this more of a perk.

In order to get the Improved Feint Feat, the character needs INT 13+ and the Combat Expertise Feat. Depending on how you look at it, that could be a cost because the character is using precious Feat Slots for the requirements.

Rightly, the opposed roll for a Feint to succeed is a Sense Motive check where the target is allowed to apply his BAB to the throw (simulating more experience using their experience in this type of combat matter).



So, is the Feint worth it?

Does Feint have the potential to be a game breaker?

Thoughts?





EDIT: Can the Feint be used to defeat or disregard Total Defense?

 

[Greenfield]

The Feint maneuver you describe seems to work the same way it does in D&D 3.5, just to let you know.

It's an option. How good an option is difficult to say. Obviously, the better you are at it the more it costs, but the more it's worth.

If you're a Rogue in D&D, and get extra dice of damage against a foe denied their Dex bonus, it's a big plus.

One cost you forgot to mention though is the one involving iterative attacks. If you use your Move action to use Improved Feint, you only get the one attack that round. At low level you're giving up little or nothing, but as your levels advance, so does this cost.

Because your enemies are getting better and better at not being fooled as you advance in levels (i.e. higher level foes have higher BABs), you need to keep investing skill points each level to keep this an effective option.

If you're a 13 Int Human Fighter, you get 4 points per level (2 per level for class, 1 for Int, and one bonus for being Human). That means an ongoing cost of half of your skill points to keep it competitive (Bluff is cross-class for fighters, so it costs two skill points to advance it by one rank.)

Now Rogues, on the other hand, get 8 + Int mod per level, so their cost is proportionally lower. Same race, same Int, but more skill points and Bluff is in class, so they're giving up one tenth of their skill points, a much lower investment. Further, since Rogues don't get as many iterative attacks as they advance, they aren't giving up as much when they reduce themselves to a single attack in a round. And, of course, as they advance, the number of extra damage dice they get upon success goes up.

So, all in all, it's a great option for Rogues, with a relatively low cost and a fairly high payout.

For fighters? Not as good an idea.

To your original question: Is it "broken"? A Feint-specialized Rogue or Factotem can make a DM want to vomit, but then extreme overuse of any "trick" maneuver can inspire the same level of nausea. For them, yeah it can look pretty broken.

For the fighter type you described? It isn't even close to being broken.

 

[Water Bob]

The Feint maneuver you describe seems to work the same way it does in D&D 3.5, just to let you know.

I was just curious because of the way Conan uses Armor to reduce damage, not make your AC higher. So, in Conan, if you can't Dodge or Parry, you're flatfooted--AC 10.

I was thinking that maybe 3.5 D&D had the Feint reducing DEX bonus but not any Armor bonus to AC.

 

[Noumenon]

TSo, basically, if the Feint attempt is successful 100% of the time, then Silaigne gets his number of attacks cut in half, but the other 50% of the time, Silaigne is attacking his target needing only a 10+ on the attack roll to hit.

You phrased this poorly; it sounds like he needs to roll a 10 to hit, which isn't good. He's gonna need to roll like a 3.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Feint, as mentioned, might work decently well at low level. However, as one gets higher its effectiveness can tend to diminish.

BAB will definitely complicate things. If we say the things that buff Bluff can also be used to buff Sense Motive, they're equal on that front. BAB will buff the SM check though, so it gains ground there. It also gains ground because Bluff has an opportunity cost. What else could you do with that standard action? A lot of things.

I'm just guessing here, but it's possible they added BAB to the equation on the understanding that opponents likely won't have Sense Motive maxed out. It gives less skillful monsters a chance to overcome the bluff. Unfortunately, when you encounter a skilled opponent with full BAB, you'll probably get screwed.

Pretty much the ways to make feint actually worthwhile are to speed it up, or have a doozy of an attack made possible from it. Unless you can do the damage of two standard attacks, it's not likely worth it.

Adding onto what Greenfield said, a feint-specialized Beguiler also tends to be pretty powerful. In that case though, much of the class is based around bluff. It's the only option I'm aware of that gets feint down to a swift action, and when successful it means his spells are all the more potent.

 

[Greenfield]

I was just curious because of the way Conan uses Armor to reduce damage, not make your AC higher. So, in Conan, if you can't Dodge or Parry, you're flatfooted--AC 10.

I was thinking that maybe 3.5 D&D had the Feint reducing DEX bonus but not any Armor bonus to AC.

A successful Feint denies the opponent his or her Dex to AC. AC, however, still works like AC normally does: Armor makes it harder to hit, so their AC doesn't go to 10. In fact, in the case of a Dex 10 opponent, it doesn't drop at all.

But the rules for the Rogue's Sneak Attack are that he gets to add his SA dice to the damage whenever the opponent is denied their Dex, even if that Dex bonus is <= 0.

As far as the Beguiler (Character Class: Beguiler -- Master of Deception) is concerned: They may be built around Bluff, but since they don't get Sneak Attack, they don't get the big damage bonus that makes it all pay off.

The Invisible Blade PRC, on the other hand, gets Improved Feint as a free/swift action, and still gets SA bonus damage. And *that* definitely approaches "broken".

 

[Jackinthegreen]

Sneak Attack, while a good number of d6's or even d8's, is behind on damage compared to other things. Like an ubercharger for instance that can get over 6000 damage in one round. The best I've seen with Sneak Attack is a TWF Crescent Knife build that got 14 attacks at 9d6 SA, so technically 28 at 9d6. That's, at most, 1512 damage. This could go up to 2016 if using the feat that makes SA do d8 damage against evil outsiders IIRC.

As far as Beguilers go, on a successful feint their spells get increased DC and increased chance to overcome SR, eventually ignoring SR at 20th level. Spells might not be doing 1500+ damage, but in many cases they effectively do thanks to crippling the opponent outright.

 

[Water Bob]

You phrased this poorly; it sounds like he needs to roll a 10 to hit, which isn't good. He's gonna need to roll like a 3.

Of course, you're correct. The target is 10+, but I didn't account for modifiers on the attack throw.

A successful Feint denies the opponent his or her Dex to AC. AC, however, still works like AC normally does: Armor makes it harder to hit, so their AC doesn't go to 10. In fact, in the case of a Dex 10 opponent, it doesn't drop at all.

Yeah, that's what I thought, though wasn't sure. See, in Conan, the feint drops AC to AC 10. If a hit is made to a character in armor, then armor absorbs damage--it doesn't make the character harder to hit (if anything, it makes the character easier to hit when it limits DEX bonus).

In the Conan RPG, a character is AC 10, but he can up his AC by either Dodging or Parrying. Both will add significant bonuses to a character's AC, and both make it viable to play a character that does not wear armor (like Conan in a loin cloth).

Thus, the feint, in Conan, may be even deadlier than it is in normal D&D because AC is dropped so far.

Sure, it's harder to use a feint at the higher levels because of BAB, but if you score the feint....man, that's a hell of a bonus you get to hit because the high level guy is considered AC 10 and basically flat-footed against your next attack.