Deadly Rogues and Ranged Sneak Attack

[LcKedovan]

Been discussing some rogue related stuff with 5 foot step and hide and ranged sneak attack. Here is the thread on it, what do you guys think? Ghouls mentioned are from a previous combat... the person was on a riding dog too so no chance of rogue-ish sneak/hide etc. but that was past, what about the proposals in this one? I don't have my books/errata handy so can't really discuss the point, but thought you rulesmeisters could add some thoughts..

Hiding is the skill the Rogue has the most skill points in. He is a Halfling (+4) and has exceptional dexterity (+5) and has trained 5 ranks his skill compares to an 11th level rogue with average dexterity.

You only need a short distraction of the victim to hide a rogue.

Example from description of Hide skill: If you are in plain sight and victim is watching you, using a bluff could give you the short distraction needed to reach a spot suited to hide in shadows. The distance a thief can travel during the short distraction is roughly his ranks in feet.

Bluff was not useful in last encounter as a distant opponent would not draw as much attention from a Ghoul in melee to use bluff and make Ghoul look into a different direction. Bluff would be a full round action. In direct melee I could use bluff either as a faint (see description of bluff). Faint is a standard action which I could do instead of the attack in one round and then catching victim unaware (-dex) and use sneak bonus in the next. I could imagine a rogue trying to use Bluff/Faint in melee and trying to use the short distraction to jump into hiding place. But this probably at a very high skill check and could only succeed if a perfect hiding place is in range …

But in the last encounter I could imagine that a Ghoul which is in a melee has several short distractions (avoiding blows of the woodsmen) And the Rogue could try using an opportunity to rush unseen into a hiding place 5’ away. (Especially if perfect hiding places like trees and bushes are around)

But waiting for the useful unawareness of the Ghoul might not be a free action (as I tried below but a move equivalent action.

So I could imagine one shoot and a the initial hiding (travel as far as rank in hide skill) would be possible in one round and in the next round the rogue could use hide skill again to move another 10 feet and then shoot from a direction which the victim is not aware of and such use the sneak bonus.

But this would only work in such favourable conditions as:

- victim distracted partly be melee

- good hiding places close by

-Will

 

[BlindKobold]

Why bother against undead... they are immune to crits and therefore immune to sneak attack... it's pretty useless unless they have a high DEX, which would be negated.

 

[LcKedovan]

Sorry, I may have been confusing in the last post, The discussion was more on doing the actions, the fact that he used Ghould as an example was because of a previous combat where they battled them. Assume the discussion on the whole thing is aimed against errr... a dog or something .

-W.

P.S. I turned out a Gauntlet adventurer as well