Feats to Give Sneak Attack?

[accipiter]

I have a player who is currently a straight-up wizard and considering the Spellwarp Sniper prestige class. One of the prerequisites is 1d6 Sneak Attack damage, and I was wondering if anyone knew of any feats or other methods to get that without taking a level in a class with it?

I've seen references to Martial Study -> Martial Stance/Assassin's Stance, and that sounds reasonable (two feats, neither of which are particularly useful to him, instead of one class level), but what do you all think? Worth it? Too powerful? Not powerful enough?

 

[avr]

Those are from the book of 9 swords. They're fine IMO, but note the level requisite. Assassin's Stance is a 3rd level stance, so requires initiator level 5+, so a wizard without martial adept levels must be level 10+ to take it. A wizard using his level 12 feat (& a prereq of 1 lower level feat) to gain 2d6 sneak attack isn't out of line IMO.

If he takes a level of swordsage to get these he doesn't increase his wizard level, which is its own cost. This is still probably a better bargain than a level of rogue for him though.

 

[phindar]

This might be less helpful, because its AE, but I'll mention it. AE's First Strike gives you +1d6 Sneak Attack damage when attacking a flat-footed opponent at the beginning of combat. (Sneak Attack is a lot harder to get in AE, so that's why the feat may seem a little underpowered.) But if you were inclined to allow it, that could work.

 

[SteelDraco]

On the off chance it's available, the feat Bayushi's Technique, a Scorpion clan feat from the Rokugan sourcebook, grants a die of sneak attack damage.

 

[lukelightning]

This might be less helpful, because its AE, but I'll mention it. AE's First Strike gives you +1d6 Sneak Attack damage when attacking a flat-footed opponent at the beginning of combat.

Yeah, it's more like the ninja's sudden strike ability.

I'd never allow a feat to give sneak attack. Rogues' are gypped enough as it is without more people stepping on their toes. And it would lead to PrC abuse.

 

[Drowbane]

On the off chance it's available, the feat Bayushi's Technique, a Scorpion clan feat from the Rokugan sourcebook, grants a die of sneak attack damage.

I was going to mention that...

I've used it for several years now for Mook Ninjas (human expert 1 w/bayushi's technique and way of the Scorp).

 

[accipiter]

Great suggestions, everyone, thank you!

The big issue with the Martial Study/Martial Stance line would be the level requirements (thanks for the heads up on that, I missed it completely) -- the player definitely would like to be able to at least start to play his PrC before the end of the campaign!

I'd never allow a feat to give sneak attack. Rogues' are gypped enough as it is without more people stepping on their toes. And it would lead to PrC abuse.

I agree that toe-stepping is something to watch out for. And I can see how, with a balanced-for-sacrificing-a-level-of-spellcasting class like Spellwarp Sniper (or so I've read), a single feat requirement would be too inexpensive.

I think that ultimately he'll probably, if he decides on the PrC, just take a level of thief, either as a rebuild or an addition. (I'm usually pretty lenient about allowing a rebuild if something just isn't working with a character or if new material comes out after we start play that really "works" with the character.)

 

[backbeat]

Assumably the player wants to keep caster level progression or they'd just take one level of rogue. So he wants to multiclass without actually multiclassing. Maybe dipping into something like spell thief or Beguiler would help in more. I think both of those would get sneak attack.

If you really wanted to invoke variants: I think there is a battle sorcerer that gets fighter feats in place of wizard bonus feats. Unearthed Arcana, allows fighters to chose sneak attack dice in place of bonus feats. So you could by chaining those together allow you PC to take 1d6 sneak attack in place of each bonus metamagic feat.

I looked at spellwarp sniper for ninja/conjurer I'm playing. It's not all that great of a class unless you have access to the spell compendium to pick you spells. In the SRD there are pretty much no warpable spells until Fireball and lightning bolt at 3rd level.

 

[kreynolds]

One of my favorite alternate classes from UA is the fighter that gives up bonus feats for sneak attack. Honestly, I'd have no problem allowing sneak attack via feats.

However, I will note that while this UA variant says the fighter loses bonus feats, take special note that a fighter normally gains a bonus feat at 1st-level AND 2nd-level. The fighter gives this up to get sneak attack as a rogue, presumably at the same progression. A rogue gains sneak attack increases at every odd level. In a way, the variant suggests that getting into sneak attack takes two feats (the fighter's 1st-level feat and 2nd-level feat. After that, it's a 1-for-1 tradeoff.