How to gain Combat Advantage

[Jan van Leyden]

As an avid player of rogues, my wife poured over the halfling rogue in KotS, noticing that she would have to gain Combat Advantage over an opponent to use the Sneak Attack class ability.

She could use Positioning Strike or Trick Strike to slide the opponent, but these are Encounter and Daily powers and would use up an Action Point as well.

The powers of the other pregens don't seem to help, either. So her question goes: "What can I or the other characters to to grant Combat Advantage to the rogue?"

There will probably be lots of powers which can be used to this end, meaning that the game will become unclear soon.

So we want to generate the Big Masterlist of Ways to Gain Combat Advantage.

Any help out there?

Huldvoll

Jan van Leyden

 

[Nightchill]

Well, Flanking is the most obvious one - how 3e Rogues generally got their Sneak Attack too.

 

[Montkiva]

Look at the "First Strike" ability of the KotS rogue: "at the start of an encounter, [the rogue has] combat advantage against any creature that has not yet acted in the encounter." With an initiative of +4, there should be a few circumstances in which the rogue can get combat advantage at the beginning on an encounter.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

The title of this thread is too much like spam.

Are you selling some sort of herbal remedy that will give me combat advantage?

 

[1of3]

- Grab.

- Prone targets grant combat advantage.

- Running targets grant combat advantage.

- Any dazed, blinded, restrained or surprised target offers combat advantage.

 

[themilkman]

Look at the "First Strike" ability of the KotS rogue: "at the start of an encounter, [the rogue has] combat advantage against any creature that has not yet acted in the encounter." With an initiative of +4, there should be a few circumstances in which the rogue can get combat advantage at the beginning on an encounter.

A rogue in my group had good success with this. He would move as close as he could, throw a dagger, pop an AP, and throw another one. Softened up some of the tankier mobs and nearly killed the squishy ones.

After that first round, most of his sneak attacks came from flanking and (rarely) attacking mobs who were made prone (prwned?) by the Fighter's Sweeping Strike.

 

[osmanb]

... Are you referring to using the AP to get two sneak attacks in the first round? I'm pretty sure that the sneak attack entry specifically states it can only be used once per turn.

 

[brislove]

sneak attack is certainly a once per turn activity.

 

[Saitou]

A rogue in my group had good success with this. He would move as close as he could, throw a dagger, pop an AP, and throw another one. Softened up some of the tankier mobs and nearly killed the squishy ones.

After that first round, most of his sneak attacks came from flanking and (rarely) attacking mobs who were made prone (prwned?) by the Fighter's Sweeping Strike.

Sneak Attack works only once per round, now, so the rogue wouldn't be able to SA with both daggers.

 

[Asmor]

I was thinking of a house rule for a new rogue feature. Something like

Deception

As a standard action, make a bluff check opposed by your target's insight. If you're successful, that target is marked by you until the end of your next turn. (Include standard marking spiel here)

Whenever you attack a foe you've marked, you get combat advantage.