Play by Post. Interested?

[Dandu]

I find it interesting to splash Ranger for two levels in core in order to get TWF without needing Dex, which enables a Power Attack quarter staff Rogue with armor spikes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not necessarily a good feature, of course...

Doing ~d6 damage per hit to 1/3 of the enemies you face and having no spellcasting is a feature?

Yes, absolutely a good idea, IMHO.

SRD
If a rogue can catch an opponent when he is unable to defend himself effectively from her attack, she can strike a vital spot for extra damage.

Since SA is predicated on a foundation of the SA user attacking a foe and hitting vital areas to do extra damage, I have no problem envisioning creatures in a fantasy realm that don't have vital areas...at least as far as standard training in SA goes. Constructs & Undead- animated by magic- have no vital areas. Aberrations may have vitals, but you don't know where they are. Elementals, plants...similar story to the others- either a lack of vitals or they aren't viable targets to the average sneak attackers.

FWIW, while i have no problems with base SA as-is, improving base SA via Training, Feats, Magic or whatever mechanic is cool by me...so long as its not a freebie; so long as the default isn't SA works on everything all the time.

Such power should require the expenditure of PC building resources. IMHO, of course.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

If the SA damage meant rogue was doing significantly more damage than anyone else when it worked, it might be ok for it to not work so often.

If monsters weren't handed out crit immunity like free lollipops, it might be ok. If Fortification armor wasn't so ludicrously cheap, it might be ok. If even the slightest bit of concealment didn't straight-out deny SAing at all, it might be ok. If getting reliable ranged SA past round 1 was cheap and easy, or if Rogue had the hp, AC, and fort saves of a cleric PRE-buffing to adequately melee with, it might be ok.

...It is not ok.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To you, clearly.

Not to me.

To be less Dandu...

To me, the problem you cite is not with SA, but with other game elements. Fortification armor may be underpriced; regardless, it hasn't showed up in any of our 3.5Ed games. There may be a lot of critters that are immune to SA and crits, but typically, only a few show up in any one campaign- and IME, the distribution of such critters is usually along the lines of a few relatively weak critters (like low level undead) and a few large solos/brutes/BBEGs which are supposed to be challenging. Etc.

 

[Visigani]

Surprisingly the fine minds here at endworld already stumbled upon the basics of what I wanted for starter character creation.

Effectively three monks, a rogue or rogue-like character, and (I) a cloistered cleric. Maximum 3 levels to dip another character class if you like, but only to make pre-reqs for a PrC (Such as enlightened fist, or divine whatever it is).

Core and completes were acceptable for feats and PrCs, core only for magics. No psionics. Starting at level 1.

 

[Visigani]

Surprisingly the fine minds here at endworld already stumbled upon the basics of what I wanted for starter character creation.

Effectively three monks, a rogue or rogue-like character, and (I) a cloistered cleric. Maximum 3 levels to dip another character class if you like, but only to make pre-reqs for a PrC (Such as enlightened fist, or divine whatever it is).

Core and completes are acceptable for feats and PrCs, phb only for magics and races. No psionics. Starting at level 1. 28 Point Buy. No flaws, but other unearthed arcana variants acceptable on a case by case basis.

 

[xigbar]

Why 3 monks? And why no arcane caster? Aren't we suppose to be gauging its relative balance in relationship to other aspects of the game, such as classes?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Is this to test your houserule as well, or just if monks and rogues are weak in combat? If you want to test your houserule, should have some casters, and be higher than level 1, so your houserule actually has an effect...

 

[kitcik]

On the one hand, you really need both a wizard and a druid to prove/disprove the value of the houserule (the wizard because it is, in theory, impacted by the houserule and the druid because it isn't much).

On the other hand, having these characters in the party will ruin the monk/rogue test as the wizard, druid and cleric can handle all the encounters while the monks and rogues run around pretending to be useful.

What a conundrum. Only [MENTION=6676235]Visigani[/MENTION] can save us.

 

[kitcik]

double post