Rogue is too sneaky

[WampusCat43]

There we go - never knew those sniping rules.

"Rogues cannot sneak attack anyone with a miss chance." Even partial concealment. Didn't know that one either.

As usual, I've come to the right place for answers!

 

[FCWesel]

"Rogues cannot sneak attack anyone with a miss chance." Even partial concealment. Didn't know that one either.

Where did you see that, I must have missed it? The only thing I could find that was similar to it was: "A rogue cannot sneak attack while striking a creature with concealment or striking the limbs of a creature whose vitals are beyond reach."

Does this include when someone range attacks into a grapple and they have to roll randomly when they hit? Is that not a form of "miss chance"? Just a thought to consider. Or is that ignored because the opponent is denied his DEX?

 

[Seeten]

"The only thing my player can do is hide, and sneak attack, so I must come up with dozens of ways to counter it, so no one is ever at risk of his only trick! YES! I, the DM, WIN AGAIN!"

Silly players and their concepts. They all should just make human commoners.

 

[WampusCat43]

Where did you see that, I must have missed it? The only thing I could find that was similar to it was: "A rogue cannot sneak attack while striking a creature with concealment or striking the limbs of a creature whose vitals are beyond reach."

Does this include when someone range attacks into a grapple and they have to roll randomly when they hit? Is that not a form of "miss chance"? Just a thought to consider. Or is that ignored because the opponent is denied his DEX?

That is the part I was referring to, in terms of concealment.

 

[WampusCat43]

"The only thing my player can do is hide, and sneak attack, so I must come up with dozens of ways to counter it, so no one is ever at risk of his only trick! YES! I, the DM, WIN AGAIN!"

Silly players and their concepts. They all should just make human commoners.

Not really sure what you're getting at here. I'm just trying to remove some of my ignorance of the rules. My players certainly didn't bother to tell me.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

"The only thing my player can do is hide, and sneak attack, so I must come up with dozens of ways to counter it, so no one is ever at risk of his only trick! YES! I, the DM, WIN AGAIN!"

Silly players and their concepts. They all should just make human commoners.

I think this was more a case of WampusCat43 not knowing about the -20 to Hide checks when a PC is sniping like one of his player's PC's is. It smelt a little fishy too him to he asked here about it. As it turns out he wasn't reading the rules fully and what the player was doing was a lot, lot easier than it should have been.

With the correct rules in place I imagine this tactic will still be very useful. It just won't be the uber-powerful ultimate tactic that it is at the moment.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Sejs]

"The only thing my player can do is hide, and sneak attack, so I must come up with dozens of ways to counter it, so no one is ever at risk of his only trick! YES! I, the DM, WIN AGAIN!"

Silly players and their concepts. They all should just make human commoners.

Look at the bright side, they'll qualify for Exemplar around level 10.

Then they can amaze and befriend people with the power of their Super Cosmic Farming skills.

 

[Unkabear]

Taking away the Rogues SA is like taking away the Monks Flurry. It really will not do as much damage in combat as the mage or fighter can deal out unless the rogue has a DR piercing weapon and flanks. The hide SA rout will get him one attack every round or so. The fighter can generally deal out much more than this. The DM was weary when I pulled out 1d8+5d6 till he realized that my 20 points of damage was nothing compared to the 50+ the fighter was pumping out. And rogues don't have the hp to back up a couple of decent hits like a fighter or barb does.

Yes you should perhaps protect the bbg and higher level mooks, but don't gimp the rogue for his one chance at glory in the game. If you are calling a game for a hunt for a litch in zombie castle, it is the players fault for picking a rogue and complaining. If you have been fighting normal monsters and all of the sudden everything is unSAable he might feel cheated. Besides the Mage will still in the end be dealing out more damage than everyone else in the end. Does that mean that all monsters will suddenly have SR? Monsters will have DR that none of our players can overcome?

It is a trick. and he is overbuilt for it. But hiding and sniping are not as easy as the player is making them. He should not be doing this every round, but don't take it away from him completely. Every player deserves their chance to shine.

 

[Wish]

I've played this sort of character and trust me, it has plenty of drawbacks that will become apparent in the course of normal campaign play. My rogue ended up putting all his stat bumps in strength and picking up Power Attack at 12th level, just so he could play all the time instead of sitting out half the combats.

Just play it straight, and it'll work out just fine. Sneaking is far more useful for information gathering, avoiding trouble, and pre-combat positioning than for actual combat use.

 

[airwalkrr]

It isn't stated explicitly, but it is implied that hiding always requires at least a move action. So at the least, the shadowdancer shouldn't be getting more than one attack per round. Personally, I believe this balances things well enough on its own, especially with the caveat that most monsters have Spot and Listen as class skills. The bad news is that most classes do not, meaning if you use a lot of NPCs in your campaign (a practice I recommend AGAINST for numerous reasons) then your shadowdancer will definitely have an advantage. When it comes down to it, the rogue will still only occassionally deal more damage than the fighter. But a shadowdancer with sorcerer levels is fairly fragile. Death attacks (or anything with a Fort save for that matter) can be ruinous.