Rogues against undead

[Apok]

There is a feat in AEG's book 'Undead' called Death Angel, which allows someone with this feat to crit undead and sneak attack them as normal. The one odd thing about the feat is that, in order for it to work, you have to have a special type of holy symbol (very expensive) on your person. It's a really cool feat, though the fact that it's use is tied to the posession of an item just kinda bugs me.

 

[Crothian]

There is a feat in AEG's book 'Undead' called Death Angel, which allows someone with this feat to crit undead and sneak attack them as normal. The one odd thing about the feat is that, in order for it to work, you have to have a special type of holy symbol (very expensive) on your person. It's a really cool feat, though the fact that it's use is tied to the posession of an item just kinda bugs me.

Why? It's a symbol of one's faith and perfectly explains how this is done when not normally possible.

 

[Apok]

Why? It's a symbol of one's faith and perfectly explains how this is done when not normally possible.

I don't think it's mechanically sound to make a feats' usefulness conditional to the posession of a very specific magical item (the feat can only be used in conjunction with two types of holy symbols which are listed in that books Magical Equipment chapter and they are damn pricey). No other feat I know of does this and I think it was just a bad design decision on the part of the writer. Now, if the holy symbol itself granted this power on its own I can fully see the justification.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't really want to get into the 'well the crit'ed this zombie in a movie debate', but I do want to point out that the rogue is already pretty decent vs. undead.

Sure, he doesn't have sneak attacks vs. zombies, but he does have uncanny dodge, a high initiative, a good movement rate, and a dex that doesn't depend on armor when fighting shadows and wraiths.

I think the rogue is already a pretty darn powerful class, I'm not sure that he needs to sneak attack everything he meets.

However, if you really wanted to make a feat that let sneak attack effect undead, I'd insist on 5 ranks of Knowledge (Undead), and Sunder (or even Improved Sunder). This is because damaging an undead requires the same gross damage as damaging an object (you really can't be subtle about it).