Scout Skirmish Ability Question

[StreamOfTheSky]

but the class as written is intended for skirmish to apply to only 1 attack

Why?

Core Rogue can get full attack sneak attacks, and skirmish is already only half of the bonus damage that sneak attack grants. If your goal is to make Scout unplayably awful, then yeah, I guess the intent is "clear."

Skirmish even explicitly says on "all attacks" after moving 10 ft, so I'm really interested to hear why you think the intent is only once/round no matter what.

 

[Forged Fury]

I'm really interested to hear why you think the intent is only once/round no matter what.

Not sure about the OP but...

Using the resources that were available at the time the Scout class was created (PHB, DMG, MM, CWar, CArc, I think?) I have to agree with the OP that it was difficult (ignoring Greater Manyshot from XPH) to get a scout to generate skirmish damage on more than one attack per round, mainly because it was somewhat difficult to generate a Full Attack and move 10' in the same round without abilities available in later books like CC (Travel Devotion), CPsi (Dimension Hop), or the MIC (Anklets of Translocation and probably 5 or 6 more items).

Edit: Also, as to the Rogue, I think the designers thought the largely ranged nature of the scout class would make the ability to have skirmish available for iterative attacks at range overpowered. A rogue might be able to pull off full-attack ranged SA during the surprise round when everything was flatfooted, but was unlikely to be able to do that again during thae rest of the encounter. If the rogue wanted to get their SA, they were getting close enough to get hit in return.

I'm just happy that there are ways of getting around the problem through feats, spells, and powers.

 

[Eman Resu]

Why?

Core Rogue can get full attack sneak attacks, and skirmish is already only half of the bonus damage that sneak attack grants. If your goal is to make Scout unplayably awful, then yeah, I guess the intent is "clear."

Skirmish even explicitly says on "all attacks" after moving 10 ft, so I'm really interested to hear why you think the intent is only once/round no matter what.

unaware of updated info but the original class was suppose to move and strike, be this out

 

[Runestar]

Scout is a bit of a contradiction in that aspect. Yes, skirmish can apply to multiple attacks, but the onus is on you to acquire pounce or greater manyshot by yourself, since the class doesn't give you the ability to make more than 1 attack after a move.

Seems like a testbed for a sneak attack variant, is it worth it if you can make only 1 SA each round if it were more consistent?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Seems like a testbed for a sneak attack variant, is it worth it if you can make only 1 SA each round if it were more consistent?

Until Deadeye Shot came along.

To be fair, before that 3.0 had Quicker than the Eye. God I loved that feat, the fact it wasn't updated was a travesty, not many DMs would allow 3.0 stuff.

The thing is...it's NOT much more consistent. Yeah, you can get it at least once every round if you want. But it still is foiled by all the stupid bs that sneak attack is, which IME more often than not was the real cause of being "unreliable." Swift Hunter feat of course helped fix this, Swift Hunter s just the holy grail class rebalancing. At mid levels, with Arcane Trickster or some other caster hybrid, or even later on with a ring of blinking, full attack sneak attack became fairly easy to get at range or in melee...just so long as the massive list of no-nos (undead, construct, oozes, plants, fog, fortification armor, night time, swarms...) didn't come up.

 

[Dandu]

Even then, a weapon with a Wand Chamber and wands of Grave/Golem/Vinestrike could be used.

 

[Empirate]

Even right when Complete Adventurer came out, there were methods of getting several skirmish attacks per round off - namely, Attacks of Opportunity. Nowhere does it say that you have to take your skirmish attacks on your turn. Scouts probably invest into Dex a lot, anyway, so they'd be well advised to pick up a reach weapon and Combat Reflexes!
Think of it as a concept along the lines of "On the field of battle, I go where I'm needed most, then hold that position for a short time before moving on. This way, the enemy can never pin me down - but I can pin them down first here, then there, then over there...".

 

[Forged Fury]

Nowhere does it say that you have to take your skirmish attacks on your turn.

The original text of the Skirmish ability stated:

"The extra damage only applies to attacks taken during the scout's turn."

Which would seem to be a point against your argument. While it's not entirely clear, the errata seems to have corrected that problem and now says that skirmish damage applies to any attack made by the scout after they have moved 10' in a round. It's one of the reasons it's good to have a high Initiative modifier and a reach weapon, if that's your thing.

 

[Empirate]

So I was technically wrong, but Errata made me right again? Hmm, that's what I get for not consulting my books before I post - narrow escape there... thanks for clarifying, Forged Fury!

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

It's an easy thing to confuse, because again, it's something you can do with sneak attack (get it on AoOs). I'm glad the eratta removed that line, though I still dislike it for not allowing the juke n' jive or the Mongol horse archer.