Scout's skirmish ability

[Shellman]

I have to agree that the scout is kinda sub-par. The big kick in the nuts is the fact that they can't use the skirmish ability with ranged weapons from further than 30' away. How crappy is that? 30' is practically sitting on top of the enemy when you're outside (unless you're in dense forest, in which case the opponent's getting cover and concealment ).

I don't know why they decided to make skirmish half the damage of a sneak attack. Rogues can do a full attack with twice the dice against someone they're flanking... scouts can only ever do one attack, unless you use some very esoteric rules (mounted archery and Dervish count as esoteric in my book). Does that sound like maybe the scout should be the one doing twice the dice? I mean, come on! 5d6 at 20th level? Ooh, I'm so scared of that 17.5 damage.... instead the guy could be making three more attacks (2 from BAB and 1 from rapid shot) which almost certainly do more than 17.5 each.

The scout gets some great high level abilities that somewhat mitigate this... but you'd think WoTC would put some effort into testing their main ability.

-The Souljourner

I would suggest removing the 10 ft movement requirement and make it more like the sneak attack with a max of 5d6 at 20th level but he can get sneak attack on a full attack action this way. Besides as you said, the Scout still has the cruddy BAB of the Rogue in the first place, so he is already at a disadvantage at higher levels.

Why? because along with the other cool abilities the Scout does get, this gives him the ability to put the hurt on if need be. The odds are the Scout will have to close within 5 ft more often than not in most campaigns. Not every bad guy is going to let you pick him off from 30 ft away through the entire encounter.

 

[Enkhidu]

Hey, YMMV, but I don't see scouts as rogues. I took one look at them, said "great googly-moogly! There's the woods-savvy stick-and-move power-attacker I've always wanted!" and set about figuring out how combining it with Barbarian would work.

 

[Ramas]

Why would you want to remove the 10ft movement requirment?

That is what sets this class apart from the rogue. The fact that you'll have to play with tactics.

If you remove the movement requirement it would all be a bit to strong, becuase then it can always deliver that extra damage. A rogue at least needs his enemy to be denied his Dexterity to AC before he can sneak attack.
If you want to deliver a shitload of damage in a round than go and play a barbarian or fighter.

 

[Khristos]

Wish they would bring back the deepwood sniper maybe give it a ranged sneak attack only usable beyond 30' .... honestly scout mixes and matches well with ranger and if it floats the boat fighter/Scouts who dabble as dervishes are tons of fun

 

[Telas]

I took one look at them, said "great googly-moogly! There's the woods-savvy stick-and-move power-attacker I've always wanted!" and set about figuring out how combining it with Barbarian would work.

Bingo. I bumped a thread into submission on the WotC boards, asking how to build a "Point Man" using Barbarian and Rogue or Ranger. Scouts are perfect for exactly that.

Another Scout idea: Gnome or Halfling Scouts on war-dogs: "Come, my trusty Snow Dog steed! We go to battle By-Tor!"

Telas

 

[Shellman]

Why would you want to remove the 10ft movement requirment?

That is what sets this class apart from the rogue. The fact that you'll have to play with tactics.

If you remove the movement requirement it would all be a bit to strong, becuase then it can always deliver that extra damage. A rogue at least needs his enemy to be denied his Dexterity to AC before he can sneak attack.
If you want to deliver a shitload of damage in a round than go and play a barbarian or fighter.

Ummmm,

What do you think a Rogue does to gain sneak attack? The Rogue has to USE TACTICS to maneuver into a position to deny the target its dex bonus to AC. I just really think that Skirmish is too limited at higher levels to be effective. Plus remember that the Scout still has a low BAB.

I was talking about the sneak attack being capped at 5d6 at 20th level any way. Compared to the Rogue at 20th level, 5d6 is not overpowering. Consider the fact that most of the baddies at that level are going to be able to do more than that on a single attack.

 

[Ramas]

You do not have to shout you know, english might not be my native language but I can understand you perfectly with out the shouting.

I do not think that just making sure you and a team mate flank is really tactics.
The scout has some very nice abilities to function just as the name implies a scout, the point man of the party out in the wilderness.
He is not meant to go toe to toe with his enemies.
That is the job of the warrior types, like the fighter and barbarian.

 

[Shellman]

You do not have to shout you know, english might not be my native language but I can understand you perfectly with out the shouting.

I do not think that just making sure you and a team mate flank is really tactics.
The scout has some very nice abilities to function just as the name implies a scout, the point man of the party out in the wilderness.
He is not meant to go toe to toe with his enemies.
That is the job of the warrior types, like the fighter and barbarian.

Ramas,

I agree that the Scout has some nice abilities. I just think that the skirmish seems about underpowered for my taste at higher levels.

From my experience, the party Rogue has quite often doubled as the party scout/ pointman becuase of his stealthy abilities. However; the biggest downfall for the Rogue is his durability in combat (hence the d6 HD). I understand the Rogue or the Scout were not set up with the intention of being a toe to toe combatant. I think the Scout's d8 HD is a big step as to increasing his durability. At least the Rogue has the ability to deal some hefty damage at higher levels even with a low BAB. The Scout seems lacking this at higher levels and still has the same low BAB. So now you have a 20th Lvl Scout using Skirmish to deal avg 17.5 points damage a round. At that high level it seems pathetic. Overall I think the Scout is a nice concept ,I would just like to see it tweaked a bit for higher levels.

On another note, if you don't think flanking a target is a tactic in combat, then I don't know what is.

 

[Presto2112]

If everyone could walk around the trap, what's the point of the trap?

Ask anyone who had ever been smacked with a landmine, pit trap, or spike trap in Vietnam that question.

In a dungeon, you mobility is limited. Traps essentially HAVE to be disarmed to move ahead.

A scout's abilities will be used mainly outdoors. That's his primary setting. If he finds a trap, and he's on the move, odds are that he won't even have time to disarm the thing, just find the safest way around it.

 

[Sir Brennen]

For reasons stated above, in a campaign that is going to have a fair amount of dungeon exploration, I think the DM probably should house-rule Disable Device in as a Scout class skill, especially if there isn't a Rogue in the party.

Then let the player ponder over why the DM gave him the skill ...