Skirmish.. what the?

[Klaus]

Great Cleave = Sauron in the FotR opening battle. With Awesome Blow added in for good measure.

 

[frankthedm]

If one is willing to embrace skirmish as a supernatural ability, the NecroMonger Leader's combat style from The Chronicles of Riddick is a decent depiction of it.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Archery based skirmish is the one I think of as most understandable, because I enjoy studying the Mongols and Genghis Khan. The horde's fake retreat tactics are modelled fairly well by skirmish rules. Well, most of the use was to exhaust infantry and heavy cavalry from the chase, then abrubtly turn about and fire a hail of arrows, but still.... Also, some Mongol cavalry archers could fire at enemies as their mounts retreated. Plus, historically "skirmishers" were usually ranged, whether slingers or germanic javalin throwers. As to why D&D represents this combat style as a bonus to damage, who knows? Probably just to be in sync with SA. I suppose if I were pursuing someone, and then they turned and shot me, my defenses would be lower, but all of this conjecture relies on actually being pursued, while in the game the monster can just be standing there.

For melee, I see it like the "cause overreach" feature of the elusive target feat. You move away from the enemy, they move in to take a swipe at you, and then you swiftly dart back in, under the incoming attack, and slam home a powerful direct hit. Of course, the errata says you can't end in the same square as you began, so that tactic isn't allowed. It also disallowed using skirmish from horseback, making my other example pointless. I guess the real lesson is: the errata sucks!

 

[glass]

But with sneak, the victim must fail to be able to percieve or react to the rogue, the scout's damage bonus occurs because the scout simply 'moved'.

ISTM like you are looking for a concrete reason for a difference between one entirely abstract number and another higher abstract number. I'm afraid I don't think you are going to find one!


glass.

 

[shilsen]

ISTM like you are looking for a concrete reason for a difference between one entirely abstract number and another higher abstract number. I'm afraid I don't think you are going to find one!


glass.

Ah, but since the preference of one arbitrary method over another is also completely arbitrary, one might be able to find an argument that one arbitrarily decides supports the other.

See the benefits of arbitrariness?

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

I find it easier to understand by seperating the need to move to get the bonus damage and grant it for the same reason the OoBI gets ranged precision, the scout gets bonus damage for aiming. By a standard action for one focused attack as opposed to multiple wild strikes. This is a house rule, but a small one, and eliminates the what the...? factor.

 

[Storyteller01]

In game How does one attribute the ability to deal more damage because you are moving? Aiming works well if you are not moving, but can be hard to picture in the opposite situation.

If my character eats a more severe wound, my character wants to know WHY in game. If some thief rams a blade deeper in because I lost track of him, thats fine, But when this archer I was keeping my eye on hits me worse because he moved away, I am going to say WTF?

I still remember pistol training while in the service. Our Staff Sargeant kept screaming 'Graucho, Graucho!' He wanted us to imitate Graucho Marx's walk so we'd be more accurate on the move. Slowed you down a bit. I can't see the opposite being true.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

The final mob fight in Gangs of New York is cool. Butcher Bill's running through the smoke, almost invisible, swooshing past the hero and slicing him each time. I like that image. I want people to do run-by attacks in my game. Skirmish encourages that. So, I like skirmish

 

[Shellman]

I have the same problem with skirmish. My solution was to just not use the Scout, but rather to use the Wilderness Rogue variant to cover the Scout (as I had already been doing prior to Complete Adventurer). However, there was a scout variant in a Class Acts section of Dragon that gave up both Fast Movement and Skirmish in exchange for Sneak Attack. And, if I recall correctly, there was also a mounted variant in the same issue.

I agree totally, you can pretty much achieve the same thing with the Wilderness Rogue variant. I prefer this variant over the scout class as it is now.