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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 3196462" data-attributes="member: 198">Human minds are pretty simple, so you don't have to know too many of them to be able to work out how most of the rest work. Which is what I keep telling my superiors back on he mother ship, but they insist I keep studying your species. Sheesh!Sure. Pretty simple. The Scout does more damage because he uses the movement to throw the opponent off enough to hit him in a weak spot (I say weak spot because of the issue with skirmish attacks and creatures that can't be sneak attacked).The logical question would be - why doesn't exactly the same thing happen when a fighter or rogue or some other class do it? The answer is because the Scout's skirmish ability indicates that it has some special training that enables it to do so.After all, a rogue gets extra sneak attack damage when flanking an enemy when a fighter, in exactly the same situation, would not. Why? Because the rogue (via the sneak attack ability) has special training that enables it to do so.Similarly, a fighter with Weapon Specialization does +2 damage per hit over what another fighter with exactly the same stats, level, equipment, etc. in the same situation would do. Why? Because the feat indicates the first fighter has special training that the other one doesn't.Are all of the above somewhat arbitrary? Absolutely. But that's the nature of D&D. And the game does not model reality, so asking for realistic reasons seems a waste of time to me. We're talking about a game where a 1st lvl ranger with Rapid Shot can open two doors in the same time it takes him to fire two arrows. At 16th level, with no magic coming into play, he can fire five arrows in the same period of time, but unfortunately, his door-opening speed doesn't improve. And when he falls 200 ft, he walks away. And his barbarian buddy can kill an elephant by punching it repeatedly in the face and beat it in a wrestling match. Whereas the poor commoner who lives down the road can be killed by a housecat. And they live on the same planet as a 1000 lb creature with only a 9 ft wingspan (hippogriff) that can fly with no magical assistance. It's a very arbitrary world, is D&D. Finding the Scout's skirmish damage problematical, while you're obviously free to do so, just seems an incredibly ... well, arbitrary choice to me.Whoops!</blockquote>

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