Sneak Attack: A Little Too Powerful?

[Ridley's Cohort]

The thing that worries me about the rogue is the Core Rules Smackdown that a single-classed one pulls off -

(details deleted)

Theorectically that would be a huge problem. As a practical matter, at the level that a Rogue has the resources and abilities to land mulltiple sneak attacks, the Fighter will have easy access to Blind Fight, and/or 25% or 75% Fortification.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Good analysis, Mustrum_Ridcully. As a practical matter, the Rogue is not going to be fabulous at more than 2 out of 3 of his roles.

The Bard will always be better in this case, even a Paladin can be better in some social sitatuions (at least he has Charisma and Diplomacy).

A Paladin who takes Cosmopolitan: Sense Motive is going to kick the @$$ of even the Bard most of the time when it comes to negotiations. Rogues are not within a country mile.

The key difference is that even Evil people know that if they can trust a deal they hammer out with a Paladin. So those formerly-Hostile-now-Friendly villains will almost always be cooperative if the Paladin chooses a soft touch.

 

[Weeble]

Sorry, Weeble, but I was just a little bit annoyed that you cut and pasted that long and dense block of text into my post, rather than taking a minute to edit out all that off-topic material, thus saving us from having to read through all of it in order to get the nitty-gritty. (Already, these posts tend to be verbose and unending.)

And when I tried pointing this out to you, it was you who got edgy with me by saying, "Let me give you a simple reason: CUT and PASTE." Like I hadn't figured that out, already.

So why did you cut and paste my entire character sheet, "rather than taking a minute to edit out all that off-topic material, thus saving us from having to read through all of it in order" to make your point of saying I annoyed you?

 

[Gromm]

Personally in the 4 campaigbns I've been in/ran Sneak attack wasn't an issue. Sure its great if you can pull it off, but most people pound the rogue into paste once they figure out what they are (if the rapier and light armor doesn't tip people off).
I'm personally glad sneak attack is so powerful, because now people want to play rogues. They are a good fighting class, but the low hit points more than balances out the sneak attack.
The average rogue will be lucky to break 50 hps at level 10. At CR10 50 hps isn't much safety.

And like was said before, its not like its hard to avoid sneak attacks for smart enemies. A 2nd level spell (blur) can stop a 20th level rogues sneak attack. And without sneak attack you know what a 20th level rogue ends up being? A crappy fighter with a bad weapon. I've seen 12th level rogues dropped by 12th level fighters in a single round. The sneak attack hurt the fighter sure, but not much. 5d6 isn't a whole lot to a guy that generally has 100+ hps. The fighter's double axe, however dished out an average of 50-60 pts of damage per round. And he never really missed. The rogue had a heck of a time hitting his AC34. He never blinked at the rogues AC 26.

 

[James McMurray]

Ah, I see! So, I shouldn't worry about the rogue with his sneak attacks taking away some of the shine from the fighter and the ranger in combat. I should simply smack the rogue down, every time he uses sneak attack (which, up until now, has been pretty often). A game session or two of this will put him in his place, right?

Exactly right. Lets look at it from the monster's point of view. Some guy just strolled up and hit you in the spleen, both livers, and all eight kidneys. Who do you eat first? Him, or the guy beside him who just nicked your scaly hide?

Personally, I'd eat the dangerous first, especially since he's so soft and juicy.

 

[Darklone]

Tumble and sneak attack

If your rogue likes to tumble into flanking position to sneak attack the monster... two possibilities: use the same tactics for the monsters (two rogues who skewer the fighter) or use a houserule kinda raising the tumble DC by the enemies BAB e.g.

 

[Nasma]

Like this: (quote)insert quoted text here(/quote), but replace ( and ) with [ and ].

Or else hit the quote button that appears on the bottom right of every post.

Thanks

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hmm. Another problem for the rogue is: If he hits, he may make a Sneak Attack. But he has not the best Base Attack Bonus. Most Fighters that lose their Dex Bonus to AC lose not more than 1 or 2 points of Armor Class. Okay, they suffer much more damage - if the rogue can hit them, but it does not really become easy.

A 20th level Fighter would probably not have much problem having a Ghost Touch Full Plate of Fortitification - negating several advantages of blinking and a Shield +5, a Ring of Protection and a Amulet of Natural Armor (and perhaps, just to annoy some rogues and spellcasters , Bracers of Armor for fullround protection in emergency cases...)

A Wizard might get in some serious trouble - but probably only if fully unprepared...

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Darkness]

Theorectically that would be a huge problem. As a practical matter, at the level that a Rogue has the resources and abilities to land mulltiple sneak attacks, the Fighter will have easy access to Blind Fight, and/or 25% or 75% Fortification.

*nods* Also, since you can put Fortification on shields as well as armor, it might even be worth it to run around with a Fortification shield in hand no matter what your fighting style is; it helps a lot against ambushes, and you can easily switch to another shield or weapon when the battle begins in earnest.

If your rogue likes to tumble into flanking position to sneak attack the monster... two possibilities: use the same tactics for the monsters (two rogues who skewer the fighter) or use a houserule kinda raising the tumble DC by the enemies BAB e.g.

Say... Wasn't there an optional rule (in of the "splat books," I think) that replaces this Tumbling DC with the result of a Tumbling check made by the defender?

 

[Thanee]

Say... Wasn't there an optional rule (in of the "splat books," I think) that replaces this Tumbling DC with the result of a Tumbling check made by the defender?

Counter Tumbling from Sword and Fist and there's another optional rule for Tumble involving a reflex save to counter the tumbling in Song and Silence.

Bye
Thanee