Sneak Attack: A Little Too Powerful?

[Hejdun]

Sorry for going a little off topic...

If that Ranger were a Paladin, he could refuse to flank and let such a dishonorable fighting technique rule the day!

I played my last Paladin that way and boy did the party rogues hate me .

Why would a Paladin be against sneak attacking? That's like saying "Ok, you can kill me, but you can't go for the head. I mean, rip out my heart or chop off my leg, but don't hit me in the throat!"

I mean, when your aim is to kill, why would it matter HOW you killed them? Well, I suppose you could come up with situations on ways of killing that would be dishonorable, but I would not rank 'aiming to kill' as one of them.


Back on topic, I don't think that the Rogue's sneak attack is overpowered. I mean, one could also make a case where a wizard looks really powerful. I mean, he could do 30,000 damage with one spell! Well, only if you pack 8 bats in one 5x5 foot area, and you had a 20 foot radius of those, and stacked them up... and then fireballed them. This is an EXTREME case, but I beleive that you are doing a little bit of card stacking in your example case.

You said also that using the warhorse and charging wouldn't be effective very often... just like you won't be sneak attack very often. There are a dozen possible reasons why you wouldn't, or couldn't, sneak attack an opponent. These include concealment, blinking, fog spells, range, position of the enemy, massive numbers of enemies, etc.

 

[reapersaurus]

I had indeed missed your diatribes, repersaurus. Do you have link to them? Or do they no longer exist on this server?

Many are on the previous boards.
Here's a brief sneak attack discussion a couple weeks back.
http://www.enworld.org/messageboards/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10883

edit: I just got lucky and found one of the major sneak-attack discussions 4 months ago:
http://www.enworld.org/messageboards/showthread.php?s=&threadid=493

Ironically, Storm Raven in that recent thread says almost EXACTLY what sillyness Hejdun just said, about comparing a rogue to a high-level wizard.

[venting] Stupid. Just stupid, and I'm past the point of being subtle with moronic statements like those.
sheesh.
Have a little understanding of what's being discussed, please... [/venting]

 

[reapersaurus]

I can kind of see your point so no not everyone totally disagrees with you. Seriously they made a conscious effort to ballance the classes. The problems crop up in that they weighted combat as the biggest thing in the balance issue, so they made sure everyone were roughly in the same ballpark in combat skills, whether it was from normal beat sowns, spells, sneak attacks, or whatver everyone is roughly on the same playing field overall in a fight. Certain situations are better for certain classes, fighters are the best generalists in that their attack power rarely decreases in any field, while rogues are decent in a standard fight(good weapons, mid level bab), they become superlative in their style of fighting stealth, flanking etc.

This all works out fine if you play the standard(what core rules assumes is standard)campaign. And that is adventures much like a dungeon crawl. You play in games where the fights come less often a day and outside skills are more needed, diplomacy is expected then the balance starts to slide. Because considering that they weighted combat as the most important thing the fighter being overall the best in a fight meant he sucks at everything else. The classes who provided more out of combat abilities start to shine, yeah for the rogue.

In campaigns like this then yes sneak attack may be unblanced since the rogue is frequently shinning out of fights, but when the fights happen he still looks good. Wiz/sor really get the hook up in single fight per day games since their limit of limited supply of spells per day is now moot. Me though I'd rather boost out of combat abilities of other classes than nerk the rogues sneak attack, this is so everyone can contribute in more situations instead of having the rogue in every scene, including fights, and then having the fihgter in fights, and then taking a breather in every other scene.

I just wanted to quote this in entirety, because it is one of the best reasoned and spot-on posts I've read in a sneak attack discussion.

Bravo!

It seems to me that almost everyone who talks about how a rogue isn't overpowered in their combat abilities in 3E completely ignores their utter dominance OUT of combat.

Almost as if skills were purely a "roleplaying consideration", not to enter into a combat comparison.

The insane # of skills a rogue gets over other classes is a game mechanic, not a roleplaying consideration.
I'd wager that in MOST people's campaigns, there are MORE skill checks, and more often, than melee combat rolls.

In a campaign that vaguely resembles that, the rogue's sneak attack unbalances the class with respect to fighter-type classes.

 

[James McMurray]

I haven't seen the party's rogues in my game deal a whole lot of damage in combat. Certainly not enough to make their combat prowess and skill selection seem unbalanced. Heck, the bard is better in any diplomatic settings, the only time the rogue really shines is when the group is searching for traps.

Of course, this is after he just dealt over 600 points to an NPC in the arena duel, but it was in an anti-magic field, and the lady was grappled. Without special circumstances like that, he isn't too bad.

I am a bit worried about when he goes up a few levels and gets the Lingering Damage feat though.

 

[Weeble]

Well, duh-uhh!

Let me offer you a simple suggestion: EDIT.

(See? I can be a smarty too! )

Well, duh-uhhhhhh!

Let me offer you a simple retort: LAZINESS (or NO, your choice)

 

[Azlan]

Why would a Paladin be against sneak attacking? That's like saying "Ok, you can kill me, but you can't go for the head. I mean, rip out my heart or chop off my leg, but don't hit me in the throat!"

I mean, when your aim is to kill, why would it matter HOW you killed them? Well, I suppose you could come up with situations on ways of killing that would be dishonorable, but I would not rank 'aiming to kill' as one of them.

It's not just aiming to kill -- it's aiming to kill while your opponent is at a clear disadvantage; i.e. he's outnumbered and flanked. A paladin (or a knight or a samurai) with a certain code of honor would frown on the use of such "lowly" and "dirty" tactics. Furthermore, a paladin, a knight, or a samurai would resent the rogue's involving them in the sneak attack, making them an indirect participant as they engaged the lone defender from the opposite end (which, of course, is the requirement for a flank and a sneak attack).

 

[Nasma]

So Azlan, you're saying that it is dishonorable to attack someone when they are at a disadvantage. THIS IS THE WHOLE BASIS OF COMBAT. If I am fencing someone I don't think 'Oh, I shouldn't attack them when they are halfway through their step forward' or 'It's bad to use disengagements, they make it so much harder to parry'.

The whole idea of fighting someone is to hit them when you can, if you only attacked when there was a 50/50 chance of succeeding then every battle would end with either you losing or only just winning.

Also, the opponent dosen't have to be outnumbered to use a flank attack, he could have numerous allies as well, it is not always a 'lone defender'.

 

[Azlan]

So Azlan, you're saying that it is dishonorable to attack someone when they are at a disadvantage. THIS IS THE WHOLE BASIS OF COMBAT. If I am fencing someone I don't think 'Oh, I shouldn't attack them when they are halfway through their step forward' or 'It's bad to use disengagements, they make it so much harder to parry'.

Hey, who said being honorable in combat is logical?!

Also, the opponent dosen't have to be outnumbered to use a flank attack, he could have numerous allies as well, it is not always a 'lone defender'.

Well, yes, technically both allies on either side of the defender do not have to be attacking the defender, in order for that defender to be "flanked". (Which is one of those screwy things about 3E D&D.) Heck, technically, one of the allies can be just standing there, sipping a cup of tea in one hand, with his longsword ready in his other, while the other ally stands opposite of the defender and gets a sneak attack. Sure, the defender probably gets an AoO on the guy sipping tea, but the defender is still flanked.

 

[Thanee]

Rogues are good with skills. They are the best in this area by far, but skills is probably the weakest area to be good in, because there are so many ways to get decent skills, especially magic items.

Rogues are also quite good in combat, but the only thing they really can do is deal some good damage in favoring situations. How often those situations arise depends on the campaign, but I'd say that in about 50% of the fights, the rogue can make good use of sneak attacks, maybe a little more.

Rogues, however, are nowhere even close to a pure fighter in any other area of combat (besides dealing damage). They can never take as many hits as a fighter can and do not have the high reliability and endurance of the fighter class in combat.

The rogues' out of combat dominance over the fighter can be lowered, if the fighter actually spends some feats on out of combat stuff or has a decent intelligence score or better yet, both! Most fighters use all their available resources up to become better at fighting. Those fighters should not complain about their lack of out of combat abilities. The rogues have to spend a considerable amount of their resources on combat stuff to become decent in combat, so why could the fighter not do the same for out of combat abilities?

For example, a human fighter with Int 14, who spends a few feats on Cosmopolitan should have enough good skills to become a decent character in out of combat scenarios, while still retaining enough to be the reliable enduring fighter everyone knows. Get a few items, which further increase his skills and he's all set! He will not be as good as the rogue with skills, but the rogue will not be as good in combat OTOH.

And yes, combat abilities are probably weighted with more importance than out of combat abilities!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Abraxas]

originally posted by reapersaurus
It seems to me that almost everyone who talks about how a rogue isn't overpowered in their combat abilities in 3E completely ignores their utter dominance OUT of combat.

Isn't this because these are two areas of character play that are (mostly) unrelated (with the exception of the bluff vs sense motive business)? I don't think the solution is to reduce the effectiveness of the rogue in combat but to improve the effectiveness of other classes out of combat. I've toyed with the following ideas to fix the skill disparity...

1) Create three tiers of skills by adding an intermediate between class (costing 1sp/1rank) and cross class (cost 2sp/1rank) that would cost the character 3sp/2ranks. I call this intermediate set restricted class skills.

2) Create three sets of skill packages for each class that break down the complete skill list into class/restricted class/cross class skills. Each player then selects the skill package that best suits their character at character creation and when multiclassing.

3) Increase the number of skill points each class gets to 8 + Int mod and let the skill costs differentiate how effective the classes are with particular skills.