Sneak attack w/Ray of Frost?

[Saeviomagy]

A suggestion: If you intend to take a level of sorceror for this, take a level of warlock instead. Then you have it unlimited times/day instead of just once.

 

[Judas]

Um... Melf's Acid Arrow IS a Ranged Touch spell.

Uh, D'OH! Never mind me. Just passing through..

 

[Corlon]

A suggestion: If you intend to take a level of sorceror for this, take a level of warlock instead. Then you have it unlimited times/day instead of just once.

what is this warlock? sounds interesting.

Sneak attacks can get a bit fuzzy, but you always have to remember the whole 30ft. thing, the "only partial actions on the surprise round" and such.

Plus taking levels in spellcasting classes is levels you could use for more rogue levels, especially when a bow/shuriken/daggers/darts/vials of acid/etc. will do just fine. Granted the touch attack thing, but the vials don't care about these AND you can't be immune to normal damage, whereas you can be to rays of frost.

 

[Saeviomagy]

what is this warlock? sounds interesting.

The warlock is a new base class in complete arcane. Instead of casting spells, it has unlimited-usage spell-like abilities called incantations. Over the course of 20 levels of the class, it gets a total of 12 spell like abilities which it can use as many times per day as it wants.

The first incantation gained is 'eldritch blast', a ranged touch attack that does 1d6 pure energy damage with a range of 60', useable at will as a standard action, which is subject to spell resistance and allows no save. I believe they get their pick of an additional low-power incantation at 1st as well.

There are incantations which modify the eldritch blast. You can modify both the shape and the type of the blast, but only one modification can apply to shape and only one to type.

Type modifications change the blast to acid, fire, ice and negative energy, each of which has a secondary effect, or adding fear, insanity or knockback to the blast.
Shape modifications include channeling the blast through a melee attack, increasing the range to 250 feet, making it into a 30' cone, making it into a 20' burst from the user that affects only opponents.

Other incantations include giving bonuses to some skills for 24 hours, invisibility, charming (but limited to one charmed creature at a time), various vision modifiers (see invis, darkness), a couple of defensive ones (wall of fire, entropic shield), spider climb, flight, summon swarm, summon insect plague, creating areas of darkness filled with bat swarms, dimension door, shadow walk etc etc.

Looking at them, they would seem to be an interesting and not overpowered class. They're essentially a spellcaster that is more restricted than a sorceror, but never runs out of juice.

 

[FireLance]

Warlock is a cool class, and a warlock/rogue can use his edritch blasts to sneak attack an unlimited times per day, but the point that the original poster made was that a sorcerer/rogue could use the Dual Wand Wielder feat to sneak attack twice with a ranged touch attack against a flat-footed foe in the first round of combat. A warlock/rogue can't do that because he can only make one eldritch blast per round, and none of the listed invocations allows him to increase that.

My point was that you don't need to be a sorcerer or have the Dual Wand Wielder feat. You just need Rapid Shot and loads of acid/alchemist's fire. And you can take Quick Draw and the feats in the two-weapon fighting chain to further exploit this tactic.

 

[shilsen]

Um... actually, not quite. Anything a Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, or Druid could do to kill a dragon in the first round would require some sort of a save, as well as overcoming Spell Resistance. And trust me, a Great Wyrm dragon of any sort is going to make the save every time unless it rolls a 1. For the rogue, however, all he has to do is hit and hope they aren't immune to the damage.

I wasn't saying that the wizard, sorcerer, cleric and druid will have a better chance to kill that dragon. Just that having access to 9th lvl spells gives them so many other incredible abilities that the rogue being better at dealing damage in this manner doesn't bother me. Sure, the rogue can deal out piles and piles of damage in this manner (having spent 5 feats on it, which is hardly a negligible investment). In comparison, the cleric can transport himself across the planes, raise people from the dead, summon magical creatures to do his bidding, and so on. In short, the situation is not a problem for me. YMMV, and apparently does.

 

[Thanee]

FireLance, I really don't think splash weapons should do Sneak Attack damage. That doesn't seem to fit well.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Liquidsabre]

Yea, a grenade-weapon dealing sneak attack doesn't jive so well, but darts with collapsable acid vials do!

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Yea, a grenade-weapon dealing sneak attack doesn't jive so well, but darts with collapsable acid vials do!

"Jibe," not "jive."

Sorry. Just a very very petty peeve that is growing as the misuse become more prevalent.


Jeff

 

[Chaldfont]

My rogue-2/artificer-2 wants to know what this Dual Wand Wielder feat is. How does it work?