Staggering Strike

[Nail]

FWIW, the feat looks broken to me. Big time.

 

[moritheil]

FWIW, the feat looks broken to me. Big time.

At what levels? At high levels, pretty much all PCs and significant NPCs are going to be immune to sneak attacks. Before then . . . I suppose I could entertain an argument that a mid-level fighter/rogue would get a lot of mileage out of it, but a first level spell seems to defeat it (lesser vigor.)

Come to think of it, doesn't it require +4d6 SA, not just SA? That might be an important factor in judging feat balance.

 

[Nail]

At what levels? At high levels, pretty much all PCs and significant NPCs are going to be immune to sneak attacks. .

Have you checked over the MM 3.5e lately? That's not even close to the case.

 

[Piratecat]

Very few PCs and NPCs are immune to sneak attacks in my (epic) game. I see this feat as quite strong.

 

[IanB]

I'm leaning towards Nail's viewpoint as well. Nowhere NEAR all PCs/high level NPCs in my games are sneak attack immune.

 

[moritheil]

Have you checked over the MM 3.5e lately? That's not even close to the case.

What's the cost of a +1 mithral buckler of heavy fortification? Somewhere around 37k gp, last I checked. Every class save for monks and ninjas can use one with basically no penalty (for armor wearers, they can have heavy fortification built into their shield or armor.) This means at 20th level, for a fraction of your net wealth, you can be immune to crits and sneak attacks. (It might cost you some AC if you're a heavy armor wearer, but that's a choice you'll have to make.)

I'm in Darimaus's 20th-level campaign, where maybe 30% of the players are competitive builders, and most of them have at least some degree of fortification. All the prominent front-liners save for one have outright immunity, and that one keeps his AC above 70. Several casters are or were going to be undead, which obviously provides immunity.

 

[ronin]

In my experience this feat is very strong. We actually changed it because of my last PC. The character ended up with 8d6 sneak attack die, combined with craven, and one level of swordsage (for island of blades stance). Once I reached level 10-12 or so I was doing damage somewhere in the 40 to 50 range per strike. IIRC I had 5d6 sneak attack with holy daggers combined with craven and a feat from ToB that gave me DEX to damage (my primary stat). Making a few fort saves a round in the 40 range is fairly hard for most monsters.

Now my character was suited for this campaign (though I didn't realize how well when I made the character) since we didn't fight alot of undead or creatures immune to sneak attacks. I think we changed the save to 10 + character level + number of sneak attack die which in the end put me somewhere around a 30 for the save. I think my average damage per strike ended up around 65 points or so at level 19-20 and I was 2 BAB down to a straight class fighter.

All in all it was a fun character to play. I had always wanted to have a fighter/ rogue type PC that fought with daggers. The best part though was the RP elements that came about during the campaign and the way everything developed over the course of the campaign. Gotta love this game.

 

[James McMurray]

In my epic game I had to introduce a weapon wnhancement that helped bypass fortification just so the assassin's guild and Glooms could be scary again. Everyone had heavy fortification.

 

[IanB]

What's the cost of a +1 mithral buckler of heavy fortification? Somewhere around 37k gp, last I checked. Every class save for monks and ninjas can use one with basically no penalty (for armor wearers, they can have heavy fortification built into their shield or armor.) This means at 20th level, for a fraction of your net wealth, you can be immune to crits and sneak attacks. (It might cost you some AC if you're a heavy armor wearer, but that's a choice you'll have to make.)

I'm in Darimaus's 20th-level campaign, where maybe 30% of the players are competitive builders, and most of them have at least some degree of fortification. All the prominent front-liners save for one have outright immunity, and that one keeps his AC above 70. Several casters are or were going to be undead, which obviously provides immunity.

I don't really see how PCs becoming undead can be presented as anything like the norm.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

What level rogue are you talking about? 4th-6th?

On a 14th level rogue, that's more like:

Primary attack: make a Fort 37 or be staggered! (And 2 points of strength)
Off Hand attack: make a Fort 36 or be staggered! (And 2 points of strength)
Iterative attack: make a Fort 44 or be staggered! (And 2 points of strength)
Imp TWF attack: make a Fort 35 or be staggered! (And 2 points of strength)

DM: OK, he's staggered already so shut up about the fort saves.

As to why the feat is not too good? It is too good. FAR too good. If it functioned once per round and the DC was based on something like half character level plus dex modifier (or int modifier or strength modifier), it would be more in line with the rest of the mechanics of the game. As it is, anything vulnerable to sneak attacks is going to be staggered if they start the round next to an appropriately leveled rogue with the Staggering Strike feat. Either that or they are so absurdly advanced (usually by hit dice using a monster with 4 hd/cr increase or something similar) that they have exactly a 5% chance of failing any save no matter what. (A situation which hoses spellcasters even more).

Of course, all of that is talking about a standard rogue with the feat. There's also the multiclass rogue--a shadowbane inquisitor for instance:

I cast Rhino's Rush as a swift action, Power Attack for 12, smite evil, use my shadowbane inquisitor smite, and charge into the flank.... I hit. That's 109 points of damage and a DC 109 fortitude save or be staggered.

DCs for ordinary combat mechanics should NEVER be based on damage dealt (or a skill check result). That's why.

And as for the mage who was just going to five foot step and cast a spell anyway... at mid to high levels, the mage may well have wanted to suck up the AoO to get out of full attack range before casting the spell.

But that's not how it will work in practice. In reality it would be:

Primary attack: make a Fort 17 or be staggered!
Off Hand attack: make a Fort 16 or be staggered!
Iterative attack: make a Fort 23 or be staggered!
Imp TWF attack: make a Fort 12 or be staggered!

And that's even more annoying when the bad guy was just going to cast a spell anyway. 4+ extra dice rolls (for this one character's turn) and it doesn't even matter. But since it's an absolute freebie, the rogue is going to ask for every save 'just in case'.

I'm a player so this ruling help me, but I'd still rather have it just be once a round, or reduce sneak attack by 1d6 or do SOMETHING to make the rogue consider whether to use it or not.