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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Donatello" data-source="post: 4366393" data-attributes="member: 987">See I disagree with allowing liberal Stealth rolls for CA, but I fear that is treading towards the glut of Stealth-based threads I'm already seeing.CA should not be as easy to get at range as it is in melee.  Most CA is granted via flanking.  To be able to get CA at range by doing something as simple as moving to the right spot unbalances the combat dynamic, in that a flanking target is vulnerable to counterattack much more readily than the target at range.Yes, you get +2 to hit, sneak attack, or any other CA-related abilities when flanking, but the thing you're flanking can also turn around and pop you in the mouth for trying.  You don't even have to hit the target to be percieved as a threat, and the flanked enemy will move to avoid the situation again (if he can), or at the very least do a diagonal shift so that one of the two enemies cannot flank him again with merely a shift.  There's ways to prevent it, tactically, and ways to counter it, via counterattack.  If the rogue happens to flank with a fighter or paladin there may be consequences, but if he flanks with a warlord or cleric or (gasp) a second rogue, there's nothing that can be done to prevent their would-be-flanked-foe from moving around and doing his best to incapacitate at least one of the offending duo.At a range you don't have that.  If all you have to do is roll a Stealth check, there's no recourse.  If the monster you're fighting is particularly average in the perception department, any rogue or ranger will be able to simply sidestep and sneak attack at will.  And being 10 squares away means the foe would have to break off and chase down the offender, who is probably equally adept at running the opposite way, Stealth'ing again, and doing it all over.   The risk vs. payoff isn't there in my head.Rogues can be viable as a ranged build, but they sacrifice some of their damage output (namely their sneak attack every round) in exchange for many less dents in their skull.</blockquote>

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