What kind of spells, if any, may be used in sneak attacks?

[jontherev]

Re: How about Fire giants instead of Red Dragons?

Fire giants have no SR and have the Fire subtype.

And they've got a min AC of 21 -- better if they're a leader, have magical armor, or what have you.

A Rogue9/Wiz1 will need a big fat '2' to hit with his attack.

Meaning if he can get his real-wizard buddy to make him Improved Inivisible and hasted, he can fly around and do, automatically, without fail, 20d6+4d3 pts of damage to the nasty fire giants each round. Even if these fire giants have better dex than usual, better armor than usual, have shields instead of huge greatswords, have magical armor. Doesn't matter.

That's an average of 78pts of damage each round. At least the big bruiser barbarian trying to do that much damage each round against the giants has to CLOSE with them, and risk getting hurt. At least the archers firing away from a distance have to get through the natural and real armor. And even with rapid shot and multiple attacks a round, and being hasted, they aren't going to do -- on average -- 78pts of damage!

This brings up another point -- if you do a magical ranged attack from 5' away, and you are technically flanking, do you get sneak-attack dice?

And? My 11th level rogue/multiclassed pc would eat that Fire Giant for breakfast, averaging 82 points/round IF he hits all 4 times. Using just 2 +2 daggers. This is every round, without relying on scrolls. Just a good old-fashioned ring of blinking. If he wants to try to sunder, fine, one of them is adamantine. And if you want to tell me he can't reach any vitals like say the achilles heel or that vein or artery that runs up the leg that would make you bleed to death in a few seconds, then fine. He'll just throw a bola (w/sneak attack), trip the giant, THEN attack him while he's down. This CAN be done w/ring of blinking/invis. and the Expert Tactician feat, in case you were wondering. To Heck with the Ray of Frost, cast Shield and ENGAGE!

 

[Forrester]

I don't want to be nitpicking but... oh, heck, I want to nitpick!

20D6 of sneak attack with a ray of frost against a fire creatire assume a 20th level character, not a 10th. You only get 10D6 of sneak attack at level 19!

At level 9 you do 5d6 per attack.

10d6 against creatures with the fire-subtype (the sneak attack damage is of the same type as the spell damage, according to Tome & Blood)

Meaning if you cast a "couple cantrips", as I stated, you do 20d6 damage a round.

So there!

 

[Pielorinho]

I actually had a player make a sneak attack with ray of frost in my game. The barbarian was grappling with a wounded, rat-formed wererat, but not able to pierce its damage resistance. So the sorcerer/rogue walked up, put her hand on the rat's head, and cast ray of frost. Ice cream headache!

(By the rules, she cast her ranged touch attack into a grapple. Since she described it so coolly, however, I waived the -4 penalty for firing into combat; since the wererat was grappled, it lost its dex bonus.

And a rogue can make sneak attacks with acid or alchemist fire flasks, right? These are also touch attacks, and are nonmagical to boot. Throw that alchemist's fire into the great wyrm white dragon's eye, and watch the fun begin! (requires ring of blinking and, preferably, the quickdraw feat)

Daniel

 

[Forrester]

Re: Re: How about Fire giants instead of Red Dragons?

And? My 11th level rogue/multiclassed pc would eat that Fire Giant for breakfast, averaging 82 points/round IF he hits all 4 times. Using just 2 +2 daggers. This is every round, without relying on scrolls. Just a good old-fashioned ring of blinking. If he wants to try to sunder, fine, one of them is adamantine. And if you want to tell me he can't reach any vitals like say the achilles heel or that vein or artery that runs up the leg that would make you bleed to death in a few seconds, then fine. He'll just throw a bola (w/sneak attack), trip the giant, THEN attack him while he's down. This CAN be done w/ring of blinking/invis. and the Expert Tactician feat, in case you were wondering. To Heck with the Ray of Frost, cast Shield and ENGAGE!

Fire giants are Large creatures (almost Huge), with 31 strength and massive BAB. That better be one helluva big bola if you plan to win a grapple check with it. I remain skeptical, twink-boy ! Does your DM really let you get away with that kind of nonsense?

And, Brilliantus, you aren't doing an "average" of 82pts/round if you are ASSUMING you hit every single time -- unless you are hitting on 2s. (In which case I'm willing to round.) My guess is that you're not. Especially if you're going against Fire Giants who have magical armor, better dex than average, etc.

And if you're in melee against them, you're kind of risking getting smacked with one of those big-ass swords, aren't you? Drawing AoOs and everything. Tsk tsk.

And unless you're flying, no, you aren't hitting vitals. Yeah, I know, there's arteries everywhere, sure there are, that's the usual rogue argument to weenie out of the PHB passage I quoted before. Nice try .

And I'm doing this with a 10th level PC, not 11th . So there.

 

[Forrester]

And a rogue can make sneak attacks with acid or alchemist fire flasks, right? These are also touch attacks, and are nonmagical to boot. Throw that alchemist's fire into the great wyrm white dragon's eye, and watch the fun begin! (requires ring of blinking and, preferably, the quickdraw feat)

And the insanity continues . . .

 

[IceBear]

See, I can tell that you are like reapersaurs in that you think rogues are too powerful and your rulings do what you can to limit that power. There is nothing wrong with that if that's what your players agree upon. We have different opinions.

No one's opinion is wrong, so don't go all sarcastic and mean just because we don't agree with yours.

IceBear

 

[Pielorinho]

In fact, this might be a good, safe way to dispose of any pesky Tarrasques in your neighborhood. Get several mid-level rogues with either rings of blinking or (easier) a couple wands of blinking and a high use magic device skill. And a wand of fly. And a buttload of flasks of acid -- you may need to add a Heward's Handy Haversack, or a flying carpet, or something similar to the mix to carry all the acid you'll need.

Anyway, fly above the Tarrasque's head and chuck those flasks of acid into its eye, trying to hit the poor beast's Touch AC of 5. Assuming you can scrape together four Rog9s who have the quickdraw feat, you'll be doing 126 points of damage a round to the poor critter (two flasks thrown each, each flask doing 1d6 + 5d6 acid damage, for 12d6 per round per rogue, or 48d6 total per round, -20% for the flasks that miss due to blink, -5% for flasks that miss on a natural 1). Subtract the creature's fast healing of 40, for 86 points of damage per round -- it still shouldn't take more than ten rounds before the creature is lying unconscious on the ground, waiting for the rogue with the highest UMD skill to pull out the scroll of Wish and earn beaucoup experience points for everyone. And what does it cost you? 80 flasks of acid, 8 charges from a blink wand, 4 charges from a fly wand, and a scroll of wish. Not a bad investment for a group of 4 ninth-level characters to kill a CR20 creature.

(You know I'm only suggesting this because it's fun to make Forrester squirm)
Daniel

[edited to add in miss chances for natural 1's and for blinking, and to account for fast healing]

 

[jontherev]

Re: Re: Re: How about Fire giants instead of Red Dragons?

Fire giants are Large creatures (almost Huge), with 31 strength and massive BAB. That better be one helluva big bola if you plan to win a grapple check with it. I remain skeptical, twink-boy ! Does your DM really let you get away with that kind of nonsense?

And, Brilliantus, you aren't doing an "average" of 82pts/round if you are ASSUMING you hit every single time -- unless you are hitting on 2s. (In which case I'm willing to round.) My guess is that you're not. Especially if you're going against Fire Giants who have magical armor, better dex than average, etc.

And if you're in melee against them, you're kind of risking getting smacked with one of those big-ass swords, aren't you? Drawing AoOs and everything. Tsk tsk.

And unless you're flying, no, you aren't hitting vitals. Yeah, I know, there's arteries everywhere, sure there are, that's the usual rogue argument to weenie out of the PHB passage I quoted before. Nice try .

And I'm doing this with a 10th level PC, not 11th . So there.

Nice assumptions there. Everything my pc has was obtained in-game from the DM and I break no rules. You can act like my 10 year old (when she was 5) if it strokes your ego, but I won't engage in a pointless and childish trading of insults. Brilliantus? Twink-boy? Please.

I said nothing about grappling the giant, just tripping him. Please read my post next time before replying. Yes, I would be hitting on a 2 most likely with 3 of the 4 attacks. Remember, he gets no dex vs. an invisible opponent (or a blinking one). The bola is a ranged touch attack that trips whatever it hits. If my DM wanted to really enforce the reaching vitals rule (open to interpretation if you ask me), giants should be effectively immune to crits as well unless you have a reach weapon or something. Crits and sneak attack work exactly alike mechanics-wise. If you'll notice, it doesn't say anything about this under the Giant's description. Being nearly immune to crits and sneak attacks should definitely be talked about under the description if it was a defense they had.

How was I provoking AoO's? I have tumble.

Also, even if my average damage was only, say, 55 damage/round, my point is made. I can do this all day long against crittable foes. How many Ray of Frost's are you gonna have? And this is only REALLY useful vs. fire critters. Against anything else, it's not that great when compared to a rogue's other options.

 

[Forrester]

And what does it cost you? 80 flasks of acid, 8 charges from a blink wand, 4 charges from a fly wand, and a scroll of wish. Not a bad investment for a group of 4 ninth-level characters to kill a CR20 creature.

(You know I'm only suggesting this because it's fun to make Forrester squirm)
Daniel

You're not making me squirm, you're helping me prove my point . Excellent analysis . . . and you didn't even worry about giving the rogues Rapid Shot or Haste .

 

[IceBear]

Forrester, you do realize that taken to the extreme, you can prove how any combination of things in 3E is broken?

Just because you see that in some specific circumstances that a rogue making sneak attacks with spells is broken is nothing new here.

All any DM and group can do is sit back and think about how to fix things in their campaign (if it needs to be fixed at all). I don't think any of us are novice DMs and we are all cabable of stepping in and fixing things if broken. That's outside of this thread.

The original poster wanted to know the rules for sneak attacking with spells. We provided it. You them slammed anyone who allows these rules in their campaigns. In my campaign, for example, I don't just allow someone to multiclass. There has to be a roleplay reason to go from a rogue to a sorcerer (or visa versa). Then, the actual class change is roleplayed out. So, obviously, in my campaign I have less to worry about sneak attack spells than in someone elses. Thus, I see this problem as very, very minor - you need to have a multiclassed rogue/wizard or sorcerer AND they have to be able to get a ranged sneak attack (not as common as you are making it out to be).

You have a different opinion because your experiences have been different. That's fine. Just stop implying we are bad DMs for using a rule you don't like.

IceBear