Sormsby |
Thanks for putting together this clarification. You have obviously done a great job of researching the rulebooks and other materials to form your synopsis. I uncovered one possible discrepency in regards to your ruling on multiple sneak attacks by a hidden attacker;
If you begin an attack action while you are Unobserved, meaning you are already Invisible or Stealthed before you begin this attack, then your opponent is denied his DEX bonus to his Armor Class and you can Sneak Attack this opponent. Your first attack (if you have more than one) will reveal you to this opponent, automatically removing your Invisibility or Stealth benefits (this is not true of Improved Invisibility) which means that only your first attack gets the benefits of being Invisible or Stealthed; subsequent attacks in this round are treated as normal attacks.
And the descripton of Flat-Footed from the OGC;
A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, unable to react normally to the situation. A flat-footed character loses his Dexterity bonus to AC and Combat Maneuver Defense (CMD) (if any) and cannot make attacks of opportunity, unless he has the Combat Reflexes feat or Uncanny Dodge class ability.
The way I read this, a rogue can sneak attack a foe multiple times in one round if the target is flat-footed. The FF status is removed once the defender takes his turn, not once he is attacked. This situation would only occur on the first round of combat. Your ruling as it is written now would still pertain to a hidden foe attacking a target who has already acted in the fight.