Kitsune Foxfire and Sneak attack

Hello,
Please forgive my bad inglish in any case xD

So, i want to know if that's possible to apply Sneak attack damage with Forfire attacks. With the rules description, i think not, but that's weird cause sling can do it and Foxfire is consider to be in sling group. I'm confused.

As GM, i cant to autorized it, but as player, i'm not able to decide so i prefer have an offical answer before doing bad things xD

Thank you for listening.

The sling group doesn't matter here. Slings work because they are ranged weapon attacks. Unarmed attacks can be part of a Weapon Group, but it does not change that they still are not weapons.

When your enemy can’t properly defend itself, you take advantage to deal extra damage. If you Strike a creature that has the flat-footed condition with an agile or finesse melee weapon, an agile or finesse unarmed attack, or a ranged weapon attack, you deal an extra 1d6 precision damage. For a ranged attack with a thrown melee weapon, that weapon must also be agile or finesse.

Foxfire is not an agile or finesse melee weapon.

Therefore, foxfire cannot sneak attack without a houserule.

Interesting

I wasn’t even aware that ranged unarmed attacks exists.

RAW they aren’t listed and don’t qualify. Thanks Hammerjack to make that clear.

But are there any CRB ranged unarmed attacks for characters? Only other I can think off is the Leshy Seedpod and it lets you contemplate if this was an oversight of Future proofing.

Wild Winds Stance is CRB. Ranged unarmed attacks have been here the whole time.

Hammerjack is right on the RAW but I agree it feels like a bit of an oversight.

It's kind of a bad attack so I'm not convinced there's a compelling balance reason it needs to not allow SA.

Wild Winds Stance is CRB. Ranged unarmed attacks have been here the whole time.

I take the point but it is also uncommon, monk and Focus spell. Nothing that makes it a likely candidate to be combined with a character who has sneak attack ability.

Oh, I'm not claiming there's an important need to prevent this for balance.

I dont see what's that unlikely about a monk with rogue dedication, though. Rogue dedication is great on almost any class. And the Uncommon trait on the focus spell used to enter the stance is a non factor when the Wild Winds Initiate feat is Common.

Wild Winds is also kind of the counterexample to any idea that not being able to use sneak attack with foxfire is needed for balance, though, since it is an Agile unarmed attack and does work with sneak attack.

HammerJack wrote:

Wild Winds Stance is CRB. Ranged unarmed attacks have been here the whole time.

I take the point but it is also uncommon, monk and Focus spell. Nothing that makes it a likely candidate to be combined with a character who has sneak attack ability.

The question is a little less abstract if you play a monk that picks up sneak attack. And that is a very viable option for certain styles, such as a feinter using stumbling stance or a tripper with wolf stance.

From that perspective, wild winds stance would be a ranged option for the character before they get psuedo flight at level 10.

The only conceivable reason I can think of, balance wise, to exclude ranged unarmed attacks is concerns over the power of a hands free attack, but like... jaws qualify most of the time and have the same benefit of not needing a hand, and the foxfire/seedpods/sprite's spark are all balanced against such attacks by dealing less damage and lacking traits

4th level Rogue feat. Magical Trickster is what you're after. :)

4th level Rogue feat. Magical Trickster is what you're after. :)

Actually that feat is rather a reason that excluding Foxfire and Seedpod might rather be an oversight and not by design.

Melee Weapons can be used for sneak (agile,finesse)
Unarmed Melee can be used (agile, finesse)
Missile weapons can be used

Spells - with attack rolls can be used with a 4th level feat

Unarmed Missile - just a blank

Not included. No feat to include them either.

If they would be common then I would say it is likely by design. As they seem more a rarity / afterthought I see them as just missed out.

Off course that is just my own opinion. But the feat for spells rather reinforces that opinion.

It seems like in the case of Energy Mutagen, where the energy pouring out from your body can augment your weapon attacks, but not attacks directly from said body, it's an oversight from paizo restricting unarmed attacks heavily

It seems like in the case of Energy Mutagen, where the energy pouring out from your body can augment your weapon attacks, but not attacks directly from said body, it's an oversight from paizo restricting unarmed attacks heavily

I think they did that because unarmed attacks include the older natural attack mechanic, and they were still traumatized by the many, many catfolk alchemist/barbarians raised by half orcs.

I'm mad that don't work for Foxfire. My player just use fist and never use foxfire at least, i'm a little sad for him.

For one thing lost, another is gained. Foxfire works pretty much entirely with monk as far as I could tell except for anything that calls out the brawling weapon group.

Foxfire works great with monk, yes. As long as you avoid stances that force a specific attack you've got your choice of good physical damage or the utility of energy+range.

Physical resist? Burn em. At a distance or flying? Burn em. Etc.

At a distance or flying? Burn em. Etc.

Well, assuming they never get farther than 20' away, sure. A lot of people read it as a 20' range increment instead of a 20' max range.

Dubious Scholar wrote:

At a distance or flying? Burn em. Etc.

Well, assuming they never get farther than 20' away, sure. A lot of people read it as a 20' range increment instead of a 20' max range.

I think monks are one of the better classes to play around that limitation since they have speed boosts to help close the distance in a single move action. 20' is also about the right range to stay out of the reach of most enemies (so they have to use a move action on you) and it might keep you out of a lot of nasty AoE effects and aura.

Flight might be tricky, but 20' is also a rather nice range for that too. It varies with GM, but I'd imagine that a lot of them wouldn't want to bother with large height distances. So they might only have things circle at a few basic distances- "outside of melee reach", "outside for the 30'+ of the party's favorite spells", and "sniping archers only, everyone else take cover and go get some snacks".

So I think that for a first level ancestry feat, fox fire is doing pretty well covering most situations where the GM isn't actively trying to play keep away from ranged attacks.