HibikiSatsuo's page

The Eldritch Scoundrel Rogue. Magical tricksters will never not be fun.

The Drunken Master Monk. A dizzying flurry of blows that leaves everyone, even the monk, off balance is a great visual.

The Construct Rider Alchemist. I mean, come on. Who doesn't want to ride a metal dragon that breathes explosives?

The Thundercaller Bard. Stunning enemies with empowered cries of STOP BEING AN A!*~+$+ has been one of my more entertaining gaming experiences.

The Arrowsong Minstrel Bard. This is the only archetype that really caught a Robin Hood vibe in my opinion. Using a Tuned Bowstring to have my bow sing a song of battle is also just cool.

Snowblind wrote:

Rysky wrote:

I started a similar thread regarding Diehard.

I believe it's completely asinine that any amount of non-lethal can cancel these options out. A trolls claws can't take you down but a pack of preschoolers can?

Even more wackily, while they are on their last legs giving a ferocious/diehard creature a light smack to the noggin is far more effective at polishing them off than stabbing them .

Which if you're playing the Three Stooges is fine, but anything else is absolutely absurd.

Some recurring incompetent goblin NPCs that kept getting inexplicably hired in random professions in PFS would be amazing.

No. The entire point of uncanny dodge is to avoid that sort of thing.

Can we try to forget for a second that Uncanny Dodge has historically been used to prevent sneak attacks? Hidden Strike isn't sneak attack. It doesn't benefit from Sniper Goggles and isn't stopped by Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier. It doesn't qualify you for Prestige classes. It's a different ability that happens to work similarly to sneak attack. If they wanted it to be sneak attack they would have made it sneak attack with adjustments like they did with Knife Master. If they want to have Hidden Strike act in all ways like sneak attack they need to release a FAQ that says so, until then by RAW it doesn't.

Moreover if they wanted Uncanny Dodge to prevent sneak attacks in all situations forever they would have said that. Instead they were very specific about in which ways Uncanny Dodge prevents sneak attacks. It stops you from being flat-footed and later stops you from being flanked. It doesn't say it prevents sneak attacks if you can get them another way like say the Strangler feat. Since Vigilantes can get their Hidden Strikes under different conditions than flat-footed or flanking they get it. It's not stopped by Uncanny Dodge anymore than it's stopped by All-Around Vision even though that ability stops sneak attacks under certain conditions as well.

I see what you are saying, but they are not the same thing. Being caught unaware is losing your dexterity bonus to AC and not acting yet in a surprise round is flat-footed. Those two things are synonymous in all ways except the conditions that caused them. Uncanny Dodge protects against both.

The problem is the ability actually says that one thing happens when the enemy is unaware and a different thing happens when the enemy is flat-footed, so the designers definitely don't treat them as synonymous.

Really, what is the difference between hiding in the shadows and then attacking, or having a (2nd level) Invisibility spell on you and then attacking? Both are the same in that the target did not see you until you attacked. Uncanny Dodge protects against both of those situations because they are essentially the same thing.

Ultimate Intrigue cleared this up with the new states of awareness rules. Short answer is that you're right there's no difference between those two things but there's a higher level condition called unaware that exists during surprise rounds when the enemy didn't know you existed in the first place.

pg. 188 Ultimate Intrigue

For me, it is the first line of uncanny dodge that makes the difference.

Quote:

a rogue can react to danger before her senses would normally allow her to do so

Since they can react before thier senses do, then they are not truly unaware. The hard part is that is can be argued either way. Hopefully paizo will help clarify it.

I think you're extracting a lot from the ability summary. Uncanny Dodge specifies exactly how "rogues can react to danger before their senses allow her to do so", they aren't considered flat-footed before they act in combat or even before they're aware combat has begun. Their dodge is uncanny because they're dodging attacks they were unaware of. However they certainly can be unaware, which is a game term defined under determining surprise not an arbitrary phrase. Uncanny Dodge mentions nothing about surprise or awareness, it only mentions flat-footedness and the ability to add Dex to AC. Because hidden strike only cares about awareness and not flat-footedness it can be used on rogues who don't know a threat exists even though they still get dex to AC.

I found this too in core.

So even though Uncanny Dodge stops you from being flat-footed during the surprise round it doesn't stop you from being unaware entirely, otherwise anyone with Uncanny Dodge would be able to act in the surprise round.