HydraKnight47's page

I'm guessing that it is intentional. At least mostly. If anything, the fact that you can Sneak Attack with an Arbalest would be what gets put on the chopping block in any errata (From the Ruffian Racket, it seems like Sneak Attack was intended to not work with any weapons with a damage die larger than d8).

Sneak attack with a d10 arbalest doesn't feel busted to me in the same way that sneak attack with a d12 greatsword would because of the reload tax associated with crossbows. Maybe I'm wrong on that one.

I think it seems intentional to me, as someone in a campaign with a bow-using Mastermind Rogue, ranged weapon sneak attack seems to be the least supported of the rogue sneak attack options. It could be just an oversight, though, as there are plenty of those in the rules at large.

We can see what happens to the archetypes such as Mauler, Martial Artist, and Archer in the remaster, but I think if anything they may have their proficiency/critical specialization rules tightened rather than loosened.

If you plan on taking any other bleed damage effects for a rogue, the crossbow specialization may be a bit redundant anyway.

I'll still be crossing my fingers for more ways to gain weapon crit spec if a PC is willing to invest the feats. I 100% agree with your point about redundancy with other bleed damage effects.

It seems weird to me that the categories of weapons which qualify for sneak attack and the categories of weapons which qualify for weapon critical specialisation for the rogue (via weapon tricks) aren't the same. Rogues can use a ranged weapon to apply sneak attack damage, but can't (according to base rules) access the critical spec of bows, crossbows, or firearms. With the recent changes to crossbows in the remaster, it seems like the critical spec is a pretty core part of their expected damage output. This is made additionally weird by the fact that the arbalest looks like such a good match for a ranged mastermind racket rogue. It's made even more weird in my mind when considering how rogue's combat options just got increased in the remaster - sneak attack and weapon spec on all agile or finesse martial weapons or unarmed attacks.

Taking the archer dedication makes a lot of sense to fill out this particular character concept, since it grants access to crossbow terror and running reload. However, the archer dedication doesn't have a remaster yet. As such, the dedication only grants weapon specialisation to the bow group (RAW). Maybe the text will be changed if/when the combat style archetypes get remastered?

I'm curious to know what others think about this. Did I miss something in my understanding here? Otherwise, is withholding the crit spec of range weapons from rogues balanced?