Midnighter's page

Maybe the Arcanist simply used Silence and didn't make the Wizard mute?

Why is Perfect Strike considered too powerful for a Magus but it is deemed ok for a Swashbuckler. The Magus has to burn 2 Arcana and wait until level 6 at the earliest to qualify for the deed whereas the Swashbuckler gets it automatically at level 3. I just don't see what the problem is with a Magus getting this deed and having it work off of his Magus level.

We had a player who fudged his rolls all the time but he was playing a Rogue so nobody noticed.

I think the point that some people do not understand is that Feint is a specific maneuver detailed in the Combat Maneuver section of the Core Rulebook (page 201). Improved Feint, Greater Feint, Two-Weapon Feint, Improved Two-Weapon Feint, Moonlight Stalker Feint, and Wave Strike ALL directly reference, use, state unequivocally that they apply to this rule for the Feint maneuver (again, listed on page 201 of the CRB). When you feint, however you feint, you are doing a feint according to the rules for the Feint maneuver/action in the CRB.

Startling Shot and Superior Feint, both Extraordinary Abilities and not Feats, never once reference the Feint maneuver/action and neither behave in accordance with the rules for Feint listed in the CRB.

The problem with Greater Feint is the wording of the feat is vague in comparison to the wording of the Feint rules on page 201 of the CRB. According to the CRB, the rules for Feint (in part) are as follows:

"Feinting is a standard action. To feint, make a Bluff skill check. The DC of this check is equal to 10 + your opponent's base attack bonus + your opponent's Wisdom modifier. If your opponent is trained in Sense Motive, the DC is instead equal to 10 + your opponent's Sense Motive bonus, if higher. If successful, the next melee attack you make against the target does not allow him to use his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any). This attack must be made on or before your next turn."

The effect of the successful feint action is what is key. The target of the successful feint loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) to the player's next melee attack. This effect does not cause the target to lose his Dexterity bonus to anything other than AC, nor does it allow the player's allies to benefit from the target's potentially lower AC. The feint effect also only works against the next melee (not ranged) attack by the player which must be done before the end of the player's next turn.

Now, on page 125 of the CRB we have the text for the Greater Feint feat.

"Greater Feint (Combat)
You are skilled at making foes overreact to your attacks.

Prerequisites: Combat Expertise, Improved Feint, base attack bonus +6, Int 13.

Benefit: Whenever you use feint to cause an opponent to lose his Dexterity bonus, he loses that bonus until the beginning of your next turn, in addition to losing his Dexterity bonus against your next attack.

Normal: A creature you feint loses its Dexterity bonus against your next attack.

There are a lot of problems with the wording of this feat that are the cause for all of the disagreement concerning how this feat is supposed to work.

1. Dex bonus. As written, the Greater Feint feat omits the "Dexterity bonus to AC (if any)" text in favor of the shorter "Dexterity bonus". I can only assume this is due to word count restrictions for the book. This incomplete wording causes some players to assume that the target's entire Dexterity bonus is removed due to the feint, encompassing not only AC, but Reflex save, skills, Weapon Finesse, etc. I contend that because the wording references the Feint rules ("Whenever you use feint") that the rule on page 201 of the CRB is the overriding authority and the target loses "his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any)". This word count omission is further confirmed by the text after the "Normal" heading which incorrectly describes the effect of a normal feint.

2. Melee vs. Ranged. As written, the Greater Feint feat also omits any reference to melee attack. I believe this is once again a word count issue that the writers had to work around. As before, it is necessary to refer to the original rule on Feint (referenced by Greater Feint) which clearly states "the next melee attack you make against the target". Both the "Benefit" and "Normal" text drop the reference to melee but the fact that they are both referring to the core rule for Feint I contend that the omission is simply to save words and is in no way meant to confer the feint effect to ranged attacks.

3. Self Only or Allies. Now here is the really contentious part :) Most people assume that due to the duration of Greater Feint that it must apply to all allies that attack the target in addition to the player that did the feint. I tend to believe that the feat is still Self Only and the duration simply allows for any additional attacks the feinting player makes before his next turn (AoOs etc.). Please, let me explain.

The feint action already allows for a duration that extends through the player's next turn. The phrase "the next melee attack you make against the target does not allow him to use his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any). This attack must be made on or before your next turn." On or before your next turn means you can delay your next attack until your next turn and still reap the benefit of feint. So we can already feint and deny a target its Dexterity bonus to AC for a full turn and it is Self Only. The target is debuffed until your next melee attack or until the end of your next turn. It does not help allies in any manner.

Now, add in Greater Feint complete with it's abbreviated word count. The text in question is "he loses that bonus until the beginning of your next turn". People assume that because the target is losing it's bonus for a full turn that it applies to all allies attacking the target. I have shown above that the standard feint actually causes the target to lose it's Dexterity bonus to AC for longer (until the end of your next turn if you do not make a melee attack) without conferring that effect for allies attacking the target. So if the assumption that because the effect is in play for a full turn then all allies can benefit then why take any of the feint feats at all? Have your Rogue or Bard or whatever feint as a standard action and then hold off on doing another attack until his next turn. Everyone else then gets to hit the poor sap with no Dexterity bonus to AC. I do not think that is the way it is intended or supposed to work.

So why take Greater Feint if it doesn't benefit the party? Greater Feint lets you make multiple attacks against a feinted target until the beginning of your next turn. Not only do you get your next attack, you get the benefit to any and all AoOs you can make until your next turn. If you allow Ultimate Combat in your game you can feint as a swift action and with Greater Feint gain the benefit on your iterative attacks as well. Allowing a standard feint or Greater Feint to be used by all allies is simply too powerful for the feat. As a matter of fact, there is a feat that specifically allows for the feint effect to be conferred to an ally (Feint Partner).

What does your rogue do if there is a monster floating 10ft above them?

Fly. With Moonlight Stalker Feint chain you can feint as a swift action if you have concealment to the target. Use Blur/Darkness/Fog to gain concealment and feint/SA away. Don't forget the +2Atk/Dmg from Moonlight Stalker while you are at it.

What does your rogue do in crowded hallways where rolling past your party front man AND the monster to set up a flank leaves you flanked by another monster?

Why setup a flank in that situation. All you need to do is deny your target it's Dex bonus to get a Sneak Attack. Use feint instead of flanking in such a situation.

What does your rogue do with enemies who backed into a corner?

Feint.

What does you rogue do when flanking an enemy means jumping through the bottle-neck of monsters and taking 6 attacks next turn?

Don't flank, feint.

What does your rogue do in any of the above once base weapon damage becomes useless?

Find ways to stack damage bonuses. Sap Adept/Master, Agile weapon enchant, Moonlight Stalker, buffs, etc.

I am willing to bet he was referencing a certain encounter with a Lamia Matriarch flying outside a ~150' tower.

My rogues can kill the monsters, and occasionally the players, without needing a full round attack. Why is there such desperation for full round attacks? Look to the orc rogue above with the heavy flail, they did not require a full round to hit, hurt and scare. The ginzu twf rogue is a possibility, but why the requirement that rogues have to full round attack with sneak? If the damage can kill the monsters without it, and contribute in a coop game, full round fixation is pointless.

There is no requirement to use a full attack, nor did i ever suggest there was such a requirement. There is also no requirement to use a weapon, one could just as easily use a feather to attack. There is also no requirement to attack, one could just sit back and use Diplomacy for every encounter. Do what you want, how you want. I am simply pointing out for those who wish to optimize around a feinting Rogue how to get the most from the feats available. If you don't want to do a full attack that is fine, it makes the build so much easier as you only need two feats to feint (Combat Expertise and Improved Feint). Heck you don't even need any feats to feint, use a standard action to feint, then a single attack the next round, rinse/repeat.

Better to focus on the set ups allowing the sneak attack, and to use those, than worry I didn't get to throw 20d6+ this round.

The whole point of my post above was to show how to setup a feint as a swift action using the available feats. Using the Moonlight Stalker Feint chain to full advantage requires a serious investment. Woe be it to me if I suggest taking Greater Feint in order to get your Sneak Attack damage for the entire round (which is the whole purpose of trying to feint as a swift action).

So the combat lasts another round, or the monsters have hp left for other players to remove so that they can shine. Is it such a big deal?

No, it isn't a big deal yet for some reason you seem to be trying to make it into one. The whole point of this thread is how to make Rogues more viable and on par with other classes. I am simply showing one way that it can be done.

As many people will point out, the problem with Improved Feint is that it requires a move action, thus precluding a full attack. This is not really a problem at low levels but once you start getting multiple attacks per round Improved Feint loses its luster.

What is needed, and is being called for in the Slayer play-test discussion, is a consistent means to perform a feint as a swift action or better. Currently we have two ways to do a feint as a swift (Wave Strike, Moonlight Stalker Feint) and one way to do a feint instead of an attack (Two-Weapon Fighting).

With Wave Strike you can feint as a swift action at the start of combat however you can only do this one time per combat. It makes for a great opener but there are better ways to get an opening Sneak Attack. If you could sheath your blade and do Wave Strike each round it would make for a very nice Iaijutsu-type style.

With Moonlight Stalker Feint you can feint as a swift action if you have concealment to your opponent. The feat chain to get to this point is hefty (Combat Expertise, Blind-Fight, Moonlight Stalker, plus Darkvision or Low-light vision, Int 13 and 6 ranks of Bluff). The upside is when you can pull this off you are +2 Atk, +2 Dmg, and have concealment (opponent has 20% miss chance) so you are getting some return on the investment. What would make this even better is if Moonlight Stalker Feint qualified as a prereq for Greater Feint.

With Two-Weapon Feint you get to replace your first attack (at highest BAB) with a feint. The problem here is that as a 3/4 BAB class you are already struggling to connect, compounded by an even lower BAB due to Two-Weapon Fighting. So now you have to give up one of your best hits (low as it is) for a feint. Two-Weapon feint also suffers as it does not qualify as a prereq for Greater Feint.

From the PRD (emphasis added):

Prerequisites

Some feats have prerequisites. Your character must have the indicated ability score, class feature, feat, skill, base attack bonus, or other quality designated in order to select or use that feat. A character can gain a feat at the same level at which he gains the prerequisite.

A character can't use a feat if he loses a prerequisite, but he does not lose the feat itself. If, at a later time, he regains the lost prerequisite, he immediately regains full use of the feat that prerequisite enables.

So according to RAW, you can gain a feat the same level you gain the prereqs.

Its like Minecraft, he just throws it into a pool of lava off to the side.

Paizo is vastly superior to Cakezo

How about allowing the player to 'lock in' a certain number of items that are deemed too valuable to lose. At low levels you get only 2 or 3 locks, but as you level up you can gain more locks. This way each player can determine what is important for them and it is balanced for all classes/occupations.

Anyone who gives out their Driver's License, SSN, Account ID/Password, and any other real world info to pass a background 'screening' for entry to a guild is an idiot.