If Standard Attack Action starts getting Iterative Attacks at some level,
then Rogues' (esp. w/ 2WF) Sneak Attack would seem to increase it's effectiveness with Standard Attacks ALOT, given a scenario where they need a Move Action to Flank an opponent and can only use Standard Attack Action.
Sneak Attack scales with level. It seems like this scaling should be calibrated by itself:
If it was specified to be a "Per Round" Damage Bonus, then we don't have the balance problems with 2WF or balancing Iterative Standard Attacks for Rogues vs. Non-Rogues (without Sneak Attack).
I would point out that 2WF would probably STILL be the preferable Rogue Combat option, because even if each hit doesn't apply your Sneak Attack damage individually, having more attacks means your chance of missing and not applying ANY Sneak Attack damage is much lower, besides the fact you're gaining extra "Standard" Weapon damage (and chance for Crits).
This IS sort-of a Rogue Class issue, but it's very related to alot of the changes being discussed in this Chapter, so I thought I would bring it up, since if Sneak Attack is adjusted this way, then we don't have to worry about balancing the Standard Action changes around Rogues & Non-Rogues.
One of the things my game group has house-ruled for years has been Sneak Attack damage, and before I get to the house-ruling, let me ask you a couple questions. If you were flanked by two opponents who looked very similar, who would you face? If one of them all of a sudden handed you your spleen at the end of his dagger, who would you face? If that same fella kept taking huge hunks out of your hide, who would you face?
Now our house-rule fits in with these questions this way. SA damage is only good for the first attack in a round because if someone just gave you a rather painful appendectomy from the wrong side, you are bound to turn to them and go "WTF!?!" (Excuse the language.) Plus as was mentioned above, a rogue with the TWF tree could deal heinously large amounts for ANY class, much less just fighter types.
Mind you this in no way eliminates the flanking bonus, critical hits or anything else, it just says that this precise damage is not as repeatable as the rules read currently.
Beautifull, beautifull my friend <wipes tears from corner of eye>...
Couldn't have said it better...
...I just don't think one Class Ability (Sneak Attack)
needs to dictate the Combat/Action Economy structure.
If we DO see "Weak Iterative" Standard Attacks
(I'm also proposing a better name, like Partial Attack Action)
then Vital Strike/IVS would be in play, and logically 2WF as well. So it's not an either/or proposition.
(if you have VS/IVS, then you would have x2/x3 base damage on your remaining attack(s).)
My gaming group and I had a discussion about this subject earlier this evening, and we believe that the best way to handle Sneak Attacks is to limit the Rogue to a number of Sneak Attacks per round equal to the number of iterative attacks that he receives due to his BAB. The first Sneak Attack would do full listed damage, and every iterative Sneak Attack after the first would receive a cumulative -3 dice penalty to the Sneak Attack damage for each strike afterwards. So if you have a 19th level rogue, he will get +10D6 on his first Sneak Attack, +7D6 on his second Sneak Attack, and +4D6 on his final Sneak Attack.
Rogues fighting with two weapons will have a distinct advantage because they will have more chances to connect with their Sneak Attacks if they have all of the Two-Weapon-Fighting Feats and are Hasted. However, they will not be nearly as powerful as they are right now, where a fully leveled and equipped Rogue wielding two weapons stands a very good chance of doing something like 40D6 damage a round to their opponents (and much more if they are lucky enough for all of their hits to connect).
Now our house-rule fits in with these questions this way. SA damage is only good for the first attack in a round because if someone just gave you a rather painful appendectomy from the wrong side, you are bound to turn to them and go "WTF!?!" (Excuse the language.) Plus as was mentioned above, a rogue with the TWF tree could deal heinously large amounts for ANY class, much less just fighter types.
I thought that the attacks from TWF are made pretty much simultaneously, as opposed to increased iterative attacks with the same weapon from high BAB
so even with your "turn to them and go "wtFAQ" the Rouge would have got one kidney on a rapier and the other on the dagger.
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I don't believe that limiting precision damage here is the way to go. I think that if we do enact any sort of weak iterative based on a standard action, it will not be so big a factor.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Yeah, for what it's worth, I agree with you. In fact, if Improved Feint can lead to an interative sneak attack (one passing the Bluff Check) then Improved Feint is going to be sufficiently worthwhile to take (as at present, I am not convinced that it, even for a rogue).
People seem to worry about sneak attack a lot...
let us not forget Murphy's Law applies
the more d6's rolled, the more times you roll all 1's ;)
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That Rogue role is in 3.x all through, because of sneak attack. So no, it's not WoW.
I agree that it's boring to roll that many dice. I don't agree that the damage output is too high, though.
Regarding feint: Improved or otherwise, it only affects next attack; I would say that should mean (and probably does, anyhow) next single roll with weapon, rather than next (standard action or full)-attack.
And this is where Rogues can get massive damage in with 11+ BAB, GTWF and either a weapon of Speed or haste from a flanking position that has the possibility of doing weapon damage seven times plus at least 56d6 (7 attacks at 15th level Sneak Attack of 8d6 extra damage). The only thing that comes close is a mage with disintegrate or a priest with harm.
Now take that example and replace "Rogue" with "Paladin" and you have an idea of how bad things are with the Paladin's Smite ability as it stands right now. Neither situation is particularly good or balanced right now.
I always had a Thief (not a rogue)
How I hated that class name.
That Rogue role is in 3.x all through, because of sneak attack. So no, it's not WoW.
Exactly. In this instance, WoW stole ideas from D&D if anything.
I agree that it's boring to roll that many dice. I don't agree that the damage output is too high, though.
I have no problem with rolling the extra dice. It always gives me a sense of power, to hold so many dice and let them wash over the table as my punishment washes over the enemy.
You're right with the damage output, though: A fighter that concentrates on hitting things for loads of damage will out-perform rogues that concentrate on the same thing. The rogue will be able to do lots of things on top of the damage, I give you that, but unless the rogue is created a lot more efficiently than the fighter, the fighter will deal more damage. And more reliably, too, since he can just go and hit enemies, without hoping to win init, or try to flank, or get invisible, or...
One of the things my game group has house-ruled for years has been Sneak Attack damage, and before I get to the house-ruling, let me ask you a couple questions. If you were flanked by two opponents who looked very similar, who would you face?
Both. As much as I can. I will definetly not ignore either one unless I know he's absolutely no threat (i.e. he cannot penetrate my armour and/or damage reduction or something like that).
Because if you ignore someone, you invite him to kill you.
Now our house-rule fits in with these questions this way.
The official rules fits with my answers, and with the way combatants usually react. Let me qualify that: It fits with the way combatants who have a chance to survive the fight react.
SA damage is only good for the first attack in a round because if someone just gave you a rather painful appendectomy from the wrong side, you are bound to turn to them and go "WTF!?!" (Excuse the language.)
And then the guy behind you, who you just turned your back on, cuts your throat from behind, because you ignored him.
D&D flanking assumes that you try to split your attention between the two flanking foes.
There's house rules out there that allow you to ignore one flanker. It usually amounts to being flat-footed against the guy, and him getting an attack of opportunity to boot. And some people think that's way too soft.
Plus as was mentioned above, a rogue with the TWF tree could deal heinously large amounts for ANY class, much less just fighter types.
Not as heinous as the amounts a fighter built for damage can deal, whether we talk greatsword (or other two-handed weapon - I suggest the falchion, or, if you can get your hands on one, an exotic version that deals more base damage but has the same critical multiplier) wielder or one who goes the two-weapon fighting route.
The fighter will be able to hit more reliably, because of his better BAB, his weapon training, and his weapon focus/greater weapon focus. If you go with TWF, you'll have more attacks than the rogue, too.
The fighter's hits (of which he will have more than the rogue) will deal a lot of damage, too: From weapon training (again), from Weapon Specialisation and Greater Weapon Specialisation, and from his strength score, which will probably be quite high (unless the rogue is build solely for combat and puts everything on str/dex/con, which is less likely than a fighter putting everything into str/dex/con). The damage is often able to compete with a sneak attacking rogue's damage output on a pure per hit basis alone.
And, of course, the fighter will deal that sort of damage all the time, while the rogue needs the right conditions, or his damage output drops to almost nothing.
Combine those three points, and the fighter wins easily: More hits, for heavy and, above all, reliable damage equals WIN.
And the clou: A fighter critting will at least double his output, while a rogue only has a slight increase. With the new abilities and feats, fighters become very competent critters (excuse the pun) indeed.
And their AC is godly, too.
Now take that example and replace "Rogue" with "Paladin" and you have an idea of how bad things are with the Paladin's Smite ability as it stands right now. Neither situation is particularly good or balanced right now.Not sure what you mean exactly. The paladin's smite evil is equal to their level and at most usable seven times per day. I'm not sure how exactly this is too powerful; unless that's your point (that it's not).
In the Paladin threads, all of the Paladins complained about how Smite Evil was too weak, so Jason put together a new version of Smite Evil that allows you to apply your Smite Damage towards every attack you make in a given round. Furthermore, your attack bonus against Undead and Evil Outsiders is boosted from bonus points of damage to bonus D6s. Finally, the duration of the Smite increases to multiple rounds when you hit higher levels. So a high-level Paladin optimized for dual wielding could make non-stop smiting attacks for 2 or 3 rounds that get an extra +8D6 Holy damage per strike.
I pray to god that this version of Smite Evil doesn't make it to the final version of the game (no pun intended).
Finally remember; the game was never, EVER meant to be balanced from one class to the next in any edition or version of the game. I fail to see why it has to be balanced today. 4E is balanced and look how bad that sucks.
You can design a balanced game without creating a poorly-designed game. It's unfortunate that WoTC was unable to accomplish this design goal in 4E. I blame this on the fact that they so desperately wanted to become the tabletop version of WoW.
And you want to establish a balance between character classes so that one class (Wizard, Cleric) doesn't outshine another class (everyone else) over the course of the game. Otherwise you end up with a situation where some players get to do everything, and others end up just being assistants and pack mules. Unfortunately, that's how things are currently set up in 3.5 and Pathfinder, and this needs to be remedied somehow before the game is finalized.
A laudable concept to be sure, but since Pathfinder has certain design precepts, which include backwards compatibility with former 3.X rules, this is more than likely not going to be possible in the first edition of Pathfinder. Later editions....
You can have class balance AND backwards compatibility in a game system. It won't be PERFECT backwards compatibility, but I'd rather take the extra time to tweak a few old adventures then have an unbalanced game system.
I wouldn't think that genuine class balance is going to look 3.5 enough for Paizo to be able to make their APs work for both 3.5 and PFRPG, which is their bottom line.
I concur, if only on the basis that the 3.x classes have different metrics for determining class abilities. In order for any class system to be balanced in every scenario, each class has to be playing within the same structure. 4E did that, and the classes it has are very mathematically balanced. I'm a mathematician/games theorist and I've rendered the class-balance concept as a mathematical construct - unless all the classes have near-identical progression in terms of abilities, there will be (there has to be) a certain degree of imbalance. In the case of 3.x and Pathfinder, where the classes are so diverse in ability progression, there is going to be easily noticeable imbalance between classes by default -- scenarios must exist where {insert class here} is just less effective than {insert other class here}, the math demands it. By the way, that last statement holds true for any pair of classes, mathematically, be it (Fighter, Wizard) or (Wizard, Fighter) or even (Barbarian, Spellthief). The balancing act that Pathfinder seems to be attempting is the seriously more challenging objective of trying to ensure that the frequency of scenarios favoring one particular class or stacked against a particular class is roughly the same across all of the classes - that is, the number of (Fighter, Wizard) scenarios typically encountered is roughly equal to the number of (Wizard, Fighter) scenarios in any given frame of reference.
In the case of Rogues and Sneak Attacks (trying to be at least a smidgen on-topic here ^_^), I like the effort/payoff relationship between setting up the full sneak attack (by Flanking, Greater Invisibility, etc.) and the resultant damage output. If it was a cooperative effort, it makes whoever participated feel better about their actions that round; if it was set up by the Rogue alone, it causes the same reaction but magnified. ("Wow, we're a really great team! We should do that more often." or "Boy I'm glad I put those ranks into Use Magic Device - Greater Invisibility is really useful!" or whatnot.) I wouldn't want to see the mechanic dramatically changed in a quest for comparative class balance.
~Doskious Steele
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My gaming group and I had a discussion about this subject earlier this evening, and we believe that the best way to handle Sneak Attacks is to limit the Rogue to a number of Sneak Attacks per round equal to the number of iterative attacks that he receives due to his BAB. The first Sneak Attack would do full listed damage, and every iterative Sneak Attack after the first would receive a cumulative -3 dice penalty to the Sneak Attack damage for each strike afterwards. So if you have a 19th level rogue, he will get +10D6 on his first Sneak Attack, +7D6 on his second Sneak Attack, and +4D6 on his final Sneak Attack.
Rogues fighting with two weapons will have a distinct advantage because they will have more chances to connect with their Sneak Attacks if they have all of the Two-Weapon-Fighting Feats and are Hasted. However, they will not be nearly as powerful as they are right now, where a fully leveled and equipped Rogue wielding two weapons stands a very good chance of doing something like 40D6 damage a round to their opponents (and much more if they are lucky enough for all of their hits to connect).
Sneak Attack Damage, as it is now,does not sit well with me. I think it is to much. (almost more than 30% of my group wants to play play multi-classed fighter/rogues or Ranger/rogues or such.
Let take a look of the Word "Sneak"/"Sneaking"/"Sneaker": Someone or something that quietly and unnoticed (by the target) tries to surprise...
Well, the first sneak attack comes by surprise, and if the target is still living, he will keep an eye on the little Sneak, for if he does not, he will get "sneaked" again. Thus a Sneak attack should only be allowed if the "target" does not solely concentrate on the little sneaker.
Why not allow the first Attack to be a sneak attack, but not the following attacks (as long as the target concentrates mainly on the Rogue). If the target turns to engage a second opponent, or is unable to see the rogue (invisible, hidden, etc.) than a new sneak Attack can be applied (or if the target turn to someone else).
I don't see any reason why a rogue should be able to sneak someone who keeps an eye on the rogue or, as any reasonable target would do, put all his power into killing the little sneaking bstrd...
The above mentioned -3D method is also to my liking.
As the rules are now...I will definitely put some cap to it, if not heavy restrictions, such no Sneak attacks in the first (or first 1d3) round(s) you must engage the target with basic attacks in order to study him, his physique, the way how he moves and used his weapons and/or shield....then allowing the same number of rounds in which the rogue changes his fighting style, surprising the opponent with cunning moves and feints, thus being able to deal the additional sneak damage. (Or needing to succeed in a bluff skill role by a certain DC in order to do the sneaking damage).
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I think that people worry too much about Sneak Attack, in particular about the name (which is, indeed, somewhat misleading; it's a precision attack and the name might represent that better) and about the potential for damage. I mean, in practice, is it breaking anything? Obviously not in games in which I have played and which I have seen, but I'm not convinced that it's breaking things that often elsewhere, either (other than the potential tedium of rolling many dice). There are some synergies for TWFers (using same light weapon in each hand and applying feats to it, ie, both) but it seems to me that the investment in general is pretty high in order to keep hitting often enough at higher levels, on top of achieving the necessary circumstances for Sneak Attacking.
Also, if the standard meleer and the Rogue are balanced before a change that allows more attacks with movement, it seems to me that they will pretty much be after; perhaps it's now easier for the Rogue to achieve the sneak attack conditions and still hit, but in my experience, when that does involve movement, that's often to do with the movement of others and/or 5' steps anyhow. If the meleer and the Rogue are not balanced before the change, then that's a different issue; I would tend to say that the issue is that the meleer is underpowered rather than that the Rogue is overpowered, though.
That said, if people want to house-rule the number of sneak attacks downward, it's no skin from my nose (I just don't want it in the official rules).
After thinking over others comments here, it DOES seem like average Sneak Attack damage is equivalent to reasonably Fighter-type damage (meaning scaling per attack IS balanced for both Rogues & Fighters), so I agree this isn't such an issue.
I guess that tangential to this, I WOULD like seeing Improved Vital Strike tweaked, so that it would present a more clear cut net-benefit than it's current state, which only seems to be useful in DR situations.
After thinking over others comments here, it DOES seem like average Sneak Attack damage is equivalent to reasonably Fighter-type damage (meaning scaling per attack IS balanced for both Rogues & Fighters), so I agree this isn't such an issue.
I guess that tangential to this, I WOULD like seeing Improved Vital Strike tweaked, so that it would present a more clear cut net-benefit than it's current state, which only seems to be useful in DR situations.
It can be, and it can be above. What I would propose is that the issue comes from several different areas other than Sneak Attack. I'll try and lay these out, and would welcome any comments on them.
I would propose that Sneak Attack isn't the problem itself. I might say the issue is similar to the old druids: having the cake and eating it, too. The rogue isn't as powerful as the old druid was, but it does get alot of oomph! in alot of areas.
A rogue has several advantages: it's one of the more versatile classes in the game. More skill points than any other class, tricks (see rogue talent rundown), evasion, and are able to maximize their damage output in a single feat chain.
The d8 hit dice are fighter-like, especially if we take the cleric to be a "warrior of the gods," which they were described in earlier editions as being, a class who also has d8 hit dice. BAB also, is equal to the cleric. This isn't a "bad" BAB. However, combine it with the extra hit points, and there's certainly some melee power to be had, here.
Rogues get bonus damage as a class ability, which the fighter typically has to take feats to get. Feat selection gives the fighter more versatility; however, this is handed to the rogue as a feature. The fighter is seen as typically the melee-specialist of the bunch, but the rogue is so effective that he or she easily becomes the default "lightly armored fighter" rather than the fighter class, itself. It takes the rogue a single feat chain to optimize this ability to the equivalent of a fighter's output. While the rogue has a need to "set up" this ability, it's none too difficult, especially in later levels.
The rogue may even match the fighter in feats, or surpass them, by taking a feat instead of each talent, and the rogue has a wider selection from which to choose. However, they don't really need the feats, as the fighter does, to be effective in combat: mostly what they need is a single feat chain, which is two weapon fighting because their class provides the rest.
Once the feat chain is picked up, the rogue doesn't really need to worry for damage output. He or she can worry about other things, like where to put their large number of skill points, or which talent to pick.
The light armor is less of an issue given how much rogues benefit from a high dexterity, and given that dexterity itself is such a powerful stat in DnD 3.x. It's been referred to as the "king" stat, and the rogue can focus on it almost exclusively. Throw in evasion, and the rogue has a fairly nice deal.
I think part of the issue is, if I wanted to play a lightly armored, but very effective combat-based fighter, I would pick a rogue, and never bother looking at the fighter class. It's potentially possible to rename the rogue the "light fighter" "plus other really nifty things and cake."
Where this means "the problem" is, I'm not sure. However, the rogue may need some of the cake shifted around somewhat. Perhaps the issue is with TWF and Sneak Attack as a combo. Lowering the amount of damage on successive strikes may not be a bad option or limiting to the first attack may not be a bad option--it sounds as though this is already a popular house rule, which seems to reinforce that something seems "off."
In conclusion, I don't think it's Sneak Attack "by itself." I think it comes from a conglomeration of things and some confusion about the roles that the rogue has. While the rogue isn't the powerhouse the druid was, the old druid is an apt comparison: sneak is, to a degree, having the cake and eating it, too.
What are your thoughts?
PS Sorry if this is a double post. The forums were burping. :)