Sneak attack

[ericthecleric]

I don’t like that sneak attack affects a great deal more creatures than it did before. As it stands under the Beta book, rogues can have up to 18 feats (via talents) and up to 10d6 sneak attack damage which affects nearly everything. This surely outshines fighters and other warrior types. Ie. think how effective a PfRPG rogue would be compared to an anti-undead ranger in the AoW campaign. Please restore it to the 3.5 level of effectiveness, so that everyone gets the chance to shine.

(Sorry if this issue's been discussed before, but I've not had much time to keep up with most threads!)

Edit: At the very least, introduce a new feat that allows a rogue to apply +1d6 of sneak attack damage per feat taken against a specific crit-immune type, so that a 20th-level rogue would need to use 10 feats to apply the full +10d6 damage versus undead, say.
But I'd still prefer the 3.5 method, that allows other classes to shine! :-)

[Tholas]

ericthecleric wrote:

I don’t like that sneak attack affects a great deal more creatures than it did before. As it stands under the Beta book, rogues can have up to 18 feats (via talents)

You forgot the "A rogue cannot select an individual talent more than once." part. Also the creature types that will loose crit immunity will surely get something else. See this thread for more infos.

ericthecleric wrote:

This surely outshines fighters and other warrior types. Ie. think how effective a PfRPG rogue would be compared to an anti-undead ranger in the AoW campaign. Please restore it to the 3.5 level of effectiveness, so that everyone gets the chance to shine.

Imho that is not the case. Yes, a high level rogue can do tremedous damage but he could do that in 3.5 too. Also i think the comparison against an anti-undead ranger is not valid. We are playing AoW and thanks to the +6 to damage and to-hit our Ranger sheldom misses and does insane damage against undead with his undead bane bow.

[Roman]

When the issue of Rogue sneak attack being able to cause full damage to too many creature types was discussed, Jason did weight in with some comments to the effect that this could be scaled back somewhat. I definitely agree that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. One possibility would be making sneak attack cause half-damage to formerly immune creatures or giving formerly immune creatures Damage Reduction against precision-based damage (sneak attacks, critical hits and so on).

[Ross Byers]

It's also worth pointing out that the rogue doesn't get sneak attack without bluff or flanking. And, of course, the Ranger or Fighter has a higher attack bonus, and so will simply hit more often.

[KaeYoss]

I'm all for full sneak attack-ability of nearly everything. It doesn't make the rogue stronger, just more versatile.

Before this change, the rogue's combat prowess was hinged very heavily on the type of campaign played: If you played a "something from everything" campaign, the rogue could often make a decent contribution to the fight, but if you played an all-undead campaign, the rogue became virtually useless.

This takes care of that problem.

And a rogue will have a hard time measuring up to a fighter that has a half-decent build and is at least moderately geared towards dealing damage.

The fighter will hit more often, have a higher base damage output, and will be able to do his damage consistently. He'll also have the greater staying power and be able to keep dealing his damage.

The rogue, on the other hand, will hit less often, and if the conditions aren't favourable to him, he'll not just lose a bot of attack bonus, he'll lose most of his damage output. He'll also be hit more often, and be able to withstand fewer hits.

And this doesn't even take into account crits, which heavily favour the fighter: A rogue that deals a crit will have a minor upgrade to his damage (sneak attack isn't multiplied), but the fighter will double his damage - or more. Add to that the nice crit feats that are probably coming in the final game, and a half-decent weapon like a falchion (or an exotic great falchion or something), and you end up with truly devastating criticals.

The rogue just can't hold a candle to the fighter if it comes to dealing damage at the end of the day.