During an MSN convo, another DM pointed something out to me.
Where does it state that sneak-attacks need to be made with weapons? It doesn’t state in word and letter that it doesn’t works with magical spells and effects, etc. I don't have the PHB errata with me on this laptop, but might it be in there?
Now, me personally, I would crush any player who would even dare attempt something like that. To me sneak-attacks can only be achieved with physical attacks and not fireball slinging/lighting bolt throwing.
And yes, I was forced into posting this.
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Actually, if you read the description of sneak attack fully, it states that it can be done with any ranged attack within 30 ft. This includes spells (usually rays) as long as they REQUIRE AN ATTACK ROLL TO HIT. Magic missile cannot sneak attack, but a scorching ray certainly can. This means that fireball and lightning bolt are similarly not eligible as they affect an area and require a saving throw.
I believe that the attack must also deal some form of damage, whether hit point damage or ability damage, in order to benefit from sneak attack. You cannot sneak attack with a ray of exhaustion, for example. On this point, however, I might be wrong. I know I'm right about the first part, though.
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Fatespinner said: I believe that the attack must also deal some form of damage, whether hit point damage or ability damage, in order to benefit from sneak attack. You cannot sneak attack with a ray of exhaustion, for example. On this point, however, I might be wrong.
A couple of examples from WotC have suggested otherwise. /yeah, I thought it was funky, too, but there it is.
Apparently, a high-level spell-thief knows just where to land those ray attacks to kill people.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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What Fatespinner said. Spells that require an attack roll allow for sneak attack damage. This is specifically called out in Tome and Blood. I believe one of the 3.5 books says something similar as well. You can also take weapon focus (rays) and (if you met the prereqs) weapon specialization (rays). Furthermore, you can score critical hits with such spells and could, theoretically, take improved critical (rays).
Don't know about whether ray of exhaustion allows for sneak attck dice. I think it does, but I can't say for sure (ray of enfeeblement does not do any damage, but I'm fairly certain it can provide for sneak attack damage).
I believe it is the Complete Arcane that talks about using spells for sneak attacks. It's in the section just before feats I think. I also think that Ran of Enfeeblement can be used where the sneak attack damage is considered negative when the spell does ability damage.
*Sigh* note to self: The Cancel button is not the Preview button.
I believe Fatespinner is right. At the beginning of Chapter 4 in Complete Arcane it says that a sneak attack can be applied to any weaponlike spell and the start of the Weaponlike spell section implies that to be weaponlike a spell must have an attack roll and deal damage (either normal damage, nonlethal damage, ability damage, or energy drain damage).
Since ray of enfeeblement does not deal damage it does not seem it can be used in a sneak attack. Unless of course it was modified to deal damage (through a metamagic feat or another source).
Also it is used as an example of a spell that can't score a critical hit in the following section.
Ray of Enfeeblement can't deal sneak attack damage because it delivers a penalty to an ability, rather than dealing real damage. If it dealt real damage, multiple castings would stack with each other and it would be eligible for both critical hits and sneak attack damage (which would deal negative energy damage).
As was stated/questioned before, the spell has to require an attack roll of some kind and deal actual damage of some form, though it can be ability damage. Spells requiring attack rolls that only deliver some special effect, ability, condition, penalty, etc. are not eligible for sneak attacks.
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From Dragon, December, 2006, in the Adventurer Class Acts article:
Spells that deal energy drain or ability damage (or drain) deals its {sic} sneak attack damage as negative energy damage.
So, after thinking about this for a bit, I realized that this means that sneak attack with an energy drain or ability damage or drain spell will actually heal hit point damage on undead (in addition to the drain or damage). That seems very, very strange to me.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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So, after thinking about this for a bit, I realized that this means that sneak attack with an energy drain or ability damage or drain spell will actually heal hit point damage on undead (in addition to the drain or damage). That seems very, very strange to me.
I don't think it works that way. Undead are immune to ability damage/drain spells. Because they are immune to the primary effect, they do not suffer the secondary effect (e.g., the sneak attack damage). The same reasoning applies to poisoned weapons that cannot overcome DR. If you can't hurt a creature, you can't poison it.
As for a blast of negative energy against an undead, you would not get to add sneak attack damage because the spell must inflict "damage" and healing is not damage.
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So, after thinking about this for a bit, I realized that this means that sneak attack with an energy drain or ability damage or drain spell will actually heal hit point damage on undead (in addition to the drain or damage). That seems very, very strange to me.
I don't think it works that way. Undead are immune to ability damage/drain spells. Because they are immune to the primary effect, they do not suffer the secondary effect (e.g., the sneak attack damage). The same reasoning applies to poisoned weapons that cannot overcome DR. If you can't hurt a creature, you can't poison it.
As for a blast of negative energy against an undead, you would not get to add sneak attack damage because the spell must inflict "damage" and healing is not damage.
...and undead don't suffer the effects of sneak attacks, as every rogue stuck in a tomb raid has discovered.
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I don't think it works that way. Undead are immune to ability damage/drain spells. Because they are immune to the primary effect, they do not suffer the secondary effect (e.g., the sneak attack damage). The same reasoning applies to poisoned weapons that cannot overcome DR. If you can't hurt a creature, you can't poison it.
As for a blast of negative energy against an undead, you would not get to add sneak attack damage because the spell must inflict "damage" and healing is not damage.
I'm not sure that's true*. Certainly you'd need the feat that allows you to sneak attack undead, but the sneak attack damage is a different type than the base damage. If you hit something with a flaming weapon, the sneak attack damage is considered flaming as well, but that general rule is overridden by the explicit change to type in this case.
I think you are still inflicting damage even though the creature is immune, though I'm prepared to be shown wrong. Another analogy (since I'm forced to argue by analogy) would be attacking a creature with DR too high for your weapon damage to get through. In that case, you get to do the sneak attack damage and add it to the base damage before subtracting the DR.
* I'm also not sure it's false. Can you give me a cite? I've looked and can't find anything explicitly on point in the description of sneak attack or in the various immunities I can find. Even if I find that the rules allow healing by sneak attack, I plan to disallow it by fiat since I think it's pretty goofy. There's a certain attraction to finding weird holes in the rules, though, which is why I'm pursuing this.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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SRD Quotes (sneak attack, damage, ability damage):
If a rogue can catch an opponent when he is unable to defend himself effectively from her attack, she can strike a vital spot for extra damage.
Damage reduces a target’s current hit points.
Certain creatures and magical effects can cause temporary ability damage (a reduction to an ability score).
Damage reduces hit points. Healing increases hit points. The rogue attack does extra damage, so it reduces hit points.
Still, sneak attack on the various rays is an odd creature because we are talking about an effect doing ability damage with a secondary effect that does hit point damage. That's a stretch of the term "extra damage." Maybe there's a rule more on point, but given that the rules can support an argument one way or the other, I would say the no-sneak-attack healing makes more sense than the sneak-attack healing conclusion.
Edit: That being said, where do you find that the sneak damage with a flaming weapon is flaming? I would think it to be the same type as the weapon inflicting the damage. So, with our flaming mace being used by a 3rd level rogue, the sneak attack damage would not go through.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I think you are still inflicting damage even though the creature is immune, though I'm prepared to be shown wrong. Another analogy (since I'm forced to argue by analogy) would be attacking a creature with DR too high for your weapon damage to get through. In that case, you get to do the sneak attack damage and add it to the base damage before subtracting the DR.
I considered the DR analogy when writing my original post, and, barring the whole negative-energy-healing undead thing, it might be correct. After all, if you were attacking a creature with DR blunt/30 with a flaming mace, you would still do the fire damage even though the blunt damage wouldn't go through. I still don't think you can heal someone using sneak attack, but the DR analogy might make more sense than poison.
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Still, sneak attack on the various rays is an odd creature because we are talking about an effect doing ability damage with a secondary effect that does hit point damage. That's a stretch of the term "extra damage." Maybe there's a rule more on point, but given that the rules can support an argument one way or the other, I would say the no-sneak-attack healing makes more sense than the sneak-attack healing conclusion.
Reasonable call. It's a corner case, and under nearly any DMing style, those cases are ripe for DM discretion.
So, what type of damage is inflicted when you sneak attack with a +1 Flaming, Frost, Shock Shortsword (we will assume all three special damage types are active)? One third of each type, scaled by the amount of damage done on that strike by each type, something else? Does it matter whether you are striking a creature immune to fire? 8-)
(At least that's less of a corner case, since multi-elemental damage weapons are reasonably common, even if also a bit strange.)
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I can't figure out if paizo ate my edit or just decided not to show it. Doug - where do you find the rule that the sneak attack damage on a flaming weapon would do fire damage? I would expect it to be the same type of damage as the underlying weapon. So, a flaming mace would do extra blunt damage, not extra fire damage.
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So, what type of damage is inflicted when you sneak attack with a +1 Flaming, Frost, Shock Shortsword (we will assume all three special damage types are active)? Does it matter whether you are striking a creature immune to fire? 8-)
You responded before my edit/new post went through! I always play it that the sneak attack damage is the type of the weapon. So, the sneak attack damage would be slashing for the above short sword. The only elemental damage is the 1d6 extra for each of Flaming, Frost, and Shock.
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I can't figure out if paizo ate my edit or just decided not to show it. Doug - where do you find the rule that the sneak attack damage on a flaming weapon would do fire damage? I would expect it to be the same type of damage as the underlying weapon. So, a flaming mace would do extra blunt damage, not extra fire damage.
Maybe you're right. The most-current FAQ reads:
Any attack you make with an activated weapon deals energy damage to your foe if you hit—you don’t have to do anything special to deal energy damage with it.
I read that as implying that all the damage was of the type done by the energy ability. (I'm not sure whether that is present-tense "read" or past-tense "read". 8-)
I am in line with Sebastian again. Say the rogue has a 3d6 sneak attack with the aforementioned weapon. He would deal 4d6 slashing damage, 1d6 fire, 1d6 cold, and 1d6 electrical (plus enhancement and strength and blah blah blah).
I know it's been answered before, but I can't remember the thread, and since we're dancing around the topic I'll go ahead and ask again. Say you strike a troll with a +1 flaming sword. Does all the damage overcome his regeneration, or just the 1d6 fire? Seems like all the damage should. Could you coup de grace such a creature with that same weapon?
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Say you strike a troll with a +1 flaming sword. Does all the damage overcome his regeneration, or just the 1d6 fire? Seems like all the damage should. Could you coup de grace such a creature with that same weapon?
Using the ruling that only the extra die is fire damage, I'd have to say that only the 1d6 would count as lethal damage against a regenerating creature. If you use a coup de grace, the FORT save would then be only 10 + 1d6, since the extra die is not multiplied in the critical hit.
BTW, the above is an interpretation. The actual wording is "If the defender survives the damage, he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + damage dealt) or die." You could take the position that even non-lethal damage counts for the FORT save, but that would certainly not be my default interpretation.
This is part of the reason that I'm hesitant to accept the idea that only the extra die is counted as fire. It seems to me that a flaming weapon's damage should all count as lethal to a troll. I find myself leaning, with no particular support from the rules, toward a position of counting the sneak attack damage if any of the weapon damage counts as lethal. If someone sticks a three foot long blade that actually damages you into someplace vital (as a Rogue, by the definition of a sneak attack must), it's going to be a problem.
I'm worried about balance, though perhaps I shouldn't be.
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You could always just let the rogue CHOOSE which of the available damage types his sneak attack is when he makes the strike? The idea is, since he clearly has such precision with his weapon to make such strikes in the first place, he can "angle" the swing to maximize the potency of one particular aspect of the attack over the others....
...yeah, it's a little sloppy, but I don't think it'd really be game breaking. In the vast majority of fights, who really cares if the SA is doing 3d6 slashing or 3d6 electricity damage?
Say you strike a troll with a +1 flaming sword. Does all the damage overcome his regeneration, or just the 1d6 fire? Seems like all the damage should. Could you coup de grace such a creature with that same weapon?Using the ruling that only the extra die is fire damage, I'd have to say that only the 1d6 would count as lethal damage against a regenerating creature. If you use a coup de grace, the FORT save would then be only 10 + 1d6, since the extra die is not multiplied in the critical hit.
BTW, the above is an interpretation. The actual wording is "If the defender survives the damage, he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + damage dealt) or die." You could take the position that even non-lethal damage counts for the FORT save, but that would certainly not be my default interpretation.
This is part of the reason that I'm hesitant to accept the idea that only the extra die is counted as fire. It seems to me that a flaming weapon's damage should all count as lethal to a troll. I find myself leaning, with no particular support from the rules, toward a position of counting the sneak attack damage if any of the weapon damage counts as lethal. If someone sticks a three foot long blade that actually damages you into someplace vital (as a Rogue, by the definition of a sneak attack must), it's going to be a problem.
I'm worried about balance, though perhaps I shouldn't be.
It seems like such a simple issue, until you start to really think about it. Maybe we're thinking about it too much. Only dealing 1d6 lethal damage to a troll from weapons with that property means both that trolls are going to take a lot longer to kill, and it probably doesn't feel too good to be the fighter who bought the weapon, only to find out its utility is not as great as you thought. Overall, it's probably better to rule the whole thing as fire damage. The metal would be hot, too, right? That's more a jest than anything, since we're clearly outside the realm of logic and physics, and under the firm command of simplicity, fun, and balance.
By extension, I would probably allow the sneak attack damage to be fire as well.