Powerful sneak / deadly sneak: What do they add to the roleplay?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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No. The math still does not make sneak attack better so it still deducts from DPR as a combat based feat, and does nothing for your RP'ing because none of the social skills are enhanced.

-... erm.. enhanced social skills are still a mechanical benefit.

Role playing wise, i was eyeing the feat in the APG

Breadth of Experience

Although still young for your kind, you have a lifetime of knowledge and training.

Prerequisites: Dwarf, elf, or gnome; 100+ years old.

Benefit: You get a +2 bonus on all Knowledge and Profession skill checks, and can make checks with those skills untrained.

It makes a lot of sense for my Hippy Elf, whos been around a long time and likes to dabble in a lot of things, but from a mechanics standpoint i just can't justify giving up a feat/discovery.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

I removed a Godwin post that also included quite a bit of swearing. Calm down.


Cheapy wrote:

Yea, so I dun smurfed the math. The average of 1d6 (1,2=3) is 4, not 4.5.

So it's 2.5 extra damage per sneak attack, not 5. And the Sap Master will only add +5.

How are you getting that?

The average of any of the a d6 is 3.5

Powerful sneak makes it so that when you would have rolled a 1 you get a 2 instead which only pushes it to 3.6666...., but with the -2 to hit you lose DPR.

I will use hulky mcrogueboy, half orc rogue 10 .
As written:
Angry Scrub got a DPR of 41.8 while using sneak attack and power attacking. I got 41.75. I will just assume he rounded up.

When I changed that 2 into a 1, but did not take away the -2 I got 42.54 so even without the -2 to attack I only got a .8 increase.

With powerful sneak replacing the Stand Up talent:
The DPR dropped all the way down to 33.59 when I used the -2 which is in the rules.


wraithstrike wrote:
Cheapy wrote:

Yea, so I dun smurfed the math. The average of 1d6 (1,2=3) is 4, not 4.5.

So it's 2.5 extra damage per sneak attack, not 5. And the Sap Master will only add +5.

How are you getting that?

The average of any of the a d6 is 3.5

Powerful sneak makes it so that when you would have rolled a 1 you get a 2 instead which only pushes it to 3.6666...., but with the -2 to hit you lose DPR.

You're missing Deadly Sneak. Upping 1s and 2s to 3s nets you an average of 4 damage per die.


Pedantic wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
Cheapy wrote:

Yea, so I dun smurfed the math. The average of 1d6 (1,2=3) is 4, not 4.5.

So it's 2.5 extra damage per sneak attack, not 5. And the Sap Master will only add +5.

How are you getting that?

The average of any of the a d6 is 3.5

Powerful sneak makes it so that when you would have rolled a 1 you get a 2 instead which only pushes it to 3.6666...., but with the -2 to hit you lose DPR.

You're missing Deadly Sneak. Upping 1s and 2s to 3s nets you an average of 4 damage per die.

That still only gets you 34.84, but deadly sneak did not have the -2 in its description so my question is this. Is the -2 to attack assumed to carry over or does the upgrade also get rid of the -2 to attack?

If it does then the damage is 44.1 which is an increase, but for two talents I want more than 2.33 DPR. Losing weapon focus drop me down to 41.53 which makes it more valuable than two talents at this point, and that is without the -2 penalty being ignored which is how deadly sneak reads.

I think the rogue getting a bonus to attack rolls when sneak attacking would have been better. If the talents never existed, and the rogue was given a +2 when sneak attacking instead his DPR would be 46.31


What's a "Godwin post"? :/

Back on topic: deadly sneak does indeed increase damage by 0.5 points per sneak attack die. But the rogue spent two talents to get it.

Deadly sneak is slightly better than powerful sneak. But deadly sneak is still crap.

Deadly sneak is the second worst class feature in the game.


Axl wrote:

What's a "Godwin post"? :/

Back on topic: deadly sneak does indeed increase damage by 0.5 points per sneak attack die. But the rogue spent two talents to get it.

Deadly sneak is slightly better than powerful sneak. But deadly sneak is still crap.

Deadly sneak is the second worst class feature in the game.

Which one is the worst? My money is on that banishment power that paladins are forced to use at later levels that trades out their amazing damage bonuses.


Pedantic wrote:


Which one is the worst?

LOL. Powerful sneak is the worst. Deadly sneak is the second worst. :-)


wraithstrike wrote:

but deadly sneak did not have the -2 in its description so my question is this. Is the -2 to attack assumed to carry over or does the upgrade also get rid of the -2 to attack?

Deadly Sneak says "whenever a rogue with this talent uses the powerful sneak rogue talent" and then lists what changes compared to that talent. Since it doesn't specify anything about the attack penalty, the attack penalty remains the same.


The numbers I ran include the -2. The to-hit is the leading number.

Also, exploit lore is worse :p


Cheapy wrote:

The numbers I ran include the -2. The to-hit is the leading number.

Also, exploit lore is worse :p

The DPR spreadsheet I use gets me the same numbers as the guys in the DPR threads, which was made by one of those guys.

I did not use Sap Master. I don't even know what it is, but without it deadly sneak fails.

edit:I found it. Sap Master doubling sneak attack would be the reason for the higher numbers not those 2 talents, and Sap Master only works on flat footed opponents so it is even more circumstantial than regular sneak attack, and it is limited to non lethal damage, but I don't want to start a discussion on sap master which is the true star in the numbers you posted.

edit2:To find out what your math error was
with deadly sneak.

The target AC for a CR 10 monster is 24. You only used a 22.


wraithstrike wrote:


edit2:To find out what your math error was
with deadly sneak.

The target AC for a CR 10 monster is 24. You only used a 22.

I believe I used 21 actually, since the whole point of my math was against flat-footed foes.


Cheapy wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:


edit2:To find out what your math error was
with deadly sneak.

The target AC for a CR 10 monster is 24. You only used a 22.

I believe I used 21 actually, since the whole point of my math was against flat-footed foes.

The post said 22, but in any event the damage should still go down. I will also admit that I forgot to account for the +2 for flanking if the SA did not occur until round 2, but I went back, and the talents still ended up being on the losing end if I added in the -2, but if I went RAW and did not count the -2 then both talents did more damage, but still were less valuable than weapon focus.

In short the two talents do provide a boost to DPR by RAW, but they are still poor options.-->I don't think that was a point of contention though, just a point for any newcomers who read the thread.


Yea, I originally had it as 22. Then I remembered that PF rounds down, so made it 21. i was doing half the post in the forum's message box, half on notepad. I must've changed the 22 to 21 on the forum's box, and then copied the 22 over from notepad.

A wizard 3 / rogue 7 with this would do sweet though, especially with a lot of scrolls of scorching ray.

If they could be used when casting spells. Which they can't. Damnit.

Liberty's Edge

Quote:
Therefore my question is: what does those powers add to the roleplay of a character? How is the character with powerful sneak more roleplay than the one without?

Lots of whining about how much you suck in combat will hopefully get your character killed so you can make a new one who is much better at math.

;-P


Mike Schneider wrote:
Quote:
Therefore my question is: what does those powers add to the roleplay of a character? How is the character with powerful sneak more roleplay than the one without?

Lots of whining about how much you suck in combat will hopefully get your character killed so you can make a new one who is much better at math.

;-P

The most important combat ability.

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