I'm playing a 2nd level Tengu ninja with multiple natural attacks and I've found out the hard way that trying to get sneak attack opportunities is very difficult. Party members aren't always that helpful getting me flank opportunities and I have learnt now that I only get one of my attacks in a full round when I sneak up on someone to sneak attack them with my stealth and invisibilty trick.
What are some tricks people know to maximise your chances of sneak attacking when you are low to medium level and don't have access to improved invisibility?
Here are some I've come up with so far:
Buy a Guard Dog and have Handle Animal skill trained. Teach the dog to flank and delay your attack until your dog is in a flanking position. While this is not an actual trick listed, the Core Rule Book states: "Possible tricks include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following."
Throw a Starfountain Firework (Ultimate Equipment). This is an expensive one use option at 500gp, but it is an area weapon that has a 20-foot radius spread and everyone who fails their reflex DC 15 save are blinded for 1d4 rounds giving you opportunities in subsequent rounds to sneak attack.
Buy a Bag of Tricks (Gray 3400gp, Rust 8500gp). This allows you to throw an obedient combat animal up to 20 feet that will follow your commands. So you throw the animal beyond your opponent allowing you to set up a flank situation.
I am keen to hear other people's ideas.
I play a similar character with natural sneak attacks. Winning initiative helps alot. Try boosting it with the usual suspects: dex, traits, or feats. You could try going the feint route. As an aside, I spent effort to get base damage up, sneak attack is icing, the kind that kills ya.
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Conditions that deny dexterity bonus: Blinded, Stunned, Pinned
Ways to get those conditions: combat maneuvers (grapple, dirty trick), spells (Color Spray, Blindness), items (flash powder, wands)
i was planning on getting imp feint early and then possibly getting shattered defenses (although admittedly that will be a a good deal later and require dazzling display)
I've heard shattered defenses can be quite useful but requires some investment buildwise.
I think imp feint can be a trap, especially if you have multiple attacks you want to sneak attack with. The problem with improved feint is that it has a feat, skill and ability investment via combat expertise, bluff and intelligence of 13. On top of this, it requires a move action to perform denying you a full attack and there is no guarantee of success unlike nearly every other means of meeting the requirements for sneak attack because of the opposed DC check.
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Your best bet is to convince some of the other players that working together is in their best interest. If you can get at least one front line guy to tag team with, it makes things easier.
I have a Swashbuckling Rogue in PFS. Most of the time I can count on other players lending a hand with flanks, but occasionally I get some that are not interested or some that just plain forget about flanking. In this case, you need to make it happen and you will have to sacrifice some full round attacks to do it.
A few times in my over-zealousness to get into the fight, I have found myself getting surrounded. I finally decided to focus on the Acrobatic skill by buying some Boots of Elvenkind (+5 to Acrobatics). Now, my 5th level Rogue has a +18 Acrobatics and can tumble around the battlefield pretty safely. I will probably take Skill Focus feat for it later as well. Also, if you have the right GM, you can get away doing some crazy maneuvers during combat.
*Snip* SNeak Attack Stuff
While it will not help you right now consider working towards the APG feat "Gang-Up", it helps make flanking quite a bit easier.
Remember you count as your own ally so you only need yourself and one other person for this to work.
My question is where the hell are you front line fighters? They should be your flanking buddies and sometimes, as a ninja/rogue, its better to hold your turn to go after the big meele type so you can get that flanking buddy (and have someone else get hit by whatever your trying to kill!).
If you are the only martial character around.....a. I am sorry. b. find a way to get summoned creatures thru either umd, magical items, etc.
Remember you count as your own ally so you only need yourself and one other person for this to work.
Wait, really? Well. Now that is interesting...
i second this response. are you super sure of that? :-)Remember you count as your own ally so you only need yourself and one other person for this to work.Wait, really? Well. Now that is interesting...
I agree with everyone else that this is super useful if you count as your own ally. Is there official clarification that this is how it works?
My question is where the hell are you front line fighters? They should be your flanking buddies and sometimes, as a ninja/rogue, its better to hold your turn to go after the big meele type so you can get that flanking buddy (and have someone else get hit by whatever your trying to kill!).
If you are the only martial character around.....a. I am sorry. b. find a way to get summoned creatures thru either umd, magical items, etc.
I play pathfinder society scenarios and who is in your party for society scenarios is... "like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna git!"
I know people consider Improved Feint to be a trap. But I still like it. Sometmes you dont want to tumble to a different position. Sometimes you just want to get the drop on somebody. I like having it as an option.
There was a neat option for ratfolk, if others are planning ahead. One of their racial traits is to flank an opponent if you and another ratfolk share the same square to attack. Swarming I think it is.
Get your GM to adopt a sane policy toward attacking from concealment. I actually think the Blog version of the stealth rules was really great.
Playing in MapTool makes a huge difference when tracking lighting and choosing positions to attack from. Tengu have lowlight, right?
I'd echo the need to have better concealment/stealth rules. In that case blur effects can make rogue's much more able to function as solo attackers.
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One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the grease spell causes anyone who walks on the grease to be flat footed. So convince your party casters to use that spell. Even if they don't knock the enemy down, it'll still give you an SA. This is why my rogue with one level of Dawnflower Dervish bard knows that spell.
As others have said, acrobatics and initiative are key. With a high dex, Reactionary trait, and Improved Initiative, you should be able to get +10 or better very easily. Also keep your perception up so you can go in surprise rounds. Catch your opponents flat footed and make sure you have a way to hit them from range if you can't get close enough while they're still flat footed. (ie don't miss the opportunity because you have to draw a ranged weapon first and don't have enough actions)
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This is a bit out of the box, but if you can work it into your concept, a single level dip into Maneuver Master Monk will allow you to perform a dirty trick combat maneuver at a -2 penalty in addition to your normal full attack routine. It does not give your actual attacks a penalty, just the maneuver.
You'd usually want to use it to attempt to blind the target of course, in order to deny them their Dex bonus, but in situations where you've already got the option to sneak attack and another status effect is desirable, you've got the option to hit them with an entangle or sickened, etc. instead. Pretty nice.
In addition, the single level nets you:
1) a bonus maneuver feat (improved dirty trick obviously) which effectively negates the -2 penalty on the maneuver and gets you out of those pesky opportunity attacks.
2) +2 to all saves. Nice.
3) 1d6 Unarmed damage. Now you're always armed and can threaten adjacent if you choose to wield a reach weapon.
4) 1 Stunning Fist attempt per day. Who knows, may come in handy. At least the DC scales with Character level rather than class level.
5) Flurry of Maneuvers, discussed in detail above.
Considering you're a Ninja rather than an ordinary Rogue, the fluff even fits together pretty seamlessly.
Happy Hunting!
*really good stuff*
This sounds quite awesome and I may indeed dip a level in monk for a ninja I've got.
However, isn't the dirty trick not going to be using BAB, but simply the monk level (in other words, sticking at 1)? Seems like it would lose effectiveness pretty quickly.
Of course, the rest of it all still sounds great.
*really good stuff*This sounds quite awesome and I may indeed dip a level in monk for a ninja I've got.
However, isn't the dirty trick not going to be using BAB, but simply the monk level (in other words, sticking at 1)? Seems like it would lose effectiveness pretty quickly.
Of course, the rest of it all still sounds great.
I don't see any reason it'd behave that way. The ability (FoM) allows you to perform a combat maneuver before or after your normal full attack. Any combat maneuver uses your BAB to determine your total CMB; individual class levels have nothing to do with the CMB calculation.
edit: The text your refering to in the FoM description is there to say that each Monk level acts as a full BAB level (+1 in this case). They needed to clarify that because normal Flurry of Blows (which FoM replaces), allows Monks to use full rather than 3/4 BAB. Although of course, your normal BAB takes a hit since monk starts at +0, but the maneuver doesn't suffer that setback.
Get your GM to adopt a sane policy toward attacking from concealment. I actually think the Blog version of the stealth rules was really great.
Playing in MapTool makes a huge difference when tracking lighting and choosing positions to attack from. Tengu have lowlight, right?
The Tengu do have low light vision so I think you raise a valid point of trying to maximise your opportunities by attacking from the shadows. That would probably mean scouting ahead of the rest of the party away from the light source when adventuring.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the grease spell causes anyone who walks on the grease to be flat footed. So convince your party casters to use that spell. Even if they don't knock the enemy down, it'll still give you an SA. This is why my rogue with one level of Dawnflower Dervish bard knows that spell.
A one level dip into bard/sorcerer/wizard for grease might be worth my consideration. I'm going to look into this.
As others have said, acrobatics and initiative are key. With a high dex, Reactionary trait, and Improved Initiative, you should be able to get +10 or better very easily. Also keep your perception up so you can go in surprise rounds. Catch your opponents flat footed and make sure you have a way to hit them from range if you can't get close enough while they're still flat footed. (ie don't miss the opportunity because you have to draw a ranged weapon first and don't have enough actions)
People in this thread are coming up with excellent ideas to get a single sneak attack. I'm now wondering if I made a mistake in my character design by building him with 3 attacks with sneak attack potential from 1st level. The opportunity to get all 3 attacks in is very difficult. It seems much easier to get one sneak attack off which lends itself better to just sneak attacking with a decent strength and a 2 handed weapon.
The text your refering to in the FoM description is there to say that each Monk level acts as a full BAB level (+1 in this case). They needed to clarify that because normal Flurry of Blows (which FoM replaces), allows Monks to use full rather than 3/4 BAB. Although of course, your normal BAB takes a hit since monk starts at +0, but the maneuver doesn't suffer that setback.
Ooooh... I see.
For the purpose of these attacks, the monk's base attack bonus from his monk class levels is equal to his monk level.
I thought it set your BAB for flurry of blows or maneuvers exactly to your monk level, rather than stacking on top of the rest.
That is magnificent.
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Using acrobatics to get into good flanking positions is all about being able to full-attack, just not on the turn you use acrobatics. As soon as you start flanking, you'll quickly gain the ability to full attack.
You might want to keep a katana or something around for the times when you can't full attack.
This is a bit out of the box, but if you can work it into your concept, a single level dip into Maneuver Master Monk will allow you to perform a dirty trick combat maneuver at a -2 penalty in addition to your normal full attack routine. It does not give your actual attacks a penalty, just the maneuver.
You'd usually want to use it to attempt to blind the target of course, in order to deny them their Dex bonus, but in situations where you've already got the option to sneak attack and another status effect is desirable, you've got the option to hit them with an entangle or sickened, etc. instead. Pretty nice.
In addition, the single level nets you:
1) a bonus maneuver feat (improved dirty trick obviously) which effectively negates the -2 penalty on the maneuver and gets you out of those pesky opportunity attacks.
2) +2 to all saves. Nice.
3) 1d6 Unarmed damage. Now you're always armed and can threaten adjacent if you choose to wield a reach weapon.
4) 1 Stunning Fist attempt per day. Who knows, may come in handy. At least the DC scales with Character level rather than class level.
5) Flurry of Maneuvers, discussed in detail above.
Considering you're a Ninja rather than an ordinary Rogue, the fluff even fits together pretty seamlessly.
Happy Hunting!
I also play a 4th level Maneuvre Master/Weapon Adept monk with a 10 foot reach double kama chain that has an insanely high CMB trip and CMB dirty trick ability I use in flurry of maneuvres. The weapon is really good as it allows me to attack opponents next to me as well as 10feet away. With his combat reflexes, he uses AoO to trip and blind anything that comes within 10 feet of him. The rogue in the party absolutely loves him. I will now have to seriously think about putting some levels in rogue or ninja. Thanks for the idea.
Note that the monk dip is great but you can only flurry of maneuvers when you take a full round action. So you still want to use acrobatics etc to get sneak attacks when you can't take a full round attack. (Dirty trick to blind may be your most reliable trick but consider as well what tricks you could do with your preferred weapons and discuss that with your DM. Dirty trick is a powerful maneuver and highly flexible but it is also subject to a lot of DM fiat more so than most other combat actions.
The way I describe this to my DM is my maneuvre master monk has trained his martial ability of his weapon for dirty trick with such precision that he can blind opponents with a flick of his weapon across their brow causing the blood/ichor etc to run into their eyes and temporarily blind them. With improved dirty trick, the opponent needs a move action to remove the blindness condition. With greater dirty trick, the opponent requires a standard action to remove the condition. For every 5 points by which you beat their CMD, the opponent is blinded for an extra round.
Check out the Shanker for inspiration.
This build could be potent if you pick up the "unwitting ally" rogue trick that allows you to make an opponent act like an ally for purposes of providing a flank until the beginning of the rogue's next turn with the use of a swift action.
A simpler way is to get the Leadership feat, and have your cohort flank with you, assuming your GM doesn't nerf the feat like mine does :(
A simpler way is to get the Leadership feat, and have your cohort flank with you, assuming your GM doesn't nerf the feat like mine does :(
As it stands, I was considering looking into leadership for a Dragonne, who would then advance via Barb levels. Hardy, with the option to fly? Flanktank ftw.
i second this response. are you super sure of that? :-)Remember you count as your own ally so you only need yourself and one other person for this to work.Wait, really? Well. Now that is interesting...
Do you count as your own ally?
You count as your own ally unless otherwise stated or if doing so would make no sense or be impossible. Thus, "your allies" almost always means the same as "you and your allies."
—Sean K Reynolds, 10/12/10
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i second this response. are you super sure of that? :-)Remember you count as your own ally so you only need yourself and one other person for this to work.Wait, really? Well. Now that is interesting...FAQDo you count as your own ally?
You count as your own ally unless otherwise stated or if doing so would make no sense or be impossible. Thus, "your allies" almost always means the same as "you and your allies."
—Sean K Reynolds, 10/12/10
Ah, no. The application of the definition of 'allies' does not make sense in this instance.
You need two other creatures to take advantage of the Gang Up feat. SKR specifically addresses the Gang Up feat and allies here: LINK
It's worth noting that SKR's posts in that thread do not comment on the sensibility of Gang Up at all; he engages in a debate on the perceived usefulness of the feat. Here's a highlight. That is a separate matter, one which really has no bearing on a RAW-plus-FAQ discussion, or a sensibility discussion; it's a balance discussion.
Anyways, it's worth pointing out the language of the next feat in Gang Up's chain:
Team Up (Combat)
When you are ganging up against an enemy, you can aid an ally with a quick feint.
Prerequisites: Int 13, Combat Expertise, Gang Up, base attack bonus +6.
Benefit: When you and at least two of your allies are adjacent to an opponent, you can attempt the aid another action as a move action.
Normal: Aid another is a standard action.
The difference in language between Gang Up and Team Up implies that Gang Up and the FAQ entry work together, allowing yourself to count as your own ally for Gang Up, while Team Up specifically requires two other allies.
That being said, this particular FAQ entry is problematic in its wording. By using "almost always" and "unless it would make no sense," RAW is whatever you want it to be. Like with much of Pathfinder's content, searching for strict RAW is the pathway to madness. The text is just not concise enough.
Which is kinda against the point of posting an answer to an FAQ. Not much we can do, unless Paizo adds an FAQ button to the FAQ entries. It's quite silly, unless of course, that finding would make no sense or would be impossible.
-Matt
Dot.
A simpler way is to get the Leadership feat, and have your cohort flank with you, assuming your GM doesn't nerf the feat like mine does :(As it stands, I was considering looking into leadership for a Dragonne, who would then advance via Barb levels. Hardy, with the option to fly? Flanktank ftw.
If your GM allows the leadership feat, then take it. I believe it is the most powerful feat in the game. It's just icing on the cake that this would allow you to get more sneak attack opportunities.
Potion and/or wand of Blur.
Blur giving Sneak attacks (well, giving Stealth checks) is a bit of a debated topic. Here is one link: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2kgmi?The-spell-blur-used-with-the-skill-stealt h
For a game that doesn't allow Leadership there is a the three feat path to ensure you have a flank partner: Skill Focus (K:any), Eldritch Heritage (arcane), Evolved Familiar (reach). Possible by level 5 if that is what your general feats go towards.
Although that may be up to the GM as well.
If your GM allows the leadership feat, then take it. I believe it is the most powerful feat in the game. It's just icing on the cake that this would allow you to get more sneak attack opportunities.
I actually am the GM in that game currently, but we're all level 1. By the time we make it to 7, I don't have a clue who will be running things.
Guess we'll find out :P
For a game that doesn't allow Leadership there is a the three feat path to ensure you have a flank partner: Skill Focus (K:any), Eldritch Heritage (arcane), Evolved Familiar (reach). Possible by level 5 if that is what your general feats go towards.
Although that may be up to the GM as well.
Is there a particular reason you would recommend the familiar from Arcane over the Animal Companion from Sylvan? I would figure the AC is a bit more likely to not die if it's hanging out in melee range, but then again, stacking penalties to the effective druid level puts it pretty low.
Is there a particular reason you would recommend the familiar from Arcane over the Animal Companion from Sylvan? I would figure the AC is a bit more likely to not die if it's hanging out in melee range, but then again, stacking penalties to the effective druid level puts it pretty low.For a game that doesn't allow Leadership there is a the three feat path to ensure you have a flank partner: Skill Focus (K:any), Eldritch Heritage (arcane), Evolved Familiar (reach). Possible by level 5 if that is what your general feats go towards.
Although that may be up to the GM as well.
Because the three-feat path definitely works. For a number of GMs since the Sylvan AC requires replacing the bloodline arcana AND the first level laughing touch ability it won't fly as a valid choice for Eldricth since the rogue doesn't have a bloodline arcana to give up.
And the AC would be at an effective -5 druid level, I think? (Assuming the rogue doesn't intend to take any of the higher eldritch feats) So far more likely to die.
Plus - familiar who get ALL of those rogue skill points? super handy as aid-another friends.
The only downside to doing the familiar via class dip rather than feats is that you never get the higher level familiar abilities (the higher int, speak with familiar) for most people this is probably a non-issue but one of my players would be sad if he couldn't chat with his little monkey pal.