In a game we are currently playing the PC's are 20th level. One player has a Kensai/Bladebound Magus. This has caused a heated debate about sneak attacks.
The Kensai Archetype has a 19th level ability that is:
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Iaijutsu Master (Ex)
At 19th level, a kensai’s initiative roll is automatically a natural 20 and he is never surprised.
This ability replaces greater spell access.
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The situation is that a 20th level ninja using the ninja capstone
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Hidden Master (Su)
At 20th level, a ninja becomes a true master of her art. She can, as a standard action, cast greater invisibility on herself. While invisible in this way, she cannot be detected by any means, and not even invisibility purge, see invisibility, and true seeing can reveal her. She uses her ninja level as her caster level for this ability. Using this ability consumes 3 ki points from her ki pool. In addition, whenever the ninja deals sneak attack damage, she can sacrifice additional damage dice to apply a penalty to one ability score of the target equal to the number of dice sacrificed for 1 minute. This penalty does not stack with itself and cannot reduce an ability score below 1.
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...is attacking the Kensai.
-- Does the Kensai negate the sneak attack because he cant be "surprised"?
-- ...or does the ninja get a sneak attack because he is undetectable?
-- The ninja can make a total of 6 attacks in a full round attack, do they all qualify as sneak attacks?
-- The Magis has Arcane Sight
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Arcane Sight
School divination; Level alchemist 3, inquisitor 3, magus 3, sorcerer/wizard 3, witch 3
CASTING
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
EFFECT
Range personal
Target you
Duration 1 min./level (D)
This spell makes your eyes glow blue and allows you to see magical auras within 120 feet of you. The effect is similar to that of a detect magic spell, but arcane sight does not require concentration and discerns aura location and power more quickly.
You know the location and power of all magical auras within your sight. An aura's power depends on a spell's functioning level or an item's caster level, as noted in the description of the detect magic spell (see tables above.) If the items or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make Spellcraft skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura; DC 15 + spell level, or 15 + half caster level for a nonspell effect.)
If you concentrate on a specific creature within 120 feet of you as a standard action, you can determine whether it has any spellcasting or spell-like abilities, whether these are arcane or divine (spell-like abilities register as arcane), and the strength of the most powerful spell or spell-like ability the creature currently has available for use.
As with detect magic, you can use this spell to identify the properties of magic items, but not artifacts.
Arcane sight can be made permanent with a permanency spell.
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...as a constant effect (permanency), can he see the ninja's powerful magic item auras?
Surprise only happens at the start of combat, before the first round. Unless this is an ambush situation, then inability to be surprised does not matter.
So, yes, they get sneak attack; if the ninja is invisible/undetectable for his entire attack sequence, they will all be sneak attacks.
Invisibility typically cloaks anything you're wearing or holding.
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The way this works is that the surprise round starts. Roll initiative, if the Kensai wins (he should) then he gets to act first, and is not flat footed. However, he knows nothing more than something along the lines of "Your spidy sense are tingling". That's what I tell my players when this situation comes up.
The Kensai can self buff (I personally always cast mirror image in actual games), warn his allies, etc... But doesn't know anything about what's attacking them.
The ninja then goes. If he can, he may attack the Kensai, but the Kensai is not flat footed. Instead, he simply loses his dexterity bonus to AC. The Ninja may then attack 6 times and deal full sneak attack damage.
Arcane sight doesn't counter the Ninja's capstone in my opinion, the Ninja's capstone is very, very powerful in this regard. The only way I've seen a Ninja's capstone ability dealt with is with mundane items and gear. Cast stonewall and make it so the only way the ninja can engage the party is by attacking from one square. Using scent and tremorsense can also help (My reading of ability that nothing can see her, or get rid of her invisibility).
But yes, you have one very dead Kensai. Hopefully you saved some gold for raise dead and other such spells.
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What about blur or the like? Arent you immune to precision damage if you have concealment going on? Hazy on the exact rule i am trying to think of and at work without access to resources... :\
Concealment would prevent precision damage unless the ninja had a means of defeating it.
(I would hope a level 20 ninja would have Truesight/Shadow Strike.)
Concealment would prevent precision damage unless the ninja had a means of defeating it.
(I would hope a level 20 ninja would have Truesight/Shadow Strike.)
The ninja is duel wielding Wakizashis both of which have heartseeking. (and keen! /flex)
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I take "she cannot be detected by any means" very literally - nothing can detect the location of the ninja. It's a level 20 capstone ability for a reason.
But yeah, the kensai, despite being able to act in the surprise round, can still be denied Dex and hit with sneak attacks.
Hidden Master is not always on. It takes 3 ki points and it acts like G.Invisibility with a rider that you cant detect them with other cool spells. The Kensai is most likely going to win Initiative and can act first. At this point the Ninja won't be invisible. On the ninja's turn they can use Hidden Master, since this is a standard action no attacking for the ninja. Then it should be the Kensei's turn again.
So your Kensai should have two actions before the ninja can get off a sneak attack.
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Its only going to last 20 rounds, if that is the case, then let the kensai put up all his buffs.
Any combat that one character is "hunting" the other without the other knowing will be a huge advantage. Assuming this is equal footing my statement stands.
If you have reason to suspect a ninja is after you, or some unsee-able threat... when your spidey sense triggers, open with a cloud spell of some kind. Disrupt vision for everyone, then get outta dodge.
Or simply move. Or, both, since you'd possibly skip the surprise round altogether. They might have a hard time full attacking when they need to move to reach you.
My answer to the 20th level ninja is being at least a 17th level barbarian.
But seriously, yes the ninja can still get sneak attack. While the Kensai can't be surprised, he's still vulnerable to an invisible attacker and will loose his dexterity to AC, thus enabling sneak attack.
I will however add, that I believe the taken Hidden Master overly literally is bad. I take it as being visually undetectable, and that most magic designed to defeat invisibility does not function against it. Honestly, this ability could use some greater explanation on the part of the developers.
Just cast elemental body if you think someone is there waiting to stab you in the back...no more back!
Oh yeah, the ninja is the one on the hunt. The magus kinda knows that it is coming but doesn't know when. At the time I plan on executing the attack the magus will believe I will be on another plain though. His biggest attack (and one that he has threatened me with multiple times) is disintegrate. The GM let me grab a potion of Ray Deflection though and a friend will hit me with a magic aura, so he will likely waste the first of any attacks he may actually get by trying to one shot me (cocky arrogance FTL). My cohort is going to initiate the attack with a Wall of supression after I use hidden master before combat. When his "Spidey senses" tingle he will likely buff up but he is an arogant SOB though so he will likely stand there. Boom! All his magic gone. Then I use my mythic power of fleet charge (60ft move buffed) and hit with an attack as a free action (GM decision, I know the rules say swift. He randomly chose our mythic powers and is kind of experimenting I think). Then I unload with 5 more attacks as a full round attack and add one more by blowing a ki point for a total of 7 attacks at 12d6 + 10 bleed DMG on a single attack. IF he survives the first round I will kill him the next. If he tries to run my cohort will be waiting with a caging bomb admixture bomb, holding her attack in case he pusses out to stop him in his tracks. His only hope as I see it will be to plane shift after the first round (if he survives it).
(You guys get bonus points if you have figured out I am fighting a PC, lol)
He brought it on himself. We are good in RL but in the game his character is a dick! We arnt ganging up on him at all, in fact the GM has tried to convince me not to do this. He is just a very generous GM.
Our characters haven't gotten along great since the beginning because we have a vastly different way of looking at things. I sneak around a lot and would rather stab someone then diplomicise with them and he is the opposite. It came to a head when I went on a scouting mission and during the infiltration fumbled a roll and got caught. He said I "blew his plans".
Anyway, after we attacked the place I was unconscious (damn castle construct thing hits too hard) and he picked me up and carried me out of there and back to base. He then tied me up and took all my gear and put a force cage around us. He then proceeded to heal me to awareness then beat me unconscious over and over insisting that I needed to " be less scetchy" and basically take orders from him from now on. My character would sooner die. He eventually got the picture that this was going nowhere and decided to plane shift me to a random plane to get rid of me (big mistake, should have killed me).
My cohort picked me up and took me to my assassins guild to re-up and prepare and now I am back to settle the score. I am not nearly as merciful...
(BTW, I am Lawful Evil, he is neutral evil, go figure)
(You guys get bonus points if you have figured out I am fighting a PC, lol)
Sounds more like you're ganging up on the PC... with the help of the GM to boot.
I can't see this going well in terms of the playing group.
I'd have an NPC wait in the wings for you all to expend resources against each other, have them kill you all and take your gear...and become the campaign villain for your newly-rolled characters.
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Hmmm... HMMMM...
Ways to really mess with a Kensai Magus, what to do, what to do...
So, first off, be careful, he could have contingency up with a teleport. It would be best to try and deal with that first. Secondly, if there's a way to get a wand of truestrike, get it, and then disarm him. Does he have multiple weapons? No? Then "oops".
If you can find him in the morning, steal his spellbook(s). Another great thing to go for is his spell component pouch, a sunder or steal combat manuever would work nicely there. His CMD will be decent, unless you catch him flat footed or dexterityless (which he is if your invisible), then his CMD becomes horrible, so take advantage of that.
But this is what I'd do: Disarm him, steal his spell componet pouch, and then find a way to dispel him over and over. Maybe add in a little tripping action to prevent a get away. Your free to beat on him after that, as long as your invisible he's helpless.
If your worried about your magic items giving away your position (maybe your GM will be nice enough to the poor magus to let him see your position with detect magic), visit a town and have a wizard cast Magic Aura on all of your gear to suppress it's magical auras for days (they still function properly). It's a first level spell O.o
Just remember to try and dispel him of any buffs before killing him to prevent escape via contingency. Also, casting teleport and other such spells are standard actions (Dimension door and teleport both only require Verbal componets), so you'll either need to prevent casting all togather or hit him with a phase locking weapon or hit him with Dimensional Anchor.
After that point, if you can get him tied up and gaged (to prevent teleportation), do whatever you want with him. Perhaps the best thing to do is to take ALL of his gear, get a vampire to suck on him for a little while to induce some negative levels, and then bring him to the police, framing him for some large crime. Heck, bring him to Hell (Your at home there, Mr. LE) and let the devils there turn his soul into a CR 1 lemure!
Yeah, a REAL effective answer for the kensai is to center a glitterdust on themselves the moment his "bump of trouble" goes off. I'm fairly sure glitterdust effectively counters any form of invisibility, as should the ever-classic bag of flour.
This entire topic is also a good reason I don't play evil campaigns...
He brought it on himself. We are good in RL but in the game his character is a dick! We arnt ganging up on him at all, in fact the GM has tried to convince me not to do this. He is just a very generous GM.
Our characters haven't gotten along great since the beginning because we have a vastly different way of looking at things. I sneak around a lot and would rather stab someone then diplomicise with them and he is the opposite. It came to a head when I went on a scouting mission and during the infiltration fumbled a roll and got caught. He said I "blew his plans".
Anyway, after we attacked the place I was unconscious (damn castle construct thing hits too hard) and he picked me up and carried me out of there and back to base. He then tied me up and took all my gear and put a force cage around us. He then proceeded to heal me to awareness then beat me unconscious over and over insisting that I needed to " be less scetchy" and basically take orders from him from now on. My character would sooner die. He eventually got the picture that this was going nowhere and decided to plane shift me to a random plane to get rid of me (big mistake, should have killed me).
My cohort picked me up and took me to my assassins guild to re-up and prepare and now I am back to settle the score. I am not nearly as merciful...
(BTW, I am Lawful Evil, he is neutral evil, go figure)
Sounds like a real dysfunctional group to me and while some like to play that way, I do not. It seems like you have your rules answers regarding how the abilities interact. So good luck!
Yeah, a REAL effective answer for the kensai is to center a glitterdust on themselves the moment his "bump of trouble" goes off. I'm fairly sure glitterdust effectively counters any form of invisibility, as should the ever-classic bag of flour.
Not sure Glitterdust or Bag of Flour would work if True Seeing, See Invis or Invis Purge dont work. As a GM I would take the intent of the cap stone to mean that those would not work. If a 6th level spell (True Seeing) cant do it, why would he let a 2nd level spell work?
EDIT: I hope your friend doesn't check the boards. If he does, you will be in for a big surprise when he knows exactly what you are doing.