Help with Newish Sneak Attack Target Rules

[Apocalypso]

GM in a home game has denied then overruled Sneak Attack damage on undead.

I get that it is a long standing home game (and I'm the new kid at the table) and he can overrule anything he wants. But I'm hoping that now we're out of the heat of combat, if I approach him one-to-one that I could persuade him that the "new" sneak attack vulnerable targets is a good thing... and WHY.

I worked very hard to develop an Arcane Trickster when the SLA rules changed. Now if I can't even hit X% of targets at mid levels, well its extremely frustrating.

Does anyone know the % of mid and high level targets that would be invulnerable to SA under the old DnD rules?

And this is a Reign of Winter campaign... if that increases/decreases the number of SA invulnerable targets.

Many thanks for advice on discussing with him.

[Cheapy]

The best argument I've heard is: During the zombie apocalypse, everyone knows that you aim for the head of the zombies.

Or, the rule changed because it was found to be unfun for rogues. The unfun angle tends to work.

Or just request a new character.

[Korlos]

Is your group converting from 3.5 to Pathfinder? I thought undead had always been sneak-attack-able in Pathfinder.

My argument would be that sneak attack represents hitting vulnerable parts of a creature's anatomy. Even if a zombie does not use its kidneys for anything, it still relies on legs to stand up and limbs to attack. A homogeneous, formless creature like an ooze would make sense to not take sneak attacks, since all the parts of it are like all the rest--there's no special areas to strike.

[Bob Bob Bob]

Well, first, you're in the wrong forum. The GM knows the rules and isn't using them. Hopefully we'll get this moved to Advice soon.

So step 1 is identifying why they don't like the new rule. Normally step 1 is "sit down and talk about it like reasonable people", but you seem to know that already. Let's look at a quick list, in decreasing order of reasonableness.

• Undead don't have vital points.
  
• Rogues do too much damage.
  
• It doesn't make sense. This is basically the first one, except without an explanation.
  
• They don't like you, personally, and have it out for you.
  
• ...I got nothing.
  

That's actually not a great list, but I really couldn't think of much more. For the vital points there's always the classic "headshot on the zombie" but even more basic that, what happens when you cut a zombie/skeleton in half? Only one half keeps moving, implying that the undead "life force" only resides in part of the undead and you can hit a point between there and the rest of the body to sever the connection. Crawler zombies are a great example of this. If it's a question of how the rogue (or whatever) learned the vital points of zombies, it's the same way they learned how to sneak attack an elephant, manticore, marilith, and iron golem. Seriously, there's all kinds of crazy crap you know the vital points of to sneak attack.

As for "too much damage", you can try showing them the math but it doesn't have a high chance of success (and frequently causes problems when GMs are confronted by their own ignorance). In your case it's easier because you can just show it on things like fireball (that already do a pile of d6s). Sneak attack on that is basically just empowered.

But as others have said you need to bring up your concerns (you're building a sneak attack character and the GM says you can't sneak attack things you thought you could) and ask them to reconsider or let you make another character. You don't have to go to quite that extreme if you don't want but if the GM is already changing things fundamental to how your character works with no warning, there's no reason to think they won't also do that in the future.

[Doomed Hero]

Sounds like it isn't a good idea to play a character with sneak attack in this person's game.

Ask if you can retrain into Inquisotor, Investigator or Swashbuckler.

[brewdus]

Sounds like a gronard who can't let go of the past. Seems to me you need a new GM!

[ArchAnjel]

Remind them also that this was a very concious design choice in the creation of the Pathfinder rules to address the problem of precision-damage-based characters such as yours being unable to deliver level-appropriate damage to a huge number of creatures in the game and thus paticipate in a fun and meaningful way.

And be sure to bring up that undead are not the only creatures affected by the change from 3.5 to Pathfinder. Constructs, plants, and other creature types all fall under this same umbrella. The sidebar at http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue has an excellent breakdown of which creature types are susceptible to which types of damage.

[Apocalypso]

Thanks for the tips guys!