Ok so the pre req to Sly Draw is Qucik Draw and quick draw lets you draw a weapon as a free action instead of a move action and Sly Draw says
"Benefit: When you draw a light weapon, you may make a Sleight of Hand check instead of a Bluff check to feint in combat. Other feats and abilities that affect a feint still apply to your feint."
Now does that mean because I draw as a free action that feinting is a free action as well?
Not sure about the raw, the way I would run it as a GM is it requires you to make a feint at whatever action type you are capable of doing so. When you make the feint, if you draw a weapon (which you can do as a free action) then you can use Sleight of Hand instead of bluff.
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The word draw there is super annoying. Use instead would make this so simple. But RAW seems like make a free feint check with every draw as it says when you draw tying it to that action. Technically you could feint every round as long as you keep dropping and drawing new weapons. Maybe drawing and sheathing the same weapon would be fairer. I don't know, but RAW wording attached the action to the draw.
Pretty sure the intent was to just allow you to change the skill you use to bluff in a round where you draw a light weapon. Equally sure that it actually reads that you include a feint with your draw action, "when you draw". ... That's a talk with your GM before you try it feat..
I assumed it just replaced bluff with sleight of hand when drawing a weapon, but that would be worded like. When taking the feint action, the player may draw a light weapon as part of that action using their sleight of hand in place of their bluff. Or something of that sort.
Feint isn't typically the best use of your action, so someone combining quick draw, sly draw and combat stamina(swift action sheath) isn't going to be a big problem in the long run. I'd use it as written.
I wouldn't use it as written because you could have a supply of cheap kunai on your side that you draw and then attack with another weapon. No need to even sheath a weapon.
Free action feint breaks action economy pretty handily.
This is . . . I have no idea what they were going for.
Use it as written... oh no a rogue actually gets to use sneak attack if they invest everything in this trick... definitely breaks the game, doesn't it?
Fient with the draw of a light weapon, please. Be more useful in combat. That's what feats are for, right? To suck less.
Anyone relying on Fient to suck less absolutely needs all the help they can get, obviously, they are using Fient.
Use it as it is written. It has prerequisites and benefits, as written. Martials need nice things.
Invest everything? 2 feats and a couple of 2gp daggers?
Yep, rogues get 10 feats? 11 with combat trick? Oh my, 12 if human with combat trick?
Two feats are between 17 and 20 percent of everything you get to choose.
Hmm, combat expertise/dirty fighting and improved Fient, another 17 to 20 percent of everything you get to choose.
Your silly Fient just became a 40 percent investment for your entire character... It better pay off. It should be useful. Yes?
A halfling rogue doesn't have any spare weight to carry a bunch of throwaway daggers. Few people are going to carry spare weapons to get extra mileage out of something as lame as Fient.
Some underhanded sap master tricks are always welcome, because rogues kinda suck anyways and can use all the help they can get.
Who else uses Fient? That's what I thought, let martials have nice things.
It's not like it gives you 1D6 per caster level type damage, so leave it alone.
Use it as written.
Well, you get 10 rogue talents as well. Lot of those are as good as feats. Or even give you them. Weapon training, Combat swipe, underhanded trick, advanced talent for any feat, etc.
And of course every feat should have a payoff. The payoff here is pretty astronomical if you read it as a free action feint though.
Save points on bluff, and for a free action, the ability to remove a decent amount of AC from opponent and line up sneak attacks without any allies? That feat would be better than most any other option a rogue could take.
A rogue that can get all their sneak attack is can cause a lot of damage. The trick usually is getting sneak attack and hitting.
I'm sorry, but giving away free feints isn't the solution to poor class design. It's not that rogues don't need help, but a problem with a single class shouldn't drive design that affects everyone.
By RAW, it'd be much more advantageous than TWF feint, which requires more feats and causes you to lose an attack to perform it.
As Leitner points out, it'd be better than pretty much any other options a rogue could take if you allowed for free feints.
When the feat was written it seems pretty clear to me that the author didn't think about someone drawing another (cheap) weapon and dropping it prior to each of their attacks to get a feint before each attack.If you attack with a double weapon, you can switch your grip as a free action to change between hands and allow you to hold the weapon while you draw another and then return your grip to attack with the double weapon while TWF.
Heck, I'd probably take that on a 2h fighter. You can hold the sword in 1 hand while you draw a dagger, feint, drop dagger, and then swing 2handed. It would be cheesy, but fighters have plenty of feats and feinting is a pretty sizeable debuff to a lot of enemies.
Game breaking?
It's for rogues. Game will remain unbroken, I promise.
Rogues get 10D6 sneak attack damage, that is a drop in the bucket for spellcasters, so leave it alone.
Nobody using Fient needs to be nerfed, ever.
Let them play with their stupid trick as often as it will work, please.
As written, it is helpful to a very small handful of martial classes.
If you take it as some of you obviously intend, it is absolutely worthless to everyone.
Let martials have nice things.
Let them play with their stupid trick as often as it will work, please.
As written, it is helpful to a very small handful of martial classes.
If you take it as some of you obviously intend, it is absolutely worthless to everyone.
Let martials have nice things.
No, that's not the way the game works. Wanting to read an ability in a specific(probably unintended) direction just because it helps a class is absurd. As claxon pointed out, it would already be extremely more powerful than TWFeinting.
Additionally it isn't as though only a rogue would benefit from feinting. My example of a 2H fighter using the feat would be fairly powerful. I mean, taking 7 AC from a balor is nothing to scoff at.
And finally, caster/martial disparity might be an issue. But their ability to deal raw damage is not where the issue resides. It is a casters ability to deal with any issue that comes up whether it be social, combative, skill based, etc.
People who disagree with you are not simply opposed to "letting martials have nice things"
I wouldn't use it as written because you could have a supply of cheap kunai on your side that you draw and then attack with another weapon. No need to even sheath a weapon.
Free action feint breaks action economy pretty handily.
Fair enough. I suppose taking quick draw, sly draw, blistering feint and carrying a torch in your other hand would give you an enormous amount of fire damage with little investment. Provided your DM didn't decide to limit how many free actions you can spend on dropping items, which is within the limits of free actions. It would be pretty similar to the throwing shield exploit. Did that ever get fixed?
The obvious intent is that you will probably only use it once or twice, thus not game breaking powerful, or even that much more powerful than comparable feats.
Yes, and if the feat were actually written that way then it would be fine.
If the feat said, "You can perform a feint by drawing a weapon (limit 2 per turn)..." then it wouldn't be a problem. But currently the feat has no provisions listed in it.
I agree that it might be the intent, and definitely agree it's not intended to allow you to draw as many weapon as you have attacks per round and feint for each one of them, but currently that's what the raw would allow.
Then so it is allowed.
I wouldn't go that far.
Just because it's the most literal reading of the words doesn't mean that it's intended or balanced. I believe that's what myself and others have been arguing here, is that it's neither intended or balanced and shouldn't be run that way.
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It also matches poorly with wave strike which is a feat that has more prerequisites bit specifically stated it it only works on the first round of combat but you need to use bluff and it costs a swift action. Thematically I can see it working you drop your dagger and seem to strike your enemy with a fist then wham sudden flourished dagger.
The 'instead' doesn't support a free feint action on quickdraw.
Normally, when you quick draw a weapon, you don't get a free feint with the bluff skill, so the 'instead' means you can just change skills.
Admittedly the 'when' is confusing, since drawing a weapon is one action (even if free), and feinting with it is another, and it must mean at least that round, and possibly could mean for the entire combat.