It could, but only if the mooks you're trying to sneak past are a few levels below you and/or have really bad perception.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It seems like a good choice if you know you're dealing with large numbers of folks less competent than you. If you roll enough times, you will eventually fail, so it's useful in those situations where you absolutely do not want to alert anybody. Also possibly a fairly funny choice for somebody in perpetual full armour.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't think it's a good idea. Monster Perception is a bit too high for it.
Let's compare: a level 2 rogue with Expert Stealth and Assurance, can use it to get a 16 (Expect +4, level +2, Assurance +10).
He's sneaking past a level 1 creature. We look in the Gamemastery Guide table for designing monsters what the typical perception is. We see:
L1: Extreme=11, High=10, Moderate=7, Low=4, Terrible=2
So even against a creature one level lower, he fails to beat the DC for "moderate" Perception.
Let's sample again at level 7, when the rogue has Master stealth (M6+L7+A10=23)
Going up against a L6 creature:
L6: Extreme=18, High=17, Moderate=14, Low=11, Terrible=8
Again, we just don't beat the "moderate" Perception of a creature one level lower than ourselves.
A mid level rogue with Expert stealth and assurance is probably sneaking easily through crowded city throngs...however, terrain stalker as a skill feat is even more secure as long as you can find the right terrain for it/might be more useful in dungeon exploration or especially wilderness campaigns. With how many skill feats a rogue get though, if sneaking is your thing, you can take the assurance stealth by level 2 and then train out of it when it is no longer your most reliable way of staying hidden.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
An option to automatically sneak by a large number of potential observers, albeit lower level or rather inattentive ones, regardless of the difficulties of the situation, isn't something that I would throw in the bin.
It seems like a good choice if you know you're dealing with large numbers of folks less competent than you. If you roll enough times, you will eventually fail, so it's useful in those situations where you absolutely do not want to alert anybody. Also possibly a fairly funny choice for somebody in perpetual full armour.
You only roll once, whatever the number of creatures.
I find Assurance to be mostly bad unless you want to deal with very easy skill checks. But they don't seem very common to me.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It seems like a good choice if you know you're dealing with large numbers of folks less competent than you. If you roll enough times, you will eventually fail, so it's useful in those situations where you absolutely do not want to alert anybody. Also possibly a fairly funny choice for somebody in perpetual full armour.You only roll once, whatever the number of creatures.
I find Assurance to be mostly bad unless you want to deal with very easy skill checks. But they don't seem very common to me.
This doesn't match my experience at all; Assurance is one of the most common feats my players have taken, and they've gotten a lot of mileage out of it.
The Swashbuckler has Assurance(Deception) and is regularly able to find enemies he can feint without rolling to get his panache back. I've been surprised a couple times by which enemies it actually has worked on. He just took Assurance(Acrobatics), too, so that he can tumble through low-Reflex enemies also to get panache.
And Assurance(Medicine) is just plain a good feat; almost mandatory for healers, since the Medicine DCs don't scale with level.
The rogue has Assurance(Stealth) and, similar to the Swashbuckler, uses it for guaranteed Hide rolls when sniping.
At least in Age of Ashes, it seems like most fights include at least a few enemies a couple levels lower than the party, which really pushes up the value of Assurance.
Another thing that helps is that at least in 2e, losing an action isn't the end of the world. Both the Swashbuckler and the Rogue will "fish" for Assurance sometimes - try it on an enemy to see if it works, and then switch to rolling if it doesn't, since losing an action doesn't hurt them that much.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I was spotted, had to type quick....
Thanks for the feedback. Currently sitting at +13 at level 4 so that gives me a 23. With the way I have been rolling it could be a good option. Going to test it out and see how it plays out. If not as has been pointed out I can train out of it.
That's not how assurance works. At level 4, assuming you're an expert, assurance gives you 10 + 4 (expert) +4 (level) = 18. Assurance is almost always lower than your bonus to a roll, the main benefit is it ignores any penalties.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Your math is wrong here: You only get your proficiency bonus, which should be your level + 4 (assuming expert proficiency) or +8 at 4th level.I was spotted, had to type quick....
Thanks for the feedback. Currently sitting at +13 at level 4 so that gives me a 23. With the way I have been rolling it could be a good option. Going to test it out and see how it plays out. If not as has been pointed out I can train out of it.
Fortune, General, Skill
Source Core Rulebook pg. 258
Prerequisites trained in at least one skill
Even in the worst circumstances, you can perform basic tasks. Choose a skill you’re trained in. You can forgo rolling a skill check for that skill to instead receive a result of 10 + your proficiency bonus (do not apply any other bonuses, penalties, or modifiers).
You Do Not Get Your stat bonus (Typically Dexterity for Stealth) with Assurance.
You Do Not Get Circumstance bonuses with AssuranceYou Do Not Get Item Bonus with Assurance
So your assurance result should be 18, not 23.
Assuming an 18 Stat, Assurance is at best a 'Take 6' result that just gets worse as you gain higher stats and item bonuses. The only 'good' uses I have seen for it so far have been:
- rolls where the DC doesn't scale directly with level (Medicine checks, some Crafting, etc).
- Skills that use one of your bad stats, and
- Skills that have a hefty penalty attached (Athletics Check to Trip as your third attack of the round)
Addendum: I should probably mention my Rogue 8 has taken assurance twice already: Once for Medicine ('Take 5' right now), and again for Crafting ('Take 9' right now). Both are cases where the DCs are typically low enough that I can just take an auto-success.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Assuming an 18 Stat, Assurance is at best a 'Take 6' result that just gets worse as you gain higher stats and item bonuses.
Assurance is not for the person who maxed out a skill to use on every roll.
Assurance is for:
-The person with an 8 Wis who still wants to Treat Wounds reliably
-The person who doesn't mind failing but absolutely needs to avoid a crit failure
-The person who just got hit with phantasmal killer, is currently Frightened 4, and needs to succeed anyway
-The person who wants their skill-based class feature (sneak attack, panache) to work 100% of the time instead of 80% of the time on lower level enemies
Basically, the worse your circumstances, the better Assurance looks. So if you plan to always be in the best possible circumstances with a fully maxed out skill, yeah, Assurance doesn't look that great.
But in the real world, it's pretty solid.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
-The person who wants their skill-based class feature (sneak attack, panache) to work 100% of the time instead of 80% of the time on lower level enemies
Sneak Attack has a lot of options to benefit from it on an attack, which don't involve any skill checks.
Deception to feint is like the least effective method of setting up Sneak Attack.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Assuming an 18 Stat, Assurance is at best a 'Take 6' result that just gets worse as you gain higher stats and item bonuses.Assurance is not for the person who maxed out a skill to use on every roll.
The problem is Assurance only succeeds at sub-par DCs, which means it's good uses are limited (As I noted in my post, but probably after you started your response)
-The person with an 8 Wis who still wants to Treat Wounds reliably
Yep, this is a decent use since the Medicine checks don't scale too badly.
-The person who doesn't mind failing but absolutely needs to avoid a crit failure
Do you have an example of this? Offhand, I can't think of a skill check where it's worth spending an action for what is basically a guaranteed failure result
-The person who just got hit with phantasmal killer, is currently Frightened 4, and needs to succeed anyway
Again, this still needs to be a sub-par DC for your assured skill to succeed.
-The person who wants their skill-based class feature (sneak attack, panache) to work 100% of the time instead of 80% of the time on lower level enemies
I guess this might be useful, but I'd think assurance skills will still fail against -1 and -2 opponents on occasions if they just happen to have the right stats.
Personally, I think this feat should either:
a) Allow you a proper 'take 10' with a specific skill, or
b) Work as currently written but for all of your skills.
Another good example would be Assurance(Athletics) to Trip as your third action. You don't mind if you fail, but you would prefer not to crit fail and fall prone.
With sneak attack, I was more thinking Hide (for sniping) rather than Feint.
On the other hand, Feint is lovely for Swashbucklers who can use it to gain panache.
EDIT: Also, Dubious Knowledge + Assurance (Bardic Lore) is a combo my bard player has seriously considered investing in, since that will almost always result in a failure and she loves the idea of a character who knows something about everything but half of it is wrong. :)
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
-The person who doesn't mind failing but absolutely needs to avoid a crit failureDo you have an example of this? Offhand, I can't think of a skill check where it's worth spending an action for what is basically a guaranteed failure result
I've got a quite easy one that I have planned (spoilers in case my players look)
** spoiler omitted **
Another example is for things like Recall Knowledge where a Crit Fail could be disastrous, "Oh how lovely to see you wife here" as I gesture to the Baron's mistress.
Well, your spoiler encounter is bit of a partial 'corner case' (since the PCs can't use assurance for the entire encounter and will need to take the risk of rolling at some point).
On a side note, Assurance would be much more useful in this encounter if you treated the environmental conditions as a penalty to the skill checks rather than as an increased DC (one of the little issues with this feat that bugs me).With Recall Knowledge, the question is why are you spending one of your feats on something that eliminates any chance of success when used on a non-sub-par check? If it's important enough that a critical failure will matter, the DC is probably high enough that using Assurance is the more expensive version of saying "I'm not going to even try..."
Oh, and the Recall Knowledge crit fail would probably be worse the other way around (erroneously referring to the wife as the mistress)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
One thing to note is Assurance is a fortune effect which would cancel out any misfortune effect placed on you. So if you do have a skill you've built around, Assurance can give it a level of protection.
(Or if you frequently fight misfortune-manipulators.)
|
|
Another good example would be Assurance(Athletics) to Trip as your third action. You don't mind if you fail, but you would prefer not to crit fail and fall prone.
Unless your opponent is really clumsy*, lower level than you, or just taking penalties, you're better off just taking a third attack: Even if it takes a natural 20 to hit, that's still better than an automatic failure on a Trip.
Personally, I consider negating the Multiple attack penalty to be more than a little cheesy/abusive, but it does seem to be the way it works.
*Note that there were a lot of discussions about a level 2 rogue auto-tripping a level 2 Ogre when this game came out, but most people missed the fact that Ogre was literally the ONLY level 2 creature this combo worked against because its Reflex Save was so bad.
With sneak attack, I was more thinking Hide (for sniping) rather than Feint.
On the other hand, Feint is lovely for Swashbucklers who can use it to gain panache.
Again, in any challenging fight, Assurance(Stealth) will almost certainly fail. I'm not familiar with how Swashbucklers are supposed to work.
I should probably mention the Rogue's Sneak Savant feat option which might make this combo work...
EDIT: Also, Dubious Knowledge + Assurance (Bardic Lore) is a combo my bard player has seriously considered investing in, since that will almost always result in a failure and she loves the idea of a character who knows something about everything but half of it is wrong. :)
Oh, we can definitely add that to the 'specific applications that seem useful' list...
|
*Note that there were a lot of discussions about a level 2 rogue auto-tripping a level 2 Ogre when this game came out, but most people missed the fact that Ogre was literally the ONLY level 2 creature this combo worked against because its Reflex Save was so bad.
I only got through the Ds in AoN and I saw the animated armor, the boar, the boggard warrior, and the duergar taskmaster were all possible targets; in addition, the crocodile and dhampir wizard were both just one high but with Will DCs low enough that Assurance (Intimimdation) would work and thus bring the Reflex DC within range.
|
|
*Note that there were a lot of discussions about a level 2 rogue auto-tripping a level 2 Ogre when this game came out, but most people missed the fact that Ogre was literally the ONLY level 2 creature this combo worked against because its Reflex Save was so bad.I only got through the Ds in AoN and I saw the animated armor, the boar, the boggard warrior, and the duergar taskmaster were all possible targets; in addition, the crocodile and dhampir wizard were both just one high but with Will DCs low enough that Assurance (Intimimdation) would work and thus bring the Reflex DC within range.
Okay, I was mistaken about that (I'm a player so I avoided looking up monster stats: Did way too much of that playing D&D 2.0).
-The person who doesn't mind failing but absolutely needs to avoid a crit failureDo you have an example of this? Offhand, I can't think of a skill check where it's worth spending an action for what is basically a guaranteed failure result
I've got a quite easy one that I have planned (spoilers in case my players look)
** spoiler omitted **
Another example is for things like Recall Knowledge where a Crit Fail could be disastrous, "Oh how lovely to see you wife here" as I gesture to the Baron's mistress.
Well, your spoiler encounter is bit of a partial 'corner case' (since the PCs can't use assurance for the entire encounter and will need to take the risk of rolling at some point).
On a side note, Assurance would be much more useful in this encounter if you treated the environmental conditions as a penalty to the skill checks rather than as an increased DC (one of the little issues with this feat that bugs me).With Recall Knowledge, the question is why are you spending one of your feats on something that eliminates any chance of success when used on a non-sub-par check? If it's important enough that a critical failure will matter, the DC is probably high enough that using Assurance is the more expensive version of saying "I'm not going to even try..."
Oh, and the Recall Knowledge crit fail would probably be worse the other way around (erroneously referring to the wife as the mistress)
I feel like you keep dismissing lower level creatures as irrelevant, and that really isn't the case. Lower level creatures get used for encounters all the time. And because of high their offensive stats are, a lower level creature is still a threat. One of our two PF2 deaths was our level 11 bard getting the attention of two or three level 8 minions. You really can't sleep on minions. They often hit like a martial a couple levels above them, with similar accuracy and damage.
Yeah, in Age of Ashes at least fights with creatures two or three levels lower than the party make up almost every other fight.
|
|
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
I was thinking about a character, probably a rogue, who would take Assurance (Intimidation) and Assurance (Athletics) and keep them both at the highest possible proficiency as best they can at all times. Then, toward the beginning of each fight, the character would get next to the bad guy and take one specific set of actions: Trip or Disarm, Shove or Grapple, Demoralize. Based on the results, the party casters know exactly which saves to target.
I think, rather than just asking, "is assurance with athletics (or intimidate or deception)" enough to succeed against monsters of x level? to ask how much more of a boost you need. There are a lot of decent ways to debuff enemies and if the answer is 1 or 2 points, then you can have some rounds where you really mess an enemy up.
Shisumo, that is genius.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I was thinking about a character, probably a rogue, who would take Assurance (Intimidation) and Assurance (Athletics) and keep them both at the highest possible proficiency as best they can at all times. Then, toward the beginning of each fight, the character would get next to the bad guy and take one specific set of actions: Trip or Disarm, Shove or Grapple, Demoralize. Based on the results, the party casters know exactly which saves to target.A lot of the time, you can make a pretty accurate guess on which saves not to target:
- Big and Strong = Probably a good Fort Save.
- Quick, Agile, and/or Sneaky = Probably a good Reflex Save.
- Caster of some sort = Probably a good Will Save
- All your skills succeeded, telling the casters very little beyond the fact that all the saves are poor-ish.
- Some of your skills succeeded, which might help the casters IF the have spells that target that save that they don't mind spending on this particular encounter, or
- None of your skills succeeded, telling the casters nothing beyond the fact that these are reasonably tough creatures.
I think, rather than just asking, "is assurance with athletics (or intimidate or deception)" enough to succeed against monsters of x level? to ask how much more of a boost you need. There are a lot of decent ways to debuff enemies and if the answer is 1 or 2 points, then you can have some rounds where you really mess an enemy up.
Or, you could just roll the skill normally and still have a decent chance of succeeding without the debuff.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think for some people the appeal of Assurance just doesn't make sense, and I think you might be one of those people, Taja.
For me, turning an 80% chance into a 100% chance is something I value as a very strong benefit, because failing "sure things" bothers me more than when I take a risk and fail.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For me, turning an 80% chance into a 100% chance is something I value as a very strong benefit, because failing "sure things" bothers me more than when I take a risk and fail.
Except that it's more like turning an 80% chance of (crit-)success into 100% chance of (non-critical) failure.
Assure-Man: "Man, I'm sure glad I have Assurance (Athletics)! I can't fall down this cliff!"
Buddy, at the top: "YOU CAN'T MAKE PROGRESS CLIMBING UP IT EITHER, MEATHEAD"
I mean, I guess its fine for low-threat challenges, but if its only good at low-threat challenges, why do we need this feat per skill?
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
For me, turning an 80% chance into a 100% chance is something I value as a very strong benefit, because failing "sure things" bothers me more than when I take a risk and fail.Except that it's more like turning an 80% chance of (crit-)success into 100% chance of (non-critical) failure.
Assure-Man: "Man, I'm sure glad I have Assurance (Athletics)! I can't fall down this cliff!"
Buddy, at the top: "YOU CAN'T MAKE PROGRESS CLIMBING UP IT EITHER, MEATHEAD"I mean, I guess its fine for low-threat challenges, but if its only good at low-threat challenges, why do we need this feat per skill?
Probably because that is only half the feat's benefits. The other half of the feat's benefits is ignoring penalties or when you're doing chains of checks it doesn't reduce your total odds of success. One way to turn a low-threat challenge into a high-threat challenge is to add detrimental circumstances on it or chain a bunch of them together. Like disabling a complex device or climbing a 100 foot tall cliff.
If the cliff is 100 feet tall, and assuming Buddy has a 30% chance of critical success, 50% chance of success, 15% chance to fail and 5% chance to critical fail, then the odds of making it to the top without falling are around 40% or so. Rolls of 1 do happen, and you need on average 18 checks to make it the top (assuming you don't roll a 1).
If buddy has an 80% chance (i.e. succeeds on a 5 or higher), and this is mid level (i.e. maximum stat bonus is +5), then Assure-man will make it to top of that cliff 100% of the time, even with no investment in strength.
Then there's case of trying to do it in a hurricane which makes the wall wet and buffets the climber in high winds, while in the dark, and while enfeebled 2. At which point Assure-man still makes it up that 100 foot tall wall. If those penalties add up to -8 or -10, I wouldn't be betting on Buddy getting up that wall.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The other half of the feat's benefits is ignoring penalties or when you're doing chains of checks it doesn't reduce your total odds of success.
Well, that's a bit of an issue as the DM can increase the DC or lower your rolls for harder tasks: so if your DC got raised, your assurance feat doesn't help much. The negation of penalties only helps if you have penalties.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
For me, turning an 80% chance into a 100% chance is something I value as a very strong benefit, because failing "sure things" bothers me more than when I take a risk and fail.Except that it's more like turning an 80% chance of (crit-)success into 100% chance of (non-critical) failure.
Assure-Man: "Man, I'm sure glad I have Assurance (Athletics)! I can't fall down this cliff!"
Buddy, at the top: "YOU CAN'T MAKE PROGRESS CLIMBING UP IT EITHER, MEATHEAD"I mean, I guess its fine for low-threat challenges, but if its only good at low-threat challenges, why do we need this feat per skill?
There are lots of situations where you don't really care about a crit as much as you care about not failing. Treat Wounds is the example everyone agrees on, but also I really can't overstate how incredibly valuable Assurance has been to the Swashbuckler in my AoA campaign, because he only needs a success on feint or tumble through to gain panache.
It has made him an absolute god at murdering lower-level enemies; often his turn consists of feint enemy, easy finishing strike crit against flat-footed enemy for 50-ish damage, move to next enemy. Considering he loses almost half of that damage if he doesn't have panache, being able to guarantee success is very meaningful for him.
The other half of the feat's benefits is ignoring penalties or when you're doing chains of checks it doesn't reduce your total odds of success.Well, that's a bit of an issue as the DM can increase the DC or lower your rolls for harder tasks: so if your DC got raised, your assurance feat doesn't help much. The negation of penalties only helps if you have penalties.
I have been thinking about that. Is there some guidance in the rules?
My idea is that circumstances that impede your actions should be applied as penalties, while more 'passive' circumstances should mofify the DC.For example, I'm trying to sneak by a sentinel and the DC is 25. Creaky ground makes my sneaking more difficult, so it should be a penalty that I can ignore with Assurance. If the sentinel is particularly on guard because they know that there is an infiltrator around, that's a DC raise.
In Hiruma Kai's other example, I would definitely consider the hurricane a penalty, and thus ignorable with Assurance; about the wet wall, I'm not sure.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I tend to agree with you, Megistone.
As far as the wall... if the wall is wet, I'd consider that a property of the wall and change the DC. On the other hand, if it is currently raining, I'd probably rule that as a penalty on the person climbing, if that makes sense.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think the way I would handle Increase to DC vs penalty is something along the lines of:
If there's a physical property to something you're interacting with, it makes the task more challenging, that's an increase to the DC.
So climbing a wet wall has a higher DC.
If there's something about your condition that makes it more difficulty for you, that's a penalty.
Climbing a wall with heavy weights would be a penalty.
I agree with Claxon, as I've always done it that way.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Now, that does mean that players tend to encounter situations were the DC is higher for the task that they're attempting, because you rarely have penalties to things you're good at, or take actions to relieve yourself of those penalties. And because GMs can more freely alter the conditions of what is happening, what you're encountering, without it feeling off than they can apply penalties.
For example, a GM can say that the rock wall you're about to climb has many hand holds and foot holds. Or that it's wet. Or that it's completely smooth. All of that can be decided on the fly. It's much harder to give penalties on the fly that make sense.
So that benefit of assurance probably wont come up often for most skills, but it is there when it does.
A big thing with penalties vs DC I ask myself what is the DC in the best possible conditions?
Then I add my penalties ie wet/high winds/ect..
Of course if you are trying to climb under waterfall in wind ally those are the "best" conditions you are gonna get so that's a DC modifier.
The OP must have died while finalizing the thread title. XD
But if he died, how would he take the time to type out augghhhh.
Well the g and the h are right there next to each other, so I reckon when he died he fell over and his nose landed just right hit G twice the H 3 times before the muscle spasms in his hand clicked the mouse and sent the message.