Raven Blackwell
Mongoose
Well, it is too late for that Soldire in any case.....dead is dead.
Raven
Raven
sneak att/ flat footed
- Thread starter Belkregos
- Start date
Sutek
Mongoose
Reading over this thread...I can't recall, but isn't a Sneak Attack a full round attack option? If so, a full move isn't possible and the attacker's number of actual attacks is not used; it instead take a full combat round to accomplish the Sneak Attack. Correct? I know in D&D it is, and this mitigates the whole "run up and stab them in the eye" routine. The Sneak Attacker must be able to arrange a 5' step and have the initiative (or be holding his action from hidden or something) to manage the strike.
I'd think it was the same in Conan, particularly given the higher Sneak attack damage poptential.
:?
I'd think it was the same in Conan, particularly given the higher Sneak attack damage poptential.
:?
Hyborian Apeman
Mongoose
Sutek said:
I don't think so. I think a sneak attack is apart of the standard attack. It is possible that I have been misplaying 3.0/3.5 and Conan for the last 5 years, but I am pretty sure a sneak attack is not a full action. I will definitely have to check now though.
Yeah, as HyboApe said, sneak attack isn't a special type of action. Its basically just treated as extra damage that you can apply in certain situations (ie. against flat-footed and flanked targets, and only against opponents who are vulnerable to critical hits).Sutek said:
It can be applied to all attacks that meet these requirements (so it functions on all your attacks when full attacking).
This is how it works in Conan and in D&D (at least 3.5).
Sutek
Mongoose
Hyborian Apeman said:
Me too, but it may be something revised under 3.5 that we jsut never caught. There was a lot of that. (lol) My recollection is that it has to count as a full attack action so it can't be combined witha charge and you have to rely on flank, initiative, flat footed, etc. Now I'm so shocked that I might just make the trip out to my car here at work and double check.
Ya learn something new every day...
Raven Blackwell
Mongoose
Regardless of what the rules say I am going to make a house rule that one cannot Full Attack and Sneak Attack at the same time. I have a Thief/Pirate that will be capapble of 4 attacks a round once he gets the Improved Two Weapon Fighting Feat. His initative is already a hellacious +13- he almost always goes first. It's too much power in one charater. So now he has to decide each round if he wants to do one Sneak Attack or three to four standard attacks.
Raven
Raven
Raven Blackwell said:
he could only use the 3/4 sneak attacks on the first round right?
seems ok to me, specially if he's devoted all his feats to that kind of action, may be loosing a bit of versatility, so he would shine on the first round of combat with initiative, sneaks and Ferocious Att. but then the rest of the rounds would be a different story
Sutek
Mongoose
Raven Blackwell said:
Right...that's what I was saying that I thought is was already. You either get a full attack (your full allotment of attacks - be it 1 or 2 or 4) or you get a Sneak Attack. Still haven't doub;e checked, but with multiple dice for damage like 3d8 additional ... there's no need to get more than one strike. That's the benfit of Sneak attack - lots of damage in one roll, but the risk is it's all in one roll too.
Hyborian Apeman said:
sometimes the thief in the group takes the scene droping some nasties but its not as often as the Barbarian with the Bardiche Power attack greater cleave combo
the thief is deadly but he needs to work for it, at least thats whats happened on our campaign, and moust of the time he gets in trouble because he gets caught by himself when he's trying to sneak around :twisted:
Raven Blackwell
Mongoose
Belkregos said:
I have been going with the rule that one can Sneak Attack anyone Flat Footed and that all creatures are considered Flat Footed before their Initative, so thus he can Sneak Attack anything with a lower Initative than him- which is most everyone. So to balance the game either I rule all Thieves can Sneak Attack only in the first round like you suggested, or that they have to choose between Sneak Attack and Full Attack like I suggest. My thought is to do it the way I suggested for a while and see how it works. Thus every round he'd have to decide between a single powerful attack or a few lower powered ones and make the decisions as per the circumstances he is in. I like making my player make hard choices- makes the game spicier. 8)
Raven
Raven Blackwell said:
i think thats a good idea
on our game they can only sneak attack on the first round if they win initiative or when flanking, unless they feint or something like that in wich case the loose one round for the feint and then do the sneak attack
or if they have improve feint then they can only do one sneak attack in the round
with rule you suggest they would not need to feint to gain the sneak attack one they're engaged, they'd only need to win initiative, wich also the thief in the group is by far the fastest, being a Zamoran with improved initiative...
Raven Blackwell
Mongoose
Belkregos said:
Thank you.
Strangely enough, so is mine...small Hyborian world isn't it? 8)
Raven
SetWorshipper
Mongoose
I love the thief (or rogue...) so I am naturally biased as its what I play 99% of the time when not the GM. Conan is my campaign though, that is why I originally brought this up - for outside opinion. My PCs are already terrified to go to Zamora and we haven’t even left the Pictish wilderness yet.
As a hardened thief PC I cringe at any nerfs, I always fought for more power since DnD always had 90% of its monsters immune to sneak attack and in later levels magical armor that gave resistance. Thus I would not apply any of these suggested changes to normal DnD.
For Conan changing Sneak Attack to only take effect in a Surprise, First round, or Full round action sounds reasonable but I still question it. I hate nerfing any core class (WotC PrCs are very nerfable…), especially when I haven’t seen it actively played from levels 1 – 20. Don’t forget anyone with 4 Levels of Barbarian or Pirate will than be immune to the Surprise or First Round sneak attack due to Uncanny Dodge.
Since some classes start off good while others take time to develop I still would like to see or hear about high level play test. I won’t get the PCs to level 10 for another year. (cons of gaming once a month or two). Without seeing a higher level DnD wizard one could think they need to be buffed at lower levels.
As a hardened thief PC I cringe at any nerfs, I always fought for more power since DnD always had 90% of its monsters immune to sneak attack and in later levels magical armor that gave resistance. Thus I would not apply any of these suggested changes to normal DnD.
For Conan changing Sneak Attack to only take effect in a Surprise, First round, or Full round action sounds reasonable but I still question it. I hate nerfing any core class (WotC PrCs are very nerfable…), especially when I haven’t seen it actively played from levels 1 – 20. Don’t forget anyone with 4 Levels of Barbarian or Pirate will than be immune to the Surprise or First Round sneak attack due to Uncanny Dodge.
Since some classes start off good while others take time to develop I still would like to see or hear about high level play test. I won’t get the PCs to level 10 for another year. (cons of gaming once a month or two). Without seeing a higher level DnD wizard one could think they need to be buffed at lower levels.
Allowing the sneak attack if a character can do multiple attacks seems fine with me, it really shouldn't happen very often.
I can only see it coming into effect in the following situations:
+ When the character starts out surrounded by several characters, it'll happen if there's a surprise round in there favour and/or they win initiative. As someone else has said that's the lovely image of a thief suddenly dropping his unsuspecting attackers and not many combats should start like that.
+ When the character manages to take a five foot step into an opponents threatened area and into such a position that he flanks him. Immediately after that the opponent should spin around to deal with the bigger threat, unless there's another sneak attacker on his other side in which case he should consider running.
I read feinting as only allowing a sneak attack on the "next attack", so if the attacker feints and then on his next round when he full attacks only the first of those attacks is a sneak attack. That gives him that "spicy" choice between attacking half as often but doing a lot more damage when he does.
Once the combat has begun then if the opponents are foolish enough so as to allow themselves to be constantly flanked or the characters work together enough so as to ensure flanking then sneak attacks should be fairly rare single attacks.
So I think that all seems well, however I've not run the game that often. Are there actual examples of how you can engineer a situation where you can keep on doing multiple sneak attacks?
Oly
I can only see it coming into effect in the following situations:
+ When the character starts out surrounded by several characters, it'll happen if there's a surprise round in there favour and/or they win initiative. As someone else has said that's the lovely image of a thief suddenly dropping his unsuspecting attackers and not many combats should start like that.
+ When the character manages to take a five foot step into an opponents threatened area and into such a position that he flanks him. Immediately after that the opponent should spin around to deal with the bigger threat, unless there's another sneak attacker on his other side in which case he should consider running.
I read feinting as only allowing a sneak attack on the "next attack", so if the attacker feints and then on his next round when he full attacks only the first of those attacks is a sneak attack. That gives him that "spicy" choice between attacking half as often but doing a lot more damage when he does.
Once the combat has begun then if the opponents are foolish enough so as to allow themselves to be constantly flanked or the characters work together enough so as to ensure flanking then sneak attacks should be fairly rare single attacks.
So I think that all seems well, however I've not run the game that often. Are there actual examples of how you can engineer a situation where you can keep on doing multiple sneak attacks?
Oly
In the normal rules, you're only flat-footed until you have acted for the first time in every combat (not in every round). So sneak attack because of flat-footedness (sp.?) can only happen in the first round, and in subsequent rounds you have to rely on flanking or feinting to get sneak.Raven Blackwell said:
Maybe thats what you meant, I'd just thought I'd clarify.
Raven Blackwell
Mongoose
Trodax said:
Hmm....I thought it was every round- which is why I thought the Thief was so unbalanced. He's been doing more damage than the Soldiers/Barbarians. I guess the boy better get Improved Feint next....8)
Raven
Hyborian Apeman
Mongoose
Trodax said:In the normal rules, you're only flat-footed until you have acted for the first time in every combat (not in every round). So sneak attack because of flat-footedness (sp.?) can only happen in the first round, and in subsequent rounds you have to rely on flanking or feinting to get sneak.
Maybe thats what you meant, I'd just thought I'd clarify.
Exactly! Which to my point, the best case scenario a thief could sneak attack 4 people in a round; and that is if he was adjacent with surprise (a rare scenario). If there are more than 4 people (say 12) the thief better back off and let the barbarian due his thing, because even with the high initiative, he isn't going to be nearly as effective from then on out because he will only be sneak attack if he uses a move equivalent to do it (improved feint) or tries to flank someone (risky of getting on the other side of an opponent when fighting a dozen foes.
