Sneak Attack, Improved Feint combo OVERPOWERED

Kincaid

Mongoose
Sneak attack in Conan is TOO POWREFUL. They have added sneak attack style which upgrades the die to d8 and with feint they dont need help making the attack.

I have a 6th level Zingaran Thief in my group and he's doing on average double damage that all the other characters are doing.

This is unbalancing an not fun for the other players who's damage seems miniscule in comparision. He now has improved feint which means he can effectivly sneak attack any foe and because he has a great sword as a racial ability is doing 2d10 + 4d8.

Does anyone else see the problem with this??

Im making a house rule that you cannot sneak attack while feinting and is the only attack you can do in a round regardless of # of attacks.
 
It can be a very powerful combination. Let's hope he doesn't discover the Light-Footed feat, that's ever more damage.

I would make the following common sense suggestion:

Feint cannot be performed with a 2-handed weapon
 
I don’t think it’s overpowered,
The in the group I run, there’s 2 guys using this combo, a zingarian/sodier thief and a Zamoran thief/barbarian, they are 14th level
The feint is counter balanced by the fact the victim gets an opposed check where they get to add their full character level to their sense motive skill and they can only use the improved feint feat against one opponent per round
We’ve been using it for quite a while ant they are fine,
Any warrior with power attack is a match
At 6th level a warrior would have a +2 to hit advantage vs a pirate that used in a power attack with a 2 handed weapon becomes a +4 damage, if you add specialization or high strength things even out

In our group even with the sneak attacks the warriors dish our more average damage but the rogue types are more versatile which makes for a good interesting mix
Usually the first rounds of combat go for the sneaky types then the tide turns
 
That thief shoud be making +3d8+1d6 sneak attack damage, or +4d8+1d6 if unarmoured to take advantage of the Light footed feat he already has from thief level 4.

Improved feint only allows him to make the feint as a move action, that means he can only make one attack that round with the standard action he has left. That would be a sneak attack only if he pulls his feint. In our game, tough opponents will have maxed out their sense motive, and if they are warriors, they get to add their base attack bonus. I got tired not being able to pull out the feints with my thief which had maximum bluff ranks, and a fairly good charisma, and of course improved feint, but I was making maybe 1 out of 3 of those feints.
 
This issue goes WAY back on the boards. The (potential) problem isn't the sneak attack damage but the fact that a successful feint puts the defender at defense of 10, which becomes not only easily hittable by thieves at higher levels, but easily finessable.

At one point I ran a simulation on my computer of a stand-off between a feinting thief and a power-attacking two-handed weapon armored soldier of the same level and IIRC the thief had the edge. That was with no buffing out of Sense Motive which I feel is a hack.

At higher levels, I think (as Voltumma said) feinting becomes less valuable because it costs you multiple attacks.
 
First Problem I see is that you are allowing the theif to sneak attack with a two handed sword. Feinting with a great sword is fine, but sneak attacking with it...come on...its not very fluffy...
 
I have a rogue/soldier in my group, he's only 3rd level but he's also going this route with his combat style. But he's very diverse and switches to 2 handed fighting sometimes, or uses improved trip as well.

But I think the balancing factor here is that it takes a move action to feint, and he can only do it once per round. Plus, remember in the Conan AE combat chapter it allows melee fighters to move, attack, and finish their move after their attack. They call it fighting on the run. You would still provoke an AoO but you could have your NPC's who should fight intelligently, move 10 feet in to attack him, then move back 10-20 feet depending on their speed. One would provoke an AoO but he could not feint him and will probably only get one AoO unless he has Combat Reflexes. This effectively negates his ability to feint.
 
quigs said:
But I think the balancing factor here is that it takes a move action to feint, and he can only do it once per round.quote]

And that the opponent gets to add his BAB to oppose with sense motive.

quigs said:
Plus, remember in the Conan AE combat chapter it allows melee fighters to move, attack, and finish their move after their attack. They call it fighting on the run. You would still provoke an AoO but you could have your NPC's who should fight intelligently, move 10 feet in to attack him, then move back 10-20 feet depending on their speed. One would provoke an AoO but he could not feint him and will probably only get one AoO unless he has Combat Reflexes. This effectively negates his ability to feint.

The classes with mobility are good at this. With Improved mobility as long as you move 10' in your rond, you never provoke AoOs.
 
Kincaid said:
Sneak attack in Conan is TOO POWREFUL. They have added sneak attack style which upgrades the die to d8 and with feint they dont need help making the attack.

They don't need anyone's help anyway. Since Thieves are likely to have high Initiatives, all they need to do is have the initiative count and the ability to 5' move into attack range. Heck, Sneak Attack applies to ranged attacks too, so they can get off a shot at +3d8 too if that's what their style is in...

Kincaid said:
This is unbalancing an not fun for the other players who's damage seems miniscule in comparision. He now has improved feint which means he can effectivly sneak attack any foe and because he has a great sword as a racial ability is doing 2d10 + 4d8.

Put them up against opponents that are more aware. Also, numbers of opponents will be the undoing of any single Thief and his amazing sneak attack ability. Surround him with guys with swords and pole-arms and you can pour around 24 attacks on him. It'll make that one guy he kills with the 2d10+4d8 seem paltry by comparison.

Kincaid said:
Im making a house rule that you cannot sneak attack while feinting and is the only attack you can do in a round regardless of # of attacks.

Well, keep in mind that Feinting is a standard action and can't be combined (IIR - I could be mistaken here). You Feint on round and then get the bonus on your next attack. Again, multiple opponents is the Conan GM's friend, even if it isn't a "next round" sort of thing, because while you pesky Thief is Feinting one opponent, several more are ...erm...un-feinted? (hehe).

Then there always making the character's Reputation a bonus to opponent's Sense Motive test to avoid the Feint. In other words, this Thief has become know for his cowardly but powerful Feint/Stab move, and this give opponents some knowledge when facing him.

I'd say don't separate Feint and Strike from your player's repetoir, but look at ways of dodging it with other rules. If anything, if you really feel the need, make a house rule that states that you cannot Feint follows the same restrictions for Dodge defense. If you don't have an open/ally square available to Dodge into, it stands to reason that you wouldn't be able to pull off a nimble Feint move either.
 
Crom! Its like I've gone back in time :lol:

I remember when this was the hottest topic on both this forum and the Rulesmasters. I'm assuming that you wern't here for that kincaid so I'll recap the highlights.

Improved Feint + Sneak Attack is not overpowered because:

Point 1) The defender adds his BAB to his Sense Motive roll. Imagine a thief who has sunk two (2) feats into Imp Feint and max ranks into bluff (thats not a small expenditure of resources mind you) and is trying to feint an opponent of equal level with a full BAB (for example, a soldier) who has put NO ranks in Sense Motive. The contest becomes

Soldier: d20 + Wis
Thief: d20 + 3 + Cha

The thief put all that effort into feinting and he winds up with only what? a 65-75% chance of success? And if the soldier makes only a minimal investment in Sense Motive then the odds get even worse for the thief.

Conclusion: Feint is easy to defend against. This natural advantage for the defender makes it less powerful.

Conclusion: Feint is a great trick to use against lower-level opponents but not so good against equal-level opponents and it quiclky becomes unreliable against higher-level opponents. Nobody has a problem with a barbarian pw0ning low-level mooks, what's the problem with a thief doing the same? He still will have a hard time against the high-level BBEG.


Point 2)In order to use Imporved Feint the thief has to stand still for a full round of melee and he only gets to make just one attack. That thief had better pray to god that he hits, rolls well enough on damage to trigger a massive damage save and that his opponent fails the Fort save.

Why?

Because the thief has a middling DV, little/no DR, lousy HP and the Fort save of a twelve year old. If his opponent survives he will turn around and two-handed power attack the thief into oblivion.

Conclusion: the two-weapon fighting, tumbling into flank position thief is, on average, a greater threat since he can bank on more attacks per round.

Conclusion: neither the two-weapon thief nor the Improved Feint thief tend to have long life spans as they both face the problem of either failing to drop the target in one round and suffering the target's wrath on the next or else droping the target but suffering the vengance of one of the target's buddies on the next.

Conclusion: thief's with a strong sense of self-preservation settle for winning initative, making a full round of sneak attacks with thrown daggers against a flat-footed opponent then spending the rest of the combat hidding in a dark corner.



Or to put all that in less verbose terms

1) Improved Feint is not nearly as reliable a tactict as some people first think it to be.

2) The other fighting classes can squish a feinting thief like a bug just by using power attack. So it is all balance. 8)

Hope that helps.
 
This does go way back on these boards and I will not exhaust myself again by going through another debate about the issue. (Let’s just say I was not pro bluff/feint resulting in a DV of 10 and allowing both finesse/sneak attacks.)

Here are some suggestions if the whole feinting issue is subtracting from your game’s combat sessions, and/or if you would rather not have your non-combat/stealth types "balance out" in melee with your true warriors:

1 – Simply remove the feint maneuver (and related feats) from your game. This allows the fighting classes to maintain the upper hand in face to face combat and challenges the sneak attacking classes to be more stealthy in their activities and tactics. Should they desire to fight better face to face, then encourage them to multi-class as a fighting type (for better BAB, HP, DR and Fort saves).

2 – As an alternative (following the standard set in Spycraft 2), have the feint be based on a Sleight of Hand skill check and opposed by a Spot check. Many gamers playing soldier class characters would rather spend the few precious skill points they do receive trying to increase or gain ranks in the Spot skill rather than Sense Motive anyway.

3 – Another alternative is to allow others (like the Soldier) to use the Intimidate skill to “feint” in combat as a standard action (replacing the demoralize option in combat which costs a standard action); and let the Improved Feint feat (letting Power Attack substitute for the Combat Expertise prerequisite) allow them to scare their opponent into hesitating/cringing as a move action.

4 – Make more use the Fighting Defensively and Total Defense stances in combination with Bluffing circumstance modifiers. Using the Bluff circumstances modifiers, allow someone that is fighting defensively to gain a +5 bonus to their Sense Motive check due to a more cautious fighter thinking “The bluff is a little hard to believe or puts the target at some risk” --- and allow someone using total defense to gain a +10 bonus to their Sense Motive check due to them being extra careful and thinking “The bluff is hard to believe or puts the target at significant risk”. If they’ve been hit with a feint already in this combat and/or know their opponent’s fighting style well, then boost the bonus up a notch to +10/+20 (also from the chart). Making use of these modifiers for cautious and defensive fighters makes as much sense to me as players arguing that the Persuasive feat makes them better at melee and sneak attacking.

Anyway – I hope some of these suggestions are helpful should you desire something different from the rules as they are written.

Take care.
 
Shonuff said:
This does go way back on these boards and I will not exhaust myself again by going through another debate about the issue. (Let’s just say I was not pro bluff/feint resulting in a DV of 10 and allowing both finesse/sneak attacks.)

Here are some suggestions if the whole feinting issue is subtracting from your game’s combat sessions, and/or if you would rather not have your non-combat/stealth types "balance out" in melee with your true warriors:

1 – Simply remove the feint maneuver (and related feats) from your game. This allows the fighting classes to maintain the upper hand in face to face combat and challenges the sneak attacking classes to be more stealthy in their activities and tactics. Should they desire to fight better face to face, then encourage them to multi-class as a fighting type (for better BAB, HP, DR and Fort saves).

The DV10 is harsh, but so is the double bonus to damage from Power Attack with two handed weapons which already do two dice of damage, and that despite the penalty to attack, and not to mention if they get to confirm a crit. If they hit: boom. So it is with feint and sneak attack. If you pull the feint: at last!

Shonuff said:
2 – As an alternative (following the standard set in Spycraft 2), have the feint be based on a Sleight of Hand skill check and opposed by a Spot check. Many gamers playing soldier class characters would rather spend the few precious skill points they do receive trying to increase or gain ranks in the Spot skill rather than Sense Motive anyway.

Someone mentioned that buffing up sense motive was a hack, and it might be, but characters with a good sense of self preservation will always spend good points on the skill, as well as spot and others. Not that I like that since I play thieves most often than not, but if fighter types have fewer skill points to buy ranks, it is because they get to improve a lot more on combat skills than rogue types, and that lots of skill points is precisely one of the strenghts of rogues.

Shonuff said:
4 – Make more use the Fighting Defensively and Total Defense stances in combination with Bluffing circumstance modifiers. Using the Bluff circumstances modifiers, allow someone that is fighting defensively to gain a +5 bonus to their Sense Motive check due to a more cautious fighter thinking “The bluff is a little hard to believe or puts the target at some risk” --- and allow someone using total defense to gain a +10 bonus to their Sense Motive check due to them being extra careful and thinking “The bluff is hard to believe or puts the target at significant risk”. If they’ve been hit with a feint already in this combat and/or know their opponent’s fighting style well, then boost the bonus up a notch to +10/+20 (also from the chart). Making use of these modifiers for cautious and defensive fighters makes as much sense to me as players arguing that the Persuasive feat makes them better at melee and sneak attacking.

Anyway – I hope some of these suggestions are helpful should you desire something different from the rules as they are written.

Take care.

I think a bonus to sense motive checks when fighting defensively or total defending is a reasonable rule, but +5 and +10 (and +10/+20) to sense motive checks seem way to much IMO, specially when the bonus to DV granted by such tactics is only +2 and +4.

Hyboria's Finest already has a rule for soldiers called Reading an Opponent, that could grant you a bonus to sense motive to oppose feints. It is basically a Sense motive check modified by the soldier's BAB. He spends a full round observing a foe in combat, and he can defend normaly. This is the only action he can make that round. The DC of the check is the opponent's level or HD. For every 5 points by which he beats the DC, he can add 1 to any one of the following: attack rolls, damage rolls, parry or dodge defence, saving throws and skill checks, againts that single opponent. So for soldiers, the better their sense motives, the better the bonuses they can gain form this ability.
 
Yes -we all have our opinions, and mine sometimes differ from the rules as written :).

After some additional thought, here are two more options.

1 – Have the feint deny the opponent either his Parry or Dodge, just not both (feinting fighter chooses which). This allows the one making the feint to attack his opponent’s weakness, get any sneak attack damage, and increase his chances at a finesse attack. Although more exposed, it keeps the defender from becoming totally defenseless and flat-footed. Maneuver them into a corner and feint their parry and they suffer a -2 to Dodge. Disarm/sunder them or find them lacking the proper equipment, feint their Dodge, and they suffer the -4 penalty to Parry (all of this crom Conan AE). This option encourages good tactical thinking.

2 – As a side note, but worth mentioning --- Another member here (Sanservia I believe) suggested long ago to have players be flat-footed at the beginning of combat only if they are completely surprised or ambushed (or deceived by the Striking Cobra feat). I’ve seen this guy’s suggestion in play and it really encouraged stealthy tactics (Hide and Move Silently rolls) in combination with sneak attacks.

Just some more ideas to bounce around for the sake of variety.

Good gaming.
 
My very simple houserule for this problem is that to successfully sneak attack an armored opponent, a thief must succeed on a finesse attack. It makes intuitive sense to me and it gives armored soldiers a bit better defense if they are caught flat-footed.
 
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