Sneak Attack style AND Two-Weapon Combat? Please Help

[Trodax]

True, after reading this, I'll update my house rule so a thief must successfully use Finesse (DV+DR) to be able to add his sneak attack damage to his attack.

Yeah, thats a pretty easy houserule. It will definitely shift the balance of the game a bit, though (generally making Thieves and Pirates quite a bit weaker).

In particular, I also think it will hurt Str-based characters who want to multiclass and get a level or two of Thief (such as Conan himself did). If you're not very good at finesse attacks (or you fight with a non-finesseable weapon) then you won't be able to use your sneak attack ability at all. Tegman, your original houserule didn't have this problem, so I think it was slighty better (but a bit more complex).

Things will also shift a bit so that now armour is a very viable defense against sneak attacks, instead of a high Initiative and Improved Uncanny Dodge being the best way to go. A little bonus for the heavily armoured, but slow, Soldier methinks.

 

[Tegman]

True, after reading this, I'll update my house rule so a thief must successfully use Finesse (DV+DR) to be able to add his sneak attack damage to his attack.

Yeah, thats a pretty easy houserule. It will definitely shift the balance of the game a bit, though (generally making Thieves and Pirates quite a bit weaker).

In particular, I also think it will hurt Str-based characters who want to multiclass and get a level or two of Thief (such as Conan himself did). If you're not very good at finesse attacks (or you fight with a non-finesseable weapon) then you won't be able to use your sneak attack ability at all. Tegman, your original houserule didn't have this problem, so I think it was slighty better (but a bit more complex).

Things will also shift a bit so that now armour is a very viable defense against sneak attacks, instead of a high Initiative and Improved Uncanny Dodge being the best way to go. A little bonus for the heavily armoured, but slow, Soldier methinks.

Hmm, I didn't think of that, think I'll stick to my old house rule then. But it's fun to bounce around ideas, keep 'em coming

 

[Sutek]

Things will also shift a bit so that now armour is a very viable defense against sneak attacks, instead of a high Initiative and Improved Uncanny Dodge being the best way to go. A little bonus for the heavily armoured, but slow, Soldier methinks.

A bit, but not as much as you think, I'd imagine.

Basically, Sneak Attacks will ahve to succeed as Finesse attack against opponents with artificial DR. Exactly as described above by somebody, it's the Theif/Pirate finding a gap in the armor. He can still Sneak Attack but not Finesse, therefore getting full DR deducted. He could also Finesse but not Sneak Attack. However, if he wants full Sneak Attack damge to go through the armor, well, he has to Finesse and Sneak at the same time. After all, Finessing only forgoes STR bouns, not Sneak Attacking, so it makes sense that way. It also keeps people from Sneak Attacking with Bardiches and the like. (lol) With those types of weapons, weilders woul dhave to rely on weapon AP.

In regards to armor "getting better" as opposed to Uncanny Dodge or high Initiative, both of those will still be vital. Plus, winning Initiative will still be important for simply establishing the opportunity to Sneak Attack.

I'll have to really weigh the pros and cons, but I see this as bringing Sneak Attack down a notch while still leaving it as one of the best ways to deal major damage.

 

[Voltumna]

There are other things that I want to throw into the discussion. As pointed out many times before in other threads, thieves don't have the best attack bonus there are. So having that in mind:

A thief gets a better chance of bypassing armour if he is attacking a character that can not defend, because the DV he has to beat is 10+DR. This will be only if he gets someone flat footed, thus in a surprise round or the begining of combat, which is reduced to those particular two rounds, or when he manages to pull a succesful feint, which isn't that easy against more important NPCs, and he will only be able to attempt one feint per combat (Improved feint) or one feint per combat per opponent (Greater feint). So those are the chances for a thief, to deliver a moderately easy sneak attack that succesfully finesses. And it is usually one sneak attack per round, with the exeption of those precious moments at the begining of combat.

When a thief flanks, he can attempt to sneak attack with all his iterative attacks, but he has to beat the opponents full DV+DR. Given their not so good attack bonuses, he will have a harder time finessing through armour, and I could say he won't make it most of the time against the better armoured opponents, even with the +2 they get when flanking.

Thieves will often be lightly armoured, or wear no armour at all, they have fewer hit points and a bad fort save, so if you can't or prefer not to wear protection, it makes good sense to have Combat expertise to at least become harder to hit, lowering your own attack bonus in the process, so finessing again will be harder since you have to beat the higher DV+DR of your opponent.

So, with all the dificulty to find the ocasion to attempt a sneak attack, and to deliver it undiminished with a succesful finesse attack, why restrict it more? I don't think thieves as dangerous as they can be in Conan, challenge the place of soldiers or barbarians as the more menacing or skilled killers of Hyboria. They get their moments, but that's it, while the more martial classes are often unstopable killing machines.

Now, about sneak attacks forcing fort saves most of the time, soldiers have the b est fort saves in the game. In my experience, many of them have often made their fort saves against my sneak attacks, so that's another point that makes the soldier a tougher fighter, he has the stamina to endure even nasty wounds.

 

[Trodax]

But it's fun to bounce around ideas, keep 'em coming

I agree.

As Voltumna, argo and kintire, I also do not consider sneak attack overpowered, at least not when compared to the devastating (and most of all reliable!) damage dealt by someone with a two-handed weapon in Conan. As has been pointed out here, and many times before, Thieves have many weaknesses in other areas of combat and they are not Ultimate-Killing-Machines-of-Doom!

However, if I were to downgrade the impact of sneak attack (and I have considered doing so from time to time, just as I have also considered slightly lowering the damage of two-handed weapons), I would definitely just lower the damage rather than making it harder to successfully sneak. I think changing around how finesse attacks and sneak attacks interact is much more likely to shift the balance of the game (making armour more important when I already consider armour to be a bit too important!).

What I would do would probably be to simply remove the Thiefs Sneak Attack Style ability, keeping damage at a level of constant d6's. To compensate, I'd probably give Thieves something else; most likely the Uncanny Dodge stuff and a bonus feat or two at higher levels. This is not so much a simple houserule as a rewriting of the Thief class, though, and of course I'm much too lazy for that!

He can still Sneak Attack but not Finesse, therefore getting full DR deducted. He could also Finesse but not Sneak Attack. However, if he wants full Sneak Attack damge to go through the armor, well, he has to Finesse and Sneak at the same time.

I'm not sure I understand you here Sutek; what you describe here is exactly how it works in the normal rules.