sneak attack...

[worldeater]

sneak attack is way too powerful. a thief at level 4 can get +3d8 damage fairly easily (with light-footed, not wearing armor). that's nuts.
so in my campaign i was thinking of replacing sneak attack's bonus damage with an improved critical threat range (on sneak attacks). any thoughts?

 

[Krushnak]

yes sneak attack is powerful but it is also very situational. it provides a good alternative to the straight up brute with a bardiche or great-sword.

improved threat range isnt that good, yes you will crit more but unless you are insanely strong you wont even be able to one-shot kidney stab or throat slice some semi competent guards with a dagger but with all those extra d6's or 8's you can.

 

[worldeater]

yeah... true, a critical hit can't kill a leveled up character.

BUT.. why can a thief slit someone's throat more effectively than a barbarian??
this is one of those dumb gamey D&D type things that doesn't really belong in a gritty conan-inspired game, as far as i'm concerned. yeah, a thief would be more apt to slit someone's throat, and therefore better at it. but any class should be able to do it.

i guess the improved threat range is a lot more effective to me --- i didn't mention that i've also changed all the weapon rules so that most piercing melee weapons get x3 critical damage. that'll do a lot to improve the chances of actually offing someone with a critical hit from a dagger. i've also put a cap on HP, so no one can have more than (CONx2)+character level in HP. yep, i'm nuts.

even so, a crit with a dagger is only going to do an average of 7-8 points of damage. hm.

maybe i should just say you get the bonus damage only when the target is unaware, but not when you're just flanking them. if that were the case i'd be more inclined to give everyone bonus damage for sneak attacks but just make thieves a bit better at it.

 

[slaughterj]

sneak attack is way too powerful. a thief at level 4 can get +3d8 damage fairly easily (with light-footed, not wearing armor). that's nuts.
so in my campaign i was thinking of replacing sneak attack's bonus damage with an improved critical threat range (on sneak attacks). any thoughts?

Only if flanking (and the foe is still "hard" to hit and armor applies), if foes are flat-footed (i.e., not vs. 4th level+ barbarians & pirates), or if succeed with a feint (which means investing a feat into improved feint, buying up bluff, etc., and having a whole action available to feint and attack, i.e., not moving). And on average, that thief won't do enough to force a massive damage save.

But a 4th level hyborian soldier with 18 STR and a greatsword can have weapon specialization feat and do 2d10+8 EVERY attack (i.e., not in the special circumstances for sneak attack), likely armor piercing anything, and can power attack for 8 more damage with only -4 to hit. When power attacking, that means a massive damage save or die for each opponent struck usually. Plus the soldier gets to wear armor to save him if he is hit, unlike the thief above.

 

[urdinaran]

yeah... true, a critical hit can't kill a leveled up character.

BUT.. why can a thief slit someone's throat more effectively than a barbarian??
this is one of those dumb gamey D&D type things that doesn't really belong in a gritty conan-inspired game, as far as i'm concerned. yeah, a thief would be more apt to slit someone's throat, and therefore better at it. but any class should be able to do it.

Sneak attack is fine the way it is; by taking it away you hamstring the Thief and Pirate classes.

You think it's bad, try 1st level Zingaran Thief w/ Light-Footed (that's 3d6 sneak attack minimum, not including style).

As for slitting someones throat, the D20 rules aren't realistic in alot of areas. Cut through someone's carotid artery (1 on each side of the throat) and they will bleed to death very quickly and there is no way of stopping the bleeding. Yet the D20 rules don't explain how a dagger can do this nor how a high level character could die this way.

 

[Sutek]

even so, a crit with a dagger is only going to do an average of 7-8 points of damage. hm.

Nope. Say my Thief character gets just the starting 2 sneak dice:

1D6 + 2D8, all rolled twice on a CRIT. That's a max of 22pts of rolled damage alone, without feats or applying twice STR bonus either. That's more than enough to force a Massive Damage save and instantly kill a target.

Slitting throats is a CRIT, but check out the Grapple rules and you'll see how that makes it much easier to simply hit a target, thus making it easier to deal damge easily.

 

[worldeater]

the thief could just as easily have a strength 18. there's no rule that says fighters get better STR than thieves.
if they're hyborian they can use a greatsword as well, and get a sneak attack of 2D10+6+2D8 (not using light-footed, since the sword is too heavy, that means he can wear light armor), if i'm not mistaken (i don't have the book in front of me). That's massive damage on an average roll.
i don't know what you mean by ''hard' to hit', a flanking attack gets +2 to hit, right? or else they are flat-footed and thus have a DC of 10 usually. compared to a -4 to hit for the power attack..

 

[worldeater]

even so, a crit with a dagger is only going to do an average of 7-8 points of damage. hm.

Nope. Say my Thief character gets just the starting 2 sneak dice:

1D6 + 2D8, all rolled twice on a CRIT. That's a max of 22pts of rolled damage alone, without feats or applying twice STR bonus either. That's more than enough to force a Massive Damage save and instantly kill a target.

Slitting throats is a CRIT, but check out the Grapple rules and you'll see how that makes it much easier to simply hit a target, thus making it easier to deal damge easily.

if you read my quote, it pretty clearly says 'a crit', not 'a sneak attack'

also, sneak attack damage doesn't get doubled on a crit (fortunately)

 

[Sutek]

Duh...I'm at work and not thinking straight. (lol) I thought that you were trying to connect a CRIT and Sneak damage together and finding that it didnt' amount to much damage. That thread is, after all, about 'sneak attacks'.

Still, a straight CRIT still that a max damage rolled of 12+16 = 28 before strength. That's still enough for an auto-kill. :wink:

The thing I was trying to say about 'slitting throats is a CRIT' was in reference to the fact that D20 opperates under the principle that hitting someone in the eye-ball or slitting thier throat is about the precision of the strike and in this system, that has a lot to do with luck. Now, offering feats that buff threat ranges will get you an increased CRIT potential, but 'sneak attacking' rides along with the 'finesse' (and thuse those lighter weapons) mechanics, so, as has been said, stripping it from the game strips the usefulness of finesse weapons and certain classes at the same time.

I also think you'll find that Power Attack can be pretty brutal too, particularly two-handed blows. It's in line with sneak attack damage, generally speaking, and 'sneak' can get you more damage with less weapon every time, but 'sneak' is more situational as a limiter. Needing to deny Dodge/Parry is crucial to evaluating 'sneak', especially since PA doesnt' have any limiter at all, really.

 

[worldeater]

Duh...I'm at work and not thinking straight. (lol) I thought that you were trying to connect a CRIT and Sneak damage together and finding that it didnt' amount to much damage. That thread is, after all, about 'sneak attacks'.

it's cool.. i was basically arguing with myself that a crit alone is not enough to represent the ammount of damage that should be caused by getting stabbed in the back.

Still, a straight CRIT still that a max damage rolled of 12+16 = 28 before strength. That's still enough for an auto-kill. :wink:

??
i think you're getting the 16 from sneak attack damage... my point was that without sneak attack, a dagger in the back doing 3d4 isn't much.

The thing I was trying to say about 'slitting throats is a CRIT' was in reference to the fact that D20 opperates under the principle that hitting someone in the eye-ball or slitting thier throat is about the precision of the strike and in this system, that has a lot to do with luck. Now, offering feats that buff threat ranges will get you an increased CRIT potential, but 'sneak attacking' rides along with the 'finesse' (and thuse those lighter weapons) mechanics, so, as has been said, stripping it from the game strips the usefulness of finesse weapons and certain classes at the same time.

i don't see what you mean. finesse weapons ignore armor if they get a high diff between your attack roll and enemy's defense. attacking a flanked or flat-footed enemy is going to give you a bump on your attack roll or lessen the victim's defense, making it more likely for you to ignore their armor completely.
finesse weapons are mainly useful just by the fact that they let you use your DEX mod to attack. That's huge for any high-DEX or low-STR character!

I also think you'll find that Power Attack can be pretty brutal too, particularly two-handed blows. It's in line with sneak attack damage, generally speaking, and 'sneak' can get you more damage with less weapon every time, but 'sneak' is more situational as a limiter. Needing to deny Dodge/Parry is crucial to evaluating 'sneak', especially since PA doesnt' have any limiter at all, really.

power attack is limited by your base attack bonus AND it lowers your chance to hit. it also requires a 13 STR. i'm not saying it's weak, but i don't think it's better than sneak attack. also, power attack is available to anybody with a STR of 13, so there's no reason a thief couldn't have power attack for when they're not flanking.[/quote]

 

[argo]

Sneak attack is not overpowered. If you care to spend the rest of the weekend reading why you can try to look up someold threads that discuss the issue in depth.


To summarize my position: 1) Sneak Attacks only happen under limited conditions so it is OK that they do more damage 2) Thief's are easy targets to kill so they take a greater risk getting into combat, thus their sneak attack is more rewarding.

Mostly the balance rests in point #2. A thief who wishes to stay alive will take advantage of a sneak attack when he wins Initative but will retreat soon after that. Averaged out over many combats Sneak Attack is not that bad. Espically when compared to two-handed power attack.

Later.

 

[worldeater]

Sneak attack is not overpowered. If you care to spend the rest of the weekend reading why you can try to look up someold threads that discuss the issue in depth.


To summarize my position: 1) Sneak Attacks only happen under limited conditions so it is OK that they do more damage 2) Thief's are easy targets to kill so they take a greater risk getting into combat, thus their sneak attack is more rewarding.

Mostly the balance rests in point #2. A thief who wishes to stay alive will take advantage of a sneak attack when he wins Initative but will retreat soon after that. Averaged out over many combats Sneak Attack is not that bad. Espically when compared to two-handed power attack.

Later.

or another way of saying it would be: 'sneak attacks for thieves are balanced in this ruleset, which is more akin to a collectible card game or boardgame than a well-written role-playing game, because it is a throwback to the 70s' .


.... which is to say i'm not a big fan of the whole class system and a lot of the racial bonuses: 'everyone from zingara gets +x sneak attack, because zingarans are sneaky'

anyway, the reason i brought this up is because there's a recurring-villain type NPC in my campaign who is a Shemite assassin. So level 4 thief from shem, with rapid shot (we won't even think about other feats...).
okay, so if he hides (being a thief from shem, his hide bonus is 12...), he can get the drop on the party pretty easily and dish out two shots with an almost assured hit (+7 to hit, against flat-footed DC!). these two shots are going to each do average damage of 20.
this is one 4th level guy against four 2nd level guys. two of them are probably down before they can react! imagine if the level counts were even; say if he had 4 1st level henchmen...? total party kill. game over.

 

[argo]

or another way of saying it would be: 'sneak attacks for thieves are balanced in this ruleset, which is more akin to a collectible card game or boardgame than a well-written role-playing game, because it is a throwback to the 70s' .

shrug... I don't see how those concepts are mutiually exclusive nor why it is wrong to graft a well-crafted tactical combat game onto a fine roleplaying game. Seems to have been prety popular for the last three decades.

And anyway your origional question was regarding the balance of Sneak Attack. Thus that is the point I addressed.

Later.

 

[Sutek]

or another way of saying it would be: 'sneak attacks for thieves are balanced in this ruleset, which is more akin to a collectible card game or boardgame than a well-written role-playing game, because it is a throwback to the 70s' .

Not really.

In the 70s, RPGs were better because all you had to do was say "I back-stab him!" and the GM responded with "Okay...roll." (lol)

I guess I'd say that D20 (and thus Conan) is a well written RPG but just one that you don't really like very much of. (LOL)

 

[argo]

anyway, the reason i brought this up is because there's a recurring-villain type NPC in my campaign who is a Shemite assassin. So level 4 thief from shem, with rapid shot (we won't even think about other feats...).
okay, so if he hides (being a thief from shem, his hide bonus is 12...), he can get the drop on the party pretty easily and dish out two shots with an almost assured hit (+7 to hit, against flat-footed DC!). these two shots are going to each do average damage of 20.
this is one 4th level guy against four 2nd level guys. two of them are probably down before they can react! imagine if the level counts were even; say if he had 4 1st level henchmen...? total party kill. game over.

Lets address the issue of encounter balance seperately.

First of all you are using a villain who is 2 levels higher than the the average party level. So yea, this will be a tough fight.

Secondly, you have designed a villain who specalizes in ambushes, and then you set him in an ambush scenario. That is you are letting him play to his strengths. So again this will make for a tougher encounter. Assuming your surviving party members can pin the guy down in a straight-up manly fight they should be able to dispatch him without trouble.

So I don't really see anything wrong with the mechanics here. Just a tough encounter where the villain is holding most of the cards (ambush) right from the start. The lesson here is to try and not get ambushed by a higher-level sneak attacker. :shock:

And you yourself called this guy an "Assassin" Wouldn't it be even worse if the rules didn't let you build an "assassin" who can drop guys with one hit from an ambush? If what you want is an 80's action movie style mook-ninja then try giving him one level of thief and the rest multiclass soldier (or you could also try single-class pirate for similar effect). They get off one or two good hits then drop like the nameless/faceless extras they are :lol: .

Oh, minor nit-pick. A suprise round is a standard action so he only gets 1 attack from ambush. However assuming he wins Initative on the first round he can then Rapid Shot so he may potentially get three senak attacks before the party can do anything.

Hope that helps.

 

[worldeater]

First of all you are using a villain who is 2 levels higher than the the average party level. So yea, this will be a tough fight.

yeah, but their combined levels are double his. interestingly, if you think about it, this guy would have a lot more trouble against eight 1st level PC's.

Secondly, you have designed a villain who specalizes in ambushes, and then you set him in an ambush scenario. That is you are letting him play to his strengths. So again this will make for a tougher encounter. Assuming your surviving party members can pin the guy down in astraight-up manly fight they should be able to dispatch him without trouble.

one of the thief's other advantages is lots of skill points.. so naturally he's going to have a high hide skill. now, assuming this guy isn't a total moron, of course he is going to be ambushing people left and right. that's what he does. the PC's could potentially ambush him, if they knew where he was, but they don't. I don't think the players are clever enough to lure him into an ambush of their own.
in a straight-up manly fight they could definately take him down, but with two or three of them maimed right off the bat, well, i don't know.

So I don't really see anything wrong with the mechanics here. Just a tough encounter where the villain is holding most of the cards (ambush) right from the start. The lesson here is to try and not get ambushed by a higher-level sneak attacker. :shock:

indeed.. the problem with the mechanics is that he is shockingly deadly compared to 4th level characters from some other classes.
since his job is being a higher-level sneak attacker, it's pretty hard to avoid getting ambushed by him...

And you yourself called this guy an "Assassin" Wouldn't it be even worse if the rules didn't let you build an "assassin" who can drop guys with one hit from an ambush? If what you want is an 80's action movie style mook-ninja then try giving him one level of thief and the rest multiclass soldier (or you could also try single-class pirate for similar effect). They get off one or two good hits then drop like the nameless/faceless extras they are :lol: .

what i don't like is that this guy's arrows do way more damage than a critical hit by another guy's arrows. why can't a barbarian do the same thing? an arrow in the throat is an arrow in the throat.. know what i mean? the only difference should be that the sniper has been training to specifically hit people in the throat for years, and should be more likely to do it. that's why i suggested an extended crit threat range type of mechanic.
the only problem there is that a typical crit from a bow won't drop a high-level character, which is a fundamental issue in the D20 rules, or not, depending on your style of play.

Oh, minor nit-pick. A suprise round is a standard action so he only gets 1 attack from ambush. However assuming he wins Initative on the first round he can then Rapid Shot so he may potentially get three senak attacks before the party can do anything.

good point. yikes. that's a little much. compare that to a 4th level borderer or nomad ambushing somebody -- he still might get the 3 attacks in, but they will be farless damaging. why? borderers/nomads can't aim for vital spots as good as thieves? :? many o f them probably hunt for a living and grew up using a bow every day..

 

[Foxworthy]

.... which is to say i'm not a big fan of the whole class system and a lot of the racial bonuses: 'everyone from zingara gets +x sneak attack, because zingarans are sneaky'

Well d20 is a class based system which uses racial bonuses. If that's not what you like you could always switch to a system you do like and just use the setting since you don't like the idea of racial or class archtypes.

anyway, the reason i brought this up is because there's a recurring-villain type NPC in my campaign who is a Shemite assassin. So level 4 thief from shem, with rapid shot (we won't even think about other feats...).
okay, so if he hides (being a thief from shem, his hide bonus is 12...), he can get the drop on the party pretty easily and dish out two shots with an almost assured hit (+7 to hit, against flat-footed DC!). these two shots are going to each do average damage of 20.
this is one 4th level guy against four 2nd level guys. two of them are probably down before they can react! imagine if the level counts were even; say if he had 4 1st level henchmen...? total party kill. game over.

Well why would he kill the whole group? If he's a recurrign character staying to fight would be a bad idea. He can't use rapid shot int he surprise round so if he surprises the players, (who could, and at least one should have a spot of at least +5), then if he wins initiatives should run while he can get a way for sure. He could stay and rapid shot two more of the players, but being a fourth level npc he shouldn't have a lot of hit points the remaining player should be able to flee or get into melee with the shooter.

Of course the shooter could be far away, but the player should then be able to find total cover somewhere.

Yes the fourth level thief should be able to kill the whole party if everything is in his favor. The thing is the players should be able to not blunder blindly into a death trap.

Damage is what 1d6 + 3d8 so on average 17. That's not so insurmountable depending on your PC's hit point totals. Second level hit points for a scholar would be an average of 9 so that damage on average wouldn't even kill a scholar for sure.

 

[malkiedawn]

I'm not one for rules discussions, but since I like to play these sneaky types I thought I would put my thoughts in.
IMHO - thieves have the sneak attack damage rules because they don't fight like fighters. OK you can give them stats to enable them to swing weapons alongside the barbarians, soldiers etc., but that begs the question - why bother?
To me the whole point of a thief is that he stabs and runs. My character just now is proving lethal with her thrown daggers but is not so hot if anyone actually gets close enough to hit her.
So I think it comes down to the roleplaying. We roleplay to have fun. If I choose a thief, I play a thief. If things get unbalanced I expect the DM to use his god-like powers to balance things, because I assume GM's want to have fun too. Reading the threads here today has impressed me that so many people have interpreted the rules in a way that works for them, and while I am sure that careful perusal of the rules would enable a right or wrong decision on sneak attack rules, I can't see the point of letting nitpicking influence gaming.
Have fun.

 

[Foxworthy]

First of all you are using a villain who is 2 levels higher than the the average party level. So yea, this will be a tough fight.

yeah, but their combined levels are double his. interestingly, if you think about it, this guy would have a lot more trouble against eight 1st level PC's.

That's not the way the d20 system works. a 5th level character is not equal to five first level characters. The only reason why mutliple people of low levels are effective in Conan is because of the multiple attacker rules. Otherwise 8 1st level characters wouldn't be anything compared to one fourth level character.

Secondly, you have designed a villain who specalizes in ambushes, and then you set him in an ambush scenario. That is you are letting him play to his strengths. So again this will make for a tougher encounter. Assuming your surviving party members can pin the guy down in astraight-up manly fight they should be able to dispatch him without trouble.

one of the thief's other advantages is lots of skill points.. so naturally he's going to have a high hide skill. now, assuming this guy isn't a total moron, of course he is going to be ambushing people left and right. that's what he does. the PC's could potentially ambush him, if they knew where he was, but they don't. I don't think the players are clever enough to lure him into an ambush of their own.
in a straight-up manly fight they could definately take him down, but with two or three of them maimed right off the bat, well, i don't know.

Well obviously the players tactics matter a lot. If the are following a set path that the assassin they know is after them knows about then they deserve what they get. A thief isn't going to be able to track the party so he has to know where they are going to set up an ambush. Also he can't really sneak up on them as the group is moving since he can't follow at the same speed they are traveling without taking penalties to his hide. Really them walking into the death trap is what is going to kill them.

what i don't like is that this guy's arrows do way more damage than a critical hit by another guy's arrows. why can't a barbarian do the same thing? an arrow in the throat is an arrow in the throat.. know what i mean? the only difference should be that the sniper has been training to specifically hit people in the throat for years, and should be more likely to do it. that's why i suggested an extended crit threat range type of mechanic.
the only problem there is that a typical crit from a bow won't drop a high-level character, which is a fundamental issue in the D20 rules, or not, depending on your style of play.

First off you assuming that all crits hit the best spot, which isn't always a true thing. Hit Points are more than just physical health just like damage is more than physical impact.

A thief aims for the throat at the time where his opponent has the least chance to accidentally or intentional avoid the hit. The barbarian just shoots and hopes he hits.

They still could do the same damage but the thief is trained to do more.

As for the crit thing with a bow it depends, a hunting bow won't but any other bow could with massive damage and str bonuses. Hell a bossonian bow that crits would do 3d12 points of damage plus three times the str mod.

Bows can be very deadly.

good point. yikes. that's a little much. compare that to a 4th level borderer or nomad ambushing somebody -- he still might get the 3 attacks in, but they will be farless damaging. why? borderers/nomads can't aim for vital spots as good as thieves? :? many o f them probably hunt for a living and grew up using a bow every day..

They can aim just as well, they get the same crit range as them. They just don't know how to take the best advantage of someone or thing letting their guard down. Plus if a borderer or nomad wants to be able to sneak attack then can just take levels in thief.

You seem to have major problems with d20 since you don't like the concept of a class system, would you like recommendation on other systems that you could use the setting with?

 

[worldeater]

Well d20 is a class based system which uses racial bonuses. If that's not what you like you could always switch to a system you do like and just use the setting since you don't like the idea of racial or class archtypes.

indeed, but it would require more effort, and im already 6 sessions into the campaign..

Well why would he kill the whole group? If he's a recurrign character staying to fight would be a bad idea. He can't use rapid shot int he surprise round so if he surprises the players, (who could, and at least one should have a spot of at least +5), then if he wins initiatives should run while he can get a way for sure. He could stay and rapid shot two more of the players, but being a fourth level npc he shouldn't have a lot of hit points the remaining player should be able to flee or get into melee with the shooter.

indeed, if he was close, he might run, but presumably the point of the ambush is to kill someone, so he'd probably try to do that if he could. in the previous encounter with him, he just shot an NPC and left, to avoid fighting the whole party. but anyway i was making the point that he could, if he wanted to, massacre half the party in 1.5 rounds.
fleeing, they'd be shot in the back. getting into melee? well, they'd still have to spot him! bombarding them with arrows doesn't mean they auto-spot (although it helps)

Of course the shooter could be far away, but the player should then be able to find total cover somewhere.

yeah, if they didn't jump to cover right away, they'd be completely hosed. if the do get cover, then they'd be pinned down. would definately be an interesting scenario, but probably a bit too difficult for the PC's...

Yes the fourth level thief should be able to kill the whole party if everything is in his favor. The thing is the players should be able to not blunder blindly into a death trap.

his skills are much higher than theirs... without some serious deus ex machina on my part/going easy on them/playing nice, he'd surely get the drop on them. the question is, should a 4th level thief be so much more powerful than 4x2nd level characters of other classes? these guys could eat a 4th level soldier for breakfast.

Damage is what 1d6 + 3d8 so on average 17. That's not so insurmountable depending on your PC's hit point totals. Second level hit points for a scholar would be an average of 9 so that damage on average wouldn't even kill a scholar for sure.

damage is D10+1+3D8, +1 again if within 100'... this is a shemite bow. average damage is ~20, which is a hell of a lot of damage against someone at level 2..
somehow, average damage for a non-sneak crit would be only 15... how does getting shot in the back of the head (by a thief only!) hurt more than getting shot in the front of the head?
incidentally, that scholar being at -8 means he's dead unless someone immediately treats him, which just means they're dead too. hah.[/i]