but i'm saying this guy would go down way faster against 8x1st level pc's... even without getting bonus on attack for multiple fighters... that's double the spot rolls, and this guy still only gets 2 shots a turn, so more chance somebody's left alive by the time they get him in melee.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.
this is what i wholeheartedly disagree with. are you assuming that barbarians are all dumb? barbarians, rangers, and nomads... anyone who lives in a rural/outdoors environment shoots things for a living. that's a lot of what they do. even if they're not a hunter (which they probably are), they still practice using a ranged weapon. anyone who practices archery is going to be trying to learn how to hit a deer in the eye or throat, not just point-and-hope. that's a lot of what training and experience is about.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.
indeed... thanks. it would require a lot of reworking in all the material i have, and shifting everything mid-way into the campaign. i'd rather just make minor tweaks to the established rules at this point.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?
oh, right, we forgot about that. so, if he engages at long range he's not as deadly. so after the initial shots, the pcs are within charge range of this guy, and he's probably easier to spot. still, half of them are toast...malkiedawn said:Thief: Sneak attack.
"Ranged attacks can only count as sneak attacks if the target is within 30 feet. the thief cannot strike with deadly accuracy from beyond that range."
malkiedawn said: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.
malkiedawn said:So, it's multiclassing then?
I think we often argue the same point from different angles.
I take your point about the rules being there to make things easier, but it seems sometimes as if we all interpret them slightly differently.
So really it comes down to what works for you.
The passion that goes into these forums! - what could we do if we set our minds to other things eh? :wink:
Ok, I can see now that you are new to designing encounters for d20.worldeater said: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.argo said: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.
That is not a balanced encounter even though both sides have 8 character levels (4x2nd level PC vs 1x4th level assassin +4x1st level mook). At a rough guess that encounter is approximately EL 6 which is triple the average party level. So yes, that is a possible TPK. And no I'm not surprised by that.worldeater said: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.... you are the GM, you are designing the encounter. If you have him siting in a hunting blind waiting where he knows the PC's are going to walk under him then you have just given him an advantage. You have made the encounter harder the same as if you had equiped him with a master work Stygian bow instead of a crapy hunting bow. Thus the encounter is more dangerous than his pure levels indicate. That is not a flaw in the system nor is it a feature. It is your judgement call as the GM.indeed.. the problem with the mechanics is that he is shockingly deadly compared to 4th level characters from some other classes.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:
since his job is being a higher-level sneak attacker, it's pretty hard to avoid getting ambushed by him...
worldeater said: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..
thankfully conan doesn't use CR. i'm quite familiar with designing encounters for conan and capable of running a balanced game despite the questionable ruleset.Ok, I can see now that you are new to designing encounters for d20.
A fourth level thief should be CR4. Meaning that he is (as a general rule) an appropriate chalenge for a party of four fourth level PC's. Sending a group up against a challenge 2 levels higher than them is, by definition, a "tough fight".
Think about it this way. It takes 1000 XP to make it to second level. It requires 6000 XP to make it to fourth level. So your level-4 Assassin quite literally has more experience than the entire party put together Shocked . When I put it in those terms does it seem so unreasonable that he can screw them over so badly? Twisted Evil
That is not a balanced encounter even though both sides have 8 character levels (4x2nd level PC vs 1x4th level assassin +4x1st level mook). At a rough guess that encounter is approximately EL 6 which is triple the average party level. So yes, that is a possible TPK. And no I'm not surprised by that.
So what you really have with Mr Assassin here is an encounter that flip-flops between CR 3 (reasonable) and CR 5 (deadly) depending on the luck of the PC's in that critical surprise round.
And I'm ok with that. I can think of countless examples both from real-life military history and from popular fiction where ambushes are either super-deadly for the poor sucker caught in the trap or else backfire horribly. The scenario described seems to fit quite well with the "grim n gritty" Conan meliu IMHO.
Well.... you are the GM, you are designing the encounter. If you have him siting in a hunting blind waiting where he knows the PC's are going to walk under him then you have just given him an advantage. You have made the encounter harder the same as if you had equiped him with a master work Stygian bow instead of a crapy hunting bow. Thus the encounter is more dangerous than his pure levels indicate. That is not a flaw in the system nor is it a feature. It is your judgement call as the GM.
Don't just pass it off as "well, he is a thief with ranks in hide so of course he ambushes them!". If you want the encounter to be more reasonable for the PC's then do something about it. How about if you have a dying npc stumble up to the group and deliver a warning that their enemies have hired this deadly proffesional assassin to go after them. Now the PC's are on the lookout maybe they will not walk blindly into an area that looks like a set-up, maybe they will suprise you and come up with a clever way to lure this guy out into the open. You're the GM, design the encounter you want.
do tell... (i know that you have to re-hide if you're shooting from hiding, with a -20. but i would ignore that rule at long range, and of course at long range he wouldn't get sneak attack, so unless he was totally drunk, he would probably wait til he could see the whites of their eyes, if possible. so he only gets one shot off before they see him, probably).Those are my thoughts on encounter balance. I also have some thoughts on the rules for running an ambush (I've seen you make a few errors in the last couple of posts) but I will post more on that when I get home this evening.
Just because you COULD doesn't mean it's likely. I would tend to think carrying a sword 5 - 6' in length on one's back makes it difficult balance along that narrow ledge or sneak through that open window. It's all a matter of preference of course, but arguing that sneak attack is ALWAYS broken and then support getting rid of it through an extremely specific situational condition is hardly a persuasive argument.
But hey, it's your game. More power to you.
Azgulor
Ichabod said:I've been toying with ideas for how crits would deal additional damage not related to the base damage since, currently, you can't kill anything meaningful with a d4 weapon no matter how well you roll further making smaller weapons undesirable.
Ironically, maybe, we use Torn Asunder where crits with even lame weapons can matter, except, my feeling is that it mostly matters when screwing over PCs and has little impact to the antagonists.
For instance, you could say any crit deals 1d10+5 additional damage so that a d4 weapon has some hope of doing massive damage (with a strength bonus or whatever).
Ichabod said:I've been toying with ideas for how crits would deal additional damage not related to the base damage since, currently, you can't kill anything meaningful with a d4 weapon no matter how well you roll further making smaller weapons undesirable.
Ironically, maybe, we use Torn Asunder where crits with even lame weapons can matter, except, my feeling is that it mostly matters when screwing over PCs and has little impact to the antagonists.
For instance, you could say any crit deals 1d10+5 additional damage so that a d4 weapon has some hope of doing massive damage (with a strength bonus or whatever).
worldeater said: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.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 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..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.
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]
I was going to run a comparison against a 4th soldier here but foxworthy already beat me to it. Basically THF can match or beat the thief's sneak attack damage and he can do that on every attack, every round. Whereas the thief can only sneak attack under very specific circumstances. Heck, anyone with Uncanny Dodge simply ruins his whole day.worldeater said:A fourth level thief should be CR4. Meaning that he is (as a general rule) an appropriate chalenge for a party of four fourth level PC's. Sending a group up against a challenge 2 levels higher than them is, by definition, a "tough fight".
i'm sorry, but, that system is no good.
you're telling me that a guy fighting 4 of his equals teaming up on him is an appropriate 'challenge'. sounds like an automatic victory with a chance of wounds!
assuming a 4th level soldier a CR4 as well... these guys could take down a 4th level soldier pretty easily at their current level.
...
it seems unreasonable that 4 levels in any other class would make him a much easier encounter.
And this is a perfect example of where the thief is not more powerful than the soldier. A 4th level soldier would sneer at a squad of 8 level 1 mooks as he cleaved his way through them. The thief only has a hard time because he can't take them all down with an ambush and after that he can't use his sneak attack. Which is one of the weaknesses of sneak attack mentioned before.i also understand that the one guy is more effective than 4 weaker guys out together, and thus is a tougher encounter than 4 weaker guys, BUT the fact is, this guy would have a harder time up against 8x1st level guys than up against 4x2nd level guys, just because he can only kill so many per turn.
Here you are wrong. Once the thief fires on them he exposes his position and they do see where he is. The exception to this is to use the rules for Sniping, however that imposes a -20 penalty on his hide check and it takes a move action. Which means he is back to one attack per round now. It also means he can't do this on a surprise round (1 standard action only) so if he intends to be Sniping then he basically has to give up his surprise action, IOW he makes one sneak attack on the first round and then re-hides.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)
nothing in the rules says thieves have lower STR than soldiers or do less damage
i'm mainly talking about the mechanics of sneak attack and how it makes a character buffer than his level suggests
my main point here; sniping like this shouldn't be the sole domain of thieves and pirates
assuming a 4th level soldier a CR4 as well... these guys could take down a 4th level soldier pretty easily at their current level.
worldeater said:the thief could just as easily have a strength 18. there's no rule that says fighters get better STR than thieves.
worldeater said: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..
