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4 people online in the last 5 minutes - 0 members, 0 anon and 4 guests. (Most ever was 30 at 14:53:42 Wed May 19 2010) |
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Thelim_BlackSoul Offline 522 posts Very Old Dragon  Reply |
This I strongly agree with. The way social skills are handled sucks... completely. If you play social skills by the book, it is absolutely impossible to play an epic campaign. | ||||||
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talint Offline 266 posts Adult Dragon  Reply |
i dislike the way skills are handled, too. too few skill points (do characters learn ANYTHING besides fighting or spells?) and not enough variety of choices for each class. you mean fighters couldn't pick up how to lie themselves? it's nonsense.
they should almost make all social skills class skills, a couple more skill points per level, and then let players choose if their characters are socially inept. | ||||
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da_chicken  Offline 570 posts Ancient Dragon   Reply |
Go for it.
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Essence  Offline 1253 posts Spectral Dragon  Gay Ming Pokémon  Reply |
YES! Absolutely, yes, they should! Considering that the Fighter gets 4 iterative attacks and the Rogue gets 1 single Sneak Attack in the same period of time, you're kumquat straight the Rogue had better be able to Sneak Attack every round -- it's the only way for the Rogue to be able to meaningfully participate in combat. The 3.0 design squad has said publically that they playtested the Rogue as being able to Sneak Attack once per round, every round. There is no reason to ever disallow Rogues from doing just that.
If they choose to spend Skill Points or Feats on it, sure. But PCs are adventurers -- they don't have time to sit around at the local bar learning the intricacies of social interation, because they're busy studying things that actually keep them alive.
You also forget that, in a world where 90% of the populace consists of 1st level commoners (*cough*), 4 ranks in Bluff, Diplomacy, and Sense Motive is about as consummately 'ept' as anyone needs to be in a normal social setting. And any character of any class can easily have that down pat by 5th level. The choice you want to have available to you already exists -- just because it's a clearly suboptimal choice doesn't mean you can't do it. Essence | ||||||||||
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Draco_Argentum Offline 2420 posts Legendary Dragon  Reply |
Essence being socially ept is one thing. But the power assotiated with having many ranks in a social is not countered by a level based defense. Compare Dominate monster with diplomacy. Everyone gets a save against the first, the second you get squat.
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FrankTrollman Offline 2398 posts Legendary Dragon Reply |
Sure you do. When someone Dominates you - you are out of the combat. Working for the other side even.
When you get feinted you take a sneak attack - and then you take damage. You stay in the combat with your hit points. People are always kvetching about how Save-or-Dies are "unfair" and you should be able to use your hit points or something - and then when there's something that legitimately just works against your hit points - people kvetch anyway. Get over it. Sometimes you take damage, and the system is resilient enough to handle that. That's not a problem, that's original design intent - and it works fine. Some moves are Level dependent - such as Disarms that scale linearly in effectiveness with BAB. They are for allowing Fighters to school crazy weak people. Some moves are anti-level dependent - like Trip that scales only with size and strength and ignores BAB. They are for weak creatures to have desperation tactics to help out against superior enemies. Some moves are simply skill dependent - like Feint. They are for specific types of characters to gain an advantage over others. Swashbucklers are supposed to Feint against non-swashbucklers. It is a problem that the Swashbuckler Fighter is not supported - but it is not a problem that Swashbucklers always feint against non-swashbucklers. -Frank | ||||
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talint Offline 266 posts Adult Dragon Reply |
i guess here's my problem with this entire debate...
the rogue has an average BAB progression and a crappy weapon selection. if they were intended to be major fighters, both of these facts would be different. even IF the designers intended rogues to sneak attack every round, the additional 5d6 for a 5th level rogue would overcompensate past a fighter's ability in many occasions for having fewer attacks. example in 3.5... *** a 5th level fighter has 1 attack against a giant owl with her longsword, and with that attack, hits 70% of the time for a mean damage of 9.5 hp (with weapon focus and specialization). *** a 5th level rogue that feints the creature with a rapier (you would still have about a +4 over the owl's ability to prevent it without feats, or far greater than 50%) still hits 70% of the time (with weapon finesse) for an average of 14 hp. *** in this case, greater than 50% of the time, the rogue is going to hit the owl more effectively than the fighter. the fighter would kill the owl with 3 successful hits, while the rogue would take only 2. thus, the fighter has to take a backseat in combat to the rogue in this encounter, and a fighter shouldn't have to take backseat to a relatively weaker rogue (with only -1- feat instead of the fighter's 2) for whatever reason in combat. granted, this would be different for a creature with a lower dexterity bonus to AC, but it is still a pretty good example of what happens under the new bluff rules. if the old bluff rules were used, the rogue would overwhelmingly overshadow the fighter in this example combat. last i checked, the rogue's primary use in d&d isn't on the battlefield anyway. with an average attack progression, you would expect the rogue to be (at best) a back-up blade, not the front-line combatant of the party. let the fighter do what the fighter does best, which is combat, and the rogue to do what the rogue does best (which is pretty much everything else). | ||||
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Thelim_BlackSoul Offline 522 posts Very Old Dragon Reply |
It is a bit unfair for someone wiht sense motive to also add their BaB, I have to admit.
What if we simply said that you could use either sense motive or your base attack? It makes sense that a skilled fighter will be much harder to feint against than a 1st level commoner, so I'm not sure why it would be argued that this shouldn't be the case. If you want to feint against someone whose seen that much combat, it's going to be damn difficult, and it should be. This guy has dodged so many blows, seen every trick in the book and is probably 5 steps ahead of you in any fight. He's a 15th level fighter, he's gonna be a wombat to beat and he should be. If your rogue always wants to succeed with feinting, then he should buy a magic item that gives a bonus to bluff, the same way a fighter buys a +5 sword when he always wants to hit with his attack rolls. In fact the bluff item helps him out of combat alot too, so I don't see a big problem with it. I don't see a problem with a rogue requiring a little help from items to feint against super skilled opponents. How the level system works, he's gonna have at least a +3, if he maxed bluff and the other guy is a pure fighter BaB. | ||||
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da_chicken Offline 570 posts Ancient Dragon Reply |
Or is much better than and. Like grapple and escape artist, or trip and balance.
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Carcharoth Offline 1050 posts Great Wyrm  Gar! That be the best the scurvy mods could do...  Reply |
Well, here's a variation I devised from da_chicken's idea. Let me know what you think.
Feint rolls should be like grapple checks, but using Int instead of Str, and have no modifiers for size. BAB+Int is your standard roll. For every 5 ranks you have in the Bluff skill, add a +1 synergy bonus to your Feint checks when you start the feint. For every 5 ranks you have in the SEnse Motive skill, add a +1 synergy bonus to your Feint checks when you are resisting the feint. The Improved Feint feat adds 4 to all feint checks, and allows you to feint as a MEA. Thoughts? I'll post some reasoning in a little while, but I have to go to deal with something IRL at the moment. 
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FrankTrollman Offline 2398 posts Legendary Dragon Reply |
Would anyone really have a problem with Feint simply always working?
Honestly... you spend a Standard Action and don't kill anyone - and then you get to make one attack as if they had no Dex bonus. Big whoop. You can spend one action running behind a tree and hiding, and your next attack negates their dex bonus and gives you +2 to-hit. You don't really see a lot of people doing that because its not a fantastic combat action, really. -Frank | ||||
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Thelim_BlackSoul Offline 522 posts Very Old Dragon Reply |
Actually no, not really. I think feint could be converted into a manuever that always worked from a balance standpoint. I generally think that when there's a roll to be made however, it should mean something. If you want to take the roll out entirely, I think that'd be fine too. I always found feinting to be one of those things that just pointlessly punished low level characters, like casting spells on the defensive. Once you got to be a certain level, a feint was assured, and you can always cast spells defensively regardless of what spell level it was. I hate the idea of rolls not meaning anything and skill DCs that don't scale properly. If the roll exists, then it should scale up reasonably. It shouldn't be harder for a 1st level rogue to feint against a 1st level fighter than it is for a 10th level rogue to feint against a 10th level fighter. And as a side note I never really liked the feinting system in the first place, since it encourages you to try to disengage the battle as soon as someone feints against you. I'd prefer if all feinting was a move equivalent action, and improved feint let you feint once per round as a free action, though of course, the feint should have a chance to fail under this system. | ||||||
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Draco_Argentum Offline 2420 posts Legendary Dragon Reply |
Why can't feint be an attack action. That way the cost of useing it is less insane?
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Thelim_BlackSoul Offline 522 posts Very Old Dragon Reply |
Well, if you do this then you have to relate feinting to BaB in some way, otherwise you always have someone use a feint on their last iterative attack. | ||||||
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zuche Offline 408 posts Old Dragon  Reply |
People who combine dodge bonuses, Combat Expertise, and tumbling with fighting defensively to drive their AC through the roof while buying time for reinforcements to arrive? Yeah. Losing 10 or more from AC sucks, especially if you went through all the trouble to make that an option. | ||||||
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Dragon_Snack Offline 967 posts Great Wyrm  Reply |
zuche, I'll bet most people miss the fact that you lose a dodge bonus when you lose your Dexterity bonus. I guess a house rule is in order for the use of Feint. My guess is the designers never thought of that either.
My Rogues hardly ever used Feint in 3.0. Taking the feat is the only thing that makes it worthwhile, but unlike Fighters, Rogues don't have that plethura of feats to spare.
1. 5th level Rogue gets a +3d6 Sneak Attack 2. Give said Fighter a greatsword so he can go to town damage wise and use Power Attack. Said Fighter probably also has a better strength than the Rogue 3. Giant Owl, +4 BAB, +2 Wisdom, +6 total. Rogue, +8 maxxed out Bluff, -4 penalty non-humanoid, +4 total (sure, add charisma, but if you have good charisma, what other stat suffers?) 4. Giant Owl is a CR 3, a 5th level character SHOULD go to town on them 5. At 6th level Mr Fighter gets an iterive attack for more possible damage, dropping the hapless Owl faster Rogues are still back up melee fighters, but nerfing Bluff just handicaps them unjustly (should I say something about lip service to the almighty "balance" again). All I have to do to "prove" Rogues can't compete in combat is bring in an Undead or Plant creature and the Sneak Attack goes bye-bye... | ||||||
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talint Offline 266 posts Adult Dragon Reply |
actually, i chose 5th level in that example for a reason...
1) the 5th level rogue always has the +3d6 damage from a SA. the fighter, on the other hand, would have to take a very specific progression to have the qualities you suggested. to do so, the fighter would have to sacrifice other important fighterish attributes such as AC to deal more damage. 3) if the fighter used power attack, the fighter would be far less likely to hit the owl than the rogue, still meaning the fighter is at a disadvantage to the rogue's combat prowess. 4) i chose 5th level because i intentionally wanted to rule out iterative attacks the fighter would receive. this was a hypothetical control to maintain the example's validity. dragon_snack, i agree that way up in levels, the fighter should have an easier time dealing out damage compared to the rogue as the BAB's of the two classes diverge. at 5th level though, this is not the case. regardless, at 5th level and at any point in the game, this important maxim stands... for sake of game balance, no class at any point in their attack progression should be able to outfight the fighter. | ||||
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zuche Offline 408 posts Old Dragon Reply |
I did too before a DM decided to drive that point home to my dwarven fighter/rogue quite forcefully... with a doppleganger rogue. Yeah, I may as well not have bothered with taking Sense Motive for all the good it did in that encounter. Good thing the sneak attack follow-up missed, because I had already taken a hit and was in no shape for this fight. (Hence the defensive stance trying to buy myself enough time for reinforcements. No dice, though, and fair enough, I guess.) The system change can be rather unfair, it's true. It almost forces rogues to work with other characters to set up their sneak attacks against the toughest foes. Of course, the flanking can occasionally allow for multiple sneak attacks compared to the feint. Rogue vs. rogue gets tedious at high levels, though, since no one can ever hope to score a sneak attack. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the concern. Feint becomes nearly useless at higher levels because an equal level fighter, assuming no no ranks in Sense Motive and 11 Wis to 11 Cha for a rogue with maximum ranks in Bluff, has a roughly 50% chance of scoring a sneak attack on the next attack, provided that it's successful, am I reading that right? Against wizards, you can always count on the Cloak of Displacement to ruin the fact that the rogue does well against them otherwise with feint. Spells might work, but the short durations might make that more trouble than it's worth to some. Am I still understanding? With low-level enemies, the chance to score the feint is generally very good (+5-6 vs. +1 will be common at 1st level, but +8-11 is realizable for those determined to be good at lying, and +13 is possible, though unlikely), but generally not worth the trouble, since the extra damage is generally the same you'd receive if you attacked last round, or it involves taking Combat Expertise and Feint at the earliest possibilties, and having good chances of feinting each round, but poor chances to hit the target. Meanwhile, the 6th level rogue Bluffmaster (+16 assuming a 14 Cha) has neglected so much to do this one thing well that when faced with a situation where sneak attacks are impossible he has nothing to recommend him - and the chances are good that a paladin of equal level (assuming 14 Wis and 9 ranks in Sense Motive, he's got a +17 on the check to avoid feint efforts) isn't falling for it either. Do I understand all of that right? Is the problem for most people that the rogue can't sneak attack effectively against a foe of equal level, with the balor and dragon being an extra insult? No help me understand one more thing - does this encourage the rogue to work more with the rest of the party, and is that, in itself, a good thing? No, I know there are times the rogue has to be alone, and I do see how this fix to Feint vs. Bluff checks can hurt at such times. On the other hand, should "add BAB to Sense Motive" be done away with, or would it be better to change it to make "the fighter may add his class levels to the Sense Motive check opposing a feint attempt," and make it a class feature on par with bardic knowledge of wild empathy, an actual benefit for the fighter class? Or does this do nothing for the fighter save make the fighter/rogue an even sweeter deal? Sorry to run on like this, but it's easier to see where I might be misunderstanding if you see where my mind is running on this subject. | ||||||
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Dragon_Snack Offline 967 posts Great Wyrm Reply |
talint,
1. The Rogue doesn't "always have" the +3d6, he has to make the Bluff check first. The Fighters "very specific progression"? I only mentioned ONE feat, a 5th level Fighter will have 3 bonus feats to choose it. That's no "sacrafice", the Fighter can still don his full plate for the almighty AC. If anything, saying the Rogue has Weapon Finesse makes him sacrafice, since they don't get bonus feats. 3 (?). The Fighter could make a PA of 2, giving him the same chance to hit as the Rogue (Strength and Dexterity being equal). 4. Fair enough, but using one specific instance makes for a tenuous argument. zuche, Not sure where you're coming from. I think nerfing the Feint is a bad thing because you have to: 1. Spend a round using it OR a feat and your iteritive attacks (if any) 2. Spend skill points keeping your Bluff up there, even with the Rogues allotment, skill points still run thin While those are the major items, the Rogue also usually doesn't have the uber weapon to do the extra damage that the Fighter does either, since they will have magical stuff to let do their Roguely duties better instead of weapons. I'm not saying the Rogue should be the any better than the Fighter, but there are so many ways to lose the Sneak Attack damage that piling on another one (that was a specific Rogue schtick) only lessens their value in combat further. The Rogue has to be separated from the party at times, so he needs a way to fend for himself. I would be more than willing to let "add BAB to sense motive checks vs. Feint attempts" be a Fighter class skill (at least at a certain level to keep Ftr/Rog from being pure cheese) since combat is their schtick they should be aware of others fighting styles. But Mr Barbarian is supposed to be Rage - all out attack and Mr Paladin has his Sense Motive to counter the Feint and his mount (and both have the hit points to survive the extra damage from Sneak Attack). Actually, I would rather they had never added the Improved Feint feat at all and left it as written in 3.0, but that's another topic all together... "the 6th level rogue Bluffmaster (+16 assuming a 14 Cha)" +9 max ranks, +4 IF feat, +2 Cha. What am I missing? | ||||
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Unholydragoon  Offline 586 posts Ancient Dragon Reply |
He has a chraisma of 12.  Another player, with magical enhancement, as a +17 to all three scores as well. I have taken to hyper-literalizing the skills and using charisma checks for anything that even remotely doesn't fall under the skills. But I am getting fought tooth and nail by my players for it. The social skill will, in the right circumstances, take control of a campaign away from the DM if the players are smart. On-Topic - that is why my version of the fighter has Sense motive as a class skill. I won't ever be using this craptastic BAB to skill nonsense.
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Tae_Kwon_Dan Offline 2121 posts Legendary Dragon  Reply |
I've been thinking about this and personally I'm thinking of adding a Feint skill that goes on the Fighter, Paladin, and Rogue skill lists. The skill is CHA based, but to Feint in combat you make opposed checks of Feint +BAB, for both sides. It would function normally in all other aspects. IF would add +4 to Feint attempts and to Feint checks to resist feint.
Thoughts?
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Dragon_Snack Offline 967 posts Great Wyrm Reply |
That may be better, but then you run into the low skill points of most classes...
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Unholydragoon Offline 586 posts Ancient Dragon Reply |
Well, if we go with my fighter variant for 3.N, it is less of a problem (4 sp/level). Only the Paladin gets hosed. But a Feint Skill would be usefull. Would ye use that for the ability to hide while observed? It would make sense.
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Tae_Kwon_Dan Offline 2121 posts Legendary Dragon Reply |
I wouldn't mind bump up skill points as is so it's sort of a non-issue, but I would say personally I'm willing to ditch my ranks in swim, ride, and climb for not getting feinted.
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Unholydragoon Offline 586 posts Ancient Dragon Reply |
TKD - would this also apply to using a bluff type feint to make a hide check (for crowds and such)?
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