Talk:Practiced Sneak Attack (3.5e Feat)

Ratings

Eiji-kun favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!

I on the other hand love Practiced X feats. They promote multiclassing, which for noncasters is pretty much a requirement for them to keep up with others. An argument could be made for High, but there is nothing wrong with the design philosophy. On the contrary, its just what we need. It's not a vertical power boost, for the thing with all practiced feats (and an important thing) is the inability to break the HD limit, so your power is always of an appropriate level while you are free to grow horizontally via multiclassing. Three cheers for more options!

The thing is that additions to damage stack vertically for non-casters. This is a clear "do what you already do, but better" for people who have access to sneak attack. It means that at a cost of a single level of rogue (let's not even go into swordsage) you get 3d6 of sneak attack, which is huge. You shouldn't in general be penalized too hard in your vertical growth for gaining horizontal growth, but on the other hand you shouldn't be made stronger vertically for gaining horizontal power, which is what this feat does. --Ghostwheel (talk) 17:08, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Quibble - pre-req is SA as class feature, which stance does not actually grant. Swordsage doesn't work. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 17:55, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Beside it possibly 3d6, but up to your HD. I have a hard time seeing how this break the game. --Leziad (talk) 19:01, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

	Ghostwheel opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	Balance on this should be at LEAST High, but far more important than that, I dislike this feat strongly because it gives a strong deterrent to taking more levels in a class (since often SA is the primary reason to continue taking levels in it), and even more importantly, is a boring straight up vertical boost in power which goes against the design philosophies I believe in.

By rating this oppose, you are indicating that it should be removed from the main nav. Your reasons for this seem to largely be 'discourages single classing' and 'goes against the design philosophies you believe in', which seem pretty crap and largely insufficient to warrant a removal. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 17:55, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

And that I dislike it and that I think it's bad for the game don't make a difference? :-P --Ghostwheel (talk) 00:14, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I think the point is that you should be rating it 1/4 unless you absolutely think the site shouldn't even show it. --Aarnott (talk) 00:26, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Pretty much that. "I don't like it and it would be bad for my games, so remove it" is crap, while "I don't like it and it would be bad for my games, so you shouldn't use it" is fine. Though I'd expect a bit more objective analysis and explanation if you think it shouldn't even be shown. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 01:39, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Comments

My complaints about his oppose aside, I don't disagree with Ghost that this is weird... during the early levels. It has a pretty decent impact if you take 1 level in an SA class and then 4 levels in anything else. I'm not sure it's too big an impact at 5, and I certainly don't care about a couple of extra SA dice at 9, but pushing it back a couple of levels with prereqs couldn't hurt (say, 3 levels in a SA granting class). - Tarkisflux ^Talk 17:55, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

It's a lot different from Practiced Spellcaster in that it gives you everything the other class gave you (not just caster level). I'm partial to my own implementation for BAB: Practiced Combatant. --Aarnott (talk) 18:41, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what you're getting at Aarnott. This doesn't give you uncanny dodge, or evasion, or anything else the other class would give you. It's just a couple of SA dice. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 01:39, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I see the point about early levels; I think I'll change the requirement to +2d6 Sneak attack from a Class Feature so you can't just 1 level dip into rogue for it. Spanambula (talk) 08:25, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

"This doesn't give you uncanny dodge, or evasion, or anything else the other class would give you". While this is true, Practiced Spellcaster doesn't give familiar advancement or bonus feats. What I'm getting at is that this feat is giving the class feature at its full power, unlike Practiced Spellcaster, which gives only a part of the class feature (and the less important part at that). Not that they are homebrewed (yet), but with feats like this, it would be possible to make "Practiced Sudden Strike" and "Practiced Skirmish" to have a Rogue 2/Ninja 2/Scout 2 have 8d6 bonus damage dice. I guess with the changed prereq it would be Rogue 3/Ninja 3/Scout 3 for 10d6. It's a slippery slope argument, but it just seems bad to me to have more bonus damage dice than HD considering it is supposed to be at 1/2 progression. I'm on the fence about this one, in general, though. It would be very nice for some builds without going broken, but it also seems to have abuse potential. --Aarnott (talk) 15:49, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

If you're going to focus on practiced spellcaster like that you might as well compare what that gives - moar damage and moar uptime to spells where CL actually matters (but isn't broken), with what this gives - moar damage. It doesn't give any new features or abilities, just more of the same old stuff. It's not that different if used in a non-stacking manner, butI agree that the stacking with other on-strike add-ons is problematic. Soon as I figure out a wording to block that I'll suggest it (if Spanambula doesn't figure one out first). - Tarkisflux ^Talk 17:55, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I guess the way I see it, the thing a spellcaster cares most about with levels is new spell levels. The thing a rogue cares most about (for combat at least) is more SA dice. The more I look at this feat, however, the more I just see it as a more flexible Daring Outlaw type of feat. And those feats already have the same sort of stacking issues that I mentioned, so this one is not as much a problem as I first thought.

I kinda like the idea of having the bonus relate to the amount of investment in the other class though. For example: for every 2 levels you have in a class that grants SA, you count as 1 level higher for the purposes of SA dice, up to your HD. So Rogue 13/Something 7 would have the full SA progression. Rogue 6/Something 6 would have 9 levels of SA. --Aarnott (talk) 18:35, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

If you want stacking SA there better feat than this one, like assassination training or martial stance (assassin stance). This feat can give up to one more SA dice at the price of multiclassing. --Leziad (talk) 18:59, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I ended up making my own, which I think is much more reasonable for a Moderate level of balance (Practiced Sneak Attack). --Aarnott (talk) 19:35, 4 February 2014 (UTC)