Sneak matters: Epic Precision

[metaquad4]

How about a requirement of 7d6 sneak attack (Includes Death Attack) OR Crippling Strike, in exchange for epic precision? Rogue 10 gets 5d6, so they would get a "discount", as well as getting crippling strike, so they would still retain part of what makes them "special".

[Tsidkenu]

How about a requirement of 7d6 sneak attack (Includes Death Attack) OR Crippling Strike, in exchange for epic precision? Rogue 10 gets 5d6, so they would get a "discount", as well as getting crippling strike, so they would still retain part of what makes them "special".

I like this idea because it negates the need to take a superfluous feat (Crippling Strike) if one has a ranged-weapon-using rogue. Melee rogues are going to take crippling strike in any case, I assume.

[AC81]

Tell me again why this is needed? How many people here honestly struggle in the pve environment? Your damage may be cut against certain mobs .... answer: avoid those mobs!!! Playing sneaks on this server is easy. 99% of them will have HiPS, you know, the most powerful and broken feat in the world! Go to areas where you sneak attacks work and go nuts!

Sneaks (if played right) should excel in dm events where their number of skills shine through. You want epic precision, bite the bullet, take your 10 rogue levels. You still have another 20 levels to play with. All this compromise about 7d6 sneak dice isn't a fair bargain. That could be 8 assassin levels and 5 invisible blade levels. Most sneaks take assassin anyway!!! You're hardly penalising them, lol. Keep it at 10 rogue levels, that shows dedication to learning how to perform something more than a crippling strike.

[grymhild]

Tell me again why this is needed? How many people here honestly struggle in the pve environment? Your damage may be cut against certain mobs .... answer: avoid those mobs!!! Playing sneaks on this server is easy. 99% of them will have HiPS, you know, the most powerful and broken feat in the world! Go to areas where you sneak attacks work and go nuts!

Sneaks (if played right) should excel in dm events where their number of skills shine through. You want epic precision, bite the bullet, take your 10 rogue levels. You still have another 20 levels to play with. All this compromise about 7d6 sneak dice isn't a fair bargain. That could be 8 assassin levels and 5 invisible blade levels. Most sneaks take assassin anyway!!! You're hardly penalising them, lol. Keep it at 10 rogue levels, that shows dedication to learning how to perform something more than a crippling strike.

+1

[Boddynock]

Why is this needed...? It isn't, it is being requested. And the prevalent argument that letting others have access to the feat is that it somehow takes something away from rogues. That is a fallacious argument, in order for it to be taking it away, rogues would have to no longer have the same access to it. This change allows more players to have more variability in builds and use those builds to enjoy more of the PvE content without having to avoid areas or roll a different class.

I honestly cannot fathom why any has an issue with giving more tools to more people? Why would someone be resistant to more people being able to enjoy more of the game in more ways? What is there to lose? Honestly?

[Ithilan]

Tell me again why this is needed? How many people here honestly struggle in the pve environment? Your damage may be cut against certain mobs .... answer: avoid those mobs!!! Playing sneaks on this server is easy. 99% of them will have HiPS, you know, the most powerful and broken feat in the world! Go to areas where you sneak attacks work and go nuts!

Sneaks (if played right) should excel in dm events where their number of skills shine through. You want epic precision, bite the bullet, take your 10 rogue levels. You still have another 20 levels to play with. All this compromise about 7d6 sneak dice isn't a fair bargain. That could be 8 assassin levels and 5 invisible blade levels. Most sneaks take assassin anyway!!! You're hardly penalising them, lol. Keep it at 10 rogue levels, that shows dedication to learning how to perform something more than a crippling strike.

Amen.

This is up for consideration, id expect rogues to gain hips at level 10 as well then. Or we can just drop classes all together and give everyone access to everything.

[Boddynock]

Give rogues HiPs? That isn't exactly the same thing, no one is arguing for just giving these other classes crippling strike... Though if you were arguing Rogues get access to HiPs via burning a feat on it, I don't see why the heck it would matter, people might stay rogue then instead of takinga few lvls of pure rogue as they can get away with, with is typical now.

[metaquad4]

Yeah, I remember one/two/three/four server(s) did make HiPs a rogue bonus feat that required stealthy. It didn't break the game, people did still take shadowdancer (Though, that likely had more to do with shadowdancer's abilities actually being worth something) and assassin, regardless. It worked well there.

[Azure]

And the prevalent argument that letting others have access to the feat is that it somehow takes something away from rogues. That is a fallacious argument, in order for it to be taking it away, rogues would have to no longer have the same access to it. This change allows more players to have more variability in builds and use those builds to enjoy more of the PvE content without having to avoid areas or roll a different class.

I honestly cannot fathom why any has an issue with giving more tools to more people? Why would someone be resistant to more people being able to enjoy more of the game in more ways? What is there to lose? Honestly?

One could easily argue that the server would lose rogue heavy characters(which has already been on the decline in recent years), as less players would be inclined to roll a rogue if it meant that they could get epic precision with a different, and more powerful, build.

The idea of opening up an epic feat that normally requires an investment of ten levels and two feats for rogues, whether it is via a weapon enchantment or a lower pre-requisite, would be a detriment to the "rogue" population for the pure purposes of mechanical advantage. I suspect even some players who love the rogue class would take less levels in the class, or optimize their builds for more power, if it meant they could get this feat more easily. Epic precision is one of the most important feats a rogue heavy class can get. So the question becomes: If the feat is made more widely accessible, what incentive will there be for players to create rogue heavy characters?

IMHO, this is not a well thought out suggestion, and will only inspire more optimized characters and powerbuilding.

[Boddynock]

Honestly, I would be happy to see more of any form of build that isn't a favored soul or a gish...and opening this feat up to more stealth classes would make that happen, without opening the feat up to non stealth focused builds...

[Theodore01]

The idea of opening up an epic feat that normally requires an investment of ten levels and two feats for rogues, whether it is via a weapon enchantment or a lower pre-requisite, would be a detriment to the "rogue" population for the pure purposes of mechanical advantage. I suspect even some players who love the rogue class would take less levels in the class, or optimize their builds for more power, if it meant they could get this feat more easily. Epic precision is one of the most important feats a rogue heavy class can get. So the question becomes: If the feat is made more widely accessible, what incentive will there be for players to create rogue heavy characters?

IMHO, this is not a well thought out suggestion, and will only inspire more optimized characters and powerbuilding.

+1

[chad878262]

Who needs stealth? CE, feint, bodyguard, blackguard = feint, power attack with sneak damage...

[Blackman D]

Honestly, I would be happy to see more of any form of build that isn't a favored soul or a gish...and opening this feat up to more stealth classes would make that happen, without opening the feat up to non stealth focused builds...

but the problem is that all stealth classes build off of rogue to begin with, there is little reason for them to get things rogue can already get

one exception and the only real one being shadowdancer which is a defensive class and gets some of the best rogue defensive feats for free, but trades off not getting any sneak dice and that lack of dice while you would think would make epic precision more useful actually leans more towards making it useless - any rogue can tell you that you need a certain amount of dice before EP is even that useful and to get that with high SD levels requires high rogue levels anyway

you can argue that assassin death attack is a more powerful form of crippling strike because it basically is, however there is still no point in giving them the feat because again they primarily build off of rogue - the only real thing that sucks about assassin is that sneak attack dice cant stack from different sources (which is why there are so many different types) in order to qual for improved sneak attack, assassins use the same sneak attack as rogue (pnp) however mechanically its not possible to get them to stack if they were actually the same in nwn

thats really the only sneak feat change you can seriously try to push for but even then it would probably require making another set of epic feats just for assassin that requires 5d6 death attack and 3d6 sneak attack

[Azure]

Honestly, I would be happy to see more of any form of build that isn't a favored soul or a gish...and opening this feat up to more stealth classes would make that happen, without opening the feat up to non stealth focused builds...

I suppose that would depend on the implementation of such a proposal. Truthfully, I have my doubts that any proposal to lessen the requirements for Epic Precision would ever be considered by the staff.

As for seeing a wider variety of non-gish or FS builds, and once again this is just my humble opinion and not intended to be a slight towards the devs, the server content seems to be designed to give optimized/power builds more of a challenge. Many players enjoy optimizing their builds(I know I do from time to time), and they clearly also enjoy mashing through content! I think many players would agree that the average character build, or even one that is tailored towards role-play, would have a pretty rough time going up against the vast majority of the content on this server(I wont even mention how difficult the upper end content is for my squishy rogue).

The question I cant help but ask myself in regards to making epic precision more accessible is: why should it be easier for characters/players to defeat/plow through content? Which is, I can only assume, the reasoning behind such the OP's suggestion.

This kind of change is a slippery slope, and runs the risk of...

-snip-... give everyone access to everything.

And that is not the kind of slippery slope I wish to encourage.

[chad878262]

Just as an example, fighter 8/BG 10/Bodyguard 3/whirling dervish 9... gets evasion/EW, defensive roll, 6 attacks/round, +15% movement and 8d6 sneak dice among other things. Can invest in bluff and pick up feint since no hips and where full plate while gleefully laying the smack down. This is by no means the best as I threw it together just now in about 3 minutes, but point is you make requirements so light and this is what you get. Rogue 10 does not get you as much as whirling dervish levels, but today it gets you access to epic precision. I can also see favored souls using black flame zealot and assassin, especially worth the requested improvements to BFZ to get high caster level, 7 or 8d6 sneak attacks and epic precision, so in this case you'd be increasing favored souls, not decreasing.