Pathfinder Sneak Attack – Kill the GM
I love my GM, we’ve known each other for over almost 30 years. He doesn’t game master much, it’s usually myself and another one that vies for the coveted position.
Anyways, he’s been running Paizo’s Pathfinder RPG – Second Darkness campaign arc. It’s been going well, but we have the occasional rules question come up. Having two GM’s as players doesn’t help when you’re sitting behind the screen for the first time in this rules set.
There’s a guy we have in the party that loves to play characters that do heavy damage. Typically a dwarf, or shifter, with a great axe or great sword, it’s not unusual (cue tom jones) during a gaming session to have him rolling 1d12+ points of damage per hit. Well, in this campaign he is playing a rogue and wants to utilize the sneak attack to it’s fullest. He’s using a warhammer as his weapon of choice. My game master, my brother, seems to be a bit miffed at someone trying to sneak attack with a warhammer. Here are the details.
His, GM’s, argument was that the warhammer was too big to sneak attack. One could argue it’s not since it can be logically determined that a warhammer weighs 5 pounds and is similar to a modern day 5 pound maul. If the warhammer was the size of a large cement block, well, that’s a different story. So the GM’s stance is considering logic and realism. Never mind we’re playing a game with pixies, elves and magic. He was even going as far as to say that you couldn’t sneak attack with the weapon, which would really dampen the player’s wanting to play the class. It’s equal to saying you can be a wizard class but you can’t cast any energy-related spells. Be very wary of taking a class ability away from a character, or wary of nerfing it, it just isn’t right…at all, IMO. If you want to lay down this law, errr, rule, then you have to state it waaaaay ahead of time so the player can make the necessary changes or adjustments.
My argument, it’s not the size of the weapon but the tactics used to wield it during combat. Sneak attack takes advantage of an opponent and their lack of dexterity or flanking. It’s simply a way to pin point a vital strike against your opponent. It’s the “I hit him in the jugular” type of an attack. However, this thinking is not semantically correct since the type of attack should be rephrased to something like ‘tactical attack’ or something similar rather than sneak attack. Sneak being the misleading word in this whole argument.
My GM agreed with many facets of my argument. It was all good in the end. I think it was his first edition AD&D mind coming to the table.
Comments (7)
Dave
January 20th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
I agree. Another problem is trying to apply logic to a D20 base system. It’s not going to work. The D20 system (and hence systems based on it) are designed for game balance not logic and realism. For example a Halfing gets +1 to hit larger foes. Following the logic of this statement then if my human fights from his knees then he should get +1 to hit because he is fighting a “larger” foe. Why Halfings get +1 to hit is to make running one more viable. Since the Halfing does less damage for a given weapon, the designers gave them the +1 to hit so as not to make them total wimps in combat. They have a disadvantage of less damage, so they gave them an advantage of +1 to hit.
Master Dwarf
January 27th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
Sure. One could argue that the normal posture of a halfling is just low and they have always been fighting bigger foes. I do see your point.
Shem
February 25th, 2011 at 12:49 am
I’m playing a Pathfinder rogue, I also find the term “sneak attack” imprecise language. It should be called a “rouge attack.” My character has the two weapon fighting feat to go with his rapier and dagger. If I make two successful attacks in a round would both count as a sneak attack? So my rapier (1d6+1d6)+ my dagger (1d4+1d6) = 4-22 damage in a single round.
James
April 12th, 2011 at 12:08 am
Yes Shem your “rouge attack” (or as i like to call it “make-up death strike”) would apply both times. The opponent is flat footed for the entire round.
Joey
June 12th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Well to clarify for everyone, Rogue Sneak Attack is actually classified as Precise Striking…. So if you want to argue the use of any weapon, what I would do is take it a step further, Take a weapon type and classify it as favorable for monsters like a warhammer would allow them to sneak attack maybe a skeleton as well as other monsters but maybe a more armored foe would require more finesse to bypass defenses. Just a thought!
Antonio
September 8th, 2011 at 9:07 am
Well… In paizo Pathfinder, sneak attack is more of finding a good spot to hit than hitting vital points covertly… So I think that all we old-days players should face the fact that sneakattacking was INTENTIONALLY made more powerful.
Brendan
January 15th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
It’s called “Sneak Attack” because you hit your opponent when he’s not looking at you. If he has his back turned towards you, you can smash him in the back of the head, stab his kidney, etc. I don’t see why the weapon would matter when the point is you hit the enemy in a vulnerable spot when he isn’t able to properly defend himself.
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