A Land Far Away

Can anyone explain or point me to details about how the Assassin PRC's Death Attack is implemented? I'm guessing that when an assassin lands a sneak attack, the victim has to make a save or be paralyzed?

Any modifications or bonus/penalties relevant to the saving throw? How long does it last if they fail? Does it only work on humanoid victims (as opposed to wolves, gelatinous cubes, etc.)?

Thanks for any advice or references to the right info.

- Gebb

It doesn't work if they're already in combat, any sneak attack other than that will fire it. It lasts for some minutes.

ahh damn, it won't work like other sneak attacks if the target is already in combat? That's a bummer.

???

You would still get the SA damage ofc
But the save (which is deadly mind you!) you will get only once per fight. and only if you manage to surprise the subject.
Making the subject make a save for everytime you hit with a SA would be WAAAAY too overpowered.

nwn2 wiki wrote:If used against an opponent not already in combat

I think this implementation hasn't been changed by ALFA?

Which means that the assassin must beging combat on behalf of the party. If your target has seen others of your party and are charging them, you can't Death Attack the target on the way, even if you are hidden and lying in wait, ready to spring on it as it runs by. This "out of combat" is NWN2's way of doing the SRD "studies target for 3 rounds":

d20srd wrote:Death Attack
If an assassin studies his victim for 3 rounds and then makes a sneak attack with a melee weapon that successfully deals damage, the sneak attack has the additional effect of possibly either paralyzing or killing the target (assassin’s choice).

The Death Attack is, not surprisingly, meant for the lone assassin sneaking on their target -thing, not your usual adventure group combat.

Not sure if NWN2 Death Attack applies to ranged weapons.

It applies to ranged weapons, making it very useful as a combat starter (so long as you can normally apply Sneak Attack).

Death attack sucks as sneak attack generally sucks.

In lower levels the rogue is to brittle to try using in any dangerous situations and in higher levels too many creatures are immune to it.


On the other hand - it's sure sexy, and seeing squishy(preferred elven) wizard die in one strike is priceless.

rorax wrote:Death attack sucks as sneak attack generally sucks.

In lower levels the rogue is to brittle to try using in any dangerous situations and in higher levels too many creatures are immune to it.


On the other hand - it's sure sexy, and seeing squishy(preferred elven) wizard die in one strike is priceless.

SA does not suck at lower level if your an ubber sneaking hin... They can usually 9 times out of 10 sneak around a combatant whilst occupied and SA from behind.. Have done it and it works nicely as long as the party does not charge. Even a lowly 2d6 makes a difference when even fighting ogres.

sneak attack took out the spider that almost ate my wizard, after it survived the fireball and grew very very angry...so yes it works sometimes.

Just give rogues the opportunity to take epic precision at a low level. I don't think the ability to do half sneak attack damage to things that are sneak attack immune unbalances the game any. Rather, it just means that an already weak class doesn't get totally shafted in being able to fight anything half the time.

Rogue is my favorite class but truth has to be told...

Half of the rogue RP skills are near to useless without DM assistance, at least in ALFA. Most of the rogue 'mechanic' skills also rarely come into use because there is simply not too much built in content that demands setting traps, disable traps open doors and etc.

Strangely, in ALFA locked doors are either set 'un-pickable' or in the good case they can be 'picked' - they can also be easily smashed by any other character. (that's in the case the 3rd level wizard does not cast 'knock')

When most players around form parties to deal with dangers they usually seek for tanks, healers, buffers and those type of characters. Very few think about taking rogue with them to troubleshoot the problems they might be facing. When one comes to mind it's usually for 'scouting' missions, and even then Ranger is preferred because he can also deliver much more damage.

All that, along with the fact that so many creatures(and in higher levels PCs as well) are immune to sneak attack, combined with the fact that rogues are medium BAB characters with low hit points, make it very hard to play rogue without constantly being depended on the cooperation of other players and DMs.


It can be partly fixed by adding A LOT of static content that is designed for rogues. Stuff like random traps in dungeons, or specific areas that can be reached only by using rogue skills.

When I DM, I typically set traps and the like. Any intelligent person building an ebul lair would have them simply for the delaying factor.

And here I am, used to think I over-relied on diplo, bluff, spot, listen and particularly sense motive when DMing so that the PC with those was the only one on the ball with what's going on when something not-straightforward happened, and got the clues first, and easily took the party lead in most any quest...

Topic creep.

Rogues and bards are cool. Not because of how much damage they can or can't do, but just by being who they are.

Thankyou.