Rogues – Milking the Sneak Attack
Friday, September 5th, 2003
In the interest of getting the most out of a character class that received very little love in D&D v3.5, I’ve taken a look at a couple of methods for optimizing the Rogue’s best combat feature: the Sneak Attack.
As you may know, a Rogue gets bonus damage whenever he is within 30 feet of his opponent, and that opponent is “flat footed” or flanked in relation to him. There are a number of ways to acheive the “flat footed” or flanked condition. Traditionally a Rogue will sneak up on his oppenent (by means of Hide and Move Silently). Additionally, the Feint maneuver can deny an opponent his dexterity bonus (rendering him effectively flat-footed). Flanking is a simple matter of getting an ally and proper footwork. I’ll be focusing primarily upon the suprise (sneaking & hiding) aspect of the Sneak Attack.
In order to take full advantage of the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 rules to deliver optimal damage, the Rogue will want to make as many Sneak Attacks as possible during a combat. This can be accomplished by attacking, withdrawing, hiding, stalking, and repeating as necessary, but there remains a mechanism by which a Rogue may take several attacks before his opponents get their guards up.
This is accomplished through a careful selection of feats. Both the Two-Weapon Fighting and Archery subsets of feats allow for additional attacks, but are generally thought to be non-complimentary. In the case of thrown weapons, however, both paths apply. Quick Draw, Two-Weapon Fighting, Point-blank Shot, and Rapid Shot are the primary feats for this attack-optimization scheme.
*edit on 2005-01-24: a similarly-cheesy Fighter variant for milking thrown attacks can be found at the Privateer Press Forum
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