Do a Swordsage's projectile strikes benefit from sneak attack?

[Scarlet-Devil]

By projectile strikes I mean their single target strike maneuvers, like Fan the Flames and Shadow Garrote.

[Soranar]

Ranged touch attacks can benefit from precision damage, in this case sneak attack damage.

(basically you're targetting vital areas with your fireball or choking shadow strands).

In comparison, a regular fireball has no attack roll (targeted at a square instead, thus no precision possible).

[Serenity]

Does the swordsage make an attack roll? Then yes, provided he meets the other requirements for sneak attack.

Does the swordsage make no attack roll, and the target instead rolls a saving throw? Then no.

Same with a wizard's spells. Scorching Ray can get sneak attack, and on each ray, too. Fireball doesn't.

[Keld Denar]

1: Does it require an attack roll? If yes, go to 2.

2: Does it deal damage, ability damage, or inflict negative levels? If yes, go to 3.

3: Does the foe qualify to be SAed (denied Dex). If so, go to 4.

4: Congratz, you just shanked the mofo with your mind!

Basically, its the same as SAing with a spell. Consult Complete Arcane for more details on Weaponlike Spells.

EDIT:

Scorching Ray can get sneak attack, and on each ray, too.

The bolded part is wrong. Scorching Ray is a volley attack. Volley attacks only apply precision damage once, except where explicitly noted.

[Serenity]

Source? My impression has always been that you get sneak attack every time you make an attack roll when meeting the requirements for a sneak attack.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Source? My impression has always been that you get sneak attack every time you make an attack roll when meeting the requirements for a sneak attack.

Complete Arcane, the old FAQ, and probably the Rule Compendium are where Keld is pulling this all from. Also the sneak attack class feature description.

[Serenity]

Hmm...I don't see any mention of volley attacks in the Sneak Attack description, and I don't have a copy of those books on hand, but I'll take your word for it. I personally find it a silly rule, and I wouldn't enforce it as a DM, but clearly, my way would be a house rule.

[JaronK]

Rules Compendium has what you need. And yeah, basically any time a standard action fires multiple attacks, it's a volley (except Snap Kick, which is confusing).

JaronK

[KillianHawkeye]

I think it's because you fire all the rays at once (thus a "volley"), so it's only possible to precisely hit with one of them.

[Seerow]

Rules Compendium has what you need. And yeah, basically any time a standard action fires multiple attacks, it's a volley (except Snap Kick, which is confusing).

JaronK

By that logic the greater manyshot feat shouldn't exist, since it lets you fire multiple attacks with a standard action and apply sneak attack dice to each of them.

Not doubting that Complete Arcane or somewhere else specifies what is being said, it just makes more sense for consistency sake if each attack roll could grant a sneak attack, rather than having to worry about the action types.


Another weird example: A shadowpouncer who teleports as a standard action and gets a free full attack from that standard action. That would technically be multiple attacks from a standard action, would sneak attack dice only be applied once there?

[JaronK]

By that logic the greater manyshot feat shouldn't exist, since it lets you fire multiple attacks with a standard action and apply sneak attack dice to each of them.

Not doubting that Complete Arcane or somewhere else specifies what is being said, it just makes more sense for consistency sake if each attack roll could grant a sneak attack, rather than having to worry about the action types.

Yeah, I know, I don't like the way they did volleys either. It really should be declared outright (this spell is a volley attack!) or be based on number of attack rolls.

JaronK

[Keld Denar]

Greater Manyshot is EXPLICITLY an exception, because it is spelled out right there in the feat description. Thats the reason why Swift Hunters take GMS, so that they can move and get skirmish on all of their Manyshot arrows. Normal Manyshot doesn't work like that, you only get Skirmish on the first arrow.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

I think the issue is, by default, sneak attack only applies once per attack roll. Greater Manyshot makes an exception to that. Not sure where to find that rule, however.

[Keld Denar]

I think the issue is, by default, sneak attack only applies once per attack roll.

Also no true, since Scorching Ray requires 3 seperate attack rolls for 3 seperate rays, and is still a volley.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Also no true, since Scorching Ray requires 3 seperate attack rolls for 3 seperate rays, and is still a volley.

This is what I get for trying to generalize it, then.:smallsigh:

Oh well, DND's rules are rather absurd in some places, but that is good to know if it comes up again.

[Seerow]

Greater Manyshot is EXPLICITLY an exception, because it is spelled out right there in the feat description. Thats the reason why Swift Hunters take GMS, so that they can move and get skirmish on all of their Manyshot arrows. Normal Manyshot doesn't work like that, you only get Skirmish on the first arrow.

Manyshot uses a single attack roll, while Greater Manyshot gives you multiple attack rolls. Yes, it makes the explicit exception that it allows the precision damage on each hit, but the point is that it gives the precedent that going from a 1 attack roll volley to a multiple attack roll volley gets you multiple sneak attacks, which is consistent with the general sneak attack rule of if you get an attack roll you get a sneak attack.


I'm not arguing that CA doesn't have a rule that says a standard action with multiple attacks is a volley and only gets one sneak attack doesn't exist. I haven't checked to confirm it pretty much because I have no reason to doubt someone saying it's there, and do believe that is the case. I however don't think that rule was very well thought through, and is inconsistent with everything else.

[Kojiro]

Related question, on the topic of sneak attack, do multiple attacks (like from Two Weapon Fighting and full attacks) get a sneak attack for each, well, attack, or just the one? Sorry if this should be asked somewhere else or was answered/made obvious elsewhere in here.

[Keld Denar]

If you have to take a full round action to do it, every attack will get precision damage applied to it, per the RC. Which is kinda wierd, since if you are a Sorcerer, that means that a Scorching Ray only gets SA once, but an Empowered Scorching Ray (full round action to cast with MM) gets SA each time. Wierd.

[tyckspoon]

I'm not arguing that CA doesn't have a rule that says a standard action with multiple attacks is a volley and only gets one sneak attack doesn't exist. I haven't checked to confirm it pretty much because I have no reason to doubt someone saying it's there, and do believe that is the case. I however don't think that rule was very well thought through, and is inconsistent with everything else.

CA... doesn't, technically, have a rule saying that. What it says is specific to spells, and says that if you have a spell that gets multiple attacks with a single action then only the first attack can get bonus damage (and it's not restricted to Sneak Attack- the example spell is Scorching Ray benefiting from Sneak Attack and Point Blank Shot, and only the first ray gets the Point Blank benefit. This also nerfs some metamagics, btw, as the rule is broad enough that things like Empower or Fiery spell would also not benefit any more than the one ray.)

Rules Compendium, on the other hand, has a specific clause for Precision Damage: If you want Precision on all of your attacks, you have to be doing a full-round action. So your Full Attacks will get Sneak on everything, but if you have one of the means of, for example, hitting with 2 weapons as a standard action, that's only one Sneak Attack (I think this is stupid and an unnecessary nerf, but it's there.)


If you have to take a full round action to do it, every attack will get precision damage applied to it, per the RC. Which is kinda wierd, since if you are a Sorcerer, that means that a Scorching Ray only gets SA once, but an Empowered Scorching Ray (full round action to cast with MM) gets SA each time. Wierd.

Nope, unfortunately- Rules Compendium also repeats the rule from C. Arcane about Weaponlike Spells (it's under Spell Results- Multiple Hits) which further restricts spells in particular to 1 instance of bonus damages/action. Page 136.

[JaronK]

Related question, on the topic of sneak attack, do multiple attacks (like from Two Weapon Fighting and full attacks) get a sneak attack for each, well, attack, or just the one? Sorry if this should be asked somewhere else or was answered/made obvious elsewhere in here.

As long as all attacks qualify, yes you do.

JaronK

[Thrice Dead Cat]

I think a lot of the issue comes up in various rules stating "volley-attacks" don't count even if they would otherwise take multiple attack rolls without actually describing "volley-attack" itself. It leads to some unintuitive stuffs, but that's nothing new with 3.5.:smalltongue:

[Keld Denar]

Nope, unfortunately- Rules Compendium also repeats the rule from C. Arcane about Weaponlike Spells (it's under Spell Results- Multiple Hits) which further restricts spells in particular to 1 instance of bonus damages/action. Page 136.

Which contradicts page 42.


A form of attack that enables an attacker to make multiple
attacks during an action other than a full-round action, such as the Manyshot feat (standard action) or a quickened scorching ray (swift action),
allows precision damage to be applied only to the fi rst attack in the group.

Casting an Empowered Scorching Ray without a time reducer is a full round action. So, since you get multiple attacks, and its a full round action, you should get precision damage on each ray.

Doesn't make much sense, but hey...its D&D!

[olentu]

Which contradicts page 42.



Casting an Empowered Scorching Ray without a time reducer is a full round action. So, since you get multiple attacks, and its a full round action, you should get precision damage on each ray.

Doesn't make much sense, but hey...its D&D!

Well aside from the regular specificity argument there does not seem to actually be a contradiction. It seems to me that specific quotation on page 42 does not insure sneak attacks in the case of full round actions, instead only giving a nonexclusive description of those cases where on does not get to make sneak attacks. Thus it would not contradict a restriction on spells.

[Darrin]

Doesn't make much sense, but hey...its D&D!

I still don't see any practical benefit to trying to understand/implement the "volley attack" rules. It adds absolutely nothing important to the game to make such a hard a distinction between what does or does not get precision damage... it was confusing before, but classifying it by action type in the Rules Compendium is just pointlessly stupid. Much easier to just house-rule it with "each separate attack roll = precision damage" and move on to more important things.

[Kojiro]

I suppose it's, "If you're not taking extra time to be precise, only one of your many attacks is accurate enough for precision damage". Makes sense to me, although it does give you some more to remember.