Solo trip: How to fully sneak attack?

[Shin]

Hey there fellow players.
As the thread title says, I'm looking for a way to sneak attack without flanking.

The situation: In my current 3.5 group, we tend to split up for the purpose of achieving quest goals rather frequently, which means that I'm out on solo trips at night quite often. Is there any way to give my rogue the ability to sneak attack to full extent (means, with all attacks of a round) without someone to flank for me? I guess in this case I'd rather have to focus on denying my victims their dex to ac.
What I'm not looking for is any kind of animal companion or familiar that gets the job done for me. Solo trip means stealth trip.

I thought about improved feint + surprising riposte, but tends to consume three feats. Which is a lot.
I'm a catfolk rogue, which means I can pounce. Is it possible to "reopen" encounters, in the way of hiding (camouflage+HiPS) after I did beat one enemy, pouncing at the next one then, to get something like a "second ambush"? (fur the purpose of full round flat-footing the next attacked enemy again)

Which other options could I mind? Invisibility? Stun/Blind effects?

Help is appreciated! And as said, I want to sneak attack to full extent even without an opportunity to flank.

[pffh]

If they need to roll a balance check and don't have 5 ranks in balance they are treated as flat footed even if they succeed on the check. A bag of marbles rolled under your enemies or a wand of grease should do the trick.


Being Attacked while Balancing

You are considered flat-footed while balancing, since you can’t move to avoid a blow, and thus you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any). If you have 5 or more ranks in Balance, you aren’t considered flat-footed while balancing. If you take damage while balancing, you must make another Balance check against the same DC to remain standing.

[Shin]

Thanks for the tip. Sounds really easy!

Where can I find the description of these items?
And can I use these items as a free/swift action so to fully attack after using them?

[Rhaegar14]

One way that's highly reliable, but feat-and-level-intensive, is to take Combat Expertise and Improved Feint, then take 6 levels of Beguiler (PHB2). At 6th level, Beguilers gain the ability to feint in combat as a move action, or as a swift action if they already have the Improved Feint feat.

[hymer]

In order to Vanish, you'll need either cover or concealment (no CD, though, gotta love that). If you have either of those, you can Hide again as part of a move action. This doesn't allow you to pounce with sneak attack, though (as you come charging they see you, and they're not flatfooted since they've moved in this battle already). You'd have to manage to stealth right up next to them to get another melee sneak attack.
For a fresh pounce vs. flat feet you have to end combat, which is basically up to the DM. You may have to simply run off and return later. The rules on hiding may well help here.

Invisibility is your friend, of course, as it would allow you a fresh pouncing sneak attack - you don't become visible until you attack. Wand of Invisibility with good enough Use Magic Device could do it. Standard action to become invisible, move action to move into position for the charge, and hope the enemy doesn't move into a position where they notice you or can't be charged.

Personally, I wouldn't rely too heavily on any one method (especially something so simple as marbles). Try to have more tricks than one if you can manage it. Your DM is less likely to get bored with it (or outright annoyed if you do it on, say, Darth Vader), and some creatures can see invisible enemies or have 5 or more ranks in Balance.

[Gwendol]

Or you could... flank. Bring a flanking buddy with you (bag of tricks, amulet of vermin, or similar), and SA away!

You could also become an assassin and do the Death Attack.

[Psyren]

Invisible Blade (CWar), if you ignore the monumentally stupid errata, will also let you feint faster than a move action. You'll actually be able to feint as a free action, letting you full-sneak-attack.

Just show your DM the book and conveniently "forget" that Wizards ruined the class online.

[Rhaegar14]

Or you could... flank. Bring a flanking buddy with you (bag of tricks, amulet of vermin, or similar), and SA away!

You could also become an assassin and do the Death Attack.

If you need a flanking buddy that follows you around everywhere, Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) is a great pick.

[prufock]

One way that's highly reliable, but feat-and-level-intensive, is to take Combat Expertise and Improved Feint, then take 6 levels of Beguiler (PHB2). At 6th level, Beguilers gain the ability to feint in combat as a move action, or as a swift action if they already have the Improved Feint feat.

Swift is 1/round maximum, and feinting only makes them FF vs your next attack, so she won't get a full attack with sneak attack this way. Combined with Surprising Riposte it's good, though - swift action feint, attack does damage, flat footed for 1 round, finish your full attack. Also works with Invisible Blade even with the errata.

Thread has already hit all the main points.


Or you could... flank. Bring a flanking buddy with you (bag of tricks, amulet of vermin, or similar), and SA away!

Think you missed the point!


I'm looking for a way to sneak attack without flanking.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Marble Bag from the A&EG are extremely cheap (5 SP or something like that) are a mundane and reusable grease. Buy a few of them and if possible get a Collar of perpetual attendance (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fools/20030401c)

Collar of Perpetual Attendance: At will, the wearer of this collar can call an unseen servant, as the spell, to attend and clean up after him or another creature he designates. The unseen servant performs such mundane tasks as cleaning up hairballs and policing the wearer's litter box. It also grooms the wearer on command, removing burrs, smoothing tangles, and ensuring that the wearer's fur remains soft and well-tended.

Caster Level: 1st; Prerequisites: Forge Ring, unseen servant; Market Price: 2,000 gp; Weight: 1/4 lb. and order your unseen servants to scatter your marbles for you.

[ZeroNumerous]

If you have Hide in Plain Sight, then what's stopping you from just full-attacking while hiding?

[Darrin]

Ring of Blinking + Pierce Magical Concealment = sneak attack, all the time, forever and ever.

Expensive, though... 27000 GP, and requires three feats (Blind-Fight, Mage Slayer, Pierce Magical Concealment).

Much cheaper: dust eggshell grenades (10 GP, Oriental Adventures). Ranged touch attack, target is blind (no save!) for 1d4 rounds (which allows you to attack as if invisible). Be careful about over-using this one, though, or your DM will likely ban it.

[Dissonance]

I'm also fairly certain that if you are hidden you can charge and sneak attack at the same time. Not every charge has to a maniacal murderer screaming "I'M THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH!" It can be as silent and deadly as an arrow without the twang of the bow. Mechanics wise it would also kinda make sense. (your making an attack action from hiding). My personal opinion on the matter. Not to ruin or step on anyone's toes either.

other good methods are:
- invisibility
- blind
- balance
- grapple? (find a way to grapple them without being grappeled yourself, should work)

[hymer]

@ Dissonance: Well, yes, you can Hide while charging - at a -20 penalty to the check, making it fairly impractical for most situations. If you have cover (and thus are allowed to Hide), you may be unable to charge, as you must charge in a straight line. And if you have concealment due to bushes, say, you can't charge, because you can't charge in difficult terrain. And if your concealment is good enough, you can't charge because you must have line of sight to charge. Finally, if your target stands in the open, you can't hide all the way there. You only get to Hide when you have cover or concealment (or the enemy's distracted, of course, but that's all it's own set of problems, as people have described in this thread).
So you're right, it's technically possible to charge and hide at the same time. In practice, it's rarely very useful, though.

[Tvtyrant]

Get a tree token and activate it when you need to hide, because trees grant you concealment? Or find one of the many, many variations of a "low wall." You need to be closer than the opponent to the wall to be concealed, but really all you need is to make a box of earth around yourself using wall of x scrolls and then jump out the top.

[prufock]

Ring of Blinking + Pierce Magical Concealment = sneak attack, all the time, forever and ever.

Expensive, though... 27000 GP, and requires three feats (Blind-Fight, Mage Slayer, Pierce Magical Concealment).

Does this even work? Blink does not create a concealment effect, you become ethereal. You're missing 20% of the time because you're not on this plane.

[Tvtyrant]

Does this even work? Blink does not create a concealment effect, you become ethereal. You're missing 20% of the time because you're not on this plane.

Greater Blinking would work, just need scrolls/staffs/custom item of it. A Schema of Greater Blinking would be pretty cool, as it would work everyday and be rather cheap.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Does this even work? Blink does not create a concealment effect, you become ethereal. You're missing 20% of the time because you're not on this plane.

Pierce Magical Concealment allows you to ignore miss chances created via spells or magic items.

[prufock]

Pierce Magical Concealment allows you to ignore miss chances created via spells or magic items.

Seems like it. I had always assumed it was concealment effects only, since all the examples I was familiar with (obscuring mist, darkness, invisibility) were concealment-based. I just looked up ghostform, though, and that's miss chance due to incorporeality, not concealment. So Blink works!

[INoKnowNames]

Yay! No one has mentioned the Feral Dreadlord's way! I can be relevant!

Specifically, Clarion Commander's Perpetual Flank ability, from the Tome of Battle. DC 20 Intimidate Check as a Standard Action. Succeed, and then attack the opponent next turn, he is treated as Flanked for the next 10 Rounds.

[Dusk Eclipse]

While is is an awesome and fairly useful way to provide sneak attack, it is fairly feat intensive (at least 2 feats + a level) since uou need at least 2 White Raven Maneuves, White Raven Defence and clarion commander, further more this won't come online until level 9th the earliest and using all your feats on it. For the Feral Dreadlord it does work pretty well;, but for a rogue it is too expensive for it to be worthwhile.

[Tvtyrant]

While is is an awesome and fairly useful way to provide sneak attack, it is fairly feat intensive (at least 2 feats + a level) since uou need at least 2 White Raven Maneuves, White Raven Defence and clarion commander, further more this won't come online until level 9th the earliest and using all your feats on it. For the Feral Dreadlord it does work pretty well;, but for a rogue it is too expensive for it to be worthwhile.

Or you buy a couple martial scripts and use it whenever you can afford it. They don't get used up and you can read them again whenever you want. 10 rounds once per combat means you can use it every combat you want.

[Dusk Eclipse]

It depends on the wording, if the scripts grant the maneuver then it is ok (though cheesy in my opinion) but if they instead they let you make strike "as if" you had it then I would say no. OtOH Crown of the White Raven do work.

[Killer Angel]

Ring of Blinking + Pierce Magical Concealment = sneak attack, all the time, forever and ever.

Expensive, though... 27000 GP, and requires three feats (Blind-Fight, Mage Slayer, Pierce Magical Concealment).

If you're going this route, 3 feats are a heavy tax to avoid that 20% miss chance...
You could limit yourself to the ring; after all, blinking comes with a lot of other goodies (avoid grapples, it's a sort of passwall, and so on)

[Tvtyrant]

It depends on the wording, if the scripts grant the maneuver then it is ok (though cheesy in my opinion) but if they instead they let you make strike "as if" you had it then I would say no. OtOH Crown of the White Raven do work.

"When you read a script, you gain the
ability to use the single martial maneuver
recorded on it for one encounter."

Sounds like you get the actual thing. I'm not sure how that is more cheesy than any of the items that get you spell uses though?

[Dusk Eclipse]

It seems to should work; but for that you would need to buy the scrolls and depending on the setting getting hold of them might not be easy or even possible. A good way, if a little cheesy, but not very practical in my opinion.

[hymer]

@ Killer Angel: You can't sneak attack if you have miss chance, so you have to get rid of it somehow.

[Gwendol]

If you need a flanking buddy that follows you around everywhere, Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) is a great pick.

Indeed, the advantage of summons being that they are disposable and not visible before being summoned.

[The Dark Fiddler]

There's always the Desert Sun maneuver Burning Ember, but it only lasts one rounds. Also only usable once an encounter, almost certainly.

[Eldariel]

@ Killer Angel: You can't sneak attack if you have miss chance, so you have to get rid of it somehow.

Not exactly. You can't sneak attack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/rogue.htm#sneakAttack) if you have a concealment-based miss chance. Blink (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/blink.htm)'s miss chance is not concealment, so it does not interfere with sneak attacking.

Other options include attacking with help of Hide in Plain Sight, acting first as you seem to have done (if you can hide and pounce on them again you can prolly do the full attack). Also, Distracting Ember-maneuver from Desert Wind allows full attack sneak attacks though unless you're Swordsage, it's only once per encounter.


Use Magic Device is your friend too:
- Greater Invisibility as a Wand or Scroll of course solves all your problems vs. people who can't see the invisible.
- Wand of Grease, as mentioned before, allows making some people flat-footed unless they have ranks in Balance.
- Scroll of Greater Blinking works of course, though 5th level consumables begin to get expensive.
- You could pick Metamagic Spell Trigger [Complete Mage] feat, provided you have the feats, to use the wand as a swift action (consumes 5 charges each but 750gp wands are fairly affordable). You can also keep a Wand in Wand Chambers [Dungeonscape] to not interrupt your ability to also wield weapons.
- Gaining allies allows flanking of course; hire a Rogue, summon an Outsider, get a Bag of Tricks, whatever.

[Archmage1]

Yea, of all of the methods seen so far, a ring of blinking is the most reliable
27k gold, lets you SA on every attack with a 20% miss chance
However, it also gives their attacks and single target spells a 50% miss rate
and a 50% damage reduction to AOE effects.
It is command activated, so you need to reactivate every 7 rounds as a standard
You could also go for a ring of greater blink or a ring of greater invisibility, but both cost A lot more, and don't really add much.

Of course, if you are a soloing rogue, why are you fighting? move silently and hide are class skills for a reason...

[Eldariel]

You could also go for a ring of greater blink or a ring of greater invisibility, but both cost A lot more, and don't really add much.

Neither also exists which could be considered quite the hurdle in acquiring them. You'd have to have DM start creating new items for you to go down this path (even harder since we aren't even talking about an item creating PC).

[Shin]

I'm sorry I couldn't answer earlier. Well, I did read the whole thread through now.

Suggestions so far for denying dex to ac/flat-footing while without allies are:
- Bag of Marbles or Wand of Grease to force the enemy into a balance check and flat-foot him if his balance score isn't too high.
- Wand of Invisibility to flat-foot the enemy when striking out of invisibility. Pouncing invisible works too.
- Ring of Blinking - does blinking flat-foot the enemy? Do I need pierce magical concealment to be able to sneak attack with the blink or not?
- Dust eggshell grenades to blind the enemy, which is like invisibility.
- Hide in Plain Sight/Concealment - does hiding and attacking then flat-foot the enemy?
- The three-feat feinting combo - yes, works, but is it worth the effort? I'm skeptic due to the rogue handbook treating it as a waste of effort.
- Grapple without being grappled myself
- Token to create a tree flanking partner
- Creating low walls to hide behind and jump over then

Further questions:
Collar of perpetual attendance sounds like it is an animal collar. Am I right? Do you really suggest for my catfolk to wear an animal collar? :smallbiggrin:

[Eldariel]

- Ring of Blinking - does blinking flat-foot the enemy? Do I need pierce magical concealment to be able to sneak attack with the blink or not?

Blinking allows you to strike as invisible, so enemies are denied Dex-bonus to AC and you have +2 to attacks unless they can see etherealness. You don't need Pierce to sneak attack as the only thing that stops you from sneak attacking is concealment-based miss chance, while Blink gives you effectively etherealness-based miss chance.


- Hide in Plain Sight/Concealment - does hiding and attacking then flat-foot the enemy?

If enemy cannot see you when you're attacking, they're denied Dex-bonus to AC and you get +2 to hit. You're basically invisible to them since, y'know, they don't see you.


- The three-feat feinting combo - yes, works, but is it worth the effort? I'm skeptic due to the rogue handbook treating it as a waste of effort.

No it's not. As you saw above, plenty of simple magic item based solutions exist so there's no reason to make this exceedingly complicated.

[Shin]

Thank you for the answer. Now I have a neat list for my little catfolk :smallsmile:

[Person_Man]

There are literally dozens of ways to get flanking, including various magic items or spells which create a creature of some sort.

One of the easiest is to invest in the Handle Animal Skill, and buy a few dozen or so dogs, which are dirt cheap. Train them to guard and attack by flanking. (They can also be training to Track, hunt, and many other tricks). Take 3 or 4 dogs with you, while the others guard the front entrance to the dungeon or whatever that you go into. If any of the dogs get killed in combat, just replenish them from your guard pack. They're dirt cheap and very common in pretty much any game setting, so you can easily replace them between adventures.

Or if you're willing to invest in 2 Feats, then Shape Soulmeld (Necrocarnum irclet) + Open Least Chakra (from Magic of Incarnum) gives you an infinitely replaceable Necrocarnum Zombie with hit dice = your Incarnate meldshaper level (ie, 1/2 your hit dice, or your Incarnate class level). Although it won't be very powerful for a non-Incarnate, it can flank for you, use whatever attacks it normally gets, walk down hallways first (ie, set off traps), carry stuff for you, act as a mount, etc. And it's more useful then many of the other combos used to trigger Sneak Attack.

[Shin]

I did read your guide to being a rogue. And thinks for the tips.
However, I did ask for ways to flat-foot/deny dex to ac while alone, means, no flanking :smallamused:

[limejuicepowder]

There's always the Desert Sun maneuver Burning Ember, but it only lasts one rounds. Also only usable once an encounter, almost certainly.

Going along with this, dip a level(s) of swordsage - there are some awesome things for rogues in this class.

level 1) Burning ember and sapphire nightmare blade get you some non-ally-dependent sneak attacks. Combined with a wand of grease and some marbles, you should be pretty set. When you are with allies, island of blades makes it absurdly easy to flank. Shadow blade is a potential huge damage boost. Child of shadow is also worth a look, for a skirmish-type rogue. If you have poor wisdom, consider taking the unarmed variant (if your not going to get good mileage out of the ability anyways, it's better to "trade" it for strong unarmed strike options).

level 3) shadow jaunt is great for hiding during combat, among other things.

level 5) assassin's stance gives you extra sneak attack, meaning your sneak attack will be almost as good as if you stayed rogue.

[doko239]

I know you specifically said no flanking, but I didn't see anyone mention Shadowdancer yet. Your shadow can be a solid flanking buddy, and is stealthy enough to follow you wherever you may need to go.

Other than that, I can suggest Pathfinder stuff, but that's about it.

[Malroth]

2 level warlock dip for darkness and devil's sight and take the feat blend into shadows which lets you use one of your infinite darkness spell like abilities as a swift action to immediately make a hide check.