Dervish+Sneak Attack Question

[samduke]

I have a question that I am not sure how to go about and I am turning to the playgrounders to see what may solve the question

I want to have the Dervish PRC, so I can move and attack, thing is I also want top be able to use sneak attack while in the dervish dance, every time it attacks without fail.

How is the best way to do this if this is possible?

[Curmudgeon]

The best way for reliable sneak attack is to be unseen, thereby denying foes their DEX bonus to AC. The Greater Invisibility spell works well unless they have See Invisibility.

[GilesTheCleric]

Finding a way to get pounce (such as from one level of lion totem barbarian) might be more efficient than dervish, and might fulfill the same need, though you wouldn't be able to move between attacks (since you can't make a 5ft adjust if you've already moved that round such as you could when full attacking from standing still). If you're throwing within 30 ft, you can still apply SA dice if the conditions are met, so moving as much might not be as necessary. Master Thrower is a pretty good PrC.

[General Sajaru]

Maybe use feint (Invisible Blade from CW is good for that) so that your opponents are flat-footed and therefore vulnerable to SA. Off the top of my head, Invisible Blade may be the only way to have feinting be less than a move action, although it would only apply to your next attack after feinting (as per the description in Bluff).

[GilesTheCleric]

That's a good point, General Sajaru. It's handy to have several methods of triggering precision dice -- feinting, invisibility, FF, flanking, etc. Having several methods for both fighting solo and fighting in a party increases your flexibility and thus long-term efficacy.

Do note that the errata makes Invisible Blade much less useful if you were planning on making several feints per round:


Page 46: Invisible Blade’s Uncanny Feint (class feature) The invisible blade can use his uncanny feint ability once per round.

If I were GMing, I would ignore the errata since feinting (well) is already much more resource-intensive than basically every other method of triggering SA, but that's just a houserule.

[gorfnab]

Have you considered Scout instead of Rogue? Skirmish damage triggers on movement which works great with the Dervish abilities.

[samduke]

Have you considered Scout instead of Rogue? Skirmish damage triggers on movement which works great with the Dervish abilities.

uh never mentioned anything about a rogue- there are a ton of ways to get Sneak Attack
as to changing class from dervish - the whole point was to do so as a dervish

ok so greater invisibility, feinting, flanking, various spells - but all of them have some form of loophole that could make it where sneak will not trigger

yes I agree having access to all of them makes it more likely to have sneak attack work, just was hoping for a better solution

[General Sajaru]

ok so greater invisibility, feinting, flanking, various spells - but all of them have some form of loophole that could make it where sneak will not trigger

yes I agree having access to all of them makes it more likely to have sneak attack work, just was hoping for a better solution

Sneak attack is one of those things that's not designed to trigger all the time, which means that trying to make it do so is going to be a bit hit or miss (yes, pun intended).

[heavyfuel]

The best way for reliable sneak attack is to be unseen, thereby denying foes their DEX bonus to AC. The Greater Invisibility spell works well unless they have See Invisibility.

Not that reliable since Uncanny Dodge is really easy to acquire, and lots of monsters are immune to SA (so you need to flank them to proc Lightbringer or Penetrating Strike)