Unseen Seer Question

[Yogibear41]

If I enter the Unseen seer prestige class with no ability to sneak attack, skirmish, or sudden strike, do I gain one of these ability when I would gain the "damage bonus" ability, or do I simply not benefit from this class feature?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Doesn't look like it. Straight beguiler entry? You can nab some sneak attack by taking the martial study feat for something shadowhand then martial study for assassin's stance. That our just bite the bullet on a rogue dip.

[Yogibear41]

What if I gained sneak attack after I gained the "damage bonus" would it apply then? As in I take a level of rogue or something after I already have the 1st level in the prestige class?


No beguiler, just toying around with some weird/interesting class combo ideas for a potential cohort.

[Kelb_Panthera]

What if I gained sneak attack after I gained the "damage bonus" would it apply then? As in I take a level of rogue or something after I already have the 1st level in the prestige class?

That should work fine. The reason it doesn't work without is because it explicitly adds to those things without granting one. There's no reason to assume it's checked only at level up rather than at the moment of the attack.


No beguiler, just toying around with some weird/interesting class combo ideas for a potential cohort.

If not beguiler, how are you getting the skills without one of the classes that grants precision damage?

[Yogibear41]

Don't have a set build or anything yet just poking around with ideas, plenty of feats/acfs that would most likely handle the skills.

[Cosi]

I think you would get the bonus even if you didn't have Sneak Attack beforehand. Compare the language in Unseen Seer:


At 1st level, the extra damage you deal with your sneak attack, skirmish, or sudden strike ability increases by 1d6.

To the language in the Dragonslayer's Spellcasting ability (for reference, Dragonslayer is a Draconomicon PrC that grants casting progression but can be entered without casting);


Each time a character attains an odd-numbered dragonslayer level, the character gains new spells per day and spells known as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (improved chance of controlling or rebuking undead, metamagic or item creation feats, and so on). This essentially means that the character adds the level of dragonslayer to the level of whatever spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day and caster level accordingly. If a character takes one or more levels in this class before having any levels in a spellcasting class, he does not receive this spellcasting benefit. If he thereafter takes levels in one or more spellcasting classes, he becomes eligible to receive the spellcasting benefit for any level in the dragonslayer class that he has not already attained. For example, a 5th-level fighter/1st-level dragonslayer does not receive the spellcasting benefit for being a 1st-level dragonslayer because he did not belong to a spellcasting class before taking a level in the prestige class. If he then picks up one or more levels of wizard before advancing to 3rd level in the dragonslayer class, he receives the spellcasting benefit of a 3rd-level dragonslayer (when he attains that level) but does not receive the 1st-level benefit retroactively.

I've copied the full text for reference, but the part I think is relevant is bolded. Dragonslayer says explicitly that you don't get the benefit if you don't have anything to progress. Unseen Seer doesn't. It says you unconditionally add an extra 1d6 of damage.

[Fouredged Sword]

May I suggest a spellthief 1 dip. You can then take the master spellthief feat and do all arcane casting in light armor and be a pain in the butt when you sneak attack a casting BBEG. Hunter's eye should let you basically drain him of all his high end spells in one hit.

[Yogibear41]

Can a spellthief steal more than 1 spell per round or per attack? The book isn't super clear. If he has 3 attack and sacrifices 1d6 does he get 3 spells if all the attacks hit? Can he sacrifice more than 1d6? If he sacrifices 2d6 and hits with all 3 attacks does he get 6 spells?

[Fouredged Sword]

Can a spellthief steal more than 1 spell per round or per attack? The book isn't super clear. If he has 3 attack and sacrifices 1d6 does he get 3 spells if all the attacks hit? Can he sacrifice more than 1d6? If he sacrifices 2d6 and hits with all 3 attacks does he get 6 spells?

You can defiantly steal 1 spell per attack. I am pretty sure you can spend as much sneak attack stealing spells as you like, but this is less clear.

[Zombulian]

Can a spellthief steal more than 1 spell per round or per attack? The book isn't super clear. If he has 3 attack and sacrifices 1d6 does he get 3 spells if all the attacks hit? Can he sacrifice more than 1d6? If he sacrifices 2d6 and hits with all 3 attacks does he get 6 spells?

That's an interesting question. I'd say it's quite clear that you could steal multiple spells on your iteratives, but I've never considered forgoing several d6's on one attack. Considering the wording of "choosing to forgo 1d6 damage and instead steal a spell" it's a strong argument that you can.
Remember to take into account the limit of spell levels that you can hold though. Master Spellthief doesn't improve that - though a sensible DM should rule that it does.

[Fouredged Sword]

That's an interesting question. I'd say it's quite clear that you could steal multiple spells on your iteratives, but I've never considered forgoing several d6's on one attack. Considering the wording of "choosing to forgo 1d6 damage and instead steal a spell" it's a strong argument that you can.
Remember to take into account the limit of spell levels that you can hold though. Master Spellthief doesn't improve that - though a sensible DM should rule that it does.

Or just accept that it doesn't and accept that turning the BBEG wizard into a trumped up commoner with a hunter's eye sneak attack ambush is acceptable even if you only keep a level 1 spell of your choice.

[Yogibear41]

Or just accept that it doesn't and accept that turning the BBEG wizard into a trumped up commoner with a hunter's eye sneak attack ambush is acceptable even if you only keep a level 1 spell of your choice.


Oh you wanted to cast spells? Sorry.

Then again if you can get that much sneak attack damage in on a d4 guy, you might just go ahead and take them out anyway, stoneskin and other effects be darned.

[Zombulian]

or just accept that it doesn't

hissssssss

[Nifft]

That should work fine. The reason it doesn't work without is because it explicitly adds to those things without granting one. There's no reason to assume it's checked only at level up rather than at the moment of the attack.

Hmm, actually....



Damage Bonus: At 1st level, the extra damage you deal with your sneak attack, skirmish, or sudden strike ability increases by 1d6. If you have more than one of these abilities, only one ability gains this increase (choose each time you gain this benefit).

Your sneak attack, skirmish, or sudden strike damage increases by another 1d6 at 4th level, 7th level, and 10th level.

It looks like you must choose when you gain the Damage Bonus feature, which would be on level-up. You only get to choose if you have more than one of those abilities. If you have zero of those abilities, I think you don't get to choose, and you don't get any extra damage.

There's some grey interpretation which could be done, but I don't think you could make a Rogue 1 / Scout 1 / Wizard 3 / Unseen Seer 10 who deals +5d6 Skirmish on one round, and then +5d6 Sneak Attack the next round. I think you'd be required to choose where each Damage Bonus increase applied at the time that you gained the relevant level of Unseen Seer.

[Fouredged Sword]

Point at the retraining rules and spends some gold and time to reasign the feature.

[Nifft]

... and at that time pay the level that it would have originally cost to get the extra damage and insert that level before Unseen Seer?

So it's strictly more expensive than just doing it right ahead of taking PrC levels?

That would work, albeit in an expensive way.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Hmm, actually....



It looks like you must choose when you gain the Damage Bonus feature, which would be on level-up. You only get to choose if you have more than one of those abilities. If you have zero of those abilities, I think you don't get to choose, and you don't get any extra damage.

There's some grey interpretation which could be done, but I don't think you could make a Rogue 1 / Scout 1 / Wizard 3 / Unseen Seer 10 who deals +5d6 Skirmish on one round, and then +5d6 Sneak Attack the next round. I think you'd be required to choose where each Damage Bonus increase applied at the time that you gained the relevant level of Unseen Seer.

You misunderstand. What I'm saying is that the bonus damage for the ability (SA, SS, Sk) is checked at the time of the attack. Naturally, you'd have to choose which of the three you're applying the bonus to at the time the feature is gained. You get the extra damage dice, you just can't apply it until you have the ability to which it applies.

[Nifft]

You misunderstand. What I'm saying is that the bonus damage for the ability (SA, SS, Sk) is checked at the time of the attack. Naturally, you'd have to choose which of the three you're applying the bonus to at the time the feature is gained. You get the extra damage dice, you just can't apply it until you have the ability to which it applies.

The text says you get to choose which type of extra damage you get if you have more than one applicable extra damage type at the time that you gain the level of Unseen Seer.

The text implies that you do not get to choose which type of extra damage you get if you have exactly one extra damage type, and the rules say nothing about what happens if you have zero applicable extra damage types.

- The rules do not allow you a choice if you have zero extra damage types, since the choice only happens if you have more than one.
- The rules do not allow you to retroactively re-assign the extra damage bonus if you later gain a new extra damage type.

It's quite likely that you don't get anything if you have no applicable extra damage types available when you gain a relevant level of Unseen Seer -- but since the rules don't explicitly cover that situation, the DM is in a very strong position to make something up, and that's the most likely outcome.

What you're suggesting sounds somewhat fair, but it's not well-supported by RAW.
Equally fair would be: "No, you can either pay a level to get extra damage dice, or you can suck it up and get less benefit from Unseen Seer in trade for more caster levels, or you can delay entry into Unseen Seer until you have extra damage dice from Assassin's Stance or whatever."


Finally, it's an odd assumption that the extra damage type is "checked" at attack time rather than at level-up time -- it's like you're assuming that a particular computation in a program always happens at run-time rather than compile-time, and that's not a good assumption to make.

The only time the rules discuss a choice of damage type is when you gain the feature, which is at level-up time ("compile time"), not during an attack -- to me that seems like an indication that the damage type assignment happens during level-up.