Why Mosquito's Bite?

[Zaq]

I like skill tricks a lot. I like that they're available early on if you like that sort of thing, I like having different ways to spend build "currency," and I just think they're fun low-level effects in general.

Now, not all of them are super strong, and that's okay. Plenty of feats are crap, after all, and skill tricks are explicitly supposed to be, well, tricks, not game-defining abilities. That's fine! Even if I don't think that all of them are actually worth the investment, I can at least understand why all but one of them exist. I can understand why someone would think it's cool to have that ability even if the cost isn't worth the benefit in my book.

But I straight up have never, EVER understood what the intended purpose of Mosquito's Bite is. Ever. Like, let's pretend you got it for free and you didn't have to pay for it. Why would you bother?



Benefit: If you use a light weapon to hit a flat-footed opponent, you can choose to have the opponent not realize that it has been hit until the start of your next turn. Instead, that opponent reacts as if you had attacked and missed.

Using this skill trick doesn’t require an action on your part.

This trick doesn’t allow the opponent to ignore any of the other effects of your attack, such as ability damage from poison on your blade or falling unconscious when reduced to fewer than 0 hit points.


When is this worth your time?! When is it ever advantageous to have your opponent realize that you attacked them but think that you missed? If they didn't think you attacked them, okay, that would actually be potentially quite nice, maybe kinda a little bit. But they still know that you're swinging. They just temporarily think that you missed.

The last clause, about all the other effects of your attack still happening, means you can't even do shenanigans like "delaying a 1-round save debuff until next round so it applies to a save you force on that round." (I mean, the rules would surely lead to no shortage of arguments in the absence of a clarifying clause like that, so it's good from a rule-writing perspective, but still bad from a what-value-is-this-game-element-adding perspective.)

Is there any benefit to an opponent thinking that you missed when you really didn't? Like, maybe if you've got a GM who's really receptive to in-combat banter and that GM lets you combine it with some kind of Bluff check to have the target think that you're not a threat despite the fact that you're demonstrably attacking them? That's not at all what the text of the ability says, though.

Maybe it's because I can't think of any abilities that trigger off of the target's perception of being hit or not. (Because after all, that usually isn't a distinction we need to make.) So it's hard to think of anything that's in the PC's control that can key off of "target thinks I missed them."

Every time I flip through the skill tricks I stop on this one for a little while. I just can't grok why you'd bother. It's not that I don't think the benefit is worth the cost--it's that I straight up do not see the benefit at all.

I... suppose that battle tricksters would be able to use it to get a +1 competence bonus on a single attack roll via their tricky fighting feature? Since Mosquito's Bite doesn't require an action and all. Though you already have to have them flat-footed (meaning you've probably got a decent advantage AND it's challenging--not impossible, but challenging--to activate it after round 1) and also battle trickster has a hard time qualifying for it, since they don't get SoH in-class. Kind of same with magical trickster and their tricky magic ability. At least uncanny trickster (yes, it has class features other than just "add two levels to a class"!) can fairly easily qualify for it (since they get SoH), so they can trigger tricky defense with it? I'm reaching, though. I don't like any of those explanations and I genuinely don't think they're the primary purpose.

What are your thoughts? Have you ever seen this used? Put it in a clever combo? At least gotten as much benefit out of it as WotC intended, even if we didn't go above and beyond into making it some insanely tricksy build?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Well, I guess if you're doing a Spring Attack or Flyby Attack from hiding and they don't see you, and you make it back to cover before they know you're there, you could attack and not have them realize where it came from?

...That's all I've got.

[TheStranger]

I’ve had some GMs use a general rule that opponents attack the most threatening PC. So maybe the intended use is some kind of abstract “I’m not a threat, attack that guy” effect. Which is obviously a metagame concept that doesn’t apply at every table, not an actual mechanical benefit.

[NontheistCleric]

Well, I guess if you're doing a Spring Attack or Flyby Attack from hiding and they don't see you, and you make it back to cover before they know you're there, you could attack and not have them realize where it came from?

...That's all I've got.

You'd probably have to be invisible for this, since otherwise they'd likely see you coming out of cover and moving towards them and quickly put things together.

[Zaq]

You'd probably have to be invisible for this, since otherwise they'd likely see you coming out of cover and moving towards them and quickly put things together.

And they still know you attacked. Attacking still breaks stealth even if you're using a form of invisibility that isn't the actual invisibility spell.

[NontheistCleric]

And they still know you attacked. Attacking still breaks stealth even if you're using a form of invisibility that isn't the actual invisibility spell.

Well, but remember that they react 'as if you had attacked and missed'. So, theoretically, if you managed to keep silent as well as unseen, that would buy you a whole six extra seconds of getaway time, without them knowing who you are!

It's not great, but it could be meaningful in some circumstances. Maybe if you were to do this in a large crowd? That makes sense. Of course, you'd have to be skilled enough to disguise your invisible weavings through the people.

[Xervous]

With the exact wording I’m not seeing too much beyond what has been outlined above, and the target not realizing they are already dead (for cinematic purposes).

[Xervous]

With the exact wording I’m not seeing too much beyond what has been outlined above, and the target not realizing they are already (almost) dead (for cinematic purposes).

[Inevitability]

With the exact wording I’m not seeing too much beyond what has been outlined above, and the target not realizing they are already dead (for cinematic purposes).

Technically it doesn't even do that, because anyone reduced to zero-or-less HP is still rendered unconscious.

[NontheistCleric]

That's probably why they changed it.

[Doctor Despair]

You could maybe use it with sniping and a thrown light weapon. Hit someone, hide, then move silently away, and let the damage register once you've made some distance?

[Zarvistic]

Maybe they'd be less inclined to heal or run away from you, making it easier to attack again next round?

[TheStranger]

Another possible use would be the target not knowing they’re badly injured so that they don’t heal/protect themselves. I’m envisioning something like this:

Surprise round: Rogue uses Mosquito’s bite, deals massive sneak attack damage.

Round 1: Target, thinking himself uninjured, charges into melee instead of being cautious, and is easily dispatched.

Thinking about this, it may be more useful *against* the PCs, as a GM trick to bait the party into tactically unwise actions.

Edit: ninja’d

[Zaq]

You could maybe use it with sniping and a thrown light weapon. Hit someone, hide, then move silently away, and let the damage register once you've made some distance?

You break stealth by attacking, not by hitting.

[Doctor Despair]

You break stealth by attacking, not by hitting.

There are literally rules for sniping


Sniping
If you’ve already successfully hidden at least 10 feet from your target, you can make one ranged attack, then immediately hide again. You take a -20 penalty on your Hide check to conceal yourself after the shot.

[ShurikVch]

You could maybe use it with sniping and a thrown light weapon. Hit someone, hide, then move silently away, and let the damage register once you've made some distance?
And if attack using Mosquito's Bite was, actually, lethal -
opponent wouldn't realize they're, really, dead -
until the start of the next turn, and continue to act as usual
(while being dead!) :smallbiggrin:

[Xervous]

Spell storing weapon of beastland ferocity and delay death?

Then demand ransom, as you’ve taken their life hostage to be blown away with a simple dispel magic.

[RaiKirah]

It would ensure that any bleed damage proc's for another round as they wouldn't know to heal themselves (or use the Heal skill) to staunch the bleeding. Not great, but it's there.

[NontheistCleric]

You break stealth by attacking, not by hitting.
Well, not exactly. As per the SRD:

It’s practically impossible (-20 penalty) to hide while attacking, running or charging.
So an invisible person (assuming the kind of invisibility that doesn't break on an attack) with a high modifier would be fine.

[liquidformat]

I have had a DM who ignored the second sentence 'Instead, that opponent reacts as if you had attacked and missed.' for the reason you are pointing out which changed this from a garbage ability into quite a godly skill trick for sneak attackers and the likes.

[WhamBamSam]

It messes with abilities that trigger off of being hit, although all I've got off the top of my head is that you can provoke an AoO from both an opponent using Feigned Opening, and any of his friends who are threatening you, instead of one or the other, and that you can trick them out of using the granted power of the Retribution domain when they would otherwise be able to take advantage of it.

[Blackhawk748]

I can see it working in a duel where you want to kill the other person but you aren't technically supposed to. You Mosquito's bite the first attack and then hit them normally next round, probably killing them.

Done, looks like an accident.

[DeAnno]

I can see it working in a duel where you want to kill the other person but you aren't technically supposed to. You Mosquito's bite the first attack and then hit them normally next round, probably killing them.

Done, looks like an accident.

Everyone else watching notices it though, don't they? It only fools the opponent. Ironically this means if the opponent has any allies they can just talk as a free action to nullify the skill trick, on top of everything else.

[RaiKirah]

Oooh! Another use! Betting someone you can stab them without them noticing! Or betting someone you can stab someone else without them noticing!

[theAui]

The frenzied berserker's ability would trigger a round later which is always nice for you.

[RaiKirah]

The frenzied berserker's ability would trigger a round later which is always nice for you.

Similarly you should be able to avoid triggering Karmic Strike.

[Yael]

And if attack using Mosquito's Bite was, actually, lethal -
opponent wouldn't realize they're, really, dead -
until the start of the next turn, and continue to act as usual
(while being dead!) :smallbiggrin:

Omae wa mo shindeiru.

They have enough seconds in a round to say "NANI?!"

Next round, they die. Maybe combo it with a monk's Decisive Strike so you actually hit him with a barrage of punches to his channeling points (or go with a maneuver that deals massive damage for maximum anime).

[ExLibrisMortis]

In theory, Mosquito's Bite should prevent a PC from using Karmic Strike against an NPC, because they wouldn't know to tell the DM "I'll AoO that guy who hit me". Right? I mean, if you're DMing, and you have a PC with Karmic Strike attacked by an NPC with Mosquito's Bite, you wouldn't tell that PC "the attack misses, but you can still AoO", would you? That'd give it away. You say "it's a miss" and move on.

The other way around, it's not unreasonable to say that NPCs shouldn't have access to all the hidden information that the DM keeps track of, and thus won't know the difference between objective reality and their perception of reality, just like a PC. So you could use Mosquito's Bite to negate Karmic Strike-using NPCs, too.

More generally, a DM capable of keeping track of different NPC's perspectives (not easy, especially if your encounter has "gnoll barbarian 17, 18, and 19") would adjust NPC tactics a little based on the NPC's estimate of PC prowess. Several monster tactics sections mention something like "if reduced to one-quarter health or less, [the monster] uses its greater teleport to get to safety". Theoretically, if you could Mosquito's Bite such a monster several times in one round, you wouldn't have to hunt it down/prevent its escape. Not likely to happen, not easy to set up, but okay.

Overall, not a useless trick, but incredibly niche, for sure.

[Golbarg]

I've taken Mosquito's bite once, with a ninja in an urban campaign. Pretty useful tool for public assassination (or general mischief). Plus, those spring attacks/acrobatic tumbles had a bit more oomf to them.
All in all, I'd say it has some niche uses on some characters, but it is mostly a RP/fluff tool. And as a roguish type, it is not a bad two skill points to spend, even if it is a bit suboptimal.

[icefractal]

I'd seen this mentioned, but not read it carefully before. Therefore I was under the impression that the target wouldn't notice if they were sniped with it unt a round later, which would make it great for the right type of character. I assume people recommending it are under a similar misapprehension.

[The Viscount]

Pretty situational, but it would allow for you to use more subtle riders (like poison) without the target knowing they should seek help. Much more insidious if you use it as the DM against the PCs.

Are we assuming that only the opponent acts like you missed, or objective reality acts like you missed? If it's B, then maybe you can avoid contingency spells or protective effects like fire shield?

[WhamBamSam]

I've taken Mosquito's bite once, with a ninja in an urban campaign. Pretty useful tool for public assassination (or general mischief). Plus, those spring attacks/acrobatic tumbles had a bit more oomf to them.
All in all, I'd say it has some niche uses on some characters, but it is mostly a RP/fluff tool. And as a roguish type, it is not a bad two skill points to spend, even if it is a bit suboptimal.Except it's not useful for public assassinations by RAW, because the person still knows that you attacked them - they just believe that you missed - and everyone else who saw it knows that you attacked them and that you hit them.

The likely RAI, that you can attack someone and have them not able to tell that they've been attacked for a turn, would make it worth the investment, but that's not what the text says.

[rrwoods]

I think the designers didn't consider the case where the defender can't see the attack itself. RAI is probably that the "reacts as if you attacked and missed" is intended to mean that, *if they saw you attack them*, they think you missed. (That's not what the text says and I'm not arguing otherwise.)

[weckar]

It would prevent them from using any immediate action abilities in response to being hit?

[Duff]

I think the designers didn't consider the case where the defender can't see the attack itself. RAI is probably that the "reacts as if you attacked and missed" is intended to mean that, *if they saw you attack them*, they think you missed. (That's not what the text says and I'm not arguing otherwise.)

I'm inclined to agree. It would be more useful (but not too useful I think) and more logical with wording like
"the target still knows they've been attacked unless other circumstances prevent them from noticing the attacker's actions, such as an invisible character making a stealth roll.
"If the attack goes unnoticed by the target, effects triggered by an attack still go off, but effects which the target needs to trigger will not, because the target remains unaware that they could do so"

[Psyren]

And they still know you attacked.

I'm not so sure I agree with this. The exact wording is that they react as though you had attacked and missed - it doesn't say anything about realizing you attacked.

Imagine I'm sitting outside, and someone tries to snipe me and misses completely. Assuming they don't hit something else that can clue me in, like shattering a nearby window or vase - my normal reaction to them attacking and missing would be... nothing.

In other words, if the attacker can stay undetected during the attack, this ability wouldn't give the victim any additional information they don't already have.

[liquidformat]

The thing that makes me scratch my head is someone who is flat footed 'hasn't yet acted in combat' so if you say sneak attack someone from behind who is flat-footed and miss they would be acting as if you attacked and missed by being completely oblivious to you attacking. By that logic if you say are stealth assassinating someone wouldn't that make them stay flat-footed for another round?

[Particle_Man]

Tomb of Battle has an eighth level Devoted Spirit Maneuver where you do a lot of extra damage but you voluntarily take con damage (more of the latter giving you more of the former). A victim of mosquito’s strike might miscalculate on how much con damage they can afford to lose and conveniently kill themselves for you.

I think there is a shadow sun ninja 10th level class ability that similarly costs con, and the hellfire warlock too. And some book of exalted deeds spells, perhaps.

I suppose a monster like a stirge that somehow got both intelligence and this skill trick would get an extra round of con drain. It would be funny to give mosquito’s bite to a giant mosquito.

[Thurbane]

I put this as a skill trick on one of my VC entries, but it was pretty much purely thematic: Soratōkā (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=22297554&postcount=169)

[Crake]

Maybe they'd be less inclined to heal or run away from you, making it easier to attack again next round?

This is where I would imagine the effect would be useful. If an enemy is prone to healing themselves with powerful healing magic (Heal anyone?), or escaping with teleportation magic, them not realising they took what, 25-30 or so hp from your sneak attack could be the difference between them deciding to heal/teleport away, or them staying and fighting, giving you the opportunity to actually finish them when they otherwise might have managed to escape.

Sure it's pretty niche, but not everything has to be applicable to every situation.

[Feantar]

I like skill tricks a lot. I like that they're available early on if you like that sort of thing, I like having different ways to spend build "currency," and I just think they're fun low-level effects in general.

Now, not all of them are super strong, and that's okay. Plenty of feats are crap, after all, and skill tricks are explicitly supposed to be, well, tricks, not game-defining abilities. That's fine! Even if I don't think that all of them are actually worth the investment, I can at least understand why all but one of them exist. I can understand why someone would think it's cool to have that ability even if the cost isn't worth the benefit in my book.

But I straight up have never, EVER understood what the intended purpose of Mosquito's Bite is. Ever. Like, let's pretend you got it for free and you didn't have to pay for it. Why would you bother?



When is this worth your time?! When is it ever advantageous to have your opponent realize that you attacked them but think that you missed? If they didn't think you attacked them, okay, that would actually be potentially quite nice, maybe kinda a little bit. But they still know that you're swinging. They just temporarily think that you missed.

The last clause, about all the other effects of your attack still happening, means you can't even do shenanigans like "delaying a 1-round save debuff until next round so it applies to a save you force on that round." (I mean, the rules would surely lead to no shortage of arguments in the absence of a clarifying clause like that, so it's good from a rule-writing perspective, but still bad from a what-value-is-this-game-element-adding perspective.)

Is there any benefit to an opponent thinking that you missed when you really didn't? Like, maybe if you've got a GM who's really receptive to in-combat banter and that GM lets you combine it with some kind of Bluff check to have the target think that you're not a threat despite the fact that you're demonstrably attacking them? That's not at all what the text of the ability says, though.

Maybe it's because I can't think of any abilities that trigger off of the target's perception of being hit or not. (Because after all, that usually isn't a distinction we need to make.) So it's hard to think of anything that's in the PC's control that can key off of "target thinks I missed them."

Every time I flip through the skill tricks I stop on this one for a little while. I just can't grok why you'd bother. It's not that I don't think the benefit is worth the cost--it's that I straight up do not see the benefit at all.

I... suppose that battle tricksters would be able to use it to get a +1 competence bonus on a single attack roll via their tricky fighting feature? Since Mosquito's Bite doesn't require an action and all. Though you already have to have them flat-footed (meaning you've probably got a decent advantage AND it's challenging--not impossible, but challenging--to activate it after round 1) and also battle trickster has a hard time qualifying for it, since they don't get SoH in-class. Kind of same with magical trickster and their tricky magic ability. At least uncanny trickster (yes, it has class features other than just "add two levels to a class"!) can fairly easily qualify for it (since they get SoH), so they can trigger tricky defense with it? I'm reaching, though. I don't like any of those explanations and I genuinely don't think they're the primary purpose.

What are your thoughts? Have you ever seen this used? Put it in a clever combo? At least gotten as much benefit out of it as WotC intended, even if we didn't go above and beyond into making it some insanely tricksy build?

...You wish to murder the king. You attack him with a wounding dagger and prior to your next turn, you get hit with a temporal stasis by your wizard buddy. Then, the king slowly dies, as he cannot believe that he is bleeding. :P

But yeah, seriously, I don't get it either.

[NontheistCleric]

Except it's not useful for public assassinations by RAW, because the person still knows that you attacked them - they just believe that you missed - and everyone else who saw it knows that you attacked them and that you hit them.

The likely RAI, that you can attack someone and have them not able to tell that they've been attacked for a turn, would make it worth the investment, but that's not what the text says.

Well, no, because they're playing a ninja. They can turn invisible. So if the ninja could be hiding somewhere, dart out invisibly, kill the target, and then return to hiding, provided they were fast enough.

Assuming they were stealthy enough to remain undetected, the target would react as if they had missed, and if an opponent you couldn't detect missed you, you wouldn't know or do anything about it. Of course, they would also have to use an attack method that didn't immediately give away the attack to onlookers, so stabbing with a longsword might be out, but the target could easily be pricked with a poison ring or something like that.

The next round, the ninja's Ghost Step wears off, but the target is dead. Alternatively, if safety isn't within a round's reach, an assassin with access to longer-duration invisibility (maybe just using Ghost Step multiple times) would have 6 seconds before any alarm was raised. Not the most useful, but not meaningless.

[WhamBamSam]

Well, no, because they're playing a ninja. They can turn invisible. So if the ninja could be hiding somewhere, dart out invisibly, kill the target, and then return to hiding, provided they were fast enough.

Assuming they were stealthy enough to remain undetected, the target would react as if they had missed, and if an opponent you couldn't detect missed you, you wouldn't know or do anything about it. Of course, they would also have to use an attack method that didn't immediately give away the attack to onlookers, so stabbing with a longsword might be out, but the target could easily be pricked with a poison ring or something like that.

The next round, the ninja's Ghost Step wears off, but the target is dead. Alternatively, if safety isn't within a round's reach, an assassin with access to longer-duration invisibility (maybe just using Ghost Step multiple times) would have 6 seconds before any alarm was raised. Not the most useful, but not meaningless.I think with a lot of weapons the target would be able to tell they'd been missed by an invisible attacker, but fair point. Something like a Poison Ring or maybe Gnome Quickrazor might work.

[NontheistCleric]

I think with a lot of weapons the target would be able to tell they'd been missed by an invisible attacker, but fair point. Something like a Poison Ring or maybe Gnome Quickrazor might work.

I think you're missing the point a little. It's not about the attacker being able to tell. The target won't notice anything until 6 seconds after the fact, but onlookers would, so for example if the hypothetical ninja rams a big jagged dagger into his back, someone looking at his back will see a giant gaping wound appear out of nowhere and catch on to what's happening. With a subtle weapon, that doesn't happen.

But now that I think about it more, that means for the trick to be useful the target can't die immediately, since if no one but the target knows he was hit by an invisible attacker, the 6 seconds of getaway time only applies if he survives (even if he possibly later succumbs to poison or a wounding effect of some sort).

It's still not entirely useless, since after all those 6 seconds could make the difference between death and escape (and possibly a chance to try again soon), but it really isn't amazing.

[Fouredged Sword]

Not all attacks look like attacks. A ring with a small blade can be used to deliver a poison during a handshake and hide the cut until after the handshake is over. Nobody is alarmed when a friendly NPC moves to touch them, but touches are touch attacks. This includes held spells, and some of those spells don't have effects that seem obvious.

"The lady goes to brush your hand with her's, but at the last moment she hesitates and her hand doesn't make contact with yours. She is radiantly beautiful and you want nothing more than to put a smile on her face to wash away those eyes that seem so sad"

The DM never told you she was holding a casting of something like charm person and you just failed a willsave.

There is also value in the opponent not knowing they are dying until they are already dead. No screams of pain, no messy cries for help. By the time they realize they need to call for aid they are already passed out and bleeding to death.

[Max Caysey]

I like skill tricks a lot. I like that they're available early on if you like that sort of thing, I like having different ways to spend build "currency," and I just think they're fun low-level effects in general.

Now, not all of them are super strong, and that's okay. Plenty of feats are crap, after all, and skill tricks are explicitly supposed to be, well, tricks, not game-defining abilities. That's fine! Even if I don't think that all of them are actually worth the investment, I can at least understand why all but one of them exist. I can understand why someone would think it's cool to have that ability even if the cost isn't worth the benefit in my book.

But I straight up have never, EVER understood what the intended purpose of Mosquito's Bite is. Ever. Like, let's pretend you got it for free and you didn't have to pay for it. Why would you bother?



When is this worth your time?! When is it ever advantageous to have your opponent realize that you attacked them but think that you missed? If they didn't think you attacked them, okay, that would actually be potentially quite nice, maybe kinda a little bit. But they still know that you're swinging. They just temporarily think that you missed.

The last clause, about all the other effects of your attack still happening, means you can't even do shenanigans like "delaying a 1-round save debuff until next round so it applies to a save you force on that round." (I mean, the rules would surely lead to no shortage of arguments in the absence of a clarifying clause like that, so it's good from a rule-writing perspective, but still bad from a what-value-is-this-game-element-adding perspective.)

Is there any benefit to an opponent thinking that you missed when you really didn't? Like, maybe if you've got a GM who's really receptive to in-combat banter and that GM lets you combine it with some kind of Bluff check to have the target think that you're not a threat despite the fact that you're demonstrably attacking them? That's not at all what the text of the ability says, though.

Maybe it's because I can't think of any abilities that trigger off of the target's perception of being hit or not. (Because after all, that usually isn't a distinction we need to make.) So it's hard to think of anything that's in the PC's control that can key off of "target thinks I missed them."

Every time I flip through the skill tricks I stop on this one for a little while. I just can't grok why you'd bother. It's not that I don't think the benefit is worth the cost--it's that I straight up do not see the benefit at all.

I... suppose that battle tricksters would be able to use it to get a +1 competence bonus on a single attack roll via their tricky fighting feature? Since Mosquito's Bite doesn't require an action and all. Though you already have to have them flat-footed (meaning you've probably got a decent advantage AND it's challenging--not impossible, but challenging--to activate it after round 1) and also battle trickster has a hard time qualifying for it, since they don't get SoH in-class. Kind of same with magical trickster and their tricky magic ability. At least uncanny trickster (yes, it has class features other than just "add two levels to a class"!) can fairly easily qualify for it (since they get SoH), so they can trigger tricky defense with it? I'm reaching, though. I don't like any of those explanations and I genuinely don't think they're the primary purpose.

What are your thoughts? Have you ever seen this used? Put it in a clever combo? At least gotten as much benefit out of it as WotC intended, even if we didn't go above and beyond into making it some insanely tricksy build?

I haven't read the entire thread, so bear with, but the way I see it, this can only really be used - as in be beneficial - as part of a sneak attack, from a hidden og otherwise undetectable position. Essentially, it gives you a second surprise round... That is basically how I see it working. So for it to have an effect your opponents needs to not know you have swung at all, which IMO can only happen if your invisible or hidden (and succeed in a -20 check to stay hidden)... that way your opponent will continue with what ever he's doing until next round...

[Jay R]

When I'm the DM, low-intelligence thugs tend to attack the person who last hit them, or who has done the most damage recently.

Fighter hits Ogre. Rogue hits Ogre with Mosquito's Bite. Then Ogre attacks high-hp, high-AC Fighter, not medium-hp, medium-AC Rogue.

[Quertus]

When I'm the DM, low-intelligence thugs tend to attack the person who last hit them, or who has done the most damage recently.

Fighter hits Ogre. Rogue hits Ogre with Mosquito's Bite. Then Ogre attacks high-hp, high-AC Fighter, not medium-hp, medium-AC Rogue.

That's one (probably the best) of 3 uses I see.

2) barrel of ninjas. Dozens or hundreds of ninjas tumble past, seemingly doing nothing. Then the figurehead (using deathwatch or something) stops holding an action, and delivers the killing blow, "killing the mighty foe in a single hit". (It's important that their wall of bodies block LoS from anyone else).

3) Grand Master Assassin. The Invisible (Improved, of course) Dark Whisper Gnome with +NI to Hide stabs someone. They know that they were attacked by the unseen Assassin, and incongruously scream out about it moments before suddenly dieing. (Works best with that Spell Storing blade mentioned earlier).

[daremetoidareyo]

How about on a spellthief? You nab a bunch of their spells, and then on their turn, they try to cast them?

[Particle_Man]

How about on a spellthief? You nab a bunch of their spells, and then on their turn, they try to cast them?

Not sure that would work:

"This trick doesn't allow the opponent to ignore any of the other effects of your attack, such as ability damage from poison on your blade or falling unconscious when reduced to fewer than 0 hit points."

So they might notice they lost a spell immediately.

Also, unless you have a spell-thief gang it would only be the one spell stolen as a skill trick can only be used once per encounter.

[PraxisVetli]

Well, but remember that they react 'as if you had attacked and missed'. So, theoretically, if you managed to keep silent as well as unseen, that would buy you a whole six extra seconds of getaway time, without them knowing who you are!

This is how my table ran it. Admittedly, it's a houserule, but it's the only thing that made sense to us. You stealth, eat the -20 to hide, attack, and re-hide before they even know what happened. Next round, their chest explodes in super animu style. It assumes an arbitrarily high Hide modifier, but how hard is that, really?





2) barrel of ninjas. Dozens or hundreds of ninjas tumble past, seemingly doing nothing. Then the figurehead (using deathwatch or something) stops holding an action, and delivers the killing blow, "killing the mighty foe in a single hit". (It's important that their wall of bodies block LoS from anyone else).
Though this is brilliant!

[Particle_Man]

The barrel of ninjas reminds me of a comedy martial arts flick (I regret that I cannot name it) that features “folding chair style” where a pack of martial artists wail on their antagonist with folding chairs while four others stay between this beat down and the camera, partially obscuring the curb stomp with graceful flowing martial arts movements to distract the viewer.

Edit: The movie in question is called “Sik San“ which is “The God of Cookery” in English. A 1996 film.

[Quertus]

Barrel of ninjas studied at folding chair school of martial arts - now there's a sentence one wouldn't expect to hear outside of mad libs. :smallamused:

[PrismCat21]

Barrel of ninjas studied at folding chair school of martial arts - now there's a sentence one wouldn't expect to hear outside of mad libs. :smallamused:

We obviously kept very different styles of company... :)

[GrayDeath]

Not all attacks look like attacks. A ring with a small blade can be used to deliver a poison during a handshake and hide the cut until after the handshake is over. Nobody is alarmed when a friendly NPC moves to touch them, but touches are touch attacks. This includes held spells, and some of those spells don't have effects that seem obvious.

"The lady goes to brush your hand with her's, but at the last moment she hesitates and her hand doesn't make contact with yours. She is radiantly beautiful and you want nothing more than to put a smile on her face to wash away those eyes that seem so sad"

The DM never told you she was holding a casting of something like charm person and you just failed a willsave.

There is also value in the opponent not knowing they are dying until they are already dead. No screams of pain, no messy cries for help. By the time they realize they need to call for aid they are already passed out and bleeding to death.

Neat.


I haven't read the entire thread, so bear with, but the way I see it, this can only really be used - as in be beneficial - as part of a sneak attack, from a hidden og otherwise undetectable position. Essentially, it gives you a second surprise round... That is basically how I see it working. So for it to have an effect your opponents needs to not know you have swung at all, which IMO can only happen if your invisible or hidden (and succeed in a -20 check to stay hidden)... that way your opponent will continue with what ever he's doing until next round...

Yeah, my entire group is gonna get the skill trick, if we can.
The worst among us, the Psion, has a Stealth Modifier of +31.
And all 3 can deliver "fun stuff" witha ttacks (I imagine though that my Shadowpuncer can gain the most, given I ahve an improved Ring of Invisibility at will via a Swift action^^)
Muahahaha, thats gonna be fun. ^^

[Particle_Man]

Another niche use might be a formal duel that has a rule where after one person hits the other both combatants pause while a judge assessed whether the hit was proper or not. If the rules say that a person who is hit but does not pause loses points or forfeits the match then the skill trick might be useful.

[thorr-kan]

Use if for Iajutsu Focus abuse, maybe? Doesn't say the damages has to be sneak attack. Maybe if you stack the two of them...

[Malphegor]

I always assumed precision damage still applied and this trick let you make an enemy in character think they’ve recieved no damage whilst in reality they’ve just been Zorro-style written upon all over and are just the final hitpoint away from exploding into gore

[Crake]

Well, not exactly. As per the SRD:

So an invisible person (assuming the kind of invisibility that doesn't break on an attack) with a high modifier would be fine.

Or someone with an absurd hide check and hide in plain sight.