Trading Bonus Feats for Sneak Attack

[Alabenson]

Quick question, would it be unbalanced to allow a Wizard to trade Scribe Scroll and their bonus feats for a Sneak Attack progression (i.e. +1d6 at 1st, +2d6 at 5th and so on)? My guess is that it would be fine since bonus feats in general are potentially much more potent than Sneak Attack, but I was hoping to get a second opinion one way or another.

[Biggus]

There's a Fighter variant in UA which trades their bonus feats for sneak attack, so I think it's probably ok for a Wizard to do the same.

[paladinn]

If you look at the Generic Classes from 3.5 UA, Sneak Attack has been converted to 3 separate feats. The basic version gets +2d6 damage; the improved version gets +3d6, and the greater version gets +4d6. The basic version requires 4 ranks of Hide and 4 ranks of Move Silently, which may make it difficult to qualify for. But Sneak Attack is a Rogue-thing, so it shouldn't be too easy.

[Maat Mons]

The Sneak Attack gained at levels higher than 5 wouldn't really matter. Arcane Trickster and Unseen Seer both give better Sneak Attack progressions and fully advance spellcasting.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I agree that trading the bonus feats for Sneak Attack is fine starting level 5, but I'm wary of trading Scribe Scroll. At low levels, and potentially even higher, Scribe Scroll is really not worth much, and you'd end up with basically a wizard with 1d6 SA. I personally wouldn't allow it, or at least not without some restrictions (asking for 4 ranks in Hide and Move Silently would be fine, since it disallows it on a pure wizard, which is the main problem).

[Zarvistic]

If I was the DM, I would prefer a wizard distracted by trying to sneak attack over one focused on casting powerful spells. So for that reason I would be fine with the trade.

[Rebel7284]

Is it unbalanced? Absolutely not! There is already Martial Wizard in Unearthed Arcana, p. 59 that trades Wizard feats for Fighter feats, and there is precedent that trading those for Sneak Attack dice is fair.

However, it also expands the options that Wizards have. More options is, indirectly, more power at least on average. Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things since a more powerful Unseen Seer still pales in comparison with Incantatrix, but something to consider.

As a side note, 1d6 Sneak attack is WAY more useful to the level 1 Wizard than Scribe Scroll (Ray of Frost + winning initiative), but Scribe Scroll goes up in power quickly in later levels.

[Asmotherion]

Unbalanced? No.

Unorthodox? Yes.

In the end, metamagic is much more useful to a Wizard than Sneak Attack after all.