Looking for a feat [3.5]

[Lord of Syntax]

I am looking for a feat that makes Ninja and Rogue levels stack for Sudden Strike and Sneak Attack. Does that exist?

[Devils_Advocate]

Um... Sneak Attack and Sudden Strike already stack with each other when both apply. They even stack for the purpose of meeting a prerequisite of some number of Sneak Attack dice. This is explicitly stated on page 8 of Complete Adventurer.

[DragoonWraith]

No, he means something like Swift Hunter for a Ranger/Scout that causes Ranger and Scout levels to both stack for Favored Enemy and Skirmish. So a Rogue 3/Ninja 3 would have +5d6 Sneak Attack damage and (I assume) +5d6 Sudden Strike damage, since you would effectively have 6 levels of each.

In other words, the ultimate ability to throw silly amounts of d6's.

[Kulture]

I think there's one for rogue/monk and possibly one for monk/ninja, but not rogue/ninja.

[Raiki]

I think that every rogue/ninja ever would take that feat. Rogue 1/Ninja 19 would then become an awesome build. All the nice deliciousness of the ninja, with +10d6 Sneak Attack on top of +10d6 sudden strike. I'd play that. Given it's still not anywhere near the limits of actual RAW optimization, but someone worried about that wouldn't really be playing a rogue or ninja anyway.

~R~

[Devils_Advocate]

Oh. Well, if that's what he meant, I highly doubt that that feat exists. Official cheese tends to be a lot less blatant than that. Sudden Strike is a restricted version of Sneak Attack in the first place, so being able to double up on them is obviously even better than a die of Sudden Strike every level.

[Sinfire Titan]

Oh. Well, if that's what he meant, I highly doubt that that feat exists. Official cheese tends to be a lot less blatant than that. Sudden Strike is a restricted version of Sneak Attack in the first place, so being able to double up on them is obviously even better than a die of Sudden Strike every level.

Wait, what? How is a stacking feat more blatant than something like Initiate of Mystara? I'm not following your logic here.

[DragoonWraith]

I think that every rogue/ninja ever would take that feat. Rogue 1/Ninja 19 would then become an awesome build. All the nice deliciousness of the ninja, with +10d6 Sneak Attack on top of +10d6 sudden strike. I'd play that. Given it's still not anywhere near the limits of actual RAW optimization, but someone worried about that wouldn't really be playing a rogue or ninja anyway.

~R~

Every multiclass feat would be taken by every person who decides to take that multiclass combination. There is no reason whatsoever to not take Swift Hunter on a Ranger/Scout build, no reason not to take Daring Outlaw on a Rogue/Swashbuckler, etc etc. Of course every appropriate multiclass character would take it.

But it's not so good that everyone who is a Rogue is going to say "Oh man, I need to dip Ninja so I can take that feat!". It's just not.

[Dr Bwaa]

But it's not so good that everyone who is a Rogue is going to say "Oh man, I need to dip Ninja so I can take that feat!". It's just not.

The feat described is, however, so good that every ninja would need to dip rogue at first level. The feat asked for seems to say "make my ninja levels not only add Sudden Strike, but also Sneak Attack at the same rate" or put another way "for one feat, I double my primary class feature forever!" There is other broken stuff out there, yes. Some of that is worse, yes. But this is still off the chain (basically, because it invalidates Rogue as a damaging class, since ninja would be literally twice as good).

[Melamoto]

Wait, what? How is a stacking feat more blatant than something like Initiate of Mystara? I'm not following your logic here.

Because that feat would not require any real D&D optimization knowledge at all to abuse. It's completely blatant, not to mention it would not be a very logical feat to make (Stacking abilities from classes that are practically variants of each other? Not going to happen).

[Curmudgeon]

Sneak attack is the most significant Rogue class feature, and is a pure superset of cunning strike: i.e., sneak attack works in all situations where cunning strike works, plus more. So a feat that let a Ninja get Rogue abilities (without taking Rogue levels for them) and still have all their Ninja abilities including Ghost Step, would be excessive.

Swift Ambusher doesn't give the Scout sneak attack progression. Ascetic Rogue doesn't give the Monk sneak attack progression. These are the existing Rogue multiclassing feats that should serve as a guideline for what's reasonable to include in a similar feat for another class.