Is Scout a Balanced Class?

[Kizara]

As the title asks, I am curious to whether anyone has some opinions on the scout class.

Is it over/underpowered in your opinion? Just right?

Did you ever wish it had a certain ability that it lacks, or an ability of it was better?

Does any of it's abilities or features seem badly made or have problematic holes that are abusable?


Personally, aside from missing a couple class skills, having too small of a proficiency list, and having speak language as class, I couldn't find anything wrong with them.

[Draz74]

It's supposed to be able to be a good infiltrator or long-distance messenger, hence the Speak Language.

From what I've gathered, it's an underpowered class ... but only barely. It will get by fine in most campaigns, especially if you find a good way to combine Skirmish with a full attack (pretty simple these days). And you can always power it up a bit more (especially against its greatest weakness, precision-damage-immune foes) by dipping Ranger and taking Swift Hunter.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Better at low levels than high, but not overly underpowered.

[Rachel Lorelei]

It's a little weak, but not much, especially with the options in splatbooks (like Improved Skirmish and Swift Hunter and Greater Manyshot). Overall, it's fine, if slightly overshadowed by the Rogue.

[AslanCross]

It's okay. Probably not very good if you take it all the way. I find it functions best multiclassed with Ranger and augmented with the Swift Hunter feat.

[Proven_Paradox]

Mix it with ranger and the right feats, and it's the best ranged attacker that doesn't cast spells in addition to being a good stealthy dude and trap-handler (with the Wizards errata of Disable Device and Open lock as class skills). Take it alone and you're probably better off with rogue, but with wise multiclassing it's just fine.

[Kizara]

Question: where is this swift hunter feat?
How would you mutliclass with ranger to make it effective? A brief build example would be nice.

[Rachel Lorelei]

Question: where is this swift hunter feat?
How would you mutliclass with ranger to make it effective? A brief build example would be nice.

Swift Hunter is in Complete Scoundrel. It makes the classes stack for purposes of Skirmish Favored Enemy, plus something else minor (I think). Improved Skirmish adds +2d6 damage, +2 AC when you move 20 ft instead of 10 and can be picked up at Scout 4 with the bonus feat you get (it explicitly states that it counts as a scout bonus feat, even though it's not on the original list).

You'd want to either go Scout 4/Ranger 16 or Ranger 4/Scout 16, with maybe a Fighter or PsyWar level in there to pick up Greater Manyshot as early as possible.

Dipping a level of Cleric for the Travel Devotion feat (which you can get without spending a feat slot, by sacrificing the Travel domain) from Complete Champion can get you at least 2 uses of the feat per day. Each one lets you move either your speed or half your speed as a swift action for a minute when you activate it--one level of Cleric and an Extra Turning feat can make that basically every fight, since you get 1 use, plus an extra use for every 2 Turn Undead attempts you sacrifice.

[Kizara]

Swift Hunter is in Complete Scoundrel. It makes the classes stack for purposes of Skirmish Favored Enemy, plus something else minor (I think). Improved Skirmish adds +2d6 damage, +2 AC when you move 20 ft instead of 10 and can be picked up at Scout 4 with the bonus feat you get (it explicitly states that it counts as a scout bonus feat, even though it's not on the original list).

You'd want to either go Scout 4/Ranger 16 or Ranger 4/Scout 16, with maybe a Fighter or PsyWar level in there to pick up Greater Manyshot as early as possible.

Dipping a level of Cleric for the Travel Devotion feat (which you can get without spending a feat slot, by sacrificing the Travel domain) from Complete Champion can get you at least 2 uses of the feat per day. Each one lets you move either your speed or half your speed as a swift action for a minute when you activate it--one level of Cleric and an Extra Turning feat can make that basically every fight, since you get 1 use, plus an extra use for every 2 Turn Undead attempts you sacrifice.

Thank you.

So, in summary, the class is perhaps slightly underpowered but overpowered options in the complete scoundrel bring it up to on the strong side?

Keep in mind that my 'baseline' for balance isn't "not as ridiculous as a druid".

EDIT: In essence, I suppose I'm asking how the class fares if you don't use those specific options? Does it become crap?

[Droodle]

Swift Hunter is in Complete Scoundrel. It makes the classes stack for purposes of Skirmish Favored Enemy, plus something else minor (I think).

The something else isn't minor. Not by a long shot. The scout is able to apply precision damage to its favored enemies...even if they are immune to critical hits. A well built scout/ranger with the swift hunter feat is going to exclusively choose critical immune creatures as favored enemies.

[Rad]

Thank you.

So, in summary, the class is perhaps slightly underpowered but overpowered options in the complete scoundrel bring it up to on the strong side?

Keep in mind that my 'baseline' for balance isn't "not as ridiculous as a druid".

EDIT: In essence, I suppose I'm asking how the class fares if you don't use those specific options? Does it become crap?

No, we are talking about balancing it with the Rogue; we are far from casters and very far from druid here.
The main pro to the Swift Hunter route is that your favored enemies become vulnerable to skirmish damage even if they are usually immune (so people pick undead, constructs, elementals and the like) and 4 levels of ranger will neat you a +16 BAB on 20th level which is also nice. Travel devotion (or a 1st level tiger claw maneuver) help you trigger skirmish more often and become a reliable distance damage dealer.

Scout is not overpowered:
- Skirmish is not that many d6 damage after all.
- Its trigger method requires a good portion of valuable resources (feats, level dips) to be triggered consistently. To skirmish on a Full Attack you need Improved Manyshot (with its prerequisites) and Travel Devotion, which in turn needs a level of cleric and maybe Extra Turning to be reliable in all but boss fights.
- Many attacks that deal physical damage are bad against high level monsters. DR is multiplied by five for you and you have some to hit penalties that make your lower attacks not that likely to hit at all.
- You are a squishy archer but have to stay within 30ft.

All in all, with a greater effort you get to do less damage than a supercharger and only to most types of enemies, making this one of those cases where you have to tweak things to be effective.

[its_all_ogre]

the scout, much like the rogue, is not a class built to shine in combat.
you can shine by sneaking around and setting up nasty surprises when you know combat is going to occur. at higher levels the pure scout is better than the pure rogue in natural surroundings, much better.
the class is better at surviving too, you get evasion later and do not get imp evasion, but you do get more hps, bonus to fort saves, bonus feats and finally some kind of freedom of movement along with blindsight (i think, books not with me). you don't need improved initiative so much as you do not rely on enemies being flat footed and you get initiative bonuses as you gain levels.
AC increases for free too.
you can also build up some nasty charging builds with a scout, not as good as a barbarian true, but then you have more utility than a barb out of combat. oh and a 50 foot speed at higher levels!

[Rachel Lorelei]

Without Improved Skirmish and/or Swift Hunter, the Scout can still do pretty well once it picks up Greater Manyshot. Without Greater Manyshot, the "single attack or no skirmish" makes it fairly weak.

Overall, the biggest problem with Swift Hunter archers is that they're dull. "Move, Greater Manyshot. Move, Greater Manyshot. Yawn."

[Closet_Skeleton]

My only experiance with Scout was in a Gestalt campaign that also had a rogue in it. The rogue ended up being a lot more dangerous.

[AslanCross]

A melee scout might do well if multiclassed with Ranger for the free TWF combat style feats and levels in Swordsage for the Tiger Claw maneuvers. The ranger in our group uses this build and she's quite effective.

[Akennedy]

I think it's a relatively balanced class, especially when mixed with the swift hunter feat. I hear from a lot of people it's overshadowed by the rogue so I houseruled that skirmish can also be applied under the same circumstances as sneak attack (flat-footed or flanking). That house rule helped their combat ability a lil' bit moe.

[Starbuck_II]

As the title asks, I am curious to whether anyone has some opinions on the scout class.

Is it over/underpowered in your opinion? Just right?

Did you ever wish it had a certain ability that it lacks, or an ability of it was better?

Does any of it's abilities or features seem badly made or have problematic holes that are abusable?


Personally, aside from missing a couple class skills, having too small of a proficiency list, and having speak language as class, I couldn't find anything wrong with them.

The only ability gained far too early is immunity to being flatfoot. Level 2 they gain that and the barbarian's uncanny dodge.

[Person_Man]

My favorite PC of all time was a strait Kobold Scout that I played from level 1-8. The group didn't power game, we never made it to high levels, and I'm a savvy player when it comes to my build and tactics. And my group tends to use a lot of Skill encounters and roleplaying. And our combat encounters use a lot of terrain. So in that context, the Scout is a great class.

However, against any full caster, any non-full caster is going to be objectively lacking in power. This is especially true if they don't have access to UMD. And even compared to other non-casters, the Scout's damage output is sub-par.

If you think they need a bump, just give them UMD as a class Skill and Splitting as an enhancement on their bow. That should solve both problems, as long as your DM is using standard wealth by level.

[Saph]

Overall, the biggest problem with Swift Hunter archers is that they're dull. "Move, Greater Manyshot. Move, Greater Manyshot. Yawn."

Yeah, this really is the problem with them. It's not that they're underpowered - a Scout with Swift Hunter, Ranger levels, Improved Skirmish, Greater Manyshot, and a Bag-of-Holding-full of special arrows to break DR is a mobile gun battery. We had a Scout/Ranger Swift Hunter in our 11th-12th level party and he killed more enemies than all three spellcasters put together, although he didn't have their versatility.

But if you play an archer Scout, every single one of your turns will be exactly the same. Move, shoot. Move, shoot. Move, shoot. It also gets pretty ridiculous after a while to have the Scout running backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards over the same 20' of ground. It's like they're doing aerobics or something.

- Saph

[Draz74]

Note that when people are saying "Scout is slightly worse than Rogue at high levels," they mean a Rogue who uses UMD regularly to make himself more competitive power-wise.

Swift Hunter is in Complete Scoundrel. It makes the classes stack for purposes of Skirmish Favored Enemy, plus something else minor (I think).

Not so minor -- it makes your Skirmish damage work against your Favored Enemies, even if those Favored Enemies are Undead, Constructs, etc.

[valadil]

The scout in my game completely overshadows the other melee characters, but that's only because they haven't hit level 6 yet. I'm curious if the scout will be able to keep up once they get several attacks per full attack. I expect it to be underwhelming compared to a two weapon fighting rogue who has a much easier time getting all his sneak attacks to hit on a full attack. Multilclassing to cleric is an interesting way to get extra movement for skirmish, but you're hurting the BAB on a 3/4 BAB class who expects to fight.

That said, scouts seem interesting and it is tactically distinct from the other melee characters I've seen.

[Stycotl]

i would have to agree that the scout can shine in combat if gished properly, but is not meant to shine in combat on his own anyway. i do like the games that focus heavily on terrain, roleplay, social encounters, tracking, sniping, and trapsetting/disarming. in those aspects, the cout is wonderful.

i had a scout that used spring attack with as his main melee tool, which helped him deal moderate damage, harry the spellcasters, and stay alive. but his true value was in sniping. even though more feats were dedicated to spring attack and prereqs, he still did more damage overall as he stayed hidden in the background while the enemies tried in vain to reach his position.

in a scout build i am constructing for a pbp game i am incorporating tiger claw and falling star martial maneuvers. i am hoping that this scout will be even more successful.

[Stycotl]

question: i can't remember where i thought i saw this, but i seem to remember skirmish counting as sneak attack in order to qualify for feats and prc's. if so, does that mean that in the prc, your skirmish increases, or are you now adding sneak attack dice? in my own houserule, you get skirmish, but i would like to see what the official stance is, especially for pbp games.

[Burley]

In my opinion, the rogue will outshine the scout, just for the simple use of UMD. However, there is one thing to keep in mind: Sneak attack requires flat-feet.
You wanna have a pimped out scout that is more than just a bow-barfer (made that up), try this: Barbarian 1/Scout X. Take the alternate pounce ability from Complete Champion. You lose your fast movement, but the scout gets that back, so, now big loss, especially since there isn't a fast movement entry anywhere (that I've seen) that says the two bonuses would stack. So, you now have two abilities that require you to move ten feet: Pounce, which lets you full attack after a charge, and Skirmish, which gives you bonus damage and AC (right?). Take two-weapon fighting, carry light weapons and you've got multiple attacks each round that do tons of damage, you get a bonus to hit from charging, the AC bonus from skirmish will help with the AC penalty from charging...
It's a pretty good build, in my opinion...

[AmadeusWindfall]

question: i can't remember where i thought i saw this, but i seem to remember skirmish counting as sneak attack in order to qualify for feats and prc's. if so, does that mean that in the prc, your skirmish increases, or are you now adding sneak attack dice? in my own houserule, you get skirmish, but i would like to see what the official stance is, especially for pbp games.

It's Sudden Strike that counts as Sneak Attack, not Skirmish, and even if you houseruled the same thing to apply to Skirmish, it'd give Sneak Attack dice, not Skirmish progression.

[Frosty]

It'd good, yes. Problem is, you're still only doing like one thing every turn. You charge. You charge the next guy. You charge the first guy again.

[Draz74]

try this: Barbarian 1/Scout X. Take the alternate pounce ability from Complete Champion. You lose your fast movement, but the scout gets that back, so, now big loss, especially since there isn't a fast movement entry anywhere (that I've seen) that says the two bonuses would stack.

Nitpick: most fast movement abilities (Monk, Dervish, Scout) are Enhancement bonuses and don't stack, but Barbarian is an exception (untyped bonus). Barbarian fast movement stacks with any other fast movement.

[Stycotl]

It's Sudden Strike that counts as Sneak Attack, not Skirmish, and even if you houseruled the same thing to apply to Skirmish, it'd give Sneak Attack dice, not Skirmish progression.

i can understand sudden strike as a prereq giving sneak attack dice for its precision-based ability, but skirmish is quite different. plus, sneak attack is better than sudden strike, so i don't think anyone will complain about it. but again, skirmish is different, and if they are going to go as far as saying that they can mix and match for feat/prc qualification, then in my own humble opinion, they should keep the same kind of ability progression (goes for sudden strike as well, especially since i can't recall where i got the idea that skirmish works that way).

next, a question i asked earlier on the boards, and never got an answer to:


does anyone know for sure if flawless stride (scout class) encompasses woodland stride (druid/ranger class)?

i am assuming no, but the way i remember the wording for flawless made me think that it encompassed undergrowth hindrance as well as terrain hindrance.

thanks guys, aaron out.

[Yami]

I actually prefer scout to rouge myself. And that's not including the Swift ambusher sneak attack/skirmish damage stacking feat. The scout is more versatile, and, being as that neither class is awesome in combat without a lot of tweaking, the scout runs faster, and at later levels even over rough terrain.

Granted, you'll be doing less damage than a sneak attack, but you don't need to rely on hiding all the time.

[KIDS]

Scout is just about right, being a bit underpowered at higher levels but interesting, customizable and rewarding at all. And of course, it's not a full caster (I just had to put this...). So overall, I think it's a good standard for balance. The errata helped it with trapfinding skills and its high level abilities are unique to the class.