Rogue's sneak attack

[Desertrising]

Okay so I want to know if anyone else has had a problem with the rouge sneak attack getting a little out of hand?

I mean sure it's a nice ability but for hecks sake after about tenth level the rouge winds up becomming the dominant fighter in the group because of the sheer ammounts of damage he can do.

Sure there are some things immune to critical hits and sneak attack damage, but at the same time this is something that bones most characters.

So this is what I have done.

All character's regardless of class when having a flank shot get and extra 1d6 damage, A rouge gets to call on his extra damage whenever he truly has an unaware opponent. I.e. He actually snuck up on him.

I am open to suggestions.

[JinnTolser]

My particular DMing style has caused the opposite problem. I use a lot of undead in my campaign, so my rogue hardly ever gets to use his sneak attack. This results in his usually doing only 2-6 damage, which is a lot less than everybody else (it's a high-level party). Unfortunately, whenever they run up against living characters, his 6d6 sneak attack turns the tables the exact other way. I haven't found a way to balance the scales yet.

[Desertrising]

That is interesting. I havn't looked at it from that perspective. Now I need to put my head to it a little more again

[The Pickled Punk]

Well, I am playing a rogue, and in a recent adventure I came up against a construct of some kind with DR. I couldn't do enough damage with my rapier, and without the +1d6 from sneak attack, I had no hope of even hurting it. I decided to use the aid another option, so that the paladin could hit with power attack. Sneak attacks allow a rogue to add to the combat. Compared to the backstab ability of 2E, sneak attacks come up more often, but that is intentional. If sneak attacks are really bugging you, use undead, constructs, plants, oozes, or just monsters too big to sneak attack.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I haven't seen a problem, but I also haven't had anyone go straight Rogue. They usually multiclass before the sneak attack gets too out of hand.

Another option to lessen the sneak attack impact is throw more enemies at the problem. If they keep in close formation, he won't be able to flank without taking AoO's, and when fighting hordes, extra damage on a single target that would've died anyway isn't helpful.

[VAN]

I have played rogue and sometimes I have the opposite problem with sneak attacks too. Or I had to encounter undead or the monsters are such powerful and I cannot do much damage to them if not with sneak attack! Besides if you do sneak attack with a sword or dagger you should rest at the front line and then you will have more problems, because the rogue even in high level cannot be compared with a fighter, his H.R and his damage are very low. I remember that I had the rogure ability "opportunist" once and I couldn't use it many times because... I couldn't pass the A.C of the other!

So if you limit rogue's sneak attack, you have only a character who can only find traps, disable devices etc, but in battles is rather useless. Maybe you should limit it only if the rogue use ranged weapons, there yes, the sneak attack is very effective and the rogue is not threated.

[Ivana_Boritsi]

Desertrising,

How is your rogue getting into flank position so easily? In all the games I've played, the rogue usually has to carefully move around threatened squares to get into position for the flank sneak-attack. Usually that means the rogue spends at least the first round getting into position.

In our game, the fighters or barbarians always do the most damage, hands down. Usually because of power attack. Are your fighters using power attack?