3.5 bluff

[Emanresu]

I am currently playing a Beguiler/rogue/swashbuckler w/ daring outlaw feat. I am interested in maxing the feint portion of bluff so glibness doesn't help, although you might convince the victim that they are to blame, having tripped and landed on your sword, twice, and they should apologise for dirtying up your blade. 

improved feint
Beguiler 6th level - feint as swift action
surprising riposte - if feint is successful then the (soon to be) is flat footed for 1 round or until his turn what happens if you won initiative?

spells that stack
Voice of the Dragon:  4th level, +10 enhancement bonus
Insidious Insight: 2nd  level, +10 insight bonus
Conceal thoughts: 1st level power ( I dont know the spell equivalent if any) +10 circumstance bonus

not that I can get all of this on at once but I was looking to buff da bluff!

2nd part

Would you allow daring outlaw to work with the SA of Assassin? Furthermore does feint and death strike work together?

Eman

[Frogman55]

Don't forget the basics: Charisma boosting items and Eagle's Splendor will improve your bluff too.

[Emanresu]

funny you mention that, I have a circlet of persuasion (+3 cha skills) and a cloak of char +2

[Frogman55]

Also, though circumstance bonuses are easy to get - the feat Nymph's Kiss gives a +2 circumstance bonus to charisma checks and an additional skill point (which can be fun). It also gives a bonus to saves v. spells, but who's counting?

Also I probably would let Daring Outlaw work with Assassin. Sort of. I'd let your Swashbuckler levels add to the Assassin's SA, but I wouldn't let Assassin levels add to the Swashbuckler's grace. The prereq is to have sneak attack, not rogue levels. But then it expressly has rogue levels and swashbucklers stack. So without rogue levels, you wouldn't have anything to add to the grace, but with swashbuckler levels you'd add to SA.

But others, and other GMs, would possibly rule differently.


How would you imagine feint and death strike working together? For death strike to work, you have to spend 3 rounds 'studying' the victim, and the victim "does not detect the assassin or recognize the assassin as an enemy." To achieve those conditions pretty much requires that melee combat hasn't begun - at least not between you and your target. Feint works to deprive a target of their dex bonus - a bonus they'd only have if they were aware of you and recognized you as an enemy.

I suppose you could make feint work if you were sparring in a friendly manner. "Just for practice, I promise..."

[Emanresu]

well I think the way were going to play it is if the target is in view for at least 3 rounds and unaware of the pending attack, so be it, the SA thus the death attack (DA) works. Pending situation the target will be entitled to a sense motive check by the 3rd round just to see if he suspects anything.

The way I envision this is my 20 cha female (evil rogue/beguiler/swashbuckler will be flirting for 3 rds, quick drawing assassins dagger, swift feint, mosquitos bite, slice n dice & give em a kiss as he falls, he wont even know he was hit as he dies.

[Jackinthegreen]

There is no need to feint because the opponent would be flat-footed on the surprise round, thus you'd get Sneak Attack damage.

[Emanresu]

this pc has made a steady habit of standing right next to "soon to be targets" talking flirting and then quick draw SA, or sleight of hand SA.
Being a city based campaign this is very easy and I am killing more enemies/marks than our heavy hitters. With insightful strike/craven I'm dishing out serious damage.

with mosquitos bite and surprising riposte I usually get a 2nd rd of atts before victim gets to even know whats happening and there is very few people out there that can withstand that much damage.

So to answer your question...the DM has grown irritated that my evil little minks is making pate out of everyone. I am not hiding in the shadows and striking out as party is use to. Rather my 5' 4" 115 20 cha rogue/beguiler/swashbuckler/and now assassin is standing next to marks, and just putting a beat down on them! DM now says when I am engaged in conversation/flirting with target that I have to make a bullshit roll (bluff) and the target gets a sense motive. To this I agree is fine, it hasn't changed a thing, yet???

I think he is mad because I am stealing kills from party and its becoming a 1 act show. The big bruisers of our gestalt group, are now scared of me and my bluff - feat/skill trick combos that just lay waste.

my bab is 10/5
+3 rapier (keen)
+1 Assassins Dagger
craven (+10 damage per hit)
insightful strike (+7 when int is buffed)
damage is a total of 7d6 or 6d6+1d4 w/ dagger
bracers of murder = no 1s, this is awesome!

[lieronet]

Open question to any probability buffs:

Tangential, but I had a question regarding Bracers of Murder vs Hunter's Bracers. At what point do the Murder bracers add more damage to a SA than the Hunter's Bracers? I assume that rerolling all ones is effectively the same as rolling a five-sided die with the sides 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, giving you an average of 4 damage per SA die, or a .5 average damage increase / SA die. Thus, you do more damage with Murder bracers at eight SA die. Is this a correct analysis, or is this fall in the realm of Bayesian logic?

[Emanresu]

you know mathematically Im severely lacking, as I am in grammar, diction, spelling, punctuation and potty training do to my public schooling. I am a product of football coaches as teachers ever since 7th grade. So I cant tell you with certainty the correct result, BUT what I can tell you with greAT certainty is that the re rolling of ones causes a shit load more damage! Thats technically speaking of course. Remember all those times of dropping 3 1's with 3 5's or 6's...it created a not so exciting average, this gets rid of all those 1's and I have rolled Yahtzee with 5 n 6's eg rolling 5 or more of same number, its an old guy game never mind. Point is, no 1's is awesome!

[Rebel7284]

Do you re-roll once or keep re-rolling?

If it's once then the normal die roll of 6+5+4+3+2+1 / 6 (3.5) gets replaced by 6+5+4+3+2+3.5 / 6 (3.916)

[Jackinthegreen]

The bracers state "Reroll any result of 1 on the dice."  It doesn't say reroll once or anything similar, which would seem it definitely means 1 is no longer possible to roll so the range is indeed 2-6 for 4 average.

If we're only looking at the reroll 1s ability then it would on average be better to use the bracers of murder after 8 SA dice.  However, if the target is flat-footed then the +2 profane bonus to attack and damage rolls kicks in and brings the damage crossover down to 4 SA dice or so based only on the damage roll.  The attack roll bonus would make it even better.

As far as the damage and such goes, if you're taking things down with just 7d6 damage (most of which is SA) then your DM isn't giving you meaningful encounters.

[Emanresu]

Jack, its a city campaign, very little monster activity
my BAB is 10/5, two wep style, craven(+10), insightful strike(+7), +3 keen rapier, and a +1 dagger, imp wep finesse 20 Dex = +5, Bracers of Murder +2
damage is 7d6, +10, +5, +3, +7, +2 per strike, I often, not always will get 2 rds of atts before the mark or victim knows what hit em at 2 attacks per round or 3 w/ twf, all with SA, no 1's, 50 pts of damage with 1 hit is not unusual, and I crit on a 15 or higher w/ the rapier.



the only home brew here is

Improved Weapon Finesse: dex to damage, adopted in by our group after reading it on line, probably found it on the evil and most foul wiki site? BUT we changed it a bit. pre reqs: You must have wep focus & wep finesse with weapon, 15 dex, bonus to damage cannot exceed your BAB, any armor ck penalty or carrying capacity penalty is doubled while using this feat, and any of these penalties will be subtracted from your to hit & damage when using this feat.


edit:  and Rebel to answer your question...we do continue re-rolling 1's until they exist no more.