Some questions about Feint based (stealth) character

[justiceforall]

I'm building a character that tries to use feint. That in itself is kind of tough, but in my delving I came up on some odd fringe questions.

1) Feint does not appear to require a melee attack to set it up. It's a special attack, but it doesn't specify that the feint itself has to be executed from melee range. All the other special attacks seem to have some sort of melee specific reference, but not feint. Does that mean you could feint from further away? In my minds eye it seems realistic, you could still put someone off balance from a short distance, but I don't know what RAW says.

2) Feint doesn't say anywhere that your target has to be able to see you or be aware of you. Now this seems really odd, but could I feint a target from hiding? Is the reference to the bluff skill enough to require awareness? "Creatures unaware of you cannot be bluffed." There are various things that let you feint without using bluff; would that change anything?

The scenario I'm imagining is the party starts a combat and my character is in hiding. My character is melee, so he would have to run out of hiding to attack. Since that isn't a surprise round, my opponents see me break cover and move over, and are therefore not flat footed against my melee attack?

Some sort of weird feint from hiding would still grant a flat-footed attack? (I may have got this interpretation wrong on multiple counts, but that's why I'm here asking).

3) Feint says "against a nonhumanoid you take a -4 penalty". Quick definitions check, is that a monster type/sub-type reference, or a GM fiat "it's a humanoid shaped monster or isn't based on the description text and the picture in the MM".

[Piggy Knowles]

Feinting does indeed only influence melee attacks:

Feinting is a standard action. To feint, make a Bluff check opposed by a Sense Motive check by your target. The target may add his base attack bonus to this Sense Motive check. If your Bluff check result exceeds your target’s Sense Motive check result, the next melee attack you make against the target does not allow him to use his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any). This attack must be made on or before your next turn.

Emphasis mine. (Source)

Similarly, under the Bluff skill description:

Feinting in Combat
You can also use Bluff to mislead an opponent in melee combat (so that it can’t dodge your next attack effectively). To feint, make a Bluff check opposed by your target’s Sense Motive check, but in this case, the target may add its base attack bonus to the roll along with any other applicable modifiers.

If your Bluff check result exceeds this special Sense Motive check result, your target is denied its Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) for the next melee attack you make against it. This attack must be made on or before your next turn.

Feinting in this way against a nonhumanoid is difficult because it’s harder to read a strange creature’s body language; you take a -4 penalty on your Bluff check. Against a creature of animal Intelligence (1 or 2) it’s even harder; you take a -8 penalty. Against a nonintelligent creature, it’s impossible.

Feinting in combat does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

(Source)

Humanoid has a specific meaning in game terms, and refers to the monster type. A human-shaped creature that is not a humanoid, such as a doppelganger or a vampire, would still result in a -4 penalty to the check.

[Telonius]

2) Feint doesn't say anywhere that your target has to be able to see you or be aware of you. Now this seems really odd, but could I feint a target from hiding? Is the reference to the bluff skill enough to require awareness? "Creatures unaware of you cannot be bluffed." There are various things that let you feint without using bluff; would that change anything?

The scenario I'm imagining is the party starts a combat and my character is in hiding. My character is melee, so he would have to run out of hiding to attack. Since that isn't a surprise round, my opponents see me break cover and move over, and are therefore not flat footed against my melee attack?

Some sort of weird feint from hiding would still grant a flat-footed attack? (I may have got this interpretation wrong on multiple counts, but that's why I'm here asking).

Two things for this. First, the definition of flat-footed:

A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, not yet reacting normally to the situation. A flat-footed character loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) and cannot make attacks of opportunity.

Flat-footed doesn't just happen in the surprise round, it happens in the first round of combat as well. If you've won initiative, everybody else is flat-footed.

Second, under the Surprise section of combat:

Sometimes all the combatants on a side are aware of their opponents, sometimes none are, and sometimes only some of them are. Sometimes a few combatants on each side are aware and the other combatants on each side are unaware.

Determining awareness may call for Listen checks, Spot checks, or other checks.
...
Sometimes all the combatants on a side are aware of their opponents, sometimes none are, and sometimes only some of them are. Sometimes a few combatants on each side are aware and the other combatants on each side are unaware.

Determining awareness may call for Listen checks, Spot checks, or other checks.

So, here's what the situation is. The players are already in combat. They're unaware of hiding guy. That means they're flat-footed (denied dex to AC and can't use Attacks of Opportunity against him unless they have Combat Reflexes). A full round ends, and hiding guy decides he wants to join combat. He gets his surprise round. He uses the standard action to advance to them. Then, he rolls initiative and joins combat in the regular order. If his initiative is high enough that he goes before any of the others, they're still flatfooted against him and a Feint would be unnecessary (since they're already denied dex to AC). If somebody beats his initiative, he can use Bluff to Feint when it's his turn as usual. This takes a standard action to do, or a move action if he has Improved Feint. (There are other abilities that can get it down to a free action).

[justiceforall]

So, here's what the situation is. The players are already in combat. They're unaware of hiding guy. That means they're flat-footed (denied dex to AC and can't use Attacks of Opportunity against him unless they have Combat Reflexes). A full round ends, and hiding guy decides he wants to join combat. He gets his surprise round. He uses the standard action to advance to them. Then, he rolls initiative and joins combat in the regular order. If his initiative is high enough that he goes before any of the others, they're still flatfooted against him and a Feint would be unnecessary (since they're already denied dex to AC).

You can get a surprise round mid combat? I thought you just joined existing combats at initiative 20?

(There are other abilities that can get it down to a free action)

Sort of where I'm headed with this character. I went down a rabbit hole of "can I make Surprising Riposte actually do anything". The two options were use a standard attack to generate multiple strikes + improved feint, or find ways to making feinting a free action.

[Obscuraphile]

You can get a surprise round mid combat? I thought you just joined existing combats at initiative 20?

No, you cannot, and not exactly

Newcomers Are Aware:
If any or all of the newcomers are aware they take their actions before anyone else. In effect, they go first in the initiative secquence. Their initiative check result is considered to be one higher than the highest initiative check among the other participants in the encounter.

This is a standard round not a surprise round. Participants are entitled to a full compliment of actions.

[justiceforall]

This is a standard round not a surprise round. Participants are entitled to a full compliment of actions.

Ok that's what I thought. So to make sure I have at least this part right:
1. my party is in a combat, its now the second round. My character has been hiding but not made any offensive action yet.
2. My character leaves hiding, move across to melee, and attacks Monster A. Monster A is not flat footed because its already acted during the combat, and the act of moving (assuming there's no cover and such to hide the approach) makes my character no longer hiding by the time I've made a melee attack?

[Obscuraphile]

Correct.

In general feinting is just not generally a great tactic. If you need to get someone flatfooted you're better off using invisibility or something similar. Alternatively you could work with your DM to lay out something similar to the old vagaries around backstabbing.

[Telonius]

Huh, looks like that's a section that didn't make it into the SRD.

[justiceforall]

It doesn't really bother me that feinting isn't a great tactic, I enjoy pursuing the "what can I get out of this" Iron Chef style of builds. Imagine Feint is the secret ingredient for me.

My current build looks at using Psionic Feint, sudden strike and several attacks. Since I had to get Hidden Talent to qualify for Psionic Feint anyway, I was looking at taking Claws of the Beast. Originally I was looking at Claws of the Wyrm but the way its worded precludes using weapon attacks in conjunction with the claw attacks. Claws of the Beast doesn't suffer the same restriction since it specifically notes them as using the natural attacks rules?

Eg: a valid attack routine would be:
1. weapon that doesn't require hands (with iteratives)
2. claw at -5 (half str)
3. claw at -5 (half str)

[Lapak]

In terms of feinting and other methods of getting flat-footedness to apply your bonus damage, you can possibly dig up some tactics from the E6 Ninja competition a little while back.

[justiceforall]

Not much by way of feinting in there but that was a fun read for sure.

[justiceforall]

Anyway continuing down this rabbit-hole with some more stealth based questions, let's say I turn invisible through one of the various means available, then take a 5ft step.

Can I try and move silently that 5ft step so that they don't know which square I've gone to?
If they have extrasensory powers (like tremorsense lets say) but I also have darkstalker, is that a wash?
What happens if someone tries to walk or charge through my square when I'm invisible and they are unaware I'm there?

[Seerow]

It doesn't really bother me that feinting isn't a great tactic, I enjoy pursuing the "what can I get out of this" Iron Chef style of builds. Imagine Feint is the secret ingredient for me.

My current build looks at using Psionic Feint, sudden strike and several attacks. Since I had to get Hidden Talent to qualify for Psionic Feint anyway, I was looking at taking Claws of the Beast. Originally I was looking at Claws of the Wyrm but the way its worded precludes using weapon attacks in conjunction with the claw attacks. Claws of the Beast doesn't suffer the same restriction since it specifically notes them as using the natural attacks rules?

Eg: a valid attack routine would be:
1. weapon that doesn't require hands (with iteratives)
2. claw at -5 (half str)
3. claw at -5 (half str)

I went all in on feinting with a dagger master build a while back. Some things I incorporated that may help you:

-Invisible Blade 5 gets you a free action feint 1/round
-Surprising Riposte makes a target flat footed until your opponent's next turn after you succeed on a feint. This lets the feint last for an entire full attack, and also assist any allies who can get the benefit out of flat footed.
-Since it keys off bluff, itemization unintuitively involves a lot of stuff that boosts skills. Notably Circlet of Persuasion is pretty good
-Group Fake Out is a skill trick that will let you 1/encounter do an AoE feint. Mostly useful when dealing with a lot of mooks and spreading attacks, but still not bad.


That being said, even with all of that, Feint is surprisingly bad. Like enough that I retired the character shortly after hitting Invisible Blade 5 and realizing that despite everything... it just wasn't working. Feint offense is a pure bluff check. Feint offense gets BAB+Sense Motive. Against larger monsters, you're at a disadvantage even if they have no ranks in sense motive. Against creatures with similar hit dice to you, you are generally pretty good as long as they do not have sense motive. Any creature with sense motive basically shuts you down entirely. So basically you invest a bunch of resources, and then your main schtick won't work against ~75% of encounters, and usually the most important/hardest 75% of encounters. That's just a really bad position to be in.

[justiceforall]

So basically you invest a bunch of resources, and then your main schtick won't work against ~75% of encounters, and usually the most important/hardest 75% of encounters. That's just a really bad position to be in.

Yeah that BAB part made me kind of worried, but I figured I'd burn that bridge when I got to it. I was looking at Avenging Executioner as part of the build, but its abilities don't work against the same things bluff would struggle against? Or is there not as much overlap there as it appears?

At least it seems that undead aren't immune since bluff doesn't have any text about it being a mind-affecting effect?


Regardless, my last character in this playgroup was a single class Knight who's Knights Challenge basically never got to target anything, with my comrades being a sorcerer (until he died) and a favoured soul. I still had heaps of fun so I'm not too worried.

[Lapak]

Yeah that BAB part made me kind of worried, but I figured I'd burn that bridge when I got to it. I was looking at Avenging Executioner as part of the build, but its abilities don't work against the same things bluff would struggle against? Or is there not as much overlap there as it appears?

At least it seems that undead aren't immune since bluff doesn't have any text about it being a mind-affecting effect?


Regardless, my last character in this playgroup was a single class Knight who's Knights Challenge basically never got to target anything, with my comrades being a sorcerer (until he died) and a favoured soul. I still had heaps of fun so I'm not too worried.

Undead aren't immune, but as non-humanoids they impose the -4 penalty... and the mindless ones are immune, not because it's mind-effecting but because feint explicitly does not work on non-intelligent creatures. (Also, they'll typically be immune to precision damage, so the point may be moot if that's what you're trying to trigger.)

That said, it is possible to pump a skill check. My Ondrej build in the thread I linked could have a +20 to his Bluff check on move-action Feints at level 6 before buffs or items (9 ranks, +3 untyped from Skill Focus if you took that as the level 6 feat, +8 competence from the Lamia's Belt soulmeld) so even against non-humanoid melee opponents of equal CR he had a pretty good shot (+16 vs. a lot of BABs in the 5-7 range, though Young True Dragons would be a challenge.) So it's definitely possible, and if you're going in with the attitude you mention above of 'I want to have fun with this' I think it'll come out fine, particularly if you invest in some non-feint methods of triggering Sudden Strike for times when the feint fails.

But for a higher-level campaign, you're going to run into bricks with massive HD/BAB, along with more creatures immune to precision damage, and that'll hurt your effectiveness.