Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Zubon 05-22-04, 02:17 PM	This is a post with a deliberately small range of analysis: assessing the value of the feat "Deadly Precision" from the Expanded Psionics Handbook. It is a small thing, and I did not notice an existing thread that it fit in. Feel free to copy the analysis into any rogue of XPH thread/FAQ we have running. Since XPH is not Open-Game, I will only list the benefit of the feat, without the rest of the text. Benefit: Deadly Precision allows you to reroll any 1s in a sneak attack, although you may not re-reroll them. If you get 1s on the second try, you keep them. Value: This increases the average damage of each sneak attack die by 0.4167 points of damage. The average damage increases from 3.5 to 3.9167. This increase applies to every die, so the value of the feat scales as the number of sneak attack dice increases. If a player could somehow have +8.4d6 sneak attack, Deadly Precision would be worth exactly as much as an additional +1d6. As a basis for comparison, the epic feat Improved Sneak Attack gives +1d6 sneak attack. An epic Rogue would be better off with the non-epic feat Deadly Precision than the epic feat Improved Sneak Attack, but then s/he could also take both. A different basis of comparison would be for multiclass sneak attackers with relatively few sneak attack dice. Weapon Specialization adds +2 damage to every successful attack, but only with one weapon. If the sneak attacker has +5d6 SA, Deadly Precision adds just over +2 damage to every sneak attack (on average), with any weapon. For a sneak attacker with less than +5d6 SA who has reliable access to one type of weapon, Weapon Specialization would probably be more valuable than Deadly Precision.
Ramses III 05-22-04, 03:33 PM	With your numbers analysis it hardly seems worth it to take the feat before like 15th to 18th level. However also consider that you have a lot less chance of ever doing minimum damage with your sneak attack. If you have ever played a wizard and rolled all 1's and 2's for your fireball damage, you know how valuable it is to be able to avoid doing minimum damage on an attack that relies on multiple damage dice.