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Feats used

  • Twin Throw: As part of full attack action throw ranged weapons using one attack roll

  • Ranged Feint: Feint using a ranged weapon

  • Two Weapon Feint: Sacrifice an attack to use Feint

  • Throw and Charge: As a full round action, you can throw a light or one-handed ranged weapon, draw another weapon, and then charge. Both attacks are made at your highest BAB with a +2 bonus to your charge attack.

Set up: Initiate Twin Throw (assumed throwing with primary and offhand) use one of the two attacks to do a Ranged Feint. If successful, the second attack can do sneak attack damage followed by what ever method you choose to deliver a the charge attack. (Roundhouse kick, uppercut, shoulder charge, clothes line, Guile's Flash Kick) With Twin Throw you have 2 chances to do a Ranged Feint and still catch a target flat footed with the charge.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Is there a specific question you can distill this down to? \$\endgroup\$ Aug 16, 2017 at 20:48
  • \$\begingroup\$ Can it be done RAW. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 16, 2017 at 20:52

3 Answers 3

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No, it does not. A full-attack is a specific option for your full-round action. And though a charge also involves a full-round action and attacking, it is not a full-attack. Thus, Twin Throw cannot be combined with Charge and Throw.

(Well, technically it could be if you have pounce, but even then you would be forced to use Twin Throw after moving, which is much less useful.)

Moreover, Two-Weapon Feint says that you can feint when using two-weapon fighting to make melee attacks. Even if we accept that Ranged Feint applies here and allows us to feint while using two-weapon fighting to make ranged attacks, your thrown attack made before charging with Throw and Charge doesn’t involve two-weapon fighting at all; officially, you couldn’t use Two-Weapon Feint in that situation.

Then there is the issue of splitting up the attacks in Twin Throw. Twin Throw only makes one attack. You can’t choose to feint with half of it and not the other.

And finally, note that, barring more feats you have not mentioned, a feint only makes the target flat-footed against your next attack. If you use Twin Throw and then Ranged Feint to feint with the first of the twinned throws, the target is flat-footed agains the second attack but not against any others you may have in the full-attack. So even if it did work, you would not get sneak attack damage against the target for the melee attack. Improved Two-Weapon Feint does fix this problem, but that’s another feat.

If you’re allowed to feint with half of a Twin Throw, a better approach would be to skip the charge entirely, and just follow up Twin Throw with more throwing. Since Twin Throw requires BAB +6, you definitely have at least one more—and since it also requires Two-Weapon Fighting, you should have at least one more as well. If you also have Improved Two-Weapon Feint, the feint lasts until the beginning of your next turn, so you trigger sneak attack on each of those attacks as well. Plus in theory this could allow you to combine two-weapon fighting feats with ranged feats for a truly crazy number of attacks. Of course, you’ll never have remotely enough feats to actually do that.

And of course, this does lose some of the cinematic quality you were looking for. In fact, that is kind of endemic to Pathfinder in general. Because the system rewards specialization so heavily, not specializing effectively comes at a large cost—and when enemies start to assume a certain level of specialization (which they must if they are to challenge specialists), you may find trying to mix different attack patterns together like this causes you problems. And you’ll likely keep running into this kind of problem because specialists tend to just keep doing their one specialized thing over and over. Real versatility is very difficult to achieve without spells.

But if you have your heart set on it anyway, you could focus on Throw and Charge. But there are a lot of problems. To begin with, Run is a completely useless feat, you can’t even use at the same time as Throw and Charge. Twin Throw doesn’t work, and you don’t get multiple attacks at the end of a charge unless you have pounce, so Two-Weapon Fighting is also a bust. You could use the initial thrown attack for a Ranged Feint with Two-Weapon Feint and then use sneak attack on the charge attack, but applying sneak attack only once isn’t great, plus you have to burn a feat on the aforementioned Two-Weapon Fighting that you can’t really use. Which means sneak attack is looking poor too.

Instead, I would do it with a greatsword using Throw Anything and the Greatsword Battler divine fighting technique and the Vital Strike line. Fighter seems necessary just to get all these feats though. A custom belt that combines blinkback belt and a belt of mighty hurling is worth considering, though the price is outrageous. And even if you do all this, the actual thrown attack to start things off is... just not all that great? I suppose you could throw Opening Volley in there, if by some miracle you still have feats, to make your charge attack more reliable. I would much rather my feats were going towards mounted combat feats to up the multiplier on my one attack then try to waste time throwing my greatsword first.

This changes considerably if you can manage to get pounce. With that, you can actually use Two-Weapon Fighting, which makes Ranged Feint + Two-Weapon Feint + Improved Two-Weapon Feint a rather solid combination. You could feint with the free attack from Throw and Charge, and then charge in with a frenzy of blades. That would be awesome, cinematic, and should apply enough sneak attack damage to actually be worthwhile. Unfortunately, it also requires getting pounce, and then also sneak attack, and then also a ton of feats. I don’t think that’s plausible. Synthesist summoner just nukes your stats, and your next-best option for pounce is... there isn’t one, really. Maybe beastmorph+vivisectionist alchemist? Or possibly psychic warrior, since you’re already talking about third-party material.


Trying to imagine a synthesist summoner dip in a sneak-attack-enabled build. Note that there was some confusion about multiclass synthesist BAB, but there is an FAQ entry that clarifies that the eidolon does not wholly replace all your BAB, just BAB from summoner, so that’s fine.

Anyway, the idea is to take the quadruped base form along with the limbs (arms) and pounce evolutions. Pounce, of course, is very very nice, but you are now locked at 14 Strength and Dexterity, and 13 Constitution. You can improve these with magic items, but neither your initial ability scores nor your ability score increases from leveling up can help you here.

That means you want to not use those ability scores as much as possible. The Way of the Shooting Star divine fighting technique allows you to use Charisma for attack and damage rolls with starknives, which is a decent start. Starknives are thrown weapons, so that fits nicely with Throw and Charge, and Charisma of course is a primary score for summoners, not that you’ll use much of it.

Charisma is also quite amenable to optimization. Two levels of enlightened paladin gets you Charisma to AC while wearing light or no armor and no shield, and also Charisma to all saves. The usual drawback of the enlightened archetype—nerfed form of smite evil—matters much less when we already get Charisma to attack. And after that, literally the only things you aren’t adding Charisma to are HP and initiative. You could get the latter with Noble Scion but that’s a tough ask considering how badly you need feats.

Speaking of, we’re looking at a ton of absolutely-mandatory feats:

That’s 10 feats: you could do that without bonus feats—at 19th level ⌐.⌐

But realistically, you don’t want to do that. Those are literally necessary feats—without every single one of them, the trick doesn’t work. So unless you are starting at 19th level, you’ve got an ugly mish-mash of abilities, many of which (all the feinting ones) don’t help you.

Actually, even with all of them, Combat Expertise and Run are pure dead feats. You would do well to ask your GM if you could possibly ignore those requirements.

Worse, there are limited options for bonus feats on a sneak attack class. We’ll be human because of course we will, but we need more than that. The classes that get sneak attack include ninja, rogue, slayer, vigilante stalker, and vivisectionist. Rogues can take the combat trick talent to get one of these feats, and ninjas, slayers, and vigilantes can take their own “rogue talent” talent to that one. But none of these cannot be taken repeatedly, so that’s only one. The vigilante does a little bit better, being able to take the unexpected strike talent for Quick Draw. And the ninja, arguably, has its own combat trick ninja trick, which is arguably separate from the combat trick rogue talent (so a ninja can arguably take ninja trick (combat trick) and then take ninja trick (rogue talent (combat trick))).

So... perhaps a ridiculous multiclassed character can do something here. A human 1st-level synthesist/2nd-level enlightened paladin/5th-level ninja/3rd-level vigilante/1st-level rogue/1st-level vivisectionist has 7 precision damage dice, which is the same as a single-classed 13th-level rogue or 13th-level ninja or 13th-level vigilante would have. They also have three bonus feats, one of which is Quick Draw. Add one for being human, and that’s four—so the remaining six necessary feats have been gotten by 11th level.

I would probably order it something like this:

Level Class Feat Bonus Feats Sneak Attack Special
1st Synthesist Divine Fighting Technique TWF 0 Pounce
2nd Enlightened Paladin 0 Confident defense
3rd Combat Expertise 0 Divine Grace
4th Ninja +1d6 Ki Pool
5th Ranged Feint TW Feint +1d6
6th +2d6
7th Imp. TWF Imp. TW Feint +2d6 Uncanny Dodge
8th +3d6
9th Vigilante Run +4d6
10th Quick Draw +4d6
11th Throw and Charge +5d6
12th Rogue +6d6
13th Vivisectionist any +7d6

For 14th on, you have options. Continuing ninja is nice since ki pool is Charisma-based. On the other hand, you are dumping Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution—even if second to Charisma, your Intelligence should be pretty good. Going for vivisectionist at that point is valid, to dabble a little more strongly in alchemy. Vigilante isn’t bad, either. And you could actually drop levels of rogue, ninja, vigilante, or vivisectionist, losing precision damage dice in order to do more of those things.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ It may be notable for your last paragraph that one could also take the Opening Volley feat to make it much better, as that can net you an extra +4 to attack on the charge if you deal damage throwing your greatsword first. Makes the Vital Strike at the end of the charge much more likely to hit, which makes those feats much more likely to pay off. \$\endgroup\$
    – Delioth
    Aug 16, 2017 at 21:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ If I'm reading Twin Throw correctly, it only grants a singular attack as its action, making it impossible to sacrifice "one of the two throws" as OP describes. Worth adding to your answer, I think. \$\endgroup\$
    – godskook
    Aug 16, 2017 at 21:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ Well the original stunt was the combination of Twin Throw, Opening Volley and Throw and Charge. Since Twin Throw gets 2 ranged attack and both hits wouldn't you get a +8 to following melee attack. But the feat never specified if multiple ranged attacks were cumulative. And since KRyan pointed out that there is difference of what can be done in what terminology is used with what feat it can't be done. Nonetheless it was something worth asking as our GM comes from Exalted series of games and rewards his player bonus exp on creative was to do mundane combat. Thanks. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 16, 2017 at 21:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ @godskook Yeah, looks like you’re right there, no choosing to feint with one and not with the other. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Aug 16, 2017 at 21:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ @JhyarelleSilver They would not stack, no; you would simply get two non-stacking +4 circumstance bonuses, which does you no good. As for GM assistance here, even in the best situation you’re looking at two sneak-attack-enabled attacks; with some movement built in, which is nice, but the damage is very poor, and there’s nowhere to go with it so that it can scale up later. Unless you can either get pounce or Greatsword Battler involved, but those soak up enormous amounts of levels and/or feats to get. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Aug 16, 2017 at 21:26
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No, for a several reasons, mostly to do with action costs.

First, Twin Throw doesn't let you make two attacks. It lets you make one special attack which replaces the normal attack. Two-Weapon Feint likewise allows you to replace the normal attack with a feint. Those are two mutually exclusive uses of your first attack in full attack action. You can't split the "two throws" that twin throw allows you to do into separate attacks, either; they're a single attack with a single attack roll.

Secondly, Throw and Charge is a full round action in and of itself, not a full attack action. You cannot use the Twin Throw or Two-Weapon Feint abilities in combination with Throw and Charge.

If you want a flashy sneak-attack fighting style, consider simply specialising in Acrobatics and taking full advantage of the ability to move through threatened or enemy spaces without provoking AoOs to put yourself into flanking positions. It's much less feat-intensive but you can still describe it very dramatically. Taking the Two-Weapon Feint/Advanced Two-Weapon Feint feats will allow you use bluff to get the advantage on adjacent enemies if you're not already in a flanking position and would rather make more attacks than move.

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The way I understand it, the Rogue's ability to Sneak Attack is precision based, and doesn't require a standard action like the feat Vital Strike, which seems to do the same thing but with a different drawback. Rather, it behaves more like Deadly Aim, which just adds damage.

Any time the rogue has an advantage like Flanking, or is acting before it's target has acted in the first round, she gets her sneak attack damage. She gets it on any attack that requires aiming, or to better say it, any attack that can critical. This means slam attacks, ranged touch attacks like rays, or thrown weapons.

Sneak attacks are precision based damage, like a critical, and apply whenever a critical is possible.

To give a better example of the limitations of "Sneak Attack", a Double Crossbow shoots two bolts at once, but you only roll once to hit. If you hit, the target gets two projectiles in the face, but the weapon clearly states that only one of the bolts criticals. Because of that "precision damage" link, you would add your sneak attack damage once. You rolled once, you can only critical once, so you get only as many d6 as a standard sneak attack gets. If you want to "sneak attack" again, you'll have to roll to hit again.

To answer your question a little more simply...

If it rolls to smack, you sneak attack.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ None of this appears to be at all relevant to the question, which is about action economy and complicated feat combos, not SA without attack rolls. \$\endgroup\$
    – user17995
    Aug 16, 2017 at 21:00

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