What do you do when...

[Takeru]

What do you do when you have a burglar doing that kind of sneak attack? Give him a burgling mission. If he can play it well, don't punish him. Sneak attacks are, by nature of the limited number of attacks and the Damage Save system, not nearly as game breaking as they can be in other games. I play an Assassin who can almost freely get 7d6 Sneak Attacks with a weapon that has "Armor Piercing: Yes" on it. Let the Burgler Burgle; he might find he's left out of the loops when things don't need to be murdered, but unless he's outright ruining you game (Which sneak attack is hard to do compared to many of the OTHER options you can pull off with a high number of combat feats) just treat him as a guided missile. He can probably only get off one sneak per turn in optimal situations, compared to people with Cleave and Blade Sweep and other things that allow them to attack multiple enemies and do damage nearly comparable to sneak attack anyway.

I'd say make sure the rest of your players have their own awesome thing about them, and just let the burgler burgle. 7d6 sneak at level 6 isn't all its cracked up to be unless you're only fighting one thing at a time. Throw some mooks, toss some standards into the mix, maybe add a pair of specials in a single combat, and it'll balance itself out.

[blacksheepcannibal]

I'm not so worried about the standard characters - sure, they'll pretty much auto-fail their first damage save (he will be doing at least 36 damage literally 9 times out of 10 - that's a damage save of 29) and every damage save after that - but I usually put between tough I and tough III on most combat NPCs.

My worry is special NPCs, who are supposed to be scenic and memorable, going down in two rounds. Even with tough and DR, unless I specifically nerf his character, that's 60+ damage per round.

Tho admittedly, there will be fights were he is near useless, and anytime he fights intelligent opponents, he'll get ganked, number one target.

[Sletchman]

My worry is special NPCs, who are supposed to be scenic and memorable, going down in two rounds. Even with tough and DR, unless I specifically nerf his character, that's 60+ damage per round.

It's only 60+ if they are stupid enough to stand still next to him and his friend.  Which means it's more an assisted suicide anyway.  Almost all his damage is based on the chainsaw standing (effectively) totally still and next to a mate.  Avoid that and he's not a threat.

In terms of raw damage, Sword users are worse - my guy would reliably hit for ~20 damage, and put the target on the Table of Ouch.  Which meant wearing down the target with bleed, broken limbs and other stacking penalties.  Every hit - no mobility restrictions, no special circumstances.  That's kinda the Sword chain's thing though.

Heh, I'm imagining some sort of infernal rube-goldberg sequence that starts with you character going 'one little white lie, how could it hurt?' and ending up with a nationwide path of death and destruction with your character becoming public enemy #1.

I've had a couple of my games go exactly like that (due to other players too - not just HMJesus).

[Blankbeard]

I'm not so worried about the standard characters - sure, they'll pretty much auto-fail their first damage save (he will be doing at least 36 damage literally 9 times out of 10 - that's a damage save of 29) and every damage save after that - but I usually put between tough I and tough III on most combat NPCs.

The problem with adding tough is that it slows everyone down by the same rate.  He's still outshining everyone but now you're slowing down the game.  There's nothing wrong with putting tough III on NPC's but you have plenty of other tools to work with too.

My worry is special NPCs, who are supposed to be scenic and memorable, going down in two rounds. Even with tough and DR, unless I specifically nerf his character, that's 60+ damage per round.

If he's doing 60+ damage a round, he's nearly always hitting.  Consider bumping the Defense of your NPC's by 3 or 4 grades.  Soldiery types are probably batting at +2 to +4 better to hit than he at level 7 so they should still be hitting most of the time while he's closer to 50%.  If you'd rather not do that, allow your soldier to build around All out Attack.  +4 to +8 damage per attack should go a long way towards equalizing damage output.

Tho admittedly, there will be fights were he is near useless, and anytime he fights intelligent opponents, he'll get ganked, number one target.

Even animals are going to move to avoid being flanked when it comes with that level of pain.  The only NPC's likely to simply stand and take it might be constructs, elementals, and undead, two of which are immune to his shenanigans.

Personally, I'd let the wookie win 1/4 of the time.  1/4 of the time, I'd structure the fights so that there are hard shutdowns available (types and qualities immune to sneak attack or flanking) so that he can't dominate the fight.  The remaining fights I'd put in situational qualities that might come into play and require some level of thinking and or teamwork to get around.

[Takeru]

Another natural check comes in the form of anything that can survive one round of sneak attack damage now being in melee combat with him. A few club-users with the club feats can pretty much bring a world of hurt to any sneaky rogue-type, and there are plenty of things that can cause a lot of pain to the most-likely lightly armored burglar.

Unlike other games, Sneak Attack is fairly balanced. Yes you're gonna be doing huge damage against special enemies, but most Special enemies have more tricks up their sleeve than "Stand there and take the punishment." Every fighting style in FC has strengths and weaknesses, you should just apply a few more of the weaknesses of the burglar and a few more strengths of the other players until you find a nice happy balance where everyone feels awesome.

[magustoad]

There was a horrible bluff...  coupled with my continued failed social skill rolls resulted in us getting almost every legal, gang and otherwise branch after us...  I've probably glossed over a lot of things, but that sort of reaction was par for the course whenever I tried any social skill roll.

So my big ol'drake has the Wrestling line (figured a dragon picking people up in one claw and smashing them about was thematic and all) and every. stinking. time. I tried to use the piledriver trick for massive awesome...  I'd either crit fail, just roll for poo (leaving you sprawled), OR the target would have some whack-a-do level of acrobatics you wouldn't think that critter would have (also leaving you sprawled).  

It was universally a disaster once declared.  Okay I take that back, I did get it off once very recently and it was gloriously messy.  

I'd love to use wrestling more, but actual grappling just takes so much time in comparison to simply attacking.

[Sletchman]

I'd love to use wrestling more, but actual grappling just takes so much time in comparison to simply attacking.

That's true, but it is so hilarious when you come across a Special NPC who has like 500 vitality and a bucketload of wounds and you just Coup De Grace him at round 2 of the fight.  Requires 3 good rolls (or a handful of action dice) but when it comes off it's just so worth it.

[hmjesus]

I'd love to use wrestling more, but actual grappling just takes so much time in comparison to simply attacking.

That's true, but it is so hilarious when you come across a Special NPC who has like 500 vitality and a bucketload of wounds and you just Coup De Grace him at round 2 of the fight.  Requires 3 good rolls (or a handful of action dice) but when it comes off it's just so worth it.

Until said big nasty is a purpose built anti-grappling killing machine.

Then you get torn to shreds.