D&D 5E Would Rogues be broken if Sneak Attack were always on?

So I'll be DMing my first campaign soon, and it's going to be with a group of people who have never played 5e before. One of the things I've found that most often gets misunderstood by new players is the condition for Rogues' Sneak Attack. Players don't seem to understand when exactly they're allowed to use it. I was considering simplifying it to just always apply, no advantage and no adjacent ally needed, but I'm wondering if that would make the Rogue too strong. I'm also aware that some of the rogue archetype class features give you a new way to apply your Sneak Attack, and I'm wondering what I could replace that ability with. Maybe 1d6 extra damage?

No, it wouldn't.

But it wouldn't feel like sneak attack at all.

Gavin O. said:

So I'll be DMing my first campaign soon, and it's going to be with a group of people who have never played 5e before. One of the things I've found that most often gets misunderstood by new players is the condition for Rogues' Sneak Attack. Players don't seem to understand when exactly they're allowed to use it. I was considering simplifying it to just always apply, no advantage and no adjacent ally needed, but I'm wondering if that would make the Rogue too strong. I'm also aware that some of the rogue archetype class features give you a new way to apply your Sneak Attack, and I'm wondering what I could replace that ability with. Maybe 1d6 extra damage?

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For new players it shouldn't be unbalanced to make it always on. A decent player will be able to get it 90% of the time anyways. A highly optimized rogue might be too strong if he got always on sneak attack. An arcane trickster with booming blade and haste for an off turn attack does some seriously impressive damage later.

The swashbuckler archetype says "no".

Maybe increase the die to d8 when using the specific method allowed by a subclass (Inquisitive comes to mind).

Edit: and call it Pinpoint Accuracy or Roguish Strike or something like this to remove the idea of an opportune assault.

I wouldn’t go messing with things in my first campaign.

Sneak attack triggers so easily making it easier doesn’t make sense to me. But do what you will.

What the heck is hard to understand about "an ally is within 5' of your target or you have Advantage on the attack roll"?

Yes it would be broken. I understand the confusion about when the rogue has advantage in order to use sneak attack, but that damage really starts to add up in a hurry. Based on my experience, with Cunning Action, it really creates a power-killer in a hurry that outclasses everyone else, with the possible exception of the fighter.

collin said:

Yes it would be broken. I understand the confusion about when the rogue has advantage in order to use sneak attack, but that damage really starts to add up in a hurry. Based on my experience, with Cunning Action, it really creates a power-killer in a hurry that outclasses everyone else, with the possible exception of the fighter.

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How would it interact with Cunning Action to become OP? I would have thought it's almost redundant: currently we have archer rogues using Cunning Action to Hide and get Disadvantage (and thus Sneak Attack) every round against ranged targets. How would giving them automatic advantage make that worse?

In my experience, people who think Sneak Attack is overpowered are either very bad at math or very ignorant of the damage capability of bog standard Fighters that don't use any of their class features.

Rogues without Sneak Attack are worse at combat than Valor Bards by a significant margin. If you don't want to bother making checks, you're not going to break anything, because the non-SCAG cantrip/non-multiclass Rogue will still track behind a damage-focused Fighter (and the SCAG cantrip Rogue will track with the damage Fighter) in pretty much every case except for three:

1. The Rogue consistently has Haste and does Ready Action to Sneak Attack on another creature's turn as well as his own (but a GWM/SS Fighter with Haste would still be doing similar damage without having to Ready Action)

2. The Rogue multiclass dipped 5-6 into another class for Extra Attack (especially if he is XBM/SS, which is by far the most abusable build with an EA multiclass, but an XBM/SS Fighter still eclipses an Extra Attack5/RogueX build unless combined with scenario 1 above, where the multiclass EA5/Rogue does finally eventually win out [until 20, where it's dead even again])

3. You've banned the Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master feats (which I wouldn't advise because otherwise you're just indirectly buffing spellcasters/nerfing martials) in which case Rogues will be slightly better than Fighters at high levels (until level 20, where again Fighter becomes king regardless).

(sidenote: extra Fighter damage bonuses such as Action Surge, Battlemaster, or crit on 19-20/18-20 weren't considered and will tilt this a lil further in the Fighter's favor, and the Fighter already had the edge to begin with if the Rogue didn't go completely out of his way to be competitive)

So, would Rogues be broken if Sneak Attack were always on?
TL;DR: lol no