Sneak attacking undead and constructs seems wrong

André Soares said:

In 5e the reasoning for sneak attack is not the same as in 3.x, it's not about hitting soft or vital spots.

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A related issue may be that the definition of "damage" has changed.

In earlier editions, damage measured only the ability to inflict physical trauma. The only way to inflict damage was to physically impact their body. The only things that increased your damage were those things which made you hit harder, or made your hits hurt more by striking vital places. Healing was relatively slow because, even though you're an action hero, there's a limit to how quickly anyone can shrug off being stabbed.

In 5E, damage doesn't measure anything in particular. You can still do more damage by hitting harder (+Strength), or by striking vital places (finesse weapons), but you can also do damage by demoralizing the foe (psychic damage). No matter how badly you're injured, you can get back to full after a short rest, which places a hard limit on how much physical injury is actually being inflicted.

Fifth Edition suffers strongly from the 4E problem, where the game mechanics don't seem to relate to anything tangible within the narrative. A hit (within the game mechanics) is not necessarily a hit (within the narrative), and damage (on the character sheet) is not necessarily damage (to the body).

Hawk Diesel said:

Well, it doesn't have to be a mystical or magical thing. Though, if you have magic users and monks in your group, it isn't such a stretch since there is precedent for that kind of thing.

But it could be a mundane explanation as well. As I think someone else in the thread had mentioned (sorry, I would quote or credit you, but can't find the exact post at the moment), the ability could be more reflective of a rogue timing their shot and making the most opportune strike. It could be capitalizing on a distraction set up by one of the other characters. Or the rogue himself may be distracting the creature, setting it up to expect one kind of strike but then reversing into a different one. So the target bracers for one thing, and instead gets hit in a less defended area. Or perhaps, even though the rogue is technically getting only one attack, maybe the player likes the idea of each additional dice representing a strike. So one mechanical "hit" with sneak attack is visualized or imagined as a number of rapid and precise strikes. That is probably the most mundane option to represent the higher damage without the baggage of "needing to hit a vital spot." A single sneak attack being represented by a flurry of stabs when the creature is distracted.

Regardless, I think it is worth talking to your player to see how they imagine it working. They may have a concept in their head that is cool, fun, thematic, and helps you understand how it can work against things without clear anatomy or vital/weak spots.

Additionally, I would caution you against changing or nerfing the player's character. They built their character for a reason. So long as that ability is not breaking the game, limiting the enjoyment of others, or monopolizing the spotlight, I would let it play out. Of course, your table may be different, prioritizing different things as fun or enjoyable. But certainly something like that would feel pretty harsh at my table unless the player was warned up front at session 0 that characters and mechanics may be tweaked along the way.

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Well, ultimately it will be up to the DM of our group. Thankfully, that isn't my job! LOL

I am seeing this as another player at the table. I play a cleric/rogue/wizard, focused on using my rogue in pursuit of augmenting my divine and magical gifts. The character in our group is a rogue (with a couple levels of fighter for two-weapon fighting and action surge). He easily gets into a fight with another target already engaged with the fighter or barbarian in the group. He uses sneak attack every round because he his target is within 5 feet of an enemy (e.g. the party's fighter or barbarian). The extra 3d6 damage is easily matching the average damage of the fighter and barbarian, even though now get two attacks due to Extra Attack. I see it in the other players when the rogue out damages them. Especially since he went with the Assassin archetype, so on the first round he is devastating if he goes first. Oh, yeah, and he is also a half-orc so gets the savage attacker thing or whatever it is, adding another die to critical hits (which the assassinate feature is).

Typically, we see this... He has a good initiative, goes first. Moves to the target and gets to assassinate. This make the attack at advantage (gets to add +3d6 sneak attack) and a critical if he hits. When he hits, he is thus rolling 4d6 shortsword plus sneak attack, doubled to 8d6, plus 1d6 for savage half-orc, is 9d6 and plus 3 for Dexterity. Average damage is 34.5 points. Oh, and after that he still gets to roll his second weapon attack as well with the off-hand. While not as bad, it is still 3d6+3, for another 14 points on average.

The fighter and barbarian don't even come close to matching this typically, and for the rogue this isn't far-fetched or because he power-gamed the character. Even on the rounds without the assassinate, he still gets the 4d6+3 and 1d6+3, about 24 points if he hits both attacks.

Now, compare this to the fighter with a war pick and dueling style, plus extra attack. He does 1d8+6 twice, average 22. Significantly less on the first round, and about the same as the rogue after wards. Granted, he has more hp and a better AC, and another +1 to attack rolls because his Str is better than the rogue's Dex. I guess that is how he will have to accept he is superior to the rogue in combat. Still, I see it in his expression when the rogue is dominating the battlefield.

Saelorn said:

A related issue may be that the definition of "damage" has changed.

In earlier editions, damage measured only the ability to inflict physical trauma. The only way to inflict damage was to physically impact their body. The only things that increased your damage were those things which made you hit harder, or made your hits hurt more by striking vital places. Healing was relatively slow because, even though you're an action hero, there's a limit to how quickly anyone can shrug off being stabbed.

In 5E, damage doesn't measure anything in particular. You can still do more damage by hitting harder (+Strength), or by striking vital places (finesse weapons), but you can also do damage by demoralizing the foe (psychic damage). No matter how badly you're injured, you can get back to full after a short rest, which places a hard limit on how much physical injury is actually being inflicted.

Fifth Edition suffers strongly from the 4E problem, where the game mechanics don't seem to relate to anything tangible within the narrative. A hit (within the game mechanics) is not necessarily a hit (within the narrative), and damage (on the character sheet) is not necessarily damage (to the body).

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To some of the new players, I've been explaining damage in 5E as "combat effectiveness" and not just physical trauma. That helps with things like psychic damage and such. Also when someone misses" a big, slow target, I suggest is is likely they physically "hit" them, but the blow was harmless, turned off the target, etc. so as not to decrease the "combat effectiveness" of the target. We're all happy with that concept.

Going along those lines with sneak attack, it could work I guess. The extra damage might not just physical trauma and striking vitals, etc. Sure, sometimes it might be, other times it might be something else.

well, for 5e's parameters, he has power-gamed the character. What I don't understand is how the fighter is not dealing more damage than that? sure assassinate is awesome in the first round, but action surge is equally as devastating...

cbwjm said:

They used to have this restriction in 3rd edition.

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One of my more frustrating experiences as a DM was running the Eberron adventure Shadows of the Last War, precisely because of this issue. One of my players was playing a rogue wielding a rapier and not having much in the way of Strength bonus, instead planning to rely on sneak attack and crits for damage. Here's a list of the stuff the PCs fight in that adventure:
[sblock]
Some kobolds
A warforged with DR 2/adamantine and 25% chance to negate crits/sneak attack.
Either some skeletons (DR 5/bludgeoning, immune to sneak attack/crits) or some goblins and a bugbear, depending on route.
Some bugbears.
Human goons.
Skeletons and a vulture zombie (DR 5/slashing, immune to sneak attack/crits).
Glass zombies (immune to sneak/crits, DR 5/bludgeoning until they have taken half their hp in damage, then DR 5/slashing)
More goons.
Wolf skeletons (immune to sneak/crits, DR 5/bludgeoning).
Carcass crab.
Living flaming sphere (immune to sneak/crits, DR 10/magic).
Half-stone golem wolf (immune to sneak/crits, DR 5/adamantine).
Living color spray (immune to sneak/crits, DR 5/magic).
Medium fire elementals (immune to sneak/crits).[/sblock]
This was not a super-fun adventure for someone dealing 1d6 piercing damage + hopefully 1d6 sneak attack. And the monster selection was pretty natural for the adventuring locations and the opposition (a village wiped out by an experimental weapon that glassed the whole place, and a secret magic research facility; and the Emerald Claw being the main opposition making heavy use of undead due to their connection to the Blood of Vol faith).

Man, and the adventure is so good... at least it played awesome when I ran it in 5e, without those (in my opinion) absurd restrictions.

Saelorn said:

A related issue may be that the definition of "damage" has changed.

In earlier editions, damage measured only the ability to inflict physical trauma. The only way to inflict damage was to physically impact their body. The only things that increased your damage were those things which made you hit harder, or made your hits hurt more by striking vital places. Healing was relatively slow because, even though you're an action hero, there's a limit to how quickly anyone can shrug off being stabbed.

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That isn't really true. Damage and hit points have always been a nebulous concept in D&D. Even 1E grappled with the challenge of explaining why a high-level fighter can shrug off blows that would fell a grizzly bear.

The solution in previous editions was the "Hit Points Are Not Meat Paragraph." This was a single paragraph in the hit point rules that carefully explained how hit points involve a lot of luck and skill and yadda yadda yadda. Then the rest of the rulebook was free to ignore all that and behave as if your high-level fighter was simply made of iron. Any time someone pointed out that this was absurd, you quoted the Hit Points Are Not Meat Paragraph at them, and usually it was enough to shut them up.

The big mistake 4E made was thinking they could take that paragraph seriously and apply it throughout the rules to solve some gameplay issues (chiefly the requirement for every party to include a healbot cleric). The very same fig leaf that was supposed to satisfy the simulationists became the number one cause of simulationist complaints when it was made into a full-body suit.

5E is trying to strike a middle ground, scaling back the suit into a pair of shorts without completely sacrificing the gameplay benefits.

André Soares said:

well, for 5e's parameters, he has power-gamed the character. What I don't understand is how the fighter is not dealing more damage than that? sure assassinate is awesome in the first round, but action surge is equally as devastating...

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Not really. He has a Dex 16 at 7th level. Good, but hardly the 18 or 20 you commonly see. Yes, he took the assassin archetype but that was because he wanted to be an assassin more than a thief or swashbuckler or whatever. The concept of the assassin appealed to him the most. It was only later on when we realized just how potent assassinate can be. Also, the sneak attack damage allow him to be on par or better each round. And action surge is once per short rest, assassinate can be applied to nearly every battle, even multiple times when new foes enter the conflict.

The fighter is more of a tank. Good hit points and very good AC, so his damage suffers compared to power-gamed damage dealers.

We only have one player in our group that I consider a power-gamer. I've played other versions of D&D, but these two (the rogue and fighter) players are brand new, only been playing about five months maybe.

dnd4vr said:

And action surge is once per short rest, assassinate can be applied to nearly every battle, even multiple times when new foes enter the conflict.

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How's he getting to do that? By definition, if a new foe enters the conflict, that foe has taken a turn; they used it to walk in the door. Unless they're somehow getting dumped onto the battlefield without warning, they should not be at risk of assassination.

He may not have done it purposely, but he did seem to stumble into a very effective build. It can definitely be unfun to feel like someone else is always doing the cool things in combat.
One thing to point out is that for Assassinate, it isn't always an auto-critical. If they attack someone that hasn't gone yet, they always get advantage (which lets them use sneak attack), but it only becomes a critical if the target was surprised. Unless you are just constantly getting the drop on your enemies, he should be doing significantly less (but still good) damage on the first round. An enemy that hasn't gone isn't automatically surprised.