Blog: Sneak Attack Vs. Backstab 3/28/12

[GreyICE]

An extra d6 already reads like an enormous trap option at high levels.

One d6 is 3.5 damage, which, even done twice a round is... Pretty much irrelevant at level 15. A maneuver that saves your bacon is damn sexy.

If 5e is like 3e and the rocket tag combat it might end up winning out, but at the end of the day if 4e taught us anything about melee strikers it's that glass cannons are made of... Glass. And you do zero damage when dead.

I doubt most rogues would be beyond 5d6 at 20 unless the other options are hellishly weak.

 

[Szatany]

I like the blog's proposal about everyong being able to do some extra damage with an advantage.
I don't like the proposed changes to rogue's SA. But then again I didn't really like 3e rogue's sneak attack either. Any by that I mean rolling a crapload of dice.
IMO every rogue should be better at backstabbing, and some rogues should be even better. Give every rogue a flat +1/level bonus to sneak attack damage, and then have the system proposed in a blog, but with lower numbers and less dice, if a player picks SA option. Something like:

Technique feature at, say, level 2 and again every couple of levels or so. The feature might let you choose one of the following benefits every time you get it.
Combat Maneuver: The rogue gets two combat maneuvers (think at-will powers).
Widget: Some sort of skill-like benefit or trick.
Weapon Specialization: A cool benefit tied to one of the rogue’s weapon groups.
Sneak Attack: Whenever you backstab a creature, you deal 1d4 extra damage. Each time you gain this benefit, increase the extra damage by 1d4 (replace every 2d4 with 1d8).

 

[delericho]

I like it, but I'd stay well short of calling it genius. Allowing the Rogue to choose to swap his Sneak Attack improvements for something else is a good idea, but hardly revolutionary or 'genius'.

I'm not too keen on allowing anyone to swap the to-hit bonus from Advantage to a +1d6 damage instead... but can't see any great reason why not.

 

[Arytiss]

I'm inclined to wait until I see how the numbers work out myself. 10d6 is a lot of dice, and since we don't know what monster HP is going to be like yet, we don't know what proportion of the HP those 10 dice are going to shave off.

Giving up the CA for the Sneak attack is an interesting idea, and prevents such effects as the 100d6 damage rogue from 3.x (or, at least, reduces the threat of it), and I also like the idea of enabling other classes to Sneak Attack, but only the rogue to do it well.

I suppose one thing we should be looking at is the rogue's role in the party. In 4th ed he was a striker. A damage dealer. Other classes could do the sneaky-sneaky lock picking and trapfinding and the non-combat roles weren't prioritised as much in the design. From what we've heard so far however, the non-combat roles are intended to be just as important as the combat roles, which means a return to the sneaky rogue as an important and (perhaps) necessary member of the party. The use of rogue talents here certainly seems to suggest that as part of the intent.

The big question seems to be wether or not other classes should be allowed to Sneak Attack, or wether that should be purely the domain of the rogue. I think, perhaps, were the ability wedded to a theme (as well as the rogue) it might work better and prove more popular.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

An extra d6 already reads like an enormous trap option at high levels.

One d6 is 3.5 damage, which, even done twice a round is... Pretty much irrelevant at level 15. A maneuver that saves your bacon is damn sexy.

If 5e is like 3e and the rocket tag combat it might end up winning out, but at the end of the day if 4e taught us anything about melee strikers it's that glass cannons are made of... Glass. And you do zero damage when dead.

I doubt most rogues would be beyond 5d6 at 20 unless the other options are hellishly weak.

When looking at 4e, there were outcries, when someone somehow got +3,5 damage per hit through some nice combinations of feats and powers... even at high levels...

Also I in actual play, i have seen people who decide not to do damage, but instead go for conditions and had great effects with it.
So damage and conditions can be real choices.

But: I rather had not too many choices for the poor rogue at the draw board. I think the choice to get in a very cool sneak attack to kill or just to render someone unconscious should be a choice made by the rogue in actual play.
If there is only one choice, at level 2 maybe it would maybe be ok... but a good multiclassing system (a la 3e+) could actually yield better results!

 

[Ahnehnois]

A real bit of substance in there, and not a good one. Sneak attack as extra d6's of damage is not one of 3.5's better innovations. Even if the system math is different, it still isn't a good idea.

The broader issue raised by the article is interesting, but I didn't like the proposed rule. In principle, though, non-rogue characters ought to get some significant benefit for catching someone off guard, rogues should just do that better and more often.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I would love to pick up the 4e movement tricks or at wills in place of a few d6's

 

[Savage Wombat]

The problem isn't how many dice you are or aren't rolling. It's in whether the rogue is dealing "enough" damage for the system. You could replace the dice with a fixed number and have more or less the same effect.

The problem, as I see it, is that if the game designers assume that the rogue is doing Xd6 damage at a level, then either the player who specializes in sneak attack is doing 2Xd6 damage, and is hitting too hard, or else they assume max commitment to sneak attack, and the player trying other options only does 1/2Xd6, and thus isn't hitting hard enough.

Seems hard to balance to me. Especially with large numbers of dice.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At the very least, we should at least get the proposed terminology right if we're going to discuss it.

Every class does not get 'Sneak Attack'. They get 'Backstab'. And Backstab is basically a little more powerful version of Power Attack. -2 to hit (ie don't take the +2 attack bonus for Advantage) for +3.5 (average) in damage (+1d6).

The Rogue on top of this can take Sneak Attack, which grants an additional +1d6 on top of the Backstab damage, for +2d6 to start with (which can then go up by an additional +1d6 each time another level of Sneak Attack gets selected.)

*****

I do think we need to see the numbers play out a bit in this scenario, because I also tentatively think that just an additional +1d6 in Backtab damage does not equal the loss of +2 in Advantage attack bonus. A good rule of thumb had always seemed to be you needed to gain twice as much damage for every point loss in attack for them to be equivalent (meaning Power Attack really should have been -2 to hit for +4 in damage)... and the Backstab die comes in underneath that. So my initial hunch is that the exchange is not worth it in the long run (although I'm sure someone has probably run the numbers here on ENWorld to determine just how much a point of attack bonus is worth in damage.)

 

[Kobold Avenger]

While I don't mind the option to pick and choose special abilities and tricks as a rogue levels up. I think they should definitely be in separate silos, some sneak attack bonus damage is automatic for certain levels. Unless they're going to do the whole, "X trick requires Y sneak attack damage". But I always found the idea that a rogue does a certain amount of sneak attack damage at a certain level to be an easier one to handle.

Improvements to sneak attack through options for those who really like sneak attack feats should be like that 4e feat that increases the die to d8's, or makes it "brutal", or inflicts a condition.