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

[am181d]

I'm not thrilled with the idea that people would have to sacrifice their to hit bonus to do extra damage when sneak attacking. If you're in the shadows and you stab someone in the back, you should get your to hit bonus AND the damage bonus.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I'm a big proponent of lots of ways to give martial characters extra damage dice as they level -- not just rogues, but barbarians, rangers, paladins, warlords, etc. to.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Yea, I gotta admit I find it a bit funny. They say that the intention for 5e is that spells have "flatter" damage (already quoted at 5d6 for fireball) yet the rogues backstab keeps going up and up, even to the point where the article said he is capable of 20d6 in a round before weapon damage.

No thanks.

It sounds like the 5e math involves increasing HP and damage, and not much else. Large damage at higher levels is to compensate for to-hit and AC not changing (as) much.

Also, fireball will be dealing more than 5d6, but you have to prepare it in a higher slot if you want more damage.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Anyone allowing you to stack Haste with a Weapon of Speed needs to pay more attention.

 

[Janaxstrus]

Umm... Crits don't mutiply Sneak Attack damage in 3e, so I'm not sure how you're getting to 100d6. (Heck, even if you did multiply SA on crits, I'm not sure how you get to 100d6.)

Am I missing a trick?

You are correct, I had the 20d6 mentioned in the original article in my head when I was doing the mental math of 5 attacks, etc

Substitute 50d6+ easily where it says 100d6. That being said, I can probably get it to 72d6 without too much trouble, including weapon damage, sans crits

10d6 SA x 6 (2wpn, 3 prim, 2 off, 1 haste)
1d6 x 6 (wpn damage)
1d6 x6 (flame/cold/acid)

So...actually with some 20th level equipment, closer to 100d6 than 50 I would guess.

20th level rogues can be nasty, but they still only have 200ish hps max. They are the very definition of glass cannons.

 

[Daag]

The idea in giving everyone extra damage when they have advantage is interesting. The accuracy boost is actually a damage boost over the long term, because you are hitting more often, so I saw the bonus as a damage boost as well as an attack boost. However, if accuracy is as flat as they say it's going to be, I don't see how giving up a bonus to attack for such little damage as worth it. Maybe if you gave rogues the ability to backstab without giving up the advantage? That would make them masters of it. Then backstab increases for everyone at a giving rate? Maybe give rogues the option of increasing it more quickly as well?

Having played 4e a lot in the past few years, where the math is relatively flat at a given level, giving up even a +1 to attack for +1d6 damage is almost never worth it, unless you are already hitting with low rolls. Implementing this would have to be though out much more than the haphazard idea presented.

 

[am181d]

You are correct, I had the 20d6 mentioned in the original article in my head when I was doing the mental math of 5 attacks, etc

No worries. It was really my bad. I wasn't getting that you meant over multiple attacks. It seems obvious in retrospect.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

I voted that he's trying to fix something that isn't broken.

Backstab/Sneak Attack is the defining feature of a rogue in both 3.X and 4E (and a large feature in 2 ed from what I remember, but it has been 13 years since I've played 2E). Handing out damage dice to someone else for combat advantage is something I do not favor.

 

[Jawsh]

He's trying to invent a problem to fix, and then to add insult to injury, he's fixing it wrong.

Start by defining the problem: rolling too many d6s is not everybody's cup of tea. It might be some people's cup of tea, but we want D&D to work for everybody.

How does giving everybody sneak attack solve this problem? It doesn't. It does build a framework in which to think of sneak attacks a little bit differently, but we don't need that framework once we understand what it is we want to do.

Giving sneak attack to everybody is a solution to a different problem, one which I'd be happy to see addressed, but please, in the right context. Sneak attack for everybody is a problem of verisimilitude in a simulationist model. Which is a fancy way of saying "I want the game to be more realistic".

What we haven't done is solve the "too many d6s" problem. If we reframe sneak attack as an optional thing that you can scale, then it will become obvious to any player that there are diminishing returns with choosing more and more and more d6s. The end result is that there is an illusion of choice "Gee, I can take 'extra damage' every level and ultimately have 20d6 sneak attack: Leeeeerroooy Jjjjjjjjjjjjeng-kinssss!" But in reality no player will ever take all 20; instead they will opt for the other abilities.

And speaking of "other cool abilities" a little alarm always goes off in my head when a designer says "we're going to insert something cool here". When you try too hard to be "cool" you often fall flat, and this happened way too many times with new powers made for 4E.

 

[GX.Sigma]

The end result is that there is an illusion of choice "Gee, I can take 'extra damage' every level and ultimately have 20d6 sneak attack: Leeeeerroooy Jjjjjjjjjjjjeng-kinssss!" But in reality no player will ever take all 20; instead they will opt for the other abilities.

I think the last 12 years have taught us that, if there is a choice between a simple bonus to an important stat, and an interesting conditional ability, the attack bonus will be a mathematically better option (much to the dismay of everyone).

 

[pemerton]

Im just not fond of the depiction of sneak attack as a purely combat mechanic, which it really ended up as in 3.x and 4e. I always saw snea k attack/backstap as more of an RP enabler.

e.g.
You sneak up on the guard. <Roll a bunch of whatever rolls required, not a damage based mechanic, more akin to a skill check scenario> and drive a dagger into his side, he goes down quietly. The way is clear for the party to go through.

Im really "Eh" on using HP as a measure of damage outside of combat.

I agree with this, at least to a significant extent.

In my 4e game, in a non-combat context (skill challenge, or just free roleplaying) I use skill checks for "minionisation" - successful, and one hit drops the NPC/monster, fail and now you're no longer in a non-combat context!

I don't have a rogue in my party, but could easily imagine Stealth being used for the relevant skill check by a rogue. (I have had the wizard do it using Arcana, and the fighter I think using Athletics to climb down a slope and clonk two goblins on the head).