D&D 5E Sneak Attack with spells?

[Mouseferatu]

I think I'm sad. Am I reading correctly that a multiclassed rogue/caster (or arcane trickster) can't sneak attack with a ray? Since SA specifies finesse or ranged weapon?

I'm hoping I've missed something, but I fear not...

 

[1of3]

That is correct. You could invent a Spell Sniper feat or something.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Agreed -- it's not allowed RAW.

My sense is that it's the scaling dice of the attack spells that make it a problem -- that if the ray only ever did one die damage, there wouldn't be a problem.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Well, a cantrip is a ranged weapon. If it has a range beyond melee and requires a "to hit" roll its ranged weapon as far as I can tell.

 

[Pickles JG]

You make ranged attack rolls but nothing indicates it is a ranged weapon.

 

[ExploderWizard]

You make ranged attack rolls but nothing indicates it is a ranged weapon.

Well there is nothing indicating a cast iron frying pan is ranged weapon either but if it hit you in the face at a decent velocity I dare say it would hurt, cause damage, and thus be considered a weapon.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Well there is nothing indicating a cast iron frying pan is ranged weapon either but if it hit you in the face at a decent velocity I dare say it would hurt, cause damage, and thus be considered a weapon.

Actually there is: improvised weapon, 1d4 damage.

If they had wanted to include attack cantrips, it would say "ranged attack", not "ranged weapon". I think that's pretty clear.

Attack cantrips have two significant advantages over ranged weapons for most spell casters:
* damage scales as level goes up,
* attack uses spellcasting stat rather than dexterity, requiring less ability diversity.

Things start to creak if you're adding additional dice damage from Sneak Attack.

Throughout the play test, I was asking for attack cantrips that used DEX rather than the spell casting stat, so that there would have to be some design choice when building characters. That idea was consistently unpopular on these boards, and was never implemented in revisions. That's fine, even if it's not what I wanted, but we can't have our cake and eat it too.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Well there is nothing indicating a cast iron frying pan is ranged weapon either but if it hit you in the face at a decent velocity I dare say it would hurt, cause damage, and thus be considered a weapon.

Actually, there is. It would fall under "Improvised Weapon".

I think there is a game mechanic distinction between "weapon" and "spell" in this instance, but it might be worth a tweet to Mr. Mearls (I'm sure he has nothing else going on this week.)

Edit: Ninja'd with a frying pan

 

[Pickles JG]

Well there is nothing indicating a cast iron frying pan is ranged weapon either but if it hit you in the face at a decent velocity I dare say it would hurt, cause damage, and thus be considered a weapon.

Well apart from the improvised weapon point others raised the pan is a tangible object while a spell is not. Anyhow I realised I am channeling Warmachine which uses exactly this language so I will concede it may be ambiguous.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Oh, sure cantrips scale with level. But so does sneak attack. So, that wouldn't help with the arcane trickster, but it does limit the combination of spell dice/SA dice you can accumulate with multi-classing.

Unless...

Now that I think about it, does the book actually specify whether cantrips improve with class level or character level?