D&D 5E Assassinate and Greater Invisibility

[Ashrym]

That's what I am getting at. if you are literally blind to an attack coming, even if you are expecting it, you can't defend against it.

That's why the attack is made with advantage. The game mechanics do include the inability to defend oneself as well in such a situation.

In the assassin's case that also triggers sneak attack damage.

It's not like the scenario isn't giving benefits to the assassin. The difference is knowing attacks are coming is better than not expecting attacks in the first place for whomever is on tbe receiving end of those attacks regardless of still being more susceptible to such attacks.

 

[NotAYakk]

Forgoing an entire combat round to "prepare" an assassinate attempt would probably be a relatively balanced house rule. Most fourth edition lurker monsters do exactly that, and they're not overpowered or anything.

It would generally be crappy.

So there is a core problem with the 5e rogue in that it is hard to optimize.

Multi-tap characters scale with damage additions to each tap in a nice way. Give a character +17 to damage per tap, and 5 taps, and they gain +85 damage. Do the same to the rogue ... they gain +17 damage. 34 if the rogue dual wields.

It deals very decent damage in a single-class, magic-item-less game with no feats. But each addition to the game erodes its relative damage.

One way you can deal competitive damage with a rogue is by getting a second sneak attack each turn; exploit the reaction. This, however, isn't generally dependent on feats, magic items or multiclassing. Well, the Scimitar of Speed; gives you a bonus action attack that you can use while you ready your main action attack to go off on someone else's turn and get a 2nd tap of sneak attack damage.

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You can compare various rogue archtypes. The Thief has nothing mainly useful in combat until level 17, where it gets 2 turns on the first round of combat; that is way better than the Assassin 3rd level feature. Its 17th level feature also requires surprise, but when stacked does decent damage.

If I was to fix the Assassin, I'd fold 7 and 13 level feature together and add a new not-mainly-combat one in there. Maybe poison crafting related.

Death Strike, at 17, could also be improved.

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Assassinate could probably be extended to "on a target who is surprised, or who you have been hidden from for the entire combat up to this point". That permits some janky stuff, and also means that you aren't completely destroyed by your party not letting you open the gates of battle every fight.

 

[Olrox17]

Well, no. Advantage is how you model that normally. The Assassin has specialized training in this context.

My point was, it usually isn't a good idea to buff (or nerf) a mechanical feature because of logic or realism. There are hundreds of unrealistic mechanics in D&D, and what is logic or realistic is often highly subjective, anyway.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My point was, it usually isn't a good idea to buff (or nerf) a mechanical feature because of logic or realism. There are hundreds of unrealistic mechanics in D&D, and what is logic or realistic is often highly subjective, anyway.

That’s irrelevant, though. We are speaking of one specific mechanic.

 

[Olrox17]

That’s irrelevant, though. We are speaking of one specific mechanic.

It is relevant. Allowing an assassin to crit-sneak attack every single round has a deep impact on the flow of the game. It gives the assassin a tremendous power boost, making it much more powerful than other rogue subclasses, and probably single handedly turning the rogue into the best damage dealing class.

Now, why would we want to achieve that? Do we feel like the assassin is so underpowered that it deserves such a boost? I certainly don't.
I'm also skeptical that giving advantage to enemies' perception checks would ever be enough to balance it, in a game with expertise (stealth) and pass without trace.

So, if the argument behind such a change is "it just makes logical sense", forgive me but I must dismiss it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It is relevant. Allowing an assassin to crit-sneak attack every single round has a deep impact on the flow of the game. It gives the assassin a tremendous power boost, making it much more powerful than other rogue subclasses, and probably single handedly turning the rogue into the best damage dealing class.

Now, why would we want to achieve that? Do we feel like the assassin is so underpowered that it deserves such a boost? I certainly don't.
I'm also skeptical that giving advantage to enemies' perception checks would ever be enough to balance it, in a game with expertise (stealth) and pass without trace.

So, if the argument behind such a change is "it just makes logical sense", forgive me but I must dismiss it.

It's a crit. Increasing rogue crits doesn't make them the most damaging class.

 

[Stoutstien]

It's a crit. Increasing rogue crits doesn't make them the most damaging class.

It does if the multiclass into something that does turn them into damage monsters.

 

[Charlaquin]

That's what I am getting at. if you are literally blind to an attack coming, even if you are expecting it, you can't defend against it.

There is already a mechanic for blindness. It gives you disadvantage on attack rolls, and attacks against you have advantage. Accordingly, an invisible character has advantage on attacks and attacks against invisible characters have disadvantage. This is a different thing than surprise. A surprised character is a character who is not on guard. Characters are assumed to be on guard as long as they are in combat. Only on the first round can a character be surprised. After that, they are on guard (not surprised) even if they might be blind to their attackers (advantage/disadvantage on attacks.)

 

[Iry]

Using your post where if I kill the first guy horrendously, would you mind if I did this against the party.

I always feel bad when the party rolls poorly and someone dies.
But I have infinite monsters, and only 6 party members.

 

[jasper]

I always feel bad when the party rolls poorly and someone dies.
But I have infinite monsters, and only 6 party members.

I don't think I was clear. Using your post where if the assassin kills the first guy, the second guy is another combat. So

Surprise. High Initiative. High Hide Roll. Good Hit. And high damage rolls. BOOM PC 1 is dead. On to next encounter which is five foot step over the dead pc's body. So.
Surprise. High Initiative. High Hide Roll. Good Hit. And high damage rolls. BOOM PC 2 is dead. On to next encounter which is five foot step over the dead pc's body. So.
Surprise. High Initiative. High Hide Roll. Good Hit. And high damage rolls. BOOM PC 3 is dead. On to next encounter which is five foot step over the dead pc's body. So.
Surprise. High Initiative. High Hide Roll. Good Hit. And high damage rolls. BOOM PC 4 is dead. On to next encounter which is five foot step over the dead pc's body. So.
Surprise. High Initiative. High Hide Roll. Good Hit. And high damage rolls. BOOM PC 5 is dead. On to next encounter which is five foot step over the dead pc's body. OOPS the next encounter is your PC.
So in less than 30 feet my assassin has 5 combat encounters for the day. Your PC is surprise etc. Do think having this type of power would be fair and balanced.
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The DM has infinite monsters. The players have infinite party members but only a one at time.