AD&D 1E Redesigned and Rebalanced Assassin for 1e AD&D

[Lanefan]

Why would you need to look it up, when I already quoted the rules verbatim in this thread (across multiple editions) specifically for clarity?

I just quoted the full 1E rules a second time.

And the DMG bit you just quoted agrees with what I remember: you have to catch the target by surprise.

 

[Celebrim]

3e brought in ranged 'sneak attack' which had the same problem: Rogues could do stupid amounts of damage at little relative risk to themselves (and always PC Rogues, gawds help the DM who dared use sneak attack against the PCs).

I ran 3e for like 15 years, and ranged sneak attack is obviously inferior to melee sneak attack because you can always melee sneak attack by flanking, whereas ranged sneak attack requires surprise and to be within 30 feet of the target. One of the subtle jokes of "Order of the Stick" is the party is composed of highly un-optimized 3e characters - a smart fighter, a halfling barbarian, a M-U that specializes in evocation spells, and a thief that uses a bow.

And yeah, like the world I run is crawling with rogues who sneak attack all the time. Most kobolds and goblins you face will be 1st level rogues. Just don't get flanked, encircled, or surrounded (if you'd played in my game you'd know).

 

[James Gasik]

The DMG passage stating that either having no back or being immune to surprise negates the ability has always indicated to me that 1E's intent was for surprise to be needed. Yet another instance of Gygax making Thieves' lives even harder.

The arguments I've gotten into with people who claim that their Thieves were unstoppable backstabbing machines when I drag out all the ways the rules basically say you might as well cross the ability off your character sheet if the DM is a stickler about the rules.

And really, it's way safer to just plink at enemies with a ranged weapon as a Thief, with your mediocre AC and HP. Even if you have a fantastic weapon to backstab with (the 2e Thief can use a 2d4 damage broadsword), ok, sure, a 13th-level Thief can roll 10d4+mods if they pull off a backstab. That's 25 points of damage on average. I don't know what you're fighting at level 13 that's roughly humanoid and has a weak point a small to medium-sized Thief can reach, but a 13 HD creature is around 58 hit points (unless like a lot of DM's I know, after awhile everything has max hit points, lol. Hell even I adopted a "80% of maximum hit points" house rule at some point) and while they are hurting, they aren't dead and are free to wallop the Thief for their insolence.

 

[James Gasik]

I ran 3e for like 15 years, and ranged sneak attack is obviously inferior to melee sneak attack because you can always melee sneak attack by flanking, whereas ranged sneak attack requires surprise and to be within 30 feet of the target. One of the subtle jokes of "Order of the Stick" is the party is composed of highly un-optimized 3e characters - a smart fighter, a halfling barbarian, a M-U that specializes in evocation spells, and a thief that uses a bow.

And yeah, like the world I run is crawling with rogues who sneak attack all the time. Most kobolds and goblins you face will be 1st level rogues. Just don't get flanked, encircled, or surrounded (if you'd played in my game you'd know).

I never really understood the hate for ranged sneak attack- it's called being a sniper and people have done it historically for a very long time. I was happy when they changed it for 5e, though I still run into people who seem to think that ranged sneak attack is hard to pull off for some reason.

 

[Celebrim]

The DMG passage stating that either having no back or being immune to surprise negates the ability has always indicated to me that 1E's intent was for surprise to be needed. Yet another instance of Gygax making Thieves' lives even harder.

I seem to remember playing that way back in the day and thus basically never getting off a backstab, but the 1e PH book is written in a way that surprise is optional for the backstab, and I think that's more reasonable and so I've also made that explicit in the revision. It would work then more like sneak attack.

And yes, the DMG over rules the PH in this, but it does so in a really weird way. Instead of clarifying "surprise" it says "aware", which just leaves tons of room for wiggling, since you can technically be aware but surprised and unable yet to react, explicitly "not prepared" (like you see them in a timely fashion but at the time you are squatting to defecate, an actual example), or not surprised but unaware (such as an invisible thief in mid-combat) something that is as far as I know not explicitly covered by the rules as surprise. But I could have missed it.

 

[Lanefan]

The arguments I've gotten into with people who claim that their Thieves were unstoppable backstabbing machines when I drag out all the ways the rules basically say you might as well cross the ability off your character sheet if the DM is a stickler about the rules.

And really, it's way safer to just plink at enemies with a ranged weapon as a Thief, with your mediocre AC and HP. Even if you have a fantastic weapon to backstab with (the 2e Thief can use a 2d4 damage broadsword), ok, sure, a 13th-level Thief can roll 10d4+mods if they pull off a backstab.

You have it that multipliers just mean roll more dice?

I've always taken multipliers to mean exactly that: you multiply either [what's rolled] or [what's rolled plus bonuses]* by the multiplier given. Relevant in RAW both for backstrikes and for xxx-slayer weapons that multiply their damage against certain foes; also relevant for us in that our critical hit system is entirely based on damage multipliers.

* - 1e doesn't make it clear which it's supposed to be; we've always used the latter, meaning e.g. that a Ranger using a Giant-slayer (double damage against a Giant) can sometimes pull off some nice big damage numbers.

 

[James Gasik]

You have it that multipliers just mean roll more dice?

I've always taken multipliers to mean exactly that: you multiply either [what's rolled] or [what's rolled plus bonuses]* by the multiplier given. Relevant in RAW both for backstrikes and for xxx-slayer weapons that multiply their damage against certain foes; also relevant for us in that our critical hit system is entirely based on damage multipliers.

* - 1e doesn't make it clear which it's supposed to be; we've always used the latter, meaning e.g. that a Ranger using a Giant-slayer (double damage against a Giant) can sometimes pull off some nice big damage numbers.

Page 27 of the PHB says "twice normal for the weapon used per four levels of the Thief", but I agree that's vague. I started playing 1e not long before the 2e books came out, and there, they specified "the weapon's standard damage is multiplied....then strength and magical weapon bonuses are added", so I've always played it like this to my memory.

What was actually intended for 1e Thieves is up in the air, but given how horribly treated they are overall, especially in the DMG, I'd be surprised if you were, in fact, intended to multiply bonuses, lol. I used to have a Wood Elf Thief with a girdle of giant strength who would have been a menace if they got to multiply their bonuses...well, that is, if I'd ever even tried to backstab anything. Which I didn't, because...story time!

A friend of mine had a ring of invisibility with the rare inaudibility feature, and I remember being insanely jealous of that item, since it allowed him virtually no chance of failure to actually backstab- or so we thought.

What actually happened was we encountered some "humanoid creatures in a dimly lit chamber" and he tried to sneak up on one. The DM chuckled as he happily described the Grimlocks detecting his presence by smell and ripping his Thief to shreds.

Yeah, that was enough of a lesson for me.

 

[Celebrim]

You have it that multipliers just mean roll more dice?

I've always taken multipliers to mean exactly that: you multiply either [what's rolled] or [what's rolled plus bonuses]* by the multiplier given. Relevant in RAW both for backstrikes and for xxx-slayer weapons that multiply their damage against certain foes; also relevant for us in that our critical hit system is entirely based on damage multipliers.

* - 1e doesn't make it clear which it's supposed to be; we've always used the latter, meaning e.g. that a Ranger using a Giant-slayer (double damage against a Giant) can sometimes pull off some nice big damage numbers.

While I have always allowed backstab to multiply the bonuses, I'm pretty sure backstab explicitly says somewhere that it only multiplies the damage dice of the weapon.

 

[Lanefan]

Page 27 of the PHB says "twice normal for the weapon used per four levels of the Thief", but I agree that's vague. I started playing 1e not long before the 2e books came out, and there, they specified "the weapon's standard damage is multiplied....then strength and magical weapon bonuses are added", so I've always played it like this to my memory.

Maybe it was clarified in later 1e but if so, by then we'd locked in that everything gets multiplied. If nothing else, it gives Thieves a bit of a boost on backstrikes and sometimes makes our criticals a bit more spectatular.

What was actually intended for 1e Thieves is up in the air, but given how horribly treated they are overall, especially in the DMG, I'd be surprised if you were, in fact, intended to multiply bonuses, lol. I used to have a Wood Elf Thief with a girdle of giant strength who would have been a menace if they got to multiply their bonuses...well, that is, if I'd ever even tried to backstab anything. Which I didn't, because...story time!

The Thief I'm playing right now has Gauntlets of Ogre Power (our DM has it that Thieves can use these but not girdles of giant strength), and thanks to a once-in-forever combo of those, her rather nice sword, a backstrike, our multiplying crit system, perfect rolls, and stacking multipliers she holds our all-time record for damage caused by a single swing.

And it's a very big number.

(edit to add: and her name is Black Leaf)

A friend of mine had a ring of invisibility with the rare inaudibility feature, and I remember being insanely jealous of that item, since it allowed him virtually no chance of failure to actually backstab- or so we thought.

What actually happened was we encountered some "humanoid creatures in a dimly lit chamber" and he tried to sneak up on one. The DM chuckled as he happily described the Grimlocks detecting his presence by smell and ripping his Thief to shreds.

Yeah, smell and-or tremorsense can ruin anyone's day. Or detect magic, which I'm a bit surprised more monsters don't have as an always-on innate ability.