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<blockquote data-quote="Jon Gilliam" data-source="post: 8039932" data-attributes="member: 6920404">The reason Assassins don't assassinate via surprise is they have the Assassinate and Death Strike abilities, which gives them a bonus IF their opponent is surprised. If the assassin's assassinate ability was meant to be surprise-based, it would assume your opponent was surprised. Instead, these abilities are written from the perspective of IF the opponent is already surprised (implying that's likely by something else, not the assassination attempt itself) then the assassin gets an additional bonus.Losing a round in combat is Huge ... it's one of the most severe penalties you can incur in 5e, and it can be the determining factor in a boss fight. So, surprise shouldn't be easy to come by, and a single character shouldn't be able to initiate surprise.My primary objection is that allowing just any character to make what is in effect an assassination attempt via some improvised surprise rule (since the rules don't give any way to decide surprise other than by Stealth), gives them a bigger bonus (their opponents losing a turn) than the Assassinate ability itself, and a bonus almost as powerful as a Death Strike.It's all out of proportion to the requirements to attempt it. All you need is a good Charisma score. And it makes it impossible for the DM to then decide who is and is not surprised using the rules. Nowhere in the rules does it say you can compare a characters Deception score to, I don't know, &quot;passive Insight&quot; to determine surprise.If the designers had intended characters to initiate surprise via Deception, and particularly if they intended Assassins and Rogues to routinely do this as a fundamental part of their class characteristics, they would have written a rule that allowed the DM to know what they're supposed to do when that happens.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jon Gilliam, post: 8039932, member: 6920404"] The reason Assassins don't assassinate via surprise is they have the Assassinate and Death Strike abilities, which gives them a bonus IF their opponent is surprised. If the assassin's assassinate ability was meant to be surprise-based, it would assume your opponent was surprised. Instead, these abilities are written from the perspective of IF the opponent is already surprised (implying that's likely by something else, not the assassination attempt itself) then the assassin gets an additional bonus. Losing a round in combat is Huge ... it's one of the most severe penalties you can incur in 5e, and it can be the determining factor in a boss fight. So, surprise shouldn't be easy to come by, and a single character shouldn't be able to initiate surprise. My primary objection is that allowing just any character to make what is in effect an assassination attempt via some improvised surprise rule (since the rules don't give any way to decide surprise other than by Stealth), gives them a bigger bonus (their opponents losing a turn) than the Assassinate ability itself, and a bonus almost as powerful as a Death Strike. It's all out of proportion to the requirements to attempt it. All you need is a good Charisma score. And it makes it impossible for the DM to then decide who is and is not surprised using the rules. Nowhere in the rules does it say you can compare a characters Deception score to, I don't know, "passive Insight" to determine surprise. If the designers had intended characters to initiate surprise via Deception, and particularly if they intended Assassins and Rogues to routinely do this as a fundamental part of their class characteristics, they would have written a rule that allowed the DM to know what they're supposed to do when that happens. [/QUOTE]

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