D&D (2024) Assassin: a simple fix

[Horwath]

Right now Rogue: Assassin is a 3rd level dip of a mostly Frankenstein monster multiclass.

Why?

1. Assassin features above 3rd level are horrible.

2. Assassinate attacks auto crit on every attack that you can squeeze in that 1st round. So we see various extra attack combos, gloomstalkers 1st round extra attack, Action surges. Haste manipulations, battle masters maneuvers, etc...


Simple fix:

1. Assassin should be better at sneak attacking than basic rogue. in surprise and in general.
Remove all 9th, 13th and 17th level features
add +1d6 sneak attack damage at 3rd, 9th, 13th and +2d6 at 17th level.
With new rework of subclass levels in 1D&D at levels 6,10 and 14, this will work even better.

2: Most important.
In 1st round of combat, ONLY attack that carries sneak attack bonus damage is auto-crit.

This will discourage various multiclass aberrations and reward progressing in rogue class for all those extra sneak attack dice.


You will have only one attack as a crit, but it will hit like a truck.

 

[Laurefindel]

Right now Rogue: Assassin is a 3rd level dip of a mostly Frankenstein monster multiclass.

Why?

1. Assassin features above 3rd level are horrible.

2. Assassinate attacks auto crit on every attack that you can squeeze in that 1st round. So we see various extra attack combos, gloomstalkers 1st round extra attack, Action surges. Haste manipulations, battle masters maneuvers, etc...


Simple fix:

1. Assassin should be better at sneak attacking than basic rogue. in surprise and in general.
Remove all 9th, 13th and 17th level features
add +1d6 sneak attack damage at 3rd, 9th, 13th and +2d6 at 17th level.
With new rework of subclass levels in 1D&D at levels 6,10 and 14, this will work even better.

2: Most important.
In 1st round of combat, ONLY attack that carries sneak attack bonus damage is auto-crit.

This will discourage various multiclass aberrations and reward progressing in rogue class for all those extra sneak attack dice.


You will have only one attack as a crit, but it will hit like a truck.

Interesting mechanics

However - and this comment is purely anecdotal - I’ve found that many of the monster-builds I was afraid of in the beginning either never concretized, where only marginally superior for a level or two, or so situational that it wasn’t much on an issue.

By the time gloomstalker-ranger / assassin-rogue combo comes « online », the wizard has two 3rd-level slots, fighter has 2 attacks and an extra feat, and many classes have their 2nd subclass features. So this character has a strong opener but I’m not sure to what extent it’s unbalanced as is.

[edit] but that’s just me. Have you run into particular issues with that specific build?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

my experience is that assassin is one of the top rogue builds. I don't know if it needs to be improved, espcially when they said rogue in general gets high marks...

BUT if I was going to make a change I would either let assassins reroll 1's on sneak attack in surprise, or upgrade them to d8's with surprise.

 

[Pauln6]

Yeah sneak attack upgrade to d8 with surprise at higher levels, possibly even d10 eventually. Surprise isn't safe or easy if you have to go it alone.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yeah sneak attack upgrade to d8 with surprise at higher levels, possibly even d10 eventually. Surprise isn't safe or easy if you have to go it alone.

Yeah I played with an idea of giving d4s of sneak attack equal to prof or level what ever is less at 1st level, so taking 1 level of rogue would scale all the way up to 6d4 but rogue itself if you stay in it upgrades to d6 d8 d10 and finally d12s

 

[Horwath]

Yeah sneak attack upgrade to d8 with surprise at higher levels, possibly even d10 eventually. Surprise isn't safe or easy if you have to go it alone.

I would not want to change the sneak attack die.

d6 works fine.
rather give more dice.
It is more consistent in damage.

 

[Pauln6]

I would not want to change the sneak attack die.

d6 works fine.
rather give more dice.
It is more consistent in damage.

I'm not sure. Superiority dice work fine with scaling and rogues are rolling a LOT of dice already. Do I really want to roll even more? And even more again on a crit?

 

[shadowoflameth]

We had a player do an assassin in our game. He enjoyed the character but every encounter included, 'Can I surprise him if I do x?' Jeremy Crawford laid out, in the errata and out loud that it's only in the first round of combat that this happens. In my game though, we allowed it at other times when Mr. Crawford specified that the target would just be incapacitated or otherwise helpless.

My fix to the Assassin would be to just simply drop the unneeded nerf language on the later abilities and make them actually usable i.e. :

Starting at 3rd level, You have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn't taken a turn in the combat yet. In addition, any hit you score against that target before it acts, is a critical hit.

Starting at 9th level, you can unfailingly create false identities for yourself including the history, profession, and affiliations for an identity using any resources that you have, including disguises, forged documents, or illusions without a check or save being rolled.

Thereafter, if you adopt the new identity as a disguise, other creatures automatically believe you to be that person until given an obvious reason not to.

Beginning at 13th level, you gain the ability to unerringly mimic another person's speech, writing, and behavior if you did not already have them, and roll any related checks with advantage.

At 17th level, When you score a critical hit with a sneak attack, the damage is doubled.

I understand that in One D&D there will likely be different levels when sub-class abilities kick in but hopefully, you get where I'm going with this.

 

[mellored]

Max sneak attack dice on a crit.

Encourages getting more sneak attack dice, and more crits.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'd avoid getting rid of non-combat abilities in any subclass.

Instead, the Assassin's surprise based abilities should have "or unaware of your presence" added to them, their sneak attack should be poison if they attack with a poison, and they should ignore resistance and later downgrade immunity to resistance, to poison. Combine the two disguise related feature sets into one feature level.

I'd rather do without the poison as an unavoidable part of the subclass, but if it's gonna be an automatic part of the subclass, lean into it.

Alternatively, make it better at stealth than any other rogue. Give it some of the skulker feat, basically. TBH, a Thief with Mobile is about as good an Assassin as the Assassin, as it is.