Assassin sneak attack variant

[TheCosmicKid]

Hello. I'm working on an assassin full class. It's not ready for prime time yet, but I thought I'd get some feedback on what I'm doing with its "backstabby" ability, which was a bit of a design challenge. Being the assassin, it absolutely has to have one, of course. And it has to resemble the rogue's Sneak Attack, because it would be disconcerting if these two conceptually similar abilities had different mechanical expressions. But at the same time, it shouldn't just be Sneak Attack. And where it differs, it should do so in ways that highlight what distinguishes an assassin from a rogue.

So here's what I've got. It's really a two-part ability:

Premeditation

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Starting at 1st level, you can use your action to study the weaknesses of a creature you can see. For the next ten minutes, you can deal extra damage to that creature as though you had the Sneak Attack class feature, as described on p. 96 of the PLAYER'S HANDBOOK. The amount of the extra damage increases as you gain levels in this class, as shown in the Premeditation column of the Assassin table. [It's the same progression as the rogue.]

If you use multiple actions, you can gain the benefit of Premeditation against multiple creatures at the same time, up to a maximum number of creatures equal to your Intelligence modifier (a minimum of one).

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Execution

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When you deal damage to a creature with Premeditation, you can roll the extra damage dice a second time. (On a critical hit, these dice are still doubled.) If this second roll would deal enough damage to reduce your target to 0 hit points, it does so. Otherwise, it deals no extra damage beyond the original Premeditation damage. Either way, you lose the benefit of Premeditation against the target until you can study it again.

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First question: clarity. Can you understand how the abilities are supposed to work? I've found my rules-writing isn't always that great.

Second question: concept. Do these make sense as assassin abilities? Do they make the assassin/rogue distinction intuitive to you?

Third question: power. Is it, in a vacuum, simply too powerful for a character to go "double-or-nothing" on Sneak Attack damage? Or perhaps Execution is too weak, because situational?

Fourth question: progression. Is it appropriate for the assassin to get Execution at 1st level alongside Premeditation, or should it be a higher-level ability?

Fifth question: fun. Does rolling for an Execution excite you? Or does the prospect of doing it and getting absolutely nothing out of it frustrate you?

 

[Duan'duliir]

1) The second paragraph of Premeditation is a little confusing. Can you take those actions over multiple rounds, or does it have to be all in one round? Other than that, Premeditation is fine looking on that front.
Execution definitely needs to be reworded. Do you roll an extra d6 and if it would increase the damage you deal to a point that drops your target to 0, you get the extra damage, but nothing happens if it doesn't (other than normal Premeditation damage), or is it equal to the Premeditation damage (i.e. 10d6 at 20th level?), or am I off by a mile?

2) While I wouldn't say that having an assassin class as well as a rogue class can have much distinction between them, the Premeditation/Execution ability definitely helps to increase the distinction between them (as much as you can when both have a damage kicker that scales at equal pacing)

3) In a vacuum, I would think that the action requirement for Premeditation might bring it down a bit in peoples eyes, but makes a bit of sense balance-wise - I might have gone as far as to require a skill check of some sort. The execution ability seems to be very powerful. Regardless of whether you get the extra damage, it only takes you one round to regain the benefit of Premeditation. Perhaps saying you can't get Premeditation on that creature for a period of time, and perhaps limiting your ability to remake an execution attempt again for a while. Outside of a vacuum, Fighter 2 would shut down the Premeditation action requirement.

4) I think that perhaps Execution might be better as a 5th or 7th level ability than a 1st level ability.

5) A bit of both. I would be excited to use the ability but would be a bit upset if it did nothing but put me back to square one on the damage dealing front. Perhaps give advantage on the next attack roll against the target by any creature on a failure just to reduce the pain of loosing the ability to sneak attack for a couple of rounds. If you increased the requirements for Premeditation (or one of the suggestions I made in response to question 3) would make it a bit more frustrating if I failed to perform a successful execution.

An Assassin class seems like a cool idea that could either soar or crash and burn. I'd like to see it soar, as this set of abilities has me interested in some of the other abilities the class has and what subclasses it would have.