D&D 5E Assassinate and Greater Invisibility

[Helldritch]

Wow... I would not like to have my party encounter such an assassin with the power to kill any number of persons so easily.

The assassination thing is already powerful. Ad_Hoc said that both criteria are relatively hard to come by... Not really. Do not forget that assassins are rogue. This means a high dexterity thus a good chance winning the initiative. This means a critical sneak attack a lot of times. There is a small chance for failure but failed assassinations are thing of both litterature and real life. And that is fine by me. The one assassin I have in my group often kill his target on the first or second round (as a party member will come to his aid and thus granting the second normal sneak attack). That is a lot of damage as there is no saving throw to reduce the damage of a sneak attack especially in an assassination attempt.

As for the scenario where the assassin is on improved invisibility...
Your other targets are pretty much aware that the assassin is somewhere around. The assassin will have advantage on attack rolls and thus make a sneak attack every single attack. If he position himself correctly, he could even get an OA and a second sneak attack with his reaction if a target moves away from him while searching for him. He might reveal his location that way but a sneak attack is a sneak attack and temptation can be high... That is a lot of potential damage. At only 4d6 of sneak attack it might represent 8d6 + 4d6 + 4d6 + 3 x weapon's damage + 3x the stat bonuses (the assassin would use his bonus action to hide). All this without saving throw. Add poison on top of that and not many characters of the same level can withstand that amount of damage. Do not forget that a critical on the follow up attacks is a real possibility as the assassin will attack with advantage. Critical on advantage is possible at around 7.5% of the time (I'm not entirely sure of the actual number but it seems about right, I should do the math but too lazy for it).

The assassin of my group is quite strong and he often kills on the first turn of whatever guards I have. He's not at 5d6 on a sneak so this means about 15d6 of additional damage as he is not alone when sneaking around (a monk is his partner).

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I found it a little weird to be tracking initiative in a surprise round when most of the combatants aren't acting, especially when the "surprised" condition wears off on their turn in the middle of their round despite nothing else happening then. So I changed it to have surprised creatures not be in the initiative order yet, and to roll in at the start of the first regular round. This is a moderate boost to the assassin's ability, but I don't think it breaks them, and it eliminates feelbad moments where the player did everything right to get surprise but just happened to lose the initiative check.

RAW and RAI, @ad_hoc et al. are entirely correct.

 

[Immoralkickass]

Assassin is the worst rogue subclass, and one of the worst archetypes, on par with probably 4 element monk. It might sound like hyperbole, but its not. Don't believe me?

Imagine if the BattleMaster Fighter can only use their maneuvers in the 1st round of combat, and only when enemy is surprised. And Know Your Enemy takes 3 hours of observing to use. That is what Assassin is.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Imagine if the BattleMaster Fighter can only use their maneuvers in the 1st round of combat, and only when enemy is surprised. And Know Your Enemy takes 3 hours of observing to use. That is what Assassin is.

It's kind of an apples-and-oranges comparison. Looking at the available archetypes for the two classes, the fighter is expected to get a significant portion of its DPR from its subclass, while the rogue isn't. Assassinate is situational, but it's an extraordinary burst of damage for which other rogues have no equivalent in their kit.

I'll admit the higher level assassin features are a little lackluster, though.

 

[Immoralkickass]

It's kind of an apples-and-oranges comparison. Looking at the available archetypes for the two classes, the fighter is expected to get a significant portion of its DPR from its subclass, while the rogue isn't. Assassinate is situational, but it's an extraordinary burst of damage for which other rogues have no equivalent in their kit.

I'll admit the higher level assassin features are a little lackluster, though.

Apples and oranges? Not really. I call it poor design. You can take any subclass and use the Assassin logic: Is it good (even if you buff the numbers) if it can only be used in the first round and have a condition based entirely on the DM's whim? No its not. Its a complete joke.

The longer the fight continues, the worse the Assassin is, as he get nothing from his subclass in combat. The Assassin seems to be designed for solo play, because his abilities don't play nice with others. They either require some setup, or lots of downtime to use.

The whole 'end the fight before it starts' is stupid design, because as it stands now they have no backup plan if the target survives the first big hit, or if the target has friends. And you know there's no such encounter if the encounter was made to be interesting (to the party, not the Assassin).

 

[NotAYakk]

A level 20 assassin can get 16d6 damage from its level 3 feature, plus advantage (two flaming short swords). A level 20 BM has 6d8 superiority damage. 27 vs 56.

With a bit of cheese effort the assassin can hit 26-29 d6; off-turn reaction carrying another sneak attack, in addition or instead of a main turn attack. (if you want nearly unsupported, flametongue amd scimitar of speed. Bonus action scimitar for 22d6 (half from assassin feature), ready an action (ally moving?), readied action 26d6 flametongue (half from feature), comes to 24d6 from feature (84 damage from feature)

Here I only calculuted crit damage boost on the rogue. On the BM I assumed they could unload all 6 of their dice; one or two might be boosted by a crit.

The thing with BM is that it is (a) front-loaded and (b) doesn't scale. It is also per-rest, while assassin is per-encounter, and encounters are supposed to happen 2.5x as often as rests.

Assassin's feature scales crazy good. So good that a 3 level assassin dip is often great if you can arrange for reliable surprise.

Assassin 3/Gloomstalker 5/Paladin 2/Fighter 2/Sorcerer 8 with two flaming short swords. Action surge for 7 attacks, each with a level 4 smite is 7*[ 3d6*2 + 5d8*2 ] + 2d6*2 + 1d8*2*2 + 5*6 = 524 damage (up to missing; with +11 to hit and advantage).

I mean, it isn't a magic missile cheese build, but it ain't bad. And it doesn't rely on one questionable trick; everything above scales relatively smoothly with player level, and uses clear obvious game synergies. So the character should continuously get better as it gains levels.

The one thing is relies upon is surprise. And a 13 in all stats except int. Well, and only 1 fight per day. (Ok, 20 dex might be hard with that build).

 

[Dain Butler]

As with all these kind of questions the acid test is this... have your party fight a NPC Assassin using these abilities and see how fair they think it is