D&D 5E Assassinate

[EzekielRaiden]

I read a quote once that said something to the effect of: For the rules to be written in such a way that they would cover everything in clear ways that didn't require interpretation they would be larger then the encyclopedia Britannica, and cost as much as a Ferrari...

the big problem lies when people jump form "Hey this is how we do it" to "The rules say I'm right and your wrong" when we clearly are all reading the same rules and getting different results.

The perfect is the enemy of the good; few question this principle. However, the modern trend of characterizing even modest efforts toward consistency and comprehensive coverage as a demand for perfection is not the same thing. A ruleset can have, allow, and even expect some degree of varying interpretations while still having a broad base of minimally-ambiguous, "straightforward" rules.

The perfect remains the enemy of the good, but that is not sufficient to say "why bother at all?"

 

[Ristamar]

From the Player's Basic Rules (emphasis added):


As a spell with a verbal component, casting Hold Person would give the group's location away to the guard. The guard, hearing the casting, while not necessarily knowing it is a spell, would become aware of the presence of someone in the abandoned building and would naturally glance up at the open windows, seeing the frozen figure of Andrew aiming an arrow at him. He is still surprised on his first turn, however, because he was unaware of his attacker when combat began. Before Andrew is able to shoot in the second round, however, the guard is no longer surprised and is in fact fully aware he is being attacked.

This doesn't change the outcome of what you've narrated above, but I think it makes it sound a bit more reasonable.

The party is a few hundred yards away far above from street level in a large town that is still a bit noisy as the day is winding down. It's highly unlikely the guard would hear them.

If you want to be that picky, I could can change the cleric to a sorcerer in the example and have him cast an appropriate silenced spell that would nullify the shooter's chance to make the attack.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Let me turn the question around.

How would you (as a player) like it if your GM told you, "An arrow strikes your character from the darkness. Take <lots of crit and sneak damage>."?

I'm guessing you'd say something like, "That's not fair! Don't I get a chance to notice the attack first?"

 

[Arial Black]

Let's say you're in the third or fourth round of a combat with a bunch of ninjas. On their turns they all use Cunning Action to duck into the shadows and take the Hide action. Are you saying that at that point you would become surprised and be unable to act or move until you noticed them again?

If you are still 'in combat', i.e. still believe there is a threat (character) and you are still in combat rounds (player), then you are not 'surprised' in game terms.

As a game term, 'surprise' represents your total lack of being ready for danger, and this lack has two effects (that I know of): vulnerability to the auto-crit from the assassinate ability, and the restrictions to your actions during your first turn. If you are 'in combat' with anyone, then you are ready for danger, therefore 'not surprised' even when attacked by an unknown assailant. That unknown attacker may very well have other advantages (like advantage), but you are not vulnerable to assassinate, nor are your actions restricted by 'surprise' because you are not 'surprised'.

Surprise has no existence beyond its described effects. The rules are clear about when those effects end.

The rules don't specifically mention when 'surprised' ends, but it does tell us what makes you 'surprised' (not noticing a threat) and we can infer that when you do notice a threat then you are no longer 'surprised'.

Of the two effects, one effect is that a 'surprised' creature cannot move or act on its first turn and cannot take reactions until its first turn is over. This effect has its own effective time limit built in.

But the other effect of being 'surprised' (vulnerability to auto-crits from assassinate) does not have a time limit built in to itself; it applies for as long as you are 'surprised'.

Although the action restriction effect lasts until your first turn ends, this does not tell us when 'surprise' ends. It's cause and effect: the 'cause' is 'surprised', the 'effects' are 'action restriction' and 'vulnerability to auto-crit'. The 'effects' do not determine the 'cause'!

I reject this interpretation on the grounds that it is possible to be attacked many times before the effects of surprise wear off at the end of your first turn. Surprise has no reality beyond those effects.

Only one of the 'effects' wears off at the end of your first turn; you remain vulnerable to auto-crits for as long as you are 'surprised', and there is absolutely no connection between the ending of one of the 'effects' of 'surprise' and the ending of the other 'effect' or the ending of the 'cause' itself, either conceptually (reaction speed is not the same thing as 'noticing threats') or in the rules (there is no written rule that says 'surprised' ends when you finish your first turn).

I gave them to you for the post to which I was replying. I'm not going to give you any more.

Ah, I've seen it now. Cheers! I'm new to this forum and to this XP thing.

 

[Arial Black]

Nothing directly says it in the text, but it is easily inferred. By the rules, if you can take a reaction, you aren't surprised.

The ability to take reactions does not give you the ability to notice a threat, nor does it let you make a reaction to a trigger you haven't noticed.

 

[Hriston]

The party is a few hundred yards away far above from street level in a large town that is still a bit noisy as the day is winding down. It's highly unlikely the guard would hear them.

It depends how loud you think the verbal component has to be. A loud voice can be heard from several hundred yards, and even a conversational voice could be audible from that distance under the right conditions. The point is that the cleric is no longer trying to be stealthy when he casts the spell.

If you want to be that picky, I could can change the cleric to a sorcerer in the example and have him cast an appropriate silenced spell that would nullify the shooter's chance to make the attack.

A subtle spell is stealthy, but there's still the fact that at the beginning of round two the fighter, who may be wearing heavy armor, and the now sorcerer get into a scuffle, and now neither one are trying to be stealthy. The party is essentially in a combat against itself of which the guard is an unwitting participant, in that he is being targeted. Once this conflict has come to blows, as you describe happening in the second round, the presence of the combatants is no longer a secret. They revealed their presence when they attacked each other. If the guard is too far away to hear the fight, I'd say he's probably out of longbow range.

 

[Arial Black]

Let's say you have an assassin in a tall building. He's well hidden and aiming to take out a guard. He states that he is going to attack the guard with his longbow.

By the rules, combat starts.

The guard wins initiative. The assassin decides to hold his attack. He waits a few moments for "combat" to end, then declares another attack... rinse and repeat until the assassin wins initiative, or someone spots him in the building.

Sure, you could say the assassin has to attack the guard, yet that hardly seems fair. Even the optional speed factor initiative rules which require a preemptive declaration of action allow the player to not take the action.

You could also say the failure to win initiative means the guard spotted him or is suddenly suspicious of his general surroundings, but that severely devalues the assassin's Stealth skill.

The only reason the assassin's player would be motivated to hold his attack is if he was told that the guard was no longer surprised because the guard can take reactions after his turn is over. The trouble is, that is not a rule!

The problem is in fact caused by this totally invented 'rule'!

If you adjudicate it properly, using the rule of 'you are surprised if you do not notice a threat' to also mean that you are not surprised as soon as you do notice a threat, then there is no problem in this scenario.

The assassin's Stealth beat the guard's Perception, therefore the guard does not notice a threat, therefore is 'surprised'. Initiative is rolled and the guard goes first. He cannot move or take an action, but now he can take reactions.

Does the guard now somehow know that the assassin is there? No!

Has the guard noticed a threat yet? No.

Therefore, the guard is still 'surprised', and the fact that he is able to take reactions is neither here nor there.

Assassins turn. He knows that if the guard is unaware of him then the guard is still surprised, and since the assassin has every reason to believe that he remains undetected then he knows that any hit will be an auto-crit.

There is no reason for the player to metagame an inexplicable 'hold' on his attack!

Back to the action: the assassin shoots! Does the arrow hit? What happens to 'surprise'?

If the arrow hits, the guard now knows that there is a threat. The 80 points of damage and the Sucking Chest Wound with a black-fletched arrow sticking out from it were his main clues! Since he knows there is a threat, he is by default 'not surprised' at that point, and therefore no auto-crit.

If the arrow misses, the guard will know there is a threat if he notices the arrow. Does he notice? That's up to the DM. The DM may decide by fiat that the arrow clatters of the stonework. He may roll randomly. He may call for an opposed Stealth/Perception check. Bottom line, if the guard notices a threat then he is no longer surprised, but if he doesn't notice the arrow hitting a sack of feathers or whatever then he's still unaware of a threat and therefore still surprised.

BTW, if it was a wizard instead of a guard, then although the wizard could use a reaction at this point and could, in theory, cast shield, he cannot react to an attack he doesn't know about. Just like he can't cast a spell on an enemy he doesn't know about. The wizard can't metagame either.

 

[Arial Black]

Nothing in that quote says that's the only way to have an action readied. If the Barbarian goes to kick the door down and the Rogue has an arrow drawn to shoot anything hostile that comes out of it, and there's nothing but dust and cobwebs on the other side of the door, you don't need to roll initiative and there's no combat going on. The rogue still has an action readied, though.

Actually, 'Ready' only exists in combat rounds, because the only thing it does is change the initiative order of your action.

More broadly, when you are not in combat rounds and initiative order, you cannot use the Attack action, the Cast A Spell action, the Dash action...you cannot use any 'action' at all!

However, you can attack, cast a spell, move 60 feet...because you don't need to take 'Actions' to do stuff outside of combat rounds, but you absolutely do need to use Actions to do stuff when you are in combat rounds.

Of course, some 'stuff' is combat, so must be done in combat rounds. For example, outside of combat you don't need to use the Attack action to, say, shoot an arrow at a target during an archery competition, but as soon as you say you are shooting the Sheriff instead of the target, this is combat and the DM goes through the steps, in order. Is the Sheriff surprised? Up to the DM. If I were the DM I'd have an opposed roll between Robin's Deception and the Sheriff's Insight. Roll initiative, etc.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Let me turn the question around.

How would you (as a player) like it if your GM told you, "An arrow strikes your character from the darkness. Take <lots of crit and sneak damage>."?

I'm guessing you'd say something like, "That's not fair! Don't I get a chance to notice the attack first?"

well in my game the PCs would probably say "I thought we killed that [redacted] drow" because that is exactly what happens...

edit: to be fair since I don't remember everyone's AC it would probably go more like this:

DM: An assasine's arrow flies out at Magnie (Jon's character) and hits an AC 19...does that hit?
Jon the PC: Damn it...yes
DM: OK, auto crit from assassinate, it's 1d8 arrow and 4d6 sneak attack so 2d8+8d6+7... um that's 51 pts of damage...
Jon the PC: "I thought we killed that [redacted] drow" [Redacted] [redacted]
DM: OK, and that's initiative and some wisdom or perception spot checks...

 

[Arial Black]

Let me turn the question around.

How would you (as a player) like it if your GM told you, "An arrow strikes your character from the darkness. Take <lots of crit and sneak damage>."?

I'm guessing you'd say something like, "That's not fair! Don't I get a chance to notice the attack first?"

I would have expected some kind of opposed Stealth/Perception roll, maybe even rolled by the DM against my passive Perception score. The result may well have been that I am surprised, and that I win initiative.

My turn, what do I do? Nothing; I can't move or act.

Assassin's turn, he shoots, hits and auto-crits. Although I can use reactions by now, I can't react to an attack I don't know about. I'm not surprised now, because I've cleverly noticed a threat by the simple method of getting shot.

Imagine that assassin's arrow had missed, and the DM rules that the arrow flew off over the cliff and will land 1000 feet below sometime during round 3, and I'm listening to heavy metal on my headphones with the volume turned up to 11 anyway. This means I'm still 'surprised', because I haven't noticed a threat. (They told me that Heavy Metal was bad for me. 'Stairway To Heaven' indeed!)

So round 2 comes along, and it's my turn. I can act normally. Can I attack the assassin? No, because I haven't noticed an assassin, or any danger at all. If I declare I'm attacking the assassin anyway, this is what is known as 'cheating'! The rules don't need to say, 'No cheating!' They don't need to say you can't attack someone you don't even know about, or say that you can't react to an attack you don't know about.

Yes, the DM should run it the same way no matter if the PCs are assassins or victims, and the rules should be fair enough to fairly adjudicate the actions of people who are trying to be unfair.

Unless your assassins like to shout a warning before taking the shot, but I feel that these guys would not have survived Assassin School.