D&D 5E Assassinate

[Celtavian]

I would have preferred surprise be run in the following matter:

1. Only those that are not surprised can roll initiative.

2. If you are surprised, you don't get to act or take reactions.

3. Resolve the turns of the unsurprised individuals.

4. Everyone rolls initiative.

Would have made things so much simpler and made for better fiction.

 

[Ristamar]

I believe this all comes down to when you call for initiative. To me, initiative is triggered by a certain degree of combat awareness. If the assassin can reasonably attack before initiative is ever rolled, the ability remains fairly useful.

 

[redrick]

I would have preferred surprise be run in the following matter:

1. Only those that are not surprised can roll initiative.

2. If you are surprised, you don't get to act or take reactions.

3. Resolve the turns of the unsurprised individuals.

4. Everyone rolls initiative.

Would have made things so much simpler and made for better fiction.

I'm not saying that's a bad way to do it. I think that's more or less how 4e ran it, and you can certainly house-rule it that way. It will certainly make surprise even more powerful than it already is, and give more advantage to stealthy characters, and A HUGE advantage to assassins. In this situation, any time an assassin rolls well on stealth (not hard with that expertise), they open combat with 6d6 damage (just at 3rd level, increasing by 2d6 every time sneak attack improves), just by popping around a corner. As many times a day as they want. That's a lot of damage. The 3rd level wizard, by contrast, gets 2 scorching rays a day. If they don't burn a spell slot on a utility spell.

In the current ruling, when an assassin gets a good stealth roll before combat, but otherwise just "pops out and fires", there is a chance that their Assassinate feature won't go off, if their target succeeds on an initiative roll. Of course, your rogue is probably pumping dex, so the odds are probably in the assassin's favor. Maybe 60% chance of a superior initiative roll? If you sneak into 6 combats a day, that's between 3 and 4 Assassinates a day. Not bad for the Assassin.

I think the 5e version works for the fiction too. If you are surprised, you can't act normally, but, with a little luck and a good natural reaction time, you might be able to take a "reaction."

The case being argued above, where the assassin shoots an unsuspecting target from behind, is a case that only fails to make sense with the fiction if you insist on a narrow and inflexible interpretation of the rules that clearly doesn't apply. How could somebody take a turn in combat before combat has started? Initiative doesn't go backwards in time. The rules don't need to spell that one out for you, because it's obvious. And you know it's obvious too. Is anybody here really arguing (admit I haven't read every response) that, in the case where a hidden assassin fires on an unsuspecting target who has no way of knowing they have been fired upon until the projectile hits them, that target can somehow take a turn before the projectile hits them?

The rules exist to adjudicate the actions that are not obvious.

 

[Celtavian]

I don't mind the assassin getting his ability off. It's once per combat. It can't be used again once combat is engaged. scorching ray can be used at any point in time. There are plenty of other abilities other classes get that are general use any time of the day. The Assassin gets one very cool combat ability that is only enhanced at level 17. I prefer they be able to take advantage of it at least once a combat.

 

[redrick]

You can use it every round of combat where an opponent has NOT YET TAKEN ANY ACTION in that combat.

So, you sneak in through the skylight and SURPRISE! Assassinate an enemy. Then, everyone rolls initiative. You beat everyone and go first. You can assassinate AGAIN!

Your team's Wizard goes right after you and casts Haste on you, giving you two actions on your next turn.

Right after the Wizard, your team's Bard goes, and casts Command on an enemy and commands him to HALT. The description of the "Halt" command specifies that the target "doesn't move and takes no actions," which means that when it comes back around to you again, you can ASSASSINATE HIM.

But after your Bard goes, it's your Warlock's turn, who casts Hold Monster on an enemy, which inflicts the Paralyzed and Incapacitated conditions on the target. Incapacitated specifies that the target "can take no actions or reactions," meaning when it's your turn, after you assassinate the guy your Bard Commanded, you can assassinate this guy too.

Every one of the attacks I described would have Advantage. But only the attacks made before the enemies roll initiative (ie are aware of the combat) is an auto-crit.

EDIT: Sorry! Got a little hasty and started responding before reading the last line of your post! My response doesn't make sense with regards to what I was responding to.

 

[redrick]

I don't mind the assassin getting his ability off. It's once per combat. It can't be used again once combat is engaged. scorching ray can be used at any point in time. There are plenty of other abilities other classes get that are general use any time of the day. The Assassin gets one very cool combat ability that is only enhanced at level 17. I prefer they be able to take advantage of it at least once a combat.

It is enhanced every time the rogue's sneak attack goes up. Which is every other level.

At 3rd, it's worth 6d6. At 5th, it's worth 8d6. At 7th it's worth 10d6, at 9th it's worth 12d6, etc.

A lot depends on what kind of combats your table favors. The general guidelines seem to suggest the game is balanced for 6-8 combats a day, lasting on average 3 rounds. The Assassin gets a chance to assassinate 6 times over 18 rounds, so approximately 1/3 of the combat rounds. (They can still get regular sneak attack every other round.) The 3rd level Wizard gets a chance to use a 2nd level spell 2 times over 18 rounds. So that's 11% of the time.

I don't mind the assassin getting his ability off either. But sometimes he won't.

 

[Quajek]

Double post

 

[Quajek]

Hmm, disagree with this ruling. You're conflating the first part of Assassinate with the second part.

You get advantage against any creature that hasn't taken a turn. So, in the case you outline, the assassin would get advantage with the attack that triggers combat (assuming that he doesn't do something else before actually firing that would alert enemies and trigger combat, say crashing through a skylight, or dropping down, or whatever). Since the target is surprised, the assassin auto-crits. Initiative is rolled when combat is triggered, possibly by the impact of the assassin's attack. Now, the assassin wins initiative, so again before the target takes a turn. Advantage. However, unless you rule that the target is still surprised (meaning that they have no way to know about their attacker until the attacker takes an action on his or her own turn), the assassin does not auto-crit. They do get sneak attack.

In this situation, I would say that the target is not surprised? Why? Well, first of all, it doesn't make sense from a balance perspective. Honestly, that's my first reason. I say, "really? that seems a bit much." And I review the situation, and I say, "right. The combat started with the arrow hitting the target. So the target knows about his attackers before combat, because he has already been hit by an arrow, an action that happened outside of combat."

Surprise is all about what happens over the course of the 6-second turn. Because, remember, these 6 second turns are all happening simultaneously. So, while one character is charging into battle, another character is drawing a bow, and another character is raising a shield and another character is taking a swipe at a passing foe and another character is quickly casting Shield to block an incoming arrow. All happening at the same time. So, if I'm surprised, I'm not doing much during those 6 seconds, because the actions which surprise me also happened during those 6 seconds.

You didn't read my last paragraph, which you actually quoted in your post.

As I said, in the post you quoted but did not read, you would have ADVANTAGE on those attacks because your targets had not taken any actions in combat (which is a requirement of the Advantage portion of Assassinate), but not Auto-Critical, because after the targets were aware of the threat (rolling initiative is a standard benchmark for that) they were no longer surprised (the requirement for the Auto-Critical portion of Assassinate).

Because having Advantage against everyone who has yet to take an action in combat is part of the Assassinate ability, I don't think it's conflating anything with anything else to say that using that ability is called Assassinating.

 

[redrick]

You didn't read my last paragraph, which you actually quoted in your post.

As I said, in the post you quoted but did not read, you would have ADVANTAGE on those attacks because your targets had not taken any actions in combat (which is a requirement of the Advantage portion of Assassinate), but not Auto-Critical, because after the targets were aware of the threat (rolling initiative is a standard benchmark for that) they were no longer surprised (the requirement for the Auto-Critical portion of Assassinate).

Because having Advantage against everyone who has yet to take an action in combat is part of the Assassinate ability, I don't think it's conflating anything with anything else to say that using that ability is called Assassinating.

Ah, my mistake. I'm sorry!

 

[EvanNave55]

In this situation, any time an assassin rolls well on stealth (not hard with that expertise), they open combat with 6d6 damage (just at 3rd level, increasing by 2d6 every time sneak attack improves), just by popping around a corner. As many times a day as they want. That's a lot of damage. The 3rd level wizard, by contrast, gets 2 scorching rays a day. If they don't burn a spell slot on a utility spell.[/I]

Where are you getting 6d6? At third level sneak attack is 2d6, doubled with crit for 4d6.